#and if i speak this into existence and it actually happens

[i7nn8a]

Sukuna never thought he’d see you again.

No, he was sure he’d never see you again. But, as if fate were mocking him, here you are. Wearing the shortest, tightest black dress he’s ever seen, with black boots hugging your thighs just above the knee. Yet, that’s not what catches his attention right now. You’re bleeding—badly.

It takes his brain a few seconds to process the scene. There’s a deep gash on the side of your waist, your arms covered in shallow cuts, as if you’d used them to shield yourself. Your nose is bleeding, and he could almost swear your dress is red, not black. And you’re walking toward him.

Strangely enough, that last fact is the hardest to believe—and the most shocking. It’s been years since he left you, tears streaming down your face. He thought he was protecting you. His life was dangerous; he could be arrested or killed at any moment. But you didn’t know that. What you knew—what he let you believe—was that he was just an asshole who used you and broke your heart. And you were vindictive; he knew that. You would never willingly speak to him again unless the situation was beyond dire.

He felt a mix of anger and worry. He had done everything to keep you safe. He gave up feelings he didn’t even know he could have just to ensure you wouldn’t get hurt by the mess that followed him. Now, he was ready to kill someone. He needed to know what had happened. But all he could do was watch, stunned, as you walked past him and headed toward a girl sitting in the circle of people gathered in the plaza, smoking. He could only assume she was your friend.

Then he heard your voice. A voice he hadn’t heard in so long. One he didn’t realize he’d missed until he actually heard it again. You turned to the girl, who was looking at you with the same shock and worry, and said, your voice strained, as if existing hurt at that moment:

“Can I borrow your phone? Mine just died.”

He swore his heart stopped beating.

[ranchstoryblog]

Fandom Memories: HMFarm

Hmmm. So, nearly a quarter of you whippersnappers wanna hear about the good ol' days, huh? Well, back in the day, you wouldn't just hang out on one or two big websites to try to find people who shared your niche interests among a million random users. Everything had its own dedicated site, with its own special pack of weirdos that you probably wouldn't find anywhere else. Home grown fandom, sprouting from the cement sidewalks of the freshly paved internet like so many weeds with pretty little flowers on top. So, let's take a little stroll down memory lane and visit one of the oldest fan sites with Archive.org's "Wayback Machine."

Ahh, just like I remember it. This here is "Harvest Moon Farm." 'course, we just called it HMFarm, like the URL did. This used to be the place to be. The prime progenitor of all farmin' fansites in the English speaking community. Maybe not the literal first, but up until around 2005, this was where you would go if you wanted to know anythin' about digital farmin'. It truly was a magical place to visit.

This screenshot isn't the oldest design, but it's the one I fondly remember. The majority of my time using the site was during the lead-up to A Wonderful Life, which was probably also when it was the most active as an information source. Seeing the screenshots, checking the forums, speculatin', wonderin', dreamin'... It's a warm feeling. I can't really describe how it felt to look at these shots for the first time. Granted, they were mostly sourced from various places like IGN or Newtechnix, but who wanted to go to THOSE messy sites when all the info I wanted was right here? IGN wasn't telling me how to revive the Vineyard in Harvest Moon 64 while I was waiting for AWL news either.

Our first look at the character we would come to know as Muffy, the sheer novelty of being able to go into the townsfolk's glorious, 3D-rendered rooms, the apparent misidentification of flowering tomatoes... The webmaster, Gamergirl87, would caption each one as well. Some of the captions of those screenshots ended up not being exactly true, but it was the closest thing to on-going coverage we really had. Who else was there to trust?

It's a little off topic, but I think at one point after learning about the GBA connectivity, I must have dreamed about this very gallery and seeing a screenshot of a Gamecube-ized Popuri with the caption that Mineral Town villagers would visit after connecting the GC and GBA together. At least, I'm pretty sure it was a dream. I've met some people who claim they saw the same thing, but none of us have been able to find that screenshot or comment again.

The one that would most catch my attention was the one on the left here. I didn't have a PlayStation 2, so I was coming fresh off of the GameBoy and Nintendo 64 when going into A Wonderful Life. The pond, the mysterious glowing plants, the mood and ambiance of their lighting, the little tree on the door... Naturally, I mirrored it on my first day the remake was available.

It's a real shame that the message boards are poorly preserved, since it doesn't look like there was a news post about the pre-order plush cow. I was hoping to find the name of whoever it was that convinced me to commit my first ever preorder. I still have the receipt, but without the forum post it's really only tangentially related to HM Farm.

'course, just learning about existing games and upcoming games wasn't the only good thing HM Farm was for. As I alluded to, there was a whole community here! While it's a shame that the message boards aren't well preserved by the Wayback Machine, you know what is?

The "ideas" list! This incredible time capsule was one of the first "interactive" parts of the site, starting in the year 2000. It's kind of fun to see how many of these ideas actually happened. Obviously, new characters and personalities were probably expected, but Animal Parade would eventually feature a honeymoon, several games have clothing and other customization, a mall, city, and pig would be added as soon as GBC 3, a goat would be in A Wonderful Life... It's actually amazing how prescient a lot of the suggestions are.

I'd share the whole thing, but the amount of e-mail addresses involved gives me pause. Still, there's a couple I wanna highlight:

Considering how often I still hear about people wanting to marry the moms and people attributing it to just "the fans getting older," it's funny to see Laserion lay out that, no, we've always been like this. Right down to using Manna's unhappy marriage and Lillia's husband never returning as valid reasons they should be available.

Tuan145, on the other hand, I just find extremely amusing because of the specific "2002 Escalade" part. Yes, this is clearly the ideal vehicle for all farmers in the Story of Seasons universe. This is now accepted headcanon. The boat was added in GBC 3 too, so obviously a 2002 Escalade is going to be added any day now.

Another thing that's amazingly well preserved is the site's fan art section. There's a few missing images here and there, but for the most part the entire thing is open to explore. People of basically all ages and skill levels happily submitted their creations, including original characters, digital art, traditional art, crossovers with popular series like Sailor Moon, a liiittle bit of drug use... Y'know, all the kinds of things you'd expect to see in a fan art gallery of the day.

Even better, some of the artists are still doing art today! Looking around, I quickly discovered one of my favorites, Rina Cat, is now on Blue Sky. I made sure to ask for permission to repost their art before including it here. Reaching out to everyone would be a bit much though, so I'll just encourage you to just browse the gallery using the Wayback Machine yourself. There's poetry and fanfics too!

There's a lot more to the site, including useful bits of history like keeping track of release dates for games, pre-release screenshots, and information that was only available on Japanese websites at the time, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Unfortunately, though the site continued to be updated until 2010 and stayed online until 2021, it's no longer available on the regular internet and the URL doesn't seem safe to access anymore. I wanted to include an interview with the former webmaster as well, but all their readily available contact information was tied to the website and I haven't had any luck so far in finding other means of contact. If I have any success, I'll be sure to make a follow-up! If you have any memories of HMFarm, or other fan sites, I'd be happy to hear about it.

[snugglyporos]

// Christ I wish I could go back in time and erase concepts like 'unconscious bias' from the world of popular lingo because people apply it to things that they don't apply to. No, most people do not possess an unconscious bias that working class people are worth less than rich people, that's your classist ideology being applied to things that you shouldn't apply it to. We might call that a conscious bias.

What is actually happening is a mix of tropes being blended together and not changing over time. Namely, the idea that the more individuals there are, the weaker they are. We see this everywhere; fifty ninjas? Weak. Not a problem. One ninja? Super powerful. Legend. This exists in everything from James Bond movies to comics to Power Rangers.

The reality is that, narratively speaking, the random cannon fodder between the protagonist and the final boss do not matter. They don't! In real life they would, but if you tried to give ever goon a backstory and explain it you would have a shit story because the audience does not care about the backstory of unnamed good #23. After they take the punch from the protagonist, the audience has entirely forgotten they existed.

Which means that, narratively speaking, the killing of the main villain is more important and more impactful than the killing of some random goon. Now, if you're a good writer this shouldn't be the case. But this too, comes from the blending of genres and tropes.

In the late 1980s, fiction became more violent and more visceral. This means that a lot more violence was happening! And yet, writers still wanted to have their protagonist show that they were the protagonist, because people were all in on moral relativism. People would be like 'well, there's no difference between the hero and the villain if the hero kills the villain.'

The response was a lot of heroes started adopting a weird kind of no killing rule; Batman will break your fucking spine but kill the guy who just blew up a building? That's too far! 'I'm not like you, a guy who kills people, I just cripple them for life!'

And again, this is what happens when genre conventions (the hero should be morally superior than the villain, or at least attempt to be) mixing with trope developments (everything now needs to be brutal and violent to reflect real life).

Now, the circle has completed itself, where we're once again back to 1985, where people are like 'actually no, the hero should fucking kill that guy.' You'll probably be a big fan of the Death Wish movies and The Dark Knight Strikes Back; you know, things that lots of proto-fascists really love because they reinforce the notion that actually, heroes should wield violence against their enemies and impose their will through abject terror.

The reality is, people aren't sitting around going 'my work should reflect the idea that workers are less important than the boss' it's that narratively, the random goons exist to be smacked down to prepare the audience for the big bad, because rising action requires that there be rising challenges. This is mixing along with personal tastes in media.

Now, you could, for example, turn this new trope on its head and ask whether the Punisher murdering every jaywalker and low level drug dealer with extreme violence makes him a villain, because his ideal is that any lawbreaker should be murdered instantly no matter how low the crime. You might also argue that the trope should actually be that the grunts shouldn't be killed by the hero, but the guy who organized them should, because he's much worse than they are.

You could also argue that, the reason why the hero doesn't just kill the villain is that murder is wrong? Even if you think it's morally justified? I think people forget, when they fantasize about an ideal French Revolution, that the most common crime people were executed for was pickpocketing, and every day they would execute the guys who got caught working the crowds at the executions the day before. More poor people got killed in the French Revolution than rich people; you should probably keep that in mind!

Because the core reason you probably want your hero to not kill people in general is that you then have to ask who deserves it and your answer will inevitably include a lot of people you might actually like! You probably don't want heroes taking vague concepts like justice into their own hands because inevitably that makes them into the Death Wish protagonist, deciding that what really needs to happen is for a white guy with a gun to just start shooting up inner cities.

You don't want your hero to start killing people because this is corrosive and it will inevitably result in comparisons between people who got killed.

So no, it's not some kind of unconscious bias, it's because we've melted a worldwide demand for bloodshed and violence with established genre tropes and if you removed one or the other people would complain and be very unhappy.

Or, I guess you could go on and say that Freddy Kruger is anti-marxist because he only targets teenagers instead of people who really deserve it.

[queer-benoit-blanc]

Conclave things that have stuck with me most after several watches and reading the book for comparison (I've mentioned some of this in other posts):

When Bellini berates Lawrence about his "precious doubts", he glances around first to make sure no one is going to hear. He's pissed off, but he knows the danger of rumour, and he doesn't want to get Lawrence hurt. It's such a tender little moment

Throughout the film, we get whispering and muttering, but it's never very clear what's being said. Until the end, when we can hear them all saying "Innocentius". After a discordant time of rumour and speculation, the Curia has finally united around Benitez

Lawrence's skullcap: he puts it on at the start when he needs to be professional, and tears it off after his improvised homily and the first time he sends Ray to do some investigating, as though he feels he is not worthy of his title. He's not wearing it at all when he sneaks into the Pope's room. But when he distributes the reports, it's back. He knows this is his duty

The book has a big focus on the role of the media, and we do get some mentions of that in the film (helicopters, camera flashes, etc) but it's incredibly stripped back. The film even changes some scenes to emphasise the role of rumour in such an insular place. For instance, the theatre room does not exist in the book, but in the film it provides space for Bellini's group to plot alone

The shroud over the dead Pope's face, and the ribbon and around the door, flimsy tradition contrasted with the heavy mundanity of the paramedics removing the body

The candles all around the Pope's photo, which are the same as the candle in Bellinis' room

Ray letting Lawrence use his glasses to read, which has obviously happened before. I love the solid ground that Ray provides Lawrence

In the book, Tedesco is terrible at Latin despite, as in the film, demanding it be brought back. The film provides a visual standing for this with the vape. He doesn't actually want tradition, he's just using it as a veil for his bigotry

Bellini saying the Pope was "always 8 moves ahead", setting up all the Pope's machinations that appear later

Lawrence being the first person to notice when Agnes and Benitez are trying to speak to the cardinals

The nuns always working in the background. Their work is shown over and over but the film demands effort from the audience to notice, lest they become "invisible"

[genericpuff]

I love Lore Olympus Rekindled! Speaking of, what made you decide to make this series?

Thank you!! <3

I mean, it goes without saying that the biggest reason I decided to pursue it was the same reason a lot of people read it now - I was disappointed with what LO was becoming, but I was still too in love with it to simply let it go. I know from the outside it's easy to assume that I must have always hated LO, but I didn't. I used to adore it, I read every episode as soon as it went up, talked about it with friends who also read it... and then around the trial arc, I saw the cracks beginning to form, and then the rose-colored glasses fell off entirely by the S2 finale when I truly realized that whatever I was hoping for all throughout the first two seasons was never actually going to happen. There was no earnest character development, no payoff to the questions and theories that we had had for years, no closure for the plot threads that were left hanging until they were forgotten.

I don't think past me expected everything to go exactly how they envisioned it, but I don't think they were wrong for expecting it to at least tell a story that was worth sticking around from beginning to end for. And by the end, it couldn't even manage that - there was no story, it was just a husk of what it used to be.

It was back around that S2/early S3 mark that I had the idea to actually turn my disappointment into something productive, by re-imagining the series my own way. My writing roots have always been in transformative fiction, I've always loved re-interpreting existing works into something new, and this was the first time in ages I had gotten an opportunity to do it - so after sitting on the idea for a little while (just to ensure I didn't jump headfirst into a new project in case it was a passing fancy lmao) I finally had enough of it just living in my own head (and in the discussion circles of the critical groups) and started to make it. It started off small, as all things do, but I never expected back then that it would turn into what it is now.

As much as people know me now as the chronic shit-talker of LO and Rachel Smythe, everything I put into Rekindled is for the love I used to have for LO - without that love underneath all the eventual hate and apathy, I wouldn't have been driven to create it in the first place. At the end of the day, in spite of all the shit I have to say about LO and its creator, everything that Rekindled is and will continue to be is owed to what LO used to be and what it wasn't.

[katerinaaqu]

Hi! Love your takes and all! What do you think of people talking about Penelope being all buff and strong physically as she was "Spartan?" or that she find Odysseus more attractive with blood plaster on his body as she is "Spartan" or such?. Is it true in the Epics? I read something about a Lykurgus or something..I just want to have a nuanced answer to that, also sorry for the silly question.

You are very kind Anon and I am glad you find them useful

Okay for starters I think this whole thing is a massive stereotype in regards to Sparta that "they are all sexually aroused by blood and violence". I mean yes Sparta as we know had an extreme military outline but it is not like they all just killed around to have fun like a twisted version of Asterix village or something. They valued war and the strength in war of course and they took pride to their warfare and all but yeah I think the whole thing of "oh gosh! Blood! Foreplay for Spartans" is just a joke that goes too far sometimes (although we DO have some exaggerated sources about the Spartans but, surprise surprise, they come from their main rival, Athens so yeah one needs to consider that too. So yeah although the Spartans were strictly military I do not think it is actually realistic to say that they all went like:

lol XD

Two this "Sparta" that they mostly mention is at least 100 years if not more away than the "Sparta" mentioned in the epic cycle. You see the Epic Cycle might have been synthesized at the 8th century BC but the events taking place in it, reflect on the Bronze Age or the Mycenean kingdoms which existed before. These "Spartans" everyone speaks about is usually referring to the Doriean Spartans. The Dorieans were a Greek set of tribes with their own dialect that came down from the north at the year around 1100 BC, around 100 years after the estimated date of the events of the Trojan war and they got to remain to the areas such as Macedonia or Lacedaimona aka Sparta thus we have Macedonians and Spartans speak Doric Greek dialect while Atheneans speak Attic Greek dialect and the Asia Minor greek cities speak Ionian etc Either way as I said the events of the Trojan war happened around 100 years before this Doric Tribe descend much less till the strictly military spartan system to be fully crystallized. So we need to think of that. And even then it is not like the Spartan women were some sort of body-builders who didn't have any sort of binary roles to their society or being active warriors in armies etc (don't mistake them for Amazons guys! Hahahaha!). They did actively excersize more than most Greek cities at that time and they did take part in athletic events more than let's say Athens (Athenean women by n large seemed to participate in sports such as running and those were exclusively for Hera's celebrations) so we can imagine they would be more athletic than the average Greek lady but that doesn't mean they were soldier-trained or anything. The military training was for boys at the city of Sparta. And women still had their own binary roles in their respected society, they just had some more freedom as compared to their Athenean counterparts.

So even if Myceneans DID have a more military form of society or at least based on the findings they did focus on warfare to their art and such and the building of their walls and all they still wouldn't be the same as the doric Sparta that were exclusively military. Could perhaps mycenean Sparta have the basis for the future doric Sparta? Perhaps but I doubt we have sufficient evidence to say they are identical.

Three. I believe that people who wanna desperately depict Penelope as some buff lady, misses the concept of Penelope's strength in the Odyssey. Penelope was not strong because she could fight with the sword. She was strong because she was mentally steadfast, clever and resourceful and enduring and she managed to hold the kingdom of Ithaca steadfast by herself for 20 years. It wasn't about her being buff lady. Homer does seem to imply she was tall and stoutly buillt; see my other post where I mention her physical description in Homer:

but not buff as "I'm gonna kick your ass" buff and all. Homer doesn't mention that any of the Spartan princesses have some specific training (Helen Clytemnestra or Penelope) but later literature implies that they have basic knowledge on weaponry (for example in later 5th century dramas and above Clytemnestra not only is seen wielding a weapon but knowing some basics as to how it was made) but it needs to be said that the posthomeric sources were also influenced by their contemporary Sparta aka the doric military Sparta. Homer doesn't imply that this strict military doric way of life was part of his lore but he does imply that Sparta relies more to its military (as compared to Ithaca or Pylos for example) so maybe he attempts to create the illusion of historical continuation but either way no this whole "300s-like" Sparta was not crystalized yet to the times that Homer synthesized his poems much less to the time of Bronze Age.

And there is no hint that Penelope goes "WOW BLOOD!" that seems to me one of the overused jokes on the internet, again emanating by the whole series of Sparta stereotypes used for comedy. It was in fact Euryclea the one to almost welp in happiness seeing Odysseus covered in blood and that was because Odysseus had killed the men she hated. Penelope doesn't show such a thing. Odysseus also washes himself up to be presentable to her. And even in posthomeric sources Penelope was not linked to physical strength but rather with the strength of her mind and the purity of her intentions (well...except maybe from Parthenius narrative if I recall correctly. There Penelope is pictured as scheming in jealousy against one of the sons Odysseus ellegedly produced and manipulated her husband to kill his illegitimate son)

As for the last part I am not sure what you are referring to? Are you referring to Lycurgus that is mentioned in some later sources as king? I did find for example the reference of Plutarch (who lives much much later) that he implies that Lycurgus lives at the same time as Homer or possibly had met him personally but is that what you are referring to? Either way I assume you refer to the historical person rather than some mythical figure because in homeric realm we do have rulers such as Tyndareus (the king of Sparta father to Helen and Clytemnestra) and Icarius (father to Penelope). It seems that Homer with the mention of the two rulers, even if not directly mentioning it, seems to be winking at the later but still ancient custom of doric Sparta to have two kings but I am not sure if that truly was his objective (and therefore creating an anachronism most likely)

I hope that answers your questions a bit

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 100

One hundred fuckin’ days. God. Actually happened. 

I spent 3/4ths of the year drawing more Junkan art than I think anyone else on the internet ever has. Which might be presumptuous of me, maybe i’m just looking in the wrong places y’know? I’m a solid second place bare minimum.

And like, that’s still pretty funny right? This whole event is something I’m gonna cherish forever, the memories, the art itself, the friends I made because of it. But like, c’mon. I drew 100 fucking pieces, learned new skills like digital painting, animation, all that shit, for a ship that I used to hate, and a ship that for the longest time I thought was gonna get me fuckin banished to the deepest depths of the internet just for drawing a poor sketch of them kissing. This ship has become more deeply entwined into who I am as a person that it’s passed up Tokomaru, the ship that literally made me realize I’m a woman.

It’s gotta be at least a little funny, right?

Ah but enough of that, I can talk more on that subject a bit later. For now I reckon I should focus on our art piece for today! Wouldn’t you agree?

Yeah it’s the Wedding. I’d say even before Day 60 I decided the final pic of the Project would be The Wedding, even before I decided to draw a comic of the proposal. Because like, c’mon, it’s basic but how the fuck else was I supposed to end of the project? With something that ISN’T a wedding????

And very shocking to hear after this entire project has gone by, but I did in fact scale back this pic massively. You wanna know what the original idea was?? 22 images, each one depicting different parts of the wedding and afterparty, including the kiss at the end. And the kiss at the end? I was gonna feature every character from the 3 main classes + Ruruka, Seiko, and Yasuke. Fucking why??? Because Excess is all I know people ITS ALL I KNOW.

However I had decided that I wanted this project finished and ready before October, because I wanted to do the Vampire Fic to coincide with Day 30. And again, say it with me here, “Jem was severely burnt out on the project!” 

So it went from 22 images, to “However many I can get done in time + the big group shot” and then that became “Just the big group shot,” and then finally, i cracked and just drew The Kiss. 

Speaking of which before I divulge some more info about the original plan, i’ll get all the fun things about the actual art I did go through with.

As you can tell I shaded this differently from anything in the project. I normally have two different ways of shading art, I don’t think these are the proper words but I call them Soft Shading and Hard Shading. If you need immediate examples, Day 95 was Soft Shaded, and Day 94 was Hard Shaded. Generally speaking I prefer to do Hard Shading, as I think it works better with the rest of my style, and also just looks better in general. Soft Shading is what I do for pics with like, a very specific tone and energy to them that I can’t really put to words. It’s also significantly easier to do compared to Hard Shading. 

A few months back for a commission of Kaede and Marceline from Adventure Time hanging out (yes this is relevant) I was trying to capture a very specific aesthetic that I’m obsessed with called Frutiger Aero. This mostly was in the background, however when lighting the pic I needed a very specific aesthetic that I didn’t know how to capture with just one of my shading styles. So . . . I fuckin did both. And in my opinion (which is crazy because this requires I compliment myself) it looked fuckin great. That said it was significantly harder.

I think I’ve done it only one other time after this, but I don’t remember what the pic was if it exists at all. But obviously as you can see, I decided that to really commemorate the occasion I’d go all out and do both shading styles again. It was very worth it, but fun fact! Doing this style on Roses is a fucking pain in the ass and if I ever have to do it again I will fucking SCREAM!

Anyway, the pic was definitely a lot harder to work on because of that stylistic choice, but the end result makes up for it by a massive margin. 

Hope ya’ll like the dresses because they were the hardest part of this! Fun fact, Val (She’s back!) did a chapter for her legendary Year of Love and Despair fic where the gals are in wedding dresses. And the designs she came up with are amazing! I still really wanna draw em when I get a chance! However! I woulda felt bad if I just yoinked em for this, so I had to do everything in my power to come up with completely different designs. And given that I am a perfectionist, that was significantly more difficult than it probably shoulda been. But I did it! I really like how Mikan’s dress turned out specifically, I thought giving her a fit that covered up more skin than a normal wedding dress would be fitting for her. Also I really like drawing Mikan’s hair in a bun, I never had a chance to say that so I’mma say that now. 

Wow fuck I just realized there’s probably a lot of random details or thought processes I have on this ship that I just never got an opportunity to talk about, either because I had a different topic to cover on previous posts, or I just forgot, or I just didn’t have a good segway! Crazy right? 

Also yes! Shading Junko’s hair was heavenly~

Okay i’ve run out of words on the art. Time to tell you about everything I cut! Now I’m sad to say but no, I didn’t actually cut 22 planned images. I never got far enough to actually figure out each individual pic. Only a small handful, which I almost speedily sketched out for this post, but I don’t have it in me, especially on my current schedule. So i’ll just do my best to describe what I had in mind!

First piece would have been Mukuro being on Security for the Wedding, because of course. She would have also enlisted the help of Mondo and his entire gang, because that combination in this context sounds funny. Don’t worry though they were well behaved.

Ruruka was gonna handle the Wedding Cake, with Teruteru on the rest of the food. Either Ruruka or Mukuro would have been giving him a death glare during the process of course.

Behind the scenes Mikan would be getting prepped for the Wedding. And by prepped I mean Seiko, Ibuki, and Sayaka would be trying very hard to keep Mikan from crying as a result of how happy and overwhelmed she is (Ruining her makeup). Seiko trying to blow air into her eyes to keep them dry while Sayaka and Ibuki desperately try to find an outlet to plug in a hairdryer in because that would be significantly more efficient.

On the reverse, Junko would be doing all of the work on prepping herself for the wedding, with Ruruka, Yasuke and Tsumugi standing in the background, questioning why they’re even there. Junko would yell at them that they’re morale support in this instance. 

Warriors of Hope would of course be there being scamps of course, Kotoko would be the Flower Girl because I play favorites. Toko and Komaru would probably be there trying to keep them in line.

I didn’t have anything in mind with the afterparty but I more than likely would have drawn the drunkest Junko I possibly could. Maybe even Mikan too!

For the Bouquet Throwing I was gonna have Syo jumping at it like a feral animal, and thinking about it now I’d probably also have Tenko jumping for it with killing intent in her eyes.  

And I think that’s it for ideas I had prior to cutting them. Which means it’s time for me to get sappy about the fact that the project is finally ending! Fuck! Usually when I write these I try to have a decent idea ahead of time of what I’m gonna fucking say, this time however I’m just gonna talk, and i’m gonna keep talking until I’m either struck down by nature or I run out of things to say. Sorry! 

This is going to get silly, sappy, and maybe even a little venty, jump in at your own risk. 

If you told me at the beginning of 2024 that I was going to draw 100 days worth of Junkan related art, including a gif and a music video, 2 comics, and also get back into writing to make gay fanfic, I’d be so god damn confused. Because what the fuck right? And that’s not even counting everything I drew AFTER I fuckin finished! Like hold on a minute i’m gonna count up how many times i’ve drawn these two, including the individual comic pages from the three i’ve made.

204.

Fucking, I. I didn’t even know we passed 200 by this point. 

And that’s not counting the sketches I’ve drawn on paper in my sketchbook. It’s also not counting unfinished pics. It ain’t counting the art I might draw WHILE writing this! It’s not counting the stuff I probably forgot about while searching my files cause I suck at naming the aforementioned files!

AND I’M STILL NOT BURNED OUT EITHER?

I got burned out on the project sure but the moment I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted I fucking IMMEDIATELY drew a Junkan pic for Halloween. And then I kept going, and then I didn’t fucking stop, and I don’t think I CAN stop! I don’t even WANT to stop but you’d think by now I’d be like “Well I don’t have any ideas right now-” NO I HAVE TOO FUCKING MANY IDEAS! I KEEP FUCKING THINKING OF MORE IDEAS, AND THEN I COME UP WITH AN AU AND THAT COULD HAVE LIKE 10,000 MORE IDEAS. JUNKAN IS A MENTAL HYDRA YOU DRAW ONE PIC 2 MORE POP UP IN ITS PLACE!

I can draw these pieces in like a few hours if not shorter, because I don’t have to fucking sketch them properly anymore. I feel like I shouldn’t be able to do that! This ship has done unspeakable things to both my mind and body! And i’ve said it before but i’m not trying to complain here, as you’ll see when I start talking about this ship like it saved me from falling into the grand canyon. But it’s just, so, absurd???

Danganronpa is only like my third favorite piece of media behind Bo-bobo and Fairy Tail and yet I’ve drawn more art of JUST THIS SHIP than I have of just general art of those series! That’s not even counting all the other ship art I’ve done! Like Tokomaru! Remember Tokomaru? The ship that is responsible for me being a woman and being able to find the happiness of being my true self? I think i’ve drawn that and Syomaru a combined like, 20 times across my entire life as a DR fan. ALL OF THIS JUNKAN ART SAY FOR LIKE, 5 OF THEM WERE IN ONE YEAR. 

And bare minimum for 2025, assuming I don’t make ANYTHING ELSE OF THEM (Which I will. You know I will.) I’m gonna draw 21 pics for Junkan Week, because you know I’m gonna just draw EVERY prompt from all three lists. And then 30 more for the Month of Junkan (Will try to have that prompt list up soon btw!). So that’s 51 I’m going to do. That’s over half of what I realistically was supposed to do bare minimum for this project. That’s so fucking much, and I’m gonna do it, because I love this ship, and also it sounds REALLY funny if I did that. 

I think genuinely the only other ships I could fucking do this for are like, Toko/Syomaru or Flarelu. Maybe Togachako if I did a reread of MHA to get me back in the spirit for that series. And even then i’m not sure I physically have it in me to go that distance even for those ships. I certainly want to draw a lot of them, especially Flarelu because that’s a ship so rare that it makes Soft Junkan (before I fucking flooded the tag on tumblr) look like a bustling city.

Speaking of tags, I still think about sometimes how like, the Junkan Tag maybe got like, a post like, a few times every month. The normal amount for a ship of this general Rarity. And now it’s like, for so many pages, just half of it is me. Because I was asked to bring something to eat to the function for the buffet table and I fucking crashed a Food Truck through the wall. I feel bad about it sometimes, sometimes. I’m imagining the scenario in my head where someone who likes Junkan but didn’t check the tag super often because it wasn’t like, a super commonly updated one, and then pressing it for the first time in a year and being like “What the fuck happened here?” You know what still shocks me? Not once have I gotten hate for any of this. I was so fucking scared for like half of this projects creation that I was going to get bombarded with people angry at me for shipping this, and NOTHING. I’m not complaining I’m just confused. I have to at least have had a few people block me right? It’s just so eerily quiet. And it’d be one thing if it’s just a thing of like “Why would people who hate Junkan check the Junkan tag” because yeah, that makes sense. But also I’ve been putting at least one Junkan pic in both characters tags every day for 3 fucking months, there had to be at least one Mikan super fan who is eternally fed up with my antics. Like, awesome that I didn’t get harassed over a ship, that actually gives me a little hope that nature is healing, just. Crazy right???

So like. Fuck.

I guess I’ll get to the sappy shit now?? I think I ran out of things to be confused about in terms of what I did this year because of this ship. So I guess I’ll just start talking about how much it means to me, both the ship, and this project. 

(trigger warning, mentions of abuse, nothing super graphic in my opinion but could be mildly uncomfortable. Either skim ahead or stop here)

2024 kinda, fuckin sucked for me to be honest?? I have like 2 good things I can speak for it in terms of major positive points (Obviously I had other good experiences but if I just said “Oh I read a I Love Amy and it was one of the greatest things ever” it lacks the same impact). Not counting getting this project to like, work, obviously.

I finished the 5 chapters of my webcomic that I wanted prepped so I could actually make a website and start posting (ignore how I didn’t make the fuckin website yet). And I started dating my darling Yves and Rivette. Who I cherish deeply. I made other friends this year, a lot of them in part cause of this ship. And I went through a lot of emotional change. 

But to get that change it required I unpack a lot. And by a lot, I mean one bag that was filled to the brim. Gonna try real hard not to like, talk about this in excessive detail or turn this post into some woe is me bullshit, but I feel like I should at least make mention of it.

At the beginning of the year, I asked Yves (who I wasn’t dating yet) about my previous romantic relationship. And she confirmed to me that, based on everything I had told her about it overtime, that yes, it was abusive.

During 2021-2022 I was in a relationship with a girl I won’t name here, you wouldn’t know her of course, it was a completely different community. It started out as friends, I got a crush, jumped at it because I was still inexperienced with feelings, and it didn’t work out. And that’s the simple way of putting it, and that’s how I viewed it till Yves opened my eyes.

From the getgo it wasn’t healthy. She was manipulative, constantly had outbursts towards me, and yanked me around emotionally constantly. I would later find out that she had a previous history of just, generally being an awful person. Even after we broke up we still stuck around each other, mostly because I felt guilty for breaking up with her, and was also just generally terrified of her. The abuse was all mental of course, it was long distance so she couldn’t hurt me physically at all. 

I of course, didn’t process any of that as me being abused, I even viewed myself as being at fault for a lot of it. The experience was so bad that I identified as Aromantic because just convinced I wasn’t able to feel proper romantic feelings for someone. It wasn’t till much later when I got another crush that I realized that I’m Panromantic, and me being Aro (and very briefly Aegoromantic) was basically just a coping mechanism to write off my trauma. I still feel guilty about that since it feels like I devalued the importance of people who do identify on the Aro spectrum, but that isn’t relevant here.

Point is, a lot of bad shit happened to me because of that woman, and even after a year and a half of us not talking because we both mutually decided it would be better for us to not stay in contact, she still found ways to worm her way back into my life. One conversation we had just by chance, to catch up, that’s all it took and I was thinking of her again. I never talked to her after that, and I have her blocked now, but I didn’t need to for shit to hit the fan.

So I asked Yves that question, she answered, and I now suddenly had to deal with the fact that I was abused, and that I was traumatized as a result. And like, I never really viewed myself as a traumatized person up till that point, I viewed myself as someone who wasn’t very smart but tried her best to do good by people who didn’t have too much baggage beyond some sucky school memories.

When I had to unpack what happened that kind of spiraled into severe Self Confidence Issues and even more Self Hate. I struggled to accept even the slightest compliment if it wasn’t directed at my art. The reason I even quit weed is because I used it almost exclusively to suppress all of the negative emotions I felt. 

I’m in a somewhat better place now, I’m trying to give myself more breaks from artwork, rather than overworking myself constantly just to feel something (and being fully open, I realized near the end of december that I pretty much used Overworking as a form of self harm). I’m gonna really try this year to like, actually let people be nice to me, and in turn try to be nicer to myself. And I have goals to work towards for this year. But I wouldn’t have gotten to this point without two things. One, my girlfriend Yves, who even before we started dating helped me through multiple breakdowns and has helped/allowed me to grow into a (I hope) better, healthier person. And even after I got over most of my feelings related to my Ex, has continued to help me cope with my self hatred. I cherish every moment we share and wouldn’t trade her for anything.

And the other thing, which I know will sound silly right after I talked about my girlfriend, is well. Junkan.

Let me say this, I didn’t get into Junkan to cope with my abuse. I have toyed with the notion in my head before and the idea of it pisses me off to a quite frankly irrational degree. I was into Junkan before I realized my issues. If you want my coping mechanism it’s Alex from Minecraft and no I’m not explaining that right now.

That said, it, like all the yuri ships I like, was a source of comfort for me. Originally I read stuff like Tokomaru fics just to help me reduce stress, back when I dealt with really severe anger issues due to the online spaces I occupied. And to this day reading a nice, fluff fic can calm me down a bit. But now they can serve a much deeper sense of comfort, away from all the bullshit, and obviously, gave me a way to distract/calm myself from the storm of negative emotions and memories that filled the brain.

I see myself in Mikan more than I’d like to personally admit, obviously not to the extreme, but in aspects. So it’s just, nice to see a better timeline for her with Junko, ones where she gets to be happy and maybe even heal as well. It just so happens that I also think there’s a lot of genuinely good potential for the ship from either a canon or non-canon perspective, and Junko’s just a really enjoyable character. 

Working on this project helped too. It gave me a way to dive deeper into my love for this ship, and gave me a sense of purpose and validation that helped me work through the rough. Whether it was the really bad mental health days, or just a shit streak of commission work that tore away at me because my job even if I love drawing can be a real drag at times, and i’m unfortunately a workaholic (Trying to work on it though).

I think i’ve said it before but even something simple as Val showing her excitement over the art pieces I was prepping could genuinely brighten my day even while I was at my lowest.

And then when I really started pursuing this as a project, rather than just a secret stash to satiate myself and one other person minimum, I realized I could do something good here. For the people like me who loved this ship but might have been too nervous about expressing it, the people who were just really craving it, and the people who had already made all of the fics and art that sent me into this spiral of obsessive passion in the first place! A gift to all of them, to make ya’ll happy. 

In hindsight, may not like, the healthiest mindset for setting off this whole project. But hey it all kinda circled around into eventually helping my mental health recover. So like, win?

And i’ve already spoken on how Day 60 allowed me to feel a lot more emotionally free as an artist even if I still have my struggle days. I’ve gotten better just in general as an artist as I improve more at stuff like expressions, posing, linework, etc. And I’ve even managed to make friends with some of the people I used to look up to as idols and can finally just view em as normal people now. (Even if I might still be a bit excessive in my praise, I swear I’m normal about ya’ll besties I just don’t have like, a middleground for showing my appreciation and affection for my friends. It’s maxed out unless I’m tired as shit) 

I find myself comedically terrified of how this ship has affected me over the course of 2024, and how it will likely continue to affect me through 2025 even as I try to move onto other projects not related to Junkan. I wanna show off my love for Fairy Tail on my main blog, and I really think that with a full years time and the first five chapters done I really can get my comic off the ground and focus on that for the foreseeable future.

But hey, 2025 at least we got two whole Junkan Events. And with Junkan Week I’d like to keep that going for as long as I can, unless someone else takes the reins way down the line. So this ol’ blog’ll keep going for a good while I imagine, even if it’s a lot smaller. Maybe I’ll find other ways to keep this place active, I’ve considered just making it a one stop shop for all things Junkan though I don’t think I’m really suited to manage that. Maybe someone’ll read this and try there hand at it down the line, maybe someone’ll do their own 100 Days of Junkan! 

Oh hey did I ever tell ya’ll I was gonna make a comedic video just making a guideline for how one could make their own 100 Days Project. It was gonna be like, pretty obvious points just framed in a very exaggerated and comedic tone. 

Alright anything else I should cover? Fun facts? Deep personal anecdotes? Sappy stuff?

Lemme check my files, maybe i got another dumb joke image- 

. . . 

Oh . . . Well there’s somethin.

Alright, don’t get to excited ya’ll, but just for a bit of fun, how about one last day in the project. I know 101 days doesn’t roll of the tongue as well, but I think this is vaguely interesting enough to make up for that! Tune in tomorrow. Same time, same place. 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[genderqueerdykes]

Do you have like, some nice words?

Like I’m just so tired of how constant tme/tma speak is on my dash. Posts about how transfems should leave friend groups of “tmes” because they will inevitably be bigots

Why are half the popular transfems on this site horribly transphobic in their own right the moment a transmasc dares exist in their vicinity

Sorry I’m basically just venting in your inbox, thank you for being a breath of fresh air

i'm sorry you're dealing with this. it's natural to be worn down by this behavior, it's literal transphobia and intersexism and people just don't seem to care.

the tme/tma (transmisogyny exempt/transmisogyny affected) binary doesn't work. the issue is that in real life, most queerphobes you come across are assuming you are a trans woman. the average person associates the concept of transness with transfemininity on average, unless they personally know some transmascs or trans men, or are one. it's very rare to find a stranger who gets it. every time i come out to a stranger, they immediately switch to she/her pronouns, call me ma'am/miss/girl/etc., and ask what my "real" name is. it's really weird

transmasculine invisibility is a genuine issue offline. certain pockets of the internet are obsessed with hating trans men but that doesn't mean that the vast majority of people in the offline world know a damn thing about any of this. i do not ever have anyone understand that i mean i'm transmasculine when i say im trans. as i'm transmasc and transfem i don't really challenge it, but it sucks that people have one assumption and one only.

it happens with other queers. i moved in with a bunch of perisex trans femmes and was dating one for a while and flirting with a few others. my other roommate was a perisex cis gay man. i was the only intersex person who was there at the time, and i think a very small handful of others were around regularly, so there was a high chance that people should've been pretty informed about the existence of intersex identities. i know some people who came around pretty often were intersex, at least from my memory

the second people found out about my physical anatomy, they switched how they treated me. everyone thought i had a penis for some reason? and were made wildly uncomfortable upon finding out about it. when i revealed that i'm intersex & genderqueer, and that i'm bigender: a trans man, and a trans woman all hell broke loose suddenly nobody knew what to think or feel or anything.

people honest to god just defaulted to misgendering me.

and treating me like i was stupid as fuck.

this was the hardest part. i was being treated like i was dumb as HELL and it frustrated me to no end.

my emotions were "too much". i kept getting told i was too needy or whiny or possessive or that i needed too much of sometimes time or that i was touching the wrong things around the house. i kept being criticized for moving objects that impacted an environment i was allowed to work at. i was criticized for organizing a bookshelf i was asked to organize. i was ridiculed and insulted. my roommate and a girl who was flirting with me questioned my dissociative identity disorder, which i have plenty of medical records spanning back to 2017 from various doctors in various states and hospitals showing my diagnostic history with dissociation and dissociative disorders, and he also questioned my schizophrenia when i have records dating back to 2015 showing my history with severe psychotic episodes and the development of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type

i was no longer the arbiter of my own lived experience because everyone found out i didn't have a penis. i'm a vagina haver so i'm stupid. i'm dumb. i'm a cis woman. i'm faking. i'm not actually a man. well i am a man. i'm evil.

i'm breaking this silence on this garbage. it's time stop treating trans men and mascs this way. we're real people. we have real experiences. we are also being talked over. it really is possible to speak over us. it's happening right now. it doesn't need to. trans men talking about how we don't need to be seen this way isn't hurting trans women. we're being misgendered. we're being hurt by transandrophobic and misogynstic behavior. one does not need to hurt trans men in order to heal from one's own trauma with manhood. it won't help. it doesn't do anything

this is such a goddamn long ask but i wanted to thank you for this because your honesty and bluntness is what's needed right now. thank you to every trans man and transmasc speaking up about this right now. please feel free to send your own experiences with this because it's over. i'm not humoring it. i'm going to keep talking about it until people calm down and understand that conversations have multiple participants

i now more than ever want to actually focus on uplifting transmasculinity and trans men. i have been forcing myself to try to focus on a broader range of topics to avoid backlash but let's not start 2025 thinking we have to do this anymore. we literally don't. it's over. trans women are allowed to talk about the struggles we face. always and forever. but a trans man talking about their own experience is not an attack on you. and sometimes a trans man will give you criticism. and sometimes... you have to take it.

sometimes you have to take a trans man's criticism.

you really, really do.

and it's not the end of the world.

if a trans man tells you you're talking over them, you really should actually stop and step backwards and reassess what you said to them. you may have done it on accident. actually listen before you keep talking. if a trans man tells you they have a health condition, listen. don't participate in this behavior. there's literally no reason to think that trans men and mascs are too stupid to articulate our own experiences. it's ridiculous. that's how society treats women- you don't want to be treated that way! please don't do it to other people, especially people you view as women...

anyway i hope that this helps in any way. i'm just tired of this shit. i'm happy to start 2025 by completely and totally breaking the silence on transmasculine and trans male erasure. join me. we're not doing this shit anymore. we're starting this year off being more compassionate. we're starting off this year accepting that manhood isn't what has traumatized any of us, it's toxic masculinity, it's patriarchy, it's specific men. let's ditch this shit

[lovemyromance]

hi! happy holidays :) I've read ACOTAR last month & I was surprised to see this shipwar is so brutual. I don't get effected by spoilers when i read so I saw so many tiktoks, & just based on all the edits, I throught Gwyn & Azriel were a couple. Then I'm alsmost about to finish ACOSF, and there's still no Gwyn&Azriel? I commented on a tiktok of Gwynriel like did i miss something? And this lady (super condescending) was like yes! his BC. I say I read it. She asked me DID I READ THE 2ND HALF?

PT 2 of ask: hi same anon from gwynriel tiktoks! pt 2 - I tell this lady um yeah who stops halfway through a BC? then she tells me if i had read TOG and CC, it shows Gwyn & Azriel are mates. granted, i haven't read those yet. But I asked my bestie (sjm fanatic) if this happened in HOFAS? Bc i know ab the crossover. She looks at me like i'm crazy. I go back to this gwynriel on tiktok and explicitly ask like "where does it say Gwyn and Azriel are a couple or mates" and she tells me "oh it's foreshadowing" SmH

I'm sorry this Gwynriel literally asked you if you read the second half of the bonus chapter ?? LOOOOL that's so funny. They think anyone who doesn't understand where gwynriel comes from just steadfast is an elriel or hates gwyn. When most casual readers literally have no clue what they're talking about either.

Idk why they think SJM was only speaking to them when she was leaving these so called "Gwynriel crumbs and foreshadowing" like?? They are so condescending, acting like only they are capable of picking up on "subtle hints" like first of all....

SJM ain't subtle. She is cheesy and cliche and a firm believer in love and happily ever after. Nothing she has ever written has surprised me. Not once. She does have good plots and intricate world building, but when it comes to her couples, they are predictable because of how she sets the story up.

When I read TOG did I know Aelin was going to end up with Rowan? No. But I had a pretty good idea once Rowan was introduced that OH I see where she's going with this because SJM did plenty of buildup, she didn't just write Aelin skipping from Dorian to Chaol to Rowan in 3 pages in a bonus chapter.

When I read CC, I knew immediately that Bryce and Hunt were endgame. I did think Hypaxia and Ruhn were gonna be a thing, but by book 2 when they introduced Lydia, I knew Night/Day would prevail. Wasn't surprising to me in the slightest.

When I read ACOTAR, I thought Tamlin was the one - until we were introduced to Rhys. Immediately after their first meeting, I knew he would be endgame,

It's not hard to grasp. SJM is again, not subtle with it.

Gwynriels are always barking at people like they think they're prophets of SJM or something because they strung together 3 different "clues" from 16 different books. They always cite SJMs other romance switchups, forgetting the fact that we know endgames basically as soon as a character has been introduced.

Gwyn HAS already been introduced. And yet, nothing. No chemistry no conversations no interactions that are even borderline romantic with Azriel. This is while they ignore the straight up in your face Elriel scenes that are happening btw.

It's always "there is foreshadowing" while ignoring the black and white text stating a different thing on the page. Do they not understand elriel have tons of foreshadowing too? It's just why would we cite that when we have actual romantic moments?

Just another day,another reader led astray by the fandom lmao. You don't need to take a magnifying glass and go Sherlock Holmes on acotar to figure out the next couple. Unfortunately, that's the only way people claim Gwynriel exists, so they have developed this "I'm just a better reader" attitude when really it's like are you actually OUR LORD AND SAVIOR SJMS chosen one, or are you just dreaming?

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

When you said that Waleses have created a brand that isn't affected when the BRF as a whole is in question, can you expound on that?

Well, I don't remember when I said that so I can't remind myself what I said the first time (haha) to specifically dive deeper on that.

But I think I was talking about how if something happened to the BRF, the Waleses would be able to "disassociate" from the firm and still be fine, relatively speaking. Sure, their popularity would take a hit, but it likely wouldn't be horrific (like Sussex levels of decline) because William has walled off Kensington Palace from everyone else.

First, think about the BRF as a whole - the firm, the uniforms, the press operations, the palaces, the people. If you had to describe that in one word, what word best embodies everything the BRF stands for and represents?

Duty, right? Or service?

Now think about William and Kate/the Waleses specifically. What word best embodies everything they stand for and represent?

Family.

That’s a huge difference. And not only it is different, it's actually working. The public is (for the most part) receptive to the Waleses' branding as being family-focused before duty, which I think highlights how essential that getting the F/Family piece of "BRF" straightened out is to the monarchy's long-term stability. Because as we've seen over generations, it's the family itself that can be the monarchy's own undoing, with siblings warring for power, siblings warring for attention, and parents protecting children from consequences.

Second, it's also the evolution of 21st century monarchy, like we discussed a few days ago. How do you best future-proof the people in an aging institution like the monarchy? By developing them to stand on their own two feet outside of the institution so that should the institution weaken, they have something else to make a living on.

William is an air ambulance/helicopter pilot and Kate is a photographer. They have a charitable foundation supporting research in environmentalism, mental health, and the early years. William advocates for the homeless and Kate advocates for children.

In other words, William and Kate have potential sources of income and revenue on which they can make an independent and comfortable living if the monarchy ended tomorrow. They can stand on their own two feet in ways that others in their family.

For instance, look at Harry and Meghan. Their brand and their work is so wrapped up in the institution of the BRF that they literally cannot exist without it, despite claiming to want nothing to do with it in the first place. What William and Kate have done, whether intentionally or by happenstance, is set up a solid foundation for their work to exist separately and independent of the BRF such that if the BRF fell tomorrow, they still have a public space to occupy and will likely remain somewhat comfortably in society has humanitarians or philanthropists.

Which leads to the third piece: existing separately and independently of the BRF.

Kensington Palace is his family's own office and staff. It's separate from Buckingham Palace and Clarence House in that it is its own entity. They have their own goals, their own schedules, their own plans, their own objectives, their own team, their own media relations, their own press strategy. They operate independently of Buckingham Palace (The Queen) and Clarence House (Charles) even despite being totally dependent on funds from Clarence House. So whenever Charles/Clarence House or everyone else/Buckingham Palace got dragged into scandal, William and Kensington Palace were rather insulated and they could stay out of the fray.

Once The Queen died and Buckingham Palace merged with Clarence House under King Charles and William got the Duchy of Cornwall, he was able to pull Kensington Palace further away from the BRF and insulate it even further from the chaos of BP and CH (i.e., Charles, Andrew, Harry), so when BP-CH gets dragged into scandal, Kensington Palace stays out of it. They're physically and visually separated from the rest of the BRF because they have their own staff, their own resources, their own funding, their own strategic plans.

Now note this isn't all good. There's a lot of criticism in this model because by having pulled Kensington Palace so far away from the BRF, William and KP are too independent of the monarchy, having set up essentially their own rival court and that the actual monarch/BP has zero control over William and KP. I see the validity in that criticism and while I do agree with it to a certain extent, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this model is 100% based on Charles's establishing his own office separate and independent from Buckingham Palace and that, yes, sometimes The Queen/BP couldn't reign Charles/CH in like Charles struggles with reigning in William/KP.

Hope this gives you what you're looking for!

[bananasfosterparent]

I saw some of the Reddit drama regarding the Astarion subreddits (the spawn sub vs. OF) and it's really saying a lot how most Spawn fans care more about AA/AA fans and being free to bash him however they see fit on the main sub, but allegedly the evil moderators are censoring their opinions and are not allowing AA criticism so they are transforming the UA sub into an anti AA one. It's amazing how they don't realize their criticism actually consists in telling AA fans they are abuse apologists who spread misinformation on purpose (the bride theory) and media illiterate lmao. Yeah, I wonder why that's not allowed on the main sub. Perhaps they should reflect on the state of their sub which can be resumed to "I like UA because fuck AA and AA fans".

Heh... funny I got a message about this when I did, because I was quietly observing the drama when it happened. Well, sort of drama. Really, just the usual cliched "anti-AA person must save the igorant AA fans from their own selves via condescending and patronizing vagueposting" situation.

For context... An anti-AA person made posts to a few Astarion and BG3 subs, challenging the validity of the bride theory with zero context or reason, which unsurprisingly fostered negativity and arguments. They had other negative comments on semi-related posts which didn't make their case better. Then they argued with the OF mods about their arguing with other users and was banned after reporting others out of spite.

But looks like the person tried to run to the spawn sub to get validation for arguing with the mods, but I don't think it went very well lol

From what I could observe, they got a lot of downvotes and even comments directly calling them (and their aggression) out. People admitted they joined to gush over Spawn and their Tavs, not seethe over AA and his fans. It was quite refreshing to see. Even moreso, seeing the mods of the sub create a new rule to not dogpile on the mods of other BG3 subs. So perhaps the situation is getting better.

Still strange that "a place to talk about AA as an abuse narrative" is one of the main focus rules of that sub, buuut I'll take the small victories. Any time people are pointing out the AA fan witch-hunt nonsense as what it is (nonsense), it means there's a positive shift happening.

Unfortunately (especially in creative realms), there will always be argumentive people who just want to argue that their vision and perspective is the only one that matters/exists, and they believe it too. But maybe the direct heat on AA fans will die down or... Die out completely (one can wish 😩).

That said! That whole situation makes me wonder...

A gaggle of anti-AA Redditers were suspended from the site for brigading (organized downvoting) of positive AA posts and comments. I'm wondering if the user who made that rant post is one of them with a fresh account. The timeline kinda match up and they bring up the same exact talking arguing points 🤔

Idk, but for now I'm glad to see normal spawn fans speaking up against the anti-AA nonsense finally. I think it's at the point everyone is just getting sick of it lol

[100percentdirtball]

transcript under the cut

A thread on bluesky from Talia Bhatt, username @enkiducoin.

It's a reply to Oruniter (@outsidein) whose original post was: It's astonishing how much discourse is just everlasting "all trans women are secretly Baeddels" panic. The idea that we're fighting a feminism that includes trans women but excludes trans men is arguing that the mythologised spectre of Baeddelism took over cis feminist spaces. It's often projections.

Talia's thread reads:

It's probably a good time to talk about the myth of the baddels.

Myth because the facts are sparse, largely unavailable, and ultimately don't matter--especially to those who are weaponizing the idea of the baeddel against transfeminist consciousness.

All we really know is two sentences.

During the 2010s, theree was a group of transfems on Tumblr (and some on Facebook) who dubbed themselves 'baeddels' and tried to theorize an early form of transfeminism. They made various missteps and eventually disbanded for interpersonal rather than ideological reasons.

That's about it.

What is far, far more important than the baeddels than their history or theory is the reaction to their existence, which continues to this day.

I don't actually know what their theories were because they weren't really influential, and nearly everything I've learned has been secondhand.

Some girls who weren't baeddels were held up as core members. Sometimes they were accused of being all-white despite that apparently being untrue. One Tumblr passed around accuses them of "anti-AFAB hate" and "AMAB supremacy" in a manner that's frankly reskinned transphobia.

It's a complete mess.

Here's why none of it matters, though.

You see, I wasn't on Tumblr during the 2010s. I wasn't even out online for over half that decade.

However, the literal millisecond I began speaking on feminist topics as a transfem--on TWITTER--I was called a 'baeddel'.

You see the tactic, I hope.

'Baeddel' was a word I had no context for, but in non-transfem queer spaces--especially fandom-oriented ones--it was a libelous word with a lot of weight. If I was a baeddel, I was a fascist radfem white-supremacist bioessentialist enbyphobe and more.

The word is meant to tar, and to silence.

Offenses worthy of the moniker 'baeddel' ranged from using "TME/TMA", to discussing transmisogyny, to simply being a trans girl who resisted disposability.

If you did, you were a bioessentialist TERF who hated transmascs and needed to unpack your "AMAB socialization".

That, in particular, was core to the 'baeddel' accusation. "AFABphobia", hatred of transmascs and "AFAB enbies", a certain prejudice that an AMAB might hold against an AFAB, if you will!

Ahem.

It's kind of fucking obvious when you put it in plain words what's happening here.

The idea of a feminism that is inclusive of trans women but exclusive of trans men is, frankly, entirely made up. No major feminist school of thought with any sway in real-world movements has ever theorized such a line, and if I'm being honest, it's logically impossible.

Yet the myth persists.

Even so, I've seen queer people deep in fandom spaces structure their understanding of actual GCs and TE"RFs" after their 'understanding' of baeddels. I've witnessed utter buffoons who thought 'radfems' were transfem-positive and transmasc-negative encounter actual GC transmisogyny and be stunned.

If I had read Baudrillard say something super clever about maps, territories, and hyperreals.

The specter of the baeddel is a campfire ghost story, a cautionary tale used to finger-wag at trans girls, warning us to not get too many funny dieas about having any dignity as feminist subjects.

How does the tale end?

Honestly, we just stopped caring.

The 'baeddel' accusation is so unfounded in anything real and so fucking stupid that all you could do after a point was laugh and shrug. Over time, I saw even cisfem friends be called 'baeddels' for showing solidarity to transfems.

The best part, though?

I'm pretty all my transmasc friends have been called 'baeddels' by now, too.

We've come completely full circle.

What did 'baeddel' originally mean? I don't know and I don't think we ever will.

Today, however, it means "uppity tranny", and anyone who supports us.

The tags on the original post read: #transfeminism#materialist feminism#gender is a regime#sex is a social construct#social constructionism#feminism#lesbian feminism#baeddel#y'all know that you keep circulating blog posts about baeddels by others right#you are defining a strawman and then insisting that trans girls with any feminist subjectivity are defined by that strawman#and yes i used strawMAN deliberately because a lot of this is an exercise in calling us sexist to non-transfem trans people#buried under 70 layers of tumblrspeak#you have just invented “transfeminazi”#get a fucking grip

On Transmisogyny, Feminism, and the Myth of the 'Baeddel'

This will go well.

[taintedcigs]

i am his controversially young gf (real)

[seventh-district]

Figured I'd try my hand at some Redacted character post/text edits!

[ 1 / ? ]

Credit to @/sainthowlzon for all the Listener icons, and to @/elisacaleisa for their google drive with all the canon icons!

(slightly alternative version of the Solaires' GC edit below the cut bc i had a lil too much fun with what Vincent would name his contacts)

[the-ships-to-rule-them-all]

the level at which people are misusing the term "Never Again" in the far left absolutely infuriates me.

"Never Again" doesn't refer to the idea of no more genocides -- unfortunately people are evil and corrupt and seek scapegoats and destruction, there were genocides in the years following the Holocaust, there were genocides 10 years ago, there are multiple genocides going on as we speak

"Never Again" means we as Jews will pay attention to the warning signs, will not mindlessly allow antisemitism to fester and take over our communities, we will fight back. it means we will be proud. it means we will not let you hate us without a word of refusal.

"Never Again" is a warning for us, it is a reminder that what happened then can happen now -- is happening now. The Far Left doesn't get to use it against us. You don't get to turn our tragedies into hate-speech and antisemitic rhetoric.

Am Yisrael Chai

[wondermumbles]

reblogging to get into this properly, because it's so fascinating!

Lettie's implications seem especially deep: she has Aztec religious beliefs and she speaks Spanish. so did Spanish conquistadors still invade the Americas, but Catholicism didn't take root? does Catholicism exist? is the dualistic Sol/Lua religion dominant almost worldwide in the way Abrahamic religions are in the real world? was there no Spanish conquest and Lettie just happens to be from a blended mesoamerican and Spanish family that lives in Libertatia?

I like how Quincy mentions bigotry but doesn't specify what it's about. it leaves the door open for so many possibilities. is it classism, which indeed seems likely? does this Earth have racial bigotry? is it because he's not heterosexual? or is it something we would never guess because it's something else entirely? how many of these things is it?

lemme digress:

usually when speculating about worldbuilding in fantasy and sci-fi settings, I like to imagine that, while they have their own problems, they don't have our sexism, homophobia, etc., at least not to a high degree. but Warframe's world is fairly grimdark, and I'm willing to assume gender/sex/sexuality bigotry existed in Orokin and pre-Orokin societies (and some of the many post-Orokin societies)

(it's tempting for me to imagine that being freed from the Orokin would result in open-minded cultures more often than not, but in reality the freedom people tend to want is the freedom to enforce their own varieties of bigotry, not a total freedom from bigotry)

whether or not dualism was dominant yet in 1999, it survived in one form or another all the way into the Orokin era. the Orokin appointed themselves as gods instead of Sol and Lua, but they believed in a basic dualism of existence in which everything has a(n equal and opposite?) counterpart

that would support a strict binary of sex and gender, potentially. important to note, ofc, that their ideas about gender expression and gender roles didn't necessarily resemble anything that's common in the real world. probably a strong delineation between mother vs father, though, and a high priority on having both in a family, and on only having two parents, unfortunately--but what that would actually mean in terms of domestic, professional, and emotional roles? who knows

as for sexuality, that's a wide open question too, but they strike me as the kind of culture that allows for same-sex, same-gender sex and romance on the side while firmly expecting hetero marriage, as in Athens or Tokugawa Japan. that would fit neatly around the fact that Albrecht had Loid as a lover while also having a family that didn't see Loid as a second father

aaaa, I just love worldbuilding that can be absorbed from observation of what's present and what's absent! my ADHD+depression usually doesn't let me read long in-game texts or wiki articles, so I'm all in on this kind of speculation

it's a good thing that quincy lives in an alternate timeline, otherwise i'd be very tempted to point out that the uk only introduced tuition fees for university in 1998 and he would've gone to uni for free.

and even then, fees were originally means-tested so quincy probably would've been exempt from... the £1000 a year tuition fees.

anyway, i know this was probably done because digital extremes is canadian and the biggest chunk of this game's playerbase is american, where tuition fees don't really seem to be regulated by the government, but it would've been so nice. now i've just got to wonder what worldbuilding implications there are for all the brits to be calling uni "college" (college is mostly for 16-18 year olds here) and for tuition fees to start even earlier than they did irl.