#i'm just talking out my thoughts on my own blog

[i-torment-my-favs]

I didn't exactly want this fic associated with my main (it's anon for a reason), so I decided to mention this on my side blog. I recently wrote a vent fic regarding the clones' lack of medical autonomy (medical trauma sucks ya'll) called "Just a Medical Procedure", and while Chapter 1 doesn't touch on this as much, I talk a lot more about this exact subject in Chapter 2 (yet to finish, but you've inspired me to continue it).

I mainly used it as a vent fic and since it felt like something that could actually happen, but I'm now starting to really think about just how little medical autonomy the clones have and the types of long term psychological effects it could have.

(TW: Gonna talk a bit about medical trauma)

The fic isn't exactly a metaphor for things like SA (as it was directly based on a real life traumatic medical experience I had as a child), but one thing that is common for those who have said procedure as young children is that they will later show certain signs of CSA, even if they haven't actually been a victim of it. While it is not the same thing, to the mind of a small child, the effect will often be similar.

It is confusing and scary and often painful/uncomfortable, and you feel like you have not control over your own body. Many who have trauma from the experience have even mentioned being held down by adults. It can feel violating and invasive. And that can be the case for many who have gone through traumatic medical procedures. Though it may not always be sexual in nature, it can involve things like the insides of someone's body, areas that feel unnatural for someone to touch. It's a bit complicated, but there are a lot of feelings there that result in feeling inherently violated, especially if the procedure was supposed to alter something.

I've talked about it with others who went through the same procedure as kids a came out traumatized by it, and one thing I've thought about as I reflect on this is that the brain has a very weird response to certain kinds of trauma, including this particular kind involving invasive medical procedures. I don't actually see as many fics diving into the medical/experimentation side of things in regards to Kamino trauma. I think it could be kind of interesting to explore the effects medical trauma have on people.

In a lot of fiction where they do non-consentual body modifications, there is a lot of angst and whatnot that is okay. But I never really thought about it in a more realistic sense, or it didn't feel very real, at least. Just more angst. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize the parallels between that and certain types of medical trauma. I mean, I went through a medical procedure that I technically consented to, but wasn't really old enough to fully consent to or understand what was happening.

I think it could be interesting to see it from that angle, especially since that seems pretty realistic for the clones' situation. A lot of the feels I went through/am going through in relation to this make me relate to the clones in a weird way. I think it could be fun to read more fics related to clone medical trauma and its effects in an almost more realistic way, since the feelings that can come from that are often weird and unexpected. I mean, a lot of the people who went through what I have have expressed having weird symptoms/side effects as a result.

I'd honestly love to see more of that kind of stuff.

One thing I always find both funny and sad to see in SW TCW fics is the clones not realizing just how fucked up their childhoods and current treatment is. Like, they'll be reminiscing on childhood memories and it'll be the most fucked up stuff you've ever heard in your life, and they'll all be laughing about it without a care in the world as their Jedi looks at them in horror.

I literally read a fic earlier where the first chapter is Rex telling Anakin he's a natural blonde and apologizing for it, saying that he understands if Anakin wants him to be decommissioned, and Anakin immediately loses his shit at the implications. He spends a good portion of the chapter trying to explain to Rex why the Kaminoan eugenics stuff is bad, while Rex is just kind of standing there like "???"

It's all incredibly sad, but also weirdly funny to see the clones be so chill about it while the Jedi are incredibly disturbed and concerned.

[helicoprinus]

personal thoughts/bitching time:

to this day i have no idea what people are asking for when they're disappointed ancients aren't "weirder". what constitutes weird?

more than one head? not weird enough, yet there's a sizeable population of fr users who consider aberrations body horror

more than four limbs? aethers aren't good enough apparently

less than four limbs? auraboas and undertides don't count i guess

no wings? sandsurges and dusthides both have wing-*like* features so they're not good enough (well, idk about anyone else, but i read dusthide wings more like, y'know, sugar glider wings?)

"we want Insects" one of the Big Discourses of recent days is how many people are begging for a detailed personal blacklisting system specifically because of insectoid *familiars*, and you want an entire *breed*? people lost their minds over the space and scuttle genes

[shannonsketches]

something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle

[averlym]

whshdfhfjf.,,,

[junonreactor]

just did all the party sidequests. that was really cute

[papayafiles]

just went and watched charles' renewal video for the first time and it's not at all similar to lando's? they're both videos with music that feature drivers talking about their teams. that's. that's it.

so tell me why lecfosis on twitter (and on tumblr apparently... i cannot believe they're on tumblr. please keep your twitter toxicity to twitter!!) are analyzing it frame by frame trying to find similarities to accuse mclaren and lando of copying it and rushing it out in a day (for WHAT reason?). "they couldn't even bother to colorgrade it" have you considered they made it black and white on purpose to contrast with the fluoro logo. it looks cool! we all think it looks cool bc we're not miserable losers trying to find things to be mad about!!! "it's so obvious to any editor that it's poorly edited" have you considered mclaren hires professionals who know how to video edit better than you, a random weirdo on the internet who clearly needs a job? (just a question) "SO weird that they'd drop this the day after charles" okay babes have you ever considered that mclaren doesn't give a fuck what ferrari is up to because they have their own better car and their own better drivers and their own far less dysfunctional team environment to focus on?!?? maybe invest this energy into getting ferrari to hire therapists idk what to tell you

[moe-broey]

Oh god. Oh fuck. The Gunk

[asteracaea]

A ship that I have been hesitant to talk about because there might be some truth to it is Taylor and Annie Clark from St. Vincent. Especially around the time "Cruel Summer" came out as a single for the Era's Tour movie. They both co-wrote the song and Annie when to the show that was filmed for the movie (which was also Karlie went).

I think around the time of 1989 Karlie and Taylor were together but they broke up and since a little before Reputation Annie and Taylor have been together. If so a lot of Annie's music would make sense if she's keeping secret a long time relationship. One of St. Vincent's songs is "My baby wants a baby" and it seems to fit with themes of Taylor wanting a child but still not knowing if the time is right. Also Annie is on the non- bianary spectrum so maybe the "he" pronouns are not a bait and switch but true to Taylor's partner being gender fluid.

it makes me sad that people on the internet make others feel hesitant to contemplate things like this!

this is super interesting to think about! i've seen other people discuss the possibility of them being a thing, so you're not the only one, anon! thank you for sharing your thoughts! i'm glad you feel that this is a safe space to do that 💗

[wolpatinga]

[autisticbillpotts]

I'm losing my mind why am I so obsessed with this guy

[rotisseries]

actually now that the clique thing is a few days old, i didn't really get involved for a reason and I don't feel super strongly in either direction

but I will say that like. while there's certainly a problem of less interaction on the fanworks/posts from less popular blogs, this isn't really a byler exclusive issue? this happens in most fandoms these days, interaction is just on a decline in general which IS. a problem but not really a "byler tumblr is cliquey" problem. in regards to any actual cliques I wouldn't say they don't exist but I don't think it's "the popular kids" themselves doing this. I don't know if the rest of you have some other bloggers in mind that I don't know about, but as someone who is mutuals with a fair amount of who I thought were the popular blogs, they are always very nice and welcoming to me, and actually easy to talk to once you just. see them and talk to them as a normal human and not an omnipotent fandom god. so this is all to say that if there's a clique issue I think it's from the outside. I think maybe people are perceiving these bigger blogs who all happen to be friends as these untouchable idols in fandom and it's. making it cliquey from the outside. like are they a clique or have you just convinced yourself they wouldn't want anything to do with you and isolated this group from everyone else. this isn't to say that people can't be assholes of course just that I don't think any of this is intentional

[rubberbandballqueen]

About your tags: is there more that you can share about the OW fandom and fics? This was a phenomenon I wonder about too. It was one of the most popular fandoms around 2017-2018, but the way the fandom stopped on its tracks around 2019 was hard not to notice. Especially from people who didn't play the game but were aware of it's fandom.

oh! overwatch is one of about 50-ish fandoms i track for this one spreadsheet project i do as a hobby (which i Technically blog about @fandom-data-scientist, but i've been too lazy to do a proper writeup to explain what the hell it is i do), wherein i try to answer the age-old question: when did the weebs move to ao3?

(the answer is late 2015/early 2016. most likely this was in large part a result of undertale and sports anime, but that's currently just my own conjecture)

According To My Research(tm), the overwatch fandom peaked in late 2016/early 2017 when it comes to the number of new fics posted per month. after this, it declined quite rapidly, as it didn't even get to enjoy a plateau period.

(there's a reason why the plots are really wonky towards the end of this graph-- it's bc i found the past dates for number of fics archived to a particular site via the wayback machine. since those snapshots are typically bot crawls, the number of fics shown on the fandoms listings will not include fics that have been archive-locked. although i technically started this project in august 2022, i did not add overwatch to my tracking list until this june/july or so. my current guess for the small uptick in the rate of ow fics published to ao3 in october 2022 is that the sequel came out? and then the rate plunged for january 2023 bc of the ai scraping scare that happened at around that time-- nearly every single fandom i track had a significant drop right then bc everyone was archive-locking their fics. the rate shooting up in like july 2023 on this chart is bc like i said, that's when i added ow to my list of tracked fandoms; because i'm logged into my own ao3 acct when checking these numbers live, i get access to the archive-locked fics and so the display number goes up.)

in my experience, fandoms will generally kind of plateau in their fic production after their peak, which will ofc normally gradually taper off. games that receive regular lore or story updates probably have fairly long or stable plateaus, although i haven't made scatterplots or made any comparing analyses to prove this rigorously. this plateau period generally represents a time of fandom stability as the fair-weather, casual, or migratory slash fans run off to the next big thing.

if we ignore the fact the plague and quarantine happened, we can see a nice, steady, and very consistent plateau period for the danganronpa fandom from about 2018-2020!

let's look at an older fandom, like my archnemesis final fantasy:

granted, the ao3 numbers are kind of all over the place these days, but you kind of get my point by now, right? that healthy fandoms tend to plateau as the wind carries away the faintly-interested and leaves the long-haulers behind to form their communities.

overwatch struck me as unusual when i was on one of my long wayback machine trips because of the way there was a net increase of only two fics published from 1 july 2021 to 1 october 2021, when before then it had usually been in the hundreds or so. i then went on a work tangent n googled around n more or less concluded it had Something to do with some kind of scandal with the development company, but otherwise i don't really have any more comments on it hahaha.

[soultoken-archived]

ALRIGHT! so. i officially have only two threads to reply to here ( which is AMAZING, i haven't felt like i was accomplishing something this huge in MONTHS ), and i have replied to all the others and cleaned the inbox. everything is in the drafts, and i'll likely put it all in the queue immediately instead of waiting to reply to the last two threads first. for full transparency! while replying i cleaned what i had, so i deleted a few threads or messages simply out of not knowing how to continue them, but please don't let this discourage you! you can send me anything new, or if you have an idea to continue a dropped thread my messages are always open for plotting! i just tried to ease a bit the mass reply for myself, but be sure that i always want to roleplay with you. <3

[fragmentedblade]

.

[darkwood-sleddog]

You are taking my post wildly out of context and I understand that this happens frequently as tumblr posts are handed around blog to blog so biggy. But let me explain: What my post is referencing are people like Christina Hunger and the owner of Bunny the Dog who ascribe large swaths of emotional meaning to the buttons their dogs choose to press. This is known as the Clever Hans Effect. This is VERY different than teaching a dog a single button or set of bells, etc. to go potty or to be fed. There is nothing wrong with teaching such things as you already understand what your dog is asking for, but are aiding in a disability to better care for your pet. This is very different than what Christina Hunger and other dog button advocates that consistently ascribe emotional and philosophical reasons their dogs may push buttons do. At the time of my post, Dogblr and many of the blogs I follow were going through Christina Hunger's book in detail and comparing it to actual dog behavior science because at her fundamental core, Christina misinterprets actual dog behavior in favor of her Clever Hans Effect, human spoken word, and emotion base preferences. Christina shows a huge preference for human spoken English in her mentality and, to quote my original post above, believes using buttons allows her and her dog to "speak the same language for the first time" but this is untrue. The dog is still speaking dog and Christina is misinterpreting what the dog does because she has very little if no foundations in actual dog behavior science, much like for example, the owner of Koko the Gorilla. This is VERY different than using buttons as an aid. Christina Hunger also consistently compares dogs to non-verbal children and even though she is a speech therapist, comes at her dog button project in many ways that are ableist to non verbal people. This is what my post is referencing and discussing. Not that all dog buttons are bad, but that thinking the dog is speaking human language rather than performing a learned behavior is. That thinking your dog can only best communicate with you through something that is fundamentally unnatural to them is better than humans learning what dogs mean with their own language. The failure is Clever Hans Effect and this unwillingness to learn what dogs are actually saying. Saying that I'm calling people "stupid or failures" is a direct misinterpretation of the post at hand. It is not a failure to already understand what the dog is saying and use an aid to help YOU. It IS a failure to willfully misinterpret dog behavior in favor of one's own ableist idea that dogs need to speak and be taught human spoken english to be best understood. This ridiculous idea that human spoken word is the most important thing in both human and dog communication is something I would think somebody that cares about hearing disabilities would understand.

If dog buttons have one hater I am that very hater.

Communicating “in the same language for the first time” through dog buttons as Christina Hunger describes in her book is a failure of the most human proportion, putting too much value on the human (English) spoken word and ignoring that every detail, movement, twitch of our dogs is an act of communication itself. They are already communicating with us, just as human and primitive dog first did thousands of years ago. Just how we have shaped each other’s evolution by our very relationship. The dog understands you without buttons. If you can’t understand a dog without buttons, or “speak the same language” without human spoken language that is your HUMAN failure.

[irrealisms]

i've seen a lot of people talk about mcyt as a constantly burning library of alexandria recently, and to some extent that's true. people are constantly deleting their blogs, going scorched earth with animatics, fanfics, etc., that they made. but i've also seen people (three in the last few days!) make this claim about VODs, when talking about large fandoms like DSMP and QSMP, and.... guys. that was true in 2020. that's not true anymore. archivists have been working tirelessly for years now to make sure that isn't true.

the dsmp VOD masterlist is here. in november 2020, it's missing 16 VODs, if i am counting correctly--which is still a fairly small minority, but it's a lot, and it sucks!--but in november of 2021, it's missing one, and that's because the cc of that VOD does copyright takedowns, not because the archivists didn't save it. no one in the archivist project is deleting VODs off youtube with no backups the way people are deleting fanfics. three months ago, one of my dsmp archivist friends finished coding a tool that let them reconstruct VODs out of twitch clips, and reconstructed six tubbo dsmp VODs from 2020. not only are we basically not losing VODs anymore, we are actively gaining VODs that have been lost for years, that were thought to be lost forever. the library isn't burning anymore; it's being rebuilt.

the qsmp VOD masterlist is here. it is usually a month or two behind the present day, to give creators time to archive their own VODs, but... look at it. in january of 2024, every single qsmp vod was archived. the same is true of december of 2023, and november, and the vast majority of months for the past year.

i'm not going to say that there isn't a problem. just a few days ago, i realized that a lifesteal VOD from last year was missing--that its youtube upload was messed up somehow, and no one noticed and it wasn't mirrored on the internet archive and the person who uploaded it deleted the original file. and now it's gone forever. this made me super sad! like i said: i'm not going to say that there isn't a problem.

but... look at the lifesteal VOD masterlist here. lifesteal's a smaller fandom than qsmp or dsmp. open the 2022 tab and you'll see months and months of lost VODs, of no one's VODs being saved, because there weren't any archivists saving them. then open the 2023 tab and see: they lost four VODs, over the course of a year. even in smaller fandoms, archivists are working. they're making progress. they're saving VODs. in 2024, lifesteal archivists screenrecorded five streams on tumblr live to make sure they would not become lost media. mcyt may be a constantly burning library of alexandria, but the people with fire extinguishers are dedicated. they're making incredible progress. i know people with petabytes of VODs saved, who have spent money on extra storage for this. i know people who are constantly running up against their storage limits as they download/upload to the internet archive/delete for space/rinse and repeat. a decent fraction of the time, my internet at home is slow because it's downloading VODs.

and these aren't the only mcyt fandoms with archiving projects! the outsiders smp VOD masterlist is here. origins smp VOD masterlist is here. smp earth VOD masterlist is here. rats smp VOD masterlist is here. there are so many others that i just don't happen to know about. the older and smaller a fandom is, the more likely it is to not have an attached archiving project, or for the archive to be missing a lot of VODs. but... guys, we've saved a lot. there are people out there, working tirelessly to save even more. yes, mourn what we have lost--the archivists i know are also the ones mourning the most for the VODs that are, in fact, forever lost media. but don't dismiss how much people have saved. we are making progress. we are losing less and less every month. the vast majority of the dsmp and qsmp still exist, i am not going to say they're the same experience as watching live because they're really not, but.. they're out there. people have put in a lot of work to save them.

if you have publicly available VOD masterlists or other mcyt archiving projects that aren't on this post, please add them in a reblog. i want this post to serve as a reference for how much archivists have saved in this community; unfortunately, i'm not super connected to every community. but i know that--for every person deleting things, there are people working, tirelessly & with little external reward, in so many different mcyt fandoms, to save things. and we should appreciate that more often.