#It took me so long to make a post about this painting and Tumblr didn't let me publish it.

[t0rschlusspan1k]

Barbara van Beck (1629 – c. 1668)

The Guardian: 'High-status' portrait of bearded woman bought by Wellcome Collection

On 15 September 1657 the diarist John Evelyn had a conversation with an intelligent, cultured German woman, dressed in the height of fashion, who played beautifully to him on the harpsichord. She also had “a most prolix beard, & mustachios, with long locks of haire growing on the very middle of her nose, exactly like an Island Dog.” The Wellcome Collection in London has acquired a remarkable portrait painted a few years before their meeting, which shows Barbara van Beck exactly as Evelyn described her: composed, dignified, wearing a beautiful and expensive low-cut grey silk dress, with a lace collar tied with a scarlet bow, and more ribbons in her hair which was, Evelyn wrote, “neatly dress’d … of a bright browne & fine as well dressed flax”. “We dont know who painted the portrait, or where, when or for whom, but the point of it is Barbara’s dignity,” Angela McShane, Wellcome’s research development manager, said. “This is a beautifully executed high-status painting. She is not portrayed as a freak as the Victorians would have described her – as I often say when lecturing, you can blame the Victorians for most things – but as a woman with great self-possession and presence, painted at a time when she would have been viewed, as Evelyn saw her, as wonderful, a natural wonder.” “There is nothing titillating about her low-cut dress either, though we might now see it that way. She is dressed is in the highest fashion of the day and contemporary viewers would have recognised that.” Samuel Pepys, Evelyn’s contemporary and friend, also met a bearded woman in London in 1668. Some historians believe it was the same person, but McShane thinks this was another woman with a different condition. The diarist described her as “a little plain woman, a Dane, her name Ursula Dyan, about 40 years old, her voice like a little girl’s, with a beard as much as any man I ever saw, as black almost and grizzly”. Evelyn had been dragged in by friends to see a Turkish tightrope walker, and was surprised to meet Barbara, whom he described as “the hairy Maid, or Woman”. He had met her 20 years earlier when she was only eight, but already being exhibited by her parents. She was born Barbara Ursler in 1629 near Augsburg in Bavaria, one of several children but the only one with the condition – unlike the famous Gonzalez family a generation earlier who were all famously hairy – and spent periods living at the French and several Italian courts. Her parents exhibited her in travelling shows, but she clearly also acquired an education. By the time Evelyn met her, she was in London for at least the second time, and had travelled widely across Europe. She spoke several languages, and as she told Evelyn, had married a Dutchman called Michael von Beck. She told him she had “one child that was not hairy, nor were any of her parents or relations”. Evelyn compared her appearance to that of an Iceland dog, a fashionable shaggy lap dog of the day. “Her very Eyebrowes were combed upward, & all her forehead as thick & even as growes on any woman’s head, neatly dress’d. There come also two locks very long out of each eare … the rest of her body not so hairy yet exceedingly long in comparison, armes, neck, breast & back … & for the rest very well shaped, plaied well on the Harpsichord.” McShane said Evelyn’s description of the meeting was significant. “They had a proper conversation, he didn’t just stare at her. There is nothing of the cheap sideshow about it. This is an elegant entertainment for aristocrats.” [...]

[strelitzia-mystery1097]

What killed Macaque?

Well I was going to link my first post about this but I... can't find it. Like I checked over and over and tumblr keeps telling me I made no post about lmk which... is weird. I don't know if it was deleted or it's buried in the internet but that's... fine. Just kind of annoying that I can't find my own post.

Anyways I guess I should recap.

I have never liked the theories of 'Wukong didn't actually kill Macaque' or 'LBD changed Macaque's memories' or anything like that.

But also don't like when everything is blamed on Wukong and those Wukong haters and/or Macaque 'did nothing wrong' fans paint the whole situation as solely Wukong's fault.

Did Wukong make bad choices and mistakes. Yes.

But so did Macaque.

Their fallout is both their faults.

Macaque from season 4 is able to understand that the Brotherhood were on a path of destruction and were doomed but the Monk was able to lead Wukong down a different path.

But remember we saw in the scroll that the Brotherhood during the jttw believed that Wuking was a traitor and it was only Macaque not fully 100% believing it.

We know in the og jttw Macaque was less of his own character and more of a dark reflection of Wukong. But even then we shouldn't dismiss entirely what jttw Macaque did (except for cooking a Flower Fruit Mountain monkey because I think lmk would not make Macaque be so friendly with the FFM monkeys if that was canon in lmk).

Jttw Macaque impersonated Wukong, beat up the Monk, stole the group's supplies, took over Flower Fruit Mountain, declared that he was going to do the journey with the scriptures himself, and then got into a really long fight with the real Wukong and literally like only 2 people were able to tell who's the real one (Budda and like this lie detecting bull from the underworld?), and when Budda reveals Macaque's true form Wukong kills him.

So clearly some things will be different.

But I do believe that lmk Macaque would pretend to be Wukong and would try to befriend the Monk like in the jttw. Because Macaque at this point would try and figure out what's going on.

The last time he talked to the Monkey King they had a fight. So that's probably why he just doesn't ask Wukong directly.

Also we should probably account for how emotional and potentially unstable Macaque probably is at this point if his best friend is back and working for the enemy for some reason.

So he tries to figure out that reason. But the thing is that when Macaque pretends to Wukong, it's after a major fight between Wukong and the Monk so the kind Tang Sanzang is just not wanting to deal with Wukong even after he's being nice.

So all Macaque sees is this rude and mean Monk that bosses Wukong around. So yeah he beats the $hit out of this ungrateful Monk.

Plus he would extra angry if he knows about how the Monk uses the Circlet on Sukong and hurts his best friend to discipline him.

Then cut to Wukong finally fighting Macaque.

Wukong has learned to be better and is probably seeing how the Brotherhood and his past deeds were not great, and Macaque was a part of that past.

Macaque is probably extremely upset that Wukong is taking the Monk's side and is just abandoning and leaving him again. No it's worst, he's turning on Macaque to stop him.

So this fight is probably extremely emotionally harrowing, with both of them not communicating and just having breakdowns and/or shoving down their true wants.

I mean in season 5 from the glimpse we see of the fight, Wukong is begging Macaque to not do this while Macaque is just laughing. So yeah he's probably have a complete breakdown and is hiding it under his dramatic b%tch persona he perfects after his revival to not be vulnerable.

One way this could end is Wukong accidently killing Macaque in a fit of rage or to protect his new family. Instead of killing his dark reflection he's killing his past.

But I also saw this interesting theory by @Cherllyio where Macaque's weird probably chaos related powers + him losing control of himself and his emotions while having a breakdown = Macaque self destructing literally.

I definitely hope that whatever the answer ends up being, that it's a situation where there's blame on both sides. That it was a messy situation and there's regret and pain (sudden LBD flash) but now if they wanted to, the two can finally... talk.

[cochineal-leviat]

Sweet Dreams, Stardust

Okay, so I have a lot of feelings about In Stars and Time. But let me say first, wow, this game irreversibly changed my brain network. For anyone who is considering buying this game, please do. I don't think I've had a story touch my heart and mind like this for a long time. And that goes without mentioning the stunning visuals and entertaining battle system. (Be careful, though, because this game handles heavy topics regarding mental health)

If you're still hung up on buying it but are curious, there is a free demo on Steam if you like to try.

Thank you, @insertdisc5, for this gem of a game. I will be turning it around in my head like a microwaveable gourmet meal for months to come.

Technically the illustration has no spoilers (unless you count Siffrin having a good nap as a spoiler). But I will be going into heavy spoiler territory under the keep reading since I need to get my thoughts on this game off my chest.

And a monochrome version because you know me, I can't help myself. Even in black and white art pieces, I will put in some colour.

And a very tiny Loop

Initially, I was going to do a piece with a theatre stage and the cast (Siffrin, Mirabelle, Isabeau, Odile, Bonnie and the head house maiden) taking a bow and finally leaving the spectacle to a life not controlled by a script and Wish Craft. But it was more fitting to put my feelings into creating a peaceful scene. Like, oof, I needed this very badly. I used sepia to make the painting warmer and added some more details like headcanons. The stars/colours might be remnants of Siffrin's transformation. Or maybe they were always there, but he never paid attention to it. Who knows.

I'm going to keep this brief. Otherwise, this post will take way too long.

I adore Siff's character. It's perfect for a game and narrative such as this. I saw a post not long ago on Tumblr going into depth about how their role as the rogue and not the hero works so well, so I won't linger on it for long. But how they would rather listen and fade into the background perfectly aligns with the player's experience of being the silent observer. (And the nodding off that changes into zoning out. It took me way too long to realise that small but essential narrative change) Oh, and the portrait change! It flew over my head until I was staring at the game menu. I was so confident Siffrin had a mischievous grin and not a frown. I always feel slightly surprised when the party asks for Siff's opinion or mentions that they have been too quiet. I felt Siffrin's excitement like my own when he got excited at finding clues to end the nightmare they were in. So I knew it would end up falling on their face because they were too excited. I just had this bad gut feeling the whole time during Act 4.

And oh boy, speaking off acts. I thought it would have been the standard 3. Boy, I was wrong. Whenever I felt I was nearing the end, I was thrown back at the start with more mysteries than answers. It made exploring the game intriguing since there is almost no information about it online (at the time of writing this post). There is the Discord, but I didn't know about it until I finished it.

This game has a lot of secrets, and I had a lot of fun uncovering them. The looping mechanic works so well in discovering little details and further leads. (even though my stubborn arse kept trying to do everything in the least amount of loops as possible. I thought the ending would be different if I exceeded a 100. My final number is 59. I am still not sure if I should be mad about it not being a rounded number like 60 or that I went over the 50 threshold)

However, it is a good thing that only some mysteries were solved. Like, what's up with colours in this world? Everyone sees in black and white, and the idea of shades and colours is only spoken of in scientific studies. They do exist and are not a part of the disaster that happened to Siffrin and their land. But there is definitely something mysterious about it. I adore how the dialogue reflects this, as the characters do not speak of shades or colours. Isabeau expresses surprise to see a streak of red colouring the sky in Act 6. It makes you think about how colour is perceived and how you describe it. (The lore inside this game is immaculate. I eat this shit up)

We never find out the name of the country north of Vanguard or what it was like. We can only infer that the beaches had black sand, with shells that shine like stars, high-reaching mountains, forests and plains. Which is vague and yet intriguing enough to make you wonder. It connected me to Siff and King because I also wanted to know. I was desperate to know. I needed to know. But in the end, we never will know because that is not the story's point. Siffrin even says in the game, that King should let go because he is hurting everyone and everything, including himself, in his desperation to preserve Vanguard. This is all the more ironic when Siff accidentally does the same with his family and the loops. I might gush more about what the country might be like and their technology in another post. This game makes me want to theorise. This is the first time I've wanted to write and post theories. ISAT fucked me up good.

Which, by the way, was genius. Siffrin and King are mirrors of each other. Siff does not have King's disastrous ambition, but their love/obsession will be the downfall of both of them. They have more than being each other's countrymen in common, and I imagine Siff despises that.

I love the fact King's question to Siffrin before the showdown was/could never be answered. Usually, in a game such as this, you must figure out how to solve everything, especially for the big bad. But that was never the goal. King is a delusional monster who will not stop before achieving his dream. He will raze everything to the ground and hurt many people because he must succeed. It is what he desires. Nay, the universe wills it. What a witless excuse that can easily be made into someone's truth. Especially to somebody who is driven mad with grief.

How King's character's done is so excellent. Because, at first, I wasn't scared of him at all. He was just the big bad, and I felt nothing much but the glory of victory when Siffrin outsmarted him by looping and making sure Mirabelle learned the shield spell that would protect the party from freezing in time. But each time you fight him, you get more frustrated until Siff figures that talking to him might be fruitful. It does, but unfortunately, you and Siffrin leave yourself emotionally and mentally vulnerable. King stops being a one-dimensional villain and changes into an actual person. Someone you can sympathise with and possibly mend peace with without fighting. You and Siffrin opened his heart for a kindred spirit and got hurt.

King stopped being a monster and became human. And while monsters are wretched, humans have intent behind their cruelty. I felt so betrayed, so angry, but most of all - terrified. I felt it when Siffrin spiralled when fighting King again after their actions caused such a catastrophic turn of events for Bonnie. Every time after that, the fight with King felt tense and nerve-wracking in a dreadful way. Because even victory could not soothe the dread I felt. (The track 'It's finally over" will forever haunt me. I already feel anxious whenever it cycles to that when I listen to the playlist)

He was not, however, the final villain, even though everything that happened was King's fault. You were always your greatest enemy (or Siffrin in this case, since you are supposed to be Siffrin). I never could have guessed that the whole reason why Siffrin could not escape the loops was because Siff accidentally wished to never let go of their friends. This reminds me of Modaka Magica, where (spoilers for the OG anime) Homura goes back in time so much that the universe ties itself around Modoka, making her a waiting egg whose wish and magic will be massive when she becomes a magical girl. The one thing Homura was trying to prevent.

(Siffrin and Homura are identical in that sense. Shy characters who are loyal to a fault but are rendered into something cold, bitter and cutting by their traumatic experiences. Only Siff has people who care about them and would do anything to save him, too, whereas Homura never lets go, making the world a worse place to live in. Yes, I did go into doomed Yuri. That anime lived in my mind rent-free in my mind for years)

The Head House-maiden not being the villain was also a great touch. I am used to the apparent antagonist turning out not to be the big bad and the trusted, friendly character ending up being the evil one. Twist villains no longer work when everyone expects them to be villains.

That was my biggest theory as I played. The second biggest being that Loop is someone who enjoys Siffrin's suffering. I am so glad that was also not the case. They are apathetic but not cruel. Never intentionally, anyway. They were like the player, urging Siffrin to go deeper into the mystery to solve it. Ultimately, I chose and made cold and cruel decisions simply because I wanted to see what would happen. So yeah, I warmed up to this cosmic star thing as the game went on and even started trusting them. Act 5 really is a punch in the gut. I am so sorry, Loop. Thank you for coming through in the end.

Oh man, this is so long, and I haven't even gone into the main cast. I will leave that for another post. They are such great characters, as are the people of Dormant and the House. (Don't think I don't see the wordplay in this game. Very clever)

Going into this game completely blind was the best experience I could have had. I felt anxious, happy and scared so severely that my neurons were rearranged. I don't know if there are more endings (aside from the obvious action of attacking Odile in the True(?) ending of the game), but I am taking a break from it to make art and write for this game before I dive back into despair-o-land.

Anywho, thank you for coming this far and reading my ramblings. Have a fantastic day or evening further! o(*'▽`*)ブ

[hubristicassholefight]

Swordswoman Showdown Round 3

Malenia (Elden Ring) vs Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess)

(Better here in a "preferred character" sense, not "who would win in a fight")

Propaganda below cut

Malenia

She is arguably the hardest boss in any Fromsoft game.; She is the favorited boss of Animal from the Muppets.

"Arguably" the hardest boss in any fromsoft game? You don't even know. She is OBJECTIVELY the hardest boss in any fromsoft game. On march 1st 2023, a bit more than a full year since the game's release, From Software released the stats on the amount of attempts each boss took for the players collectively. As of march 1st 2023 Malenia has killed the players 329.000.000 times. That's 10 Tarnished every second. That's almost the entire population of the United States. Malenia is also an optional boss in a secluded area hidden away from everyone. According to PlayStation trophy statistics, only 37.9% of people who ever bought the game managed to even REACH Malenia in the first place. Which means among those 329.000.000 people she has obliterated were only the most dedicated of Fromsoft fans. Only 33.3% of people even managed to beat her. That number also includes everyone who beat her with summons, which makes her significantly easier. This means out of all people who bought the game on PlayStation 4 or 5 and reached Malenia which is about 3 million people, 377.000 just fucking dropped her, they didn't even do it with summons. Difficulty aside. Malenia is also extremely pretty and has the softest lips, her Goddess form looks like a painting. She fights with elegance and style unrivalled by any boss in the game, dancing through the battlefield with deadly, fluid motions. Malenia is also 256cm or 8'4" tall. Huge woman.

post let me solo her

#malenia is 8'4“ flat chested and broad shouldered#she kills you with incredible grace and poise#trans icon#id let her Waterfowl Dance on me and Infect Me with her Scarlet Rot...

#malenia is so dedicated to the sword it mends her failing body. she lives by fighting#her strongest attack is a technique that halts the progress of her terminal illness#i can never stop thinking about that. by all means she couldve rotted into a mile of mush before the game started#but she persists!! she persists!!!

#malenia blade of 15 layers of contradictory goals and personality traits summed up in like twelve total lines of dialogue#she's a stupidly good character but shes also a woman who did horrible things in a game with a deliberately vague narrative#so everyone just enters What A Bitch / Step On Me mode with her#as they are wont to do. the lowlives.#anyway what would happen if you hated yourself and successfully became someone who can do plenty of good#and yet the only way to live on and keep doing good would be to embrace the self who causes so much pain#but there's nothing left. so you wait and you rot and you keep telling yourself that you're still the self you love#and then you have to do it again. and now your conflictual agony is over because clearly you lost yourself long ago#and you look up knowing that you're the danger you've always feared you were. and you smile#and turn john eldenring into filet in 2 seconds flat

Xena

Warrior Princess

She wields a sword and chakram. Just had to submit a biconic swordswoman.

i love her. she made me gay as a kid. Anyway, her weapon of choice is her sword, she is obviously very good with it

#unfortunately i have to choose and i have to choose xena#a) utena had no warcry. b) xena fought gods. c) xena has kickass goofy comic book combat which is my favorite

xena didn’t just fight gods. she fucked up a girl’s life so bad that she (calisto) devoted her entire being to destroying everything that xena loved that ended up with calisto becoming a god in order to destroy xena, which didnt work because xena entombed her in lava. and then when xena and gabrielle encountered calisto in the (christian) afterlife (different from the greek one which they also fought her in), calisto dragged gabrielle to hell so xena became an archangel in order to save gabrielle and then sacrificed herself in order to undo all the harm that she did in calisto’s life and then when not!jesus (played by timothy omundson) revives xena and gabrielle, calisto impregnates xena with the reincarnation of calisto’s soul in order to end the cycle of hate. xena doesnt just fight gods. she creates and destroys them

#this isnt even mentioning her fighting julius ceasar several times#telling brutus that caesar is not his friend#xena and gabrielle’s souls reincarnating across centuries in order to kick ass and fall in love all over again#or the time xena became a god but tbh that ep is kinda ‘uhhhhh…..’ even if they did hire a consultant for it

#I think everyone here knows to vote for Xena. I think a couple people here might have some propaganda for Xena saved already#everyone remember that Xena/Gabrielle is CANON and that's a pretty big deal also#(does anyone have that Xena Loves Trans People interview around because that would also make good propaganda)7:47 PM

[faulix]

btw, since people love lying about me on this website:

i have not known lolthia for a year like they claim. i first learned of lolthia about a month ago when i noticed their racist treatment of my friend. it was by chance we learned of their goretober list that had abuse glorification with prompts like medical/drugged torture, kidnapping, and stalking. we were able to see that lolthia had a pattern of writing yandere, murder, and other gross topics with a quick search of their blog. THAT is why i decided to say something and call them out. period

x

i find it kind of hilarious that you're claiming to have blocked me from servers and discord so you don't have proof. i wonder if you would even know my discord, yknow, the one handle i haven't changed in years. i mean, surely if you have me blocked you would be able to pull that up easy right? let's not forget the fact that you're claiming to know me personally when you cannot even get my pronouns right.

x

the funny part about this is that barely anyone who rb'ed your callout weren't even your mutuals, with a good amount of people actually adding in the notes how fed up they were with your bullshit. i am not a big enstars blog. i'm not even talking about enstars right now. i am a small blogger with less than 100 followers who ships with the only two minor characters in enstars. a majority of people who have rb'ed your callout are not big enstars bloggers. we are small time selfshippers just trying to have a fun time on tumblr dot com. the only one who is willfully taking themselves out of the fandom or even the circle of enstars selfshippers is you. you willfully create harmful content, you paint yourself as the victim, and you refuse to apologize for multiple things such as your racism and suicide baiting.

x

i am nice to others because they are not winding up their victim complex to make me look like the bad guy. again, if you have legitimate proof that we were once friends: look at your blocklist (or your server blocklist) and post my handle. i dare you. but then again, you probably couldn't do that considering you don't know what the username is. i think the funniest thing about it is that you can't even be bothered to post the server name, can't even bother to explain how we met (shocker considering i've only been into enstars actively for like barely a year now), it is you saying "well this is clearly my word against his" when you can't even provide the basic proof that you and i ever knew each other. you probably DON'T want me to post the ask where you said that you had finally found me and lamented that we could even be friends now if i would take back my words and be the bigger person. but then again, you kind of admitted that yourself when you said you didn't know who made the callout and even said it could be multiple people because you didn't know, but hey, let's take back that and spin it as a long rooted hate campaign by me. x

btw, when i first made this post, i held off on posting it because i haven't received nonanon asks for this, so i was able to chalk it up to you just trying to send more anons toward me to get me painted as the villain, but since this morning i woke up to you making a callout post about me that was filled with lies and fake screenshots it's about time i speak up. you may have deleted it, but don't worry, i made sure to screenshot everything you said and put it in an imgur album to refresh your memory. right here, don't worry, i took every screenshot word for word so you can remember what you said.

i'm not going to post every single screenshot to this. i think it would be insane behavior to make this post even longer. so let me just some up my feelings:

in your fake screenshots not only did you try to blur out what my name was (probably because these are not actually talking about me, but hey, you thought you could make it work, right?) but you proceed to, once again, continuously use the wrong pronouns for me, which is kind of weird since you're claiming to have known me for a year.

let me reiterate this so you get it through you thick skull: i use he/it pronouns and have been doing so for years now. your callout and screenshots repeatedly uses the wrong pronouns for me. do not even bother claiming you didn't know or that i recently changed them as my past blog and every single friend i'm close with will testify to my pronouns, and i'm absolutely sick of you misgendering and degendering me and my identity. considering you've been sending me several asks you could have easily looked and my pronouns in both my description and pinned, but hey, that's another lie for you, right?

then you post a screenshot of a server main chat, but it's very convenient of you to 1.) not get the server name and 2.) leave out the date you sent it, yknow, the things that you could at least say we shared together. i wonder why you didn't bother to get that information if it was so important. oh wait, i do! it's because you are deliberately lying about me to paint yourself as the victim.

i'm not going to even dissect the lies you weave together because, once again, you are speaking without proof. this is not a case of "my words against his" you are deliberately spreading lies on the grounds that you think no one will fact check you, you tool. again, if i was such a danger to you that i would deliberately make several accounts to surpass your "ban", why would you not post my discord username or the "alt accounts" i made to protect others for safety? why don't you do so now? oh! it's because you don't know them and are lying through your teeth.

i did not send you an ask where i told you that you needed to change your goretober list to get rid of the necrophilia. if i did, how about you post it with my url and call me wrong. not to mention the biggest thing i called you out on was the fact that you were glorifying and romanticizing abuse with drugged torture, kidnapping, and stalking. but sure let's gloss over that part because that would make you look bad!

there is nothing out of context in what you said or did, it is in plain english, several screenshots where you demonized a selfshipper of color because "they were more popular than you", pulled several excuses out of your ass to ship with a 16 year old, and put suicide baits in the main enstars tags, oh but don't worry! in your eyes the enstars fandom deserved it! and you want to paint yourself as innocent? give me a fucking break.

and the absolute gall of you to proclaim you acted like this because of your bpd, which you're still rb'ing sad bpd posts now. the nerve of you to assume i am not neurotypical when i have been struggling with autism and adhd all my life, and my own bpd for the past 14 years since i was diagnosed. it is not an act of ableism to call you out on your disgusting behavior towards people of color and abuse victims. i don't care about your backstory. you know exactly what you are doing and say that you are "exploring dark themes". no one believes you, and no one ever will. and miss me with that "i didn't know the shipper's race" as if you did not see the commissions you were directly complaining about them that shows them as not white very obviously. but hey, what's one more lie for you?

just so you know: every single ask you have sent me i have kept. from where you pretended to be 10 different people, all from your original ask where you think we should "just talk it out" without you taking any accountability, thanking me for the callout, pretending to be anons sticking up for you, and even threatening me with fake evidence that i have been in enstars servers sending death threats. but hey, since i didn't respond to those so you could have ammunition as so you could say i'm stalking you and villainizing you, i guess the next step would be a callout!

i will never be as obsessed with you as you are with me. you are the stupidest person on this planet if you genuinely thought i would not catch wind of what you were doing, from sending me and my friends and mutuals several asks to deliberately lying about me on your own blog. you have sent me over 50 asks in 24 hours, spamming my inbox with anons, but you couldn't even bother changing your typing style. you can't be bothered to tell people to watch out for this discord user because, again, you don't even know who i am. you can spin a web of lies to cover your ass, but barely anyone sees through it, and no amount of anons you send yourself will never convince anyone, especially strangers who has seen your blog. i do not care about how you no longer can look forward to your sick goretober where you glorify the abuse that real people go through. i am a grown adult with a job, school life, friends, pets, and so much more. maybe you could be the same if you shaped up and stopped being on tumblr. touch some grass for once. no one will believe you. i will not delete your callout. you have deliberately done horrible acts and acted like you were being demonized because "the enstars fandom and selfshippers are mean and cliquey", as if people don't see right through what you post without care and how you act. either apologize for what you have willfully done or log off and deactivate. i don't care which. leave me alone, leave my friends and mutuals alone, and grow up.

btw, i figured i would also throw this in the enstars tags so people would know about your horrible act and how you have treated me and demonized me for the past two days for standing up for my friends and the people you've hurt. here's the original callout btw, just in case anyone's new here! i don't care how badly you say this affects you because, again the only person trying to demonize you is you yourself. you lie about every aspect to save your ass and i will not take it. i mean, you tagged my "callout" with enstars tags (despite the fact that i never interact with the enstars fandom and have been talking about brc for the past month) but hey! if you wanna act like a clown i'll treat you like one.

you are an absolute moron if you think 1.) anyone would believe you considering your past behavior and 2.) thought i would just lay over and start crytyping for an apology. you are 20 years old acting like a spoiled toddler who got punished for throwing toys at others. i have more resolve, a backbone, and friends that will always care for me and support me, sorry if you can't relate. fuck you

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

OK big thanks to @micchikureshima for letting me rant this concept out in discord because otherwise I probably never would have gotten it typed.

This is basically throwing together multiple ideas i've already posted (the meng yao has serious misconceptions idea and the tumblr post about the sect rejecting huaisang as heir and him leaving to keep from forcing mingjue between a rock and a hard place) into one vaguely coherent storyline.

Also it's gonna be long, so some of it will go under a cut.

Starting with that fic where Meng Yao wakes up to find Nie Huaisang burying a bird he couldn't save, slide to the left into a timeline where Meng Yao didn't go outside and thus never got his POV recontextualized. Having only his preconceived notions and gossip to go on, he starts quietly developing a resentment against Huaisang.

It kind of comes to a head when he's convinced to accept some local wine at a dinner and is so not ready for the paint thinner they drink in Qinghe. In vino veritas or a reversal of the 'confessing to a crush while drunk' trope where he says some very uncharitable things about Huaisang while plastered.

When he wakes up the next morning with a massive hangover and remembers what happened, he's mortified and convinced he's in so much trouble.

But... he's not?

In fact, his insults towards the sect heir seems to have actually gained him some popularity, even among disciples and soldiers who didn't like him before. And while Nie Mingjue isn't among the ones who outright thought it was funny, even he says his silly useless brother brought it on himself, and maybe he'll learn from it.

And Huaisang definitely learned from it, even if the only lesson he took was to avoid Meng Yao completely to keep from being further humiliated. The only time they're in the same room together after that is if Huaisang can't get out of it.

Like when Nie Mingjue sends Meng Yao along with the prospective students to make sure there are no Incidents, not caring how uncomfortable his brother is about it. Grow up, Huaisang, you're going to be dealing with people who don't like you your entire life, it's just a thing people expected to work in politics have to live with.

On the trip, Meng Yao notices that while he doesn't keep any, Huaisang seems to be able to charm wild birds with ease. It briefly makes him wonder about the aviary… but no, not important.

It's not enough for him to start questioning his earlier opinions.

Veering fully into CQL-territory for a moment, Huaisang gets home on time this go around instead of making the long detour because he doesn't want to be stuck with Meng Yao any longer than necessary, but the Yunmeng group still arrives with Xue Yang in tow, the Wens still show up, Meng Yao still gets injured, Xue Yang still gets freed, and the captain still gets killed.

When Meng Yao finds himself banished, he is caught off guard when Nie Huaisang is angry about it (this time entirely because he thinks it's bad form to exile someone who's still badly wounded, especially when they got that wound in the line of duty), but he correctly believes nothing will come of it when Huaisang says he'll talk to his brother, so he leaves while Huaisang is gone. Back to MDZS canon but with a bonus character, It's not until the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, when Jin Guangyao is having to put up with his family's general everything that the situation changes.

Shortly after his father has read him the riot act over the Jiang sect's behavior during the hunt, he comes across Nie Huaisang and Nie Zonghui quietly talking on one of the guest balconies.

"It's probably just different when it's family. Or else I'm just that much of a monster, if I'm less forgivable than someone like Jin Guangshan."

…Oh.

Jin Guangyao doesn't stick around to hear what Nie Zonghui says in response, but the short exchange haunts him as he goes back to his duties.

What has Huaisang done that's in any way comparable to his relatives' behavior?

Now that he's trying to actually think of anything, he can't find an answer.

In fact, he can't stop wondering if he hadn't been coloring Huaisang's behavior with Jin gold the entire time, his first encounter with his father's sect having tainted his opinion. He'll apologize, he decides.

But he doesn't get the chance before the conference is over, kept so busy by everyone's demands that he can barely catch his breath. and even after the other sects are gone, his father constantly has new tasks and orders and creepy little plots for him to carry out.

Before he realizes it, it's been almost a month.

And then his spies in Qinghe tell him about the inheritance chaos going on in the Unclean Realms.

And then Nie Huaisang is gone. Walked out into the night and vanished with only a letter to his brother left behind.

Nie Mingjue of course doesn't bring it up with him, why would he? Even if they've sworn brotherhood, they're still mostly on the outs. but he hears from er-ge that Nie Mingjue won't talk about it with anyone, not even him. Just keeping it all bottled up and boiling.

He should be relieved, even with this new source of tension. Now it doesn't matter if he apologizes or not.

That doesn't make the discomfort go away, though, because he's plagued by the same doubts as Nie Mingjue, wondering how much he contributed to public opinion eventually forcing Huaisang out.

Months later, just after Jin Ling is born, Jin Guangshan is already expecting to throw a massively extravagant hundred days celebration and has Jin Guangyao making all the arrangements and gathering all the necessary supplies.

His current assignment is to visit some merchants the Jin sect occasionally does business with in a little port town in order to arrange some expensive future kitchen deliveries.

There's a painter doing portraits for a tourist couple on one of the piers.

Nie Huaisang is almost unrecognizable. He's thinner, his clothes are plain and unadorned, his hair pulled up into a bun with no braids. If it weren't for the black and gold bird singing on his shoulder as he works, Jin Guangyao would have overlooked him entirely, and even then, it's only the green eyes that make him realize just who he's looking at.

He watches as Huaisang chats amiably with the couple, all bubbling cheer like he used to be whenever trying to win friends, and Jin Guangyao wonders if leaving the sect has really had any effect on him at all. And then as soon as they walk away, happy with their souvenir, the mask vanishes and he looks so tired and withdrawn, even as the bird comforts him by pulling at his hair.

Ah. Jin Guangyao knows all too well what it's like wearing that mask.

It looks like the apology will still be necessary.

Jin Guangyao manages to coax huaisang into at least meeting for dinner if only for a free meal, and it becomes clear as they exchange (mostly) meaningless small talk that while Huaisang has a lot of 'neighbors' because he does a lot of small clerical or scribing jobs here and there, he has completely given up on any actual social relationships and mostly keeps to himself.

And he doesn't really believe the apology, mostly because it seems everyone else agrees with Jin Guangyao's original opinions of him, so why would he walk it back? But he's grateful for the food anyway, so Jin Guangyao decides that has to be enough for now and he'll work on proving his change of heart in other small ways when he's not as constrained by having to conduct sect business matters on this trip.

With the hatchet sort of buried, Jin Guangyao will report on what he's seen to Nie Mingjue.

It turns out Mingjue hasn't even opened any of his brother's letters, though he's been keeping them all. He's convinced himself they'll just make him madder and he's barely holding it together as it is. But whatever Jin Guangyao tells him makes him finally read them, and when the last one mentions giving up on writing, he realizes it's been almost a month and a half since it was sent, when before, the letters had been arriving practically weekly.

Fuck. Huaisang really did give up. All he's been doing by keeping this bottled up is pushing his brother even further away.

He decides that a response letter at this point won't do, and besides, he wants to see for himself this new (difficult, if Jin Guangyao didn't lie) life Huaisang's been living.

The resulting…. not a confrontation, but not exactly a reunion in the seaside town is super awkward and uncomfortable for both Nie brothers, but at least it ends with them understanding each other a little bit better? At least they'll start writing each other properly, as will Jin Guangyao and Huaisang.

(And that's pretty much as far as I got on this idea, so it'll stay pretty open ended.)

[beeseverywhen]

So I've been thinking about what tumblr is in this metaphor and I've decided: tumblr is like a pirate radio ship/commune on a boat. Some ppl saw what twitter was doing and they were like yeah we could do that and they grouped together and bought one of those really big ships. Like an ex cruise ship. And everyone was like 'this will never work they are doing what twitter is doing but in a batshit and frankly stupid way. They are more interested in painting the boat to make it look all funky rather than learning about how boats work and what they need to do to keep it afloat and how they are gonna get food and stuff. Everyone is like 'this is gonna end up badly and they'll all come to land with their tail between their legs, apart from those that are chronically sea dogs, who'll end up going to twitterland where things are actually being run properly, or else they'll consider Facebook' (which is actually a harbourside company town, but the houses are all on stilts.)

While twitter was ensuring they got important society running tm people and Facebook was ensuring the company store was filled to the brim with products from their sponsors and was like selling timeshares so that ppl could live part time in their little pods on stilts tumblr was like yeah sure everyone come on board. So you had like a section of the ship full of clowns and another full of tired adults who've quit their professional jobs and run away to find themselves and there's also a thriving lbgt section of the ship that's just like regular lbgt people who don't feel they fit in to the communities they lived in before. And there's a reasonable number of teenagers barely old enough to leave home, who've all run away from the confinement of the societal expectations or whatever

Every now and again there's rumours from the land press that some celebrity is in hiding on The tumblr (this is some kind of pun between like a drinking glass and a boat. I don't know) but all the tumblr residents are kinda shifty about it and no interviewer knows if it's all some big joke or if rockstar of the week really is hiding out on there, apparently along with a few actors, some authors and a few artists. They aren't lying they just don't seem to care. Celebrity? What celebrity? That's just Neil. He's on dish duty this week.

So for a good few years twitterland is thriving Facebook town is thriving. Tumblr is doing better than expected? They haven't sunk the boat yet. Lots of people from various walks of life like to come there to get away from things on a little retreat in to Weird tm culture. People on there are a bit elitist like 'yeah we aren't sheep, living on land under capitalism, we are here, living life as humans are supposed to. Creating art, having weird sex parties. It's all good'. The only thing these groups of ppl have in common is that they don't really vibe with regular culture on land. Its a counter culture thing. But they all live alongside each other pretty well. Mostly keeping to their own parts of the ship but getting on well when they bump in to each other. The guy that owns the largest share of the boat is like 'look. I'm going to sell a stake in the boat to my buddy so we can do some improvements' nobody agrees but it happens and nothing really changes. The old owner is still the captain. People are kinda annoyed cause they are like. 'This was a communal thing' but the guy is like, yeah but I decided to get things going, to find a boat, refit it, invite people to stay. I've been steering the boat all this time. This is for the good of everyone, the boat will be better for it

And then, a group of some of the younger residents, decide to put on an event, but they have no event planning skills and also, commit a deadly sin on board the boat: they bring money in to it. Usually money only changes hands when ppl leave the boat, but they decide to host a party on board the ship and get residents to pay for it. The party is very underwhelming. It's a great embarrassment and lots of people leave the boat for good. Its no longer seen as a good retreat for celebrities, a few stay, but they are more 'tumblr weirdos' than they are celebrities by this point. They've shed the garb of 'celeb' and fully acclimated. The hold outs are mostly ppl that were already kind of uncomfortable with being 'celebrities' they've always been more comfortable just being a weird guy just like everyone else left on the boat.

News places stop bothering with tumblr, they are more concerned with Facebook town and twitter which are considered successful, and are making money with advertising/ product placements in the 'life in a day' videos they churn out. The ppl left on the tumblr ship fully lean in to the weirdness. But without any celebrity following/positive news, on land ppl are very much unimpressed with tumblr. The guy who bought out the share goes bankrupt and the share of the boat gets transferred to a different business. After a while the original captain is like 'you know what. Its been a wild ride but I don't think boating is for me. I'm going to go live in a house. GL.

The business conglomerate that owns the share in the boat is like. Well. You need a captain. Can't just leave you to it. We've got a great guy for the job. Don't worry he loves this whole thing. He's a strict business guy and everyone is like 'he's going to sell the boat off for parts! They'll take our home!' But actually the new guy is very in to the idea of the tumblr boat, though he really doesn't get it. He keeps popping in for little holidays. He's like 'I think we could make this a holiday resort' and all the residents are like, this would be a terrible holiday resort. It was once a cruise ship, sure, but its something very different now. Why would we turn it in to a holiday destination when there are already 100s of non converted cruise ships doing a better job? And the guy is just like sipping a pina colada through a straw still dressed in a suit, like shrugging. 'It's only an idea'. He seems to be enjoying himself but he still seems a bit baffled by things, he's like 'so what's with the sex parties' and everyone is like, it's no big deal. Those of us not involved are used to it by now we don't care. They seem to be having a good time. Good for them.

Tumblr has been finding it hard to find places to moor up and resupply (it's still disorganised as hell so who knows how they're buying their communally owned food) for a while and it's not been helped by the fact that their 'all are welcome' policy has led to a few on the run criminals camping out on board, without them knowing which has given them bad press. The new captain is like 'I can solve this. Don't worry about it' and next thing they know, he's hosting a press conference saying that the boat is banning sex parties. And everyone is like?! How could you do that? Some of them are like 'sex parties are a part of life on board. We'd be nothing without them' and others are like 'personally I'm not bothered about the sex parties but I don't think they are the problem, we keep asking you to remove the wanted criminals we've warned you about, but you did nothing and now you want to boot out the rule abiding, perfectly civil sex party attendees? How could you make a decision like this without consulting us. Who will you be kicking out next? This is a slippery slope'. And the guy is like hold on a second let's not be too harsh. "Look guys. We need to reboot our image. These harbours are saying they don't want us to dock. They say we aren't family friendly. They say we've got nothing to contribute to their economy's. Banning the parties is the only way. Nobody's getting booted. You all have the opportunity to promise not to have sex on board again, and to dispose of all the posters advertising past parties and the photo collages and stuff and If you do that, you're free to stay.'

Nobody's impressed by that so loads of people leave. Either because they were attending parties and want to continue to, or just because they don't agree. By now parts of the boat are straight up abandoned. There's nobody new to move in to the rooms people left, so they are just like, standing dark and empty, still decorated, but abandoned. Time goes on, they don't have any trouble docking but it's getting harder and harder to pay for supplies, with so many less people and the company with the big share in the boat are not so willing to pay for things now they see there's little hope of them getting any of it back. (Things are just depressing now it's all empty. They'll never sell this as a resort) eventually they sell it off to another company.

The ppl still living there are very resistant to the new owners like 'they already took our sex parties and drove away our friends. How much worse can it get? What are you going to do?' And they don't trust any suggestions. But the new owners are like 'look. We kind of understand how things work on your boat. We don't personally have anything like this, but we do have experience managing a load of little communities living as property guardians in abandoned hotels/resorts. Its not the same! But we do have an idea of what you are trying to do here. You are artists. We get that.

And people start to warm up to them a bit when it's been a year or so and they aren't selling off bits but eventually the new guys are like 'look we can't keep paying for your food without any contribution. Our other communes give us a cut of their business proceeds, some of them pay rent. Everyone is very unimpressed by this, but over time they warm up to the idea somewhat (it's made clear that the boat needs major repairs if it's gonna keep floating) and unlike the last guy who was pretty content to drink pina coladas and imagine he was on a different boat, the people from this company do seem to be interested in hearing from the residents. They are making small repairs. They are hosting residents meetings.

They set up a gift shop, stocking things that the residents might find amusing. They set up a few paid for initiatives that get completely shot down. They convert some of the abandoned rooms in to double sized rooms and are like 'you can pay to upgrade and live in a bigger cabin'. You can pay for a new door in an interesting color or new carpeting. They set up a stage and a gallery. People can pay to display their art/ do a comedy routine or play music. Some people pay for stage time to bring issues to light. People are still very hesitant. There's a spectrum of ppl joining in with the efforts they approve of (gift shop. Personalised doors) but ignoring those they don't agree with, and then some ppl strictly refusing to support any of it, and setting up sit ins/graffiting posters advertising the paid for ventures.

And then, some ex twitter residents start dribbling in. Some are like 'I'm only here for a short holiday while they work on putting out the fire' some are like 'I'll be hedging my bets and splitting my time' others are like 'wow this is like vintage tumblr. I can't believe you've remodelled this ship to look just like the one from a decade ago'. Twitter does not work to put out the fire. Long lasting residents are a bit like ??? Do they not know we've been here all along. More and more people move in, trying to bring some of the quirks of their twitter world community to the boat. The gift shop keeps going. Advertisers pay to put up posters. The gallery seems to regularly have art so clearly someone's paying. Nobody is really sure what the future looks like.

I can not tell if some of these bots are bots. By combining random words they are perfectly emulating tumblr users. The only thing that I'm clinging on to is how averse the average tumblr is to having their face next to their posts. But some of these bots are starting to use pictures of ppl out doing things/ messing around and I'm like... this could be a person. Is this them or is it a meme. Their face isn't in it. It's not centred on their body. This could be a person. Especially as twitter continues to slowly sink like a very slowly burning very very large construction in the sea.

It's like one of those big abandoned rigs/sea stations where years after its been left some ppl come across it and move in like 'we can repurpose this' and next thing you know they are living there like 'we are a country now' and things seem to be thriving and they appear to have a functioning society and its like 'have these ppl escaped capitalism' and then one day there's some kind of disaster and loads of ppl abandon it and come back to regular society and they are all like telling stories about how it was.

And then as time goes on every now and again another person gives up and abandons ship, and comes back to land living society with a even crazier story about what's been going down since the last person left. And time goes on and eventually it's like largely abandoned. The ppl still living there are either very loyal or remain thanks to sunk cost. And its pretty well understood that by this point the guy in charge is a dictator and its all a bit culty and there's no real reason to stay. Its just living amongst like empty rusting offices (cause there aren't enough ppl left to keep it running like a society/improving so it's just like an abandoned weather station in the middle of the sea again and the weather's always shit cause its the middle of the sea. The dream is dead, they are just only realising one at a time.

And then one day someone's boat goes past and the place is on fire and everyone's like hey are you guys OK? And tries to evacuate them. But they are all like 'our leader says its fine. Its cool we don't need rescuing. Like you could rescue us. Life on land is shit. Enjoy capitalism losers!' And everyone's a bit like uncomfortable about leaving them there, but it's like. What can you do. They are just like 'the fire keeps to its side of the station we keep to ours, its np.'

But everyone decides to keep an eye on things all the same. Reporting on things out of morbid curiosity and a little bit like 'you can still get out. We're here.' And then one day the place (still on fire) starts to sink in to the sea and you really think they'll jump ship now. What's left? But they are still clinging on to this dream of what it could have been. And the place is like burning but also littered with advertisements cause the cult leader is letting just about anyone sponsor them, and it is a burning wreck sinking in to the sea, but also its on the news 24/7 so there are always ppl willing to stick their logo on it

Anyway, I've got completely carried away with my metaphor here. But twitters like that. And as ppl slowly abandon ship and are like 'I guess we'll return to the shitty lives we thought we'd escaped' they bring a bit of 'comune that's also a country on a rig in the middle of the sea' culture with them. And so there are now more ppl on tumblr doing twitter things like having attractively posed pictures as their icon

[zukosdualdao]

Im glad to read the takes of a fellow zuko stan :)

Honestly, it feels like people just hate on him way too much lately. The posts ive seen on twitter, on tik tok, on tumblr... Do people just not like him anymore? Why did everyone turn against him so suddenly? I've been hoping it's something temporary, just a trend, but. I don't know anymore. People mock his disability, spit on his trauma, wish death on him and interpret everything he says or does in the worst possible way. I saw someone crying about how entitled he was because he took aang's seat when watching the play just the other day lmao. Another person wrote about how mysoginistic he was because he didn't remember katara's name when asking about kya's death to sokka? There are those who even call him a colonizer on the same level as iroh lmao. It seems their justifications for all the salt they throw his way are along the lines of "he's been loved for too long, aang stans have suffered way more, people just watched the show again and realized how bad he actually was, he's catching strays since his fans keep setting him up, his fans paint him as perfect and erase every bad thing he's done" etc etc. I'm all for criticism and deeper character analysis, but this is just said in bad faith. I also think it has a bit to do with how different engagement has become in fandom spaces recently (things people support in fiction need to be morally correct) and well, zuko was the perfect target. He's done bad things, sides with the villains for a good portion of the series, redeems himself but there are things he still has to work on... I don't know, it's been getting to me. There are many other harsh things ive read said about him (like implying how every single member of the gaang hates even after redeeming himself), but i honestly don't have the energy to delve into each and every one. His arc was poorly executed and his development was badly written now, apparently. I kind of just ranted here, i apologize. Im very happy to read the posts of someone who genuinely likes him and doesnt throw him under the bus to defend or elevate other characters...

hi! i'm glad you're enjoying my blog <3 and no need to apologize for the rant, i'm always happy to talk about zuko!

about to theorize a bit as to why it seems like maybe zuko has become a more contentious character, but it should be noted i have not been exceptionally, actively involved in the fandom very long. i loved atla as a kid, have retained fond memories, have witnessed some discourse from the fringes over the years, but only recently has it overtaken my brain to the point of making a whole blog about it. lol. so, like, grain of salt, etc.

i think a big part of it is what you said - in the last few years of fandom in particular, it feels like there has been a huge upswing in purity culture, moralizing liking/not liking certain ships or characters, and an overall increase in very black-and-white thinking. there's also an emphasis on "holding people accountable" (good in theory), often without specifying what, exactly, that looks like (less good). the idea then becomes that if you've done harmful things, there's no way you can ever make up for them and should just, like, hate yourself for all eternity and also die, probably, which is not actually helpful to anyone.

so, i think for those who ascribe to that mindset, zuko is a prime candidate for them to criticize. and while there's nothing wrong with criticizing a character or their arc or writing if you truly have a problem with it, as you've said, a lot of the time, criticisms against zuko don't seem to be made in very good faith. after all, a big part of zuko's arc is having to unlearn some very black-and-white thinking. also, zuko is not a real person. he is a character, and therefore a narrative tool, and if we want him to be 'held accountable', we need look no further than the story itself, in which he is probably the character the narrative holds the most accountable for his actions due to his prior status as a villain.

(it reminds me a bit, actually, of another favorite character of mine: alec in the tv series shadowhunters. he starts out the story already in a heroic role, unlike zuko, but a big part of his narrative is unlearning some prejudiced cultural mindsets and challenging not only his previous ideologies, but his conception of himself and the people in his life as well. as a result, alec can look sometimes more obviously flawed than the other main cast, but the point is that the narrative asks him to examine those flaws and change and introspect and grow in a way that it doesn't always ask of other characters when they are showcasing their own flaws. which does make me thing about zuko vs. aang in the atla narrative.)

the other thing i think is contributing to zuko's more contentious status in the fandom is how long atla's been in the cultural consciousness, and how common it is for things that used to be popular to cycle through to people starting to criticize or actively hate it to people saying "no, actually, it's still pretty good, you just don't want to like a popular thing" (this is me rn), to maybe eventually getting popular again/at least in certain subsects of the audience. zuko was probably one of the most talked-about aspects of atla for a long time, and while i can understand how that could get frustrating (because there are some other really great characters and aspects of the story!), that's not, like, for no reason. people connected with and admired his story for a reason, and many still do, and (in my humble opinion) that is because it is one of the most thought-out, intentional, and nuanced character arcs of the show.

the ableism, i think, really gets to me because like... even if every criticism from the people who hate him were 100% accurate and said in good faith (they're not, but let's pretend for a minute)... that still wouldn't be an excuse for ableism against a character with a prominent facial difference (or making fun of abuse survivors for the permanent injuries they sustain from abuse.) if zuko had never redeemed himself and stayed a villain, it would still be wrong to talk about his scar and abuse the way some of his detractors do. and the show agrees with me! you know how i know? the only two characters to ever make fun of zuko's scar are villains in the narrative: zhao and azula. ("make fun of" might not be quite right for zhao, since what he said - "you have the scar to prove it" - is far more matter-of-fact than azula imitating him by covering her eye or "make sure they get your good side", but he's absolutely being a huge jerk about it.) other characters react to zuko's scar in all sorts of different ways, even when he's still in a villain/antagonist/anti-hero role: zuko's crew is horrified to learn how he got the scar, song sees a point of connection and tries to reach out to him, but, while i think well-intentioned, she breaks a major boundary by trying to touch his scar when he hasn't conveyed he's okay with that, jet makes assumptions about his background because of it, lee, the kid from zuko alone, asks with curious, childish naivete how he got it, only for his father to reprimand him for asking, aang reacts with annoyance/boredom to azula's ableist joke, and katara trips over her words to correct him when zuko thinks she's essentially calling him "scary to look at". not all of these interactions are positive, but the characters (all of whom are written as pretty sympathetic, even if also flawed) aren't outright trying to make fun of him for it, and the narrative never implies he deserves to be treated as less than because of it, even before his redemption.

anyway. if people don't believe in characters' (and, hell, irl people's) capacity for growth and change and don't want to have nuanced discussions about how trauma can impact these things, i mean... that's their prerogative, but i don't understand why they enjoy the show, because those are big parts of it (and not just wrt zuko.)

i know it can be frustrating, anon— trust me, i get very frustrated. but i promise you, there are plenty of people out there who a) still love zuko and his story and b) are capable of and willing to talk about things with nuance and in good faith. i'm happy to be part of that corner of fandom, and i bet you can manage to carve out a space where more people like that exist, too! <3

[pastafossa]

how long did it take for your fanfiction to start getting some recognition? did you "advertise" it or "promote" it in any way?

i know that people say this doesn't matter, but i feel like even if you love writing the feeling that you're just talking to yourself gets pretty exhausting at some point. so i'm not talking about having thousands of readers but rather like. what's your advice to have readers at least?

- someone who hasn't even started writing their ideas yet...

LONG POST INCOMING.

First I want you (and everyone else reading who may be struggling with this) to know I'm absolutely with you and generally think 'it doesn't matter' is a horseshit answer. It's this weird thing we do in fanfic that we generally don't apply to other artforms that I've seen. If you're a painter, a playwriter, a novel writer, and you say, 'I want at least a few people to love my paintings, I want some people to come see my play, I want my novel to be published and do at least ok' we all support them, we nod, we agree, we talk about how they can do that successfully. It's considered normal to want some amount of success. But hold up fanfic instead and it becomes, 'how dare you want that praise, you're being egotistical, you should be writing only for yourself'. I'm not saying you can't do that - there are some who do - but it's definitely this bizarre switchup to say there's this single artform in which we can't want attention on our work and that there's something wrong with us if we do. That can be an absolute creativity killer depending on what kind of writer you are (hi, extrovert writer here who only gets writy writy juice from social interaction - aka comments and discussion. So I totally get it being exhausting just doing this on your own).

So let me say this categorically: you're allowed to want things. You're allowed to want kudos, comments, and hits. You're allowed to want messages and asks. You're allowed to want some readers you can talk with about your story.

You. Are. Allowed.

Ok, now that that's out of the way.

Edit: more below the cut cause I didn't realize the length of this on mobile

TRT definitely didn't get popular overnight. The first four chapters were sporadic, and then I took a hiatus due to life things for a couple years. During that time, it kept slowly ticking up bit by bit on AO3, with occasional comments. Iirc it was hovering somewhere around 700 kudos by the time I came back in Jan 2021 - and that's a awesome! It's big! But it's also a number that was gained over a few years, to put it in perspective. It absolutely took off after I came back though, and over the past 2 years both TRT's popularity and the stats of my one-shots in the fandom have grown. Part of that's just the time frame (TRT's been up about 6 years), but it's also due to a couple things that I think built up TRT's popularity.

Building a tumblr presence was huge. Ironically I didn't really intend to do it for advertising; I just wanted a place readers could ask questions or we could all freak out about Matt or I could post some drabbles or updates on the fic. But considering the fact that AO3 and tumblr are the top fic sites online, I wound up promoting my fics unintentionally just by being a friendly, happy tumblr user and fandom goer. All I did was follow the courtesy rules I knew - post stuff regularly, reblog, comment, make friends with other writers, just be friendly in your neighborhood because you love the lady with the gif flower shop on the corner or the wise old pizza maker who serves hot fandom takes all day long. I built familiarity with my writing and name by posting short fics, and by taking part in challenges and prompt lists and short requests for drabbles if I saw them, though that's something that's hard to do if you don't have time (I've got less time now, but I started this blog in the early pandemic so I had aaaaall the time in the world to write and was using it to stay sane). I tagged religiously because I LOVE tags, but that helped, too. Tumblr's search system is half broken but the half that works means people CAN find your writing even if they aren't following. Doing all this over here got me a huge boost over on AO3.

I will say that if you can have a fandom tiktok presence, there's a lot of fic reviewers, edits, and good stuff that can get your fic some readers (I've had some people do this on tiktok for TRT and it sent a surge over). I personally haven't done anything there yet, in part because while I'm on tiktok I try to keep my actual, real person accounts separate from my fic/fandom accounts and i haven't bothered to make a second account solely dedicated to the Pasta name yet.

Longfics on AO3 have the advantage in fic stats in the sense that every time you add a chapter, it gets bumped to the top of the front page and you get seen again. Eventually a lot of people will click out of curiosity. They may not, however, give you a lot of user subs or add to your other fic stats at first, whereas if you do a bunch of oneshots you're more likely to get user subs but less hits on each fic. This is a decision you'll have to make, and I know folks in both camps who built their followings using different methods on each. Either way, it helps if you're posting regularly, either in a long fic or one-shots. I call this the Stephen King method, who said he just writes a ton and throws it all at the wall, and eventually you get enough good despite the bad that you start building a following.

Learn learn learn. This is standard fic advice I always give, but it's still relevant. I think one of the reasons imo TRT has done so well is that I've spent a lot of time over the years learning how to write and edit - I read a ton of books (sometimes just to figure out HOW good authors structure their stories), I took a lot of English classes, I've taken some creative writing courses in my spare time. That two year hiatus was heavily spent doing a lot of research and practice around an original novel I want published one day. And I used ALL of that in TRT, just to see what it was like to put it all together. Be hungry for knowledge, be hungry to learn. The more you learn, the better your fic will be, and the more people that will click.

That learning also includes a looooong string of fanfics that started at a very novice level (hello 12 year old me), to fics that were ok and did moderately well but weren't anything huge. Hell, I had a tumblr account for my previous fandoms before I wandered over to Pastafossa, and while those fics did decently, I never had the huge reaction I've gotten here. But I used each and every one of those fics to learn and grow and adapt. Treat your own fics the same way. If it doesn't get hits, try to learn from it before moving on to the next idea a little wiser and a slightly better writer than before. There will always be people who start to follow you along the way.

A small one, but important: I swear to god, do not shit-talk yourself. Not in the summary, not in the tags, not in the A/Ns. I'm not talking, 'this is my first fic!' That's fine. I mean trashing your own work. Shit like, 'ha ha this sucks, it's terrible but oh well' will absolutely lower your stats, because people will believe you and will ditch your fic. On top of that, it's just mean to yourself, and as I said above, you want to be a good person in the fandom neighborhood. That means not breaking the windows of your own house.

People generally think of summaries as a side note, but a shitty summary can absolutely tank your stats. Treat it like the rest of your fic - this is the trailer before the movie, and it's a huge element of what gets people interested in the first place.

Lastly, like I said at the top, the biggest factor is time. There are people who post one fic and explode in popularity, absolutely. But far, far more little followings are built on the bones of time, of abandoned fics, of muttering and highlighting phrases in books in the middle of the night, of trying and trying and trying until we have at last have a breakthrough and then drag that breakthrough forward with us to the next fic. TRT is absolutely one part lightning in a bottle - the biggest success I've ever had anywhere with my writing, a confluence of fandom factors and world events that gave people (and me!) time to write and read. But it's also standing on the back of whole lot of fics I wrote that look like everyone else's: ones with no comments, low interaction, insults; ones where I had precisely zero idea of what I was doing, but wanted to try anyway. And the way I got through that, as a writer who needs interaction in order to create, was by building friendships in fandom so that even when a fic didn't do all that well, I still had friends I could talk to about the characters, the world, the fandom itself. I asked friends to look them over and give advice. I had friends being my cheerleaders. And if you're an extrovert like me, or just a writer who needs that to create, then those connections are vital as you build up a following.

That's a lot of what I've done. I know there are other ways to build a following, but this is generally what I've done, what I've learned to do, and it seems to have worked. Just remember that there are no bad fics - just learning opportunities. Learn something, and that fic's a success, and work as hard as you can to make those fandom connections to carry you through the process.

I absolutely hope to see your work around one day, so that I can be on of those followers!

[heliostears]

WIP Tagging Game !

I got tagged by @allmightskitten and I had to double-check my notification to make sure I didn't read wrong HAHA. This is going to expose me but this is gonna be fun to do. Fingerscrossed I'll finish them all at some point, I'm a little bit busy with comms and con prep for February but, I'll make time! Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folders, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. People send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then post a little snipper or tell them something about it!

Ok just a disclaimer, I don't actually write that much WIPs because I like to finish smth before starting a new one, and I'll only include One Piece fics because that's all I have right now. There will also be selfship fic on here, and because I do not have the same amount of writer oomfs on tumblr here (as you can probably tell), I will only tag the ones I know!

Jealousy - General, Shanks/my sona I started selfshipping with Shanks, so I'm kind of clowning myself here. The story is pretty self-explanatory from the title, and the setting is obviously in the One Piece world. My sona gets jealous over Shanks getting attention from the girls, Benn swoops in and takes those girls off of Shanks. In my interpertrations and headcanons, Shanks don't exactly flirt back with those girl or entertain their flirtations because he's not Benn Beckman (LOL). I kind of end up not liking this one because it feels kind of weird and the story derailed into something that I don't like. I've decided to drop this WIP because of that reason.

Stress Relief - Mature, Building Snake/Benn Beckman Surprise! I got into this ship because of an artist on Pixiv, and ever since then I've not been the same. I have already posted one fic of this ship, and this WIP has been in my docs for a long while now. It's basically just Snake getting so damn stressed out, and having no outlet for that stress. This fic is sort of a continuation from my first SnakeBenn fic where Snake took Benn's ass virginity LOL. Turns out there is more than just a 'second time' for their encounter, and Benn finds himself to be rather into what Snake does to him. Given the height and size gaps between them, I get to play around quite a lot with this pair, as you can probably imagine.

akataka again - Rating undecided, currently M, Shanks/Mihawk I've forgotten to continue this fic from early November omfg. Anyway, I've got a AkaTaka series going on that I've yet gotten the chance to continue. This one involves the pair spending time in Mihawk's bed in Kuraigana Island. Shanks is trying to get Mihawk's attention while the latter is reading an erotica novel for the plot. Shanks is mildly surprised to see Mihawk reading such novel, and asks if he doesn't get aroused by the description, HAHA. I think this one's just going to be a little silly, but I'd be happy if anyone wants to express their curiosity over this one.

Untilted Work - G, Sir Crocodile/My Friend (modern AU!) OK So this one's a gift for my friend because she's a wonderful person, and I've decided to not take this as a commission, but a gift to her. I can't technically spill the whole plot--but I'll just write this down as what she wants the plot to be about. My friend in this fic is an art dealer/curator. She deals with being the middle person when it comes to selling art (be it paintings, statues and whatnot). She attends a connection event held at the Louvre, organised by Doflamingo, and she meets Sir Crocodile there for the first time! It's currently down to 1.7k words and I'm planning on writing more. I'm having a whole lot of fun doing Modern AU for One Piece fics honestly, they're so fun.

That's pretty much all of the fics that I have right now! Another one is a commission and I definitely can't post it here lol. Thank you again for tagging me, this is so fun to do, and it makes me think of the WIPs that I have going on that I might want to continue :3 I truly hope you don't mind the tag, and please don't feel pressured about needing to do this, but I'm tagging @fakescorpion and @renjerungu for this one! Please only do this at your own comfort and don't feel forced to :3

[sea-salted-wolverine]

A couple days ago I took the long way around to get home and drove past my neighbor who lives in a plane. I saw he had added a glassed porch and thought it looked neat. So I posted about it on Tumblr which I mainly use as a repository for random thoughts and some story telling about my life in general.

This is pretty publicly an Alaskan blog, which means if you wanted to find me, process of elimination would not take long. There are less than a million people in the entire state and only 3 major population centers. As a result, I'm maybe more careful than most about what I post. I don't have my face or name or anyone else's name on my blog and while I do talk about where I live, I spent a lot of time making it non specific.

Now miraculously, living in a plane is not as uncommon as one would think. This isn't a two nickles situation; there's at least a dollar in change rattling around out there. Still, it's an unconventional living space, and very identifiable so while I felt assured in talking about it, I didn't want to post pictures.

Plus there's an extra aspect here specifically when I comes to internet notoriety. There are two schools of thought when it comes to internet notoriety here. There are the people who make Alaska their brand and glean their following from just existing in an incredible place (me, that would be me), and then there are people who are gleefully disappearing into the 20th century. Whatever the opposite of "extremely online" is, that's the goal. Running away to Alaska to hide from the world is not just a trope, there are people who actually make it up here. (there are also the people who try to do both and they are exceptionally irritating)

The thing about posting pictures is that you can include details that you did not mean to include. Those details are how you can find things. When I did the doodle, I got to control every detail I put on the page because I put it there.

What I didn't think about, was that I put a water color painting of a non-conventional living space on Tumblr. So now the post is on its way to 20,000 notes. By the way, you do not want to live in a glorified mobile home out past the ass end of nowhere; you want to live in a watercolor painting.

[specialagentartemis]

love your addition to that post about misinformation earlier this month, genuinely, but your summary of the situation re: the medicinal ingestion of human corpse matter in europe is kind of misleading. among other things, i don't know anyone who would call the 17th century "medieval." paracelsus didn't even die until the 1540s. periodization is complicated and mostly bullshit when people look for hard lines between "eras" of human history, but using terms that conjure an idea of a time literal centuries removed from the things we're talking about obfuscates the proximity and connections between things like corpse medicine, anatomical theaters, criminalization/execution, and the development of the modern western medical system. sorry for the long rant in your ask box, i just have a master's degree in Literally This.

to be clear, i am not at all arguing that the mummy being used medicinally was always or even often made of Egyptian mummies. i just wanted to be annoying about time periods. though by the early 1600s physicians like oswald croll were outwardly recommending fresh (executed) european bodies as the source of mummy, so i do kind of take issue with the assertion that people always thought they were buying something different. anyway, as a parting gift thanking you for making it this far in my longwinded asks, did you know moss grown on a human skull was also a source of medicine? called muscus ex cranio humano or usnea humana.)

Ohh huh. Thank you for messaging me; this is a lot more context than I had when I made my post.

I’m an American archaeologist (that is, I work in the Americas), so my areas of specialty are the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest ca. 800-1400 CE, and New England (or okay mostly Massachusetts and some New Hampshire) 1700s-1800s. I also have a solid grounding in the Bronze Age Aegean. But what that means is that early modern Europe is not my forte at all, and I did what I caution about doing and relied primarily on Wikipedia and a tumblr user I find reliable for that information. There were some quick to find sources that supported an 11th-12th century origin for the eating of ancient Egyptian mummies as medicine, which is what I meant by Medieval. I also kind of thoughtlessly took “mummy” to mean “ancient Egyptian mummified human remains” when of course ancient Egypt did not hold a monopoly on corpses or even mummies. I wasn’t intending to speak about the ingestion of human corpse matter as a whole, just Egyptian mummies. But both of these made the result end up misleading and not fully true, and I’m sorry about that.

There’s a specific cultural image of Victorian Britons opening sarcophagi and eating mummies that they looted from thousand-year-old Egyptian tombs, and it becomes a thrilling/disgusting synecdoche for British imperialism in Africa. That’s the part that’s a myth (though 19th century Egyptomania was real and the mummy unwrappings and some mummy-paint were also real.)

However, I was not well informed about the scope of European corpse medicine throughout history, and was honestly shocked to learn just how widespread and recent it was! And for sure you’re right, the 1500s-1600s when European corpse medicine was at its peak is hardly medieval. They mostly weren’t eating ancient Egyptians by that point (though they seem to have been at least a little, because in the late 1500s bodies were still being smuggled as contraband out of Egypt and into Europe), but yeah Europeans sure as hell were eating corpses as medicine. (Those links are not a fact check @ you, it’s @ anyone who reads this and wants to read more.) That seems like it ought to count for “they didn’t teach me this in school!”

It’s good to hear from the people who have researched this stuff; it sounds fascinating. Thank you for sharing, and I’m sorry I was misleading.

And re: Usnea skull moss: that’s WILD. I would not want to stick that up my nose.

[logo-comics]

Fortune Lover Pirates Meta

Due to certain bots that the staff do nothing about infecting my post with likes in order to try to infect the site further, I decided to delete the original post and make this one as a replacement. I failed to save the question before deleting by mistake, so please accept the meta-styled opening presented below.

Fortune Lover, the most popular game from Ai Fortuna Software, has gained a bit of infamy among new fans as The Pirate Game With No Pirates. Indeed, a common question on the forums and various social media sits is "Why is there so much pirate content for Fortune Lover if its set in a magic school?"

We here at LOGO Media Publication have thus decided to do a little digging on the internet and have come back with all the fun data you need to get a better understanding of why it is that a pirate's life is often seen as Maria's lot!

Tumblr

queenmaryhunt I've finally figured it out! Maria is Martin Campbell's daughter! It all makes sense! Her father disappeared when she was little, so she doesn't know he's technically the Pirate King, let alone any pirate at all! The timeline even matches up! captainnatalia I know you didn't insult the Gentleman Pirate by comparing him to that lowlife that abandoned Maria and her mom because of rumors! Martin Campbell would never be like that! bluejetpack yeah! martin was abandoned and alone until captain natalia took him in! he'd never do that to his own wife and daughter! queenmaryhunt No! Listen! In Martin Campbell: Pirate King's secret ending, he told Captain Natalia's grave that he was going to sail out for the last time so he could pull enough money together to get his unnamed wife and daughter a house in the capital so they wouldn't "be bothered by close-minded villagers anymore.' And what did Maria's voice actor say in her interview when asked about if Maria had any friends in her village? "Maria never really fit in with the villagers after her magic came in at the age of five and the people assumed she was the result of her mother having an affair with a noble. Her dad even disappeared a year later." geomaria-stan1123 That's her opinion, not official lore! The DLC they're going to release is on Golden Sands. In the first game, Old Baron Terni owns that land, and he let the Fortuna Amata make berth there as part of an unofficial agreement. You'll see when the DLC comes out that he's probably going to cameo as part of an old painting or something. Maria being Martin Campbell's daughter is as likely as them adding in a Katarina Route to a DLC!

queenmaryhunt You all owe me an apology! "The Gentleman Pirate disappeared nine years ago, which is why we took up his contract with the new Baron." That's what Marie said! Nine years! Back when Maria would've been 6, you know, when Maria's father suddenly disappeared! marikata9430 I'll take posts that keep getting funnier with each DLC for 500. fortune-lover-heritage-posts Fortune Lover Heritage Post (August 28, 2017).

---

sophiasemeraldprincess So, I'm probably giving myself away as a newbie to the fandom, but what's the deal with the pirates in this fandom? Everywhere I look, there are pirate OCs, Pirate Captain Katarina, Pirate Maria, Maria on a pirate ship... I thought, from all of this, that Fortune Lover had pirates all over the place mc-gentlemanpirate As a lifelong fan of the Ai Fortuna Software Multiverse, I can answer this one, but it's a bit of a long story. See, back at the start, Ai Fortuna was a small company that released their first game, Martin Campbell: Gentleman Pirate. The game was very popular in its time, detailing the adventures of a young beggar child named Martin, who stowed away on a ship to get away from it all, only to be discovered and mentored by Captain Natalia Petra Campbell, sworn enemy of the undead Pirate King Black Boris Edmund Guy, who dies at his hand by the end of the tutorial. From there, it's Martin's revenge quest centered around him figuring out his place in the world of piracy, whether or not he'll be a gentleman of fortune or a cutthroat mercenary. The good end, which is the canon one, has him kill Black Boris and being proclaimed the Pirate King. Since Martin and Maria share initials, as well as having identically fluffy blond hair, a lot of fans gravitated towards the idea that Maria was his daughter with his wife, who were both mentioned in the sequel, Martin Campbell: Pirate King. (Fun fact: When Fortune Lover's first trailer came out in 2014, a lot of people even thought that Maria was Martin in disguise in a midquel game.) Eventually, when the DLC started rolling out, the first was Golden Sands, set in his usual place of berth, the eponymous island, and it was revealed he had only disappeared nine years prior, which was when Maria's father had left. This was all speculation for the longest time, until the databook revealed this was always the lead writer's plan, with the Pirate's Promise DLC having been planned to be the sequel until the studio came in and ordered Mysteries in the Magical Ministry, which did... Alright, but was not as well received as Pirate's Promise, which is currently being made into its own spinoff series. TL;DR - Ai Fortuna Software was originally a pirate game company and Fortune Lover was written by a pirate series writer, so the fans immediately latched onto the pirate game parts because of the fact that it was a loving continuation of a beloved series. marikata9430 Also because Romanceable Pirate Captain Katarina. marisofilove2020 Definitely because Pirate Captain Katarina. marydeservesbetter Lots of people thirsting for Katarina even in an old uniform and bandages and a legitimate development history lesson for the series. Fortune Lover fandom, never change.

Fortune Lover Databook

From Left to Right: Sophia Ascart, Katarina Claes, and Mary Hunt as they appeared in the first poster for Fortune Lover that portrayed the rivals.

Fortune Fact: While Sophia Ascart and Mary Hunt were officially named at the time of the first poster of the rivals being released, they and Katarina Claes, at the time named Tatiana Terni, did not, at the time, have any set personalities, leading to a lot of fans to start to speculate. Many had naturally guessed that Tatiana would be the primary antagonist, and there had actually been some suspicion that Sophia was actually a ghost, and that Mary was secretly in love with Maria and would be a capture target. There was also a lot of speculation that Tatiana would be revealed to be a pirate or at least affiliated with them due to her being a Terni.

Bonus Fortune Fact: Fans of the Martin Campbell series had quickly taken notice of Tatiana's surname, as well as Maria's own, which is believed to be the reason why studio heads told the creator to rename Tatiana, to avoid any further incorrect announcements on fansites that this was a Martin Campbell game.

---

Pictured: Maria Campbell's main character reference for sprites.

Fortune Fact: Maria Campbell's signature attire was the result of a massive server crash at Ai Fortuna Software's main office, which included Keith's original design from when he was Noelia Flores's twin, grey-haired Geordo, and Sophia With Glasses. Initially, Maria's hair had sea shells, in place of flowers, and her dress was originally navy blue, with black boots with brass buckles, and a similarly colored belt and the bow around her neck was originally a black neckerchief, all of which were meant to call to mind Captain Natalia, who wore green and had an unbuttoned greatcoat, but otherwise wore similar attire. This was likely what contributed to the fan believe that she was secretly Martin.

Interviews

Excerpt from an interview with Maria Campbell's voice actress:

Interviewer: So, you said that you once met the English voice actress for Maria at a convention, and that the two of you are friends. Have the two of you ever noticed any similar issues that you have to deal with when playing Maria? Since the DLCs tend to get delayed elsewhere, I presume that she doesn't have to clear her schedule as often as you do for them...

MVA: *chuckles* No, she doesn't have to deal with that, but one thing we both learned is that we're both big fans of the first Martin Campbell game.

Interviewer: Really?

MVA: Yeah, so we both had the same issue, which was that this is an Ai Fortuna game, and the main character's last name is Campbell, so of course we both did the read with Maria using what the Director to this day calls "Martin Voices" whenever I do it.

Interviewer: Martin Voices?

MVA: Martin speaks differently to different people in the game, using Yamanote most of the time because that's what Natalia taught him. When he's really angry, though, he slips into his native Kyushu. In America, he usually uses RP British, but slips into some other British accent that I honestly don't remember the name of at the moment for the life of me. Martin voices are us copying that, even though Maria is supposed to talk more in a Shitamachi dialect in Japanese and a more "standardized" American accent that I also can't recall the entire time.

Interviewer: How did that work out?

MVA: If you go online and look up "Martin's Daughter Scary Flirts" or "British Maria Flirts With Katarina" online, you can see how the fans reacted to the released recordings of either of our slip-ups... I think someone actually animated the English one to include a kiss. But yeah, we both went in under the understanding that her missing dad was actually Martin, and now with all the DLCs out, we know we're right.

---

Excerpt from an Interview with Katarina's Voice Actress:

Interviewer: What are your thoughts on all those pirate DLC sets?

KVA: I love them! Katarina is romanceable in all of them, I get to have her treat people in ways never seen before, and I get to play my favorite type of character: A pirate. She's good at it, too.

Interviewer: Any favorite additions to the cast?

KVA: Pretty much all of them to be honest.

Interviewr: All of them?

KVA: Yep, every foreign exchange student, every citizen, and especially every member of the crew.

Interviewer: If you had to choose, though?'

KVA: That's a tough one. *pauses in thought* I guess Anne takes the lead, with Martin Campbell, Maria's dad, taking a reasonably solid second place for nostalgia’s sake. Anne gives Katarina someone to bounce off when she's not talking to Maria. But yeah. Pirate Katarina remains my favorite setting, so I might be biased...

Memes

[aniron48]

Love Letters - Day 9

Here we are at the end of our choose your own adventure, friends. I've said this before, but it's been an absolute delight, doing this with all of you, and writing this together. Your choices shaped every step of the narrative, so if you've enjoyed the story, you should feel proud (and if you didn't, uh, not it? 😉)

If you need to catch up on a day or two, you can find the other installments here. I'll keep this post pinned for a day or two as well, and may put the finished version up on ao3 eventually. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8

Last, but not remotely least: my wife has been making noises about joining Tumblr, because I told her about this, and she wants to read it in its original form. I hope she does, because all of this is for her. 💜

Conclusion starts below the cut!

And tomorrow at noon, as instructed, he would meet Q in front of the Fighting Temeraire. 

At precisely twelve o’clock, Bond walked into room 34 of the National Gallery. Q was already there, this time, a reversal of the day they’d met a little over a year ago. He’d swapped his anorak for a wool coat, his suit for a navy blue cardigan and a white button-up, and, in a nod to the day, he sported a navy blue bowtie with tiny white hearts on it. So much had changed, since the last time they’d been here, much of it because of the man waiting for him on the bench, looking at a Turner painting.

“James,” Q said as Bond approached. “You got the package I sent?”

“Yes,” Bond said. “It’s the best thing anyone’s ever sent me, Q. Even without the exploding pen. Though thank you for that, by the way, I still haven’t managed to clean up all the confetti hearts. I even found some in my pants, last night.”

“How in the world—actually, never mind, I’m not sure I want to know.”

Bond gestured to the envelope Q was clutching in his right hand. “And you got your letter as well, I see.”

“Yes,” Q said. “I, ah—I haven’t opened it, yet. You’re going to think it’s silly of me, but I was too nervous.”

Bond sat down beside him. “Don’t be nervous,” he said, taking Q’s hand in his own. “You can open it with me, if you like.”

Q nodded. He squeezed Bond’s hand, and then released it, taking a shaky breath as he opened the envelope and began to read.

My darling Q,

A wise man recently told me that I should be honest above all else, in my letter to you, so I’ll start with a small confession: I have read countless love letters in the last few days, preparing to write my first to you. It was the best thing I could have done, but not for the reason you might think: it showed me that there are as many ways to tell someone what they mean to you as there are people in the world.

I needed to know that, because so many of the traditional idioms people use to describe love didn’t seem to fit the way I feel for you. Take “falling” in love, for example. I haven’t found that to be particularly apt. I’ve fallen from any number of things—helicopters, buildings, construction cranes, moving cars—and loving you hasn’t been like any of that.

I’m beginning to suspect that I’m doing an absolutely shit job of writing this letter, but the thing is, so many people treat pain as a kind of virtue, as something that must be surmounted before you gain anything of value. It’s astonishing how untrue that really is, though, and it’s equally astonishing how long it took me to learn it. How the only reason I’ve begun to learn it is because loving you is the only thing in my life that never hurts.

I’m not trying to say that relationships are effortless. I’m not that daft. What I mean is—loving you isn’t falling at all, Q. It’s a lie-in on a Sunday, with you in my arms, and the cats at our feet, and the certain knowledge that all of me is welcome there. That all of me is home, because by some miracle you know me better than anyone, and you love me anyway.

So much of my life is a fight, and you remain the most effortless surrender.

I love you with all of me, Q. And I always will.

Love,

Your James

Q sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to swipe at his face. “Don’t look at me. I’m not crying.”

“Of course not,” Bond said. He reached out to wipe Q’s cheeks with his thumbs, and rested his forehead against Q’s. He stayed there for a long moment, leaning into Q, feeling the warmth of his body alongside his own.

“We’re quite the matched set, aren’t we?” Q asked eventually.

“I’d say so,” Bond said. “Oh, and there’s one more thing.“ He reached into the leather satchel at his feet, and pulled out the snow globe he’d bought in Bath. “I bought this to throw Moneypenny and Tanner off the track, but do you know, it’s rather grown on me.”

Q shook it, and watched as snow fell on the replica of the Bath Circus. His smile widened.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

“By the way, I presume that Moneypenny and Tanner aren’t actually having an affair.”

“Do you know, I’d convinced them to go down with me to Bath to mail your package, since we all had the Saturday morning free—I thought we’d make a day of it. If you’d taken the train into Bath, instead of driving, you might have run into all of us. As it was, I had to take the train back by myself. But I gather I had the more comfortable journey.”

They sat in silence for a while longer, looking at the Fighting Temeraire on the wall.

“Does it still make you melancholy, when you look at it?” Bond asked.

“Maybe a little. It’s a melancholy painting, in many ways. A painting about change. But then, not all change is bad, is it? Something ends, and something else begins. Maybe there’s hope in it, in its own way.” Q shifted on the bench, turning to look at Bond. “And what about you? Do you still just see a bloody big ship?”

“Well,” Bond said, considering. “There are actually two ships, sailing toward the viewer, aren’t there? The older, wiser, stately ship, and the younger, cheekier ship there in the front, dragging the older one into the future whether he wills it or no. It’s a metaphor, you see.”

“A metaphor for what, exactly?”

“The ships are a metaphor. The painting’s actually about shagging.”

“Oh my god. And here I was starting to think you were a romantic.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“I do love you, you know,” Q said. “In case you needed reminding.”

“I do,” Bond said. “Frequently.” He reached up to tuck a stray curl behind Q’s ear. “And I love you too. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Q looked down at his watch. “Do you want to have a look around? I took the day, but if you have to be back at work—“

“There’s nowhere I need to be,” Bond said. “We have time.”

The gallery slowly started to fill up with people, students and tourists and docents giving tours, eddying around the pair of them like boats in a harbor. Some of them may have noticed them sitting there, the agent and his quartermaster, looking for all the world like an ordinary couple on a Valentine’s Day outing. Others never noticed them at all. But they stayed for a long while, and then they were gone, and when they left, they left together.

[treba-neco-napise]

Fanbinding a chainshipping fic

Because I got back into Saw again and had the need to reread it in paper.

It's Until He, Too, Fell Asleep by Misschatelle on Ao3, not sure if they have a tumblr account. 😅

I had decided not to post about it when the process was done because it really doesn't look as good as the very professional stuff you see here from people who really made it their hobby, but this

made me change my mind, I just had to shove this fic into everyone's dash. If you don't care about the process, just keep scrolling, it's gonna get long, bye 👋

Formatting was pain.

Mainly because I was trying to make it thematic but putting bathroom tiles, chains or Adam's reaching hand would be too horror-y and wouldn't really fit the tone of the book anyway. So I went with Painting with chocolate for the titles and EB Garamond for text. And you have no idea how hard it was to get the painted heart off the toilet lid through some image editos to make it look remotely functional. But I just had to have it there, y'know, follow your heart and shit. (for the people who haven't seen Saw 1, I'm sorry, there's a lot happening).

Printing was also pain. I didn't know how to make adobe print the whole document as booklets so I had to separately print 20-page booklets one by one. It was supposed to be 16 but adobe decided it was going to go the way he wanted.

Stitching was also pain.

I was going according to this video and at first was really confused about the stitch but eventually found some order in it. The thread tangling up all the time was worse.

Then the gluing came...

(I took the fabric-y things off of a book I bought second-hand very cheaply and butchered for the cover)

Added a piece of fabric on top, not sure if it's supposed to be done but felt safer to ensure it wasn't going to fall apart.

And then just put it together with some paper.

And now I hit the 10-image limit so I'll have to reblog...

[moonpersonalter]

Pinocchio In Wonderland

[Hello! Long time no post~ Due to some trouble with tumblr, I couldn't post the fic here first so it got posted over on my AO3. Tumblr has given me mercy and I can post properly again.]

Fandom: SINoALICE, Twisted Wonderland Rating: T Warnings: N/A [for now]

Summary:

Without warning, Pinocchio finds himself in a world different from the usual. The towering shelves reaching the impossibly high ceiling of the Library he had grown used to, is replaced with mirrors, portraits and a world larger than his own. With no way back to the comforting familiarity of the Library, Pinocchio struggles to adapt to this new world he's forced to live in for who knows how long. Thus, his tale begins where all things should be. Orientation. --- or -- Pinocchio ends up in Twisted Wonderland.

There once was a puppet that was given life. He is an obedient puppet, Followed his father's instructions to a T. One day, he awoke in a Library... And no one is there to tell him what to do.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ———

The moment Pinocchio's eyes opened, everything was in utter chaos. Cloaked figures scrambling across the room, ducking and dodging to safety as the other braver souls run around chasing the cause of the mess. A fork-tailed cat spewing fireballs ran around the room, burning curtains and candles and the cloaks of others in an attempt to... what?

Pinocchio isn't so sure what to make of this except look around, lost and confused. The cat, despite it looking like a monster, didn't look like a typical Nightmare. Not only that, the room he's in… floating mirrors that hang high and low surrounds them, with dark draperies and tall candelabras lighting the room with its strange green light.

The puppet's face contorts in panic, ‘Wh... why... is this not the Library?’

“Seize that racoon!” An older man with a strange bird-like mask barked (or screeched?), pointing at the fork-tailed cat breathing fire and throwing fireballs all over the place. More students scramble as the magic makes contact with the draperies, setting it ablaze but was put out in haste before it grew. 

Two faces Pinocchio has never met before chases after the cat, one with red hair with a nasty scowl on his face and the other a white haired glasses wearing boy that followed behind the redhead. Both held up in their hand small wands with gems on top, generating sparkles that soon took the shape of a comet sent flying towards the cat. It yelps but retaliated with more fire their way.

Candelabras and candles were tossed and thrown about as they continued their chase, mirrors sent flying off course from where it once floated. The bird man that screeched earlier grew more frantic and demanding the more the cat made a mess of the room.

Pinocchio continued to watch the madness unfurl, further painting his face in deep confusion. Without a single clue what to do, he approached the nearest person beside him for questions. “Um, excuse me...” Pinocchio tugs at the person's sleeve, their head turning towards him. Underneath their hood, the poor Marionette could see the annoyed look in their green eyes.

“What? We're in the middle of something,” the person before him grumbled, arms crossed as they watched the cat cause further damages to the room. The person before him stood several heads taller than the puppet, looked strong enough to catch the cat in no time but his bored yawn told him otherwise, already ignoring him as if he never noticed his presence at all.

“Nyahaha! Take this!” The cat spews another fireball at the two pursuers, blocked instantly by an invisible shield before running off again.

The red headed pursuer, face turning into the same shade as his hair, looked as if he was about to explode. “STOP! OR ELSE IT'S OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!”

Pinocchio continued to stand awkwardly in place, fidgeting the sleeves of his cloak (he still doesn‘t know where he got it) as he watched the cat continue its reign of fiery destruction. No one exactly knws for sure what to do to help, but no one looked willing to help either way. If only they‘d have told the poor puppet to do something about it, then he might do something about it. But what exactly should he do? Oh, the dilemma the poor puppet is facing.

“Oi, dumbass,” a disembodied voice calls for him, directly into Pinocchio's ear. He tried to find the source of the voice but found no one facing his way. Who—

The voice calls out again, “On your ear, dumbass!” and Pinocchio follows, seeing his staff companion in the form of a small... earring thing. Pinocchio wasn't quite sure what had happened but despite it's smaller size, his companion is still as venomous as ever. “Hey, lets help those little punks. Or else, we'll be burnt to ashes.”

“But—” the Marionette's protest dies down before he could choke out his next word, the ever foul-mouthed head continuing to spew out insults, “Wanna die when this is all over? We‘re screwed if you don’t do something, dumbass!”

Driven to the need to follow his awful companion's directions, Pinocchio merely nods in agreement. After all, the head did make a sound argument, the poor puppet didn't want to be burnt to ashes.

As if drawing out the power of his companion, the ‘earring’ grows into the staff Pinocchio has always known it for, with its face contorted into an ugly condescending look. With the head raised high, he brings it down onto the ground, smashing the floor beneath as debris flew across the room. “MRAHH!” The cat stops mere centimeters away from the hammer and stumbles back, the shock wave caused by the staff nearly putting the two pursuers off balance as well.

Everyone, even the cat that almost had its head smashed into mush, turned to his presence.

The room goes silent. Then… the bird man screamed.

“W-what is the meaning of this?!” He approached the mess, frantic over the state of the entire room, with the burnt curtains and crater he created. “What have you done?!” The bird man wasn't particularly looking at anyone specific, but he was expecting Pinocchio to confess to the crime he has clearly committed, to the confusion of the marionette who was merely told what to do.

Pinocchio looked down onto his foul mouthed companion, seeking some form of guidance to his conundrum. But alas, all that came up was silence, leaving him alone to fend for himself.

"I– urk... I'm—" he stutters, barely able to come up with an excuse to save himself. It wasn't his fault, after all. He was merely told what to do, he couldn't be fully blamed for the mess that lay before him. “I-It's not my fault—”

The bird man didn't take too kindly to such a blatant lie. “Well, clearly someone is responsible for ruining the room as important and ancient as this one...,” he despaired while Pinocchio continued to stare in confusion.

The cat, who earlier was terrorizing the entire place, attempted to escape from the group. The red-haired student, quick on his feet, raised his wand and shouted, "—Off With Your Head!"

“Ugyaa!!” A heart-shaped collar appeared on the creature's neck, locked tightly like one would do with a pet on a leash. “The hell? Let me outta this thing!”

“Rule number 23 of the Queen of Heart's Law, ” the redhead spoke with authority and conviction in his voice, a fiery rage burning behind those gray eyes. “No cats are allowed in during important festivities.” He had a triumphant smile on his face, only shrugged off by the white haired student beside him.

The white haired student beside him claps, “Good show, Riddle~” He cheers, hand over his chest with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, as if envious of something. “Quite the handy Unique Magic that I must ha— I mean, I must give respect to.” The way he quickly catches his own words hinted something sinister in the puppet‘s mind, making him want to stay away.

The cat groans, tugging and pulling at the collar, the quiet clicking and clacking interrupting the conversation. The bird man ignores this and continues to speak his mind, “No matter, if no one owns this weasel—,” the ‘weasel’ in question makes a noise of protest, calling itself Grim, but his introduction was ignored and attention was turned towards Pinocchio. “You! Young man with that oddly shaped hammer.”

“M-me?!”

“Yes, you shall take care of this weasel.”

Grim immediately protested once again, jumping and fuming at the idea of some kid was going to babysit him. Pinocchio too, would like to protest against the idea but found it difficult to object, even raising his voice just a small bit was a chore, his very core screaming against it.

Seeing Pinocchio‘s hesitance as silent acceptance, the bird man shoves Grim into the puppet's arms. "I'll leave the responsibilities to you, young man." He cawed with authority, the poor puppet doing nothing but look down as he holds the cat tight within his grasps, lips drawn out into a small frown.

With everything sorted out, the bird man’s attitude changed immediately into joyous celebration, the pinpricks of glowing yellow where his eyes should be curves into crescents as his mouth forms into a smile. ”Now, let‘s continue on with the dorm assignments!”

The students scurry about to their positions while the seven imposing-looking figures (including Riddle and white-haired students) stand in front of the grouped up students. Pinocchio stared at the masses, a troubled look on his already troubled face. “Um—”

“Headmage!” Riddle speaks up before Pinocchio could, his narrowed eyes making the poor puppet straighten himself out. “All the first years students have been assigned to their respective dorms. All… except for him.” He points an accusing finger towards Pinocchio, making him flinch for the second time, looking more troubled than he had ever been to.

All this attention but no direction is making the puppet more anxious than before, tempted to just grab the hammer and bonk some answers out of the masses. His hand had already taken hold of the hammer but all that happened was for his only weapon to suddenly shrink and go back into the small dotted earring it was before. “H-hey—” Pinocchio made a pathetic noise, staring at where he felt his companion had retreated back to. He was ignored, as per the usual.

There was no time for him to ask any more questions, the ’Headmage‘ as Riddle had called this strange bird man as, quickly grabbed Pinocchio by the wrist and yanked Grim from his arms. He trips as he’s pushed towards the grand-looking mirror floating on the short platform in the middle of the room, an eerie green glow surrounding the intricate frame.

“Now, stand before the Dark Mirror and be sorted into one of the dorms,” The Headmage decrees, Pinocchio immediately doing as told.

Like the obedient puppet that he is, Pinocchio stands before the Dark Mirror, watching a strange mist swirl behind the mirror, flowing like water until a mask appears from beyond the abyss. “… State your name.” It simply says.

“P-Pinocchio!”

The mirror pauses, its ‘eyes’ fixed on Pinocchio. Studying. Analyzing.

Its slow deliberation of the poor puppet went on for too long a time, as if the Mirror had difficulties sifting through how ever many dorms exists, making the audience antsy with anticipation. “Come on, we don‘t got all day!” The Headmage screeched, standing behind Pinocchio, causing him to jump out of the way as The Headmage shakes the mirror for faster answers.

Once the Mirror had been thoroughly shook (as per how the Headmage gauges it), Pinocchio takes his place and…

“The shape of your soul…,” The Mirror begins to speak, taking another long pause that sent the entire room groaning from the wait. “… is…”

Another long pause. 

“Huhhh, I’ve never seen the mirror struggle for this long,” one of the students spoke up, the leader of the group. He pulls down his hood, revealing his striking red eyes and the brightest smile Pinocchio had ever come across. It‘s almost blinding, to say the least.

“The Dark Mirror must be struggling with its internal connection,” a voice speaks out from the strange floating device amongst the leading students, blinking with each spoken word. “Crowley probably broke it’s connection with all that shaking.”

“Ohhhh! Maybe if we shake the Dark Mirror, it‘ll fix that problem in no time!” The red-eyed bandana wearing boy cheered, arms crossed as if solving the most complicated problem.

“If it were that simple without risk of breaking such an ancient artifact,” a beautiful man with blonde hair spoke up, his face exasperated from the other boy’s suggested fix. 

“… Pomefiore.” The Mirror finally decided, a massive wave of eyes dart towards Pinocchio‘s quivering form. “From henceforth, Pinocchio will be part of Pomefiore.”