#i didn't make the meme. it's from a discord server but i have to share it because it's so damn accurate

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

Accurate.

[dreamauri]

♪ — 𝗪𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗗 𝗜𝗡? - part one max verstappen x reader (fluff) “. . . when he wants to be normal, he can count on you, stranger.”

( fic master list | general master list ) ( requests ) ( next )

One of the things Max Verstappen despises about being Max Verstappen is being Max Verstappen. Three time world champion, youngest race winner, mad max, f1 dominator, all the fame and media and people following him around. It's very hard to get a moment of peace or be treated normally. When people hear his name they either put on big smiles or ugly frowns. He hates the special treatment.

He misses when he could have a conversation without people recording or judging him. Without people whispering about him, or fake being his friend for whatever fame. When people would just spend time with him for the sake of spending time, or having a conversation for the sake of friendly socialization and conversation. Luckily though for the Dutch, in this day and age, Max could just enter a spare email in Discord and make a second lowkey account.

The pfp was a random photo of Max, a meme. Lowkey enough, Max decided after staring at the profile long enough before opening DiscoBoard. After scrolling and searching, he was dawned upon with a relatively small server with only 280 people online, surrounding sim racing. After he followed instructions on the welcome page like verifying he's not a robot and picking roles, he got his first ping. 

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Max met you in August of 2022. The way you talked and messed around with him got him constantly checking his phone for notifications over the next months. The way you befriended him and were relaxed around him once the two of you got to know each other, it kept him sane. And although Max didn't really reveal a lot about himself except that his work required a lot of traveling and effort, you trusted him enough to share about your own life up in France, ranting about your weird encounters as an employee at Cisco.

The blonde’s favorite part about getting home was plopping in his gaming chair and switching his Discord accounts. Pulling his headphones on and navigating through the server, he joined the active voice chat. It was as if he was switching lives, turning off Max Verstappen to be an irrelevant 26 year old.

“A millioooon.” you sang like you always did, a nickname you’d given him since amilian sounded like a million. 

“Laaaaa.” Max sang back with a chuckle before greeting the other acquaintances present on the call. 

“How was your weekend?” You hummed. 

“Same as always. Maybe a bit shittier this time.” He sighed, seeing you were on Gran Turismo from your shared screen. 

“I’d love to beat up someone for you.” You always offer when he’s down. The blonde would laugh and shake his head even though you can’t see. You never cease to bring him a smile with your tone and jokes and hearty aura, despite being kilometers up north. "We're waiting for Josh to take a few rounds around spa, you wanna join?" 

"Oh, yes please." friendly racing with no consequences, points or championship? just friends messing around and enjoying themselves? Yes please.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"You see the new verstappen photos that just dropped, Mr. Max Verstappen nerd?" Max looked up from his phone, eyebrows furrowed as he looked at your dm chat where the two of you decided to move the call once everyone else put down the steering wheel for the night.

"This one is from Bahrain I think . . . you know, I'm starting to take a liking to him." Max rolled his eyes playfully at your words. "To be honest, I was kind of disappointed this weekend." Max rubbed his eyes, looking up at your profile picture. 

"Why what happened?" He asked even though he probably knew all too well the events of the Australian grand prix.

"Max DNFed on the third or fifth lap." You sighed. 

"Oh yeah?" Max hummed, pursing his lips, not wanting to recall the memories. "What's so bad about that? I thought you were a die hard Charles fan?" he asked. 

"Excuse you, I'm a die hard Fernando fan." You joked in a sassy tone which pulled a chuckle from him.

"What is it about Max DNFing that is bothering you then?" Max himself asked, putting his phone down to concentrate on your voice. 

"I just don't—" you sighed deeply. On your end of the call you rolled back in your chair, getting up and flopping on your bed with your phone in hand.

When you did answer his question, all Max heard was mumbles because your voice was muffled by your pillow. "Can't hear you, La. Aren't you happy about the Carlando podium? You were so happy about it last year." 

"I am happy, I am. But Max . . . well Max . . . i don't know." you grumbled frustrated. "He's such a good driver, and deserves a lot— he works really really hard."

Max never thought he'd hear you talking about him like that. He'd usually hear other people on the server dissing him and cursing him. And although you were always mostly neutral with the drivers, the way you spoke about Max tonight melted his heart. It also felt very wrong.

While you turned and laid on your back, staring up at the ceiling of your room, venting your feelings about a driver who you thought didn't know you existed, said driver folded his arms on his desk and leaned forward, resting his chin on his arms listening to you vent about how much you were amazed and proud even though you don't know him personally or him not being your favorite driver.

Max glanced up at his monitor as you sighed to gather your thoughts. "Sometimes when i look at him, he reminds me of myself. I never really got to go past karting, but for some reason I see a little bit of y/n in him." 

"—Y/n?" He sat up hearing the name. 

"I—" You face palmed upon the realization.

 "Is that your name?" Max asked. You nodded briefly with a sigh but he couldn't see.

"Unfortunately." You sighed. "Weird name, I know—" 

"I like it." He reassured. "It's not like Amilian is any better." he tried to lighten the mood, working slightly. 

"A million." you giggled making him chuckle back. 

"A million, " he repeated quieter, a small smile on his face as he leaned his chin back down on his arm.

Such a foolish thing to do, taking a liking to a woman you've never met.

Voice notes . . . ( my brain is like a zoo rn, starting projects and not being able to track anything while working on everything at the same time ) Word count - ( 1, 165 ) credits for proofreading -> @classiclitfreak (check out their blog!!)

[lowkeyrobin]

Heyy :) Can you please write headcanons of dating quackity, but in his earlier eras? (like 2019-21 maybe) ❤

ooooo yes of course!!! ; fun fact I've been watching him since 2018 or so (I don't mean this in a "Oh I'm cooler than you way) ; thank you for the request!! this was fun as hell ; I tried to kinda do it in a chronological order but yeah, I did like stuff and then more details of relationship if that makes sense yk???

QUACKITY ; 2019-2021 era

warnings ; language, talk of drugs, jokes about sex

genre ; fluff

word count ; 858

masterlist

Raiding Club Penguin with him and Axel was a core memory for you. It was the first true time, however cringe it sounds, that you saw Alex as your best friend.

he'd always try to make you laugh, especially on stream

such a little tease

back in the olden days, we had those Discord server 'wtf is that food' videos

you guys rank some of them and how likely you'd eat them

also ranking Discord memes

so many of them were dumb shit or weird shipart from like 2015 deviantart LMFAO

"guys I know me and y/n are dating but that doesn't mean compare us to Shrek couples!"

"I thought Thanos was your true love?"

"He-He is! Oh my God, stop being so desperate, y/n. ugh"

once he got invited to the Dream SMP, you were all ears and proudly taught him how to play Minecraft

you made his alt skin with the tuxedo, which he didn't wear often, but used in lore some time later

youd often help him with lore ideas

he also got you invited into the SMP where he introduced you to some of his new friends

you knew schlatt and some others, but most of these people were new and it was nice meeting all of them

the fiances are established and then you and quackity are already a think and you also like karl, which creates a weird love rectangle with an open end because you and sapnap are sharing the other two 💀

lore goes fuckin crazy with that

while Karl's off making Kinoko Kingdom and Quackity's running Las Nevadas, you're building El Tropicana, off in the far away jungle biome

Alex would usually stream and translate Mexican soap operas, which you joined in for sometimes

you'd give the characters different voices and twist their words up a bit to make it more entertaining for chat

the amount of drug talk that went into that was wild

also the amount of queer kids bullied in those schools?? yikes on bikes

also the one with that girl who got in trouble for kissing a boy on the playground or whatever that was?? Jesus christ man

youd both act put the scenes on occasion and use Tiger as whatever kid was being yelled at if she was in the room with you

taking a break halfway through stream for him to play guitar and for you to karaoke to fuckin Bo Burnham

also making fake joints out of paper he had laying around and "lighting them up" aka setting paper on fire next to a PC and your faces

Jackbox streams with the Feral Boys until 3am>>>

Paranormal Activity in the middle of the night went so fucking crazy

teaching Bad how to play GTA is your favorite memory with those two

playing horror games and watching him play horror games with Karl while he visited him

how dare he leave you all alone (you couldn't go because you had a busy schedule)

your chats shipping the hell out of you and your dsmp characters

hella fanart and fanfictions man

try not to laugh streams where you always ended up laughing before the ten minute mark because of him

he purposefully does shit to make you laugh

reading fanfiction on stream was a regular activity especially for y/s/n

youd rank the book on a scale from one to ten and how accurate to real life they were

"nahhhh that one doesn't have enough Thanos, two out of ten"

"yknow what... were gonna have our own tier lists... okay?"

"damnit... does this mean I'm not getting laid later?"

"what"

promoting the quackityhq merch religiously

also stealing whichever beanie he wasn't wearing, either the LAFD one or the plain black and blue one

him tying you to a chair and forcing you to laugh was a common stream plot

tweets that were either very inconspicuous about drugs, very sexual, or very old married couple vibes

youd both be frequently trending on twitter

hot wings or dare streams with Bad >>>>

playing girls go games and hoping you wouldn't give his PC a virus

sitting in the inflatable pool fully clothed, playing with children's bath toys

he'd for sure be the type to fall for his best friend

whether it be all the way back then or just now, he could go forever without feeling any feelings but one day they'll show up and the nervousness begins

he'd lend you a hoodie if you were cold in his room and he just straight up begs you to keep it

lots of just staring at you while chat ships you, like genuinley just zones out on your pretty face

would probably doubt his feelings at first and talk to his mom about it and she's like "boy you have a crush. Go ask them the hell out, you're a handsome young man, I'm pretty sure they like you too"

"mOooOooOoOoM"

genuinley spoils you with no good reason and after a while you just accept it

he starts sending good morning and good night texts

he'll repost (or reblog) (he has a secret tumblr) fanart of you two, especially if it's shipart

will constantly send you clips of movie characters making out or kissing and say "this should be us"

[parappaadventure2q-a]

READ: @alex-silli-art-corner

tw: suicide, abuse

I'll start this callout by saying that most evidence has been deleted long ago. There is no way to recover most of it, but if I have found any more, I'll add them to this post later. My friendship with him/how it ended.

It started in March of 2024.

Alex had been a member of a discord server, and had a tumblr account where he answered asks as Katy Kat. (Keep this in mind, as sometimes he will be shown as Katy Kat rather than Alex) He then asked for a vent channel to be created in the discord, where he would post frequently about how he was going to kill himself. (this is important later)

He started to DM me about him killing himself, so I started to support him. He would then message me about normal stuff, with him telling me he was suicidal every now and then. I talked with him, because every time I didn't talk to him, he would say i'm ignoring him on purpose.

Around that time, someone else in the server was banned for drawing CP of him and Alex. (both him and Alex were minors at the time.) Everyone in the server told Alex that this person was not a good influence on him, but he ignored us.

As it turns out, he did not cut off this person, (the name that's in blue) and kept being in a relationship with them.

This would continue for a long time. Alex would tell me he would kill himself, I would try to talk him out of it, and he would be fine the next day.

He said he had epilepsy, but those claims are unconfirmed as he has watched the Um Jammer Lammy cutscenes multiple times, which have flashing lights most of the time. If I remember correctly, he would use this to guilt us even more, with us not even being allowed to send any gifs. That would be understandable, if he didn't refuse to turn on Discord's accessibility feature that pauses gifs.

In his Katy Kat ask blog, he drew a lot of gore of Katy Kat. Some of these are deleted, but you can still find some on his account of Katy missing an eye, with bruises and bandages on her. I am not okay with gore, but I kept talking to him because he was suicidal.

All of my friends cut him off though, except for a stray few who I assume didn't know what he did.

When I cut him off:

About a month ago if I can remember, one of my friends showed me screenshots of Alex saying that one of his suicide attempts was a lie. He had apparently made a joke about him killing himself, and the two people there were telling him it wasn't funny and to not say that. This screenshot was taken a while back, and I didn't see the convo back then. Seeing this, I decided to cut off Alex entirely, because I couldn't trust if what anything he said was true. On top of that, I looked back at everything he'd done, and decided that I wasn't going to talk to him, ever again. He kept trying to contact me.

I noticed how guilt trippy all of his messages were. In fact, most of the time, he was guilt tripping all of us.

This is his last tumblr message to me before I blocked him.

He kept trying to contact me on other websites, such as Reddit.

I had sent him a message telling him he was in the wrong, and that we would never be friends again. This message was deleted, as he threatened to share it with one of my closest friends.

As for the IP address thing, I had posted this meme to Reddit and Tumblr using a fake copypasta that was a lot of information. It's a meme about leaking someones info, but all of this isn't real. It's taken from a copypasta website. In fact, it's this one.

Alex interpreted this as me posting his IP address publically, something I would never do, (yet as you read, it's something he would do to someone else.)

I did not, and will not post someone's IP address publicly. Yet he thought I posted his, even though it isn't hard to look at your own address, and compare it to this meme.

What caused me to make this post.

This happened just today. I was sent an ask clearly written by Alex containing my personal information to me.

Alex. If you're reading this, which I know you are. This wasn't okay. You're putting my life in danger. You're putting other's lives in danger. You're putting my family's life in danger. Why would I want to be friends with a guilt tripper?

Why would I want to be friends with someone who leaks other's information?

Why would I want to be friends with someone who draws gore of my favorite characters?

Why would I want to be friends with a liar?

None of this is okay. You were, and still are, the worst thing that's happened to me.

You don't deserve happiness.

I ask anyone who's been affected by him, to please speak up. Don't sit there in silence like you have all this time. I know he's done awful things to you. Please, if you can, tell me what he's done to you. Nobody should have to go through what he's put me through, and I'm sure that he's done something similar to you.

Sorry for being a bit rude to him in this post, but I don't care.

[armoralor]

[TW: homophobia, threats of physical violence, SA, gun violence]

IMPORTANT: do not interact with the person mentioned below. please do not send hate or harass ANY of the accounts mentioned. the point of this post is to warn the community of a serious threat, not to dog pile or stir a hate mob. his accounts have been reported and local authorities have been made aware of his potential for harm. Last updated: 01/30/2024. New information begins close to the bottom, starting at the red text.

Some of you may already be familiar with the homophobic incel that was previously filling the Ahsoka & Sabine Wren tags with vile misogyny. He's gone by many names due to banning and deactivations: @sabezrastan01, @longlivetheemporer, @imperialloyalist01, @standorando, and @imperialsycophant. Here's the guy that gave us this classic:

Now, as meme worthy as that post was- it's unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. Despite his exile from this social media site, he continues to be active on Instagram and TikTok. He also continues to get support from some of the same folks that have been painting sapphics and wolfwren shippers out as vicious bullies.

I didn't intend to find everything I did, but this man constantly comments under official Star Wars media posts calling queer women "degenerates" and "beasts," so it's been hard to miss. It honestly hurts to reread this shit again, but I want to warn anyone who 1) may interact with him without realizing he's a incel neo nazi 2) may be harmed by his continued harassment.

First thing to remember about him- he doesn't just complain about shipping, he has wished death and harm upon multiple people. On top of the two screenshots below, he also discussed wanting to put a bullet in Dave Filoni's head (the alt account was taken down before I thought to screenshot):

He wrote "these people need to be beaten" on a dozen anti-wolfwren posts before his most recent account was taken down. He has embraced the common anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric of queer people being pedophiles and rapists:

He repeatedly brings rape up unprompted, especially when talking to nonbinary folks and women:

Plus buys into the "woke agenda" causing queer relationships to happen in media:

You'll notice the irony of him "worrying" wolfwren shippers are going to threaten the actors, despite him previously threatening to kill Dave Filoni and beat wolfwren shippers. He seems to be projecting a lot of his own desires and wishes onto other people, which will become even more obvious further down this post.

Now, thankfully his last tumblr account was taken down for inciting violence, but as i mentioned before, it's hard to miss him on other platforms:

Out of morbid curiosity I clicked on his account, and it's unfortunately what you would expect for from an incel. His follower and following list is littered with white nationalists, militia groups, tactical gear stores, weapon vendors, alt-right religious orgs, and 4chan neo nazis.

Instagram Followers:

Instagram Following:

It's clean he's unhinged and a danger to those who don't share similar interests. He seems to make allowances for anyone who ships sabezra, but otherwise is a diehard supporter of alt-right Christian nationalist beliefs.

One of his previous account names on Instagram was @cajunminuteman, with a confederate flag as his pfp. In current alt right groups, a minuteman is a person who is ready to pick up a gun and fight on a minutes' notice, typically in a militia against the government. His previous account also followed a number of Christian Southern Nationalist accounts:

There are a number of shippers that continue to interact with this man. Most sabezra shippers I've chatted with are very sweet, some of you even share discord servers with me and have so much love for this fandom. I'm only asking those of you who choose to ignore this man's threats of violence to revaluate how far you are willing to go to support a fictional ship.

Wolfwren shippers have bore the brunt of fandom hate and harassment since Ahsoka started airing. We continue to get called degenerates, rapists, pedophiles, and threatened with physical violence. This is not the same, or in any way equivalent, to silly jokes made about fictional ships being made canon. It's exhausting to get constant harassment in real life AND online.

Are there mean wolfwren shippers? Absolutely. I'm sorry queer people sometimes cheer on cishet ships not becoming canon, I know it sucks when it's over something you like. No, enjoying cishet ships doesn't make you any less queer, and I'm sorry there was an asshole out there that said that shit. But can we PLEASE stop acting like sapphics and wolfwren enjoyers are ALWAYS bullies? That we're somehow always the ones threatening people? It plays into the alt-right rhetoric of the LGBTQIA+ community being predators and I'm so sick of it, especially when there is so much outright vile hate for queers.

If there are any wolfwrens sending hate and/or threats, I am begging for an example or name so they can be reported properly. None of us condone any of the nasty shit that's been sent, we deal with enough hate irl. This man's closest friends aren't much better, joking about wanting to hurt wolfwren shippers and how the LGBTQIA+ community is a bad thing:

The most recent return to tumblr was under account @imperialsycophant where he tried to pretend he wasn't the same incel loser:

He eventually went mask off, realizing that most people weren't foolded:

On January 24 2024, his most recent Instagram account (@imperialloyalist01) was taken down. Less than 24 hours later, a sabezra shipper DM'd me asking me to delete this post. I explained to the shipper that the point of this post was to warn the fandom as a whole of this guy's behaviour, and at multiple points I make it clear everyone should stay away + not engage any of the accounts involved.

Everything included in this thread is public information taken from public posts or public accounts. The shipper who DM'd me still demanded I remove this post, as it could "hurt their friends."

The context of who the incel associates himself with is helpful when conveying the severity & underlying motives of his actions. There are approximately two non alt-right/neo-nazi accounts in the following/follower lists I shared. Those who were following @imperialloyalist01 up until January 24th were both privately and publicly made aware they were following a person threatening harm against others, but they continued to like, comment, and follow the account. This does not mean any of them should be harassed or bothered. It simply provides additional context to the situation and will hopefully aid others in forming their own opinions on who they wish to befriend.

When I reminded the shipper who DM'd me that their friends were continuing to make jokes about hitting/hurting wolfwren shippers, AND tagging wolfwren in those edits, I did not get a response. However, what I did get was mass spam reported.

Shortly after I sent the above message and the sabezra shipper realized I would not be taking this post down, my account was hate reported and temporarily terminated. Tumblr has an automated feature that bans accounts immediately (out of safety) if they are reported by a large group of people at the same time (which is fair, say someone posts torture or something terrible). Thankfully, after I emailed the abuse support team and explained the situation, they reinstated my account:

I will not be sharing the name of the sabezra shippers who tried to take down my account. I already get harassed enough, and I don't want anyone to go through the same shit. Please remember that a small group of bad people do NOT represent an entire community. There are plenty of sweet sabezra shippers that do not support this kind of disgusting and hateful behaviour.

Key takeaways: don't send hate or threats. Let people have their fun online while they attempt to avoid the Horrors of real life. Please don't support people spewing vile hate JUST because they like the same fictional ships as you.

Other posts related to him: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

[gougarfem]

how was the process of getting a dumbphone!

oh my god this is something i'm so excited to talk about, sorry it took me so many months to respond!

getting a dumbphone improved my quality of life so so much. i knew my screentime was high, but didn't realise it was a genuine psychological addiction until i quit. the first few days were extremely rough. time seemed to pass about ten times slower, and i was forced to fill the hours with various hobbies and activities. i know we all love to tell people to touch grass, but i really did have to connect with nature and it did wonders for my mental health.

i think for the first three days i was constantly restless and horribly irritable, looked around for my phone every few minutes, felt intense boredom and even cried a few times lol. your addiction may not be as extreme as mine was and this varies from person to person. however, after about a week i realised i remembered everything i'd done each day, because it was filled with intentional activities and little moments of peace rather than a blur of scrolling. i also wasn't on adhd meds yet, which is something i'll talk about in another post.

not having everything at your fingertips is uncomfortable, but (and it's a cliche) you really start to appreciate the world around you more. i looked forward to spending time with my family, because it filled time and i wasn't half-involved in my phone the entire time. i use an mp3 player to listen to music, and uploading music to it is a meaningful and interesting activity, rather than just shuffling a playlist. i listen to whole albums instead of being flooded with dopamine from spotify firing recommended songs at me. i appreciate music more, i make CDs for friends, i have to be intentional in discovering new artists and music. if i'm having an interesting conversation online, i look forward to going home and logging onto my laptop to continue it. i don't spend my commute, time in class, or time with friends texting somebody else. everything feels more intentional, spaced out, and interesting, even the things i do online.

i also found i stopped performing in every activity i did. i stopped thinking about whether i could post it to instagram or instantly send a picture in a discord server. i started picking up new hobbies for myself, not for an online audience, and living in the moment more. this is really important in the modern age, although again uncomfortable.

the best part was how my connections with others increased through having a dumbphone. i started calling friends rather than messaging on five platforms at once, and they started reciprocating. my message threads are continuous, coherent conversations, rather than sending memes. people realised they have to intentionally reach out to me, and i lost relationships with people who weren't interested in that, but strengthened connections with people who did put in the effort (many of whom i barely talked to in the past). i give people my phone number, not my social media handle, and they actually start conversations with me rather than hitting follow. i get to hear my friends' voices when they have drama to share and realise it takes me forever to type on my flip phone keyboard. again, everything is intentional, takes time, and richer than when i had a smartphone.

i genuinely would recommend it to absolutely everyone (i've kind of become like a crossfit guy in telling people to get a dumbphone lol). i won't pretend it's easy, and most people make excuses - for the first few months of having a dumbphone, i was bedbound or in hospital, and truly relied on online connections to pass time and communicate. it still hugely improved my life. however, no matter your situation there are always, always better options than scrolling an app, and you deserve to pass your time in a memorable way. i think most people don't realise they're addicted/reliant on smartphones, and the idea of quitting is horribly uncomfortable, but at least for me, the benefits were worth it.

i'm happy to answer any questions, i literally could talk about this topic for hours (even if it's stuff like "how would i use x app" "how would i replace x smartphone function").

ditch your smartphone babe, u deserve better <33

[gaylactic-fire]

Hi hello, I've got a question, what that heck happened this week?? I haven't been active in awhile and I just logged back in here to follow an artist from tiktok, and I happened to see the conservative discord server screenshots on my "your tags" section. Is possible to get the sparks note version of what happened? (Sorry if the ask sounds weird, not very good at putting my thoughts into words)

Sorry I only answered this a few days later! You might already know what's happening by now, but in case you didn't I'll give you a TLDR:

- Tumblr user alasse-earfalas makes a post on LU's main tag advertising a conservative christian LU / LoZ server. She claims to want a safe space for those with similar views. What really catches people's attention is a part of the post that speaks about "Pride ideology" and how such "predatory" views aren't allowed in the server. In the same section she talks about wanting a space where characters are not "queered into oblivion." The vibes are utterly rancid.

- LU fandom immediately begins spiteposting. Everyone and their mother starts making LU queer headcanons or posts showing their support for the queer community. The memes flood in. "Queered into oblivion." is immediately reclaimed and added to people's lexicons. People are speedrunning how fast they can get banned off the server. There's almost a unanimous effort to make fun of bigots.

- Further controversy ensues under the surface. As it turns out, several religious people in the fandom had been interacting with Alasse and other people in the conservative server. It was impossible to know whether or not they shared similar views, but you can't blame people's caution. When questioned whether their blogs were safe for queer people, some gave very vague answers that pretty much dialed down to "I love everyone" or "I don't wanna talk about it." Neutrality in such instances is not reassuring for queer people, especially when the other side is claiming we are predatory. Afaik some people have redacted their statements or gone on to further clarify things. But some people still take a firmly neutral stance on the matter. (Don't ask who I haven't been following closely enough to know).

- A few days later Alasse comes back with a follow-up statement addressing the server. She pulls a mix between "gay people I respect VS gay people I don't respect." and "I'm not homophobic I have a gay friend." By stating that the server is not homophobic, but simply does not support the pride movement. Which is allegedly pushing to show porn to kids in school. When asked for a source on such a shocking claim someone on the server cites Fucking Matt Walsh rather than a non-biased and or scientific article. The transphobia also pops out when she claims the pride movement is trying to push surgeries on children (It's not. Children do not get gender realignment surgeries. You can find this out from five minutes on google). Addressing "queered into oblivion." Alasse goes on a rant about "queerwashing" characters, stating the Links are canonically straight and making them queer invalidates their identity. Alasse conveniently forgets that Nintendo has never canonically given Link a partner. She also forgets that bisexuality, asexuality and other sexualities that may include romantic attraction to the opposite sex do, in fact, exist. The rest of the post is whining about people joining the server to troll and basically just her reaping what she sowed for advertising on Tumblr Dot Com.

Aside for further outrage and memes, that's pretty much where we're up to so far. Things are dying down and hopefully the bigots will keep to their own corner and or fuck off from the fandom entirely.

[perelka-l]

I think by fucked up shit people mean stuff like incest and ships with 20 years between them which only speaks how fandom police can get you for stuff that is pretty common. Loved your post btw I think we all should be loving out things loudly and proudly. I feel like fandom defragmentarized into tiny secret circles like discord servers where fucked up shit is normal but where do you find them if nobody posts about them you know?

You are entirely right.

For starters - I fucking hate Discord. I loathe that this is where apparently things are 'happening' these days. If you don't know someone who's already a part of a group, you're frankly fucked and all there is is you and whoever is active on socmed, that might maybe leave a like, or reblog. I don't want to sound bitter, but people these days comment art when it's shared on some Discord server. I hate this. I hate this so much, because you might just simply never see it, and feel alone.

(Fuck numbers game, when you post fic, art, whatever, what one craves is (and I am using this word) community, sense that you are sharing something with others. You might get one reblog and get the most heartfelt enthusiasm that is coming from deep inside someone's heart and it will make you a thousand times more happy than watching the numbers just go up. But now even that is getting difficult. Because fucking Discord. I was tempted so many times to create "servers" for whatever was on my mind but this is why I usually decided against that.)

I feel like one of reasons that happened was fear. With discord, you can screen who will see your shared filth. It's understandable reaction to whatever the fuck is happening in fandom these days, people don't want to be doxxed, exposed, revealed and shamed. It's a natural progression. And I loathe that it came to this as well. Cringe may no longer exist, but shame still does.

And fr, I remember when I was a baby in fandom. Yes, I looked at things I shouldn't have looked at (another thing that these days I feel is warped...) but at worst you just raised an eyebrow when you saw a more desperate anon request scat on kink meme with two characters you'd never consider together (and they could even get it!!!). Now I feel like people are shamed for most 'basic' stuff. What is a little incest, what is a bit of age gap, truly? In comparison to older days, this was just causal stuff - of course, there were people that were uncomfortable with those themes, but it was easy to just politely look away, elsewhere.

Of course I don't wish to glamorize those times - people were ignorant, there were abusers as everywhere else, all human faults that never went anywhere, there were shitstirrers and drama and hate were present. But I feel like those didn't impact and stifle the fandom as terribly as fanpol now.

So I think best we can do is love, loudly and unashamedly. Just be cringe, just let everything you adore spill out of your heart. Be horny, be enamoured, be friendly, try to let those positive feelings possess you. It's fun! And this is why we are here, this is why we are fans, why we create, why there is fandom. What's the point of participating in this if not out of love? What's the point of love if it's hidden and stifled down? I may be waxing poetics now, but it's a philosophy I genuinely believe in.

I even thought about this recently, how I feel like I am not sticking to this as much as I'd like to. I want to love more, I want to be more open about shit I like, I want to be cringy and unashamed even more. So hey, let's go for it together :D

[sindar-princeling]

Thank you for taking part in the LOTR Newsletter!

I have... SO many things to say to you all.

First of all, I am truly, genuinely blown away by how many people participated - until the very end, most entries had 900-1000 opens, sometimes a bit more - even the latest ones! It's INCREDIBLE - and I really mean it when I say it's more than I dared to expect.

I knew this project was going to be fun - I was more than excited to interact with a beloved book in this way, play with it and rearrange it. But it was the participation from you all and the sense of community that really made this experience one of a kind. I had many hopes and quite careful "it would be really amazing if..."s before starting - I hoped there would be some discussions about LOTR, I thought that mayyyybe someone who's never read LOTR before might try to do it in this format, I hoped that people would stick with the newsletter to the end - and it all came true. Sometimes it was really unbelievable just how WELL it was going. The only exception to this that I can think of was sending past entries, because that was troublesome because of the public-domain-and-therefore-no-entry-archive thing - it took long and so I didn't do that as often as I wanted, but it's one of the very few problems I had with the whole project.

I'm especially grateful to all the people who made the newsletter tag so full over those last eight months, because it helped keep this project alive in a way entries alone never could have. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, cracking jokes, starting meaningful discussions especially about race and gender in LOTR but not only, sharing songs and illustrations and other materials related to entries, making memes, creating milestone ribbons, and of course thank you @k-she-rambles for setting up the discord server and thank you to everyone who joined!

Thank you to everyone who became a part of this, no matter for how long.

I'm so happy we could all read LOTR together, and thank you for every kind word sent my way. The newsletter made the past months a very special time for me, and your feedback - even more so. It's not everyday that you get to work on something that turns out to be THAT positive and rewarding.

It's been nothing but pleasure, and I can't wait to start the newsletter over again in September!

Until then - I'm still going to be checking the tag because I could see people posting in it over the past few days, and I encourage you to keep posting if you're still reading, even though the newsletter is over!

And I'll see you all with new entries in September, when we start reading again.

Thank you all! 💚💚

(Also, I typed this post before yesterday, and let me just add that everything you guys did yesterday is still making me teary-eyed. Thank you 💚💚💚)

[seitokaisnihongo]

How to gain access to the Seitokai Discord server

Hi, friends! It's @onigiriforears (aka shay) here! I'm going to teach you how to gain access to our entire server. Step by step.

Step 1: The first message and channel that you'll see when you enter the server is in the #welcome channel. It'll look something like this:

Step 2: Please follow the directions and head over to the #rules channel. This channel is going to make sure that you understand the rules and guidelines of the server. It's imperative that you read it because even though this is a server focused on learning and free resource sharing, we're a community server that's trying to make sure that we don't violate Discord's guidelines. READ THEM IN ENTIRETY. If you're confused, feel free to message me on Discord (I'm the "shay" that's mentioned/pinged in your welcome message. I know you're in the server--I allow the server's notifications to push through my DND settings.) You could also message me or send me an ask @onigiriforears, but discord will get you a faster response.

Step 3: From there, please go to the #verify-yourself channel. In this channel, you'll be confirming that you didn't lie about actually reading the #rules. We (me, mods, and admin) can tell if you're lying based off of what #roles you have (or don't have). Why do we have it set up this way? We're trying to discourage trolls and bots from entering the server. Because, unfortunately, we have been raided and trolled more than once. Some specific moments would be when someone broke through our (at the time) low-key "pick a role" option and stole our roster list. They used it to find mutual servers that they shared with members and then harassed them in the mutual servers after being banned in ours. (That included stealing ppl's stuff in the dank meme bot and whatnot.) A second time would be when someone broke through our mandatory #roles and spammed channels and told everyone that people who can't get to N1 in a year are dumb <not a good look. He was promptly banned lmao.

Step 4: Head over to the #roles channel. IT'S SO IMPORTANT. This is where you'll have to choose the one role that's mandatory--every other role within that channel is optional besides the JLPT level roles. Why? Since we're a community server focused on resource sharing and engagement, we also make sure we pay attention to our server demographics. If we have a slew of N5 or beginning members, we make sure that we have a lot of N5-targeted events and resources available. For a while, we had no N2 and N1 members, so we were able to hold off on posting kanji for the levels for a bit while we focused on something else. Now, we have a good mixture.

Step 5: ENJOY THE SERVER! If you've properly followed steps 1-4, you'll have gained access to the entire server. If not, please message me or you might find yourself in server purgatory where we ping you to get your attention until you either ask for help or you follow through lmao--aka the #temp channel. It's a private channel that only admin and other purgatory-dwellers can see. Once you get your appropriate roles, the channel disappears for you.

If you're thinking, this is a pain of a way to get in: it was a pain for me to set it up like this, too. Trial and error over almost 2 years of being a server. I can say that after setting it up this way, we haven't had anymore trolls or bots enter.

[mxbo]

Me yapping about something that happened on TF2 today

I was playing casual TF2 with a friend now that there aren't as many bots (I SUCK like REAL BAD, so no way we're going to community servers, I would get OBLITERATED the second I stepped on one, also a lot of players on community servers dislike F2Ps for existing) and found a player who shares names with my light and it was really awesome

[ID: Meme recreating the interaction. There's me, my bestie, the random player we encountered and batman in the background because he was also there. My bestie says: “OMG! *redacted name*” and I reply: “Voice communication is not available for this account”]

(BTW, me and my bestie are not drawn with specific cosmetics, it's just our OC's/sonas dressed as the classes we were playing lol. Yes, he was pocketing me because I'm just THAT bad)

(BTWBTW, we didn't actually talk with them, just mentioned it in our private call because like it would be super weird to go “hey, you have my love's name”. Super creepy HASHSj. Worst case scenario, they wouldn't believe I actually have a partner and think I'm hitting on them or something. And women and people who pass as feminine because of username/voice already suffer enough on FPS games with people either insulting them or simping for them and not seeing them actual players but objects. Like I'm not risking (potentially) making their day worse ykwim)

Anyway, they had pink cosmetics and I think I shot a rocket at them at some point because I thought they were RED AHSA *insert video about the problem with team recognition*.

[ID: Screenshot of the random player with their name obviously censored not because of them, but because it would reveal my love's name and, like, I haven't consulted if I can just say it in a random Tumblr post AJSAHJ]

There was also a Soldier who had all the batman cosmetics and dominated me because of course JHS (they were super good at rocket jumping). I sadly didn't take a screenshot (THEY WERE SO FAST AND KILLED ME, I COULDN'T TAKE A SCREENSHOT) </3

Also, yeah, I'm a F2P until MY BESTIE DECIDES TO PAY FOR MY FRICKING PREMIUM UEYDEUEHR (hopefully this or next week).

Hate that I'm mute for the time being, tho. Because Valve thought not letting F2P accounts speak would solve the bot crisis for some reason some years ago. SPOILER: It didn't work, it just made the bots more difficult to identify and ruined the experience of a bunch of players (kids, people who can't pay for TF2 like me, and people who just play for fun and don't want to throw money at a corporation, which is completely valid). Thanks, Valve.

But also love the fact I own the title of worst TF2 F2P, like, that way nobody expects anything from me.

My steam profile backs this up btw

[ID: My user says “world's worst tf2 player” and my description “I suck at tf2 it's not even funny”. Also, my pfp is the spongebob crying meme edited to have my OC's hair and Soldier's helmet and says “I PROMISE I'LL DO BETTER” in the funny impact font]

I'm genuinely bad (reason why I play Soldier) BUT I HAVE SO MUCH FUN PLAYING TF2, I LOVE THIS GAME EVEN IF I GET KILLED EVERY X SECONDS (x being equal to the time I take to respawn).

I want to meet more noobs like me and play with them while on a Discord call and learn together (would also help me with my English, probably, if they're not hispanophone).

Or maybe even players who know what they're doing and teach me (but they need to have patience with me because I'm a SLOW learner and barely know how to WASD lmao, my spacial awareness in videogames is just like in real life: 0).

Someone interested? 🤨

No, Rom, nobody's interested, nobody cares LMAO, just go back to making userboxes and stamps and drawings and stuff

[mrslittletall]

@faeriethistle replied to your post “@vodkafolie replied to your post “I miss my...”:

sorry little! i haven't really seen any of your oc stuff on here and i haven't been on discord much either to see it in the server but you're welcome to share stuff with me anytime if you like :)

​Thank you, Faerie. It is no surprise, because I haven't posted much about it. I don't have that many OCs. Lately I would say I have four main OCs. My Chosen Undead Tempest. My Original OCs Lum and Kuro (they were once from WoW but I scraped the serial numbers off to make them original OCs in a modern setting) And my Warrior of Light Rispale (from FF14) I want to talk more about them, about their stories, personality, motivation, AUs and stuff... but I just don't know how to start. I am trying with OC questions but even if people send them in and I answer, it doesn't really get them to ask more questions outside of ask memes, you know? It is all just so complicated... and I miss coming up with headcanons for my blorbos. But Ornstein, Laurence and PK kinda feel finished! And Elden Ring just didn't hit the same mark as those games so I don't really know who to obsess over...

[beauzos]

Potentially odd question but seeing as you're back in your SOBR era and I've enjoyed what I've read of your works in the past, figured I'd ask;

How do you plan out a longer story? When I do get past executive disfunction and find the energy to write, I often find myself intimidated by the sheer scale that something like a novel would require, so I mostly stick to short stories and the like. What did your first steps look like when you started working on SOBR (or any other projects of similar length)?

Not an odd question at all! I appreciate being asked and I'm going to try really hard to be helpful.

I was, for a very long time, deeply intimidated by writing long-form fiction as well. I just genuinely believed I was not capable of committing to writing anything longer than a 10-15,000 word one-shot or short story. Up until 2022, the longest complete piece of fiction I ever wrote was about 20,000 words. I also hated it, but that's beside the point. The longest unfinished work I left behind was 42,000 words, and I'd never come close to repeating that length again since I wrote it back when I was 14.

I think part of working on longer form fiction is accepting it might not get finished, and then doing it anyway. Basically, hope for the best, expect the worst, because if you never try, it'll never get done in the first place. I didn't really set out to write a novel when I came up with Beau's story. Like, I wasn't thinking about length or what it'd be, I just tried to conceive of what story I could do with him and how it might take shape. I don't know if I even planned on writing it, I just wanted to know his story.

With SOBR, I consider myself incredibly lucky, because I simply had a start-to-finish storyline within a couple days of working on it. Sure, a lot of details weren't set and many things could change, but I had an idea for the beginning, middle, and end to some extent. But you don't need to immediately have all your ideas for it to work, to be clear. I do think that having some idea of the full story is pretty essential to success. A lot of details can change, but if you have the overarching ideas, I think that helps a lot. I know there's a lot of jokes and memes about writers having no idea what to do in the middle or being stuck on the ending, but those really can be story-killers to be honest.

I'm speaking very broadly, I'll try to get into what I think my process was in a second, but a couple last minute things: you don't need to have a start to finish idea immediately, like I said. Something I think is important about the process of developing story ideas aside from like. Just thinking about it a lot is talking about it with other people. I don't know if you're the same way, but I feel like talking to friends / others about ideas makes it easier for me to clarify these ideas and develop them. Whether that's because people can give you ideas, or ask questions, or think about things in a different way than you or just being able to sharpen your idea by having to explain it to somebody, I find this super helpful.

It's also helpful because, like, okay. I've said many times you really do have to write for yourself first because that's true. All of my writing is written with myself as the audience, weird or specific or whatever it may end up being. But that doesn't mean that positive feedback isn't valuable or important to me. It's a motivator to know there could be a few people out there who enjoy what I've done. It makes it easier for me to think about my work and to work on it. So part of it is having to get over the fear of sharing, or feeling awkward talking about new characters with people, because my experience overwhelmingly is that people want to hear about this stuff.

When it comes to working on developing the ideas and outlining, I will say the very obvious advice: WRITE EVERY SINGLE IDEA DOWN. Even if it's obvious, or you're 100% certain you'll remember. Still write it down. I have a private server on Discord where I save links and pictures and snippets of writing, and I throw every idea that comes my way in the SOBR channel for me to either implement into the chapter I'm writing or into the outline. I think making these ideas concrete by writing them down-- not necessarily as a commitment but as keeping it filed away to return to.

The ideas become much fuller when you take every idea you have seriously to some extent. I struggled to make an outline for SOBR 2 but because I was taking note of every idea, I was able to piece together at least a semi-presentable idea for the story flow? It makes things easier and gives you a jumping off point. The outline is the other important part, of course. I used to never outline things, but for long-form works, you have to. You just do. Because you'll forget, or you won't see the full picture, or whatever. Figure out how all these pieces will fit together, how that scene you pictured way down the line can be reached in a natural manner. I had to connect a bunch of scenes from late game SOBR to the beginning, and although the details of how, exactly, I got there changed, I knew generally what path to take.

Insofar as beginning a project of any kind, I think just doing it without feeling compelled to finish but wanting to helps. I wrote the first chapter of SOBR to test out the characters and get a feel for the world and how I wanted to approach the story and its conflict. But although I wanted to see the story through to its natural end, I just wanted to get something done first. A little step leads to a big step. It doesn't have to perfect, it just has to be done. And once you get started, I find it easy to keep going.

But you also have to accept the possibility you may fall out of interest or the rhythm for a while. I wrote the first 4 chapters, or 30,000 words, of SOBR over the course of February to May last year. And then I didn't touch the fucking thing for four months. I felt awful. I was so discouraged that I would leave my first solid original idea behind and not work on it, even though the next chapter I had to write was supposed to be "easy" to write. I just never did it because I didn't feel the vibe anymore. But I still liked Beau and the characters.

Circling back to what I said before, what motivated me to try again was talking to others about the idea. Namely, when I started talking to some of my new friends, like Clark / @/twothpaste for example, who became interested after I started discussing some of the late game details of the story, I felt motivated because I knew there were people who wanted to read the story or wanted to see how things could get so far. It's motivating when you hear other people care. It's why I've been so motivated to work on reader feedback and publishing this year; because my coworkers cared about reading it!

Similarly, I had friends reading along as I worked on it. Clark, my friend Maggie are the main two, but I had other friends test out the early chapters. It was nice seeing how people responded and if my writing was working as intended.

In conjunction with this, although I very rarely ever write out of order, I decided to approach SOBR from a new perspective; I still skipped writing the "easy" chapter when I got back to it in September. Instead, I started from act 3 with some chapters I knew I could write and explore. Although eventually I had to change many small details, I knew what I expected from this part of the story, and got back into the world from an interesting part. I kept going for a few chapters, and once I knew it was going to get too complicated, I moved back to finishing the story in chronological order.

You have to approach your work from outside the box sometimes to maintain momentum. It's easy to get discouraged when you get stuck, but you have to find another way to make it work. Take months long breaks. Try from another scene, another act. I hate to do it, but it got me to actually start writing the fucking thing again, so I know it works.

I know I'm going beyond the scope of your question, but I do feel like the process of the middle parts is also kind of important.

To get back towards what I was actually fucking asked, I guess I can boil down the process as thus:

Discuss the ideas with others / brainstorm / write everything down

Try to arrange ideas into outline / overarching plot

Test out writing initial chapters; potentially spirals into fully writing the piece

Accept you may fall in and out of motivation; accept you may not finish it at all, but do it anyways

Keep sharing with people!!!! Don't be embarrassed or afraid, people want to hear about it!!!

I don't know if this helps much. I fear a lot of what I said is obvious advice, but unfortunately, it's tried and true. It's just putting yourself out there, being willing to try even if you might fail to finish it. And just keep thinking. Not every idea will make it in, but every idea can make the story stronger.

Also, like, I'm not going to lie. Having autism actually really helped because I became so obsessed with SOBR in September I could do nothing but finish it, but I tried to give advice that people can actually follow, y'know KRKFN I'm motivated by whatever my special interest is, but it's possible to write without that! SOBR started well before it became my special interest. It just takes more energy and devotion. Anyone can do it, with or without obsession.

After all, it's such a fleeting thing too. My interests can change rapidly, which is also why I was scared of starting projects. What if I got bored halfway through and dropped the project? In fact, here's an example: when I got really into Ace Attorney this year, I plotted out a long-form fic that I began work on. I did my outline, wrote a few chapters, got around 12,000 words in, and then I got out of Ace Attorney and back into SOBR and that was that. I dropped the project, and yes, I think that's a shame, but I also accept that that's a possibility for any project.

But it won't stop me from working on the stories I want to write. I can't worry about if it'll get done. It doesn't get done if I don't try at all. I try to remind myself of that quite often. I won't always succeed, but I never will if I don't give it a shot. And hey, maybe some day I'll come back to it. But for now, no, I won't, and that's that. I have other things to work on anyway.

So... I hope this helps! Thank you for asking me, I appreciate you want my perspective on it!

[quohotos]

So I don't have any art prepared for 810nicle day, so instead let me regale you of a story of a time where I didn't make some bionicle art. It was a bit of a shitshow.

So it was around 2017 I think, I was in high school. Back then I was on facebook and in this Bionicle fan forum/shitpost group called "Bionicle Maskposting". Honestly it was a great community with so many injokes, having to leave it behind was one of the reasons I stayed on facebook for so long after it stopped being a good platform. Usually people would share memes, mocs, and lore thoughts, but on a rare occasion people would try to find folks to help them with new group projects.

One of these fateful cases was a person who was trying to put together a crew to make a bionicle fan comic. I'd been teaching myself vector, having been inspired by the Bionicle flash games, so I tentatively offered my service to the project. I was still learning and not super confident in my abilities. I told them I probably couldn't do it on my own, but maybe could do backgrounds and trace overs in a vector style.

I got added to their discord server, it was like the third server I ever joined on discord. The mastermind behind all of this was very excited to have someone on board, and was quick to catch me up on what he'd been working on. He showed me his block out of the comic so far, there was no actual art, just all black panels and the dialogue to go with them. And it was... oh god it was bad.

The premise of the comic: It's set in an alternate universe where Tahu is the soul survivor of the Toa Mata. The rest of the Toa are brutally killed by Makuta and now he's haunted by horrific visions, survivor's guilt, and PTSD. He also has a son. Love is cannon in this universe and he has to raise the child he sired with Gali before she was ripped to shreds by a crab.

It was uhhh... not exactly the kind of story I wanted to sign on to, not to mention it was just poorly written, probably a teenager like me at the time. Everyone writes stuff like that, nothing wrong about it in the long term... but then it got worse.

This new guy joined the server, one I didn't recognize. He had like a wolf avatar for his discord profile. He immediately takes one look at what's been planned so far and says, "I love it," but then he has to ask one crucial question before he can continue.

"Is there Jesus in it?"

No he didn't say it like that, I'm paraphrasing, but he asked if there were going to be any themes of Christianity or Tahu's faith in the story.

what the fuck?

Why?

Why would that be in the Bionicle story? What a socially unaware thing to ask? Is he trolling this guy?

Well the ringleader guy who started the project responds mere seconds later

"Yeah, totally, Tahu's faith in Jesus Christ and his struggle with doubt is going to be a big part of the story."

Again, paraphrasing, but it was an enthusiastic response from the guy. They then went on to very rapidly start exchanging ideas about how they can add more christian themes to this already very cursed Bionicle fanfiction. Around that time I politely announced that I didn't feel like I could contribute to the project and excused myself from the server. I'm glad I wasn't ruder, they were doing their own thing there was no reason to be mean about it even if it was buck fucking wild.

I'm assuming it never came out, and part of me regrets leaving so early because right now I'm morbidly curious about how it turned out even if it's probably the last thing I'd ever want to read or draw.

Anyways that's my story, and part of the reason why even though I was one of the biggest Bionicle nerds you can imagine while growing up I generally stay away from fan forum discussions of it as an adult.

Happy Bionicle day

[hypervoxel]

hiya, for your ask game: 🍬🍄❄️🧩. love to stalk your blog by the way <3

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Gotta be honest, once I get into a fandom I will leave the main tags as soon as I find my niche and a group of blogs to follow and a few Discord servers to join, and not venture out into the main fandom again. Idk what's popular. I have complained about many takes, but I am also very forgetful so.... Uh, Vox is asexual, Alastor is actually a terrible person (affectionate), Valentino absolutely has a tragic backstory (and is still so evil <3 ), Velvette is literally The Worst and kinda a pick-me girl (I love her), Charlie doesn't understand how to help people and it is detrimental to the people she's trying to help (I also love her). Carmilla is so ridiculous and I don't understand shipping her with Velvette. I don't get Husk (derogatory, but only slightly and mostly in a 'I don't think his writing was consistent, and he was used - as many characters on this series were - as more of a plot device than a complete character in his own right. His dialogue was thrown in to tell-not-show aspects of other characters in a way that felt inorganic to me, which turned me off of his character almost completely' way). Boom, there, so many unpopular opinions <3

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

Velvette is so connected to phones and apps and things of that modern tech nature. Therefore: Velvette also broadcasts and recieves radio waves, but only those in the Bluetooth spectrum. She can AirDrop memes onto Vox's face (or, in canon, call his TV head directly, bypassing his phone). Vox is so absolutely not replacing the quiet ease he and Alastor used to share with their similar thinking/perceiving/broadcasting methods (it's alll radio waves) with Velvette. Totally. Totally. His past relationships would never~ cloud how he treats her.

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

Well first of all Me I'm writing it!! So incredibly slowly and badly, but I am writing it nonetheless 😤 I actually have two or three or a dozen ideal dream ideas rattling around in my brain. Obviously, my beloved Damaged Nerve where I throw 20 ideas I enjoy together into one fic (or at least talk about doing that bc. I am always getting distracted instead of updating it). Service shark Vark!!! The VoxVal non-consenual consensual non-consent (it makes sense to me)! Velvette!! Vox killing angels with his bare hands! And getting an arm and half his head cut off (he gets better immediately bc he is all easily replaceable parts)! Charlie and Vaggie watching a Sinner attacking Exorcists right before Charlie was supposed to present her rehabilitation project and having to defend ideas, which is suddenly made even more difficult for her because now it looks like Overlords are planning to fight back against the Exterminations, and he didn't win but neither did the angels, so maybe Hell can fight back against Heaven (wasn't that why the Exterminations happen? Because Heaven is afraid of them uprising? Well, maybe they should be afraid...) Vaggie fallen angel feelings (those were her sisters and she's so bitter about them and she's so scared for them)! The timeline of Exterminations being moved up and Vox getting blamed for it! (Sinners who were previously excited about what he did turn against him bc of the backlash from Heaven and from other Sinners.) Carmilla hating the Vees! Inane and uniformed, smug wannabes! (She still killed an Exorcist for real tho, and Vox only wounded the ones he fought. She thinks she's better than him because she fought to protect the people she loves. Vox literally also did that, except it wasn't people it was a shark. She'd hate that too.) VoxVal horrible terrible no good very unhealthy relationship! VoxValVel also horrible relationship <3 They love each other, they can't live without each other <3 None of them are allowed to leave this ship, even when it's sinking <3 Vox won't lose a partner again; no one else can leave him like Alastor did.

But right now I've been working on a Vox & The Vees-centric rape recovery (or, well, there's not much recovery happening yet. It is just a long and drawn out breakdown where they madly scramble to resecure their power and influence and become more powerful so no one can ever hurt any of them again, and become so codependent) fic and it is everything to me and I do not have it really plotted out, I just have so many Thoughts and vaguely connected scenes for it that I bother people on discord with (hi to any people on discord reading this. Thank u for listening <3 )

Also I am (thanks to your ask about Vox's biology from earlier), daydreaming about a fic I have lovingly named Planned Obsolescence (tho I'm gonna have to make sure no one's taken that title yet) about Vox upgrading himself and upgrading himself and upgrading himself and he can never stay satisfied because the world marches on and he has to march with it, he can't be left behind because he needs to be the one innovating and leading. And upgrading himself.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Look I'm looking for things that are so specific that if a fic looks like it might be somewhat about what I want, I'll read it. I will click away if you call Alastor a w*ndigo tho.

Wait I thought of something else and then this next part got long and it's also about rape, so I'm throwing it behind a read more

Also!! Holy fuck I just remembered but I've run into it twice now. The Implication that rape is worse when it happens to someone who is already sex repulsed. Like specifically in these scenarios the rape was not a punishment not an attempt at corrective rape. Like, that I would get, actually, if the motivation itself was a hate crime, which adds a whole other dimension to worry about. But, no. That wasn't. I can't even articulate the poor taste it left in my mouth, it's just. Why would you make a character more horrified to learn their friend was raped after they also learned that their friend is ace? "He never would have wanted it-" hello?????? Yeah! That's why it's called rape????

(But also - while I do absolutely love reading about sex repulsed aro/ace characters (lol they're so me) - oftentimes a big part of what I am looking for in a story about rape recovery is a character struggling with the fact that their body did "enjoy" the physical sensation. That sex is supposed to happen with someone you love/are attracted to/trust, and this was a perversion of it, and it fucks up how you view future sexual relationships.) (And like, the physical sensation being pleasurable while your mind feels only disgust and repulsed is. An aspect that I feel like many can relate to, not only sex repulsed aces. Unless I'm projecting??) (Of course, recovery from the perspective of a character who was sex repulsed and remains so is also so so good.) (In general, it's a topic that needs to be portrayed with a kind of nuance and understanding that is often hard for an author to find the right words for. I'm sure I've even written thing poorly here, and inevitably said something that will be hurtful to a person with a different perspective than my own. Sorry! But such is the reality of everyone being individuals, unfortunately. The things that bring some people comfort will cause other people distress.)

[radley-writes]

hiya! just wondering if u can talk a bit about your process of drafting -> beta reading etc? I'm almost ready to have people read my draft (revised from cp feedback) and idk where to start or what the best process might be! thanks in advance

First off: congrats on having a completed manuscript. It sounds like you're off to a good start, having received cp feedback!

Of course, every writer will have a different method of prepping for a Beta round. I hope this is useful, and gives you some ideas for how to proceed.

Once I have a solid manuscript that's ready for readers, my next step is to ask myself a couple of questions...

What's your deadline?

I like to establish this before I start. I usually do quite long Beta rounds, around four/five months a pop - though some people prefer to work under pressure and might prefer an 8 week Beta round!

You need to pick a realistic date and stick to it. I wouldn't go any shorter than 4 weeks for a 70K novel - and personally, I think that is too tight.

What platform will you use to share your draft?

I use Googledocs just for convenience. But given The Current Nonsense (AI training) you might be more comfortable picking a different method.

I then split my doc into manageable chunks - typically 10K ish each, one part on each doc.

What do you want from your Betas while they read?

I usually make several forms, one for each part, that ask very basic questions - I've found that people respond best to this, plus a few prompts. So, 'what do you like about the story so far? (characters, style, worldbuilding, plot, pacing, etc.)' and 'what could be improved on? (any parts you felt didn't quite 'work'? Go into as much or as little detail as you like!)'

But you can ask specific questions about certain plot points you're unsure about, or whatever else you like!

I then link each 'part' of my novel to the next part and the corresponding form.

How do you want to communicate with your Betas?

I use Discord, because it's easy to set up a simple little server for Betas to join! This server is typically comprised of a few rooms for people to chat about their own projects/my manuscript, plus a couple of fun rooms full of pet pictures and memes - it's mostly just a way to socialise and get to know your Betas a bit better.

Which you should do! The friends I've made from Beta rounds have been with me for years! You'll meet amazing people, and I'd encourage you to show their projects the same enthusiasm that they have for yours!

Then we're onto selecting the Betas themselves.

What do you want to know about your Betas?

I give the Betas one chapter to read, linked to an application form. I want to know their preferred name/pronouns, a vague idea of their age (so: <18 or >18 - for YA projects I like having a mix of adults and kids as my Betas, and for Adult projects I prefer not to have kids). I also want to know their Discord handle and a confirmation that they can read and comment on the whole manuscript before the deadline.

Then I put in a free box for them to write their feedback on the first chapter.

I also list all the content warnings for my manuscript that I can think of, and ask them to confirm that they are okay with reading this novel.

Which Betas do you want?

You've had a dozen replies - so, it's time to select Betas!

How do you pick? How many should you choose? I've discovered through trial and error that I, personally, cannot handle a large Beta round. It's too much stress! Some people have 20+ Betas on every book, but I perish at the thought - so my rounds tend to be pretty exclusive, between 5-10 Betas. I usually aim to have 5, but inevitably add an extra or ...several, just because people are lovely!

I usually choose one or two 'cheerleaders' who give loads of compliments, because I'm a baby who needs ego boosts. Then I choose the rest based on who gives the most insightful critique!

You interpretation of 'insightful critique' will vary. I like critique that is clear and honest, even if that means saying 'I don't know what is wrong here, but something about this section made me lose interest'. I like people who try to suggest what might be wrong, and ways to fix it - but I wouldn't pick anyone who was obviously basing all their assumptions off of Tumblr Writing Advice For What Makes A Good Novel.

Or what they want their own novel to be.

Of course, writers can be incredibly awesome Betas - I've got a squad who I trust with my manuscripts, my life, and my entire ass. But writing and editorial reading are different skills. Some folks are good writers, but aren't good commentators. Their crit will basically be them trying to turn your story into theirs. You get a feel for this sort of critique after a while, and it'll set off red flags!

I also tend not to pick people who don't vibe with anything about the 'style' or 'voice' of the first chapter - those are big factors that affect the whole novel and aren't going to change. They'd be the sort of people who would put my book down after the first page, so they're not really my audience!

Once you've made your selection, you just have to whoosh out Discord invites, give your Betas access to the first part of the manuscript (with links to the next part and the relevant questionnaire embedded) and away you go.

I hope this helps! May your Beta-round journey go smoothly! Again, all advice is built entirely from my own preferences and experiences - if anyone else likes to do things in a completely different and radical way, please let me know! I'd love some new ideas of how to run a Beta round! :D