#if it was in any other format on any other website yknow

[tomwambsgans]

i'm just gonna say it. on the app that could reasonably be called Misinformation: The Website, where you have no good reason to believe almost anything that anyone says, where people are known to play genuine fucked up long cons where they go so far as to fake a disability, or stage scenes of verbal/emotional abuse with their partners, or make some other incredibly serious claim only to eventually come out and admit that they lied or faked it to be *interesting* or whatever... i think it's wise to take the anecdote of a single random person with a grain of salt

[salmalin]

I Wanna Talk About "Comments"

IMG ID: Yknow go figure you’d abandon this for a popular fandom… goes to show you just write for attention and instant gratification. May as well just delete this. It’s clogging up space. To do all this and walk away for mainstream games is so typical for people like you who claim to be in it for the art. You’re in it for the ratio, you’re in it for your massive ego, so just delete it.

I've been getting a few comments like this lately, and this one is honestly the least biting, but I've been seeing enough of them that I've decided to post this.

I've already deleted this "Named" Anon Comment off the fic, and I'm not going to reply to them, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about this mentality, and why comments like this make no sense.

Basically: They're angry that I'm taking a break from this fic from a small fandom—a fic they've never interacted with—while I'm also writing another story for another fandom that happens to be bigger. This bigger fandom fic has (despite being in first-person with a non-linear storytelling style, famously hated formats) gained a bit of attention. Which is fine. That happens.

So let's talk about why this comment sucks, and why it fails at every level to be any form of criticism, constructive or otherwise.

"abandon this for a popular fandom" Everyone can see that this fic is marked as incomplete. Whoever this is, they chose to click on an incomplete fic that hasn't been updated in eight months—only eight months. A drop in the bucket, really, and the time I went between chapter 5 and chapter 6 was over a year. This is on them. They do not get to put this on the writer. At any point they could have stopped. At any point, they could have closed the fic. They knew this from the get-go. They did not. This was their decision, and they're trying to blame me for their despair. They made it through 245k before they reached this point, and I know because they commented on the last chapter specifically.

"you just write for attention and instant gratification" "Instant"? I don't think this person knows how writing works. Like, on a fundamental level. This story started getting posted in 2020, with my most recent update this year (2023), and they think writing and posting something is looking for "instant gratification". Bold to assume this is "instant". (Bold to assume we have any control over it at all.)

"May as well delete this. It's clogging up space." AO3 is only limited by its server size, and my fic is a drop in the bucket. It is not taking up much in the way of space. Besides, just because something is unfinished does not mean it doesn't belong on AO3. That's why you're allowed to upload chapter by chapter. That is a critical function of the website. It's also an archive, which means it's designed to hold information, finished or unfinished. Again, shame on the reader.

"You're in it for the ratio; you're in it for your massive ego." These are not only assumptions, but if this person is really so opposed to the idea of people doing things for attention, they should ignore children when they need food, only read published novels that are obviously written in a desperate grab for money, and never go on AO3 ever again. If writers didn't want attention, they wouldn't post online for free because they'd just keep it to themselves. And if commenters didn't want attention, they wouldn't comment. (But then would we even have a fandom, if no one's talking to anyone else?) Is this the attention they wanted? Probably. I've found that people like this seem to thrive on the misery they inflict on others.

If y'all care to know why this person was so abysmally wrong in this specific context: (if not, just skip to the end of the list.)

This fic that they're complaining I left for a bigger fandom? I actually left that bigger fandom for this fic. That "bigger fandom" was the first video game I was ever obsessed with. It was 1997, and I wasn't even allowed to touch the console. My brother destroyed the final disc in a fit of rage. I've never even beaten the final boss. It has been 26 years, and for a solid 15 of them I was desperately trying to figure out what I wanted to write for the pairing that changed my life. This fic that they're complaining about me "abandoning" Fires of War for has been rolling around in my brain for longer than the media for Fires of War has even existed. In fact, when you search my username here on tumblr, an ask I sent another user laying this out is essentially the first thing you see. (At least, right now.) In fact, my current user pic is from Fires of War. I did not change it because there's no need to.

Fires of War is actually still in progress, and they would have known this if they read the other comments on the same chapter they complained on. I originally took a break from FoW due to stress, and because no matter what I tried, the next chapter just wasn't working. After a break, I realized why—the outline was broken and needed to be adjusted. Meanwhile, the other fic I'm working on to relieve that stress is much, much easier to write. In my eyes, it's much lower quality, as well. It requires fewer stages of editing. The words flow easily because they're much closer to my speaking voice. I'm not constantly researching cultures I know little about for fact checking and world building and (I shit you not) intercontinental politics. (I once researched the GDP, climate, and economy of Spain in 1986 for several hours and proceeded to have a three hour debate with my editor about a plot point. Yes. Three hours.) Oh, and I don't have to write anything in Iambic Fucking Pentameter. (Yes, that's a thing in Fires of War. They are complaining that I "abandoned" a story that has bits of dialog in god-forsaken Iambic Pentameter. Even at my peak, I wrote 8k in two weeks. But with my current "popular" fic, I can whip out 14k in one. That's how much easier it is.)

I want to turn those "ratio" stats off. I've mentioned this to people a few times, actually—I wish there was a way to turn all stats off on the Archive. They actually give me anxiety. I don't want to know how many comments are on my fic, or kudos are on a little obscure piece. I think that information should only be accessible to the writer, like Tumblr follow counts.

Literally talk to me for three seconds and you will be sick of how into the art of it I am. Holy shit, I cannot shut up. I will include required reading. I will rant about the details I put in for plotlines ten chapters out. I will give you a crash course in tone, word choice, and counting verbs. And yes, I count verbs! Holy fuck I am autistic as hell and this is my special interest. I love writing so much. It's my favorite thing in the world. Please stop my I CAN'T STOP I LOVE WRITING SO MUCH GOD IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS ME FUCKING SANE. So you can imagine how misguided I think someone is when they say I'm not into the art of it. It just exposes them as someone who doesn't know what art is.

I'm a hermit who doesn't really go online much aside from using Discord as a free texting app because for some reason every texting app I've gotten has been broken. I legit do not like attention. I talk to like four people a day outside of work. I don't even like it when people complement me too much. Even if I went above and beyond, just one sentence is more than enough and move on, please. It's good to know my actions have had positive consequences, because that's crucial for my brain processing said consequences so I can continue said action in the future because I know I didn't do something wrong, but repeated praise makes me uncomfortable. It took me a long time to understand this about myself. This seems antithetical at first, but I do like the comments that break down the themes, execution, etc. in my fics. If they're breaking things down, moving to point to point about parts they enjoyed, there are giving me critical feedback. They tell me what thy enjoyed, and what was picked up. It's extremely useful feedback to know what they enjoyed, and what stood out to them. It helps me write better stories on the future, and hones how I get my point across. Besides, what is art that doesn't spark innovation and thought? It is forgotten.

The strongest hate is born of love—misguided though it may be—and this person has made that clear. Obviously they care about this fandom or they never would have commented like this. But if they knew more about people and less about what they want everyone to give them, maybe the spaces around them would be safer for the people in their lives—or the people they brush against online.

Comments like this often make people not want to write their fic.

Thankfully, I'm actually am in it for the art, so they might be going out of their way to make the lives of everyone around them miserable, but they haven't achieved their goal here.

However, there are a lot of writers who critically need feedback; who need this positive reinforcement. It's also why it's so important to tell writers why you enjoy their work. Even if it's something small like "I like your word choice" or "I really liked this line" or "I can't wait to find out how they resolve this"—that's feedback more valuable than we can really quantify.

"I like your word choice."—The way you pay attention to the words you use is working with the tone.

"I really like this line."—The way this line is formatted is very memorable and hits better than the others. It may be good to pay attention to it to find out why.

"I can't wait to find out how they resolve this."—You have gotten a good grade in suspense, a thing that is possible and reasonable to achieve (or however that meme goes).

I am constantly learning. I am constantly growing and changing as a person and a writer, and other people are critical to this. Sitting in a room and shouting will not make you better at making jokes, and shoving your writing in a corner never to see the light of day will never give you the tools to communicate with other people.

Sometimes I feel like people like this *points to the top of the page* don't want to learn that lesson, because of the painful reckoning with their actions it will entail.

If this is you, or you have done something similar, I recommend going through, finding your old comments, and deleting them yourself, or even apologizing if you can. Clean up your own mess, so people like me don't have to do it for you. This is a public space. Act like it.

[foineswoine]

tumblr is not a hellsite. this is a decent platform with Worth (because a lot of its users are good && because you can curate your experience very well). reddit, however, is a hellsite because it Fucking Sucks. the UI is bad and a lot of the people are bad.

with my extensive experience on that site (because I hate myself && it was very easy for an anti-social teenager to learn to use), I argue that there are only 3 "general-use" subreddits that have any sort of worth (aside from the cat picture subs && the fandom subs, which have target demographics which keep them relatively clean):

1) HobbyDrama. Legitimately the best subreddit on that website. It's got a great community and has some very well-researched pieces which are genuinely amazing reads. Really fucking good.

2) GatekeepingYuri. It turns gatekeeping/bigoted memes (mostly "not like the other girls stuff, but it varies) and makes them queer. Ya see some really good art and the user base is just very positive. Great sub 👍

3) bonehurtingjuice. It's a creative meme sub which has not hit either of the two common fates that meme subs usually face: stagnation or conservatism. The user base has some really creative people and has some genuinely really funny pieces, which stem from the format of trying to subvert the intention of the oregano (original piece). There's trends there, of course, that sometimes get beaten to death but overall the quality is consistently pretty good and it's not a right-wing cesspool so. Decent place.

4) Honourable mention goes to transgendercirclejerk I love that sub a lot. It fucking sucks ass a ton but it's my garbage pit, yknow? Also the only trans space I feel comfortable looking at since it can be genuinely funny ++ it's not filled with. well okay yeah it is filled with discourse but in the sense that people go there to complain about discourse which makes it bearable.

and no, 196 nor AITA nor any of the other popular subreddits do not have worth they suck as much as the others do. 196 has the whole fetishising trans people angle && centering on white skinniness which isn't as wholesome progressive as they claim to be, and AITA is rage-bait creative-writing central. entertaining in viral screenshots, yes, but not something you'd want to subject yourself to everyday.

god reddit fucking sucks can't wait for the day it shuts down. it won't but a man can dream

[pluralsword]

This is a complicated topic for which there is not a single simple answer. We will instead give a nuanced one:

-there is a reason for the rise of the modern distinguishment between sapphic and lesbian, wherein sapphics mostly prefer gals and gal adjacent folks and will date e.g. nonbinary people and only sometimes date men, whereas lesbians won't date people who are solely men.

-what do nonbinary people who only want to date women and off the binary people call themselves, if not lesbians?

-polygender and/or genderfluid people who experience multiple genders including being a gal and a guy at the same or different times are still gals, yknow. there's nothing wrong with them calling themselves lesbians.

-there is an often noted experience of heterosexual people dating someone and then they realize they're trans and their gender is different, so the het folks if still attracted and understanding themselves as otherwise het say 'my orientation is to [insert gender] and attraction to you.' speaking from experience, real life long term relationships between gender expansive people are complicated. the partner we dated the longest would sometimes ask us during the first year if we would dump them if they realized themselves as a trans man. we told them of course we wouldn't. is there anything wrong with a lesbian dating someone who figured out they're only a man later in the relationship? no.

-some trans men are not comfortable with the idea of being heterosexual, and frankly by their own accord are not. this isn't just talking about nonbinary trans men. This is also talking about lesbian as a gender or part of one. Orientation and gender or lacks thereof inform each other. This website by a transmasc person has a really good explanation of this, it's beautiful

-for some context, we are collectively a trans gal/xenogender-parallel (this is an oversimplication) plural system. Our eldest headmate is a t4t sapphic and thus is extremely unlikely to ever date a man who isn't transmasc or an equivalent or polygender and also comfortable being dated by a lesbian (ie cis men are off the table) and even if she wasn't t4t that would be the case... because well, a lot of our system is composed of sapphics and lesbians, and um, for some of us, the contexts we are used to are worlds and memories where the cisgender category or something like didn't exist in our societies, because gender/aesthetic neutral and aesthetically informed socialization was a big part of growing up for everyone (and thats not even getting into semi-deliberate body formation stuff in the first few weeks of life). sure not everyone's trans in those contexts but nobody is cis. the term we coined for the sake of our fanfic writing to get that across is launch while we work on original fiction. for the record we dont use human gender/aesthetic system models in any of our writing for aliens, they (including alien robots) either have elaborate alien gender systems in our more hard scifi orig cont and original fiction stuff have alien aesthetic systems with their own terms and pronoun variation if the latter exists which we personally enjoy (we do use a gender assemblage and trans theory lens to approach expressing these)- and as such all of these folks have words for same-aesthetic/same-gender attraction but they are not gay or lesbian etc. they have their own terms with their own histories and meanings. so a lot of us dont even fit the -straight -bisexual -lesbian -gay -pansexual discussion just as we don't fit a gender discussion but most certainly do have equivalents of genders that we've named and iterated and adore (hilariously we do fit the gray scale ace-aro stuff pretty well there's just a lot of add-ons) because ultimately in human terms a signifcant number of us are t4t and while as a system we can agree to the idea of dating a cis gal we have yet to do that. everyone we've dated out of system has been gender expansive, trans or no, or at the very least spent a significant portion of the relationship understanding themselves as not cis

-we find the tendency of cis guys to joking about and saying they want to date lesbians at best as something that makes us want to ask them 'so are you really just a cis guy' or 'do you know what sapphic means within the last 20 years' but often is rather alarming and gross -

-but for the cases that are not some misogyny power dynamic thing, where its from people not familiar with terminology who then are willing to learn and recognize that lesbians are not in their dating pool, we've noticed that it in part has to do with the perception of lesbians as a kind of gender variation of women that to them is beautiful. its the same sort of awe one can have for someone in drag / a drag king, queen, monarch, etc. and attraction even if one isn't going to date one.

-on that thought of lesbianism as a gender-orientation thing, we think sword lesbians and lumberjack lesbians are a great example of where the aesthetic experience of material and technique modification of self expressed through actions and words and frankly euphoria therein has a clear linkage between orientation and gender. the same goes for butch lesbians yknow, and we think that's fair to say of femmes and the whole lesbian-sapphic spectrum too! it's part of our history!

this is just what we have to say on it as people who have spent much of our life together learning about gender and orientation and power dynamics including in the context of history, war, politics, diplomacy, art, and philosophy in order to be epistemically free of the patriarchy and keep it from bringing us down, and to figure ourselves out and maybe share what we can with people along the way.

“we need more weird queers” you guys can barely handle nonbinary lesbians

[bagofbonesmp3]

how i (personally) pirate things. this is by no means a great extensive perfect guide, ill just give you the process of how i go about it. and if you’re in a country where they monitor your internet usage, consider getting a good vpn! always helps. also if anyone wants to add their personal resources, PLEASE DO!!! you’re encouraged to do so!!!

not much to do with the pirating itself, but i download most of the stuff i watch/read/listen. sometimes websites get deleted and links go bad, but files are forever! consider getting a usb/external disk for your stuff. it was one of my first investments as an adult. got a 1 TB disk 5 years ago and im not even halfway through filling it. so most of the sites listed here are for downloads. sorry if you prefer streaming stuff.

in the same subject, get VLC media player. it’s a great media player that works with a bunch of file formats AND you can add subtitle/cc files for the stuff you watch. more on that later.

and for the love of fucking god GET MOZILLA. i swear to God, if you only use chrome it will change your browsing experience. it's just a better experience, no tracking, uses less space, has a bunch of useful add ons to help with browsing security. for a search engine i use startpage. it's just Google without blocking pages and tracking. life-changing

to the actual pirating. first step if you want to WATCH stuff:

AND also, keep in mind that if you can’t find something here, i suggest you go to a non-google browser, and simply type out what you want + “watch/download free”. of course you should get an ad block (i recommend ublock) and learn how to recognized fake links, but that’s just practise. most of the time you’ll find a random website that has what you’re looking for.

torrent:

- for movies, i usually turn to yts/yify movies. this is the latinamerican site but im sure it’s available almost everywhere. quite good catalogue, not that complete, but yknow. its good. any time you download a torrent file, make sure the file is .torrent, and that the thing you’re downloading is in the right format (mp4, mp3, mkv, etc. don’t open.exe files from places that aren’t trustworthy lol)

- torrent is IN MY OPINION one of the best ways to download media in general. i use it mostly for movies, tv shows and games. my go to torrent client is deluge because it doesn’t use much space and it’s fairly easy to use. here’s a tutorial, for you to learn how to use it. not difficult at all

- for subtitles /ccs, i go to yts-subs. bunch of subtitles in all languages. or simply check out opensubtitles, my oldest friend

- for tv shows it gets tricky, because i had a website i used before but its gone now :( so i turned to limetorrents. you can find it if you search for it. has a bunch of other stuff but i only use it when i have nowhere to turn to lmao. but upadates quite quickly, so. just make sure the uploader seems constant and trustworthy, which you can check in their profile.

non torrent stuff:

- for pc games: igggames hasn’t failed me yet. they update their links quite often

- for books: z-library (latine link, but just look it up! should show up). and my recent ally, vk. you should all love vk. vk is my fucking best friend. just look up [book name] + vk and it should show up.

- for audiobooks: vk! my good friend. i’d suggest you make an account and then check out this profile. or simply google [book] +  audiobook + vk. something will pop up. audio files can only be streamed on the website, but fear not, there is also mobilism, which also has some other content, though i use it mostly for audiobooks. you’ll have to make an account but thats fine. you can download the files in there.

- for anime: i don’t watch a lot of anime tbh, but you can find subtitled anime here

- for premium apps: here’s my trusty spotify premium link. but mobilism has links for android and ios  apps as well! i have a friend who uses it and says the links check out, so!

- for music: how old are you? just download stuff from youtube with a youtube to mp3 converted. jeez.

im surely missing a website, so maybe i’ll add something later, but this is pretty much it! thanks for watching.

[voidandradiance]

hello! from the fic writer thingy; 1, 8, 9, 17, 25, 36, 37, 41 and 42 !!!

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

oh boy uh. for dsmp, by far, can i sleep in your house tonight or like i've never been are my strongest works. best foot forward, and all that.

for mianite, though... i love the karma series but it's a Lot, so maybe vintage misery or stars burn out. peak identity theft for both of them, tbh, but they're Good.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

i've done most of the Splash Potion of Brainrot ones, but left on the list are:

the plagues from prince of egypt, 100 bad days by ajr, home to me by devil and the deep blue sea, thus always to tyrants by the oh hellos, dirty by grandson :)

9. How do you find new fic to read?

i subscribe to vav on ao3. and also scroll the wilbur soot character tag with dozens of excluded tags. and also read my friends' stuff.

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

my batshit insane tubbo- and andor-centric vigilianitee au, my fucking beloved. put those boys in situations. someone becomes a magical girl and i'm not telling you who.

25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?

i have the mental illness transcription doc, which is roughly 80 pages of transcribed mianite dialogue written out in script format, and i reference that pretty often. i've also got a folder of about 725 screenshots of mianite references, so. yknow.

36. Do you visualize what you read/write?

....sometimes? i guess? i'm really fuckin bad at it when i do, but i end up sketching out reference maps or using screenshots bc my spacial awareness is a little bit Really Bad

37. Promote one of your own ���deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

all of my mianite fics.

nahhh as far as dsmp fics go, i have to say just give me a happy middle is one that i loved and most people didn't. it was just posted at a weird time, i think? idk. food as a metaphor for love.

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

THIS ONE. THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. it was the first one of vav's ao3 fics that i read, and i lost my fucking mind. the imagery. the detail. the pacing. the quilt. OUGH i wish i could fuckin Do That with words. i dont care if yall warch mianite or not i am telling you to read the fic

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

the tipping point for me becoming a wilbur main was zanna zannolin's comment on save the world. so. yes. anyone who leaves long detailed comments analyzing symbolism or easter eggs or characterization, i would already die for you, but that comment specifically is one of the things that got me to start writing wilbur-centric stuff as a whole. thanks king.

[dwter]

girl...... you watch dubbed anime....... what the hecck

also, the mugen train arc was also turned into episodes. essentially s2 was split into 2 parts. part 1 is the mugen train movie recap, part 2 is the actual new season.

they put the movie into episode format because not everyone could see the movie, but its the same stuff. except the first episode is bonus a bonus episode that isnt in the movie with rengoku to get to know his character.

so essentially, s2: 1. s2 mugen train, episode 1 2. mugen train in movie or episode format (i recommend movie format) 3. actual next arc s2 entertainment district

if that makes any sense?? soryr if i made it confusing

ALSO. there after credits scenes in the episodes, some of them are just silly goofs while others are actually. well, impactful to the characters id say and lets us understand them more. so i defo recommend those.

also i have a website i use to anime that might not exactly be the most legal but it releases stuff on the actual date (altho u definitely want adblock with it bc. yknow how those sites are) so if u want that then i can share

fgjdbnjhgkgjf sorry if i worded this badly, i can re-explain if needed but i hope it makes sense??

HAIIII im going to answer both of ur asks all in one post for clarity HAHA (some spoilers for anyone who wants to read, but the main one is given a warning ^___^)

but yes u do watch dubbed anime ….. im sorry im sorr y i csnt help who i am (flawed fundamentally) 😞 AND OOOOOO THANK U FOR ALL THE CLARIFICATION! glad i saw this bc i was actually going to watch the movie with my friend tmr LOL. so PepoG episode 1 then movie GOT IT! about the after credit scenes, i noticed when watching the dub that the post-credit scenes werent dubbed and there also werent subs so i just didnt watch LMFAO but if theyre important i will definitely take a look later! :O and i do have a website but id love to hear urs jic if u wanna share OMG thank u for offering its very sweet ☹️🤍

AND IVE HEARD SO MANY GOOD THINGS ABT S2 AND THE TRAIN ARC !!!!! i saw charlie moistcritical rate s2 95% on the moist meter like thats insanely good. im so fawking excited to understand the hype AHHHHHHH !!! AND OMG YEAH the art style and animation in s1 is so so cool i esp love the style of the thick/emphasized outlines AND THE FIGHT SCENESSSSS OMGGGGG i usually dont care for fight scenes but the ones in demon slayer are GAURGEOUS and when (SPOILER WARNING FOR ANYONE READING) he attempts to slide rui’s head off and theres all that orange fire, nezukos pinkish explosions and just all that COLOUR ….. i was seriously in awe it was incredible i cant believe it gets even BETTER ….. so exciting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK SO MY FAVS SO FAR: at the top of the list (unsurprisingly) ITS TANJIRO MY SWEET BOY AND SHINING STAR 😭🌟 im sorry i just have so much love in my heart for kindhearted, genuine characters and thats the core of who he is and he makes my heart so warm and soppy and the world both deserves him but also doesnt and hes just so oo o oo o ….. My tanjirogie 😞💚 ANOTHER FAV OF MINE IS ZENITSU! i love his crybabyisms and think hes such a nice mix of sweet and annoying and i always look forward to him being on screen :))) and hes definitely the character im most excited to see the progress of 100%. i also love his lil sparrow such a tiny lil guy eueueueu 😞🤍 also this isnt a specific character but i loved so many of the demons tanjiro faces and fights and i cried so so much watching s1 bc of their deaths. even ones i thought wouldnt get to me bc of their cruelties did and i just ended up sobbing hearing their stories bc its like tanjiro said, theyre such sad and hopeless beings and so often just victims to either circumstance or life as a whole and its just. god. theyre just so heartbreaking and getting to hear their backstories/getting glimpses of them at the end of every fight where they lost and were dying was one of if not my favourite part of the show. anyways because i am hateful here are some characters i hate (not bc theyre poorly written i just am bitter) FIRSTLY: the hashira can go fuck themselves 😒🖕 (shinobu and giyu are excluded from this my scrumblies) i hate their pretentiousness, i hate how they hurt nezuko and i hate how they are all major dicks despite their entire thing being to help people. SECONDLY: fuck muzan! i actually love his character and hes such an amazing villain but i burn with so much hatred towards him it isnt even funny i seriously want his head on a fawking sick 𝖍𝖊 𝖓𝖊𝖊𝖉𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖐𝖎𝖑𝖑 𝖍𝖎𝖒𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖋 𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝕹𝕰𝕺𝖂 . but he also kind of slays and every time hes on screen my eyes are glued hes suchhhh a good villain from the untouchability to the sometimes soft, often violent carefully crafted manipulation Hes Perfect. like i hate him but hes also amazing and one of the big reasons i love the story so much. speaking of the story, I LOVE IT SM! i havent spoken much about it yet but nezuko and tanjiro’s relationship means so much to me and i love getting to see them grow and having to relearn how to get to normal but also how nothing between them has changed at all, and how they love each other the exact same amount and way from then and how theyd always do anything to protect one another. its so so sweet to watch and an incredible motivation for the plot bc i am rooting for them so much too as the viewer not only because the characters themselves are so incredibly loveable and kind (bc they are) but also because its so Believable considering the world they live in and the character building of those two. tanjiro cares about her so much, lost everyone he loved to the guy who also turned his sister this way, and is so genuinely warmhearted like it just makes so much sense why he does all of this and i never blamed him for a moment why he pursues such a daunting goal. because it always, ALWAYS seems worth it. it always does. and making it so ur viewer understands the point and motivations of the mc and plot, now thats good storytelling! I JUST HIT TEXT LIMIT SO ILL STOP NOW HELP ?

[radramblog]

Shameless self-promotion (kinda)

I’ve kinda been meaning to talk about other things what I do, so here’s a bit of that, I guess. I should probably get used to talking myself up, seeing as I am actively on the job hunt at the moment.

It’s worth noting that even as this post is titled “self-promotion”, this blog is really the only public content I am making that is just me, myself, and I. The things I’m going to be discussing have me contributing, but I’m not like a lead organisational entity or what have you.

It’s also worth noting that these are some instances of some Niche Nerd Shit. So keep that in mind. If you don’t like Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon, I’ve got bad news for you.

Might as well go in the order I just put up.

Commander’s Herald is a website that I believe was formed kind of as an offshoot in part to EDHREC’s Articles section, as a hub for deck techs and columns about MTG’s Most Popular Format (it’s official!). I’m not sure how well this is going to go for them, but it’s been chugging along since the start of the year without having the backup EDHREC has of, you know, being attached to an incredibly useful database, so fair enough.

I am not a writer for Commander’s Herald, to be clear. I don’t know if I play enough of the format to really contribute something useful on a weekly/fortnightly basis, even though I do talk about the game weekly on this very blog.

What I was a part of was the CUT! series run by one Travis Stanley on the site. It’s effectively a contest about creative deckbuilding under tight-ish restrictions- as an example, the first round required a deck with only Standard cards, 10+ Artifacts, and a Commander (or pair) from Commander Legends. It’s been really interesting how these have turned out so far, and the concept sounded really fun to me, so I put myself down to be part of the…show?

Many months later, I got my shot in as part of the fifth heat (though I think each round is completely separate), tying in to the release of D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms- thus I had to build a deck with a commander built around that. I’m not going to go into it that deeply, since part of the contest is writing up a 800-900ish word dech teck to go with the list, but you can find the article here.

My Drizzt Do’Urden list did, in fact, make me go to the finals, for which the post (and new decklist and post) can be found here. It’s probably too early to tell at time of writing, but it looks like I have a solidly commanding (heh) lead to win that too with my Minn list, so that’s pretty sick.

I do enjoy this sort of creative build challenge a lot. It’s reminding me of my first Cube build, where my options were heavily restricted because of, well, myself (and yet it ended up not being cheap), and it gives me a great excuse to strut my particular brand of deckbuilding. In this case, to a somewhat larger audience than this blog gets.

Speaking of slightly larger audiences, I suppose I should talk about the podcast I’ve been on, The Writer’s Locke.

While I’ve mentioned the Nuzlocke Forums multiple times on this blog, I haven’t really gone into the weeds of it- I’m thinking of making a much grander post about it in future. But I am a longtime lurker of said forums, and due to the marginally increased presence of Aussie dorks, gravitated towards the writers/storylockes corners of the site’s membership.

In case it wasn’t obvious from me maintaining a very silly blog for a decently long time, I’ve felt for a while that writing was probably my most viable creative outlet, and as a result, I’ve felt for a while that I should contribute something to this corner of the internet, considering how much it means to me. Unfortunately, I’m about as confident in my creative writing skills as I am my saxophone skills (in that it’s been a very long while since I tried and I’m not sure I had any promise then), I’m terrible at starting and committing to projects, and I’m pretty shy, so I haven’t really gotten anywhere on that front.

However, an opportunity arose when some of said Aussie Dorks started to organise a podcast by and for the membership of this community. A half-audiobook half-discussion series that is utterly and extremely devoted to niche Pokemon fanfiction. For the first season, I ended up in the latter (discussion) half of that spectrum for three episodes, bringing somewhat of an outsider’s perspective to the whole thing- after all, even if I have been part of the community for many years now, that doesn’t mean I know jack or shit about how to write things and what makes stories good. (I mean, I know a bit, but yknow). I’ll link the forum posts for those episodes here, though they should be available on most podcast-based platforms:

-Episode 8, where we discussed Protagonists,

-Episode 9, where the topic was, of all things, Gijinkas,

-and Episode 10, which was about Worldbuilding.

The second season of the cast is still ongoing, albeit after a bit of a hiatus (life happens, baby), and for this one I’m signed up not as a discusser but as a reader for one of the fics that makes up the audiobook section of the podcast. In particular, I’m reading Carousel, a very low-Pokemon high-feelings, nonstandard sort of piece, and I believe the one that headlines every episode in the season. Like, for some they’ll just do a couple chapters and leave the rest for you to go through, such that we can show off multiple people’s voices and multiple people’s writing in one season of podcast, but seeing as Carousel has relatively short chapters and neatly fits one per planned episode of the cast, we’ve just got me doing the whole thing of it.

Being on a podcast, even one as ultimately low-key as this one, has been a bit of an interesting experience. Recording those discussion segments with Rainey and Garchomp (who also happens to be Carousel’s writer) was a lot of fun, and though it’s a bit more stressful, I am having a good time lending my voice to the story. If nothing else, it’s decent practice for D&D and the like, though I’m still convinced that my voice for Suicune (iirc she’s supposed to sound, like, “smoky”, which is not a thing my voice does) is pretty terrible. Considering how awkward the protagonist is, though, I think I’m a good fit for that at the very least.

I wouldn’t actually know, though. I haven’t listened to any of the episodes with my voice work in them. I know not liking the sound of your own voice is fairly common, since you don’t sound how you think you do, but I find hearing my own voice bloody abrasive. I was thinking about writing a whole post about it, actually, but I guess this is that. I was kind of hoping that this whole process would get me more used to it, but that hasn’t happened so far, obviously. I would like to be on a more casual podcast at some point, it seems like a lot of fun, although adding to the legion of white_dude_with_podcast.wav feeds isn’t really something I’m the most interested in.

Oh right here’s some links.

-Episode 1, where I read chapter 1,

-Episode 2, chapter 2,

-etc, etc. We’re currently up to the 6th episode of the 10-episode season, for reference.

I guess that’s it, there’s only really the two of them so far. Ultimately, while I’m much lower on free time than I used to be, I would like to be producing more I the realm of #content. As long as it keeps being fun and interesting, I want to be doing it. I guess it’s just a question of how long that ends up being, and how I find myself doing it.

But I think that’s a problem for future me.

[vyvesvi]

yo I'm sorry if this is coming out of no where but I'm in hs and I realllllly wanna study anthropology and since you're an anthro major,,,, can you tell me what that's like, ik every prof and school is a lil different but like . yknow

yeahhh no problem! if you have specific questions that might be easier for me to answer but i’ll keep it a lil general for now. edit: i tend to ramble so my main points are bolded.

it’s kinda important for me to note that i started as a government major but found my school’s department to be really impersonal (idk how to describe it but the vibes were rancid, that’s the best i can do rip). so i switched to sociology the first day of classes lmfao. i later ended up having the same problem with soc, but it was kinda late in the day so i just kept it and added my other two majors, one of which is anthr

all of that to say, i’ve found the anthr department to be a much more “human” place? like in terms of caring about people and how academia impacts the “real world,” which is extremely important (imo).

in anthr, at least at my school, we focus a ton on methodology and for lack of a better word, morality. stuff like how the history of anthr’s formation and establishment as a legit academic discipline impacts future study (super basic version: sociology as “a study of the west” and anthr as “a study of the rest.” obviously that’s very based in racism and colonialist ideals, so an important question becomes “how do we proceed in a discipline with such a past? how can we use that to make us better academics?” etc.)

in terms of workload: very reading heavy, right now im taking two anthr classes and i would say i have around 70 - 100 pages to read a week? that’s light/average compared to other humanities (i’m also majoring in religious studies, that’s like 70 - 150 pages? and soc, as a social science is more like 30 - 80 pages. i minored in east asian history and that was actually pretty light for humanities, it really ranged from 40 - 100 pages iirc). also, i think this is often the case but at the lower level you have more quizzes and busy work, usually with short response and short (5 page) papers. as you take upper level courses you have less busy work, more readings, more presentations, and longer papers (10+)

random advice: i would really recommend taking a language! idk if you have specific goals for what you want to do after graduation but one of the best things is to get a PhD and do research. personally i want to focus in methodology (bc i suck at languages lmfao) but the more typical (and fun) part of anthr is the area studies part, and knowing a language makes you incredibly competitive. of course, you don’t need to do anthropology in an area that requires you to learn a language (like i can do english speaking places as is, and there are also like a billion sublevels of anthr at the grad level, like medical, historical, etc that don’t require a language) but it will def make getting into research easier

the really cool thing about anthr is that it pairs well with most stem and social sciences! you can pretty much pick anything subject in those fields and there’s a subfield for that. like i know a grad student who’s doing the anthr of math (don’t ask me what that entails bc i have no clue), a friend of mine did a final project on the anthr of modern witchcraft, i know a few people who are working on projects related to college students during quarantine. personally my undergrad work is on marginalization and apathy + immigration and humanitarian aid. the possibilities are truly endless.

on that same topic, im not sure that people in creative writing would agree but i’ve heard some famous author give this advice to aspiring writers: don’t major in english. their rationale is that you can learn to write anywhere, and that it’s much more important to have other knowledge so that you have something to write about. i would say something similar about anthr- it’s a lil useless on it’s own. that being said, i personally think minoring or double majoring is a must with anthr. like, it just means more if you have other outside interests.

i’m not sure if you’re a college student but if you’re not yet and don’t know where you’re going yet, this seems obvious but definitely look at the course offerings and major requirements before you apply (if possible)! there’s always gonna be stuff you learn by being a student (and if you can connect with students in the department, definitely try to do that!) but there’s still info that you can glean from the websites. simple stuff like “how would i build a semester schedule from this? would i enjoy these classes?” etc. you can also email professors if you want! most of them legitimately want to help students, and the worse they can do is not respond!

that’s kind of it off the top of my head, but if you have any specific questions about anthr or college feel free to ask! i kinda just rambled because i wasn’t sure lol

[safedreamdaddy-blog]

ok SO superhero au in which mc is just an ordinary guy looking to start fresh in a new neighborhood with a new job. he’s a reporter (naturally, it’s a staple of the genre yknow) and his job is to... report, basically. his daughter is an aspiring photographer, and she’s heard talk about Certain Magics in the area

as we all know, mc can be a bit.... oblivious, sometimes. perhaps “out of the loop” is more accurate. regardless, he does not know what this means and assumes that amanda is hyping up something he, as a dad, physically can not understand.

without making this post 10 pages long, mc meets each of his neighbors: craig, joseph, mat, brian, hugo, damien, and robert. within a few very, extremely unlucky weeks, he also meets 7 other men, all of which possess powers that kind of sort of REALLY line up with amanda’s “magic” statement

he meets a man in blue wearing nothing but a domino mask to cover his face. the man rescues mc from a mugging by dropping from the sky and scooping mc into his big, buff arms. with a single leap, they’re flying high above the city. mc thinks that this man’s laugh is awfully familiar...

a single day later, mc is caught in the crossfires of a gunfight on his way home. he begs for his life, only to discover that there’s no need. ice slicks the ground, and a pink-and-blue figure slides in on it, erecting a wall of ice between mc and the fight. mc notes that this hero’s eyes are two different (and equally pretty) shades of blue.

his next few days are blissfully free of danger. until that thought registers. naturally, that’s when danger strikes, this time in the form of a crumbling construction site. he is saved by a man with tattoos at least up to his elbows. mystery man is decked out in shades of purple.

he snaps his fingers and a sharp, musical twang thunders through the air, knocking the pillar heading for mc’s head. he catches the pillar with some invisible force (which also makes his tattoos glow?) and he smiles sheepishly at mc. it’s cute, mc thinks. very cute.

again, mc is given a break. only a day this time. and this time, it’s during mc’s first walk through the park. he hears a bear and not the good kind. there’s not enough time for him to run away, to take shelter from this creature that seems so irrationally angry at him for, what? trespassing? being a big ol’ juicy slice of Dad? for the fourth time in the past week, mc braces himself for death.

yet another hero emerges from nowhere, vines wound around his big hands and the scent of pine ever-lingering on his green supersuit. the bear runs like hell. mc’s fourth hero grins. somehow, it’s both infuriating and handsome enough to get mc’s heart racing.

mc needs a break from all of this. amanda mentions a local Game at the end of the week.

“do you want to go?”

“yeah. i could use a break.”

there are no breaks allowed in maple city. halfway through the game, a group of suspicious-looking youths behind mc decide that now is as good a time as any to try and rob everyone sitting around them. mc rips his wallet out of his pocket and is fully prepared to fling it at the kids if they will just give him a goddamn break when he is ever-so-conveniently interrupted. this guy is a little ridiculous. he’s dressed like a wrestler got splashed with bright yellow-and-orange paint. one of the youths swings at this ridiculous figure. the figure dodges it easily, almost as if he knew the punch was coming. and he does it again, and again, and again. he ends the fight easily, plants his hands on his hips, and puffs his chest out. he says the cheesiest line anyone could possibly say, then he bolts off.

a week later, mc is poking around in an old, abandoned warehouse, the last known hq of a notorious kingpin. it’s his duty to scope it out and see if it’d make a substantial bit; he doesn’t think this is a good idea, but then, nothing in maple city has been good.

surprisingly, things go well for about two minutes. unsurprisingly, his luck breaks. again. mc triggers an old booby trap, the sort that could have been stolen straight out of an indiana jones movie.

mc has long since accepted that he’s going to die in some stupid and embarrassing way in this city of superheroes and inconvenience, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.

he’s reluctantly come to like being saved by these superheroes, though... they’re all very nice, and not bad to look at. ah, but he jinxes himself, because this time? he’s saved by a gigantic bat. maybe it would be cute if he really looked at it, but all he can do is scream like he’s dying and curl up in a little ball in the grasp of this thing’s big bat-hands.

he’s dropped rather gracelessly out of harms way, where he slowly pushes himself into a sitting position. he’s fully expecting to see the face of a bat half an inch from his. instead, he’s met with that of a masked man.

“um, apologies,” says the man. he leaps into the air and transforms into a raven this time. mc has no time to thank him.

“maybe i should be writing about the superheroes running around like they own the place,” mc suggests to their boss. they are shot down on the grounds that it’s been written about a thousand times before. there are whole websites dedicated to theories (mc wants to check them out, if amanda is home & in the mood to guide him), books and even an odd documentary or two.

frustrated, mc skips going home. he doesn’t want to risk his new neighbors seeing him pouting over something silly. they’re all nice, (robert is... questionable, to put it one way) but they don’t need to see that. they have their own problems.

like a responsible grown adult, mc goes to the bar. he doesn’t intend to get drunk, just to loosen up a little, you know? just to feel better.

he gets drunk. ohoho, he gets drunk.

now, mc isn’t exactly the most intimidating presence in the room and he’s far from the strongest, but his weak aura must have been just enough to entice the criminal-ish nature of some... criminals.

it’s an okay conversation at first. some chit-chat, nothing special. my kid’s at home, do you have kids? no, i’m just a thug, man. oh, okay, yeah, great, nice to meet you, mr. thug.

mc is shoved off his barstool. he hears the shing of a knife being drawn and smells some odd combination of booze and fresh brawl-blood on the floor. he doesn’t register much more. when he blinks, he’s laying out on the sidewalk, a familiar face hovering over his. the face is fuzzy and dark on the edges, as if it’s made of smoke.

“robert?”

ok this got WAY out of hand even after i promised it wouldnt. basically this is kinda the format for an au i had in mind ft my own Famther OC. this is kind of just a rough outline of each characters’ powers and as u can see it’s not hm. polished. but!! it’s fun & i want to describe the supersuits (& maybe figure out aliases??) next! i’m trying to figure out a way to work in the other characters & ofc the kids but. atm this is what i got!! i listed the dads @ the beginning in the same order i wrote abt them jic i was too vague w descriptions. i would go back n rewrite all the ones before hugo but tbh i cba just ask if u wanna know more. in any case thamk u for listening!!!!! tune in fr more

[foxymuses]

all even #'s for the mun questions !!

catch me still not knowing if this is the right meme, but yolo

Tell us about the first fandom you roleplayed in. Are you still part of it or have you moved onto others?

well technically, i think it was marvel. but that was like. very brief and when i first discovered rp on tumblr was a thing, then i created liam, who was fandomless. my first true blog was moriarty for sherlock. and i still have jim! but the sherlock fandom is toxic af and has died out for the most part.   

How many roleplay blogs do you have?

i have learned i am incapable of managing more than one, so this is what you got

What are your thoughts on the current roleplay trends on here right now?

fuck if i even know what the trends are. my biggest issue atm is over-formatting things. i have p awful eyesight and i’m prone to migraines (like, the wanna throw up and die type), so all of these random bolds and italics and sup and sub and colors and weird spacing and over-blockquoting things just fucks with my head, and i genuinely cannot read those replies, and sometimes people use weird fonts that show up as just squares and i don’t get it honestly. hyper-texturized or really small icons also just make me??? because 9/10 times i can’t even tell what is in the icon. i wish we would bring back like... people actually replying to opens, and idk general fucking etiquette but whatever. this was salty, but like i don’t really care about trends that are working so i don’t pay attention to them, i guess

Are there other websites you roleplay on that’s not on Tumblr?

noooope. makes me feel weird. tried doing it on disco for a bit but idk. i still will sometimes if someone wants but like. i just feel comfy with the way tumblr rp works

Are there any fandom(s) you avoid roleplaying in?

i don’t avoid fandoms, exactly. like the sherlock fandom, as i said, is toxic af, and other fandoms like spn, inuyasha, hp, and even marvel can be incredibly cliquey and difficult to break into, and for some fandoms, unless you write a single muse blog, nobody is going to even look at your blog. so i don’t avoid these fandoms, but i also don’t like... submerge myself in them either. those who want to follow will, and we’ll work out or we won’t. but that’s why i have a multi, so that i can bounce around as i need to. 

Are there any characters you’re interested in wanting to roleplay as? 

please don’t encourage me, i don’t need more muses (whispers ofc there are always muses. i was gonna add castle once, there are several muses from books i’d love to write but i know the fandom is nonexistent, but i just. i’m at 50+ muses pls stop me)

What are your thoughts on duplicates?

it depends on the muse, honestly. there are some characters that i just feel so fucking strongly towards that my idea of who they are is v important to me? and so it makes me v anxious to see people writing those muses (mostly if its a single muse blog), and so i avoid them. then there are some muses where like... it’s a very small fandom, sometimes i’m the only one in it, and out of nowhere someone will add the muse i write for the fandom and that makes me feel weird too. i’m getting better at it, since the majority of my problem stems from a fear of inadequacy and that people will always favor the other person over my portrayal, especially since i am a multi. so i’m trying to work through that, but yknow. only so much i can do, and if i don’t follow them, then no problems to be had. a lot of my muses are okay with dupes though.

What do you expect from others when they want to roleplay?

i expect people who seek me out (or even, literally, who follow me in general) to have some idea of which muse they want to interact with. i can’t pick for you! even if you say it’s okay, i have 50+ muses with different personalities and possibilities, and you could be interested in a different muse i choose, so you need to have at least one potential muse of mine picked out. and i would SUPER appreciate that multis also have someone from their roster decided on too, so we’re not trying to play the match game here. if you approach me for an rp, i expect, at the very least, a basic idea of what you’re looking for. it just helps us from playing the ‘hmmmmmmm’ game.

What’s the one thing you want to try the most on your blog?

write! ships! with! me! like. give me wolfstar. ship a dorian with my teren, pls. give me a mr. darcy and a hades. write the other characters for my small fandoms. ship with my muses you cowards.

Is there anything you can change about your skills as a roleplayer?

oh i’m sure. there’s something everyone can change about their skills. i, for one, need to fucking learn to queue my stuff and you know, actually reply to things.

Ever had a falling out with a partner?

i have. a few times, actually. sometimes people just don’t mesh well together. sometimes there are bumps in the road and people make mistakes. sometimes other people overreact. being friends with people through an online platform is difficult, and not everything is going to be peaches. i’ve been here for 8 years, it’d be impressive if i’d never had a falling out honestly.

Other than roleplaying, what’s your favorite hobby?

video games! and cats i like cats.