#not putting this in the fandom tag because it's rambling without (much) substance because i tried to keep ot spoiler free

[bestangelofall]

who is Luv?

HER!!!!!!! (My favorite character ever. The specialest girl. My poor little meow meow who did nothing wrong ever. Doomed from the beginning. Not given many choices (or at all). Attack dog coded. Lucifer coded (but with a sad twist 😭). SO TRAGIC. Made the wrong choices when she could make choices (but could she ever, really, make choices?))

She's the "main villain" of the movie Blade Runner 2049:

But she's also a main character in the comic/graphic novel Blade Runner 2039, from where I got the panel above.

(the rest goes below the cut because it's a lot lol. I can ramble about this character a lot.)

I won't get too much into what her development or arc is in case you haven't watched the movie (it's a masterpiece, go watch it!!!! You don't even have to watch the first one, honestly (but I also recommend it if you like sci-fi)). WHAT I will tell you, though, is that she's a complicated, complex character, she's also *extremely* tragic. I am probably biased in thinking that she's the most tragic Blade Runner character (that's every character in a BR media ever but I digress), but oh well...

In more spoilerish details:

She's a replicants, a being without free will (but it's debatable just how much free will she has) who acts as the enforcer of the guy who fabricates the replicants.

She died for the cause of her creator without ever knowing that she was, in fact, alive.

So many of the themes that I love in fiction are relevant to her character, such as creator and creation conflict, what it means to be human, what it means to be real, free will, the themes that are typical of cyberpunk, among others.

She did some bad things... well, personally, I think there's only one real crime she committed out of her own free will (and even then, it's a complex subject lol), but she did some other things that we aren't sure what her agency in the whole thing was, so...

And don't get me wrong, I love the ambiguity of her character A LOT. It was what first made me get super interested in her in the first place (I am obsessed with the movie as a whole, it's just that I love her even more). Especially if you consider only what's in the movie, she can be given some different levels of agency that change how you see her choices. The script of the movie is a little bit less ambiguous (and makes her a little bit more villainous hehe).

And then you have the comics, specifically Blade Runner 2039, which tells a bit of her backstory and helps us understand what makes her the character we see in 2049. Personally, while I like the story of the comics, I also think they left a lot of potential unexplored regarding her character. Honestly, though I never expected to get more Luv material after 2049, so I am super happy with what I was given.

I love her bits of backstory in the comics. It honestly humanizes her more (which is also very interesting from a world building perspective) and yet at the same time, it makes me wonder "well, why did she get colder and more ruthless in the movie?" Those are questions that I may never get the answer to 😭

Anyway. Luv is a character from the movie Blade Runner 2049 and from the Comic/graphic novel Blade Runner 2039. And I love her :) I swear I am completely normal about her.

[telesthisia]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; mun & muse - meme.

TAGGED BY: @hyaciiintho​ thank you so much!!! <3 TAGGING: @rcguna​ @cadcnce​ either or whatever works for you bear, @panickypeachboy​ @paintmaid​ @emfiliae​ @windmcge​ and you as well!! The person reading this

FILL OUT & REPOST ♥ this meme definitely favors canons more, but i hope oc’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. multi-muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. <--- leaving this here because this is super sweet ALSO FAIR WARNING my blog has right click turned off. I’m going to be placing this under readmore but I think you can see it on dashboard view! If not lmk we’ll work something out!!! 

MY MUSE IS:   CANON / OC / AU (Verse dependent) / CANON-DIVERGENT (Interactions & verse dependent) / FANDOMLESS

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES well kinda at least thanks to ssbu before she wasn’t that well known I MEAN PPL KNEW HER BUT SHE DIDN’T HAVE AS MANY FANART AS OTHER ZELDAS SDJBKHJABSD/ NO

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK because not too many people talk about her and by her I mean ALTTP Zel, people are bonkers over SSBU Zel! 

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO if we’re talking about the canon of ALTTP and OoX series rather than ssbu it’s a hard no, she has enough magic to be considered a sacrifice to break barriers and revive the dead but not enough to fend herself off from evil mages who want to talk over the world / IDK

Are they underrated?  YES / NO

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO / MAYBE

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO / MAYBE

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON?   NOT THAT STRICT HONESTLY, she’s just an OC at this point haha because she has zero substance in her own god damn game ;v; she’s just exposition.txt with dulcina effect playing into view though it is somewhat justified since she is the princess and the only thing that stopped Agahnim from breaking out Ganon.... I MEAN!!! SHE’S NOT AT ALL A DEPRESSED CALM ROMANTIC IN CANON LET’S PUT IT TO YOU THAT WAY SDBKASDJHBDASD. 

SELL YOUR MUSE! AKA TRY TO LIST EVERYTHING, WHICH MAKES YOUR MUSE INTERESTING IN YOUR OPINION TO MAKE THEM SPICY FOR YOUR MUTUALS.   TAKES A DEEP BREATH

Tiny funky elf princess trying her best to rule elf kingdom. HJKA there’s more, I’m lazy but not that lazy. She’s the descendent of essentially a mortal god, more than likely acting as an avatar of sorts to the goddess Hylia, as such she’s gifted with fantastical abilities that’s been passed down her family for generations and she intends to use these powers to protect her kingdom that’s still on the road of recovery, as the sole survivor from Agahnim’s destruction upon Hyrule and thus sole scion she’s left picking up the small fragments from the tragedy that occurred ages ago where the Hero of Time had fallen. But here’s the downside to these powers: she was born with a very weak body and poor health as such she can’t utilize the abilities she has from her bloodline aside from a few powers without affecting her low stamina issues. Namely telepathy, clairvoyance, healing, sealing things away, creating barriers, and connection with the spirit realm. As such, she tends to rely on the wisdom given to her by her naturally bright mind and enhanced by the mythical object known as the Triforce of Wisdom. Surprisingly, she can be cunning despite her soft-hearted nature and is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her kingdom and people she loves, her silent determination more than makes up for the lack of powers she may have. That in mind, she’s often the target of more nefarious plans that means the downfall of her kingdom. She may not have the amazing light magic spells her ancestors did to prevent darkness from taking over but that doesn’t mean her magic isn’t any less potent, she just can’t tap into it. She’s an easy target for enemies that wish to use her sacred powers to revive the dead Ganon or break pass whatever powerful barrier or seal that’s in place. 

Her future is pretty grim as well, considering she has a shorter life span. But it’s fine, things are fine she may have a gloomy outlook on certain things but that doesn’t stop her from living life!! Despite how sour this may all seem Zelda is still that encouraging young woman whose kindness defines her, she’s playfully innocent around friends and enjoys exploring old places of decay that’s rich with history! She tends to bottle up her more negative aspects to not worry others since she’s the pillar of an entire ass nation, she needs to maintain her placid demeanor as a means to calm and soothe others around her. Because the truth of the matter is that the events of ALTTP (before the game where harsh plagues among other things happened before Agahnim arrived to fix everything as well as after the events of the game) and OoX, instances where she’s witnessed death of loved ones, the downfall of her kingdom, and coming across death herself has affected her greatly. She suffers from grief and depression that needs to be addressed but... ;v; 

NGL I’M ABOUT TO CRY 

NOW THE OPPOSITE, LIST EVERYTHING WHY YOUR MUSE COULD NOT BE SO INTERESTING (EVEN IF YOU MAY NOT AGREE, WHAT DOES THE FANDOM PERHAPS THINK?).   HJKA TAKE OUT MY BULLSHIT TAKE ON HER AND YOU’RE LEFT WITH EXPOSITION AND DAMSEL IN DISTRESS!!! She’s not at all interesting if you don’t take into account her roles in the mangas which I somewhat base her personality and thoughts on... she’s just.... nice pretty princess that needs to be rescued. A tale as old as time.... 

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE?   GOOD QUESTION!!! BECAUSE I STARTED OUT WITH HILDA BEFORE DECIDING TO GO WITH SKY ZELDA BECAUSE I WANTED TO DO A MORE OUTGOING MUSE and then I opened up a sideblog for this Zelda out of whim. There’s no reason why I choose the most obscure Zelda, I just did it because I thought it’d be fun. I did not expect this much characterization for someone like her ngl. I guess what keeps me going is the fact that she’s a fun character to write for! 

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING? HA!!! NOTHING!!! Mental illness is a bitch, I will have my down... weeks. Not days, literal weeks or months depending on how long my episodes last. It sucks, and I try to work around it but there’s not much I can do. That said, inspiration depends on motivation and want to write. As well as focus because god knows I have so little of that. 

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN.

give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO I TRY BUT UNDERSTAND THERE’S NOT MUCH TO WORK WITH IN CANON YOU EITHER LIKE HER OR DON’T 

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO but I honestly should???

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES where’s the kinda opition, because I personally love her and think she’s interesting enough but I’m still working a lot on her NO

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / HA HARD NO

Are you a sensitive person?  YES fun part of having ADD is that you feel emotions more intenstly, I’m naturally a senstive person too so :’)))) / NO

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL?   YES OF COURSE!!!! As someone who wants to grow more in writing any sort of feedback is appreciated! 

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER?   If you give me the chance to ramble about this stupid elf I will literally love you so much like I love all sorts of questions anyone may have about her!! Though I feel my rambles don’t really make much sense since I just type whatever pops in the mind and put it down as fast as I can without double-checking well enough. 

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?   Sí! Again, I want to grow more as a writer and rper! So if someone were to come across a headcanon they don’t like I’d like to know why so that I can think more critically about it and fix it so that it better fits Zelda. If someone were to say “I don’t like this” without saying why it really won’t help much aside from letting me know that you don’t like the thing, which is fine and valid but pls let me know why! 

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT?   Eh, fine with it. I honestly don’t mind if someone doesn’t like my characters, any of my characters I play as! Sometimes, certain portrayals aren’t someone’s cup of tea and that’s perfectly fine. I won’t take offense to it, at the end of the day while I’m still working on Zelda I’m happy with how much she’s grown over the years I’ve played her as... which were just two but it feels longer dude!!! 

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT?   Again, I wouldn’t care that much lol. It’s just rping, it’s really not that deep. It’s no different from someone not liking a book because they just don’t vibe with the writing style among other reasons. I may be sensitive but I don’t really take a lot of things personally. 

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?   Ye uvub! I’m a literal dumbass behind a keyboard, don’t be afraid to say “hey this wasn’t spelled right” or “hey this doesn’t make much sense mind checking it over really quick”. 

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN?   I THINK?! I MEAN HONESTLY I’M SUPER ANXIOUS AND A WORRYWART I JUST DON’T SHOW IT MUCH AAAAAAAA I’d like to think of myself as chill ;v; I try to treat others how I want to be treated and just try to be nice. Idk if I come across as that or not, it’s hard to convey feelings through text sometimes to some. 

[the1rei]

Little Moments: Reboot Chapter Seven: Mothers and Daughters By  Ericobard and shadows59 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Fandom: Ben 10 Series Relationship: Ben Tennyson/Gwen Tennyson Some Additional Tags: Bullying, No proofreading, Family is Drama, Long burn

Natalie tries to explain what it means to grow up and fall in love to Gwen.  What it means to walk your own path and the sacrifices and hardship one can face along the way.  

Read my review below:

"She didn't know. Not today." What is this line referring to, and where in the text is it explained?

Gwen being sick doesn't add to the substance of the story. It seems to have created originally as a way to have Gwen stay home and pass out on her stuff, as well as possibly so that Lili can worry about her. But it would have been easy to give any excuse to leave Gwen at home, and the state her mother finds her in is enough to explain her worry.

Originally it was Gwen herself that explained her obsessive scheduling for the summer, which then transfer over in a slightly more positive way to the trip after Max invited her to come along. As some of the substance was lost in changing which character explained this and nothing was gained, there is no value in this change.

The sound of a rustling bag was enough to wake Gwen, but not all the talking her mother was doing, walking through the house, putting her purse down, opening and closing the door, the van's doors, the running van itself, the garage door opening and closing? Some of these things were written to have been muffled, but not the sound of a garage door closing and the dull roar of the automatic motor that operates it.

Did Gwen sweat a damp spot onto her book? Because if she is laying on top of it completely enough that Lili can't see it, then there is no way it's close enough to Gwen's mouth for her to drool on it.

Shadows59 has already done an effective job of expressing Lili's desire to see Gwen do ballet instead of martial arts, belaboring the point doesn't add to the story.

Lili lies to Gwen a lot; this does nothing to endure her character to the reader.

Why is Gwen hiding her intentions to give sign Ben up for karate as a present, and where are those intentions explained?

"that woman was right about all the clubs Gwen was in" Carl was the one who brought up that Lili had Gwen in far too many clubs.

Comparing Marci to a gigantic, life-sucking, parasitic, bug... lol.

Lili putting down Ben's parents is extremely petty and makes her look bad to the reader, not to mention hypocritical as she just admitted they might be right about her putting Gwen in so many clubs.

Again Shadows59 tells us that Frank is jealous of his daughter; that's unbelievably immature.

Like an ordinary child, in the original Gwen doesn't like to see her parents being affectionate towards each other, because she's a child and doesn't understand the feeling they are expressing with certain looks, intimate touches, and kisses, these things simply gross her out. Despite knowing this better than the reader, her mother thinks it's a good idea to tell Gwen that one of the things that led her to fall in love with Gwen's father was him pinching her ass. At best, Lili is trying to explain that guys do things to annoy girls to capitalize on their attention. How saying that Frank pinched her ass rather than 'Boys pick on girls they like so said girls would pay attention to them' is better the text does not make clear. Regardless this is another instance of Shadows59 putting more sex into a story about eleven-year-olds discovering their love for each other that would be much more acceptable if they were a few years older as they would be in 'Breaking Point'.

Verdona is portrayed again as perfect, with a bit psychic foresight to go along with it. Why does Shadows59 focus on this character when all he does with her is making her the 'Too Good for This Sinful Earth' trope?

So first, Lili admits that her parents liked Max, that they knew of him as nearly the first man to go to the moon. But because he didn't go to the moon, they considered him not to be dependable, which they extended to Frank, a man who put himself through law school. But that wasn't why they objected; it was because the starting salary of a lawyer, which is three times that of the national average, wasn't enough to take care of Lili. But that wasn't the reason; it was because they thought he was after their money, even though he rejected the money they offered him to go away. Lili says her father liked Frank after he did that, but he still didn't approve of them being together. I'm sorry why didn't Lili's parents approve of the man who put himself through law school, was set to make three times the national average salary when he started working, and displayed completely disinterested in their wealth?

After all of that drama, which only lasted at most seven months, Lili's parents changed their tune and was there to see Gwen be born. What is the point of this story? It seems to be needless drama created from what Carl said on Christmas, something that Lili says is completely untrue, but there is no explanation as to why he thought it was true. The whole event seems like an excuse to leave the story we are trying to read about Ben and Gwen's relationship to tell an unrelated story about how Frank and Lili got together. There are some cosmetic similarities between the stories, but they are completely different, and one does not add anything to the other.

Gwen's parents continue to make themselves look worse by childishly refusing to let Gwen go to Ben's party because they don't want to apologize for the part they played during 'Bloody Christmas.' Frank is even stomping around, that is exactly what Shadows59 describes Ben, the eleven-year-old, doing when he gets upset. In the original, it was the total opposite; despite what happened, they took responsibility for their actions and learned from them. Here, they continue to emulate the bad actions of a ten-year-old boy by eavesdropping on their daughter's phone conversation.

Shadows59 claims that in 1998 Gwen's parents have a house phone as a courtesy to their ten-year-old daughter and then completely contradict this statement by revealing that they have another house phone upstairs.

I understand Gwen's parents are only eavesdropping because Shadows59 needed a way to maintain the necessary conversation between Ben and Gwen from the original, but their running commentary is a detriment to the emotional impact of the conversation the kids are having when it's not also being used as a way to virtue signal about how much Lili cares about Ben and Gwen.

Now Shadows59 has Ben's parents acting childishly, which I'll get into more in the next chapter. But something interesting here is that while in the original it was Sandra alone who changed the party's date for her own sake, here its something she did in tandem with Carl. It seems as if Shadows59 is doing this in an effort to make Ben's mom seem less at fault for the problem being created. Why make this change?

Shadows59 takes time in the reboot to assert that Gwen is ready to give up having Max at her party before Ben can say that he already arranged to give up having Max at his party. This is another instance of Shadows59 changing the original to make the story show Gwen in the best light possible. In the original, this was Ben's moment alone to shine and show his maturity.

"I knew that he didn't care," When did the story ever indicate that Ben cared that Gwen called him a Doofus?

In the reboot, Gwen gets mad at her mother because Lili stupidly and conveniently lets slip that she listens in on Gwen's conversation. In the original Gwen sees relief in Lili's face when she finds out that the parties will be on the same day so she won't have to face Ben's parents, and possibly also because she won't have to deal with Ben at Gwen's party. This shows that while she was not the one to mess up Gwen's plans and keep her from seeing Ben, she could have just as easily have been the one to do it. It also shows Lili's fears and desires without directly stating them and making her and Frank act like children as the reboot did. This is what makes the ending's original so much stronger; it even displays Gwen's maturity because she doesn't shout or accuse her mother but calmly distances herself from Lili to prevent more fighting.

-Erico This long rambling chapter made Gwen's parents seem like children, had a mother suggest to her eleven-year-old that it was okay if a boy who likes her pinched her ass and had a nonsensical conflict. This chapter shows just how much Shadows59's skills have declined in seven years, which continues to sadden me.

I'm sorry whoever read the original and thought that Lili was the 'bad mother' wasn't paying attention to the story. In the original chapter that corresponds with this one, Lili shows that she has acknowledged her parenting flaws and is trying to change herself for the sake of her daughter. This is something Shadows59 was able to express in less than ten lines in the original. Yes, going into 'Breaking Point,' Sandra is shown to be an open and accepting mother whom Gwen often wishes to turn to more than her own mother, but that story wasn't finished. This, like many things, seems to be something Shadows59 should be putting into 'Breaking Point' and is instead forcing into this story where it doesn't belong. I disagree; Lili comes across as a far less interesting character because instead of her being a foil to Sandra, they seem to be treated as identical except that they have different parenting methods.

Saying things like "those able to read between the lines" is nothing but haughty nonsense as is "it would take the third or fourth read-through for most readers". If people cannot see what is being said 'between the lines', that is the failure of the author.

Who exactly thought the parents were one-dimensional? Manufactured drama within the story is bad enough, but having outside the story is intolerable. The difference between '2 AM' and this chapter is there the anxiety that Sandra was going through had something to do with the story and had lasting repercussions as the story went forward, this rambling nonsense does neither.

(As always, please go leave Shadows59 a nice positive review he won’t delete.)

[ark-of-eden]

R is drunk and raving (not in the party way).

(R:) Additionally, I’m procrastinating like a fucking champion at working on fic construction, so you know the best use of my time is going off about random social media crap on the internet.

tl;dr: Putting all commentary in tags on Tumblr makes R cry and shit thousands of words into the Internet.

Every social media site inevitably develops sets of unwritten social conventions. Some of them actually make sense as being derived from meatspace etiquette and therefore you don’t really have to stress about remembering them as long as you play nice like a decent creature.

And some of them just don’t make any fucking sense that I can see. Folks on Twitter using a deliberately space-limited form of media to write a page’s worth or more in a string of 30+ rapidfire tweets? This is just how it’s done over there? (Tweetlonger exists but for some reason these massive chain-tweeters never seem to use it. Same with posting the whole thing in a long-form site like LJ/DW/Tumblr and just linking it to a tweet.)

And Tumblr has things that I literally had to put effort into learning after I migrated here, and after I learned about them I frankly decided to ignore them because I couldn’t see the point in them. Tumblr has this bizarre allergy to commentary and, likely derived from that, the practice of instead commenting by putting it all in awkward tags that render the tagging system not especially useful and are harder to get to if you’re actually interested in an individual’s thoughts about a thing and not just the twelfth instance of the same post crossing your dash in a day or two. It’s not like you can’t engage with people, because asks and messaging and such exist, but like...there’s this strong sense that it’s Terribly Ill-Mannered to weigh in with your own impressions right there, in the body of the post, typing your own words in that seductive, wide-open text box that appears all on its own when you go to reblog something. The properly-socialized Tumblrite eschews that tempting text field and instead posts weird sentence fragments in tag form (interspersed with actual tags that might serve to usefully categorize the post’s content), to the extent that some people can add on a good couple paragraphs of material down among the hashtags where others need to go looking for it on purpose if they want it. (I, at least, haven’t been able to find a plugin or something that automatically expands full tags on all posts so that I don’t have to fuck around with extra interface elements to get to them. I admit that I haven’t looked super hard, though.)

Preserving the original form of the OP’s post is a noble practice that I heartily support, but how is adding commentary a problem if you’re only adding a separate thing, not taking away or altering anything in the original...? This was already a practice/convention/code of social interaction on Tumblr when I got here, so I was never in the front row to witness this element taking shape. I suppose it must have made good sense at the time, but every time I see ten people reblogging the same post with no additions and a paragraph of tags appended to it, it’s like a splinter in my brain that has been digging into me for years now.

And I’m not hating on people who do that! I get that that’s The Way It’s Done Here and I am the deviant weirdo for continually adding comments directly onto things that I reblog. Tags are where individuality lives here, unless you’re producing your own original posts, which I guess other people are then supposed to reblog without commentary so that you have to go hunting after all the reblogs individually if you want to get an actual sense of what these people were all thinking when they reblogged your thing. It all just seems...so...WORK INTENSIVE, refusing to use site functions as they were intended??

Look, I absolutely know that my commentary is not the work of incisive genius that unfailingly adds value to every post I find worthy of my attention. We’re pretty much solid shitposting on this blog. Because I’m a little loaded at the moment and that gives me a handy excuse to run my fingers like an idiot (plus I put that readmore up there, so if your eyes are actually consuming these words, you have only yourself to blame for being here), let me run down relevant history of how we got here.

LJ was home for a good long while. Then shit got seriously messed up and Dreamwidth was created as a better LJ, so we migrated all our stuff over there. And journaling sites along those lines still feel like a native environment. I, in particular, am the most long-winded piece of shit we know and I am honestly incapable of talking about anything of worth in short form. It’s a sickness and I just sort of have to own it. :/ But that’s why journaling sites are a good place for me to live, because that’s where people go when they have the inclination to read meandering scrawls about the depths of other people’s lives or whatever.

We went to Twitter for a good while because all the cool people we knew from LJ were going there for some unfathomable reason. These people wrote things that were complex and fascinating to read, so all of them jumping ship to a place that limited them to 140-character chunks made no damn sense, but we loved those people and wanted to trust that they knew what the hell they were doing. And they probably did, and a couple of us were actually okay with Twitter, but I, being the long-winded shitpiece, spent a lot of time frustrated and kind of overstimulated.

Then things started going to hell more and more consistently for me personally (and us generally by extension, but that’s unnecessary detail). Bunkering down specifically to protect people that you care about from the fallout of your crazy is a fairly common thing for mentally-ill people to do, I think. So I’d shut up online until I felt stable enough to talk to people again. Those periods lasted a few days, then a week or more, then a month, then eventually I stopped talking entirely. I missed the LJ/DW format, but in the past I’d written about life events and things I was thinking about and such, so...at the time, all I really had to write about was the bad stuff. So LJ/DW was basically unusable as well.

I literally came here to be as shallow as I could possibly manage. Tumblr had a rapid, chaotic flow similar to Twitter, but could hold longer content like LJ/DW. We’ve never really used the site’s full functionality at any point, though. For at least a year, all we were following was the most lightweight, zero-calorie entertainment that we could find. (We actually came here for Flight Rising content, so there was a lot of that.) Being engaged with fandom in any consistent respect is an extremely recent thing.

And I’m not saying that fandom hasn’t got depth and complexity because it absolutely does and that’s one of the beautiful things about shared fan experiences. I kind of got into that sort of fandom by accident after getting here and rediscovering Transformers. But the unvoiced policy that I’ve always had here is to avoid the Too Real and dodge serious topics whenever possible. Thus, no gender theory, no neurodivergence or multiplicity, no nonhumanity, no religion or UPG, nothing with real substance behind it that bared real vulnerabilities. (Apparently this was a good move anyway because the nonhuman and multiplicity situation here on Tumblr is a bit of a clusterfuck? I honestly wouldn’t know, as I haven’t made a lot of effort to link up with those folks.) That’s still the policy. That might remain the policy forever until I reach some vaguely-defined threshold of sanity that makes me worthy of talking about those things in places and formats that other people can interact with.

And I’m sorry for all this talk about mental illness, but it’s simpler just to explain things clearly. I likely won’t go into any more detail about it on Tumblr. Or anywhere else, because I care about people even if I’ve never met them or talked to them at all and I still want to keep it all in the bunker to protect good people from the crazy. Sometimes, all you can do is just prevent the damage from spilling out into other people’s lives, and that’s the place that I usually operate from.

I’m still pretty drunk, so I’m allowed to ramble from too much truth serum, but all of that explanation was to get around to saying that the format of online communication that is most intuitive to me is the long, oversharing gut-spill of random people talking about things that are really meaningful to them - not in the sense of elaborate philosophy or artsy epistles to the cosmos, but just people being super real about things that are meaningful to them and going into lots of detail about them because gushing about things you love is great. And it’s possible to get that sort of discussion and gushing in Tumblr fandom, and I love it because it reminds me of better times, and the fact that I love it is WHY IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMN FRUSTRATED that Tumblr culture is basically stifling discussion and feedback and RESPONSE to things that people find interesting!!

Like, here’s how I see it. Unlike on LJ/DW, where you were limited to hyperlinking to a cool post in one of your own posts if you wanted your readers to go check it out, on Tumblr, if you find a super cool thing, you can pull it directly into your space and let other people experience it directly, exactly as you experienced it. But the thing is, I also subscribe to the My Blog My House concept. If I pull a thing into my “home,” I do it because there’s something homelike about it; it belongs in my home for some specific reason. I don’t take “ownership” of an item in the sense that I’m claiming it in place of its creator, but I’m taking ownership of it in the sense that it’s part of my Stuff now and it’ll get my fingerprints all over it and be blended into the general morass of Stuff that I recognize as my home. I don’t just pull random crap into my home for no reason at all.

And I just figure that other people are similar in the sense that they reblog things for distinct, unique reasons, not in the sense that they have some master plan for their blog content (some do, but it’s not necessary), but just that they have compelling reasons why they pick certain bits of content out of the larger river of their dashboard and put it in their own space for people to experience with them. I follow people based on the interesting things that they find interesting. I’m interested in why they’re interested in those things. They seem like interesting people to me because they’re interested in what they’re interested in.

But the WHY is a really important part of the equation for me. Did this person reblog that photo because they’ve been to that place themselves, because they like that kind of tree, because they reblog photos with that color scheme every Thursday? Did that person reblog that piece of art because they love that character, because they’re studying that art medium, because it reminded them of something funny they saw somewhere else? People attach their own context to things that they latch onto. It’s so freaking weird to me that people have to hide their interpretations or impressions in tags here on Tumblr, making them unimportant and optional in the process of sharing things they like with others. (Okay, people also share a lot of things they hate, but reasons for outrage are still part of the context that one adds to content.)

I WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE SHOWING ME. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT TO YOU. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT MAKES YOU THINK AND FEEL. Even if it’s a blurb about how giant robots fuck or a cute kitten video, I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

Not in excruciating detail or with insightful analysis or even a lot of text at all. Mostly, the things that people put in tags are things that, to me, are a really crucial part of the experience of being able to go into someone’s “home” and see the Stuff that they chose to put in it. Reducing oneself to a glorified signal repeater is...okay, I guess, though it turns a Tumblr blog into a kind of faceless stream of other people’s material a lot of the time. The personal touch is what makes it all interesting. And I’m just unutterably frustrated that, somewhere along the line, it was decided that personalizing an experience by sharing one’s own impressions of it became rude enough that polite society decided that it had to be hidden away in tags. I want all of it, so I do go looking for it, but omg it requires MORE EFFORT and BURNING CALORIES and BODILY MOVEMENT and WAAAAH, you know what I mean. :P

And possibly Tumblr society is right and it’s done for a good, decent purpose and I’m being pigheaded and uncool by insisting on doing things my way without bothering to try and understand the local customs. I’m not usually that much of an asshole, but I am about this, for some reason. And I admit that my craving for those personal touches could very well spring from how utterly isolated and lonely I am, so maybe normal people really don’t need all the extra info and actually do just want mostly-impersonal streams of content. And that’s fine, since I know I’m kind of a weirdo even on my best days.

I’m pretty sure that that was all that I really wanted to say. I’m probably overreacting about the whole comments-in-tags thing. Like I said, it’s kind of an irrational irritation. Also, I need to stop before I write myself sober and no longer have an excuse for all of this. If you actually read all of that, you are an awesome, generous person and I’m pretty damn certain that I love you even though I have no idea who you are.