#make an informed decision

[bunjywunjy]

Can you share the author of that how not to die in the outdoors book? Googling is unhelpful

sure, it's "practicing good judgement- an adventurer's guide to making critical decisions"

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

[5ummit]

The Left-Handed Winter Soldier Myth

A theory has been circulating for years that the Winter Soldier is left-handed (or at least heavily favors his left hand and uses it at every opportunity) while Bucky is exclusively right-handed. I’ve tried to ignore it in the past, but it’s come back with a vengeance in the wake of the Thunderbolts trailer and I can no longer sit idly by and let this misinformation continue to spread unchallenged. Not when it's now being used as “evidence” that the Bucky we see in Thunderbolts is not actually Bucky but the Winter Soldier.

Luckily, this myth is easy to disprove.

Turns out there’s tons of examples of the Winter Soldier favoring his right hand (these are just a few I could grab that clearly showed his hands and weren't too blurry). I actually noticed while gathering these screenshots that the soldier rarely fires a gun and basically never uses a knife with his left hand, even when it might make more sense for him to do so as the metal arm is theoretically stronger and faster. Unsurprisingly, Bucky being right-handed means the Winter Soldier is too.

But just to be thorough, here are few counterexamples of Bucky using his metal arm when he’s definitely not the Winter Soldier. One of which even includes him killing people with a gun, something I've seen some Bucky fans also claim he never did in TFATWS and try to use as further proof that he’s the Winter Soldier in Thunderbolts, because their Buckybear is a sweet innocent baby who doesn't carry weapons and wouldn’t harm a fly.

I know I'm constantly beating this drum to the point that it's probably getting annoying, but it’s really easy to manipulate "data" to “prove” whatever you want. Just because something seems like it could be credible at first glance doesn’t mean it is. Please double-check other people's claims before you use them to inform your own opinions.

[leqclerc]

[mothmanavenue]

can i confess something else that will absolutely get me stoned in the town square since im dropping my unpopular opinions. I don’t like altean broadsword Lance. i already disliked red paladin Lance. the broadsword was like rubbing salt in the wound. why couldn’t he have his own niche. why was his character development just making him keith. i understand that it was like “he accepts that he doesn’t have to be a leader and excels as a co-leader and you can find happiness that way yada yada yada”. but you could’ve done that without making him keith. also now give him something unique, cool, that falls in line with his sniper bit. i’m not saying just give him another gun, im saying give him something quiet and lethal. like a garotte. yeah i want garotte lance.

i yap a lot more in my notes by the way if you were interested in other unpopular opinions. don’t send me hate messages or comments i won’t read it and will block viciously i also will not be debating this this is my hill to die on <3

[brw]

A lot of Tumblr users see boycotting as "avoiding something BAD" and not a specific action looking for a specific result with organisation and consistent effort put behind it.

[utilitycaster]

I firmly believe that pre-taping has been, overall, good, and that anyone who claims the stream is different than when it was live is fucking making that shit up because it's indistinguishable, with the singular exception of Sam posting The Full Chetney on Twitter 2 minutes after the end of the stream with an admission that he couldn't figure out Reddit.

[girlsdads]

“daniel should do this” “daniel should go here” daniel should do what daniel wants to do and he’s made it clear what he wants is red bull maybe we should all stop acting like we know what’s best for him lol

[ao3-shenanigans]

Hi sorry if this is weird to ask but I’m not sure who else to ask:

Basically I write a lot of fanfic intended for adults, my fics are all tagged correctly so anyone that sees my page understands what they are getting into. But I also have fics ok for younger audiences.

I like to read and leave comments on others works, but I always have a looming fear that the author may possibly be too young to see my page, and me commenting is exposing them to stuff not meant for them.

Idk if I should just stop commenting all together or not worry about it. I genuinely don’t know if this is an issue or if my brain is just messed up.

I also worry that having both adult fics and general audience fics has the same effect where I’m exposing people to fics they shouldn’t see

If it helps, I have ocd, so maybe I’m not understanding as well as I should. Any help is appreciated.

Sorry if that was a lot but I wanted to have a second opinion from someone that actually knows what I’m talking about.

Hello! Good question!

People can always find stuff that they maybe shouldn’t on the internet and I think it will happen regardless of and independent of your commenting on a fic.

Ao3 has a wonderful tagging system and it sounds like you’re familiar with it and use it well! Most folks on ao3 are also familiar with the tags as well and should be able to see when something has adult content in it. Additionally, ao3 has a handy little “This work may contain adult content, are you sure you want to continue?” page that pops up before the fic itself opens to act as a big yellow caution sign.

I would encourage you to not worry about it and to continue feeling comfortable commenting; Both you and Ao3 have done your jobs to give people information to make informed decisions about the content they want to see and ultimately those choices are up to them alone and out of your hands. Thank you for tagging your works as well as for writing!

[spearxwind]

Idk if this counts as spoilers but if Adri is essentially like a computer virus where did he get a physical body from?? Did he steal it from someone or was it provided for him to he put into??? So much to think about........

GREAT QUESTION! He stole it :)

He stole the body and the body's name for himself, and then fabricated an appearance and personality and mannerisms.

His body is one of the previously many nanomachine systems set in place in the Old World to safeguard and maintain both people and machinery. They were known as Guardian Arrays, but now they are referred to as Angels. Only two are currently known to still be fully operational, Adri being one of them.

The Fall (Otherwise known as the literal end of the world) was an apocalypse event where a system bug caused every advanced enough AI to go rogue and turn on mankind. It started small, but spread far and wide exponentially and it irreparably changed whatever it infected. The Arrays, being as important as they were, had more safeguards in place against this stuff but it still didn't stop them from becoming infected. Especially ADRIEL. The corruption inside it became severe enough that it first became a virus, and then grew into a full fledged self compiled AI that was notorious enough to be given its own name "Usurper", though you know it as "The Hydra".

The only way to avoid being completely wiped out during this event was to mass purge absolutely EVERYTHING (so humanity lost basically 99% of their tech and their knowledge). Did this work? kiiiind of.

Because of it's self compiled nature, ADRIEL was never able to be properly purged, so instead it was (after a monumental, worldwide effort) put to sleep beneath the earth, never to be disturbed again.

Until....

[gaywarcriminals]

You know, as a fanfic reader I often prefer fics with multiple POVs (seeing the full story and delighting in the knowing what the characters do not, their struggles less harsh because you know the inevitable), so when I actually started writing fics I expected to follow suit. What I have since discovered is that actually one of the most fun parts of writing is trying to convey how other characters are thinking and feeling through the distorted lens of your POV character. I hope the audience can tell what's going on even when the characters themselves cannot, and that's all the more delightful for having to put that information together over the head of the narrator.

[elcucurucho]

sometimes characters are wrong. sometimes characters are actively lying to people. sometimes characters are lying to themselves. just because someone says something doesn’t make it fact, it doesn’t even mean they believe it. conflict between what a character says vs does is a huge part of complex characters and dynamics. no one is right 100% of the time, even if they think they are. and that’s interesting!! characters don’t exist to fight over who is the single and number one Most Correct POV, they’re different perspectives in a shared story.

[elvenbeard]

You're my World

Doesn't matter where we are as long as we're together.

New Pride Flags Makeup (AXL Edition) by @pinkyjulien 💛

[lilith-of-stardust]

Sunless Sea is a great background-of-a-party game to play bc I put it on the TV and occasionally yell "~oh peanut gallery~!" when a plot choice is available and everyone gets so excited to make a decision with no information whatsoever

Also, when it comes to Pigmote Island, the rats have a 100% favor rate over the cavies which is hilarious. Below: real flier in my neighborhood rn and apparently the prevailing sentiment of Bostonians

[pinkysberg]

can't flesh out a WHOLE thought yet but thinking a lot about red dead and how it addresses this idea that desperate people will do things they wouldn't otherwise do. and while most of the van der linde gang is an example of this to a degree, i feel javier is the best of them.

he's in such a desperate position. being in a country that is not his own (that is also actively hostile toward him) because he's actively wanted in his own country is already w pretty hard spot to be in, so naturally he takes to the first person to show him kindness and offer him an opportunity for a marginally more stable position than prior. it's worth noting, though, he clearly had a moral code he was unwilling to break as he doesn't remain with dutch, but what i hear criticized just as often is his decision to work with the mexican government as a hit man. it goes against everything he is.

but when it's work for me or die, take this job or starve, agree to the terms or be shot like a dog or strung up for everyone to watch, it puts you in a pretty desperate position. we can't all be dutch who would sooner rag doll off a cliff side than compromise.

[bloodofgrapes]

So this is a comic I’ve wanted to do for a long time because it hits fairly close to home for me, but especially because I think this is foundational to Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship: trust. Throughout the games we see that they push and pull one another to get to the bottom of a situation, to discover the truth and do what’s right, even when it’s difficult. While obviously not canon, to me their relationship is so emblematic of kink it’s nearly unavoidable in my depictions of them--Edgeworth may always seem to be the ultimate string pulling master with a thousand tricks up his sleeve, but none of this could happen if he did not totally relinquish control via his unwavering trust in Phoenix.