#niche posts that mean very little without context

[drdemonprince]

doctor demon prince im in my 5th year of undergrad suffering from functional freeze and Cant Write Papers disease (subtype where i eventually write it 7 months later and its really good for how rushed it is). ive also been doing unmasking work and trying to make progress w my nervous system and my relationships, i still have a long way to go . im going to graduate eventually (who fucking knows when) but with a pretty shit gpa.

Anyway my question is why the fuck do i keep wanting to get a masters degree when i know this setting sucks real bad for me. i love 2 learn but either dont have a handle on my adhd/autistic workflow yet or simply dont have the combination of traits it takes to succeed in academia. and i have student loans. i probably wont be accepted to any masters programs anyway but i dont know what else to do !!!!!!!!!!! 🙃 seeing as this is the transgender autistic grad student website maybe u or some of ur followers have advice for me..... 🫶 ok thank u byeee

I'm sorry to have to say this, but why do you want to go to graduate school? It will drive you deeply into debt, cause you a huge amount of stress, subject you to a wildly inaccessible environment where student neurodivergences are often unfairly cast as signs of laziness and lack of academic potential, and, in a majority of fields, it doesn't lead to improved career prospects (typically, the equivalent amount of time spent working in your chosen profession will get you just as far, if not farther, than a graduate degree).

I don't recommend graduate school to almost anyone. Graduate school was a stigmatizing, exhausting, abusive, exploitative, traumatizing experience for me that left me profoundly socially isolated and physically sick, and trained me in an increasingly irrelevant and scientifically unsound field that basically does nothing but regurgitate neoliberal truisms back to the elites that already believe in them.

Some of the faults I've just listed don't apply to *every* academic field in the world -- but it does apply to most of them!

I think it's important for people to know that Master's degree programs are, by and large, created as a revenue source for universities. Undergraduate enrollment has hit a wall -- there's only so many more people who can go to college, in a world where college has become increasingly obligatory, college pays off professionally far less than it used to, and in times of low unemployment there's very little reason to go to school -- and so the possibility of growing undergraduate enrollment has become more and more thin. This means universities have been unable to turn growing profits for years. And that's what matters to them -- profits.

Left without the revenue source of more college students' tuitions, universities have turned toward courting repeat customers -- duping college graduates who are unhappy with their post-graduate career prospects by investing in even more school. In most Master's degree programs, there are very high fees, very limited financial aid, and very very limited mentorship (compared to, say PhD programs, where shepherding you through the program is at least an advisor's duty).

I've worked in higher ed administration for years now and I've seen how disposable Master's degree students are taken to be -- they're paying for a pricey credential and they get very little out of it, in the end -- in most programs, and most contexts. When we need to fill a budget gap, we create a new Master's program -- without regard for whether it is necessary, and without ever being able to prove it will aid our graduates in getting jobs, or even that the degree will fill a necessary niche.

You can feel free to write back to me if yours is a field where a master's degree is necessary or yields positive career outcomes for a great many people (social work and athletic training come to mind). But even still, I don't think you should subject yourself to a completely inaccessible environment that you are already struggling in and taking on more debt to do so. You deserve better than that. And 99% of graduate programs will not do right by you.

If you'd like to read more about just how exploitative graduate programs generally are, and why, I recommend Karen Kelsky's book The Professor is In, or her blog of the same name:

[bridgeybaby]

Social Media and How The Management of it Can Be Done

So our illustrious duo, N and L, have told us their sm is strictly professional. They don’t want people in their personal lives beyond the limits they set, which is reasonable and maybe even a form of self-preservation. However, this is not the reason that fans follow sm for an actor. For example, let’s look at N and JB’s profile.

JB has household name recognition, which N hasn’t attained- yet. I’m sure she will in the near future. JB has been in Jurassic World, Wicked, Fellow Travelers and Bridgerton just to name a few. But his sm isn’t super active and is strictly professional.

N, on the other hand, does intersperse some personal stuff into her sm. She has been in Bridgerton, which is a big franchise, but her other projects are more niche (still just as amazing though). Yet somehow she has MORE followers than JB despite being in less high-profile projects and not having household name recognition.

But wait? How is that possible? Because fans feel she shares personal and bts content with them. JB’s profile feels managed by an outside entity. Is this a criticism of him? Absolutely not. This is well within his rights to do.

What N and L are trying to do, imo, is keep their sm primarily professional with a smattering of personal things they choose to share. Why? Brands, specifically, like celebs who have good engagement and a loyal following. A brand deal can be very lucrative. It’s important that however that celeb promotes the brand, it rings authentic to the audience. The best way to do that is to strategically share some personal things.

Looking at things on N’s profile, it could be bts content of Bridgerton/ other projects, her eoy photo dump, story posts with songs, story posts about her birthday without revealing too much etc. L is a little less open with his personal life but still shares it: video from yungblud performing, birthday wishes to other cast members and friends, sharing his excitement when his favorite team won. (I didn’t use his profile to compare because he is up-and-coming with his star on the rise and not in the same bracket following-wise. I mean no disrespect to him bc truly I think within a few years he’ll be in the same category as both N and JB).

So all of the above is why the way their personal relationships ring inauthentic. Especially when we have a major digital footprint of L in prior relationships where he and his gfs were very open about things. In fact we have red carpets where L got ready together with his gf and posted bts of it. When A started coming with him to things, not only was she not (and continues for the most part not to be) styled, she had no professional hair or makeup. Even those who believe in the veracity of this relationship kind of felt sorry for the girl. And it reinforced to those deep within the fandom that again, something was off.

N has always been private with her authentic relationships as mentioned in my earlier post (not going to rehash here). So her doing staged pap walks and uncomfortable looking red carpet appearances rings inauthentic, even to Jakolas. This is why, imo, they spend so much time trying to attack lukolas who question it and convince people of their ship.

Similarly, the 2 antukes/ Lutonias in the world spend all their time trying to tell us it’s authentic, but then L puts her photo in the middle of a carousel (where it’s easy to remove) with no context or tag.

There are celebrities who choose not to share at all and they still have strong fan bases. But they probably aren’t trying to claw their way to household name recognition or secure brand deals. And that, my friends, is the sticking point.

People will always be invasive online but imo the reason people are so dug in wherever their opinion lies is because of the very odd optics of this situation. I’ve heard theories from:

-they’re beefing (N and L). Well BAFTAs and SAG totally left that one dead in the water. They’re as thick as thieves, even if they’re not doing photos together.

-these are really real authentic relationships and they’re getting married! Possible, but it would be an odd choice to treat these folks in this manner and do so much solo promotion of adjacents if they were authentic. Sharing a pap would be weird too with two different pr teams. And the body language/ interactions would probably read as more authentic. Both “relationships” read like personal assistants, and ones that L/N may have various degrees of attachment to.

-they’re married to each other (l/n) and have a kid! People are highly critical of those who say this but truthfully, look over my last few posts. This pr has been a real hot mess. Any way you slice it. And often times celebs need a reason to be so transparent in using pr, especially the solo promotion of 2 unknown adjacents. Some other things bts also don’t align with them sincerely being in relationships with these two.

The reality is that at this point, these relationships don’t ring true to people following closely. From far away, in the GA, sure, they probably do. But close up, it doesn’t make sense.

Unless someone does a tell-all we may never know exactly what went down here. And they don’t need to share anything with us that they don’t want to. But this is why the fandom is coming up with all of the above. And honestly, it’s kind of telling to me that Nic is quick to silence rumors about Luke (as evidenced by her multiple defenses of him after pap walk and SAG), but it took them this long to appear publicly with adjacents and not quell any rumors about them.

This isn’t a critique of either person- N or L. But this is why people are coming up with wild theories because it comes off as lack of care toward the adjacents. And again, there is no reason a dancer with hardly any mainstream gigs should be getting solo articles promoting her, or a man who’s worked more than A, but in non-mainstream gigs, should get the same. It reads as inauthentic. And the fact that N/L are both doing the same things, mirroring, using the same pap… again, comes off as PR.

[visceral-viscera]

not to poke my head in where it doesn't belong but. i have very little context for the current RW drama- but yall really need to stop acting like everyone who likes the same thing as you is your best friend. and that ALL different opinions are something to be actively shunned and shamed. ive seen like 3 posts that all boil down to "fandom bad it ruins the game for me im gonna leave" and people getting the weirdest anon hate, and its so confusing to me. Block the people who are weird (in your opinion,) and try not to make everyone in the fandom your bestie.

Note: never join a fandom discord expecting to make a bunch of live long friends. they almost always end up this way. if you are in a room with people who literally just have the same POPULAR game in common, there's gonna be people you dislike. and people who do bad shit.

And for the love of god- this is more general- take words like "zoo," "proship," "groomer" ect out of your mouth and just say what exactly they actually did/support. trying to figure out what the hell yall are talking about whenever this stuff comes up is impossible, because some people think its "proship" to write a fic where the adult characters are mean to each other, people think ALL anthro nsfw is zoophilia (including??? literally just adults doing it in suits?? you can think its weird but if it isnt hurting any real animals please just block and move on.), and that a 19 year old dating a 17 year old is grooming. (NOT examples i saw in the tag but ones ive heard in other places).

don't take this shit so seriously. the internet is full of creeps. yes even your favorite game that used to be niche back in the day. dont write "call out" posts. dont REBLOG callout posts. its so fucking easy to just change your identity online, all it does is spread fear and confusion and infighting. if someone you like is interacting with someone you know is a POS, just send them an ask or PM. and respect if they choose to continue interacting! maybe block them if they do! if you HAVE to let the wider fandom know- please just put factual info. do not buff it out with random shit or god forbid fabricated shit. put the info out there, clearly, without inflammatory/reactionary language, and trust that people who care will block as needed.

free yourself from the chains of "the fandom is mean/bad." start ignoring people. stop giving a shit what other people think. do not send anon hate. be free. god bless.

[secretmellowblog]

I hope tumblr doesn’t die because No other social media site is as good for long, thoughtful, nuanced analyses of media. Yeah tumblr is also full of dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts, but you can make dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts anywhere —-there are no other popular social media sites that let you easily format and share long essays on the media you enjoy, and then have conversations around those long essays.

Fandom on all the other big social websites just seems so utterly …shallow. And it’s not because people on other websites aren’t thoughtful or don’t have deep things to say, but because these sites’ formats do not allow for any kind of long nuanced conversations.

Tiktok? Things have to be crammed into a super short video with an attention grabbing headline, and you can’t hyperlink sources. Instagram? Everything has to be in an image format with strict limits on length, and nothing will be shown to your followers anyway because of how Instagram’s algorithm works, and also no hyperlinks. Twitter? Strict character limits, and if you split it into threads it means someone can retweet a part of your essay completely out of context, and also very little freedom with formatting.

It frustrates me so much. If I go into the Tumblr Les Mis fandom I’ll find really compelling long essays on the original novel (including essays being written for the ongoing book club) on the story’s historical context, or the parallels between different characters and their narrative foils, or the way the politics were defanged for certain adaptations, or the way Victor Hugo’s personal life and failings affected the novel. But on tiktok I’ll get the same five shallow stale jokes from 2013 over and over, or maybe the same “DID U KNO THAT IN THE MUSICAL JAVERT AND VALJEAN SING THE SAME LEITMOTIF” style of basic Intro To Les Mis 101 For Babies media analysis (which is what Tiktok considers deep media analysis), or stale “LOL JAVERT ACTS GAY” style jokes as if we’re living in the early 2000s and calling a character gay is still a funny punchline. And it’s impossible to have any kind of deeper thoughtful discussions than “DID U KNOW <x Kool Fact>” or “lol <shallow observational joke>” on tiktok because the platform just isn’t built for building niche communities around in depth conversations. it’s built to churn out bland generic content for as wide an audience as possible, which means pointing out a small detail like an Easter egg and calling it “cool” is deep media analysis, because you cant have longer more in depth conversations without alienating people. And I hate it. Bc like, it’s not because there aren’t smart clever thoughtful people on Tiktok— there are—it’s because Tiktok isn’t built for these conversations, and anyone who wants to have them has to really fight against the things the website encourages or prioritizes!

Or like, if I go into the LOTR fandom on Tumblr, I’ll find tons of extremely long analysis and fanfic, and analysis of queer readings of the story. On Instagram people will still shriek in terror if you suggest the characters are gay, and most of the popular lotr posts are stale memes recycled from like 2007. There’s really no room for thoughtful media analysis, and even if you did create it, instagram’s algorithm would make sure no one saw your post anyway.

And everyone’s going to say “the algorithm shows you what you’ve seen before so maybe it’s your fault ~” or whatever but i do look for things I want! I do! “The algorithm” doesn’t know me or what I want or value or care about beyond this meaningless surface level.

The only thing that was worthwhile about these sites was the great visual art people were creating, but now the websites are overwhelmed with meaningless soulless machine-generated AI glurge, and it sucks. It just really, really sucks.

I’m honestly confused about why people don’t use tumblr….There’s no character limits! You have freedom with post formatting, and can insert images throughout textposts to illustrate specific points you’re making beneath the paragraphs where they’re necessary! You can add hyperlinks, linking to your sources! People can reblog your entire essay and share it, and then add on with commentary that then becomes part of a larger conversation! People can find your stuff through the tagging system! Reblogging means posts stay in circulation for years instead of being dead 30 minutes after they’re uploaded! If you want to have genuinely interesting text conversations about a piece of media, there really isn’t a better social media website for it anywhere.

To be clear, I’m definitely not saying Tumblr media analysis is *always* clever and thoughtful or etc etc. there are shitposts and nonsense here too (plenty of which I’ve created lol.) I’m saying that Tumblr gives people the tools for in-depth insightful analysis to happen. Whether people choose to do it or not is their own decision XD. But the reason lengthy in-depth conversations and book clubs are even possible here is because Tumblr is built for allowing these conversations to happen, in a way other sites simply aren’t.

It’d really suck if it died, because it’d be a huge blow to…being able to easily find long insightful in-depth media analysis written by fans. I currently don’t think there’s anything that could replace it.

[onehundredthousandflies]

Flower Language

Words: 876

Summary: Among the typical lillies and carnations, one bright, colorful bunch stood out. It was a small bouquet of two-toned pink and yellow-orange tea roses with a sprinkling of lilly of the valley. Reid knew, as a decade old memory dug itself out of his mind, exactly who had sent these flowers.

CW: Referenced canon character death (Gideon), funeral (Gideon's), I think that pretty much covers it, let me know if I missed anything

A/N: This started out as a headcanon post, but it took on a life of its own and became a full-fledged ficlet

Click the Read More or read on A03.

The chappal was filled with floral arrangements accompanied by thoughtful cards with well wishes and expressions of friendship and gratitude. Victims he'd saved, former BAU agents, and even agents he'd liased with during his unofficial assignments with the CIA had sent arrangements to honor the life, memory, and selfless service of Jason Gideon.

But among the typical lillies and carnations, one bright, colorful bunch stood out.

It was a small bouquet of two-toned pink and yellow-orange tea roses with a sprinkling of lilly of the valley.  Even more puzzling than the flowers themselves was the fact that there was no name or card at all, not even a generic one from the flower shop.

In front of the table full of flowers, Reid stood with his hands in his pockets, arms stiff at his sides and his shoulders slumped forward. He stared at the out-of-place arrangement. He tilted his head as he inspected it without touching it, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

He jolted slightly when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry," Morgan said softly, "didn't mean to startle you. I was just making sure you were okay. You've been staring at those flowers for a solid minute."

Reid cleared his throat and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "They're an odd choice."

"What do you mean? They look nice enough to me."

"Oh no, they're lovely," Reid clarified, "but for a funeral, they seem a little... I don’t think inappropriate is the right word? They're certainly atypical. See, in flower language, Lilly of the valley represents deep sorrow, which is appropriate, but it's the roses that confuse me." 

Morgan raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

Now in his element, which was rambling on about some obscure piece of knowledge, Reid was able to relax his shoulders a little.

"Rose symbolism is among the most intricate and diverse in all of flower language, with different colors and combinations of colors saying vastly different things. A yellow rose says friendship. Some shades of pink say appreciation and gratitude, some share a niche with red and speak to romantic attraction, while others portray youthful innocence. Then there's the salmon color they make when they mix in these particular roses. Salmon colored roses can, depending on context, indicate excitement and fascination, or... um," Reid hesitated and glanced around, not wanting to say something inappropriate around the wrong person, "or sensual desire."

"So," Morgan mused, "Maybe it was the friendship in the yellow and the gratitude in the pink that they were going for. Gideon had a lot of friends in a lot of places, and a lot of people had reason to be grateful to him. He touched a lot of hearts and saved who knows how many lives."

Reid nodded, but before he could reply, Garcia approached and chimed in.

"They're 'dear dad' roses."

"They're what now?" Morgan asked.

"Salmon hybrid tea roses. Marketed by specialty flower nurseries as the 'dear dad' rose." She playfully swatted Reid's arm. "See? I know things, too."

Morgan grinned. "We know you do, Baby Girl."

Reid's brow furrowed, and he looked back down at the anonymous flowers. "Dear dad?" He muttered under his breath, just before his very next breath caught in his throat.

Reid knew then, as a decade old memory dug itself out of his mind, exactly who had sent these flowers. 

.....

"Gideon, will you tell him I don't need to go to the hospital?" Elle asked insistently, brushing her fingers over the corner of a small but deep gash on her cheek that was held closed by two butterfly bandages. 

Gideon shook his head and, with a mater-of-fact tone, answered, "Regulations are regulations." He strolled over the police car where Elle and Reid were sitting on the edge of the open trunk. "You alright?" 

Elle smiled up at the older agent. "I'm fine, Dad," she answered with a teasing laugh. 

Accepting her answer, he started walking back towards the group of officers. He stopped and turned back around before he got far.  

"Elle?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Don't ever call me 'dad' again." 

Reid grimaced as Gideon left. 

"How do you think he'd feel about 'mom'?" Elle asked. 

"Let me know when you're gonna do that," Reid said, "So I can, um. Run."

.....

A heady mix of emotions washed over Reid, some he couldn't quite identify. But before he had a chance to sort and process what he felt at the realization that Elle Greenaway, his former best friend who had resigned under the unprovable suspicion of murdering a suspect in cold blood and was never seen or heard from again, had sent unsigned flowers to Gideon's funeral, He noticed Hotch waiving for their attention.

People were beginning to take their seats in the pews. The service would be starting in just a few minutes.

Reid lingered by the roses a few seconds after Morgan and Garcia walked away hand-in-hand. He let out a wavering sigh before following suit, taking a seat next to JJ.

One last time before the pastor took to the pulpit, Reid glanced over at the brightly colored roses.

Elle was out there somewhere. She was alive somewhere. And she still, at least on some level, cared. 

He could sort the rest out later.

[eri-pl]

wait was anyone (eg the guy doing the lecture series) going to tell me Boethius was proclaimed a saint or was I meant to learn that from Wikipedia

yea apparently I was meant to learn it from wikipedia

anyway now to the proper post that I intended to write

So I am having a quite niche problem (ok maybe it's not a problem. a question to ponder at least). So. "The consolation of philosophy". Is very cool. But Lady Philosophy has a particular vibe that … idk why but I feel a strong urge to assign this vibe to one of the Ainur, ideally one of the Valar and initially I thought Nienna, but no.

She (Philosophy) had this almost-agressive anti-despair "stop talking bs" attitude that reminds me of Gandalf. But also at some points she's like "You ask why bad things happen to good people? The answer is simple: they don't." and he would not say that. And yea, Nienna very much would not say that.

I can imagine Námo (esp with his relationship to time*) being like "No, I've never seen bad things happen to good people, you're simply mistaken" and generally going a similar route of argumentation. But I already have a strong HC for his personality. But also, it may fit together… I need to rotate it more in my brain.

(To be clear: she's not being cruel or very dismissive. There's some context. But she is being a little, how to call that, Gandalf-like. Snarky? A little bit.)

BTW I can absolutely see pre-Exile Finrod unironically claiming that suffering is an illusion etc (but in a very compassionate way) and driving his half-uncle into a rage by this.

(oh and ofc the text has soo much Númenorean vibes, I mean the Faithful in late Númenor. I'm surprised that I haven't thought of this earlier but... if we change Plato and similar guys to some Elves and change the geographical names and maaaybe some astronomical details (round earth) and make the personifications ambigiously "maybe I imagined it maybe it was a Maia" etc... without any change to the theology I can see it as a text originating in there. and I'm sure Tolkien would agree. Like… It removes exactly the right amount--- I know it was because he wanted it to make sense to the pagan Greeks--- anyway aaaargh I will simply HC it there it fits so very very well)

edit: I found the video that made me rant on the philosophers&Greeks, & probably on Boethius for choice of words. (It's in Polish)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for arguing with someone over ships?

🧀⛵ so i can find this later

Yes, this is ship discourse AITA #294729472 you can scroll away, english isn't my first language, my apologies.

So I (16M (But 13-14 at the time)) am in a very niche fandom. As in, we didn't have any new content for the past 5 years and media is old af (2013), very few fans, most of us know each other already.

I used to have these mutuals Cheese (Not their real name) (around my age i think?? I can't remember) and Breadstick (Not his real name) (18M).

We all had our little ships, ok? I like the little (dumbass golden retriever boy) x (badass traumatized man) ship, Cheese liked the little (badass traumatized man) x (literally the same thing but evil and abusive) and Breadstick liked both ships.

I met Breadstick before meeting Cheese so we were already friends before i met Cheese. I thought "Cool, another person likes this little niche thing i'm hyperfixated on!" So we became mutuals.

I didn't anticipate that we would argue about ships, but oh well. So, i'm a very chill person regarding ships, literally any, although i do have NOTPs, i'm not really toxic about my hatred, i just go "Ah, not my thing" and scroll away not without blocking the person, but really nothing personal and no hard feelings, i can perfectly be friends with someone who loves my notp.

In fact, that was the case with Cheese. They shipped my NOTP, like A LOT. But I was okay with it, i mean these are just characters and all we're doing is being silly. I didn't take this THAT seriously. However, when I seemed to talk about my ship, Cheese seemed uncomfortable in some way.

When I was talking about my fankid (call me cringe idc) of my OTP, Cheese got very confused and asked who was i talking about. Breadstick came in and introduced my fankid to them, since he knew about it before. Cheese just started being rude, literally saying swear words (Not against them but, the context didn't really call for it? No one was being mean or mad), saying, and i quote as best as i can, "I don't know what the fuck made you think i knew who the hell [Fankid] was".

I got very mad about it, so i privately dm'ed Breadstick about Cheese's attitude. We began trash talking about them, which, i admit was a very trashy thing to do and definitely asshole material™.

Reason why may i be the asshole: over time, Breadstick just started complaining a lot about Cheese, and I could honestly agree, it came to the point of us disliking them to some degree but not telling them and not breaking the mutual, that could be considered two faced behavior.

This was partly influenced because of another incident. So Cheese and Breadstick where rambling about an OT3 (3 person ship) they had in common, basically sharing ideas and stuff. I thought it would be fun and went "Hey, I have an OT3 too, maybe i should post about it too". So I went and posted about it, but Cheese felt very uncomfortable with that, since basically my OT3 was exactly like Cheese's OT3 but one character is different, "basically".

They said "You have your thing, let US have ours". Felt bad and honestly, maybe i shouldn't have intruded their ot3 rambling. I didn't expect such negative reaction out of them.

In other occasions they complained about me posting a little too much about my ship, even though they did the same thing with theirs. And they also had a mutual that said "If you ship [this character] you suck and i fucking hate you. [character] is too abusive to be shipped with anyone and you can't just make an AU, that would just change him as a character completely" which, dear god, that language wasn't needed, right?. And despite that crazy person saying that, Cheese agreed with their take, despite literally shipping the character in question with another one. And abusively too, which like you do you, lord knows i do that too, but agreeing with a take like that while doing exactly what it is complaining about is weird. On the other side, that person wasn't my mutual, so it's unrealistic of me to expect Cheese to control their mutuals over me, Cheese can mutual whoever they want, but i can still be weirded out right?

That is without including them telling other people to kill themselves over shipping, so it was clear that Cheese took this shipping thing seriously while me and Breadstick to some degree didn't. Honestly another reason why i might be an asshole, clearly they felt their otp was personal and me not liking it + ignoring it caused a bad environment, mala mía, but what else could i have done?

So, clearly Cheese is kind of an asshole to some degree. But i think what makes ME an asshole too is when I trash talked behind their back and cut them off way later than i should've. And also, i guess i shoved my ship down their throat taking by how mad they were about it? I didn't do it intentionally though and i could definitely say they did the same thing too when 80% of the fandom and character tags was them posting about their ship. Again, small niche fandom for old unpopular media, we are keeping it alive ourselves.

What are these acronyms?

[mushiemellows]

Frobin hc- they both know how to hand sign and it’s their primary form of nonverbal communication

- Robin picks some up here and there when she’s a teen on the run but the use cases for it are few and far between so she’s a bit rusty. But there’s definitely times where she’ll sprout a few hands to get info out quickly and silently

- Franky learns from a few Family members. He has to reconstruct his hearing after the accident and he does a good job at it, but there’s still some days where the tech’s not working right and he’s gotta go a few days at a time without hearing.

-he also gives big Dad With Hearing Aids joke potential energy (turning them off when Luffy’s too loud, etc)

- Robin’s got a tendency to go a bit nonverbal sometimes and retreat, and that’s how Franky starts signing to her. He’s checking in from across the deck at a distance and her signs aren’t perfect in response but she gets the message across.

- she picks up a couple of books on the topic to polish up and soon they’re having full conversations that way

- they use it more in every day contexts than actually on days where either of them is feeling under the weather because it’s far more convenient

- Franky’s welding and doing like, construction stuff and his ear protection’s on goggles down but Robin’s able to ask him questions with just her hands

-(he doesn’t love when she signs with just her hands because he can’t get any info from her face/lips/rest of her body so it’s confusing sometimes. But he’s figured out what she generally means)

-(she doesn’t love his general sign style, he’s too relaxed and his hands are big enough that sometimes she can’t tell what he’s specifically trying to say. And he has a niche w7 regional accent to his signs)

- when the crew goes out dancing and partying, they’re usually the two on Round Everyone Up and Get Them Home Before They Make a Mess duty at the end of the night, so they sign to each other from across the club. The music’s too loud and- shit where’s zoro

- sometimes they sign at the dinner table and no one knows what they’re saying but Sanji has his suspicions 🤫

- they sign during battles and it’s helped immeasurably in their strategizing and planning. Franky’s overly concerned, checking in with her from a distance like every five minutes even though she’s usually handling herself well

- if Robin’s too far away she’ll sign to him in battle with Giantesco Manos but he like, never knows what she’s trying to say. And then he’s just in the General trying to sign back for clarification and neither of them are doing an effective job

-post ts she picks up a ton of actually practical signs from the Revs (intersectional gays that they are) and her signing improves very very quickly

-post ts he gets so much worse and so much better simultaneously, he’s all on his own so he gets rusty and his new hands take all the nuance out of whatever he’s trying to express, and it frustrates him

- but the little hands? He uses them to sign like a pro, they’re quick and snappy and so much easier to read (for Robin, at least. Everyone else thinks he’s lost it)

- like he’s on the deck and she’s leaning out the library window and he’s trying to sign up something to her and she’s just not getting it and he just sighs and puts his palms out facing her and the precision hands get the message out immediately.

[catenary-chad]

Electra the “woke agenda train”

And why perhaps my most “out there” takes on them are dead serious. Most of them are based on happenstance and things that have changed since the 80s but I can’t unsee how unintentionally resonant a lot of stuff became. It would have been brilliant if deliberate.

Basically, their framing in canon eerily reflects a complex of neoliberal/anti-transit/covertly anti-Black ideas that are painfully relevant in the US with “waste and inefficiency” and “woke” being so blatantly weaponized right now. This is reposted from AO3 and is an expanded version of a post that blew up back in December that I worded a little too jokingly (because it was most a weird personal theory) but the themes have become so painfully relevant that it’s become a central reason why I’m such an Electra apologist.

On a purely human level, Electra is surprisingly unproblematic, especially for the mid-80s. They’re just kind of creepy vs explicitly predatory like many characters in the same niche, like Dr. Frank N Furter or Velvet von Ragnar.  They’re a downright saint by actual rock star standards.  Outside of Dinah’s Disco (which few people seem bothered by anyways) Electra doesn’t fall into the glaring transphobic pitfalls most characters of the time do.  For all the characters who rely on blatant racist stereotypes, Electra isn’t really one of them (partly because they were raceswapped very late in development for seemingly arbitrary reasons).  Funny enough, turning white electric-themed superheroes Black as a lazy way to add token diversity on teams has become a running joke in recent years, Electra was just a non-superhero example way ahead of the curve.  It’s a benign if increasingly contrived trope, partly popular because it doesn’t have major offensive implications.

Electra is actually a way more compelling character when racebent, for excruciatingly American reasons I don’t think the writers ever picked up on.  I’ll go into the broader scope of electric trains as an Other in Anglophone media in another chapter.  But making Electra specifically Black has an especially deep meaning in the context of the later 20th century-modern US. 

Even without much train knowledge, even white Americans can probably pick up on how electric trains are strongly associated with urban areas of the northeast.  They’d absolutely notice the superhero trope connection today because it’s so infamous.  They may think of how Robert Moses was notoriously racist AND anti-train/public transport.  They may think of how the exaggerated danger of subways vs driving often has class/race undertones, as anti-transit sentiment often has since the 50s.  “Six murders in two months” is what the (actually crime-ridden) 70s New York Metro saw… almost 1,200 die a year in car crashes.  

But it goes so much deeper.  

Electra is an unintentionally fascinating and tragically relevant character from a US perspective. The contrast between the framing and traits they are given vs the reality of electric trains in the US since the Reagan years plays directly into how New Deal liberalism was demonized by the party of “the party of “needn’t ask the world to turn around and help you”.  A pattern that has only become more extreme with time, morphing into the modern situation of decrying anything even remotely progressive as “the woke agenda”.  The interesting thing about this term is that it never really changed from its original AAVE meaning (being aware of societal inequalities in the US), conservatives just treat that as a bad thing.  There’s a US-specific covert antiblackness to pushing the ideas of “small government”, and this goes hand in hand with anti-rail sentiment, which as mentioned before, is widely acknowledged to have a class/racial aspect.

Which ties into how the current administration (the latest, most blatantly awful mutation of all of Reagan’s worst tendencies) turned on long-accepted government agencies this year, which oh yeah, have been a major source of upward mobility for Black people since the 60s, especially around the DC-Philadelphia area, which conveniently is also where some of the earliest rail electrification projects in the US were. Oh, and the same politicians killing those jobs are also trying to kill (often electric rail) public transit in multiple areas, which is ALSO a disproportionately Black profession.  These things all tie into each other.  These are shared train and human problems that have only become more relevant since the 80s.  You can take the “literally trains” or “not REALLY about trains” angle and it works either way.  

But this is a show that paints neoliberalism as a good thing, the absolute wrong side of train history in both the US and UK for reasons discussed in the previous chapter.  

This is a perfect illustration of how I get so frustrated by how Starlight tries to do things that could be interesting and relevant with trains but always does it in stupid counterfactual ways. It’s not stupid because it’s about trains, it’s stupid when it doesn’t even try to get trains right.  It’s tripped into some accidentally brilliant concepts (that get shut down because they’ll ruin Rusty’s entire career).  It could be a really smart and compelling show if every character was written to the standard of Greaseball.  But that’s for a later chapter

Anyways, onto the specific traits of Electra actually in the show, how they’re wrong vs real life, and what they reflect.

People often make fun of how Electra makes such a big deal of being electric and futuristic and something so alien and radical when electric trains are just kind of the norm in most countries with substantial rail networks. But in this US, this goes from kind of stupid to sad and pointedly malicious.

You know what else WAS the norm in the US (and still is in much of Europe) until Reagan started treating it as a radical freak? The big bad “liberal agenda” of the government actually funding things like social programs and infrastructure, including rail.  And you know what kind of trains are almost completely dependent on that kind of government support?  Electric ones.  EVERY SINGLE REPLICA NATIONAL represents a country that (at least circa the 80s) had a nationalized rail network that actually invested in electrification. It’s not impossible for private companies to fully fund themselves but very hard, especially now.  As an aside, the difficult getting into private industry is a noted part of why government jobs are so appealing to black employees.  

The modern incarnation of this only makes the framing more pointed.  Now it’s anything even remotely progressive dismissed as the “woke agenda”, a term far more racially loaded and explicitly anti-LGBT. Electra couldn’t look MORE like the physical embodiment of the “woke agenda” in right-wing cartoons.  It’s a weird way that their design has aged incredibly well.  Funny enough, electric trains are a VERY disproportionately LGBT interest, and racially diverse due the demographics of the cities they’re found in.  It’s just plain accurate to depict them as the groups “anti-woke” people hate the most.  

Now for some (heavily simplified) historical context for my other major points.

You may not realize this if you’re from elsewhere, but the US has very, very little rail electrification vs other rich countries.  You have some commuter rail and local transit systems in a number of cities, the Northeast Corridor and Keystone Corridor, and that’s…. about it.  Intercity service between a line of the big northeastern cities and that’s it.  The rest is all diesel domain irl.  Behold the wikipedia page for electrified lines in the US and see just how many are GONE. (Passenger service is also absolutely threadbare if not nonexistant in most of the non-electric network and often offensively slow, not even local road speed.  But that’s a whole separate can of worms) 

Why is this?  Heavy simplification, but the government subsidized highways and airports instead after WWII and that along with antiquated laws and losing mail service made passenger rail a massive money pit for most the railroads forced to continue it.  Instead of passenger rail service and infrastructure improving like basically all the other Nationals’ countries,  routes dropped like flies and many railroads sank into financial ruin until Penn Central’s collapse in the late 60s.  That’s when the government finally stepped in and took over passenger services as Amtrak.  While virtually all trains suffered from this, electric lines were hit disproportionately hard because they were so passenger-heavy and relied on increasingly dated, sometimes outright dilapidated infrastructure.  There’s another economic parallel between how Black citizens were notably left out of, or outright harmed by midcentury infrastructure  projects.  Highways and almost anything Robert Moses touched being the most blatant examples for both groups.  For trains, this only started to reverse with the shinkansen spurring worldwide high speed rail development in the mid-60s.  There was some progress in the 70s, and then Reagan swept in and crushed spending.  He wanted to quietly kill Amtrak all together.  Electra being bi suddenly becomes very dark in the context of how Reagan actually did quietly kill thousands in the AIDS epidemic. It’s been an on and off uphill battle since to get enough funding to keep things going, let alone improve or expand.  Literally left decades behind by the system due to underfunding.  

Somehow, the 2013 tour is the most accurate version of Electra as a reflection of electric passenger rail in the US.  A guy who’s been at it since the 80s that still looks like a decades-old vision of the future in a notably cheap, visibly worn out costume.  Actually the AEM-7 locomotives used at the time date to 1978, even older than that.  Bonus for the particularly elaborate makeup fitting the “slapping new paint on old equipment to make it look fresher” reputation Amtrak had earlier on.  I also love that the later more saturated and toyishly shiny toothpaste-era costumes look even MORE dated, they feel more Spirit of ‘76 or “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk” obnoxious disco sci-fi.  Which perfectly ties in to how conservative backlash against disco and its “extravagance” in 1980 was often blatantly homophobic and racist.  Also conveniently the time period when Amtrak was trialling new electric locomotives (including one similar to the model Electra’s helmet is based on)

With all that, Electra being a rich frivolous celebrity has… implications when representing a woefully underfunded (and infamously thrifty) system.  The celebrity part technically works with how US media is so dominant and depictions of urban trains are widespread.  But “Electra must be rich” sounds like something a stingy conservative politician would say about Amtrak needing billions of dollars (to just be barely functional due to years of neglect).  Because handouts bad.  Because you must be so extravagant if you need that much.  Congrats, you now have a “welfare queen”, sucking government funds to blow on exotic pets and glitter and other frivolities.

 Painting those who need government assistance (usually coded as Black) as extravagant was directly weaponized by Reagan to destroy social programs and further inequality.  

Additionally, this “wasteful and extravagant” line has been weaponized against US government agencies and transit as an excuse to gut or destroy them in 2025.  

“Or unreliable”- electric trains have so few moving parts they tend to be notably reliable in terms of the physical locomotive/multi unit*.  A lot of their issues are actually due to structural failures with powerlines, and this is ESPECIALLY true with the NEC and other ooold electric commuter lines in the US.  This has also limited the maximum speed of trains at times.  See video below for more on this, also explains a lot of the history I’ve mentioned earlier.  

*technically CC 40104 used as Electra’s helmet actually was an unreliable model because it was trying to run four voltages pre-computerization for a uniquely European situation but that’s downright cherry picking.  The other Nez Cassé engines with that styling were reasonably reliable.  And realistic Amtrak Electra from the 80s to 2018 would be an AEM-7 (common fanon choice too) that was also fine. The fact that a notoriously pre-computer locomotive gets used to reflect anti-computer sentiment ties into how my boomer mom has noted Reagan having anti-computer views.  But this was VERY widespread at the time and distinctly aligned with anti-Japanese sentiment (Asian Electra is fascinating for very different reasons)

Anyways, huh.  Gee whiz.  Someone held back and suffering due to structural problems being blamed as personal failing.  When you think about it, the likes of “only you have the power within you” and “needn’t beg the world to turn around and help you” might be the most offensive things you could say specifically to an electric train in the US besides“lol they shoulda replaced your line with even moar I-95 lanes”

It’s funny that everything I rip Rusty to shreds for conceptually, the show accidentally accomplishes with Electra between the lines. There’s a really interesting political and economic metaphor there.  The show keeps having to project faults more true of steam engines (HIGH MAINTENANCE) and non-train traits onto electric trains to make them look bad and give the choo choo endless plot armor so the “eViL OpPrEsSoR” juice jack can’t win.  And yet they say the system is rigged against steam when it’s anything but.  Oh yeah, ever notice how media bends over backwards to spotlight steam engines even when mediocre or outright bad?  But it’s crickets for much of anything electric until they go wrong?  There’s a reason why my default image of Rusty and Electra are the 1989 Japan tour and I think raceswapping them is the best thing the show ever did.  It just exposes how backwards canon makes things.  

“Radically unthreatening 2013 Electra” is also one of my favorite versions of the character because he makes you question why things are depicted this way.  Why is this guy supposed to be scary, he’s just kind of a bitch?  Isn’t it kind of a great thing to reduce pollution by having electric trains?  Could it be that this guy epitomizes how the likes of socialized healthcare were treated as an abomination by Reagan?  It’s just kind of funny and maybe underwhelming to his intended audience but he jumps the shark into accidental brilliance in the US.

Anyways this is why I get so pissed off when people compare electric trains to electric cars or try to turn Electra into a gadgetbahn or Musk figure.  It’s offensively wrong compared to the actual politics and economics of them on every possible level.  Electric trains play into and benefit from the villified “woke agenda” in its original and appropriated sense and disproportionately suffer at the hands of “government efficiency”.  

(If you want to read more into these issues, see Jamelle Bouie, Intelexual Media (youtube, 18+), and Banks Rail/Robo Rail (youtube, train politics) )

[bigsnzstanacct]

Fanfic Writing Ideas / Goals

Fandoms I want to write for that you should ask me about or talk to me about or give me ideas for or pester me about writing for (and I’m not putting the slashes and stuff in so if you stumble across this post while not being a part of my niche fetish community, no you didn’t):

Fellow Travelers: thinking in a context where Hawk has the fetish and Tim indulges him with some of the topping from the bottom/role reversal dynamics from the show. And Hawk sneezes really loud. Bc I want him to. Tim meanwhile just has the woooooooorst allergies and get some satisfaction out of someone being turned on rather than turned off by them for once.

Red White and Royal Blue: kinda thinking it would be fun to do a mutual fetish thing, probably changing some details about how they met and their interactions prior to the Cake Incident, but also I can’t work out the timing. I want one or the other (probably Alex bc how would Henry even do this) to have Very Secretly put some sneeze fetish content out into the internet and the other has been getting off to it since that very day, without realizing who it was. Also really trying to decide how much I can convince myself that Henry has a mental block and/or *always* stifles but actually if you get him to let it out he has a surprisingly big/loud/harsh sneeze. I know Alex sneezes loud and proud and uncovered and with a high-pitched upturn at the end, and is the kind of guy who sneezes just kinda randomly all the time, but it isn’t like intense fits unless he encounters one of his few allergies and then it is Intense Fits, you know what I mean?

Check Please: which I have a whole setup for, definitely a mutual fetish situation for Nursey and Dex where like Dex has The Perfect Big Loud Sneeze for Nurse but he always stifles so Nurse has the hots for a Mystery Loud Sneeze Guy who is later revealed to be Dex. Also something involving Holster also having Big Loud Uncovered Epic Dad Sneezes that echo through the Haus and Nursey and Dex both are like SO into, bc that guy just seems like he’d absolutely holler out his sneezes for real. And that he’d get like Epic Man Flu with Epic Dad Sneezes, etc.

Ted Lasso: specifically giant!sneeze Roy, and more specifically: “sex-linked giant sneezes are common and considered hot and Roy’s are EXTRA BIG and therefore considered Extra Hot but he is grumpy about this as he always is about everything” also he’s in some sort of romantic entanglement with Keeley and/or Jamie. And I still haven’t decided what Jamie’s sneezes should be like but he’s definitely going to have some degree of jealousy-of-Roy-and-the-jealousy-is-also-horny situation going on.

9-1-1: Somebody on here suggested Buck as a possible Big Sneezer character and I was like eh maybe that actor’s hot but THEN they made him Canonically Bi on the show and now I’m like fuck yeah make it happen need it yesterday. And I’m trying to decide if I want to go with the whole Buddie thing and have Eddie be a fetishist and maybe they can do a like “well like I’m Not Into Dudes like you are (yes he is stop lying) but I have this weird like… Thing for Sneezes and your sneezes are I dunno they’re like really big and hot and maybe we should make out about that and definitely not about Feelings” or if I want Buck to have the kink, but actually I think I’m leaning towards the former bc I want Buck’s big loud sneezes to be like A Problem somehow bc he’s such a cute golden retriever guy that I kinda want to whump him a little. Gentle whump. And then comfort bc like “I don’t have a problem with your sneezes and actually I kinda think they’re… hot?” Yeah, that sounds fun. I am deciding this now as I’m writing lmao.

Also possibly interested in Disco Elysium, like y’all make that fandom sound really hot and again one of those characters having the fetish could be suuuuuper hot also Harry definitely has the Dad Sneezes of all Dad Sneezes.

Also also I have the whole Dream Daddy setup that I’ve written about before on here. Really want to do the Hugo and Brian dates that I have plotted out especially, but always feel like once I get out of the Dream Daddy world I lose the voice for that fandom and it really requires a very specific voice. Although maybe I’ll just base it on the fics I’ve already written. Like if I just emulate that voice it’ll be close enough and at least it will be internally consistent.

Also also also I have the King’s New Allergy story that I feel I have basically revealed as a BBC Merlin fanfic, for which I want to write a steamy epilogue involving The King and The Mage huddled up in the King’s chambers while he sneezes out the last of the Big Magic Sneezes and they talk about the fetish and they fuck lmao.

I think that’s all I have on my list fanfic wise but if I’ve mentioned something else or you think something else would be a good idea for me to look into hit me up! In particular I think Ted Lasso and the sorta-kinda-Merlin-ish fic are the only ones that include real giant!sneeze (as opposed to my usual ridiculously loud and borderline unrealistically so sneeze) and perhaps I should also think of more fanfiction contexts that could accommodate that too.

[acacia-may]

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I got tagged by @library-child in 20 questions for fic writers (thanks for the tag, friend), and I had way too much to say about this topic so I've made it its own post (I'll post answers to the other questions as soon as I can).

Fun fact about me, I majored in Languages at university and have written a few stories with dialogue in multiple languages, so I might be a little biased here, but I think it can be good depending on how it's used and in what context. Writing a multilingual character can be a great way of creating a dynamic, well-rounded character and really pay homage to who they are and their cultural identity.

At the same time, I think that it can be difficult to write a multilingual character in a way that is realistic but also doesn't confuse a reader that doesn't speak all of the languages that appear in the story. It can be difficult to balance how much of another language you can put into your dialogue without losing your reader or without the story suddenly feeling like a language lesson. (Unless of course, that's a major plot point of the story like in my very silly and tongue-and-cheek fic "Everything I Need To Know About Love I Learned From Latin" which actually centered around a Latin grammar lesson).

I think my big feelings on this topic really hinge on how much language swapping there is and the context.

More thoughts under the cut.

In my Horrible Histories: The Movie fanfictions which I mentioned, for instance, Atti speaks both in English and Latin, but it is relevant to the story because the main plot points of these stories often surround breakdowns in communication due to Atti being multilingual and Orla not being able to speak Latin well (or depending on the point in the timeline, much at all). One of the fics is actually called "Lost In Translation" for this reason, and I'd like to talk about it a little bit as an example here.

For those who are unfamiliar with the very funny but very niche Horrible Histories film, it is the story of the unlikely friendship between a brainy but a bit awkward Roman soldier named Atti and a badass Celtic princess named Orla during the Boudican Revolt during the Roman invasion of Britain. There is a really interesting moment in the movie in which Atti sings a song about Orla (and his feelings for her) in the front of the Roman army and they all start crying before cutting him off for being "too soppy." The refrain he sings in English is "I miss you," but in Latin (which is of course, the language he would have actually been singing in given the historical context), this phrase is "Te Desidero" which can also be translated as "I desire you" or "I love you" so the Roman Army is basically hearing him express his undying love for her when Atti is really just intending to sing about them being friends (He loves her too, of course, but that's a different story). In "Lost In Translation," Atti discovers that his army buddies completely misinterpreted his song when, in the future, his daughter learns the song and translates the refrain to "I love you" rather than "I miss you." Here is a short excerpt:

“But Marcus said some of the words are “Te Desidero’”—Camilla’s brow furrowed—"that means ‘I love you’, right?” “Well yes…technically…it can mean…” He stopped. “But a better translation is probably…”  Atti’s voice trailed in an awkward chuckle. Deciding it was best not to explain to his young daughter the nuanced differences between love and desire, he cleared his throat and changed tactics. “Well…it can actually…really mean a lot of things…like…um…‘I miss you’, for instance. And, you know, I think that’s what he meant—just from the context…of the story…They’re friends, of course, but he barely knows the girl—he isn’t ready to profess his love or anything yet….”  “But Marcus said that he really, really, really loved the princess and everybody in the army knew and that’s why they all cried…” “Or…” Atti gestured with his hands. “Here’s a thought that I am sure the soldier never considered at the time but would probably make all of that crying make a lot more sense to him now—um…maybe his entire legion completely misunderstood what he was saying…and he  meant ‘I miss you’ the whole time but everybody else thought that he was singing about…romantic love…”

Clarifying all of this made for (what I hope) is a fun story, and since Atti being multilingual is one of the big plot points of the story, there is a lot of dialogue in Latin in that work.

On the other hand, in other projects I've worked on in which introducing additional languages just serves to flesh out a character or provide background or context to them or their family, I will be much more sparing in my use of code-switching (or switching languages in dialogue). It's also my personal preference to avoid having characters hold entire conversations in languages that are not the main language of the fic (i.e. I wouldn't interrupt a fic that is written in German to have the characters suddenly start conversing in English).

In general (except in the rare occasions in which the story is centered around the use of multiple languages), I personally prefer to save language swapping in stories for the things that are important, meaningful, or special since switching to another language will draw emphasis to that piece of dialogue. I also like including language swaps in small but deeply personal things like terms of endearment (i.e. a character who speaks both Latin and English might use the Latin "Principissa" instead of the English "Princess" as a term of endearment) or family titles (i.e. a character who speaks both Spanish and English might use the Spanish "Abuelito" or "Papá [Character's Name]" rather than the English "Grandpa"). I think that really adds to the story and the characters that are being written about.

A few other thoughts...

I think it is very difficult to write dialogue in a language you are not personally fluent or proficient in. I tend to do all my own translations freehand, and most of the multilingual characters I've written about speak English and Latin (which are my strongest languages). I have written dialogue for other languages (I've actually written an entire fanfiction in German, but I've never posted it anywhere and probably never will 😅), but I have not felt nearly as confident about that as I do not feel as proficient in them personally. I think something important I always try to keep in mind is that different vocabulary words can have different connotations so even if on paper what you're writing supposedly means one thing, it might have different, unintended implications to someone who is fluent in that language and grew up speaking it and/or uses it in everyday life versus learning it in a classroom. For this reason, if I am not entirely confident with my own translations, I will double check with someone who is fluent in that language, if possible. For instance, one of my current projects includes a bilingual character who speaks English and Spanish, and my cousin who is fluent in Spanish has been incredibly helpful: double checking what I write and confirming that I am in fact saying what I want to say, with the implications I want it to have.

Additionally, I think it's important to keep in mind that if you are going to include multiple languages in a story there will be a lot of readers who won't be able to translate what you write on their own and will feed it into an online translator like Google Translate so I always double check how Google Translate would translate my dialogue and make sure it's at least close enough to what it's supposed to be (since Google Translate is rather notoriously inaccurate). I also sometimes will put a glossary in the notes for really important things or will try to have the characters explain enough about what they're saying in the context of the story so the reader isn't left confused or out of the loop.

Overall writing fanfiction is just for fun, and if you feel comfortable including multiple languages in a work, go for it! It can definitely add something to both your story and your characters, but I would just caution prudence and moderation and suggest trying to be mindful of your target audience and making sure that they will be able to get the most out of what you are writing.

Thanks for reading my ramblings! Cheers!! 💖

[ipreferfiction]

20 questions for fic writers

@spyscrapper tagged me (shocking for everyone, i'm sure). thanks beloved

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

26!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

337,006 (a chunk of which is cowritten)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

posted, i have star wars (totj, kotor, swtor, prequels, and tcw), lockwood & co., and asoiaf. i've also written hotd-era asoiaf fics, a couple of unfinished mdzs fics, and something for grimm floating around.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

The Bond Between: fic i wrote for a tcw zine, Ahsoka & Obi-Wan. 137 kudos.

(note: technically the second fic is one that got hit by the kudos bot, so i am taking it out of the ranking because i cannot trust its numbers)

How Far We've Come: Lockwood & Co., written and set right after TCS. Kipps and the crew. 62 kudos.

Wasteland: prequels/tcw/original trilogy, Obi-Wan on Tatooine having a truly questionable time. 60 kudos.

Dragon's Rise: asoiaf, post-series. Dany, Jon, Tyrion, and Arya go to Old Valyria so Dany can break the Doom and rebuild the Valyrian Freehold. i hate several things i did with characters here, truly, and i am never going to finish it; i'm keeping it up so i can see comments and kudos, because it got a lot of engagement (posted right after the show ended), but i would change so many things now. 54 kudos.

tremble for yourself, my man (you know that you have seen this all before): kotor - Cassus Fett dies on Malachor and wakes up six years in the past, with the knowledge that something is manipulating the war. he kidnaps Revan and Alek right off Dantooine at one point to help him. extremely full of torture! also the cousin of found family, sibling acquisition via kidnapping. 50 kudos.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to, but i haven't been great at it for a while. so occasionally it takes me a few months, lol

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

posted? probably my mando wars novelization. none of the really angsty stuff is finished, and i also tend to shy away from bitter endings because they make me depressed. and i do mean depressed, i have depression and i tend to get a little too into my characters' heads, which is not great when they're having bad times.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

uh. um. the... ahsoka and obi-wan one maybe??

8. Do you get hate on fic?

the only ones that actually hurt me were on a years-old asoiaf fic. i've gotten two or three in recent years when i've been writing star wars stuff, but they're so out of pocket they're absolutely hilarious to me. i make fun of them with my friends. shoutout to the person who told me not to use bitch because it was a slur against women when the context was literally a man calling his long hair a bitch to deal with. i am NEVER getting over that, it's so funny.

9. Do you write smut?

periodically, yeah. it's fun, i just am also horribly embarrassed trying to write it lol. i have very little posted, but i've got a handful of half-finished ones in docs.

10. Do you write crossovers?

nnnnnnot really? i toss them around for some of my OCs and original works (between each other), but i don't really write them or post them. now, fusions? yeah, i write those. the hp au is the only one i've posted, and also is my favorite. read the main fic before you read the oneshot, though, because besides being utterly awful (affectionate) it also makes no sense without context. not that the series has given basically any of that context yet, but, yk. it's coming. eventually.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not as far as i know. there's less theft in really niche communities like the stuff i tend to write.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

yes!! @spyscrapper (i keep typing revanchxst as your url beloved when will you change it back) is my coauthor for the hp au and for our big swtor novelization, plus a couple of totj fics.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

frankly, a couple of my ocs who live rent-free in my head at all times, from one of my original works. 1920s monster hunters, secret government organization, repressed queer people (person. the others are not at all repressed he's just a dumbass about emotions), constant threats of violence, morally grey pov characters, murder. i am literally insane about them. also a different set of ocs from fic that developed their own original work as well: magic university, depressed gay people, Plots, the usual. i am constantly chewing on them. in fandom, knight/scourge and cassus/ultimate, probably.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but probably won't?

most of my asoiaf stuff, tbh

16. What are your writing strengths?

prose. give me a good several paragraphs and i will give you gorgeous prose. flowing, poetic, great imagery, the works. i am not afraid to say that's what i'm good at

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

FUCKING dialogue. i hate dialogue so much. no more talking society has progressed past the need for talking. i can do a sentence or two, but full conversations? evil.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fics?

I'll throw in a word or two without translating, because single words are easy to remember and write a glossary for at the end of the chapter. full sentences, though? They're either in italics (if the fic is generally speaking one language and this is another), or unmarked except by dialogue tags (much rarer, generally only do it if the pov character would mostly be speaking another language and so marking it as unusual doesn't make sense. e.g., Cassus talking to other Mandalorians isn't gonna be italicized because it being in Mando'a is expected.)

19. First fandom that you wrote for?

sherlock, i think? i wrote an OC fic that has now evolved into its own original universe because i ended up hating sherlock after season 4, and also the fandom was so fucking annoying. i was writing doctor who and supernatural OC fics around the same time, but i'm pretty sure sherlock was first.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

tremble for yourself, my man (linked above) or start a war, for posted fics. for unposted stuff, a cassus wip i will eventually. eventually finish

tags: @zaolat, @hermitmoss, yeah that's all i've got lee got all the other people i know lol

[tfmedicmedius]

Now listen - despite being on tumblr for over a decade I have yet to ever make a post. So cheer to me for my first post! This blog is mainly going to be my rants about comics whenever the inspiration hits me (which is often, given how much I bother my friends with this.

Now for a little context: I am currently earning a dual bachelors degree in history and interdisciplinary studies. Within these two degrees, I'm combining history (specifically medieval and renaissance history), art, and women and gender studies into one big scope of analysis. This, combined with my interests, have led me to be really interested in visual literacy. It is one of the easiest ways to understand and comprehend different ideas and it is everywhere. Now I have come to realize that I have a very niche connection between Manuscripts and Comic Books through visual literacy. Now manuscripts are mainly writings, but depending on the manuscript, there would be commissions, doodles, or different visual aids to the chapter a drawing was included in. This art had a purpose. Some famous examples are usually propaganda pieces for the current monarch that commissioned the manuscript. Other times, if it there were educational sections, there were helping images. Like drawings of lawyers in a law section of a manuscript. Art still has a purpose! It does the same exact thing!! Visual literacy is one of the areas of study where you see that humans have evolved and changed, sure, but we also haven't!!

Now obviously comics are not manuscripts (to me they are that's my scripture). And comics are a lot more visual art than writing compared to manuscripts. But the things you learn from comics, the ideas, the stories, the world building, they all hold purpose. Whether it is propaganda, it is political, it is educational, it is anything, they do it! We loved to learn via art and share ideas through art! There is so much to learn about the ways in which we understanding the meaning behind an artistic work without having to know the context and the intentions of the artist.

This has been a longer post than I intended, but visual literacy is probably the coolest thing ever. There is so much to be said and so many parallels to be made. History is cool.

[dramaklub]

‼️FORMAT‼️; Red ink is me talking, in the present. This tool will be mostly to add context. The rest is copy pasted directly, the only edits not explicitly stated (in red) are things like spelling and punctuation. I will put the TW in blue ink.

TW: unaliving and childhood SA and the weird aftermath of it. No direct descriptions of it. Just the grey area of the understanding what your relationship with family is supposed to be, and the fundamental misunderstanding of those boundaries I had crying the abuse and after.

Time unknown; for the Club section. most likely past midnight. Most likely pretty drunk:

From Mandela club, puerto Vallarta; bathroom

Post colloquy; it’s like I watch from the outside, im like Casper, i watch people’s lives go, watch them grow up, see them hit milestones. And I would fucking give anything to be them. Not enough though I suppose. What to do?

Idea; the woman in the window? (I was reading this book at the time, meaning of this note is unknown lol)

I keep asking myself ‘what’s wrong with me’ and answering ‘you know what’ and that conversation ends with me being thinking about who I am. What I am. My place. It’s daunting to remember. To be honest with yourself about what people think, about what they’re laughing at when I’m dancing and when I’m making out with someone. It’s unbelievable to them. Hilarious. I’m hilarious. That’s all I’ll ever be. I don’t know how to not be funny it seems. A curse out upon me by I don’t know what. I don’t know why I had to be this person. Why I couldn’t be average. Not Kendal Jenner but Sarah who is insecure about her small judding out belly or non-thigh gap. Why do I have to have this? Why is this me? Why can’t I leave. Why can’t I sign out? I suppose I could but it’s not exactly like deleting my wizards 101 account is it? It’s dramatic and traumatizing to everyone around me. I have to endure because everyone around me will have to live with my death. And not just death but traumatic death. Dramatic. Suicide. As if I brought anything to the table. I don’t. I won’t ever bc I’m nothing. I have nothing. I just want to go home and be comfortable. I want to never leave and be perceived again. But I have to leave and I have to continue to ignore it. me. fucking suffer. It sounds fucking dramatic I know, but how could I describe it. I’m not simply annoyed or bothered by such bothering and annoying things. I’m fucking plagued by them. Will I ever love. Sorry, correction, I probably will, the question is will I be loved. Will be desired after for my body and my conversation. I don’t know, obviously, but Im sure not, either because such a simple thing is obviously off the table, in trying to imagine facing a summer where I could go without trying to overcome some major fear/ anxiety. It’s not for me. I was here for what? Exactly! No se, I have nothing to offer, maybe recommending a specific niche of fantasy books or fan fiction and smut. Perhaps what I have to offer is nothing. Some people have nothing, give nothing. Maybe I gave some life lessons to someone. But someone’s life can’t be summed up to their achievements can they? But aren’t they? How will I live up? How will I be remembered. Something tells me it’s in the manor of my death. Nothing else is worth taking about. I never lit up a room with my smile. I was never outgoing. I’m forgetable no matter how hard I try not to be. God I’ve written so many of these things. Had so many dreams and wants. Why don’t I get them. What’s wrong with me? What don’t I get those nice things? I know why. It hurts though.

At work: 12:13pm in the bathroom

“You’re only as fucked up as your secrets” from the Stevo podcast feat. Shane Dawson. Fuck. I mean that’s not good? Is it. Not in my case. It means I’m really really fucked up. There are things I know. I just know I will never ever ever speak about. To anyone. Therapist, loved one. Absolutely anyone. Because they’re disgusting secrets. They were when I was little and had a very warped view of society. And people. I have family that are not very eager to be friends with me bc they remember something I did that definitely sat right on that line of inappropriate. (Very interesting pov from her on this day bc to be clear this is complete speculation lmao, in this she is talking about my cousins, I’m just not very close to my cousins, we all grew up and what I ‘did’, what im referring to, is one awkward encounter with my cousin - one cousin- not so bad to have cause this alleged shunning lol. Definitely still weird, I dared him to watch porn and I stayed - I can’t remember who decided that good idea lol but i am taking blame- in the room. It was weird for all parties) I don’t even like writing about it now. I mean, here is the thing. I never did cross that line. Not like my cousin did. Never. But I did walk it. Because I think I wasn’t sure how the world worked then yet. I’m gonna be honest and say; idk why I didn’t cross that line. I could have. Very easily. Bc the reason I was even walking it was bc I didn’t know what was right and wrong. (I’m giving myself more grace then she gave herself here; she didn’t cross the line because what she did, did feel weird and wrong and she very simply, didn’t wanna cross the line) I didn’t understand. People told me I would never be kidnapped or raped or touched bc I was an ugly and or fat child. But it did happen and I think I didn’t know what to do about it. It made me feel things I didn’t understand and it made me confused. Bc I thought I was disgusting. My world view at 4 was already based on how attractive I was. At 4. I was already worried about sex. At 4. And with the people I was close with I didn’t understand that line existed. So I happen to walk it. I thought it was normal. And it’s a huge part of my past that I regret and I am ashamed and scared of. I don’t like that idea, that that could be me. I’m scared That that wasn’t a product of my perception of the world that was put on to me at young age, but me. That’s scary. I don’t want to bring it up and hurt someone like that. Like I said I never crossed that line but what if what I did was enough to damage my relationship with them. That’s scary. I don’t want to face that.

And I don’t want to face therapy to talk about it all. I’m at this point and have almost been in it for a year. I’ve made a real mess of my life and I don’t think I will make it worth loving frankly. Maybe I will? But reality is that I probably won’t. I’m waiting to get to the point where I can finally kill myself. I’m okay right now, but I’m trying to get the people around me to a good place. So I can let go. My thought; I know it’s selfish but why should it be? I’m not having a good time right now. I never have. I want to sign out. No I want to delete my account. I’m so fucking done. There are things I want to do of course. God so many things. And maybe if I was someone else I would have done them but I won’t in this life. I just fucking won’t. In video games; if I don’t play exactly how I want to - if Mario didn’t land atop the flag pole- I restarted completely. I would need to delete my start. Is that mentally ill? I mean why should I have to be here? Im an adult, I don’t like it here. I fucking hate it as I am. I love it as someone else. That what makes it sad I think. That I don’t hate all of it. In fact I’m in love with so much of it. But I can’t experience it purely. It’s tainted with my existence.

No need to be worried about this authors state of being, im alive and not actively planning my suicide anymore

[hanzajesthanza]

here is a long post addition! this is my “plan” to read it as of right now.

all of this may sound really overcomplicated and silly, but... i am writing this out in case it can help any other fans who don’t read polish.

because... it's not impossible, and you actually have a lot of options.

i have for your review: the lazy way, the easy way, the hard way, the insane way, and the medium way.

how i read "get around" (some) polish texts, without learning polish because i am lazy i mean, "busy"

now, you could do this the lazy way:

use google translate on your phone. use the camera instant-translate feature. hover your phone over the book, and read the translated text off of your screen.

although this way is near-instant, the typesetting is absolutely atrocious and nauseating to look at: different type sizes, no alignment, insane rags... i'm the kind of person who cares about the appearance of a paragraph, so this is terrible for me.

the translation is also horrible and finicky (if it misreads a word, which is common, it will spit out something absolutely incomprehensible). this is manageable for short nonfiction articles where you can take a moment to pause and re-translate, but is especially bad for fantasy, which likes its reader to be open-minded, imaginative and immersed.

i read “tandaradei!” like this and i do not recommend it; my reading comprehension was pretty bad. i learned that i don't read perfectly linearly, and i like to go back and forth between paragraphs to understand what i've read. because this method basically makes you read one sentence after the other with very little ability to go back, i probably would have understood the story better had i just stared blankly at the polish words for an hour.

i've learned that to have a functional translation for writing, you should really have an actual block of text; live image recognition is not very good.

this leads me to the easy way:

screenshot pages of the e-book, or scan the physical book using my home scanner. prepare a PDF of the scan and use OCR on these scanned pages. from that, prepare a manuscript. slowly feed to google translate or deepL and copy to separate document.

maybe that sounds tedious, but it is possible and works well! i have done this with bits of other texts (historia fenomenu, manuscript discovered in a dragon’s cave, adam hollanek's editor's letters).

but, this is sapkowski writing, after all. it's the witcher. archaisms, wordplay, and allusions should be up the wall, as well as latin that gets tangled in the translation machine.

(i have a funny memory from when i was doing the first chapter of manuscript, when i saw it didn’t take the word “baedeker.” i thought; “the heck is baedeker? that doesn’t sound polish at all.” well, it’s not; it’s german! i had to grab the wikipedia page to understand the cultural reference).

and although i have found online auto-translation to work quite well for polish nonfiction (news articles, interviews, essays), it struggles hard with polish fiction. i expect this is owing to clever uses of flexible grammar, which english doesn't have... paired with stylization and niche vocabulary not often used in daily speech. some words have archaic uses, but mean something different or have different connotations in everyday polish. this is very difficult for translation machines to handle, because it's just not what they're used to translating.

this can lead to some funny mistranslations. as an example ... if you have ever auto-translated (from polish to english) a witcher fanfiction where a character draws their sword from their sheath... if you know, you know :'D

and although that's part of the charm of translating fanfiction, i'd prefer not to intercept stuff like that with an actual book.

so i expect to need some of the the hard way:

copy down each sentence. translate each sentence. use online dictionaries, wiktionary, and polish learning forums to grasp word context.

i call this "combing," which is very precise, but very slow.

the good thing is that after you see some words a few times, and if you are paying attention, you start to recognize them, which... maybe speeds up the process somewhat...?

but this is also the bad thing, because painfully, you will be able to understand maybe 10 to 30% (if lucky) of the words in a paragraph, yet you will be unable to decipher any meaning of it, because of the vocabulary you don't yet know.

this is what i see, basically: also, with no sense of grammar, yet :D so what is being done by who and to whom, i have no idea!

for context... to me, this reads:

(...) said, that the man (...) north, horse (...) was (...) afternoon and (...) was already (...) empty. it was warm, the man had on himself black (...) attention. (...) tavern "old narakort" (...) voices. Tavern, like (...) was full of people. "old narakort" (...) horse far away, from/in (...) street. there was a second (...) called "(...) fox". (...) was empty. (...) did not have (...) silent. (...) head (...) pickles. Stranger, (...) was silent. "What (...)." "Beer," (...) the voice was (...).

and that's me focusing on the text and trying to comprehend it. so... yeah lol :D i'm nowhere near being able to actually read (at least, at the level the witcher is written at).

(although i roasted him for his conclusions, i do think tomasz bagiński was right in that imponderabilia interview when he said that reading is very difficult but we just don't realize how difficult it is because we learned it a long time ago. this makes me grateful i have one language under my command, at least - i was recently reading a piece about how many adults don't have full command of their native language and that's where "illiteracy" statistics come from, illiteracy being a broad spectrum!).

anyhow, when i am scanning my polish editions of the witcher to find passages, this is not really a huge problem for me, because i can feel my way around the text if i already know what book and what chapter i'm on. it's like groping for walls and furniture in a dark room; my benefit is that i live in this house, so to speak, so the text is familiar to me even if i've never read it in polish - i can recognize where i am by proper nouns, paragraph structure and syntax, and this handful of very basic vocabulary words. and if all that fails and i give up, or it's just my least favorite chapter of a book and i don't recall it at all, i have the english translation to send me in the right direction.

however, obviously this is not possible because this is a new book which i haven't read before, and it has no english version yet that i've read and can be familiar with the events of.

more significantly, i have no sense of style and character voice. i think i'm far, far away from understanding that. light-years. but i wasn't going to get that from the english translation anyways :D

that leads to the insane way:

learn polish.

... which is easier said than done.

i have taken just a little bit of time to look at some language-learning roadmaps and standards. what i've learned so far is that right now, i need to focus on building my vocabulary. grammar... i'll cross that bridge when i get to it.

i think one good thing about reading is that reading is input, not output. having difficulty with reading comprehension has much lower stakes than speaking aloud. something at gives me hope at least, is that, when i was doing spanish, reading was probably the skill i picked up quickest, and the one i had the least trouble with... i think that's pretty typical if you learn in a classroom setting...

the challenge to this is that reading a fantasy book is a very advanced step down the path of language learning. just because you can read doesn't mean you can read a fantasy book. and most beginner resources are teaching basics, obviously.

but currently i am not even, like, A-1. i'm like maybe A-0.25 :'D

my conclusion of what i need to do to get to a basic reading level is:

flashcards to build vocabulary. (some specific areas i know i need to focus on: prepositions, time words, common adjectives, "fantasy vocab") basic grammar lessons, especially since declension can totally change spelling and make it unrecognizable lol take advantage of the audiodramas and re-"read" some witcher while listening (both in polish), i can remember words better with an audio component. and the hardest part: studying daily. following a routine and keeping to it, the consistency of it, is the hardest part of language learning. at least the one i have the most difficulty with.

so, this is certainly a long-term goal but idk if i will commit to it. sadly, i just doubt my tenacity over time. but, i will probably continue to do it in a non-committal, lazy, inconsistent fashion - that's no problem!

that reminds me, for my last tip! here’s a medium way i found. it's kind of a hack, if you don't have OCR and don't want to re-type it out.

read the text aloud to google translate.

it will recognize the words i say if i pronounce them more or less correctly, and then give a translation! this is great for reading in bed. it's still slow, of course, but i've found it way easier than typing everything out?

have u read the new witcher book and if you have what’s your verdict 🎤

i have not 😭 i don’t have a way to get a copy until sunday—the e-book isn’t out yet.

i did order a physical copy on empik last night, yay przesyłka zagraniczna 💃🏻 it will be here dec 9th–16th.

… but i say all this like i read polish.

so, i expect that when i get the book, i will look something like this:

i HAVE read the excerpt which was in nowa fantastyka, thanks to damegorthaur's translation. and i really enjoyed that so i am eager and interested :)

[gorgynei]