#surely if you're engaging in the most extreme stuff you should know THE MOST and not apparently the least?????
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Just remembering when I was waiting for bf to get his tatt done and looking at the magazines, they had one of those extreme body mods magazines which was interesting. I have never understood why people get this kind of body mod, but I'm trying to work on being more open minded. And from this magazine I can see clearly that the ethos is 'my body is mine and I should be allowed to choose to do these things to it', which resonates. And as a trans person I would hope I wouldn't forget that transphobes call transition 'irrepairable damage' and self harm. (I can remember watching those early 2000s documentaries where surgery for transition was basically framed as an extreme body mod to be looked at for shock value.)
So I'm looking at this magazine, all open minded like, and then suddenly one of the models (who was being interviewed for something else, like he had his dick split in two or something) just casually is like oh yeah I have tonnes of different types of swastika tattooed on my arm. And sure enough, then there's a pic of like...20 swastikas done in different ways all on one area of his arm.
:[
#....i don't even know what i'm trying to say really#i think maybe just that scenes where being extreme is celebrated tend to go in bad ways very quickly#to be clear this was like a back issue. I think it was from the mid-late 2000s. Things were 'edgier' then.#i can imagine perhaps in the circles this guy was in the swastikas were probably celebrated as being oh so daring and taboo!#i hope that extreme body mod circles (which cannot be that large let's face it) are not like this any more but who knows#i just think it is much harder to know what lines to cross and which not to cross if you are celebrating line crossing#see also: when it turned out marilyn manson actually was abusing women#like 'i'm so shocking and edgy!!!' 'I'm shockingly and edgily abusing people!' they go together so well#i'm being facetious in my wording but i find this really hard to articulate.....i found the marilyn manson revelations very upsetting#to be clear i always hated him as an artist but like everyone i assumed it ws just a costume he put on#even more noodling: i was thinking about extreme kink (edgeplay i guess they call it?) and tbh i don't understand that either#but while i don't want to judge or kinkshame i do wonder if places where extremes are celebrated can ever be SSS#the risks skyrocket of harming your partner in ways they later hugely regret#also are they even following SSS? I saw someone who had been accused of causing harm to their partners during edgeplay being like#'i will take steps to learn how to do kink' um.....you didn't already know????????????#surely if you're engaging in the most extreme stuff you should know THE MOST and not apparently the least?????#uggggggggghhhhh anyway fuck 'edginess' and fuck extreme and fuck sexscalation
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That medium post is highlighting just how fucked people get when they treat gender norms like a Serious Thing you must abide by. Like, what?
1- "A weak thing really wanting to be strong is pathetic" is the kind of thing that is like... who is even saying that?
The virtue of wanting to become stronger (be it for altruistic reasons or even just to master your art) no matter how pitiful your starting position is seems to be something that repeatedly comes up in fiction.
It's not just shonen training arcs to help you overcome someone who outclasses you in every way but also things the RPG journey of starting out at level 1 barely knowing your left from your right and becoming strong enough to kill god at the end.
In fact, this is what makes games like Gothic and Dark Souls so appealing. You start out so weak that everything obliterates you in one or two hits and you're pretty much just another doomed soul in a horrible situation, but if you persevere you can overcome anything.
Maybe stop thinking of strength or weakness as something inherent to gender rather than something you need to cultivate through training and experience? Sure there's geniuses like me who get a huge experience multiplier but that's not gendered either.
2- Boys 100% do cry. They often get beat up for it because they're not supposed to cry, but they still do it regardless of how things are "supposed" to be. Because humans are humans and extremely few people naturally fit the platonic ideal of what their gender is supposed to be at all times. Crying is not exclusively a "girl" thing, and it has nothing to do with weakness, bravery, or intelligence.
See, the thing is that the people who actually get good at video games are usually people who enjoy playing video games and do it on their own rather than just when they pick up something they have never done before in an effort to get validation while being anxious the whole time because they arbitrarily decided that video games are "boy things".
You're not just missing out on the confidence buff but also jumping into a mid-game area before finishing the tutorial. What did you think was going to happen?
"Fantasy story where a woman is doing cool stuff" is like... not even abnormal if you ever engage with anything outside the absolute most mainstream of media. Maybe it won't feel so shameful if you realize it has been done extremely well countless times before.
Also gendering romance seems like a mistake as well. Like, from the exact same story as the above image:
Yeah, it turns out stories can have both romance and women doing cool things and mature, non-sexist men will not necessarily hate either of those aspects.
I'm one of those people who got physical abuse to transition to mainly just threats by fighting back, and you know what that was actually like?
I never was even remotely as strong as big as my father was. I'm 170 cm and grew up malnourished (about 100-110 lbs before I left). I eventually also developed a major disability. Meanwhile he was huge and has literally killed people before. Most of those teens who fought back against their abusive dads? They probably were still physically weaker than said dads too.
But none of that matters, because you don't need to actually win, you just need to show your will to fight. You need to make it clear that there's going to be serious costs if they are violent towards you, and even children who haven't gone through puberty at all are capable of doing that if they give zero fucks.
Even an unarmed 10-year-old who was truly willing to do so is capable of causing lasting harm to an adult. I don't blame anyone for not trying something like that themselves since most people don't want to harm their parents and are averse to pain, but it's definitely dumb to make it into a gender thing that is just impossible without a specific type of puberty.
Also I should note that in a lot of cases this doesn't make the abuse stop entirely. It didn't in my case.
This is literally just applying that one comic to yourself.
Hope you're sitting down for the next bit:
Playing cool video games is the modern day equivalent of fighting war??? How does that even occur to you? Video games are literally entertainment. More like reading books or playing sports than killing people for real.
Also like, war still exists? That's kind of a big thing that is going on right now. War exists and people are fighting it. If this person grew up in the US then their country has been at war in some capacity for the vast majority of its existence. The modern day equivalent of war is war, and war is not actually cool or respectable like gaming is.
Putting up a bright billboard that reads "You know you don't have to be like that just because of your gender, right?"
Like, who cares if the other women you know personally only improve their skills for the sake of dress-up and horses? Do you not have things you want to do? I don't know what to say other than that this reads like NPC behavior.
Tip: You can be a man if you want, but also that probably won't give you instant competence or respect like you think it will. You're still going to have to Get Good at whatever it is you want to do.
So the kind of person who tries to fake an interest in "boy things" in a completely half-assed and insecure way actually exists and has terminal gender essentialist brain. I see.
I do think that's kind of shameful not just for the essentialist garbage but also in the sense that it reads like someone who is too invested in trying to insincerely impress others at the cost of their own individuality and pursuits.
If you're going to be taking right-wing types seriously then maybe you should at least notice that they also don't seem to respect tradwife types at all. They want to own them, sure, but they don't respect them. Attraction is not respect. Those people just don't respect women by default for reasons that are patently bullshit.
This is, from multiple angles, a personal problem. Some of us actually do like video games rather than using them as a way to get respect.
In fact, I'd hate it if people made a big deal out of the fact that I'm a woman who likes video games. That is and should be just a normal, unremarkable thing.
You know, maybe that whole thing where you see yourself as an eternal, inherent weakling not just physically but technically is unhealthy and holding you back from even considering that you could ever be good at anything besides child-rearing and clothes.
Good thing that she rarely feels like this anymore as an adult who is (according to the comments) no longer in a religious cult but this is like... putting my sexist father's thoughts in a self-loathing woman, basically?
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⋆ KÖNIG'S SFW ALPHABET ⋆
he's the best thing that ever happened to this world and this soft scrumbly cutie has me in unbeliavable chokehold he deserves so much more love and attention
(NSFW ver. / both on AO3)
A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)
Once you break his invisible walls and get him to open to you fully, he's extremely affectionate. He follows you everywhere making sure everyone knows he's with you and you're with him. He's touchy and I mean REALLY touchy. He will brush his hand onto yours all the time or rub your shoulders, pat your back or brush your hair slightly with his fingers.
B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)
This man is shy, I repeat shy. He liked you the second he saw you but didn't have enough courage to talk to you so you took the lead. It took him a long time to open up, he doesn't trust easily as he doesn't want to get hurt. The second he knew he could trust you, he became the most talkative, funny and supportive friend you've ever had. You were surprised he was way more outgoing than you thought as long as he was with you or in a small circle or his close friends. He's overprotective too, it meant a lot for him to open up to you so he's not gonna let you go now.
C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)
He loves cuddles, anything intimate and touchy with his loved one. He wouldn't cuddle in public much, it makes him feel awkward, but as soon as you two are alone you are getting squished in his bear hug.
D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)
König would be all for it. He wants a warm safe place with someone he loves to call home. He enjoys anything that makes you happy or helps you, you'll find him cooking or cleaning many times when you get home. He can't cook that well, but he definitely tries his best.
E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)
Even though he's shy and unsure, when it comes to dealing with stuff like that he definitely straight goes in and tells you exactly what's happening and how he feels. He doesn't walk around the problem especially with someone he loves, he's a fair guy and wouldn't lie or pretend to you.
F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)
It's hard to get him to open up to you and trust you, but once you do he's gonna be all yours and won't be against any commitment. In fact, he wants to get engaged soon to mark this wonderful person you are as his, fully. You did it, you won this gentle giant's heart and he'll happily commit and proudly show everyone.
G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)
EXTREMELY gentle. He wouldn't curve a hair on your head. He’s overall really gentle towards everyone, but if he goes on some mission he turns into silent deadly force you don't want to mess with. Even if you piss him off somehow he won’t show it and it takes a lot to get him pissed off, but don't you dare say or do anything towards his lover, he’d show you his not gentle side more than soon.
H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)
König loves hugs and physical contact, but only from people he knows and trusts. He’s not gonna randomly hug you in public with people around, but as soon as you’re alone he’ll wrap his arms around you from behind and rest his chin on your head. He loves the height difference and wants to protect you from everything.
I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)
It’ll take a lot of courage to say it, and even when he has the courage he’s still not sure if he should say it. He’s always doubting himself even when it’s clear you two love each other. When he finally says it the first time, don’t count on hearing it too often. Those words are too precious and mean too much to him to just throw them around all the time like something ordinary, but he makes sure you feel he loves you even without saying it out loud. He'll shower you with cute nicknames all the time though.
J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)
König doesn’t get jealous easily and when he does, it’s more of an insecurity feeling rather than jealous. He fully trusts you so he doesn't mind you talking to other people, but once in a while he gets the inner voice doubting him and asking if he’s good enough for you. You need to give this man lots of love and attention.
K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)
He goes all in. Intense, long, romantic kisses. When you're out with friends or in public in general, he places small kisses on your forehead or top of your head there and there.
L = Little ones (How are they around children?)
He feels comfortable around them, way more than adults. Kids don't make fun of his anxiety and don't taunt him, they also can't pretend and lie and he appreciates that. He's also one giant gentle baby in his heart, not gonna lie.
M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)
Lazy. Both of you curled up in bed, enjoying the comfort and warmth of each other. It's always you who gets up first and he follows, otherwise as long as you're in bed with him he stays.
N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)
He takes a LOT of space in bed and moves a lot around, from one side to another before he fully falls asleep. You're not cuddled up with him, he's hugging you like a plushie keeping you glued to his chest.
O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)
He doesn't open easily and if he says anything about himself, he doesn't go into details. Eventually he opens up to you, but he needs to fully trust you and feel comfortable with you, he’s too scared of being failed by someone.
P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)
If you want to make König angry, you gotta work for it real hard. He has a lot of patience and tolerance, which means it’s almost impossible to anger him but if you manage to do it, you should run.
Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)
He’s the type of man who remembers literally everything when you mention it just once. He’s obsessed with every little detail about you and everything connected to you and he never forgets the day you two met, nor every single day that came after that. Unfortunately he also remembers every bad thing that happened to him in past and he carries it with him.
R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in their relationship?)
There’s nothing he loves more than just sitting quietly with you, feeling loved and comfortable. He doesn’t care where it is.
S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)
He might be a gentle giant that wouldn’t hurt a fly, but when it comes to you he can turn into a beast within a second. No one is allowed to mess with you. He wouldn’t go straight for a fight or anything, but if the situation requires it he wouldn’t care.
T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)
This man remembers everything and he always makes sure he has something ready, be it preparing a nice dinner or buying you a small gift. He doesn’t need to be reminded more than once to do something, he just remembers it and does it without procrastination.
U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)
Sometimes when he gets too nervous he bits his nails. You help him with this habit but it’s a long way to go yet.
V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)
He is insecure about himself and puts a lot of care in the way he looks. He always smells good, looks good but still can doubt himself if it’s enough. He easily overcomes his inner doubting voice thanks to you though.
W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)
He can do just fine all alone, he’s a loner but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be loved. He’d feel lost and empty without you as you filled him with confidence. If you two broke up, it’d take him a long time to recover but he would hide everything so on the outside no one could suspect a thing. He never forgets anything, so even if he recovered he’d still carry the memory and pain with him forever.
X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)
König loves potatoes and schnitzel don’t even @ me
Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)
He hates drinking. Of course he doesn't mind normal drinking, he occasionally gets a drink there and there, but he feels disgusted by people who gets black out drunk regularly.
Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)
He needs to be hugging something. Be it you or pillow or blanket.
#sfw alphabet#call of duty konig#König#könig x reader#x reader#call of duty#fanfiction#call of duty fanfic#König x you#headcanon#König headcannons#call of duty modern warfare 2#should be proof pread#IK IT'S ALL KINDA SIMILAR BUT HE IS THE WAY HE IS#and i love him#mari.fic
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could i bother you for your general opinion on venture bros, having watched it recently? i've been interested in it and know it has devoted fans, but most of the fans i see have been so for a long time- and i haven't been sure if the less-than-stellar aspects of it would be worth tolerating as someone with no pre-existing nostalgia for it. you're very good at offering nuanced thoughts, so i thought i'd ask. thanks!
i ended up loving the show, but it definitely has a lot of jokes in earlier seasons that haven't aged well, as is the case for basically any adult comedy series from the '00s. racial stereotypes that are probably intending to mock the racial stereotypes in the jungle adventure shows they're parodying but don't always hit the mark, jokes where characters speculate about whether or not dr. girlfriend is trans because of her voice, a minor recurring character who's a parody of the thing who's an extremely crude ableist stereotype (and also for a stretch of multiple seasons it feels like they had a quota to say the R slur at least once an episode), the pedophilia jokes with sergeant hatred, etc.
the thing is, like i said, it's kind of just what i expect for a comedy series from the '00s? obviously there was shit like south park, and the early seasons of always sunny loved to try and push the envelope, but even TV-14 network sitcoms like scrubs or the office had these sorts of issues. it's there, and you should be braced for it if you're gonna watch the show, but it feels like it revels in "politically incorrect" shock humor WAY less than a lot of concurrent comedy central and adult swim shit did. it's worlds apart from something like drawn together, which is just unwatchable. and most importantly it isn't trying to drive home some sort of insufferable libertarian moral, unlike south park. it just has some jokes i roll my eyes at
thankfully, as the show went on a lot of this was toned down and/or phased out entirely. but even in the front half of the show there were consistently tons of jokes that hit the mark for me, and i found the gradual shift towards more dramatic storytelling (without sacrificing the humor) really, really engaging. henchman 21 gets singled out as a character with an incredible arc, but i also loved seeing hank and dean go from being bumbling hardy boys parodies whose irrelevance was always the butt of the joke to being characters i actually cared about. and if you like superhero stuff at all, their take on organized supervillainy where it's effectively a union job where you're assigned an arch nemesis to torment is a lot of fun. the show just really gets how fun it is to follow the daily lives of over-the-top supervillains
there are a lot of comedy shows from that era i just can't go back to, but watching the venture bros. for the first time in 2023 i had a really good time
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A while back I ran numbers on my own fics right? Checking the hits/comment ratio. A friend of mine also did it for his own fics. Admitedly I don't remember exactly what my friend got but I think we got roughly the same results, ie: About 1% of the people who read a fic leave a comment behind.
This is mostly consistent across fandoms, though there are noticeable exceptions. I was personally extremely surprised to see that one of the worst commenting fandoms was Fate/Grand Order, which stood at a miserable 0,60% of comment/hit. Meaning that for every hundred people reading a fic, you're not even sure to get a single comment. That was doubly surprising because my Fate/Stay Night fics, which are part of the same serie, have a normal hit/comment ratio (actually much higher, 1,30% which is the highest of all fandoms I've ran this experiment for.)
I didn't really think much of it at the time, but recently I got chatting with a friend (who is like me a frequent filler for the nasu kinkmeme) about how there's a fuckton of fgo prompts, but very few people who actually fill them. So I had a theory, which I tested by running some numbers on random arknight fics on ao3. Spoiler: They also had an abyssimal hit/comment ratio (about 0,40%)
So my theory is thus: low level engagement/high demand for content is a gacha fandom issue. I sadly don't know enough about gacha culture to really hazard an explanation. Normally when a game is appreciated by normies who don't do fandom, that translates to a low hit count but the same percentage of comments for fanfics. Maybe gachas introduce people who don't normally do fandom to the concept of fanart & fanfic, so they don't know fandom etiquette yet? Maybe that's just the kind of culture normally birthed by games that encourage you to simp for a given character that isn't usually the focus of the story so you gotta outsource to find more of them?
I don't really have a point with this post, I just thought this was a very interesting fandom trend. Because the specific fandom behavior of "demands lots of stuff but refuses to comment or reblog or support artists" is one I've only ever seen before for like, kids shows, or generally demographics which attracts very young people who haven't grown up surrounded by "hey fic writers love comments you should comment" psa, so I find it really surprising to see that same behavior for a game where the target audience are adults with money.
Obligatory disclaimers:
I ran my arknights numbers on the top ten most read, english, non-crossover fics on ao3. If that didn't represent accurately the arknights demographics then whoops sorry.
These observations are made about the english-speaking side of fandom. Maybe people are more appreciative on pixiv fics idk I didn't check.
I am not a sociologist, I just notice trends and like to analyse them.
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Is it... bad that I just do not CARE about men's mental health no matter how many articles I see about it? "single men are lonely :(((" They made the manosphere roe is overturned and are railing against no fault divorce. I just... don't have energy for this right now. Like i've advocated for men's mental health before, but I'm seeing an INFLUX of "what about men??? they need WIVES!" sentiment from the right and i just. I'm just not feeling it.
No, you're not a bad person at all. The intense legal misogyny and widespread cultural revanchist toxic-masculinity grievance politics right now are absolutely exhausting, and I often feel the same way. However, I think it's possibly useful to differentiate what's actually upsetting you the most, and how that's not the same thing as what the peddlers of this narrative would like you to think. After all, you're not fed up with men's mental health per se; you're fed up (and rightfully so) with the reactionary right-wing fascist narrative that constantly insists that helpless men are victims of the evil women and gays, that the only way for a (white, straight, Christian) man to be happy or a "real man" is by engaging in toxic masculinity, traditional patriarchy, and the destruction of feminism, and that Manhood (tm) is under some kind of existential threat by those soft wimpy liberals who talk about feelings and other gross stuff, and not just Beer, Guns, God, and Freedom. (You know, as if the entirety of human history has happened just to get us back to this point of caveman patriarchy, but let's not talk about Bruno.)
Extreme and macho masculinity/insisting that there's only one way to be a man/any gender variance or departure from traditional norms is Bad, are all key social features of fascism. That's why a) there's such a backlash against trans people right now, and b) most of that concern has focused on the idea of "men in dresses" pretending to be women, "betraying" their gender assigned at birth, "preying" on (poor, helpless, unaware, feeble) women, and otherwise voluntarily relinquishing their manhood, which under fascism is synonymous with power and therefore the worst crime imaginable. After all, with these ludicrous state laws about being forced to dress as your gender assigned at birth -- who do you think is going to be most affected by that? I'm sure they'll get around to criminalizing women wearing trousers and plaid shirts eventually, but it's really hard to tell if a woman is "dressing according to her biological gender." If a male-presenting or AMAB person attempts to dress in more feminine fashion, however, that is the heart of the problem and what fascism is trying to restrict and outlaw.
After all, regardless of what the right wing carps and sobs and screams about, "manhood" is not a unitary, singular category, and rich, white, straight, Christian, Trump-loving men are not the "default" standard for manhood, no matter how many terrible books Josh Hawley might write about the subject. Black/Hispanic men, Indigenous men, trans men, queer men, disabled men, immigrant men, poor men, Muslim men, etc., are all also men, but obviously fascism doesn't value them or think they're complying with the heteronormative white supremacist paradigm. So yeah, obviously all their talk about "men's rights" basically boils down to "women should voluntarily relinquish all the legal and social advancements of the last 150 years in order to meekly serve men, uphold white theocratic fascism, and establish Gilead without a complaint, like good biblical helpmeets!" So THAT, or at least it feels like to me, is what you're angry about, and you should be!
Because the right wing has been so successful at casting "men" in general under this one category, it can be hard to pick apart or see any nuance in what's going on, and you don't have to give the time of day to those "poor mistreated men need tradwives!" nonsense pieces. But by continuing to push back against this awful definition of manhood, you can help show how it's interlinked with fascism and racism, it's inflicting terrible damage on men themselves, and help men understand that they DON'T need to live like that or force themselves into that paradigm in order to be successful. So yeah.
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Do you mind sharing what stuff added later by the author did you hate?
oh sure LOL like i have written before on the magical yellowface and how poorly the worldbuilding failed with shu han before and i think that is one of the most Egregious issues. kuwei like,,,does not even get to be a character, he's just a prop for this mlm romance that he is never given a reason to actually be involved in, and he is not allowed to become a part of the crew like the rest of the characters. he's just kind of the sentient plot point they carry around until the time comes to literally sell him to the highest bidder lmfaaaao
uuuh i do not like the depiction of parem as an addictive substance, i realise this is quibbling and it's magic etc etc, but i think that if you're going to use 'extremely addictive drug' as a metaphor in your magic world, you should put more effort into the way your characters interact with that drug and addiction. like the idea of 'drug that you take once and either it kills you or you're ruined for life' is silly and also not very emotionally evocative. also 'extremely addictive drug developed by the science monsters in the East that then becomes a significant factor in impending war' sure is a nasty trope to engage in without really subverting or interrogating it.
re: the darkling i just have narrative issues with that, i think that bringing him back is a dumb decision. it undercuts the narrative choices made in the original trilogy, and results in alina as a protagonist being relegated to kind of second tier status. like the darkling coming back in a story that does not have anything to do with alina is essentially a narrative claim that the darkling is more significant than alina, in a series that was originally about alina.
it's also just the way he's bought back that is so, so silly. it's so silly. why is this bee lady here. what is she doing. like again, the narrative fulcrum of the first trilogy is this relationship between alina and the darklig and this significant connection, and now this bee lady who we've never met before is bringing the darkling back to life? why do i care about her? why does she care about the darkling??? is the villain of this book really 'crazy lady who is obsessed with the darkling and bringing him back to life'? it is a narrative decision that somehow manages to pander to a particular subset of eager darkling fans, while also parodying them.
i think ultimately as someone who spent a lot of my fandom time and effort like exploring the narrative impetus for killing this character and why it worked as a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, it's not that i would have not wanted him to come back ever for any reason at all, but rather that aws a reader i needed a really good reason for it? and i think the seeds of that really good reason were there in nikolai LOL like we didn't need a whole lot of New Worldbuilding Lore That We've Never Seen Before And Also This Bee Lady. nikolai with his own internal monster darkling seeds was right there, and in a book that was supposed to be about nikolai trying to be king, the focal point should have been...you know, that. if the darkling was going to come back, it should have been because of what actions nikolai (the protagonist!!! the titular king of scars!!) was taking in his efforts to rule while containing and/or using his monstrous self.
also the zoya dragon thing was dumb. it was just dumb and i didn't like it. i didn't like the defanging of zoya's character in general - the backfilling of her history to explain how she got her amplifier because of trying and failing to save an animal rather than just straight up murdering it is Weak. zoya was a cunt when we first met her! she was ruthless and power hungry and she wanted to impress the darkling! you undercut the character growth she had in turning against him when you fill in her history to make her Secretly Compassionate From The Start. she broke alina's bones because she was jealous of her, let her kill a fucking tiger for power and then realise what the desire for power does to a person over the course of her character arc.
in general so many of the choices the author made as the series got more and more popular felt like she was retroactively changing things based on various discourses that had cropped up over the years and felt more grounded in a conversation with the fandom than in a conversation with the books she had already written. it was a sad, slow process of falling out of love with these books for me sdhgkdsfg obviously i still have a lot of residual feeling and knowledge and opinions about them, but that is kind of the heartbreak of growing out of caring about something. you're left with all this Stuff and nowhere to put it.
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I’ve written to you before a very long time ago about things not going very well for me, and things are better now. Thank you for your compassion to a stranger then. It’s given me ideas as someone who also enjoys writing. I’m sure you’ve got variations of this question before so I’m sorry if I’ve missed those somehow but any advice on how to start writing and sharing your writing publicly? Like I created an account to send you this but I have no clue about anything really. Will I seem like a random interloper in the fandom who has arrived out of the blue 😭 I guess my concern is I’ll realize I’m actually not good at writing at all or worse nobody will read any of it. I feel awkward about actively promoting my work too. I don’t want to be famous or anything but it would suck if nobody wanted to read my stuff. You’re something of a stalwart at least for the fandom/genre/pairings you regularly write for and while I won’t aspire to that, how did you deal with self-doubt as an early writer? I know it’s not like I hope to earn money out of this or anything so opinions are just opinions but all my writing feels so personal to me that I’m worried about being convinced nobody cares about what I have to say. How does one really get their start at all. I’m sorry to bother you with all this but I’m super lost. It’s just that if someone’s terrible day or week could be made a little better because of my work, as your work regularly does for people, that would be nice. I hope you’re doing really well and randomly find something you’ve been looking for!
Hello my love!! I'm so happy I could help you out a little when you were in a tough spot!! I am very very happy that things are looking up for you now and I hope things only continue to get better and better!!! 💕
And oh my gosh, I don't think anyone will think of you as an interloper!!! Fandom is a community and the more the merrier imho! The x Reader community in particular is super welcoming and very nonjudgmental and the perfect place to get your start; almost everyone here is super nice and really chill. People will surprise you with how much nicer they are than you expect; I think you should just take a leap of faith and jump in!!
But just in case, let me give you the most realistic and straightforward advice I can. It's easy to dip your toes in and test the waters but I think you will need the below pieces of advice if you plan to battle self-doubt and continue writing & publishing fic without burning out or going nuts in the long term lol.
1. Find balance in the source of your self-worth
With publishing anything online, you always hope that people will like it and will want to engage with it. On tumblr the best measurement we have of that is notes, and on ao3 kudos + comments. Notes/comments/kudos are incredible and will make you feel more cherished than anything in the world. I will always appreciate them more than I can say, but one thing it is essential to know is that they are external sources of validation, and it is extremely dangerous to attach your sense of worth solely to the actions of other people.
If you want to publish fic, you will need to also find some internal sense of worth in your writing. You will need to finely balance that with how much you treasure the feedback of other people in order to stay afloat long term.
I recommend really sitting down and thinking about what you are writing/what you want to write, and why it is worth it to you. What makes your fic interesting to you? What are you doing differently than other people that makes you unique? What does your authorial voice sound like? Answering these questions will help you identify what you are bringing to the table as an author, so you know what it is that you do well, even if people aren't engaging the way you want, or even if you're receiving criticism.
For me, I really find value in the places I diverge from other fic authors. People really love writing powerful hero readers, but I usually write quirkless side characters who have somehow found themselves the main character. Chaptered/long fics are also less common in our fandom than oneshots, but I typically write chaptered fics! And I have a stylistically simple and light voice which is easily accessible.
All of these help me know that I'm bringing some fun distinct stuff to the table, even if what I'm bringing isn't perfect or necessarily as popular. And even if I enjoy other peoples' fics and authorial voices more than my own; I'm still bringing something unique and valuable!! So even when people aren't picking up every single thing I'm putting down, I still know the value of putting them down anyway.
2. Manage expectations
I think it can be easy to compare ourselves with one another, especially if you follow some well-established authors or people writing for super popular characters. Even I succumb to jealousy on occasion; it's just human nature. But it's important to know people will engage with different types of fics in different ways and that other people's success has nothing to do with your own.
I think you should set realistic expectations for how people will engage with your fics depending on what it is that you want to write. Some fandoms are much larger than others and therefore have a wider built-in audience. Some characters are also wildly more popular than others so it is likelier fics for those characters will go a bit further. In my experience, people really gravitate towards smutty scenarios or headcanons, sometimes oneshots, and less so chaptered fic. And some authors have been around for forever, or post constantly so that they are regularly drawing people in, and therefore have a larger reader pool than other authors.
So think about what you are writing, for which characters, and in which fandoms, and level your expectations accordingly. For me, even though Shouto is fairly popular, he also only has roughly 1/3 of Bakugou's level of popularity. So I never try to gauge the success of a Shouto fic in comparison to a Bakugou fic I've written, or even the Bakugou fics of other more established Bakugou writers.
This, combined with my own internal sense of worth as a writer, helps me feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself, even if I get like, 30 notes on a fic compared to someone else's 300 or something.
3. Understand that writing is a growing process!
One other essential tip is to understand that writing is a skill set than can be refined and honed. What you write one day is not indicative of where your skill level will sit the next day. And so critique you receive, or mistakes you have made, are really less indicative of failure and more tools to help you get to the next level.
This is one I've personally struggled with, but it can be worth it to be open to feedback that is not necessarily complimentary, with the caveat that you should know what is objective constructive criticism, and what is more subjective/personal preference. The latter you can disregard, because tailoring a fic to some random person's arbitrary tastes is not going to help you tell a good story lol.
But people telling you what they would like to see more of or things that didn't make sense to them can help you understand where you can make improvements to your writing. And it's not to say your writing is not good enough where it is; only to say there are avenues for you to develop even more experience.
For me, this has largely been in the area of smut lol. I liked my lil vanilla smut scenes, but I used to commonly get a fair amount of feedback wishing they were spicier. And, after initially getting defensive lmao, I could see how that was a common piece of feedback across multiple critiques, and I understood how drawing those scenes out might help contribute to the feeling of intimacy, satisfaction, and closure I want to develop at the end of a fic!!
I think being open to feedback while understanding that critique does not in any way take away from your talent overall, can only help you preserve the satisfaction you have with your writing, and help you refine in the future!! It keeps writing interesting, and keeps your sense of self-worth tied up in the process of writing, not necessarily the product of the writing, if that makes sense.
Anyway that's what I can think of for now. Even with all this advice listed out, I think you should just have hope and trust in people and dive right in. It sounds like you are an earnest person wanting to make heartfelt connections, and in my experience people will reflect that energy right back at you!!
I am sending you all my best vibes and looking forward to reading your stuff, if you end up going for it and posting!!! 💕✨
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hey! just wanna know, how do you feel about hellenism related media? do you like something?
Hey, Nonny, thanks for the ask! I appreciate that you're curious about my opinion.
Personally, I don't engage with modern media about the gods much. I've had people tell me about it, and I've read about it, but there's a lot of stuff out there that I haven't really interacted with. I try not to be too judgemental, although I used to be a lot more critical of how modern media depicts the gods, but it's still not something I often enjoy. As a worshipper, my opinion is always bound to be biased, but I try my best to judge modern media for its story-telling rather than its accuracy (although that doesn't always happen, if I feel the depictions are egregious enough).
Below, I'll state my thoughts and opinions on the media I have interacted with (or at least have heard extensively about which is the case for Percy Jackson, as I haven't read the books).
I did like the Hades game! I felt it was really fun to play through, and as a game, it kept me engaged. I genuinely had fun with the game mechanics and the relationships you can build with other characters. It has its flaws, but so does every game. I've recently heard some grumbling about the way it depicts Greek mythology, but honestly, I think that if people are basing all of their knowledge of Greek mythology on a video game, it's up to natural selection at that point (this is a joke).
Along with Hades, I did find myself enjoying Immortals: Fenyx Rising. I was surprised with how similar the gameplay was to Genshin Impact, actually, but I'm not gonna talk about that lol. Fenyx isn't as widely known, but the way it handles Greek mythology is adequate and intriguing. The characters are pretty fun, and I enjoyed helping them in their main quest. The twist at the end (I will not spoil it) rubbed me kind of the wrong way, but I understood that it's just a game trying to tell a story, you know? It was fun, engaging, and interesting. Oh, and the monsters were pretty cool! I loved how they included monsters that you wouldn't really expect to see. The Hydra was a bit underwhelming to me, though.
Then there's the God of War series. Listen, I LOVED the recent additions to God of War that centered on the Norse pantheon - beautiful graphics, interesting story-telling, and a fun use of the mythology - but the original games that take place in Greece kind of bothered me. Mostly, yes, it was the representation of the gods. The way pretty much all of them were villainized (and the way they did Hermes so, so dirty, imo 💀) was a bit comical and strange to me. It felt like it lacked nuance to their characters (even Aphrodite was kind of there for one main "purpose" if you catch my drift). I also wasn't too big on the character designs of all the gods. Some were interesting, but others didn't land for me (mostly Hermes; he looks like he should be Apollo or Helios, and I just don't understand what they were trying to do with his design). Overall, it's a VERY fun series, but I find myself not being able to enjoy the original games as much because of their depictions of the gods.
Other forms of media (that are more popular), however, aren't really my thing. Percy Jackson isn't something I'm too big on. It plays into a lot of harmful tropes about the gods, and unfortunately, I've had some bad experiences with the more disrespectful side of the fandom. Not every PJO fan is an asshole, though (most aren't), which is extremely important to keep in mind (I see a lot of hate in the HelPol community towards them sometimes, so that's why I say that). I felt the plots were creative, for sure, but I didn't like the way Rick handled some topics or the way he sort of twisted the mythology for his own purposes. Like, some of these major plots throughout the series are absolutely bizarre; they make certain gods out to be massive assholes, tbh. Also, I didn't like the way Rick stated that the Greek gods "left the dangerous Mediterranean"; it just felt like a really weird and uncomfortable way to refer to Greece. I think if Percy Jackson brings new people into HelPol, then that's great, but people definitely shouldn't base their knowledge of Greek mythology on the books which is something I've unfortunately seen happen. If you enjoy the series, that's cool; it's just not my cup of tea, personally.
I think the one piece of modern media about the gods that I genuinely hate - and I really do mean hate - is Lore Olympus. That shit has harmed even the pagan community which is kind of wild. I've literally had people call me an "Apollo sympathizer" for worshipping a god who is NOTHING like the damn comic. It is an extremely disrespectful representation of the gods and mythology, and it's something that gets under my skin quite a lot. And honestly, it doesn't need to happen with the Greek gods. If you took the characters out of the setting they're in and placed them somewhere else, it wouldn't really change much, in my opinion; the Greek mythology part of it is really just used for the dramatics. It doesn't have much to do with Greek mythology besides just wanting to make Persephone and Hades the main focus. I have other complaints about it, but I will save my Lore Olympus critique for another day lol. I could go on forever about what bothers me.
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I hope this answered your question thoroughly! Feel free to ask more if you're curious about anything else. Have a great day/night. ☺️🧡
#anon asks#answered asks#please remember this is my OPINION#like please don't attack me for this lol#you're more than welcome to enjoy something that i can't
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Something that I think everyone should keep in mind when talking about Calico Jack is two things can be true at the same time. It can be true that the activities that Jack likes to engage in can in general be a fun rowdy time and true that Jack's behavior in specific is consistently problematic. I'm going to break it down for y'all, and for the sake of this discussion, we'll ignore that Jack is ultimately confirmed to be manipulating everyone and deliberately bullying Stede and just take his behavior at face value.
Getting Drunk
Fun: I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory? A lot of people enjoy the feeling of being drunk and the lowered inhibitions that come with it.
Problem: Again I think most people are already aware that when you drink to excess it's a problem, though I'm sure there's some room for debate as to whether/to what degree the one day of drinking we see counts as excess. But there definitely is a problem when the next morning Ed tries to refuse the rum Jack offers and Jack pressures him into drinking anyway.
Joking Meanness
Fun: This is just the way some people like to communicate with their friends and family. Joking around and getting everyone laughing is always a fun time, and between people with an established relationship and dynamic something like "you're the fucking worst" can be a sign of great affection.
Problem: The thing is Jack doesn't have a relationship with Stede or his crew. If you're being mean as a joke and the joke doesn't land, then you're just being mean. Everyone has different comfort levels and boundaries and even different senses of humor when it comes to this kind of thing, and if you don't know someone then you can't know where theirs are at, meaning the chances of that joke not landing are pretty high. And since they don't know you either, they may not feel comfortable expressing to you that you've hurt their feelings, which puts them in an unpleasant situation.
Cannon drinking game
Fun: This is basically just extreme skeet shooting. It's a challenge and a display of skill and a friendly competition.
Problem: To start with, not problematic so much as just rude, don't fire the cannon while people are still trying to sleep. And given that cannon fire typically means we're engaging in ship-to-ship combat, you should probably give everyone a heads up about your game first so you don't freak anyone out.
Moving on, don't operate a cannon while you're drunk. That's so dangerous!
And as far as interpersonally toxic behavior, they took something of Stede's, something that turned out to be a family heirloom no less, and destroyed it without checking with him first. You can't just destroy other people's stuff.
Whippies
Fun: Kind of similar to the cannon game, though instead of skeet shooting it's more like a gun or archery range kind of deal. So again there's that challenge and display of skill aspect to it. And also we have Olu with the whip that night, and teaching other people how to do the cool thing you can do is also very cool.
Problem: Again, we should not be wielding weapons while drunk; it's super dangerous. And we definitely shouldn't be giving the weapon to someone who has never used it before and telling them to pull off a trick shot off the top of someone's head while drunk. Especially as Olu was clearly hesitant and was concerned, but JAck literally got people to start chanting to pressure Olu into it.
As far as Jack's targets go, he was hitting glass bottles, shattering them and getting broken glass on the deck were people could potentially cut themselves on it. He also went after a target near other people who had not consented to being put at risk by his trick shots, and actually ended up hurting Swede, then trying to victim-blame Swede for getting hurt. And then of course there was his little tantrum at the end of the night where he was swinging his whip around wildly and ended up killing Karl (RIP Karl). (I'm not going to get on his case for whipping Ed's balls though because maybe there's some stuff to unpack there, but Ed did literally ask for it so, *shrugs*.)
Yardies
Fun: Honestly, yardies looks hella fun; I would do yardies. I love me some jumping off a high place into water.
Problem: Roach clearly does not share my sentiment about yardies. He's nervous and doesn't seem like he wants to do it at all, which suggest that he was pressured into it. When he asks about how safe the activity is he is shamed for being worried, which is especially egregious as he apparently was not given adequate instruction on how to do it as safely as possible, resulting in him smacking hard into the ship's railing. Then Jack doesn't even bother to confirm if he's really okay before trying to send someone else up to do it.
Turtle vs. Crab
Problem (we're doing this one backward; it just makes more sense that way): Look, making a turtle fight a crab is just mean. It's animal cruelty. That's all there really is to it.
Fun: I don't know, you could probably do a turtle vs crab race if you really wanted to see these two compete.
Coconut War
Fun: This kind of strikes me as a cross between dodgeball and paintball. I know neither of those are for everyone, but they're both fairly popular games that a lot of people enjoy.
Problem: So with dodgeball you're throwing rubber balls (or I've also played with foam balls before) and there is a rule against headshots. Paintball uses very small balls of paint, everyone wears protective gear including a helmet and googles, and if someone's helmet falls off or something somehow, that player is off limits until they get their gear back on. By contrast coconut war has no protective gear, uses big hard coconuts, and people are told to deliberately aim it at each others heads. You're going to give someone brain damage! You're going to break their nose, smash their cheek bone, split their lip wide open. Play your game with something else.
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I think something that gets overlooked a lot in the nuance of whether people are supposed to comment/interact with people's fics and art is that... enjoying interaction and being motivated by it is not the same as being utterly destroyed and depressed by a lack of interaction. Lemme talk about how the kudos-craze affected me, personally.
Before anyone pulls out the "oh you're just such'n'such kind of writer you don't know what it feels like to be on the other side" I have been both an obscure writer with little engagement and one that was big enough to get multiple pieces of gift art/fics for my ocs.
This was the kind of stuff I got for my Fallout fics back in the day:
This is what I've been getting on my FFXIV stuff:
So... yes. It's been an adjustment changing fandoms to one that is arguably much bigger and finding I'm getting much less interaction.
Initially, back in the Fallout fandom, I was writing very personal stories, just for me, and then sharing them with people online in case they resonated with others. Getting interaction now and then was nice. And this worked great. I was writing because I enjoyed the process, connected with the characters, wanted to know what would happen next.
But as I got more and more attention, I ended up feeling a LOT of pressure to perform. And I ultimately spent so much time staring at my open drafts, worrying about whether I was writing something other people would like because I was so afraid of disappointing my followers, that I couldn't actually write anymore or enjoy creating.
That's one of those points where wanting kudos/comments/etc becomes unhealthy, and you need to take a step back from it.
I've had a lot of therapy since then. I've built some stronger, healthier relationships with people I trust, and don't feel that pressure as much anymore because I have a more stable sense of self worth. I'm not perfect about it, but I'm learning.
I think it's often brushed over by people who are in the kudos-dont-define-you camp (it even was by me, for many years), but, yes, we tell stories because we want attention. We want to reach people. Even if we have a strong internal sense of self and aren't insecure about whether there's interaction on our fics... most of us, I think, are still posting in hopes our words reach someone else, even if we don't ever know for sure that they did. I even met my now partner of two years through fic, and the wonderful comments he left on my Ao3. So I'm the last person who should be dissing the incredible power stories have for connecting people.
It should also be noted, however, that using "number go up" as a way to get happiness and motivation is scientifically proven to be harmful to creativity. They did studies with children where kids were given points for reading books, the more books they read the more points they got, and they would be rewarded for points milestones. But when that study ended, and the points system was removed? Even the kids who used to read for fun before the challenge stopped reading. Because their brains had been trained, very quickly, to be reward motivated rather than to just enjoy reading for its own sake. They didn't enjoy something they used to like anymore, and that's extremely sad.
Social media capitalizes on this, basically addiction behavior, and as creators we do need to be aware of how our brain works. It's so, so easy to fall into the mindset where writing or drawing is only worth it if we're getting flower petals back, and to end up trapped in a place where we can't even create for ourselves anymore. The goalpost is always moving, in this situation, because we're always comparing our numbers to others, or to previous posts, or just saying its not enough to hurt ourselves and always needing more. It doesn't end up being about the quality or the sincerity of the interaction.
So while it's good, completely ok, to want comments, kudos, reblogs, whatever, and to enjoy getting them, and to be motivated by them... if not getting them is causing you to spiral into disappointment and depression to such an extreme degree that you don't even like your own stories and characters anymore, consider, without shame, whether your brain has been tricked into equating numbers with self-worth.
I wish people would stop using shame as a bludgeon, though I understand there's a lot of frustration on both sides, too, and that's valid. But attacking people who are too nervous to comment on fics, and attacking people who want comments and to connect with people, are both not going to solve anything. They'll just create defensiveness and hurt.
I have seen some people say they don't even read fics anymore because they don't always have the energy to leave a thoughtful comment afterwards and they feel stressed about not giving anything to the author. So they don't read the author's writing at all because they can't do it the "correct" way. A lot of posts demanding comments and holding updates for fics hostage have hurt readers and added anxiety to the process of even taking part in fandom, and that's not healthy either. I'd much rather someone be able to read my fic, enjoy it, and say nothing to me. Because that way someone did still get to enjoy it.
While I love getting interaction, nice comments can have me smiling for days or months or years, and have allowed me to meet some incredible people, I'll continue to preach that comments and kudos are never an obligation. Readers don't have to interact with my stuff, and they don't have to give me a reason why. There's a lot of reasons why people don't leave those and most of them are benign.
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Sjxhajdjs I just had the greatest realization BAHAHAH- more HTTYD rambling incoming-
Okay so, one of the BEST ways to train a dragon is to give it food it likes (most if not all dragons in this universe LOVE fish but other choices they prefer, I'm sure you can obtain them)
So giving them some AND also making sure that it doesn't see you as a threat (make sure to keep your weapons away and approach slowly) is one of the best ways to have a dragon trust you.
Other ways (for more aggressive dragons usually) is to usually save their lives, rescue them or even obtain their egg and raise them from a baby yourself or other methods
Now.. we all know that Saeyoung is VERY GOOD AT FISHING YEAH??
BRO HE ABOUT TO TRAIN EVERYTHING, ISTG SJDBAHDH AND EVEN IF IT ISN'T EXACTLY THROUGH FISH, DUDE CAN PROBABLY OBTAIN A LOT OF OTHER STUFF AND HE EVEN LEARNS FAST ABOUT WHAT TO DO IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS GAHHHHHH
Saeyoung training dragons has given me so much serotonin I'm not even kidding broooo 😭✋✋
I feel like Saeyoung would maybe train more dangerous dragons, they are amazing allies and are super loyal once they trust you, they are also awesome protectors!
I'm just not exactly sure what dragon would perfectly fit Saeyoung but I think I would know if I ask him a lot of questions and smsnandbah
I think one of them might be the Skrill! This dragon is extremely dangerous and literally shoots lighting! Super rare, the best way to find one would be to head towards stormy clouds because Skrills tend to fly there to recharge more lighting!
Training it is quite risky, you need to get a little close and wave a metal sword slowly left and right. Since Skrills are attracted to metal, this action will calm them down enough so you can get close and gently touch its nose, showing you are not a threat.
THIS THING CAN SOLO 5 WHOLE DRAGONS-
Ahem
I'll stop here because if I continue, I will go on forever and I'm not even kidding SJDHAHDH
I could ramble forever about Saeyoung and dragons, someone stop me SKSKS
Thank you for reading my super long rant-
No, you are totally valid and deserve to be able to have an avenue to ramble about something that makes you increasingly happy. I am more than certain that if you pulled up a PowerPoint night with more than a hundred slides about dragons, Saeyoung would stare at you with hearts in his eyes.
There's something about the way you talk when you're passionate that makes his heart flutter out of his chest. Make no mistake, he is taking notes and commenting the entire time like an engaged student. This is like a class to him but also romantic. It's hard to put that into words. You ever had a love note making class? Well, he's in the middle of one right now. It's like you're taking chemistry notes but there's a candle lit dinner.
I think it's interesting you leaned with lightning. If only because it feels like he's trying to tame Vanderwood and a dragon. Should we think about that? I think we should. You best believe that if you left him in the middle of nowhere with just a fishing pole and a dragon, he would come back with a hundred trained dragons.
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my main review of mister impossible is: wow, what a boring book.
declan continues to be an icon, the star, the hero, my babygirl, etc. literally he is such a great and endearing character who does not serve to be surrounded by this mess. put him in some other better book. matthew can come too. one of several "not bad but poorly executed" ideas in here was the idea that matthew is struggling with his dream identity but also maybe some of the stuff he's struggling with is just growing up (and being an orphan whose parents were dysfunctional, and also, what i would put in if i were writing this but also i feel like just what would be in here if it were good, being rich but discovering in himself a desire to live with dignity)
ronan: dreaming bryde was a fun reveal, no notes. i like the idea of bryde as ronan's id that he's dressed up as his superego, but i also don't want to get too attached to that because who knows what will happen in the next one. my favorite ronan content in this book is how completely fucking insane he has driven himself about his relationship with adam. a specific kind of content i am always hungry for for personal reasons is stories about teenagers or young adults in love that really zero in on how insane-making this phenomenon is when you're both very young and pretty fucked up, and there are like 12 sentences in this book that really delivered on that front. other than that, it's wild to me how someone who was such a vibrant and engaging, even if imperfectly written, character in TRC is so meh here. i think my main complaint carries over from what i said last time, which is that i think ronan's personal crisis just needed to be zeroed in on and brought out a little more. the book gestures towards it enough that you know what's going on (and the thing with adam's gloves over his or whatever was maybe the most effective image in the book), but it doesn't do enough to make you feel it. this feels related to point below.
hennessy: on paper, again, the idea that she like connected to or created the lace because of her traumatic upbringing, sure. why not. in practice, i don't understand how a character so boring exists. there is really something about her that feels 100% telling 0% showing. i also think that her relationship with ronan needed to be... i was gonna say fleshed out more but idek if that's what i mean. it just needed to be better. there needed to be more of a sense of the two of them having a relationship, a specific dynamic that was meaningful to each of them, both to make their chapters less boring and also to make hennessy's betrayal-ish at the end land better. this whole book was weird because it was like in some ways constant plot but also nothing happened, so like there was no time devoted to just character work but we also didn't get to know characters through the kinds of choices they made, because mostly, they didn't (except my babe declan).
oh we did get like ALMOST EVERY CHAPTER opening up with a weird little flashback vignette. um. i DO NOT know who told her this was a good way to write an action-heavy fantasy novel, but they are either stupid or a liar. completely slammed the breaks down on any potential momentum every time that happened, which was, again, almost every single chapter, like it was bananas. like why. all of that should have either been cut or integrated into the narrative. i've been thinking about why these books feel less alive than the raven cycle did, even though the raven cycle was also dumb and badly plotted, and i think it has to do with how much "characterization" is happening in this weird silo'd off way. i mean, ronan didn't even have POV chapters in the raven boys, but he (and noah!) still came across as real characters, because they revealed themselves through their interactions with other people. extremely little of that character work is happening here (and where it could be it feels rushed or forced - like jordan cheering matthew up about being a dream - not the worst scene but not earned, either) and i think it contributes to the sense that none of these people have personalities, even though she keeps beating us over the head with their personalities and struggles and blah blah blah.
sweetmetals are another "could be a cool idea in some other less boring book"
farooq-lane, i can't with that. no thank you. the most boring of all time. i do not want stief providing wuhluhwuh representation thanks and bye.
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hey, not asking out of like a discourse question, but out of genuine fear: are you pro-para/radinclus because the most popular ocd flag i saw made was made by a pro-para individual who follows a lot of dead dove accounts and although i support the idea of writing out dark content in a safe, trigger-warned, non fetishistic way, i don't support the sexualization and fetishization of childhood trauma even if it's in the name of supposed "ocd recovery". please tell me you're not pro MAP or pro para
I'm absolutely not pro-MAP or pro-any paraphilia that involves arousal from, or attraction to, situations or individuals that cannot consent, i.e. pedophilia, zoophilia, biastophilia, etc. beyond being supportive of them seeking treatment and setting up safety guidelines for themselves (like not being around children or not using non-adult-exclusive social media if you're a pedo for example). I am also not supportive of the creation or consumption of real or fictional content catered to those harmful paraphilias and I additionally consider consumption of content that involves real victims to be "full-on" offending, so to speak. I AM pro-para for everything else, but because of the broad and non-nuanced way it's used I don't label myself pro-para in general just so nobody misunderstands the scope of what I accept. In a non-pathological sense, the concept of paraphilias overlaps with fetish and kink in being non-normative sexual interests, which I'm very much supportive of so long as it doesn't involve any of the above (which btw are NOT "kinks", just making sure I'm not implying that). In a pathological sense, there are a many paraphilic disorders that don't involve sexual arousal or attraction to anything unethical. If the paraphilia itself is fine I don't see why that would change if that paraphilia causes the individual distress and impairs their life in some way. I figured I should mention both pathological and non-pathological because paraphilia can refer to both experiences.
I know this is a complicated answer, sorry about that /gen I rarely take "extreme" (all-or-nothing) stances on complicated things and simplifying my beliefs into those dichotomies is something I've decided I'm not doing anymore, even if it means text walls lol.
I hope this eases your fears. In the case that it doesn't and my support of consensual paraphilias bothers you, you should probably block me because I myself technically have paraphilias (none of which involve harm to others, to be clear, just unusual stuff). Objectum attraction is also commonly listed among paraphilias (although it is certainly not always the case and may not even be sexual) so we should be kept in mind in regards to this conversation.
P.S. P-OCD/Z-OCD I'm not talking about you here, you're not paraphiles, far from it. If someone is actually misusing those terms to justify engaging in unethical shit or harmful paraphilias I hate you
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Hello there, sweet thing!
Honestly, I get all the things you're saying, Like, 100%! Of course I can't speak for all the personal things you mentioned - apart from tousling your hair and offering a comforting smile - but at least the tumblr stuff I absolutely get.
(And that's coming from someone who just recently started writing on here, which should be even more worrying because the first few weeks should always be more fun and exciting than anything.)
Just as you mentioned, there is so little engagement and interaction on this site, and it's extremely disappointing. Maybe it's because I'm old and I used to write in other places before personal stuff killed my hobby for a while, but damn. There's almost nothing here for writers. The most one gets is a like - which is wonderful, sure, but feels really impersonal and cold - and there's little to no feedback for something we put hours of work in. In general, it feels like throwing your writing into a giant void.
And, let's be honest? The void isn't really helpful when you're not feeling great already. It just makes you feel even more insignificant as an artist. Add people yelling for part 2/3/27 and whining about certain mistakes they found and voila. Perfectly demotivated and blocked.
To summarise: I get it. Totally. So feel fondly squeezed by a fellow writer, total bear hug style.
And try to remember: Hate is yelled, love is felt. So the good people are always here, ready to shower you in love ❤️
Have a wonderful wonderful day, sweet thing!
Yeah I kind of feel sooooooooo embarrassed because you take a big break and think maybe you’re overreacting but then when u do post it flops and makes u feel silly for caring that it flopped 😅 I think it’s hard to say where these feeling are coming from, I just don’t feel very confident anymore with what I’m doing. I know I’m not entitled to any attention, or guaranteed that what I’m writing will be enjoyed, but I still feel a little crushed when not many people read it — which is normal! It’s of course so normal to want feedback on your projects, and also normal that they might not be finding an audience !
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Hey shut the water off and it's not illegal but it's against the contract and there's a certain circumstances it's illegal like this one when they're trying to make him sick they're ignoring his request to fix the septic and his filed with us and we're going to sue them I'm so sick of you f****** assholes next door it's like watching amateurs trying to do something all the time you're wondering how to do the countertop this is terrible you people suck so bad I don't have time to sit here and make sure you do your stupid carpentry right that we don't want you doing insane what else to find what you're doing to be asking asking for help and threatened all morning renovation job which is illegal so you going to find yourself in court agencies while you're in court by the way you people stink of stupid. Bja is up there trying to take the cerebrus and shatteredome we are all digging around with our son like a bunch of pubescent w**** bags I'm going to use it against you you can't seem to find any signal they start drilling in the top and a few Yeager came out and toasted them and his guys got mad fired like hell and toasted the Jager. the small contingent had snuck around while they're doing it and toasted them it's about one septillion corks Corgi saw it and hit the small contingent completely wiped it out now is about 500,000 good size Jager about 1 mile and 10 10 mile and he's saying out loud we're not impressed and all sorts of stuff so the robot computer said you will be and it sends a shower of rockets a big shower the big huge umbrella opened up from the shower all over the place about 50 umbrellas and it was about 100 miles wide and 100 miles deep and it toasted everybody on the ground only a few tanks are still operational and they started firing like madness and they're firing where the missiles came from a huge door closed and most of the rounds bounced off and a few hit next to it and made some marks so they're firing on that place and a bunch of Jager came out and started firing on the tanks there are 50,000 10 Mile tanks that's a lot and they're gone so you can guess what happens now court is going to flood the place and he's going up there and he's hitting it with tons of stuff he says he's got about 100 ocotillion people going up heavily armed and a contingent of 300 Octillion. Never talking about here cuz they're trying to verify it and the saying yeah they're engaging and yeah they took heavy losses of what was there and just sending more and some numbers and Corky has a force behind it if about 5,000 octillion that's very very large that's probably the largest Force we've actually seen yet for real and he made a huge one there last time that says for us should be able to defeat the Jager but probably won't be able to and the egg are going to look so impressive people will panic.
Both of the new groups are moving up there now of corks and they're starting to move rapidly and they're advancing it is a gigantic Force it is extremely impressive to see it looks like the Mongol horde back in the day and it is on like donkey Kong Tommy Ellen says Tommy leave that computer alone shut up Chris you're always angry with the computer then enough of you staring at it but this is ridiculous this thing's calling its names and everything it's a Vulcan reaction but what is it calling you I said you incompetent twits you f*** everything up well I know what it means and much like my clan they have Intel but they just can't hand it to you so his continuing up there and he's saying do you have Intel we should know about and the computer goes yes that's what we're trying to say muted and in English on the radio it says are you human and it say no no we are not human then you must hand the Intel to us this is why you're a fleshy mass of boogers you're particular human race it's not those kids snot nose kids so Tommy gets mad it says where do you get off calling me that in public so the computer laughed I'm sorry I'll do it in private out loud good they're not being reps correctly upward dog John ring the Lord says we have to get up there because of it this damn computer he needs a phone so tell me are you calling your friends Tommy no this guy's writing it all down cuz he's saying my demands are simple comply or be destroyed well it looks like you're not complying doesn't it now we're writing it down get out of here or be destroyed
Tommy Allen thanks for a minute it starts cursing it says why does he get a minute it says cuz the computer is not working right total reboot then Tommy Allen says this is okay not you it how can I do that he has to fight you now that's a huge fat ass face your idiots are next door blocking your idiots a whole rim of them good well since that's the case when we start the car and her son says yeah why don't you do that so he's trying it's just not going through hello John Remo Lord seems up to up for it he's trying to hit the bricks he's got his mouth ready he's spitting some s*** sure he ate some is a s*** eater now he's mad he says New York number you like four or five to one or something you start looking around and everyone hates him.
It's a huge battle it's on and you already here for a bunch of sophomore fags. For deteriorating their forces now and Corky's at them so we can do deteriorate theirs too and use it as an excuse it's going well in other words and the battle is waging up north Corky is firing heavily at Jager and they're pouring out there's tons of them by the way and as a mental note well Corky is enthused over there there's another shatteredome that's been taken over and Tommy favino wants a mild distraction to try and take it back and you say it so he's trying to get his forces up now but it looks like Corky's in the way of Texas and they may as well check California cuz our son can't but realistically it would be the first one to be taken over and what we know is several robot computers are still fighting over it but they all possess it so all three of you looked into and spinner to stop them in Texas right so they're going to try it
Thor Freya
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