#so i'm not ruling out any possibilities

[yourpalrolal]

god its weird thinking about how homestuck was one of my formative experiences growing up

to the point where back when i thought i was a boy i wanted to be just like dave strider

and now theres a nonzero chance i might meet him on this cursed interdimensional website

what would i even say

do i just go up to him like

“hi my names futaba i learned english so i could read the webcomic about you and your friends do you wanna post memes at each other some time”

...

actually that might almost work

gonna need to be some serious top shelf memes though

no reused image macros or stupid rage comics

gotta impress him with my high quality original shitposts

[theirmadness]

alright, folks. time for a serious conversation.

it's just been brough to my attention that some people are under the impression my samantha winchester portrayal in particular is transphobic because she's a genderbent version of a canon character. there's a couple of things that i want to clarify: first of all, this is something i fully intended on adding as a section in my rules because i know this is a hot topic in the rp community, i just haven't gotten around to it because as stated in my rules, this blog is very low effort and most of the time when people interact with samantha, i will go through the two separate aus i have with them privately.

now, i'm not gonna get into my skin in the game for this because, honestly? it's just gonna cause a stir because people can't respect when people have different perspectives on sensitive topics.

but, i want to clarify something: i only use "genderbent" potrayals of canon characters in universes where the multiverse is a canon thing. both in supernatural and in the marvel universe, you have different versions of canon characters that exist in different universes. sometimes the only thing they share in common with the "canon" version of that character you're familiar with is their name and their connections. the only exception to this would be alana bloom, but the same argument can be made that she is so far removed from the canon alan bloom that she's her own different character.

that being said, i absolutely will not accept the argument that my portrayals of toni stark and at the present moment, samantha winchester are transphobic. you might disagree with me on that, and gb portrayals might be icky for you for your own perspective and beliefs, and that's absolutely okay. i'm not gonna sit here and try to argue this and change your mind because i can absolutely respect everyone is entitled to have their own POV on things. my interpretation and my idea of the gender spectrum can be so very different from yours and that's just that.

i have never, and will never force anything on anyone. it's why my blog is dead dove. it's why i have so many warnings saying that i will write things that are upsetting, triggering, etc.

now: samantha's main verse is that she's from a separate timeline and universe where she does not throw lucifer back into the cage, and she shares her body with him in an apocalypse croatoan virus universe. it's one of the many separate and alternate universes/timelines that chuck has created. he has admitted to creating an universe where people have dog noses. so yeah, i'm fully supportive of the idea he plays around with the genders of his main characters in different universes. but the important thing to note is that samantha isn't canon sam, and i didn't just take canon male sam and turn him into a cis woman. she is, like alan bloom, her own separate entity and character, who happens to share the same name, a similar backstory and same connections as this one canon character.

the second verse for her is that she's sam's twin sister who has either (also separate from main canon) been raised with the boys or just been separated from them from birth for whatever reason best fits the plot and is now back into their lives.

now i'm only making this post and making this distinction because it's both important to the character's portrayal for the future but also i don't want to have to deal with folks throwing around "transphobic" when it comes to me when that's so far from who i am and what i believe in. are there instances that gb is done in a harmful way? absolutely. most of the time from my experience in the rpc, it is that way. it's why i ABSOLUTELY understand that people aren't willing to interact with gb portrayals. for the most part, i never interacted or had gb portrayals. but this version of the character has been living in my head for MONTHS and i just had to let her out. i am never one to hold back on my creativity and this isn't any different. but since i do write alana and toni, i felt like it was worth mentioning my take on this as a whole in case i add any other characters from marvel like this.

i normally don't feel like i have to explain myself on anything that i do because if people don't agree/like what i do, blocking and not interacting with me is an option you have and even if we have mutuals, you can blacklist me and never have to see anything i post. just because we have different opinions doesn't mean i'm a bigot, or that i'm not allowed to exist with my creative ideas in the same space as you do.

thank you for those who have read this unnecessarily long post lol. know it's a bit long winded. i do tend to overexplain myself because of my adhd. but also it was important to get some of the info on sam's verses out here. i will be making a separate post for this information to make this easier for folks AND to avoid any kinda misunderstanding in the future, BUT i just wanted to do a lil' thing in the meantime. to those who interact with me and sam and any of my controversial muses: thank you! and for those who don't or for example for folks who don't like incest but still follow/interact with me, thank you, too! i appreciate every single one of you that understand that we're not all gonna be into the same things but understand that everything here is about open and mature communication, and just being able to curate your space and experience.

kisses. ❤

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Come on, you know you want to, give us the character bingo for Viktor.

don't mind if i doooo

[leng-m]

Anyone have tips for a poor woman experiencing pmdd for the first time?

[reginrokkr]

𝐕𝐈𝐈. Among the things that are open for the bearer's creativity that can be done with the Temporal Mandate is to heal wounds by turning back the time of the individual's body to the chosen point of time, in this case to when their body was completely healthy. This is something Jinhsi would intend to do with Jué, having already known about this and performed it herself to others before. But not until she masters a much greater access to the Temporal Mandate she has in comparison to before, only relying on the Temporal Program that Jué lost when it brought her back to life and whatever permission she had from Jué until the aftermath of their prophesied clash. Suffice to say, other individuals of importance to her are subject to be her target of healing so long as she counts with their permission, too.

[here-there-were-dragons]

judging by the "fixes" they've applied to fern and i'm fairly sure also to a few other genes, they likely intend to flatten and generic-ify EVERY gene that does anything interesting with especially the top feathers portion of the wings. :/

[capaldiera]

man idgaf about what treville and richelieu have going on (mostly nothing) (they dont like each other but they work together a lot bc of their jobs.) (i guess treville holding onto a sense of honour whilst working with the cardinal is interesting but like that's not. thats not really those two having something interesting going on). lets talk about the king and the cardinal man.

[cryptidhyrst]

Working on some Sandman stuff and I realized that Dream loves so deeply (like throws his whole being into a romance that literally just started days ago; the type of guy who'd most definitely say "I love you" in a week, and the type of guy who'd try to make a paramour the regent to the Dreaming in less than a year).

All because his own parents never gave him love and affection. You can't exactly have your own ideal of what a healthy (romantic and familial) relationship looks like when your parents had a bunch of kids, but called quits on their relationship immediately after and can't stand to be in each other's presence. You also can't have the basis of what a healthy relationship looks like when your father has blatant favoritism toward your elder brother. And your mom? Somehow worse, in the regard that she heavily favors Dream and isn't bothered to keep up with her other children, much less remember the smallest details about them.

[moe-broey]

Man it truly sucks that like. The dude who did Planet of the Bass is a piece of shit LMFAO cause like. I feel like the DJ Crazy Times outfits PERFECTLY captured Moe's fashion sense and doodling those outfits spurred on A Bunch of ideas and I was having a lot of fun and even like an epiphany that spurred on a separate deeply self-indulgent project/concept (complete opposite end of the spectrum of indulgence) and then I find out ohhhhh. You weren't Just making fun of the fashion of the times and like, how it feels when you can't process shit so everything sounds a bit funny, and also just like how early 2000s music Is Sometimes (DEEPLY feel the song itself is SO DDR core ESP like... how it's just a bunch of vague jumbled concepts that's catchy AS FUCK) -- you're also a grown ass man still weirdly fixated on your autistic classmate you had in 3rd grade or some shit (have not looked at the vids myself and don't wish to, but from what I've heard it's essentially that).

(Further clarification -- he's making fun of autistic kids who had like, very typical and understandable Needs to accommodate being autistic in a classroom. As a grown adult. Like why are you even still thinking about this LMFAOOO move on, grow up LMFAOOO)

[redxriiot]

BNHA AU where post-War, Shigaraki and AFO have been successfully separated and Tomura survives it all abd is apprehended, and sent to a facility to be reformed. And his most frequent visitor is Mirio. Who has every intention to help him, make his time there easier, and overall just be a friend to him

[mayspicer]

Ok, the boss is no more! There were some super stressful moments but surprisingly we all survived o:

My animal companion got hit with disintegrate, but we had hero points to make him avoid it. I would cry actually, because disintegrate means no resurrection x_x

The war is prevented! At least this one, because Cayden's party is right at the center of a much bigger one just starting. Today we saved the country. Cayden is trying to not even save the whole world, just maybe slow the whole thing down and save as much people as possible...

[bunn-iiii]

I love getting more and more responsibilities being shoved onto me as I become more and more disabled and have the inability to just say "no I can't do those things" or "I quit" because it's school

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

The thing with the Mari Lwyd, though, is that it's being... I don't know, 'appropriated' is the wrong word, but certainly turned into something it isn't.

Thing is, this is a folk tradition in the Welsh language, and that's the most important aspect of it. I feel partly responsible for this, because I accidentally became a bit of an expert on the topic of the Mari Lwyd in a post that escaped Tumblr containment, and I clearly didn't stress it strongly enough there (in my defence, I wrote that post for ten likes and some attention); but this is a Welsh language tradition, conducted in Welsh, using Welsh language poetic forms that are older than the entire English language, and also a very specific sung melody (with a very specific first verse; that's Cân y Fari). It is not actually a 'rap battle'. It's not a recited poem. It is not any old rhyme scheme however you want.

It is not in English.

Given the extensive and frankly ongoing attempts by England to wipe out Welsh, and its attendant cultural traditions, the Mari is being revived across Wales as an act of linguistic-cultural defiance. She's a symbol of Welsh language culture, specifically; an icon to remind that we are a distinct people, with our own culture and traditions, and in spite of everyone and everything, we're still here. Separating her from that by removing the Welsh is, to put it mildly, wildly disrespectful.

...but it IS what I'm increasingly seeing, both online and in real world Mari Lwyd festivals. She's gained enormous pop-culture popularity in recent years, which is fantastic; but she's also been reduced from the tradition to just an aesthetic now.

So many people are talking/drawing about her as though she's a cryptid or a mythological figure, rather than the folk practice of shoving a skull on a stick and pretending to be a naughty horse for cheese and drunken larks. And I get it! It's an intriguing visual! Some of the artwork is great! But this is not what she is. She's not a Krampus equivalent for your Dark Christmas aesthetic.

I see people writing their own version of the pwnco (though never called the pwnco; almost always called some variant on 'Mari Lwyd rap battle'), and as fun as these are, they are never even written in the meter and poetic rules of Cân y Fari, much less in Welsh, and they never conclude with the promise to behave before letting the Mari into the house. The pwnco is the central part to the tradition; this is the Welsh language part, the bit that's important and matters.

Mari Lwyd festivals are increasingly just English wassail festivals with a Mari or two present. The Swansea one last weekend didn't even include a Mari trying to break into a building (insert Shrek meme); there was no pwnco at all. Even in the Chepstow ones, they didn't do actual Cân y Fari; just a couple of recited verses. Instead, the Maris are just an aesthetic, a way to make it look a bit more Welsh, without having to commit to the unfashionable inconvenience of actually including Welsh.

And I don't really know what the answers are to these. I can tell you what I'd like - I'd like art to include the Welsh somewhere, maybe incorporating the first line of Cân y Fari like this one did, to keep it connected to the actual Welsh tradition (or other Welsh, if other phrases are preferred). I'd like people who want to write their version of the pwnco to respect the actual tradition of it by using Cân y Fari's meter and rhyme scheme, finishing with the promise to behave, and actually calling it the pwnco rather than a rap battle (and preferably in Welsh, though I do understand that's not always possible lol). I'd like to see the festivals actually observe the tradition, and include a link on the booking website to an audio clip of Cân y Fari and the words to the first verse, so attendees who want to can learn it ahead of time. I don't know how feasible any of that is, of course! But that's what I'd like to see.

I don't know. This is rambly. But it's something I've been thinking about - and increasingly nettled by - for a while. There's was something so affirming and wonderful at first about seeing the Mari's climb into international recognition, but it's very much turned to dismay by now, because she's important to my endangered culture and yet that's the part that everyone apparently wants to drop for being too awkward and ruining the aesthetic. It's very frustrating.

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[nnnnnnnothingtoseehere]

Obsessed with this image from Pinterest.

[bisexualbaker]

Why do people keep recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative, when Dreamwidth and Tumblr are so different?

To be flat-out honest, it's because Dreamwidth has so many things that Tumblr users say they want, even if it's also lacking a lot of features that Tumblr users have come to love:

Dreamwidth has incredibly lax content hosting rules. I'd say that it's slightly more restrictive than AO3, but only just slightly, and only because AO3's abuse team has been so overwhelmed and over-worked. Otherwise, the hosting policies are pretty similar. You want to go nuts, show nuts? You can do that on Dreamwidth.

In fact, Dreamwidth is so serious about "go nuts, show nuts", it gave up the ability to accept transactions through PayPal in 2009 to protect our ability to do that. (It's also one reason why Dreamwidth doesn't have an app: Dreamwidth will never be beholden to Apple's content rules this way.)

Dreamwidth cares about your privacy; it doesn't sell your data, and barely collects any to begin with. As far as I'm aware, it only collects what it needs to run the site. The owners have also spoken out on behalf of internet privacy many times, and are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

No ads. Ever. Period. They mean it. Dreamwidth is entirely user funded.

Posts viewed in reverse chronological order; no algorithm, opt-in or otherwise. No algorithm at all. No "For You" or "Suggested" page. You still entirely create and curate your own experience.

The ability to make posts that only your "mutuals", or even only a specific subset of your "mutuals", can see. Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie, Clyde, Butch, and Cassidy? You can do that! Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie and Butch, but Clyde and Cassidy can't see shit? You can do that, too!

The owners have forsworn NFTs and the blockchain in general. Not as big a worry now as it was even a year ago, but still good to know!

We are explicitly the customers of Dreamwidth. Dreamwidth wants to make us happy, so any changes they make (and they do make changes) are made with us in mind, and after exploring as many possibilities as they can.

Dreamwidth is very transparent about their policies and changes. If you want to know why they're making a specific change, or keeping or getting rid of a feature, they will tell you. You don't have to find out ten months later that they're locked into a contract to keep it for a year (cough cough Tumblr Live cough cough).

So those are some things that Tumblr users would probably love about Dreamwidth.

Another reason Dreamwidth keeps being recommended is that a significant portion of the Age 30+ crowd spent a lot of earlier fandom years on a site known as LiveJournal. Dreamwidth may not be much like Tumblr, but it it started out as a code fork of LiveJournal, so it will be very familiar to anyone who spent any time there. Except better.

Finally, we're recommending Dreamwidth because some of the things that Tumblr users want are just... not going to happen on the web as it is now. Image hosting is the big one for this. Maybe in the future, the price of data will be much cheaper, and Dreamwidth will be able to host as much as we all want for a pittance that a fraction of the userbase will happily pay for everyone, but right now that's just not possible.

Everywhere you want to go that hosts a lot of images will either be running lots of ads, selling your data, or both.

Dreamwidth knows how much it costs to host your data, and has budgeted for that. They are hosting within their means, within our means.

Dreamwidth is the closest thing we may ever get to AO3 as a social media platform. One of the co-owners is from, and still in, fandom; she knows our values, because they are also her values. It may as well be the Blogsite Of Our Own.