#i think that's all the interesting life updates i have?

[m00nchildwrites]

Perhaps, the whole "Lemuria needs the heart" thing is not what we or Rafayel or the Lemurians think it is. Perhaps, it is something different- like the "sacrifice" knowing everything and still choosing to give her heart to Rafayel. Perhaps, it is giving her "heart", her love, to him knowing all that he is, his role, his duty, and still accepting and loving him. Perhaps, it is not a literal removal of her heart that accomplishes the requirements and no one got that, and that's why there were several "God's of the Sea" before Rafayel, because their way of doing the sacrifice was wrong and only lasted a short while. Perhaps, Rafayel and MC will get his happy ending after all. MAYBE.

Do I have a basis for this idea, you ask? Why, yes. I do, actually.

In the latest story update with Rafayel there is a scene where he needs "the blood of the one who holds a bond with the God of the Sea" to activate the Tome of the Sea God and awaken the powers. That could certainly be interpreted as something truly awful, but Rafayel being who he is and loving MC, he merely cuts her finger enough to spill the smallest of blood.

And it works.

The Tome of the Sea God activates, Rafayel gets a power boost (implied), and MC has memories unlocked, breaking her curse to always forget just a tad.

This is interesting because if she, as the sacrifice, is cursed to never remember him, and yet, the act of them willingly and openly trusting each other and working together caused for him to gain some of the power of the Sea God back AND forth MC to get back some of her lost memories then clearly that is the answer. That is the difference this time.

Rafayel was honest with her, and she chose to trust him- with her heart- with her life- she chose to accept him. And it worked.

So, perhaps, that is the key that they will discover in this lifetime. Perhaps Rafayel was right all along, and killing his love was not the way to save Lemuria.

[lemotmo]

He counts Buck as part of his joy 🩶

Q. I will admit that I misread the ship I attached myself too but I think you all are doing the same thing. Eddie and Buck have barely spoken this season let alone appear to be close to figuring out life changing feelings for one another. I think you all are playing yourselves as well. Just a heads up. And call backs are inevitably going to be repeated given how long the show has been on. These callbacks are coincidental nothing more.

A. Most of their dialogue for the season so far was in episode 5 so I'll agree that their conversations have been minimal for them, but that was very clearly an intentional choice and we got the answer as to why in episode 6. Eddie has been denying himself things that bring him joy. Eddie has been punishing himself. There is a long established history of Eddie enjoying and being endeared by Buck's ramblings. Eddie likes to listen to Buck talk. That is a canon fact. And while they haven't had that much dialogue the show has still made a point of giving them at least one scene together in every episode. We have also seen Eddie looking at and too Buck numerous times. These have almost certainly now been intentional choices. Eddie doesn't want to allow himself his normal with Buck but he's still letting himself look at Buck. Some part of Eddie KNOWS. I think a growing number of people believe that.

And yes calls will be repeated to an extent but they're not 'accidentally' only repeating Buck and Eddie calls. That's a deliberate writing choice. We just don't know why yet. To me it still feels like he's trying to redo the season 5 he wanted without outright repeating it episode for episode. The season has been too similar to 5 so far to be a coincidence. And I don't think anyone is close to admitting or acknowledging anything yet. I think we'll get some kind of cliffhanger with one of them in the mid season finale and a think or nod to the other realizing it or acknowledging something in that moment but I think the first part of 8b will be used as a build up. Episode 118 looks more and more likely every day. And the break will absolutely be promoted using them and what might happen. Their follow numbers, streaming numbers and trending numbers all increased following episode 5. The show clearly has a plan. We haven't misread anything, anon.

Thank you Nonny!

Yep, yep and yep. I don't think anything is coincidental on a TV-show. Everything has meaning. They only have a short amount of time to tell a full story, so a lot of the signs are there, but they're in the background or a part of the decor or clothing.

And when you watch the show long enough, you start to notice patterns and little subtle nudges and hints.

I will most certainly be rewatching 8a during hiatus and see if I can pick up on the little things I might have missed and that haven't been discussed yet.

I agree, the show clearly has a plan.

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[dogtoling]

General life- and blog update , since I assume at least a few people might have been wondering where I've been and what i've been up to recently. I obviously haven't been posting or drawing much this year in general. This will probably be an important post if you care about stuff on this blog, and I already rambled on Sheezy, but that site isn't very populated yet and it's also very good at hiding journals so let's just ramble again...

The summary of this post if you hate reading: I'm heavily considering just stepping away from Splatoon. That decision obviously would affect this blog (mostly, my OCs, which is kinda most of the blog at this point). I don't think the blog itself will go anywhere, and I'll probably use it for something in the future... alternatively i'll cherry pick stuff from here into an archive for people who like the worldbuilding.

Longer post under cut:

So what have I been up to this year? The answer is quite simple: NOTHING. Like, actually absolutely nothing. Aside from Art Fight, this has probably been one of my worst art output years of all time, which is really frustrating. That's between my horrendous mental health and depression chasms this year and a complete lack of both focus and inspiration (which can also get chalked down to the depression to a degree, yeah). So the very real reason to why there hasn't been much activity on this blog this year is because I just haven't Done Anything in general.

Now because I know there will be a few people who think "that's fine! you shouldn't judge yourself based on productivity!" you're right! I also agree. However the issue for me specifically is that most (if not all) the time I spend NOT drawing or creating, I spend sitting around wishing I could start drawing or creating, because that is like the 1 thing that keeps me sane on this freaking earth. Unfortunately coming up with OC scenarios in my head doesn't really result in output I can feel fulfilled by in any form as much as I wish it did, lol.

Now; The Issue. It doesn't take a genius to see that if you spend 9 months trying to finish like a dozen OC pages that you COULD do in a week or 2 if you wanted to, then there's probably more than just the problem of executive dysfunction (even though that's at least 60% of it for sure). Obviously my other major problem is that I live by imaginary rules and structures that make sense, but aren't actually useful at ALL in reality and are more than a hindrance if anything (the mental to do-list in my head that says i can't do X until I've done Y doesn't do very much if task Y takes 10 months and I also don't want to do it, and it also has no structured ending).

How does this tie into stepping away from Splatoon, you may ask. Well, the issue is that I have foreseeably fallen out of love with the series. Which isn't exactly news lol. Currently, I'm not even sure i will get the next game, if and when the time comes. Yes, the loss of interest is also expected, given that Splatoon 3 has ended and every fandom has this kind of downtime and lukewarm in-between-titles period. But the truth is that modern Splatoon (almost 10 years old!!!!) is tangibly different from the way the series was back when I fell in love with it. That was Splatoon 1, and while the series has improved in a lot of aspects and is thriving, it's grown in a direction that I just don't really like. Splatoon 3 had the most freaking horrendous, immersion breaking story mode they could've done, then they followed it up with a DLC story that was pretty cool but also compounded a lot of my fears about the series' future and played into every single thing i do not want Splatoon stories to be - fully character focused, random fucking villain, mundane event that's unrealistically world-threatening just because a kids video game needs a scary climax even though it's immersion breaking AGAIN, the whole thing taking place in cyberspace and thus offering basically no worldbuilding even though there is SO MUCH WORLD. I COULD GO ON.

The gist of it is that nowadays, rather than playing Splatoon and being inspired and excited at what comes next, I mostly find myself dreading what dumbass plot they will do next to throw a wrench in the otherwise good stuff. And when that's like THE main approach I have to what's supposed to be my favorite series, it is HARROWING. I can't even really blame the game for this; the story is NOT its selling point, the developers probably do their best to get the bits to us that they really want to tell, and at the end of the day the game is unfortunately a product. Worldbuilding for Splatoon is fun to a point. It's less fun when in order to actually write or create something coherent, instead of filling in the blanks, the blanks are 90% of the freaking thing. At that point you're just better off making something of your own instead of being anchored onto an IP that gives more problems than answers and occasionally shoots you with like a machine gun. Working in the realm of Splatoon is frustrating because more often than not, the questions I have ARE NOT MINE TO ANSWER, and the likelihood that the specific-ass questions I need answers to will ever be actually addressed is really low.

Tying this back to my OCs. Obviously I love my OCs more than I love myself which admittedly isn't that high of a bar but you get the point. The problem is that I spend a lot of time mulling over worldbuilding that, again, frankly isn't mine to do. Because if I want it to be Splatoon, then it should be mostly accurate to how Splatoon is! But the problem with that is that there's really not THAT MUCH worldbuilding in the series that you can work with, and most of the core game mechanics are just abstract enough that it's actually horrendous to try and come up with workarounds and ways for things to make sense that don't require just constructing a full knockoff version mirror dimension of the game and saying fuck everything that's in place here because Inkopolis Plaza literally has no roads in or out of there and I have no fucking idea how that's allowed when your only option is to jump the fence (or, nowadays, take the train which also isnt connected to a street as far as I remember). Between the face value issue and the lack of REALLY IMPORTANT worldbuilding, like - I will always come back to this - THE INK TANK'S FUNCTION 10 YEARS DOWN THE LINE - there's a goddamn ocean of plot holes and things that end up being obstacles to creativity rather than inspiration. I feel like I'm pretty solidly at the point (and have been for a while) where hanging onto Splatoon is really only contributing to creativity block and frustration with lack of freedom and the ability to actually do things.

So I guess those are my reasonings that I've put together just sitting here for the time being. The TL;DR is that I wish I could just do stuff without Splatoon's canon getting in the way, which is a really stupid problem to have if you're making Splatoon OCs. I feel this frustration extremely strongly every time I have to work with actual bigger aspects of the world; we still don't have an Inkopolis map, we don't know what the world around Inkopolis looks like, we don't know what the wilderness is like aside from Just Normal Forest and Desert and very few snippets as to what modern wildlife MIGHT be, I still don't know how the fuck the Inklings teleport to the goddamn arctic ocean to play a turf war at Shipshape Cargo co. These are all actually really important things if you're trying to establish a setting in any kind of storytelling that's outside of immediate city bounds (and even there, you need to know the layout of the city and its important areas). Also a fucking mutant bear and a baby salmon and a squid not wearing suitable gear went to space and fought on a rocket in space. These are some things that would give me peace of mind to not have to deal with in my own writing, probably.

So where do we go from here? Unsure. I haven't really made a decision on this front yet, though right now I'm leaning more towards actually going ahead with trying to do my own thing. That will result in obvious design and setting changes for my OCs whenever I get around to it. This blog probably won't go anywhere (again, unless I impulse delete it during a mood swing like i've almost done on like three separate occasions this year), but it will probably get less use, and I will probably end up making a new blog to post about whatever I end up doing once I get to a point where it feels like it makes sense. There's a chance that I will delete this blog and put all the interesting stuff on an archive blog for the people who are here just for the worldbuilding. My actual true passion for a long time now hasn't even been Splatoon anymore, it's just been cephalopods. I'm kind of done having Splatoon get in the way of the cephalopods, as thankful as I am that it introduced me to them...

If you read this to the end heres a treat for you = 🍪

[moominvalleysunset]

Jack & Joker episode 10 thoughts on P'Oh's death

I saw a poster who said they were abandoning the show because of their treatment of Trans characters (Their examples: making P'Saran's character Nulek the butt of a joke and killing off P'Jennies character P'Oh quite gruesomely.) And while I completely understand that this is a sensitive topic, especially right now, where Trans rights are being attacked in many if not almost all parts of the world and the result of the US-election does not bode well for a fair and inclusive future (and as you don't know me, let me emphasize: Trans rights are human rights, end of story!), I cannot agree in this instance. Loooong-ass Essay under the cut, be warned!

First of all, Thai culture is a special case as far as gender, gender identity and gender expression goes, both historically and in the progressive movements that are happening both in Thai society and in the entertainment (specifically the BL) industry. You simply cannot judge it solely by Western (or even other Asian) cultural conventions and standards, and by viewing it even more exclusively through an USA-centric perspective you are not doing anyone any favors.

I think that everyone watching Thai BLs regularily at least knows a little about the underlying cultural issues and practices, but for those who would like to learn more, I would recommend reading Dr. Thomas Baudinette's extremely fascinating and well-researched book Boys Love Media in Thailand (https://thomasbaudinette.com/boys-love-media-in-thailand-2022-3/) , where he also touches on the development of presenting trans and genderqueer characters in Thai TV and film (though only up until 2021/22, and the last two years have seen significantly more progress, diversity and inclusivity in Thai media both in front of and just as if not more importantly, behind the camera.) It's a great read, and I'm looking forward to the updated edition coming out next year. Or at least read a Wikipedia article or two about the subject if you haven't already, it's extremely interesting!

Now secondly, I want to take a look at the narrative. First of all, the two trans/genderqueer characters mentioned above are not the only ones in the show. We have Nulek's friend Pharao, Joke's disguise as Jessie (not a girl but a genderqueer person in drag, and emphatically NOT a caricature), Arun as a femme character and not to forget P'Oh's business – and maybe life – partner, a Trans man. Neither of them has been singled out, ridiculed or punished for their not conforming to any hetero- or cisnormative standards in the story (except for Arun by his dad, and nowhere is this presented as anything but reprehensible behaviour by a father). They are normal people struggling with social injustice and mundane problems, like anyone else. Which brings me to the first of the two instances mentioned, Nulek. While I understand that leaving them at a trash heap (I think we all can agree that getting them out of the way was just a plot thing that needed to happen) might raise some hackles, they are not the only one left there. The – very cismale – driver that Joke impersonated was also left at the landfill, so it is maybe not all that symbolic? Especially because Nulek and Arun's other subordinate Pharao get their comeuppance later on when they get their wonderfully petty revenge on their fallen boss. They have gained agency, rightfully enjoy their upper hand and are again not being ridiculed by the narrative.

And now P' Oh, played by the wonderful P'Jennie. I am horribly saddened by her senseless death, angry and frustrated, because it was so preventable and unfair, but her being Trans is not the most important part here IMO. She was trying, she was struggling, she was failing, she was succeeding, she was funny and sassy and beautiful and a smart businesswoman, and she was the only character apart from the mains, Toi Ting and Ama (who were not spared, either), whose death would send a big enough shockwave through the community to finally rattle them into fighting back  (but also leave the mains able to function and not utterly paralyse them in grief). That's why neither Toi Ting's dad nor Tattoo's mom were viable options. P'Oh was respected and liked in her community. Having her die was dark as fuck, but narratively speaking IMO necessary, and she didn't die because she was Trans. She died because she was the only character whose death would have the right amount of repercussions. So I cannot agree with the other poster that killing her was "shitting on Trans women". Really not.

Thirdly, we have to leave the show and look beyond, behind the camera. These people are longtime collaborators and by all accounts great friends and business partners. P'Jennie is a star who has written lakorn and BL history with her roles. There is nothing but love and respect for her from the makers of the show, you can be sure of that. And I would really like to hear her speak about her character and her role here. And Nuleks actor P'Saran and their friend Pharao have been collaborating with War, Yin and their managers since the first En of Love Anthology in 2019/20. YWPBs managers P'Go and P'Aun themselves can be read as femme. YWPBs work environment and the people they choose to collaborate with seem to be progressive, inclusive, diverse and definititely neither cisheteronormative nor tone-deaf to social issues, as we can see in all their works and public presence. Even more so in War and Yin themselves and in what they choose to say, do and stand for publicly. Are they all perfect? No (who is?), but it seems to me that they are trying really hard to do what's right.

So while I of course understand why someone could be triggered, angry and disappointed at what they see as yet another instance of a Trans character being treated unfairly, I would argue that here this anger might be misdirected and this reading neither does justice to the characters, the narrative, the actors and makers of this show nor to the very real issues Trans and genderqueer people still face in Thailand and around the world.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my essay/rant and I would be extremely interested in what you have to say in return!

[the-bloody-sadist]

ONLY SIX OF YOU WILL SEE THIS IM SURE BUT I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WRITE AGAIN TODAY AND I AM MAKING PROGRESS ON THAT SINNER EPILOGUE THATS BEEN THE HANGNAIL OF MY LIFE LATELY AND I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH IVE FELT LIKE I CANT WRITE ANYMORE BECAUSE MY FOCUS AND MOTIVATION HAS BEEN FUCKED UP (since my brain is too aware that writing doesn’t make me money and new followers, ART does, so I’m wasting time) BUT I DONT KNOW MAYBE I STILL GOT IT. QUESTION MARK.

THATS ALL. 🫡

JUST KNOW IM WRITING THAT SINNER THING.

On a quieter note, I really miss having commentary and compliments on my writing. It was a huge source of fulfillment and comfort to me. I still get a nice trickle of it over the months from new Sinner readers mostly, but I miss when I was posting Dancing With Death on here (even though I loathe looking at the absolute dogshit versions that are up on tumblr because the formatting for posts is INSANE and I can’t copy-paste from my word doc for updated edits….oh god the minx sex chapter is so bad…oh god…) to the point where I’m ALMOST. Almost. Thinking about taking it out of Patreon lockdown and posting all of the chapters I have here? Because I’m really stuck on it and I think that any sort of feedback/interest might be the shove I need to start working on it again.

That is, if it even gets interest 🙂‍↕️ which is the issue. Do I want to sacrifice the small chance I have at professionally publishing DWD by posting everything on here and dooming it to self-publishing? Or do I want to keep it in the basement on Patreon where nobody engages with it except my best bud (who’s the biggest fan I love him so much) and I’m not sure if I’m making the right story choices….?

TOUGH DECISIONS. I DONT USUALLY POST ABOUT RANDOM THOUGHTS BUT IVE HAD TO CUT OFF SO MANY PEOPLE AFTER THE ELECTION AND IM A BIT LONELY. YOU UNDERSTAND IM SURE.

OKAY GOODNIGHT SLEEP TIGHT MUAH SHOULD I SING YOU A LITTLE LULLABY?? NO???????? NO??? WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT?!?

[stellar-solar-flare]

This popped up on my dash and since you said that the conversation is open, I thought I would share my two cents, even if it might be stuff you are already familiar with and do yourself. I don't think I'm in the same fandoms as you but things mentioned here are observations made from multiple fandoms. Although I have been writing in AO3 instead of tumblr for the most part, my experience here comes from writing almost exclusively Steve Rogers longfics (mostly 50k+ words, 10+ chapters) from 2021. I don't claim to be super popular - I'm just reflecting on the relative differencies I have noticed in my engagement.

First of all, please don't quit a series just because it has been over a month. That's not a long time for an update at all! If you're writing fic, it's something you do on your free time without getting paid, so there's absolutely no reason at all to apologize life getting in the way.

From my own experience, I have to agree with the consistency and speed of updates being pretty big factors on engagement. I have noticed most reader engagement when I have been able to push out one or more update a week for multiple weeks straight. It helps people stay engaged with the story and invested when the story is fresh in their minds. But then again, I have gotten a lot of comments when coming back from a hiatus too so I think it's not the only factor at all.

Writing a lot, even if it's not the same series, helps keep one's fics on people's minds, and helps establish you as someone who writes X character (with a certain kind of characterization). I share sneak peeks sometimes, but that's just because I am too impatient to wait, they're not from 'marketing' standpoint. Personally I try to focus on writing and let the writing itself do the rest, but I do make a point to reply to comments and thank people, even if that is sometimes very delayed, so that they know I appreciate them. I also don't talk badly about my own writing, because as a reader, seeing someone do that can very easily turn me off from reading their story. (To be clear, I don't mean venting about the human frustrations of writing but publically calling your own stories bad etc.)

One of the big things for me as a reader and a writer is having multiple storylines going and having 'hooks' in the story, so to speak, so that the readers know what they're looking forward to when the story continues. Cliffhangers are the ultimate form of this but things like a character uncovering a partial piece of information that raises questions work too. I spend a lot of time establishing chemistry, both romantic and platonic, so that the readers have something to root for.

Then again, engagement always depends on the story. Some things do better than others. Sometimes I think a fic is going to be well-liked and it doesn't get much attention, sometimes a thing I thought was just pure self-indulgence gains a lot of reader interaction. Which brings me to my next point - I think that the writer's enjoyment bleeds through the story to readers; things that I have enjoyed writing the most are my most popular fics. And sometimes when I think I'll write some easy 'trope soup' that'll get a lot of interest, it's crickets. I think there's a lesson there for me.

I try to engage with people and be a part of fandom beyond writing. I read and comment other people's fics, I reblog stuff, I talk about everyday things and try to stay active even when I have no capacity to write (happens to us all). It helps foster a sense of community, and while it's not self-serving and I read and comment out of genuine enjoyment, ultimately being active in fandom and engaging with writing helps us all. It does feel like current fandom population doesn't comment as much as they used to, which is a shame. But I try to be the change I want to see in the world.

It's also worth noting that sometimes there are these 'lulls' in fandom where everyone is sort of quiet and busy with life, I assume. Like major holidays. They just happen, and the season will change again. Also, scheduled reblogs and comment replies help reach different sets of people.

Finally, focusing too much on the stats is a thing that for me is a road to madness that sucks all enjoyment out of writing. It is human to want engagement and look at the pretty numbers but again, what matters is the enjoyment you get from a story. Personally I have written a 250k longfic in a tiny niché that was commented regularly by one single person and occasionally by about five people. And I still love that fic to death and am so proud of myself for writing it.

That's my two cents, from my personal experience. As always, they should be taken with a grain of salt, and they might not be universally applicable. I wish you the best with writing and hope that the muses are kind to you.

Writers of multi-chapter fics:

How do you keep your readers engaged as the story gets longer?

I've heard from many, and seen it myself, that interaction drops significantly as the chapters accumulate (which I honestly do not even understand...hence why I'm asking this) but I've also seen a lot of writers who have quite lengthy fics where the engagement and excitement seems to stay consistent throughout.

They're receiving asks with comments and questions about the latest chapters, the reblogs are abundant compared to likes, and I'm just curious if there's anything anyone does differently to help maintain this other than just being a great writer 🤣 (which I'm realizing is probably the key thing and that there's nothing to do other than just be able to write a really good story which I'm clearly not haaaaa)

I've tried sharing snippets of upcoming chapters in the past and they've always fallen on their face, I've released chapter playlists, etc so I feel like from a "marketing" standpoint I've done what I can? And also as writers we shouldn't even have to work that hard to "promote" our fics considering people ask to be on taglists and what have you. (This is the site for sharing and ACTIVELY participating in fandom...)

It's been a struggle to keep myself motivated to finish up my series and I'm starting to wonder if there's even a point now that it's been over a month since I've updated (which I realize consistent updates are likely a huge factor as well 🙃 but, you know, life.)

Anyway. Thinking out loud here. Any advice/conversation is welcome! 💗

[ineed-to-sleep]

Blacked out in front of my tablet and woke up with sketches of my Touchstarved mc + Kuras my beloved. woops

[crescentfool]

having the hc that minato is ace is incredibly funny sometimes when you think about how ryoji is oh so very bi because it's like. "ah. death stole my ability to be attracted to people," in the same way that ryoji stole minato's eye color and energy level. like wow, thanks ryoji, you just keep finding things to steal from minato!

[heymacy]

💛

[taraxacum-vulpes]

why is everyone pretending like cyberpunk edgerunners is good. the writing is so bad i hate it

[milkyberryjsk]

i graduated ^__^

[dailynakaharachuuya]

(just some thoughts about things, I think its rather long so you don't have to read ❤️❤️)

[gillianthecat]

Is/Was tumblr giving anyone else a notification when someone you followed posted for the first time in a while? Like this:

It was doing that for me for a couple weeks, although now it seems to have stopped. A short-lived experiment? Or perhaps no one has posted after a long enough lag. (It seems unlikely to have been a bug, but I don't know enough about coding so maybe?)

It was sort of an interesting idea, to make sure I didn't miss someone I hadn't seen in a while, but on the whole I'm glad it's gone/hope it goes. I'd like my notifications to be all about me, thank you 👸🏻The dashboard is the place for other people. Otherwise it gets confusing.

Anyway, I haven't posted in a while (12 days), so perhaps this post will show up in your notifications!

[privatelife]

y'all who actually have partners,, what is a text ice breaker to start conversation? im really bad at it 😭

it feels important to note that when we do talk, the conversation flows great we have a nice rapport and complimentary senses of humors it's just starting the conversation that is the problem i think we are both just painfully shy 😔 (and maybe traumatized .)

[natugood]

make it make sense that I enjoy doing my job (especially the tedious parts) when I am off the clock, but as soon as I am supposed to be working I'd rather be doing LITERALLY anything else????

[kellystar321]

.