#I'm not tagging the other two because this is neutral-to-negative on them and I don't want it showing up in people's ship tags

[rat-rambles]

Ok Alastor shippers of all sorts, I'm going to put in my two cents and before I get into I'm a pro shipper all around just don't be mean to each other and tags are there for a reason.

My credentials: I'm an gray ace, aro person who's been around Fandom a very long time. Personally I've been initiated with the “but al is ace aro so you can't ship him” discourse and first off that's not true both because we can date -I Have a long term Partner- and because I've explored a lot of my queer identity through Fandom and fanfics and I think others should get the chance to do the same. I'm sure a lot of people will learn they’re ace aro because of alastor. That being said ik a lot of you writers out there aren't ace aro and are new to the topic so I'm going to go over some of my personal suggestions of how you could make Canon compliant works. (And if you do any or find any please send to me I'd love to see it)

Oblivious Alastor

Canonically this man doesn't know he's an ace in the hole. And I don't believe an egomaniac like him would assume that there's anything “different” about himself. ik when I was a baby ace I thought everyone was just being dramatic basically before realizing I was the exception. I can see this going 2 ways.

Radiostatic (pre show): vox is obviously completely smitten with al and al sees dating a more powerful overlord as an advantage(which vox in the past was the more powerful of the two). And Al starts getting slowly more and more uncomfortable and vox gets pushy in a very manipulative way.

Radioapple: enemies to friends to lovers? After Al and Luci become close friends, Luci starts to catch feelings for Al and Al agrees to date him seeing as he is fond of him and he's a very powerful ally so why wouldn't Al date him? As the relationship progresses they’re both confused by Alastor's behavior. Luci tries to be respectful. You know maybe he's just very against pda. And al doesnt understand why he's not feeling the things he's meant to.

I can see Al reverse heteronormativity- ing his way into assuming he's gay because he's NOT straight.

Malicious intent

Same as the last one except Al knows he doesn't have feelings for them like that and is trying to be toxic and uses them. IE what if Al was a gold digger actually.

Maybe I am in love?

Al actually thinks that he MUST be feeling a romantic connection because this is the closest he's ever been to someone and once again, gets steadily more confused as he realizes what he and his partner are experiencing is different.

All of these can end in nice queer platonic bliss and I think any story where Al and his partner discover he's ace after establishing the relationship is inherently interesting.

Last note some ace vocabulary

Ace and aro are a spectrum. Typically with ace people they will self identify as either sex positive, sex negative, or sex neutral. With Al it's generally head cannoned that he's sex negative but that's not explicitly Cannon and sex positive and neutral aces are valid.

Sex negative: is self explanatory it's what everyone thinks aces are; I don't want sex ever the idea grosses me out ect.

Sex neutral: is when someone doesn't have the desire for sex but isn't repulsed by it either. If they are in a relationship and their partner wants to have sex they’re open to it but don't expect initiation on their part.

Sex positive: people have a hard time understanding this because it's the seperating of the need for sex from the want. Typically if a sex positive ace were to never have sex again they'd die happy but if they have a willing partner they are happy to participate. It builds intimacy. It feels good, it's nice but it's not the same as being allo and having that cardinal lust.

note: please know what type your head cannoning Al as in your works when writing it, although people of course can change which they feel they align with, it's important to know how he's feeling about it.

I'm not as familiar with aro terminology but like with ace it's more about the drive the need the anguish. Al wouldn’t in cannon crave romantic connection.

Like with ace it's not actually cannon what type of aro he is some aro people are completely repulsed by the idea of romantic relationships or they only like it in theory (which playing around with the idea of Al liking a relationship in theory but not in practice could be a lot of fun.)

The gray romantic umbrella are aro people who can have romantic attraction to some degree. They’re still aro you can head cannon Al as it but please do a little research into which one you think your version of Al would identify with there quite a few so I'll spare the list here.

Demi romantic is when someone can develop romantic attraction for very specific people, very rarely. These people won't be on Bumble but might fall for someone after knowing them for a few years (or an indeterminate amount of time, my timeline was a year and a half I shit you not) a lot of you are looking for that.

As for kink. Lots of queer people especially are into kink because it's intimate, it's physical, it requires trust but it's not actually inherently sexual a lot of the time. And we do know that Al likes torturing and being dominant so yeah he'd be kinky that's completely canon compliant.

At the end of the day Al is ace aro in the show and that's what counts. Have fun be creative, explore the depths of your queer little minds and please be nice to each other.

(and if any of you make works related to this please please please send them to me thanks)

[heyftinally]

https://www.tumblr.com/defendingts/750845507072622592/what-do-you-think-the-p-and-the-r-in-pr-stand-for?source=share

“no celebrity is treated the way Taylor is.”

That is such an outrageous claim. Taylor is praised by 90% of the media. Taylor has a [rabid] fan base that send literal death threats to people who voice their negative opinions on her. Taylor being called out for genuinely bad work and bad choices is not hate it’s accountability.

Britney Spears has it worse than Taylor and continues to have it worse than most celebrities. Miley Cyrus endured some of the worst treatment from the general public and media of a current star when she was growing up. Justin Bieber has been abused by the media since he was 15. Michael Jackson was ridiculed at every turn when he was alive and people still tried to take advantage and drag his name through the dirt after he died. Marilyn Monroe was treated as more of an object than a person and still is mistreated today with misrepresentations of her life being made for entertainment purposes. Cassie literally just had footage of being assaulted by her ex Diddy released to the public. God I could keep going but I won’t. The proof is out there. She’s just too blind to see it. She claims she’s not a Swiftie but she clearly is. If she’s neutral towards Taylor she could at least acknowledge that Taylor has had it very easy in contrast to MOST celebrities.

I had her original account blocked but she made a new one and keeps posting in the anti tag and I’m just fed up. I’ve blocked her again but I needed to rant. Most people in the anti tag aren’t actively hating just expressing their frustrations and even if they were hating. ITS IN THE ANTI TAG. OMG. Sorry but she’s clearly a Swiftie who doesn’t have a god damn life and is baiting people into her ask box. She probably sends herself messages to show she’s got a larger following than she actually does. It’s pathetic. She calls antis pathetic but really we vent to a couple of blogs who agree with our thoughts and those blogs post them. She’s the one seeking out these things to complain about them. It’s so f*ckin annoying

I've honestly called other performers WAY worse things than I've called Taylor Swift. I've criticized countless artists for a variety of things. Hell, anyone who knows me knows I have just as many issues with Harry Styles as I do Taylor Swift (they're basically two versions of the same issues if you ask me).

I tag my posts the way I do for one reason, and one reason only: so that swifties can block me, block the tag(s), and fuck off. I'm not going to sit here and try to convince someone that they shouldn't support her - that has to come from your own moral compass. But in return, don't come on to my posts and tell me I'm wrong for having an opinion based on the facts we're given 24/7.

And as far as the old bullshit of "antis are pathetic" (how very 2010 tumblr lol), I say mocking someone for having an opinion you don't like is MORE pathetic. Taylor Swift is shoved down our throats literally constantly - if I'm forced to be aware of her bullshit, I'm going to have an opinion on it. If that opinion isn't favorable towards her, sucks to fucking suck. You know what I don't post about? Who Hilary Duff did or didn't go on a date with last weekend. Because I have no clue what happens in her personal life, and I'm not about to go be a stalker freak to find out. If Taylor Swift can't stand people not liking her, maybe she should put less of herself on display. And again, if swifties don't like my opinions, they can block me and my tags like adults and move on.

[shrimpmandan]

I think at this point anyone who calls themselves a proshipper but is like, staunchly aggressively no-matter-what anti-RPF is either deluding themselves or thinks that the concept of "real people being reimagined as fictional characters" hasn't existed for decades at this point.

Everyone was fucking raving about Hamilton and Clone High barely a few years ago. A lot of extremely famous, influential movies are based off of real people, such as The Wolf of Wall Street. Every single fucking cartoon you've seen that references a real life historical figure like Cleopatra or Napoleon is technically doing RPF to some degree. THE MAGIC FUCKING TREEHOUSE IS RPF.

All this is ignoring how much we WORSHIP AO3, but-- but but, the founder of AO3 very much supports RPF. And by supports I mean they actively WRITE RPF. Tons of American Idol stuff that's all obscenely popular!

Now of course, there's gonna be some people who have a kneejerk rebuttal about how it's "different" with historical figures, that it doesn't matter because they're all dead, or that movies and books are different from fanfiction that may or may not be sexual. Except all of those arguments make absolutely zero sense when you think about them for more than two seconds.

Shouldn't the subjects being dead make it... more disrespectful, on a base level? You could made a valid case that with historical figures, nobody is left alive to mourn them. In comparison, people who have died relatively recently still have loved ones alive to mourn their deaths, and who would very likely be negatively mentally impacted by stumbling across an RPF fic. Understandably so--

but wasn't our whole argument that other people's feelings are their own to deal with, and not our responsibility?

You can make a similar case for serial killers, too. The victims of Jeffrey Dahmer still have friends and family that are alive. I would imagine they wouldn't want to see posts sexualizing or glorifying him-- but I doubt they're seeking out anything related to him /at all/, frankly. And then we're back to point one about how all that matters is that shit is consistently tagged and that people simply don't read what they don't like.

In my opinion, the sole, sound argument against RPF would be sexual RPF of minors. Even if no contact or even grooming is happening: that is still sexual content of a living minor. That is CSEM. That is a completely valid thing to be against. I honestly fail to see why sexual drawings of real minors are illegal, but not writings. Still, writings and drawings do not involve the same amount of /direct/ abuse as 'regular' CSEM and CSA, but making the argument of psychological harm is fair, especially when this is a case of a child being directly sexualized against their will.

But then we're still back to square one.

Don't like don't read.

Honestly, I'm neutral on RPF. I'm against anything that involves a sexualized depiction of a real child, and I'm generally not super interested in or comfortable with reading fics about real people, but it's also not a topic I can just disassociate myself from and say that it's somehow disconnected from proshipping. It isn't. Proship communities are built off of the backs of RPF shippers, like it or not. And honestly, I couldn't care less so long as the shipper in question is still respectful of the privacy of the subject(s) they're writing about. The version of the person they're writing is fundamentally not real, and that's a weird thing to wrap your head around. One could even argue my own reasons for singling out child sexual RPF is hypocritical or contradictory, and I wouldn't disagree. I think having mixed feelings on the subject is understandable. But being completely, over-archingly against it due to knee-jerk discomfort? It just seems a bit silly to me.

[aropride]

(using past tense because i don't see this type of art/comic around much anymore, tho im sure they still exist. using "body image" as shorthand for all the other stuff bc character limit lol. also i wanted to use a more neutral(?) word for "tucute" but i couldn't remember what we called ourselves at the time/if there was another word lmao. but y'all know what i mean)

(if at the time they were helpful but in retrospect were harmful, vote for the "negatively" option)

examples of these under the cut if you don't know what i'm talking about. warning for misgendering, transphobic, possibly dysphoria inducing caricatures of trans men.

[line break so tumblr doesn't eat the keep reading button]

(ID 1: art of a white feminine trans man. he has pink hair, is wearing makeup and a choker that says "boi," a flower in his hair, a shirt that says "kawaii," a pink skirt, and pink leggings with hearts on them. he has a large chest, a slim waist, and leg and armpit hair. he is surrounded by tumblr tags, mostly trans ones.)

(ID 2: a comic showing two white trans guys labelled "gnc trans guy" and "transtrender". the first has a short undercut with grown-out pink hair. he is wearing a pastel blue and pink shirt, grey shorts, and trans striped socks. his chest is flat and he is drawn with sharper features. the second has a slightly longer undercut and is wearing a tight pansexual pride crop top, a he/him pronoun pin, blue shorts, and rainbow socks. he has visible boobs, a slim waist, and is drawn with softer features. a list of what makes them either "really" trans or a "transtrender" according to the artist is next to each person.)

(ID 3: a comic showing two trans guys. one is titled "this is damian. damian is a trans man. he is an average looking brown man with short brown hair and facial hair. he has a sweater on and is wearing jeans. a speech bubble says "i just want to live my life like everyone else". the other person is titled "this is skye. skye wants to be a trans boy, but she's just a cis girl who needs to feel special." skye has a blue undercut and a pink clip in his hair. he is wearing a galaxy shirt and the straps of his binder are visible. he is wearing jeans. speech bubbles surrounding him read, "soft boy~," "space child! ❤️," "gender is a feeling," "you don't need to have dysphoria to be trans," "truscum don't interact," cisgender people are sooo boring!," and "I bought a binder so I'm a real trans boy!"

end image descriptions.)

[bookwyrminspiration]

Excuse me hi new anon sorry for all the discourse talk on your blog lately but you can’t seriously think that someone being pro life has more impact on others than someone posting possibly triggering art.

I’ve noticed that they put the proper tags on it now to make it blockable which is definitely good and makes it better

But also someone who is pro life and literally doesn’t even post about it is NOT HURTING ANYONE

that’s literally a thought. A belief. Thoughtcrime is not a thing 1984 is a dystopia btw

Whereas posting something is an action that will inevitably impact others—actually art is SUPPOSED to impact others—be that in a positive, negative, or nuanced neutral sort of way.

So posting art is objectively more impactful on other real life people than holding pro life beliefs and never even rlly posting about them

Again thoughtcrime is not a thing

Honestly my biggest issue with the art initially was that it was put in the main tag with no trigger warnings at all, meaning someone scrolling through the main tag who has things triggering to them blocked would have to see it……..

Anyway yeah the two situations definitely aren’t comparable, but NOT in the way that you seemed to think.

Sorry if this feels kinda confrontational but I’m also pro life, have never once posted about it ever, and am deeply disturbed by the idea that me holding a belief and never saying it ever is somehow considered a heinous crime that impacts others terribly, while posting possibly triggering art without trigger warnings totally impacts nobody

Alright, Nonsie, let's break this down.

I'm well aware thought crime isn't real and wholeheartedly agree

No one has said you're a criminal for being pro-life, nor that it's a crime

The impacts/harm I'm talking about extend beyond just posting/holding a belief

Being pro-life contributes to a community and environment that allows harm and control to be enacted against real and vulnerable people

Being pro-life/pro-choice is a belief centered on real people--what a person's body can be used for, if it's their own, and who gets to decide that. Very closely tied to beliefs on abortion, who gets to make choices about who's bodies, etc. You're right that simply holding a belief is passive, and your thoughts are not crimes.

However, the actions that accompany those beliefs/that are because of those beliefs (not necessarily yours, general population) are impactful. I apologize if I wasn't clear when I said "the people being debated about are real and harmed by it." The "it" is not your belief, but the societal and legal consequences that come from your belief.

Public opinion (such as people being pro-life, and public opinion is decided by numbers) decides who is in office, and who is in office dictates laws and legality, and that determines what's easily and readily available/how people will act.

A pro-life person acts based on that--perhaps votes for mayors/representatives/presidents/etc. who are against abortion. And then those authorities pro-life individuals elected at least in part because of their pro-life beliefs (an election won because of community, numbers, and environment), create a society where abortion is less accessible, where sex education is less thorough, where contraceptive/sexual health is expensive/hard to find, etc. We've seen this consistently across the US

Real people suffer from it and they do not have the simple choice to disengage. We've consistently said block and move on regarding online media--but you can't pick and chose which of your country's laws apply to you. You can chose to ignore them if possible and deal with the risk, but you don't get an opt out button. And moving to different cities/states/countries is not an easy solution.

I am considering all this in my discussions. Belief informs action, and pro-life beliefs have historically and continue to impact real people in harmful ways--and to be used as a foot in the door for further harm, such as anti-trans legislation.

I am not saying you are an awful criminal hurting people by being pro-life in your head--though you may lose friendships if people learn of it. I am saying media should not be restricted, and an untagged post does not change that. And I am saying the harm of seeing an uncomfortable image/fic (and being uncomfortable does not equal being hamred), even if untagged, is not comparable to the real life societal consequences of pro-life beliefs.

You may not be of the age or ability right now to vote or petition or otherwise, and as such the action part does not yet apply to you, but if you continue being pro-life then someday it will.

I'll also say this. I don't think being pro-life is evil. I think it can be well-intentioned, but is misguided and ineffective. Wanting fewer abortions is fine--I'd also love that. Getting an abortion isn't fun, and having to make that choice is excruciating for many. But banning and criminalizing abortions (which is the ideology associated with pro-life) does not achieve that and in fact makes it worse.

And, as with fiction, there is no moderation that can reliably dictate what is best for the individual/family/etc. in every situation. Someone will always be hurt when others are making choices about their lives and bodies for them. Including the children intended to be protected.

That, however, is its own can of worms.

I think you mean well, Nonsie, but may have reacted a bit quickly to what I said--you've argued against multiple points (thought crime, being a criminal) that I did not actually make. I own that there were parts I could've been more clear, but I stand by what I've said, and hopefully you better understand what I meant.

And just in case: like with that other poster, people are going to form opinions and see you in certain ways based on your beliefs. Including if you don't act on it, but just think that way. That's how it works for everyone.

Thanks :)

[agathalombax]

1# So shipping. Canon or not I feel there's a difference country wise.. like in the U.S and Canada and Mexico... There's a huge problem with less F4F ships. But over here I don't get ANY sort of M4M ships... No matter what I search no matter what Tag no matter what character... It's never or barely any to be found...

For example I put like- "Rocky Rickaby X Male Reader"

Result: 0 results.

"Character X male OC"

Result: 0 results.

But it's all just.. fem y/n or female reader or just Gender neutral..

All y/n's or self inserts are either cis fem or male but fem looking or just straight up a Trans male..

2# I feel like any sort M4M ships getting little to none represention but more 50% F4F over here.. I just read a Reddit post about Rocky X Mordecai and how Tracy and fable (the artists) drew them kissing and the reader user, asking people how they feel?

. . .

It's... All NOs, or I hate it, I disagree with it, it's never gonna work out, just.. lot's of negatives or hate.. someone even straight up Repeating "eh it's cool but i-" or they'll say - "I'm uncomfortable with it" or worse is "he's ace, it wouldn't -" THE EORST ONE SAYS "ew! Here's aroace!" Like.. why does everyone want aroace? There's nothing wrong with it but.. it prevents people like me to ENJOY to see them touch.. kiss... Like they are disgusted by the fact that I think they should be together.. it's..

It hurts, like I look around at people agreeing to the same thing. But me... I disagree and I believe they can workout.. like I stand out to much and if I dare say otherwise... I am horrible for enjoying two men to loving each other.. it's unfair. It's all unfair. I don't care if the world's unfair I just... Want a little joy...

A little love... But I can't because EVERYTHING IS ALL CIS STRAIGHT SHIPS! it makes me feel broken for the men out there who want to read or see themselves with that make character..

Like being gay and liking men is HARD to write but IT'S SO "EASY" FOR PEOPLE TO WRITE 100 MILLION PAGES OF A STRAIGHT SHIP OR A SAPHIC SHIP!!??

LIKE...why? Why does this hurt? Why do I feel like I'm the only one who believes they two men belong together? All just... Confuses me because everyone is saying "there's not enough lesbian ships!" But all I'm getting every time I SEARCH??? . . . No M4M ships... Or not enough. Like their love is forbidden or wrong...

Is it wrong for me to see two men who are in love with each other? It's like I'm shouting into the void begging for some sign... For some sign of love, life, joy..

Why does it hurt? Why does it hurt so much? I don't see any of it ANYWHERE...

I just.. wanted more representation for gay male ships, fanfics, canon, or Headcanons... Why can't they have that... Why must it be so... Hidden? So hard to find? No matter what I do...

It's just not enough...

[ruthlesslistener]

Oohhh I get it now. But tbh if I'm going to be honest, at least proshippers hide their stuff away in their respective dark areas/behind safe walls and even tag and warn people about the dark content they make. Antis dont, they just invade places and engage in the said dark content just to get mad at it. At least from my own experiences from them. Idk I just see most proshippers as responsible in managing what they make, while antis don't. I actually got a taste of dark content from antis myself as a kid, in a lot of callouts made by antis lololol. And not because the proshipper were demanding their content be known. Its been like that even now actually, where dark content gets shoved in people's faces purely because an anti is trying to act like a hero. Though this is just my experience with them.

Another thing if you wouldn't mind, is that while it's true that dark content can lead to a lot of things in real life. I personally see that it has to be allowed to exist, because dark content shows the dark realities of life and that we shouldn't just leave it/ignore it. I seen victims of abuse for example, who had their experiences validated from reading dark content/about their abuse in stories. Or like the fact that a certain famous entertainment company doesnt want to show blood in their content because of "violence" in shows where kids and adults are watching, where some have pointed out that not showing even a small proportions of what violence can do (blood) will lead to a very naive understanding of the consequences of violence. Shocking because this is a western company, and the TV show in question involves guns and... you get the idea. Don't get me started on censorship and how that can get out of hand so easily.

I don't think I'm explaining this well but yeh. Dark content is needed and should be allowed to exist in my personal views, but should still be allowed to exist behind close doors and away from people who don't want to see it. You can delete this ask if it makes you uncomfortable, I'm just trying to put my two cents into this convo. But yeh, I prefer to live in a world where dark content exists and not one where its nothing but "wholesome" and "pure".

.

[Tone: calm and neutral]

Oh no yeah I agree with you 100%, this is my exact stance on things and is a mirror to most of my experiences- hell, I like exclusively dark content and part of the reason for that is bc I came from a psychologically/emotionally (and sometimes physically) where 'we're all just a big happy family and you're ruining it you little freak' was a big problem. Stuff that's just pure and wholesome actually makes me feel uneasy and on edge all the time because I always feel like the other shoe is about to drop, while horror is comforting because I can read the situation and know what's happening. Part of the issue in my household also stems from the fact that my dad has an issue with differentiating fiction and reality (he suffers from untreated ocd and paranoia and a whole slew of other issues), and he used to blame the stuff I was reading for making me 'disrespectful' and 'cold' whenever I dared to have a negative emotion- hence me just seeking out more and more fucked up shit so that I could vent my anger without getting cussed out (though it also was bc I wasn't allowed to watch anything over a G rating til I was fucking. 16.). Without going into more detail, he used extremely similar tactics to antis and that's why I have such a strongly negative response to them, discounting all of the times where I had nasty run-ins with them. I very much hate all of them and it is because I had to deal with people like them my whole life. It wasn't fun.

I have very few actual squicks, and if I'm in a curious mood I'll also read stuff even if it disgusts me- and hell, sometimes their are exceptions. Captive Prince is a series I'm very fond of full of rape, csa, incest, and psychological abuse, but the reason why I love it despite the content is because it is a very compelling story about how horrible all that abuse is and how deeply fucked up it can make a person, as well as how awful the victim can seem when your pov is being manipulated by the abuser. The problem I have isn't content-based as much as it is the people, and, to the lesser extent, the tone of some of what they make.

See, what soured me on proshippers aren't people who are quietly making darker content and posting/tagging it properly (those are just normal writers and artists imo), I'm talking those who proudly proclaim themselves as proship, aka the vocal few balls deep in The Discourse who make it their whole personality trait. They're mostly centered to Twitter rather than Tumblr nowadays, but the problem with said vocal minority is that they are. Well. Extremely fucking annoying, entitled, tone-deaf, and just overall awful people. Almost everyone who proudly flaunts that they're proship is so balls-deep in the discourse that they feel personally victimized by anyone who shows any negative reaction to the gross shit they're into bc that automatically means they're a puritan, when sometimes it really is just an expression of disgust. Twitter proshippers are a whole different breed than Tumblr ones after the porn ban, but unfortunatly I keep getting their arguments shown to me when I'm on the site scrolling for furry porn and its...bad. It's real fucking bad. Not as bad as antis half the time but certainly not much better in how they treat people and their personal boundaries.

It's also the people who will take content that's pretty fucked up and spins it through a fandom lens that also gets me, though most of the time I just block and move on with a bad taste in my mouth instead of getting actually angry. And by 'fandom lens', I mean people who will take a rape/abuse/etc situation and then go 'oh but what if they're a couple with only a few pokes at the fucked up elements in canon. Ex, some (admittedly few, but they exist) people ship Mohg and Miquella as a reciprocal pairing despite it being a kidnapping and nonconsensual body modification incest-for-power situation, and that just...it feels so wrong. It's just so shallow and such a bad take read on a complex situation that I cannot stand it, it makes me want to run the opposite way. I have zero authority to force people to not do things ofc, I'm not a fucking cop, but those people give me the vibe of someone who'd not help you out with an abusive partner because 'oh but his posessiveness and controlling nature is just so cute, and he clearly loves you so its okay!' and that rings the alarm bells of someone that I do NOT want to be around even if it logically means nothing.

Does that make sense? It's a convoluted mess, but I hope I made it more clear that it's not so much the content that bothers me as much as it is the people and how they use it.

[elvenbeard]

× Negative Trait Tag Game.

Tagged by @kharonion and @katsigian , thank you so much💜

RULES: bold what always or almost always applies, italicize occasional or situational, strikethrough never applies.

— VINCE —

aggressive | arrogant | authoritarian | bitter | brutal | callous | cannibal | careless | cold/cold-hearted | compulsive | controlling | corrects others constantly | cowardly | critical | cruel | demanding | disillusioned | domineering | envious | emotionally stunted | greedy | grim | guarded | hard | harsh | hypocritical | impatient | impolite | intimidating | irritable | kidnapper | lazy | liar | lustful | materialistic | mean | merciless | messianic | mistrusting | narrow-minded | obsessive | opinionated | overbearing | over-critical | over-emotional | over-thinking | patronizing | proud | remote | repressed | rigid | rules with an iron fist | ruthless | sarcastic | self-righteous | self-indulgent | taciturn | torturer | touchy | traitorous | unsympathetic | unpredictable | uptight | vain | vengeful

This is a good list, but you know what's missing? deceiving, impressionable, indecisive, manipulative and stubborn!

Apart from that, I feel like I had to italicize a lot here, and that's because Vince is the type of person who really has two different faces depending on which circumstances you meet him under... the kind of pragmatic "True Neutral" alignment character that will do whatever suits his own purposes best in most situations, not too bothered with what is the morally good or bad thing to do.

He is not as cold-hearted as he can come across when he's in his slick "corpo persona" that he puts on when he has to deal with people on a professional level. He was made to believe his worth as a person is defined by how "useful" he is to others, and at the same time he's learned the hard way that showing weakness gets you swallowed quickly in Night City and the corporate world as a whole. It's this constant balancing act between being useful while not letting yourself be used that got him as far as he did.

At the same time, he is a bit of a dick who always wants to be right about everything. Behind the cool exterior is just this angry kid who's been fucked by life over and over again, had extremely high expectations put onto him and puts them on himself now, and has just really gotten kind of numb and disillusioned from the life he's leading. He's too proud and stubborn to ask for or accept help, craving to find some kind of meaning or purpose for himself in this whole mess, and then repeatedly falls for the wrong people and their empty promises.

On issues like his distrustfulness, his sarcasm, and his tendency to lie (about uncomfortable matters in particular) he is working though (not because he sees them as flaws necessarily, but more because it's these things that usually get him into the most trouble with the people he actually really cares about...).

I don't know who's done this already, and as always no pressure and tyt! Gonna tag @honourandsteel, @pinkyjulien, @chevvy-yates (aber echt kein Stress! xD), @imaginarycyberpunk2023 (would be so curious about both Vinnie and Macha here!!), @breezypunk, @timaeusterrored (curious about Vax in particular, but anyone goes if you wanna do this :o), @genocidalfetus, aaaaand everyone else who I'm forgetting now! Consider yourself tagged <3

[elisedonut]

Lavender Brown

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

I had to take a day to think about this because my first thought was I don't think I've found one yet that I really really just don't like

So I'm choosing to talk about my least favorite of the ones that I do like instead sorry otherwise it was just going to be a basic boring answer like Greyback without any real thoughts behind it other then it makes me feel yucky :c which is lame

So Pavender then

I'm Positive leaning but overall neutral on Pavender

because its a bff ship and that's not something that interests me too much personally without something else also going on at the same time like Obsession or something

Friends to lovers is just typically very 'yeah alright sure why not' to me

Which is not a bad thing

friends to lovers makes sense because you already know that they get along and that they care about each other

its a decent set up for shipping

Like there are fun ways to do it that I like but just like as a generalization it just never gives me brain worms the way that other dynamics will

my feelings towards pavender are almost the same as the ones i have towards perciver I'm ngl

like yeah it's cute it exists you can argue its even canon compliant they were roommates they are friends

I'm not super invested in it but ill read it if i see it and ill write it if i come up with something for them that sounds interesting to me and ill even think about them occasionally

So its not like negative I don't dislike it

its more just

if someone put two fics in front of me with tags that are super specific to my tastes

one that was pavender

and one that was a Lavender ship i have never even considered

and said that i can only read one and by picking that one the other would vanish into the void forever

i wouldn't even think about it before picking the pairing I've never considered

[standardquip]

4 years of running BentoVid & RICE (an extremely long & meandering retrospective about survey data) This is an entry that's part history about the fanvid server I run that hosts a [now] feedback event [then contest] called RICE, and part data analysis from 4 years of pre-RICE survey data and one post-RICE survey from a particularly "problematic" year of the event. Read the entry as it was intended on dreamwidth by clicking the link above, or expand the cut tag and hope the html I pasted into tumblr displays correctly. [edit: it doesn't, but it's readable if you don't care about line breaks.]

Preface

Or, the time I accidentally influenced an entire industry through a survey question (click to read more) In 2015, I created a website called fursuitreview.com (FSR). Fursuits (one of a kind whole body animal costumes) are expensive and it was hard to keep track of makers that didn't have huge followings. I didn't want to run a review page, but only two existed prior to mine. One had died completely several years before, and the other one updated so infrequently it was almost useless (it, too, eventually died after FSR took off). The other two pages were a victim of putting too much work on themselves. The first had several questions reviewers had to answer and assign points. The moderators would average all the points for each review and give the overall review a score out of ten. This ensured consistency in the scores across all reviews. It was an amazing system but it would simply take too long to do myself (plus I'm terrible at math). Both sites were not actually sites - they were user accounts on furaffinity.net (and sometimes tumblr or livejournal) - which required write-ins to copy a big block of text and hope they got the format right (they rarely did, which meant moderators would have to correct it). FSR started out on furaffinity, but very quickly moved to a wordpress website. I thought very carefully on how I would keep manhours and costs down. I decided to not have any user accounts at all, nor would I bother with a numbered rating system (I instead went with a "positive / neutral / negative" system because that's really what everything boils down to anyway). I devised the least amount of questions I could in order to pry the information I wanted out of fursuit buyers when they wrote in. This resulted in two sections: wear satisfaction, and visual satisfaction. Each section had several sample questions to help guide the writer. "Wear satisfaction" was like, do you like how it fits you? how is the ventilation? how is the vision? Visual satisfaction was questions about looks.

Example screenshot of the FSR "wear Satisfaction" questions from 2020+

When people submitted a review, I would read over them all and make sure everything was copacetic before publishing it. Back then (before 2020), I was a one-man operation so I read literally every single review coming in. I noticed that some writers would mention lining in some of the fursuit parts. Most parts are unlined - it's just faux fur and the backing of that will be up against a wearer's skin. Lining is unnecessary and can ultimately make the costume much hotter - but it does make everything look really nice and marginally more comfortable to wear. After a few of these, I added "Does the item have lining?" to the list of sample questions.

Does the item have lining?

Surely nothing bad could happen from such an innocuous question!! (upside down smiley face goes here)

I must take a break here to mention that I had no experience doing literally anything that FSR required to run. I had bought 3-4 fursuits and thought it would be nice to keep track of my opinions of them. Everything else, from coding a website to writing survey questions, I had taught myself. I had some very very basic wordpress experience from a personal roleplaying character wiki wordpress site for myself, but that was it. FSR was a learn by doing experience. And boy, was it an experience. Writing, reading, reviewing, editing, customer service... FSR had me dealing with it all, and I'm surprised it gained as much traction as it did throughout that process.

So, needless to say, I had no idea what "survey bias" was.

Weeks, possibly months, later, I was browsing twitter keeping up with FSR social stuff, when I came across a tweet from a rather well-known maker (I believe it was either beetlecat or beastcub) asking other fursuit makers why customers were suddenly asking for their fursuits to be lined. I wish I had a link to this tweet, but I no longer have a twitter account. (If you happen to find it, do link it in the comments!) It didn't hit me at first. I watched the thread and the responses roll in. As other makers replied, the sense of dread was very slowly overtaking me. Could FSR really have that much influence? Could just a single little sentence really cause so much strife? Yes, it did, and yes... It did. Once I connected the dots, I edited the sample questions. No longer is it simply "Does the item have lining?" Now it is: "If it is lined, what material was used? Does it absorb sweat appropriately? Does it make cleaning easier?" But I went through a few iterations before I got to that wording. I believe my first edit was something like "(Note: most fursuits aren't lined)", but that didn't properly imply that you shouldn't be asking your maker for lining. After this lining snafu, I had to go through all of my questions and determine what I was accidentally influencing, how that could change what customers ask of their makers, and if I really needed that information in the review to begin with. I also, finally, learned about survey bias, and took some time to read up a little more on how to craft survey questions. And, of course, I had to come to grips with the fact that, yes, FSR was big. And it had influence. My little side project was a staple of the community and people counted on it to make very expensive purchases. Maker reputations and business operations began to live or die by the reviews we pulled in. FSR got to be too big and too much stress for me, so I ended up giving full ownership of the site to someone else in 2022 or 2023 (it was a long transition and I'm not sure when the public announcement was made). However, as of today (31 March 2024), fursuitreview.com is still fundamentally unchanged from how I was running it - including the review form. Nowadays, I have nothing to do with the site. I couldn't deal with the stress and responsibility once it grew to be a community cornerstone. Unfortunately, history may be repeating itself with the project I replaced FSR with...

A brief history of BentoVid (and RICE)

I have been editing anime music videos (AMVs) since 2001. I took a hiatus from the community from 2009ish to 2018. Despite that, I still managed to make at least one video every year. In 2018, I tried to get back into the community and realized it had almost completely changed. Discord was a thing now, and it seemed most of the activity was on there. I joined a few servers, but long story short they all weren't great. In a fit of frustration and annoyance, I did the classic move of going "Screw this, I'll do it myself!"

Bender (from Futurama): Fine! I'll start my own chatroom with blackjack and hookers! I glossed over it, but this is exactly how FursuitReview.com also started.

BentoVid (called AMV Sashimi back then) was created in September 2020. Back then, I did have high hopes. I did "plan" (finger quotes) on becoming a large community, but it was like how anyone plans on winning the lottery, you know? You don't actually expect it to happen. I thought that realistically I'd get maybe 30 members and it'd be just a chill hangout spot. But in 2021, we reached the fabled 100 members. Then 200. We broke 400 this year. And outside the very first year, I didn't actively promote. BentoVid has grown purely from word of mouth since 2021. On the other side of Discord was an annual AMV contest related to a particular anime convention. I first joined it in 2019. It was... okay... But not great. 2020 went even worse. The contest was going through a transition period and had a coordinator that, to put it mildly, was not well-liked. The concept behind the contest (which had been running for several years - I think 2005? Possibly even earlier) was great though. It was a contest focused on peer review. All the editors that submitted to the contest were the judges and voted on the winner. It was a blind contest, so nobody knew who made what, but only people who submitted to the contest could view and vote on the videos. The feedback was cruel. People did not hold back. Still, it was helpful, and I excelled my skills a lot by participating. The contest's discord server, however, went unmoderated and the coordinator made some very bizarre decisions. Another "Screw it, I'll do it myself" event occurred. RICE - Rewards imagined by a community of editors - was born by taking that other contest and implementing all the feedback participants had been complaining about for years. February 2021 was the first RICE. I had never run a contest before. Just like FSR (from the preface story), this was a trial by fire. I made at least one huge mistake every year the contest ran. But ultimately people liked RICE, and word of mouth about it (and the server) grew ever faster because of it. I had taken efforts to specifically NOT advertise RICE outside the BentoVid discord server, but that didn't stop it from growing.

4 years of RICE survey data

Partly due to my inexperience and partly due to my history with FSR, I put out RICE feedback surveys at every opportunity. I am actually not that into data. I don't analyze this stuff and I have no particular interest in collecting data at every turn for random things. I just find feedback surveys somewhat convenient and useful for my purposes. Sorry to people who are into that! XD

Pre-RICE survey data from 2021 - 2024

I have a small survey when people submit videos to RICE. It has (mostly) the same questions every year. Vivafringe helped me go through the data, and here are the results. (links to a google sheet) 2021 - 2023, the optional survey was on the same page as video submission questions. In 2024, I finally realized google form sections existed and I put it on a totally different page. I went from a 100% response rate to 58%. What a huge difference! But still inspiring to see so many people went out of their way to answer regardless. Here's my personal takeaways: US vs Non-US I personally thought there were more international editors participating, but it seems to hover around 20%. Do people keep their videos a secret? It looks like most of the survey respondents actually do attempt to keep their videos secret from everyone. However, almost as many people admit at least one person they know who will also be in RICE knows what their video is. I honestly thought it'd be the other way around, with more people sharing betas before RICE, so this is actually pretty cool to see. Thoughts on blind judging This question was multiple choice with only one answer allowed, so they had to choose which meant most to them. Most people seem to appreciate blind judging, but don't go out of their way to keep themselves blind during the event. (~70% combined) A large minority of people admit that guessing who made what during the event is part of the fun for them. (~25%) One possible answer was that blind judging is never truly blind - interesting to note only one person ever selected this and it was in 2023. Main reason for entering RICE? Another multiple choice answer where they had to select the "main" reason. Most people join RICE because they like the BentoVid community. However, almost as many people join because they like peer review. I'm flattered! lol But, in all seriousness, I really expected those results would be flipped, with peer review outranking BentoVid. Categories A multiple checkbox question for which categories your submitted vid belongs to, according to the editor. I mostly only care about theme, coordinator's choice, and live-action. Theme has submissions starting at 18% in 2021 and gradually going up to 29% in 2024. 2023 is an outlier with 39%. Coordinator's choice is very low. 1 - 3 videos. This is mixed news for me. On one hand, I think it's great people don't feel the need to pander to me (or maybe they don't know how). On the other hand... Please pander to me! XD Live-action is something I would like to see more of... The discord server started out as an AMV server and its audience is still mostly AMV editors. But I really want BentoVid (and RICE, by extension) to be about all fanvids and vidding (Hence the name change from AMV Sashimi to BentoVid). Long story short, live-action vids are obviously a very small minority that get submitted (5 - 9 videos each year), but they fluctuate between years. If you like live-action fanvids and want to join an active discord server... Please join us! lol How did you learn about RICE? This question was a small text field people could write whatever they wanted in. No surprise people learned about it from inside BentoVid. Next highest was word of mouth-related answers like "discord," "another discord server" or "friends". A little interesting was when AWA or POE were specifically mentioned (two popular AMV contests), but this was only twice for each.

Post-RICE survey data

2021 and 2022 had a feedback survey, but it was just one text block that asked for comments. Very few people ever filled this out and it was not very actionable feedback. 2023 was the first post-RICE feedback survey with actual guided questions, and it's because 2023 was... quite the year.

Understatement.

What happened during 2023 RICE?

Remember the contest I mentioned that RICE was based on? While RICE was thriving, that contest was floundering. The other contest, which for the rest of this blog I will call "HOST," happens in September - October, while RICE happens in February - March. 2022 HOST was another transition year for them. The old coordinator ("Elder") took over the contest after so many complaints about the coordinator that succeeded them ("Junior"). As far as I know, everyone was happy with Junior's leaving, but unfortunately it wasn't pretty. We weren't kind to Junior. Bridges were burned. Elder had some great ideas on how to bring HOST back up to its former glory days. But, procrastination got the better of them, so the contest started out very poorly. Then, during the contest, they had an extremely public and embarrassing meltdown. A number of people withdrew from the contest because of it. A totally different person ("Kidd") had to take over mid-event. The discord server went through an emergency restructure so Elder didn't have any special permissions anymore. Kidd was an absolute gem and managed to run the rest of the contest on their own very smoothly (Kidd continued through 2024 and deserves accolades). But the already negative reputation of HOST definitely turned into a dumpster fire after that. It was no surprise that RICE got touted as a good alternative. I was expecting more RICE entries than the previous year but. Boy. I was just not prepared. 2023 RICE saw 56 editors and 76 videos. The prior year was only 32 editors and 45 videos. RICE does not scale well. Moreover, I was experiencing horrible health issues at the time and really should have delayed or cancelled RICE due to them. Consequently, some people did not have a good experience with RICE. I thought the entire year was ruined. I made a pretty involved post-RICE survey due to it. This survey was mostly questions with text boxes where people wrote exactly what they were feeling. This made the answers a lot more personal and detailed. I will not be sharing the raw 2023 survey data. The complaints were about:

Too many videos for too short a time period

Some people were rude in the discord when discussing categories

Some people attacked one of the people giving critique in a voice call

I tried to enforce [very badly worded] content restrictions very late into the submission window. This had editors unnecessarily scrambling to re-edit things and ultimately ended up with multiple versions of videos in the contest [which should not have happened and that is entirely on me]

To me, the responses of the 2023 survey looked pretty dire. I immediately made changes to RICE following them. While RICE had started out as an improved version of HOST, I also had wanted the goal to be rewards for BentoVid server regulars. That's why I really didn't want to advertise it outside the server. I also never pinged \@Everyone or made a special role to get updates about it. The intent was if you were around the server, you'd know it was coming, and that was that. I wanted the good peer review and critique so we could all improve. I also wanted to see amazing videos. But what I DIDN'T want - and was (surprisingly!) NEVER concerned with - was lots of randos who didn't care about BentoVid. I explicitly never posted about RICE on a-m-v.org (despite people asking me to), and I never mentioned RICE outside my own server until after 2022 HOST. And even then it was really only in DM or if someone else had brought it up first. I still try to not advertise RICE, but I'm not as tight-lipped as I used to be. Still, it's primarily in DM. But anyway, I'm rambling now - the point is that RICE grew outside of the BentoVid bubble. People were joining RICE who did not care about BentoVid as a whole and I had to figure out how to handle that. My previous RICE messaging of "feedback event but also contest!" was fine for BentoVid regulars. We mostly knew what we liked and understood eachother because we hung out all the time. But for people new to RICE and/or the server, they had no idea and came in with false expectations. My two main takeaways from the 2023 Post-RICE survey were: 1. Because of my health issues and the mass increase of participants, the Discord server went (essentially) completely unmoderated during RICE. Because RICE (and BentoVid) is usually closely moderated, many conversations/debates went on a lot longer than they should have (because no moderators stepped in), which caused a lot of stress for participants. 2. The messaging of RICE was conflicting and led people to false expectations. People were essentially expecting HOST but "run better." "HOST but run better" is an over-generalization of how RICE works. It's actually quite different from HOST, but without the context of being a BentoVid regular, one wouldn't have that information. The first would be solved simply by me being present. Myself and most my staff could not be present during 2023 (honestly I'm surprised RICE ran as well as it did without us. Speaks a lot to our community!). To deal with the second point, I decided to focus on clearing up and changing RICE's messaging. Clearing the messaging had a few purposes:

More clearly differentiate RICE from HOST

Discourage non-regulars from joining without being super exclusionary about it

Discourage overtly competitive people from joining RICE

Encourage feedback-orientated participants

Focus more on accessibility (as RICE already applied VPR to all entries, it made sense to extend accessibility in other ways)

I took the survey responses very seriously, and as such, rushed to make announcements of what the changes would be. I ended up announcing them the same month RICE ended - March. Proof here (that is a discord link). You can read the initial announcement there in the BentoVid server, but I ended up changing things even more, so here's the summary of what the changes ended up being:

Very strict content restrictions (slightly relaxed later)

Focus on feedback event FIRST (took out all mentions of "contest" and "best" on the website, replacing them with "event" and "most-liked" )

No cash prizes at all (previously it was a $175 pool)

More emphasis on what exactly the server culture is like and what you can expect (basically: RICE is stressful, it's full of server regulars, prepare yourself if you're new)

Permanent categories got permanent names (previously everything was able to be voted on and changed)

All winners only get one award (previously there were multiple designs and names made for each award)

We added CWs as well as VPRs into the RICE expectations

Everything possible was outlined on the website. I literally wrote out the schedule and everything that you could expect to happen, how it all worked, etc.

The fallout from 2023 RICE continued throughout the entire year. It seemed negative feelings regarding it rolled out into other issues BentoVid was having (behind the scenes, especially in the staff channels) and overall I was really not feeling great about RICE. I was seriously considering 2024 RICE being the last one I ever ran.

2023 Post-RICE survey analysis

During 2024 RICE prep (which started in October 2023), I went through the 2023 feedback again. I asked some vague questions to random people about how they felt about 2023 RICE, and their answers (most of which were not negative at all) really had me questioning my perception of the entire thing. I gave the 2023 post-RICE survey data to a friend of mine who used to analyze that kind of thing for a living (Vivafringe). I went through the answers and redacted personal information, summarizing answers if necessary, before giving it to him. As part of the analysis, I asked him a bunch of questions and he looked over all the data to answer those questions. Again, I will not share the actual data here (even anonymized), but I will share the analysis he provided. Full disclosure: Viva did participate in 2023 RICE.

Analysis of Negative Experiences

Did more people have a negative or positive time in 2023?

to answer this I didn't do any fancy analysis. I read the responses and just did a vibe check of "negative" (pretty clearly had a bad time), "neutral" (had some things they didn't like, but gave other positive feedback or just in general didn't seem like they gave a shit one way or the other), "positive" ("vars you're the best" type comments) I think "neutral" people, if you actually asked them, would say they had a positive time, but it's hard to say for sure anyway I rated 7/25 negative, 7/25 neutral, 11/25 positive notably a lot of people didn't respond to this survey and the non respondants were likely positive/neutral. So I don't think you should read those numbers and assume 28% of people had a negative experience the overwhelming complaint from basically everyone was too many videos for the time they had - 5/6 people with "negative" feedback were returnees - 2/6 of the people who wanted "competitive" contest had negative opinions. No real signal there I think

I said the complaints about the VCs were really bad though?

I count 4 people that complained about the vcs my takeaway from reading this is basically: - moderate the vcs from now on, advertise them as critique/nice/whatever (you already are doing this but just saying I agree) - if you get 76 vids again, give more time to watch stuff I don't know how you solve chat getting tense, that was another common complaint

Category drama? Context: some people were very vocal about RICE needing fixed categories like typical AMV contests

I read the category stuff and broadly classified them as wanting "fixed" cats, "unfixed" cats, or "neutral" as you might expect most people didn't give a strong opinion on it, 10/25 were neutral 5 people wanted fixed, 6 people explicitly wanted to keep things as it was now (unfixed) if you read "neutral" as support for the status quo, which I do, I think the way you're doing it is fine. especially because a lot of the fixed cat people (3/6) had negative experiences and won't be here this year

I expected a smaller turnout for 2024 RICE. All I was really hoping for were more editors than in 2022 (which only had 32). Editors in 2023: 56 Editors in 2024: 43 (+3 more if we count DQs) A 17 - 23% loss, depending on how you count this. My thoughts: 1. That's not that bad, to be honest 2. If we treat 2023 as an outlier, 2024 is an acceptable and expected amount of growth from 2022. 3. One of the main complaints in 2023 was that there were too many videos, so 2024 numbers are more desirable in this context.

Other data collected from 2023 RICE

While I was mostly concerned about the negative experiences, I thankfully had the foresight to ask some other questions about RICE that gave us some valuable data.

Kollab vs frame.io = kollab wins by landslide

Direction for rice: contest vs feedback = 15/22 say feedback

Will you make an account on a website to do rice stuff? 12/25 say no

basically everyone answered the "what does rice do differently" question with "the feedback is a lot better". So a way to make rice better is to streamline process for providing feedback.

How long people spend on RICE vids:

10/21 (of the people that responded) started working on their rice vid 1 month or longer in advance

the competitive people ("A contest where the best of the best wins") seem kind of in the middle, time wise. 3/6 spent less than 1 month, 2/6 spent 2 months exactly, 1 didn't respond.

there were 8 newcomers, but basically same conclusion. 4/8 started more than a month in advance. 3/8 took a few weeks

Google docs & PSVs RICE offers a google doc with video information instead of trying to put it all in a filename. We also offered detailed VPRs and CWs, and, in some cases, alternate versions of videos that are more friendly for photosensitive users (called PSVs).

3/25 people said they used the VPRs.

18/25 people used the infosheet

4/25 used the CWs

3/25 used PSVs

What about 2024 Post-RICE survey data?

I collected that. This blog entry is already the size of a novel so I'll put it in another entry, I guess. Stay tuned! (Don't hold your breath though) I will exit this entry with the following results from that survey: If you participated in 2023 RICE, what would you say your overall experience was? 15/18 answered overall positive 2/18 said they did not participate in 2023 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said overall negative If you participated last year (2023), would you say your experience THIS year (2024) was: 9/17 answered overall better than last year 7/17 said about the same as last year 1/17 said did not participate last year 0/17 said overall worse than last year Your overall 2024 RICE experience was: 17/18 answered positive 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said negative 0/18 said boring 2024 RICE had 43 editors and 62 videos.

[always-anxious612]

Neutral

This isn't what I usually post but Idk I was feeling poetic today. This is mainly about how I feel about my body. There's so much about body positivity, which is amazing and helps a lot of people, but I've always been mainly neutral about my body with some days being better or worse. It gets me where I need to be. It allows me to do the things I want to do. So this is a little glimpse of that, I guess. I'm not sure it makes much sense and I know it probably won't get seen by many, but if there's anyone else who can relate to it, then I guess it's worth sharing <3

Warnings: talk of body image, food mentioned very briefly, negative talk about self-image, (I truly don't know what else to tag so if there's something you need tagged, feel free to let me know)

Word count: 626

I don’t love myself But I don’t hate myself either. Most days, when I look into the mirror, I see a body, a face, two eyes, and a mouth.

But, some days, I look at those features, I look at my body, that face, those eyes, and that mouth, And I’m gentle with myself.

I look at my face and love the softness I find there. Love the soft blush that brushes over it Love how it glows when it’s happy

I look at my eyes and love how the light reflects in them Love the green that tints their irises Love how they dance when they’re glad

I look at my lips and love how supple they seem to be love the gentle pink that colors them. Love how they curve when they smile

I look at my body and love the gentle curves that define it Love how tender it feels under my touch Love how it shivers when it’s delighted.

However, most days, they’re just the parts that make up my face. That make up myself.

But then, some days, I look at those features I look at my body, that face, those eyes, and that mouth, And I nitpick every single one.

I look at my face and find the imperfections, The red splotches The way it seems too round to be considered pretty

I look at my eyes and find how they’re lacking The dull sheen that they often wear The way they seem too murky to be considered beautiful

I look at my mouth and find all the flaws The chapped scars from worrying them too often The way they seem too uneven to be considered lovely

I look at my body and see what others have told me is wrong The marks that stretch across it The way it seems too bulky to be considered delicate

However, most days they’re just the parts that make up my body. That make up myself.

I don’t love myself But I don’t hate myself either.

And maybe that’s ok.

Because those parts of myself are what allow room for me, And I do love me.

I love her even when she can’t look at myself in the mirror; I don’t need to look at myself to know I need to take care of it. I love her even when she nitpicks myself too harshly to be fair; I don’t need to love myself to make sure it functions right. I love her even when she gets lost in the reflection, looking for beauty wherever she can; I do not need to know what she finds to make sure she gets what she deserves.

And she deserves So much.

She deserves gentleness She deserves health She deserves love

She deserves.

So, I will feed myself. I will give it water. I will make sure it exercises. I will listen to its needs, even when I feel nothing for it. I will take care of myself

For her. For me.

I will take care of myself so the me that lives inside it gets all that she deserves So that she can prosper and be content and love and cry and feel and live.

I don’t love myself. I don’t hate myself either. I look in the mirror and see a body, a face, two eyes, and a mouth. But I love me. And how it feels to be her And how it feels to be alive.

So I will do my best to take care of it, So that I can do my best to take care of her. I will do my best to take care of them both together.

And I think that’s all that matters

[sandover-days]

⁔⁔⁔ JUST STAY WITH ME !

DISCLAIMER: this needs to be redone!

hi there! you can call me pup or bow, and this is my sfw agere blog! i use he/it/(any)neos/they (in order of preference) and occasionally use she/her for myself ^^ i am a minor even outside of regression. i'm pretty sure i usually regress to one of these two age ranges depending on circumstances and what my brain feels like: 0-2 (or maybe 0-3, i'm not sure. i just know it's very, very small) and 4-6. when i'm small (and even when i'm big!) i love kirby, blues clues, bluey (the essential /j), lps, and way more! lps 1012 and tabby/lps 460(mostly her 2d promo art, because that's how she looks in new puppy on the block) are two of my biggest comforts!! i'm also fictionkin, my known kintypes are rico from beatcats, lps 1013/the puppy from the lps figures/the lps friends game, and daxter from jak and daxter (canon divergent in his case) ! not all of these sources are child-friendly, just a warning (COUGH canon daxter COUGH) i might start taking requests for something on this blog, but i don't know what, and i make no promises. this blog will mostly be used for viewing and requesting agere content. ramble posts will not be tagged in anything other than my blog-specific tags. any fandom agere i might post will be tagged with "[fandom name] agere" but not "[fandom tag]" as i am rather shy about people not in the sfw agere community seeing agere content for my fandoms, especially since i'm probably very recognizable.

⁔⁔⁔ DNI

please do not interact with this blog if your blog is or you are: lgbtphobic/terf/truscum/similar, transid/transx/similar, nsfw/kink/minors dni(i'm a minor and this is an agere blog, i don't have a problem with sexual stuff i just don't want it near this blog fir obvious reasons), pedo/map/shotacon/lolicon, ddlg(+variants)/abdl/ageplay/petplay/cgl) or sexualize agere or childlike behavior in general, anti-agere/petre or think of it as a trend/cool aesthetic thing, think regression must be cute and/or positive and cannot contain negative emotions or dark aesthetics, think diapers in agere are inherently sexual, proship/comship/anti-anti/similar, pro-ed/pro-self harm, anti-mogai, anti neopronouns, anti otherkin/therian/fictionkin, harry potter fan, dream smp fan (or fan of any of the people in it-- i can't be bothered to find out who's relatively unproblematic), discourse blog, support cringe culture, think regressors being romantically involved OUTSIDE of their regression is kink (i haven't regressed on the platform i talk to them on most of the time in a long while but when i did my partner would sometimes hang out with me if they were online and nothing in those interactions was sexual or even really romantic)

⁔⁔⁔ DISCLAIMERS & BOUNDARIES

i am neutral on label discourse such as mspec lesbians/gays and contradictory identities. i am not diagnosed with anything and do not claim to be. please do not refer to me as a "little" or call my regression "littlespace," it makes me very uncomfortable (for like no reason?? the terms aren't inherently nsfw why is my brain wonky about them). i often use alternatives that include the words "tiny" or "small," but you can get creative! you also may use the terms in reference to yourself or others when talking to me, just don't use them to refer to me. i have nothing against the terms, they just aren't my thing. i am not looking for a caretaker/caregiver/whatever word you wanna use. the reason there's nothing about serious irl stuff in the world on this blog is because all that gets put on my main blog which is not hooked to this one; i am not ignoring these events. i may miss jak a lot, but i'm not looking for him as my mems of him are romantic and i already have a partner whom i love very very very much <33

[ectoamerican]

𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑

Are you named after anyone? No. But a family member other than my parents got to name me. Unsure if I wanna change it when I'm able to really transition either, because it's actually a gender neutral name, and I do love that family member a lot.

When was the last time you cried? Oh, probably last night? I'm really sensitive and I can literally cry at anything, tbh.

Do you have kids? Nope! And I don't really want any? Or at least if I did, I'd want to adopt later in my life when I'm more stable. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I genuinely don't actually know. I'm sure I've made jokes that fall under that before, I just don't keep track of it like that? And I can sometimes have trouble telling what's sarcasm in text, which is how I normally talk to others. What's the first thing you notice about people? physically- probably eyes? the way a face looks? (like if you're tired looking or energetic?) idk, otherwise. What's your eye colour? Hazel. Sometimes they look brown, sometimes green, sometimes yellow-ish brown?

Scary movies or happy endings? Both. I refuse to choose. I love both horror and happy endings. I can enjoy both separately, equally. Any special talents? Uh, I like to draw I guess? But I don't consider art a talent. Not in the sense that i see most ppl say it is anyway. It's a skill you work on over a long period of time and continually get better at with practice. Where were you born? Some hospital in Michigan. What are your hobbies? Drawing, writing, video games, cooking? I wanna try piano and knitting at some point. Have you any pets? I have two(2) cats. Their names are Bob and Lucy. They were from an adoption drive and the only survivors from their litter. So the ppl at the drive didn't want to separate them. They're very affectionate. :') There are also two(2) dogs in my house but they're not mine. I do love them tho! What sport do you play/have you played? Uhhh, I liked soccer/football the handful of times I got to play in school. Wasn't ever part of a team or anything, just stuff we did in PE/gym class. I did however do cheerleading in elementary. How tall are you? I am 4'11". ( 149.86 cm according to google. I'm bad at math so I won't convert this on my own.) Favourite subject in school? Art class? But also Science classes? I liked to learn and draw. I just hated homework and math. Dream job? I used to wanna be a few different things. But by high school I just? Didn't really think I'd get anywhere meaningful so I really just only care to be able to have enough to get by. Sorry if that seems negative? For me and the way I've grown up it just feels realistic given my limitations.

Tagged by: @countlessrealities (ty !) tagging: @universestreasures @lcngdays @seafit @oculusxcaro and anyone who wants to do this. :>

[always-andromeda]

hiiiii oh my gosh it's story time!! (I'm taking a very un-deserved break from grading tests to write this but sssshhhhhhh, no one need to know)

my school district was pretty large, so both my middle and high school were really big, so it's hard to say if there was one controversy that united everyone, since it was more like you would have your little circle and then within groups there would be controversies

for the crazy academic kids (which I was only a little involved with, but I had a friend who was much more personally affected), the ability to take AP Euro in sophomore year absolutely divided the group. like, those who took it became insufferable snobs and the fact that they were taking AP Euro became a Personality Trait and it was all they would ever talk about. my friend who was more involved called it a "cult," which honestly was pretty accurate. anyway, it totally wrecked that friend group bc the AP Euro kids were kinda mean to everyone else and had this weird superiority complex

oh and I don't think this was really all that much of a ~controversy~ but I will shout out my high school for being one of the first in the country to do a gender-neutral prom court/prom royalty. it was something we had to sign a petition for, but it passed, which was fantastic! so then instead of electing 10 women and 10 men, we just elected 20 people regardless of gender identity and the two with the most votes became the "royalty." courts and dances were something I had like negative 100 interest in, but I still think it was a great step and a really awesome message to send about inclusivity

honestly I feel like there has to be some other ones but I cannot think of them right now, so if any come to me in an epiphany, I will annoyingly send in another ask 😅

really curious to hear everyone else's!

and, as always, thank you for hosting ☺️💙

Ahhhh, hey again, Charlotte!!!! 🥰 I’m gonna give you your own tag on here because uGH I always love hearing from you lol. I’m bestowing you with the little palette emoji since I always love to see your art posts!!

I’m sorry but academic kid drama is always SO funny to me because it’s like. GOD. Aren’t y’all busy enough without worrying about beefing over your fuckin’ GPA or what classes you’re taking?? 🥲 Like I was taking essentially AP classes and bro I was so busy that I didn’t have the energy nor the want to be all cocky about it??

And while that second one absolutely shouldn’t be controversial, I still think it absolutely fantastic!! I was never super into the whole prom thing when I was in high school either, but I still love when I see those little steps being made just to make inclusivity more normal? Because I don’t think many folks truly realize how prevalent cis-normative and heteronormative ideas are in everything. So I love to hear that tidbit. ☺️❤️

[internetaddict104]

So, I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm a big fan of Amanda, but, you know, my two cents: I think its fine if her personality kind of grates at you a bit or you don't think her sense of humor meshes with yours. I'm sorry you were getting death threats, that shouldn't happen. You're right in the sense that you're allowed to feel that way and people getting mad at you for that doesn't do much.

That said I think if you're not looking to try to explain yourself/justify your distaste, you'd probably benefit from more explicitly tagging and curating the audience for your commentary. Like I dont think posting this in the "amanda lehan canto" tag on tumblr will get you the circle of people you want it to get to. I would strongly recommend, at least per tumblr culture, tagging it something like "anti amanda lehan canto" or something else, or at least taking her tag out. I dont know about the equivalent tagging culture on reddit. But in general if you go into a space with a lot of neutral to positive sentiment and drop a VERY strongly negative opinion, its jarring and can be off putting even if people might not disagree with specifics of the opinion. "smosh discourse" or "smosh negativity" might serve you better? idk.

(Also on a more general note, something that's helped me when I was frustrated with an online personality, beyind just disengaging, was just. Actively trying not to read their behaviours as intentional or malicious. When i was irritated by someone, looking at their behaviours (when not avoiding then entirely) through the lens of "ugh look at them doing x or y because of z" would always actively make me more angry or frustrated, be almost purely speculative, and seep into things that were probably actually innocuous, and with no benefit. Going "they're doing x" but actively avoiding speculating that it was for an intentional reason helped a ton with bringing "they're doing x and it fills me with rage" down to "they're doing x which is not to my taste but oh well". Like. You're allowed to be irritated and not mesh well with some online personalities you see, but I'd REALLY advise against assigning intention/malice towards these things that frustrate you.)

(I guess I could elaborate on why i think the pop culture thing is occasionally played up for the bit but is largely genuine- people exist online in DRASTICALLY different ways- but i dont know how much that actually matters to you, lol.)

On your first point, yeah I forgot the “anti” part of the tag. I’ll fix it, though it will still show up in her take since her name is in it.

And Reddit doesn’t have tags so I can’t really curate anything there, unfortunately.

And when I do see her in a video, I do try to not see malice in her actions, and I usually don’t, but it’s still too much for me. Like just her presence annoys me. I can’t help it, but even her just standing around bothers me. Like yeah I get that everyone else finds Sarah Christ to be the pinnacle of comedy, but I don’t get the jokes so I don’t find her funny. I get that she’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t see it. I don’t mind that others enjoy it, though. I mind that they’re gatekeeping feelings.

But thank you for hearing me out and being civil. Smosh Reddit is not as wholesome as they want to be (I literally have about 3 different people right now attacking my username on Reddit for commenting that I don’t find the “Amanda doesn’t know the internet” bit funny).

[phoenixyfriend]

Having some vague thoughts about 'characters Obi-Wan is given Chemistry with' and how the girls are white blonds and the men are people of color.

IDK what to do with this other than something about intentional chemistry being deliberately set up with a Traditional Love Interest and the unintentional being with Just Some Guy so the racism isn't forced in. There's not a direction to take this in, even for analysis, because the sample size is so small and it's just an accidental pattern at least partially based in 'the only girls in the prequels with any lines at all in more than one movie, or development on screen at all, are Shmi and Padme.'

TCW and Legends have more girls with more character development, but those are love interests added after the fact, and since the characters are very deliberately written/animated with chemistry in mind or not, instead of being reliant on actor chemistry or having an element of 'the character's race was undefined until we cast someone'... I don't know. It makes the decision for Obi-Wan's love interests being white blondes a lot more deliberate, while two of the three male characters I'm thinking of were live-action and I still have no idea where to take this.

The love interests I have on my mind in discussing this: Satine and Siri vs. Quinlan, Bail, arguably Jango

I'm excluding Anakin and Qui-Gon, because that's YMMV as hell because [gestures at the arguments over whether it's chemistry or family bickering], and Ventress, who is blonde, but she isn't even human/near-human so race-related analyses don't really apply.