#tumblr just happens to be one of the main roots of the problem and as a result it spreads to other sites

[kqltlc]

Filter lists and block button my beloved, I will forever appreciate the work you do to help keep me browsing / sane.

[sygneth]

Echoes of Elysium | Disco Elysium AU ...something?

Warnings

General warnings for my blog's content applies. Check here.

This AU is (rather) not very alternative. I am just trying to develop further events and some background for the characters, but even though I'm making research and I try to stay canon-compliant, only to fill in the gaps, I cannot guarantee it will never happen. Especially in this fandom, where many interpretations and paths are equally canon, we may not agree on some things, I hope you'll enjoy my point of view nevertheless. Some episodical OCs will appear too.

INDEX

EOE on ComicFury!

EOE on Tumblr:

Chapter 1: New Beggings -> START

EOE on AO3:

Main plot (uhh still in the process of uploading!)

Ficlet series (additional content)

LORE:

Precinct 41 plans and explanation

Plot outline

After Martinaise things are slowly getting back to normal, but the general atmosphere in the city gets thickens every day, La Retour is hanging in the air. Despite this, Harry is trying to stay sober and make amends. It's hard to say if Kim's appearance on the 41st is making things easier or harder between Harry and his old friends.

The Return happens. In the after-revolutionary mess, everybody tries to move on, but things are changing in almost every aspect of life. And on top of this, a particularly hard case drops and somebody has to take care of it.

The start of the project is directly after Martinaise, so forgive me this vague description, but I would hate to spoil the plot haha.

Okay, from now on additional info, still important but not crushial.

I want to focus on the relationship between the people of Precinct 41 and their internal experiences. Impactful events and thicker action will happen too, but mostly in the later chapters of this.

There are also some important premises of this AU I would like to highlight:

Kim was raised in an orphanage, presumably held by some Dolorian organisation (order?). Some of his old-fashioned manners and vocabulary are remainings after growing up in a religious environment (even if he's not very religious himself).

Eyes died around 9 months before the events from the game. Since then, Kim has been willingly working alone. His superiors were not very fond of that but somehow he managed not to get partnered with anyone.

Harry has no known family members left. At least as far as he and his friends know.

Jean and Harry's partnership started four, maybe five years ago. According to the game, it was "two years minimum" but personally I think those losers were stuck with each other for much longer.

Jean's years-long, unexplained depression has roots in some sort of personality disorder. Also, he is codependent on Harry, probably co-addicted too. He had problem with speed himself, however it's not nearly as serious as Harry's. I see him as more of a weekend/party drug user, as for now.

I assume that since the communist revolution gay relationships were technically legal in Revachol. Technically, because there are still no rights for same-sex couples and the social recognition is poor and rather negative (I got inspired by my own country in that matter)

That's all I can think of now. I will probably just add new information in the description of he pages.

Okay, cool, one last thing. What do you mean by "...something?"? Is this a comic? A fanfiction series? What am I looking at?

The answer is: I don't yet know. I am planning this to be mostly a comic, but I cannot say there won't be some written as fanfics parts or some kind of in-between media. I don't really want to limit myself to one medium only, but at this point, I have no idea what this will evolve into. I honestly just want to have fun lol

[norbezjones]

Bez Reviews Independent Books 1: Memory Leak

Hey everyone!�� I wanna do little reviews/writeups for the independently-published books I find on itch.io, and so, here I am.  I want to review one book every month or two (or quicker, if I’m lucky); it’ll get me reading more, and get authors who often go without feedback some thoughts on their work!  I think it’ll be cool for everyone!

If you want your book reviewed, the only requirement I have is that it’s hosted on itch.io.  Even if itch is just one of many places you can get the book, I want to review books that have a home there at least.  Feel free to get in touch with me with your books—I’m @NaomiNorbez on Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Pillowfort, Threads, and Instagram; I’m @norbezjones on Tumblr; I’m norbez2.0 on Discord.

Looking forward to seeing your books! <3

__________

The first book I’m reviewing Is Memory Leak by @maxkirin !  M. Kirin is a streamer who I happened to follow not long before their book release.  That’s how I heard about it.  Some light spoilers below, but nothing too big is revealed.  Most of the major stuff discussed you can read about right on the book’s itch page.

The plot is basically this: a trouple made a controversial game that won many awards, and also got lots of hate.  Now, they’re trying to make a new project to follow up such a release, but spooky things are happening.  Will they find out why strange events are occurring, or succumb to the haunting?

Everyone’s trans, and I love it.  Adrian’s trans.  Eva’s trans.  Casey’s . . . idk, very queer at least.  She’s also missing for a while, which has turned the game making trio into a duo as they’re trying to finish their new game based on Twelfth Night by Shakespeare.

Most of the book is about blackouts & memory loss, which occur as development goes on.  Reading about those things hurt.  Especially the part where Adrian says, “It didn’t matter if he didn’t remember. He was making something. Something that mattered.” (pg 17-18).  That hit hard, as someone who’s experienced intense periods of memory loss in the past—that was during my pseudo-dementia era (more on that here if you wanna hear the full story).  I had a similar thought to Adrian when I was making A Single Ouroboros Scale while I had pseudo-dementia.  I was desperate to make an impact because I was convinced I would soon forget everything I knew, including how to make games, and everyone would forget me in turn.  It came out as well as you can expect from a very sick, depressed person (which is to say, not good), as I talked about in the postmortem.  I imagine that for our game development trio, the same result occurs.

The hauntings in Memory Leak are rooted in real-life problems in the game development industry, mainly crunch and overworking yourself in order to meet a deadline.  Though in the case of Adrian, Eva, & Casey . . . was a deadline ever specified?  It’s strongly implied, but not overtly stated, as I recall.  Regardless, as a creator in the internet/social media age, you do have to act quickly to release new works, or the public will forget you.  Perhaps that’s why they feel like they need to work as quickly as possible.  There’s some irony in that—the characters’ rush to be remembered, all while they forget more & more.  It’s sad sometimes, the things we sacrifice to be known.

Also, it turns out the famous game the trio made, King Leer, possibly indirectly caused the death of multiple people, and that isn’t mentioned until about halfway through the book?  It’s surprising how that information flies out of nowhere, like a sucker punch.  If one of my games indirectly caused a person to die, I would be haunted by that for the rest of my life.  But the trio seem to have gotten over it, somehow.

My main little nitpick about the writing is that Adrian is referred to as “the young man” quite a bit, and I didn’t like that.  It felt too impersonal, distant.  That’s also something I do in my own writing, referring to the character as anything but their name to avoid saying their name too many times in a row (I blame my OCD [which I literally do have, that is not a figure of speech]).  So maybe it irks me because I see myself in that repeated action. 

As much as I like the writing style, I do have to acknowledge that it keeps us as a distance from the characters.  They’re young men, young women, lost souls.  It’s like we’re also haunting them, a ghost from beyond getting a peek into their lives from the top-down.  The chapter openers reinforce this: in those, you, the reader, are brought into the story, from a second person perspective, and given information about Starling games from YouTube videos, forum posts, messages, etc.  We see them win Game Of The Year, watch as fans deride & praise them, stuff like that.  It’s definitely an interesting way to give us information.

A big issue is that we’re told a lot that these characters love each other, but that bond isn’t quite shown to me. One can argue that it is between Adrian & Eva at least, but Casey?  In the beginning, it seems like she dislikes Adrian & Eva, but then there’s still a scene where she cries while apologizing to Adrian for yelling at him, saying how much she loves him.  I got the sense that she clings to Adrian & Eva because she used to love them, for a long time, and she doesn’t want to let that go.  Because to let that go would be venturing into unknown & very awkward territory.  How do you break up your polycule if you rely on them to earn a living and make games?  Short answer: you don’t, so you pretend instead.  And when you pretend enough, it can become real again.

This is a problem because the love these characters have for each other is a core tenant of the book, especially in the climax.  I wish we could’ve spent more time seeing how they fell in love with each other, back when Starling Games was new.  At least Casey’s love for the others becomes clearer as the book goes on; that’s a good thing.

As for the big twist, I saw the first part of it coming from a mile away.  That’s not a bad thing—a good twist should fit the plot & themes, not be 100% unpredictable, and this twist did.  The second part of the twist is mentioned on the book’s page, but the execution is so interesting you can almost forget that fact.

Last note: I was hoping the book would tell us why the works the trio make are so fucked up, if they’re a reflection of the soul, or just dark spurts of creativity.  The reason is revealed, and it’s fascinating—after all, if we’ve learned anything from The Beginner’s Guide, it’s that art doesn’t always reflect the author.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  It was a very interesting story about the struggle of game development, and how our search for a legacy can haunt us.  The characters are interesting, and the story is very well told.  I would recommend it.

If you want to read Memory Leak, you can do so FOR FREE right here!  Give it a look!  Please!  I’m begging you!

Thanks for reading!  The next review will be of To Wield The Darkest Night by Beau Van Dalen.  But I don’t know what I’m doing after that, so please send me your lovely books!

[mrs-monaghan]

i do actually have massive issues with the tone of this post [mrs-monaghan/720032101019353088/taekook-always-lead-in-fancam-views-because-their] minimising jungkook’s achievements (and tae’s for that matter but you can’t talk about him here unless to hate on him otherwise you’re accused to be a tkker). explain to me why it’s so important that jimin’s songs do better than jungkook’s? why is it not relevant when jungkook’s fancam is the most watched on tiktok but like crazy catching up to dreamers is so important? why were all jkkers actively tweeting about jimin surpassing jk’s record to 1b streams? never jk surpassing jimin in anything? jk’s achievements are never discussed by jkkers yet you defend jimin like your life depended on it. show me the last time you praised jk that wasn’t for his dick or what you think he does to jimin. jkkers never talk about jk as an individual without it relating to jimin yet jimin is praised on the daily like it’s your job.

Your main issue about me being a Jikooker and seeing JK as a shipping tool 👇🏽

I made my stand clear on this issue here

Here i once again praise both men because I support both and said JK will indeed break Jimin's records

I can't shut up about JK breaking Jimin's records

And lastly I dare you to tell me that this here isn't me being on JK's corner.

Your other issue about Jikookers and I talking about Jimin surpassing JK. Because he has??? And we are only talking about the records Jimin is breaking Because currently he's the only one between them breaking records?? He's the only one between them who's dropped an album so we are keeping up with FACE and it's achievements. When JJK1 drops and me and other Jikookers aren't praising him and talking about his achievements then by all means go off. But as it stands JK hasn't done anything. There is no album to talk about. Left and Right is making noise sure but anything it wins goes to Charlie poop. I want JK's own music where he gets the awards, he gets the credit.

Whatever you have seen on tumblr or on twitter is not my problem. I am not ALL Jikookers. I am Shaz. And me as Shaz love BOTH Jimin and JK. I root for both Jimin and JK. I can praise JK's dick and still praise his achievements. Those two are not mutually exclusive. I resent this accusation and honestly fuck you with a cactus.

And fuck you for having an issue with us defending Jimin like our lives depend on it. He's the one who's always gotten fucked over my the company not JK. What is there to defend JK on when he gets the royal treatment while Jimin doesn't? Even today with their individual fancams coincidentally Jimin's own is the only one that only had a link. All the other 6 had their photos. This can affect views because the human brain is attracted to imagery more than just words. They only just fixed it like 2 hours ago. This is something so trivial and normally no one would give a shit. But when this shit keeps happening to Jimin over and over people can get triggered over the smallest shit. Thus why PJMs made a big deal over a simple cake. A cake that Jimin wouldn't have eaten anyway coz of his diet but why can't he get what others got?? Even after he achieved something that hasn't been achieved since the 1960s?? He wasn't just the first Korean but the first Asian to get a number 1 on BB hot 100 since the 60s and what did BH do for him to celebrate this? Fuck all. And u wanna be mad at us for defending him like our lives depend on it.

Maybe there are Jikookers out there who don't see JK as anything more than Jimin's lover. But that aint me. But yes, you will find more shipping posts on my blog than achievement posts because that's what this is. A shipping blog. I am here for Jikook's relationship so yes, its what I will talk about the most. I also talk about the Jungkonda alot because yes, man has a big dick and I wanna talk about it. And so what if it's more interesting to me?

And incase you hadn't noticed I answer asks. I don't make my own posts.

You wanna see JK math then go follow JK data accounts that only post about his music and achievements. I will mention these things occasionally but I'm primarily here for the Jikook relationship. I'm sorry if you misunderstood but I hope that's clear now. That also goes for Jimin. I definitely talk more about his relationship than I do his achievements. Why aren't you mad about that??

Just say you're a JK solo and go.

[thegreatimpersonator]

you're one of my main actual halseyposting mutuals so ive been scrolling thru your posts about h5 and just need to vent omg. i keep rereading h's tumblr posts and they're making me fall for the final album rumors.... idk if it's true but this album is going to be a bang, no matter what it represents - a new beginning, a final chapter (@ the iichliwp tour which was divided into chapters), a goodbye, a cry, etc. i wonder what it will be - a return to roots? an exploration into novel sounds? will it be a thousand songs with the same gutting energy as forever... is a long time ? i just can't wait to love it for whatever it is, but i think it's going to be a pill to swallow in whatever form it takes. does "all of this is temporary" still apply if they announce that this is her big finale?

personally, h has the habit of releasing albums at extremely pivotal points in my life and development as an adult, so a part of me is like oh shit if this is it then where do i begin and end? but that's not your problem, its mine :) a penny for your thoughts and your comprehension about what is happening, what this means, etc.

and for fun, i would love to know your fav underrated lyric. 💜💜

I've seen very little hype for H5 in online spaces which is. A bit disappointing but everything h has hinted about so far suggests a long hiatus imo?? Because they've signed a deal with a new label, so it doesn't make sense for it to be a single album deal?? But I'm not sure honestly, maybe she's going for a complete brand change or trying out something different (ie acting, or focusing on about face). As for the sound I think 70s rock would be the vibe but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they do something completely new and shocking. SKSKSKS there are SO MANY thoughts and so little to go by I just can't wait to see where it goes

[damnfandomproblems]

@ 4234:

Not sure if they're checking for any responses, but mostly I wanted to agree. I haven't been in many fandoms, but even the main one I'm in now is alot more "cliquey" compared to years ago when RP and ask blogs were still really common. Now, alot of RP is mostly in Discord, and while I agree the messaging is easier/better than on Tumblr, Discord groups feel more closed off and gatekeepy at times. Plus my OTP is a NOTP for alot of people in the fandom, and I'm not interested in the juggernaut ships, so I get left out of alot of fandom events.

Tbh, I know it's not for everyone, but I've done better in a multi-fandom server I joined compared to any of the servers that are specific to the fandom I'm in. The one I joined I only did,cuz the admin is someone I already knew from my main fandom. I knew they were fair and kind, and they had modding experience in other servers, and it's been overall a great experience, until the server unfortunately died a while back, just due to the admin and other mods having irl stuff come up and take up all their time.

The only other server I've had a good time in was one that's specifically for fic writers in the fandom, which has events and showcases fics of people in the server, so it's alot of us pumping each other up and infodumping about our ideas and AUs.

Something I've had to learn to look out for when going into servers is in rules. Channels that state people's triggers and squicks is well-meaning, but unfortunately, in every server I've been in that had that turned into a wankfest sooner or later, usually with 2 or 3 BNFs in the server attacking each other or smaller creators in the server, using things in the trigger and squick list to harass or claim they were being harassed. Similar wankfests happened if the server has a list of topics and/or ships that aren't allowed to be talked about. Even if someone doesn't mention a forbidden topic/ship in the server, if they post stuff about it on Tumblr, Twitter, or ao3, they usually end up getting attacked in the server or just straight-up banned.

The servers I had/have good times had few if any forbidden tropes/topics/ships. If anything, it was only asked they only got mentioned in certain channels. The few times any wank came up, it got shut down within the same day.

Unfortunately, I don't have any advice for navigating fandom on Tumblr (and I avoid fandom spaces on Instagram and Twitter). I tend to just keep to myself on here, only ever talking to 2 or 3 people and not even all that much.

I hope you're okay, #4234. I'm in a small fandom, too, and I know that gossip runs rampant, so people end up hearing about callouts, even if they don't see the actual post. I've never been in that situation, so I don't know if this is good advice or not, but I'd suggest only sticking to talking to a few people for now. There will be some people who will refuse to interact with you, but even if others aren't actively reaching out, there are others who don't believe the callout, whether cuz they know the person posting it isn't credible or they've become skeptical when it comes to callout posts in general. So there will still be people willing to hear you out, if you choose to stay in that fandom and try making friends in it again.

Definitely close your asks (or at least close anon) if you haven't done that already, and depending on the level of harassment you're getting, I'd suggest making your posts nonrebloggable. I'm not sure if you're a creator in the fandom, so I know it can hurt to keep creating and not get any notes, but it's better than people reblogging your art, edits or writing only to add hurtful comments to keep harassing you.

I might not know who you are, but I'm rooting for you and hope you'll find a space in fandom (current one or another fandom if you decide to move on) that welcomes you.

Posting since this is a response to a previous problem.

[whiskeylucciano]

I definitely should be working rn but im having dangan tma au thoughts so. i'm making that tumblr's problem

hajime is the mc, a regular guy with no life plans or friends who gets a job at the institute of hope (hpa but its focused on the research instead of the school) to have something to put on his CV. gets archivist-ed

he's a part of the junior department. its basically an internship program. the other members are -

murasame soshun : fellow regular guy ! no supernatural encounters yet but has an irrational fear of ghosts. the (unofficial) manager. helps hajime around to begin with and they get along well. probably the most mentally well in the group though he definitely overworks himself hard + puts other people's needs ahead of his own. depending on how i decide to have the story go, he gets lonely'd

fujisaki chihiro : tech support. bit of a recluse. in a constant battle to get anything in the archives recorded on something that isn't paper, so she ends up helping hajime in sorting the archives fairly often. not totally sure if i want her to end up as an avatar? if i did though it would probably be eye, flesh or spiral

gekkougahara miaya : ok she's here i haven't planned very far beyond that. i'm thinking she does a lot of the online research on statements? her and chihiro often work together on both of their jobs though. she probably stays human. i think nwp trio needs at least one human lol

matsuda yasuke : end avatar w/angsty backstory. love making my favs suffer. more of a forensic pathologist than a neurologist in this au, but just as self-taught. technically a part of the junior department but doesn't leave his office/lab area unless forced to.. which is mostly when the proper ioh workers need him for shit. soshun, chihiro and miaya visit him because they actually somewhat get along with him. hajime, however-

there's also their actual boss, kirigiri jin, and chisa/kyosuke/kouichi/etc work in the main part of the facility. juuzou exists but probably works elsewhere (probably as a cop or sth). jin is an eye avatar (+ probably kouichi too), kyosuke is a lonely avatar, im not certain about the rest yet. desolation juuzou seems fitting i think?

i have some characters who i want to have join the archival team later in the story but i also haven't planned most of that story yet so. lol. sato joins after an end encounter (twilight syndrome murder case-adjacent, kuzuryuus are end-aligned). i'm not sure if shinobu gets employed there but. she's a journalist ! she has connections ! just don't worry about her family i'm sure there's nothing weird happening there (togami corp is buried-aligned, but shinobu is eye-aligned if anything). nagito isn't an archival assistant but he's a vast avatar, and the first avatar that hajime knowingly interacts with. he collects leitners and provides info to hajime but he's also kind of a prick. he still self-depreciates he just also kinda worships the fears and considers all human life worthless. and he doesn't THINK he's being that rude but wow this hajime guy sure is sure of himself better remind him of his (unimportant) place in the universe. also he's very much rooting for the guys carrying out the fear rituals so thats fun.

+ you can't forget the former archivist, who had to be kirigiri kyouko. who else would it be. born to the kirigiris who run their own eye-aligned info-gathering organisation (their detective agency), and mostly raised by fuhito to be the heir of it. befriends samidare yui in a way basically the same as in dr kirigiri (but with more . supernatural crimes), and over time comes to question her family's dealings with the fears. comes to the institute of hope to figure out what happened to jin, but leaves mysteriously w/yui and nobody has heard from them since.

and thats it for the main cast ! there's other characters i have plans for (i have an imposter statement planned, and i want sayaka to start a stranger ritual... junko is also important i'm just not 100% sure how im going to handle her part in the story and how much of what i have planned i want to put in a summary post. and so on)

maybe i'll actually write some of this as a fic later. Who knows

[staringdownabarrel]

I feel like a big thing people tend to forget when it comes to couples who only stay together for the kids is that sometimes "just get a divorce" isn't a viable option. Yes, at least here in the West, most people have access to no-fault divorces. They can just go get one if they really want one. However, that isn't actually the problem.

The actual problem is that there's a lot of people--and in practice, this is usually men--who'll get a divorce, but then won't ever pay a cent in child support, or will maybe pay a little bit but then fall tens of thousands of dollars behind. That old stereotype of the deadbeat father who refuses to pay child support despite having a job, or quits his job or finds under-the-table employment specifically to avoid paying it, isn't some old wives' tale. There really are people like that out there.

So nine times out of ten, what "staying together for the kids" means in practice is that the mother knows the marriage isn't good, but she's staying because she thinks getting child support from the father will be like extracting teeth. It isn't always a choice between either raising the kids in a home where their parents are always fighting or a home where they're divorced but coping better emotionally; sometimes it's either the home where they're always fighting or poverty.

I can't actually prove this, but I suspect this is the root cause of a lot of the divorces where two people stay together for decades and then suddenly get a divorce after the youngest kid finishes high school. Of course getting the divorce would be preferable under ideal circumstances, but they don't get the ideal circumstances. They get the devil's choice.

At least anecdotally speaking, this tends to play out in the cases I know of where this happens. Let me give you an example. For a while, I had the misfortune of working with a man who'd gotten a divorce shortly after his youngest child had gone off to university. When I asked him about why he got divorced, his response was basically "uh, the kids grew up and then she decided she didn't love me anymore?".

What stuff like this usually means in practice is that she'd had that planned for years and he was the last to know about it. I totally get why she divorced him--he was emotionally immature in a way that might have been endearing when they were 21, but disappointing when they reached their thirties or forties and she realised he hadn't matured like she had. Unsurprisingly, his kids didn't really have a lot to do with him, and he seemed confused as to why.

When you're talking about people like this, they're not really going to understand that child support is important. Even if you explain it to them, they won't get it. They just think it's free money that mothers get for divorcing men. This is one of the main reasons why they won't pay it even if they're in a position to. It's why you hear so many stories of people having to be in and out of court for years--most of the child(ren)'s school years, even--over unpaid child support.

And look, none of this is to say that nobody should ever get a divorce ever. My parents got a divorce and I think it's one of the best things they ever did for me. But I'm also looking at this from a position of relative privilege: when I lived with my mother, my dad paid more child support than he was legally obligated to, and he always paid it on time. Even on the rare occasions when he couldn't do that, he had what he owed and what he'd missed ready the next week. What I'm trying to say is that even though I had certain privileges, and I'm assuming a lot of people on Tumblr also had them, it can't be taken as a given that everyone would have had them.

The other thing that my parents did right was that was never any major disputes over custody. They both kept to the agreement on that front, and there was never a point where they decided to go to court over it.

This can't be taken for granted, either. There's a lot of cases where one parent or the other will try to sue for custody, or even sue for the original custody agreement to be followed. At least in the cases I know of where this happens and the custody agreement is being followed and abuse isn't a factor, it's either because of money or one parent's ego. At least in my state, part of how much you owe in child support is decided is up to how much time the child physically spends with you.

I'm sure there'll be someone who reads this and goes, "Yeah okay, but none of this would have applied to my parents. They still should have gotten a divorce." That probably is true for a lot of people. There are a lot of people out there who'll let a bad relationship drag on for years before they end it either because they don't realise it's bad or because they're scared of what comes next.

What I would point out though is that this may not be entirely true, or maybe wouldn't have been evident while it was happening. The one thing I know about breakups is that you don't always know how it's going to go until it happens. Even if you knew how they responded to their last breakup, that can't always be taken as true for their next. Everyone who's had multiple relationships end will have regrets about how some ended--they'll wish they'd have said one thing instead of another, or they'll wish they'd responded differently in general. This is especially true if they've had years to dwell on it.

The other thing in this regard is that quite often, children don't know their parents as well as they think they do. A lot of the time, parents won't mention something or will try to downplay another because they're trying to protect the kids. (Of course, the inverse is also true--parents don't always realise how much their kids pick up on, so the kids often know their parents better than they realise.) Quite often, you won't know how your parents respond to a breakup until they divorce because that's the first time you will have seen it.

Because of that, it's entirely possible that the parent you think will always pay their child support or will keep to the custody agreement might not. Sometimes they won't specifically to spite this other person that they've divorced and probably resent to some extent, and won't realise how damaging that is to their kids until years later, if ever.

So while I agree that more people should get divorced and it is true that people will stay together for years longer than they should, I think it's important to realise there are nuances to this. Sometimes everyone involved knows it's a bad relationship but can't leave because the alternative might be even worse.

[emsylcatac]

One of the main problems with the reaction to the finale is that people act like it's the end of the story while it sets up the next story arc. Like I really don't like how in the interview they said that everything will be revealed and resolved when it comes to the very fundamental plots of season 1-2, but this ending that people fantasized about just does not develop the next seasons at all. With endings like this, it's just that most will leave the show, as the main drivers of the show will be gone, but look: they're still here. The Agreste's arc is not over, just some of their roles have changed. We do not have comprehensive answers to all questions. For example, very little is known about Tomoe, although she seems to be one of the roots of this conflict. Do you think Gabriel built the lair himself? What role does it play in the search for miraculous? If Gabriel, as canon says, became so bad after Emily's death, did she fuel his power hunger? I think she'll get the Miraculous Butterfly at all after defeating Lila/Cerise/Iris/Whoyou, as she fits very well into the same pattern associated with both owners of the Butterfly Miraculous.

While many have whined during this season, I've just thought it through and already have a clear picture of what will happen in the second story arc in its entirety, even the finale pretty clearly and even a piece of the third arc and what it will likely revolve around. And although I can't guarantee that it will go exactly like this, but it seems that everything will be approximately like this, especially the people who built theories here, even more strongly strengthened my belief in it.

I can even explain what the general theme will be in the next arc. Either way, people would rather stop watching the show instead of whining. I've been in a few fandoms and there were a lot of very similar salty patterns and I don't want to delete tumblr again because of them.

Honestly if people who are too bitter leave the fandom I wouldn't complain hahaha

My one fear with the big hiatus we're about to have is that the fandom might brew more salt like it was the case between S3 and S4.

I'm sure if season 6 brings more answers that are satisfying, a lot of the people who might leave the fandom because of the S5 finale will come back which would be amazing!

In the meantime it's fun to theorise. And yes while Gabriel/Monarch is technically gone, I'm sure he'll still be very much present in the plot or in the characters' mind & trauma. Very excited to see how 👀

[bashsbooks]

An Abundance of Katherines Book Review

★★★☆☆ ~ 3 out of 5 stars

Like most tweens and teens in 2012, I read The Fault in Our Stars and loved it. It was always my intention to go back and read more of John Green’s books in the future, which I only managed with a little success over the past decade, despite coming across John Green himself everywhere - at school via Crash Course, on TikTok and Instagram where he posts funny personal videos, and here on Tumblr, where he has long been the butt of a rather vicious bullying ‘joke.’ After running across him online once again at the end of 2022, I resolved that in the new year, I was finally going to get back to that goal and read more of his work. 

Enter An Abundance of Katherines, a book I had long been intrigued about from its title alone. What did that mean? I knew from skimming a synopsis that it had something to do with a teenage boy who only dated girls named Katherine - nineteen of them, to be exact - but otherwise, I had little concept of what was going to happen in this book.

To give a more comprehensive summary, An Abundance of Katherines is about a former child prodigy named Colin Singleton, who worries that he doesn’t have what it takes to be a true genius and that he will never find love after Katherine XIX dumps him. Colin and his best friend, Hassan, take a roadtrip to a small town in Tennessee where they meet a girl their age, Lindsey Lee Wells, and her mother, Hollis, who offers the boys a summer job interviewing locals about their lives. In the downtime between navigating this new job, town, and burgeoning friendship with Lindsey, Colin is trying to figure out a theorem that perfectly predicts the trajectory of any relationship - how long it will last and who will dump who. This last part means there was more math in this book than I’d hoped for, though, as Green points out in the footnotes at one point, not more than absolutely necessary. 

An Abundance of Katherines was written in 2008, and in some ways, it feels like a product of its time (most glaringly through Lindsey’s sporadic use of the r-slur). In other ways, it feels defiant of this time, though: Hassan is a Muslim who speaks Arabic regularly throughout the book, and Colin notes how his theorem will work for gay couples. This tension of succumbing and overcoming its time are a great microcosm of the messiness that it is deeply entrenched in every layer of the novel - from the clash of Chicago-natives Colin and Hassan with the small town folks of Gutshot, Tennessee, to Colin’s obsession with being a genius against Hassan’s satisfaction with not doing much of anything, there are a lot of differing ideas rubbing shoulders in this book.

Overall, this works well for An Abundance of Katherines. It is messy in a realistic way; the characters are far from perfect, but they’re not the worst people in the world. This is something I particularly enjoy about Green’s writing - he has an amazing ability to humanize his characters. There were points throughout the book where I thought each member of the main cast was being annoying or irritating, but this was not so pervasive that it kept me from rooting for them and ultimately wishing them a happy ending. 

I must confess, though, that while I found this messiness interesting, I found most of the book ultimately boring. Not bore-me-to-sleep boring and not I-can’t-finish-this boring, but it just did not feel like much happened. Its problems, at times, can be a little too mundane - interpersonal teen drama and the threat that a financial crisis can pose to a small town. That is not to say these aren’t important issues to cover, just that they are not the most exciting things in the world to read on their own. And personally, I find advanced math to be a bit boring, so when it was necessary to read about the theorem and how it functions, I found myself yawning. 

Additionally, though I like footnotes in fictional texts (House of Leaves rights), and generally appreciated the layer that An Abundance of Katherines’ footnotes added to the narrative (as these footnotes competing with the main text for attention also adds to that nice messiness I mentioned), I did not like them in a digital format. If you give this book a read, I highly recommend picking up a physical copy, unless you want to keep clicking back and forth between the page you’re on and the accompanying footnotes. I understand this is not a fault of the text itself as much as the medium in which I chose to read it, but it compounded my boredom with a certain tediousness that made most of this book a slog for me. 

Ultimately, this book was a solid 3 out of 5 stars for me. It was fine. Not the worst, not the best. I really don’t have much else to say about it. Read it if you like. I think it makes for fine leisure reading. But don’t expect anything terribly exciting or revelatory.

[literalite]

i know youre on hiatus and i hope youre doing well away from tumblr, but, when you come back, let us know your thoughts on genshin’s 3.3 update please! i’m excited to hear what you think about scaramouche’s story ❤️

literally just finished the interlude quest, lets talk about it!! (going to contain spoilers for kazuha's story quest, the inazuma archon quests, the sumeru archon quests, and also the sumeru interlude quest obviously) this is going to be quite long (he is one of my favourite characters and is steadily powercreeping my lore favourite albedo to be no.1) so maybe don't click unless you like absolutely want to fhgjkl

okay to start off with i'm gonna talk about what i expected was going to happen with this interlude slash what is essentially our favourite ex fatui puppet's character quest.

due to the memes and shit about it i initially was kind of wondering if this would be some sort of community service redemption sort of quest for him, something along the veins of him doing things nahida just tells him to or stuff the traveller wants. i figured maybe we'd see a fight scene between traveller and scara, maybe he tries to backstab us or flee or even go see ei. these are all initial fleeting assumptions i developed right after finishing the sumeru archon quests. to be honest kazuha isn't a favourite of mine so the thought of the tatarasuna smithing plot even making it back into the main storyline genuinely didn't cross my mind. like i cared about it because scara was in it but i didn't expect it to be relevant again

after the trailer for the 3.3 update i had a change of opinion again, this time more rooted in worry. genshin has a problem with its antagonists (namely: the raiden shogun/ei) where we get a character presented as directly opposing the traveller, directly causing issues at the cost of characters' lives and freedoms, only to get woobified in service of making them a suitable travelling companion to our main character. i understand they have to try for some semblance of realism as to why our playables are lending aid to us, but i kind of think they lost that a long time ago without even really noticing it. why is the acting grandmaster of the knights of favonius (for example) accompanying us into the desert of sumeru when she ostensibly has a very busy 24/7 job basically running an entire city. how is childe with us when they've sent him from liyue to snezhnaya to inazuma and now to who knows where. they’ve tried very hard to make this “make sense” when it literally never has. and i was extremely wary we’d get a passive puppet mindwiped version of scara. WHICH ALSO MADE NO SENSE, because he very visibly retains at least a good portion of the personality we know and love/hate. look at this fucking face

this is not the face of someone who has a redemption arc. my worry was that somehow they’d get him to apologise for his actions, and have the traveller forgive him wholeheartedly. i was worried they'd wipe his mind, somehow retain his personality, and just hand him over like here you go here's playable scaramouche. he's still a massive bitch but he's #good now. i HATE that. i’ve never wanted him redeemed. i want the weight of his sins and his guilt and his abandonment and his rage and ugliness because to me it makes him one of the most realistic characters genshin's ever managed to write. i don't really know or care how many people share this view, but i would've been happy if they handed him to us straight from laughing in our faces about teppei's death. his scheming killed signora. i wanted that straight from the tap.

so, the quest itself. it got me good i'll admit. when he basically had a crack at erasing himself from existence my jaw genuinely dropped because for me that was... both exactly what i would've done in his position with his power and also a place i'd never expected genshin to actually go. we talk about someone killing themselves in cyno's story quest (murtada radkani and then his father, taj radkani) but he actually tried it- i feel like someone might try to debate me on this but that's the only way i can see it interpreted. we know he's tried and hoped to end himself before but it was kind of??? gratifyingly shocking to see him do it again. and in service of the humans he's continually spoken about with loathing before. it just made him very... real i guess. there's no endless well of hope he just pulls from out of nowhere, it's in service to people he loved and lost centuries ago. he does it without a shred of concern as to what it would cause in the modern day to the real life descendants of the people he'd both loved and killed. IT WAS SO IN CHARACTER. i wasn't celebrating it but from a narrative perspective that was literally perfect. he's gone and im so happy gi has made a good story choice im like sick about it

then the "erased" scaramouche reappears and i let out a sigh of relief that i wasn't even aware i was holding. like i knew he wasn't DEAD because, well, i'm running around sumeru city with him literally equipped in my party and also he hasn't gotten his vision yet so he can't just die. tbh i totally forgot about the "you can't fully erase yourself from existence" thing from rukkhadevata until the traveller brought it up. immediately following my joy that my boy is not Dead dead i go.. oh shit. is this the erasure part??? is his terrible awful beautiful personality just gone and we're left with this fruit picking stall boy? was genuinely concerned about it but i reserved judgement until we entered the dream

guys....... i was so happy. we finally fleshed out lore that i'd been picking at in my brain and it was so fucking good. the pacing was good the dialogue made for a good translation we even got a return to the place where he nearly killed us. he got a fresh start but he didn't. he remembers we remember he's not trying to destroy everything around him but he's not like loving and happy and perfect. essence retained!! i don't really enjoy seeing nahida just. in general she kind of gives me the ick what with her design and all so im glad she stayed as a Voice for most of the quest. i could concentrate on what mattered. i'm nothing if not biased so while this is not my favourite story/archon/interlude quest (that title belongs to xiao's chasm interlude quest) this might be in the top five. top three mayyybe

i do have my gripes with the quest. i really wanted to see him have a genuine modern day confrontation with ei, but now with the erasure/history retcon she doesn't even remember creating him (her and yae's voicelines about him are removed, as are childe's), which is a massive shame yet also strangely fitting. like not to unpack this but sometimes the best thing you can get from a mother who thinks she's done nothing wrong is a clean break. still, i would've loved a confrontation of some sort, and i'm hoping for either that or a fight with dottore as his actual story quest. i also wish we got a unique model for the "puppet" scara that katsuragi found in the shakkei pavilion but we already have two different models for him so i think i'm just nitpicking there.

as for what i ended up (re)naming him, i chose itsuki, specifically 五希. this specific variation of the name means (five) (hope) and is mostly used as a last name, which might make me change it if i find something suitable (i was doing this pretty fast so i had to hurry up with the name, didn't get a ton of time to think it through). i named him this because i won him 50/50, on pity 50, and also this would be his fifth "official" name (the first four being kabukimono, kunikuzushi, scaramouche and then shouki no kami). five is also a pretty important number in asian culture, with it being associated with both good and bad luck (fitting for a character made in such shades of gray as scaramouche), and if i'm getting the information correctly, five is also representative of the ideal of freedom, a pretty solid match for someone newly bestowed an anemo vision. the raiden gokaden were five houses of smithing, of which scaramouche destroyed all but two. additionally, itsuki as a first name is often translated to "tree", and as someone who was "reborn" from irminsul it felt suuuper appropriate. i'm gonna touch base with my little sister (she's half japanese and super fluent) to make sure i'm not just shooting into the dark though, so i'll update if i end up changing it again

EDIT: touched base with her she said and i quote “it’s a bit weird and unique but it’s fine” so im keeping it. happy nameday my beautiful boy itsuki

tldr, i'm pretty happy with the quest, im glad my boy kept his bitch personality, and i renamed him itsuki (name change pending maybe)

[mochidreambubble]

Scarlet Hollow ask game

Tagged by @cymatile AND @georgiedoesntfloat 🖤TYSM for always including me in these haha

I'll offer up two variants for some of the answers, using my main OC file (Ashe my beloved) and my 2nd one that I use to mess around (Atlas who I have mentioned like... Once-)

TRAITS:

Your "canon" trait combination? Ashe: Mystical/Hot. I will take any chance I get to use my attractive OC son- (2nd best to go option tho via) Atlas (maybe I just like 'A' names lol): Mystical/Street Smarts. Let me break all the rules and lie my way thru everything pls- (basically, I like it if it can help me socially and Street Smarts has its perks there too haha)

What third trait would you add for hardcore mode? For Ashe I'm tied between Talk to Animals and Street Smart. Animals to go down the full something is definitely up with him kind of vibe vs the one he'll actually likely have due to his personality/bad boy roots lmao. Atlas gets Book Smart, to be deceptively like the type where he doesn't look it.

What trait are you least drawn to? Powerful Build. Strong? My vain bb Ashe who would never chip a nail? I promise you if he looks like he has muscle it's purely for show lol. And Atlas is a stick. Aside from achievement hunting, I'm also just not down to throwing hands/go for physical strength to solve my problems haha. Nice if you want your MC to lean more to himbo if you pair w/ hot, but if not for that then nah :p

Coolest trait? Mystical. I know I'm not alone on this haha. Aside from enjoying lore and slapping it on almost all my runs for my OC army, I feel like it fits best for SH's setting.

ROMANCE:

Who are you romancing? Reese for Ashe and Wayne for Atlas (me slapping the two Monster Lover achievements like DO YOU SEE THESE)

What romance are you least interested in? Dr Kelly. I do not hate her per say, I am just emotionally reactive to the *motions to the whole revelations of Episode 4*

Who would you romance if every single character was eligible? Isaacs or Harrison, likely? Like, I know Bo is a popular choice and I do like him, but considering it's 50/50 if he loses his dad, I wanna give the poor guys space to grieve first cause he's a sweet fellow.

MISCELLANEOUS:

What character would hurt you the most if something bad happened to them? Not including Reese who I am deeply hoping is ok on the endings where he's still breathing, I gotta say Kaneeka and Tabitha. For Tabby, I'd put my MC thru hell if I have to (and I legit yelled when she choose to take on those years the first time I played Episode 3 like Tabby NO I'LL DO IT PLS); for Kaneeka, god her whole situation is just shitty I just want the best from her and someplace that she can go very far from her mom p l s I will cry if something happens to her-

Would you stay in Scarlet Hollow when the week is over? It's too early to say. Very likely no because SH rn doesn't strike me like it will let you burn the root of whatever looms and haunts over the holler. If anything, I wanna drag people OUT of Scarlet Hollow by week's end.

Who would you vote for dog mayor? Scraps. I trust Gretchen and I just think Scraps is cool.

Tagging: no one, my SH Tumblr circle is so small anyone I would have thought of tagging has already been tagged on another person's post 😂

[aliferous-ly]

I know nothing of DSMP but I would love to hear how the ending/story/characters/creators were mishandled if you’d like to rant/ramble

OKAY.

I didn't watch the ending. I barely knew the ending was happening, because by the time it happened I was so disenchanted with the whole dsmp that I didn't really care. so I heard through the grapevine (Tumblr dashboard) that it was like.. everything blows up we're starting over and everyone's memories are wiped.

Which. Is a choice. But is a particularly horrible choice when one of the people roleplaying.. died, and would therefore "not be remembered" (with no new content). The people close to this person confirmed that dsmp 2 would continue technos legacy and that they wouldn't forget him, but the fact that it needed to be said in the first place is just. An awful feeling. like, none of techno’s actions would have any bearing on dsmp2...?

So fuck the ending, who even cares about it. The beauty of the dsmp is supposed to be the many interlocking characters, since they're all roleplaying to have fun with this comedy/serious rp. But the creators (read: the main creators slash writers of the arcs) would often ignore other creators on the dsmp and their role. Niki frequently was talked over and ignored. Her and puffy planned a dsmp lore stream only to cancel it because dream scheduled a server-wide event for the same day (literally the day before). eret regularly planned lore and streams, but received rare replies in the discord. they were the first villain character and received so many death threats for the arc that really kick-started the serious storylines, and then their character was mostly forgotten by the other big creators. I understand the improv of rp, but the streams started becoming more and more planned, and eret wanted to be in them! And as the original traitor, having her as a staple would have been INTENSE. but she just kinda.. dropped off. Anything to do with the egg was vastly considered uninteresting and therefore lesser to the "main" characters, which is, of course, tommy and dream. which sucked because I didn't care about tommy and dreams storyline and I liked everyone else's 😭😭 (this is more neg for the community than the creators, but whatever)

Another thing I hated was when the creators would joke about how cringe people getting invested in Minecraft RP is. stuff like that. because it shows that at a certain level they're ashamed of creating it? They're embarrassed of it. And so they disregarded their audience and fucked up the storyline and now dsmp 2 is never happening because who's gonna watch it? their scorned audience? like holy shit, guys, you were getting 200k viewers a stream because people liked the story. people like stories!!! the medium doesn’t MATTER.

Like.. okay. There's some really good characters in the dsmp. Schlatt, I think, had the best character, because he was cohesive and had an arc -- he entered as a villain against wilbur and tommy, was further corrupted by power, physically crumbling from his poor choices, was super horrible to quackity which set up quackity’s arc & insecurities... and his death was interesting! nobody killed him, he just succumbed to his own problems. I still think techno is a good character, because he stuck to his thought processes and morals (which was basically, governments = bad, people = good. with a dash of extremely violent inclinations). Whether or not you liked him. His problem was his innate existence as unkillable (technoblade never dies, he won a battle against the whole server, etc), because then it can get tedious, but he'd been planning to have cyberknife the Government Lover to counteract this (god, I miss him).

Dream is... Dream, I guess. Sam has a good character, very nice corruption arc (everyone literally hating him in his chat was annoying though. Like guys, you're in sam's chat, you gotta root for SAM. go to Tommy's stream if u wanna be a little bitch). also sam’s arc had everything that dream apologists wanted with dream’s character, lol. dream had no regrets and was a horrific abuser. sam started good and slowly corrupted to evil through “the ends justify the means” choices, which is FASCINATING, because by the end he was a mess of ethics and trauma. I love Niki's arc, but I wish she could have had more closure with Wilbur, because he was huge for the beginning of her arc. Hannah, bad, ant, and punz had this super cool thing with the egg (bad and skeppy was WILD) and I loved the fantasy aspects and that it didn't take 4 fucking hours to do the climax, with like 1 hr of actual action. (the egg was like... a fungal infection came to the dsmp and infected various characters to do its bidding by promising whatever they want most. and bad wanted to be with skeppy, who is his actual in-canon soulmate, since bad’s CANON LIVES were tied to skeppy’s. meaning he never lost a canon life unless skeppy did. fellas...)

I guess overall it's like... the main creators didn't communicate and plan enough with many of the people who wanted lore and arcs. Foolish, quackity, purpled, Sam, and Charlie did really well at the end, I loveddd the whole purpled defecting and shit. charlie’s arc was incredible. and they COMMUNICATED in the discord to make this happen. 

Dream, sapnap, and George just had no handle on the storyline they were trying to construct. And it's their server. They needed an ending. Something satisfying, cathartic, something where tommy finally gets the chance to heal which might only happen alongside dream's death-- and the servers getting blown up by a nuke okay sure that works too I guess.

I’m so, so upset by the lack of happy ending for tommy. like, the cc wanted to move away from dsmp, so they could have written an ending for the character and then he could ease away from the server and lore. it didnt have to happen Like That.

Also, if dream wanted to play a different character, then Do That. He could pretend to be a shape shifter who liked the original dreams form, or the original dream could be a shape shifter who copied dreamXD (the literal god of the server, which I feel like was not mentioned more that foolish had regular interactions with them?), or just, anything. but the constant evil!dream abusing tommy was getting a bit much. it was just never ending.

AND. THIS ISNT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE STUPID FUCKING THREE LIVES THING.

Like.. they had three "canon" lives. This happened because the original roleplay was Not Serious, it was just them fooling around. They would kill each other to steal their stuff. Everyone died all the time. And I don't remember the specific inciting incident.. it might be as far as tubbo getting executed on stage? but suddenly This Death is far more important than all the Other Deaths, so they have to separate them and add some significance, but tubbos back now and technos not apologizing which is a whole thing (oh nooo techno didnt save tubbo from being executed despite not receiving any communication), so tubbo is alive, so this death is Significant (but he's still alive) so. three canon lives. Which is dumb, because the only thing (seemingly) signifying a canon life loss is that it's literally written into the plot. (Which, jack manifold dying to techno and then falling into a glitch and respawning, to then claim that he lost his third canon life but through pure determination to kill tommy/techno crawled back out of hell, is metal as fuck). which takes out a lot of the improv, makes things a lot more staged. But it's canon, in the lore, that sometimes people die and they don't lose a canon life. It's just.. so bizarre. (Phil having one life to show that he's from a hardcore world is also, however, very cool).

it makes the whole thing a bit meta, using terms like “canon life” within the actual roleplay. the only bandage I could think of would be coming up with unique ways each specific character could die. Like, tubbo can only be killed via explosives/fireworks. Tommy and Dream can die by axe. techno’s is unknown, until tubbo infiltrates phil’s house and finds information that techno can be killed by being crushed. this would cause some other brand new problems, though.

Anyway. Wilbur's plots were well written, but disregarded Fundy (his canonical son) and mostly Niki, too (who he brought into the server). George obviously didn't give a shit about lore, bc he was never there. Sapnaps lore is meh, even though he has, arguably, one of the most interesting relationship webs of the server (his best friend became this abusive pos, his parents are skeppy and bad, he’s off-and-on dating quackity and karl, both of which have their own crazy shit going on. god, i didnt even talk about karl). Tommy's was very well done even though I personally didn't like his character.

Like... These people just didn't know what the fuck they were doing. Which could have been fine, if they didn't try to capitalize the fuck out of the views lore streams could bring while also ridiculing their audience for liking this sort of thing, and then attempted to tie it together into some sort of ending to the tommy / dream arc. Like, new arcs can happen, sure, but things have to end! They have to!

Honorable mention for ponk who regularly streams earlier than I watch but consistently was on the dsmp. He kept that shit alive. He was the og. His tree jumpstarted the lore. Much love for ponk and many wishes for future successes for that man.

Also it was really weird how the dsmp was primarily white men because it originally was just dream and his friends, which obviously is fine ur not gonna intentionally diversify your minecraft server for friends, but after people started pointing out that most everyone being added was a white man and the only defense was that it's dream and his friends became.. thinly veiled. Because he started adding people that hes not like, close friends with, but they were also white men. Like I'm so sorry Michael mcchill I love you and your energy is fantastic but this is about you and manitreed and foolish and and and. There were like 30 people on the server and like 6 poc. maybe 6 women. (Shout-out to Tina, lmfaooo).

idk. it’s a storyline that was wonky and weird at its base, so the viewers were willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for a lot of things, because we knew that it was improv and sometimes things dont go your way. and they had this massive, growing, beautiful thing at their fingertips. and wilbur said “yeah i’m not writing this arc” and communication became nonexistent and everything collapsed. the server literally NUKED ITSELF. OK . holy shit.

that being said i immensely enjoyed my time in the dsmp fandom. it helped me through covid, it inspired me, i’ve written quite a bit of fic for it. i loved the dsmp. there are aspects that i still love, and will love forever. but holy shit. we were not treated well.

[papirouge]

hey papi, hope you're doing well and I hope your move goes as well as it can!

(apologies in advance for the following vent)

logged in to tumblr this morning to catch one of the rad-leaning women I follow reblogging a long string of screenshots about a woman fighting a man who had tried to film her in a changing room, and a bunch of tweets about it... from users like "EndWokeness" and Trump supporters... and then these women get up in arms when people accuse them of being conservative lmao

like it legit feels like women in the US are stuck between a rock and a hard place. there's trans activism on the left eroding women's rights but the right is no better (as radfems understand, yet keep allying themselves with men who are fundamentalists Islamists in all but name). and idk what the answer to all of this is but refusing to lie down with a bunch of "feminism is the root of all evil" moids would be a good start imo

Hi! I'm doing great 🧡 sorry for the delay (this ask is like 1 month old lol) I'm still very busy packing out my stuff since I changed place and I'm so busy with work 😭

But yeah, radfemistan went mask off since a while. BUT actual radfem call this out too. For example there's a post floating around with a radfem fawning on matt Walsh talking shit about trans and some replies (from radfem) were like "uh? are we really gonna give props to rightoids moids just bc they talk shit about trans people?". I feel like there's kind lf a schism happening among radfem right now. One side is now more comfortable than ever embracing an openly pro white/pro western clash of civilization mindset while the other is desperately trying to put against it - and being bullied for doing so (e.g menalez).

Those radfem are basically acting like white supremacist - just with added misandry. They have the same talking point as your average conservative moid but they'll also shit on men so they somehow think we won't notice their racism. Why? Bc those women don't acknowledge racism as a relevant axis of oppression, only misogyny. That's why they'll be comfortable saying dumb shit like "misogyny is worse than slavery". And when I ask them "were black female slaves slaves because they were black or women?" or "if misogyny is a more severe form of oppression, why were white women allowed to own (male & female) slaves? 🤔" They go MIA.

They'll talk about "shithole countries" male demographic and expect us disregard the racist undertone of their statement. If we don't, it means we are siding with those brown rapists from said shithole countries - obviously.

And TBH, let's get something straight: I personally don't care about those white women talking shit about black men (since I'm black), my problem is when they're painting the entirety of poverty ridden places as a monolith of intellectually backwards people whose obsession is raping & oppressing white women. The main characters syndrome is HUGE with those women. Most black men oppress and kill BLACK WOMEN at disproportionately rates. Black men themselves admit oppressing us is easier because we don't benefit the protection of white supremacy (and the justice system it established) like white women do. But those dumb white supremacist radfem be legit acting like they were the main target of men of my community...when it's a known thing that Black men will behave better with white women because they're scared of white supremacy. This matter of fact doesn't exclude the reality of non white men considering white women as a (social) trophy but statisticalreality trumps their narrative that white women are *the* piece of choice of non white men when it comes to misogynist attacks.

That is white supremacy is action : always considering themselves as the apex of desirability. Remember when radfemistan said Amber Heard was "perfect misogyny"? I was the only one to smell the racialist bullshit one mile away, and truth is the mask slipped even more off since that time.

They are the ones who entertained a smear campaign about an GNC athlete calling her a man, and when they failed having any evidence to back up their claims, resorted to ask genetic test from her(?!!), and went on to pull out copium theories about how women with higher testosterone levels shouldn't compete against regular women... Obviously without elaborating what's a normal level testosterone is, and not realizing how hypocritical they sound for bringing this issue just *now*. As if biological/hormonal inequalities were something new in sport. Interesting how we never saw them seeethe about "average" sized women being excluded from basket leagues because of those unfairly giant sized shemale threatening female sports uwu It's VERY interesting they waited for a north african gnc woman to suddenly clutch their pearls and go "WILL SOMEONE THINK ABOUT THE DAINTY SMOL WHITE WOMEN TRYING TO MAKE IT IN SPORTS??" 🥀

They are full of shit and crumbling under the weight of their stupidity and hypocrisy. Hopefully they don't ever whine about tra spreading "misinformation" about radfem ideology because they definitely were right for clocking the lingering racism and White femalehood bio essentialism among them lol

[ooglywooglies]

stupid discourse again

i literally cant escape this fucking topic and its driving me fucking insane and i dont have any control so heres some issues i have with the topic on the whole, on both sides

STOP TALKING ABOUT MISANDRY IN TERMS OF OPPRESSION

if youre gonna talk about the problems trans men face FOR BEING MEN dont call it oppression, trans men are not oppressed for being MEN. yes men can be oppressed but it is for another aspect of their identity. i know that transness and manhood are intrinsically linked in trans men, that if they were not men they would not be trans and if they were not trans they would not be men HOWEVER, being treated like a man is not the same as being oppressed. i think misandry is sometimes a valid word to use, only in the context of generally like radfems though because its my opinion gender essentialism and separatism is the main thing that defines radfems. misandry describes a HATRED of men, it doesnt have to be systemic. (it gets misused a lot so im not really advocating for its usage im just giving my perspective)

2. Men Have Problems, Not Worse than Women, But Do Nonetheless

i think the things that tend to affect trans men is MOSTLY just transphobia and misogyny (ill not say transmisogyny bc im not transfem and that term was coined with a specific definition that is not solely the convergence of transphobia and misogyny) and i hate when trans men push back on the idea that they are affected by misogyny because it "gives them dysphoria" like bro you experience misogyny as a result of transphobia, you cannot say that you dont experience misogyny just because you dont like it. men in general are not exempt from experiencing misogyny, this usually happens when men are put down for having traits/interests ASSOCIATED with women. obviously homophobia has its own word but homophobia is sort of rooted in misogyny in the first place

mens problems are generally all rooted in misogyny, trans or not, and trans men experience both mens problems and often regular made-for-women misogyny and especially trans men often get pushed aside and belittled when trying to talk about problems more specific to them. it sort of annoys me when trans men in particular (but it can apply to men in general) try to create a space for themselves to discuss this kind of thing and then people push back on them from doing so because they "dont experience anything worse than what (trans) women experience" and thats the main reason men (trans but and in general, in a broader topic) do feel a need to have a space for themselves because if you share a space of discussing issues with women then youre basically always talking over women and their suffering, and men NEED to care about womens issues if not more than at least as much as their own. people often compare trans men expressing a desire to have this kind of room to MRAs and thats another thing that really bothers me because MRAs were only ever a problem because they blame FEMINISM for their struggles, not the actual cause which is patriarchy (which itself is an arm of capitalism)

3. No One is Listening

the biggest mainest thing is that there are bad actors on BOTH sides of this discourse, and im not saying its trans men vs trans women theres a bit of both on each side ive been reading this shit for weeks bc its taken me this long to develop a perspective im somewhat confident in. theres transmisogynists using the topic to demonize transfems for no fucking reason, and theres people who think its immoral to "choose" to be a man, theres probably terfs fueling the infighting on both sides who fucking knows anymore

and both sides use the fact that the other has bad actors to refuse to listen to each other, like i know no one wants to hear "why cant we all just get along" but like, i keep coming back to this topic but i cant stop thinking about how this discourse BARELY exists outside of tumblr, yknow like is anyone thinking about what the actual problem is or what to do about it or that maybe they should do some self reflection and not act like this is such an us vs them thing

and generalizations, like, when will everyone figure it the fuck out that sharing a gender is not the same as sharing a brain we are not all REMOTELY the same as each other. like one issue we face a lot as trans people is being all lumped in together (not implying some trans people are bad and some are not-like-those Bad OnesTM), we are ALL hurt by being treated like a hivemind whether youre masc or fem or nb, especially because its so easy for any of us to start adopting bio/gender essentialism and separatism like i think theres a reason when we infight were constantly accusing each other of being terfs/radfems its because when we do that and we "other" each other we legitimately become vulnerable to that stuff

(side note not all terfs are a hivemind either they dont all have the same criteria or takes as each other - generally i believe being a radfem is always bad and being a radfem is defined by othering people, not just trans people, not just people that are in a different "rank" from you)

4. what do i actually think

i know im immediately biased because im a trans man and my perspective is therefore inherently limited, and the fact that im a trans man means i am also possibly thinking in my own interest

personally i just started transitioning and im an agoraphobe who only interacts with queer people irl (mostly transfems and grunglers as i have stated on another post) and i was exposed to this tag via the discourse first (the "this idea is inherently wrong" side) and i kinda got sucked into it as a topic because i was like oh thats probably something i should be familiar with and i should have a stance on it if its important

i think ultimately the discourse itself is not really important but its a fair enough topic to try to get into, the main perspective i see from most similar temperamented people is that "the idea that trans men have unique struggles and want to talk about them is fine, but the tag/term theyre using implies a concept that doesnt exist" which is basically my position

i made a post just before that i think "transandrophobia" is a stupid term, mostly because it sounds really dumb, and personally i dont think "transmisandry" is really a valid concept in real life but i think the reason it was initially used is like PURELY a tumblr categorization purpose, maybe there could be a more elegant term but from what ive seen the transandro community is pretty frustrated with the fact that theyve been made to keep switching terms in the first place.

i feel like queer communities on tumblr have ALWAYS had trouble inventing terms for categorization purposes in an annoying and cringy way. and its like maybe i am missing something im not claiming to be infallible or all knowing but i dont think its that big a deal that a term is not 100% intuitive on tumblr dot com

im fucking baffled that this has blown up as much as it has and its like, im not saying none of you people involved have nothing to be mad about i just think its become pretty well divorced from the core issue any why no ones tried to distance themselves from it or block everyone confuses me

i havent moved on or blocked everyone bc a) i got hormone brain worms man i literally cant stop digitally self harming 2nd puberty is awful and b) im not on one side or the other and most people are fairly reasonable just wasting their time or have some wonky arguments, ive been blocking some people but its mostly actual complete assholes

ive been trying my best to avoid using the word misguided bc thats just like inherently patronizing and i think ALL trans people have some very bad feelings about that word but its like... idk some of you are kinda dumb! its not bc of your gender its probably because of your age! i think a lot of people saying the well meaning dumbass shit are like 17-21

[wandersoffdoodling]

An Introduction to Alex Evergreen.

AKA, "you know what I really should put my stuff on tumblr"

This is my official introduction to my guy, my muse, my blorbo Alex Evergreen. he lives in my head rent free and has consumed my waking thoughts for the last YEAR.

long post, content under the cut.

he is:

lonely

very smart

absolutely terrible at introspection. he's an idiot.

independent. too much so for his own good, really. once flew across the Atlantic ocean when he was 12. without telling anyone. because he wanted to visit his friend who had gone home for the summer.

I love him

has a collection of highly ironic t-shirts. the t-shirts vary by au but options include "science: like magic but real" when he's a wizard.

ask me about the t-shirts.

quiet

HUGE nerd.

forgets to be quiet when he's being a nerd

he is very hard to befriend but is INTENSELY ride-or-die

appears tolerant and chill until you cross a line, and then he will end you. he once sent himself to the hospital due to blood loss as part of his plan to get back at someone.

he buried someone alive in the woods when he was 16. because he didn't want to hurt them and needed them out of the way.

Background: he is, unfortunately, rooted in HP because he's a result of me saying "what if harry was replaced with someone who behaves entirely differently, with the exact same background?". JKR sucks and is transphobic, pass it on.

among other things, he:

figured out he had powers when he was 8 or 9. however, he assumed that he was force-sensitive rather than a baby wizard.

befriended multiple garden snakes

stuck the hogwarts letter up his shirt when he got it, thus avoiding the whole letters incident

decides staying with the Dursleys for the rest of the summer would be stupid and boring and gets money for transit to London from Vernon with the promise that he'll be out of Vernon's hair until next summer.

he rents the smallest room he can find in diagon alley. not bc of price but because normal sized rooms feel too big to him.

sorts slytherin. this is not taken well by anyone. this eleven year old is met with DEAD SILENCE from the entire great hall because they either are shocked that their little baby hero got the evil house or because they've taken this as a sign that he's the next dark lord.

allows himself to be befriended by draco because he can tell that draco has a lot of social power and figures that standing behind the bully is better than getting picked on by them

fights the troll- reason varies by au. in the original/base au he does it bc he realizes that if someone gets pasted by a troll they might close the school. in the "true" version he does it to protect someone who was kind to him.

he knows far more spells than Harry and Ron did, but none of them are effective on a troll, which is resistant to magic. his strategy is to make it mad and stall for time until the teachers arrive.

is terrible at quidditch

this causes quirrel to put a snake under his bed instead of trying to make him fall off a broom

he convinces the snake not to kill him

is entirely disinterested in the philosopher's stone and the third floor corridor

"someone's trying to steal the infinite money and live forever stone? sounds like a problem for adults."

not that he thinks adults are competent enough to stop it happening. he just doesn't care.

the mirror of erised works as intended, actually, if quirrel ever gets there.

quirrel probably either takes one last stab at alex before going for the stone or is unsuccessful and returns to trying to kill alex while he works on that. alex uses the protection his mother gave him to kill quirrel.

while fighting quirrel doesn't really make sense, I wanted to keep that in so that the main events in following books would still happen.