#people will reblog their own posts to add more points in a way that seems almost like formatting instead of a way of getting seen more | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hexiva · 1 year ago

Text

Roleplay Is Not Dead Nor Doth It Sleep

There's a post going around about how text-based, freeform roleplay is dead, and I was typing up a huge response to this, with an accompanying guide on how to find roleplayer in 2024, when I realized it might have a bigger reach if I made it its own post. So here's that guide.

I hesitate to say that there isn't a problem with the new format of social media making roleplay more difficult to find, but in the desire to make that point, the OP of the original post has left people with the idea that there's no way for them to get into freeform text roleplay in 2024. Which just isn't true! Here, look at all the ways.

Forums

The link to RPG-Directory to find roleplaying forums is a good start. Once you've found a forum RPG, even if you don't join, there's usually an 'advertising' section on that forum where other forum RPGs post their ads - this may help you to find forums that don't advertise on RPG-D.

Another really good forum to find roleplay on is Barbermonger. Barbermonger is focused on connecting people for one-on-one roleplays.

This last one's going to be weird, but it turns out that there are still people seeking roleplay on the Gaia Online forums after all these years. I think this is delightfully retro and then crowd there seems a little older than average. No pre-existing knowledge of Gaia required.

Tumblr

You can also find forum roleplay groups (as well as tumblr and Discord groups) right here on Tumblr. Usually, the thing to do is to use the search function - search for "[genre] rp" or "[fandom] rp" and sort by "latest." (If you sort by Top, you are likely to find dead RPs.) For example, here's fantasy rp, historical rp, and marvel rp. You can also try jcink rp, as most roleplay forums are hosted on Jcink these days, or discord rp, depending on your favored platform.

There are also tumblr blogs specifically dedicated to advertising roleplays. I'm not super familiar with these nowadays, but just in the process of searching those tags above, I found these:

Jcink Tinder

RPG Adverts

RPings

There are more, I just don't know them off the top of my head.

Listen, don't run away, I swear it's good now - I swear Reddit is good now -

Reddit is a good place to find Discord roleplays. It's a little heavier on smut-only roleplays than other platforms mentioned here, but it's not impossible to find sexless, plot-based roleplay here either. Most ads are for one on one RP, but you can find groups mixed in here too. The big subreddits for text-based freeform RP seem to be:

r/DiscordRP

r/RoleplayPartnerSearch

r/roleplaying

r/Roleplay

Some of these have weird rules about what you can put in your ad, and I don't remember which ones, so read carefully and don't get discouraged if your ad is initially removed.

Discord

In 2024, Discord is by far the biggest and most popular platform for roleplay, and it has its own native roleplay advertising hubs. Here are a bunch:

roleplay partner hub

Rockin Roleplay

The Roleplay Garden

roleplay help

the roleplay connection

RP Central

Roleplay Central

Roleplay Hub

Barbermonger also has a Discord server

Roleplay Meets: Reborn

RP Hub

The Scribes Guild

DM Rp Village

cherry blossom! roleplay hub

DM-RP

Roleplay Round Table (21+)

The Historical Syndicate (specifically for historical roleplay)

The Roleplayer's Directory

If you can't find the Discord roleplay you want on here, you can also try Discord hub websites, like Disboard. These work similar to tumblr tags - search for [genre] rp or [fandom] rp.

Other

The original post specifically mentions that 'all the old "omegle but for role play" type websites died out ages ago'. This is mostly true, but not quite! There's still Rolechat. It's a little janky, but what it needs more than anything is a bigger user base. Their Discord server is also a good place to find one on one discord roleplay. It is, of course, free, but if you want to support its development, they have a patreon.

Please reblog this post, and add your own tips on how to find roleplay!

#roleplay #rp #fandom rp #discord rp #jcink rp

5K notes · View notes

iri-desky · 2 months ago

Note

iri my dear, you seem to know something about this. what is happening with dream/the dsmp. did they restart or smt? did dream say something stupid again?

im gathering its a mix of both of those but i have no clue if they correlate or idek:

HELLOOO Soda my friend!! Longtime no see!!

Okay so. Tw slurs and grooming mention

So, at one point, on Tommy and Jack's podcast, Shut Up I'm Talking, Tommy offhandedly, jokingly mentioned he didn't like Mizkif. This got Tommy in a little argument with XQC on twt-- it really wasn't anything that bad, they were just firing insults at each other, and it was mostly pretty silly (mainly on Tommy's side. XQC was just being salty but Tommy was handling it like "haha cringe" trying not to provoke too much). And TOTALLY UNPROMPTED. WITHOUT WARNING. MIND YOU THE SITUATION HAD LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM. DREAM BARGES INTO THE THREAD AND PROCEEDS TO MAKE A MEME THAT SINGLEHANDEDLY CALLS TOMMY'S ENTIRE FANBASE THE R SLUR.

Literally. Now for obvious reasons people were outraged, and three hours later Dream comes back and claims that he doesn't understand the backlash by revealing in the weirdest way possible he actually doesn't just have adhd, and is also autistic (i add this comment every time I explain this; "uh, go off ig") and therefore can allegedly "reclaim it" (even though that's not how you reclaim slurs, and even then that specific word is so bad that even ND people want to kill it with fire).

Now obviously this set off a chain reaction of events and replies and people going nuts, including an asinine explanation post he made on reddit (now deleted, pictured below).

This went on up until recently, whereupon Tubbo decided to get involved and set up a stream with Dream to talk about it. Dream discussed a variety of things during the stream (here's a post that just outlines all the crap he said in a lighthearted way for your own sanity) but basically, dream victimized himself the whole stream (two or three hours) and basically kept on screwing himself by mentioning more and more insane crap that happened once upon I time?? To defend himself??? One of them actually involved confessing that he allowed p●rn to be shown in a vc involving minors back during smp era. What was he thinking. The most awful part is that he barely even mentioned the event that started this whole thing at all and just redirected all the attention to other things, which, unsurprisingly, just made him look WORSE.

Naturally, Twitter is going ballistic, which includes plenty of the old dsmp members and bloggers weighing in ("happy dsmp reunion everyone").

Friendly reminder that all of this could've been avoided if Dream didn't spontaneously stick his nose into an argument that didn't involve him in any way whatsoever.

TL;DR: yes, Dream said something very, very stupid again and Twitter is going insane. As time goes on and Dream tries to defend himself, he's SOMEHOW making all the moves that just make himself look much, much, MUCH worse.

Hope this helps 👍🏽👍🏽 !!

(I'll be marking this with all the usual tags, so if this helped anyone else understand the situation, feel free to like, reply, or reblog! I'm just happy to help)

#iritheyapper💬#Dsmp #Dream smp #Dreamwastaken #Mcyt #Dream drama #Dream controversy #Drama #Controversy #Tommyinnit #Birdbox🕊

161 notes · View notes

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 1 month ago

Text

Meet the Family 9

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, reference to suicide and Lloyd being offensive, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Your boss needs a last-minute favour for the holidays.(petite!reader)

Characters: Lloyd Hansen

Note: Thanks for all your patience.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Asking for more or putting ‘part 2?’ is not feedback.

Love you all. You are appreciated and your are worthy. Treat yourself with care. 💖

Migraines always leave you a bit foggy. Like a hangover, or even a concussion. You power through the airport, waiting in line with your mustachioed curse. Lloyd taps his toe incessantly, adding to the plethora of overstimulation all around you. This isn’t how you envisioned your holidays.

It’s the 26th and you’re supposed to be on your way home, not catching the flight you booked for two days before. And alone. You’re supposed to be alone.

You take your boarding pass and leave Lloyd’s for him to grab himself. He huffs and follows after you. He’s like a big dumb dog sometimes. It’s amazing that the realization only comes over you then. It’s pretty obvious when he’s not behind a desk growling like some mafioso. He’s no kingpin, he’s a clown.

You drop into a seat, your carry-on beside you, and he claims the seat to your left. He’s on the edge, jiggling his leg. You could thank him for upgrading you both to first class but he’s the reason you’re even there. It’s the least he could do.

You cross your arms and stare through the haze. The first-class lounge is quiet and softly lit. Isolated but for the pest next to you. He continues to fidget. Is he nervous? You didn’t think that was possible since he seems to lack any degree of self-awareness.

“So, gimme the down low. You got a mom? Girl like you screams daddy issues. Is he still around?”

You sigh. “Sure is.”

“Wow, okay. Good guy? Strict? Shit, knowing you, he must be a hard ass,” he scoffs. “Should I put on my best behaviour? Should I have worn a tie, Pixie pie?” He tugs at the collar of his turtleneck.

“What you can do is hush,” you retort. “Jesus, I’m tryna get my head together.”

“Last night was wild,” he agrees, though it’s not the point you were making, nor a statement of fact. “We were so close, Pix. You shoulda just laid back and let the magic hands do their tricks. Promise,” he smooths his mustache, “this isn’t just for show. I’ve been told it adds a lot of sensation--”

“Ew. Would you—if you even say any of that in front of my family--”

“You gonna spank me?” He asks brightly and sits back, slinging an arm over the back of your chair.

“Please. I have to at least make this believable and you’re not making it any easier,” you snarl.

“Are you serious? Our chemistry is like if Einstein banged a beaker--”

“Einstein was a physicist--”

“Science is science, baby. All I know is there’s something here and the sooner you accept it, the harder I’ll-- I mean the easier this will be.”

You look at him dully. All those years you spent bending over backward for him. Behind the mask, he’s a cretin. You always had a suspicion but he was never your creep to deal with.

“How do you do that?” He asks.

You grumble and shake your head, turning your glare to the flat screen across from you.

“How the hell do you skin a man with your eyes? It’s bone tingling and boner-inducing, but damn, it’s something else,” he shifts in his chair noticeably, “you’re gonna make me fly all the way to Canada at half-mast?”

“You can book a seat across the plane from me if you’re going to keep on,” you warn him. “I’m really not in the mood. We have a deal. I’ll do my part. Pretend, nothing more, and you’ll keep your hands to yourself and give me my money.”

“I got it, baby. I’m a businessman,” he turns straight and plants his feet wide. “I make deals every day. You’ll get yours.”

“I want an advance--”

“An advance? What the hell do you mean? I paid for first-class. Elite,” he punctuates with his finger. “Advance, my juicy ass.”

“Ten. In my account. Before take-off.”

“Pfft, you don’t trust me?”

“No, I don’t,” you affirm. “More so, you owe me. I defaulted on the refund on the flight you made me miss. Oh, and I didn’t get to see my family. On Christmas.”

“Jeez, well you don’t seem that happy to,” he accuses.

“Money, now.”

“Fine, but I get one titty grab--”

“You get nothing. Mon-ey.” You rub your fingers together.

He huffs and leans forward as he takes his phone out. He rolls his eyes and taps around on the screen. He takes a deep breath then pushes down. He shows you the screen. “Go ahead and check. You got your blood money.”

“This is your idea,” you retort.

“It is my idea but you’re rejecting all my other ones. Like, you know, a sexy massage with a happy ending...”

“You’re going to give me another headache.”

“I’ll take it. At least I make you feel something.” He shrugs.

You shake your head at nothing and check your phone. You can never be too careful with him. Sharing a room has more than proven that.

🎁

You put the in-flight earbuds in and resign yourself to the hours ahead of you, trapped in a flying canister, next to this incessant man-child. He really brings out the bitch in you. That irritates you even more. You could do anything before without much thought at all; you just got through but Lloyd makes everything a task.

You close your eyes as the video babbles on. It’s a new release, but those are all remakes and sequels without any real interest. The altitude does little for the shadow of achiness that lingers in the base of your skull. One wrong move and you’ll reawaken your migraine.

The steady thrum of air around the plane lulls you in a stupor. Just enough for you to stop caring but not deep enough for sleep. You let your head fall toward the window and sink into the numb daze.

A small tickle makes you shift. You think nothing of it. It’s so small, it could be nothing. Then the sensation travels down to your knee and back up your thigh. You smack Lloyd’s hand before he can repeat the action.

“Quit,” you hiss.

He spreads his hand and curls his fingers into your tender flesh. You squeak and open your eyes, clasping onto his wrist as he needs. It’s as if he pinching your nerves.

“Ow, oh, stop--” you protest.

“Come on, baby,” he leans over and winks. “Just let me pet the kitty. It’ll help you relax.”

“How many times can I tell you the same thing--”

“Just like a dog, you need to be repetitive. Conditioning or whatever,” he purrs.

You glance past him at the low wall blocking out your seats from the sight of the other pods in first class. You clutch his two middle fingers and squeeze. You bend them back until he grunts and recoils.

“You touching me isn’t going to make me relax--”

“Never know if you don’t try,” he wiggles his brows.

“Trust me, I know.”

“I’m sure your family don’t need you in a pissy mood. I’m doing it for them, Pixie.”

“Can I ask you something?” You narrow your eyes, “does the begging usually work?”

He snorts. He shakes his head and sits back, raising his palms, “you will be flattered to know I don’t usually beg.” He leans against the seat and rests his head on the cushion. “When I tell a girl to hike her skirt up, she just does it. All of them but you.” He clucks and rolls his eyes. “You know that pretty blond from Pristine? Yeah, whenever she comes around, I got her bent over the desk. Thought you’d catch on, she’s not very quiet.”

You won’t grace him with an excuse. You don’t need one. You’re usually busy, minding your own business, running his errands. You never cared about his office flings.

“Maybe you should’ve asked her to meet your family,” you suggest.

“Kidding me? She never shuts up. I gotta stuff my tie in her mouth. Usually why I turn her around--”

“Lloyd,” you snap.

“Jealous?” He smirks and you stare back blankly. “You know what? Gotta admit, you surprised me, Pixie Pie. Always quiet in the office, scurrying around like a little mouse. I figured you’d be good because you’d keep the yapper shut. Turns out, you know how to cut deep.” He pushes his shoulders wide and settles. “Never saw mom like that. Or Lillian. Yeah, that was good. You really got her.”

He snickers and flutters his fingers menacingly. You yawn and look at the small screen. You don’t know what’s going on in the movie. What you do know is that Lloyd Hansen has more issues than one person can solve and you’re not there for anything but business. This is work. You’re getting your money and you’re moving on.

🎁

Landing is usually a relief. You’re always happy to be on solid ground but it feels shaky as you walk off with your travel companion. The bounce in Lloyd’s step concerns you. He’s much too eager for this.

He grabs his bags from the carousel, yours too before you can even approach. He loads them all onto a car and steers it around the airport. He’s whistling as you get through the terminal and head for the front doors. As you step outside, he chatters and stops short.

“Holy grizzly dick, it’s freezing here,” he puffs a cloud of steam as his nose tints pink.

“There’s not much more snow here than back in the States.”

“Nah, it’s fucking frigid. Should’ve known,” he shivers and tucks his chin down. You make note of his snipe but don’t acknowledge it. “You maple drinkers drive on the same side of the road?” You glare at him and he winces as he meets your eyes. You’ve booked him trips to Vancouver several times. “Kidding. Obviously. That whole polite stereotype is bullshit, huh, Pix.”

You ignore him and hail a cab. You just want to be still. The last few days, you’ve been upended. The long drive, his family, the hotel, then a plane ride on top of it all. You’re ready to just stop.

He wheels the cart around to the trunk and leaves it to the driver to load. You want to admonish him but you’re over the argument. You know you’re going to need your energy. You get in and he climbs in with you.

He blows into his hands then rubs his cheek. “Santa dropped a load on this place, huh?” He unzips his coat and reaches under it. He fishes around the inside pocket and slips out a pair of glasses. You furrow your nose. You’ve never seen him wear glasses.

“Where did you get those?”

“Hipster boy in coach. Snagged them when I hit the restroom,” he explains and pops them on, leaning against you as he cranes to see his reflection in the rear-view mirror.

“You stole glasses?”

“Borrowed,” he insists then turns to you. “What’d ya think? Am I the perfect good boy for mom and pop?”

“You think glasses are gonna do something?”

“We talked about this, we gotta be convincing, sweetheart. I gotta be a man that sweet lil Pixie would go for.” He adjusts the glasses. “I read Hemingway and have a degree in Social Justice.”

“Shut--” you catch yourself and sniff. “I don’t even like Hemingway.”

“Jane Austen? Really? A romantic?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’d say. We have to at least pretend we can stand each other. Not just...” he looks down at his lap, “stand for each other.”

“Ugh, well, start with cutting out those nasty remarks. Second, try, uh, taking care of...” you gesture over your lip, “this.”

He blinks and his brows draw together. He touches his upper lip, “my mustache?” His eyes widen behind the lenses. “Um, this is style, honey.”

You scrunch your lips as you try not to laugh. He really believes that. You shrug as the driver gets in. He crosses his arms.

“Whatever. Judge me but don’t just the stache,” he snips. “So, you gotta tell me. Favourite book.”

“Do I?”

“Well, we’re ‘engaged’ so I think I should know,” he argues.

You watch through the windshield as the taxi follows the airport traffic to the street, “The Bell Jar. If I have to choose one.”

“Oooh, Plath. How... depressing. But I knew it, you’re a reader, Pixie. Bet you like to sink into a hot tub and get cozy with a good novel. You get the kinky one, let the hand wander below the surface--”

You elbow him and he cackles. “Alright, sorry. I just—a man’s used to eating daily.”

“Maybe a diet will do you well,” you retort.

“Cheat day will come soon enough,” he says. “I’ll do my best to keep my pants on, just don’t go putting your head in any ovens.”

“You’re awful,” you exclaim. “That’s awful.”

“Alright,” he combs his hair back, “gonna be a good boy. Promise.”

“You can take the glasses off.”

“I kinda like ‘em,” he grins and pinches the arms.

You make a face but say nothing. The city passes by and your eyes gloss over the familiar sights. The taxi drops you at the rental place and you pull up the booking. There’s at least an hour before you get outside Toronto, then another to your mom’s place. You take the keys and jingle them at Lloyd.

“Wanna drive?” You ask.

“I don’t really know where I’m going,” he says.

“Right.”

“Besides, Pixie, you got control issues.”

“Me?” You scoff. “Sure.”

“Oh, you do,” he assures you as you cross the lot to the rental. “Once you give in to them, you’ll be a lot happier and I'll be your perfect sub.”

You pop the trunk and tut as you approach the driver’s side, “get the bags in the car, would ya?”

#lloyd hansen #dark lloyd hansen #dark!lloyd hansen #lloyd hansen x reader #series #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #meet the family #the gray man

143 notes · View notes

whatbigotspost · 9 months ago

Text

I’m gonna start coining tumblr specific cognitive biases and logical fallacy terms…here’s the first ones I’ve theorized so far. (I’m using “actor” here meaning “the person, acting out the fallacy or bias for us all to see.”)

1. The unique contribution fallacy—reading a post of over 10k notes and the actor thinks of something they surmise is very clever to add. The actor imagines themselves to be the first special unique soul to contribute this add, when OP has actually received this “clever” comment 5000 times of those 10,000 notes driving OP up the wall.

2. The whataboutism bias— reading a post on any given particular topic, and believing that OP should say every single thing that you could possibly say about that topic under said single post. The actor doesn’t know they have a personal agenda on the topic and expects OP would have that same bias to talk about the side of the given topic that correlates to the actor’s personal bias, instead of allowing OP to be somebody who just writes what they wanted to write. This often works in tandem with…

3. The TLDR bias— seeing a post that is actually extremely long and thoroughly well written, often times with sources, numerous added threads of detail etc. but the actor doesn’t actually read the content of the FULL post. Then, in reblogging it or commenting on it, “adding” something that OP definitely originally said, and revealing oneself as somebody who doesn’t even read the detailed things that they re-blog or add on comments about.

3. The literal URL fallacy— not understanding the total chaos that is the Tumblr URL, in this fallacy the actor thinks that someone’s username is ALWAYS telling you exactly what the content of their blog might be. I’ll illustrate this one in like a totally random example way… Let’s say that you hypothetically made a blog that was all about calling out bigots back in the days of yore, the early twenty teens. And yet somehow, despite the fact that every other user around you seems to not be taken literally by their URLs, the actor decides that everything that you post is therefore bigotry…….even if what you’re posting is your own original content that you’re writing, calling out bigots. Too bad, so sad! Because in this fallacy, the actor is going to see you as what your URL says, literally, always.

4. The missed URL fallacy— this of course is the exact opposite of number three. It is where a blog has a very particular theme and format to it, that is the most important thing you can notice to understand the context of a post. So, again, just a random example here… But let’s just say that the intent of a blog is to always post submitted weird ass dreams people had, but the actor doesn’t realize this in their relogging and thinks that somebody is reporting a real life situation that was definitely, very specifically a wild fever dream.

5. The throw the baby out with the bathwater bias— a fan favorite among left leaning and social justice corners of the site, this bias is when the actor reads a post where somebody doesn’t use the most optimal, virtue signaling language for them personally, so the actor ignores the whole entire point of the post. It could be something as serious as and attention demanding as genocide, but somebody uses a word like “crazy” or “stupid” or “bitch” in it and so the actor’s worldview and general proclaimed values are casually tossed aside because the language that was used to deliver it was not “perfect.”

6. The choose your own reality bias—The actor reads a post and reblogs it, adding commentary that is responding to things that are definitely not said in the original post and definitely not anything in the realm of what OP was talking about. Close cousin to…

7. The this is definitely about me/self-own fallacy— this one is actually one of my favorites to spot out in the wild because it is SUCH a tell. It is like a slightly more specific version of the “choose your own reality bias” but this is when the actor reads a post and blogs it, adding commentary that is responding to things that are definitely not said in the original post as if OP is talking about them personally, and therefore revealing themselves as potentially shady or suspect in someway because why did they make it about them, if it’s not about them, you know?

8. The zombie post fallacy—in this one, the actor most likely does not have time stamps enabled on their dash because that isn’t something that happens here by default, and this site has a higher presence of zombie posts (by the way its designed and how it functions) than any other social media site I know. So when a zombie post from 2011 shambles across their dash in 2024, they react to that content as if it is completely new and relevant information or news or a situation to be dealt with in the modern era.

What needs added?

#tumblr shit #cognitive bias #logical fallacies #this is part joke part real 😂

221 notes · View notes

telomeke · 2 months ago

Text

MY 2024 TUMBLR TOP 10

Yes I'm really late with this (totally on-brand for me 🤣) but that is the downside of waiting for 2024 to end before posting about it – and then taking too long to complete the task. Still, better late than never!

I was tagged to do this by @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle at this post here. Thanks dearie! 🥰 (And if you'd like to play along too, there's no need to trawl through your posts manually, thank heaven. Just go to this website – Jet Black Code – and it'll list your Top 10 Tumblr posts in seconds. 👍😊)

So my activity on Tumblr (particularly writing about Thai BL) took a serious dip in 2024 (especially the latter half) for a number of reasons:

Work has ramped up in the post-COVID era, with work projects now coming onstream fast and furious. This has left me with a lot less time outside of work, which translates to less time for QL-watching, and (obviously) also less time to post about it.

My favorite queer auteur Aof Noppharnach Chaiyahwimhon has decided to step back from writing and directing (see these posts here and here), and in his absence I'm finding that non-Aof QL offerings are (perhaps unsurprisingly) disappointingly patchy in quality, which has turned QL-watching into a bit of a crapshoot (and less of a draw). With my short attention span I frankly need a show to be arresting in some way to stay committed – although I must add here that I don't need it to be highbrow art, just entertaining enough without being unduly insulting to the gray matter. So even a trashy series is fine as long as it's made clear to us we have to leave our loftier expectations at the door (memories of KinnPorsche flashing in my mind here – which also tells me my gray matter can handle quite a barrage of insulting if a show is entertaining enough 🤣). I was momentarily heartened by the promise of Khun Aof helming the GeminiFourth vehicle Ticket to Heaven in 2025 (such a beautiful trailer, a lush mini-movie almost), but I've come around to thinking this is more of an activist statement by him (commenting on the mainstream Christian/Catholic position vis-à-vis LGBTQ+ issues, remembering also that Khun Aof has a Catholic background). With this as the context, there's a high chance this show will never get made due to various sensitivities (but I live in hope nonetheless!):

youtube

With Khun Aof taking more of a backseat, my main feed for BL – GMMTV – seems to have pressed the pause button on more thought-provoking fare in favor of shows that are more formulaic and mass-market (read: vehicles for their branded couples, squarely aimed at the less discriminating and freer-spending sectors of the squealing teen audience). I've written more about it at these links here and here. And it's tough to keep watching GMMTV series when the plots don't deviate much from a well-worn template, rehashing narrative tropes because the formula is a proven money-spinner. A case in point: Kidnap the Series – never thought I'd give up on a show brimming with episode upon episode of a macho, shirtless, simping Ohm Pawat, but all that radiant manflesh still wasn't enough to keep me interested, which simply goes to show how dire the situation is. 😬🤷‍♂️ And with GMMTV enticing me less and less, I've been posting even less about BL as a result too.

Anyway, this explains why I have more original posts in the first half of 2024, while the latter half was mostly reblogs of other people's posts (and in keeping with the dictates of the game I'm only listing my own posts here, for what it's worth).

So after all that, on to my Top 10 for 2024:

✨NUMBER 1✨

My most popular post of the year was about a mysterious monk who inexplicably kept popping up in various Thai BLs: 👀

Appearing in Bad Buddy, KinnPorsche and The Sign, he was also sighted in non-BLs Pee Nak (still LGBTQ+ friendly), The Cave, Hemimeta, The Believers and The Murderer, resolutely a monk in all but the last one.

So working collectively, the BL fandom somehow managed to track down and identify the actor who plays everyone's favorite BL-friendly monk – he's Werawat Jumroensarn, not actually a monk in real life but nonetheless still a highly-religious Thai Buddhist who adroitly brings a sagely, monastic vibe to all his roles. The Thai BL fandom salutes you, Khun Werawat! 🙏💖

‌

✨NUMBER 2✨

This post was an explainer for the sudden flood of videos and GIFs on Tumblr showing Babe Tanatat all dressed up in traditional costume finery and performing a ceremonial dance somewhere outside Bangkok, while Billy Patchanon flapped about him gaily and garudaesquely in decidedly more normcore and less flashy garb.

The event turned out to be a worship ceremony put on by Idol Factory in faraway Nakhon Phanom, to honor the Great Naga of the Mekong even as The Sign deployed naga and garuda mythology in its storytelling, making waves here on Tumblr for fusing Thai supernatural beliefs with BL.

It was a highly respectful gesture from Idol Factory, thanking the nagas for allowing a representation of their story to be told as part of The Sign. Also respectful was the decision to have Billy abstain from the performance, probably because he was playing one of the garudas (who are mortal enemies of the nagas). All of which goes to show just how much belief in the spiritual and supernatural is woven throughout everyday life in Thailand. 👍

Babe, Heng and Songjet's little dance video at the link above is also breathtakingly beautiful. If I were the Naga being worshipped I'd certainly feel very honored indeed. 😍

‌

✨NUMBER 3✨

Ooh. 😵 This was one sex-drenched post, all about the visual rhetoric surrounding Tharn and Phaya's first time consummating their forbidden love and lust for each other (at least in their current reincarnations) as portrayed in The Sign:

So hot was the subject matter that despite my clinical descriptions and focus on the art direction, Tumblr's wonky algorithms (or possibly just some overworked backroom staff? 😂) decided that it was all too... too... (swoons into a deathly faint here) unseemly for the delicate constitution of the average Tumblrina in the BL fandom. (Yeah, right. Did no one survive KinnPorsche, Pit Babe or Playboyy??? 🤣)

And so they BLOCKED IT. Not once, but TWICE, which sent me scurrying to Admin with a flurry of appeals and explanations (that finally succeeded in getting the post reinstated, thank goodness). 😬

But really, all I was doing was noting how the lighting, colors, props and cinematography were working together to echo the breathless sensuality throbbing onscreen, when our two protagonists gave in to primordial desires much greater than themselves and attempted to unite their bodies as much as they could to counterbalance the heavily pre-ordained intertwining of their souls.

I think Idol Factory did a great job all around with this scene (both the players in front of the lens as well as those behind it). But was my post really all that raunchy though? I'll have to let you decide. 🤔

(above) The Sign Ep.7 [5/5] 19.47 – Phaya hungrily tops a gasping Tharn, even while a hard-working lamp from the Austin Powers range of home furnishings tries its best to do double duty: casting a sexy magenta light on everything while clumsily censoring any possible glimpse of Nagaruda penis and buttcrack 🤣

‌

✨NUMBER 4✨

Ah. Hmmm. 👀 Oops! Well, well...

I assure you, gentle reader and fellow BL fan, that I am not wholly possessed of a one-track mind – and yet somehow the next post here has also managed to turn all sexy and magenta while winking slyly at unspoken meanings hidden between the lines. Again. 🤣

Taking my Number 4 spot is a light-hearted post about Wandee Goodday nodding tongue-in-cheek at some legendary Thai porn, and this sideways jokery also shone as an example of WDGD's early charm, wit and intelligence. There was so much to look at and write about in the series, and I was especially taken with the lighting and art direction (all that yellow and magenta, standing in for Yoryak and Wandee) that I wrote reams about it.

But then… I decided not to post any of that, when the latter half of the show began to wander woozily about, punch drunk and semi-directionless, leading to an ending that turned out to be quite a letdown.

They squandered the obvious chemistry between the two leads and allowed a promising sexbuds-to-soulmates love story to meander to an unsatisfying conclusion. So many clever elements, but all set free to run wildly in a plethora of uncoordinated directions. This one disappointed me in the end, and it makes me sad to think of what might have been. But its fun moments were fun indeed, so I guess it's not a total loss. Inn Sarin really needs to start dialling back on the plastic surgery though. 😂

‌

✨NUMBER 5✨

Oh thank goodness there was 4 Minutes for us to lose our minds over collectively in 2024. Sleek, shiny, sexy – and that was just Great's car collection (the show itself, even more so 🥰).

Ah the mystery of it all! So convoluted was the Sammon plot that I found myself churning out post after post (work deadlines be damned) trying to guess at the underlying logic coursing beneath the spooky narrative onscreen, adding to the roiling cauldron of fan theories on Tumblr aiming to explain it all.

In the end Be On Cloud chose a more middle-of-the-road resolution, but there's no denying 4 Minutes captured the imaginations of so many. I remained impressed through to the end, and I will say it again: Director Ning Bhanbhassa Dhubthien is one to watch, especially if her sure hand is allowed to rein in the excesses of Khun Pond and Dr. Sammon's wilder imaginings.

But my most popular post about 4 Minutes wasn't anything to do with the screenwriting, cinematography or directing though. 🤔

As usual, a pithy take (only nine words!) is easier to like and reblog on Tumblr, and all I did was point out a cute detail about the merchandise – when you place the black and white cat plushies (standing in for Great and Tyme) side-by-side, the random color blocks on the side of each, marring the individual symmetry, form a perfect and symmetrical heart when it's cats à deux:

And of course this is signaling how each completes the other in GreatTyme's unconventional, multi-pronged love story. Big AWWWW here 💖, but then again let's not forget how DARK it all is so let's go in with a black-and-white color scheme to remind us we ain't in Hello Kitty World, but also let's not get too dark so it's soft soft kitties all the way, but oh dear that's too cute so let's give them grumpy, frowny faces and make them look as malevolent as can be. Oh! But how then did we end up with MALEVOLENT cat plushies, spawn of brooding kittenish evil, pets and pride of Chucky? Then again, why not malevolent cat plushies for the win? 🤣

I can't help thinking the constant push and pull between commercial considerations versus artistic vision in Thai BL will always follow a similar trackway, though Be On Cloud seems to have done a better job with 4 Minutes than GMMTV on most of their offerings, is my take on the subject. 😍

‌

✨NUMBER 6✨

OK, so I'm not watching The Heart Killers, nor have I ever seen The Taming of the Shrew (that one episode of Moonlighting and 10 Things I Hate About You don't count), but nonetheless it tickled me no end to see Shakespeare credited as a co-creator on My Drama List for this series, and my Number 6 post was a signal boost for that:

This wasn't just some editor at MDL having a lark, though I do approve. Willie Shakes is also credited on other Asian productions there (As We Like It and The Banquet) and he now has his own MDL page too. 😂👍

Anyway, credit where credit is due! 😍 (Move over Mr. Kaewpanpong, a new William has joined the BL fold. 🤣)

‌

✨NUMBER 7✨

If you've ever been mystified by the vagaries of romanized Thai spelling and pronunciation, my favorite Thai (and Canadian) chef Pailin Chongchitnant has a nifty little vid that goes some way to explain its complexity, linked in this post:

Prior to this, I had so many questions: 🤣

Why does Pat in Bad Buddy spell his name with an 'h'? Why does Google Translate spell his name with an 'r', and why does the Google lady pronounce it Pat-tara?

Still in BBS, why does Pran's mom call him (to my ears) Bprrraan when Pa calls him Bpaan? (Like, where did the 'r' go?🤷‍♂️)

What's up with the 'l' in Tul Pakorn's name sounding more like an 'n'? WHAT DO YOU MEAN Suvarnabhumi is pronounced more like Suwannapoom!? 👀😂

I now have a better understanding of the linguistic (and socio-political/cultural) contortions going on behind the scenes here after watching Pai's video, and I hold her encouraging words to heart (as dear @recentadultburnout reminded me in a comment on the post 🥰): "Whatever you do, it's just all various degrees of wrong." 🤣 Not a put-down, simply Pai letting us know that the language is far more complex than can be summarized with the puny 26 letters of the English alphabet. 👍🤩

‌

✨NUMBER 8✨

A little out of character for me, but this post has no images. And then it starts out with "There are no words..." when the post is all words. 🤣

It's really a short post about the whiplash we all went through when the arguably milk-and-water Last Twilight aired its episodes on the same day as the sex-forward Omegaverse-inhabiting Pit Babe. Really, there are no words that can do the experience justice. 🤣

‌

✨NUMBER 9✨

Are we descending into a pattern here? 🤣 Post Number 9 consists of a single image and no text (except for the subtitles):

Well I did caption it in the ALT Text though: 🤣

Wandee Goodday Ep.6 [4/4] 8.06 – Yoryak references the night it all began, when he rescued a trashy pile of a doctor outside a convenience store

‌

✨NUMBER 10✨

And rounding up my Top 10 was a signal boost bit of BL reportage, linking to the GoyNattyDream in-car interview on YouTube with Mew Suppasit and Tul Pakorn, BL royalty and officially a couple in real life:

Mew and Tul had soft-launched confirmation of their romance in the months preceding with tons of social media posts showing them hanging out and holidaying together, but from what I can gather this was the first time (or if not the first, at least one of the earliest times) they out-and-out confirmed their relationship, and candidly spoke about it, on the record. 💖

A big step for Thai BL, that paradoxically has to operate in an industry where people in positions of influence can sometimes be homophobic to actors who are (or even suspected of being) queer in real life. 👀

Congratulations to the happy couple, and congratulations to you too, dear reader, if you've read this post all the way down to here!

Not much else to do but tag others – although this is so late I figure everyone's already done it. But since I've not been on Tumblr much I've missed who's done it and who's not, so I'm just going to tag people at random, and if you've already done this please link me to your post so I can read it. 🥰 And even if I've not tagged you but you'd like to play please do so (and tag me too, so I can read your post)!

Onward tagging:

@bengiyo

@neuroticbookworm

@dribs-and-drabbles

@solitaryandwandering

@airenyah

@grapejuicegay

@waitmyturtles

@twig-tea

@rythyme

@respectthepetty

@relativelydimensional

@wen-kexing-apologist

@colourme-feral

@ranchthoughts

@chickenstrangers

@callipigio

@kattahj

@non-binarypal7

@starryalpacasstuff

@shortpplfedup

@hughungrybear

@pandasmagorica

@visualtaehyun

@inventedfangirling

@recentadultburnout

@dimplesandfierceeyes

@dudeyuri

@lovelyghostv

@dc-alves

@fiddlepickdouglas

@hapiestupid

@yinwaryuri

@writerwithoutsound

@randompens

@nihilisticcondensedmilk

@syrinth

@naniskys

@delesaria-blog

@narcissusneverknewme

@pokomumee

@suni-san

@belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas

@aroceu

@italianpersonwithashippersheart

Tagging @lurkingshan too – I already read and reblogged your post (linked here), but if you think there are others I should check out please do let me know! 💖

‌

#2024 tumblr top 10 #YouTube

56 notes · View notes

am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 year ago

Note

AITA for asking someone not to make my art about a ship I hate?

This happened a couple months ago, but I’m still kinda unsure if I handled it correctly.

Basic rundown of events: I posted some art of a character on their own in the evening, and when I woke up the next morning, someone had reblogged with an addition about a ship that’s a big notp for me. I messaged them to ask they delete it as politely as possible, because people had been interacting with that version of the post specifically and it made me uncomfortable. They responded by saying I was being immature and needed to learn not to police what other people do on the internet. We exchanged a couple more messages, and I tried to explain my position my throughly. Neither of us was overtly hostile or anything, but I felt extremely talked down to by their tone of voice. After our conversation, we both blocked each other, and that was that. They never did delete their addition.

Why I think I might be TA: we weren’t exactly friends or anything. Neither of us followed each other. I’d seen them around in the fandom, and they’d reblogged some of my art in the past, but I think messaging someone I didn’t know instead of just blocking them might have been a bit of an overreach. Plus the ship in question is canon, and not particularly controversial or anything, so most people in the fandom probably wouldn’t have minded.

On the other hand, the ship being so unavoidable is a big part of the reason it upset me so much. It’s hard for me to exist in this fandom without having to see it constantly, and I don’t even ever mention the other character in it for fear of this exact thing happening. I’ve had people be assholes on my posts about the ship I prefer, or go out of their way to interpret my romantic posts about them platonically, or add tags to my art about how they only like my ship as backstory and not endgame. I don’t want to have to put a disclaimer every single time I post about this fandom. I just want to enjoy the things I like without being negative all the time. Which is why I figured messaging privately was more polite than making a stink where everyone could see. I specifically mentioned that I knew they wouldn’t have known and wasn’t mad.

No one actually ended up reblogging their addition, which is also a strike against me, but I got a lot of likes on specifically that version of the post, which made me scared they were going to. I hated the idea of having to turn off reblogs on a piece I’d worked pretty fucking hard on because a version I found so upsetting was in circulation. If it was just tags, I’d have blocked, but it being an addition is different. I don’t think asking people not to make my posts about it is “policing what other people do on the internet”. You’re in MY house, on MY post with MY art I spent hours on. Making additions to art posts already seems somewhat rude to me, that’s just not something you do, but I guess that’s a matter of the corner of tumblr culture you’re used it.

Also, their response felt very aggressive and condescending. They implied I was, like, a kid, and I do think I’m somewhat younger than them, but the only information about my age in my bio at the time was that I’m an adult, so it felt like a rude assumption. My age doesn’t have anything to do with it.

Again, though, I do absolutely see how my initial message could read as entitled. During the rest of our messaging, I did lose my temper a little bit at one point; I said something about how I’ve had to deal with shit in this fandom before, and I don’t remember the exact words since, again, we both blocked each other, but I know I swore at them. That might’ve come across as more aggressive than I wanted, and probably didn’t exactly help deescalate. (Can’t say for sure, I don’t have their side of the story)

Like I said, this situation was a bit ago now, but it upset me pretty bad at the time, and I’m still not entirely sure who’s in the wrong. So, AITA?

(Also to get ahead of this: please don’t make this about shipcourse in the comments. It’s not about that. They and I have similar opinions on that discourse from what I’ve gathered anyway. Thanks.)

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #ship discourse

277 notes · View notes

intothegenshinworld · 1 year ago

Text

Fate’s Destiny ~ Chapter 12 || It's canon!

You somehow, not being able to explain it, had fallen into the Genshin world you know oh-so-well. You were no new player and had explored most of the nooks and crannies of the world. When you first had woken up in Windrise you wondered; it might be a dream, after all, you were behind your screen usually, and now- here? It made no sense, and the world was keen on keeping it that way.

Warnings: Spoilers for main story.

Word count: 3.1k+

Auteurs note: My health is still undergoing challenges, but I was able to write this on my better days. If you liked this chapter, please leave your thoughts on this chapter behind in a comment or reblog <3 It'd make me more motivated to post the next chapter :D

↺ PREVIOUS CHAPTER || ↻ NEXT CHAPTER || MASTERLIST

The conversation you had with Dainsleif last night left you feeling like he understood you better than any stranger should. It was as if he had anticipated finding the Creator, as if he was familiar with the aura and thus unsurprised when it led him to you. However, that wasn’t the most concerning thing about the situation. The juxtaposition of what follows has been plaguing your mind the entire morning.

Despite never mentioning it in the company of Lumine and Paimon, Dainsleif seemed to doubt your status as the Creator. It wouldn’t have been unusual, if not for the fact that he felt your aura.

Up to this point, there was a clear division between the people who felt your aura and the ones who didn’t. The former had always been insistent on your identity. They never doubted you for one reason: the fact that they experienced this unknown feeling around you. You couldn’t explain it since you didn’t have any control over the aura, that much was obvious with the fact that seemingly at random some people experience it and others don't, but it felt terrifying to have an anomaly in this formula.

Why did Dainsleif not believe in the Creator?

The more you look back on your interactions with Dainsleif, the more you are led back to your initial conflict: who is the Creator?

Moreover, you wonder why you believe his convictions over your own.

Lumine turns her head over her shoulder. “What’s your opinion about it?”

“Huh?” You pull yourself out of your daydream with a forceful blink. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

You gaze at Lumine. Paimon hovering at her side. The three of you are currently waiting in a small clearing on the side of the main road. Conversations from passing strangers echo in the background. They are accompanied by the sounds of galloping horses and carriages being pulled along. The sun hadn’t been up for an hour before your party had set out but somehow you were unable to avoid the now gathering crowds.

At this moment, you were waiting for Dainsleif to return. While Lumine insisted on staying at your side, he had offered to scout ahead. He’d keep an eye open for suspicious people on the road and potential shortcuts to use. He’d also be able to estimate when the crowds would get thicker and could warn you ahead of time so you’d be better prepared.

Paimon holds her hands close to her chest, a clear sign of her worry. “Are you okay? Paimon thinks you seem a bit out of it.”

You force a smile. “Don’t worry about me. I was just thinking.”

“If you say so.” Paimon turns her worried frown upside down and places her hands on her hips. “Lumine was asking if you were alright with travelling on the main roads. Even with Dainsleif scouting ahead of us, it’ll likely get more crowded the closer we’ll get to Wangshu inn.”

Lumine adds, “We’ll keep you safe regardless, but I understand if you want to take a different route.”

You think about the last time you visited Wangshu inn. It had also been with Lumine and Paimon, the only difference being that you came from Mt. Aocang and thus barely met anyone on the road to and from.

More about your last visit, despite feeling like you’re missing something important, you can’t remember.

Before you can answer, Dainsleif walks up to your group. He nods his head when you acknowledge him and then starts talking. “The roads are beginning to get busy. We should head out.”

“Oooo. Paimon wonders if we’ll arrive today.” She kicks her legs in the air excitedly. It had only been a few days since you departed from Wangshu Inn but she undoubtedly was missing a soft bed to sleep in. You did too.

Dainsleif crosses his arms. “If we make haste, we will arrive before sundown. Many people are currently travelling through Liyue Harbor for the upcoming Creator Fest, so we should remain unnoticed since everyone is focusing on their own business.”

You lift an eyebrow. “Creator Fest?”

“Hm.” Dainsleif closes his eyes and ponders to himself for a moment. “Though the name is self explanatory, it is a festival held to celebrate the creator. From my understanding, the festival is held once every five years.”

Paimon looks from Dainsleif to Lumine with a confused expression. When she sees the outlander mirror the same confusion, she fiercely disagrees. “Lumine and Paimon saw the preparations in Liyue Harbor. There, they said it was held every year.” She lifts a finger in the air and waves it around all-knowingly. “Paimon remembered it well because they had many stories of the festivals from last year.”

You turn your gaze to Dainsleif. He doesn’t seem confused, nor does he try to refute her claim and explain his. After Paimon rambles for a bit longer, he simply agrees and states he must have mixed up certain festivals.

While Paimon gloats in her victory, Lumine’s scepticism doesn’t escape your eye. Just like you, she seems on edge. Until that, too, disappears.

“We should head out.” Lumine states.

Paimon throws her fist in the air. “I can’t wait to eat some of that delicious food we had last time!”

With your cloak pulled over your face, your expression remains hidden to even your companions. A frown is settled on your face when you recall that the festival Liyue had been preparing for was meant for the resurrection of Zh…

What was their name?

The morning continues to pass by in a hurry. As you persist your journey forward, Wangshu inn becomes a more prominent sight in your vision, growing taller the closer you get.

In the end, Dainsleif’s words had proven to be correct. Many carriages that passed by were loaded with decorations, many of which seemed to fit Liyue’s colours but had the same details and signs as the books with your face on it.

And when you and your companions fell into a comfortable pace, conversations started to follow.

One of the more interesting topics spoken about involved the anemo Archon. According to the other three, he currently goes by the name ‘Venti’. You knew that Lumine and Paimon met him during their heroic deeds in Mondstadt, but when you asked Dainsleif about the Archon, he answered with: ”I know everything that I should.” —a vague yet seemingly in-character answer.

However, that is not where the conversation ended. Instead you were dragged into an open discussion about the options you had, including Dainsleif’s personal thoughts on the Archons.

He told both you and the other two, not to trust anything. Which was funny, considering he decided to travel with the Creator.

You would’ve believed it to be a strange paradox if it hadn’t been for the conversation you had with him last night.

Dainsleif walks in front of everyone. Always one step ahead. He doesn’t turn his head when he talks, but you know he is invested in the current topic. “I am merely suggesting that the Archons do not have the ability to answer all your questions. You should know this better than anyone, Lumine.”

She gives him a pointed look. Paimon answers for her. “Well, Paimon isn’t hearing any better suggestions from you. Besides, Paimon thinks it’s better than sitting around and doing nothing.”

The pixie adds, “Besides, the tone deaf bard might look like he doesn’t care, but Paimon thinks he knows more than he lets on. Who knows? Maybe he can give us a push into the right direction.”

“I highly doubt it. Many times before, he failed to. I can't imagine why this time would be different at all.”

Paimon visibly deflates. “Geez. Are you always so pessimistic?”

“I prefer to call it realistic.” He corrects.

Before the two can continue with their bickering, the gnosis in your pocket starts to rumble. Struck by surprise, you halt your movement.

As you nimbly reach for the object, the others turn to stop as well. Dainsleif is the first to guess why.

“The gnosis.”

“Yes.” You wrap your fingers around it and furrow your eyebrows together. Confused at why it started to rumble, you look up at him. “I thought it was broken.”

“It might as well be.” He replies despondently.

Lumine crosses her arms as she presses her lips in a thin line. She thinks for a moment, and then asks, “Is it glowing again?”

The object is firmly within your hold. As your grasp tightens, it hums in approval.

Because you’ve been travelling through the main roads towards Wangshu Inn, your sudden stop has caused an unintentional roadblock for other passerbys. The majority of the people and carriages go around you, but the longer you stand still, the more the people stop and stare.

They’re getting aware of your presence.

From within your pocket, your fingers continue to be tightly wrapped around the gnosis. When you peek inside, you notice that you can’t see a visible glow emitting from it. While you can’t confirm if it lost its light entirely without revealing it to everyone walking on the roads, the constant vibrations from the object and the ground below was enough to confirm that it came back to life.

At last, you reply. “I’m not sure about the glow but it’s pulsating geo energy.”

“Paimon thinks that’s a good sign, right?” The pixie holds up her hands to her chest expectantly as she looks around at the different faces in your party.

Dainsleif grunts. “It’s hard to deduct any use of it when we don’t know what the gnoses can do.” He turns to face you. “The geo Archon has told you that it’d help ‘the creator’ regain their past memories. Think about it. Which part of his promise was wrong in the first place?”

You think back to the many days of trying to uncover the gnosis’s secrets without prevailing. In the end, the geo Archon couldn’t help you either. Their promise of helping you with your memories remains, but you’d have to wait for the Archon and the Adepti.

When you find your answer, you create a new question. “Are you saying that the gnoses never held memories?”

“Not yours, at least.” Dainsleif answers.

Lumine cuts in. “That’s why we’re going to Mondstadt. Aside from the gnosis losing its power, it never responded to anything Y/n did either.”

“Yeah! Paimon agrees with that. Rex Lapis seemed to be unsure after our last visit too.” She waves her hands in the air. “What if the gnosis has yet to recognise the aura?”

Your eyes light up. “That’s a great idea, Paimon!”

With the gnosis constantly pulsing out geo energy, you probably needed to do the same before it could resonate with you. Perhaps you should’ve asked the geo Archon how they used the gnosis instead of continuing to ask about your memories.

In the worst case, you could still ask the anemo Archon. If you have any luck, they’d recognise your aura like the geo Archon did, making it easier to ask for help and confirming your identity.

A scream erupts from a woman on the other side of the road. Her hands reach up to her mouth, eyes wide as her previous relaxed face turns into one of horror. When you first hear it, you let go of the gnosis and reach for your hood to pull it down more, afraid that you have been discovered.

Then, another one follows. The person next to her cries out terrified. You take a step closer to your companions this time.

You hear a weapon being unsheathed close to you. When you turn to the sound, you see Lumine at a ready stance to combat. And it continues. Another scream echoes through the crowd and when you finally look at the people, they’re facing away with their hands held together in suspense.

If there is one thing you regret doing, it is standing motionless amongst them.

Horses are forced at standstill and carriages stop in place. The previous laughter of children travelling alongside their parents are quieted and replaced by hushed voices. And because so many people had been travelling from and to Liyue Harbor, you feel like the entire nation can see this sight in front of them.

A huge wave reaches the tips of the largest mountains. It seems to be reaching for Liyue Harbor, until you see flashes of light shoot from a place you visited once before.

The Jade Chamber,

You watch the lights of the once glorious floating palace flicker on and off. You hold your breath as you watch a battle between the ocean and the people of Liyue Harbor play out at a far distance. There is no way of knowing what is going on, until the sea calms down.

Before the waves lay upon the water, a few people have already begun to celebrate. Cheers slowly become louder and praise to the geo Archon is spread around before a loud rumbling emits from far away. This time, you realise it is not the gnosis putting out geo energy. And yet, it responds to the wave by tugging you forward.

With the crowd stunned, it takes everyone a second to realise victory came with a precious cost.

The Jade chamber tilts from side to side, as if it’s trying to regain its balance in a struggle against gravity. As the gnosis continues to pull more and more, you realise what’s happening before the crowd does.

A few more elemental flashes of light dash around the Jade Chamber, and perhaps because you’re looking at it from a grand distance, you notice it has been falling down.

When the chamber hits the midway point between its original position and the horizon, you see chunks of the building let loose. Some parts fall faster, while others cling on to the gravity defying magic they previously had. But before any part can reach the ground, it disappears from sight behind a set of mountains.

The crowd is silent. You can only hear the winds blow against your face as you wait for the conclusion of the events.

Then, a second low thud echoes through the city. It travels across the roads and the crowds try to protect themselves against the sudden soundwave. In the distance, from behind the mountains where it fell, dense smoke from the crash fumes up.

“What happened?”

“The Jade Chamber!”

And faster than the Jade Chamber could fall, chaos erupts on the roads to Wangshu Inn.

People from behind and in front of you are trying to decide whether to turn back or to reach their loved ones in Liyue Harbor. Murmurs of uncertainty deafen your thoughts as you reach for the gnosis. With trembling fingers you take it out of your pocket, just to take a quick look.

It radiates a dim orange hue.

Paimon calls out for you as a carriage rides to crash into you. The horse pulling it seems to be out of control when it stops and stands on its hind legs, squealing if not screaming when the people crisscross in front of it.

Dainsleif ends up being the one to save you in that scenario. He is swift when he moves between the people and pulls you away right before the hind legs of the horse move down and crash at the place you had been standing in.

“We need to get out.” He yells to Lumine. “This isn’t going to get better, even if we get to Wangshu Inn.”

Lumine hurries over to you with Paimon at her side. She has put her sword back in its holder but seems to be alert nonetheless. “We should head back to Liyue and find out what happened.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Dainsleif shakes his head. He lets out a breathy chuckle. “You intend to go back in these conditions. Can you not see the outcome of that decision?”

A few people push past you and your companions. Luckily due to both Lumine and Dainsleif’s efforts you are able to keep your group of four united. With the chaos surrounding you, you hadn’t noticed you held the gnosis in your hands, visible in sight to any who would stop and look.

Lucky for you. Not a single person had the time to consider standing still. Dainsleif seems to follow your gaze and you open your hands for him to see. For the first time since obtaining it, the object floats in your hold.

Like a miracle, it seems to have recovered all its past potency in an attempt to guide you forward. Deep hums echo from within the gnosis, singing an unknown melody as a path opens up from where you’re standing to Liyue Harbor. Unknownst to the people in the crowd, they make way for you and your party.

You reach up and intertwine your hold together with the invisible hold of the gnosis. A determined expression forms on your face when you look up. “It’s telling us to head to Liyue Harbor.”

Paimon kicks her feet in the air. “You’ve finally unlocked the powers!”

Lumine stands ready. “If we head out now, we can make it before the sun sets.”

A cynical laugh escapes from Dainsleif’s lips. “Have you forgotten how long it took you to get to Wangshu Inn?”

The outlander turns to him. “What do you mean? We all headed out this morning. If we make haste, we can easily return to Liyue Harbor before nightfall.”

With the gnosis in hand you look up at Dainsleif. A silent question lingers in your eyes and he shakes his head before you can ask him the question.

“If you intending on returning to Liyue Harbor, it will be the last time you’ll see me.”

Paimon throws her fist against his shoulder. Even with all her strength, he remains unchanged—safe for the frown that deepens. “Oh come on! Paimon knows you want to save everyone. That’s why you helped us with the Adepti last time.”

He turns back at you. You feel like there are so many things left unsaid but he simply turns and walks away. In the end, he didn’t give you a chance to ask him why he chose to leave.

A hand is placed on your shoulder. When you look over towards the person who put it there, you see a resolute smile on Lumine’s face. Next to her flies the pixie. “It’ll be alright. You’ve got me and Paimon.”

Her white-haired companion agrees as she throws her first into the air.

You knew that the journey ahead of you would remain with many more questions left unanswered so you simply held onto the few things you could trust in.

The gnosis agrees with you and a path forms once more.

You run towards your destiny, followed by Lumine and Paimon at your side.

If you liked this chapter and think I deserve a comment, please leave one behind! I appreciate it a lot and it'll make me more motivated to write in the future ♡

#isegau #sagau #dainsleif x reader #lumine x reader #genshin x reader #sagau x reader #isegau x reader #genshin impact x reader #sagau isekai #dainsleif #lumine

165 notes · View notes

r--kt · 10 months ago

Text

Good boy Tobi. Why is he acting this way?

"oh yeah, it was just Zetsu" a-ha, not even close. here I'll talk specifically why Obito resorts to roleplay, and why he is comfortable with the images of Madara and Tobi. (obviously because it's not being himself but let's dig deeper)

contents | responsibility · regrets · a sense of control · conclusions

Vol. 31 CH. 280. Tobi's first appearance.

sure this looks like another defense mechanism that allows Obito to avoid reality, especially when interacting with people. full coverage, imitation of someone else's voice, name change, personality change etc. his clothes literally look like armor, and I'd like to think that hiding and protecting himself "just because it feels right" is exactly the point (no need in armor, he's intangible, so that's a psyche). the very way he completely depersonalizes himself shows that on a subconscious level he is not comfortable being in the conditions he finds himself. this alone may indicate that he is not very happy with his position of a faceless world saviour. and this is his first damn appearance.

Tobi is another manifestation of Obito's escapism, which is the central theme of his story. I have identified three advantages of using Tobi's image for Obito, and all of them will be described below. maybe you'll find some more, feel free to reblog and add your thoughts!

Responsibility

escapism is just stress-relieving. for him, the roleplay was a way to relieve tension from the responsibility that he had imposed on himself. "no one in the whole world can do it except me" must be really exhausting. so what if I just don't be myself for a while? what if I be the one who can make a mistake? it's important to be frivolous and let things go sometimes, otherwise the psyche will be disturbed even more. so, that's the first advantage, that allowed Obito not to go completely crazy.

Regrets

CH. 652

as I said, Obito is not very happy with his position. even though he believes that tsukuyomi plan is correct, this doesn't negate that he is unhappy to fulfill it and suffer the hardships because of it.

during the war, we can see that Obito really regrets that he hadn't live his life the way he could, with his friends and dear ones. he began to ask questions: "could I have a better life?" "who have I become?" "who does my friend see me as?" these feelings burst out only at the culmination, before that they were deeply suppressed, with the help of detachment from reality, which Obito achieved mostly thanks to the image of Tobi. a ridiculous stupid guy who talks nonsense and does not pretend to be any role other than a comic relief. another personality allows Obito to distract himself from the real problems, which he can't reconcile.

CH. 281 idk what an idiot. love him.

in order to avoid all these dangerous thoughts for as long as possible, he came to this escapist behavior. it is not only a convenient tool for manipulation (I'm not really touching on that in this post, though it's important too), but it also distracted him from all his regrets. though, it's funny that he still chose orange and purple colors that probably reminded him of the past.

A Sense of Control

it seems to me that this is the most important reason to pretend to be either an inept, complaisant fool or a legend of the Shinobi world. why these two extremes?

many events in Obito's life showed him that no matter how he acts, he will still be punished, which means he personally has no control over anything. during the exposition, he is late helping the old ladies, but Kakashi condemns him no matter what. during the first turning points, he commits morally correct actions in order to end up first being mutilated and isolated, and then lose the most precious (and only) thing he really had: friendship with Rin and Kakashi. in the end, he does not even have control over his own body until he learns to control the mokuton and gets used to the constantly breaking off or deforming limbs. Madara and Tobi appear as other personalities who are able to achieve control under certain conditions and give Obito the necessary mental stability.

CH. 460

Madara is the epitome of control. the ghost of the Uchiha clan, the fear of which is alive many years after his death. by taking on a character who has more control than Obito did in real life he might feel quite cathartic and empowering, and it offered him a sense of emotional security (the mask helps with it physically, the personality and famous name — mentally).

while Tobi, besides an attempt to make up for lost childhood, is a demonstration of "the lowest standards" so that for once in his life, he did feel that he always met expectations, that more was not required of him. he's incompetent, he messes up, he's irritating, and therefore others don't expect anything else from him. yes, Tobi is judged and punished, but Tobi is not trying to be praised, so his own expectations are not broken.

CH. 359

Madara's personality is convenient because it's dominant, it controls others, inspires them with a certain fear and submission. Tobi's personality is convenient because with its help Obito choose to show fear and submission himself whenever he wants, that is, it does not become an unexpected blow for him. I would add that similar mental mechanisms work in many types of traumatic experience (not talking about his sexual deviations like moderate sadomasochism yet, the man is clearly traumatized).

does it all work? obviously, yes. there's no point in explaining that this whole Madara thing worked perfectly. Tobi, although condemned by Deidara, is at the same time accepted and encouraged by him a bit, simply because it is pointless to expect anything from him. however, this works as long as the fictional personalities do not overlap, as long as others believe in the reality of both.

CH. 396

another interesting topic is that Obito himself began to mix these personalities and demonstrate the falsity of one, which deprived him of the very opportunity to avoid reality (Madara clearly reminds him more of the responsibility on his shoulders than Tobi) and relieve the constantly increasing stress. therefore, starting from the moment when "Madara" shows that "Tobi" was just a cover, Obito loses the advantages of Tobi's image, suppressed regrets gradually surface, stress accumulates, the sense of control disappears for lack of any new personality other than his own (which has problems with control). and all these consequences falls on him during the war.

Conclusions

the reasons for this defense strategy appeared in Obito due to his low self-esteem, which was facilitated by the following. the early death of Obito's parents was most likely at the age when he was too young, and therefore psychologically this loss was fixed as "I was left because something was wrong with me. I can't be loved naturally, I need to deserve it first". because of that there was a constant attempt to be better, to reach the level of a genius opponent, who not only shows with all his appearance that you are not enough, but also constantly pokes you in your own shit like a puppy. and that's not the only situation where you're not that good. there's a lot, actually.

such an environment forms an attitude "to get recognition, I need to try harder than anyone else, because something is wrong with me". subsequently, this attitude is transformed into a new one: "I cannot get recognition in any case, which means I will achieve recognition, respect, attention through pretending and forming other personalities". and that's how Tobi appeared.

I don't even know what to add at the end. it's just great that you can see the depth in Obito, even when he's acting like a moron. here's some admiration for this silly guy

#obito uchiha #naruto shippuden #uchiha obito #madara uchiha #kakashi hatake #deidara #obito

130 notes · View notes

scummy-writes · 7 months ago

Text

Things I've learned about being in fandoms on tumblr

Sometimes when I am navigating fandom, I will have bouts of... depression? negative feelings? regarding it. I think a lot of people go through this, but in the areas of fandom I buzz around in, I don't see many people talking about ways to sort of re-center yourself and take care of yourself in an online space. I thought I would attempt to share some of my habits I try to follow when I hit one of these moods. So here are 14 of them covering various subjects I run into the most. They will not work for everyone, but I do encourage you to think a bit about each point and see if it would work for you.

Feel free to add some of your own, but I am looking for positive advice that is not meant to put down others in a harmful way. I would also like to preface that I've been in fandoms for over seven years, most of them smaller rather than huge, but a lot of this advice is centered around someone just trying to enjoy the space/enjoying it as a fan creator (writing fanfics in my case). The 'you' used in this is a general usage of the word 'you'.

-> It's good to celebrate milestones, whether its how many followers you have, works you've made in a year, or similar.

However... Don't let this become a competition or reasons to compare yourself to others. We're here to have fun and to celebrate us doing so- don't put completely unneeded and unnessacary competition on it. What's the point of that competition other than to make yourself feel bad or to belittle others? This extends further to notes - no number games. none. You can be proud of the numbers you have gotten, but curb all impulses to swing that in a negative way. The second that starts happening, talk to friends. talk to someone IRL. do something that isn't staring at your notifs, immediately. Even if its listening to silly things while washing the dishes- get out of your notifs tab!!! The numbers game isn't a game you have to be a part of, ever.

-> Don't put other bloggers on pedestals.

It's fine to be a fan of someone's work, and to be excited when they post or even talk to you and you're surprised by it. However, we're all just nerds together in a fandom- maybe don't put them up on a pedestal and hold their opinions/words as gospel rather than things you agree with. There's an unhealthy disconnect there for both parties, and can lead to unhealthy habits of a bad comparison game with one party not even knowing you're comparing yourself or others to them. And I promise that no one likes being pitted against others in those.

-> separating my main blog from my fandom blog has done wonders for me.

This one is a lot more of a 'me' thing that MIGHT be helpful towards others, but it's such a nice thing to have a 'normal' space where I don't have to worry too much about fandomisms but want to be online. I want to reblog other things that are not just fandom related and I don't want people from the fandom blog bothering me for. For the longest time I wasn't very upfront with my main blog purely because I wanted that separation, but for others to block me properly I put it up more bluntly.

I also think that this is good when you want to write about some things, but are nervous. In my example, I get nervous writing about my ocs. So what did I do? Made a sideblog for one, briefly mentioned it, and I post untagged drabbles at times when trying to explore her character. It's more practice on not caring about the note amount each post gets for me, and it makes me more at ease with things not getting any notes while exploring different subjects I don't usually write about.

-> Does everyone seem horrible, or are you just not in a good mood?

This is silly and maybe redundant for some, but it's good to keep a track of IRL verses Online. If IRL is weighing you down so much that you use online as an unhealthy habit (self destructive behaviors towards things you worked hard on, lashing out at friends for things out of their control, lashing out on other bloggers for inane things, focusing your bad mood on notes or fake popularity contests...) then try and figure out the big important things: Have you eaten, slept, drank enough water through the day, or are in pain/annoyance with something offline that you're not realizing? Is it one person online making you feel like this? Have you blocked them? Have you taken healthy breaks offline to reground yourself? When i am randomly bitter about the online world, this is typically my frustrations with smth IRL leaking out, and so I do something to help process that or to breathe through it. My personal go to is getting out of the house so I can listen to music, watch silly videos while putting together a simple craft I bought, or doing chores/playing games.

-> Is the fandom full of cliques, or are you witnessing friends just talking to each other?

I get it, it fucking sucks not being involved in a friend group. You know what makes that worse? By looking at other's friend groups bitterly and making up shit in your mind to justify it. The reality is this: people will be friends with a limited number of people, and frequently talk to them because that is who they are comfortable with.

You not being in that friend group does not mean there is anything wrong with you OR them. The honest truth is that it's hard to keep up with a ton of friends at once, and so people may not respond to your messages, or they might mean to but it gets lost in their hectic IRL, or they just don't mesh with you- and all of that is normal!

And... Really... It takes work to build up a friend group. You have to get out of your comfort zone and send the first few messages. You have to embrace the fact that it's possible a friendship won't pan out. It's natural, it's normal, and doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you or the other person. After trying and naturally just talking to people in the fandom, I promise that you will find a friend group of your own.

We are all socially awkward people trying to nervously talk to each other. Yes, even the people you follow that seem like 'everyone' likes them- they are nervous too. we're all just nerds here, remember that.

-> Understand that no one is obligated to do anything.

This ranges from so many things. Here is a list as short as I can manage it to get my point across: No one is obligated to comment, read, like, or reblog any posts. Any posts. No one is obligated to scour for new creatives in the fandom spaces and reblog their work. No one is obligated to tag their posts/creative adventures to your liking. No one is obligated to follow by your DNIs and BYFs. Obligation does not exist. Even your friends are not obligated to do any of this.

It is courtesy to do these things. Blogs will do their best to be supportive by nature, and to try and at least do some of this at any given time, but it's not a requirement. It's NICE to do so and encouraged, but the second you drill it into your head that no one, not even you, are obligated to do this, it's a bit easier to breathe and accept that no, it's a bit insane and difficult to read through 50 fanfics a week and comment a paragraph on all of them while also working on your own things and trying to manage 15 conversations while working 40 hrs a week and and and---

Instead, focus that energy on friends and yourself when you can and accept your own limitations.

-> have other fandoms you enjoy where you DON'T feel pressured to do ANYTHING.

Due to my hard fixation at usually one to two games at a time, I am usually only writing for those at a time- but I need other things to enjoy where I don't feel like I need to make something to post online. I don't feel that pressure from myself, i don't feel the need to try and engage with others. Just a quiet enjoyment for me.

-> If creating is really stressing you out and making you feel worse than better, reflect on the reasons this may be.

Are you hanging out with people who are regurgitating really bad beliefs regarding creation ("shame, you only got twenty notes, that's nothing", "wow fifty notes? that flopped.", "how did this person's shitty work get 30 more notes than me?"). Are you getting anons putting you down? Is your depression convincing you what you've made is worthless? Look at some of the points in this post regarding friends, blocking, and if you're neglecting your body's needs. If that still persists, there may be some self-reflection as to why things get to you so badly. Try to journal out the reasons why until you believe you hit one that is not your depression speaking.

An example: I would freak out about notes because I had friends that would talk around or to me in the examples listed in the previous paragraph. Cutting them off, focusing on friends who focused on the joys of creating, and focusing more on what *I* wanted to write rather than requests... I still get depressed at times but it's been so much more managable now with better support and feeling free creatively. Usually calling myself out at staring at notes helps me shake my head and move on now.

-> Blocking/Filtering is your friend, but maybe don't over do it.

Blocking seems vaguely controversial at times, but I do believe it's needed for a positive fandom experience. Outside of the obvious, the reasons I block people are typically related to how upset I am by something the person has done or said, even if it's related to fancreations. If it's something like them berating others for not believing their headcanon/fanon? Or grossly demonizing some character's mental illness? Or harassing people who dislike some characters and vice/versa? That's all a block for me.

I personally try not to overdo it and make educated decisions based on like, hey, is this just someone misunderstanding and not realizing how they're coming off? Is this someone who I am misreading their tone? Is this just a weird one-off behavior? Ok, then maybe no block button. But if seeing poor takes makes you angry for longer than, say, 20 mins? an hour? It's a week later and you're still all huffy about it and legit pissed? Maybe dig into that while also blocking the person for now.

The Filters aspect of this is similar, but it's a lighter version of blocking for me. Maybe I don't want to block this person but seeing them talk about bugs really stresses me out, so I look at how they tag those posts and filter it out for myself. Maybe I love their fandom blog but they're multi-fandom, so i will filter out a fandom I don't want to see them post about. That's it.

-> Don't be afraid to cut anon off, even if it's for a few weeks at a time.

I feel like those of us who take requests for fan creations are terrified of this a lot, but truly, taking breaks from the anon function should be encouraged. It is indeed a button for shy people, but there are assholes everywhere regardless. When they occupy your time too much or just annoy you, take away their ability to actually say anything to you.

For a creative, sometimes this can feel like the end of the world. But... you Can turn it back on later. I frequently shut it off during major life events, fanfics I am worried I might get weird anons about, when I'm in a randomly bad mood and don't think I can handle it. I Sometimes have it off for months at a time. You can cut it back on. But if anons make you anxious just imagining getting one right now? Flip that off for now. (also please utilize the block function for mean anons!!!)

-> turn those tumblr notifs OFF!!! (mobile) Additional: Turn your status OFF!!!

The only notifications I get on my phone from tumblr is when someone IM's me, and I've had it like this for years. I cannot imagine having my phone constantly going off with random tumblr notifications, I think I would have a bad spike in anxiety having that happen. It would make any negative feelings with notes/followers/number worse for me.

The online status is debatable, some people really don't have an issue with this, but I tend to feel pressured to respond to people asap if they see that my status is online and similar. Those people have not said anything to me regarding it, it's just my personal issue. So..I turn that status off. And it helps me feel better about answering in my own time.

-> Look at who you are communicating with.

Do your friends regularly dunk or mock people on the daily, over shit that is inane and petty? Are you a creative a bit nervous with your work because your friends are pretty rude with how they view other's works? Are you scared to like a character because your friend severely hates them/is attached to them to an unhealthy degree?

There are other subsets to this, but those are ones I find really troubling and try my best to avoid. I dont want to be friends with people who regularly mock others on the legit daily. I don't want to be friends with people who nitpick notes and use notes as a measure on how much worth someone has. I don't want to be friends with people who mock other's creative endeavors.

So... I don't! If I notice things are becoming a salt pit, I try to talk things out at first, but if its clear that's not gonna work, then it's outties for me. It's very true that everyone will salt over something eventually, but it's up to you to decide how severe it is with your friend circle, how it wears you down, and are they really people you want to hang around with if they just make you anxious or stressed all the time?

-> That vaguepost isn't about you.

Friend venting about someone who sounds oddly like you? Does your favorite blog mention something they dislike and you think you fit into that catagory- guess what. It's not about you!!

It's something I struggled with for a while, but eventually I came to terms with it by going "If they truly have an issue with me, they can talk to me one on one. Otherwise, i am assuming that this isn't about me" and gritting my teeth and forcing myself to repeat that until I feel at ease. Truthfully, I also just stopped hanging out with people who do this a ton in a harmful way, so my anxiety about this decreased. If it's an issue, friends should be willing to bring it up to you personally rather than make really meanspirited vagueposts.

-> A personal one I am putting at the end since I believe can easily turn bad, is... Stop looking in the fandom tags if they continiously bum you out.

I will be transparent, I've had bouts of running into a ton of 'why you should love/hate this character' posts over and over, posts that are random but use 50 different character tags, posts about how annoying my fave is, posts from/about bloggers I dislike, etc etc. After a while, I decided to just curate my feed via whoever I was following, and stop looking into tags as often. At most, I do it once every 1-3 months.

Yes, this does limit what all you can see, however... There's only so much information I can take in at once. If I follow people who reblog a ton of fandom content I love and it's different across the board, that's good enough for me and I don't feel negative looking at the tags sometimes.

66 notes · View notes

average-hyperfixator · 3 months ago

Text

I've been having a goddamn conniption over this post (user cropped out bc I do not like starting discourse or inadvertently getting people harassed. if you find the og post do NOT harass them. This post is just my response to this take on this fictional character. I'm likely going to get heated because this game is a hyperfixation of mine, so I feel some stronger emotions about it. Any anger I have is pointed at the opinion and not the person. okay moving on.)

This take somehow manages to miss almost every major story beat of Curly's character and SOMEHOW takes his depression and turns it into a belief system. Like. I don't even know how this conclusion was reached???

Curly is not fatalist he's literally depressed and feels trapped in his life. yk. like. like how depressed people often feel. He's reached the top rung of the ladder in the corporation he's in and realizes he may have picked the wrong career altogether, and feels trapped because of it; that's not believing in fate. Nowhere in the game does it even IMPLY that Curly is fatalist.

here I have compiled screenshots that in fact prove the opposite

you see, if he thought the future was predetermined; why on earth would he talk about changing it? About doing something different, taking a leap? Why would he ponder trying to make a better life for himself if he thought there was no other way things could be?

like I hope we're looking at the same fatalism definition

Honestly, the only argument I even need to refute the point "Curly uses fatalism to avoid responsibility" is the fact he went into the cockpit before the crash. If he truly was resigned to fate, he would've continued to stand frozen outside, and wouldn't have done ANYthing. But he tries to change the outcome. He runs in there, and tries to save his crew. He (at least tries to) takes RESPONSIBILITY for JIMMY'S actions and his OWN INACTION in that moment.

Also. "Curly knows he's doing wrong" What? His worst crime is being too nice. His fatal error is trusting in Jimmy too much, NOT thinking he does no wrong. I don't even know how to disprove that because it's so fucking off character that there is nothing I could even show. yk I'm abt 90% this rant would make more sense if you just. Talked about Jimmy being a fatalist. Because he's literally the guy who thinks he does no wrong, and thinks he fixed everything, and that all the harm that happened was "out of his control, and had to happen, there was no other way!!" I still feel like it's a stretch even for his character but it makes more sense than using CURLY?? Curly is fucking depressed, not fatalist, and certainly not the main antagonist??? That's something I'm not even gonna touch on in-depth because that opinion is beyond the realm of saving. The antagonists of the game are explicitly the company Pony Express and Jimmy. The morally grey characters who could have acted more but didn't (mostly) are Curly and Swansea.

Curly still does shit wrong, yeah, but not because he believes his actions don't matter. Most of his inaction comes from his complex friendship with Jimmy and the looming threat of the company, not a belief system.

I don't even know how to TLDR this. Just. Curly is not the bad guy for being depressed and feeling trapped.

if anyone wants to reblog/comment to add onto this with stuff I might've missed go ahead I definitely left out stuff. This was made in a kind of angry headspace, I am so sorry for the swearing I'm not usually an angry person. Again my anger is towards the opinions not the creator of them. Again again, if you find op (doubtful) do NOTTTTT harass them for the love of everything. Debate and discussion are always open ofc, and if I get into a debate with someone I will not be as upset as I am here because that will not be productive at all lmao. Sorry if I seem super angry or bitchy here augh I just really like Mouthwashing and Curly and felt like this did him SUCH a disservice. Okay rant officially over.

#I'm still kind of fuming #but I'm calmer now #one day this fandom is going to break me #today is not that day #the shit I have to see as a Curly fan holy fuck #mouthwashing #curly mouthwashing #rant #rant post #Jace rants 🗯️#yap #yapping #long post #mouthwashing curly #hyperfixation post

27 notes · View notes

nthspecialll · 2 months ago

Note

To add onto the previous anon but kinda move onto to a bench off subject — I think the scapegoat villainizing may be part of the unreliable narration within the game. RD is such an amazingly human game, meaning that all the characters are flawed; and one of said flaws being that I wouldn't necessarily consider any of them completely reliable objective viewpoints!! Like the two viewpoints commonly shared amongst characters in the gang is that: A. Dutch was always a shit person and his true colors came into view, or B. Dutch changed under pressure. I'm not here to argue which is actually true, but rather I think we should consider who believes what at what point in time.

For example, John initially seems in denial about Dutch when he is broken out of prison by Sadie and Arthur, I don't remember the exact quote but he says something along the lines of Dutch must have changed, while Arthur argues the contrary. But then - as a user mentioned in the reblogs of that last post - in the epilogue, John seems to have swapped around his own thoughts, and sided with the idea that Dutch has always been this way.

Once again, I'm not going to definitely say which one is true here, but I will say this is a great example of their subjective viewpoints not only changing, but being heavily influenced by what they are currently going through. Of course John wouldn't want to immediately accept the rather cold hard truth that his own surrogate father would leave him to be hung, especially when he is probably still overwhelmed with emotions being separated from the gang for the entirety of - at the very least - Gaurma in the canon timeline. Not to mention the traumatic events of the bank robbery... Like can you really blame him?

Then, it's the epilogue now, John has been left for dead, not once, but twice! Deliberately! Something I don't think should ever be forgiven for. The same bitter and sadden emotions from eight years ago are probably boiling back up again at even recalling the memory. Again, the user who reblogged that post went into more detail, but my overall point is, I wouldn't entirely side with the characters viewpoints and call it a determining fact. They are people, overwhelmed with emotions, coping with traumatic events — it would be entirely unrealistic to expect a perfectly flushed out analysis over what happened to them from them.

"I think we should consider who believes what at what point in time."

Yes, good point! Especially also with unreliable narriators, so many of them are. And yeah just gonna leave this here so others can enjoy your smart

#arthur morgan #rdr2 arthur #red dead redemption community #rdr2 community #red dead redemption two #red dead redemption 2 #john marston #red dead fandom #rdr john #rdr2 #ask #asks #answered asks #nthspecialll asks #nthspecialll

22 notes · View notes

myidlehand · 1 year ago

Text

I've once again seen a post on my dash about how Joey had to "fight" for Jaskier being queer this season.

I didn't reblog it cause I don't want to target one post in particular but people who make those posts need to understand this is factually wrong and just keep the hate towards Lauren growing for no reason.

It was Lauren who approached him. Joey said so himself. He praised her in many interviews for going that road. He worked with her on making sure it was done right, his words again (he seems quite aware of LGBTQA+ culture and maybe his sensibilities are a bit more "up to date" than the average straight person. If Lauren and most of the writers are straight, it seems logical for them to struggle to make it not cliché and for Joey to help make it something the community would like more, but that is just my theory).

But he never said he had to fight for it as much as people say he did, on the contrary. He said in at least one interview that it was very collaborative. From what I understand in some of his interviews he possibly wanted more control over Jaskier's journey this season but he certainly didn't have to fight for it. People seem to have gotten that idea from Joey's "essay" but at no point did he say it was to fix what they did. He obviously had an idea of what he wanted to do and asked for re writes and cuts in the dialogue to add more music. Every interview where he mentions this he pretty much says he was helping and collaborating with the writers. This sounds pretty normal to me as every actor on this show (Henry in particular) seems to be allowed to participate with the writing of their own character.

I know most of the fandom loves to believe all the good parts come from the actors and all the bad ideas come from Lauren (she obviously hasn't always made good choices and I'm not excusing her for the mess season 2 was) but this is just deforming what Joey actually said and taking some of the credit away from other people.

I love that Jaskier is pan. It's one of my favourite parts of the season. But it was not just Joey's idea it was Lauren's as well. Credit where credit's due. She's not as bad as the fandom makes her to be and she's a big reason why season 3 is so good. I don't love the way she try to sell the show as something never seen before because it still is mostly adapted from the books but nobody can argue when it comes to Jaskier that she made him a lot better than Dandelion (who I love to death but he's a little shit and I think Jaskier is a much more interesting character).

#jaskier #joey batey #lauren schmidt hissrich #the witcher

234 notes · View notes

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 months ago

Text

Great Expectations 2

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, power imbalance, age gap, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Professor Holmes’ class is your most difficult, but he’s about to make it even more challenging.

Characters: Sherlock Holmes (modern AU)

Note: monday

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

Friday arrives too quickly for your likely. Amid the usual cluster of readings, lectures, and assignments, you have Professor’s Holmes’ additional task to add to the pile. It feels unfair that he would point out your own efforts only to force more upon you. His praise hardly seems like that in retrospect.

That you did the readings likely made your experience simpler, though the vague instructions leave you uncertain. No rubric, no objectives, no outline. Your format in the usual style and triple-check the word count before you resign yourself to fate or fortune, whichever favours you.

As usual, Professor Holmes prefers a physical copy, neglecting the digital workspace designed by the campus for ease of access. He doesn’t seem to be the type for the easy way out, does he? You try not to malinger on your gripes and head off, promising to reward yourself with a double whip frap for your work. It’s certainly more than you’ll receive from your professor, even if you do manage to gleam your first A+ from the man.

The softness of autumn mingles with the crispness of early winter. You mourn the orange and yellow leaves as they start to curl at the edges and brown, blowing across the pavement and catching on pantlegs and tree roots. Midterm season is almost over but it won’t be long before finals rise to haunt you.

You come up the Herringbone building and look up at the romanticist arches and columns. The esteemed architecture has you feeling even smaller. Surely, the professor will only add to that.

Inside, the air is dry from the heat blowing from the high vents and curved staircases crest the foyer. You follow the left one up and continue along to the small set of steps that lead up to a hallway with only three office doors. Holmes is at the very end. You went there once before when you needed to be signed into the course; he was certain to make you wait then threatened not to sign the form at all.

You stop and stare at the frosted glass with his pedigree emblazoned on it. You contemplate just shoving the paper through his slot but the light is on. You raise your fist and gently tap on the wood. You bounce on your feet as you wait, tugging at the itchy collar of the blue sweater dotted with little clouds. In the warmth of the stuffy building and under your wool jacket, it’s stifling.

You hear movement from within and ready yourself for the encounter. You don’t think you’ve ever talked to Professor Holmes without some degree of awkwardness. On your end, of course. He can’t be bothered to care what others think of him.

The door opens and you try to smile but it feels like chewing rocks. He looks back at you without an ounce of emotion. You gulp.

“Um, Professor, I have my paper--”

He’s already walking away as you stand dumbly in the doorway. You blanch as he circles back to his desk and sits heavily in his seat. He leans forward and dips his head, bending over an open leather folio with a lined pad within. A curl falls onto his forehead and he reaches without looking for the pipe propped up on a mahogany tray.

“Come in,” he says before he puts the pipe to his lips and bites down. He teethes on it as he snatches up a pen with his other hand. You warily obey and cross the threshold.

“So, um, here you go,” you near the desk and lay down the stapled paper. He doesn’t look up. “Erm, thanks, professor. I hate to disturb, so I’ll just leave it here--”

He sighs and sits up, flicking back the curl as he replaces the pipe on the tray, “they won’t let me light that, even with the window open.”

You glance over at the drawn curtains and nod, “oh.”

“You’re the first,” he interjects before you can summon any sort of response.

“Ah, oh--”

“You are rather quick, aren’t you?” He challenges as he rolls the pen between his fingers, his shoulders spreading wide against the puckered leather chair, “fleet of foot, as some Victorian ponce might say. Quiet.”

You blink and purse your lips, giving a shrug.

“You didn’t say hello,” he intones, “it is courteous when you see an acquaintance to greet them, though I suppose etiquette does continue to change.”

“Um, I didn’t want to... impose?” You murmur.

His expression remains cryptic. You can’t tell if he’s annoyed or amused or something else.

“So you didn’t,” he shrugs, his vest bracing on his chest.

“Sorry, er, sir. But um, there’s my paper, I’ll... let you be. I’m sure you’re busy enough--”

“Terribly busy,” he confirms dryly. “Since I’ll have a new batch of papers to mark, I’ll be kept well in hand.”

You clasp your hands together and sway, “right, uh--”

“And you’ll be off like the rest of those dull girls, paying no mind to the real purpose of study, but rather the wordly pleasures of the modern campus. All that pumpkin spice and such.” He reprimands.

“Oh, uh, professor...” you know better than to argue. He is set in his ideas of his students and what should make you any different than the rest.

“Right then,” he reaches for your paper and barely glances at the title page. He flips to the short essay and his eyes skim. He reaches for the antique pen and marks up the page as he goes. He hums as he scratches with the nib. “Good point but clunky prose. No, redudant.” He scribbles his comments in the margins. He turns to the second page and sighs. He closes it and holds it out. “You show comprehension but you need refinement.”

“Um, thanks, er...” you take it hesitantly and back up again. He watches you with his bold blue eyes, not showing a single crack in his veneer.

“Go off and enjoy your weekend, don’t fret over the fault of others. Certainly, you show more promise than most who haunt my lectures,” he says. His tone is flat but his words are praising. The contradiction has you off-foot.

“Thank you, Professor, have a good weekend too.”

He doesn’t respond as he puts his attention back to another stack of papers. You turn on your heel slowly and scurry to the door. He clears his throat and you stop.

“Perhaps I mightn’t have such a tedious weekend.”

You glance back but he still has his head down. You nod and leave him be with a sharp inhale. You hold your breath in until you close the door from the other side.

Only a few more weeks and you’ll be through this class. Hopefully, you won’t ever have to face the heart palpitations that come with each encounter after that. For now, you will focus on the last paper and the eventual exam. Those are hurdles that look higher the closer you get.

📕

There’s a cafe off campus you prefer. The library kiosk and the franchised booth in the Student Rec Centre are always overcrowded. This place isn’t so bad. A local mom and pop with a single barista. Maude, the retiree turned businesswoman, works slowly but efficiently. Traffic matches her pace but is enough to keep her thriving.

“I’ll bring it to you, dearie,” she smiles as she hands you a plate with a crumbly scone on it. You thank her and go to find a seat.

The place is homey. The seating is mismatched. There are armchairs around a low coffee table, some long tables with thrift store dining chairs, and square table in the corner with two benches and some stools. The rug that stands center to the sitting space is faded but its patterns still visible.

You claim one of the armchairs near the bookcases and sit. Despite the tense submission, you’re glad not be stressing over another mark. Another A- to add to the rota in Holmes’ class. You could do a lot worse given what you’ve overheard from your classmates.

The door opens and closes, letting in a chilly. You keep your coat on as you balance the scone on the coffee table. You’ll wait until you have your mocha and savour them together. It’s a rare treat but the dropping temperature coaxed you into it.

A familiar baritone pricks your ears. You glance over before you can bury your nose in your phone and flinch. What luck. You almost doubt it’s a coincidence. Twice in a row you’ve managed to stumble upon the Professor outside of class.

Your shoulders sink as you turn back and plant your elbow on the armrest, shielding your face behind your hand. What do you do? Your mind races. Despite what he said in his office he does not radiate welcoming energy. You can’t just flee and leave your order behind; it isn’t fair to Maude and you wouldn’t want to waste the money.

Professor Holmes’ voice carries. He orders a black coffee and two shortbread biscuits; the Saturday special. The elder barista takes his order and as usual, bids him to sit down so she can bring it to him. You chew your lip as time ticks on. Make up your mind.

Too late.

“Pardon, oh,” Holmes approaches and gives pause as you look up at him. “You aren’t reserving these for your friends?”

He gestures to the other arm chairs. You shake your head and clasp your phone tight in your hands. He dips his chin and sidles around the coffee chair. He removes his jacket and hangs it on the rack between the bookshelves. He lingers there as he browses the titles on the spines.

Maude appears with your mocha in a large mug on a matching saucer. You thank her as she sets it by your scone. She calls over to Holmes, “I’ll have your coffee and biscuits in just a moment, dearie.”

He turns his head and nods but says nothing else. She shuffles off and you lean forward to take your mug. Somehow your chocolatey treat doesn’t seem so sweet any more. He backs up and lowers himself across from you. You shyly return his gaze over the brim of your cup.

“You come here often?” He asks.

The question has you off-guard as much as his presence. You slurp noisily before you pull the cup away and put it down. You take the napkin by your scone and wipe your lips.

“Sometimes. Once in a while. Er, I... I make my coffee at home. Tea, more often.” You clamp your lip shut before you can ramble on.

“Mm, yes, I prefer tea as well. I was suggested the dark roast here by a colleague however.”

You don’t know what to say. You’re entirely unprepared for the conversation. You’ve never thought much of what he might speak of outside his lectures. His interests, you assume, would align with his expertise.

“You are enjoying your time? You haven’t any schoolwork?” He asks.

You slant your lips one way then the other. You look down at the bag by your feet and back at him. He wears a wool sweater with elbow patches; not quite casual but casual for him.

“I was going to do my readings...” you say.

“Ah,” he sits back in the chair as Maude brings his coffee and biscuits. He thanks her tersely.

You bend over and reach for your bag. You slide out your notebook and open it to the printed articles stashed between the pages. You hope it’s enough of an excuse not to talk as much.

“My class?” He asks.

“Yes, sir, er, Professor,” you answer.

“Those are available digitally, as I understand.”

“I know, but I, er, prefer print.”

“Mm, yes, it does permeate more effectively, doesn’t it?” He intones.

You agree with a silent nod and try to focus. You’re too shy to check if he’s watching you but it feels like he is. He sighs and sips from his cup.

“What were you on the hunt for then?” He asks abruptly before you can read the introduction for the fifth time. You look up, perplexed. “At the craft store?”

You open your mouth then pause. Finally, you summon the answer, “thread.”

“Thread?”

“Yes, I... make little things. Sometimes. It wasn’t urgent. I don’t have my sewing machine in my dorm and... no time.” You shrug and let the papers lay flat on your notebook.

He considers you as his cheek dimples and he leans his chin on his knuckles. He looks down at the cup he holds over one leg. He sucks his teeth.

“Rather flat,” he dislodges his elbow and leans forward. “And what did you get? It smells intriguing.”

“Mocha with peppermint,” you answer.

“Mm, with whip?” He peeks at your cup and the melting glut of cream.

“Yes, Professor,” you reply.

“I think I might trade mine for the same,” he stands with his cup in hand.

You watch him, confused and uneasy. So much for getting some studying done. You doubt you’ll be able to concentrate with him looming on the other side of the table.

#sherlock holmes #dark sherlock holmes #dark!sherlock holmes #sherlock holmes x reader #series #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #great expectations #au #professor au #modern au #enola holmes

142 notes · View notes

galstelperion · 4 months ago

Note

hey, alma. i have been following you for a while and i like many of your takes, you always seem level-headed in this fandom, but i think you missed this time around and that post wasn't it. i'm not writing you this to make you feel bad! please, believe me, my intent is not to bring you down or anything of this sort. but the user you were talking about is getting witch hunted by celeb0rn fans, and she made that post because she has been harassed by haladriel-antis and celeb0rn fans for months and months, simply for her interpretations of the show. she never attacked anyone personally, she never rebloged anyone's takes to dismiss them. she just expressed her dislike of celeb0rn fans' own witch hunts and their own insistence that they get galadriel the right way. so it was quite disappointing to see haladriel shipper such as yourself add fuel to the fire that is eating up our fandom right now. turning on each other for celeb0rn is a bit of a waste, isn't it? and we know that the majority of celeb0rn stans aren't genuinely his stans, they are just antis.

i think the fandom is getting more and more toxic, not sure what it is about. im not writing you this so that you answer to this ask, i know you probably weren't coming from a bad place, but i just think this time your post had consequences that you did not intend to happen.

Hello anon, since you seem to be at least cordial, I will respond to this ask and it will be the last time I address this situation:

"we know that the majority of celeb0rn stans aren't genuinely his stans, they are just antis."

This is the root of the problem here. I am saying this in the kindest way possible. Yes, you are allowed to dislike a character. You are even allowed to bash said character in your own spaces. A line is crossed when you make untrue statements like this. The attitude that the majority of "Celeborn stans" who also happen to enjoy Haladriel are just antis is inaccurate and has made a lot of people incredibly uncomfortable. It has made me uncomfortable as someone who is friends with many multishippers who like and explore dynamics with all of these characters involved.

As I said in my original post, I do not ascribe to this all or nothing mentality to shipping or fandom in general. The idea that there is only one right way to like and consume this ship is hurtful and makes many people feel ostracized and unwelcome in this space. I say this as someone who doesn't even care for Celeborn as a character at all and have actively shit talked him around mutuals who agree with me. But I also say this as someone who has been friends with the most incredible Haladriels for 2+ years at this point, Haladriels who have written 100k+ word fanfictions, Haladriels who have dissected and analyzed lore back to front since the early 2000s, who are also interested in exploring Galadriel's dynamic with Celeborn! *gasp* Don't put me in shackles and drag me to the town square but someone who likes a character you don't isn't a crime! It doesn't make them any less of a Haladriel. It doesn't make them "antis in disguise"

This sort of mindset has been permeating the tag for many months now. I never felt inclined to really say anything about it until these broad generalizations were being made by people who I've personally never even seen before here. Like my good friend @nocaptainonthisship has said, "I've been in this fandom since its inception two years ago" isn't a dick measuring contest. It's saying I've been here. I've seen it.

I don't know a whole lot about this account that you're referring to in the ask. I don't even know anything about these people supposedly harassing them either. I don't condone that. I have refrained from @'ing them at all either here or in my original post so as to not to contribute to pile-ons if that is indeed happening. I did block them about a week ago after continuously seeing these actively hostile and confrontational takes about who can and can't be considered a real Haladriel based on their character preferences. Feel free to block me if that is the approach to fandom you want to have. It will certainly never be mine.

#also writing off all people who don't hate Celeborn with a visceral passion as “reddit dudebros”#and then expecting them not to defend themselves from a statement that is very clearly not true is just naive #normal every day multipshippers exist!#they will always exist!!#maybe try having conversations with fandom people outside of your circle idk #haladriel #rant #galadriel #sauron #celeborn

34 notes · View notes