#does anyone else have like a crisis every time they have to tag their posts it cant be just me

[thatone-pancake]

Oh me oh my!

not my usual phighting related post BUUT this is something i drew last month that i LOVED. like i REALLYREALLY REALLY LIKE THIS DRAWING IT'S MY FAVOURITE OF MINE so i'm sharing it!!! now because art fight is ongoing so i know i won't draw and post much loll but i still gotta keep my account active somehow yk..

ANYWAYSS hope the internet likes this as much as me and my friends do (i need to stop yapping in my post omg)

[goldensunset]

mutual 1: [this post contains filtered tags]

mutual 2 (who has been gone for 24 hours): sorry about the hiatus guys i'm finally back!!!!

mutual 3: ugh i need him so bad <3 i love him more than his creator does <33333333333333

mutual 4: y'all really love to hide behind 'it's just media!' as if it doesn't have immediate and obvious effects on the people who consume it. sorry you think your obsession with bluey is more important than oh idk the lives of real people????

mutual 5: guys i just wanna say i'm so grateful for the rest of the bluey fandom. it got me through the worst years of my life and taught me a lot and i'm so glad we can all celebrate and talk about it together :)

mutual 6: [this post contains filtered content {url of detested mutual-in-law}]

mutual 7: good morning everyone! i am handing you all a small flower (*≧ω≦*)

mutual 8: i am in severe financial crisis

mutual 9: BLORBO/BLIMBUS NATION LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER

mutual 10: [completely untagged and unfilterable spoilers for something that just came out]

mutual 11: [this post contains four different filtered tags]

mutual 12 (does not actually follow you back but like. in your heart in your dreams): anyone have any drawing requests? :-D

mutual 13: i'm going to personally throttle my pharmacist why do i have to jump through hoops to stay alive

mutual 14: [the same post reblogged 10+ times in a row]

mutual 15: is tumblr mobile doing this weird glitch for anyone else?

mutual 16: that's why squibbus makes me cry- authorus squibbithon just writes his story so beautifully and delicately and dives deep into the troubled beauty of his soul and the way he strives to overcome his trauma every day...

mutual 17: i used to jump in the river and let the current take me

[bengiyo]

La Pluie: Not All Gays Are Great

Alright, besties, let’s get into it. This episode was fantastic, and every moment was earned by the character work laid out across the entirety of this show (@lurkingshan ). I want to dig into the ways gay men can fail each other with communication breakdowns and the often-masculine need to control situations. Despite his exploding temper in this episode, I still love Patts. I am going to write this entire essay with the full intent to defend my boy.

Tagging my Patts Defense Squad Member @lurkingshan

We’ve got a lot to discuss, and I just want to post this screenshot because every gay in crisis is one of my favorite things ever.

Lomfon: That Boy is Rude

Lomfon is the kind of nonbeliever that I find so annoying (@shortpplfedup). He has a moment that makes him question his convictions and does not proceed rationally about it with any compassion for anyone else. He could have just brought all four of them together, explained his hypothesis, and asked to solve it together.

See, but Lomfon is a drama queen. Instead, he corners Tai into a date and into the rain, reveal their rain connection, and then kiss him.

He also did not reciprocate on Tien’s attempted pinky touch. This is a huge offense!

And he lied! He heard Patts AND Tai! He only mentions that he heard Tai!

I’m sorry, but I come of “Talk shit, get hit.” He deserved that ass whooping.

Patts: He Deserves to be Angry

Patts’ anger was scary. I full admit that. I’ve always treated anger as a response to losing control. So much of this show is about Patts letting go of his desire to control his relationships. He has avoided conflict with Nara, and he’s been patient with Tai’s reticence for over two years.

In this episode, Tai asked Patts for forever, and then the next time something comes between them Tai opts to lie to Patts. When confronted directly about this, Tai retreats and refuses to discuss. @ginnymoonbeam discussed this here. He says it plainly this episode: ��…The only thing I can’t bear with is your silence.”

He’s been good about Tai giving and rescinding consent across their relationship. When Tai asked him for forever and they went home, Patts told him that he wouldn’t be able to hold back anymore. In this episode, Tai chooses to not trust him, lie to him, and then not explain himself. I appreciate that Tai copes with avoidance, but it’s not going to work when Patts needs Tai to acknowledge what’s happening with them.

Also, this show has shown people hurt and bruised from trauma. Patts didn’t hit Lomfon hard enough to leave a real mark, and let him keep yelling the whole time.

Sincerely, Tai is the one who needs to reconcile with Patts.

Tai: He Reads Too Much Romance

So much of Tai’s behaviors for me make sense through the lens of someone who reads too much romance. He expects Patts to understand his thoughts even as Patts is telling him directly that he doesn’t because Tai hasn’t shared them with him.

He decides to go and humor the romantic rival. I genuinely believe he thought he would try to understand the Lomfon situation and let him down and was instead blindsided by the soulmate reveal and kiss. I also get his fear when Patts got angry.

gif by @liyazaki

However, I really love that the universe answered Tai’s plea. At a moment of genuine crisis, the world respected his choice (@liyazaki). This show has always been about how the choice to love people is the key. Love is a choice you make constantly, and the universe respected Tai’s choice to sever those connections. Will he enjoy what he finally got?

gif by @liyazaki

Like Lee Wan in Our Dating Sim, Tai doesn’t appreciate the pain that he’s inflicted on Patts. I am still recovering from Patts asking, “Is it that hard to choose me?” With all of the things that happened at the beginning of this episode, I think it is cruel of Tai to put Patts through that.

I think the line, "If you don't understand my silence, then you won't understand what I will say," is absolutely unfair.

Tien: You Have Done Nothing Wrong and I Love You

I am with my good sis @shortpplfedup and Tien is the main person I feel sorry for. He has done absolutely nothing wrong, and he was absolutely correct when he told Lomfon off. Lomfon also needs to apologize to him, and I will not tolerate Tien doing any more work to fix these people.

gif by @ayan-sukkhapisit

He deserves so much better.

It Doesn’t Matter if You Broke It. You Can Fix It or Make Something New

As @shortpplfedup said to me in a side chat, “If you can break a soulmate connection then you can forge one.” I’m excited about Patts and Tai being apart next week as he heads back to his family and reckons with his choices and the implications for the world.

More than anything I want to take away form this episode, it’s that our lives do not play out like romance novels and we have to appreciate that our actions have consequences that impact other people’s lives. We cannot treat everyone else, especially our partners, as side characters in our lives. Tai and Lomfon’s biggest mistakes this episode are in their selfishness and lack of regard for others.

Both Tai and Lomfon need to do the work of repairing what they’ve broken this episode. It’s okay for them to have to do that. Gay people are not required to be perfect. What we need to do is be kind.

[spotsandsocks]

Fuck it Friday

Tagged by the adorable and wonderful @panbuckley @hippolotamus @wildlife4life @honestlydarkprincess sharing a fic that I loved writing and sharing. Posting now cos I’m off the deepest darkest wales today so who knows what kind of Internet access I’ll find this week.

Tagging to share if they want to @ronordmann who made the wonderful cover @shortsighted-owl @prince-buck-diaz @heartshapedvows @heartbeatdiaz @thewolvesof1998 @fiona-fififi @alyxmastershipper @monsterrae1 @rogerzsteven @spaceprincessem @wikiangela @the-likesofus @like-the-rest-of-la @princessfbi @cowboy-buddie @buddierights @housewifebuck @stagefoureddiediaz @elvensorceress @bekkachaos @thekristen999 @megsvstheworld @mysteriouslyyounggalaxy - and vos it fic I’ve tagged some new people too hope you don’t mind… anyone else tag me in I love to see what you’re up to - don’t be shy 💕

Who You Gonna Call?

Call 1: Silence fills the room as soon as Eddie hangs up the phone. He’d known something was wrong the second he’d seen his Dad’s caller ID pop up at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon. It had been a quick call, just long enough to update him on the situation, his Dad had been keen to get back to Abuela, Eddie doesn’t blame him, he wishes he could be there too. He hates that she’s moved away even though he knows it made sense. He just misses her so much, worries about her too, even more now. 

His phone is still in his hand so he doesn’t really think much about what he’s doing, just makes the call. It’s picked up in under three rings and Eddie breathes out a heavy greeting.

‘Hey. It’s me.” Although Buck knows that, caller ID and all.

He gets a “Hey,” right back and then after a brief pause Buck asks the question Eddie  knew he would.

“You ok?” There’s quite concern in his friend’s voice, he already knows something’s wrong. Eddie guesses there must have been something in his voice to give it away, even if he has only said three words. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised, Buck’s good like that. He knows people, he sees things people don’t expect him to and he cares. Eddie knows he’s lucky to be one of the people Buck cares about.

“Not really,” Eddie sniffs and he can just imagine Buck stopping whatever he was doing and frowning in worry. It’s an expression he’s quite familiar with but he hasn’t seen too much of lately, not now things are getting a little better for him.

“My Dad called, it’s my Abuela.” He takes a deep slightly shuddering breath, “she’s in the hospital, they’re doing tests and things but no one's sure what’s wrong, Dad tried to play it down but I could tell he was worried.”

“And now you’re thinking about plane tickets right?” The understanding is instant, Eddie nods and confirms Bucks guess.

“Yeah, I can’t go, I know that and I’m glad he told me but..”

“You’re too far away and you feel useless.”

Again he nods, a small huff of air escapes too, Buck knows him well.

“I’m gonna call her later, Dad said she’s sleeping.” 

“She’ll like that, give her my love.” A heartbeat later Buck  says “You want me to come over?” 

He does but what he says is “No it’s ok, you’re busy. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Buck’s voice is soft, “Anytime Eds. I’m always here, you know that.”

They hang up not long afterwards, Eddie feeling slightly better having spoken to someone. No, having spoken to Buck, who’s right, he is always there for him. Every time. Eddie’s still not sure what he’s done to deserve it but he’s glad, so very glad he has Buck in his life.

Call 2

Caller ID tells him it’s Buck’s calling and he doesn’t even wait for Eddie to say hi, just jumps in with,

“Eddie! You have to help! Maddie’s going to kill me.”

“What have you done now?” Eddie knows that tone, he waits to hear what minor crisis Buck finds himself in today.

“I’ve lost Jee’s favourite teddy. Maddie just called and Jee’s distraught.”

Eddie thinks Buck’s worked himself up into a similar state by the sound of him.

“Ok, calm down.” 

“I am calm.”

“You’re really not, ok, take a sec and...”

“I’ve looked everywhere, Jee will never forgive me, Maddie won’t either.”

“Buck you were here this morning, let me check, maybe it fell out somewhere.”

“Please find it Eddie, I’m a terrible Uncle.”

Eddie rolls his eyes as he pulls cushions around and looks under and behind couches and chairs.

“You’re a fantastic Uncle. Jee loves you. Maddie loves you too. A lost teddy isn’t going to change that .”

“I don’t know Eds. She really loves that bear.”

His hand closes around something fluffy under one of his chairs, he pulls it out and recognises the bear Jee had had earlier.

“Well it’s a good job I’ve found it then.”

“You have!? Oh thank god!” he can just imagine Buck's face, the way he’s throwing his head back, exposing his neck, mouth open as he sighs in relief. He gets lost in the image for a moment then shakes himself free.

“I’ll run it over to Maddie for you, I’m closer.”

“Thank you, thank you, you're the best man, I mean it.”

He laughs, he’s glad he could help wipe Buck’s distress away, a quick trip to Maddie and Chim’s is the very least he can do for Buck. 

Eddie knows he’d do almost anything for his friend, but all he says is “No problem, just glad I can help reunite a girl with her bear.” before he hangs up, bear in hand ready to save Buck’s neck from his niece’s tears and sister’s wrath

Read on AO3

[doubleappled]

About the blogger meme

Thank you to @bioloyg for the tag and the fic callout! Team Pete forever and for always!

Star Sign: Libra, but it never resonates the way my enneagram 2 does

Favorite Holidays: Groundhog Day. I love those little dudes (although I wish we could leave them in peace so maybe let’s just celebrate their existence and not force our way into their homes)

Last Meal: Enchiladas for dinner

Last Music Listened To: Waxahatche’s Great Thunder

Last Movie Watched: hmmmm in the theater? I think Bottoms, which I adored

Last TV Show Watched: Shameless. I’m in the beginning of season 9 and it is messing me up in 5000 different ways. The acting is great (sometimes) and the writing is awful (mostly) and the storylines are ridiculous (always) and it’s at least 5 or 6 seasons too long. But every once in a while it really makes you think, and it’s completely gotten under my skin. And I will finish it if it’s the last thing I ever do. And it might be, because wow.

Last Book/Fic Finished: I just finished Justin Torres’ Blackouts and I LOVED it. And the most recent chapter of @glitterslag’s It's Been You and Me Since Before I Was Me — is a witchy creepy Appalachian Gothic MASTERPIECE that I adore. Oh and Blissymbolics’ Colorless Richie Jerimovich, also a masterpiece even though it is sydrichie and that is giving me a teeny tiny identity crisis okay moving on

Last Book/Fic Abandoned: I am thisclose to giving up on Lessons In Chemistry. I do not get this book at all.

Currently Reading: nobody ever got my soul right like she could by seh28

Last Thing Researched for Art/Writing/Hyperfixation: Quite a bit about what happens to children of people wirh narcissistic personality disorder (hi Donna, yes I am armchair psychologizing and pathologizing a fictional character) for the fic I’m currently writing. I’m not a really intense researcher, but I’ve read all about elevator mechanics and ancient marriage rites and British parking tickets and EMP’s 2019 spring menu and how to cook uni and where pastina comes from, all for fics. I love that aspect of writing.

Favorite Online Fandom Memory: It’s embarrassing, but it’s probably the first time that one of my favorite fic authors commented on one of my own fics, ca. 2018. I was on the subway, and I dropped my phone on the disgusting wet floor when I saw the incredibly lovely comment they’d posted.

FaNvorite Old Fandom You Wish Would Drag You Back In/Have A Resurgence: I really only have two old fandoms, but I do miss HP quite a bit. It’s such a robust space, with really nice people, and so many different fests and prompts and challenges. I still read a bit when my favorite authors post, and would like to write for it again someday. (Also, if you’re the anon who’s messaged me multiple times to tell me that my new fics aren’t as good or creative as my HP, and that I “used to be a good writer” — please stop. That’s not the way to convince me to go back, and it makes me feel bad)

Favorite Thing You Enjoy That Never Had an Active or Big "Fandom" but You Wish It Did: Truly I’ve never experienced a hyperfixation like I have with The Bear. I wish fanfic had existed in its current state when I was younger, or that I’d been cool enough to figure out the concept and write it on my own. I would have been VERY ACTIVE in a Dead Poets Society fandom if it had existed when I was obsessed with that movie, a decade after it came out, when I watched it practically every day for a year 🤪

Tempting Project You're Trying to Rein In/Don't Have Time For: I just have 15 different Bear WIPs, none of which have any plot, wooo!

Anyway this was all very fun to think about. Tagging @amieraisposting @kdbleu @justabovewater20 @yannaryartside @glitterslag — only if this is your jam — and anyone else who wants to join in.

[jinxedshapeshifter]

No, Silver the Hedgehog's Personality Has Not Changed: An Analysis

Okay, I'll be upfront about Silver being my favorite Sonic character here so there's transparency. However, I've also either played or watched someone else play every game Silver shows up in and read all the IDW comics (except the Bad Guys miniseries). I am qualified to analyze Silver's personality. This also gets personal in both the tags and towards the end of the analysis, and the post is long, so I'll add a read more break.

So first things first: the stuff people complain about. Here are the main complaints I see:

His personality is completely different from how it was in Sonic 06 and Sonic Rivals

His dorky traits (such as his social awkwardness) have been amplified

Neither of these are necessarily true. Let's start with the first complaint, his personality being completely different. My reasoning for this does tie into the second point however.

Let's quickly go over how personalities work. Under different circumstances, different aspects of a person's personality might be more prominent. For example, I'm a naturally anxious person. Under certain circumstances -- usually being around people I know -- my social anxiety specifically disappears almost completely because of circumstances. This can even be seen in the Sonic series with other characters.

Vector isn't usually aggressive, but he can be provided the circumstances are right, as seen in Sonic Heroes.

Sonic likes to goof off and joke around, but he can be serious if the situation requires it.

In Sonic Prime, Rouge does do a lot of treasure hunting and loves looking for gems, but if the situation puts her in danger, she avoids it; she specifically says "No gem is worth losing my wings over!"

Silver's circumstances are different from his circumstances in 06 or Rivals, and he's developed to realize that he doesn't always need to solve things with violence.

It's also worth noting that from the beginning he's been relatively awkward when it comes to situations where he's not trying to save the world. He's even awkward when he is trying to save the world. He's always been awkward in social situations especially, because aside from Sonic 06 he's been alone most of his life, and even in Sonic 06 he's presumably only ever interacted with Blaze before meeting Mephiles, so he's not used to interacting with other people socially.

I'd argue that it's implied he's not as socially awkward when he's with someone he knows when Blaze mentions in 06 that he's "pretty insecure when he's alone" because I'm the same way. If I'm not around someone I know, I get incredibly anxious and insecure in social situations. It's even directly shown in 06 that he gets awkward in social situations when he's alone; when Blaze is around he interacts with Mephiles and Sonic just fine, but the second Blaze is gone he gets awkward when he interacts with anyone he doesn't know.

This is mainly seen in the cutscene where he first meets Amy. He has no idea how to respond to her throughout the entire exchange, making him come off as awkward. Even as they're helping each other, he's still incredibly awkward.

It's even implied he's not naturally aggressive:

Him questioning whether it's right to kill Sonic to save the world means doing so likely conflicts with his morals. He's so conflicted on whether or not it's right to kill Sonic that he is literally willing to let the future stay how it is if he decides it's not the right thing to do. It's because of Blaze that he continues to go after Sonic, but my point still stands: he had a moral crisis over killing Sonic, implying that sort of aggression isn't in his nature.

Also in Sonic 06 and Sonic Rivals 2, he's shown to be quite the awkward dork when he's not focused on a mission. In the Sonic Rivals duology especially, he's shown to throw hands first and ask questions later, but he does -- again -- take a nonviolent route in his story; his story is the only time Capture the Chao is played in Story Mode in Sonic Rivals 2, and he decides to play it with Sonic instead of fighting/racing him again. The reason he's so aggressive in the Rivals duology is because he thinks everyone's getting in his way. He becomes incredibly docile towards Espio when Espio offers to help him in Sonic Rivals 2. The only reason he was so violent towards everyone else in Rivals and Rivals 2 is because he wanted them out of his way, and this continues to be the case as the franchise goes on, albeit to a milder extent. Listen to his in race dialogue in Team Sonic Racing, it proves my point. He LITERALLY tells Big, IN THE MOST MOCKING VOICE EVER, "Go home to Froggy, Big!"

Speaking of Team Sonic Racing ...

He's shown in both TSR and Sonic Colors DS to be incredibly docile if he doesn't have a set goal (I’m not counting his snark in Colors DS as hostility so don’t bring it up). Remember, in both games there’s no mention of his future still being ruined; in Colors DS, he specified that his future is no different than the present, and the most we get about his future in TSR is a line from Zavok about there “being worse in your future, Silver!” During races he gets non-aggressively hostile because he’s competitive.

His personality only is how it is in Sonic 06 and the Rivals duology because he’s set on a goal and views everyone else as obstacles, with the exception of Espio who is helping him. In every other situation, his hostility is playful/competitive hostility, not necessarily genuine hostility.

So, in summary: Silver’s personality hasn’t changed, but his circumstances have, and he’s learned that he doesn’t need to resort to violence to solve every problem. That’s why his dorky traits are more likely to be highlighted. Those traits have always been there, but his hostility overshadowed it most of the time because he had a set goal in mind and everyone, in his eyes, was getting in his way. Since he’s learned how to handle those kinds of situations without getting overly hostile, his more aggressive traits aren’t as prominent. Those traits end up prominent again when he gets competitive. He’s grown as a person and learned to have more self control. Why is that a bad thing? Why is Silver developing enough to not see violence as necessary a bad thing?

Now I’m gonna get personal for a sec because I was much like Silver was in 06 and Rivals at one point, likely due to my autism going undiagnosed for far too long. I’m no longer like that because I developed as a person.

So I ask again, why is Silver no longer seeing violence as inherently necessary a bad thing? Why is it bad that he’s more dorky and awkward than hostile and aggressive now? Answer: it’s not. He’s developed, and it makes me incredibly upset that it’s criticized instead of celebrated, because his mentality in 06 and the Rivals duology would've realistically led to some incredibly toxic relationships.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Re: your tags about TPA. What harmful beliefs do they have around DID/OSDD and recovery? We're still relatively new when it comes to them and we want to be aware.

*deep breath* hoo boy. so this answer comes from our personal opinion from what we understand about tpa. we’re not experts and we don’t know them personally. you’re welcome to look into their cause and come to your own conclusions. that being said:

it’s definitely debated a lot, and we might get a lot of backlash for saying this, but we believe the plural association does not have the best interests of the plural community at heart. in a search to find out what they actually do at all, it seems like the big things are setting up the plural positivity world conference (that we boosted back in july, it’s basically a rival conference to the isstd conference) and setting up the warmline which we had reblogged that post about. note that as of writing this, the warmline still is not up and functioning. we’re not sure if or when that will happen. a quick look at their website shows a lot of exciting buzzwords “empowering,” “resources,” “community,” etc… but it does appear that all links lead back to the subscription-based community you can join, the warmline, which has been in development for 4-5 years now, and a handful of blog posts written by the stronghold system (and one by the alexandrite system) many of which containing personal experiences framed as absolute truths.

one thing we know about tpa, is they have pulled individual statistics while purposely withholding context in order to make these numbers align with their views multiple times. you can read about one example of this in this discussion post by system speak where they debunked a few claims made by the stronghold system (the main system behind tpa) on the system speak podcast, particularly regarding integration and the theory of structural dissociation. this is where we first learned of tpa’s harmful, incorrect ideas about did/osdd and what recovery means for these individuals, and what our tag was referencing specifically.

you can check out another example in this tweet which was referenced in the post we had reblogged, where tpa claims 62% of their survey respondents indicated that they felt that did/osdd was not understood by crisis hotlines, when the actual statistic is 62% of 60% (since 40% of respondents had never used a hotline), totaling closer to 36% of respondents. we absolutely recommend checking out the full survey results here, so you can see the context for yourself.

overall, we weren’t impressed with their website. it asks for money on almost every page, without disclosing clearly and specifically how that money is used besides “empowering plurals.” community access is behind a subscription paywall, and the free resources and options they offer are opinionated and sparse. after spending time on their website, we believe tpa serves the functions of a blog and a paid service (like patreon, in a way). it doesn’t seem to function like many other nonprofits we know of, which actively do fieldwork with goals of improving the lives of others, yield real, tangible results, and don’t offer more paid services than free ones. it honestly just looks like a place you can go to donate to the stronghold system personally.

this is what we believe after taking a closer look at tpa, who they are, and how they function. again, what we’ve expressed here is our opinion, and we’ve included hyperlinks throughout the post. we definitely encourage you to take a look for yourself and come to your own conclusion. we’re not trying to spread misinfo or sway you one way or the other - we’re just providing our thoughts.

there’s even more we could say here, but this post has gotten long enough. we are happy to continue this discussion with anyone else who chooses - the stronghold system has a big presence in the plural community, and we understand we may not have the complete picture as to who they are and how they run their business (tpa). i’m sorry this post got so long - i honestly do feel a bit betrayed by tpa after doing some research for this response and realizing that their site may actually just be a grift. again, please, please do your own reading and research (you can start with the links we’ve provided) and come to your own conclusions. we don’t have to agree here. we just want to look out for each other!

🐢 kip and 💫 parker

[riotouseaterofflesh]

I posted 18,676 times in 2022

46 posts created (0%)

18,630 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@tangent101

@hunterhufflepuff

@uuuuutan

@bogleech

@cowards-sorcery

I tagged 1,223 of my posts in 2022

#yes - 14 posts

#lmao - 7 posts

#life is strange - 6 posts

#😭 - 5 posts

#til - 5 posts

#same - 5 posts

#oh my - 4 posts

#catholic - 4 posts

#holy shit - 3 posts

#yes please - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#does anyone else read this imagining someone yelling and getting dragged away from the mic and gagged while still yelling out their sentence

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The crypto project has had 13 years to try and find a problem to solve. It has not found one.

A dynamic money supply is a fundamental necessity for a modern economy. A small amount of inflation discourages hoarding and incentivizes investment into productive enterprises which grow the economy and produce prosperity. Conversely a static fixed money supply encouages hoarding, and is inflexible in times of crisis because it does not allow intervention. Economies do not stabilize themselves and require active intervention to curb recessions.

Even playing devil’s advocate and assuming cryptocurrency could function as money—which they can’t—we come up against the hard limitation that everytime private money has been tried in history it creates a form of corporate feudalism coupled to a toxic environment that encourages fraud and discourages commerce.

When we logically deconstruct the crypto narrative by tossing out the phoney populism and cult-like structure of faith in economic absurdities, we end up with an inescapable conclusion that fits firmly within our existing regulatory framework. Crypto assets are simply unregistered securities on ventures whose stated aspiration is to develop technology to become digital wildcat banks. They’ve just synthesized their corporate equity and alleged notes into one financial product.

12 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

#4

“We too have seen our share of anti-choice women, ones the counselors usually grit their teeth over. Just last week a woman announced loudly enough for all to hear in the recovery room, that she thought abortion should be illegal. Amazingly, this was her second abortion within the last few months, having gotten pregnant again within a month of the first abortion. The nurse handled it by talking about all the carnage that went on before abortion was legalized and how fortunate she was to be receiving safe, professional care. However, this young woman continued to insist it was wrong and should be made illegal. Finally the nurse said, ‘Well, I guess we won’t be seeing you here again, not that you’re not welcome.’ Later on, another patient who had overheard this exchange thanked the nurse for her remarks.” (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)

(Far from being a bloodless liberal gotcha, I’m reading these examples as a demonstration of how necessary abortion is. Everyone getting an abortion here is blameless for that - the only issue is their refusal to acknowledge it.)

15 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

#3

This duplicity on Tesla’s part, I reasoned, couldn’t be a mere accident. To borrow the folksy saying favored by Warren Buffett: There is never just one cockroach. So I began digging into every aspect of Tesla’s business, and in the years that followed, my investigations turned up no shortage of cockroaches.

The following year, in 2016, I discovered some of the ways Tesla maintained this gap between public idealism and private cynicism, when I found the company had been requiring customers to sign nondisclosure agreements in return for free repairs to defects. This practice not only propped up Tesla’s buoyant stock price by keeping bad news away from investors’ ears, but also cut off auto safety regulators from their only independent source of information about defects. Then, even after major media outlets picked up the story and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration called the practice “unacceptable,” Tesla published a blog post saying I had fabricated the story, implying I had done so because I was short selling their stock in order to profit from the declines caused by my story.

Despite having not even known what short selling was up to that point, I was mobbed by an online army of angry fans who repeated these smears. Here was the turducken of Tesla’s information control strategy: NDAs for customers, smears against critical reporters, a vicious pack of online enforcers, and a total disregard for facts holding it all together. It didn’t matter how much evidence I had and how little Musk had, there was always a large and growing “community” willing to assert that I had to be wrong, biased, and outright evil to contradict their hero.

28 notes - Posted May 27, 2022

#2

Today, evangelicals make up the backbone of the pro-life movement, but it hasn’t always been so. Both before and for several years after Roe, evangelicals were overwhelmingly indifferent to the subject, which they considered a “Catholic issue.” In 1968, for instance, a symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, refused to characterize abortion as sinful, citing “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as justifications for ending a pregnancy. In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging “Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” The convention, hardly a redoubt of liberal values, reaffirmed that position in 1974, one year after Roe, and again in 1976.

When the Roe decision was handed down, W. A. Criswell, the Southern Baptist Convention’s former president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas—also one of the most famous fundamentalists of the 20th century—was pleased: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” he said, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”

29 notes - Posted June 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The website "Have I Been Trained?" taps into the LAION-5B training data used to train Stable Diffusion and Google's Imagen AI models, among others. To build LAION-5B, bots directed by a group of AI researchers crawled billions of websites, including large repositories of artwork at DeviantArt, ArtStation, Pinterest, Getty Images, and more. Along the way, LAION collected millions of images from artists and copyright holders without consultation, which irritated some artists.

When visiting the Have I Been Trained? website, which is run by a group of artists called Spawning, users can search the data set by text (such as an artist's name) or by an image they upload. They will see image results alongside caption data linked to each image. It is similar to an earlier LAION-5B search tool created by Romain Beaumont and a recent effort by Andy Baio and Simon Willison, but with a slick interface and the ability to do a reverse image search.

Any matches in the results mean that the image could have potentially been used to train AI image generators and might still be used to train tomorrow's image synthesis models. AI artists can also use the results to guide more accurate prompts.

Spawning's website is part of the group's goal to establish norms around obtaining consent from artists to use their images in future AI training efforts, including developing tools that aim to let artists opt in or out of AI training.

41 notes - Posted September 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[persnickety-peahen]

i saw a post talking about how wild the human brain is, and in the comments, someone mentioned aphantasia, which made me feel things and i just have to talk about it so here ya go all seven of my followers and people interested in whatever tags i end up using:

if you don't know what aphantasia is, no shame at all. although it's becoming more widely known and researched, it's still a fairly obscure neurological condition. heck, i only know about it because i read an article on it once about six years ago and realized, hey, i have that!

essentially, aphantasia is the lack of a mind's eye, an inability to voluntarily produce mental images. sometimes it's acquired after a brain injury, but it's predominantly just something folks are born with. estimates about the number of people it affects vary pretty significantly—i've seen everything from 1% or less to as much as 5% of the global population! that's wild! statistically, that means you might probably know someone with aphantasia . . . or maybe you have it yourself but, like me, didn't even know it was a thing until someone told you it was and now you've got a little mini existential crisis on your hands where you realize that the brains of at least 95% of the people you know work in a fundamentally different way from your brain and you're missing out on an experience they all have in common and aaaaah

i don't know anyone else irl who has aphantasia, so when i find someone online who does it's like that moment when a dog sees another dog and recognizes that they're a dog and just goes absolutely crazy. i am consumed by the desire to overshare infodump about all the ways aphantasia has affected my life and then compare notes like, do you also have such a bad autobiographical memory that more than half of your childhood memories are actually reconstructions based on stories other people have told you about your own life? do you also sometimes get unreasonably anxious about being a victim of a crime someday and getting a good look at the perpetrator but not being able to describe them to police later because you can't picture what they look like and even a sketch artist wouldn't help and would probably only make things worse as whatever they draw would slowly replace what little memory you do have? are you one of those aphantasiacs who never got into reading because you couldn't picture things? or are you like me and loved reading anyway, but a) got really bored and pulled out of it when authors spent time describing what something or someone looked like because it didn't do anything for you and b) got really confused when your friends would talk about how they didn't like the movie adaptation of something because it "wasn't how they pictured it when reading" and you didn't know what the hell they meant by that? and then you went on to become a creative writer obsessively concerned with imagery and if you have enough of it to satisfy those people who actually like when things are visually described? do you want to get into drawing but give up in frustration every time you try because of the lack of direction you experience from not having an image in your mind's eye to that you're trying to draw in the first place? do you need visual aids to really understand certain scientific and mathematical concepts? were you frustratingly bad at making and interpreting graphs for school projects and presentations? and now you hope you picked a career path where you won't ever have to do that ever again?

are you also terrible at estimating distance and length and height because words like "foot" or "meter" mean nothing to you, much less bigger measurements like miles and kilometers? do you also need google maps to get anywhere despite living in the same city your whole life because lacking a mind's eye also means you lack the ability to make mental maps? were your inability to navigate and difficulty with measurements something people made fun of you for the same way they made fun of me for it? and now that you know you have aphantasia you can snap back at them and be all, actually the reason i can't navigate or understand measurements is because of a neurological condition so you're basically making fun of me for being disabled, how about that? do you also sometimes get sad and think about how you don't really remember anymore what your loved ones who've passed away look like? or even what your loved ones who aren't currently in the same room as you look like? how you rarely notice if someone got a haircut or new piercing or tattoo or otherwise changed their appearance because you can't visually compare it to how they looked the last time you saw them?

when you try to picture a loved one's face, what happens? me, i run through a list of traits in my head, oftentimes more focused on personal attributes than physical ones because that's what i'm actually capable of remembering consistently. i don't just know what someone's hair or eye color is—i have to memorize it, like a fact for school. mom and dad have blue eyes. my husband has hazel-ish green eyes. my best friend is blonde, but her hair is darker now than it was when we were kids, and she got glasses while we were going to college in different cities, i should know that by now and stop being surprised when i see her wearing glasses. her mom, my second mother, has straight brown hair and a long face, but i can't remember what color her eyes are even though i've known her for twenty years. i think they're blue, but i can't picture it. i don't know for sure, and if i think about it too long it kills me. when i have kids, will i remember their eye colors? or will i have to ask my husband if he knows?

i take a lot of pictures. all the time, of everything—of people, of scenery, of my food, or myself, of pets and cools animals i see strolling around the city. boomers criticize me for not living in the moment, and it makes me feel awful, like i have to choose between experiencing something and remembering it. cause yeah, without the pictures, i would forget. i keep movie stubs and playbills and fair tickets and museum handouts and even fucking hospital bracelets, and i cherish them the same way other people cherish religious items.

it's lonely sometimes, having aphantasia.

the people close to me know about it, so they know how to accommodate me in relation to it, and they're supportive and interested in learning more. but they don't live with it themselves, so even though they know what it is, they don't know what it is, ya know? their knowledge is all second hand. as wonderful as my people are, when i'm really feeling my aphantasia and getting into those sad thought spirals, talking with them about it just isn't the same as it would be to talk with someone else who has aphantasia and has dealt with the same issues and feelings about it

i guess in the end i just want what we all do: community. when i find someone else with aphantasia, i don't wanna be like a dog seeing another dog because i'm so starved for contact with other folks like me; i wanna be like someone recognizing another member of a long distance club i regularly participate in, like hey! same hat! and then go about the rest of my day because i'm satisfied with the community i have. ya know?

anyways yes this is a free invite to message me if you have aphantasia or think you might have it and you wanna compare notes and chat about shared experiences, or alternately if you know someone who has aphantasia or are just curious about it and want to learn more about it :D

[griffinblogsgw2]

What Killed The GW2 Tumblr Fandom?

(And I do just mean the tumblr fandom. I’ve not really noticed the fandom as a whole having this problem.)

So full disclosure before I talk about what I’ve noticed personally and why I think this jazz is happening: I’ve never been the most active in this fandom. I’ve tried to be in the past but even at my peak I’ve always felt a lil outside of everything? I’ve been playing GW2 since launch and I’ve been making a Gw2 comic at @torasteals for the fandom for almost 5 years at this point. For most of that time I’ve felt like some weirdo tossing shit into the void and only vaguely being aware of what else was going on in the tumblr fandom beyond the few blogs I followed. I want y’all to keep this in mind cause it does paint my perception of what I’ve seen as different from someone who may have been far more involved in the fandom than me.

Okay with that in mind...

Here’s what I’ve noticed:

The death of engagement within the GW2 fandom as I’ve noticed it seems tied to at least three things: Tumblrpocalypse of 2018, the migration to FFXIV, and the Pandemic of 2020.

Tumblrpocalypse of 2018

Does anyone else remember this shit? Tumblr had that change of policy around nsfw art and changed how they treat links that basically murdered a bunch of creators on tumblr? Everyone remember the mass exodus of artists and creators leaving tumblr for twitter? Yeah tumblr has definitely chugged along alive since, somehow miraculously, but the effects of this can still be felt to this day. We lost a large chunk of creators for the fandom during this. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large chunk of fans, who don’t create fan works, left for this reason as well.

Personally, tumblr’s changes in policy and algorithm during this time nearly killed my comic. I lost a lot of readers and a lot of engagement with my work. I wouldn’t be surprised if other artists went through something similar here.

Even so, I do recall there still being a lot of creators that held on during this time and who persisted to create works on tumblr. But then...

The Migration to FFXIV

From what I’ve seen, a lot of people, creators and just fans alike, have simply moved on from GW2 to FFXIV. Like, a LOT of them. Nearly every artist that I used to follow for GW2 content just doesn’t do that anymore. Nearly all of them have moved onto FFXIV (and sometimes some other game entirely, but it’s usually FFXIV). I don’t know what this says about the state of the game itself right now, but I’m not sure we’re getting as many new fans as we’re losing right now. That might change when End of Dragons is released, since expansions have always historically brought in an influx of new blood, but I’m no fortune-teller.

As it currently stands, I legitimately don’t know how many of us are left in this fandom. Hell, I still regularly make content for this fandom weekly and I can tell you I’ve been burned out on the game and needing a break from it for awhile now. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t a common feeling.

Pandemic of 2020

I would honestly argue that this is what put the nails in the coffin for the fandom at present. I couldn’t begin to tell you exact reasons why, but I can tell you that as soon as shit really hit the fan last year, engagement in this fandom basically died. My posts that used to get a handful of reblogs, have turned to nearly zero over the course of this crisis.

My dashboard used to be littered in GW2 posts. So much so that even if I didn’t directly follow them, I could tell you who the big names in the tumblr fandom were. I can’t do that anymore. I have no idea who is big and popular on here anymore. It’s not just that people have stopped engaging, it’s that people have stopped creating as well. I’ve seen honest to god radio silence from creators who used to dominate the GW2 tag.

Again I’ve got nothing but guesses as to why this is? COVID has done a number on all of us I think. It’s harder to create and it’s harder to engage. It’s incredibly depressing on a number of fronts.

So is this it then?

I’d like to hope it isn’t?

I don’t really want to end this on such a doom and gloom note, and I’m sorry for that. I don’t think the fandom will straight up die forever but I do think we’re havin’ it rough right now. And there’s no guarantee of when shit’ll pick back up again as far as I’m aware.

If anyone else has thoughts on this, I’d love to hear it. I’m sure my picture of what I’ve been seeing is incomplete, so if anyone has stuff to add or has noticed things I’ve straight up been blind to, I’d be very curious to know.

[silverynight]

I posted 1,642 times in 2021

670 posts created (41%)

972 posts reblogged (59%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.5 posts.

I added 1,978 tags in 2021

#asks - 368 posts

#ask silverynight - 368 posts

#demon slayer - 255 posts

#anonymous - 252 posts

#kimetsu no yaiba - 137 posts

#kny - 135 posts

#sr - 128 posts

#tanjiro kamado - 125 posts

#fantastic beasts - 110 posts

#asdfghjkl - 100 posts

Longest Tag: 125 characters

#tanjirou with long hair tied up in a ponytail and a butterfly hair clip is something would definitely drive the pillars crazy

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I like the idea of class A casually finding out Midoriya is bi; maybe he's talking with Uraraka and Ashido (the only ones that already know) about male celebrities and whom they'd like to date.

They're chatting in the common room while everyone else is there when suddenly Kirishima interrupts the conversation with a supportive: "Do you like men, Midoriya? That's so manly!"

"Thanks, Kirishima!" The green haired boy mumbles back, feeling a little bit flustered because everyone is suddenly looking at him.

Todoroki walks into the couch, because he's too distracted staring at him and inevitably falls to the ground.

Everyone is already asking if he's alright while Bakugo is having his own internal crisis (frozen on his spot) because how on earth he didn't figure out the nerd swings both ways? He has known him since they were kids and didn't notice... then he internally screams because he realizes he's wasted so much time and then he's like holy shit do I actually have a chance?

Meanwhile Todoroki is already standing up (and ignoring everyone else) only to lean closer to Midoriya.

"Are you alright, Todoroki?"

"Yes. I'm just really happy to know you like men too."

"Uhh... Thanks?" Midoriya mumbles, thinking he's just being supportive in a very enthusiastic and odd way. "I mean I thought it was obvious..."

And of course that's when Bakugo finally stops internally freaking out only to start growling and snarling again; even the scowl on his face is back.

"OBVIOUS?" He yells and as per usual, makes everything about himself. "HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU LIKE MEN? YOU ONLY TALK ABOUT GIRLS!"

"That's because no one asks me about men!" Midoriya protests, face turning slightly pink. "Why are you so mad about it, Kacchan?"

"I'M NOT MAD! I DON'T CARE!" He growls, not fooling anyone (except Midoriya himself).

Then the next couple of days turn into a nightmare because it's Todoroki and Bakugo constantly showing off in front of Midoriya (making excuses to take off their shirts when he's around or doing everything they can to impress him) while trying their best to ruin the other's attempts to woo him.

It turns into absolutely chaos and it's so obvious Aizawa realizes what's going on and starts having headaches just by looking at them.

Why is his life like this?

569 notes • Posted 2021-11-13 13:49:58 GMT

#4

Nanami: I don't have a child. I have too many responsibilities already to be a father.

Also Nanami: Yuuji, don't forget your jacket, it's cold outside. Don't you dare turn off your phone. You have to come back before 10, if you don't, I'll go pick you up myself. Also, tell Megumi he has to ask for my permission first if he ever wants to date you.

569 notes • Posted 2021-08-24 22:10:24 GMT

#3

One of the many things I love about Sam and Bucky is that they're trying so hard to be like "we're not partners and we can't stand each other and we're definitely not going to see each other again" but they're so protective of each other and whenever Sam is says "Buck, come on..." Bucky sighs and does whatever Sam is asking him to do and whenever Bucky's in trouble and does the "Please, Sam... For me?" puppy look Sam is more than ready to help him "Okay, fine."

It's obvious they're so perfect for each other and I don't know who they're trying to convince they're not, but it's not working.

985 notes • Posted 2021-04-09 18:08:27 GMT

#2

Kong every time Jia was trying to communicate with him:

1759 notes • Posted 2021-04-01 04:54:31 GMT

#1

My headcanon is that Vision is the kind of husband that would be hanging out with his friends and suddenly he'd say: "I miss my wife" and he'd go straight home to see Wanda again even though he left the house just hours ago.

3001 notes • Posted 2021-02-20 04:56:13 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[iamanartichoke]

Congrats on follower milestone! I greatly enjoy your presence on my dash with your thoughts and witty tags and all :) For the Loki writing prompt, here's a sort of idea or mood or emotion, very vague, but maybe you can make something of it, and if not, totally cool! Prompt: Mobius taking care of Loki.

@humbae Thanks so much for your kind words as well as the prompt! I kinda just took the "taking care of" idea and had Mobius do the bare minimum, bc it's angstier that way, but I hope you like it anyway.

Summary: Takes place immediately after the end of episode 1; Loki has a realization and Mobius kinda maybe cares. Word Count: 1460 Author’s notes: Please forgive the quality, I started this earlier today and wanted to post it before watching the finale, so I finished the last bit of it in a less-than-alert state, merp.

*

“What’s this?” Loki asks. He can’t keep the edge of suspicion out of his voice.

“It’s tea,” Mobius says, as if it’s obvious. He sets the red mug down in front of Loki. “What we normally do is drink it.”

The suspicion doesn’t leave him. Loki eyes the mug, wondering if he’d even be able to tell if Mobius had done something nefarious to it - but, there would be little point in Mobius going to the trouble of intervening in Loki’s “trial” and recruiting him to the TVA only to turn around and poison him so, despite himself, Loki picks up the mug and takes a cautious sip.

“Hope you like chamomile,” Mobius adds as he takes the seat across from Loki. “It’s all I could find.”

“It’s passable,” Loki says, after a longer sip. When was the last time he’d had anything to drink? He can’t remember; the blur of New York shifts too sharply into the shock of the TVA and his brain feels too muddled to grasp onto any specifics. There’s been a consistent twisting in his stomach for days; he doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s eaten, either.

Mobius is just watching him and Loki hunches his shoulders, a bit defensively. “What,” he says, setting down the mug.

Mobius shrugs. “You’re not the first Loki variant to come through here,” he responds. Before, when he’d been questioning Loki, everything about his posture had been straight and precise; now that the interrogation is over, Mobius has adopted a much more casual stance, leaning against the back of his chair with his legs slightly outstretched. “There’ve been a lot.”

“How many is a lot?” Loki’s mind is still spinning from the revelation that the rogue variant they’re hunting is another version of himself, but the idea of even more being out there just makes him feel slightly ill. There would be a crisis here, were Loki in a clearer headspace - something about how it could be possible for more than one version of himself to exist, and if those versions existed, what proof does he have that he, himself, in this moment, also exists? How does he know he is the real Loki? Is there a real Loki?

Apparently, he is in a clear enough headspace for a minor crisis. He wraps his hands around the mug, waiting for Mobius to answer.

“I don’t know,” is all Mobius says. “I’ve lost count, to be perfectly honest with you. You’re like a bad penny, you know - you just keep turning up. You’re a stubborn bastard, I’ll give you that.”

“Thank you.” Loki’s tone is icy. “So if there are so many other variants, why not prune me? What do you think I can do for you that they couldn’t?”

Mobius looks thoughtful for a moment before he shrugs. “Call it a hunch, I guess.”

Wonderful. Loki’s entire existence rests on this bureaucrat of a man’s hunch. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t find that particularly reassuring,” he counters. “How do I know you won’t simply prune me either once we find this other variant, or once I stop being useful to you?”

“What, whichever comes first?” Mobius’s lips tilt slightly upward. “I suppose you don’t.”

Loki slumps a bit in his chair. He’s still holding onto the mug and, for lack of anything else to do, brings it back to his lips. Chamomile, Mobius had called it. It tastes like honey, with just the slightest tinge of apples, and it makes Loki think of the fruit in Idunn’s orchard, how they melted on his tongue like sugar. He remembers dewy summer evenings, laying in the grass with Thor, each of them with a golden apple’s sticky sweetness coating their lips and teeth.

The back of his throat tightens and he focuses on the tea, blinking hard against the sudden sting of tears. Crying in front of Mobius is not something he wants to make a habit of.

Still - “In the desert, when your hunters set off those reset chargers …”

“They pruned the alternate timeline you created when you took off with the tesseract, yeah.” Mobius adjusts his position, straightening up and leaning forward, elbows on the table. “You - that is, the you that’s supposed to exist - never escaped. Your brother took you back to Asgard.”

“And the sacred timeline continues as it should.” The twisting in Loki’s stomach worsens, and it has nothing to do with hunger. “Which means I can never return to Asgard, because he’s already there.”

Mobius’s forehead creases a bit as he nods. He looks almost sympathetic. “You don’t have a place there, no,” he agrees.

A heavy silence falls over them. Loki doesn’t need Mobius to spell it out any further. Loki, the Loki he is right now, will never see Thor again. Nor his mother, or even Odin … but mostly, not Thor. His brother is the worst kind of gone, because he’s not dead, nor lost. He exists on the sacred timeline, forever separated from Loki, and none the wiser to Loki’s absence. He’ll never know that Loki is gone, because the correct Loki is still right where he should be - rotting in Asgard’s dungeons, perhaps, but home all the same.

Rage wells up inside of him, swift and cutting. He pushes away from the table and jumps to his feet so abruptly that even Mobius startles, but before he can do anything, Loki has hurled the red mug against the wall and it shatters, tea and glass shards clattering to the floor. “It isn’t fair,” he snarls; he pushes his hands through his hair, yanking hard at the strands yet the sting of it barely even registers. "That's not fair."

“Loki -”

Loki barely hears him. He drops his hands and clenches his fists; the rage is pressing against his throat, desperate for escape. He wants to scream. He wants to hurl magic in every direction. He truly wants to burn this place to the ground - the TVA, the timekeepers, and every person within it who is complicit in taking away entire realities with hardly a thought spared to the variants left behind.

He’s breathing hard. The trouble is, all of that anger has nowhere to go. Loki cannot bring himself to explode the way he wants to - with neither his magic nor the ability to set fire to the timekeepers’ hearts here and now, the only other option he’s got is to throw things, and he’s hurled enough chairs for today.

Closing his eyes, Loki turns in a circle, grabbing the back of his chair. Instead of throwing it, he leans forward, pressing all of his weight against it because he isn’t sure he can hold himself up. The effort it takes to keep from screaming is leaving him light-headed. Not Thor. Please, please don’t take Thor from me.

“Loki,” Mobius says again. Loki draws in a breath and lets it out slowly, and then opens his eyes and looks up. Mobius is hovering over him, but somehow he’s less dominating than he’d been before. He seems almost concerned - either that, or just plain tired. “Look, I get it. I get that you’re upset, but -”

“How?” Loki demands. His voice is hardly more than a growl. “The timekeepers made you. You’ve never lost anyone. You’ve never known anything besides this … this nightmare.” Frustrated, he pushes away from the chair and gestures broadly at the room around them. “Don’t tell me you get it.”

Mobius sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re right,” he agrees, “I suppose I don’t get it. But I can’t change what you’ve lost, either. All I can do is -”

“I know,” Loki cuts him off, and now he is the one who feels just plain tired. Just as swiftly as the rage had crashed over him, it was now receding again, leaving Loki feeling drained and so, so exhausted. “All you can do is offer me opportunity.” Not salvation. Not anything useful.

Instead of replying, Mobius just puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Why don’t we start fresh tomorrow,” he suggests. “Okay? ‘Cause I can also offer you your benefits package, if you’re interested. Involves a hot meal and a place to sleep.” His lips quirk a little. “No offense, but you look like you could use both, like, yesterday.”

Loki eyes the other man. Mobius’s features blur a bit, and he realizes it’s because his eyes have welled up. He rubs them and then sighs and nods, giving in because what else is he to do? This is what he has been reduced to - powerless, with nowhere else to go, his entire existence contingent upon getting in - and staying in - Mobius’s good graces.

He’ll start with a hot meal.

[jebazzled]

troubleshooting: common quandaries and thots to overcome

It's no surprise that people whose major hobby involves writing, the internet, and fandom are often people who carry a lot of anxiety and tension around with them. For many of us, writing is something we do to escape, relax, unwind, and flex creative muscles we might not get to use at work or school. I get it.

For many of us, however, it also seems like forum rp is a stressor, a cause of great anxiety and insecurity. We've all seen or known people who go through a major rp-related crisis.

Sometimes, these crises are truly major - catastrophic falling-outs and permanently damaging rumor mills and etc etc. But a lot of the time? Well. It's not that it's "in your head," because obviously what you are feeling is very valid. But I think sometimes the way we think of internet spaces fuels dysfunctional thinking.

This isn't quite a tutorial; it's more in the vein of my tough love re: writer's block. I'm going to talk through some common scenarios, anxieties, and other issues I see in the rp community, and offer my (fully unsolicited) thoughts and advice. As always, your mileage may vary, but I'm trying!

Topics covered, because this one is a LONGBOI:

Insecurity & thread reactions

Insecurity & completionism/ Being Liked

Jealousy (especially ship-related)

The server is not therapy.

So here's the thing about the internet: for better or worse, it's for everyone.

On the far end of the spectrum, this means that the internet is a great incubator for toxic garbage. See: right-wing radicals, etc. But for most of us, this means that there is room on the internet for weird little me and my weird little hobby. You can find a community to talk about virtually any interest. You, for example, found the rp community.

So here's the thing about the internet: for better or worse, it's for everyone. This means that while you can find a community to talk about virtually any interest, you are never going to find a community that is completely without flaws.

There will always be people who annoy you, rub you the wrong way, or who you think are mean-spirited and negative. There will always be someone you don't get along with. There will always be people who disagree with you.

I have been in servers where members come to me time and time again to complain about other members, as though I am going to boot someone for wanting to talk about x just because they, personally, are sick of hearing about x. I am not going to tell someone to change their personality because someone else, personally, finds it annoying.

Offline, you wouldn't tell your manager at Starbucks to fire Susie because you don't like talking to her. You would simply not talk to her outside of a professional context. You would simply not take your break at the same time as her. You would simply not make small talk with her when the store is quiet and would instead, like, read the liner notes on whatever CD is at the register. (Does Starbucks still sell CDs?)

There will always be people in your community who you do not like and whose logic does not make sense to you. If they are not doing anything genuinely abusive, they have as much right to be in your community as you do. There is, in fact, likely someone in your community who finds you somewhat annoying. C'est la vie.

A community is not an environment custom-curated to your exact specifications. It is a community. You are not entitled to it being perfect. You are entitled to a space free from harassment and bigotry. If the space is free from harassment and bigotry and you cannot enjoy the space because someone else in it is existing harmlessly in a way that you dislike or find irritating, you have the option to leave the community. Discord server links are not a binding contract!

This is all to say: I think a lot of us expect far more of our online communities than is fair. Remember that every single person in your server is an individual human being with an interior life as rich as your own, and a list of neuroses possibly as extensive. None of them, yourself included, are perfect.

Oh, speaking of that list of neuroses! Let's tackle it, babe.

Your neuroses are not anyone else's problem.

It is on you to work through and overcome your anxieties and insecurities.

It is kind of other people to accommodate your growth, or to modify their behavior so as not to trigger your anxieties and insecurities. They are by no means required to do so.

Note: they do need to respect your triggers, if you have them and list them.

So here we go: troubleshooting frequent freak-outs. Buckle up!!!

Insecurity & thread reactions (or lack thereof)

Some people experience a lot of anxiety and insecurity around how their writing partners react to their threads. This might surface in the form of feeling unappreciated/disliked if the thread partner doesn't drop an emoji react on the link in your server's tag channel, or in feeling like no one likes your writing because they aren't swooning over it in #affirmations/ #thread-shoutouts/ #quotables/ etc.

You are serving as both texters in this meme.

So... you don't actually know what's going on with your thread partner at any given moment, you know? Personally, here are some possible scenarios with me as your thread partner:

You tag me and I put a passage from your post in #thread-shoutouts: I am at my desk, on my computer, not engaged in active DM conversation with anyone, and your post either made me cackle or it made me emo

You tag me and I DM you to gush about it: there's a lot happening in the server right now/ I don't want to derail a public conversation

You tag me and I react with an emoji: I am at date night with my girlfriend and she is in the bathroom. I have had time to read your post. I probably haven't put it in my tracker and will try and remember later, when I find it in one of 100 tabs open on Safari on my phone.

You tag me and I don't react at all: I am swamped with work and read your post in between emails. Instead of taking a second to react I immediately jumped into my tracker to log your reply, and now I am back to emails.

You'll notice none of these rationales are: "I don't react at all because I dislike you as a human." "I actively chose to quote Susie in #thread-shoutouts and not you because I want to hurt you." "I don't DM you about our thread because I hate our thread."

It doesn't have to be that deep! Stop hurting yourself. Let yourself assume the kindest option. After all, don't you want people to assume the best of you, too?

If your thread partners know you value emoji reacts or thread shoutouts, it is kind of them to do them. But it isn't inherently unkind for them not to, either. You're better off trying to kick that need for public validation.

Overview for addressing thread reaction insecurity:

If your server has a thread shoutout/quotables/etc channel, mute it. Don't look at it. Stop giving yourself something to fixate on.

When you are worried that someone hates a thread because they aren't giving emoji reacts, instead of building a narrative in your head that may or may not be true - communicate! "What beats do you want us to make sure we hit in this thread?" is a good introductory question to see if a thread is doing something for either or both of you, and gives your partner a chance to say something if they do want it to go in a different direction and would be more excited.

If someone is continuing to write with you, regardless of whether they post an emoji, it is probably because they enjoy writing with you!

Be deliberate about your thread premises! In my experience, threads done "just because" without a specific purpose (e.g. building chemistry between ship partners, introducing a subplot about a cursed hairbrush, kidnapping a house elf) are the first to lose steam and lose interest. It's entirely possible that someone likes you, likes writing with you, and simply doesn't prioritize this thread above their others because there's nothing meaningful to prioritize!

Keep your eyes on your own paper and stop reading so much into what other people do or don't do. It's probably not that deep!

Insecurity & completionism/ Being Liked

You would not be the first person to exacerbate their own problems because of a sense of duty to the spirit of completionism. Here's the thing, friend:

You do not need to write with every member.

You do not need to plot with every character.

You do not need to be in every subplot.

You do not need to have a character in every member group.

People fall into this trap thinking that if they can be everything to everyone, it will make them popular/important/beloved/a truly included member of the site.

But quantity is not the same as quality. You might have a thread with every character onsite but if half those threads are under a "they're on the same bus" premise, then yeah, people aren't going to want to keep up with that thread, and it's going to contribute to your thread reaction anxiety!

Write characters you are excited about. But more importantly: write plots you are excited about. Write threads you are excited about. You can be friends with people in your server without writing with them! You are better off writing a smaller number of really well-plotted, juicy plots that everyone involved feels heavily invested in than in writing a lot of watery threads for the sake of writing with every single person. It's hard to believe, but many people would rather NOT have a thread and wait until there's a juicy reason to than write a thread that doesn't have any development relevance simply for the sake of it.

If you're finding that it's hard to find juicy or plot-driven reasons to thread with many people, that might be a hint to write different types of characters. While yes, people exist who are very self-contained and isolated, the purpose of rp isn't to be a direct mirror of real life. It's to have fun while writing with other people. If your character is not fun to write with other people, they are probably not a good fit for an rp setting.

RP is not a popularity contest. This is not high school. No one is voting for prom queen. Be kind and be open to ideas and collaboration and people will like you. People will enjoy writing with you! People might even go out of their way to write with you. And they will be writing things that matter to both of you. That's winning, dude.

You might be tempted to pinpoint a "popular group" in the server and fix your sights on becoming one of them. This is also a failing proposition: often the "popular group" you might first identify is incorrect, and you are mistaking "exclusivity" for "importance." Sometimes sites have a small, tight-knit group with intricate inter-group plots and a very visibly closed-off dynamic. Since that dynamic mirrors the popular girls you were raised watching in teen movies, I can understand why you would assume that these people are the most important people to befriend on a site. They're not. They're cliquey and exclusive, and trying to get them to make room for you when they have intentionally and performatively set themselves aside from many other members is like... lmao, dude, it's not going to work.

Not only that, but the fact that these people are hard to pin down? It's not a selling point! The most beloved members on any site are not the ones who make you beg for a scrap of their attention. The most beloved members are the people who are friendly and kind. THAT is who you want to Get In with.

Overview for addressing completionism tendencies and "what if I'm Left Out" woes:

This is not a popularity contest, and you are a grown up. Focus on having fun and enjoying writing. That is not something you can do if your first priority is Getting In with the people you think are a site's "Popular Crowd."

You do not need to be everything to everyone. You cannot be everything to everyone.

In fact, everyone will appreciate you more if you do less and you do it well.

Focus on the positive. Who cares if Susie and Sally won't write with you? Sarah and Sam love writing with you! Yes, it would make sense for Susie to plot with you because your characters work together - but again, this is a hobby, not real life, and if you and Susie don't vibe, your characters don't need to interact! Why write with people who make you feel insecure? Trick question; there's NO reason to!

I understand the drive to be well-liked. Trust! I, too, desperately want to be well-liked. You'll have better luck if you don't try so hard. Be yourself and make friends with people who genuinely like you. Stop worrying about what the site's yearbook will look like. There isn't going to be a fucking yearbook.

Jealousy (especially ship-related)

Do you ever find yourself feeling a spike of anxiety or resentment when one of your favorite writing partners writes with someone else?

This reaction is especially common where ships are concerned: when one partner writes AU ships with their character, or has a plot with their character's previous partners before their OTP, etc.

It's a bit territorial, and it's not a good look, friends!

Your writing partners get to write with other people. How much they enjoy writing with other people has nothing to do with how much they enjoy writing with you. How much they write with other people has nothing to do with you. What they write has nothing to do with you. It's not all about you!

It truly doesn't matter how anxious you feel when your writing partners write with other people. They are entitled to write with whoever they want! What makes you nervous about them writing with other people?

In a forum rp environment, the best way to secure fulfilling, satisfying character arcs for your character is to plot with multiple others. That includes you, on both fronts: your writing partner needs you for their character's development as much as you need them! They aren't going to just stop writing with you arbitrarily.

If they do stop writing with you, there is probably a reason! Are they still on the site? Are they still writing? Are they going through something in real life that might impact their muse? There could be a hundred reasons why they are writing more with Susie now than they were with you, and they could be anything from "Susie is out of town this week so I want to give her a lot of replies to come home to" to "a ladder fell on my head and I am recovering from a concussion" to, possibly, "your territorial behavior makes me uncomfortable, and I would rather write with people who do not make me feel bad about writing with other people."

This behavior is especially weird in a ship context, and is something worth unpacking. When you write ships, do you resent/get anxious about your ship partner writing AU ship threads? About their character having previous partners? About their character having crushes that they do not act on?

An AU ship is an alternate universe specifically because it is not real. Susie and Sally shacking up in a space AU has no bearing over whether or not Susie and Marco end up together as finals.

Just like human beings have romantic history, it makes sense for characters to have romantic history, and these plots give your writing partner an opportunity to write plots that they might not get with you. For example, your writing partner might want to write a breakup plot with weird friendship tensions, which might not be a relevant vibe for Susie and Marco. But your partner can explore that with Marco and Sally. Again: it's not all about you, and your writing partner gets to write what they want, and you do, too.

Sometimes I think we can trace the territorial side of ship-oriented plotting to toxic monogamy culture, as described here. Particularly relevant are the below:

the idea that you should meet your partner’s every need, and if you don’t, you’re either inadequate or they’re too needy

the idea that commitment is synonymous with exclusivity

the idea that your insecurities are always your partner’s responsibility to tip-toe around and never your responsibility to work on

the idea that your value to a partner is directly proportional to the amount of time and energy they spend on you, and it is in zero-sum competition with everything else they value in life

Your writing partner is not cheating on your ship by giving their character other ships. If it feels that way to you, you are getting too emotionally invested, and you should probably back off of ship-oriented plotting for a while to unpack why you are feeling this way.

That said, of course be clear about boundaries. This applies both to M-rated content and to parameters of plotting. For example, you might tell your partner that you are not interested in a plot whose core conflict is "will they or won't they." You want to write these characters with the longevity of their relationship never in doubt. You might not want a plot where one character is cheating on the other. You might want these characters to be monogamous. That's fair! It's not fair for you to expect your writing partner to limit the plots they do that do not actually involve your character to avoid triggering your insecurities.

Overview for dealing with jealousy:

It's not all about you! Your writing partners deserve to have a good time as much as you deserve to have a good time. They can enjoy writing with you AND writing with someone else.

Be very clear with your boundaries. If there are plots between your character and another character that you cannot write, let your partner know before they accidentally step in a minefield.

Be willing to step away from ships. There are plenty of plots that do not involve ships. If ships make you a jealous and anxious mess, you should stop writing ships and work on that journey. It is more important to be a good writing partner than it is to write romantic ships.

Writing is such a personal thing, and we all of course connect very deeply to our characters - it only makes sense that we be invested in their outcomes! But if your gut reaction is one of jealousy, this is something that you need to work on, not something your writing partners should need to tiptoe around.

The server is not therapy.

Because rp is an online hobby, it can be easy to forget that every person you interact with in the server or forum is also a whole ass person on the other side of the screen. Which is to say, your rp friends do not exist to be your emotional support.

Of course they can be supportive - some of my closest friends are people I have met through rp! But online as in real life, you need to remember that everyone is always going through something. You are never the only person in the world who needs support, and you need to be thoughtful in how you engage with your friends here.

Do you listen when they share their problems, or do you immediately change the subject to talk more about your own? Do they not share their problems at all - is this a one-sided close friendship? Are the majority of your DMs to them seeking comfort, advice, affirmation, validation?

If you need a text-based counseling service, BetterHelp can connect you with a therapist. A therapist is a person whose job is to listen and ask nothing from you for their own personal emotional needs.

Your friends - online as in real life - are not therapists. They will not always have the bandwidth to help you. They will not always feel comfortable helping you. The internet breeds a sense of intimacy, the idea that regular chat conversation makes for a deep knowledge of another person. And of course this is sometimes the case! But in many cases, the person you are asking for psychoanalysis in the DMs on Discord doesn't actually know you very well. And if you have been relying on them for emotional support, you might be wearing them out.

Overview for not treating your rp friends like therapists:

Be thoughtful. If you have something heavy you want to talk about, first ask if they have the bandwidth. For example: "Hi Susie! Do you have the energy to give me some advice on x work issue?"

Listen. If your friend wants to talk about their issues, stop thinking about how you can relate and it sounds just like that time you... and just LISTEN. If you want to offer advice, keep it about them. If you don't know how to help, commiserate. "That's rough, buddy."

Self-check. Look at your chat history as though it's between your friend and someone you've never met. What do you think of this person? Are they a good listener? Do they reciprocate the support they get from your friend? Do they remember things your friend tells them about their own life? Or is this a one-sided conversation? If you're realizing that you're leaning too much on this friend, give them some space. If you're realizing you've gone way overboard leaning on this friend, maybe apologize and promise to be more conscientious going forward.

Be considerate. Remember that every person you know from the internet is so much more than what you've seen - I don't mean that in a "all internet users are creeps" way, I mean that in a "even if you've chatted in a server with some every day for six months, you still don't actually know them super well." Think of other people you've spent Some Time with. Think of your lab partner in 8th grade bio. You shared a desk with them for an hour a day five days a week for two thirds of the year. How much of your life did you share with them?

This tutorial got LONG - sorry, friends! Lots to talk about. I'm always happy to give Real TalksTM like this one. Feel free to drop into my askbox if you have a topic you'd like me to cover. I'm full of thoughts and feelings, and it would give me great joy for y'all to ask for them for once.

I hope this is helpful, and wish all y'all the best. Happy writing!

[cry-stars]

Fic Questionnaire

Tagged by @dazais-guardian-angel! Thank you so much, Dana! This is ridiculously long, so I’m putting it under a read-more, but first, I’m tagging @shocotate, @gemstoneslesbian, @theo-sev, @101flavoursofweird, @asa-liz, @teaofdestiny, and @ms-enmystic if any of you would like to do this as well! If anyone else would like to, please feel free, I mean it! I only tagged people that I know have an Ao3/write fics, but if you would like to, please go for it.

How many works do you have on AO3? 41

What's your total AO3 word count? 152999

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 

Professor Layton, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Lord of the Rings are the ones I’ve written the most for. I’ve also written a few stories for Rune Factory, Ace Attorney, Astro Boy, Ouran High School Host Club, Marvel, and Sonic the Hedgehog.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

The Open Jar, Golden Child, Ambivalence, The Duality of Homunculi, and Responsibilities. They’re all FMA stories; I’m kind of sad that none of the PL stories are on top, since I think I improved a lot since writing the FMA ones, but it all comes down to fandom size, I think.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? 

These days, I always do, even if it’s just a short “Thanks so much for reading, I’m so glad you liked it!” I’m just really grateful that somebody would take the time to read the story and bother to say something. It takes a lot of energy to leave a comment sometimes, even a short one, and saying thank you for that is the least that I can do. I had pretty bad depression about two and a half years ago and took a big social media break for about six months; I didn’t respond to any comments during that time. I feel pretty bad about it now, and sometimes I think about responding, but it was so long ago that I feel awkward replying now.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? 

Maybe that OHSHC fic “Funeral” I wrote years ago where Tamaki gets… shot and dies??? Why did I write that…??? I intended to write a follow-up where he didn’t actually die and recovers, but I never did, so the fic seems to end with him dying. That’s one of the cringe fics that I kind of want to delete now :’) Second-closest (and one that I actually like/don’t find too cringey) is my recent Clora fic “Almost Lost,” which ends with a lot of crying, but it isn’t a tragedy and their crisis is averted.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? 

Not exactly. I did get a couple of comments with criticisms on FF.net years ago, but nothing horrible. Sometimes people vaguepost about how Clora is Bad after I post something, haha, but that’s pretty much the extent of it thankfully... I’d probably cry if I actually got a hate comment adsjhkdsaf... :’) 

Do you write smut? If so what kind? 

Asdfhjkadfasdlfaf no. I get so embarrassed even writing about kissing. I’d someday like to write something that actually deserves the T rating that I give to a lot of my ship fics, but I don’t think that I could write anything higher-rated than that, and it’ll probably take me a long time to work up to that.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

I don’t think so!

Have you ever had a fic translated? 

No, not to my knowledge. If someone wanted to, though, that would be neat!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

A long time ago, my friend and I wrote a very silly LOTR fic where we would alternate writing chapters, with no planning whatsoever. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from her in years; I wish we could have finished the fic, even if it was garbage adskjhdsf… I miss her. More recently, my friend and I have been co-writing (or at least brainstorming) a Clora story (costarring a cherished OC) set twenty years after UF. Even if the fic takes forever to actually come together, we’ve come up with so many great ideas and it’s been loads of fun.

What's your all time favorite ship? 

Clora’s definitely my all-time favourite. There have been a few others that are really special to me, but honestly, Clora has everything I want in a ship. They have so much potential for fluff and angst, and they can get SO much character development together. (and I really relate to/adore both characters sdjkhsadf…) The ship does get hate and that does discourage me at times, but they feel really rewarding to write about; I feel like I’m solving a puzzle whenever I get one step closer to having them get a happy ending together. Nobody had written about them since like… 2016 until I started last year, so I’m really glad that a few other people who also liked the ship have something to read again now.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will? 

Some of my old FMA WIPs… I’m not really into FMA or the characters/ship I used to write for anymore, and I kind of feel like I won’t ever get that kind of passion for the series again, although I still have some good memories of it. Every so often, though, I get a really nice comment on one of them and wish that I could finish them for those peoples’ sake. 

What are your writing strengths? 

Once I’ve found what emotion I’m going for, I think that I’m fairly good at keeping it consistent throughout a whole fic. I think that I’m also okay at being sympathetic to most characters, even ones that I don’t really like; it feels awful when somebody spitefully writes about my favourite characters, and I don’t want anyone to feel that way when reading my stuff. I think that I’m good at writing about… longing or yearning too, haha… not so good at writing established relationship stuff adshjksfd but I’m getting better.

What are your writing weaknesses? 

So much… The biggest thing is getting myself to write at all. I just get so easily overwhelmed, distracted, or discouraged and give up. It takes me forever to write just a oneshot, let alone multichapter stories. I’m also quite bad at planning ahead… I plan major moments in a story, but often, the in-between bits are surprises to me. I do enjoy how my characters kind of take me on a ride and surprise me, but sometimes I find myself written into a corner. I also overexplain. So many of my chapters wind up so long because I feel like I have to explain every little detail. 

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? 

I’ve never done much of that when writing about real-life languages, but I used to throw in the random Sindarin word in my LotR fics, such as calling someone’s father “Ada,” since that was common in LotR fics back then. If I was to do it now, though, I’d probably only include dialogue in another language if it was immediately translated to English afterwards, like someone explaining what a sentence meant, but I wouldn’t throw in random words unless it was a character’s normal habit to mix languages.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for? 

The Lorax, but it was super cringe, and I deleted the fic… Funnily enough, it wasn’t even about the onceler, it was about my OC dad for him.

My official first fandom in my mind is Lord of the Rings/Tolkien in general. I was a very awkward and excitable teenager, new to the internet, and met a lot of kids on FF.net who were as awkward as me by commenting on their very silly fics/writing very silly fics similar to theirs to try to impress them. I had so much fun and made a lot of friends that way, although I’ve lost touch with almost all of them, sadly… I really miss them. The fics are all on my FF.net profile still, but I don’t recommend most of them aJSDKsdf… Those were the days before I was an angst addict and everything I wrote was ridiculous. Most things I wrote before 2019 aren’t very good to me... 

What's your favorite fic you've ever written? 

Right now, probably Bright Saffron Dreams… I put so much love and energy into that one, and it has so many tropes that I like in it. If I’d been brave enough to make it slightly more overtly romantic, it would have been exactly what I wanted in a Clora fic, haha...

[beguilingcorpse]

Hey I took ur ouran quiz and the questions were awesome and I did indeed get dragged to filth, as has everyone in the tags, but I think we're all too embarrassed to post pictures of our results bc the callouts were so accurate kjshdfkjsdhf but im so curious abt the others,,, would you mind posting all the descriptions you did? I'm so curious. either way thanks for a banger of a quiz!

AH omg i’m so glad people are enjoying it!! and im sorry that people are getting called out lol but I did try to warn you. im mad that uquiz doesn’t have a “see all results” feature but here are all of the descriptions!!

haruhi:

you give off main character energy but also don't give a shit about being the main character. if you got this answer you probably also relate to tamaki or kyoya but ONLY one of them. you have mixed feelings about the other. you don't think you can experience love the way everyone else talks about it. you crave physical touch but your intimacy issues prevent you from seeking it out so you're stuck wishing anyone else would initiate it and anticipate your needs. people have said that they were drawn to you and a GOOD number of people have told you that they liked you. 9/10 times their crush was unrequited. you're still friends with all of them. hope ur doing well with that gender crisis you're going through!

tamaki:

wow. you're truly a dramatic bitch. maybe people find you a little grating but you're charming enough that they still hang around you for some reason??? ur a big romantic and your expectations will never match reality. every time you pass a mirror you get caught up in your own reflection, even if you don't consider yourself attractive. your self esteem swings WILDLY between "i'm a terrible person and no one really likes me" and "i'm perfect and everyone wants to be me". you definitely have SOME kind of parental complex and you projected way too hard on disney movies in your childhood. how is your hyperfixation with beauty and the beast treating you now? you genuinely want to be a good person but you find that your actions often have unintended consequences. being a wine mom (or your gender equivalent) is absolutely in your future. you're pretentious as fuck and your favorite book is probably pride and prejudice or the picture of dorian gray or some fruity shit. also you're in love with your best friend and im sorry

kyoya:

you have written PARAGRAPHS of analysis about whatever show or movie you're hyperfixated on and definitely talked about it with people who aren't familiar with the source material. you're just a little bit of an asshole (or at least you think you are) but you have a close group of friends nonetheless. you're a good liar and everyone hates playing among us with you. debate is your love language. you wonder constantly why anyone likes you at all. despite this, you're surprisingly loyal (even beyond your own expectations). you like being in charge of a situation even if people don't view you as the leader outright. you're never manipulative with malicious intent but you enjoy seeing the influence you have on others. usually this amounts to introducing them to a new show or hobby. people have told you that they've liked you and your first instinct was to say "thank you, but no you don't". you're just emotionally unavailable enough to be ~intriguing~ but consider swallowing your pride enough to tell the people in your life that you love them.

hikaru:

you know that feeling where you make a joke and maybe one or two people really laugh at it but everyone else doesn't know how to respond? of course you do. you have a very defined sense of humor and you feel like there are only a handful of people who really get you. in reality, part of this stems from the fact that you judge other people, make assumptions, and are slow to forgive. you've definitely given a friend the silent treatment for DAYS... and what was it for? are you happy living life this way? do you so love believing yourself to be misunderstood? i promise there are other people out there who like your obscure interests just as much as you do. pause your early 00s pop punk for a second and get over urself.

kaoru:

are you excited for the big recital coming up? you must be, since you've been playing second fiddle for so long. you're probably disappointed with this response. you wanted to be a main character. you feel like sometimes ur a background character in your own life. most of your friends are people you met through pre-existing friendships and you pretty exclusively hang out in groups. you're a good person and people enjoy your company, but there's maybe only one or two people who would call you their BEST friend. that's okay. you feel the same way. you rarely come up with plans or jokes, but you can "yes and" like there's no tomorrow. maybe your life is a little boring, but at least its comfortable. it's a shame, though. there are a lot of people who could help bring you out of your comfort zone, if you'd let yourself leave your bubble every now and again.

honey:

so. you have a complex. that's okay! most people do. you just HAVE to be the hottest person at the supermarket or the friend that EVERYONE loves. you have a lot of friends but only a few people who really, truly know you. you use humor or flirting or playing dumb to deflect from the fact that you have a SHIT ton of walls up around you and you're afraid to let anyone beyond the facade you put up. you aren't hurting anyone by doing this, but it does get a little lonely sometimes. you like the attention you get, even if it's pretty surface-level. you have a weird thing about crying in front of other people: either you do it too often or you absolutely REFUSE to. you just want to be held. and honestly? don't we all.

mori:

holy shit. you're SEXY. you know EXACTLY when to shut the fuck up and it's hot. it's a double-edged sword, though. when was the last time you let yourself be someone's shoulder to cry on? and when was the last time YOU cried on someone else's shoulder? hm. might want to work on that. you don't think too highly of yourself, but you recognize you're a kind person. bit of a doormat tho. perhaps you've even been called "subservient". it's a shame you're so emotionally closed off, because your friends would honestly love for you to open up more. if you did anything competitive in high school--choir, drama, band, sports, etc.--you were never a soloist or the star player. you played defense, didn't you? you were in the chorus, weren't you? i bet you were in percussion (not the quads tho). your biggest flaw is that you refuse to acknowledge how important you are to other people. there's a gardener and a flower in every relationship, and it's time you started being the flower.

[sbooksbowm]

The ‘Does This Make Sense?’ Check - Chapter 4, Part 5, Preservation

Part 1 covers the introduction of Chapter 4, The Bookbinders

Part 2 covers the methodology of this chapter and the bookbinders’ motivations

Part 3 covers how fic binding completes the communication circuit via fan reciprocation 

Part 4 covers how fic binding challenges traditional publishing norms 

The Redundancy of Preservation

Anthony Grafton writes that to understand books, we must interview them in their environment, so to understand bound fic, book historians must attend to two fannish environments: the unstable digital distributing platforms from which fic came, and the material preservation form born in fannish response [1]. The history of fandom media illustrates the instability of digital media in myriad ways: links break, sites crash, URLs expire. Many of the binders have experienced fic loss—returning to bookmarked fic only to find it had disappeared, deleted without any indication of what it may have been—but few said that it wholly or significantly influences their desire to bind fic. In response to the question, ‘Who or what do you trust to build a reliable archive of fic, if anyone?’ the binders unanimously cited AO3, but with trepidation. One binder wrote ‘I do not have unshakeable faith that they will be able to remain successfully funded for the foreseeable future or that laws won't be passed that lead to the site being shut down. The key to survival is redundancy, both digital and offline’. Another echoed, ‘the entire internet is ephemeral, and I have had too many technical snafus to put my entire trust into digital format’. And a third: ‘I’m going through my bookmarks and archiving them to the Internet Archive so they are protected against author removal’. The binders share a general wariness towards relying on digital forms, and while preserving fic is not the only or driving reason for binding fic, it is on the list. Preserving works in print also communicates their legitimacy, especially that of queer works, which historically have been condemned or outright destroyed. Bound fic counters the pitfalls of digital sites, where fan work may be lost without warning, but lacks the real-time feedback in comments and kudos and the links to additional fan works, although those still exist online. Bound fic also counters fallacies of traditional publishing, which tends to ignore fan works. As I discussed in the Introduction and Chapter 3, although works like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies emerge from commercial publishing houses, I reiterate that they are not fanfiction precisely because they were not written in nor attend to a fannish context in the way that bound fic does [2].

The binders change the text in preparing it from digital for print form. All of the binders cut comments and many exclude or rearrange any combination of summaries, author notes, and disclaimers, and kudos and hits statistics. One lacks sentimentality around these excisions: binding fic ‘is less of an archive project than a pleasure project’, so the concern for preservation pales to readability. Binders range in their approach to formatting metadata: two binders include metadata (author, title, tags, archive warnings, etc.) as a ‘copyright page’, with content warnings and research notes as appendices. Another includes summaries and tags because to make ‘these books to feel like a true physical version of what’s there on the web’. One binder of 104 fics has modified their typesetting process to expedite the time from screen to print in attempts to bind as many fics as quickly as possible:

Nowadays I drop everything in and go, for two reasons. I try to do a lot of fics and [editing out Author Notes] is a huge time suck. But these notes are also significant as part of the metatext. In the future these will be of interest to any scholar studying early years of online fandom and just contributes to these books being a time capsule of a phenomenon that is very specific to our time and place.

By favoring production speeds over editing, this binder prioritizes print preservation (and documents a book’s environment for a future book historian); ten binders move metadata and extratextual information to appendices or smaller, side bindings to avoid interrupting reading flow without eliminating the information. Although the lack of text editing seemingly counters the attention to craft, the binders distinguished between the craft of the book—its binding, endpapers, and internal ornamentation—from the content of the text itself. Formatting a text can be the most time-consuming task, so reducing that process expedites the production of a volume significantly.

A few themes emerge regarding losses in transforming fic to print form, including accessibility, interactivity, and malleability. Only people with copies of the fic can read those copies, although the fic remains online for the time being. The loss of hyperlinks and comments strips the fic of its community context. Printed versions inhibit the writer’s ability to edit and update the fic, and one binder noted that ficbinding’s greatest strength and weakness is that it makes fic ‘a fossil of a fixed point in time…It leaves no room to adapt’. But the gain is a hard copy and a sense of long-term preservation independent of online activity: ‘As long as Modern English can be read and the book remains undamaged by water, fire or other problematic time-passing problems, it is here and real’. This kind of preservation aligns with a history of recovering lost works via their textual commentaries; were every copy of Harry Potter to be lost and the internet wiped, one could reconstruct the events of the series via bound copies of Annerb’s ‘The Changeling’ and dirgewithoutmusic’s ‘boy with a scar’ series. Similarly, where the digitally-linked community disappears, it is reforged through sharing the copy with the author, who ‘gets to see how a reader put different materials together to best represent their work’. One binder wrote, ‘I think this is a case of having your cake and eating it too: the electronic copy is still there for the wider audience to read, the text is set in a permanent form which has its own artistic value’. The gains of permanence, the opportunity to create a physical object, and the ability to thank the writer for their work through bound fic outweigh the instantaneous losses of accessibility and digital interactivity.

One of my final questions to the binders concerned the long-term preservation of their library: where will their bound works go if they can no longer take care of them or die? One binder was in discussion with the University of Iowa special collections, which is home to a notable fanzines collection. Four posed sending the volumes to fandom friends, two want to bequeath them to family, and two have explicitly stated their wishes in their wills. One added that he firstly trusts fans to appreciate fan-printed books as both ‘stories worth reading’ and as art objects, rather than non-fans who do not understand the connotations of the works. Binding fic is a momentary win in the long-term battle against information loss, and these personal libraries prolong the question of how and where these works will survive. One binder articulated the long-term value of these volumes: ‘I think that people making fine binding versions of fic absolutely validates this place in libraries, and I have no doubt that some of the books made by the fic binding community will make their way into the special collection libraries or museums and other institutions’. Ensuring that preservation will most likely be a self-undertaken project, in the way that all things fandom are.

Citations

Anthony Grafton, ‘Codex in crisis: the book dematerializes’, in Worlds made by words: scholarship and community in the modern West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), p.311.

If you actually go back and read the drafts of the Introduction and Chapter 3 that I have posted, I have not yet explained this. Basically, adaptive works like P&P&Z don’t meet Coppa’s criteria (fic made to fannish standards, written about stories currently owned by someone else. Pride and Prejudice is in the public domain, etc.). I’ll have a post next week about this issue with upcoming reimaginings of The Great Gatsby to elaborate further on this really fun question.