#In something completely unrelated to what youre saying youre an authority in no less.

[cripplecharacters]

Regarding fictional disabilities: since there is no way to research a disability that doesn’t exist, how do you go about writing it in a way that makes it good rep and not offensive? For some context specific to my story, magic based abilities are biological rather than learnt and can manifest at any age, though if it develops at a young age it can cause development issues or brain injuries. One of my characters experienced this and developed a power that was psychological in nature, but because he was so young and couldn’t cope with the actual power, it left him with memory and intellectual problems. I was originally looking into stuff like dissociative amnesia or maybe even alzheimers but since the symptoms don’t fully line up I can’t just rely on it completely. My overall point here is that if resources for a fictional disability don’t exist, how can you write it while still taking into consideration real life disabilities? My bad if this is worded weirdly, I tried to keep it as specific as possible without delving into the full on details of the story and character. Have a nice day!:3

Hi!

First rule would be to not do harm. So not propagating misinformation or nonsense about the real life disabilities that the fictional one resembles (here that would probably be pediatric brain injury and/or intellectual disability). I don't think anyone expects realistic representation from a made up condition that they don't have but if you're deciding to associate it with one that's real, you have to be mindful of it. Even if it's a fictionalized version of a developmental disability you can't just go (example, not trying to insinuate you want to do that) "this character is an adult but is mentally 4 because of this fictional disorder that is made up and totally not close to anything IRL so it's ok to say", it would just look pretentious to pretend that it's something completely unrelated to a real disability if the character has symptoms that strongly align with one.

If your fictional condition is made of symptoms that exist in real life (but maybe not for the same reasons/don't really exist together) try to research them one by one. If he has memory problems, research how this specifically affects people with it - Alzheimer's comes with a myriad of other things that might give you an incorrect idea on how just that one symptom presents. For brain injuries, check what parts of the brain do what - damage to different parts might cause very different symptoms. You can read about this here in the context of strokes. Having an actual symptom list of things that your character has will be more helpful than thinking of it as "condition x if it was condition b/ condition c if it didn't have [major part]", even if that's how it's explained in-universe to help the other characters/readers get it - you as the author should know the ins and outs so that you can actually keep track of how your character functions and not have continuity errors.

It'd also be interesting to figure out what other symptoms this kind of scenario could cause that didn't happen to this one character (unless he's the only person this happened to). Developmental disability is a really big spectrum, and so are memory problems. I imagine that there would be other people more and less disabled than him who would have the same condition - this could affect how his is seen in-universe. Is he a very mild case, and not receiving the kind of support he needs because it's "not that bad"? Or is he on the severe end, and other people pity him and send condolences to his family? Think about the grander scheme of things.

I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[ark-fork]

💌Love letters; 👨‍🌾content farm

Recently, a situation happened to my blogger friend that really pissed me off. It took me some time to put my thoughts in order and think about what I wanted to convey in this "podcast".

(Yes, this column is back because you, beloved and dear anons and not only, are constantly doing something crazy)

To begin with, let's start with something less complicated and scary but just unpleasant.

🔴Declarations of love to bloggers \ flirting with them.

Okay, I think this already sounds crazy, for the simple reason that you confess your love to a media personality in their inbox.

To begin with, this is not just strange - but also rude to some extent because a blogger does not always want such attention to themself. Many of them already have their soulmate in life, which is why most declarations of love or flirting are considered ignorance and an unpleasant event.

But still, the prevailing part of them may simply not be looking for a relationship here. Therefore, the best solution would be NOT to TRY to impose your feelings on them and not talk about it.

(Considering that some of you actually write something like: "Haha, I'm obviously going to regret this decision later, but I'll do it anyway because I want to").

If you like this blogger and personality, keep your flirting and declarations of love to yourself. You will spoil your relationship with them in this way. It's stupid and embarrassing for both of you if you still admit your feelings to him. Damn it, there may be a hundred, a hundred, or more of you who want to confess to them!

Ahem, I hope the general point can be grasped because I'm not so good at talking about anything and simply expressing my feelings about the situation as a whole and, for the most part, being hot on the head.

🟠Accusing someone of making low-grade content.

This particular situation infuriated me the most.

Now, I want to talk about what "content farm" is and what they are eaten with.

To begin with, the content farms are YouTube channels that strive for more views on this site and get to the recommendation pages for your kids. These are common unflattering animated videos with questionable context contained in them.

Their distinctive feature is repeated stock images of characters, stolen pictures, and designs, interweaving characters from completely unrelated works with the one based on which they make their videos.

Well, I hope this brief description of what content farms are is enough.

I don't understand people who see the obvious, admiration for the author of any show and create their content with care and soul, investing ideas and efforts, and accuse them of being one of these pathetic bastards from YouTube who absolutely don't give a fuck what they release on the platform, caring only about views and clickbait.

Before you write insults to the author in the anonymous mode in their inbox, think a little, damn it. Just think how much you insult a person who is burning with their art and ideas by saying such words to them while under the guise of anonymity, a fucking coward.

[mypoisonedvine]

I hate hate hate having to talk about this stuff because I know 98% of y'all are not the problem, and the remaining 2% are probably not going to care in the slightest. but I need to set some boundaries and explain why I'm getting frustrated before any more resentment builds.

I've been writing for cillian murphy characters since july 26 when I posted 'thoughtless', since then I've released well over one hundred thousand words of content for him. I'm not exaggerating, I counted. it's been five and a half weeks and I've posted 14 full-length one shots which means I'm posting more than twice a week. that's not even including drabbles/requests.

I'm getting concerned that this has set a precedent that people are holding me to and I'm getting annoyed by the entitlement in some of my asks and comments.

first things first, and I know nobody means anything bad by this but it's pissing me off: stop using the phrase "full smut" in your requests, it's driving me crazy. this started abruptly after I posted a bunch of drabbles in one sitting based on y'all's ideas and requests. I did that as a way to try out new ideas and appease people who hadn't had their concepts written about yet. instead of people being happy with what I wrote for them, people got frustrated that the drabbles were drabble-length and not thousands of words long like my full fics (which take me several days to write, rather than an hour or less which is the point of short requests). ever since, people won't stop coming into my inbox talking about making a "full smut" for a certain character or idea as if they're terrified that I'll only post something short. I usually don't post short things. I feel now like those drabbles were a colossal waste of time because all they did was make people afraid I wouldn't write longer stuff; I wanted to open requests again because I had fun, but now I feel like it's a bad idea because it'll just leave people frustrated when they see it's not whatever a "full smut" is and then tell me it's incomplete and I need to write more. a short drabble can very well be a complete story. stop asking for "full smut" PLEASE. just tell me what you're interested in reading and trust that, as the author, I will tell the story in the correct length of time.

secondly, the way people are asking for stories about new characters is getting out of control. I think you guys don't realize that I only post less than half of the asks I get, because they are so repetitive and constant. I have literally over 2000 unanswered asks currently. if I answered all the asks I received, I would lose followers because it clogs the dash and half of them are the same questions.

and I'm just gonna say this one explicitly: please stop asking me to write for cillian's character in the movie 'anna'. I'm not saying that I won't or that I don't want to. but I need you to understand that I get easily 3-5 asks a DAY about this character and I am exhausted. I'm not particularly interested in watching the movie. not only does it look like it's probably just not that good, but on a very personal note, I am in recovery for an eating disorder (and relapsed recently) and I just... don't wanna watch a movie with a runway model in the leading role right now. I'm sorry if that feels like body shaming or something but I've been waiting until I feel like I can watch it without feeling sick or enraged. it should come as a surprise to no one who is familiar with my work that I'm not a particularly mentally healthy person. but that's only part of it; I answered asks about this character for a while saying I wanted to write for him eventually, but I had to stop because people just asked about him every day anyways without reading my very recent posts with the same question. I'm still not ruling it out. I'm just warning you guys that it will be a while.

people are now commenting requests for new characters ON MY CURRENT FICS FOR UNRELATED CHARACTERS. how entitled and dense do you have to be to do that? I can't believe this has to be said, but comments on my fics should be... related to the content of the fic you're commenting on.

to be clear, I'm not mad at anyone for doing this stuff (except that last one, that's unforgivably ridiculous) because I think the intentions are pure. but now that I've explained why this stuff bothers me, I'm asking you to put a little more thought into how you phrase your questions and comments. to be clear: for the most part I feel incredibly supported and appreciated here and I've been very impressed by this fandom's ability to not be morality police and manage their own content consumption. a lot of you have reached out with concern about the speed at which I was producing and I totally understand and value that. I honestly think I can keep up that pace for a little while longer... I just wanted to explain why I'm getting a little irritated and hopefully decrease the amount of asks I get repeating the same two or three things.

so, tl;dr -- I've been having a lot of fun writing and I plan to keep doing it as much as I can. some people are spoiling the fun for everyone by being (usually unintentionally) entitled and impatient. I don't mind you guys showing enthusiasm for things you'd like to see from me, in fact it's helpful because it tells me what might get a good reception. but please be thoughtful in how you make these requests and please support what I've already written if you want to see more. I think non-writers have a hard time understanding how inspiration works (hell, even writers don't really understand it in ourselves lol) and so it kinda just seems like if I can write about one thing I can write about any thing. but I only write so much and so fast because I write what speaks to me and not other people's ideas. again, thank you so much for all the love and support this past month!!

p.s. I also get asks multiple times a day asking when I will post a fic, especially if I've announced it. I always post fics between 4 and 5 PM central US time. I would recommend calculating when that is for you and I promise you'll find me posting very reliably at this time on days I have fics announced. hopefully this saves us all some trouble in the future lmao

[shirshik72]

BiTomas week

Day 7. Onsen/Hot Springs

Author's notes: the characters' images are taken from the classic games and supplemented with my headcannons. This is completely unrelated to "Mortal Kombat 1" (2023).

Bi is acting a little uncanonical here, but that's only because he's a lovesick idiot pretending that he can do anything

The hot waters of thermal springs caress the body of a tired ninja, allowing him, at least for a while, to forget about the difficulties and vicissitudes of fate that he has to face almost every day. After a tiring workout, there is nothing better than immersing yourself in hot water and, closing your eyes, enjoying the fresh air of the mountain forests.

For the perfect picture, all that was needed was one charming man nearby. However, for some mysterious reason he refused to dive with him, and was now sunbathing under the rays of the cold sun. At 10 degrees below zero. These cryomancers are amazing people after all.

— Bi Han, — Tomas drawled melodiously, admiring his lover’s half—naked body.

— What do you want? — Sub-Zero responds, lazily opening his eyes.

— Climb in with me.

— No, you come out to me.

— I’d be glad, but I’ll freeze quickly, — Smoke says, throwing up his hands. — Come on, you better come to me. You'll warm up a little.

Bi Han tilts his head to the side and examines the water for a long time, trying to evaluate something. He looks first at Tomas, then at the water, then back at Tomas. A strange silence hung in the air, which Smoke had not yet decided to break. However, Bi Han’s slowness gave rise to vague doubts in his soul. There was something fishy here, but that's what it was... Was he really up to something?

Sub-Zero walked closer to Smoke, looking down at him.

— Are you talking about coming to you?

— Well, if you want, — the guy answered less confidently, feeling strange misgivings.

— I want to, — Bi Han nodded, looking frantically at the clouds of steam forming on the water surface.

— Then climb, — Tomas winked encouragingly.

Waking up from a long contemplation of the frosty haze, Bi Han took a couple of hesitant steps forward, slowly plunging into the mineral waters.

—Are you afraid of this water, or what? — Smoke grins mercilessly, observing his lover’s unusual indecisiveness and slowness.

— No, — he growls roughly, almost snarling. With one sharp movement, he is completely immersed in the water.

— Everything is fine?

— Yes, — Sub—Zero notes, exhaling. — Sorry for being rude... I got nervous.

—Well, okay, — Tomas grunts in response. —I hope you can relax now.

— Next to you, I certainly can, — the cryomancer whispers velvety, hugging his lover with both arms.

Smoke, flattered by the compliment, smiles carefree, feeling cold kisses melting on his hot skin. Bi Han kisses often, drawing intricate patterns on someone else's body that only he can understand. This goes by minute by minute. Slowly but surely the intensity of caresses decreases, and at a certain moment they completely disappear, leaving behind only a pleasant feeling of sensual and tender love.

Enjoying the minutes of blissful relaxation, Tomas mentally notes that Bi Han has become much hotter and, for some reason, is lying motionless. Looking at Sub—Zero's face, he noted with horror that it had become crimson red.

— Bi Han? Everything is fine?

The guy did not respond and still lay motionless on his shoulder. Then Tomas became wary, trying to push him away, but this did not help. Sub—Zero did not react in any way to external stimuli.

— Bi! Wake up! — Tomas screamed, completely confused.

Trying to pull himself together, he exhaled. Guided by intuition, Smoke emerged from the water and pulled Sub-Zero out of there. Bi Han seems to have simply overheated and lost consciousness. The guess seemed to calm Tomas, because this way he could at least guess how to proceed.

Laying him on his back on the cold ground, Smoke began to revive Sub—Zero by rubbing snow over his body. After several painfully long minutes, Bi Han finally opened his eyes, slowly coming to his senses.

— Everything is fine? — Tomas asked worriedly.

— I’m sorry,— Bi Han squeezed out, peering into his lover’s anxious face. — I shouldn’t have... I just... wanted to be closer to you, — he muttered. With every minute his babble only became more and more inarticulate.

— Silly, — Tomas said tenderly, exhaling calmly. It seems like everything worked out fine.

Postscript: I am not an English-speaking person and this is my first experience in writing a literary text in a foreign language. I apologize in advance for all my mistakes in this text and ask you to point them out in the comments or personal messages. Thanks a lot in advance to everyone!

For this wonderful week and no less wonderful BiTomas, thank @bitomas-week. It was an amazing experience that was truly very valuable to me. Many thanks to everyone who read, liked, reposted, etc. This is priceless to me.

[subzeroiceskater]

I like how a bunch of my works has author's notes on a bunch of contest entries that's pretty much begging people to comment if they're interested in seeing it continues that's been up for years and I never had one person say, "yes, please continue." It was kinder for me to think that the hits were all just people hitting back from seeing how shit the art/dialogue/whatever are, or the impersonal online scrapes hitting whatever works they find.

But then I get shit like two(three maybe) people leaving kudos on an obviously broken/fucked work and I'm "why. do you think you're doing me favors by ignoring the hurting, seething person or it was never me at all. it's just spark man made a funny face once and that's 'kudos' worthy"

Like, yeah, I can be happy that for the first time someone left a few comments that seemed to genuinely love my past works, one in particular I never expected to get anything, much less have someone else 'get' it, to have finally have someone put it in their bookmarks, in public and not hide away in their private because they feel it doesn't fit their public aesthetic, or it's their guilty pleasure or they're secretly dissing it in private (apparently that's what some people do with private bookmarks. I'm almost sure that's what happened with my Yuletide gift augh). Like, someone put it in their bookmarks! Publicly! Because they said it touched their heart! I can be happy about those.

But still feel angry and resentful because nothing has fundamentally changed, has it. It's telling that the only person who ever told they wanted to see more of something I posted was 1) from a completed work/scenario 2)that I didn't even tag them. I didn't even know they were on ao3. how the fuck did they find a backdated 2020 work so quickly 3)they didn't even fucking a stupidass like. No they left a stupidass kudos on unrelated work I posted at the same time that had nothing to do with them. Like of all the works I made...the joke concept sketch gets your precious kudos? fuck. Also, she said only "a part" of her wants to the whole story. A fucking part. Not even just "it would be nice to see more". Well, I can't fault her for not being exact in her opinion of my stuff. Which is half-hearted.

I've just been holding this for months. Years. Yes, I was and am still happy for the comments and kudos and unashamed bookmarks but it still fucking hurts.

Archive of my own failures. Fuck.

Yes, I've considered many, many times that I'm just a bad writer. Nobody has to read whatever dumb shit I put up. I'm just fucking angry that really, "bringing out???" If anything that deserved 0 hits/views/kudos, it's that shit.

[fanficallergy]

Hello! This is the admin from thgfanfictionlibrary (backup account for the library)! I just wanted to let you know that I responded to your reblog question/concern under the active authors part 5 post. Below is the reply:

Hello! I'm sorry that you felt you were deliberately excluded from the lists-that is 100% not the case! I'm sorry to hear that you're undergoing cancer treatments and that people have been nasty to you online as well, that is truly terrible on both fronts. I pulled these lists directly from the page of authors I created (which you are present on!) BUT I missed the "a" for active in your tagging for the listing despite having you as an active author! I've remedied the issue and you are now tagged as an active author using the tagging filter on that page. I've also added your listing to the current "active authors" post that is in my draft for when I have ten active authors. Again, I'm sorry that you felt you were excluded on purpose, that wasn't the case it was simply a coding error on my end! Sometimes things just slip through the cracks when I'm coding and I don't pick up on it!

-----

The page system I'm referring to is "Libraryofauthors" in case you wanted to take a look at it. Again, I'm sorry that you felt I had intentionally excluded you for one reason or another but I did have you listed, it just slipped through my coding when I was inputting the tags into it. Sorry about that! Let me know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns and I'll be happy to update anything! (Also as an FYI I haven't gone back through after making that page to update the information I've added since late August of 2023 so if it says something is incomplete that is now complete or if your popular fic is different now that's why! I'll be updating probably mid-march when I have a little more time!)

Thank you for addressing this. ^_^

I figured it had been a mistake and not a deliberate slight, but it still felt not great, you know? Especially since there is a huge stigma where people stop reading your fics or commenting when they think you're inactive. Comments and feedback are the only currency we as authors receive and the feedback which often encourages us to write more (especially if it is more than just a "write more!" or "When's the next update!") can really feed our ability to write and to write with joy such that we want to share our work. Without that feedback, people give up. Decide the effort isn't worth the reward and really do stop writing in the fandom or at all.

Feedback matters and authors who are considered inactive get less feedback. People can have very good reasons for not updating and it can make them feel unwanted and unwelcome if they get tagged as inactive in their fandoms. In my case, I've been fighting 3 different, unrelated cancers since 2021, and while I've updated and written in that time, most of my energy has been devoted to my health and work so I can pay for health things. I know of other authors in this fandom who are going through major deaths in the family (parents/spouse), domestic abuse, or new parenthood all of which eat into someone's ability to update/write.

I kind of feel that the authors should make that distinction themselves (ie. state that they are on hiatus) or the length of time between declaring someone as inactive needs to be lengthened... A year feels short to me unless the author has declared a hiatus or died... because I do feel that death does put a damper on someone's update schedule. ~_^ From chatting with @rosefyrefyre we tend to consider a fic/author on hiatus if they haven't updated since 2020, and we allow for longer delays because of COVID, Real life, and the world going to hell right now.

I also understand that this is YOUR blog and you can decide what works best for it. I don't get to dictate what you do do on your blog. ^_^ I do appreciate you doing this in your free time, it has to be a lot of work. I also appreciate that we, as authors, are often easily upset or can get defensive. So dealing with all of the personalities can be tough.

So once again, thank you for addressing the error and correcting it. I do appreciate all of the work you're putting into this.

[patchesjam]

Do people actually think genloss is going to be A Big Thing? Bc last time I checked Ranboo does not have the big audience or the big streamer network they'd need to pull that off. Also, coming from a writer, I have A Lot Of Doubt in his ability to tell a cohesive story. Like I know the DSMP isn't a great example (since it was written on the fly and all) but like... Tommy and Dream figured it out - so did Bad and Hannah and the other Eggpire peeps. Phil gave us some closure, too. But nooooo Ranboo got bored of the server so he had to jump the shark and kill off his character out of nowhere even though Wilbur still needed him for lore. So like. What happens when he inevitably gets bored of genloss? What then? Will it remain unfinished, or will he just start throwing random angst at it in an attempt to get attention? If he behaves how I think he will, then he's worse than 13 year old me writing RotBTD fanfiction. Because at least I gave them endings and stuff, even though they were written 100% without any foresight whatsoever. Basically I have no faith in them whatsoever to tell compelling stories, I hate their fanbase and their fan's extreme radical ideology and excessive bulling behavior, and I mostly hate their 'I'm morally superior to everyone else' attitude. Also I still don't know what went on between them and Tubbo - because I kind of get Mean Girls vibes from the whole situation and it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Unrelated to the rest of the ask: Thoughts on Dream copying other YouTubers and hiring a bunch of actors to localize his vids into Spanish?

oooo a long one :)

i saw a lot of boobers say that sorta thing when the dsmp was in big talks again, like 'ranboo has moved on to Bigger and Better things' and them bragging about how it will leave the fandom and that he doesnt need dream + dsmp for relevancy. i see less of it now because i block anyone who mildly pisses me off on twitter - so basically every boober.

and yeah the streamer network thing is interesting because i was thinking this the other day, all of dtkq, tubbo, foolish etc have quite a lot of good relationships and connections to actual streamer streamers (hasan, rae, sykkuno, ludwig) and ranboo + co seem to very much stick in that group, ranboo and whoever he decides are his friends for that month. i never see them in anything more widely twitch related which is interesting and imo a sign of short longevity

as for the writing.... yeah. i think he will go the way of angst. i personally think that he seems to have very little overall idea for the actual concept and storyline a year into planning so i have little faith in that. its like when authors go 'oooo i want to write a teen fantasy novel' and then try to make a random plot to fit the genre. i could be wrong though shrug.

its been said a thousand times before but one little minor slip up from ranboo will lead to a massacre. i used to feel sorry for him about this but he truly did it to himself being a spineless bastard and never calling people out on their shit. it was easy enough to say 'pwease stop being racist' and he fucked that up 3 times.

annnnd finally i dont know if he's done that already or just something your questioning but its interesting... I dont think he'd get as much out of it as other youtubers because, due to excellent concepts and editing esp for manhunts theyre completely watchable without knowing english. obviously you miss a bit but cool plays are universal. i still think it would be interesting to see though, and it wouldnt hurt at all so i could see him doing that at some point. i think he might not though because he is so protective of his work and still edits everything himself, might not want that, so not sure!

[eresia-catara]



Seeing as you seem to be the expert and legal mother of Guido Cavalcanti, I'd like to know what sources you'd recommend for researching him. I'd really like to look more into his works and history but kinda have no idea where to start.

Yes, hello, I'm glad to answer you in the role of his legal mother and I'm happy you want to get to know this beautiful poet!

So, it really depends on which language(s) you can read

If you know italian: you're in luck! because (obvioulsy) most of the important papers are in italian and they're the ones I know best.

I think that the best way is to start simple: read his Wikipedia page, just to get a veery basic understanding of him and kinda get a feel of the subject. Buy the book of his complete poems and get acquainted with his writing and the thoughts/interpretations of the curator (I would suggest the BUR version or the one curated by Domenico De Robertis. Ideally, I'd get both), have fun developing deranged thoughts and let him speak to you! This should be a pleasure, not a task :)

Online there are also lots of papers freely available, so if a particular topic or detail intrests you, google it and you'll probably find something; particularly there's an app called Academia, which offers many documents for free, here, for example, are a few:

L'incredulità di Cavcanti

La Vita Nuova e le Rime. Sul rapporto tra Dante e Guido

Sul Canto X dell'Inferno e Guido

Sulla poetica di Guido

(you don't need to read them right away, these go more in depth on the subjects, so it depends on you)

And on YouTube I recommend a video to understand some basics of what critics suppose is Guido's philosophy (suggestion: fish back your knowledge on Aristoteles, particularly the basic concepts of his "metaphysics" and then his work on the soul):

Su Averroè e la filosofia musulmana

Finally, here are some names of authoritative critics who offer interesting points of view:

De Robertis, De Sanctis, Contini, Corti, Barbi, Malato, Ciccuto.

You'll soon realize two things:

1. It's impossible to not talk about Dante and his works to understand Guido, so the number of sources will expand quite a bit!

2. there are lots of diffrent and contradicting interpretations on him so as a general tip: be open! Don't discard an opinion immediately but give it a chance, ponder it! (and I think this is a general rule for any type of study xD).

A little unrelated, but not too much, I recommend the books:

- La moglie di Dante by Marina Marazza. I'm particularly fond of this book because it's what got me into Guido Cavalcanti and it offers two important things: a sense of what life was back then in Florence and a female point of view, particularly from a woman who is often (unfortunately) forgotten in history, Gemma Donati (mind you, there are a few made up details because it's a story, but don't be deceived, it's overall accurate!). However it's not a must, because Guido is a side character.

- Eternal War by Livio Gambarini. It exists both in Italian and English, its a series of four fantasy books on Guido and Dante. It offers you an alternative version of reality if their respective beliefs both concretely existed, and it's amazing (mind you, this comes from someone who doesn't like fantasy xD)! You can also find lots of references to their literay works, so you can have fun spotting them! Bonus point: the author low key ships them 👀 These books too, however, are not a must, so only read them if you find them interesting. ^^

Anyway, I cried a little at the end of both lol so read at your own discretion (actually, the first book made me cry twice).

As for english sources, I'm afraid I'm not informed enough, but from what I've seen I find they're usually less accurate, especially the american ones (perhaps because italian literature is very diffrent from theirs). However I'm not saying there are no good sources. If someone, in fact, knows some feel free to add them! I would also like to read them :)

(Btw, I'm also working on a pdf of Guido's complete poems translated in English + footnotes, if you're interested. The translation will be as close to the original text as possible)

On the other hand, I believe french sources are valid too, so if you know French you can give a look, but I can't point you in any specific direction since I only read a few French papers and that's it (I don't speak French, I only partly understand it because it's similar to italian, and latin also helps me jsksj).

So uhh I hope this is a decent starter pack, thank you for the ask! >3

[manonamora-if]

Retrospective 2022 (2)

See Part 1 of the retrospective and the overall graphic of 2022 here.

2021 had been a bit of a weird year for me (though it did give me the wonderful world of IF), with a lot of change. So I was glad 2022 was bit more... chill (kinda). I've dived so much deeper in IF and learned so freaking much in the past 12 months.

Long post ahead, breaking it here.

2022 Goals

Last year I only had a few goals: publish Scene 2 of CRWL, submit TTTT to the IF Comp, publish the demo of TTATEH and making Tweego my b*tch.

I am happy to say I've completed all these goals... and then some!

CRWL was updated not just once, but 3 times (with the last one including a bunch of re-writes.

I managed to submit TTTT to the IF Comp (for better for worse).

TTATEH's demo was up for Halloween (with 2 full chapters no less!)

Tweego is not a scary thing that I never managed to make work anymore (I even made an asset pack and guide to make it easy for everyone else)

So what's the extra?

I went from having essentially 3 working projects to 9-ish published ones, with the addition of: SPS Iron Hammer, The Thick Table Tavern, La Petite Mort (FR), The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt, Goncharov Escapes!, P-Rix - Space Trucker (and Le Jeu de la Dévotion - FR). All links are here.

I started getting my hands dirty with JavaScript (I know, the horror) and more customisation with CSS, and working on adding more accessibility in my projects (visual and gameplay wise).

Got more active in the community (here with Interact-IF, and on discord, and on the Forum... oh, as a note support your authors)

I've started sharing my little silly knowledge of Twine, by creating templates, and guides, and tutorials, and sharing resources.

Also organising my first Comp! (@seedcomp-if) with other peeps from the IF Forum. And we did that in 14 days! (kinda want to create more fun jams too now...)

Got into some trends, with one that resulted in the creation of the really bad idea that is @if-confessions.

And probably more that I forgot about...

Even then...

Part of me feels like it's not been enough, like I haven't been enough, like what I put out wasn't good enough. I've been struggling with insecurity and imposter syndrome for a long time, so this is not new, but it's still there, spiking once in a while, when I really don't need it to.

The slow but consistent increase of negative anons in my inbox (bound to happen with more people following/sharing my content) have made some days very hard to deal with (still, it could be much worse... even the hate from the leaks hasn't been too bad). It's hard not to feel emotional when something you are passionate about or something you do is getting egged on for not good reason. And it's not just the content of the messages (most are not even original...), but the amount of them. Honestly, it is infuriating and tiring (thank gosh for blocking...). It's also a bit hard when there is more negative than positive interactions in my inbox/replies...

Another thing that got me was the little to no progress I've made on both EC or CRWL. I had planned on releasing updates for both this semester, but I've been stuck in front of a blank page for both, or writing and re-writing the same sentence over an over again. Hadn't I distracted myself with other small projects, I would have done the same thing as last year and peaced out for months again...

And then I wrote it all down. I went through all my projects, all the posts I made and put it together that infographic, created and nice timeline... and I realised I was a bit dramatic about feeling like I haven't done enough.

At the end, there were only two months (April and May) which didn't have any publication of games, assets, guides, or update, and that was because CRWL was in re-write/beta. Even if I didn't focus my time on one project throughout the year like I maybe should have, there was on average something out there every month (almost 2x a month by the end).

Yay for unrelenting insecurities! (also, don't try to do as much as I did, I'm struggling with juggling all these projects, it's not sustainable)

2022 Achievements and Milestones

Not only did I reach last year's goals, I achieved a bunch of other stuff!

I published 6(-ish) new games/demos this year! And updated the other 3! I lost track of the count, but it wouldn't surprise me if I wrote somewhere around 100-200k words this year (maybe even more than 300k considering all I cut/re-wrote)...

I started experimenting with custom visual and macros (and editing other people's macro). Working on TTTT (and the update of EC) taught me so much about design and coding, and going much further with Twine!

With this newfound knowledge, I made my first template!

Got to learn how to use a bunch new Twine macros and tested a handful of different gameplay to incorporate in bigger projects.

Tweego. That's it.

I've seen my follower count essentially doubled this past year on both itch and Tumblr (getting close to 1k!).

All my games reached some sort of play milestone (from thousands to couple of thousands). More on that in the stats post, there's a lot.

I haven gotten more reviews and feedback on my projects than last year (the jams and comps have helped!) and in general more interactions with my posts. It's been so useful to grow as a creator and improve myself in general!

I reached 1st and 3rd place on a competition!

And participating in the IFComp was an achievement in and of itself!

And I'll add it here too: I helped organised a comp in 14 days! A proper one, not a spur of the moment jam, with an actual website and rules and stuff! (Now, I want to organise more!)

Honestly, I wouldn't have imagined at the start of the year how much I would end up doing this year, how much I would learn and grow, how much I would experience through it all. I got to climb that steep learning curve in coding, finding more about my voice in writing, designing some cool stuff, and share my love for the creative medium. Had someone shown me all I did this year back at the start of 2022, I wouldn't have believed them...

I feel very blessed to have been able to work on all these projects throughout the year and have gotten such positive reaction for each of them (and such help, to find wonderful people in this community and calling them my friends, and to interact with very passionate and helpful veterans in the genre and learn so much from them.

This year had some very high highs and quite low lows, but it has also been a very wonderful and fulfilling year overall! It makes me so excited for the new year and see what it has in store... (though I know of a few things already...)

[literaticat]

An agent read my whole novel in less than two days and professed how much they loved it via email. But they spent an hour on the phone pointing out all they didn't like about it, completely ripping it apart, and suggesting I make it more like other (insert mostly unrelated bestsellers here) in an R&R. It really felt like they didn't like it. Their notes are also very contradictory - e.g. they suggested first deleting a side character, then making them a co-main-character (dual narrator)! What???

I'm sorry to say I wasn't listening in and haven't read the notes and don't have secret insight into what was said or what was meant by two anonymous strangers. :-)

With all due respect -- while I am NOT suggesting that your version of this is in ANY way "wrong", you are feeling your feelings and that's fine -- could it be that actually, they weren't "ripping it apart" on the phone? That actually, they were just providing... normal editorial feedback, and you were in a sensitive place and received it badly?

Like for example, lots of authors I know will look at something like, say, a book review -- even if it is a STARRED review and glowing in every other respect, if there's ONE LINE that is "negative" they will focus on that to the exclusion of everything kind that was said. Sometimes authors can be very raw and vulnerable about criticism, even if they THINK they are tough old buzzards with leather skin. This is why I suggest often taking a beat to absorb editorial feedback.

Again - I am NOT saying that this is what is going on here. Maybe this agent is a total dipshit with bad, wrong ideas who is contradicting themselves left right and center. (In which case, by all means don't do an R&R for them!)

But... I just hear this kind of complaint SO MUCH from authors, where they get their editorial letter from the publisher and it is 15 pages long and feels like nothing but wall to wall criticism, and they will cry and ask me WHY DID THE EDITOR EVEN BUY THIS IF THEY HATE IT SO MUCH?????????? --- And then I read it and it's literally, like, 13 pages of compliments and 1.5 pages of fairly reasonable edits, and maybe a couple of "big but not insurmountable" edits. And when the author has taken a couple of days to sleep on it, they realize that it's all totally doable and smart, actually.

(See also this question from a couple days ago)

[pigagainstsuicidism]

And to be clear, not just epistemic authority on our experiences with transmisogyny, but denying that we have expertise on anything that we would normally be considered experts on had we not been affected by transmisogyny. Here's an example from a few days ago, actually, that it's been itching to publish and analyze just as a showcase of how a typical discussion of transmisogyny between TMA and TME people can go. This happened pretty much right after it made an account and talked about transmisogyny, and normally it would just summarize it all into a paragraph but nobody looks at this blog so it really doesn't have to worry about length over comprehensiveness or whatever. it need not subject itself to the trauma of having left something unsaid about an experience it went through.

If anyone does come across this, no need to worry yourself with this full rant, it'll plop in a summary or something at the end.

Background

it made this post about the distinction between two different kinds of privilege that are often conflated. There's the privilege one has in terms of access to resources they need, and there's this privilege one has in terms of power to control someone else. When people stand to benefit from their position on some axis of oppression over someone else, they often emphasize the former kind of privilege over the latter.

The example it gave was like when, as a BIPOC, it points out white supremacy in an org and the people responsible for that white supremacy defend themselves by going "I am a transmasculine fem nonbinary neurodivergent obsessive compulsive chronically ill culturally Jewish non-monogamous demiromantic..."

They're emphasizing that they have a ton of marginalizations that deny them access, which is completely unrelated to their power to asymmetrically threaten and control BIPOC in their spaces.

A More Popular Blogger Replies

In response, a TME trans person with more followers (for context, it just joined this website and has basically no followers and no interactions on any of its posts) sends a reply doing the exact thing it described, reducing its claim that TME trans people have power over TMA people to, quote, "trans women have a Special kind of oppression that is worse than yours which is why you have power over them."

So let's pause here to acknowledge a few things.

First, it put a disclaimer in its post to make it clear it was not denying that transmasculine people face systemic oppression specific to transmasculine people. More than that: it affirmed it! As Cat Harsis once pointed out, almost every post by TMA people about transmisogyny comes with a disclaimer begging to not be isolated and harrassed off the internet to the effect of "I'm just talking about transmisogyny, I'm not saying anything about the experience of others!" but how often do you see a disclaimer like that from TME trans people talking about TMA-TME dynamics?

Second, let's name how the notion that pointing out how some people have power over others counts as "ranking oppressions" is a tired cliché by this point.

But third, and this is the central point at this juncture, its post and disclaimer were precisely about this exact phenomenon! The conflation between these two things! And then, upon conflating these two things, they then justify the very response it's criticizing as conflating these two things--of course that response makes sense when you conflate these two things! The very point being made here is those two things are being conflated!

it more or less points this out.

Denying Epistemic Authority Over Transmisogyny

Some back and forth happens, a lot of it is what you expect.

But yeah, we're going to skip over a lot to edit this conversation down to eventually get to the point.

So again, there's a few things to name here.

First, saying some are oppressed and others are their oppressor is a binary is, it's gotta give it to them, way more explicit than most people who make the "this is a binary!" point. Literally pitting themself against any oppressor/oppressed dynamic. People usually dogwhistle their way around the fact that they are fundamentally doing the "but all acknowledgment of power dynamics along axes of oppression is reductive!" cliché. But here we are.

Second, you're not seeing things! it consistently uses its own pronouns, but clearly, they're not going to budge on degendering it with "you/your" unless it finally sticks its neck out there and demands they don't do that.

Third, they conflate TME with transmasculinity, when its original post was about TME people as well as TME trans people, and it was not talking about transmasc people specifically. Funny how refusing to honor the terminology of those you have power over leads to distorting their claims.

But fourth, and this is the central point, they express incredulity at its experiences. To quote a previous post it's made, "it's been unhoused seven times this last two years because it joined a variety of different friend groups, orgs, etc. and literally zero, ZERO of the dozens of TME trans folks it met were mobbed out, while A THIRD of the TMA folks it met were mobbed out, often including it! And when, because we live in rape culture, there would be regular assaults and consent violations and just overall lack of observation of radical consent culture, TMA folks bringing up what TME trans folks did to them would get harassed and dismissed even by other TMA folks while when the reverse happened TMA folks were often mobbed out before the TME trans folks even asked for anything. A horrible situation for everyone that we will never, ever resolve unless we acknowledge that this pattern EXISTS." This is just stuff it was directly there for. If you just try and read about experiences from TMA people internationally and across time, there is undeniably a pattern that TME people, including TME trans people, benefit off of. There is an asymmetry of power. But fundamentally, it is being denied the fact that any of its experiences or any of what it's read counts as evidence, that it has anything that counts in favor of it having any sort of expertise on the matter. it cannot be taken seriously.

Denying Epistemic Authority Tout Court

And then we reach the full expression of transmisogyny and anti-survivorship. Denying that it has any understanding of anything it has experience with.

its experience with anti-survivorship

For context, it has been in radical anti-abuse and pro-survivor advocacy for eight years, and fighting abuse culture and resisting abusers for eight years comes with knowing a thing here and there about anti-survivorship and what it looks like. But as a warning to any TWOC out there, no matter how long you do this, you will literally never be taken seriously and you'll always have a target on your back.

Centering victims and fighting abusers for eight years doesn't just mean (though it includes) arguing against abuse culture surrounding high profile abuse cases (such as when Paul McCartney abused Linda McCartney and Heather Mills and then DARVO'd Heather Mills to hell), but also identifying who has power over who and dedicating yourself to punching up however they need you to in your day-to-day life.

This means learning a great deal about how a wide range of power dynamics express themselves, how DARVO looks, what upwards vs. downwards violence looks like. It means picking up on anti-survivorship tropes, it means daring to not blame, to even praise victims who lie, who cheat, who use force to resist the abuse they are facing without succumbing to myths of "mutual abuse" or nasty clichés like "oh they deserved each other, honestly!"

The argument continues

To get to where we can see how all of that experience can be meaningless when you're TMA and BIPOC it'll need to summarize a huuuge segment of the conversation.

Basically, it finally explicitly demands that the degendering stop, as well as responding to their points about "oppressor/oppressed" binaries by pointing out how we can acknowledge the suicidist dynamic between suicidal and non-suicidal people without erasing the experiences of the suicide-curious, the passively suicidal, etc.

They respond to it calling them out on degendering with incredulity, say that acknowledging these dynamics (they use the example of Black and non-Black people (they are not Black)) is reductionist and leaves no room for talking about any other dynamics within those dynamics, and they continue misgendering and degendering it, and also hound it for not responding to their points (due to being triggered by them violating it, very trauma-informed and consent culture aware /s).

it explains to them patiently over the course of like a dozen replies how degendering is transmisogynistic because they can retaliate in ways it cannot, and how if they are being genuine in their ignorance then it's extremely anti-consent culture to find out they've been violating it and respond with incredulity and then just keep going without checking in and figuring out what it needs to not be further violated.

They say they don't appreciate being portrayed as this awful person who intentionally misgenders transfems and they promise it was just an accident, they didn't understand its pronouns, blah blah blah.

Anti-survivorship

Here is where it begins pointing out all of their anti-survivorship, which they universally didn't take it seriously on. First, "You have to assume good faith, you can't accuse someone of acting in bad faith!" is anti-survivorship. You are demanding that those more vulnerable deny an important tool they have in resisting those more powerful than them: their instinct for when they are being manipulated.

Second, bringing up what you intended or not without prompt when someone points out how you've violated them or helped yourself to an oppressive norm is anti-survivorship.

Third, when you've harmed someone, centering your self-image as a decent person who would never intend harm over what you did to them is anti-survivorship. You rule out immediately that the fact that you harmed someone and they couldn't harm you has to do with how your experiences shaped each of your reflexive responses, shaped who is afraid of who, etc.

Fourth, they did a bunch of word salad around how they were incredulous but they weren't doubling down, the way abusers do that "No I wasn't expressing anger or violent intent, just, frustration and wanting to fix the problem!" thing.

They responded by misgendering it some more (of course), saying oops I'm still accidentally degendering! saying they would never want to trigger it and they're sorry, and then saying that if it always assumes that everyone is out to get it like this that "it is going to have a very terrible time interacting with other people. Good luck with that."

THAT IS ANTI-SURVIVORSHIP. Like, the whole "hmmm, you're saying all these people keep abusing you, in all of these orgs and relationships, but have you thought about how you're the common denominator?" THAT'S ABUSE APOLOGIA. That's punishing victims for honing their instincts and accurately identifying abuse across the dynamics they find themselves in over time.

it made a disclaimer (there's that damned disclaimer again) that it wasn't even saying they were doing what they were doing intentionally, but that that was anti-survivorship too.

They responded by saying "it's just being a dick at this point," and then it screenshotted everything because abusers always remove your access to their messages at a point like this. And that instinct paid off because, well, three guesses what they did right after it screenshotted everything just in case (of what, it does not know, but its instincts exist for a reason).

Conclusion and Summary

So to be clear, this is in the worst case scenario an abuser with conscious, malicious intent. It is, in the best case scenario, a TME trans person who fundamentally does not take anyone who is TMA seriously even if they've studied and experienced something for a fucking decade. They did not take it seriously when it pointed out their patterns of anti-survivorship, of anti-consent culture, of anti-trauma awareness. it had zero epistemic authority in any domain, not just when it pointed out the transmisogyny of them degendering it with impunity.

That is brazen transmisogyny, and it is what you have to expect when you are TMA and make an account on any social media site. Even with virtually no followers, it could not keep its head under the radar.

Keep in mind that this person could not see how any of this was transmisogynistic or anti-survivorship the next time a TME trans person asks "where's the evidence of transmisogyny?"

The most widespread form of transmisogyny within the queer community is denying trans women epistemic authority.

Which means: people do not believe us on our own experiences. They frequently assume any and all oppression we face must be mild or must simply be anti-effeminacy instead of "real misogyny". We are considered to be exaggerating the material consequences of bigotry on us and assumed to not experience various harms that we in fact do, including medical misogyny, sexual violence, CSA, being infantilized and dismissed, being inadequately represented (since most popular depictions of us are cissexist caricatures and do not authentically portray our lived realities!), and more besides.

Perhaps the most hysteria inducing aspect of this is being told that our testimony is not frequently dismissed, BY PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTIVELY DISMISSING OUR TESTIMONY ON HOW MUCH MISOGYNY AND DEGENDERING AND VIOLENCE WE EXPERIENCE.

We are not "new to oppression". We do not have to be taught what it is like to be feminized and dehumanized under patriarchy. We are painfully familiar with how misogyny operates and experience it regularly, in addition to having to justify even to "our" communities that we do in fact experience it!

That, my friends, is the core of transmisogyny: being dehumanized while being denied the right to even name one's oppression or have it be acknowledged as such!

[navelgrazing]

Can she make it to more than 1 post??

I follow someone on tiktok/IG who speaks a lot about autism, how capitalism forces overwork and there really is no such thing as lazy- somewhat unrelated they had a TT about how to work the algorithms in your favor by flooding it with signals. so anything that’s even mildly interesting- like it, share it, comment, etc. they didn’t go into it much but it makes sense from my understanding of SM platforms from my perch in an adjacent field- fewer signals raise the importance or focus on those signals as they collate you into useful groupings to advertise to. but lots and lots and lots of signals, especially of unrelated topics or activities or whatever, yes, put you into the mix for more potential types of advertising but they also make the advertising you receive less intensely focused on purchasing stupid shit that you put into your cart once. 

All this to say I have started applying that to email newsletters (I have always pulled for email as a channel and, boy, is it funny to watch it become super relevant again at least in terms of content/thought distribution.) Also email is actually regulated through CAN-SPAM so you can actually select who you no longer want to be targeted by and there’s just less unchosen noise. Aaaanyways, all of that to say one of the newsletters I signed up for recently is called #1000wordsofsummer in which the organizing author/writer sends daily emails for 30 days to write a thousand words each day. In each day’s email, she includes inspiration/thoughts as well as letters and advice from contributors. I am MASSIVELY behind- but it did get me to start these meandering posts so there’s that. yesterday’s email had a letter from the author, kiese layman, who I follow and is very accomplished (they don’t just hand out those MacArthur genius grants I don’t think, not that we are wed to traditional or visible forms of accomplishment) and the visceral expression around how he feels about people now after all we’ve been through in the last few years (but also forever):

I’m so scared of people, Jami. I’m so disappointed in us. And I’m asking you if you feel this feeling much. I avoid people now at all costs. I’m just terrified of who we are, who I am, and I wonder how to do the work we have chosen while being terrified of people and petrified of their touch. This letter has far more to do with money and intimacy and feeling good than I’m comfortable writing, but if you want to write back, can you tell me if you still love people.  

Im not scared of my people but I am scared for them. and yes, everyone else, I have lost what little faith I had in things like goodness and fairness. Truly, this jaundiced feeling is not new, it has the texture of familiar cloth, but the all encompassing nature of it’s harsh truth- that is newly crystallized. Money, intimacy and feeling good. It was hard to write when my daily realities were perhaps harder but I shared them more completely with others, it is even harder to compound those feelings of failure when the whole wide world seems to be falling off a cliff. I used to be able to point to something- trump, COVID, whatever but now it just feels like the grey texture of reality. maybe the challenge then is to write that- the truth of what I'm living through now. A line from one of my favorite movies, end of the affair, rings so true- Pain is easy to write. In pain we're all drabbly individual. Now what can one write about happiness?

[c-is-for-circinate]

Wait, isn't "anti" stuff more like "anti-pedophilia" and stuff? Like, you have a point about anti-porn attitudes, but from what I've heard just "anti" on its own means against stuff like kid porn and incest porn and legitimately f*cked up sh*t like that.

Okay!  So this, I think, is actually a great example of what I was talking about, and a really useful thing to understand.  (CW rape, child abuse, etc)

Smarter people than me have written much better essays about why policing thoughtcrimes is a bad road to go down, and I will probably reblog some of them next time they cross my dash for more context.  What I want to talk about is the trigger mechanism, the ‘oh, this looks like danger!!!’ immune response in how we look at different kinds of porn, and how that applies to anti culture.

Here’s the thing: I am anti-pedophilia.  I think that, for most people, that’s a stance that largely goes without saying!  Adults who prey on children are bad.  I’m also against incest; relatives who prey on their family members are bad.  Above all I oppose rape.  Sexual predation of any kind is bad.  In fact, I’d say that’s the most important item on the list.  There is plenty of room to argue about where the lines are between ‘adult’ and ‘child’ and how teenagers fit in the middle, and there’s plenty of room to get historical about the lines between ethically terrible incest, distasteful-but-bearable “aristocratic inbreeding” between distant cousins, and the kind of consanguinity that tends to develop in a small town where everyone’s vaguely related to everyone else by now anyway.  The core of the issue is consent, and it has always been consent.  Pedophilia and incest are horrific because they are rape scenarios where the abuser has far more power and their victim far fewer resources to cope, both practically and emotionally; because harm to children is, to us as a culture, worse than harm to adults, for a lot of very valid reasons; and because they constitute betrayal of trust the victim should have been able to put in their abuser as well as rape--but they are all rape scenarios, and that’s why they’re awful. 

These things are bad.  It is good for us to have a social immune response system that recognizes these things when they’re happening and insists we step in.  That is a good thing to develop!  It helps us, as a society.  It can help the people being victimized.  It’s the same reason educators and childcare workers in the US are all mandated reporters, why we do background checks on people working near kids.  These things happen, and they’re terrible, and it’s good that we try to be aware and prepared for them.  (Though obviously studies show we’re a lot less good at protecting the vulnerable than we’d like to pretend we are.)

The question is: why does that same social immune response trigger, and trigger so angrily, in response to fiction?

Anti culture is fundamentally an expression of that social immune response.  Specifically, it’s that social immune response when it is set off by a situation that, while it has some similarities to the very bad real-life crime of sexual predation including pedophilia and incest, is in and of itself harmless.

If you’re instinct is to flare up in anger or dismissiveness because I’m calling these things harmless, I want to ask you to just take a deep breath and bear with me for a bit longer.  What you’re feeling right now is an allergic reaction.

Humans tell and read and listen to stories about “legitimately fucked up shit” all the time.  It’s part of the human condition.  It’s part of how we process those things happening, not just to use, but to other people in the world around us.  It’s part of how we process completely unrelated fucked-up shit, playing with fears and furies and insecurities that we all have, through so may layers of fiction that we don’t even recognize them any more, playing with power dynamics in metaphor and making characters suffer for fun.  Aside from the fact that literally all stories do this to some extent or another; aside from the fact that drawing lines between ‘ok that’s good storytelling’ and ‘that’s too fucked-up to write about’ is arbitrary, subjective, and dangerous in its own right; aside from all of that, these stories are stories.  All of them. 

Even the ones about rape, about incest, about pedophilia.  They’re words on a page.  No real children were harmed, touched, or even glanced at in the making of this work of fiction.  This story, pornographic though it may be, is part of a conversation between consenting adults.  (And if a teenager lies about their age to consent, that is a different problem altogether.)

Stories in and of themselves, no matter what they’re about, are no more dangerous than a crate full of oranges.  Which is to say: utterly harmless, unless all you have to eat is oranges, all day every day, and you find yourself dying slowly of nutrient deficiency--which is why representation matters.  Or unless someone wields one deliberately, violently, as a tool to cause harm, and someone gets acid in their eye--which is the fault of the person holding the orange. And unless you happen to be allergic to citrus.

The key here is this twofold understanding:  First, the thing that hurts you can also have value to others.  Real, legitimate value.  Whether you’ve undergone trauma and certain story elements are straight-up PTSD triggers or you just don’t like orange juice, that story, those tropes, that crate of oranges may be somewhere between icky and fundamentally abhorrent--but we understand that that is still your reaction.  Even if you don’t understand how anybody could ever enjoy it; even if every single person you surround yourself with is as sensitive and disgusted and itchy about this thing that makes your eyes hurt and your throat stop working as you; that doesn’t make it true for everyone.  That doesn’t make oranges poisonous.  No real children were involved in the writing of this story.  It is words on a page.

But, secondly: the thing that has value to others can also hurt you.  Just because a story isn’t inherently poison doesn’t mean it can’t cause you, personally, pain.  That’s what a PTSD trigger is: an allergic reaction, psychological anaphylaxis, a brain that’s trying so hard to protect its own from a threat that isn’t actually present (but was once, and the brain is trained to respond) that it causes far more harm and misery than the trigger itself possibly could.  And no, it’s not just people with PTSD who sometimes get hurt by stories.  There are many, many ways a story can poke the part of your brain that says, this is Bad, I don’t like this, I don’t want to be here.  The story is still, always, every time, pixels on a screen and ink on paper.  The story causes no physical harm.  But it can poke your brain into misery, it can stir up your emotions, it can make you want to cringe and run away.  It can make you want to scream and fight and go after the author who brought this thing into existence.  It can make you hurt.

This is an allergic reaction.  This is your brain and body, your reflexes and instincts, trying to protect you from something that isn’t really happening.  And just like a literal allergic reaction, it can do actual harm to you if it gets set off.  This is real.  The fact that stories can upset you to the point of pain and mental/emotional injury is real, even though it’s coming from your own brain and not the story itself.  There are stories you shouldn’t read.  There are stories I shouldn’t read, regret reading, will never read, because they hurt me.  That doesn’t mean they’re the same stories that would hurt you.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

And, finally:

If getting upset about stories is fundamentally an individual person’s allergic reaction, their brain freaking out and firing off painful survival instincts in the face of a thing that isn’t, in and of itself, a threat?  Then the anti movement is a cultural allergic reaction.

Fandom as a whole has a pretty active immune system, which doesn’t mean we have a good immune system.  We try very hard to be aware of all the viruses and -isms and abuse and manipulation and cruelty, both systematic and individual, that exists around and within our community.  We’re primed and ready to shout about things at all times.  The anti movement is that system, that culture, screaming and shouting and fighting at a harmless thing on a grand scale.  It wants to stop that thing, that scary awful thing that trips all of its well-primed danger sensors, at all costs.  It’ll swell up and block off our airways (our archives) if it has to.  It’ll turn on the body it came from.  It’s scared and protective and trying to fight, and it’s ready to fight and destroy itself.

Luckily, fans and fanfic and fandom and fan culture are a lot bigger and older than they often get credit for, and it’s not like these cultural allergies are anything new.  We could talk about shippers and slashers in the X-Files fandom in the 90s.  We could talk about the birth of fandom in the days of Star Trek.  We could talk about censorship and book burning going back centuries.  We survived that and we’ll survive this, too.

But god, does the anti movement my throat and eyes itch.  Man is it irritating, and sometimes a little suffocating, to realize how many stories just aren’t getting told out of fear of what the antis will say.  And that’s the real danger, I think.  What are we losing that would have so much value to someone?  What are we missing out?

[violetmuses]

Fly Away - Maverick

TITLE: “Fly Away” || Pete "Maverick" Mitchell  

FANDOM: “Top Gun” (1986 Film)

CHARACTER: Pete “Maverick” Mitchell

MAIN PAIRING: Pete "Maverick" Mitchell + Female Reader  

MAIN STORYLINE: You, another bright civilian specialist, catch Maverick’s eye during training. 

Author’s Note: Hey! Wrote this short drabble for 1986 Pete. Feedback would be greatly appreciated and thanks so much for reading my work as always. - V. 💜

Main Masterlist 💜

Tagging: @fangirl0917 @fanboygarcia @ginghampearlsnsweettea @the-untamed-soul

_________

1986 

Aviation training continues for Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, but not without its qualms or slumps. 

For whatever reason, ever since Charlie has walked off base, most of the other specialists seem less than appealing, which made this learning process drag even longer than anything warranted. 

Days later though, something changes. 

“Hello, everyone.” Smiling towards this audience for only a moment, you introduce yourself after writing down your own name on the green chalkboard that perches not far away. 

As you carry on with today’s lecture, both Maverick and Rooster straighten their posture while squeezing themselves into desk chairs. Everyone else is at least hiding away while sitting down, especially students wearing caps or taking notes. 

Once again, this airfield hangar is loud and hectic as usual, but Maverick focuses on you, smoothly intrigued. On the other hand, Rooster squirms in his own chair, barely holding sunglasses and looking slack jawed because of you. 

“Any questions?” You offer the inquiry after clapping both hands together to complete the lecture. 

For now, it takes everything within Maverick not to bite his lip. You look so damn pretty, smiling at a time when most of these people would much rather get drunk instead of sitting through hot air and not flying. 

“Ma’am?” Maverick lifts two fingers of his hand and you quickly notice the Lieutenant's gesture with respect. 

“Yes, Lieutenant Mitchell?” You acknowledge Maverick by rank as expected, but squint through the unrelenting sunlight found overhead. 

“If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind explaining another topic? I’m struggling with my notes.” Thumbing one pen in his hand, Maverick engages in a full-blown staring contest while slyly pursing his lip towards you. Even Rooster and comrades whistle downward. 

You clear your throat, playing along with his game in an effort to stay professional. There’s no other choice and you can’t risk losing this short placement on the base, especially considering a generous payout for teaching. 

“What are you struggling with, Lieutenant?” You ask, facing Maverick without so much as flinching this time. 

“I’m missing something, Ma’am.” Maverick licks his lips , still daring you and Rooster glances from another desk to cheer him on. 

“What exactly are you missing from the notes, Lieutenant Mitchell?” You then narrow both eyes towards Maverick, still puzzled. 

“I’m missing your phone number.” Maverick nearly whispers those words to you over the buzzed and aerial whirring of countless fighter jets. 

Mav’s comrades, including Rooster of course, damn-near fall out, either humored or immediately noting how suave but cheesy that line had been 

“Dismissed.” You say, moving this discussion over to uniformed or supervisors before commotion might derail scheduled plans. 

I knew it. You think, rolling both eyes as soon as it’s clear to leave for the afternoon. 

[alexseanchai]

[image: Bluesky post by hexadecibelle.bsky.social: "reminder: Harry Potter tattoos have a higher regret rate than trans surgeries and that's very funny actually"]

.

it is pretty straightforward that hexadecibelle is saying the percent of people-who-got-a-HP-tattoo who now regret it is higher than the percent of people-who-got-gender-affirmation-surgery who now regret it due to trans hate being less popular than trans affirmation, yes

and presumably also higher than the percent of people-who-got-a-tattoo who now regret it, since omitting that primes us to think this statement says something specific about the transphobia of HP, but for that exact reason, if the HP tattoo regret rate is the same or less than the tattoo regret rate generally, then that omission is using careful phrasing about accurate statistics to imply something inaccurate and thereby use misinformation to influence opinion

but I can't work out whether you're arguing that of course there's a higher regret rate for HP tattoos than trans surgeries, there's a higher regret rate for tattoos than for trans surgeries, or you're arguing that of course there's a higher regret rate for HP tattoos than trans surgeries, nobody regrets trans surgeries, or you're arguing that higher rate means higher total, not higher percent, and of course there's a higher total number of people who regret HP tattoos than trans surgeries, there's a higher total number of people who got HP tattoos than trans surgeries

which

It’s also important to note that we don’t really care about the crude number of people who regret transition, we care about the rate. If more people choose to transition, then more people, in total, will regret it. If the number of people transitioning goes from (to use arbitrary numbers) 1,000 to 100,000, but the number of people regretting it goes from 50 to 100, then the rate has dropped massively [from 5% to 1%] and it’s a very good thing, even though the crude number has doubled.

[...]

The issue here is that neither of these extremes are reliable estimates of regret. The 30 percent figure obviously does not map onto regret. Many people stop using their parent or partner’s health care for reasons completely unrelated to transition regret (i.e., divorce). And the studies of surgery in the review are mostly surgeons following up with their own patients, with quite high dropout rates. It’s not surprising that only 1 percent of people report to a surgeon who did an operation that they regret it!

(italics original)

so there's our gender affirmation care statistics and why none of those numbers are as useful as we want them to be

as for tattoos:

Most tattooed Americans do not regret getting a tattoo. But about a quarter (24%) say they ever regret getting one or more of their tattoos.

and I'm finding absolutely jack shit on HP-specific tattoo regret rate, just a bunch of news articles about different people who regret their HP tattoos enough to remove or redesign them to remove the association with the political views of HP's author, so I can be confident that that rate is not zero, but not much else

however, if we scroll down to the last line of table 1 in the study Slate cites for 13.1% of respondents detransitioned:

that thirteen percent is those who answered Yes instead of No to

Have you ever de-transitioned? In other words, have you ever gone back to living as your sex assigned at birth, at least for a while?

and of those 2242 people who answered yes, 371 said they'd had gender affirmation surgery, which is 16.5%; of the 14909 people who answered no, 33.8% had such surgery, which is 5044

which means, of the 5415 people who said they'd had gender affirmation surgery, 371 also said they detransitioned at some point, which is 6.9%

which is enough less than 24% that yeah, unless people are much less likely to regret HP tattoos than non-HP tattoos, then it seems really likely that hexadecibelle is correct about which of regret rate for HP tattoos and regret rate for gender affirmation surgeries is greater!

and it is indeed hilarious!

thank you for attending my ted talk

[iwanttofuckereh69]

What's your opinion on the shinichiro theory still? Honestly, I still believe it. People are saying that hemorrhagia has " left " because her theory got " disproven" but actually, her account has been like this for atleast a week before shinichiro being a time leaper was even exposed. I've spent so long trying to explain it to someone even today lmao

Hello!

First off, I had no idea there were such things circulating about hemorrhagia supposedly “leaving”. As you said, she hasn't been active since before the “Shin is a time leaper” chapter. And from what I know it is a completely unrelated thing. Don’t people realize others have lives outside of tumblr? Lmao 

Although, damn, i wish she was back, i just know the hot takes would be immaculate

As for the theory itself, I don't know really. It seems less and less likely to me. More information got revealed that are kind of conflicting and the theory itself seems like a bit of a stretch now 

That’s the short answer for you. But I have much more to say under the cut. Sorry anon, you have opened Pandora's box.

TW: THAT shin theory (i don’t talk about anything explicit), TR spoilers

I feel like there are a couple of things the theory was right about though. Maybe not the main points that were made, but there were several takes that showed the (not so) obvious. 

that shin is going to be important some way or another

And, guess what, he totally is. Up until recently he was nothing. He meant nothing and was already dead when the story started. And yet, he was there, always lingering in the background, which was a clue that he had a much bigger role in all this mess than we had originally thought. And, safe to say, I don't think I would pick on that myself so kudos to the author.

that shin is not as good as he is painted

Maybe he is not necessarily a bad guy… but either way he didn’t have much issue with killing a random homeless person. Which is pretty fucked up if you ask me, no matter his reasoning. He didn’t even care to listen to the guy, he just bashed his skull open. It would be easy to give in to all the narration surrounding Shin and portraying him as the kindest human to ever exist. And yet, we found out that he killed a man. Sure, he was losing his mind at this point, he was in so much despair. But grieving people don’t go around killing anyone usually. So again, kudos to the author for questioning the narration and pointing out that we know nothing about that guy aside from all the praises other people were saying about him. And those may not be a reliable source of information.

that there is something icky about the way shinichiro is described vs how he really is

Again, maybe it has nothing to do with the themes that were originally stated in the theory, but hey. We clearly saw the same man that was described as being “a weak king” (if i remember correctly), that always lost and that couldn’t fight… bend a fucking metal post and crack a concrete wall. Not to mention beating the hell out of all these people in the bar. So… what was that all about. Why is he thought to be some kind of a weakling whereas he clearly knew how to fight? The story tells us one thing to then show us another. And kudos for the author again, for telling us way ahead that we shouldn’t take everything that is being said at face value. And to be honest maybe this also applies to Wakasa telling us Shinichiro’s story. Maybe. Who knows at this point.

The theory was  thus brilliant at making us question things shown in the manga. And damn it was fun ever since.

And there are still gaps in canon material that the theory was filling so goddamn well. For example:

Shin and Izana relationship still seems wacky as fuck.

Their relationship is fucked up and there is something clearly missing here. Why wouldn’t he tell anyone about Izana - why would it be such a secret, why wouldn’t Shin make it possible for him to meet at least Emma, the girl he grew up with? Furthermore, Izana’s reaction to finding out Shinichiro isn’t blood related to him seems a bit over the top - because why should it matter if Shin was there for him regardless of that, he says that himself even, yet Izana is still unreasonably mad. Just like hemorrhagia stated in the theory:

“I’m sure it might feel crushing to find out you aren’t actually related to your sibling, but Izana already considered Kakucho like a brother to him.  So, why is Shinichiro different?  Why is Izana so upset?  He asks why Shinichiro even came to him. 

Shinichiro taught him everything, about bikes, about fashion, how to style his hair,  how to fight, how to smile.

Why is all of that null and void now?  Is it because his ‘love’ is something bad that Izana could tell himself was okay, because Shinichiro gave him a family (a family of only Shinichiro), but can’t reconcile it if they aren’t even related?  Is it because that ‘love’ wasn’t coming from a brother, but just some random guy?”

Why did Izana and Mikey develop a bond so strong to the point that in the Bonten timeline Mikey is literally imitating Izana?

“He basically becomes a clone of Izana in the Bonten timeline, despite their only interactions being Izana going out of his way to completely destroy him. He had Emma murdered.”

The explanation provided by the theory’s framework fit perfectly here. It would be understandable if they bonded so much because they went through similarly traumatic shit. But if we take that out of the equation, we are left with another missing piece. 

Why would Mikey develop such a strong bond with Izana over the brief interaction they had during the tenjiku fight? Sure, he thought of Izana as his brother. Yeah, he didn’t care about them not being blood related. Yeah, at this point he had lost all his siblings and was desperate to have a brother, a family of any sort.

But they don’t have any memories together. They didn’t grow close together through years like Mikey did with Emma or any of his friends. And Izana was responsible for murdering Mikey’s sister. Who he cared about. Who he wanted to protect. Izana was responsible for her death. Yet for Mikey this brief encounter they had was enough to forgive him for that. To find understanding and empathy for him. And to decide that he is - in a way - going to carry Izana’s legacy from this point on. 

He only emulates people dear to him. Emma, Baji, Draken. And Izana for some reason. It just doesn’t really make sense to me the way it is portrayed as of now. I feel like there is something missing about the bond between Mikey and Izana. I wish it would be addressed in the manga eventually and we wouldn’t be left with just that. The theory explained it well in my opinion. It made Mikey’s actions more understandable for me. 

“By the time the conflict with Tenjiku happens, Mikey has already seen the letters Izana wrote, and Izana always knew about Mikey. I think Mikey reaches out to Izana as a brother, not just because Emma has just died and he doesn’t want to lose more family, despite the fact that Izana had her killed, but because of their shared trauma from Shinichiro.

In another life, Taiju says that Mikey trusted Izana more than anyone, more than Draken. The question is posed, ‘Why would Mikey trust Izana so much, what happened?’ I think they shared the same secret.”

Maybe, possibly, most likely the theory is horseshit. But still there has to be something more to this bond Mikey and Izana shared. I hope there is. Because the way their relationship is portrayed as of now is not convincing enough for me. Its superficial. 

We still have no idea what made Mikey hurt Haruchiyo in such horrible way

We have seen this scene from like three angles by now (at this point i just wait for Baji to be resurrected just to tell the same story once again and then die) AND WE STILL DON’T KNOW SHIT

Just that Mikey didn’t know why he did that and that he suddenly found himself already having hurt Haru. But then what provoked him? The fact that Senju told him that it was Sanzu who destroyed his toy plane? Really? I think that if there is one thing the whole fandom can agree upon (other than the Haitanis being hot) it is that it couldn’t be just about the plane. And even if it was Dark Impulsivity, whatever that may be (because we still don’t know anything about that…) it doesn’t explain shit, because even when DI is involved, there always (i think) is a reason for Mikey to act out.

It was shown to us that Mikey doesn’t care about his possessions. He busted his own scooter because he cared more about Baji (and we coincidentally are reminded of this situation in the recent chapters 272 and 273, right after we saw the plane incident yet again). I mean he could have grown up to be like that, it could be the lesson he learned from the situation with Sanzu. But still, it’s so unlikely that it would all be just about the toy fucking plane… There must be something missing here for fuck’s sake. 

Why on earth shinichiro knows Inui and why does he hang out with a kid 10 or so years younger than him?

We still didn’t get an answer to that! Should I just take it as it is and convince myself it’s normal? My sister is 10 years younger than me. I can’t fathom the idea of hanging out with her friends, let alone a random child her age. But I mean maybe, maybe if I squint real hard… Inui was going through some tough shit back then. Maybe he found comfort around Shin and the first gen BD’s. Maybe Shin was taking care of him when nobody else would. But fuck, its still icky and I don’t like it at all. Found family is an awesome thing but not when one person is 12 or something, an impressionable little kid with little to no support system (apparently), and the other is an adult. There is so much room for abuse of power here and I don’t like it.

“It’s not weird to have an older mentor, but there has to be something connecting you to that person, like a sibling, or a social program, or a family connection, but there’s just nothing connecting them, and that’s weird.“

  And why would Shin (supposedly) call for Mikey to get to the shop at 3 am? Still it doesn't make sense no matter how you put it lmao

  Mikey changing clothes suddenly doesn't make sense as well as other weird things that are happening to his memory. Him not remembering Izana or remembering things differently to other people or bikes disappearing from his memories. There is a big emphasis on memories in this manga and how different people may remember things differently. So I can’t imagine it all being mistakes when at the same time in the same manga we have Hakkai situation. If we analyze what is happening when hakkai tells Michi his version of the story, we can actually pick up that he is lying based on the background not making sense in relation to what he is saying. 

(there was this post somewhere about that but i can't find it hhhhhhhhhhhhhh if anyone got it please feel free to send me the link)

So, concluding this unnecessary rambling

The theory itself might not be true. Maybe some of the points don’t hold up anymore, given the newest information we got. Maybe the main bit about Shin being the bad guy doing that specific thing is not that plausible anymore since we got to know more about him, but there still were very good observations made that still hold true and I think the author should have been given credit for that.

It also points out several questions we still didn’t get a coherent answer for. And… to be frank, I don’t think we ever will given that we supposedly have only five chapters left. And that makes me sad. But it also will leave room for further interpretation, when the manga inevitably concludes and I don’t think it’s such a bad thing after all (although damn i'm going to be so disappointed)

I just wish we would be answered in the canon material. But, well. We will see how it goes. 

Concluding the conclusion: I don’t think it's plausible anymore, but I still think there is a value in that theory. 

What are your thoughts on this, anon? Hope I didn’t bore you to death ♥