#I honestly feel very privileged when it comes to the engagement I get

[amethystina]

If it gets ten kudos, I consider the fic a success. Because, when you think about it, ten is a pretty solid group of people. Like, if I were to gather those ten people in a room, I would probably feel a little intimidated knowing so many people read and liked something I wrote. But I'd also be really happy since, hopefully, the fact that they liked it also meant I made their day better. And improving the day of ten people is definitely something to be proud of :)

I need to print this and put this on my wall, or just have a screenshot of it on my laptop. I had stopped writing for a while, just because the engagement with my fics was so low. The kudos is always okay but the comments were so low, it made me doubt my ability to write for sure. And it's still in my brain now but I am writing on a Stony fic I had stopped and it's nice to write and think about.

So yeah, I need this on my wall. 😊

Go right ahead! I'm very happy if I can offer comfort or motivation :)

I also want to point out that there's nothing wrong with wanting engagement on one's fics. I just try to put my expectations into a context that's easier for me to grasp. I think it's easy to just go "I want as many kudos as possible" — which, again, is valid — but I prefer to focus on what's beyond that. Like the joy I'm bringing people and the difference I might be making in someone's day.

That's not to say that I don't love when I get lots of comments and kudos — of course I do — but I try not to expect them. And, if I do get them, I try to appreciate them for more than just their number. Which is one of the reasons why I reply to every single comment. Because they're not just a statistic to me. There is an actual person on the other end of that comment and it blows my mind that people take time out of their day to write them. I'm just so grateful for every single one.

Also, just a casual observation: Certain fandoms seem to be having a problem with dwindling comments. Not going to lie, I was pretty surprised when I wrote for Marvel again for the first time in years because I got fewer comments than I ever have. Like, the number of comments on the first two chapters of my Stuckony fic is roughly the same as the comments on the first two chapters of my Mad Dog fic. And Mad Dog is an obscure Kdrama from 2017 that literally no one cares about. The comments on the Mad Dog fic are also a lot longer and more thoughtful.

That sort of thing depends on what kind of people are in the fandom, of course, and if there's a previous bond between the reader and writer, but I'd say it's not just you. Something has definitely happened within certain fandoms that results in authors getting fewer comments.

And maybe me saying this ruins the encouragement you were able to get from that other reply of mine, but I want you to remember that: it's not you. It's not that you're a bad writer, people just don't seem to be commenting like they used to. Which is discouraging for sure, but at least it's not your fault.

And maybe reframing how you look at kudos and comments will help? It's definitely okay to want them — we all do — and it's understandable to feel sad when we don't, but please don't let that stop you from writing. It's not your fault and you shouldn't doubt yourself 💜

So good luck with your fic and I hope you have lots of fun writing it! 😘

[tee-dohrnii]

Hey!! I’d love to see Thalia and Gale being domestic, if you don’t mind!! Your art is GORGEOUS.

I’d also love to learn more about Thalia’s backstory or any Gale headcannons you had!

I hope this counts as being domestic I just can't resist a good nap time moment :') and I also wanted to just do doodles but I got carried away and started coloring 😭 coloring has never been my strong suit so I hope this is fine

And uaaa thank you for thinking my art is gorgeous!!! I'm honestly really glad to see people are enjoying my silly doodles here thank you!!

--- vv Thalia backstory blurb vv ---

In terms of backstory, honestly I haven't been able to flesh it out much yet! I also don't know much about dnd lore (I really wish I did) so anything I say here may not be consistent with lore :'D

However, what I have so far is Thalia used to be Thalia Adkrana, daughter of a noble family from a powerful bloodline of storm sorcerers. Despite being the 4th born child out of 5 children, since birth she's shown to be more blessed with magic than anyone in her family, powerful storms raging around her constantly when she was younger and destroying anything around her, causing trouble for her family. As she grew older, she may have logically understood how it is to keep her lightning under control, but whenever she gets very emotional her magic tends to lash out in response to her reactions. Growing up privileged and powerful, she also developed a bit of a superiority complex and an awful temper when things don't go her way, so not really a good combo when her magic gets unstable when she's upset.

Because of this, her family preferred keeping her within their property as much as possible to avoid dealing with her and to avoid troubling others, especially when one wrong outburst from her could ruin their family reputation. Growing up isolated from world didn't really help her grow and mature properly either, and her temper tantrums got worse and worse the longer she was kept in there and the more her family seemed to just give up on her. The only one she could really confide in and find comfort in was her younger brother.

Everything really changed when one day she decided to speak up against her family and demanding they let her leave the house, let her come with them to one of their social gatherings. Hells, she's been trapped in their property for so many years at this point she wants to engage with people, even peasants at this point because she'd rather deal with them than look at the same suffocating decor for even another second. Voices and tempers rising, she grew more and more frustrated as her parents kept shutting down every argument she could come up with, and the more the storms around her grew the more she proved that her parents were right for keeping her in. Angry at them, angry at herself, thunder roared and the lightning sparks dancing around her gathered into huge bolts of lightning, surging out of her in rage as if her magic itself was screaming out for her if her words and her voice couldn't reach her family. She knew they had every good reason to not let her out, knowing her own lack of control over her own emotions - but maybe if they trusted her just once, guided her, saw her as someone in desperate need of help instead of a stain on their family name, maybe things could've been different.

But that's not how we got to this point. A loud thud of a body falling flat on the ground snapped her out of her state and right beside them lay one of their servants, dead at her feet, and as if the panic she was feeling couldn't get any worse, just close by she saw her younger brother lying on the floor, badly hurt and crying out from pain. Immediately her parents, older siblings, and anyone who heard them nearby rushed to her little brother and the poor servant, doing their best to take care of the situation and Thalia stood there silent, watching her world fall apart in front of her eyes.

The order to banish her from their home came soon after, no longer Thalia Adkrana but simply Thalia, removing her status and all the benefits that name gave. Since she so desperately wanted to go out and see the world, now the world is all she'll have and no home to return to.

Kinda really awful timing when shortly after she started her new unwanted life as an adventurer, she got picked up by a nautiloid and had a tadpole squirming its way behind her eye.

And also shortly after meeting poor souls who shared the same unfortunate tadpole situation she was facing, it's no wonder Thalia fell so hard for a certain wizard who showed her in one night how beautiful, intimate, and warm magic could be as it enveloped her whole being like a gentle embrace - that her power and her emotions were something she could learn to channel and not be afraid of, a perspective her family failed to teach her for years. And even if at times she still found herself electrocuting the waters they stood on in her anger or excitement and hurting them, or maybe her temper would get the best of her again and she would unconsciously lash out at them before she could even realize she was yelling, after every argument or petty insults thrown at each other, they would still watch out for one another and care for each other and soon after they'd be sitting around a campfire laughing and enjoying each other's company.

It's no wonder once she's found a family she truly belonged in and felt safe in that her true nature finally bloomed after being suppressed for so long - a kind, lonely girl who loved being around people and helping them in all the ways she wished she could've helped her younger self ages ago, never letting anyone get left behind and given up on like she was back then.

Although being out of touch from reality for many years did create a lot of very awkward moments when interacting with people during the beginning of their journey, she did learn very fast how best to compose herself in public - best she could when the ones teaching her are also a couple of social outcasts but hey it's fine.

---

Whew! That's a lot actually. Idek if any of that makes sense I'm not going to proofread all that :') I also don't really have any Gale headcanons I do really enjoy reading other people's headcanons about him though!

I hope this answer is sufficient ^_^

[writingjourney]

I’m in need of some advice and kind words. As a fellow writer I’m really struggling to believe people will and want to read my stuff. There’s no real engagement anymore and I’m worried that if I post my long-form fic that no one will give it a chance. It’s really bringing me down because I love it so much but it feels like no matter what I try to do my stuff just doesn’t get seen or liked? I’ve even thought about changing my entire way of how I do things since I don’t think the way I write is working for the masses. How do you keep up the motivation as a popular writer and do you have an advice?

Hello anon!! I feel like this is something many of us currently deal with. And first of all I seriously hope that you do share your story!! ♡

To be completely honest with you the lack of engagement in the fandom has for sure impacted my own motivation which is why I haven't been putting as much time into longer fics (nor the Friday Nights series or IKNBS, I do write but I refuse to force myself). I don't feel any urgency because uploading fics hasn't made me as happy as it used to. It feels like only other active writers are reading fic atm and it creates a lot of pressure on creatives to stay super active.

I'm aware that I'm insanely privileged to have the engagement that I do have, that the type of stories I want to write are also the type of stories that generally seem to appeal. However, engagement tells you NOTHING about the quality of your work, only how many people are active in a fandom or like a specific pairing/character/trope. Your own unique voice matters more than numbers.

I also notice that a lot of people who used to read my works have disappeared which I completely understand. The fixation can ebb away during times of inactivity or when a certain hype dies down. People just don't get that dopamine hit anymore and move on. It's also entirely possible they get tired of a certain style of writing and prefer other writers at times, what do I know. I definitely don't blame anyone for that. First and foremost people should read for their own enjoyment and engage with fandom in a way that makes them happy. It makes no sense to pressure people into engaging. A huge issue right now is people overthinking these things which makes support transactional instead of genuine.

I don't care much about notes but I REALLY miss the feeling of sharing a fic with people who are excited for it, that sense of an active community. BUT the activity will come back – the movie will come out, new music and videos, heck even a whole new Papa!!! That's the natural flow of things. We can't be excited and super active all the time, we need phases of calmness as well (which is an act of rebellion in the capitalist hellscape of overproduction and churned out content. I am honestly glad Ghost is taking it easy).

Now, I recommend you write your story exactly how you want to!!! do NOT change it for the sake of popularity because it will lose its very soul and you will struggle to be happy with it by the end. You know how you want to tell your story and nothing else matters. It will find its readers or you can wait and share it at a later point. I recommend that you approach other writers and readers and intensify that contact, make friends and talk to them about your stories, hype each other up, share snippets. It's even more meaningful to know people you like enjoy what you do. I am currently working on super niche fics for non-Ghost characters and I'm honestly having a great time chasing that dopamine by just writing what I'm really into and sharing it with friends. Fandom is community, fandom is fun and we can work to make it better for everyone.

A few general tips when it comes to making stories accessible: Format them to be readable (paragraphs!!), add a "read more" break, add proper content information and a nice summary to draw people in, add some visual appeal like a banners or stock image edits (like i do for IKNBS) and then tag the fics with relevant tags (and only those). Also make sure to tag the OG post, tags on reblogs do nothing for reach. Engage with the community when you feel like it and it's likely that the community will engage back. Being supportive is worth it, being kind is always worth it even if it amounts to nothing.

[holymolyfizzie]

stolas, self-awareness, & self-help

the narrative i keep seeing is that Stolas has little self-awareness, but idk how much i believe that really? or at least, i really don't think that Stolas is actively trying to be oblivious. it's been clear for a while now that Stolas is trying to understand what's going on. we can go back to the texts from after the night at Ozzie's of Stolas asking Blitz to talk, but honestly we have so much of him saying upfront that he wants to understand what's happening between him and Blitz exactly

i mean, take "Just Look My Way" as a case. this is a song where Stolas makes it clear that he is aware of the privilege differences ("I don't care that you're of lower station... Scorned by a realm that cannot comprehend what you are"). and we see that again when he realizes Blitz and him are in an unfair relationship due to the power imbalance, then actively works to make sure Blitz can leave at any moment without jeopardizing his livelihood. but he also makes it abundantly clear that he knows there's something missing and wants a dialogue with Blitz. a dialogue that Blitz is refusing to engage in beyond, frankly, assumptions and mockery. Stolas has reached out time and again, and he's so upfront here about wanting to understand the whole context!! he's missing knowledge. but it's a leap to say that he's completely not self-aware. and we have it again in Apology Tour:

Stolas is still saying that he wishes he understood more, that he wants a dialogue! Stolas is a self-aware birdy, enough to gather that he has knowledge gaps, but he doesn't know how to get that knowledge except for the words that Blitz has refused to give him so far. he is holding so much evidence (memories) at once in his head, but Stolas is also clearly someone that is trying not to make big assumptions (like Blitz does), so he's not understanding the evidence given to him in terms of a narrative. Apology Tour is about giving him the narrative that Blitz is an abuser and doesn't care about him (obv we know Blitz does care, and it's clear that Stolas pieced that together himself as well, at least before the party), but even now he has doubts in his gaps in knowledge. that's not an oblivious person to me -- it's someone who's uninformed but trying his best with the info he's been given

Also. Stolas has been going to a therapist, or getting self-help in some other way. we should know that already because he has meds for his depression. he has some form of help outside of what we see on the screen. but Apology Tour has really showcased how he is using "therapy talk" to express his feelings. because, for those who don't know, when it comes to couples counseling especially, it's encouraged to use "I feel X" statements when communicating:

compare this to how Blitz uses so many "you" statements (You want me to show your rich, prince-y ass what a real fuckin' is. / You get off by being plowed by people you look down on). when Blitz speaks, you can hear the automatic assumptions, and it's a stunningly clear contrast to how Stolas only speaks about what he knows

and then there's expressing how he knows Blitz doesn't need to reciprocate Stolas's feelings and actions, but a dialogue is still necessary if they're going to try and make things work. Again, this is very much the signs of someone who is seeking outside help to understand the situation:

And as much as I know we like seeing Stolitz again, Stolas has set his boundary over and over and over again in these past 2 eps. a boundary that Blitz keeps breaking. But Stolas is still communicating that he's uncomfortable in the best ways he knows how, in spite of the alcohol and pain:

we need to take a moment on that! Stolas is self-aware enough to know his boundaries and to communicate them. It's frustrating to see them broken (which is NOT Stolas's fault, Blitz shows up unannounced and even broke into his home! what the fuck!), and it really puts Blitz into an abuser role right now. but stolas has been setting healthy boundaries.

(also for the whole oh he wants a romcom, it's unrealistic. no, he is not that delusional. he literally acknowledges in Apology Tour that he knows romcoms are fake, but that he still wants a loving relationship. and he gets so excited when someone asks him to dance!!! Stolas doesn't want some huge romcom -- he wants to know what it's like to be actually loved, even in the smallest ways. don't come at me about Stolas being romcom-delusional, he's not. such a non-starter)

Stolas is a gay man who has always known he is gay. He was literally forced into an abusive, hetero marriage that he didn't know he could escape until very recently. he has some 2 decades worth of relationship trauma and having his boundaries violated by his own father + Stella. but he is still getting some forms of help and working on growing as a person who can hold a healthy relationship that includes healthy communication. he is reaching out to Blitz, asking for clarification, and asking for boundaries to be respected with the tools he has

and frankly, speaking as an abuse survivor myself, Stolas is incredibly self-aware. it's such a huge step forward to know what your boundaries are and actually set them after getting out of an abusive situation (Blitz is yelling at me? i can leave this time). and not only to know his own boundaries, but to understand that Blitz also has walls up because of his status in Hell. Stolas knows how he feels, and he is really fucking trying to understand how Blitz feels

should he try again to apologize for the contractual relationship and earlier treatment? yes, of course. but. Stolas has been trying for several episodes now to work this out, and he's hit a wall. he can go no further on his own with this relationship. all he can do is try to move on from what has, honestly, become another abusive relationship for him

I'm sorry but that's not an oblivious birdy. Stolas has grown so much and is so self-aware, actually. he's simply not getting the communication he needs to sustain this relationship anymore

so to Vivzie's "Stolas still not quite being self aware enough at times" in the ep description: prove it. because i'm not fucking convinced Stolas is that bad off.

[whence-the-woody]

Not willing to rewatch coz s1 I'm not a huge fan of and s2 is too much emotion for me rn but trying to remember Colin's character through the show. Coz in this season he's definitely all over the place.

Like in s1 I guess you could characterise him as a bit hopeless romantic, quick to fall in love, impulsive, kinda goofy. Definitely a younger brother. You could say easily embarrassed then but honestly the way he acted was hella fucking embarrassing, I'd hide too. Could be a sweet son. Not a bad friend but incredibly oblivious. Held grudges for sure.

Then s2 he was undebatably INSUFFERABLE after his travels. Pretentious and annoying. Not understanding of boundaries or able to let things go (the Maria visits). An experimental drug dude, which yknow good for him. Still v little bro energy, mocking his brothers all the time. Not alot of empathy. Very privileged - I mean they all are but compared to Anthony's level of responsibility he clearly had none. Showed some positive protective instincts, helping out the featheringtons. So in some ways shown to be a better friend but in others WAY worse - talking shit on Pen: unforgivable. So still easily embarrassed. Kind of a little shit but not particularly funny I wouldn't say? That's bendict. Not very opinionated, that's Eloise. Francesca has passion he didn't. Idk just kinda nothing in terms of ways to describe him.

Then s3. Oh boy. Suddenly after yet more travels hes a chronic flirt - no hate just a weird 180. Discovered the joys of group sex at some point - again no hate but tells me nothing about who he is. He doesnt seem to be looking for marriage? Doesnt mention any goals or interests? He says he doesnt care what others think of him but that majorly contradicts everything that came before. Then he says hes been trying to be what society wants - so contradiction again. He considers himself a flirting expert out of nowhere? Okay dude. In a desperate attempt to make them compatible hes suddenly also a gossip? Sure. Also suddenly has a study and is a writer?? Other than writing letter to Pen, where the hell did that come from? Just everyone getting completely sick of hearing his stories? y'all had 2 previous seasons to make them seem compatible, why throw this stuff in now? He's not a romantic, doesnt seem to understand why Pen wants marriage - even though was so quick to get engaged two years ago. He still doesnt have a lot of empathy really. Still easily embarassed. Not much showing him to be a good brother. Still a pretty sweet son and obviously idealised his parents relationship, that's something. Absolutely impulsive - interrupting that dance, good god sir. You could argue he was jealous in s1 so that checks out. The romantic dialogue really paled in comparison to previous seasons but maybe that is in character?

But still I try to think of his personality and Im kinda like ??

Smug. Jealous. Pretty unserious. Privledged. Sometimes protective. A newfound gossip and writer. Self conscious most of the time but other times completely oblivious to peoples social cues. Impulsive for sure. A sweet son. Meh brother. No friends, goals or talents.

I just feel like Daphne and Anthony, by this point in their seasons, were really fleshed out characters and personalities. You knew who they were, their motivations, their histories, their huberis. Its been 3 years and I still feel like we dont know Colin. Maybe because the focus is on Pen? But even then I dont know if they've hugely expanded on her character thus far.

I guess I wonder that for the people who are huge fans of Colin - why? Who do you think he is? What is his character? Do you think its consistent? Does the inconsistency make sense to you somehow? I cant be invested in this dude when I still dont know who he is (also when the actor is okay at best lbr)

[6lostgirl6]

Yandere Bill and Ted? Please, with extra sprinkles on top. Maybe with black reader.

Yandere!Bill & Ted With Black!Reader HCs

TW: Yandere Trope, Stalking, Kidnapping, Cursing

Bill S Preston Esquire 

Bill would be classified as an overprotective yandere. 

In order for Bill to have a crush on you it would be if you were nice to him and/or helped him with something he was struggling with. 

Then, he’s hooked. 

Unlike Ted, Bill would actually be engaging with you and try to learn more about you in a direct way. 

He would slowly start becoming friends with you but after a while he would need more. 

Again, he's a protective yandere and if you were being bullied, he would already be throwing his fists to defend you. 

Would that result in him getting his ass kicked? Probably, but he still tries and he had won a couple. 

Don't underestimate his strength, he definitely has some.

For months he has planned on kidnapping you after what happened at school but given his living situation, it would be impossible. 

As long as nothing major happens, Bill is content with waiting until he can get his own apartment. 

There are times when Bill would need Ted's help with planning on kidnapping you and he trusts his best friend to keep it a secret. 

When Bill finally takes you, he prefers to have you cuffed instead of ropes because you managed to almost escape because he thought double-knotting was enough. 

When it comes to punishments, the worst Bill would ever do would be removing your privileges to listen to music or watch television. 

When you finally adapt to the relationship, Bill would be an amazing boyfriend.

He could constantly make you laugh and play some of his favorite albums for you. 

He's not very big on PDA but since he doesn't let you leave anyway, there's nothing for him to worry about. 

His favorite place to kiss you would be your forehead and cheek.

Ted Theodore Logan

I classify Ted as being an obsessive yandere.

When he first saw you as a new student at San Dimas, he was immediately harboring a massive crush on you. 

However, in comparison to Bill, Ted would be more shy in approaching you and engaging in a conversation. 

This is where stalking would come into play and he really doesn’t play when it comes to finding out anything about you. 

If he owned a camera, he would take pictures of you from a distance and have them hidden somewhere in his room so his dad doesn’t find them. If he was ever caught, Ted doesn’t even want to imagine it.

Furthermore, Ted is not against sneaking love letters into your locker to proclaim how gorgeous you were and how much he thought about you.

Don’t ever ask him how much though, he literally thinks about you all the time and it’s extremely unhealthy where his grades were starting to slip because he was too busy imagining a life with you. 

One time he wasn’t paying attention and wrote both of your initials on his math test and it took almost a whole eraser to erase it from how hard he had the lead pressed against the paper. 

If something were to happen to you involving bullying, Ted would find a way to make sure that person was incredibly injured or better, dead.

He would need Bill’s help though because he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own and he knows his best friend wouldn’t tattle because Bill has been feeling the same way about his own crush!

Unfortunately, due to his living situation with literally living with his father being a police officer he would be unable to kidnap you. 

However, the time where he gets an apartment would be your downfall. He would not hesitate to kidnap you in order to have you to himself. 

One time you managed to escape because Ted didn’t tighten the ropes very well and one time he tied the rope like you would a shoelace. Please, help him. 

Ted doesn’t like giving punishments and he honestly doesn’t know how to do so. The only thing he would do to ‘punish’ you would be to strip you from your favorite snacks or something. 

In a relationship with him, he would be the sweetest yandere. 

Always complimenting you and playing some songs for you, even if it wasn't really that good but the sentiment was still there!

He’s extremely affectionate and loves kissing you and will kiss you anywhere.

His favorite place to kiss you are your lips and neck, he just finds you so attractive that he can’t help it. 

Taglist:

@leiasolo77 @patient1666074 @britany1997

[hamliet]

very random ask, but if you have any thoughts, I'm curious to know: I remember for the AOT final chap you made some comments comparing Eren's "tantrum" to incels- how it can come from a real place of hurt, which doesn't make the impact any less harmful. I was curious if you've ever stumbled on incel content (not like Andrew Tate, just dudes with a webcam). Do you ever feel a desire to engage with them? Try to somehow help them even when you're so angry? I can't help but want to, even if futile.

For Eren, I more made the comparison to toxic Reddit dudebros, some of whom are like that, but not all.

No, I don't really seek it out because it would just enrage me, and there are better things to do with my time and with anger lol. I don't think it would be particularly helpful for me.

That said, I think that they're human beings who are feeling exceedingly alienated and lonely, desperate and scared, and project that blame onto someone else (women). And, they are entitled about it and instead of taking responsibility and doing what they can, they give up and complain because it's easier than actually trying to better themselves and the hellscape we live in. Even if it is futile. And part of it is surely the anger about privilege being called out and the entitlement that comes with that, but part of it is also genuine loneliness and confusion.

I dunno. I've seen other people engage, and engage positively too (like ContraPoints on YouTube, for example). And that's great, because someone has to to not write those people off as subhuman, because that only breeds further radicalization. People can't change without relationship, and they can't change without hope. I can intellectually empathize with where they're coming from, but I'm not sure I would personally be able to make any sort of connection without ending up dropkicking them into a wall lol.

Like, Idk, you only have to log on to reddit to see a lot of widespread misogyny incel-talking points there, like the zillions of fake paternity fraud posts or how men don't understand nor participate in empathizing with what it's like to be the pregnant person in a relationship (you do not in fact have equal say, nor do 99% of them even understand the most basic pregnancy facts like how it's calculated--hint it isn't date of conception) or who leave their partners when they get sick. (The latter one is personal for me, too; I had a boyfriend who withdrew and "couldn't deal with it" when I was told I might have lymphoma; I did not end up having it, but either way, that was basically the end right there.)

I do think incels and other radicalized groups of people can change. I know they can, because I grew up in a fundie cult and left. And that won't happen if the entire world just cuts them off, but that also doesn't mean anyone is obligated to reach out, if that makes sense. But for me, this particular group incenses me because of particular triggers and experiences I have. I'm more likely to reach out to the fundamentalist religious types because I can, well, understand a bit more.

What's needed to reach out to people in any sort of extremist place is seeing them as human beings, honestly. You'd be surprised at how far that simple idea--treating someone like a person more than just their stupid, toxic, evil beliefs--goes. Which does mean reaching out to them with more than just "I want to change your mind" because that treats people like a project and people don't tend to like that lol. But reaching out and wanting to hear their stories and listen, not for a "gotcha" moment but out of "hey, you're a person" is fair. And not everyone can reach out to everyone, and that's also fair. But also be aware of groupthink and how it functions for your own sanity and safety, too.

[nothingmatters-everythingmatters]

Prefacing this ask by saying it is LONG and I'm sorry about that. I'm not trying to convince you to transition or something wild like that. It's just that I've been thinking about one of your posts a lot, and I sort of wanted your thoughts on my thoughts.

I'm doing something very similar to lurking on TERF blogs at the moment, but to be honest, it's less to critique myself as a trans person and more like being in high school and finding out who's saying what about you. And I'm sorry about that, because I figure from your blog that you find safety in these sorts of spaces, and in telling you this I figure I'm taking some of that safety away.

I am very, very transgender. My little brother is, too - when we found out, my mum said something about how she knew having all girls was too good to be true. I like to joke that it runs in the family. Neither of us can medically transition, because he's too young and I'm almost eighteen, so they don't know what to do with me. I have to wait until I'm of age and then figure something out. I try not to think about my brother growing up, because while he's always passing now, he won't in a few years. I also try not to think about how much it will cost.

I have this little JK Rowling in my head at all times, repeating everything I've ever read under the gender critical tag. "You're running away from womanhood - you're betraying the female population - you're a poor, confused girl, and you've been sucked into a cult of misogyny run by a transfem oligarchy - you're a stain on the queer community - you're too privileged, too spoiled, and that's why you've got time to think about pronouns and deadnames and how much you would give for a beard - you're a fucking disgrace and it'd do the whole world a service if you could just shut up and sit down."

And I guess I hear that often enough that I can't escape it. I can accept that I'm a freak and a disappointment to my parents and an attention seeker and a traitor and a victim and a perpetrator and a hostage and a loaded gun all at once. But those arguments fall through when it comes to my brother, and even if they did apply to him, how could I tell him to be quiet and go back to the girl's bathroom? How could I tell him, this seven year old with dreams that reach the sky, that he's a mockery of modern feminism?

I don't know. I guess I can't turn myself away the same as I can't turn him away. What would you think about either of us eventually medically transitioning? Not early, not being pushed into anything against our will - just of our own accord when we feel it's right. And for that matter, what do you think about this whole situation? Have I got it wrong? Are we the poor leftist bastards my little JK Rowling says we are?

Sorry again for the long ask, and I hope the world is treating you well. I think your style of writing is awesome, and I'm very glad you're comfortable in your gender identity.

Thanks for your time, and for a good portion of your inbox, depending how much space this ends up taking. Have a good night

hi, no worries about the long ask, I did start this blog with the hope I could engage in discussions and hear about other people's experiences directly, so I am absolutely happy to receive this! I myself will preface this is likely going to be a long, long response as well, since I want to give your message a lot of thought and attention.

[I'll put the response under a keep reading break because I suspect this will get very annoying to scroll through if continue the way I'm planning to lol]

first off, I want to say I can't really truly tell you if you should medically transition or not. I think it's a highly personal choice, and only through seeking your own avenues of self reflection and questioning would you really be able find what is the best for you. and honestly I still can't say I've written the entire concept off for myself. In some ways, that's a little hypocritical, as I obviously am currently engaging with an ideology that disagrees with the entire premise of transitioning in the first place, but I think expecting people to be "ideologically pure" is a bit of a misstep. an argument or philosophical stance would not make sense to inhabit hypocrisy, but an individual can be made of contradictions, and I can accept myself to inhabit these contradictions as long as I also allow myself time to act reasonably in spite of the conflicts in my mind. In a perfect world, if medical technology gets better and transition is a more risk-free and well-researched path, maybe I would take the opportunity to alleviate my dysphoria like that. but in this world, I choose to dig further to the core of my dysphoria instead and approach it from another angle.

I will say what stopped me from solely seeing transition as a "cure" for my dysphoria and identity issues was a deep consideration if it would do me personally more good than harm. a pros and cons list, if you will, just with way more back and forth dialogue within myself. some of the things I contemplated obviously may not be relevant to you, or anyone else, for that matter, but I find that it could offer helpful insight just to hear about someone else's thought process without any argument or "agenda", just pure self reflection. so, here we go...

presenting... the reasons/the thought process that made me decide to not pursue transition for the foreseeable future:

medical transition is a BIG deal. I mean, no shit, but I think in my research process there were two distinct phases I went through. one of idealization and envy, and the other of coming to terms with practicality and the realistic aspect of medical transition. In phase one, I was absolutely idealizing the thought of medical transition, because of course, before I gave gender ideology itself too much critical thought, being a man and passing as a man sounded like literal heaven on earth. sure, I could sort of pass to many first glances when binding if I didn't speak, but if I had the deep voice, the muscles, and facial hair to help, I wouldn't have to be stuck in my current terrible cocoon of a body and I could be like the artists and musicians I idolized. I was pretty jealous of most men I met, just the fact they were born like that. I was/am especially jealous of men who have "feminine" traits like longer hair or painted nails and got more female attention because of it (in hindsight, it's a bit obvious this wasn't a gender thing as much as it was related to my sexuality but that's a whole tangent I won't subject you to). I also was incredibly inspired by non-binary and trans influencers, even though I had long forbade myself from going on tiktok again, instagram and youtube and the like were still there, and everyone post-transition looked so happy and they were so charismatic and of course they were all living their best lives in LA and working in entertainment, a life I had been looking at rosily since I was a kid. however, once I seriously started looking into HRT and top surgery (it helped that I gained a little more realism into my perception of social media too) and when I seriously considered the impact it would have on my body, (stereotypically I didn't want to bald, I knew acne wouldn't be good for me as I already have issues with skin picking, and the atrophy and other complications weren't exactly appealing) I couldn't justify rushing into it like I wanted to. it was definitely a mental back and forth, but I did compromise with myself and decide to take more small steps to socially transition first and make non-medical lifestyle changes like vocal training for a lower register, actually working out and losing some weight, dressing in a way that feels comfortable for me, asking myself how I could change what I dislike about my being while still honoring it, not harming it or making a medical commitment.

I do not feel like a stable enough adult with any kind of financial independence to pursue something like this alone. obviously, transition is not something anyone has to do alone, but for me, I realized it is a primarily self-serving and self-oriented pursuit, and i wouldn't really feel like I was fully committing to it of my own volition if I had to get immense amounts of financial and emotional support for it. this isn't really applicable to all and might be tied to some of my own personal hang ups on depending on others, but I do think when it comes to your own body, you need to be assured in how you're handling it. since I can't even make my own doctor's appointments and I absolutely do not have a stable income, I figured I should at least "transition" into a functioning adult who can make my phone calls before I upend my life with surgery.

I want to live life. sort of related to point one and two, I realized in order to get to a point where I could confidently make decisions for myself and in the process of slowly transitioning rather than waiting for the moment I could make the two big changes that would "solve" everything, I needed to actually live life instead of waiting for my life to start after a perfect transition. again, this is pretty highly specific and doesn't apply to everyone, but for me I just felt the time I spent entrenched in the process of trying to pass/planning my future around medical transition/and just obsessing over how others perceived me, even though this was supposed to be a decision for myself, my concern on how others looked at me was literally keeping me from going outside. on bad dysphoria days I would just self-isolate and spend it all online, doomscrolling on conservative transphobic forums taking the insults towards me or watching hyperpositive trans tiktok compilations, sometimes I did both at once for no good reason other than to prolong my catatonic self-pity party. it was bad, no matter where I decided to focus on, whether it was the negatives or positives of transition and transgender philosophy, I was mentally stuck. I'd never considered letting go of the thing I had fixated so long on, until I actually started reading more nuanced perspectives about it. specifically, this blog popped up when I was suffering from a bit of binding pain and offered a really thorough and compassionate deconstruction of gender dysphoria that I hadn't really seen before. that, combined with seeing more of radblr actually (which, for its expected faults as any online space would have, is still generally the nicest community discussing radical feminism and gender critical viewpoints imo) made me realize there was a way to handle my dysphoria from a more reasonable and less isolating viewpoint, a viewpoint that allowed me some [pun not intended] space to breath.

re-evaluating my self criticism was something really important as well. I really relate to your little brain JK Rowling, I always felt like I had a very judgy TERF in my brain yelling at a "counterculture" side of me, telling me all the ways I was wrong and stupid for feeling this way, or even considering transition at all. what helped was realizing this wasn't the voice of a radical feminist in my head at all, it was just my own voice of self-hatred doing what it always does, undermining my mind, painting itself in a TERF archetype because from my time online I could easily shorthand it as an "enemy" of sorts. but it isn't real, as most internet archetypes aren't real. this might be one of my biggest gripes with internet lgbt culture in general, (although this is a general issue with social media and internet culture in all cases, but I digress) the reduction of individuals and opinions into tropes and pithy sayings. I might just be too neurotic to ever take anything at face value, and clearly based on this blog, I like deconstructing things and yapping about them way too much. "kill all TERFs" and "JK Rowling is horrible and evil" suddenly holds way less weight when you take time to ask why? what did JK Rowling actually say? why do the TERFs all supposedly deserve to die? am I falsely attributing my own insecurities and self-hatred to a caricature of a viewpoint I've just been told is the worst? after further consideration I find it hard to believe that out of all the terrible people and ideologies in the world, the radical feminists and the british wizard books author think I specifically am a worthless piece of garbage. I mean, this is also why I won't say that all TRAs or trans people are evil, because that kind of generalization doesn't seem helpful at all. I wouldn't assume anyone who isn't explicitly speaking in bad faith (think right wing pundits being paid or gaining clout to peddle certain ideas, that would be bad faith) actually hates me personally or that an opposing viewpoint should immediately translate into an affirmation of my own self hatred.

yeah, it's true, radical feminism did help me realize I wasn't the problem. looking into these spaces gave me the words to realize that my suffering wasn't solely my fault. why do I blame myself and my body for causing me pain? of course I hate being a woman, I can't conform to society's predatory expectations of me, but why is it my fault I fail to meet society's standards? why am I planning to shill out thousands and thousands of dollars to change my body, to take the risk of complications and side affects just so I no longer have to expect the world to do better? I feel like I often fall into a nihilistic mindset, which I really try and get away from since I know from experience that is not good for me at all. I had to ask myself, is transition just the nihilism in me winning? that I have to give up on the world becoming better for someone like me and just conform to that expectation that my unaltered existence is a failure? this probably isn't the case for everyone, I know trans people in real life, and I'd never tell them they're "succumbing to nihilism" or whatever pretentious philosophical bullshit I just typed, but for me, it was a helpful framework that made it a little easier to keep going. and simply, embracing a gnc woman identity is just sort of easier to me. it's less stressful. I don't have to deal with the ordeal of passing, or try to distance myself from "feminine" hobbies, I just have to deal with accepting my body for what it is and I no longer have to curate an identity because I can just accept gender isn't actually that important and I just am. I just enjoy dressing and looking masculine, but I don't need it to say something deep about my soul or my mental state. I can be inspired by masculine fashion and men, but I don't need to be jealous of anything they have when I have the same, if not more, potential within myself. it is also way less mental stress to engage with feminist thought because on some levels it is relieving that I'm not alone in seeing a lot of the issues with the world as they are. [there's still that tired nihilism over how fucked women's rights are a lot of the time, but being able to express that frustration in solidarity with other women has brought me a level of relief I didn't get with queer spaces and activism. not sure what it is, maybe it's that a lot of that activism it feels performative. a thought to chew on for myself later]

I really hate social media. ironic, since I've basically used it my whole life and I am saying these words on tumblr dot com. I was given free reign to the internet and a gmail to use when I was nine (off topic: it's astonishing I didn't have worse experiences with the amount of internet access I had. luckily I mostly just stayed on youtube and watched minecraft music videos. too socially anxious to interact with anyone, I suppose.) and until a year or two ago I had accepted a "well, the internet can be bad if you use it unsafely, but it's an important tool for human connection!" mindset. however, in my opinion now, social media only gets worse and worse by the day. I never was into posting anything personal online, mostly using it for art, but the growing culture of personal branding and the way social media is seeping into real life more and more really put me off the entire concept. you might be able to tell this blog would not thrive in any other ecosystem other than a niche tumblr subculture! that is on purpose! I think social media promotes a culture of narcissism and de-personalization that harms people, especially young people, and promotes consumerism and harmful corporate interests. before I get way too lofty for this digital soapbox, I kind of want to offer you (and anyone willing to listen, honestly) the advice to try and get off any algorithm-based social media (instagram, tiktok, twitter and the like. maybe even tumblr if you spend too much time on it like I do), and encourage your brother to do the same. it is incredibly difficult to be a young person growing up in a world being corroded more and more by predatory social media algorithms and invasive technological advancements, and I feel really bad for future generations and the technological hellscape they'll likely grow up in, but I hope the older zoomers can remedy that slightly and promote more healthy, offline communities and activities to the youth. at least attempting to get away from engaging with social media also made me more confident in the long run that I was able to make choices free from influences of "social contagions" (god I hate how useful that term is) online. if you or your brother do end up medically transitioning, I think it would only help to know it was a choice made without direct internet influence.

...all of those points alone could be a much longer ramble, and I have much more to say but out of respect for your eyes having to read all of these run on sentences, I'll cut myself off there.

I'm honestly honored anyone would be willing to ask for insight from me already, so I hope even any sentence of that was remotely helpful, or even remotely understandable as a sentence. I didn't know how to put this next part organically in my already disparate bulleted list of word vomit, so I'll just type it here:

I think the best thing I could say is that you should do whatever makes you the least stressed. forget about attaining your "true-self" and self-actualization for a second. I think being young often makes those things feel like an urgent need, but we can forget how it takes time to learn and grow as a person before attaining that. and we do need to grow as people, if everyone could solve all their life's problems and know exactly who they are as a teenager, then I think we'd be living in a utopia of sorts. you mentioned feeling too spoiled and privileged for having all this time to worry about pronouns and gender identity, and I really get what you mean, it's something that I think about a lot, especially knowing people like my parents, or their parents, were not afforded that kind of luxury of self-discovery. it is a privilege to be here, typing away on my fairly pricey laptop in cozy suburbia instead of having urgent worries like so many people still do at this very minute. I think that's something you have to recognize, and a part of recognizing that is realizing that every moment you send yourself further into stress and anxiety, you aren't honoring the privilege and affording enough gratitude to your own existence. unfortunately, unlike money, time is not something you can donate materially to people, but using your time to make yourself more miserable is like if you were throwing money into a wood chipper, when instead you could be honoring your life by making the most out of it. don't take this harshly though, it isn't your fault that you're "wasting time" by not being relaxed enough or that your brain happens to feel dysphoria at all. you didn't choose for that to happen to you. what I mean is that it might be helpful to expend your energy somewhere else, you can choose how you interact with your dysphoria. instead of getting hung up on what you're doing wrong or entering that unhelpful state of self-critique and agonizing over every minutiae of identity, do things that ease stress and pain and that give you space to explore the multi-faceted existence that you embody, because you are a valuable person beyond what random assignment of sex characteristics you embody or what sex characteristics you wish you had. not to sound like too much of a cliche here, but life is precious and it's better to spend it meaningfully for yourself rather than forever bargaining your hypothetical worth as a person to the ideological forces that you find online. no matter what you end up "identifying" as or what opinions you hold, you deserve to lead a full life not stuck in your head. and if you're taking steps to put living life as a priority, it'll help you be able to decide what it is you do actually want from life. and when you do want to find answers, just asking "why?" about what you feel and compassionately pushing yourself to question your preconceived beliefs in a non-hostile space, that is, a space where you don't only focus on relentless self critique, but instead an open dialogue within yourself to come to an understanding, not a criticism.

sorry for the long winded lecture appended to what was already basically a long winded lecture, this is mostly advice I try to give to myself, and selfishly it was helpful for me to type it all out and actually read for myself again.

it's times like these I wish telepathy was real so I could just beam all my brainwaves into someone else's brain and save myself the trouble of actually communicating with another person [I'm lazy and expressing myself well is hard :p] but alas I suppose we must settle for the imperfect form of the english language. as you can probably tell, I have probably way more to say but I can't exactly dump all my life story and mind ruminations onto one tumblr post, so if you ever want to talk more my inbox is in fact always open! I have no idea how tumblr messaging works and I can't promise I respond to everything quickly [I will take my own advice and do the get off the internet thing sometimes] but I always hope I can offer something thoughtful in response to receiving something thoughtful. that being said, I wish all the best for you and your brother, whatever you choose to do in the future you deserve to be in the best of health and safety!

[daydadahlias]

Re Ashton’s grammar, sometimes I think he might do it on purpose? Because it gets talked about and it ‘confirms’ that dumb ‘they didn’t finish hs and it shows’ (or in Ashton’s case, ‘he’s the only one who finished hs but it doesn’t show’) bias, that too many people in this fandom like to spew at every opportunity. Academics don’t define intelligence! I’ve worked with university educated people who knew every theoretical aspect but couldn’t apply their knowledge to the actual work place. And look at what 5SOS have achieved! I’m honestly impressed with how they moved to the UK and later the USA at such young ages, and made it work, though I absolutely credit their tight friendship for that too.

Anyway, in a way I can see Ashton being a little troll with his grammar mistakes, for the engagement those posts get, but like you I despise how he’s painted an idiot because of it. But then I despise how Ash is always the scapegoat when something goes ‘wrong’ in people’s minds, and that he’s always the one that people demand an apology from (though sometimes just because he’s most likely to respond). He already feels responsible for everything and everyone around him, please don’t add even more to it, and possibly add to his mental health struggles. Fuck, I’m yapping but I guess I just care too much about this guy

I completely agree that academics do not define intelligence and I recently wrote a paper in my multicultural psych class about how english grammar is such a gatekeeping factor in academia. the thing that really bothers me about the grammar thing is that people don't seem to understand Why someone would be making grammar mistakes. and it's not because they're stupid. it's just that they didn't have the opportunities that other people have had to learn. I see it a lot as someone who works at a college writing center. kids these days (after that fuckass No Child Left Behind Act) just get shoved through the system with very little specialized help.

i have tons of kids who come into my writing center who don't know the difference between there/their/they're or don't know how to use apostrophes or contractions, etc etc. I see pretty much everything in there. but these mistakes aren't because they're stupid; it's because they were pushed through a system that didn't care if they didn't know. and they're always just incredibly grateful when i point out the difference to them and give examples to help explain until they get it. and, honestly, the most fulfilling and also sad part of my job was this time that I explained they're/there/their to a freshman and he told me so sincerely, "Thank you for teaching me. No one's ever told me that before." and it just sort of hit me like a truck. like if u never had the chance to learn and then people are constantly ridiculing you for not knowing, it doesnt really make you want to learn, does it?? and who could blame you for that?? I'm sure people constantly poking fun at Ashton for his grammar doesn't make him want to correct himself either. and i'll also never get over the time one of my coworkers was bitching to me about a kid coming in who didn't know how to cite sources and she said to me "god, i just dont know why some of these kids are so stupid" and i felt my stomach sink. And any time that I see people calling Ashton dumb or pointing out his grammar use, I hear her voice now.

like there is not a single person in the world who is stupid. there are some people who are lazy and don't make effort to learn, sure !! but no one is stupid, they just haven't had the resources to learn and u ridiculing them for that doesn't make you smarter than them, it just makes u an asshole ESPECIALLY when you are in the privileged fucking position of teaching.

So, for me Ashton's bad grammar is now representing all of my writing center kids i care so much about and when i see people making fun of him, i see people making fun of them.

because, genuinely, people also need to consider that we learn grammar shit like that in 3rd grade y'know and then no one tries to teach it to you again. so if someone doesn't know that stuff by the time they're in adulthood, that means they weren't taught when they were a child and that's not funny, it's really sad and a genuine failing of our education systems.

like, Ashton was a kid in bumblefuck Australia who had an absent alcoholic mother, worked multiple jobs, and was responsible for his two younger siblings, I'm sorry if he wasn't paying close attention in 8 a.m. English??

but, to ur end point, i definitely think that ashton is often used as a scapegoat for fans' cruelty because he's online the most and the "easiest" to poke fun of. and it's disheartening for sure. especially as someone who loves him so much.

[saturngalore]

So I did see a very big blogger say that they’re too triggered and exhausted by police brutality and watching our peers die, that they choose to not care and don’t have to. I was blown away by that. Yes, god, I am so tired of the problems we face in our country from being black but to show no empathy for others really saddens me. I truly thought some of my peers here were better than that. Seeing your post though restored my faith and I thank you for saying what I couldn’t put into words. A simple reblog for thousands of eyes to see is so important I don’t see how they don’t get it.

hi anon! sorry it took me awhile to respond bc i really wanted take extra time and thought for this. im glad that my post showed you that everyone not think and feel the same about sharing/supporting for palestine even though we may have the same racial/ethnic background. it’s honestly really disheartening but still frustrating to see other black simmers or just really some black people irl to kinda have that same reaction to what’s going on. i completely understand the suffocating trauma and feeling of hopelessness that comes with being black especially in america. not everyone who is black has the same trauma and i cannot speak for everyone especially those who may had a family member, friend or someone they knew affected by police brutality and/or lynching. the response to police brutality was to protect our peace, to take a break, and to prevent us from breaking down to point of not being able to fight against systemic oppression either alive or not. and that was understandable because stress and constantly being in fear about dying a senseless and brutal death for only being black heavily impacts our health both mentally and physically. im not trying to invalid that pain or experiences at all. and i never will.

but it just doesn’t feel right to me personally to turn away and stay silent about a literal genocide occurring right before us that is endorsed by our current president and is funded by american taxpayer dollars. even though im african american and a list of other marginalized identities, i still have the vital and basic privilege of being able to live with a roof over my head, a warm bed and shower, access to food and water when i need it, access to electricity to listen to music and be on my computer/phone, and so much more than many palestinians don’t have the opportunity to have right now. my mental health is not the best some days but waking up to see what’s going on in palestine every day for the past couple days have yet to drain me (this is probably another privilege) because it’s also the small and big moments of seeing palestine children smiling, journalists i have seen ever since this started still alive and reporting, people protesting all over the world via blockades and physical/financial boycotts. my experience during peak blm may have drained me emotional but the experience also radicalized me and made my activism or just simply my outlook on life more focused on love, community, nourishment, and a hopeful life without colonialism and imperialism. if i was more passive in engaging with geopolitical issues and just shut out the world around then i would be missing out on a lot of good things in this life.

i feel like there could be better ways to say this and maybe im just rambling on but there must be a balance between sustaining yourself as a person amid constant turmoil, violence, pain and death versus becoming complicit and silent just like those who oppress want us to be. every single one of us will not win or be free if silence is the only thing people can do to “protect our peace”. at the end of day, we owe it to the palestinians (as well as the congolese, haitians, sudanese, and many others who only ask that we speak up and care more).

[phdmama]

When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass it on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love! 🩷

OO thank you baby!!! Okay. Gosh. I'm not great at picking favorites (like my kids, they're ALL my favorites) but I will say, there are some I feel like I put a lot into.

I'm gonna cheat and do 3 Drarry and 3 Larry because I can't cope with asymmetry and both fandoms matter very much a lot to me.

Drarry:

(We'll Call This Fixer-Upper) Home

Draco Malfoy hasn’t set foot on English soil in ten years. After the war, he fled to America, where he found himself in a community, and healed himself through following his heart into music. He’s now the lead singer and songwriter for an internationally known band, who have come back to headline the Wiltshire Music Festival. But as Draco is about to learn, his past isn’t as far away as he might have believed, and his future may hold more than he ever could have dreamed.

This is probably my OG Drarry fic and I just... yeah. I really love this one.

Maybe You're the Difference

It's been years since the war. Sure, it's probably a bad idea to hook up with Harry Potter, but Potter is gorgeous and interested.

Besides. Draco knows he’s in no danger of doing something stupid like falling in love with Potter.

This one was one of those fics where the opening scene came into my head and took me by the throat and WOULD NOT LET ME GO.

The Privilege of Being Yours

Once more, Harry Potter is being called upon to save the world, only this time, instead of dying, he's going to have to have Ritual Sex with Draco Malfoy.

This was one of those fics where I was like OH HEY WHAT IF HARRY AND DRACO HAD TO HAVE SEX FOR RITUAL MAGIC REASONS™ and then because I am who I am as a person, this happened, complete with So. Much. Magical. Theory.

Larry:

Feels Like Coming Home

The last thing Harry Styles expects when he's hanging out at the Someday Cafe in Somerville one rainy October day is for his ex, Louis Tomlinson to walk through the door, but that's exactly what happens. After a spectacularly ugly break-up three years prior, Harry hasn't heard one word from Louis, and he's moved on. Gotten over him. But having Louis back in his life, not to mention working at the restaurant where he's a chef, isn't easy, and the feelings that Harry thought he'd left turn out to be not so easily forgotten.

This is a story about love and the power of forgiveness, and how the hard choices we make define us, and change our lives.

This is definitely one of my OG fics. One of the first long things I posted, and one I worked really hard on and poured SO MUCH of myself into.

no heart for me like yours (no love for you like mine)

When Harry Styles, wedding dress designer to the stars (sort of) and Louis Tomlinson, wedding planner and relationship expert (kind of) meet on the occasion of their sisters' engagement, sparks fly. But not the good kind. Louis thinks Harry is a dick and Harry thinks Louis is an asshole.

That doesn't last long.

The road to true love isn't always smooth or uncomplicated. Can two stubborn men find their way?

This is nowhere near one of my most popular works, but honestly, it's one of my favorite things I've written and I really think it's one of the best.

I'm Hot for Teacher (series)

This is probably cheating because it's 5 fics, not 1, but it's one cohesive story written for Wordplay 2021. I just really had fun with this, and I think it's the first thing I wrote in this particular way, as installments. And it's sort of a love song to academia.

[applestorms]

been reading through some of the author commentary from the patreon post archive for HS^2 stuff & writing notes on certain quotes from it and i think i've come up with (slightly) more distinct reasons for why the epilogues/homestuck^2 feel so off and/or frustrating to me. not gonna post the full thing + i'm only about halfway through reading it all, but here's a few points (warning this one gets kinda political):

It’s possible “Ultimate” Dirk’s presence was suppressing other splinters of himself from manifesting.

Wait, so... Ult. Dirk is just suppressing the other splinters? But I thought the entire point was that he subsumed all the other splinters to become one Ultimate Self? Weird, but I guess that plays more into the narrative powers side of things that they put a lot of emphasis on. That, or the creators don't have a very clear idea of what actually makes an Ultimate Self, which would. also work lmfao

Unlike the other victors of the game, Jane threw herself into the world the kids made together. She grew up preparing to take over a major company, and has the confidence to show for it.

Gonna get more into two ideas here in a bit related to this quote, the first being HS^2's Trump Era politics & the second being Jane more specifically. Here's the first connection:

I don’t know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don’t mean just in Homestuck’s dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth. Our planet is burning and folks go to bed hungry just so twelve guys can have more money than Croesus could have ever dreamed of. The concept of “truth” is at its most tenuous – political divisions involve contradictory interpretations of basic facts. I’ve been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you’re making in 2019 has to either address what’s going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus’s sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.

HS^2 is kind of agonizingly pessimistic when it comes to its (not at all subtle) political messaging, which I suppose you can in part attribute to a Trump-era leftist/liberal culture, but I personally also attribute to a specific flavor of white person existential pessimism. What frustrates me about HS^2's politics in particular though is just how much it talks down to the reader, acting like their (frankly, imo, pretty fuckin basic) reflections on the flaws of capitalism, gender constructs, and contemporary American politics are these revolutionary ideas that nobody other than them truly understands. It's really aggravating to read, honestly, and reminds me a lot of the perspective reflected on in this video by F.D Signifier about Bo Burnham's Inside & white performative liberalism, though in this context the creators are much more insufferable about it than Burnham ever was. (This is NOT to say every creator working on HS^2 was white or even ascribes/d to these kinds of politics, but that's one of the voices that I feel comes through the strongest.)

Edit: Re-watched that whole video and he really does get at the exact idea I'm thinking of. However, I would add that the thing that makes HS^2 feel especially insufferable to me is the fact that it doesn't feel like the authors are engaging in their politics as genuinely or personally as Burnham does. Where Burnham's look into these issues is self-reflective, the existential dread coming from the ways in which he himself plays a part in perpetuation of systems of oppression, I feel like HS^2's creators were unwilling to look at the ways in which they themselves might've benefited from the same kinds of privileges. It's just- it's egotistical, honestly! And it's a vibe that I get from a lot of heavily queer, young, white fandom spaces, which presume that because of their own experiences with queer and trans-based bigotry they understand everything and don't have to examine their own biases or any other nuances to their social position/the privileges they might personally have & continue to benefit from. I don't know- Homestuck was never going to be a good medium for examining the nuances of race and privilege, that was determined by the very first page or whenever Hussie decided non-canon races were a thing, but that doesn't make it any less agonizing to watch such a ham-fisted, pompous attempt at "social commentary." Ugh.

I guess I can understand the desire to get HS^2's politics to be more up to date and with it, again considering what the Trump-era American political landscape looked like (and what HS proper looked like, let's be real), but the way they approach this just makes the authors seem that much more immature to me. I hesitate to even call this political commentary, it's just pointing out that things are bad and then complaining about it. There's no hope here and it shows, and I personally have very little patience when it comes to that kind of perspective. I don't want to be too harsh to the creators or completely undermine the ways they might've faced structural social challenges (yes, trans people have it fucking bad right now! And there was absolutely some bigoted shit directed at the creators that was more reprehensible than anything here, I was there when this shit was coming out, I saw it all too (alongside the genuinely good criticism that they wrote off just as easily, but I digress)), but this shit is just bad, I'm sorry.

Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it. Jane won the game, lost very little, and as god of a new world decided to dominate its markets as a corporate mogul. Her conception of what was possible with her capability and god-like reason was shaded, limited by the world she grew up in. She is not a goddess of fantasy, a semi-mythical trickster creature like Jasprose, or a meta-aware marionette master like Dirk. She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.

(Longer quote here justifying the horror they did to Jane's character but let's add one more before I elaborate further)

But in the end, isn’t that what every story is? Trying to untie knots that you put in the rope yourself?

This quote is very telling and gets at my issue with the Jane quote from above, really one of my main issues with the all post-canon shit just in general: when the authors were creating a bunch of problems and inserting them into the story, something that is (typically) necessary for any kind of meaningful storytelling, they went about the process of introducing that conflict totally wrong.

In the original story of HS, problems for the characters primarily originated from Sburb, which acts as both the game they're playing and, as is demonstrated throughout Act 1, the world itself. Problems in the story thus often feel at least kind of true to life because they either originate directly from the game & its constructs (which the characters have no control over, parallel to how you can't usually control the world irl) or individuals responding to those circumstances w/ their own set of unique characteristics (Vriska being an active character and creating villains to become a hero but also Rose deciding she has to go through with a suicide mission in response to the game/Doc Scratch and Dave in turn responding to her actions, etc. etc.).

This is not necessarily true for all of the story or every single plot point/character arc, but I think it generally follows, and so for as meta as HS gets, it never really felt to me like you could see the hand of the author when it comes to how major plot elements are introduced, outside of a few very overt examples. Problems are able to crop up fairly naturally through characters responding in what they think to be natural/rational ways to their circumstances, but may or may not be due to the limitations on their understanding. The situation and environment of Sburb and the world of HS itself may be absurd and stupid and crazy and very obviously created by an author, but the characters typically feel consistent and true to themselves as people in how they respond to the absurdity and confusion of their world. It's one of the reasons why I think HS is so appealing as a coming of age story actually, since stepping into adulthood (or even just your teenage years) does often feel like entering a world that is crazy and cruel and unknowable with all of these malicious, far-away forces that know way more than you could ever possibly understand controlling every detail of the world around you and deciding your fate before you even get the chance to know it's coming. These are kids, they really don't have a lot of power even once they ascend to godhood in comparison to the forces they're dealing with, and the story & world reflects that.

The problem w/ HS^2 & the Epilogues is that the authors don't have the same game construct to work with, barely have a world at all to begin with actually, and so they instead twist pretty much every single character into the worst possible versions of themselves in order to try and recreate the same HS absurdity. But it just doesn't work, because there is no real explanation for why every character is suddenly at their lowest point and acting like a fucking idiot all the time other than "ooo adulthood makes everyone worse!" and vague gestures to capitalism and privilege (or what I would call structural ignorance, though I don't think they ever call it that), so the story just comes across as incredibly cruel and uncaring and unabashedly pessimistic in a way that's just miserable to read.

Yes, Jane grew up privileged, it makes sense that she would be sympathetic to capitalism and try to recreate the same social structures that fucked people up on the original Earth- but that is not nearly enough justification for why she has suddenly gone full fascist dictator endorsing troll eugenics and trying to murder people, and it doesn't even work well as social commentary cause it's so extreme right from the start that it couldn't possibly reflect real life issues or the development of actual fascist/bigoted ideas. Yes, Trump's ties to the alt-right are fucking terrifying and conservative politics in general in the U.S. nowadays are incredibly fucked, but there's still logical people and seemingly rational explanations being utilized to justify the bullshit that many people genuinely believe in and HS^2 fails to meaningfully reflect or comment on any of those, at least from what I can tell. Everyone is consistent with how they are terrible, I'll give them that, for Dirk and Jane and everyone else the flaws that are being emphasized are ones that are generally kind of consistent with canon, but I simply cannot get behind why they suddenly decided to be the worst possible versions of themselves other than that the authors realize they needed plot and decided that the best way to make Candy and Meat the Bad Timelines:tm: was to spontaneously make everyone as insufferable as possible.

I think a part of the problem is the time skip, honestly. And the fact that Earth C as a location itself is surprisingly underutilized when it comes to creating problems for the characters. The characters are gods ruling over a world where they can be dictator of the globe at the end of a single election. Without the game and the lack of distinct outside villains, there is nothing stopping them from having full agency over everything other than each other, so in order to create plot, instead of going through the effort to create a world or social structure they just made everyone worse and called it a day. It's like the epitome of white liberalism's inability to understand bad systems vs. bad individuals- there are no real systems here, nothing that actually functions past a name, so everyone is just fucking terrible.

(Honestly, I think the fact that there are no overt outside villains could've been a good way of transitioning to the fact that these characters aren't kids anymore- if Dirk and Jane didn't have to be transformed into fucking caricatures of themselves in order to do it. Really the problem is that so many of the characters that used to add interesting nuance to the social conflict are fucking dead now. RIP trolls.)

Since this is turning out to be the political astronaut ramble I guess I'll just keep going for a bit: one of the most meaningful insights a professor has ever given to me came is the idea that we "haven't earned our pessimism yet," as the younger generations, or haven't faced The Shit directly or long enough to justify having as little hope as we do. Many of us have looked at the problem and given up before even trying to solve it, and are, in fact, not really justified in making such a decision.

For me, there's an additional layer to that idea as well: one of the ideas that Beauvoir talks about in her feminist philosophy is that of agency, wherein social privilege allows for certain groups to decide which meaning-creating projects they want to or to not take on where others are not allowed to make the same choice. If you sit in any kind of position of social privilege, that historical role has continually been the one to not only benefit from the rules, but make them in the first place. This kind of pessimism is thus not just unearned, not just frustrating to listen to, but actively harmful to the creation of meaningful change. Who really benefits from inaction? From a lack of change to the status quo? And who are the privileged to make decisions about whether or not we're allowed to fight for this shit in the first place?

[childofaura]

I know that your experience with FE Engage so far hasn’t been great but who were your favourite characters so far during your playthrough and why?

Augh man… I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask about characters; I dropped so many or didn’t pick others up because of how desperate I was to just progress; and with no constant skirmishes, I didn’t have the privilege to really invest in them when I was already investing in others.

So I’m gonna do a list of the characters I like, and a list of the characters I wish I could have invested in.

Characters I like:

Zelkov- Stated many times, but even though Ivy (unfairly) gets credit for bringing the rings to you, it was Zelkov who stole the rings and the Time Crystal. Chapter 11 was my most frustrating chapter at that time; the freezes, the teleporting, the extra movement. Zelkov was literally my shining light and that’s when I swore to marry him. Him being kind, gentle, and handsome was just a bonus.

Veyle: GOSH I CAN’T GET INTO IT IN JUST A SHORT LITTLE SEGMENT BUT VEYLE. IS PERFECT. There WILL be a whole post delving into her character.

Hortensia: I brought it up briefly but Hortensia really does (ONLY IN MY SUBJECTIVE OPINION) have the better character arc and personality. She’s also cute as a button and whoever voices her does an amazing job.

Rosado: Aside from being pretty and well-designed, Rosado’s actually a genuinely nice character and just… way better than Rosemary. I don’t know if the English VA says it with just as much flamboyance, but his Japanese “EMBLEMU, ENGAAAAAAGE!” is my favorite.

Jean: Listen, this kid is the ONLY original recruitable character in a paralogue (original, Anna doesn’t count). I’m gonna keep this kid with me no matter what.

Fogado: I honestly don’t need to say much. I do feel bad for saying this, but I think he’s more charismatic than Timerra, who I never used. I actually kind of ship him with Hortensia, so when all this is said and done, I kind of want to do a comic where they reunite again later when they’re both adults and they start catching feelings for each other. Mark my words, I WILL do it.

Mauvier: Man, this guy was one of my marriage options because his character was just so fascinating. As much as I’ve come around to Marni and Griss, their character development is very… last minute. Which feels really cheap because while it’s GOOD character backstory, you don’t get to enjoy it. But Mauvier’s growth and character was so well-defined and progressed properly that you just KNOW he’s gonna be important.

Alcryst: He may be timid but he crits at the most needed times, my man. Also again, I love his personality and character growth and dynamic with Diamant.

Citrinne: Also really cool, didn’t know she was Diamant and Alcryst’s cousin until supporting her with Diamant, which bugs me. That’s important info and I feel like she should have been included in the Brodia cutscenes.

Lapis: Listen. I love this baby girl. I love her to death. But her STATS, man. I get that I massively fucked up and promoted her too early (14 or 15), but I struggle with her keeping up. I’m NOT abandoning her though, I love my farm girl.

Etie: Stated before, but I like her unique character design (dainty-dressed lady with abs) and she’s saved my ass. Though it’s weird/funny how her bow twitches like cat ears during cutscenes.

So those were units I actually use, whom I like. And these ones are units I wish I could have invested in:

Panette: LOVE the Day of the Dead aesthetic, love that she’s a berserker. But at the time I was still trying to salvage Boucheron, so I never picked her up. Which sucks because I ended up dropping Boucheron completely.

Kagetsu: I REALLY wanted to work with him, because it’s fascinating that he’s the only Japanese-based character, he reminds me of Say’ri and Yen’fey. But I stuck with Lapis.

Saphir: I like her a lot, and I loved her support with Vander. But I just couldn’t get started on using her because she showed up so late, and I was trying to work with the units I had. I enjoy the older female characters.

Pandreo: Loved this party boy. I tried sticking with him for a few levels, but eventually had to go back to Jean. For what it’s worth though, he was a good reliable unit and I liked his character.

Boucheron: Ok I know I said I dropped him, but gosh dammit I REALLY wish he worked out! But he was super unreliable during my run (and I get it, that’s just how berserker units are in FE), wouldn’t land decently percentaged hits and wouldn’t crit very much. I think his character was pretty funny and well-defined, but they didn’t lean very much into the “cries easily” part of his personality for some supports.

Merrin: Wolf rider. That’s all I need to say.

But yeah, that’s the big ol’ comprehensive list. I probably will NOT be replaying Engage so I can’t really say much, though I’ll happily build most of these units in FEH when they get added.

[dreamwritesimagines]

Honestly, every time you mention Benedict sleeping with others after pretty much declaring his love for Clover (I’m talking about the rooftop scene), I feel like kicking him in the balls. That’s how much you have got me to love Clover and wanting her to be with the best person for her! I really don’t see how she can ever really trust him when he spent a big chunk of time sleeping around and yet following her around like a love sick puppy. She has been badly hurt and I don’t think Benedict has really done anything to show that he will be a person she can really trust except just be nice to her. Nothing he has done so far screams ‘I absolutely love you’. You have me so invested in this story!

Omg omg omg-

Darliiiiing! 😍🥰 It makes me so so happy to hear this, you're amazing! ❤️

I have so many ideas about this! ❤️

So first of all, I totally get what you mean😂 And you're absolutely right! From their first meeting until like, the moment they got engaged, Benedict was like a lovesick puppy, and at the rooftop he declared his love for her before she shut it down instantly and in the following week he was still attending those parties and sleeping around, even having threesomes and all that 😂

So as everyone kept telling Clover and each other, Benedict is like one of the most privileged people in the ton 😏 He doesn't really have any responsibilities, he is wealthy, comes from a good family, very handsome and romantic 😏 So he is incredibly used to getting whatever he wants whenever he wants and he has been enjoying those privileges for a loooong long time❤️

He is also a very physical person I think! Like, yes he's a romantic but until actually meeting Clover, romance and love was just something he idealized and chased, not the responsibilities that came with them 😂 He is a hedonist at this point in the story, and he enjoys indulging in all these things without so much as a thought 😂

So up until very recently, he just viewed sex as sex 😏 Especially considering the era and the hypocrisy when it came to men having sex and women having sex, even if he is much more understanding than a typical Regency man, being an artist and all, he didn't really see it as anything other than some pleasure he was so used to having🔥

Also, Clover actually turning him down at that rooftop had some contribution to the all wild partying in the following days 😈 Like, he was in a way trying to distract himself from the heartbreak because he is NOT used to that at all 😏

But yesssss it actually will play some part in Clover trusting or not trusting him, especially when it comes to the physical aspect of their relationship 😈 They will both go through a big character development and I'm so excited for it! ❤️

Thank you so so much for this darling! ❤️❤️❤️

[p3arlsandcoff3]

Frog and Toad; Tales of a simpler life

Hello. This is my first essay post - maybe I'll make a masterlist, maybe I won't.

''Frog and Toad'', a short book series written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel in the 1970s, is a collection of tales about two friends - Frog and Toad. They both live in the forest and go on many adventures together. Every time my mind reminds me of the existence of the duo, one word comes to my mind - Home. Frog and Toad is a cozy sort of series, and every tale has a comforting feeling attached to it. In this post, I'd like to address the philosophy of Frog and Toad - Simple living.

• Most Frog and Toad stories have a similar premise - one of our two protagonists has an everyday issue he has to face and the other helps him overcome this. When we think about everyday life, we think about moving forward - getting promoted, making more money, moving away, getting fitter - always an additive, and fast. A great example for this is hustle culture - the glamorization of putting all of your self into your line of work. I personally strongly dislike hustle culture - as a communist I believe that the improvement of the self should not be calculated with money, but with health and happiness, and that instead of success being isolated to an individual, if someone succeeds it should benefit their surroundings. "Frog and Toad" doesn't fit with those sort of ideals of hustle and constant improvement. The duo's problems are, well, very simple.

• Arnold Lobel describes himself as a domestic kind of person ;

"I'm really not much of a traveler or wanderer or adventurer and I think that feeling certainly comes into my books. I notice that all of my books are rather homebound"

He is certainly right. In his writing and illustrations, Lobel creates a very welcoming (ahem cottagecore ahem ahem) atmosphere - his language is simple and inviting and his coloring style consists of warm earth tones. Even the protagonist's houses have this feeling, consisting of wooden furniture and warm, fluffy pillows. (I'd like to add Frog and Toad are both very middle class, and these stories are affected by their privilege). Although they don't own many possessions - honestly, the most common item you'll see that costs any money in the Frog and Toad series is the protagonist's bed - Frog and Toad find their place in moments and people.

• Allow me to give an example (my favourite personally). The story "A list" follows Toad - a usually anxious and worried type. He wakes up and realizes he has many things to do, and so he writes a list of the things he wants to get done that day;

- wake up

- eat breakfast

- get dressed

- go to frog's house

- take (a) walk with frog

- eat lunch

- take (a) nap

- play games with Frog

- eat supper

- go to sleep

Before the story even starts, we can see Toad doesn't really have many things to do that day, and yet he puts heavy emphasis on what he does have. That is one of the building stones of simple living - the silent agreement to enjoy every minute you get out of your life.

As the day progresses, Toad crosses out what he accomplished, until he takes a walk with Frog. As they are walking, a gust of wind blows over his list, and he is frozen in place. Frog starts running towards the list, while Toad stays back, claiming that running after his list is not on his list, and thus not something that he should engage in.

• Frog didn't manage to catch Toad's list. Toad claims "I cannot remember any of the things I wrote on my list of things to do. I will just have to sit here and do nothing." In this instance, Label criticizes the close minded way people who are only interested in 'the grind' (Jesus Christ I can't believe I just wrote that) think - they only see the things they want to achieve as goals worthy of energy, and nothing else. Toad may have wanted to play games with Frog to strengthen their bond, but the intention or the way didn't matter - it was the goal that did.

• Frog and Toad sit around all day. After a lot of nothing, Frog says "Toad, it is getting dark, we should be going to sleep now". Suddenly, frog realizes that was the last thing on his list, to sleep, and they both slip into unconsciousness. I think this ending really clears out they way Label thinks about always moving forward - sure, maybe they weren't on Toad's list, but there were many activities he and Frog could have partook in he skipped out on out of sheer stubbornness. Instead of trying to make the most out of his day, he wallowed in his own sadness over not achieving every goal he had, and let a whole afternoon slip by.

• to summarize, Frog and Toad are friends. They are friends and they enjoy each other's company. They prefer to have a cup of tea instead of building a bigger house, and they'd never call each other on the telephone, if they want to talk to each other, they simply walk over to their friend's house. I personally have started to pick up some of their habits - I now drink my morning Tea or coffe without any distractions, I spend more time outside, and I try to not get hung up on every little detail. As a perfectionist this is a... Hard task, at the least, but it's worth it. I have calmed down. I have become more at peace with less.

Thank you for reading - Stay yourself, stay curious.

[goldenfharry]

You guys this is SO irrelevant to Harry but I really need to talk to someone about this personal problem of mine. So i have been talking with my ex the past few weeks after a very long time. We were together 10 years ago and he recently came out of an engagement. He got cheated on and that relationship ended horribly. I visited our town where he lives, a few weeks ago (I live FAR away and only visit once or twice a year) and he came to me and confessed everything about his break up to me and even apologized for everything bad he did to me when we were together. And he looked so honest, he almost cried. He said that he loves me still and that he talked about me to his ex and that he still talks to his family about how he still loves me (it's true, his mum told that to my aunt) we talk every day and every day he says that he loves me and that he misses me and asked me to visit again and when I told him that I will, he looked happy but now that we talked again he said a few things that I didn't like. He wants me to go see him OUT of our town. He told me to take the bus and go meet him at the town that he works. He won't even come and pick me up. He wants me to travel across the whole country for him and he won't even make the effort to come and pick me up. And he even indirectly told me that he won't hang out with me IN our town because of the people who know us. And I am confused. Because how tf are you going to ask me to come see you and when I actually do, you won't hang out with me because you care about what people will say? And I'm thinking, is he doing this because he doesn't want people to gossip and he's just trying to protect us or is he doing this because he's embarrassed for me? I don't understand him. He tells his own mother that he's in love with me, he tells his ex that if he had the chance to be with an ex, that ex would be me, he's begging me to go see him and when I do, he doesn't want to lift a finger for me?? Not even do the bare minimum to just come and pick me up after the VERY long travel I'll do FOR HIM? I want y'alls opinions on this please because idk what the fuck is going on.

Firstly, even though this is clearly a Harry blog, feel free to always, ALWAYS VENT HERE! this is a free place

Now, I’m not going to fully get into details of my personal life here but I’ve been in your position before (I’m more than happy to tell you my personal experience through dms anytime) so I totally understand how you must be so confused! Usually I’m all for love, because life is hard and to me any chance of being happy is a privilege. But he needs to make an effort. Honestly bestie, you’re the only person in the world that can make a decision that is good for YOU. But with that comes the responsibility of respecting YOURSELF. It’s not fair for you that YOU need to do the effort when HE was the one suddenly coming back to your life after ending an engagement. And if you are telling us this, then it means that it is a personal boundary of yours that you want him to respect it.

Choose you, always. If that means finding love again, whether it’s with him or any other person, if you’re feeling something, respect it and give yourself the power of having a voice. And trust me, if he wants you, he will make the fucking effort. If not, his loss! Clearly you are a keeper by just helping him dealing with his tough time.

Hope it helps. I’m here for you anytime! 🫂