#or moderating your own forums or what have you
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What The Radiant Orders Would See as their Fandom Job on the Internet
Orders on the internet requested by @justheretoreadnotwrite :)
Justheretoreadnotwrite pointed me to this very fun 17th Shard thread, and asked if I could do a riff on the Radiant Orders being on the internet. Since I wanted to try avoiding the jokes already there, I thought I would focus in on how they'd act in fandom on the internet. Specifically, what would each Order think is their Duty in Fandom?
1. Edgedancers: Finding & Leaving Comments for Zero-Kudo Fics
The Edgedancers make it their mission to listen to those who are forgotten--in this case, fics with no kudos, no comments, or no notes. The Edgedancers come to read them, like them, and comment on them!
2. Lightweavers: Posting Fanart & Engaging in Character RP chats
You want your favorite character or OC to have art drawn of them? Just ask your nearest Lightweaver! Or, if you just wish you could roleplay with your favorite character, the Lightweavers can do that too. They are, like, VERY good at pretending to be other characters.
3. Bondsmiths: Writing Alt-Text
The Bondsmiths want to make sure that fandom is accessible to all, so they're out there writing descriptions and alt-text for any fanart or tweets or other images that screenreaders might struggle over. Barriers of communication are no match for our friendly Bondsmiths.
4. Truthwatchers: Writing Call-Out Posts
If someone is out there stealing art and posting it on their own blog/twitter/pinterest page as if it's their own....well, they better hope a Truthwatcher doesn't find them. Those Truthwatchers will be telling the original artist, and they may just write a call-out post if they have to.
5.Elsecallers: Writing, just, Really Excellent Analyses and Guides
The Elsecallers are the scholars of fandom. They are writing really in-depth analyses of both the original source and of your fanfic, and they're here posting guides about how to accurately portray, like, dyeing practices of x-century.
6. Willshapers: Writing Character x Reader Fics and Creating OCs
The Willshapers are out there putting themselves into fandom worlds--and helping you do the same. They're great at creating their own OCs and/or self-inserts, and they're the ones writing all of the Character x Reader fics as well.
7. Stonewards: Writing the Majority of the Actual Fanfic
In terms of sheer output--like keeping the fandom running by doing the hard work of actually writing fics--the Stonewards are leading the way. If there's such a thing as the "front lines" of fandom, I think it's people filling A03 and creating longform content.
8. Windrunners: Forum/Discord Moderation
The Windrunners want to make sure that fandom spaces are protected & safe for their members, so they're likely to take on the role of administrators or moderators--kinda like, you know, being the king's guard but here the the "king" is 19 people who all want to talk about the same character.
9. Dustbringers: Being the Most Popular Person in the Fandom
The Dustbringers are the "great power / great responsibility" order. They know they could level that city or dissolve that person into atoms or whatever, but they have more restraint that that. Probably. In the same way, Dustrbingers are The Person in their fandom. If they choose to retweet or reblog or boost your fic/art/analysis, you are made, my friend. On the other hand, if they decide you're an enemy...
10. Skybreakers: Following the Rules. The Internet Rules.
Listen, the Skybreakers don't judge rules, they follow rules. So if a fandom on the internet has rules, the Skybreakers really have no choice to follow them. You know, like Rule 34 for example.
So yes, the Skybreakers are out there making sure there is porn of your favorite character. You're welcome.
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Man I love. Fandom.
#I realised the author of one of my fav fics was actually one of the AO3 founders#so i was on her blog just kind of reading about ao3 as a project and fandom history fandom archiving fandom community and culture etc#mad respect to fandom olds of all stripes like. my god#i'm just struck by the gift economy of it all#fandom is pretty radical proof that the profit motive is not ....necessary#for people to pour hours of work and time into making art and making places for that art to live#conventions exchanges archives - it's hard work! it's community building and coordination!#I mostly lurked in the livejournal days so I have a limited personal experience of that more self-governing community era#before tumblr which is more of a broadcast platform#thinking about how platforms shape community norms#and most social media rn encourages that - broadcast to an audience style communication#over - talking in a corner to someone about something you both love style communication#cause the first drives engagement the second is taking up your server space and you can't even ADVERTISE at them mostly#like i used to marvel at the fact that fans were able to make ao3 but being a fan back in the day often meant building your own website#or moderating your own forums or what have you#so like#yeah makes sense#thank you ao3 thank you astolat thank you fandom#me fein
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For those who might happen across this, I'm an administrator for the forum 'Sufficient Velocity', a large old-school forum oriented around Creative Writing. I originally posted this on there (and any reference to 'here' will mean the forum), but I felt I might as well throw it up here, as well, even if I don't actually have any followers.
This week, I've been reading fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a site run by the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit. This isn't particularly exceptional, in and of itself — like many others on the site, I read a lot of fanfiction, both on Sufficient Velocity (SV) and elsewhere — however what was bizarre to me was encountering a new prefix on certain works, that of 'End OTW Racism'. While I'm sure a number of people were already familiar with this, I was not, so I looked into it.
What I found... wasn't great. And I don't think anyone involved realises that.
To summarise the details, the #EndOTWRacism campaign, of which you may find their manifesto here, is a campaign oriented towards seeing hateful or discriminatory works removed from AO3 — and believe me, there is a lot of it. To whit, they want the OTW to moderate them. A laudable goal, on the face of it — certainly, we do something similar on Sufficient Velocity with Rule 2 and, to be clear, nothing I say here is a critique of Rule 2 (or, indeed, Rule 6) on SV.
But it's not that simple, not when you're the size of Archive of Our Own. So, let's talk about the vagaries and little-known pitfalls of content moderation, particularly as it applies to digital fiction and at scale. Let's dig into some of the details — as far as credentials go, I have, unfortunately, been in moderation and/or administration on SV for about six years and this is something we have to grapple with regularly, so I would like to say I can speak with some degree of expertise on the subject.
So, what are the problems with moderating bad works from a site? Let's start with discovery— that is to say, how you find rule-breaching works in the first place. There are more-or-less two different ways to approach manual content moderation of open submissions on a digital platform: review-based and report-based (you could also call them curation-based and flag-based), with various combinations of the two. Automated content moderation isn't something I'm going to cover here — I feel I can safely assume I'm preaching to the choir when I say it's a bad idea, and if I'm not, I'll just note that the least absurd outcome we had when simulating AI moderation (mostly for the sake of an academic exercise) on SV was banning all the staff.
In a review-based system, you check someone's work and approve it to the site upon verifying that it doesn't breach your content rules. Generally pretty simple, we used to do something like it on request. Unfortunately, if you do that, it can void your safe harbour protections in the US per Myeress vs. Buzzfeed Inc. This case, if you weren't aware, is why we stopped offering content review on SV. Suffice to say, it's not really a realistic option for anyone large enough for the courts to notice, and extremely clunky and unpleasant for the users, to boot.
Report-based systems, on the other hand, are something we use today — users find works they think are in breach and alert the moderation team to their presence with a report. On SV, this works pretty well — a user or users flag a work as potentially troublesome, moderation investigate it and either action it or reject the report. Unfortunately, AO3 is not SV. I'll get into the details of that dreadful beast known as scaling later, but thankfully we do have a much better comparison point — fanfiction.net (FFN).
FFN has had two great purges over the years, with a... mixed amount of content moderation applied in between: one in 2002 when the NC-17 rating was removed, and one in 2012. Both, ostensibly, were targeted at adult content. In practice, many fics that wouldn't raise an eye on Spacebattles today or Sufficient Velocity prior to 2018 were also removed; a number of reports suggest that something as simple as having a swearword in your title or summary was enough to get you hit, even if you were a 'T' rated work. Most disturbingly of all, there are a number of — impossible to substantiate — accounts of groups such as the infamous Critics United 'mass reporting' works to trigger a strike to get them removed. I would suggest reading further on places like Fanlore if you are unfamiliar and want to know more.
Despite its flaws however, report-based moderation is more-or-less the only option, and this segues neatly into the next piece of the puzzle that is content moderation, that is to say, the rubric. How do you decide what is, and what isn't against the rules of your site?
Anyone who's complained to the staff about how vague the rules are on SV may have had this explained to them, but as that is likely not many of you, I'll summarise: the more precise and clear-cut your chosen rubric is, the more it will inevitably need to resemble a legal document — and the less readable it is to the layman. We'll return to SV for an example here: many newer users will not be aware of this, but SV used to have a much more 'line by line, clearly delineated' set of rules and... people kind of hated it! An infraction would reference 'Community Compact III.15.5' rather than Rule 3, because it was more or less written in the same manner as the Terms of Service (sans the legal terms of art). While it was a more legible rubric from a certain perspective, from the perspective of communicating expectations to the users it was inferior to our current set of rules — even less of them read it, and we don't have great uptake right now.
And it still wasn't really an improvement over our current set-up when it comes to 'moderation consistency'. Even without getting into the nuts and bolts of "how do you define a racist work in a way that does not, at any point, say words to the effect of 'I know it when I see it'" — which is itself very, very difficult don't get me wrong I'm not dismissing this — you are stuck with finding an appropriate footing between a spectrum of 'the US penal code' and 'don't be a dick' as your rubric. Going for the penal code side doesn't help nearly as much as you might expect with moderation consistency, either — no matter what, you will never have a 100% correct call rate. You have the impossible task of writing a rubric that is easy for users to comprehend, extremely clear for moderation and capable of cleanly defining what is and what isn't racist without relying on moderator judgement, something which you cannot trust when operating at scale.
Speaking of scale, it's time to move on to the third prong — and the last covered in this ramble, which is more of a brief overview than anything truly in-depth — which is resources. Moderation is not a magic wand, you can't conjure it out of nowhere: you need to spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on building, training and equipping a moderation staff, even a volunteer one, and it is far, far from an instant process. Our most recent tranche of moderators spent several months in training and it will likely be some months more before they're fully comfortable in the role — and that's with a relatively robust bureaucracy and a number of highly experienced mentors supporting them, something that is not going to be available to a new moderation branch with little to no experience. Beyond that, there's the matter of sheer numbers.
Combining both moderation and arbitration — because for volunteer staff, pure moderation is in actuality less efficient in my eyes, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post, but we'll treat it as if they're both just 'moderators' — SV presently has 34 dedicated moderation volunteers. SV hosts ~785 million words of creative writing.
AO3 hosts ~32 billion.
These are some very rough and simplified figures, but if you completely ignore all the usual problems of scaling manpower in a business (or pseudo-business), such as (but not limited to) geometrically increasing bureaucratic complexity and administrative burden, along with all the particular issues of volunteer moderation... AO3 would still need well over one thousand volunteer moderators to be able to match SV's moderator-to-creative-wordcount ratio.
Paid moderation, of course, you can get away with less — my estimate is that you could fully moderate SV with, at best, ~8 full-time moderators, still ignoring administrative burden above the level of team leader. This leaves AO3 only needing a much more modest ~350 moderators. At the US minimum wage of ~$15k p.a. — which is, in my eyes, deeply unethical to pay moderators as full-time moderation is an intensely gruelling role with extremely high rates of PTSD and other stress-related conditions — that is approximately ~$5.25m p.a. costs on moderator wages. Their average annual budget is a bit over $500k.
So, that's obviously not on the table, and we return to volunteer staffing. Which... let's examine that scenario and the questions it leaves us with, as our conclusion.
Let's say, through some miracle, AO3 succeeds in finding those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer moderators. We'll even say none of them are malicious actors or sufficiently incompetent as to be indistinguishable, and that they manage to replicate something on the level of or superior to our moderation tooling near-instantly at no cost. We still have several questions to be answered:
How are you maintaining consistency? Have you managed to define racism to the point that moderator judgment no longer enters the equation? And to be clear, you cannot allow moderator judgment to be a significant decision maker at this scale, or you will end with absurd results.
How are you handling staff mental health? Some reading on the matter, to save me a lengthy and unrelated explanation of some of the steps involved in ensuring mental health for commercial-scale content moderators.
How are you handling your failures? No moderation in the world has ever succeeded in a 100% accuracy rate, what are you doing about that?
Using report-based discovery, how are you preventing 'report brigading', such as the theories surrounding Critics United mentioned above? It is a natural human response to take into account the amount and severity of feedback. While SV moderators are well trained on the matter, the rare times something is receiving enough reports to potentially be classified as a 'brigade' on that scale will nearly always be escalated to administration, something completely infeasible at (you're learning to hate this word, I'm sure) scale.
How are you communicating expectations to your user base? If you're relying on a flag-based system, your users' understanding of the rules is a critical facet of your moderation system — how have you managed to make them legible to a layman while still managing to somehow 'truly' define racism?
How are you managing over one thousand moderators? Like even beyond all the concerns with consistency, how are you keeping track of that many moving parts as a volunteer organisation without dozens or even hundreds of professional managers? I've ignored the scaling administrative burden up until now, but it has to be addressed in reality.
What are you doing to sweep through your archives? SV is more-or-less on-top of 'old' works as far as rule-breaking goes, with the occasional forgotten tidbit popping up every 18 months or so — and that's what we're extrapolating from. These thousand-plus moderators are mostly going to be addressing current or near-current content, are you going to spin up that many again to comb through the 32 billion words already posted?
I could go on for a fair bit here, but this has already stretched out to over two thousand words.
I think the people behind this movement have their hearts in the right place and the sentiment is laudable, but in practice it is simply 'won't someone think of the children' in a funny hat. It cannot be done.
Even if you could somehow meet the bare minimum thresholds, you are simply not going to manage a ruleset of sufficient clarity so as to prevent a much-worse repeat of the 2012 FF.net massacre, you are not going to be able to manage a moderation staff of that size and you are not going to be able to ensure a coherent understanding among all your users (we haven't managed that after nearly ten years and a much smaller and more engaged userbase). There's a serious number of other issues I haven't covered here as well, as this really is just an attempt at giving some insight into the sheer number of moving parts behind content moderation: the movement wants off-site content to be policed which isn't so much its own barrel of fish as it is its own barrel of Cthulhu; AO3 is far from English-only and would in actuality need moderators for almost every language it supports — and most damning of all, if Section 230 is wiped out by the Supreme Court it is not unlikely that engaging in content moderation at all could simply see AO3 shut down.
As sucky as it seems, the current status quo really is the best situation possible. Sorry about that.
#archive of our own#endotwracism#end otw racism#content moderation#sufficient velocity#i hate how much i know about this topic
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Thinking about starting a subreddit for people who want to find furniture, sports equipment, etc (anything but clothes) for people who are fat or tall or otherwise don't fit standard dimensions.
Basically 'consumer reports for people who are more than 250lbs and/or 6ft tall'
Reasons why subreddit:
allows people to post their own questions
allows for reasonable moderation already
gives pretty good SEO out of the gate
allows for tagging so people can filter posts
has decent search engine built in
allows for NSFW/18+ content with tags so questions about sex toys, etc can be asked
Rules I'm already thinking of:
Recommendations and questions both allowed, but no self-promotion on individual posts or maybe on one day a month or something (keeps down the spammers!)
Related: no surveys/market research
No diet talk at all
No judgement (about things that are usually disability related but get shamed, like 'best way to put on my socks when I have trouble bending over')
This is generally for goods, not services, so no asking about therapists, doctors, etc.
This is not a complaint forum, but you can post your personal negative experiences as an anti-recommendation on a question.
(What I don't want: a post that's just 'I hate this company because of a single bad experience!' What I would be OK with: a post about yoga equipment where someone shares that their foam blocks from X company collapsed after a few uses)
Anyone else on Reddit interested in helping? Is this something that already exists elsewhere I can just join?
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Simblr.cc
I made a website!
Now you've probably seen the attempt before, people getting mad at tumblr and then making a 'Simblr' (Tumblr clone). Though, despite tumblr being sometimes a bit frustrating because of their changes, that's not why this site came to be...
I wanted a place where Storytellers, Creators, and just generic sim players can all be together and get the exposure and fun that they deserve.
Not only that, but also for a place where the TSM community and TS1 can belong somewhere too without the use of a forum.
And eventually, I hope we can make it the home for Life by you and Paralives when that comes out :)
Plus, it's also NSFW friendly! While the site is initially PG-13, we've got tags and profile settings that allow you to browse NSFW items as well.
Simblr.cc:
Discord:
What can I find on Simblr.cc exactly?
Anything for all sims games, really! TS1, TS2, TS3, TS4 and TSM
Practically anything you technically can find on Tumblr and really other sim websites. We've got...
Mods
I've specifically made filters for different games, and their needs in mind. For example, for TS2 there are so many awesome game fixes out there and clean templates, that you'll be able to navigate and find this easily.
Not only that, items can also be put in multiple categories! Especially great if you've uploaded a set!
You can also find Testers wanted only mods here if you feel like helping out fellow simmers with testing!
NOTE:
Mods do go through a "queue", but not in the same way as you may have experienced on MTS or TSR. I merely check if it's flagged as NSFW correctly, and then it's good to go! :) So the waiting time will be much less!
See TOU: Click me!
Eventually, I may see if I can get a bypass system in place, but that really depends on if NSFW isn't too confusing.
Work In Progress
To show off your work to others! Even if it's project #94882 that may never get released, any WIPS are fine!
Stories
It's really difficult to find new Sim stories or Legacies on Tumblr, let alone for these writers to get people to read their awesome stories! Hopefully this should make the process much easier now!
Also! You got any comic or "movie/cinematic" like stories? No problem! Just check the "carousel only" option, so no description needed!
Feed
... and for the Simblrs here, a feed to see all the people you follow, their content (stories, WIPs, mods and general posts)! Or, simply check out sitewide, or even game-related, what people have been posting!
Customizable profile pages
Just like tumblr, you can make your own profile page! With it's own colours and a pre-made theme. (if you need a different profile page, though, Let us know on the discord)
Want a peek? Here you go:
What about moderation?
While there's a report system in place, and the items in the queue are checked for NSFW, but users could still turn their non-NSFW to a NSFW, items may be stolen. So do report these as that will never be condoned!
Additionally, all comments you get on your mods, story, etc. Those are primarily moderated by you. You can delete them, you can turn comments off even if you'd like. If things really go wrong, you can always ask an admin.
Got any ideas? Feel free to share!
Since I really wanted it to be a website we all create together in some degree, if you have any features you're missing or would like to see, feel free to share on the discord!
Where are the Advertisements?
If you're currently not seeing them as of reading the post, that's because that's still being set up. This is merely to cover the cost of the website! Though, I promise you I won't bombard the site with ads, as that's just annoying.
#The sims 1#the sims 2#the sims 3#the sims medieval#the sims 4#sims 2#sims 3#sims 4#sims medieval#ts1#ts2#ts3#ts4#tsm#sims 1#simblr.cc#simblr
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Running Commentary: What is “ok to do” in Mixed-Culture Supernatural Fiction?
Dear readers:
Today we are trying something new. To give you some insight into our process in the Japanese moderator section, we are presenting our response in the form of running commentary to show you how we dissect and answer long asks. We hope this makes clear what points are useful and not useful when sending us a query. As always, this is for learning purposes, not callouts. Be prepared: this is a long one.
To summarize: the asker is looking to create a comic drawn in Japanese manga style, and has provided a long summary of the story and worldbuilding which involves a mix of “reimagined” Japanese yokai mythos and cultural symbols from many other sources. They have questions with respect to cultural appropriation, coding etiquette, and “what is and isn’t ok.”
Opening Comments
I know a common advice when it comes to the thing I am about to ask is to talk to people involved in __, but I struggle with opening up to strangers for reasons I'm uncomfortable explaining.
Marika (M): This is already a red flag. If you want to engage with another culture without talking to people from that culture, then research is going to be very challenging. You won’t have members of that culture to guide you towards sources and perspectives they feel most accurately represents public opinion. If I were in your shoes, I might start with tackling my discomfort when engaging with other people, if only to improve my work. If you aren’t ready to engage with a culture and its people directly, then I think you should wait until you are.
I should note, reaching out to the Japanese mod team at WWC does count as engagement, but WWC should not and cannot be the only point of contact because there is no single, legitimate cultural perspective.
Rina (R): Also, you don’t need to “open up” to strangers or talk to them in person to get perspectives. Asking specific research questions anonymously to a forum or on social media requires very little vulnerability. You managed to do it here on WWC. So give it a try!
Anyway, my question basically amounts to the what is and isn't ok [sic] in terms of depicting fantasy creatures and concepts outside of their respective culture.
R: So, the reason why we turn away rubber stamp questions by that ask “is XYZ okay?” is because “okay” & “not okay” 1) is vague and 2) creates a dichotomy where there isn’t one.
When we say something is “not okay,” do we mean:
It’s offensive to the general majority of XYZ group?
It’s contentious among people who ID in the group?
It has a potential to be interpreted in a certain negative way, but may not be a red flag to everyone?
Insetad try asking:
What are the reasons this subject is offensive?
What makes cultural appropriation bad?
When might it be “okay” to intentionally discuss a difficult or controversial topic?
What is your reason for including something that may be interpreted as offensive and can it be sufficiently justified?
What stereotypes or tropes might it be consistently identified as or associated with, and why?
When might it be justified to bring up these tropes?
With That In Mind...
Let’s get into the rest of the ask below.
…a story I've been working on in recent times is largely inspired off the Japanese yokai, and the setting is basically Earth in the far future, as far as when the next supercontinent may form. These yokai, although portrayed differently here, do retain their main characteristics [...] Included in this world are two goddesses of my own creation, primarily representing the sun and the moon. [...] There will be thirteen nations, named and based after the Chinese Zodiac, and the life force found in the living things in this world, called qi, comes in two forms that are always opposing each other but can never fully overpower the other, this being based off yin and yang. They're even directly named this; yin qi and yang qi.
M: This reads more like using Japanese and Chinese culture for the “aesthetics”, not the cultures themselves, which I personally feel falls under cultural appropriation. From a world-building/ coding standpoint, the actual use of concepts is workable, and, dare I say, typical, given how Chinese cosmology influences Japanese culture. However, naming a concept “yin qi” or “yang qi” is the equivalent of naming something “- charge” or “+ charge”, respectively. That you don’t seem aware of this tells me you are pretty early in your research phase. In that vein, we’ve covered translating terms and names from foreign languages in fantasy before. See the following article linked here for our recommendation against using RL terms outright but instead encouraging people to create their own conlangs.
R: Worldbuilding-wise, I think you would have to figure out the chicken-or-egg of the zodiac nations. Did the nations come first, and the zodiac later as an origin folk story (which you would have to rewrite to serve the nation-building narrative)? Did the zodiac come first, and the nations named (most likely re-named) by a political entity? What is the justification? Otherwise, again, it’s a shoehorning of aesthetics.
There is also a third, lesser known god based off of fox spirits and trickery and I imagined he's the patron deity of a family that honors and worships him, but his influence on them has transformed them into Kitsune-tsuki, which I depict as fox-like anthros.
M: Not related to this ask directly, but I have jokingly ranted about how often non-Japanese people prefer using imagery related to kitsune-tsuki in Japanese coded world-building (link). This makes me feel the same level of petty irritation. See my troll answer below for a similar experience.
R: Same. It’s boring tbh.
M: Troll Answer: I get that kitsune-tsuki are very sexy furries, but Japanese folklore has other sexy furries too! These underrepresented demographics also deserve recognition and appreciation!!
The plot of the story is this; modernization has left the goddesses neglected of their worship and forgotten, something that is necessary in this world to stop them from fighting each other. The Moon Goddess awakens first, punishing the humans by unleashing the yokai. Then the Sun Goddess wakes up to fight in humanity's defense…
M: This could feel rather like Shinto-like coding (Ex. the myth of Amaterasu and the Cave, or Tsukuyomi slaying Ukemochi), but something about this scenario feels a bit too binary in terms of themes of good v. evil, light v. dark to be Shinto. The plot also feels more Gaelic/ Nordic in influence for me as a person raised in a Japanese Buddhist and Hindu household. I imagine this dissonance could have been fixed with better guided research.
…but their fighting has caused a perma-eclipse and this world is in danger of ending. The yokai have run rampant; some are loyal to the Moon Goddess, and some aren't, and it lies to the main characters to bring balance back to Midgard. Yeah... the name of this future Earth is Midgard. I debate changing it since it and some other things I will mention sorta feel out of place.
R: Marika, looks like you were right on the Gaelic/Nordic influence /j
Also, worldbuilding question: if the Earth is in the far geologic future, how long has it been since modernization (19th-20th century)? Centuries? Millennia? How long has this fighting gone on for? What triggered the perma-eclipse, and why now? Why is this time depth necessary?
One of the main characters in question is a humanoid woman with wolf features named Ling, and she is a descendant of the dynasty that had first ruled the one of the nations, particularly the one based off the dragon zodiac. She accidentally summons the other main character to this world as she's praying at a shrine, a humanoid with dragon features--I call them drakon--named Angelynn.
[on the names of characters] is it appropriating by not having the world entirely based on [Chinese, Japanese, and Indian] influence? it's a little weird to me how worldwide the creatures are referred to as yokai, implying a strong Japanese influence not unlike how it is today with Western culture being so dominant, yet there are still names like Keith and Kiara.
M: I will give you credit for recognizing you have unconsciously veered towards white-washing/ race-bending: either presenting European cultural influences (drakons, Angelynn, Keith, Kiara, Midgard) as default or utilizing general E. Asian cultural influences and aesthetics for a Western-style story (Ling, qi, Chinese zodiac, yokai). I agree with you that this creates a sense of cultural dissonance. At this point, I’d say you have a clear choice: write a Western-style high fantasy using a background with which you have more familiarity, or get some better guidance on research with East Asian cultures so you can code the story more effectively.
The focus of this story is centered around meeting all these yokai and showing that there's more nuance to them than Ling believes, all while saving the world. But I worry if I'm appropriating these concepts and creatures by 1, drawing from more than one culture--I initially imagined that there would be a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Indian influence because according to a website I am getting the info on yokai from, the yokai in question already draw inspiration from or have been based on something in Chinese mythology or Hinduism [...]
R: Sure, some yokai have Chinese or Hindu parallels as that tends to happen with folk tales. But not all–some are unique to Japan, and some are more modern. Sometimes it’s very political–some people consider the Ainu Korpokkur as being a “Yokai of Japan” despite it belonging to the indigenous culture. It’s up to you to research, untangle, and understand these influences.
The fact that you bring up that the Asian continent has seen a lot of cultural exchange is not a sufficient reason to randomly combine influences for the sake of visual appeal or “coolness.” That is appropriation. These influences must be understood in their historical context so that you know how/why certain things combined or morphed into another, and what makes sense to combine/morph.
M: This also indicates that the character views the yokai as evil/inherently bad, which I would argue is not a typical stance for much Japanese folklore. Again, this shows a deficit in research.
2, reimagining these yokai in a new context even though I have done the research on them, because one thing I kept seeing in regards to cultural appropriation is that it's bad to do that […]
R: Refer above to my note on “okay” and “not okay.” The thing with folklore and fairy tales is that every–and I mean every–folk tale is reinterpreted with every new iteration of it. Reimagining in a new context is what people do every time they pass on a story or tell a story with the same plot or characters. Do not think of folklore as an “original” that is altered and rebooted, but rather a living document that gets added to. Reimagining is not the inherent issue. HOW you reimagine something matters.
So I suppose my question is...if someone were to do research upon the creature they want to use, given they are allowed to use it, and gained an understanding of what the creature or concept stood for, are they allowed to pick it apart and reimagine it? Alternatively, is it ok if it's explicitly pointed out that it is derivative of the original?
It has actually become my biggest fear that I may have internalized something that could both continue to do harm long after the fact and attract the wrong people to me work. I don't wanna let people down!
M: As Rina has noted several times, I think the problem is in trying to ID a set of specific variables and circumstances that make a thing “okay” or “not okay.” I want to recommend that you read my joking response about writing in secret rooms while wearing a disguise (Linked here). Who can you hurt if no one knows what you are doing? There’s a difference between creating for oneself and creating to share.
You have internalized a message incorrectly, but not the one you cite. The goal of many recommendations against cultural appropriation is to avoid causing direct harm to people who have seen their cultures demeaned, discredited and devalued, especially in shared spaces. Assessing cultural engagement, whether we are talking about appropriation, appreciation or exchange is not a measure of personal virtue or a collection of commandment style do’s and don’t’s. Rather, I believe engaging with other cultures is the state of mind of acknowledging that when using these cultures’ in one’s own work, there is value in consulting members of that culture and giving credit where credit is due. This will be challenging if you are only comfortable engaging with all of these cultures in a distanced, minimal capacity.
FWIW, I’ve written stories that probably will offend people from other cultures and backgrounds, but I don’t show them off. I don’t think writing these makes me a bad person, but I also don’t see the need to give unnecessary offense, so those stories are just for me, to be written and read in my own secret room. However, I’m not ashamed of having written them, and I’m also comfortable to “let people down” provided that my own shared work reflects my personal principles of what I consider to be sufficient research and engagement with other cultures, As a creator, my work wouldn’t be mine if I didn’t first please myself. I think the trick to the creator role is deciding what to keep private, what to share and what constitutes sufficient engagement.
P.S.
We’ve referenced the need for research multiple times in this ask, and in some of the other asks that have gone up this week, so we thought this would be a good place to plug a beginner’s guide to academic research created by the mod team.. Look for it soon under WWC’s pinned posts!
#japanese#chinese#fantasy#cultural appropriation#coding#worldbuilding#names#mythology#folklore#fairy tales#asks#running commentary#writeblr
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Ready Player 1 ? - Shigaraki x reader
18+ MDNI | masturbation, praise , video chats, crack-humor
most would consider it unwise for a girl like you to be in these chat rooms due to the questionable discourse and rather infamous patrons, but girls just wanna have fun right ?
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: saw an old couple today, could be me and shig but he’s playing ☹️
user2345: i think you mean planning* as in planning world domination and torment of quirkless losers like you.
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: oh sweetheart you’ll never get any pussy if you keep acting like one
user3333: damn bro, you gonna take that ?
user2345: who gives a shit about some villain groupie ?
user2345: she keeps her mouth so full of cum that it’s starting to affect her whore brain.
user2345: do you really think the true leader of the new world would make time for some dumb cunt like you ?
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: there’s probably a higher chance of tomura shigaraki and i living happily ever after than there is of ANY woman even looking in your direction.
this was a normal friday night, you simping over shigaraki in the forums and clapping back at the misogynistic incels that hid behind their keyboards in their mothers’ basements. but there was one guy that always stood up for you whenever the idiots got too out of hand. he was also a moderator so he had no problems blocking them.
the two of you would dm off and on about life , thoughts on hero society, hobbies , etc. from your chats you gathered that he didn’t walk that straight and narrow but that didn’t mean much to you. he would sometimes tease your about your crush on shigaraki and your general taste in men.
finalboss: honestly, what kind of girl likes a criminal?; who knows what kind of twisted shit the guys into— you’re not even a villain.
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: you know nothing jon snow
finalboss: that reference just confirmed btw
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: i’ll have you know that my beloved is a certified otaku fantasy nerd.
finalboss: oh yeah ? and how’d you obtain such info ?
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: i run 3 stan accounts on twitter and i belong to a shiggy fan club 🥹
finalboss: 😃
finalboss: seek help
finalboss: 😃
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: you wound me ☹️
finalboss: i’ll just leave that too your Prince Charming lol
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: oh lord , did you see the footage of his latest attack ?
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: he was dressed like a whoreee 😩😩
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: tits just out for my viewing pleasure
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: shigaraki is my shepherd, he know what i want.
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: wanna suck on those sugar nips and call him mommy
finalboss: you get weirder and weirder every time we chat
xoxo_|hisMC ✮: that means we’re becoming besties ㅤ♡ ︎
finalboss: ♡ ︎
it was nice having someone to talk to about your secret obsession, it’s not like your “real life” friends would understand. the two of you had carved out your own little piece of the internet to goof around in. he never disclosed much information about himself and typically kept the conversations focused on you, but you still felt an undeniable bond to this faceless stranger.
then he ghosted you.
weeks went by without a word from your friend. he no longer defended you in the forums and he didn’t respond to any of your dms. you’d started to get worried that he may have been arrested or worse. and at the three month mark you’d finally given up hope that you’d ever hear from your friend again. but then the unexpected happened.
finalboss is requesting to video chat.
this was completely out of character but after months with no word, you were desperate to hear from your friend.
you were prepared to chew him him out for abandoning you. thinking of all the ways you could insult him while simultaneously expressing your need for his comfort and company. but your mind went blank when the grainy screen loaded into the pixelated image of your companion.
whispy tendrils fell from his bun, framing the sculpted planes of his handsome face. his lips were dry, slightly chapped, with the only lubrication being the sheen of saliva left by the slow drag of his tongue. bloodied eyes bore into your own leaving you breathless and dazed.
“hey bestie”
his voice was low and raspy, almost like a whisper. a deep rumbling that echoed in your ear drums. it was oddly hypnotic. he was absolutely mesmerizing.
tomura chuckled into the camera, showing flashes of perfectly white teeth. he leans back into the chair, a hand on the back of his neck showcasing a broad chest and toned abs.
“didn’t expect you to be this quiet, bestie. is my outfit not slutty enough for you ? i could always take these off…” his hand fell from his neck to rest and the waistband of his black jeans.
you remained speechless, eyes glued to the light dusting of hair below his belly button.
more laughter and shifting. now you were met with the glorious girth of shigaraki’s cock clenched tightly in his fist. the darkened tip oozed a sparkling trail of pre that spilled down his length. his thumb swiped the fluid to spread over his veiny member.
“c’mon , doll. don’t leave me hanging” he teased, squeezing his fist upwards to produce more pre. “i thought you wanted to be my ‘mc’ ? seems more like an npc if you ask me”.
“y-you’re him” you stammered, eyes following the slow drag of his fist. “you’re tomura shigaraki”.
“in the flesh” he teased, shooting a wink that went directly between your legs. “well kinda, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. sorry i’ve been away so long, but you’d wait forever for me won’t you , perfect girl ?”
your nod was automatic. robotic even. you’d moved closer to the screen, completely engrossed by his ministrations.
“anything for you beyon—shiggy”
you both laughed at that. he appreciated your humor, especially with all the drama in his day to day. even in def con simp mode and being ghosted didn’t stop you from being undeniably you. that’s probably why he was as obsessed with you as you were with him.
“i know we probably have alot to discuss but todays been kind of shitty and i’d really like to explore our final fantasies”.
you snorted, “that was really bad , shig”.
he shrugged, “i’m a villain, not a comedian, beloved. “now show me that perfect little pussy”.
#yandere shigaraki#shigaraki smut#shigaraki x reader#shigaraki tomura#tenko shimura#mha shigaraki#mha smut#shigaraki x black reader#shigaraki x chubby reader#mha x blackreader#mha x chubby reader#mha crack
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Help for when you’re having a rough time
(If you're looking for my old pinned post with my whump masterlists, you can find it here.)
In light of some deeply sad news in the whump community today, I’m thinking about how many of us here struggle with mental health, sometimes including physical or mental self-harm and suicidality. Since I know lots of folks might be having a hard time right now, I wanted to share some resources that have helped me in rough moments. Please feel free to add on to this post (or make your own, if you want!) with the resources that have worked for you.
First, a note:
Trauma, shame, and suicidality all tend to isolate - they make us feel like we’re all alone in the world, like no one else would understand us, and like the only solutions we have available to us are ones we can think of all by ourselves. In my experience, the antidote to that is connection. If you’re feeling scared or alone, you can hop into my asks or DMs if you want. I’m sure there are other folks in this community who would offer that, too. Many of us have grappled with mental health struggles, including suicidal ideation, and sometimes we can offer each other the care that can be hard to offer ourselves. Don’t be afraid to reach out if you need support.
A quick note about location: I live in the US, but about half the resources in this post are written guides you can access from anywhere. The hotlines and warmlines linked below are US-based. One or two are accessible in Canada or have an online chat or moderated forum that could be accessed anywhere. If you have good local resources from another place, please reblog and add them! (Thank you, @straight-to-the-pain, for flagging this in the notes!)
That said, here’s my absolute first recommendation if you’re feeling generally awful and don’t know what to do:
1. You Feel Like Shit (also available at its original site here)
If you’ve read a lot of ~self care tips~ in your life (and if you’re a bit of a salty bitch like me), you might be sick of being told to eat something and take a nap. (I don’t think we can hydrate our way out of long-term trauma and late-stage capitalistic hell, but thanks.) That said, I’ve found this site REALLY helpful. Personally, I have ADHD and CPTSD, a combination that makes it ROUGH for me to know how to take care of myself sometimes. This site speaks to you calmly, like a non-judgemental friend, and walks you through steps that you might struggle with if you have a hard time with executive function in general, or if you’re ill, grieving, overwhelmed, or otherwise just off your game. I pretty much always walk away feeling at least a little better, even if I don’t complete every step.
There are more suggestions and resources below the cut. Wishing everyone in this community love and care. <3
2. The 15-Minute Rule (info available in many places; after a quick google, I really like this site as a place to start)
One key principle to understanding the resources I’ve put together here is the 15-minute rule. If you’re feeling an urge towards physical or mental self-harm or suicide, studies show that the urge is unlikely to last more than about 15 minutes at its peak intensity. (Sorry I don’t have data on this off the bat - anecdotally, I can tell you that this rule also tracks with my own personal experience.) This means that, if you’re presently feeling overwhelmed by grief or pain that’s turning inwards on you, if you can stay afloat through the next few minutes, the tide of it is likely to ebb. The site I linked above has information about this concept and some great harm-reduction ideas, too. (Another resource on this that I liked in my quick search is here.)
3. Read This First (a compassionate distraction from feelings of self-harm)
I’m gonna be honest; this resource is aimed at folks having urges towards physical self-harm, but it looks like something I would find helpful with urges towards emotional self-harm, too. (It also looks like it could be handy for body-focused repetitive behaviors - BFRBs - like dermatillomania/skin-picking or trichotillomania/hair-pulling).
4. Resources from Pete Walker, psychotherapist and author of Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Obviously not everyone reading this will have complex PTSD (also called C-PTSD), but if you’re a person who, in general, tends to beat yourself up a lot, I’d highly recommend checking Pete Walker’s work out. If some of it doesn’t apply to you, that’s okay - take what you need, and leave the rest. This site (and the book it references most heavily) assumes you may have had parents who were emotionally or physically abusive or neglectful. If that doesn’t ring true for you, but other parts of the resources seem helpful, use them anyway! A handy place to start maybe this page on Shrinking the Inner Critic in Complex PTSD (that is, reducing the volume of the voice that screeches unpleasantness at you when you feel ashamed or scared).
As a note: this website looks VERY mid-2000s (which I kind of love). Most of the resources you want will be in the right-hand column full of links. Some of those links will open new pages, and some will automatically try to download a PDF of the article you want to read.
5. Warmlines:
This is something I just learned today - if you’re feeling really lonely and sad, but you’re not in immediate crisis, there are warmlines you can contact! These seem to be numbers where you can call (or sometimes text) to talk with a counselor or trained peer when you need support and connection. I can’t vouch for any of these numbers personally, but as someone who has definitely thought, “It’s not bad enough to REALLY need help,” I think this is a fabulous idea. Here’s a list of warmlines you can check out in the US.
6. Specialized hotlines:
There are lots of good crisis hotlines out there, but some may be better for your needs than others. For one thing, if you’re feeling seriously suicidal, it’s good to know the policies of the hotline you’re calling. In my opinion, everyone deserves bodily autonomy and the right to refuse care; for that reason, I think it’s important to know the policy of the hotline you’re calling as to whether or not they’ll call emergency services without your consent. Everyone has to make their own judgment call on this one, and I’m a little too (lightly!) triggered to go deep into my analysis on this right now, but I wanted to flag that it’s something to be aware of - if you’re going to call a hotline, you can try to look up their policy on calling emergency services before you contact them. You could probably even ask them in the beginning of the call. (A script: “Before we start, can you tell me what your policy is about contacting emergency services on behalf of callers?” If this is true, you can add: “I’m having some feelings of [suicidality/self-harm], but I’m safe and am not in danger of hurting myself or others.”)
With that in mind, here are some hotlines that seem promising to me, in no particular order:
A. For queer and trans folks in general:
Trans LifeLine
Available in the US (1-877-565-8860) and Canada (1-877-330-6366)
Available in English and Spanish
Will NOT call emergency services without your consent (you can read more about this policy on their website, including here)
Peer to peer support for transgender and questioning folks; also, microgrants (small amounts of money) for trans-related needs!
Does not offer text/chat-based support
I’ve never used Trans LifeLine myself, but I’ve heard excellent things about it from peers who have.
The Trevor Project:
Support from trained counselors for queer, trans, and questioning folks
Definitely available in the US; I’m not sure where else.
Offers support via phone (1-866-488-7386), text message (678-678), and online chat (link here - scroll down to Start Chat)
Also offers an online peer support space, TrevorSpace, for folks ages 13-24
Their site says, “In very specific instances of abuse or a clear concern of an in-progress or imminent suicide, Trevor counselors may need to contact a child welfare agency or emergency service.” When you click Learn More, it takes you to their Terms of Service (informative, but in legalese that might be hard to parse if you’re in crisis).
Again, not a service I’ve used myself, but I’ve heard good things!
B. For BIPOC folks (Black folks, Indigenous folks, and people of color more broadly), especially those who also hold LQBTQI identities:
Call Blackline:
Available via phone or text (both at 1-800-604-5841)
Available for people in crisis. Call Blackline can also help connect you with local community organizers and officials if you need to report a negative, inappropriate, or physical interaction with police, other law enforcement, or vigilantes.
From their website:
Call BlackLine® provides a space for peer support, counseling, reporting of mistreatment, witnessing and affirming the lived experiences for folxs who are most impacted by systematic oppression with an LGBTQ+ Black Femme Lens.Call BlackLine® prioritizes BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). By us for us.
Here’s what I found regarding their policy on emergency services:
You do not have to provide any personal information to use the service. All calls remain private and will never be shared with law enforcement or state agencies of any kind.
Of course, a BIPOC person can contact any hotline for support, but for people dealing with racism, anti-Blackness, and other specific bigotries, I can very much see the importance of talking to someone who shares or understands that experience.
C. For folks processing bad psychedelic trips:
Fireside Project:
This one is something I didn’t even know existed! They do call- or text-based support (1-623-473-7433, or 1-62-FIRESIDE) for people processing psychedelic drug experiences, available 11am to 11pm Pacific time. I don’t have a ton more info, but their site seems really interesting and like they’re serving a unique need.
7. A soothing distraction:
One of the glories of the internet is the fact that it enables us to conjure up images of kittens at a moment’s notice. In that vein, I want to offer up a VERY cute distraction: Peptoc is a hotline (1-707-873-7862, or 1-707-8PEPTOC) where you can hear encouraging messages in English or Spanish from kindergarteners. How sweet is that? (Thanks to the wonderful @newbornwhumperfly for this suggestion!)
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Beloved whump community, I want to know about things that help you when you’re struggling. Please feel free to share them if you want.
And, Moya - we’ll miss you so, so much, even those of us (like me) who didn’t know you well. May your memory be an absolute blessing. <3
(I was going to put this in the tags, but oops, it’s going up here - I really hope this post will be helpful to someone, but it was also helpful to me to build. I feel better in a crisis when I can find a way to help - it’s how I soothe myself when I’m sad or scared. I really hope this doesn’t seem preachy or self-aggrandizing - it’s really just me processing-processing-processing. <3)
One more note: if this post makes you think you might want to follow my blog, you're totally welcome, but you should check out my note here first. This is not a DNI list; it's just a heads-up about my content, which could be inappropriate or triggering for some people.
#whump community#how to be a person in the world#ways to stay afloat#suicide mention cw#suicidality mention cw#self-harm mention cw#resources for taking care of yourself#bel talks#touchstones#sorry another disclaimer but also i know my experiences are not universal#my feelings might come from a really different place than other people's feelings#idk for instance if any of the shit in this post would have been at all useful to moya#but I'm sharing it anyway in case it's useful to SOMEONE
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there’s a failure mode in a certain kind of online space that tries to be relatively laid back about moderation and tolerant of a wide variety of viewpoints, which is that someone who acts the most aggrieved and persecuted in any given conflict/argument/discussion can have everybody else tiptoeing around them. and rather than tell the person with a chip on their shoulder to knock it off, this gets treated like a neutral problem, with both interlocutors sharing the blame for whatever negative reactions this one person continually produces.
the charitable interpretation is that this person is simply an asshole; the uncharitable interpretation is that this person is aware on some level that by occasionally causing a huge fight and screaming at anybody who gets involved, they can control the terms of the conversation. as a matter of how to moderate--or, in the equivalent meatspace interaction, how to deal with someone like this--i don’t think actual intent matters. whether an obnoxious behavior is intentional manipulation or simply encouraged through unfortunate incentives, you are not obligated to tolerate it.
i think sometimes, whether it comes to banning a user from a forum or stopping hanging out with someone in your social circle, people often feel that some very specific and utterly unsympathetic boundary must be crossed. or, like, they have to cross some metaphysical threshold of being a Bad Person. but “this person is an asshole and you never know what might set them off” is actually a perfectly good reason on its own! you are not obligated to put up with assholes, and spaces that are too tolerant of assholes are at risk of driving everyone else out of them.
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I’ve been thinking about that twitter thread about how DNI lists are becoming a norm on social media especially among young people, and also becoming more and more performative... It feels like people are longing for the boundaries of the old internet, back when it was mainly forums and personal websites (or old school blogs). Boundaries between “private” and public areas were clearer—sure your blog was public, but it wasn’t public in the sense that all of its content was easily and freely circulated outside of your realm of control; it was hosted some place where you were in charge of who interacted and in what way, by having a comment moderation policy (which effectively worked as a “DNI if you’re [xyz] or disagree with me”), or deleting guestbook entries, etc. You could also delete a webpage or blog entry and it wasn’t still available on thousands of strangers’ pages.
Meanwhile forums (I’m talking in the past tense though obvs they still exist) were understood to be public spaces where this personal control wasn’t a thing because the very point of them was to allow people to interact; normal users couldn’t delete their own posts let alone other people’s reactions to them, and people would have been laughed at for putting DNIs in their forum signature. So you’d often choose to share different things or express yourself differently on a personal blog vs. forum, or at least you’d know exactly what to expect / the limitations of each space.
Social media / microblogging platforms feel like blogs while being forums which blurs the boundaries and makes people want to control who interacts with their opinions / art / etc because they’re sharing things on a public forum that people used to keep to the relative safety and sovereignty of personal websites. And since DNIs aren’t a very effective interaction-control tool, they are repurposed as a performative image-control tool. The ultimate promise of social media after all is “if i can’t control anything else I can at least control how I’m perceived.”
#anyway ''dni if you're racist'' always makes me think of gad elmaleh's terrorist saying ahh meeeerde y'a du scotch... je peux pas terroriser#i wanted to reblog the post with that twitter thread but the 15 tweets in a row format of conveying info is so annoying god#twitter deserves to die just for inflicting that on the world
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@staff @support what are you going to do about this? are tumblr and its shareholders okay with its employees targeting and harassing tumblr users? does your CEOs behavior reflect the training all of your staff has in regards to professional boundaries? do your executives expect me to have to personally block their CEO in fear of getting stalked and harassed here and on other websites? or are they going to do something to prevent it?
if tumblrs official position is pro-harassment and stalking, then i still have questions: what is @staff going to do about its CEO abusing his access to users' personal account info, including alternate accounts, ban reports, correspondence with staff, private messages, and photos?? is it your official stance @support that your employees should be allowed to take my user data that they have access to, and post it on their public social media accounts for all to see?
is matt allowed to share my passwords on his blog if he thinks I deserve it? what about my search history or my deleted posts? if I make my blog private, can users like photomatt still get my data from tumblrs servers and post it wherever he wants? can he send my suggested-posts algorithm to my parents or my spouse? i assume you're saying it's also fine if he posts my information on twitter, where i have no power to report this abuse through your own moderation systems?
if your company condones this, what else are you okay with your employees doing to us and with our data? how many of your employees already abuse their access like this?
does tumblr @staff have *any* safety, training, or protocols in place to prevent a high level employee like Matt from being able to access and publicly post a users' data? do you intentionally train the rest of your staff to handle user-conflict in a public forum? if not, why should we believe you based on what your CEO is currently doing? it seems like he is representing your company's policies or violating them, one way or another.
is tumblr going to do anything about this or is its position that it is ok?
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should i read homestuck. like i feel it would be interesting so i could see what yall are talking about in regards to tlt but is homestuck actually good
"is homestuck good" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 8129 pages of heated debate,
no but seriously, it highkey depends on 1. your definition of good and 2. your tolerance for stupid bullshit. as someone who read tlt and then hs, i'd say that being a fan of the chaotic aspect of tlt is a good predictor of being able to hang in with homestuck.
readmore because this. um. got long. the tl;dr is: i like homestuck a lot and i am glad i read it. i can't tell you if you should read it bc idk your tastes, but there is a lot to like and enjoy about it.
the official pitch for homestuck is something like "4 kids play a game and then a bunch of other shit happens." here's my pitch based on what the core of the story is to me:
several groups of characters across time, space, and reality are brought together in order to succeed at creating a new universe after their own are destroyed. this takes the form of a game, which is called sburb (by the humans) and sgrub (by the trolls). the characters must contend with an eternal battle against good and evil in which they are the deciding factor, and level up while following personalized quests. at its heart, homestuck is about relationships of every sort and how they shape us, growing up and the associated grief and loss, coming into ones identity and choosing who to be, predestination and fate, and stories themselves. it gets very meta at times, and the characters are semi to fully aware that they're characters, and attempt to subvert or escape that. it's got hordes of fleshed out, compelling characters, one of which will almost certainly glom onto you for the rest of your life, real emotion, extremely funny jokes, smart and exciting plotting, and some very cool moments. it more or less invented an entire new genre/medium, and plays with medium in a very cool way.
it is also clunky, hard to get into, and way too convoluted. you will never fully understand what's happening. there are tons of characters whose stories you will follow whom you simply do not care about. there are too many characters. it was written by an edgelord in 2009 so there's some unsavory humor and character writing. it's so fucking long. the ending kinda sucks because the fandom was so toxic that hussie simply wanted it over with. the fandom still kinda sucks tbh. so many people have wrong opinions about it. it requires a very specific lens to approach and understand it. i still dont understand what happened with that fucking puppet someone explain it to me.
overall, i'd say that if you think you want to read it, give it a shot. i have a complicated relationship with it but at the end of the day, i genuinely love the story and the characters and i know they will be with me forever. it certainly enhanced my understanding of tlt, and getting to read more of tamsyn's writing was such a bonus (even though her taste in pairings is. not the same as my own). and like honestly. it's just fun. even when you're going "wait what the fuck just happened" you're having fun. it's really goddamn funny too. it WILL change the way you speak and also think about romance forever.
the best way to read it is to have an experienced reader guide you, but if you or other people don't know anyone like that, here are my basic tips:
i think most people know this already, but download the unofficial homestuck collection. just do it. it's like 4 gigs and it's infinitely better than trying to read on the broken website, and it's even ad free. it can also be modded - for instance ik there's a slur replacer mod (lmao) if you don't want to read those
act 1 sucks to read. you're like what the fuck is this, THIS is homestuck?? the beginning is radically different from how it ends up, so just hang in there. for me, it really picked up somewhere in act 3. just focus on the silly fun the characters are having and you'll be good
things you should actually try to follow in the early acts: the concept of a sylladex existing (the various fetch modi are only there for jokes and eventually just kinda stop being a thing), where all the copies of the game are, what each kid's relationship with their guardian is like, the mechanics of the game and the lore behind it, including classpects and quests
things you do not have to waste brain space on: anything about how the totems work, what the various machines are, what the levels are, basically any of the jokes that would be funny to hussie's original intended audience of software engineers and rpg gamers. oh and the intermission with the midnight crew and the felt, just know that those are guys that exist and you'll be good.
and the biggest tip i have is just. go with it. suspend your disbelief. a lot of the worldbuilding doesn't really make sense, but it would be a worse story if it did. when the time shit and ectobiology come into play, literally just go ok got it and keep going, don't think too hard.
so yeah i don't even know if any of this is useful but i hope it helps you decide. and if you or anyone else have follow up questions send em!
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Social media comparison
Alright. I've tried different new/alternative platforms lately in hope to find something I really liked, and there are very promising ones. I didn't try everything, of course, but this is a kind of overview of my journey so far? Or just my thoughts on the matter.
I've tried Pillowfort, Bluesky, Mastodon (didn't last long enough to have much of an opinion, it simply didn't click), Dreamwidth and Cohost (as of today, can't post there yet).
My comparison under the cut:
► I appreciate that they're algorithm free, whether it's because they truly believe in an Internet rid of the most invasive of them or because it's too expensive to implement on a brand new platform or some other reason. Only the future can tell, but for now it's nice.
► Pillowfort: beside the post formatting that I find extremely comfortable, my favourite thing is probably communities. I feel like this is the strongest "pro" in favor of Pillowfort because this is where they truly distinguish themselves from other social media.
Communities, in a way, remind me of forums. They're however easier to take in hand since you don't have to deal with as many options and choices. In my opinion, communities on Pillowfort are a bit lacking in functionalities though. I think more tools to easily organize them would help, like a widget or something to link stuff so you can create and animate events within said communities.
(I also feel like Pillowfort would gain from not being dark blue. We have more than enough dark blue websites, and it doesn't go well with the warmth invoked by its name in my opinion, but that's a minor detail and just a matter of taste.)
► Bluesky: basically Twitter but better. No algorithm, for a start. The curated feeds are nice. They're a bit like communities on Pillowfort since they can be moderated but from a non-mod user, it's even easier to post in them: you just have to use the right keyword for your post to appear there. Well, if the mod left it open to all rather than chose to vet who can or cannot post in it. Lots of flexibility and control over your timeline overall.
I don't like the 300 characters limit, however. Never liked it with Twitter either. It's not really conductive to conversations, and the general design tends to make the website feel rather impersonal. It's really more like parallel talking than community building.
Overall I think it's a good tool to promote your (visual) art or website, etc. but not great for hosting conversations past commenting briefly what others are doing. I mean, you can make threads but it'll never be as good as Pillowfort or Tumblr for this.
► Dreamwidth: I'll start with saying that Dreamwidth isn't a social media, it's a journaling platform and I haven't used it much yet. Had in plan to post my headcanons about my muses there and stuff like that so I did spend some time trying to figure out how it works.
First, there is a lot of options to let you have complete control over who can see what. Like, a lot.
You can entirely personalize what your journal will look like. It's a bit easier than having your own website—since I reblogged a post about that yesterday—because you don't start from 0, so it might be a good option if you don't feel comfortable jumping into Notepad++ to start coding. You can just change a thing here and there, or nothing at all, or almost everything. It's pretty old school though, so for those completely unfamiliar with early/pre-web 2.0, it might not look very appealing at first. However, I'd say don't let that stop you! If anything, it's a good opportunity to learn a bit of code without pressure.
You can also create communities, which as you might have guessed is very important to me. When creating one, you can set up whether everyone can join, everyone can ask to join but has to be approved by a community admin or to limit the access to those you have personally invited. Like for your own journal, communities are completely customizable, and Dreamwidth allows adult content.
I'm not sure you can top DW communities in terms of functionalities—aside from making a forum—but it's not as intuitive as Pillowfort (though in exchange you get more customization). You're also more limited regarding image hosting (see here). That said, hosting services exist, many are free, and that's without mentioning that you can post on Twitter and the like and use the picture link in your DW posts. I don't think many will only use Dreamwidth anyway.
► Cohost: I was expecting nothing when I registered earlier today, but this is an overall good surprise: it's Tumblr, but better.
More control of what you see. More user-friendly UI. It's not fucking blue. Adult content allowed. You can change your main blog page and make it private.
The only two downsides I'd mention here would be that you can't customize your blog page appearance and you have to wait for one or two days before being able to post. Although if it means less bots, I'd rather wait.
And this ends my rather non-exhaustive tour of the social media/blogging/journaling platforms. If you catch any mistakes let me know. I didn't dive deep, this was just me sharing my thoughts.
(As far as I know, they all allow adult content and give you tools to not see it if you don't want to.)
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The Doors to the House of Hopeful Sinners are OPEN
Hello darlings~
The doors to my experimental server are now opening, following the success of the experiment~
(I know the banner isn't particularly original yet but we're open to submissions to replace it!)
The House of Hopeful Sinners is an open and inclusive 18+ FanServer for Baldur's Gate 3, with a focus on creative fanworks and supporting fellow fan creators!
To learn more about the server and what we hope to create together, please Read More below!
(NSFW Content and Humour Follow)
HOHS Server Principles
A general summary of the server is that it is a space to allow creativity to flourish. We are LGBTQIA+ and NeuroDivergent Friendly, our motto is something along the lines of "Horny But Wholesome", or "Spicy Kindness".
Do be aware we do not currently spoiler mark any storylines, endings, or game details, so you may wish to finish everything in the game unless you're fine with spoilers.
Some of what we have to offer:
Almost all channels are NSFW, hornyposting 24/7 is free for all to enjoy if you so wish. No judgement! BE FREE!
Dedicated forums for FanArt and FanFiction, so you can share and search for your own works or those by others.
Forums for reference materials and lore discussion to use for fanworks.
Optional ping roles to be alerted to new content with your favourite characters!
Starboard including NSFW Channels!
Specific channels and threads for discussing niche and triggering kinks where those who enjoy them can engage safely.
Clear list of CWs and rules to tag and spoiler hide content containing potentially triggering content.
Voice Channels to stream games, art, or just chill with your fellow sinners.
A selection of custom emojis, stickers, and soundboards!
A community who will welcome you whether you only drop by a little or visit often. Lurkers welcome~ Enjoy the space however you wish.
Space to grow! We are more than willing to hear feedback and build our space around the needs of the community.
Simple age verification. Open a ticket to verbally confirm your age with a moderator, no photo ID needed. This is trust, and breaking it is an immediate lifetime ban. Having under 18s around is not safe for minors or for the adults. If you're too young, please respect this and wait. We will never knowingly allow a minor into this space.
Bots for AO3 link summaries and image/video embeds from Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram, etc
Writing Sprint Channel and bot to write alongside friends and spur each other on!
Server Reviews!
You don't just have to take my word from it, listen to these reviews from satisfied community members!
1/5 stars. "Not enough Raphael." - A. Devilyoudo
5/5 stars. "Like 24/7 Horny Jail, now with a token SFW channel!" - I.C.U. Peekin
3/5 stars. "Server owner clearly needs more sleep." - B.D. Thyme
5/5 stars. "Finally, a place where I have threads for less common kinks!" - I.P. Freely
3/5 stars. "The creative energy gave me kinks I didn't know I had so now I have that to deal with." - Sweet E Pye
5/5 stars. "Everyone is so feral I'm making a fortune." Mr Phucks, Cage Chewer Dentistry
0/5 stars. "These degenerates have changed my brain chemistry and all I can think of is eating Gortass." - Tsun Derriere
5/5 stars. "I've accidentally become the Fairy Smutmother to a bunch of brats and couldn't be happier." - Tavylia of House Sin, first of her na- (script cuts off)
3/5 stars. "A good selection of smut content but I'm too scared to talk to everyone." - Lou King (respectfully)
2/5 stars. “I’ve seen less horny pornography. I had to turn off my message previews so I didn’t give my coworkers hypernatremia at the sheer volume of cum present.” - Michael Toris
5/5 Stars. “I think I’m growing a prostate where my frontal lobe used to be. Think Durge is into skullfucking?” - Illa D. Vized
5/5 stars. "A full range of penis emojis." - Forrest F. Cox
5/5 stars "There's a reason I'm here every day" - Leonardo DaVinci
5/5 stars. "I have learned things about prostates, cervical mucus, and fertility my health class never bothered with and there are big enough nerds here that there are NIH citations about it." - Prof G Dekarios
What Else is there in HOHS?
Beta Readers
We have dedicated Beta Readers on a tag role - we would welcome more Beta Readers to help polish up our writers' works, though of course time is freely given and boundaries/CWs are always respected. You are under no pressure to beta. But what can that feedback look like? How does it help?
Editing is painful, but having useful feedback alongside fun and excited comments is a great way to make it a lot less horrible!
Treatos! WIP Feedback!
Sometimes to get things flowing we like to write "Treatos" - short paragraphs/drabbles not connected to full fics to help us get the creative mode moving again.
Most of all, we just welcome all Hopeful Sinners who share our values in fandom enjoyment~ I hope to see you there!
- With Love, Tavylia Sin
Disclaimer - side effects of exposure to HOHS might include:
- Gender Euphoria
- Producing more creative works
- Persistent feelings of self-worth
- Hyperfixation go brr
- Interest in characters you didn't look twice at before
- Excessive Thirst
#baldurs gate 3#fan community#discord#discord server#fanart and fanfic#bg3#bg3 fanfiction#bg3 art#bg3 fanart#baldurs gate#fanfic#House of Hopeful Sinners#BG3 Discord#creators supporting creators#Fandom Positivity#fandom community
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I hope this is ok to ask but I’ve been meaning to join the discord but I’ve never really used it before so I was wondering what exactly to expect? If that makes sense? I know there’s tech support but I don’t really know anything else
Hi! Of course it's okay to ask, I'd be happy to try and describe it for you :) Throwing this under a readmore since it's image heavy!
I've made an alt account to give the best explanation I can - when you join the server, you'll be dropped right into the rules channel. You'll see two other channels, the FAQ and the old bug reporting channel, which has a link to a Google Form for any bugs you encounter and want to report.
You'll need to agree to follow our rules next. Discord I believe only allows us to list 6 rules - you'll need to read through the rules channel for the full list!
After that, you'll need to wait a few minutes before you can interact with Silverpelt to gain access to the rest of the server. Use this time to read through the rules channel to make sure you understand how we expect our members to act!
Once the countdown is up, you'll be able to click the verify button! If it doesn't work straight away, wait a bit and try again. Sometimes the silly bot is taking a nap and forgets to let newcomers in!
This will open up a ton of new channels, which may be a bit overwhelming at first. Don't stress too much - you can click Browse Channels at the top of the channel list to choose exactly what you'd like to see!
Anything you don't want to see, you can untick. This way, you can have the exact experience that suits you best.
Some important channels:
staff-help is where you go to open a ticket. If you ever have a concern about the server, such as another member making you upset or uncomfortable, you can open a private ticket to chat with the moderators. Nobody can see these but you and the team, so they're a great way to express how you're feeling about things without fear of being judged by others!
Everything in the Clan Gen category is where you'd go to chat about the game! We have a general channel for regular chatter, a screenshots channel for sharing your in-game pictures, a challenges forum for mixing up your gameplay, and a clan-sharing forum for sharing your Clans!
The Creative Corner category hosts channels like art, alongside the modding channels. This is where you'd go to get user-created mods (such as the ever-popular LifeGen!), or to talk about making your own!
The Tech and Game Support category is where you want to be if you need help. The official-tech-help forum accepts threads asking for help with the ItchIo version of the game, while the players-helping-players channel is where you'd go for help with the GitHub developmental version. There is also a save-file-editing channel for help with editing your files, such as bringing a dead cat back to life or causing a cat to become pregnant!
I hope this explanation made sense, and wasn't too overwhelming. I hope to see you in the server!
☆ Fable ☆
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