#anyway here are the tags for engagement

[talkingsandvich]

lebron discovers the chimps experience

[krysmcscience]

Look, Aym, I know you wanna annoy your big bro sometimes, but y'all really gotta stop putting the death god into silly mode. He is Very Dangerous, you see. ŎuŎ;

this idea wouldn't go away until i drew it so here it is lmfao

[08-47]

it shall be cuboided soon

[idanit]

solidarity

[tenderjock]

I’m with you, my love The lights shining through on you Yes, I’m with you, my love It’s the morning and just we two

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

over the last 3 months i have seen myself called (and sometimes blocked for being assumed to be):

a racist/a bigot

homophobic/queerphobic/transphobic

ace/demi-phobic

a fascist

for expressing opinions such as "I found the characters and background stories in Veilguard weaker and less interesting than previous Dragon Age games" and "i miss the amount of tension and conflict that we used to get to explore with the player character depending on their in-game background and life history" and "i did not feel Lucanis' character and romance arc was fully satisfying while I was playing through it".

and since this all started we now have:

seen the entire DA staff laid off from Bioware

heard many now-former bioware devs talking about how toxic the workplace was during the development of DA4

seen allusions to Bioware/EA executives overriding plot/plans that the Dragon Age writers/devs would have preferred

extracted large amounts of cut content from the games that show things like increased emotional response range for Rook, or alternate endings for companion arcs (NOT concept art content, but actual written and even voice-recorded dialogue in the game files), or increased impact from decisions you could make in the game

IN ADDITION to what we ALREADY knew about how many times the game changed direction/leadership changed/the mid-process layoffs, etc.

so can we maybe not keep putting "people who come into the Dragon Age universe from a place of love and were ultimately disappointed with the latest installment" in the same trash bucket as "dudes on twitter who were mad there were trans/nonbinary characters in their AAA game". can we FUCKING as a community acknowledge that there are many reasons someone might not jive with a change in direction other than jumping to "they disagree with me so they must obviously be horrible people, whose opinions shouldn't be counted anyway" (<-if this is your first impulse maybe examine that also).

i am so tired and i am never gonna get an apology for any of it but NOW that a lot of the people who were posting/reblogging these sentiments are hearing/seeing all these other things add up. it's like suddenly now it's "acceptable" to have problems with aspect of Veilguard or want more from it, because the writers/devs have shown they probably did too during it's creation. whereas when I said these things right off the bat (because the only thing we had was the game we got. not the game we can pretend they wanted to make instead) it WASN'T because apparently expressing opinions on my personal tumblr counts as "being mean to/harassing devs who worked hard on the game" or, again, assumed I am a racist/bigot/facist/queerphobic.

you're allowed to still like Veilguard. it's fine i promise. you can love the game if you love it and my not loving it has nothing to do with your own relationship to this piece of media. i am happy there are people who truly can enjoy it without massive Caveats. but i am still seeing like 3-5 posts Per Week express those opinions and it is really destroying my love for the community i once enjoyed.

[recent-rose]

yknowwww there is something... deeply uncomfortable about the way mel never speaks directly to viktor in the 'build hextech weapons' scene. she really only speaks to jayce. plenty of people have pointed this out already but like the one scene they actually share a meaningful interaction and she treats him like he's beneath her. all this after jayce has emphasized how important viktor is, that hextech is theirs, together. she unequivocally ices him out, there's no other way to interpret this scene. the way it's shot too - from viktor's perspective, looking up at her, as though to reinforce the same belief in him. like he doesn't even bother expecting respect from her - or anyone from the upper echelon of piltover. he's fully accustomed to being dehumanized by everyone around him at this point. sometimes even by jayce, despite the trust they clearly have in each other.

then of course after this scene is viktor experimenting on himself. it's pretty clear that he has internalized his own dehumanization. crazy.

[tls12lessthan3]

thinking about orvs metatextual engagement with its genre and specifically how that interacts with its women again. kim dokja is a self insert for the reader - what he thinks is largely meant to represent what we think, especially in the beginning before sing shong really fleshes out his character. kim dokja sees the world through tropes, directly acknowledging the genre around him and the cliches we expect e.g. the overpowered mc, the scheming villain, the beautiful heroine.

but a major part of his arc is deconstructing this reductionist view of the world in a way that parallels the author's deconstruction of the genre, and that plays really well with the way orv writes women. yoo sangah is perhaps the best exanple - shes introduced as the heroine, a one-dimensional pretty girl who in any other novel would become kim dokja's love interest. but the authors allow her to be her own character, directly challenging the stereotype of the heroine and calling attention to the genre's typical lack of depth for such a character. i think this undercurrent plays in the background often but really comes to the forefront when yoo sangah reminds kim dokja of her putting pepper in their bosses' coffee, a memory kim dokja had supressed because it didn't fit with the pretty girl persona he made for her.

i interpret that moment as yoo sangah pushing her way out of the mold of heroine often found in these stories, demanding a depth be added to her character, asking kim dokja - and thus the reader - to see her in her entirety, to see the heroine archetype for what she could be. orv is at all times in conversation with its genre, and its simultaneous writing of female characters with agency and depth and acknowledgement of the tropes these women are expected to fulfill is undeniably a part of that. and its a part i enjoy. most of the time.

[trafficshippingtournament]

Get Ready for the Traffic Shipping Tournament of 2025!!!!!

It is time to vote for your favourite ships again!!!

The top 32 ships from the 3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series fandom on ao3 was chosen to take part in this tournament (The stats of which you can see here)

However unlike last years match placements, which were random, this year we're giving everyone an opponent of their size by placing them in pairs by their order (Basically: 1 with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6,... so on and so on)

Every round of polls will last a week

Finally and most importantly, be kind to each other. This is just a silly tournament

Tags for easy navigation:

The actual match polls -> Polls

If you want support your ship by more than just voting, you can make your own propaganda posts and ask me to reblog them (with the link to the posts) or send me your propaganda in the asks to share for you! Propaganda could be anything from stellar art to incoherent yelling about your faves to bribing -> Tournament Propaganda

Fun stats about the polls for those who enjoy them! -> Tournament Stats

[urhoneycombwitch]

in case it wasn’t clear. this blog and this bitch do NOT support the industrial military complex.

[sandwichsapphic]

“an exceedingly pleasant and amiable young gentleman but… mentally he is negligible - quite negligible” is the Jeeves and Wooster equivalent of “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”

[flavia8]

You know. Something I really hate about a lot of popular fantasy books, and it's especially prevalent in Romantasy, is what passes for Feminism in them. It's a toothless fake, used as an aesthetic/seasoning. A sprinkle of *strong female character* and a dash of deceptively misogynistic everything else, and for the finishing touch a pinch of man who's slightly better than being openly sexist and Boom. Fantasy series led by a FMC.

Generally, the Female Main character either starts out or becomes incredibly powerful, but always, always, always her power is linked to the men around her. She supposedly has agency and makes her own choices but the choices she makes are between choices provided to her by men. Her male love interest is more powerful in SOME way, and ends up besting her in some way. Experience, training, power, there's always some way the man is better than her. Female characters are never allowed to just BE powerful. Or even just BE single. Often they give up their powers, or are forcibly stripped of them. They look down on other female characters for doing "feminine" work. And, they're stupid as hell to supposedly make them relatable or endearing. Often, the male mc is concerningly abusive but it's portrayed as dreamy, romantic and Ideal. (I genuinely get the love for villains, and enemies to not, and the love for morally grey characters, I genuinely do, but this isn't that, what happens in these books is just genuinely bad (if they actually were people) being portrayed through rose colored glasses) [And in some stories that could be genuinely interesting!] If there's a second Love Interest, he will just do the same awful shit to the MC but it's better now bc it's him.

If the female character isn't white, all of this + a staggering amount of racism. They're rarely MCs. They're fridged for the MCs, they serve the MCs, they're never as beautiful or powerful as the MC, they're stereotyped and portrayed as savage, vapid, comically evil, or just as a good guy with no character at all.

These books are presented as feminist and it pisses me off. Feminism is equality for all, and the fight for Women to be equal and have their own agency. To make their own decisions. Genuinely I believe writers should be able to write whatever they want. I have no issues with having "problematic" stuff in books. My issue is when people start to believe that this shit is feminist, and the author is so skilled and amazing, and it's a masterpiece! Fuck that.

[msommers]

she felt very old and mature and wise— which showed how young she was.

[templates: 1, 2]

[ywpd-translations]

We need more engagement in this fandom!

So, as the title says, because I was thinking about this - I love this manga with all my heart as you very well know, and the main reason I started translating is because I wanted more engagement in the fandom, which was pretty much dead. Well, it still kind of is, which brings me here lol

I tried to keep this blog translations only to keep everything more in order and make it easy to find the various chapters and all, and I kept all my theories and ramblings either in the tags or on my main blog, except for the times I got asks.

But I would love for this fandom to be more active! I wanna talk about theories and headcanons and ships and all that! I want this fandom to start living again :')

So I was wondering - would you people like it if I started also posting about that kind of stuff? Reblogging fanarts, posts, fanfics or whatever I see around? Would you like to engage more in the fandom? I'm asking because: 1) maybe you'd prefer it if this blog stays translations only, kinda like an archive; 2) maybe there aren't many people who actually wants to engage in fandom activities anyway lmao

I'm asking honestly! I just really would love for this fandom to be active again :')

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[artfulacrostic]

jean moreau, and faith and religion and the absence of it.

the sunshine court, nora sakavic // the unabridged journals of sylvia plath, sylvia plath // "stay down" by boygenius ft. julien baker, lucy dacus, and phoebe bridgers // the denial of st. peter, caravaggio // salome with the head of st. john the baptist, simon vouet // henry iv pt. ii, william shakespeare // the rebirth of the arts, charles haslewood shannon // daredevil: "born again" (1986) by frank miller et al. // "ash-wednesday", t.s. eliot // map of hell, botticelli