#the only reason i dont really respond

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

oh! while we're on the Appreciation Train and before i go to sleep! i would like to say that although i rarely respond to replies, i do see them! and i Do cherish them! thank you!

[northern-passage]

You don't have to respond to this if you don't want to, I know it will start unneeded drama but I just found it soooo interesting that, since the transphobic blog lets you see their likes, most of their likes are TWC related. And it's not like that fandom is notorious for being a toxic hellspace, no sir.

to be frank it's not just twc, the IF space as a whole is pretty notorious for being toxic at this point. whether you're on tumblr or reddit or the forums, you're going to find these kinds of people lurking around.

that was why i did post that person's username because i could see them interacting with various other authors, and it's best to just block them before they send you something stupid, too.

just like any large online community there are going to be a lot of trolls trying to get attention by sending inflammatory messages or leaving cruel comments wherever they can; i've been getting that kind of stuff sent to me or left in reviews or comments for years now. and currently losers online are having a fucking field day with everything that's going on right now - racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, even gore, i've gotten it all in my inbox over the last few months and i've seen others get even worse. these people are pathetic and not worth your time. i've gotten better at not responding to stuff like that, but it is hard to resist that instinctive anger, and that's exactly why they do it & exactly why you see it in every single fandom/online space.

all of that to say, just ignore and block them and you'll have a far better time online than if you constantly try to argue or reason with them because they don't care, their only goal is to make you miserable. even if you think you have some epic clapback, it's not worth it, you're still giving them the attention they clearly desperately want and potentially exposing others to harmful rhetoric. just block 'em, babey!

[slutdge]

if i can be completely honest the agony of living with two abhorrent people in your life that will go to insane lengths to destroy every effort you make to try and leave them feels like its really not worth it my guys i kinda wish id just die in my sleep lol im tired of trying to keep a "positive attitude" about it, no one should have to

[lazuliquetzal]

i want to hear the sports anime manifesto

Okay short version:

My life was a sports anime for a bit, and watching sports anime makes me nostalgic for those days.

Medium version:

The typical shonen sports anime deals with themes of camaraderie, ambition, and the intersections of camaraderie and ambition, which ALWAYS hits me right in the chest.

I'm not an ambitious person by nature, but--you know that one poem floating around on here, the one about the moth that wants nothing more than to fly into the flame, and how it would be nice to feel that kind of all consuming passion? Yeah, that's the feeling I get from sports anime.

And often, for the Team Sports anime, you'll get characters who have nothing in common except that they Love the Same Thing--a friendship/rivalry/(romance) formed on the basis of a shared interest. That's sweet as hell!

And they're super predictable and low stress for me. Very easy to watch! Total popcorn shows. Also I like listening to people infodump about their passions. Someone loved their Sport so much they wrote a whole-ass story about it, so yeah, eat that shit up.

Long version:

The Socioeconomic Inequalities of High School Sports

In high school, I was on a crappy underfunded soccer team (with a healthy dose of sexism) and due to [sports league division reasons] the schools we played against were almost exclusively private schools.

I cannot describe how existential it is to be wearing a hand-me-down formerly white-turned-disgusting-gray uniform that's at least five years old when playing against a team that gets brand new windbreakers every season.

(If you've read AAB, YES this is where my obsession with the windbreakers comes from.)

(Hilariously, the guys team got windbreakers but we didn't.)

(I am not over the fucking windbreakers.)

But anyway, when you're constantly losing to private schools you get this fucking complex about it.

This should come as no surprise but like. People with the time and resources to practice their Thing get good at their Thing.

Playing pick up soccer at the park is practice. Playing rec league soccer is organized, repeated practice.

Playing competitive club soccer is all of that, plus a coach who knows How To Coach and What The Sport Is, plus you get morale-boosting uniforms and the chance to play with and against other skilled players. So you're exposed to a lot more, and thus, you learn a lot more.

Competitive club soccer is also Expensive. Rich kids get good.

There's a reason why the "Powerhouse School" is a thing in sports anime, because it's a thing in real life. People with leisure time and money get to invest in their sports development, and everyone else gets left behind in the dust. It's basically a microcosm of capitalism.

The underdog sports story is (quite tragically) bootstraps propaganda. All you have to do is be really good and work really hard and have A LOT OF PASSION to get good at your sport! The cream rises to the top! This is a meritocracy! Let's ignore all the other factors that go into an individual's development as an athlete!

(My brother got scouted for club soccer as a kid. He actually went to tryouts and got offered a spot and a scholarship and everything, but there's SO many hidden fees after the initial registration. Uniforms, equipment, travel and accommodation, tournaments, plus like, the time sink, so we never signed him up. And equipment-wise, soccer is one of the cheapest sports you can play--just imagine the price for something like baseball or hockey.)

In sports anime, there is no reform. There is no revolution.

But sports anime isn't really about that. It's about the narratives we create when we convince ourselves that we deserve to win.

(You know what I mean. Every billionaire is convinced they're some sort of heroic underdog. The same exact kind of 'working your way up' narrative.)

Sports anime is like, the uncomplicated power fantasy of playing the game. It's a world where you are rewarded for your hard work, because it's narratively satisfying. It's a world where it's safe to want things, because you have the exact same chances as the private school kids.

I used to be an obnoxiously competitive child. Then I got all my competition beaten out of me by 3 straight years of constant losing in my clownagerie of a high school soccer team (affectionate). I am going to admit that experience made me a better person and I would not trade it for anything, but I also had to like, relearn how to want things. And maybe real life is not as equal opportunity as the world of sports anime, but I think it's good to want things.

Of course, the winner-loser dichotomy makes sense in sports because of the inherent nature of competition, but it doesn't make sense in stuff like society and economics because that's like, competing over the right to live. That's where the capitalism metaphor ends,

Does sports anime actually go into the socioeconomic inequalities of sports? No. Of course not. Giant Killing never got a season 2.

But it is something I think about when I write sports anime fic. Even if it's not the point, it influences my characterization. The ego of a prodigy character in a shitty sports program is different from the ego of a prodigy character in a rich kid sports program. I am obligated to my amateur attempts to capture the complexities of the high school sports environment in my fanfiction because I am fucking insane I had a specific high school sports experience and they do say to write what you know.

[hyrulesfav]

♟️🐈‍⬛ is so perfect to me because they just. Get. each other. also they come into the relationship with kids who aren't their kids but one of them is basically their kid so they fall asleep watching bluey or blues clues a lot

[crixaflamma-the-second]

very sorry to everyone whos sent me an ask in the last few days that i havent responded to, ive been feeling really burnt out lately and havent really had the energy to do anything so ya thats why

[altruistic-meme]

so it looks like im probably calling out from work. 🙃 again. 🙃🙃🙃

[gu6chan]

99% just my autism speaking here but something ive been noticing lately that im sorta kinda 😶 about is when ppl are like "I think you'll like this" but not bc they ACTUALLY think you'll like it, rather they just got into it and want you to also get into it so "I think you'll like this" is a nice personal hook. i love chill stuff as much as any other person ofc but given i don't divulge that EVER, what makes you think my berserk reading, made in abyss watching, drakengard playing ass would like YURU CAMP????

[skrunksthatwunk]

yeah i can't come to class today, sorry. yeah. yeah. it's cause my hair's too long. mhm. gonna put me out of commission til the weekend at least

[bunnyboy-juice]

do any other autistics struggle with family because you want so desperately to be understood by them but, even when they mean well, they just Fundamentally Misunderstanding what u are saying? like u could literally tell them "i am not feeling upset or angry, i want to do this thing, there is just a little resistance mentally because it is a stressful task/behavior/thing. think of it like doing an exercise but adding a resistance band you know? like it just is taking extra effort i didnt account for but i will be okay!" and they interpret it as you saying"i am triggered, this is upsetting, this has to happen right now or never, i am going to cry from stress" and then try to comfort you but its like!!!! im not upset!!!!! but im Becoming upset bc im trying to explain my perspective and being treated like im broken and need gentleness when i dont really need ANYTHING other than like "alr cool sorry ur struggling" (and i can say this all Explicitly and even give a demo/mock convo of what feels good for me when sharing and its like in one ear and out the other)

[elegyofthemoon]

In the cool, plush core of the moon sleeps a mouse as we speak, dreaming of a world lush and green, then golden and undulating, then chopping and churning, a world of many surfaces with skies of many moods.

When it awakes, it will poke its tiny head out of a crater and bask in your glow as it does every morning. Here, all is still and silent. On that sparkling planet in the deep black distance, the sun seems capricious. But the mouse lives in the abyss of the body and therefore with a unique perspective on its essence. The mouse sees what other life does not see.

One needn't worry about unbecoming for the sake of containing a sun. Clouds may blanket the atmosphere of a planet, but still there burns a sun. The spots on the sun's surface may grow and shrink and shift, but still there it burns. And if one decides to cool it down like a waning flame or expand it in a cataclysmic supernova, still there it burns, and one has the right to revoke the state of their existence and become new.

Because perhaps the truth is you are not the sun--not alone--but it is rather a part of you. Your body is the solar system, each planet a world within the body, and each knows this glow in different ways. Some are nurtured by its warmth, others by its distance. Regardless of the sun's changes, they stay the course encircling it.

The universe cannot be held back, harnessed, fully comprehended. It pulls at the seams of solar systems as it pulls on its own seams. In that unstoppable shifting, we stumble. Sometimes it feels like our love and light slips from our fingers, shattering irrevocably in our falls. But what makes us cannot be seperated from us, even in times where our essence is obscured.

There is always another life to appreciate your life, no matter what happens. And in the least, there is always a little mouse in you that understands you in telescopic clarity and offers forgiveness for every change--no matter what, right into the end of time.

❤

[moss-sauce]

ah i see. only rich and popular people make it to where they wanna go. i get it now

[thotsfortherapy]

y'all I have finally breached the subject of my terrible housemate with the other ppl we live with (who are also close mutual friends) and they have also noticed the weird vibes and are siding with me... Which is very big for them cause they hate confrontation and admitting that there is any sort of problem so 👀👀 it feels like things are Happening

[inmirova]

"it's easier to leave an abusive situation than it is to stop an abuser" :^( but it's not easy :^(

[isaacathom]

ive been lot deep in the sauce of my oc and my friend and gm reminded me that i had a short character summary of naielle's family members on her little profile, so i went to go check it and while most of them are still baaaasically true, the way i described her sister is. Fascinating in comparison to how she's ultimately been characterised.

or, rather, its not the character thats wrong. the assumed personality from the excerpt is about right. its the little details. 'had little interest in the education offered by the university', 'contrary to expectation, excelled in her [feywalker] training', 'hardly noticed naielle's departure'. none of those are true. or, well. its complicated. NAIELLE thought all those things are true. NAIELLE thought Mariela was uninterested in academia, that her success in feywalking was a triumph considering her easily-distracted nature, that she was so dedicated in her duty that she wouldn't have noticed that Naielle had left but as a footnote.

she's wrong! Naielle was simply incorrect! Mariela was interested in academia, but didn't excel early, and not in the fields of her parent's interests (history and mathematics, respectively). Meanwhile Naielle quickly found a passion for history and did well in it. Mariela was compared to her older sister, found wanting, and instead of pursuing whatever she was actually interested in, she had to split off to do something else.

she became a feywalker because its something Naielle could never do - which is unfortunate, considering what Naielle currently is (a celestial warlock, the crews resident planar expert, the major teleportation and navigation bitch - things that have significant overlap with feywalking but for some particularities). Naielle doesn't know if their parents had low expectations for Mariela in that field, so that bits still in the air.

But Mariela definitely fucking noticed Naielle's departure. She fucking noticed. Naielle can't really know how, in an emotional way, but she did. She noticed Naielle's departure, and it didn't make the comparisons any easier. She stole Naielle's research notes to make something of so she could excel over her, for fucks sake. she noticed her departure keenly.

I intend to keep the description because i think its a genuinely fun point of comparison because all those little descriptions are mostly in line with what Naielle thinks is happening, and some things she knows. She knows, for example, that Yivien (her younger brother) is delighting in her departure, because letters between people have mentioned his good mood and praised his architectural designs. And she even knows on some level that this wasn't happening before, because the person recieving the letter mentions not having seen any of his designs prior to that point. Naielle had seen them, of course she had. but her mother had never praised them in letters like that. that's new. Naielle knows this.

idk. its neat! the description of her fiancee (now wife) describes her only as a merchant of middling success, and notes that "Though she was well within her rights to do so, she did not annul her engagement after Naielle was exiled.", which is certainly what naielle would think.

now the descriptions arent entirely naielle's thoughts, because Xistina's does say "she sought a Letter of Marque without Naielle's knowledge", and this was written before naielle had actually learnt this information. It's a bit loosey goosey. It's like, close 3rd person omniscient, where sometimes the narrator goes 'she doesn't know this, BUT'. idk!! i enjoy it as a little relic.

oh god theres also descriptions of (some) party members here and this is some very funny stuff for me.

Vandervest - "Naielle does not contradict his orders," HAHA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. HOOOOOOO BOY. BUDDY. OOOOOOOH MAN. HONEY YOU'VE GOT A BIG STORM COMIN. You can tell this is old because it refers to him as Captain rather than Commodore, and that its from before the Gunpowder Heist, because Naielle did... well okay she did not strictly contradict a given order, because she was not explicitly ordered to do anything, but i think the spirit of the order that was levied was definitely violated. this statement is a categoric falsehood. but she was just a lil guy back then, so,

Marius - "For various reasons, Naielle feels very indebted to him." haha! there are more now, bitch! when I wrote this i think it was only the first instance, in the Astral Sea, because that's from before the fight that got Vandervest promoted. the SECOND instance is from after that. and then the third is after that again, because Marius at this point has done enough Things for Naielle (both as a duty to his fellow crewmember and as a friend) that he could probably levy some fucking heavy loyalty off her. the fact he is now in charge makes this useful i think cause naielle is far less likely to directly disobey him. but again, she didn't directly disobey Vandervest either, so... sorry Marius!!

The Rthnathea - "A psionic warforged with foggy memories and a traumatic past" oh buddy you dont know the half of it. naielle actually doesn't and frankly neither do i but at the time i wrote this i knew like. 0. i now know Much More. its rough in there. it has siblings though so thats cool.

gah. old content, yknow. this shits from MARCH 2021????? ough. ooooough. a year in.... wait when i first wrote this we hadnt even ENTERED NINGBO????? No,,, oh my god i wrote the original article during the intermission between module 1 and 2. then i came back during module 2 and added in some stuff, mostly to add a few characters in the character list (rthnathea, saphielle, the specific detail about marius, sidika,). guh. i think the old version of the article before i rewrote it was LAST edited around... december 2021? maybe jan 2022? barely at the end of module 2. and i could have updated vandervest's title at the time, but didn't even think to do so. gagh

i never actually finished the rewritten campaign summary but its so fucking hard to summarise this shit and i got lost part way through it. also i have homework i need to start doing lest i fall the Fuck behind. augh.

[furiouswidgeon]

i wanna ask people i know if they think the way i think is abnormal and low empathy but that seems like an awful idea because a lot of the examples i may give are things that would make those people feel upset