#idk why I'm bothering to tag that. I don't think this website is really where the justin timberlake fans hang out

[pleasestaywithmedarling]

Author Ask Game

Thanks for the tag @starlit-hopes-and-dreams!

I'll gently tag @verkja, if you'd like, cause I am SO excited that I should finally have time soon to start reading your work, and I'd love to hear more about it if you're down! And of course, anyone is welcome to jump in; please tag me if you do!

I only have one fic on this side of the internet, so this will all be about my WIP Sin of Purity, Purity of Sin.

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

I personally don't vibe with the idea of writing "lessons." I guess the ideas that have been sticking out to me the most have probably been guilt and innocence, and the way the past can recontextualize the present and vice versa. But that's just me; I'm sure anyone could read this and see something completely different.

Or maybe we're all just here for the whump :)

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

Disclaimer: I have nothing at all against any religion that is not causing anyone harm; there are obviously a lot of wonderful religions and religious people in the world, and I 100% support that.

That being said, the key feature of the worldbuilding in this fic is the official religion of the kingdom, and that was very much inspired by my own wildly toxic religious upbringing. Before I started writing, I didn't really bother to plan out what most writers would consider the basic features of a fantasy world--I don't think I even got around to naming the kingdom the story takes place in until maybe a half-dozen chapters in. But I had worked out a lot about the fundamental theology and practices of the worship of Vato, the way the temple system is organized, the relationship between the temple and the culture and subcultures of the kingdom, the doctrines and practices that are basically arbitrary or just make no sense, etc. And all of it draws pretty heavily from my own experiences with the type of churches that I grew up in.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

Okay so the obvious answer is that Anden and Kiri are both trying to gain their freedom. But Anden would prefer to achieve that by his own strength--he doesn't like feeling weak, and to him being forced to rely on others can sometimes feel like weakness. And Kiri...I think Kiri would prefer the temple simply have a change of heart and let them go lol

If there's anything that I'm trying to achieve with them, I guess it's just the catharsis that I personally get from watching them suffer together the different ways that they're growing, both individually and together.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

No idea! The events of the story are all mapped out, but I'm letting myself just experiment and have fun with this fic, and I'm really trying to embrace serialization rather than try to match the pacing of a typical novel. I would say that the chapter I'm currently working on is right at the midpoint of the narrative arc--if that term even applies to my unstructured mess of a plot--but that may or may not mean I'm at the halfway point in terms of the chapter count. The back half of the second act could end up stretching out a good half dozen chapters, or for all I know it'll only take, like, two. And how long will the third act be? Who knows? Not me!

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Unusually for me, this is an original. I will probably just keep in here on tumblr; idk if I'd want it on my AO3 account with my fanfiction--it feels odd to me to mix the two.

When and why did you start writing?

I started this one I think about a month and a half ago--it has not been long! Tbh I'd had a pretty awful summer, and I'd been getting back into reading whump as a form of escapism. Had the idea for this one, and I realized it would do me a lot of good to have an outlet just making something I want to make, just cause I want to make it, and not worry about how good it is or what other people think about it. This is easily the most self-indulgent work I've ever written, and it makes me so happy to hear that anyone else is enjoying it too!

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

Idk, you do you!

Oh gosh I hate doing these because I am SO forgetful and I feel like I always leave off a favorite blog! But here's a sampling of writers whose works I've been really enjoying this past year: @i-can-even-burn-salad, @little-peril-stories, @clairelsonao3, @dont-touch-my-soup, @whumpcereal, and of course @starlit-hopes-and-dreams who I guess I'm tagging twice in one post!

Blank questions below:

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

How many chapters is your story going to have?

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

When and why did you start writing?

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

[faisty]

tagged by beloved mutual @probablyahazard to do 15 questions, 15 mutuals - thank you!! <333

Were you named after anyone? kind of yes on three counts? my birth name was chosen by my mum because it was the name of one of her school teacher's daughters and she really liked it. my irl preferred name is shared with a book character although i didn't choose it because of them. and my online name is the name my best friend has called me exclusively for years and is fairly obviously after spn castiel

When was the last time cried? yesterday lmao i am very quick to cry for any emotion - i literally have 'cry baby' tattooed on me

Do you have kids? not yet but i do plan on it

Do you use sarcasm a lot? aha yes, but less than when i was younger - i feel like i've got a better grasp of when it's appropriate now

What’s the first thing you notice about people? probably the way they're dressed? and by proxy if they have a particular vibe to the way they dress that might suggest i would or wouldn't get along with them? obvs that is super reductive but i'm literally just talking first impressions here. also if i'm attracted to them lmao.

What’s your eye colour? blue

Any special talents? uhhh i sing pretty well?? i also have a habit of memorising random facts - the kind of things that people are like 'why do you know that' to which the answer is invariably 'i honestly don't know'

Scary movies or happy endings? if i had to choose one i'd say happy endings? i absolutely hated scary movies through my childhood and could only cope with very mild horror as a teen, but i'm kind of entering my horror phase now, so idk

Where were you born? the UK

What are your hobbies? reading, gaming, writing, aerial hoop (although i recently moved so need to find a new place to do it), walking/hiking, and i would say mech keyboards but i only have one that i fuck around with modding because money so idk if that counts

Do you have any pets? i technically have two cats but because of life events they now live with my best friend - we're co-parenting them

What sports do you play/have played? does aerial hoop count? i played squash for my uni (extremely badly) for like one term until i had a big falling out with everyone on the team. i did gymnastics for a bit as a kid - something i'd really like to try again actually.

How tall are you? 155cm so v short, although 90% of the time i'm wearing platform boots so people think i'm taller

Favourite subject in school? when i was little i used to say everything lmao, but later probably english? i did end up doing a degree in it after all. at sixth form though, probably philosophy

Dream job? what i'm currently training to do

15 mutuals - honestly i'm wildly anxious about being a bother to anyone on this silly little website so i'm not going to tag anyone but if any mutuals fancy it, consider yourself tagged <3

[is-this-a-sideblog]

Maybe i'm just super lazy or something but it feels like any time I try to use one of my campuses resources I have to go through a maze or jump through hoops or something. Two great examples of this is:

Trying to request help from a librarian

Trying to get help from the mental health services.

(I get kinda sappy and wierd, just warning you)

For some of my classes last semester, I had to find academic resources as well as primary material for a project. My best bet? Ask a librarian who specializes in the topic I'm covering. The thing is l: I can't just walk up to a librarian and ask for help. Not a problem, because I can schedule an appointment online, right? Maybe, if I ever find which of the hundred links will take me to that leads me to the form. Email them directly? Always get an email back saying they are out of the office. Just walk in and ask to talk to someone, ANYONE. Get an assistant librarian that tells me to look up the sources online (which I've been TRYING to do because the deadlines approaching and I need something) or even worse, directs me to the main website where somewhere, surely, a form to schedule a meeting with one of the main librarians.

Next is trying to reach out to the CAPS services on campus. Idk if this happens to anyone else, but during the day I'm doing pretty well. I have classes and school work to keep me busy and if nothing else, I can go for a walk around campus.

It's at night that I feel like shit when all of my thoughts come rushing in. Without going in to too much detail about whats making me upset, just know I don't have many people that I feel comfortable talking to. My roomate? I love her to death, but not a chance. My best friend? Why bother her more than I need to. My family? Part of my unhappy thoughts involve them. Besides, I wasn't really raised to be that expressive.

So that leads me to the free and (hopefully) confidential mental health services on campus. Every time I feel brave enough to fill out a form to get a meeting, the website says "fuck you pal." It's always temporarily unavailable. Just tonight I've figured out why. You can only fill out a form in between 7:30 am and 4:30 pm. Since I usually feel fine around those times, I never think to do it. When I wake up innthe morning I've got enough to do that I just think I was being dramatic the night before and that everything's fine.

But how many times am I just being dramatic when it's the same thoughts over and over again at least three or four times a week at night?

Idk, just venting about this made me feel a bit better. I guess this sideblog will be my diary now lol. I always feel better when I write this kind of thing down because it gets out of my head and somewhere where I can reread my emotions.

That being said, I'm going to post it with just a few tags so if on the very off chance someone sees this, I can kinda see if it's just me being silly or not.

K bye.

[a-pigeons-soliloquy]

oh my god

I was just searching through my notes app for mentions of the song sexyback (don't ask) and I found this gem from the start of lockdown:

"In the 2006 song Sexyback, Justin Timberlake sings that he's "bringing sexy back". Was sexy therefore gone? When and why did sexy leave? How did Justin Timberlake get sexy to come back, and how did society thank Justin Timberlake for his actions? Has sexy since left or is it still around?"

like wow 2020 truly did things to the brain

[ladyluscinia]

speaking as someone who reads a lot of ed/stede fic i think you're exactly right re: woobification of ed. if the fic in question touches on e10 his actions are usually given far less weight than stede's, and imo i think it's because a lot of fans don't know how to deal with the gravity of what he did. something i've seen often is that ed will get some grief from the crew and they may be somewhat cautious around him, but mostly it's stede who has to work to win back ed's trust and affection. which, yes, obviously he should have to do that, he fucked up, but ed not having to do the same with the crew & izzy if the author even bothers to write him in has always seemed idk unfair to me? obviously, people can write what they want, but i do feel like this attitude is prevalent in fandom meta as well. it goes on a wavelength of something like: all of ed's actions towards izzy, the crew, and stede are largely excused, stede's behavior towards izzy receives the same treatment, and izzy is simply not around for any variety of reasons and no one cares that he got his toe cut off. the reason i have accidentally read so much fic like this is because every time i open something that piques my interest thinking maybe it will be different and almost always it is not. i wouldn't be so bothered by this if it didn't contribute to the pipeline of me seeing with my own eyes posts made by people on this very website attempting to justify bodily mutilation as some fucked up form of punitive justice.

Hi, yes, all of this.

Like, I will confess that I'm already very lukewarm on BlackBonnet as a ship (just not my preferred dynamic), but I have been avoiding the tag on tumblr and AO3 like it's radioactive because I know I will risk losing all positive feelings for it in a matter of hours (which... probably not a great idea seeing as it's endgame 🤣). I'm sticking to SteddyHands where nitpicks about characterization are easier to spot in advance and often actual nitpicks, not slam the back button levels of drastic.

Anyway, the part of this ask that really grabbed my attention was...

...it's because a lot of fans don't know how to deal with the gravity of what he did.

...because that is a major part of the problem and also kinda interesting to talk about. And I have thoughts on it, both on how the show is potentially equipped to handle it and why so many fans struggle.

So preface: here's a link to my followup woobification thoughts post, which links the original woobification thoughts response right at the top.

Now... Why is reckoning with and forgiving Edward's actions (that are obviously going to be forgiven) proving so difficult that it makes sidestepping the problem entirely such a common fandom response instead?

---

There's two main factors that I think are the most important at the moment. (Well, three, but the third is anti culture declaring that faves must not be "problematic" or "bad people" or you aren't allowed to like them, and that's way bigger than this specific OFMD problem. Those antis just need to be ignored. So two actually interesting to discuss main factors.)

The genre of the show is hitting a very nice spot in handwaviness around violence that is crucial to getting past this in canon.

Edward's character arc spent pretty much all of S1 in the setup phase, while Stede actually progressed through his.

Genre, I'm almost positive, is going to be the show's saving grace in this matter, because they have played some really clever games with it. I talked a lot in this post about how handwaving narrative consequences at a certain point can be a really good thing, but it's also deceptively hard to set up because if you fail to be consistent then it only highlights your issues.

Edward's actions in a more serious show would be pretty hard to come back from, and even in this show, they aren't currently being treated as funny or no big deal. That's why just handwaving them from here doesn't work. Stede fixing the Kraken with a swashbuckler entrance and a kiss is a funny joke and a great fanart, but not a satisfying story for Edward. At the same time, OFMD's humor is actually really dark for a show that is best described as a romcom. Meaning even as Edward does awful things you can keep a running thread of humor to kind of lighten the gravity - like Jim's "What did you do to your face?" comment.

I still maintain that the big three four events of the Kraken turn - Izzy lashing out at Edward, Edward "killing" Lucius, Edward maiming Izzy, and Stede's abandonment overshadowing it all - have to be dealt with roughly equivalently and at the same time. Leave a hurt out (like Izzy's toe) and you mess up the whole balance, so there's one problem for people who don't like Izzy very much. But so long as all the characters get to acknowledge how they fucked up and how they won't do it again (requiring some character growth and communication from them all), then the genre tone will let them collectively move on without unpleasant hurdles (like Lucius feeling unsafe on a ship with Edward for the rest of his life).

This helps the show, but it doesn't necessarily help fans and fanfic, because a lot of fanfic writers are not working in this genre.

Angst people are writing angst, fluff writers are in slice of life romance, plot heavy fics might be adventures... all very fun, but possibly lacking the required tools to satisfactorily resolve these problems the way the show is likely going to. They have to adapt it or discard the need for a solution entirely, and adapting it might be trickier both because it's more work and there's a lot more open questions around Edward than around Stede.

We're back to character arcs.

It's so easy for fans to focus on how Stede needs to fix what he's done because, yeah, it wasn't that terrible in comparison, but also the show has already built and explored the whole framework for him to do so. We know exactly what was going through his head, we know what he wants now, we know the direction his character is going in... He's most of the way there already. For Izzy enjoyers, too, a lot of his character arc was covered this season. We have lots of evidence for his motivations and wants and plausible ways he could grow as a character, even if it's a bit more open to interpretation than Stede.

Edward, meanwhile, has just started. We can try and interpret his behavior this season for hints as to what's driving him, but there have been no recent backstory flashbacks or goals he was openly chasing beyond the general idea of Stede, and clearly the Kraken is not about getting Stede back. His flaws haven't been starkly established, much less the intended solutions. Like, I think that greed for both lives he's been sampling is a major part of it, and the resolution will involve compromising to a life he's satisfied with, but that's just informed speculation at this point.

Edward is so hard to figure out in a fic because first you have to decide what you think the problem and solution is, and then how to adapt it to whatever genre you are working in so that it actually fixes the whole attempted murder of 7 people + maiming and abduction. Not very easy if said genre is, say, the ever popular fluffy romance. Good fucking luck conveying even the idea of a whole arc in a oneshot. It can be done, but not easily. Meta, too, can have a sort of "genre" that causes a similar struggle. I feel like my meta probably isn't overly concerned with how characters are mentally affected by violence committed against them, for example, simply because it rarely interests me long term and I watch so many shows where violence is omnipresent, which probably helps me here.

Anyway, for a lot of fans it's much easier to just focus on what has been clearly established - that Edward has childhood trauma and was hurting - and a solution that conveniently can play out in almost every genre - make Edward feel better. Even if, as I will continue to complain, that's not really an arc and therefore boring. Also pretty woobifying to suggest a guy who committed 7 attempted murders had no underlying issues that are on him to address. Just really hurt feelings and the need to believe in love again.

So yeah. Interesting factors. I think considering both makes impressive strides to explain where the problem is coming from, even if it doesn't really prevent it. Just back to waiting for season 2, I guess.

...also I just realized that this is finally my version of the "only BlackHands shippers get Edward as a character" post 🤣🤣🤣 Because they are actually pretty good at navigating the Edward/Izzy part of this. Sometimes. I have way more faith in them out of the gate, at least.

(EDIT: Follow up response where I make a Helen of Troy joke)

[hotaru987-the-2nd]

hiii i'm the anon who asked u about yashahime. why do u think yashahime is bad? i never watch it, that's why idk anything about it (but I've watched Inuyasha) ;-;

Personally I would just say to not even bother with watching or thinking about the terrible 'what if' scenario that was breathed into existence, BUT far be it from me to tell someone how to think. No matter what anyone says it's always best to do your own research and come to your own conclusions instead of blindly following what other people say. No matter how many credentials said person has. That being said I can give you my opinion.

However, I too didn't watch the show (outside of the 1st episode cause I heard it was OG cast). For me, personally, the moment I heard Sesshomaru had kids I had a bad feeling in my gut. I grew up on fanfictions, and I always loved reading SesshomaruxOC(ME!!!!) on fanfic.net. I lived for that shit so if there was an anime that had Sesshomaru with kids that wasn't what I really cared about. What bothered me was "who was the mother" because I had a sinking suspicion that unfortunately turned out to be true. Once it came out that Rin was the sure mother of his kids the blatant pedo/grooming(since they are trying to imply that the Inuyasha series was the basis of Sesshomaru and Rin's "romantic" past where she's a damn child. And she still is in Yashahime), that was MORE than enough reason for me to not give this show any chance.

While I have come to peace and am able to separate OG!Sesshomaru from Pedomaru it hurts that this stain can't be erased from his character. It's always going to be there. Call me basic but he was my favorite character. And I always knew there was a fanbase for SessxAdult Rin cause I've seen it on Fanfic but I was able to filter/ignore and go on with my life. But there isn't any "adult" Rin in the show. And what made me hate it more was how people still trying to justify and jump through hoops to make this pairing with a child ok. Really they just sound like dumbasses.

Outside of that reason (but what other reason do you need?) from my own research, reading articles, post on here and other websites, and hearing what the show is about the pacing just sounds awful. The characters are inconsistent, they seem to trip over their own feet to make some stupid shit they did make sense, or retcon things in their own first season. None of the OG characters are done justice (save for a few occasional polished turds in the sea of shit that is the show ie: Inuyasha protecting his girls, and some others but again I don't watch the show I've only seen clips). They erased Kagura's influence on everything (unless you count the twins powers/imagery??). Not to mention the twins don't even feel like Rin's children outside of the show telling us. No matter how many times you try to tell me the duck is a dog, doesn't change it's still a damn duck. And those kids do not seem like Rin's children at all. They have nothing similar to her at all.

Honestly if you want better information on why this show is terrible just look into the anti sessr*n tag and you're bound to find those brave souls that have actually watched the show, analyzed it and have come up with reasons backed by evidence.

Before this whole thing came out I wasn't even a SessxKagura shipper. Like I said I was always SessxOC. I remember as a child I was even jealous of Kagura because there was something romantic or at least the beginnings/potential of something between them. Never felt that way about Rin. As a child I always equated them to big brother/father, with the 'father' dynamic being my favorite with him, Kohaku and Rin.

I still prefer SessxOC because I can picture myself in the OC's place, but after the show came out I've come to embrace SessxADULT WOMAN mainly Kagura because she fits best lol.

Sorry for the word vomit. Like I said there are better posts and blogs to follow/read if you want more concise and coherent information. But if you don't want your memories of the original Inuyasha to be tainted don't even bother.