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michyeosseo · 4 years

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2020 creator wrap: favorite works

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

been tagged thrice so speaking as my tumblog’s biggest fan, let’s add that up, alright? this will be a pick per month + short description on why i the heck i kept opening ps for them (ಥ _ ಥ)

january - with the lyrics of her hopes in song form, a light-filled gongju & eunhee set was how i started this year. appropriate, in retrospect.

february - black dog sans forgetica. unlike other high school dramas, there wasn’t much fanfare about this because instead of focusing on a teen and their dream, we meet ko haneul who is just trying to meet the standards of a permanent teaching position. unglamorous yet wrung out quiet, reassuring tears.

march - an entry for kww featuring hwansaengdam!han yeri. lack of vidding skills aside, i don’t think i did this a disservice because i thought hard about this category connection-wise.

april - unabashed eunjung × somin lovin’. listen, that caption i used is all the context one needs to hear about my melo suits me sentiments.

may - had qingpingle been a story about and for danshu & huirou, maybe the serenade part of the title won’t be a detestable lie™. started drafting this with affection but as the series arduously went on, can’t remember anything else besides Spite. no one gets peaceful joy out of watching that terror. (yes, this single-handedly took me out of my cdrama game for most of the year, besides my wasted nights of reading the source novel + getting a 4k copy for giffing.) deleted that without looking back because i do not want to promote this empty calligraphy to anyone. the only justice here is the increased potential for jiang shuying to receive tons of period drama casting offers from now on.

june - today in diary of an ahjumma spy, mvp misoon brought post-interrogation ice cream. neither my sharpest set nor the one with the best colouring but a glimpse of their shared experience over the years.

july - korean meryl streep moon sori has countless of gold dialogues in her directorial debut, the running actress, but the pretty argument is my winner. (you had the license for this but never bothered to subtitle, netflix? whyyyyyyy?)

august - birthday month = blaring homoerotic subtext. i redid this off a simpler version i tweeted. united effort to accomplish her gasping is more like it.

september - jein writernim, i swear i am not hung up the way other misty viewers are/were but mawma....... you had your synopsis that should not have arrived at that ending. dropped this about halfway through and out of the blue years later dreamt about the proper eunjoo comeback to hyeran’s life a la the handmaiden’s “my savior who came to ruin my life.” gosh, her power.

october - lovedrunk, timeless lesbian pining. high art.

november - i have not watched a park minyoung drama since *checks notes* that sorry excuse of a sageuk i do not wanna discuss here ever but for miss goddess to hand me slice-of-life about a cellist coming back to her hometown with a guy and a gal crushing on her since high school? signed, sealed, delivered, i’m yours.

december - right from the start, i made this weekender analogy — five children : wolgyesu tailor shop; once again : samgwang villa. the vibes was off in week one and i thought that was the end of that. but faced with a kim sunyoung-jin kijoo paired as at-odds-at-all-times aunt and eldest niece and it’s a presently losing battle with my frenemy creative team. humor me some more and actually land this all the way.

bonus & those i’m tagging under the cut

extracurricular × villain by stella jang

no ragrets i pulled an all-nighter for this pun greeting

practically the entire content of my two other active sideblogs @georgiousburnham & @lolacoasters where y’all can find me whenever the main queue here runs empty

tagged by @drivingsideways @melonatures @ohyangchon ♡

tagging @onaperduamedee @lonely-night @captalnlaika @jingyans @dramaintherain @waegashi-tofu @aheartandashirt @cuddlybitch

#i've been tagged by writers and while v flattered #huge callout about my works in progress #but they will come when they're ready no #there's drafts for yeobit epilogue and my unfinished disco fic oop #don't think i'll ever go back to multifandom mode #but this year has made me feel comfortable about saying ''oh yes that's my sideblog''#interaction interaction interaction #(before my social battery runs out)#to break the monotony of the pandemic times #often i'd chat someone up then my anxiety fires up #coming off intense because yeah the passion is there #i bemoan giffing but honestly it's a hobby that keeps me afloat #and allowed me to meet so many mutuals over the years #oh and the sweet occassional anons that say hi as well ugh thank you thank you

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cipheramnesia · 3 years

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You're a disgusting being for interacting with the monster that is dead-dyke, I'll stab you both if I ever see in real life, know that

I figured I'd just publish this so anyone who wants to can see how fucked up call out posts are. Actually sending me a death threat because I did more than zero fact checking on a call out that's as fake and full of shit as every call out.

On a related note, in my research travels I found what I can only describe as a call out subculture. In essence, a loosely organized group who seem ferociously committed to making sure every single call out they find gets pushed and maintained. This is pretty interesting because it's a kind of resurgence of purity culture, a policing of language and sex that's done under the guise of being progressive or protective, when the reality of it all is oppression of outsiders.

It's not a huge surprise that they often particularly target marginalized people or anyone who shows support to marginalized people. Or, weirdly, seem to be able to suss out someone being part of a disenfranchised social group. For example, the above threat is also antisemitic. I don't bring up my background much, but sometimes it feels like they just... know.

And in a broader sense, I also see a trend of paranoia about sex or language being treated as something profane. My joking post about my neovagina is a good example, it being tagged NSFW or similar literally hundreds of times. I'm baffled and this seems like a good time to bring it up. It's a humorous post with no content that would rate higher than a pg-13 movie rating other than maybe some curse words. Yet it's out there being tagged like it should be 18 and over.

Which brings me to a strange tentative hypothesis that there's some sort of nebulous connection between these types of purity police and radical feminists, which would suggest they spring from a shared authorian or fascist source. And before you dismiss it as overly generalized, let's look at the facts.

Both of them share a use of progressive language designed to make it appear as if they're providing positive resources. However, they also demand uncritical allegiance. If you find any fault with their reasoning, you become immediately treated as a threat. Consider how radfems treat the concept of masculinity, and look to Judith Butler for how quickly they turned agaisnt someone who critized them - including going so far as to take an essay Butler wrote against pedophilia, and selectively pull quotes making it look like Butler was pro-pedo. Now, guess what every single purity police call out post claims? Yeah. It's designed to try to override any reason, and as you can see above, it works. Someone has decided they'd rather commit a transphobic, antisemitic hate crime over the simplest amount of review.

So they have that going on, a kind of low key recruitment to encourage violence and unthinking obedience as opposed to critical thinking. The other aspect is they are both obsessed with purity. Obsessed with having an unblemished legacy of absolutely unimpeachable, perfect behavior. With authoritarians this generally manifests in being able to show a spotless lineage, showing that you unfailingly support the party and its beliefs at all moments of your life, public or private. In radfems, it manifests in their opposition to kinky sex, sex work, devaluation of any woman who may like a man, etc. And for the call out and purity groups, it manifests as that you cannot ever have misspoken online, had an opinion which deviates from the modern accepted norm, never have done anything wrong in all your online history, because they will follow it back as far as possible, and pull something from ten years ago or more just to proclaim how terrible you are in present. Or to use a different example, I remember reading another callout which claimed the subject had got a bottle of champagne after a big fundraiser for rent or some such. And let me tell you talk about puritanism. Did you know you can get a bottle of champagne for ten bucks? Making it seem like someone is a monster for spending three cups of Starbucks on a small celebration is beyond fucked up, it's disingenuous bullshit.

So, yeah, it seems like a leap, but the devil of this is literally the details. The details which aren't included in a call out, the manipulation of language in a call out, the sneaking in of false accusations disguised as "proved" with sketchy screen shots. The demand of unthinking allegiance. The suspicious focus only on marginalized people.

My dear purity police people, my call out culture fellows, your true colors are showing.

(yes you may reblog this, in fact I encourage it, but as usual please be sensible and don't send the asker anon hate, or anything worse - we don't do that, just block or ignore them)

#transphobia #cw violence #death threats #callout #callout culture #purity police #exclusionists #cw antisemitism #cw transmisogyny

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three--rings · 4 years

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So I read your post “On Callouts, Triggers, and Problematic Content”, and I wanted to say that it resonated with me. I’ve been there, being whole-cloth canceled for being “problematic”, and being accused of personally, morally agreeing with (or straight up doing) the problematic things in my fic, and honestly the harassment that came after (even after I’d apologized) still causes me anxiety even now. I think I’m in the same place now where seeing people get canceled for having morally impure thoughts / creating impure art really bothers me. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciated the post, it really clearly conveyed some of the things I’ve been feeling regarding it.

Yeah, I’m glad that post is one of my most popular. The incident I describe in it was really small, just a small niche blog making fun of a single post I made, but, I felt like it was illustrative of a wider phenomenon.

I have, however, experienced VERY painful condemnation, cancelling, and banning for expressing my opinion. Prior to returning to tumblr for YOI fandom, I spent a lot of time on a fannish website/forum where I was very active, made what I thought were a lot of friends, and generally had a very strong sense of community.

Except one day I replied to a comment thread posted by another active user, in which they expressed that they thought some of the reaction of a particular fandom was overblown in regards to an event on a show. The criticism of the show was on social justice grounds: this plot development is sexist and racist. The people in that thread expressed the feeling that the current brouhaha was an overreaction. The people in the thread were mostly women and included POC, so we were basically saying we didn’t think it was particularly offensive personally.

For saying such, we were all banned from the community with no warning and no opportunity to give explanation or make amends. I literally made one single comment saying I thought some of the arguments about sexism were flawed (I didn’t mention race) and I was banned from a community I’d been an active participant in for years for being sexist and racist.

It’s hard to really convey how much this upset me. I’m disabled, and my internet life is a major-to-only way I have to socialize, so being suddenly cut off from my main daily social outlet was a huge blow. It sent me into a significant depression for at least a month or so.

In retrospect, what I find so infuriating, other than just waking up and finding myself blocked from posting suddenly, is that it was one instance of disagreeing with the perceived “approved” progressive opinion which was immediately punished by ostracization. We were told that by expressing our opinions we were creating a hostile discussion environment. However no one actually tried to discuss it from an alternate viewpoint. In a discussion forum, no one would discuss it, instead private complaints were supposedly made to the admins who banned us without even knowing the fandom we were discussing. Simply disagreeing with a social justice oriented criticism was a sin great enough to be lifetime banned, in the name of safe space. (Nevermind the people being banned were members of the affected groups.)

I have not talked about this incident much here for a lot of reasons. Partly because the memory is still painful, though less so now. Partly because I at least used to have people on here who knew me then. But I don’t want to talk about the specifics of either community or fandom, because then it becomes all about that.

But yes, there’s a reason I remain very skeptical of purity culture and callouts. I hope to always work against racism and sexism and homophobia and exclusionism both online and in RL, but I try not to join bandwagons and pile-ons. Discussion, pointing out offensive mistakes, etc, are to be encouraged. But the answer is not groupthink and creating a more and more rigidly patrolled, constantly shrinking “in-group” of sufficiently pure woke-ness.

And, the long-term effects of my experience, for me, have been a greater reluctance to throw myself into communities or to get too attached to people and places online. I still engage, but with a certain distance. I do my thing in my space, where I am in control.

#asks #replies #purity culture #antis #cancel culture #of course this all plays into the recent discussion of forums #it's very very difficult to both make forums safe for minorities #and also not foster this kind of purity bs #especially when you get into interpersonal issues #and power struggles #which is why like LJ and tumblr are better #where people have their own blogs

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puppy-phum · 3 years

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Fic Writer Interview Meme

thank you for tagging me @hils79 ♥ this is a great way to avoid writing my pingxie wing au which i currently struggle with bc am editing it into a completely new shape :D it’s exhausting but am making slow progress~

name: vish or vishie. won’t even advertise my irl name when it comes to fic writing haha

fandoms: so many more than i’ve ever gotten to write for. i am simply very slow at writing and the stuff i get into is way too many so... yeah. the most i’ve written for are BTS, The Untamed and now DMBJ. the list for fandoms i’d love to write for is endless but currently at least Guardian is very high up there. i keep having ideas but writing? not as much.

two-shot: i wrote this one two-shot back when i was still writing fanfics in finnish for this one youtuber group lol. it was supposed to be a oneshot but it got super sad so i made it happier with a continuation later on.

most popular multi-chapter fic: uuhh i’d say it’s my BTS abo fic My Lungs for You to Breathe which is currently at 98k words and 18 chapters but which i haven’t updated in almost a year :D idk if it will ever get to the end but i have enjoyed spending time with it. (Statistics: Subscriptions: 227 Hits: 11718 Kudos: 461 Comment Threads: 89 Bookmarks: 153)

actual worst part of writing: uuuhhh it’s so hard to name one currently? trying to get things out like i want them to and still sounding coherent? figuring out words that sound good but also make sense? idk. i love writing but these days i’ve been very stuck and insecure about it :/

how you choose your titles: i throw in words. i throw in more words. i stir. ta-da!

do you outline: i have not outlined on paper ever in my life. in my head tho? yes, absolutely. i am just too lazy and awkward to write it down. then i forget. oops. or then i don’t forget and get haunted or possessed, there’s no in between.

ideas you probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice: this one historical au for Guardian which would also include some reincarnation themes. it would require a ton of research so am a bit scared. also, a DMBJ cultivator au just so that i could have pingxie and heihua meet in very different circumstances and have them use cool magic stuff. plus all the other characters having neat stories and skills and outfits. me and @ashenlights are throwing around a ton of ideas probably every day and have a docs file and some pins on pinterest etc :’D i will never probably actually write this bc it would get way too huge but the brainstorming is nice ♥ also i have this one pingxie reincarnation/soulmates au that haunts me currently but idk if i will have the motivation to write that.

and then my personal favorite: a fic for The Journey Across the Night where i get to explore the main trio’s relationship developing throughout the series (and probably even after that) while each of them slowly figures out how much they love the other two. first part would be shi cheng who first watches chacha and li jia having a crush on each other meanwhile he ignores any of his own feelings towards li jia and what he’s doing to distract himself from that. second part would be chacha who notices shi cheng’s feelings for li jia and tries to figure out how she will take that while maintaining her own developing relationship with li jia plus her family problems. last part would be li jia who follows chacha and shi cheng going from friends to something else. he doesn’t understand. he has a lot of other stuff in his mind. there’s his alter making his first appearance. he might or might not be in love with both of his friends but needs a tiny nudge to get it, especially with shi cheng. i lack the skill and words to accomplish any of this so i just like to daydream.

callouts @ me: actually the same as for you hils, that’s a good call out :’D i really should try some female characters once in a while. but they have slowly come a part of my stories at least? another one would be: pls for the love of god learn more vocabulary. and ways to form sentences. and like,,, stop editing those sentences so much, they’re fine.

best writing traits: uuuhhh can i just skip this? these days it’s not easy to find anything positive to say about my own writing or my process with it. i am a mess. some stuff makes sense, a big part does not. maybe emotion but i feel like i cannot manage that either in a way that would satisfy me? persistence works too. i rarely abandon things completely.

spicy tangential opinion: um. yours was very good hils, that made me so happy ^^ i should really try not to pressure myself to be perfect either just for the acknowledgement etc. this is a hobby yes and should be fun. which it is. but i struggle still sigh. idk what else to add really? write whatever you like. write those themes that you want to see. write the characters you want to see written in the way only you feel about them. write that pairing no one else has written. write for the fandom that doesn’t even show up on ao3. write for yourself, truly. write for your tiny group of friends who yell at you and are lovely and as crazy as you ♥ enjoy the process despite it being awful at times. writing is learning but also, don’t only just pressure yourself to improve with every sentence you write. i tend to do that a lot bc am so desperate to be better but i cannot force that into me. i gain experience slowly and learn at my own pace. i need to allow myself that. and sometimes i just need to allow myself to write whatever and have fun with it and not think about how much sense everything makes or if the characterization is 150% perfect. thanks for coming to my ted talk haha

this was so nice :’) it’s sometimes nice to think about myself as a writer and then come up with things that i should take note of more often. i hope to write so much. i have so many ideas. my heart is filled with love for some many things. praying for all the time and inspiration for myself and all of my writer friends ♥

tagging only @i-am-just-a-kiddo if they wish to join me on this one :’) also tagging @kholran who was calling for everyone in their own post! that one was so nice to read too ^^

#tag game #pls do not perceive me #i do not like perceiving myself djhkfdg #thank you for this either way #i hope any of this makes sense

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auncyen · 4 years

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Name: Raaj/Auncyen

Fandoms: I am incredibly focused on one fandom at a time so right now it’s Persona 5, but others I’ve written for: Bravely Default, a tiny bit of Miraculous Ladybug, one Utena fic, and a number of FF7 fics. Shadow Hearts and a few other fandoms if you go digging deep enough and find the ff.net account lol

Most popular oneshot: Sorting by kudos-- Stall and Crash, to which my response is thank you. My one shots are usually “I have an idea, I feel inspired, I’m going to write most of this in one day and toss it out to see who likes it”. Stall and Crash otoh took several months and there was much rewriting. So much rewriting. (Enough so that I eventually posted the concept draft as its own work because they’re just That Different to me.)

Most popular multichapter: again sorting by kudos, When The Cat Dragged In The Trickster. ...This is both ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry I manage to stump myself on this so often’.

Fics Nervous to post: if my brain cooperates long enough to write a story to my satisfaction I am inflicting it on everyone else

but I guess I have been nervous with posting Cat & Trickster which, at least initially, was partially due to how the fandom can be about the Ryuji & Morgana fight.

Coming Soon:

NEXT CAT & TRICKSTER chapter which I hope will completely kill the nervousness by getting to next part of story

though I increasingly question the very premise I still want to complete “two assholes and a murder” fic. The assholes are Morgana and Akechi.

a royal fic I can’t fully explain without huge spoilers but to keep it simple: Kasumi, how Shujin would really react to her and how that affects the rumor mill, and Ren’s friendship with her.

Favorite things to write: @cateringisalie I’m stealing your answer: alternate universes, what-ifs, and missing scenes are all very fun to write.

Actual worst part of writing: “I swear I knew how I was getting to the next point before....but now I don’t remember and can’t figure it out”.

How you choose your titles: Most of them are figured out at time of posting. I would not say they are particularly inspired, though a couple I like anyway.

Do you outline: ..........nnnnnot really. There was one time early on in my fic-writing that I DID outline an entire fic over the course of about 3 pages--not as meticulous as some people can get, but PRETTY nitty-gritty for me.

I then lost all motivation to actually write it, because I already knew what would happen.

But I will mention with Cat & Trickster’s last chapter I did do a rough outline of scenes and I’ll probably start doing that more often when I get stumped--try to break down what needs to happen to progress and write that down so I work on those smaller parts.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?

Royal version of “Cat & Trickster” still seems vaguely interesting, but what I originally thought of wouldn’t work. It kind of completely changed how events panned out based on certain factors from Royal and an overhaul like that is too much work if I can’t do exactly what I want. And I do think a Royal framework would completely change things, so yeah.

Slapping Vanilla’s “good deal” ending up against Royal elements for fun and devastating fallout

I swear there are other things I can’t think of right now

Callouts @ Me: so much repetitive word usaaaaage

Spicy Tangential Opinion: I love spitefic. When you can be annoyed and get that out by arguing a point in fic form and then people actually like it as a fic it’s like, oh. no more annoyance. now I’m happy.

tagging: @chidorinnnnn, @darrelodin, @0ssianic? I’m a little tired rn so I’m not sure who’s done it and who’s not

#writing #meme

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rivercamerasure · 3 years

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Call Out for erasure poems

On the 21st June citizens will be holding a ceremony to declare the rights of the River Cam. I’m poet and activist Alice Willitts, inviting you to write erasure poems to mark the occasion. Erasures because this poetic form symbolically reflects the erasure of the precious chalk stream habitat the city’s water is drawn from. Erasure because by taking words away, we regenerate corporate text into language that is alive with meaning. The text we will be erasing is the foreword to the Anglian Water’s Pollution Incident Reduction Plan 2020-2025 (text is below).

If you’re new to erasures, a good guide to writing erasure poetry can be found here: https://ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/workshop/erasure-poems-a-challenge-with-karen-mccarthy-woolf-and-julia-bird/

This is a collective act, working together on the same text, to reveal the many voices that care about the River Cam, about water quality and about putting nature on an equal footing with commerce when providing water to citizens. My intention is to collate our erasure poems and in the first instance send them to the Environment Agency and Anglian Water. It may be appropriate to read some of the erasures at the ceremony on the 21st so please indicate in your submission if that’s something you’d like to do yourself, or have your poem read out. In large part, what I can do with the poems will depend on what you all send in but I’ll keep you informed as it develops.

Submissions until noon on 15th June 2021 to Alice Willitts [email protected]

All medias and formatting accepted: word, pages, PDF, RTF, plain text. Please send photographs of original artwork as jpegs.

If you have any questions on the erasure callout contact poet Alice Willitts [email protected]

Please use this text for erasure:

As a monopoly provider of water and water recycling services to almost seven million people across the east of England and Hartlepool, we have a clear-cut duty to safeguard – and indeed to enhance – our environment. One of the most important contributions we can make is to ensure that our activity does not contribute to environmental pollution. In words borrowed from the medical profession: first do no harm. Caring for our environment is so fundamental to the way we operate at Anglian Water that we have built our commitment into the fabric of the company, in 2019 becoming the first major utility to change our Articles of Association to enshrine public interest for the long term. So I want to be clear from the outset that we regard any pollution incident taking place in our region as one too many, and we are wholeheartedly committed to reaching zero pollutions. Customer expectations in this area are rightly high and we must rise to meet them. Yet we acknowledge that elimination of all pollutions cannot be achieved overnight. First, we must address the challenges we face, which are recognised in our 25-year Strategic Direction Statement, and factored into our long-term plans for Anglian Water. Paramount among these are climate change and population growth, which both have an influence on pollution incidents. Our region is one of the fastest growing in the country, with rapid development leading to greater demand, and more water than ever passing through our recycling centres. The extremes of rainfall we are seeing as a result of climate change can cause huge and unpredictable volumes of excess water to enter our systems, while droughts can also impact water quality as waterbodies, and the biodiversity they support, become more sensitive when levels drop. The landscape of our region has a part to play too – low-lying, largely rural, and with slow-flowing rivers, meaning that any pollution that does occur can be slow to clear. However, we recognise that external challenges are not the only causes of pollution in our region, and our plan addresses the role our people, our customers and of course our infrastructure assets can play in putting a stop to pollutions. Preventing pollution, and tackling it where it occurs, forms part of the daily dialogue at operational meetings at all levels. When incidents do occur, root cause analysis takes place to ensure we learn the lessons from what has happened; I personally oversee the findings from all investigations into every single serious pollution. For the first time, this plan sets out tangible and achievable steps to help us towards our goal of eradicating pollution incidents from our region, and gives us the tools we need to measure and track our progress. It’s also a document designed to be shared with our customers and other interested parties, to show that we are being transparent both about the issues, and about what we are doing to address them. It sets out how we will tackle pollutions via a nine-step model which includes a range of measures, from innovative early warning processes and preventative measures, through to customer education programmes and training for colleagues. We are committed to sharing what we learn through carrying out the plan with our fellow water companies in a spirit of openness and transparency and, in return, to learning from examples of best practice elsewhere. By working together we can drive real progress, protecting and enhancing our environment for current and future generations to enjoy.

If you’d prefer to work from the original source, here’s the reference.

https://www.anglianwater.co.uk/contentassets/0e50eef7ef2a4630b31220d3351193d7/pollution-incident-reduction-plan-2020-2025.pdf

I have been told that The Universal Declaration of Rights and the reasons for this acton will be posted on https://www.friendsofthecam.org in the next few days.

#poetry #cambridge #riverrights #protestpoetry #ecocide #climate crisis

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martelldoran · 4 years

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For the fanfic writers ask game, 4, 13 and 24 ❤️

Hello friend! Thanks for stopping in and indulging me. 💖

4. Do you write original stories as well?

Now here’s a question. I do. Sort of. See part of the reason I’ve been so focused on fanfic is that I completely stalled on the original stuff I started to write. I got so stuck on the plot and also realised because it was going to be a historical piece I’d need to do a butt tonne of research. So I currently have all these characters living rent free in my mind because I don’t know what to do with them. That’s just one of the originals left languishing. Stop by again and ask me about ‘Lumen’ and I’ll tell you all about that particular original work.

13. What is your planning process?

God, i don’t really have one. I write on a wing and a prayer. Which is probably why I end up with terrible plot ache that I can’t get past. Okay, so I try to plan. I really do. For one particular fic, I have a huge document already filled with research and plot points and something of a timeline. But more often than not, i start writing and I’ll have a few scenes really clear in my head and it’s a case of writing to get to that point. I call them coat hook scenes.

I’m trying to get better with planning though. I’ve been doing more bullet-point lists of ideas and brainstorming.

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

Yikes. Is this a callout for myself?? Let’s see, I’m actively writing the food fic I posted a snippet of last week and the fake dating fic which I haven’t touched in while and need to get back to. But then I have a few that are more in the ‘planning’/idea stages which would mostly be the Becca Barnes POV war/pre-war fic I’m dying to write but again, I need to work out the plot. So I’ll say 3. I would count the Budapest fic but I’ve not really done anything with that other than write like one page of notes.

Thanks again anon! Hope you’re having a lovely day wherever you are in the world!

fanfic asks anyone?

#ask games #anonymous #i've got mail #Anonymous

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imadethisblogfor1post · 4 years

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What is gender? Please send help

Content warning: ignorance about transgender issues, discussion of sexism, well-meaning-ally-who-doesn’t-quite-get-it-ism. Callouts welcome and encouraged.

I want to start by saying that despite my profound lack of understanding about what gender is, I don’t want to invalidate anyone. I want so badly to be a supportive ally to trans and nonbinary folks, and at first I did a lot of reading to try to understand, but no matter how much I read, I stayed confused. So eventually, I gave up. After all, I don’t have to have a deep understanding of an identity to know that people are deserving of respect. If calling someone a particular name or using a particular set of pronouns will help them know that I love and respect them, then of course, of course, I will do that. Nothing I am about to say changes that.

The only problem is, not understanding makes it really hard to call out bigotry, because I don’t always see it. This post was triggered by a recent transphobic tweetstorm by JK Rowling, and I think I get why most of those were bad, but with some I’m still more sympathetic than I’m comfortable with. This continues a trend I’ve seen for a while: some of the most helpful pieces of reading material have been posts from radical feminists that I found myself nodding along to, only to find that the point of the post my friend was sharing was the attached comment and call-out. These served as huge wake-up calls, but it still wasn’t enough to explain to me what I wasn’t getting. More than that, even after the call outs, even after knowing that some of the points of the original post were transphobic, I sometimes can’t help feeling that some part of it rang true. Therefore, my problems as an ally come in two parts. One, I deeply lack the understanding to call out bigotry in others and myself, and two, there are some real conflicts between the feminism I subscribe to and certain aspects of trans ideology (ideology is not a good word to use here, but I’m at a loss for what else to call it)(sorry).

I’ll start with the second— it’s the worse one anyhow. The crux of the problem is this: there are distinct consequences to being assigned female at birth. We are treated differently, we are socialized differently, and no matter how progressive your parents are, it’s impossible to completely escape. Put simply, cis women and trans women do not experience 100% the same types of oppression. This is not to say either experiences more or less pain, this is not to say either is more or less deserving of support, this is not to say that we as feminists should not strive to be intersectional (we should). All I am saying is that inclusion cannot come at the expense of erasing or silencing the experiences of people who were assigned female at birth.

I have a few specific concerns on this matter - these are the points that make me sympathetic to radical feminism (even when I see them called terfs, as ashamed as I am to admit it).

One, we need to be allowed to use words about female anatomy without being called terfs. It’s not okay to exclude people and imply that all women have uteri and all people with uteri are women, but it needs to be okay to talk about uteri.This one comes up less often, but when it does come up I find myself extremely indignant. I am sincerely sorry that talking about anatomy triggers dysphoria, but in a world where female anatomy is treated as inherently explicit, and people have been silenced in legislative settings simply for using those anatomical terms, we can’t afford to be silenced within our own communities.

Two, it’s not okay to shout people down for how they experience attraction. I really shouldn’t have to say this, but too often I’ve seen lesbians pressured or called transphobic for not being interested in being with someone with a penis. It’s not uncommon for lesbians to experience compulsory attraction to men before recognizing their sexuality. That, combined with the prevalence of sexual violence against women and people who are assigned female at birth, makes me extremely skeptical of anyone whose response to rejection is to attempt to shame them into changing their mind. Again, I’m sorry, and it sucks that it causes dysphoria, but no one is entitled to anyone else’s attraction. It is not okay to pressure anyone else into a relationship or sex, regardless of the circumstances. I myself am gray-ace and panromantic - suffice to say I don’t really get how being attracted to genitals works, but if that’s how it works for them, then that’s how it works for them. If we need different words for “hi I’m attracted to the gender of woman” and “hi I’m attracted to female anatomy” then so be it, but honestly people probably shouldn’t have to disclose that much information right out the gates, and both should be allowed to call themselves lesbians. There’s a balance to be struck here, but I’m sick of seeing lesbians alienated for this, and it needs to be addressed.

Three, there need to be spaces for people who were assigned female at birth, without people who were assigned male at birth (unless they are invited as a guest). As mentioned above, sexual and gender based violence against AFAB people is incredibly common. A lot of us have trauma around it. We need spaces where we can talk about those experiences without being shouted down, the same way trans people need spaces to talk about their experiences. This is a bit of a slippery slope - obviously there need to be intersectional spaces as well, and it’s not okay to exclude people, as long as everyone is being respectful. But it’s important to make space for all of us, and understand that our experiences are not uniformly the same.

I’m not sure why this has been such an issue. Some part of me that I hate to acknowledge suggests that part of the problem is that people who are assigned male at birth tend to be more entitled than people who are assigned female at birth, simply because that’s how they were taught and socialized when they were younger, but that brings up a whole slew of other issues, and I’d hate to paint with too broad a brush. Perhaps it’s just that the fight for inclusion needs to be fierce and thorough, and any space where one isn’t included is treated as an attack, even if that isn’t the intent. No matter the reason, we need to understand that we are not all the same, and that’s not a bad thing.

In a roundabout way, this brings me to my other barrier to being a good ally: I just don’t *get* gender. It’s not that I haven’t tried. As I mentioned early on in this post, when I first realized how much I didn’t understand about gender I did so much reading. I watched videos. I listened to podcasts. I went to a workshop (though truth be told the workshop did more harm than good). And what I got is this: it sounds like there’s a common experience, some strong internal certainty that composes gender identity, that says “I am a woman”, or “I am a man”, or “I am neither”, as the case may be. I have never felt this certainty. There is no emotion that tells me I am a woman, there is no internal compass, there is no sense of “no, that’s not right” when I imagine myself as a man, except a sense of unfamiliarity with the idea. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a woman because that’s what I’ve always been, and that’s how I’ve always been treated. It would be odd to use he/him pronouns for me because no one’s ever done that, and it would cause confusion, but that’s about the end of my issue with it.

This is, of course, directly in conflict with much of the narrative around gender these days. There must be something I’m missing, but I can never seem to pin down what gender actually *is* and every analogy and metaphor seems to confuse me even more.

Gender must not be biological sex, because trans people exist. Nonbinary people exist. Both are valid, and for all that I’m not a very good ally, I know that much.

Gender must not be personality traits, because, that’s personality. There are people on all areas of the gender spectrum with all types of personality traits. Don’t tell me that women can’t be brash, that men can’t be sweet.They are.

Gender must not be how you dress, because hey, we should all be able to dress however we want! How you dress doesn’t change your identity. (This part is gender expression though I think, if I’ve followed the articles correctly) Butch women exist, feminine men exist, androgynous people exist, all are valid.

Gender must not be gender roles, because honestly, fuck that. Gender roles are a tool of patriarchal oppression, and I’m not about to sit here and that be all there is to gender identity. If it helps you feel more at home in your skin then more power to ya, but that can’t be all there is.

So then, what is it? What is left? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I have genuinely tried to find answers to this and I have never been more lost. When I went to the trans allyship workshop mentioned above, I was told by the others at my table that to them being a woman was being nurturing, valuing family, being empathetic, being a caretaker. I was so relieved that we ran out of time before it was my turn. I don’t know what being a woman is to me, it’s just what I’ve always been. The only thing it has ever meant was shame about my body, shame about my period, enduring r*pe jokes and kitchen jokes from my guy friends, always having to be the one to “seduce the guard” when we played d&d, and other, darker things I don’t want to mention. It’s only ever been painful, and fearful, and ashamed. On the one hand, it means I’m inclined to believe trans women when they say that gender isn’t a choice— after all, who would choose this? But on the other, I know there must be more to this, something that I’m missing because my identity is too deeply rooted in oppression. I am ripping those roots out one by one, but they go deep, and I’m scared that without them I won’t have any point of reference left.

I want to understand gender, but even if I never do, I will always respect the identity and pronouns that people claim as their own. It is never my intent to dehumanize, or exclude. I want to be able to call out bigotry, I want to be able to stand up for my trans and nonbinary friends, I want to be sure that I don’t say something to them that causes them harm.

But at its core: I don’t get it. What is gender? What makes a gender what it is?

Again, this is non-rhetorical. If you have the time and energy, I welcome any information, any resources, any anecdotes, anything at all to help me understand. I’ve looked, hard, but I won’t pretend to have read anywhere near the full lexicon of literature on this subject. If I’ve said something that upset or angered you, please don’t hesitate to call me out. Yell at me, if that’s what this post inspires, and I’ll do my best to learn from it, or at the very least maybe it will serve as a wake-up call for someone else. Or, if you agree, I’d be grateful to know that too. It can get pretty lonely feeling like there’s some manual to gender that everyone else has that somehow I never got.

TL;DR: What is gender? I want to learn but I’m hella lost and struggling to be both a trans ally and a radical feminist, and I was so afraid of offending anyone that I literally made a blog just for this post, which is silly because I don’t even really use my main blog. I just know that if you’re looking for callouts, this is where you go.

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rawliverandcigarettes · 6 years

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Hey!

I’m in Sweden now! Given my old job is done with (!!!!) and I’m finally ready to start my new life, everything will be way quieter in my personal life and I will be able to get back to a Mass Effectish online presence.

A few things:

1) I haven’t participated a lot in Pillowfort (or at all, just been lurking from the distance), and it kinda feels empty a bit? I would be interested in your experience if you are in a more active corner.

2) I haven’t reached my 2018 goals for Halfway Home at all. Like it’s a disaster. I haven’t even finished the final outline. But I’ve been making huge progress lately, so I have good hopes. My 2019 goal is to finish Halfway Home. I don’t know if I will start posting it in 2019, even though I will try, but draft 2 needs to be good to go by 2019. Given how much I’ve been cutting from the old outline (it’s some horrifying butchery, but I’ve uncluttered a lot of stuff), the drafting process should not be super long, so if I am serious with it, it should go smoothly-kind-of. At least I hope it will.

Beware: below is a brutally honest me regarding my platform and what to do with it, and also Halfway Home and Mass Effect and Discourse (TM).

3) I’ve been really thinking about this platform and how I’m not really sure how I feel about the one I currently have. I’m not sure I marketed Halfway Home well enough, out of, well, fear. To be completely honest, I think I tamed the picture a little bit in hope of fitting better in the community, and the more time goes by, the more apprehensive I am of potential pointless discourse around the things I will eventually put out there. And to be fair, I don’t feel like dealing with most of it, especially in the way some of tumblr’s moral discourse is handled. My secret hope is that 99,999% of the fandom won’t read it, so I won’t get shit. I’m at the point where I want to post it in near-secrecy because I’m so tired in advance of the Discourse Potential this story have (I do think it will go under the radar and not enough people will read it long enough to be bothered really, but I’ve been thinking about that a lot still).

I mean; I haven’t hidden anything, the bad stuff is all listed below my fic presentation entry right there (https://rawliverandcigarettes.tumblr.com/post/173667899969/well-well-ive-been-pestering-you-with-this-for). But I have still hidden a lot, and the disagreement I had with another user in 2018 kind of made me fully realize people can be really protective of the game as it is. It’s an authorial intent VS death of the author kind of thing, and also, at the heart of it all, a disagreement of how much canonical intent matters or needs to shape the player’s views. And Halfway Home is a critical piece of fiction. It just is. A lot is put under scrutiny (I’m talking turian culture, I’m talking military, I’m talking economy, basically nobody is safe (not even Mordin)), and I’ve taken liberties with one particular character that I know would absolutely enrage some people in here, which made me extremely nervous for the longest time (still does). I don’t want to enrage anyone. My goal is not to push some dark and cynical agenda down people’s throat; I do not even, myself, play Mass Effect with this vision in mind 100% of the time, I just make both coexist in my head -the cheery/cheesy epic dramatic scifi game, and the darker social commentary using said game to talk about politics and powerplay and flawed people and stuff. So yeah. Halfway Home is my take on what this game inspires me, how I feel about the way it handles things, but that’s more of an adaptation than a literal callout (ugh, please no). I’m not out there to ruin your day or your relationship with the game, and it would be pretty stupid of me to do so (I really despise the “if you like x you are trash” hot takes in here, they’re dumb, you don’t know every person and why they like controversial things, go uplift stuff you like instead of tearing people down). I don’t exactly want to dismiss my hard work either; it’s taking me a damn lot of time and reflexion to create this piece, and I still made as sure as possible it remains consistent with canon (canon = games in this specific case, I don’t like most of the comics and books I tried from the OT, they focus on military and people with weapons too much for my taste and it bores me). It’s a proposal of a different vision, of a new point of view which does not invalidate anything else because stuff can coexist; that’s what fandom is all about, and it’s absolutely great.

So yeah. I don’t know. Related to the porn ban and stuff, I’m kind of considering opening a blog somewhere, in a less social platform, and post my uncensored thought process and more of the stuff you just read in there, where it can’t make people feel bad.

(as in: I don’t think it’s bad that you feel bad by reading some stuff or point of view, but I also want to feel good. That’s the complicated process of social shared space. I’m not sure how to handle the boundaries, thus my thoughts about leaving).

I don’t know. I’m just rambling at this point. If you’ve read that, what are your thoughts? Do you think those thoughts are an overreaction, or did you have such thoughts in the past as well?

#personal #halfway home #I just don't know #even posting these thoughts kind of makes me nervous #maybe I'm making this fandom into A Thing that it's not #it's a lot of Small Things actually #I think #but yeah #I'm not entirely sure these impressions come from nowhere either #sorry about the slight sour tone

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royal-mortician · 6 years

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Story Time once I was a wee lass and super into the RPG maker community and very interested in every new project coming out. Back then the amount of actually genuinely finished RPG maker games was probably in the double digits at most, and a huge majority of them weren’t commercial products.

There was however one game that was intensely marketed and hyped, and it was a “real” game that was going to cost money, and it had some nice looking graphics and all. Pretty much everyone was on the edge of their seat and once it was released I bought it immediately. It was supposed to be open world, some 40 hours long, with a sweepingly epic plot and like a billion characters.

Only it was a bit strange all in all, because the game was not only extremely slow paced and very grindy but also full of bugs, crashed suspiciously often, and had even weirder things like essential npcs or passages blocked off by geometry, clearly unsolvable puzzles, unbeatable enemies leading to abrupt game overs, and so on.

Now, mind that back in the day RPG maker games weren’t pathetically easy to unpack/decompile into working, editable projects - it was a brand new version of RPG maker with brand new encryption and, as far as the general public knew, completely inscrutable. Some people were able to make incremental progress in the game by getting around impassable obstacles and unbeatable enemies by using hex editors, or cheat engine - that’s how hardcore dedicated people were, because it was SO. HYPED.

I was even more highly determined though and with the help of my partner, who deep dived into some japanese-language forums and figured out how to work the one functioning decryption tool, we finally cracked the game open. We had it as an editable RPG maker project laid bare, with access to all of its maps, scripts, everything.

Here’s what we found: the game-breaking bugs, numerous “mistakes” throughout and the unsolvable puzzles? Were no accident at all. They were there to mask the fact that the game ended abruptly about an hour into it, with nothing close to a plot resolution and not even close to the full advertised party of characters.

Since I’d been VERY diligently cataloguing all the bugs and glitches and crashes on the game’s forum, super excited to help, I obviously felt more than a little bit cheated when it turned out there was basically no game. So I went public with all the receipts immediately, posted screenshots that clearly showed that there was no more game at all after a particular unsolvable puzzle. I think my thread was called something like “[Bug Report] After the cave, there is no more game”

The dev, who’s been seemingly helpful and “working hard on fixing the bugs” up until that point, went silent for a few days. Then they claimed that they mistakenly uploaded an older, unfinished version of the game. The community was obviously in an uproar at that point. Finally, after “attempting” to upload that entirely fictional finished version for something like two weeks, and things mysteriously going wrong all the time, they owned up to the fact that yes, this was all they had, they wanted the money (the game was something like $30) for a school trip ASAP and were basically planning to string their fans along - by pretending the unsolvable puzzles and unbeatable bosses were just very hard, and no one found a way past them yet - for as long as it took them to finish the other 90% of the project.

In the end I got my refund and became very suspicious of any indie games that lock their obviously paltry content behind irrationally long grinds (looking at you graveyard keeper).

Since this is not a callout, I’m not putting the name of the game here - it was eventually finished, several years later. Its own website - and especially the forums - have been carefully scrubbed from existence. It’s available on steam for $10, with mixed reviews - a lot of them pointing out that the game is extremely tedious, boring and slow, and that a huge majority of the advertised 40 hours comes from the unreasonable amounts of grinding required to progress. It also seems that a lot of its pretty graphics were traced or outright ripped from older, more obscure games.

#game dev #indie dev #rpg maker #rpgmaker #long post #if you want to know what game this is feel free to message me privately

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djinn-and-djuice · 7 years

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(Travis said that Fjord used to be a sailor, and he has the sailor background, and. Well. There was the whole thing with his falchion. I am a huge maritime history/sailing nerd, so this felt like an extremely personal callout, and here we are. This is all wild speculation, and likely to be disproved, and god damn it was fun to write. Much love and credit to @cobaltpilot for being my cheering section! also on ao3)

[no spoilers, but draws on details from campaign 2 episode 3, “The Midnight Chase”]

the call of the running tide

~*~

This is how it starts.

Two men walk into a bar. One of them is more well-dressed than the other, but neither of them are by any means ‘fancy.’ Fancy folk come from the capital, and they don’t waste their time in a dockside sailor’s dive. From his perch in the corner, Fjord watches them scan the crowd with half an eye.

His interest is piqued when Fjord sees one of them point to him and ask his companion something, he already knows what’s being said. Port Damali isn’t so big that one can be ignorant of their reputation.

The rundown is likely very brief. His name is Fjord, he’s a half-orc who likes a bit of whiskey and a bit of dice. He’s spent five years before the mast, but he could be a bosun or a navigator if he got the chance. Maybe even a captain, if that kind of money weren’t so damn hard to come by. He’s a steady hand and a reliable one too, he’ll work for whoever pays fairly, and that’s all that anyone knows about him. To be fair, that’s all they need to know, and this isn’t a town where people ask a whole lot of unnecessary questions.

“I hear you’re a good sailor,” the man says by way of introduction. “May I sit?”

His momma didn’t raise him to be rude, so he nods. “I’m Shane Corrigan, first mate on the Sylph,” he goes on, setting down across from Fjord. “We’re making a voyage to Marquet in a fortnight, and we’re looking for crew.”

The rest of his spiel is boilerplate, all stuff Fjord’s heard a dozen times before. They’re shipping goods; timber and furs and stuff that Fjord can’t imagine has much appeal in the desert, but somehow sells anyway. The pay is good, better than he was expecting, likely because the trip’ll be so damn long.

In the end, that’s not why he holds his hand out to Shane and says “you got yourself a deal.” He can feel the sea calling in his veins, and the thought of four month’s voyage is a good one.

~~~

Fjord’s love of the sea is a long one, begun when he was a child. The tide called to him, and as soon as he was old enough to sail his own skiff he would spend countless hours cruising around. He learned how to read the stars and the wind, how to set course and canvas and one’s feet in a gale.

So when the Sylph sets out from Port Damali on a bright morning, Fjord hangs a little longer in the shrouds to look out at the dark water and breathe.

The crew quickly settles into rhythm and the first two weeks pass by without much interest. There are a couple greenhorns on the crew, and they take a little while to find their feet, and Fjord spends much of his free time helping them.

Halfway to Marquet, Captain Moore switches up the watch rotations and Fjord is tasked with going belowdecks and making sure everything is fine with the cargo. It’s a necessary job, if tedious, mostly involving killing any rats that made it aboard and making sure nothing’s been disturbed. No one’s reported anything so far, so when he notices a bear pelt that’s been dragged out of one of the crates and set high up, it gives him more than a little pause. He doesn’t make a sound, climbs up quickly and quietly as anything, and pulls the knife out of his boot.

Curled up on the pelt asleep is a young woman with dark skin and fire-red hair. Well. A stowaway isn’t what he was expecting, but it’s not the worst thing he could have found. He shoves the knife back in its sheath and shakes her awake.

“I don’t recognize you from the crew roster,” he quips.

Bright gold eyes flicker open, and focus on him. In an instant she is up and pressed against the hull, eyes darting around. There’s nowhere to run on a ship, and she seems keenly aware of that.

“What’s your name?”

“Sallah,” she replies, still tense.

“My name’s Fjord. I’m not gonna hurt you, Sallah,” he says, “but you understand we’re not too keen on stowaways here.”

“Please don’t turn me in,” she begs. “I can’t go back to Wildemount, I have to get out of there.”

Before he can even ask why, she’s launching into a hurried, frightened explanation that he honestly has a hard time following. It’s a long, somewhat rambling tale of misunderstandings and scapegoating and the gist of it, as far as Fjord understands, is that Sallah was in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a town of people who were all too willing to shove blame on an outsider.

Anywhere else Fjord would consider it a sob story used to con someone out of a favor or some coin. But he can see the fear in her eyes, and he knows that people don’t become stowaways on a lark. And hells, he knows as well as anyone that he’s got a soft spot as wide as the Wuyun Gorge. So he holds out a placating hand, even as the other is rubbing at his temple.

“Alright, alright, you can stay. The rest of the crew might not be so understanding, and if you get caught I don’t know you. But I won’t turn you in.”

“Thank you Fjord, thank you so much. You won’t even know I’m here.”

~~~

The next few days, Sallah is as good as her word. If he hadn’t seen her himself, Fjord wouldn’t have believed there were any extra souls on board at all. The pelt she had been napping on got stowed away, and he hasn’t seen it out of its crate since they met. Still, he takes some of the hardtack from his meal and saves it, bringing it down to the hold when he does a patrol.

“Sallah?” He calls quietly. “It’s Fjord. I brought you some food.”

A tiny mouse skitters up on top of a box in front of Fjord, and in an instant, shifts into Sallah. He’s so taken aback that he completely forgets about what he was doing in favor of staring blankly at her. He’s heard of shapeshifters, obviously, mages that can change their appearance at will, but there is a wide gulf between the experience of hearing about it and seeing it firsthand.

“That’s how I’ve been staying hidden,” she smiles, hopping off the box to stand in front of him.

“That’s damn impressive,” he replies, handing the chunks of tough biscuit over. “How do you do that?”

“I learned when I was little,” she explains. “My people are very inclined to magic, natural magic especially.” With a flourish of her fingers, a small flame dances in her hand.

“My family didn’t have a whole lot of formal traditions, but I was taught how to focus energy and make it do what I want. I taught myself pretty much everything else.” She shrugs, extinguishes the flame, and digs into the hardtack.

“Can you teach me?” He doesn’t know what drives him to ask. Magic has never been a prominent part of his life-never more than bits of bone scrimshawed with runes and shells hung to ask the Wildmother’s favor for a safe voyage-but he has always been fascinated by the idea of it. To see someone command such power with so much ease is compelling.

“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to teach you in a week and a half, but I’ll try.”

He goes about his patrol while she finishes eating. When he comes back, she’s sitting with her chin on her hand in thought.

“Can I ask a favor?” She asks after a long moment.

“Sure,” he shrugs.

“Would you help me get up top? I’ll make myself small, into a mouse or something, something you can carry. I’ve been belowdecks this whole voyage and some fresh air would be nice.”

“’Course I can,” he says, standing up and holding his hand out. A blink, and she turns into a tiny grey mouse and skitters up his arm.

The sun is almost set when they come up top, and Fjord takes a moment to enjoy the scene. The setting sun paints the deck orange and red, and with the ocean lit up as well it’s one of the most beautiful things Fjord has ever seen. The two moons are barely visible on the eastern horizon, slivers of bone in a lavender sky.

There is a sudden flash of light, and the whole crew looks up to see a bright flash of light at the end of each mast and spar, burning blue-white flames that are gone as soon as they come.

Fjord had seen them once before, on a voyage to Tal’Dorei, one of his first long-distance journeys. One of the older hands called it “The Wildmother’s Beacon”, but he’s heard it referred to by any number of names since then. It’s all anyone can talk about as the crew gets the ship ready for the night shift, so no one notices the companion tucked under the collar of his coat.

~~~

“It’s not hard, you just have to learn to listen.”

Sallah coaches him for an hour or so every day when Fjord comes down to the hold, and this has been a common theme. Listening to the natural world around him, the ebb and flow of the tide, the push of the breeze, he needs to listen to everything. And he tries, he really does, but by the time they make port in Marquet, Fjord feels like he’s made no progress whatsoever.

“I just feel like I oughta be better than this.”

“It’s only been a week,” Sallah rolls her eyes. “And we barely have an hour a day to work. I’ve been practicing magic since I was little more than a babe.”

“Sometimes books help,” she goes on, more gently, “If you can get to the Dwendalian Empire, I’ve heard that Zadash has some great libraries, and if you can’t find something there then you’ll definitely find it in Rexxentrum. There are a lot of different paths to magic, and if one doesn’t work you shouldn’t be afraid to try another.”

~~~

The Bay of Gifts is chaotic and colorful and decadent, and as much as Fjord wants to enjoy it he won’t be able to until he’s sure that Sallah has made it off the boat without incident. He drinks a couple rounds in the tavern with some other members of the crew before taking a meandering walk down the lamplit streets.

He hears rapid footsteps coming up behind him, and turns to see Sallah running up to him.

“Fjord!” She calls. “I’m glad I found you, I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

“I’m glad too. Any idea what you’re going to do?”

She shrugs, smiling. “None whatsoever. But I’ll figure something out. I’ve always had a knack with growing things, maybe that’s where I’ll start.”

“You’ll do just fine.”

“That’s very kind of you, my friend.” She hugs him, and Fjord can feel the slight shake in her shoulders as he hugs her back.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

The moment passes, and she steps back. “I’ll stay here for a while, but if this doesn’t work out I’ll go to Ank’Harel. Don’t be a stranger,” she says, and walks off into the warm night.

~~~

The voyage back begins much like the trip there. Clear skies and fair winds, and given how much lighter the ship is that means they make very good time.

On the fifth day, the lookout spots a storm building behind them, and it quickly becomes apparent that they’re not going to be able to outrun it. Captain Moore hollers for all hands to take in sail and two dozen of them are in the shrouds, climbing as quickly as they dare, scuttling across beams and hauling canvas hand over hand.

Back on the deck, the only thing left to do is heave to, tie down, and hope. The sky blackens, lightning forks, and Fjord mutters words of comfort to the young hands as they move belowdecks.

“This ain’t my first storm,” he says, with more confidence in his voice than he really feels. “Keep your head and you’ll be fine.”

The rain beats down on the deck, trickling through the battens and down into the bilge. The flashes of lightning get brighter and brighter, the crashes of thunder grow deafening. The ship lists from starboard to port and then hard to starboard again, and the only warning they get that something has gone terribly wrong is the hull creaking loudly before the sound of splintering wood comes from above on the deck.

Fjord goes up top just in time to watch the main-mast, struck by lightning, come crashing down across the deck in a mess of wood and metal. Captain Moore was at the helm when the storm began, but Fjord has no idea if he’s still there. Or still alive.

The ship begins to tilt under the unbalanced weight, and there’s precious little time before she’s on her beam ends and capsizes. Fjord yells for the rest of the crew and they leap into action, moving everything they can to the other side of the ship to buy themselves a bit of time to get rid of the broken mast.

It’s no use, though, because before they can finish the deck is pitched at such a steep angle no one can stand anymore, and Fjord is in the water. Lashed by the rain and the wind, he struggles to stay above the surface. One piece of the mast is still floating, and he swims over to cling to it. It’s all he can do to hold on as massive waves pitch and roll him.

Finally, the storm moves on, revealing the night sky. Fjord looks around, but he can’t see the rest of the crew anywhere, and the gods only know where he’s been blown. He recognizes the stars, and which way he’s probably heading, but that’s all meaningless if he can’t figure out where he is.

It would still be meaningless even if he knew where he was, since he has no way to get home.

Exhausted, he closes his eyes. The waves lap around him, and now that the winds have calmed it’s the only thing he can hear. Remembering Sallah’s words he listens, hoping that if these are his last moments, he at least hears something. But nothing comes. The last ounce of strength in his arms slowly fades, and he loses grip on the mast, sinking beneath the waves.

“Is that it? Are you giving up?”

It’s little more than a whisper, sourceless in the dark. Fjord almost thinks he imagines it, until it keeps going.

“All those storms you’ve weathered and you just give up? You’re stronger than that. Open your eyes.”

Somehow, he finds the will to creak his eyes open. He sees a glow in the water, a faint shimmer of phosphoresence that draws his attention. He’s seen glow like that before, in much warmer waters. He pulls the strength from somewhere within him and twists around towards it.

“There it is. You could bring the tides themselves to heel with that will.”

There’s no way to tell which way is up, but he swims toward the light. His limbs carve long, slow strokes through the black brine, and his lungs begin to burn.

“If only you had the power to match it.”

His face breaks the surface of the water and he gasps.

“I can help you with that.”

“Fuckin’ prove it.” Fjord replies because hell, what has he got to lose?

He hears a distant, whispery laugh, and darkness takes him.

~~~

He dreams about a forge. The steady, ringing beat of a hammer against hot metal. He dreams of black sails and smoke. He dreams of blue-white fire and the beasts that sleep beneath the waves. He dreams of a blade.

He wakes up.

That’s the first surprising thing. The second, and rather more surprising thing, is that he wakes up on a beach. His clothes are tattered but still keep most of the chill away, so once he picks the kelp off he slowly gets to his feet and walks inland. The people he finds in the nearest village are surprised to see him walking out of the sea, but they take it with good enough grace.

Turns out he’s washed up on the southern end of the Menagerie Coast, and when he tells the folk in town his story they find him someone willing to help him get passage north.

The first leg of his journey back to Port Damali is in the back of a hay cart, and his thoughts are consumed by the odd voice he heard the night the Sylph went down. There’s something in the back of his head, it feels like an itch on the inside of his skull and the more he focuses on it the clearer it gets. His hands move on their own, and before he really knows what he’s doing a spectral hand appears in front of him.

“Oh shit.”

~~~

The trip northward is long and slow, but this new revelation gives Fjord something to focus on. He thinks about that itch in the back of his head, of the way his hands shifted and the feeling of pulling invisible rigging. For three days’ travel he sits in silence and meditates, and on the fourth day he finally feels like he’s done something right. He sees a shimmer across his arms and with a thought his skin turns from green to royal purple. He focuses again, and it turns paper white. He can’t contain the giddy grin on his face as he shifts colors, and it only grows wider as he learns how to tug in a different way and the taper of his fingers change, his nails grow and shrink and his arms gain and lose muscle.

That night, he has another dream. Of a rocky, wind whipped beach sheltered by bleak cliffs. He recognizes it from stories; the Shearing Channel, a stretch of water so treacherous that no ship can sail through it. Distantly, like a rising wind, he hears the voice again, for the first time since the wreck.

“Come find me. We have much to discuss.”

~~~

By the time he arrives in Port Damali, he has a small amount of gold that he earned doing odd jobs along the trip. He thanks his traveling companions for their aid and parts ways, heading to the nearest general store to buy a few road provisions and a bedroll. He doesn’t seek out further passage northward, he just walks out of the city and follows the stars.

When he makes his way through the woods, he can tell that he’s close to the channel from the smell of salt and the whistling of the wind. The cliffs on the edge of the channel are tall, but not solid, more akin to shorn-off hills now that he’s seeing them from this side. He picks his way between them, and makes his way down to the waterline.

On a clear day, you can see Tal’Dorei across the channel, the white rise of the Alabaster Sierras on the edge of the horizon like a dragon’s spine. Days like that are few and far between; today the sky is leaden, and fog hangs low and oppressive over the rough water.

This. This is the place. He knows that what he’s been called to is here, as sure as he was born. He wades into the surf.

The water is frigid, tossed as it is by the constant winds. But that tug, that inexorable, tidal pull, is drawing him deeper and deeper beneath the waves. He feels his lungs begin to ache but still he dives down, looking for something, anything.

To his right there is a flash of blue light, like the fey light he saw coming off the spars of the Sylph. He looks over and sees the hilt of a sword, stuck between stones. A faint blue glow wafts off of it, and he reaches out.

Once, when he was young, he made the mistake of wrapping a line around his wrist, so when a brisk wind caught his sail it pulled his arm out of its socket. He never made the mistake again, just like he never forgot the feeling of his shoulder being shoved back into place. A hard pop, and then everything was where it needed to be.

The feeling of pulling the sword out of the crevice is exactly like that, only without knowing that anything had ever been out of joint to begin with. The grip fits in Fjord’s hand like it was carved exactly for him.

He swims back to the shore and examines the blade. It’s a falchion, long and broad and positively wicked looking. The hand guard is crusted with barnacles, but the blade itself is completely clear of rust. And even though the seawater has finished running off of Fjord, there’s still rivulets running off the blade and pouring onto the stones.

“Hello there,” he says.

“Hello yourself,” the blade replies.

This is how it starts. Fjord stands on the rocky shores of the Shearing Channel, dripping seawater and holding a barnacle-encrusted sword in his hands. The waves pound the beach in time with his heart, rising past his knees and it should be pulling him back under but it’s not. He holds the blade up to his ear, and he listens.

#critical role #fjord #this is my prose tag #this is my critical role tag

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memelovingbot · 7 years

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bot momdad post

in the past month or so i’ve dealt with:

an organized transphobic/ableist harassment campaign that started several years ago when prominent transphobic feminist and fake internet harassment expert Randi Harper posted on GamerGate’s subreddit and invited them to dox me. this shit apparently never goes away. they have doxxed my entire living family, as well as a bunch of the dead ones.

terfs

getting targeted and threatened by stormfront

a bunch of whiny babies on here who are mad that asexuals exist and occasionally get riled up and all yell at me and try to get me defined as problematic

the good thing about having social capital as a bot-maker and not a social justice activist is that being labeled as problematic doesn’t instantly remove my entire support network, which is what happens when these people go after other (usually also trans) targets who are less able to weather that. i’m lucky; i have social networks outside tumblr, so it’s not like having the Trans Community Circular Firing Squad turn on me was enough to ruin my life. i’ve seen plenty of people nearly driven to suicide by that kind of thing, so having it just lead to a few bad days and a huge waste of time isn’t nearly as bad as it goes for most people who get the callout gun pointed at them.

but honestly, it’s still a huge waste of time, and i’m not even updating this bot anymore. any actual entertainment value that y’all have gotten out of it that manages to distract you from the whole global fascism stuff is pretty much tapped out, and i’ve got shit to do. it’s still updating over on Twitter, because that doesn’t actually take any time for me to let go, but maintaining it and dealing with hate mail from people who heard thirdhand whatever exaggerated story a combination of terfs and ex-gamergate losers have been feeding to kids that don’t know any better than to believe it is a waste of time.

i’ve got a lot of demands on my time lately; i’m involved in local socialist organizing, which is a lot of teaching my backwards-ass town what non-binary genders are and why it’s not okay to casually misgender people on our organizing forum. it’s similarly exhausting to dealing with a hundred faux-leftist children who listened to a bunch of terf propaganda screaming at me, but local shit actually has a chance of making social progress by getting people to learn to do better, and being the current acceptable target of whatever tumblr bullshit is going on doesn’t have that. but being a punching bag, even for poorly directed legitimate anger, isn’t actually useful praxis, and i’ve got a limited amount of time on this hell planet.

so i’m shutting the bot down. i’ll keep the archives up here. the twitter will keep posting. it’ll keep posting for a few days as it runs down its queue.

maybe i’ll come back and start updating it again if i’m less busy with doing actually useful work and making bots that are actually fun for me. if that’s gonna happen, it’s years away, though.

i’ve made over 90 bots now and it’s just the tumblr version of this one that has had responses to it that consistently make me feel like shit, though, so don’t take this as discouragement against making stuff like it yourself. bots are getting more and more accessible-- beginners can still do what i did, which is using tracery, cheap bots done quick and ifttt to make a twitter bot that cross-posts to tumblr. if you’re bummed to lose the posts on your dash, make a replacement yourself, or work with friends to do it.

i leave the meme bots in y’all’s capable hands. good luck.

#suicide mention #make your own bot #seriously though. this thing was getting really long in the tooth at this point #you can make a better bot #all i was doing was going and taking shit out when it turned out something became problematic #or when it got co-opted #the last update i made was removing all the fucking car boys references #because of nick robinson turning out to be a fucking predator #feeling like shit because another fucking person i admired turned out to be shit #make your own stuff #share it with your peers #make it with your friends #spread the bot love around #there are far more cool ideas out there than i could ever make #memelovingbot was running on empty anyway #let a hundred new bots bloom from its corpse #also i will be ok i don't actually rely on tumblr for anything more than showing me pictures of overwatch characters making out anyway #do not worry about me #make things

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delicious-blues · 7 years

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VOLTRON SEASON FOUR ANALYSIS/CALLOUT TO FANDOM

WARNING:THIS POST IS GOING TO BE SUPER LONG BUT IT’S GOING TO BE THE MOST WORTHWHILE THING EVER. (hopefully)

So, I just finished watching Voltron season 4 and let me just say WHAT A RIDE. This show is amazing and it continually gets better and better with each passing season. There were many fans that were complaining that season 4 wasn’t well written and that it didn’t satisfy any questions. I’m going to talk about many points of the entire show and hopefully explain MY OPINION about why season 4 was absolutely amazing and that we have SO MUCH TO LOOK FORWARD TO.

1. Clone Shiro-

So, it is quite obvious that the “Shiro” we have now is not the real Shiro. Season 3 talked a lot about project Kuron and its different stages. There was lots of evidence and speculation to why he was a clone. We were hoping that in season 4 that someone would discover that he was a clone and that the real Shiro would come back. That did not in fact happen. What did happen was “Shiro” going back to piloting the black lion which was SHOCKING. We all thought that wasn’t going to happen since the black lion would obviously realize that “Shiro” is a clone. But when you look in context, if the black lion didn’t let clone Shiro pilot him, then other members of voltron could have died or gotten injured badly. Also, as far as we know, clone Shiro thinks he is real Shiro. He is trying desperately to bond with his lion again in a sincere way. The black lion may just have let this new Shiro pilot him. When the real Shiro comes back though(which it’s obviously GOT to happen) it’s going to be so much more dramatic since clone Shiro is the black lion’s pilot now.

2. Lotor-

I believe that Lotor may just be one of the greatest characters in this entire show. Many people were complaining about how much screen time and character development he got this season, but I was loving every second of it. Lotor is THE most confusing character in the entire show when it comes to his motives and goals. He fully deserves the screen time he got. In season 3 he started off looking like the most powerful bad guy ever. He was cool and interesting. Then at the end of the season he attacked his own base(which we still don’t have an explanation for). He also wants to harvest quintessence from other realities just like his parents did. I feel like that is a strange motive for him. He is far too intelligent and he has seen what it did to Zarkon and Haggar. Season 4 came around and it seemed as if one thing after another went wrong for him. Zarkon took command, he was cast out, written off as a traitor to be killed on site, he was spied on and had to kill Narti, his gate to the alternate reality didn’t work, his generals betrayed him, and Zarkon attacked him. WHILE ALL THESE THINGS WERE HAPPENING THOUGH HE WAS SO CALM. HE DISLOCATED HIS SHOULDERS WITH SUCH EASE JUST GOOD GOD. He always seemed to have a plan even when he didn’t really have a plan. At the end of the season when he says he wants to talk with Voltron, he has truly hit rock bottom yet he still has so much confidence. I see but two possibilities for him currently. The first one is about the redemption arc he appears to be going down. Fans are saying it is way to early for him to be having this kind of arc, but what if this was supposed to be his main arc all along? He could become a full-on member of Voltron and it would be EPIC. The second possibility seems to make more sense to me. Despite all the things that happened, Lotor was ALWAYS calm(maybe a little frustrated or tired, but never irrational). I would NOT surprised if Lotor just wanted to use team voltron for a while so he could take them down from the inside. Or he could have even been planning this ALL FREAKING ALONG(bit far-fetched, I know). There could be so many other bad possibilities that could happen to team voltron if they end up trusting Lotor. I personally believe that Lotor is going to play a huge role in this show.

2. Character development-

There have been SOOO many complaints throughout the ENTIRE show that there hasn’t been enough character development. I could actually agree on a few points, the show needs lots more character development, but we have seen a total 39 episodes and we still have 39 more to go. This show is not over. But I think there still has been a lot of great character development in some characters. Keith was willing to give himself up in the last episode and that terrified me. I was already plan to post something about his death before he THANKFULLY survived. He went from someone who was all about being a part of voltron in season 1 to being so detached that he joined the Blade and became willing to give up his own life whenever circumstance called. Allura became a strong and great character when she became a paladin. She has so many untold powers that she has yet to unlock, both within herself and the blue lion. (I would really like some of these to explained SOON). Allura has turned into a independent character who has learned to live on even with the loss of her father. Lance has so many insecurities that he keeps hidden most of the time. I am thoroughly convinced that this might cause something terrible to happen to him(I’m not saying him dying, that scares me to much) but he could get terribly injured or something. Even through all of his insecurities, he has turned into a mature(definitely not all the time) “right-hand-man” kind of character. He gave Allura a SPECTACULAR speech in episode 6 that broke me. Just so many things! I love all of the characters so much and I would love to see more development with Hunk, Pidge, Coran, and whatever the heck is going on with clone Shiro and real Shiro. Pidge showed some promising character development in season four that made me excited for the next seasons. I am positive that our precious children will get the development they deserve.

4. Ships-

This is stupid. Yes, I do in fact ship a lot of different ships in this show, but the show comes before the ships. Ships should be our last concern when it comes to things in the show. We still need things like character development, plot, and answered questions. I promise you the people who are creating this show do listen to us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a ship did become canon, it would just probably be later in the show after all the characters get full development. It’s not wrong to ship things in the show, but when ship gets in the way of show, then it’s a problem.

*SUPER IMPORTANT MUST READ IF YOU READ PREVIOUS PARAGRAPHS

This is the paragraph where I will do a lot of tying everything together with a crap lot of persuading. Voltron is a show that is planned to have 78 episodes. That is a lot. We have seen 39 of these episodes which means we still have 39 episodes to go(which I think is pretty neat). In the first season was a lot of setting things up with character development and getting an arc going. Season two continued on that arc, but it also went a few other directions at the same time.In both of these seasons the show moved at a good and healthy pace. At this point the show didn’t have that many unanswered questions and we were expecting them to be answered in the coming season. But in season 3 and season 4, we got only more questions. We got more characters. We got more relationships. We got more variety. We got more action. We got more everything until it overwhelmed itself and us. There was simply no time to address any previous questions because of all the new ones being created. Let me tell you why this was the greatest decision they could have ever made with the show. I know what you’re thinking, you probably think I’m crazy. They ignored a lot of character development and each of the characters flew into so many different arcs that it just became insane. The plot was also crazy, there were so many different characters with different character points of view that the plot was all over the place. So, so many unanswered questions that remain to be answered. All the while all I’m thinking is how excited I am to watch season 5. Am I the only one here that realized that all these four seasons have been doing is just to set up some huge story-line? This is totally my opinion, but I just feel as if something huge is about to happen. We are EXACTLY half way through the show, 39 episodes in, 39 more to go. The show up until this point has been all about trying to confuse the crap out the fans with all the questions and theories. They have introduced so many concepts and theories into this show that have yet to be explored. Characters have progressed so much already that I can’t wait to see how much more dramatically they are going to develop soon. I feel that that was the point of the show up until this point. They wanted to introduce all the variables on the board before they begin to play with them. I feel the next half of the show is going to be INSANE. Huge reveals, questions answered in the most unexpected ways because they were left for seasons unanswered which makes them so much more satisfying when they are answered. Just think of all the possibilities! Think of all the different ways the Shiro/Kuron/Clone thing could go down. Think of the unexplained character Lotor and all the terrifying possibilities he can take in this show. Will Zarkon even be one the throne for much longer or will Lotor take over again? I don’t know! The whole concept of alternate realities has so much potential to be explored. For all you people out there who are upset that Keith is with the Blade of Mamora now, don’t be! Keith has already gone through so many character arcs that I severely doubt that this character arc is going to last long. Let me tell you something important right now: the paladins and their lions are not set in stone. I wouldn’t be surprised if any of the current paladins right now go off on their own and then come back and be a paladin again to a different lion. I’m convinced that Keith could easily become a paladin of voltron again later in the show. Who knows whether or not the paladins will remain paladins? They could switch around more, or certain characters could decide to work in a different area. All of the characters are going to get their characters arcs I can assure you. I’m still a firm believer in the fact that someone in the show could die(that scene with Keith in season 4 episode 6 really scared me ok) There is in fact still time left show. We don’t even know what kind of outcome the show is going to get. Will it be a good outcome? A bad outcome? Or something none of us ever expected to happen? There are so many different opportunities to explore and I personally can’t wait to see what they do. This is an extremely well developed show. The show has changed drastically since the first two seasons, so why can’t it change even more? Whose to say that in season 5 we are blown away with how vastly different it is from previous seasons?

The point of this entire post was to help people realize that voltron is going to be an excellent show. The writers know what they are doing. The show is going to develop beautifully. We just need to sit back and let it happen.

(this was truly a 3 am induced post so take it or leave it your choice)

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