#so even if i blacklist the tags i still have to scroll past all that stuff

[sonknuxadow]

i dont even know enough about what people are doing with sonic.exe these days to have an actual opinion on the concept itself but wow am i tired of it flooding sonic tags on like every site I DONT CAREEEEEEEE

[zymstarz]

how many variations of "x reader" does a man have to blacklist and users to block before tumblr stops giving him almost exclusively those posts

[rayshippouuchiha]

yo i'm seeing a lot of dishing about the purity culture of fandom and i absolutely agree

but i'd like to ask

do 'incest fic' count, i mean specifically i'm in the batfam fandom and if you try and write pairing with batman's adopted kids /former robins together everyone and their mother starts screaming at you both online and on ao3, and if you point out the lack of blood relation all you get it 'it's still incest oh my god you're a horrible person who doesn't believe in adopted sibling relationships' and like... i just wanna smush the two pretty vigilante characters together, it's very exhausting, and it also applies to discord, the fandom is very hardcore about policing this and like I get it to an extent because I've seen a lot of posts about how 'seeing batcest on my dash turns my stomach' 'having to scroll past bastcest on ao3 to get anything good is disturbing and disgusting' and tagging, is not enough for these people, i've seen some poor fools pointing out instances of real life adopted siblings who've ended up together due to the adoption being their parents decision ect and the vitriol that's met with is very aggressive, they basically just don't want it to exist and don't want people who ship it to feel safe talking about it out in the open on tumblr because it's weird and something to feel ashamed of that you shouldn't force 'normal people' to see.

And it's like, why do I have to be treated like a fucking leper in online spaces over a ship? It's literally scarlet letter shit where if someone posts something with nightwing x red hood art even if it's cute and utterly harmless like one of them blushing over a hot chocolate people will literally go into their mutuals askbox and 'warn' them that that person you reblogged from likes batcest. Legitimately. It's so toxic.

See, if you're tagging your ship correctly, if you're rating it correctly, if you're posting it in the appropriate places, if you are making it clear what it is that you've created so that others who don't want to interact with it can keep scrolling without clicking or can use their blacklist functions, then you're not doing anything wrong and your responsibility is pretty much over.

And that goes for any ship, any trope, and any fic in any fandom.

It does not matter.

No singular person or group of people has the right to police an entire fandom just because there's content being created that they don't personally like or agree with.

As long as those creators are keeping their content to the appropriate places (i.e. not posting explicit material in a general audience server or purposefully putting ship content under the wrong tag to force others to see it) then it's everyone else's responsibility to curate their own fandom experiences by using blacklists, mute functions, exclude filters, the block button, or just not clicking on content they know they don't like or agree with.

There are ships and tropes that turn my stomach. I don't want to see them, consume them, or even think about them because they squick me out.

And that's on me.

So I block, I blacklist, I mute, and I don't click.

Because the burden of responsibility for what I consume in fandom is on me.

Fandoms are like villages. Yeah, we're all living in close proximity but that doesn't give anyone else the right to come into my house uninvited and tell me they don't like my decor or that I can't cook this particular meal in my kitchen because they are allergic to it even though I never invited them to dinner.

So ignore the people who try and do that.

Tend your roses, fill your shelves, make your meals, and enjoy yourself instead.

[hesitantvampirealien]

some tips for having a relaxing dashboard and avoiding stressful content

this is for people like me who sometimes struggle a little bit with website settings and social media apps and tech related to it. "I already knew all of those" ok then fuck off and let me give tips to people who actually have a life outside of the internet on how to get rid of insufferable pests like you and have a relaxing, healthy and fun time online

I'm gonna show you how to hide posts with a specific type of content using tumblr's default settings and two google chrome/opera extensions you can use. You might be able to find an alternative for these two if one of them isn't available for your preferred browser. Some of them have chrome extension compatibility - like opera gx, which is my preferred browser - so i would recommend searching if your browser is compatible with chrome extensions before you find alternatives

First, you'll go to Settings

then you'll scroll down until you find the Visible content options. It's in portuguese because i'm from brazil but i assume you can still kinda understand a little bit

censored tags and words for privacy. The tags one is to filter out posts with a specific tag and the second is to filter out posts that have a specific word in general.

there's also adult content filter under the visible content settings.

Now for the extensions

I use two different extensions because one of them can hide tumblr ads. These are available for Chrome and Firefox.

Tumblr savior

Tumblr savior (firefox)

XKit

XKit (firefox)

Xkit allows you to hide ads and Tumblr savior allows you to actually hide posts instead of just blurring them like tumblr does by default and consequently reminding you of the content you didn't want to remember in the first place.

Late edit adding something i forgot to add: Tumblr savior allows you to hide content posted or reblogged by a specific user, you can paste their username on the "black list" option and it won't show anything they posted or reblogged anymore, unless their post has a specific content you put on your whitelist, which is content that you do want to see in your dashboard.

Tumblr savior also allows you to hide whole sentences from a post, For example: a sentence like "ai generated". Instead of hiding posts that have either "ai" or "generated", it'll hide posts that have specifically the sequence "ai generated".

i censored my blacklist because there are usernames there lolllll

and another tip i can give you. It's okay to unfollow. It's okay to block. It's okay if there won't be the "mutuals" badge anymore, it doesn't mean you hate them and you're not a bad person for not wanting to see posts from someone that remind you of things you don't feel comfortable remembering or that even trigger traumatic memories back or pre-existing issues. You can unfollow or block, and if they get hurt, it's not your problem. They're the one hurting you.

i hope these can help someone

[sugdenlovesdingle]

U know,I'm enjoying the Buck, Tommy and Eddie did in the show, but I'm confused why the romantic throuple stuff is always tagged with bvddie and bvckt0mmy as well, it's just like inviting more discourse in.

I don't like seeing that side in the bucktommy tag just like I don't like seeing bvddie stuff in there (IMO actual shipping stuff should stay in its own tag rather than infiltrate other tags).

In ur vast tumblr wisdom, do you know why it's just seems to be acceptable to do that? It's a bit tiring often having to spend a while scrolling thru the bucktommy tag, past posts tagged with bvddie, bvddietommy, 911 discourse, and having to hunt for actual bucktommy stuff in the bucktommy tag.

Or is it just my own profiles problem? I'm genuinely exhausted (& started to get resentful seeing so much Eddie), I just wanna see Buck and Tommy being cute without having to search in their own tag for it 😭😓🥺😢

(I do block people as well,but it seems endless!!)

(u don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but it (and toxic shippers) are actually driving me away from tumblr and I love it here usually! It just seems to be getting really bad since the last episode)

My vast tumblr wisdom?? Lmao I know I live here but I'm not an expert anon!

But I do get what you mean. There are a lot of reaction post to insane takes from buddie fans (are they even really buddie fans? All they seem to do is hate on bucktommy/Tommy/Lou) in the bucktommy tag. I guess people just want to vent and know they will at least find like-minded people in the bucktommy tag. Though I think most people do use some kind of discourse tag - so you can blacklist those. I follow a few buddie fans who just enjoy their ship and don't harass Lou or tag Oliver in erotic art of him and Ryan or stuff like that, and I just blacklist buddie and some other tags they use for their ship posts and that's that.

If you're on web a lot you should get xkit (or xkit rewritten as it's called these days) by the way, it has all kinds of great features - including completely hiding posts that contain words or tags you have blacklisted.

As for the throuple posts, I guess because it's all still kind of new - and starting to pick up more the past week or so - that people aren't really sure what tags to use? And people who like bucktommy (might) like Buck/Tommy/Eddie romantically too.

I made a couple of posts (that I plan to turn into actual fics eventually) focusing on Tommy and Eddie as friends and tagged them eddietommy - and I think people use that tag for Eddie/Tommy romantically too, and that's why I tagged it bucktommy too.

I guess it would be easier if we all used the AO3 format for fic tagging - character/character for romance and character & character for friendship or family...

But I guess all you can do is blacklist tags and block people or blacklist their usernames if you don't want to block. This is the curate your own experience website after all.

[sapphos-darlings]

Are you a radfem? You've reblogged from radfems before and share a lot of detrans stuff, I like your blog but I don't feel really welcome and safe with stuff like that

Hi! We're two people running this blog, and no, this is not a radfem blog, this is a wlw/female positivity blog, run by two people who fall under these two categories ourselves.

Detransitioning also isn't automatically a political statement, please do not label it as such; when we started this blog, I was still living as a transgender man whose history and present still heavily tied me to the wlw community. However, HRT was making me very sick and not actually masculinising my body, and ultimately it was both better for my physical and mental health to first go off HRT, and when living as a man didn't get any easier through that, detransition. Most detransitioned people aren't detransitioning because of an agenda, and furthermore, while plenty remain allied to the LGBT community, most are still part of it - myself, as a bisexual gender non-conforming person who has no intentions of ever entering a heterosexual relationship, for example, and a person who does not feel that I am any more cisgender now than I have ever been. Others detransition from a binary gender identity to a nonbinary one, ceasing transition but remaining somewhere inbetween socially and where they feel themselves to align internally. Many of us, like myself, still regard ourselves under the wider transgender community: for myself, because I am not and have not and will not be cisgender, even if I am socially presenting as my assigned sex. People who know me more know that my experience with gender goes much beyond simplistic labels and assigning any beyond the factual "detrans female/woman" to what all of the above means is very difficult, but it's a private matter to me, like most things concerning deeply personal aspects of my life.

As per the blogs we reblog from - to be completely honest, we don't vet them, and have no intention of doing so in the future, as upsetting as this might be to hear for people who may feel unsafe coming across posts from users they're uncomfortable with. Most of our posts come from the tags and as long as they're not inflammatory and upsetting in themselves, we have no reason to be skulking through the sources or cultivating a blocklist of blogs we overall don't agree with. So there's going to be all kinds of ideologies, bad takes, drama, horrible people behind the urls. I quite honestly wouldn't know if I reblogged a tradfem post from a deep-end Catholic, anti-gay user/source (such as a quote) if the post itself somehow innocently floated into the wlw tag and was talking about cottagecore romance or some equally benign subject. The reason for this is simply that vetting each and every blog we scroll past would make running this blog extremely draining and require such specific hard rules to be established between the two of us posting here about what is a "good" blog to be reblogging from and what is a "bad" blog - there isn't one blog out there that we both 100% agree with, or find non-controversial, and we quite simply do not have the required energy to be putting into something like that.

You, however, as someone who scrolls through our blog, are more than welcome to block and blacklist urls and blogs that you see reblogged here. You control your exposure, you control whose thoughts you feel comfortable engaging with. This is absolutely, 100% fine to be doing. You never need to agree with anything we post, or with any user or post that we reblog here. We're posting here mostly for ourselves, what we relate to, in the hopes that someone out there relates to it as well. That's... really about as deep as it goes.

In order to help curate your experience, beyond Tumblr's own blacklist and block functions, for desktop users I highly recommend installing New XKit (Chrome/Firefox) and/or Tumblr Savior (Chrome/Firefox), which will make it much more reliable to vanish users and posts from your curated feed.

Hope this clears things up!

[batwynn]

I might be built different, but I was just catching up on literal months of being off Tumblr (I'm OCD, it's irrelevant). I saw a bunch of posts where you were hedging about talking about your health or anything personal because of anon hate, and I just wanted to say that I absolutely care and want to hear about how you're doing. If people do not want to, you 1) have told people what tag to blacklist, and 2) have an "unfollow" button. It's not hard to show compassion. You are important to me.

To be honest, I reached a point of no return when people were being pointlessly cruel while I was literally so Ill that I was dying. (not once, but twice in one year!) I mean, one full on disgustingly hateful message after another while I was laying in a hospital bed waiting for another brain scan or vomiting up the water they forced me to try.

It’s not that I don’t love and appreciate the kindness of folks like you who do give a hoot about me, and/or are nice enough to scroll by if you don’t have the spoons for it or who are capable of using the black list tag option without complaint. I really do appreciate that so much, and it makes me feel like some people actually remember that I’m a real person still. But I don’t think I can ever really go back to fully talking about my health or a lot of my personal life ever again after that.

I don’t even really feel comfortable disclosing details to close friends anymore, because around the same time I (understandably, I’d think) felt like maybe straight up dying would be better than sort-of-dying-and-suffering for months/years at a time and I had a newish friend stalk me through someone else they knew who ordered something from me, call the police (on a trans/queer and bed ridden disabled person) to come do a ‘wellness check’ on me when they knew I couldn’t get out of bed to even answer the door, never mind the fact that the fucking police do not help in a mental health crisis to begin with. And then they got angry that I wasn’t thankful enough for this, and spread lies and made up a bunch of Evil™️ stuff I supposedly did to deserve having the cops called on me or whatever.

So, yeah. All I’ve really learned is people don’t see me as a real person with a life outside of art, or they sort of do but don’t know the best way to react to it and end up doing something that could cause more harm in… a really inappropriate way. I can’t fault anyone for either one, really. But I sure as hell am not being as open or even as kind as I used to be. And I guess that’s just how the internet is, in the end.

Thank you, though, for caring. Like I said, you and others like you are very highly appreciated. And thanks for reaching out after a long time away from Tumblr. I hope it’s been more fun and not perusing through the Tumblr back log lol. Enjoy the absolute batshit memes we’ve grown here over the past few months, they’re fresh to death.

[brionysea]

hi. i’ve been recently unsure on whether I’m on the ace spectrum and coming across aphobic comments (even from 2016) made me confused and unsure of whether i was a bad person for even possibly being ace. i just feel unhappy and sad and confused and i don’t really know what to do. sorry if this is annoying in any way shape or form.

hi, i'm guessing you're sending me this ask because i've been sharing posts meant to educate people on how bad tumblr's aphobia used to be (and still is, honestly, just more subtly), and please know that wasn't my intention. seeing things like that affects me too - i don't even read half of the examples because i already know what they say and that they'll just bum me out - but the way non-aspecs, even well meaning ones, refuse to see what we have to deal with from the queer community infuriates me, so i feel compelled to talk about it. the intent behind aspecs making and sharing posts like that isn't to make others like them feel bad, but to show how abhorrent aphobes are, because people still say that we don't face any kind of pushback for our sexuality (which obviously isn't true), but i know it's still difficult to see. if you'd like, i can tag those posts as aphobia and you can blacklist them from your dash

if you're asexual or not, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. i felt the same way at first and tried to convince myself i was something else. while i'm over the denial now, i still struggle with feeling like there's something wrong with me sometimes, but it gets better. i wish i could give you some step by step guide on how, but for me it was just time. and avoiding the kind of comments that were everywhere on 2016 tumblr. i don't know you, but just by virtue of possibly being acespec, i promise that you're not a bad person. especially not in comparison to the sad people online who are so threatened by asexuality that they have to harass and bully strangers about it

everyone's different, with different things they want to experience in life and different boundaries, and yours not fitting inside the norm is as natural as anyone else's looking unique to them is. we're all just trying to figure ourselves out. it's really none of anyone else's business, no matter how much strangers on the internet might like to pretend otherwise, so my advice is: focus on yourself and what will make you happy. cut out things that you know will bum you out - in this case, scrolling past the bad comments. i say this in all kindness, but they're not for you; they're for people who don't believe us when we say how bad it used to be

really, i don't think i can say it better than gillian anderson:

[orionsangel86]

I think we have been very luck so far to avoid any ship wars or specifically nasty discourse in this fandom. I hope it stays that way. I have seen a lot more Daniel!Dream on my dash lately, and also Daniel!Dream x Hob which fascinates me in one way and rather upsets me in other ways. I tend to just scroll past it at the moment but if it starts getting more frequent I will probably need to find a tag to blacklist.

Each to their own of course. I’m firmly on team Denial-All-The-Way. I’ll probably still be team Denial even if the show goes ahead and adapts the comics ending extremely faithfully with no change in the outcome though! I’m already a pro at rejecting canon I don’t like and I can totally do that with The Sandman too!

But I just wanted to say how happy I am in this fandom and how lovely it has been to be in a fandom that seems to have very little to no discourse or ship wars or general fandom infighting so far. It’s wonderful to be in a fandom thats so chill and just seems to thrive in creating and vibing off of the show and the comics and the general content we’ve been given. It’s great. I love it here.

24? Rancid discourse?

I feel like things can get quite heated on the topic of Daniel-Dream. Mainly because there are a lot of things inherent in the canonical ending that can be interpreted as having upsetting connotations in terms of mental illness, self-harm, suicide, ageism etc.

I don’t mean to yuck anyone’s yum — I am personally one of those who won’t read fics that ship Daniel-Dream with Hob or anyone, but I know it can (and has) been done beautifully.

I think we’ve been spared the rancid ship wars so far, so let’s just tag appropriately and keep it that way!

We all cope with canonical MCD differently, and my strategy is pure denial and retconning via retired!Dream 😂

[haikyuucute]

Untamable (Ushijima Wakatoshi) [Omegaverse AU]

Pairing: Alpha!Ushijima x omega!reader

Summary: You seemed like an untamable omega to Ushijima

Warnings: Sexual themes, implied smut

Word Count: 5.6k

[A/N]: So I’ve been rlly iffy about posting this bcuz I know that this au isn’t everyone’s favorite. But I rlly like this au and I have fun writing for it, so I figured if someone doesn’t like it then they can scroll past it or blacklist the tag ‘omegaverse’ anyway, so I decided to go ahead and post this

Ushijima Wakatoshi liked order and he liked things that made sense. He was a simple man and he would call it like he’d see it.

And what made sense to him was the dynamic system. Alphas were placed at the top, then betas, then omegas.

He believed this was right because it was ingrained in everyone’s genetics to follow this order.

It was why Hinata Shouyou had affected him so deeply. He was small, his volleyball technique was a mess and yet he and Karasuno beat Shiratorizawa.

Ushijima considered himself to be a very strong alpha— possibly the strongest in Shiratorizawa. His presence commanded every area he was in and omegas would fall silent at his scent, waiting for him to speak first. He had even been dubbed the alpha of alphas in school.

So it didn’t make sense for Hinata to have so much baseless confidence. It annoyed him and got under his skin to the point he thought about it quite often and how he could win next time.

Another thing that got under his skin was the little omega he shared a couple classes with— only she annoyed him far more than Hinata did.

Because while the little orange haired boy was a weak alpha, he was still just that. An alpha.

And yet, you walked around with the confidence of an alpha.

You were definitely the outcast, most omegas found you annoying and most alphas didn’t like to bother with an omega that didn’t know their place. Your scent wasn’t sweet and delicate like an omega’s either, it was tangy and citrusy (not at all a bad smell, even Ushijima would admit it was nice, just not that of an omegas). And worst of all, if you stepped out of line and an alpha tried to put you back in your place, you’d stick up your nose, turn the other way around, and continue with what you were doing in the first place.

This behavior always sat wrong with him but he never had to come into close contact with you, he’d just catch instances of this in class or in the hallways. Always hating the way you demanded to be seen.

And Ushijima knew he wasn’t in the wrong because everyone had found you strange. You didn’t even have any friends until your third year of high school when you shared your first class with the renowned Guess Monster.

Tendou, Ushijima, and you all shared a science class your third year, and though Ushijima had prior knowledge of you, it was the first time Tendou ever really noticed you.

And being dubbed a freak himself, Tendou immediately wanted to befriend you and it was only a short while after that he noticed how much you got under Ushijima’s skin.

So as a fellow freak and probably the only person other than Hinata that could get a rise out of the usually stoic alpha— well, Tendou just had to become your best friend.

Thus it began.

Tendou inviting you to work on group projects with him and Ushijima.

Tendou then inviting you to watch practices.

Tendou invited you to games.

And worst of all— Tendou invited you to hang out in his and Ushijima’s dorm.

And you quickly became someone Ushijima had to endure all day, every day.

You knew right from the beginning when you started hanging out with Tendou that the great Ushiwaka didn’t want anything to do with you. If you tried to talk to him he’d answer with four words at most or blatantly ignore you all together (then again he did that with everyone, but with you it just somehow felt different). And that was because although he was a strong alpha, he had better things to do than put an omega back in their place.

So he put up with you for days— weeks— months— until suddenly he couldn’t.

In what Tendou liked to call the “staring contest of the year” you had outwardly challenged Ushijima. But!— in your defense it was on an outrageously ridiculous subject that you believed you had the right to believe and that Ushijima should’ve respected that regardless of his own biases.

It was an argument that took place in their dorm while the two of them were there. You had casually walked in, an agitated look on your face, exclaiming:

”I hate alphas!” You yelled, pushing their door open. You ignored Ushijima who sent you a slightly irritated glance from where he was seated at his desk, reading a volleyball magazine or something, and went immediately over to the giggling Tendou.

He was up on his bed on the top bunk and you climbed the ladder, seating yourself next to where he was sprawled out, with a pout on your face.

”Should I be offended~” he laughed.

”You don’t count.”

”That’s more offensive than your last statement.”

You rolled your eyes, “Fine, you’re the exception— but alphas suck.”

He moved closer, throwing an arm around you with a large grin, “Did something happen? Do tell, (F/N)-chan~” he sang.

“Well... I may have gotten into another fight with an omega.”

”Ohoho~ did you win?”

”I guess. She pulled my hair so I punched her and... found out she has a mate.”

Tendou burst into another fit of laughter, and started poking your side, “Did you try fighting an alpha again?”

You swatted his hands away, “I just stood up for myself.”

”And how’d that go?”

”Stupid. He came up to me and did that dumb alpha thing where they stand up straighter and puff their chests out with the expectation that I’d be a cowering little omega in their presence,” you scoffed, “He told me that I shouldn’t step out of line and start fights with mated omegas, which is total bullshit because she pulled my hair first!” You yelled, falling back against his bed. “I hate alphas!”

“You punched his mate,” Ushijima who usually ignored you whenever you were over spoke up for the first time.

You furrowed your eyebrows, propping yourself up on your elbows, “Yeah, cause she pulled my hair.”

”She was wrong too.”

You scoffed, “So what? The alpha was in the right?”

”You punched his mate, he was protecting her.”

You shot up and glared at Ushijima who was still reading his magazine. ”Well I was protecting myself.” You practically hissed out.

Ushijima finally stopped what he was doing and turned around to stare up at you from where you were seated on Tendou’s bed.

Tendou’s eyes flitted back and forth between the two of you, seeing how pissed off you were, and at how Ushijima was taken aback at the tone you used with him, and Tendou’s grin slowly widened.

”You speak as if you’re an alpha,” Ushijima said, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

”I speak like an omega who’s fed up with alphas,” you spat back.

Ushijima slowly stood up and you could smell his scent had changed. It was stronger and more powerful— definitely covering up yours and some of Tendou’s scent. And you could pretty much smell how annoyed and pissed he was with you.

And as a result you felt the omega in you want to apologize and take everything back, bowing your head down, too weak to make eye contact. It was a feeling you had become quite accustomed to with how often alphas did this to you, and you became quite good at ignoring those instincts.

But Ushijima was stronger than all those alphas, and Tendou watched in awe as the most strong willed omega he’s ever met started to shrink in her seat, eyes glued to her lap.

Ushijima stood in front of you, and due to his height he was nearly eye level with you despite you sitting up on the top bunk.

“You’re careless,” He spoke lowly, as blunt as ever, “You speak the first thing that comes to mind with no regard if you offend someone, and you’re surprised when an alpha tries to put you back in your place. You’re an omega.” His voice loud and firm, “Power does not lean in your favor. Learn your place.”

You bit down on your lip hard, finding it difficult to meet his eyes but with everything you had in you, you forced yourself up straight and looked him dead in the eye.

Tendou’s eyes widened at your display but he kept quiet, glancing at how the usually stoic Ushijima looked slightly thrown off guard.

“I will never settle for being submissive,” you spoke slowly, never breaking your eye contact, “And I will never stop striving for independence. You like this power system because it’s all you’ve ever known— I’ll show you that you’re wrong and I’ll do whatever it takes.”

From there the two of you stared at each other for what felt like forever, Tendou holding his breath to see who would give in first. Until it was finally time to go to volleyball practice and Ushijima was forced to look away, making you smile triumphantly.

And so it began. The start of an overly exhausting plan that you were committed to executing.

And if Ushijima thought you were a nuisance before it was nothing compared to now.

A few days after the incident you acted as if it never happened, putting on a cheery and energetic façade. And you actually spoke to him in that same friendly manner you spoke to Tendou and others on the team.

He soon realized there would be no end to your chatter. You’d go on and on about your day, shows and movies you liked, hobbies that you were into, and you’d ask him tons and tons of questions that he’d just ignore but you wouldn’t shut up, forcing him to answer your questions— you even started calling him Waka-kun while you remained (L/N)-san.

But you didn’t care. You vowed that you’d force your way into his heart until he finally saw you as an equal instead of an overly obnoxious omega.

It took months but somehow, by some kind of miracle, Ushijima came to the conclusion... you actually weren’t that bad.

Of course you were still loud, kind of annoying, and spoke out of turn most of the time. But he guessed that some of your better qualities started sticking out the more you hung around him.

For one, you were always happy.

Happiness wasn’t an emotion Ushijima felt often, he knew the feeling of victory when he defeated a difficult opponent in volleyball but that never lasted that long because, well— Ushijima always won...(for the most part). And he knew what it felt like to be satisfied and generally content.

But the happiness you exuded. This absolutely boundless amount of energy and cheerfulness you walked around with despite being put down by practically the entire student body, it made you slightly more admirable in his eyes.

And then he saw your loyalty and devotion towards the team and specifically Tendou. By definition, Tendou was technically your best friend and you made sure to prioritize him in your life because of how grateful you were to call him a friend, this meant inviting him out places and never turning down an invitation he made. You let him talk to you when he was down and comforted and supported him appropriately. And when it came to the team, you were kind of an honorary manager (you didn’t actually have the title because the coach would never trust an omega to do the job) but you gave them water bottles and towels during practice and made sure to attend all their games and cheer for them. So even the team who had been kind of cold to you in the beginning, ended up growing rather fond of you, and you were just as happy to consider them your friends.

But he supposed what stuck out to him the most was how determined you were to be more acquainted with him. You’d ask about his day, his childhood, volleyball, anything really. And you somehow had the ability to pull more than a couple words from his mouth as time went on.

And all from the shadows, the Guess Monster was watching. Observing how a very odd friendship grew between the two of you. And although Ushijima rarely let any emotion of any kind show, after three months Tendou made an educated guess.

Ushijima Wakatoshi was actually falling for you.

From a surface level no one could really tell, but Tendou started picking up on the way Ushijima’s scent would change whenever you were near, it’d grow softer, and slightly more non threatening than his usual scent. It was a small detail but spoke volumes. Other than that, he noticed more and more how he grew comfortable around you, letting you talk his ear off and he’d answer your questions with more than three words. But what gave it away for him was when he had stepped into one of your fights where an omega started yelling at you for acting too much like an alpha. It was the first time he had ever done it and although you told him you could fight your own battles, he doubted it would be the last fight Ushijima broke up for you.

With you it was actually harder to tell if you were starting to like Ushijima back, and this was based off of all your rants he’s heard about you never wanting to mate with an alpha and that you’d much rather mate with a beta. It was hard to picture you with an alpha and even harder to picture you with an alpha as strong as Ushijima.

But he, figured out that yes— you did reciprocate those feelings when he caught a certain sight.

You went out with Tendou and Ushijima one night and stayed up late, you were absolutely exhausted so Ushijima ended up giving you a piggyback ride back to your dorm. And that’s when Tendou noticed the way you nuzzled your face into his neck. He couldn’t tell if you were trying to scent yourself or if you just found his scent soothing enough to fall asleep to— but either way there were definitely mutual feelings there.

The only problem was that the two of you were too dense to acknowledge those feelings.

So as usual Tendou decided to take it upon himself to get the two of you closer.

He came up with a fairly simple but hopefully effective plan.

Not that long ago you came to Tendou and asked if he’d been willing to give you volleyball lessons every now and then after you came to really admire the sport after watching them play for so long. And he agreed of course.

So now it was just a matter of getting Ushijima to take his place—

“I won’t be able to make our volleyball lesson (F/N)-chan,” Tendou suddenly spoke up from where he laid on the floor.

He watched as your head poked over the top bunk where you lay, a pout on your face, “What? Why not?” You whined.

”I’ll be busy this weekend, but!” He suddenly exclaimed, looking over at Ushijima, “Maybe Wakatoshi-kun could take my place.”

”No,” came Ushijima’s answer, from where he sat on his bed.

Tendou frowned at how dense he could be.

You pouted further, “Waka-kun would be mean about it if he helped me anyway.”

”Don’t be silly—“

”I’m not! I can picture it now!” You suddenly made a very serious face, mimicking Ushijima’s, “(L/N)-chan you have awful technique. (L/N)-chan you understand nothing about volleyball. (L/N)-chan you suck.”

Tendou giggled at that, seeing your point, “You’d also be getting taught by a top player in the nation~” he sang.

You paused for a moment, thinking it over, “... We’d probably get in a fight though and I hate arguing with him.”

”You hate it because you lose,” Ushijima spoke up.

”Shut up!” You yelled, moving to hang over the edge of the bed to see him.

He glanced up at your upside down form, “l’m right.”

And since he was always painfully blunt and honest, you knew he actually was right, so you settled on pouting further.

”Y’know people would kill to have someone like Wakatoshi teach them volleyball,” Tendou said, continuing to convince you, “He’s the best of the best, don’t you want to be the best~”

”I’m not that passionate about volleyball,” you deadpanned.

He faltered, until a thought struck him, and he grinned, “Remember that time you tagged along with the team to the beach and we were short one person for volleyball and asked you to play?”

You glared darkly at him for reminding you about that humiliating incident— they were a powerhouse school after all, why the hell would they ask you to play when you had barely any experience. “Yes,” you muttered.

”Well what if Wakatoshi-kun taught you a few of his tricks and you got to show off next time we play together.”

He knew he had you when your eyes widened in realization.

You looked back down at Ushijima from where you hung upside down, “Waka-kun teach me volleyball.”

”No,” he replied, looking down at his homework.

”Please.”

”No.”

”Please.”

”No.”

”Please.”

”No.”

“Ugh— why notttt,” you whined.

”Because you don’t play volleyball.”

”Well I want to show off to the team the next time you guys force me to play.”

”You still wouldn’t be as good as them.”

You frowned, “I already know that, but you don’t always have to say the truth.”

Ushijima couldn’t help himself when he looked back up at you, something in your tone bothering him. And the pout and look in your eyes really bothered him for some reason. But he didn’t like being the cause of it and he really wanted to see it leave your face.

“Fine,” he gave in. He watched as your face instantly lit up, a smile gracing your features and it admittedly made him feel weirder than when you were upset.

You flipped off the top bunk to Ushijima’s bed and threw your arms around his shoulders in a hug, “Thank you Waka-kun~” you sang.

And Tendou grinned from ear to ear, watching as Ushijima’s face tinted the lightest of pinks.

——

“You’re late,” Ushijima grunted as he watched you burst through the gym doors, trying to catch your breath.

”I know!” You panted, “I got held up by a teacher.” You said, throwing your bag to the ground. You made your way over to Ushijima who was previously practicing by himself as he waited. “Now, you can’t be mean remember, this is just for fun. It’s not like I’m gonna be using this in any actual tournaments, this is just to shut the team up the next time they make fun of me for sucking at volleyball.”

He nodded and the two of you started.

You quickly figured out that playing volleyball with Ushijima was very different than when you’d play with Tendou. Tendou was always goofing around and joking with you but with Ushijima he was unsurprisingly very serious, so it was up to you to lighten the mood. But you had to admit he was a pretty good teacher and kept the rude comments to a minimum, which was a feat on its own because he very rarely censored himself and you knew you weren’t doing to well.

It was well into the hour when shit finally hit the fan.

Ushijima asked you to toss him the ball to demonstrate him hitting a spike. So you did and as usual because of his strong spikes, the ball ended up rolling off, landing by your bag on the other side of the gym.

You offered to go get it, and in hindsight you really wished you did. But Ushijima said it was fine and went off to grab the ball.

When he went to pick it up, he noticed the zipper of your bag was opened and something inside caught his eye. He glanced back at you to see you looking down at your phone, before he brought his attention back to the object and pulled it out. His eyebrows furrowed.

It was a pill bottle and the label told him they were heat suppressants. But that wasn’t what caught his eye.

The date said they were prescribed about a month ago and the bottle was already three quarters gone.

He stood up straight and turned, “What are these?” He called out to you, making you look up.

You furrowed your eyebrows, “Idiot, are you going through my bag? Put those back and get back over here.” You rolled your eyes.

He only listened to half of what you said as he held the bottle and walked back, “(L/N)-chan, what is this?”

You looked at him confusedly, “They’re heat suppressants or did you forget that I’m an omega and go through heats?”

”More than half of them are gone.”

You faltered, realizing he checked the date on them. But you played it cool and shrugged, “So?”

”It’s dangerous to have that many suppressants in a month.”

You rolled your eyes, “What? Are you suddenly an omega now? They’re my pills, I can use them how I want.”

You could see Ushijima getting frustrated now, “The side effects of this many can be harmful to your body.”

”I’m fine— I’m more than fine. I haven’t had to go through a heat in a while and I’ve been functioning just the same, only it’s better now because I don’t have to deal with heats.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “What do you mean by ‘a while’?” He asked worried to hear just how long you were putting your body through this. Suppressants were meant to make heats easier, not stop them all together.

“Nothing, it really doesn’t matter,” you said in an attempt to brush it off.

”How long (L/N)-chan?”

You clenched your jaw, looking down at the ground, not answering.

”How long,” his voice became darker and firmer.

You hated it but when he used that tone, you found it difficult to deny, “A....a year.” You muttered.

Ushijima’s eyes widened in shock and horror, and it was probably the most emotion you’ve ever seen from him, “You missed four heats?”

”Well.... yeah.”

”You can’t do that to your body—“

”Why not?” You snapped, looking up at him, “It’s my body isn’t it? And my heats are my business. I’ve been completely fine up till now anyway.”

”What about your next heat? You have to have one eventually and if you’ve missed four, your next heat will be unbearable.”

”That’s only for some people,” you scoffed, “I could be completely fine.”

”And if you’re not? You don’t have a mate.”

”Why do you even care!” You huffed.

”Because—“ you’re my omega.

Ushijima completely stopped as the thought popped in his head. He was caught so off guard by that he forgot his argument.

But he did his best to compose himself before stating, “I’m keeping these.”

You scowled, “Like hell you are!” You yelled before leaping for the pill bottle, but he just held it over his head and out of your reach. You grabbed his arm and tried to pull it down but he would barely budge, “Ushijima this isn’t funny!” You yelled out in anger and slight panic.

He ignored the slight sting he felt at hearing his last name, but he didn’t give in, “This is for your own good.”

”Fuck my own good! I need those pills— I can’t go through another heat!”

”You’re an omega,” he snapped, “You can’t keep pretending you’re an alpha. Heats are necessary, learn your place already.”

And there were those words you absolutely despised, ‘learn your place’.

You blinked back the frustrated tears, “I’m leaving,” you scoffed. And with that you quickly ran out, grabbing your bag and leaving a very pissed off alpha behind you.

—

Tendou had no idea how things could get so screwed up the one time he got you two alone together.

You ended up avoiding Ushijima at all costs and Ushijima being who he was was definitely not going to approach you first when he believed he was right.

But Tendou could only handle so much of this stupid fight before trying to convince the two of you to make up.

But you said you’d only forgive him if he gave you your pills back and Ushijima said he wasn’t going to. So when Tendou got you to swear to Ushijima that you’d use them properly was he then able to sway Ushijima into giving them back.

So he did and you forgave him.

Of course there was still some resentment and animosity about the whole thing, but after a couple weeks things were back to normal more or less.

That was until that inevitable day approached.

You hadn’t come to class which wasn’t unusual because you liked to skip every once in a while, so Ushijima and Tendou didn’t think much of it at first.

That was until they overheard a conversation between two omegas not too far from them.

”The entire history hallway literally smells like omega.” The one girl complained.

”Really?” Her friend asked, “What happened.”

She shrugged, “Dunno. I think some omega went into heat, but my god is it strong. I think they locked themselves in a supply closet, there’s a group of as alphas just outside the door.”

”I feel kinda bad. We should tell someone to go help them. Do we know who the omega is?”

”Everyone’s pretty sure it’s (L/N) since the scent is pretty citrusy. Her roommate also told me she takes suppressants like they’re candy so it makes sense.”

Suddenly Ushijima had stood up. Tendou looked up at the alpha with a questioning gaze, but as he watched him just head straight for the door, a grin grew on his face as he knew where this was headed.

—

You were a mess as you hid away inside the supply closet. The heat had randomly hit you out of no where without a single warning. The most you were able to do was quickly lock yourself in the closet. And now you were left trembling in a curled up ball in the corner of the room.

You were hot everywhere and covered in a layer of sweat. Your chest rose and fell in breathy pants and the uncomfortable pool of wetness in your panties was getting really distracting.

And on top of all that, there was a group of alphas just outside calling out to you. You couldn’t make out what they were saying because of how overwhelmed you felt but their scents were definitely accelerating the heat.

And dread filled you at the thought of Ushijima being right. All four heats that you missed just hit you all at once.

This was the most helpless you’ve ever felt.

...Then you smelled it.

A scent far more overpowering than the alphas scents combined. And a scent you knew all to well. Heavy and woody— a scent that made your head spin and squeeze your legs together as a broken whimper left your throat.

The others had scattered in fear, soon leaving you alone with Ushijima Wakatoshi’s scent.

Ushijima walked in, easily breaking the lock. His gaze was intense as usual but there was also something else in his eyes as he found you curled up on the ground of the supply closet, in heat.

And even in the presence of an omega in a heat extreme as yours, Ushijima showed an incredible display over his instincts as he barely seemed bothered by it. The only thing that gave him away was how his breathing slowed, taking in deeper breaths as what was probably the prettiest and most mouth watering scent he ever smelled flooded his senses.

His presence commanded the area and the air reeked of his scent, and as tough as you were, even you fell weak to the presence of an alpha while in heat— and the so called alpha of alphas no less.

Your legs were squeezed tight as you buried your face in your knees, covering your nose from his scent.

”(L/N),” he said, voice deep and a touch of anger in it.

You whimpered, trying to fight back the tears that threatened to fall.

”Waka-kun,” your voice came out weak, broken, and muffled, it had even made Ushijima falter for a second, uneasy seeing you act so helpless. “I-I can’t— I can’t do this,” you shook your head, the tears running down your face now. “I-it’s barely even started and— and th-this feels worse than m-my worst heat.” You sniffled, body trembling and shaking now.

”I told you not to take those suppressants.”

A broken moan came out after hearing his rumbling voice and you squeezed your legs tighter— how embarrassing.

In truth, Ushijima greatly disliked seeing you like this, especially after developing such a fondness over the tough and fiery omega that used to drive him mad (and still does from time to time.) But there was still something he greatly enjoyed with seeing how submissive you were being in front of him— as long as he was the only one that got to see you like this. So what you said next, sparked something in him.

”D...do y-you know an a-alpha that... can help?” Your words were broken up with sobs and stifled moans.

And a strong sense of possessiveness washed over him at the thought of another alpha possibly aiding you through this heat.

”That won’t be necessary,” he spoke curtly, “Stand up,” he said, walking forward.

You clamped your hand tighter over your nose, suffocating on his scent, and you shook your head furiously, “I-I don’t know if I c-can—“

”Stand,” and there was no arguing with the Alpha tone in his voice, your body wouldn’t let you.

So on trembling knees you shakily stood up, holding your breath as you used the wall for support as you leaned against it.

Something wild was overtaking Ushijima’s senses at seeing how fragile and delicate you looked, and he stalked forward, eyes heavy with an intense gaze on you.

And he was now in front of you as you stared down at the ground, waiting for what he’d do next as you tried your best to stay composed by attempting to ignore his presence.

Suddenly, he raised his hand to cup your jaw, his other hand gripping your wrist to pull it away from your nose. And the absolute predatorial look in his eyes would’ve knocked you to your knees if the wall wasn’t there to support you.

He stroked your cheek with his thumb, wiping a tear away. “From tonight onwards you’re mine.” He growled before lifting your jaw up further.

You moaned at that and quickly nodded, “I-I’m yours.”

”I don’t care if you always want to fight back as long as you understand that right now, I’m in charge.” He said as his thumb traced your bottom lip before tugging down on it. And the second after you nodded, he crashed his lips against yours in a bruising kiss.

Your resolve immediately crumbled and you easily melted into the kiss, collapsing into him. A cry left your lips which was promptly swallowed by Ushijima. Your arms wrapped around his neck tightly as you tried rutting against his thigh. But he quickly grabbed ahold of your hips, stilling you.

You whined into his mouth, “Please Waka-kun.”

”Patience,” he commanded, making you quickly shut your mouth. “I’m going to take care of you,” and with that he picked you up.

He walked with you in his arms through the deserted hallway, making his way towards the dormitories, specifically his.

And as he walked through the school building, classes having been just let out, he ignored the stares and stunned silence from his peers as they gawked at the sight of the Alpha of Shiratorizawa Academy walking with the little annoying omega of the school in his arms, who was clearly in heat.

But right now all that was on his mind was getting you back to his dorm safely so he could spend the next how ever many days fucking you until all you could possibly remember was his name.

Ushijima unlocked his dorm door, seeing an already grinning Tendou sitting upon his bed, “Well didn’t this work out nicely?” He teased.

”Tendou I need the—“

He raised his hands in surrender, “I know, I know,” he said getting up, his eyes landing on you for a second, “Definitely a sight I never thought I’d see,” he mused at seeing you so submissive in Ushijima’s arms, before practically singing, “Have fun~” on his way out.

Ushijima kicked the door shut before walking over to his bed and dropping you on it. You were sprawled out on your back, absolutely breathless.

His own breathing was beginning to become more and more labored as your heat was pushing him into a rut.

”You’re going to behave?” He asked.

You nodded, a mewl escaping your lips as you rubbed your thighs together.

”Use your words.”

”Y-yes alpha,” you managed to get out, a glint reaching his eye at the title.

”Good. Now....bare your neck.”

You scrambled to do as he said, and a slight smirk grazed his lips at the sight, a sense of pride, similar to when he won tournaments, washed over him.

You kneeled up on your knees, titling your head to the side for him.

He smiled, cupping the side of your face, before leaning down to mark you.

So yes, Ushijima would put up with your fiery attitude and need to go against everything everyone tells you to do, as long as he’d be the one to get to see you like this.

Because for the first time since he’s known you.

You were finally listening.

[firelxdykatara]

gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.

atla fandom? we need to have a chat.

(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)

under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao

there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.

i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)

to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.

and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)

this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).

it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)

calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.

not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!

abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.

and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.

zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.

he says it himself:

Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.

ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.

[nangbaby]

Because they aren’t being assholes to people who don’t want to deal with bigots?

They're being assholes to people who don't want to be accused of being bigots or otherwise a bad person without any possible recourse. If you say you only block bigots, but then as a marginalized person I find myself being blocked by you, not only does it give a sense familiar dread of being blocked in real life with the idea my kind isn't welcome to be seen...it's unsettling because I apparently did something wrong, I have no idea what I did wrong, and most of all I have no path to make it up to this person. When multiple people isolate you by blocking, it makes you feel that, you know maybe you do have an 85 IQ and are a criminal just like the white supremacists say, or maybe you do have dysgenic genes and shouldn't breed, or maybe you're not doing your womanly duty, or maybe you're a sinful reprobate. Blocking marginalized people reinforces the stereotypes of society and destabilizes the blocked person in a way even the worst threat can't. If you slur me, I can declare to myself, "I'm not a slur" and determine my own worth, If you block me, I can't declare I'm not blocked because you have determined my worth for me.

In any world where you take unilateral and non-negotiable action against another person to cause them distress, that's being an asshole, abusive, manipulative, and in the case of the oppressed, a reinforcement of societal power structures.

I find certain topics (gore, n*zi stuff, etc) upsetting, so I block blogs that post those things and blacklist the tags.

How would you come across that stuff in the first place? The only thing I've seen is unwanted porn and even that goes away if you scroll past it. The only things shown on your dashboard are the people you follow and the content based on your likes. There's no need to block it if you aren't looking for it in the first place (like antis looking for topics that trigger them; they're wrong).

Everyone is free to speak their mind in a public square, but I’m in a coffee shop and the gore blogs are in the pub across the way. We aren’t forced to interact with each other.

No, neither you nor the gore blogs are in buildings. You're in a market square, an outdoor booth, or in the same open field area of the park. If you go to the park, you're going to see things you don't like, such as grimy, smelly kids and grimy, smelly dogs and they are going to run up on you. You can't ban kids and dogs from the park, and you can't force kids and dogs to be quiet and not approach you, so if there's a public place where those kids and dogs hang out that's ostensibly for everyone...you have to leave. You remove yourself, even if your friends are all there and you want to talk to them. You can't expect to be free of either dogs or kids in a public, even if you try to keep your distance.

Things said on the internet are taken seriously.

Then in that case, being blocked is serious business.

But what if that person won’t stop being cruel to you?

Blocking them doesn't stop them from being cruel to me because they still hurt me by proxy. The only way they'll stop being cruel is if they actually were hit with consequences for being cruel. Blocking people is cruel and makes the blocked person a permanent punching bag.

And spambots are not legitimate communication.

Not everyone wants to see endless discourse.

Except that's not discourse, but receipts on the lies and accusations people make about me. If people are telling other people to block me based on lies and have spreading hurtful memes and pictures, am I not allowed to challenge and protest the lies that have been told? If you lie about someone and get your followers to block someone based on a lie, one has to expose the truth. As you wrote, "you don’t say anything on the internet that you don’t want plastered on your hometown newspaper." But people get away with saying mean and cruel things about me all the time, and blocking them doesn't stop them from saying them.

To me, blocking doesn't manage hate. At best it's ineffective and at worst it's used by those who hate me to make me even more unwelcome and set apart

This one is addressed to the people who say blocking and the Internet aren't all that serious.

If you think that I'm making a big stink over nothing, why aren't you going after the other people who say blocking is self-care and necessary for mental health?

If anything, by blocking people you don't want to see, you're putting too much stock into what people are saying. You seeing what they write should have no effect on you if the Internet is no big deal. The people claiming they want to be safe and free from unsafe interactions are blowing things out of proportion forcing other people to not see them. So what's the point of blocking?

If as a stranger, I'm not really a person to you, then it's pointless to get bent out of shape over words on a screen and everyone should be allowed to say what they want. If people shouldn't be allowed to hurt people on the Internet, then the Internet does have to be taken seriously. People outright lie about who I am and assume I'm a bigot, so why is it wrong for me to make assumptions about them? I really don't get it. I'm "defensive" because there is a relentless attack in which I am seen as bad. If it's really no big deal as you say, then people shouldn't treat me any differently from anyone else.

If it follows that blocking is necessary is, then for some people, not being blocked is also necessary for mental health. If blocking is not necessary for mental health, then no one should block anyone.

And even if I am a hypocrite for (currently) blocking people…that doesn't make blocking right.

[hopelesshawks]

History of Us Part 34- The Calm

Summary: Once upon a time Todoroki and (y/n) were best friends. Now they haven’t spoken in years. When (y/n) is forced to transfer to UA, will she and Shoto reconnect or will their troubled past keep them apart? A childhood friends to enemies to lovers hybrid fic.

If you don’t want to see History of Us content blacklist #hopelesshou

Warning for depiction of physical abuse

Masterlist Kofi

“Shoto! You’re out of your room!” Fuyumi perks up eagerly as she spots him walking towards the front door. “Yes, I am,” Shoto replies simply, eager to get to the van he knows is waiting for him out front. “Where are you headed? Your internship with Dad is suspended until after the current investigation isn’t it?” she asks. “It is, I’m going to hang out with some of my friends,” Shoto replies. It’s technically not a lie. “Oh, well have fun and don’t stay out too late,” Fuyumi cautions. Shoto gives her a nod and then resumes his walk to the front door. He’s just opened the door and is about to step outside when Natsuo catches his shoulder. “You’re not just going to hang out with friends are you?” Natsuo asks, his eyes darting over to the waiting van. “I don’t know what you mean,” Shoto replies coolly, raising an eyebrow at his older brother. Natsuo just sighs, searching Shoto’s eyes for something before finally responding. “I hope you’re right about her and I hope you save her,” he tells his brother, before patting his shoulder once and walking away. Shoto watches his brother go, appreciative of the well wishes, until Bakugo lays angrily on the horn to tell him to hurry up. Shoto steels himself and then rushes out to the van to join his friends. He has a mission to accomplish after all.

The minute he’s in the van Bakugo floors it to the location Tamaki had sent Kirishima. The plan is relatively simple. Get in, find you, get out, all as stealthily as possible. The compound isn’t far from a commercial area so they park there and walk over so if caught they can say they heard the fighting and decided to jump in to help. The idea is that if they can get you out they can then get you to help the heroes catch your father and expose the coercion that entrapped you in the first place. Hopefully doing so will be sufficient to clear your name. Tamaki texts Kirishima once the pros begin approaching the building. All that’s left is to wait.

You sit on the floor of the lounge dicking around on your phone, music playing from a portable speaker Dabi had stolen the other day. You wouldn’t call you and Dabi friends by any stretch of the imagination but the two of you had established a routine of entertaining each other in the lounge or simply doing your own thing in the same general vicinity. Today is no different. He sits across the way and while neither of you has any intention of engaging with the other it’s still kind of nice to not be entirely alone and Dabi’s taste in music is better than pretty much everything else about him. You don’t notice at first when your father storms into the room, you only notice him when he wrenches your phone from your hands. “Hey, what-“ before you can even finish your question his fist is slamming into your face with enough force to knock you over. He reaches down and grabs a fistful of your hair. It feels like some kind of sick irony that he grabs the white half, having made you rinse out the dye shortly after you’d declared your loyalty. He yanks you up just enough to get in your face, his eyes burning with a lethal rage. “Why are there heroes outside our door?” he sneers. “I don’t know,” you tell him earnestly but that only makes him growl as he slams your head against the ground. “Don’t lie to me,” he threatens. “I’m not! I swear!” you cry out.

Your father releases your hair unceremoniously before standing back up, kicking you hard in the side, and then scrolling through your phone. You groan and curl up instinctively to protect yourself, your still bruised ribs not appreciating the abuse. You brace yourself for another hit but it never comes. Your father squats back down next to you and reaches his hand out. You flinch but he just reaches out to stroke over your hair gently, shushing you as he sets your phone down carefully next to you. “I’m sorry my darling, I thought you’d betrayed me for those pesky heroes. I’m glad you’ve stayed loyal,” he tells you. “Heal yourself up and prepare to protect our home,” he tells you before rising again and leaving the room. You gingerly push back up to a sitting position, your vision swims so you close your eyes and try to breathe through it. You picture you and Shoto’s first kiss and hate that the feelings it invoked in you feel distant now. It’s not much, your quirk activating only faintly, but it’s enough to make sure you’re not concussed since you’re apparently about to head into battle.

When you open your eyes you’re surprised to find Dabi squatting in front of you, eyes trained on where your head hit the ground. “The bleeding hasn’t stopped,” he notes. “I noticed,” you huff. He shrugs and stands again. “I didn’t tell the heroes where we are,” you tell him. You’re not sure what reaction to expect but it’s not for a smirk to stretch across his features, tugging at the staples holding his skin together. “Oh I know,” he grins. Your eyes narrow at Dabi as you try to parse him out. “You told them,” you realize. “I didn’t tell them anything but I guess I should have been more careful making sure I wasn’t followed after our last little excursion. Oops,” he says. “Why?” “I was curious. I’m excited to see how you play this,” he explains. “I really wish you were less obsessed with me,” you groan causing Dabi to laugh as he extends a hand to help you off the floor. He doesn’t care about you. You’re pretty sure he lost the ability to care about people a long time ago. But you think this might be the closest he gets now as you take his offered hand and pull yourself off the floor. “Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and my baby brother will tag along with dear old dad,” Dabi laughs as he makes his way out of the room. You take another moment to gather your bearings, head still throbbing a bit, before following Dabi out.

Something tells you this is about to be a disaster.

A/N: Dabi canonically admits he doesn’t care about/feel anything for people anymore sorry Dabi stans BUT I think he’d still have like morbid fascination with people he deems interesting and how they’d react to certain situations, which is why he was interested in seeing what would happen if (y/n)’s loyalties were called into question and immediately afterward she was put between the two sides of hero and villain.

Taglist: @sorrythatspussynal @miss-bakugo-writes @pixelwisp @larkspyrr @sokkaandzukosimp @akkaso @sunaispretty @shot0stea @todoplusultra @oliviasslut @lapysllazuly @immah0e4fictionalmen @cinnamonruts

(Bold name couldn’t be tagged)

[jade-marie]

Ok so on the prospect of “anti” tagging I have some thoughts.

This got long, not gonna lie.

Which content is considered anti?

This whole anti thing is a very subjective concept. I’ve seen a lot of talk over the last few days about “negativity” when, to me, negativity is when you’re just talking shit for the sake of talking shit, not when you’re making valid criticisms. Pointing out flaws in the writing or plot holes or racism isn’t being negative and this mindset that everyone has to be positive all the time is fucking toxic. It makes other people feel like shit when they aren’t enjoying an episode or storyline and simply want to share their experience.

And what content are people supposed to tag? Because I don’t see anybody requesting an anti-Dean tag or anti-Manny Montana when we’re all collectively roasting him for getting a stupid tattoo on his neck. But god forbid anyone critiques Beth’s character flaws. Heavens no - the misogyny!! So where exactly is the line being drawn? Does everyone have to tag content that isn’t singing Beth‘s/the show’s praises or are we allowed to make valid criticisms?  Are we allowed to say that we didn’t enjoy an episode?  Is this simply being reserved for people who mindlessly bash the show with no valid reason for what they’re saying? And while we’re on the topic - you might find criticisms of particular characters/storylines offensive, somehow. You might find that it impacts your viewing experience. Other people might find praise of particular characters/storylines equally as frustrating. When I see people praising Beth, sometimes it makes me want to stab my fucking eyes out, quite frankly. Soooo are we going to start tagging “positive” content as well?🙃

Silencing POC within fandom

It’s not lost on me, the timing of all this discussion. The fact of the matter is, the content people have an issue with right now is predominantly criticism of Beth, a lot of which is rooted in criticism of the racist writing on the show and the white feminism that she represents. A lot of this criticism is coming from POC viewers. So the second they have to start tagging their posts as “anti-Beth” so everyone can blacklist them, they no longer have a voice.

At the end of the day, this is a predominantly white female fandom and it’s very easy for the show to be viewed through that particular lens. So when you have POC fans finally speaking up and criticising the way Beth‘s handled by the writing, the way Rio is fetishised, the way racist tropes and stereotypes are utilised and they’re immediately branded “negative” - that really doesn’t set a good precedent. Because now you’re telling people that by making valid criticisms and speaking about the way their viewing experience is being impacted, they’re somehow ruining other peoples’ experience. It’s bordering on micro-aggressions, at this point.

Fandom is a communal space

Is it? Is it really? Because from where I sit half of this apparent community have fucking blocked each other anyway. Tumblr, in particular, is not a communal space. People have their own blogs and they post what they want to post. If you don’t like what they post, you don’t have to follow them, it’s really simple. In comparison, a platform like reddit is actually communal. People have to go into a shared space in order to voice their opinion, they have live episode discussions, they have post-episode discussions, yet nobody tries to police each other’s opinion there. People tag their spoilers but that’s it. If someone posts an opinion you don’t agree with, you simply move past it like a fucking adult. 

If you go on Twitter and you look through the good girls tag, you’re going to see a shit ton of stuff you don’t agree with and guess what? You just scroll past it. Because despite what people try to convince themselves, there is nothing communal about fandom unless you create your own community. If you join one of the good girls Facebook groups (again, communal in a way that tumblr isn’t) you’re going to see opinions you don’t like and once again, you just scroll the fuck past. And please don’t start talking about community when people are still too scared to actually voice their opinions because they think no one will like them or they’ll get hate. When people are literally leaving because they’re afraid that their “negativity” is going to bring everyone else down. When people are still punitively unfollowing/blocking/blacklisting and making shady fucking tags about each other for having a differing opinion about a work of fiction, how exactly can you even begin to talk about communal space?

If you want to start talking about community and manners, maybe take on board the criticisms people are making, recognise the issues being raised, stop punishing people for having different opinions and stop being so fucking selfish. On the other hand, you could decide to stop preaching community and everyone can post whatever the fuck they want, if you don’t like what you see, don’t follow them.

P.S if someone critiquing a show or talking about the issues they have with it makes you enjoy it less, maybe that’s because you didn’t like it that much to begin with. 

[nyxelestia]

Vox article about the infamous wall of tags fic.

tl;dr at the end

What it’s about and why we care / article quotes:

All that, by itself, isn’t enough to make STWW remarkable — not on a website as wild and unpredictable as AO3. Yet the fic has become impossible for many AO3 users to ignore thanks to a unique quirk: Its author has linked it to more than 1,700 site tags (and counting).

Guides to how to block the fic have cropped up. For example, I use a Chrome extension that blocks fics with too many tags (you can specify how many tags is too many — I picked 50); there’s also simple site code that you can add to your custom site “skin” to block the fic completely from search results, as well as other workarounds.

But the usefulness of these options is limited. Site skins only work for logged-in users. Website extensions don’t work on mobile. Many other workarounds aren’t compatible with adaptive technology like screen readers used by disabled people and others — and if you think having to scroll past the tags on a phone is obnoxious, imagining getting stuck on it while a screen reader laboriously recites all 1,700 tags out loud.

(Emphases mine.)

My take on this specific fic:

I was sympathetic when I thought that maybe the author is just unaware of what they’re doing - but they have been made aware, they know exactly the effect they are having on other users and the community at large, and they’re still doing it.

[The author] acknowledged the controversy around their fic but emphasized that they were operating completely within AO3’s rules. “If AO3 has a category or a big red warning checkbox to say ‘click this to read crazy fics’ then I should put my fic in there,” they joked. “People are free to search (my) fic or exclude the fic using tags.”

Virtual1979 also remained steadfast when I pointed out that their fic was breaking the site for disabled users, stressing that the onus should be on AO3 — not them — to make enforceable site changes.

So now my sympathy’s all dried up. I do not remotely believe them when they say they aren’t a troll. Maybe they truly didn’t start out trolling, but they were repeatedly asked to stop, told about the impact they were having, and have themselves admitted on their Twitter account that they are laughing all the way to the bank.

A tweet they have since deleted - I did not think to grab a screenshot. So here is a screenshot of them saying they routinely delete their own Tweets, and their reaction to people who ask them to stop over-tagging their fic:

Maybe they started out as a well-intentioned new poster, unfamiliar with AO3 or how tagging works. And knowing fandom, I’m sure they faced some harassment for it. However, given they’ve been repeatedly asked to stop, and explicitly told how they are negatively affected so many other users’ ability to interact with the fandom and the website as a whole...and do not care, and continue to keep at it?

Freedom of speech gives them the right to be an asshole, but it also gives me the right to call them an asshole.

But, I do understand why AO3 isn’t banning them, and I agree with AO3′s current decision not to remove this fic. There needs to be some deeper changes, but banning this specific author or fic right now would likely cause more problems down the road than it solves right now.

What is the line for “Too Many Tags”? What would it mean for authors of non-anthology works? What impact would banning this over-tagged fics have on other over-tagged-but-not-as-badly fics? What will it mean for our culture of curating your content and experiences if blacklisting tags gets compromised due to such limits?

I’ve been frustrated by over-tagged fics before, and I certainly hope this will make other, well-meaning, good-faith authors reconsider decisions while compiling anthologies of their disconnected works going forward. Neither of these mean fans should expect AO3 to respond to mob rule and ban this fic.

My take on this article beyond this specific fic:

I disagree with the implication from the article that this is related to fandom’s longstanding issues concerning racism (and other -isms and -phobias) in fanfic. After all, the vast majority of fandom’s racism, sexism, misogyny, etc. isn’t tagged. At most, you can expect that certain ships or tags probably mean there will be certain racist tropes.

This does a disservice towards fans of a ship who don’t partake in or propagate those racist tropes - I myself included in that group. I routinely got comments on my fic from people who expected me to use racist tropes and fanons because of the ship tag on my fic, as these tropes were (and really, still are) so strongly associated with the ship. More importantly, there is no reliable way to tell from a fic’s meta-data whether there will be something in the fic the author doesn’t identify.

The fundamental problem with racism in fandom is not “people are making these racist things” but “people refuse to acknowledge these things they are making are racist” - and AO3′s meta-data is entirely self-identifying.

If an author does not think their work is racist, then they will not tag it as such, which means the rest of us will have no way of knowing until after we’ve already read the racism.

“Curate your own reading” is very applicable to things authors are willing to identify and tag in their own works - such as kinks, violence, etc. But if it is something the author did not intend, and does not agree with/identify, then readers who oppose it cannot curate against it.

Which is why I find this paragraph so misleading, specifically the part I bolded:

Throughout 2020, during sustained discussions across social media about structural racism and other toxic elements in fandom, AO3 users repeatedly requested that the site add basic features that could help users avoid involuntarily engaging with fics they found toxic or harmful. For example, currently there’s no real way to officially sanction a writer who includes racist elements in their fanfiction — the site’s abuse policy FAQ doesn’t mention race, and there’s currently no way to “warn” readers about racially charged elements in a fic. (You can warn readers about other controversial fic content, like character deaths, non-consensual scenarios, and underage characters.) And there are many readers who’d like to avoid engagement with fics and authors they deem to be racist.

These are tags an author can add onto their own work...but readers cannot warn other readers about an author’s work! And to be clear, I think that’s a good thing overall - readers being able to add their own tags to someone else’s work leaves way too much room for abuse, which would happen far more than readers warning other readers about things the author refuses to identify or tag. My point here is that apart from “how to deal with works and authors you already know are assholes”, there is no connection between this specific fic and its ensuing mess, and the broader problems of pervasive racism in fandom.

The only thing the wall of tags situation and the fandom racism situation have in common, at least in relation to AO3, is that fans want to block certain authors or works whom you already know are assholes. This, the Vox article got right.

However, there are many, many ways to be an asshole other than racism. There are many reasons to block specific works or authors besides racism. There are many types of abuse and harassment besides racism. Acting as if “blocking toxic works or people” is inherently and automatically about the on-going discussions about race in fandom reduces racism to individual acts and actors, and ignores its nature as a systemic problem.

tl;dr

While there are work-arounds to avoid that fic with 1700+ tags (and others), these workarounds are very limited in their helpfulness.

Author has the right to do this, but freedom of speech also gives the rest of us the right to call them out for their poor behavior. I 100% believe they are now an intentional bad-faith actor / troll, even if they did not necessarily start out as one.

Despite my disdain, I understand and agree with AO3′s decision to not remove the fic or ban the author, however much I hate them both. All of AO3′s decisions have ramifications and implications beyond the immediate situations they are made for. This one fic/author should not get to chip away at AO3′s mission against censorship.

Apart from the very broad nature of blocking toxic people or abusive works, I don’t think this situation has anything to do with racism. Implicating individual behavior and tagging as a related referendum is reductive to the systemic nature of fandom racism.

[cookie-run-rarepair-week]

Welcome!

This is my (@the-wereraven)'s blog for Cooke Run rarepair week! Where I post a list of prompts for the week every year in August! Those who participate can create anything! Drawings, fanfiction, playlists, videos, edits, etc! Everything goes, even unfinished stuff!

But before we get to the prompts and creations, I'm afraid there are some rules to follow so that this doesn't get out of hand!

Rules:

To avoid any potential (and unnecessary) drama, any ships regarding Sea Fairy and/or Moonlight will not be reblogged here. You can still make them, but I will not reblog them. I sincerely apologise for this.

Keep your work SFW!!

PROSHIPPERS ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE! Pedophilia, incest, zoophilia, etc. I don't want any of you here. This also includes selfcest, sorry guys.

Please tag your works under "cookie run rarepair week" and/or tag this blog so I can see the beautiful works and reblog them! ^^

You can make more than one project for a single prompt! You can also make projects for past prompts!

If you don't like a ship, simply scroll along and/or blacklist the ship tag(s), do not send hate to the creator or reblog it with mean stuff in the tags. We can all be adults here.

Which also means don't come to this blog just to complain about seeing a ship you don't like.

Ships in AUs are also allowed! Just make sure to specify it somewhere!

This is a week for canon x canon ships, so only those will be reblogged!

If you see me mistag something, let me know!

If I don't reblog your stuff after you have recently posted it, please don't spam me, I could be sleeping or offline and I promise I will try to get every single one!

BUT, if I don't get to your work within a day or two, feel free to tag me again!

Not mandatory but I'd appreciate it if you have the ship name in the tags! Whether it's a name combo or just a [name] x [name] ^^

LIST OF POPULAR SHIPS

Unclear about something? Check the #rules tag and see if I answered it there, if not, send an ask about it and I'll answer and tag it for future reference!

May we all have a splendid week!