#i was going to post another longwinded reflections post but

[keplercryptids]

I know this was posted like. a week ago. but as someone thinking of running a forged in the dark game I would love to see your homebrew xp mechanics

hell yeah! so let me start by saying, forged in the dark games (at least, the two i've played, blades in the dark and scum and villainy) are designed to be run either 1. in campaigns with a maximum of 12-20 sessions, OR 2. in campaigns where you're running through characters frequently and telling a story of the crew as a collective, rather than focused on a specific group of characters. so if you do either of those things, i don't think you actually need to tweak the xp.

i am a longwinded bitch lmao and i also prefer running campaigns that don't switch out PCs often. so the rapid xp acquisition of these games is. troublesome. i've actually very recently decided to simply hand out milestone xp (which is what i did when i ran d&d 5e). basically, every few jobs, when something narratively Big happens, i'll give the players [x] amount of xp. but! i did come up with these narrative xp rules, which i like and i'm having fun with, so for now, any xp the players accrue by making desperate rolls will be added to their narrative xp bank to spend in the following ways:

(under a readmore cuz it's long!)

Narrative XP

At the end of each job, the maximum amount of XP that can be used for character advancement is 50% of the XP gained that session, rounding up. This is called Advancement XP. The remaining XP is called Narrative XP.

When Narrative XP is spent to increase or reduce a clock, 1 XP = 1 tick. Personal Narrative XP can be spent on campaign clocks, personal clocks, connection clocks, long-term projects or resolving traumas, as described below. With the exception of campaign clocks, any given clock can only be affected by 1 Narrative XP, per player per session.

At a player’s discretion, Character Advancement XP may be spent as Narrative XP, with the same restrictions as above.

CAMPAIGN CLOCKS

Throughout the campaign, there will be clocks tracking organizations’ goals, external forces outside the scope of the PCs’ sphere of influence, or events looming on the horizon. During downtime, these clocks can be increased or reduced by the use of Narrative XP. This is almost always going to be a meta decision made by the players and GM, rather than anything the PCs are doing within the fiction (though there may be some exceptions - talk it out!). The progress of campaign clocks can also be leveraged as Devil’s Bargains during play. There is no limit to how much XP can be spent on a campaign clock per downtime.

PERSONAL CLOCKS

Each PC can accrue personal clocks, tracked on your character sheet, that reflect potential complications, goals, or outcomes affecting your character. During downtime, Narrative XP can be used to increase or reduce ticks on these clocks (maximum 1 XP per clock per downtime). To use Narrative XP this way, describe or roleplay a scene to illustrate what your character is doing to affect the clock in question.

CONNECTION CLOCKS

[note: this text is taken basically word-for-word from Beam Saber by austin ramsay - a really cool game i haven't gotten to run yet! check out beam saber if you're interested in sci-fi forged in the dark games!]

The crew sheet contains separate 4-tick Connection Clocks for each other member in your crew, representing your character’s relationship with that crewmate. Make a belief about that crewmate for each tick on that clock (checking in with that player when you do). When the Connection Clock fills, ask the target crewmate for a truth about one of the beliefs tied to them, then reset the clock to 1 tick as you see them in a new light. When a Connection Clock resets, erase all the previous beliefs you had about that crewmate and write a new one related to the truth you just learned—it’ll take time and effort to understand them again.

A belief is a brief statement about how a character feels about another crewmate. Beliefs are simple, quick, and influential in the rapport between the two crewmates. However, the players need to remember that their beliefs are not necessarily true as they are based on incomplete information and gut instinct. A good belief is:

Something a character might say about their crewmate to a confidante.

Easily summarized, so that it can be quickly remembered when relevant.

Potentially true.

Suitable for the game’s setting and tone.

Something the player is interested in exploring.

During downtime or free play, Narrative XP can be used to add a belief and tick a Connection Clock with another crewmate (maximum once per session). To use Narrative XP this way, your character must have a one-on-one scene with a crewmate, which challenges their perception of their crewmate, and/or shows a new side of them, and/or during which the characters bond in a significant way. After this, spend 1 XP to tick the Connection clock with that character, and gain a new belief (see above).

LONG-TERM PROJECTS

During downtime, you may spend 1 XP to add a tick to a long-term project clock (maximum 1 tick per clock).

RESOLVING TRAUMAS

[note: there isn't a way in the rules as written to resolve traumas, but being able to do so is important to me, so i included this as a way to use narrative xp.]

When you gain a trauma, start a 6-tick Trauma clock on your character sheet. During downtime or free play, Narrative XP can be used to tick a Trauma clock (maximum once per session). To use Narrative XP this way, describe or roleplay a scene to illustrate what your character is doing to work on resolving their trauma. Once a trauma clock has been filled, you may remove that trauma from your character sheet.

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Lempicka at the Longacre Theatre, Part 1:

This is a longwinded recap of my experience seeing the show and what I remember from it, with commentary (only a first part for now covering Act 1, because this post was getting way too long):

The original plan for my trip was to see The Who’s Tommy on Friday, Lempicka on Saturday (tickets pre-purchased), and then had a time slot open on Sunday where I was thinking about seeing another. But after the show I went back to my hotel room, stewed a bit, and ended up buying another ticket for the next day. Then on the way home I plotted how soon I could come back again, knowing the production wasn’t doing well in grosses and closing could be imminent. And then a few weeks later I took a red-eye across the country for the second time in a month to see the last three performances.  So it is fair to say I am Very Not Normal about this show and the post below reflects that.

It turned out that I first saw the Broadway production the weekend that Eden Espinosa was out sick, so at both of the initial shows I attended, Mariand Torres played Tamara. There were probably some fans who were disappointed that EE was out, but MT was very good in the role (especially vocally) and afterward I thought her take on Tamara was an interesting contrast to EE’s. In the Sunday 4/21 show, Ximone Rose played Rafaela, and I was also interested to see her version of Rafaela since she had played the role for the last two weeks in La Jolla but I had not seen her there. On that Sunday, at 1:30 the line to get into the theater for the 2 pm show had already turned the corner at Broadway, with no forward movement at all. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes later, I overheard someone who had walked from the direction of the box office saying that the two leads were out, which I assumed could only mean Eden Espinosa and Amber Iman. (It says something about the lopsidedness of the love triangle that this was the most reasonable assumption.)

Spoilers everywhere below the cut:

Walking in, the first thing the audience sees is an enormous backdrop of Autoportrait: Tamara in a Green Bugatti:

There is a bench and an easel on the stage, and to the right, a white arcing structure that was also present in La Jolla. Some of the musicians, including the conductor, were set up in the box seats on either side of the audience:

The overture starts with a nervous ticking beat that bursts into a propulsive electronic theme; the cast is revealed behind a transparent scrim, standing on the multilevel set and gazing steadily forward. This was one of my favorite moments in the show. It is not an overture that leisurely carries you through all of the themes and motifs, it’s just – here are the characters – here is the scenery – let’s GO. And then it’s only Tamara, sitting on the bench.

The show uses elderly Tamara de Lempicka reflecting on her life as the framing device (“Unseen”), though aside from the framing device the story is a mostly linear timeline.

From there, the story got off to a strange start for me. On the first viewing, it was very difficult to stop comparing and contrasting what I was seeing to what I remembered from the La Jolla production, and some of the material did not seem to pull me in as well as it had before, or just felt awkward. However, once Act 2 started that feeling pretty much disappeared, and on the second viewing I barely noticed. I wonder if something like this was what many of the critics experienced as well, except that they presumably only had time to see it once (as most of the audience would as well). So I think I understand some of the reviews, even if I disagree with them overall.

“Our Time” starts with a young Tamara and Tadeusz in St. Petersburg talking about their upcoming wedding. This song felt very, very expository, but it does a lot of work – it has to establish their personalities, situation, and relationship and then tears that world apart (or at least puts some serious cracks in it) by the end of the song. We see that Tamara is already so obsessed with painting that she is doing so on her wedding day, in her wedding dress (maybe a hint that she is comfortable with risk); we see that Tadeusz is very attached to his aristocratic inheritance and what he feels belongs to him (“this land, my family’s for centuries”) so that his support of the Tsar and later foray into Polish nationalism makes more sense. Another thing this song did reasonably effectively was to tell a story of Tamara and Tadeusz together as an actual couple who actually like each other, so that when Rafaela shows up later the first leg of the triangle has a little more solidity to it. Beth Leavel made her first appearance in this scene as Tamara’s mother and got entrance applause when she stepped in. When the song continues from the point of view of the Russian revolutionaries, the tone is much angrier and aggressively triumphant. After Tadeusz is hauled off to jail, Tamara bribes, cajoles, and finally offers her body to the revolutionary guards in order to free him. The last guard is played by George Abud, who will appear later as Marinetti.

Beth Leavel and George Abud both made brief appearances as seemingly minor characters from Tamara’s early life here, which I assume is intended to draw parallels to the roles their primary characters later play in Tamara’s life. Her mother (like the Baroness later) is the person who steadies her and keeps her moving forward on her path; the third guard is the person whose situational power pushes her into a terrible bargain and takes away her control. Marinetti ends up being her teacher and offers her a space she can control in terms of art, but also represents an artistic and ideological position that she is in an ongoing push-pull with throughout her life.

In some ways I preferred the La Jolla version of “Our Time” where the revolutionaries started out straightforwardly hopeful and over the course of the song moved to vengeful and threatening even as the language of the revolution remained the same. It reminded me of “At the End of the Day” from Les Misérables (incidentally, another show I can’t evaluate with objectivity) in depicting the setting and society, while the Broadway version was more narrative-driven and more focused on Tamara and Tadeusz, and the revolutionaries seemed more one-note and cartoonish. With the Broadway version I felt like I got a clearer and more concise understanding of the story at the expense of an interesting idea and a stronger emotional reaction to the song. Having this as the first plot-driving song also set a tone that didn’t quite work for me.

We follow the Lempickis on the night train to Paris surrounded by other refugees as they sing of “Starting Over” after their world has been upended – and only at the end do we get a little note of personal discord as Tadeusz wonders, “what did you do to get me out?” I really liked that bit – it is obvious foreshadowing (and continues in “Paris”) but is not signposted with neon lights, which is sometimes how “Our Time” felt.  I liked this song much better than the La Jolla version, where Tadeusz started in on the repeated questioning during the train ride and ended up seeming like an annoyance. Here he’s going on about some of his anger and resentment at his situation, but he and Tamara also have some moments of togetherness that made them seem like a couple who are very much in it together. There is the specific moment I mentioned in an earlier post, where they desperately cling to each other as they sing, “oh, and we’re free, a long dark night with you by my side”; hearing it in the theater, it was a brief & perfect expression of harmony while they are otherwise struggling with anxiety, fear, and uncertainty.

In “Paris” (“the ugliest beautiful city I’ve ever seen,” observes Tamara), once again a lot of things happen. In short, Tamara encounters Paris and sings about three things: work, women, and pastries, in that order. (In a way this could be an “I Want” song.) The work: the Lempickis manage to find an apartment but need to pay for rent, food, etc. Tadeusz is not particularly receptive to the idea of getting a job and his rumination takes a dark turn as he considers how Tamara could have gotten him out of prison when his influential father couldn’t; she deflects the question and in an ensuing argument he raises a hand to strike her but stops himself just short. Tamara goes out to look for work but her aristocratic life has not exactly given her marketable skills: “I’m… a very charming hostess!” Response: “We need cleaners, overnight shift.” Someone hands her a bucket. Bucket in hand, she sings about all of the women on the street showing their skin, which she rationalizes as being normal in a warmer climate (sure, Tamara). Though more seriously, she is seeing in them a freedom that she herself doesn’t have yet, so maybe that makes this more of an “I Need” song. On that note, she also sings about pastries, because she is surrounded by bakeries in Paris and has never been so hungry. Here I believe is where she sees a street artist painting at his easel. In a couple of the shows Eden Espinosa pulled a very funny “yikes” face before walking up to him and unthinkingly insulting his painting. So she decides to take up painting again after seeing that there is demand for it (even for an artist whose use of perspective is all wrong – I mean if that dude can sell a painting, why shouldn’t she?).

Then we get a funny little mid-song interlude with the madeleines. Tamara takes three madeleines out of a bakery box and arranges them on a plate in order to paint a still life. “Three madeleines,” she sings, then goes on and on about their lovely buttery goodness, leans in slowly to take a long, deep whiff of said buttery goodness – then abruptly crams one into her mouth with Cookie Monster levels of om nom nom. It is evidently very satisfying. Suddenly she looks at her now-disturbed still life, shrugs, and carefully rearranges the two remaining madeleines. “Two madeleines,” she sings, describing the elegant dusting of powdered sugar… then pauses to take a slow, deliberate lick of said sugar – then stuffs another one in her mouth. Next: “One madeleine –“ GULP and we are left with one very happy Tamara kicking her feet on the couch in delight, and an empty plate. But still needing something to paint, with a mouthful of madeleine she calls for Kizette (now a little more grown up) to pose for her. Part of the fun was that Eden Espinosa was clearly not actually eating all of the madeleines, though I don’t know if that was for performance reasons or for comic effect or both.

While showing her work on the street she meets the warmly supportive Baron and the skeptical Baroness, and he gives her a recommendation for Marinetti’s class at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Later as she paints in the apartment, Tadeusz complains of the smell but Tamara dismisses it, saying they can’t afford a studio for her to paint in. Kizette agrees with her mother that oil paints smell good and Tamara seems pleased to have Kizette take her side, though when Kizette ropes her father into an impromptu dance Tamara looks on somewhat wistfully at his easy relationship with Kizette. When she finally sells a couple of her paintings (to the Baron), she starts to see a path and a future in this city where she now feels she belongs.

At this point there has been a whirlwind of setup so it is nice to settle down a bit for a late night at the art school. Marinetti drops in on Tamara and she gets a lesson on what a painting is (canvas, pigment, “Plan and Design,” among other things) and what it is not. The audience gets a glimpse at Tamara’s need for control. I really liked this scene a lot as a teaching scene, and as an introduction to both the artistic and musical themes that will get repeated later in the show. The way Tamara sings “…or a glittering sky…” as the music shifts from isolated notes punctuating Marinetti’s statements to flowing chords and strings, you really hear and feel that this new, big idea has finally clicked in her mind and she is opened up to a new way of thinking and a whole new reason to make art other than survival.

Rafaela makes her first appearance performing on the street (as indicated by a projected caption and a car prop) in “Don’t Bet Your Heart.” I didn’t care for the car; it’s a fitting symbol of the fast pace of technological progress and industry, but every car I’ve seen physically represented on a stage looks really static. I liked the song though – both Amber Iman and Ximone Rose did a great job, and of course Natalie Joy Johnson as Suzy Solidor is chaotic fun as she attempts to collect money from the audience in her uh, conquistador helmet (?). Here though was another example of neon-signposting: when Tamara shows up in the middle of the song, she runs in squarely in the center of the stage on the middle platform just behind the action, her jaw drops and suddenly everything is in slow motion for just a moment when she catches her first glimpse of Rafaela and asks, “Who - is - she?” It draws attention to an important point that the audience might have missed otherwise (because everyone is looking at Rafaela), but it still felt a little jarring that Tamara appears and takes so much focus, even if she quickly fades into the background again as she stares at Rafaela and gets jostled by the raucous crowd.

Everyone runs off at the sound of a police siren, but Tamara’s mind has been blown and she vows to herself “I Will Paint Her.” Mariand Torres killed on this song both nights, and on the second night her singing in the final lines gave me chills up and down my spine. Then in a later show I saw Eden Espinosa perform it and acted it with such depth of feeling that I thought, “wait… is this my favorite song in the show now?” even without the sheer vocal fireworks. (I feel extremely lucky to have been able to see both of them play Tamara.) In both cases it felt like there was a bit more emphasis on the whole “Tamara has totally fallen for Rafaela but doesn’t realize that’s what has happened” premise of the song, and the Broadway audience definitely got the humor where the La Jolla audience didn’t seem to; perhaps it was played straighter there, so to speak. There was a huge audience response to this song.

So now it is time for the first group art show that Tamara is a part of, and the verbal descriptions of her paintings are pretty funny, especially the one of Kizette (Tadeusz: “a demon child”; Marinetti: “strange little girl”; Suzy: “that little girl is PISSED!”). We get our first direct introduction to Suzy while she serves drinks to the art show guests and makes very, very broad double entendres. (If the Monocle show I briefly dropped in on at The Friki Tiki is an accurate indication, NJJ is playing a not-very-exaggerated version of herself.) Marinetti shows up and is his usual abrasive and cynical self, and when the Baroness questions him about the role of art in shaping society (for the worse) it starts a bit of an argument which is the lead-in to “Perfection.” Tadeusz wants to leave but when Marinetti says, “Beauty is an engine – beauty is power” you can see Tamara’s antennae going up and she waves Tadeusz off, saying she’ll be home soon.

Halfway through the song, Rafaela shows up and Tamara leaps to ask her to model, offering her a chance at immortality such that people in the future will ask,”Who - is - she?”

George Abud is such a fun presence in the show and “Perfection” is still (maybe?) my favorite song; it was as entertaining and alarming in person as it had been listening to the 2022 track on repeat for the past two years. However it was also here where the costumes and choreography were particularly confusing. Dance is not really my thing so there is probably a vocabulary of movement that I am not getting, but there were several dance moves that to me looked like weakly punching the air and making airplane arms while stepping to the beat, and I thought, “wait are they trying to represent machines? Like pistons and engines and actual airplanes?” I honestly do not understand what the intended effect was; I was not getting a story of speed or power or a glorious technological future from it but I am curious how others saw this. Costumes were a little distracting but I can talk myself into thinking that this is a world where the avant-garde is made visible and present everywhere and people just put on their costumes of daily life over it. (Though I do think it would have been easier to process the show overall if the ensemble costumes were a bit more period-representative.)

After all that, “Wake Up” sung by Tadeusz is a big contrast. Marinetti is at a point where he wants to wrest control of the future and turn it toward his purposes with an army of sleek backing dancers in corsets and leather bustiers, meanwhile Tadeusz is only just now dragging himself out of passivity and possibly depression to put on a very traditional three-piece suit and go apply for a job at a bank. I suppose one can’t expect that everyone’s going to be like Tamara, belting through adversity and charging forward on a path of artistic and emotional discovery. I do actually like this song because it tells me more about Tadeusz than I knew before and provides some character growth; the song helps give him an arc in the show where I don’t recall there was much of one before. In terms of pacing, it is breather after several high-energy songs in a row.

In an amusing montage, Tamara stalks the Dead Rat for days on end trying to find Rafaela, only for Suzy to break the news each time (in typically comic fashion) that Rafaela is not there. It turns out that the show’s conductor is also the piano player at the Dead Rat, because sometime before this scene, she moved out of the box seat and down to the stage. What I found neat was that the video monitor camera either went with her or switched views so that she could still conduct while on stage.

Tamara gives up pestering Suzy for a bit to go paint, with Kizette modeling. In “Mama Look at Me,” Kizette quietly begs her mother to actually see her, but as usual Tamara is absorbed in her work and keeps viewing her daughter in terms of the parts of the image she is creating. Giving up after one last “Mama…”, Kizette eventually changes tack and asks why Tamara has told people Kizette was born in Warsaw (rather than Petrograd). Tamara explains the microaggression toward Jews that drove her answer (a modern variant might be “where are you really from?”) and provides a capsule history of the independent Polish state complete with morphing background projections, which I found clunkily expository the first time I saw it but appreciated more in subsequent viewings since I am sadly not nerdy enough about European history.  It also sets up some of the background of Tadeusz claiming his Polish identity, which will lead to conflict later. Tamara further explains her tactic of deflection where she deliberately makes people focus on the thing she wants them to see. (Come to think of it, the show itself has done this a few times.)

There is a fun scene transition where Rafaela shows up and Suzy calls out “she’s here!” from across the stage to Tamara while she’s still in the studio with Kizette, and Tamara being Tamara she promptly ditches her adoring, needy daughter to go meet Rafaela at the Dead Rat.

Tamara and Rafaela drink and converse and find common ground and gradually the conversation turns to more personal topics, as Tamara alludes to the story of the third guard. Seeing some kinship in Tamara’s vulnerability, Rafaela offers Tamara opium to help her relax, and asks the musicians for “Bracelet, in A.” As Rafaela sings “The Most Beautiful Bracelet” (basically directly to Tamara, even as she’s feeling up the other patrons of the bar), Tamara is staring back at her with naked longing.

(Note: I did miss the song “Stillness” from previous productions and the buildup it provided for the relationship between Tamara and Rafaela, but understand why it would be removed since it did kind of kill momentum. This version works even with the seduction happening sooner.)

After the song, Tamara is tongue-tied and loopy. In this state of confusion she again falls back on the language of art to express her attraction by professing a fascination with Rafaela’s lipstick color, which leads to a kiss, which leads to Tamara bringing Rafaela back to her studio where, to the sound of a sweeping romantic instrumental, they start removing their clothing (Tamara appears to be briefly awestruck when Rafaela is standing before her in only a slip) and climb into the bed with Tamara sitting atop Rafaela.

I must talk about this lighting effect now (but bear in mind I know exactly nothing about stage lighting). For most of the love scene it is dimly lit, evoking nighttime with some sort of limited external light such as street lights, or perhaps a full moon through a window. Onstage there is a row of smallish circular bluish-white lights running the length of the top of the stage which start out pointing downward toward the stage. As Tamara moves her body against Rafaela and slowly extends her arm upward in an expression of passion, the row of lights rotates upward to point toward the audience. As they rotate it appears they are getting brighter (or maybe it is just due to the lights shining more directly at the audience) and the light becomes blinding as Tamara reaches (a very strongly implied) orgasm. At the same time, the lighting below dims, the music diminishes, and Tamara, Rafaela, and everything on stage fade from visibility into a nearly opaque wall of cloudy blue. It was very cool to look at and I don’t think I am doing it justice with my description.

Later I was thinking about how that might work; when the audience comes in at the beginning of the show, I did notice this fog-effect going on at the top of the stage:

So I wonder if they can maybe crank that fog machine (or whatever) up and let the vapor diffuse throughout the stage area for this scene, then when the time comes they can hit the area with lights such the light scatters in a particular spectrum, or maybe they can just use colored filters, I don’t know. But then how do you ensure that the wall of haze is uniform and stays where it needs to be? Anyway, maybe a lighting designer has explained it somewhere on the internet.

It’s still nighttime, and Tamara wakes and exits the room to gather her thoughts, when unexpectedly a slightly drunk, apologetic Tadeusz shows up to give her flowers. Wracked with guilt over how she has betrayed their relationship, Tamara goes back into her studio intending to end the liaison right then. But when she sees the sleeping Rafaela illuminated by a gentle light, she forgets everything else as she launches into “Woman Is.” And who can blame her? There is a very cool visual sequence during the song when Tamara sings “I want to feel your soft lips, your sharp teeth” etc. and piece by piece the lighted edges of the set behind her start to come alive (partly visible in this video from Production Stage Manager Cody Renard Richard).

Finally the song ends, the curtain falls and when the lights go up we see the imposing image of “La Belle Rafaela” throughout intermission.

(Part 2 coming soon-ish)

[dgalerab]

Honestly I never thought about Dadzawa in the context of like... being obsessed with the nuclear family structure 🤔 that's an interesting way to think about the fandoms interest in it.

For me personally (as someone who does like Dadzawa), it's always been more of a reflection of my issues with my parents growing up and how I experienced parentification in addition to a deep innate desire to have had someone who would have literally sacrificed themself for my well being at that age like Aizawa does for 1-A. Plus I really love the dynamic between Aizawa and Midoriya. The complexity of the way Aizawa sees Shirakumo in Midoriya and how it influences the way he interacts with him and looks after him is just so interesting to explore and Aizawa acting as a parental figure to him is a vehicle in which to do that.

I'm with you on the not getting the obsession with having him adopt 1-A kids though. Don't get me wrong I'm not against him adopting if it makes sense in the context of the story being told but sometimes it feels like it happens for the sake of checking off that list of things successful adult lives need to accomplish and as a result can feel so forced. We can have Aizawa being parental and forming a deeper bond with one of his students without him needing to make them legally his. Family is deeper than some paperwork and the obsession with this possession is really uncomfortable to me. Why can't found family just be a mutual understanding and love of one another without needing to make it 'official' anymore haha.

So I definitely get where you are coming from with regards to the obsession with making the Erasermic family into a nuclear situation. I feel like it extends past the whole Dadzawa situation and into the way Aizawa and Mic are depicted. I cannot read fics where Aizawa and Mic's characters are diluted down to talkative flamboyant husband and unfeeling angry husband, not only because it does a disservice to the depth of their characters but because when people write them like that they are specifically doing it to make Mic coded to be the 'wife' of the relationship and it's so obnoxious. They can be in love and not fill the typical heteronormative roles in a relationship y'all. They are just two disasters 🫡

Sorry that was super longwinded and I hope it didn't come off as me trying to convince you to like Dadzawa because that is absolutely not what I was trying to do. I just thought the way you interpreted the interest in Dadzawa was insightful and had never considered it before and wanted to share my perspective! Also I like having in depth conversations about BNHA lmao. Hopefully that's okay! 🫶 Feel free to ignore this if you want.

oh god oh no the consequences of my actions haha

see, whenever i'm bitching and hating on fanon takes i always feel like i'm reacting to those ubiquitous "everyone knows this is canon lol" takes. i think any hc can be valid and from a place of someone genuinely exploring a potential story that speaks to them and like. let's be real canon is just not important enough to overwrite that potential, even if it's not necessarily "in character."

but i think a lot of the time you walk in to a fandom and everyone's just like yep this is The Take. and you're like. why. that's weird. and then i go and write a post being like EXCUSE ME YOU'RE ALL WRONG. and then inevitably it ends up landing on the people who are like. genuinely thinking about the characters and want to explore certain tropes and they're like. oh no. am i wrong?? and i have to be like nooooo not you you precious angel.

gonna be so real i forget it's not just my 10 reliable likers and mutuals who see my posts. ain u have nearly 3k followers pls.

anyway i think that fandom ultimately likes to have like. a lot of quick-start hcs. like a lot of the same-yness of fanon comes from the fact that sometimes it's just a social endeavor and not a literary one, and so there's a little bit of a speed dating type "here are the vibes let's chat and make things" element to fanon. but i think that also crosses over into really flat and sort of... idk if i want to say conservative but stereotypical takes? it's a fascinating phenomenon and it's both a boon of fandom bc it makes things very social and communicative and also a bit of a failing bc that sort of shortcut characterization does land on a lot of like. preconceptions that can be shallow or toxic or whatever

anyway this is a very round about way of saying tl;dr: you're totally valid and i just yell about certain attitudes being the fandom standard bc after a while my patience wears thin seeing the same take i think is wrong and i'm here on main being like NO. I DON'T LIKE THOSE STANDARDS. AND ALSO YOU'RE GOOFY.

[eilinelsghost]

For the directors cut, can you talk about Ye Shall Render Blood? Why did you choose to put it where you did in the series? Did aikanaro forgive finrod before he died? 🥺🥺🥺

You know what? That is a great question. Why did I put it there? I have....no idea. It just decided for itself that's where it was supposed to show up - much like In Memory Untarnished inserted itself in the middle of the Estolad scenes without consulting me. (I realize it is weird to talk about my own writing making decisions as though it is sentient, but sometimes that's exactly how it feels lol). But I'll give it my best shot. :)

On a basic level, it is doing what I've attempted to do with various aspects of this series: juxtaposing the origin and result of various actions throughout this story arc. The intention behind those juxtapositions is to reflect how much Finrod's story with the Edain is operating in an echoing circle. For example:

He finds them while hunting; He dies for them while hunted

He illumines knowledge with song; He conceals knowledge with song

They take him as their king; He casts down his crown for their sake

They swear fealty to him; He swears reciprocity to them

etc, etc, etc, until it meets in the middle with the despair of "dwelling in Death's shadow."

So this scene was positioned here in order to highlight a couple of these juxtapositions.

These all hinge on the title reference, quoted too in the body of the piece itself, that "For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death’s shadow. "

The previous installment (Unfriends) ended with Balan swearing a blood oath to Finrod on behalf of himself and his people. This shocks Finrod in the moment - using blood to mark an oath, which is foreign to him - but by the time we reach the Fen of Serech, he does just that in return, with hardly a thought. It is his blood shed, his oath given. His hand and his ring are marked with his blood as he gives them to Barahir, even as Balan's arm was marked with blood in sign of his own oath.

Another reason for placing this right after Part 3 was the mirrored wounding and saving. Unfriends operates around Belen's wounding and eventual recovery. Ye Shall Render Blood operates around Finrod's wounding and eventual rescue. Even the wounds themselves mirror each other with each pierced in his side. Again following that circle of reversal, Finrod is retracing his encounters with the Edain as he moves forward toward his death - each occurring in reflection where the image is reversed and not quite its original. Finrod brings Belen back from death's brink to a life brimming with hope as the Edain settle in Estolad. Barahir brings Finrod back from death's brink to the years of despair leading up to his quest with Beren. As Balan puts it at the end of Unfriends, "Whatever might come, they were bound—his house and the Nómin—tied till the ending of all things."

There's a whole other tangent I could go on about Finrod and the Fen itself (stagnant water), but that's not really related to why this scene showed up where it did in the series, so I'll save that for another time. Though I will direct you to this post answering an earlier ask about the realization scene in A Heady Fragrance of Honey if you'd like to hear me wax longwinded about how Finrod and water operate symbolically throughout this series ;)

And then for part 2 of your question! Well....I think answering that one too specifically might be a bit of a spoiler for things down the line. However, I will offer the comforting thought that in Part 1 of the series, Aegnor himself tells Finrod at their parting that forgiveness is coming.

------

Thanks so much for the ask!

[shandian-go]

Shandian GO - 2nd Anniversary Celebration!

I can’t believe it’s been two whole years since this group order was created and to celebrate this milestone, I’ve put together some events to thank all the joiners that made this GO possible :D

1) Giveaway

The lovely yuka_cchii has designed some adorable USB cards to commemorate the second anniversary of the GO! There are 5 options available (MDZS, TGCF, SVSSS, SHL and 2ha) and they’re free to order!

The giveaway is open to all registered Shandian GO joiners (past and present). Maximum 1 USB card per joiner, first come first served! 

➥ Link to listing

2) Mid Year Survey

I’m always thinking of ways to improve the GO experience for joiners and would love to get your input about the GO process through the survey. There’s been a number of changes since the last survey and I’d love to hear what worked for you and what didn’t, and also get a sense of what you’d like to see from the GO going forward :)

The survey can be submitted anonymously but if you do want to leave your contact details, I’ll be doing a prize draw for survey participants as a thank you! There will be 6 winners and each winner will receive a $10.00 CAD gift voucher for the GO~

➥ Link to survey (ends July 31, 2022)

3) New Feedback Gifts

The monthly feedback prize draw has been replaced by a new process that will allow all joiners to claim some goodies for posting feedback for their packages :D 

All feedback posts posted after May 31, 2022 are eligible for this new process. 

Joiners who posted feedback before May 31, 2022 and have never won a feedback draw prize will also get a maximum of one (1) roll-forward entry for the new process. This means that when you claim your feedback gift for the first time, you’ll be able to submit one (1) URL link for a post dated before May 31, 2022.

If you have any questions about the new process, feel free to use the Tumblr Askbox :) 

➥ Link to feedback gifts page

Lastly, thank you all so much for your ongoing support for this GO and sticking around through all the ups and downs over these past two years. I'm grateful and humbled by all the trust you've placed in me and will keep working hard to be deserving of that trust. 

I hope the goodies you receive from me continue to bring you joy and if fate allows it, I also hope we’ll be able to celebrate again together a year from now~

- Mel

[notisaidthefrogg-blog]

Dear Octopath Exchange Creator...

Hello! I really appreciate you reading this letter and I eagerly anticipate your awesome creation! As a writer myself, I’ve probably made my requests/prompts very narrative-based; feel free to take inspiration from any part to turn into art if that is your strength! If you have any questions/would like to challenge any unreasonable requests, don’t hesitate to ask on anon!

(edit: this ended up being way longer than it had any right to be, I just tried to make up for any restrictions with a whole bunch of prompts, I probably rambled way too much, don’t feel pressured to read the whole thing)

First of all, I’ll just introduce myself briefly because I haven’t posted here before. I am Frogg (Nebulariffic on Ao3). You won’t have seen me around at all because I tend to lurk on sites like Tumblr, but I’ve been following the Octopath fandom since the game’s release and I’ve really loved the fan creations that have come from it! This is the first fandom exchange I’ve participated in here, and I’m hoping it will help me come out of my shell enough to post some of my other fan works!

But enough about me, time to get to my gift preferences! I do have some odd tastes by some standards, but as long as there’s no DNWs, I’m sure I’ll love whatever you come up with! Again, if anything here seems unreasonable, just message me and we can come up with something.

I’ll start with what I really like:

- Friendship/found family fluff! I’m a sucker for some high quality friendships and nothing forges friendships like trekking across the continent together! I think that our favourite eight travellers have a lot of potential for fun interactions together, or even if it’s just one or two of them with some NPCs or other characters!

- On the other side of the spectrum, hurt/comfort featuring supportive pals just warms my heart! Cheery friend/s lifting spirits of sad friend/s? Wonderful. Multiple sad friends taking comfort in each other? Exquisite. Again, there’s so much potential with this crew to make something really touching!

- Character growth! This may or may not be self explanatory, but I love characters doing tricky things and becoming better people for it. Things like working up courage to admit fault, apologise, forgive, put aside differences, or generally facing and conquering fears!

- If you have a cool AU idea, I’d love to see it!

Now as for my dislikes, these are mostly things that I’d be okay seeing in general, but I’d just rather not have in something I was requesting.

- This one’s going to seem a bit odd/prudish, but I’d like for no non-canon romantic/sexual pairings. I’m fine with super-close ambiguous friendships with hugs and comfort, but I’ve always felt weird about non-canon ships. Besides, I think we could do with more platonic friendships!

- If you would like to go for a non-canon romantic pairing anyway, I’d be okay with that just as long as it stays Lite(TM). In particular, I really don’t like pieces focussed on marriage proposals, weddings and pregnancies (especially mpreg) - that’s just something I’ve never liked in fic/art.

- Please no excessive emphasis on past abuse... It’s okay for characters to remember dark moments in their pasts, but detailed flashbacks and characters bemoaning their existences just make me feel like garbage.

- I’d prefer no prominent OCs. Background roles are cool, but self-inserts/reader-inserts/fanchildren and the like break my immersion.

And for my DNWs:

- No smut/porn/nudity

- No rape/non-con

- No underage/incest

- No kinks

- No excessive violence

- No character bashing

- No major character death (unless it’s directly portraying/referencing a canon event)

I make that last point because you can’t very well have a Primrose-Chapter-1-centric moment without Yusufa, for example.

Now we get to the fun bit - prompts! I realise that I drive a hard bargain by requesting all eight travellers, and I’d be perfectly fine if you only want to focus on a subset of them. If you have an idea for something based on what I’ve already mentioned, then go for it, but if you’re stuck, I’ve got some prompts based on who I’d particularly like to see! I’ve also provided some general/AU prompts, and if you want to go with one of those prompts, you can include any number of the travellers as you please!

Alfyn - If I had to pick a favourite traveller, it would be this wholesome boy.

I’d love to see him helping out his friends if they get sick or injured, or if they just need someone to listen. Counsellor Alf is a very good Alf!

If you want to go for super-angst, I’d suggest something related to his Chapter 3. There’s so much to unpack in that chapter alone that the game couldn’t even touch on!

Olberic - I think Olberic is really under-represented in fan works, and I’d love to see more of him!

I know he has a softer side, particularly around children, and it would be cool to see that played against his protective aggression. Maybe the group gets attacked and Olberic has to defend them?

H’aanit - Another underrated character imo. If the prospect of H’aanit-speak is too intimidating, I wouldn’t be offended if you just had her talk normally.

H’aanit always strikes me as the kind of quiet, stoic character who doesn’t say much, but every one of her words is meaningful, if a little blunt. Perhaps some wacky antics will get her to open up? (wink wink nudge nudge)

Or maybe she accidentally offends someone and (with coaching from the rest of the team) gets enough social courage to apologise?

Does Linde count as an unrequested character since she’s not on my request list? I jest, but feel free to make something with her and/or her relationship with H’aanit if that strikes your fancy! If you want a Linde prompt, maybe something that contrasts her noble-fierce-wild-beast side with her big-domestic-cat side? 

Other travellers -  If you want to make something focussed on any of the other travellers, that’s perfectly okay too! I just don’t have any specific prompts for them (bc its 2:30am here and I’m tired). Just hit me up if you’d like prompts for a character I haven’t touched on here!

General/AU prompts -

Rescue Fic: Nothing says “I care about you” than “you were in X predicament and I got you out of it”. Ties in very well with the fear-facing I mentioned in my likes. The only question is, is it one or two people saving the rest of the team, or is it seven looking for their missing friend? You decide!

Innocent Bystander: This is one of my bigger prompts, so you can skip this idea if it’s too longwinded/complex. Team OCTOPATH blows through town, leaving innkeeper/barkeep OC (or other NPC) to chase after them and witness/reflect on/clean up after their shenanigans. I can elaborate on this idea further if you like, just shoot me an ask!

Modern AU: How would the backstories/jobs of the cast translate into modern day? How would they meet/become friends? I love seeing theories for this topic.

Band AU: You know that new Break, Boost and Beyond artwork? The one where half the cast is practically a rock band (looking at you Olberic)? Tell me how that happened. Go nuts.

I think I’m going to wrap up this letter here, hopefully some of this was useful! Of course, feel free to disregard my prompts if you’ve already got ideas, or hit me up by anon if you want me to elaborate on any of these ideas. And of course, have fun and thanks for making me a thing!

Sincerely, Frogg (Nebula)

[icequeen-shiva]

what i need to say to you, as a fat girl.

i’m going to put it under a cut, not because i’m embarrassed but because i know i’m going to get longwinded and i know some people won’t appreciate a gigantic, lengthy post clogging up their dash. and i get that! that’s me sometimes too. it’s cool, fam. it’s... it’s a damn novel. i’m not going to lie. i’m sorry it got so long. there’s a lot of history. but i don’t know how else to make it so clear and understandable without going deep. everything in here is exactly what i want known. so... yeah, it’s long.

i just had my yearly gynecological appoint a week ago. she stressed to me that she couldn't be happier with me, even with my weight. my blood work was, she called it, wonderful. my levels are good! i’m not even close enough to pre-diabetic that she felt a need to caution me. i’m healthy, according to my blood, she said. keep doing what i’m doing, she said, based on science and my blood, not my stomach, where all my weight seems to go. i am blessed that my doctor is kind. she knows that i, and others like me, am doing the best i can to find more healthy and nutritional things that work for me (and while i won’t go into it here, i will say that i have a fucked up home life that doesn’t make it easy). she knows pcos is fighting me every step of the way on losing weight. but she is proud of me and supports me and when she wants to talk about my weight, that is how she addresses it: with positive suggestions, not shaming me, not guilting me into feeling like i’ve done this wrong and disappointed everyone.

yes, i could exercise more. i’m not in shape, but the tests come back that, overall, i’m healthy, but that doesn’t seem to matter, because i’m still fat.

it shouldn’t be this hard to write. i shouldn’t be crying while i write this, but it’s been beaten into me (not literally) since i was a child that i’m not worth it if i’m fat. i went from kindergarten through eighth grade to a very small school (at its largest while i went there, my class had 36 people total) and i lived on the very edge of the district. if a friend wanted to do anything, we had to coordinate with our parents who was going where, whose parents were driving and what time would we get together, what time would someone need picked up, etc. and i was fat. i’ve been overweight since the day i was born, coming out at 10 pounds. i wasn’t into sports, which was absolutely what this school put almost all of its focus on. i was into art, which was the last thing this school put its focus on. i was quiet, i didn’t live in town, i didn’t want to play kickball or basketball at recess, i wanted to sit on the swings and draw. i was the weird kid, and i also happened to be the fat kid in my grade. the only fat kid. so i was an undesirable, and i just... got used to it. i will never forget how sick i felt in seventh grade, in the girls’ locker room after gym one day, when one of the thinnest girls was almost crying about her reflection and how fat she looked. i felt terrible for her, because if she really believed that then that girl needed help, but i also felt absolutely sick and knew i wanted to be annnywhere else but that school with these girls. i was lucky enough that my mom finally agreed to let me go to the school just a hop over the district line for high school. i met the best friend i’ve ever had in my whole life. i met other fat kids. i won the art club scholarship when i was a senior. my entire social existence was not predicated on “she doesn’t live here, she’s an oddball, and she’s fat” for the first fucking time.

but i was still fat in high school, and still pretty weird, i won’t lie, so i was still not the girl asked to any dances. i was never invited to any parties. i’m lucky that i wasn’t bullied for my fatness. a couple underclassmen punks behind me in the hallway tried one time, but at this point, i had perfected my glare and intimidation voice, so when i stopped, turned around, glared, and dared them to say that one more time, they didn’t. i was picked on for my goth aesthetic more than i was my weight, and that was fine. it wasn’t my weight, so i could live with it. i had my friends, i had my art classes, i had english and history where the teachers loved me and how good i was at these subjects. but i never had a date. i never had a first kiss. i never had any of this. i was fat, and i was weird. i’m not blaming it all on my physical appearance. everyone is embarrassingly weird as a teenager, i think, and if you weren’t then you’re lying.

for varying reasons, i didn’t get to go away for college. i went where my parents demanded i go, to a community branch of ohio state, with looming promises of “oh, you can transfer to columbus in a year or two, it’ll be fine” that ended up never happening. it was just like high school all over again. it was so small, and so limited, and so full of the same kind of people i’d been with the last four years already. i was still the fat weird girl. i grew into both of these. i learned to carry them each much better, i started taking theatre classes and auditioning for the plays, i even got the fucking lead in a one season. i was antigone, and i was, for the first time, excited about myself.

it didn’t last, though. the theater kids were, contrary to how they’re depicted so often and what other people’s stories have been, mean. so i left it. i never acted on that campus again. and it hurt like a motherfucker when i reminded myself that i gave up like that. but it was easier to do that. it was easier to take myself out of the spotlight than it was to constantly fight and defend my right to have it just like anyone else. now... there’s a lot of other issues in my life, that i’m not willing to address right now. all of my friends moved a few hours away from me. i’m not exaggerating, though i wish i was. i never ended up leaving. i dropped out of college when my depression was spiraling out of control and i wasn’t reeeeally functioning at all. i still live at home, in this close-minded, rural, midwestern place, because i’m terrified of leaving my mother with her depression that’s much worse than mine has ever been and i have no one in this area at all that i trust enough to be roommates with, and i can’t afford living on my own without that crutch. that’s as far as i’m willing to go. but this-- leaving acting, that i had loved so much-- was really a tipping point into the depression i have struggled with for almost my entire adult life.

and that depression and continued social rejection has really drummed in further i am fat. i have no hope of anyone ever thinking i’m beautiful. no one will ever really be attracted to me. i can fix my face with makeup but i cannot hide my gut, and that will repulse them.

i’m 28 years old and still-- fucking still-- the only time i’ve ever been shown romantic interest, was a joke. the only time someone has ever given me their phone number was a goddamn joke. it was at a restaurant, where i wasn’t afraid to order what i wanted and enjoy eating it, and i probably looked like a pig. i like food. we kind of need it to survive, and if i’m going to a restaurant with my friends, i’m going to get what i want, what sounds good, and enjoy myself with my friends, not get only a small salad because i have to watch my weight and i have to look like the meek, ashamed fat girl who’s trying to do better. i don’t have to look like anything, for anyone. but for a long time after i realized that number was a joke, i stopped doing all of that. i’d barely eat when we went out. i’d cry about it in the bathroom. i’d cry about it in bed. i cried a lot. and i hated myself. i’ve somehow managed to mostly overcome that. but it’s been hard, and let me repeat: i can only say mostly.

so what i really, really need you to know, and this is directed to the tickle community more than it is anyone else right now... this is why, if/when i get suddenly upset about belly tickles; if/when i get very quiet and withdrawn, when my dash is flooded with “ideal” bodies with their cute bellies getting tickled; if/when i get very feet-centric again because, after over a decade of navigating through my kink preferences and finding a place in this community, i’ve convinced myself over and over again that “if you keep it focused on your feet, they won’t notice that you’re fat.” which is ridiculous because in online play, nobody has to know that if i don’t say anything. but i will know. i will always know, when i present myself in rp as some small, cute, only a little bit chubby girl, that i’m lying.

it’s so hard being fat in such a physical kink. so fucking hard. even the plus size girls in the videos don’t look like me. it’s incredibly appreciated, don’t get me wrong, and it’s... it’s not even that i’m ~so big. i don’t look as heavy as i am. i’ve been accused of looking for attention and saying i’m heavier than i really am, when i try to be honest about how much the scale says (which honestly just makes me incredibly paranoid that maybe i have some giant cyst(s) on my ovaries that’s distending everything and heavy af with a bunch of fluid and crap, as is the hallmark symptom of polycystic ovarian syndrome, but that’s another essay). but it’s heavy enough to bother me. and that just gets problematic, because it’s not right of me to think “well, at least i’m not that size,” because the girl that size is having the same struggles as i am, probably. 

there’s literally one person i’ve ever spoken to that has told me, and i believe truthfully, they think i’m cute and that i’m worth it. and they live in england, thousands of miles away. and he wasn’t a “chubby chaser,” and i truly believe he wasn’t saying it out of pity. he meant it. but he’s the definition of unattainable.

i need you to understand that you need to be patient with me, if we’re really going to play, because the hardest thing i can do is accept that you don’t think i’m disgusting. because at the end of the day, i can be as confident in my personality and my intelligence and my skills as possible, but i will still look down at my stomach, hanging over the waistband of my pj shorts, and i will still think this is disgusting and it’s no wonder i’m alone.

[locke-writes]

Shows First, Fandoms Later

Tagging: @ghostofachancewithyou (hope you don’t mind. I saw your comment and thought you might want to read.

AN: There might be fandoms mentioned as examples but this is not targeted towards any specific fandoms/shows or people in particular. This is solely my experience and opinion based on what I’ve seen in my time on tumblr. You have every right to disagree and if you have any opinions or questions at the end of this monstrosity please don’t hesitate to share/ask. I’m sorry for the length in advance

I’ve been on tumblr a long ass time. Six years to be exact (now don’t go fact checking because this blog is newer than my personal so it won’t actually reflect my tumblr age). But being on tumblr for so long had taught me a lot and made me observant of a lot of trends. Now most trends come and go but the one that I’ve seen remained is people gravitating to the fandom of a show before getting into the show itself. 

Now I want to say before launching into why this isn’t a good choice that I don’t mean people who start watching a show based on gifs they’ve seen. I’ve been one of those people who thought something looked interesting because someone reblogged a gifset. This is a perfectly fine way of expanding your interests and I by no means discourage you from partaking in media because you saw something about it on your dash.

No what I’m referring to is getting into a show because you follow someone who began watching something and now they’re posting longwinded posts about why ______ shouldn't have happened or how could _______ have done that thing. I’m talking about people getting into shows because they might be drawn to a certain ship based solely on the reblogged or created content of someone they follow. No context, no character backstory, no nothing. You just base your own opinion off the opinions of others and as such these become your only opinions when partaking in the show. 

That’s the kind of problems I’m talking about.

Now Noah, you might ask, 

1. Why is this such a bad thing? 

2. What if I’ve done this before and haven’t changed my mind? 

3. Or what if I haven’t stepped into the problematic side of a fandom because of this? 

Well then I say to you. 

1. It isn’t a bad thing. At least not necessarily. Stepping into a fandom based on analytical posts can be perfectly fine so long as the analytical posts are about content rather than a ship. Getting into a fandom or a show specifically because of posts you’ve seen about the representation it has or the feminism in it is all perfectly fine. Getting into a show based on posts solely based on why one ship is superior than another. Bad. Harmful. Can be more hurtful to you in the long run than helpful.

Let’s look at Superwholock as a whole to examine this as these three fandoms were once some of the largest and some of the largest proprietors of ship war content. For those unaware of how Superwholock came to be or why these three shows with little to nothing in common are always grouped together allow an ancient of tumblr to explain.

When you first joined tumblr in 2012 it was a desolate place. Barely any content for any fandoms at all. Memes were abundant yet scarce at the same time. There were no fights between fandoms and the anonymous hate was there but rare and usually by someone who would slip up and send a hate message off anon only then to be exposed to the world. It was the reign of tumblr user pizza before she got her blog deleted for promoting diet pills and it was the days of either hating John Green for no reason or playing the “is that John Green” game. Now Superwholock got combined because at the time these were the main three fandoms people were in. The main three highjacking posts with their comments or gifs, and the main three fandoms that everyone was in. If you were into Supernatural or Sherlock or Doctor Who, then you were bound to be in one of the other two, both of them, or know someone who was.

Tumblr history lesson over we’ll get back to why watching a show based on analytical content of gifs and character actions isn’t helpful to you as a viewer. And we're going from firsthand experience here. I’m baring it all to you embarrassment be damned. Supernatural was my first tumblr fandom and I got into that fandom based on gifs that seemed interesting and the main ship that got tumblr either joyful or upset, Destiel. That’s Dean Winchester and Castiel if you’re out of the loop. 

Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with the ship and good for you if you ship it. I’m just going off why you shouldn’t watch a show because of ship content or other non-critical content. (and yes I know ship content/queerbaiting content can be critical content but a lot of the time those critics are based on nothing at all and can be debunked by rewatching a scene. But that’s another post and argument for another day). 

Seeing all the Destiel content on tumblr I was absolutely one hundred percent sure that I would ship them. That if I watched the show not only would I enjoy it but now I would 100% understand why everyone shipped them and what everyone was talking about when they talked about certain Destiel related scenes. But the problem was that when I began watching the show and getting to the seasons with Castiel, I didn’t see it. I didn’t get any romantic attraction between the two, in fact the ship began to not make sense at all. I couldn’t understand what people saw or where they saw it. Destiel scenes on tumblr made no more sense with context because now that I knew the context I didn't find anything ship worthy about them. For awhile I kept watching because I wanted to see it, eventually I thought I would gain shipping goggles, that something would happen. But the only thing that happened is that I began hating the fandom because it bothered me that what I saw wasn’t what they seemed to see, I felt that I was in the wrong. I began stumbling across shipping wars and seeing just how hateful a fandom could become, bashing the actors for not acknowledging a ship, bashing the writers for not making it canon. Fighting amongst themselves and sending death threats to people who didn’t ship what they did who might ship Castiel with Sam or someone else but not Dean. And because I got into the fandom first I was blinded to the true hatred. I had seen all this at the start but I had already bought into the fact these ship wars weren't hateful because I was on the right side, I had bought into the idea that the show I had yet to begun to watch was only what I had seen on tumblr and only what everyone seemed to see rather than gather my own opinion of it. 

I had stumbled across a fandom in which everyone seemed to be creating something so wholly separate from the show that I believed it was the show. The content I consumed by the fandom was what I imagined the true content to be and then when I began the show on my own it crumbled and I became disillusioned. Burnt out on the thing that had first brought me joy. 

Fandoms can be fantastic places but getting into them first can mean that you are getting into a fans perception of the show rather than the show itself rather than formulate an opinion of your own based on the content you choose to consume. Watch what you want and if you chose it based on tumblr content like gifs than good for you, but formulate your own opinion rather than base it off of argumentative posts one of your friends made. 

2. If you’ve began watching a show because of these analytical posts and possible ideologies about certain ships and haven’t changed your mind than good for you. Maybe you separated the content from the posting on your own or maybe that content influenced your viewing habits but that ship or that character or whatever does make sense to you. I'm not saying that getting into a fandom first is 100% inherently bad, I’m just saying that it can be. If you enjoy someones content on here and their opinions and consume the media for yourself finding that your opinions do end up aligning for the most part with that other persons, there’s nothing wrong with it. You just happen to share a similar opinion with someone. 

Fandoms are great and so are the people in them. Just be sure to formulate your own opinions about the content. If it aligns with some of the things you saw before you began watching, well alright then there’s nothing wrong with that.

3. Every side of a fandom can be problematic in some way. If by some miracle you’ve found other like minded individuals who understand that ship wars are petty and childish and blaming show runners and writers for things that you wanted to happen but didn’t than stay there and never leave. Stay in that miracle bubble. I’m not saying don’t hold up the writers and show runners up to certain standards. Of course do that, of course argue for representation and the like. Just don’t be a dick about it, do some research on who controls what aspect of a tv show, don’t attack people who work on the show, don’t claim to own the actors. And most importantly, treat them with respect. They are humans too yknow. Be upset with the turn out of something, you’ve every right to be, but don’t be upset that someone else didn’t get offended at the same thing you did. TV shows aren’t like real life. If you don’t get offended that this ship didn’t become canon you aren’t racist or sexist or homophobic, you simply just are looking at it in a different light. Unless of course you didn't like the thing because you are racist, sexist, or homophobic. 

Basically. All fandoms are problematic in one way or another whether you see it or not. Reexamine yourself and the way you consume your content, the way you talk about it as well. Enjoy content for yourself.

All in all, watching a show because you liked something that happened in a gifset is completely fine. I’ve done it, plenty of people have done it, it’s a great way to find that new favorite character or thing. Just be sure that if you get into something because you saw some detailed post about why _______ should happen or ________ should become canon, don’t base your entire show watching experience on that. Base your experience with media off of what you want and are looking for. Don't be afraid to disagree with those old posts you thought you were going to identify with after watching and don’t be afraid to unfollow people who communicate only through hate or who’s opinions you find yourself disagreeing with. The shows you watch and the posts you look at should be ones you enjoy. If you don't enjoy the content then something might be wrong.

TL;DR: Getting into a show and watching it for yourself is great. Getting into a show because of gifs is great. Getting into a show because of analysis based posts can be harmful if you don’t step back and consume the media while formulating your own opinion.

[jdaigleprocess-blog]

Process Journal: Definition

In coming to our problem definition, our group employed various execises from the asynchronous material to pinpoint a problem, including the exercise of writing out a longwinded problem, highlighting the key points, and rewriting statements in a more concise format. Additionally, we broke out individually to list of as many problems that we could think of as possible, and then came back as a group and did a casual vote on which problems stuck out to us the most. Further, to even begin any of this, we looked at our morphological analysis and uncovered a trend, that the danger column yielded similar fears across all applications. This initial discovery led us to pinpointing danger, specifically surrounding either privacy or security, as our area of focus. 

We met as a group earlier on in the week over zoom to hash out some of our findings once we came to this conclusion. In this meeting, we each advocated for our various interests, and ultimately underwent another individualized brainstorming session following the group meeting. This time, we each wrote out all of our concerns surrounding the main characteristics we discussed, including, data security, risk, manipulation, privacy concerns, mass destruction, consumer deceit, etc. This time, our brainstorming was live on the google doc we were each contributing to, so that we could comment on each other’s thoughts and respond back to them. 

What was the greatest challenge was deciding whether we wanted to go super specific, ie. stalking, spying, manipulating Internet of Things devices in consumers’ homes, or more broad, ie. that users are at risk of having their data exploited for financial, personal, or malicious gain. 

_______ 

Here is some of the brainstorming from our google doc, where we navigated through our interests surrounding the problem. 

- Consumer-based

- Uneasy-ness of use

- Iot is convenient at what cost?

- Capture how we feel- the benefits

- Moving from Divergent to Convergent

Problems with it:

Lack of access

Little to no law

Misuse

Concerns

Data is not safe

Possible Problem Statements:

People are uncomfortable with their data being housed in servers that are not full-proof secured from hacking.

Our data is at risk of privacy intrusion by large corporations and services, which could lead to discrimination and bias.

Internet of Things is in its early stages of adoption, and therefore there is a lacking in regulation and standard practice to protect the data it utilizes.

Hackers are constantly developing new mechanisms to break into secure systems, jeopardizing trust in the Internet of Things products

IoT products are at risk of cyber threats, which can impact users at both an individual and societal scale.

Consumers are uneasy with their data being up there, however they understand the benefits of it being out-there, so there should be some sort of entity that easies consumer’s feelings of uneasiness with interacting with internet of things technology

We understand the benefits of IoT technology, but there are concerns about how our information and data is being collected by tech companies.

I am concerned with IOT because I understand the power of data  is ever increasing quicker than the laws that governs it. It scares me knowing that these large amounts of data can be collected  and misused by

To Opt in or Not to Opt in, that is the question. ( although it is supposed to be declarative )

- Ethics

Problem Statement: 

- IOT products are marketed as devices that solve a range of problems for users. For example, a smart home device makes it easier to monitor your home while away, smart watches provide health benefits that allow you to monitor your activity level through the day, and smart cameras capture the best moments of your life with minimal effort.

- Though most IOT products are still in their early stages of development and are still mostly being used by early adapters, there is a growing concern around the security and privacy of the data that fuels the efficiency of these products. It appears that though consumers are benefitting from these products, there is an inherent cost that has not been fully examined on either the consumer or business side.

Notes from asynchronous: Convergent Activity

- Clearer the problem, the more accurate the solution

- CLEAR LANGUAGE KEY TO ARTICULATE SOLUTION MOST EFFECTIVELY

- Who is influenced/most impacted by this problem?

“Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group used to define the problem and summarize those activities in a new post in your process journal.. How did you come to a consensus on what characteristics of the problem needs to be addressed?”

Need to identify the characteristics we are focusing on

Possible Problem Statements: Highlight and StrikeThrough method from asynchronous material

Initial: Internet of Things technology connects our world and drives greater convenience, however it also exposes its users to a plethora or privacy and security threats.

These threats include misuse of data for financial gain or exploitation, where companies or individuals who have access to our data can utilize it to their own agenda, especially if it is unaware to the users themselves. Those collecting said data have access to the IoT devices, which means they could possibly manipulate those devices to record, enact, alert, or in some other way, interfere with the users’ life without their permission or knowledge. This is a privacy risk that needs attention. Similarly, while some regulation exists requiring warnings of the use of data, the laws are falling far behind the speed of adoption of internet of things products, exposing users to risk. This is a security risk, because users may not be protected from either individual or societal threat imposed upon them. Finally, another threat is that those holding access to the data may choose to sell or share that data to unauthorized viewers.

three problems here: must decide with group on one of these or of another one addressed above to clearly pinpoint a specific problem

Succint Re-tries:

misuse of data for financial gain or exploitation:

The problem with Internet of Things technology is that it exposes users to the risk of the misuse of their data for financial gain or exploitation. Agree

Manipulation of device functionality without knowledge of user:

Internet of Things consumers are at risk of having their devices’ functionalities manipulated without their knowledge, opening doors to a multitude of threats, including but not limited to, stalking, blackmail, surveillance, and bias.

Regulation and speed of adoption are not synced and the gap is growing greater

While the possibilities surrounding Internet of Things technology are increasing at a rapid acceleration, the lack of standard regulation exposes users to dangers related to the vulnerability of their data, where its uses are still being discovered.

Our real challenge or focus is the safety of data of consumer devices within the realm of the Internet of Things. Our main objective is to uncover the level of safety that exists and we really want to accomplish this by using SMART goals and measuring the level of exposure or risk that users of consumer products are subjected to mainly because IoT devices are created for convenience and we want to know the tradeoff ultimately leveraged. One example of how we might see how safe one user experience is will be by tallying the number of intrusive events ( calls from blocked numbers & spam email messages ) that are a direct result of tracking an IoT wearable that has been activated within a 30 day period. ________________ this brainstorming session following our meeting provided a lot of fruitful information, and we ultimate decided upon voting between the first two problem statements above, The problem with Internet of Things technology is that it exposes users to the risk of the misuse of their data for financial gain or exploitation, and Internet of Things consumers are at risk of having their devices’ functionalities manipulated without their knowledge, opening doors to a multitude of threats, including but not limited to, stalking, blackmail, surveillance, and bias.

Check out the problem definition post to see what we ultimately settled on!