#instead of 2 with 3 additional filters

[secrettreestuffidk]

folks are on about a/b/o having ass babies but like??? It’s obviously a cloaca

[jadevine]

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

Update March 1, 2024: Hey there folks, here's yet another update! I reposted Part 2a (the "medieval warhorses" tangent) to my writing blog, and I went down MORE of the horse-knowledge rabbit hole! https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/741423906984951808/my-post-got-cut-off-so-i-added-the-rest-of-it Update Jan 30, 2024: Hey folks, I've posted the updated version of this post on my blog, so I don't have to keep frantically telling everyone "hey, that's the old version of this post!" https://thebalangay.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/preindustrial-travel-times-part-1/

I should get the posts about army travel times and camp followers reformatted and posted to my blog around the end of the week, so I'll filter through my extremely tangled thread for them.

Part 2 - Preindustrial ARMY travel times: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask

Part 2a - How realistic warhorses look and act, because the myth of "all knights were mounted on huge clunky draft horses" just refuses to die: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/732043691180605440/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember

Part 3 - Additional note about camp followers being regular workers AND sex-workers: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/740604203134828544/reblogging-the-time-looped-version-of-my

--

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask )

[abarbaricyalp]

I'm still trying to comprehend an archive deciding it's a good idea to retroactively change the definition of a general tag to be more specific

14 years after the tag was established

6 years since Chris Evans was Captain America

6 years since Sam Wilson was given the shield

4 years since Sam donned the shield for the first time with the title Captain America

In what world do you not just keep the "Captain America Movies" tag and add in the 'let racist fans ignore Sam easier' new tags as sub tags????

Sam!Cap fics have been written since 2014 (and probably before) and the MCU introduced the movies-canon concept in 2019. Why would fics with Sam as Captain America written in the last six years now have the asinine Evans tag instead? Why is this not an opt in thing? Why is this not a "going forward" thing?

AND ANOTHER THING

WHY is TFATWS not considered part of the Captain America tag? It is a story about Captain America????? It is called CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE WINTER SOLDIER by the end of the show. He is Cap for the whole last episode! It's as much time as Steve is cap in TFA.

"Well if fans want to read the continuities of the Evans movies only--" Bro you mean the continuities that lead directly into Sam becoming Cap?????? There are no other continuities! Sam!Cap and Steve!Cap are the EXACT SAME canon! There are no multiverses and what ifs here!!!

The implementation of this is WILD. You cannot assign a narrow definition to something people have been broadly using for a decade and a half! You're really gonna change the tag that people have been using this whole time????? You're gonna tag all of my sambucky fics as Chris Evans???? Get a grip.

This isn't a new franchise. This isn't a reboot. You're comparing apples and oranges here by bringing up Spidermen and 007s. Also someone correct me if I'm wrong, there was not a general Spiderman Movies/ James Bond Movies tag that was changed fifteen years later to only mean Tobey Macguire or Sean Connery.

"People who want to read about Steve--" Can use 1) character filters 2) ship filters 3) additional tags 4) summaries 5) scroll past all the things that aren't what they want to read the way Sam fans have been doing for years and years and years and judging by the fics in the tag now will have to continue to do

It's an established tag. There is no new franchise. This will disproportionately (negatively) affect Sam-centric fics and searches. I'm never going to get over how bad an archival practice it is to blanket change a decade and a half old tag to be more specific than it has been before.

[whumpmasinjuly]

Now introducing the prompt list for Whumpmas in July 2024! 

Thank you for patiently waiting! As a reminder, we will not be reblogging any creations on this blog and will instead keep this blog as a space to only post the prompts, tags, and relevant information. We will post the tag for each day, and we ask that you use two tags when filling prompts this year so that others may find your creations easily:  Tag 1 —> #wij24day__ (Fill in the blank with the appropriate day number for the prompt you are filling! For example, if you are doing the prompt for day 21, make sure to tag your post with #wij24day21.)

Tag 2 —> #whumpmasinjuly2024 Be sure to also tag @whumpmasinjuly-archive if you would like your posts reblogged to our new official archive account! Of course, feel free to use any other relevant tags too! You can also find a banner that you can use in your posts (if you want, not required) under the #wijbanner tag.

The prompts are divided into three categories: community (red boxes), question (green boxes), and creation (white boxes). Everyone is free to participate as much or as little as they want–there’s no completionist requirement! This list provides a preview of the prompts, but on each day a more detailed post will be released with more context and additional suggestions for each day’s task. Similar to previous years, all prompts and other important information will be found under the #infowhumpmasinjuly tag and #infowij24 for ease of access. This blog will also use the tags #wijquestion , #wijcommunity , and #wijprompt respectively for each post so that you can filter and find the type of prompts you’d like to do. 

Below the cut is a text list of this year’s prompts:

1. (Re)Introduce yourself 2. What are your top three favorite whump tropes? 3. "______ deserved it" 4. Post a whump prompt for someone else to fill on Day 28 5. Share a TV show, movie, or any media that gives you the whumperflies! 6. Left Behind 7. Post a link to your favorite whump fic of all time! 8. Describe your favorite type of whumper 9.��Mind Games 10. Check out a new whump blog and drop them an ask 11. What songs/playlists are perfect for whumpy daydreaming? 12. Caught 13. Share some of your favorite niche whump tags! 14. Describe the ideal fic you've always wanted to read, but have yet to find/haven't written yet. 15. A Soft Reprieve 16. Create a whump meme! 17. What has been your most recent whump obsession? 18. "Or else" 19. Create a list of some of your favorite whump blogs to share! 20. What character do you wish to see whumped more in canon/fan-made media? 21. Abandoned 22. Find a story/author you've never engaged with before, and leave some nice comments! 23. What is your favorite type of whump setting? 24. Denial 25. Share a sneak peek of something you're working on 26. Describe your favorite type of whumpee 27. Delirium 28. Fill someone's whump prompt from Day 4 29. When did you get your first whumperflies? 30. "I'm here" 31. Who is someone in the whump-creating world that you admire and why?

[cosmos-coma]

Winter Mountain Soldier Spy- Part 6

A/N: Eyyy, this one is shorter than the last few chapters. I just wanted to try and get something out a touch faster (and leave you all on a cliffhanger)! enjoy!

Pairing: Winter soldier!Bucky x Fem!Reader

Words: 1549

Bucky Masterlist | AO3

Like what I do? Consider buying me a Coffee!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

___________

Light filtered in through the cracks of your haphazardly closed curtains and settled pleasantly on your face. A wall of warmth pressed against your back, keeping you just within the drowsy reach of sleep– not unlike strong arms that currently held you flush against Winter’s sleeping form. 

You rolled over, an annoyed huff escaping your lips as you sought to escape the stray light, and turned in towards your stalwart companion. Prickly stubble scratched against your forehead as you tucked your head beneath his chin, safe in your dark alcove. Roughened hands roamed your back unconsciously and once again ushered you toward sleep.

Life had been rather peaceful this past week. Despite the heavy weight of your recent conversation, the whole house felt lighter. Early morning breakfasts with the radio on felt a little more alive than they did before. Maybe it was the newfound closeness- the hand that now rested on your hip instead of the counter, or the low, almost imperceptible hum of Winter’s voice alongside yours- but rolling out of bed has never felt more worthwhile. 

Though even that couldn’t change the fact that you both were looking over your shoulders now. 

You had become more hesitant when answering people’s questions, even from those whom you had known for years. You walked a little bit quieter, and kept your pocket knife a little bit closer- all for some semblance of security. 

But still you were thankful- once you two got home almost all of the fear and worry melted away. You could breathe easy, you didn’t have to parse your words, and you didn’t have to watch your step: your home had become a sanctuary.

Or so you thought. 

When you woke again, your bed felt cool and empty. Where Winter usually lay beside you was now lukewarm and wrinkled, his scent still lingering faintly on the pillowcase. 

You stretched with a quiet pop of your collarbone and a tired sigh before finally rolling yourself out of bed. Your feet padded over cool ground as you bumbled about the room, getting dressed. The deep freeze in the weather had refused to let up despite most everyone’s annoyance, but it was fine by you. You grabbed your favorite wool sweater from its prominent place in your closet and pulled on some wool socks for good measure. Worst comes to worst, you knew you could always use Winter as an additional heat source to warm your freezing toes. 

With a little more wakefulness, you make your way out into the kitchen, looking around for signs of Winter as you went, until finally stumbling across a piece of junk mail on the kitchen table with a note scrawled in Winter’s handwriting. 

‘You said you forgot your medicine yesterday. Went into town to grab it. Back soon.’ He had written. The time he left was scribbled quickly and askew in the corner of the note, a little obvious it came as an afterthought. 

You couldn’t help but smile at his short, to-the-point sentences; it reminded you of how he was when he first showed up, and you wouldn’t change it for the world. 

You checked the time, ‘He must’ve left right before I woke up.’ You thought, nodding to yourself as you set it back down and turned toward the freezer, “Well, maybe it’ll give me a chance to take care of the fire for him… I kinda miss it anyway.” You thought aloud and grabbed your unsuspecting prey- a breakfast sandwich- from the depths of your cold box. 

You went about your breakfast quickly, taking a moment to enjoy a few quiet minutes by yourself before you headed outside to the furnace and wood shed.

Sparse flakes of snow danced down from the sky, occasionally being joined by larger swaths of white as the weary limbs of the trees finally gave in and dropped chunks of last night’s snow. The sharp cold of the air bit at your cheeks and nose, but didn’t hurt the way the negative temperatures did. You stopped and watched briefly as the world of winter turned slowly around you, and you smiled. 

It was going to be a good day- you could feel it in your wool-wrapped bones. 

Chickadees and titmice chirped their narration as you stoked the old furnace and filled it with most of what remained of your prepared wood. It looks like both of you had underestimated how much wood you’d need.

Smoldering coals glowed with life as the embers finally caught a fresh breath of air, exhaling smoke from the chimney above and the now open door before you. You were gonna reek of fire smoke by the time you finished, but you kind of liked it that way. 

You then moved on to brush the snow from your chopping block— a old hardwood log- and we’re quick to wipe your wet hand on your jeans and stuff it back in your pocket to quickly warm it again before you retrieved your trusty axe.

You checked the time again, Winter would probably only be another 25 minutes or so, but even if you only got through a handful of logs, you still wanted to help him out by getting started. 

Knock… knock… knock-thud….

The familiar sound echoed as you split your first logs. It was easy to get back into your groove, even after you had let Winter take over for so long. By your third long you had gotten so wrapped up in the rhythm of it all that you nearly missed the unfamiliar car rolling down your street… until it began turning into your driveway…. 

You paused, swinging your axe up onto your shoulder as you watched it approach. You didn’t recognize the dark SUV as it pulled as it rolled up to a stop in your usual spot— nor did you recognize the second one that followed behind only a few seconds behind. You tried to peer into the windows from afar, but their deep tint left nothing for you to discover.

Instantly, the hairs on the back of your neck rose, and your grip on the axe tightened as if holding onto a lifeline. 

But… Winter wasn’t here, and that was a good thing. They wouldn’t find any definitive evidence of him inside, and as far as you knew, no one could prove he had ever been there. 

You took a deep breath and willed your grip to loosen; you would not give them a reason to be suspicious. 

Two large men stepped out of the second car, strapped head to toe in dark tactical gear, carrying at least one gun each that you noticed hidden away beneath their gear. They were dressed almost exactly like Winter was when he first showed up— as if they were walking into a war zone, and not a farmhouse.

They gave a cursory look around, paying you barely any mind as they swept their eyes over the grounds, the windows, and every possible vantage point they could think of. When they finally seemed satisfied, they nodded to one another and rapped their knuckles against the first car’s windows.  

Without hesitation, the doors opened, letting out three scientists who all nodded to each other, and seemed to ask the guards to stay behind for now as they all turned their eyes toward you. 

The small group made their way toward you, led by a woman of moderate stature, with a lab coat that seemed a little too long for her. Flecks of grey hair stained her temples and hairline, yet she looked to be barely breaking 35. Her smile was soft, yet professional as she approached you, flanked by two meek-looking young men, their unassuming frames also clad in white coats. 

“Hello, Good morning…” she greeted kindly, stopping a few steps away from you, just out of arm's reach. 

The name on her lab coat and keycard meant nothing to you as you took a quick glance over her—nor did the embroidered name of the company she seemingly worked for–Hardy’s labs.

Nothing looked terribly out of place at first. Beneath her work coat, she seemed to have several layers of warm clothes on, and a winter hat to top it all off. Glasses hung on the bridge of her nose, and a clipboard found its home tucked beneath her arm; all normal things. No, looking at her, you would have figured she was a scientist pulled way out of her depth on a sudden assignment. That is- had the wind not shown you it’s mercy.

A short, small gust of wind rolled through the trees, gently billowing the edges of her thin lab coat. In its movement, the coat’s lapel lifted like a sail, fluttering against her cheek just long enough to see a flash of silver pinned below, previously hidden from sight.

Your blood ran cold as you took in what you could of its of it’s shape. The hollow features of a skull stuck out to you, followed by a handful of malicious tentacles that reached out from where a body should be. 

These people weren’t from ‘Hardy’s’ bullshit lab… they were from Hydra’s.

“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you from your work” she said with well practiced kindness, “but I have a few questions to ask you.”

_________

General Bucky Taglist:

@writingmysanity @simpxinnie @goldylions @yeehawbrothers @mgchaser

WMSS Taglist:

@fanfictionreaderfan @thesarcasmqueen-22

If you wanted to be added to the general or WMSS Taglist please ask/DM and let me know!

[crooked-wasteland]

Hazbin Rewrite Ideas

Since I have gotten about 3 asks now on how I would rewrite Hazbin Hotel, here are some actual ideas for a rewrite and why I think they would function as a cohesive narrative and not just metanarrative themes.

Adam is Second in Command

Adam being both the head of the exorcists as well as Sera being a terrible overseer and uninterested in what Adam is doing makes no sense. Even with the argument being that she's concerned about Hell rising up, it doesn't explain why she wouldn't take more control of the exorcists. She basically allows them to govern themselves and relies heavily on Adam of all people. In Season 2 they are trying to make her morally grey with how she comes to regret the exterminations after Pentious is proven capable of redemption, but it is undercut by how she treated Sinners as subhuman.

If they are in heaven, they deserve to be a person and if they go to Hell they don't. But it solidifies this idea that people need to prove they are worthy of respect, love, and life. Which is the fundamental core of White Supremacist ideology. Most racists have exceptions to their dogma, because those individuals "proved themselves" in some way or manner that they are deserving of respect. Usually by being useful or successful.

This framing is not removed just because Sera is black coded. Racist ideology is racist ideology regardless of what color it comes in. And even if you love the show, it is paramount to understand that the people behind the series are going to have their own beliefs and agendas that are still going to be filtered through Medrano's beliefs. And even if this is the result of a hired writer or not, it didn't touch Medrano that this sort of thinking is the definition of implicit racism.

As such, adding distance between Sera and Adam would have made it less scathing on her and show more of the bureaucratic "red tape" that I think was supposed to be somewhere in Heaven. Based on the first and sixth episodes, I feel like that was what they were trying to get across with Peter's panic over Charlie "not on the list" as well as her signing a contract just to meet with Adam. But it is so glossed over it may as well not be there at all.

And while I definitely do criticize Medrano when adding more characters to a cast, it usually comes from the fact that the additions do nothing to balance the cast and the story. Often adding new plot threads rather than integrating into existing ones. But here it is necessary. Add another Angel to be in charge of exterminators and Adam, who also reports back to Sera. Someone who is not objectively bloodthirsty, they are just doing their job (The Banality of Evil is a great reference). Meanwhile Sera is the one actually in control, but doesn't actually want to get too involved with the details because she finds the human impact of her decisions too upsetting.

She takes in numbers and facts without wanting to really know anything. So when Charlie goes to meet with Heaven, it should be Adam and his boss. Adam being insufferable and contrarian while his boss is apathetic and diplomatic would have made a better dynamic than having Adam and Adam2.0 (Lute). Having differences in personalities allows for more range of interactions.

Or, if you want to be more radical and clean up some of the fluff to the story, recycle a character into this role. Emily being Adam's superior actually sets a strong foundation for why they would even entertain and compromise.

I wouldn't have had this happen in the first episode either. Instead have it be episode 4 or 5 and keep everything in Hell, just have the interaction occur through the embassy.

And that isn't to say get rid of Lute. In fact, making her the second in command to the second in command is a perfect representation of Pick-Me Post-Feminism.

Rework the Timeline and Primary Threat

The 6 month timeline was a bad idea. It's clear they thought they had enough content to have an extermination at the end of the season, but no idea how to adapt to episode constraints. It makes no sense why the timeline is condensed to 6 months when we don't even see things happening in the show. Changes are practically instantaneous after a song and such songs are not a genuine show or reflection of the characters' wants and needs. It's a moment that "seems good for a song".

It also never confirms why they are reducing the time.

I actually like the Conan idea Anon supplied. Where the reveal of the dead Angel is what causes the growing tension. I would probably have cut the first 3 episodes to focus on one character each, similar to Creature Commandos did towards the end of the series.

For some reference, the show starts with the characters playing off each other and building their dynamics before going into their back stories. And the last 4 episodes, while balancing the current stories of the entire cast, tackle each monster's backstory one by one. They start with a sense of familiarity, so it makes sense to hold off on explaining their pasts until the story starts building tension. Interspersing it with the rising action towards the climax allows the audience to attach themselves to the characters in a complex manner. They aren't made one note for some tragic backstory to them excuse all the lives they take later on. You see them grapple with and indulge in their darkest self while also seeing where their humanity has been buried at the same time. You delight in their gratuitous violence and the carnage they leave while also wishing them happiness. Extremely contradictory emotions being balanced simultaneously is how you can quickly endear an audience to a group of sympathetic assholes. And James Gunn is one of the best writers for that trope.

So for the first few episodes I would focus on the characters' relationships with each other. Angel Dust not really participating, Vaggie being defensive of Charlie while also seeing Angel Dust as a lost cause, and Charlie desperately trying to instill change but not understanding Angel or Vaggie well enough because she is essentially a Hellborne Half-angel. Having her struggling to connect to sinners would have been an excellent source of narrative conflict early on.

It works with the B plot of episode 1 and connects better to the Pilot. Additionally, it builds a foundation for Lilith's motivations. Apparently in season 2 it is revealed she raised an army before vanishing, so focusing on Sinners rejecting Charlie during this time makes the most sense. It even allows some fanatics to accuse Charlie of being a traitor to even her own Mother. There is also an opportunity to bait at the idea of Charlie not being Lilith's daughter, but actually Eve's.

Keeping with the angel being killed in the extermination, have a rising tension be that exterminators have supposedly been spotted in the Pride Ring. Maybe they are searching for the missing angel and that is causing rising uncertainty and thus paranoia and desperation. It also can act as motivation for Sinners to go to Charlie. And Charlie sees this "threat of punishment" moving people to believe in her. What it means to rule through fear and how desperation creates Christ figures.

The exterminators find the dead Angel and are planning a preemptive mass scale invasion. No longer are they just thinking numbers, this is now war. And have the meeting between Heaven and Charlie be based on that. Heaven is meeting with Lucifer to basically say all bets are off and, if he wants to keep his family safe, they need to leave the Pride Ring before a specific time.

It shows that international hostilities are never so complete that the wealthy and powerful still look after each other. Even when they are supposedly enemies. It shows the nuance and complexities of class solidarity and diplomacy. It gives the foundations of how power becomes corrupt and how community and recognition supercedes even ideology.

And this is where Charlie meets with Adam and his commander and she has to make a deal. She can't call off another extermination, it is happening whether she likes it or not. But what if the only safe place is the Hotel? She explains her little rehab center and how she is trying to find a better way to reduce tension between Hell and Heaven by redeeming her people. Adam is opposed emotionally, talking about how undeserving they are and how their punishment has already been given, only to be silenced by his diplomatic superior.

The issue then is how many people would be sincere in their redemption if it was known that running to the hotel would make them safe? Every room would be packed to bursting as every sinner ran to save themselves and immediately abandon Charlie and her project once it was no longer convenient to them. Especially because they don't know how their exterminator was killed.

If Charlie wishes to spare her pet project, she needs to give them a good reason not to just go to war. Things will go back to normal, yearly exterminations included, but the deal with Lucifer would be amended to include Charlie's hotel as being safe only if she can find the murderer and bring them before Heaven for their final judgement.

Connect this storyline to the Vs. Carmella works under Vox but keeps her angelic weapon to herself because it's the only thing that can kill a Sinner. Maybe she is planning to kill the Vs herself because they keep control of her through her daughters. Maybe Valentino had them abducted to empower Vox over Carmella and take her territory. They are Val's victims in human trafficking and political plays, but during the extermination, Carmella took advantage of the situation and stole them back. Knowing that it would be assumed the people in charge of watching over her girls were killed by the angels and no one would necessarily look for her girls for the same reason.

Only for them to be attacked by an exorcist while fleeing and Carmella was forced to kill the angel to save them all. And because of that, she's trying to lay low and stay quiet during this whole situation to not raise suspicion that she has her daughters, or that it was her who killed the angel. Meanwhile Charlie is hunting her down to try and save her hotel. And this way Angel Dust's narrative with Valentino directly folds into the conflict where he can be a tool for Charlie and the narrative to get information on Carmella and solve the case.

There are multiple opportunities one could take with these ideas and not all of them are necessary to greenlight. If you don't want to suggest Eve could be Charlie's real mother, you don't have to. But if you enjoy playing with your audience and have an idea of how the reveal one way or the other would go, it's an opportunity. And the fact remains that you sometimes have to cut ideas.

But those are just some ideas and why and how I would have implemented them if I were to rewrite Hazbin Hotel.

[ethos-labrador]

alright, so i've seen a couple posts similar to this but i wanted to add some things:

if you are coming to/back to tumblr from tiktok, welcome! here are a few things that will help you get started:

1) when setting up your profile, make sure to set a pfp and banner so you look less like a bot. people don't typically show thier face here and anomyinity is encouraged, so it can be of whatever. you can also hide your likes in settings - most tumblr users do

2) you can turn on timestamps in settings. if nothing else i highly recommend turning on timestamps, or you'll be missing a lot of context on your dash (i could not tell you why timestamps are off by default.)

3) tumblr doesn't have an algorythim - it just shows posts from ppl you follow in chronological order, so likes are used moreso as a wave to a friend or a hug than to help spread the post. if you want to help spread the post you reblog it, and if a mutual is ranting about an irritating coworker you give it a like. some people also use their likes as a sort of saved posts folder

"but i see a tab that says 'for you'?" you may be saying. and yeah, that exists, but it doesn't work very well, so most users ignore it

4) Make sure to tag things correctly. Putting unrelated tags on a post won't help more people see it - you'll just end up irritating people who go to #dogs and your parrot is there instead. Tags also help people avoid triggers and topics that they don't like, so it's important to tag sensitive topics acurately since words like "kill" and "suicide" are allowed here. dodging the word itself by adding numbers or misspelling it only hurts people who find it upsetting

the only big topic that's not allowed here is (notoriously) NSFW content. you'll still see it a lot from bot accounts, ane text based NSFW is fine if tagged correctly. Illustrated NSFW sometimes makes it past the filter if artists are creative with it

5) Block tags! This is useful for mental health reasons, but also, is there a new show you haven't seen yet and you want to avoid spoilers? You can add tags to your filtered list in settings and take them out after you watch the show. Following someone who's now obsessed with a movie have no interest in but don't want to unfollow them? Just block the related tags. Love scrolling through a tag for a show you like but hate a popular ship? Block the ship tag(s)

6) every post here has a comment section, and a reblog section (unless OP turned them off). I often use the comments to talk in posts if it's a more private conversation (IE the annoying coworker example from earlier), but most talking will happen in the tags. When you reblog a post, the person you reblogged from will get a notification as well as the original poster, so you can use this to chat to the previous blogger (prev) and/or to talk to OP. I'll put some talk-y tags on here so you have an example of what that might look like (Also you can't put commas in tags. Spaces are fine but no commas. Why? great question)

7) you can also add to the main post when you reblog something. typically people do this if they have something signifigant to add to the conversation, as opposed to talking about TV characters the post reminds you of or saying smth along the lines of #same

8) you can get to the original post from a reblog chain by clicking where the date of posting is. the date will be off by default for some reason, like i said earlier. clicking this is useful if you want to read OP's tags or if you want to remove additions to the bottom of a post and reblog the original thing

if you have questions, drop them in the comments and i'll answer if i can, either about the culture here or how to navigate settings!

[mspaesthetic]

Tidbit: Persnickety About Posters

If you want to avoid overly dark or blurry posters in your fan adventures, then follow my lead:

1) Download JPEG off of Google Images.

2) Import, scale down, and skew/shear it. Use an interpolation method such as Bilinear or Bicubic Sharper. Doing both transformations at once is better than repeatedly transforming the image (i.e. resizing it, applying the transform, and then skewing it), as it helps prevent the image and edges from becoming too blurry. This will be important later.

You can hold down Ctrl + Shift to constrain the Move tool along a single axis so it won't go out of alignment as you're skewing it. If you don't see the Transform Controls by default, enable it in the tool options bar at the top, or go to Edit>Free Transform.

3) Desaturate it. Desaturate means to turn color grayer, until it becomes black and white.

4) Adjust the brightness and contrast using the Levels adjustment tool. It's much too dark as it is! In Photoshop, it is located under Image>Adjustments>Levels..., but I recommend creating an adjustment layer from the bottom of the layers tab instead. Doing so will allow you to make edits non-destructively, meaning you can go back and change any parameters until it looks right.

You could use a Brightness/Contrast adjustment with "Use Legacy" enabled instead to achieve a similar effect, but it won't clip the shadows and highlights as easily. You would have to create an additional duplicate adjustment and turn the brightness and contrast way down on the first one to do so. It's somewhat easier to use but less efficient than Levels in this case.

5) Apply a simple sharpen to the image as it is still too blurry for our purposes. In Photoshop, it is located under Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen... Do not use any other filter, such as Unsharp Mask, unless you absolutely have to in lieu of a basic one. If you must, turn down the radius a bit and the threshold all the way to 0.

6) Make a selection around the image. Ctrl + left click on the layer's thumbnail to make a selection around it. Doing it this way makes it inherit the level of transparency any pixels have. If you can't, use the Magic Wand tool with "Anti-alias" enabled to select the transparent area outside, then invert it using Shift + Ctrl + I, or go to Select>Inverse.

Create a new layer above the image, then go to Edit>Stroke... and add a black stroke with a width of 2px located Outside. Leave everything else at the default. Doing it this way will create a stroke with anti-aliasing based on the selection you made. This should generally turn out pretty sharp if you follow my advice from Step 2. If you had used the Stroke Effect available from the Blending Options' layer styles, it will always result in a very smooth outline instead. You do not want this.

Voila, and Bob's your uncle, you're done!

The instructions above are Photoshop specific, but it should still be pretty software-agnostic. Here is the recreation PSD, and below the read-more link are additional notes, such as transferring the steps to something like GIMP.

ADDENDUM

You may be questioning why I deliberately made the stroke anti-aliased. "Isn't that an MSPArt cardinal sin??", I hear you clamoring. Well, my dear readers, let me briefly elucidate you on why your ass is wrong. Exhibit A:

The clearly semi-opaque pixels that can be found in every poster outline, which is especially pronounced here in the Little Monsters poster. I can also see that Hussie actually created a stroke on the same layer as the poster and merged it down into the white background like a dumbass. I omitted this in step 6 for the sake of convenience (and also the fact that you can't add a stroke to a smart object in Photoshop without rasterizing it first).

He had to use the magic wand tool in order to extract it from the layer for this panel, and then fill it in with the paint bucket tool. I can even tell he had the color tolerance set up very high on the magic wand to grab all those near-black and very light gray pixels, AND he had anti-alias enabled and the tolerance on the bucket tool set to be at least higher than 0 to tint similar colors. Exhibit B:

I also didn't address exactly how to desaturate something in Photoshop. Honestly it was because I was feeling pretty lazy. I would have had to rewrite step 4 to not include redundant information about adjustment layers. You can add either a Black & White adjustment layer or a Hue/Saturation one and turn the saturation all the way down to 0. The resulting tones will be slightly different from each other but I'll explain why that is in another tutorial.

Speaking of another tutorial, read this one if you believe this post is missing the step of using a posterize filter.

Now onto applying some steps to GIMP.

RE: step 2) In GIMP, there is a dedicated Unified Transform tool separate from the Move tool, unlike in Photoshop where both features are combined into one. This is how you scale and skew (AKA shear in GIMP) both at the same time, among other things such as rotating.

You'll also find that instead of any interpolation methods labeled "Bilinear" or "Bicubic", there are only ones named "Linear", "Cubic", "NoHalo", and "LoHalo". Basically, Linear and Bilinear are the same, so are Cubic and Bicubic, naturally. I guess NoHalo would be similar to Bicubic Smoother and LoHalo would be kind of similar to Bicubic Sharper as well. It's not an exact 1:1, though.

Honestly it doesn't really matter what you use to reduce the size as long as it isn't None/Nearest-Neighbor. You're going to have to sharpen it no matter what. This applies to Photoshop as well.

RE: step 3) Go to Colors>Hue-Saturation... and repeat turning the saturation down to 0, or go to Colors>Desaturate>Desaturate... and select the Lightness (HSL) method.

RE: step 4) Go to Colors>Levels... or Colors>Brightness-Contrast... The Brightness-Contrast adjustment tool already functions almost exactly like in Photoshop with "Use Legacy" enabled.

RE: step 5) In GIMP 2.10, the developers squirreled away the basic Sharpen filter, making it inaccessible from the Filters menu. To use it, hit the forward-slash (/) key or go to Help>Search and Run a Command... to bring up the Search Actions window and type in "sharpen". Select the option that just reads "Sharpen..." and has a description of "Make image sharper (less powerful than Unsharp Mask)". I find that using a sharpness value of around 40 to be similar to Photoshop's sharpen filter.

RE: step 6) Instead of holding down Ctrl, you hold down Alt and click on the layer thumbnail to make a selection around it. Make a layer underneath the image this time since there isn't an option to place the stroke outside the selection rather than the middle. Go to Edit>Stroke Selection... and create a stroke using these settings:

I recommend keeping anti-aliasing disabled however, as GIMP produces lines that are a little too smooth for my taste.

With "Antialiasing" enabled

Without

If you're using a program that doesn't have a stroke feature available, you could draw a straight 1px thick line across the top of your poster, duplicate it, and move it down 1px. Merge them together, duplicate it again, and move it all the way down to the bottom of the poster. Then repeat the exact same process for the sides. I used to do this before I even knew of the stroke feature, haha.

Another reason I had to do it this way was because my dumb ass did the thing I said not to in step 2, scaling down the image with the scale tool, and then shearing it separately with the shear tool. This caused the edges to become too blurry to be used for a stroke automatically. Oh well, live and learn.

[caelwynn]

Caelwynn's Mod List for Stardew 1.6.9+ - Gameplay/Quality of Life (pg 4)

Last Updated: April 17, 2025

Page 1. Page 2. Page 3. Page 4.

Saloon Second Floor — Adds a second floor to the Stardrop Saloon that provides modders with a place for their NPCs to live.

Saloon Speakeasy Space — Provides a basement area for NPCs to hang out in. Three different sized spaces to choose from, plus a quest you can enable to have a special order required to unlock it.

Schedule Viewer — pulls from game files to show you where NPCs are going throughout the day and at what time.

Self-Checkout — Self Checkout allows you to access shops without the owner being nearby. Compatible with Livestock Bazaar.

Smart Building — a more sims-style UI for placing fences, floors, furnaces, etc.

Social Page Order Redux — gives a filter function to the social page so you can see them divided out in different ways.

Spacecore Luck Skill — Adds a luck skill via Spacecore instead of trying to unlock the unimplemented luck skill in vanilla.

Special Power Utilities — Allows modders and mod users to easily see what new powers are added by what mods and navigate through them away from the vanilla powers.

Spiral Mine Shortcuts — Adds shortcuts to the spiral mine levels.

Spouses React to Player 'Death' Continuation — Modifies 'death' event at Hospital, Mines, or Island to include your Spouse (or Ex). Compatible with 1.6+.

Stack Everything Redux — allows you to stack things that aren't normally stackable, such as furniture, tackles, and wallpaper.

Stardew Aquarium — So excited this updated! Adds an aquarium you can donate fish to and get special rewards.

Starfruits Will Regrow — turns starfruits into a plant that produces throughout the season ala tomatoes or grapes.

Train Station — Creates a train network and allows mods to add maps reachable through the train station.

Traveling Skill — Adds a skill, Traveling, that allows the player to unlock faster walking speeds via, well, walking around.

UI Info Suite 2 — overhauls the game's user interface.

Useable Community Center — allows you to make use of the appliances at the community center after its completion.

Vanilla Plus Professions — Expands the vanilla skill system by adding additional professions at level 15 as well as adding in a who knew talent system.

Waterproof Items — items that fall from trees float in the water instead of sinking, allowing you to collect them.

Wear More Rings — lets you wear more than two rings. I'm greedy.

What Do You Want — provides in-game lists of requirements to complete different parts of the game, excluding what you've already completed. Lists include the community center, Grandpa's evaluation, golden walnuts, and various achievements.

Where the Spreading Weeds Are - More Farm Damage Info — The spreading weeds have caused damage to your farm… but where? What damage? Finally some answers as this mod informs you about and shows you the damage.

Wildflour's Atelier Goods — An all in one artisan good expansion mod. Add as many or as few categories as you like to run the atelier (shop) of your dreams. Highly configurable.

World Maps Everywhere — allows you to access all of the world maps from the map window instead of just the current area.

Yet Another (Balanced) Quality Goods Mod — adjusts the quality of artisan goods based on the quality of ingredients as well as adjusting the profit accordingly.

Zoom Level — Adds new keybindings to adjust the zoom level past the game limits. Useful for snapping screenshots.

The Masterpost for all of the mods is located here.

[amadwinter]

Star Wars Fandom Data on AO3

Data was collected on Friday March 29th 2024 at approximately 10:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time from a logged in account.

I was bored this morning, so this happened.

For a while now, I've been curious about the stats for the Star Wars fandom on AO3. It's a very fractured fandom, where everyone can find their niche and never venture far outside of it if they don't want to, and it's also an old fandom, dating back to a time before the Internet even existed. Yet it continues to march on stronger than ever, even if it looks very different depending up on which side of the fandom you choose to be in.

In the Star Wars - All Media Types fandom supercategory on AO3, there are 258,173 works. The top 10 subcategories along with their work counts are as follows:

Fandoms

Star Wars - All Media Types - 155,041 works

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy - 78,542 works

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types - 53,588 works

Star Wars Prequel Trilogy - 39,799 works

The Mandalorian (TV) - 18,694 works

Star Wars Original Trilogy - 18,425 works

Star Wars: Rebels - 13,033 works

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) - 10,527 works

Star Wars: The Bad Batch - 8,096 works

Star Wars Legends - All Media Types - 8,026 works

Now, if you simply look at the sort and filter sidebar under Include, Relationships, you'll be presented with the following relationships, both platonic and romantic, as well as their work counts:

Relationships

Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 24,532 works

Kylo Ren/Rey - 16,654 works

Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren - 13,027 works

Rey/Ben Solo - 10,484 works

Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker - 9,660 works

Padme Amidala/Anakin Skywalker - 9,563 works

Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 9,528 works

Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker - 8,970 works

Poe Dameron/ Finn - 8,670 works

CC-224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 6,868 works

Which is fine, I suppose, but it doesn't paint a very accurate picture. Many of those relationships can be found under the same tags (e.x. the top ship Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren includes both the #2 relationship Kylo Ren/Rey and the #4 relationship Rey/Ben Solo), and so I sought the data manually from each tag by 1st, using the broadest tag for each relationship (Ben Solo | Kylo Ren and Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader primarily); 2nd, for every platonic relationship that appeared (designated with & as opposed to /), I excluded the romantic form of that relationship from the searches; 3rd after going through the list and determining 3 relationships were redundant, I then went through the separate fandom categories tag starting from the most populous down to the least populous to determine which 3 relationships rounded out the top 10.

Is this methodology perfect? No. It cannot account for relationships that were tagged erroneously (romantic instead of platonic), or whether the tagged relationship is primary to the work, tagged as "past", "minor", or any other quirk that would implicate the relationship is not the main focus of the work. However, it is a far more accurate representation of the top 10 relationships in the Star Wars fandom on AO3.

Relationships Revised

Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 30,304 works

Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 17,017 works

Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 9,960 works

Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 9,151 works

Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 8,715 works

Poe Dameron/Finn - 8,670 works

CC-224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 6,868 works

Leia Organa/Han Solo - 6,733 works

Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Ahsoka Tano - 5,105 works

Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso - 4,910 works

As you can see, this paints a very different picture from the list above. By collapsing some of the relationships, it added nearly 5.5k works the #1 relationship, and 4k works to the #2 relationship (previously third). It also allowed the addition of 2 more M/F relationships (which are statistically about half as popular across all fandoms on AO3, even if the #1 on Star Wars is itself M/F), and 1 more platonic relationship.

I must say, that I am surprised by one thing: Luke Skywalker is no where on either list. I didn't include which characters are the top 10 most tagged in the Star Wars fandom, but Luke is absolutely on there (By the way, the most tagged character is Obi-Wan Kenobi, surprising absolutely no one).

If anyone can point me to a relationship in the Star Wars fandom on AO3 that should be included on this list instead of any of the ones I have listed, I would be glad to update this, but for now, this appears to be the most accurate.

[callipraxia]

I was just asked to share a favorite writing tip, and as I wrote, it sort of organically expanded from the realm of writing tips I have received and into the realm of writing tips I’ve worked out for myself. I cut most of that from the original response because it wasn’t really what was being asked, but for anyone who might find it helpful - here are six notes on writing from someone who’s been doing it for twenty-something years and has no Agenda, financial or academic, to steer me much astray from confession of my actual practices:

Tip #1: my favorite writing tip I ever got from an outside source is (paraphrasing) “if you want to write like Tolkien, the key isn’t to stick a bunch of dwarves and elves in a low-medieval setting. The key is to write about subjects that you love as much as Professor Tolkien loved Northern European languages and mythology and the pre-Industrial English countryside and Catholic theology and etc.” It isn’t the details of what creatures you have in there that gives something that particular engaging quality that will carry it through and overrule a lot of its inevitable flaws - it is, instead, a subtle, difficult-to-define sort of energy the work will have that, as far as I can tell (and I’ve tried, many times, with concepts and projects that just didn’t work out), cannot be faked.

Tip #2: Based on my own experience as it applies to Tip #1, start trying to figure out what your interests are as early as possible and never stop looking even once you think you’ve found them. There’s a plethora of low-to-no-cost, low-to-no-commitment ways to pick up at least the basics of topics you know nothing about***, so give something a try every now and then, you might surprise yourself. For another personal anecdote, I grew up with the firm belief that physics was something I would a) find really boring and b) not be smart enough to get even the vaguest grasp on no matter how hard I worked, and that even trying was therefore probably a waste of time. I still can’t do the math and would probably flunk any real exams, but physics writing, obtained from the public library’s New Arrivals section, has ended up being one of the richest sources for my writing that I’ve ever encountered.

Tip #3: if you truly can’t find a subject in the world you find yourself especially interested in, that’s probably either the depression or the after effects of bad educational experiences talking. Or both - both is always an option. Start addressing that stuff and the world will most likely become a much more interesting place and you will most likely become a much more interesting writer.

Tip #4: if you find yourself with a sort of author crush, with someone (including other fan authors!) whose work you really, really admire, and you desperately want to be like them when you grow up - find out what they read and read it, too. This doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it is often a productive exercise; the reason I tend to include so many footnotes in my fics is because I’ve benefited so much from other people who left footnotes with reading recommendations or trivia explanations on their fics.

Tip #5, the Big One: Combine multiple things you are geeking out about into one story. The best writing I probably ever did began with how certain characters were represented in three different fanfics in two different fandoms. The presentation of Character A from Franchise 1 in two fics reminded me, in ways she normally wouldn’t, of the presentation of Character B from one fic from Franchise 2. I also just really liked Character C and thought it might be fun to introduce some elements of Character D to him and then see what happened, so I isolated some of the things I liked about those characterizations and combined a character trait or two from each in order to form two ‘new’ basic characters who would form the ‘center’ of the story. I then ran them both through additional filters: the first filter was some specific other interests (ornithology and tea culture) I happened to have, and then the second was the general impressions I’d gotten of family lives and dynamics from reading a couple of blogs for several years****. And then I topped this concoction off by dusting it lightly with references to and elements from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and an old Cage the Elephant song. Yeah. Other sources of musical inspiration have included, but are far, far from limited to, songs from Breaking Benjamin, Foster the People, Hozier, Lana del Rey, The Mountain Goats, The Offspring, and The Smashing Pumpkins. Even I kind of roll my eyes at that list, but hey, if it works, it works.

Tip #6: Don’t get the wrong idea from Tip #5 - I don’t recommend approaching stories or subjects with the aim of finding something to combine with something else in mind. The example I gave coalesced in my head over the course of several years before I ever put any of it into writing. The ideas will form in their own time, and I think the best thing to do is to just absorb as much enjoyable media and neat information as you can and then let your brain gradually do its own thing in its own time. It’s frustrating, but trying to think of things to jam together for a story or character idea on purpose doesn’t work nearly as well in my experience - maybe it can be pulled off for a one-off, preferably one that is a direct homage to or parody of the original, but when it comes to longer-term and more nuanced stuff, it’s rare for a deliberately sought out mash-up to ever quite get that Certain Something that I talked about back in Tip #1.

*** I can only really speak for the U.S. here, but with that caveat - I cannot overstate the utility of public library resources like inter-library loan and Friends of the Library bag sales, along with the contents of the library itself and particularly the New Arrivals sections if one is fortunate enough to be within reasonable driving distance of an even moderately well-stocked public library. If they’ve got a subscription to something like JSTOR or another academic database, so much the better, though you can find a surprising amount of information just through free articles and excerpts on JSTOR at least. The website and app Coursera also has a modest but useful collection of free courses, some of which are designed to be completed in as little as two days, and the similar website/app edX has quite a few classes where you can access the materials freely enough and just won’t get credit toward any professional certificates unless you pay them. I’ve done some studies also through Modern States, which is completely free as far as I remember and aimed at preparing people for exams that could, in theory, allow someone to test out of their freshman year of college or university. I have the very vague impression that Khan Academy sometimes gets mixed reviews, but I’ve found it a useful resource before. I’m sure this list also only just scratches the surface of what’s out there, too, since these are just resources I’ve personally used.

**** One of these was a LiveJournal, to give you some idea of how long ago this was…The other, in the category of “less obvious places to look,” was a collection of tea-tasting logs from a website called steepster; some users use/at least used to use their logs as a sort of journal/social media as well as a place to review teas, and some of those people are really good writers. Haven’t been to steepster in a while, though, should probably peek in sometime to see if it and/or any of my favorite loggers are still around….

[radiodormouse]

Terrifier 2 may run a bit long, but it stands as the franchise’s most competent entry yet. This installment benefits from a more polished screenplay that smoothly integrates dramatic scenes and meaningful character development, letting the story progress without heavy-handed exposition. Here, for the first time, we follow a clear protagonist with a discernible arc, unlike the disjointed structures of All Hallows' Eve, Terrifier, and even Terrifier 3, which feel more like vehicles for Art the Clown’s horrific antics than coherent stories. Dropping the grainy, pseudo-VHS filter of earlier installments, Terrifier 2 also improves visually, moving away from effects that previously felt unconvincing and sometimes even cheesy.

In addition to refining the script, Terrifier 2 introduces some inventive approaches to horror beyond its usual fare, the standout example being the unsettling Clown Cafe sequence—a moment that diverges from the expected torture porn approach and adds a memorable, surreal layer to the film.

The series’ hallmark “death” sequences remain—extended, brutal scenes that seem more about torturing victims than simply killing them. Yet here they feel more purposeful and less excessive. Instead of existing purely as showcases for the franchise's practical effects, these moments are woven into the narrative with greater intent, supporting the plot rather than overpowering it.

While Terrifier 2 doesn’t reach the heights of a genre masterpiece, nor does it delve into deep themes or provide rich symbolism, nor layered characterization, it’s a step up in quality for the franchise and a worthy entry point for casual viewers intrigued by its cult status.

[whumpmasinjuly]

Now introducing the prompt list for Whumpmas in July 2023! 

Thank you for patiently waiting! We will be implementing a couple of new changes! We will not be reblogging any creations this year and will instead keep this blog as a space to only post the prompts, tags, and relevant information. We will post the tag for each day, and we ask that you use two tags when filling prompts this year so that others may find your creations easily:  Tag 1 ---> #wij23day__ (Fill in the blank with the appropriate day number for the prompt you are filling! For example, if you are doing the prompt for day 21, make sure to tag your post with #wij23day21. Of course, feel free to use any other relevant tags too!)

Tag 2 ---> #whumpmasinjuly2023  Be sure to also tag @whumpmasinjuly-archive if you would like your posts reblogged to our new official archive account!  You can also find a banner that you can use in your posts (if you want) under the #wijbanner tag.

The prompts are divided into three categories: questions, prompts, and community activities. Everyone is free to participate as much or as little as they want–there’s no completionist requirement! This list provides a preview of the prompts, but on each day a more detailed post will be released with more context and additional suggestions for each day’s task. Similar to previous years, all prompts and other important information will be found under the #infowhumpmasinjuly tag and #infowij23 for ease of access. This blog will also use the tags #wijquestion , #wijcommunity , and #wijprompt respectively for each post so that you can filter and find the type of prompts you’d like to do. 

Below the cut is a text list of this year’s prompts:

1. (Re)Introduce yourself. 2. What ten words give you the whumperflies/make you think of whump? 3. Stitches/Bandages 4. Share a TV show, movie, or any media that gives you the whumperflies! (Feel free to go off about your favorite episodes/moments!) 5. What character do you wish to see whumped more in canon/fan-made media? 6. Deprived 7. Post a link to your favorite whump fic of all time (or reblog it and/or make a list of them!) 8. Describe your favorite type of whumper! 9. “Stay with me” 10. Check out a new whump blog and drop them an ask! 11. What whump media type do you prefer and why? 12. Search & Rescue 13. Share some of your favorite niche whump tags! 14. Describe the ideal fic you’ve always wanted to read but have yet to find / haven’t written yet. 15. Buried 16. Create a whump meme! 17. What inspires you most to create whump content? (Images? Fics? Shows?) 18. Ache 19. Create a list of some of your favorite whump blogs to share! 20. Describe your favorite type of whumpee!  21. “Please.” 22. Find a story/author you’ve never read before, read it and leave some nice comments (people can reblog the post to plug their series/masterlists/etc as well) 23. What is your favorite type of whump setting? 24. Earth (Environmental whump) 25. Share a sneak peek of something you’re working on! 26. What is your favorite place to find whump media, roleplayers/writers, or fan-created content? (Link us to it!) 27. Unstable (Mentally? Physically? Both!?) 28. Send people asks about their OCs or favorite fandoms! 29. Do you identify with any particular roles or situations in whump? 30. Antidote 31. Who is someone in the whump-creating world that you admire and why?

[trilies]

Image 1:

A hacktivist group with the moniker Anonymous Sudan is a small Russian-funded misinformation operation with no connection to Sudan, according to researchers at CyberCX.

Founded early this year, Anonymous Sudan has claimed responsibility for a number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, purportedly carried out in response to the anti-Islamic views or actions of Western organizations.

But in an intelligence update published on Monday, Australian-based cybersecurity firm CyberCX said Anonymous Sudan was set up to create "a smokescreen for Russian interests" by spreading propaganda and disinformation, and typing up Western cyber defense resources.

Image 2:

The reason of our attack is simple:

It's part of our campaign targeting companies registered in the United States. The operators of this site is "Organization for Transformative Works" (OTW) who are registered in the United States. In addition to that, we are against all forms of degeneracy and the site is full of disgusting smuts and other LGBTQ and NSFW things.

We bring you the good news that we will continue our attack for hours on end.

Image 3:

A group presenting themselves as a collective of religiously and politically motivated hackers has claimed responsibility for the attack. Experts do not believe they are honest about their motivation, so we urge caution in believing any reasoning they provide for targeting AO3.

As part of our efforts to help keep the site up, you might find that you get "Retry later" errors more often when searching or filtering works or bookmarks. Don't worry, just go a little slower, or try again in a few minutes! These are temporary measures.

We do not condone anti-Muslim sentiments under any circumstances. Additionally, to reiterate: cybersecurity experts believe the group claiming responsibility is lying about their affiliation and reasons for attacking websites. View the group's statements with skepticism.

We're trying a new approach to defend against the ongoing DDoS attack, so you may see error messages that say "429" instead of "Retry later." (429 is the error code for too many requests.)

[bleachbleachbleach]

five comfort characters, five tags

Thank you for the tag, @fractoluminescence! I made a new post because this got long, but the original meme is at this link, and @fractoluminescence's cool responses are at this one, if you'd like to read everyone's (I recommend!).

I had a difficult time developing an answer because I got too in the weeds about what the definition of “comfort character” was, rip. It turns out there are a lot of definitions, ranging from characters you find cozy, to characters you find relatable, to characters you look up to, to more elaborate definitions that attempt to articulate those distinctions between a character you love and a character that you would sink to the bottom of the Marianas Trench with.

I’ll define “comfort character” as that thing that begins by delineating, say, a show you love so so much (Haikyuu!!—my soul for a volleyball) vs. a show you want to be fannish about (Bleach. BleachBleachBleach, even. BLEACHBLEACHBLEACH, even), and then refines further into characters you love (my eternal Soi Fon era) vs. the characters you’re in the Trench about. Because while I probably think an above average amount about Soi Fon, and love seeing her on my dash, and do want to write for her once I alight upon some idea that sufficiently connects my headcanons about her to 1) actual canon and 2) a Story, she is not who I:

think about every single ding dong day;

regularly revel in in daydreams;

both consciously and unconsciously filter my lived experiences or relationships through, such that they become doubled; they find translation, in an act of both processing (growing distance from, or increasing intimacy with) the experience and in tugging at the character themselves, growing them into something that proceeds from their canon or offers an opportunity to entertain new and additional dimensions.

I think the key elements here are:

the alwaysness of this—the readiness to be in the soup at all times;

how personal the engagements are, which I think is sometimes to do with the relatability of a character (proximity to oneself) and is sometimes personal to… the character? Like, the intimacy of wanting to both crystallize one’s understanding of a beloved character by stress-testing their concept, and to spin them out, break them from what is canonically known just to see how much depth they have beyond that and in how many ways they might be known.

…Which, now that I’ve written that, is... just my definition of “blorbo” and not “comfort character,” but maybe the terms are synonymous??? who knows—AS THOUGH BLORBO HAS A DEFINITION AND ISN’T WHOLLY MEME-DERIVED TO BEGIN WITH. AS THOUGH ANY OF THESE THINGS HAVE PRESCRIPTIVE DEFINITIONS.

Anyway, all of that is the appeal of writing fanfic, to me, so it technically extends to anyone I’ve had occasion to write. But that’s within the specific action of writing a story, or preparing to write a story, or thinking about writing a story.

If we’re talking “always” and unconsciously, readily, blorbo-ily, whether there’s a story or not, then #1-3 are and have been for the last four years:

Hitsugaya

Hinamori

Matsumoto

They are who I am most inclined to give things to, or translate things through, and am most interested in defining/destroying. <333

There are probably use-cases/concrete examples that should go here, in addition to the somewhat woowoo definition above, but part of me is shy, and another part is like, those are what the stories are, and another part is “those two parts are the same part...” and yet another is “those two parts are the exact opposite of each other..."

So instead I'll no-pressure tag @confluencechimera, @recurring-polynya, @afinepiece, @bendingwind, and @unohanadaydreams!

Below the cut because it's not Bleach-related enough: I promise I’m not trying to be evasive/coquettish on purpose, but I don’t think I can get myself to put my thoughts about my lifetime character for this on Tumblr, because according to me, organizationally, that’s not where they go. So I’ll skip him. I’m also one of those people where my idea of comfort is to lean into the negative and feel comforted by the experience of being joined in misery by others, rather than go the cozy route. In that usage my comfort “character” is Law and Order: SVU because it’s like 800 episodes of people having the worst day of their lives and/or people on absolutely depraved sprees, depending on which side of the story you focus on. But also that show is deeply unserious, pleasingly formulaic, and has infinite rewatchability. So let's say those are responses #4 and #5!!

[amaiguri]

It is once more WBW! What is an “unappreciated detail” of your world that you feel deserves more attention?

@zebee-nyx I want you to know I love you and appreciate your questions, even when I don't answer them on time. Thank you!

You know what people don't appreciate enough in worldbuilding general? Or in real life geopolitics? FOOD. Omg, I wrote like a 4000 word essay about food for work one day -- all the sources all at my fingertips lolol. But instead of me recreating it... here's the first worldbuilding post I did of this year:

How to Make Mass-Make Ethical Coffee in World without Coffee Beans

You need:

- A fistful of mushroom powder (ground from dried dehydrated/salted mushrooms)

- A foot-long branch of pine needles (not fur!)

- A pot of water

- (Optional) Honey

- (Optional) Milk or Cream

Step 1: Remove pine needles from the branch. Rinse if necessary and remove the needle sheathes if you can (also not necessary).

Step 2: Bring water to a boil.

Step 3: Remove the water from heat and put the pine needles in. Let sit until desired pine-tea strength.

Step 4: Pour powder into the top of the coffee pot -- where the filter will keep it from falling through to the belly below.

If you do not have a special coffee pot, a hang the powder in a cheesecloth above a cauldron.

Suspending the coffee above the part you will drink will reduce potential unpleasant after tastes, as well as filter out any impurities from the ingredients.

Step 5: Bring the pine tea back to a boil. Immediately remove and pour the pine tea over the mushroom powder in a circular motion. Let the coffee begin to brew and drain into the belly or cauldron slowly. With a cauldron, you may have to do this multiple times to get the desired taste -- pouring the coffee back and forther between cauldrons.

Step 6: (Optional) Bring the milk or cream o a simmer with the honey and whisk until frothy. Whisk this mixture into the coffee and serve. Alternatively, just pour the yummy additions into your drink directly. We don't judge!

Step 7: Depending on the saltiness of the mushrooms, another pinch of salt may be added to bring out the flavor. Drink and enjoy!