#everyone else is mostly story stuff.

[basilpaste]

this is an EXTREMELY first-draft design for odile in a silly little swap au of mine!!! this au is old as sin. as in it predates osis.

odile takes isas role (though isa doesnt take hers)! here she is. dame odile.

[floorpancakes]

smth kinda fucked up about watching doumeki go from whole assedly making life or death decisions for watanuki as a desperate but firm love language every other tuesday to fucking sitting in quiet anguish with a pained look on his face with his eyebrows fucking tweaking out, still able to make life or death protective decisions sometimes but being fucking paralysed with indecision most times that don't involve immediate physical actions to the point it's clearly ripping his head and heart in two even if he still retains that refusal to give up

[candycryptids]

Hiya! I hope you're doing well today! I love your characters and how you've structered their bios! Since Chuusday is listed first, is she technically your official WOL or is it someone else? Do you canonically have a WOL in the first place?

Also, I find it SO sweet that you and one of your partners both play FFXIV and have characters paired together ;w; Did you meet ingame or long before either of you started playing? Either way I wish you both the best!!! <3 - gardenofballads 🌻

Awaaaah! Im doing pretty ok!!! Taking time to answer this as a wind down from Emerald Weapon Ex Brain Soupage. And I’m so glad! ;W; I think I butchered one of those “Get To Know An OC” thingies- uhh… oh [this one] actually! I chopped a lot out and I think added a couple different thingums instead because there was so much to that that it felt overwhelming to try to look at let alone fill out LOL but it was a really good jumping off point uvu;

And!!! Hilariously Chuu was my First XIV Character, so she’s dear to my heart for being the first one- but she very quickly made it known being the WOL even as an AU was something of a Joke (Her character showed great reluctance and even frustration at having to do So Much World Saving, maybe a side-effect of me rushing through MSQ to catch up with my other spouse [Who plays Talia, though they’ve got less time for XIV these days ;0;] and the rest of my friends who were all EndGame already at the time in Shadowbringers fhdjfjsjfs.) So I made…… many alts. Throwing spaghetti at the wall but I have SEVERE side-character/NPC brain and kept making “supporting cast” types =w=; it actually took me like. 3? Alts before making an ACTUAL WoL with my husband (Ishi’li and Kizuna) (as of Right Meow, they’re in post ARR, but we’ve been working on Keathan and Tuesday together because Keathan was… Keathan’s first character in xiv XD so we’ve been jaunting through the story together and experiencing every inch of it so we can pick and choose what The Boys™ get up to when we wanna focus on them x3)

🥰 I knew both speece during at least high school- but I actually knew Keathan as early as Elementary school hehe 😌 tho the speece didn’t proper marry until… i’unno, 2017? (For frustrating legal reasons, I’m not legally married, but. As it goes. Someday we’ll have money to visit the one state that has legal poly marriages. Also I struggle to remember our wedding year 🫢)

Since managing to make a Co-WoL with my husband I’ve managed to make one other Alt meant to be a Solo-WoL (Mochiie) but I have to really wrinkle my brain to sink time into playing him, since I’m trying to take screenshots throughout the story at what I find to be inspiring beats xD And even still he has an alt-universe where he’s just a side-character for the ‘Main Timeline’ (where there’s a bunch of spaghetti and like 8+ confirmed WoL’s and the Msq entourage looks HILARIOUS in canon, someday I’ll get all the data together and take pictures, but I think it’ll cook what’s left of my brain x’3) [it’s less concrete than anything I’ve posted about before or I’d try to explain it ;v;’ it’s just interesting mostly to see how the story gets stretched to fit around a larger community of heroes than a solo guy shouldering the whole burden lmfao.]

🌸🌸🌸…. I also hope you’re having a lovely week @gardenofballads !!!! I am tossing flower petals into the air around you !!! Thank you for the ask and well wishes n kind words 🥺💖 🌸🌸🌸

[zeb-z]

People complaining about Star Wars shows being too slow, too much filler, like ok why don’t you just not watch? Log off Twitter?

If you can’t see any of the importance of the episodes that don’t have firefights and explosions every five fucking seconds, and complain there’s no story when the plot flies right over your head, that’s not everyone else’s problem. Yes the beginning of Andor takes a while to swing into things, and there’s many reasons for it. I frankly don’t even understand the complaints around the Bad Batch because each episode is far more obvious in its intents and still very exciting. How did any of you watch The Clone Wars?????

No one cares that you think the episodes not involving direct conflict with the Empire are boring. You’re boring. Gain some sort of common sense and think critically about the storytelling before you complain that there is none :)

[haarute]

big family dinner gathering today pray for me to make it through

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

The I feel like she sees me line being said to Eddie who is the person that truly sees Buck for all that he is. Are we supposed to take this line at face value which would indicate piss poor writing because they needed to rush to a horrible ending or do we take it as Buck being an unreliable narrator? What was the audience supposed to interpret from Buck saying that, were we truly supposed to believe him or we supposed to be pissed at Buck for saying this to the one person that truly sees Buck?

Good morning to me, I guess.

I'm assuming you haven't really seen people's reactions in the fandom on tumblr because I feel like I saw this said in quite a few posts going around, but you are absolutely not supposed to take this line at face value. I'm surprised that people think you should. 9-1-1 has from the beginning had a habit of turning friendships into romantic relationships (Bathena and Madney) and taking their time with these things rather than having an instalove situation. Even Karen and Hen, who meet when they're set up on a date together, don't instantly fall in love. I do not think they would set Eddie or Buck up for an endgame relationship with a woman by having them date that woman immediately, even if they didn't plan to make Buddie canon.

Buck is clearly struggling post-death. He's lost and once again looking for the answer from a romantic partner. He did a lot of growth in regards to his family relationships this season but not his romantic ones. Remember, his couch ended up destroyed and he asked his latest girlfriend to pick the new one out for him. Again. He's still not picking his own damn couch. After being unable to sleep on the one his mom gave him but passed out instantly on Eddie's where he ran to feel safe.

If people think this is all, somehow, an accident or the writers are doing this without knowing what they're doing, then I can't help you. Do you also think the symbolism I put into my fanfics are a total accident? Do you guys think I picked the name of the poem "Fuchsia Emerald Alizarin Rose" just because the colors are fun and they accidentally spell out F.E.A.R. or do you think maybe I did that absolutely 100% on purpose and was waiting for someone to realize?

Buck saying that to Eddie is 100% supposed to make the audience raise their eyebrows. Especially when we see Eddie's reaction. He's confused and he's hurt and he's annoyed. Eddie then spends his next few lines showing Buck (and us) that he sees Buck. Buck misses it, it goes right over his head, but the audience is shown that Buck is wrong and Eddie sees him.

I think there was a lot of internal stuff going on behind the scenes way high up the ladder that meant Buddie didn't happen this season. No, I don't mean that in a tinhatting way, I just mean that they knew Fox wouldn't renew them, they didn't know if they'd get picked up somewhere else, Fox hasn't promoted or cared about this show the way it has its other shows in a while, and I think it's pretty clear there was shuffling and changes going on with 6B. So I think things had to be put off. Similar to the pandemic, where I genuinely wonder what kind of season four we would've gotten if we'd had the full 18 episodes and hadn't had to work around Covid. I think that when we know there was a big shift going on behind the scenes, we need to have some grace and patience in how that will effect the story that's told on screen.

But I think that this default to "everything good we see on our screens is an accident and the writers are making shitty choices" is a horrible bad faith argument, and it's exhausting. Aren't you exhausted? I'm exhausted. Fandom shouldn't treat the writing and production team like their enemies any more than the writing and production team should treat the fans like their enemies in some kind of war they have to win (looking at you, GoT showrunners).

We are supposed to be annoyed that Buck is missing the point. We are supposed to see Buck's yearning to be a husband and a father, and how he's missing what's right in front of him. We are supposed to put two and two together and see that Eddie was hurt by Buck's words, that Eddie sees Buck, that Eddie is Buck's safe place, and that Eddie in that moment decided he might not have a chance with Buck and needs to move on, because previously we saw Eddie admit he wants romance again but he doesn't want to go out on dates, we saw his aunt say she met her husband through work, we saw him say 'we have time' and then we saw him immediately after Buck tells him about this new girl who "sees him" flee to visit his mother and then immediately actually try dating. On a meta level this is also because Eddie needs confidence in himself as a romantic partner and needs some more experience under his belt before he's ready to take the plunge with Buck, but in Eddie's mind, I think it's pretty clear he feels Buck will never want him back and he's trying to find the love he wants somewhere else, even if his heart is still Buck's.

So that's what I think. I think it's not explicitly spelled out for a few reasons, but frankly if one of them was a woman we wouldn't need it explicitly spelled out and personally I kinda like that it's not. Something that annoys me with M/F pairings is the constant "we all know you two like each other" talks from third parties that half the time aren't about the characters but are about the audience, to either tell the audience SEE THEY LIKE EACH OTHER THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT or to give the audience some fanservice while the characters aren't ready to get together. I don't need to be pandered to that way, thank you, so I'm a fan of the slightly more subtle approach that I, personally, see going on with Buddie.

If you or anyone else disagrees with me and feels it was just "piss poor writing" then that's entirely your right. I'd just appreciate it if people who feel that way would stop watching the show, and stop putting their complaints into the inboxes of people who clearly do enjoy the show.

TL;DR - You answered your own question, Buck is an unreliable narrator (and always has been) and we are supposed to be frustrated he said this to Eddie who has proven time and again (and does so in that very scene) that he sees Buck.

[arolesbianism]

Every second of every day I remind myself that I'm going to need to learn to draw gore and body horror and every second of everyday I simply keep imagining it instead of drawing it because I don't even wanna try finding usable refs for the shit I wanna pull off (it also doesn't help that searching up refs for skinless human anatomy is. Annoying to do if you wanna draw someone who isn't made of muscle and nothing else)

[szkicel]

so like 2 days ago I finally read one of the comics I bought blind a while ago with comics that I was actually looking for.

anyway Rat Queens is just mid, if not below average. I wrote a rant/review about it but before i finished it I realised this title is just not worth it lmao

After I read it I only wanted to start reading Dungeon Meshi so I can read sth actually good tbh and maybe i’ll sit down to do it today kjhkjh

[leafatlaw]

going to be a hater in the tags ;P

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[allthoseotherworlds]

I feel like I see a lot of people being kind of mean about how other people relate to stories, so just to be clear:

1. It is not morally wrong to enjoy stories or characters that depict bad things. Liking a bad thing in stories is not the same as liking it in real life.

2. It is not morally wrong to enjoy stories or characters that depict bad things, and to not be particularly interested in discussing the bad things because you like other aspects more. You don't have to talk about the bad things the characters/story has to prove that you know they're bad.

3. It is not morally wrong to prefer stories or characters that do not include certain things that make you uncomfortable. Blacklisting content and looking up trigger warnings is not a sign that someone is weak or immature.

4. It is not morally wrong to like a story or character and to be uncomfortable with certain criticisms or types of discussion about that story or character. Blacklisting certain types of discussions because you don't want to see them is not hurting anybody and does not imply anything about how you treat real people.

5. Seeing stories or characters as entirely fictional is not morally wrong. They're characters and stories and were created by people and can be played around with by people. Writing or thinking about bad things happening to fictional characters is not hurting anybody.

6. Seeing stories or characters as real in some way is not morally wrong. People who find fiction important in ways that feel deeply personal are not hurting anybody by feeling that way and do not deserve mockery for it.

The only things that do have moral relevance are how you treat actual, real people:

Don't harass other people for how they feel about fiction, one way or another. Don't harass or mock people for saying bad things about your favorite character or for liking characters or stories you think are immoral. Don't harass or mock people for thinking of fictional characters as being their friends or for needing to blacklist things sometimes or step away from certain discussions.

No fandom space is going to meet everybody's needs or preferences, but people having those needs or preferences is not morally wrong. It also doesn't inherently say anything about how that person acts or feels in the rest of their life.

So if you're going to mock someone for how they are acting in a fandom space, I think it's better to focus on the thing they're actually doing that's immoral, not the internal feelings they may or may not have.

[mbat]

maybe a weird thing to say but if the show lucifer wasnt made by christians it wouldve been one of the best things ever

stories about christianity by christians vs by non christians are so very different

like. comparing lucifer and good omens. im just saying

[devotedlystrangewizard]

ok ok so the thing with destiny 2 is how inaccessible it is to new/returning players. we all know this. im perfectly fine with paying 10, even 15 euros every three months for a game that i enjoy. ffxiv is one of my favorite games right now. im used to paying far more. i dont mind messy storytelling. i think it can be fun.

my problem is entirely that because i stopped paying attention somewhere between beyond light and witch queen, there is no longer any way for me to catch up in the game itself. i got burnt out on destiny. i stepped away for almost the entirety of the witch queen - lightfall period. and now i can no longer get back into it. and thats not because im no longer interested in it. i still adore the lore and characters in destiny. but i dont want to have to watch videos on youtube to get a vague understanding of the plot?

and i get it. okay. the game is bloated. the last time i looked the destiny 2 file size (including all dlc) was around 100gb. but fuck if it isnt frustrating that i cant get back into a game i loved so much 2-3 years ago

[ganondoodle]

i keep seeing it around so while i havent gotten all shrines myself yet (bc i havent felt motivated to play atm) im absolutely sure that weird armor is supposed to be the hero from the tapestry and its supposed to be a mix of hylians and zonau .. i guess its confirmed then that rauru and sonia had kids, somehwere off screen in the background dw they couldnt be important to anything lmao, and that the ancient hero was half zonau (shouldnt it be the princess tho- or cant we have a weird looking zelda ..?) and i

i know i have annoying opinions about this game to hell and back and i might be the only one who keeps finding things to be annoying about but-

the ancient hero being yet again connected to the zonau just ... ugh, i dont like it; not just bc its a very lackluster reveal to a neat mystery that in my eyes didnt need solving (it was cool to theorize about it being ganondorf but that aint possible now that we know what happens in totk...) but it makes it all feel even more like ... an after thought? like, you got the old tapestry from that time still and while a lot of history was lost (or destroyed really) about the ancient shiekah .. why would the zonau be just completely forgotten when theres living evidence and people descended from them still there back in those ancient shiekah days and you are telling me know one knew they actually existed? and how did their genetics get compeltely wiped out like that? since sonia mentions that our zelda has both time and light magic it kinda directly implies one of her ancestors must have been one of those half zonaus

like yeah 10 000 years is a long ass time and if you keep mixing it with hylian genes it will end up pretty unrecognizable, but that still just kinda ... there must have been many weird middle stages of that, and no one thoguht to mention the strange looking hylians, however many there were? ESPECIALLY considering it must have been the royal family but then why did the princess on the tapestry look like her perfect princessy self and the hero whos more often than not unrelated to them was one of the half zonau? did sonia have more family that took over the ruling instead of her kids and the royal family was without zonau genes for the longest time until it somehow intermingled at some point before botw? how boring is it to have that be a thing and then not let a single feature of them survive? no tiny horns? no slightly strange anatomy? no a little toooo big ears? not even skin color? (ironically ganondorf skintone is the closest to the zonau lmao)

my questions really dont need answering im just throwing my brain farts onto this website bc i wont be hunted for sport here and can actually write it all out in one post; i really feels like they saw any mystery as something they could cram zonau stuff into when it was really just a neat thing added in botw to make the world feel more believable, yeah any old world with such a long history would have some mysteries that can never get solved, some ancient remains that are remnants of a time long past and forgotten, the fact that you cannot go back in time to ask is such a big part of what makes a good mystery so interesting, that longing for knowledge you can never obtain- and they answered it all in the most boring way possible, yeah look im gonna show you the last two of them in very much enclosed and non recognozable environments and tell you about how who it was and they had everything, invented everythign and were the bestest and coolest and have been everywhere before you, theres nothing they havent done before you did, but also they just all died out for unknown reasons and never bother to tell you anything that isnt look how bad the bad guy is we were too dumb to stop despite you literally talking to the last of them and running around with them in a robot next to you

like i get im bad at words so im probably not gonna get my point across but its just so ... unsatisfying, every mystery from botw being solved by just ... yo it was the cool zonau guys, every single time is so ... way to make me care less about this world that i cared so much about

dont get me wrong i loved theorizing about who they were and all the unsolved stuff but thats exactly my point, its fun to think about the possibilities knowing and not even wanting anything confirmed to be a certain way bc its more fun to think about the what ifs than get told thats how it was

all the questions that remain are really just .. logical questions that either dont have an answer that makes it work or just make it worse, why the heck did the oh so godly zonau die out and never mention anything of it, if they really came from the sky originally why is so much of their culture inspired by underground stuff (light seeds/ferns- construct design beign inspired by gigama), why did no one every bother to mention the weird half zonau people in all the ancient texts, how did all that stuff get lost so badly when no one campaigned to destroy their memory and descdendants of them still ran around, whats with all the continutiy problems to botw-

its the unfun kind of plotholes that really make this game much less fun to me, despite gameplay and music being so good

i guess this game hit my limit of their gameplay over story ways

got visually spoiled on the literally last thing i was still actively missing and working towards in totk but i dont think im gonna like it anyway ...

if it is what i think it is, and what it looks like to be, its just yet another nail in the coffin (or however you say that) as to why the lore sucks in this game even tho it had such good setup and so much potential

[stainlesssteellocust]

I might write a Bob oneshot before posting any Crusade chapters, just to test the waters. Empty fandom or not, enough people float about that they’d probably tell me if his voice is off.

Maybe that technically impossible but thematically appropriate TMA crossover I thought up once.

[arolesbianism]

Shakes the bars of my cage I need to draw soooo bad I need to draw I need to draw let me draw I have to draw I need to draw I must draw (<- has been too sick to be on electronics much and doesn't like doing traditional art)