#like I'm sorry but

[dubiousculturalartifact]

'but eddie said he was straight'

if you gathered up 100 queer people who came out after age 30, and then asked them to leave if they had ever self-described themselves as 'straight' prior to coming out

you'd probably have an empty room

[bulletbilltime]

The fact that Amberpricefield is relegated to being a non-canon ship is forever going to hurt me. I don't care that the canon literally makes it impossible! I want the lesbian throuple in my media NOW!

[edoro]

i don't think that whether you use acrylic yarn or natural fibers says anything about Who You Are As A Person, and there are very valid considerations re: price and accessibility (as well as durability and ease of care) that can make acrylic a far superior option for people

HOWEVER i do think that if you treat "concerned about the sustainability of yarn that is, essentially, plastic being manufactured, shipped, and washed repeatedly" and "morally opposed to a sheep getting a haircut because you have decided that literally any use of animal products of any sort is evil, always" like they have equal weight and are equally valid points of view, then you're... being kind of silly

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Ppl who can't just enjoy an evil character, and think it's a moral failing if anyone else likes that character are exhausting, and I'm pretty sure slept through any lesson about literary understanding.

Yeah. I mean, it's fine not to enjoy evil characters, or any kind of character, for any reason! But... Yeah, while I don't love that trend of groups accusing each other of lacking media literacy because I feel like it often obscures the core disagreement and any difference of perspective people may bring to the table while both having genuinely interesting points to bring up, it does become pretty exhausting to be morally scrutinized about extremely tame opinions about extremely tame characters.

To me, liking Ganondorf is like... barely above liking Bowser in terms of moral despicability? Not to equate the two at all, as they are very different beasts, but we are talking about a videogame villain made to vaguely scare off children/give them a thrill about feeling like a hero. At the end of the day, this is the purpose Ganondorf serves in the story: being the fairytale evil king that you can defeat and still feel good about yourself (then Wind Waker arrived etc etc but even then, he served that purpose and extremely well even in Wind Waker).

But I don't want to underplay the weight of what I'm generally saying on this blog either and I don't want to hide behind "lol it's just a game for children" when it's an argument I hate to see deployed to undermine other people's feelings about the series. I do come at this character with loaded language and pretty heavy terms, and I'm not sure I would have gotten this kind of hostility if I had just twirled my hair like the rest of the (much more reasonable and less invested) internet, and kept some terms I have used (justifyingly so imho) out of my virtual mouth. It can provoke. It's meant to. I understand these feelings can take some strange shapes when they lash out undigested.

THAT BEING SAID.

Okay, sure. You want me to acknowledge the evil bad guy is evil? Okay! Let's do it, right now. Ganondorf commits atrocities. He does weirdly specific and horrible things to the gorons. He kills people and he kills half-gods. He is tyrannical. He is a conqueror and a warlord. He is a thief. He is self-obsessed and entitled. He beats up kids. He practices necromancy. He terrorizes his followers. He lies and manipulates. If you look closely he is even associated with, like.... the devil....? like maybe there's even "demon" somewhere in his title card?

Okay. Very bad. Evil. Horrible nasty man. Weird eyebrows. Arguably weird name. One star. Blocked and reported.

Okay.

...now what?

Like, what do we do from this point on? What did we learn? What did we ponder upon? What touched us, or moved us, or made us see the world in a slightly new light? Are we reassured? Do we sleep any easier at night?

I know it doesn't always have to be the point of art, to question everything constantly. You can go to art for reassurance and simplicity and easy, comforting thrills --and Zelda is great at doing this as a series, it's a huge part of why I love it. It feels safe, and that's such a nice thing to rely upon! And you can stop there!!! It's allowed!!!!!!

But if you go out of your way to shame people investing and questioning this piece of fiction they love in their own way because it threatens your moral safety and the simplicity of your relationship to that media (and/or the world at large)? That becomes a you problem my (gender neutral) guy, and by that I mean: you becoming a problem for others to deal with, regardless of Circumstances.

[sarah-cam]

belly and conrad are literally saying goodbye forever not really and they still get a taylor swift song

EVEN WHEN I LOSE I STILL WIN

[dingoat]

The same I do for literally any book or article or blog post. I start reading it and if I decide it's good enough to read I keep reading it.

Another AO3 thing I’m curious about, how do yall decide if something is good enough to read? Usually I follow a rule of 1 kudos for every 10 hits. One because it’s easy math and two it’s yet to fail me. Thoughts? Do you just go for it and pray it’s good?

[captainjonnitkessler]

Sometimes I wish we would start calling out the performative radicalism on this site for the poser bullshit it is. "Remember, it's always morally correct to kill a cop!" "Don't forget to firebomb your local government office!" "Wow, it sure would be a shame if these instructions on how to make a molotov cocktail got spread around!"

Okay. But you're not killing cops or firebombing government offices. You are posting on a dying microblogging website to a carefully-curated echo chamber that has radicalized itself into thinking that taking the absolute most extreme position on any subject is praxis but that anyone discussing the most practical way to effect actual change is your sworn enemy. You do not have the street cred OR the activist cred to be talking about killing cops, babe.

[spinostarz]

if i have to experience men only being nice to me or being my friend because they have a crush on me one more time i fear i will become an actual villain.

[legallybrunettedotcom]

doing shit alone will have people acting like you're the bravest human being who has ever existed. "omg I could never 😖" I'm eating. I'm going to the cinema. it's not a fucking papal conclave.

[podcastwizard]

this will not be a bridgerton blog but for the foreseeable future i will not be thinking about anything other than bridgerton

(original post @romanceyourdemons)

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Dunno how to put it properly into words but lately I find myself thinking more about that particular innocence of fairy tales, for lack of better word. Where a traveller in the middle of a field comes across an old woman with a scythe who is very clearly Death, but he treats her as any other auntie from the village. Or meeting a strange green-skinned man by the lake and sharing your loaf of bread with him when he asks because even though he's clearly not human, your mother's last words before you left home were to be kind to everyone. Where the old man in the forest rewards you for your help with nothing but a dove feather, and when you accept even such a seemingly useless reward with gratitude, on your way home you learn that it's turned to solid gold. Where supernatural beings never harm a person directly and every action against humans is a test of character, and every supernatural punishment is the result of a person bringing on their own demise through their own actions they could have avoided had they changed their ways. Where the hero wins for no other reason than that they were a good person. I don't have the braincells to describe this better right now but I wish modern fairy tales did this more instead of trying to be fantasy action movies.

[brick-brooke]

[kensatou]

studio trigger understood the assignment. i would let her wreck me.

[iwasbored777]

We're not appreciating the Weird Barbie enough. It's said in the movie that she helps everyone who need help while they always see her as someone who's not as good as them. She was friends with all dismissed Barbies and Kens, was there to offer support and safe shelter for everyone who needed it in Kendom, without her nothing in the movie would've been alright. When Stereotypical Barbie calls her "ugly and unwanted" she still helps her.

She was representing a woman in women's world who was pushed aside by other women because she didn't fit in but still had more wisdom and kindness than everyone who thought they're better than her.

[stonelions]

i was thinking the other day how we tend to draw cas and dean (correctly tbh) like

but in doing so we are betraying another fundamental dynamic of theirs which is more like,

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.