#I kind of hate using tumblr but this is a weird chunk to post on twt/bsky

[fools-and-perverts2]

hell yeah thanks so much for the tag x3

3 Ships I Like

right, least to most rare: bernstead (judy/violet) from nine to five the musical is such a mood right now, i downloaded like ten new fics for them the other day, morgana/annis from merlin YOU CAN HATE IT IF YOU WANT 😆 but i will never stop defending it they're such a great dynamic imo and finally the rarepair to end all rarepairs, olivia/ellegaard from mcsm THERE ARE LITERALLY ZERO POSTS FOR THEM but i love them so muchhhj

First Ship Ever

rosalina/daisy from mario. have they ever even interacted in canon? who knows but they were defo my ogs

Last Song I Heard

i am currently listening to change it from nine to five the musical so. that

Favorite Childhood Book

fly by night by Frances Hardinge is seriously good and i would honestly read again, Frances Hardinge books can 100% be enjoyed by anyone and i love them to this day.

but.

the mr gum series by andy stanton was undoubtedly much more influential to me, being such a comfort throughout my childhood right up to when i first started high school, using the audiobooks to process a kind of hard time and they're so funny and ridiculous as shit i can't decide

Currently Reading

all my rage by sabaa tahir. it's really good but reading is so hard now i have to do it in small chunks

Currently Watching

Minecraft story mode!!! it's a rewatch, and i may be considered playing it rather than watching but it's the yt reupload of the Netflix version rather than the video game, so i say I'm watching. but also proper-watching bbc robin hood (series 2 - no spoilers!) and farscape on itv, both really fun series' that only sometimes have Female Character Problems

Currently Consuming

BN. (french biscuits)

Currently Craving

BN. (french biscuits)

man that was fun!! um. @greencloakedfae @deuxiemedunom @frenchgirltalya @big-bad-boink @a-storm-of-moss-and-rats + anyone who wants to, please join in! no pressure if you don't tho, this is Tumblr. nothing is weird, everyone is a social outcast, there are no rules, thank you and goodnight🫶

9 10 Fandom Folks to Get to Know Better

Thanks so much for the tag @schofielded !!

3 Ships I Like

Okay so I’m currently writing for Anderperry so they have to be at the top of the list, Reddie is my beloved which I fear will follow me throughout my life so they’re next, and hmm idk what to put for my third one since I like to read for a lot of ships and have barely written for others. I think I’ll go with a surprise pick and say Boreo! Tragic gays for the win

First Ship Ever

Omg I actually cannot say it was too embarrassing. The first one I’m willing to say is Larry which is also embarrassing and I regret it but I fear the fanfic was so good sorry.

Last Song I Heard

Drums of Death by FKA Twigs. I am addicted, something about the beat is just so good.

Favorite Childhood Book

This is kind of hard for me because I mainly had author phases as a kid rather than just one book that I adored. Looking back, though, I would probably say The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo was my favorite. Her descriptions were so good that it made me want to eat paper like the mice.

Currently Reading

Four Minutes by Nataliya Deleva! It’s a queer Bulgarian novel I’m reading for my around the world goal and I’m really enjoying it so far!

Currently Watching

Just finished watching Swing Girls (2004) so I’m counting it since I’m between TV shows right now. Anyway the movie was so cute and feel-good, I definitely recommend!!

Currently Consuming

I had fried chicken for dinner if that’s what this is referring to. Anyway it was good!

Currently Craving

A strawberry limeade with added coconut and cream from Sonic 💔 I don’t have my car rn so I am stranded sadly

No pressure tags: @neil-perrys-suicidal-tendencies @vinesandvellichor @good--merits-accumulated @lc-27 @axe-76 @dreadedwhim @poetrusic1959 @yawping-poets-society @scriptscraps @neilperryismine + open to anyone who wants to join!!

[suicunelillie]

I am working on the second best pokeshipping hanahaki au and I need validation so I'm posting a little snippet here

Ash realised he should have been concentrating on fishing, but it was hard to do that with Misty right next to him. He wasn’t looking directly at her, of course – that would be strange – but from the corner of his eye he could see the freckles dotting her arm and legs amidst the peach fuzz of her hair.

She had chosen to sit right next to him, probably to make sure he didn’t fall over or something, but it meant he had to share in her body warmth. Much to his dismay, whenever he noticed new things about her like the smell of the coconut shampoo she uses, same as the one she would use as when they first travelled together, or how her lower lip jutted out just a bitter further than the upper when she was concentrating, he realised that he had noticed these things before.

If it weren’t for the flowers in his chest, he would be able to pretend this was nothing other than evidence of the strength of their friendship. They had known each other so long that he knew every detail about her. Being with her was so natural, it made sense that he would get the jitters when she was around, the same he would get when he stepped past the threshold of his mother’s home.

[morroodle]

The Ninjago Battle Box: the best investment of my life

A reveiw

A few days ago I got bored and made a somewhat impulsive decision to buy the ninjago battle box which I've been wanting for a while and it finally arrived today so I'm gonna reveiw it cause I haven't seen like anyone talk about it. It dosent even have its own wiki page even though it is chock full of fun facts and information and pictures

Contents:

A 2 sided map - one side is ninjago city while the other is ninjago as a whole (kinda)

Book of battles

Ninjago world guide

30 cards

Lloyd minifig

Garmadon minifig

The map:

HOLY SHIT THIS IS COOL. As far as I'm aware this might be the most detailed map of ninjago we've ever gotten and no one is even aware of it! What I think is the most interesting and what makes me question how cannon this is is that the main map of ninjago only covers like... 1/4 of the whole ninjago island? Kinda odd how like all the locations are in this tiny chunk when they have a whole island they could cover but hey its still a super cool map and an amazing piece of art!

The book of battles:

Kind of a weird thing and I couldn't find any information on what it was until I got it. Basically each page is a rough (and not 100% accurate) summary of one of the battles of ninjago, a vague but still pretty obvious clue about where the battle took place, a prompt to play and a neat art piece based on the battle. It's not so much a history book as it is a book of play ideas, your meant to use the clue to find where the battle took place on the map and then use the little battle dojo, the minifigures and the cards to play out the battle however you want. Very cute and I love it. One weird thing I found though: in one of the battles it calls the serpentine the serpentai? It's done 3 times so I don't think it's just a typo. Don't know what's going on there but its cool. Here's an example of the best page, they're all formatted the same

It only has a handful of battles, not nearly all of them, but that's to be expected and it's still great

Ninjago world guide:

It's like a little encyclopedia of heros, villains and artifacts. It includes the main ninja, the elemental masters, all the villains (up to season 15 and strangely excluding the overlord), and a bunch of non people important things like the bounty and the realm crystal. Pretty much nothing I don't already know but still neat! It's kinda cool how it's split into 2 sections, one half being heros and good artifacts and the other being villains and bad artifacts. I don't know how to describe it but theyre kinda facing different ways? It's like 2 books in one, both starting on the outsides and meeting/ending in the middle like so.

Here's Morro's page (again most of the pages are formatted the same):

Cutie pie <3

The cards:

I wish I could show off all the cars but sadly tumblr has a limit to how many pictures you can have in one post. Cards include heros, villains and artifacts, similar to the world guide but not quite as many things, just the important ones. Theyre pretty simple, with just the name/title and a drawing of the character/item. Theyre meant to be used to play the battles in the book of battles. Morro's is the absolute best one look at this little cutie pie!

Hes so sweet and adorable he has never done anything wrong in his life and I love him

The minifigures and the box itself:

Nothing really special about the minifigs just a basic Lloyd and Garmadon. Interesting to note that despite wearing his season 8 gi Lloyd has his legacy hood on. Not complaining, I hate the smooth round hoods.

The box that everything came in doubles as the little play area :D its a little dojo setting with some cute nicknacks scattered around. It needs a bit of encouragement to stay flat though. Oh also here's the outside of the box

Conclusion:

The best $25 I've ever spent. I can't believe almost no one knows or talks about this! It's from 2023 and covers up until seabound. I might have to see if I can add this stuff to the ninjago wiki, more people should know about it. If anyone else is interested in getting one (you should be) it's on the scholastic website for $17.99 + shipping, not the actual lego website.

[dumbbitchdoestwitch]

Cum for the monster, stay for the plot

I read monster fucker books - they're fun, they're interesting and usually, they're pretty hot. & It seems like a perfect first Tumblr post. Now I made it through Opal Reyne's A Soul to Keep and A Soul to Heal in under a week. I didn't mean to - I planned on reading them over a month or two to give myself a break from all the steam but I didn't do that. I stayed up late, reading it like a rabid horny little monster fucker, and then wandered through my day job a zombie hungry for more monster cock. All that to say - forgive me if I get bits and bobs from the 2 mixed up. Anyhow - spoilers & monster cock ahead so proceed with caution~

I tried writing this before and it got way too fucking long, so I'm going to try to keep it short. We'll start with the first book - A Soul to Keep. The first chunk of the book is massively background-heavy, but I actually like that. I love some plot & direction with my monster fucking but it is A Lot™️. If you like a book to get down and dirty fast, this one's not for you. This one is a heck of a slow burn and the first taste of the naughty you get is hot, magic baths. It takes much longer to get to our monster friend digging his claws into our female lead and magically rearranging her guts so that enormous monster cock actually fits.

Background-wise, the bare bones are that it's a strange, alternate reality where demons arrived on Earth through a portal sometime around the industrial revolution. The demons prevented humanity from progressing as it should have, so we have a weird mix of modern language in an almost hunter-gatherer time. Also important to note, the portal the demons came through is at the heart of the Veil, a pit in the woods that gives demons a place to lurk away from the sun. On to our characters...

So we have Reia whose family was murdered by demons & then the town labeled Reia a bad omen & ostracized her from her fellow townspeople (but like not really 'cause throwing her out of the town would let the demons eat her and get stronger so there's a lot of "we're afraid of you, don't dare look at us, but we're also gonna torment you a bit"). Anyway, having a young woman who you hate actually works out perfectly for this town because, as it turns out, once every 10 years a creature the humans call a Duskwalker comes to one of 3 villages and bestows a protective blessing in exchange for a "pure bride" (not like that tho).

Our Duskwalker goes by Orpheus and he's like 7ft tall with a wolf skull for a face, nothing but glow sticks behind it, and has exposed bones where his skin and fur haven't grown over them. As Orpheus brings Reia to his cabin in the Veil, a few things become apparent:

1) we're going to have to deal with a bit of secondhand embarrassment

2) Orpheus is a lonely pervert

Those two things can go either way depending on how you like your monsters. I didn't think I'd be able to get through the secondhand embarrassment, but Orpheus is such a giant cinnamon roll that I barely noticed it. It also really helps that anytime I had a concern about how stuff works, it got addressed a few lines down. It's just really well thought out like that.

As for the sex scenes, they felt kind of confusing at times because we're learning anatomy while we're going at it. Other than that though, the sheer passion and desire running rampant is delicious. So if you like well-built worlds with squishy cinnamon roll monsters (who really look like monsters and stay that way) with absolutely enormous cocks, I'd highly recommend A Soul to Keep.

Maybe some day I'll post the long as hell version of this with every little thought but today is not that day 💜

[ghostlytidalwavephantom]

The main argument (IMO) would have to keep coming back to whether or not it's a genuine behavior, which would invariably involve citing a ton of KPP chains all over the site. Going from the replies, it is genuine. Honestly, I don't know how someone would convince me it isn't.

A company still needs to make money. It wouldn't make sense to kill everyone's accounts if literally the entire userbase joined in. We'd have to cease all non-KPP posting and kind of do the boycott on-site. With enough people doing it, they'd be forced (as a corporate entity) to acknowledge... Our collective control over what we choose to post.

Social media dies in a vacuum. It'd fucking suck to have your site with millions of users devolve into KPP, and go silent. Think of all the forums everyone used to hang out on—how the last post was three weeks ago, and then two months, and then six. A year later everyone has grown up and don't have time for nostalgia. Another three years, I'm sure a lot of people can think of a place they haven't visited in five.

The same can happen on ANY website. Remember MySpace? We all have control, it's just corporations want to micromanage everything into "shares" for some weird reason. They need our content, and trying to control us is a high-risk strategy at best. Sweeping moderator decisions can fuck it all up pretty hard.

Well, the moment anyone hits reblog, it's out of my hands. I can't grab the KPP back. [insert five pages of visual metaphor on the futility of trying to grab it] Any argument I make here is available to everyone. Speak too directly and they could argue, "it isn't organic, they told people how to spread it." Creative work is a precarious thing and you can't really dictate motivations. People might share it or not and I don't have any real control over it.

Which makes it organic.

I don't really expect anyone to take this kind of risk though. The specific hypothetical you asked about seems like a fear-controlled situation. Other users can't expect the same level of protection since they don't control site policy. Rather than a bleak desolate hellscape in the wake of a KPP boycott, I want to paint a very different picture.

Suppose it's really difficult for the moderation to find every KPP post on the site. And very easy to get a decent chunk of KPP posters to testify. It would be possible to argue, in court, "my single-letter post was not a violation of the ToS." Doesn't matter about private company or free speech, in America you can sue for anything. Wrongful account termination when your behavior was genuine, and a thousand other accounts agree, is hard for a judge to ignore.

So just picture it. Every KPP post on the site. Relevant to the case and pertinent for judicial review. Just hours of pouring through reblogs, "K..." And the judge has to ask, "were you solicited in any way to participate here?" To hundreds of people. A slow, tedious trek toward justice.

I'm not saying reblog. I don't want attention for this. The collective judiciary might end up reading an article later on, "Tumblr set ablaze in epic battle for consumer rights" and see some quote from this post, and hate me. What good could possibly...

LOL know your rights

I can try to answer your question on the KPP post, it's just complicated and won't fit in the replies.

sure!

[not-poignant]

Hi, pia, have you ever heard of radishfiction.com? It's a mobile app specifically for serial writers and allows you to monetize your writing. And since you already have a pretty decent following I'm thinking it might be something you could use? Sorry if this is a weird ask but I adore your work and hate to think of you struggling to earn money.

I was looking at their policies and they allow explicit/dark stories as long as there are content warnings and also allow stories that have been published elsewhere. You'd have to read the policies yourself to be sure (not sure how the payment or tax system works) because I just skimmed them but it sounds good so far? I dunno 😅

Hi anon,

I did look into Radish early on (I got an email from them, actually, way back when).

I have been curious about it, I know that the pay is really terrible overall (some people are doing very well, but dollars to cents are still not really doing great compared to other places). I'm actually a member of several serialised fiction groups and Radish comes up a lot (the pros but also the cons).

The biggest issue is mostly time and labour. I'm a disabled writer with a lot of chronic illness/es. Sometimes just writing chapters each month is enough to burn me out. Putting up chapter notifications on Patreon, Discord, and Tumblr is so tiring that I wouldn't even consider notifying people on say, Twitter, even though that makes good business sense.

I could technically diversify into Wattpad and Royal Road as well, and post stories there, it's allowed. But the extra work involved is extremely intimidated. I'm not a healthy full-time writer who can afford to kind of...put everything everywhere?

I definitely haven't ruled it out, but sometimes the problem isn't that they allow dark material, sometimes it's just that there's no magical energy fairy who will come along and make me able to handle setting up yet another account, monitoring yet more tax forms, and having to advertise yet one more thing. Usually I don't like to commit to something like that unless I know it will work out re: profitability. And I'm not entirely sure it will, much with novel publishing, there are a lot of authors on Radish who are making 5-10 cents a month (or $1-5 dollars a month) with regular update schedules and appealing content. That's...a very poor turnaround for the labour involved in setting up and getting started and formatting and releasing. Are there successful people on Radish? Sure! There are also successful writers on Patreon too! And successful novelists. But for everyone doing really well with it, the vast majority won't be making anything more than pocket money (see: Me and novels when I thought that might really help my income).

The app serial market is fairly oversaturated with novelists breaking up their novels into little chunks and selling them as serials there, it's a hugely competitive market, and even many Radish authors are pulling out and moving to the Patreon model instead, because they just can't keep up. I think possibly I could make it work, but the demographic isn't one that wants sex scenes as long as I write etc. But anyway, it's definitely something I've thought about, we'll see what happens in the future!

[oonajaeadira]

Tumblr Writer Q&A

Thank you for the tag, @green-socks !!!!

1) How many complete fics/one shots do you have that you have not published (yet)? None. I tend to publish as soon as something’s done.

2) How many WIPS do you have right now? I have 5 open series right now *cringe* sorry!

3) Do you take writing requests or write original ideas, or both? I don’t really take requests in the traditional way. I might open asks for a specific kind of request, or use asks as a jumping-off point (i.e. Pats), but mostly I get an idea and go for it.

4) If you do take requests, how many do you currently have? I currently have 32 pats asks sitting in my inbox. I’ll be answering a good chunk of them soon.

5) How many fandoms do you write for? It’s strictly Pedro Pascal cinematic universe.

6) Are there any fandoms you wrote for in the past that you no longer write for? I never really published my other fanfic, but I no longer write for Ranma 1/2 or Doctor Who.

7) Do you write for ships, reader inserts or other? Reader inserts!

8) Niche fandoms/characters you write for? I don’t think so?

9) Do you read fics as well as write them? Oh yes.

10) What is your favorite genre to write for? Romance, slow-burn fluff.

11) What is your favorite trope (to read/write)? Friends to lovers is kind of the closest trope to what I write, I guess. For reading through, big fan of sex pollen, a/b/o, monsterfucking...for all the softness I write, I like to let others handle the smut and I will gladly partake. (I really love reading the soft falling-in-love stuff too...)

12) What do you do to get motivated to write? Watching the source material. Answering reblogs for that series. Just sitting down and starting. I also like to pick out a scented candle for the mood of the piece. I have different scents I like for all my boys...

13) Is there a trope/genre you like to read, but not write? The aforementioned a/b/o, sex pollen, and monsterfucking for sure.

14) Any characters/fandoms you want to write for that are never requested? I mean, I don’t take requests. But I still would like to write more Jack someday. Or maybe an Oberyn piece. I have a feeling Dieter is in my near future....

15) How long have you been writing fan fiction? Actually posting it...a year now.

16) Did you read fan fiction before you started writing? Oh yes. I started in college.

17) Do you only post on Tumblr, or any other sites as well? I have an AO3 and I’ve posted a lot of my stuff there, not all yet.

18) What do you personally consider the word counts of "Drabble", "One shots" and "fics"? Drabbles are around 500-700 words. One-shots are anything that isn’t multi-chapter and can include drabbles. Fic is all.

19) Which do you prefer to write more? HC, drabbles, oneshots/fics, multi chapter stories, other? hahahaha I always seem to start off with a one-shot and it becomes a multi-chapter so...whoops.

20) Are there any stories you have discontinued? If so, why? No. I have a couple that haven’t been updated in a long time, but I really love them and want to continue them.

21) What is one of your main "pet-peeves" as a writer on Tumblr? Seeing writers get anonymous hate. Everyone’s just here to have a good time, there’s really no need for that.

22) Do you write a particular time of day? In the evening after the SO is in bed is best. This is usually 10pm - 2 or 3am. The house is quiet and I can light all the smelly candles I want.

23) Do you listen to music, ambiance/noise, etc to write or do you need silence? Sometimes I’ll throw on the movie soundtrack or choose an appropriate soundscape video on youtube. But mostly it’s silence.

24) Do you outline your fics at all before writing? Not intentionally. I always have an idea of what I want the main plot to be and can usually just sit and write. But I don’t always have the time to write when I get an idea, so I open a doc and start dumping ideas there--particular plot points, snatches of dialogue, links to references. Those usually start organizing themselves into a weird kind of beat-outline and the longer I have to wait to sit down and write that fic, the more I go and dump things in. Sometimes I will intentionally start a doc and let it sit for a while knowing that if I give myself time just to brainstorm for a week, I’ll eventually come up with something better than the og idea...

25) Do you post your writing as soon as you finish it, or do you schedule it to come out at a specific time/day?  Nah. I generally post it when it’s ready, which is why I often post late at night.

no pressure and all love tagging (with request to start a new post if you partake): @writeforfandoms @grogusmum @insomniamamma @feathersandfoxtails @leslie-lyman @honestly-shite @songsformonkeys @littlemisspascal 

[duhragonball]

Disinterpretation

I finally finished the Sarah Z video about “pro vs. anti”.   It’s pretty long, and I ended up watching it in chunks over several days, but I think it’s worth watching, especially if you’re sort of partially connected to online fandom, but not enough to be aware of all the lingo. 

As I expected, the whole thing was vague and confusing because the people involved in the conflict made it vague and confusing.   In theory, the full terms would be “pro-shipping” and “anti-shipping”, but it seems like it’s more about particular kinds of ships that could be considered controversial.  But that’s a slippery slope, and apparently the whole conflict mutated into both sides deciding that every hypothetical relationship between fictional characters is either equally valid or equally dangerous.  

Long story short, it’s just purity culture, which was what everyone on Tumblr was calling it around 2012.  But now, if you’re a sane person who genuinely asks: “Who gives a fuck about Voltron?”, these people will jump your ass and accuse you of being on the side of their enemies.  “Children have died over the importance of Lotor/Hagger!   Your callous indifference proves that you yourself must have murdered children!” 

I think what Sarah Z really hit upon in this video was that media consumption has become so ingrained in our culture that people feel like it has to go hand-in-hand with our morality.   That is, it’s not enough for me to watch Star Trek, I have to justify Star Trek as evidence that I’m a good person.  Maybe this is where the expression “guilty pleasure” comes from.   Conversely, it’s not enough for me to not watch Dr. Who, I have to somehow convince everyone that Dr. Who was invented by the devil.

I’m pretty sure the Reylo ship has a lot to do with this, since it’s kind of understood to be a dark, problematic concept, and fans either embrace its flaws or recoil in horror because of them.   Star Wars itself is a dumb story about space wizards, so people try to give the debate more weight by linking it to freedom of self expression and/or enabling real world harm.   Suddenly it’s not enough to just think two actors would look cute making out instead of fighting.   Now it’s this battlefield for the soul of civilization or something.

I grew up in the 80′s, when “concerned parents” and grifters would accuse the Smurfs and metal bands of promoting satanism and witchcraft.   I used to hear stories of teens going out into the woods in the middle of the night to do occult stuff, and all I could ever think about was: “Why would anyone bother wandering out in the woods in the middle of the night?”  Which is why “concerned parents” turned their attention to things that were closer to home, like Saturday morning cartoons.   It had nothing to do with the content; it was just about finding a safe, accessible target for their hysteria.   Some people want to go on a crusade without leaving the house, so they pick a fight with Papa Smurf instead of confronting the real evils in the world.  Even as a kid, I knew this was a con, because I’d watched the show for myself and knew it was too saccharine to be threat to anyone.

The pro/anti folks have tried to disguise this with a lot of terminology.   I wondered why they seemed to reluctant to use the full terms “pro-shipper” and “anti-shipper”, and it’s probably a couple of things.   First, the word “shipper” is basically an admission that this is pointless bullshit that doesn’t matter, and they’d like to avoid that connotation.   Second, they seem to have decided that this goes beyond shipping itself, into practically anything else they want it to involve.  It’s all part of the con, which is to make you believe that it’s “us vs. them”, and you can be part of “us” by curating specific attitudes about Steven Universe.

Seriously, “about Steven Universe” is such an incredible punchline.  You can make anything funnier by adding those three words to the end of a sentence.   “Do not interact if you blog about Steven Universe.”   “Hey, what’s up, YouTube, this is SSJ3RyokoLover69, and this is going to be kind of a serious video about Steven Universe.”   “Mrs. Johnson, the results of your biopsy are in, and I have some bad news about Steven Universe.”   It’s a fucking kids show.   “Oh no, all the characters look like the characters in all the other kids shows!”   Yeah, that’s because it’s a kids show.   Marvin looks like Garfield, this isn’t new.

The common denominator here seems to be that both sides try to wrap themselves in the flag of vulnerable groups: impressionable minors, trauma survivors, harassment victims, etc.   The “pros” want to protect those people so that they can feel free to explore weird subject matter on their own terms, and the “antis” want to protect the same people from being exposed to weird subject matter that they might not want to see.   It’s all about establishing a moral high ground.   Back in the day, it was called “sanctimony”. 

But people get roped into this, because at their core, people want approval, and this stupid conflict offers them a sense of community.  As long as you support the cause, whatever it may be, you’ll have this online friend network that appears to support anything you do.   But if you deviate from their norm, you’ll be cast out.    Does this sound familiar?

To use a more familiar example, I still sometimes find people clamoring about Gochi vs. Vegebul.   I’ve never understood this, because both ships were canon, and I never saw much direct evidence of a war between them, but people would still talk about how crazy the Vegebul shippers were, and how crazy the Gochi shippers were, and it was like some huge thing going on just over the hills.   It’s the same idea, since the idea that you could like both or neither never seems to occur to anyone involved.   I never gave a shit, because I used to see the same dumb agendas in the Harry Potter fandom.

Okay, so let me take you back.  It’s 2005 through 2011, and I’m hateblogging all seven Harry Potter novels, because fuck you, that’s why.  The funny thing I encountered was that occasionally fans seemed to want to pretend like my bashing of certain characters was proving them right somehow.    They were like “See?  He hates Ron Weasley too!  That proves that Seamus Finnegan is the coolest guy ever.”   The Slytherin stans would do this all the time, because I would constantly take the piss out of the Gryffindor characters for being self-important dopes.   I think they just liked hearing it from an outside perspective.   But I had to keep reminding them all that I hated all of them.   Every character from Harry Potter sucks ass. Voldemort was my favorite, but only because he was the one guy who wanted to kill all of the others.   But he sucks too because he failed. 

And the shippers were the same way.   I’d say something shitty about Ron, because Ron sucks, and some smartass Joss Whedon fan would be like “Yes!  Boost the signal!  That is why Harry/Hermione is the best ship!”  And I’d be like “No, Harry and Hermione suck at least as bad as Ron does.  They’re all terrible and I hate them.”   I really do think there was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with Harry Potter books, where everyone secretly knows they suck, but the fans sort of latch on to one or two characters and go like “Well, he’s not as shitty as the rest.”   Like finding spaghetti in the trash and picking out the meatball with the least amount of lint on it.   Then you’d go and start a flamewar with some other starving person over whether your meatball is shittier than theirs.  This is what people mean when they say to read another book. 

Anyway, the big thing I picked up from Sarah Z’s video is “disinterpretation”, a term coined by MSNBC columnis Zeeshan Aleem.   The Twitter thread is worth a read, but the short version is that he once remarked that a Julia Louis-Dreyfus routine wasn’t very good, and someone got mad at him for insinuating that women are incapable of being funny.    They just took his dissatisfaction with one performance by one comedian as being a universal condemnation of women comedians in general.  And this sort of thing is all over the internet.   Everyone sees what they want to see and then they take it as permission to overreact.  

I ran into this myself a while back, because someone saw who I interacted with on Twitter and decided that they’re all bad guys and if I have any interaction with them, then that makes me a bad guy too.   At the time I tried to play it cool, but the more I think about it, the more it ticks me off.   And over the course of that conversation, it was said that I don’t talk about myself much, and that’s kind of funny, because all I ever do on social media is write long-ass blog posts like this one.  I don’t expect anyone to memorize them, or even read them all the way through, but when I write all this stuff and someone goes out of their way to say they don’t know anything about me, the message is that they just didn’t pay attention to what I was saying, and they didn’t bother to try.

So I’m a little jaded from that, because I got called out for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even do or say, and apparently that’s just a thing that happens.   People will reject you for completely arbitrary reasons, not because of anything you actually said or did, and you’re left thinking you made some terrible mistake.   Except, no, I’ve seen it happen to other people, people a lore more conscientious than I am, and if they can’t satisfy the bullshit purity standards, then I never stood a chance.   If the game is rigged so I can’t win, then I’m not going to play.  

And it’s that same condition that probably draws people into these online holy wars, because if you declare yourself for the pro or anti side, at least then you’ll have a posse backing you up.   Only they don’t support you, they support your willingness to support them.    Once your commitment to their agenda wavers, even in the slightest, they will turn against you.   

Sarah Z suggests that both sides of the war drop the pro and anti terms, since they lost all meaning long ago.   But that just invites a new set of useless terms to perpetuate the same cycle.   Her more useful advice is for fandom people to broaden their horizons.   She got a lot of flak for tweeting “Go outside” once, but the ironic thing is that it’s sound advice.   I had lunch with my mom yesterday and it was just nice getting away from things for a while.   People need to do that more often, and unfortunately it feels like it’s harder to do than ever before.

But “go outside” isn’t just a literal thing.   It can mean going beyond your usual haunts, reading the same books, watching the same shows, rehashing the same conversations.   I think the reason this stuff always revolves around “shipping” is because there seems to be this deep-seated compulsion to pair fictional characters off like this, and for a lot of folks it’s the only way they can consume a story, so they do.   And they do it lot, and there’s a lot of them, and they do it the same way every time, and lo and behold the same old conflicts start up.   So maybe “go outside” should mean “go outside of that cycle once in a while.”   Just a thought. 

[ginmo]

How do you think the Bran and Jaime’s meeting will go in the books? I’ve read theories guessing he might end up as King Bran’s Hand, meta where the writers want him to become a mentor or father figure to the Starks in a full circle of his redemption arc, while others don’t want or think he should be involved with the Starks long-term either because of his and his family’s sins against the Starks or because they view his arc as reclamation rather than redemption or atonement. 1/2

This is what GRRM said about Bran and exploring time. 

“It's an obscenity to go into somebody's mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor's simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. The explanation of Bran's powers, the whole questions of time and causality - can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book, but it's harder to explain in a show.” - Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

Hodor’s name reveal is neat and all, but Bran’s power to manipulate the past doesn't exist just so we can randomly learn Hodor’s pointless name origin. That would be ridiculous unless the scene was used to introduce that ability. Hodor’s name reveal is important to the narrative, and I believe its purpose is to set up a much bigger event/reveal involved around Bran interfering with the past, not just observing it. I’m pretty sure GRRM was hint-hinting to D&D about this, which is why he told them about the random ass Hodor scene that was already written, thinking it would be obvious what that means for the overall plot and letting them run with it but………………..

Because of this, I think it’s possible Bran brought himself to where he is. 

IF Bran isn’t involved in The Push, then he could have been involved with Jaime killing the Mad King. I kinda like the idea of Bran playing into Aerys’ madness, causing him to stock up on wildfire around the city, because then the wildfire would be an essential future plot element for a bigger purpose towards the end of the series and it would be a question of time, “a river you can only sail one way, or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop it,” but for the entire series. (And, as someone with a passion in astrophysics, I’m a sucker for discussions around time. BUTTHAT’SJUSTME) 

Do I totally subscribe to this theory? Eh. I’m still not convinced Bran is King of All of Westeros for reasons, but I’m open-minded. I DO think Jaime is surviving the series, for reasonsssss, so I’m putting that disclaimer out there right now. I will never claim with absolute confidence that he is surviving though because, I mean, nobody fucking knows, and there’s an argument for death. I’m just going off of narrative clues that I perceive to be clues, and taking other character arcs into consideration. After literally drawing up a table because I’m weird, the column for Survive has more evidence and justification than the column for Dies, so that’s why I lean the way I lean. SO with that being said, I think it’s possible he has more of a political future.

IF this is what GRRM is writing, Jaime would still be responsible for pushing him, of course, but future Bran would want to be pushed. He'd be setting everything in motion to create the butterfly effect that makes it happen. 

Even if that isn’t what GRRM had intended with exploring time, it’s highly likely Bran’s character development is taking him down a path of apathy over it, meaning he wouldn’t be needing Jaime to do something for the purpose of redemption for him. 

Speaking of Redemption…

-deep breath-

I’m going to go off on this a bit because it IS relevant, I swear. 

“Limits of redemption” is probably the biggest wtf interpretation fandom has when it comes to what GRRM actually said. I’ll try not to go off on it too much here but -

Interviewer: Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime.

GRRM: One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? [...]  I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then?  [x]

I bolded “we” from the interviewer, because it gives context to GRRM’s answer with “we” being the readers, not the characters or Jaime himself. (I think there’s another interview where he says “limits of redemption” but it’s in the same context. I could be wrong but I SWEAR I heard it. Anyway…) 

“I kind of tried to ask, ‘do you think he’s changed?’ to get him to talk about Jaime’s redemption arc, so he said something like he wanted to explore the concept of forgiveness and whether it’s possible to be forgiven for doing such horrible things, and that his goal was to ask the question, not give an answer.” [x]

Fandom thinks this is the characters giving Jaime forgiveness, and maybe there will be a small element of that in the books, but the question is for the readers. No, Jaime is not actively seeking redemption from people. His redemption is for himself, through living his best life, by rediscovering the person he used to be. Yes He Will Be Redeemed and No He Will Fail assume redemption is some arbitrary checklist determined by One Big Act, and they’re answers to a question GRRM doesn’t want to give an answer to. 

The purpose of Jaime’s POVs is to ask the readers, and the most obvious moment of this was the bath scene. GRRM smacks us over the head with the Aerys confession, and then as we’re introduced to more and more of his POV chapters, he slowly chips away at the Jaime illusion that was intentionally established the moment he pushed one of the perceived child protagonists out of a window. It’s brilliant, and I’m sorry GRRM that a large chunk of your fandom is too dense to get it. How frustrating lol. I’ll be insulted for him. (I’m legit wondering if his recent angsty tweets about grey and redemption about real life stem from a concern that his fandom won’t understand the point of the series.) 

To give you an idea of where these people are coming from, at least one BNF idiot on Twitter believes redemption hasn’t been explored with Jaime yet. 

But uh… 

GRRM mentioned his intent is to “explore redemption” after delivering Jaime POVs, because... it’s... not a spoiler… he’s already exploring redemption, because the question is being asked TO US. We were supposed to have an “oh shit” moment, realizing this is more complex than the surface level, biased perspective we were delivered at the beginning of the story. “Maybe Westeros and my protagonist have it wrong.” -cough- the people in the village in BatB -cough- 

No matter how much fandom likes to pretend they love GRRM for pushing the boundaries of fantasy, they secretly fucking hate it. They love to be comfortable, dude. That’s why they read this series as if it’s a clear cut Good vs. Evil, because a) ego and b) that’s easy. If GRRM was writing Jaime as doing everything with ill intent then…. his… question isn’t being asked. They think everything he does right now is selfish and Bad, so they’re waiting. They want it spoon fed to them. They want classic fantasy. They want Starks = Good, Lannisters = Bad. 

But… if the author sees Jaime’s actions as grey and complex, enough to ask the question to the readers if he’s redeemed in their eyes or not, then he’s not going to write an endgame that punishes the character for narrative payoff, because he doesn’t see his actions as “sins” or “crimes” in the same way that these people are. Once upon a time, a person on tumblr reblogged one of my posts and said that Jaime will rape Cersei before he kills himself and that will be his endgame. But GRRM doesn’t view Jaime as a rapist, so he’s not going to write Jaime as a rapist. I’m bringing that up, because it’s the same phenomenon. People can ignore authorial intent all they want, but NOT when it comes to predicting narrative trajectory. The general fandom is terrible at that lol. 

The exploration of redemption for Jaime comes in the form of confronting his disillusioned self and everything attached to it. Before someone thinks, “lolllll he isn’t disillusioned” 

 “he actually was a very idealistic young man who was disillusioned by life” [x]

Jaime’s redemption is the path of returning to that idealistic man for himself. It’s by feeling ashamed of the things he’s done to hide his love for Cersei. It’s by gaining independence and detaching from the toxic relationship that caused a mess outside of them. It’s by wanting to be like the knights he admired in his youth, and like the woman warrior that inspired him. 

So when I think about narrative payoff for Jaime, I don’t see it framed as him being “punished” for actions viewed as “crimes,” when GRRM clearly established those “crimes” as complicated and grey with a character already going through some positive development, and especially when the characters judging are written to be flawed as well.

On the other side, having him be “punished” by succumbing to hatred and anger is for sure giving an answer (this just… -sits on hands- don’t even get me started on THIS fucking hot take). That answer would be a clear, solid, “No, no matter how hard he tries to turn his life around, he can’t be redeemed, because he’s a hateful, angry, fucked up person.” I’ve legit seen people think “limits of redemption” is a boundary of redemption drawn in the sand that Jaime is walking towards but he won’t be able to cross it. I-......................... 

And what’s even the point of his handchop if scenario number 2 happens?  

“And Jaime, losing a hand, losing the very thing he defined himself on is crucial to where I think I want to go with the character. And he questions what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost that.” - GRRM [x]

(I’m going to put this quote in every post sorry not sorry) 

So he’s going to take Jaime on this big identity journey just for him to be like “lol nah he isn’t that” …?? That makes the loss of his hand meaningless, not “crucial.” Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand if he’s bringing him back to the beginning? Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand to make himself realize he’s hateful and a failure and murder Cersei and then himself? No. He could have still met Brienne and been inspired by her knightly ways, attempted to live a better life, found out about Cersei’s affairs, etc. He doesn’t need to lose his hand to reach a point of fucking murder/suicide lmao fuck (not saying he’ll do that but I KNOW people are thinking it). 

The loss of his hand is “crucial,” because GRRM has bigger endgame plans for him in the form of politics, and the journey to believably get there requires the forced loss of his warrior identity and everything that the hand symbolized. 

AS FOR THE ACTUAL HAND THEORY...

Even though I’m undecided on it, I CAN see it IF Bran is King. I get it. Jaime’s missing his right Hand, he becomes the Hand to the kid he pushed out the window. Hardy har har. I understand how that would be pleasing.

And we all know GRRM said something about how the best ones for power are the ones who don’t want it…  

And… this suspicious scene at the very beginning of the series… 

“You should be the Hand.” 

“Gods forbid,” a man’s voice replied lazily. “It’s not an honor I’d want. There’s far too much work involved.” 

Bran hung, listening, suddenly afraid to go on. -AGOT

BUT IF that happens, it wouldn’t be there as some sort of #atonement #forredemption. It would be there because of Jaime’s growth as a character after developing into a political player, after asking himself, “what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost [the swordhand]?” He’s no longer the warrior he once was. He dislikes any sort of political position, because he feels most alive with a sword in his hand. But that was Warrior Jaime, and the point of “what do you make of yourself after you’ve lost that” is Jaime going down a different path after discovering that Warrior Jaime has died. I mean, he’d never be actively seeking power and thinking it’s the best career ever, like he’d probably be all -sighhhhhhh- about it, but he’d be doing the responsible thing and what’s necessary. He’d make himself useful in a new way. 

“The Warrior had been Jaime’s god since he was old enough to hold a sword. Other men might be fathers, sons, husbands, but never Jaime Lannister, whose sword was as golden as his hair. He was a warrior, and that was all he would ever be.” - AFFC (Do I really need to make a post about how GRRM foreshadows? Mr. Bran: “I never fall”...?)

Jaime losing his hand was the narrative consequence for The Push, making all of his development post handchop -ALL OF HIS POVS- the redemption theme. It was the hand that pushed Bran, fucked his twin, killed his king, swung the sword against fandom’s Precious Protagonists… 

“You ought to be pleased. I’ve lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I’d slide between my sister’s thighs to make her wet.” - AFFC

So if Jaime becomes his Hand, it would be the two characters meeting in the middle, not Jaime groveling at his feet, begging for forgiveness, framed as a punishment for sins - “sins” that fandom views as “sins” that need narrative payoff, because they don’t understand intent. 

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Piper Sargasso

Piper Sargasso has 25 stories at Gossamer, but don’t miss her website where the fics each have cover collage art. If you are a fan of Mulder/Scully romance, there are a lot of MSR fics to read that are set in different seasons of the show. But like the show that never stuck to one type of story, Piper’s stories have variety, so you can also find AUs and /Other.  Big thanks to Piper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It does, but I love that people are still into it! Writers back in the day put so much work and love into their writing, and it's nice to know that the stories are still being appreciated to this day. As for my own stories, it puts a huge smile on my face to know there are still people out there checking them out and hopefully enjoying them.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was such a positive period of my life. I made some amazing friends who became something like older sisters (and some brothers) to me, even though I was a little ridiculous when I was in my early to mid-twenties. It was also a much-needed confidence booster. I was a pretty shy person and loved writing, but never had the nerve to show anything to anyone. My first fanfic was completely horrible, but because of it I made my first XF friend and super beta, Mimic117. Between her guidance and the encouraging words from my Yahoo group I was able to do something I really loved and felt great about myself and my abilities for the first time. That will stay with me forever. That first story was truly atrocious, but it was a catalyst for great things in my life when I needed them the most.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I remember trying this cool new thing called an AOL chat room, but they were more interested in perving on each other than talking about the show. Once I knew about fanfiction I kept seeing that some of my favorite authors kept mentioning IWTBXF in their notes, a Yahoo group named I Want to Believe. I looked it up, joined, and with great trepidation made my introductory post. Everyone was so warm and welcoming, and talking to my favorite authors in the group was a little like meeting a celebrity and finding out that they're awesome in real life. After IWTBXF fell apart, an off-shoot called Beyond the Sea was created with almost all of the original group transferring over. I stuck to my little family there and didn't branch out into much else, other than the rare dip into Haven. Ephemeral and Gossamer, of course.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Mostly the overwhelming feeling of acceptance and confidence to write, something I was sorely lacking before in my life. I fell in with the best group, that's for sure! They made me feel like being a professional writer could be an achievable goal.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

The commercial advertising. The pilot spoke to my supernatural-loving, angsty 15 year-old soul. I watched it religiously every week. There was nothing like it. It was off-beat, but serious (most of the time) and fulfilled my insatiable craving for the paranormal and weird. You just couldn't get that from Melrose Place and Beavis and Butthead, you know? It definitely helped that David Duchovny was adorable and the character of Scully was the strong and intelligent icon we needed in the 90's and beyond.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

In high school I had a friend who was as obsessed with the show as I was. Maybe more, since she once had a slumber party that was exclusively to binge watch her taped episodes (the other girls who wanted to mess around with spells and the Ouija board weren't thrilled that she couldn't be swayed away from it) and she often drove me from play rehearsals in her convertible with the top down and the theme song blasting to the heavens, much to my delight and mortification. A couple years after we graduated she told me about the piece of fanfic she wrote. Insert a record screech here. What?! You mean there are thousands of stories dedicated to my favorite show? And hundreds more get added every month?! I was obsessed. If I could've stopped working and slept at my computer desk I would have.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Sadly it's nonexistent these days. I have great memories and it holds a big piece of my heart, but I haven't been active in a long time. I would love to see a huge revival, and would definitely want to be involved in that in some way, were it to happen.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I read a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction for a while, but I never could expend the kind of energy and time I did for the X-Files fandom. It came at a perfect time in my life, and so far nothing else has measured up to it.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Besides XF characters? Off the top of my head I really love Hermione Granger, Buffy Summers, Elizabeth Bennet, and Claire Fraser for their sass and strength of character, Severus Snape for his complexity, and Christina Ricci's version of Wednesday Addams for her pure awesomeness. She's pretty much my spirit animal.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I do occasionally. I watched the series from season 1-7 so many times that I started to burn out, but I get on my X-Files kicks sometimes and binge it again.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

Like with the show, I'll get nostalgic and need to consume all the fanfics my greedy little eyes can behold until I move on to something else. It can feel a little lonely though, if you'll excuse the drama. We're not in the heyday anymore, so it feels a little like walking through a ghost town. Many of the stories out there are suspended in time because the show ended, or people stopped writing.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I know I have dozens, but I'm drawing a blank. My ultimate favorite is any well-written MSR casefile with UST finally resulting in RST. Those are my unicorns!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I have a silly one called Baby, It's Cold Outside that I sometimes read around Christmastime. It was a fluffy song-fic, but I can see the scene so clearly in my mind when I read it and it's just pure fun. I also like my Donnie Pfaster series. I can see the potential in my writing with those, which makes me feel I could really write something special someday. Plus, he's such an interesting little slimeball to write and read about. Bless his heart.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I still think about the two WIPs I haven't finished. I wrote myself into a corner with This Mortal Coil, and honestly I think it needs a total overhaul. I think Dana Scully's Diary would be a fun one to finish. I hate that I never finished them.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I think about writing fanfic now and then and I've had a couple original novels sketched out, but there are so many other demands on my time that I haven't gotten very far. I still plan to see the novels through, even if no one but interested friends and family read them.  

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I used to watch an episode and really study the actors' expressions and actions, always trying to find new angles to the stories we all know. A lot of times things would just come to me and I'd get so excited I couldn't sleep until I wrote a good chunk of it down.

What's the story behind your pen name?

The friend who introduced me to fanfic told me the best way to choose a pen name was to make sure it derives from the show. For a couple days I looked at the titles and summaries of episodes and agonized over just the right name. Finally Piper Maru and the summary from Triangle, which mentions the Sargasso sea, stood out and just clicked.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My now husband always knew, and he thought it was cool that I had a hobby that made me so happy, but he was never a reader. My parents found out when I was about 24 and my step-dad would tell EVERYONE about it, much to my horror. Most reactions were of the bland, "Oh yeah? That's nice." variety but I definitely got some weird looks from others. The worst was when I found out how much of my racier MSR stories my parents read. My step-dad thought it was hilarious and teased me a little. My usually open-minded mom was uncomfortable, but tried to be supportive. It's all fun and games until your daughter starts writing psuedo-erotica for anyone to see!

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Circe Invidiosa very generously hosts a page for me at http://pipers.invidiosa.com.

(Posted by Lilydale on January 26, 2021)

[elkian]

I was gonna do a “missing the point”-style meme but I’m honestly not sure that would even work tho so:

Harry Potter and My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia have similar issues with introducing and then immediately ignoring ENORMOUS issues re: ableism.

I think these two series in specific come to mind bc it’s ableism within a specific empowered community, and in both cases the series are pretty well-known and the community (Wix/Heroes) are immediately identifiable to many audiences.

[WARNING: Discussions of ableism, child harm, and abuse on multiple levels.]

What’s the problem?

SQUIBS.

[This post got stupid huge SO here is a tl,dr for all you lovely people who understandably have no time for this.

TL, DR: Both Harry Potter and Boku No Hero have a bad tendency to implement or imply a level of disability regarding unempowered people in empowered societies. They then continue on to completely disregard important conclusions to these implications, such as how heavily it is implied that these unempowered people (Squibs) are so ‘worthless’ to those societies that their very deaths are merely a byline rather than an actual tragedy.

This is especially troubling in MHA/BNHA when so many other political and worldbuilding considerations HAVE been planned out, and seems to be less-discussed in the fandom as a whole, so that’s a much larger chunk of this post.]

That’s your tl, dr!

Here’s the Harry Potter angle:

HP has a bit that I’ve seen people discussing already: Neville’s magic was discovered when his uncle dropped a literal child a potenial lethal distance. 

Neville activating his power and surviving is celebrated, and then JKR immediately glosses over the glaring issue this has introduced: the heavy implication that a Squib dying from this incident would have not have been mourned or even really commented on.

The few adult Squibs (and isn’t that a whole new slice of wonderful /j) are generally disliked and ridiculed for some reason or other. Now, while obviously there are plenty of places where the Venn diagram of “disabled” and “asshole” intersect irl, when your ONLY presentation of a disabled character or group is, every time, an asshole or a fool or both, boy! That’s bad!

Neville (who is generally presented as magically, physically, and mentally weak and often treated as comic relief) is a bit better via the POV Character constantly having positive interactions with him, but this is still a mess. Yes, Neville canonically is not a Squib, but it’s not subtle that he’s on the cusp OF being a Squib, and that is a key element of ridiculing him in many situations (also the whole trauma thing multiple times, like if I really get into it I could do a whole double-size post of how Neville was done dirty or nearly dirty by JK all the time but this isn’t that post).

This isn’t even the point of this post. Let’s move to MHA/BNHA

Hero Academia has differing but honestly even worse issues. And I’m aware that different countries handle ableism and accessibility in different ways, but if you think too hard about it this is an absolute clusterfuck.

What is the problem now?

Squibs! Or rather, the main character of the series, Midoriya Izuku.

Deku (a nickname meaning “useless”! Imparted after his disability is recognized! hilarity!!) is also born without powers. Even worse in some ways, he is born without powers in a world where the overwhelming majority of the global population has some kind of empowerment. I can’t recall if it’s outright stated or only implied that someone with a functionally useless (and hoo boy, usefullness to society is its own post nope not today i do not have that much energy) Quirk is still more of a person than a Quirkless human.

That sink in? Okay, let’s move on.

In a narratively not-uncommon turn of events, Deku gains power. This is partially a product of, and directly tied to, his own work and determination, as well as his willingness to help even when physically outmatched.

To an American audience (NOT the intended audience though I wouldn’t doubt it if Horikoshi meant to have international appeal more or less from the start), this is a deeply satisfying narrative. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? And we even learn that the strongest hero of all time (til this point, anyways) was ALSO born Quirkless!

However, from here, things take a nosedive.

The key problem is a combination of story progression and overall thought put into worldbuilding. Horikoshi’s efforts may not be the MOST thorough, but he has put a great deal of work and thought into his creation (he at least understands the concept of implications and sometimes plans accordingly, looking at you JKR). However, that tied with story progression and personal repercussions actually works to the detriment of the matter.

Especially given recent turns of events.

 [BIG MEGA SPOILERS FOR FAIRLY RECENT PLOT

 STOP HERE IF YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT UP

 SERIOUSLY]

 What I mean by this is the current state of events re: two particular recent/recent-ish plot arcs.

First, Quirk Removal, and second, Endeavor’s comeuppance.

Quirk Removal/Loss was the start of my realization to what the narrative was doing regarding Izuku’s Quirklessness and the state of being overall.

This arc was a perfect time to bring up Midoriya’s past! A lot of Western works certainly would have done so! And yes, it may be bordering on done-to-death, but many elements of Hero Academia put new twists on common themes and cliches; it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that he might do it again.

Instead, little to NOTHING is discussed during this time! In fact, iirc I’d go so far as to say Midoriya straight-up never considers his past at any point during this arc!? If I’m wrong then it obviously made little impact.

NOW, not every disabled character needs to incorporate their disability and/or skills gleaned from living with it in every narrative. In fact, it would get tedious and questionable if they did (note: this does NOT mean ignoring/forgetting the character is even disabled when convenient. Like, I’d like to think that’s the obvious point of this post but... *gestures at tumblr*). 

But the complete lack of it here feels really weird. Like, almost hollow. I think Midoriya makes some kind of suggestion to Mirio of his former Quirklessness at the end of the arc, but nothing that made any kind of impact.

Let’s move on.

Endeavor.

Now, the problem with Endeavor’s arc is not the arc itself. Or, rather, it’s the fact that Endeavor’s Comeuppance is pretty good.

This is a problem because someone else should be getting this exact same arc, yet the issue is never even RECOGNIZED, let alone addressed.

Endeavor’s abuse of his wife and children, all in the name of creating a Heroic legacy, is publicized and tanks his popularity. The general public is now aware of what he’s done to the people closest to him, which aside from giving him a more correct reputation, means they can’t trust him to protect them if they can’t trust him to protect his own family.

This isn’t the goal of this post and I’m no expert regardless, but up to this point (around chapter 290) this was handled in an interesting way. Endeavor is humanized and often shown interacting with people in a way that, while often domineering, isn’t always aggressive or abusive. He runs a Hero Agency for crying out loud! But abuse in the real world often isn’t constant, nor happening to everyone in contact with the abuser. So this is a surprisingly good lead up to the reveal, where you can understand how most people never realized this was an issue.

But here’s my main point. Let’s examine some traits and actions that come up:

physically abusive to a child (often dangerously so) to the point of permanent trauma and severe scarring in some cases

target of abuse was weaker (physically and/or regarding Quirk power)

often abused victim emotionally/psychologically, bringing this weakness up again and again

own immense power led to rising in the world of Heroics

comrades, fellow Heroes, UA teachers etc. not aware of prior abuse issues

Who does this sound like?

Endeavor, who has a whole fucking arc dedicated to this reveal and repercussions?

Or Bakugou?

Reminder: This isn’t a hate post. This isn’t a character post, or even an abuse post. This is about ableism.

Bakugou exhibits many, many traits and actions that Endeavor was literally just punished for. So why does the treatment of these characters in-universe differ so drastically?

Two primary reasons I can think of, which feed into each other:

1) Bakugou was a child (still technically is a minor, remember! Still a first-year high schooler!) when this started. This doesn’t mean he’s strictly innocent, but it’s an important point, because it leads us to

2) Bakugou Katsuki’s abuse of Midoriya Izuku is socially accepted.

Reminder of the audience’s first encounter with Katsuki. The very first page with him is him and his grade-school posse picking on a kid that Izuku is trying to protect. His posse is showing off their Quirk powers and mocking Izuku’s lack thereof.

Then we flash forward to late-middle school versions of the kids. Bakugou, in front of a fucking teacher and entire class, is verbally, physically, etc. abusive to Izuku. He trashes his stuff, threatens him, tells him to kill himself (which, as Izuku notes later, is a fucking felony in Japan too).

No one stops him.

No one criticizes him.

We don’t even get a shot of like, some more ‘regular’ students being like “man Bakugou’s kinda fucked up but we’re too scared to do anything about it” NO. NO. Everyone more or less either backs Katsuki up or straight up doesn’t care.

Remember that this started when Katsuki and Izuku were four. Remember that Katsuki’s power is absurdly dangerous, ie. LITERAL. GODDAMN. EXPLOSIONS.

Izuku has scars. He probably has hearing loss! He may have gotten at least one concussion which can cause serious neurological issues and open him up to further risk!

He could have died.

And?

NO ONE. DOES. ANYTHING.

THIS is the point of the post. THIS is the value placed on Quirkless people in this society.

And yet. Despite Endeavor’s comeuppance. Despite All Might and Izuku’s blatant ‘value’ to society through Heroics. Despite so many other political implications and quandaries address in the Hero Academia series.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing about this is addressed. The nearly-lethal ableism towards Quirkless people in this society is never ONCE brought up properly once Izuku receives One For All.

There is so much potential here! There is so much worth talking about! And yet we’ve moved into what feels very much like the Final Battle without it being addessed, despite numerous, numerous opportunities for a meaningful conversation about it along the way.

Mirio losing his power! Hell, Mirio’s powers’ drawbacks (and pretty much every Quirk’s drawback! if acknowledged properly!) border on a disability-analogue, and even more when Yuga’s laser comes up, and yet again and again we fail to truly engage with the matter in a meaningful way.

At this point, even if it comes up in the finale, I’m going to be disappointed in this particular aspect of the series due to the complete and total shut-down it’s been given so far.

What the FUCK, Horikoshi?

[ryosei-hime]

Writer Tag Game

I got tagged by @ernmark

I’m terrible at tagging people in these so if you see this and want to do it, go for it!

How many works do you have on AO3?

I’m gonna start by saying that I have a larger chunk of fics on FF.net because I wrote more back when I used that instead. I also had a very long hiatus from writing fics at all due to mental health and life stuff.

Also I realized recently that a lot of my RvB fics didn’t end up on AO3 and I just left them here on tumblr which was the last time I was super active with fanfic back in 2014.

So, long way around to say, only 20 that are housed on AO3 specifically.

What's your total AO3 word count?

49,141

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Naptime is Best Time which was my most popular RvB fic. A little humorous Grimmons.

Stolitz Week Oneshots - Some of my most recent work since that event only ended recently. Very specifically I got a lot of those kudos after posting Confession which seems to be well-liked and makes me very happy.

Personal Space which is a HuskerDust chapter fic that deals with Husk’s insecurities regarding his demon form.

Sex and Therapy - An OCxRobo Fizz story in which an imp therapist buys a busted up second hand Fizzarolli Personal Companion with intents to help him professionally but uh. *points at the title* This one was very surprising to me because I don’t expect much if any attention to be given to my OC focused things. So that this one got enough to be on the top five makes me really happy.

Apologies - An Alix/Chat Noir fic that I did for a rare pair exchange. Another one that surprises me. : P Especially as I only watched the first season of Ladybug and often forget I even wrote it.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to and if the comment is longer, I definitely do. With shorter comments, it depends on my mood. I’m socially awkward and whether or not saying just thank you feels inane and unwanted as a response will vary with how I’m feeling. I definitely appreciate all comments! Even one word comments. : P But responding will vary based on my own mental processes and has nothing to do with the commenter or my appreciation for the comment. Some comments will make me particularly happy and I’ll read them over again but still not respond because I don’t have anything specific to say in response. It’s mostly a series of noises that can’t be conveyed in text.

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

Oh! That’s definitely Don’t Cry Usagi. A short fic speculating the long term effects of Naru's role as victim in Sailor Moon's crime-fighting life. I don’t do character death a lot but I had this idea and it wouldn’t leave me alone.

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

I think I end up with a lot of happy endings. Like there’s probably suffering along the way but in the end things work out more often than not. So, I don’t think that I can say any one fic has a happier ending than another, really.

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I was probably more prone to that when I was younger. I did have one that I never posted anywhere that involved Doctor Drakken from Kim Possible attempting to use a device to access a universe in which he had been successful in taking over the world (I think this was before a Stitch in Time came out) and learn how he did it. But of course the device malfunctions and sort of scatters universes. I used pretty much all the cartoons I was particularly interested in at the time.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I wouldn’t say hate. I’ve definitely received some weird responses though. And all on FF.net.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I only very, very recently starting doing so! Because you can only write a character that’s a sexbot for so long without it coming up. It was important that the second occurrence of full on sex in Sex and Therapy (I fade to blacked the first) actually be written because there was a lot of emotion and bonding involved in it that needed to be shown. Which is why I said fuck it and did the shorter one right before it as well. I had to accept I couldn’t tell that story without sex. It’s in the title! But now I’m more comfortable writing it, so I may be more prone to do so going forward.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I’m pretty sure I had a few snatched up by bots grabbing a bunch all at once. But not by a person that I am aware of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I’m aware of.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I attempted to do so once with a 9/Labyrinth crossover. I failed you @ernmark​. Forgive me. Actually, there was one other time where I was slightly more successful but it also never got posted anywhere or made it beyond a couple of rough drafts. It was a DBZ fic and I remember a much more talented writer was working with me and I was super grateful for their input and help because this was when I was like *maths* 13? I was super young. We were using yahoo chat to work on it together. And this much better/older writer treated me so nicely and wasn’t condescending at all. It was really nice of them. I will always remember you stranger from yahoo chat.

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

That definitely depends on the fandom. Since these are the two fandoms I’m active in right now: Stolitz is my favorite Helluva Boss ship and HuskerDust is my favorite Hazbin Hotel ship.

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

Okay, there are two fics I started a million years ago that I think about rewriting and finishing constantly. I even started to rewrite one of them more recently before Helluva/Hazbin took over my brain. One was Foutley’s Phone Buddies which was an As Told By Ginger fic focused on aged up Carl/Blake. The other Was Crouching Tigger, Hidden Rabbit which was a Tigger/Rabbit fic. That’s right. I ship the fuck out of Tigger and Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh.

What are your writing strengths?

Characters and dialogue. I’m someone with very low self-esteem or it used to be very low. I guess it’s gotten better but it’s still hard to say outright nice things about myself. But I’ve never had a problem saying I’m good at characters. Confessions is kind of a point of pride for me right now with that because of how much attention it’s received for being in character.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot and structure. I write primarily by instinct. And my instinct is primarily character driven. What makes it easy for me to just churn out character interactions without thinking makes it difficult for me when I have to stop and slow down long enough to figure out what’s actually supposed to be happening in the story and in what order for the best pacing. The more my wheels have to actually turn, the harder it is for me.

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

I’ll do it poorly with flagrant disregard for poor native speakers. I’m so sorry native speakers. I used bacha galupe for Angel in one recently. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. And I’m pretty sure I learned that from the Golden Girls so how accurate it is or if it’s even spelled right is beyond me. But it’s out there now. I really only do this for words here and there though. If someone’s gonna do more than that, I’ll just write that they speak in the language.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Animorphs! I typed up Animorphs fic in like comic sans size fucking 30 or something and printed it out. I’ll never forget. That was in the late 1990s and my grandfather had just moved up from the printer that had the edges you had to tear off. So it was on this impressive pure white straight sheet of paper. So fancy and it had my giant ass fic on it. Only the best for my Andalite OC.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I’m still very fond of Naptime is Best Time after all these years. I think Sex and Therapy is gonna be special to me for being one of the longest chapter fics I’ve ever finished (I’ma finish it) because I’ve always been more of a oneshot person until recently. And Confessions will probably stay a favorite for a long time. So, yeah, I’ve just been happier with my recent stuff and being able to write fanfic again after so many years.

[daeneryswhitehorse]

Dany hate throughout the years.

( This is base on a reply I made in post create by @yendany . I also want to precise that it is only my perspective of the fandom as a dany stan, other people probably have a different opinion of what was going on. )

I came in the asoiaf/got fandom in 2011, when the show first came out. I fell in love with dany on my first watch and still like her after reading the books. I started to get involved in the fandom because I wanted to learn more about her.

I didn't know tumblr at the time so I was on westeros.org. The mad queen dany theory was already a thing, mostly for the persons who didn't like that dany could be azor ahai and not one of the male character. But the forum still liked her for her baddass moments in asos or her portrayal in the first season of got.

Everything changed when adwd came out. The incels in this site really didn't liked dany having sex with daario after rejecting jorah/quentyn. They also didn't understood her plot, were tired of her staying in Essos or not interacting with main pov character. It was enough for them to think she was boring.

From then on, there were a lot of bad take of her character. Grrm wanting to talk about the consequences of her mistakes and her decision of staying in meereen was understood as dany being dumb and incompetent as a queen. People made fun of her long list of titles and thought it make her look arrogant. They claimed she was nothing without her dragon, in contrast to male character like stannis. Or not a true warrior because she spend her battle hiding in her tent, unlike stannis or jon who fight with swords. Or that she didn't car about the common people, because she try to negociate with the meereeness nobles. Most of those claimed exist to prove why character like Jon or Stannis would be azor ahai or the true king of Westeros.

After season 3 of the show came out, a lot of people were rightfully offended by the final scene with daenerys where she surf on a sea of brown people. A lot of fans start seeing Dany as a white savior in both books and show, and a lot of essay were about how how her storyline was rooted in racist orientalist ideas. If you were a person of color and still stan her, it was probably because of internalized racism.

Before this season, feminist critized the butchering of most of dany storyline, like they did with other female characters. But none was as talk about then Sansa's, because the most popular female character like Dany, Arya and Brienne were seen as the cash grab of the show. It was considered more important to defend her in particular, and liking Sansa over them was seen as resistance act against D&D misogyny.

The intellectual part of the fandom really went out of their way in defending her. They liked her because she was a gateway to the political part of the story in King's Landing and the Vale. They didn't like how some fans victim-blamed her for the abuse she suffered with the Lannister, and praised the fact she didn't end up with stockolm syndrome like Dany or Theon. "Not everyone can be an Arya" did they said, as they wanted people to acknowledged she was the more relatable point of view and how her traditional feminity shouldn't be put down. They emphasis a lot on her kindness, her emphatie, or her observational skills but and said those qualities were unique to her and are what separate her of the rest of the cast. She was the representation of humanity in this crapsack world. And after outsmarting Littlefinger would probably be rewarded with an important political position and would be one of the builder of the new world after the apocalypse.

All of this probably wasn't meant to be interprete as hate toward other female and some of the male characters, but it sure did for the Sansa stan! Who would then create their entire defense meta around putting down any character they found and upliftting her above them. Their favorite target was Arya, but you could found from time to time one on Dany. I remember someone defending Sansa innocence in trusting Cersei in the first book, by emphasing on her age and naivety, and putting down dany for not knowing mirri maz durr would get revenge on her khalassar.

Talking about Dany, the intellectual part of the fandom didn't really like her. I mean they didn't hate her, and didn't diminish her importance in the story, but she clearly wasn't a fan favorite.

There was two angle in their analysis of daenerys: the political leader and the messiah.

For the first part, they were trying to define daenerys position in the story, and came to the conclusion she was the destroyer of the old world. In their point of view, dany didn't free the slaves in asos for pure reason but because she couldn't pay for an army, and then didn't know how to build a new economy, leading to the horrors in astapor in adwd and her failure in maintaining peace in meereen. For them, Dany is unable to control her emotion and confuse revenge with justice. They also think she is an incompetent queen who make decision on a whim and never listen to her adviser. Her relationship with Daario represent her want for easy solution through war, wich she embrace at the end of adwd. When she can't remember Hazzea name, it meant innocent would die in her violent path in twow. Because of this, the expression "the path of hell is paved with good intention" became popular to define her arc from asos to beyond.

For the second part, they were clearly interressed by the mystical part of her story. Dany has a lot of prophecy around her that can be used to determined the next plotlines post adwd. For some reason, they pushed their own obssession with it on Daenerys, who they now believed is blinded by her own destiny. They claimed she think she is the hero of story and is unable to see when she does something wrong. This until she will blow up King's Landing in ados. This would push her toward her true destiny in the fight against the others where she will sacrifice herself for the greater good.

And lets not talk about the weird part of the fandom who are obssessed with deconstruction and who would only acknowledge dany as azor ahai reborn if it meant the hero is actually the true villain of the story, and the Others misunderstood victims.

2015 arrive as well as season 5 of got. This season was so controversial it manage to divided the fandom in three.

The first one were book purist who were disguted by the total butchering of affc/adwd plotline to replace them with offensive mess, and decided to stop watching the show and focus on the books. While some of them were dany friendly, they all seem to favor character like Sansa, Stannis, Brienne, the Lannisters, or the Martells. A lot of effort were put into their metas to uplift their book plotline and personality above their show counterpart.

The second part is similar to the first one, exept they didn't stop watching the show but decided to view each season through critical lense to try to understand the sexism and racism of D&D. They were mostly Sansa and Martell stan.

Both of those point of view were seen as too radical and annoying by the dudebro show apologist. Being a Martell and Sansa stan also become a sign of being a woke feminist, a book purist and a show anti.

The third part of the fandom decided that the failure of season 5 was the responsability of Grrm for not finishing his books in time, and that the show writer had run out of material and were forced to improvised. Plus the book plots were too complex and boring to be adapted, they had to simplify them. And they were also given futur plot point by Grrm that could explain some of the controversial decision this season. Like Sansa wedding with Ramsay, it was probably made because the character would end up in the North in one of the next books.

Thoses three point of view are important to understand why when the theory saying dany is a villain not a hero became more popular, dany stan were pretty isolated.

And why did this theory became more popular? Well it's a mix of all thoses perception of daenerys that I mention above but mostly because of the peoples who decided that dany in season 5 was Joffrey.02. Like I say there were people who thought that D&D were now working with futur plot point given by Grrm. And since dany storyline was read as one of a white savior, and the fandom believed Grrm can't do no wrong, and dany did some stuff this season they disapproved of, they decided it meant dany should be seen as a villain. And in a way, it manage to reconciliate the feminist anti racist and the pro D&D point of view , now united in hating daenerys. It allowed them to still trust the show, because it meant it was not D&D and grrm who were racist but dany, and it made them feel smart for having figured out this big plot point. Plus a chunk of the show!jon stan decide the parallel between them this season meant he would become the true hero of the story. Because they thought janos execution was more honorable than mossador's, and jon fight against the wight walker to defend his brothers and the free folks was contrast with dany running away on drogon.

But there were people who didn't like dany and didn't think she would become a villain. Thoses people were feminist who thought daenerys, as the face of the show, was the embodiement of D&D fake feminism responsible of the ruined of character like Sansa or the Martells. Sansa in particular because they felt the show hated traditional feminity which is something Dany was not, which was what allegedly gave her more priviledge and love by the writer and fandom. When season 6 came out, they criticized the double standard between Cersei and Dany, where the former was demonized for burning a Church and the later was celebrate for burning the khals in their holy place. Obviously, the criticism of orientalism and racism within her story didn't make her very popular with feminist.

Season 6 end, and the sansa fandom decide to ship their fav with Jon Snow. But unfortunalty for them, it was obvious that jonerys would become a thing in later season.

Now Sansa was pretty well beloved by the fandom. Like I said earlier, the intellectual part of the fandom and the sansa defense squad really went out of their way to give a better image of the character, wich was fairly popular now that show sansa had a more active role. Plus the feminist adore her!

On the other hand, daenerys was seen as either a villain in the making, or the representation of the show fake feminism and racism. At this point dany stan were considered the dumbass of the fandom.

So, what happen when the jonerys vs jonsa shipping war happen? Well the jonerys shipper were seen as the big bully who victimized the poor sansa stan. Since in their point of view, dany stan were racist people who can't read, and the sansa stan were the woke book purist. Since Sansa was the underdog unfairly hated by the dudebro of the fandom, but beloved by the intellectuals. And Dany was the popular girl who got dumb stan and is only loved by pop feminism. People were naturally more incline into believing jonsa shippers as the victime of this war.

Even when the sansa stan were saying the most heinous things about dany and other female character to prop her up. Even when they were using the villain dany theory, the dark!dany theory, the white savior theory that had now become about dany being a colonizer and imperialist, or the ableist mad queen dany theory wich they backed up by diagnosis her with all the real life disorder they hated. It was seen as normal and dany stan just can't handle criticism. Even when multiple blog were created on tumblr to hate on daenerys which had almost no equivalent for the sansa/jonsa fandom, the jonerys shippers were the bad guys.

Jonerys was made canon in season 7. The intellectual part of the fandom either accept it but thought it was a cliche uninspiring ship, or they defend it for the themes but didn't see it as a complex relationship like jaime with cersei or brienne. The feminist, particulary the one who hated house targaryen, were shocked that grrm could romantize incest. And obviously, the jonsa hated it, and there ugliness started to be notice more with the weird theory they builted, like political!jon. The Jonerys fandom were finally getting some justice.

Plus more big name essayists in the fandom started debunking of the baseless incel hate dany receive post adwd. Dany had now the right to sleep with Daario, Jorah was a creep, Dany rejected Quentyn for peace, and Drogo being Dany rapist was getting more believed by the fandom.

During the hiatus before season season 8, @rainhadaenerys wrote down a lot of meta as a defense against the worst claimed that the fandom made about Dany. It gave hoped to dany stan, but it was crushed by season 8 with D&D deciding to make the mad queen theory canon the worst way possible.

Now the feminist and the intellectual part of the fandom are both defending daenerys. But there is the dominant idea that certain event of the last season could happen in the books, like dany burning King's Landing. And the possibility of her going insane should be accepted by the dany stan, and if not, it mean we are not real asoiaf fans.

[thefloatingstone]

Last time I made a playlist of recommended youtube channels to enjoy while in lockdown or self quarantine, I focused on individual videos while also recommending other videos from the same channel.

I thought I’d make another list only this time I’m going to be recommending playlists or series on youtuber instead of just individual videos.

This is gonna go exactly like last time, so check out any of these that might seem interesting to you, and hopefully I can give you something to look into if you want something to watch but don’t feel like watching a Netflix or Crunchyroll show.

Last time I tried to put this under a read more break but it didn’t work and I ended up posting this long-ass post on everyone’s dash. Well I decided to do so again here. hit J to skip to the bottom of the post if you don’t feel like reading this whole thing. If you’re on tumblr mobile; why?

In no particular order;

Cinemassacre movie reviews and topics

All of you already know James Rolfe as the AVGN. I started watching him before Youtube was even a thing, before he was even signed on with Screwattack. Back when his videos could only be seen on his own website (or for some reason included on the free DVD you got with the local video game magazines). However, I eventually outgrew the outrage style humour of the AVGN episodes... but then James started doing Monster Madness where he would talk about his love for horror movies, and this where I learned about his vast knowledge about movie history and even films I had never even heard mention of before! I think it’s safe to say, he got me to be interested in movie history just as much as movie production and film as a viewing experience.

I recommend this playlist which is a hodgepodge of James talking about old horror movie franchises, talking about his first experience with Power Rangers as someone who didn’t grow up with it, or how Bob Ross is a childhood hero of his. It’s an excellent play list that’s really laid back but you learn a lot of stuff from it. James is very informed for the most part and it leads you to wanting to check out a lot of these things too, just because he’s so passionate about it.

If I ever get over my weird hang up about speaking out loud, these are the kinds of videos I’d like to make.

Vinesauce Vinny: The Neverhood

Vinny is by no means a new Let’s Player, having been on Youtube for over 10 years now, but I only started watching him a few months ago. I started with this playlist when I saw he was doing The Neverhood, a game I had heard about but never seen played before. The Neverhood is a bizarre game, as a point and click PC game from the 90s where the entirety of the video game was made with stop motion and clay. Something that sounds so insane you would say it’s impossible if not for the fact that it exists. The claymation itself is extremely well done, and the game has a really weird and absurd sense of humour. Just the strangest things happen in this thing. Now couple that with Vinny’s very dry and straightforward delivery and you have probably one of the funniest Let’s Plays I’ve watched in a long time.

This is also “short” for a Let’s Play series. With only 4 parts to it, the longest video only being a bit under and hour and 30 minutes. It’ll still take up a good chunk of your time, but it’s not as daunting as some of the other Let’s Plays I’ll mention on this list.

Team Four Star: Pokemon Shield Nuzlocke

Exactly what it says on the tin. The guys from Team Four Star play Pokemon Shield with Nuzlocke rules. They’ve done several Nuzlocke runs in the past, but I find the Pokemon Shield is the best one they’ve done. Especially since a lot of the needless fluff and grinding has been edited out. So unlike some of their previous series you don’t see a lot of Kieran and Grant running in a circle for an hour trying to catch a specific pokemon or trying to get to a certain level.

It’s also hilarious as they have a lot of “house rules” for the Nuzlocke often involving the exercise bike they.... have..... for some reason.

It’s very good and the gym battles become SUPER hype with the Nuzlocke rules and the music.

Baywatching

Having been going to a few years now, watch Allison try her very best to go through and do a video series where she talks about summarises every episode of Baywatch.

.... Ever. Single. Episode.

She’s not even close to done yet (and now she’s introduced Baywatch Nights AS WELL) but her trying to explain the batshit insanity of this show, it’s over the top characters, it’s insane plots and behind the scenes weirdness with all the enthusiasm and love for this slice of 90s is amazing. Please enjoy a good thick chunk of inside jokes, silly character voices, and a whole lot of ?????

Brutal Moose: Shenmue

Probably one of the most chill channels on all of Youtube, Brutal Moose aka Ian, prefers playing games you wouldn’t think would make for good Let’s Plays. And maybe they don’t, objectively. A collection of playlists covering Truck Simulator, Nancy Drew, Hidden Object games etc etc, spliced in with old commercials from drive in theaters from the 50s,60s and 70s. Ian’s Let’s Play channel is great for just putting on and letting play for company while you’re drawing or grinding in a video game or playing Stardew or something.

I recommend his Shenmue playthrough as Ian completely fell in love with the game and went on to play both the sequel and the newly released third game. Ian genuinely adores the weird voice acting and all the menial tasks and mini-games you can do. I watched this a lot in 2018 when I was going through a rough time, and it really helped me in a strange way to just put Ian on and listen to him talk to the chat and drive a forklift around for like 4 hours straight before going to Tomato Mart or wasting all his money on the gacha machines.

A Measured Response to “In Defense of Dark Souls 2″

At some point, big name youtuber Hbomberguy made a video called “In Defense of Dark Souls II”. I’m not subscribed to Hbomberguy but I enjoyed his video on why Sherlock (the BBC show) is trash. (come to think of it I should have added that to the first list). And it seems the video on Sherlock was really good and well argued.... and it seems his “In Defense of Dark Souls 2″ video... was not.

Using subjective language, bad representation of facts, or simply outright getting certain information wrong, Hbomberguy′s video on Dark Souls II is, at best, a man trying to argue that he likes Dark Souls II because it is “Objectively good”, rather than simply accept he likes it... because he likes it.

MauLer is kind of an asshole, but I have learned more about dissecting someone’s argument and deconstructing what they have said watching his response series than I have in any english or debate class I have ever had.

The response is over 10 hours long, but this is because MauLer takes time with each and every statement he takes umbrage with, discussing what is being said, discusses why it is false or dubious, and then compares with actual facts and research.

If you ever want to know how to to distinguish subjective opinion from objective fact in someone else’s argument regarding... ANYTHING really, I highly recommend this series.

I may not like MauLer as a person, but DAMN if he doesn’t know how to deconstruct an argument in a logic, emotionless way.

John Wolfe: Maize

Maize is a stupid game. a Stupid stupid game.

It involves sentient corn, and underground secret genetics lab, a Russian bootleg teddy bear that hates everyone, sentient corn, and a crumpet.

This game IMMEDIATELY went on my wishlist after watching this playthrough. Please watch John try and figure what the actual fuck is going on in this Monty Python-eque weird black comedy. It’s stupid, it’s weird, it’s bizarre and it’s honestly one of the funniest games I’ve seen streamed.

Hollywood: a Celebration of the Silent Era

This is not a youtube playlist. I mean it IS, but what this actually is, is a TV series released in the UK in 1980 covering the Silent Film era. As it was made in 1980, it includes interviews with many of the silent film stars who were often still alive during this documentary’s production. Each episode covers a specific theme of the silent movie era. One episode is about comedies, one is about WWI, one is about Westerns etc etc.

It’s a fascinating series, because it focuses on the silent era which, in modern day, I think many people unfairly think of as “those first few years of movies before movies really became a thing.” And that’s such a shame and really not true. The artistry, camera tricks, and raw nature of this early era of film making is so important and produced films which can still be watched today easily, possibly even easier than a few modern movies as often the very fact that the films are silent means they are universal, regardless of what language you speak.

I think an episode or two might have been turned to private or copyright claimed in this playlist, but I know if you do a search on youtube you can find the episode uploaded by someone else.

Diamanda Hagan: Bonekickers

Bonekickers is the show Mathew Graham made before he went on to work on the new Dr. Who. It is about archaeologists and it is God-fucking-Awful.

It is.... look. Ok. I like Archaeology a lot. But this isn’t a show that’s bad “if you like history” or “if you know things about archaeology”. This show is bad because it doesn’t make a single fucking lick of sense, all the characters are awful and terrible, and even if you understand what’s going on in the story you’re still going to be screaming “WHY????” at the screen as each new baffling stupid piece of the puzzle slots into place.

Diamanda Hagan has 0 time for this garbage and she’s going to walk you through each episode to show you how truly horrible this piece of garbage is.

Cry Plays: Ori and the Blind Forest

With Ori and the Will of the Wisps releasing recently, now is a great time to go and watch Cry playthrough the first Ori game. an absolutely gorgeous piece of work with a beautiful soundtrack and really likeable character designs and a sweet story, Ori is a great game to put on, sit back, and just let it wash over you. Cry’s playthrough is also great because although its a Metroidvania game, Cry fast forwards the parts where he backtracks for a long period of time, so you don’t get stuck watching him run back and forth as he tries to figure out where to go next or anything like that.

Cry also recently started playing the sequel as well!

If you enjoyed this list at all, please consider tipping me for a coffee

☕️ Ko-fi ☕️

[frostiifae]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[krisdreaming]

hi :3 i hope this isn't disruptive to your break (and i'm really glad to read that the break has been so good to you!! :D ) but i recently discovered your blog and finally got the courage to message you because i want to fangirl to you about 2 things! warning: looong fangirl post incoming 😬 sorry in advance 😅 btw i love your theme(?) idk if if thats what it's called i'm a tumblr noob but yeah your aesthetic is amazing and so pleasing to look at :D

2) your writing! im not exaggerating when i say that you're my fav haikyuu blog writer. seriously. i get sad when people mischaracterize our boys :'( but you characterize them so beautifully :") your attention to detail is amazing, your descriptions are BEAUTIFUL, and the way you write is just *chef's kiss* some of my favs are your iwaizumi's 4+1 scenario ;-; (ok honestly all of them tho) and your kuroo fluffmass scenario ;-; AH mah heart too many uwus literally melting from how soft it makes me

i actually have been slowly going through all your posts from the beginning lols (because even your responses to questions/random stuff are pleasant to read LOL im a bit weird like that 😅) and i LOVE your little tag notes too hahaha (theyre so fun/funny). maybe when im caught up with everything youve written (sad) and your asks are open i'll stop by again with a request ^^ im so glad you love writing and sharing it with us! hope you have a wonderful week~ (btw your cat is so adorbs like srsly)

whoops actually 3rd thing to gush about- inarizaki match AH!! the hype. the feels. and YES i unexpectedly fell hard for kita (darn you furudate ive already adopted so many haikyuu boys!) so excited for you to write for him because ah hes honestly so amazing?? the block hinata hated the most was a nice surprise & i literally d;lajfak when i saw __ watching the match when jogging. i have such a soft spot for that year in that team ;-; heart broke a bit when __ was the only one we didnt see tho T_T

OMG I ASDJKLFJEI I’M PUTTING OFF ORGANIZING MY BLOG TO WRITE THIS I don’t even know where to start, my insides are literally just this: 🥺🥺🥺 I am SOFT you seriously have no idea how much I was grinning reading this!!!! I don’t even know where to start really, but omg I’m so happy you found my blog and that you’re enjoying it so much, that means everything to me 🥺 Ahh ty for mentioning my theme! I am honestly such a perfectionist with themes, I always mess with them for AGES so it makes me really happy that you noticed it!

You are too sweet, omg, thank you soso much for your incredibly kind words about my writing, hearing that just honestly makes my heart soar. I also have to say that the Iwaizumi 4+1 scenario is one of my favorite pieces I’ve written for this blog!!! I’m glad you liked it too! 

I am ALWAYS spouting off in the tags, tbh if you don’t read them you’re missing out on a big chunk of my personality bc I tend to hide it there orz. But please do stop in with a request!! ^^

YES INARIZAKI MATCH my peabrain has already forgotten everything that happened in it but it was a wild ride for sure. There were so many moments that had me literally pausing from reading just to squeal about them!! Kita kinda just sneaks in there without any warning, after that one chapter it was just over for me, like, Miya twins who?? I really need to keep reading, bc now the Nekoma match is starting and things are just getting 👀👀

Ahaha but anyway! I can’t tell you how much this entire message means to me?? It just made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside, I love you so much darling!!! You can stop in here anytime hehe ❤️