#(last two tags minor discussion but including for archival purposes) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamerinsilico · 4 years

Text

Thanks to The Good Place s4 having made its way to Netflix, and me having Feelings, I’m going to take a bit to publicly chew on them now.

TL;DR: same as basically every take I’ve seen, it was a great finale that handled each of the characters in a way that made sense and also I cried through most of the last episode. But also I have vaguely cranky philosophical ruminations about it that don’t make me appreciate the show any less, but definitely want to yap about it.

(Details under the cut, because spoilers and also this may get long. Also apparently it’s going to involve some spoilers for The Old Guard. And maybe a few minor NBC Hannibal references.)

So, first I want to reiterate: the way the show ended, given everything else the show had done, made sense and was emotionally satisfying to me. I loved it.

In a bigger-picture sense, though... I’d really like to see more media that interfaces with the concept of immortality without concluding that death is the only way to give the human (or humanoid) existence meaning. Where we end up in the finale of The Good Place makes sense, in that it’s already been established that there’s an afterlife that doesn’t really have any inherent meaning beyond individual souls’ experiences of it and their relationships with one another. And it’s not hard to imagine that a lot of the small dramas and conflicts that provide variation to even very peaceful lives would be invalidated without any kind of pressure from those material needs. Given the foundations of the show, Our Heroes’ decision about how to change The Good Place for the better is... the only reasonable conclusion.

And, you know, I don’t blame the show for not being The piece of media I’m hoping for to just come out and say outright, “you know, actually fuck this whole death thing. Not a fan. Don’t need it. Let’s get rid of it.” That’s not what this show was ever even remotely trying to be about. It’s about coping with the reality of the human experience in the 20th/21st century, which includes death. (Even with my transhumanist leanings, as a bioengineer and also someone who ardently pays attention to other fields, I will not even hint at denying that this is going to be a mandatory part of our reality for quite a while yet.)

The conclusion the show draws that I very much do agree with (regardless of one’s stance on death) is that we require some form of tension to inject meaning. When I picture myself in the Final Form of the Good Place, I think most of my energy and desire would be focused on (I guess like a combo of Chidi and Tahani) asking questions of people there, and making peace with relationships that had somehow been left hanging. There’s a finite amount of each of those. I’d run out eventually. My scientific passion would have a hard time finding an outlet, because the laws of physics don’t apply and I can’t interface with living people who could still make use of my expertise and stubborn propensity to problem-solve. I’d like to think my creative leanings would still matter, but I’m not positive to what degree they would in that environment. (It’s worth a chuckle to me now that when they offhandedly noted that Shakespeare’s thousands of posthumous plays weren’t anywhere near as good as the ones he wrote on Earth, I was initially indignant. But with further thought it makes sense that the longer one is removed from that tension I referenced previously, the harder it would be to make meaningful art. Or to even have that art be appreciated by the audience, since, on the audience side, successful art plucks against the tension of the strings the audience itself carries. And when your audience is restricted to people in paradise who have already at-least-mostly self-actualized....)

Something about the finale that I’m still chewing over how I feel about was the very last scene. The implication of some form of reincarnation. (If that wasn’t supposed to be the takeaway from that... well, please tell me, but I *think* I remember some kind of rewards card reference with Eleanor and Michael from an earlier season?) The incurable romantic part of me appreciates the concept of reincarnation on principle, so that’s one thing. It’s also entirely in keeping with Chidi’s metaphor about a wave returning to the ocean - that wave is gone; it’ll never be there again, but the stuff of it is still there and ready to take form again. But the part of me that very much sympathizes with Simone and, while not being a neurologist, is very concerned with Theory of Mind... reincarnation doesn’t do much for that part. If I die, and my metaphysical essence eventually shows up in a different human who has no connection via memory to their past lives... well, that’s very aesthetically pleasing, I guess, but the point to me is, the information was still lost. When I died, my subjective experiences, memories, and capacity to act upon the world as Dae the Irascible Multi-Academic was lost, because my reincarnation doesn’t have access to that (much as I did not have access to my previous selves’s experiences).

Anyway, speaking of incurable romantics, let’s talk about The Old Guard! When I was previously starting to complain about no media that interacts with immortality as a concept avoiding the canard of “death gives life meaning,” I stopped myself. Because you know what, The Old Guard didn’t fucking go there, and I’m proud of everyone who worked on it for that. Booker thinks death is the answer because he has lost hope. But the person he appeals to, the person he thinks he’s doing a favor, is Andy. Who has lived millennia more than he has, lost the implied-love-of-her-life, and still has the will to keep going. Her questioning of that is intrinsic to the storyline, but at NO POINT does she ever indicate she wants to die. And Nile’s appearance reinvigorates her, even as she knows she now actually has an expiration date. (And the expiration date is not what invigorates her. It is Nile and the attendant situation reminding her of why they do what they do.) I ultimately really like The Old Guard’s take on immortality, because it gives us a spectrum of reactions to it. Nile, generally freaked-out and not happy about any of this but trying to do best by the people she loves. Booker, jaded and wanting to end it all. Andy, pretty jaded but when push comes to shove wants to keep fucking trying, and doesn’t just step back and abdicate responsibility when it’s clear she isn’t going to be around much longer. Joe and Nicky, not necessarily always happy with their circumstances, but taking strength from their relationships, not just with each other, but with the group as a whole. (I have a whole essay brewing, which may or may not eventually see the light, about their romantic connection being important but kind of only a part of their overall attitude about the group and how that is intensely important.)

And because apparently I’m just going to keep tacking on essay-stubs to this one post, when I thought about how to start this, I also thought about how Hannibal Lecter (in NBC Hannibal) says, “The thought that my life could end at any moment frees me to fully appreciate the beauty and art and horror of everything this world has to offer.” And I’m just kind of marinating in that (hah) for the moment because it represents a hedonism that The Good Place, in aggregate, rejects. But you can’t really compare those two stances, because of course, Hannibal Lecter is a human, subject to human standards of beauty and horror. I shouldn’t go off on a big tangent about this here, because the point of NBC Hannibal is emphatically not about immortality or mortality, but I felt it worth mentioning because a) hyperfixation and b) it’s an interesting thread in the wider discussion I’m interested in, that I like placing in context.

Anyway if you’ve bothered to read all of this, thank you profusely. I have a lot of feelings about The Good Place which mostly boil down to “I loved it,” but I can’t help but poke at the whole death thing. That’s kind of a sore spot for me in media.

#the good place #meta #tv shows #the old guard #hannibal #(last two tags minor discussion but including for archival purposes)

10 notes · View notes

bluebloodstained · 4 years

Text

;|; Mobile Rules ;|;

Mun Info

name: Moe Loogham

age: 21

birthday: September 25th

pronouns: She/Her

faceclaim: Deadpool, Rose Quartz, or Loki

rp experience: 8+ Years

discord: Available to Mutuals on Request!

HELLO!

I'm Moe! It's great to meet you. After taking a very long break from the tumblr rpc, I've decided to dive back in, because why the hell not.

I'm from New York, I have two beautiful guinea pigs named Sage and Rosemary and I'm a witch, that's just about everything you gotta know. I recently graduated from college, and still trying to figure out where I wanna be in the world, so this is my little corner of the internet where I come to unwind and scream about my favorite roboy.

My Rules have been broken up into sections. I will try to keep each section as brief as possible while still informing you of everything you need to know about how I like to run things.

Blog Etiquette + Following

This blog is

PRIVATE, SELECTIVE, and MUTUAL'S ONLY and 21+.

I do not follow for a follow, and I do not follow back unless I am interested in threadding with you. If I follow your blog, it means I have read your rules and bio at the very least! I do not send in passwords, but if you have a post that you would like to direct followers to when they've read your rules, I will like it.

If we are not mutuals, you are still free to interact through asks and ask memes. i reserve the right to delete/ignore asks from mutuals and non-mutuals alike! this is mostly out of precaution, and would only be done in cases that violate privacy or cause discomfort.

I will only thread with other Roleplay/Ask blogs. Sideblogs are fine, but if your main blog is a personal, please let me know and tell me your sideblog url! If you RP off of your personal, I will not follow/thread with you. This is mainly to keep my dash organized. That being said, I will not unfollow someone just because they post OOC a lot. I know I have a tendency to do the same sometimes.

I am not okay with nonmutuals reblogging my content. Feel free to like them, but reblogging anything will result in a soft block. Repeated offenses will result in your blog being blocked. I'm not here to be your aesthetic/graphic archive.

The same applies to ask memes. Do not use me as your meme resource. ALWAYS reblog from the source.

Just as a general note, sometimes I will have periods of low activity. I try to be active at the VERY LEAST once a week, and sometimes I'll be able to crank out like 10 replies in one day. But real life always comes first, for me AND any of my rp partners. RPing is a hobby for me, and I don't let it stress me out. Of course, if it's been a week or two since I've replied, there's a very good chance that I've just forgotten to respond. If that happens, do not be afraid to poke me about it.

If I ever want to drop a thread, I'll let you know, and I'll very much appreciate if you do the same, but it's absolutely not required. I don't mind at all, if anything I'll usually ASK if you want to drop it and if you do, that's completely fine. The other option I have for threading is ARCHIVING, for when we have a thread that we want to put down for now, but maybe pick up again later. If you'd rather Archive a thread instead of drop it, just tell me. :)

Also!

All Icons on this blog are made/screenshotted by me or RK800ISALIVE, and my post banners were made by DENICDLIFE Please do not take them or use them!!

Shipping + Exclusivity

this entire section is very important. please read it carefully, and feel free to ask me if you don't understand something.

This isn't my first rodeo. I love shipping. I am perfectly open to shipping. HOWEVER, that is not the sole purpose of this blog. Regardless of canon, fanon, personal preference or otherwise, unless we have spoken previously about it, Connor will not be automatically shipped with your muse. This blog is OCxCanon friendly, and canon ships are fine too. But for ANY case, I ship chemistry If your muse doesn't click with mine, that's totally fine. But please don't try to force a ship on me, and do not follow me if shipping is the only thing you're looking for out of our threads.

On that note: Original Characters. They're great, I love hearing about them and seeing their depth and complexity. But if your OC has little to no history, or if their sole purpose is to flirt with Connor, please do not ask to interact.

I've had so many experiences in the past with OCs whose existence is based around wanting to bang my muse and it really grates on me. It's nothing personal, I know writing only gets better with practice, but if you come to me asking to be a detective who works with Connor and that's all the information you have, I really ask that you go find another Connor to interact with.

I will only ship with your muse after discussing it out of character. IC flirting is the only exception to this, but do not get angry if Connor does not respond the way you want him to.

I don't want to have to put that there, but it's happened to me too many times before and it's an uncomfortable situation for everyone involved. Please don't do it.

This blog is NOT Exclusive, but I do practice Maining with other muses. What that means is if we have previously discussed it, and have had enough interaction, my muse will refer to yours in conversation or in terms of relationship depending on circumstance.

Once I have created mains, they will be posted in the Navigation tab. Occasionally I may post a mains call, which invites anyone interested to discuss becoming a main with Connor.

Mains have top priority for threads.

TRIGGERS + NSFW

I am 21+ years old, and NSFW can and will happen on this blog, however I will always keep anything that contains NSFW under a "read more" cut for the sake of any followers who are not comfortable with seeing NSFW content.

I am comfortable with most NSFW topics. I absolutely WILL NOT write about pedophelia or incest, and definitely WILL NOT rp sexual situations with minors or people who I have not shared consent with. This is for my safety as well as those who I interact with. I'm trying to get into grad school, not jail.

I will try to tag triggers accordingly as they appear. Triggering content that MAY appear on this blog include:

Abuse

Child/Character Death

Disease

Drugs/Drug Use

Alcohol

Execution/Murder

Gore

Nudity

Self-Harm

Suicide/Mental Health Issues

Verbal/Physical Violence

Torture

Important: mun and muse are mutually exclusive. I am not Connor. Connor is not me. Actions performed in threads do not reflect me or my personal beliefs, unless otherwise explicitly stated by me.

If you've made it this far, I would really appreciate if you could like this post, just to let me know you've read and understand all my rules. If you are not comfortable doing so, that's fine! It's really just to help me know people cared enough to go through the whole list. :) It's not at all an obligation, but it would be really awesome.

Despite the fact I am comfortable with NSFW, I prefer to be comfortable with the other mun as a person before agreeing to write these topics with you. I am not obligated to write NSFW with anyone.

Last Updated: 8/19/2020

#patch notes {ooc}#;; mobile rules

12 notes · View notes

dewitty1 · 4 years

Link

I could be wrong, I could be ready

harryromper @harryromper

Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Bill Weasley, Original Female Character(s), Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Andromeda Black Tonks, Teddy Lupin, Rose Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, Portrait Fleamont Potter Additional Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, POV Alternating, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pining, Romance, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, wizarding houses, House magic, Magic, Families of Choice, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Wizarding Traditions (Harry Potter), Magical Theory, Brooklyn, Roller Coasters, Socks, Quidditch Player Ginny Weasley, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Minor Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom, Professor Neville Longbottom, Curse Breaker Bill Weasley, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Godric’s Hollow, Hogwarts, Grimmauld Place, H/D Erised 2018, Community: hd_erised, Lovers to Friends, Don’t copy to another site Summary:

At first Harry wonders if they’ve managed to destroy his vaults and are trying to tell him in the most oblique way possible. But when he turns the page he realises they’ve found a vault. A vault in the name of Lily and James Potter.

The parchment trembles a little in Harry’s hand. He takes another gulp of wine.

Harry Potter left Britain after the war and didn’t look back. Ten years later, when Gringotts discovers a vault containing his parents’ belongings—including their badly spell-damaged wedding rings—he’s forced to face up to friends and family who’ve grown in ways he could never imagine, a wizarding London rebuilt beyond his expectations, and the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the entirely unforeseen problem of Draco Malfoy.

Featuring pureblood wizarding traditions, ancestral magic, open mic nights, marriage equality, a diner in Brooklyn, and the return of Fleamont Potter.

Excerpt:

“I ran into Malfoy again, yesterday. Like, physically. Ran into him full-tilt coming back from a jog outside the Leaky. Bowled him right over.”

Hermione giggles, as Harry kneels beside her on the quilt. “On purpose?”

Harry laughs. “No, of course not.”

She pushes a plate of muffins towards him, and he breaks off a chunk of one.

“Who did he marry?” Harry asks, thinking about Parkinson. The way Draco’s hands, brushing himself off yesterday, were unadorned by rings.

“He’s not married,” Hermione answers, letting Hugo clutch at her finger, dragging it towards his mouth.

“Really? He always seemed the type to be married to some prim little witch who knows how to entertain properly. You know, the sort who’s really good at parties and small talk and never forgets anyone’s name.” Harry can just picture them both at society functions, glasses of champagne in hand. Malfoy looking down his aristocratic nose at everyone.

“That’s funny,” Hermione snorts, clearly delighted by something he’s said.

“What is?”

She gives him a strange look. “Harry, Draco is as gay as a maypole.”

Harry manages to inhale a crumb the wrong way and immediately sets to choking. It causes Hermione to laugh even harder. “You really didn’t know?” she asks, patting his back ineffectually. ”He dated Dean Thomas for over a year!”

And that is really not an image Harry needs in his head, all of Malfoy’s long limbs wrapped around… He shakes his head vigorously.

“No. How would I have known? I heard him talking about picking a kid up from school and I just assumed—”

Hermione’s laughter dies suddenly and the happiness slides from her face. “Teddy, Harry. He would have been talking about Teddy.”

“Why would Malfoy be picking Teddy up from school?” He tries not to make it sound scathing, but it doesn’t really make any sense. The two of them are related, sure, but in the “burnt off the family tree” kind of way. He can’t imagine even a post-war Malfoy being that interested in a Metamorphmagus from the wrong side of the Blacks.

Hermione sighs and gently tugs her finger back from Hugo, picking the baby up as he starts to fuss. She frowns at Harry, a sign he’s coming to recognise means he’s freshly disappointed her in some way.

“Draco looks after Teddy two days a week. He has done for years. Draco’s basically the father figure in Teddy’s life.”

If she doesn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, Harry thinks, she’s fallen pretty short of the mark. Hugo starts to cry, and Harry decides to take the excuse.

“Time for Hugo’s nap—I’ll leave you to it.”

“You should go catch up with him, Harry. You’ve changed a lot and so has he. It’s Wednesday, he’ll be at the Bent Wand tonight.”

Harry waves absently at her as he leaves. He doesn’t have any intention of catching up with Malfoy.

Except that her suggestion keeps gnawing at him as he heads back to the Leaky, and it won’t leave him alone as he eats a bowl of bland soup at the bar. He asks Kim, the waitress, about the Bent Wand and she gives him directions to a new street opened up after the war. He has no interest at all in seeing what Malfoy’s up to, but the idea that British wizards have caught up with the modern world enough to have gay bars out in the open is sort of intriguing. He could just go have a drink there. It doesn’t mean he has to talk to Malfoy. In fact the thought of not talking to Malfoy and finding an attractive wizard to work out the week’s frustrations with is sort of appealing. And so before he can reconsider he’s wandering past a new Wheezes branch and round the corner into a charming little street he’s never seen before called Equal Alley.

The Bent Wand looks like more of a pub than a bar, and there’s a foreboding-looking bouncer standing at the door. “Tap your wand,” he says, indicating a brick in the wall. Harry does so, and a blue plastic wristband appears on his arm.

“All Ages night tonight,” the bouncer says, by way of explanation, and steps to one side to let Harry in.

The pub is warm and busy, with groups of people clustered around tables and around the bar. The crowd is younger than Harry was expecting. Two boys who look like they’re still Hogwarts-age walk past him holding hands. The taller one is wearing a t-shirt that reads I Like Wizards / It’s None of Your Business. Harry waits behind them at the bar.

“Where’s the sign up sheet?” one of them asks.

The bartender points over their shoulders. “Draco has it over by the stage.”

Harry turns to catch a glimpse of Malfoy’s blond hair, surrounded by young people over by a large amp sitting on a low stage.

Harry orders a pint, and while the bartender is pulling it, he asks, “Sign up sheet?”

“Shout Out. It’s an open mic night for youth. Happens here every Wednesday.”

Harry is reluctantly impressed. It’s more or less the last thing he expected when Hermione mentioned it. He assumed the Wand would be some snooty wine bar with an overpriced cocktail menu and Malfoy holding court in a booth being rude to people who weren’t as attractive or wealthy as him.

“Some of these kids look like they’re still in school,” Harry says, anxious to derail that train of thought as quickly as possible.

The bartender nods. “Hogwarts lets them Floo down for the evening. It’s an approved extracurricular. Draco over there takes responsibility for getting them back afterwards.”

Harry tries to imagine anything like this being possible during his school days and can’t. It took him leaving the country to even understand that the confused knot of feelings he had about his own attraction to wizards was fine and normal and nothing he needed to hide. It certainly wasn’t something they ever discussed in school. Though to be fair to Hogwarts, he supposes, they had quite a lot else on their minds at the time.

He takes his drink and perches on a stool at the corner of the bar with a view of the stage. When Malfoy stands up, clipboard in hand, Harry’s forced to admit to himself that he looks really good. Which is a preposterous sort of thought, because Malfoy’s only wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. But there’s something about the way the dark skinnies hug his legs, the form-fitting tee, even the faded grey lines of his Dark Mark. Harry finds that he can’t look away.

Malfoy greets everyone there like old friends and invites a blue-haired witch in her twenties up on stage as the evening’s emcee, before taking a seat at one of the front tables. The talent on display is mixed at best, but the enthusiasm is contagious. Passable cover songs delivered on guitar, overwrought poetry, a slightly ill-considered rap. Harry finds himself clapping wildly, beaming at the thought of these young people having the space to express themselves. He’s ordering another pint when Malfoy pulls up the stool next to him as if they’re old friends. He hadn’t even seen him come over.

“Didn’t expect to see you here.” Draco sounds curious, rather than mean. Harry realises his hair is cut much shorter than it had been in school. It suits him.

“What, you thought you were the only queer wizard in our year?”

Malfoy laughs, reaching for a drink the bartender has made for him without asking. It looks like a gin and tonic. “Please. That cat’s long out of the bag. Ever since the Weasley wedding guests flapped their traps and the Prophet dedicated a full week of issues to The Boy Who Lived a Lie.”

Harry folds in on himself a little at that. It’s not that he hadn’t known it made the press here at the time, of course; he just hadn’t seen any of it. He’s pretty sure it was ugly. Andromeda always made a face when the subject came up.

As if he can read the dark turn Harry’s thoughts have taken, Malfoy leans in conspiratorially and says, “I may or may not have kept a few newspaper clippings for my personal collection. Some of the photos were very inspirational.”

It startles a laugh out of Harry, and Malfoy gives him a pleased smile. His ears pink up a little and Harry finds himself fixated on the smooth skin over his clavicle. Harry straightens up. Clearly, the pints are going to his head and he should leave. Flirting with Draco Malfoy is an objectively terrible idea. Draco’s tall and lithe and gives the impression of being all coiled power. Like a snake, but probably twice as dangerous. Harry can easily find far less menacing opportunities to pull, with a lot less emotional baggage.

“What brings you to London? Other than knocking people over in the street and lurking around queer youth nights in bars?”

Harry snaps his gaze back up to meet Malfoy’s. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Harry’s inner turmoil, or if he has, he isn’t letting on. “Gringotts found some things belonging to my parents so I needed to sort that out. I’m only here for another day or two.” He doesn’t say any more. Harry knows Malfoy’s father was sentenced to be Kissed. Talking about their parents or the past in general seems like a no-go. In fact, just the two of them sitting side by side in a bar having a conversation seems like something that should bend the universe in on itself and cause it to implode.

“This is impressive,” he manages, taking a deep breath and reaching for a change of subject, gesturing around at the pub night. “Creating an environment like this.”

“Thank you,” Malfoy nods. “Times have changed a lot since we were their age, but not so much that it’s not important to give them all the support we can.” He knocks his drink back in several swallows that leave Harry staring at the long, pale column of his throat. Harry desperately wants to mark it up.

“Go easy,” he manages, aiming for teasing. “You’ll be on the floor at that rate.”

“It’s soda, Potter,” Malfoy smirks. “Someone has to get the children back to Hogwarts in one piece.”

Harry is just wrestling with why that idea seems disappointing when Malfoy gives him a long, considering look. It’s as if he’s weighing every aspect of Harry, and it’s ridiculous, but Harry suddenly doesn’t want to be found wanting.

Draco seems to reach some sort of decision as he stands and leans right into Harry’s personal space, his lips warm against Harry’s ear. “Though if you want me on the floor, I don’t have to get the students back to school for an hour or so.” Just the words alone have Harry letting out a small groan and adjusting himself in his jeans. Malfoy pulls back, grinning wickedly at him. This whole moment is absurd.

Unthinkable.

Harry can’t possibly go through with it. But Draco is the brightest spot in the room and he can’t look away.

“Where?” he breathes, thinking about just tugging Malfoy to him and Apparating them right back to his room at the Leaky, although that seems a bit obvious.

And really who can wait that long, there’s got to be a perfectly good toilet somewhere in this pub.

But Malfoy just smirks and walks away, toward a door at the back of the bar marked Emergency Exit. Harry hastens after him.

He finds himself in a service lane behind the building, immediately pressed against a brick wall. If Malfoy’s jeans looked tight from across the bar, now he’s close enough for Harry to feel it.

“Someone will see,” Harry bites out, as Malfoy makes quick work of his belt buckle.

Malfoy laughs. “You think gay wizards built Equal Alley and didn’t disillusion the hell out of every dark corner?” And then Malfoy sinks to his knees and Harry can’t find himself able to care anymore.

#I could Be Wrong I could Be Ready #Author: Harryromper #Drarry fanfiction #Drarry fic rec #fic rec #Careys Bookmark fic recs #Careys personal bookmarks #Draco malfoy #harry potter #long post #Drarry squad #First rec of 2020!!!💜 💙 💚 💛 ❤️ 💕 💖

28 notes · View notes

epicstuckyficrecs · 5 years

Text

How To Tag Stucky Fics Part 2: Rating, Warnings, Fandoms, Relationships & Characters

Preliminary comments

First thing you can do to understand the tagging system better is read the Tag FAQ on ao3! And while you’re at it, I would suggest you also read the Wrangling Guidelines. Understanding the work of tag wranglers might help you to tag your fics better!

My aim with this is to encourage you to better use AO3’s tagging system, which means using canonical tags (especially for Fandom, Relationship and Character tags), VS unfilterable tags, which is everything else that’s not “canonical”. But any tag is better than no tags! Long, rambly tags are better than no tags! That’s what we have tag wranglers for! But my opinion is: if there’s a canonical tag for something, why not use it?

Tagging is an art, not a science. There are pretty much no absolute rules, which means that ao3′s tagging system’s biggest advantage is also its biggest disadvantage: you can do whatever you want with it! You can tag as much or as little as you want.

Every fandom has its quirks and odds about tagging. I’m obviously focused on Stucky, and incidentally on the MCU, so what I say here might not necessarily apply to all ships/fandoms.

As such, my opinion is as good as anyone else’s. I’m not pretending to be the utmost authority on how to tag: I’m just trying make good use of my experience to give writers some recommendations! These are my personal recommendations and in no way are you forced to follow them.

Tagging 101

Tagging has two main purposes, so you should keep them in mind while filling out the New Work form:

Content: tagging the content of your fics, so that readers who want to read said content can find your fic!

Trigger warnings: tagging content in your fics that people might want to avoid.

Basic rules of tagging (to help facilitate the job of our amazing tag wranglers):

Separate your Fandom, Relationship and Character tags by commas! There should be only one item per tag.

Always Use The Characters’ Last Name. Here’s why. Basically, when you tag with “Cute Peter”, wranglers have no idea if you’re talking about Peter Parker or Peter Quill or any of the hundreds of Peter characters in the Archive!

Personally, I would avoid using emojis in tags.

Some of these recommendations (and more) can be found in this AO3 News post under the How To Make Tags Work For You header.

Just read this post if you have no idea how tag wranglers actually wrangle tags. It’s really informative. The TLDR is: your tags are seen with no context, mixed in with all the other tags of other works in the wrangling interface, which are sorted by alphabetical order. Wranglers don’t know which tags in their workload belong to the same fic. Rambly Tumblr-style tags are fine, but just remember: “each tag stands on its own in the filters. Think about the idea you’re expressing in each tag, not just in your tags as a whole conversation. (...) Don’t assume that sarcasm, hyperbole, etc. will come through during sorting.”

Without further ado, let’s get into the actual tagging! I’m gonna be following the same order as if you were posting a new fic on AO3 :)

RATING & ARCHIVE WARNINGS

You can click on the little interrogation point in the form if you don’t know exactly how to tag for rating and warnings or check out the Ratings and Warnings section of AO3’s Terms of Service and FAQ. The only thing I would advise you here is to be as truthful as possible.

One important thing to know would be the difference between “No archive warnings apply” and “Choose not to use archive warnings”. From ao3commentoftheday:

“No Archive Warnings Apply means that the fic has nothing in it that people need to be warned about.

Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings means that the fic very well might include things that people would like to be warned about, but the author has decided not to warn because that warning might spoil the story (or for some other reason)”.

If you decide to use Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings, here’s a few options so your readers can still make an informed decision about reading your fic:

Additional Tags: You could use the Additional Tags field to list any details about what might be triggering in your work. For example, if there is a Character Death, but you don’t want to tag with MCD because it’s not a Major character, or it’s only temporary… There are tags for that! There was a great discussion on this post re: warnings vs spoilers on ao3commentoftheday, if you wanna go have a look!

Tag + Author’s note: Another thing you could do is use the “Additional Warnings In Author’s Note” tag and, as the tag says, give more details to your readers about triggers or warnings in your author’s note.

Author’s note (at the beginning) + End note (at the end): You could also write down a small summary of the triggering parts of your chapter in the end notes, and direct your readers to it in an Author’s Note at the beginning of the chapter.

FANDOMS

As I said above, please use the canonical Fandom tags!

MCU

I would really recommend you read this post on how to tag in the MCU! But basically, you should mainly be tagging your fic with Captain America (Movies) (or whatever movie is the focus of your story!). No need to use more general tags like Marvel (Movies) or Marvel Cinematic Universe ON TOP of your movie tag, it’ll show up there anyway! (If you’re writing RPF, use the Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF tag)

Always remember that if you’re tagging more than one fandom, you need to separate them with a comma! Don’t use a slash / or “and” (like “Captain America/Game of Thrones” or “Captain America and Game of Thrones”), or else it will create a single new tag that will be impossible to wrangle.

If your fic prominently features events or characters from other MCU movies (like The Avengers, Black Panther, etc.) or TV shows (like Agents of SHIELD or the Defenders), you could even add those fandom tags! But I wouldn’t if it’s not a major part of the plot though. For example: if Scott Lang is Bucky’s roommate, I would probably not tag with the “Ant-Man (Movies)” fandom tag. Ask yourself: would someone looking for Ant-Man fic want to find mine?

In fact, you can mostly apply this strategy to the whole tagging process. Ask yourself: would someone looking for xyz want to find my fic?

Also note that tagging multiple fandoms in the MCU will not make your work a Crossover according to AO3’s search engine, since they are under the same Metatag (aka Marvel Cinematic Universe). But if you tag another fandom in the bigger Marvel Metatag (for example, “Winter Soldier (Comics)”), then it will be considered a Crossover. (according to AO3: “Crossovers are defined here as works with at least two unrelated fandom tags, as determined by how tags are wrangled.”).

Alternate Universe

If your fic is an AU taking place in a non-MCU fandom (for example, Harry Potter), it’s up to you to decide how you want to tag.

Fandoms: You could add the Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling tag to the Fandoms field. Be aware that your fic will be considered a Crossover according to AO3’s search engine.

Additional Tags: there’s a few different ways to tag for AUs.

Alternate Universe - “...” : for example Alternate Universe - Hogwarts

Alternate Universe - “...” Setting: for example Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting

Alternate Universe - “...” Fusion (or just Alternate Universe - Fusion): for example Alternate Universe -The Little Mermaid Fusion, because there wasn’t a HP fusion tag in this case lol (according to Fanlore: “A fusion is a type of fanwork which merges two or more fandoms by incorporating characters from one fandom into the setting of another as if they had always been there.”) (emphasis mine)

In any case, you could also add the Crossover tag to the Additional Tags field (according to Fanlore: “A crossover is a fanfic in which two or more fandoms are combined in some way.”)

You could do all or neither of those things! As always, there are pretty much no absolute rules when it comes to tagging. But again, the more accurate you are, the better it is for your readers! :)

Now, I’ve used Harry Potter as an example, but there are a ton of Alternate Universe tags (under the Sub Tags section) for a great number of fandoms!

RELATIONSHIPS

From AO3’s FAQ: “The significant character interactions in the work, including romantic and/or sexual relationships and pairings (indicated in the Archive's canonical tags by a '/', e.g., James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers) and platonic relationships such as friendship, family, teammates, etc. (indicated in canonical tags by a '&', e.g., Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff). You can use whatever notation you like. Separate different relationships with commas.” (emphasis mine, and I changed the pairings for MCU ones)

So basically:

romantic or sexual = use the slash /

platonic = use the ampersand &

I would recommend:

To only tag the one (1) main relationship in your fic (whether romantic or platonic), unless your story really focuses on more than one sexual/platonic relationship or contains a graphic scene depicting the second couple.

Any side pairings/friendships can go in the Additional Tags field (for example: Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov or Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes Friendship).

Ask yourself: would someone looking for xyz want to find my fic? Or as ao3commentoftheday put it: “Only tag the ship if someone who ships it would be satisfied with the amount of content (or ‘screen time’) that ship gets.”

Here’s a good post on what not to do when tagging Relationships. Namely:

Using portmanteau ship names like “Stucky”, or

Tagging multiple variations of the way you can refer to one ship, like: “Steve/Bucky”, “Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes”, “Steven Grant Rogers/James Buchanan Barnes”.

It’s not a huuuuge deal since they’ll just get synned to the James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers tag, but there’s no need to use all of those when you have a perfectly good canon tag!

Again, there are no rules on how you need to tag your works. I would only recommend that you use canon tags as much as possible and that you choose the tag(s) that accurately represent your story.

CHARACTERS

Use canonical tags! I was incredibly surprised when I searched for the character “Steve Roger” in the Tag Search and ended up with almost 600 tags. The Characters field is not the place for “Mention of Steve Rogers”, “Pre-Serum Steve Rogers”, “Alpha Steve Rogers”, etc. Those should go in the Additional Tags, or else any modifier you’ve put before “Steve Rogers” will be useless, since it’ll just get synned to the Steve Rogers character tag.

Also sounds obvious but… don’t tag Relationships in the Characters field. And vice-versa.

Only tag the main characters! Try to keep it to a minimum. Don’t tag every single character that appears in your fic! (especially if there are a lot of them and most only make a short appearance)

If you’re not sure who to tag, ask yourself: if someone reads my fic, in a year’s time, who would they remember being in there?

In any case, if you want to mention a character without putting it in the Characters field, you can use the Additional Tags!

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I’ll be tackling the Additional Tags! :D

See Part 1: A Comprehensive List of Stucky Tags here.

See Part 3: Additional Tags here!

You can also access a handy bullet-point checklist that summarizes these posts on Google Docs here!

#ao3 #ao3 tags #ao3 tagging #fanfiction #tagging #stucky #stucky fic #stucky fanfic #stucky fanfiction

121 notes · View notes

bettsfic · 6 years

Text

a third stance on the moral dichotomy of fandom

i have one more thing to say, or i guess reiterate, on the topic of moral purity policing in fanfiction as perpetuated by minors, in a more rebloggable format than my previous asks. what i have to say is an incredibly unpopular opinion because it takes neither side of this dichotomized issue, and addresses, not the minors perpetuating the purity rhetoric, but the adults fighting against it.

first i’ll offer a run-down of the overall issue at hand:

side 1, or what i call “think of the CHILDREN”: there is a large sect of people in fandom right now, mostly teens and young adults as far as i can tell, who believe that taboo works (noncon and underage) should not be allowed to exist. if they are written, they should be flagged and subsequently taken down. these people seem to hold these beliefs for several reasons, the prevailing ones being “fiction affects reality” and “children might read it!!” this stance is the active one, the (literal) minority, the side trying to enact change upon an established and (legally) supported status quo. these people do not separate the art from the artist.

in practice, these beliefs are aggressive and toxic. we see them in rude or cruel anonymous asks urging writers to kill themselves. we see them in “only follow if” and “do not interact if” pages with lengthy bullet point lists of traits and behaviors that are Not Okay. we see them in yfip. we see them in anti tags. we see them in long, poorly researched and contextualized responses to well-meaning pro-”ship and let ship” posts. we see them in accusations of pedophilia for fics and ships that are not in fact pedophilic. we see them in phrases like “abuse apologists” and “problematic” and “romanticize” and “fetishize.”

despite the seeming growth of what i’ve been calling the Gen Z Puritanical Movement, what we see on tumblr is only a narrow view of a much wider issue spanning outside fandom and into the world of art itself. it stems from problems of decades past, McCarthyism, the Hays Code, the nuclear family, for example, and the subsequent counterculture movements against them. right now Gen X has all the power and prestige in the enormous world art, and being the children of Baby Boomers, they simultaneously believe you must always separate the art from the artist, while also widely disbelieving (or having had to learn) that inequality and disenfranchisement have any bearing in the success of art.

“the discourse” as we call it has its roots in every creative field and we are in midst of a revolution in the way we understand and interact with art. i believe, with any revolution, the answer is not in stalling it but negotiating with it, learning from it, interrogating it, and adapting.

side 2, which i’ll unpack below, is comprised mostly of what i would venture are Millennials, and fall somewhere between Gen Z purity and Gen X freedom. and as much as i want to discuss this gaping chasm of beliefs further, i’m specifically talking about the way transformative art is presently policed by side 1.

which brings us to the other side.

side 2, or what i call “i do what i WANT”: these people believe that a fan writer/artist should be able to write, post, and share with the public any creative work the mind can devise as long as it is warned/tagged properly, and all people who do not want to view their art should walk away and not interact. key phrases include “ship and let ship” and “don’t like, don’t read.” the prevailing root of this belief is that all art is valid and important, all art belongs, even when that art is devised entirely by the id. additionally, they believe they do not have to justify, defend, or explain their art in order for it to exist, and most importantly, it is every reader/viewer’s responsibility to understand the difference between fiction and reality. these people separate art from the artist.

in practice, these beliefs are poised to defend of the attacks from side 1. this is a reaction to a movement, an assertion of maintaining the status quo. we see posts speaking to an audience of side 1, pleading or at times demanding for them to learn not only the fraught history of fanworks but also the greater context of art and censorship. these posts are then reblogged by people with similar beliefs, attacked by side 1, and no one seems to really learn anything at all. the dichotomy is maintained. battles end as posts fall into obscurity, but the war rages on.

side 2 holds the status quo, the most common sense. it is the most educated perspective, upheld by the wiser and older parties of fandom, the transformative artists who have lived through strikethrough and boldthrough and have experienced the damaging consequences of the censorship and ideology of side 1. moreover, it is upheld by the actual people who built and run the archive on which our art rests. in this dichotomy, side 2 has all the power. side 2 is the majority.

here’s where i get to my incredibly unpopular opinion:

people in positions of power have no reason to meet aggression with more aggression except to re-establish and assert that power over the minority opinion. aggression does not sway the minority opinion; it only fuels it.

in other, more practical words, we are ADULTS sharing a public community space with CHILDREN, and some of those children have made it clear that they are angry.

why do we meet that anger with anger when we are older and wiser and have all the authority? if a child is having a violent tantrum, do you punch them in the face? no, you hold their wrists. you calm them down. you ask them what’s wrong. you try to parse out what happened and work together to make sure it doesn’t happen again. you can’t expect them to articulate that anger; you have to ask questions. you have to listen to them.

side 1 says that taboo works are wrong and bad and shameful. i personally disagree with that belief, but my curiosity lies in the extreme emotional reaction and value judgments behind it. and when enough people are angry about something, if a movement becomes wide enough, it means there is something else going on, some seed of truth happening somewhere -- a needle in a haystack, an invisible shard of glass on the kitchen floor -- that needs to be found. i’m not saying side 1 is right, but i am saying that there is something in that anger which might ring true, even if the toxic rhetoric they are spouting is not. i don’t know what that truth is, and the point of this post is not to find it, but to encourage us to seek bigger answers about this very big problem.

side 2, you might be saying, they’re not children, they’re teenagers and young adults. you might be saying, when i was their age, i knew to obey the etiquette of fandom. you might be saying, we are not equals, they should be learning from us. you might be saying, it’s their responsibility to know fiction from reality. you might be saying, none of this is my responsibility. you might be saying, this movement is getting bigger and scarier and it may become an actual threat to our art.

and you might be feeling: i have no interest in logically or morally defending the taboo nature my aesthetic interests. i know that they appeal to me, and i know i should not be tasked with or required to publicly explain myself. i should not have to assert that art is separate from the artist. i should not have to endure aggressive mobs of anons in my inbox. i should not be chased away by pitchforks held by my own community. i should not be accused of being a predator, rapist, abuse apologist, or pedophile.

and maybe you know that you are not any of those things, and to be accused of them is ridiculous and appalling, but maybe it still hurts to be called all of that which makes life so dangerous and cruel. maybe it always hurts to have your art misunderstood.

this brings me back to anger. all anger is devised of pain and fear. we get angry when we’re hurt and scared. when i see two angry sides of a wide divide, all i see is that fear and pain, and all i want is to lessen it.

on side 1, we have a group of young people whose only context is the present and whose only fear is the future. i put myself in the shoes of what it must be like to be a teenager in america in 2018, how different it is from when i was a teenager. teen stars on red carpet events in 2005 dressed in ugly cargo pants and sweatshirts. millie bobby brown at 13 was dressed like a supermodel at last year’s emmy’s. young people today have more and easier access to information pertaining to violence and sex, consume media steeped in those things, than they ever have. and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for parents to keep them from that interaction. side 2′s rhetoric around this is to wipe their hands free of it -- “your parents should monitor what you’re doing on the internet.” and they should, they absolutely should, but while technology has changed, teenage curiosity hasn’t. i clicked past every 18+ warning i’ve ever seen in my life, and that was my choice, and i handled the consequences.

but just for a second imagine being 14 again, and curiosity getting the best of you, and clicking on something in which your physical equivalent is being hurt and abused and eroticized. can you imagine not having any understanding of the greater context of what you’ve just read, in art or in life? wouldn’t you be scared too, to know those things exist? wouldn’t you be reluctant to listen to the explanation of them when you are young and afraid and suddenly aware that you can be hurt?

i am not encouraging writers to stop creating taboo fanworks. i think they have an important artistic purpose and function and place, and i value any mind that can conceive and face such darkness. but as someone who aims to understand as much as i possibly can about what it is to be human, to be alive today, i am inclined to consider the various interpretations of taboo art and its potential repercussions.

teenagers today are more aware and attuned to -- and have constant access to -- current events than any other generation before, but that does not mean they have learned or educated themselves on the historical context of these events in order to understand them fully. they don’t have a wide perspective, but they do have their moral compasses guided by the abhorrence of the constant human rights violations that occur on macro and micro scales every single day, and it’s those compasses that place value judgments on the content they consume in fandom, the place where they feel, i speculate, the most valued. the place they have the most power and sway. the only place, maybe, that their voice and fear and anger is ever heard, witnessed, responded to, taken seriously.

being a teenager today is a completely new and terrifying machine made of old parts. we, the adults in fandom, understand the parts but not the machine. how can all the same parts make something so different from us? who built this monster, and how to we destroy it? why is it attacking us when there are bigger and more important battles to fight? why doesn’t it go read a fucking book for once?

that brings us to side 2. if side 1 has the future, side 2 has the past. we see the toxic rhetoric of side 1 and we know what consequences can come of it because we’ve lived the worst of it. we have both the pain of the past and the fear of the future to handle, and neither are easy to cope with.

so what do we do? we either get angry and fight back, or disengage. sometimes i think the latter is the most toxic of all, because i believe it’s every artist’s responsibility to understand the work they’re doing and the greater context of that work, how it fits in their given lexicon of art. they should not be required to defend it or speak for it, but they should know it. inside and out, they should know their art and why they make it.

i also believe, if you know your art and why you make it, if you can separate yourself the artist from the art, why disengage from those who are repulsed but reaching out? it’s definitely my gut instinct to meet cruelty with anger and upsetness, but cruelty also piques my curiosity -- i want to know where the repulsion comes from. i want to ask questions. why are you offended by this art? how have you interpreted it? why are you afraid of it? how has its existence hurt you? if nothing else, it always gives me a broader understanding of my work and how it can be seen, which is invaluable feedback for any artist.

if there is any bridge at all to be built between this divide, i think it is in our ability to ask questions, listen to the answers, and use those answers, not to argue with or defend ourselves or to become upset by, but to ask more questions.

here are two ways this mentality has helped me --

in my old job (commercial finance real estate), i worked with upperclass middle-aged white men who got paid six figures a year to golf and cheat on their wives while i did all their paperwork. eventually i made a hobby of sitting in their offices and asking them questions, knowing they had authority over me, knowing our opinions differed. knowing i had no place to argue with them or leverage in telling them all the ways i felt they were wrong about politics and society at large. i pretended they were teaching me things, showing me the way of the world. i let them believe that, and i continued asking questions, forcing them to articulate aloud why they believed what they believed, hours and hours, slowly boxing them into corners from which they would eventually change their own minds.

in my current job (i’m a college instructor) i do something similar. i sit down with every single student one on one and i ask them questions about their political and social beliefs. often my students are 19, white, straight, affluent, conservative young adults who hold many of the same puritanical ideas as that of side 1 with less of the toxic rhetoric. at first, i was terrified to do this. it was different than my old job because suddenly i was the one with authority. i thought, what if i encounter racism? prejudice? sexism? what if they are fundamentally wrong on every level, and won’t listen to me, someone who knows the greater context of their opinions? what if i end up arguing with them? what if they don’t respect me? what if i can’t change their minds? and most importantly -- is it my responsibility to change their minds at all?

after the first semester, i realized how young they were, how much they still had left to grow, and learn, and live, and that my class would not be able to teach them everything they needed to know in order to strip away the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of their upbringings. i learned that all i could do was be a person in a position of authority listening to their beliefs and asking them tough questions no one has ever asked them. forcing them on the spot to articulate the beliefs they have not before had the opportunity to interrogate. i find i rarely agree with what they say, but i validate their right and ability to say it. to have a voice and space and responsibility in and to society. to think, itself. and most importantly to think through their ideals, which they cannot do if they are never given a chance to be heard, if they are never asked the questions whose answers will lead them to deeper and more meaningful insights.

i have never changed the mind of a single person by arguing, but i have changed several minds by asking.

we have an entire generation of terrified young people who are lashing out, and i do not want to hate them. i do not want to meet their rage and toxicity with fear, defensiveness, and dismissal. i want to sympathize and listen. i want to know more about why they feel how they feel, what the real root of it is, the seeds of truth behind the rhetoric. i want to understand. and mostly, i want to help fix all the broken and awful things in the greater sociopolitical sphere that have built this terrifying machine and dug our moral divide.

#tsatp #discourse #moral purity #ao3 #fanfiction

106 notes · View notes