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lillupon · 4 years ago

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So, I've got a very long rant/opinion here and Idk really know how to say this without coming off kinda bad but I'm gonna say it anyways. I agree with the fact that the seventeen tag has been kinda dry lately on most fanfic places, but it's really only in the smut area. It's the sane way with other groups too I feel like. All of the nice little innocent tags are boomin to this day and thats completely fine. I think the smut tag is dry tho bc lately I feel like a few social issues (like sexualizing people and disrespecting them and their identity) have crossed over into kpop and have been ?blown out of proportion? Lately there's been a rampage of people who like to say that writing smut about someone is disgusting and is dehumanizing because people want to assume that it would make the idols uncomfortable which could equate to some morality issues on how you are reducing someone only to their body without their consent and a bunch of stuff like that. It kind of pisses me off bc this is fiction. About grown adults. Clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life. I think a shit ton is wrong with the world we currently live in, and deciding to come after something that isn't even real bothers me. Like what does that actually accomplish. But yeah, I think thats a reason why smut has been dying down. I mean, on youtube almost every video about unpopular opinions, or things they dont like about kpop will include something about shipping idols in fanfics. And then everyone in the comment section will talk about how its all fine and dandy in moderation, but once people start writing smut it's crossing the idols personal boundaries. It's something I've been seeing a lot more often and I think people who are interested in writing smut are being turned away from it bc we've gotten to a point where people are being called disgusting for having fantasies.

Hi Anon, thank you for sending in this Ask.

I want to preface this by saying: when I write or talk about Mingyu and Wonwoo fucking on my blog, it is a fantasy. I am not speculating about what the real Mingyu and Wonwoo might be like in bed. I am imagining the versions of Mingyu and Wonwoo that I have created in my head, that exist only in my stories. None of it is real. I understand that this can be a blurry boundary for some people. But for me, the separation between fantasy and reality is well-defined. Now, on to your Ask!

You’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. You’ve also touched on many of the issues I have been struggling with myself as of late. It’s difficult to argue about morals since everyone has a different set of values, as well as different comfort levels. Some people think real person fiction (RPF) is a gross invasion of privacy. Others are fine with it. And others don’t care one way or another. There is no single answer; I can only offer my answer. Which means, of course, people are welcome to disagree with it, or parts of it.

In this essay (LOL But forreal: this is an essay), I will be sharing my experience in the k-pop fanfic community from 2014 to present, the etiquette I personally abide by as a reader and writer of RPF, as well as my stance on RPF in general.

I started reading and posting fanfics back in 2014/2015 on a website called AsianFanfics (AFF). Obviously, no one on that site had a problem with RPF, since AFF is a platform made specifically for sharing stories about Asian celebrities. For many years, I read and enjoyed RPF with zero guilt. I scribbled away by myself in my own corner of fandom and curated my own content. I didn’t interact much with other fans, readers, or writers. I didn’t have a Twitter, and I only used tumblr to reblog memes. As a result, I’ve been able to avoid a lot of anti-shipping discourse, as well as purity and cancel culture. I had no idea there were so many negative opinions about RPF. It wasn’t until I became active on the subreddit r/Fanfiction last year that I learned about all the discourse surrounding RPF.

This newfound ‘awareness’ does make me feel guilty at times—but only because after mulling this over, I still don’t think this is something to feel guilty about.

Here’s what I remember, first and foremost, when I create and consume RPF: fanfics and my favourite ships are fictional, and fiction is fantasy. This is basic etiquette when it comes to RPF, and most people in the k-pop fandom understand this. Delusional fans exist, of course, but they are not representative of the entire k-pop community.

Another point of etiquette is to keep fanfics within fandom spaces. I would never push my fics into celebrities’ faces, or go around claiming that my fanfics are accurate representations of a k-idol’s life or personality, in any way, shape, or form. I would also discourage directing ship-related questions to official accounts, or bringing them up during fansigns or other face-to-face interactions; I believe that in these instances, shipping does have the potential to strain real-life relationships.

So with basic etiquette out of the way, let me share my approach to RPF in general.

As much as we like to think we know our favourite celebrities, we really don’t. All we see is their public persona. And this public persona is intentionally controlled, managed, and curated by a team of people: directors, tabloids, editors, makeup artists, publicists, etc. How “real” are these celebrities? We are so distanced from them that they may as well be fictional.

I draw from the public persona that idols project, and I work them into my own writing. But at the end of the day, these personalities are my own interpretation. My interpretation is probably nothing like an idol’s actual personality. I just use the “public persona/character” that idols portray as inspiration for my own stories, which are set in wildly different universes.

More than anything, I think of k-pop idols as “actors” in my fic. You know how when you write an original novel, you scroll through Google images, looking for the perfect person to portray your original character? RPF is literally that, except you might build upon pre-existing dynamics and personalities.

When it comes to explicit fanfiction, two main concerns are prevalent: one of consent, and one of sexualisation.

If we argue against explicit RPF due to lack of consent, we should be willing to apply the same lens to all explicit works. How do we know that the creator of a movie, book, series, etc., is okay with us using their characters in our stories, explicit or not? We don’t. Perhaps some creators encourage fanfiction, but don’t want their lovingly crafted characters engaging in sexual acts or experiencing trauma. We just don’t know. I feel this line is even more blurred when we talk about characters from movies or TV series.

Let’s take Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, as portrayed by Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan, from the Captain America movies as an example. I am willing to bet that when people consume and create explicit fanfiction about Steve and Bucky, they are imagining Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan in their heads. I doubt many people are imagining the 2D cartoon versions of Steve and Bucky, even though they’re technically the exact same characters. Why? Well, it could be because movies are more readily and easily consumed than comics, and so people are unfamiliar with comic book Steve and Bucky. But it might also be because fans find Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan attractive. Is this really any different from RPF, where fic authors make up everything about a celebrity’s life?

When readers and writers of fanfic talk about how hot Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes is, those comments are about Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan’s bodies. When reading explicit stories, fans are going to picture Chris and Sebastian’s bodies in their head, doing sexual things. Can we say, “Well, it’s not really you, Chris/Sebastian”, when in a way, it is?

The reality is, people are going to thirst over celebrities, regardless of whether or not explicit fanfiction exists. They’re going to post thirst tweets on Twitter. They’re going to talk to friends and strangers online about how hot [insert celebrity name here] is. They’re going to fantasize about dating and having sex with their favourite celebrity. Or, as it is in my case, they’re going to make up stories in their heads about their favourite idols dating and banging each other. People are going to do all of this without ‘getting consent’ from the celebrity. Cracking down upon and shaming writers of RPF isn’t going to change any of that.

To be honest, I’m not sure why people think it is disgusting to imagine sexual scenarios about real people. It is okay and normal to have these kinds of fantasies. I suppose the alternative is to fantasise about having sex with cartoon characters instead? It’s a very binary way of thinking to say that if you imagine/write real people in explicit scenarios, you are immediately sexualising, dehumanising, or objectifying them. There is more to dehumanisation than writing smut about our favourite celebrities. For one thing, you can love someone and appreciate all parts of them, and still want to fuck their brains out. And generally, fanfics come from a place of love—love that is not only sexual in nature.

Is it the sharing aspect inherent to fanfiction? The possibility that a celebrity might stumble upon explicit works about them? The chances are very low, I think, of the k-pop idols I enjoy writing about coming across my English fics. But I also believe in curating your own content, and that applies to celebrities too. Perhaps a celebrity should not go searching for fanfics about themselves. And of course, people should not show celebrities their fanfics, unless invited.

Another argument I hear against (explicit) RPF is, “How would you feel if someone wrote fanfiction about you?” First off, I don’t like this argument because there’s a difference between someone who decides to be a public figure versus someone who decides to remain a regular private citizen. Celebrities should and do know what they’re getting into when they choose their occupation. (This is not to say, “They are celebrities; sexualise them all you want because that’s what they signed up for.” Here, I am only acknowledging that people might have sexual fantasies about celebrities they are attracted to. Presumably, celebrities are cognizant of this.)

If someone (whose existence I am not even aware of, mind you) decides they want to write explicit fanfiction of me in some tiny corner of the Internet, I wouldn’t care so long as: (1) they don’t shove it into my face, and (2) they don’t harass me and ask invasive questions about my personal life and relationships. It’s not hurting me or negatively affecting my life, so it wouldn’t even register as a blip on my radar. When fanfiction remains within its appropriate spaces, it is largely harmless.

Now, if a k-pop idol were to ask their fans to stop writing fanfiction about them, would I? Yes, I would. However, I can’t imagine that happening. Judging by the number of ‘sexy’ concepts, fanservice moments, and variety shows such as ‘We Got Married’, I am certain that k-pop idols realise they are the stars of many fantasies—some of which are explicit in nature. Considering the prevalence of shipping in the k-pop industry, I would argue that shipping is subtly encouraged.

It’s sad that so many talented writers are shamed out of fandom, or feel that k-pop cannot be the medium through which they tell their stories, or explore their sexuality, or cope with trauma, or simply have fun. Professional works and Hollywood love their RPF—readers and writers of fanfics should be able to, as well.

As you said Anon, “clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life” (this is a lovely sentence, by the way). The kind of person who dehumanises another and reduces them to a sexual object will do so some other way, if not via fanfiction. I don’t think the issue of fetishisation can be fixed simply by telling people not to write explicit RPF. In my experience, people who read and write RPF are more respectful and thoughtful about these things than the general public. We’ve all seen the general public say highly sexual things about celebrities in the media and to their faces, or tag celebrities in their thirst tweets. Are these things less invasive than fanfiction? Personally, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, there are more pressing and damaging issues in stan culture than fanfic.

In conclusion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating and consuming RPF, both explicit and non-explicit so long as we:

Remember we are writing fiction

Keep RPF within its appropriate space, and

Do not harass celebrities about their personal lives and relationships

RPF is not for everyone. There may be people who enjoy RPF, but draw the line at explicit stories. This is fine. Everyone has their own personal preferences. What is not fine, however, is attacking people for creating things you don’t like. I’m not sure what kind of moral crusade people are on and what they hope to achieve by shaming writers of RPF, explicit or otherwise. Ultimately, fic authors are writing a fantasy. It’s not real; no one is being hurt. I think it’s important for people to curate their own content, and AO3 makes it very easy to filter out explicit works and unwanted tags.

Maybe this is me trying to justify my own participation in explicit RPF—I don’t know. What I do know is that I love k-pop, and fandom is an important part of my media and entertainment experience. I adore the k-pop idols I write about, and I just want to imagine them being happy and getting lots of love and orgasms. Let a bitch be horny, goddamn…

Some bonus fun facts!

At the time I am writing this, on AO3:

26.2% of Stray Kids fanfics are rated M or E

26.3% of Seventeen fanfics are rated M or E

29.0% of Merlin fanfics are rated M or E

34.9% of Captain America (Movies) fanfics are rated M or E

40.1% of BTS fanfics are rated M or E ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Coincidentally, I saw this post on Reddit this morning: Can we have a RPF positivity post?

#asks #my writing #fic & fandom #I keep coming back to fiddle and add things to this answer #but I think I've said all I wanted to now...

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trifoliate-undergrowth · 5 years ago

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This year I lost my dear husband, James (QUIT TELLING EVERYONE I’M DEAD)

Putting this on Tumblr too bc it’s a oneshot (~3,000 word?), and I know Tumblr eats links, but if you want it on AO3 the link to my account there is in my blog header.

It was a perfect day for the Lonely, damp and cold and foggy, and he knew Peter would be doing something interesting now that he was back on land, but he hadn’t thought it would be this.

Elias had expected to find him lurking outside the Institute, looking searchingly at everyone who left until he got some sign of recognition (okay, maybe Elias had fantasized about that a bit, and about coolly ignoring him for a few days before pretending to meet him for the first time, pointedly asking if he was lost). Or, if he felt like doing something sensible, maybe trying to identify the new Head of the Magnus Institute, not that Elias thought his nonexistent research skills and horror of human interaction would get him far there. More likely he’d pretend nothing had changed and simply go about his usual lonely business, waiting for Elias to contact him, too proud in his carefully cultivated self-sufficiency to seek him out at all.

But none of this had happened. Instead, he had scared the new tenant at James Wright’s flat half to death by appearing suddenly in her living room (she was convinced he was a ghost and had come to the Institute to give a statement, hilariously enough), and then, after a few hours of frenzied attempts at figuring out where his husband had gone, he’d finally found his obituary in a newspaper and disappeared into the Lonely to… sulk, or whatever it was he did in there. It took too much effort for Elias to watch him in there, and besides, it was impossible to do without making his presence felt, and he wanted to maintain the element of surprise, so he left him alone.

The next time he was able to find him, Peter was sitting on the still-bare mud of James Wright’s grave with a bottle of whisky, the mists clinging to him like the hands of ghosts.

Huh. Well, that was new.

Pothead filing clerk Elias Bouchard did not have good clothes, and the new Elias was still working on replacing his entire wardrobe with things more suitable for a Head of the Institute, but he could manage. He had his suit, and he’d kept one of James Wright’s long black coats. He flung it over his shoulders at the entrance to the graveyard.

He couldn’t see Peter from here, at least not with his human eyes, and that was all he was using.The fog thickened around Peter. But he Knew where he was, so he started walking. The grass squelched under his shoes when he stepped off the path, and he grimaced, placing his feet carefully to avoid slipping, trying not to get any mud on his shoes.

Slowly, as he walked deeper into the mist, a human figure appeared, slumped against one of the headstones.

He Knew that if he hadn’t had preternatural sight he wouldn’t have been able to find him at all, so it wasn’t surprising that Peter, who would usually hunch himself a bit deeper into the mist and will himself to be unnoticeable, looked up, confused by the intrusion.

Elias made a conscious effort not to Look at him, but only to meet his eyes and give a brief nod. Not a trace of Beholding. Just a man wandering the graveyard, intrigued at finding a drunken sailor sprawled across a fresh grave.

He couldn’t stop himself from staring a bit at the place where Peter’s legs slumped against the wet earth, mud soaking into his trousers. Why would he sit there. Sitting on the wet grass would have been bad enough, but right in the mud, really? And since when did Peter own a black dress shirt? Was he… he was. He was wearing all black. He was wearing all black, crying on James Wright’s grave. He was crying. He’d been almost certain he’d Seen it wrong before. After all, it was a wet day, he’d assumed it was rain. Peter would never let himself enter the real world in such a state. But here he was…?

Peter scrubbed his cheek with a muddy hand and screwed the cap off his bottle, clearing his throat with a distinctly dismissive sound. Elias, disregarding his implicit plea for solitude, walked closer.

“Friend of yours?”

Peter glanced at him briefly, coldly, before tipping the bottle back. Probably cursing himself for not noticing when someone broke through his shroud of mist, for not isolating himself better. But that was just a guess. Elias couldn’t look into his mind; the mist made it a gamble at the best of times and anyways Peter knew what it felt like. He couldn’t give himself away yet. The mystery was so exciting.

“I knew him,” Elias commented, looking at the fresh new headstone, granite shining under a pale coat of water. Peter was leaning against it, obscuring most of the inscription, but he knew what it said.

“Lots of people did,” Peter grunted. “Think I’m the only one who didn’t hear about it when he died.”

Ahaha! Was Peter Lukas lamenting his lack of connection to the rest of humanity? That thing he so carefully cultivated and was so very very proud of. That thing? Hilarious. Or, maybe he was just malingering to feed the Lonely. That was probably it.

“No?” Elias prodded. Peter sighed.

“I was away. No one took the trouble to contact me.”

Had he assumed that one of the more socially-integrated Lukases would have gotten in contact with him if something important happened? Funny. He was pretty sure the Lukases expected Peter to give them updates on Elias, if anything.

“That must have been hard. When did you find out?”

“Yesterday. What do you want?”

Elias considered introducing himself as Head of the Institute. Seeing his reaction would be lovely, but he wanted to drag it out a bit more, see if Peter could figure it out himself. If not, he could mock him later for not being able to put the pieces together.

“Some privacy,” said Elias, leaning one arm against the headstone, “but it seems you had the same idea as I. How did you know him?”

Peter considered this for a moment. “Work,” he said.

Hah. That was amusing. Did he really see it like that? It had been a long time since they had dropped that pretense. Not that the Institute didn’t still rely heavily on the contributions of the Lukas family, but their last several marriages had been private, more for personal reasons than for, as he so eloquently put it, work. Even when they were estranged, he and Peter stayed on decent terms, and after so many years he trusted Peter not to cause problems for him with his family; especially as he continued to offer them any useful information (and any lonely statement-givers) that came his way. The Institute and the Lukas family were allies. That didn’t mean that the two of them had to be married, yet they kept doing it anyway. It was stupid but Elias had long ago resigned himself to it. They both had a weak spot for the other, and like good allies they’d silently agreed never to talk about it. But here Peter was lying in the mud and grieving.

“Interesting, so did I,” said Elias. “Best place to meet him, I believe. The man hardly left the Institute.”

Peter chuckled softly. “Sounds about right.”

Elias thought about interrogating Peter about where he worked and how he’d supposedly met James, but decided not to. If he made him too uncomfortable Peter might just disappear before he could reveal himself, and that would be a shame. And he hadn’t come here to catch him in a lie, he’d come to ask him about James Wright.

“Did you know him well?” asked Elias.

Peter stared into the mist.

“Pretty well, yeah.”

“I think I did too,” said Elias, tracing the headstone’s inscription with his fingertips. “We… yes. We were close.”

He’d hoped to get some reaction with that. Peter considered for a few moments, then silently offered him the bottle. Elias, who’d tried Peter’s whisky before, knew better.

“Thank you, no.”

Peter took the drink himself, and Elias was… concerned about the amount of liquor he was consuming.

“Not planning on joining him, are you?”

Peter just grunted. “…You liked him, huh?”

Elias laughed softly. “Anyone would,” he said sappily, and was pleased to see him carefully not react. He was getting the message, and oh, how he wished he could see how he was reacting to it under that mask. Surely he wouldn’t keep the stoic act too long, he was already daytime drinking on a fresh grave, there wasn’t much lower he could fall. Elias let his voice drop. “I… loved him.”

“Mm,” commented Peter. He placed one hand on the mud beside him, gently pressing into the earth, and kept it there. “I wasn’t around much,” he said quietly.

Well what on earth was he supposed to make of that? He was trying to make Peter jealous and he had very rarely failed at something so completely.

“Do you know, was he alone when he died?” asked Peter.

“Yes.”

“Pity. He was terrified of death.”

“Isn’t everyone?” asked Elias, perhaps a little sharply.

Peter shrugged. “It scares me enough, I suppose, but it doesn’t bother me the way it did him… it seems restful. Resigning yourself to the way of things. I’m not rushing to meet it, of course, but there’s a kind of unflinching beauty in death. No one’s immune, much as we might pretend. In the end, we all face death alone.” He stretched one leg out in the mud, pressing his hand deeper into the earth so that his fingers started to disappear. “And frankly it would solve a lot of problems. Wouldn’t have to turn in budget reports, for one thing.” He chuckled. “yes, it seems peaceful.”

“Not to me. Have you seen people die?” said Elias.

“I have. Many times. The fear is felt by those who are left watching, the dead are beyond it.”

“Because they’re gone. Doesn’t that scare you?”

Peter tilted his head back, let it rest against the headstone, and looked at the dimly-visible silhouette of bare branches against the pale sky. His hair lay in damp strands across his forehead, and Elias Did Not think about brushing them back.

“In the eyes of death I’m already gone. Aren’t we all? We exist for a moment. Like bubbles in the stream. Here a moment, then breaking; always in motion. I’ve always known how… transparent it all is. You can’t really touch anything without falling through,” Peter said.

Well that was new. He was babbling, words starting to slur. Elias decided that he’d have to reveal himself soon, before Peter drank himself so deeply into incoherence that he wouldn’t be able to react to the surprise. That would be a waste.

“I’m sorry,” said Peter after a pause, “I doubt others see it the way that I do. But death has never held any particular terror for me. I’m more afraid of pain, or sickness. Being deceived. Those are things that happen when you’re alive.”

Especially that last one, thought Elias. Peter started to set the bottle down (thank goodness), thought about it for a moment… and started to unscrew the top for another swig. Elias, acting on impulse, swiped it out of his hands. Peter turned to glare at him.

“Listen, I know we’ve only just met but I’m not watching you drink yourself to death over some man you barely knew.”

Ah, finally, a reaction. A spark of rage appeared in Peter’s face, but passed before it could translate into motion. Elias, who’d been tensed for a fight, slowly relaxed.

“You’re right,” said Peter quietly, looking off into the mist. “I didn’t know him. No one really does.”

“What?”

“Know each other. You just… see the outside of someone, and you guess about what they’re really like, but you’re never quite right. People exist apart from you. And that’s very lonely. Almost as lonely as death.”

Elias muffled an exasperated sigh.

“Well, if that’s your belief, surely it can’t be hard to replace someone who’s left you. One person must be as good as another if you can never really—”

“No. I still miss him.”

A warmth spread through Elias’ chest. There, he had it loud and clear in plain words. He was going to hold on to this memory and the next time Peter tried to pull that “oh I’m an emotionless avatar of Forsaken incapable of human bonds” he’d beam it directly into his brain so hard he got a fucking nosebleed from the sheer amount of raw, human, embarrassing grief. Elias wondered if this would be useful blackmail material.

“I know that smile.”

With a start, Elias realized that Peter had leaned back and was looking up at him, frowning. Ah, he’d blown his cover. Well, this was as good a time as any.

“Do you?” he smiled. Peter looked intently at him. At his eyes.

“Jonah?” he said in a small voice.

Elias laughed.

“Took you long enough.” And as proof, he showed him a memory; James Wright’s stilled body with empty eye sockets, image blurred with pain as his new body adjusted to him. Elias Bouchard’s eyes, bloodshot, in his hand. Placing them in James Wright’s body and washing his hands, vision slowly clearing.

Peter sighed, closing his eyes. “Jonah. Were you trying to make me jealous of your narcissistic crush on yourself? I mean, it’s accurate; I’m just not used to that level of honesty from you.”

“Oh, “Jonah”? You must really be angry at me.”

“No, you just haven’t told me your name yet, handsome stranger.”

“Elias. Elias Bouchard, new Head of the Magnus Institute. Pleased to meet you, sailor.” Elias walked around the headstone to crouch closer to Peter, who was almost laughing.

“El-lie-as,” he said slowly, as if tasting the name syllable by syllable, and a chill ran up Elias’ spine. Huh. Very sensitive new body. Yeah, that was it. “It fits you,” said Peter. “Musical, pretentious, has the word lie in it.”

“Oh, shut up.” Elias leaned in for a kiss and Peter stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Elias, dear, why does this body smell like weed?”

“I’m… still airing the flat out.”

“Why does your body’s flat smell like weed?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Hm! Didn’t have you pegged for a stoner, Jonah. I’ll have to introduce you to some of my crew…”

“Don’t you dare.”

“You’re right, I don’t remember anyone’s names. You’ll have to introduce yourself.”

“Listen, I don’t think you have any right critiquing the habits of my body’s former inhabitant when I just found you lying in the mud trying to drink yourself to death.”

“Shut up. I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, that’s cute. Me? Really? You thought I was dead?”

“You’re not immune to heart attacks, Elias! They said it was a sudden heart attack, I thought you really died!”

“What, you think a little heart attack could kill me?”

“That is exactly the kind of attitude that makes me think your hubris is going to catch up to you one of these days.”

He was right, but Elias didn’t want to admit it. He tried to pick healthy bodies, but the thought that despite all his centuries of care and planning, one might just… break down on him…

“C’mere,” said Peter, tugging on his tie. “I’d better start getting used to that smell.”

“I’m not joining you in the mud, Peter, get up.”

“Too drunk. C’mon, you’re already muddy.”

Elias remembered that that was the hand Peter had gotten all muddy before touching him. Looked down at his shirt. Groaned.

“Oh, for—”

Peter chucked him under the chin, deliberately smearing mud on him, then grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him down in the mud while Elias was busy glaring at him. Elias swore.

“Oh, shut up. I think this is a very lenient revenge for letting me think you were dead.”

“Well that’s your fault for not being smarter.”

Peter pinned him against the solid cold of the headstone and kissed him and oh he could not let him know how much he was enjoying this or he’d never live it down. Peter was cold and smelled of grave dirt and whisky and still, faintly, of the sea. It was a new experience, but still Peter.

“You’re a mess,” said Elias, resigning himself to his muddy fate with a sigh. At least he’d fallen on top of his coat, and it was keeping the worst of it off him.

“And? I’m assuming your new flat has a shower,” said Peter.

“It does. Only a shower,” Elias complained. Peter laughed.

“Oh, noooo, no bath? You’ll survive, you spoiled Victorian. I’ll even show you how it works.”

“I know how to take a shower!”

“Turning down the offer?”

“…No.”

“Good.” Peter traced the shape of his face with a muddy finger. Elias grabbed his hand and pushed it away.

“Could you at least use your other hand? The one that’s not caked in mud?”

“No, I don’t think I will. This mud was the closest I thought I’d ever get to you.”

“And that bothers you? Really? Mr. Lonesome, Eternally Alone Lukas?”

Peter got an odd expression. He didn’t like Elias calling him out on his many contradictions. He could argue quite convincingly if he was in the mood, but he apparently wasn’t. “Shut up,” he said, and kissed him again.

This little experiment had gone well, Elias decided.

#fanfiction #lonelyeyes #lonely eyes #elias bouchard #peter lukas #the magnus archives #personal #Elias is far too dramatic to just TELL his husband he's transferred to a body #much funnier to just let him come home expecting James Wright. who is deceased

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bloodfcst-a · 5 years ago

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the last few mornings i’ve had hanging out with @sailorrmood have been absolutely incredible for my self-esteem and energy. thank you always for being ready to hang out to dismantle sexism, ableism, racism, and all the other shenanigans we see on the internet in the name of virtue signaling and performance activism.

i’m attempting to return to tumblr, but one of the things that really grinds my gears is the pseudo-authenticity and one-time performance activism via a reblog of a semi-relatable post. i say semi because while there are good intentions in many of these posts, people often just click like or reblog without considering the lack of intersectionality that was in the main post, or figure “i did my part” and expect everyone else to move on without recognizing that the situation lies beyond your simple text post. just because you moved on from knowing people are being unfairly incarcerated and dying at the hands of actual criminals weaponized by the ‘ justice system ’ doesn’t mean i have, or will.

today i really read someone with their whole chest say “i just learned about racism this week. wow. i’m white and i should do something about things.” and i can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in a world with so much privilege that you can really go 20+ years of living without recognizing the world around you and without noticing inequality or injustice. caucasity is a hell of a thing. meanwhile i’m an afab nb black & native so truly there’s never a time i’m not reminded of all the privileges i don’t have. i get so annoyed seeing people on tumblr say something completely ignorant and then use an excuse.

just two days ago i saw someone say “it’s sexist to ship clerith and not cloti, i’d know, i’m a womanist.” << which is not womanism, this is truly white feminism at its peak. i’ve also seen “this is my opinion and to critique me and my opinion is transphobic because i’m trans and you’re missing my good intentions.” this is both fragility and performativity to overrule an actual discussion, claiming bc of some label they know to be a haute keyword that their opinion is right. if you were truly an ally, you’d be willing to accept that your opinion is lacking the inclusivity you claim to hold. for womanism was birthed from the lack of intersectionality and critical thinking, for those outspoken or overruled or considered inferior by radical “feminists.”

( if someone were truly womanist, for example, both aerith and tifa would both be validated as women, because they both have worth inherently because they were born, and it cannot be invalidated based on a perceived gender role that they may or may not fall into. they inherently have the right to comfortable in the position that suits them best and that they have chosen of their own accord. to consider aerith inferior because she is ‘feminine’ or tifa inferior because she is ‘masculine’ or any other adjectives which could stereotypically fall into either of those categories is an explicit rejection of the acceptance ‘feminism’ claims to advocate for. )

and being trans is a valid identity but it is not a suitable response if you use that as a way to silence others or invalidate any other person’s experiences.

i recognize june is considered pride month, but it’s also juneteenth... ironic, given that this month is supposed to be celebrating the proclamation the emanicaption of slavery to the remainder of those who were still held in captivity six months after the declaration had been legally issued... and yet here we are, 150+ years after the fact and still fighting for the right to live under the same oppressors by a system created to capture the slaves freed by the emancipation proclamation.... but y’all aren’t ready to see the big picture. but you need to be. black people have been. and that’s why they’re fighting for their lives now.

we all still have plenty of work to do, myself included, with dismantling biases taught to us by society and the social spheres we interact in. there should never be a time where you think “ah, i’ve learned enough about this subject” or “i’ve heard enough stories.” even when something is presented to you, you should possess critical thinking skills and learn to take nothing at face-value. raise questions to everything you see, especially presented by the media, and prepare to be made uncomfortable if your assumptions are wrong ( because more than likely, they will be ). who is the person mentioning the subject? what other opinions do they have? are there people presenting counter-arguments? how does their identity influence the way they interact with the information mentioned? to who is their audience? for what purpose are they interacting with said audience? if that seems like too much work... congratulations! you’re quite privileged to acknowledge the inconvenience of having to look at someone’s words and think more than 0.5 seconds about it. and if that’s hard for you to do with one post, imagine someone having to do that with literally every interaction for their entire lives. that’s the reality of black people, and other people of color, and any person that has a label that has defined them as “other.” remember, too, that these labels do not exist independently of one another, that they stack, and that a person can easily have multiple privileges, or on the flip side, things to be persecuted over, multiple injustices to face.

is it hard? yes. scary? certainly. but you should bravely face it head-on, as i am and my ancestors have before me. for those of you who claim to herald truth and freedom and the equality of all humans, who recognize there is no place in a just world for superiority and supremacy, you should invoke your strength as well. use it in times where you may need to be corrected for your decisions. do not hide behind one of your identities to prevent yourself from doing the hard work of re-evaluating yourselves and the information you share. if you’re to claim you’re an ally of anyone, that first and foremost means to listen to other’s stories and to provide them the platform to be heard, to not erase their voices when they are the most affected by it. learn about new perspectives and then dare to journey into a new world with those ideals you claim to hold together.

i have the honor of leading anti-racism workshops this week at my job, but you don’t have to be an anti-oppression coordinator to do this important work. you just need to actually put some real effort into what you’re saying, thinking, believing. remember to be inclusive. remember to listen. and remember to love. and if you can’t do that, you can certainly unfollow me so i can get you the hell off my dash lmaooo. thank you mutual checker!!

so in conclusion... just do better, y’all. i’m tired of seeing fake woke folks. everyone can learn to be a better ally to each other. and most importantly... CLICK THE LINK BELOW.

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

kay thanks!!!

#♝ mun.

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lesbiancarat · 4 years ago

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Book anon here to say today is a happy day because it is dk and vernon day ^0^ the fact they share bdays makes my heart so big like djakdnaks that's the best thing really! (I say this as I don't like celebrating my own birthday lol but that shiz makes me soft) like how can it not get better than sharing a birthday with your fellow bandmate who is also your buddy :'))

Back on topic, I am happy that in the fandoms I'm in, update blogs or accounts are well loved so no drama there but I agree on cc peeps, my gosh the decline of them is obvious for the past 2 years =/ I remember 2018 the carat fandom here was HUGE with creators and lots of notes but now...its hard to see more than 200 for some and while numbers don't matter because you should ALWAYS be doing this for fun, its so shocking to see the interaction go so low and its more likes. I do have a theory as to why this is the case and it might be due to nowadays, people on Tumblr find reblogging alot to be "too much" akaspamming. I would know because some told me I do this and I'm like ??? I am simply reblogging content I like and if it means hitting the rbelog limit so be it djajdjw. Legit idk why its seen as bad nowadays when everyone used to reblog alot and no one complained so maybe this could be why? Again a theory but it would make sense and its a shame if this is the case :c I admit I like stuff because I sometimes do reblog it for a color theme but mostly I hit the reblog limit so I want to reblog it later xD

But let's not get into people that take others work as their own -.- now I get giving credit for say icons (I do this for icons and headers I use because its the least I can do. I would link it but idk how to do it on Tumblr lol) but taking someone's say gif and just posting it on twitter to share is like ??? You do know there is a share button that SHARES THE ORIGINAL LINK BACK RIGHT? Smh i can't with people. That's why I try to make sure for icons at least I know its not a repost and try to stay away from pintrest as best as I can (also svt on pintrest? Are they making moodboards or smth? I leave Tumblr for a bit and this is what I come back to lol)

Oof I wrote too much again sjamdna I'm living up to my emoji huh? XD but yes my tooth is better! It hurt again last night but today we are good!

I'm late answering this but yeah the fact that dk and vernon share a Birthday is super sweet! it's fun that they get to do their birthday live together as well ^^

but yeah i joined carat tumblr around late 2017/early 2018 (i made this side blog during oh my era but I'd been reblogging svt stuff on main before then) and I'm p sure most if not all the cc's i originally followed are inactive now :( obviously like you said content creators should make content for fun and bc they want to and not for the notes, but it's understandably disheartening when less people are interacting with it and even the people who do still see your content are (at least seemingly) less enthusiastic about it (ie liking but not reblogging it, less ppl writing things in the tags or replies, etc.)

but that's so wild to me? I've never heard anyone say someone is reblogging too many things like... how do you expect to see posts if people don't reblog stuff?? id welcome that extra content on my dash dhfjfh. i guess you can go in specific tags but like. idk reblogging is the main function of tumblr i don't know why there are people sort of against it/not as willing to use it (i mean... i suspect at least one factor is other social media platforms relying more on algorithms and likes to show people new content and ppl are just more used to that maybe?)

i feel like to some extent people feel entitled to have every or any gif or fanart or fan content on their platform of choice, but like if an artist posts something on tumblr but not on twt or instagram it doesn't HAVE to be on twt or insta. people can make a tumblr (or whatever platform) account if that's the only place a creator is active and they really want to see their content. and if people want to share something cool to another platform it is not hard to just post a link to the original post and tell people to check it out. like i do that every once in a while if there's a translation that doesn't allow reposts, but i still want ppl to know that trans exists if they wouldn't normally. and yeah!! you're gonna get less engagement that way!! but that's when you need to question whether your intention is really to share something cool w people who wouldn't normally see it or if you just want clout from this cool thing for yourself

and obviously not everyone who reposts things wo credit or permission has such innocent intentions as "i want to share this cool thing" but i think in a lot of cases it is something similar to that where ppl see something and they want to use it or share it for whatever reason and they just forget that it's something an actual person took the time to create and chose to share it. fan creations, unless otherwise specified, are not like memes in that they're intended to be shared and edited and copied to hell and back

but yeah pinterest is the worst in terms of reposts. like very little if any of the content on there (at least that's fandom related) is original content. the vast majority is reposts from other platforms without credit. a few weeks ago i saw someone on twt post like an old SVT photo or something and someone asked where it was from and they were like 'idk i saw it on pinterest' and when i tell u my blood boiled dhfkfj like!! ok!! so you're reposting a repost and u have no idea what the original source is... great

but yeah i have no idea what SVT is gonna do with pinterest... guessing it's just gonna be pledis posting official/behind photos that they also post on twt anyway. it really looks like it's something bh made them create given other bhl artists also have pinterests they're all following each other. also pledis didn't even officially announce the new account opening anywhere as far as I've seen so like. i think they really don't care dhfkfj

i really don't know what bh thinks they're gonna gain though like. ik there are active fandom pinterest users but i think most of them also have other social media like twt or insta. like they're not cracking open a huge new market, and LITERALLY NO ONE expects any musician or celeb to have an official Pinterest so. it's just so unnecessary dhfkgj

I'm glad your tooth is feeling better!!!

#melia.ask #ask #📖 anon #oof prime example of me getting carried away and writing too much #this was meant to be a quick break from studying #theres another ask in my inbox which is short anyway but i really have to get back to hw and studying ;-;#long post

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yukipri · 6 years ago

Text

So I’m back from the dead (literally). A Goodbye Message.

Hey there. Some of you may remember me.

Some of you may have wondered why I suddenly stopped posting, but the vast majority of you probably didn’t even notice, as is how it is. ^ ^;

I’m finally back, and it wasn’t an easy journey getting back.

Here’s what happened.

(Slightly long post, but please forgive me for not putting it under a cut, it’s sorta important)

On November 19th, I checked my blog as I always do, to learn that my blog was terminated.

No warning, no reason, suddenly BOOM gone. I’ve had this blog since spring 2012. It’s almost entirely sfw, I’ve always been hyper careful with tagging, and any questionable content has always been hosted on other platforms. Yet for some reason, I was one of many blogs caught up in what’s come to be known as the #TumblrPurge.

I followed all the steps. I emailed staff, first desperately, then more rationally, making my case. I figured that a bot had caught my blog, as I knew plenty of other more suspicious content blogs that were unharmed. At first there was hope, it’s just a glitch, it’s happening to a lot of people, they’ll give it back right away, some people have already gotten theirs back!

Nothing.

My methods of contacting followers were limited to my Patreon and Twitter, neither of which has much of a base. Followers who knew me on there were incredibly kind and supportive, and sometimes even reached out to staff on my behalf.

I didn’t want to spam, but I also was desperate. I emailed staff once a week. I tried using different categories. I tried adding attachments. My messages ranged from simple and succinct, to deeply personal and desperate.

I was honestly devastated. I spiraled into the worst depression I’ve ever been in. I could barely eat and vomited nonstop for a week. I gained 20 pounds in 2 weeks. I was completely out of control mentally, and even reached out to a psychiatrist friend in case I couldn’t handle it myself. I couldn’t draw, and thinking about projects that I once loved only hurt me more.

Talk about social media addiction, but I’ve legit never gone longer than a week without posting something for years, and especially since becoming a content creator, it felt sickening to not have the place where I drove myself to post constantly and consistently. It broke my schedule. It made me feel cut off from the world, and I felt claustrophobic and uncomfortable in my own skin.

I lost so many things with this blog. Yes, I was primarily a content creator, and while of course I had backups of all my art and some of my longer text posts, I lost so much more.

I lost, perhaps most importantly, all my interactions with my followers. I lost connections to so many people, people I hadn’t contacted in years and may not have even been active anymore, but who I always believed I would have this route back to. I lost memories, both online and of my personal life that I had recorded on here.

And as someone who unfortunately put so much of my identity and self-validation on my social media experience, I suddenly felt like I was absolutely nothing.

For the longest time, I thought I was su*cidal as a result of my depression (word bleeped out bc who knows what can get you flagged now). I certainly thought about death and dying daily.

But then, I realized what I was feeling wasn’t quite that. I didn’t feel like I wanted to die.

I felt like I was already dead.

Which, may sound like an exaggeration, but in terms of tumblr at least, it’s exactly the same. If I had died in rl, I would have dropped off the map, just like this. Suddenly stopped posting, no warning in advance. My blog may have existed, but in this case, no record of my existence even remained. To people who came looking for my url, I may as well have been dead. You wouldn’t have known any better.

Or who knows, maybe I was a criminal or had done something awful that resulted in my blog being removed. Maybe I had just had it with this site and had chosen to leave. Maybe I was just taking a much needed break. It would have been odd, since I prioritized communicating and always said when I needed a break, which was rarely ever. But either way, I had no way of telling any of you what had happened to me. My voice was gone.

Feeling like I was dead, after I recognized what I was feeling, was...disturbing, I guess. Kinda explained why I always felt like a corpse though.

(of course, feeling like I was dead contributed to thinking other things like maybe it’d be better if I really wasn’t around at all, but that’s a result, and not the main feeling.)

Anyway, I kept emailing staff, and I finally managed to come back. It took ten emails and over 2 months of waiting and wasting away and trying to come to terms with how I’m unlikely to get it back. I didn’t get my blog back until TODAY.

Now that I have come back, the landscape’s changed, as I had heard it had. They hadn’t even announced the adu*t content policy change when they terminated me. I honestly feel like I’m back in a world that’s moved on without me, and it’s made me feel very strongly how insignificant I was in the first place.

During my time being dead, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do. I regretted not doing my 25K follower giveaway sooner. I regretted not getting this or that content out. I regretted having kept certain long text posts and ask responses in my drafts yet unpublished.

But more than anything, I regretted not being able to say goodbye, and thank you all for my time here.

Yes, it’s had ups and downs, but tumblr was where I first found myself as an artist. Tumblr was what first made me interact with and find a group of people interested in what I created. Tumblr was where I was able to interact with those people, you. And I know I’ve had my ups and downs too, and different fandoms and different moods, but I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for letting me be a part of your experience here, however big or small that experience may have been.

I also learned the dangers of immersing myself too deeply on one online platform. So much of myself had been poured into this one blog, this one blog that can disappear with a legit snap of staff’s fingers. (my twitter handle was “Got Thanos’d on Tumblr” for a good month lol) I used to think that’s what made my content valuable, that I poured so much love and thought and everything personal into it, that’s what made it special, but in the end oh so very damaging when it was ripped away. As someone who spent almost all my time online creating content, it was an awful reality pill I had to swallow, and I don’t want ANYONE experiencing the same thing I did.

So please. The takeaway here, if I can be a cautionary tale, is to be aware that an online identity is more unstable than you think it is. It can go POOF. I’m lucky to be here, and that staff finally responded, and that I had the masochism to continue emailing staff weekly no matter how much I felt like I should stop breathing afterwards.

Also, please, if you have people on this site you care about, whether it be a friend or someone you think is neat, anyone you will miss if they suddenly disappeared, please go connect with them in other places beyond this site, which may become increasingly unstable. This can be another social media if they have it, an email, a chatting platform, anything. Even if you personally don’t use it yet, create an account so you can find them when you can no longer access your account, or they can’t access theirs and they can find you. Don’t regret it like I did.

As for me, after all of this, I don’t know if I can post content on here again.

I’d gone well beyond hoping for another chance at this community. All I’ve been thinking about these past two months was how I would have wanted to say goodbye.

Now that I have my account back, I’m currently filled with more numbness and bitterness than any joy or relief. I don’t know if I can create content anymore for a platform that has hurt me so deeply, no matter how much its community means to me. This experience changed me, and I’ve taken damage that isn’t going to go away so easily.

As I think about what to do moving forward, for now, you can find me on my accounts that I WAS active on these past two months. They aren’t the same, but they were all I had.

If you read this message until the end, thank you.

Again, I might decide to post on here again. I might not. But for now, here’s again what I’ve been wanting to say for two months:

Thank you, Tumblr. And goodbye.

-Kazu

(yukipri.tumblr.com)

https://twitter.com/YukiPri_Art

https://www.patreon.com/YukiPri

#personal #TumblrPurge #longpost #long post #yukipri #I didn't stop posting because I wanted to ^ ^;#i had posts in my drafts waiting to be queued for the day i got terminated #it feels so long ago now though and i feel so detached #Also kinda random but i was feeling like this really weird affinity with ghosts #i kept coming up with dead people AUs AHAHAHHAHAHA #like currently I'm super into Banana Fish right #and pre-termination I was all about everyone lives happy AUs #post termination suddenly I was a lot more interested in people staying dead but like lingering around and having regrets #it felt a lot more relatable all of a sudden AHAHAHAHA

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thecloserkin · 6 years ago

Text

book review: K Webster, Hale (2018)

Genre: Romance

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: Yes, extremely explicit. In fact if this had been published on literotica i would have accounted it a well-above-average story.

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: Yes

Bottom line: This is the most vanilla thing I have read in a LONG time and if i hadn’t paid $3.99 for it i doubt I would have bothered to finish it

I picked up this title because shipcestuous added it to her to-read shelf on goodreads, and while it’s clear from the editorial copy (“This book is an epic, emotional, raw love story”) that they think something groundbreaking is going on here, I would like to direct these amateurs to the Sibling Incest tag on Ao3. Or the Incest Shipping Yay page on TVtropes. Or Astrid’s now-defunct blog, if tumblr ever sees fit to restore it. Trust me, you do not have to be doing anything experimental or original for me to enjoy your tropetastic incest story. You don’t even have to be good with words. Stephenie Meyer, for instance, is not what anybody would call a first-rate stylist, and yet I’ve never had any trouble finishing any of her books (none of which feature incest, but the point was about writing generally).

Hudson and Rylie Hale lose their parents in a tragic car accident. Their shared grief is the catalyst for the affair that blooms between them, and I will give them this much: these kids at least know better than to leave any incriminating texts or pictures lying around on their phones. Their vigilance in the digital realm is then completely nullified by the way they conduct themselves irl—they’re walked in on by (1) their aunt aka Rylie’s guardian and (2) Hudson’s roommate at college, all within a week of getting together. I know the risk of being caught is part of the allure of incestuous relationships, but these clowns need to learn to keep it in their pants at least until they can find a closet.

In my opinion this story would have benefitted from an Outsider POV or two. Not every story needs one—Cathy Dollanganger’s first-person POV is more than adequate to carry Flowers in the Attic, and speaking of authors who are shoddy stylists, look at how bad V.C. Andrews was, and how little it mattered—but there’s not enough substance to either Hudson or Rylie’s characters for their alternating POVs to keep the reader invested. In brief, Rylie’s clinically depressed, and Hudson’s attending college on a baseball scholarship. There’s a scene where they watch a movie together and end up fucking on the couch, which would usually be my jam (standard sibling interaction leads to white-hot sex), except I was boooooored. There’s a scene where she visits him at school and they go skinny-dipping in a lake with some of his friends, and they both have to fight off the attentions of prospective romantic partners, and it ends with him carrying her to his truck and fucking her in the back off it. Which again in theory sounds amazing. In practice I think the jealousy trope works better if you’re threatened by your partner’s emotional intimacy with somebody else. And what is Rylie worried about? That this girl has porn star tits, where Rylie is much more modestly endowed. Ok you know who else has small tits? Natalie Portman. Keira Knightley. Emma Watson. Physically unprepossessing women the whole lot of them, amirite? Rylie is overcome by the same unwarranted insecurity when it comes to Hudson’s on-again-off-again ex-girlfriend, who is described as having humongous knockers. I understand how this can make Rylie feel inadequate—women are taught to hate their bodies from day one—but this chick also clearly has nothing going on upstairs, and her emotional connection with Hudson is nowhere in Rylie’s league. So Rylie’s jealousy strikes me as unearned and unrealistic.

Hudson and Rylie spend a good chunk of this book struggling against their feelings, berating themselves for being sick and twisted, all of which would normally be my kryptonite since i am on record gushing about the taboo/forbidden angle of incest and how I’m into sneaking around!! And none of it did damn thing for me in this case. The more reviews I read that contain the word ��raw” the more I start to wonder if we all read the same book.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

As far as canon incest happy ending goes, the “run away together to where nobody knows you guys” strategy has its drawbacks, namely that it means leaving loved ones behind. I have discussed my preference for Option B before, but that option isn’t on the table for Hudson and Rylie because THEY GOT THEMSELVES CAUGHT IN THE ACT and exposed their relationship to multiple people so they can’t plausibly carry on denying it. Especially when Rylie starts popping out kids. Look, I’m into pregnancy kink as much as the next person but it just seems unearned. As is the fact that Hudson found a good-paying steady job even without the college degree their parents worked so hard to push him to get (he was kicked off the baseball team + lost his scholarship due to a combination of grieving for parents & obsessive infatuation for sister). This is America, where good jobs don’t just fall into high school graduates’ laps (unless you have family connections, which the Hale kids don’t, bc they had to move a thousand miles away to live amongst strangers!). And I can’t write these lapses off to the influence of the genre because I know there can be coherent class discourse in a romance novel.

A professor of mine once gave me a copy of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature (1984) by Janice Radway, and it remains to this day one of the most transformative nonfiction reading experiences of my entire life. Janice Radway conducts interviews with dozens of mostly-married, mostly-middle-aged women in a midsize midwestern American city, and finds that for them reading romance novels is a form of self-care. They spend the rest of their time supporting and nurturing their families & extended social networks, but with a Harlequin romance in hand, husbands are much less likely to bother them. They can carve out time and space for themselves, they can draw from these escapist fantasies the emotional sustenance that their marriages/children are not providing. They can form friendships with like-minded women who also read a lot of romance. It resonated deeply with me even if I’m not a middle-aged white homemaker in middle America in 1984, because ever since, I’ve been very clear-eyed about why I read romance: To meet my own emotional needs that are for some reason not being met by my existing meatspace relationships. That, to me, is the point of the romance genre, and to hell with character and plot. And that’s why I say Hale let me down, because it didn’t succeed in making me feel anything.

There’s a post floating around that contrasts the way we categorize published fiction (by genre, ie. what happens—wizards or starships? corsets or lawyers?) with fanfiction, which is organized based on how it makes us feel: fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, etc. And fic has never let me down in that department, so I guess that’s why romance and fanfic fall under the same mental classification in my head. In this essay I will

#book review #hale #k webster

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notisaidthefrogg-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Dear Octopath Exchange Creator...

Hello! I really appreciate you reading this letter and I eagerly anticipate your awesome creation! As a writer myself, I’ve probably made my requests/prompts very narrative-based; feel free to take inspiration from any part to turn into art if that is your strength! If you have any questions/would like to challenge any unreasonable requests, don’t hesitate to ask on anon!

(edit: this ended up being way longer than it had any right to be, I just tried to make up for any restrictions with a whole bunch of prompts, I probably rambled way too much, don’t feel pressured to read the whole thing)

First of all, I’ll just introduce myself briefly because I haven’t posted here before. I am Frogg (Nebulariffic on Ao3). You won’t have seen me around at all because I tend to lurk on sites like Tumblr, but I’ve been following the Octopath fandom since the game’s release and I’ve really loved the fan creations that have come from it! This is the first fandom exchange I’ve participated in here, and I’m hoping it will help me come out of my shell enough to post some of my other fan works!

But enough about me, time to get to my gift preferences! I do have some odd tastes by some standards, but as long as there’s no DNWs, I’m sure I’ll love whatever you come up with! Again, if anything here seems unreasonable, just message me and we can come up with something.

I’ll start with what I really like:

- Friendship/found family fluff! I’m a sucker for some high quality friendships and nothing forges friendships like trekking across the continent together! I think that our favourite eight travellers have a lot of potential for fun interactions together, or even if it’s just one or two of them with some NPCs or other characters!

- On the other side of the spectrum, hurt/comfort featuring supportive pals just warms my heart! Cheery friend/s lifting spirits of sad friend/s? Wonderful. Multiple sad friends taking comfort in each other? Exquisite. Again, there’s so much potential with this crew to make something really touching!

- Character growth! This may or may not be self explanatory, but I love characters doing tricky things and becoming better people for it. Things like working up courage to admit fault, apologise, forgive, put aside differences, or generally facing and conquering fears!

- If you have a cool AU idea, I’d love to see it!

Now as for my dislikes, these are mostly things that I’d be okay seeing in general, but I’d just rather not have in something I was requesting.

- This one’s going to seem a bit odd/prudish, but I’d like for no non-canon romantic/sexual pairings. I’m fine with super-close ambiguous friendships with hugs and comfort, but I’ve always felt weird about non-canon ships. Besides, I think we could do with more platonic friendships!

- If you would like to go for a non-canon romantic pairing anyway, I’d be okay with that just as long as it stays Lite(TM). In particular, I really don’t like pieces focussed on marriage proposals, weddings and pregnancies (especially mpreg) - that’s just something I’ve never liked in fic/art.

- Please no excessive emphasis on past abuse... It’s okay for characters to remember dark moments in their pasts, but detailed flashbacks and characters bemoaning their existences just make me feel like garbage.

- I’d prefer no prominent OCs. Background roles are cool, but self-inserts/reader-inserts/fanchildren and the like break my immersion.

And for my DNWs:

- No smut/porn/nudity

- No rape/non-con

- No underage/incest

- No kinks

- No excessive violence

- No character bashing

- No major character death (unless it’s directly portraying/referencing a canon event)

I make that last point because you can’t very well have a Primrose-Chapter-1-centric moment without Yusufa, for example.

Now we get to the fun bit - prompts! I realise that I drive a hard bargain by requesting all eight travellers, and I’d be perfectly fine if you only want to focus on a subset of them. If you have an idea for something based on what I’ve already mentioned, then go for it, but if you’re stuck, I’ve got some prompts based on who I’d particularly like to see! I’ve also provided some general/AU prompts, and if you want to go with one of those prompts, you can include any number of the travellers as you please!

Alfyn - If I had to pick a favourite traveller, it would be this wholesome boy.

I’d love to see him helping out his friends if they get sick or injured, or if they just need someone to listen. Counsellor Alf is a very good Alf!

If you want to go for super-angst, I’d suggest something related to his Chapter 3. There’s so much to unpack in that chapter alone that the game couldn’t even touch on!

Olberic - I think Olberic is really under-represented in fan works, and I’d love to see more of him!

I know he has a softer side, particularly around children, and it would be cool to see that played against his protective aggression. Maybe the group gets attacked and Olberic has to defend them?

H’aanit - Another underrated character imo. If the prospect of H’aanit-speak is too intimidating, I wouldn’t be offended if you just had her talk normally.

H’aanit always strikes me as the kind of quiet, stoic character who doesn’t say much, but every one of her words is meaningful, if a little blunt. Perhaps some wacky antics will get her to open up? (wink wink nudge nudge)

Or maybe she accidentally offends someone and (with coaching from the rest of the team) gets enough social courage to apologise?

Does Linde count as an unrequested character since she’s not on my request list? I jest, but feel free to make something with her and/or her relationship with H’aanit if that strikes your fancy! If you want a Linde prompt, maybe something that contrasts her noble-fierce-wild-beast side with her big-domestic-cat side?

Other travellers - If you want to make something focussed on any of the other travellers, that’s perfectly okay too! I just don’t have any specific prompts for them (bc its 2:30am here and I’m tired). Just hit me up if you’d like prompts for a character I haven’t touched on here!

General/AU prompts -

Rescue Fic: Nothing says “I care about you” than “you were in X predicament and I got you out of it”. Ties in very well with the fear-facing I mentioned in my likes. The only question is, is it one or two people saving the rest of the team, or is it seven looking for their missing friend? You decide!

Innocent Bystander: This is one of my bigger prompts, so you can skip this idea if it’s too longwinded/complex. Team OCTOPATH blows through town, leaving innkeeper/barkeep OC (or other NPC) to chase after them and witness/reflect on/clean up after their shenanigans. I can elaborate on this idea further if you like, just shoot me an ask!

Modern AU: How would the backstories/jobs of the cast translate into modern day? How would they meet/become friends? I love seeing theories for this topic.

Band AU: You know that new Break, Boost and Beyond artwork? The one where half the cast is practically a rock band (looking at you Olberic)? Tell me how that happened. Go nuts.

I think I’m going to wrap up this letter here, hopefully some of this was useful! Of course, feel free to disregard my prompts if you’ve already got ideas, or hit me up by anon if you want me to elaborate on any of these ideas. And of course, have fun and thanks for making me a thing!

Sincerely, Frogg (Nebula)

#octopath exchange letter

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janiedean · 7 years ago

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Fandom and politics, that's the topic of this message and a request for your opinion on fandom and politics. In recent days in polish fantasy fandom one of the prominent figures, a writer, asked why can't we all just talk and be fandom and leave politics behind, like in "good old days". And explained how he and the wolę fandom just doesn't like ideology pushed at him in media. (1/2)

(2/2) The problem is, what he calls ideology, is often media not being as racist, sexist or homophobic as usually (i.e. the feminist head of the team of writers of The Witcher netflix show, black Heimdall in "Thor" etc.)Or women in fandom demanding to do sth with t-shirts that was sold at one convention, with a print that goes sth along the lines of "I love burning villages and raping virgins". Because those are the prominent scandals of polish fandom.

hmmm the thing is, I think that fandom shouldn’t meddle with politics when it comes to fans period and when it comes to authors, it should but to a certain point. what I mean is:

when I say fandom shouldn’t be meddling with politics when it comes to fans I mean that whole part where you’re judged as SOMETHING just out of your fandom preferences. I mean, people saying you’re homophobic because you don’t ship the slash ship, people assuming you’re racist because you ship two white guys or the likes, people thinking you’re pro-pedophilia because you ship underaged characters and so on. that imo is a thing that regardless of the media in question should die in a fire because you cannot judge people on their fictional preferences. no one should assume I’m okay with incest in general if I ship thor and loki, no one should assume I’m racist because I like stevebucky better than stevesam and no one should assume I’m homophobic if I ship a m/f ship and so on. especially when it comes to people who ship/like problematic stuff for whichever damned reason and they get told they’re monsters when they just wanna do their thing. like that imo is a thing that has to die in a fire right now especially when it becomes a fandom-wide thing and you get people basically going like ‘if you’re white you can’t engage with a fandom with black/poc characters because you’re gonna be racist anyway’ and then complain when they get zero content. or worse, the star wars lists of problematic people that you need to avoid because they ship rey/lo and are therefore *insert problematic word here* and such things. fandom should be a place where fans are free to do whatever they like and explore whatever subjects they like without being judged for it. obviously if someone fucks up MAJORLY (see: the infamous j2 haiti fic of doom) calling them out should happen, also because it means that if they’re ignorant they’ll learn, and using fandom as a platform to learn stuff about people different from your social/ethnical background is always great, but people shouldn’t be shamed for what they do in fandom as a general rule. that is my general opinion when it comes to fans. you can’t go on and judge someone on whether they like noncon in fiction or not. like. no.

what you’re talking about instead is the media itself being more progressive, and in that case I don’t agree with the *good old days* thing because more diversity is good and honestly if someone’s problem is that heimdall is black in a marvel movie that isn’t even accurate per se because in theory thor and loki aren’t even odin’s sons then like, you need to get over yourself.

and like, one thing is having reservation over a shirt such as what you said and another is telling other women they can’t like kink or m/m porn, so like that is a kind of politics that needs to be discussed and absolutely should, but that’s not what I mean when I say I’d really like politics out of fandom space. one thing is fandom space, one thing is the original content. I’m entirely down for diverse original content of whichever kind, what I don’t think should be done is fans engaging with it just looking at the politics and judging it based on the politics only and not on the plot, and mostly judging it on whether it’s progressive enough or not and judging other people for liking it if they don’t think it’s progressive enough, not fans asking for more diverse stuff in general and/or wanting to feel included in fandom spaces, and I think creators should acknowledge that.

like, the polish fantasy writer obviously doesn’t care for diversity - but no one forces him to. but saying that FANTASY IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WAS JUST WHITE PEOPLE is also ridiculous bc diverse fantasy has been around for ages like ffs.

what I mean is that we absolutely should have politics - if by that you mean more diversity - in the original media we consume, though I don’t think authors should be forced to do that because you get better things when the author actually wants to write them, and fandom should engage with more diverse media absolutely, but fandom can’t also judge what people in it do all the time based on how *they* engage with the content in case, because everyone will like different things and you can’t force people to engage with that specific thing just because you think it’s woke. and you also can’t trash the author for things you might perceive as problematic but actually aren’t.

examples of what I mean: I, author, write a fantasy story.

not so ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t know much stuff outside standard fantasy and I don’t feel like writing people who aren’t what I am. I write your usual standard lotr-ripoff, everyone is white, cis and hetero, there’s one romance, a couple bromances, no social or political hidden commentary. it has a good story. it’s an okay book. the fandom most likely will ship the guys in the bromances. no one feels challenged. tumblr declares me problematic for not writing diverse stuff and then ignores me.

ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t want to do the same usual lotr rehash and I know that diversity is important and I want to make a good job. I make my character list. I decide who’s white and who’s not, giving a decent balance. I make some of them non-straight. I don’t see many trans characters in fantasy, so I decide one of them is. I spend months talking to anyone belonging to the aforementioned categories asking them what they think of my approach - ie I find a number of trans people to discuss what I want with the trans character, I talk to a number of black people if I want the character to be black possibly not all from the US and I pick people from all over the place. I write my book. I make sure every character has a meaningful relationship with the others so that all their interactions are interesting. I try as much as possible to not have stereotypes. I get a bunch of betas and I change anything they find improvable. my book gets published. everyone loves it.

now, ideal fallout of the above which is what I mean with healthy fandom consumption: I get a fandom made up by diverse people because I have a diverse book. people enjoy that I gave everyone some space. they might interact with me on twitter and asking me ships headcanons. I tell them that they can ship whatever they like write whatever fic off it they want. every character gets some fic or moodboard and everyone enjoys whatever they like in whichever dynamic. not-trans people who had never run into a trans character in fantasy might go like ‘wow I hadn’t realized that’s how it felt’ and might get informed. if I based it on some specific historical period people might get informed on that. people belonging to the minority categories educate the others in fandom about what they might not know, nicely. everyone writes all the porn in the world. everything is great. if someone asks me why I have black/lgbt+/etc people in my book I reply them that minorities exist so why shouldn’t they be in my book and that’s the most twitter hate I get. life is great. my publisher wants more. that book becomes a series. rinse and repeat.

not so ideal fallout, ie what I mean with fandom shouldn’t be about politics: somehow, there’s a fanon ship that gets most fans for a reason. it happens to be idk, bisexual white guy + gay white guy who are not together in the book. they get more fic than dunno, hetero black woman with hetero asian guy. people start calling the first group problematic because they don’t ship the poc couple and THEY’RE RACIST. the trans character isn’t a stereotype/isn’t *good enough* for fandom standards so they decided that idk, feminine straight guy I put in because feminine straight guys exist is actually the only trans one because HEADCANONS and suddenly all fics with a trans character for that book are about the headcanoned character that’s actually a stereotype if you go for that, not the one I actually spent six months researching, and if you don’t agree you’re suddenly a transphobe. someone sends me a twitter message asking me what I think of HEADCANONS and I answer that I’m okay with HCs but I put canon characters that aren’t white, straight and cis for a reason and suddenly I’m THE MOST PROBLEMATIC AUTHOR EVER and people decide that my efforts aren’t good enough and that as a cis woman writing gay men is problematic and everyone in fandom who writes m/m and is a woman is shit. then people decide that shipping the black cis bisexual guy with anyone white is racist and writing porn where he’s on top is racist but then another side says that if he bottoms it’s racist (guys LOOK AT SW FANDOM I DIDN’T MAKE THIS UP), so no one ends up touching the black character out of fear of being dissed. six months after the book is out, the only thing there’s a fandom following for is a problematic as hell crackship in between two cishet white guys that hate each other and barely interacted because it’s the only fandom space where people don’t get shamed for what they like.

I, the author, look at all the hate messages I get on twitter and think fuck it, next time I’m just doing high fidelity 2.0 just with cishet white female protagonists so no one can tell me I did it wrong since I’m white, cishet, female and I hang out in record stores all the damned time or at least I used to when I was younger and they existed. I never write a diverse cast again. I never write a trans character again because that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I just wanted people to have fun and enjoy a more diverse cast of characters without fans murdering each other over it.

like, that’s what I mean with politics shouldn’t be in fandom that much, not that politics shouldn’t be in fandom spaces/in the media we consume period XD ;)

#janie rants #yes my fantasy book is the upgraded version of the sw ST fandom #I MEAN THAT WAS AN EXEMPLAR CASE WHAT DO YOU THINK XD #fandom for ts #valentinevilleforts #ask post

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dykedykegooses · 6 years ago

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For the asks: multiples of 3😄

3. are you an auditory, visual, or tactile learner?for most subjects I'm very visual, but I also need to hear people explain it to me if that makes sense? like i cant absorb it just by reading about it but I cant always visualize what people are saying without seeing it at the same time6. how often do you use chapstick?every day! multiple times a day. I'm a lesbian

9. if you could make any job you want, what would it be?it's less about one ideal job I want and more about having the time and energy to dedicate to multiple passions of mine! I wanna be a researcher, a tutor, a psychology conference-goer, a small farmer, a book store owner ... just a lot of avenues!!12. scarf or hat?scarves probably! hats are cool but I'm worried they make my face look round and bare15. do you remember your dreams?not often. in fact, I didnt think I ever dreamt except maybe twice a year bc I never remembered them

18. someone who's changed your life?well I have this philosophy that you're always changing with every interaction so technically everyone, but my research mentor has had a large impact on my in terms of my development as a better student and researcher, and introducing me to what I want to research for the rest of my life?21. why do you like _ (your choice)?I like baking! and cooking in general, but baking bread especially is really relaxing and you get to experiment with different flavors and at the end of all your work and patience u get homemade bread!! nothin better than that24. are you religious?no. not really spiritual either? I cant put my thoughts on Higher Powers into words without sounding like a bit of a nihilistic asshole which is not Really it but u kno

27. favorite boardgame?I enjoy chess even tho I'm bad at it, and I also like stratego? but it's been a while since I've played it lmao30. telekinesis or telepathy?probably telekinesis? it's just cooler lol. unless being discovered/exposed/whatever is a threat, then telepathy

33. what's something that no one on tumblr knows about you?that's hard! some of my best friends here know everything about me basically, and I overshare constantly. hm! well, I'm moderately asthmatic, such that exercising (or even standing) for too long will throw me into an asthma attack (and one time that got so bad that, coupled with probable dehydration and anemia, caused me to pass out and throw up while unconscious lol?)36. how long have you had your most recent blog?that's probably my Spanish studyblr blog, and only since aprilish if I remember correctly!39. have you ever dated?yes, I have 1 ex gf and I'm dating my wonderful gf of 6 months now!!

42. do you have any siblings?yes, I have one (1) asshole younger brother

45. weirdest thing you own?hm. I have a genie lamp that my babysitter gave me in kindergarten? or a sign that looks like a Wonka chocolate bar??48. favorite picture of you or that someone else has taken of you?51. how many languages are you fluent in?1.5! I can get by in most situations in Spanish, and ofc I'm fluent in English54. favorite word?in Spanish, I remember when I went to costa Rica and I saw a sign that said 'burbujita' which i believe is like "little bubbler" or maybe "little bubble witch", I'm not positive, but I always thought that was really cute :) in English, anything that sounds a little silly. I used to hate it, but now I really like the word tummy

57. one thing you wish never existed?hot dogs60. favorite story you read as a kid? percy jackson!63. long or short nails?I like the way (some) long nails look, but I have such an issue with the way my nails feel that I have to keep them short (by biting them :( the clippers on my finger nails actually make my skin crawl)

66. fruits or vegetables?bro I love me some veggies. fruits are almost a dessert u know like u can only have so many. u can never have 2 many vegetables69. do you like public speaking?I would like to meet the lucky fucker who says yes to this honestly? I prepared a 9 minute speech and practiced it for almost a week and when I got up there I sped through the whole thing in just over 7Peyton72. favorite thing about your personality?I'm pretty funny (to me anyway) and I'm very loyal until you do something really really fucked up (and even then I'll still feel bad about not talking anymore)75. have you ever been to disneyland?no but I've been to disneyworld! it was only okay. not worth all the money imo78. favorite extracirricular class you've taken?well I study Spanish in my off time bc that's pretty cool, but i honestly dont think I've ever taken a non-required class just bc I wanted to

81. worst memory involving someone else?um. almost all of them lmao I look back at every social interaction I've ever had and cringe84. what natural disaster are you most afraid of?fire probably?? or an earthquake?? or both like a fuckin volcanic eruption???87. mansion or penthouse?manion fs

90. do you keep letters or holiday cards?I keep handwritten letters!! my mom keeps holiday cards, but I dont really care that much about those93. what genre do you like most?horror! whether its movies, shows, video games, whatever! love me some horror stuff :)96. first word that comes to your mind?burgle :o

#this was #so many #but i enjoyed it #they were very different questions :o #thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#theegglesbian

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babblingbat · 7 years ago

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Various Characters I meant to post Months ago

Various Characters of mine

I have so many I want to write (some) of them down! This is a suuuuuper long post so more under the cut! Includes a spy, a crime lord/activist, and a bargaining warlock (I have to reblog this later bc tumblr threw a hissy fit about the length)

- Kinda in a Bond-esque spy agency, but more of a contractor

- When everything goes to shit, you can count on them to fix it

- Nonbinary protege of whoever is in charge of the tech division (Mezza? Sloane? Dixon? idk, but they have a hell of a shady past and there’s like… noooothing that can keep Sloane out of computer systems)

- X isn’t formally recognized by APO (authorized personnel only, the spy agency) but they do have access to all information because of a backdoor Sloane made

- So I guess the name is Sloane

- Anyways, X goes on the black ops of black ops, typically with either mercenaries or no back-up at all

- Thus trust issues and like the opposite of dependency - they have so much trouble asking for things but are willing to help anyone or offer material assistance - if they have it

- X is nonbinary and really doesn’t have any preferences on pronouns, as long as they aren’t he/him or she/her

- They’re also autistic and shut down if there’s too much loud noise or if they’re just too tired for some reason - sometimes this means going nonverbal or just Not Functioning and their favorite way to feel better is to sit on the ground, wrap themselves in a blanket and listen to music - so in conclusion they don’t really use guns unless there’s a silencer, and they aren’t v good with them

- A huge part of their espionage function is language!

- They speak German, Spanish, Japanese, FSL, and ASL all idiomatically

- They also speak Russian, French, and Afrikaans, but not fluently

- They can swear and count to ten in Korean and Czech

- They’re pursuing a PhD in computational linguistics, though APO gets in the way

- They’re 24, and have a bizarre set of skills because both of their job, previous jobs and jobs they hold as a cover to pretend they pay their taxes, and special interests

- Sloane is only 7 years older than them, and recruited X out of high school

- At first it was small things, like ‘pick up this book from Elm Street and drop it at Main’ but it got bigger after they graduated

- When X turned 18, they went through formal training - protocol, combat, and analysis

- They’d done some martial arts before hand, but not much punching, mostly kicking, throws, and staffs (5 and 6 feet)

- X’s main job is to clean up messy situations, usually by stealing things or extractions, and their own ops are less combat oriented than the clean ones

- X is not the best at math, not by a long shot, but they can see patterns from a mile away

- “I am the fact guardian, guardian of the facts!” “Puzzles quiver before them!” “FUCK OFF”

- They do simple division when bored and solve a lot of math things by finding patterns and using them

- X is both their designation in the agency (as in ‘x factor’) and their actual name- they use an alias for college

- They live with a few people, most of whom complain at their erratic sleep schedule and ask that please, for the love of god, X gets sleep meds and just a solid 8 hours, for once

- Sloane eventually sends X on an op to extract Mel, Sloane’s girlfriend and top operative

- X doesn’t know what to tell Mel, so mostly they just tell them that things will be answered later

- Mel asks Sloane, who reluctantly explains X’s role, and this sets some things into motion of X eventually being brought into the spotlight

- They have several hearings about their activities

- Eventually, Seville (who runs things? I guess) tells them to carry on as they do, reporting directly to Sloane, but they are recognized now by the APO

- There are three other things I want to fit in:

- Goes missing for [period of time], leaving a very close friend behind, comes back after being presumed dead and no memories, apparently solved a conspiracy and now has many illegal friends who all enjoy thievery

- Magic is a thing (because it wouldn’t be my words if it wasn’t lmao) and common enough that people know it exists but rare enough that it’s kinda intimidating and sometimes people will freak out about it, despite plenty of people having it.

X has/develops magic at some point but is terrified to tell anyone and tries to hide it from their team (which is now their family, love that trope) because they don’t want to be barred from the APO, but it comes out accidentally during a mission

- X’s infodumping saves the day somehow

The Celestian

- K so this is more about an organization, but the Celestian lives in a like a 1920s fantasy setting and likes dancing

- They run a social activism group masquerading as a crime network that uses queer bars and stuff as fronts

- To get money, they dance competitively with their bodyguard and d8m8, the BFF (butch femme fatale) who identifies as a nb lesbian

- To get into any of the places where actual political dismantling and activism happens, who have to have very specific patterns on your nails - nail painting is a method of communication and is also a huge teambuilding exercise

- There are different codes for everything

- When cops try and get in (they can only find the places if they have a member of the Queer Folk), the code is “blue denim” and then the person caught tells the police they need nail polish and then laugh as they get caught, as if they were bullshitting the whole thing

- Other things are called “10:50 am” which looks like a sleepy eye

- Or “songbird rhapsody” which is also a popular song that the Celestian sings at clubs

- Or “money” which is just a green splotch on all the nails

- If you’re a member of the Queer Folk, you get a crate monthly of money and nail polish, and special things on birthdays and holidays

- The Queer Folk do everything from organize protests to take kids in and try to pay for their education through crime - as in robbery from different places

- Their crimes always have a certain flair to them - they value creativity and snazziness

- The Celestian is like 5’ 3” (which, to be fair, is 3 inches taller than I am) and the BFF picks them up a lot

- They don’t like alcohol or caffeine but drink herbal tea 24/7

- If they don’t, something is very, very wrong

- They have a prosthetic leg

Red

- Literally in high school

- A warlock! They traded their gender and all “gender identifying features” to a trans demon for magic powers

- The demon mostly asks them to get coffee and stuff because the demon isn’t very good at bargaining and just wanted Red’s gender, but it’s expected of a patron to keep using the warlock for things

- (on the demon phone) “hey so this is super duper important and if you could get it in the next half hour that’s the best thing”

“what is it”

“alright so go to the corner of Lincoln and Greenleaf, turn three times to your right, once to your left, and a door should open behind you. Don’t try to turn towards it, just fall backwards”

“if I fall onto poison ivy or concrete I’m breaking my fucking contract”

“No, no no no, you’ll appear in that good good heaven spot”

“… the coffee shop?”

- Red focuses on science in their school

- Every interaction is a deal. E V E R Y I N T E R A C T I O N

- Breakfast? “I’ll give you the salt if you hand over the pancakes”

- Entering a building? “Hold the door open and I’ll give you praise”

- School? “You want me to tell you what I do in my spare time? Give me an A on my midterm and I’ll tell you”

- The last one has left a lot of teachers confused and more than a little scared of the silly little nerd in their class

- Honestly, they have straight A’s because they make deal after deal about grades. They never cheat on tests, but they make deals, hold people to them, and know what they’re doing

- Red’s demon is getting a little worried with all the deals

- Red is most accustomed to deals rather than anything else because they think that unequal exchange (i.e., gifts) is really suspect

- That said, Red has no problems altering “equal” exchange to benefit them

- If they ever became a business owner, they would be terrifying

- They want everything to turn out the best it can for every one but… are not fans of laws

- They have many Opinions on law, its enforcement, and the government

- That cousin that will tell you constantly about how the government is corrupt and should be rebooted with the youngest people as the primary interest

- Anarchy? Not quite, but revolution? Most definitely

- No angst, just high school silliness and chaos

- Has no idea what’s going on 90% of the time - a kid on a sportsball team did something amazing, people started treating him like shit for adults liking him, and Red had no idea until like 3 months later

- Red just kinda lives in their head

- Did they hear what you just said? Nah, but they sure did hear that wristwatch every time it clicked on the second.

- Likes the sound of adventure, but mostly gets lost in Ikea and makes deals with the eldritch monsters in the mattress section

- SUCH A SHITTY SENSE OF DIRECTION, COULD GET LOST IN A GRID WITH MAPS AT EVERY INTERSECTION

- Charismatic, but mostly in the sense of lying their ass off and persuading people

- Once tried to go a day without making a deal (on a dare), ended by making a deal to not have to ever do that again

- Businesses both hate and love them - they pay for nothing but will bargain away odd things of equivalent value every time and catch shoplifters, dislikes shoplifters because it’s not a fair trade

- Bizarrely good luck with finding things in pockets, particularly to “pay” for things

#my ocs #red (oc)#X (oc)#the celestian #crime #warlock #dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #there was another dude that was supposed to be in this collection sort of thing but tumblr screamed at me when I tried to add them so ¯\_(ツ)#my writing #how am i supposed to tag again #please ask me about these kiddos #thanks

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crosspog · 3 years ago

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Mobile Friendly About Lmao

22 | any pronouns other than it/its | lurking is the name of the game lmaoooo

Real DNI is no (no)maps/pears, nazis, TERFs/SWERFs, exclus, etc. Basic criteria yk. Prefer not being associated with open/untagged NSFW blogs because I don't want a dick or something popping up anyplace unexpectedly.

Hi, I'm Cross! I'm a nonbinary lesbian, I have (diagnosed) ADHD and probably some other shit that I need to see a doctor about. I'm in college and am generally very busy. Currently work a job where I am around people in close proximity so I am VERY team "Put your fucking mask on actually".

Blocking me bc I am an adult and you are not does not bother me, even if we've never interacted at all. Blocking me because I don't post things you like and Tumblr fucked up the tags does not bother me. I literally do not care if you block me. Please curate your social media experience I do not give a shit. However, this also means that I block liberally (usually just if I see something that's like SUPER uncomfortable but like eh). Please do not take it as an attack, it is not. Do note that if you post explicit shipfic or x-reader I will probably use the block button because I am not comfortable with x-rated fic or x-reader fic in general, much less about someone's minecraft rp oc.

This is my uhhhh minecraft related sideblog. Main is @ac-cell-erate but I post SUPER sporadically there bc not ONLY do my friends who do not want to see me talk about minecraft OR minecraft shit I've been watching follow me there, that blog has my Usual Branding for everywhere else online and I don't wanna clutter it. If you need me on some platform or other, handle is usually the same with different caps or characters based on site username formatting. I'm @crosspog on Twitter too but! I have no intent of using that account super much bc it was meant as a buffer between my normie life and the DSMP hyperfix I had up until a few months ago. I'll probably link a like? Disclaimer about how I feel abt DSMP at some point but the TL;DR of it is that I don't personally go there anymore and I don't really care to talk about it. This isn't a DNI this is a "don't be weirdchamp about this please, we can exist here without fighting".

Regardless, I just. Don't find Dream's content to be the kinda thing I like, and the bench trio dudes are my little sister's age so it feels weird getting invested in their content in the way I do with the Hermits, hope that clarifies things!

My prior fandom history is like. Warrior Cats (notably a fandom full of crit for the source and the authors) for the longest amount of time, so I am used to engaging SUPER critically with writing and actions from fans and creators, as well as trying to listen to marginalized people when they say that fanon or canon is doing something harmful (the cat books are not good.) which is a lot of why I think I ended up finding the DSMP fandom to be so like. Not fun.

That's it I think haha! Remember to like. Social distance, wear your mask, get vaccinated if you can. I guess.

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thisselflovecamebacktome · 3 years ago

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I think that post is talking about comments sharing really heavy stuff abt your personal Life. Like Yes, this is a public space but i'm a stranger and i just read all of this and think 'should i stop post pics with my parents bc i'm hurting someone?'. If i follow you then it's a different story. But if don't, i feel for what happend to you..... but i also dont have any idea who you are and now i have all this emotional stuff that i need to reed in my lunch break.

Oooh, this makes more sense. I read the post as like searching people out and reblogging their posts being like "How dare you have a good relationship with your parents?" or like accusing them of lying about it or something.

I know that more recently, trauma dumping has been a topic of discussion on tumblr, and I think that's a good thing. I've been wanting to make a post on it, so I guess this will be it.

I will admit, I am someone who has been guilty of reblogging someone else's post and putting my own traumas in the tags. Even though I've been seeing a psychiatrist for just under a decade now, I came from a very anti psychology family who believes it is your loved ones and community who should be supporting you through hard times, not a paid professional. And in some ways, I agree that if you can't talk to your loved ones about your issues, they're probably not very good loved ones. And I know there are a lot of teenagers and people otherwise unable to pay for psychological help here, so I understand the urge to vent.

But as much as the internet/tumblr is a community, they are not my/your community if that makes sense. Like as you've said, nearly all of us are strangers. And while in the moment, it is very easy to be like "I'm doing it to show support/say 'me too'." or "I'm just one person doing it", as has been pointed out, many times it's not just one person doing it. So while it's easy to be like "Well you shouldn't dwell on it. Just be like 'that sucks for you' and move on", a bunch of little 'that sucks for you' all add up. Just as an example, out of my followers/following, I have 2 friends here that I didn't know offline before joining tumblr, and a maximum of 5 that I knew/know offline. I'm a small blog, but have 840ish people following me and while most of who I follow are mutuals, I have 10 or so people who aren't. So without even going into tags, that's still 840ish people who I interact with or who interacts with me on this site who are strangers. By reblogging someone's post and trauma dumping, I am subconsciously telling others it's okay to do the same. So that's potentially 850 trauma dumps on a stranger's post which then spreads. Imagine what it's like for blogs that have tens of thousands of followers. So yeah, it's something I've been working on reducing, and instead just making my own posts about it which people can choose to skip.

On the flip side of this, while it's not your fault that people trauma dump, you can never control someone's reaction to your posts. Even if you ask people to not reblog something at all, there will always be someone who does, either accidentally/realising you didn't want it reblogged right after they did it (which I have done and deleted the reblog asap) or because they simply do not care. You need to control your own social media presence. If it's becoming that overwhelming that you do not feel you can put your good experiences here out of concern it comes off insensitive to those struggling (which trust me, as someone who, until a month ago lived in a city that corona hadn't touched in a year and had many good experiences in that time, I feel that), perhaps it's time to evaluate how encompassing social media is to you and take steps to lessen the negative aspects of it. Maybe that's being content with these good moments purely existing offline and not uploading them, maybe it's spending less time online as to not be bombarded with the concern you feel, maybe it's not reading tags/comments anymore, or maybe it's just simply putting more of a barrier up and saying "their pain doesn't mean I can't have joy". Only you can make that decision. And I know what I said sounds harsh, but I promise you I'm saying that out of love, and experience both in terms of social media and keeping up with current events in the news. Like end of the day, while yes, we should be considerate of each other, our social media experience is our own and we need to curate it to be what we want it to be.

So yeah TLDR: Please stop trauma dumping on other people's posts, but also if being trauma dumped on is becoming overwhelming, please take steps to protect your energy.

And just a note that my inbox will always be open for anyone who needs me, and if they contact me when I am not stable enough to answer it, I will always make a post as to not leave them hanging and get back to them when I can.

#trauma dump #trauma dumping

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aijee · 4 years ago

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hello! i’m the anon who left the 6-part ask regarding mg a few months ago (i refer to those asks bc i’m back to drop more thoughts about mg and might touch on what i previously said). i wrote this whole thing disregading word count, believing i could drop it all in one go because i managed to log in to my tumblr, but it seems i still have to break it up… lmao i don’t know how many parts this will be or if i could post it all tonight, but i will signify the very end with “6-part anon” :)

Cont’d with response under the cut (I made some executive decisions about where the paragraphs break lol so it’s not all one block of text):

they want to be famous; that part just came along with the package. then i read in your bts post, you see mg as more wrapped up in entertainment, having star power with a bright personality, liking the limelight. reading that, i do agree, but i guess ive never thought of that before. i think wanting to be a star and wanting to be in the spotlight can seem self-centered. i hope im not coming across like im judging everyone who wants to be famous as “bad” because that’s not what i’m trying to do, but i think it’s safe enough to say that wanting to be famous means wanting people’s attention on you. i’m trying to tread carefully but i suppose i am saying that on the surface, wanting to be a big star can seem a little selfish in the sense that you want to boost your image, present your best self at all times, want people’s eyes on you and want them to think good things about you. combining those general thoughts about wanting to be a star, with my thoughts about mg in particular, is interesting to me.

i’ve always seen him as someone so selfless, so lovely, so considerate towards others. throughout idotsc, you’ve written him throughout as someone so amiable, liked by everyone, and also selfless and considerate. and in chp 7, his reaction twds the pictures is... well, I think they’re pretty true to character, and again i think it shows selflessness. then the ‘Love Languages’ text that OP had written— while, of course, OP doesn’t know him and everything is an assumption to a certain degree, I think their writing summarizes in one place what I observed about mg through the content available to the public: he constantly gives to people around him, exhibiting sincerity, words of gratitude and acts of service. at the same time, i definitely agree with what you said about his star quality, so i think that was the first time i really stopped to examine my thoughts about stardom and how some things may not be mutually exclusive.

“stardom” also makes me think about his recent incident, because of course, such incidents are definitely a potential consequence of fame. during that time i’ve also come across several opinions saying that they’re not surprised if a current idol was a past bully… i don’t remember exactly what people said but i think it was somewhere along the lines of, if they were so confident and cocky since predebut, then they might have had the qualities of a bully. something like that. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others.

one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others. one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy.

i hope this all makes sense; i had lots of thoughts and wanted to try to write them. i struggled to understand why one would want to be a star, and went in circles questioning if i thought it was more selfish or selfless, and what one’s true motives might be behind wanting fame. ik u implied u embrace long writing bc you also write in length, but i’m less eloquent than you are so i hope this was fine! thank you again for having a space where people could offload their thoughts :) ~6-part anon~

There’s a lot to unpack here, isn’t there! A buffet of food for thought, for sure. I can’t possibly respond to everything written here because there’s just so many points, so I’ll write a few points. As always, take what I write with a grain of salt.

I don’t think there’s anything bad or inherently wrong with pointing out that, hey, people who are interested in a profession necessarily tied to a public image probably to show off or want attention. These things are perfectly natural to want, even for people who aren’t celebrities, because we’re (1) inherently social creatures and a lot of our survival is contingent on external success, and (2) we are brought up to feel validation from others, especially in an age where our lives are much more on display. But I can see why “selfishness” may be thrown in the mix because we often look down on attention-seekers and “popular” people, many of whom exhibit arrogant/tone-deaf behaviors. On the other hand, it’s understandable that an idol with a big public image necessitates putting their best foot forward all the time to maintain good opinion of them and to earn more money, frankly.

I’ve probably repeated myself too many times, but something I’ve been grappling with recently is this black-and-white mindset/judgment system we often have of others (very much exacerbated by social media, e.g. witch hunts). Bad is bad, good is good. I’ve thought this way for a long time of myself in an upbringing that always punished/looked down on bad behavior (or what was considered behavioral flaws, like speaking out against elders, swearing as a femme person, etc.) rather than acknowledging that “bad” behavior can be exhibited by people who also do and act “good.” In short, while I can only speak from my perspective, I think we’re programmed to subconsciously seek behavioral perfection for a number of reasons: we were raised that way by family; and/or society; we feel judged by the presence of social media and greater access into our lives; accessibility to celebrities and “perfect” public figures makes us judge ourselves by comparison; education systems that poorly address internal learning as well as external learning, etc.

In Mingyu’s case, there’s nothing wrong with seeing and continuing to see him as all those good qualities in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with grappling with potential past problematic behaviors of your faves, as long as you’re critical and open-minded about the parties involved (which is rarely ever a fanbase at large, but the skewed authority of a fanbase is a different can of worms). Idols are human, which means dealing with the good and bad that comes with interacting humans. Contrary to popular belief (and I write this sarcastically), people CAN change. People should be ALLOWED to change. Characters are static. People are not. And it’s sad to say that this is still an issue in the K-Pop world.

As hard as it sounds, a person who bullied others in the past could still have good or pure intentions for becoming an idol. They could still feel fulfillment from making others happy; is that a bad thing? I personally don’t think so. Or maybe a person’s intentions for becoming an idol could be mixed good or bad, who the fuck knows? Not us. Honestly, I firmly believe that we fans don’t have the right to make definitive moral judgments of idols in the first place because we don’t know them personally. That, and people are extremely complex and hard to categorize, as much as we want to because it’s easier to do so. People are messy. Real life teaches us that more than the Internet does imo.

In any case, I don’t think selfishness and selflessness are mutually exclusive in the same way a person can be both good and bad. I learned that language, too, is a powerful vehicle that influences how we think. In that vein, with how compartmentalized definitions are in specific words, perhaps we think that their existence/practice is separate, i.e. being “selfish” is never being “selfless” because each word’s definition exists solely in their respective word and not the other (hopefully that makes some sense).

TL;DR: I think wanting attention and validation from others is okay and not inherently a bad thing, and people are fucking messy and rarely good without the bad (and vice versa).

Pretty sure I rambled a ton as well and probably didn’t hit that many points that you offered, anon. You ended up putting me on a thought train as well!

#askaijee

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