#it was a very good production of as you like it and i would have chortled so much

[perske]

ooh!! i have a theory! (tl;dr at the end)

i bet this is correlational research. what do i mean by “correctional research”? i bet they found that people who eat more dairy products tend to recover (instead of dying) in situations that typically kill people (like car crashes, cancer, etc.). that’s what a correlation tells us: we tend to see these things together. a person who eats dairy products is likely to be a person who recovers from potentially fatal situations

what’s one of the biggest lessons in basic statistics? CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. in other words, my guess is that this research didn’t find that eating dairy products CAUSES immunity to death. to be able to test a claim like that, we would probably want to do some sort of experiment, and ideally a “randomized control trial”: let’s take a big group of people, randomly sort them into two groups, and make one group eat a bunch of dairy products while the other doesn’t eat any (and that’s the ONLY consistent difference between the two groups — that one eats dairy products and the other doesn’t). then, if the group who we made eat a bunch of dairy products seems to live forever, while the group that didn’t eat a bunch of dairy products seems to die a lot, we might have pretty good evidence that eating dairy products will help you to not die! i don’t think that’s what these researchers did. mostly because it’s really hard to pull off a randomized control trial. especially when it comes to food

so, if this is correlational research, what does it ACTUALLY tell us? the finding that “people who eat dairy products also tend not to die as easily” isn’t actually very informative if the dairy products aren’t CAUSING the harder-to-die thing.

my theory: there’s a confounding variable here! a confounding variable is some other factor that causes the two things that we’ve noticed are correlated. the people who tend to eat dairy products and tend to die less easily probably have something else in common that’s causing both their dairy consumption and their hardiness

what’s that third thing? i bet it’s whiteness! in general, lactose intolerance (dairy products —> tummy hurty) is most common among people of non-european descent. in other words, people considered “white” in the united states (where i assume this research was done) are less likely to fuck up their digestive systems by eating cheese, so they’re probably eating way more dairy than people considered “non-white” in the united states. coincidentally, racism also tends to make the lives of people considered “non-white” way harder and more dangerous, which is a recipe for higher death rates

tl;dr while this research may seem like it’s about the life-saving properties of cow’s milk, i think it’s actually telling us about the life-ending properties of white supremacy. why? white people prob eat more dairy (because of less lactose intolerance), and white people prob die less easily (because they don’t live in a system actively working against them at every opportunity)

[derinwrites]

Do you have any advice for writing in a web serial format?

Let’s look at this in two sections – the business part, and the actual writing part.

The Business Part

1. Consistency. Consistency in updates. Have a schedule and STICK TO IT.

If your schedule is too hectic and starts affecting your health or otherwise adversely affecting your life, change the schedule; update less often. Don’t update in spurts and then randomly stop. The audience will far more easily tolerate a slow schedule than an inconsistent one; an inconsistent one will lose many readers. You’re not Andrew Hussie and you can’t get away with that bullshit.

There may be times where you need to take a hiatus due to some emergency, life event, or health condition. This is fine – your wellbeing is more important than your story. But you need to be up-front with your audience about this; tell them you’re taking a hiatus and tell them exactly how long it’s going to be. If you can, you should tell them in advance (this isn’t possible for things like a car accident, but is very possible if you’re planning to, say, move house in a month). If you’re taking too many hiatuses, then it’s better to slow down your schedule and update less often. Audiences prefer fast and consistent, but if they have to choose, slow is better than inconsistent.

The #1 helper to consistency is having a big buffer – that is, have several weeks’ worth of unpublished chapters. The length of your buffer is personal taste, but I like to keep mine as long as possible so that if there’s some problem that stops me from writing for several weeks, it won’t upset the schedule. It keeps my stress down to know that I have that leeway. Other writers prefer to only write a week or two ahead, though, so different things work for different people.

2. Decide on your monetisation system early and prioritise it.

The most popular and most effective method for monetising a web serial seems to be the patronage method, which is the one I use. You set up a patreon, ko-fi, or whatever sponsorship system you prefer, and offer rewards to those who support you. Having their names in a credit list and getting access to advance chapters are very common rewards. Some people also lock access to their discord behind a paywall, or offer extra stories or let supporters name story characters.

This model is not the only way to make money from web serials. Some people make money via advertising, or selling merchandise, or use the web serial itself to advertise stories that they sell. You can of course use several revenue streams – you can have both a patreon/ko-fi and run ads on your website (I don’t because I hate ads, but you can), or start selling merch related to your story once there’s a demand for it. Many web serial authors (including myself) sell their completed works as books. But the important thing here is that one of these systems will be your main system, and you need to know what it is and behave accordingly. If you run ads AND have a patreon, are you more focused on ad revenue or patreon revenue? You’re going to have to put your time and attention into one of them over the other. You’re going to have to make decisions that will help one and harm the other. So know in advance which one is most important to you.

You don’t have to monetise your story at all, of course. Plenty of people write fiction on the internet for free every day with no thought to making an income at all. But if you’re serious about this, I would recommend monetising it, because that makes a better and more consistent product. The reason I’m still able to keep writing these year after year is that my supporters pay my mortgage; without Patreon and ko-fi, I’d have to get a different job, and wouldn’t have time or energy to write consistently. Also, the reason I can write and update even when I don’t feel like it, and the reason I always push to make my stories as good as possible even when I’m not interested, is because I owe it to my supporters who are paying me real actual money to read my work. If I didn’t owe my readers anything, none of these stories would ever get finished, because writing is only fun about half of the time.

3. Don’t expect to be able to turn this into a career.

This advice sounds silly coming from me, who has through sheer luck, as well as the generosity and passion of my readers, somehow turned this into a career. But I need to emphasise that that luck is not typical. Most web serial writers will not be able to support themselves solely with their writing. It can make a good side hustle, but if your primary goal is “low barrier to entry work-from-home career where I don’t have to answer to a boss and can support myself comfortably,” then web serial writing is usually all of those things except the last one. There’s no harm in trying to turn this into a career – I did it, as have many other web serial authors – but don’t expect that result, is all I’m saying.

Still, if you can do it, it does have a lot of advantages.

4. Don’t expect to make money fast.

I remember when I finally started making an entire $100/month on Patreon. It was a fantastic day.

It was when I’d been writing web serials for four years.

5. Your most valuable resource is your readership.

Your readership will grow and gather momentum over time. The best business decisions you can make are those that grow your readership and allow your readers to participate in community, even if you have to give up opportunities to make money to do it.

A good example of this is discord. Some people have private discords that only their patrons can access; while this is a useful anti-spam and anti-harassment tool, I don’t recommend doing this if you don’t have a major spam or harassment problem. Some people will pay for discord access, yes, so you might get a handful of extra dollars per month that way – however, you will also get a far less active discord. When it comes to readers, population density is critically important; the more activity, the more people talking about your work together (or talking about anything and bonding with each other), the better. Plenty of people have joined my free discord just because it was there and only read my stories after seeing people talk about them there. Then they go and get their friends to read the stories. Enthusiastic readers are inherently valuable, and the best thing you can do is give them the resources they need to talk to each other and share their interest.

This principle applies to a lot of things. I have a lot of free stories on my website that aren’t the usual web serials, and more than once I’ve considered whether they should be paywalled. The answer I always land on is ‘no’; I couldn’t tell you how many readers have been roped into my web serials because they liked Copy <|> Paste, or The Void Princess, or Drops of Blood. These readers may or may not then become monetary supporters, but even the ones who don’t will increase activity and discussion about the stories, have fun and tell jokes in the discord, and may even produce fanart. A thriving community is always going to be more valuable to you than a few extra dollars; make sure to support them accordingly.

Your readership will start very small. In terms of marketing, this is your hardest time. A big readership does the majority of the marketing for you, but when you’re on your own, it takes a lot to convince anyone to give your stories a shot. It helps if you have an existing readership to leverage, which is what I did – I’d been writing Animorphs fanfiction on AO3 for years, and many of my first readers followed me over from there. If you have such a community that already has faith in your writing, leverage it. If you don’t, you can gain one my writing in a place where people go to read stories similar to your work, such as an appropriate subreddit, or a web serial site like Royal Road or Scribblehub. You are looking to gain as high a number of enthusiastic, engaged readers as possible.

And now, the fun part – the actual craft!

The Writing Part

1. Always remember that you are writing for two audiences

A web serial author has to keep two audiences in mind; the serial readers, and the bingers. You are writing a story that needs to be fun and engaging when read very slowly, at the pace of whatever your update schedule is, but that also needs to be interesting when read all at once.

This is not an easy task.

It’s something I fucked up pretty significantly with Curse Words, which was my first attempt at this. Curse Words has a lot of complicated political stuff happening throughout pretty much the whole story, as well as a complex save-the-world plot that’s reliant on a lot of secrets, mysteries and extremely speculative information. With so many wheels spinning, I decided to make the protagonist not particularly smart and move him very slowly through the plot to make sure that the reader would be able to keep up.

This was a mistake.

‘Pretty slow and simple’ at a novel reader’s pace is torturous at a web serial pace. Readers got a full week to discuss the mysteries and implications of each chapter with each other, doing the detective work of ten chapters between each one. The frustration with Kayden’s slow pace was clear, and he came across as an outright idiot rather than an average teen. Personally, I think this lesson was one of the biggest reasons for the difference in quality between Curse Words and Time to Orbit. Don’t slow down for your audience; they’re already slowed down by your update schedule.

At the same time, though, you don’t want to move so fast that you lose the bingers. You can’t assume that your readers will have time between chapters, or that they will discuss each chapter with other readers, or that they will go back over previous chapters looking for clues. Interested people reading update by update will do this, but bingers absolutely will not. So you still need to make sure that everything is comprehensible on a binge read with no backchecking or outside investigation.

My advice on this matter is to move as fast as possible, but take care to make sure that readers are reminded of everything important a few chapters before it comes into play. That way, both audiences can keep up. If you have to make a decision, it’s best to favour your update readers; they’re your most active community. They’re doing the up-to-date discussion, and probably doing the most word-of-mouth and fanart, although binge readers will do that too (I have plenty of dedicated readers who wait five or six weeks to binge a bunch of chapters on purpose, just because that’s their preferred reading style, and they’re still very engaged). But if you plan to publish your story later as a complete work, you also need to keep in mind how it’s going to read as a binge – and also, new readers will binge the earlier chapters of your story to catch up to the current one, so make sure it’s a good experience for them or they won’t get a chance to become update readers.

Two audiences. Mind your pacing and information reveals accordingly.

2. Chapter length

The general rule of web serials is that the more often you update, the shorter your chapters should be. The generally agreed ‘sweet spot’ is 1-1.5k words, 3 times a week, but this depends heavily on individual style. I update once or twice a week (depending on what stories I’ve got going) and try to keep my chapters between 2 and 2.5k words. If you update once a month, your sweet spot is probably about 10k words.

Don’t hold religiously to what other people tell you the ideal word count is – this will vary drastically with genre and personal style – but it’s best to try to stay fairly consistent. It’s not always possible to stay exactly on target because the best break points between chapters will vary (I’ve got 1.8k chapters and 3.5k chapters), but readers like to be able to predict about how long an update will be and they like it to not vary too wildly too often. As with choosing your update schedule, choosing your chapter length will depend on what suits your personal schedule, and what suits the story you’re writing.

“The shorter the chapter, the more frequent the updates” is a good rule for attracting the widest audience. Short, infrequent chapters will have a lot of readers losing interest between updates; long, frequent ones will have a lot of readers feeling overwhelmed. But the most important thing is finding something that you can consistently output year after year (remember, it took me 4 years to make $100/month; this is a long game).

3. It’s a TV show, not a movie

This advice is less useful in our age of Marvel movie franchises and made-to-binge Netflix series, so pretend I’m talking to you in the year 2010 or earlier. If a novel is a movie, a web serial is a TV show. What I mean by that is that a novel is shaped primarily as a complete experience, whereas a web serial is shaped as a chapter-by-chapter experience.

It’s best, in both cases, to have a well structures and paced story that is made of well structured and paced chapters. But sometimes you have to choose between the structure or a chapter and the structure of the story as a whole; making one better will cheapen the other. When you’re writing a novel, you should choose the structure of the whole, but when you’re writing a web serial, you should choose the structure of the chapter. Web serial readers will prefer a chained series of excellent chapters, over a beautiful story of chapters with mediocre individual structure.

In fact, whether you want a structure to the overall story at all is personal taste. My stories have strong overall structure and move towards a planned conclusion because that’s how I prefer to write (and it also makes the story bingeable, since it’s basically a novel being released really slowly), but plenty of web serials out there have no real planned ending and will wander about for years and years in no obviously consistent direction, occasionally throwing in a big twist or major change to freshen things up. These would make absolutely horrible novels, but make very popular web serials. Whether you write like me or like them, the rule is the same – the experience of each individual chapter takes priority.

Come to think of it, this might be why people call my stories “ADHD crack”…

4. Okay, so how do I structure a good chapter?

I generally try to do three things in every chapter.

- Hit the ground running

- Give them something new

- End on an open question

Hit the ground running – Unless it’s the very first chapter of the story, you don’t have to be coy getting into the action. Open the chapter as if it’s the middle of the chapter; start at full momentum. Catch the high point of the last chapter before it falls. It your last chapter ended with “We checked the fingerprints on the candlestick. It’s Colonel Mustard.” then you can start this one with “But he was in the library at the time!”, you don’t need to recap or slow down or anything.

Give them something new – Every chapter should give the reader at least one thing to talk and think about. A new choice, some new information, a shift in perspective, whatever. People are reading these updates one at a time so it is vital that they feel like they got something out of the experience. A chapter in which nothing is learned will make readers feel like their time was wasted, and they have all the time until next update to reflect on that.

This is also true of a novel, but it’s much more critical in a web serial. A novel with nothing chapters in it is just frustratingly slow-paced; a web serial with nothing chapters in it leaves the reader feeling cheated for long stretches of time.

The thing to talk about doesn’t necessarily have to be a big plot reveal or major advancement. An incredibly cute scene, or sad scene, or funny scene will work just as well. But you have to give them SOMETHING. If you’re giving them nothing, consider cutting the chapter entirely and integrating any important foreshadowing or whatever into the next chapter.

One major hurdle of mine with this rule is recap chapters. If you’re writing a very complex plot over a long period of time, you need ways to occasionally take stock and make sure everyone is on the same page and nobody’s forgotten or misinterpreted anything important. This information can be recapped or conveyed in the middle of an action sequence or something, but I personally find that putting other stuff in the scene makes it too distracting and therefore less effective. I like to literally just sit the heroes down in a room and have them go, “okay, we’re spinning a lot of threads at once right now; what do we know, what are we trying to figure out, and what are our next steps?” This is the literary equivalent of the save point or room full of health packs right before a boss battle. Game designers don’t put that room there to be nice; they do it so that they know exactly how much health you’re going to have going into the battle, and can structure it accordingly.

You can make these chapters entertaining with character banter, but you can’t really introduce new threads to talk about, except possibly as a twist right at the end. Introducing new information mid-recap distracts from the recap and makes it pointless. You might have something similar in your stories, chapters that are essential but don’t give the reader anything new to work with.

My advice for these is to just bite the bullet on this one. Release the chapter with nothing new to talk about. You can get away with doing this occasionally, if the chapter has a clear purpose (I get a lot of readers tell me that they appreciate my recap chapters). Readers who get nothing out of the chapter will shrug and talk about older stuff instead, so long as you only do this occasionally. But a chapter with no new information has a cost in opportunity and in reader patience, so only pay it if the chapter’s worth it.

End on an open question– End the chapter with a reason for the reader to come back. You want them to think about the story afterward and be eager to read the next chapter when it comes out. Adhering to this principle is probably why I have such a reputation for cliffhangers, although truth be told I don’t use nearly as many actual cliffhangers as people say, I just try to end by opening a question. By that I mean, the audience should always end a chapter asking a question, which can be something that will span dozens of chapters (“How can Colonel Mustard’s fignerprints be on the candlestick? Is he being framed? Does this mean that the candlestick was in the library and isn’t even the murder weapon?”) or span a single paragraph (“How will the narrator react to learning that Colonel Mustard lied about never touchign the candlestick?”) This could be the emotional height of a scene, or the point at which new information recontextualises everything. It could be the moment where the stakes are raised or an important assumption turns out to be false. Anything that makes the audience eager to learn what happens next will do.

There should always be at least one open question in your story, more if it’s thematically appropriate. You know how mmorpgs and crafting games and suchlike keep you playing for hours and hours by making sure you’re always near the end of an activity – keep playing til you reach the next level, oh but now we’re nearly at the end of this quest so we should complete that, oh but now we’re just 20 gold short of being able to buy that cool new armour so we should just… same trick. Readers should always have at least one ‘quest’, an open question that they’re following, and should always be close to an answer.

You don’t have to dramatically introduce an entirely new question each time; you can end a chapter by reminding the reader of an existing open question. I tend to be a fan of the Big Dramatic Reveal On The Last Line method (cliffhanger reputation), but you don’t have to do it that way. Indeed, it’s a good idea not to do it that way every single time, lest you get stuck in a rut; every chapter ending doesn’t have to be incredibly tense and snappy. Somebody mentioning that they wish they knew how they could get enough food to make it through the winter before a full paragraph of cuddling and falling asleep in their mother’s arms works just as well.

5. It will help if your story is good, but it isn’t required.

You don’t have to be very good at writing to do this.

It helps to be good at writing, of course, and I assume that since you’re asking me for tips, you’re the sort of person who wants to be as good at writing as you can. But there is some true hack garbage out there doing absolute numbers in the web serial circuit. I try not to harp on about this too much because Curse Words fans get really upset at me when I do, but I think most of us can agree that Curse Words kind of sucks. And that just sucks in an ‘author is still learning how to do this’ kind of way; there’s much worse writing, real bullshit Ready Player One-level writing, trucking along out there brilliantly.

The point I’m trying to make here is that this isn’t an industry where there’s any value in hesitating and wringing your hands and asking yourself if you’re a good enough writer to do it yet. You are. You can just start writing a web serial right now and so long as you consistently update, you’re probably already above average for the market. And your first one probably will suck (mine did), but it’ll teach you how to make a better one. I think that Time to Orbit: Unknown is passably okay, and it absolutely would not be passably okay if I hadn’t written Curse Words first. Just go for it. Try to write a quality story if you can, but if you can’t, it’s honestly not that big of a deal. What matters, truly matters, is that you are committed to improving your craft. And that means actually practicing your craft. Which means writing some chapters and setting up a release schedule.

Good luck.

[gloomwitchwrites]

i’ve only recently found ur acc and i’ve fallen in love! ur def becoming one of my inspo’s in writing my own fics!:D

now, what about t141 with an alt s/o who’s always dying their hair or piercing themselves? maybe it’s the first time they find reader doing said shenanigans, what would their reactions be? 🤔 i think soap would have the best one lol, but i’d love to hear what your thoughts about it! <3

Well, hello! Welcome! Now, I had multiple people request this very thing. I am answering one of those asks and the others will simply fall under this one (since they are all very similar). I did go with some variety here since being "alt" can mean a lot different things. I do have one with hair dying, one about showing off their taxidermy/skull collection, a metal concert, and forcing (Gaz) to have a makeover. I had lots of fun. Enjoy!

For the masterlist and how to submit your own request, click HERE

Task Force 141 x Reader (can be read as gn!reader)

Content & Warnings: established relationship, humor, fluff, swearing, hair dying, taxidermy, concerts, makeovers

Word Count: 800

ao3 // main masterlist // imagines & what if masterlist

John Price

“Jesus bloody Christ. What happened?” John stands in the doorway of the bathroom, his eyes wide as he surveys the scene. “Did you murder someone?”

You stand hunched over like a gremlin in the shower, holding the handheld showerhead. The dye in your hair is circling the drain, but that’s not the only place is stains. The shower is going to need a good scrub as is the bathroom sink.

“I’m changing my hair?”

John blinks. “You told me you were going to a salon.”

“This is cheaper.”

His mouth opens and then promptly closes. You see the gears turning. John is reigning in the panic.

“It’ll come out,” you insist.

“Everything is red,” murmurs John.

“Only temporarily,” you insist.

“Are you talking about your hair or our bathroom countertops?”

“Are you mad?”

“No,” he says firmly, hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to shut the door and pretend that our bathroom doesn’t look like a crime scene.”

“I love you!” you call out as he starts shutting the door.

“I love you, too,” he sighs heavily. The door is nearly shut before it suddenly opens again. “Do I need to grab bleach from the store?”

“That would be great.”

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

“Stop moving,” you mutter.

“You’re gonna poke me in the fucking eye, love.”

“It’s just eyeliner. Calm down.”

“You’ve poked me already.” Kyle points at his eye. The white is slightly red with irritation.

Kyle’s gaze narrows, but you only tut, grasping the bottom half of his face with your hand. Squeezing his cheeks a bit, you tilt his face from side-to-side, observing your work. About half of his face is done. You’ve even added face piercings to his lips and nose.

The clothes were the easy part. Kyle was more than willing to put on what you picked out for him. It’s completely different from his tracksuits and jeans. He looks like he walked right out of the punk scene.

“You promised I could do your makeup.” You put a little whine in it, pouting your lip.

Kyle lightly grasps your wrist and tugs, removing your hand from his face. “I did,” he agrees. “But all this? Really?”

You’ve set out nearly every product you have, nearly covering the entirety of the bathroom counter.

“We have to match,” you insist.

Kyle’s mouth twitches slightly but he settles. “Fine. But you better make me the best-looking bloke in the joint.”

John "Soap" MacTavish

“This is June.” You present the racoon skull to Johnny.

His eyes widen slightly. “Hello, June,” he greets.

You wait for the eventual frown, for the brief flicker of disgust, but it doesn’t come. Johnny isn’t drawing back or judging you at all. His attention is rapt—focused.

You gently return the racoon skull back to the shelf and point to a collection of preserved butterflies. “These were a gift from a friend.”

“They’re beautiful,” murmurs Johnny. “Do they have names?” He leans in, observing the display of colorful wings.

“No, but they do!” You enthusiastically gesture toward the rest of your collection. There are skulls and bones from all sorts of animals, preserved beetles, tentacles in jars, and even petrified fish bones.

Men say they want quirky, but when they get quirky, they run. Johnny though is entirely fascinated.

“Can I touch this?” he asks with an excitement that surprises you, pointing toward a beaver skull.

“Yes. It’s delicate though. I’m always fixing the jaw.”

Johnny lightly lifts the skull and brings it close to his face, slowly rotating it.

No. Johnny isn’t disgusted. He isn’t shaming you for your special interest. If anything, he’s fascinated.

You’re keeping him.

Simon "Ghost" Riley

The shredding of the guitar reverberates in your chest. It stirs your blood, sending waves of adrenaline through your limbs until even your fingers and toes twitch with anticipation.

The breakdown is coming, and with it will come a sea of bodies. They’ll crash against each other like a massive wave before descending into chaos, nothing but flailing limbs and gnashing teeth.

Already, the energy is pulsing, becoming a frenzy that will eventually burst.

You’ve never been in the middle of the pit before. You usually stay off to the sides or well out of the way, not wanting to receive an injury.

But now you have protection. Now, you have a bodyguard.

Simon stands right behind as your support and your shadow. This isn’t his scene, not that he doesn’t enjoy a metal show, but he could care less about throwing himself around in a pit. When you expressed the desire to do so, Simon agreed, but only if he joined you.

Sure, it might scare some people off, or deter others from getting too close, but Simon is supportive anyway.

He’s just a bit vicious. A bit protective.

The shredding rises. It’s time.

A pause.

Then everything crashes.

taglist:

@glitterypirateduck @km-ffluv @tiredmetalenthusiast @miaraei @cherryofdeath

@ferns-fics @tulipsun-flower @miss-mistinguett @ninman82 @eternallyvenus

@beebeechaos @smileykiddie08 @whisperwispxx @chaostwinsofdestruction @weasleytwins-41

@saoirse06 @unhinged-reader-36 @ravenpoe67 @sageyxbabey @mudisgranapat

@lulurubberduckie @leed-bbg @yawning-grave81 @azkza @nishim

@voids-universe @iloveslasher @talooolaaloolla @sadlonelybagel @haven-1307

@itsberrydreemurstuff @cod-z @keiva1000 @littlemisscriesherselftosleep @blackhawkfanatic

@sammysinger04 @kylies-love-letter @dakotakazansky @suhmie @kadeeesworld

@keiva1000 @jackrabbitem @arrozyfrijoles23 @lovely-ateez @waves-against-a-cliff

@ash-tarte @marispunk @gingergirl06 @certainlygay @greeniegreengreen

[angrykittybarbarian]

About that Dragon Age: The Veilguard audio web series

Thinking back about the marketing for DATV I now realize it was kind of deceptive.

No, it was not literal fraud. They did not make specific promises and then broke them, not explicitely and in a way you could hold them liable in court over. And I get when you are advertising your product you will of course highlight its most favorable aspects while not shoving its negative sides into everyone's noses.

However I do think that EA/Bioware did stretch out the boundaries between regular endorsement and fraud.

It started with the web series Vows and Vengeance they uploaded weekly on Youtube right before release. At that time I was still hopeful and excited for the game. And Vows and Vengeance all but encouraged that excitement.

You know why? Because, and this surprised me, it was genuinely good.

Vows and Vengeance functioned as an early introduction to the companions. While they were not the main characters they did play a key role in each episode. The plot was what could be typically expected from a regular DA installment. It had a dark, gripping story. The dialogue was well written. It dealt with mature themes, it actually discussed the classism of Tevinter.

Lucanis was a proper crow who killed a good man because he was hired to do so. He was positively morally grey. Davrin had actually strong opinions when the main character dropped the Dread Wolf's name. Bellara was interesting in that it became clear how she struggled with her ADHD without using infantile language, Scout Harding acted smart, mature and competent, Taash was a morally grey bad ass, fitting for a freelance treasure hunter and with smart and witty dialogue to go with it.

It was amazing, I found myself excited every week for a new episode. It got me interested in the companions. I already contemplated to romance Taash because they were so cool and charismatic in that series. I thought, if a FREE webseries that was made for advertisement was already this great then the game had to be nothing short of phenomenal.

And then it just...wasn't. There was nothing of the depth that came through in the web series. It was as if I was presented with a sample of a multilayered chocolate cake but got a dry brownie after I actually paid the full price for it.

The sheer audacity behind this course of action is still so inconcievable to me, I sometimes still wonder why they put effort into writing the free thing and not the product they demand payment for. I still don't get it. The only explanation is they purposefully put out a misleading sample to lure in the customers in the beginning to spend money, right?

This fraud adjacent behavior does not stop there.

Remember when we thought we would be importing our worldstates from our previous games? There wasn't even a question about it in the beginning because this is such an intrinsic Bioware feature. But then the info about the three choices in the character creator leaked.

Leaked!

Meaning they never intended for this information to be known pre-release. They fully intended to keep it secret until it would be too late. They also never said they wanted a soft reboot.

This is the conclusion the fandom has drawn after they destroyed their own lore and went scorched earth on the entire south of Thedas.

And the biggesr lie was when they said this was their best work. After all this!

This is the reason why DATV's shortcomings are so devastating. This is why so many feel like the game was a slap to their faces. EA/Bioware gaslit and manipulated us from the very beginning. We have been cheated and betrayed.

The last bit of trust I and many others had in Bioware, they mercilessly crushed.

I personally will never take even one thing they say at face value again. You can only trust their actions from now on.

[andromeda-xpz]

🦁LION AND HAIR 🦁

Hey bitches, today we're going to talk about the Leo sign and hair.🐇

I want to make it clear that this is my opinion, and with people I have seen, obviously other genetic aspects, And astrological aspects can change your hair, or health problem.

So this is for entertainment purposes, hope you enjoy😻

Leão na 1ª casa/ou com aspectos de planetas de fogo

Here in this position, the hair can have warm tones, people can often notice your hair before looking at your face, long hair that frames the face is also well regarded.

Shoulder length hair, waist length hair and thick, warm hair can make you more attractive and in a way, more beautiful. But be careful, your hair may suffer some type of chemical damage due to the inappropriate use of products, Or too much straightening and heat on your hair. Moisturizing your hair more can cause dry hair.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€

Leo in the 2nd house/ or in aspect with earth planets

Leo in the 2nd house reminds me of black hair. Hair that exudes "wealth", Bangs, you can spend a little on your hair.

Mega hair, laces, wigs, hair treatments, you may suffer from dirty hair sometimes. Also with tangled hair. Maybe a good wash and a nice haircut will solve the situation.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 3rd house/ or with aspects to air planets

Whenever I think about hair, I think about tied up, pinned up or practical hair.. I also prefer something more casual, or even loose. Braids of all kinds would look great, you can have hair like your siblings. Well, they can also change their hair, cuts and everything a lot.

Same treatment I would give to soil, a good wash, work on hydration and don't leave your hair too tied up, Let your hair dry naturally May suffer from frizz.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 4th house/ or in aspect with water planets

Cute hair🐇, bunny hair, blonde hair, light hair, curly hair, short hair, cute hairstyles, Princess hairstyles.

Your hair may run in your family, which is fine (it depends on genetics), water hair tends to be oily. Work on hydration and cute hairstyles, loose strands and light hair are also a good choice. And also be careful with stress, your hair may have a tendency to fall out for emotional reasons.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 5th House/ Aspects with fire planets

Oh Jesus🙏, That hair😫, If you are a Leo in the 5th house, you have long hair, often blond or light, Hair that looks like a lion's mane, messy or very voluminous hair.

Long hair often needs to be cut at the ends due to dryness, the hair can become oily and tangled. I recommend hydration, cutting the ends every now and then, and not sleeping with wet hair.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€

Leo in the 6th house/ aspects with Earth planets

Oh earth, this positioning usually occurs in people with light hair, Medium, fine, virgin hair. Well-hydrated hair, earthy tones are also common, and some people I know have very straight hair.

Well, as the 6th house is the house of health, it is extremely linked to health. You have to take extra care of your hair and diet, wash your hair regularly, Moisturizing and leaving them natural is a good choice.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 7th house/ aspects with Air planets

Absolutely any hair type looks great on you. Their hair is usually very pretty, combed, braided, loose, in any aspect it will look beautiful. But those princess hairstyles would look beautiful on you🥰.

Be careful with frizz, too many chemicals in your hair, keep your hair balanced, You tend to have medium, very voluminous hair and need to take greater care with hydration.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 8th house/ aspects with water planets

My little vampires, your hair tends to be darker, short or medium, bold cuts, your hair makes you look much darker, Dark colors are great.

Bold, sexy hair, cuts that make you look like a femme fatale, But it can suffer from oiliness and dry ends.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 9th house/or in aspect with fire planets.

Light hair, light, blond, platinum, Those of you with Leo in the 9th house really have sunny hair. There's a lot of shine and life coming from your hair, just like Rapunzel🌜

Not everyone will have blonde hair, It would be nice to dye it blonde or something. You may suffer from dryness, or chemical cuts. And let your hair get some sunshine vitamin✨.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€

Leo in the 10th house/ or aspects with earth planets

My darlings, casual hair is your thing, short hair, easy to style, You may not care much about your hair, take better care of it. Try taking better care of your hair or share how you take care of your hair on the internet, That beautiful hair of the rich and casual.

Your hair can be highly praised too, be careful with dandruff, and chemical cuts. Your hair is beautiful, nutrition would be a great option too🌜.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€

Lion in the 11th house/ or aspects with air planet.

My alternative babies, well your hair may be different or have that internet touch. Very aesthetic and eye-catching (my sister has this look), Your hair is incredible, I swear, and you can dye it without fear, it will look beautiful.

Because of the dyes, take care that your hair does not suffer chemical cuts, and control dryness, Different braids and radical cuts are also welcome.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€~¥

Leo in the 12th house/ or in aspect with water planets.

And finally, well I noticed that some people have thin, short hair or prefer it short. Your hair can also be long in the Shakira style, do you know how one would come out of the water?

Your hair is beautiful, but it can suffer from breakage and hair loss, Be careful with chemicals and heat, Take care of that beautiful hair❤️🫀.

€~¥~€~¥~€~¥~€

Well, Jesus, this was harder than I thought, thanks for your attention.

I'm going to start offering paid services tomorrow, and I do readings of astrological maps, Destiny Matrix, and tarot readings🫀.

Thank you and have a good life✨

[imaginespazzi]

NIVI!! Give us your postgame thoughts on Ole Miss!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING MY LOVIES! I am thankful for that fact that I found a stream that worked last night and got to watch this game even though that 3rd quarter took years off of my life.

AZZI. FUDD. I don't think I can even begin to explain in words just how proud I am of her. Everyone has been saying that it's only a matter of time before Azzi starts to contribute (not that she didn't contribute in the Oregon State game) but Azzi didn't just contribute last night; was definitely the biggest (not the only of course) reason we won. It was a one-possession game and momentum was without a doubt on Ole Miss's side and Azzi said fuck all of that and gave UConn an 8-pt cushion all by herself. And what won't reflect on the box-score is that her scoring those points did two things: it deflated Ole Miss and it energized UConn. She was just so good offensively and defensively; just an all-around performance and I'm just so incredibly proud. And you know what the best part is? Those 3s ain't even falling yet.

Casual 29 points for the NPOY, no biggie just Paige doing Paige things except you know MY Paige doesn't normally get 5 turnovers...jk jk because honestly she only should have had 3 (still "high" for her standard but also that's what Ole Miss hangs their hat on). That 1st half and that 4th quarter were just things of beauty. That's what you need your leader to do, set the tone and then finish things off. AND SHE FINALLY GOT SOME FTS!!

Sarah looked really good in the first half and then when Ole Miss got going, she looked a little shaken in the second half, emphasis on the little shaken because it was only really in terms of scoring, she was still doing all the little things. I've seen some discourse and I personally don't want Sarah to stop taking 3s because it's not like she takes bad ones and I think they're gonna fall and we need them to fall and they're not gonna fall if she stops taking them.

JANA!! She had some clutch has hell rebounds and some much-needed shots. I thought she had a really good game and a near double-double. She just looked really energized out there and I think she's only going to get better.

Ice had a up and down game. She definitely did a couple of things that frustrated me but also made some solid plays. I would have definitely liked a couple more points and a couple more rebounds but I think the hustle, that's been prevalent the last few games, is still there.

Ash needed more shots which is partially on her but also I feel like she was getting plays ran for AND her teammates weren't doing the best job of finding her. It feels like the aggression, particularly on offense, of the first two games had dwindled a little bit and she's in a bit of a slump. Also two of Paige's 5 turnovers, probably belong to her because girl what was you doing?

We definitely need more point production from KC but I thought she had a very stabilizing presence last night and did a pretty good job running the offense in the 4th.

KK hadn't made me want to scream at her for driving into traffic and getting blocked like clockwork in a couple of games and so of course OF COURSE she had to do it last night. But I do think she matched Ole Miss's energy well and I liked that one drive she had. She needs to look to score like that more.

Which brings me back to that KC-KK discourse, I still think the KK-Paige-Azzi-Sarah-Jana/Ice lineup is our strongest but I also did really like the KC-Paige-Azzi-Sarah-Jana that we used to end the game and was I believe the prominent lineup throughout the 2nd half. So I think my general opinion is that it doesn't matter who starts because ultimately it's gonna be a opponent-driven decision and it's good to have that option.

I love Paige and Azzi and I love that they had good games but I'm ngl, looking at that box score and seeing so many people with only 2 pts did not please me at all.

Blowing leads is becoming a recurring thing and as much as I think it's good character building for this team right now because as Geno says you learn more from overcoming the Ole Miss run than if you had stretched it 30, it is a little concerning that it's a bit of a pattern. And again this is only their 5th game and it was their first true test and also ofc only their 3rd having Azzi so I'm not necessarily super worried, but it is something I'mma keep my eye on.

But overall I'm just really proud of this team. They got punched in the 3rd and they punched back and I'm hoping to see a lot more punching in the upcoming games.

[kings-highway]

haikyuu characters but its just some of the most out of pocket quotes my roommate has recorded me saying mid-conversation:

Tanaka, probably loudly in conversation with Noya: "I could body a racoon."

Asahi: "If spiders developed wings, I would immediately check myself into a hospital. I would be a danger to myself and others."

Suga, offhandedly to Hinata when he finds out it's his birthday: "Statistically, you're more likely to die on your birthday. So... watch out."

Daichi, sometimes post timeskip talking about Kuroo: "nothing a twenty-five year old does isn't a ponzi scheme."

Iwaizumi, mid-Godzilla related conversation: "Me and Mothra have always had a special connection though."

Yabaha, at Kyotani: "If you're ever in a situation where you need to be escorted by an ambulance and you're feeling pain? GOOD."

Ushijima: "It's coming to the springtime. The sheep will be born."

Tendou, overheard in passing while mid-conversation with the other stz third years: "I don't think any other sub-class of human lays eggs."

Kenma, probably taken out of context about a video game but overheard by a very baffled Kuroo: "I may not be a follower, but I do love cults."

Bokuto, in an (playful) argument with Akaashi: "What the fuck would you do if I ate the declaration of independence?"

Tsukishima, chiming into a conversation he was barely listening to: "the last time the U.S got involved, fuckin' Berlin got cut in half."

Kita, unprompted probably: "Agriculture controls everything."

Mika (about Daishou): "Compared to other fairytales, he was an incredibly respectful snake."

Oikawa, texting Iwa at 5 am: "I hate that bamboo is real."

Hinata, loudly, probably because he forgot to bring his gatorade: "Humans were not made to consume water!"

Yachi, probably having stomach problems: "surely with all the synthetic science they have now they can make a burger product that doesn't make me wanna kill myself."

[10101]

I agree completely with most of this- particularly how well the articulation of transphobia being caused by cissexualism is, and how a good analogy to make more people understand this would be to show homophobia is produced by heterosexuality as an institution and misogyny is produced by patriarchy.

But a small part I disagree with is the change of sex markers. This is largely coming from a biased perspective of my own but I live in an extremely misogynist country where same-sex institutions are one of the very few safe spaces women have. I do believe transitioned trans women should get access to them too (by transitioned I do not mean a necessary “sex change surgery” but someone who has at least been on estrogen for about a year or so) because it’s inhumane to deny a woman who would inarguably face misogyny a safe space against that. Sex markers on IDs help us get access to these institutions. It’s a small respite in the grand scheme of things and I also believe in separatism being a transitory/temporary stage before cissexualism and the patriarchy are inevitably destroyed. But it matters greatly to a lot of us right now, and I believe it can genuinely help trans women too. Also it can help make more informed and empathetic cis allies, because when we see the reality of another class of women, we understand them more and we can form meaningful communities with them. I speak on this from experience. My trans friends are the reason I have become much more nuanced and empathetic in my takes rather than just taking mere liberal positions on these issues.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I want feminists and trans rights communities to build more empathy and understanding of their causes and understand that they are intertwined. So maybe one solution I can propose is gender-based identification, since sex is defined too narrowly by many authorities even now (ignoring the fact that there are not two immutable sexes and that ignores intersexual people’s realities, who actually exist in much higher numbers than we think, besides many other realities too). It could be based on simple criteria like being on hormones for a year or the like, but that in itself might be difficult considering recent anti-trans legislations across the world and how it would ignore non-binary people’s realities. But I’m sure that a solution can be found that doesn’t take away a temporary respite but at the same time genuinely acknowledges realities that exist beyond our narrow dichotomous ideas.

I also wanted to add to the post that understanding our bias towards dichotomies might help make cis people understand the point you’re making. Every cis person is married greatly to the belief that there do exist certain dichotomies. Non-binary is still an outlier to a lot of us. We see trans women and trans men as strictly part of these dichotomies too (sort of). Mind-soul, male-female, heterosexual-homosexual, breadwinner-homemaker. These dichotomies further encourage the reproduction of essentially all forms of oppression. But from what I have seen and understood, the realities of trans people are removed from it frequently because cis people refuse to actually truly place them under these dichotomies, and see them as outsiders to it, even when they have to repeatedly painfully prove they can be a part of it too.

I think making cis people understand that the entire world isn’t black-and-white and yin-and-yang and that this itself is a product of what is arguably the first oppression in the world—heterosexual categories of “man” and “woman”—could help them understand that transphobia does not affect them with the same extremity or intensity that it affects trans people. We still get a place in that dichotomy. They are always considered outside of it, no matter how much they’re forced to push themselves inside these dichotomies because of the world we perpetuate. I think the point I’m trying to make is very similar to what you said but my addition is more about “how do we make cis people understand that what they believe is reality i.e., dichotomies is actually not reality and is just a part of perpetuation of systems of oppression” (if that makes sense).

“transphobia hurts us all” is an analytical statement. It is making a claim about how a specific bigotry operates in the world, and its supposed analytical value is in revealing something about transphobia that appears on the surface to be counter-intuitive - “while you might think transphobia only hurts transgender people, that isn’t the case; it hurts cisgender people too.” The follow-up to this statement, sometimes implied and sometimes explicit, is a moral imperative - transphobia is a social ill that hurts us all, so we should seek to get rid of it.

This analytical-moral chain of logic isn’t unique to this statement; a lot of analyses of the social world come from a broader desire to “figure out what to do.” When we investigate a social phenomenon to uncover its inner workings, and in this investigation we identify the scope and impact of the harm it causes, we are in a better place to understand how to reduce harm in the world. Of particular interest in this investigation of transphobia is highlighting its illegitimacy - if transphobia also harms cisgender people, this is evidence of its illegitimacy as a social force in the world. We have uncovered some fundamental contradiction in the workings of bigotry, and this contradiction provides a rational ground for us to oppose it. Of course transphobia is irrational and must be opposed; it harms other groups of people who are not transgender.

This is also why people object to this statement on analytic grounds - disagreeing with the argument that transphobia hurts everyone is a critique of analysis. Importantly, it is not a dismissal of empirical evidence; we can see many direct real-world examples of cisgender people being targeted for transphobic abuse, such as cis people being attacked in bathrooms for “looking transgender.” A critique of the claim that transphobia hurts us all is a methodological critique, it is a critique of analytical framing; we are operating from the same set of social facts, but reaching different conclusions. The reason for this is because we are using different investigative and theoretical tools in our analysis. And these differences are not trivial; how we define the social phenomena under investigation directly informs how we understand the facts in front of us.

So first, we must settle the problem of definitions - what is transphobia? Simply defining it as a hatred of transgender people is insufficient for all parties. If it does indeed also hurt cis people, then this definition doesn’t do us much analytical good. Where do we go from here? Perhaps a better place to start is to investigate its origins - what assumptions does transphobia operate from? Where do those assumptions come from? This is where we start getting somewhere. Transphobia draws its core assumptions from cissexualism - the belief that there are two mutually-exclusive and irreconcilable sexes, sexes which are immutable and biologically hard-wired, meaning that it is a difference in human beings that exists independent of the social worlds that human beings build. This idea is bound up in many forms of power, one of which being patriarchy; yes indeed there are two sexes, and one of them is better than the other. And because sex is hard-wired, then patriarchy is likewise a simple fact of nature. These assumptions are also bound up in reproduction; one sex impregnates (this is the powerful sex) and one sex gets impregnated (this is the weak sex). These ideas and assumptions structure much of our social world, being embedded in many social, political, and economic institutions, from family to labour to dating to census records to political office, and so on. 

Transphobia is thus an output of these logics - if sex is biological, and sex determines your place in society, then attempting to change your sex means you are thwarting the natural hierarchy of human beings. You are either trying to rise above your station, or abandoning your post. Either option is grounds for punishment. Why would you go against nature? How dare you?

So, transphobia is a bigotry that comes from cissexualism. We could investigate further where cissexualism comes from (and indeed those investigations are taking place), but for our purposes we now have a much more analytically rich definition. Transphobia is a social technology of discipline; it performs a regulatory function for the continuation of cissexualism, much the same way that misogyny is a regulatory apparatus of patriarchy, and homophobia is a regulatory apparatus of heterosexuality. These bigotries perform a very ‘rational’ social function; they reproduce existing forms of power by policing their borders and brutalising anyone who does not behave in accordance with their logics.

We now return to the original question: does transphobia harm everyone? This question now feels methodologically inappropriate, because we are ignoring the role cissexualism plays in producing transphobia. This is as absurd as describing homophobia without mentioning heterosexuality. The question should instead be: does cissexualism harm everyone? The answer of course is yes - we can see how cissexualism produces the social conditions for people to assault someone in a public bathroom for “looking transgender,” for an adult to force a child to report what their genitals ‘really look like’ so they can continue playing soccer, and for a billionaire to spend the latter half of her life dumping money and resources into political legislation that makes it more difficult to, among other things, correct administrative mistakes on your birth certificate. 

But because we are now talking about cissexualism, it is much easier for us to see how its violence is differentially applied across groups. Cisgender people can point to their cisgenderism as grounds for being exempt from transphobia - “don’t target me, I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m following the rules!” Their societal position as cisgender allows them to argue that they are illegitimate targets, that they are being unfairly treated. This animated much of the surrounding discourse around Imane Khelif - I can’t believe JKR is targeting a real woman! Can’t you tell she’s biologically female? Here’s her birth certificate to prove it, and anyway, don’t you know it’s illegal to be transgender where she lives? 

This is a defence that transgender people cannot mount for ourselves - we are by definition fraudsters in the cissexual regime of gender, we are abandoning our stations, we are perverting nature. And in this difference we come to see that it is not transphobia that harms us all, but cissexualism; we are all subject to scrutiny under cissexual surveillance, but cis people can generally pass the test. Transgender people cannot. 

This distinction also has implications for the second sequence in this investigative chain: what do we do about transphobia? Again we see that this call to action is methodologically inappropriate - you cannot “deal with” transphobia in society while leaving the cissexualist structure that produces it intact, in the same way that getting rid of misogyny without first getting rid of patriarchy is impossible. You cannot get rid of an output without destroying the machine that produces those outputs. This is also where many cis people, even those who count themselves as trans allies, become uncomfortable; abandoning the idea of a metaphysical property of being, hard-encoded into their DNA, means abandoning a whole host of other ideas about identity, about social organisation, about institutional operations. Even minor reformist calls by transgender people, such as removing sex markers on birth certificates (which determine your ability to access all kinds of administrative and civil services), is met with intense hostility by cissexuals - how will we run our hospitals, how will we raise our children, how will we track population data, how will we do anything without sex markers? You people are insane! Look how you deny reality! What is wrong with you freaks? Why can’t you just be happy with the way you were born? And on and on, ironically refusing to concede the fact that states, hospitals, child care, and census data are not natural facts of the world and can be changed. Because if those things can be changed, perhaps sex is not this monumental biological destiny after all!

“Transphobia hurts us all” is an analytical statement that advances a set of cissexual assumptions about the world, and as a consequence, it is severely limited in its value for advancing a moral imperative about how to resolve the problem of transphobia. It is not a neutral statement, nor is one that is helplessly subservient to “the hard facts.” We know those facts - describing them is the role of the social scientist. Whether you are in a laboratory or on the street, you are doing social science by analysing social phenomena. And when you say transphobia hurts everyone, you are doing a poor job of it

[ppeonppeonhan]

Jack & Joker: U Steal My Heart - Ep. 11 & 12 Finale Thoughts

Episode 11

"Grandpa knows you can do it." Nearly ended me.

I COMPLETELY forgot about Carbon. I was like, who is this man? Of course, that sociopath would throw a child off a balcony. Smh

I couldn't tell you what happened in that monopoly scene, but yay?

I want to think Joke keeping the bloody napkin was sweet, but my face went 😣

Abuela breaking out martial arts skills and going at Carbon with a meat cleaver was not on my finale bingo card, but I was screaming.

Episode 12

Awww, Aran and Tattoo designed a product together. It is...hot pink chloroform, but still. Progress. lol

All they need to do is disable the collars. What is this clownery?

When did Hope become a programmer?

I understand that Hope has an agenda (rescue Save), but like...you could've released everybody else too.

For those of you too young to ever have played hangman, you always start with the most common vowels. Never guess U... 🙄

Who thought it would be a good idea to leave Hoy with the gun? Tattoo lucky he only got shot in his ass.

Dickhead?! I'm screaming. OK Rose, I forgive you. But if anyone was supposed to guess the word based on knowing you, that would've been impossible. Lol

I cackled at Joke saying Sorry in perfect English after claiming he couldn't spell it. lol

I kept wanting Rose to choke Carbon out with the chain but Jack and Joke finally used team work to put that bitch down.

Not Rose becoming a JackJoke stan by the end. Lol

I love how even Boss was distracted by Jack and Joke's passionate kiss goodbye.

Oooh sister takes down brother -- a legal and financial death. Nice.

Lol to abuela forgiving Save completely for poisoning her, but Hope only partially because he trashed her house repeatedly -- and then telling Jack to hit him. What a G.

I don't love that Aran forgave his father but he is a good son and a good man in the end.

Wowwwww what a coward. I feel like they had the opportunity to tell a nuanced story of how Boss is a product of his environment and the real villains were the Horsemen, but he didn't earn this heartfelt goodbye with his dead wife -- or a second chance at life.

"If you're staying, I'm staying." Crumbs. They served us crumbs with Tattoo and Aran!!!

I like Save as the new boss. Even though he looks like a child. He played the figurative and literal game very well.

Well that was fun! Worth if only to have met this queen. But YinWar made one of the sweetest couples of the year. They deserve all their flowers.

[17panicattacksinatrenchcoat]

max's writing tips 7: balancing your creations and mental health

heads up! this post is more serious than my other writing advice content and contains light discussions of burnout, anxiety and depression. hiding it behind the 'keep reading' button for those who may find it upsetting

please remember that this is my personal experience, and that the advice I give here is what helped me recover from a bad time, and avoid burnout in the future. I hope my advice can also help you, but if it doesn't, that's okay too! writing advice isn't one size fits all.

Do not push yourself to extremes for the sake of completing a challenge or meeting an arbitrary deadline- Challenging yourself and setting goals is great so long as they are feasible and you will not hurt yourself doing them. In January of this year, I felt like I hadn't been writing enough and forced myself to write every day until I completed the first draft of a novel I'd been putting off. This wasn't healthy because a) I write at a pretty slow pace --I have to let my projects marinate in my head for a good amount of time, and prefer to work multiple projects at once-- so the goal was pretty much the opposite of my preferred writing process and b) I did this with no planning other than writing upwards of 2k words each day for three months. This did not go as planned: I had to stop short of my goal. I did write 80k words (none of which were very good) at the cost of my physical and mental health. After finishing work and life stuff I would sit down at my computer for five hours and wrack out a few thousand words every day for all of January, February, and about half of March. I forgot to drink water and eat enough, lived off of caffeine, and did not sleep because I was planning the next day's work; obviously, this was terrible for me and I felt pretty ill most of the time. My anxiety also flared up during this time. I thought I was having some kind of health problem because I'd lost a bit of weight, was having bad headaches, and was constantly out of breath; I didn't realize until I took a break that I didn't have a medical condition, but that I'd been overworking myself to the breaking point.

Look after your health. I was lucky not to have wreaked any lasting effects on my body during those months, but I felt very bad at the time. Eat substantial meals. Drink enouh water. Sleep enough, for God's sake. Be sure to go outside, also, and keep up with your friends and family; I was a bit of a recluse during this time and was bad about meeting up with people face to face instead of texting them.

Pushing yourself to work quickly to a degree that you're harming yourself will probably not produce a good product. Even if it does end up being good, is it really worth it?

Learn how your writing process works and get better at understanding your mental health needs, and when you need to take breaks. I cannot give you so much advice for this because it's something you need to figure out by yourself. I recommend journaling; also, seeing a therapist if you're able to.

Writing is supposed to be fun (and, if not fun, fulfill you in some other way.) It's your hobby. When your hobby starts taking away more joy than it's giving, it stops being a hobby. It becomes a chore.

Take routine breaks. This doesn't mean that you have to stop writing altogether during those times if you don't want to; it might mean switching up the project you're working on. I also recommend having another creative hobby (cooking, playing an instrument, drawing or painting, scrapbooking/collaging etc) to work on during your breaks.

i hope you're doing well today, everyone. remember that it's okay to go at your own pace.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Can you imagine ANY other political/civil rights movement being constantly hounded and scrutinized like feminism/female liberation is?

You mean the massive, powerful movement that influences governments around the world?

Yes, yes I can. Because it happens all the time.

This is not special treatment, feminists are not the plucky underdogs.

Do you see people go after childrens rights groups, saying "but what about adults? You must want them all dead!". Or animal rights groups - "but what about humans? You must want them all dead!".

If those groups actually had #killAllAdults or #killAllHumans as a popular meme of theirs, yes, that would be a logical conclusion.

And also they had spent literally decades making negative generalizations about adults and humans.

Of course, you're using a rare, extreme example of criticism of feminism AND an poor analogy, to avoid addressing more cogent and common criticisms like, "why is this movement that says it's about ending sexism…spreading sexist stereotypes about men AND women?"

Even if just to say "no, that's not true".

Irony is, mainstream "liberal" feminism can barely even pretend to care about men, and even then, mostly as political meatshields. Male feminists and allies are usually the opposite of coddled.

Of course, if you're claiming that men do and always have systemically oppressed and harmed women, whenever possible, "don't piss them off to no productive end" is just common sense.

Especially when your movement also loves to claim women are always justifiably paranoid of harm from men.

Feminism is the only movement that gets scrutinized for its sheer existence;

BLM would like a word.

"what?! Women?! Having rights?! Having a voice?! Nah, can't be! Won't let be!".

Good ol' Motte and Bailey.

Privileges are also rights, and disagreement with what you say is not the same as denying your right to speak or have an opinion.

The irony is, most women don't identify as feminist, and have a poor opinion of feminism.

Claiming you speak for all women is, ironically, very misogynist.

saw this pic in a tiktok moots slideshow and i love it (idk the artist sorry)

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I realized (which was obvious to me subconsciously) is that... The family that vehemently didn't accept me when I first came out but now do accept me are still the same family that I am most unwilling to be open about things I feel protective over.

I remember that my dad reacted so poorly, not to my coming out, but to my transition specifically that my therapist was the one to ask if I wanted to put it on my file that I wanted nothing to ever be shared with him about my health after I broke down multiple times due to my anxiety that I would never transition. While there are and were protections for me, I was incredibly fearful at the time because I was a minor, and I was so worried that he would have prevented my transition that I couldn't have said for certain what (if any) lengths he would have gone to to prevent that.

He's grown a lot as a person, and made some commendable strides. But he didn't find out from me when I medically transitioned the second I turned eighteen, and I think that's among the things that truly made him realize the scope of the issue.

I'm not here to guilt trip parents, guardians, or other members responsible for the care of the children or teens or young adults in their care.... but this is a cautionary tale. You aren't saving the people in your care when you do this, you simply reinforce an idea that you will never care for them, never want them as they are, would rather them be shoved away.

When you give people reasons to be secretive, they will behave secretively. When you give people reasons to doubt their safety around you, they will become sneaky, defensive, and withdrawn. When you give people reasons to doubt that you value their life, they will believe that you don't care if they live or not.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Bury Your Gays

Horror

a scriptwriter in hollywood who’s getting attention & an Oscar nom after working in the industry for years, but is being pressured by algorithm-obsessed producers to kill off the queer characters in the season finale of the show he writes

and when he starts getting stalked by the monsters he wrote (based on traumas of his past) he has to figure out how to survive, along with his best friend and boyfriend

[essektheylyss]

I was personally assaulted (honorific) by this essay on ambition. It's very good.

[enbypotat53]

I mean.. this is after episode 18 dropped, but hey, this seems fun! Why the heck not :P (EDIT - I didn't read the rules properly, that's on me, spoilers will be deleted from my answer or reworded to be vague!)

(Also I'm proofreading, and.. jeez. Take a shot every time I say "for sure" 💀)

Favourite character/s?

Well, if we're going for contestants only, my favourite from each season would be Paintbrush, Fan, and Silver Spoon! But my actual top 3 are Paintbrush, Mepad, and Baseball :3 💙

Favourite season?

Season 2 for sure! It's how I found II in the first place, and it's undoubtedly had the biggest impact on me as a whole! (And that finale was PHENOMINAL!)

Favourite episode/s?

FOR SURE either S2 EP12, or any of the movie acts. I have a DEEP personal connection with Alternate Reality Show, as Painty's coming out scene made me realise I was trans! It's also when I started to REALLY ship Lightbrush. And the movie is just.. wow. Couldn't have asked for a better conclusion if I tried.

Favourite scene/s?

Ough.. that's a toughie. Paintbrush's coming out scene is an obvious one, as well as Knife and Suitcase being deleted in EP17. From season 3... I'm not entirely sure! The Nickloon hug was a cute one though :3 (I had an answer for episode 18 too, but I cut it for spoiler reasons. I'll post my EP18 answers seperately if anyone wants them!)

Favourite team?

The Bright Lights for sure! Both S2 teams are great, but c'mon! Ya gotta love the Lights!

Favourite ship/s or friendships?

Hooh boy I could go on for hours about my favourite ships and why, but I'll spare y'all the essay and just list a top 10. (No particular order!)

Ships - Lightbrush, Knifecase, Basenickloon, Fantube, Silvercandle, Tacosoapmic, Toipad, Payjay, Marshbowpple, Comedy Gold

A character you'd like to know more about?

Honestly? Probably the Creatorbots! I know we had the Q&A stream, but the Meeple products are just so intriguing, and although they kinda... exploded, I'd like to see more of them! (Plus goose J.U.S.T.I.N is adorable lol)

Favourite non-contestant?

Mepad for sure! He cares so much for the contestants, and he's just overall such a sweet guy! 💙💙

Favourite voice for a character/favourite VA?

Hmm.. top 10 favourite voices would probably be Lightbulb, Knife, Paper, Cobs, Taco, Mepad, Toilet, Paintbrush, Springy, and Fan!

As for VAs.. top 3 - Jazzy Oliver, Justin Chapman, and Joshua Waters! (I'm sensing a theme here..)

Jazzy is an AMAZING singer, and she is the PERFECT voice for Painty! Her voice for them sounds so determined and upbeat - absolutely the right vibe for them! Plus, her streams are always so fun to be in :3

Joshua does a PHENOMINAL job in voicing Cobs! His (Cobs') voice is such a perfect mix of slimy, kinda bratty, yet intimidating, and it works SO well. Plus, just. I've said this before, but the fact that I feel PHYSICAL RAGE when hearing Cobs speak to Mephone and the contestants? So good. And Josh himself is super chill! Definitely seems like a great guy! :)

Justin's voices are just. Mwah. Chef's kiss. The absolute RANGE they have?? It's SO impressive - I'm jealous! They manage to keep a fun yet unique vibe for every character they voice, and that's hard to do! If I didn't know already, I probably wouldn't believe you if you told me Mepad, Goo, Knife, Silver Spoon, and Paper were voiced by the same person. SERIOUSLY impressive stuff, and I don't think there's a single character they voice that I dislike! They just make them so fun! Plus, Justin themself is a great person. Very genuine, very upbeat, just such a positive guy overall! 💙💙

Favourite song/s?

Well, as I've said before, Just Like Me is probably my favourite song, mostly because of sentimental meaning! There IS another one thay could probably take it down a peg, though.. (or at least share its place!)

If you could go to any location in the show, where would it be?

Hmm.. probably Cabby's library or Hotel OJ! Both seem like super chill places to be, and I'd love to see the contestants!

Favourite AUs?

Lab Rats AU FOR SURE. Made by @ask-lab-rats, the II characters are kids who were born/kidnapped into experimentation by Cobs! It's SUPER unique, and very well drawn, too! Plus, the storyline is great, it really keeps you hooked! :D 💙

How were you introduced to II?

Oh jeez, it's been at least 9 or 10 years so I can't QUITE remember, but I think I found it alongside BFDI! I watched the second season, and loved every bit of it!

What's a crossover you'd love to see?

Hmm.. inside the OSC, probably another dark show like The Nightly Manor or ONE. It'd be interesting to see how they'd interact, honestly! Outside.. not sure! I guess if I had to go with my other current hyperfix, Detroit Become Human would be kinda fun! And ngl it'd be VERY funny to see Kamski and Cobs interact lol

If you could get any merch, what would it be?

For SURE one of the plushies, the sticker sheet, or the blanket! I'm VERY tempted to ask for the blanket honestly, but £40 is a LOTTA money, so.. 👉👈

Would you recommend the show to friends/family?

I mean. Considering I've been begging my friends/siblings to watch the show, and the fact that I JUST watched the movie with my ma? I'd say it's a solid yes

What would you want to see more from the show that didn't happen?

(Again, spoilers, I'll post it if anyone wants the answer!)

How much does II mean to you?

Honestly? So damn much. More than I can possibly describe. I owe my own path of self-discovery to this show, and I've found so many amazing people through this community. The characters mean everything to me, and I'm genuinely so grateful to everyone I've met in the OSC. Plus, the love people have shown for my fanart and analyses means a lot! I'm honestly just a random guy on the internet rambling about his favourite show, but I've found a family here. The journey's been a long one, but for sure an amazing one. I'm looking forward to seeing AE's future projects, whether it be II-related, or something else, and I'm so glad to see the show get the conclusion it deserves. Thanks so much, II crew. You made my childhood a special one. 💙💙

As for who I wanted to win, I was personally rooting for Knife! But as the movie went on, I found I wouldn't have minded either way. I won't spoil ofc, but I'm satisfied with who won. They deserved it :)

It’s finished! Welcome to II-blr’s…

PRE-II18 MINI-Q&A!

A set of 18 QUESTIONS celebrating 18 EPISODES that I’ve prepared for the entire fandom!!! Reblogs are definitely appreciated! As a bonus, you can go into my ask box and ask me any of the questions that *I* made!

You can answer as many questions as you want! Answer one, two, or maybe all of them!

There are no right or wrong answers! Everyone in the II fandom is welcome! (just no rule-breaking responses, please!)

STRICTLY NO LEAKS OR SPOILERS FOR THE UPCOMING EPISODE!!! Please be respectful to those who weren’t able to see the the theatrical releases! (including myself!)

Transcript + Description:

1. Favorite character/s? (bonus: give one that debuted in each season)

Everyone in the fandom has this character that they love a tiny bit over the others. Who is YOUR favorite character? Or characters, if you have many.

2. Favorite season? (S1, S2 or S3?)

Between Inanimate Insanity, Inanimate Insanity 2 and Inanimate Insanity Invitational, which one of them did you like the most, and why? Is it their charm? Their artstyle and animation? Or is it because you enjoy it the most? There’s no wrong answers!

3. Favorite episode? (bonus: give one from each season)

Inanimate Insanity has 54 (about to be 55!) episodes in total! (not including S1 Ep. 5.5.) Out of all those episodes, which one did you enjoy the most, and why?

4. Favorite scene/s? (bonus: give one from each season)

Every episode is made out of SCENES! Was there a specific scene that you really liked, and why? From the emotions, the voice direction, your connection to the scene, or ALL OF THEM?

5. Favorite team? (across all seasons?)

Between Season One’s Team Epic and Team Chicken Leg, Season Two’s Bright Lights and Grand Slams, and Invitational’s (Old OR New) Sinkers, Thinkers and Pinkers, which among all these teams were the best among the rest?

6. Favorite ship/s and/or friendship/s?

You can’t have a fandom without ships! What are YOUR favorite ships? If romantic pairs aren’t your thing, give some friendships that you really loved.

7. A character you’d like to know more about?

With all the characters within the show, we’ve been dying to know more about the characters that didn’t get as much screentime as the others! Who do YOU want to know more about?

8. Favorite non-contestant? (Host, Co-Host, Misc., etc.)

Let’s give some love to those who don’t partake in the game! Your favorite non-contestant could also be the same as your favorite character! They could be hosts, co-hosts, background characters, other Meeple products— HECK, maybe Steve Cobs himself! There are a lot of characters out there that aren’t in the premises of the game.

9. Favorite voice for a character / favorite voice actor?

Let’s give some love to our beloved crew members who made the show possible! There was DEFINITELY that one character who you really like solely from their voice. Who is your favorite voice for a character, or your favorite voice actor?

10. Favorite song/s?

Let’s get musical! Without the people behind the music of II, these bangers would’ve never been possible! What is a song from the show that you’d put on repeat?

11. If you’d like to go to any location in the show, where would it be?

From the mysterious underground Gemory Cave to the Meeple Headquarters found in the sky, the world of II is endless! Maybe you want to go to a contest area to try a few challenges yourself. Or you want to relax and explore Hotel OJ!

12. Favorite canon divergence / AUs in the fandom (if any)

Now let’s give some love to our artists and writers in this very app! There’s a lot of awesome alternate universes in this fandom. (heck, I have an AU myself! the WTI au! check it out pspspspsps /nf) What are some alternate scenarios you’ve thought of that would make a GREAT AU? Or maybe some existing ones that you’ve followed for a while now?

13. How were you introduced to I.I.?

Were you introduced to the show when you were a child? Or maybe you’ve just learned about it pretty recently? Everyone starts somewhere!

14. What is a crossover (any crossover!) that you’d love to see?

We all have interests outside of II. Let it be shows, games, movies, books, or other interests! Even if it would absolutely NEVER happen in reality, what media do you think should have a crossover or collaboration with the show?

15. If you could get any merch you want, what are you getting?

Imagine this. You have won a raffle, and your prize is ANYTHING YOU WANT that has been sold during II’s runtime! Let it be t-shirts or mugs that aren’t being sold anymore, plushies that got sold out or on sale right now, or all the cool merch that is being sold this holiday season! Heck, you can ask for a merch item that hasn’t existed yet! Like your favorite character that doesn’t have a plushie yet! What are YOU getting?

16. Would you recommend the show to your friends/family?

Maybe you’re too shy to show it to people you’re close to, and that’s fine! But would you recommend the show to others?

17. What do you want to see more from the show that didn’t happen?

This is related to the AU question! Maybe it could be a scenario that happens after the movie, or a look into the daily lives of the contestants. Let’s hope that after II18, we’ll still have post-movie content…

18. How much does I.I. mean to you?

This fandom has grown to be a vast space full of talented creators big and small. You may have made a friend or two, maybe you just joined the fandom. There are no wrong answers. What is Inanimate Insanity to you? It could be as small as a simple show you’re interested in, or as big as the show having changed your life.

Thank you for reading through! Reblogs appreciated of course! To prove that you’ve read through the whole post…

[lala-blahblah]

I will never make this because it would be for an audience of one (me) but ever since reading "If we Were Villains" (story about serious drama kids in college who perform shakespeare and deal with a murder) I have been entertaining the thought of a crack fic crossover with High School Musical The Musical The Series where the staff decides they will no longer put on shakespeare after the tragic accident that happened at Thanksgiving, because Shakespeare plays would only increase the tension and drama. So they hire Ms. Jen who decides their spring play will actually be High School Musical (which exists in the 90s in this universe) and it ruins the vibe so much that everyone gives up on being dark and mysterious because they're universally pissed at Ms Jen for making them learn choreoraphed basketball dancing.