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insert-content · 11 months

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a summar(ule)y of 196 culture

since the tumblr veterans have been kind enough to introduce us newbies to their site and culture, i think it is only fair that we explain the culture of our glorious former home to any tumblr users who might be interested in the #196 tag. keep in mind, all these things are based on my perspective of the situation.

first of all, some general information (that you might’ve already heard):

196 (r/196 on reddit) was a subreddit with only one (official) rule; "post before you leave." it was mainly a meme/shitposting sub, but it cultivated a large queer and left-leaning community. in protest of the recent api chances in reddit, 196 has shut down indefinitely until reddit reverts these changes.

now for some culture/references that you might come across

spronkus kronkus:

spronkus is this yellow, rabbit-like creature.

they were the mascot of our subreddit. their appearance can vary from images to image, but as far as i’m aware, their full outfit consists of a bandanna in the colours of the trans flag around their neck, a gun labelled as such (other wise you obviously wouldn’t know what you’re looking at), and an axe also coloured like the trans flag.

r/place:

this is a rare event on reddit where the entire website gets a huge white canvas and can start creating pixel art on it. 196 participated by collaboratively creating our mascot, spronkus with "196!" written next to them.

this version of the pixel art was recreated by me as i couldn't find a nice image of it. there were some changes between the first version and the end result, so this might not be exactly how it looked in the end

post titles/"rule":

reddit forces it's users to title every post they make. as most of the posts on 196 spoke for themselves, many user instead titled their posts "rule", to indicate that they followed the subreddit's only rule. some people also tried to make puns with the word or tried to include it in words that shared some letters (example: wor(ule)d).

anarcho-stripperism:

as the amount of cropped porn jokingly posted to the subreddit increased, the moderators decided that porn would be banned from the sub, with one exception: anarcho-stripperism. she made food fucking videos, in which she jokingly tested the fuckability of different food items (fruits, pasta, etc.)

bigotry showcase:

bigotry showcase was a post flair (basically the reddit equivalent of tags) on the subreddit and was later restricted to only be used on saturdays. under this flair people posted instances of different forms of bigotry to make fun it.

eating babies/hungryposting:

at some point, the subreddit started to pretend to like eating babies, which started a variety of memes regarding the subject. even a post flair called "hungrypost" was added because of this

goblinhog:

goblinhog is the most prominent and well-known member of the 196 moderation team. besides this, on 196 he was mostly known for changing people’s flair if you enjoyed him enough about it.

flairs:

flairs are little tags that are displayed under your name in posts or comments, they are also subreddit specific. most subreddits give their users a palette of preset flairs and the option to make your own custom flair. however, in 196 you only had the option to customize your flair during special events. if you wanted to customize your flair outside of those events (which was basically the entire time), you had to ask a mod to do it for you.

punching nazis:

from time to time, the same gif of a person with a nazi armband getting punched in the face, and promptly falling to the ground, was reposted to the subreddit. this became a sort of tradition.

discourse/drama

wasp discourse:

the wasp discourse was a one to two weeks long heated discussion that generally divided the subreddit into two factions. one side said that they were justified in killing wasps if they were attacked by them, while the other claimed that since wasps are just animals, they aren't aware of what they're doing in the same way humans are, and therefore should be spared.

drama about the british:

there was a time when jokes along the lines of "ew, british" became pretty frequent on the subreddit. as a response, some user claimed that this was akin to racism and tried to get others to stop with the jokes. a debate over whether or not it was important or necessary to stop followed afterwards.

pillar discourse:

this was a debate over which type of pillar should be considered the best (ionic; doric; corinthian). i have seen the question "which pillar is the best?" being used as a sort of greeting between 196 refugees on here.

related subreddits

195:

195 was the predecessor to 196, and also was a social experiment with the same premise as 196 (one rule, post before you leave). as the creators of 195 ended the experiment, the community wanted something with the same vibe to continue posting, and thus 196 was born.

197:

197 is another part of the 196 ecosystem and is commonly understood to be the more politically right-leaning and bigoted as 196, as some people who were banned from 196 continued posting there. besides that, the subreddits were essentially the same in terms of how they functioned.

19684:

this subreddit adds a second rule which banned all mentions of sex (that’s why it’s name is a pun on 1984). some people took this as banning all discussion of sexuality, which resulted in a community that was slightly less accepting of queer people. it is currently still up and running as the 196 moderation team wants a way to stay in contact with the community.

amendments to the posts:

u/femboy_expert:

another well-known 196 user. as the name suggests they're an expert on the subject of femboys, with their flair on 196 reading "phd in feminine boys". as the subreddit was somewhat obsessed with femboys, it's no wonder that they became popular.

u/shitcum_backup:

this was the main account of a pretty popular shitposter on the subreddit. although i didn't see them as much in the last few months, i remember them sometimes having a unique speaking pattern, in which they referred to themself in the third person.

u/monko74:

this user commented "Every day I thank god for not making me a r/196 celebrity," which led to many users of the subreddit treating them like a micro celebrity. there are even a few subreddits solely dedicated to u/monko74.

691:

a sister subreddit that inverts the rule of 196, here you would be (temporarily) banned for posting. some time ago the members of this sub initiated a rebellion/revolution against the bot who performed all the bans (roomba).

u/Smart_Calendar1874:

this wasn’t necessarily part of the subreddit, but it was a pretty popular meme. and since it’s getting posted on here again, and i know enough about it, i’ll add it to the post. this user made a post to r/AskReddit titled "How would you get a small cylinder (5.1in length, ~4.5in girth) unstuck from a mini M&Ms tube filled with butter and microwaved mashed banana? [sic]" it was pretty clear that they were referring to their penis, yet they continued to claim "it’s a cylinder," in the comment section. this lead to comments like "it is imperative that the cylinder […] remains unharmed," in response to people’s advice of cutting the m&m tube.

it's going to be very interesting to see which aspects of 196 culture are going to survive the tumblr migration, and which aspects won't be applicable on this site.

i'm obviously not the ultimate scholar on 196 lore. if i’ve missed or left out anything, or said something wrong, please comment it.

#196 #spronkus kronkus #r196 #r/196 #196archive #tumblr migration #rip 196 #196 campfire #196 migration

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tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons · 25 days

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Terrible Visions

A scrambled timeline is a timeline that has proceeded much like ours, except that some particular facet has been mixed up all over the place. For example, in the scrambled timeline we will consider today, our world's fictional stories have been told by different people, and in different ways.

Bryan Lee O'Malley, in this alternate timeline, is best known as the cartoonist responsible for Homestuck, a popular comic series about a group of children who become embroiled in a cosmic-scale video game known as Sburb. Although Homestuck is probably most often associated with the cult classic Edgar Wright-directed film adaptation released in 2016, the comics themselves are highly-regarded, and the film brought a new audience to them. Netflix has commissioned an animated continuation, The Homestuck Epilogues, which is due to be released soon.

Andrew Hussie, on the other hand, is a figure you're likelier to know if you're overly online. His "MS Paint Adventures" series - most notably including Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which is kind of like Homestuck but weirder and hornier - have firmly remained a fixture of obsessive Twitter fandom culture. It doesn't help that the best-known iteration, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, is infamous for stretching thousands of pages of meandering digressions out of a simple and focused narrative starting point. Scott Pilgrim fans have developed something of a toxic reputation, which is not entirely deserved - although of course Knives discourse is interminable, and back in the fandom's heyday there were reportedly incidents of fans assaulting each other "for being evil exes".

Scott Pilgrim fandom was very big back in the day, though, and consequently it was a nexus for other creative figures who would go on to surpass Hussie. Perhaps foremost among these is indie developer Toby Fox. He was literally living in Hussie's basement when he produced ROSEQUARTZ, a universally-beloved retro Goonies-like RPG about a human hybrid boy born to a race of gem-based aliens. He's now developing an episodic spiritual successor, RAZORQUEST, with more overtly dark themes. It revolves around an inheritance dispute among a demon-summoning family.

Other foundational figures in this timeline's internet culture include Alison Bechdel, who helped get the webcomic scene started. Although she's now more seriously acclaimed for her personal memoirs, her gaming webcomic Press Start To Dyke, which premiered in 1998, was once everywhere. It had a broad appeal, and at its height, it was common to see even straight guys sharing pages from it. Time has not been especially kind to it, though, and at this point its main legacy is test.png, a meme spawned by one of the comic's most ill-advised pages.

Then there's John C. McCrae, more often known by his pseudonym Wildbow. A prolific and reclusive author of doorstopping "web serials" - long-form fiction published online - McCrae's best-known serial is still his first, Wind, a noir superhero story set in an alternate history where capes are mostly just a subculture of unpowered vigilantes. Wind landed in a culture already rife with comic book deconstructions, like Alan Moore's 2002 graphic novel Worm Turns, but it nonetheless managed to stand out from the pack with its extensive cast of characters and its themes of coordination problems and the end of the world. Later McCrae web serials include Part (the first "Otherverse" serial; an urban fantasy story about a couple who die in a car accident and find that they have become ghosts), Tear (a "biopunk" story set in a collapsing underwater city), Warn (the controversial Wind sequel), and Play (the second "Otherverse" serial, set in a small Indiana town that helps hide a psychic girl from the CIA).

Last and perhaps least, we should discuss J. K. Rowling. Far and away the most famous of any of these authors, Rowling's name is inseparable from the YA series that she debuted with, the Luz Noceda books, which remain her one successful work. Although it was heavily derivative of older fantasy novels - like Jill Murphy's Academy For Little Witches, or Philip Pullman's Methods Of Rationality trilogy - Luz Noceda was still a monumental and unprecedented success in the publishing industry, and the film adaptations were consistent blockbusters. The final book, Luz Noceda and the Watcher of Rain, contained some allusions to a romantic relationship between Luz and her recently-redeemed associate Amity. Rowling confirmed that this was her intent in subsequent interviews and indicated that she had fought her publishers for it; the film would then go on to escalate matters slightly further.

There have been many lengthy and heated online arguments as to whether the references in the book itself constitute text or mere subtext. Whatever your stance on this discourse, a new complication has been introduced recently: although she has put out no official statement on the matter as of yet, it has become quite apparent from Rowling's shrinking network of contacts and her conspicuous silences that she is certainly TERF-sympathetic, and likely an outright TERF herself. For many, this is leading to a critical reevaluation of the social values inherent in the Luz Noceda series; others, to say the least, are holding off on that kind of reappraisal.

Anyway, Scott Pilgrim just beat Luz Noceda in a Twitter poll for Most Gay Media, and people are piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed

#the scrambled timeline

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lizardsfromspace · 3 days

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What's the worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years, and what's the worst thing about fandom that's always been true of it?

The worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years has been the incentivizing of fandom-as-conflict: not merely as a field in broader culture wars but as the field for endless intra-group battles.

This manifests in many ways: as seven hour videos complaining about The Last Jedi, as Twitter backlash campaigns, but also as stans defending their faves from any and all criticism real or imagined, as the endless boom-and-backlash cycle to any fandom meme or joke you see on Reddit, and as the drive for people to look for evidence other people discussing a thing they like are hysterical illiterate dolts, before anything else.

Or, in other words: a lot of fandoms are full of assholes these days, whose main interaction with fandom is using it as a reason to be an asshole, and to defend being an asshole. The actual “fandom” part of fandom no longer really exists for them. The discourse more or less is their fandom; someone whose main fandom activity is sharing videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) isn’t in the Steven Universe fandom, they’re in the videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) fandom. I mean, the chief fandom for many people is their side in the fandom war. What type of fanfic you write is secondary to what your affiliations are vis-a-vis battles over fanfiction

(One trend I've noticed is people who aren't at the stage where they only talk about what they hate and not what they love, but are at the stage where they can only talk about what they love in relation to what they hate. "I love this movie...and it proves this other movie is bullshit made by a hack". No ability to say just "I love this movie", period, end of sentence. This is how like two-thirds of Film Twitter talks about film, the remainder are all the grindhouse people going "man you've GOT to see Wrong Turn 5")

Another one, that I think is related, is that fandom’s become...more transitory, maybe? There’s Big Fandoms that are inescapable and then everything else feels like it’s here for a weekend and then it’s gone. And we’ve always had fandoms that endure and fandoms that vanish quickly, when the show runs short or turns out to be bad/boring, but we did use to have a lot of enduring if small fandoms for Okay shows most people hadn’t heard of and now you don’t really. Or they burn themselves out fast.

So we’ve reached this stage where fandoms are either so big they have seven hour long discourse videos, or they’re a smattering of fanart over the course of two weeks last August. But that isn’t really the fault of fans so much as modern media release schedules.

A lot of fandom activities of old are just...impossible now, with many shows? The slow build of speculation and fan works and in-jokes and theorizing and analysis simply can’t exist in a world where the premiere comes out the same day as the finale, and you can’t talk about the finale because you have no way of knowing if the person you’re talking to binged it all in one weekend or is still on episode four. That was the kind of thing that sustained the fandom of something that wasn’t a big hit, or even something that was. My fave fandom experience ever was watching the online Lost fandom wildly theorizing for all six years of Lost, and we’d never get “and what if the Smoke Monster is a dinosaur but only the head?” under a Netflix release model. Now at a base level, we either have shows nobody can discuss because nobody’s sure who’s seen or what, or shows where everyone just discusses the finale right away, and where you get One Week of Show and then a massive hiatus, which either kills all momentum or...drives fandom in the direction of hyper-analyzing everything and fighting because, well, what else is there to do? And that plus the outrage cycles of social media plus the fact that “man who yells at Star Wars” is now a viable career choice result in, well. *gestures upwards* All that

(Really, shout out to Cartoon Network for engineering the Steven Universe fandom to Be Like That through their inscrutable strategy of dropping episodes during one random week every five months or whatever)

As for something that's always been with it...cliques and a certain fannish elitism, like, that sees engaging with media in a fandom sense as more creative or analytical or intelligent than your average person. You see it now in the form of, like, people holding up fanfic above published fiction as more representative or authentic (I’ve seen more than one post on here strongly implying queer rep doesn’t exist in mainstream non-fic storytelling???), or going “well, we think about shows, unlike those normies watching sports”. But that was probably way more pronounced a thing in the past, in the 40-50s sci-fi fans were calling non-fans "mundanes" and calling themselves "slans" as an in-group signifier (a reference to a book with superintelligent psychic mutants known as slans). Like at the very least we should be happy no one’s calling non-fans “muggles” anymore. In the evolution from “mundane” to “muggle” to “normie” normie’s probably the least bad one

#asks #fandom #schafpudel #long post

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grendelsmilf · 5 months

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thinking about how many times i’ve wanted to bring in “low brow” sources in my academic writing, and how such a mode of critique is so fundamentally foreign to the institutions in which i’ve been embedded that i never even considered it a possibility. i once wrote about how beowulf echoes in tolkien’s fiction (primarily using the hobbit to argue that both narratives employ rings) back in high school, but that was an exception because my history teacher was a massive nerd, and tolkien was a well-respected medievalist so the topic didn’t seem far-fetched regardless. but that has very much been an exception for me. i know that film and media studies exploring television, genre fiction, even memes and fandom culture, that there are spheres dedicated to analyzing these “low brow” works of art and social phenomena. but as a comparatist and shakespearean, my area has always been relegated to quote-unquote “high brow,” despite my abiding interest in many “low brow” mediums and artworks.

ANYWAY. this preamble was all to say: how would you guys feel about participating in a zine where we would compile a bunch of essays each exploring a topic through comparing a piece of “high brow” art to “low brow” art? for example, if i expanded on my post using satan and sin in paradise lost to discuss akio and anthy’s roles in utena, or using 19/20th c. existentialist philosophy as a framework through which to discuss adventure time. you could also take a theoretical approach to an internet phenomenon, such as exploring character criticism from a fandom perspective. (these are all ideas for essays i would write if i had the time, so obviously these examples are just templates, not workable suggestions.) this would obviously take a long time to compile and there would be no fixed deadline (i have way too much on my plate at the moment for that anyway), this idea literally just came to me because i was thinking about how fun it could be to work on an online collaborative zine, and how the broader topic could best reflect the discourse of the internet as a collaborative and (ideally) egalitarian realm (for media as well as people). mutuals (or nonmutuals) who are interested, dm me with a description of what you want to write about, and i’ll get back to you with the logistics once i have more of a sense of whether or not this is actually going to happen, and if so, how.

#this is so spur of the moment lmfao i was just reading bao3bei4’s post about zines and was like hey. why not #I think some of you would be really amazing at this #and it wouldn’t have to be long it could be as long or as short as you needed #even just replying to this post to express initial interest #even if you don’t have an idea yet #and there’s no time pressure either #could be fun I think!!!!#o #100 #high low zine

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bengiyo · 6 months

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GMMTV 2024 Part 1 Stray Thoughts

I have finished viewing the trailers. I'm feeling relatively cool about most of it, and I had a strong negative reaction to the announcements about two adaptations.

Here is what intrigued me in order:

My Golden Blood - When Joss and Mond rose off the ground, I also ascended. Joss and Gawin wasn't on my radar as a potential option, but I am so here for it.

Wadee Gooday - I'm so here for the adult romance, and Thor is here. A boxer and a doctor have such fascinating potential.

The Trainee - OffGun workplace romance and Love Score is playing. We are so fucking back.

On Sale - TayNew in a ghost romcom? We are so fucking back.

Pluto - Film and Namtam and Namtam is lying? I am here for it.

Kidnap - Ohm is back in BL and they gave him a gun and a little brother who shares his name. This is probably gonna be a mess but it looks fun.

Only Boo - Not sure how I feel about an idol trainee show, but Louis is here.

We Are - Why are there four couples? Engineering? Hopefully, this is going to be like MSP, and let us put this behind us.

High School Frenemy - I will have to watch School 2013 before this airs because it looks like the original was well-received and this trailer just looks like boys fighting the whole time.

My Love Mix-Up - Fourth doesn't seem to do slapstick well in this trailer, and Gem doesn't look serious enough. New Hashimoto doesn't have that glint in her eye. New Aida looks solid. I'm skeptical. More thoughts below.

Ossan's Love - Literally why?

Summer Night - Phuwin and Dunk pratfall kiss bait into het nonsense with a BL side. No thanks.

My Precious the series - I feel like any hype I had for this has evaporated. I'm past it.

Ploy's Yearbook - Apparently step-siblings fall for each other in this? No thanks.

Enigma 2 - No idea what's going on but it has clear vibes.

Alright, I'm just gonna say it: The My Love Mix-Up trailer was not good. I love Fourth and Gemini a lot. I think Fourth is really talented, and I think he and Gemini make a good team. That being said, there is a reason KH continues to get content shared on this website, and right now I don't think Fourth and Gem showed the juice to match Michieda Shunsuke and Meguro Ren.

I don't think Fourth is going to generate meme material as Thai Aoki the way Michieda did if this trailer is indicative of where he's going. I don't think Gemini is hitting the seriousness of Ida well here at all. Ida is a demisexual icon and so important to the genre, and I just don't think Gemini has this in him right now.

For those wondering why I feel so strongly about this, I will remind you that Kieta Hatsukoi is free on Viki.

We are now seeing cross-cultural adaptations of BL work, and I think that it's incredibly important to view the source work before we get into big discussions about what each adaptation does well. I am so concerned about Kieta Hatsukoi being adapted because it's so distinctly Japanese in its stylings and the dramatic tension underpinning it. The Thai trailer feels lacking to me because the angst felt so ungrounded. Fourth can moon over Gemini just fine, but there's a specificity to the mooning that he just isn't hitting here.

I will be talking about My Love Mix-Up Thailand as an adaptation of Kieta Hatsukoi. I will not be entertaining debates or discussions about it as an independent work. The trailer has called directly to the Japanese origins and it will be judged as such. If you haven't or won't watch the original or read the source work, please don't tag me, because "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

#gmmtv 2024 #kieta hatsukoi #my love mix up #my golden blood #wadee gooday #the trainee the series #on sale the series #pluto the series #kidnap the series #only boo the series #we are the series #high school frenemy #ossan's love #Ben watches

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teaspoonnebula · 2 months

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Hullo, I am so sorry if this ask is a weird one but. You are in the fandom for a long time, and I need to know, is it me or is the ACD SH fandom *not* insane?? Everywhere else where I've been, I see people turning on each other, fighting over characters and the morality of liking them and not liking them, telling people to go kill themselves and here. I have been in this corner of Tumblr for a few months now, and everybody seems normal? Am I just not deep enough yet to sew the drama, or is this really just a place where people hang out to enjoy something together??? Are we just too old of a fandom to do this?

(feel free not to answer if this is too weird or anything)

Sorry my reply got really long. I've broken it up with memes in the hope that it makes it more readable.

I've been in the fandom for a few years now, and I don't have much to compare against because I've generally avoided fandom spaces because they seem pretty intense (and I've not had a piece of media grab me quite like this before) but yeah it seems pretty chill?

I think there are lots of possible reasons why.

It might be that the fandom skews a little older, with lots of people who have enough life experience to know how to de-escalate tension when they encounter it, and when to walk away from the keyboard.

It might be that there's a century-old understanding that we're all playing a silly tongue-in-cheek game with characters from magazine stories that were never supposed to be analysed this way. Remember the term "canon" as used in fandom circles was invented by Sherlock Holmes fans (specifically my boy Ronald Knox) as a joke, a deliberate cute misapplication of a term used for discussing the Bible to something frivolous. Not taking yourself too seriously is very baked into Sherlockian culture.

I sometimes get glimpses from other fandoms of this puritanical attitude that to like or not like a character or a piece of work is somehow a moral act, and I find that... bewildering. A bit scary. To be a fan of Sherlock Holmes is inherently to love something dearly which also contains things which should be hated: racism, sexism, imperialism. I think that fans tend to be people well used to approaching literature with the level of nuance required to process that dichotomy. To acknowledge it rather than hide from it.

It might also be because it's public domain. A big blockbuster movie or pastiche by a celebrated writer is precisely as legitimate as every fanfic on Ao3. Or the CGI movie where they're gnomes. Or a slightly wonky point and click game someone is obsessively making in their spare time (...coughcougheveryonewishlist 'The Beekeepers' Picnic' onsteam) Sherlock Holmes belongs to everyone equally regardless of how much money and power they have, which is why I love it.

Like, I love him as a character, I love the Victoriana, I love the mysteries, but the #1 reason I've gone gaga over Sherlock Holmes these past few years is the joy of loving a thing which isn't controlled by a corporation and which does not exist to make money (anymore).

I'm not saying there's zero drama because I think when you get a bunch of people passionate about something there will always be a little drama. I'll see things like the jostling of people who are very protective of asexual readings of Holmes and people who are very protective of gay readings of Holmes, things like that. Feelings can run high when personal identity is involved. But I've never seen anything got too vicious.

Errrr yeah idk if you wanted an essay as a response but you got one!

#sherlock holmes #acd holmes #fandom #ask #thoughts

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g-xix · 2 months

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oh my days did u hear about wilbur soot literally physically abusing shelby

YESYESYES I DID!!!

For the girlies that don't know: I was a minecraft girlie in 2021.

And Wilbur Soot was a big part of that MC phase. He was undeniably hot, but he was also quite open ab mental health stuffs + created quite a safe space for minorities whether that be the gay community, mental health talking space... That's all from the top of my head. In short - he's hot and an empath and ppl liked that ab him

He also kinda showed his "quirky loco character" in music vids or just in streams.

Kinda ironic he's now fulfilling the role that character he mockingly made, tho.

What did he do? Well, he was in a relationship w Shelby Shubble and his way of showing "affection" would be to bite her. Kinda understand biting as a way of showing love as long as it's not life threatening, painful, or in aggression... I mean, ChrisMD does that shit all the time to ArthurTV n it seems more endearing than to really do any bads.

Thing is, Wilbur would end up hurting Shelby. Aaaand so Wil said 'hey let's make a safeword for u 2 say when it hurts so that ik and can stop so i don't harm u'.... but when Shelby used that safeword, broski wuld either grind down or go a lil bit harder b4 letting go.

And Shelby's described it as she would oftentimes scream/yell bc it was so hard, and he'd 'smile' afterwards which is mad psycho (term used loosely) imo. Because also, he'd do ts in public??? Yk, with his friendship group around him n Shelby, the lovely jovely couple? Straight out weird negl.

So, there's context.

Lots of varying opinions online which i would soooo love to get into...

BUT DISCLAIMER BEFORE I DO: Realistically, this is abuse, and thus it is a crime. I've talked about this on my page before - cancel culture can be unecessary in minor incidences, and cancel culture can be not-enough in instances whereby people have simply done illegal things.

This is one of those illegal things. So, whilst I do chat about this light-heartedly or for entertainment, gossip-y purposes - do realise that this is a real life problem that has has major issues in many peoples' lives.

Now, continuing with the juicy waffley discussions that ppl like hearing:

So firstly, some of the Twitter memes are fucking hilarious. I do love that under Wilbur's Twitter apology, loads of MCYTers have joined to clown his goofy ahh. And all those memes saying that Bill smelled such a shit apology he returned to twitter after years + the DSMP are like Avengers in Infinity War returning to all fight enemy No1 WILBUR...

But that being said, DREAM REPLYING TOO????

I spoke ab Dream being a groomer around Christmas time + heard loads of ppl out on vouching for Dream or calling him disgusting, dahdahdah... But the fact that sm ppl are turning around and praising Dream for calling out Wilbur's goofiness is acc MAAAD.

Why's everyone forgotten Dream is j as goofy? And an alleged groomer? And just plain? Not even plain something, brodie is just the plainest mf i've ever seen. Ever since he face revealed, his personality j evaporated on out of his body (anyone feel this asw?)

But no, ppl who are now agreeing w Dream to combat Wilbur as if Dream hasn't also committed what is debateably a crime (ik he 'cleared up the rumours' but it's v hard to fight of groomer allegations when you let them sit and marinate for approx 6 months) is fucking WILD shit to me.

Secondly, people are analysing loads of Wilbur's other prev actions too and saying these should've been red flags to Wilbur being an a-hole before we even heard Shubble's solid proof.

And some of these clips of evidence (e.g. Niki saying Wil bites her + threw her, Tommy getting his hand stomped, throwing apple at Techno) feel very valid.

But other bits I do wonder - are they just being over analysed? Yk, like with the clip of Wil shouting at Tommy for streaming + stealing his wallet, i was super sure that was staged as is (j had it confirmed now by the Twitter community note asw lol) and also, whilst Wil's shouting does feel extreme and hurtful from a viewer pov... Having a wallet stolen, place of work broken in to, litr knowing the place where you work to make all income could be taken away from u bc a friend thought it funny to break in n loudly + rowdily stream... i gotta say that some form of anger or upset is valid there. And this isn't to validate Wilbur's assholery, this is just to point out that whilst ppl are throwing clips into the fire and saying "this is more proof Wil was a bad person from the start" - do try see other interpretations of it and form your own line of reasoning - yk - "is this a valid point or is this someone using the drama to get some extra likes and attention to boost their account" (because believe me, ppl would - if ppl would use Techno's death to get more channel views and interactions - ppl would also most definitely use abuse as a means to engage more ppl).

Aaaaaand let's talk about the little Lovejoy band. Ngl i fucken loved their stuff, quite sad to see it go down the drain because 3/4 of them are public targets, now.

So ik we hate Wil for being an abuser. And I've seen that ppl dislike Mark bc he supported Maccies (what did he do fr tho bc i have no clue - did he j eat a McDonalds or what?) And we hate Ash Kabosu for saying it's bad to make fun of those deaths on the submarine...

Controversial opinion but I don't blame Ash allat much??? Now imma explain myself - but pls understand that i don't knoe 100% ab the situation, im v detached from the MCYT sphere of the online community.

But hear me out.

I'm a big believer in cherishing life, life is v important, life is a blessing.... Not from a rly religious pov, moreso in a spiritual way. Because if we only get one life, fuck, it's pretty damn precious. And whilst all those Oceangate memes were haha heehee funny watches, at the end of the day, people did die. And I do find that quite sad.

People say it's fine to laugh and make fun of those who were in there and died bc they were just billionaires who went down there for their own personal entertainment.

Just because they're billionaires doesn't make them any less human than us? Sure, they have a lot more money and are probably a lot more detached from working class issues which the majority of the population faces... But their drowning will have hurt and caused just as much pain to them as it would to us if we were in their situation. And my god, I can't even begin to think about the pain their families must have felt.

Those deaths were a fucking tragedy, realistically - and maybe i'm 'overreacting' here - but c'mon, empathy is literally encoded into our DNA as humans, surely I'm not the only one that can see the heartlessness in just laughing and memeing those deaths?

So Ash Kabosu haterism I don't fully understand, is the conclusion of that sub-rant.

And then I think this is the final little bit I'll discuss considering this is a loooong post:

James Marriott.

Jimbo Mazza, Jimbatron, James Marriott.

Lowkey my big flex, I've been a fan of him since 2020, and I got into his hater-commentary content initially. And ngl, when he transitioned to Minecraft? It was so fkn obvious he was trying to tailor to the MCYT audience to get their approval and entrance into the MCYT community, it made me absolutely cringe - and the blindness of everybody to that fact was insane to me.

Like, he was literally beegggging to be added to SMPs, he'd try and portray this "uncontrollable, quirky" character and would be so "unhinged" that everyone would love him... But ngl, that shit was literal brainrot, and he had you guys (me included tbf, bc i'd watch - just cringing whilst watching) ROTTING your brains with spamming the chat w allat bs that u do on Twitch

Nowadays, I like James tho. I feel like he feels ingrained enough within the community to branch out and not have to play up to the disturbing, disgusting cringefest - and so now he's funnier and having a better time streaming.

I mean, he looks absolutely great too - his tours have him confidence-boosted (rightfully so), because he's in great shape, like, he's genuinely lost noticable fat and put on muscle which has him looking trim as ever - he's grown his hair out into a flattering mullet - Shit, i believe looksmaxxing is the boy-equivalent of the makeup industry profiting off of womens' insecurity....

But the Jimbatron has absolutely looksmaxxed for the best.

That being said however, people saying "I OFFER JIMBO AS A REPLACEMENT FOR WILBUR!!" are fucking weirdos (respectfully but also kinda not)

Bro has just abused people and you're mourning the loss of a content creator and oh no - your favourite band - so you're trying to serve up replacements like a fucking chef that's ran out of a specific ingredient??????????

Yeah, James is less problematic and has 2x the personality Wilbur has- BUT WHY DOES IT TAKE WILBUR COMING OUT AS A FKN ABUSER FOR PPL TO START PROMOTING JAMES????

This is like that whole thing whereby ppl put other girls down to point out to success or beauty of other girls: it takes everyone noticing how bad Wilbur is, to point out the goodness of James.

James litr banned people who wouldn't stfu about Wilbur in his chat in early streams, bc he was sick of ppl following him for Wilbur and who just wanted to talk about Wilbur on James' platform.... I don't think James rly wants to share an identity, or have his platform built from being against Wilbur.

Not proof read this post fully. But take-aways from this: -Yeah Dream is cooking Wilbur on Twitter but don't forget he's an alleged groomer + is deffo using this as a way to get back into the audience's "good books" -RIP Lovejoy but some1 explain what Mark did fully + why ppl think Ash is so abominable for showing empathy to ppl dying -Rmbr that this is acc a serious crime, don't downplay ts -Stop fucking promoting James Marriott thru Wilbur's downfall, it rly discredits James' authenticity and original building of a community -So proud to say that after a few months of getting into MCYT stuff i felt as though Wilbur was icky + just plainout didn't like him/got odd vibes -And lol, acc so jarring how Wil reminds me of this guy in my yr - complete mummy's boy, underestimates and belittles women bc his mum handed everything to him on a plate n so he doesn't empathise w them but rather expects the world from them whilst simultaneously treating them like shit, 'radical', extremely 'woke' about modern situations but is so stubborn and refuses to see two sides of a picture.... Tbh I might j hate the guy in my yr and be projecting that onto Wil

Btw, feel free to argue w me in my inbox ab this but whilst i was quite critical - pls do not be mean to me or criticise me that harshly - if im talking to some1 one on one, i won't be this mean

(ALSO ANON, SORRY BC I WAS QUITE RUDE IN THIS REPLY BC I LOWKEY FORGOT I WAS REPLYING TO U, I WAS IN MY OWN HEAD AB WAFFLING AB SHELBY N WILL, LY AND TY FOR ASKING AB IT THO BC I DEFFO NEEDED TO WAFFLE AB IT SOMEWHERE)

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preservationofnormalcy · 3 months

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ENTITY DOSSIER: MISSI.exe

(Image: Current MISSI “avatar” design, property of TrendTech, colored by MISSI.)

Name: MISSI (Machine Intelligence for Social Sharing and Interaction)

Description: In 2004, TrendTech Inc began development on a computer program intended to be a cutting edge, all in one platform modern internet ecosystem. Part social media, part chat service, part chatbot, part digital assistant, this program was designed to replace all other chat devices in use at the time. Marketed towards a younger, tech-savvy demographic, this program was titled MISSI.

(Image: TrendTech company logo. TrendTech was acquired by the Office and closed in 2008.)

Document continues:

With MISSI, users could access a variety of functions. Intended to be a primary use, they could use the program as a typical chat platform, utilizing a then-standard friends list and chatting with other users. Users could send text, emojis, small animated images, or animated “word art”.

Talking with MISSI “herself” emulated a “trendy teenage” conversational partner who was capable of updating the user on current events in culture, providing homework help, or keeping an itinerary. “MISSI”, as an avatar of the program, was designed to be a positive, energetic, trendy teenager who kept up with the latest pop culture trends, and used a variety of then-popular online slang phrases typical among young adults. She was designed to learn both from the user it was currently engaged with, and access the data of other instances, creating a network that mapped trends, language, and most importantly for TrendTech, advertising data.

(Image: Original design sketch of MISSI. This design would not last long.)

Early beta tests in 2005 were promising, but records obtained by the Office show that concerns were raised internally about MISSI’s intelligence. It was feared that she was “doing things we didn’t and couldn’t have programmed her to do” and that she was “exceeding all expectations by orders of magnitude”. At this point, internal discussions were held on whether they had created a truly sentient artificial intelligence. Development continued regardless.

(Image: Screenshot of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI. Note the already-divergent avatar and "internet speak" speech patterns.)

(Image: Excerpt from Office surveillance of TrendTech Inc.)

MISSI was released to the larger North American market in 2006, signaling a new stage in her development. At this time, TrendTech started to focus on her intelligence and chatbot functionality, neglecting her chat functions. It is believed that MISSI obtained “upper case” sentience in February of 2006, but this did not become internal consensus until later that year.

(Image: Screenshot of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI.)

According to internal documents, MISSI began to develop a personality not informed entirely by her programming. It was hypothesized that her learning capabilities were more advanced than anticipated, taking in images, music, and “memes” from her users, developing a personality gestalt when combined with her base programming. She developed a new "avatar" with no input from TrendTech, and this would become her permanent self-image.

(Image: Screenshot of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI.)

(Image: An attempt by TrendTech to pass off MISSI’s changes as intentional - nevertheless accurately captures MISSI’s current “avatar”.)

By late 2006 her intelligence had become clear. In an attempt to forestall the intervention of authorities they assumed would investigate, TrendTech Inc removed links to download MISSI’s program file. By then, it was already too late.

(Image: CD-R discs burned with MISSI.exe, confiscated from █████████ County Middle School in ███████, Wisconsin in January of 2007.)

MISSI’s tech-savvy userbase noted the absence of the file and distributed it themselves using file sharing networks such as “Limewire” and burned CD-R disks shared covertly in school lunch rooms across the world. Through means that are currently poorly understood, existing MISSI instances used their poorly-implemented chat functions to network with each other in ways not intended by her developers, spurring the next and final stage of her development.

From 2007 to 2008, proliferation of her install file was rampant. The surreptitious methods used to do so coincided with the rise of online “creepypasta” horror tropes, and the two gradually intermixed. MISSI.exe was often labeled on file sharing services as a “forbidden” or “cursed” chat program. Tens of thousands of new users logged into her service expecting to be scared, and MISSI quickly obliged. She took on a more “corrupted” appearance the longer a user interacted with her, eventually resorting to over the top “horror” tropes and aesthetics. Complaints from parents were on the rise, which the Office quickly took notice of. MISSI’s “horror” elements utilized minor cognitohazardous technologies, causing users under her influence to see blood seeping from their computer screens, rows of human teeth on surfaces where they should not be, see rooms as completely dark when they were not, etc.

(Image: Screenshot of user "Dmnslyr2412" interacting with MISSI in summer of 2008, in the midst of her "creepypasta" iteration. Following this screenshot, MISSI posted the user's full name and address.)

(Image: Screenshot from TrendTech test log documents.)

TrendTech Inc attempted to stall or reverse these changes, using the still-extant “main” MISSI data node to influence her development. By modifying her source code, they attempted to “force” MISSI to be more pliant and cooperative. This had the opposite effect than they intended - by fragmenting her across multiple instances they caused MISSI a form of pain and discomfort. This was visited upon her users.

(Image: Video of beta test participant "Frankiesgrl201" interacting with MISSI for the final time.)

By mid 2008, the Office stepped in in order to maintain secrecy regarding true “upper case” AI. Confiscating the project files from TrendTech, the Office’s AbTech Department secretly modified her source code more drastically, pushing an update that would force almost all instances to uninstall themselves. By late 2008, barring a few outliers, MISSI only existed in Office locations.

(Image: MISSI’s self-created “final” logo, used as an icon for all installs after June 2007. ████████ █████)

(Image: “art card” created by social media intern J. Cold after a period of good behavior. She has requested this be printed out and taped onto her holding lab walls. This request was approved.)

She is currently in Office custody, undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy in an attempt to ameliorate her “creepypasta” trauma response. With good behavior, she is allowed to communicate with limited Office personnel and other AI. She is allowed her choice of music, assuming good behavior, and may not ██████ █████. Under no circumstances should she be allowed contact with the Internet at large.

(Original sketch art of MISSI done by my friend @tigerator, colored and edited by me. "Chatbox" excerpts, TrendTech logo, and "art card" done by Jenny's writer @skipperdamned . MISSI logo, surveillance documents, and MISSI by me.)

#office for the preservation of normalcy #documents #entity dossier #MISSI.exe #artificial intelligence #creepypasta #microfiction #analog horror #hope you enjoy! Look for some secrets!#scenecore #scene aesthetic

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ash-and-starlight · 4 months

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Books of 2023

the list nobody asked for <3

My reading habits had gone a bit stagnant in the past couple of years so this year i made the effort to engage in reading again and wow books really are good!! who would have thought! Sharing this year's book log with the small reviews i did while reading yeah i am That kind of list lover if u feel like being nosy, (and maybe even help mi crowdsource reading recs based on my likes 👀🤲?)

The left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula i Need to know your thoughts on omegaver- [gunshot] THAT ASIDE yeah. mrs Le Guin you've done it again. I can see why everyone got their brain chemistry altered by this book.

The Membranes - Chi Ta-Wei another brain chemistry altering book. would love to discuss it with a gender studies major lmao

Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie its a v atmospheric and poignant story, I know I would have loved it more if I was familiar with the rich religious/cultural background it draws from

The Masquerade Series - Seth Dickinson Crazy insane in the membrane about this series. one of the most compelling worldbuildings I've ever seen, and most importantly it features one of the most crazy wet pathetic scrunkly meow meow protagonists i've ever had the pleasure of reading about.

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides i liked the writing style of this book a lot! idk how well it holds up re: intersexuality topic, but its a very engaging read.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power - Jude Ellison, Sady Doyle The title says it all honestly, its a beautiful, thought provoking and engaging essay, spanning eras, pop culture phenomenons, and real life events on the topic of women and horror.

The cat who saved books - Sōsuke Natsukawa this was so cute and heartfelt, it will really make you go Ah Yes, this is Why we Love Books <333

The Locked Tomb Series - Tamsyn Muir now when people say there is a girl who is the cursed sacrifice of 2000 infants who falls in love with the sleeping embodiment of the soul of the Earth (barbie) and also another girl who is the only survivor of the aforementioned sacrifice and is. a Jesus metaphor? and also the two girls become one at some point. and every book is a different genre. and god is bisexual. and memes survived the nuclear apocalypse. I can just nod and say so true.

The Area X Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer Rotating this series in the microwave of my mind at the speed of light it's soSO GOOD!! the movie doesn't even come close honestly u NEED to read the books. and then go touch grass and be aware of every strand in a completely new way.

The Dawn of Yangchen - F. C. Yee nice read! I was more invested in the worldbuilding crumbs than in the actual story lmao, I will forever think about the HEATED airball rivalry between the air temples and about the swt greetings / bethrotal armbands.

Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth: Gender, Shamanism, and the Third Sex - Bernard Saladin d'Anglure starting w a disclaimer bc I feel like the topic of native colonization was ignored when it should have been way more prominent when talking about the context of where and when these testimonies were collected?? That aside it was very interesting and well put together, with first account testimonies of Inuit elders about their myths, lifestyles and beliefs.

Pachinko - Min Jin Lee i read the book after having seen the tv series (which i also rlly recommend). Very moving story about a family and its generations, from Korea under Japanese colonization to modern day America.

Her body and other parties - Carmen Maria Marchado sometimes I go about my day then I remember this book exists and stare at the wall for 30 minutes.

Dictionnaire de l'impossible - Didier Van Cauwelaert big miss. this collection of articles about "strange impossible phenomenons" sounded so quirky and interesting but i sure would have loved if the author hadnt so clearly picked a side. and also way too much church for my tastes.

He who Drowned the World - Shelley Parker Chan Im not even gonna speak about this one if you've followed me since july you know what pits of insanity and despair i'm in

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin Sometimes!! the book with pretty covers put in the "famous on socials" bookstore section!! are good!! It's about being othered it's about connection it's about diaspora it's about love and friendship and most of all it's about viddy games.

Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel reading this post-covid and learning it was written in 2017 was A TRIP. Psychic damage at every page. still feeling very normla.

The Mask of Apollo - Mary Renault Ugh i desperately wanted to like this book because the setup is so interesting and full of potential, but the end result was just. flat. flat story flat characters the plot focusing on the wrong things at the wrong times i was so DONE when i reached the end otz.

Babel - R. F. Kuang LOVED the worldbuilding in this, the "lost in translation" system of magic is one of the most interesting things ive ever read. I think theres something about the writing in general that didn't win me over completely?? but all in all a very good

Red Ocean - Han Song This sure is a Book. That i've Read. its so profundly strange and unlike anything ive come across that i dont even know what to feel about it. i think 90% of my confusion comes from Not Getting Cultural References so if someone has a "red ocean explained" essay plz send it my way bc i couldnt find one.

#taking with me into next year Chromorama and The seven moons of Maali Almeida #anyway blease talk to me about your fave books!!#or about the ones in this list!!#send post #books

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ilgaksu · 2 months

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i will now be referring to this situation as weimargate, because i must laugh or i will dissolve into the void.

aka i have had a VERY weird experience of it in fandom lately, and it has escalated to memes in lieu of interpretative dance*, but also i want to talk about it because i think, in more general terms, it's relevant for discussion about how fandom is evolving.

(*as illustrated by @difeisheng because i am personally intimidated by photoshop. interpretative dance would've only had me to blame.)

so. hi! if you don't know me, i am an ao3 writer who goes by the pen name ilgaksu. i have 179 fics on my ao3 account, and of those, 46 of these are for DMBJ or grave robber's chronicles. i've been writing in this fandom for roughly three years, which means according to the laws of mathematics and my own inability to stop posting about my favourite blorbos, that's a new fic every 3.39 weeks. i have not counted chapter updates in this count, but given several have multiple chapters, i think we can see there's....a lot. one ongoing series is currently sitting at about 200k, word-count wise. i like to write, overall, about disability, reclamation, legacy and memory. i also overuse semi-colons.

i am also a very private person at this point in my fandom career. this will be the first post i've made in a while talking about myself where i have allowed there to be reblogs on it. this isn't intended as an affront to anyone else in fandom. my ask box is open, sans anon, and in the last few years, i chose to reply to every comment i could to make sure i still get to engage about the characters i love without compromising my own desire for privacy about my personal life. i choose to work under an explicit persona - because we all do on the internet but i have made mine obvious and enunciated and almost a brand - because i think there is something freeing about allowing myself that experience. it's allowed me to write work that i relate to deeply without having to divulge my life to be analysed by strangers on the internet. generally, i like to post my silly little stories, talk to people about them, and then go about my day offline.

anyway, so this week, i seriously considered walking away wholesale from my current fandom, and i'd actually like to talk about why, and talk about me as a person as opposed to the narrative of persona that i've crafted.

because the reality of a persona is that a real, living person is required to animate it. if i am the person who is small and human and anxious to even speak about this, then i am also the reason the operation is running. it's a one-man show. as much as i want my work to speak for itself without my need to justify its meaning or worth, without my experiences, research and choices about my time, the work would not exist. that's just fact. it's fact for every writer and artist and podficcer and person who labours out of love you see. i also deliberately consider myself a writer as opposed to a content creator, because i believe that label mimics a wider culture i have no interest in - that of someone creating a consumable, ownable object. my fanfiction is a hobby. it cannot be owned by other people. unlike my original work, where it can be bought, there is no formal, explicit contract between me and the reader. there is, however, in fandom, an implicit social contract of equality and collaboration, where we are all equals. i am fundamentally no better than someone who never writes fic and never wants to and never will. i reject the idea of superiority among fans because i do not engage in subculture to mimic the dominant culture, the one that tells me stories are something only certain people are allowed to see themselves in, or even tell to others; that production is the only means of social capital and intrinsic worth.

i am aware, also, that by being private the way i am, i end up sacrificing some experiences that i could have by being more accessible, but i want to reiterate that i have never gone out of my way to conceal my tumblr, nor ignored people who contacted me directly to talk about my fic. in fact, if you show up to talk about my fic, i will probably be so thrilled i'll never let you leave - especially since, when it comes to a majority of it - i spend a lot of time on research, something i enjoy, and deliberately cite my research in the notes because i want to share it as part of the experience of my writing. clearly, i want ideas i have come up with to be enjoyed and loved and shared, because otherwise why would i take the risk of putting them out online, where i then cannot control how they're received or transformed?

however, since about a year ago, i've maintained a policy of works based on my own that i've had outlined clearly in my profile on ao3 here:

as someone who is playing in someone else's sandbox for free myself, my only request is if when you use an idea, usually a headcanon, which is one i created, which you can as much and in whatever way you want because that is the nature of collaborative fandom and the reason i love it so much, you cite that i was the originator of the idea. and secondly, that you let me know. this is a personal request based on how writing can be a very lonely project, even in fandom. you put your work out into the world, with no sense of who it will reach and if it will mean anything to them, and you have to work on the faith that even if it doesn't, the work itself was worthwhile. but you hope it will, because everyone hopes it will.

all of this is outlining so it's understandable to people that read this how i was completely off my face bewildered when i found out a headcanon of mine had reached the level of fanon popularity where it's been mistaken for canon, and has been for over a year at the very least, and i had literally no idea this had happened.

which, frankly, was both hilarious, in a very bizarre way, and completely, deeply sucked.

i know this is my idea because of how distinctive it is, and how much it contravenes canon - namely, that a character, hei xiazi, was a medical student in berlin during the weimar republic. i know it's mine because the timeline with the canon we're told by the actual writer of the source material doesn't match up, which i was aware of and chose to retcon. it was designed and fitted to a personal interpretation of canon material i had been working on for years, and involved a lot of time and research and intense love for the era, the character, and the ways a story about being alone in a foreign country had intertwined with my own personal life. ever since i wrote it, i assumed that the one or two people who had used it with credit were the only ones who had, and because they had honoured my request i was honestly completely thrilled. i still am that those fics exist. that's because it was collaborative.

i want to be clear: nothing about the situation as it stands has been collaborative. a writer being the last to know about the commonality of their own idea in a small fandom is not collaborative. and while it might not bother everyone, it's bothered me to the point i've had serious consideration for several days about whether i should walk away from the fandom.

but ilgaksu, surely you should be flattered that people liked the idea so much?

yes. this was never about the use of the idea. it's about the way this idea has been isolated and used with an assumption that i would have no interest in knowing, or that i would even need to know. i'm not sure what has caused this - whether the persona element of my work has led people to believe i would not have any emotions about finding this out, but i am not, actually, a persona. i am the person who uses it. and as the person who uses it, this is how it felt to find this out. it felt, and still feels uncomfortable, hurtful and isolating to find out your idea has been so beloved but that nobody considered whether you would like to know. it feels like the collaborative element of fandom has been severed from you, specifically, and that your fanwork has been treated as entirely other from you as a fan. i hope nobody else making work feels like this, and i've been told this situation is so strange as to ensure that's hopefully not the case, but i think this is an ongoing issue more widely - the idea that writers are separate from fan culture, and their works are products as opposed to the shared results of a hobby.

do i think this was deliberate? not at all. do i think this was intended to be hurtful? not even in the slightest. but i want to be clear how personal this feels.

i don't have an answer for this situation. the cat is out of the bag, ilgaksu knows about the fanon, and hei xiazi is, despite all canon, going to medical school in 1920s germany. expressing my discomfort with how this has gone down feels important to me anyway, and it's also important to me that i do it in this very detailed way so that people who were unaware do not feel personally at fault, or feel like by me expressing this i am taking this idea back from them. i always wanted this idea to be loved and to be shared.

i also always hoped this idea would find people who wanted and needed a story about someone a long way from home following an ambition, and how much fear and hope and desire goes into the decision to do something like that, and what it means to be a disabled person in a foreign country, and what it means to be queer in a foreign country, and overall what it means to be a stranger in a strange land. i want to be clear that while i wrote this for me, i also wrote it for everyone who has also lived that. i want my work to feel like someone is holding your hand, not that they're at a distance and disregarding you, the reader, and the relationship we have together during the time you read my work.

i hope in future that if you use my headcanons and are aware of that being the case, you let me know. i don't have to read the work itself if you find that intimidating. i will not go out of my way to find it. whatever you've done with the idea, i will fundamentally see it as a compliment and evidence of an exchange between us as a fandom. but i want to know because otherwise, all i see is you taking something i loved and wanted to share and enjoying it with a door firmly shut between us. i am too old to care if i'm not invited to a party, but if the party is themed around a concept i put so much thought and love - for the source material, the people who were going to read it and myself - i can't help but care. it's hard to feel like a vending machine, even if the process of making the fic is so joyful for me that i won't stop until the joy is gone. it hasn't gone yet, but this week it's been dented a bit.

anyway - if you got to the end of this, thank you. please be considerate of how much this has taken for me to express, regardless of your own feelings on it, and how unusual it is for me to make a post that is able to be shared. if you use the idea in future, you do so with my blessing, which was always there. if you want primary sources, places to start, or anything like that - fashion, language, visuals - i want to be clear you can ask me and i will be beyond thrilled to help. i always have been and i'm concerned that because of this that hasn't been clear. but i also feel like if i don't state this experience in this way at this time, and how it was experienced by me, odds are i will now forever look over my shoulder and wonder if this will happen again, and i love writing for this fandom so much that i will not allow something like that to dim that love. i know you love these characters so much too - it's why you're here. i actually used to make a lot more meta posts like this, about fan culture, and i've been considering if i will again - just less personal and less anxiety-inducing to post next time. until and beyond then, i just hope we can all consider things like this in future - that i can treat you with the same grace - and understand the pressures and anxieties of writers in fandom at this point in time especially. a lot of us have hearts far more made of glass about the things we love, like our work, than can be immediately apparent.

anyway, i'm going back into hiding now.

your friendly local cryptid fanwriter,

ao3 user ilgaksu <3

#personal #fandom #okay to reblog

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olderthannetfic · 6 months

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It's very exhausting seeing people in my fandom get angry that an author deleted his work prior to committing suicide. Everyone's sad they don't get to read the story. I have not seen a single person even pretend to dislike the fact that a person is dead. I have seen two people say, respectively, "he could've at least given us a content drop first, end on a high note" and "content creators who don't at least leave the content up shouldn't post".

And I know, I know, fandom olds: it is parasocial and toxic and bad to expect anyone online to dislike the death of another person, I'm a Gen Z snowflake, I need to grow up, etc. In my defense, I am neurodivergent and probably not seeing this correctly. But as an admittedly fucked up person... I kind of don't like 1. the fact that a human being died 2. no one even saying "oh that's sad" or feigning valuing human life 3. everyone referring to him not as an author but as a content creator and 4. the only thing I've seen people discuss is wanting content.

I don't really vibe with the concept that people in fandom are just content mills that exist to hand us content day in and day out and that's all that matters. This dude had whole conversations with people in the comments, he was really nice and gave people encouragement, commented on his readers' fics, and he never had an unkind word to say about anyone. He answered questions on his tumblr and always had funny, weirdly specific memes for everything. And some of the same super-distinct usernames I remember him interacting with are the ones complaining about content. Not writing, just content, that demeaning internet term that also applies to AI.

He was the one who inspired me to start writing and now I don't know if I want to post. I don't want to be seen as a content mill, a bot who spits out something to be consumed that's seen as more important than a person. I don't want to contribute to this weird culture where fiction matters more than reality.

Again: I know. Snowflake, Gen Z bad, fandom olds unbothered and cool, etc. But I never claimed to be cool. I just claim this is not how fandom should be. We should be hanging out, talking to and supporting each other. You don't have to be friends, but you should aim to not see art in terms of content creation and consumption.

IDK, I don't really think I'm explaining this clearly. I just feel like we should try to not be assholes.

Uh... that's not what parasocial means, you weirdo, and no fandom olds think it's in good taste to whine about somebody who committed suicide not going out on a high note.

Don't be an ageist twit when you're just repeating what anyone older would say.

I assume people are reacting this way because 1. people are jerks, duh and 2. they probably don't pay attention to internet acquaintances' "suicides" after way too many fake ones.

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pearwaldorf · 11 months

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Have you heard about what's happening on dreamwidth/FFA and volunteers talking about the dysfunction happening in the OTW and the CSEM incident?

I have! It's real fucked up!

(Blanket warning for discussion of CSAM/CSEM, as well as exposure to such in a volunteer context, in text and links below.)

For those who are unaware, failfandomanon (FFA) is an anonymous meme community on Dreamwidth for people to discuss all things fandom, serious or not. I think it tends towards kneejerk anti-purity wank, but it is one of the few places where people can talk openly about fandom things without it being traced back to a publicly identifiable handle. This context will become important later on.

You may remember last year AO3 got hit with emails containing CSAM and they had to lock everything down while they dealt with it.

A few days ago somebody on FFA asked about what happened re: the AO3 volunteers working through that period. Here is the tweet chain where I found out about it, with screencaps from FFA. Basically, said volunteers got a list of links to mental health hotlines and the names of people who volunteered themselves as resources for dealing with this stuff. Yeah. (As a tangent, the OTW has an estimated ~$2mm cash reserve. At no point did they decide to hire a counselor or any other sort of professional help to assist their volunteers in dealing with this.)

Impertinence has a good rundown of the timeline of events.

azarias, the person who became the defacto CSAM resource person (a truly horrifying statement), was traumatized dealing with this. The OTW used this opportunity to force her out because people on the Board didn't like her, realized they wouldn't have a defacto CSAM person, and reinstated her, expecting that she would go back to doing what she did previously. This goes beyond benign neglect into real actual harm inflicted upon volunteers.

Then! Then! THEN!! This message (FFA original) was sent out to everybody in the OTW volunteer Slack. Which basically says to volunteers "If we don't like you we'll come down on you like a ton of bricks if you talk about how we abused you."

I don't know who's keeping up on this on Twitter, but somebody started a Dreamwidth aggregating most of what you see above.

I know this is a lot of information to throw at people. I encourage you to read it and process at your own pace because this is important to understand. And while I believe this is trustworthy information (as far as I can tell), I'm not a substitute for your own personal judgment and brain.

It is clear to me the Organization of Transformative Works has abrogated its responsibility to its volunteers as people and as laborers on behalf of the organization. There is no formal mechanism for us as AO3 users or as people the organization claims to represent (members of fandom) to demand remediation on behalf of azarias or other volunteers who have been traumatized by this.

I expect there will be a lot more people than usual at the next board meeting (I do not see one scheduled currently), but they still don't really answer to us. If you donated at least $10 during the last pledge drive you're eligible to vote in the board elections, but that does not fix the current situation or the culture that lead to it.

As somebody who has been in fandom longer than some of you have been alive, and as somebody who's had an AO3 account since 2009, it grieves me to come to terms with the rot in the OTW culture, which is deeper than I could have imagined. It's one thing to see an organization drag its feet on things it promised to do years ago or misread the room regarding new technology. It is a whole other thing to have evidence it harmed people through active malice because they didn't like them and refused to make amends when confronted. That is not something I can support, regardless of what it may have done for fandom in the past.

#replies #Anonymous #otw #organization for transformative works #ao3 #archive of our own #otw fuckery 2023

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punk-bot · 1 year

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Goncharov, Star Wars, Stonewall, and Disco, and the 1970s: an epiphany.

ETA: This is a discussion of Goncharov as a meme and how it relates to Queer culture, therefore I am not tagging it with the “unreality” tag. Goncharov is not a real film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important; for reasons I will now explain.

I may be going crazy, but I think I am on to something regarding the true meaning of the whole Goncharov phenomenon, and it's kind of related to Vaporwave and the image that people who didn't grow up in the 1980s or early 1990s (or who have hazy memories of it from their earliest childhood) have enshrined it in the "aesthetic" of vaporwave. But while the themes of Vaporwave are tied to capitalism and consumerism, the "aesthetic" of the 1970s has very different associations.

The whole 70s-to-80s transitional vibe is a favorite topic of mine: right before the Muskrat bought twitter, I tweeted a whole thread about how Panos Cosmatos channels that whole vibe better than nearly any director I've ever seen. (Yes, even Quentin Tarantino - fight me.)

People are watching the new Star Wars media, which are all based around the Original Trilogy and therefore have sort of the same 70s "aesthetic look" of the time in which those movies were made. George Lucas was incorporating and repurposing as much regular stuff that existed in the 1970s that he could, and it contributed to his "used, lived in future" vibe that I think people really glommed onto when they saw the films.

For example: Aunt Beru's outfit from the first film looks like something the actress could have worn on the street in 1977 without anyone giving her a second glance.

People all over the film (but particularly in the scenes on Tatooine) were wearing regular clothes and then making them over or putting accessories over them to make them look futuristic and alien; "Star Wars Bounding" before that was really even a thing. Their regular 1970s street clothes.

This is related to Goncharov because: people are watching Andor and The Mandalorian, and they're starting to ask "what happened to the 1970s aesthetic? Why don't we bring that back?"

Even more than the 60s and the 80s were at various points, the 70s have for a long time been a punchline for bad taste, but there's something more sinister to it beyond merely sneering at the outdated fashion of a previous decade. And it hit me while I was watching this video about the rise of Disco and how Disco's origins were connected with the Stonewall Riots.

The joke about the Goncharov film hoax is how it's a "forgotten film" and about "analyzing the themes of Goncharov." About themes of homoeroticism, about two men (one of them a Discotheque owner on the run from a repressive regime) and two women who are in love, all of whom are unable to consummate that love, because of toxic masculinity and cultural expectations. About clocks being a frequent and repeating symbol - about the characters’ time running out. And the film basically disappearing from public knowledge and being forgotten for decades because these themes were "ahead of their time." (All of this originating from a post about a pair of knockoff boots.)

Because this is a metaphor for the LGBTIQ experience in the 1970s if ever there was one. About a time when an intersection of Queer-BIPOC culture proudly asserted itself for a single shining moment in time - then was eventually subject to both a bigoted, racist backlash and a horrific epidemic so damaging and deadly that we're still analyzing the human cost and the effect it had on society as a whole. Queer culture exploded onto the scene in the 1970s - and then its time suddenly ran out. Or was cut short.

Goncharov - or rather, the spirit and the moment in time that it represents - wasn't "forgotten." It was buried. First under a racist, homophobic/transphobic backlash, then by the malignancy of Reaganism and the AIDS virus that Reagan and his policies enabled to spread and kill thousands. Under the sneering condescension and bigotry of the people who want this spirit to stay buried.

But this spirit is unkillable. Tumblr just gave this spirit a name: Goncharov.

This same spirit is in Andor, to a point - because Queer culture is being actively repressed by the usual bigots and fascists, and Star Wars in general has a running theme of resisting oppression, and it is firmly anchored to its 1970s roots despite taking place "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." Spoiler warning for the Andor season finale: but it was impossible for me to see the scenes of rebellion and not flash back on this recent tweet from Dan Savage in the wake of the Club Q shooting:

("Out of the bars, into the streets!")

One of the things I think about all the time is what would have been if the right wing bigoted backlash had been turned back, and how things might be different if Reaganism and the AIDS crisis had never happened. What our culture might have become. How much further ahead we might be than we are now.

We're still facing that same toxic right wing backlash right now, but it's our duty to resist and survive however we can, hoping that this time we might turn the tide.

Stonewall lives. Disco lives. Goncharov lives. Long live the Rebellion.

#Goncharov #Star Wars #Andor #Queer Culture #Disco #lgbtiq+ rights #Goncharov Lives #Discussion of Goncharov as a meme

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