#I feel bad because tumblr’s kind of the ‘animals are incredible’ site and I’m just like

[greetings-inferiors]

what animal would you consider yourself to be?

A human. A Homo sapiens if you’re being scientific.

If you’re asking what animal I’d be if I wasn’t a human, then I’m kinda stumped. I’m not really an animal person, I don’t like that I just can’t communicate with them or figure out what they’re thinking.

My favourite animal is a penguin, but I dunno if I’d want to be one, because they live in really cold climates (most of the time) and are kinda yucky in a poop-everywhere way.

The animal I’m most like is probably a dolphin, clever, playful, but those are just traits that humans have, but better, and humans can actually walk and have opposable thumbs.

I’m really sorry for not answering your question well at all, I honestly think that the best animal to be is a human, I really hit the jackpot.

Ooh maybe a bird would be fun, you can fly, be a little annoying shit, some birds like crows are really damn clever - maybe that.

[lesbianchemicalplant]

Text of tweet thread by Anthony DellaRosa @ifeelthewind, Jan 4th 2020 [cw: Contrapoints, transphobia, biphobia, doxxing, abuse, harassment, K*w*f*rms, etc. etc. etc. etc.]

Well, it's been a solid two days of waking fucking nightmares, and also the regular kind.

So, let's talk about it. Contra's got me actively fearing for myself, and also for my family (and here's how). Alternate title:

Contra told a *million* people that I "might be" a Nazi who's "just pretending to be trans."

Now, keep in mind, Contra's a relatively wealthy woman with just over 800,000 YouTube subscribers and almost 11,000 paying patrons. Meanwhile, I have 662 Twitter followers and holes in my mouth where teeth used to be.

Anyway, in her video, at 33:35, she quotes a series of three consecutive tweets of mine, starting here.

So, um, I've actually had her blocked for a long, long time. Definitely at least a year. Maybe two.

So, the fact that she was able to see these tweets at all, to begin with, means that she was namesearching *around* my block, specifically trawling for content. Which is a hell of a thing.

Like, I blocked her because over the course of a couple years, her work became just incredibly fucking triggering for me. But she's so fucking omnipresent in pretty much *every* online trans space, it's basically impossible to fully escape her stuff. So, the block was there to give me at least *some* protection against being blindsided? For a while, I also actually muted her name.

But here we are.

Also, I feel like, after a certain point, she must have been watching *me*, very specifically, because, later in the video, she also quotes *this* tweet, which got literally *five* fucking retweets in its *entire* fucking lifetime, and also contains no big, hot, easily searchable keywords. 

I mean, unless she was fucking sitting here, combing through literally *every single fucking mention* of "Olly" or "Philosophytube" or "trans people." Put a pin in that. Anyway, Contra reads my tweets about Buck Angel's famously petty, spiteful act of transphobic violence against Lana Wachowski, which, yes, could have *easily* gotten her killed, and argues that we shouldn't care. In fact, not only should we not care -- we shouldn't even check to see if it's true.

Because that "reminds" her of what "creepy stalkers who hate trans people do." You know, digging through the archives, looking for dirt. But let me remind you, Buck's comments exist in the media because he *sold them to the media*. He deliberately went on a fucking tear through the entire fucking tabloid circuit, eventually reaching as high as Rolling fucking Stone. He "exposed" Lana, very, very publicly, specifically to punish her. *Doing* that is apparently fine, whatever. Be a guest on my fucking YouTube show. Let me gush and gush and *gush* about your fucking "decades" of "good trans activism" (with absolutely no specifics). But *talking* about the actual, historical fact that he *did* do that, a simple acknowledgement of the fucking harm, is abusive and stalker-ish? I'm sorry, *how* did you get to my tweets again? So, immediately after featuring and responding to three of my tweets, she asks the audience,

"How can you tell the difference between a trans anarcho socialist with an anime avatar, and a Nazi *pretending* to be a trans anarcho socialist with an anime avatar?" "Well," she says, "you can't. Anonymous is anonymous is anonymous, whether it's on 4chan or Twitter."

And I'm honestly not sure she's still talking about me at this point? Because literally none of those things apply to me?

1) I don't specifically identify as an anarcho socialist. I don't specifically identify as *any* particular political micro label. I just don't really find it useful.

2) This account has *never* been anonymous. It has *always* had my name on it.

3) This is not an anime avatar. This is something I drew in, like, 2015, when I was playing around with a bunch of different brushes in FireAlpaca.

4) Although I don't use them as my avatar, I *have* posted selfies here.

5) If I *did* use them as my avatar, well, you didn't fucking censor anyone's avatars in this video. Not even the ones that actually *are* real people's actual photos. So, if my face *was* my avatar, you would have just shown my face to a *million* people and counting, *immediately* before saying I might be a Nazi *and* a fake trans person.

You want to talk about abusive, TERF-y tactics? How about that?

How about stalking the tweets of an autistic trans person with 600 followers, screencapping them out of context, broadcasting them to a literal fucking *million* a *million* of your own fucking fans, and telling them all that the autistic trans person is the "real" Nazi and also maybe not even really trans? How about fucking that? Like, I'm not sure if you *are* talking about me, because, factually, all of this is fucking bullshit. But it certainly *sounds* like you're talking about me.

'Cause you haven't changed gears at all. I'm still the last person you quoted, you're still in the same "bit," and you're still responding to the thing I brought up. Like, really, this has two potential outcomes.

a) People take what you're saying at absolute face value and cheer you on as you take down the faceless fake trans person you've turned me into, or

b) They Google the tweets you so, *so* helpfully provided the *full* fucking text for, find my actual Twitter page, and then, whoops, all of a sudden, I have Contra stans on my Twitter page.

Like, let me lay this out. Those tweets in the video have all been up for two months already. They've been up. They've been out there. They've been seen. They're old news, more or less. And, yes, when they were new, I got hate. Yes, I got abuse. Yes, I even got other big YouTubers, reactionary dipshits like Peter Coffin and shoe0nhead, "liking" posts that talked shit about me. (That's why I went ahead and blocked as many of Peter's followers as it would let me).

But nothing like this.

I've been in protected mode for two days straight.

Nothing's ever done that before.

Nothing's ever been that bad.

Not till this.

Not till you.

Did being featured in Contra's video result in a noticeable uptick in abuse and harassment directed my way?

Unmistakably, yes.

And I was soon as I went protected on Twitter, it started flowing over into my Tumblr. And that put me in the position of wondering where it was going to stop. Were they going to get my phone number? My address? My work?

Fun thoughts.

Fun, fun things I have to live with now. She closes out this segment by telling me, or this hypothetical thing she's created adjacent to me,

"Shut up and go back to K*w*f*rms, where you belong."

So.

Let me tell you.

I've never checked, because I know I wouldn't be able to handle if it I did, but I wouldn't be surprised if K*w*f*rms actually *had* a page about me.

I don't *know*. I don't *want* to know. But I wouldn't be super fucking surprised. [cw: suicide]

I'm autistic. I'm trans. I've always been *very* online, growing up, and for pretty much my entire fucking life (at least for the chunk of it that I can actually remember), I've had groups of people trying to goad me into suicide. I've seen whole fucking group chats where they fucking plan it.

So, yeah. I wouldn't be surprised. If I didn't have one before, I probably fucking do now. Oh, and then she notes,

"I'm saying this in the c*ntiest way. And they deserve it! They deserve the c*ntiness!" Gosh, I wonder why my DMs across two sites are full of abuse right now. Anyway, I can feel myself fading fast.

I might come back and talk about that Olly thing we put a pin in later.

Or I might just go on protected again.

We'll see how this shakes out. 

The fucking disgusting hypocrisy of Natalie Wynn of all people saying “Shut up and go back to K*w*f*rms, where you belong” when she by her own admission was raised on 4chan’s /lgbt/

As the linked facebook post summarizes:

“You want to talk about cancel culture and online mobs and disposability?Then let's talk about how ContraPoints just sicced days of harassment and stalking on a low profile trans person with no power, no money, no fame, and said something that will only certainly result in them getting a dedicated KiwiF page. She's going to get someone fucking killed (if she hasn't already)”

[salmonthestoryteller]

20 questions, writer's edition

I was tagged by @lambourngb - This was harder to fill out then it first appeared, btw.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

118

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

516,223.  I never looked that much at my statistics page before so that’s exciting to look at.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh my gosh, so many.  25 different ones on ao3, 9 more that were never cross posted from the pit of voles, and at least 5-10 fandoms from prior to either of those sites.  LJ, Yahoo Groups, BBS boards, etc.    A partial list includes: Roswell New Mexico (2019) (My most prolific with 40 fics on ao3 and more here on tumblr I never cross posted there.), Hetalia, Yuri on Ice, Supernatural, Samurai Warriors, Uta no Prince-sama, Voltron, Shadowhunters, My Hero Academia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Animal Kingdom, The Old Guard, The Walking Dead, Dynasty Warriors, The Witcher, Xyber 9, Shadow Raiders, Mummies Alive, Babylon 5, and Star Trek.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes (The Old Guard) (Yeah, I had this one on anonymous for awhile.) 

Until the TIme is Through (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 

I Want You (Roswell New Mexico) (NSFW Malex) 

Crash and Burn (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 

Snow (Hetalia) (NSWF IvanxAlfred) 

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I’m torn between three actually:

Dormant (Hetalia)  I always say I love two endings, happy endings and greek tragedies, but I rarely write the greek tragedies.  Dormant is one of my exceptions.  Hetalia has one character who is hinted at being immortal, and I took that and wrote a fic about an Extinction Level Event and him watching the other characters die around him while he can’t.  I’ve always been really proud of this fic, despite it being one of the saddest things I’ve ever written.

Unclean (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is almost the darkest fic I’ve ever written.  It’s about Michael’s time in the home of the “Fundamentalist Religious Freaks” and the exorcism he mentioned.  It ends after the drifter and is very much hurt, no comfort.

Hell is… (Roswell New Mexico)  This is a ficlet I wrote for a prompt.  And it’s a dark take about what could have happened to the pod squad if they’d been caught after the murders.

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Almost all my fics have happy endings.  So, what is the happiest?  Probably either:

Deck the Halls (Roswell New Mexico)  An Echo & Malex Christmas fic that is as fluffy as a fic that involves the Pod Squad, Christmas, and being attacked by anti-alien paramilitary groups can be.  (Also, Echo has a cat called Grisabella the Glamour Cat because Max should not be allowed to name anything and nobody can convince me that wouldn’t be absolute canon in a committed Echo relationship.)

Or

In Over Their Heads (Yuri on Ice)  A Seungchuchu with a fake engagement and unrequited feelings that aren’t actually unrequited. (And where Sara is Seung’s best friend because apparently I always write them that way and have no regrets.)

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

I don’t write crossovers.  Because I rarely find myself sold on the idea that the two stories exist in the same verse or can think of a way the characters would interact that would inspire me to write a fic.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, and pretty much anything.  M/M, F/F, M/F, and Poly.  Plus a large variety of kinks.  (Yes, I was often on kink memes back in my LJ days.)

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to?  I used to never respond because I didn’t know what to say, and then I tried to respond to every one, but there would be long gaps between when I checked and then I felt bad for responding so late, and sometimes I still don’t know what to say so I just end up not replying.  XD

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Surprisingly very little.  Some harsh criticism - one in particular actually hit young me hard enough to stop writing for a while back in the day.  But I tend to get more hate for my meta than my fics.  Which is odd since my fics are usually very much representative of my meta.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Only one - a Dynasty Warrior fic of mine about the bond between CaoCao and Xiahou Dun was translated into Chinese.  I mean, Dynasty Warriors is a video game literally based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is based on chinese history, so for someone to want to translate one of my fics about it was incredible to me. Links below.

Honor 

Translation: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589910

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No.  I would probably drive a co-author nuts, tbh.  I’m so inconsistent.  And at the same time, I have a thousand thoughts.

14. What's your all time favourite ship? to write for?

I don’t actually have one?  RNM has become my top fandom to write for, there’s no doubt.  And while I think Malex is in the most fics among them, I’m not sure if that number surpasses other ships in other fandoms I’ve written for altogether.  In fact, according to ao3, only 15 fics of my 40 RNM even have Malex in them at all, and not all of those are Malex-centric.  In fact in at least 3, they’re a side ship.

I’d say that I probably write almost as many fics that are gen, friendship, family/found family feels, and character introspection as I do shipping fics.  Which doesn’t really leave room for any one ship to be at the forefront.

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

None, I hope.  LOL.  There’s definitely a few that I have left uncompleted for a long time and feel guilty about but I’m not ready to say I’ve abandoned them yet.  There’s a ton of ideas I have written down that I may never actually write.  But none I have started that I don’t want to finish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

The three consistent compliments I’ve gotten are:  I capture the characters’ voices in my dialogue.  My writing tone is unique.  My smut is super hot.  XD  (I have no explanation for the last one, because to be honest ¾ of my smut is always foreplay.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes.  I have been told before that my action scenes are very confusing.  Also, I rarely give physical descriptions of people’s appearances because I honestly rarely stop to consider what they’re wearing or how their hair is done.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It’s common in a couple of fandoms of mine, and I actually don’t mind it. Depending on the fic, it can be more realistic to me than otherwise.  (I just appreciate it when the translation is also provided.)

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  But I never posted that one.  Um… I think Ranma ½ was the first one I ever posted for others to read?

20. What's your favourite fic you've written?

Oh, gosh. Um… I know at one point I listed Dormant.  But I think right now if I had to choose I’d say either

School of Hard Knocks (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is my Michael-centric fic set in the lost decade.

Or

Duty First (Shadowhunters)  My Magnus and Raphael “missing scene” from 02x20.

Tagging @manesalex @lovecolibri @islndgurl777 @ninswhimsy 

[avis-writeshq]

Long overdue, but let us begin! [yes i forgot i made a banner for it LMAO]

For my followers,

Thank you for putting up with me. I know I procrastinate and I know I make mistakes but you’re all so patient with me! I’m a mess and I hold so much chaotic energy, so thank you for sticking with me. It’s surreal that we even made it this far – 695 followers later and I’m so thankful for every single one of you. I know that I have a lot to work on, but your support really means the world to me.

 I started writing in June 2019. A little more than a year later and this is further than I ever thought I would ever get to. You’re all so amazing. Thank you so much for everything. I hope and pray that 2021 will bring each an every one of you love, happiness, peace, and every happy little feeling. May your forever be filled with all the good things in life. I love you all so much.

For my anons,

I know my responses aren’t consistent, but thank you for everything. You all may come and go, but you took the time to even send one ask in and even that is enough. You all mean so much to me and hold a little piece of my heart. Thank you for your support – you all gave me so much to look forward to. May 2021 be better than 2020. May it be filled with love, happiness, and peace for all of you.

Dear: Keiji-mun and Akaashi Keiji, [ @dearest-avis ],

Yeah, you guys need a separate section. You first sent in an ask on the 28th of August, 2020, and since then you’ve been filling my life with love and joy. Looking through my response, I can’t help but cringe because you’re always so sweet and I’m… extremely awkward. Aha, thank you for loving me for me. You mean the world to me.

I still can’t get over how you made an account to send me messages. I was surprised and I felt so… grateful. I honestly can’t explain all my emotions, but please know that you gave me so much love and happiness. I know you’re probably not online because you’re taking a break on social media, but I hope you can see this soon.

I love you with all my heart and I hope 2021 can give you everything you deserve. May your forever be only filled with the good things.

With love,

Avis

Dear: Ana, [ @mrs-kuroojinguji ]

Hai Cici ❤ this year has been crazy, don’t you think? So many things have happened but I’m stating to think that it’s more of a blessing than a curse. I remember following you earlier this year (I think it might have been some time in June?) mainly because I absolutely adored your writing. You had just hit 300 followers, and you posted something about being from Melbourne! So, of course, I jumped and commented that I live in Melbourne and we began to DM AKDJKA fate really said “let’s give Avis something to be happy about in 2020.”

 Ever since then, I can confidently say that you are one of my biggest supporters and one of my closest friends here on tumblr. You’re always so encouraging to other people, and that’s something I admire! Woman, you’re a bit crazy and a bit [read: very] horny, but we love that about you 🥺 thank you for making this year into a year that I can cherish. I’m wishing you a wonderful New Year, and an amazing forever!

 All the love,

Mei

Dear: Angel, [ @deadontheinsidebut ]

 Hello Jiejie 💘 you’ve probably heard this a lot, but it has to be said: you really are an angel in desolate times. 2020 has been hard on everyone in various different ways! But when I found your account in the midst of lockdown, it was definitely a blessing! Your friendship and your support is something that I will never take for granted and it’s something that I will always cherish.

 Thank you always for being a light in the darkness. Our conversations are always bright and loving, exactly like you! Your support means the world to me, so thank you so much for being a part of my life! Oh, and thank you for sticking up for me when various dramatic things happened. We don’t like dat no siree. Wishing you a beautiful New Year, and a blessed forever!

 With love,

Mei

Dear: Bri, [ @briswriting ]

 Hai Senpai Bri~ honestly, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for you. You’re such an inspiration and you’re someone I look up to! You wouldn’t believe how much I stalked you before we became moots 🙃 hehe, thank you for supporting me throughtout this year! I’m so glad we’re friends now! I hope we can become closer and talk more as this year progresses! Wishing you all the love and happiness you deserve, as well as an amazing forever!

 With love, 

Avis

Dear: Corey, [ @kageyuji]

 You… you deserve so much love I can’t even begin to explain. You’re so sweet and your vibes are on point. Corey, you don’t give youreself enough credit, honestly. You’re one of the strongest people I know and I’m so happy you let me into your life. I’m so grateful for you and I hope I gave you some happiness and love as well.

With love,

Avis

Dear: Gab, [ @kenmaki ]

 Hai Ate Gab 💝 imagine the saddest place you could imagine. The worst feeling you could ever feel. Yep, that’s where I’ll be without you and that’s how I’d feel if you weren’t in my life. Okay, a bit dramatic, yes, but it’s the truth! You’ve been such a huge influence in my life (we’re going to pretend I don’t see Tamaki-san railing you on main) and you’re another huge supporter to my blog! You’re always so sweet and understnading and I’m so glad I met you!

 I don’t remember when or how we became moots (I think I first followed because Ana interacted with you a lot sjkjsfkj) but I’m glad we did! Thank you for always being there for me and for lifting my spirits! Thank you for sticking with me throughout the year, especially when [redacted] did not so nice things :’) Wishing you a smooth transition into the New Year, and a wonderful forever!

 With love,

Mei

 p.s, please sleep earlier for the love of kenma, tamaki, osamu, iwaizumi, and everyone else

Dear: Jin, [ @kuroolongtea ]

 Yes, we might not talk as much, but honestly that’s probably my fault because I suck at keepign conversations going :’) BUT ANYWAY, you’re such an amazing person! I know that new year’s eve wasn’t kind to you, but I hope you know that you still deserve every ounce of happiness this world has to give. Your vibes are ✨immaculate✨ and I’m so happy that we’re friends!

 Wishing 2021 to be MUCH better and bring you all the love in the world, because you, ma’am deserve it all! May your forever shine brighter than Instagram models’ highlighter.

 With love,

Avis

Dear: Lex, [ @hajimine ]

Cici you’re such a happy person and another person I look up to! You’re always so sweet and caring and I admire that about you! Not to mention you live here, in Melbourne, so we definitely have to meet up some time hehe >.< thank you for being there for me! You’re such a loving person and I hope I can be someone to you as well! May 2021 be kind to you, and give you love and joy! Wishing you an amazing forever!

 With love,

Mei

Dear: Lou, [ @teyvatstories ]

 LOU ISTG YOU ARE SO CHAOTIC BUT I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FOR IT KJDKAJ *ahem* I mean, hai Lou :3 you’ve been such a positive influence on my life and I can’t than you enough! You shower me with so much love, and I don’t even know if I deserve it T^T You’re always there for me and I’m so unbelievably glad that I bothered to send you a message through your asks.

 Thank you for being the positive I wish to see in the world. You deserve so much love, and to think you received hate instead. You know what, it doesn’t matter, because I promise I’ll be here to cancel the bad for good. You deserve that much at least. Thank you for sending me messages and for reminding me to download Genshin. No, I have not downloaded it yet. May 2021 be your bitch and I wish you have all the love and joy until forever.

 With love,

Avi

Dear: Millie, [ @millie-mint ]

 Hai Millie Bear 💖 Thank you for everything you’ve done for me! Helping me out with my maths questions (still can’t get over how you taught me more than my teacher did ajskaj) and for geeking out about food and cakes ✨  Thank you as well for supporting me throughout this past year! I’m so grateful to have your friendship!

 Thank you as well for being there for me when times got tough. You’re always so sweet and your bubbly personality always lifts my spirits! 2020 has been hard on so many people, but I was blessed enough to have met you on this site! Thank you for everything, and I’m wishing you a smooth transition into 2021! May you have all the love, peace, and happiness this year, and an incredible forever!

 With love,

Ave

Dear: Owly, [ @owlywrites ]

 Honestly, we haven’t talked as much as I would have liked, but I’m glad we’re friends! Owly, you’re such a bright and positive person on this site and I just know that so many people are glad that you’re here. You always find a way to bring happiness and positivity onto tumblr, as well as lift people’s spirits in the best way possible! You just have to focus on yourself sometimes, but we can work on that together! You’re so selfless and so giving – I admire the way you see the world so brightly.

 Thank you for bringing the positivity everyone deserves and needs. You’re a blessing to so many people and I’m so thankful that I met you. May 2021 be the best year ever, and I’m wishing you a wonderful forever!

 With love, Avis

Dear: Soph, [ @animatedarchives ]

 Jiejie Soph ohmg where do I even begin? You literally give me so many happy thoughts and make me so soft >.< you’re a foodie and I love that about you hehe you’re so encouraging with my baking and honestly we’re both so chaotic bahaha half of our messages are just us freaking out over food and it always makes me smile! You’re such a positive energy in my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

 Thank you for being there for me when I need it. You never fail to make people feel better and you’re always so encouraging! Also, thanks for reminding me to work on my anime journal (which is still empty btw I have no idea what I’m doing)!  Thank you for being a blessing in 2020 – I hope I was as much a blessing to you as you were to me. Wishing you happiness and peace this year, and an amazing forever!

 With love,

Mei

Dear: V, [ @macaronnv]

 V, you are such a bright soul and I love you so much for it. You bring me so much happiness, and I can’t even begin to thank you. Your writing is amazing and I’m telling you, you deserve more than you have now. I think you’re probably on a break and coming back to social media slowly, so please take your time, okay?

 Thank you for everything. May 2021 be your year and bring you love, happiness, as well as the recognision you deserve. Wishing you an amazing forever! (Jangan lupa buat makan yang bener sama minum yang banyak. Aku cinta kamu <3

 With love,

Avis

Dear: Yssa, [ @katsushimaa]

 I am so honoured that you even bothered to reblog one of my fics, let alone give me a follow T^T you’re someone I  have always looked up to, and you’re a big influence to me here on tumblr! You’re so sweet and caring, and you’re deserving of all the love you receive on this god forsaken site. I’m wishing you every happiness and all the love in the world! May you have a wonderful forever!

 With love,

Avis

I know that there are so many more, but I’m pretty brain dead, so here’s a few more people I would like to thank before I pass out:

 @tamaki-anon •  @myelocin • @baeshijima • @yuueisteria • @stcrryskies • @strawberriimilkshake • @kuroos-babie • @ceo-of-daichi • @xavestory • @rilacry • @cotton-hashira • @tsuhika • @tsukisemi • @tetsurolls • @applepienation • @angelwithglasswings • @suhkusa • @chaotic-angel-anon

[ohayohimawari]

On Tumblr-ing

I used the most recent Self-promotion Sunday to experiment with sharing my works on Tumblr. As everyone knows, this site is difficult to get a handle on.

Is it worth it to play nice with this site, so my posts show up in tags?

That’s the question that I wanted the answer to and why I chose to fill my queue with all of my original works for one day but posted them in a way that I hadn’t before. I’m not an expert on Tumblr, but I’ll share what I’ve learned from it. However, my observations aren’t going to be helpful to all.

The situation: I create fanfics and podfics. I don’t typically create for popular ships or tropes. I fall in the category of content creators that are no longer new but aren’t battle-hardened fandom veterans.

If any/all of the above applies to you, and you’ve experienced frustration with having your work ‘seen’ on Tumblr, and you’d rather read about someone else’s experiment with this site than do one yourself, keep reading.

First, realistically consider what content you share and how it appears to someone scrolling through the site. For example: sharing fanfic and sharing fanart on Tumblr are two totally different beasts. I cannot overstate the importance of this fact. Be fair to yourself and don’t compare your stats as a writer to those of an artist.

Another thing to remember about sharing your written works to Tumblr is that you’re asking someone to click a link to view/read it. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is.

Imagine a member of your target audience laying in bed in the morning, waiting for the need for breakfast or coffee to be great enough to coax them out from under their blankets. In the meantime, they’re scrolling down their dash (and what appears is dependent upon how they filter posts, but that’s a whole other box I’m not going to unpack here). They’re laughing at memes, getting riled up over politics or social issues, gasping at celebrity controversies, wishing for the days before Tumblr purged the naughty stuff, cute baby animal videos, etc. It’s so easy for a text post to get lost in all of that. It’s too easy for a text post to be overlooked in all of that.

It’s important for posts to show up in tags because sometimes, people don’t just scroll through their dash. Sometimes, they search tags for something specific, and when they find it, they’re more inclined to click on that link to check out your stuff.

I’m going to reel it back to myself and explain why I played with posts and tags. I run a fandom server, and I see folks (mostly new to fandom) who feel bad because their works don’t get many notes on Tumblr. During my first year in fandom, I felt invisible, and it was awful. I want to give advice and encouragement, so I experimented with making my posts visible in tags to see what kind of difference it would make, or not make. I’m going to be the first to say that if I created for popular ships, or popular tropes, or a hot and thriving new fandom, or were a BNF, I probably would’ve seen a huge difference. While what I experienced wasn’t an immediate tidal wave of new admirers of my work, I see how this could increase my readers and listeners over time.

Tumblr, in its infinite wisdom (???), hides posts that have linked works within them. So how do you share a link to your work and have it show up in tags? AO3 has a handy ‘share’ button at the top of your individual works (if you don’t see the magical ‘share’ button, check your account settings to confirm that it’s on). You can share your work directly to Tumblr or Twitter (an even worse site for promoting fanfic) and add bells and whistles to the post, and customize it with what tags you think should be assigned to it.

When it comes to tagging, start with the biggest first, and put the most important in the first five tags. For example: Fandom, pairing, characters, and genre tags should be listed first. Do create a unique tag for yourself to tack on at the end (more on this later). Don’t add tags for popular characters, genres, pairings, etc., that don’t appear in your work.

For the purpose of my experiment, I didn’t add any snazzy images or gifs to my posts. I simply shared the post from AO3 and added tags. I shared all different pairings, genres, and content of various ratings. They appeared utterly unremarkable to me. They were boring, and exactly like something that I, myself, would scroll past. However, I did it that way because the more you add to a post, the more you risk using a word or image that Tumblr doesn’t like. And if it doesn’t like it, your post simply won’t show up in tags. Then you’re left with dissecting your post and editing editing editing until you figure out which word or image was the offender.

At the end of the experiment, I had to conclude that I receive more immediate activity on posts that I draft on this site that include links to my work, even though those don’t show up in tags. I’m going to assume that’s because those original posts are more attractive. However, most of the slight interaction that I saw with my experimental posts were from new-to-me Tumblr users, and I earned some new followers from it. The fact that those posts now reside in tags means that I can expect more of that in small doses, in the future.

Will this change how I post new works going forward? Yes. Typically, I draft an original post linking my work, then reblog it for my followers in different time zones. Now, I’ll share that same work from AO3 in a new original post instead of reblogging the initial one. But I’m going to try to make them look more interesting, and hope they still show up in tags.

I learned from this, but I want to stress something to content creators who feel invisible and get down on themselves for it. There are a million reasons why posts don’t get traction on Tumblr, and they are not because people don’t like your work. Basing your work’s worth on statistics is incredibly unfair to yourself. However difficult that is to ignore, don’t do that to yourselves.

I once shared something that I was proud of writing. Then, I cried for three days straight and ate my entire ice cream supply because it received fewer hits than I have fingers, never mind kudos or comments. Then I realized that I shared it on the same night as the GoT finale. Facepalm.

The joy that comes from creating something new is (or should be) the reason you do it. Congratulate yourself on being so incredibly clever to come up with your work and brave enough to share it on the wilds of the internet where it will remain for someone to find and love. And when your gem of a work is found, make sure you’ve added a unique tag that is all your own to it, so that others can search that tag and binge on all the beauty you’ve made.

[frostiifae]

hi i’m not gonna engage directly with that post about masculinity and the pressures it’s put under growing up bc i am much too fragile for that, but also my feelings on that post wind up going out to jupiter and back instead, so sorry about this but --

I’ve been mulling over the idea that maybe social media, as a whole, is a bad place for social discourse (shocking, I know). The core idea of it is simple - you take a statement like “men are overly sexual”. This statement is at least glancingly true, but not ironclad. It is true enough to make a specific point in context, but it isn’t true enough to project outward into the world without context.

People with more authority than me have already done plenty of research to demonstrate how modern social media is designed specifically to present ideas free of context. It’s virtually impossible to have a meaningful conversation in the open space of Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook, for varying reasons - but the sites do their best to trick you into not noticing. 

In a post I exchange between my two best (female) friends, we may cajole about the horrors and ugliness of men, saying things we don’t really believe, partially tongue-in-cheek, partially to make fun of the radical ideas that say these things without the requisite irony. But it would be so very easy for someone - even someone that knows me, someone I care about - to stumble upon that post and misunderstand. In reality, that post wasn’t really meant to be public. It was just for the three of us, because we have a shared context that changes and colors the way our words are interpreted, and without that context - the things we make look alien, or worse.

How easy it is for this simple misunderstanding to repeat itself at progressively larger and larger scales. Isn’t it amazing how Anita Sarkeesian attempted to say something hardly controversial and completely understandable, but a lack of context drove an entire counter-cultural movement and drove a wedge into the heart of the community she wanted to speak to. Incredible how, even as we all rally behind the cries Black Lives Matter, Defund the Police, we still have people claiming to be races they aren’t, asserting themselves over marginalized voices without thinking - and how, even as I do my best to keep my mouth shut, I can’t help but wonder if something is being missed because I can’t find the words to ask the questions I wish I could ask. 

I keep wondering, what if I could just pluck one of those horrific alt-right reddit meme boys from their chair and sit on a park bench with them, offer to get them lunch, and just talk about our visions for the future. Surely, we’d disagree on a lot of things, but I’m used to that. I’ve always been a weird kid, and I found solace in understanding the why of people’s beliefs - people’s reasoning always made more sense to me than the conclusions they would reach because of that reasoning. And I really feel like we could find a lot in common, if we could break past the surface layer of what we believe, and instead talk about the experiences that led us there. After all, I, too, was once a disenfranchised middle-class white male on the Internet, whose favorite pastime was to lose themselves in an emerging culture of chaos and creativity that seemed impenetrable from the outside. I, too, was once frustrated with the posturing of feminism, with the idea that men ought to be judged demographically without regard to their individual status. I still am frustrated with that idea, even now that I’ve come to grips with why it keeps coming up. I can’t say that it’s false. But I can’t say that it’s true, either. 

I wish I could explain that it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or false - that it never has mattered - that none of this was ever about telling people how they should think, or what words they are and aren’t allowed to use, or how they should volunteer their assets in the name of the less-privileged, or how they should sit at the back of the bus to make way for the flavor of the month. I wish I could explain that I understand how it seems from the outside, I really do, because I was there once, and it seems like such a mess of contrarian nonsense that can’t even find time to agree with itself, but you have to understand, it’s not about rules and regulations, it’s not about a strict moral or social code, it’s just about trying these ideas out in a public space and seeing if they make things better for people, because the way the world is now isn’t working. 

But I know what would happen if I tried that: I would get told, “And what about me?” and, well, there’s the rub, isn’t it? What about you? 

Is it selfish to focus on one’s own problems? Is it “male privilege” to listen to a talk about feminism and ask “but what about us?” Does that make you a pillar of the patriarchy? I feel like the answer is so obviously no, but we keep reacting that way, because when some dude comments on a feminist post and all we have to go off of is a name, an anime avatar (and believe me, I love anime avatars, so don’t think for a second I’m going to judge you for having one) and a single off-color remark, we have to come to some kind of judgment and it’s never going to be accurate. We tried so hard to teach everyone to think about the person behind the screen, but at the same time the Internet evolved in such a way that we know less and less every day about the screennames we come into contact with; the mountain is being built higher and higher ahead of us as we climb. 

I think the solution is to just stop. I really, really do. 

I was educated in feminism by a person who sat down with me in a series of one-on-one conversations and answered my questions as patiently as they could. I’m not friends with that person anymore - we wound up having a lot of disagreements on finer points, even besides the way we actually treated one another - but I deeply appreciate that time they spent with me. I refined my knowledge of feminism by taking those conversations to other people I trusted, and seeing how they felt about those ideas, further whittling away at this chunk of philosophy I had been given, turning into a thing I, personally, could believe in. This is the way human beings learn: we find a teacher we trust to confide in, we find a place to practice that feels safe so that we can try things out, and we build up confidence in private before taking our findings into the open. 

What do we accomplish by taking two people who have already cemented their convictions and bashing them against each other in a public space? Spectacle. That’s really all there is to it. Hate to sound like an old batty cynic but social media really is built around social spectacle. Twitter’s Trending tags, fandom discourse, political pages on Facebook mocking each other in memes that spread through social circles while dissidents look on in quiet disgust. The point of the whole model is to turn human culture into a hadron collider. This is not the place for nuanced debate. We should all know better. But, somehow, we don’t. And all the worse for the younger people caught in the crossfire that don’t understand what’s happening. 

It’s funny how you hear about things happening to other kids, parents and teachers and principals setting rules that seem completely ridiculous and unfair, and then you grow up and start to realize that - even if you still disagree - there’s a hint of wisdom in there. I dunno, maybe we should be withholding the internet from our kids until they’re adults. Not because they’re not mature enough for the Internet, but because the Internet isn’t mature enough for them. 

ᵒⁿᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ᵈᵃʸˢ ᶦ ᵍᵒᵗᵗᵃ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵐʸ ᵒʷⁿ ˢᵒᶜᶦᵃˡ ᵐᵉᵈᶦᵃ ˢᶦᵗᵉ

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 18 pt 1: California Public Transit can Take you to Hell, but it Can’t Take You to the Freakin Mall

Apparently Tumblr did an update, joining the throng of techie websites that chose a godawful very open and round sans fontface that creates a hell ton of white-space.

Aaaaaa

Not quite sure why every website feels like they must make all websites look like a mobile site. I do enjoy having a dark mode now and that’s nice, but man...I miss the bold font we used to have for titles on text files. Really told you “this is a title.”

Not like it matters since y’all are reading this on my own blog where I have control of how it looks, but man...that awful typeface where there kerning is nice for short stuff but just...too wide for serious reading. It’s everywhere I go.

And speaking of bad kerning, like I saw this ad for a gym that was called “49ERSFIT” (because that’s our football team, in case you don’t know) but the kerning was reallllllly narrow so I looked at it and all I could see was “49ERSHIT” and like...I can’t unsee it. I can never unsee that.

Anyways, enough about how I’m haunted by font, lets talk about Yugi, who used to be haunted by Yami, up until he died this morning. So now Yami is just kicking it all on his own for a total of....maybe a few hours now, and has already destroyed an entire Caltrain, and whatever ecosystem was in this lake.

Seto Kaiba would be so proud.

Somewhere in the Ocean, or over the ocean, or...wherever the hell Atlantis is, Darts has decided that Pharaoh is NOT dead after all, and sends Rafael to finish the job, because youknow--Darts won’t move his lazy ass until all of his lackeys are fully dead. It’s an anime.

And then we have a jump cut to this tent scene. I don’t know how much time has passed. It’s suggested it’s enough time to fully sleep. So...a full day?

And Yugioh pulls the most unexpected plot turn out of their pocket because why not, it’s Season 4. This season is just about “how many strings can I pull and get away with” (I mean have you SEEN the Death Count lately?)

........

there’s a lot of things I expected out of this kids show.

This was never one of those things I thought I would see with my eyes--one of those things I could cap with my prt scr button, and one of those things I could paste into Photoshop and be like “wow this is really a thing that was made canon.”

Like for how long I had to cap this photo of Yami and Tea sharing a bed together, the people who made this show, spent THAT much longer having to animate it. What is just mindboggling about Yugioh, is that no one on the entire team was like “oh did we just...” and this set-up happens--and they treat it like NOTHING is happening.

Like, how is that humanly possible to write your flagship pairing into the same bed and then just not even recognize it? Like I get how it’s physically possible, I just watched it, but as a writer, as an artist, as someone who tells stories, how is it possible to resist poking fun at this?

Like the RESTRAINT on the Yugioh team, y’all.

(read more under the cut)

I hope you enjoyed this trope that flashed on the screen for all of like...a minute. Lets throw a giant dog at it.

So fun fact, the Egyptian god that is shaped like a wolf is Wepwawet. He’s best known for guiding people through the underworld, which fits nicely into this episode. But, did the writers know that? Is that why Skye is here? To be a reference to Wepwawet? I have no idea. But this dog is here, and every time his eyes look directly into the camera they are drawn--a little bit wrong. Not as bad as when they drew horses, but wow they did not really enjoy drawing this dog’s eyes when it’s straight on.

As for Chris and old man in this episode, I don’t know where they got this outfit style from. It sure ain’t traditional Ohlone. It’s...I mean it’s what happens when you don’t do your research, honestly. And I get the sense that these two aren’t supposed to be any Native American tribe as recent as Ohlone, and might be Atlantean from things they say later in this episode, in regards to cards and the spirit realm or whatever--but uh...

...where did these outfits...come from? I just want to know their research. Chris has a 1920′s hat for some reason. The old man has a staff with poofy bits on it. He dresses more like a 1960′s hippie than he does an indigenous person. Questions. I have questions.

Chris leads us outside to where this old biblical-looking character is collecting all of Yugi’s dropped cards. No idea where Weevil’s went, including the card of his that currently contains his soul. Probably underneath that Caltrain somewhere.

What does Kaiba make these cards OUT OF?

Yami has decided, after this card shunned him once, that maybe it’s time to remove it from his deck.

(Pretty sure he did not decide to remove the Orichalcos, however, which is still in there, as we see later. Thing is, I just realized that Oricalchos would basically be Yugi’s soul, right? So maybe he just keeps it around for company? Takes it out occasionally and waves at it?)

Iron Heart kind of seems like that type of old guy who used to be a hippie and now teaches Physics to High Schoolers. I say this because I’ve had a couple of teachers a lot like Iron Heart where like you’d look at them and it’d be like “Yo you have to be like 600 years old, but like, all you talk about is all the drugs you did during the Hippie Era, how are you even still ALIVE?”

Speaking of people that shouldn’t be alive (although unlike my physics teacher, this guy is deffo dead...)

And then just completely out of no where Yami demands a Spirit Journey.

Like what the hell, Yami? That’s like...a crazy blunt assumption to make. Mind you, if I had asked my High School Physics teacher for a spirit journey, he would have had a lot of stories for me. He regularly told us that he could kick the ceiling (but couldn’t do it right now because he had to go to his special chiropractor first and get the right medication for that.)

Sorry my bro also had this Phsyics teacher and he just told me that he witnessed this 70+ year old man kick the ceiling and like...I don’t know if he’s lying. Either way, that is an incredible chiropractor.

And then, adjust your seat belts folks, because then this happens,

WOW!

WOW THAT’S A LOT OF LORE!

WOW HELL IS MY BACKYARD!

LITERALLY HELL BACK THERE!

Wow. Maybe that’s why California is on fire so often, amiright?

Man. In the Yugioh Universe 1.) The Loma Prieta Earthquake never happened so the Embarcadero is still multilevel 2.) The Bay Area industry got completely wiped out by Pegasus/Darts/Kaiba and is a literal wasteland 3.) The Caltrain actually goes fast 4.) Hell/Spirit Purgatory is located somewhere between the bedroom communities of San Jose and Millbrea.

The Yugioh Alternate California Universe is kind of awesome.

Ah, welcome to Yosemite, now conveniently placed in South Bay.

It also has Hell for some reason.

And then Yugioh decided to use a background from some other anime to save costs.

Speechless, I’m absolutely speechless.

This is a good season, I don’t know what some of y’all were complaining about.

Anyway, I split this one into two because it felt like...too long for one update, but the other one will be hopefully up this weekend, that’s right--I’m getting back in to the swing of things. Sort of. Kind of.

but anyways, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order from the beginning.

[dragons-bones]

The White Vault Season Three Roundup

Posting this as the tenth and final episode of the season is now in public release!

So I listened to the early release of the season finale on Saturday, screamed a lot, and immediately sat down and re-listened to the whole season. The following post is being put behind a read more for both length and season-wide (finale included) spoilers and includes discussion and theorizing for season four, which Travis confirmed is the penultimate season. (IS IT OCTOBER YET.) Please DO NOT READ until you listen to the finale!

First and foremost, I was originally a little concerned that season three would end up hitting all of the same story beats as the first two seasons without anything new, particularly on the matter of the mystery: lots of puzzle pieces that still don't quite fit together. Arguably we still don't have any clear answers...but we have a lot more pieces that I think we're seeing the overall shape. There is definitely some sort of centuries-and-continents-spanning conspiracy, one dedicated to keeping the shadow monster(s) and totem monsters fed, or appeased, or something, along with the people and civilization that revolves around these creatures. We don't know the why, we don't know the how, but I am personally surprisingly at ease with not having anything answered at this point--honestly I am having an incredible amount of fun speculating in my own mind and reading other fans' takes on tumblr and reddit. Travis and Katie confirming we have a fourth and fifth season to finish telling the story gives me a lot of confidence, particularly since season four is going to take a vastly different tack than the first three seasons.

The Documentarian confirms in the opening of episode one that she had come into possession of the information she presents to whom we knew as of episode five to be Graham "Fuck You I Have A Shotgun" Casner just a few days ago. Episode ten confirms that the events of season three literally occurred within the last few weeks and Dr. Zhou "Fuck You I Have A Frying Pan" Liu, Dr. Josepha Guerrero, and Simon "Fuck You I Am Getting Off This Mountain If I Have To Tobogan Down It" Hall may still be alive up in the caves. I am practically frothing at the mouth with excitement because this really raises the stakes for next season, and while I'm more than certain the entire cast isn't making it out alive...enough might. And in this situation: the dangers are known by both the rescue party and the scientists; and the scientists are the kind who might be able to begin putting our puzzle pieces together, along with whatever the Documentarian acquires elsewhere.

I want to give an especial shoutout to Peter Lewis as Graham Casner. I remember when I first listened to The White Vault, I was a bit uncertain about his voicework: he has a very deliberate, almost stilted-sounding delivery as Graham. His performance really clicked for me when we got the segue ways of him narrating Russian journal entries into an English translation: his Russian, to my ear, sounds very smooth with no hesitation. My thought is, English isn't Graham's first language, and his measured way of speaking is how he ensures he organizes his thoughts properly to be understood. And just--his performance this season was SO GOOD. Especially in the finale, he sounded so raw and angry and just a little bit broken over the discovery that the body Dr. Liu and Dr. Guerrero found truly wasn't Dr. Ureta (I thought, in episode nine, that they're comment of "that's not Dr. Ureta" was more a metaphoric "that's not her anymore" based on what they knew of Simon's experience so far), but Rosa. Like. Holy shit. 10/10 Peter Lewis, godDAMN.

(Aside: props to all the voice actors this season. We really heard them come into their stride as the season progressed, but special props to: Danilo Battistini as Lucas, who showcased Lucas’s descent into (religious fervor inspired?) madness; Eric Nelsen as Simon, who got saddled with a lot of the technical archaeological talk and made it sound natural (really evident when you listen to the bloopers); and Diane Casanova as Eva, who did a fantastic job showing her dealing with the stress of the situation while still remaining snarky and defiant.)

And now to Rosa--who was, unquestionably, my favorite member of the Fristed expedition, so I was, in fact, yelling like a mad thing while my heart went icy and broken when the body was identified as hers. So, I remember reading in a post-episode speculation thread on reddit earlier in the season that maybe the tunnels between Svalbard and Patagonia were connected and this was the same shadow monster as the Fristed team encountered. I thought this was particularly far-fetched bullshit, but, uh apparently not? Good job, fellow speculator! You called it! Perhaps they're not physically connected (that stretches my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point, considering Svalbard and Patagonia are on literal opposite ends of the planet), but maybe it's a space-time distortion, and the deep caves between Svalbard and Patagonia (and Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, and wherever else this strange civilization has pockets of activity) are linked via supernatural means. And a space-time distortion would explain why to Graham, it didn't seem too much time had passed for him in the tunnels before he found a way out, even though it was weeks if not months before he was located.

(Brief side note: definitely the Svalbard totem monster that got him, that strange walrus-like entity with the super-elongated phalanges. Also features in Artifact. That totem monster scares me and scares me deeply.)

So does this mean the shadow monster at Fristed and Piedra are the same, able to travel between locations depending on which ones have people near them? (SPOILER FOR ARTIFACT: it's implied there's more than one and they can "travel" via the totem animal artifacts END SPOILER) Does this mean we might see "Jonas" again? Oooooh, two shadow monsters, das bad, das really bad.

(Another brief side note, since I didn't do an episode nine roundup: the dark part of my mind that loves the creepy horror elements of this podcast was overjoyed at being slam-dunked right into the fucked-up-edness of the return of the still-beating heart and teeth in a stone box. Just. Good shit, lots of nightmares, jumping at shadows that night, S U P E R B.

...Wait, Rosa's is the first body actually found, even though we know the shadow monster killed her. Karina's, Walter's, and Carito's bodies never showed up, and we know their hearts and teeth ended up in the stone boxes. Does that mean Rosa's didn't? Is there specific significance to this?)

The sites do seem to be very different: China was a mountain village, most of the village open air with their private ritual rooms carved into the mountainside; Svalbard's might be under a glacier, and is an entire underground village, with its ritual sites buried beneath it; and Patagonia is less a proper village and more a winding system of living quarters and open public/ritual spaces. Svalbard is also currently the only one (that we know of, we have no information about the interior of the China site) using teeth to pave its stairs so, uh, take that as you will.

Teeth appear a lot. I have a thing about teeth, and yet The White Vault doesn't ping it? It's rather strange.

RAIMY. RAIMY YOU GO GET YOUR MAN. PROUD OF YOU, PLEASE DON'T DIE. (Honestly, though, I get the feeling if the shadow monster breathes anywhere in the general vicinity of Raimy, Simon will go batshit and beat the thing to death himself. He is injured but he is pissed.)

I continue to have low expectations about Eva's survival. That she got off the mountain is a surprise--stalked by the shadow monster, perhaps hoping she lures more people to the caves?--and that her 'infection' (excuse me as I continue to have flashbacks to Jane Prentiss in TMA Season One and cry uncontrollably because oh my gooooooooood) hasn't, y'know, gotten properly ugly yet. But goddamn I love her spirit, I love that she's so determined to get the rest of the team out. I WANT her to survive, but all the clues are pointing at REALLY BAD SHIT happening to her.

I remain deeply curious about whether or not Dr. Ureta’s previous trip to the Patagonia site is what primed her to be the first victim of the Piedra team. This might very well be something we don’t ever receive a proper answer to--sometimes some mysteries remain so, after all--but I do find it telling that we have very little of her personal thoughts, unlike the other members of the team (aside, of course, from Lucas).

Dr. Guerrero remains the loose end for me: Simon and Dr. Liu have both shown an utter lack of fucks to give about not letting this monster have them, but Dr. Guerrero was so tunnel-visioned on the science of the find that we notes and thoughts we have her don’t give us a conclusive enough picture about what to expect going forward. But we might end up surprised.

I’m very interested to see what Maheer and Dragana bring to the table: Maheer is obviously the Documentarian’s man because of a very nice paycheck, and Graham’s grumbling about Dragana’s prodding for details has me on alert mostly because Graham is my guy and he deserves a fucking nap and a vacation for all the shit he’s had to deal with.

The White Vault: Iluka is coming up this month on Patreon; I’m willing to bet this is what the Documentarian is preoccupied with while Graham and the rescue team head into the mountains. I’m really curious to see whether or not this might have anything to do with the events of the short Acquisition? I feel we’re due for that to come into play...

There is just. So much. So damn much.

IS IT OCTOBER YEEEEEEET.

[macattackp]

10 Crazy Things Gen X,Y, and Z Have Accomplished

1. Have made sites like Google and Wikipedia widely accepted  They are not academically accepted, but considering in the 4th grade (2000-2001) the school librarian told our class “Google is useful but it will never replace a library for finding information!” I think we’ve come pretty far...

2. Have flipped retail on its head It was originally “They who had the most physical stores was the leader” but thanks to the rise of online shopping, physical store locations are now taught to be a unnecessary cost and has caused a number of franchise giants to tumble

3. Have Integrated Technology Into Daily Life In the fifth grade (2001-2002) I wrote a letter to my local MP explaining how computers could be used to save trees by saving paper, as well as give students less weight to carry with textbooks and such, and could raise accuracy in spelling and math. The response I got was that it was a nice idea, but computers were so complicated and expensive that we probably wouldn’t see this for another 30-40 years. Here we are less than 20 years later and look how far we’ve come! Side story: In the second grade (1997-1998) we were given basic calculators for $15 to learn how to use them and were told that while they were powerful, they were too expensive so we shouldn’t get used to them as the day would never come where we could just have a calculator on us at all times.

4. We Have Survived and Established Ourselves During The Great Recession The 2008 housing market crash has been bad.... We are STILL suffering from it... Companies over 100 years old have gone bankrupt... whole countries have gone bankrupt! The entire concepts of business that have been taught were flipped on its head. The great recession has been reported as being at least twice as severe as the 80′s recession and closer to the great depression from an economic standpoint. Yet here we are. If we can’t afford our own house, we’ll share one. If we can’t get a job we’ll make one. If we can’t afford things we’ll make our own. This generation is far from a comfortable one... I sometimes tear up thinking about how my “wild dream” is one day having a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom all to myself... and how greedy I feel if I say a laundry room to myself would also be nice.... but we’re surviving! This economy is a mess with people clinging to what little they have until they die and we’re still moving forward. That is crazy.

5. We Are So Educated, We Have Made Degrees Commonplace Have you ever wondered why job requirements are so crazy? Like “Entry Level Job: Must have masters degree and 8 years experience!” It’s because of supply and demand.... So many people have university degrees, that the value of a degree on its own has bottomed out.... Yes this makes it a pain to get any kind of job.... and is INCREDIBLY rough on those without degrees... but think of how crazy that is!! How many times in history have so educated?? We may not have the value appreciated by other jobs, but think of how much we can do and understand that people before us never could! Information is power. Wisdom is steering. Understanding is direction. Just think of what we’re capable of?

6. We Have Changed Media Forever Think about how many areas of education has changed. Television has lost its monopoly due to streaming services, youtube, and livestream services. The concept of “Celebrity” has changed with social media celebrities. We’ve seen the rise of consoles with the fall of PC games, and the fall of consoles with the subsequent rise of PC games. Digital media, indie games, web comics, flash animations, deviantArt, Tumblr.... All of these things had never existed before. As a kid I used to spend hours trying to draw comics on dot matrix printer paper because I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist when I grew up... Now with webcomics and online news, the whole industry has been flipped upsidedown. It is both incredibly accessible and incredibly difficult to stand out.

7. We Have Made The World More International I know people in Japan, Sweden, Norway, England, India, Africa, UAE, China, Australia, Holland, America, Mexico, and more places.... In fact I probably know these people more than I know the people who live on my street! The world has become incredibly international. Business has changed as you can work in real time with someone halfway around the world. Friendships have changed, as you can comfort and encourage people you’ve never met in real life. Science and History has changed, because countries that originally could only compare notes once every so often, now do so in real time, and we can see and talk about the variances between what we’ve grown up knowing.

8. We Have Changed Priorities From “The Most Stuff” to “The Most Experiences.” From “Financial Security” to “Mental Stability.” From “The Most Fame” to “The Most Impact.” The rise of arts. The rise of casual familiarity. The desire to learn. All of these priorities have changed as our generation has grown.

9. We Have Shaken Franchise Culture Franchises owned the world. The Ma and Pa shop had fallen to the names such as Walmart, Target, McDonalds, Wendy’s, etc. While franchises still exist, they seem to really be a shell of who they once were. Some franchises have even taken on the business strategy of “We will survive until I retire.” with no thoughts of what will be left afterwards. Meanwhile freelancers, entrepreneurs, startups, and online services have grown exponentially. They may not have the most money and power (yet) but there has been a change that has occured. One of which the results have yet to be fully seen.

10. We Continue to Grow Our generation puts up with a LOT. Our unemployment/underemployment rate is massive (though this is usually brushed over with statistics). The lives we’ve worked 20-some years for seems to crumble away from us. We’re forced to live 4-8 people per house due to the ridiculous prices of housing. We often work numerous jobs just to earn enough to get by. We get blamed for being entitled, lazy, and killing industries like fabric softener. (Wish I was kidding on that).... And yet we still live.... We adapt... We apply what we’ve learned. 

We can’t afford hotels, so we go AirBnB. We can’t afford designer clothes so we go to Etsy or Amazon. We can’t get funding for medical conditions or emergencies so we help each other through GoFundMe, Patreon, or more... We are tenacious. We are adaptive. We don’t give up!

It’s easy to feel like we’re powerless in this world. We don’t have much money. The news stations rail on us all the time as the world’s biggest mistake. We’re forced to work jobs we don’t want for pay that barely keeps us going... It’s easy to feel powerless, weak, forgotten.... But look back on what we’ve done... this is just a small portion, I’m sure you can think of more! These are the things the history books will remember. These are the things our children and grandchildren will one day ask us about.

We Are World Shakers!

[daily-rayless]

20 Years of Art

2000

(OC / Celes from Final Fantasy 6 / OC / OC)

The influence of Final Fantasy 6, off of the Anthology collection, and Yoshitaka Amano caused a significant shift in my art, leading my human figures to be very slender, graceful, and frequently pale. Most of it was of women, some of it was of horses, and by then I was very self-consciously starting to draw men. I mostly worked in pencils and colored pencils. Faces were oval with high hairlines and long, sharp, narrow noses. Also note my evident fear of mouth-seams and lower eyelids. I was pretty terrible at coloring, often feeling that coloring one of my sketches ruined all the nice linework.

2001

(Quistis from Final Fantasy 8 / Rosa from Final Fantasy 4? / Schala from Chrono Trigger / Dark Knight OC from Final Fantasy 4)

This is where more anime influences came in, and I consciously took on a semi-anime, semi-realistic (in my own mind) style. My ideal of beauty was overbig eyes, overlong nose, and oversmall mouth, and I stuck to it pretty relentlessly. Trying to figure out shadows and face structure. Still bad at coloring. I was incredibly proud of that charcoal picture. Was also going through my mandatory Dark 'n Edgy phase, with a big helping of Phantom of the Opera, Sarah Brightman, and my attempts at designing supercool clothes, many of which I wouldn't have actually worn, even given the opportunity.

2002

(Me trying to recreate “Flaming June” / OC, who incidentally looks almost exactly like Sarah Brightman and whose diadem was bodily lifted from a Jodi Lee painting / angsty symbolic wet chain lady / OC)

Deep in the Dark 'n Edgy. Faces are still very heavily made-up, with big lashes, defined upper eyelids, and dark lips. Trying very hard to be a good artist though, have high expectations for the future. I was so proud of that final pose and worked so hard on it. Lined paper? So not a problem. Besides, how else am I supposed to draw during class? A sketchbook would've been even more obvious than the incredibly obvious I already was. I'm able to listen while drawing pretty reliably, and I did manage to take detailed notes while doodling, so at least I had that going for me.

2003

(Celes / OC / OC / Hermes-inspired wing lady)

I was focusing (at least some of the time) on backgrounds and trying to make my work detailed and polished. Coloring is still hopeless. Often when I colored, I would go super light, even when I was using dark or intense colors. It would give my pictures a sort of faint, half-assed hazy look. I remember an art teacher urging me to use more color, but I probably resisted because I knew that way lay total destruction. I'm sorry, well-meaning art teacher. You are unversed in the ways of my pencils. I have killed too many sketches to take those kinds of risks.

2004

(Rosa? / Meliara from Crown Duel / willow-dress lady / Geddoe and Queen from Suikoden 3)

See the Meliara picture? That's supposed to be a night scene in a forest. Front-lit by blazing firelight. I was too afraid to make the colors darker. This is dark enough, okay? Anyway, this year, along with being utterly obsessed with Suikoden 3 and Crown Duel, I was letting my art head in a more realistic direction...

2005

(OC / Queen / Queen / part of Zetta and Salome from Makai Kingdom; I remember deliberately copying those swoopy Ss from one of my friends’ handwriting. Wishes ended up being the first longform fanfic I posted online.)

...that really flourished this year. It's not actually realism, but I made a point to give my characters, especially the women, more realistic bodies. Faces are very round in this period, often with soft features. Noses are prominent. I'm also, finally, using more vibrant colors. I probably got my first Prismacolor pencils around this time. I also got some really cheap markers, but had no idea how to use them so mostly stuck to pencils.

2006

(All OCs)

I look back on this as a good year. I was learning better coloring techniques. (Bold colors! Press that pencil down! Okay, I still had much to learn.) I got an Elfwood gallery while the site was doing its slow mosey into oblivion. But that was an important step, not just looking at other people's art online, but putting my own up as well. There were downsides though. I began to feel more insecure – or maybe more realistic? – about my art, on this site with so many highly talented artists. Still, 2006 is a good year. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot.

2007

(vampire and hunter / Fleur from Harry Potter / OC / Avril from Wild Arms 5)

The year of Fleur Delacour. This is when I was writing Kindred. I think it was because I was trying to depict Fleur as distinctly non-human that my art shifted away from that more realistic style. Fleur, and my other figures, became very tall and slender. The anime DNA is still there though. For a long time, I felt the lying-down picture of Fleur was my best work.

2008

(Revya and Gig from Soul Nomad / my attempts at being “abstract” / OC / OC)

This was the year of Soul Nomad and, towards the end, Tales of the Abyss. Unsurprisingly, the anime influences start moving back to the fore. The eyes are becoming larger again, the features a bit more angular and stylized, mouths are shrinking. I'm still desperately trying to figure out markers and wondering why it's so darn hard (I don't try to educate myself, I just flail), but I was proud of that blue OC picture. It made me feel like I was getting somewhere. 2008 is when I started my deviantART gallery, right when everyone else was moving on to Tumblr.

2009

(teacup lady / Persona 4 noir-style comic / Revya / OC)

Then Persona 4 hit. Shigenori Soejima was a huge influence in this period, especially in eyes and faces. Pupils, chins, and jawlines shrink, eyelashes are sparse and stylized, noses are simplified. 2008 and 2009 are about as pure anime as I've ever gotten. Meanwhile, I'm really exited about my dA gallery and trying lots of different combinations of media. I'm super active on dA and FFN at this point, writing Elysion and then a slew of shorter Persona fics.

2010

(Minako from Persona 3: Portable / concept-art-version Minako / lady with dragon ferret thing / other lady with dragon ferret thing)

I'm still drawing with a lot of Soejima influences. Additionally, bodies are becoming even longer, taller, thinner, and bendier. Some of them look absurd to me now. On the other hand, a lot of pictures from this period have a nice elegance to them. I was still using colored pencils a fair bit, but more clumsy markers are showing up. Persona 3: Portable came out, and this is when I was writing Death and Ker.

2011

(mask lady / hat lady / Archaya, Duphaston, and Iryth from Eternal Poison / symbolic autumn lady and her winter baby)

Midway through this year, I hit a breakthrough when I got my first set of Copics – and skin tones, no less. Even though I was still flailing, I was so thrilled with my results. That Eternal Poison picture left me enormously proud, as did the mother and child one. My style hasn't changed all that much, but it's starting to feel less extreme. The focus on big eyes and tiny little mouths remains.

2012

(Elza from Suikoden 2 / Daryl and Setzer from Final Fantasy 6 / Killey and Lorelai from Suikoden 2 / Lyssa, Greek goddess of madness)

This is the year of Elza. Lots of delicate sketches of this lovely scarred lady, and lots of colored pictures too. I've definitely shifted away from pencils towards markers. The Daryl and Setzer one was an attempt to use both, and I was very happy with it. These pictures show their age, but there's still a lot here I like. Mouths are larger too. However, my online activity was starting to lag.

2013

(Rydia from Final Fantasy 4 / Nia from Infinite Space / the prophet and Schala / Argos and Io from Greek mythology)

The mid-2010s weren't entirely great for me, marked with a lot of frustration and discontent. And that definitely carried over to my art, making me feel very disappointed with myself. There was lots of marker work this year. Probably the standout picture is Argos and Io. This is also when I played through all three routes of Fate/Extra, and my art was suddenly full of Hakuno and Emiya.

2014

(Minako / butterfly lady / Marta and Tenebrae from Tales of Symphonia 2 / Elza)

Looking at it now, this was a good year. Lots of nice marker art. The butterfly one was a big step up for me in terms of coloring. The Marta and Tenebrae has a really cool stylized look to it. But I was becoming less enthusiastic about sharing my art with others. I started to post less and less.

2015

(evil Hakuno and Emiya from the Fate series / Mitsuru from Persona 3 / half moon cookie lady / Hakuno)

I barely posted anything this year, though I was still drawing a ton. As far as making strides, this is one of my better years. Coloring will never be my strong suit, but it's a lot more fun, and it looks a lot better. It's almost entirely marker-work at this point. Despite my, er, angst, a lot of people are smiling this year.

2016

(OC / doodle lady / Luna from Roman mythology / hair bow lady)

At this point, it's feeling too recent for me to really see what's changed. I did a fair bit of eraserless work. One problem I still have – and, yes, it involves coloring my pictures – is losing some of the image's personality after I've inked it and erased the initial pencil work. The picture's still there, but not as nuanced as it originally was. The results often feel stiff to me. Doing the first linework in ink, or not inking at all, allows me to keep that sensitive, spontaneous quality. Luna and the bow and doodle ladies were done without erasers. Another thing I did a lot this year was fill backgrounds with busy shapes and colors, which is a trend I’m still following today.

2017

(flapper and dog / Alcyone and Ceyx from Greek mythology / flower hair lady / Kida from Atlantis)

Not a good year. Not that the art is bad, there just isn't a lot of it, and what there is often isn't very finished. I was still mostly dark online, wondering if I should take down my dA gallery. Drawing and knowing I wasn't going to post something took off some of the pressure of my own expectations, but I was still unhappy.

2018

(Altera from the Fate series / Elizabeth Bathory from the Fate series / OC / Aranea from Final Fantasy 15)

This was a really important year for me. I wrote a novel I'm really proud of, and it's done a lot to give me confidence and a sense of creative direction. I also decided that after New Years, I was going to start a Tumblr gallery...just as everyone who was still on the site was jumping off of it. Much of my 2018 work is still sketchy and unfinished, but I also think it's loosening up some. It feels less stiff than the stuff from the middle of the decade.

2019

(Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn / medievaly lady / Red from Transistor / Red)

The year of Supergiant Games, which led me to focus more on bright saturated colors. It's really hard for me to analyze these objectively. Coloring is better? I worked more on details? I used my metallic gel pens a ton and did shape-cluttered backgrounds? These aren't new things, but I think they paid off okay. I'm more at peace with my level of ability, I've finished more complicated works, and I crawled out of my den and started posting regularly online again. So that's all good. Curious to see what the art looks like in twenty more years.

[eldritchsurveys]

752.

Does your best friend bother you more than anyone else? >> --- Who is your best friend? >> --- Do you like someone right now? >> No. Do you even think you stand a chance with this person? >> --- Do you consider yourself truly happy? >> I don’t think of “happiness” as a constant state of being. It’s an emotion like any other -- you feel happy for a period of time, and then you return to baseline or you have a different emotion. So, yeah, sometimes I am happy. A lot of the time I’m something else (or nothing). Feeling one emotion all the time at the expense of others would be awful no matter what the emotion is.

How often do you cry? >> Relatively often, lately. It’s like once you decide to stop berating yourself for having feelings, you start just having them randomly and shit. I teared up watching a youtube video yesterday and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out that it was probably the effect of the music used in the video (he used a lot of that kind of “dramatic emotional moment” music that they use in movies to cue to your brain that you’re supposed to have An Emotion right now). Are you emotional? >> I mean, yes, I experience emotions... What is the worst thing you would do for 10 million dollars? >> No. Have you ever had/do you have an eating disorder? >> No. Have you ever cut/burned yourself intentionally? >> Yep. What do you think of people that do? >> I don’t have an opinion about other self-injurers? We all just tryna survive. What’s your opinion on drugs? Have you ever done any? >> I don’t have an opinion on drugs. Like, in general, I don’t have sweeping opinions on any broad subject like this! It doesn’t make sense to me and I am constantly frustrated at being asked what I think about a general concept as if my thoughts shouldn’t be based on contextual information and a basic understanding of nuance. Anyway. Yes, I’ve done drugs. Have you ever noticed the hidden adult jokes inside of kid shows/movies? >> Sure. Do you want to be famous? Why? >> Not at all. Because included amongst my highest values are my privacy and my ability to live my life on my own terms as much as possible. Also, it just flat-out doesn’t seem like a healthy way to live.

Do you sin often? >> Dude. What are your views on God? >> I don’t have any sweeping views on the concept of divinity. My opinion about the Abrahamic God specifically varies based upon what we’re talking about -- what holy text, what cultural interpretation, what sort of human-divine relationship, etc. What do you think happens after you die? >> My working interpretation is that the specific network that I think of as my consciousness will dissipate and that energy will rejoin the general concept of “consciousness”, from which every specific instance of consciousness arises. So to speak. Also, my body will decay (provided I’m not chemically processed and shut up in a metal box), worms will eat me, etc etc. Are you afraid to die? >> Yeah. But my feelings about death are more aptly described as, like, “holy dread”, or the kind of fear that is part-and-parcel with a strong feeling of awe and wonder. If you had the chance, would you want to know the date of your death? >> Fuck no, dude. Have you ever felt that you weren’t good enough? >> Yep. Do you have any siblings? If so, are you jealous of them? >> --- Do you have a good relationship with your parents? Why or why not? >> I don’t have any relationship with them. Because one abandoned me at birth and the other one flat-out doesn’t like who I am as a person.

Are you always wanting more? >> Sure. Hunger is one of my defining concepts. Do you make good first impressions? >> I don’t think I do, no, because I’m not interested in following certain social conventions that people expect me to. That’s not to say I’m rude, but when you refuse to shake hands, you don’t stare in people’s eyeballs, and you don’t smile at literally everything, people get tetchy. Do you feel bad for obese people, or do you just laugh? I am so unimpressed with this question. <-- like.... what the actual fuck. What would you do if you were obese? >> What do you mean, what would I do? Am I supposed to be doing something specific just because I’m fat? Like, you know, hate myself for existing in a way that isn’t acceptable to the society I live in? Bloody hell. Are you ashamed of your past? >> No. Do you miss your past? >> “My past” isn’t a real thing, it’s a story that my brain tells itself. There’s nothing to miss. Do you have a song lyric that describes where you are in life right now? >> If I did, there’s no way I’d be able to think of it right now. Who are you closest to in your family? >> --- Do you ever open up to people? >> Ever? Maybe. It’s always a possibility, if not a probability. Do you consider yourself guarded? Why or why not? >> Absolutely. Because I’m post-traumatic, that’s why. Are you an honest person? >> Sure. Do you like animals? >> I mean, I don’t actively hate animals or anything. I don’t have any specific feelings about the existence of other creatures on the planet.

Do you think doctors prescribe medicine too often? >> I wouldn’t know. I think that’s an opinion people assert when they are following an anti-meds agenda, but it’s not necessarily grounded in provable fact. Are you a control freak? >> I have tendencies. Do you enjoy getting drunk, or do you feel like you’re losing all control? >> No. I enjoy the buzz from a certain amount of alcohol, but anything beyond that is uninteresting and often annoying. I don’t feel like I’m losing control, exactly, I just feel logy and tired and irritable. Also, headaches. What do you think happens when you go into a coma? >> I assume it varies. Do you think the internet is dangerous? >> The potential for danger is always present when interacting with other people in any context, including digital.

Name all the social networking sites you use: >> Tumblr and Facebook are the only ones I use. Do you think anyone truly knows who you really are? >> “Who I really am” isn’t a concept that I find useful. People learn different things about me, are exposed to different personality traits and idiosyncrasies at different times, and filter all that knowledge through their own perceptions and biases and understandings. There is a different version of me for every person that perceives me, including myself, and all those versions are part of the intersocial network that forms the concept of “me”. (I’m sure if I lived completely alone in the middle of nowhere and had no contact with any other humans, my concept of myself would grow into something completely different -- it might grow even more fluid and less anthropomorphic, because the concept of the self is reinforced by our interactions with others.) Have you ever given anyone the chance to really get to know you? >> Sigh. Do you block people out of your life when they start to get too close? >> I don’t know, people getting close isn’t a situation I’m too familiar with these days. Who do you think has the most pressure to be good-looking; guys or girls? I think both experience a lot of pressure in very different ways. It’s not a contest. <-- Do you care what impression you make on people? >> Sometimes, depending on the person. Most of the time I understand that a lot of it is out of my control, unless I’m willing to do some things I really don’t want to do. Do you think TV is too much of an influence on today’s youth? >> I think That’s Complicated(tm). What do you think people would do if all the computers crashed? >> Like, if all computers stopped working at the same time? How... would that even happen, is my question. Unless something happened to the grid in general, or something. Any wide-scale breakdown of digital infrastructure would have immediate negative repercussions in this part of the world, though, I can wager that much. Honestly, do you say racist things? >> I can’t think of anything racist I’ve said in recent memory. Aside from your general “white people” jokes, I guess. I try to keep those to a minimum, though, because most of the time it’s just... unnecessary. Do your parents put way too much pressure on you? >> --- Has anyone you loved ever died? >> Sure. Do you think people overreact when their pets die? >> I don’t think people overreact at all. I think it’s the appropriate reaction, to be upset and to grieve. I think my disconnection to pets is stranger than normal people’s connection to them, which is why I’m always self-conscious about my detachment. People don’t like it when you don’t have feelings. Do you know who you are, or what you want to become? >> *gestures in frustration at my earlier ramble about selfhood* Do you have your future mapped out? Or are you just taking it day by day? >> I find the concept of planning out one’s future to be a little silly, although I understand it’s a perfectly reasonable and healthy thing for a human to do. It just... doesn’t work for me. The only stretch of time I can be confident of is the present, and even that’s questionable sometimes. What are you going to do now? >> I think I might go out for a short walk now, the temperature’s at a good place. I wish I could go somewhere specific -- a park would be incredible right now -- but I can’t be getting on public transportation for non-essential purposes. And I can’t go to the convenience store... Guess I’ll just... walk down the sidewalk and then back *shrug* (This would be a great time to have a dog to walk.)

[bumblebyaf]

why u should support she-ra (2018) and lgbt creators

we’re always talking about how we want more lgbt representation, especially in cartoons where its available for children to see and learn from, but i feel like we also have a bad habit of never following through on supporting these rare shows because they’re not perfect or not even wanting to give them a chance- but i truly believe this is a show we can’t let fail!!! (if i get anything wrong in this message me and i’ll be sure to correct it!!)

Now I know none of the main characters are canonly queer yet in SPOP but i really do have high hopes for a few reasons so far and ill talk more under a read more but please keep reading! i’m an incredibly skeptical person who never really believes i’ll get the queer rep i always want but i do believe she-ra has a good chance & we need to support the crew behind it

The first season of SPOP felt really queer especially with the lead character Adora (and her princess persona, She-ra); she has all kinds of tension with her childhood best friend turned enemy, and plenty of really sweet tender scenes with her new friend Glimmer, and there are MANY accounts of essentially every other female character falling at the feet of her princess persona She-ra; personally i think this alone is still pretty cool to see-girls fawning over another girl and there’s nothing weird about it

Now I know as well as everyone that having a “queer feeling” is something we’re all common with but the follow through? not so much. HOWEVER- SPOP has already shown us several f/f couples!! Albeit background characters but they didn’t have to animate that! i still think this is pretty neat!! its also been suggested that the future may have a nonbinary character!! the show also does a decent job of making the characters have different body shapes etc

now on to the part that really gives me hope!! the staff of SPOP! 

The showrunner and creator of this reboot is Noelle Stevenson;  Noelle is also the writer of Nimona & Lumberjanes both (award winning) graphic novels that started her success; I’m not 100% on Nimona but I am pretty sure there is either gay rep in it or its suggested but not relevant to the story that there are queer characters but I know for certain that in Lumberjanes (a graphic novel entirely about girls) two girls are queer & one is transgender! other characters are implied to be lgbt but not confirmed i believe (however it is an ongoing series)

Noelle herself is queer! I am not entirely certain on her gender identity but I know she goes by she/they pronouns from her twitter. We need to support queer creators in making stories about us for us. she’s on tumblr over at @gingerhaze

Now I understand maybe this cartoon just isn’t something you’re super interested in (we can’t all love something just because it’s gay) but I urge you to support if in any way!!! If you’d like to watch please watch on Netflix, please encourage your friends to watch, and please upvote it on rating sites etc. The sole reason SPOP isn’t doing as well as it should right now is because of man babies who are upset that the cartoon isn’t as sexualized as the 1985 version of the show and that it has queer vibes to it

[tricktster]

this is a weird fish rant incoming

i wrote that post about my newest aquarium with darkmantle the betta fish about 18 times because on the first 17 passes i kept trying to find ways to reassure whoever found it through the tags that the tank was big enough and cycled and my parameters were great...

because, like, in my experience aquatics as a hobby at large (but particularly on tumblr thanks to anon asks) has the potential to be incredibly judgmental! Which... like, honestly i get!

A lot of us love tech and we love learning new techniques and how to care for species with really specific needs, but when it comes down to it... there are really just a few things you have to do to keep everyone in your average freshwater tank thriving, and i’m gonna hazard a guess and say 60-70 percent of people don’t do any of them, at least not at first!

like, fucking it up is almost baked into the hobby. we still give out goldfish at carnivals, we still see products claiming that you don’t need to change water ever if you just buy their additive or throw a plant in it and call it aquaponics, and we still sell tanks specifically marketed for betta fish that wouldn’t be a humane place to keep any living being. and how do you beat that mentality, you know? when there’s a full industry saying “no, these animals actually like! living in unheated, unfiltered plastic cubes,” or “they’re great favors for parties, put them in mason jars as a centerpiece!” there’s always gonna be some percentage of people who don’t ever question that, and it’s upsetting!

worse, the people who are really into the hobby? like i said, bad care is basically where most of us started out! most of us made those same beginner fuckups, and we didn’t provide proper care for our underwater buds because we were kids, or information wasn’t available because we had dial up, or even the information in books was often wrong, or the clerk at the pet store said it was okay, or the fucking instructions on the box did. we learned that we were wrong when our pets died. then like, we got a little knowledge, and now we feel guilty that we caused any living being to suffer in the past because we didn’t know enough or do enough to prevent that suffering.

and this is kind of a wild thing about this hobby i stumbled into, because, unlike many other hobbies, there is a measureable cost to fucking it up. tiny lives are on the line, and if you’re bad at it, they die early and unnatural deaths. for those of us who find joy in figuring out how to help our charges thrive, it sucks to know that for some people who claim to love it too, an aquarium is where you put a fish until it dies a few days/weeks/maaybe months later and you get another fish. there’s some moral weight involved that other hobbies don’t have. like, there’s a lot of bad artists out there. some people genuinely suck at knitting or the harmonica. i cannot in good faith call the thing my body does to music “dancing.” generally, the errors people make if they’re bad at a hobby do not lead to suffering and death. (exception: see, my attempts at dancing, supra.)

also, the people who are really fucking it up in the aquarium sphere don’t have a huge overlap with the people who are enthusiastically showing progress pics or asking questions about the science or art underlying these little closed ecosystems. i think people really dedicated to the hobby don’t get the opportunity to interact very often with the subset of people out there fucking it up hard. like, you know it’s happening, and it’s easy to find pictures of a shitty tank if you go looking, but most people are doing pretty fucking good if they’re already actively engaged in the hobby.

so, this is my theory about judgy, judgy fishblr. i think all that anger at people who don’t care about their animals mixes with our own shame for our early mistakes and emotions run high; then, like anything else people are passionate about, some people become holier-than-thou fundamentalists about the whole fuckin thing. if they call you out, they can stay above reproach. if they can claim that anything different from how they engage with the hobby is wrong, they can’t be accused of ever making a mistake, and maybe they don’t need to grapple with their own guilt about their own fuckups that way either. like, i know this all sounds really overblown but...seriously, my tiny following on this site is because I Am A Person Who Wrote 475000 words of Fanfic About Sans Undertale, Including His Dick, and for that crime against decency, i’m sure i DO deserve some anon hate. yet somehow, in spite of my many public sins, my most unpleasant interactions on this or honestly any social media site have been about aquarium stuff? it’s not even directly mean, it’s concern trolling like “uhh sweetie good try but you really shouldn’t have a betta unless you’ve got the space for it 😏😉” and inside i’m like “BITCH IT’S 6.6 GALLONS, it’s ONE FISH, IT’S A NANO TANK,” and yet my response is always closer to “thanks for the tip 😁😁😁😁. here’s why you’re wrong but i’ll be CHEERFUL AND FRIENDLY about it because deep down i STILL need validation that I’m not hurting my animals, EVEN THOUGH I KNOW I’M DOING GREAT”

(this, i swear to god, happens often enough that it’s a joke on the aquatics subreddits? like someone will post a pic of obscenely enormous empty tank, drained swimming pool etc and be like “any ideas what i should put in this?!” and the comments will be like “maybe big enough for a betta???” “no way. with a tank that small, one amano shrimp tops, and that’s PUSHING it”)

so there my dumb ass was last night, trying to write jokes about my fish while still preemptively demonstrating that i know my shit to stop any doubters from fishsplaining at me? and i just COULDN’T get it, and i was getting really frustrated, because it’s so obnoxious to be lumped in with people who never change their pets’ water and don’t know to cycle their tanks and certainly don’t regularly find themselves hunched over 5 ml beakers waiting for the reagents to assure them their ammonia level is as close to 0 parts pet million as possible...

and then i remembered how i deal with anyone who questions my competency in literally any other field. I don’t smile and emoji my way through being attacked by some asshole on the internet when any other topic is on the line. i certainly don’t scramble for the reciepts to prove they’re wrong. instead, i use every debater’s most feared technique:

I threaten to crawl into their house and put things in their ears while they’re sleeping.

Hmmm, oh, are you implying that I don’t know how to care for my obviously healthy, thriving animals? not anymore, because you can’t question my commitment with your EARS FULL OF GOOGLY EYES, JARED!

...this went so far off the rails. in conclusion, take care of your pets, and don’t be insecure in your abilities.

oh, and saltwater tank elitist snobs can eat my farts. give your balls a tug ya shitheads.

[irinanonyme]

The whole stupid "Carole and Tuesday VS Yuri On Ice" thing (I'm kind of angry and it's long but if you have like 10 minutes you're welcome to read)

Hey, so I've seen a bunch of people throwing shade lately because "Carole and Tuesday doesn't have as much popularity as Yuri On Ice did and it just shows what kinda people those fans are."

People saying that just because it's not on Netflix yet it's not an excuse and then they compare it to Violet Evergarden.

Frickin' Violet Evergarden people.

Which is like, the worst example you can give. You're talking about an anime who was hyped up since back in May 2016 and released 2 years later in January 2018 not to mention that it's made by goddamn KYOTO ANIMATION. It ain't Bones my friends, yes Bones is great but Kyoani is just up there somewhere. Did you see A Silent Voice? Did you see Hibike Euphonium?? The trailer for Violet Evergarden has almost 4 million views while the trailer for Carole and Tuesday was released 3 months ago and it has like 400k views. Until now some people didn't even know that the anime is direced by Shinichiro Watanabe, the guy who worked on COWBOY BEBOP and SAMURAI CHAMPLOO.

Also it's not about "not knowing how to use kissanime", some people just want to support the official release financially and legally. Also some other people who already have Netflix accounts got excited when they heard it was coming to the site but now they learn that they have to wait 6 more months until it's fully released. You might love the anime to death and pirating it doesn't mean that you want to disrespect the creators but you sure aren't helping them now are you? I'm not trying to shame people for pirating, hell, I think that everybody on the internet has already pirated something at least once in their life. But please don't look down on people who have the money and are willing to help studios/creators financially. If they want to wait 6 months and binge watch it let them wait 6 months and leave them alone.

Also please don't get started on that whole "fetishizing" thing. I know this is gonna piss of a lot of people but here's the "hot tea" like tumblr users would say: LGBTQ people want to get accepted into a society where about 90% of it are straight people (which is completely fair and they *should* in fact get accepted) but whenever those straight people approve of a same sex ship it's fetishizing? So wait, when a straight girl ships a wlw ship "it's fine and hey girl you might be bi 😉" but if she's shipping a mlm ship it's suddenly "eew you disgusting bitch, fricking fujoshi I bet you jack off to that stuff, huh?" That's just effed up guys.

YOI got popular only after episode 7 because of the kiss, it was so incredible to the point where most people couldn't believe it, some still thought that it was maybe only a hug because it's rare having mlm and wlw relationships in an anime without the "yuri" or "yaoi" tag. It was also because for once a mlm ship wasn't shown in a bad light like having the taller guy rape the shorter guy then ending it up with "haha, omg I actually liked it haha. Now that you forced yourself on me I like you."

Or it being borderline incest like "Wow, even though he's my not-blood-related brother I have feelings for him."

Or having a huge age gap making it a borderline p*do thing like "He's a divorced adult and I'm only a high school student!! Oh gee what shall I do!!"

YOI became popular not because it was fetishized but BECAUSE it was in fact shown to be a healthy relationship by the creators themselves in a different setting than just "school/slice of life" it was a sports anime and there was no indicator of them becoming a thing. Many thought it was like Free where the guys are gonna have "gay undertones" the whole story but never actually get together. From my experience most "YOI haters" are salty people who still remember the stupid 2016 Crunchyroll awards who didn't mean a thing.

Also keep in mind that tumblr is not the whole internet and it doesn't represent everyone and everything. Even if there are surely some who really do fetishize same sex ships I don't think that most of them are YOI and/or Carole and Tuesday fans. People who really ship wlw and mlm ships are most and for all people who accept the LGBTQ community whether they're part of it or not which is already a big step onward for many. There are still some countries out there where you can get killed or sent to prison for being homosexual so when I see people supporting this type of content I get really thrilled. Not to mention that you can't really "accurately" tell who is "fetishizing" those relationships. You might look at a few reblogs and tell yourself that "Yup, this guy/girl is definitely a creep" but the truth is that you don't know. You have no idea who the person behind this reblog is, who's that person behind the screen. Maybe they're like 15/16 and they're not sure of their sexual orientation yet? Do you need to add a lesbian/gay/bi/trans,etc flag on your profile pic for you to be part of the community? No.

I'm honestly kinda tired of this "tumblr culture" where whenever you have an opinion it has to match others' opinions so you don't get hate/death threats by either kids or adults who don't have a grasp on reality and don't tell themselves that maybe "Hey, that person might actually be depressed and she/he might really kill themselves if I send them this so even if I don't agree with them I probably shouldn't."

People starting their posts with "here's the hot take/TED talk, I've been thinking about it for a while but was scared of talking about it" then it turns out that this "hot take" is 80% of the fandom's opinion and the sheeple in the comments somehow seriously think that it's controversial and are like "OMGG SPILL THE TEA SIS YASSS💖"

Or "Thank. You.👏👏 I was actually scared of saying it so I'm glad you did."

Or even "LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK SIS!!❤"

We're talking about a site where when you *actually* have a *real* "hot take" people will try to personally murder you and browse through your entire blog during 3 days just to find a stupid thing you said like 4 years ago to write a "call out post" on you with the meme "I'm about to end this man's whole career lol" then they be like "lol you fuckin' (insert bad thing here) supporter! I bet you're (insert mental illness/something that means "sick in the head" with a clever twist on words.)"

Then when you like a certain character or ship you have to make a 5k word explanation post where you start off by saying that you do understand that your "fav" is "problematic" and then you proceed to explain why and then you have to be a victim who was either bullied or taken advantage of in order to make people feel bad for sending you death threats and guilt tripping you so that they can forgive your different tastes and just call it a "coping mechanism" or saying that it's fine if you support that character/ship because you're mentally ill. Oh, and don't forget the apology post where you explain to people that just because you said something stupid when you were 14 on your blog it doesn't mean that you still think that way and that your views changed and yada yada yada.

Like?? What the actual fuck people?

Can't we just have a good time on this site for fuck's sake? Carole and Tuesday has only 5 episode right now which is not even 25% of the story since the anime is supposed to have 24 episodes. It's not available on Netflix yet and some people like binge watching series. Give it time, surely it's gonna get recognition soon and we're here to spread it too. I decided that no matter what I'm gonna have a good time watching this amazing anime and I support both CarDay and Victuri and any other healthy wlw and mlm ship, all LGBTQ people and anyone in this world who isn't a serial killer/terrorist/anything bad (obviously)

Thank you for reading the whole thing (hopefully) and if you don't agree and are about to write something really mean about me don't even bother please, you'll be talking to a brick wall and I only accept civilized conversations👌

[theinfiniterick]

Yea no. Fuck off.

There has been a LOT of justification posts for pedo/incest shipping in my feed lately and I finally have to say something. Please read to the end.

Firstly none of these elaborate posts that go to incredible lengths to justify pedophilic relationships in “shipping” form or story form or art form EVER seem to mention the damn law. It IS against the law in the United States to depict such relationships whether photographed OR drawn OR digitally manipulated.

Federal law defines child pornography as “any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer-generated image or picture … of sexually explicit conduct, where the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”  

And yes, you CAN also be charged for WRITING fictional stories involving children in an explicit matter just as Frank Russel McCoy was charged in 2015 with Transportation of Obscene Matters in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1462. He ran a website dedicated to fictional child sex stories that he himself apparently published.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/13-14350/13-14350-2015-03-12.html

Secondly, no one is talking about how downright selfish it is to post this kind of content on Tumblr and in public spaces.

All of these pro-shipping posts try to take a righteous stand by explaining how fiction is separate from reality and how it doesn’t hurt anyone. NEWS FLASH: YOU’RE POSTING IT ON A PUBLIC SITE WHERE PEOPLE *VERY* OFTEN SCROLL UPON IT BECAUSE TUMBLR’S ALGORITHMS PLACE IT IN OUR FEED THANKS TO THE FANDOM ASSOCIATIONS.

And look. When I was 13, best bet I had my own fantasies about older men. There were fictional movie characters I lusted over. There were fictional cartoon characters I lusted over. And I had written my first fanfic at the age of 13 within an anime universe where I made up a fictional pupil that fell in love with her alien martial arts teacher (a full grown man).

But I wrote it for -myself-. On pieces of folder paper. And I had never posted it online. And today I still wouldn’t publish it online in any fandom community I’m in because I understand how it hurts and triggers people and I have enough of a sense of personal responsibility that I’m not going to post it anywhere where someone could come across it and be triggered because I fucking CARE. (–Aside from the fact that now that I’ve far surpassed that age, I now think my own fanfic from back then is gross).

But -thats- the bottom line most of these posts seem to ignore: caring enough about the fucking rest of the world to keep that shit to yourself.

I’m not even going to argue the whole fiction versus reality standpoint. Go ahead and have at that one. Go ahead and keep ranting about how much a fictional ship isn’t real life pedophilia and it doesn’t make these authors bad people because they would never partake in real life.

What you’re NOT gonna do is try to argue how other people SHOULDN’T be hurt or offended by something that’s fictional. You don’t get to fucking determine what triggers someone, asshole. If it triggers them, it triggers them. And all these posts going around about “how not to be triggered by fiction” is honestly fucking sickening and shows a SELFISH disregard for anyone but yourself.

You’re literally out there saying “MY RIGHT TO SHIP IS MORE DAMN IMPORTANT THAN ANYONE ELSE’S FEELINGS OR TRIGGERS.”

Wow. What a stand up fucking person you are.

Ship it in your own head. Ship it in your private groups. Go make your Discords to share your content with each other. But don’t pretend for a fucking second that posting these contents on Tumblr (which is actually against their rules btw) isn’t hurting anyone. It DOES come up in feeds of anyone who follows the fandom. It DOES come up in reblogs of people that we chose to follow not knowing that person took part in that ship.

And since you have to write such elaborate posts defending your ship, that tells all of us that these ships DO get massive amounts of hate and triggers because they DO get massive exposure on this site, and you DO know about that. So there’s no damn two ways about it. You know good and well how many people it offends and triggers and yet you do it anyway. Because your right to post that fantasy is more important than anyone else’s feelings.

And here you are trying to argue that these ships don’t make you bad people... ^

No one can make you change that ship in your mind. No one can stop you from wanting to create arts and fictions of it. I’m not gonna argue with you about the separation of reality from fiction, but I will say that before you defend yourself for not being a bad person, take a good hard look:

You act as if you’re above the law.

You disregard tumblr’s own guidelines.

You don’t give a shit for how your content triggers others on a PUBLIC website and place your right to ship above everyone else’s mental well-being.

And by transitive morality, you’re actually *willingly* choosing to hurt others because you know it will and yet you do it anyway.

Transitive morality is a greater sense of good that the most selfless of people understand. An example you might be familiar with is when MCU Spider-Man tells Tony: “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” Peter understands that when he can do something to prevent harm and he doesn’t, it’s pretty much like he caused the harm himself.

And yea, not everyone operates by such morality. A lot of people take disgustingly very little personal responsibility in the prevention of harm to others. But that’s why I’m pointing this out to you. So you can learn to be better than that.

You can continue on being selfish because your ship is more important than anyone’s triggers and keep justifying ways it doesn’t make you a bad person.

Or you can look at that list and realize: you know what… that is pretty shitty of me. Be a better fucking person and learn that while it might be harmless to have certain desires in your own head, while you might not be an actual pedophile, while you might not condone real rape and incest, placing your fantasies where you *know* people will be triggered still makes you a pretty damn shitty person.

[pandorem]

A quite frankly REALLY exhausting thing about tumblr discourse (of any kind) is how the people on this site tend to take really important conversations we need to be having, and turn them into something extreme and toxic.

I’ve reblogged things about how terrifying and awful cancelled culture is (and shockingly enough, cancelled culture is not the same thing as an abuser being fired from their job for constantly harassing people), but it’s more than that. This pattern shows up, as far as I can tell, in every discourse that arises on this site.

People talk about cultural appropriation, and why it’s awful, and others turn it into something borderline segregational about how you should never go to restaurants for food from cultures that you don’t belong to. Not just criticizing people who go into these places and then are racist shits about it, or talking about how foods that kids of color used to be made fun of for are now the trendy thing to eat and that double standard sucks, but saying you shouldn’t support businesses of people of colour at all, which I don’t think is actually helping those places???

We talk about Neurotypical Karen, and how people telling you you shouldn’t take medication and you should just be happy and get over it, or do yoga instead are really awful and unhelpful things to say, and suddenly people are attacking other neurodivergent people about their posts on things that can help (and turns out have helped themselves) when you are in the depths of depression, in the middle of a bad anxiety day, or caught in an executive dysfunction loop, or, god forbid, things that can help you cope with your mental illness if you don’t have the privilege of having money or access to medication. They attack them and call them ableist pieces of trash for trying to help other people like themselves.

We talk about queerbaiting, and how damaging and hurtful it can be, and suddenly people think it’s perfectly okay to send death threats to people working on a show who may or may not have had any power or say over that aspect of the show. Or accuse actual queer creators of queer baiting because they had to use subtext to get around networks who literally won’t allow them to show anything more concrete. Or sometimes both!

People bring up the incredibly valid point that there are a lot of white people (even ones that act like they are allies) who care more about animal cruelty than they do human beings who are victims to racism and police brutality, and then someone sends anonymous hate to a blog advocating for an endangered species (one that humans keep killing because we keep making completely unfactual movies about how they are man eaters and killing machines), accusing them of being racist with no other evidence then ‘cares about sharks and doesn’t want them to go extinct’. Because someone obviously never learned that Correlation does not equal Causation, and got the idea that it’s not wanting animals to go extinct that MAKES people racist, obviously.

People talk about not wanting to support content creators who turn out to be bad people, and then people find a content creator annoying and they ACTIVELY WISH that it turns out they are terrible people, so that they can feel morally superior to the people who get a little joy out of them in this shit world. Shut the fuck up. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU WISH THERE WERE MORE BAD PEOPLE IN THE WORLD LITERALLY BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE BEING HAPPY ABOUT A THING YOU DON’T LIKE ANNOYS YOU. FUCK OFF.

I just... I’m really tired of this shit. There are so many other examples I could talk about, this kind of behaviour turns up everywhere. Shut the fuck up and check yourself. Accept that just like other people aren’t, you are not the one true purveyor of all morality.