#their original and fandom works are top tier

[rui-drawsbox]

remembering the most memorable mc's (with canon appearences) from the otomes i played

all of them are phone games btw. and looong rambling about the games after the cut!

Mystic messenger has been in my radar since i was in elementary school but i played it for the first time after the spanish traslation came out (2017 i think?) Seven shaped my type in such a specific way that im not really sure why loved him so much (it was the whole "he loves you in every route" stuff). I like a lot the default mc, most of the fandom did and that was enough to won me over

Rosa is top tier protagonist tbh, Tears of Themis has really good story and characters (as far i played, not a lot but i enjoyed it) The reason i'm not that much of a fan is bc the game is expensive asf and not very free to play friendly. You're either lucky or have a big wallet with the gacha

i miss my wife man(Marius)

Ephemeral has to be one of the best free to play otomes i've played tbh (if my memories aren't tricking me, it's been years) Good artwork, good storyline, good characters and as far i remember you can unlock one chapter of the character route per day (mabye two days, idk) and the mc's background has an important role in every route (she's a zombie! she's pretty now but eventually will fall apart, aaaaand her story gets expanded in one of the routes!) ((shes also adorable)) There's also a sequel, if you wanted more of the boys! never finished it but i'd recommend it

Honorable mentions! Huellitas Mágicas is a great game! has a really good cast with well fleshed arcs for all the characters, even the scondary ones! The game shines more for the development of *all* the characters rather than just the protagonist/ml. The main theme is overcoming insecurities! Each love interest has a different way of helping our (very insecure) protagonist and helping different characters with their own struggles :DD

10/10 i recommend this game if you want something cute and can be finished in a few hours, if i remember right. It also has a sequel! with like- 12 new love interests, also never finished it bc i didnt found a guide that worked for me but ñek

A3! is my canon event as a gacha player. Discovered the english/global server, tried it and got bored, left it for a few months, tried it again and fell in love, noticed the game was going to shut down bc low sales -HAHA :(-. This is not a otome btw, this is here bc Izumi has to be one of my favorite protagonists in gacha games ever

last but not least! Obey me! Shall we date? oh dear, what have they done to you :(. The original had intense powercreep to force you to pull cards -multiple times bc that makes them stronger- and even now, the company showed a lot of favoritism to some characters, leaving others to dust bc they don't make the same money. Not to say, they released a new game with the same cast and new main story (ignoring all what happend before). And let me say: THEY LITERALLY WANTED TO KILL THE ORIGINAL GAME.

Nightbringer might be a decent game but i don't trust the devs anymore, i still remember what happend with Asmo's birthday right after the release, and honestly i don't want to sit there watching how they disrespect my favorite characters again and again and again. Loved the characters hated the devs. 5/10 you can play it if you want but i don't recommend spending money on it, it's not worth it, just search #obey me here in tumblr and enjoy the amazing fanworks that i can assure you have a lot more love than the game itself

i miss my wife man (mammon and levi)

[galactic-rhea]

The thing is,,,,abuse doesn't have anything to do with intelligence or lack of confidence, though yes, a person with low self-esteem is an easier target for abusers, however that's what not I'm talking about.

Like I'm someone who doesn't like to take part in The Discourse (tm) because this is fandom, I'm here to talk about my favorite dolls and create silly scenaries with them. And it might feel a bit egregious to talk about something as delicate and serious as abuse, grooming or domestic violence but also it's the perfect playground to explore such themes and you can learn a lot by psychologically analizing a character and do your own research on the matter so you can understand abuse better, and sometimes that way you can also have a more critical view on real life, and for some of us, also come to terms with our own lives.

That said, back to my original point, it has nothing to do with intelligence. A person that falls into a cycle of abuse doesn't make them stupid, the whole deal of predators and abusers is that they know how to play their game, they know how to manipulate. A victim's mind will always try to cope with the abuse in ways that can be hard to understand sometimes in ways that will make you say 'well, that's enabling their abuser', but is not a statement on their intelligence or lack of it, abuse dynamics are extremelly complex, and victims will go through several states such a guilt, or violent outbrusts, fear, appeasing, avoidance, sometimes all sometimes just a few. And it's because no one is the same and no one's experiences will be the same, even though there are patterns you can identify sometimes.

So when someone wants to argue against a character being too smart to fall for abuse or manipulation, it's a bit sad to me. Not necessarily malicious or dangerous, or anything, again this is fandom and fandom runs rampant with whatever takes that makes all of us grimace. But because that's not how it works, if a certain dynamic isn't abusive by your pov, then it has nothing to do with the character's intelligence. It's not about being strong, or confident; that downplays how abusive dynamics come to be.

Like for example y'know I don't think padmé and anakin were abusive, I've made several posts about it, but it's not because they are too intelligent for that.

Likewise, Anakin wasn't stupid for being groomed by Palpatine; the contrary, he was quite literally a gifted child and a genius at mechanics and was good at many things, including drawing and strategies, but he fell for Palpatine's grooming because:

a) Palpatine is an evil top tier manipulator and predator who knows how to play adults, he literally knew how to play the jedi council, what was a 9 y/o going to do about it.

And b) Anakin's trauma and unattended mental illnesses made him an easier victim for grooming; he was already used to be a thing and be a servant from the moment he learned to talk.

But even if we weren't talking about someone as deeply messed up as Anakin was already, abusers and predators always will take advantage and exploit of the weaknesses and flaws on an individual, they will adapt and change their tactic according to the victim needs, that's why anyone could become a victim, it doesn't matter if your IQ is up there on the moon.

It's not about being too "stupid" to not realize there was abuse, it's a deep, complicated and terrible ensemble of thoughts and insecurities tangling around the brain in such a way that there's no a way to blame the abuser without feeling at fault, or at the very least without feeling scared of retaliation or lost, it's a power dynamic that messes up the sense of self.

[mothervvoid]

Kakashi's Birthday Recs

since it's our beloved boy's birthday, I thought I'd take some time to rec a few of my favorite fics (and a few of my own)!

The Pack Survives by ihopethelightwillshineuponus

genfic | 97k / 25/25ch | Kakashi & Team 7-centric When a simple C-rank mission turns into a straight-up nightmare, the members of Team Seven narrowly escape with their lives. They end up stuck in the middle of nowhere, each of them injured and forced to rely on one another for help.

A++ whump & team bonding, it's great!

Like You'd Get Your Knuckles Bloody For Me by mabledonut

genfic | 37k / 10/10ch | Kakashi & Team 7-centric Kakashi was in hell, or something close to it. a.k.a. Genin Team 7 goes bananas after their sensei gets kidnapped and tortured.

another A++ whump fic, with some really great team bonding moments. kakashi defies hiruzen's decree a little and spills a bit of knowledge about naruto's dad + team ten cameo & mednin!shikamaru!

The Last Time I'll Abandon You by mabledonut

genfic | 300k+ / 78/120ch | Team Minato-centric | Ongoing “Hatake Kakashi, isn’t it…?” Kakuzu asked as he emerged from underground, as the black strings or wires or whatever they were retracted back into his body, catching Kakashi from behind along the way, tugging him down, once again laying him prone on the hard rocks and roots of the forest floor. “It’s been some time, but yes, I do remember you…” Shit, we are in a bad way, Kakashi thought to himself as he struggled to get up. Who’s gonna…

an absolutely SAGA of a story, a must-read. though it's a genfic it DOES have some background ships like asukure, and features TEENIE TINNYYY allusions to ships like kakarin, obikaka and obirin. some top-tier whump, nauseating, will have you reading through your fingers at times, i honestly cannot recommend this fic enough!

Uneasy Lies the Head by Hiiraeth

genfic | 130k / 27/27ch | Kakashi & Team 7-centric “Shikamaru,” He began, trying to stay calm. “I’d like for you to get Sakura." Kakashi swallowed thickly and swayed on his feet. "Because I think I've just been poisoned."

POISON FIC!! kakashi has been poisoned! will he and co figure out a cure IN TIME? take a look and FIND OUT!! stunning whump, wonderful team dynamics. this was one of the first fics i ever read in the naruto fandom and it did NOT disappoint!

Just Leave Me in Two Pieces by @perpetuallyuneloquent

genfic | 12.5k / 3/?ch | Kakashi & Team Minato-centric | Ongoing Kakashi kept his eyes closed as the world came into focus around him. The stale air smelled vaguely like old sake and burning kerosene, the ground beneath him gritty and cold. His mind was too sluggish for him to process more, however. I just want to go back to sleep, honestly. Well, that was concerning. Usually, he couldn’t sleep. …Where am I?

exciting and deliciously upsetting fic as team minato goes through the recycling wheel of miscommunication. featuring some grade A whump and a side of people not saying what they should when they need to, and a very interesting original villain!

And Of Course, I'm throwing a couple of my own fics:

red clouds, white wings, silver hair, dogteeth by Mothervvoid

Kakashi/Konan | 2.8k / 1/1ch | Kakashi & Konan-centric When she goes to him she must shed her red clouds and become something else. White wings, dark clothes; bright like an angel as she was when she first made her descent into the ravine where she found him. She could have left him of course, leaf seal on his headband and red spiral flak jacket. This man is her enemy.

in this fic i dare to ask the question: how would this ship work? feat some kakashi whump!

Pebble Brain by Mothervvoid

Kakashi/Obito | 20.7k / 6/6ch | Kakashi & Obito-centric Communication is king.

my obikaka magnum opus.

[bunniboiz]

i got my order from hobonichi today and i've honestly never been so hyped up about fandom merch before... tl;dr i'm very happy porky minch is finally getting so much love lol so i thought i'd show some of it to the three or four eb fans still alive who might be reading this

below: detailed unboxing + some peeks inside the artbooks ✰

the Pollyanna books are official anthologies featuring the works of 75 eb-loving creators, while everything else is from the new pork parco city pop-up event in shibuya last year <:)

can you even believe this little thing. the packaging has his most moemoe line about being nervous he might be one of the chosen ones. my heart isn't broken or anything

speaking about heartbreak: i was so surprised official merch has been made with the specific purpose of being devastating for porky fans (me) the Friend Yoyo's box has porky's original magicant dialogue on the side, about his low self-esteem, how he envies ness for being a good person, and wanting to be friends forever. the english translation really toned down that one- while the japanese original is very genuine, and makes a big difference in tone... in my opinion

not to be cheesy but seeing so many different people drawing&writing over 400 pages about their love for the series really moved me. the crazy variety of art styles make it all the more impressive.

the comics go from lighthearted silly comedy to existential dread much like the series itself does. if you're interested in throwing yourself into the same emotional roller-coaster, hobonichi is right here and i truly think these are top tier anthologies. seeing so much love for such an old series is so heartwarming. i'm especially happy that it has nothing to do with the general sentiment the mother fandom had back when i first played the game in 2010, which was general massive disinterest in porky- while i really felt (and still do) like he's the most important & most interesting character in the series lol... seeing him be a central character in these projects is so cool. pollyanna2's intro is a little letter from itoi about him. anyway,

[aroyallybigbangrwrb]

A Call to Join the Royal Court 📯

A decree to everyone in the kingdom of the Red, White and Royal Blue fandom to join us for A Royally Big Bang -  an event where we welcome all of you, but first:

What is a Big Bang?

A Big Bang is a fandom wide event in which authors and artists are paired up. Authors will write a work within the parameters of the timeline proposed and the Artists will transform said work into a pairing piece of some kind within the timeline as well. The works are then posted together in harmonious union. 

Who can participate?

We invite all authors and artists and betas over 18 to be a part of the festivities. We welcome all forms of transformative work here. As an artist, paired pieces are only limited by your imagination, let it be a podfic, a gifset, a playlist, a moodboard, visual art, etc!

When is this happening?

👑A ROYALLY BIG BANG STARTS RIGHT NOW!!! 👑

AUTHORS: Sign ups for Authors start (today!) February 1st and will close on February 22nd. 

You can sign up in three tiers according to minimum word counts and posting dates. This “Big Bang” has three different tiers (see below) for all authors' creative needs. The bigger the size, the longer the timeframe you have to write.

ARTISTS: Sign up will start on February 23rd and run until March 8th. You will be able to rank your top choices based on summary and tier.  

BETAS: Sign up dates will start on February 23rd and run until March 8th. You will be able to share what you are and aren’t comfortable to beta based on tag restrictions and tier. 

What do tiers mean?

🎂Tier 1 - Mini Bang: 10k+ words. Posts May- June

🎂Tier 2 - Medium Bang: 30k+ words. Posts July - September 

🎂Tier 3 - Big Bang: 50k+ words. Posts October - December 

Works within Tier 1 are expected to be a minimum of 10K words leading up to 30K words. If your work is over 30K words it is within Tier 2, and so on and so forth. 

SO… ARE YOU READY? 

✍��AUTHOR SIGN UP FORM IS HERE

ARTIST SIGN UP FORM (coming Feb 23rd) 

BETA SIGN UP FORM (coming Feb 23rd)

But what if I have more questions? 

You can check out our original FAQ here and our new Live FAQ here and if that doesn’t answer your questions you can send us an ask here on Tumblr, A DM on Twitter, or an email at royallybigbangrwrb@gmail.com and we will get back to you as quickly as we can! 

P.S. Once signups are completed and pairings created all authors and artists and betas will be invited to the RBB Discord server for easier direct communication with the mods, support from other participants and to make this a royally good time!

[gaywarcriminals]

How much lesbingqiu is there?

Since exactly One (1) person asked for the femslash slash stats on my post about the proportion of hetswap in the bingqiu AO3 tag, I have obliged. 

I used the bingqiu tag and filtered by F/F. Obviously many of these results are F/F side pairings with M/M bingqiu, so from there, I counted them by hand.

I excluded crossovers from my search criteria, but I did a separate search to include the fics tagged with both SVSSS and Scumbag System. At time of writing there were 257 and 18 fics respectively, or 275 total.

I have included fics with multiple pairings and polyships. Iirc this was only relevant to Bingliushen.

I counted collection fics that had at least one fembingqiu ficlet/chapter.

I included art posted to the archive.

I included podfics posted to the archive, and counted them and the fics they were based on as two separate works.

I am excluding fics where male characters' bodys or genitals are temporarily changed for a plot device but the characters maintained their original gender identity.

By these criteria, I counted 140 lesbingqiu fics on AO3. At time of data collection there are 7005 total fics in the bingqiu tag, meaning lesbingqiu makes up 0.01999% of the bingqiu tag

For funsies, I have also noted instances of trans bingqiu!

I am including fics where amab Shen Yuan Transmigrates into a cis woman and decides they're okay with this body in the trans category. 

If gender was not mentioned in a fic I defaulted to cis.

I am lumping all iterations non-binary bingqiu into the trans category, including afab non-binary bingqiu.

Not all fics with trans characters are tagged as such, so I skimmed any fics I was unsure of, but I'm sure I inevitably missed some.

Cis bingqiu - 118 Trans SQQ x cis Binghe - 8 Trans Binghe x cis SQQ - 6 T4T bingqiu - 4 Monsterfucking body weirdness, gender fucky omegaverse, or high tier SQQ gender shenanigans that I didn't know how to categorize - 4

Reflections

WAY LESS THAN I THOUGHT??? I think my perception has been skewed by what a high proportion of my fandom friends are lesbians, and how often femslash AUs feature in our discussion. 

Similarly, the fact that there are only four T4T fics was genuinely shocking to me-- I forget sometimes what a bubble I'm in lmao. I also noted that trans bingqiu was a more recent development, at least on AO3; the first fic I found to feature trans girl SQQ was from January of 2022.

I don't have exact numbers because I didn't think of it until halfway through, I noticed that in almost all the NSFW fics where just one of bingqiu was trans, the trans girl topped. This was an interesting mirror to the trend I've noticed where, in cases where just character is a trans man, he almost always bottoms. I'll shelve speculation about that for another post tho. 

[dwampyverseawards]

FINALE: PFTONES VS WHEN GLASS SHATTERS

CONGRATULATIONS TO @pftones3482 FOR WINNING THE WRITERS SIDE OF THE FOR FUN TOURNEY, AND TO @local-dragon-haunt FOR WINNING THE INDIVIDUAL FIC/SERIES SIDE OF THINGS! THIS LAST ROUND IS BASICALLY JUST EVEN MORE FOR THE FUNSIES.

@/pftones3482

Relevant reason for being submitted:

not sure if it has influence on the fandom overall but it had an influence on me and I live by that

They create top-tier Phineas and Ferb content, from fics to thoughtful analysis of characters and episodes. The following link is a great showcase of just a portion of their current Phineas and Ferb fics;

Propaganda: Just their entire catalogue of Phineas and Ferb works on Archive of Our Own. This is my favourite fic of theirs;

And here are some of my favourite posts;

Vote for @/pftones3482!

Have you ever heard of the Secret Life of Candace? Aka best mermaid au ever? GUESS WHO WROTE IT?

I have been in the Phineas and Ferb fandom for over a decade - writing fics for it for 12 years, can y'all believe that? I'm one of the oldest "original" fandom members left on AO3, which is actually insane.

And to this day the things I love about the show have shifted a little - favorite characters, favorite tropes, ships, etc. Nothing drastic, but anyone who's been following me since the beginning has definitely seen those changes.

But the thing I have always loved most about this fandom IS the fandom. The PnF fandom is one of the most wholesome fandoms I've ever been in, and it's the reason it's one of the only fandoms I still interact with. Sure, there's been drama, and sometimes we don't all agree - no fandom will ever always agree on everything (if they do....run)

Overall tho this fandom is so kind and wonderful, and given how small we are, we are still obnoxiously loud about this show 😂 I love us for that

Regardless if I win or lose (and if I lose, I'm honored to go down to someone like @/inators, who is a very kind person and has a big presence in the fandom), I wanted to say thank y'all for getting me this far

Phineas and Ferb got me on Tumblr and started my writing career. The fandom is what helped me stay. If I could give y'all an award for "Best Fandom," I absolutely would 🧡💚

When Glass Shatters, written by @/local-dragon-haunt

Relevant reason for being submitted:

Propaganda: local_dragon has a fantastic way with words and unconventional story telling. AUs where Perry is revealed to the kids are frequent, but ones where he interacts with Linda and Lawrence too are few and far between and the concept has so much potential. I just love their writing

Vote for my bestie @/local-dragon-haunt they deserve it and they won't admit it

Contestants may add their own propaganda however they see fit, provided it does not put down the person they are against. All round 1 matches were randomly generated, and anyone may drop out at any time.

[mrghostrat]

10 Questions For Fic Writers

thank you @midnights-dragon for the tag! 😍 no pressure tags to @eviebane @foolishlovers @chernozemm @tawnyontumblr

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 14

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 405,342

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently good omens, but previously written for hannibal, the adventure zone, bbc sherlock, and achievement hunter (orphaned)

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? i used to!!! and am awful at it now. i get too into the dopamine hunt of reading one after the other and then the effort of coming up with a dozen different ways to say "thank you" when none of it manages to express just how much i truly mean it overwhelms me 💀

5. Have you ever had a fic stolen? i haven't, but i have had an original comic stolen before. someone who was a long standing fan of mine, pledging on my top patreon tier for a year and a half, traced just about every drawing i made for their own art, and cut up pieces of my comics to make their own.

6. Have you ever co-written a fic before? nope, i think i'd be pretty bad at a written collab because i get so attached to my stories i find it hard to give up total control

7. What's your all-time favourite ship? moriarty x moran

8. What are your writing strengths? characterisation, motifs + metaphors

9. What are your writing weaknesses? exposition, endings, maybe pacing but i think i'm getting better

10. First fandom you wrote for? bandom!! (my chem, the used, and the fueled by ramen label)

[bigskydreaming]

So, been awhile! Apologies for that - took a step back from most social media sites for a few months because the accumulated stresses and everpresent urgency to most things I've been dealing with for the past five plus years finally caught up with me and I kinda just....crashed, and needed some time to get my head on straight. Or whatever the non-obvious-pun version of that might be for a Known Bisexual. Everything was getting to be too constantly 'stop and go' for me, if that makes sense.....like I'd TRY to be more present on here, TRY to work on things like my patreon and fic and meta and stuff like that because I've really wanted to get back to creating actual stuff that people enjoy instead of being like My Issues: The Latest Installment and the like, but then something else would crop up and kill my momentum before it even really got going and I'd have to duck away yet again, and rinse and repeat.

HENCE! I took a more dedicated, extended leave to try and get into a headspace and build a buffer that better lends itself to me getting back to the kinds of posting/writing conditions I've thrived under in the past. It took longer than I thought, but I've never been good at accurately estimating things lol. I've still been on twitter somewhat sporadically, since a huge part of why I hate that site is its format makes it all but impossible to really get to ranting at length...y'know, as I do, my tried and true time-suck method of procrastinating...and with everything going on in the world these days I didn't want to disconnect entirely even though I did need time to work through some shit. BUT I DIGRESS.

Point is, felt like I needed something more substantial than the optimistic-but-lacking-in-actual-energy-and-planning measures I've attempted in the past couple years in order to get on top of things and achieve a measure of consistency and stability again. Less shooting for the moon because I just WANT to be back to my older, happier/more content patterns, more....putting some actual time and thought into how I can realistically make that happen instead of just trying to will it into existence through sheer stubbornness. Because obviously, THAT always works.

ANYWAY. It'll still be a couple days before I get back to regular posting/reblogging patterns or much of any of that at all.....don't be confused if you see some blink and you miss them temporary posts from me over the next day or two. I'm testing out the formatting and layout of a bunch of posts and graphics made for my patreon and original fiction stuff, since the preview post function doesn't always work with read mores in a post and they're all gonna need that lol. If anyone's up for it, I am finalizing the price/reward tiers of my patreon and could use some thoughts on the different levels - I think I have them mostly figured out but wouldn't mind some additional perspectives on how I broke things down and if I'm missing some alternatives. Just message me directly if you'd like to weigh in or lend me your thoughts!

I've never wanted my tumblr to be all about fic or just original content or anything like that, so the patreon's meant to kinda keep all that separate beyond just generalized update announcements on here. The blog will remain just a regular multi-purpose smorgasboard of my reblogs and thoughts on other posts and meta about my various fandoms and all that jazz. The patreon discord will have spaces having to do with my various fanfics, but they'll never be exclusive to it in any way, and every fic update I make will still be on my blog same as always. I've been building masterlists of all my Dick Grayson meta and all my Teen Wolf meta, as well as headcanons and writing snippets/scenes that never got posted elsewhere because I didn't consider them full fics, and I'm starting a series of posts that lean directly into my tendencies to be an Overly Opinionated Asshole who - historically speaking - has never been, uh, shy, shall we say, about Having Thoughts about various fandom patterns or trends.

So....look out for the upcoming "Kalen Vs Fandoms" post series. What? It sounded catchy to me. First up:

"Fandoms' tendency to pick one character per fandom to have every other character introduce as the dumbest person they've ever met, but no its okay, they're actually really fond of them and universally defaulting to a judgmental or patronizing shot at their intelligence every single time they're the topic of conversation among other characters just naturally happens to be part of every single other character's love language - is this perhaps NOT as endearing or affectionate as fandoms tend to treat it as?" Aka "How many people can actually say they'd be comfortable with the idea of every single person in their family or friend group leading with "I genuinely think they're stupid but I love them anyway" each time they talk about them to someone else, and if you don't think that's a normal conversation starter for people to have about a loved one, why do so many fandoms attempt to treat it as such?"

.....the length of post title should not be taken as an indicator of how long each post is. If people want to draw their own conclusions about post length based solely on the fact that they're, well, by me.....I mean. That's totally your prerogative. Nothing I can do about that!

Post topics will run the gamut, if for no other reason than gamut is an amazing word that doesn't get used enough and I wanted to use it. From "Its totally valid to project onto characters and use fic as a way to work through various issues via that projection but how much does this have to do with how defensively people react to the slighest criticism of character choices in their fics as though personally attacked - discuss" to "Criticizing and condemning the writers of source material for specific things - to rave reviews from followers - only to then do the exact same specific things in your own fics - to rave reviews from followers - while claiming that the mere fact of being a fan not getting paid for writing those specific things somehow makes them less worthy of criticism.....are we all seeing the problem here."

There's a slight chance those titles are perhaps....somewhat unnecessarily asshole-coded, but like, in a whimsical way! I think. Whatever. I'm sure it'll be fine!

Will either rhyme OR reason be involved in the order of post topics? No. Not even a little bit. Next question.

Aside from "Kalen vs Fandoms" I've been putting a lot of thought into what other topics or content I can expound upon at length, to the possible interest of people. I'm good at writing and editing and analyzing narratives. Not claiming to be the best, just not trying to fish for compliments or anything. I think my analysis of narrative and character choices has generally been of interest in most fandoms I've been in, but when I'm IN a fandom, I do personally invest in favorite characters and stories that inevitably put me in opposition to takes from fans of other characters and stories within that fandom, and when that happens, the Horseman of Discourse inevitably follows and I....do the discourse. Look, I am who I am. I see the discourse, I engage with the discourse. Unless I don't care about the topic of discourse, in which case I don't, because that discourse doesn't matter. Obviously.

SO! In the interest of posting about narrative analysis and breakdowns of writing choices, character arcs and the like but WITHOUT engaging in The Discourse, I'll be making an easy-to-find post of fandoms or source material whose characters and narratives I'm familiar enough with TO have opinions or analysises of, but for whatever reason, the fandom has never clicked for me and I've never actually felt a desire to be part of it. Thus I'm not likely to be invested or compelled enough to follow up on anyone disagreeing with my personal thoughts or analysis or various character arcs or narratives, because its literally just like, my opinion man, presented for no other purpose than to potentially be of interest to anyone who might be interested in it. No actual follow up needed on my part because I'm not particularly chuffed if people have different takes, they're totally valid, mine don't exist for the purpose of being defended there, they just exist because Opinions, I Had Them, Here Look. Or Don't. Its Totally Whatever.

Because I don't feel as strongly about these pieces of media as I do fandoms I'm personally invested in, it is trickier to come up with a comprehensive list of ones I can weigh in on. So please feel free to hit up my inbox with any fandoms, narrative or character arcs you're curious about my take on, and I'll let you know if they're fandoms I consider myself a participant in, and thus not really right for this series, or if they're something I'm just not knowledgeable about.....but if they're not an actual fandom of mine and I AM familiar enough with them to have an analytical take or response, I'll add them to the masterlist/post as a potential topic.

This series will be called and tagged "Kalen Vs Writing Choices" (That I Personally Don't Like Or Think Could Be Better). The parenthetical part is there solely to be a disclaimer clarifying that my ego is not so great that I think that My Subjective Take on the writing choices made or not made is the only one that matters. I mean, I don't intend to include the disclaimer as part of the actual tag and will mostly leave it as y'know, like, something IMPLIED, but the disclaimer still exists and thus counts. That's totally how that works.

And that's how I've chosen to awkwardly segue into the final intended-of-three post series.....Dramatically Abrupt Tonal Shift Ahoy!

This next part will get long, but I would truly appreciate it if you gave it a read despite its length and even if - especially if - the next topic isn't one you typically look for my take on, or even avoid my take on, because I don't think I'm likely to ever express my thoughts on this matter any more genuinely or directly than this. Like I'm not trying to guilt anyone or anything like that, its more I'm just trying to say if you ever read ANY single post of mine when it comes to the next topic or pick a post to base your decision on whether or not TO wade into something I have to say on this subject, I would appreciate it if you made that this next part here, as I think it best conveys where I'm coming from when it comes to most any post I make along these lines.

So. The thing is....most people who've followed me long know that in the past I've frequently been extremely vocal on topics of rape, incest and abuse, specifically through the lens of being a male survivor. These absolutely are personal for me. This has led to me having a lot of Overly Opinionated Takes on these topics and how they're talked about, depicted and treated within fandom conversations, fics, and social media spheres and conversations at large. I've also pretty obviously not posted on these topics nearly as much in recent years as I once did - but not because I feel any less strongly about them.

And that's one hundred percent because it's frustrating as hell to see a very good portion of the posts I make about any OTHER topic in my usual fandoms go on to accumulate hundreds of notes....while NONE of my posts on these topics ever break out of my direct circle of mutuals. I don't say it to be egotistical - look how many notes I get on stuff - I say it because its literally objectively factual, and the disparity is dramatic, and the disparity is a PROBLEM. Especially given how much the topics of male rape and abuse - in SPECIFIC - tend to be, within most of my past fandoms.

This disparity has a very clear reason for existing too: people have never been shy about citing that they refrain from reblogging or referencing my posts on these topics because they feel like I act like I'm the only opinion that matters on them, the sole authority to be listened to here, that I use my status as a male rape survivor as a cudgel, to shut down opposing takes or points of view.

Which I would totally be fine with or understand if not for the fact that I've always gone out of my way to express that I don't want or expect my opinions on these matters to be taken as anything other than my personal opinions born of my personal experiences, which I cite because they're relevant. I don't think that survivors should have to disclose their status or personal history or details in order to have their opinion heard on these topics, but I deeply resent how often survivors making the choice TO disclose their personal history or relationship with these topics in order to directly unpack how that informs our perspective....is weaponized AGAINST us, in order to shut down and discredit OUR takes even while literally accusing us of only disclosing in order to do the exact same thing to others.

Something that I've posted about a LOT in the hopes of getting it spread throughout fandoms that regularly talk about male rape is for literal decades I've seen people harp on about how men can be raped too, believe male survivors, don't believe the myth that men can't be raped, etc. Which like, I appreciate the sentiment, but the thing I've tried to express for years is that in my personal experience, and those of a lot of other male survivors I've talked to - this is not really the biggest or even ONE of the biggest issues most male survivors face.

And the fact that for all that there are many survivors in fandom who have made the difficult choice to be open about their traumas and recoveries - which I ALWAYS respect, as that is never easy for any of us - a huge part of why I've always made a point to disclose my own history as a male survivor is because there just flat out aren't a lot of perspectives from MALE survivors in specific, being circulated in pretty much any of the fandom spaces I've ever been in over the past twenty years. I don't even slightly think I'm any more of an expert or authority on topics of rape or abuse - beyond how they pertain to my own personal experiences - than any other survivor. But as long as the topic of MALE rape and abuse in specific, how men are affected by these things, how society reacts to us and treats us in the aftermath....as long as these are the topics explicitly being discussed.....I do think my perspective as a male survivor is pretty fucking relevant, and admittedly, I tend to get pretty heated about pushing BACK against attempts to invalidate it or shout it down as though I somehow have LESS of a stake in or right to be heard in these particular conversations. And I get how this has at times come across as attempting to dominate a given conversation.

But like.....I'm also going to point back up to the part where I said earlier....I'm an Overly Opinionated Asshole. I say it somewhat deprecatingly, for the lulz, but also not. I'm very passionate about conversations and topics I feel strongly about and I don't make apologies for it. And for the most part....this has NEVER stopped people from reblogging or liking posts I make about pretty much any other topic....despite me not really coming across that differently in most of them, compared to how I come across in most of my past posts on topics of rape and abuse.

See....I'm in complete agreement with everyone who emphasizes that rape isn't a gendered issue. That it can and does happen to individuals of any gender or identity. But the reason why I've always found the focus on 'remember that men can be raped too' more performative than helpful is because for almost twenty years, I've been posting on these topics in various fandom spaces and trying to express that in my personal experience, something that REALLY deserves to be talked about more is the fact that rape is not gendered. But rape CULTURE very much IS.

Like it or not, we live in a very gendered society still. While yes, men can be raped too.....for a number of reasons - most of them born of sexism and misogyny in specific - the conditions, catalysts and reasons for men being raped are NOT interchangeable with those at work in instances of women being raped, as an example. Because the way society treats men and women in pretty much EVERY situation is different. Similarly, the way society REACTS to men and women disclosing they've been raped is different. And so on and so on.

So 'remember that men can be raped too' has some basis in societal claims that men can't be raped or that rape IS a gendered issue....but not as much as I think most people tend to believe. And twenty years after I first started searching out perspectives of other male survivors in online fandom spaces, beyond just real world physical support groups, I'm STILL hearing 'remember that men can be raped too' dominating all conversations about male survivors just as regularly and repetitiously as it was twenty years ago....as though the world has not changed at all, and the needle on this particular facet of male survivorhood hasn't changed an inch in the past two decades when no, actually, it very much has.

The reason why I feel so strongly about offering up my perspective as a male survivor in a relative absence of seeing other male survivors' perspectives circulated is I honestly believe the reason this is so consistently upheld as the biggest problem facing male survivors is its a carry-over from women attempting to be heard and believed when disclosing....which makes sense and is completely understandable....as long as there's a complete absence of male survivors offering up any perspective that's to the contrary.

But the fact that we live in a gendered society where rape culture, not rape itself, still very much IS gendered due to being a product of....living in a gendered society....means that the differences in how society treats and reacts to men and women affects every aspect of how society treats and reacts to men and women survivors. And that starts with disclosure itself. In my personal experience - and fully acknowledging that I don't speak for any other male survivor in this moment, and I absolutely do believe there are those who have experiences to the contrary, and that matters too - MY experience, which also matters, is that not once in the twenty years since I've started disclosing about my own rape, or the csa I experienced as a child - have I actually had an issue being believed.

With full acknowledgment of how unfair it is, how gross, the reality of living in a sexist, patriarchal society where male privilege very much exists, is that while men can be raped too, this traumatic thing that happened to us does not in any way actually invalidate or negate our male privilege. It doesn't turn it off for the duration of our experience or any time its relevant to our experiences going forward. We carry that privilege with us through our recoveries and the rest of our lives just as much as we did before it, because its an inalienable result of being in a society that allocates privilege solely on the basis of being born a man who identifies and presents as a cis man (with respect to trans individuals having another axis of experience that very much differentiates all matters pertaining to rape culture, in comparison to cis men, just as much as in the case of cis women, albeit in different ways).

And the gross unfortunate reality of our society is that it ALWAYS prioritizes believing men over women, in all matters......especially cis white men like myself.

So the simple fact is....even the act of disclosure - and the likelihood of being believed when voluntarily choosing to share the information that we've been raped - means that a cis white man like myself does not receive the same reaction as most women receive when attempting to share that same information. Society preconditions a lot of people to be more receptive to taking cis white men at their word, comparative to affording anyone else that basic respect.

Getting people to believe me when I say I was raped has never been the issue for me that other individuals face.

But that doesn't mean that my disclosure doesn't result in issues for me.

Because while being raped never invalidated or negated any of my cis white male privilege, neither did having cis white male privilege negate the possibility of me being raped - OR the fact that society ALSO preconditions people to be really fucking shitty about survivors.

(Hell, ANY kind of living victim....with this also being very relevant to abuse survivors, survivors of physical assault, etc. Much like people can be overflowing with empathy for unborn children who can't offer up any take to the contrary to whatever people want to say "in defense or support of unborn children," only to turn around and cease caring about most of those babies the second they're born, people tend to be just as overflowing with empathy for deceased victims of abuse, rape, assault and the like....who, y'know, also can't offer up any take to the contrary of whatever they say or claim about what they WOULD want, what they DO deserve, etc. Present those same people with a living child or a living victim who can and DOES have an opinion that doesn't match what those people feel it SHOULD be? Watch attitudes shift VERY quickly, as allllll that empathy hurriedly flushes down the drain as though it was never there).

But the point is, my cis white male privilege is always here regardless. But that doesn't mean rape culture isn't shitty enough that it can't find a way to circumvent even that in pursuit of discrediting/invalidating/ignoring survivors, just like that privilege can be circumvented in order to create the situation where a man is raped in the first place.

Its just....the gendered nature of rape culture means HOW those attempts to discredit/invalidate/ignore male survivors manifests.....doesn't look the same as when it leads to just outright disbelieving other survivors when they attempt to disclose.

And that is how I can be listened to and reblogged on most any other topic, no matter HOW I go about presenting myself in those posts or conversations - ironically in no small part BECAUSE of my cis white male privilege - while only getting crickets when I post on these topics, BECAUSE people only choose THOSE posts to make my presentation or level of intensity a dealbreaker, and thus their very reason for ignoring anything I have to say there. Not because they don't believe me, but because the WAY I say it is too aggressive, too biased, too emotional, too intense....its an attack on their autonomy, an attempt to override whatever they previously thought or believed about the subject and just force them to adhere to my take.

Because the thing about living in a sexist, patriarchal society is.....that IS a thing that cis white men often do, and a lot of society is structured to make it easier for us to achieve this in most instances, frankly. This just happens to be a rare exception, because for a lot of reasons that would make this post even longer - and that again, I've often posted about before - upholding and reinforcing rape culture on a society wide level supersedes the usual focus on accommodating INDIVIDUAL cis white men in having their opinions heard and circulated.

I'm trying to be as frank as possible here about the intersection of privilege and experiences of being a male survivor because I don't believe its to anyone's benefit to be disingenuous about it, and I do think that it doesn't actually supplant the fact that male survivors do have just as much right - and NEED - to be heard and listened to about our experiences with rape and perspective there, and have those ACKNOWLEDGED, as anyone else.

Its just....the existence of privilege and how that differentiates most experiences in a gendered society matters, and thus.....it needs to be part of the conversation rather than just treating all responses to rape and survivors as agendered, just because rape itself can and does happen to people of all genders.

There's actually a fair amount to get into when it comes to differences in a lot of mens' disclosures vs womens' in my experience, but just as an extension of what I'm talking about here, one of the specific elements in my experience is that men often don't have a problem being believed about having been raped or abused.....but one of the predominant responses is society is heavily preconditioned to view male rape and abuse survivors as almost inevitably feeling they need to exert a similar power over someone else in order to claim back their own feelings of pride and safety in their masculinity. Effectively.....most every male rape or abuse survivor I've ever talked with at length shares a similar experience of being believed when they disclose about being a survivor....but noting a clear and direct shift in how whomever they disclosed to interacts with them....with EVERY expression of anger or outrage - particularly in the matter of their rape or abuse - being viewed as evidence of us being ticking time bombs who are inevitably primed to explode and take out what happened to us on someone else.

There's being cautious around cis white men, for example, because we're cis white men, which I totally get and am not expressing an opinion on. I'm just saying even with that acknowledged, there is a SHIFT in how people interact with me after I've disclosed to them personally, in how they....scrutinize me, for lack of a better way of putting it, in very noticeable ways and areas. Like its consistent. And think about how its not totally true that media doesn't portray men as being capable of being raped or abused, typically. Think about how often you've seen procedurals where the backstory of the rapist or abuser of the week is specifically THAT they were a rape or abuse survivor themselves, usually in childhood. Its NOT that society doesn't believe or accept that men can be raped too. Its that society is primed to default to viewing the very act of men being raped as an indicator of the shift from them being a man to being a man who is likely to become a predator themselves.

Rape appears all the time in regards to male survivors in media. Its just it usually just appears in the context of men who arent presented AS survivors, but rather as predators or aggressors themselves, and their past victimization treated as a catalyst rather than a trauma. This is not to excuse any such character or depiction of course, its simply to emphasize that the very angle from which male survivorhood is approached in most contexts is different from that of other survivors. Just like the angle from which their survivorhood is approached is different from that of male survivors. And thus the issue most men have with disclosing in my experience is NOT that we're afraid we won't be believed....its that we're afraid once we disclose, we'll be viewed as inherently more dangerous because our victimization primes us to be that much more likely to inflict ourselves on others in some attempt to reclaim our masculinity.

And its categorically NOT about any group of survivors having it better or worse than others, which is why I LOATHE people saying variations of 'you wouldn't say that about this if it happened to a woman' because anyone attempting to pit male survivors against other survivors en masse is NOT doing so for my benefit or with my endorsement. The point is just that each way society and rape culture interacts with a different group of survivors presents different problems and issues that need addressing, and aren't interchangeable.

There is a REASON why the subject of Dick Grayson's anger - usually in the context of things that have happened to him - is so important to me, specifically in terms of ensuring that its treated as something he's allowed to have....rather than an indicator that he's going to messily explode his life in a way that impacts everyone around him negatively.

Now.....if you've never considered that aspect of rape vs rape culture and how it can differently affect and shape the experiences and recovery of cis male survivors versus trans male survivors and nonbinary survivors and survivors who identify as women.....I ask that you consider what else my perspective might be able to add to actually productive, meaningful conversations about rape, rape culture and survivorhood, that you never would have thought TO think about before, without male survivors bringing it up based on it having played a role in personal experiences.

And then I just ask that you please think about the implications of someone known for being a vocal presence in certain fandoms, with a fairly sizable number of posts widely circulating throughout them......never having posts about male rape and survivorhood circulated to any noticeable degree, despite writing DOZENS of them, in all kinds of different moods, ways and intensity levels.....and all of them while active in fandoms where male rape is regularly discussed or focused on due to certain characters or storylines......and ask yourselves if it maybe seems a little off for the disparity to be THAT large. Again: I have written DOZENS of posts on this topic. All with less than twenty notes. I'll be composing a masterlist of them in the near future as well, but for now I'm just saying. Please just think about that.

While I'm going to make an effort to be more deliberate in how I approach this topic in posts going forward, tonally and in terms of word choice, I do have a right to be just as passionate about it as any other topic, and it is FUCKED UP to think that my personal experiences here should be pointed to as the very REASON I should need to be LESS passionate than I am anywhere else, in order to be heard or listened to. Still. I am not actually trying to override anyone else's viewpoint, present myself as some kind of ultimate authority, or shut down other survivors in any way....I'm just trying to uphold the relevancy and importance of adding my own perspective to the conversation.

I don't want to be the only voice listened to here. But as long as my voice is relevant, and I don't see or hear a lot of other voices speaking from a similar standpoint, I would like to be a RESOURCE on topics of male survivorhood, rape and recovery, from that particular standpoint. And even if and when other male survivors might perchance add their own perspectives with experiences and takes contrary to mine....I welcome that! Because mine is not the only one, cis white male survivors are no more a monolith than anyone else, and none of that will in any way actually invalidate my own perspective or experiences or render them no longer relevant at all.

Being a resource on a topic that has always been everpresent in most fandoms I've gravitated to - which has often been a reason FOR me gravitating to those fandoms in specific.....that has always been my ONLY goal with these kinds of posts. NOT an authority.

So, having my posts - which for all my willingness to write them, has never been easy for me and probably never will - reframed in such a negative way, dismissed and even weaponized against me - has over the years demoralized me and made it harder to find the energy TO tackle these topics, as much as I'd like to. But I do feel that I've found a second wind when it comes to this and think I'm ready to wade back into being Overly Opinionated on these topics as well.

So that's the third of the three post series I'll be starting, "Kalen vs Topics of Rape, Rape Culture and Survivorhood As Perceived Through A Singular Personalized Cis White Male Lens, Presented By (and With) My Middle Finger At Any Attempts to Subvert Or Undermine My Thoughts On Them By Reframing Them As Me Trying To Gatekeep Male Survivorhood No Matter How Many Times I Use The Words IN MY EXPERIENCE or IN MY OPINION, Which I Do A Lot, Because This Has Been Happening For A Very Long Time, And I Am Tired, But Still Very Opinionated, And Still Very Here, So Bite Me I Guess."

.....I'm still workshopping that one's title. Its a process.

ANYWAY. At the moment, I'm aiming to make one post of each once a month, and if I do more than that great, but not trying to pressure myself to do any more than that at the moment in the interests of Realism. We'll play it by ear. If I have more free time or energy than expected, maybe I'll do more. Its not like I have a shortage of Very Opinionated Opinions, after all. You've met me.

BUT I DIGRESS.

So in the interest of not making this long ass post any fucking longer, not that anyone really expected otherwise from my first post back in months, like could I REALLY even claim to ACTUALLY be back if all I had to show for it was some weak little lackluster drabble that wasn't even 3,000 words? Methinks the fuck not -

Well, have an abrupt and anticlimactic finish that comes out of nowhere despite giving myself literally 4,900 words to build to something appropriately profound or meaningful or whatthefuckever. Y'know. Your standard Kalen Classic. The abrupt and anticlimactic wrap up I mean, not the profound and deeply meaningful one. Eh. You get it.

Did ya miss me? I missed you!

PS - I was Informed that we are almost to the end of Tommy T's Tenure, is it almost safe to come back to Nightwing comics? Does anyone know when his last issue is? Have we planned the party yet? Who's on balloons, we definitely need balloons.

[phantasmiafxndom]

Out of all the animes you’ve watch what ones are your favorites

...you know what, you get the serious answer. I used to track my anime watching, so out of the 450+ completed ones on my list, here are some of my top recommendations! (In terms of quality, more so than what I've spent the most time dwelling on.)

. . .

One Piece — I haven't technically watched all of this one, but after falling back into the fandom after an 8-ish year break, I really can't understate the quality. One Piece's story is amazing, and I'm consistently impressed by the author's characters/worldbuilding.

Dominion Tank Police (1988) — I have FEELINGS about the villain in this one... Overall, 80s sci-fi vibes mix with themes of ethical responsibility and societal peacekeeping, and the "don't you just want to go apeshit? :)" protagonist (who's also extremely aromantic-coded) is a hilarious, yet wonderfully earnest little menace!

Kyousougiga — I've been rewatching this one recently, and the sheer detail in every scene is STUNNING. I keep having to pause to mentally scream about the symbolism, and tbh, knowing the plot from my original watch is only improving the experience.

Tekkon Kinkreet — This one's a movie, not a series, but SKLJKHS IT HAUNTS ME. Absolutely chilling, by the time the big plot twists roll around... Beyond that, the overall aesthetic/vibe is impeccable, and the exaggerated, messy art style only adds to that.

Kemonozume — Monster/human forbidden romance with stunning art and a great soundtrack. The plot started out a bit confusing, but all of the scattered story elements came together nicely in the end!

The Tatami Galaxy — The "get your shit together and start enjoying your life" anime. It's plenty good as just a story, but I got some excellent life lessons out of it too. Solid mix of comedy, drama, and charismatic-yet-extremely-bizarre characters interacting.

Monster — Excellent slow-paced, psychological horror packed with ethical dilemmas, traumatic backstories, and so many Extremely Depressed Men. In other words, there's a very good reason why Johan Liebert used to end up on so many "best anime villains" lists.

Paranoia Agent — I have nothing but praise for Satoshi Kon's work, in general, and Paranoia Agent has been my favorite of the ones I've seen so far. Compared to his movies, it really benefits from the extra space for plot development, and the big emotional twist hits hard.

Revolutionary Girl Utena — A true classic. <3 There are enough tumblr essays about this tragic yuri masterpiece that I won't go into detail myself, but yes, it's every bit as good as you've heard.

Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail — The entire Black Lagoon series is excellent, but Roberta is my special girl. Unfortunately, the OAV adaption compresses the manga's version of her arc pretty heavily (and the altered ending is kind of dumb), but I still have to recommend it. Babygirl's breakdown is a REAL mess kjshghs

Claymore — Excellent pseudo-medieval fantasy with badass female characters, lots of body horror, and top-tier monster design. The manga is MUCH better than the anime after a certain point, however.

Kuuchuu Buranko — An episodic series about an eccentric psychiatrist interacting with his troubled patients. The mixed-media animation style and bizarre characters are what sold it for me, along with the exploration of mental health through storytelling tropes.

Cannon Fodder — An artistic short movie that's twenty minutes of aesthetic experience and fascinating worldbuilding implications. I love the vibe, and the "one, long horizontal frame" style is neat.

Flowers of Evil — The art style. The VIBES. The whole thing is incredibly eerie and off-putting, with a plot that's pretty much: "congrats! two shitty teenagers are tearing each other's lives apart!".

[muse-oleum]

TVD - 3

Elejah - 9, 16

Elena - 2

Elijah - 15

Rebekah - 3

choink u for the ask fwiend :)

FANDOM - TVD

3. ...which scene I would like to erase from the universe and why

Probably anything with Damon because dude is an asshole of grade A+ quality and that's not a compliment, it just means he's a really, really fucked up one. And like sure, yeah, he "changed" or whatever but if you think about it, he never really did: he's still as obsessed with Elena as he was at the beginning, will always believe he knows best what's good for her, will always hover and never believe she can do anything right for herself or even by herself....

BUT since I don't want to waste my breath on him, I think I'm gonna go with the whole idea of having Elena dagger Rebekah in s2 (I think??). Because what I wouldn't have given to have the Epic Trio turn into the Epically Badass Quatuor, my god. It would have been so fun if Rebekah befriended the girls! I'm not even saying like, right away or anything, but if it became genuine and you know, Rebekah could actually have friends, for once. Besides, her becoming besties with the woman her brother killed and her other brother is hopelessly in love with, not to mention the witch who nearly handed said brothers (plural) ass over to them several times and the baby vamp with whom said brother is infatuated with? Chaos. Love it. Give it to me.

SHIP - ELEJAH

9. ...what my ideal endgame for them is

Okay, for this one I kinda need to do some character analysis for Elijah, or at least how I view him within the TVDU. He's probably the most emotionally complex Mikaelson we see, and he's definitely given the most depth. Even though TO was supposed to be all about Klaus' journey as a father blabla, it's actually about Elijah and his fucked up relationship with family, duty and honor; none of which work well together, in his case, and continuously fuck him over.

So, yeah, dude is really hard to nail, as a writer, but even just when it comes to understanding him.

I stand by the idea that he is, at heart, a family man. And I don't just mean because of his devotion to his siblings. It's more complex than that. I think he's always wanted a family, but that was taken from him and then life just kept on happening so he's probably never really had a chance to sit down and think about it. Like, we establish, by TO s4, that Elijah never factored his wants into anything for the past 1000 years and the two times he did, shit went down (i.e.: the Strix in TO s3 and losing Celeste in TO s1).

So, bottom line is: my man is tired. I honestly think his ideal endgame would be death. But not as it was portrayed in this shit show of a finale that we got for TO. Death, but after a life lived in peace, with someone who loves all of him, not just the better parts of him (as Hayley does), with a couple of children running wild, a home in the country... He's not so different from Rebekah in that sense. He just hides it more and he's hidden it so deep that even himself can't find it by the end of TO.

I think what he wants is peace, a peaceful, happy, life and then blissful oblivion after a thousand years of pain. And I think he could definitely get that with Elena, who wants the same thing and always has. Unfortunately, the Salvatores arrived in town before the Originals did and boom, no peace. Not saying that the Originals are any better, they're basically trouble magnets, but I think their endgame would have been a hell of a lot better than the one we got, if they had ended up together and somehow been able to return to humanity.

16. ...three of my fic recs for this ship. And (in the event that I've written something for them) one of my fics involving them that I'm most proud of

I could probably write an essay with how many fics I've read but here's my current top 3:

She's Come Undone and Set Free by Terapsina (@terapsina) - Top Tier Elejah pining, 100% recommend, bonus for Elijah going into Protective!Boyfriend mode on the Salvatore idiots, Rebekah and Bonnie being the unspoken moms of the entire group because someone needs to

We Remain by AnonymousObsesser (@ao-anonymousobsesser) -Fucking obsessed with this one, extremely good deep dive into Elijah and Elena as independent individuals but also as a couple, Rebekah being the snarky little bitch that she is, Klaus being Klaus, it has everything

A Year to Eternity? by MissNMikaelson (@missnmikaelson) - Dad!Elijah but with plot, 10/10 fluff moments, Fix-It after the sheer disaster that was TO 5X13, I reread this one at least twice a year when I need my fluff fix

And mine: Always & Forever in which Elena goes to New Orleans to escape the chaos of Mystic Falls

CHARACTERS

Elena

2. ...how I would have chosen to change their story from canon

I mean, I've already touched on that a little bit but the short answer is: so many things.

First of all, the whole falling in love with Stefan wouldn't have happened. Because it's creepy and I can't believe I didn't find it weird asf when I first watched TVD as a teen but hey, hindsight and a fully developed adult brain will do that. So she would have still found out about the supernatural because there's just no way she wouldn't, but I would have rather focused on her already existing relationships, like, you know, her friends??? I would have everything revolve around the Mystic Falls Girl Gang (and Jenna, because I love Jenna and I hate that she died) until Klaus and Elijah roll into town.

Then, as you can probably guess, I would definitely have her end up with Elijah, but not for a while because I'm a sucker for slow burn and because it would make sense for them to take time. She'd have to grow up first, become a fully fledged adult for her to even consider a 1000 years old dude as a potential boyfriend/husband material and dude has got issues.

There's actually a (sadly) on hiatus fanfic that dabbles into that, and it's really well written and I hope that one day the author will pick it up again because it's really intriguing: blame it on stardust by allwritenow.

Elijah

15. ...what I think their role in the story is versus what I think it should be

I pretty much enjoy his role in the TVD/TO storylines, tbh. It's flawed, and toxic, and borderline obsessive, but it fits him and makes him really compelling as a character. I mean, that's why he's so popular; there's depth to that man.

His role as the Mikaelson protector, I get behind 100% because these idiots need him. Now, has he been the best? Nope. I mean, look at Kol and Finn's storylines. Do I think he favors Klaus and Rebekah? Absolutely. But again, it kinda fits because I think he sees Kol and Finn as threats, and Marcel too, to a lesser extent, given their history of trying to blow up the family. Is it fucked up? 100%.

His role as the patriarch? Also fits, whatever Klaus has to say about it, we all know Elijah calls the shots (whenever he's not in a coffin somewhere with a dagger in his chest, that is.)

His role as family executioner and villain that we see emerge in TO s3-4? I hate it, but I also see it. I hate that I see it but, again, it fits. My man has been through the trenches by this point. The red door storyline fucked him up bad, he's lost what he always believed defined him (honor and compassion), his family is intent on ruining themselves 24/7, which makes his decision to just... forget about them in TO s5 absolutely believable. And I actually loved early s5 Elijah, which I know is a massively unpopular opinion. I never liked him with Hayley and with Antoinette we got to see a side of him that we barely saw before, closer to whom he might have been as a human.

So, in short, I despise his ending and I refuse to acknowledge it but what I will acknowledge is that his storyline makes sense and is, in the larger sense, fairly accurate to the man we first met in TVD.

Rebekah

3. ...if I have an OTP for them

Honestly, unless a ship burns itself on my cerebral membrane right away, then I'm pretty much game for anything. So for Rebekah, because I pretty much hated every single one of her love interests (except for Matt, because Matt is a sweetheart and Marcel is alright i guess, just not for her), I don't really care. I do have a soft spot for Bonbekah, though, I think those would actually work well together.

.... and no it has nothing to do with the fact that I think all three of the Mystic Fall Gang girlies saying fuck it all and moving to NOLA with the Originals would be epic.

I do also kinda like her with Hayley??? Idk, I think in TO they had some chemistry (more than Hayley and Elijah, at any rate). Mainly, because all the men in Rebekah's life have been downers, including her own brothers, at some point in her story and for various reasons, I just see her ending up with a woman more than a man. She also has that ✨ bisexual ✨ energy.

[aparticularbandit]

Favorite Mugi hcs?

Also if ya need someone to talk to my DMs are always open

Thanks for the question (and the offer)! <3

My Tsumugi headcanon currently falls into two separate things, so I'll share a bit from both!

The Twist Does Not Exist:

Tsum-Tsum! ...because then even her nickname is a reference. >.>;; (Also some people make this zoom zoom to reference a certain Mazda commercial, but she hates that. It annoys her. The only person who gets away with this is probably Junko. Who also probably came up with the original nickname in the first place.)

Always has some sort of show on in the background while she's doing stuff (homework, cosplay, housework; Tsumugi is constantly tuned into something). Her favorite shows, she full in pays attention, she's not multitasking, she's analyzing, she's looking at art design, she's coming up with new cosplay ideas, but most shows are on in the background while she's doing something else. There's kind of a scale with this - the more she cares, the less she does. Creating cosplay during the show is top tier of multitasking before she goes full in.

Has definitely worked in a cosplay cafe. At least once. At least once. (She's not comfortable about being in the spotlight, but it's easier when she's in cosplay as a character who loves the spotlight. Because then she's not her.)

Is drawn to louder, more energetic characters.

If she sees someone cute, she immediately wants to put them in cosplay. Like full-on sparkle in her eyes, will drag them into a bathroom/changing room, need. (If you've seen/read Fruits Basket - like Mine, from Ayame's shop! But Tsumugi and cosplay.) Kind of like immediately dragging Kaede to the bathroom to show off her cospox. That same energy. But for a different reason.

Actually does not have a lot of friends. She knows that the intensity of her interests can turn people off, so she doesn't talk much. But this backfires because it makes her come across as shy. Boring. Plain. She's not very good at fitting in with people's expectations. So she's pretty lonely, actually.

Tsumugi was actually a LOT more popular when she was in elementary school because she could make pretty clothes and kids like pretty clothes so everybody wanted her pretty clothes because she always looked pretty. But there's an age where, like, you grow out of sparkles and frills and big bows and all of that and kind of shove that off into only costumes or only cosplay, and when that happened, Tsumugi just. became. a background NPC in her own life.

Without cosplay, Tsumugi would actually be severely depressed. Cosplay lets her life have color; without it, everything is grayscale and monochrome.

The Twist Exists:

Tsumugi Shirogane is not her real name. It's an alias.

Her real name is Yuki Tsukasa. Yuki - "snow" - because the fandom wiki says that one of the meanings for Shirogane is a metaphor for "snow" and Tsukasa because it means "director, boss".

Definitely dating the girl who got her into cosplay. They are together, they have been together for a long time, they've talked about kids, etc.

Most people don't know she works for Team Danganronpa, and even the ones who do don't know how high up she is in the company. Only her girlfriend knows she's one of the showrunners.

Yuki has gotten death threats from her work on Danganronpa. A lot of the people involved have. That's why her alias exists in the first place: everyone in the credits for a Danganronpa season uses one. Fans can be terrifying to Team Danganronpa, particularly the writers, which is why she just. doesn't talk about it. (She loves her job. She's scared of fans. Reasonably so.)

Would absolutely live in her office if she didn't have a girlfriend to go home to. She's a bit of a workaholic. (She and her girlfriend definitely have fought about this. It didn't change anything.)

Since her co-showrunner's passing, Yuki has been under a lot of stress. They were very good at covering each other's writing weaknesses, and now she's under a lot of pressure to make the show just as good on her own as it was when there were two of them. (She has refused to take on another partner. Danganronpa is theirs. She has very strong opinions about this.)

A lot of characters in the shows have references to people she knows in real life, whether that's personality quirks or traits, or appearances, or even using their names. Most of it is stuff you wouldn't know unless you know.

Despite, as a writer, hating the unknown of having an audience-controlled character, Yuki doesn't hate K1-B0 as a character concept. She just hates the potential for destruction he has. (So she baked it into him from the outset.)

Her use of K1-B0 is actually really smart because Yuki had to accurately predict the way fans would react to any situation where they were given options to do things (I assume polls for major decisions or FTEs, and then those decisions set him on a specific script) - like she had to know they would spend all that time with Miu so that K1-B0 could get those upgrades, she had to make sure that those decisions wouldn't fuck up the script but instead lean into them and give him a good arc and involvement in the story regardless what the fans picked. Like Yuki has to have her thumb on the beating pulse of fandom to be able to do a good job with that, and I applaud her.

[bleachbleachbleach]

2025 Goals

@writerswhy made a wonderful list of goals for 2025, and invited me to make one as well. Theirs came with a really lovely moodboard graphic, which mine does not, but do feel encouraged to make a lovely moodboard as in the original, if you would like to do this, too! If you do, I'd love to read it! 🥰

Mine can be found below the cut:

Keep on spreadsheeting. I have a very elaborate spreadsheet that I run my life off of, so my primary goal is to simply keep doing that. It has categorized, tiered goals. It has color-coding. It has chore and fun banks that are organized daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually. It is a king among spreadsheets. Majestic. Many of my goals are already incorporated (bicycling, gym, handwritten letters, etc.). So my 2025 goal is to commit to trying harder to have fewer yellows (failed tasks), even if it means just doing that thing for ten minutes that day.

Fall in Love with More Garbage Places. “Garbage places” meaning I know most people wouldn’t think they were cool or get why I love them so much, because they don’t have legible street cred. My top two for 2024 are definitely East Harbor State Park in Ohio and the Horseheads Mall. WHAT A MALL.

Hold Space for Organizing. My organizing is against migrant detention/deportation and the carceral state, and I live in the United States, so LOLLLL. 2025!!!! As it stands, the need already far outstrips any space you can give, often on a schedule my calendar-loving self does not prefer, so I should block out more/extra ahead of time. (ON THE SPREADSHEET.)

Give up cooking meat? I’m really bad at cooking meat, anyway, so this is no great loss. I’d have to think harder about protein sources, and that’s work I don’t want to do, but dealing with waste after buying meat is also a gigantic pain. I drive my trash to the county trash place, so it's in my best interest to make sure that my trash is relatively clean and locked down tight, so that in the 4-6 months it sits outside in the trash shed, it remains something I don’t mind putting inside my car. This has made me realize how much less trash I have, and how much cleaner it is, when no meat is involved.

Read the n+1 Books. I received 10 book recommendations from the n+1 BookMatch quiz I posted about a few weeks ago, so I’d like to try to read all of those!

Post 1 Million Words to AO3. This is a fairly artificial milestone, in that it’s not a marker of all the fanfic I’ve ever written, nor is it all the fanfic I’ve written since I made my AO3 account. But as an odometer reading, it’s still pretty cool. I also think that achieving this should not be terribly difficult, as I’ve already written most of the words that would get me there, as long as I commit to posting them before the end of 2025.

Enjoy fandom more. I want to be able to make friends and have conversations with them, and feel like I’m genuinely participating in something. Which does happen! just not in a proportion I would prefer, having now collected qualitative data about this over the past 6 months. Mostly, I think, “All right, how lonely am I willing to feel TODAY!” and then do it, and feel lonely. Because I like Bleach that much, I guess!!! and because I would still like to feel community around that. I don’t know what striving for this would mean, practically (unfortunately, we're going to post what we're going to post)—sending more asks? replying to tags? being here more? being here less? I want to feel like a human person who is being perceived as a human person interacting with other human people.

[plateofpie]

A Teacher’s Guidance

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)

Rating: G

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Chapters: 9/?

Summary: One is all, all is one.

For the valuable lesson they had learned, their time spent on the island was well worth it. Now for the indefinite future, they’d get to spend their days studying with a top-tier alchemist, day in and day out. For all the hard work they’d put in so far, Edward and Alphonse hoped more than anything to see a payoff once they got back to Resembool.

--

A story elaborating on the brothers' time spent in Dublith for their training.

Additional Tags: Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Izumi Curtis, Sig Curtis, Edward Elric has ADHD, Parental Izumi Curtis, Strict Izumi Curtis, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Fun Times at Training, Autistic Alphonse Elric, Mostly Canon Compliant, Edward Elric Swears, He’s 10 and Thinks He’s Cool, This is My Take on What Happened During Training, Tags May Update, Nothing That Happens Affects The Outcome Of The Main Manga Storyline, Minor Original Character(s)

[dariaslookalike]

hello I hope that you are fine and that you are doing great. I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am for founding your work about Dr House. Stumbling on your work felt like founding water in a desert , I could not found one work this long and this well written about this fandom . OK the fandom is kind of old but come on Dr Gregory House is SO HOT give this man more love.But seriously your work was so good . the characterization of each character was top tier especially House felt like I was watching the show . And I loved his and reader interaction it was so good ,we love the enemies to lover trope . they were so sassy and mean with each other( especially House) I was having the time of my life reading your dialogue . Anyways I really enjoyed reading your work THANK YOU for sharing it with us . Also I would not want to be a burden but could you please give me recommendation of some Dr House X reader Fanfiction please . HAVE A GOOD DAY OR NIGHT ,SENDING YOU A LOT OF HUGS

thank you so much!!! Literally agree with all of that, like when my House obsession had me in a chokehold, it was so hard to find the sort of fanfiction that was what i was looking for- like don't get me wrong, smuts great but sometimes I wanted to sit down for a few hours and be delusional. So i was like okay fuck it I'll write it, and that was my first ever published fic. AND FR he is that hot like to this day I still have edits saved to my phone. my friends literally made me a dilf scrapbook for my birthday and he was across like five pages

I'm really glad you're enjoying my writing!! it always makes me so giddy to hear something like that, so thank you for all the compliments <33

i want to continue with that fic eventually, and i have plans of at least another 3 chapters to finish it off, it's just trying to find the motivation to get back to it. i just checked and i originally posted on AO3 back in 2023 January, so it's been awhile. im doing well, but i've just started my first year of uni so im a bit swamped.

not a burden at all for the request!! i will say the place to be is AO3- you can filter the results by the chapter lengths, likes, word lengths etc. i really liked beetective's fic there, called 'friday i'm in love' though i think it is a wilson x house x reader and a wip. i think honestly i read maybe one or two fanfics until i was like okay ive just gotta write what im looking for atp, so i don't have a heap of recommendations sorry.

TYSM LOTS OF LOVE !! and have a good day or night too :))

[postal-ech]

God dammit I have become obsessed with Lisa the Painful and more specifically its fandom's ability to make the HARDEST and WILDEST songs available.

I swear to god its like finding a treasure trove of this shit, its akin to finding Undertale's fan OST...thing, I dunno the technical name for it but its like its whole own genre

Like, take for example the works from Maddie Doktor, who has a few tracks in the fan game Lisa the Pointless: Downtown Mechanic (essentially a swap AU of Lisa the Pointless for the undertaleheads out there) You want some hard ass tunes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQjuDd58U1Y Want some real ETHEREAL TYPE SHIT? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIi--DYVwrs WANT A FUCKING TRACK THAT SOUNDS LIKE HOMIE IS FIGHTING IN SOME MARTIAL ARTS FILM??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc-CQ_6acjA

I SWEAR TO GOD its like CRACK, and she's not the only one up-and-coming in the Lisa fandom

My favorite artist has to be Cane B, who does these weird and wild remixes alongside original soundtracks for example, there's their version of 1000 faces of rage from Painful's definitive edition that just go SO HARD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x9CrCOILGk or their more original tracks for a project called Lisa the Joyful: Growing Pains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFpdTnN2rvw

Another one who has been lost to time, save for a working archive out there on discord is one legendary AdmiralHippie/SpaceHippie, who I mentioned in a previous post covering Space Station 13. His work is mostly known within the fan work Lisa the Vegaful, though he has a lot of original tracks that work just as well in a fan work If anyone is interested, I'd recommend looking up the working archive of his music, or looking DO BE AWARE THOUGH, As far as I am aware, SpaceHippie/AdmiralHippie has requested that his original works be pulled from existing fan games/not to be used, given an incident where he had wiped his youtube channel alongside his existing library from youtube, so I will not post the files of his OST out on here to respect his wishes, but I still highly recommend giving them a listen and if ya do see him out there, give him some well wishes.

A third one to keep an eye out on is another up-and-comer who posts more hip-hop-esque mixes, goes by the name of Broken Sword on youtube. His work, at least as far as I'm aware, will be showing up in Vegaful's Sample Update, which looks to update the original Lisa: The Vegaful fan game to add more animations, and act as replacements for AdmiralHippie's tracks. So far he has two albums of lisa fan music out, with the second one being posted a week ago around the time of this post. DEFINITELY give him a look when you can https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygwXrKdNmvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t94ntyYm6dQ

There are so many more artists out there that produce some TOP TIER shit for Lisa if you ask me, from Taitoki with his work on Lisa: The Pointless and its up-coming Monster Update (ONE SPRITE A DAY, BABY!!!), ChaCos, who's work extends into the fan-mod of Pointless known as Scholar of the Wilbur Sin (SOTWS), Baursach of Lisa: The Timeless/Lisa: The Fool fame alongside the creator of the Timeless fan game Torrington (Who had put out his own album not too long ago, GIVE IT A LISTEN, ITS HIGH QUALITY SHIT)

God I can go on and on, but the point of this Hyperfixation post is to highlight some SINCERE TALENT in this fandom, and its genuinely what keeps me as invested into Lisa as much as the official thing, and ESPECIALLY given what we've gotten out of Definitive Edition as is with Austin Jorgensen/Widdly 2 Diddly's work on the OST. Its again like rediscovering Undertale and Deltarune's weird but FASCINATINGLY GOOD underground fan genre out there