fable-parade

[bredforloyalty]

i'm not sure whether i should go back to this but mutuals, even just like, followers ((anyone i have even the slightest level of familiarity with)), your requests are respected for You i'll trigger tag anything. for Anonymous i will do nothing

[spinnyspinnyspinnnn]

Since there's an off chance all us Americans getting nuked in November, there's one last thing(not really) I feel I have to share with you:

I do not understand why antis harass proshippers. Really, I don't. I don't see a real point in the matter. And here's some potential arguments I see, and why I think it might be wrong, aside than the morals of harassment.

"But they're all kid diddlers-"

Most of them are kids, from what I've seen, and the ones that are actual kid diddlers who intend to do the diddling are typically shunned from their community.

"But it's a harmful coping mechanism-"

What if they don't have anything else, huh? I'm not trying to really defend the shit but I'd rather see proshippers post incest and age-gap stuff than watch someone else fall to much more graphic coping mechanisms that might end up killing them. And even if it isn't a coping mechanism, why is that our business?

"But proshipping is bad-"

Bad? Maybe. But antis have also watered down their terms. From the research I've done, it's being anti-harassment. Not caring what people do in fiction. It's a stance a lot of us could and should take on, because being against harassment is a good thing. If you bring that shit into real life, then yeah you're a piece of garbage, but I don't see the point in bringing it into fandom spaces and being shunned for it. People have mentioned how proship used to be a default, that us antis are basically the fandom version of purity culture. I don't get it.

"But it's so graphic and-"

That's plain hypocritical and you know it. So many of us antis enjoy dark and graphic media. Hell, I'm writing something with multiple graphic, violent scenes and awful relationships that, since I'm nearing 18 the more I write this project, may end up mildly n$fw at some points if the shoe fits. If we can indulge in our yanderes, in our torture scenes, in our "toxic yuri/yaoi," and all those other things.. the stuff they do seems not that much different, other than maybe the sexual points. Then again, so many books and movies exist that are graphic and s3xual that antis enjoy that it really doesn't matter. If we can indulge in that fucked up stuff, why can't they indulge in their fucked up stuff? What's the real difference here?

But {insert obvious rage bait-}"

Clearly, you've fallen for stuff you shouldn't. You don't need to "fix their headcanons," that's their whole point. People who post shit like that just want attention. And attention you constantly give them. Same with the art posts. You don't need to fix the bait, dude. It's nothing to get angry over, there's bigger fish in the sea.

From what I've seen, most actual proshippers just want to be left the fuck alone, to stop being harassed by us. If we're the "good guys" in fictional, fandom spaces, why do we go out and tell those people to die, to get assaulted, to get abused and harmed, and how to do awful things to themselves, all because of their stance on fandom spaces and the things they may or may not even ship? Are we really being "good" there? Or are we just under the guise that we're good by protecting those characters while we completely disregard how disgusting and horrendous it actually is to say things to real people and real kids?

By the original stance that proshipping and profiction meant(anti-harassment, leave people be, etc.), what proshippers actually claim to be nowadays, most of us could, in a technical sense, be considered proship/profic. That includes myself. If we use the definition most antis who harass proshippers use, that being those who enjoy problematic ships and condone these things IRL, that wouldn't fit. And only one of those things, the problematic ships part, could be considered under the profiction stance as either comship(complicated ship, from what I can tell), or darkship(which is the really messed up shipping tropes that you'd see headcanons of in rage bait posts, but actually taken seriously and thought of instead of being used for attention).

If you read to the end, this is just food for thought. Feel free to block me if you don't agree with any of this. Or, if you have something I'm missing, feel free to engage in some casual discussion with me. I'm not asking to fight or stir up drama, this is just how I feel about things and if you have a different opinion you want to talk about, go ahead and mention it.

Be civil, people and creatures alike. I'll be using tags from both communities to allow a healthy debate on this post. You'll be blocked if you start fighting people or myself.

[k-s-morgan]

I have a question.

Is there a difference for you in terms of properly representing a selective group of people, whether that be race, ethnicity, identity and sexuality V.S. Survivors are of trauma, assault, psychological damage, mental illness and otherwise?

I know that you don’t mind people who romanticize dark events like rape, Stockholm syndrome or like incest (I’m not sure about that last one)Like do you not mind when people romanize rape or racism?

For me personally. I don’t mind people writing about dark elements of society. That is because it brings awareness to these serious issues in our society. I’m not so sure though about painting them in rose colored lenses or portraying it as something that is good. (Unless it usually from the victim’s warped perception)

I think a lot of things are interesting. Like your own stories. To me they don’t give out a message. Like yes this is an amazing relationship go do the same thing or this is something you should look for in a relationship/person! But some of the stories that are darker and portray like pedophilia and rape make it seem like ‘oh they really wanted it’ or ‘it’s okay, it’s not that bad’

I think those are dangerous messages to give out. Whether to children or adults. Because there is a thing like when you start off by put off by it, but the more you read things like that the more accustom to it and it becomes not as bad as a thing. Ya know.

That’s how like a lot of serial killers, rapists and other people start on the path to do those horrible things. It’s because they become accustomed to the message that it’s alright to do what they want.

Sorry for the long ask. But just wanted to ask your opinion on the matter because I see both sides of the argument and I want to find a middle ground. Ya know.

Hello! This will get a bit long, but I’d like to start with asking everyone: please don’t send me asks about the morality of fiction. While I can write essays on it, it’s not the topic that interests me and I don’t want to spend my time on it, no matter how genuine and respectful you are. I’m going to say everything I think about this subject in this reply, and that’s it.

Anon: I indeed don't mind romanization of such things as rape, age difference, incest, violence, and so on in fiction. These kinds of stories exist for adults only, and it's expected that adults can tell the right from wrong without having everything spelled out for them. In an ideal world, children shouldn't have access to fiction like this, but they are curious and easily bypass restrictions. In this case, the responsibility is on them and/or their parents. When I was about 11, I discovered the world of fanfiction. There were no tags then, and I readily clicked on "I'm 18" warnings to read the content I wanted. Some of it affected me badly - I still vividly remember the story where my favorite character was graphically raped, and it left me terrified and upset. With time, I learned how to recognize and filter such content, and it's especially easy now, when tagging has become commonplace.

There are indeed stories that portray very problematic things in a fluffy and positive way, though I'd say they are a minority. I read *a lot* of stuff and I probably saw just a few of them over my whole life. Even then, though, it is expected that adults read such content. And adults, along with most teenagers, won't decide that if one or even ten stories showed a fucked up relationship very positively, then it must be a good thing in real life. People are surrounded by parents, relatives, friends and their families, classmates, folks on the streets: this influence is far more profound than a story they might have read.  

Fiction can reflect the society, but it doesn't direct it. Every day, we see the normalization of smoking, drinking, toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, and racism in movies, TV shows, cartoons, etc. But they are there because the society is like this. These things existed long before fiction as we know it started developing. At the same time, murders aren't normalized in the society at all no matter how many action, thriller, and horror movies we all see. And murders are shown much more often than incest, minor/adults, and abuse portrayed in positive light. So if nothing happened with the former, nothing will definitely happen with the latter. 

Fiction can indeed have a small positive impact by normalizing things like equality. For example, it's natural for random female characters to kiss a male character. It's present even in 'Hannibal', where Chiyoh kisses Will and Bedelia kisses Hannibal out of blue, with nothing to really justify it. But it's almost unheard of male characters to do the same: if they do kiss other male characters randomly, it's usually within the "ewww, gross!" joking context. If things were to change, as they are slowly doing, if characters were allowed to interact equally regardless of their gender, then it could make an impact on the society. But fiction alone could never be responsible for it: same-sex marriages are being legalized. Punishments for homophobia start being enhanced. There are changes happening in the real world, and fiction is just a nice addition that helps solidify them.

There should be more diversity and more representation in fiction because it could aid in the positive practices that are already happening. But no matter how many stories feature romantization of violence, it's not and won't be accepted in the society because people have a general understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

There is also a big difference between fandom content and mainstream content. Someone's fanfic about romantic rape won't re-write the morals of a person. It's a work published for free and you can never guess what motivated the writer to create it. Mainstream fiction, on the other hand, is expected to show a little more care because millions are being poured into it and it has a far wider reach. POC and LGBTQ people already suffer from discrimination. If fiction further contributes to it, it's bad. If it chooses to contribute to the positive changes that take place, it's great. But everything still and always goes back to the real world.  

Finally, serial killers don't become killers because they saw a message about it being okay in fiction. They were already fucked up and considering it, and they just wanted to find a justification. What you see in real life has a far bigger influence than anything you experience in fiction, and the numbers don't change. It's been decades from the moment violence started being glamourized, and the majority of population don't think it's okay to beat someone up. 80% of women have rape fantasies, but most people don't think they actually want to be raped. The same principle applies to every type of fiction out there. People with unstable minds, people who cannot differentiate between the real and the made-up, people who are easily triggered by dark material should not be consuming fiction of this type. If they do, the fault for that doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the creator, just like it cannot fall on producer of peanut cookies if a person with peanut allergy decided to eat them. 

[rpbetter]

a vent (feel free to ignore if it's too much!): so recently i've noticed psd makers getting anon asks on whether they're ok with people who write certain topics (mostly rpf, incest, rape, underage, the usual "problematic" topics) using their recourses. now, i don't roleplay any of these subjects on tumblr, so even if a content creator said not to use their stuff, it's not even something i need to worry about - but, and maybe this is me overthinking it, what if i, someday, write a noncon fanfic on ao3? i'm still not using their resources on the subject or writing it on tumblr, but i'd probably feel weird about it, like i'm crossing some boundary. what if a psd maker whose content i've already purchased suddenly goes "actually don't use my psds if you rp abusive relationships", which is probably the closest to what people consider "taboo themes" of the things that i roleplay. it just feels like a fine line between personal boundaries and a shitty situation for a customer - not wanting to cross boundaries but already having PAID for something previously, when no such rules existed. it's making me want to 1. block everyone i see saying this, because even though i don't personally roleplay the topics above, i don't feel SAFE around people who tell others what kind of fiction they are allowed to enjoy and 2. just quit using people's resources and spend years learning to make my own psds so i won't have to worry about this shit. it's just stressing me out, as someone who has been harrassed and bullied online for speaking against censorship. i've had literal sock accounts made just to spew targetted harrassment at me on twitter. i've been accused of being a pedo and supporting incest and this is??? literally for saying "i don't think real people should be harrassed for fictional shit", i've not even shipped underage or incest ships. both make me uncomfortable. but fuck, antis make me 1000000x more uncomfortable than people who ship these kinda ships. i digress, this got rambley, i just. do you have any advice on what to do with the potential psd situation, or am i really just overthinking it? (always worried i accidentally send stuff like this off anon. help)

I need you to know that I actually had to rush-scroll back up and just double check that you did submit on anon lol! I always get worried I'll miss the one person who accidentally didn't use anon, if it makes you feel any better! When someone does submit with their URL attached, I message them first to be sure they are okay with them having it posted that way/it wasn't an accident ;) That's what I would want someone to do!

Alright, so, anyhow...

I've also noticed that becoming a more common thing and it's been on my (maybe huge) list of things to look into for a bit because I really do try to make sure I'm not just noticing things in my areas of the RPC/failing to notice things that do not impact me. Since I do all my edits and graphics, it falls into the first category for me. So, thank you for moving that up the list and informing me that it really is more prevalent and not my imagination!

My take on seeing it was a combination of business logic and anxiety, not going to lie.

On the first: charging to do a psd that is just that, just a psd file being used as a template/to act as an easier version of a photoshop "action" in a way, that's 100% legal and fine. Absolutely no muddy waters there. However, charging to do things like icons, edits, etc. that include images of celebrities and stills from movies (or gifs) is quite muddy. Legally, it's not legal. It's a thing we're allowed to do and use (on most platforms) because we're not making money off of it, we're not claiming to hold rights to the images, and so on - it's ignored but illegal. Charging money for it, however, even when phrased as "for my time" (which, absolutely valid feeling), is a more serious form of illegal and potentially attention-getting. This all gets more iffy though when we add donation instead of direct commission/purchase when working with these copyrighted materials. You can ask people to donate and suggest a donation based on your time spent, and that is always what I advise people to do.

Okay, so, that preface is necessary because the thing about stipulating use-rights is that they're iffy, too, there are variables present.

Often, these same people are charging for things like icon packs as well, meaning that even if they're only charging you for a template-style psd file sans imagery they don't own, they've kind of shot themselves in the foot. Not to mention, it's exceedingly damn hypocritical to pitch a fit about someone violating your rights when you're literally using other people's copyrighted materials lmao And that does tend to occur to me, yeah, it's a consequence of attorney friends and running businesses.

The other issues with this are that usage rights have to be stated at the time of purchase and morality clause-style shit, as pertains to products, is not legally binding.

When you purchase something like a psd file, that purchase acts as a sort of contract.

Think of like...buying a photoshop brush set - the person selling it puts very simple rules as to its use, such as: non-commercial use only, brush pack cannot be resold or distributed for free, separate brushes from the pack cannot be resold or distributed for free individually. Meaning that you own the brushes you bought, but you are not legally allowed to make real-life money from anything you use them in, and you cannot send the whole pack or files individually to friends for free or charge other people for them. By buying these, you have agreed to these stipulations of use and ownership.

If the person sells psd's and you agree to what they've stated about the use (you can't use them to do commissions you make IRL money from, you can't give them away to friends, etc.), that's binding even somewhere as casual as RP Land. The exchange of real currency makes it that serious.

However, there are limits to stipulations of use! One of those things is when you agreed - this person cannot, even one literal second, later change their terms of use and retroactively hold you to them. If they were okay with you not crediting them anywhere or using them in works you will gift others or charge others something like game currency for at the time you purchased, then that's it. Tough shit for them, not you, when they decide a month later that they want credit given where the work appears, that they do not want finished products gifted, or don't want you to make even in-game currency from them.

And that absolutely would apply to the morality wank, yes.

Except that this very morality wank comes with its own issues. Reality is not tumblr. In reality, at least in most instances and countries, you can't throw in a fucking morality clause regarding the buyer, use of item, or finished product.

Think of this in this way: Chik-Fil-A starts denying chicken and waffle fries to anyone suspected of being queer. They're legally allowed to run their business (as a private business, everything does have variables) with some things that are morally objectionable that they feel morally aligns with their religious beliefs. They're not allowed to deny queer workers a job or queer customers service, however, in accordance with overarching laws.

While "being gross" online in fiction is not like, making anyone a protected status person lol this is just an extreme example to drive home the point. Legally, when it comes to items/products be they digital or physical, your rights and responsibilities as the seller don't include your moral policing.

What your right is, is to make people uncomfortable to a degree, yeah. You absolutely can do that. You can state some nasty shit about prospective buyers you don't want. For example, they should (I mean, they should just grow up and get some real concerns, but) be stating that they would not like to see their psd's used by people on this following DNI list of idiocy, and they will block those users if possible to prevent interaction and purchase. That's really it, that's what they can do and the least immature way to proceed.

On the second: none of this logic would make me feel comfortable about interacting with them and their psd's in the future once they had outed themselves as morally objectionable and dangerous to me with this nonsense. And I would still feel anxious about using things I had previously bought because once harassed...it doesn't really go away, does it? It would just give me some ease about the latter with things I'd already made. Like, I could keep using the icons I'd made with those psd's with a little bit more comfort knowing that they honestly have not a leg to stand on outside of their harassment.

I might have the tendency to respond to harassment without much upset, but that doesn't mean I want to be harassed. Especially when I am not doing anything that draws that kind of attention. Not that harassment is warranted over anything, but when I make a PSA or answer an ask that I know is likely to get their attention and piss them off? That's an acceptable risk I am knowingly taking. When I'm just going about my life as a RPer, it isn't.

So, I don't feel like you're overthinking it or being too concerned! In no way did you sign up for getting unwanted attention, and because it has happened before, of course, you're trying to insulate yourself from having it happen again. That's totally reasonable!

Now, what you could do about it...

It's another of those situations in which we're only truly capable of controlling ourselves. Everyone else is kind of a NPC.

You don't have to do anything I'm suggesting, but these are things I would do!

I would block the shit out of anyone saying these things/trying to make them stipulations, yes.

By that, I mean that I would also visit blogs they appear to interact with and they'd be blocked as well. We can all reblog something like resources or a shit post from a user we do not agree with without realizing it, but when it's frequent reblogs, direct support, and friendly vibes going on, it's safer to assume that they are aware their friend sucks. More importantly, that they do not think their friend sucks and support their views.

Even if that is not the case, do you want someone else's repeated inattention to expose you to bad actors? Nope! So, don't run the risk of paying and otherwise interacting with the one resource blog in the group that doesn't express these views/"requirements," but does involve themselves with those who do.

Try to find people selling these resources, that are not connected to the problem ones, who do not have those views. Once a trend starts, it is very hard to stop until it has run its course naturally, so, this might be difficult and take some extreme effort. You might want to consider asking like-minded friends who use psd's where they got them so you can check those users out for yourself.

If they're all the same, problem, people...

Look for users well outside of your corner of the RPC(s) who are not asking to be paid. I know it sounds wild, but there really are RPers out there who just enjoy making things for others! I can think of at least one right off on my dash. They might not be advertising for doing psd's or psd packs, but either they might be willing to do so (especially if they do not appear policing-positive) if you explain what is going on, or they could at least fill some requests for you for fully made icons and such. Hell, people who love doing this work usually know others who do as well, and anti-policing people quite reasonably stick together. They could have suggestions for someone not vile selling psd's.

Depending on what it is you want your psd's to do, I promise you that it wouldn't take you very long to learn it. I know...I know lol that's both really easy for me say when I've been doing it for over twenty years and am about to piss some people off. The latter because the most common settings on popular psd's are extremely simple shit, a lot of that is the kind of thing you're expressly told not to do in design work. Like ramping up extreme contrast, pixelating the fuck out of an image, and turning up the primary colors only. Once you get to playing with photoshop or an equivalent, you will totally see what I mean. You can accidentally make an icon look identical to something that is on trend in the RPC. If that was what you were going for? You've hit the mark, and it's just repetition and tweaking it here and there!

Once you start playing with it, too, it's actually pretty intuitive when it comes to the basic things like resizing, adjusting colors and contrast, and doing easy effects like blurs and sharpening. Frankly, playing with it is better than half the tutorials you'll find because they get unnecessarily complicated when all you want to do is crop your muse's face, overlay some color, and add a damn dotted border. Listen, like I said, I have a lot of experience...and I find many tutorials frustrating and overwhelming!

It is not just you, you're not dumb or anything. People get very comfortable with something and when they try to explain it to others, they use terms and methods that are more advanced or specific to them than they realize. That's all!

If you have friends who make their own things, ask them some very basic questions about what you want to do. They know you, so, they'll know better how to explain to you, specifically. Just keep it simple until you've had some time to experiment! Ask things like, "I want to take this image, resize it to be an icon, and add an orange tint to the image while sharpening only my muse's features...how would I do that? Easy mode?"

And! You don't even have to pay for photoshop or pirate it anymore! Photopea is as an exact copy as possible entirely located in your browser for free. It's all overwhelming at first, a real case of too many options and ways to do the same thing, but the only way it gets less overwhelming is just diving into it. Dive in, get a little frustrated, have some successes, make some awesome discoveries, it gets a bit addicting in short order. Then, the tutorials and tips are so much easier to figure out and expand on, too.

If you'd like, you can always send me a pm here and ask me. I'm happy to try to explain how to do things, zero judgment or impatience. Just an additional option if you both decide to try learning and would feel comfortable doing that. Zero judgment as well on not wanting to do either of those things!

Okay, this one is much harder than learning PS basics because it's honestly a bit terrifying...the way these people are, they're going to take issue with you no matter what you do, and in the end, if they notice you and feel like bothering you, they will. There's literally nothing you can do about it. All you can do is try to buffer yourself, stay away from them, and be aware that you are not the problem.

Like with the AO3 thing or writing what could be viewed as toxic relationships. You can never write or be interested in a single, solitary thing that they're on about (and accusing you of doing in real life when the burning Eye of Moron turns your direction), but to them, you supporting the right of other people to do so is just as bad as doing it yourself. To them, the toxic relationships not only would be problematic, they'd be problematic enough. Being uncomfortable with their policing and feeling unsafe because of it is, to them, a red flag of how problematic you are. Writing anything they've deemed objectionable (or reading or viewing it, for that matter) anywhere, doesn't have to be on this platform or RP-adjacent, doesn't have to actually utilize any of their materials, is enough.

They're absolutely including you in who shouldn't use their shit. That's part of the "logic" and methodology of policing. Everyone is problematic, so, everyone can be labeled a pedo and harassed without too many people getting up in arms about it. No one is safe, so, everyone better behave. You don't actually have to be engaging with or enjoying things like underage, non/dubcon, rape, abusive relationships, etc.

It's gross, it's bullying, it's actually a problem...and there isn't much you can do.

All that is truly up to you is making an effort to avoid them, though, this is very often unfair and likely to get more unfair as resource blogs of all sorts deal in it more. At least, in this case, you do have some small bit of actionable power - by not ever buying from them. They wouldn't be charging if they did not either need or want the money, not giving it to them is a bigger hit than things like simply unfollowing/blocking, reblogging PSA's, and so on is!

Nope, it isn't like you're denying them some extreme amount of money by yourself, but every three, five, ten dollars is felt pretty hard when you desperately need money and/or are saving for something.

I know, I mean, I personally do know, that it's impossible to "get over" bullying, Anon. I'm in no way telling you to just get over it and move on, find some great well of not caring somewhere! What I'm saying is that there is power in not giving them power. The power to make you anxious, uncomfortable, unsafe, when you have every right to be here doing your thing and are not hurting anyone. And it might seem to be a deeply contrary sort of logic, but realizing and accepting that there are people out there who irrationally dislike you for literally no reason, that you cannot infallibly escape or avoid, despite doing nothing wrong is a bit empowering. Because it puts into perspective the things you can control, and when we know what is in our control, it's easier to just enjoy our time here without constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it drops, we can go put it back in the closet where it belongs.

It starts to put a positive spin on the whole, damned if I do, damned if I don't feeling, if that makes sense? I'm probably way too tired to try to be explaining this lol I'm sorry!

Anyway, again, I'm not implying you can or should do any, let alone all, of those suggestions! I just really hope that something will help you feel even a little bit more at ease. It's an unfair situation, it isn't right, and you have every reason to be uncomfortable and stressed. If I could make it happen, you better believe that every policing asshole out there would be writing heartfelt apology letters and sending donations to everyone they've upset lol but...since I can't make that happen, all I can do is say what I, personally, do, would do, or have done.

[ravenbell-exchange]

Here come the prompts!

These are for all of us to use, so please feel free to peruse, reblog, explore, comment, and be generally delightful. Everyone will be receiving their assigned prompts later today, but remember that we are writing two stories each: one from the assigned prompts, and one from this list. You are free to pick anything apart from stuff you yourself prompted. There haven’t been any Dear Author letters I’ve spotted so far, so I’ve included some additional crossover prompts from people here, just for ease of reference. You absolutely don’t have to pick them - there’s just there in case you want them!

If you didn’t sign up for this challenge, but want to use any of the prompts below to write a fic – go for it! As long as you make sure to credit where you got the prompt from, you are very welcome to play with us.

Now, without further ado:

1.

Url: @autobot

Prompt 1: Sports AU: Bellamy and Raven flirt while their respective teams yell at them to get their head in the game.

Prompt 2: Delinquent Winter: It's snowing, so the delinquents decide to start a snowball fight. Raven and Bellamy really go at each other. Bellamy ends up getting a cut on his lip from an icy snowball, and Raven decides to remedy that with a kiss.

Prompt 3: Season 7: This is pretty vague but just anything with the relationship Bellamy/Raven/Doucette, with Bellamy having had separate relationships with the other two in the past.

Prompt 4 (optional variation on 1): HP AU: Bellamy and Raven flirt while their respective Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Quidditch teams yell at them to get their head in the game.

Things they don’t want to find in the fic you write for them: Momma didn't raise no wussy "N/A"

Also: Have seen all 7 seasons.

2.

Url: @growlereish

Prompt 1: post mount weather road trip. monty, miller, lincoln, gina, octavia, harper welcome to come too. maybe they find a bunch of cars and the delinquents take off into the sunset together. maybe it's just bellamy and raven exploring the world together.

Prompt 2: au where they're on a sports team together. any sport, the sport is not important, it's about the Team As Family and the Narratives

Prompt 3: fantasy au or canon + fantasy elements

Prompt 4: relationship negotiation / exploration

Prompt 5: anything from the expansive list of likes on my dear creator letter: https://growlery.dreamwidth.org/11097.html

Things they don’t want to find in the fic you write for them: somnophilia; humiliation, especially as a kink; d/s that's about punishment; discussion of diets/nutrition plans/exercise regimens/body maintenance/weight management/etc

Also: Have seen up to + including 3x08

3.

Url: @kinetic-elaboration​

Prompt 1: High school AU: Bellamy and Raven are exes, but Raven is still good friends with Octavia, so they still see each other all the time

Prompt 2: Bellamy/Raven/Gina negotiating/figuring out a poly relationship in Arkadia pre-S3

Prompt 3: Braven + First real, heavy snow on the ground (canon or canon-divergent AU)

Prompt 4: Librarian!Bellamy and Mechanic!Raven

Prompt 5: Modern AU: Bellamy, Raven, and author's choice other delinquents living in a cramped apartment together; Raven and Bellamy are either struggling with UST or in a secret relationship or FWB arrangement

Things they don’t want to find in the fic you write for them: pregnancy/kid fic of any sort; side/background Minty, Marper, or Clexa; explicit sex (implied/fade to black/generically described is ok); character bashing of any kind

Also: Have seen season 1-4 (really do not want to write/read anything related to the timeskip on, please!).  I'm not really into the Grounders generally; I love the delinquents; I headcanon Raven as bisexual but Bellamy as straight.

4.

Url: @justbecauseyoubelievesomething​

Prompt 1: Sci-fi/Space AU where Bellamy and Raven serve on the same ship; (fr)enemies to lovers with lots of angst along the way! Time loop/travel or interdimensional travel shenanigans would be appreciated as well!

Prompt 2: Dark Fairytale/Fantasy AU; very dark, stormy, foresty vibes; one of them is some sort of mythical creature, maybe even ruler of other mythical creatures; dark forbidden romance; for lots of bonus angst, one of them can be a magical creature hunter and reveal themselves at the end!

Prompt 3: Canonverse Ark AU; Bellamy and Raven meet as adults on the Ark because they both join the same secret revolutionary group planning to overthrow Alpha Station; other Delinquents can definitely make appearances!

Prompt 4: Modern AU; one of the two is driving through a small town trying to get home for Christmas when their car breaks down and they are forced to take it to the town's only mechanic; they snark at each other before the mechanic invites the stranded party to Christmas dinner; found family; fluff; basically you're typical Hallmark-esque set-up.

Prompt 5: Any setting! Bellamy and Raven are rivals in some sort of extreme sport (or if set in canonverse can be something like spacewalking). They're constantly pushing each other to their limits trying to beat each other, until Raven permanently injures her leg. She becomes very bitter during her recovery until she realizes that Bellamy isn't competing anymore and confronts him. Maybe feelings come out right away or maybe it takes them a while to get around to realizing it, but lots of angst and hurt/comfort during the build-up!

Things they don’t want to find in the fic you write for them: Explicit smut; pregnancy/kid fic; incest; student/teacher; character bashing of any other characters

Also: Have seen seasons 1-6 and the first half of season 7.

5.

Url: @ravenbells

Prompt 1: Raven discovering and enjoying the fact that Bellamy is a huge history nerd (can be canon, modern or some kind of fantasy/sci-fi setting).

Prompt 2: Modern AU. Raven is sharing a flat with friends, but one of them has to move out because of Reasons, and Bellamy rents the freed up room. Doesn’t have to be set in the US if you don’t want to, I don’t care that it’s an American show.

Prompt 3: Grounder AU, but set in the past. Bellamy and Raven were children when the nukes that caused the Ark to stay in space for generations went off. Now they are they first generation of survivors who have to build a life in a world without technology.

Prompt 4: Steampunk AU. Can be traditional Victorian-aesthetic steampunk, but if you want to lift your visuals from any other time period, be my guest. I’m going to love anything you do.

Prompt 5: Bellamy and Raven are exes who get back together (can be canon or any AU setting you can imagine).

Things they don’t want to find in the fic you write for them: Graphic violence

Also: Have only seen the first 2 seasons, please have mercy. If you want to incorporate the characters playing DnD into any of the stories, be my guest - just putting this in here because I know some people in the group love it (Bellamy would play a paladin, fight me), but if you’re not into this stuff, absolutely don’t feel obliged.

6.

Url: shortitude @ AO3

Prompt 1: Modern coffee-shop AU where they meet because both of them has a Specific Table they like to sit at and usually their schedules do not coincide, but then because of fate (someone's wi-fi broke, there's plumbing work happening at home, etc) they have to go to the coffee shop and their table is taken, as are all the others. Luckily, the traitor who took their Specific Table is willing to share it, just for today. (And then every day after.) Friends to Lovers is preferred over Instant Attraction in this one. Even open-ended works. (Please, no pandemic.)

Prompt 2: Canon-based AU: Give me cottagecore survival to replace the weird plots that happened to this show after s2. The idea of the Delinquents settling in a village, life moving on, peace being brokered, etc etc. In the middle of it all, Bellamy and Raven rely on each other to rebuild, and fall in love. A lot.

Prompt 3: Five times Bellamy tried to show his love for Raven and failed, and one time she finally got the point. Oblivious That People Might Love Her!Raven is my tragic and problematic fave. A bonus: competence kink. Acceptable: any form of AU; I am not a stickler for canon.

Prompt 4 (optional): Pacific Rim AU; veteran Jaeger pilot gets pulled back into action because of a need to pull off a last fight against the apocalypse/alien invasion, drifts unexpectedly with the supermouthy, supersmart, very capable engineer/mechanic. Add as many characters from The 100 as you'd like into this, but I am very much more into the wholesome survival of all of them than I am about everyone except Braven dying.

Things they don’t want to find in the fic you write for them: Bellarke content if the Braven content is just a way for Bellamy to "get over" Clarke, be it failed relationship or unrequited one.

Also: Have seen season 1 and Season 2 in full; vaguely familiar with STUFF about how they ended up in space, and nothing beyond that because I literally don't care.

[ziracona]

Ziracona’s Writing Commission Info:

*CURRENTLY CLOSED*

I’ve looked at a lot of different people’s pricing options for similar work, and most people who offer writing commissions (or do freelance work) go off of a penny per word/$1 for every 100 words. I know that underpricing art is sadly prevalent and also very damaging to artists, and I absolutely don’t want to contribute to that in any way; however, my personal preferred writing style is just kind of naturally long, and I think my speed is faster than average, and so I’m going to experiment a bit with what seems equivalent to that for me, and right now I am going to be offering $1 every 400 words.

As far as what I write, I am open to writing for any fandom that I have solid firsthand knowledge of (so, probably if I blog about it a lot, it’s on the table, but feel free to ask about my knowledge of any). I don’t mind writing for other stuff, but I will charge a bit extra for the added research time.

Fandoms I’ve written for already include Dead by Daylight, Heavy Rain, Halloween 1978, Disney, Until Dawn, Nancy Drew, and Fallout 4.

ACTUAL COMMISSION INFO:

Price: $1 per 400 words. Any commission shorter than 400 words will still be charged $1.

Payment through paypal or venmo.

Half payment upfront, half on completion.

Right at the moment, since life is busy, I’m stopping commission length at 40,000 words.

For anybody curious about commissions but unfamiliar with my writing, here’s a link to my AO3. : ) (and for quick reference for content to price, the Halloween/Michael Myers fic Isolation is 15,355 words ($38.40), the entire Anna adopts Quentin fic Half-Life is 26,675 words ($66.70), the whole Heavy Rain fic The Third Person is 19,908 words ($49.80), and the Until Dawn one-shot Almost Gone is 772 words ($1.90).

THINGS I WILL WRITE:

Gore/Graphic Violence/Torture (never voyeuristically or as kink though—only as plot element/heavy situation for cast).

Trauma, Mental Illness, Drug Use, Self-Harm, Suicide, Abuse (again, as a plot element, not as kink or for pleasure), and Other Intense/Serious Situations.

Action/Fight Sequences.

Lore/Magic/Backstory.

First or Third person, past or present tense (although my preferred writing style is close third-person past-tense, and I’ll do that if you don’t specifically want something else. Can do 2nd person or unusual format like texts or journal style too if you want that 👍).

Fiction prose, Poetry, Song Lyrics, Screen or Stage Play.

NSFW. (Makeout, Fluff, or Heavy Petting are the same price as any other work, but I will charge extra for full length in-depth sex scenes. How much depends on length. Probably around +30% [IE + 3 bucks for a $10 story]).

OCs. (PRICING NOTE: If you just have a vague idea of the OC and I only need a few lines of detail and can just go wild with my own idea of what they’re like, the price is the same as normal. But, if you’ve got a well-established character, first of all props to you because that’s cool, but also I will charge a bit extra for such OCs the first time I write them, because I have to do extra work/research to get to know them well enough to write them as well as the rest of the cast. But, if you commission me for the same complex OC again, the price is normal after the first commission, because once I know the character, I know the character, and they’re the same amount of work as any other cast member from established canon. Charge for OCs will depend on how much time it takes to learn the information I need in order to write them correctly. Probably I’ll just charge minimum on that. US average is 0.12 cents a minute, so like, $1.20 per ten minutes spent learning how to write OC).

AUs or Canon.

Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, found family, comedy, drama, pretty much any genre.

I hope this didn’t need to be said, but just in case there’s anyone wondering, I very much will write LGBTQA characters and relationships, including polyamorous ones and ace/aro etc purely platonic partnerships.

THINGS I WILL NOT WRITE:

Noncon or Dubcon.

Underage + Adult / Pedophilia (for obvious reason).

Characters/Relationships I personally am uncomfortable with or greatly dislike. (I don’t know if this would even ever come up—also, I don’t mean I won’t write something with characters I hate point blank—if you want me to write Adam Faulkner-Stanheight and Lawrence Gordon beating the shit out of John Kramer, I’ll under-charge you. I just mean I’ll have to hard pass on a request for happy domestic John Kramer and Jill Tuck AU because it would literally kill me to even attempt to write that. For the ‘uncomfortable with’ thing, I mean that there are some ships that I don’t think are like, de facto bad, or hate, or something like that at all, but that at the same time are ships I have personally been so inundated from my own first experience of that ship onward by gross versions of it that I would personally no longer feel comfortable portraying the ship. This is rare but I think there are...two? dbd ships I know fall into this category for me? And since I know I am most known for writing DbD, it seemed worth warning about.)

Canon characters wildly OOC, unless you’ve got a really cool reason, in which case, my interest is piqued. [Note: for DbD, with a few exceptions, I adhere p exclusively to OG canon, not ret-con, because OG was better. Feel free to ask or clarity though.] Also if you want OOC because you want screwball humor/crack, that’s totally fine.

Incest.

Abuse in any kind of a positive or romanticized/romantic light.

At present this is all that is coming to mind, but I may add more to the list as there’s probably stuff that should be here that I just haven’t thought of yet.

So there you have it! If you have any questions, for clarity or about a potential commission, feel free to send an ask or a message! I know this was kind of long, but I promise I’m not actually too scary.

I'm gonna start small, so as of right now, I'm opening 2 commission slots.

Thanks! ^u^

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

Practicalities of Censorship

Every so often I see a thread cross my dashboard arguing about censorship with relation to AO3 - in particular people claiming that AO3 is bad because it allows basically any story regardless of content, that people are bad for supporting it, or that AO3 should implement some method by which problematic fics get taken down. These complaints are usually met with explanations around the history or AO3, why it was implemented the way it was, and why thinking that AO3 is fine the way it is does not equal being a pedophile. I want to tackle this from another angle - practicality.

Let's assume for the sake of this post that the people making these arguments are correct and that there are some things which shouldn't be allowed on AO3 (or an an alternative fic platform set up to be a better version of AO3 without all the bad stuff - I'll mostly be taking about "fixing" AO3 in this post but the same problems would apply to setting up a new and "safer" fic site). There are a lot of arguments against censorship to do with quality of works produced and whether this results is less good art when people are scared to produce things that might get banned, or whether there is artistic merit to works that display despicable actions. Let's just imagine for the moment that the whole argument is settled and the "let's purify AO3 for the sake of the children" crowd are correct. What would need to happen next? This isn't something I've seen addressed in these posts.

There are a lot of problems with censorship. Skipping over the ethical discussion of whether censorship is good or bad and in what circumstances it should be accepted, let's focus on two practical aspects: deciding what should and shouldn't be banned, and how you would implement such a ban. Let's start with problem one: where do you draw the line?

Let's assume we have some scale of rating from absolutely sickeningly awful deserving of destruction to perfectly clean and innocent with not the slightest thing wrong with it. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a line and everything to one side of it is bad and should be banned/blocked/deleted from AO3, etc. Everything on the other side of the line is fine and should be left available for people to read. Some things may seem easy to define. Fic A is incest porn, where a child is graphically raped in a way that's cleanly meant to titillate rather than horrify and the abuse is glorified and justified in text, and it's full of poor writing, spelling and grammar mistakes, and has no artistic merit as a work (how you judge artistic merit would need a few thousand words to explore as a subject on its own right). Let's stick that on the bad side of the line since that's the sort of thing that people on Tumblr are crying out to be banned. Fic B is a fluff fic where a character makes another character soup because they're feeling ill and they watch movies together. Nothing remotely sexual, just two adult characters being sweet to each other. So we'll put that on the good side of the line, right?

But the problem comes in deciding where that dividing line should be and what should be done about the things that sit close to the line. You could come up with some simple rules. Let's say, "Everything involving underage incest is on the bad side of the line." Seems straight-forward. But what if you have a story dealing with someone's recovery from incest and CSA? The story has a character who was abused in the past and the narrative deals with them getting therapy and overcoming their trauma. None of the abuse is shown in the text of the story, it all happens off-screen as it were, and the story sends a message that incest and CSA are bad but offers hope to former victims. Surely that story would belong on the good side of the line? So maybe we amend the rule to, "Everything involving graphic incest is on the bad side of the line." That would let us keep the story about overcoming the trauma on the good side but block anything that uses incest as porn. But is consenting incest between grown adults treated the same as abusive incest?

And what if you get a story that's more about the trauma but that has a handful of flashbacks about the rape that would count as graphic. These flashbacks are meant to be horrifying not sexually exciting. Would that be okay? Is it the intent of the scene that matters? But in that case, what happens if the author writes a scene that's intended to be horrifying but a reader interprets it as arousing? Would it be okay if the author includes a disclaimer in the notes saying that this is a terrible thing and shouldn't be done in real life? Is it the intensity of the scenes shown directly in the story? In which case, where do you draw the line between something described explicitly and something merely eluded to? Is it the precise terms used? Which terms? Or how many times those terms are use? Is a subtle allusion to an event okay? In which case, what happens with a slightly less subtle allusion?

The stories that are far away from the line are easy to place, but the ones close to it become a challenge. Any attempt to define straight-forward rules starts to fall apart quickly and you get to the point where you have to argue on a case-by-case basis for each story, which would involve a massive amount of time invested to check each of these stories and decide whether or not they're allowed. Once again the practicalities of "how would you enforce something like this?" rear their ugly head but that's a question we'll address later.

We also have the problem that where I might draw the line between the bad and the good might be different from where you would draw the line, and would be different from where someone else would draw the line. Let's go back to Fic B as described above, our perfectly innocent fluff story. I might think that's perfectly acceptable, but if those two characters are both the same gender, there will be some homophobic people who will say that it's wrong and corrupting innocents because it sends the message that homosexual relationships are good. Or even if the characters are different genders, some highly religious people might think it sends a bad message if those characters are unmarried and living together in a relationship, even if nothing explicit happens within the story. Or what if the characters are married but it's an interracial marriage? A KKK member might say that sends a bad message. Different people have a different idea of what counts as bad content.

In the real world, there have been cases of books that address racism being banned because they use the n word. Harry Potter has been banned by religious groups. According to the website www.banned-books.org.uk a sweet children's book about two penguins hatching an egg was banned by a lot of schools and libraries in the US because the two penguins are both male - even though this story was actually based on a true story. The book Black Beauty, about the experiences of a horse, was banned during the Apartheid in South Africa simply for including the word "black" in the title. If you look at that site, a lot of books have been banned for a lot of different reasons and a lot of good literature has ended up caught up in the censorship usually because religious groups objected to in on moral grounds.

You could say "don't let the bigots and racists be in charge of the censorship," but historically, when censorship has come into play in the past, the people who tend to end up the worst for it are minorities. LGBTQ+ groups and people of colour tend to get censored more than straight, white men. Stories about their experiences often deal with problematic issues and therefore they get banned. The groups that generally end up making decisions about what is and isn't okay tend to be the groups that have the most power to begin with, and the end result is silencing of minority voices. This is one reason I'm very wary of anything to do with censorship, because the people who usually end up the worse for it are those who most need their voices heard.

But let's imagine all of these problems are magically overcome and we come up with a perfectly clear set of rules about what counts as good and bad fic and the dividing line is agreed by good, rational people who aren't remotely bigoted and who are able to define the criteria for what should be banned in a way that will only ever block the harmful stuff.

We still have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement we set aside earlier. We've built our perfect set of rules to define good and bad fics and now we want to put them into practice to ban any of the awful stuff. How would you go about doing it?

We could try and get machine filters to do censorship by looking for keywords and particular tags or using more complex algorithms to judge what a piece of content is about, but this ends up with chaos like Tumblr auto-flagging a lot of perfectly clean content, or YouTube blocking videos that just happened to be by/about LGBTQ+ people. Any software based implementation would struggle because someone talking about a thing as a problem contains the same words as someone glorifying that thing, and machines tend not to be great at picking up tone. You would get a massive amount of errors with things being falsely flagged as bad and things being falsely let through despite breaking the rules.

And people would be sneaky. Someone wanting to include their graphic story wouldn't tag it as for over 18s because tagging something as for over 18s would get it banned, so they would tag it as something else. The terms "lemon" and "lime" used to describe fics by older members of fandoms started from exactly this sort of thing. Websites decided to not allow adult content so people continued to post adult content but they used the citrus scale for tagging it so people would still be able to find it. Which works when people know the terms to look for or avoid, but which doesn't work for people not in the know. Is a "lemon" or a "lime" fic more explicit? Do you know what a fic being tagged as "grapefruit" would mean? By their nature, these tags are coded, which is not great for clarity.

Any sort of system that just blanket bans key words or tags would result in people just not using those keywords and tags but posting the stuff anyway. It would actually make the situation worse because there would still be incest porn and the like, only now it wouldn't be tagged. As it stands on AO3, people use the tagging system very well and people who don't want to see the incest porn can do things like exclude that tag from searches, or just not open fics they see that have the tag. If there were rules in place to not allow anything with that tag, then people would stop using the tag, which would actually mean more people would see incest porn they didn't want to because it would no longer be tagged properly, or it would be tagged using code words which only mean something to the inside group. It would be much harder to avoid the things you don't like.

So let's say we don't let a computer decide what's breaking the rules. Let's say there is a system by which readers can flag a fic as being inappropriate to get it banned. Human beings get to decide, but what's the threshold? Does a thing get banned as soon as someone reports it? Or does it need to be flagged by multiple people to be banned? In which case fics written in tiny fandoms might slip through the cracks because not enough people are reading it to them flag it. This is also open for exploitation. Someone who takes a dislike to a particular person might encourage others to flag their fics as inappropriate, regardless of whether or not they are. Someone might create fake accounts or log in anonymously over proxies to spam a fic with flags.

And even if no one acts maliciously to abuse the system, not everyone will be careful about checking the precise and perfect rules defined to mark the difference between acceptable and unacceptable work. People will flag things incorrectly, based on their own viewpoints of what should or shouldn't be allowed, which we've already said is a problem because everyone will draw the line in different places based on their own beliefs.

So what's the alternative to a community-driven method for managing content? You could have specific people whose job it is to go through content and decide whether it adheres to the rules. Maybe a computer system or community flagging could funnel fics into a review channel where human beings check every one carefully. These people would understand the rules and be certain to always judge fics accurately according to the magically perfect rules defined earlier, which are guaranteed to only ever block bad fics but never block a good fic.

So problem solved, right? We have our perfect rules perfectly implemented.

Except where humans are employed to check whether content is acceptable or not, it involves a large number of people checking through basically the worst content out there. Some social networking sites do this sort of thing now and it can be hugely traumatising for people who do that work. It's not good for them mentally to have to be exposed over and over to the worst content being put up online. There tends to be a high turnover in those jobs because they burn out fast, and that's where people are being paid for this stuff.

A site like AO3 relies on volunteers so it would require a large number of people to volunteer to look at the darkest most gruesome content and decide if it breaks the rules or not. Either you have people who hate those sort of fics doing this out of a sense of duty to maintain the purity of the content, in which case they will probably struggle with having to read a load of stuff they really, really don't enjoy. Or you will have people volunteer because they really like those fics and this is the way for them to read them. And that probably defeats the point of doing this, because it means that the people who would be seeking out those stories anyway would be the ones reading them to see if they break the rules.

There are a lot of problems with censorship, both ethically and practically. Even if you are fully on the side of censorship from a moral standpoint, you have to address the practical concerns if you want to propose an implementation.

As it stands, I think the current system works. There is stuff on AO3 that I would not in a million years want to read, but I don't have to. AO3 is brilliant for its tagging system and I can look at the tags and nope past fics that are full of my personal squicks or that I think endorse something terrible. Readers can exclude tags they want nothing to do with or just not click on ones that include elements you dislike. You can curate your own experience, which actually works with the whole idea of everyone drawing a line in a different place. You and I will have different stories we want to avoid, and we can both choose to avoid them based on author's tagging for them, rather than some other person decreeing what is acceptable for either of us to see.

If you still think that AO3 should be blocking or banning certain content, have a think about how this would work in reality. Because when ideas like that are implemented in the real world, all manner of problems happen.

I think the fact that this post is still a couple of thousand words long with me skipping over several parts of the debate is a sign that this is not a simple problem that can be easily fixed.

[solaciummeae]

{ Laws of the Land: }

Please read these before interacting. (:

My blog is PRIVATE. Typically I prefer to write with MUTUALS ONLY but I am currently open to NEW INTERACTIONS. I usually write && talk with someone OOC for a while BEFORE FOLLOWING to make sure we vibe.

I’m HIGHLY SELECTIVE with PARTNERS/FOLLOWS. I’m trying maintain a cleaner dash this time around. sidenote: When choosing partners: Literacy is a thing. I understand typos but basic spelling and grammar are easier to manage than trying to mentally fix things as I go. I DO understand language barriers. But BOTTOM LINE: If I can’t understand what just happened in your post, I can’t reply adequately because I have nothing to go from. I also prefer people who are dedicated and interested in writing detailed plots. Moving the story along.

By stating that I am PRIVATE: I reserve the right to work on the things that speak to me the most at any given time. I’ve had a lot of stress this year && this is a coping thing for me. I will write what I have MUSE for. Typically I will NOT start something unless I know I have MUSE for it to avoid dropping THREADS && INTERACTIONS. I’m simply focusing on things that I have the most juice for. sidenote: This means that while I have a ridiculous number MUSES && VERSES, I’ll be sticking pretty close to my MOST ACTIVE LIST unless we have heavily established PLOTS && CONNECTIONS OR I have explicitly offered to give you a MUSE OR VERSE that is NOT on the MOST ACTIVE LIST. I post this list regularly, it’s easy to find on my blog.

My blog is currently on LOW ACTIVITY temporarily. There are a lot of things going on in my life right now. I am trying to be on as much as possible. However, I won’t be here 24/7, nor am I obligated to THREAD/POST/TALK all the time. It is not personal. I was just diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis && have existing severe mental illness. Some days just suck.

IMPORTANT: I have roughly 230 muses, 40+ verses, my blog is ALWAYS under construction. These projects are my passion, that’s why I have them. Don’t be a jerk and tell me maybe I should cut back. I operate how I operate.

My writing is PG-13 to Mature. It’s not always this way but violence, explicit language, substance use, etc. happen here. NSFW of all kinds. I’m 28 and will only write with adult partners. So 18+ only on this blog. IMPORTANT: I will NOT write SMUT with others. It may happen occasionally in drabbles I write. But not in threads. I don’t mind sexual references, headcanons, jokes, etc. But no threading with NSFW language. Fade to black for me.

The length of my writing tends to fluctuate. Para to multi-para mostly. You do NOT have to match me because sometimes I might not completely match you. Just how it is.  Sidenote: Do NOT give me one or two sentences if I gave you a solid paragraph. It makes it really difficult to adequately reply. I might write a one liner starter, but it will ALWAYS grow.

On the topic of ORIGINAL VERSES && MY POST SERIES FANDOM VERSES: I welcome anyone to take part in my ORIGINAL VERSES or my POST SERIES FANDOM VERSES. PLEASE DO, that’s why I created them. However, do NOT steal my verses or post series for your plots. I work extremely hard to WORLD BUILD and develop these complex plotlines. DO NOT STEAL THEM && certainly DO NOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THEM. I do not mind if you and another person involved in that verse or post series with me write for the verse or plot but do NOT just openly steal them && start writing them with other people I don’t even know. I work my ass off for this stuff. Don’t be gross.

GRAPHICS IN THREADS: I use ICONS &&GIF ICONS. They keep it cleaner looking && more accessible. IMPORTANT: I have a very large number of UNDERUSED FACECLAIMS. For this reason, DRY POSTING WILL BE A THING. I’m working to make resources, but it takes time. IMPORTANT: I AM HERE FOR THE WRITING NOT THE GRAPHICS. I should already know what your muse looks like if I’ve seen a picture and likewise, you can find pictures of mine. NOTE: If my muse has no resources, I will post a pre-designed icon of them at the beginning of the thread so you know what they look like. After which it will be dry threading.

I would hope that you would have ideas of your own. It works much better if we can feed off of each other and really go back and forth with plots than things being one sided. Sadly, this has happened to me a lot. Sidenote: We don’t have to come up with something first but it would be nice if there was an idea. However, I won’t ever turn away an intriguing starter with no back story. Though, I might ask questions to make my reply as accurate as possible.

DO NOT GODMOD. I should be the only one controlling my character. I really hate when people assume they know my character and get them all wrong. Or even insinuate some prior history I never agreed to. Sounds ridiculous? It’s happened. If there’s a time it’s needed, shoot me an IM. I’m totally good with that.

I’m EXTREMELY SELECTIVE when it comes to ROMANTIC SHIPPING. I’ve been burned way too many times. My muses are my babies. If they aren’t feeling it. I am not going to force it on them. You can find ALL of my MUSES romantic preferences on my MUSE DIRECTORIES including if they’re romantic shippable or not. I have several who are CLOSED. Chemisty. Chemistry. Chemistry.

IMPORTANT: I AM NOT HERE JUST TO ROMANTIC SHIP. I’m tired of only ever heterosexual romantic shipping– especially with my MALES. Come to me with bromance, familial, platonic, or enemy. I’m always looking for new connections to my muses. It helps them grow as people.

IMPORTANT: I heavily prefer LGBT+ romantic ships at this point especially as a queer writer myself. I’m real over the heteronormativity. If you come to me with a queer pairing I’m far more likely try it out.

IMPORTANT: Please give my FEMALES as much attention as you give my MALES. I’ve tried closing my MALES. I still get used for them. Especially to romantic ship. Treat my FEMALES the way you’d want yours to be treated. I’m always down for F/F interactions so we both win. I truly love female muses, I simply wanna get to use mine too.

Drama is pretty much a must, in the sense of the plot. I’ve had people tell me they don’t like it and that’s fine but without things happening, the story doesn’t really progress.  IMPORTANT: However! NO DRAMA OOC. I worked with middle school kids for half a decade so my bullshit meter is super low. No OOC drama. No HATE.   I DO have the following TRIGGERS: incest, rape, sexual assault of any kind, romanticizing the devil. 

The first three are self explanatory. However the fourth has become really common with shows like Lucifer in existence. For personal reasons, treating the devil like he’s a cool guy is really triggering for me. I understand that his character from Supernatural is very popular. However, romanticizing him, making him seem like he’s “not actually a bad guy.” like he’s just “misunderstood.” or even “falling in love with the devil.” I can’t handle. If you’re writing him as a villain or enemy that’s perfectly fine. It’s really just the threads and content that romanticizes him that really really triggers me. 

I’m asking that these things be tagged: tw: incest, tw: rape, tw: sexual assault, tw: devil friendly.

NOTE: If I ever post anything you need tagged with a trigger that I haven’t, please don’t hesitate to ask. If it makes you uncomfortable I don’t want you to have to see it. Typically I don’t post traditionally triggering content. But just in case, let me know.

Last but certainly not least, I’M HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS. Seriously. I want to get to know you OOC. You guys are my friends and I care about you very much. I love chatting. Likewise, I can make a great soundboard. If you need someone to talk to, please don’t hesitate. You guys are so important to me. I’ve been on Tumblr roleplaying for about five years. But I’ve been roleplaying for about 13 years total. And some of my closest friends have come from writing with others.

These have been updated as of 10/08/19. I tried to make them more streamline and I really do appreciate you reading them. It makes writing together easier. If I find out you didn’t read them before interacting I will be less inclined to write with you. I read all rules before I follow someone or write with them so I expect the same courtesy. They are here for a reason.

Thank you!

💜💜💜💜💜

[warmbeebosoftbeebo]

Hey, I’m the anon that asked panicsinning about the daddy thing. I’m seeing it in a significant portion of the fics I try to read at the minute (not just Brendon fics, but I seem to find more of them with him!) and I’m not into it at all. It kinda sucks. There are so many other ways to write a dominant Brendon, if that’s what people want, but as soon as I see the daddy thing I gotta close the tab like no thank u. And especially if he’s said it makes him uncomfortable

i think we’re dealing with the fall out of a generation of 90s and 2000s people raised on internet porn. i’ve noticed–this is evident on wattpad n tumblr especially–that a lot of smut is written by junior high n high school girls too, whose go to source is other smut fics by youn’uns n internet porn. like you could see that at work too on aooo n livejournal, but that stuff tended to be more grounded in real life experience/realistic n the writers skewed older–late teens n 20s on those–recorded porn was also less…fucked up in the 90s-early 00s n things that are mainstream now used to be fringe n avoidable. another thing i’ve noticed in fics: lack of solidarity with other women and girls–a lot of monstering of other females, who are usually portrayed as “whores” (this has a long history though–i remember the good girl/bad girl dichotomy in a lot of romance novels, vc andrews books, etc–tv shows n movies based around conflict between girls, the idea that women and girls are crueler to girls than boys are when the reverse is true, women getting angry at the “other woman” and not their dickhead men)

(trigger warning for me ranting about the content of pornography, the sexual status quo, etc)

i watched straight porn from about 8-12 from 95-99 and i don’t remember ever seeing pia for example. porn is now absolutely obsessed with men anally penetrating women with their dicks (if you are on a porn site, you will quickly see it guaranfuckingteed), particularly the damage that can result from it (eg “gaping,” women saying they can’t handle it *on camera* and the scene still continuing, “she’ll need an ambulance when we’re done with her”). there wasn’t much “deep throat”/”throat fucking” fellatio (i hate those terms–we are looking at throat rape) either, but now porn is obsessed with that too. it also used to be more about showing at least the performance of female pleasure and orgasm (usually faked of course) but now that is largely irrelevant and clear indications of pain are not only kept in, but intentionally there. piv that’s not a cervix bashing is hard to find, scenes without piv even harder (and they’re usually brief clips), and “sex” for men generally and pornographers in particular starts at piv–like if there isn’t at least “regular fucking” it doesn’t even register as sexual and worth watching to most.

“vanilla porn” has a lot of bdsm themes in it as discussed above as well as slapping, spitting, ejaculating on women’s faces, misogynist namecalling, “ass to mouth” and the hetero bdsm porn online is absolutely–we’re talking witch hunt and slavery levels of torture. in both, women are punished for the crime of being born female. based in aggrieved male entitlement–like men are punishing women for having any boundaries, desires of their own, telling them no outright or no to certain sex acts. any sexuality in women reduced to “fuck hole” (or a dewey eyed bisexual–tropes around female-female sexuality in porn are more varied i will admit but ultimately about viewer, typically male, titillation. femdom is also usually paid for by the man, and all about what he wants, and most of the domination and pain is both mild in comparison to what women are put through and based in feminizing him–comparing him to a woman, calling him gay, saying he has a small “ineffective” dick, calling his anus a pussy, etc. women are also often in absolutely ridiculous uncomfortable outfits n shoes.). a lot of humiliation, dom/sub–it’s really difficult for me to watch but it’s like men are in a contest with each other, expressing sexuality together, with women as the targets–seeing who can humiliate and hurt women the most–make her wish she’d never been born. man=sadist, and female=hole. (and a lot of the women making porn play that same game too.)

under this, girls are developing their sexuality, with the above porn online, and either just a general lack of information from school and parents, or a specifically religious tinge to discussions of sexuality as being sinful, shameful in women (and gay/bi men). sex=piv=sex, and pia is 5th base and you shouldn’t have hang ups about fucking bc it’s what girls and women are made for and like. things that women can do together don’t get transferred to sex with men at all, or at best MAY make it in as foreplay–sex is pole in hole, silly ho–not rubbing off on him (esp if you want to rub on a part or in a position that makes him feel like a girl), or getting oral, or masturbating in front of him, or him using his hand on you, or using toys together… women and girls are the gatekeepers for male sexuality and responsible for men’s actions and either natural saints or whores who need to either save men from the bad women (who deserve what men do to them, regardless of how cruel or sadistic or destructive–she wanted it if it happened at all–made him do it) or embrace their roles as cumsluts (liberated sexuality is doing what the pornographers tell you to, you go girl and suck that cock and have piv while you have few if any orgasms, don’t even feel that turned on and comfortable, and just put on a good show! lol don’t you know that focusing on yr clit n vulva is for masturbation and girl-girl action, if you focus on that silly part at all. or just rub your clit while he’s using whichever of your holes he wants–the sex positive solution. or spend years thinking you’re broken, to find out not orgasming during piv is normal, and just continue having it n taking hormonal birth control n praying for your period to arrive on time.)

there is a lot telling women and girls to find dangerous, possessive, sadistic, controlling, etc men sexy, and obviously this works–increasingly women are consuming porn, the success of the twilight novels, 50 shades of abusive gaslighting n pitying the poor poor dude who is just a hurt puppy (who can fucking kill you), advising already traumatized women to “work through their trauma” with a male sadist/top, telling women and girls that “daddy kink” is hot as fuck (ignore the fact that father-daughter incest is probably statistically the most traumatic form of child sexual abuse there is n hide it behind “it’s just a bit of kinky fun n letting him feel like a real man n letting you surrender to yourself n letting him take care of you” gaslighting), the whole mess of “sex positive feminism” (this is not what anne koedt, shere hite, audre lorde, etc were talking about folks) and repainting feminism (the fight for women’s liberation from patriarchy and the end of male violence) as about consumerist choices (particularly around conforming to beauty standards, partaking in prostitution industries) and saying women are not a class and women aren’t oppressed because of male desire to control our sexuality and reproduction but because we have inner feminine souls/brains and if you’re not a walking stereotype n don’t feel like one you’re not really female n sex is a free for all n not political at all (except for slutshaming bc women often are what men call us n shouldn’t be shamed for it–we should embrace it as empowerment) n trust women unless they say something you don’t agree with then they are monsters who kill with their words unlike men (even the ones who do kill) who aren’t why we feel unsafe (those bad women over there made them do it n besides, women are worse than men)… 

holy fuck this is quite the rant! i need to get back to writing the smutty times with beebs ;)

tl;dr this environment is ripe for girls finding “daddy kink” sexy because it encapsulates more explicitly what flows through our everyday sexual lives, media, etc. already. like the question shouldn’t be “why are some into daddy kink” but “why is there an intense focus on dom/sub, top/bottom, adult/child, male/female, penetrator/penetrated… dichotomies and roles in the first place?” or “how could so many *not* be drawn to it?” i remember reading explicit romance novels and this dom/sub, piv-oriented, etc relation was as common as air in them (they were generally way worse than graphic western novels n even worse than a lot of recorded porn back then), even the ones where the women were into equality outside of the bedroom. you can also see this in gay porn, where there is also this focus on pia and top/bottom roles, changing the way gay men have sex outside of porn too–like older gay/bi men see pia and roles attached to it as far less pivotal in their understanding and experience of sex than young gay/bi men do. (jesus christ gal get back on topic…) 

daddy/little (or kitten or princess or slut or…) confirms the way things should be: male control, authority, female deference, submission, etc. independence in women is punished. female desire for sexual pleasure and affection is denigrated. the amount of fics where women are punished or shamed for masturbating in front of him or on her own or rubbing herself on him by the daddy/dom! i can’t even… told not to, called bad for doing it…had their hand slapped away…physically punished for doing it. it’s seen as a distraction from the man’s Very Important Stuff at best, whether that stuff is nonsexual or what he wants to do to her sexually. sexuality is presented as a punishment for women (not so far from god’s condemnation of eve are we?), but something we desire simultaneously. like we should be punished for wanting, as if our wanting men or a man means we should be hurt by him/them. spanking is a humiliation and pain ritual a la abusive fathers with belts/forceful hands/tree branches/whips through the patriarchal ages, creating welts and tears and humiliation. females are *done to* and males *do*. even sucking dick becomes something men do to women by pushing her head down, pushing into her throat, etc as tears well up. outside of fic, women take painkillers and use numbing gels to endure it. the sexiest women are like little girls, and the sexiest men are controlling fathers. men *have to* hurt us, to let us know what we did wrong, so we can try to behave better next time. women need someone telling them what to do, when to do it, how to do it. telling us and showing us what we are for. men need to feel like real men, and women like real women–nothing is worse than an uppity woman making a man feel like a he’s not an avatar of masculinity, or however he sees himself–quit trying to emasculate men, unless they are into forced feminization of course n are paying for you to do what they want you to, are topping from the bottom. never challenge male self-image, especially in sex. know your place, and tell yourself you are precious, and cared for, and pampered by a benevolent master. daddy kink is the sexiest sex to ever sex, n vanilla is just so boring… why settle for lights out missionary piv when you can be choked n slapped n entered anally? those are your two choices. you’re not a prude are you? quit being so sex negative. quit policing these wild sexy desires in people. quit erasing and killing us with anything you might think or say to contradict this.

we live in a world where men get away with murdering women based on “rough sex gone wrong” defenses, even to the point where people think it reasonable that a native woman in prostitution bled to death after “consensual” piv with a john (when he likely sliced open the inside of her vagina with a knife based on the extent of her injury, let alone the belief that lethal injury can be consented to period let alone within prostitution), athletes are acquitted of rape when they gang rape a woman into several hours of bleeding from a vaginal injury (and she named it rape from the get go, the men were bragging and trying to get her to keep quiet), wives are murdered by boyfriends in “50 shades games gone wrong” that *she* wanted (considering she is the dead one not him...), people think *unconscious* women and girls are “consenting” whether strangled into unconsciousness or drugged or sleeping..., and another woman was literally choked to death during throat rape by the man she loved (the focus in that courtroom and the media? His allegedly big dick--how could he have helped himself, not killed her, with such a big cock? Injuring women with big dicks is so entertaining n humourous!). A male sadist is more likely to kill you than give you an amazing time in bed. More likely to claim it’s all fun n games when numerous women accuse him of sexual, physical and psychological abuse than actually help those or any other women have a good time in bed.

[magicrested-a]

RULES & GUIDELINES

ABOUT THE MUN

Hey guys! I’m Maddi ( she/her ) I’m 24, Australian, adore the ever living fuck out of too many things and I’m a biromantic? ( still questioning this bit tbh ) demisexual. So I will warn you now, ships & romance can make me very uncomfortable and, often, bored. If the circumstances are right, then I will adore them. But for now, I hope we get to write some awesome stuff together! 

Most of you may know me as / from creatingxdragons or twiceblessedhalliwell! I have had Wyatt for about 8 years now! And gone through so many phases with him. But he’s always going to remain my favourite muse!

Other Accounts : 

FANGEDPEACE  ─  Vladimir Dracula / cbbcs young dracula

CHAOSPAST  ─  Young Dracula, Being Human, Supernatural + More / multimuse account

YAKSAYAM  ─  Dr. Robert Jekyll / itvs jekyll and hyde

SYCOPHXNTS  ─  Jackson Howell / panic! at the disco inspired oc 

Discord available upon request!

THE BASICS

DON’T BE A DICK:  as simple as this is. just no drama, no pushing for replies, respect my rules, no godmodding, stealing hcs, metas or graphics, just be cool bro! 

THIS BLOG IS MUTUALS ONLY:  this means that I will not interact or rp with you if we’re not mutuals, and would prefer no interaction from non-mutuals. Please don’t like any starter calls, posts, or edits of mine. Please don’t reply to posts. I don’t mind being messaged through IMS and asks/memes may be sent in as an icebreaker but if we’re not mutuals its not likely I'll reply. This is simply for my comfort, please respect this.

MULTIMUSES & OCS:  I am multimuse and oc friendly! I love ocs and multimuses. All i ask is that, if your a multimuse, that if you send asks in or like starter calls, that you put down which muse you want it for. If no muse is suggested I will not likely reply. OCs, if you don’t have easily accessible rules and about page I will probably not follow you. 

HARD NO’S:  If you rp, talk about, excuse or romanticise pedophilia, rape, abuse, etc you will be immediately blocked. I know it goes without saying. But even if it seems that you are writing things that fall under these categories but are ‘excused’ with those rp terms you often find on tumblr. I don’t care and I will hard block and potentially report without a second thought. 

ACTIVITY & TIMEZONES:  In terms of activity, this account has varied activity in regards to my muse and energy. It is my main rp account so I’m usually here lurking on the dash. But replies can take some time. I work nights and study at university throughout the day and have my own house. So a lot of the time house work + work + uni exhausts the crap out of me and I can’t be on here. I’m also in the AEST timezone so i’m often asleep when everyone else is awake. 

INTERACTIONS 

MUTUALS ONLY:  as mentioned above, this account is mutuals only. I will only roleplay with those I follow/follow back. Sometimes, with tumblrs shitty system, I won’t always see that you’ve followed me. But please do not follow and unfollow me to get my attention because that will just get you blocked. Non-mutuals may send memes, anons and asks in but I do not guarantee interactions or an answer.

PERSONALS:  I love interactions from personals! However, I just ask that you don’t reblog any of my posts, edits or rp related things (such as threads, headcanons, metas etc) and don’t spam my notifications with likes. You’re more than welcome to send asks in, anons, and ims! 

BLOGS I WON’T FOLLOW/INTERACT WITH:  I won’t follow accounts that post too much smut or pornographic material, gender-bent/rule 63 muses or muses with YouTubers as faceclaims. Accounts that rp as living, real people. Accounts that use people who have passed as faceclaims. Accounts that feature / rp pregnancy kinks, incest or anything similar. 

STARTER CALLS & MEMES:  every so often I will post starter calls which are open to all mutuals. If you’re new to the blog, liking a starter call is probably the best way to interact! If not, sending memes in are also welcomed and a good way to rp with me. I don’t participate in reblog karma but when I reblog a meme from someone I’ll send one in because It’s fun, but also so they don’t feel like I’m using them as a source. I don’t expect you to do the same and don’t feel pressured to send any in after I’ve done so, or to send them in if you’re reblogging a meme from me. 

SHIPPING & SMUT:  I am 24 years old so I’m not a minor. However, I do not feel comfortable writing smut and am not entirely interested in it. So no smut will be present on this account. Shipping is varied on the writing partner and characters. But I’m open to plotting it out! If your muse is in their teens / below twenty I will only ship them with teen wyatt. 

PORTRAYAL 

MUSE SPECIFIC:  my portrayal of Wyatt is strictly show based with heavy hc & meta influences. I do not take anything from the charmed comics into my portrayal except for the names and powers of his cousins. As much as I love Wes Ramsey his lack of resources makes it hard to use him as a fc. So my fc for Wyatt is Luke Mitchell (focusing on agents of shield for good wy and blindspot for evil wy). 

THE CHARMED REBOOT:  It’s no secret that I do not like the Charmed Reboot. However, that doesn’t mean I’m against following rp accounts from it. I’m actually a big fan of the muses and the world building but the creators and ethics (along with the cw) behind the show are not the greatest and I’d happily see them fail in their mission to destroy television. But the best part about rp is fixing all those gross things the creators do. So I’d love to interact with any of the characters and have a verse available for anyone who would like to rp! Obviously, Wyatt’s portrayal fits with the original charmed as I do not take any of the reboot as canon. 

MUSE SPECIFIC TRIGGERS:  As half of Wyatt’s story includes him being a very, very evil abusive toxic, power hungry character. A lot of triggers can and may be included in this portrayal of him. While most of my writing will focus on him in his changed / good future. That doesn’t mean certain triggers won’t show up. These triggers can include (and will be featured in threads based around evil him): Murder, Gore, Torture, Blood, Knives, Horror, Physical & Mental Abuse, etc.

FANON INTERPRETATIONS OF WYATT:  most people are pretty good with this but please don’t assume that any fanon hcs/interpretations of Wyatt are what I follow as well. While I might accept some as my canon majority of them are not accepted into my portrayal. 

I do not accept the hc that Wyatt killed his mother in the unchanged future, as canon.

I do not accept the hc that Wyatt is a charmed one as canon. 

I do not accept the comics fanon that Wyatt lost excalibur and his twice blessed status as canon. 

Wyatt does not know about the unchanged / evil future and probably never will. (this is probably the most important one!)

I do not accept the renaming / retconning of Wyatt’s force field as an ‘orb shield’, as canon. It’s a hecken force field fight me. 

CREDITS

‘Elsa’ by the lovely somresources used in my icons, header, sidebar image & various edits. ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ also used in some edits.

Icon borders are from somresources as well (I think! If i’m wrong lemme know!)

Base icons used for adult Wyatt / Luke are from insanejournal and hollow art created by elenaishuman, angelicimagination, narcissca, backstreets, twatty, moonshoes, seethesoldiers

[thataspdfeel]

that book list I promised

//rubs my grubby hands together happily

Boy howdy do I ever have some book recommendations. This would’ve been posted earlier but mobile decided to go fuck itself. Just a heads up, this is gonna be long

I mostly read series because tbh teen fiction is some of the best. It tends to take the most risks with both style and characterization. (Granted, it also tends to fall risk to some of the worst tropes imo like abuse stalker creepy guy is hot cause he loves protag)

Anything Garth Nix has ever written in his whole life. He’s one of my favorite authors and tends to stick to series. Keys to the Kingdom is 7 books and the first is Mister Monday and you read in order of the days of the week. No really. You’ll see why. His Old Kingdom series is 5 books and a short story so far and starts with Sabriel. It’s about necromancers who keep the dead down rather than raise them. Like I have the biggest boner for this series it’s not even funny

Terry Pratchett is my absolute favorite author of all time (besides Shakespeare) and he’s written over 50 books. You don’t have to read them in any particular order but he does follow characters across books sometimes. I recommend starting with Monstrous Regiment, Small Gods, or Going Postal first. If you want to start in chronological order, I think The Colour of Magic was written first

If you’re patient, read the whole Lord of the Rings series from The Hobbit onward. Tolkien sucks his own dick and describes clouds for a whole page cause he’s a world builder kind of writer. I haven’t had a chance to try the series again but I remember enjoying The Hobbit. Just know this is a very tedious option and may result in more boredom

Less boring is The Chronicles of Narnia but there are a few books that are just an absolute bear to get through. I recommend this right after lotr because these stories are a result OF THE SAME DRUG TRIP because Clive Staples Lewis (no really that’s what CS stands for) and Tolkien were college roommates. And because Narnia is a fucking fun place to visit

George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire cause it includes more detail than Game of Thrones and because I’m always a slut for kingdom musical chairs and dragons

Speaking of dragons, The Inheritance Series which is Eragon etc because it’s like lotr for people who can’t stand reading about a cloud for two pages, almost entirely action. Plus, in one of the books, they (Eragon and Saphira) do a couple of really stupid, slightly offensive things to the elves and admit their mistakes which I thought was cool cause it feels like sometimes protagonists don’t apologize in books

Chris D'Lacey also writes these REALLY COOL books about dragons called The Last Dragon Chronicles where these ladies make dragons out of clay and I’m 90% sure The Fire Within is the first book. There are at least 7 and I really need to catch up

Angie Sage writes about a boy named Septimus Heap who’s the 7th son of a 7th son and those books start with Magyk and there are at least 6 maybe 9. They’re fucking awesome and full of magic and adventure and I’m pretty sure he gets a pet dragon somewhere

Suzanne Collins also writes a lot of great stuff but I REALLY like her Gregor the Overlander series. Think Alice in Wonderland with a guy and no drugs and it’s awesome

Anything Rick Riordan has ever written in his life. I love love love the Percy Jackson series and he also wrote Children of the Lamp which is the bomb dot com about djinn children

Douglas Adams has a whole Hitchhiker’s Guide series and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the first and it’s just bonkers and loads of fun. Basically earth gets blown up and the protagonist has to deal with it. An absolute riot

James Rollins writes the Blood Infernal series about vampires and were-beings not just werewolves. The first book is Sanguine and the protagonist’s best friend is a werewolf. The first two books don’t have much to do with each other aside from being in the same universe but book three picks up at the end of book one and ties them both together. I’m pretty sure there’s sex

I’d also recommend anything Edgar Allen Poe or Shakespeare ever wrote. I know that’s more Classical Canon or whatever the fuck but honestly? Delightful. Same sentiment for Stephen King

I can’t remember the names of all the series I’ve read but these I definitely do. So onto individual books!

I, Coriander by Sally Gardener set in 17th century London and has to do with a fairy world if I remember correctly

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine about a really ugly inn keeper’s daughter and it’s kind of a retelling of Snow White (She wrote other stand alones but I haven’t read them. Based off this, though, I’d recommend them)

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about a girl who immigrates from Nigeria(?) to the US and it’s just really really good

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe set in Nigeria(?) right when colonialism happens. The first part is pre-colonialism and then it gets into the beginnings of it and all this happens within the lifespan of one man. Trigger warning though for mentions of abuse, explicit child murder and explicit suicide. Like it’s a good book but it’s gonna be a rough ride if you don’t know what you’re in for

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is good, if tedious. It’s a Latin American book so the story is circular and told in spirals. I literally have no other way to describe it. Also don’t ignore the family chart at the very beginning because people get the same names across generations and it’s absolutely hellish. Trigger warning for incest, I think rape, definitely abuse, and a baby gets eaten by ants at the end which is more gross than anything

Black Rain by Kuroi Ame is about the bombing of Hiroshima. I’m pretty sure that’s all the trigger warning you’re going to need

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie is a collection of short stories about various Native American characters living on a reservation

Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt is about a Blackfoot medicine man who finally talks about his life but it’s less interview and more John interpreting things so this needs to be read a little critically

Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions by Richard Erdoes is a book where a Sioux medicine man talks directly to Erdoes from a Native perspective about various things from sex to politics. Was a joy to read honestly. Very enlightening

Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo basically entails the way of the bushido or the samurai code more or less. Kind of technical but I enjoyed it

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause is about the werewolf protagonist trying to fit into her pack and figure out how to be a teenager. There’s at least one graphic mention of death (I think). It could also be suicide) so heads up

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause is a vampire romance set in the 90′s and has absolutely nothing to do with the other book and was definitely something I loved. The protagonist watches her mother waste away from illness so avoid if that’s not something you can handle. Apparently, there are more stories (which I’d LOVE to read) and I’d recommend them just based off the two I have read

The Spook’s Apprentice by Joseph Delaney was amazing and I’ve just found out it’s a series not just a stand-alone so I know what’s going on my to-read list. It’s about an apprentice to The Spook who puts down evil things that hide in the dark. Kind of spine-tingling so if you don’t do horror, don’t read when it’s dark. It’s not horror-horror but if it’s not your thing, definitely read during the day

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is the only thing Faulkner ever wrote I can possibly stand. It’s a short story and the time is out of order but I still liked it

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is also a short story and my absolute favorite

Also not a book, but I greatly enjoy the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet but not everybody does because 1 early American literature and 2 Puritan but that’s something if poetry is up your alley

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell is about the life of a horse set from the horse’s perspective. No seriously. With I statements and everything. I thought it was very interesting. (I was also like 8)

White Fang by Jack London is by wolves. I don’t remember much more than that because of how long ago I read it but it was probably decent since it stuck in my mind

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman is about a prince’s whipping boy which is a thing because you can’t spank a prince directly so you have to punish somebody else. V interesting

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl was very enjoyable. I like Roald Dahl anyway but the concept of a chocolate factory was awesome. I also read it before I saw either movie and before the remake

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is pretty good but skip the epistolary at the beginning and read it after if you want to spare yourself some headache

Dracula by Bram Stoker is a classic and just really fun and I can definitely see why it’s a classic

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman was really interesting and honestly, I’d read anything that man writes after I read that

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is even better than the movie but there’s abuse mentions in it like even more so than the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie, heads up for graphic depictions of miscarriage, racial violence, and I don’t remember if the one death mentioned is graphic or not but it’s a heavy book

I’d have more but I can’t remember their damned names right now and it’s bugging me. I also have obscure video game recs because I’m one of those indie freaks. They tend to really draw me in

Also, if you like manga, I’ve read like idk how many series but a shitload and the day onemanga shut down was the day my soul died

Anyway, I hope this is fine. It isn’t even the half of what I’ve read. Like I spent almost all of my childhood reading and I enjoyed most of it. I just wish I could remember book names. Their stories are floating around in my head, just not their names. If I remember any more, I’ll probably add to this list

[katieskarlette]

Warcraft Chronicle Vol. II - An Illustrated Reaction Post

 I had the day off from work yesterday, so I binge-read the second volume of the World of Warcraft Chronicle.  Another very enjoyable read, and a must for any self-respecting lore geek. 

 [General comments follow.  Spoilers will be below the Read More.]

I reallllllllly wish this had come out prior to, or concurrent with, Warlords of Draenor.  Almost all my issues with “This is only happening in an AU so why do we care?” and “Did any of this happen in our universe?” would have been taken care of.

There’s a wealth of lore on the breakers vs. primals, the gronn, ogron, ogres, orcs, botani, and arrakoa.  Everything makes so much more sense now!   WoD would still have been plagued by the same gameplay issues (*coughcoughgarrisonscoughcough*) but the story would have grabbed me more.  I mean, yes, a good deal of the Draenor lore in Chronicle II (maybe even the majority of it) was in-game, but to have it all in one place, to see how the parts all relate to each other, to have it told as a cohesive story, and to know that it occurred in our universe and not just an AU, made all the difference in the world.

My only complaint about the book was the lack of references to any of Deathwing’s children.  We did find out some more about what he was up to between the War of the Ancients and Day of the Dragon, but there was no mention at all of Sabellian, Nefarian, Onyxia, or any others.

[I’m going to make a separate post about the Deathwing parts of Chronicle II, since this one got really long.]

The primordial lore of Draenor, with creatures of stone or plant life that towered higher than mountains and caused the world to shake with every step, was awe-inspiring, terrifying, and epic.

Er...take my word for it.  It was awesome.  *ahem*

Grond, the rock giant created by the Titan Aggramar to fight the Evergrowth, broke down into a series of lesser beings as time went by, each kind smaller but smarter than the last.  Thus were created most of Draenor’s sentient creatures (minus arrakoa, saberon, botani, and sporeggar).

I know Blizzard is trying to sand off the rough edges of the lore and make things fit more seamlessly, and in the vast majority of cases I think the Chronicles book do that well.  At first I thought orcs being descended from ogres was an exception, but then I really looked at the pictures and realized...yeah, it works.  Orcs and ogres share the same jaw structure, at least.  (I’m still not sure how one eye turned into two, though, and the number of toes increased a lot in the last two iterations.  Also, it appears bad posture skipped ogres and popped up again in orcs...)  ;)

(All images in the above graphic are from Wowpedia.  And of course I used Varok Saurfang as the quintessential orc because he’s freaking Saurfang.  ‘Nuff said.)

I wonder if dwarves know that orcs are technically descended from rocks, too...  It also means that ogres and orcs have Titan origins, albeit not as directly as vrykul, mogu, gnomes, dwarves, etc.

Goria, the capital of the ancient ogre empire, was destroyed by orc shaman, working with the elements of Draenor to avenge the desecration of the Throne of Elements.  (The ogres had barged in and tried to take the power of the elements with brute force, which...didn’t go well.)  The city was buried by the forces of earth, and none of the races of Draenor wanted anything to do with the site afterward...until the draenei crashed and were like, “Hey!  This looks like a great place for a city!”  Thus Shattrath was founded.

Meanwhile, I imagine the orcs, ogres, arrakoa, etc. were peeking over a hill nearby going, “WTF are those new guys doing? Everybody knows better than to build there!”  It’s like building a subdivision on top of a cursed native burial ground.

As it turns out, none of Shattrath’s problems had anything to do with unhappy ogre spirits, but the bad karma didn’t do the city any favors, either.

In WoD, Alliance players drink an elixir to witness a vision of the Iron Horde using the Dark Star to conquer Karabor despite Velen’s best efforts to defend the holy site.  

In our universe, the non-iron Horde did basically the same thing, but Velen was able to escape.  The void energies corrupted the site into the Black Temple.  Fel seeped in later when the demons took over, but initially it was the void that wrecked it.  Interesting.

When Grom Hellscream learned of Draenor blowing up, he assumed Garrosh was killed, and “the news was devastating.”  He forced himself to “put aside his grief” for the greater good of orckind and led the remnants of the Horde into the Swamp of Sorrows.  

If only Garrosh knew that his father cared that much about him, even with the red pox, maybe he wouldn’t have been such a mess.  :p

Long before anyone on Azeroth had heard of an orc, the Gurubashi trolls attacked Stormwind (as seen in the Bonds of Brotherhood graphic novel that was a movie tie-in.)  All seemed lost until Medivh stood on the ramparts and unleashed a firestorm of magic down on the invading trolls.  

My question is, did it take as long to clean up the charred mess from that incident as it did to repair the city after Deathwing damaged it at the beginning of Cataclysm?  ;)  

(At least there were no huge statues near the gates to tip over in those days.  I still remember the first time I saw the cinematic of Deathwing casually knocking over Danath’s statue on his way by, and how freaking awesome that was.  Oops, this was supposed to be the non-dragon section.  Ahem.  Moving on...)

Taria Wrynn was killed while she and Varian were trying to escape the city during the fall of Stormwind.  Lothar saved the prince but could not save the queen.  :( 

No mention of Varian’s sister from the movie-verse.

Miscellaneous tidbits:

Before the Scourge, the Eastern Plaguelands were known as the Eastweald.

Maraad had a sister named Leran.  She was captured and killed by orcs in one of the first clashes in what would end up being the draenei genocide.  No mention of our universe’s Yrel, though.

The Scepter of Sargeras that my warlock has as her Legion artifact shows up in one of the art pieces in Chronicle II, in Ner’zhul’s hand as he splits Draenor asunder.  Pretty damn cool.  I mean, I knew the history behind the weapon from playing my lock, but to actually see it being used at that historic moment gave me a thrill.  (Although the thought of such a powerful weapon bumping around on some chucklehead player’s back is kind of scary...  Stand in the fire, accidentally shatter the planet...LOL!)

The cutscene in original Karazhan showing Nightbane’s origins was revisited and expanded upon significantly.  It seems that Arcanagos (Nightbane, pre-crispification) was one of Aegwynn’s few true friends (along with Moroes!), and they came to Karazhan together to confront Medivh about the Dark Portal after they sensed his magic behind it.

Sargeras took over Medivh and was like, “Hey, Aegwynn, long time no see!  Remember me?  You thought you killed my avatar, but I actually hitchhiked in your body for awhile and then possessed your son.  How do you like them apples?”  

And Aegwynn was like, “WTF?  YOU ASSHOLE!”

They fought, and although Sargeras was, y’know, a freaking Titan, he was working with a sliver of his real power in a body he had only been inhabiting for a relatively short time, and Aegwynn was not only more experienced fighting as a human, but she was extremely pissed off.  Arcanagos got fried when he tried to help her.

Sargeras was like, “Shit, I’m actually losing,” and sucked the life energy out of everyone (except Aegwynn and Moroes) in the tower.  Thus all the ghosts you see there today.  With that power, he could have obliterated Aegwynn, but deep in his brain Medivh was like, “Not my mother, you bastard!” and exerted his will so that Aegwynn was banished to some far-flung, unknown corner of the world instead of being killed. 

When he came to his senses again he was like, “WTF just happened?  Did I black out and kill everyone again?  Ugh, I hate when that happens.”  And he felt very bad.  As one does.

[#tw:  mention of rape and vague allusion to incest in the following section]

Garona’s plot definitely draws from the comics, but there is zero mention of her having a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Medivh, which I assume is Blizzard’s way of saying, “Med’an?  Who’s that?  Never heard of him!  Ooh, look, a squirrel!”  Which is honestly fine by me.  Briefly canon or not, Medivh/Garona is kind of a NOTP as far as I’m concerned (one amusing screenshot not withstanding.)

I actually rather liked the movie-verse idea that Medivh was her father, partly because it made for an interesting, poignant story (and got rid of the rape element), and partly because it made the original Warcraft I story of her being half human, half orc canon again. Retcons are a necessary evil, but clever ways to get around them are fun, too.

However, Chronicles II makes it clear that Garona’s father was an orc warrior and her mother was a draenei prisoner.  Which, okay, fine, it would be pretty jarring to go from “babydaddy” to “actual father” in main canon, so as long as they got rid of Med’an, I’ll take it.  They were still friends, and bonded over their shared feeling of being an outcast.

I’m sure I’ll think of a million things I’ve forgotten to mention as soon as I post this, but I’ve rambled long enough and I haven’t even touched the black dragonflight stuff.  Suffice it to say that Chronicle II is amazing, and while the dragon lore may not be as detailed as I’d like, we did get some juicy new tidbits to chew on.