#(i do realize these are not like. externally interesting posts but sometimes you just have to braindump.)

[aeide-thea]

i feel like fairly regularly i make posts on here that are like 'huh, turns out that actually this Cut-For-Women garment i thought was fairly neutral and would be unremarkable makes me dysphoric!!' and then like. learn nothing from that realization and make an identical post about a different garment some months later—

like it's complicated because as a short king* i do frequently enjoy eg short shorts. are they masc? no. is my (inaccurate but gratifying) self-concept one of those, like, vintage dudes in short shorts when i wear them? yes, so it's fine. and there are some other things like that, where like, if i do the right mental gymnastics they can work for me (i started to specify but like. does anyone really care, lol. apply within in the unlikely event that you Must Know, i guess!).

however i think negative ease is like. more and more consistently a problem for me. like it just feels to me like such a vestige of womenswear training—

[here i'd originally typed out and then redacted a whole excursus on like, all the transmasc fashion blogs you used to see years ago where people would put together these legitimately masc outfits and then on the bottom they'd do these incredibly clingy skinny jeans, bc like, who am i to police that, maybe they were into the deliberate juxtaposition of it! but i did always wonder at the time whether it was just, like, a leftover womenswear habit they hadn't yet actively scrutinized, although probably it was unenlightened of me to be noticing it at all…]

—and the more i move away from that training, the more i find that things i've bought which don't have actively positive ease just strike me as, like, weirdly shrunken and constricting?? which is frustrating when they're things whose material, color, &c i otherwise still quite like!

anyway really this is a post abt how i currently have one (1) hoodie i like, and in theory it would be nice to have a second one both for more color combination possibilities and also because i hear you're like. supposed to take things off and wash them ever, even if merino is magic or whatever. however (a) there aren't any other interesting colors in that particular model, really, and the people who do make interesting colors (icebreaker) really want you to be taller than i am, especially for menswear; and (b) the whole problem is extremely irritating because i do have another older hoodie in a colorway i still quite like! there's nothing wrong with it except that stupidly i bought it too form-fitting at the time and now even though by womenswear standards it does in fact still 'fit' the way it clings through my shoulders/arms is making me insane!

in conclusion, grr, argh, &c.

⸻ * 'king' isn't really the right language for me but like. in a totally inexplicable turn of events (it's very explicable. we can do a whole sidebar on how binary gender is a pillar of the kyriarchy or whatever.) most noble titles i'm aware of are very binarily gendered. maybe we'll go with 'marquess' bc like. it's a man's title but also looks feminine by ordinary english standards and like. what am i if not the ruler of a border area.

#sartorial #mundanities #(i do realize these are not like. externally interesting posts but sometimes you just have to braindump.) #(also a lot of the time talking about clothes is how i emotionally come to terms with not purchasing them‚ tbh.) #(so it's like. an important budgetary coping mechanism or whatever‚ lol.)

[gaepublishinghouse]

Alhaitham is autistic and heres why

I already posted this on hoyolab but I figure the tumblr girlies would be interested in this insight.

Reading through his voice overs and how he behaves, it's pretty evident that he displays some traits of high-functioning ASD. I'm not an expert, but I have some insight as a psych major and from my own research. Here are some examples.

- Prefers to speak very literally. This is evident in his interactions, but he also states it himself.

"Rather than lacing my words with rhetoric, I prefer speaking factually." (About Alhaitham: Facts)

"[Alhaitham] does make comments, however, when someone has come up with something offensively foolish — and one should expect these comments to be more blunt than necessary." (Character Story 1)

- Seeming blunt, rude, or disinterested. This is also evident with his canon interactions, but here are some examples.

"Most people are wary of interacting with me. Perhaps they're afraid, or maybe they think I'm difficult to get along with. I hope to keep things this way." (More about Alhaitham: I)

"[Alhaitham] purely operates by rationality, so people often find his actions unacceptable. If you don't believe me, just ask [Kaveh] — thanks to Alhaitham, he has more pent-up frustration than an angry Anemo Slime." (Tighnari, About Alhaitham)

- Preference towards being on his own.

"I'll be taking some time for myself now. Goodbye." (Good Evening)

"I've never been interested in social interactions, and as you can see, my life is more comfortable than most. I'd say this is proof enough that being social is not one of life's necessities." (More About Alhaitham II)

"It only took half a day in the Akademiya for little Alhaitham to report this back to his grandmother: Everyone he met there was boring and he preferred reading alone to listening to their meaningless courses." (Character Story 5)

- Tendency to plan carefully before acting and distress when plans are disrupted. He very thoroughly planned the confrontation with the Sages down to possible actions they might take and how to use it to their advantage.

"Once order is disrupted, the consequences spread like wildfire. I'd like to avoid such a scenario, so I can keep my life intact and uninterrupted." (More about Alhaitham IV)

- Sensitivity to certain sensory stimuli. More specifically, Alhaitham seems to be sensitive to auditory input, and regularly uses headphones to block out external sounds.

"Alhaitham personally made the music player when he first became the scribe, and it is connected to the headphones via cables of the same color. He sometimes uses the gadget to play music, and other times, to block noise." (The Doer's Belt Pouch)

"Don't be offended if you try to greet me on the street and I don't respond. It's simply because I'm wearing my soundproof earpieces, that's all." (About Us: Greetings)

"I hope my roommate won't be hammering away on another one of his projects in the dead if night.. Actually, I'd prefer if he wasn't home at all. I really don't want to wear my soundproof earpieces to bed." (Good Night)

- Keen interest and fixation to certain activities, in this case reading difficult text and languages. The fact that he had the potential to study at the Akademiya at age seven too.

"All scholars seek knowledge and the truth. Some do so for fame, while others, for ambition. And some others enjoy conquering knowledge and the truth, transcending them, and savoring the sense of superiority in the process. Alhaitham isn't any one of them. He is only driven by what intrigues him. He believes that many scholars have already become lost in their pursuits, taking the truth as a tool or even a shortcut to self-realization." (Character Story 1)

Dont take this too seriously, it's just a "he's just like me fr fr" moment -u-

#sen hcs #genshin headcanons #genshin impact #genshin alhaitham #also feel free to add some of your own insight #but tldr this bitch is autistic and that's just facts

[trainsinanime]

I feel like talking a bit more about Vanisher 2.0 and Red Volpina (todo: look up what these Miraculous Ladybug season 5 episodes are actually called). My previous review of them has been,

Yes there is stuff where the writing still has potential to get better (not once but twice does everybody in class believe a known liar over Marinette!? Marinette’s classmates suddenly realized Chloé was doing badly in school and somehow that’s Marinette’s problem!? Lol), but it’s still better than it’s ever been.

But maybe there's more to talk about here. Just a couple of days ago I saw a post that complained bitterly about how unfair it is that Marinette must always prove herself, and how Alya was a bad friend in these two episodes.

I don't think that's a great hot take, but I think there is a kernel of truth here. The writing in these episodes was not 100%, but in ways that are interesting to talk about. This isn't meant as salt; I watched the episodes with my sister and I had a lot of fun with them regardless of their flaws. I just think it's interesting.

First of all, I don't think it's actually a problem that Marinette must prove herself. Marinette encountering obstacles and overcoming them through cleverness and strength of will is the point of the show. That's literally fine.

The real issue here is that all the characters are written rather weirdly in order to make the plot happen. Alya is the most visible victim of this, but everyone suffers from it to a certain degree.

In fact, in Vanisher 2.0 (todo look up episode title), this even applies to the villains. Sabrina does not want to steal for Chloé because it goes against her code of ethics as a police officer's daughter. Where did that come from? She has stolen from Marinette before, on Chloé's behalf, back in Darkblade in season 1. The show is just summoning conflict out of thin air.

(There is probably a joke to be made here, about how the cop's daughter steals and plants fake evidence on Marinette to accuse her of a crime, but that's a different thing.)

But it is most notable with Marinette. In Vanisher 2.0 (todo look up title), everybody sees stolen high-value goods such as… paper doilies…? appear out of Marinette's bag, after Chloé told everyone they'd be in there. And the conclusion everyone draws is that Chloé is correct.

Then in Red Volpina, the class learns that Chloé has never made her own homework, something the teacher apparently never noticed before. The class somehow agrees with Lila that this is Marinette's fault for not recognising that Chloé is struggling, despite this not being Marinette's job, and despite Chloé's insistence that she isn't struggling, she just doesn't care.

Neither of these are at all consistent with basically anything that came before. The class knows who Chloé is, how vindictive, petty and entitled she is. They also know who Marinette is, are friends with her, and a surprisingly high percentage are or have been in love with her.

From a story perspective, it makes sense, though. Both episodes want to tell a particular story. In Adoration (todo fix all the spots where I called it Vanisher 2.0), the point is to get to Zoé's big heroic self-sacrifice for Marinette. In Revelation, it's about how always seeing the best in people can sometimes lead you astray. Those are both interesting ideas in their own right. It's just that the episodes used narrative shortcuts to get us there, and ignored character consistency along the way.

I think the point about Alya is the most important one here. Saying "Alya is a bad friend" is canonically not true (look at all the stuff our poor girl puts up with on Marinette's behalf), but also missing the forest for the trees. As smarter people than me have put it, Alya is often only in the story to make Marinette's internal conflict an external one, so we can see the different sides argue in screen instead of imagining them in our head. As a result of that, Alya is sometimes her own character, and sometimes, very often in fact, just whatever she needs to be to get the plot moving.

In Revelation (todo fix yada yada), the plot they had in mind wouldn't work at all if Alya took Marinette and Adrien seriously, and acted on all the information she has. So she just doesn't. That doesn't mean she's a bad friend, it means she's a narrative tool, one that the writers don't always wield super well. Alya is far from the most irrational person in this episode (come on, Gabriel, giving Lila superpowers again? Even though you know she hates you? That's just silly), but since she's one of the good guys and Marinette's best friend and often portrayed as the voice of reason, we notice it the most in her case.

I think the show is genuinely nice and fun, but there's no denying that its writing has flaws. Sometimes more, sometimes less, and these two episodes have some that just stand out a bit. Framing that as "the show is unfair to Marinette" (or even "Alya is a bad friend") is not an interesting way to discuss that, in my opinion. The real issue is that the show had a story it wanted to tell, only twenty minutes to do so, and so it crammed that story in with a crowbar, regardless of the cost. Both episodes have enough good moments to make up for it in my personal opinion, but they have central moments that are just plain clunky.

#miraculous ladybug #ml s5 spoilers #ml season 5 spoilers #ml adoration #ml revelation #ml adoration spoilers #ml revelation spoilers #ml s5 #ml season 5 #mlb meta #adoration spoilers #revelation spoilers

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

im so sorry to send you this but im confused. i thought izzy hands was obviously homophobic while i was watching the show but now people on the internet are telling me that calling him gay and homophobic is a conspiracy theory. i want to trust my instincts on this as a queer myself but they say it so much i think im starting to believe it. i know literally none of this matters but its genuinely bumming me out. maybe we all just have slightly different definitions of homophobia?

I would love to answer this for you. Your instincts are correct. Izzy is gay and homophobic. You should trust your gut on this because it's important for you be able to identify guys like Izzy irl if you're someone who might be on the receiving end of homophobia.

What happened is that back in June of 2022 everyone fully agreed that Izzy was one of those repressed gay men who's internalized homophobia rotted his soul and became externalized. We wanted to put him in a jar. We all interested in how this weird little freak got this way. Then everything changed when the canyon formed. Since then it has been a mad dash to beat the allegations. Unfortunately an actor has validated them in a way that makes me really wonder about him frankly, because he seems to be operating under the impression that people are saying that Izzy is a "homo sex is sin" Style homophobe when nobody was saying that, what we were saying is that Izzy is incredibly weird about and hateful towards feminine men and he believes that Stede is corrupting Ed with his foppishness, which is still homophobia it's just a different brand of homophobia than the religious right's obsession with the mechanics.

Tbh tho I don't actually care about that actors' take because he's not a writer, he has a history of not being very good at reading the subtext given that he fully didn't realize it was a gay show for half the episodes, and David Jenkins has liked multiple metas on twt about Izzy being a homophobe so I'll trust that lol. The only consequence that Con O'Neill being publically wrong has had for me is that people occasionally do an unearned victory lap when he says something.

But also I low key sometimes feel incredibly unsafe knowing that there's a substantial group of people who claim to be queer and against homophobia but who can't understand that the whole subplot with Lucius in episode 5 and the thing with Ed in episode 10 is laced with bigotry against feminine gay men. I don't think admitting that means you have to think it's his only motivation or that it's contradictory to the read of him being attracted to Ed and Lucius or with the concept that he's mostly just power hungry, but it does sort of mean that I have to move through the world knowing that there are people in my own community who would fully blame me if something happened to me. I don't fucking like it. That's why I get so upset about this so publicly. It's like so what happens if I get attacked but the guy calls me a namby pamby or a bitch instead of a faggot. Are you gonna be like "well we don't know~". It's just an uncomfortable thought. I don't understand why they're so desperate to beat the allegations either, like he's fake. People who have experienced things like what Ed and Lucius went through at his hands are real. The argument that gay people can "do something to (someone)'s brain" is written into legislation trying to ban trans people from public life. Nobody wants you to stop liking Izzy we just want you to stop saying shit that's harmful

And I don't necessarily think that everyone who chooses to put more emphasis on Izzys obsession with Ed wouldn't be able to identify a hate crime, I just have seen more than one piece of meta that goes "Izzys not homophobic he just thinks Stede is a mincing fop who's corrupting Ed with his frilly whiles there's nothing homophobic about that" and I just have to block them for being homophobic themselves because what else do I do with that? When I vague post about this shit I'm talking about specific ass things that I've seen that have made me feel very uncomfortable and unsafe not generic canyon trends. I just really feel like we need to calm down about Izzy. Like you can feel empathy towards a gay guy that hates himself and write a bunch of fic about him getting laid without deciding actually he did nothing wrong and everyone who can see that that's not true is making shit up to oppress *checks notes* people who like a fictional character. I don't get why that's so hard to do.

#the izcourse

[windvexer]

spirit houses: a container spell for your spirit vessel needs

In honor of realizing how much easier spirit boxes have made my life, here's a full moon post about spirit boxes 101.

A spirit box (maybe it has a bunch of other names; I don't know of any others) is a box which functions as both a house and a vessel for a spirit.

Spirit houses in and of themselves have historical precedence.

Trial records con­tain references to demon familiars living in glass or leather bottles; crystals; baskets; boxes; earthenware pots lined with wool kept under the stairs or by the hearth; under borders of 'green herbs' in the garden and under the roots or in the hollows of trees. Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits (2005), 77

In the text above, many containers and locations are referenced. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to talk about boxes in this post. In this post, spirit box and spirit house are synonymous.

Why use a container-based spirit house?

I use 'em because I ran out of altar space. It's not even like my "inner keep" is chock full of spirits. It's just that sometimes, spirits don't like to have room mates and keeping everyone happy can require a lot of space.

For me, I have a lot of objects dedicated to my spirits. Using a non-container vessel (such as a quartz crystal) doesn't solve my space needs, because then I'd have a bunch of devoted objects and a vessel crystal to deal with.

It helps because the spaces devoted to each spirit are clearly delineated. This makes some stuff like psychic communication less confusing (more on this later).

I have a belief that spirits can literally enjoy objects placed within their home. Filling a spirit box with comfortable, lovely things actually allows the spirit to enter this space and enjoy their gifts.

Giving offerings and other interactions are simplified. No spoons for an offering ritual? Leave a gift on or in the container and it belongs to the spirit now (not in if the object will rot and need to be disposed of!!! we all know we'll forget about it). Did the spirit really piss you off? Put a black cloth (or t-shirt) over the container and move it to the back of your closet. No ritual or spell required.

(Also, re-arranging and moving them around is a heck of a lot easier than open altar spaces)

They also function as spirit vessels, btw

You want to meditate, commune, work with, or give instructions to the spirit? Easy peasy - the spirit house functions as a spirit vessel. Touch it or interact with it to also interact with the spirit.

Make them by 1) finding a container and 2) giving it to the spirit

Cleanse it if you want. Definitely try to make sure it's clean. Some beliefs might dictate that air gaps are required for the spirit to move in and out of the vessel (so, no sealed jars).

Then, give it to the spirit. A ritual or spell is fine if you want to do one. Otherwise, get into the zone where you feel close to the spirit (as close as reasonably possible in the moment; no need to feel like you're having a numinous experience just to get the job done).

When you're in you're zone (or like, just sitting in your room calling to the spirit a few times), announce (internally or externally) that you're giving the container to the spirit.

And yeah, how about that! That's all it takes.

Maybe frontload the process with a few gifts, though

An empty, plain balsa wood box isn't too impressive. I mean, an opportunity to imprint on a physical vessel and come ever-closer to our physical world is a gift in and of itself. But it's still an empty container.

Try popping some gifts in that bad boy at the same time as you dedicate it to the spirit.

Ideas for initial gifts:

Something soft and comfy for the spirit to sleep on (soft fabric pad will do; good chance to put your crochet skills to use!)

Something interesting or valuable (coins, miniature figurines, neat beads, etc)

An energy offering (candles; incense; food or beverages; your own energy; most disposable offerings should be left on or near the vessel, not inside of it)

Stuff they'd personally like

Things that are sentimental to you, which you gift to the spirit as a form of your personal reverence towards them

In the future, you can add and remove gifts. I'd definitely double-check with the spirit before removing anything at all, but you can.

You can also do magic with it

Ask the spirit to charge and enchant an object, and place the object in the spirit house for a full moon cycle (or longer, or less; the spirit should be able to tell you).

Include spirit petitions asking them to do tasks, or house rules to follow, etc.

The spirit houses make an ideal way to commune with spirits, especially as opposed to shared altar spaces.

You can literally pick up and move a spirit box into the area where you're doing divination. Or, touch it and use a pendulum or practice psychism (or hold it while you're meditating).

I personally just find this convenient.

Consider being open to developing them over time

You don't need to wait to devote a spirit box to a spirit until it's fully decorated, you have tons of objects to fill it up, etc.

The spirit box can grow and change to reflect your relationship with that spirit.

Spirits can and will ask for things, ask for the container to be modified in some way, and so on. Watching the collection of devotional items grow is a beautiful thing.

After all, it's not like spirits will like everything you want to give them. It might be a waste of time to agonize over collecting offerings before you've even gotten feedback on the initial spirit house itself!

Do your best to be open to input from the spirit about what kind of home it wants and what kind of things it wants.

A few more witchy notes:

If the spirit box is for a familiar, strive to include a portion of the physical species of the familiar (acorns for an Oak familiar; bobcat skull for a Bobcat familiar, etc).

Soil can make a very suitable "bed" for chthonic, dead, and certain earthen spirits - ask them about it, but it's definitely an option.

If your spirit has no original body on earth (e.g. it is a grandmother dollie and isn't associated with any living spirit), make a body for it (like, make a poppet) and keep the body in the house.

The spirit box, in and of itself, gives the spirit a greater foothold in this world. So don't take this step if you're not ready for it.

Feed your spirits often with earthly substances to give them power in this world

When you and the spirit have a falling out

If the relationship is done, try to act with honor if possible. Announce (as ritualistically as possible, is my recommendation) that the spirit is no longer welcome to use this container as a home, and that you will strike any spirit from using it.

Take the things out. Really wouldn't recommend taking back gifts, so only give gifts that you're happy with never having back. But dispose of them properly. E.g. if you've given a lot of coins as offerings, bury them so the spirit can still have them.

Nuke the container's energies, Announce that your permission for the container to be used as a Vessel are Revoked, and get rid of the container.

Yeah, it's UPG, but this is also my post, so -- cleansing and re-using some objects is fine for some magic. "This is a physical object that I gave to a spirit so it can have a foot-hold in this world and affect my physical reality, but now we're not friends any more and I want to use the jar for my prosperity spell" is not a great situation.

Strive to only use containers and gifts for spirits that you are willing to never, ever reclaim.

(Big asterisk on this for practitioners worth their salt; but for beginners, I don't recommend risking it)

(the "container spell" in the title is a bit tongue-in-cheek but I thought it was funny so I'm keeping it; I guess this all counts as a spell, sort of, so it's probably fine)

#spirits #spirit houses #spirit boxes

[dpdcultureis]

can i get a run down of typical dpd traits and what it's like to have the disorder??? i didn't realize this was a disorder (which- as someone with a special interest in psychology it came as a surprise-) and i'm genuinely curious and want to learn more... i have suspicions about myself and some friends of mine now... 😅

also, if you'd rather dm me answers than post, that's totally fine too! i may end up with follow up questions too 😅

(also i'm so sorry if this isn't the type of ask you prefer and you don't have to answer at all if you don't want, i'm just curious and usually talking to ppl w i t h the specific disorders is sm more helpful and accurate than google 💀)

hey hi!! i'll answer with regards to how it presents for me, but keep in mind that it'll probably look a bit different for me because i have other mental illnesses (including personality disorders) that also influence my behaviour ^^ any of my followers are free to chime in with their experiences too, and just looking through the #actually dpd or #actually dependent tags might be a good pursuit too!!

for me it manifests as being very anxious about making my own decisions (even when i don't necessarily recognise it as such; sometimes it presents so casually - asking about something that really doesn't need external input - that i don't notice when it happens). it also causes a deep fear of living alone and being abandoned/losing the people close to me, although the first one may be partially influenced by the fact i'm physically disabled, and the latter is common in some other PDs too. i typically seek validation over little things and share as much of what i'm doing as possible to my close friends in an attempt to reaffirm my acceptance and the fact they care about me, in a way?

for me i also seem to get a bit clingy, which if left unchecked could progress into something worse like overprotectiveness/jealousy and the like. for me that doesn't happen because my other PDs mask that aspect, but i do sometimes feel that possessiveness that i worry about, especially around my depended (DPD's version of the BPD 'favourite person', for lack of a better way to explain it)

being asked to guess or make my own decision causes me some anxiety, and doing things without permission causes a similar stress. i still tell my parents whenever i'm leaving the house and what i'm doing, and sometimes ask if i can go out, and i turn 20 later this year 😭

i can't really think of much else to talk about that isn't just reiterating what i've already said but with different examples, so now i'll leave this open for any followers here to rb/comment and add their own experiences!

(if you're curious, the other PDs i believe i have are AvPD and BPD, which overlap somewhat with these symptoms, but also work to mask some of them too. bc of that, a lot of my experience with DPD is internal)

#not dpd culture #dependent personality disorder #actually dependent #actually dpd #mod cloud!

[copperbadge]

(This is a little heavy, but I wanted to apologise.) To be honest, the kinning ask was partly due to expecting you to know something about it, since you seem pretty well informed about fandom history and lore.

...But some of it was also spur of the moment upset, I'm afraid. I've repeatedly asked people on my fanart posts not to tag the characters as kin, and a lot of times they don't respect that. It's deeply anxiety inducing to see things tagged as something that I knew many neurodivergent kids/teens who tried to hurt themselves to get "back" to where they believed they came from, and seeing it bandied around so much ended up with me wanting input from a internet guy who's known to be more chill and objective.

Which isn't your responsibility, or something you could have read intothat short ask before. It's alright whether or not you decide to publish this ask, I just wanted to be clear and say sorry about the weirdness.

(Link to initial ask here, for the curious.)

You know, this is really interesting, and I feel a bit weird saying that in response to an apology, but I'd like to dig into this a little! And up front, I’m sorry you’re going through that -- Tumblrites are not always known for reading or adhering to the fine print even when the fine print is...huge. It sucks that people aren’t respecting your pretty reasonable request. 

A lot of times, when I get an apology like this, I will say "Hey no need to apologize" or similar, and honestly I wasn't expecting or in need of an apology from you. But I do appreciate that you are saying you had a kind of knee-jerk reaction to something external to the two of us and came to me about it, and that maybe that wasn't entirely appropriate. So in this case I want to say apology accepted. I don't want you to feel bad, but I want to accept the apology rather than say it wasn’t necessary, because I think it validates good behavior in you. This was a good ask for you to send and I know it can’t have been easy either. So you can absolutely stop reading here if you want to, knowing that I think you did a good job and I’m not mad in any way. 

But I do want to discuss it more, because it's actually incredibly common for me as an experience. 

I was aware -- which is why I took the stance of inquiry that I did -- that when you sent that ask you were very likely responding to something I couldn't see. I was a little wary, because one never knows when one is about to be sucked into some fight through sheer lack of context, but I didn't see the harm in responding honestly; if you were in earnest you'd get to hear my thoughts, and if you were being disingenuous I wasn't giving you much to get your hooks into. And hey presto, you were in earnest! 

If you had said "I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the term kinning, because XYZ" you would not even need an apology, that's a legit thing to want to ask someone when you know they'll have an interesting perspective. I think the minor struggle for both you and myself is that you made a statement of a stance, rather than asking a question. But again, I am not here to make you feel bad, I'm pointing it out because it's something a lot of people do. Not even to me -- just in the world in general.

But yes also to me sometimes.

Because I have a large readership, and because I have a reputation for thoughtful response, I get this kind of interaction with relative frequency. Many are perfectly fine, healthy things to say to someone with an open inbox, and that one wasn’t especially unhealthy. But sometimes, also, people who are caught in toxic habits will see my blog and without even realizing they’re doing it will try to use me, and by extension the readership, in unhealthy ways. Usually that’s pretty visible and I’m able to head it off, because people in that much pain aren’t subtle, but I also can’t always fix the problem, and sometimes the best I can do is silence.   

One of the reasons I stopped offering hugs to individual people and instead do the hug-for-all every Saturday is that I was beginning to get a lot of people who were using me -- using my platform to trauma-dump to a large audience, which can be emotionally gratifying but which is not behavior to encourage. It's not a healthy way to deal with pain, and it's not an appropriate way to interact with others; it doesn’t help the person in pain and it tends to isolate them because people pull away from constantly being subjected to a stranger’s suffering, especially if there’s nothing reciprocated.   

And to your credit you didn't roll up on me and just drop this pallet of understandable pain that you're feeling on my head. You wanted to hear my thoughts, which of course is gratifying to me, but also speaks to an urge in you to try and reconcile that pain, to figure out how to process it. And in opening up more about why you brought it to me, you’re now giving me context rather than, say, just yelling about people or yelling at me because I didn’t fully understand.

Ultimately, I think the message I want to convey at large is that if you (the generic, population-of-tumblr you) are in pain or sad or need help understanding something that’s causing distress, reaching out is absolutely the right thing to do. But we need to remember when we reach out that we are not asking a vending machine for a band-aid, we’re asking a whole person for their compassion, and that is not something we have a right to demand on terms we set. The easing of pain is a relationship, even if it’s only a temporary one, and a relationship is reciprocal. 

And you, Anon, personally, shouldn’t beat yourself up for not quiiiiiite getting there with the first ask -- you got a lot closer than a lot of people would. If I can put my Dad Hat on for a second, you’ve got good sound instincts, kiddo. Trust ‘em. 

#fandom interaction #trauma

[tripleyeeet]

10 CHARACTERS!

rules: pick 10 characters from 10 different fandoms and tag 10 people!

thanks @imgoingtofreakoutnow for the tag!

1. cybersix/adrian seidleman — aka my first impression of gender fluidity. this show came out when i was 4 and to this day i still mourn that it wasn’t longer. it was so insanely influential for its time in terms of gender rep (the main character’s disguise was a male school teacher who pretty much everyone had a crush on) and i remember genuinely crying to my mom when this show stopped airing at its regular time slot.

2. eris — at the ripe age of 8 this woman was my bisexual awakening. and honestly, more than likely the introduction to my obsession with villains. to this day i would literally let this woman do whatever she wanted to me.

3. loki laufeyson — the man, the myth, the legend. truly the one that started it all. the og summer blorbo. i’ve literally been obsessed with this man since i was a kid reading my uncle’s comic book collection past bedtime. so many iterations have come and gone (some better than others) but regardless this mother fucker has rotted my brain.

4. dr. spencer reid — probably the most influential character in regards to my writing. he was the first character that i wrote an entire fic about (along with an even longer sequel) which really helped me develop as a writer. also, now that i’m older i realize his neurodivergent rep was very affirming to witness!

5. fleabag — god, i could go on and on about how this character and phoebe’s writing makes me feel for a century so i’ll just say no other character has made me feel the way this one does.

6. silco — he’s everything i love in a character. from his overall design to his motivations and traits, silco is perfect and i thank arcane every day for creating him.

7. nick miller — watching this character is like looking in a mirror and i hate it. everything he does or says is so ridiculously specific to my psyche that i sometimes have to cover my face out of sheer secondhand embarrassment. i love him dearly.

8. ash — this is baby. my darling. my sweet cheese. despite her kit in game being very mid i will never main another character simply because she is the moment! her backstory is compelling. her and horizon’s relationship prior to the games is so interesting that i think about writing a 33737 page fic of it every day. i just love her and her broken little simulacrum brain.

9. mizu — she is everything i want in strong, female character. blood thirsty motivations that lead to unwavering goals, complicated relationships, the external hotness of a thousand suns. mizu is incredible and i am so happy that blue eye samurai got picked up for season two!!

10. astarion — wow, what a surprise! the vampire is here! who would’ve guessed? seriously though, i know i post about him pretty much every day and make jokes about how hot he is and blah, blah, blah but he truly means so much to me. all of the writers involved in creating him (and neil obvs) did such an incredible and sincere job. you can tell they put so much care into crafting his (and so many other characters’) story and i’ll forever be thankful.

tagging: @infinitystoner @use-your-telescope @the-lake-is-calling @the-lady-amphitrite @novarunestone @sunserenade @justporo @leighsartworks216 @aphrogeneias @lipstickghoulie (and whoever else wants to participate!)

#tag game

[bluedalahorse]

Hiii <3 Which Tarot cards represent August‘s past, present and future the best in your opinion? 💕

OH HECK YES A QUESTION THAT’S RIGHT IN MY WHEELHOUSE. (I did once write a fan poem inspired by August and the Hanged Man that holds up for season three, I think. You may have been the person who requested it?) You might get more answer than you bargained for. I apologize in advance.

So my initial thought was just to jokingly respond to your question like this:

Because August’s life is like that sometimes. I say this with a deep and abiding affection for his messy character in its messy, messy arc.

(And I couldn’t post about this anyway, because the danger of shitposting about August as a genuine fan of his character arc, is that there are genuine haters out there who will take your post 100% seriously and use it as ammunition against him. Which is a shame because loving this character should be at least 60% making fun of him.)

I thought about it in more depth, and now I have a more extended answer. I’m not usually someone who pulls tarot cards with a particular “spread” with a set number of cards in mind. In a sequel post (was going to do it here but I have to get ready for work now) I might name some extra cards I could see coming up and being associated with different ideas. Especially since my Past-Present-Future cards are all Major Arcana, and I like to get some minors into a reading, when I can.

PAST - THE EMPEROR

August was born into old school power structures, and the emperor is all about, well, that. We can see that August clings to rules as things that help him to feel safe. I imagine August’s childhood was all about birthright and order—here’s what your future is going to look like, here’s all the things you are going to do and if you do them right/perfect, everything will be fine. Structure can be helpful up to a point (and August does have talents for organization and leadership that could be channeled in better directions, in different circumstances, won’t someone please write this boy into different circumstances) but at times the emperor can become authoritarian, and feed the illusion that one can escape misfortunes if they control every aspect of one’s life. The sooner August lets go of this illusion, the better.

PRESENT - THE TOWER

But not “Oops! All Towers.” I feel strongly that when we’re watching the three seasons of Young Royals, we’re meeting August in one of the big Tower Moments of his life. The Tower is absolute catastrophe. Its collapse is unavoidable because the problem is the design flaws in the Tower’s foundations. Tower energy is terrifying, but if you learn how to face it, you can climb out of the rubble and start anew.

I think August’s Tower energy is less about the external world and where he “ends up” or what happens to him, as it is about his internal world and his understanding of himself. The August we see at the beginning of the series seems to believe that if he moves fast enough and works hard enough, he can outrun his own grief and trauma. He cannot. They will catch up to him eventually. I think the Tower-rubble that August is standing in at the end of season three is sort of like… his old sense of self? He’s realizing what he thought he wants isn’t actually what he wanted, and he’s realizing that the things he did to feel “in control” never really made him in control. He’s realizing his grief for Erik and his father and for Hillerska is a lot more complicated than he thought, also, but it’s still grief and he still needs to feel it.

FUTURE - THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

So I’m not really an August doomer. I don’t believe he’s stuck forever in his own harmful deeds and that he’ll never leave the Emperor space or Tower space. I get why it’s narratively comfortable for some fans to see him as unchanging or doomed forever, but I feel like he’s actually in a really uncomfortable and interesting in-between space between “horrendous demon-person caught forever in a hell of his own making” and “totally self-actualized woke bae who can take responsibility for all his actions and do all the right things.” He’s… in a messy place, but it’s a different messy place than he started the series in, and that’s dynamic. That’s fun! I love it! (Also, I already wrote Tragically Doomed Forever August in Heart and Homeland, so I’ve kind of already let myself explore that option for him, heh. Bring on the new life challenges.)

Right, were we talking about Tarot? The Wheel of Fortune reminds us that things are always on the move, and that they’re always changing. Life is not permanent. This doesn’t mean what came before doesn’t matter or didn’t play a role in shaping a person, but it does mean that things will change whether one wants them to or not. If you like how things are going in your life, they’ll suck eventually, and if they suck now, they won’t suck forever. I’m less interested in whether August falling into the heir role counts as “poetic justice” or not and more just interested in the way it means more seismic changes in his life. There’s story there! There’s potential! There’s more learning! LET’S MAKE A FANFIC ABOUT IT WHERE HE ENDS UP CRYING ON THE FLOOR OF THE WASHINGTON DC SWEDISH EMBASSY BATHROOM. (A one-shot I am working on right now, as it happens. Well, there’s more to it than that, but it’s not even 6 AM yet and I am feeling a little punchy.)

Kind of building on what I said in my Past and Present analyses… I think season 1 August assumed there was a predictable structure to life, and that you can count on certain things being fixed. And I think by season 3, he realizes that… that’s just not true. I don’t know if he likes that revelation, but he also recognizes it as truth whether he likes it or not. And that does feel like the beginning of a new era for him. The Wheel of Fortune doesn’t care what you think, it just rolls the changes in.

Anyway, what did a great philosopher once say?

Oh, that’s right.

It’ll pass.

And that’s the wheel in a nutshell.

#young royals #august horn #asks #i just think there’s so much story we can get to with this boy

[kuwdora]

January Posting Meme

January 2 - What was the first vid you made? What drew you to vid it, do you still follow the fandom, etc. -@colls

Happy birthday colls!

Vid nostalgia time, thank you for this prompt.

My very first vid - Ameno - 2007. Stargate Atlantis.

I made my first vid in 2007 with iMovie. Stargate Atlantis, an ensemble vid about the Ancients. It’s titled “Ameno” by eRa and has chanty vocals that made me think of the Ancients/Lanteans in the Pegasus Galaxy. We were about… what 3 seasons into SGA at that time? Stargate SG-1 was my first internet fandom and SGA fandom in its heyday was certainly an Experience so I was in deep. I voraciously read all the fic back then, participated in the communities, wrote some crossover SGA/SG1 fic here and there. So once I started playing around with iMovie and got an external hard drive it seemed pretty natural for me to try and make a Stargate Atlantis vid.

Several years prior I remember my friend thelinz had sent me a bunch of SG-1 fanvids on CD-ROM that I became obsessed with. I knew I wanted to make Stargate vids. Of course I just had to go and use a song without discernible lyrics and try to tell a story about the Ancients/Lanteans. A people who were almost always featured subtextually and mostly as their tech being a macguffin of sorts for the protagonists to deal with. In my head a Narrative made a lot more sense while I was making it but I was still left rather unsatisfied by the end. But I am very proud of it—especially as a first vid. It’s very interesting to see how my eye for kinetic movement works with the musicality of the song as my first vid. And how I refined that over the years.

As for still following the fandom? It’s in my bones, it’s always there. So many of my fandom friends and I started there. Sometimes I go back and reread old SGA flashfic entries.

I do follow a few Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis tags on tumblr which has been an interesting time observing that. Mostly on account of folks remarking on Jack and Daniel’s ages (they are too Old). Or how some people have said that Rodney McKay would have Done Numbers on tumblr if the show was airing now and that people should really watch SGA for him. Which just is, you know. Makes me want to pull out that Aslan meme “I was there” old magics etc, since Rodney McKay Was Everywhere, fanon ran with wild abandon and then some while others did slow laps in their own slash and rare-pair niches. But this is part of growing older in fandom, you were there for that history (and all the various wank, which is what it was called and not Discourse).

Anyway. I was never quite satisfied with Ameno. But I went on to make dozen more vids after it with iMovie until I got a Final Cut Edit license. And I came across a song during a summer job and realized the vibe+lyrics…that song was the Ancient Vid I was trying to make the first time around but didn’t manage. And listening to the song I realized I didn’t have the vidding skills yet to pull it together. Very overwhelmed by the idea. I spent 5 years listening and mentally putting it together in my head while casually rewatching here and there. Which is how I managed to make High Voltage - one of the vids I’m most proud of for narrative, structural and thematic reasons.

High Voltage which someone actually made a Fanlore entry about it!

High Voltage which was selected at Vividcon 2011 for In Depth Vid Review where people spent a good chunk of time discussing it in an in-person group setting. Folks who had never seen Stargate Atlantis or SG-1 or Stargate Universe even said they were very impressed and intrigued with the vid because it looked like nothing they’ve ever seen from Stargate vids before. And those who knew the shows inside and out, who knew the fic, who had meta discussions about it every week, everyone there when another surface-level, shoddily executed storyline rolled out. They saw my vid, too, they saw it and got it. It was really, really incredible experience to get that kind of feedback and realize that so many picked up what I was laying down.

Beatrice Otter wrote a lovely fancake rec for it in 2022 — 11 years after it premiered! A rec I have screencapped and saved in my happy folder to look at when I’m feeling down.

I elaborated a little more about my vidding process and reception of the vid on tumblr

So Ameno is my very first vid that I was VERY proud of but still wanted to go and “do over”/“do again” because it didn’t feel quite right. That foundation and growth lead to High Voltage. :)

I highly recommend anyone who wants to make a fix-it to an old fanwork of theirs to do go ahead and do it and see how it feels. You never know where it might lead.

January Posting Meme - claim a date! Send me any kind of prompt!

#january posting meme #january posting meme 2024 #vidding #fanvids #fan video #my vids #blogdora

[positivexcellence]

Walker: Jared Padalecki Raises a Glass to a Triumphant Season 2 and Expansive Future

If Walker Season 1 was this external rollercoaster of a murder mystery, Season 2 is the fight for the Walker family's soul, with everyone on deck and feeling the pressure.

Jared Padalecki: Yeah, it was about this time last year that we were breaking [story on] Season 2. With Season 1 on a show, you make a plan and kind of stick to it, and as you go along, you figure out what's working really well, what's working alright, and what's not working. And you try to steer towards what's working really well and steer away from what's not working. Season 1 was called "Walker," and it was called "Walker" on purpose because the general idea of the series at large is that it's about not just blood family but found family. We have Trey Barnett, Captain James, Geri Broussard Davidson. Much like the last show that I did, the found family becomes as important, if not more, than blood family. We were guiding and steering towards that, so being able to flesh out all of these characters that are part of the Walker Universe in Season 2 has been awesome.

When I'm not in a scene, in general, I'm not on set. I will be sometimes if we're introducing a new character or if I have other stuff to do on set, but I'll be home doing my job as a father and husband or as an executive producer going through dailies and stuff. Being able to watch the edits before the episodes air on TV has just been a joy. I've been enjoying the show just watching Bonham and Abby, or Colton and Stella, or Augie or Trey, and now Cassie. It's been fun for me to go, "I'm really liking this show… Oh, I'm on it too!" [laughs] It's been an awesome season.

You had to pivot midway through the season, introducing Cassie Perez as Walker's new partner on the Texas Rangers. Do you remember first meeting Ashley Reyes and striking up that rapport with her?

Padalecki: I do! The casting process these days, post-COVID, has been all-digital. You don't do in-the-room casting, you do casting tapes. If you're really interested in someone, and they're interested in the role, you do a Zoom audition together. I've been acting for a while now and done 430-some episodes of television -- gosh, I feel old.

You started young!

Padalecki: I started young! Thanks, I'll take it. [laughs] In my years as Sam [Winchester], a lot of times it was face-to-face acting, and there's a different feeling being in the room with a human being than being over camera. Mentally, it's really difficult for me to read over a computer screen, but when we met Ashley, we all kind of talked afterward. It had been a month-long process with dozens and dozens of extremely talented, beautiful, charming young actresses who could've played the role very well, and then we met with Ashley and were like, "Yeah, that's her! Get her on a flight, put her down in Austin, and let's do this."

She's just awesome. She's an incredible actress and extremely talented and just so likable and a lovable on-camera and somehow even more likable off-camera. I remember our first reading together, she was in Brooklyn with a brick wall behind her, and meeting her down here in Texas. Everybody just loves her, she's extremely hardworking and kind. The way she's fleshing out Cassie is such a joy to watch. In the episode where Twyla Jean realizes that she's talking about an episode of Hawk's Shadow and both Karissa Lee Staples, who plays Twyla, and Ashley go back and forth over and over again -- I was like, "These are great professional actors, and they're fun to watch… Wait, you're on-camera also! Focus!" [laughs] It's been a lot of fun.

Some of my favorite stuff of yours this season were the scenes between you and Coby Bell as Captain James. How was it working more with Coby this season?

Padalecki: Coby and I hit it off right off the bat. For whatever reason, last week, I went back and watched an episode from Season 1 called "Rule Number 17" when we're on a stakeout together. We're in a van, and it flashes back to when he reveals Emily on a slab. He and I have always just gotten on as people on and off camera, it's so fun. He's also done a ton of work professionally, so we'll just vibe and do something during a scene, think we can do it better, do it again and go, "That was pretty good!" [laughs]

He's got four kids and lives in California, and they're young, so he's not here in Texas all the time. To see him be a father and spouse and still come here and have all of his dialogue and preparation done is impressive and inspiring. I do love the rapport between Cordi and Larry and you feel that because I feel that way about Coby in some way or another. I feel like I've known him for a long time, so it's really easy to talk to him on-camera as our characters and off-camera as a fellow human being.

Like you said, you've been doing this a long time, and a lot of the work you've done at The CW is bearing new, awesome fruit with Supernatural coming back and the spinoff prequel Walker: Independence coming.

Padalecki: I'll give a shoutout to what was The WB network and what, since 2006, is now The CW network; they're so loyal and committed to their talent. I'll go back to certain scenes from Gilmore Girls or even Supernatural and go, "Why did they hire me?!" But they believed in me and they believe in Jensen [Ackles]. They believe in their people. We now have Kat McNamara on the Walker prequel, and she's [been] on The CW as well, as has Matt Barr. I'm just grateful that I've been given so many chances to learn and grow. Once I officially retire, maybe I'll go back and think about it, but even though I've been doing this for a while, I still feel like I'm in the middle of it. Jensen and I used to [do] this on Supernatural, that we can't really think about the fourteen years that have gone by because we have another season to do. We can't think about having one last episode to film because we have one episode left to film.

I'm just really grateful. I really enjoy working in the city that I know and love with people that I love. I enjoy working with Mitch [Pileggi] again and working for the first time with Keegan [Allen}, Molly [Hagan], Kale [Culley], Violet [Brinson], Jeff [Pierre], Ashley, Coby, and Odette [Annable]. Every day is like Christmas. [This phrase is] overused, but if you like what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. The hours are long, and it's an interesting life I lead being in the public eye, but I just love being able to tell stories, hear stories, and watch stories. If they'll keep hiring me, I'll keep telling stories.

CBR

#Jared Padalecki

[bcbdrums]

Rewatching the show atm, I never really realized how shitty Kim can be to Ron sometimes. She locked him in a closet in "Crush" to go to a dance with Josh (even though it was Ron who gave her the courage to ask him out), lied and ditched him on Halloween for Josh again, signed him up to work at Bueno Nacho without asking him then got mad when he does better then her at the job(this seems to happen whenever he's better then her at anything, it's like she can't fathom him being good at things). I sometimes get the feeling she takes him for granted.

I'm not saying Ron is some saint, he's lied many times,stolen from her, ditched her when he got popular, etc but at the end of most of those episodes, he would learn a lesson or his behavior was called out, either by Kim or someone else, alot of Kims actions are never called out and she rarely learns from them. I've seen your HC for Post series(Kimron go to separate schools and they both grow individually), what exactly do you think they both need to improve on, and do my complaints about Kim factor into it or all?

Great questions, Anon. I'll start by saying that all the examples you gave of Kim treating Ron poorly were from the first season of the show. Looking at it externally, we can say the writers were still figuring out the characters and their dynamic. Internally, I think to think that Kim was younger then and in that awkward stage where she wasn't quite sure how she thought of Ron... Still just best friend, or boyfriend material? And lashing out were ways an entitled teen girl displayed that at times.

As the series goes on, yes she's surprised by things he's good at at times, and sometimes it's justified (Naked Genius) but most of the time it seems to me that it's just...occasions where their interests diverge. Cooking as an example. Part of her surprise I think comes naturally from her having known Ron her entire life. And as he demonstrates new abilities she's unaware of, some of it just because...she may think she should know this already, or she knows it can't possibly be...she finds it hard to believe.  But we see in the show that they do indeed have other friends and other interests, and they don't know every single thing about each other. So Kim being surprised at a few of his abilities is justified in that way.  If you remove the world-saving, it’s actually a good picture of a healthy, stable best-friendship.

I find that the longer the show goes on, the better she treats him. It really was just sometimes in season one, and part of it comes from her entitled personality and overall a semi-conscious thinking that she's better than him. Not as a human, but just...better at stuff.  She’s used to him being not so good at stuff.  Like, you’d think either he or his parents would have thought to get him a belt long before Kim bought him one for their half-aversary...  Only other obvious instance of her treating him poorly would be Clean Slate where she won’t believe he’s her boyfriend.  And then her “I think I love you” was so...not her.  And that will relate to things I talk about later.

Moving on to the second part of your question, them going to separate schools and needing to improve individually so they can be their best selves for each other...  Well, Ron needs to man up.  In such a way that if Kim were permanently gone from his life, he’d still be okay.  I think that despite the health of their friendship there’s still a strong co-dependency there because they have never had to go it alone.  He needs to find that part of himself that can do life without Kim, plain and simple.  He has skills, interests, curiosities...  He just needs to let her go in order to best be there for her later, if that makes sense.  He can’t be his best self if he’s always the side-kick, and if he thinks it’s all for her in the end.  He needs to be Ron for Ron, and in that way he can be the best whatever for Kim in the future.  And I think he’ll be fine, actually.  He’s had to live a largely independent life already, with his parents being seemingly absent a lot and lacking relationship with him (”this is our way of telling you”).  He’s not used to having it all together.  He’s used to the side-kick role, and thus is more prepared to face life on his own.

With Kim it’s deeper, and no your complaints about her don’t really fit into it.  It’s two-fold, starting with the fact she’s always had everything handed to her.  And I don’t mean this in a...’down with wealthy people,’ sort of way.  But I do mean she’s never had to work her way up from the bottom, doesn’t know what it’s like to be there...  Even with saving the world, Wade has everything ready for her.  She doesn’t know what it’s like to lose, to come in second place...  Not in anything that actually matters, at least.  It would be great for her to go to a college where no one knows the name Kim Possible.  To just be one of the crowd.  To not stand out in the slightest, to have to work just as hard as everyone else with all the same expectations.  No ‘get out of school free card’ because she’s off saving the world from a comical villain.  Actually failing classes perhaps since she’s never in class.  Losing sleep.  Just being an average human.

And with that, there’s her whole identity thing, which I thought was a good thing about the live-action movie.  They honed in on the fact that without saving the world, who is she?  Well, in the cartoon...that’s all she is.  Cheerleader?  That fades.  Even if she cheers in college, it’s not gonna be her profession..  Babysitter?  Nope, not an identity nor profession she’d want.  What Ron has going for him is that he knows who he is even though too much of himself is rooted in co-dependency on Kim.  Kim...doesn’t have anything else.  The show teased the idea of her going to an overseas college, or in Job Unfair she was interested in international diplomacy.  But really...those were just things they tossed in to give her a direction, but is it who she really is?  It doesn’t come across that way when it’s just thrown in like that.  Do we think action-oriented, thinks-she-knows-everything Kim is going to sit at a desk in a suit doing what that sort of job actually entails for the rest of her life?  Um, no.  So she has to let go of the co-dependency on Ron and actually find out who she is when she isn’t saving the world.  She needs to be an average person.  The overlooked.  The side-kick.

It feels like with the way they had her character not really develop, she’s got two choices:  join Global Justice and get paid to do what she already does, but with severe limitations.  Or else she’s in for a very early mid-life crisis since she has rooted her entire childhood in the mantra of “I can do anything” which privilege and wealth, along with skill and intelligence, allowed her to do.

Is it great that her parents could offer her so many opportunities?  Yes.  But they never showed her any hardship.  She also never really had relational hardships.  Most popular girl in school, has a couple of besties, and the frenemies thing with Bonnie wasn’t that deep.  This is an instance where I think kicking the kid out the door at age eighteen would be good.  Give her a dose of the real world with no Wade or rich family to bail her out, and no Ron to be that anchor to a life without real responsibility.  She needs to stop saving the world for awhile, honestly.  She’s got to explore interests besides boys and shopping, and discover what it’s like to be a human.  Which is what makes me circle back to “I think I love you.”  Kim in her amnesia state?  Is still the ‘too cool to date nerds’ cheerleader personality.  When it comes down to it, part of “I can do anything” also means “I’m better than everyone” and I don’t think she even realizes this consciously.  That’s something else she’s gotta work past.

I know this post is now probably going to offend everyone who worships Kim.  Don’t get me wrong, I love her too.  I just recognize that she’s a kid with a lot of room for growth.  And I guess I don’t see that growth happening easily.  This is probably why I haven’t really been interested in writing fic for Kim?  While character growth piques my interest, it’s more work in her case than I’m interested in doing.  She was just too shallow of a character.  Ron, on the other hand...  I could see myself writing an epic or two about him.

Hope I articulated well enough, and hope this answers your questions!

#kim possible #ron stoppable #meta #kimron #kimxron #kim x ron #kim/ron

[erisenyo]

hiiiii I wanna play!!

16. How important is it to you to stay true to the original creator's vision while writing fanfiction?

26. How do you approach plot twists or surprises in your fics?

31. Do you prefer writing from a single character's perspective or switching between different viewpoints?

You’re amazing as always <3

16. How important is it to you to stay true to the original creator's vision while writing fanfiction?

Eh, middling important? I'm comfortable to change details or do AUs, but it's one of those "know the rules so you can then break them" situation. Every change is going to have a ripple effect, so for it to still feel grounded in the source canon, those ripples need to make sense from that canon.

Characterization is huge for me, too. I always want the characterization to stay aligned to canon. Even if I'm showing growth, or bringing them to places they didn't go in canon, I want it to feel rooted in their canon selves. Okay, Sokka would never [X] in canon--so what would it take to get him there? If I don't see that chain of 'what it takes' then for me it feels like it's drifting into writing an OC who happens to have a similar background, which isn't my interest with fic.

26. How do you approach plot twists or surprises in your fics?

I tend to know where they're going to be in advance, a twist or major surprise is generally a big emotional moment, moment of revelation, moment when the reader's and/or the character's perspective is challenged and shifts. So those tend to be some of the first scenes that coalesce as an idea is coming together, and then things get planned from a pre-reveal and post-reveal format.

So to use a fluffy example from a oneshot (instead of the big reveal in one of my longfics lol) - one of the pivotal moments in (With Wonder and Care) Reach for Far-Flung Dreams is when Sokka is surprised by the destination of the road trip and what the big vacation actually is (NASA, for him, no Disney, for everyone else).

So I have that as this big emotional height--so why is it an emotional height? Because Sokka is surprised by it. Why is he surprised? Because he thought they were going somewhere else. Why did he think they were going somewhere else? Because the Gaang is specifically planning this as a treat for him and it's a big secret they're hoping to pull off.

And now I have the front half of my fic, basically - all the initial setup, the initial dynamics and interactions and necessary exposition, that are building to this reveal.

And then I think about post-reveal--what changes because of this surprise? Sokka realizes the day is about him, instead of him facilitating a day for everyone else. Sokka is emotionally overwhelmed, because he wasn't prepared to seem cool and unaffected. Sokka feels cared for, and has to just let that soak in.

And then that starts to give me the emotional beats I need to hit in later scenes--Sokka being emotionally overwhelmed, realizing the extent of their preparation for him, feeling loved and cared for.

(I can do a breakdown like this for one of the bigger fics like To Open Every Door, if anyone wants, btw)

31. Do you prefer writing from a single character's perspective or switching between different viewpoints?

It depends on the story! I generally like to write from the POV of whoever knows the least, so that the reader can learn alongside them in real-time. Or if a scene is supposed to do some big emotional work for a certain character, I'd rather have their POV for the scene vs them reflecting back on it after.

So in a one shot, that's usually one POV (though sometimes I purposefully structure in external POVs because I think it puts a fun perspective on events). For longer works it tends to be multiple POVs, especially something plottier. In To Open Every Door To Night, for example, I needed dual POVs because I needed the reader to have knowledge that Sokka didn't, which meant I needed Azula's scenes.

But my Zukki series was also a longer work, and there I stuck to one POV because things filtered through Zuko's limited perspective with him misreading everything but the reader able to correctly interpret everything he was missing regardless was the vibe I was going for.

So a lot of words to say basically , no preference, it's what carries the story best :)

From this Questions for Fic Writers game!

#asks and answers #ask games #fic writers ask game #fic writing #This is fun!

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

Fanfic asks: 1, 2, 3 (does it help you to share ideas?), 34, 43, 50, 76, 78, 79 and 80 (How do you deal with writer’s block?)

I’ve been kinda feeling…creatively constipated, is as best as I can describe it. Ideas and worlds in my head but they stay locked up without a key to free them. So I guess I wanted to pick someone’s brain, writer to writer, see if there’s anything I can try to get myself inspired again. I hope that’s not weird.

1. Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

For the most part, I force myself to daydream a lot before I sit down to start writing, because otherwise there's the very real chance I'll sit down and get 3k into it and realize, 'oh. there's not very much meat on this one at all. I don't want to finish it anymore.' There's something to be said for the concept of 'Writing For The Sake Of Writing', but a lot of the time getting a decent length into something and just, not having the ideas or drive to finish it.. it kind of sucks.

2. Where do you get your fic ideas?

All sorts of places, although I tend to draw a lot from real-life experiences and things I'm currently learning about/interested in (e.g. philosophy chapters of Pick A Side, chessboxing), as well as various types of mythologies and lore (Eucat, Melliferous).

3. Do you share your fic ideas, or do you keep them to yourself?

I'm the sort of person who hoards the fine details of my WIPs very close to my chest until I'm absolutely sure that I'm going to stick to writing the whole damn thing. I'm not great at sharing. But also I really enjoy sharing out of context little bits and pieces as I go, and constantly want to talk about the things I write - I'm a contradiction of a person.

34. How much of your personal life/experience do you include in your fics?

Well, when I was 17, I died, went to bee hell, and had to wait for the combined-yet-separate fractals of my personality to come bail me out I don't include an overwhelming amount, I don't think, but sometimes real life is the best source for an interesting story. It gives it a bit of spice and depth. For example, the thing in Syzygy with Thomas blaming his creaky apartment on an 'apartment ghost' and constantly talking to it because he's lonely is something that I do in fact do in real life.

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

Yeah, I want to do a thorough deconstruction of a soulmate AU. And/or the hanahaki trope, because neither of those are something that I'm entirely fond of. I'm not sure if this is the right fandom to do it in or not, but I have a feeling I'll end up writing it eventually.

50. How would you describe your writing style?

Absurdist realism and/or magical surrealism.

76. How do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

Internal pressure is a sign I need to take a break and do something else for a bit, or stop taking myself so seriously. External pressure is a sign that I either need to block a rude commenter, or gently remind people that I'm a human being and I do this for fun.

78. What motivates you during the writing process?

Knowing that at the end of it all, I'll have a finished product that a) I will be proud of in some respect b) that other people will enjoy and c) (hopefully) scream at me in fury about. Getting to that end point where I can actually hit the post button and see something that I made show up in the tags is just the best feeling in the world.

79. Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

Be joyful with it. Writing is a game you're playing with yourself, so play. I recognize that this isn't the most helpful and specific of advice, but I can't stress enough how much you should experiment with stylisms and point-of-view and unreliable narrators and all the rest of it! Pastiche someone else's style! Write in reverse chronological order! Give yourself restrictions and take away your pre-existing restrictions, and BREAK THE RULES.

80. How do you deal with writer’s block?

Writer's block (for me, at least) is my brain telling me that it doesn't want to work anymore. It's had enough. It doesn't want me to work! Which is the point where I close the document, and go do something else that my brain does want to do. Sometimes that's going for a walk or making myself a fancy drink or snack, sometimes it's lying in bed and watching Youtube for ages, and sometimes my brain is just screaming and sobbing and kicking and doesn't want to do anything at all, in which case I just have to gently sit with it and wait for it all to be over. Either way, I'll get back to writing when I get back to it - either whatever WIP I was working on at the time, or something new that I'll enjoy writing. Forcing myself to write when I'm not on an actual deadline or timecrunch never works out well for me, so I try to be very gentle about it.

And I hope you get past that brainblock eventually. I've been there too, and it's the worst place to be in. Hopefully you find that idea or project that makes your brain start singing again soon! I wish you luck, and hope this helps.

#fanfic ask meme #long post #asks

[stellaferous]

MY GUIDE TO CREATING CHARACTERS

+ tips on creating a cast

@maydaywriting on instagram

my username here is my art account lmao

hello everyone this is my first writing advice post on Tumblr !! ill probably write advice here instead of editing it with nicer fonts behind a nicer background when i'm feeling lazy lol, today's post is about character-creating and i'll be talking about my method of creating characters (funnily enough i sometimes don't even follow my own guide and just do what works), it may not work for you but you may get some inspiration and find your own method instead !

typically, i either come up with a name or a design for the character i have in mind, usually a substance/job/trait will help me visualize what the character will look like/what their name should be:

e.g i have the word "space" in mind, so i either come up with a name that pertains to space (say, Stella) or i doodle down a random design that's space-related (for example, someone wearing saturn earrings, a blue/purple colour scheme, etc) — from there i expand my character and brainstorm more information such as backstory, personality, how they fit into the world, etc. 

i'm an artist so i don't have too much trouble drawing designs i have in my head, though if you need help visualizing your character you can use websites such as picrew to help you ! some people leave the design for last as it's the least of their priority but i personally love designing characters since it helps me come up with ideas to flesh them out + it's a neat way to show instead of tell -- i usually come up with these details while drawing them and i then write down anything that's interesting/important (its quite a messy process)

coming up with names can be tough, you can always choose something simple (like the Stella example i gave) or you could be a bit more creative and come up with a unique name to make your character more memorable — this character is named Minyi or 旻宜 (旻: heaven, 宜: suitable/proper)

you may want to choose a nationality for your character before designing them since it can influence their fashion style. for example, Minyi is Chinese and she is wearing a chinese blouse + a horse face skirt/mamianqun, which is part of hanfu (China's traditional clothing)

next, i put on my thinking cap and ruminate about this character and their important aspects e.g backstory or personality, often using my design/name for assistance: the "yi" in "Minyi" means suitable/proper, so i decide to make her rule-following and organized (you could also do the opposite, you come up with traits of a character and then name them based on those traits !). i then give her more traits after some brainstorming such as kind-hearted, reliable and validation-seeking.

if you need help finding some personality traits to give a character, i suggest you look through the types in a personality test such as MBTI, enneagram, etc – Minyi here is classified as an ISFJ 1w2 !

to go even deeper, i ponder on why she has these personality traits — in other words, the backstory that developed her into having this personality, and this often leads to me fleshing her out even further: she's kind-hearted but validation-seeking, so maybe in her childhood she realizes that she needs to act nice and helpful to receive love (due to neglectful parents suffering from their own problems), and this in turn causes her to become a people-pleaser who relies on external validation. im able to roughly draft a backstory with this idea in mind.

if you're really into making your character more interesting by incorporating trauma/an interesting backstory that made them the way you are, i'd actually suggest studying a little psychology — i genuinely think this helps me write characters better as i have better insight as to why they became that way + it allows me to add little details to their backstory that will help flesh them out more.

moving on, i come up with other information that will develop them such as hobbies and likes/dislikes, and it'd be a good idea to integrate your backstory into these aspects:

for example, Minyi's dad is a martial artist and her mom is a dancer, so she decides to become both these things to seek their validation and be seen as "worthy" in their eyes. i already had the space idea in mind when creating her so her hobbies will obviously be something like stargazing/studying astronomy, though if you didn't follow this route you could have a similar thought process to this: Minyi's parents were neglectful so she was often left alone, she found company in the stars and ended up having an affinity for space, which explains her love for stargazing/studying astronomy.

from here, i like to create a reference sheet where i neatly organize her main traits – and if i'm up to it i tend to develop her even further (even if its unnecessary lmao) by giving her little quirks such as her way of speech (clear and proper), body language (always tries to keep a smile up), and other little fun facts that serve to make her more interesting (she rarely eats sweets and keeps a healthy body, she cracks her knuckles often, she likes wearing traditional clothes, etc).

tips when creating a cast:

diversify your characters: refrain from having them share the same traits to the point that they're more or less the same. since i have a proper, kind-hearted character, i can try creating one who's more feral and cruel

it's important to develop the character's way of speech and body languages when interacting to other characters, some characters will speak the same way to x as they do with y, others will speak differently

try creating some similarities between some characters so they have a reason to become friends: for example, both x and y like gardening and they bond via showing each other the plants they grew, etc – you can also do the opposite and create some differences so they have a reason to dislike each other

if you're in need of more characters but are running out of ideas when it comes to personality/backstory/other, try implementing the types in personality tests (like in MBTI and enneagram), take inspiration from other characters in different media and integrate a trope you like into that character (you can find many tropes on tvtropes !)

and thats it from me ! i hope this post managed to give you inspiration as well as help you create your own characters. i might post more writing advice on tumblr but i think this decision just depends on my mood lmao, if you decide to take any of my advice and post it on instagram, etc please credit me by tagging my account: @maydaywriting

#writing #creating characters #writing advice #writeblr #writerscommunity #writerscorner #writersofinstagram

[astral-actias]

I've been thinking really hard for a couple days about the definition of hearttype, that it's something you identify with instead of as, and I find that...really unsatisfying and confusing, actually, since 'with' and 'as' are so hard to define in the first place and colloquially are identical; the only place that really makes a hard distinction is the otherkin community.

So, here's a thesis statement, and I'd like to hear what people think about it.

A kintype is an identification of the self as something, whereas a hearttype is an identification of something outside the self.

I was trying to find a common thread in all the explanations I've seen from otherhearted people, and what stood out to me was that almost every one of them comes back to something along the lines of, "[thing] is not me, but [thing] is like family to me." I had some internal debate of what that's even supposed to mean, because 'kin' literally means 'family' so how is that different? I also wondered if it was an intensity thing, and ended up ultimately deciding, not really; there's correlation but no causation there. Then I realized the actual difference is that it's an identity located outside the self.

Along the way I had a few ideas that were somewhat off the mark or not fully formed, so keep that in mind if you're thinking, 'hey, are you straight out contradicting something you posted a couple days ago?' Yeah, probably! It's a process. I don't mind people seeing the process. Anyway...

An identity located within the self can be expressed as a simple "I am" statement. But hearttypes necessarily cannot be expressed that way. They can only be expressed by referencing sometime external to you. So, in my case, I am a faery. I am not a moth; however, moths are especially significant to me. The identity is projected onto moths, who wouldn't know me from Adam even though I feel a strong and very important kinship with them, and my relationship to them through that identity is what is actually called being moth-hearted. I can't word it as "I am," I can only word it as "they are (in relation to me)," which is not how it's generally understood right now. We're trying to fit the wrong part of the equation into a phrase that doesn't suit it to begin with, I think.

Which would explain why it's such a pain to define and nobody seems to be able to put it concisely. We're looking at a thing that isn't even itself the identity in question and trying to go from there.

It probably sounds like an extremely pedantic detail, but I think it's actually one to think about. There are likely other confusing aspects of identity that we might sort out by thinking in terms of identity potentially being something outside oneself, that one projects onto external things.

And on top of that I've been very much having thoughts about the fact that the existence of identity traits implies other identities with the opposite of those traits. For example, what we generally call a kintype we define as serious, intrinsic, and self-oriented. This implies the existence of identities which are casual, extrinsic, and/or other-oriented, in any combination with the original traits. What traits do we value enough to assign to this hypothetical punnet square of a definition system? Could we understand more about ourselves by examining other potential combinations of identity traits? Probably! It's been an interesting exercise at the minimum.

Anyway, hopefully that made sense. I'd very much like to hear thoughts on it, especially from other otherhearted people.

Also at some point I'd like to actually try and come up with a list of aforementioned traits and see what that grid looks like, just as an exercise. I sort of did it once and it was interesting as hell, so a larger scale attempt may be in order.

#otherkin #nonhuman #kin #fictionkin #therian #alterhuman #otherhearted #fictionhearted #hearttype