#I would also like to clarify I’m not pro or anti anyone

[eddiediazismyhusband]

🩺 or 🙅🏻‍♀️

Otherwise, I’m gonna start sharing anti-Eddie, pro-Tevan screenshots on your posts 😤

(I would never actually do that but pretty pretty please, these both sound SO FCKN GOOD, I need them 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺) (also I’m not at all creative & obviously very bad at threats but I wanted to follow the rules 😇)

That is legitimately the most threatening thing anyone could ever say to me to get me to write, please don't play with me like that, I promise I will have my wips written and on your desk by 5 PM Friday.

🩺 - The Nurse!Eddie fic:

----------

Eddie looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You were crying over a movie with Dolly Parton in it?” he asked.

“Hey, don’t trash on Dolly,” Buck admonished. “Besides, she wasn’t the focus of the scene, it was- Sally Field’s character is giving this really emotional monologue and I just… it gets me every time.”

“You’re telling me you’ve cried at this scene before?” Eddie gave him an amused look.

“It gets to me, man,” Buck defended. “It- it’s kind of a sentimental movie to me. Maddie and I used to watch it all the time, and… I don’t know, I just love it.”

Eddie frowned at the mention of Maddie’s name.

“Ah, and how is she?” he asked, changing the subject. “Maddie, I mean.”

“Oh she’s…” Buck trailed off. “Don’t tell Hen, she wants it to be a surprise, but she is pregnant.”

“Congratulations,” Eddie said, trying not to let the agitated edge show.

“Thanks,” Buck smiled. “I think I’m honestly more excited than she is about it. To have a little Buckley walking around.”

Eddie’s brow furrowed. Based on what Buck had said in the store a week ago, the baby wasn’t his, so technically it wasn’t a Buckley.

“I’m sure that it’s going to be a big adjustment for you both,” Eddie said.

Buck shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, not really for me- I’m planning on spoiling the kid, but Maddie and Chimney are the ones who are gonna have the brunt of it all. I’m just gonna be Uncle Buck.”

Eddie swore he heard a record scratch in his brain.

“Wait, what?” he asked.

“What?” Buck furrowed his own brows in confusion.

“What do you mean, Uncle Buck?” he clarified.

“I mean, my sister’s baby is going to be my niece or nephew,” Buck chuckled awkwardly, still looking at Eddie with a confused look.

“Sister?” Eddie asked, his eyes growing wide. “Maddie’s- She’s your sister?”

----------

🙅🏻‍♀️ - The Homophobic Marisol fic:

“She what?” she practically hissed.

“I-” Buck stammered. “I- she figured out I had feelings for Eddie and she… she told me I should stay away from him and Christopher. That she’s Eddie’s girlfriend and she doesn’t want me around to mess things up for her.”

Buck could swear he saw the faintest twitch of Pepa’s eyes before she took a deep breath, closing her eyes and bowing her head as if in prayer.

“Dios, por favor dame la fuerza para no retorcerle el cuello a esa perra la próxima vez que la vea-” she muttered quickly under her breath.

“Pepa!” Buck’s eyes went wide- picking up on the gist of what she was saying even though he didn’t understand it exactly. 

“I’m sorry, Evanito, but I never liked that puta for my Eddito,” Pepa told him. “I knew there was something off about her when I met her, but I never expected her to be so vile.”

“I’m really wondering if I should tell you the next part,” Buck chuckled as Pepa turned to face him.

“There’s more?” she asked.

“She told me she didn’t want me to ‘turn Eddie’ so that he would be with me,” Buck told her- feeling like a weight was being lifted by sharing this with someone other than Maddie or Chim. “And that if she found out that I told anyone what she said then she would tell Eddie how I feel about him.”

“Ay dios mio,” Pepa shook her head.

----------

[rgr-pop]

soliciting advice from the mentally ill queer community, possibly especially @bananapeppers needed

without rehashing the context too much, as you know i got written up at work for saying the words homophobia and transphobia (yes that’s what the record says lol). my punishment is i have to go to see a therapist (counseling from a therapist or therapy from a counselor not clear) that they have chosen, and i have to consent to release some information about these sessions to my employer

going to set aside that i would not choose this therapist in the first place given any ability to consent at all in this scenario because she has what i consider to be a fake certifying degree from an online for profit institution and she does not work for a mental healthcare provider (she works for a company that sells telecounseling packages to human resources departments) lol, i have additional concerns about the appropriateness of the assignment because on her linkedin she identifies herself as catholic (specifically catholic educated)

fully no anti catholic bias intended (i love the catholic homosexual reading this) and to be fully honest, i have no other evidence on hand that she may be homophobic—no questionable social media or organizational affiliations. she frankly may very well not be. but i would never choose a healthcare provider who identifies their catholicism on their professional website to handle issues that i know to be controversial among catholics (like at all as a first choice but especially) without explicit reassurance that they are pro-queer and have experience in queer informed counseling (or are abortion loving if that were the situation, or believe that divorce should be legal and celebrated, whatever it may be) (once more full apologies for the stereotyping lol)

so the advice i’m looking for is how to have a conversation with her to establish whether she’s a queer friendly therapist (and there are some finer details i’d especially like to clarify). i know many of you have had to have these conversations and i’m wondering if you’d all give me pointers or some concrete questions to ask.

additionally, in a worse case scenario, can anyone who feels up to it share experiences or advice about surviving homophobic therapy experiences lol :/

a few notes:

i obviously considered not complying and lawyering up. it’s not off the table lol but there are various reasons i opted not to. the most pragmatic one is that i know many members of my union have to go through similar processes as the result of discipline and i want to see what that’s like for them. i could also gather evidence to build the case for making demands against this practice (which so far many unions consent to for various reasons even as they are legally questionable, if you’re in this situation in your union OR are mad about your union caving to this practice feel free to dm me to chat strategy.)

additionally, i probably cannot ask for a different therapist regardless of the outcome here, but having an explicit conversation is good for my case regardless. the best case scenario from here on would actually probably be for her to say i’m not comfortable with my ability to handle this topic but i can refer you to an explicitly queer informed counselor who for some reason also has a webtv therapy degree and works for the HR app.

why do i want to explicitly know that she’s okay on queer issues (or not) (im asking myself)? for one i am not sure i can literally survive yet more homophobic harassment at work (yes i know i’m baby but i make $20k working for a library this is the one thing i’m owed ok). but for another thing i do think it would be better to have some kind of record that they forced me to go to a homophobic counselor as punishment for making a complaint about homophobic harassment, if that’s the case.

the most generous read of the objective of this forced therapy would be to discuss more constructive behaviors lol for communicating about anti-queer behavior at work etc. perhaps even some emotional counseling regarding the honestly extreme toll this experience has had on my life. but i can’t proceed in good faith without a counselor who acknowledges that what i experienced was queer/phobic and that i have a right to not experience those things at work. that’s all. i do not want to sit in any additional meetings where i’m told that i have to listen to the perspective of the coworker who doesn’t believe she should have to respect queer people at work. however, if i do not proceed in good faith, i will be reported to my employer as not compliant and could face actual consequences.

please @ me thank you

[chocoboparty]

🐥Hello!! I’m Prompto!!

im a system host/fictive! my pronouns are pri/prin and im (bodily)22 years old! this is a personal blog for me only!! i will post thoughts and reblog things i like :) some info about me:

▫️🌼 autistic with adhd

▫️🌼 suspected osdd1b system

▫️🌼 bodily puerto rican (english/spanish ok!)

▫️🌼 engaged to my perfect fiancé!!!!!

more info, DNI/BYF, and userboxes under the cut!! please read my DNI before interacting!!

main blog instagram

🐥Even More Stuff!!

my typing abilities fluctuate! i try to use simple sentences on this account as its easier for me. if anything needs a translation/clarifying lmk!!

i am a very troubled and traumatized person, i will sometimes vent but everything will be tagged accordingly. i would also appreciate if anyone could let me know if i over share, as i struggle to understand the boundary and im working on not doing it as much!!

my tagging system will look like this:

#🐥talking / #🎮reblog / #🩻vent / #🌼me #🐟noct / #🎧autisms / #🫂sys stuff

feel free to mute any of these if needed!! :]

🐥Do Not Interact!!

please don’t interact with my account if any of these describe you! thank you :)

▫️pro/ship, pro/contact paras

▫️anti xenogender/neopronouns, terfs

▫️syscourse / fake claim others

▫️like/talk about ardyn izunia positively at all

🐥Before You Follow!!

some things you should know before following/interacting with me / my account :)

▫️i am still very much connected to my source, and have actual memories from it. please refrain from making weird comments about me or noctis (the characters)

▫️there might be passing references to both hypersexuality and paras, since I suffer from both, they will be tagged. i am pro recovery

▫️i don’t participate in syscourse, all i know is the basic knowledge that trauma is needed to form a system during childhood

▫️this account is mostly rambling and personal talks about my experiences, might post over and over

🐥Userboxes!!

thank you for reading all the way through!! here’s some userboxes that fit me!

[chaosciara]

Okay, I'm not trying to come into your asks to cause trouble I'm just confused and a little concerned. I'm really really glad you're watching and enjoying kp, I'm always so happy when I see someone new in the tag freaking out, it brings me so much joy. However, your condemning kimchay because of a few years age difference while simultaneously being pro vegasporsche is making my head hurt. I'm all for shipping whoever you want to ship, but the amount of ick ew kimchay I'm seeing from you when vegas literally tried to SA porsche is uh... idk it doesnt make sense. Kimchay is completely g rated, and a few years difference is really nothing at all, especially in comparison to SA. Like, I'm honestly hoping you can explain your thoughts on this cause, uh, what? Anyway, welcome to the fandom?

hi anon

okay I am going to answer this in two parts

1. I am not a kimchay anti or some kimchay hater who’s going to fill the kimchay tag with terrible takes and derogation of them. once I finish kinnporsche I will have absolutely zero interaction with kimchay, and beyond a reblog or two of kinnporsche content I probably won’t interact with the kinnporsche fandom. so I promise I’m not out here trying to establish myself as a fandom regular and/or a kimchay anti I was really just voicing my thoughts as I was watching the episode

2. even if the age gap isn’t that big (as far as the last couple anons and people have said chay is 18 and kim is 21?) their relationship in general doesn’t sit well with me.

it looks like chay’s feelings are coming from a place of admiration, worship and puppy love -> there’s nothing wrong with this but it does highlight how young and naive he is

whereas kim’s feelings (or rather actions) look to be coming from a place of “curiosity” and “i wonder what would happen if I did this thing-“ and not really any feelings of love or care

(aka the: “I love you, do you love me?” scene really shows both chay’s naivety and kim’s feelings)

I just think chay is too young and innocent to be engaging in a relationship with someone like kim who is not only older but lives a lifestyle full of violence and trauma. the gap in emotional maturity is huge (even if the age gap isn’t)

all this being said, I can see from the anon’s I’ve gotten and the interactions I’ve had with the kimchay live-blogging posts that this seems to be a very needled topic in the fandom and therefore I will probably strive to stay far away from it while I finish this show

thank you for asking so gently :) I really appreciate it. and I hope I don’t spoil your (or anyone else’s) kimchay appetite.

I very much live by the philosophy: ship who you want to ship it’s all fake and happiness is the only thing that matters

I also live by the philosophy that the things we interact with in fiction do not translate to the things we are okay (or not okay) with in real life. it’s about knowing your boundaries and using critical thinking to say, “hey this is pretty fucked up and if I saw this in real life I would be disgusted and scared but this is a fictional universe where the actions and consequences of characters are contained within this piece of media and I am interacting with it without engaging in those actions in real life. my feelings for the content are based within the context of the show and not within what I do or don’t do in real life”

sending gentleness always :)

[anti-dazai-blog]

Hello, so I’m just asking around to gain perspective and not trying to attack anyone (I’m asking pro and anti Dazai and Chuuya blogs).

I am just trying to understand what is gained just by hating on a character. I understand disliking them and all of that, but I am legitimately curious as to why dedicating so much energy to disliking them is necessary?

I’m really not trying to offend or anything, I just have been coming across a lot of blogs recently that have been focused on negatively towards one character or another and I’m just curious.

Hi Anon! That’s a valid question, thank you for being so respectful in how you asked it— I’ll do my best to answer, but I only speak for myself, not any of the other blogs you may be wondering about

I’ll try to be as concise as possible, so my response may come off as rude— I promise I’m not mad at you, I’m just trying to get my answer down in a way that makes sense to me.

—firstly, I don’t hate Dazai (as a character). So. That should clear up about half of your ask. I find him intriguing. Sometimes I say I hate him, but that’s more in a semi-ironic way than a serious way. (But also I hate him. That is also a true statement. This makes sense to me, and I think it makes sense to many, many other bsd enjoyers as well. He’s just That Sort Of Guy.)

—characters that I genuinely hate hate I try not to think about because they bother me too much. For example, I wouldn’t make a blog like this for characters who I genuinely wish for their death in the story. So for that reason, I don’t really consider this to be a true “hate blog”.

—It’s clear from your ask that you haven’t been reading what I post (which is fine, I’m glad you clarified that you’re just asking “hate blogs” in general. I get annoyed when people come here with the type of complains that make it clear they haven’t actually read what I post, without actually clarifying that they haven’t read anything)—

I don’t post things like “ugh I HATE Dazai he’s the WORST”. I post things like “look at that over there! It’s dazai being an asshole in chapter 3!”, and I am very open to people disagreeing with me. It’s just an analysis series, it’s not meant for people to be taking so seriously. So long as everyone’s respectful, we all respect each other’s opinions. 

—as for why I put so much effort or energy into this— Idk I mean I’m on hiatus right now. I haven’t posted to the Anti-Dazai Series since the start of the semester. So. As of recently, 0 effort has gone into this. But in general I do this ‘cause it’s fun and I’m bored. That’s it. There’s no deeper reason. It’s the same as why anyone would run any other sort of blog.

I hope that clears things up. I am 99% sure this ask is because of the recent situation. Thank you so much for asking and giving me the chance to explain myself, rather than just passing a judgement without knowing others sides of things.

[circular-bircular]

i don't even quite know what I'm doing here exactly, but I'm glad to know that there is in fact other folks around who understand that plurality is a thing and that pro-endos can (and frequently do) spew a lot of misinfo about OSDDDID, and speaking about the very real harm that both "pro-endos" and "anti-endos" can cause. I suppose I'm just sharing some of my experiences here but I'm someone with 3 other dudes in my head who have to power to take control of the body (we avoid all langauge and terms related to OSDDDID and endogenic plurality) who went from believing we "can't be a traumagenic system because we don't have childhood trauma before the age cutoff" to fully believing we are trauma and hating all endos ever to feeling extremely alienated in did/osdd spaces and wondering if we are subconsciously "mimicking" symptoms, and after cutting ourselves off from both communities have come to a conclusion that the guys in the head haven't disappeared and are still very real, but this ain't did/osdd either and it also isn't "imaginary friends" or roleplaying, so it's just circled to "eh, i guess maybe plural". Eveb though there is definitely some pretty bad dissociation and trauma going on when it comes to some other stuff but that's something between me and my therapist.

But yeah, it's just very annoying having to constantly walk on eggshells between both "pro-endos" and "anti-endos" because the more vocal "pro-endos" would eat me alive for disagreeing with the way they talk misinfo abt did/osdd but the vocal "anti-endos" would send us to hell for having "system-like" experiences yet not claiming childhood trauma or a dissociative disorder that has parts (like that's anyones businesses)(also keyword "vocal", i understand not everyone is like this but as is the nature of this discourse, if u dont clarify then the assumptions can go wild lol) (and even though the last time we were fully open about this and thought this was osdd, an ex-friend came in to fakeclaim us because idk, we weren't "disordered" enough or some shit).

But to round this up to be a bit more postive again, I'm thankful that there's people out there who understand that there's a whole lotta more nuance to plurality and did/osdd and the communities surrounding them and the fact that yeah, no, they don't exist on the same spectrum. They can seem similar, but from personally speaking, so far the osdd/did side of things feels very different to what i /we experience. So, i guess, thank you for being open-minded yet also critical. Maybe one there can be two communitues who understand the difference between them but also allow healthy discussion and exchange of ideas. One can only hope.

I’m so sorry to hear about what’s happened to you. That sounds a lot like my experiences in those communities. You deserved better 💜

I’ve been so lucky to find syscourse unaligned folks and anti-endos who believe in endogenic plurality while speaking out against the harmful parts of both communities. More nuance has been coming to discussions, and it couldn’t make me happier.

Thank you for your high praise.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

I'm a long time follower and I wanted to clarify your position before a misunderstanding gets out of hand. I've seen some recent posts by lie-where-i-land that had your name in them? I'm not gonna lie, it kind of worried me what you said, about it being pressuring or whatever. I was hoping to get a fuller picture and maybe see if your intent had been misrepresented by him?

Okay, here’s the clarification of my position. The short version is that I am not your enemy, but you may not like what you hear. This whole discourse is new to me, and I will freely confess that much of what is said on it does not make much sense to me. Based on what I have read and heard, this is what I do think.

I think that there is going to have to be dialogue and mutual understanding on trans issues between people with widely differing viewpoints. There is real hostility, and trans people genuienly are suffering, but I do not think that everyone who views things differently from you hates you or wishes you ill.

I not think that trans women are a threat to cis women. I disagree with women who do think that. But I think it is at least understandable, and worthy of engagement rather than flat condemnation and ostracism, that some women are concerned that if access to women-only spaces (of varying purposes, from changerooms to shelters to women’s prisons) is based solely on the assertion “I am a woman”, it makes it easier for cis men to access those spaces, with some attendant risks. I can understand why women, especially those who have been harrassed or assaulted by men, would be uncomfortable with that; I can understand why they would lash out at people who call them cruel and hateful and evil for feeling so. I think that, with regard to abused women’s shelters, the presence of someone whose physical appearance is that of a man could be traumatic to some people there. And I think that we need dialogue and an attempt at understanding in order to try to find compromises that fit the needs of all our communities. Cis women escaping abusive relationships need to be able to be and feel safe. Trans women escaping abusive relationships need to be and feel safe. I don’t think those things are incompatible, but I do think they require seriously listening to each other and working together. You may think the concern is invalid, but I think it is unwise to decide that anyone who feels it, or even accepts it as understandable, is your inveterate enemy.

A key point: I am not asking you to engage in this discussion or engagement on your tumblr or other social media. It is perfectly fine for your blog to be a safe space where you don’t have to deal with of this, and you have the ability to block people you don’t want to interact with or see posts from.

I’ve also heard other things from trans activists that feel very unreasonable, such as saying that it’s bigoted not to date people who are a sex you’re not attracted to. If a person, male or female, isn’t into penises, then they have every right not to date or have sex with someone who has one, regardless of that person’s gender identity. (They do not - this shouldn’t need to be said, but given the prevalence of hate crimes, does - have the right to become violent because someone’s body is not what they expected.) Likewise, it doesn’t seem strange or bigoted to me that some marriages would break up when one partner transitions. This seems to me to be of a piece with accepting the concept of sexual orientation. This viewpoint, too, which to me seems trivially obvious, I have seen called cruel and hateful.

Just from my cursory sense of social media, I find the term ‘terf’ overused towards people who aren’t radical feminists by any definition. (For reference, if you intend to use it about me, know that the radical feminists wouldn’t have me; I’m pro-life [on everything: anti-death-penalty, anti-euthanasia outside very limited cicrcumstances, anti-abortion - and pro-adoption, and supportive of giving single mothers all the health care and financial support they need to raise their child; against wars of choice; anti-poverty], which they would comsider an instant disqualification. I’m also not a ‘tradfem’; I haven’t married, don’t currently plan to, never want children, and am extremely glad to live in a time when I can do work that I enjoy and am good at and live largely as I please. I am a fairly normal, mundane feminist who cares about issues like, but not limited to, wage inequality, employer discrimination, and workplace sexual harrassment, as I expect many of you do.)

So, as a consequence of the above, the phrase “this person is a terf” has become something I regard with a degree of skepticism unless I can read and assess the person’s statements for myself, in context; and I very likely have a different standard for what I consider condemnable (or worthy of ostracism) than you do. It feels less like a meaningful description, and more like a cudgel.

I didn’t like what lie-where-i-land had to say, not at all, nor their tactics of vaguing about venwe without providing any clear statements of anything objectionable (stating that sex exists is about as simple a statement as saying that humans breathe oxygen; I’m certainly not going to shun someone for that) and then resorting to guilt-by-association (I don’t, and I expect most people don’t, vet all the political opinions of either the OP or other rebloggers before I reblog something by them; and I have followed and do follow people who I have strong political disagreements with on issues that are very important to me). And I really don’t like them doing it about someone brave enough to consider risking their safety by protesting against a brutal dictatorship. It feels reductive; as though a person can have dozens of good principles and actions, but if they are wanting on one note, they must be condemned and shunned.

Moreover, and finally: I’m not going to rigidly limit my friends or the blogs I follow based on their political opinions. I unfollow a blog if my aggravation from the things I disagree with outweighs the enjoyment of the things I do agree with, but I can follow a person while disagreeing strongly with them on some things. I have red lines, but they are not likely to be the same as yours; and I don’t think that I am obligated or to banish anyone who crosses your lines from the public sphere, or that you have a right to demand that I do so. I’m not even comvinced it’s healthy to do so - people won’t generally become less radicalized as a result of everyone but their fellow radicals refusing to speak with them. If you want me to stop interacting with someone because they have been personally harrassing you by, for example, posting hateful things on your personal posts, that’s reasonable; but none of the accusations made came anything close to that.

There’s a lot else I could say, but I’ll leave things here; I have at least tried to speak delicately and sensitively, though frankly, on the matter, and have held back a lot of frustrations that could be more strongly voiced. Given what I’ve seen elsewhere on tumblr, I suspect that posting this will turn out have been the most unwise thing I have yet done on this site; but you asked for clarification, so here it is.

[screaming-apple]

IS ZHANG ZHEHAN PRO-FASCIST OR IS IT JUST A HOAX FROM THE PUBLIC’S DECEIVERS?

August 2021, when netizens were still overwhelmed by the drama series of Zhang Zhehan being “pro-Japan”, a picture which he took in Zhejiang in 2019 was dug up and was labelled as “saluting in Hitler’s way” = worshipping fascism. And with the effort to spark up the rage from the public even more, bloggers even suggested that this picture had been taken at a memorial hall (see Pic 1). This next part is to clarify what’s true and what’s not.

1. Where and when the picture came to exist.

This picture was taken along with several other pictures and they were posted on ZZH’s personal account on 15th December 2019 - one day after season 1 of “Everybody Stand By” show’s final, along with the caption “I’m waiting for you”, a line in the skit “Big Brother”, which he acted in. Besides seeing him taking pictures and celebrating with his friends after his winning, we can understand how much the skit “Big Brother” means to him and his co-actor - who quickly replied with the same line in the comment section (see Pic 2).

2. What building was there in the background?

The monument that had been assumed to be the Memorial Hall of Revolutionary Martyrs was actually Zhejiang Exhibition Hall. This location is 5 kilometres away from the actual Memorial Hall, equivalent to a 1-hour-and-15-minute walk (see Pic 3).

3. Analyze and identify the “rite” that Zhang Zhehan used.

ZZH’s hand movement if put in the context of just the viral picture, it looks more like a taxi-waving action than a saluting action. And to compare the action of a Chinese man, standing on the Chinese land to the standards of German people, American people or overall European people is pretty confusing.

Not only that, an “anti-fan” of ZZH was quick to get on Twitter to send Neil Gaiman this particular picture that compared ZZH’s action to Adolf Hitler. He is the author of the book “The Graveyard Book” which ZZH had introduced to his fans recently and Mr Gaiman had also thanked ZZH for enjoying his works while also hinting that he would watch Word of Honor (Shan He Ling), which he had starred in. Mr Gaiman is a person of Polish-Jewish origin - the people who were once suffered the “massacre” of Nazi Germany (I hope this part of translation is not offensive to anyone as the way of expression might be different in Vietnamese and in English - if any part is so, please tell me to help rephrase it). He had also given his comment against the rumour-spreader (see Pic 4).

“Definitely don’t support Nazis. Also don’t have any context for the photo on the top. Who was he saluting? Were they Nazis? Were they saluting back? Are you sure he wasn’t caught mid-wave or try to figure out how high something was?”

***CONCLUSION:

To re-emphasize, every action and every word should be put into the context they were in before being put forwards to be judged. All of the contextual aspects (images, people, comments) in this situation were merely to commemorate a past show and character of ZZH, there was no worshipping or saluting anyone. The label “pro-fascist” being placed upon ZZH is an effort to turn white into black, to deceive the public of the bad guys in this story.

!!! The original source mentions some information + images relating to war. To avoid subsequent troubles, this blog will stop posting about this piece of information.

---

The pictures + the OG captions that came with them:

Pic 1: Bloggers spread the rumour saying that ZZH stood in front of Zhejiang Memorial Hall of Revolutionary Martyrs while saluting in Hitler’s way. This is an unacceptable act in Germany, America and other Western countries.

Pic 2: The original post on ZZH’s Weibo uploaded on 15th December 2019.

Pic 3: The building is actually Zhejiang Exhibition Hall, and it takes 1 hour and 15 minute to walk from the Memorial. (Plus some light editting to translating the words into English).

Pic 4: The author Neil Gaiman of Polish-Jewish origin commented on the picture comparing ZZH’s action to Adolf Hitler.

The link to the OG post:

https://www.facebook.com/thientominhtam/posts/117326724051434?notif_id=1634286658620603&notif_t=page_post_reaction&ref=notif

---

I do have some opinions myself on this. First of all, you need to know that in Asia, or particularly in Vietnam (and maybe even in China), rites and symbols of Nazi Germany mean little to us, as they are only talked about in some brief history lessons about Europe in general or about World War II in general. I did not even know that was the salute way of Nazi Germany until I read about ZZH’s situation relating to this topic. And the swastika symbol, I even saw students, in my secondary/high school, in my class, drawing them on their books or dictionaries. They were not fascists, obviously, they only thought it was a weird symbol that could be drawn somewhere for fun. So, this is me explaining why putting an Asian on the scale to judge a European or a German is weird and confusing.

I’m not saying he knew it was a Nazi way to salute, it might just be him re-enacting the action from the skit, as I have seen another post doing an analysis on it. Also, in the comment section of one of the pictures, people have also commented old communist posters (below) with people doing the same exact pose. It could be an action to imply like “keep moving forward” or “to infinity and beyond” even if his arm was not raised all high up.

There are only a few posts left of this series to be translated. However, these posts are pretty long. After this, I might get to translating a person in high place’s opinions about ZZH’s situation. He is pretty determined to get this case carefully examined and judged, with professional process and not just let him be condemned by bloggers, platforms and ignorant passers-by. Sina tried to get his posts taken down, but he threatened them and they had to return the posts to him. So, that was a brief of what I have read today on him. I have mentioned him in one of the posts I uploaded, his name is Li Xuezheng and he is the director of the Golden Shield Film and Television Center under the Central Military Commission's Logistics Support Department.

Thanks for keeping up with me. If you can help spread this post or the others, it would be much appreciated.

Link of the full list of my translations:

[acourtofthought]

Heyyo, I’m the person that made the callout post towards Elriels and their beef with the color yellow that your most recent anon post was about. I just figured I stop by and clarify some things. Sorry in advance if this doesn’t make much sense, I’m super tired rn lol The post I was talking about/calling out was actually made a few days after your toga post, and basically the anti-toga blogger made a post that agreed w/ an anon saying that fan artists were responsible for Elain hate or some shit. If I’m remembering right, it implied that two artists were problematic because 1 said they associated Elain w/ the color yellow, and 1 didn’t want to make fanart of her for an acotar project they were doing. No artists were called out directly, and I haven’t been in the fandom long enough to know all of the big fan artists, but the post did use pretty specific examples of things certain Instagram artists did, so someone knowledgeable on the fandom might be able to deduce who they are. Normally I wouldn’t of had enough of an issue with that to feel the need to make a callout, but the blog ended up accepting another anon confession where someone called neutral elriel commission artists a “waste of money” and asked for a list of pro elriel artists to commission. Obviously people are allowed to have their preferences and whatever, but I am worried that the elriel community is jeopardizing commission artists by fostering an environment where artists will be under a lot of scrutiny. That’s why my petty little callout post was mostly me promising Eluciens that I’d make them some fanart, it was kind of a “fuck you elriels, artists don’t like you anyways” lol. Also, I pissed off one of my elucien muts by making a joke about how the real problem w/ Elain’s black dress was that it wasn’t slutty enough, and I wanted to make up my bad joke with some Elucien content (I’m only mentioning this because they follow this account) (shoutout to my girl, this fanart is for YOU bestie). TL;DR: No artists are being harassed yet, but Elriels are starting to create a worrying environment. I don’t think any of your posts are responsible directly, but I do think you advocating for toga fan art kinda pushed the anti-toga blogger to openly not like fanartists in general. I’m hoping that we’ll stop with the toga/suit/black/yellow debates because all of these debates are heavily linked to commission artists jobs, and I don’t think ships are worth jeopardizing someone’s financial stability/mental health

I am sorry that your original post went over my head because honestly I had no idea that was all going on. I've recently been blocking a lot of accounts I'm uncomfortable with because I've become a lot more Anti E/riel lately and I realize that's a bit of a change from when I first joined (when I was open minded to either ship). I didn't want to deal with stirring up E/riel supporters because that just leads to a lot of inbox hate messages.

I do apologize if a post I created somehow led to discontentment towards fanartists although I feel it has to be said, E/riels have already created a worrying environment that's been around for quite awhile. I'm a super small fish on Tumblr and don't have the following a lot of other bloggers have so I'm not sure that anything I've posted has the sort of major impact that would drastically spill over elsewhere.

Also, I wasn't necessarily advocating for Toga fanart. More acknowledging why artists who have already created Toga fanart should not be attacked for their work. There was already fanart shared during Elucien week that anti's were up in arms over and I felt their arguments were fairly baseless so I was addressing that more than saying Elain and Lucien should be in Togas all day, every day :D I just felt bad that someone's work was being attacked.

Unfortunately, I think Anti E/riels will find a way to rally against anyone they think might show loyalty to those that are Pro Elucien. That is extremely childish and I feel horrible that any artists would have to deal with that sort of behavior. And I think if that is the type of person they are, it doesn't really matter what we blog about because hardcore anti's will use literally anything we say to further their cause.

[iamazonian]

Why Mikasa?

“He didn’t share his genocidal plan with her! He seems determined to save Historia from becoming a titan and a breeding machine! He’s literally fighting her squad! Why the heck do you think Mikasa is special to Eren and to the story??”

*bored face*

Simple. He does/says things to her/with her that he has literally never done or would never do with absolutely anyone else, situations wherein even non-shippers cannot immediately say “Well if _____ were in Mikasa’s place, he would’ve done the same thing!”

Most people mention his determination to save Historia from her fate as anti-Eremika or pro-E//H proof, but if they were being honest they would admit that he would have been JUST AS DETERMINED if the one whose freedom being threatened with titan-ship and broodmare-ship were Mikasa. Or Armin. Or Levi. Or Jean. Or Connie. Or Sasha. Or LITERALLY ANY ONE OF HIS FRIENDS. I cannot single out Historia as the only person he would do this for, and even if you ship that, you cannot genuinely tell me that if, for example, Mikasa was the sacrificial lamb that had to become a titan and spit out babies for the plan, Eren would just stand by and let it happen. That he wouldn’t be as appalled, that he wouldn’t be opposing it with every fiber of his being. Same for anyone in the cart with him (you know, the group of people he referred to as the ones he cares about the most?). Historia is the one with royal blood, which means she’s the sacrificial lamb in the plan, which means she’s the one Eren has to protect in the scenario. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t protect his other friends if they had been in the same position! (And if you say that he wouldn’t protect his other friends like he would Historia, but then claim that Eren abandoning his friends in 138 is OOC, then you’re a hypocrite and I don’t know how to talk to you.)

Then they mention the fact that Eren didn’t “trust” Mikasa (or Armin) enough to share his genocidal plans with them (thus showing them his darkest side or whatever), but he did so with Historia. Uhm, ignoring the fact that he obviously didn’t do so because he knows his genocide plan was horrifying and that Mikasa and Armin would have enough moral backbone to not go along with it, people forget that he also told Floch about this plan. (All aboard the Eren/Floch train then?) :|

(And you know what’s unfair? If Mikasa somehow knew and then went along with his plan to literally kill millions, antis would be calling her a “slave” to her feelings for not standing up to him. But because it were someone else, somehow it’s admirable romantic unwavering support and acceptance? Give me a break.)

BUT

Let’s talk about the scarf scene. Yes, the now-and-forever, punching-a-titan-in-human-form scene. Now, if anyone had been in Mikasa’s place, thanking Eren tearfully and accepting death, I absolutely believe Eren would still have punched the titan. Yes, you heard me. He would have still fought, regardless of the friend he’s protecting. THE THING IS, would he have said those words (or something akin to those words) to anyone else? Basically saying “I’ll be beside you now and forever” --because duh how could he wrap a scarf around someone if he’s not right next to them-- in that ultra cheesy way (that I loved haha)? I mean what’s up with the “now and forever”, Isayama? Or would he have just said something like “Get up, we’re not dying today!” in typical hothead Eren fashion? Will he mutter “No, I’m not leaving you, now and forever” to anyone else? Even if you don’t ship Eremika, if your answer to that is not a super quick and certain yes, if you have to pause and think about it, then even you have to admit that maybe, just maybe, it’s a Mikasa-exclusive declaration.

Let’s talk about the “What am I to you” scene. I don’t even have to explain this. He knew he was about to turn rogue. He was about to become the villain. He was surrounded by a lot of people he loves (the very people in the cart blush scene were there), and it’s his opportunity to find the validation/love/convincing he needs. Whatever his reason was for asking this emotionally-charged question... why Mikasa? Or better yet, why JUST Mikasa? Why not ask them all one by one? Is it really just a situational thing, that Mikasa was there and he just randomly asked her? Or maybe... it’s because he’s looking for an answer only Mikasa can give? 

Let’s talk about the blushing. I admit, there is a single scene where he blushes around other people too (the aforementioned cart blush scene that I adore). But there is a common denominator for all of Eren’s rare blushes. I’l give you one guess what/who that is. So far (and with only one chapter to go), Eren has only ever blushed if Mikasa is present. Once in a group, and all the rest to her and her alone. You cannot tell me he would blush for someone else because he literally never has! Considering all the times he had been alone with other characters, been saved by other characters, bonded with other characters, been complimented/praised by other characters... Why would Isayama only ever draw blush lines on Eren for when Mikasa is the subject?

(I have to clarify and say that I don’t think blushing is confirmation of someone’s romantic feelings at all. Mikasa blushed for Historia, Historia blushed for Mikasa, but I don’t believe that’s because they have a crush on each other. I’m just saying, if the reason Eren blushes is because he’s embarrassed/bashful/flattered, then how come he never blushes when he feels embarrassed/bashful/flattered around other people?)

(Also now that I’ve said that, I’m now scared he’s going to be blushing left and right in the last chapter for someone else because I have the worst luck when it comes to final episode/chapter ship confirmations: looking at you, Zutara. :)) )

Let’s talk about the death scene. It was brought to the audience’s attention that no one knew where Eren was. Now, either we say that Mikasa gambled in that moment (in which case daaaaamn girl this is not the time to guess!), or that Mikasa was so smart she figured it out before Armin (usually called the smartest) or Levi (the most experienced) did... or Eren showed her where he was. If you don’t want to accept the last option, I understand. I think it’s obvious but I understand that it’s not 100% specified. But if you’re like me, and you can see no other way for Mikasa to have known his location without him telling her, then that’s another point: Why would he tell just her? Why not Levi? Why not Armin? Why not all of them, like he did when he had that zoom conference call via paths? If Ymir was the one who revealed it, the question stands. Why to Mikasa, and not the others?

(And I’m not even going to delve into all the memory shards and the tuning out Zeke in the middle of such an important moment just to stare at himself wrapping the scarf around Mikasa. I mean, come on.)

--

I’m a paranoid person, and honestly I don’t want to “celebrate” Eremika’s canonization yet because as much as it really is at this point, it’s not over until the fat lady sings, as they say. Lots of things can happen: Isayama could go crazy, the rug could be pulled out from under our noses and Eren really did turn into a chad, it could be another one of those “let’s build up something so much but tadaaa he’s married and has kids with someone else because our audience can never see it coming and we can feel so smart about ourselves”-- looking at you, Whedon.

But when people say Eremika doesn’t make sense because Eren wants to protect other people... well, that’s like saying my father doesn’t love my mother if he tries his best to save my brother if he’s stuck alone in a burning car. Which is just stupid. Hence the long ass rambling above haha.

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

That's a pretty horrendous thing to say that immigrants shouldn't feel prideful of their culture or identity. I have friends who have never had the chance to know their culture. so when they find out they have irish ancestry, they aren't allowed to feel prideful or happy about that? Once a person immigrates, that's the end of their culture? how can you be diaspora but also not be allowed to leave your country and still be irish?

(Firstly I just want to clarify: I can only speak on Ireland and Irish issues, not issues relating to other cultures and other nationalities. I want to make that abundantly clear)

I never said that you can’t feel proud of your Irish heritage, in fact if you’d bothered to check my blog you’d see that I’ve said in other posts that I’m more than happy for people to look into their heritage. And even if you don’t have any Irish ancestory, you’re more than welcome to share in our culture and events! Irish culture is such a beautiful thing that was nearly killed off (the Irish language literally had to be revived) so I’m always super happy to see people celebrating Ireland.

But I think people (and I am so sorry but it’s usually Americans) don’t understand that there is a massive difference between having Irish ancestory and being interested in the history and the legacy that comes with that ancestory and heritage (which is totally fine and encouraged), and actively claiming that you are Irish because of a tenuous connection to Ireland at best.

If you immigrated from Ireland then you are totally Irish, no ifs ands or buts. And if you’re first, second or third generation Irish then no one is going to give you shit for saying that you’re Irish. In fact, go for it! You’re probably even entitled to an Irish passport which are like gold dust in today’s political climate. Immigration absolutely does not mean that you cut all ties with Ireland. I speak as someone who has family who live/lived in Australia.

However, that’s not what I was talking about. I was talking about the “Irish” folks in America who go around telling everyone that they’re Irish, just because they had one relative who immigrated due to the famine...which took place nearly 200 years ago. At that point, the cultural connection to Ireland (which is way more important than any blood nationalism crap that I’ve been seeing a lot of) is lost! And I’m being 100 percent honest, if you said to anyone living in Irish that you are Irish because of an incredibly strenuous connection...you would get laughed at! It’s literally a running joke in Ireland that Americans always find the smallest connection to being Irish and run with it. It’s a bit like if I found out that one of my great great great grandparents was from Sweden and started claiming I was descended from Viking blood. Now, the Vikings are an incredibly interesting bunch that I enjoy learning about immensely...but if I started saying I was Swedish or a Viking I’d probably get some strange looks.

And that actually links into a massive issue with these people who claim that they’re Irish through dubious connections, usually because they use these connections to justify systemic racism (usually under the guise of “we pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps” while completely ignoring all their anti-African American practices that they used to be accepted within the Anglo-American sphere of influence and the fact that Ireland as a county actually has a lot of ties to Native American tribes through shared hardship and the generosity of the native Americans during the Irish famine). There’s even been instances of Irish POC being told they’re somehow less Irish than white Americans...even though the former had lived in Ireland their entire lives and had grown up in the culture while the other just had great great great grandparents who had immigrated 200 years ago! And it’s also pretty concerning that a lot of these people who claim Irish blood and who are so proud of this Irish ancestors are also right wing neo-nazis, so much so that the Celtic cross, something incredibly important to Ireland, can be a dog whistle for these groups! So yeah, excuse me if the entirety of Ireland doesn’t want to be associated with that lot!

There’s also this horrendous article of an “Irish American” who said it was okay to culturally appropriate different cultures because isn’t Saint Patrick’s day cultural appropriation? It’s not by the way, it’s cultural appreciation. And also that author literally said he didn’t know where his Irish ancestory came from, he just had an Irish second name but still calls himself Irish...but his second name is actually Scottish. If you want to make your blood boil read this article.

Also there’s the total misconception of what Irish culture even is by these groups of people. Despite what many like to believe...Irish culture is way more than just getting hammered on Saint Paddy’s day and dying a river green. Irish culture is actually really beautiful - particularly Irish mythology which is my main area of interest. It’s so much more than what people talk about and it’s actually super sad it gets misunderstood.

I’m going to be really honest...people living in Ireland actively distance themselves from these eejits because we hate how they completely go against what we would consider Irish values. If right wing, conservative Irish Americans heard the Irish presidents Saint Patrick’s day speech...they’d probably start foaming at the mouth because it was overwhelmingly socialist and pro immigration!

Again, that’s not to say that these people who have one relative who came over to American from the Irish famine can’t be proud of their heritage or take interest in the Irish culture. In fact, everyone, regardless of their ancestory, is welcome to take part in our culture and celebrations and to learn about Irish history. But actively saying that they are “Irish”, not just “Irish American” but fully “Irish” are eejits, and I refuse to sugarcoat that.

[dreadfutures]

aight let‘s talk ao3 tags again

the very nice tag wrangler I’ll be quoting from has given me permission to share their kind and thorough responses (all bolding/emphasis is mine) without identifying information. and we very nicely go through some of my own tags from my long fic Dead Pasts, Dread Futures. Many, many thanks to this wrangler for explaining so much to me.

Anyway. I present these discussions as a peacable offer of: these are many writers’ concerns, and they are valuable, and worth considering. don’t dismiss concerns about the tag limit off hand, and don’t insist that edge cases don’t matter.

tldr; at the moment, after all this discussion and back and forths and bullying, I still believe that having 75 tags, period, as the limit across ALLCharacters/Relationships/Fandoms/Additional Tags penalizes longfics. Period. If it were even a limit of 100 tags, or broken down by Tag Type, it would be a little more forgiving. For advertising and for content filtering purposes, it only helps writers and fic visibilty to be specific and thorough in tags. A limit like this just so clearly has the potential to negatively affect large fandom/large ensemble/long fics.

It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel. Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.

tag limit discussions:

- long fic writers adding tags as they go

- writers of franchises with many installments and ensemble casts

- writers with extensive content warnings

- use of tags to clarify a filtered tag

- use of tags to demonstrate how content is handled

off the bat - stop being jerks

look, I know objectively fics don’t need to be tagged at all. I lived in the wild west, too, when “lemon” meant anything from the merest mention of arousal to an explicit vanilla sex scene to all out dead dove craziness. a large part of me still is of the opinion that readers should just read shit, and if they decide they don’t like it, just dip. but that’s not what we’re about here. tagging is a kindness that we voluntarily undertake, and it’s also a form of advertising.

tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes

(that’s one of the cruxes of the arguments both pro-shippers and antis make: you can filter things! But you can only filter things if they’re tagged.)

I also understand that a few asshole writers have ruined this for all of us by purposefully adding so many tags it slows down the site and makes pages fail to load and hides other fics because the tags take up 10 pages. i also am frustrated with kinkmemers who just have prompt fill fic dumping grounds that span multiple unrelated fandoms and are impossible to navigate.

...the answer is not to suggest to writers that we put all our content warnings and pairings and etc. in our summaries, or our A/Ns, or to insert a first chapter that is a placeholder summary/tags page/world state. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.

I also have been dealing with people being murderously angry, and super self-righteous and targeting and mean about my own tags, and tags in general. people who are anti-tag are being giant fucking dicks about it. like get over yourselves and let’s just talk about a website function lol. tags are useful for their specificity, for filtering and exclusion purposes.

THE ANSWER IS NOT TO GET RID OF TAGS.

Alright, so now that we’ve gotten that flippin’ straw argument aside.

The next thing anyone has been doing is going to my page and critiquing my tags. Let’s address redundant tags.

(the wrangler has done this nicely! no ridicule necessary!)

using my fic as an example:

If you tag your fic Female Lavellan/Solas (only), it will show up in the following searches: Inqusitor/Solas, Female Inquisitor/Solas, Lavellan/Solas, Female Lavellan/Solas.  If you tag your fic Inquisitor/Solas (only), it will show up only in the Inquisitor/Solas search and in none of the others.  If you tag with the most specific version, it will show up in the more general versions, but not the other way around. So there's no real reason to tag with the more general tags.

Though I will point out that if you don't use the canonical tag      and tag your character or relationship with a custom name it will      be synned to the nongendered version, because at some point the DA      wranglers decided that they didn't want to make gender      assumptions.  So "Annabelle Lavellan" will be synned to "Lavellan      (Dragon Age)" rather than "Female Lavellan (Dragon Age)", and      someone searching for works with specifically "Female Lavellan"      won't see it.

Response: In the fanfic writers server I'm in, we've talked about how tags work and are supposed to work extensively in the past.  There's just always been a lot of confusion, which I think has been added to when people go and try to double-check for themselves and find instances where this treeing/synning is broken. Someone put out this guide (also here) for AO3 meta text this year, which has been referred to by multiple people in the server, and it says:

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book? In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags. If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

Which I believe is in direct contradiction to guidance to use the most specific tags, so that's definitely one source of confusion. The most recent ao3 meta text guide (https://archiveofourown.org/wrangling_guidelines/2 I think this one) doesn't present itself in a way that makes this clear for writers tagging their own works. The way authors usually go about tagging things (and what's in the FAQ) is to start typing into one of the boxes and look for what populates the drop down, which doesn't lend itself to knowing that there are trees, or knowing what tags are interrelated (it seems like a whole grab bag of tags get suggested, some in-fandom and some outside of fandom, some canon/parent/meta and some children/random freeform, in just about any field you start typing in).

I'm not sure what can really be done about this. Many of us have turned to ao3-comment-of-the-day and their posts about using Tags, and various sources on google, and have clearly come up with a whole load of conflicting advice.

Fundamentally, finding parent/meta tags for a tag as you’re tagging a fic is NOT clear to writers. The fact that a nested and a meta tag can both be suggested one after the other when filling in tags largely contributes to redundant tags.

Writing for Multiple Fandom Entries

Here’s what a tag wrangler had to say about my fandoms:

As with the relationship tree, you can look at the fandom tree  here:      https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dragon%20Age%20-%20All%20Media%20Types  and see how the fandom tags are related. Going back to your story Rogasha'ghi'lan as an example, it's tagged with Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: The Last Court.  But as I said, you only need to tag with the lowest relevant level(s) on the tree in order for your fic to show up under the higher levels.  So if you tag with      Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Last Court, it will show up not just under those categories, but also under Dragon Age (Video Games) and Dragon Age - All Media Types.  And of course because you've tagged with the specific, if someone searches under, say, Dragon Age (Video Games), but doesn't want Inquisition or Last Court fic, they can use the exclude filter to show only the earlier games.

(So that's two more tags you can remove with no effect on searchability!)

In my (but not only my) own case, I am indeed writing for Origins, DA2, Inquisition, and Last Court extensively within the same fic, so I should be tagging for all of those, specifically, still. In order to make sure my fic is seen by the correct fans, I need multiple specific tags.

Longfic Tag Bloat (adding tags as you write a fic)

And like many other longfic writers, even if I narrow down my character tags only to those with dedicated character arcs longer than 5 chapters, I still have Loads & Loads of Characters (including Dalish from the Chargers!).

A lot of longfic writers I know add characters, relationships, and content warnings as they go along.

At 170 chapters/580k words, Dead Pasts had a ton of important relationships (for example, like Vivienne & Lavellan), and as a story it's nowhere near done. I found myself planning an arc from 171 onward that would introduce a very important relationship (Felassan & Lavellan). This is how longfics end up with so many, many, many character tags and relationship tags, which is another major criticism people seem to have about "people who abuse tags."

A solution that people propose online is "split your fic." Which is actually what I ended up doing...but the old relationships and fandoms from DPDF still apply to Rogasha'ghi'lan, so Rogasha'ghi'lan will have the same number and more tags than DPDF.

If I hadn't split the fic, I would have just kept adding tags to Dead Pasts...and still had the same problem of continually adding tags. They're not superfluous tags: someone who wants to see a plot that is deeply influenced by Vivienne & Lavellan will find that in my fic; someone who is looking to see a major Felassan & Lavellan friendship grow and drive plot will also find that in my fic.

My fic is long; there are other fics that are longer, or are going to be longer, with casts that are just as large or larger, with many relationships, and that's not even talking about content warnings.

Polycule / Relationship Tags

"Tagging a polycule like Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan requires four      tags: Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, Bull/Dorian, Bull/Lavellan,      Lavellan/Dorian"

This assumes that people who like Lavellan/Dorian will want to read Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, which is often not the case.  If your story Is Iron Bull/Dorian/Lavellan, tag it that way!  It doesn't make any sense to me to tag with the pairs as well unless the story would be of interest to people who read for that pair, or unless that pair relationship is a big step in the story (like, if you have established Lavellan/Dorian, and then they bring in Bull, you might tag for both that pair and the trio). I mean, you can tag how you like, there's no requirement that tags correspond to content. But for me, personally, if I search on Dagna/Lace Harding (I am weak for dwarf women!) I do not want to get a Dagna/Lace Harding/Sera fic.

My personal tastes don't include poly fics, but several writers I know who write poly fics are adamant that: tons of readers will not know of the possibility of the poly fic until it shows up in a search result, and the individual relationships often are significant to the fics, especially in fics that are not oneshots. For example, a great number of "fav fics" are stumbled-across! We aren't interested in the Sera/Dagna/Lace polycule ourselves, but someone might not have considered it, found it, and said, "Hey! That's my new favorite." But if polycules are segregated and only searchable by the polycule itself, alas, what's the option for visibility at all if not tagging it as Lace/Dagna in addition?

Additional Tags

Knowing when something is a "character" and when something is "additional"

Knowing that "Warrior Lavellan" (or the [Name] Mahariel) would be more useful in an Additional Tag vs. a Character Tag is also something I'm not sure how we're supposed to know? Like, I'm glad to know it now, but it's definitely not at all obvious without you telling me why it would be more useful in Additional vs in Character. Especially when to me: Warrior Lavellan is a character, and the fact that it populated the Character tag for me says that it's a Character. Because like I said, the guidance has been: start typing, and if it appears in the drop down, use it. Or, for example, my friend has the Well of Sorrows personified as a Character. Like an actual character. Does that have to go under Additional Tags, or as a Character? How do I know?

Additional tags as tone/content indicators

A lot of writers / readers have approached the Additional Tags as a surface-level overview of understanding how an author is approaching many topics concerned in the fic. Like, Vivienne is a character in my fic, but specifically I am Vivienne-positive, which I feel is important to denote because she's important to my fic, and she's a divisive character. Mood/tone/theme indicators like "Pro-Vivienne" or "we are Vivienne-positive in this house" (or like Male-Female Friendship, or "Expansive Lore" vs "Lore - Freeform" which denote different things to me) in tags (which in the comments section on the ao3 blog post get derided as "chatty tags") are still important to me, though they're useless or far less likely to be used for filtering. (I had the thesis of the conflict of my fic: “empathy is the enemy of free will” “but hope is a choice” as “chatty tags,” among some that were more mundane but important: “sera shows up late in fic”)

More seriously, there are fics that have content warning tags for filtering purposes but also clarify those content warnings to give context to readers and allow them to make a decision whether or not the content actually fits their preferences, ie, one that specifies domestic abuse as a tag (which would be in the Additional Tags) for filtering purposes but also specifies "domestic abuse not present in x relationship" (which would also be in the Additional Tags, but is useless for filtering purposes, but is immensely helpful and demonstrably used by readers to decide if they're going to even bother reading the author's note of that fic).

People are also nervous that not being able to thoroughly tag content warnings is going to end up with unhappy readers amid all the purity culture flaming that's going on lately.

Like, personally I err on the side of "suck it up, reader, and just read and find out," for a lot of things (not talking about content warnings, but talking about mood/tone additional tags), but also, given that there is already a venue here to let readers know what they're in for...taking that away sucks.

I hate a giant fic summary as much as people hate 10 pages of tags, but at least one can hide tags in their preferences, and likewise the thought of starting a fic up front with a giant author's note that gets continually updated with content warnings also isn't super appealing. Leading with a giant author's note that lays out: this is my world state and this is my character's spec and this is my character's background so you know how I'm going to approach this and these are all of the content warnings for the fic as a whole, just feels like getting into "My Immortal" territory. There's definitely a balance to be had between the art of writing a summary, what to include in an author's note, and what to include in tags, but this still seems like it's going to be fairly limiting for writers in these large franchises, especially for longfics that span a lot of topics.

It feels like this decision is being very broadly based on a "for the majority" mindset, which has never been what AO3 is about, without actually physically looking at the kinds of fics it will affect. The tag system on AO3 has been able to give fic filtering and reader-judgement a nuance that no other platform has accomplished, and longfics and large ensemble fics still, I think, depend on that as both a courtesy and necessity. I saw the rough math someone did and know that almost all fics currently on AO3 are <25k or something like that, and sure, for the average oneshot, or for even a fic <100k, a tag limit that's very strict across all tag categories probably won't be felt at all. But it's clearly something that people who write certain types of fics, and take them very seriously, will feel.

Like I genuinely don't want to have a million tags. I want to tag relevant content that allows potential readers to filter & include & exclude my fic as they so choose, but also, if it does show up in their search, I want to give them the information they want to be able to decide if they want to read my fic or not. I don't want to have to put all my content warnings into a giant summary, or into a giant author's note that grows and grows. The tags have been a very helpful way of accomplishing those. Being able to cut down on parallel/synned tags is great, but it still seems like longfics that deal with multiple fandom entries, large casts, and require content warnings will butt up against that limit very quickly.

[thehollowprince]

I've been scrolling the anti st*rek tag ('cos I'm petty) and I was surprised to see that Sticky is a big pro st*rek fan, as I recognised them as a fellow Justin/Brian anti from the qaf fandom. I don't know about Sticky, but most of us anti JB fans hated that ship because it was a relationship between an under age kid in high school and a full grown man. It's weird to see them going so hard for a similar (noncanon) relationship in a different fandom much less harrasing ppl who speak against it.

Embrace the petty. That's how I found some of the blogs I still follow - by scrolling through anti tags because I got fed up with how fandom praised a character or a ship that I found gross or abusive.

But as for Sticky, who I thankfully haven't had to deal with in some time, the little tidbit about them being so anti Justin and Brian, but being such a pro Sterek shipper is both surprising and not, if that makes any sense.

I mean, if there is one thing that anyone who got involved with the Teen Wolf fandom at large can tell you, its how hypocritical it was. That's something I've talked about before, especially with fans saying they dislike this character for these specific traits (usually characters like Scott or Deaton or Braeden) but then turn around and either praise other characters for exhibiting those same traits or just outright give other characters those same traits. We saw this mostly with Stiles being given qualities that fandom "hated" in Scott or Braeden, but also with Deaton being described as "shady" and "untrustworthy", but Peter Hale is praised for being "sneaky" and "cunning".

So this type of hypocrisy when it comes to ships, especially a canon one from one show and a crack one from another, isn't surprising. Truth be told, what's really surprising to me is that they'd be so against Brian and Justin while singing Sterek's praises. Those are basically the same ship, even down to the oversized loft, but for some reason one is reviled while another is praised by the same fan?

The only explanation I could possibly think of is pushback against criticism. For example, I was a fan of Scott McCall, but it wasn't until the last year or so that I really started singing his praises, because of the Asshole Anon that is constantly hitting up my inbox. In this case - and keep in mind that I'm just speculating here - we have a person that probably got into a show based on its fandom, which as we all know, heavily implied that Stiles was the main character and that he was in a relationship with Derek. Of course, the moment anyone watches the show they'll discover that's not the case, but what went wrong here is more than likely someone criticizing Sterek and those who were only in the fandom and had that as Their Ship felt the need to push back, creating this divide in the fandom. And it's gone on for so long that many people feel like they can't change their stance on it anymore, especially given that its easy to go through a person's blog and find ouf what they thought of a ship or character.

I can say with absolute honesty that if a new season of Teen Wolf appeared tomorrow and it showed that Scott and Deaton were the true villain masterminds of the show this whole time, I'd have a hard time admitting and accepting that, especially in fandom. I have sunk so much time and energy into defending Scott and Deaton, as well as singing their praises, that it would hurt to have to stop and reexamine my opinions and biases on that.

That's what I'm assuming happened here.

To clarify, this is just speculation on my part, but that's what I believe happened. And at the end of the day, it's not really that surprising

[ciaran2020]

is it okay to ask for you to elaborate / talk more about your last post?

assuming you mean this one? yeah, sure.

under the cut: discussions of child sexuality, csa/abuse, and sexual shame.

one thing i want to clearly lay out at the start is that i firmly believe that having access to your own sexuality and being able to explore it is a human need, and it’s one that is systemically denied to children under the guise of ‘protecting’ them but - protecting them from what? predators? we’re not doing a good job of that anyway. insisting that children aren’t capable of sexuality is wrong. that doesn’t mean they should have sexual interactions with adults, or even with other children. we all develop at different rates, and as such have different needs. some of us don’t feel the need to explore sex and kink, but those of us that do should have the resources to do so safely.

i’m drawing on my own experiences here. i discovered other people’s sexuality at the age of about 8, and began exploring my own soon after. without going into much detail - the fact is that my sexuality did not develop along ‘normal’ lines or in ‘normal’ directions, and that was a source of shame for me for a long time. but i was also shielded from the worst of the shame by a confluence of factors like parents that were apathetic about my internet usage, a certain natural tendency to resent being shamed, and an inclination to furiously hide these parts of myself.

there’s no doubt in my mind that seeing other people’s reactions to the things i was into would have ruined me emotionally and probably led to me being abused. the fact is that it didn’t happen like that, and i developed my own sense of my sexual preferences and boundaries all by myself by the time i was 15 or 16 - which is when i entered fandom spaces as more than an observer, and was immediately hit with other people’s baggage about minors being sexual (even on our own terms). that baggage caused me more harm than anything else.

i’m using this to illustrate a point; we deny children this natural growth / evolution / self-discovery, and in doing so handicap us for life. sexuality doesn’t magically appear at the age of 18 (or 21). it’s always there in some form or another. denying its existence and forcing children with sexual thoughts into deep closets of shame and self-loathing ensures that

1. they will latch onto the first person/place that gives them an outlet 2. the only people willing to engage sexually with children are people already willing to commit unethical acts, and therefore more likely to be predators 3. they will have nowhere to go after this happens except further into shame and victim-blaming.

and we can keep saying ‘okay but it’s not the job of adults in nsfw spaces who tag their shit to take care of children on the internet - parents/schools should do it instead’ but homes and schools are the primary institutions of child abuse. this in itself is an enormously compelling reason to stop retreating to the lazy argument of ‘parents need to watch what their children are doing online’ like yeah sure you can want that if you want kids dead. like it’s not Your Responsibility but the eagerness with which people wash their hands of it is fucking depressing. no one has to have the conversation but people get mad when anyone does, and it’s honestly a mess. 

and yeah, the internet’s a bad place to get your learning from, but that’s not a permanent state of affairs. the internet is a much more level playing field. everyone has access to the same moderation tools, even if most of those tools suck (newsflash! they don’t have to suck!) and though power imbalances exist online as they do in real life, they’re not quite so unavoidable as, for example, someone who can control whether you go to the bathroom.

the discussion of how to create better moderation tools online benefits all of us, not just children. it’s a good one to have, and it would be nice if we [as people who care about not censoring fiction] didn’t go to such lengths to censor actual children speaking about problems which affect them. you don’t have to listen to antis. there are plenty of pro-ship minors, who are regularly fucked over by the adultism running rampant in pro-shipping spaces.

but this discussion will go nowhere if we don’t respect the right of children to have some say in what they can and can’t handle seeing. there are some boundaries you can set, but ultimately you can’t control everything, and it feels like high time to loop minors into the conversation of how to deal with censorship because this is an issue that affects them perhaps more than anyone.

i am leaving a lot of things out because it’s late and i should sleep and it was hard enough to gather my thoughts to this degree, but i hope this clarified my point somewhat!

[96thdayofrage]

Legislators on the Public Health Committee listened to nearly 12 hours of public testimony, primarily focused on a bill to declare racism a public health crisis in the state of Connecticut. The hearing on Wednesday took up a few bills, but mainly centered on Senate Bill 1, An Act Equalizing Comprehensive Access to Mental, Behavioral and Physical Health Care in Response to the Pandemic. 

The bill declares that in the state of Connecticut, racism is recognized as a public health crisis and, if passed, would establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine racial disparities in public health across state and local government. 

“We know that racism is a public health crisis because whenever there is a public health crisis, it does affect racial minorities and lower-income communities greater than anyone else,” said Sen. Martin Looney, President Pro Tempore of the State Senate. “One of the most striking aspects of the pandemic is the disproportionate toll it’s taken on communities of color. These outcomes are not a result of the disease itself, but inequalities in the social determinants of health.” 

The commission will study institutional racism in public health law, and attempt to quantify racial disparities in health outcomes in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and the criminal justice system. It will also examine racial disparities in access to clean environment and healthy food,  and look at zoning restrictions and housing disparities. The commission will then develop legislative proposals to address these disparities, and deliver the report to the General Assembly next year. 

Both the Connecticut State Medical Society and the Connecticut Hospital Association submitted testimony in support of the bill.

The Connecticut Hospital Association wrote that the organization “supports the broad-based approach set forth in this section, recognizing that, while racism is a fundamental cause of poor health, the problem requires a broad perspective that looks beyond hospitals and healthcare providers, even while recognizing that providers are essential participants in the development of solutions.”

State Rep. Whit Betts, R-Bristol, on a number of occasions asked those testifying to clarify why racism is a public health crisis. 

“Something like a pandemic or mental illness, I think that clearly is a public health crisis, but I don’t understand systematic racism,” Betts said. “Clearly there is racism, clearly there are people who are not being served, but it’s not just minorities, and clearly our goal collectively should be to help everybody regardless of color, income, etc. I just don’t understand how this is a public health crisis.” 

State Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, a co-sponsor of the bill and doctor of internal medicine, said that “it’s pretty clear that we have a public health crisis with respect to the racial bias in some of the policies, and we are going to be able to help some of the communities that have been left behind, but to suggest that when we do that we are taking resources from another community was probably not accurate.” 

State legislatures in Minnesota and Virginia have both declared racism a public health crisis, and here in Connecticut, town councils in 20 different municipalities, including New London, Colchester, and Hartford have also passed similar declarations. 

Black and Latino residents of Connecticut are less likely to be insured than white residents, and are more likely to die before reaching adulthood, according to a report from Connecticut Voices for Children.

The bill also establishes a task force to study racial inequities in maternal mortality, which will make recommendations to eliminate racial inequities in maternal mortality. Hospitals will be required to provide implicit bias training to staff members who interact with pregnant women. The legislation also directs the state’s Commissioner of Public Health to increase outreach in an effort to improve early detection of breast cancer among young women of color. Nationally, Black mothers die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, according to the CDC. 

Katharine Morris, a graduate student of public policy at the University of Connecticut, shared her mother’s experience of feeling ignored by healthcare professionals when she was giving birth. State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, asked what about that experience was specific to her racial background. 

“Groton is pretty diverse, we have people from all over, all different backgrounds, and it’s been interesting to talk to them about the bias in healthcare,” Somers said. “Some of the comments that I’ve gotten, regardless of what your skin color is or what your background is, sometimes the maternity nurses are just not nice. Was the experience feeling dismissed, or not listened to? Because I’m hearing that consistently across all different races.” 

Morris shared that her mother, a Jamaican immigrant, specifically felt dismissed by white doctors, and had a much better experience when treated by a Jamaican healthcare provider. 

“I lived in Ansonia and Trumbull before moving to Bridgeport, from this I learned how my zip code could dictate my health and my quality of life,” Morris said. “Not only did my education suffer, my access to healthy food, clean air, unpolluted nature, and opportunities suffered as well. Where there are more people who look like me, I have a lower chance of living a healthy and prosperous life. This is not caused by the character of the city or my fellow residents, but rather the oppression we endure due to the color of our skin.” 

Rep. Lezlye Zupkus, R-Cheshire, questioned whether the government had any power to legislate away racism. 

“I cannot write a bill to say love one another, love your children, love your family, be a better family unit, we can’t legislate those things,” Zupkus said. “I would love to write a law that we all love our children and take care of our kids and have better family units and all of those things, it just won’t happen. We legislate the speed limit, and who drives 55?” 

State Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Trumbull responded that while “you can’t legislate love, you can start to acknowledge that there is a problem and you are willing to deal with it.” 

For Weruche George, a member of the Hamden Human Rights and Relations Commission, the declaration on its own was still meaningful, even if legislators cannot force individuals not to be racist. 

“This declaration will spur Connecticut to recognize racism as the public health crisis it is, and address the problem by changing the way our state government works and embedding anti-racist principles in decision-making processes,” George testified. “Systemic racism is a social determinant of health itself, and also produces inequities, from disproportionately high Black maternity and infant death rates, inequities in cancer, asthma, heart and lung diseases, to police brutality, environmental racism and unequal access to healthcare.”

According to Tekisha Everette, executive director of Health Equity Solutions, quantifying disparities across the state is a vital first step to making meaningful change. 

“The cumulative impact of these barriers to health is invisible unless we evaluate and seek to address health disparities,” Everette said. “We cannot address a problem we are unwilling to acknowledge.”

[whateverbruh]

finished watching NHIE, loved it! love Devi, hope we get to a S2 so we get to see more of her story. can’t really decide between Ben and Paxton though, like at the beginning i thought it was going to be Paxton/Devi but then E6 rolled around & it was like the show was telling me to root for Ben/Devi as the season came to a close. like they kept the Paxton door open with the call, but it felt like that just to entice ppl with a triangle, what is it about Paxton/Devi that has you rooting for them?

hey anon!

ok i have many thoughts so bare with.

before we start with why i’m pro devi/paxton i first want to adress why i’m anti devi/ben. ben is consistently horrible to devi about her looks: i mean. unfuckable? seriously not cool and lets not forget he got the whole school calling her that. also the moustache comment was not cute. as a brown girl myself i’ve constantly had to deal with being self conscious about body hair. i’ve seen the argument that devi is equally as cruel to ben and yes the nazi comment she made was in no way ok but we also saw her sincerely apologise. ben has not once apologised for the things he’s said to her. he literally made her cry to a hallucination of her dead dad. i mean?? make that okay - you can’t. 

also i find their arc to be sort of contrived?? i mean they just stopped being horrible to one another and all of a sudden he’s lunging at her? TWICE, whilst he has a GIRLFRIEND, and then he takes no accountability and blames it on the alcohol.

personally i’m just tired of the narrative of brown girls falling for shitty white boys who are horrible to him. 

ok i’m done ranting now and i want to clarify that i do think there is potential for growth with ben’s character. i don’t think he’s the devil i just think that he has a lot to work through. i just don’t think they have a very natural progression of feelings - like devi has literally shown no romantic interest in ben before she kisses him on a very emotionally overwhelming day for her. doesn’t sit well with me. 

ok now for daxton sorry for all the preamble. it’s true that devi is not in a good place when she goes on her poorly thought out sex quest with paxton but i do also think they’ve had a very slow and consistent build up of feelings. 

firstly devi is very insecure and paxton is constantly boosting her confidence. i mean he agrees to have sex with her. he doesn’t know her this is just based on her physical appearance so clearly she is NOT unfucable BEN. and we finally see her feeling sort of good about herself. (he also compliments her at the photoshoot and at ganesh puja and you see how it makes her smile?? pure joy)

yeah ok he lashes out when he sees her with rebecca but he does what ben never did. he apologises! he seeks her out to apologise1!! i mean.. get you a man who actively seeks out to right his wrongs!!! so he tells her they shouldn’t hook up but he doesn’t cut her out of his life like he easily could - they don’t really know each other. i mean that look back in E2?? he’s intrigued by her and wants her in his life. 

and ofc we have to talk about him saving her at parties. he LEAPS in to action when she’s hurt whilst everyone else, including ben, just watches. and that selfie... so cute. he genuinely cares about her as a friend and is the ONLY person who asks her what she was thinking and shows genuine sympathy!!! he also asks her what’s wrong at ganesh puja and after ben’s party. he is the only person who ASKS her and LISTENS to her. she’s been vulnerable with him like she hasn’t been able to be with anyone else. and he’s there for her through it. 

ok also the car scene and the kiss. the tension is palpable. it’s clear they both have feelings and i mean what a perfect first kiss!! (makes me very sad about my own terrible first kiss lol)

he says see you monday in the car but then shows up at her place the next day. i mean look at his face when he’s at her door. boy looks NERVOUS. he LIKES HER. genuinely. for who she is. and he’s rightfully very upset when her mum blows up at him. yeah ok he’s a bit of a douche for blowing her off but rebecca puts him in his place (we also find out that he told her about the kiss, i mean ADORABLE mcuh) and then he, once again, seeks her out to right his wrong and leaves an awkward, rambly voicemail. he CARES SO MUCH. 

anyway to conclude this essay, i want devi to be with someone who makes her happy and lifts her up the way paxton does and their feelings grow naturally and feel mutual unlike ben and devi which feels largely one sided until the very end. i also think her ending up with the ‘poor’ lonely rich white boy would be a tired narrative. GIVE PAXTON HIS OWN EPSIODE. we see very small glimpses into his life and character and yet he seems so much more appealing and nice than ben who gets an entire sympathy episode.

sorry for this i honestly didn’t mean for it to be this long lol. thanks for the ask though, they make my day!

xxx