#there's always an exception to the rule

[yardsards]

some people on here make Hating All Social Rules such an obnoxiously large part of their personality that you could say "it is polite to avoid farting in a crowded elevator if you can help it" and they'd call you an oppressive puritan who hates the incontinent

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[dailypokemoncrochet]

why no asking for patterns??

It's irritating. Before I put the "Stop asking me about my patterns" note on my description, 80 percent of my asks/messages were just asking 1) where did you get the pattern 2) can i have the pattern 3) pattern? even though I'd already stated multiple times (and tagged accordingly) that I freehand everything and don't share any of my patterns. Even now I'm still getting a few people asking for patterns. A lot of them don't even follow me and have never interacted with me in any capacity; they act like I'm some AI bot they can demand things from. I love asks, but literally one week I had at least 8 different people asking me for patterns out of nowhere and that was so frustrating I finally put STOP ASKING ME ABOUT MY PATTERNS.

I don't even care if people dress it up with Hi Hello Love what You're Doing and smilies and offers to pay. You know what people will offer to pay for a pattern? $5 if it's good, maaaaybe $10 but then it should have pictures for pretty much every step or ooh a video tutorial too, and they should be able to ask questions and get personalized one-on-one help since they're paying So Much for just this one single pattern.

I'm spending around 7 hours and upwards of 16 hours on some of these crochets which is the "fun" part for me and I don't want to spend even another hour transcribing my notes for public consumption. Do you know how annoying it is for people to repeatedly ask you the same question that you've answered countless times? Random strangers who don't know anything about you just messaging you out of nowhere "Where's the pattern for this?" because they don't care enough to do a cursory search of my blog and find the answer. I'm not going out of my way to do something that I don't like to do for a pitiful amount of money for someone who, in all likelihood, will not even make the damn thing. That's the thing that would make a difference to me is if they actually showed that they would appreciate the time I put in, by putting in the time themselves to make something from a pattern I've already publicly shared here (go find it yourself though). There is exactly one person I know for sure I would share any pattern with, and maybe another 3 I would consider.

Honestly, it should be enough for me to say I DON'T WANT TO and that would be it! But no! People even now still message me saying "I read your description but please can you make an exception for me?" and the little thing in the conversation window reads "Not following each other" and I don't recall ever seeing them in my notes before that point and searching on their blog doesn't show that they'd ever reblogged or interacted with me before. Bonafide random fucker knows fuckall about me and yet they want me to do them a favor? There's so much casual entitlement in crocheting and crafts and I hate it.

In short, too many people asking when I already said no. People are impersonal and rude about it. it's not fun or worth it to me.

[thegreatyin]

you've convinced me to play FL. i am someone who has just started playing it Today please tell me the funniest way i can fuck myself over in the early game

first of all:

second of all:

you can't necessarily "fuck yourself over" beyond the point of no return, at least without a lot of prepwork and playtime, but you CAN look into the mirror(s) that kill you! they're timeless classics.

[amtrak12]

After a conversation with a friend about this weird trend of fic readers who only want epic length fics (and also what seems to be a massive misunderstanding between parties on terms and their definitions), I went searching for the fandom sources I cut my teeth on. I don't have much bookmarked from those days anymore, but googling got me to this fiction length/terminology breakdown from a Livejournal blog. (Which also has good fandom definitions for other terms like A/N and fanon too, so if you're super new to fandom, go check that out.)

The definitions come from the publishing world (hence the page counts), but fandom and fanfic has always borrowed heavily from official publishing terminology. Flash fiction (aka, anything less than 1k words) is called a 'ficlet' within fandom. We call everything else a fic until it reaches the novella mark -- which may start at 20k words but as synecdochic breaks down on their Dreamwidth blog, there's a lot of overlap between short stories and novella word counts. Because, when you're not constrained by physical page counts, the real dividing line between short stories and novellas are the number of plots and themes you're using. (Seriously, go read their meta on this topic. It's fantastic!) Either way, once you're hitting tens of thousands of words, you're in longfic territory. And then if your fic is even longer than that -- 100k+ like shown in the screenshot above -- it's called an epic fic.

And these terms, longfic and epic, are important because they're used to differentiate these stories from the average fic. Because, at least in the 2000s up until the 2020s, the most common fic lengths you ran into were between 1k-20k words. "Fic" made the reader assume only a few thousand words at most. It's only when you changed the term to drabble or ficlet or longfic that they would realize 'oh this is going to be shorter or longer than normal'.

I don't really understand why that baseline assumption has changed amongst the newer demographics (and maybe amongst some long-running fandom members too?). I've seen a lot of theories and 'tiktokification' complaints, but I honestly don't know what's true. And I don't want to start a fight or even try to change anyone's minds if they are dead set against reading short story length fics. You can do what you want!

Just maybe shift your attitude about it a little bit? Remember that it's a personal preference the same way tropes are, and that one story length isn't better than another. Just like tropes, each story length serves its purpose. Some stories are best told in 1-2k words. Some are best told as 100 word drabbles -- or even a single sentence! And then, yes, some stories do need to be 100k+ in order to be told properly.

But that's not every story. And it shouldn't be expected of fic writers to pad a 1500 word plot into some sprawling epic just because they left it on a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is probably the point of that fic! Short stories are an entirely separate art form to novels and as such are able to cover different topics than novels can or cover the same topics differently. And that's what makes them special!!

And look at that word count breakdown by genre! That's mainstream publishing standards! Now, go back up there to the definition of a novel and notice that the average published novel is 80k words long.

Let me repeat that:

The average length of a published novel is 80,000 words long.

Could a novel go longer? Sure! And if you're dipping into adult sci-fi or fantasy, absolutely it will be longer! But does your fic need to be longer than the average novel in order to be good? In order for you to feel satisfied when you finish reading it? Why does the length of the fic matter more to you than the content?

idk just some rambling food for thought, but I guess too long, don't read:

~✨~ Every story length is valid ~✨~

It just depends on the plot you have and the structure you want to use to tell it.

[thebroccolination]

SINGTO PRACHAYA, THE KING OF THE DOUBLE STANDARD

Singto: I believe juniors should refer to their elders with proper titles and treat them with respect. Also Singto: I will let Kit call me “Singtuan” and sprawl all over me like I'm furniture.

Singto: I will not socialize in large groups because it exhausts my social battery. Also Singto: I will attend Kit’s ludicrously huge birthday party with everyone he’s ever met because I gave him my word even though I only did that because I thought it would be limited to our inner circle.

Singto: I’m going to do nothing but sleep all through Songkran because I am very tired from filming a whole series for the past few months. Also Singto: I will go to a massive, extremely loud music festival during Songkran with Kit because. End of sentence.

for more examples, see: •••, •••, •••, •••, •••

[gumy-shark]

Do you ever think about Mobs repressed anger. Do you ever think about his manga lines about just how badly Reigens lies fucked him up. Do you ever think about how he felt like nobody would actually come to help him, nobody would actually be there if he needed, nobody would actually be around him if it wasn't for the Mob persona. Do you ever think about how he felt like any good traits in him were a lie he made to be liked. Do you ever think about how he thinks the only way to be truly seen is to tear apart his life from the ground up so nobody will try to use him anymore. Do you ever think about Shigeo

”the only one who ever saved me was me” but angry! because he shouldn’t have had to save himself! (and also him Needing to shatter everyone’s perception of him in the most destructive way possible because if there’s even a chance that they genuinely liked him. that they would accept him even when he’s the monster he’s been afraid of his whole life. then everything he’s done and believed and every part of himself he’s suffocated to death- wasn’t necessary. if people other than tsubomi (or possibly ritsu as per the manga) can understand and accept him as he “truly is” then he could’ve been a Person this entire time!!)

[morninkim]

As a show of good faith toward the remaining Decepticons at the beginning of a new, united Cybertron, newly appointed Senators Bumblebee and Soundwave allowed Shatter and Dropkick to enlist into Autobot City's Defense Team.

These two turned out to be... not the best choices.

The city may have fallen to Insurgent Decepticon occupation had it not been for young recruits Hot Rod and Arcee's accidental interception of Shatter's communication with the fugitive Starscream.

To replace the errant Defense Team members, Springer and Blurr were reassigned from Iacon to Autobot City in their stead.

[rainofthestorm]

We've seen so many people, whether they're trans or plural or both and more... have the worry or fear that presents as maybe I'm faking it, maybe this isn't me, actually.

And I wanna say, before I get into it? The number of people who have that thought and are right? Nonexistent. I've never seen it happen. I'm sure it's a possibility, an edge case, but I've never seen it myself, and we talk to lots of queer and plural folks.

And we've thought about that fear, that worry a lot. After much thought, we've kinda rewritten that one for ourselves. Because firstly, we noticed that the "I feel like I'm faking it" feeling is practically identical for being plural as it is for being trans. They're the same feeling. I'm certain they're likely similar or the same for most queer and likely many neurodivergent folks.

We thought about it some and we've mostly come to the conclusion that... it's not really a doubt, exactly.

It seems, to us, to be a specific presentation of the feeling of being unsafe, insecure, and a worry that you won't be accepted as you are. Because someone not accepting your identity is someone not accepting you as a person (or people, heh), and that's quite a scary possibility.

Which... is valid, it can be scary, absolutely. But it's also something that can be addressed in that form: what can you (or others around you) do to help you feel safe and accepted?

[fyscka]

kim soleum the man that you are... just a little guy. little meow meow. why is he so prettyyyyy

[jessicas-pi]

The Time Heals ‘Verse meta ramble, part 2: In Which I Scream Some More About Sabine And Ezra

Whoo! So! What was SUPPOSED to be a little backstory about The Line from Time Heals All Wounds turned into a massive rant. But that’s over, and you’re all as depressed as I am, and now we get to move onto other stuff!!

(spoiler warning continues!)

So now I’m going to ramble a little bit about the specific relationship dynamic between Sabine and Ezra currently in this because AGH. I just. I gotta talk about it. fair warning, the following rant has no discernible thesis statement and wanders around aimlessly. but hey, that's just how I roll.

Okay so Time Heals primarily follows Sabine. So that’s the lens we’re looking through. And it’s easy to forget that Ezra’s timeline is entirely different from hers. But it is. A story that has taken a year-and-a-half, more or less, for her, has been mere months for him.

Because Ezra died only weeks after the Battle of Lothal, remember?

It’s six months after that, when Sabine gets pulled into the past. It’s months after that when she rescues him. By the time they’re reunited on the Coronet, Sabine has lived an entire year in a galaxy without Ezra in it, and a few months more in a galaxy not knowing he’s there.

She has seen him die thirty-three times. She’s mourned him. She still mourns him. She dreams about his dead body in her arms. He haunts her. To an embarrassing degree, her life is centered around him.

Meanwhile, Ezra’s timeline looks like this:

—he purgills Thrawn into the unknown and Thrawn imprisons him —some weeks later, Sabine kicks open the door to his cell, slaps him, hugs him, proclaims she’s watched him die 32 times, provides no further explanation, and then someone tosses a thermal detonator into the cell and it all goes black —he wakes up somewhere on Mandalore during the Clone War and promptly gets adopted by four tipsy art majors —a few months later, the Force tells him to get a move on —he reunites with Sabine that afternoon and everything's great!

So as of chapter 15 of book 2, which is where we're at now, Ezra’s spent three, four months in the past—missing everyone, yeah, but missing Sabine least, because she’s the one who saved him, and that’s given him a gut feeling that she’s still around. To him, Sabine has been a wistful thought that comes and goes. He tells his friends stories about her and misses her. But he doesn’t mourn her.

Meanwhile, Sabine’s spent over a year believing that he is lost to her forever because she couldn’t save him. (She doesn’t know she saved him, remember? She’s forgotten. It’s all a blank, and she’s afraid to hope.) She is still in the vise-like grip of grief, even if she’s functioning around it. There has never been a moment when she has not been thinking about him. (And in a way, it’s his fault, because he loved her, and he told her so. And she cannot forget it, no matter how hard she tries.)

His feelings towards her are soft and silent. He's content to wait until he sees her again, without aching too badly at her current missing presence in his life. He is at peace.

Her feelings towards him are tumultuous and fervent. She's desperate to see him again and terrified that she'll lose him. it’s like nothing she’s ever felt before. She is the farthest thing from peaceful.

So, while Ezra's feelings may seem to run deeper than hers—he is kinda in love with her, after all—he's also completely normal about her.

Sabine, on the other hand, has been torturing herself with the memory of him for over a year. He's a bundle of guilt and grief and mourning in her brain. Her feelings for him are clear-cut, platonic, and so all-consuming that they verge on an obsession.

So really, he doesn't care about her more. He cares about her differently. But not more.

But—and this is important, not so much for the story, but it's important to me that you know this—Ezra doesn’t know she's changed. He knows the old Sabine, who was his best friend, even if sometimes she was distant. He doesn’t believe she cares about him as much as he cares about her. And he's resigned to that! It’s ok! He’s ok! He’s used to it, he’s used to hiding how much he cares, and nobody else knows. So he’ll go on hiding it and she’ll go on ignoring it and it won’t matter.

But the Sabine that Ezra entrusted his blade and his homeworld to with one last, long look is a different woman than the Sabine that kicks down the door of his cell on the Chimaera a few weeks (a year) later.

And where does the difference lie?

It lies in the fact that she lost him. It lies in the fact that he died in her arms. It lies in the fact that he has consumed every waking thought of hers for months. 

It lies in the fact that she will. not. let. him. go.

She didn’t let him go when he was dead. And now that he’s alive? Now that he’s with her again?

Well.

There is no holding at arms-length. She would clutch his living form as tightly as she held his lifeless body, if she dared. She doesn’t, but she still reaches out to him—bumping shoulders, brushing hands, touching him just to know that he’s there. He is everything to her now. It’s not a love like his. It’s wider than that. It’s relief and joy and comfort in his presence and an impossible dream come true.

If Sabine had been the same Sabine he knew before, maybe things wouldn’t have changed course. If she had gone on ignoring it and he had gone on hiding it, maybe time would have faded his feelings, and maybe she never would have grown any for him.

But in a world where she holds him desperately near, near enough to feel his heartbeat and know he’s alive—in a world where their fledgling bond doesn’t lie dormant and unknown, but is woven strong and glows warmly, tethering their very souls together—in a world where he is everything to her, and she shows it—now that’s a different story. As he slowly finds out just how much he means to her—and he's grown to mean far more to her now than he did before—it throws him off-balance.

And as for her?

Well, this is where my Ramble Part 1 becomes relevant! Because he told her. And she knows. And now that she knows, she can’t look past it like it was never there, because it is there, and glaringly obvious when she looks for it. (She can't stop seeing it.)

The path they've always hoped to take—the one where it goes away and they are fast friends with nothing more between them—is no longer an option. By admitting his love, the other version of himself made it impossible for her to ignore it. By holding him so close, she makes it impossible for him to hide it. (In a way, they've doomed each other.) And she knows he can’t hide it, and he knows she can’t ignore it, so the only choice they have left—besides honest, which is a thing neither of them is ready to face—is to do their mutual best to pretend it doesn’t matter, and not talk about it.

But it does matter, and sooner or later, they'll have to talk about it.

And deep deep down, they both know that, too.

~~~

tune in next time for what I expect to be a ramble about a couple specific scenes! unless I write a different ramble first! We'll see!

[nexo-nex]

i have many problems with eah's soft reboot from around 2016, but one of my biggest gripes i have with it is the sideline of briar on merchandise/promo material when she is part of the main 4 core cast, tho she gets ignored or sometimes downright replaced by other characters like ashlynn or holly

[w1f1n1ghtm4r3]

randomly got sidetracked from my bigger drawing project to come up with a wild life pearl design

[camellcat]

I'm on my knees desperate for more feral spike fics. it's so fun but there's just so little. where are all the feral spike fics 😔

[canisalbus]

Almost forgot to look at the tags in that Giordano post, I'm glad that Cardinals being higher than Archbishops was something you mentioned, and that I was remem that fact correctly :). And I love that Machete surpasses someone who thought him to be a "good for nothing". Go white boy go!

.

[mattastr0phic]

Are you okay with people being in love with Micah's bodyguard :3<filled with shame so I had to ask this on anon

I should say in general I don't mind people being attracted to/appreciating my characters in this way. I just see it as a big compliment that someone could like them that much. This extends not just to the bodyguards but to Myriad and me. I just appreciate the compliment.