#I know your internet access is out of sorts lately

[olderthannetfic]

hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

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A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

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With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

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The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

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But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

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The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

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These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

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So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

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Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

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Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

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So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

[hiraethwa]

𓈒 𓏸 — ghost of you

dancing through our house with the ghost of you

pairing: kuroo x reader a/n: pls yell at me thank you <3 i was on my period when the idea was concocted, blame my period :) word count: 6.7k bonus: listen to playlist while reading

“all we have to do is lower the net.” nekomata sensei’s comment became words that shaped kuroo tetsuro’s past, present and future. words that ignited his love for volleyball and fueled his purpose.

kuroo tetsuro, whose entire life mission is to lower the net, his passion for volleyball being the driving force to make the sport accessible for all. kuroo tetsuro, who joined the japan volleyball association straight out of university, because he is certain of his purpose. 

kuroo tetsuro, whose singular life mission is to lower the net—that is, until he met you, the official setter for japan’s national women’s volleyball team at the young age of 21. 

at 24, kuroo had been in the jva sports promotional division for a few years now, having seen all sorts of players whether it be setters or spikers, liberos or middle blockers. but you, with your flawless setting form, the cunningness in your eyes and the cogs spinning behind them, and your utmost dedication to your spikers, you caught him by surprise. 

his immediate thought was that your impeccable technique reminded him of kageyama. certainly, to say that would be an insult to who you are as a setter. after all, you are you and he is him. no two setters are the same. 

kuroo might as well have fallen to his knees the moment he saw your seamless cross court set. 

by the grace of some deity, kuroo tetsuro did not. he somehow managed to introduce himself to you without embarrassing himself when your team took a break, using his position with the jva as an excuse. apparently, it was something he did with all the new players for the national team—a complete lie that he came up with on the fly. 

“kuroo tetsuro, kuroo-san.” he thinks he was a goner the moment he heard his name rolling off your tongue, the timbre of your voice dulcet yet firm, as he handed you his business card. he almost asked you to call him tetsuro, but he caught himself in time, cursing kenma for infecting him with his casual mannerisms.

since that day, kuroo started to find excuses to stop by the women’s volleyball practice more often, for case studies, he said. he learned that you started playing volleyball at 8, and that you wanted to be a setter because you hated digs, and you loved doing sets and coming up with strategies to mess with the opposing team’s minds. 

thanks to the internet, he also learned that you are one of the most prominent, rising setters in the global volleyball scene, one of a handful of setters who has an unreadable setting form.

“i’m still not good at serving though,” you said to him one day, frowning. he opened his mouth to disagree, but one of the other players waved at you to get back to practice. you commented offhandedly, “anyway, yuki-senpai told me you are showing up a lot lately since i joined.”

you didn’t give him a chance to explain himself, however, dropping your towel on the bench and running back to the court. kuroo promised himself that he would ask you out the next time he sees you. 

at least, that was what he told himself for the last three times he stopped by practice in the past two weeks. 

“you know, i was under the impression that the jva office is in this building, but i recently found out that it’s actually two train stations away.” you took a swig of your pocari sweat, composing yourself for your next question. “is there a reason you seem to always be here, kuroo-san?”

that was the day kuroo folded, finally asking you out on a proper date. he somehow managed to get a reservation for two at 8pm at the up-and-coming omakase place in ginza by calling in a few favors. 

you knocked the breath out of him when you exited the subway gates in a flowy summer dress. he almost forgot his own name as you walked up to him, a shy smile on your lips after locating him in the rush hour crowd. 

to this day, he wonders how you did it—finding him, another suited office worker in the packed subway station.

to his disappointment, he found himself outside the restaurant after an uneventful dinner. the fine dining atmosphere provided little to no opening for any meaningful conversation, save for a few hushed whispers exchanged between the two of you. 

looking at you, he wondered if you would give him a second chance. you, with stars in your eyes and a light blush across your cheeks, courtesy of the sake you drank. 

probably not. kuroo tetsuro was too much of a coward to ask, for he prepared to bid you good night just as you opened your mouth to say something.

“i know a yakitori place not far from here, wanna go?” kuroo blinked, lifting his head to meet your eyes, surprise shining through his own.

a grin threatened to split his face. “with you? anywhere.” 

you ended up bonding over meat skewers and beers in the cramped hole-in-the-wall yakitori bar frequented by salarymen after long days of work better than you did at the fancy omakase restaurant.

that night kuroo tetsuro learned that despite your star-studded status, you never learned to enjoy the luxury that came with it, preferring to keep to the familiar comforts of your university days.

“i know a really good onigiri place,” kuroo remarked at the end of the night, having ridden the train back to your place with you to ensure you get home safe and sound. 

“oh? maybe i know where it is,” curiosity lined your eyes as you prattled off the top onigiri restaurants you have found in tokyo. “so, where is it, kuroo-san?”

“osaka,” kuroo grinned at you. he was taking a rather large gamble, asking you on a second date to a different city, but he had a feeling you would say yes. 

you blinked, a smile growing at your lips, and without missing another beat, “i hear it’s only two hours away by shinkansen.”

just like that, kuroo met his match in you. he never stood a chance against you; one date quickly turned into two, into three, and many, many more. 

it was a whirlwind romance across the eastern country full of stolen time shared with each other. a weekend in okinawa, only the two of you with the clear skies and the vast ocean. strolling through the streets of osaka, young and in love. meeting you in another city during your away games, proudly cheering your team on. 

visiting the daigo-ji temple late fall in kyoto, making saisen, the customary money offering, with five-yen coins before bowing with pressed palms and offering your prayers. kuroo had stolen a glance at you in that short moment, finding himself hoping that the gods were listening to his prayers. 

then a week later, when kuroo got on one knee just a few weeks shy of your one year anniversary, ring in hand, asking you to be his wife, you had said yes without hesitation. that day, he promised himself that you would not end up like his parents.

you got married in the middle of volleyball season, spurred on by the desire to have your wedding anniversary on the same date as your dating anniversary. it was an intimate event, only close family and friends were invited to the celebration of your love. you had both agreed that it was best to keep it quiet from the press to avoid any unwanted public attention—and pressure.

and so you exchanged your vows under an arch draped with dusk pink flowers of every type surrounded by the people who knew you best; to cherish and to hold the other always, and to remember love. tears of happiness were shed at the altar, a river merely from the two of you. 

even with two left feet, you danced the night away with the love of your life, before the guests sent you off on your short honeymoon getaway to an onsen resort at fuji-san. only two people who were madly in love, basking in each other’s undivided attention before duty calls you back to tokyo. 

and so kuroo tetsuro finds another purpose in life—you. 

now, kuroo admits that it has been a while since he got time to have you to himself. both your work have been swallowing up your time since you got back from fuji-san almost a year ago, but you still managed to make time for each other, even if you are not going on dates. 

he thinks he is a lucky man to have the honor of calling you his wife.

almost a whole year already, huh. kuroo makes a mental note to make a reservation at the restaurant where he proposed to you. 

“kuroo-san, yoshida-san wants to see you.” ah, yes, work calls. the previous thought slips his mind by the time he leaves his boss’s office. 

soon enough, the week rolls by. 

kuroo knows that he fucked up when he finds 11 missed calls from you after he sent his client off. three hours ago, nine of them within the span of the first thirty minutes, and two final attempts two hours ago. his heart drops as his eyes land on the four digit date on his homescreen. he missed your anniversary dinner.

fuck. you don’t pick up on the first two calls. his heart thunders in his chest. he thinks he hears ringing in his ears that is not the dial tone, but finally, thankfully, you pick up on the third. 

“sweetheart, i am so sorry—” he blurts, strings of apologies that fall naturally from his mouth as he begs for your forgiveness. “i’m on my way home, we can still go out to the yakitori place you love—”

“i’m not home.” silence stretches between the two of you as kuroo fumbles for his words. careful, he needs to be careful of his choice of words right now. 

“where are you? c-can i come find you?” he stumbles over his words, his heart still pounding too fast. all he can think about is how much he fucked up.

kuroo holds his breath, praying to the gods to look kindly upon him as he waits for your answer. in all honesty, you have every right to tell him off right now, but he desperately hopes otherwise. “i’m at the training center.”

of course. why didn’t he think of it? whenever you are frustrated, you train and let yourself loose on the court. “wait for me, i’ll be there in 20.”

you are waiting in the lobby of the facility when he gets there, panting after running the four blocks over from the subway station. “y/n, sweetheart,” he almost knocks you over with the sheer intensity of his embrace, squeezing the air of your lungs. 

“tetsuro, you’re late,” a frown mars your beautiful features once he releases you, and he finds himself smoothing over the knot between your eyebrows. 

“i know, i am sorry, love.” he pulls you close, your chin resting on his shoulder. “will you let me make it up to you?”

there is a second of hesitation before you answer, “okay.” but kuroo misses the look of conflict that flashes across your face, distracted with dissuading his own fears that your marriage is safe, intact.

he vows to never let you go through that again. though it never comes to that.

it’s kageyama tobio that makes you realize something is wrong with your marriage. 

kageyama tobio, the pinnacle of setters in men’s volleyball as introduced by your then boyfriend, whose contact was lighting up your phone, startled you as you attempted to make dinner. 

shit, shit, shit. you forgot to tell him that you won’t be able to make your monthly practice meetup today, having sprained your ankle at the practice match against france a few days ago. well… sprained would be understating the bluish-purple color blossoming on your left foot. 

you fumbled for your phone, picking up the call. “kageyama-san?” the slim device is balanced between your ear and shoulder as you try to flip the omelette. damn it, it’s burnt. “ah, sorry. i forgot to tell you that i won’t be able to make it to practice today.”

“it’s fine, kuroo-san. i was at your match on sunday. are you doing alright?” right, the match that tetsuro missed again because of something that came at work with his client. work that took precedence over his promise to you to attend the match.  

“oh, that? i’m fine,” you absentmindedly reached for a plate a little too far to the left, causing you to put your weight on your left foot as you catch your balance. you muffled the cry rising from your throat, hoping it didn’t carry over the call. 

“that didn’t sound like you are fine.” your hands are placed on the counter, holding yourself up as you steadied yourself on your right foot. your rapid heartbeat boomed in your ears, uneven breaths leaving your mouth in small pants as you realize you could have fallen and cracked your head open on the corner of the countertop. “send me your address, i’ll be over soon.”

fuck. you felt pathetic, unable to do mundane tasks that take little to no effort with two functional ankles. but this, this you could do. hunger forgotten, you slid down next to the stove, knees to your chest, and typed in your home address to the other setter.

the buzz of your doorbell startled you from doom scrolling social media a good 45 minutes later. 

you scooted over the door on your knees, unlocking the front door for kageyama, mortifyingly realizing a second too late that you should have gotten to your foot to greet your guest.

“sorry, i just need to get up—” he wordlessly lent you a hand for support as you rose up on your good foot, helping you hobble over to the living room. “thanks.”

kageyama tobio frowned at you, displeasure etched into the lines of his forehead, eyes concentrated on your discolored ankle. “it looks worse than it feels.”

he did not trust your words, for he was squatting down in front of the couch to take a look at your injury. “then this shouldn’t hurt, right?” his finger reached out to poke your ankle. 

“don’t—” you winced, eyes closed in anticipation of the pain that would follow. but there isn’t any, your eyes flying open to find kageyama staring back at you in disappointment. 

“kuroo-san, you need to get this looked at. it looks serious.” reluctantly, you agreed with him, expressing your consent for him to call the team physician in to assess your condition.

watching kageyama step outside your home to make the call, you felt something akin to lightning cleaving your chest open, heart exposed and breaking as you realized how much you yearned for tetsuro to be the one here right now, fussing over you. 

tetsuro had been surprised to find you still at home at 9am on a monday morning. 

“i twisted my ankle.” you had stated, looking up from your book momentarily when you heard him shuffling out of the bedroom dressed for work. you appreciated the view, unable to recall the last time you saw him in a suit since your schedules rarely overlapped with yours starting early in the day, and his ending late at night. 

“make sure to ice it, sweetheart.” he had commented distractedly, attention on his work tablet, kissing you on your forehead on his way out. it’s not that tetsuro doesn’t love you, he has just grown forgetful over time, complacent in your marriage. 

it’s too bad that complacency kills, sniffing out the weaknesses in the foundation of your love, snaking its way into crevices in the bedrock of your marriage. and just like water, it erodes the strongest rock with persistence and time. 

there were only two things you loved more than life itself. one being kuroo tetsuro, the other being volleyball. and if your marriage is falling apart… what if your stubbornness made your injury worse than it was? if you didn’t have volleyball, the one thing you could always fall back on, then what would you even live for?

suddenly the room felt too small, closing in around you. your breathing turned heavy, the air in your lungs no longer enough to supply life-bearing oxygen to your bloodstream.

“you’re going to be fine.” kageyama’s voice broke you away from your internal panic. lost in your thoughts, you didn’t even hear the front door close. he leaned against the wall in the hallway, jerking his chin at you. “what if this injury cost me the spot on the olympic roster? what if i can’t play in the olympics? what if my smallest misstep cost me everything? what if i can’t play volleyball ever again?”

“what are you—” he waved his hand, cutting you off mid sentence. 

“that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” kageyama shook his head at you. “but kuroo-san, you’re the best setter we have, and you’re strong. you’ll make it back.” his matter-of-fact statement left no room for argument. 

still, your smile did not reach your eyes. tired, you were so tired. “thanks, kageyama-san.”

“eat. the food is getting cold.” you nodded, digging into the takeout kageyama brought with him—shiozake with rice, once again wishing that tetsuro was here instead of kageyama. you swallow your food forcefully, as if the thought of tetsuro being here and telling you that the salted salmon would be beneficial for your body repairing itself didn’t cause you to crumble. 

the other setter pretended he didn’t see the tears gliding down your cheeks into your food, quietly keeping you company until the physician showed up. 

the team physician diagnosed you with a grade 2 ankle sprain and prescribed you plenty of rest and burden off your ankle—basically the equivalent of a bed rest as a professional athlete. she also made sure to scold you for not taking it easy after your injury and not alerting her sooner before leaving. 

“is kuroo-san going to be back soon?” kageyama asked, glancing at the clock that was ticking close to 9pm. the winter (almost spring) sun had disappeared down the horizon a long time ago, and you realized he meant your husband. 

“do i look like an invalid, kageyama-san? i’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” 

“duly noted, kuroo-san.” he smiled wryly at you. kageyama slipped his shoes on, opening his mouth to say something before deciding otherwise. the front door clicked shut behind him, leaving you with his parting words of “see you next month”.

next month. he said next month. the physician had anticipated your sprain to heal in four to six weeks, with the partial tearing of your ankle ligament. four weeks. you can give yourself that. you can work with that. just 28 days before you get back on the court where you lived and breathed. just one foot forward at a time.

but those thoughts flew out of your mind as tetsuro came home early. 10:09pm. that was early for your husband who sometimes came home in the middle of the night smelling like cigarettes and beer—or not at all, when he pulled all-nighters in his office.

tetsuro, whose tie is loosened and slightly crooked, examined your foot, a frown on his handsome face. tetsuro, who is cleaning up the mess of dishes in the sink, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, as he asked about your day. 

tetsuro, who made you forget all your worries and troubles about your marriage, as he doted on you, making sure you had enough water in the glass on your nightstand and propping your ankle on a pillow. 

tetsuro, who made an effort to be there for you in the following weeks, making breakfast before he goes to work, leaving lunch for you in the fridge and taking his work home by 6pm so he could make you dinner. tetsuro, who took some days to work from home in the beginning, taking care of you and holding you tightly in his arms when you revealed your fears about the upcoming olympics, wiping the tears that stained your face away as if they were never there. 

you remembered why you fell in love with kuroo tetsuro. 

you return to the court after five weeks at home, restlessness in your bones from the long period of inactivity. you know tetsuro felt it too, eager to dive back into his work after holding himself back the first few weeks to take care of you. that made the two of you.  

after two weeks, you both agreed that you have recovered enough for him to return to the office full-time. by the fifth week, he has gone back to his former habit of staying at work into the late nights and early mornings.

you convinced yourself that your husband needed to catch up on the work that was on the backburner when he had to take care of you. reassured yourself that the lack of intimacy was due to your recovery and work taking its toll on your husband. 

your marriage wasn’t falling apart before your eyes. right?

you first brought your worry up to him after a month rolled by, feeling relieved when he started coming home by dinner again, only to find him slipping back into his routine. so you do it again. and again. 

and again.

but as more weeks fly by, the olympics on the horizon, his behavior unchanged despite your attempts at saving your marriage, you start to wonder if he remembered why he fell in love with you. 

you can’t say that tetsuro never makes an effort. he does, although work seems to always be on the forefront of his mind, taking up whatever space is in his head.

“can i call you back, sweetheart? suzuki-san wants to speak to me about my proposal.” you presume suzuki-san is his boss, even though the name sounds unfamiliar to you. 

“sure, but it’s just— honey, we barely see each other anymore.” it’s a slap to the face when you realize you’re speaking to the dial tone. 

it feels as though each time you take a step forward to repair your relationship, you take two steps back. kuroo’s work always comes up on top. the better he gets at his job, the more in demand he becomes, the more projects with high visibility gets assigned to him, the more his passion for volleyball takes him away from you. 

you are at the crossroads within yourself, each turn at odds with your beliefs, your wishes, your love for kuroo tetsuro. you never faulted him for being so devoted to his job. after all, are you not the same? how can you fault him for something you love about him? 

assigning blame is not equivalent to feeling resentment, however. you hated the feeling of resentment towards kuroo with each missed date, with each broken promise, with each night of waking up to a cold bed. you were afraid of what awaits you at the end of the road. 

you love kuroo tetsuro. that is a fact. you love yourself. that is also a fact.

so how can you ever make him choose between you and volleyball? you will not force that ultimatum upon him, not even knowing your own answer to it. but you love kuroo tetsuro, the same way you love volleyball. the same way he loves volleyball. 

you decide you would rather be the villain in his story before you make him choose. 

you love kuroo tetsuro. that is why you made your decision to leave with love in your heart before love turns to poison. after all, love and hate go hand in hand, and you are already walking the fine line between them. 

you make an appointment with his secretary, smiling wistfully at her as you walk into his office. kuroo has climbed the ladder to a height you can no longer reach. 

the cubicle that you used to drop by is now occupied by an unfamiliar face, where photos of the two of you once covered one entire wall. in contrast, his neat office is effectively devoid of all traces of your relationship, save for the ring on his finger. 

“sweetheart?” he perks up at the sight of you before a frown appears on his handsome face. his bedhead still a constant feature of his. at least some things never change. “it’s great to see you, but i have a 2pm coming in soon.”

his comment should not hurt as much as it does. but of course it does, you still love kuroo desperately, you’re just not sure if that is enough anymore. 

“kuroo, i’m your 2pm.”

“oh,” confusion flashes across his features for a quick second before it disappears. “well, what can i do for you, sweetheart?”

for all the different ways you have thought of this conversation going, all the different ways of easing into the topic, you can’t seem to find the words to break his heart. 

right person, wrong time. you would be lying if you said you never thought of it. of what could have been if you met him later on in his career, when he has done all he wanted to do, when he has achieved what he set out for. would he have time for you then?

would it be the kuroo tetsuro you fell in love with?

that was the most difficult question you grappled with the past few weeks as you waited for your lawyer to draft the papers. would your relationship work out if you had met each other in your prime, perhaps a few years from now, when you have both reached the height of your careers? when the strenuous uphill battles of establishing yourselves in your fields are over?

perhaps. perhaps you could have settled down, the days of grinding far behind you. perhaps you could have had the happily ever after you both deserved.

answers that will forever evade you because in this timeline, in this universe, you met too early, too young. right person, wrong time.

you wordlessly hand him the brown packet of divorce papers. there are simply no words that would make this any easier.

“what are these—” he slumps in his chair, defeat written in his being. “divorce? sweetheart, isn’t this going too far? we can talk things out when i come home. i don’t have time right now.”

“kuroo, you haven’t had time in a long while. that is why i am filing for divorce.”

“we talked about this. i am busy now, but i will have time for us later. all the work i am doing is for our future. please, y/n.”

“but i don’t need your time later. i need it now, kuroo.” you grip the edge of his table tightly, knuckles turning white with force. and yet, tears still slip from your eyes. “sign the papers, tetsuro. just let me go.”

if you’re the one ending the marriage, why does it feel like your heart is ripped out of your chest?

kuroo has seen you cry a total of three times in your entire relationship. once when you got married. second when your maternal grandfather passed away. third when you hurt your ankle, unsure if you would be able to compete in the olympics. tears that shocked him to the core, because he knows you mean it. 

minutes pass by without another word exchanged between you. stolen minutes that used to be full of laughter and hushed conversations. 

you see it now, you think. the time that used to be carved out of your days for each other, whether it was a quick call or lunch, sharing downtime before bed watching some tv or simply cuddling and merely enjoying each other’s presence. you both used to do that, used to each other’s packed schedules. somewhere along the line, kuroo stopped. 

you did too, not pushing him harder to give you more time sooner. you tried to play the role of an understanding wife and support his dreams until it was too late. to what end?

in the end, you both failed each other. 

it was that realization that made you understand — you and kuroo tetsuro were doomed from the start. doomed by your love. doomed by the very thing that brought you together. two souls in the universe shooting in opposite trajectories, fated to cross paths for a brief moment in time before barreling onwards to your next destination, destined for loneliness.

but kuroo refused to give up without a fight. though you wondered if it was because he loved you or because he felt like he had to. 

you went on dates every week and kuroo came home for dinner every night. he kissed you on your forehead every night before you turned on your side, two strangers sharing the same bed. 

the two of you tiptoeing over the broken pieces of your marriage, choosing to turn a blind eye to the way your hands don’t seem to fit quite right. the chopsticks you made in a workshop to commemorate your anniversary warped in the dishwasher from disregard. the shape of your bodies no longer fitting together like two puzzle pieces, as if you have outgrown each other.

the cup of matcha on your side of the table has long since gone cold. you didn’t have the heart to remind your husband that you don’t like the grassy drink anymore, hadn’t in a while. 

you see a husband who is desperately trying to save his marriage, but you also notice the lines in the corners of his eyes, the smiles that don't seem to reach his eyes no more. the cracks in his composure when he loses his temper. 

his efforts felt forced, duty-bound. so were yours. it wasn’t until that understanding that you finally put a name to the reason you are still trying after months—you were both scared of losing the familiarity, the ghost of your past selves still fighting to hold onto what once was. 

for three whole weeks during the olympics, you mull over the packet of papers that still sits untouched beneath your winter clothes in your bottom drawer of your shared apartment. by the time you fly home to japan, your mind is made.

this time though, you think kuroo saw it coming. 

“can’t you see that i am trying my best here?” the shadows underneath his eyes remind you of a past that you cannot return to. 

“sometimes our best is still too late.” kuroo y/n no longer sounds quite right coming off your tongue. 

the evidence of your crumbling marriage lies bare in your absence. you could tell from the piles of project folders on your kitchen island that kuroo had been working himself to the bones while you were away, glad for the reprieve from splitting his focus between you and work. 

“but i love you.”

“does the moon die every morning for the sun because that is all it knows or because it loves the sun?”

kuroo slumps next to you, face buried in his hands. 

“don’t leave me, y/n.” his voice was broken and small. 

“it’s okay, tetsuro. it’s okay to let me go. we had a good run. just because we couldn’t last didn’t mean we failed.” you let kuroo find comfort in your arms one last time, running your fingers through his black hair and rubbing his back tenderly. “it’s okay.”

and so he lets you go, his name scrawled on each dotted line on the damned papers. 

by the end, you still loved kuroo tetsuro. you were just no longer in love with him. though strangely, it didn't hurt any less when you let the heavy door shut behind you, the key to what was once your home left on top of the shoe cabinet, your life packed in just two suitcases as you leave japan for good. 

two years have passed since you filed the papers and changed your name back to oumae y/n, but you look just as beautiful as the day he laid his eyes on you, standing in front of him after the all stars game, the match he put together with his bare hands for japan’s monster generation. you are beautiful, and you are here. in person. right in front of him. 

he wonders if he had died and gone to heaven because whatever gods are out there have listened to his prayers, and answered again. 

kuroo thinks he should probably get on the ground, grovel on his knees and beg for you to take him back. he knows you wouldn’t though, you were always disciplined like that. but you never looked back, another thing he loved dearly about you.

you still looked at him like you see through him to the core of who he was, seemingly able to get a perfect read on people you meet. 

“what?” you had woken up to kuroo admiring you in your sleep, the sun streaming in through the blinds hitting your face at just the right angle that kuroo thinks you might be an angel from heaven.

“nothing, just admiring how much of a gremlin you look like when sleeping.” your jaw had dropped open at kuroo’s audacity, causing him to cackle loudly as you smacked him with a pillow. 

“careful now, don’t knock over the coffee,” kuroo stuck his tongue out at you childishly. you tucked your hair behind your ear, carefully lifting the coffee mug to your lips, white sheet gathered under your arms to cover your naked body. 

though there is more depth behind your eyes now, more restraint written in your body language. and the coffee mug now sits untouched on the nightstand on your side of the bed, as if you’re still there in that apartment, laughing, dancing, waking up next to him if he closed his eyes and dreamed hard enough.

he racks his brain of the possible lines he could open the conversation with, ending up with a lame “did you enjoy the match, y/n?” y/n, not sweetheart, because he has long since lost the privilege to use that name when it came to you.

despite himself, and his knowing of you, he can’t help the small hope that flares to life within him at the sight of you. he knows that you have moved abroad to italy, joining aeroitalia smi roma since you went your separate ways. he still wakes up each morning, scouring news websites for anything about you, a habit he formed after he stopped waking up to a warmness on your side of the bed.

“kuroo,” you give him a polite smile, reminding him of the distance that now stretches miles between the two of you. kuroo, you called him kuroo. right, it has been a while since kuroo belonged to both of you. “it was an amazing match. all thanks to you, i am sure?”

it’s only natural that he can’t help the wide grin on his face, proud of his sweat and tears, his project that he spent years planning for to be perfect, working to establish faith and credibility before finally pitching it to the higher ups. time that he dedicated to work instead of his wife. 

the stark reminder wipes the grin off his face, making him grow serious once more.

“tell me, how have you been? how’s italy treating you?”

“i’m doing well. italy is beautiful, you should visit someday.” he takes a step closer to you, but you make no move to distance yourself. 

so he takes another step, hand outreached towards you. he missed you so much. he wonders if you did too. “i’m so sorry, y/n, i—”

but a voice behind him cuts him off, “kuroo-san, y/n.”

he wishes that he is mistaken in hearing the gentleness in the olympian setter’s voice when he said your name. just as he realizes whose number is on the jersey you are wearing. 

kageyama tobio stands next to you, too close to just be friends. “everything good here?” kuroo wishes that he is mistaken in seeing the softness in kageyama’s eyes sweeping over you from head to toe to make sure you are alright.

“of course. go ahead, i will catch up to you.” the dark-haired setter cocks his head at you, a silent conversation passes between the two of you before he decides that he is satisfied with whatever it is you conveyed to him wordlessly and leaves the two of you alone. 

kuroo stumbles over his thoughts, shock seeping into his system. you had moved on. with kageyama. 

betrayal sears hot across his chest as he recalls kageyama calling him when you had injured your ankle, worry carrying over the line. he didn’t think much of it then, rushing home as soon as he could to take care of you. 

even so, it was kageyama, practically a work colleague who noticed that your injury was much more serious than you let on. it was kageyama, who made sure a doctor saw to your injury, not kuroo, your husband. your ex-husband. 

did whatever you had with kageyama start then?

kuroo shoves that awful thought down, deep within himself where it would never see the light of day. you would never do that to him. he forces the words out of his mouth, anything to keep his mind from ever going back to that. “kageyama, huh?”

“he is the better half of me.” the sincerity in your voice makes him envious of the setter. the word unfair crosses his thoughts, but he also banishes that. kuroo had a chance with you first. he built a whole life with you before he threw it all away. 

he must not have shut out that repulsive thought as well as he thought because you sniff out the doubt in him as you always did. “ask me, kuroo.”

“when did you two…?” he does not dare to ask it outright, finding it offensive even on your behalf.

but somehow you know the question he is asking. “it happened in italy after i moved there.” the unspoken words relieving the heaviness on his chest. i didn’t cheat on you. 

“are you happy?” he could not help but ask. you hadn’t seemed happy in the last few months of your marriage, you hadn’t been in a long time because of his negligence as your husband.

“yes, i am.” your reply is quick and firm.

“good.” because gods know that he was not a good husband to you. because you deserved the very best anyone had to offer. and if it was kageyama who could do that, not him, kuroo could live with that. what choice does he have but to live with the fact that he let you slip through his fingers by his own fault?

yet he could not help the words that tumble out of his lips. “do you think it could have been different if i—” 

“don’t go down that path, kuroo, whatever answer you find at the end of it will not be kind to you. but to answer your question, i don’t think we were meant to be.” 

right. the past should stay where it belongs. only, kuroo wishes that you weren’t the only one who fell out of love. why didn’t he remember sooner before it was too late?

silence falls between the two of you, but you must have decided that you are satisfied with whatever it is you see in him, bidding him goodbye one last time. 

“take care, kuroo tetsuro.” it hits him your final words to him were the same as your first ones, his name slipping out in a dulcet whisper. only this time it carries a finality it didn’t used to.

kuroo tetsuro, whose entire life mission is to lower the net. he has achieved it—but at what cost?

tags: @tulip-room @bookskeepers a/n pt 2: notice how tetsuro slowly becomes kuroo and i oop—

complaint box askbox open

looking for more? browse the library

[goodluckclove]

Some Loose Thoughts on Queer Rep (Specifically Aspec Rep)

(Just in advance I'm going to dunk on Alastor from Hazbin Hotel like a lil' bit, as a treat. Mainly the team that made him and what he represents, but still. If that's rage bait for you, I suggest maybe dipping out now)

I have a theory that queer media needs both queer characters and queer genre characters. The difference is very important.

I think a queer character would be a character in a story about their queerness. For some reason the only two characters I could think of are the guy from Love, Simon (What was his name again?) and the protagonist from Rubyfruit Jungle, which should express the weird and complicated relationship I have with this particular archetype.

Queer stories centered around queerness are definitely needed, but at the same time I feel like we're just starting to come to terms with the desperate need for the alternative, which are queer characters in genre media that contain overarching plots larger than their sexuality. Not separate, necessarily (Their queerness certainly influences things), but just beyond. This is more accessible for a variety of artists, which is also the reason why it can be a flop or a massive success.

We get more of this than ever for gay and sapphic characters, as well as some trans folks and occasionally non-binary. It's definitely way less seen in aspec characters, and even less respected. I started thinking this way because the internet is flooded with references to fucking Alastor from Hazbin Hotel as an aroace character and - like - god, I don't get it.

Like you can have your serial killer comfort character, that's fine. But latching onto him as representation for the entire aspec community when he was only confirmed to be aroace through a reference in a livestream and the weakest joke onscreen is pretty disheartening. It definitely reads like this part of his identity was added pretty late in his character development, and by a team of people that didn't seem to consider what the response and reaction would be and how they'd handle it.

I also wish the newest aspec icon in media wasn't created by a team so adamant on encouraging shipping culture above actually respecting the identity they've decided to provide representation for. Like I see it means a lot to people to have an aroace character doing something cool in a fun TV show that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their identity. Then there's like four other people right behind that person who really wants that person to be romantic and fuck.

And like, yeah, aroace people can do that sometimes. It's a spectrum, I know. But can't we start with a baseline representation before providing proof of fluidity?

I just think we deserve better. Like a character who in the media is established to be aspec, and people are like "great" and move on to fight robots or do magic or whatever. And the person can be morally grey, or even a total dick, but like I'd personally prefer something with a little more depth than Hot Topic genericism.

Like don't get me wrong, I'll take some sort of eldritch horror as my representation, but...make him at all horrifying? Like everyone talks about how he has Eldritch powers, which I know to mean unfathomable and maddening. But I've seen everything he does in the canon of the show and it is both incredibly fathomable and makes me feel normal and sane. Yog-Sothoth this man is not.

But yeah, I don't think there's a solution here besides more aspec artists creating aspec characters in their work. That way people can still like Alastor if they want, but he's not like the only viable option in terms of representation in the media. Let me see lovingly-crafted cool guys and dipshits and chaos goblins and little babies and True Horrors, all of whom have varying degrees of distaste or indifference towards sex and romance.

Do it. We need it. Please.

[maniculum]

I'm doing a College class on Ancient Foods. My focus is on Honey like the different recipes and usages in Medieval era. I found like a couple recipes, a thing on religious relation ("Milk and Honey of Paradise") /Crusades, medicinal use, and possibly bees/beeswax because I was struggling to get something.

Y'all have any recommendations?

(I've brought Zoe in on this one; the following is a collaborative effort. Also I'm assuming you have access to your university library so you can get ahold of the cited material below quickly and for free.)

Can you include beverages? Honey is the main ingredient in mead, which should give you a lot to talk about. Susan Verberg is the premier researcher on medieval mead, and has some excellent works on both mead making and honey production. She has a website at https://medievalmeadandbeer.wordpress.com/ where you can find both her formal publications and her blog.

If you do want to talk about beverages, there were other medieval drinks that used honey. Some citations for you:

Breeze, Andrew. “What Was ‘Welsh Ale' in Anglo-Saxon England?” Neophilologus, vol. 88, no. 2, 2004, pp. 299–301.

Fell, Christine E. “Old English ‘Beor’." Leeds Studies in English, vol. 8, 1975, pp. 76-95.

You can also go into cultural symbolism; here are a couple on that:

Enright, Michael J. Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy, and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age. Four Courts Press, 2013.

Rowland, Jenny. “OE Ealuscerwen/Meoduscerwen and the Concept of ‘Paying for Mead'." Leeds Studies in English, vol. 21, 1990, pp. 1-12.

Also you might want to look into the general concept of the "mead of poetry" from the Old Norse sources. You can find the origin story for that in the Prose Edda, I believe.

Definitely check out https://www.foodtimeline.org for recipes with honey during the period - they have more than you'd expect. There's also a few medieval cookbooks you can parse through. Here's an online one you can sort through that does a great job modernizing the translations: https://www.medievalcookery.com/etexts.html

As for honey itself -- there's actually quite a bit of research on that! Honey was quite a specialized trade, and most of the medieval world used it for sweetener, so there's a good amount of research.

A few leads:

honey as an alternative to sugar, which was expensive, imported, and could indicate class

honey grading: honey was graded based on location/provenance, type (lavender, orange blossom, etc.), and also by grade. However, their method of grading was very different to our modern one.

honey as a preservative, not just for flavor

Articles on this subject:

(DEFINITELY this one!!) Fava, Lluis Sales, et al. “Beekeeping in Late Medieval Europe: A Survey of Its Ecological Settings and Social Impacts.” Anales de La Universidad de Alicante. Historia Medieval, no. 22, 2021, pp. 275-96, https://doi.org/10.14198/medieval.19671.

Wallace-Hare, David, editor. New Approaches to the Archaeology of Beekeeping. Archaeopress, 2022. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2b07txd.

Verberg, Susan. “Of Hony: A Collection of Mediaeval Brewing Recipes for Mead, Metheglin, Braggot, Hippocras &c. — Including how to Process Honey — from the 1600s and Earlier,” 2017. Academia.edu.

If you want to look more into the medicinal usage, Cockayne's Leechdoms, Wortcunning, & Starcraft collects all the medical & scientific texts of the Old English period. It's old enough to be public domain, so it's available on the Internet Archive and HathiTrust in searchable form, meaning you can just ctrl-F "honey" and see what comes up.

Let us know how it goes!

[whizzochocolate]

@yonderghostshistories 's python tag game has been taking a rather quiet nap in my drafts but i've finally woken it up to share. so thanks to @knoxoverstreet16 , @memorial-sewer & @arthur-two-sheds-jackson for tagging me in this :]

1. How did you (yes, you, the mutual and/or other Tumblr user reading this) get into Monty Python?

2. To elaborate, what is your Monty Python Fan Origin Story? To further elaborate, how did you become aware of and become a fan of Monty Python?

my father has influenced lots of my interests over the years. he'd start quoting a lot of his favourite comedy films the older i got. among them all the python features.

to give a little perspective, my dad has, what i consider, a very stupid sense of humor – very nasty. the grosser, the better really. feces, piss, vomit, dicks, butts, pain. the whole menu & then some. but never in a clever way, no message, no script. literal phone videos you'd expect someone to find in a strange internet niché, which he somehow gets send by his mates. show this man a video of a guy drinking from a porta potty & he thinks it's the funniest thing in the world. (i made this up, if someone has actually done this, i hope he never finds out about it).

i never liked it & still don't – especially because he feels the need to show me for his own amusement. so a rule i made up a long time ago was to be very cautious of the films he recommended to me unless i could 100% tell it was a thriller/horror.

however at some point in late 2021 he'd quote python to an extent that it became quite annoying, i got fed up with it & you have to understand, something within me loves a challenge.

so i took it upon myself to prove to him that python wouldn't resonate with me. at. all. & it was just another one of those stupid things he enjoyed.

that's when i watched meaning of life for the first time & decided i was right.

it was the only one i had access to at the time. after all it used to be on amazon prime. so i fully focused on how disgusted i was by the vomit & dick jokes – and oh, how much sense it made for him to like this sort of thing.

i left it at that. up until march 2022 when i watched life of brian & was turned on the heel by it. i don't want to say i grew up in a very religious environment but the influences of the christian church were still very much present & me not being christened put me in quite a few uncomfortable situations as a child.

so watching a film that joked about all of these things so openly was very groundbreaking for me.

that's how i got hooked & slowly descended further down this lovely little rabbit hole.

i remember watching holy grail during breaks at my first job & me being the one to tell my dad about flying circus as he was completely unaware it even existed.

one day he walked into the living room while i was watching it, rolled his eyes & said: "do you ever watch anything else?!" so perhaps i did win the challenge after all. by making him just as annoyed as i was in the beginning.

& meaning of life is now my favourite. so we all learn from our mistakes i guess ':]

i won't tag anyone because i'm sure everyone i know has already done this but if someone hasn't, then feel free to do it!

[concerningwolves]

Hi! 👋🏼

First off, I just wanted to thank you for all that you do on your blog, not only has it been helpful to keep things in mind when writing, but I also genuinely enjoy learning more about sign language; I’m trying to self-learn it because it’s just that interesting to me hehe. (Also my church has a Deaf Service and I’d really like to be able to talk to the people there.)

I do have a question, but feel free not to answer; I’m currently working on a story where a very young child has acquired deafness after a severe illness (vaguely Hellen Keller vibes), and I was wondering if you know of any things I should specifically keep in mind when writing about the aftermath (immediate and long-term) of it? The setting is mildly fantasy where sign language exists, but hearing aids and cochlear implants have yet to be invented.

Thank you again for your blog, and the care you put into all your posts!

You're very welcome, and thank you! ☺️ It's always lovely to hear that people are helped by this whole... [insert vague hand-wave at my blog] thing I'm doing

Things to consider with a young character who loses hearing after illness

I don't know anything firsthand about what it's like to go deaf, so the first thing I'll recommend is to find stuff written by people who do. A search on r/deaf for "lost hearing" brings up a lot of different threads; for example, this post where people discuss things they wished they'd done/known when they first lost their hearing might provide some good insight.

As another starting point, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard has a fair few videos on her channel about her experiences as a deaf person, and specifically as someone who lost her hearing in her late teens. These two in particular might be helpful to you:

So You're Losing Your Hearing...

This is a video for people who think they're losing their hearing, but while it's not strictly about lived experience, it could certainly be helpful to note both the issues Jessica discusses and the solutions to them.

For example, she mentions isolation is a big problem, and talks about the importance of using the tools provided by the internet to find communities of people in the same boat. Even without the internet (or some fantasy equivalent), people are very community driven and prone to bonding over shared experiences, even if those experiences aren't wholly analogous. Are there other disabled characters in your story that your recently deaf character could speak to? Other d/Deaf characters? Who does she have by way of support and community? – these are all good things to think about.

Why I Don't Sound Deaf

In this one, Jessica talks about her experiences and her relationship with speech and sign languages as someone who lost her hearing. With applying this to your character, her age is important – the "golden period" for acquisition of a new language is typically thought to be before ten years old. Theoretically, the younger someone is when they lose hearing, the easier it will be for them to learn sign language. As Jessica points out in the video, sign language has a different grammatical structure, and because of this she finds it easier to use Sign Supported English instead of BSL. A much younger child, if given immediate or near-immediate access to sign language, is likely to take to it far more easily.

More on speech and language acquisition (or: the evils of consonants)

The impact of hearing loss on speech isn't something I can speak to (pun unintended) with great knowledge or certainty, but I can sort of extrapolate based on personal experience with learning to speak while not being able to hear well. (I had speech therapy, but that was as much to do with my narrow jaw + teeth overcrowding as with language difficulties caused by deafness). I misheard a lot of words and phrases – I spent years thinking that the "big girl swings" were "barbecue swings" 😅

It's worth looking into what level of speech your character would have based on her age, and using that to work out how much verbal proficiency she could retain (if any). Muscle memory accounts for a lot, so if your character already knows how to say certain words or phrases ""properly"", she could retain that ability. It's not an automatic or effort-free process, though: I'm in my twenties and I still have to consciously think about how my mouth is shaping sounds every time I speak. I don't think that will ever change.

If your character is young enough that she's still learning to speak, there will likely be a more marked impact on how her voice sounds. Different phonemes – units or "parts" of sound in speech – are uttered at different frequencies, which affects how easy/difficult they are to hear and therefore learn. This is, AFAIK, one of the biggest causes of the slurred/indistinct speech that people tend to expect d/Deaf people to have. Consonants are evil little fuckers, by which I mean they're spoken at higher pitches so anyone with loss in the high frequency range (hi!) is more likely to miss them. There are different types of consonants, too! And yes, each type presents its own challenges, because consonants exist purely to vex and frustrate everyone with high-frequency hearing loss and/or speech difficulties. For example, labiodental fricatives (e.g., the 'f' in fan and the 'v' in van) are particularly tricky, because they sound virtually indistinguishable.

StudySmarter has an easy-to-understand comprehensive breakdown of phonetics. You don't need to become an expert in phonetics, but reading through this will help you understand how sounds are formed in speech, which is helpful to keep in mind when thinking about your own character's speech. Pay particular attention to the phonemes that sound similar (like the aforementioned fan/van) or are soft/breathy (like the 's' in 'sound' or 'h' in 'half') – these are the most common problem areas, as are distinctions between 'sh' and 's'. If they feel soft or breathy in your mouth, they're probably going to be harder to hear.

Deafness and illness as trauma, and adjusting to change

Last thing I'd suggest thinking about is the experience your character has with the illness itself, and how she feels and copes with the changes to her life caused by acquired deafness. Illness can be a traumatic experience, especially when it has long-term after effects. If you've ever lost the ability to do something you can usually do, even temporarily, you'll probably be familiar with the frustration, and sometimes humiliation. It's also hard to overstate just how much auditory information there is in the world, and how much hearing people rely on that information without knowing it. Suddenly losing that ability isn't going to be easy, even if your character is young enough that they won't be able to remember anything different once they're grown up. Add to that the realisation that your body isn't as reliable as you thought it would be, that you suddenly can't trust your own health, and possibly not being able to understand why that's the case. That's a lot to deal with! And you shouldn't be afraid to show your character going through it!

Thinking back to my own childhood experiences, the strongest emotions connected to my deafness are confusion, embarrassment and alienation. Confusion because the world can be confusing when you're constantly missing auditory cues; embarrassment because unfortunately not everyone is kind and accommodating when you make mistakes due to missing aforementioned auditory cues/information (and sometimes even if people are lovely about a mistake, you can feel stupid for making it anyway); and alienation because of a sense that I was somehow "different". Thing is though, this was normal for me. I have never known anything different. But my relationship to and understanding of deafness as an identity has evolved hugely throughout my life. So, once again, age is going to be a deciding factor in how your character adjusts.

From some rudimentary googling and fuzzy memories of my brief stint as a Psychology student, children develop social awareness (awareness of how others think and feel) and self-awareness (awareness of own existence and how others perceive you) fairly early on, but these awarenesses take time to develop fully. Basically, this means that your character’s age will influence the scope of their reaction to acquired deafness. Some examples as a frame of reference:

A two-year-old is going to be primarily focused on their immediate emotional experience – they can’t hear things they could hear before, it’s confusing. They will also likely be aware if people treat them differently, but unlikely to have a socially-installed idea that they are now different.

A four- or five-year-old, on the other hand, has probably developed enough social and self-awareness to understand that certain people in society get treated differently. They might already have a sense that this is unfair, or they might still be trying to understand why this is the case – it depends on what they’ve learned about disability from adults around them.

(I mentioned above that you can feel stupid/embarrassed for making a mistake even if people are genuinely supportive regardless. The first time I vividly remember someone making me feel stupid and embarrassed for not hearing something, I would have been 4 or 5. The first time I can recall feeling stupid because I was aware that other people didn’t have that problem and that I’d made a social faux pas, I would have been about 7 or 8)

By early adolescence (ages 10–13), children are more aware of, and possibly more susceptible to, peer pressure and social norms [1]. Any understanding of and biases/prejudices concerning disability will be more deeply ingrained, as will concerns about the social impact of going deaf.

The support network that your character has access to is going to be crucial to how they manage this change at any age, so think about the characters in their immediate family/community and how they’ve acted towards disability and social difference.

[1] In a fantasy setting, you as the author are in charge of what those social norms and attitudes are, and I always encourage authors to examine their own biases when worldbuilding them. How are disabled people viewed and treated in your world? Have you made it similar to your own social and cultural experience? If yes, is that because you see that as the norm, or is there a narrative or worldbuilding reason for that? Are there any assumptions about the current or historical treatment/existence of disabled people that have influenced your worldbuilding?

Tropes to watch out for

There are three main tropes to be wary of when a character acquires a disability of any kind:

The acquired disability as an inherent tragedy akin to a death sentence and nothing else. As I’ve already said, an acquired disability can be significantly emotionally difficult, especially if the circumstances around acquisition were traumatic. Acknowledging and exploring this is important. The problem is when writers leave it there – the character is disabled, their previous way of life is lost to them, and therefore the character no longer has any worth to the story (and, by implication, to society). Think of the trope of the ex-athlete (or any other hobby/profession, although fighters and athletes are the most common components off this trope) who acquires a disability and then becomes a bitter, depressed hermit who lives in a state of misanthropy and misery because their life is effectively over. (This happens to Will in Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. Content warning for assisted suicide there). The main issue with this trope isn’t its content, per se, but its execution: Writers rarely examine why someone might end up like this (hint: institutional and internalised ableism, and lack of structural support for disabled people), and instead treat it as an inevitability because they cannot conceive of disabled existence as anything but inherently miserable.

The second trope is when a character manages to “throw off” the disability. These characters either only remain disabled as long as the disability is narratively useful, are magically cured, or overcome the disability by an act of willpower (sometimes only for narrative effect). The issue here is the content: the idea that disability can be overcome or cured by sheer willpower (or yoga, or the right diet, or religion) is pervasive and actively harmful to real-life disabled people, because it implies that disability is somehow our fault. Closely related to this trope is the one where an acquired disability never tangibly impacts a character (or only does so when it would be dramatic); you see this primarily with characters who use prosthetics effortlessly or, in the case of the latter, characters who appear abled until their disability can cause tension or drama in the plot. Again, the content is the issue: disability is flattened to nothing but a plot device, with no thought given to how it affects characters (and therefore real disabled people).

Finally, there’s the idea that an acquired disability is actually a “blessing in disguise” as a type of inspiration porn. That’s an icky trope, but I think it has some itty bitty grains of potential – crucially, the fact that there can be joy in disabled existence. Someone who acquires deafness might not see it as a blessing in the same way as some congenitally deaf people do, but they may still come to appreciate and embrace (aspects of) Deaf culture. Or perhaps they just manage to develop a neutral relationship with their acquired deafness. That’s fine, too!

A solution is to all of these is to consider the practical and proactive aspects of recovery, as well as the emotional fallout. Consider:

How does your character adjust?

How do the people around her adjust?

What support does she have? / What support systems are available?

How does she make sense of her new reality?

What accessibility aids does she have access to, and what are they like to use?

Long story short, nuance and consideration of different aspects of the disabled experience are key.

Hopefully this’ll help! (I’ve also wanted to talk about acquired disability in fiction for a while, hence the wall of text lol). Best wishes for your writing, anon ☺️

[trashgremlendoesart]

So my dad is somewhat of a computer wiz and I asked him about some of the tech stuff in the magnus protocol

my dads says..

"I was involved in a rollout of about 1,000 NT4 workstations over four campuses back in the day (mid to late 90s)

Our machines started at Pentium 120 with 32Meg of RAM and 1.2G hard drive in a mini tower case. Apart from the drive bays in the case front for 3 1/2 floppy disk drives and CD ROM drives they don't look all that different to a small gaming pc today.

The mice still have balls though, the keyboard have big 5 pin DIN plugs but otherwise are just as dishwasher safe as modern ones.

If connected to a network you are very likely to find its Novel Netware 4.1. The networking will look like a thin black cable strung from machine to machine with a little silver T shaped connector on the back of each one, apart from the first and the last they have 'terminators'.

You probably won't be connected to the internet yet, there is probably no TCP/IP on your LAN at all, only Novel IPX. The ZenWorks NT4 workstation management tools from Novel are sublime, it take Microsoft quite a while to copy them.

If you are in our publishing class we will be teaching you Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark Express. If you are in our business course we will be teaching you Office 97 with that bloody paperclip. We will also be teaching you Groupwise, Microsoft haven't copied that off Novel yet so there isn't any Exchange.

If you have email its probably Pegasus, maybe early Eudora. Its unlikely you can email out of the organisation you are in. Internet connected mail is still to come, mind you so is any interoperability between mail systems. You expect attachments to work?

We still taught some things on Windows 3.1 so our machines all boot from the Lan initially to fetch the boot menu. You can choose Windows 3.1, NT4, in some classrooms Win98, or you can re-image you machine if its broken. Thats all done in assembler in the boot sector on the network boot disk image, theres no PXE yet.

Internet arrives one day in the form of a product called "Instant internet", it will share its single built in 36Kb dial up modem with a whole classroom of only IPX connected NT4 workstations if you install the Winsock32.dll file that it comes with.

You are probably looking for Mosaic or early Netscape if you want a web browser, Altavista is likely your search engine.

Better things are coming though soon we have a whole 128K ISDN service to share with about 10 classrooms, we have TCP/IP on the LAN now. Your classroom is still going to have to book when it wants internet access though, as that's still woefully inadequate.

I think the Macs are System 8 or 9 they have not made the jump to the unix kernel of OS X yet, they keep my colleague busy, she seems to be reinstalling the System folders on them on a daily basis.

One day you find I have changed the default home page for all the machines to Google Beta.

My job is done, the world as we know it has been ushered in."

Dad worked In TAFE (only Australians will get that lol) for a few years as well as other tertiary education providers.

This is probably not going to be very relevant for anyone but I figured having some sort of info available could be helpful for other people's writing, fanfic or whatever.

Feel free to send asks for any clarification or further info

[venacoeurva]

People on my dash discussing this hence it's on my mind,

There are serious social and legal implications of minors participating and accessing adult spaces, the problem is kids are still pretty self-absorbed and selfish and lacking true comprehension of external consequences in that underdeveloped brain sort of way (even the nicest, most considerate and critical-thinking kids are going to be this way to some degree, it's not an insult) to grasp that. Normal adults feel violated and gross when catching a kid interacting with their adult art and so on. Kids do not comprehend it can be a massive life-ruining legal issue too (which most minors cannot grasp because again, still underdeveloped brain type of self-absorbed lack of understanding of consequences. Also kids usually don't understand the legal system. It sounds harsh and insulting but that's how it IS. I remember being that way, myself). Adults who are happy that or at the least enabling minors being in adult spaces is a RED FLAG.

Making adult spaces and blogs and sites have warnings, entering your age, big 18+ and 21+ warnings and so on is a thing, even if it won't stop everyone--some kids will be scared off from encroaching, though, thinking that accessing these pages while a minor and lying that they're an adult on the clickthrough warning will contact the police or something. We know it's not stopping everyone, but at the very least we're doing the most we can to save our asses short of carding everyone, which isn't the most reliable method, either. I feel like the inconvenience of having to enter birthdays or click through warnings may also annoy some kids into leaving, given the instant-dopamine, constant stimuli type internet these days kids are used to (and negatively cognitively affected by, I'm sure...) versus the "waiting 20 minutes for a JPEG to load" internet of old that required patience no matter what.

But for real, being a minor in an adult space can fuck you up, and it's just sad and scary how kids don't even realize this until it's years too late and/or they end up in some real dire situations because of it-- and even then, they probably won't realize the weight of the situation until later (if they're still alive, given the risk of kidnapping, stalking, or committing suicide if it reaches that level, especially if the site or victim and predator are local). How many of us adults look back in retrospect and shudder at what could have happened, or what did? I feel like most adults who had access to the internet as kids, especially in the 90s and 00s, went somewhere they weren't supposed to go, and a lot of us who weren't just lurking had a similar experience of running into adults with bad intentions once they sniffed out the kids being active there. A good amount of us became desensitized to things on shock sites, too, which is for sure not good for us, psychologically.

I mean, hell, thinking about it, teenagers and tweens can't even really access kids-only spaces anymore since a lot of those shut down or are heavily monetized, and of course either adults are just gonna kind of take it over if it gets popular and want the kids (who were there first) gone, or predators are going to specifically enter those spaces to croon at some poor kid how mature and smart they are and they should talk on Discord and that whole process. It's not a new thing, but it definitely continues. It's like as valuable as a resource it is, the internet is gonna fuck kids up no matter what, even if they stay in spaces meant for them, that are supposed to be moderated and protecting them, and a lot of kids have parents who do not care, do not check in on what younger kids are accessing and not noticing any sudden behavioral changes, or will punish them for "letting that happen", and that's utterly terrible.

[aeolianblues]

a lot of people that were like ‘ohh piracy bad, internet bad, let’s go to the good old days’ don’t realise that a lot of the third world didn’t fucking have access to a lot of the things they take for granted. A lot of people retconning morality into limewire don’t remember that our markets used to get things 5-10 years late.

My dad’s record collection, bought from HMV consists entirely of 80s albums, even thought he didn’t have his own money to buy cassettes and CDs until the 90s. This isn’t because he was a hip retro guy (his knowledge of music according to my probing has returned a result of 0, this man was not going to the counter and asking for specific CDs I promise you). He was picking stuff off the shelves that sounded familiar in name or looked cool or that his brothers handed him.

Our market literally had an embargo on imports that only opened up in 1991 and allowed goods from the rest of the world (in particular non essentials/‘luxury goods’) in for the first time in 1991. The year Blur’s first album came out. The year Oasis formed. Some things I know half of tumblr regards as ‘fairly recent history’. (Why were the markets embargoed? Colonialism fucked our economy to smithereens and the first thing we needed to do after kicking the Brits out was actually to just give local industry the smallest chance at growth. It’ll happen, you know, when you get robbed for like two centuries.)

When things did come, they came half a decade late. I'm not talking about small, indie releases, I'm talking about the biggest popstars and franchises in the world. Most people that got physical stuff from abroad on time had a family member who was on a business trip. The sort of figure you’d build up as a worldly, stately, well-travelled and knowledgeable kind of guy. Everyone else got their stuff in the later half of the decade. Sometimes not at all. Even I remember our CDs from the last decade have all been imports, some from Germany, some from Czechia, some from Poland.

Even in the 00s, hotbed of piracy, an American pirating a My Chem album still had the option of walking into a record shop and 'rectifying their moral wrongs' by picking up a physical copy. How were we to do that. Everything came so late that your teenage years would be over by the time your ethically-sourced, locally purchased copy arrived. Have fun.

When they finally began having official release dates outside of Europe and North America (and Japan, in this specific case) for videogames: arcade games, Nintendo based games, etc., our official release dates would be a few years later. Look it up. For a lot of years, those things simply didn't exist in our markets.

A lot of people, particularly westerners love to dismiss such arguments as whataboutism, strawmanism, or simply don't have enough empathy to imagine a world outside of their neat lil borders, but I'm here. I'm writing. You know me as flesh and blood; as late as 2015 there were albums I was buying that were available 'worldwide' that weren't available at mine. Don't moralise piracy. Simply recognise that it broke down a lot of barriers.

[needtoloveoutloud]

Apparently, a hot take on hive-mind tumblr?

Every time I see a post that equates pro-shipping or difficult, problematic themes in (fan) fiction and books and other stories with actual, real-life SA or whatever the topic is, I automatically assume that the OP lacks critical thinking skills and media literacy, fell for the dangerous Puritan movement that's sort of going on in the US (and other countries, too) right now and is likely 14 y/o (or at least mentally stuck at that age) and simply jumped up on that dangerous bandwagon of wanted censorship.

Also, a little bit of hope dies within me.

I could write a damn essay on why equating the “experiences” of fictional (read it again: fictional aka NON-EXISTENT characters) with the trauma and experiences of real-life people is incredibly harmful and hurtful.

To somehow put the plot of a story on the same level as what actual victims went through under the guise of "omg you write/read something like that, so you must support this" is so disrespectful, on so many levels. To everyone affected.

(for example: in my story, I wrote about a 4 y/o girl that got kidnapped by child-traffickers. Does not mean that I a) condone that shit in any way shape or form in the real world and b) am a kidnapper and/or child trafficker myself...? I don't even know why this needs to be clarified?)

Only because some people don't like something that does!not!actually!harm! a real-life person, doesn't mean that that thing should be forbidden or censored. This is so, so incredibly dangerous. I feel like we have learned nothing from history. How about we just start burning books again? That worked out amazingly in the past and wasn't a catalyst for any big issues at all, right?

Assuming stuff is properly tagged, it's your own responsibility for what you consume online. If you are under 18, this applies too. A lot of authors feel uncomfortable to sharing their work with minors, which is completely fine, and they are in the right to do that. If you still continue to read a story (or in the case of AO3, click "accept" when the warning pops up that a story might include adult themes (graphic description of violence, sex, language, whatever, really): then it is on the minor (or the parents who didn't oversee their child's internet activity). Authors are not their parents or guardians. If minors have unrestricted access to the internet (which I am not sure they should have, at least not when you're 12 or something, but then again: I'm no one's parent), then all you can do is learn by experience. You lie and pretend you're older than you are? You click "understand" and read a story that involves adult themes?

If you do all that, despite the site's warning or the author's warning, then you do not get to complain that the story is intended for people who are older than you, have more media literacy and critical thinking skills to be able to differentiate between fiction and real life or the fact that the story contains adult themes — as it was tagged. WHATEVER adult themes are included.

Trying to censor stuff or illegalize things only because YOU subjectively think they are wrong or immoral or whatever opens the door to a lot of dangerous effects that we, in a civilized society, had to work hard to bounce back from in the past — historically speaking.

Some countries still have major restrictions and censorship of stories, books, and whole websites (that do not harm people) and it was often possible to implement such laws and censorships because it was argued (in the beginning) that it was for the protection of young people or because all porn is inherently bad or stuff like that. Then, it opens the doorway to a lot of other censorship, and then it's too late or very, very hard to reverse.

Idk, there are just so many things wrong with the notion of "anti-shipping" or "I wanna censor shit you read/write because I don't like it/think it's immoral" and, personally, it just rubs me the wrong way.

God, I can already feel people starting a discussion or blocking me or unfollowing me or whatever. And you know what's the beauty of it? You can do that — because we, luckily, have the power and responsibility to be in charge of what content we actively consume online. :)

P.S. I shouldn't have to say this, but obviously (as stated) my take on all of this only applies to fictional characters. Writing SA stories on real, existing people (celebrities or not) is not okay.

Feel free to ignore this, feel free to jump in to discuss this topic like adults, idc, really :D Just wanted to voice my thoughts to the vast void of the interwebs

Also: feel free to help educate me if you think I lack background information or stuff.

[blindbeta]

Hello!

I’m writing a story (fanfic) featuring a blind character starting in the late 60s and am having a dickens of a time figuring out what technologies were available, when. Do you happen to know if that information is collected anywhere?

On a side note, trying to figure that sort of thing out on today’s internet really highlights how much of it is engineered to sell us stuff.

Thanks for being a great resource!

Researching Assistive Technology for the Blind for Stories Set in the Past

Here are some ideas that might help with researching for anyone writing stories that are not modern or fantasy.

Writing a story set in a different time can be challenging, especially because assistive technology for blind folks isn’t as widely discussed. It is easier to look up when color television entered family homes, but much harder to find a timeline of when exactly technology for blind people was invented or when techniques were more widely taught. At least, I have not been able to find a nice timeline myself and have instead had to search backwards. For example, if your character pours liquid into a cup, you can search for when liquid indicators were invented and where. I found this page with the following writing: “In the early 1960's he came up with the Say When, a compact, battery-operated device that hangs over a drinking cup and signals when poured liquid nears the top.”

If your story takes place in the late 60s, it is probably reasonable to assume this device may be available to your character. Additionally, the article I linked above mentions that the blind inventor, Tim Cranmer, according to this page here, was born in Kentucky and worked there, which means it is likely the liquid level indicator he invented was more likely available in the United States first. I am not sure how long it would take for an invention like that to spread to other blind communities around the world in the 60s.

You can do the same with technology like the Brailler, which would have been available in the 60s, while Braille displays were not. The previous link provided does include a timeline, although ot starts after the 60s, which is not helpful to you.

Your blind character in the 60s is more likely to have Braille books. The 1960s also saw the rise of cassette tapes, with the Listening Library as a major distributor of audio books by 1955. Your character could also listen to books on vinyl and cassette tapes.

When doing searches backwards, starting with when a particular device was invented, I find a lot of devices that were invented in Western countries. I would love to go more into non-Western blind inventors, but that may be for another time.

My advice is to reverse search devices you want to use and start by finding out when and where they were invented. You may also look into online spaces with older blind people who may be able to verify if a character using such a device at the time might be plausible. You may also search for videos to see if anyone has already collected helpful information.

As for writing, your character might have enough vision to write in large print. They may also be able to use a print typewriter with someone else proofreading.

Another technique I found was to research the history of blindness organizations. This page, while it suffers from some unfortunate ableist tones in the phrasing chosen by the writer, has a bit about the history of the Royal National Institute For Blind People. Researching the organization might help with figuring out what came from it. In this case, the page I linked mentioned distribution of Braille books and books in audio formats. You could probably do the same by researching schools for the blind around the area the story is set, as records might be accessible online or obtainable through staff. For example, students who ran school papers.

You can also research history of orientation and mobility or the history of canes to see what your character would likely use.

As for accessibility around the home or frequented areas, it may not be as different from today. Your character will still adjust lighting to a comfortable level. Your character might make a grocery list using a tape recorder or a slate and stylus. They might fold their money in a specific way for easy identification. They can mark specific bottles, buttons, or dials using any number of methods, including ink, tape, paint, stickers, etc. I have tried to research when bump dots were invented, but I came across websites trying to sell me bump dots.

Lastly, for fanfiction you might be able to get away with bending the timeline a bit. You can use notes to explain your researching and writing process to readers.

If anyone has resources to share, please feel free to do so.

[password-door-lock]

“Surprise!” 

Unknown nearly jumps out of his skin. What are you doing yelling like that? Hasn’t he told you a hundred times by now to stay quiet while he’s working? But when he turns around to tell you as much, he stops in his tracks. “What do you think you’re doing?” becomes a much more pressing question. 

You’re walking at an awkward angle, propping the door open with one leg while you hop on the other and drag some long rectangle through the doorway with both hands. “I got you a present!” You announce. “Happy early birthday! Or… late birthday? I don’t know, man, you seem like a Gemini, so I’m gonna guess it’s close enough to your birthday that it’s not weird for me to give you a gift.”

Unknown is too busy being bothered by the fact that you’re bringing some unauthorized thing into the intelligence room to be bothered by the fact that you’re trying to guess when his birthday is. You’re not necessarily wrong, either… but he’ll worry about that later. Right now, he has to worry about whatever “gift” it is that you’re trying to give him. You’ve managed to get it inside, and you kick the door shut before tucking the rectangle under your arm and bringing it over to his desk. “What is it?”

You grin at him, flipping the item around so he’s confronted with his own reflection. “A full-length mirror! Tada!” You look proud of yourself.

“Why would you get me something like that?” Unknown demands, “And who said you were allowed to order things?” Truth be told, he has no idea how you even managed to procure such a thing. It’s not as if he lets you roam around Magenta unsupervised, and you certainly don’t have any way to access the internet without him looming over your shoulder. He does occasionally write shopping lists for you to give to the believer in charge of weekly grocery runs, but C3170 would know better than to just take your word for it if you asked for something that wasn’t on the list.

Your lips form an amusing o-shape before you respond. “Yeah, about that. I sort of… forged your handwriting? Okay, no need to reach for any weapons.” You hold up your hands, showing your palms, as if you think you can anticipate his next course of action. “I didn’t expect it to work either. I honestly thought the grocery guy would be like, ‘that’s not his writing’ and send me packing. But I figured, hey, it’s worth a shot! So I spent like, an hour copying the font from the real grocery list to make a fake one, and I brought it to the guy like normal, and he was like, ‘yeah, okay, this checks out; this seems like your boss wrote it; don’t worry, I won’t keep him waiting; for eternal paradise,’ so, here we are with a brand-new mirror!” 

“You forged my handwriting,” Unknown grumbles, “And then you manipulated a believer into spending the Savior’s money on… this.” 

“Yes.” You confirm, “When you put it like that it sounds a lot worse than it is, though. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to, like, get things around here?” 

“I made it that way on purpose.” Unknown rubs his temples, and his reflection in the mirror does the same. Who would have thought that having an assistant would be this much trouble? “Did you at least put the shit I actually needed on your made-up list?” If you didn’t, you’ll be spending the rest of the day sitting in the corner, staring at the wall, and thinking about your bad decisions. Unknown has half a mind to send you over there anyway, considering you had the nerve to forge his handwriting. Why would you risk so much on something so utterly stupid? 

“Of course,” you grin, “I know you can’t get along without your caffeine pills and candy bars. Anyway, please enjoy your full-length mirror.” 

Unknown scowls at his reflection, which scowls right back at him. As if he needs a mirror to tell him how annoyed he is. It was a mistake to leave you unsupervised, and one he won’t ever make again. “Why did you waste money on this? There’s already a mirror in the bathroom.” He should know. He uses it to check his eyeliner, his hair, and (though he’d never breathe a word about it to anyone) the careful placement of his jacket. 

“Man, please don’t take this the wrong way,” you cringe, “Because the top half of your look is great, and it’s really hard to do black skinny jeans wrong, so all things considered, the bottom half is also… mostly great. Um, however… the thing is… it’s just…” 

“Spit it out.” All this talking, and now you can’t even tell him whatever it is you wanted to say? Why bother digging yourself into this hole in the first place if you won’t do anything interesting now that you’re down there?

“I just thought you might benefit from being able to see your whole, entire outfit at one time.” You allow him a long pause to study himself in the mirror. What’s wrong with his outfit? “Shoes included,” you add eventually. 

Unknown glances down at his shoes. They look fine. They’re just shoes, and they serve their purpose well enough— he’s kicked out windows with them and never gotten a single splinter. They fit him, so he never gets blisters, and his feet don’t get cold from the unforgiving floors of the intelligence room. Isn’t that what shoes are supposed to be for? Then he redirects his attention to the mirror and… wow, his shoes really stand out. Now that you’ve pointed out that there’s something wrong with them, they’re all he can focus on. “It doesn’t match,” he realizes. And the untied laces don’t look as cool as he thought they did, but he won’t give you the satisfaction of hearing him admit it.

“No, it doesn’t match!” You sound much too enthusiastic about this conclusion, “It has never matched. They look great on their own, but just… with the outfit…” 

“Why didn’t you say something about this sooner?” Unknown demands. He can’t believe that this is even a conversation he has to have with you. He doesn’t like that you’ve been plotting in secret, lying to believers, and even impersonating him by way of forgery just to make a point about his boots. What an inconsequential little hill to die on. “How long have you been laughing at my shoes behind my back?” 

You’re bold enough to giggle at his words. “To be honest? Months? But I didn’t want to upset you, and for a while I thought it was, like, intentional, or maybe you didn’t have access to other shoes, and I didn’t want to be rude. But then you told me you were gonna tie a rope to something on the roof and climb down to break into an apartment and I was like, ‘okay, well, then he definitely knows how to tie his shoes, so why is he leaving them like that?’ And, you know, now that I’ve been seeing more of this place… I’ve been here a long time, and I’ve never seen one full-length mirror anywhere. Until today.” You place your hand over your heart in a pantomime of solemnity. 

“Mhm,” Unknown hums. He’s going to have to do something about your behavior before this treachery of yours becomes a regular thing. “You won’t get to see any more of this place after today.” 

“I’m grounded?” You demand. You seem to understand what he’s telling you, at least. “That is not fair! I helped you!” You’re starting to whine at him, like you couldn’t have possibly seen this coming when you were copying his handwriting and tricking a believer into buying some useless thing that’s only going to get thrown away. 

“I don’t care what my shoes look like.” It’s the truth. Unknown could not give less of a shit about his footwear outside of its practical purpose-- but you seem to care quite a bit, and he enjoys the knowledge that he can get under your skin like this. “You can stay in the intelligence room with me from now on. The believers can bring us food, since I can’t let you out of my sight again if I know you’re going to be off causing trouble every time I take my eyes off you.” 

“I’ve only caused trouble one time,” you protest, “And it was for a good cause.” 

“Set that thing down,” is Unknown’s only response. He doesn’t have time to try to reason with you, and since you’re his assistant, you should just be listening on your own, anyway. 

“Set that thing down,” you mock him, but comply with his instructions before he can even shoot you a warning look. You gently set the mirror on the floor, and as soon as it’s out of your hands, Unknown scoops you up, pulling you onto his lap. 

“Now, stay here. Don’t go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong again or you’ll regret it, little assistant.” 

“All this coming from a guy with untied, mismatched shoes,” you grumble. 

Unknown ruffles your hair. What exactly is he going to do with you? 

[cuubism]

If you don't mind me asking - what do you think Dream's attitude/reaction towards Tolkien's works (including the legendarium!) would be? (I'm asking a lot of Sandman bloggers this, because I'm extremely curious regarding your takes on this.)

oh! hang on i gotta brush up on my tolkien because i haven't actually read any of the books since like. 2011.

i guess my main thought would be about how dream missed like, 95% of his work when he was stuck in his Jar. my understanding (read: google search) is that tolkien was building up the mythology for his stories before 1916 (when dream was captured), but most of it was not finished/published until a while after.

(this became an insane and mostly unrelated rant i am so so sorry)

i think a lot about how much of his own... area of work and power dream missed when he was trapped. the 20th century, generally speaking, was a time of rapid growth in storytelling methods and media more generally. dream missed almost all of radio, particularly radio as it became a medium for stories. radio was invented in the late 1890s but didn't see a proper rise into a storytelling medium, rather than mainly a direct communication one, until around the 30s. so dream missed the creation and growth of the first, i guess you would call it, networked storytelling, and technological storytelling, and what was... probably? the biggest return to an auditory type of storytelling since the original oral tradition, folk tales, great epics etc, for radio at its peak of cultural relevance (at least in the US and probably the ""West"" more generally, alas i can't speak as knowledgeably for other parts of the world, obviously plenty of other parts of the world had radio in the early 20th century and onward, but i don't know much about its use as a fictional storytelling medium versus for news and government broadcasts. something to look into! part of why radio became such a medium in the usa was because of our rampant capitalism and commercialism lol, so less capitalistic places might have approached it differently - here, advertisers wanted to figure out a way to monetize radio better, but obviously people aren't going to just listen to hours of ads, so they packaged them around stories, live music performances, and variety shows. that's where soap operas as a form come from -- they were originally sponsored by soap companies! also serials, though of course books have also been serialized in the past. and sponsored radio programs also birthed the sort of episodic comedies that eventually evolved into the half hour TV comedies we know today)

which also means - as a direct result of missing radio, dream also missed the rise of television as a medium - it grew directly out of radio, even the big networks we know today, CBS, NBC, and ABC were originally radio networks. television has ended up being a huge change in visual storytelling, not only in its inception, but especially in its more recent years - it's probably the only long-form audiovisual storytelling medium, which is something that didn't really exist before. huge shift in storytelling possibilities. he also missed the development of comic books, and the internet, and the resulting increased accessibility of art and storytelling to both artists and art lovers. he missed an absolutely huge, HUGE shift in the democratization of art and the ability to share it. and, once again, the development of totally new methods of storytelling in the form of internet video! not to even mention the accessibility of MUSIC, music recording and sharing was still in its infancy when dream was imprisoned and now you can get, and make, and share pretty much any music imaginable! and the new genres! and the intermediality of everything and the cross-cultural awareness!

this is not even getting into the new ease of photography, or film, which was also relatively new in 1916. imagine going into a coma when there were only silent films, and waking up to everyone and their mother making tiktoks. the last film you saw was one of chaplin's or something and then you come back and see interstellar in imax 3d. i think i'd explode. (dream would love film, too, it's very dreamlike)

dream returning to the waking world in 2022 and immediately having the entirety of tiktok beamed directly into his head:

(another thing i think about a lot but won't get into because i'm already rambling - hob witnessing the entire development of accessible writing from the printing press to fucking social media. insanity. i want to pick his brain on it

what pushed hob over the edge, do you think. what's the one thing he saw written online that briefly made him regret ever getting involved in printing at all and wish everyone was illiterate again. it was not porn, btw, mr. monsterfucker gadling can handle anything, ok. no, it was something much worse...)

anyway. rambling over. this is all to say that i am not a tolkien expert and haven't read much of his stuff anywhere recently - though i was quite obsessed with it in middle/high school - so my main thought is in relation to dream getting cut off from all of these great stories. it must have been like, to put it flippantly, your favorite tv show getting cancelled halfway through after a cliffhanger XD. he has all these stories from great storytellers - tolkien included - storytellers who are building their whole own worlds in his realm, storytellers he's nurturing and supporting in his own way - and gets ripped away from them. and when he returns, they're all gone.

here's hoping someone who knows more about tolkien can give you an answer more specifically relevant to that. that's all i got for now 😂

[amethystina]

Shipper Tag Game

I was tagged by @a-very-fond-farewell! Thank you so much, darling! Though I'm not sure how good I'll be at it x'D

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1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don’t care anymore?

Honestly? None. While I did have some ships I was interested in, I wasn't obsessed with any of them. And I kind of still care about them? In a very nostalgic way. So I kind of fail at both parts of this question x'D

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

If I'm going with the one I got really invested in? Destiel tbh. Mainly because I was very much a late bloomer who didn't really discover fandom and fanfics until I was 20-21. I mean, I HAD read some before that but since I didn't have internet in my apartment until I went to university (I was too poor xD), it wasn't easy for me to access them. Shipping is just easier when you have internet.

But, once I had it, I DID revisit a couple of ships that were technically older than Destiel that I had never really gotten into before that, many of them from video games, anime/manga, and books I'd read. But they were all overshadowed by Destiel so that's the one I remember as my first.

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

Are we talking reading or writing? I guess I'll do both?

Reading: I think it was a Zell Dincht/Seifer Almasy one from Final Fantasy VIII that a friend printed out on actual paper and gave to me back when I was 16 or 17 (again, no internet). And I honestly can't say why he picked that pairing xD (I'm definitely more of a Squall/Seifer girlie now)

Writing: Sterek. Because it felt interesting but also not too intimidating. And I also just like werewolves?

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

Not really, no. Since I've been drawing for so long I spent more time looking for art than fanfics when I was younger so I probably stumbled over a lot of them without even knowing it.

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Not if I can help it, no. I tend to stay away from that sort of thing as best I can and just let people ship whatever they want. It's honestly none of my business.

6. Did you use to have any no-otp or have it currently?

I have several, mostly based on what I find triggering or squicky. But I don't announce them publically because that's just rude to those who DO ship them. And, as stated above, I try not to get involved in what other people ship or don't ship.

7. Who were the couples in the last fanfic you read?

Choi Yoon/Yoon Hwa Pyung from The Guest. Because who doesn't love some pining and Catholic guilt?

For real, though, I read very few fanfics right now and actually had to go check my history on AO3 to figure this out x'D The second to last fanfic was a Strangers From Hell one. And the one before that was a Guardian one!

8. Currently do you have any OTPs?

Several. Honestly too many to list x'D I'm one of those people who don't really let go of ships I like. They're not always at the forefront of my mind, though, but I remember them fondly and coo a little when I think of all the fond memories.

But if we're talking about the ones I'm the most focused on right now I'd say Kang Yo Han/Kim Ga On from The Devil Judge, Yoon Sa Wol/5-8 from Black Knight (currently struggling with chapter 6 x'D), the aforementioned Choi Yoon/Yoon Hwa Pyung from The Guest, and Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan from Guardian.

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Sterek. But that has less to do with my dedication to the characters and more to do with the queerbaiting and how extremely shittily Jeff Davis handled that whole thing. To use the Sterek shippers for publicity and hint that maybe it could happen, only to turn around and do everything within his power to not make it happen?

I take that personally, not because I have a huge stake in Stiles and Derek as characters, but as a queer person who, for once, thought that maybe we would actually get to see a couple we really liked get together, and then didn't.

I had more hope for Sterek than I ever did for Destiel, which technically had more in-canon queerbaiting, because the people behind Teen Wolf did their damndest to give me hope. Only for me to be ignored and basically told I was being gullible for ever thinking it would happen.

And that's a betrayal I'm probably never going to forgive.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

Not... really? I can't think of any, at least. But that could be because I always have a pretty good reason for disliking the ships I dislike. As mentioned, it's usually based on triggers and squicks and those don't really change. So my opinion on ships I dislike aren't likely to change, either.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

I mean, considering the social climate right now? Even Sterek qualifies because Stiles was underage when I started shipping them and Derek most certainly was not xD That said, I always prefer the fics when Stiles had time to turn 18 before any of the sexy stuff happened.

12. What was your favourite crack ship?

Okay, so, I've actually read a lot of fics for ships I don't actually ship, just for research purposes. Like, I find it FASCINATING to watch what other people like, how they choose to write about the things they like, and how they decide to portray the characters. Basically, I like to analyse authors just as much as I like to analyse characters. It's a hobby of mine.

And one of my absolute favourites was reading fanfics for Newt Scamander and the original Percival Graves from the first Fantastic Beasts movie (Sidenote: She-who-must-not-be-named is an asshole and this is not an endorsement of her franchise or shitty beliefs). And why I loved that so much was because the fics were about THE ORIGINAL Percival Graves who, technically, was never IN the actual movie (he might not even be alive anymore?). Like, it was Grindelwald all the time. We never actually SAW the original Percival Graves, just Grindelwald's impersonation of him.

And I just had so much fun reading various authors' takes on this character who was never actually seen but, based on Grindelwald's impersonation, can sort of be hinted? Because he must have done a good enough job of it that the people around Graves didn't notice? It was like an anthropological dig of Percival Graves transpiring right before my eyes and since I got on the train pretty early, I could see authors being inspired by each other and how the fanon developed over time. 10/10 would recommend if you're interested in watching a fandom evolve.

(also, some of the fics were so fucking good. So there's that, too xD)

13. Who is the couple you read most fanfics of?

I'm not entirely sure if it's Destiel or Stony, but definitely one of them (Sterek is most likely in third place). Partly because there are just so many to partake in (those fandoms are HUGE), but also because they've been with me for so long and numbers accumulate. That said, I haven't read any for those ships in a long, long time. But considering how many fics I devoured during the time I was the most active in those fandoms? It's going to be difficult for any of the ones I'm currently into to catch up.

Also because I tend to be in much smaller fandoms now >_>

14. What do most of your ships usually have in common?

WELL. A while back I would have said that even if there are some enemies-to-lovers tropes and antagonising in some of them, they're all mostly unproblematic and pretty healthy.

... I can't really do that anymore, can I? x'D

I mean, Kang Yo Han is problematic all on his own, but even HE is a green flag compared to Seo Moon Jo. That fucker is just a straight-up psychopath x'D

A more serious answer: An interesting dynamic. Which sounds like a given, but is actually a bit more tricky than that. Because I've only gotten more and more picky over the years. I've actually spoken to my wife and friends about this, because I've seen a pretty noticeable shift in my own shipping practices lately.

I gather fewer and fewer new ships and that's not because I watch/read fewer things, but because I'm getting pickier about them. There has to be an extra spark that interests me, often connected to the characters' personalities and how they play off each other, while, before, a bit of chemistry was enough.

But that also makes me more versatile, I guess? Because I focus less on tropes and more on characters and dynamics. But that also makes it harder to spot similarities xD

15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

I mean, hate is a strong word. But, again, it would mostly be connected to my triggers. I don't like ships that are too abusive and unbalanced. A little bit of danger is fine, but things like abuse, infidelity, grooming, non-con etc. don't work for me, personally.

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I don't really know who to tag so just do it if you want to! :D

[cosmic-llin]

Hello! I’m so sorry for bursting in out of the blue, but I just saw you come up as a recommended follow on here. Did you by any chance used to run The Sarah Jane Smith Wardrobe Appreciation Society and post fanvids on YouTube? If so, I just want to say, I used to absolutely love all the stuff you used to do (still do really, I have been known to access the SJSWAS through wayback machine every now and then). I was just a baby on the internet back then (30 is looming ever closer for me nowadays) but there are still songs that when I listen to them, I’m reminded of one of your fanvids, and SJSWAS was quite literally my bible at one point. Hope you’re having a lovely time wherever you are, and this message finds you well. If you’re not who I think you are, then many apologies, I promise I’m quite sane!

No need to apologise, I was thrilled to get this message, thank you so much for taking the chance and reaching out! <3 And I'm sorry for being so slow to reply, I'm sort of on-and-off Tumblr these days and mostly off lately. Yes, that was me, and I'm delighted and touched and grateful to hear that you remember the site and my vids so fondly! SJSWAS was basically my life for a while there and it's really cool to know it made such an impression. <3 Eventually I couldn't afford to keep it online any more, but I'm really glad so much of it is still reachable via the Wayback Machine, I put a ton of work into it.

I'm still posting vids on YouTube as llintrek, though not Whoniverse ones these days. But there's always going to be a special corner of my heart that's just for Sarah Jane Smith. <3

[aroaceacacia]

HI!!!! sorry if you've already posted about this before, but i'm aware you help maintain a vod archive - we're trying to do this for another server and were wondering if you had any tips for useful tools or ways to go about this? thanks and sorry for bothering !!

yes ok!!! here r my tips

1. Have some sort of location where all the VODs are accessible from, for people who may want to find them. For us, we have a spreadsheet, with dates & labels; this could also take the form of a YouTube playlist or an archive.org collection

2. Having only one way to download VODs probably wont be able to cover every scenario you encounter. Here's a list of a BUNCH of resources and tools, many of which you might never need, and most of which I've never heard of. In terms of programs to download VODs, I personally use a mixture of three: Twitch Downloader, 4k Video Downloader, and Twitch Recover. (I use Downloader to access most Twitch VODs, 4k for YouTube videos/streams - although it also does Twitch - and Twitch Recover for when a VOD has been recently deleted*.)

3. TWITCH DELETES VODS !!!! unless a vod is saved as a highlight, those suckers go KABLOOEY at a certain point! the exact amount of time will vary, depending on whether ur streamer is affiliate, partner, or not, so knowing your streamer's status is very helpful. I think non-affiliates and affiliates have a week, and then partners have 60 days. Note that Twitch Recover does not work on VODs older than 60 days, so this time limit is REALLY IMPORTANT.

4. If you're able to get in touch with your streamers in some way, that is really cool and epic! Not necessary at all, but sometimes it's nice being able to remind streamers theres a demand for an official VODs channel, or asking if they have any spare VODs lying around

5. HAVE FRIENDS TO DO THIS WITH !! you said "we" so I assume theres probably a team of some sort already, but division of labor is HUGELY helpful for VOD archiving, because those GB start adding up fast. (It's about 2.5 GB per 1 hour of video at 1080p quality, and generally you want the highest quality possible, so VODs can get pretty chunky.) Oh yeah I guess storage space is useful too. Remember to do spring cleaning also every now and then and make sure you dont delete anything that isnt already backed up elsewhere 👍 but yes. Teamwork. Communicating with the group about who will do what, being able to mobilize in a potential crisis, and making occasional public calls for additional hands on help are all super important, I've found.

6. YouTube is a copyright bitch! While it's better for watching vods back on, it will occasionally block a vod for copyright. YouTube is great, I upload all my MCC vods there unlisted, but I also recommend getting familiar with archive.org. archive is a little slower to upload but it won't hide a VOD worldwide because it had a copyrighted song or three in it. Having mirrors of uploads is a good tool for peace of mind - one of my friends has been on a kick of double mirroring VODs lately, even ones that will eventually be up on a VODs channel, but that's also a lot of uploading and slows him down

7. Being aware to at least some degree of the contents of what you're archiving is a good thing. Sometimes you need to censor out an accidental doxxing or worry about an IP leak, and I find it makes me feel more confident in my work if I know what I'm preserving. Like, I archive plenty of MCC POVs I havent necessarily watched, but they're all MCC, and I know what happens, and I sometimes hear details from other people - but a random server VOD from a guy I don't watch much of could contain anything. Sometimes I worry I've accidentally stuck deeply personal information into the internets biggest document repository. And maybe I have. But having some familiarity helps the peace of mind

8. Have fun with it and take pride in your work! You're helping to prevent something you love, the hard work of others, from becoming lost media! That's sooooo epic and sexy and cool of you, actually, and more people should do it - either on their own for their own personal purposes, or in the context of a larger project, like me and you

tl;dr its work but it boils down to communication, having the right tools, and having a team that is willing to adapt and cooperate in order to get stuff done! best of luck in your efforts