#first of all why are you assuming all of tumblr has no investment in the 'drama'

[rhinestonebabe]

"lets tumblrize real disagreements between real people that have implications for a globally impactful industry by writing fanfiction about them -- wait but theres pedophilia involved, that's unethical! -- not if our fanfiction is actually about a badboiXsoftboi duo very close to the disagreement but not actually either of the people involved, checkmate!"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . im literally distilling the essence of your existence in my science lab and evaporating it

#first of all why are you assuming all of tumblr has no investment in the 'drama' #like the 'drama' isnt serious allegations that are actually a big deal #even if youre outside the hiphop scene how is this not obvious #maybe this is a really bad analogy but i never saw anyone saying “lets tumbrize the hbomberguy and james somerton beef and make them kiss” #that was just so tonally inappropriate and not what that was about #similarly . that is NOT what this is about either #if you cant talk about real world issues without making it about fanfic then go back to your blorbos and let the rest of us talk about it

[devsgames]

"Is Tumblr Blaze Worth It For Promoting My Indie Game?" - a Postmortem

Lately I've been thinking about marketing and promotion of my games and wanting to explore new avenues. Tumblr Blaze was one of those things I wanted to dip my toes into a bit to understand how it works and if it has potential for advertising my sort of stuff. Like as not, there's no point in making games if nobody actually plays them after all!

Conversely I have also heard bad things about Tumblr Blaze; that it's not very targeted, the reach is fairly limited, and people on this site generally hate anything that is Blazed to them.

I wanted to test all these waters a bit to see if it's something worth investing in, and share what I found for my own benefit and the benefit of others. Finding various info on topics like this for indie dev can be a pain, so why not share my findings?

The Plan and Goal

While Centauri Dark is still in development and is the thing I actually want to advertise more of right now, Bombing!! 2 is already out and is much more marketable with some cool art made by community members. I think as a first impression it tends to show well, so I decided to make my test post with that to get exposure to it and see how it goes.

My goal was mostly to see what a Blaze post does for advertising a launched indie game and how much "eyes on" it actually gets in terms of actual engagement.

Posting

From the outset I knew I wanted to make a post that 1) wasn't annoying to people just looking at the webbed site 2) featured a call to action of some kind I could measure 3) wouldn't break the bank.

Here's what I came up with:

The intention was to flash some cool looking art to grab their attention, explain what they're looking at, and then link the game a couple of times while mentioning "Buy or Wishlist" for good measure as a call to action.

Since Bombing!! 2 is such an art-forward game, I found the coolest art pieces made by community members that felt the most "Tumblr" to match the audience, and would also show off the range of art you could make in the game. I also wanted to make it personal, like me writing a message to whoever would read it instead of something that sounded like a standard ad. Generally I think it was a fairly reasonable little post that catches some interest and doesn't overstay too much of a welcome. What I think also helps is it's explicitly a "hey this might interest you" sort of framing (as opposed to a more "why am I even seeing this" sort of post you tend to get from Blaze sometimes).

I also think it's worth emphasizing that writing a posted explicitly intending to be Blazed was a much stronger approach than just Blazing some random post I had made for my own followers months ago, because I could align it to my promotional goals. It also assumed that random people on the Internet would be the ones seeing my post, and not the followers and friends who already know me and my work.

Blazing

As I looked into Blaze early on there was actually a few key things I wasn't fully aware of about the system.

It guarantees a minimum amount of views

It guarantees it will be Blazed for a minimum of 24 hours no matter how many views

You pay a single base rate for the whole campaign (great compared to some ads which tend to price based on views/engagement).

You can define an audience explicitly (some info that was floating around lead me to believe this wasn't the case).

Campaigns come in a few amounts:

I paid for the 2nd tier; $17 USD for a campaign, which amounts to $25 CDN. I wanted to go a little more into it than the lowest tier offered, since I figured the lowest wouldn't give me as much data as I would've liked and I wanted to know what to reasonably expect should I decide to do it again in the future.

Since Bombing!! 2 sells for ~$20USDI also figure if the Blaze campaign prompts at least two people to buy the game then the Blaze would have paid for itself.

Blaze lets you use tags to define which audiences you want to reach. Unfortunately it doesn't let you view that data after you've applied it, but the tags I chose were generally anyone who spoke English and has an interest in Digital Artist or Video Game circles.

The campaign ran for 24 Hours, starting yesterday and ending today.

The Results

I definitely noticed a sharp uptick in engagement during the campaign! It hit the target audience of ~7k around one hour into the campaign, after which point I noticed engagement take a sharp decline.

Here's the Blaze campaign analytics provided by Tumblr (which was also very helpful to have):

So it seems ~12.5k views from Blaze, ~370 likes, ~80 reblogs, 5 shares elsewhere. The post itself has ~520 notes, so I assume there's some reblogging and liking happening from beyond the Blaze campaign that isn't pictured here. The good thing is that despite having reached its 7k target after only 1 hour, it continued to circulate and be Blazed until 24 hours later. Eventually the post made it to ~12k views overall, which was nearly double the amount promised by the campaign - I attribute this mostly to a strong post/target audience/subject matter and I'm sure it's not standard.

Here's the general velocity of engagement around when the post was Blazed:

It jumped much more than I honestly expected, but you can tell Blaze seemed to put it in front of people's faces more than my regular posts do. You can see it drops off sharply as I hit the quoted amount as well, back down to the normal amount of engagement I get on Tumblr.

But this stuff isn't really what I was looking for; I was looking for sales and keeping an eye on 'conversions' - or how many users followed my call to action because of the post. Likes and stuff are fine and cool, but how many people bought or wishlisted the game on Steam as a result of seeing the post on Tumblr?

Tumblr and Blaze obviously have no way of telling me this, so I'm looking to Steam to show me changes there.

Here's what Steam shows me happened to the Bombing!! 2 views yesterday:

That's not nothing! This shows the last month's worth of traffic to the Bombing!! 2 page, and that number was at least double yesterday as it was regularly. It's very cool to know a number of people did actually click through to the game page in order to view the game from the Blaze post.

But the real REAL question is how many bought or wishlisted the game because of this post?

I'll start with Sales, on a graph of 1 month of data:

Flat line :( Which is fine though, as the game wasn't on Sale and was just reaching people for the first time. I didn't honestly expect any immediate sales from this, and was more focused on other engagement anyways. Honestly I would be surprised if someone saw the game on a Blaze post and bought it immediately. I mean it's good but it's probably not THAT good!

Now to Wishlists, which can be a good indicator of who might likely buy your game in the future. Basically if someone has added a game to their wishlist, there's reason to believe they might buy it in the future, which is good for your game.

Here's the Wishlists for Bombing!! 2 from the last month:

That's 23 Wishlists in one day! That's roughly ~18 Wishlists more than an average day!

It's hard to know if some of these are because of the post or just a statistical fluke. However, when compared to previous trends on the game page that's quite a noticeable difference. It means even if no one bought it now, they were interested enough to add it to their shortlist. Looking at it another way, if two people who Wishlisted decided to buy the game in the future the campaign will have paid for itself.

Conclusions

I think like any advertising if you go into it with a plan in mind and try to build something around a specific action, Blaze seems pretty worth it to me especially if I just want to get eyes on something. On top of the obvious data telling me people were interested in the game, there was a few folks who just plain complemented the game or acknowledged it 'was the first Blaze post they were actually interested in', which felt worth it in it's own qualitative sort of way.

I think having an idea of the message I wanted to send really helped, and I'm sure I'd happily do this again with a larger audience and another plan (and probably will do it for when Centauri Dark releases).

#gamedev #game dev #game development #indie games #indie game #gamedevelopment #indiegames #indiedev #indie dev #bombinggame #blog #blaze #tumblr blaze #game design #thoughts

[qqueenofhades]

as a starting history major i wanna ask how do you read/evaluate academic history papers/books? i'm trying to avoid just blindly agreeing with whatever the author is writing because it seems correct. how can you tell what is good scholarship and what is more shaky?

This is a great question for you as a freshman history major to ask (many of my toiling colleagues and I can attest that we wish more of you would!) and shows that you're already taking initiative and investment in your studies and want to be the best prepared you can. So truly -- thank you! Us on the faculty/staff/administrative end of academia can feel as if we are pouring into an empty bucket at times, and it's always gratifying to hear otherwise. We really appreciate it.

As a college freshman and/or underclassman (or so I'm assuming) your first job is learning how to collect basic information from the things you read, collate and cite them accurately, and make them converse intelligently with each other in an entry-level piece of academic writing (such as an essay responding to an assigned prompt). So before you have to worry about understanding complex nuance and granular-level fact-checking, the first step is just getting comfortable with academic forms, styles, and conventions. There's an occasional anti-intellectual strand of thinking that pops up on Tumblr, basically insisting that everyone everywhere should be able to understand everything in fifth-grade words and if not then it's Elitist Gatekeeping, but this is a symptom of TikTok brainrot where people's brains have been literally rewired to only process spoon-fed chunks of incredibly simplistic (and uh, often wrong) information, and literally can't parse anything longer, even if it's written in accessible language. Yes, many academics are not necessarily great writers, but you also have to let go of the mindset that you can speed-read once and understand everything. You will need to slow down, take your time, and make a note of concepts that are confusing or that you want to double-check, words you need to look up, and things that make you say "hmm I should look into that more," whether because you're interested or they seem questionable. I always read academic texts or papers (I prefer hard copy, because I am Fucking Old) with a pen in hand, because if I don't, I often feel like I didn't read it at all.

Basically, this is an interactive process between you and the text, and requires you to develop a different kind of reading mentality than just buzzing through a novel or fanfic for pleasure. You have to expect that it will take time and that if you regularly skive off the readings, you won't be prepared for class, your professors will be annoyed, and you won't be able to write good essays, because you haven't engaged with the material. In your case, it sounds like that will be less of a problem, because you are eager to know how to do it right, but I can tell you from my experience that nothing frustrates us more than students who just won't do the reading (and you know, use ChatGPT to write their essays) because then what are you even DOING here? What do you want to get out of this? Why are you wasting your precious tuition money like this? Yes, you probably have to fill a requirement, but STILL. It's disrespectful to your teacher, who has invested a lot of effort in being here to help you with this and doesn't want you to just quit because it looks hard, and your peers, and to you. So anyway, /Captain Holt voice/ apparently that's a trigger for me. Basically, if you learn nothing else from this ask: please do the reading. Even if it's only to admit you need more help or want to talk about this concept in class or otherwise take advantage of all the structures that are in fact there to help you understand it! Thankee.

Likewise, because you're an underclassman, you have an advantage in that your teacher will select the class readings for you ahead of time. That means you will be receiving things that a professional has already checked, decided are useful and trustworthy, and you don't have to do independent research and vetting yourself (that will come if you decide for some godforsaken reason to pursue graduate and/or doctoral study). So you don't need to spend tons of extra time and effort deciding if the sources given to you in class are reliable on a basic and functional level; your professor has already done the work for you to make sure that they are. Your job is now to read those sources, keep a record of what they say (hence the aforementioned pen or other way to make quick notes) and figure out how to put them together in an essay. For example, if Author A cites Factor A as, say, the main cause of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and Author B insists that Factor B was in fact more critical, what is your best approach to reconciling that information? You would search in the rest of those texts to see what else they say in support of their position, and you would probably end up with a qualified statement to the effect of, "While Author A argues A, Author B thinks B, representing the lack of consensus and the difficulty in attributing one single cause to an event as complicated as the fall of Rome." (And then because you're smart, you would go on to mention Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire and show that you are aware of the further context.) All of which is true! Historians do that all the time! You don't need to select THE RIGHT ANSWER and vigorously discredit all other theories, ever, and we tend to look suspiciously on people who do (cough cough Philippa Langley).

In other words, we are certainly not expecting you as a freshman, and even as a more advanced student, to be able to pick out ONE ANSWER from the material. We just want to see evidence that you have in fact read it, are able to evaluate and place theories side by side and possibly make a judgment as to which one you find more compelling, and also to properly cite where you got that information. We've seen a lot recently about plagiarism and that being the pretext on which Harvard president Claudine Gay was forced to resign (which is a whole other can of worms, but never mind). A lot of professors think that saying "Don't Do Plagiarism" is enough, but then don't explain what it is and the different forms it can take. It's not just a matter of copying verbatim chunks of someone else's work (or you know, ALL OF IT, like certain recently discredited YouTube scumbags) and acting like it's your own. If you are relying substantially on someone else's work, whether in their wording, arguments, conclusions, structure, or anything else, even if you've changed some of the words (yep, still plagiarism!), that needs to be cited appropriately according to the relevant style guide. Direct quotes from anyone need to go in quotation marks or indented blocks and have the author cited immediately afterward. History usually uses Chicago, MLA, or MHRA, and you can find cheat sheets for how to do that online. It's a pretty simple and straightforward style, and your professor will be extra impressed.

If you're expected to do an independent project or a senior research thesis, as some undergraduate history students do, then it will come when you have already had three years of experience in reading, evaluating, and writing historical scholarship, you will probably have a faculty member assigned to you for one-on-one mentoring and personalized feedback sessions, and they will be able to provide suggestions and support for useful sources. So even then, you still don't have to do it entirely on your own. They'll probably also be MORE than happy to debate with you which ones are good and which ones are suspect, because it's all a part of developing your ability to flex that muscle for yourself. (And as noted, faculty members Will Have Strong Opinions.) That likewise doesn't mean you just have to copy whatever they say (at least if you have a good teacher who wants you to think for yourself and not just be a mini-clone of their pet theories), but it means that by the time you reach that stage, you will have been prepared enough to feel confident in taking more steps on your own. I think not enough people realize that studying history (or anything, really) isn't just throwing you out there and being like "tough luck sucker, do it all yourself."

That's why academia is so collaborative, why plenty of historians with doctorates and tenure will still have to say "I don't know, let me get back to you" when someone asks them a question at a conference, and you don't have to fear that if you don't have The One Right Answer, you will be immediately exposed as a fraud and thrown out. History as a discipline is also moving away from the 19th-century German approach that attempted to systematize it as a singular social science with One Right Answer, and to focus more on multiple perspectives and incomplete answers. That's why the goal is not necessarily to know everything (which alas, is impossible), but to make better sense of what we can know and search for ways in which the existing record is flawed and needs to be revised, expanded, or reworked with new perspectives (which have existed all this time, but haven't been privileged by the white male western academy for the obvious reasons). And that work is fun and important! I don't want you to be scared of getting to that point, because someone will be there to support you the whole way and by the time you do, it will make sense to you in a way it probably doesn't right now, just because it's a new skill and like any new skill, it takes a long time to learn and to be able to apply confidently, consistently, and at a high level. And plenty of us who do it as a career still often have to say "I don't know, let me ask Dr. So-and-so who specializes in this," so yeah. It's a process of becoming comfortable with both learning how to answer what we can, and to ask others for help with that, and it never really ends. Which is the fun part. There's so much more to do.

Good luck!

#anonymous #ask #history #school stuff #academia: not even once

[gem-in-the-horizon]

I read all of Dungeon Meshi a while ago, and wanted to explore the idea of a mixed race Elf/Half-Foot. As far as I'm aware, Marcille is the only mixed race character we see heavily explored?

In terms of age, what we know is that crosses between long-lived races and short-lived races will have lifespans exceeding both parents, with Marcille estimated to live around 1,000 years. They also mature at an unstable rate, and are unable to have children. Elves reach maturity at around 80, and Tallmen at 15. Marcille was revealed to be 50 recently, meaning despite having an initially delayed growth, she reached maturity (or teenage equivalent) faster than a pure blooded Elf.

For simplicity's sake, because the lifespans of Half-Foots and Tallmen are extremely close, I'm going to assume that a mixed blood Half-Foot / Elf will have the same life expectancy of around 800-1,000 years depending.

For height, the average height of female Half-Foots is 3'1", and the average height for female Elves is 4'11". Males are 3'3" and 5'1" respectively. I think Fransil, being an Elf / Half-Foot, would likely be around 3'9". For those familiar with The Adventurer's Bible or Daydream Hours (most of you if you're on tumblr) you'll know Chilchuck is exceedingly tall for a Half-Foot at 3'7". On the other hand, Otta is a fully grown Elf who is only 4'3", with those extremes in mind, I think it's reasonable to place a mixed race individual at slightly taller than the average height for Half-Foots, given how short Elves can go.

For magic-use, it's been shown that Half-Foots don't have a lot of mana (Marcille ran out of mana after one explosion during the changling arc) so despite having one parent with a high concentration of mana, I feel like prolonged use of magic would not be feasible, and Fransil would rely more on the skills Half-Foots tend to excel in, such as trap-detection.

As for names, Fransil has aspects of names from both heritages! Half-Foots have their first and last name given to them at birth, and their surname is their father's firstname with "s" or "z" added to it (if this doesn't make sense, the wiki explains it better) so Fransil's first name is "Fran" and her second is "sil". For the Elven side, admittedly I'm only aware that Marcille's Elven side of the family is implied to be Italian, so I chose "Fran" as a first name given the number of Italian names like Francesca and Francis that include "Fran" in them.

Elves are adept at identifying mixed-blood Elves but other races aren't so skilled, hence why Marcille having a Tallman father was a surprise to her party. Half-Foots are often mistaken for Tallmen children, but with a Elf / Half-Foot, other races would mistake them for a Elven child. Assuming Fransil matured at an early 50 years by Elven standards, many Elves could recognize her as a mixed-blood Elf, but assume the short-lived parent was a Tallmen and she's still a child by all standards. I think this route is a bit funnier than having Elves just recognize her as an Elf / Half-Foot immediately, as it leaves room for some funny misunderstandings.

Ha, that was a wall of text! I think I'm more invested in the world-building of Dungeon Meshi than I am with the OC herself. If anyone has other thoughts on possibilites, headcannons etc for mixed race Dungeon Meshi characters, please let me know!

#dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi spoilers #dungeon meshi oc #dnd oc art #half-foot #elf #half elf #my ocs #my art #ngl i don't think i'm going to post more of Fransil #i just really really needed to talk about my thoughts for this. i have many #god dungeon meshi has such incredible worldbuilding

[xpc-web-dev]

No, you are not alone. I also start things, give up, procrastinate, live the future and not the present and complain about my life not moving forward while I spend time looking at other people's lives.

Hello everyone, how are you?

I hope well.

I was thinking of giving up this tumblr and just as I started everything from scratch to study programming (github, linkedin, notion and I even created another google account) start a new tumblr.

I even commented briefly a few weeks ago with @lostlibrariangirl who supported me to just continue on this one and see my evolution. And today I was thinking that this could be cool not only for me, but for other dropouts, who are frustrated that they think they'll never get to where they want to go and et cetera.

If you've been following me since the beginning of this year, you've already seen that I never completed any course and I assume that I gave up on the most difficult parts, besides the constant anxiety of getting a job in technology and thinking that I would never get it and that made me procrastinate, suffer and not live the present studying.

I gave up on one of the scholarships I got and now I'm catching up on the delay (it's until the 7/30th)

Nowadays my mental health has improved a lot, thanks to my elders.

And also thanks to them I understood that I was going around in circles, being lazy, not trying 100%, being stubborn in a stupid way (for me stubbornness is a quality, if you know how to use it) and spending too much time on other people's lives and not mine.

Also, today it's easier for me not to feel so much anxiety because I no longer have the goal of getting a job registered as a dev this year, so I'm starting to learn from scratch EVERYTHING AGAIN only this time better and really trying hard.

In my case I wasn't doing my best, trying hard and that's why I fell so many times. I don't like the word failure/failure, as I learned from an older, mistake it's study/learning and not failure.

Now in May, for example, I started studying Linux from scratch (my system that I'm confused to understand), git and github. I was all this time without really understanding these 3 tools, just doing it without understanding / in a lazy way and that didn't give me confidence.

And I don't think we need to memorize it, but it's nice to understand and practice.

This print from above is me studying after writing and repeating to myself that I WILL ONLY START a new cycle after ending the old one.

And I hope to share this journey here.

I have a lot to study, whether in back-end or front-end, but I'm not in a hurry and that's why I'm progressing.

So if you're reading this far and you're going through the same thing I was, I wanted to give you some unsolicited advice.

Spend your energy, do physical exercises. Because anxiety can only be resolved with a psychiatrist, but exercises help.

Understand why you procastine, what is making you feel frustrated or afraid? Did you find out? How can you solve this?

If you don't finish something to start another and it HURTS you (if it doesn't hurt, that's fine), try to understand why you give up? Where is making you insecure / afraid? And after you understand this, strive to finish everything you start (I know it's hard, but we need this)

Get off social media for a bit. For me tumblr is what I spend the least time on, but it's very easy to lose hours on instagram and tiktok.

And guess what, that time we spend doesn't come back and unless you work with these networks that ALSO won't give you any money / jobs.

So, if possible, start to regulate your period in these environments. At first it's difficult because your brain is addicted, but after a while it works out and your version of the future (if you invest that time studying and working) will thank you.

I wish you all to be well and not sabotage yourself to achieve your goals.

#codeblr #woman in stem #software development #womanintech #studyblog #coding #software engineering #code #studyblr #algorithms #study community #discipline #I'm bac #i'm back #Finish what you start to start another #computerscience

[youcouldmakealife]

SOTW: Stephen/Gabe, Bryce/Jared, Brian Foster; mic drop

Here is Brian Foster’s full speech, up to and including the question about the power play. 

I’ve put this on tumblr rather than Patreon because honestly I feel like Brian Foster must be shared with all.

The Canucks are holding a press conference about Bryce and Jared, and Stephen is sitting on his living room couch in front of his TV, rather than at his desk, or even in his home office, where he should be, because it is the start of a work day. Those two things are related.

“Who let me become emotionally invested,” Stephen says. “Clearly I am now, I’m not denying it, but who let me be.”

“You, honestly,” Gabe says, which is true but not appreciated.

It’s early for a press conference, even by eastern standards — ludicrously early compared to the usual press conference starts — which Stephen assumes is so there will be as few eyes as possible on it. Which may have worked before the advent of internet, but not so much anymore.

Stephen hasn’t bitten his nails since he was a teenager, but he’s had to stop himself multiple times in the past few days, and once again he forcibly moves his hands into his lap, squeezing them between his thighs.

“Hey,” he says when Gabe pulls his left hand out of his lap and laces their fingers, but he can’t bite his nails if Gabe has custody of his hand, so it’s just as effective a deterrent, he supposes.

“Nervous?” Gabe asks.

Stephen scoffs.

“Yeah,” Gabe says. “Me too.”

Foster’s on first, before Bryce and Jared, and Stephen’s expecting that one to be by the book, can’t squeeze water from a stone, like most press conferences with GMs are, a lot of words to say very little of consequence.

That is not what happens.

It does start off that way, for the first few softball questions, the lead ins presumably meant to get his guard down, but as soon as the questions become more pointed, it veers off script.

“Were Jared Matheson and Bryce Marcus married when you traded for Marcus?” lands, and Stephen winces, because that opens up a line of questioning he doesn’t think the Canucks want to go down. Not so much them being married, because that’s a verifiable fact, but whether the Canucks knew that, used their relationship as trade leverage.

“That’s something you’d have to ask HR,” Foster says. “And they’re generally pretty big on employee confidentiality.”

Someone says something to him from off-screen, Stephen can tell by the tilt of his head. Stephen bets it’s PR telling him to cut the sarcasm.

“Were you aware that Matheson and Marcus were romantically involved when you traded for Marcus?”

“No comment,” Foster says, clipped. Back on script. Probably his entire script, honestly. “Next question.”

‘No comment, next question’ is the answer to the following question as well. It’s a little more blunt a tool than the way most GMs will equivocate or obfuscate or answer a different question entirely than the question they were asked, but at least it keeps things moving quickly.

“Does their marriage violate a franchise fraternization clause?” an unfamiliar voice asks. “Or the league’s?”

“I’m not sure what your question is here,” Foster says.

“Shit,” Stephen says. He’s gone off script again. Nothing good ever comes out of that.

“I think it’s pretty clear,” the reporter replies.

“You’re asking me like this is a novel situation,” Foster says.

And now he’s back to sarcasm. Which makes Stephen like him more, but he doubts he and Canucks PR have that in common, and it’s not actually good for the situation — a snappy soundbite spreads news, that’s one of the main reasons why Foster is supposed to be as boring as possible.

“Isn’t it?”

“The Ottawa Senators had three out players on the same line at one point,” Foster says. “Two of whom are in a relationship with one another. So what are we talking about here? Why are we even talking about this?”

“The Senators’ checking line,” a reporter says.

“So it’s fine to be gay as long as you aren’t top six? ‘You Can Play, but only as long as you don’t play too well’?” Foster says. “Is that what you’re telling me right now? You want to say that to Marc Lapointe? Or Julien Perreault, while we’re at it? You don’t get to selectively gatekeep this league. Either it’s fine or it’s not. Pick a fucking side and stick with it.”

“He’s getting fined by the league for this,” Stephen says, utterly fascinated. “Five figures at least.”

“Shut up,” Gabe hisses.

“You come here, wringing your hands about best business practices,” Foster says. “When a decade ago both Riley and Lapointe went to the Habs as a package deal. Did you forget about that or are you just coming here with a bullshit line of reasoning so you can pretend you’re not being homophobic as you’re asking homophobic questions? You don’t get to have it both ways, you don’t get to say their sexuality has nothing to do with this and then turn right around and ask me if I knew about their sexuality when I signed them. That’s not how this works.”

“I’m going to kiss this man,” Stephen says.

“Shhhhh,” Gabe says. “And come on, Brian’s my boss!”

“Who is getting sexier by the second,” Stephen says.

“I don’t even recognise half the faces here,” Foster says. “You come in from probably — TMZ, or Deadspin, or Barstool Sports, or whatever the hell shitstain bottom-feeder publication, you don’t give a shit about the Canucks. You sniffed out a story, congratulations. How dare you come here and talk to me about best business practices when you’re trying to sink two careers just because two men love each other. Why is this a story? They’re not the first to come out in the league. We’re at two hands here, guys. We’re running out of fingers before we hit double digits.

“You want to ask about our plans for the power play or our LTIR situation, I’m here, but as far as this subject is concerned, no comment to all further questions. And I don’t care if you make me out as a bad guy, I don’t care if I get fined for this. Know that I am saying this with the approval of ownership on down: this organization doesn’t give a flying fuck about how you decide to spin this, or what the league says, or fair-weather fans that claim they’re going to cheer for another team over this. We care about the players in our organization. And we stand behind them a hundred percent.”

“Drop the mic,” Stephen whispers. “Walk out.”

Gabe elbows him.

“Fred Simpson, the Athletic.”

Stephen glances at Gabe. Simpson’s never rubbed him the wrong way, which is frankly extraordinary for a reporter — well, never rubbed him the wrong way except when he criticises Gabe for any reason, fairly or not, but Stephen is fully aware he is not objective when it comes to Gabe — but Gabe will have a better read on him for obvious reasons.

“Freddie’s good people,” Gabe confirms.

“Go ahead Freddie,” Foster says.

“About the power play,” Simpson says, and Foster slumps with relief in the exact same way Gabe does.

“Well,” Stephen says, when it’s back to an empty podium, except for a staff member adding an additional chair for Bryce and Jared’s portion of the press conference.

“Well,” Gabe agrees.

“No one in your franchise has any chill whatsoever,” Stephen says.

“Nope,” Gabe agrees.

“Except you,” Stephen allows.

“I have very little chill on the inside,” Gabe says, which Stephen is well aware of, thank you, though nobody else seems to be, or would believe Stephen if he told them. Still, even the appearance of chill is more than anyone else has. He’s kind of dreading Bryce and Jared’s press conference. More than kind of.

“Can I make popcorn?” Stephen asks.

“It’s ten in the morning,” Gabe says, which does not, in Stephen’s opinion, count as a no.

“You better pause it for me if it starts early,” Stephen says, and goes to make himself a snack.

#fic snippet #SOTW #gabe markson #stephen petersen #brian foster #bryce marcus #jared matheson

[eddiezpaghetti]

Hallo! Like many other people, I found you thanks to the incredible piece on why Byler IS GONNA be endgame. In your second/response post on this matter you briefly mentioned Supernatural, Teen Wolf and Sherlock, and I was wondering if you could make direct comparisons to these cases and explain how exactly they differ from Byler. If you knew about these shows while they were still airing, did you also strongly believe or at least had a bit of hope that those ships would become canon? If no, what are the main differences that make ST's pair so unique? If yes, do you believe you overlooked/assumed things back then that you now account for better? And sorry if this is an annoying or repetitive question, I imagine you've gotten a bunch of similar requests and you might want to distance yourself from the topic alr + from what little I know about those 2010s shows I can already kind of predict the answer myself thanks to your definitions of queerbaiting v queer-coding v accidental romance, so I guess this is more of an excuse so I get a chance to read another one of your masterful posts, apologies for that hehe <3

Honestly, I used those examples because they're really well-known in general, not because I'm an expert on those pieces of media. A piece of media I probably know better on a personal level that did queerbaiting isn't even a great example because it was just on such a small scale, but definitely still held true under "We're doing this simultaneously to pander to and make fun of queer people," but no one was too invested because it was with a minor character, so no one cared much, and no one really believed was going to happen. Tonally, though, it matches up with the other examples, and it's another piece of shit that came straight outta Moffat's ass. Uhh...

Yes, that's James Corden. Not relevant. The important thing is that this is a scene that works as an example of what The Queerbaiting Tone™ feels like.

If you haven't seen Doctor Who--first of all, how did you find Tumblr, but more importantly--this character was in a whopping two episodes. Minor character, had a love interest, but his relationship with the Doctor was still remarkably, like, intimate?

The doctor's companions never joined him on the episodes he was with this character, they were roommates for a while (oh my god they were roommates), they had the whole one-sided-rivals thing (Corden's character was jealous of how the Doctor seemed to charm everyone around him while the Doctor just wanted Corden's character safe and happy), there was a goddamn scene where Corden's character got poisoned and the Doctor nursed him back to health complete with staying at his bedside and gently brushing the hair out of his eyes and all that shit... And the second episode Craig (I just remembered the character's name--shut up, it's been a while) was in happened because the Doctor was informed he was about to die and he decided Craig was someone he wanted to see just one last time.

Then the above scene happened.

And you can see that, like, it's blatantly a joke, Craig mentions he has a wife, he's such a minor character that no one actually believes he's going to romance the Doctor and run away with him, but all of the genuine moments between them still happened. This is still a character the Doctor (normally a ~mysterious~ character) chose to have a goddamn Vulcan-style mind-meld with.

And, again, this was a joke. The punchline is the idea of them being gay. Hilarious. Two men being in love. Absolutely ground-breaking humor.

Queerbaiting is just that scene, and those two episodes of Doctor Who, but with a much longer buildup to the punchline. The longer that buildup is, the more real it feels. The more effort is spent on it, the more you want to believe it's too much effort to be a joke. And the more space is spread about between them, the harder it is to remember all the little micro-jokes the big joke is made of.

And again, Byler has never had that. Stranger Things has never had that. I'd love to show every goddamn scene with a queer character or queerness mentioned in the show just to prove that it's not the same, but that's hard because it's harder to show the absence of something than the presence of something. It'd take too long. And the sincere scenes that do make up Will and Mike's love story, those are between the jokes with queerbaiting. Again, there was a scene in Doctor Who where Craig got poisoned and the Doctor stayed by his bedside and made him tea and did his work for him in the meantime so he wouldn't fall behind. But, again, that's between jokes.

Mike and Will have never developed their relationship between jokes. They're not a punchline. There's no joke here. It's only Mike desperately calling Will's name through the radio when he hears him singing. It's only Mike saying that meeting him was the best thing he's ever done. It's only Will tearfully telling Mike that he wanted to play games with him for the rest of his life. It's only Will giving Mike a veiled confession by projecting his feelings onto El. Over and over and over again, it's sincere, sincere, sincere, sincere, sincere.

Their closeness isn't funny, it's just love. And that's the difference.

#This post was longer at first because I started ranting about how the world has changed since this clip came out. #And it HAS. No one laughs at gay people like they used to. #And if people aren't laughing why would you make the joke? #Queerbaiting is going out of style. It actually is dude. But even if it weren't Byler would still be safe. #byler #stranger things meta

[wesavegotham]

Batman vs Robin #1

Well, it's good that Tumblr allows more than 10 pictures nowadays, this is a long issue with lots of dialogue. I'm not really going to talk about the first few pages with Alfred coming back because we've all seen those and this will be too long as it is. Let's get into it.

So Bruce goes down to the batcave and is greeted by Damian, Jakeem Thunder and Tim Hunter:

Despite showing a lot of doubts about Alfred's return and questioning him for hours earlier, Bruce doesn't show the same amount of confusion when his son waits for him in the batcave seemingly to murder him. His first reaction is to present himself as authoritative and angry with Damian. As if he had already expected his son to return to him agressive sooner or later.

When you remember how Bruce and Damian parted ways in Robin #15 this doesn't make sense. Under Williamson Bruce tried to be softer and more understanding with Damian and Damian left him on friendly terms. Waid not caring for what other writers have done with Damian is an issue that will become even more apparent in a second.

"He's always been egocentric, ruthless, impatient to replace me, but this..."😒

Even if I try to ignore that Damian hasn't been serious about wanting to replace whoever is currently wearing the mantle in AGES, Damian has made it clear in Teen Titans Annual 2, when he left Bruce again at the end of Tomasi's run on Detective Comics and in Robin #15 by Williamson that he's trying to get out of Batman's shadow and wanting to find out who he is away from the two legacies he was born into. So why is Waid making Bruce think that? Damian has made it clear enough that this isn't what he desires. Why is Bruce only thinking that Damian must not be quite himself because he tries to kill him now? Bruce describing Damian with all these negative attributes is also making it hard to believe something Bruce tries to say later.

I will admit that it's nice that this Damian calls out the "I love you, but sometimes I truly don't like you" line from Tomasi's last Tec arc. But I really don't know why this Damian acts like Bruce hasn't apologized for how he treated Damian after Alfred's death. Bruce has told Damian that he doesn't blame him and that it wasn't his fault. We've been over this. And ever since Teen Titans annual 2 Bruce has tried to get him back as Robin and to come back home. Bruce hasn't rejected Damian. He could have done a better job as a father, but he didn't do that.

This page really makes me wonder how possessed Damian actually is. I mean of course he is possessed by Nezha. But Waid mentioned in an interview that Nezha is bringing Damian's struggles back to the surface. So...is Waid saying that all of this IS deep down in Damian? And Nezha is just triggering it? Erm...not sure if I like that. It ignores too much of Damian's developement and makes it appear as if Damian's changes weren't genuine and just on the surface.

Bruce trying to say what I assume was supposed to be "You are the son I wanted" kinda doesn't land when you remember how unfavorable Bruce thinks of Damian in the beginning. The son you wanted is in your own words "egocentric, ruthless and impatient"? Er...yeah, doesn't sound like it, does it.

Something about the "I only wish you were wearing pearls" line makes me cringe.

Alfred just comes of as MUCH more emotionally affected and invested in rescuing Damian than Bruce is. And yeah, I get that's partially because Bruce is Bruce. But when you feel the need to write ANOTHER Batman vs Robin story then it would be great if Bruce would show more feelings than just "guess I have to free my asshole of a son now". Why should I care when the protagonist barely does?

It's just great how the characters pay lipservice to Damian not being himself, but otherwise completely act like Damian is the enemy here😑

Waid really tries to make you take Damian as the antagonist serious, but it simply doesn't work. This is a kid. I don't ask myself "will Damian beat Bruce and take over as Batman?", not even for a second. Damian in a batman suit is cute, not threatening.

As for the last page, I'm aware we don't know why Damian freed Nezha yet. Waid might reveal that it wasn't actually his fault like the last line implies. But trying to make it appear like Damian is responsible, even just at the beginning of your story, doesn't make me feel excited. You only earn a tired eye-roll from me.

I really hope this story will improve over the next few issues because this didn't catch me. And you might think "isn't this person usually totally in favor of Bruce getting called out? Why isn't she happy with this?"

Well, not every callout is created equal. There is a difference between a good guy calling out Bruce and a bad guy calling him out. If a bad guy calls Bruce out there is always this sense that their words don't have to be taken to heart because they are completely evil themselves. Criticism from a good character feels way more valid and serious. I also feel like this Damian talks way too much. It's almost as if Waid knows that this conflict feels forced and tries to justify it by having Damian throw everything at Bruce at once, even the issues that got already solved or never existed in the first place.

But hey, it looks like Alfred is back? Yay!

#damian wayne #bruce wayne #batman vs robin

[rocketturtle4]

Thai QL Favorites Tag game

This is my first tag game I’m rather excited,

Thanks @waitmyturtles and @lurkingshan for the tag.

My time on Tumblr has been less than 2 months, and prior to this I primarily watched TV for escapism and wasn’t particularly fussed about how closely shows adhered to reality or its values, so some of that will definitely be reflected here. (Previous genres of TV I’ve been invested in are anime and fantasy, I have seen soooo little western romance or queer cinema or high school movies or a lot of things).

Disclaimer: Emphasis on favourite over best

Also I appreciate Thai BL way more since coming to Tumblr but I have seen rather few shows in that time so there’s a ton I need to watch or rewatch with context that I haven’t yet (Moonlight Chicken, The eclipse, Bed Friend, ITSAY, He’s Coming to Me, My School President and more) so I can’t include them on this list like everyone else seems to be!

I honestly think brevity is an extremely envious skill, and I do not have such skills so here goes.

Favorite Thai QL: SOTUS S (Including the Our Skyy episode) or maybe To Sir With Love, It hasn't been long enough for me to tell yet but both those shows made me scream in different ways

Favorite Pairing: I assumed this was like character couple but some Tumblr searching suggests otherwise. I have watched 0 behind the scene’s footage except what rolls through tumblr and my youtube shorts and I am still learning actors names (Y’all have a habit of referring to actors in photos by their pairing name (e.g. offgun) without context on which one is WHICH so it’s hard to learn names that way lol.

Having said that I started watching BL because Between Us was airing and rolled through my youtube shorts and my first 3 BLs were all watched because of BounPrem (BU, UWMA & Cutie Pie) because I liked their dynamic.

Most underrated actor: see previous statement on my actor confusion. I'll sit down and make a list with pictures one day... or maybe not because that seems creepy

Favorite Character: Arthrit. Seriously I have rarely gotten so attached to a single character, I loved him so much, my demi ass had no idea what I was supposed to do with my actual fricken emotions. I finished SOTUS S with 50 screenshots of him FOR NO REASON. Also, Ae in Love by Chance killed me dead.

Favorite Side Character: I’m taking this as a pairing and choosing ForthBeam from 2 Moons 2, a very recent watch of mine. I thought MingKit was going to be my favourite part of that series and then ForthBeam showed up and knocked them straight out of the park.

Favorite scene in a QL: I sat here for a while deciding whether or not honesty was the best policy, and I decided yes it was SO:

It’s from Love In The Air and it’s a scene between Pai and Sky where Sky is sleeping (nearly recovered from being sick) and the camera switches between Sky’s sleeping, somewhat exposed self and Pai and his ever fraying control as he looks at and away from Sky's sleeping form and he leans closer, and closer, even as he tells himself not to, even as he speaks out loud 'not to loose control now' he leans closer still. Then Sky wakes up, just as Pai’s face is centimetres from his, and Sky asks ‘are you going to jump me P’Pai’ and Pai breathes rather quickly and heavily as he leans back stands up and announces that he needs to use the bathroom before walking swiftly away.

THE RESTRAINT, IT KILLS ME OKAY.

(if this wasn’t Thai only Takara-kun to Amagi-kun’s restraint scene would win)

(I did not have to look that up, this scene LIVES in my brain, at all times)

Although Tian & Lomfon’s final confession and kiss has been looping so often it might be a serious contender, It’s just too soon to say.

Favorite line in a QL: It’s not technically one line but AePete in the locker room after the makeout where Ae asks Pete to be his boyfriend (or some variation thereof) SEVEN TIMES wins for me. That boy is determined to have a clear answer.

Most Anticipated QL (& why): I don’t keep track of upcoming BL, that’s 70% of the reason I initially got Tumblr, everyone’s excited for Only Friends so that one. Or there was one with the pair from Bed Friends that looked interesting, or ZeeNew’s actually with the prince.

Healthiest relationship in a QL: I have not thought about this very hard, but WinTeam maybe? Although they need to communicate better. Also ForthBeams relationship actually seems really healthy too.

Most toxic relationship in a QL: VegasPete, although a rewatch of Kinnporsche with additional context might change my thoughts, (also I haven’t seen tharntype)

Guilty pleasure series: Don’t Say No & Love in the Air although I feel guiltier about the second and I love the first more.

Most Underrated Series: I do not know enough about how series have been rated to make a call, but I was shocked to be told La Pluie was doing badly on mdl so that one.

I tried to check who’d already been tagged and not double up so there arent a lot, but feel free to ignore either way! @shouldiusemyname, @plantsarepeopletoo, @troubled-mind @dribs-and-drabbles

#tag game #rturts is wondering #this was fun thanks for the tags!

[iphisesque]

hi gio can you please direct me to some jjk meta? honestly I did not notice the grooming thing with gojo and megumi and I want to talk about it with my mutuals, but none of them seem to have even considered this theme as well, I tried searching through the jjk tag but you and your circle are the only people talking about it 😩 also is it really true that gege said he hates gojo?

hi dear! starting from the easier question here, haha — gege has made reference to his dislike of gojo on several occasions, both in-story and in extra material! there's constant remarks in the text and paratextual materials on gojo's terrible personality and his creepiness and how much other characters dislike him (like nanami or utahime, characters gege writes as sensible and reasonable), and gege himself often makes sarcastic comments about gojo, i remember when gojo won some type of valentine's day contest in shonen jump gege's only comment was "well, i guess he's not dead yet" LMAO. i have seen some people say that in japan this type of needling from an author to a character can be considered a form of respect, but im doubtful as to how much water that holds, so take all that with a grain of salt.

as for the meta — i assume you mean meta about the relationship between gojo and megumi, of which there is a sore lack on tumblr! the jjk fandom on here is quite monotonous and self-righteous and it tends to coagulate around stsg, itfs or self-insert ships, and there's not many people who write meta in general (the most notorious one being lele of tempenensis), let alone meta for a "problematic ship" that doesn't have a large presence here in the first place. i myself emigrated to twitter to find more meta or analysis posts on gojo and megumi, where i encountered the proship side of the argument, or the people who are actually hardcore into shipping gofushi as a normal hot dreamlike couple while completely ignoring its canon aspects (here is why i don't "ship" gofushi); that said, there's a lot of people over there, even shippers, who are invested in dissecting their canon dynamic, such as seaurchincage who writes threads explaining nuances in japanese, or this specific thread by s0ftymegumi which is fairly thorough in collecting all the crumbs of gojo and megumi characterization. unfortunately there is no great big tumblr meta that i know of explaining why and how gojo groomed megumi yet, though we should probably write one at some point, but as you well know you can find a lot of smaller posts about it browsing me and my mutuals' jjk tags; it might seem silly, but the best advice i can give you is to reread jjk with this interpretation in mind and you will start noticing a lot of things to support it — this goes for anything really, i clocked the grooming subtext on my first read but i didn't clock the sukufushi subtext until my reread when i was already partially skfs-pilled.

#jjk

[lumenflowered]

OOC: Right so the readmore just entirely gave up on my new and hopefully final intro post, so. Fuck it, we ball, I'm putting my OOC info here.

Hi. I'm Hope, you may find me elsewhere at @ofstormsandfire where I am routinely not remotely normal about my favorite fictional characters. One of said faves is Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower, because I am really enjoying Bloodborne and also she's just. She's just a really cool character okay. Yes I know she has four lines it's about the ~implications~ y'all.

Last summer, a lot of my friends were getting really into pokeblogging so I made one myself, but I have not gotten anywhere near as invested with any of my other ones as I have with this one. Because I had the thought, the critical thought that started all this, that was "oh hey, people are throwing their faves from other pieces of media into here, I could totally do that too."

And then, near the end of November last year, I thought for too long about how hilarious it would be to throw someone from a tonally incongruous piece of media like Bloodborne into the comparatively much kinder world of Pokémon.

And then I thought for too long about how I could throw this woman who was, in all likelihood, extremely traumatized at a world far kinder than anything she'd ever known before. About how this could be a journey about healing, about falling back in love with life.

...And then I came up with the blog url and it was really all over for me from there.

My own ramblings on how this blog came about aside, Bloodborne is a horror game, it is normally fairly dark. Canon-typical themes for Bloodborne will be present, but I'll do my best to tag for anything that isn't your usual pokeblogging fare and if you'd like anything I'm not already tagging for to be tagged, just lmk, I'm happy to.

And now, assuming my readmore works here (I have my suspicions as to why it isn't on the other post) have some navigational tags under the cut!

Story tags!

#firebird arc: I combined the Radio Tower takeover and the Ho-oh subplot, made the Kimono Girls more relevant, and ramped up the stakes. Ho-oh is a firebird and I think there's a type of rocket called the firebird. I like puns.

#from the ashes arc: Giovanni became an actual threat, there got to be an entire Rocket base in Tohjo Falls, and Silver got traumatized more. Mind the tags and also the warning OOC post at the beginning.

#kanto rocket arc: There wasn't much to do in Kanto so I had Rocket start causing problems on purpose. Silver transed her gender and Giovanni... seemed to no longer be a problem at the end of it.

#downpour arc: This hasn't started yet, and won't for a little while, but I've got one post in the tag already establishing it and letting people know what's up OOC ahead of time.

Character tags!

(...I really should think about making a character tag for Ade at some point. That would require going back and tagging so many posts and I don't actually have an idea for her yet, but maybe sometime in the future.)

#passing stranger: Dee (better known as the Plain Doll in Bloodborne canon) is here! And is now on the blog full-time because I love her and it made thematic sense! The earliest posts from her are from her 24-hour takeover back in February, before anyone knew who she was in-character and Dee was then very invested in keeping it that way.

#milf time and sonboy hours, #milf time: The first tag was specifically posts from Ethan and Reina, but Tumblr stole my yellow and I think stealing it back broke the cut on the other post so I'm not going to risk using it here. Ethan might show up again occasionally, Reina is more likely to show up on her own though. She likes birds and may or may not have had a bisexual awakening when her kid brought a Faller home.

#rainbow wings: Posts from (or sometimes relating to) Ho-oh. They don't post that often but they're a giant rainbow bird they can do what they want. What they want, when they happen to be online, is generally for injustice to Not Happen. Good luck buddy this is the internet.

#the first to fall: The Hunter from Maria's world taking on the role of the player character in Bloodborne. Her name's Mallory, she got the Childhood's Beginning ending for people that means anything to, and she was a Faller in the other direction before dragging herself and Dee into the world of Pokémon. (And, unintentionally, Maria too. She's probably the only unintentional tag-along, though. Right?)

#what's with this sassy lost child?: Posts from Silver, before she got her own blog at @cosmic-crobat. These days she mostly uses her own blog, but she'll still get blue text when she shows up in recordings.

Misc other tags!

#ask game: Reblogs of ask games and responses to said ask games. This one isn't chronological.

#hints to the future: Specifically, responses to that one ask game with the gear emojis that lets you hint at future events. I am always accepting asks for this one no matter how long it's been since I last reblogged that ask game. I like hinting toward what's to come and I like writing prose.

#glimpses of the past: That one ask game with the hourglasses that lets you see into the muse's past. Again, always open because I love writing prose and I can write out prose for things that have already happened this way.

#pelipper mail: It's open, it keeps happening, it keeps causing problems. Note that while I do not have magic anons on, if you're sufficiently creative with Pelipper Mail and it isn't too story-breaking you can probably get a similar effect to a magic anon that way.

#sword lesbian things: Silly and fairly self-explanatory. For when Maria's doing things with her sword, now that she has it back.

#the death hole: Scarvio DLC spoilers! Maria decided to Pelipper Mail herself to Paldea to help a friend. The death hole lived up to its reputation, and she will probably be Pelipper Mailing herself to try and solve other people's problems by ignoring her own more often in future.

#the vampire allegations: Silly tag for posts involving the recurring jokes about Maria being a vampire. It keeps happening, due to her entire aesthetic and also me deciding she can be allergic to garlic for coincidental and completely mundane reasons.

#ooc: please spaghetti code don't fail me now #ooc post

[avarindigenous]

this is much more of a personal complaint than a deep musing on the nature of fandom as a whole, and since it is personal I welcome other perspectives and I would appreciate discussion about it. mostly, I want to speak about this because it’s more immediately painful to me than even the Finrod-as-Mighty-Whitey situation, and I’d welcome anything anyone else has to say.

I’ll begin with the point I’m trying to make: it’s extremely alienating to see people pay lip service to the concept of wanting a diverse vision of Arda and then primarily reblog or engage with fanart where everyone, even characters with relatively long-established fanon where they’re black or brown, is white. it feels hypocritical, and is frankly one of the most upsetting parts of being on Tumblr. it keeps me out of character tags, and makes me wonder if being part of the wider community is worth it when I’m not interested in furthering that aesthetic.

I’m not saying that the act of giving engagement to these pieces is inherently racist. the situation is significantly more complex than that, and no one (as far as I know) is actively doing this on purpose. I want to have a conversation about this, not come out swinging.

I’m aware that for whatever reason the Tumblr fandom is going through a period of “everyone is white”, and that as a result for characters like Fingon the only art that’s getting made is of white people. I also understand that since these are books, everyone is free to interpret characters however they please.

what I am saying is that I don’t understand why there’s not been more pushback against that shift. when the idea to make Arda more diverse first emerged, it seemed to be a welcome change that made left-leaning online fandom spaces more inclusive and took a stand against the more vocally racist groups who love Tolkien’s works for explicitly racist reasons. even though this blog is new, I’ve been a lurker here for a long time, and I’m not sure what’s changed that means suddenly we’re all not just tolerant of but glorying in the presence of overwhelmingly white (and heterosexual, but that’s a topic for another day) fanart and fancasts.

I suppose it was unrealistic of me to assume that a largely white fandom was actually invested in racially diverse visions of the cast of these books, instead of merely going with the flow. there’s also a chance that several people have simply left the fandom, and the new artists aren’t aware of long-standing traditions. but this shift makes me (and, I’m going to guess, many other fans of color) feel alienated and unsafe. it makes me wonder why anyone bothered supporting diversity in Arda in the first place, why they crafted a space I felt comfortable in only to pull the rug out from under me. a commitment to diversity doesn’t just mean highlighting creators of color or joining in on the zeitgeist. it means consciously prioritizing nonwhite depictions of characters, or at the very least giving them equal space with white ones. it means following and engaging with editors and gif makers and graphic makers and fanartists who focus on representations of a nonwhite Arda. it also means learning how to spot which artists are (consciously or unconsciously) racist in their depictions of the characters, and not engaging with those people.

I am aware these are irrational emotions, and I’m inviting conversation because I would like to get a better understanding of the reality of the situation. in fact, the above paragraph is as kind as I can manage to be because I know I’m being irrational. but I gave voice to my feelings because I wanted people who might not be aware of how upsetting it is to be told “you’re not welcome” simply because you only ever see people who look like white Europeans in a space that is not required to be inherently white or inherently European. I can take vocal racism and dismissal from people who I already know are going to dislike me. finding out that spaces explicitly framed as inclusive and welcoming when it comes to racial diversity don’t seem to be interested in prioritizing the inclusion of characters of color is more upsetting than being told “you’re a racist for saying Finrod is often depicted as a white savior” (something I was, in fact, actually told, and something I’m still attempting to understand).

the simple fact that I feel as if this space is inherently less welcoming to me does not automatically mean that there is actual hostility. I also know that there are older works, and that the characters who are most popular right now were always seen as white, regardless of whether or not they actually were white in the text.

but I would like to say that going into a character tag and only seeing white faces is extremely disheartening. it used to be the truth that any number of conceptions of a character were present. why can’t we go back to that?

#silmarillion #silmarillion meta #I really would like people to give their thoughts on this #please reply and reblog and I'll respond to as much of it as I can #as usual racists will be blocked though

[waheelawhisperer]

Alright so, not my kind to send these kind of asks, but I feel like I have to because I'm genuinely curious.

First of all, what did Rhine Lab, and specifically Saria/Silence fans have done to you to get to this amount of hate? While I agree some are debatably like the satyric description you've made, the majority are not just braincelless idiots. If anything, these people are probably the most invested in character psychology and symbolism in the fandom. Thinking that fans give them no personality trait is outright wrong, and their creator themselves is investing a lot in those characters to make them deep and symbolic. People aren't stupid 6-years old playing dolls like you may think, the reason why they would be invested in these characters is primarily because they are interesting to analyze in a psychological point of view.

Secondly, these characters are bound to get along. This is not even some take from a highcore fan, it's just that it's meant to happen. NoriZC left a lot of hints and their entire relationship is based on family and trust. From their words, "grass and rocks will always compliment each other over time", with the grass being Silence and the rocks Saria. It's not some fanfiction with a long slowburn just to end in romantic cliché, it's a story of trust and healing. It takes time to show your true heart and accept someone within, it's true for these characters and for actual people. While it doesn't have to be outright romantic, these characters undeniably share a really strong familial bond, that "friend" or "best friend" simply can't fit. I agree that there's very low chances that the characters actually end up in an amorous relationship, because gacha game be this way, but it seems very implied by NoriZC that they support this, as they retweeted and liked fanarts of them being shown as a couple, and they already supported wlw couples before.

Lastly, I just don't think you can claim these characters have nothing interesting, and that Rhine Lab has no influence over the entirety of Terra. A lot of things, even in the main scenario - Rosmontis for an example - were caused or a consequence of Rhine Lab's actions. And so much more is to come with Lone Trail, this is simply just one of the most powerful company in all over Terra. And just like the Seaborn, this is a highly dangerous threat slowly building itself up and that will end up being destructive, as Kal'tsit herself wishes to avoid facing Rhine Lab (Mountain's files).

Is symbolism and character building so unknown to you? Is it something only your beloved Nearl can have, or can you actually open your heart more?

Lone Trail releasing reminded me that this was sitting in my inbox lmao

I'm going to do you the courtesy of assuming this ask was sent in good faith and isn't an attempt to troll me, despite the egregious misunderstanding of my position, and answer it accordingly.

To start with, I don't specifically hate Rhine Lab or Saria/Silence fans over any other given group. I dislike/am ambivalent about a large number of other popular ships for precisely the same reason I don't care for Saria/Silence: their fanbases are full of morons who ignore the complexities of the multifaceted characters involved in favor of reducing them to one-dimensional caricatures with no defining traits beyond being another character's girlfriend or uwu cute representation (or, if they're lucky, being "toxic lesbians" in the most milquetoast ways imaginable). I've spent enough time on multiple platforms to determine that most of this fandom is stupid as shit. Saying that "fans giving these characters no personality traits is outright wrong" is objectively incorrect and easily disproven if you spend a little time reading comics on reddit or pixiv or even tumblr itself. If Saria/Silence fans are the "most invested in character psychology and symbolism in the fandom", it's only because there's so little competition. The primary reason most of them are invested in these characters isn't because they are "interesting to analyze from a psychological point of view", unless by that you mean the fanbase wants to psychologically analyze their desire to taste each other's lips.

What the characters' creator invested in them to make them deep and symbolic is irrelevant. They could've packed every instant of Silence and Saria's onscreen appearances full of the deepest possible messaging and symbolism and it wouldn't have mattered because the fanbase would've ignored all that shit anyway in favor of forcing them into simplistic premade character/relationship templates like it actually did and continues to actually do with other interesting and complex characters and relationships. Frankly, nothing in the second paragraph actually matters unless the person saying them actually has influence over or speaks for the people writing the story. Whatever the artist believes doesn't change the fact that a) as of the moment I made the post this ask is responding to*, I felt that it was plausible based on the evidence presented strictly by canon material that Saria and Silence would not reconcile or enter a romantic relationship with each other, and b) the fanbase is stupid and doesn't give a shit about authorial intent if it gets in the way of mashing the pretty anime JPEGs together like dolls.

To address the third paragraph, I can claim whatever I want. I didn't say Rhine Labs lacked narrative relevance and doesn't have influence on the lore, I said I thought its storylines and characters were (mostly) boring. I know it's connected to Rosmontis and Mountain, I know it's a threat, I know more is coming with the release of Lone Trail, I simply do not care. I don't find anything about Rhine Labs besides Saria interesting enough to want a game with a bloated cast and a narrative that already moves at a crawl to allocate its limited resources in that direction. Don't confuse a lack of interest for a lack of understanding.

Yeah symbolism's just for Nearl, glad we're on the same page here

*I got this ask like two weeks ago and Lone Trail released today. I haven't read it. I don't know if I'm going to.

#arknights

[rilli-luci]

What does Pro/Shipper Mean?

I’m only typing this cause I had to explain to a friend why the label of pro/shipper is so controversial and I like to act on the benefit of the doubt that some people may not be informed so under the cut I’m gonna explain this and why there’s so 

I’m not really gonna debate the morality of it but I am going to just explain the general gist of the term and WHY a lot of people don’t like the word and I hope it helps some people when it comes to fandom labels.

Reblog if you want but please do not come to my inbox or IMs to debate this topic. This is an information post ONLY. Not a discussion one.

Warning before you read, this post will cover Problematic Ships with triggering topics. They are mentioned for the sake of information. But I don’t want to unintentionally trigger anyone.

Going to start with the fact that this word has changed meaning over time. When I first got into tumblr rp and heard this term, it meant a completely different thing than it does now. And I think this is important cause when words change meaning and people just may not know, it can lead to a lot of misunderstandings that could be avoided if people just y’know...communicated. But that’s besides the point.

Pro/shipper at some point USED to mean one who supports a specific ship or shipping in general.

I’m currently very much so still in my Owl House hyperfixation so I will be using ships from this fandom to better explain the point. So if you are a big fan of Goldric (Hunter x Edric) then you were considered a pro/shipper for that ship. The opposite of this would be an Anti-Shipper as you did not like this ship. There was nothing generally wrong with being pro or anti as long as the ship was not problematic. Most of the discourse came from Antis sorta flooding the tags of the ships either due to their pettiness or tumblr’s shitty tagging system.

HOWEVER that is not the case now. Roughly around the 2010s (I like to think it happened somewhere around 2012-2015) the word changed its meaning.

That’s because people who supported what are called Problematic Ships.

These are your ships (with examples) that ignore canon sexualities of one or both parties of a ship (such as Hunter x Amity), are in/cest (Such as Lilith x Eda),have inappropriate age differences (such as any ship regarding a minor and an adult), those that display abusive dynamics ( such as Lilith x Belos ), etc. Ships that generally will make the average fan feel uncomfortable.

Some people who highly enjoyed problematic ships started using the term Pro/Shipper as a way to either defend their ships or justify their reasons as to why they were okay.

At this point the meaning has changed.

Pro/shipper NOW means one who supports a ship or shipping deemed problematic and/or believes in the freedom to create and consume fanworks with such elements.

Now content with toxic or abusive dynamics is more of a gray area, they’ve sorta always existed even before fandom culture became what it is today and it of course isn’t just purely tied to ships (For example, Hunter and Belos have this dynamic but are HOPEFULLY not a ship). Its all dependent on if the person making the content genuinely ships it or is making content for some other purpose that’s far less problematic and its complicated and definitely a case by case basis. But for the previous problematic examples, well there’s really no reason to ship in/cest now is there? Its just pretty gross. 

So when a person says “I’m a pro/shipper” today while there is a good chance they’re very much so meaning the first definition, it may be automatically assumed by others that they mean they are the latter. And for those other people, they may not have the energy or time to invest in meeting this person and learning what they think a pro/shipper is and if they still stand by that label if they know the connotations it presents. Its generally safer to them to just call it a lost and not interact.

So if you read this and  you still think this label is for you, then this is the sort of risk you are taking by taking on this label. Does it suck? Maybe, depending on who you are. But like I said, this post is meant to inform people and I’ve done just that.

Words have power now and days, more than people know. Especially when it comes to labels.  And when words change meaning like this one did, then I feel its important that everyone gets on the same page.

#psa #fandom culture #fandom terminology #tw: incest mention #tw: abuse mention #tw: toxic relationships #tw: proship #tw: abusive dynamics mention #tw: homophobia mention #tw: lesbiphobia mention #tw: problematic ships #I think I tagged everything but if I didn't please tell me

[kurohtak1]

Butch/Femme and the Black experience

So I was workign on my comic triple moon and simultaneously scrolling through tumblr when i came across someones post about butch/femme relationships. As a young lesbiann i was really really invested in those kinds of dynamics. But now as a adult i forgot what it was about. Since i was working on some things for my comic, i decided to freshen up my memory about it.

As I read some artciles and texts about it i found myself getting steadily irked and i wanted to investigate why. after more research, some writing, and thought i realized something. Butch/femme relationships would never work for me. And here's why. First of all, I am a black nonbiary lesbian. A lot of my experience with gender and sexuality are dependent on my race. As a black person, my autonomy was stolen from me. From the day i was born, till the day i die, everything i do and say will be dictated to me based on the color of my skin.

My emotions will never be my own. If i do not act a certain way i am dictated as the violent black person. Or I'm the saintly black person that dictates anothers perspectives on black people as a whole. My presentation will never be my own. Black women are forcefully masculanized from day one and are not even considered to be women under white supremacy and eurocentric standards, and black men are seen as monsters for similar reasons. So what about black queer people? They get it worse.

See, butch and femme mainly meant white people. It always has. If it didn't, why is stud the word used for BLACK masc lesbians? And also, what does it mean to be a femme? What does that look like? Who does that entail? I bet your imaging a white person. And same with butch. It will never work for me or anyone like me because i am black first and foremost. And with the way these articles and texts were talking about it, its almost like they forget that QTPOC exist and can NEVER live up to the standards white gays make up. And that's what angered me so much. Its all so eurocentric. Not just in appearance, because butch/femme relationships are not just based around looks, but the cultural actions/perspectives of how to treat your partner and stuff like that. How so? When I identified as a women, I had a gf, who was white, and they automatically assumed i was a dominant masc person. Why? Cause I don't take anyones shit, cause i speak my mind, I assert myself, I defend others. Black folk are raised to be tougher. To be strong, to not let people walk on you. because the world WILL do that to US!!! Its either that or we die, or we die either way. We have to be one thing or the other ALWAYS. Black women especially have to be taught this. They are not allowed to be soft or emotional. And they are not given the grace to be treated gently with love and care.

But my white partner did not consider this. Perhaps she saw how I acted as being butch, or more masc. Perhaps it was racism. But the fact is, black people have very different perspectives on relationships than white people do. Doubly so for QTPOC. And because this perspective is not considered, it becomes another opportunity for our autonomy to be stolen. And that's the thing, majority of QTPOC experience this all the time. Their white partners treatign them one way because their perspective is another.

I can see where and why Butch/femme had its place in history, but as a black person, i cannot fit under ideals made mainly by white people for white people. And I don;t think they realize its just another form of alienation. And its EVERYWHERE! Its in the atmosphere at bars and clubs and cafes that cater to queer people, its in how people date, it in how we talk and how we write and whos history we pull from.

I mean it was shocking to go out to the bars and the clubs and really feel that kind of alienation. To go to the dating apps and have ONLY FEMS! NO MASCS. REAL WOMEN ONLY! constantly thrown in my face. Feeling as if, if i do not fit into one thing then i am worthless and no one could want me. As if being nonbinary would only burden or disgust a partner. Its impossible to try and fit in when you literally do not adhere to a gender binary, or possibly any dichotomy for that matter. And that's the thick of it. People like me belong no where.

i see black sapphics/lesbians try all the time to fit into these standards. And i tried to as well. But i canNOT fit in. None of us will.

White gays will never understand that I don't think. I mean, many do not even realize there are two very different LGBTs, there's the white gays, and then there everyone else. Really I wanna know how the black lesbians and sapphics feel about this. Do butch/femme dynamics make you feel similarly safe, or is it just another extension of white queerness you feel you could never live up to?

As I came into my transess, as I realized I am nonbinary, I felt so centered in who I am as a lesbian. I became more comfortable with presenting fem and masc and everything and nothing. Because here I felt that I had a say in who I am. When I read about Butch/femme relationships, what once made me feel centered makes me feel out of place. And its because of the new perspectives I gained. There is nothing wrong, obviously, with wanting that kind of relationship. Its just an extension of trying to understand and navigate being a lesbian/sapphic in a world that tries to tell you otherwise. But it irritates me how often these kinds of things are eurocentric to a T, and how white gays never seem to acknowledge that. Butch and femme just seems like another expectation that I cannot live up to for reasons more than just I am neither masc nor fem. For me, if that's not how you feel that of course that's fine. But i am speaking about the experience of being a black enby lesbian only.

I was interested in speaking about this because my story, Triple Moon, is about BLACK lesbians ONLY! Its about the alienation, that feeling that you can never be the standard. Feeling like you have to define it for yourself. And that you truly belong no where. It about that very Black Lesbian experience. And I have many characters who are studs and some who are fem and some who are androgynous and some who are none of these things. I explore these relationships and the conclusions i come to I think are very comforting for black lesbains/sapphics. Our queerness is different for so many reasons. And I like using my silly little comics to discuss these ideas.

#somedays they make me want to not be percieved #i wish white lesbians got this some days #black lesbians how we feeling #lesbian #lesbians #sapphic books #lesbian being lesbian #butchforfemme #butch for butch #femme for femme #let the lesbians be lesbians

[sapphire-weapon]

Honestly, thank you for calling out misinformation and how it actually does affect people in the fandom.

At first I found it mildly amusing and didn't think much of it aside from being slightly embarrassed that I'd believed some of it. What really disconcerted me were the "facts" that were so out there they essentially equated to "don't believe your lying eyes." And even now I feel bad for saying that because I can't always know if someone's acting in bad faith or if that's what they genuinely believe.

(Then there are things like that bit on the wiki that says Leon met Chris at a TerraSave event with a citation that doesn't mention said event in any way. I remember thinking "surely not" and reading the file about seven times before confirming that yes, somebody really did that.)

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I actually decided to leave Tumblr completely for a couple weeks just because it was genuinely getting to me and I needed to take a step back from the fandom to introspect and collect myself. I came to the conclusion that because I'd already been embarrassed by trusting what I thought were my fandom elders and the sheer amount of non-canon info being falsely circulated as canon, I was constantly on guard and conflicted. In any other fandom, upon seeing a take that went completely against my own, I would just keep scrolling and probably never think about it again, but with RE it was actually bothering me and making me question my own perception of the media as well as people's intentions. I don't like to assume that people are acting in bad faith (at least in this context, as opposed to just misunderstanding or having a different opinion), and that was causing turmoil in me until I took stock of my own emotions regarding the fandom as a whole.

Not that I was losing sleep over it or anything (I'm not super active or immersed in tumblr so it wasn't a big deal to log off for a while), but it definitely did suck a lot of enjoyment out of the experience for me and made me far more reluctant to engage with other fans.

Sorry that was so long and not really a question, but I just wanted to give my testimony that yes, these things do impact fandom experience in multiple ways.

Unfortunately, I think it's a combination of both things at play here, which is what makes it so insidious and difficult to uproot. There are people who genuinely believe that everything that was ever said in any piece of media by anyone who ever even tangentially worked on Resident Evil should be taken as hard canon fact (the Project Umbrella guys, I think, do legitimately feel this way).

There are also opportunists in this fandom who don't necessarily believe that every little thing is canon, but they've been holding some of those specific details as their personal headcanon for years (shoutout to the guy who told me "I know that Capcom has given Leon several different backstories over the years; I just like the mafia one the most.") and springboarded off of the true believers' narrative to help reinforce their own.

People in both categories are the kind of personality types to get hyper-invested in being the first to get the information out to a new audience and to laser focus on making sure that these details are reinforced every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. And since people who are new to fandoms are eager to suck up any obscure, fun trivia they can get their hands on, those new people flock to bad actors like this in droves.

By the time my old, tired ass gets around to hearing about any of it, the message has been spread so widely and been reinforced so many dozens (hundreds?) of times that new fans already have a concrete, cemented viewpoint on what the canon is/says, and they have no desire to hear someone try to tell them otherwise. After all, this is what literally everyone else is saying, so why should they listen to the one guy in the back going full oldmanyellsatcloud.jpeg? To them, I'm basically that crazy guy on the street corner screaming about how the Illuminati has been controlling the government and lying to you and we're all living in the Matrix and also Jesus is coming.

But the reality is that I'm Belle trying to convince the angry mob that the Beast isn't dangerous. It's an effort too little, and I got to them too late.

I'm really happy and grateful that my presence in fandom has helped even one person feel better about the bullshit that they've been peddled, but at the same time, it's really disheartening to see my posts max out at around 130 notes, when bad information and shoddy story analysis easily hits 300+ and sometimes even into the thousands. People just keep the cycle of misinformation going, like the shittiest Ouroboros this side of Albert Wesker's corpse.

#resident evil #leon kennedy