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omegapheromone · 5 months ago

Note

do you have any advice for someone who is struggling to figure out their misce identity?

personally i’ve always just assumed that i’m an omega (because i’m a smaller person and more submissive?) and gone with that, but after thinking about it more i really don’t think i am?

i think that i have a lot of “typical” or “normal” omega traits, but i feel much more like an alpha? so uhh yeah hopefully this isn’t too annoying

Hiya! Not at all annoying, this ask is a great opportunity for me to talk about some topics I've been wanting to talk about for a while, actually! I will write a longer post but here's everything, VERY shortly:

First of all, ask yourself why you ascribe specific traits or features to specific dynamics, and WHY in your mind being small and submissive means one HAS TO be an Omega. Does this mean that absolutely no omega ever can be tall, muscular, strong, dominant? Does this mean that not a single alpha ever can be small or submissive? Where did these mental associations come from? Could it be that you have subconsciously taken the most common and stereotypical fictional traits of "alphas and omegas", even if you know logically it doesn't work in real life, and are trying to force those stereotypes onto yourself? Would you tell anyone ELSE but yourself that they cannot be an alpha because they are small and submissive? Or would you tell anyone else that they cannot be an omega, because they are tall and strong and dominant? Or are these things you're only trying to force on yourself because you think you should fit some stereotype that's completely based on fictional characters?

My tone there isn't meant to sound harsh at all- I go WAY more in detail below, but the post is long, like, genuinely very long, and I'm just trying to summarize the simplest and most important point as concisely as I can in a string of questions to ask yourself- the point in ALL of this is that your identity should be dictated by what feels right and good to YOU, not what stereotype you fit into. People are always more complex than stereotypes, and if you feel more alpha, then that's all you need. Physical traits, personality, sexual preferences, etc- none of these things dictate what your dynamic is or should be.

That being said, I have to give a fair warning. This post WILL end up being LONG.

Another thing- I personally am an omega and have always identified as such, so I'm gonna tag @pack-the-pack and more specifically @miscealignment a.k.a. Null's more misce-focused blog- not only do I find his opinions interesting and generally insightful when it comes to all matters misce, but I think Null will probably have more to say about the alpha part specifically. I'd also like to tag @beta-adjacent for similar reasons! Further down, I'm going to talk about my own personal perceptions of the dynamics, and my point if view as an omega only goes so far, ESPECIALLY when I've never really questioned the fact that I am an omega, even when OTHER people have (more on that way, way later.)

With those out of the way, my actual response will be posted under the cut just so I don't clog anyone's dashboard too much! Once again, prepare for rambling and a LOT of text. Sorry in advance (；´∀｀)

About Misce- Your Mental Image;

a.k.a. let's start with a little imagination. ...or lack of, maybe?

Firstly, I would ask you to evaluate what you think of when you think about each of the dynamics. While you're completely free to your personal interpretation as is everyone, I tend to think that if your mental images look something like "Alpha=dom, top, strong, masculine", and "Omega=sub, bottom, feminine, dainty and emotional" and "Beta=side character", you're not REALLY looking at misce dynamics, rather, you're more thinking of a highly stereotypical and (subconsciously) heteronormative version of omegaverse that is (often) used almost exclusively only for the sake of making mpreg possible in m/m fiction. And to be clear, yet again: Misce is NOT Omegaverse.

This specific way of interpreting alpha/omega/beta dynamics is literally just straight people gender norms repackaged to be forced onto gay/queer people, and is not in any way realistic to 99.99% of irl gay/queer relationships, nevermind people. A lot of misce folks are also some flavour of lgbtq+ anyway, and you can see why it could become an issue to impose heteronormative roles onto people who do not, by definition, fit said roles. Here's what I mean:

"Alphas are tall, big and strong and handsome dominant leader types who provide for the physically weak, dainty and small and traditionally attractive, emotional, submissive omegas. Omegas bear and raise the children, while alphas work and earn money. Omegas are at a social disadvantage because of their dynamic, and alphas often benefit from theirs, therefore it's not unusual to see omegas being exploited by alphas. And Betas are the 'other people' who don't fit these roles, I guess."

Now switch "alpha" to man, and "omega" to woman, and read it again. (And for an extra spicy take, switch "beta" to "lgbtq+ folk"... just saying.) See what I mean?

This is a common portrayal in a LOT of omegaverse fiction regardless of what biological sex/gender the characters are, and I'm SURE you've seen portrayals like this many, many times. In fiction, there's nothing wrong with interpretations or depictions like this! I know some people are unable to read works of fiction critically and think that using portrayals like these is somehow inherently bad, and sure, this specific market is definitely oversaturated as well- but the thing is that for many authors and creatives, applying these existing (male and female) roles and forms of discrimination onto imagined secondary genders such as alphas and omegas is a way to explore gender discrimination, homophobia, misogyny, social issues, etc in writing. But the crucial part is that this ONLY WORKS IN FICTION. Omegaverse is fiction, so it's fine. But Misce is not fiction. Misce is identities and people.

About Misce- Identity, NOT Tropes Or Roles;

a.k.a. let's not base real people identities on fictional stuff (or sexual preferences, for that matter).

You cannot apply those previously discussed concepts to real, living people's identities. This much is obvious. Cathegorizing real people into "alphas are the strong and big and dominant ones", "betas are the in-between ones", and "omegas are the dainty and small and submissive ones" doesn't work and should never be done to begin with.

You also cannot cathegorize people based on their sexual preferences- "Alpha" does not automatically mean they top or dom. "Omega" does not automatically mean "bottom" or "sub". Beta does not automatically mean vers/switch. Sexual preferences are separate from dynamics, and you should not assume anything based on someone's dynamic to begin with. While misce has its sexual aspects to many, it's almost never ONLY sexual. In my experience, if anything, it's a very small part of being misce to most people I know.

This is all to say- your sexual preferences do not and should not determine your dynamic in any way- so whatever you like in bed should not make you feel like you need to identify with some specific dynamic. You could be the most submissive bottom on earth and be an alpha and that would not be weird or "wrong" or "strange". I think just about any misce person could tell you this- anyone who understands that misce ISN'T "just an irl larp of omegaverse", at least.

This is a good opportunity for me to segway into the next part- misce is based on a LOT more than "just" the most stereotypical omegaverse roles. For a lot of people, being misce connects to other forms of non-human identity, whether that's being otherkin, therian, alterhuman, whatever. I'm not actually all that familiar with those things, as I've never bothered getting involved or familiar with said communities. I've never felt human either, but I struggle to figure out the specifics of it so I just don't bother- I'm content like this, and don't feel the need to label it or try to "pick a specific animal" or whatever. I'm happy being just... a being (lol) and that's enough for me.

About Misce- Deeply Nonhuman Humans;

a.k.a. there are two wolves inside of you...

...However, I recognize that with this part- me not really feeling like my misce self is connected to animal-type nonhumanity specifically, I am NOT in the majority.

I believe "miscecanis" and "miscelupus" were the first(?) terms that utilized the now-popularized term "misce" in them, and they specifically refer to canines (any, but often dogs) and wolves. Considering omegaverse itself is also based on that (proven to be unreliable/misinformed) study on wolf pack structures from ages ago, it makes sense that many misce folk would also identify with canine-adjacent creatures- I do too, I just dislike using those labels since that's nowhere near the most notable part of my own sense of non-human-ness. But I digress. A lot of misce folk, especially ones who identify with specific animals, have created their own labels to match the animals they identify most with- miscelapin, miscevulpes, miscefelis, etc. The catchall term for most misce folk, esp ones who feel that their "animal-identifying side" is strongly connected to being misce, tends to be misceanimalis.

Personally, I just say "misce" since a non-animal-attached term doesn't seem to exist at the moment and to me, being an omega isn't necessarily a non-human animal-identity thing at all- but that's just me and I don't think there's a "right" or "wrong" way to personally interpret and "be" misce.

All that being said, generally, the misce community tends to lean towards a more instinct-based social model, pack dynamics and emotional/non-verbal etc communication. I think that much is pretty obvious anyway. So, naturally, the dynamics themselves are often interpreted through that lens- "what's the 'pack role' of any given dynamic?"

Generally, everyone has their own interpretation of this, and that's totally alright- misce looks a bit different for every individual, and definitions are fluid enough that the answer you get depends on who you ask. Speaking of which...

About Misce- Dynamics;

a.k.a. this is the part where podcast bros get so confused

So, while I'm going to now list a few generic concepts/roles/tropes/traits that TEND TO be associated with specific dynamics, just know that it's completely fine to interpret them differently and come up with your own stuff for your own identity. Misce stuff is generally kind of vague and definitions depend on the person you ask anyway- Should you ask someone else to explain what kind of traits they associate most with various dynamics, you might get a different answer- what, in my eyes, is a "commonly omega trait" might be a beta trait in someone else's mind, and so on.

These summaries are based on my own personal experiences combined with speculation, and include a lot of generalization in places- if you identify as any of these dynamics and feel that my description of said dynamic is "off" or not accurate to your lived misce experience, please know that I'm not at ALL saying your experience isn't valid, or that your identity as that dynamic is being questioned. As stated before- everyone defines things differently, and there is no right or wrong way to define or BE misce.

Also: I'm going to go through both positive and negative traits for each dynamic based on my personal observations of patterns I've noticed. I WILL include a "worst case scenario" thing about each dynamic, just to illustrate how sometimes traits may manifest as genuinely bad/abusive behaviours. Every dynamic is capable of being abusive and toxic, and there is no specific dynamic that is "more likely to be abusive" than the others.

☽ ALPHAS • [ α ] ☾

"Providers, protectors, guardians and defenders, responsible for the pack staying safe, well and the members having their needs met."

Often, alphas are seen as the more physical/tangible providers, "mirroring" the more emotional/psychological form of nurture provided by omegas (more on that later). This DOES NOT mean Alphas are always "the breadwinners"- it takes many forms. That COULD be working to provide a stable income and housing, sure, but it's equally as possible for an alpha to prefer being a homemaker- making food for the pack, cleaning and organizing, etc can be just as much a form of "providing" as working for an income could be. The distinction here is that where omegas commonly tend to show their care in a more emotional and intangible way, Alphas are (often, not always) the ones who will buy their friends little trinkets and souvenirs that remind the alpha of them, cook up meals to provide and ensure the physical wellbeing of their closest ones, offer to help with menial tasks and so on. It's all about trying to ensure the people closest to them are well, and doing what they can to keep it that way.

Alphas often get a reputation for being protective over their loved ones, and while in fiction, esp omegaverse manhwa/manga/webtoons/etc this tends to get portrayed as "possessive toxic masculinity" type tropes (looking at you, 'Terminus', 'Kiss me, liar' and 'Night by the sea'...) this also has many forms, and isn't at all limited to Alphas only.

Alphas DO tend to feel very responsible/protective over their friends and/or pack though, more than other dynamics do- a sort of "hurt me, I don't care, but hurt my friends, you're dead" type attitude is quite common to alphas in my experience, at least as an omega observer. From what I can tell, Alphas derive a lot of pride and satisfaction from being able to support and lift up those closest to them, and while generally Alphas aren't fond of conflict any more than any other dynamic, they usually WILL go to bat for their friends/pack, argue to ensure their friends are taken seriously, stand up for them, and so on. From what I've seen, at times, it's the Alpha that feels more upset over someone being nasty to said alpha's friend, than the friend is themselves.

Alphas are generally seen as the ones who take care of the physical needs and safety of the pack- "safety" makes it sound like they're out there fighting wild beasts and evil spirits or something, which isn't really the case when you think "modern world", but the point is they often strive to ensure that everyone they love feels safe and comfortable around them, and that sources of stress/anxiety/worry are removed. This could take the form of helping a friend pay their rent when a friend is broke and the Alpha is able to pitch in, or it could be helping someone fill out job applications if they're finding it overwhelming to do alone, or helping a depressed friend clean and cook so that they're less stressed out and are able to recover without the additional stress of having to plan and think about food and nutrition. It could be giving massages to help someone relax, or it could be letting a friend come over just to sleep at their place when the friend is struggling to feel safe on their own.

Basically- some personality traits I've noticed many of my alpha- and alpha-coded friends tend to have, would be that they're generally very caring people who tend to put those most important to them first before themselves. Often Alphas will step in to shield others from injustice and/or perceived threats without hesitation- be that unfair treatment or a stranger being a little too friendly at the club. Alphas may or may not talk about their problems openly, but the ones who do tend to only talk about the problems and how to solve or overcome them, NOT how it has made them feel and if they're feeling alright, but when/if they DO talk about their feelings more honestly, it's basically always a huge sign of trust and closeness. A majority of my alpha friends tend to be either gift-givers who love showing appreciation in the form of presents or homemade food, OR they're silent providers, whose doors are always open (within reason) and will always be there to provide a place for their friends to crash at when said friends just need a break somewhere safe and comfortable. Often, they're both. (Shoutout to my closest irl friend who is very alpha-coded and keeps telling me I can just go to his place to sleep if I want to get away from either family or loneliness at home in a diff city lmao. I always feel like far too much of a burden so I never have, but I genuinely appreciate the offers so much)

Alphas, at least based on my humble observations, have some fairly commonly shared negative traits as well, such as being the type to run themselves to the ground to ensure others are well (especially emotionally- it's a stereotype that Alphas are bad at expressing emotion, but it's somewhat true that often Alphas will try to avoid their own struggles and emotions by constantly rushing to care and provide for others instead of sitting down to feel their emotions lmao). Alphas tend to overwork themselves for the sake of others, and overall share a "neglect self for the sake of others" thing that omegas also have, just. Different flavour.

Some alphas do also tend to have a bit of an ego at times, especially pertaining to things they excel at, and can indeed get jealous of their friends/pack-mates/partners/etc. Occasionally, this manifests as a form of entitlement, often based on the alpha feeling like they've sacrificed so much for the person that they feel like they "deserve something in return". In most cases, it's nothing outrageous- just time, effort, and acknowledgement of all the effort, though I find that sometimes alphas tend to expect others to be able to "read the Alpha's mind" and just figure out what the Alpha needs without ever communicating it out loud (this could be due to a fear of being too "demanding" or too "overbearing" which many Alphas I've known have struggled with, likely specifically because that's often how Alphas get stereotyped, leading to most Alphas trying hard to show they are NOT like the stereotype. I can imagine it's a struggle!).

At times, Alphas may be prone to being sort of control-freaks about certain things. This usually isn't an issue for most, but it sometimes shows through in their personalities as being frustrated if things aren't done "the way they like, when they like". There's various reasons- for some, it's because they're used to doing things one way and feel that it is the best way, for others, it's a feeling of "knowing best", and for some, it's a sense of wanting to have control over how things are done or hoe they happen, because not having that control causes anxiety.

On the darker side of things, some alphas may become genuinely possessive over people, often subconsciously feeling like they're entitled to and feel that they have "claimed" a person, and feel that they should be able to decide things for said person/people. When this happens, it's usually also coupled with some degree of idolization/objectification of whoever is the subject of these feelings, and the alpha may get excessively upset if the actual person doesn't completely match the "mental idealized version" in their head- this could happen for a number of reasons from something as simple as the person deciding to change something about their appearance, to having a personality that doesn't "match" the one the Alpha had "imagined". This can lead to issues with some Alphas being controlling and/or obsessive over everything, and may escalate to worse abuse based on a desire to "control" or "own". This kind of a thing is NOT exclusive to Alphas, anyone can be shitty, but this specific form of it is slightly more common with alphas specifically, over other forms of shitty/abusive patterns.

☽ OMEGAS • [ Ω ] ☾

"Emotional providers and nurturers, often take the role of maternal figures whether symbolically or literally. Caring and loving and very in tune with the emotional needs of those closest to them."

Omegas are often portrayed as more sensitive to pheromones than other dynamics, a.k.a. better at "reading people" and responding to the needs of others before they may even be consciously aware of said needs. Of course, IRL pheromones aren't a thing, but omegas are still very in-tune with the emotional states of others and as such, often, omegas can sense a conflict brewing even before it takes place, and prefer to avoid that if possible- they'd prefer to figure out what the cause of upset is, and address the feelings BEFORE they escalate. While the emotional hyper-awareness is useful in many situations, at times it instead results in excessive overthinking and stressing out over very mundane interactions.

The pack roles omegas are most often portrayed as having are usually things that concern the emotional wellbeing and social harmony of the pack, ensuring that its members are feeling cared for, seen&heard and understood, as well as being the "caretakers" for children/young members in the pack. Omegas are often great listeners, and will do so for hours. They're good at validating and echoing the feelings of others, and many omegas actually derive satisfaction from knowing they were able to help someone feel better- even when there wasn't anything to feel BAD about- just being able to offer emotional validation, comfort, or improve someone's mood tends to make omegas feel happy. In general, many Omegas are able to empathize very deeply, and tend to be good at "seeing things from the perspective of others".

Omegas are often portrayed as especially fond of children and having strong maternal instincts towards kids, both those of others, as well as their own. Stereotypically, omegas are portrayed as wanting children of their own (or, as some like to call them, pups), but this isn't really a "every omega ever" thing. This type of maternal instinct can present in MANY ways, and doesn't always even require children in the equation. Being a "chronically 'mom-friend' type person" can be one manifestation of that, for example, while in other cases, Omegas thrive in older sibling/uncle/etc roles, rather than parental ones.

Omegas are often portrayed as highly emotional/emotion-driven themselves, with a highly developed sense of empathy and compassion. This sometimes manifests as overthinking, anxiety, social exhaustion, hyper-empathy, being easily swayed by the reactions and/or feelings of others, a tendency to seek emotional approval and a likelihood to choose people-pleasing over their own wants and needs. While Alphas are more likely to neglect their emotional well-being, Omegas are somewhat an opposite, and tend to neglect taking proper physical care of themselves in favour of "being there" for someone else. Similarly, while Alphas tend to bottle up or brick-wall their emotions and instead keep physically busy, Omegas tend to retreat and isolate and neglect their bodies when feeling bad.

On the more dark side- which I feel is SO important to talk about as I rarely see people bring this up- Omegas, thanks to their high level of emotional intelligence, are also often very skilled at subtle but devastating emotional manipulation and even abuse. Omegas are great at playing the victim to gain sympathy or pity when it suits them, and are great at appealing to the emotions and feelings of other people to sway them- essentially, omegas tend to make for good liars and manipulators. Omegas are far more likely to utilize manipulation tactics, emotional abuse, self-victimization and mind games, than other dynamics- that isn't to say that alphas or betas are incapable of it, or that this is the ONLY way Omegas may be abusive, nor am I saying that every omega is abusive, obviously- but it's good to keep in mind, especially given the fact that certain medias love to portray omegas as "innocent pure uwu cinnamon rolls who can never do any harm".

☽ BETAS • [β] ☾

Let's be real for a moment and skip the quotation mark description I did for both Alphas and Omegas. There is a reason why I left Betas last, but it's not why you might think.

Both due to the fact that in SO MUCH of omegaverse fiction, Betas are simply nothing but an afterthought in a story about an a/o couple, as well as the fact that people have different ideas of things, a "widely accepted common portrayal of what a Beta is like" doesn't really exist. I feel that it's especially important to acknowledge this specifically because this means that people have VERY different headcanons for betas, both in terms of omegaverse, as well as in terms of what it means to be a beta. It WILL look a little different for every individual beta, likely far more so than it does for the other dynamics. The way I see it, there's both good and bad parts about this- the identity of a beta is less "restricted by" or "bound to" any specific traits or aspects, BUT at the same time, a lot of people may struggle with this as well, potentially feeling like they may not "fit in" or that their personal identity as a beta isn't "enough" or is "too strange". The misce community grows over time, mostly because people who were into omegaverse in fiction come across it and go, "wait, I can just be (dynamic)? Cool!" Which often leads to fundamental misunderstandings, and is an entirely different topic to begin with.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that the more "old school" misce blogs and folk, from what I TEND TO SEE, are far more open to all kinds of beta headcanons and interpretations, while the "new blood" coming in (which, hey, my blog isn't that old either, so)- tends to be people who see betas as "the normal people", basically equivalent to not even having a dynamic at all. So let's start there- let's lose that idea right away. Betas are NOT "no dynamic" or "neutral dynamic". Betas are Betas- and people who are NOT misce, and have NO dynamic identity, are the neutral/no-dynamic ones. Those people are not betas by default.

So, what ARE betas?

Short answer? You tell me.

Longer answer? It's largely up to individual interpretation.

Longest answer? ...

The way I have always seen this is that there are various interpretations of a "beta" and none of them are inherently wrong or right. If you're misce and you identify as a beta in the way they are most commonly depicted as being "the normal people of omegaverse", not having cycles (aside from menstrual ones for afab betas), not having specific traits/skills/etc, and just "being normal (in comparison to alphas and omegas)" then that's entirely valid and just as good as any other interpretation. What matter most is that YOU are happy, feel represented, and have a label you like.

However, if you identify differently as a beta- perhaps you DO have a cycle, whether that is a rut or a heat or a mixture of both, either or, or something completely different- that's also just as good- as long as you feel like yourself. (I didn't spend time talking about ruts and heats in the sections for alphas and omegas, since it's quite straightforward, but I may make a post on that at some point.) For now though- I DO actually believe I can think of at least some commonly shared beta-traits, similar to how I did for the previous sections. They may not apply to every interpretation of misce betas, but that's a given.

So, what traits are common to Betas, then?

In my experience, I find that many of my beta-coded or beta friends, they all share a certain energy that's hard for me to explain. Betas, in my eyes, seem very lively- not necessarily that they are "more energetic" or "happier" or anything, it's more like, they seem to be very "alive" in some strange way I cannot quite describe, but it makes me feel good by proxy. The way I see it, Betas, regardless of how introverted they are in terms of personality, are almost always incredibly easy to talk to, have really comforting presences, and overall make any friend group feel "complete" and "balanced".

This is actually something I noticed very strongly at Pride yesterday! A bunch of my friends are Betas, a good few are Alpha, and a couple are other Omegas (at least, in terms of how I tend to see them), and without fail, Betas always feel like the glue that makes the group feel complete. In MANY cases, they're the bridge between myself and people I've never even met, and their presence lifts everyone's spirits. Betas make groups feel like teams instead of a handful of individuals sharing a space.

Not only that- they're INSANELY resourceful and prepared. As soon as I mentioned my shoes were starting to chafe, two band-aids were IMMEDIATELY handed to me by one of my very beta-coded friends. If anyone is going to survive the apocalypse, I'm betting on the betas in a heartbeat. They're prepared, they know how to keep themselves AND their friends alive, they're good at organizing stuff and delegating tasks to the most appropriate people. Whoever thinks Alphas are at the top and rule the world are WRONG. It's Betas. It's always Betas. If they stopped existing, the world would grind to a halt in less than 12 hours, I'm calling it now. Betas get shit done and make it work, and not only that, they can gigure out what your strengths are, and can figure out which tasks you'd be best at. I'm 100% certain that almost every competent manager, strategist, advisor, expert, scout, spy, organizer, consultant, etc. Is always a Beta. If you want solid advice and good insights with anything practical, ask a Beta. They will either know the answer, or will point you to someone else who does.

From what I've observed, Betas are clever, resourceful, creative and innovative, good at planning ahead AND coming up with ideas on the fly. In terms of pack roles, it fully makes sense to me to view Betas as the leaders and practical thinkers who ensure things work. While Alphas may be the kind to defend the pack from external threats, the Betas are the ones who will help you avoid the threats in the first place. Omegas may be good at predicting and avoiding conflict and resolving feelings that may lead to internal disagreements, but Betas are the ones who will SOLVE conflicts, come up with compromises, and ensure nobody is treated unfairly.

And honestly, this is why I hope misce betas chime in! Please describe your experiences as Betas and of being a beta in misce communities, what it means to you and who you are, etc. In the notes? As I said many times- my observations only go so far.

About Misce- Personal Experience;

a.k.a. this is the part where I ramble even more.

So, I've talked about various stuff, and this is the second-to-last part. In the last part, I will try to provide my personal advice and takes, so skip there if my personal life experiences do not interest you at all. This part is just something I wanted to include, because while I've never personally really questioned my dynamic identity, I want to talk about things that COULD have made me question it, and why.

Omega.

I've always identified as one so strongly that I confidently named my blog "omegapheromone" and refer to myself online as "Gamie", a play on the word "Omega" itself, just rearranged and one letter off. I identified as an omega before I knew what misce was.

But, the people around me haven't been so confident about it.

I don't know if I'll have deleted that post by the time this one is finally done, or by the time you're reading this, whether that's the same day or a year or more from this post's date of posting- but I very recently shared a selfie, a face reveal of sorts. If it's deleted, let me describe myself in it: an androgynous/boyish person with pastel-coloured hair and clothes.

From that selfie, you wouldn't think it, especially with the angle and such- but I'm actually quite tall (167cm/5'5", almost 5'6" or so). Tall, and I have strangely broad shoulders and back for an AFAB person. I'm actually taller and often more "broad" than many of my friends, and in the past, when hanging out with friends, I've heard the "so are you the 'man' in the relationship" type comments when people have mistaken me and any of my friends for a couple. This is how people, even other queer people, tend to view me for some reason. It doesn't bother me TOO much these days, but it used to, and I still find myself wishing I was smaller, shorter, more "dainty" so that people would immediately think "oh, an omega", instead of assuming I'm an "alpha" (or in the case of real world, assuming I'm the assertive and sexually dominant type). I'd like it if people looked at me and, instead of feeling like I'm the type to care for and protect them, saw me as something they want to take care of and protect. It sounds incredibly cliché, but after living 20+ years with this being my experience (being seen as the type that protects ans dotes on others and whatnot), it's just something that's stuck with me. All my exes have approached me with the assumption that I was a dominant type, often also flat out thinking I was a cis dude (somehow, though I guess in the past my sense of fashion wasn't as "cutesy", and instead was more edgy). They weren't turned off by the fact that I flat out had to tell them, no, I'm very much a bottom and you cannot make me top for the life of me, trust me, it WILL NOT be good for either of us. I'd say "lucky me" but the most notable case turned out to be abusive and controlling, so I can't really say that, either. Of course, as I said above, sexual preferences have NOTHING to do with one's dynamic, for me it just happens to coincide that I'm an omega, a bottom, AND for some reason, have a very assertive/dominant aura despite not being either of those things, and as a result, to me, it feels like people are constantly just mistaking me for the "generic portrayal of an alpha".

As much as I complain about feeling dejected that I doubt I'll ever REALLY have the experience where "oh I want to dote on and protect him" is the other person's very first impression/thought, I've made peace with it. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter so much- there's someone for everyone, or however the saying goes.

Still, it's interesting. For as long as I can remember, people have described me with words like "intimidating", saying that they've been afraid to approach because I look like I'm somehow either "too cool" for them, or "wouldn't want to talk" or whatever. Maybe I've built walls that are just too high after getting bullied as a child, or maybe my general detachment and aloofness have made me come across as cold and unwilling to make friends. It's not true though- I do genuinely enjoy meeting people and making friends. To an extent I'm aloof, and at times I will just disappear for a while before acting like no time passed at all, but that's not me trying to be distant on purpose at all.

Anyway, all of that is to say, I've never doubted my omega-ness. I've identified as one since I was a teen and read my first omegaverse fanfics. It's just something I've known. Sometimes I've wondered if I should TRY to force myself to be more of a top and pretend to be an Alpha, but the idea is just uncomfortable. I'd just be lying, both to myself and any potential partner having to experience it- and I don't like how lying to myself feels at all. It's like playing a character I hate, a mockery or parody of who I actually am, and it just makes me feel bad. I refuse to define myself based on the assumptions OTHER PEOPLE make about me, based on my height, build, "vibe" or anything else. If they make an assumption and are wrong about it, that's on THEM for making an assumption. I'm not going to cut my legs off just to be shorter, and I'm not going to strave myself (again) just to seem "dainty and fragile and weak and in need of protection" either. Fuck that, I have internal organ damage from that already, so no thanks, I'm not going to make that worse.

The Advice

the part where I actually answer the question asked.

Alright, so the question bears repeating since I've rambled so long it literally took an entire day to write this post;

Do I have any advice? Some. Most of it I've touched on already. Sit down with yourself openly and honestly, and question what your concepts are based on. Are you forcing yourself to fit a fictional stereotype thar was never meant to suit real life people to begin with, or do you ACTUALLY identify with something? Sit down with what your idea of misce as a whole is, and question what it means to you, what your place in it is, and take time to get familiar with various portrayals of all different kinds of dynamics, not just the most stereotypical ones. Domestic soft homemaker alphas, CEO boss dom omegas, betas who AREN'T just "normal guy in a world of alphas and omegas". Also even if you find a list of "traits that (dynamic xyz) has always!!!!", take your time to look at it. Are there alternative ways to interpret it? Can some traits show up differently? Does "protective" always mean "possessive"? Could it not mean "caring, concerned of their friends' wellbeing, the type to stay up until 4am to ensure a friend gets home safe and texts them, and if they don't, will physically drive over to check on them"? You get the idea.

"Because I'm a smaller person and more submissive?" - I already talked a Lot about this, but why are these things "inherently omega" traits in your mind, anon? Try saying this out loud: "Every omega is a small person, and every omega is always submissive, no matter what." If it feels uncomfortable to state that confidently as fact, then you likely never believed that yourself to begin with, but rather were telling yourself that you "have to be a certain way because you do not fit the stereotype of the OTHER things". You don't have to fit a mold. The molds are based on fiction anyway- you're you. What matters is how YOU feel, what YOU feel most comfortable with, and what label YOU vibe with the most. You don't have to force the identity of an omega onto yourself if you feel more like an alpha, just because you happen to be "smaller and more submissive". Yet again, sexual preferences don't dictate your dynamic at all either. If you feel more like an alpha, then that's all you need. There's no height requirement, this isn't an amusement park ride. There's no minimum muscle mass requirement, this is not a bodybuilder competition. There's no requirement to be dominant or a top or anything at all- that's not even what misce is about. You are you, and what you vibe with is the most important. If that means being a small and more submissive alpha, then congrats on presenting as an alpha!!! You are loved and accepted here!!! 💕

Love you, anon, I hope this helps even a little, and I hope you find what YOU are most comfortable with!

#gamietxt #answered asks #im so sorry anon I literally spent 12 hours slowly writing out my thoughts and had to start over at least twice bc tumblr ate my draft

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ancientcity · 4 months ago

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i loved reading your rpf data! it's an interesting topic for sure and i myself have neutral-complicated feelings towards it, mostly because i both struggle to understand the reasoning behind shipping rpf and what actually defines rpf.

i think the only time i have ever shipped rpf was with H20Vanoss and DreamNotFound but it was still in a like. "au" way where i knew the two of their real life relationships were none of my business and it didnt matter to me what their relationships actually were. like every fic i read of "rpf" was still not the real person to me. it was still just a character, even if it was based on the real person and set in a "real life" setting.

is that how most people view rpf? i feel like, to me, every fictional writing turns any "real person" in "real person fiction" automatically into a character (because it's fiction and not nonfiction).

but at the same time, i dont understand shipping the real actual people outside of a fanfic setting. like genuinely shipping real people with real human faces and real lives. is it like how people ship celebrities or their friends? i dont do either of that, partially because, again, none of my business, but also i feel like the fact that i'm aroace completely blinds me to understanding the appeal

Thank you for reading it! There's definitely things I could've expanded on, but I honestly just wanted to get it out there.

Regarding the question of "the definition of RPF", some people responded something like "fan content about the real people", without the nuance of some other answers, like "fiction about the real people", where they'd expand upon what "fiction" means to them. (note: these are approximations of the responses)

One response caught my eye while I was scrolling through the spreadsheet again:

A fanwork that is made about real people, drawing on knowledge audiences have of those real life people.

I think this is very concise, to the point, and encapsulates most of the answers people wrote. If I were to use this as an example for another survey, the only thing I'd change would be that we... don't really know these people, so how can we make fanwork about real people? I might write something like this instead:

A fanwork that's inspired by the "personas" of real people, drawing on knowledge audiences have of their lives.

(I do genuinely love the original, it just wouldn't quite work in context of defining the concept for another survey! I wanted to add a little bit of other responses to it, especially those who mention "personas". If anyone has any notes on this definition, please do share)

But to answer your question of "is that how most people view rpf?":

Just eyeballing it, no more graphs right now (it's a lot of data to sort through), most people who are neutral or positive towards rpf tend to think this way, yes. However, those who dislike it tend to think it's not that, and is about the real people.

And to answer your question of "is it like how people ship celebrities or their friends?":

I'd say yes, but there's a big difference between shipping celebrities and shipping your friends. Celebrities are most likely not going to see what you've made. Your friends are more likely to! CCs exist in between celebrities and friends, as a "yeah that twitch streamer I'm able to chat with" or "Mumbo replied to one of my comments!" or even "Cherrifire liked my post!". They're generally more connected with their community in a way that big celebrities aren't? (I could be wrong, I hadn't ventured too far into celebrity rpf for the essay)

Sorry for rambling so much! I really appreciated the thought you put into this ask, and I wanted to return it :)

#rpf #might add more in a reblog later on if need be #asks #anon

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rockinlibrarian · 2 years ago

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💞🎀🎈

If I can be greedy like that!

Yay, more Asks! I really like the questions in this one (the ((REAL)) Asks for Writers or whatever it was called-- I just remember the "((REAL))"), so the more the merrier!

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

The characters. I really enjoy good plotting-- whodunits are my original favorite genre (to read-- I barely know where to start in writing them!), but it's the characters that make you CARE what happens in the plot. ESPECIALLY in fanfic, because in that case, you ARE most likely there for the characters, and if you get the characters wrong, what's the point? Oh, and WHY are you in fanfic for the characters? Because it's the characters that got you hooked on the source material, too. So it's a cycle!

That said, once you've got that, if you've got "the technical stuff" wrong, it's really distracting and ruins the moment! I have mourned opening a nice sweet non-smut-Fiktor-shipping fic only to find it practically unreadable through funky grammar! There aren't ENOUGH nice sweet non-smut-Fiktor-shipping fics to waste them like that!

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

Well. My own writing definitely succeeds in entertaining ME!

Also, I care about getting the characters right.

Also, I'm pretty good at dialogue. I write snappy dialogue.

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

This is an interesting question. Well, when left to my own devices, I tend to ramble in writing. It's like all the words that have trouble coming out of my mouth just erupt onto the page or screen. I am the MASTER of the run-on sentence! There are too many thoughts and they must all come out!

That is, of course, why REVISION exists. As my original writing goal had been to be a middle grade fiction writer (and that's still my goal if I ever get up the nerve to write original fiction again) (and to be honest, if you go through my fanfics you'll find more than a few stories that can pass as middle grade, too, even if the source material was anything but-- looking at YOU, Loudermilk Chronicles*), I studied How-to-Write-for-Children texts and even took two separate correspondence courses from the Institute for Children's Literature, and the key thing I learned from them was how to be CONCISE. Ironically. So I learned to make my stories MOVE. I will have you know, I once had a critique from Bruce "My Teacher Is An Alien!" Coville himself at an SCBWI event and he specifically complimented my concise storytelling! (Also, he loved Billy 'Arrison, and that is the most important thing of all!)

So my voice, and style, tend to feel middle grade (in fiction at least), and they tend to be past tense limited-third-person, which is also very middle grade. But every so often I DO switch things up, by, like, attempting to write a ballad canonically written by the actual God of Poetry; I have some first person pieces (most of which are still in process come to think), mostly because the source material is first person, or, in the case of the Pipeweed Mafia epic, actually IS me-- that one also spends most of its time in present tense, which is rare for me, and I'm not even sure what inspired me to do it that way.

*(Or, the "Childhood Friends AU" version, "Two (or Three) Mutant Freaks Against the Fourth Grade," WHICH, by the way, is my answer to the FIRST question on that Ask List, "What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)", if any of you were going to ask that, so HAH, I ANSWERED IT ANYWAY, because it's just a sweet little story about nerds making friends that anyone can enjoy even without knowing the source material and I LOVE it and somehow it has gotten the least hits of anything except the Pipeweed Mafia, which is just crack I just threw up there recently and was not expecting to get much in the way of hits, anyway)

#ask game #I STG my fiction actually IS concise #It's just my social media that rambles

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vilevexedvixen · 6 months ago

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Like OG Fallout? Play Pathologic!

I've been a fan of various things for literal decades now, but not really participated in any fandom communities until literally this year. I've just been making cosplays, watching videos, drawing fanart and writing fan theories / fiction in my own time. So the very heated aspects of fandom flew me by until now ^^' I do completely get the more angry fellow FNV fans for what Bethesda has done to Fallout (regarding all entries after FNV), and some of the aspects I see people praising most about OG Fallout and FNV are mainly the roleplaying, writing, and bleak setting / vibe.

And to that I can't help but go "Have you heard of our Lord and Saviour Icepick Lodge?"

Pathologic classic HD and Pathologic 2 are the closest games (in my opinion) that capture the same aspects of OG Fallout and FNV the more angry fans feel they've lost.

You play as one of three healers in an isolated Russian town ravaged by plague. This is going to be more of a ramble of me gushing about various aspects of the game, so I've included a less popular review (love this guy's stuff) to more concisely discuss the game in a more structured way and give an accurate picture of gameplay (which I only really discuss in terms of combat, which is frankly a really small part of it compared to the resource and survival stat management, semi-present fast-travel (at a cost, which changes as circumstances get worse and forces the player to choose between loss of time, energy, money, or risk of infection, when deciding how to get from a to b by forcing players to only fast travel between certain points if they have the right resources, or walk through infected or ransacked districts).

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Never before have I sympathised so much with a certified twat (The Bachelor), or been so genuinely excited to discover my character's bf-turned-bitter enemy isn't dead but finally taking a nap.

Admittedly, Classic HD is more linear but that doesn't detract from the story for me, but I definitely think 2 actualises the player freedom classic HD pretended to have.

Also both soundtracks are bangers, but quite different (tribal electronica versus shamanistic horror).

An aspect of gameplay that took a hot minute to learn but is very engaging is the hobo economy bartering system, which subtly changes as time goes by. Different resources such as medicine (which are obviously used up a lot in a plague) become more scarce and expensive. As people get more desperate for essentials like food, they start trading more valuable items like jewellery for it. Kids want seemingly valueless things like marbles and nuts for very valuable items (food and meds - yeah, besides the pharmacies, children carry the most drugs and knives; take that as you will). Inflation goes through the roof, money is no longer accepted in some shops later on. The economy is extremely dynamic, but not overly difficult to navigate so forces the player to adapt alongside it. You can never be certain what resources will be accessible the next day, which further makes when and where you decide to use what resources you have on others an engaging moral and practical decision. Unscripted, might I add!

Leading players to act like this when rare things like Schmowder (a near-fatal cure to the plague) show up by chance:

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And if you don't stay on top of your stats and resources (which is very easy to do) you end up in binds like this:

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The diagnostic and treatment system is also fairly intuitive, in that there are humor-specific tinctures, and others that can be used to treat two different humors. The more resources you use trying to diagnose where the infection has settled, the more pain you'll caused the patient, which you can lower (to prevent death) by using vials or morphine. Accurate diagnosis is important to avoid wasting resources by using the wrong antibiotics (which is less effective). You can't be in two places at once, so every patient you treat is a drain on time and resources you could be using somewhere else. Sometimes it's better to let a patient be if the risk of death is too high for your treatment to have a worthwhile impact on their chances for survival.

Given how stretched thin your time and resources always are, even if the opportunity for tender downtime catching up with old friends arises it is all to easy to pass up because you're too busy. A cruel reality most people face these days irl. What's more, if you happen to die before deciding to go to this meetup, there is a chance that Mark Immortal will tie your character's hands behind their back which then prevents you from being able to hug you friends when you meet them.

Oh yeah, forgot to say but death has permanent consequences across all saves so reloading to before you died doesn't undo any penalty Mark curses you with unless you start a whole new run. Early on, you may be asked to help with a task which ends up not helping in the way expected (to help solve Burakh's father's murder or to help cure the plague) but does act as a small tutorial on how to listen / look for herbs you can use in remedies. You still feel irritated that a child wasted your time / was just playing with you, at least initially, so you learn to really consider what's worth chasing up and what might be a waste of time / red herring when deciding what trails in your mind map task menu to chase up. Especially since if you don't pursue them, they WILL happen without you and the consequences of your intervention or not remain uncertain until they crop back up in unexpected ways.

Admitedly, the endings in 2 are binary (though what you do in the wider world and story do effect the ending / what happens to specific characters) which I found very disappointing, especially given how much less effort it takes to do one over the other, like the game is encouraging you to pick the diurnal ending. The game is also a bit janky, but no moreso than FNV. Combat is not satisfying mechanically, especially if you opt for using guns, though that's kind of the point. You're a doctor (admittedly Artemy was a military medic, so he has some combat training, but still). Though sometimes it can seem (but isn't) unavoidable in the early game when you're public enemy number one. The combat feels like if OV Fallout's combat was in first person.

There aren't technically "factions" per se, but rather bodies of power in the town the approach both its running and the crisis at hand from different angles. To be honest, I completely sidestepped the Saborovs for my first two playthroughs entirely. Bad Grief says I'm a fool to try and clear my name to the man who effectively runs the police force? Sure! Unless you take interest in investigating your father's death, or frequently save babies (long story), I didn't cross their path except in the town hall meeting. Which is a shame, but honestly the other families interested me more. The Kains have a lot going on and are the most philosophically driven family both in their architectural choices and in how they utilize the polyhedron. The Kains and the Olgimskies are more interlinked than the Saborovs are with anyone, especially regarding the town's children and their seperate factions (Notkin's Soul-and-a-halves and Khan's Dogheads, whom you'll likely encounter early on to help settle some gang warfare). In fact the town children functionally operate a seperate society divided between the town and the polyhedron.

I quite like the fact that the Olgymskies (responsible for the town's main / only industry of slaughterhouses, which repeatedly overlap with the older practice of bull worship and sacrifice by The Kin - wait, I haven't even mentioned them yet wtf) aren't just treated as evil robber barons (though Big Vlad absolutely partakes in corruption and prioritising the health of his children over the town / his worker, especially when investigating The Termitary and the circumstances around its closure), but people navigating stopping the spread of plague while still trying to meet the very real problem of food scarcity now that the Town's been effectively cut off from the rest of the world and their lifeline industry has been halted.

Something I really appreciate is that they show the children have agency and act by their own judgement, and that the adults of the town aren't inherently wiser. Early on in the game the leaders of the town main child gangs will go in search of a way to help stop the plague's spread and WILL get infected unless you intervene. They also keep track of the plague's spread, for their own sake but the player can take head of what they learn to plan their routes through the town ahead of time. They also aren't treated like untouchable saints either. Death is very much a reality for EVERY character, no matter how young, both by natural and unnatural causes from the get-go. There are several occasions where the player character will be taught by child characters, such as Sticky, about how to survive in ways they've had to as orphans. I also love how the main child factions have their own distinct philosophies that help (alongside more specific characters that play carer / leadership roles outside of the Doghead and Soul-and-a-half factions, like Capella and Maria Kaina) inform your late-game decisions, since the children are very much the town's future, and how you endorse them will inform how the town operates going forward. I especially love the dogheads, and how they see themselves as not quite fully human yet. Striving for humanity and to be better, such as the utopian future promised by their home The Polyhedron. Meanwhile Notkin's soul-and-a-halves are far more grounded in the here and now, and the fact we need to rely on each other (and our animal companions) to be whole. The two aren't a dichotomy either and work together on a few occasions since, at the end of the day, surviving the plague is a shared goal.

Good luck trying to save everyone! It is genuinely difficult and just deciding who to use resources on and choosing what to use resources for actively effect the story and roleplaying, not just dialogue. Supplies are limited and sometimes it's better to focus on self-preservation just to live another day because it's better others die than the town to go without a doctor. The game mocks and derides players who engage in combat, but you're never barred from it and there are very good reasons to engage in it (obtaining more medical supplies to keep people alive, saving babies from infected buildings, self-defence, protecting people who would otherwise be wrongfully executed, etc.)

I think it's important to seek out the good that still exists in the world rather than stew over the bad. Ironic, I know, given I'm recommending a bleak tragedy of a game / story, but my point that it's good still stands.

So yeah, if you're a disgruntled Fallout fan please give Pathologic (especially Pathologic 2) a shot. I really think you'll like it!

Edit: I keep adding stuff to this post. Originally tried to keep it brief but kept thinking of stuff worth talking about that it's beginning to get bloated ^^'

#fallout nv #fallout new vegas #fallout #pathologic #pathologic 2 #my favourite games #game recommendations #Youtube

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natalieironside · 3 years ago

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Maggots in the Corpse of an Empire: An anarchist approach to gothic literature

Hey everybody, all the wonderful people who subscribe to my Patreon already saw this last week but I wrote another one of my grouchy rambling essays that I write sometimes and this one is some reflections on how I as an anarchist spec-fic writer view my genre. I think it's pretty good but of course I would say that. It's free to read now but if you wanna toss a coin to your author then you'll get early access to stuff for only $2 a month; I'd call that a bargain.

***

“America sleeps ahead of you, its nightmares filled with quakes, storms. You’ll need to find your own path.”

As is so often the case with terms related to art and aesthetics, what is and is not “gothic” is infuriatingly difficult to pin down with mere words. As a musical genre, subcultural lifestyle, or personal style of dress, the vast intersections between goth, punk, emo, hardcore, synthwave, heavy metal, and so on make a simple and concise definition nearly impossible to verbalize; one might as well say that a goth is a punk who wears lace while a punk is a goth with spikes. Aesthetically, the gothic is a lot like pornography, in that I have no idea what it is but I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.

Defining the gothic as a mode of literature is a bit easier, but still irritating enough. In superficial terms (and, I think, in the mind of the average person), it’s tempting to say something like: “A gothic story is a scary story about an old building.” In every nook and cranny of the vast gulf between Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, the word “gothic” calls to mind French cathedrals, English country estates, Carpathian castles, and American slave plantations, with all of the dark secrets, unpleasant pasts, and shallow graves one expects to find in such places. But, of course, if that were all there were to it, every Dungeons and Dragons campaign about an evil wizard in a tower and every horror story involving a haunted house would be gothic; and, while those things certainly can be, they aren’t necessarily.

The matter is complicated further as the gothic genre contains immense variety, and even the works that most of us agree are all gothic can be very, very different from one another. A work may be in the equivocal gothic (supernatural elements are ambiguously real or unreal, as in Wuthering Heights), the natural gothic (supernatural elements are not present, as in the aforementioned A Rose for Emily), the explained gothic (what was thought to be supernatural is revealed to be natural, as in The Mysteries of Udolpho), or the supernatural or marvelous gothic (the unnatural and phantasmagorical is present explicitly, as in Dracula), and still sit comfortably under the label of gothic. What, then, is the unifying factor?

To my mind, the most elegant and concise definition of what is and is not gothic was put into words by James M. Powell in 1988, writing for the Syracuse Scholar about German narrative historian Leopold von Ranke: “The great paradox of human existence is the refusal of the past to die and the danger that critical examination of the past, always fragile, may succumb. Human beings live in the narrow margins between mythic pasts and hard-won efforts at understanding their past.” To wit, I believe that a story becomes specifically gothic fiction rather than more broadly horror or fantasy when its central themes deal with the uncomfortable intrusion of the past into the present and the stubborn refusal of that past to die.

My opinions on literary fiction should be well-known to anyone familiar with my work, but to briefly summarize a bitter old woman’s lifetime of kvetching, I find the majority of contemporary so-called litfic to be uninspired and uninteresting drivel that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on (with the few notable exceptions, such as Leslie Feinberg’s incredible Stone Butch Blues or Latin American magical realism, notable as much for their rarity as their exemplary quality). I find myself at home in the world of speculative fiction, in stories of imagined worlds and flights of fancy and phantasmagoria; what Professor Tolkien called subcreation. Progressive speculative fiction is a genre dominated by science fiction, such as the dystopian near-future sci-fi of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and the “harder” far-future sci-fi of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish cycle, with works of fantasy and phantasm (such as the fantasy of Margaret Killjoy, or Le Guin’s own Earthsea series) being comparatively uncommon. This is to be expected; the fantasy genre is usually rooted, at least superficially or aesthetically, in the past or the present, and those artists setting out to create art dealing with progressive themes will naturally be most concerned with progress, whether that’s dreaming of a better future or ruminating on how the crimes of the present might affect the future.

However, the problem of the stubborn past is not one that can ever be discounted or ignored. As the character Ulysses said in one of my favorite works of progressive near-future science fiction, the video game Fallout: New Vegas, “Who are you, who do not know your history?”

In his 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, the brilliant political economist and passable wordsmith Karl Marx famously said: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted by the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” This, to me, summarizes the essence of the gothic as much as it's a statement on real-world history and politics. The past, with all of its mistakes and all of its secrets, defines and creates the present. The stage of history upon which the great drama of our lives will play out was set and dressed long before we were born, and the problems of the present that we fight to fix are the purest form of the stubborn refusal of the past to die.

Ever since the people who worry about such things have condescended to turn a critical eye towards genre fiction, rivers of ink have been spilled discussing the possible utility of horror fiction and the nature of humanity’s perpetual fascination with the grotesque and macabre. The general consensus amongst critics and theorists, which I mostly agree with, is that horror is important both as a conceptual “safe space” in which to explore the more unsavory aspects of the human experience and as an unflattering mirror providing a far too honest reflection of ourselves and the world we live in. This, I think, makes the gothic a genre uniquely poised to treat with the problems of the modern world; as the past creates the present and the contradictions of the past define the issues of the present, our lives as workers are haunted by the uncomfortable intrusion of the past into the present and by the stubborn refusal of the past to die, and the phantasms vexing workers in the edifice of a dying empire are far more terrifying than those haunting Victorian aristocrats in their decaying estates. After all, as the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters.

Marx also said, in his verbose and rambling but nonetheless insightful Capital: “Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more the more it sucks.” We artists tend to be a disconnected and self-aggrandizing group who go through life with an over-inflated sense of the importance of what we do, and I as a novelist have got my doubts about the utility of fiction as a pedagogical tool, but it can’t be denied that all art is propaganda. I do believe that, when we as artists take the time to explore the gothic, we might help deliver just a few more hammer-taps onto the end of the stake being driven into the heart of the vampiric wage system.

In love and solidarity,

Natalie H. Ironside

Horror Writers Association

IWW Freelance Journalists Union

#patreon posts

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truetgirl · 2 years ago

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Third to last one of these. Man it’s uh. Been a month, all of a sudden. Well, hopefully reading this will be as nice a distraction as writing it stands to be. Well, in any case, just a reminder these are in no particular order. I have soemthing for the last one the 29th with a bit more to say than most, but really the only order consideration all month is to start and finish strong lol. But yes, today we have:

Bumbleby!

Once more, if you know me, probably could have seen this one coming. Also, to anyone tempted to tell me “you said canon ships for this series and this isn’t actually canon,” I beg you, please, for the love of god, revisit the lessons of your elementary school reading classes and build up those comprehension skills. Fiction will be so much more interesting, I promise. Also I apologize for how ramble-tastic this gets, I had a very hard time remaining any kind of concise while still getting in the points I want to talk about.

What compels me with these two is something I see get referenced a lot with them, but not as often discussed in its own right, and that’s the theme of forgiveness. What it means to forgive yourself, to forgive a loved one, to deserve forgiveness, to not deserve it, to know how to give it... It’s in every part of their relationship after the volume 3 finale, and I think that’s worth digging into.

So, basic context for anyone not aware of their story. Blake and Yang meet when they arrive at a school where they’re to learn how to kill monsters. In the first couple days there they become partners, then part of the larger unit of team RWBY. Over the course of their school year the girls, of course, get to learning about one another, and it’s revealed that Blake was once part of a civil rights group that drifted into radical and violent action, which she was part of for some time, but recently abandoned when they started crossing too many lines for her. By now, at least locally, they operate more like an organized crime syndicate.

After all of that comes out, Blake tries desperately to figure out what her former comrades are after and how to stop them. In doing this she nearly burns out completely, not letting herself rest or unwind basically at all for several days on end. Yang, ultimately, is the one who snaps her out of it a bit with a speech and a personal story about how even if you don’t want to stop, you have to be willing to slow down so you don’t burn yourself up, consumed by an obsession. Then they dance together at a homecoming party. It’s very sweet and gay.

If you ask me, that’s the first bit of forgiveness playing into their story, right there in volume 2, at pretty much the very first opportunity of their shared characterization being a thing that exists. Yang, very wisely, suggesting that Blake just take it a little easier on herself. Blake holds herself very responsible for actions taken by her old brothers and sister in arms, and it’s eating her alive. One of the first ways we see Yang caring for Blake, in the whole series, is by asking her to ease up on herself and let herself rest for her own sake. Forgiveness of the self, even in such a small form, in there right from the start.

Skip forward to the finale of volume 3 and the fall of Beacon and, well, shit just goes sideways for EVERYBODY at this point. Blake is worried Yang might be “too much like an old partner” after an incident where Yang was tricked into attacking an “unarmed” opponent for what seemed, to everyone but her, to be no reason. Who is this old partner? Well, after many glimpses of him across the series so far, he finally enters the story proper.

Adam. Blake’s old partner from the White Fang, and her abusive ex. Pictured above is him nearly killing Blake, who can hardly even try to fight due to her utter panic upon seeing him, and then vowing to leave her alive long enough that he’ll destroy everything she loves before killing her. Might I remind you, this is in revenge for her leaving him and the White Fang behind. Basically, in the simplest possible terms, he’s vowed to make Blake suffer because she dumped him, and he’s a manipulative, possessive, abusive prick.

And, unfortunately, he starts making good on his threat almost immediately when Yang shows up and rushes in to save Blake,

he sees how afraid Blake is for Yang, says he’ll start with her,

and then he takes Yang’s arm.

After the fall, the member of team RWBY scatter to the four corners of the world. For Blake and Yang (and Weiss too but that’s not what we’re talking about rn) that means going home. It’s not far for Yang, and honestly fair enough because the girl is in fact recovering from the most traumatic injury she’s ever sustained. For Blake, well, it could scarcely be farther. She runs to her parents’ home in Menagerie, which is on the other side of the world.

And I do wanna stress something about that: she ran. Ruby set off on a quest to do good in the world. Weiss was forced to come home by her father. Yang was brought home to recover from her injuries and figure out life as an amputee. Blake is unique in that she just flat out ran away. Weiss remarks to Yang later, in volume 5, that of course Blake ran. She had finally let down her guard and opened up to people again, and the second she did all of her worst nightmares came true.

She blames herself for Yang’s injury, she blames herself for the White Fang’s actions after having played the role she played in making it what it had become. Even Yang, who has been there for Blake all along, resents her. But not for the loss of her arm, or the actions of the white fang. Yang is hurt and angry because Blake left her.

See, that’s Yang’s great anxiety. While Blake worries she ruins everything she touches, Yang is deeply traumatized by the knowledge that her mother just up and left her as a baby, before they’d ever even gotten to know each other, for reasons that seem somewhere between stupid and nonexistent. She lives with the constant fear that she’s not enough, or too much, or whatever will drive people away.

But ultimately, after Blake was apart from her team for nearly a full volume longer than the rest of them spent apart, they do come back together. Her father and Weiss have helped Yang tremendously along the path that leads to her forgiving Blake, but she still has to be the one to do it. Similarly, Sun has helped Blake well along the road to forgiving herself for the things that she did not do, but she has to make the final push herself.

Throughout the first episodes of volume 6, the two of them awkwardly try to find their old dynamic with each other, but it’s not the same and they both know it. It takes a while of Blake being overly helpful and still feeling pangs of guilt, and of Yang just wanting her partner back and seeing her as the whole person she still is, that she doesn’t need to be protected as though she’s fragile and weak. By the late episodes in the volume they’ve started to get that chemistry back. They’ve largely managed to come to terms with themselves and each other, and apart from a comparatively minor (nut no less important) conflict from which they reconcile in volume 8, surely that’s all there is to be said here, right?

Nah, we still got Adam to wrap up. “But how,” I hear you wail, “How is he relevant to a discussion of forgiveness?!” And I answer, very simply: sometimes people do not deerve to be forgiven, and showing that in a context where it contrasts with people forgiving each other and themselves for their mistakes and anxieties? Exquisite.

Adam manipulated and abused Blake for years. He treated her like she belonged to him, like that was only natural, and he used her to do things that would horrify her the moment she stopped to think about them after getting away from him. That Yang forgave Blake for the things she did out of pain and fear is vitally important, in that it drew into greater clarity for her how wrong what Adam had done was. I really believe that volume 3 and earlier Blake, if she’d been confronted with Adam under different circumstances than she eventually was, may have begged him to forgive her, would have forgiven him, because the man is an effective manipulator and his hold on her was still a lot more present.

Even in volume 6, though she never offers him any forgiveness or absolution, she still tries multiple times to let him walk away. Yang, too, is willing to follow Blake’s lead on how to handle the situation after she arrives, despite her personal grudge against Adam. They give him a chance to stop and walk away, but they do not pretend that they can forgive what he’s done to them. “Being the bigger person” and forgiving someone can, in some cases, be good for the one doing it. But other times they don’t deserve it, they’ll never deserve it and their victims have every right to refuse to give it to them. And, in this case, when he keeps coming at them, every justification to do this:

To forgive the people who you love, and who truly love you? To accept each other, mistakes, anxieties, and all? It’s one of the hardest but most rewarding things you can do. And, equally, when you’re wronged time and again, but still feel care for the one doing it? It can be hard to admit that they don’t deserve your forgiveness, that what is best for you is to “take the low road” as it’s so often framed. Blake and Yang embody the power of forgiveness, both in what they give to each other and withhold from the man who hurt each of them, in different ways. They show how they care by taking each other back and their love growing stronger after terrible things hurt them and drove them apart, and that’s some good shit, if you ask me.

#kelly things #kelly's pride posts #bumbleby #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #rwby

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sidhewrites · 3 years ago

Photo

New intro post, because why not?

❀ About Me: ❀

My pen name is REE. I’m 25+, use THEY/HE/SHE pronouns, and live in the PST Timezone. My official pen name is Ray Lane, and you can get my first novella HERE.

I’ve been writing for well over half my life now, with varying degrees of success. I’m also really bad at being concise, so expect lots and lots of rambling any time I open my mouth. Ask me for neat animal facts!

I like zombies and guts and fairies and things. If it’s either either really cute, or high-stakes horror, or a mixture of both extremes, then it’s for me. Most of my writing is HIGH FANTASY, and has been leaning towards LIGHTER AND SOFTER themes of late, but I’m a fan of a wide array of genres and styles. Eldritch beings and monsters are a personal favorite, including the old folk tales surrounding western Eurpoean fae folk and supernatural beings.

I also illustrate. You can find my art blog here.

❀ Main Projects❀

❀ I Met a Girl in the Graveyard aka “Graveyard Lesbians.”

Draft 1 complete! Now in editing stages.

While wallowing in misery after a recent breakup, skeptic Kaz heads down to the local cemetery to sabotage the investigation of some big-name ghost hunters. While there, she meets Lucy, a goth woman who seems just as interested in causing trouble as Kaz herself. But something seems off when the hunters’ tech keeps picking up on signals coming from Lucy’s direction – or, it would, if Kaz didn’t think they were just getting really lucky.

…She’s a ghost, y’all. Lucy is a ghost, and Kaz is too stupid to figure it out.

GENRE: Supernatural, comedy, wlw, urban fantasy

ADDITIONAL TAGS: Gay and bisexual main characters. A senior cat as a major supporting character. Ghost hunters. Jock MC.

More Info Here

Silly Powerpoint Here

Start reading here

❀ Secondary Projects ❀

❀ Glimte (Complete!) As a child, Katja’s father told her that sirens live in the bioluminescent waters surrounding their small village, but she seems to be the only one who believes in them. Her belief is solidified after a siren saves her as a child – and cements her fixation on sirens throughout her life, even through the tragedies and changes throughout the years.

Genre: Short fiction, wlw, low fantasy

More info here.

Get the eBook here.

❀ Silverlight: Polly is a healer’s apprentice in a sleepy village, where the most exciting thing in her life is sneaking into the forest with her best friend Jack, an exiled fairy with no magic to his name. But when they find an injured fairy solder in the woods, they set off beyond the veil into a world of magic and danger to stop the wicked Night King before he can cover the world in darkness forever.

GENRE: Light fantasy, adventure, romance subplot.

ADDITIONAL TAGS: Bisexual main character, transgender love interest. Talking animal sidekick. A requisite masquerade ball. Polyamory. Childhood friends to lovers, bodyguard romance. #LetPollyHaveABigSword2k23

More Info Here

❀ Tertiary / Backburner Projects ❀

❀ Untitled aka “Ren Faire Lesbians.”

Zanna loves her job at the local Renaissance Faire, but her world is turned upside down at the appearance of Aurelia of Velaqua, a knight who has nothing but her magic sword and a vague memory of how she arrived on earth. With no other ideas, Zanna takes her in as they work together to find a way to get Aurelia home. But they soon discover that the danger of one world is seeping into the other, and it’s going to take everything they have to stop it.

GENRE: Romcom, cozy fantasy, romantasy

ADDITIONAL TAGS: loyal lady knights, reverse isekai / portal fantasy, only one bed, fish out of water, height difference, horse girls tm, himbo best friend

More Info Here

❀ April Showers

Lise and Cass have lived a sleepy, art-filled life with nothing more exciting than the occasional riverside picnic or pillow fort to occupy their days. But this year’s spring rains bring something entirely unexpected – a selkie named Fiske. Their world is immediately changed as they try to make her as comfortable as possible while searching for a way to get her home without being found out.

Genre: Queer Romance, slice of life, low fantasy.

More Info Here

#intro post #writeblr #writeblr community #writeblr intro #tumblr intro #about me #about

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kira-ani-mcgrath · 3 years ago

Text

Commission Tips

First, why I feel somewhat qualified to offer unsolicited advice for commission sellers in a Tumblr post:

I've bought a lot of stuff - I have purchased about 70 commissions over 15 years

I've seen a lot of stuff - I have viewed countless works and commission info posts from a wide range of mediums* on many platforms** * (digital, traditional, writing, music, plushie, customizations, crafts, cosplay, and more) ** (Tumblr, Twitter, deviantART, Instagram, carrd, Ko-fi, Google Doc, personal websites, etc.)

I do a lot of stuff - I am a varied hobbyist creator (traditional art, digital art, comics, fanfiction, original fiction, screenplays, songwriting, knitting, and other miscellaneous crafting projects)

I know a lot of stuff - I have extensive customer service experience derived from working in various facets of retail for nearly 18 years

I've been around a while - My oldest public media that I still use is my deviantART account, Kira-Ani-McGrath, which I've had for over 18 years

So, with all those solid reasons as to why you should listen to a random internet stranger, here are seven tips I've put together in the hope of helping someone seeking to peddle their wares on the web.

Big, Bold, and BAM!

Any info-graphs/visual commission charts need to be simple, clear, and concise. I often see charts cluttered with far too many example images, making the graphic tough to read. Another problem that often goes hand-in-hand with the former is tiny example images, making it difficult to get a good idea of the skill/quality without hunting for additional information. You can always tell people where to find more examples of your work if you feel you haven't got enough room to showcase everything in the commission post (ex: "Find more examples in my 'KAM's art' tag!").

On Tumblr in particular, the above issues are compounded by a couple formatting missteps. 1) Large single images that are either too tall or too wide, thus being difficult to see (even when enlarged) due to Tumblr's limitations. 2) Placing multiple images side-by-side instead of stacked top-to-bottom. A vertical layout makes for easier viewing, especially for mobile users. Yes, one can click/tap to enlarge images, but it's best to assume people won't bother, and thus you have to quickly catch people's scrolling eyes with your best examples in an easy-to-see format. (Or, to put it another way, you have to slap viewers in the face with your awesomeness.)

The same principles apply to non-visual commissions (ex: writing, music) as well. Don't ramble on in a single long paragraph about your commission offerings. Bulleted lists and block quotes make things much easier to read and comprehend. I'm especially a fan of having a small snippet of your best work somewhere in the post, so the potential customer can get an idea of your style even before they delve into any examples you may have linked or referred them to.

Direction

Lots of things frustrate me about commission hunting, but one of the big ones is someone posting "Commissions open!" with absolutely no mention of where to find their commission info or how best to contact them (bonus aggravation if I go to the blog/profile and there is absolutely no information anywhere - bio, pinned post, tags, search, you name it).

The best option is to have a link to the info anytime you're advertising your commissions (ex: when posting a completed commission, include a link or hyperlink if mentioning or tagging that your commissions are currently open). However, sometimes a link isn't possible, whether due to the social media format or, in the case of Tumblr, links randomly interfering with a post's ability to appear in search/tags. In those cases, telling people where to find your commission info is critical to driving business. (Ex: "Commissions open! Link in bio!" or "Commissions open! See my pinned post!")

Location

A big bummer in my squirrel-like stashing of commission info is saving a link to an artist's info, only to revisit it at a later time and find the post/journal/image has been deleted. Sometimes an artist has deleted their account, has stopped offering commissions, or has changed the account username and the social media platform does not redirect the old URL. Obviously there's nothing to be done in such cases. However, sometimes the artist wanted to update their commission info, and therefore deleted the old post. Thus I'm sent on a hunt for the new info. Sometimes it's easy, and other times it's not so easy. What would be of great help in these cases is if the artist updated the old graphic/text with directions to the new info (whether by link or description) instead of outright deleting the old info.

An even better option is to have one dedicated spot for your commission info that is easy for you to update. It can be a specific Tumblr post, deviantART journal, carrd website, Google Doc, or pretty much anything with a unique URL. You can then link to the info from anywhere on the web, so that even if you stop using a particular site, a potential customer can still find your latest info.

Accessibility

A caveat to "you can put your commission info anywhere" is this: if you want your commissions to be available to the general public, your commission info needs to be publicly available. In other words, it can't be put somewhere that not everyone has access to view.

A problem I have run into is artists advertising their commissions on other sites yet putting their commission information solely in Instagram stories. For those unaware, you must be logged into an Instagram account in order to view Instagram stories. I do not use Instagram. In fact, I deeply dislike Instagram, but, despite that, I do have an account that I made because of this issue. I refuse to have the app on my phone, so viewing commission info in an Instagram story requires I log in on my mobile browser or boot up my desktop. Someone else who doesn't use Instagram may give up on pursuing a commission entirely if they find that an account is required to view someone's commission info.

Similarly, someone might advertise their commissions on Twitter, but put the commission info on deviantART in a deviation that requires being logged-in to view. Or they may put the commission info on a Facebook page or album that requires being logged-in to view. I have not personally run across these, but it's the same idea. Basically, directing potential customers to a different site that they may not be able to access is not a good business practice.

Website quirks need to be taken into account as well. Sometimes Tumblr users will put their commission information on blog "pages" that are 1) not visible on the app and 2) do not always pull up on the app even when directly linked. I have saved blog links from mobile in order to pull them up on my computer to locate commission info, but one can't count on that kind of thoroughness in a field where there's lots of competition. Also, if someone is unfamiliar with Tumblr, they may just assume the link or page was broken and move on.

Additionally, you should be able to be contacted on any site you post your info on, or, if not, have an email you can be contacted through. For example, if you advertise commissions on both Tumblr and Instagram, you should not require contact solely through Instagram DMs. If you can't guarantee being reachable through a site where you've posted your commission info, then email should be an option. Email is near-universal. [Insert particular social media platform here] is not.

As a side note, I'm aware there are cases where an artist does intend for their commissions to only be available to a certain audience. For example, some artists have their commissions available only to Patreon supporters or Discord server members. That's fine. I'm referring to artists that have their commissions open to everyone and advertise on multiple sites but don't take into account that not everyone uses their preferred site. That's just lost business.

Public Pricing

I've signed my name to more vehicles than I care to count over the years, which means I've done quite a bit of car shopping. I am a researcher, and I've had times where I have many browser tabs open, pouring over the various listings and comparing all kinds of factors - such as mileage, gas mileage, safety rating, features, and, of course, price - in an effort to narrow down my choices and arrive at the best deal possible. Sometimes in these searches, vehicle listings will say "contact dealer for pricing" for various reasons. That instantly knocks the vehicle down a slot in my rating system. I have enough anxiety dealing with certain things even when I have all the facts and know exactly what I want. It's even worse when I have to cold-call for a very important piece of information and risk getting roped into a conversation I don't want to have.

Yes, I have a point to this anecdote. I have many times compared commission shopping to car buying, even joking that I put more research into my commission purchases than I have into our last few vehicle purchases. "DM/email me for prices" is an artist's equivalent of "contact dealer for pricing," and thus is an instant back-button for me at this point. It's just not worth the hassle when there are so many other options out there that give me all the information I need front-and-center.

Clear Communication

Publicly laying out the scope of your commission offerings as well as the precise purchase process is a good way to avoid confusion and miscommunication. For example:

What are your "dos" and "don'ts" for commission types/subjects?

How many WIPs and revisions are given?

How should a potential customer contact you?

What information should they include? (Have the customer follow a basic form if that makes things easier for you.)

What is the turnaround time for communication and for the commission itself?

Through what method do you take payment (Paypal, Venmo, WesternUnion, etc.)?

What is the payment process (ex: full payment after sketch; full payment up-front; half up-front and half after confirmation of a heavily-watermarked final product with watermark to be removed after second payment)?

How may a customer use their finished commission?

Another component of clear communication is timely communication. Even if you can't actually respond to the content itself, you can say something like, "I received your message, I will review it tomorrow!" - especially if the turnaround time is longer than what is normal for you. But, again, if you set the expectation beforehand, a client will know they have to give you [x] hours/days of time before they send another message.

Tags + Text

To heighten your visibility, use a combination of common tags plus actual text, even in a mostly-visual post (ex: "commissions open", "art commission", "commission info"). This particularly applies to Tumblr and deviantART, where the search function takes into account both the tags and the text within a post. (I am not familiar enough with other social media to know whether or not the same mechanic applies.)

Also, consider using common descriptions of facets of your work, such as style (ex: realism, first-person), theme (ex: nature, LOTR), medium (ex: portrait, poem), color/mood (ex: blue, peaceful), or anything else you think a customer might search for. Just remember that only the first five tags count toward Tumblr's search (IIRC) and you don't want to unknowingly trigger any spam filters by having too many seemingly-random words in your post.

In Conclusion

If you want to succeed in selling commissions, a key component is making the process as smooth and simple as possible for your potential customers. One can't rely on casually-browsing viewers taking the extra step(s) to fill in any missing information, especially in this fast-paced world. You are the one responsible for how you present your skill and business ethic, so take the time to do it well.

Now go sell some stuff!

[This is my perspective based on my experience. You are free to disagree.]

#commissions #art #writing #business #advice #KAM's thoughts #long post

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selfshipseaside · 2 years ago

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I like that we often lift each other up. You are constantly seeing posts about how self shipping is cool and epic and if you do it you're cool and epic. But i have a feeling that's mostly to counteract how a lot of people outside of the community treat us.... I also appreciate how accepting so much of the community seems to be towards LGBTQ+, mental health, and other things. Maybe it's just the content I'm seeing but most people seem to be really ok with talking about stuff like that and being supportive of it. Which makes me very happy.

What i don't like is how aggressive some people can get about certain issues. It's just us having a fun time and taking comfort in fictional characters, not a moral debate. I feel like so many people associate liking something that has a problematic creator with being a horrible person. Maybe that person pirates everything so the creator gets no money, maybe they hate the creator. You never know unless you ask or they volunteer the info. But maybe it's just best to not attack people and send death threats before you know? If you don't like what someone does, block them. Block them and move on. It doesn't have to become this huge thing. And i fully believe there is certain types of content that people just straight up shouldn't make(illegal stuff like sexualizing minors). But in that case there's only a couple extra steps: Report, block, tell others you know about it so thet can do the same, and move on. Idk. I didn't mean to ramble this much, sorry. I just got a little carried away and I'm unable to write anything in a concise manner.

I feel the need to end on a high note so here's one last positive thing: I love how happy self shipping makes people. I love people talking about how happy it makes them. I love people making content that makes other people happy. Because at the end of the day that's what self shipping is supposed to do. It's something you find comfort in!

I agree on absolutely all of this! You make good points, a good serviceable chunk of this community is HIGHLY aggressive. I think we should all just take the time to reflect on how this all matters in the long term, we're here for comfort and fun, what's comforting about discourse? Nobody has to police others, there's no neighborhood watch or highway patrol. We're here to enjoy ourselves! I also love how happy this community is on it's good days. That's why I write for everyone! I wanna spread the goodness, and to keep it circulating so everyone can participate. Everyone is valid and deserves that much! Self-shipping is so unique and that's what should bind us together, not separate us! I love seeing the communities good side, how we uplift each other and encourage each others relationships, it's wholesome! Thank you for answering!

#Marnie answers ✦

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sagau-my-beloved · 2 years ago

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Hello how are you doing? :P

Alive and kicking, for now at least—

I do currently have an absolutely inhuman amount of work dangling above me, threatening to crush me whenever it so chooses

Since I don't have anybody in my actual real life I can complain about this too, let me go over the full magnitude of exactly what I have to get done, so you can understand the sheer amount of bullshittery that's been thrusted upon me

I have to write 3 essays before Friday on Greek, Roman, and Egyptian architecture and statues, because I need to submit one of them for my western survey midterm but my professor has which one set at random, he also won't allow you to simply copy and paste whichever essay it turns out to be, you have to rewrite the entire thing in the text box provided

So that midterm is due Friday and is also composed of 9 short response questions that I don't know anything about before going into it, I have a staggering 90 minutes to do all of that 👌

Then I have a continuation of a semester long graphic design project, which requires me to create 25 unique logos based on a fictional environmental activism corporation, due Friday as well

Also on the graphic design schedule we have a completely different project, due Sunday, which specifically says in the header "Don't wait until the last minute to start working on this", which requires me to design four stamps based on social issues, with no less than 12 different steps of criteria for each, and then, of course, a formal analysis for the set

And then ending it off strong we have a discussion post which thankfully only requires about 3 paragraphs worth of work, one paragraph due Friday and the other two on Sunday

After that 3 psychology assignments due Friday, I'm really kind of scared to look at that class because I know I have this really big grade hanging over my head, but I don't know much about it or when it's due, and every week that passes I tell myself I'll deal with it next week—

Then moving ahead a bit, I have to fully shade an 11 × 14 in fantasy based architecture drawing, with a fine liner, before Monday, because that's when we're critiquing

Have to finish a landscape charcoal drawing that I've worked like 4 hours on and I'm only about 15℅ done with before Tuesday, because that's when we're critiquing

And then I have a western survey research paper due on Wednesday, that I have not started, roughly 5 pages and requires me to find 4 peer reviewed sources and properly cite them 😀

On top of that I'm completely losing tomorrow afternoon because I agreed to go to an event with a family member out of obligation, which I only learned about this morning, because if I don't go then a different family member of mine would go in my place, and having the two of them in a room together might actually lead to the final nail in the coffin of their multi decade long relationship

And I think that's about it—

So I'm just a tad bit stressed, but I assure you that I'm handling this with the utmost of optimism I am physically capable of, and no matter how all of this plays out I'm not going to die nor is it the end of the world, which is what I have to keep telling myself

So I apologize for kind of rambling for something that required a short concise answer, but honestly writing all that out was kind of therapeutic and it might actually help me keep better track of everything—

So thank you for the check in, I needed it, and I hope you aren't suffering the same fate

And maybe send a prayer to Lord Barbatos for me cause I'm gonna need it

#hey look i'm talking #personal #vent #(?)#I'm not sure if I would really consider it that but I will tag it to be safe #I'm so tired guys #tw cursing

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heraldofzaun · 3 years ago

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what are your thoughts on viktor and being neurodivergent? though like, obligatory disclaimer that if riot ever did come out and say that "hey! viktor is canonically [something]" that would be catastrophic but i think it is a little bit of fun for consideration

Oh! Well I like to think he's autistic, which is partially because I am too. (Of course in canon it would be catastrophic because haha, oh man, look at how they've treated Blitzcrank's biographies ever since they gave him an updated one. There's some coding in there, alright, and I am... not a fan...)

I’ve posted a lot of long posts recently (this is no exception) and this is also on a kind of tricky subject, so I’m readmore’ing it.

So anyways, while I have to admit that some of the reason why (my) Viktor is autistic is because I am - I think that you can make a general semi-convincing argument. Or I'm so wrapped up in my own interpretations that I can, at the least. Anyways, from here on out when I say Viktor I mean my personal take. Your mileage may vary on applying this to other interpretations.

(Also, thoughts on new lore Jayce's being kind of coded to be like, a stereotypical autistic dude? (If you have any I mean.) I don't like that Riot is doing it, of course, but I've seen a few good rehabilitative takes on it in fandom. @hamartio's Jayce springs to mind, because their Jayce has been developed over the years and also written by someone who like. Cares. Anyways, I have my own personal Jayce ideas that rely on his old lore so he's not really an asshole there, at least in those regards, so I don't really have many thoughts on new Jayce. I think new Viktor is... pretty coded as well, but it’s also insanely stereotypical. The whole “always working, always wants certainty, gets into automation not because he (primarily) wants to help those injured by catastrophes in Zaun but because the catastrophes interrupt his work” thing makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I’ll write sometime on why the rewrite of his lore fails, in my opinion, to hit upon the same themes of his first - would that be of interest to folks? Anyways, this parenthetical is too long.)

I think that autistic Viktor is cool and makes sense, somewhat because of the fact that the ways he goes about solving his problems are, er, unorthodox. (Of course I am not saying that the GE is because he’s autistic, because that’s stupid. This is why I’m kind of squirrely about talking so openly about what I think Viktor’s got going on, and why I don’t really trust if a non-autistic person headcanons him as autistic. There’s a lot of room for that headcanon to just reinforce the “autistic people are supergeniuses with no emotions that work based off of Facts and Logic” trope, and I hate that.) Since a lot of autism is about feeling adrift from/at odds with neurotypical society, I think that Viktor’s general solutions and also his idealistic leanings in the face of everything Zaun is tracks for that. Roboticization makes sense as a way to stop suffering and death, because it’s more achievable than individual feats of immortality through magic or whatever. Viktor doesn’t really get why people would be so opposed to it - he’s made it clear that while he dislikes his own emotions and wants them gone, he doesn’t expect others to cast off theirs. (Maybe he expected that when he was in the thick of his emotional pain, mostly because he couldn’t imagine others choosing differently than he at the time, but not in the current day.)

Of course, externally, when the scary cyborg man who admits to cutting off his own limbs says “no, being a robot is cool, you can keep your emotions even”, any Zaunite (or any person) is going to interpret that as “he is definitely lying”. Viktor doesn’t quite make that leap. (I have thoughts on the whole Theory of Mind concept and I don’t mean to say that Viktor can’t empathize - he does, and does too much - with others, but I think that in this instance he just can’t quite understand sometimes why people don’t believe him.) He also doesn’t quite get why people would be so attached to the bodies that they’re currently in, especially if he can make a mechanical replica. Or why people might want to die and pass into non-existence after a life well lived. (To him, personally, there’s always more to do. Also he’s terrified of death but that’s another topic.)

I also think that Viktor’s empathy is of the hyper- rather than hypo- kind, partially because I feel like outside of self-advocacy groups the mere concept of autistic hyperempathy is seen as like... impossible? It’s also because he generally seems to be kind of an emotional guy in canon before Stanwick, what with the lore saying that “almost no trace of the original man remained” in reference to Viktor reemerging as someone without emotions. That, combined with the fact that he was described as having a “hope to better society” before everything went down, kind of makes me believe that he was a naive idealist type. (Again, not that autism makes you naive, but...) But yes, hyperempathy. Hence "no pain, no wars, no suffering, no death” being part of his ideology for the Glorious Evolution. He gets pretty ripped up about people being hurt, and it’s really only gotten worse over the years as he’s grasped the full scope of pain in the world.

Personally, I write pre-Stanwick-incident Viktor as someone who is still somewhat awkward with expressing emotion, but it’s not due to him not having them. It’s due to the fact that the ways in which he naturally expressed them and in which he interacted with the world were just... seen as odd/different/etc. (I don’t think Runeterra has an autism diagnosis or particularly excellent psychology, even in Piltover and Zaun, so he just gets the “you’re a weird dude” treatment for his entire life.) Stimming or smiling a certain way or talking a lot about his interests or, you know, the general autistic existence is weird to most people around him, as it unfortunately is in real life. So he’s more reserved until you actually know him, because he’s just masking all the time. (Fun fact about my Viktor: he’s pretty expressive under that actual mask of his. It helps to not have to micromanage expressions all the time when he isn’t experiencing a bout of flat affect due to [gestures vaguely at everything else going on with his mental state], although he sometimes feels poorly about not being able to manage himself. But that’s his issues, and I think it’s good for him to show emotion.)

Side note - Stanwick was able to do such a number on Viktor due to: a) Stanwick being very charismatic and manipulative, on top of being an actually smart man and scientist - he’s really a great example of a “good Zaunite”, in the sense of being good at being what the culture rewards, b) Viktor actively dealing with the death of his parents and Stanwick being an older adult who’d treated him kindly and had never seemed put-off by Viktor’s oddities, and c) Viktor not realizing that he’d get backstabbed, because yes he knows that that happens in academia but Stanwick’s nice. Whether or not the outcomes would have been the same if Viktor were more competent at being “a good Zaunite”... well, probably not. Viktor ended up where he did because of who he is.

(Secondary side note: Viktor has a very strong and very black-and-white sense of what’s right and wrong, as well as general black-and-white thinking. You can see how that would have... not helped in the situations he was put through.)

This is getting kind of rambling, but I guess the point of this is that Viktor’s wanting to remove his emotions may be cloaked in the language of them being “inefficient” or “unhelpful”, which would feed into autistic stereotypes, but it’s really more of a matter of them being too painful and raw for him to process. He feels too much and hurts too much, and no amount of positive emotions in the world will (in his mind) make up for the pain he’s felt and will feel. So it’s better to not feel anything at all, isn’t it? At least then you aren’t overwhelmed by it all.

Viktor just hasn’t fit in with Zaun for all his life, really. Not as an odd child who can tell you all about science-fiction and techmaturgy, not as an odd and reserved teenager/young adult, not as a bright young doctoral student still dealing with grief but trying to make the best of it, and... not as the Machine Herald. But now he’s given up on trying to fit in, for better or for worse.

(Other miscellaneous and less serious autistic thoughts on him: generally a pretty fixed diet, partially due to being autistic but also due to what’s easily available in Zaun + what agrees with his stomach. A fan of weight and pressure - I like to think that the reason his outfit is like that is that he finds it comforting, and also that he has a weighted blanket or two around. Special interests of general techmaturgy, robotics, and science-fiction. He can talk for hours about any of those, and has. Both his parents were mildly spectrum-y, his mother a little bit moreso, so they just kinda assumed that him being him was out-of-the-ordinary and a bit strange but not something “horribly wrong”. Oh! And his third arm, which is under a little less conscious control than the rest of him, still stims sometimes when he’s working or otherwise not paying attention to it.)

This was very long and jumped around a lot, because I find it hard to give a convincing paragraph-by-paragraph argument about exactly why I think that Viktor is autistic, or rather why I headcanon him as such. But hopefully it was interesting! I just have a lot of thoughts on him, as well as the general state of autistic-coded or perceived-as-autistic-by-individuals (both allistic and autistic) characters in media and so it’s very hard to do anything concise without branching out into discussing other topics.

#anonymous #headcanons | beneath the mask #//preemptive remark that these are my own thoughts on autism which are filtered through the lens of my life experiences #//as well as that of some aspects (emphasis on some) of academic research. baron-cohen can choke with his theories #//also i did not explain some terms here under the assumption that those reading would probably already know them. feel free to ask if not!

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