#''well it makes me uncomfortable if people use it for me'' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cripplecharacters · 2 days

Note

Salutations! I’m in the process of creating a story wherein both characters are missing an eye. One has a prosthetic, but is presently isolating themself in the woods, and wears an eyepatch to protect the eye while alone; the other’s socket is either empty, or they have a glass eye with no actual details (iris, pupil, etc.). I’ve struggled to find references for the latter, and fear it may come off as unrealistic. I understand prosthetic eyes keep the eyelid from collapsing, but aside from that could a person just not wear one? If these options are unrealistic, please let me know. I can supply you with concept art if need be.

The story itself centers around these characters after one of them finds the other by accident. They’re painted as foils—the one hiding out in the cabin adhering to a self-made sense of logic that centers on cycles and confirmation bias, while the only who takes refuge there after running away is deeply paranoid and prone to hallucinations. The first character is missing their left eye; the other their right. I don’t want to make a symbol of their disabilities, but I feel their designs simultaneously stress their opposing perspectives, as well as the fact they paradoxically still manage to see “eye-to-eye.” Their visual impairment is just one of many ways they’re able to connect across the story, as they also bond over their obscure passions and delusions, and respect each other’s warped worldview to such an extent said worldviews start to blur together. In addition to this, the story places an emphasis upon an entity known as the “ocellus,” which is basically the “false eye” you see on moth wings. In my outline so far, it’s the name of a mysterious band which the pair discover in a record collection, and resolve to solve the mystery of (regarding the members, music, etc.) One of the characters also sleeps with an eye mask with the pattern of moth wings and their respective ocelli overlaying their own eyes; their paranoid counterpart also sees eyes in the trees and wood of the cabin.

Absolutely none of this is set in stone; before it is, I just want to know how much of it is fine, which parts “moralize” or make a symbol of a disability, and what is straight-up ableist. Please let me know if you need more details.

Hi!

The prosthetic eye has two main functions: 1) to keep the eye area stay in shape, 2) to protect the socket. Both of these can be achieved by conformers (it's like a big contact, except it goes into the socket and not on the eye) which I talked about here!

A blank prosthetic eye would probably be fine. The process of getting it custom painted is expensive from what I know, and IRL a lot of people will decide on the generic kind rather than a custom. If in your world the generic happens to be a blank, there's no problems I can think of? Potentially, you could explicitly say that it's not how most prosthetic eyes look like (maybe someone else knows a person with an eye prosthetic and they comment that it's unusual?). You mentioned that the character doesn't have it in all the time, so I don't think the trope of "blind character has blank/white/milky eyes" applies here because it's clear that it's a prosthetic.

A person could decide to go bare, but the sensation of blinking could be uncomfortable, and they would need to clean their socket more to get rid of anything that could get inside. Normal saline could be used for that.

I don't think there's an issue in them missing different eyes at all. If you want to make sure it's not giving "Just Magic Symbolism" energy then you could incorporate some boring everyday things that would make sense. If they go somewhere together, they could decide to walk missing eye-to-missing eye, so that they see what's going on the sides rather than in the middle, things like that. It could make it feel more grounded, so to speak.

I don't see any issues with the moth fake-eyes symbolism either, I think it makes sense for the story you're trying to tell.

If you want to be very safe, I would have a character (can be minor, or background) that's also missing eye(s) that's not connected to any of the potential symbolism and is more of an average Joe of Not Having an Eye.

In case you decide to get into that, it would be nice for them to have different causes of why they don't have eyes. It feels like in fiction it's always physical trauma, but there's a whole more that could cause someone to not have an eye;

anophthalmia,

retinoblastoma,

severe eye infection,

elective enucleation (removal) of an already blind/painful eye,

just to give you a few ideas! Giving them "boring" everyday reasons of eye loss will also make it feel less symbolic and more like a regular disability. Think "dramatic swordfight with Huge Meaning" vs "yeah I had cancer in my eye when I was 2".

I hope that this helps; if you have any further details you'd like to ask about feel free to send another ask!

mod Sasza

#mod sasza #anonymous #face difference #eye prosthetics

60 notes · View notes

penelopepine · 3 days

Text

Don't be a stranger! Pt. 2

Part 1 Part 2

Simon "Ghost" Riley x FemReader

Content: Neighbors AU, fluff, developing relationship

"If you're going to insist on making dinner for the both of us I might as well pay for the groceries." Simon was standing next to your door waiting for you to finish getting ready. You had asked him this morning what he wanted for dinner as you were going to the store after work and could get anything he wanted.

"Me making dinner for you is supposed to be a thank you for helping me Simon. I love that you're joining me, but I'm not going to let you pay."

"We'll see."

You finally walk out of your bedroom towards Simon, "Your job on this trip is going to be pushing the cart and looking pretty. I'm going to be grabbing everything and paying." Giving Simon a playful glare as the two of you makes your way out the door.

Pretty?

Do you really think he looks pretty?

Simon hated grocery shopping; he has always felt that it was a waste of time, far too many people walking around, and the lights in here were almost blinding. He’s not happy to be here, but he also wasn’t going to let you continue to let you do all this work and not help in some way.

At the very least shopping with you did make the experience more enjoyable. All he had to do was follow you. Letting you take control of where they went and did was strangely freeing from his usual day to day. Plus getting to just watch and listen to you ramble about your day was not something he was going to give up now that he’s here.

"You know you still haven't told me what you wanted. I've been making my favorites every time you come over; it's your turn now to decide the menu."

"I've been living off military mess hall food for most of my life. Anything you make is going to be a favorite of mine, love."

"How about you tell me at least one thing you want?"

"Anything I want?"

"Anything!"

You.

That is the answer Simon wants to say, but he knows he can't, "I like shepherd’s pie.”

“Shepherd’s pie it is!” You say, giving him a wide grin.

The rest of the shopping is mostly uneventful. It isn't until the two of you were at the end of your grocery list did you seem to realize something was missing.

“Oh, meet me at the front! I forgot to add apples to the list; I’ll go grab it real quick.”

Before Simon could even disagree and say he’d just go with you; your figure was already speeding away from him. Slowly he made his way to the front of the store out of the way of others to wait. It wasn’t until eight minutes later when he saw no sign of you that he started to worry.

It took all but a moment to find you, and he was not pleased with what he saw when he did. A man was standing far too close to you. The uncomfortable look on your face only served in sealing the man’s fate.

Neither of you seemed to notice as he walked closer, but he was able to finally hear your conversation now.

“-on, just one date. I promise I’ll make it worth it.”

"My boyfriend is waiting for me; you need to leave me alone." You try to step around him, but the man is quick to side step in front of you and makes a move to grab you. Simon would happily beat the man into the ground, but he doesn’t want to frighten you. So he does the next best thing which is to rail the man with the cart.

With a loud grunt the man falls onto the ground holding his side in pain.

“She said to leave her alone. So why don’t you crawl away now like the worm you are.” Simon snarls down at him. Moving the cart and himself to stand between you and the man.

"What the fuck man!"

"I'll give you five seconds to get out of here." Simon wasn't about to have a pointless back and forth with this guy. The only thing he cared about right now was getting him away from you.

He stands slowly and glares in your direction before practically running away from Simon and you.

As soon as his figure disappears from sight Simon turns to you and gently grips your shoulder; tucking you into his side as he guides you back to the front of the store.

"Thank you for doing that; you didn't have to but I really appreciate it."

"It's no problem," Simon continued his hold on your shoulder; not wanting to yet let go of you, "If anyone messes with you send them my way. I'll deal with them."

You give him a smile in return. "That was honestly really funny by the way; hitting him with the cart."

"I would have ran him over with it, but I didn’t want you having to find a new grocery store because I got the two of us banned."

You laugh at his words and it makes his chest feel tight. He almost wants to record it just so that he could take it with him anywhere he goes.

"C'mon, let's get out of here before they change their minds then!"

Simon had of course won in the end when it came to who was going to be paying. He knew he would, but you still put in a good fight to beat him to it. He’d let you win in a lot of things, but this wasn’t one of them.

It wasn’t until the two of you were sitting in your flat after eating did you seem to notice that he had been acting more reserved than he normally would be. Of course you weren’t about to just let him stew in thoughts for long once you caught on to it.

“What’s wrong Simon? You’re acting a lot broodier tonight.”

“I’m leaving soon; next week.” There was no point in lying to you; Simon had gotten the call from Price just a couple of days ago. He had been wondering how he was going to break the news to you.

“Leaving? So soon; do you know when you’ll be back?”

No he doesn’t know when he’ll get to see you again. For all he knows the day he leaves could be the last day the two of you ever see each other again. “No, but I’ll see what I can do to come back soon.”

“You better,” You give him a soft elbow jab to the side, “I’m gonna miss you y'know. I’ve gotten so used to having you around these past few weeks.”

He had as well, almost regrettably so. Your presence in his life had done something to him that he’d never be able to undo. Simon wasn’t sure how he was going to feel not being able to see you. The daily morning walks, evening dinners, and weekend hangouts had quickly become a staple in his life.

For now though the only thing he wanted to do was live in the moment. He didn’t have to say goodbye right now and he wasn’t going to act like he did while he was with you. That time would come later.

Taglist:

@nexthyperfix @spicyspicyliving

#simon riley x reader #fem reader #x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #task force 141 #tf 141 #call of duty #female reader

106 notes · View notes

drdemonprince · 22 hours

Note

Any chance you'd expand on the hank hill trans guy post? (Sorry, best indicator I could come up with.) The concept interests me as I decidedly know my maleness, yet don't feel impeded by for the most part, any male gendered norms/boxes. I am fairly masculine, though I rarely use those kinds terms to describe myself. I have found I often do stray outside of what society pushed for me when I transitioned, yet I again do not feel it has taken from my right to maleness whatsoever. I am just me, who happens to be male. I have had friends try and suggest I am NB adjacent but I do not feel this way whatsoever. I feel more people are outliers to gender expectation than we care to admit and it's disappointing the way cis-people deny that. Hope this wasn't too long winded, I value your writing and perspective, and wanted to hear more of your thoughts on this.

Yeah, well so many things all get conflated by gender labels, and it's all so personal, you know? Masculinity does not have to mean maleness, and a person's gender identity might be a reflection of some innate quality they experience themselves as having, or a general summary of their tendencies, or their desired presentation, or their sense of affinity with other people, or an interpersonal tool, or something they just go along with because it was given to them by society, or any other number of things.

I think my recent substack piece on detransition goes into this pretty well, and I have an upcoming piece of what @pastimperfection calls "bilateral dysphoria" that comes out next week that delves into it too.

I think I mostly saw taking on a male identity as a means to an end more than any kind of innate reflection of who I was, though I did feel an affinity with effeminate men for a lot of reasons. I think I also discounted how much I have in common with my fellow nonbinary people of all stripes, because that identity became so strongly associated with being an annoying type of queer person that everybody else just wrote off as ultimately being their assigned gender at birth anyway no matter how much they protested. it doesn't help that 'nonbinary' is a catchall term for literally thousands if not millions of very distinct experiences and desires.

transitioning gave me control over how i was perceived, finally, but hormones are a throttle that only go in one very specific direction, and you don't really have all that much control over which changes kick in at which times and what people will make of you once you do start registering to them as some identity other than what you were first saddled with. it's an incredible gift to be able to toggle that throttle. but it's limited, not because medical transition isn't incredible and needed for so many, but because there is no escaping the goddamned binary cissexist logic that influences everything about how people treat you, how you navigate institutions, who finds you desirable and what they want out of you, and so much else.

if you're able to cast a lot of the external societal bullshit aside and feel strong in your maleness, maybe you're stronger than me or maybe our orientation to these things is just different, i don't know. i was never all that sensitive to feedback that i was doing the whole being-a-woman-thing all that wrong. i reveled in violating those rules to an extent. succeeding at being a woman despite my best attempts was what felt super dysphoric. and now i guess im succeeding at being a man, insofar as im always read as one, and it feels just as uncomfortable and objectifying and false. i thought that with manhood i could probably just grit my teeth and deal with it, but i'm finding that i can't.

ive always been very open that for me, gender is a thing I Do, and i guess to those who know me well it wouldnt be surprising to hear that i have gotten tired of Doing Being a Man and dont feel like playing that particular gendered game anymore. I tend to get bored of things! and find the flaws in things. and find my comfort in being fault-finding and contrarian and not being a joiner. and thats okay. i learned a lot along the way. not having to try any more is a huge relief. i can just do whatever. and know actively that people will more often than not be wrong in what they make of me.

maybe it was natural feeling for you to decidely 'know' your maleness without a care for masculine standards because that is the right identity for you! and maybe i only feel secure in the "not knowing" realm and in letting go of what people think of me or finding any kind of tidy categorization for it because that's the right spot for me. for now. until i find a new interesting way to be unhappy and striving for more and different again. :) that's just part of being alive, for me.

50 notes · View notes

raaorqtpbpdy · 3 days

Text

In Memory of Mom

Danny meets a strange, Spanish-speaking ghost wandering around Casper High. His Spanish isn't great, but he's pretty sure she's looking for her daughter.

For the Prompt: Danny encounters a strange spanish-only speaking ghost looking for Paulina Sanchez. Being a first year Spanish student, he only recognizes the words "mi hija" and hesitantly leads her to Paulina. It's Día de los Muertos, but because Paulina has been trying to fit in at school, and her papa remarried and doesn't want to make his new wife uncomfortable, they've fallen out of the habit of setting up the ofrenda and marigolds, leaving their mom/wife unable to find her way home. Paulina can't see or hear her, but Phantom can [From @dreamwraith]

Disclaimer: I am white, and I do not speak Spanish. It is with deepest regret that I must admit to using Google translate for the Spanish dialogue in this fic. If you notice any errors in the Spanish, or regarding Día de Muertos (which there might very well be, though I did do my research), please feel free to correct me. I can only do my best, and always appreciate the opportunity to do better.

Read also on AO3

[Warnings for past character death, and mentions of culture death]

Danny typically liked to have more than one day to recover after fighting Fright Knight every Halloween. Not to mention the numerous other ghosts who always had to come out on that stupid holiday to cause as much trouble as possible during the period of time when the barrier between the human world and the Ghost Zone was at it's thinnest.

Of course, Danny never got more than one day, but he would have liked to.

Luckily the ghost that showed during lunch period on November second didn't seem to be causing any trouble. In fact, it didn't seem like she was powerful enough to cause trouble, even if she wanted to. No one besides Danny even seemed to notice her, which at least meant she wouldn't be able to cause any serious damage, even if she tried.

She was speaking Spanish as she walked through the halls of Casper High, and turning her head this way and that as if she was looking for something, or someone.

"¿La has visto? ¿Mi hija? ¿Dónde está mi hija? ¿La has visto?" she called out.

Now, Danny was only a first year Spanish student, and furthermore... he missed a lot of classes, so he wasn't sure exactly what she was saying, but he did recognize the words 'mi hija', 'my daughter'. The last time he'd been to Spanish class, Señora Gutierrez had been teaching family terms. Madre, padre, hermana, hermano, hija, hijo, tío, abuela, that kind of thing.

Subtly, he followed her until she walked into a hallway where there weren't any people, and then, with no one to look at him like he was crazy for talking to the air, he spoke to her.

"Excuse me, are you looking for your daughter?" Danny asked.

"¡sí mi hija!" the woman replied excitedly. "¿La conoces? ¿La has visto?"

Danny knew 'sí', that was 'yes', the most basic of basic Spanish. 'sí' and... and... okay, so Danny couldn't remember what 'no' was in Spanish, but he remembered 'sí'. Ancients, he was really gonna have to start showing up to that class more if he wanted to get the foreign language credits he needed to graduate.

"Uh... tu hija," Danny said, completely confident that he was already screwing up the grammar, "¿que es la nombre?"

"No es muy fluido en español, ¿verdad?" The ghost laughed. "Su nombre es Paulina."

"Paulina?" Danny didn't understand any of the rest of what she said, so he focused on the last bit. "Paulina Sanchez?"

"¡Sí!" she confirmed, enthusiastically. "Mi hija. Paulina Sánchez. ¿Tu la conoce?"

Danny nodded, although he'd kinda fallen off the sentence after 'sí'. "Why are you looking for her?"

"Es el Dia de Muertos," she said. "Quiero verla, pero no encuentro la ofrenda."

Danny had no idea to respond to that. The only word he recognized from all of that was 'la', but he couldn't glean a whole sentence from a single 'the', so he just looked at her with an expression that was half a forced, awkward smile and half a grimace.

"Ummmm..."

Was it safe to lead an unknown ghost to an unsuspecting human? Objectively no. Most especially not when the unsuspecting human was the girl Danny had a massive crush on. But... on the other hand, this particular ghost seemed pretty harmless, and she said she was Paulina's mother. So... maybe it was okay?

"How about I'll take you to her," Danny suggested.

The ghost that claimed to be Paulina's mother nodded excitedly and said something else in Spanish that Danny had no hope of translating.

Danny led her to the outdoor table where the A-listers always sat, but Paulina wasn't there. After a little bit of prowling the quad, he found her, at an out of the way table no one ever sat at because the the school custodian always ignored it and it was disgusting.

Paulina had laid her jacket over the bench to sit on, and unfolded a few paper napkins over the surface of the table. She had a handful of sugar cubes, and was poking one with a toothpick for some reason. She hadn't noticed him yet.

As much as he would have liked to go over to her as Danny Fenton and be the hero who let her talk to her mom again, he figured it would probably be suspicious if people knew he could see ghosts others couldn't. A but reluctantly, he looked around to make sure no one could see and transformed into Danny Phantom. The ghost, Paulina's mom, applauded him, like he'd just done a magic trick. To her, it might have seemed that way.

"Thanks," he said, a little sarcastically, and floated over to talk to Paulina.

"Excuse me, Paulina Sanchez?" Danny asked, as if he wasn't sure whether he knew her name or not. "There's a ghost here who wants to speak to you."

Paulina looked up and looked around, then turned back to Danny and raised a perfect eyebrow. She put down the sugar cube she was poking at, and Danny noticed that on her other side, there were two other sugar cubes sculpted into the shape of a skull.

"You mean you?" she asked. "Look, normally, I'd be thrilled, but today isn't really—"

"Oh, no, not me," Danny said. "She has long hair, wearing a nice knee-length dress.... It's kinda hard to describe ghosts in a way that makes them recognizable to people who knew them in life, 'cause colors tend to be different between life-and-death but uh... you and her have the same nose, actually. She says your her daughter? I don't speak Spanish, but I managed to figure out that much."

When he stopped talking, Pauling gave him a flat look.

"Are you messing with me?"

"No," Danny insisted. "She's not a very powerful ghost, so she can't stay in the visible range, but she's here. She wants to talk to you."

"Mamá?" Paulina asked hesitantly. "¿Estás aquí?"

"Sí, hija mía, estoy aquí," Mrs. Sanchez replied. "Estoy muy feliz de verte de nuevo."

Paulina didn't respond for a long moment, apparently waiting. Then, finally, she said, "I don't hear anything."

"I was worried you might say that," Danny said. "I'm gonna have to speak Spanish if you guys want to talk to each other, aren't I?" he sighed deeply. "Alright fine. Apologies in advance because I am gonna absolutely butcher the pronunciations."

"Hija," Mrs. Sanchez said, "volví a verte, pero no había camino para mí. ¿Por qué?"

Danny repeated the words to the best of his ability.

Paulina took a moment to parse them out, with a puzzled expression before finally saying, "Papá se volvió a casar. Su nueva esposa es gringa, así que no le hicimos un ofrenda en casa para que no se sintiera incómoda."

Danny didn't know what any of that meant, obviously, and was grateful he only had to repeat after Paulina's mom, because Paulina herself spoke Spanish very quickly and there was absolutely no way he wouldn't trip over his tongue mimicking her.

"Pero estoy aquí, debe haber una ofrenda."

Danny mimicked her again.

Paulina looked a little embarrassed. "Sí... yo... hice uno en mi casillero para ti. No quería que no pudieras cruzar."

Her mother gasped. Danny really wished he knew what was going on.

"¿Me mostrarás?"

Paulina's expression lit up when Danny repeated that, and she stood, gathering up her jacket and her sugar cubes.

"Vamos," she said. "I mean, follow me."

She led the way through the empty halls and Danny and her mom followed.

"What were you guys talking about?" Danny asked, then immediately realized what he was asking and quickly backtracked. "I mean, never mind, it's probably personal. I was just curious. You don't have to answer that."

"No, it's okay," Paulina said. "See, my mom passed when I was seven, and every year, me and my dad set up an ofrenda for Day of the Dead with her picture so she could visit us. We moved here from Mexico when I was ten, but we kept up the tradition.

"Last winter, though, Dad married my step-mom, and she's white, and doesn't know anything about Mexican traditions or holidays. Dad doesn't want to make her uncomfortable, so ever since they got married, we stopped celebrating most of what we used to back in Mexico, so we didn't put up an ofrenda this year, and Mom was asking why she couldn't find it, so I explained."

"Oh... that's... kinda sad," Danny said. "You just had to give up all your culture because your dad remarried?"

Paulina shrugged. "We had to give up a lot of it already, when we moved to America anyway," she said, as if that made it less sad and not more. "At least Sandra's nice, she's just... a little out of her depth sometimes."

"So... where are you taking us?"

Finally, she stopped in front of her locker and turned the dial with her combination.

"I didn't want mom to not be able to visit me, so... I sort of made my own ofrenda in my locker," Paulina explained sheepishly.

The door swung open to reveal the inside. There was a small magnetic shelf stuck on the back of the locker. On it, there was a small electric candle, some kind of orange flower, a pair of black lace gloves, and a heart-shaped locket. The locket was open and propped up so the picture inside was visible. It was the ghost Danny was trying to help.

Paulina reached in an put a few of the sculpted sugar cubes on the shelf next to the locket. The tiny sugar skulls were perfectly to scale with the tiny picture, but absolutely dwarfed by the flower.

The ghost put her hands to her heart and looked absolutely touched by the tiny display.

"Those were her favorite gloves," Paulina explained. "She always wore them when Dad took her dancing."

"What's the flower?" Danny asked.

"It's a marigold," she replied. "Cempasúchil, in Spanish. They're a traditional decoration for the ofrenda. You're also supposed to leave a trail of their petals from the grave to the ofrenda, but... Mom's grave is in Mexico, and the ofrenda is in my locker so...."

"Ay, esto es hermoso," the ghost said. "Gracias. Amo mucho esto. Te quiero mi hija."

Danny had been to distracted to properly listen, so he wasn't sure how to repeat her words.

"Uh... she says she likes it."

The ghost gave him a look and a light slap that passed right through him.

"A lot, she likes it a lot."

"¡Y te amo!" she added insistently.

"Y te amo, she says," Danny repeated.

"Thank you, Phantom," Paulina said. She leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "This means a lot to me."

Danny knew his cheeks were turning bright green, and he cleared his throat awkwardly to make sure his voice wouldn't crack.

"Uh, yeah, no problem," he said. "Don't mention it."

It was then that the bell rang signalling the end of lunch, and Paulina grabbed a couple of books from her locker and headed to class. Her mom followed, even though Paulina couldn't see her.

Danny had to get to class, too. He had Spanish class after lunch, and Ancients knew he didn't need to be missing any more of those.

In class, Señora Gutierrez talked about Dia de los Muertos, and for once, Danny actually sort of knew what she was talking about, thanks to Paulina. Maybe he should ask her to tutor him.

#dp #danny phantom #danny fenton #paulina sanchez #paulina sanchez's mom #dia de los muertos #fic #things i wrote #phic phight #phic phight 24 #spanish

35 notes · View notes

taylorswiftstylequestions · 17 hours

Note

Sorry this ask turned into an essay — as I explain I have a personal connection to this topic and a lot of thoughts on it, ha

On the topic of Taylor’s discussion of Joe’s depression — I have never seen anyone claim that she has made fun of it, but I have seen some discussions from people who feel that she’s been unfair or insensitive with how she’s spoken about it, or that she broke up with him because he was “too depressed” and that she was blaming him for things he can’t control. Renegade has been used as an example of this, and more recently So Long London (specifically “you sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days).

I don’t want to speak for anyone but myself here or invalidate anyone’s feelings of hurt with how Taylor addresses these topics (because that is entirely fair to be hurt by if you interpret it in that way), but I will say this: as someone who has been on both sides of this equation (I have clinical depression that I’m in the process of getting medication for, and I’ve also had multiple relationships with people who were going through severe mental health struggles that I was trying to support them through), I don’t think that the way Taylor has referenced Joe’s depression affecting her in her music seems cruel to him. I’ve never gotten the impression that she is blaming him for struggling or that she expected him to just stop struggling and get better, or even that that’s the reason their relationship ended. I think there’s a lot of frustration in those songs, and while I understand why some may balk at that, it can be really frustrating at times to love someone who doesn’t love themselves, or who is pushing you away at every turn. It’s not their fault, and I don’t think Taylor is framing it as such, but that can make it even more frustrating when it feels like things are breaking down and there is nothing you can do to fix it.

And I feel like it’s kind of taboo to talk about those feelings because (in my experience at least) they’re wrapped up in so much guilt? I was in a relationship very similar to the one described in Renegade once, and I would get into this cycle where my partner would be struggling, I would try to help them, they would push me away and/or say things that would really hurt me, I would feel upset and hurt, but then feel so guilty for being upset and hurt because I knew they didn’t mean it the way it felt and that this wasn’t about me, so I would just keep those feelings to myself and say nothing, and it would start all over again. These aren’t pretty emotions at all, and I fully understand why some people are hurt by the way Taylor talks about them, but I think there’s a big difference between “I’m frustrated because my partner is struggling and I feel like I’m giving them everything I have but nothing ever changes and it’s hurting me” and “my partner is too depressed to deal with, why won’t they just get over it?”

I’ve had loved ones tell me tell me to just stop being depressed before — I know that hurt very well, and at least to me, this feels different. Honestly I really appreciate songs like Renegade and So Long London because hearing someone else talk about that experience has made me feel less like I was some uniquely horrible person incapable of being the perfect supporting partner that I should have been. I think it’s just a shitty, frustrating situation where no one is solely to blame, and I think that’s how Taylor presents it.

But again, this is just my opinion — I can totally see how and why people might interpret them differently and feel hurt by them, and I don’t want to speak over those feelings at all

Hi friend! First of all tysm for being so open and honest about your personal struggles with both yourself and past relationships - I'm grateful you feel you can be safe here talking about that. And secondly in your grace and empathy in understanding the many potential sticky layers of feeling here and how this might be ruffly and uncomfortable for people. I love that so much.

My interpretation has always very much been in alignment with yours. And I think if this album was seeking to do any one thing it was to wield honesty like a blunt force instrument - even and especially when the truth is uncomfortable and can be alienating. I've never once interpreted her documentation of a partner's mental health struggles as "get over it" (is there anyone who better understands how fucking hard it is to get over literally anything than Taylor?). But I feel the line that haunts me most is, "I gave you all my best me's / My endless empathy / And all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier". And the uncomfortable truth is that it is so incredibly painful to be in love with someone who doesn't love themselves and who has proven (despite years of begging and pleading and patience and kindness) that they are not interested in becoming someone who can love you better. And it's unfair and shitty and horrible to have your "spine split from carrying [both of you] up the hill" for years. You feel sad for them. You feel sad for you. You feel sad that you feel sad. And then you feel mad that they are making you sad. And and and.

#tss ttpd party #opinion

43 notes · View notes

teewritessmth · 1 day

Text

Arranged Marriage

(Part 01 / ?)

(Niko Omilana x f! reader)

Warnings : None

Summary : In order to be the grateful daughter, you have to comply with your father's request. But what is it?

"WHAT!?!!?", you stand up abruptly, question whether you had misheard the sentence.

"Y/n, you're gonna listen to your father, we're not going to argue over something as trivial as this". Your stepmum, Ryona, interjects rudely as she pulls a chair and sits down.

"TRIVIAL?", you exclaim.

Why did she care, you ask? Nope, I don't know either.

"Dad, why are you doing this? I mean give me a proper reason at least. You can't spring up a topic this serious and tell me to go with it." You try pleading with your dad, but he remains unfazed at your outburst.

"We've always wanted the best for you y/n. I've given you everything you wanted, done everything you asked me to. And when I tell you to say yes... You question me as your father?"

Your eyes drop to the floor. It was true. Your father was an amazing man and an even better parent. A sense of shame crawls through your spine as you realise just how much you owe him. He had done so much for you, yet you couldn't agree to one thing he had asked?

"Dad please, this is so stupid. I don't want to be married right now. I just started my career-", you reason.

"Making little videos isn't a fucking career, Y/n. Maybe you're pulling a few hundred dollars here and there, but that doesn't mean that this is a stable job. Do you even know how embarrassing it is to tell people that our daughter makes 'videos' on the internet. I mean even the phrasing of it is absolutely hysterical and shameful!" Ryona finishes her comment with a quick glance at her husband, motioning for him to speak.

"Y/n, please... ", Your dad looks at you with hopeful eyes. What you failed to notice was how that man's eyes filled up with tears as you sighed and started walking towards your room.

The following week was uncomfortable. Whenever you came down for breakfast, they'd stop talking. They'd drop whatever the hell the were doing and wander off somewhere else. I mean, you were used to Ryona pulling shit like this all the damn time, but not your dad.

He avoided you like the plague. This had gone to such an extent that the old man couldn't bear to be in the same room with you, avoiding your eyes everytime you tried to speak.

Perhaps it was how they treated you, or perhaps how that bizarre idea had implanted itself into your head. You weren't interested in anyone, and god forbid to say that you didn't have any personal goals to hit. You'd love to have a family, you'd love to have someone at home, just for the sake of it. You'd build the family you could never get as a child.

But how?

The were talking about marrying you off.

Or that's how you heard it.

Yeah, Definitely marrying you off.

But how does an option like that sound so much better than living in this hell hole.

Fucking hell.

It's been one month, that your dad and your stepmum have completely iced you out.

"I'll do it". You state, matter of factly, raising an eyebrow as your 'parents' turn towards you. They weren't gullible, they knew what you wanted to say.

"Y-you'll marry him? You'll marry Nikolas!", Your dad pulls you into a bone-crushing hug which you don't return. How could he be so happy at the thought of his wife sending their child away to a man they don't even know.

Well, they know him. You don't.

He's the son of your dad's bestfriend. Of course the know each other to an extent.

Whatever.

You had dug your own grave, might as well get it over with.

"But, I can't just say that I'll get married to him? He has to agree in order-".

"The boy has agreed a month ago. It was YOU who kept stalling the wedding. How long were you planning on doing this? Don't you see that we have an image to maintain? Now stop your wailing and mentally prepare yourself. You'll both get married in a week's time. I'm calling the Omilanas and confirming". Ryona makes herself very clear, making it painfully obvious that they were going to get you married forcefully if you didn't agree otherwise. Or else how could they manage a whole venue within such an acute time frame?

You nod weakly and head back upstairs, feeling defeated. Your future was written already, your yes meant NOTHING.

You've heard of him. He's big on YouTube, people in his comments often ask him to collab with you. You'd be lying if you said your comments said otherwise.

Oh how'd the internet would have an absolute field trip if they found out that their two favorite creators were about to me married.

Well....married for the sake of marrying.

Married for the sake of a title.

Married for the sake of your father.

You look at the dress and accessories you had picked out and sigh into your hands. It was happening.

Your wedding........... was tomorrow.

28 notes · View notes

smilingbuckley · 1 day

Text

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @diazsdimples

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

302 because I removed some earlier works (2018) from anonymous. I've been writing since like 2016 in general and moved some fics from wattpad to ao3 in 2018/2019

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

1,369,693

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly 9-1-1. Though I also want to write a few more for Roswell New Mexico and The Rookie. I used to write Teen Wolf, Legenfs of Tomorrow and Glee fics. Dipped my toes into a few other fandoms as well.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

The Human of the Pack (Teen Wolf, 3,149 kudos)

Firefighter Diaz (9-1-1, 3,096 kudos)

5 Times Bobby and Athena Acter Like Buck's Parents + 1 Time They Actually Are (9-1-1, 2,366 kudos)

driving me wild (9-1-1, 2,295 kudos)

this is a place where I feel at home (9-1-1, 2,204)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! Sometimes it takes me a few days because it can be overwhelming, but I try to respond to everything. Except ones that complain about something, I tend to ignore them

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I tend to prefer happy endings, but I have I think 3 with sad endings. While unrequited Buddie is very sad, I think the angstiest one is where Bobby is dying and Buck cries in Eddie’s arms. (That ending is sadder than the sequel where Bobby actually dies because in that ending, Buck dies of old age and gets reunited with Bobby again)

If you want to read them, you can find the series here.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmm. I don't know. I try to always write a happy ending. So almost all of them?? I really don't know which one to choose.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Occasionally. I usually delete them. I think only 2 fics got a lot - one where Tarlos was tagged as a background ship but the Tarlos fans got angry that they weren't the main ship, so an entire army of Tarlos fans flooded my comments with anonymous hate comments. And one where Chris is being a teenager and in an argument says that Buck isn't his father or something like that, I think that he wished Buck and Eddie weren't dating? It's been a while since I wrote it. Anyway, I wrote Buck getting insecure and sad and breaking up with Eddie without telling him why and people got mad at me that Buck didn't tell Eddie - though I did that on purpose because Buck was very insecure and didn't want to hurt Eddie with that knowledge. Ended up turning off comments in general for a while.

9. Do you write smut?

Yep. For a long time smut made me uncomfortable and now here I am...

10. Craziest crossover?

Oohh haven't written one in years. I once wrote a Christmas fic back in 2018 where every fandom I was in got connected, but I ended up deleting that one because it was a mess. I think I wrote one or two Glee/The Flash crossovers where Barry and Sebastian were related? Oh, and one with Teen Wolf where Barry and Stiles were related.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I did once get a message that someone copied my fic to wattpad but it was deleted by the time I checked it out. Otherwise, I'm not aware of an entire fic, word for word, being stolen

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Two actually. And people have reached out recently offering new translations as well.

Right now one of my Teen Wolf fics was translated into Spanish and a 9-1-1 fic to Ukrainian.

13. Have you co-written a fic before?

Not since my Wattpad days

14. All time favorite ship?

Romantically: Buddie.

A relationship (not romantic) in general: Buck & Bobby. They are my favorite relationship of all time. I just love their father-son bond.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will

Oohhhh uhm.... my farm fic. I love the idea of it but it has been more than a year since I touched it and realistically... I probably won't ever touch it.

(My farm fic is an AU where Buck was forced to take the lawsuit money and left to start a farm with rescue animals. He makes up with everyone but Eddie and keeps in contact with Christopher with letters and postcards. One day, Christopher runs away after an argument with Eddie, and he goes to visit Buck. Buck calls Eddie because he has to, so Eddie comes pick him up. But then there's a storm and they're stuck staying with Buck)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I am allergic to saying anything positive about my writing so I couldn't tell you 😂

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Pff. Uhm. Descriptions maybe? I tend to mostly write dialogue. I try to add some more actions while editing but don't always manage to.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language

I'm learning Spanish on duolingo just so I can include more Spanish in my fics, but I don't often do it. I do really like it though. I love it when bilingual characters speak the other language.

Back in my Seblaine days, I loved writing Sebastian speaking French. And I don't think I wrote it, but I also used to love Teen Wolf fics where Stiles spoke Polish.

19. First fandom you wrote for

Every Witch Way. I was 11 or 12 years old and new to Wattpad. There were no Dutch fanfics so I wrote my own. I learned English by reading fanfics. (Very important: I was team Jemma.)

The first one I wrote in English was Teen Wolf, also on Wattpad... it wasn't great.

20. Favorite fic you've written

I love writing long fics the most. My all time favorite is probably worth staying for, my nurse Buck fic.

Though a more recent one that I loved writing soooo much is since I met you, I just can't forget you which is my veterinarian Buck x cat dad Eddie fic. I loved it so much.

Tagging: @buddieswhvre @tizniz @steadfastsaturnsrings @watchyourbuck @theotherbuckley @jesuiscenseedormir @loveyouanyway @bidisasterevankinard @chaosandwolves @mattsire @mel-vaz @inkmortal-trash389 @princess-of-the-snake-pit @nilletellsstories @laundryandtaxesworld @specialbrownieeater @m1kayu

#911 #evan buckley #buddie #eddie diaz #911 fanfic #buddie fanfiction #fanfiction #tag games #911 abc #911 on abc

21 notes · View notes

darehearts · 2 days

Text

being mains & exclusives with darehearts : a guide.

hello beloved crew ! i wanted to make a little psa on how these two concepts work on my blog and to inform you all that i am always open to discussing either option. i intend to have lower activity for the rest of the year, so my mains & exclusives will receive more emphasis as if they weren’t already.

being exclusives : this means we’re the only versions of our respective characters that we interact with. of course this doesn’t exactly work for ocs as they’re unique, but it could still be practiced from my partner’s end ( and my end by me pampering you 24/7 ). i bump up my exclusives’ replies on a daily basis monday through friday. every, single, day. if i have a reply completed for you and it’s in the queue, i check and bump up my exclusives for the following day ( or days if there are multiple replies present ). you’re guaranteed to get multiple replies a week as long as i have something completed in the queue for you. bear in mind that i don’t write romantic ships with anyone besides my gf, and i had bad experiences in the past when people wanted to be exclusives with me but then ditched me immediately when another version of my muse joined the rpc that they could ship with. for me to consider exclusives, we need to have interacted ooc and be friends, and have a certain amount of trust and writing done already. i’m open to consider exclusivity after being mains for a few months.

being mains : you are my go to version of your muse if there is any plot i want to explore or i want to interact with them, but of course it doesn’t limit me from interacting with other versions of your character. again, this works for ocs only in the sense you get priority when it comes to interactions and i’ll be going to you if i want to explore a plot. i do bump up my mains in my queue monday through friday as well, but after my exclusives. my replies typically won’t be almost daily, but i make sure that my mains get bumped up a few days a week even if not every single day. if i owe you something, you’re likely to get it back in a few days or week(s) depending on the traffic with my exclusives.

i reserve weekends for new interactions only. i no longer post mains or exclusive calls so if you have interest in either, you’ll need to directly reach out to me. to put it bluntly, if the idea of reaching out to me is uncomfortable, then that means we shouldn’t be mains or exclusives anyway. i’m hoping to reach out to a few people myself in the following days and see if they’re interested. if we become mains or exclusives, i will expect you to prioritize my replies for you in a similar way although if it doesn't have to be the same way. i’d like to add 4-5 more beloveds on there ! people sometimes have different interpretations of what it means to be mains or exclusives and that’s fine too ! it doesn’t mean i’ll hate you if we’re not compatible or that i won’t write with you ! i practice mains and exclusives because i’m a full time working adult with a lot going on and i can only spare limited time and energy. i want to make sure i use that for people who are equally interested in interactions.

#| ★ PSA #this is my good morning post apparently!#is this me getting my blog ready for rl changes in the horizon #yes. yes it is. love you all~

20 notes · View notes

inkskinned · 2 years

Text

it is hard to explain without sounding vain or stupid - but the more attractive others find you, the more you're allowed to do. the easier your life is.

i have been on both sides of this. i am queer and cuban. i grew up poor. for a long time i didn't know "how" to dress - and i still don't. i make my sister pick out any important outfits. i have adhd in spades: i was never "cool and quiet", i was the weird kid who didn't understand how "normal" people behave. i was bullied so hard that the "social outcasts" wouldn't even talk to me.

i got my teeth straightened. i cut my hair and learned how to style it. i got into makeup. it didn't matter, at first, if i actually liked what i was doing - it mattered how people responded to it. like a magic trick; the right dress and winged eyeliner and suddenly i was no longer too weird for all of it. i could wear the ugly pokemon shirt and it was just "ironic" or a "cute interest."

when i am seen as pretty, people listen. they laugh at my jokes. they allow me to be weird and a little spacey. i can trust that if i need something, people will generally help me. privilege suddenly rushes in: pretty does buy things. pretty people get treated more gently.

i am the same ugly little girl, is the thing. still odd. still not-quite-fitting-in. still scrambling. still angry and afraid and full of bad things. of course it became my obsession. of course i stopped eating. i had seen, in real time, the exact way it could change my life - simply always be perfect, and things can be easy. people will "overlook" all the other things. i used to have panic attacks at the idea others would see me without makeup - what would they think? even for a simple friend hangout, i'd spend a few hours getting ready. after all, it seemed so obvious to me: these people liked me because i was pretty.

i worry about how much i'm being a bad activist: i understand that "pretty" is determined by white, het, cis, able-bodied hegemonies. if i was really an ally, wouldn't i rally against all of this? recently there's been a "clean girl" trend which copies latinx aesthetics: dark slicked-back hair, hoop earrings. i almost never wear my hair like that; i can hear the middle school guidance counsellor advising me that i might fare better if i toned it down on the culture.

the problem is that i can take pretty on and off. that i have seen how different my life is on a day where i try and a day where i don't. i told my therapist i want to believe the difference is confidence, but it's not. and when you have seen it, you can't unsee it. it lives inside your brain. it rots there; taunting. i get rewarded for following the rules. i am punished for breaking them. end of story.

pretty people can get what they want. pretty people can feel confident without others asking where they got their nerve from. pretty people can be weird and different. pretty people get to have emotions; it's different when they get aggressive, it's pretty when they cry with frustration.

of course people care about this. of course it has crawled into you. of course you want to be seen as attractive. it's not vanity: it's self-preservation.

#pretty in this post is a stand in for . literally all forms of normativity #warm up #tbd maybe idk #ps! hi!! i'm queer!!!!!!!!! it is how i identify! if you tag this 'q slur' i will fight you!!!#i am using it here in the EXACT way it is NOT a slur !! i am identifying as a queer person!#this is EXACTLY how people reclaim it !!!#it's like practically ACADEMIC in this usage!!#please do any reading into what the fuck the history of the word ''queer'' is before telling me #as someone identifying as queer #that i'm a slur. that the place i find comfort in is a slur #''well it makes me uncomfortable if people use it for me''#im sorry to hear that dude. that sucks. i hope things get easier for you soon #but you don't get to take it from ME #in case you can't tell by the REST of this piece #i DID hear queer used as slur against me. i DID get bullied with it. i DID hear a lot of shit said #i also heard it about lesbians #about ''being gay''#about pretty much any fucking term that could describe me.#i like queer. i like how it feels. and it's mine.#you don't get to undo the work i've done personally because it makes u uncomfortable #it's ahistoric to pretend like there are ''safe'' ways to identitfy if ur queer.#none exist. it has never been safe to be like this.

12K notes · View notes

patron-saint-of-lesbeans · 8 months

Text

Very interesting (concerning) that while there’s a general consensus of “of course there’s queer Muslims and Jews and Christians we love them!” But that love is conditional. You can be religious but not too religious. You can be spiritual as long as it’s not actually that important to you. You can be observant of your religion’s dogma and traditions as long as you keep it away from everybody else.

But I don’t want to cut myself into smaller pieces. I don’t want to take a part of my life and culture and being and hide it away behind closed doors. It’s just…hypocritical and disappointing when people, who clamor about their love for the contradictory and self-authentic, hate when they’re confronted with it.

#tower of babble #catholic #lgbt #side b #sorry I saw a very good post pointing out the way queer Jews are often cited with the caveat that they’re not observant Jews #and how there are queer observant Jews but I didn’t want to derail so I made my own post #because fuckin hell how often do you see white queers telling queer Muslim women to stop wearing their hibjabi (unless it’s for ~cultural~#purposes). it’s disgusting and demeaning to assume queer people don’t have deeply meaningful spiritual lives.#side b Christians 🤝 observant queer Jews 🤝 devout queer Muslims #me. happily trans and gay: I’m so happy and blessed to have this body and life -#homo/transphobes: you’re going to hell you’re evil you’re stupid you’re faking it #me: huh. oh. um. well I’m still blessed because I know you are not speaking with Christ in your heart-#a surprising number of self proclaimed radicals: uhhhh please don’t acknowledge that you’re Christian it makes us. uncomfortable.#me: …being uncomfortable and confused about others is the pride of Pride? the queer community thrives on contradiction and self definition?#anyways. prof put my pronouns down as he/she/they on the syllabus and I am popping the biggest gender affirming bottles tonight #(praying a chaplet and eating rice like the grad student peasant I am)

372 notes · View notes

dejwrld · 27 days

Text

aot fics will give me a bit of a giggle if they weren’t filled with white characters speaking aave and being characterized as if they’re fresh out a wattpad urban book. like you can do so much with eren’s character and his canon characteristics in a modern verse, so much.

#many of you who consume aot forget that the anime/manga has a huge historical allegory #and take inspo from germanic imagery #actually i don’t think many of you who even write that trope with them characters even read the manga not to be that person #so seeing that will always make me uncomfortable #and before someone be like ‘well filter’ i do use my filters #actually have majority of people who write that trope block tbh #but it’s just strange seeing that trope attached to white characters of aot #the anime that’s suppose to be an allegory of ww2

31 notes · View notes

themoonking · 10 months

Text

when people bring up the racism, homophobia, transphobia, romanticization of domestic abuse / rape / pedophilia / incest, literal actual written porn of literal actual real life flesh and blood children, et cetera et cetera on archive of our own, one of the ao3 stannies’ main defenses is “you can just filter out the tags if you don’t want to see that!” when that defense has no fucking legs to stand on.

ao3 is not an archive, it is barely even a website: a rant <3 (very long)

ignoring the fact that it’s a problem that all of that is permitted on the site in the first place (i guess child porn and racism are fine, and the people who allow it on their platform are fine, as long as i, personally, do not see it), that defense literally means nothing. it’s assuming that every little thing on ao3 is tagged properly and it absolutely is not, and if you think it is you are dumber than rocks. i mean for fuck’s sake, just touching on archive warnings and not tags, “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is literally a valid option for fic authors to use when it should fucking not be.

if someone is a freak who thinks that pedo shit is hot, they might not tag it as “rape” (archive warnings OR tags). i’ve literally seen underage father/son rape porn with no trigger warning tags but “child abuse if you squint”. IF YOU SQUINT. if someone thinks that domestic abuse is actually cool and sexy when attractive people do it, they might not tag it as “abuse”. if someone is a freak who likes incest, but bends over backwards to justify it by only shipping adopted family members, then they tell themselves that they don’t view it as incest, and might not tag it as “incest”. if someone is a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe, et cetera and they wrote bigotry into their fic (or else wrote a deliberate troll fic to trigger people on purpose), do you really think they’re going to tag it as racism / homophobia / transphobia / et cetera? and some people get kicks out of writing purposefully triggering content and either leaving it untagged or mistagging it so that people will read it unsuspectingly.

even for just general content tags, it’s a mess. people just forget to tag things all the time. people deliberately won’t tag the endgame ship of their fic because “it’s a spoiler heehee”. people use the romantic or sexual “x / y” tag instead of the platonic or otherwise “x & y” tag, sometimes by mistake sometimes on purpose. it’s a joked about issue how people will tag characters or ships that appear in their fic for two sentences.

there’s no standardization of tags, which is a pretty obvious problem. what first comes to mind is the “dead dove: do not eat” tag which should just not be a tag at all because it just has no meaning. depending on the individual fic writer using it, it could mean anything from “literally the most sickening and depraved thing you’ve ever read in your life” to “horror w/ gore”. but it applies to other vague tags too - different fic writers will have different ideas of what the tag means.

in addition to that, what is and isn’t made a filterable tag, what tags are made synonymous, et cetera, is entirely up to the whims of the site staff. as an example, if you’re trying to look for fanfiction of a singular animated disney movie, the infinite crossovers with other disney movies will not actually be counted as crossovers (which they are) because they’re classified as the “disney theatrical animated universe” (which isn’t a fucking thing), so you can’t filter them out the “exclude crossovers” way. if you try to filter out the fandom tag “disney theatrical animated universe”, it’ll show up with zero fics because that tag is synonymous with every disney animated film (regardless of if the fic author actually used the tag “disney theatrical animated universe” or not), thus also filtering out the one you actually wanted to find.

and do not get me fucking started on the “all media types tags”, which also just shouldn’t be a thing because it makes it fucking impossible to find the specific fics you’re looking for. some people use it in place of tagging a specific canon / adaptation when their fic very clearly draws from one specific canon / adaptation, and you can’t filter it out because it’s synonymous with every fandom tag under its umbrella.

as an example of the issues of both the “all media types” tag and mistagging in general: as a fan of the witcher books, it used to be a fucking ordeal to find fanfiction specifically for the books (post netflix show release). some show fans would, for whatever reason, tag their fics with the book fandom tag in addition to (or even in place of!!) the show fandom tag when their fics were unquestionably show-specific, meaning i could not simply search only in the book fandom tag. i could not simply filter out the show tag, because some show fans would, for whatever reason, tag as fucking “all media types”, when their fics were unquestionably show-specific. and alas, i could not filter out “all media types” and the show tag, so that i see only those fics which have been deliberately and exclusively tagged as the book, not only because as mentioned some show fans would tag their show fics with only the book tag, but also because the fucking all media types tag filters out the book tag as well, leaving me with zero fucking fics REGARDLESS of if the author actually used the “all media types” tag. now, thankfully, i’ve thankfully seen this issue in this specific fandom lessen, but it still occurs in other fandoms and i guarantee that it didn’t lessen in the witcher fandom because of any fixing of the site on the part of ao3 staff.

another common defense of ao3 freaks is that it’s an “archive”, and therefore can’t get rid of anything anyone posts, and disregarding the fact that that is not how archives fucking work, they don’t just allow anything and also ao3 DOES get rid of fics... when they say that they don’t like proshippers, apparently, archives have... you know... archivists. they have someone or a team of someones making sure that everything in the archive is *properly fucking categorized*. they have someone or multiple someones making sure that everything they recieve (1) belongs there and (2) is properly labeled and organized. same for libraries. meaning that if ao3 really were an archive and not a sub par fanfiction website, they’d have something like that in place. something as simple as a report button for fics with a review team that will see if something’s been mis- or untagged. they’d have some kind of standardization of tags (especially the warning / trigger tags) and have proper tagging enforced in some way. and then they could also do something like stop being spineless racists, queerphobes, and pedos have the barest minimum of content guidelines saying that you can’t post fucking hate speech.

if something is mistagged or untagged, the most you can do is leave a comment politely asking that the author fix the issue, and then hope and pray that they do that. and if that person thinks [insert form of abuse] is hot, or if they’re just straight up a bigot that wrote bigotry into their fics to be bigoted, or they’re a troll that gets kick out of deliberately traumatizing people by tricking them into reading their mis/untagged fics, they might not! AND if you see a major tagging issue on an orphaned work, or a work that has an inactive author / hasn’t been updated in forever, good fucking luck getting even a negative response.

you can’t permanently block tags (i mean even tumblr.hell has that), meaning that if you would like to search for fic without coming across something troubling, triggering, or just something you don’t like, you have to either (1) do a work around by having a bookmarked link for every fandom you’re in or every character you like with all of your tags already blocked, (2) download browser extensions that do the work for ao3 because they can’t be bothered themselves, or (3) input every individual tag every time you search ao3 and don’t forget that all of those options only fucking work at all when everything is tagged properly, and we’ve already established its not. you also can’t actually block people (you can only prevent them from commenting) meaning that if there’s a specific person you’d like to stay away from your fics or a specific fic author that you don’t like and would like to stop seeing their fics clogging up the tag, you’re out of luck (though for the latter you could insert “-[username]” into the “search within results” box, but then uh oh we’re right back around to having to input that every time or have a bookmark)

their archive warning system is shit. first of all it’s functionally useless because, as mentioned, “creator chose not to use archive warnings” is an option. what’s the fucking point of special required archive warnings if you’re going to allow people to opt out anyway. second of all, aside from “chose not to use warnings” and “no warnings apply”, the only warnings are “major character death”, “graphic depictions of violence”, “rape/non-con”, and “underage”. disregarding the fact that they shouldn’t be allowing porn of underage characters in the first place (but i’m talking to a brick wall on that issue) and that “non-con” (and “dub-con”) as terminology needs to die, it’s just fucking rape lets not use weasel words... this is a paltry list of possible warnings. there’s no official warnings for depictions of: domestic abuse, animal abuse, depictions of racism / homophobia / transphobia / et cetera, suicide, self harm, et cetera et cetera. and we return to the issue of standardization of tags. in your required archive warnings at very least, there should be a standardization of what these mean, but ao3′s own faq is just like “ehh... you decide. we’ll leave it up to you”. what qualifies as graphic depictions of violence? two people may write the same level of violence, but qualify “graphic” differently, and make different decisions regarding their warnings. and we also return to the issue of: if a freak doesn’t see something that is clearly rape as rape, they might not tag it as such.

this website gets a disgustingly large amount of money every year that it doesn’t fucking do anything with. it’s been over a decade and they’re still in fucking beta. features that would actually be useful, like an actual block system, don’t exist. they technically have a report system for abuse and harassment and such, but apparently what they qualify as abuse and harassment is fickle. ao3 defenders seem to be very proud of the legal work they do for fandom / fanfic authors, but they set aside a very small amount of the money they get every year for legal advocacy, and they actually use even less of that, because it’s not the early 2000s “anne rice hates fanfiction” era anymore - you aren’t going to get fucking sued for writing fanfiction in the first place. based on their own self-reported yearly cost of upkeep, they literally already have enough money to run the site as they are now for the next twenty years.

once again: ao3 is not an archive. it is not a library. it is barely a even a website.

#specifically a website run by freaks #who care more about ppl's 'fannish experience' than they do ppl of color abuse survivors and the real children ppl write p!rn of #anyway here's the rant i promised in the coming days since that one post #also i know people will come at me and say that dddne DOES have a meaning its a signal that the reader knows what theyre getting into #so cant be upset if it upsets them #or something along those lines #but (1) we've already well established that the reader very likely doesn't know what they're getting into #because a lot of the shit on ao3 is untagged or mistagged #and a lot of stuff with the dddne tag specifically isnt properly tagged because authors use dddne as a catch all #and just put that down instead of actually properly tagging their work #and as mentioned the authors that use it that way use it for literally anything that might make something uncomfortable #from the sickest shit there is to a little bit of gore #and you can say that those authors (who use it without also tagging what exactly they're talking about) are using the tag incorrectly #but oopsie! that then circles back around to (2) if someone is using a tag incorrectly there's no way to deal with that #other than a comment and a prayer #i speak #anti ao3 #anti archive of our own #fandom nonsense #my monologues

108 notes · View notes