#there’s a reason I suck at writing essays

[soursugxr]

(Mutant Mayhem spoilers!!!)

Thinking abt how in the big fight against Superfly Raph must feel so goddamn guilty. Like, after he fucked up the shot w/ the de-mutating thing, like imagine your brothers getting whole ass cars thrown at them and almost getting hit because of you. Or at least that’s what you believe if you blame yourself for everything (totally not projecting)

Sidenote I really wish Raph had more lines in MM, just like, more to establish him as a character bc it really feels like he got sidelined. They just say “oh yeah anger issues” but I remember someone making the point that he’s really just excitable. Like, I see that lil man and I see myself in a way? He just like, isn’t super angry, he’s excited to fight, that’s basically It.

[milkbreadtoast]

(random) ngl before i started learning korean i felt like the worst failure of a korean but now i feel like the best failure of a korean (/j) HAHA

like im struggling to speak but least im speaking..!! I feel like I've restored an essential piece of myself that was missing...

[utahimeow]

i rly think writing is what i’m meant to do

[dazzelmethat]

Worst part of having ocs you made when you were 12 that you still use: changing their names is like pulling teeth.

Wanting to experiment with name meanings or what culture they're from feels impossible when you already have certain sounds associated with them...

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[33max]

me when I remember that I suck and people hate my entire existence

[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.

[the-somwthing]

I love everyone in this fandom but I just saw a little too many posts in one sitting being mad at Grian for cheating on Scar in DL and I feel like exploding

[divinesplatter]

how would you defend badlands rumble vash /gen i haven't watched the movie but i've heard some Things about it (derogatory) and i'm genuinely curious what's wrong with him that would warrant defending like what are his issues

ok heres the thing right. first off i do recommend watching the movie if u get the chance and just going in open minded right. bc i heard a lot abt it too before i watched it and most of it was bad but if u just sit down to watch it and enjoy it for what it is its a genuinely fun movie. but there are Problems.

the main thing that puts people off of it is the way they characterize vash, which i completely understand, bc there are times it genuinely doesnt even feel like vash. if u watched the 98 series, they take some of his more womanizing traits we see there and amp it up to like 1000, specifically w amelia. its. weird, to watch, yes, and it comes across as ridiculously ooc, like hes literally all over her flirting w her touching her its weird!! its smth thats clearly done for comedic effect as is the case in a lot of anime, unfortunately, even tho its. not funny

but if u try to look at it w the perspective of what we know of vash as a character, theres some reasonings we could see for this behavior. given the plot and setting of the movie, vash very likely believed it to be a good idea to stay close to amelia, but also not allow her to get close to him, hence playing up the flirting as reasoning to follow her while keeping her annoyed w him and not thinking any deeper abt why hed be following her around specifically. and w all the bounty hunters around in the movie, vash revealing himself as the legendary vash the stampede would be disastrous. so u could def say hes playing up his pathetic silliness to ensure no one really takes him too seriously which is smth we see in every iteration of vash

like i absolutely agree blr vash is Weird for all that but i also see a lot of it as like. not him being weird for the sake of it like he has goals w doing the things he does. obv no one has to agree w me bc at the end of the day they very likely wrote him how they did in blr to be """funny""" and there werent any ulterior motives at all, this is just how i choose to interpret the movie bc vash is absolutely smart enough to put things together that would lead to him feeling he should stay close to amelia

and i also think the weirdness should not lead to people just refusing to watch the movie, which ive seen a lot of. which is a shame, bc a lot of the things they do w the movie are really good and interesting! it doesnt go as in depth w it as trimax does, bc its only a movie w limited runtime, but blr does touch on some of the main themes of trimax, mostly in regards to vashs rigid morality and the consequences thereof. and i personally enjoyed the vashwood dynamic, it was a lot more reminiscent of their dynamic in trimax than 98 imo

like at the end of the day vash is still Like That in the movie yes but i still think its worth watching and i personally enjoyed a lot of what they did w his character excluding that. i just think hes neat and more people need to give him and the movie in general a chance

[clooverhoover]

guys i ran out of good omens + ofmd episodes and so i watched red white and royal blue. i forgot how bad all the other queer rep is because no hate to the love simon girlies but that shit was NASTYYY

[un-pearable]

anyone got exec dysfunction hacks this assignment is stupid long and my usual strats have run out

[supernaturalconvert]

No wonder he is stepping back

I landed on a Tik tok video from one of the earlier cons and these jokes that Rich cracks are just ....Ahhh.

So juvenile. I don't even know how anyone finds him funny. How long can you tolerate over the top shit like this and play along? Especially when they want to make you the butt of their jokes while constantly propping Jensen up.

Listening to their podcast it is clear that there is a hierarchy with Jensen ( the number 2 on the call sheet comment sort of gave it away). They can't play off of him so they sort of have to do it with Jared.

[mudstoneabyss]

so much of my blogging whenever I have classes is complaining about them but erm. in my defense they're stressful and overwhelming

[deus-ex-mona]

✨baller✨ results tbh~

[moredifferentthanusual]

The thing with influencers is when you trust someone to be on in the background and casually shape your worldview – Like that is a Lot of implicit trust. You are letting them into your kitchen and into your bedroom and into your soul. You let your shields down and they abused that trust. You're kinda right to feel violated.

Still haven’t finished hbomber guy but I’m really angry about James somerton. Like I’m not going to pretend oh I always saw this coming bc no I didn’t. The only reason I didn’t attempt to financially support him bc I can’t afford it.

There have always been a couple of things that made me ick but for some reason I never added them up.

Like I didn’t like the very woe is me attitude he brings consistently or I noticed a couple of time that he would be sexist and dress it up by saying white women which is a pretty common way to get away with misogyny. But for some reason I never put them together which I’m very embarrassed about tbh. Especially bc I had no inkling about the plagiarism issues. I have for the record never seen his twitter or livestreams.

And idk I just wanted to talk about it. It’s stupid how parasocial relationships work and I didn’t think I had a big one there are plenty of his videos I just haven’t watched and yet I feel very hurt by this. And more than that I feel hurt on behalf of those he stole from.

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.