#i think i've made this exact post before but any time i see this particular bookmark part of my soul dies

[sergeant-angua]

ao3 users tagging their bookmarks with their rating of your fic is wild like yeah i also think this one's 3 out of 5 stars but you didn't have to SAY it

[katatonicimpression]

It's the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Eve and I have fuck all to do so let's watch the Sam episode of What If?

DISCLAIMER: This is the first, and so far only, full episode of this show that I have ever watched. It did not inspire me to watch more. So, that's my bias I guess.

Background

There was some controversy about all of this. Sam appeared briefly in the zombies episode in the first season of this show. He's already a zombie and is quickly killed (re-killed?) by bucky, who makes a quip about it.

The line feels kinda off, like they're trying to recreate the banter between the characters in the live action (finding each other annoying etc) but it falls flat. There's no love there. In civil war (which takes place before the canon divergence in the show), their banter still has a level of camaraderie to it. They're riffing off each other, and fighting together and saving each other. It's weird to have bucky quip at the prospect of sam's death in a scene that takes place after those scenes.

It feels like reading one of the thousands of "incorrect quotes" posts on this app that write Bucky being horrible to Sam for no reason. It's the exact same emotional experience. Put a pin in that.

There was another controversy related to this, which is that in the same episode, Sharon also dies. Allegedly, one of the main writers (matthew chauncey) said that they should give her a particularly violent death because "no one likes her... he belongs with peggy". This is an open expression of violent misogyny so yeah that's fun. What a piece of shit... allegedly.

Sam does not appear in any other episode of what if s1. When s2 came out, his absence felt conspicuous, and many people commented on it. In particular, there's an episode of s2 that is vaguely medieval/robin-hood vibes, and Sam is noticeably absent from Steve's band of merry men. Steve's best friend, closest partner of over 50 years of comics isn't there. The falconry themed superhero is not in the medieval episode. People rightfully called bs.

The show felt similar to reading posts and fics in the fandom, and the way that people will minimise Sam's existence in Canon. Put a pin in that.

One person involved in making it (I think a writer but I can't remember and I searched for like ten minutes it's NYE gimme a break) responded publically to these complaints. They cited a supposed uncertainty over sam's future in the mcu (specifically whether he was cap or falcon) as a reason for not including him.

This was very funny, because 1) There was no ambiguity over whether Sam would be cap - it was a dead cert since Endgame what are you on? and 2) no one would've been mad if Sam had appeared as Falcon.

This response had the same vibes as when random fans say weird and ignorant things in Sam's tag and, when confronted, will offer weird excuses that don't make any sense. Pin it.

The other bit of context here is the (admittedly heavy) discussion of how What If launched Captain Carter, a decision that had to have been made around the same time that they decided to do samcap. I've talked before about this; it's complicated and the discourse is annoying. But ultimately, it comes across very badly for the mcu that they created a white female british captain america (not captain britain from Excalibur, but specifically a captain america character) specifically to launch near simultaneously with a Black captain america. It looks bad and I don't like it.

Anyway, so after this person who's name i can't find put their foot in their mouth, Marvel released a few stills from s3, revealing that Sam would be in one episode. People were happy to see him, and (aside from the VERY VALID CRITIQUE that WhatIf!Sam doesn't have the eyelashes he so clearly ought to) people were mostly placated.

The Episode

I love mark ruffalo but his voice performance in the opening scene is not it. Also the narration is mixed a lot louder than the dialogue... which is a jarringly amateur mistake. Ok whatever i'm gonna try to keep my salty complaining sam-focused

So, the show opens with a version of the opening samsteve meetcute from CATWS. But this time, without a mutual exchange of vulnerability. This time Sam is just offering Bruce comfort.

Then he literally gives him therapy.

Then he takes him to Louisiana to the boat, a redo of the sambucky scenes in tfatws. I'm not the first person to point this out, but there's a big difference here. Bucky came to louisiana uninvited with a (technically unwanted, but still very impressive) gift for Sam and then spent the day working on the boat as a gesture of friendship. He was performing acts of service (or however you express it) because he wanted to preserve and nurture this relationship. He knew he'd treated Sam badly and wanted to make it up to him.

Then, Sam invited him to stay the night (or, rather, accepts bucky's self-invitation to sleep in his house), because he's nice and welcoming and generous yes sure. But also because he likes Bucky back, despite everything. They both want to be friends and partners.

That's not happening here. It's just Sam offering Bruce his home because he is apparently motivated by a desire to help random white men he meets.

It reminds me of the countless fics and hcs that write Sam exclusively as a caretaker and therapist for bucky or other white characters. It reminds me of the takes that rewrite canon to make him be the one to pursue bucky with a desire to help and nurture him - a thing that has never happened in canon. Urgh. Pin that thought up with the others.

Oh and of course, we can't have a story about samcap without paying tribute to our holy special boy steve for a bit. Whatever it was just a few overly long shots.. still annoyed me though. Wow I really am a hater.

Oh and Bruce is the one with the arc? He's the one the episode is about? But his change of heart happens entirely off screen and with no implicit turning point? Lol. Lmao even.

And "friends who accept us for who we really are." I want to take this entire writers room aside because no. You can't end with a thesis statement that wasn't the theme of the story. Go back to school.

Am I Nothing but Negativity?

It was nice to see sarah again! Shame all she got to do was scream then get violently shoved to the floor.

Ok but in general, once the episode gets started in earnest, it's fine.

I did genuinely like seeing Sam again. I like him in the lead, even if the episode was about Bruce, Sam was still the main character and that was fun to see.

Mackie's voice performance is strong.

I enjoyed the 0.0003 seconds of sambucky. I liked seeing Sam and Monica together.

"The man wants to have tea with Lenin." This line is so bad it's good again. Yeah he probably would. And he'd be fine. Vlad would love the guy, everyone does.

I like the visual of Sam facing down a giant kaiju and just chatting to it. That's very sam coded. That and Sam with the shot of the monsters walking past him and him standing strong.

What is the Point of this Show?

There's nothing spectacular in this episode. The dialogue is astoundingly predictable, the jokes fail to be funny.

At times, the animation style (much like TDP which recently finished) feels like it's holding them back. A lot of the quieter, less actiony, shots are ugly frames with people walking less naturally than sims do. And they do have some more expressive stuff in the busier scenes, so it's not artistically empty, but it's not doing a lot for me either.

Maybe it's an interesting technique for those who know more about these things, but honestly regular 2d animation would've been (i assume) cheaper and potentially better. Then again, if it wasn't visually distinctive, what else would it have going for it?

Conceptually, a mcu what if show is an amazing idea, but in practice IN MY VERY BIASED OPINION, it's done very little with that potential. The comics offer such a rich trough of ideas that could be spun into very entertaining short episodes with versions of the characters that would otherwise not be able to encounter those story beats. Hell, Sam in particular has an entire massive part of his character cut from the mcu (his powers) that they could explore... and that would be really well suited to animation!

But they've stuck to the comparatively shallow mcu lore for most of it.

I've seen people express disappointment that it's ending after only 3 short seasons and I see why. This is obviously the sort of thing that you could do so much more with. But I also feel that the writing is uninspired and betrays a real lack of interest in the worlds of most of these characters.

I Hate its Vibes

So let's take a look at those pins, shall we?

We have:

Ignoring Sam most of the time

Mischaracterising his relationship with Bucky

Writing him as a caregiver, a nurturing therapist only

A lack of an internal world and motivations beyond his desire to help others

Ignorance over his character's history including his powers and the depth and longevity of his relationship with steve

Nonsensical excuses when faced with criticism, unintentionally displaying even more ignorance and incuriosity over the character

I mentioned that writers comment about sharon earlier for a reason. The vibes are not good. They are rancid. They are reminding me of every dumb post I've ever read on this site. Every weird jab at the character for stupid, racist reasons. Every fic with the "magical negro" trope. Every moron i can think of tbh.

Yeah, so maybe I'm not being fair to this show. The episode was uninspired, but not bad. I liked seeing sam do things. If people gif him looking cool in it, I'll reblog it I guess. But I'm not gonna watch the rest of the show, and I won't mourn the fact that it's ending.

I guess my conclusion is that it's very funny that Marvel placated disgruntled sam fans with a still from this episode, and then when it finally comes out, it's everything we've ever complained about.

[fantasticalleigh]

I saw your reblog about asks and then you gave me an ask and I realised I've never asked you anything before so I sprinted over here to reciprocate the favour (and now I'm a little out of breath because my cardio is shocking!).

So... my main problem as an artist is having a thousand ideas popping into my head but not being able to put even a fraction of them on paper - if you have the same problem, would you like to share any of those ideas??

haha aw, thank you! and same about the cardio 😰

this is a really interesting question!

I struggle with the exact same problem tbh, it's always really hard wrangling so many ideas! I wish I had some like groundbreaking tips to help manage this but my methods are pretty basic:

-as ideas come, i try to write them down (i usually fail at this) but if it's a good idea it will stick in my mind for days or even weeks, so when i get the chance i will sketch something out. it usually turns out really bad but that's ok bc it's just to get the barest essence of the idea, and i'll write down the actual idea down on the paper or canvas of whatever i'm working on so i can decipher that later. (i like to have a good bunch of these drafts ready at any given time so i can pick and choose what to work on next once i complete something)

-this one might not apply to everyone, but: i cycle between a few different art styles. sometimes it depends on what brushes i use, or if i know i want something to be a casual sketch, a whole sketchpage, or an illustration. it also depends on knowing how much time i want to spend on it. faster drawings done with my favorite chunky pen in a more cartoonish style usually rank higher in order of what to work on, because i know i can finish it in a few days (or even hours). stuff that's more detailed/rendered is lower on the list of execution because i know it'll take longer to finish because of details and the linework, and that i'll definitely want to take breaks from that one to work on the faster ones. (i have two pieces for Bad Blood i've been working on for MONTHS now bc they have so much detail and i still don't know when they'll be done lol, just chipping away at them bit by bit)

-sometimes, depending on what art projects i'm currently working on, i won't get a chance to actually develop that new idea until much later on. or maybe i try and just don't feel into it anymore. in that case i try to just focus on something else. i usually have about four or more other art ideas in various stages of completion to work on in rotation which has really helped. and then some days i really don't feel like working on one particular thing and want to work on another, but i compromise with myself that if i get decent progress done on one then i'll switch to the other after a point. just as a little treat :3

i also think a large part of managing all these ideas is accepting that some of them will just never be made. every now and then i go through my procreate files and delete drafts that i know i'll never actually draw. either because i don't love the idea anymore, have no time, i don't think i can execute it well, or just pure laziness.

it kind of sucks but it's just the way things go, and the ideas keep coming anyway so it's not like that's the end of the line if you decide to toss a few out the window! (ESPECIALLY considering we draw a lot of wwe based art and since it's a weekly show there's just so much more potential for new art every few days.) it's great to be able to get anything out at all tbh! i do feel a lot of pressure sometimes that i have to get things out as fast as possible but it does work as a great motivator and i'm just always so excited to see what everyone else is working on and posting! it's a very inspiring environment.

this turned out so long, but i hope it helps! :D

[tubbytarchia]

Some Tango, rancher and Etho (!?) thoughts as I finished up Tango's POVs for 3rd, Limited and Secret Life

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is near empty in this skull of mine so bear with my poor analysis skills if you can call it that. This is walls of text that I'm not expecting anyone to fully read but it's nice to get my own thoughts in order for the future, somewhat!

ahem Tango thoughts

Tango's loyalty KILLS ME. Similarly to Impulse in 3rd Life he recognizes the value in allyship but struggles to maintain any concrete ones, and then goes from a double agent to someone playing all sides, but even so, whoever his allies are at a given moment, unless he's been severely wronged by them, he's straight devoted to them. He seems to switch on a dime in 3rd life going from team to team, but that's not because of lack of care and he puts his best foot forward for them anyway. He wants to be trusting of and trusted by Etho even after their alliance strains, he was quick to defend the Crastle and offer reassurance to Cleo even after declaring the Crastle to be his enemies, he fought against Dogwarts alongside Impulse, refusing to back off even when it became certain death after Impulse died, etc

He might have a tendency to die stupid deaths but he did seem to have his value recognized unlike Last Life, where he was allied with the same people for almost all of it. He sacrificed a lot for team BEST to ultimately get no more than a pat on the back. I already made a post about this but I'm not gonna shut up about it!! The way he kind of gets tossed around begrudgingly when he's very rightfully upset about Dbubs killing him, and others just keep joking about his anger and treating him as dispensable, ahh it saddens me. Skizz WAS nice to him but even he, in the end, came over to try and threaten and intimidate Tango once he was red. Reds in Last Life took the breaking of any previous alliances seriously, as did Tango once he was also red, but even so

Then ofc Double Life <3

And in Limited and Secret Life he seems to have his value largely recognized again and is able to secure good teams, to whom, again, he's SO loyal to. He always has been, ever since 3rd Life and even in Last Life after the boogie incident. I don't think he ever wronged his teammates in ANY substantial way. He very openly made a deal for Scar to kill BDubs and that's probably the worst he's done, and even then, not like Scar did a very good job... But Tango is also someone who often talks big game (eg "oh just wait until I'm red" etc) only to not be very fatal to anyone. He threatened BDubs a lot but ultimately, hardly harmed him

Tango's devotion is undying and he really wants to trust people. He'd rather put up with team BEST making fun of his rightful anger than leave or harm them, and he's quick to join back up with the Crastle because he wants people by his side. He makes himself a good asset to prove his trustworthiness, if even subconsciously, because he certainly trusts whoever he manages to settle with first. I was kind of surprised at how much faith he had in team TIES as he was being hunted down by the entire server for being the last green name. He hardly ever doubted them and wasn't afraid to immediately come out of hiding upon finding them (and ofc then sacrificing himself for Skizz)

Tango's response to combat is VERY often to cower away somewhere. Maybe he's just being cautious but nevertheless his immediate reaction tends to be to back away, and he's admitted many times himself that he just hesitates. I think this has happened a few times but in LimL in particular he called Etho out for fleeing combat when the Bad Boys attacked them and the Clockers, even though Tango did basically the exact same thing. As if he doesn't even always realize when he's cowering off to the side? But seeing the ways that he usually gets himself killed, yeah! Understandable! Lol. And yet when things get dicey, he more often than not goes against this nature to abstain. Third Life, instead of fleeing from a battle against 3(4?) people once Impulse dies, he goes back in and dies. Last Life, he takes one for the team by charging at a minecart (though granted, in the moment he didn't seem to think it'd kill him, he did charge in without much thought). Limited Life, he refuses to disengage and gets himself killed in his pursuit of Scar instead of eating to heal from his half a heart of health and Secret Life.... oh ho ho

Tango's not as literally sacrificial as Skizz or Scott, and he might not be very good at protecting his friends due to his tendency to abstain from combat (because he's not much good at it so again, understandable) but he's very firm about who his friends are and man, does he do his best. 9/10 times he makes a good effort at best (lest we forget, the man has gotten very few legit kills across all five seasons) but then there are times like when he physically put himself between Etho and Martyn in LimL when Etho called for his help, even when it looked like Tango was trying to maintain distance from the confrontation. And Secret Life...!!!

First of all, got half the server to support him in the last session by giving him hearts ofc, very nice, very cute, very deserved. But secondly, I will not stop thinking about him going against Scar's deal. He was so very adamant about not hurting, let alone killing Skizz and very begrudgingly accepted Scar's offer for a heart in exchange for him swiping Skizz once. Only for Tango to start attacking Scar later, proclaiming that he could never betray Skizz. My condolences to Scar but fuck yeah, king shit!! He showcases his loyalty again but also just straight up initiates combat and goes at it for a bit. Like many times before he just gets kinda feisty as things get closer to the end, I suppose! Even when he doesn't really have many hearts to spare. I'm here for this

I have thoughts about Etho and him specifically too but thats below

Rancher thoughts

Firstly just some rancher moments that I'm sure all the rancherers already have seared into their brains but I'm noting them for me because I've seen them for the first time now:

Jimmy in LimLife, all bad boy, hits Tango and then immediately turns around to apologize to his rancher

When Tango gets blown up by Joel, upon returning, Jimmy bombards Tango with questions about how it went down

And it stuck out to me because it reminded me so much of the way Jimmy tries to inquire Tango about the amount of hearts he dealt to him in Secret Life (and ofc Tango being all indirect with his replies which ends up sounding like some strange off-brand flirting). Also Tango intentionally running into Jimmy's TNT and then sticking around him instead of fleeing. Also also "I like seeing Tango's reaction when he sees me, it's nice, he makes these weird sounds". That entire ordeal in session 5 is such gold

When Skizz is doing his affirmation thing with Jimmy in LimL, Tango and Impulse eavesdrop and Tango jokes about how embarrassing that was and that he needs to throw up right to their faces. And the way Jimmy had absolutely zero hostile reaction whatsoever. Even when it quieted down and he thanked Skizz, Skizz referred to "those idiots" and Jimmy's all "what idiots?" lmao. But then maybe he was just too taken aback by Skizz's kindness (of course he's also in on the jokes and doesn't always play up the upset factor, but I mean, it WAS his rancher very loudly voicing his disgust), which breaks my heart just a wee bit after all the kindness he got from Tango just one series prior, the same Tango who barely partakes in all the jokes going around at Jimmy's expense. But then, it's not like he made any direct jabs at Jimmy, I don't think he ever has but I might be wrong? And was playfully disgusted by the corny interaction in general, including Skizz

Ok I knew of this one but Jimmy interrogating Tango when his task was to talk to Torchy, but also I just love it so much that Flower Husbands is kind of in the mix too with Scott telling Jimmy to do the thing, for Jimmy to then attempt to do the thing, then defend Tango to Scott's face, to then attempt to do the thing again and get it completely wrong even though Scott knew exactly what Tango's task was and gave Jimmy all the pieces

Pearl giving Tango a pity flower only for Jimmy to immediately walk over and accidentally pick it up. Reminds me of when the same happened with baked potatoes in DL

I don't actually have a lot to add here for the rancher stuff, except that I think it's neat how the nature of Tango's alliances aligned? Which I just went into detail about but I think it's poetic that it went from Tango struggling to find one sure alliance, to Tango being in a mostly stable alliance but his worth largely unrecognized, to assigned soulmate ranchers, where Jimmy gave him all the affirmation in the World, even as the others made fun of them, and then Tango having very dependable alliances since then. Something something the way Jimmy rightfully supported Tango, seeing him for all his worth, and then Tango not having to settle for (much) less since then. That's just the way things happened to go but hey, I don't know about you but I see fanfic material and stuff about Jimmy leaving a mark on the course of Tango's Life series, or something

Going back to the Skizz affirmation thing for a moment too, I think it's also neat to compare how good he is at voicing intricate affirmation vs, well, Tango. Jimmy seemed so very genuinely touched by Skizz's kindness, something he obviously isn't subjected to a lot, except for Tango in Double Life with all his ornately worded "Great job!"s and "You're awesome!"s. That's just the thing that I love about ranchers sooo much that they're hardly ever graceful in what they do or say, more just bundles of strong emotions than anything, but they mesh oh so perfectly

suddenly Etho thoughts

Unrelated to ANYTHING but Etho's so cute!! Like ok, what else is new but ahh, just stuck out to me, probably because Tango keeps getting allied with him one or another way for half the seasons. I grinned so widely each time he went around "team meeting, team meeting!" or "banana!" in his small voice, and for me, nothing so far has topped the moment of him running into the TIES group, yelling for someone to help him craft some powered rails

Ok anyway it was SO nice to see his undying loyalty towards Tango in LimLife after what happened in 3rd and Last Life. It reminds me so much of his heartwrenching loyalty in Secret Life where he absolutely refused to give away his teammates' locations even as the success of his task depended on it. In the manhunt in session 4, the one person who saw Tango, completely vulnerable before he could continue his escape attempt was Etho, and the WAY Etho doesn't have immediate vocal reactions like so many of the other lifers do and can just stay silent is soo. I don't know man. It works wonders to make him intimidating but then there's also moments like this, the way he stays totally silent on more than one occasion so as not to risk betraying his teammates, and when he does speak, it's to give false information or whatever it takes to protect them. And just as with Cleo and Grian, in LimL with Tango, he was defending the last remaining green/s! That adds absolutely nothing lmao just an observation that I felt the need to point out

In Secret Life Tango and Etho also team up somewhat at the very end, at which Tango says "I'll carry you, as usual" which is a line that tickles me. Like, true, Tango has done a lot for Etho in their previous alliances but in LimL, it felt a lot more balanced, if not the other way around altogether. Again, the manhunt!! Not that Etho's attempt to misguide the others helped at all, but it's the sentiment that matters... Etho had Tango's back all throughout LimL and that makes me so happy. deserved

[lunar-years]

T! From your latest ask game post.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? **

i'm very certain i've rambled on about most (all?) of these before, lol. But here is my truth:

General character stuff -

Jewish Roy Kent!! The O'Sullivan-Kent's are mixed faith

Roy and his sister were perhaps close when they were very small but not so much once Roy moved to Sunderland. They didn't reconnect until around the time she got pregnant with Phoebe, then became incredibly incredibly close during her contentious divorce, when Roy was the first and best person to show up for her.

Keeley's parents are divorced. also she definitely has major mommy issues and i think that's under-explored!

Jamie's dad came back into his life when he was pre-teen (i don't have an exact age but to me it was somewhere between like. the ages of nine to twelve). Old enough to already be putting himself on the football map, locally (enough for James to have taken notice, anyway) but young enough for James to have made the very deep impression on him and to hold the type of influence over him we see reflected on the show.

Simon came into the picture several years later when Jamie was an older teenager (16-17) and he and Georgie didn't get married until Jamie was playing (semi-)professionally

i feel sooooo strongly that he hasn't told a soul about that trip to Amsterdam until he tells Roy in s3. i know some people think he would have told his mum and i respect that but also. i couldn't disagree more, lol.

speaking of mummy, I also think the closeness we see them have in s3 is somewhat of a recent development. They were definitely that close when Jamie was young, but as is typical with having an abusive parent, I don't see how his relationship with his dad wouldn't have tainted his bond with his mum. To me there is a lot of things that were left unsaid between them, on both sides, for a long time, and I think the s1 bonfire scene really reflects that strain. not to say they were totally estranged, but I do think there were a few very rough years in there where jamie barely talked to her. and they reconnected around the time of the break between s1 & s2 when Jamie was back with Man City. now they're extremely extremely close.

jamie works with kids once he retires from football!! i'm not too particular as to what capacity but perhaps my favorite is that he coaches youth football at the Academy level. Like, maybe the U15s or U16s. young teenagers whose lives he can make a real difference in. just...jamie getting to be the mentor and influence for them in the way he wishes he had at that age. ahhhh.

ot3 stuff:

ot3 all have strained (at best) relationships with their parents, but in completely different ways. they all adore Georgie and Simon though and love making time to visit Manchester

they do NOT have kids ❌ Miss Keeley Jones is not EVER willingly getting pregnant i can tell you that much for damn sure

i'm ride or die ot3 and this is kind of irrelevant in a poly scenario but re: marriage none of them would change their last names i firmly believe this

look. it's not that jamie and keeley CAN'T cook. but if roy is willing to make them the majority of their meals. and do it better than either of them ever could. who are they to stop him?? (lowkey keeley's cooking IS tragic though, lol)

simon teaches roy how to bake. then they force Georgie, Jamie and Keeley to "judge" their creations as if they were competing on bakeoff. this is like. an ongoing event. there are multiple occasions, maybe once a year or something, and roy and simon spend weeks planning what they're going to do for it every time.

i think they keep their relationship a secret until Jamie retires. of course there is a thriving in-verse rpf community, lmao.

perhaps controversially i don't think they'd tell the whole team. I love it in blissful and happy and fluffy fics though :) And obviously, i think roy and jamie love the team very much, but i still think they'd only explicitly tell like, rebecca, the coaches, and then Jamie would tell his closest few friends on the team. everyone else kind of figures it out over time, though, they aren't as subtle as they think they are, but it's not really talked about? it's more like an open secret.

they have a closed poly relationship because at the end of the day they are all possessive and none of them are open to sharing with anyone but each other, lol. also like. even keeping up with two partners can be a logistical nightmare. who would have the time for more? keeley runs the calendars.

sex: Roy and Keeley switch. Jamie is mostly a sub but willing to try basically everything and anything once. also what they get up to is generally very kinky and very sex positive and most importantly they have LOTS of fun <333 the details of that would take up another 12 paragraphs but you know. i think the fandom is mostly in agreement with this lmao.

** maybe not so much ~die defending~ because if people have different opinions i definitely do not care, y'all do you. but these are the ones that are so tried and true in MY brain that if i read a different opinion or a fic featuring a contradicting viewpoint... It doesn't matter how much i enjoy it or even love it... I am still filing that away as an AU in my brain even though it's like, totally NOT 😂

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Tale of Thousand Stars Loving Rewatch Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I write about my LOVING rewatch of one of the best BLs out there, ever, in A Tale of Thousand Stars.]

While I’ve been in the midst of a plethora of awesome new shows (Only Friends, Dangerous Romance), I’ve also been treating myself with some oldies. I just wrapped up a rewatch of Until We Meet Again, to prep for New Siwaj’s Absolute Zero that’s coming out this fall. And one of the joys that I set for myself in the course of structuring the Old GMMTV Challenge was to allow myself some loving rewatches of shows that I originally first consumed out of any chronological order, and/or out of total curiosity for the amount of space they generally take up on a daily basis on Tumblr, and/or for the amount of times that I had seen these particular shows listed as top examples of genre-defining or genre-transcending BLs. Those shows include Bad Buddy (of course), and A Tale of Thousand Stars.

Way, WAY back in the day -- November 2022, to be exact -- just a couple months into my joining Tumblr and actively blogging, I realized that this show called Moonlight Chicken was being bandied about excitedly, mostly in part because EarthMix and FirstKhao were going to be in it. I was intrigued, excited to participate in my first active Tumblr fandom from beginning to end, and I asked the Tumblr gods -- oh hey, should I watch A Tale of Thousand Stars first, to get to know Earth Pirapat and Mix Sahaphap first? And the answer was YES, so I did, and I totally loved it.

And of course, I look back at that review from almost a year ago, and I giggle, because while I picked up on a lot of the raw elements that make ATOTS great, I didn't have ANY context for why the show was transcendent vis à vis pre-existing BL tropes in the Thai BL genre, what it meant to be watching a classic Backaof Noppharnach show, what it meant for the show to be set in Northern Thailand, etc. I even wrote -- oh wow, I see why some of the elders on Tumblr are saying that there are shows way better than KinnPorsche out there (LOL, oh, hindsight). I didn't have any of that context.

Now, I do. And during my recent ATOTS rewatch, I just ATE, ATE, ATE, oh my god, I just sat and fucking ENJOYED this FABULOUS drama. I was yelling and gesturing to the screen -- oh god, WHY are you SO GOOD, YOU SHOW, YOU?! Man, oh man. It was a shit-ton of fun to start rewatching dramas that I already have nostalgia for, even if I only saw them for the first time last year.

Besides rewatching some of these important dramas back in chronological order through the OGMMTVC, I also have a mission in mind: to properly rewatch ATOTS and Bad Buddy before rewatching Our Skyy 2, which I've been wanting to do for a while. That rewatch will take place after I rewatch Bad Buddy in a couple of weeks. And I'm glad I waited until I could consume Aof's entire oeuvre, because I think his whole slate of shows -- not just ATOTS and BBS -- give us clues as to what was happening by way of Pat and Pran's relationship in OS2 before their physical separation in BBS that further explain the ATOTS and BBS universes. But more on this in a few weeks, when I get to my BBS and OS2 reviews.

Back to ATOTS. As I rewatched it -- in the context of the OGMMTVC, and what I've learned about the Thai television BL genre NOW, what were the elements of this show that stood out the most for me?

1) The striking use of flashbacks to tell a story. I know NOW shows that haven't used flashbacks as well to tell a compelling narrative -- for me, most recently, the biggest example is Double Savage (and maybe even KinnPorsche goes up there, too). Before ATOTS premiered, I think the BL that used flashbacks the BEST in its narrative was Until We Meet Again, which *needed* flashbacks to tell the entire scope of its intricate story, from past to present.

Something that I forgot about ATOTS until my rewatch was how very PACED the show was. I think I had it in my head that it was a slow-ish story, because -- again, it bucked a lot of BL trends and tropes, just like He's Coming To Me also did. No side couples. No university setting. No warring faculties and uniforms. When I first wrote about ATOTS in December 2022 -- after having watched The Eclipse as my first GMMTV BL -- I marveled at the singular storyline of Tian's life change and journey. There was a LOT we needed to know about Tian to GET where he was going, and where he wanted to go. What I didn't appreciate back then was how Aof TOLD the story.

Sure -- it could have frustrated some folks that we didn't get the truth of who was driving the car until much later in the series. But that would be missing the point of that piece of truth. Tian had blamed himself for Torfun's death the second he learned about it. It didn't *quite* matter who was driving the car -- what mattered was the self-blame he assigned himself to, and the journey he thought he needed to take to absolve himself of the guilt that he carried.

The structure was beyond sharp, and just INCREDIBLY compelling. Between UWMA and ATOTS, we have two tremendous dramas that flirted with VERY risky past-to-future infrastructures, and both succeeded exceedingly well.

2) Phupha and Tian's TERRIBLE communication. I'm serious! Oh my god, y'all. Did we appreciate back then how AWFUL they are at communicating? HA! Our Skyy 2 obviously emphasized this even more -- Tian himself accuses Phupha of not being open enough to tell Tian why Phupha won't meet Tian's parents.

But, holy shit, these two guys are such drama bastards. By episode 9, I had to write in my notes, in all caps: THESE ASSHOLES ARE SUCH AWFUL COMMUNICATORS. If one person wasn't angry at the other, and avoiding the other person, then something was off in their world. Tian's titchyness, Phupha's avoidance, played against each other like opposing magnets.

And yet: of course, we know WHY they are bad communicators. We know that Phupha grew up in a traditional, rural household -- one that likely wasn't welcoming to his inner truth as a queer man.

Tian grew up in a privileged and patriarchal household that disguised itself as a matriarchal household. Now THAT shit's confusing. What Tian was to do with his life, as assigned by his parents, supposedly came from his mom -- but it was his dad that enforced those rules. Who could Tian go to to talk about his own growing inner truth as well? Not to either of his parents, who both had designs on who *exactly* Tian should be by way of their own demands and outward-facing lives.

So these two men -- both of whom barely had any practice in expressing their inner truths, their raw feelings about themselves, their life situations, and each other -- are figuring out their emotional shit vis à vis each other, for the first time in their lives. And what we get, gloriously, is a whole bunch of damn hilarious drama that left me shaking my head and laughing a bunch. They were SO passive-aggressive with each other, I had to applaud EarthMix.

And through their bad communication came so many resolutions to each storyline -- the illegal merchants, the revelation of Torfun's death and the story behind it -- that what we ultimately got to see were life-defining moments for both Tian and Phupha of utter growth. The trade-off between those dramatic anguishes and the TRUE drama of the show itself -- was well worth it, and brilliantly done.

3) The metaphor of freedom. We know, now, that Bad Buddy was existing in the same world as ATOTS.

God, I LOVE what Aof pulled in Our Skyy 2 by way of the Nong Nao eye mask (Tian even wears the Nong Nao eye mask!) -- because in rewatching ATOTS, I would have NEVER clocked that Tian was talking about his own freedom through his OWN eye mask.

We know now that Tian and Pran, in their respective shows, were on their own paths to freedom -- both from demanding families that demanded that each of them comport to absolute idealistic images of what perfect sons DID in those family structures. Both Tian and Pran have overbearing mothers with complicit fathers who demand exacting obedience. And both Tian and Pran ultimately sought freedom from that pressure.

In episode 9, I clocked a message on Tian's tote bag -- I can't get a clear-enough screenshot of it (it's in the 3/4 segment), but the tote bag says, "what is the meaning of free?" All of ATOTS is based on Tian's journey to emotional freedom -- freedom from his parents' expectations, freedom from the guilt he carries from Torfun's death.

An interesting comparison to UWMA happens in episode 5, when Tian asks about his growing feelings towards Phupha: "I don't know if these feelings are mine or Torfun's." And, of course -- combine that with what Tian needs to reckon with at the cliff in episode 9, when Tian is struggling with figuring how who's life he's truly living. As Tian separates himself from his parents -- as Tian understands his needs vs. Torfun's needs -- what Tian's struggle ultimately comes down to is, who is he really living his life for? Torfun saved him, his parents bought him the transplant -- but what does that actually mean for the meaning that Tian brings to his own life, and to the lives of others, including Phupha?

What Tian ultimately realizes is that needs freedom from the influence of everyone and everything around him to gain clarity as to who HE truly is. That, to me, is the ultimate core message of ATOTS -- it is Tian's defining journey towards the freedom that only he himself can find, vis à vis Torfun, Phupha, and Pha Pun Dao.

But because Aof is so good at wrenching our hearts with every last bit of energy he’s got: he showed us that Tian was able to come to this conclusion, ultimately, through Phupha, and Phupha's love for Tian.

ATOTS is a wonderful coming-of-age story, but without the typical cheesiness that that structure can often bring. It's a story of individual and internal change that we know gets echoed, expanded, and transformed in Bad Buddy through Pran. I see now that ATOTS and Bad Buddy are Aof's deep studies of internal maturing, both told through queer revelations, through empathic love with a rock-solid partner, and through fights against oppressive societal and familial resistances to living one's full truth.

Way, way back when -- and thank goodness for the OGMMTVC for allowing me to dive into this -- Aof depicted queer men living their very robust truths in Gay OK Bangkok. As I wrote in my GOKB review, what happened after the premiere of GOKB is that Aof went to the BL genre to begin slowly changing it, to make the genre a true home for real queer revelation and introspection. Did he ever nail it in ATOTS. Did he ever expand it in BBS. Watching ATOTS felt like coming home, because once again (as in HCTM) -- Aof defied typical expectations of the genre to get honest about what an internal reality of being queer could really be like. And to do that in Thai television BL, with all the tropes and expectations the genre had created by the time of ATOTS's airing in 2021, was remarkable.

Hearing the theme song, seeing Pha Pun Dao and the villagers (AND THE CHILDREN! I LOVE THOSE CHILDREN!), seeing the schoolhouse, seeing Earth in his forest ranger uniform, hearing the original source of the forest ranger t-shirt joke, seeing Rang and Yod again -- man, was it ever nostalgic to rewatch ATOTS, even after having seen the guys in Our Skyy 2. This show is SUCH a classic, SUCH a must-watch of the very highest order, and the fact that it does NOT shy away from a very real and difficult emotional journey is only just a part of what makes it one of the enduring diamonds of Thai BL.

[We'll return to Pha Pun Dao in a couple weeks once I get through my Bad Buddy and Our Skyy 2 rewatches -- stay tuned!

In the meantime, my review of Lovely Writer is on deck for next week. By far this is my favorite Tee Bundit drama. For the sake of my fellow drama clowns, I am giving I Feel You Linger in the Air a shot, but the editing choices are giving me slight Step By Step-PTSD. I'm gonna keep a close eye on this one.

But Lovely Writer is Tee's anomaly, and what a fabulously genius anomaly it is. I can't wait to get into it, and if you loved it, too, and you have NOT watched the Lovely Writer special episode, PLEASE watch the special ep, as I'll be referring to it -- it has a super important conclusion that wraps up the entire series beautifully.

A heads-up that I may need to take a week's break or so in early September.... hopefully I won't, but I am moving, so while I'm ahead on a few dramas, getting pen to paper has proven difficult by way of time. Hopefully this project won't be delayed too much -- but send me your best big ups nonetheless as I move domiciles!

In the meantime, here's the list -- as always, I welcome your feedback! (Tumblr's new web editor is jacking with the list below and not allowing me to strikethrough the shows I've watched. For the very latest updated list, please click here!)

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS  27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review coming) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review coming) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review coming) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (watching) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 39) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 40) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 41) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults) 42) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 43) Only Friends (2023)]

[uroboros-if]

Whats your advice for other wip ifs on tumblr? Ive got my intro post and everything but it seems like no one is seeing it :(

🥹😭 I'm flattered you think I'm qualified to answer this, especially as I don't consider myself wildly popular or anything! I wouldn't call myself an expert on this, but I'll tell you what I know:

Tumblr's tagging system / Discoverability

Make sure you're searchable! If your blog is too young, or if you have links in your post, or too many pictures, etc. etc. anything can trigger Tumblr's alarm bells. What this means is that your post won't show up in the tags, aka won't be shown when people search it up. Here is a post about actions you can take to prevent it and another one here. Generally you want your blog to be older than 2 weeks, and to be posting a few times on it before it gets any searchability. (This sideblog used to be an old fanfic blog that I've repurposed for the IF for this exact reason!). If you'd like, copy and paste your intro post, and re-post it (if you don't mind losing too many notes on it), or you can just experiment with another post. Tag it with the appropriate tags, and then wait 2-3 minutes before searching Recent posts on the tag (like #interactive fiction). If you don't see it, your posts aren't showing up!

Make sure you're tagging your post. Bigger one of them, I think, is #interactive fiction (since that unifies CS, Twine and visual novels together). You can, however, add things like #twine/#choicescript, #twine fiction, etc... Any tags you personally might use to search posts up. Just make sure people can see your post in the first place with the first bullet above!

Timing. For whatever reason, I get a good amount of traffic around 9PM Pacific time/5-7AM in Europe (UK to Greece)/12-2PM Eastern Asia (Philippines to Sydney, Australia). I have friends from those places, so I memorized the time difference. For reference, this is 4PM UTC time. My guess is that Europeans are waking up a couple of hours around that time, and some Americans and Asians/Australians are active around that time as well. You should experiment with timing with your posts!

Submit your post to Interact-IF. I got more notes when I submitted mine through their blog! They have a page called, "Are you an IF author looking to promote your project?" and they'll put yours through the queue. Here's the link!

Formatting

Make sure your post is eye-catching, and a pleasure to read. I think what catches the eye is

A header and a title. Find a header that conveys your IF's atmosphere/mood/vibes/aesthetic. Then as far as making it a pleasure, make sure the text guides the eye smoothly. This means:

Organizing your post logically. Synopsis->features->characters makes the most sense to me, as these are the top things people look for besides the characters, which you have to contextualize before you introduce them! You can also...

Mix up formatting--synopsis can be a wall of text, then features can be a list format, and then characters can be a list in prose format, etc.

You may also include breaks, like using a header or line with a title to signal a new section, e.g. the start of the Synopsis, the start of Characters, etc.

Just don't make it hard to read for whatever reason! Your goal is to make the process of learning about your IF digestible and smooth.

In fact, I made a point to make this post itself as a teaching lesson! It could have all been a wall of text, in paragraph/prose form, but it isn't. I organized the sections in a logical sequence, titled them and grouped them, and used a generous amount of formatting available to me (but not too much to hurt the eye).

Intro Writing

Just to discuss certain sections you should pay particular attention to, and what you may want to include in them!

Check for errors. Minimize any typos, grammatical errors, etc. It's totally fine if you're a beginner writer! Just make sure it's polished, lest it may disrupt the flow of reading.

Write an interesting synopsis. Your idea could be the best, but you need to put real thought into how you introduce it to other people! For me, I read other people's synopses for inspiration. You generally want to a) describe who your MC is, b) describe the setting, c) "Everything used to be..." d) "... Until the fire nation attacked!" -- meaning, describe how life used to be for the MC, and what threw all that off-balance, hence revealing the conflict of the plot or the disruption in the story. You can make this section show your writing abilities, but I constrained myself to shortening mine as much as possible (digestibility).

Features. Again, look at other intro posts! Outline what can be customized about your MC (appearance, personality, sexuality, etc.), a brief mention of the ROs (without names) that can be romanced if there are any, cool features your IF may have (a codex, a dice rolling system), a sneak peek into what readers may expect to do in the story, and more!

ROs!! You'll want to tap into what personally inclines you to liking an RO right away, and include that. You can make this section as detailed as you want to be or as brief but effective. Some include character appearances, some don't. All of them mention who they are in the story, and a description of what they are like. Maybe you can hint at their deeper, individual character subplot! Hitting upon keywords of certain archetypes as well may make it easier for the reader to go, "Ah, so this is the X character," in the story. Leaning on tropes a little isn't bad, especially to play it up for the audience to know "this is the cold one, this is the flirty one, etc." so long as your characters aren't merely their trope.

Your Story

Did you notice this is the last thing I'm discussing? Before you change your actual story, you want to make sure you've considered every reason why your intro post isn't very public, which may have NOTHING to do with how interesting or appealing your story is. Think of it like chess--the last thing you want to do is move your king. It's also just simply harder and disheartening to change the vision of your story.

In fact, the vast majority of things covered here are only points to consider, rather than things to actually change.

Do you have a demo? People want demos before investing into a story! a) They want to know if they will like your writing at all, b) demos give a good look into what they may expect from the story overall, and c) it's more promising for an IF to have one, as far as actually finishing the story!

And if you do have a demo, is it polished? Is it short? Does it actually introduce the conflict or any of the characters people are interested in? Does it look good?

Who really is your target audience? Your story is probably written for yourself, but you may want to understand what generally appeals to people. You can't please everyone, hence mainly appealing to a certain audience. If your story is high-fantasy, people want you to mention all the fantastical things your MC can do, see or experience in your story! If your IF is a revenge story, make the MC feel dangerous, and capable of exacting their plans. Mention everything people would WANT to know about your brand of story.

What's the gender ratio of your ROs? The fact that your story may be exclusively/vastly heterosexual, or your story may specifically be a wlw or nlw/mlm or nlm story may influence how much reach it has. I hate to say it, but IFs with mainly male characters are in abundance compared to female interests. However, this doesn't mean you should change your ROs, especially if you intend the story to be heterosexual/lesbian/gay--this is just a factor to consider.

Consider other factors. Does your story have any actual romance? (People really like romance.) Is it only going to be short? (People like long stories generally.) Are you using Twine or CS? (Most people like both, some may have a preference. I almost exclusively read Twine.) Will it feature very disturbing content? (If it does, it may appeal only to certain people).

Closing Thoughts

I am flattered you asked for advice, so I took the time to exhaust everything I know! Of course, again, I am no authority or expert on the subject, so do with this as you will. Either way, I'm happy you asked ! 🥹💕 Thanks for asking!

P.S. If you want, my messages are open on my personal blog! You can send me a DM if you want feedback or an opinion :)

[whitehotharlots]

On one of the staggeringly large number of white lady academics who pretended to be not-white

In a sad attempt to keep up engagement, I've decided to post some things I wrote in personal correspondence over the last few years but never bothered to translate into full-fledge posts. Going through these emails, I was astounded at how much I've lost the ability to process the timeline of political events since COVID. Things that I would have sworn happened a couple of months ago actually happened 5 years ago; stuff that seems like ancient history was actually just from this past summer, etc. I think there's some value in recapitulating some of these events, give ourselves a chance to reflect on how much and how little things have evolved.

This piece was originally written in early 2021:

I'm not in STEM and I only pay as much attention to MeToo bullshit as I need to, so the MeTooSTEM movement and its drama passed me by. Basically, it was started or popularized by a lady neuroscientist named BethAnn McLaughlin. By early last year she began facing the type of predictable criticisms that inevitably wreck all leftist movements, regardless of legitimacy. Basically people agreed with her movement but were upset that she had too much of a leadership role, didn't center the correct voices, sometimes criticized people from more disadvantaged groups, etc. Here's a neat example, from the piece linked above:

Last month, McLaughlin tweeted angrily at Hontas Farmer, a transgender woman of color who teaches physics at the City Colleges of Chicago. In a thread about student–faculty relationships, Farmer noted that it would be “unenforceable to forbid relationships.” “Get off my time line with your pro-preying on students garbage,” McLaughlin responded. “Grown ups are talking. #STEMTrollAlert.”

While this lady seems like a vicious shithead, it's important to note that this type of behavior is common in woke discourses. It's the natural result of a morally certain culture is which all dissent is considered proof of evil. In this case, I happen to agree with the trans woman: while student-teacher relationships are gross, blanket bans are unenforceable and will most likely wind up harming the least empowered teachers. But this teacher's concerns were only allowed to stand because of her status as a trans woman--Laura Kipnis made the exact same argument several years ago, before the MeToo furor had really kicked off, and it nearly destroyed her career.

The point here is that no one is actually arguing for or against the merit or logic of certain positions; it's all jockeying over who is even allowed to have a position in the first place, and then demanding that everyone else defer to this person's position, which is automatically validated by their identity statuses.

Nothing in the Buzzfeed profile seems very damning or specific. I'm not a fan of MeToo, but we see here the same general hatred of strong leadership that seems to plague all left spaces. Arguments in regards to how funding should be spent and what actions should be prioritized--things that happen in literally any organization of more than a few people and can only be resolved by designating leadership--are presented in terms of bodies and spaces and centering voices and yada yada yada. Once again, it's not about the morality or efficacy of the actions taken by this organization. It's about whose identity imbues them with moral authority.

Buzzfeed seemed to have a particular hard on for this lady so they posted another piece in February of this year, documenting even more dysfunction in her movement. Again, she seems like a shithead and her movement's goals are usually not good, but the accusations against her were still vague, woke bullshit that amounted to people framing an organizational power struggle as a civil rights issue. And this is where things get interesting...

What does a white lady shithead do when she finds herself automatically unable to criticize people who fall above her on the hierarchy of oppression? Why, she pretends to be an indigenous lady shithead! She fabricated the existence of an ASU professor of Hopi descent who posted under the name of sciencing_bi. Sciencing_bi just so happened to agree with everything the white lady posted, and was fiercely protective of the white lady when she found herself getting attacked by non-white people.

But then, sadly, the made up Hopi professor succumbed to Lady Corona last week. Woke STEM twitter mourned her passing by angrily blaming ASU for their failure to protect employees of color. This caused ASU to release a statement saying that, uhh, no one has died and they have absolutely no idea what any of these lunatics are talking about.

Just--dear god. At what point does hubris give way and become delusion? How insulated must someone feel to believe that they can not only create but kill off a fictional persona whose primary utilitity is to brown-wash your own opinions?

These are the people who have become the morality police of the twenty twenties. These people are the ones who decide what you can or cannot say or believe. They are insane and and they are stupid, and they control our world.

[merionettes]

rubicon ask!!

first off I'm so so delighted that I picked up FE3H last summer and that it led me to finding your writing & especially this fic. what an amazing experience, what a treat with every update, I have all these fun memories now of places I was when I got the update email (and screamed internally every time). a little collection of sense memories colored in.

as for the actual question: very curious about your process. did you have an outline going in? I have to imagine yes (or else you're braver than black friday shoppers). how did you go about structuring this, ie did you have a series of Moments in your head that you wrote around and connected, or did you try to build scenes to fit the arcs you had in mind, or a mix of the two? anything and everything you want to share, I'm 🤲

you're killing me!!! man, thanks so much, seriously. 

as for the actual question, indeed. hahaha. ha. i delayed answering this for so long because it kept devolving into an essay about the emotional experience of writing a novel for the first time. well i give up. this is now two posts. one is the actual answer to your question, only ten times longer than it needs to be. the other is an essay about the emotional experience of writing a novel for the first time. so… caveat lector. 

first part under the cut. ← not kidding about the caveat!!!!!!

i've talked a little about the process before, so i'll piggyback on that post and dig a little more into the differences between the original idea and the finished product, including spoilers i couldn't get into when i'd only posted 55k. ("only." god.)

technically this did start with an outline. technically because at the time i was brand-new to fe3h and hadn't written anything but a few friend-ficlets in about 8 years. thought "skating au!!", spent a fevered weekend outlining all the major scenes, started in on the writing, and…. very quickly realized that i was nowhere near competent enough to actually. write it. "intensely frustrating" does not even scratch the surface, lmao, of what it felt like to have this thing in my head and only be able to produce what felt like the worst clumsiest tritest version of it. very apropos for skating, actually. 

looking back on that outline, it had almost nothing to do with the finished product, especially on felix's side. it didn't have the nationals flounce, the timeskip, training in vancouver, the lake, the nhk trophy sports anime climax, the backstory reveal meltdown. (it did have the redemptive healing free skate.) what, critically, it did have was sylvain's personal arc—burned out, desperate to quit, wants to go to college. it ended at exactly the same place as the actual story, with sylvain and dorothea's final skate together. the last line was one of the earliest things i wrote. 

in other words, even though almost everything between the first and last scene changed WILDLY in the process of writing, i always knew exactly what i was working towards and that was invaluable. 

insert two year timeskip here! during which i would occasionally reopen the skating doc, take a stab at another scene, feel this ominous sense of foreboding, and give up lol. you can thank the 2022 winter olympics for making me get serious, specifically 1) yuzuru hanyu going out in a blaze of bittersweet doomed quad axel glory 2) shoma uno losing to some eighteen year old. i believe my exact words were (consults notes) "anyway time to go back to my fic where i control the narrative and i decide who wins." idk what made this attempt different than any of the others—right time, right inspiration, right circumstances—but this time it caught fire. in uh. in a big way. 

so that's when i wrote what i refer to in that post as a skeleton draft and what i've since come to think of as a storyboard on steroids. this is when felix's arc really took shape, beyond "he is sad… he is mad… he is perfectly positioned to see right through sylvain." the fallout from nationals crystallizing, in particular, was one of the things that snapped felix into place and helped determine the tone and focus of the story overall. (that initial outline had much more of a romcom/classic fwb-to-lovers feel.)

the other thing that did this, of course, was sylvain's narrative voice. when i committed to "burnout who is controlling every single word of every thought to avoid admitting that he is burned out" was when this story became what it is. the voice dictated every single scene, the tone, the shape, what was revealed, what was implied, what was never making it on the page. it led me places i didn't anticipate. it made the cuts for me! cute scene you've got in that outline lol sylvain would never. 

i see past me in that post dancing around the length, lmao. well the ""storyboard"", the skeleton, whatever you want to call it, was over 100k. and yet even then, EVEN WITH 100K ON PAPER, there was still so much i had no fucking clue was coming! felix pushing sylvain on what he wants was there, but sylvain never explained what happened. my oc jm gautier (thanks for nothing, three hopes!!!) was an ominous presence, but he wasn't the final boss. there was no memory of the first time sylvain and dorothea met. (<- insane.) there was no glenn skate. i had to write to discover all of that.

so like—i cannot emphasize how much i grew as a writer through the experience of writing this story. prose, structure, character arcs, thematic arcs. i was harder on myself than i've ever been. and if i hadn't had that end goal in sight i don't know if i would have made it through all those iterations—storyboarding, drafting, rewriting, editing. wanting to deliver that moment powered me through any amount of frustration/exhaustion/bewilderment.

wow this post sounds almost normal. nothing about this experience was normal. which is why you're getting a part 2.

[nono-bunny]

Thoughts from watching the ATLA live action!

I initially wanted this to all be one post but. It got too long and also Tumblr accidentally posted it once instead of just drafting as I asked while I was writing it and I had to reconstruct the whole thing so I'm just going to make one post per episode I think.

So, episode 1!

Oh my god the show really opens on just showing the letters "Capital City", genuinely that's kind of hilarious?? I kinda always thought of it as Caldera City collectively because Capital City sounds dumb (very The Hunger Games of them, ngl) but like... I do recognize that it's only technically the rich district- even so I feel like maybe they should've reimagined that one in particular because honestly it's always been confusing for the capital to have two cities in it (Harbor City is the other one, basically the poor people district). Anyway not a big deal overall, just... Kind of funny to not change this

Truly a weird way to start the show with just some random Earth Kingdom revolutionaries, but based on the fact that I've heard they're not in it I'm just headcanoning it to be Haru and Tyro lmao otherwise it's just. A truly bizarre choice

Oh never mind they're??? Opening before the war??? They literally have Ozai in the first season, why wouldn't they just have a menacing Sozin in a war room, with like maybe some very subtle hints to him grieving someone who died disagreeing with him, and him going forward with it anyway? Idk it's genuinely very strange to open a show with such iconic and recognizable characters by focusing on some random mostly irrelevant people you're never gonna see again because the story takes place a hunder years in the future. I mean, it was a cool fight scene (when I could see it lmao, I wish it wasn't so dark- would've looked great in a cinema but this should have been made for people watching on home screens) but?? Why should I care about these people or what they're doing, either as a veteran who knows they don't matter or as someone new to the story who DOESN'T know that they're never going to see them again?

Oh shit wait, AGAIN??? They keep zagging on me lmao this is like. Exactly what I wanted!! I read they started things off with a lot of fighting and showing the war so I thoght this was what it was but no!! The random guy meets non other than Sozin... Who genuinely looks incredible and does a fantastic job at portraying exactly what I wanted!! I think there's something in the eyes specifically? Like, there's a certain sadness mixed with idealism there, which works really well with how determined, calculating and cold he otherwise is. He feels 100% like the sort of guy who'd reasonably be the ancestor to the mess that is the Royal Family we see during the rest of the show, and I'm genuinely really happy about it! Sozin feels like the sort of madman who believes in his own just and it's perfect, like, the exact vibe I got from him in the original!

Is Gyatso talking to Bryke rn or...?? Lmao fr Aang never learned any of the things he mentions which is why he was a bad Avatar, and why in the end I don't like canon OG Aang. Addressing it in the first episode is extremely bold of the LA tbh, but you know I love to see it! Also everyone was talking about how Aang wasn't silly enough, but literally in the OG he was too silly and never learned to take responsibility or work with others so?? This Aang that is already blending a whimsical air with what seems like a degree of emotional intelligence the original lacked is!! Such an improvement in my eyes, actually! I'm hoping they manage to properly resolve these things this time around, but already their direction with him just within minutes of meeting him feels a lot more palatable to me. Also they rewrote that scene in a way that makes Gyatso infinitely more likeable because now he actually GETS it, OG Gyatso was a kind man but in the end... He was wrong, he coddled Aang too much. Here, in a universe where the Air nomads want to help defend the rest of the world, he recognizes that while Aang is needed, he genuinely isn't capable of helping yet which!! Also feels like an improvement in terms of co-nation relations, it feels like there actually used to be a harmony of sorts before! It will help make the Air Nomads feel less out of place and "out of sight out of mind" in the bad way they were in the original. The Air Nomads already planning to get involved also feels like a way to rid Aang of his idealistic and childhish views of his own culture in a much more direct way than the more subtle approach just showing Gyatso surrounded by skeletons of people he likely killed. Also, again, saw people complain aboit the Air Nomads wanting to get involved being ooc and?? Okay, so? Have you maybe considered that them being so insular that their loss was barely felt in the original whenever they didn't need to make Aang have an emotional moment was a bad thing??? Like, I get that it isn't in line with their characterization, but personally? Them choosing not to get involved in an attempted genocide was always a bad look tbh, and as far as I'm concerned, this is a fix and a way to make them look much better than just like. Hermits unconcerned with the world- they care, they want to help! Honestly overall everyone in the Air Nomads looks so much better here, this feels like a net good in terms of like... Idk Air Nomad publicity lmao. Also, showing the different temples coming together to celebrate is!! Incredible, I wholeheartedly love that addition to the lore!

Ngl tbh so far this feels like a fanfic I'd read, in like. Literally the best possible way

Yo the "Gyatso and Roku were friends" theory looking realll possible rn with that "you will always be my friend" line 👀

Ah so I see what people meant about Aang's characterization in this episode being a bit tell-y rather than show-y, that's fair. That said, it was a really nice scene that established the bond between him and Appa quite well imo! Also now I'm genuinely curious as to whether they'll have him get a bit drunk with power like in the original considering the focus they're putting on how much he needs to NOT do that!

To everyone saying Aang running away was important and should not have been cut- no, it fucking wasn't, it was one of his biggest unresolved character flaws that got ignored when the destroyed his character arc in season 3 and I'm fucking glad it's gone. I do find it interesting that here Aang basically only just finds out about being the Avatar before getting frozen rather than having a bit more time to get used to the idea and see how it changes things for him- it makes it that in a way, this Aang has both a lot more and a lot less baggage! Essentially his entire journey of discovery of what it means to be pronounced the Avatar will happen alongside people who never knew him as anything but, it's an extremely finite and dramatic closing of the chapter of his life where he wasn't the Avatar- it kinda shows he has no room for confusion anymore, he must now become The Avatar because that's essentially his people's last request of him. It's a very different sort of vibe from "I wasn't willing", it's "I wasn't ready", and that is much more easily fixable in a shorter show! Also the og literally just "solved" the willingness issue by having him enjoy the benefits and refuse to do any of the work so. Not sad to see it go at all

Battlefield Sozin?! Firebending rockets?! Wilhelm scream?! Cool battle scene all around tbh, really heartbreakin and difficult to watch, which means they did a good job with it! I do still wish it was brighter though lmao

Uhh forgot to type anything for a while because I was crying but. Yeah I generally really liked the portrayal of life on Wolf Cove! There are definitely some very noticeable changes with our two leads here, and I actually don't think they're necessarily bad, they just feel very strange and might take a bit to get used to. Katara actually isn't passive, which is weird considering that's how a lot of people described her? She's just extremely cautious. All of her defining traits feel like they're still there, but some of them do feel like they're lying a bit under the surface due to her situation which! Makes sense as an alternative way of writing her! Sokka genuinely feels like such a big brother here, I like the emphasis on his sense of responsibility and how he doesn't quite know how to be a real leader yet- it goes very well with a Katara who desperately wants to be a fighter but can't and has to try and blend in. Both of them have very clear aspirations and the traits that will eventually allow them to get to where they want to be, but they're very far from reaching them at the start. A lot of the scenes do feels kinda awkward tbh, but idk, I think they do a fine enough job at what they attempt to.

Now, hearing that Katara wasn't the one to break Aang out in a fit of anger wasn't a deal breaker for me actually, but? Honestly the way he gets out is just needlessly confusing here, genuinely unclear if Katara did it or he just... Idk somehow reacted to another bender's presence or whatever. Idk, it felt extremely weird and I think just like? A bit of clarification here as to what happened could've saved this scene without it having to happen via anger if that's the way they wanna go with Katara, and specifically her relationship with Sokka (which, again, does really feel authentic and well done here imo!)

Aang saying that Katara is the only one who tried to fight for him is fucking wild, but I guess that's the impression he got given that Gyatso told him he had to go away and he didn't hear the meeting about him here. Still a wild thing for him to say, felt really weird right alongside Sokka being the bravest person he ever met. Idk that whole exchange was off and awkward and just... Strange

Iroh doing his best to help and teach Aang when he can is very sweet. Idk how to feel about how hard he's already going in on the whole "your daddy doesn't love you" thing with Zuko tbh, because it does make Zuko appear much less lost when he's got someone who's giving him the answers rather than leading him to them, it's kinda a book 2 vibe from them? It's strange. Also a straight talking Iroh feels so strange in general, literally his only "eccentric" quality so far is loving Jasmine tea and very clearly not being down with the war, it's... Certainly A Choice, but not one I'm really enjoying so far tbh

There's something really interesting about Katara immediately relaxing and allowing herself to be silly and mischievous around Sokka here, it's kind of a flip from their dynamic in the original but there's something really fun and sweet about seeing those hidden aspects of her come out around the one person she knows and trusts to accept and protect her just as fiercely as she would him. It's definitely different, but I'm genuinely really enjoying the unique spin they put on their relationship and how it correlates with their own individual personalities and how they perceive and present themselves.

Taking the burden of always being the only one who can bring Aang out of the Avatar State away from Katara feels like a big relief. Also in general I like the way they still kept Aang's attachment to Gyatso and his parallels with Katara, while also solidifying Sokka and Aang friendship which wasn't really... A thing in the original? Having Sokka protect and reach out to Aang feels much more personal here in a way than it did originally, I think maybe the weird scene where Aang praises them kinda worked to serve that? Idk I've read people saying they don't feel like a family but more like friends here but. They never did in the original in season 1 either tbh. If anything there's a sense of everyone being equal here which the original lacked in places, I like how both Sokka and Katara support and save Aang in equal measure here and how they look out for each other as well. Aang is kinda naturally a mess this whole episode but here's hoping he returns the favor for them for once in the future!

Edit: dammit Tumblr literally just did it again I didn't mean to post this yet, but I'm kind of at the end of the episode so fuck it, it stays I don't wanna reconstruct it in the drafts again. If I have anything to add it'll go after this.

[waltwhitmansbeard]

hello! a few hours from now, the epilogue of go on, claim my heart, the my fair lady sequel, is gonna be posting, so i wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who has stopped by my lil corner of the internet to read what has become my largest writing project to date. i had no idea what i was getting myself into when i first started writing mfl, especially not half a year of feverish, near-obsessive plotting and writing and rewriting this story that would not leave me alone. a lot of things fell to the wayside as i wrote mfl and gocmh, and i don't regret any of it, because i can safely say that this is the writing that i am the most proud of.

i want to thank @romeoandjulietyouwish in particular for her graciously allowing me to play in her sandbox. no one's mind works like lis's, and as i have said before, she comes up with so many fucking stellar ideas that she leaves crumbs for the rest of us, so i'm super grateful that she's so kind about letting us take those crumbs and make them our own. mfl wouldn't exist without you, lis, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

i also could not wrap this series without calling out the two best readers a girl could ask for, @ravendruid and @crispysnake. y'all are fucking unhinged, but it is the exact energy that every writer needs to keep going. i can't tell you the number of times a drabble or chapter posted that i wasn't particularly fond of that you two completely changed my opinion about. you two are the kindest, most enthusiastic, most generous readers, and i'm so lucky that you're also my friends. please continue to be absolutely batshit in my tags; it's the only thing that keeps me going.

(also @otterlycaleb made fucking ART about this shit, what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK—)

a hopefully but probably not quick note about the future of mfl: today, like literally right now, i am in the middle of my first day of work at a brand new job, one that will require me to move my entire life halfway across the country, back to my hometown. it is big and scary and exhilarating and everything i've been hoping for, and i feel so, so lucky. this does mean that for the next little bit, while i learn a new job and pick up my shit and drive cross-country, i will probably be less able to write long or short fics, so i hope y'all don't mind me shutting up for the first time in forever. that being said, while i have absolutely no plans to write a third installment in the mfl 'verse, that doesn't mean there isn't more to say (as y'all will find out in like three and a half hours lol). i fully plan on still writing tmwiw drabbles set before, during, and after mfl/gocmh, and i will still be accepting prompts and requests for drabbles set in this 'verse until i say otherwise. mfl will always occupy an inordinate amount of my brain space, and i refuse to not share that with y'all.

additionally! starting very soon (like, maybe tomorrow? we'll see how busy i am, lol), i will be posting to ao3 the entirety of the mfl 'verse in chronological order. every chapter, one-shot, and drabble, in the order that they happened. another massive shout-out to @ravendruid for being my own personal lore-keeper on this; she read every single mfl chapter, tmwiw drabble, and one-shot to help me get this shit in order. the ao3 work will be titled i've come a long, long way (also from "my fair lady" by kaleo, are we seeing a pattern here?), and the plan is to post five chapters a day until the whole thing is up (although, again, with the moving this might get a lil wibbly wobbly). there will be some additional proofreading edits to these chapters (sometimes i can't spell!!) but nothing about the substance of these chapters will change, so this is just for people who like their stories to be told chronologically (fucking weirdos). this work will only be available on ao3, although it will be linked on my mfl masterpost.

ok, i think i am done for now. i have taken up enough of your time, in so many more ways than one. thank you again, if you read every single installment of the mfl saga or if you just read a paragraph. all of it means the world to me, and i know i never would have continued past the first chapter if i weren't part of such a wonderful, loving, generous, brilliant community. i've only been watching critical role for just over a year now, part of the fandom for even less than that, and i can't believe i haven't always had y'all in my life. please continue to love and support each other, and thank you for loving and supporting me.

[themanifestingbrat]

Overconsuming = Overthinking

This is my personal experience of how overconsuming information has hindered me more than help me. A lot of uswill read success stories and loa information and be like, 'Wow, this is inspiring!' or 'Duh, I already know this!' Just to end up making the same exact mistakes as all the angry, rude anons that complain about their failure. If this sounds like you, I hope this helps you get out of your mind and realize your power.

I already had a pretty good self concept and knew Law of Attraction years ago. I had no problem manifesting things. Like everyone, I had a few limiting beliefs but I still managed to get what I want.

Then, I heard about Law of Assumption and found this to be waaaay easier. So, I unknowingly overconsumed information. Then, when it came to applying, I kept overthinking if what I was doing was right and the overthinking led to doubts and confusion. My self concept lowered a bit. I was really hard on myself and frustrated with the 3D. I definitely was not in the state of I AM.

I was still able to consciously manifest a lot of things during this time but when it came to the things that really mattered (or I had more resistance to), I found myself spiraling or wavering more often. I kept consuming information, sometimes I would take breaks but I always found myself watching Youtube videos and downloading this app over and over again 🙃. I was trying to find any blockages and reasons on why I wasn’t manifesting fast enough or why I wasn’t getting what I wanted so I can try to flip it. I was able to pick myself up again and “persist” in the new story however, I was dwelling in lack more than fulfillment unknowingly. I would beat myself up but then immediately switch to affirmations to try to make myself feel better. I felt like I was lying to myself and being ✨ delusional ✨ wasn’t really helping since I was such a logical person and I felt my subconscious could see through the bullshit.

I was always in my head thinking of why?, how?, when?!!! Eventually, I got tired of this, because I felt I was never able to really feel good without something negative tugging at me. How did I get out of this cycle?

Affirming

I affirmed mainly for my self concept & mental health. Reminding myself that I am really good at manifesting anything whenever I want. I can make a separate post about any and all affirmations I like to use.

Talking about it

After I had ENOUGH of the back and forth in my mind, I confided in my very spiritual best friend and my sister, who loves and knows all laws of manifestation like I do. Of course, both of them told me things I've already heard and knew but letting it out made me feel so much better.

Living in the moment

Whenever I found myself in my head too much, I would just breathe and be in the moment. I would find things in my 3D that are beautiful, that I enjoy, or that I am grateful for.

Listening to my dreams

I am a dreamer. I always have vivid dreams and I always remember them. Whenever I was saturating my mind about a certain desire in the daytime, at night, I would have a dream about having it. I would wake up feeling excited, refreshed, and powerful because of it! But sometimes my dreams would make it very clear to me whatmy doubts and fears of a particular desire are. For example, before I got into the void, I had a very clear dream that I didn't feel worthy enough or it was possible to have all my desires at one time. So immediately when I woke up, I affirmed the opposite.

I hope this helps because sometimes we re-read information we already know and make the same mistakes when we've should've known better. But if we actually apply it and do what feels right, it instantly just clicks!

[quinndelion]

2023 was a lot.

I can't say I learned anything I didn't already know. I think it was just filled with a lot of disapointment really, and that's sort of the thing that comes with life. That's nothing new. I don't think I was wishing for anything in particular this year. Or maybe I was and I've just forgotten it now. I lose all of my memories to time. I think maybe in 2024 I should start to write my memories down in a notebook or something so I don't continue this cycle I have of forgetting everything that's happened to me.

I started this year in the hospital because I had lost all of my will to live. I seriously think I went insane or something because I went from having something to nothing and apparently nothing was too much but also not enough. If I think back really hard I can remember the food I ate when I was there. I would have the same exact thing every single day. A cheese pizza (it always came in a circle form with it cut into 4s) with extra parmasan, kraft mac and cheese and mashed potato on the side. Sometimes I'd have fruit punch or apple juice or lemonade. On the very last day I got sick of it and got a buger instead, and I only ate a few bites before I had to leave. I met a lot of people there. Some older than me, some younger, all with stories I had never heard. None of us had really wanted to be there, but I can recall so many times where we laughed. We wanted so badly to stay up past curfew and talk to eachother, so we just sat by the doors with our pillows to cheat out way out of it. I was room 13. We could change the color of our room lights. The boy next to me, his lights were always green, and he had been there so long he had pictures of his family on the wall, and album covers he had gotten printed out. My room was a complete mess. My lights were always off. We would sit by the window and look at all the cars below with people, and wonder when it would be us in those cars, leaving that place, becoming normal people again. Then we'd go to bed.

I remember thinking when I left, "I will never see any of you people again." It was sort of painful and relieving at the same time. I think about the boy, in the room next to mine, the most. He changed my vocabulary. His story changed my life. I wonder if he ever made it out of there. I wonder if he remembers the signs I taught him. I will never see him again. I will never see him again.

I got out of the hospital 2 weeks later. I went back to school. I did everything the same as I always did. I never told anyone where I had been. I never told anyone about room 13. I think this is the first time I've ever told anyone about what it was like. It doesn't really feel like anything. I guess it's nice to know that if I ever forget what it's like, it'll be here, written in a tumblr post.

I think I want to thank Mark and Kyon especially, because admitedly drawing comics really helped me through a lot of tough things I went through this year. I don't think they understood the gravity of how much it meant to me. I always got the notion that because I am so passionate and I get super into things that people think I'm odd or strange, but they never made me feel like I was odd or strange. It's why I had the confidence to continue doing fan art, or to give my opinion on things, even if I thought it was embarrasing. I'm really thankful for them, and I hope they have a great new year.

I'd like to leave everything that happened to me this year behind. I don't want to forget it, and I don't want it to disappear, but I want it to stay here where it happened, so I can truly and authenthically move on. My last piece for 2023 was a simple drawing of myself holding a sparkler. It's simple. This year I started out with no spark, and now I have one.

In 2024 I'd like to choose love.

[purity-in-heart]

You're right, I was overreacting. I was trying way too hard to get my point across and ended up doing the exact opposite.

But at the same time, nowhere on Dea's post did it say the drawing was a commission, and even if it is one, most reasonable people would refuse to accept the commission on principle because of the character's age. However, I did acknowledge in my ask that Clara's age isn't specified in the source material and therefore would be harder to determine. Dea would have the perfectly valid explanation that she didn't know any better if she didn't also play the game. In the replies of the original drawing post she responds to another fan of the game implying that she also plays HSR, she is very much aware that Clara is a child and that Svarog is her adoptive father (and if she wasn't she probably would have specified that when she responded to my original ask).

I wouldn't have been nearly as angry if I had room to give her the benefit of the doubt that she just didn't know who the characters were or what their relationship to each other was (grossed out, sure, because I know who they are and, as I said in my first ask, I have a strong emotional attachment to them). I also wouldn't have been nearly as angry and would've made more sense if I had given myself more time to process my feelings, that one was on me.

Additionally, I want to apologize for implying that dark cardiophilia itself was what I was referring to as "edgy," it wasn't, I actually like dark cardiophilia, I think it's sexy (why else would I be lurking in this community? You guys make some really awesome stuff and I genuinely enjoy most of my time here). What I was referring to as "edgy" was the fact that those two characters in particular were engaging in a kink, the kink in question didn't matter to me, it was the vast age gap and power imbalance I was taking issue with (although "edgy" was very much the wrong word to use there, I'll admit that).

I stand by my opinion, I don't think anyone should be drawing and posting sexual imagery of such a young character, but what I don't stand by is how I expressed it (I've actually taken Dea's advice and blocked her, I don't want anything to do with her after this point. That being said, Dea, if you're reading this, I apologize for blowing up in your face over this, it was stupid of me to do and I should've just blocked you and moved on from the get-go. This entire situation has been absolute hell on my mental health and I want to move on from it).

I think underage characters should be left untouched, too, for sexual content. It was a commission, though, because Dea posted about opening commissions before and that art was uploaded after somebody commented a request below the commissions opened post.

Anyways, I honestly really appreciate you setting things straight and being apologetic, even if you're remaining anon. That still takes strength. I also appreciate you sticking with your guns without letting yourself be flooded by anger again. I assumed you were dissing cardiophilia because some people do actually misaddress it outside the community after encountering the kink on their own. Some even go as far as to dm a person and insult them directly - Like, we like hearts, not shit, so given everything the heart often embodies, it wouldn't hurt if they used their imagination a little to see what else we might like, right? But I digress. Your response here took some strength to write. On behalf of this community, I thank you. Just continue to take care of yourself.

[racingtoaredlight]

The King of Guitars: The Gibson Super 400

I've written this exact same post before, I'm sure of it.

I own the greatest guitar I've ever played...my teacher's 1999 Brad Nickerson Virtuoso. And I've played just about every version of Gibson's great archtop lineup, from just about every decade from the 40's to today.

Of all of the guitars I've played in my life, the two that stick out as decade-long memorables is my Nickerson and a 1979 Gibson Super 400 that I played for about 30 minutes at the Dallas Guitar Show in Arlington in 2006.

1979 wasn't an especially banner year for Gibson, and even though their archtops were always made by a small, specialized crew separate from the rest of their manufacturing, it was still affected by the Norlin group's changes over the decade. This particular model was a good example of that...the back and sides were plain maple with no figure (much cheaper) and the neck showed some figure, but was pretty unremarkable itself.

Figure is purely aesthetic and doesn't mean the sound isn't there. Just because this crew had less pretty materials to work with did not mean their output suffered like the main division of Gibson Guitars. This 1979 Super 400 was ALIVE.

When you play an archtop that has the pickups and controls mounted directly on the soundboard, it essentially compromises the acoustic qualitys of the instrument. When you play a guitar with these, the first sign you have something special is if you play it acoustically and are blown away. This was the case here, even in a crowded, noisy expo center.

The electric tone was superb, as expected, and the guy running the booth let me run with it for as long as I wanted. This was probably when I was at my best as a guitarist, period...I'd been at this event for seven hours already and was totally warmed up...I bonded with this guitar immediately and the flow from my brain through my fingers had zero obstacles.

The guy was cool with me playing because I had gathered a nice sized crowd who were also checking out his other stuff. And I know I've told this story a million times before, but this is the booth where I looked up and saw John Mayer go "wow" while watching me play. The singular highlight of my non-existent career.

I was just lost in having a blast playing one of these beasts. It was such a wonderful experience that almost 20 years later, I still remember the feel of the neck, the sound coming out of the amp, the faint smell of stale cigarette smoke, the rough patches starting to form on the back of the neck where the previous owner played the most.

Super 400's are big boy guitars. The L-5 on the left is a standard sized archtop...which are already the behemoths of the guitar world...and you can see how that extra 1" on the Super 400 makes for an overall much larger instrument even then.

Midget meme jokes aside...these instruments are playable for people under 6' with shorter wingspans...but they're not very comfortable. For bigger guitarists, they're fine, but you can't escape the size issues even then. Things like "cases" and "travel" are an expensive pain in the ass with regular archtops...even more so with the Super 400.

Both the L-5 and Super 400 have necks larger than Gibson's typical short scale. You may think this doesn't matter...it does immensely. The nut width is as wide as you'll find on electric guitars (except for years 1966-1968 where they adopted a slim neck and nut before going back). This is not great stuff if you have small hands or aren't trained and precise. If that's the case...you'll struggle to get any decent sound out of these things.

The other biggest drawback? Price and availability.

Those "cheaped out" versions in the 70's with less figured woods? That's your entry point. And that entry point is five figures. $10k for the pleasure of getting the "runt of the litter." Modern models in the 80's made by James Hutchins? $12k to start.

Player-grade 60's models? $15k. Mint 60's and player-grade 50's models closer to $17,500. Mint 50's models are in the low $20k's. Any model with a sharp Florentine cutaway (below)...lol...$30k to start. Add 10% to all of those if they're natural instead of sunburst. Add another 10% to that if they have a pickguard that hasn't been destroyed by sitting in a case and getting eated by off-gassing. Yes, for a pickguard.

That's a hefty investment.

Say you want it shipped...you comfortable with the standard cases from the 50's made out of flimsy plywood? The ones that can get crushed and penetrated without much force at all? Didn't think so.

But those standard fiberglass or carbon fiber cases for $1,500 won't work...because again, the size...and you'll have to pay for a premium one that you won't be gambling on in transit. And you'll still have to pay for that other case to get shipped separately because you gotta have the original to retain its value.

Just how many downsides can I name? There's more. They feedback at medium-volumes easily. They need proper humidification at all times. They need insurance. There's no 3rd party market for most replacement parts...either they're going to be expensive to replace or the replacements will diminish the value.

By all contexts, the Super 400 is a pretty un-ideal guitar here in 2023. The reason it's so big to begin with was because it was designed to cut through big bands acoustically in the 40's...but when you put humbuckers on, you don't really need that size anymore.

All that doesn't matter because it's the sound. You don't NEED that extra size, but it definitely impacts the sound compared to an L-5. It's deeper, richer, more complex. And that's really all that matters in the end...the sound.

There is no ideal sound I'm going for. Currently, I have archtops with a floating humbucker (Nickerson) and a floating fat, high output single coil (Guild Artist Award)...a built-in humbucker sounds totally different, and that's what I want to fill out my stable.

Go to 1:16 in the video below.

Like I said, that sound is all that matters.

Well, and the looks.

I'll have one in the next 3-5 years.

[cardentist]

I want to link my other thread on this post where I dig into my feelings in more depth. I go into some things that I'm going to get into here, as well as things I might not touch on in this response: [Link]

nobody Has to read it, but if you want to argue with this response then I'm considering it required reading. people are free to think I'm wrong, but I want them to know what my perspective is before telling me so.

I also want to say that while this Is a response to what you've said, this is largely just. me expressing something. it's a response to you but it's also a verbalization of my feelings on a lot of things from a lot of people.

I'm going to try to be as fair as possible, we're both speaking about something that's clearly very important to us on an emotional level and I can understand Why you'd respond this way. but this Is hurtful to me. that said, my frustration here isn't with you specifically (not really), it's with a pattern of interactions I've had up until this point.

that Said

my original post is tagged:

"this is more of a vent post than anything but it's a thought on my mind. I'm tagging this transandrophobia (and called out the existence of trans men and mascs in particular) because I am those things, and that's the tag that I use to talk about those issues that affect these things. but this is really about all marginalized men" [End Transcription]

this was a vent post I made because the Core Idea of the post in the screenshot is something that I agree with and have for years (that women and girls are unrepresented in media and fandom), but the post itself had a visceral effect on me while reading.

I reflected on those feelings and attempted to get them out into words. that it upset me, why it upset me, and a wish that people would word this sentiment in a way that wasn't potentially hurtful to people they did not mean to hurt.

as I have repeated Multiple Times throughout this post, I do not and have never blamed the op for this. I don't Think that they intended to imply anything about anybody, I think they did the exact same thing that I did. wrote a post about something that they feel very strongly about from their perspective.

which is why I chose to create my own post with their name redacted, and why I chose to reiterate multiple times that the op of the post didn't do anything Wrong. I did not want to speak over the original post, as it Was making a valid point. I just Also wanted to speak about my frustration with the ways that people Word conversations like this. not because they Intend to be harmful, but because they never considered that what they're saying Could hurt somebody in the first place.

and it's strange to me that in doing all of this I have now had Multiple People walk up to me to tell me to my face that I'm wrong for speaking, that I am Somehow talking over women while deliberately going out of my way to Not step on the toes of the original point.

just by acknowledging that my feelings were hurt and that I wish people would have more consideration for my perspective I'm being spoken to as if I'm in Competition with women.

you brought up trans women to Assert that trans men are always talking over trans women. While Specifically coming onto my post to talk over me about my feelings.

why is it necessary to Insist that what I'm talking about Doesn't Matter because I'm a trans man, to insist that what I'm talking about isn't a "societal issue" to de-emphasize and delegitimize my feelings to my face?

this is my issue, Consistently people see trans men speak on their feelings and their first response is to belittle them. to minimize them and insist that they don't matter. when that simply Is Not Necessary or justified. it isn't About trans men being more or less oppressed than women, cis women trans women or any sort of woman, it's about trans men being People who deserve dignity. who deserve to be thought of.

"this is not a societal issue" and lets say it isn't, why is it a Bad Thing to ask to have my feelings considered? why does it Need to be a societal issue to justify considering the feelings of people with a different perspective? why can it not just matter because I'm a person.

That's the issue I was speaking about with that second response. I got that reply (and that person showing up in my dms) when this post had Two Notes, one of which was Me. I've come to learn that this person deliberately goes through tags relevant to trans men to talk down to the people posting.

and that's something I've experienced Quite A Bit. with nearly every post I've made about my experiences as a trans man, actually.

people see trans men Existing and Speaking About Themselves as inherently transgressive, and react as if they need to be put back into their place. and I don't understand it.

again, I want to take you in good faith, but I can't understand Why you'd see a post like this, check the notes to see if you find tags relating to trans men in it, and then come to the conclusion that this post needs to be put down for being transgressive to trans women somehow.

I imagine this response won't get much traction because I front loaded so much of it with my ~Feelings~ but it was necessary, considering my feelings were the core of the post in the first place.

that said ! there are some discussion points that I'd like to touch on.

firstly ! the first paragraph is. well, the point ! I expanded on that exactly (within the context of this post anyhow) in the thread I linked at the start of this reply.

you're right, there Are marginalized people in every group. which is Exactly The Point. there is no Type Of Person that's free game to make fun of and put down with no nuance that Won't affect marginalized people.

my point is that we Shouldn't try to designate a group of people that we're allowed to hurt. this isn't just about the issue we're speaking about at all, but the overall shape that fandom and discourse and the internet as a whole has taken.

people Like to try to find groups of people that "deserve" to be hurt and then Use the fact that they "deserve" it to justify whatever it is they do. it happens with petty fandom bullying and it happens with exclusion in queer spaces.

with the exception of the people who voluntarily group themselves together based on their harmful beliefs, there Is No Group Of People who are Inherently justified to hurt. there are people who are more or less likely to have specific experiences (a white person isn't likely to have experienced racism), but there is no class of people that you can deliberately refuse to show compassion because you don't think they Deserve it.

which circles back to what I was saying earlier. All People should inherently be deserving of compassion. and that means listening to and considering their perspective and feelings. you don't have to think that everyone is Right, there are people who just have fundamental beliefs that don't align with yours, but there should be no group of people that you refuse to listen to or take seriously Because of the kind of person that they are.

next, I want to address the second paragraph.

for this one, I'd actually like to link another post of mine that expands on a point that I'm going to make here [Link]

again, nobody Has to read it, but it might help explain my perspective.

what I'm taking from what you've written, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that You're frustrated because you feel that trans men are centered in trans discussions online. so it's frustrating, in turn, to see a trans man insist that his voice hasn't been adequately considered.

and here's the thing.

I believe you. there Are trans men who speak over trans women, there Are trans men who belittle trans women and treat them as if they're lesser, as if they're bigots, as if they're oppressors.

but I am Also correct. there are trans women who speak over trans men, there are trans women who belittle trans men and treat them as if they're lesser, as if they're bigots, as if they're oppressors.

you're Right that your experience has happened, It Has. you're Wrong in thinking that your experience is the universal one.

in fact, this isn't an issue of trans men vs trans women At All. the person I've screenshot in my followup Is A Trans Man. the Majority Of People who have spoken down to me and belittled me for talking about my experiences as a trans man Haven't Been trans women (they've been other trans men and cis people, for the most part).

the disconnect here is that Every Single Kind Of Trans Person has been belittled within the queer community. from other trans people, from cis people who think they're speaking for other trans people, from bigots who don't realize they're transphobic, from bigots who Revel in it.

there is no group of trans people who Aren't being talked down to, who Aren't being belittled, who Aren't being openly attacked. and the same is true for Any marginalized group within the queer community, any marginalized group At All.

it's ridiculous from My perspective to have had, Universally, every single post I've ever made talking about my experiences as a trans person for the last Ten Years belittled and talked down to (and sometimes actively harassed over) Because Of The Kind Of Trans Person That I Am. and then be told that I'm Privileged within this group that I've experienced near relentless negativity within.

people treat trans women and trans men like they're opposites on a scale, and if one thing is true for trans men then it Can't be true for trans women and vice versa. but that just Isn't True.

trans women are harassed within queer and trans specific spaces Because they are trans women, trans men are harassed within queer and trans specific spaces Because they are trans men, nonbinary people are harassed within queer and trans specific spaces Because they are nonbinary.

all of these experiences are true at the same time, none of them detract from the other. and All individuals within these groups deserve the space to talk about those experiences without being held in Comparison To other groups as a whole.

trans men are not the opposite of trans women, trans men speaking about their experiences implies Nothing about the experiences of trans women as long as nothing is Stated about said experiences.

and Generally Speaking I find that assumptions about other groups of trans people not sharing an experience with you is just wrong. which is Exactly why individuals talking about their experiences, even if those experiences are Statistical Outliers are important!

why go out of your way to deny solidarity to people who share experiences with you in favor of isolating them. it makes no sense to me. it's not a Bad thing to share with people who otherwise have experiences that you don't. (note, this point is more general, rather than necessarily being about you specifically. I don't know you and I don't want to make assumptions about you, but it's related to the subject matter I'm speaking about).

also, if I'm being honest. I find the point that trans men are oppressed elsewhere but Aren't oppressed in trans spaces as like, a point Against the idea that I as a trans man feel unseen to be very very silly.

I live my life in the real world. I had somebody walk up to me today and ask me if there was something wrong with me because I'm a visibly feminine person who is bald. my grandpa asked me if I was girl again because my hair was past my ears a few weeks ago. transphobia is Real in my day to day life in the real world.

moreover, random people on the internet aren't always guaranteed to be trans or trans inclusive in the first place. even disregarding everything about trans experiences within the queer community, how is it appropriate to tell a trans person that they're Wrong for wanting more people to consider the perspective of trans people. Because Other Trans People Already Consider That Perspective.

again, there's this feeling of Competitiveness that doesn't make any sense once you examine it. like an individual needs to be The Most Oppressed before they're allowed to speak on something. which isn't healthy in the first place, but also doesn't work when we're talking on an Individual Level.

I don't want to throw around "oppression points" because that's just not fair, but there's like. this Assumption that everyone within specific groups can be categorized in tiers of oppression, as if labels can dictate experiences. when that's just not how real people Work.

I find it really difficult to be consistently cut out of conversations about misogyny, to be propped up as benefiting from Male Privilege, when my life was ruined from sexual abuse before I knew what a Gender Identity was.

I don't want to get into it but like. odds are I'm never going to hold down a normal job, I do my best to contribute to the house hold that I'm in but I'm completely dependent on other people. and part of that is due to other factors (disability, neurodivergency, etc) but a big part of it For Me is undeniably the trauma that changed the way my brain functioned forever.

I'm Not transitioned, and it's very unlikely that I will be for many Many years to come. and even then, I'm very much so not gender conforming (whether I'm a gnc trans man or an aligned nonbinary person or genderqueer or bigender changes on which way the wind is blowing).

but even if I Did. even if I transitioned to the point of passing and chose to present as gender conforming and magically got on my feet and moved somewhere where nobody knew I was trans, I would still carry the violence that someone committed because I was a little girl once. my life Before all of that would still be with me, it would still weigh on me and Affect me.

and I'm Not saying this to present this experience as a Comparison. I'm not saying this to say that other people Haven't experienced something like this (they have, an unfortunate amount of people have), and I'm not saying this to say that You haven't (I don't know that, I couldn't know that).

but I Am saying this because it's Frustrating. it's Frustrating to be told over and over and over again that I don't have a perspective that's worth talking about. that I don't have Experiences that are worth talking about. that I am Privileged. that I couldn't Understand what it's like to experience misogyny. that people like me Don't experience violence. that people like me are identical to cis men once we Look a specific way (and it's assumed, of course, that we will eventually).

I have never seen an experience like mine in mainstream media, but it's taken for granted that I'm over represented and Boring. because being a man seems to cancel out everything else for some people. because "man" is presented without nuance as this homogeneous black and white Idea rather than a collection of People.

I think if I were ever allowed to transition, which I can't see happening within this decade just like it didn't within the last, I might consider myself some form of transfem. I like the idea of being seen as masculine And feminine. of the deep voice and facial hair, the square jaw, paired with breasts and pretty lips and pretty hair and pretty clothes.

but people look at me like that now, in those clothes, in hair longer than my ears, and they see a cis woman. they see something I'm not. so I shave my head and I admire the pretty things about myself behind closed doors.

I consider this a male experience, whatever I may be in a theoretical future I am also a trans man. and I have never seen this in media in my life. I've never Seen Myself.

and so it hurts to see it insisted that I'm the default. that it's not Worth considering that my experience may be one that Should be told. because people don't Think about people like me.

and most of the time they don't Mean anything by it. but it doesn't matter what they Mean if I'm not allowed to speak out about it myself. if my feelings, my experiences, my identity and life is assumed to not be worth speaking about.

what does it mean to be privileged among the marginalized? to be told that you don't Need to speak, that you Shouldn't Speak, that your speaking is harmful somehow because you don't have it Bad Enough to deserve it.

I made this post because I'm frustrated, and that's still true. I don't blame you and I don't blame the person who made the original post, and I really don't blame individuals in the first place. because it's not individual people, individuals are all just like me. people desperately reaching out for understanding and acceptance and support.

but for the atmosphere as a Whole to change we need to be willing to let people speak because they are people. because they have value by being people.

I'm not blaming the op of the original post, or trying to imply anything about them as a person. and I don't want to single out this post in particular, because the issue is an broadly reaching trend rather than any one individual happening to write a post in five minutes one time.

but I really Really wish we'd stop and think if it's a good idea to say "girls turning into boys makes them inherently less interesting" on the transgender website

picking a privileged group to be the butt of a joke because it's lighthearted when nobody's actually getting hurt by doing so Only Works when everyone within that group is actually privileged. making jokes about how men are lesser than doesn't Actually affect the people who are actually within power, but Does chip away at the confidence and comfort of marginalized men who are In these communities to be exposed to it.

and the issue isn't about any one joke or poorly worded discussion in particular, but it's difficult to articulate why it can feel so alienating and unsafe to have things like this be so common within my communities without sounding ridiculous or risk being made fun of for not being able to take a joke. because the framing of implied privilege makes it easy to twist those feelings alienation into the entitlement that's assumed with men taking issue with being the butt Of a joke.

I simply think "this type of person is inherently lesser than" should be reexamined and thrown out as a talking point, even in a lighthearted context. because there will always be vulnerable people within those groups who already Hear that they are lesser than for existing