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tutchando74 · 4 months

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Tomorrow's end of the year

This year was special to me. This was the year I entered social medias for real.

After years of telling myself that I should post my ideas, I finally took enough courage to do it, and voala, I even made friends along the way.

I don't know them enough to call them close friends, but I consider them to be. Of course I'm talking about Simple, Carleen and Shadeless.

I ain't gonna tag them (Load of bullshit, I'll do that down the line), since this is more of a letter to me, but thank you three so much for dealing with me. Granted, you haven't seen shit from me yet, but still.

I hope we continue being friends, but only time will tell this tale.

Now, to my blogs, I'm gonna leave here the statistcs of my blogs and AO3.

@tutchando74

Posts: 650

Quite a big number, huh? Never thought I'd post so many in my life.

Followers: 45

I'm so grateful to all of you who follow me. I don't what attracted you to my blog, but I'm thankful to all of you.

4 biggest fans: @carleenchoco, @ask-serial-designation-s, @shadelessanon and @the-simple-creature

What could I expect, I'm a simple man, always keeping his friends close.

@ask-fell-drones

Posts: 144

Unfortunaly, this AU didn't get as much attention as the other one, but hey, that's a good number.

Followers: 31

Again, I don't know what attracted you to this AU, but you need help.

4 biggest fans: @tutchando74, @igothepanzerdivision (I can't for the life of me tag this guy), @brookiedaaroacecookie and @l0v3sickl0s3r

Yes, I like my blog's post, judge me. A thank to the three of you, even if Igothe there is kind of a fever dream.

@ask-shop-drones

Posts: 1180

By far my most famous blog. This isn't even a joke. I understand why it tracted more attention though.

Followers: 71

A thank you to everyone who got interested in this little AU of mine. Honestly, a thanks to all of you.

4 biggest fans: @tutchando74, @l0v3sickl0s3r, @hotmacsticks and @kitty-chans-art

A thanks to the three of you who have made RP's with my AU or just supported it. Thank you.

@ask-alphakill

Posts: 40

This AU hasn't grabbed much attention, but I'm okay with it. This AU was born as a joke.

Followers: 4

Thanks to you who follows this blog. Honestly, thank you. I'm glad you liked this little joke I made.

4 biggest fans: @tutchando74, @skyblueducky, @nani-w (also can't tag you) and @paintchipstastegood

Thank you three for interacting with this AU. It honestly means a lot.

@askrealityfalls

Posts: 5

Yeah, this one ain't a lot famous, probably cause of my drawings.

Followers: 2

I'm surprised someone follows this. Thank you a lot for this.

4 biggest fans: @tutchando74, @lentalguts-gingersnaps and @jthorpe96

Ain't even got 4. Nonetheless, thank you two for interacting with this little thing.

I'm sorry for anyone who was bothered by the tagging, but I wanted to thank you all for this. So, one last thanks everyone, and I hope you all have a great nex year, and I hope mine's great too.

Now for my AO3 account.

Even if it my account doesn't have a full year yet. Accomplished more than I thought I would, no joke. I expected that I would write things and they would get like 20 hits or something, but imagine my surprise when in around a week I got 100 hits on Split Drones. It was a surprise, and that was the first edition of Split Drones, one that doesn't exist anymore because I edited it, cause it was bad.

Hell, I even got a fanart, made by Clockwork. This is a dream come true. I even got a gift, made by InspiredDragonWriter. He decided to gift me back a very good work. Also got a related work made by Kingcrustnip.

This is insane! I'm still so happy about all of these.

I'm going to talk a little about each of my main stories here that I made this year.

Split Drone (on going)

One of my favorite stories that I have thought of. I'm happy that after the 3º chapter it got a lot more attention. And to think that it's not even close to ending.

Murder Drones Oneshots... Kind of (on going)

My most viewed fic here, for obvious reason. It's a oneshit book. Honestly, I don't like this one, but I still have to finish it. There are requests that have more than months on the waiting. The people who sent them don't even remember it anymore.

Rescue Drones (on going)

I'm glad the Twins allowed me to use their content to do my strange shit. Honestly, I really like this story, specially the world building I did with it. I just like the concept of different HQ's out there. I don't know if the Twin read that story anymore, probably not, but I'm happy that they let me use their universe to write my stories.

A walk and a discovery + We meet again brother (finished)

Two gifts for InspiredDragonWriter. I really liked his content, so I thought of making these stories. I like them, think I did a good job on doing a horror story. I hope he really did like these gifts.

Listening to music (finished)

This is just a fun idea I had. Glad some people liked it, but I don't really have any more ideas on what to do with it. I think Clockwork would have an use for this one on his musical oneshot though. Unfortunaly it's closed.

Mine (on going)

A request that turned into a full fic. Honestly, it's really fun to do it, and it gathered way more attention than I thought it would.

Downard Spiral (on going)

A side fic for Rescue Drones. I have a harder time writting in first person than in third, so the quality of this one is leagues worse than the main story, but I don't think it's that bad.

Greek HQ (on going)

This is a huge story I'm trying to tell. Hope the 10 people who read it like it. Things are going to become much worse, really fast.

Little Rescue Drones side stories

Just some fun fic ideas I have on my mind. Nothing more. Don't even know if I should make them cannon.

Brown and Son Playing (finished)

Just a fun little idea I had for these two.

Serial Designation S RP (on going)

I never expected to play a RP, specially on Tumblr. I'm glad I did though, met three pretty fun persons. It's hard to do the Rp through Tumblr, but it's very good.

Poemas (on going)

My first attempt at writting poems. It's really fun to do it, specially to talk about my culture.

Now, I saw the Twins doing this, and I really liked it. It is showing my final statistics, so I'm going to do the same. By the end of this year, my statistics were:

- User Subscriptions: 8 I'm thankful to everyone who liked my works enough to follow me on this site. I'm glad you enjoy my stuff that much.

- Kudos: 420 This is insane to me. I got this amount in less than a year. Going by dates, it's been around half a year. I'm fucking thankful to everyone who liked my stuff.

- Comment Threads: 88 That's a lot of conversation, and even if most are about the fics, I think I did make some friends here. Hope they think the same.

- Bookmarks: 56 I'm glad people liked my works enough to leave a bookamrk on them, and 56 bookmarks across all my 26 works. That's more than double.

- Subscriptions: 47 Across all my 26 fics, I got 47 subscriptions in each of them. I'm thankful to anyone who did this, trully.

- Word Count: 110,657 Honestly, why do you americans use comma to separate the decimals when most of the world uses dot? Whatever. That's an insane amount of words to me. That's more than I expected to write in all of my life, wich is funny that it turned into my hobby.

- Hits: 14,796 This is an insane number to me. 14k views on my fics. I never expected to have all of this in half a year, but I'm so glad and thankful I did.

It isn't much, but its more than I thought I would get in my first year. Well, it was fun writting everything and meeting new people here in this site.

My gratitudes goes to The_Twins_On_Internet, Kingcrustnip, LB_Clockwork, Shadow_Drone_N_Bryan78932, InspiredDragonWriter and everyone who read, kudoed, bookmarked, subscribed and commented on my fics. A huge thank you to all of you.

#thank you #sorry too #Don't really feel confortable tagging strangers #but it is what it is #end of the year

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treasureswordsgirl55 · 2 years

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Nice To Meet You, Baby

Pairing: Steven Grant x Fem!Reader x Marc Spector

Mentions: DID

Warnings ⚠️: Fluff. So fluff. Sexual Tension. The Boys and Reader are friends. First Meeting. Post!Moon Knight.

Author's Note: Hello everybody!

I'm posting this fic again 'cause I'm having troubles with my tumblr account and this fic doesn't appear in my main page So.... Here we go, again.

I'm here again with the fic that my beautiful cat Atlas (She) delete it from my laptop yesterday.

I re-write the best I could (and remember) and this is the result.

The Moon Boys deserves all the love in the universe. (And that "Baby" from Marc was enough for my heart ❤️)

I hope you like this one and thanks for all the reblogs, likes and comments. All of them are always appreciated! 💖💖

For last, welcome to my new followers and readers, enjoy the reading!

XOXO 😘 Noe!

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

- Steven?

I hear the sound of running water from the kitchen and as soon as I get closer, I see that Steven is finishing rinsing the dishes we used for dinner.

When we finished dinner, we had a little fight about who should wash them, and as much as I wanted to impose on it, he won the verbal battle claiming that, this time, I was his guest. So I didn't have to do anything.

I watch him for a few seconds, enjoying the familiarity of his movements as well as his home state, where he is more relaxed and natural than usual and I hear him mutter under his breath about self-inflicted silence, self-control, the restraints on his bed and I have no doubt that he is talking to Marc, his other identity.

Steven had changed a lot since I last saw him, and accepting Marc as a vital part of him helped the process along. Although I don't know Marc, I guess he's similar to Steven, because they seem to complement each other very well and that suits him, who no longer seems like the man who seemed to be stalked by the devil to take him to his personal hell.

- Steven? - He turns quickly with the yellow cloth in his hand while he gives me a shy and warm smile - I didn't mean to....

- Sorry, I was talking to Marc.

I nod as I get close enough to lean against the book-strewn table that faces the small kitchen, watching Steven put the rag away in one of the cupboard drawers before turning his attention back to me.

- From the way you murmured, I assumed you didn't want me to listen... Does Marc not want me here?

I joke as Steven walks over to me with a cup of tea and hands it to me as I nod my thanks before taking a sip and keeping from letting out a groan.

English Breakfast before bed is heaven for me.

Steven shakes his head as he leans against the kitchen table, crossing his arms over his chest.

"How come I haven't met her before, Steven? After everything we've been through together, are you hiding things from me now?"

- Quite the contrary - He mutters somewhat distractedly while smiling at something that he only listens to - He really likes the idea that you're here... Just like me.

I nod as I pick up the cup and take another sip of tea, trying to make my action cover the blush that invades my cheeks at his words, but I see that I fail miserably when I see that he laughs.

- You've become more confident.

He walks over to my side with his mug and sits on the free edge of the table, where he pushes aside the books about Area 51 and the secret US projects that rest on it.

- Marc helps - he lets out a sigh and several of his curls fall on his forehead with the movement of his head - He's upset that he didn't know about you before.

He lets out a laugh that echoes around his apartment as he takes a sip of tea from his mug and frowns at it.

- Let me guess... Marc hates tea and you love it.

"Steven... I need to meet her. Someone who knows I hate tea without knowing me is worth it."

- So much notice?

- Too much For a moment you made a face as if you were disgusted by tea - We both smiled and I let myself go for the moment, seeing him relaxed, calm and relaxed, and I approached him, leaving the cup in my place on the table, Enough to corner him against the table and I watch him as if discovering a treasure just by looking at him. He's so beautiful that makes my heart ache and just looking at him made my day better. I am so in love with him that with these moments of mutual company I am satisfied. I take a deep breath and reach up until I rest it on his shoulder and stroke my fingertips down his neck, close to where I can feel his pulse faster - What... what are you doing?

"Let me meet her Steven, it will only be a moment. I won't bite her... unless she wants to, of course"

- Can he hear me? Will I ever be able to meet him?

Steven swallows hard but leans in when my fingers caress his chin and he lets out a sigh through his parted lips. I take a step closer, almost placing myself between his legs and try not to enjoy the closeness between us, but it becomes impossible when those moments seem too intimate to let them pass.

I feel my heart pounding against my chest and my breathing quickens until it's on par with Steven's, his eyes closed for a second and I imagine he's mine, mine to hold, to listen to him complain about Donna, to see it when I wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night, to enjoy it in ways I only imagine in the depths of my consciousness.

"Shit, let me in, Steven. If you don't make a move, I will."

- Yes Yes. He is always there. It's not that he has anything else to do, in fact, the only thing he does is annoy me - He opens his eyes and doesn't move away from my hand, but the flash of his gaze makes it darker and different from his sad look that usually accompanies him.

"Steven… I'll pretend not to hear that last part. Stop diverting your emotions and enjoy the her closeness. Move your hands up her body and caress her like she's doing with us… Tell her to come closer"

- He's listening to you - Steven's voice reaches my ears in the form of a whisper that makes a shiver run through my body while I feel his trembling hands rest on both sides of my waist - He wants you to come closer.

- Co.... Come closer? - Fear invades me for a moment and as if I had a thread attached to my back that pulls me, I take a step back fearing succumbing to Steven's closeness, to the warmth of his body that invites me to snuggle against him, to that scent to mint and shower gel that his body gives off that makes me addictive and the beating of my big love for him that clouds my good judgment for a few moments. I blink trying to clear my thoughts and take another step back, moving away from that line that I know that once I cross I won't be able to go back but one of his hands surrounds my wrist tightly stopping any movement on my part, and I feel his arm go by behind my waist and pins me in place preventing me from moving further away from him.

It takes me a moment to realize that those attitudes are not typical of Steven… Marc pulls me into his arms, leaving me standing completely between his legs and being locked in his arms, unable to pull me away. As soon as I look up from his chest, I meet those brown eyes wrapped in a more serious expression than usual, which sends a kind of chill down my spine, making me feel different, as if he wants our contact.

Or the contact of my body against his.

I raise my head a little since he is standing straighter and seems a few inches taller than Steven, but in his eyes there is not a hint of that insecurity and fun that Steven's eyes conveyed, but his gaze conveys security, confidence and a lot of, a lot of attraction.

I don't have to ask to know it's about Marc, but I still do.

- Marc?

He nods as he tightens his grip around my waist and pulls me even closer to him, to the point where I have to brace my hands against his chest to keep from falling onto him or ending up on his lap.

I close my eyes listening to his deep voice with a clear American accent, very different from Steven's characteristic British accent and I try not to make a fool of myself in our first meeting.

- Nice to meet you, baby.

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crystallinestars · 4 days

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Hello! I'm back for another rant :)

I was still thinking about Mihoyo's tendency to pair characters and play the ambiguity game to make more money and something I've noticed is that people will jump through sooo many hoops to defend the company. ''oh they can't be explicit because of censorship'', ''oh it's China, their culture is different!'' or even ''stupid entitled westerners always complaining about things they don't even try to understand smh 🙄''

Now, while I can agree that censorship and culture should be taken into account when talking about these games, I also feel like it's a bit disingenuous and lowkey patronising to chalk it all up to ''the Chinese are just all like that lol''

Like, why are we so vehemently defending a company that makes millions (if not billions) through ship teasing, as you've put before? Censorship does not change the fact that the development that characters get in these games (especially Genshin) goes out the window every other event or as soon as the main story is finished. And whenever I hear someone talk about censorship, I always think about Mo Dao Zu Shi (granted, the situation was different in its case so we should take it with a grain of salt) where its donghua and drama adaptations where indeed censored (but they were much more explicit than whatever's going on in Hoyoverse), yet the novel (the source material) had many MANY chapters with its two male leads going at it

I admit that I've been feeling a bit salty recently (because I feel like people only care about coding when it comes to the 'great' questions of ''OK but do these two men FUCK? How many times a day do they go at it and who's the woman in this ship??'' Meanwhile nobody ever talks about different dynamics, asexuality and aromanticism are seen as boring, and oh lord does bisexuality seem to be often treated as a trump card to say ''ok but this character is at least 50% gay'') and I also don't know that much about how everything works in China, but idk, I guess my point is that if they wanted to make ships canon, they WOULD (or could) find a way to do so

Anyway, your recent posts and asks also got me thinking and I guess I wanted to show you some support! I've seen your bio and I think it's a really smart move on your part to be clear on what you don't feel comfortable with from the get go. It can definitely be awkward when you have to tell someone that's just really excited to share their thoughts on something they enjoy that you're not interested and you'd rather not talk about this AT ALL. And it really does not help that popular ships tend to attract a lot of unhinged behaviour 😑 It's really refreshing to come across content creators like you, who are very clear in their boundaries and write such thoughtful fics

Once again, I hope you will be left to do your own thing in peace and that you'll keep finding ways and solutions for you to enjoy your favourite works without feeling alienated 💜

(And hopefully one day I will learn how to type short rants 😅)

Haha, short rants don't exist, Anon! It's perfectly okay to type long rants to me, I don't mind. If anything, I relish in them. As someone who rants and complains a lot myself, I welcome it when someone else does it. 😊 (I mean, just look at the length of my reply. I am not any better than you, dear Anon)

Lord, the "Mihoyo can't show explicit gay ships because of the CCP censorship" excuse grates on my nerves, as well. Censorship of homosexuality is definitely a thing in China, and it can sometimes be very horrible, but that's not what's stopping Mihoyo from making certain ships canon. They got way with a lot of lesbian ships in Honkai 3rd (though admittedly they had to tone it down once new laws were implemented, but the fact remains that at some point they were able to be blatant about their ships), and if we're talking actual coding, then Jeht being lesbian-coded is a thing that exists! If it was such a huge deal, I feel like Mihoyo would have either been way more subtle about it or not included these things at all.

It's just my personal opinion, but I'm certain that the reason Mihoyo doesn't make any ship canon is for the sake of making money. They need to sell characters, and the best way to do that is to allow players to enjoy characters the way they want. Assigning a specific sexuality or canon ship will crush the interpretations some players have about a character, and make that character unappealing. It would negatively impact their sales. Keeping things vague and only giving teases of the most popular ships seems to be the ideal marketing tactic for them. It panders to a lot more people this way and keeps most of them happy (however, the fact remains that they ignore a particular demographic of women, though that's a story for another time).

Regarding your reasons why people whip out the "coding" card... YOU ARE SO RIGHT! People only use sexuality coding as a way to "prove" their gay ship is canon and discredit any BG pairing. And they focus on things like one guy being muscular and the other more slender, and then assigning traditionally masculine and feminine traits to them, respectively. I could go on a whole separate rant about this topic, but I'll spare you the wall of text. Feminizing one of the guys in a gay ship is one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when it's OOC for the character.

One thing I noticed is that sexuality often gets used as a convenient tool to suit the needs of certain shippers instead of being used for actual diversity.

I can't tell you the amount of times I saw a sexuality tier list where the aromantic and asexual rows were treated as trash bins where people tossed the characters they didn't care about. There's no actual thought put into the sorting, and that's very unfair to actual aro and ace persons.

As for bisexuality... it's such a polarizing topic in fandoms. It's seen as a good thing when you have a canonical BG pairing, because then you can claim one or both are bi and therefore are also attracted to the same sex (as you said, they're "at last 50% gay" and can be shipped in gay pairings). However, if you have a non-canon BL or GL ship, saying one or both characters are bi is tantamount to treason. How dare you suggest they can be attracted to the opposite sex? That's erasing the gay representation!

Basically, bisexuality, much like the term "coding", gets treated like a tool that's allowed to exist only when it's convenient to a person, instead of as an actual sexuality real people have. I feel like bi, aroace, and pansexual people get shafted hard in fandoms in general.

Anyways, thank you for your support, Anon! I mentioned it in another post, but putting your likes and dislikes in the bio is a common practice in the Eastern part of the world, and I chose to copy that. I think it's a good way to meet people with similar interests while also letting those who have opposite interests avoid you. If the BL Anon had checked my bio first before following me, he could have spared himself some trouble haha. Sadly, it seems that many don't look at bios 😢

Thank you for your nice sentiments! I'm fairly confident that I won't be harassed, especially not in the reader-insert community, but I appreciate the thought! And hopefully I can find a way to combat the alienation... If not, then I'll simply uninstall both HSR and Genshin and find games that actually pander to me 😅

May you stay happy and free of harassment as well, dear Anon! 💚

#Lunaria answers #Hopefully the read more bar works properly this time

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borrowedtimeandspace · 1 year

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To Borrowed Time (and Space) Readers

Hello, lovelies.

To those of you who have been with me since this story began, to those who found it along the way, and to those who stuck with me for all this time: Thank you from the bottom of my hearts. What I’m sharing in this letter to you all isn’t exactly news, but more of an acknowledgement of changes I’ve made that have impacted my writing for a long time.

Tl;dr, While I am not planning any more full stories for the foreseeable future, BTaS is far from dead. It’s simply changed form. Regenerated, as it were.

Long version under the cut, and just a heads up, it gets pretty deep and in-depth. You’ve been warned.

When I started writing, it was more of an escape than a hobby. Taking worlds I loved and interacting with them through a proxy I could control (aka my OCs) granted me the freedom I lacked and sought desperately when I was a troubled teen. I especially enjoyed coming up with g/t scenarios, with The Borrowers in particular, to insert into media that was sorely lacking in size differences.

Y’know, like, all of them.

As is probably obvious, Doctor Who was a formative fandom in my youth. It brought me such joy, and combining it with the world of The Borrowers had all the makings of a delicious dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins pie. Thus, Borrowed Time (and Space), and my OC Zepheera, were born.

Zepheera started off as a self-insert mary-sue. I fully acknowledge and admit this without shame or judgment toward mary-sue self-inserts. She also came about during the Moffat era of Doctor Who, which I think affected my writing, and not for the better.

Before any flames start flying, I want it to be clear that I don’t think everything in the Moffat era was terrible, nor is any of this a comment, good or bad, about Steven Moffat as a person. I just know, looking back, that I picked up on some of his worse writing tendencies, in my opinion.

Suffice it to say, my writing style has changed significantly over the years. Since college, I’ve had far less time and energy for long form story writing. I began writing collaboratively with friends, which has helped give me accountability and long-lasting enthusiasm when I have someone to share it with. I also started a job that monetizes one of my other hobbies, which takes up a lot of my mental bandwidth and time.

As for BTaS, I’ve become far more comfortable treating it as a sandbox. It’s a lot easier for me to come up with scenarios under the premise of “Doctor Who but with a borrower companion” and churn out shorter stories within that scope. I’m sure this has been obvious since the majority of what I’ve done since 2016 has mostly been prompts and Zepheera-Visions in various AU spinoffs of BTaS.

I think it’s time to admit that to myself, and let anyone who is still waiting on the continuation of the original story know that, at least for now, it’s probably not going to happen.

I will be finishing Episode 3: Lost Things Being Found. I got so close to the end, and I did have a plan for it, and parts of that plot will remain relevant to Zepheera’s character moving forward. Honestly, I barely consider most of the main original stories truly canon anymore, as my characterization and direction with Zepheera in particular has changed a lot. I don’t plan on rewriting them to compensate for that, so I’ll sum up a few points about the canon and continuity moving forward.

As I said, the original BTaS is now my sandbox, and any stories I write with Zepheera and the Tenth Doctor are part of that loose canon unless otherwise specified or set apart, like the Donna AU for example.

I don’t intend to hang on to the concept of Zepheera essentially creating borrowers in Episode One. At the time of writing, the only way I knew to write drama was to make big moves with little thought to the consequences, or what it means for the character.

The size-changing ring may stick around in the future, but honestly it mostly existed to be convenient for the plotline and little else.

I am keeping Zepheera’s original backstory involving her early encounter with an alien, with the exception of giving her telekinesis. At the time, I created a companion that existed as more of a plot device rather than a fleshed-out character, and immediately regretted it. All iterations of Zepheera have an unnaturally long life-span, and the healing factor she was born with.

I also don’t have plans for resolving Zepheera’s brain trauma, so that thread is also going to be dropped.

That’s all I can think of for now. If there are any questions, feel free to reach out!

I also want to take the time to put it out there that I am not looking for any new writing partners. The ones I have are saints for how patient they’ve been with me over the years. And I want to make it clear that I have a very loose policy for accepting writing prompts. I love suggestions, but forcing myself to write something that doesn’t spark my interest is generally counterproductive. So, unfortunately, not every prompt will be filled.

I’m still here. I’m alive, and I do care about this story. I’ve just realized that I and it both benefit from the flexibility of shorter stories rather than long, overarching ones. I hope you all understand, and will stick with me for as long as I am inspired to add to this concept.

Thank you all again,

Chel

#chel talks #borrowed time and space #zepheera #hope this clears things up #I'm open to questions if there's anything i missed #gt #borrowers #giant tiny #the borrowers crossover

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usergreenpixel · 1 year

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JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 30: CLISSON ET EUGÉNIE (2009)

1. The Introduction

Hello, Citizens, and welcome back to Jacobin Fiction Convention! So, today’s the day we get a rather unexpected author on the scaffold in the spotlight - Napoleon Bonaparte himself! Yes, THAT Napoleon, so you can bet that this is a bit of a unique book.

Turns out in his youth the guy wanted to be an author and wrote the short story we’re about to dissect. Granted, it’s a story he never finished and was apparently extremely embarrassed about it later (I can relate to that), so this is the second reason why this particular review is going to be a unique one. I don’t think we ever had anything unfinished as a topic.

Anyway, you might be asking yourself how exactly I found out about Napoleon’s writing in the first place. For that I have to thank one of the Neighbors, @tairin , who first brought up his writings in conversation long ago. Luckily, the unfinished drafts were published in English in 2009, so translation is available for those who don’t know French. HOORAY!

Unfortunately, the book is a bitch to find online but a website called archive.org came to my rescue like the proverbial cavalry. You do need to make an account there but afterwards it’s possible to borrow this book for 14 days like you would do in a library and read it free of charge. That’s how I read the book, considering the fact that negative reviews of my mutuals made me unwilling to pay money for an ebook or a physical copy.

Is it that bad though? Let’s find out.

This review is dedicated to @tairin , @theravenclawrevolutionary and @michel-feuilly .

Okay, let’s begin!

2. The Summary

The book tells a tragic love story of, well, Clisson and Eugénie. So it’s a romance novel. Also, apparently, a self insert fic with Clisson standing in for Napoleon himself. I have no idea who Eugénie might be though.

People who already know my preferences might remember that romance is my least favorite genre, but I still decided to give the story a chance, so let’s talk about how that decision turned out.

3. The Story

Honestly, it has a lot of romance clichés so the story just wasn’t for me. I didn’t detest it or anything, but I didn’t like it either.

I did, however, appreciate the beginning which shows us Clisson as a talented soldier who is tired of combat and looking for something else in life. It made the narrative just a tad more relatable, in my opinion.

Another point in favor of the story is the fact that Clisson and Eugénie don’t fall in love at first sight and the story takes time for them to develop proper chemistry. I’m not the biggest fan of the “love at first sight” trope so yay for avoiding it!

As for the ending… a bit depressing and anticlimactic but, as someone battling depression, I could relate to Clisson as I had moments where I was close to the headspace he has in the ending. Funny how depression has changed my opinion on some melodramatic moments in media…

4. The Characters

The characters are a bit flat, but not as much as in works of some beginner authors. Since it’s a short story, I’ll only focus on the main characters.

I honestly expected Clisson to be more of a Gary Stu, but I didn’t really get those vibes and could even relate to him towards the end. He has a more gentle, vulnerable side that few people get to see and, at the end of the day, simply craves love and happiness. He is more than just a hero obsessed with war.

Eugénie… I don’t like her and don’t care about her reasoning. I don’t like cheaters. End of story. But I like the fact that she fucked up this way and we didn’t get a blameless perfect love interest. She’s more than that.

Trust me, my first attempts at creating characters were much worse than what we have here.

5. The Setting

I liked some descriptions in the book and, for a short story, Napoleon managed to create settings in a way that’s not bad. Not excellent, but not bad either.

6. The Writing

Personally I don’t really like the writing style, but I tend to have that problem with many works of the past. There’s just too much purple prose for me, but I know that some people appreciate it so hey, you do you.

7. The Conclusion

Overall, maybe I just had really low expectations but… I didn’t hate the story, nor did I like it. Romance genre is just not for me and I’m the absolute last person who should review romance novels.

I went in fully expecting to hate the story, but I don’t. Maybe I just have more patience for beginner authors, maybe I’m just in a good mood. Either way, I can’t quite recommend the book, but I still think it’s an interesting read, if only to get a glimpse into a facet of Napoleon that isn’t talked about much.

On that note, let us finish today’s meeting. Stay tuned for updates, Citizens!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

#history #frev #frev art #obscure frev media #jacobin fiction convention #napoleon bonaparte #frev literature #frev media #frev books #clisson et eugenie

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directdogman · 2 years

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What's ur fav DT character you made?

Tough to say overall. Compromise: I'll answer for different criteria! One I'd most wanna hang with irl if the cast were real: Probably Oliver. I like Karen's personality too, but I fear my comic antics would bewilder and frighten her. Oliver would be much, MUCH harder to baffle in this way. Plus, he'd totally wanna watch awful CG mockbusters with me, such as Ratatoing. I'm shaking with anger imagining this but I still REALLY wanna do it. Need to rewatch Ratatoing, I hate it so much. It makes me feel so alive. The character I find the most interesting: Probably Callum Crown! I wrote a lot more for the character on paper, unsure if I was gonna make more Dialtown stuff, and it's driving me nuts because it'd be an injustice to reveal info about his past and his actions/motivations in a post like this. The big issue with Dialtown's setting is... well, it's not Callum's story, it's the story of Gingi and all of his bizarre little friends. There's only one NPC in Dialtown who could tell us things about Callum that would likely shock the audience, and he's playing dumb, though the act falls occasionally. Without an obvious narrator, Callum's story remains what it is in Dialtown... a biased and stitched-together account of the most important man who may have ever lived. It's frustrating to know that while every account of Callum in-game isn't intentionally untruthful, they're all very incomplete pictures of him, and all from people who didn't really understand him. There's so much about his character that I'd love to talk about, I just... can't. Because it's not relevant to any of the information that Dialtown's NPCs were willing to provide to the audience. But, it's all in my head and always has been. If I were to reveal everything I'd decided about Callum's motivations/actions and you were to replay the final route, you'd notice some seemingly throwaway statements suddenly being very relevant to how Dialtown's world works. Granted, the statements are 100% generic without that context, ofc. It's a habit of mine, I compulsively write more material for my characters. I get too invested in them, it's a disease. On the one hand, yeah, I'm a pox upon the face of the earth. On the other: hey! At least my characters stay consistent across entries because I know what they'd do/say next before even starting a sequel story! Sorry, yeah, no spoilers ofc, but expect more of Callum in future DT content. ;) The character I most enjoy writing for: Very tough to answer. Maybe Mayor Mingus, just baaaaarely? Her uptight and confrontational nature allows her to dominate any scene she's placed in. There aren't really any Mingus scenes where she isn't the main (if not TOTAL) center of attention. Other than Gingi, I'm not sure if any other character HAS the ability to force a dynamic in any scene you put them in, hell, probably even better than Gingi. Even Gingi's chicanery has its limits (Tango being a good example), but Mingus is the same to everyone. That relentless consistency really compliments her obsession with conformity. Plus, it fits that almost every trait she hates in the player happen to be traits she possesses, so ofc her note REALLY presses the 'lawless' side of Gingi's nature, because it's the only stable logical footing she has. Of COURSE she's a law-abiding citizen, she IS the law. The character whose design I most enjoy: Likely Mayor Mingus, again. Her head is my cat's head. C'MON.

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ominouspositivity-or-else · 4 months

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Open the Scriptures for us, Goldenrod!!!! Whatcha got, girl???

song of songs is sexy and illicit specifically in the ways it defies social norms of both the time and the times after; both christian and jewish ideas of marriage are tied up in the song of songs purposefully!!! like it defies expectations it's erotic poetry and it's about God and israel and within that it explains how he DESIRES you against all odds. It's about eros it's not like... supposed to be anything other than steamy.

THE FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS OF GENESIS(Give or take a little) ARE MYTHOS. AND HEBREW POETRY. ARTISTIC CHOICES WERE MADE. It's true!!!!!! It involves a history, but it is first and foremost poetry and MYTHOS!!!!

Job is also Hebrew poetry and most assuredly a work of fiction. It might be based loosely on a true story, but the book itself is fictional.

Revelation is about??? Like?? Every moment after Christ ascends? It is as much about now as it is about the end times? It's not specifically about an exact moment, it is this moment until the end of time.

There is no biblical basis for a lot of things that people take for granted in some circles, and even not every catholic tradition is biblical. Moreover, the bible actually says in one of St. Paul's letters(don't remember which) that the bible shouldn't be the only source!!!! Oral teaching is also a completely valid source, along with other types of writings.

Martin Luther took books out of the bible specifically because they supported doctrine he didn't like. Lots of other people at the same time did similar things. Many of these books have been added back into the protestant canon.

Matthew was written for a Jewish audience, Mark for a Roman audience, Luke for a Gentile Audience, and John for a Christian one. I believe John was written first chronologically, and Mark last, but I'm not confident in that statement. Luke might be last.

Luke is the only gospel that includes Mary as a major character. This is the gospel with the text of the Hail Mary in it. It also was collected in a similar way to the Acts, with eyewitness accounts and was gathered from collecting people's thoughts.

One of the main points of the book of John is to showcase clearly that Christ is the new temple raised in three days and the new high priest. This is one of the major bases for Catholic Sacramental Theology.

Translations can be more or less accurate. Like, legitimately, I'm so proud of anyone for reading the Bible, no matter what translation, but you're not EVER going to get the same literary depth or value from The Message translation as you do from say the New American Bible(one of my favorites). Always check which translation you're using when it comes to online sources!!! This is so huge and so overlooked. Basic misunderstandings or misphrasings can come from translations that don't offer the same depth. I've seen horrible characterizations of my favorite verses simply because the TRANSLATION wasn't accurately depicting the verse!

The KJV for instance takes quite a few liberties with its translation that actually wind up portraying things a little differently in specific ways(I'm hugely fond of the KJV's linguistical tone). In one place I know it changes the word "Tyrant" out for a less politically charged word, so to speak.

THE NEW COVENANT TAKES THE PLACE OF THE OLD!!! If you are a Christian, you do not need to worry about the Levitical laws!!! The New Covenant of Christ is the fulfillment of the old. Also, in Acts, there's a whole thing where Peter has to figure out whether or not Christians must observe not just the ten commandments but also all the laws of the covenants like circumcision and offerings at the temple. The answer was "Take and Eat" from above, meaning that what was unclean was now made clean, and you didn't have to be Jewish in your practices to be Christian, and the laws of cleanliness and the covenant sacrifices did not need to be made(because Christ is the new once for all sacrifice but anyway)

Saint Paul was against marriage because at the time he presumed Christ would be coming back IMMEDIATELY. Within a lifetime immediately.

The Letter to the Hebrews was NOT written by Saint Paul. We don't really know who the author was. There's speculation.

ADAM WAS NOT SEDUCED BY EVE INTO EATING THE APPLE. sTARS. THIS IS SUCH A POPULAR POINT OF VIEW ON THIS HELLSITE. That's a point of view popularized by JOHN MILTON in PARADISE LOST published in 1667. Basically, if you see anything overly emo and secular about the Fall, it's probably more based on Paradise Lost than on the actual biblical story.

There's more I've got but this is all stuff that ticks me off when people ignore it. Like, just. Historical and cultural context, translation, and the literal point of the text all need to work together in your understanding. People so often ignore one of them. It bothers me.

#catholic things #NOTE: I DO NOT HAVE A THEOLOGY DEGREE.#IM JUST A NERD.#thanks for the ask!#Rhea!!!#these also are base assumptions #i can find more if i go in depth in the ways people read things #it's been bothering me lately across the board

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seriously-mike · 9 months

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So You Want To: Make A RPG Character Portrait

And, Unfortunately, Lack Art Skills

Introduction

Like I said, I'm against commercial use of diffusion-based image generation, so please take notice and don't use the advice below in the process of creating commercial role-playing game supplements.

Let's start with the necessary tools: like I said, LAION's datasets are beyond useless - with the exception of the new SDXL, which is pretty much the only one first-party dataset for Stable Diffusion that works. So, in order to save time, you want a serviceable dataset: Dreamshaper, ICBINP, RPG, SDXL as a last resort. Most sites that host them tend to shake you down for money, so here are some recommendations:

Leonardo.AI: their free account grants you 150 points daily (non-cumulative) and allows you to use a lot of third-party datasets (including Dreamshaper, RPG and SDXL). The generator has some special sauce plugins running under the hood, meaning that your results will be noticeably better than if run on any other site or a local setup.

Playground AI: their free account allows you to use some interesting third-party datasets, but there's a lot of fine print of the shifty-as-fuck kind when it comes to quality of generated images.

Nightcafe: unfortunately, it only supports SDXL when it comes to worthwhile datasets, but a free account gives you 5 points every day if you log in and you start with 150, so it should be enough.

Of course, it's best to run a local setup, so if you have a gaming PC built in the last four or five years, and with a Nvidia video card, do so.

Writing Prompts

Two things you need to know about prompts in StableDiffusion: try not to go over 75 words and put the most important things you want first. I don't want to go into the technicalities, even if that's your kink, but that's how the thing works.

Of course monkeys on the internet tend to suffer from bouts of logorrhea while trying to describe what they want, and I warned about that before, so get to the point and don't be too specific. Stable Diffusion has problems with small details anyway.

For my artist imitation tests, I started by setting the style, like:

((fantasy art by Frank Frazetta)) of ((illustration by JC Leyendecker)) of ((portrait by Rembrandt)) of ((anime art by Akira Toriyama)) of

Double parentheses mean that Stable Diffusion has to pay extra attention to the phrase: every set of parentheses increases the weight of phrase by 1.1, so double parentheses means that the phrase is weighed at 1.1×1.1, and that's 1.21 if you don't have a calculator handy. Don't go above that because otherwise the results get spectacularly fucky (I canned the image with a hellishly distorted Maine Coon that showed up due to unfortunate wording, so I'll spare you that story - it's easy to guess what I asked for, though).

You can also try more generic descriptions of the style, like:

((woodcut portrait)) of ((renaissance portrait)) of ((vintage prison mugshot)) of ((kodachrome 400 photo)) of ((promotional movie still)) of

They still work and go off the rails less often than invoking a particular artist's style (for example, asking for Vermeer drives the generator bonkers).

Then, you follow with the base description of the character. Please keep in mind that some datasets are overly literal and if you ask for a "girl" you will most probably get a child as a result - try a "young woman" instead.

overweight 50 year old man with brown hair and large mustache teen girl with long ((red hair)) asian woman with bob cut hair muscular (bald) African man with goatee man with shoulder length dark hair

Notice that in two cases, I put more emphasis on the hair style and color - just in case, but as I learned lately, this is often necessary. For example, when asking for "bald" without emphasis along with "portrait by leonardo da vinci" for the portrait of Sir Baldy Bald, I got eight different stages of receding hairline, two portraits of Matthew Mercer and two portraits of definitely bald guys. Not that I haven't repeatedly warned that diffusion-based image generation is a trainwreck most of the time.

Asking for a celebrity likeness at this stage is hella iffy, particularly when it comes to recently famous people. Like, you might not get a likeness of Jenna Ortega. Even asking for "young" version of old actors might get problematic when the generator starts to artificially de-age a more recent photo or doesn't find any reference at all.

For example: on the left, we have a genuine photo of Madonna from the 1980s. In the middle, I asked Leonardo.AI for "young Madonna" and it went off the rails. On the right, I changed the prompt to "1980s Madonna" and got something more realistic but still not entirely on the mark. It's typical - unless you're running an embedding or a LORA of a celebrity likeness on a local setup, it's gonna turn out genericized and/or distorted. Another example I can refer you to is Henry Cavill getting mashed together with Michał Żebrowski for a barely comprehensible reason.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, Stable Diffusion doesn't do little details well. Eye color usually parses, particularly if the face has a high enough resolution (meaning, it's more sure to work on close-ups in default 512px images and in high-res fixes). Scars, facial piercings and the like usually don't work, when they do it's a small miracle requiring very specific conditions (usually a resolution high enough to consider them a distinct object), and you might be better off omitting them entirely. Larger things like tattoos work, but in a very general way. Meaning, a general location and theme of tattoos should parse, but anything more specific will often send the entire thing off the rails and put stuff from the description as items elsewhere in the photo. Meaning, you'll ask for a "flames tattoo" and everything will be on fire. Oops.

Now, we should get the character dressed. My go-to syntax for that relies on the word "wearing":

wearing a red qipao dress wearing black and silver scifi combat armor wearing medieval noble's clothes wearing round sunglasses and (black suit) with red shirt wearing white tanktop and beige prison trousers

However, asking for two different clothing items in different colors often goes off the rails. Like I said in an earlier post, the generators often confuse the description, switching and omitting colors even if you put emphasis on the specific phrase. If you asked for a specific artist's style, you'll often have to put emphasis on the color anyway, because the default tends to go right over it. An example can be seen in the example of Vermeer's style going off the rails - despite the dress being very emphatically described as red, "painting by vermeer" overwrote it as blue anyway.

There's also the matter of the generator having weird concepts of things. For example, "armor" by itself defaults to a typical simple plate armor, and not even "leather armor" is going to convince it otherwise. Even "scifi armor" is not going to parse correctly 100% of the time, but a "combat armor" or, better "tactical combat armor" will usually swerve it into a modern plate carrier. Curiously, though, asking for a "space marine armor" will go for a Starcraft/Warhammer 40000 armored spacesuit, and a "mech suit" will most often go for a weird, angular robot suit (add "armor" to that if it doesn't but you want it to).

A generator is not supposed to draw anything it doesn't have info on. This means two things: omitting a part of clothing, like trousers or boots, will limit the framing to only what's described. In case of dresses, robes and similar long outfits, it will often frame the character tightly enough to draw only a part of it - particularly if you defined the style as "portrait", as that keyword tends to focus on the character's face. Another thing, if you haven't described the background yet, and you don't need to, the background will be left as some kind of blank - usually a nondescript splash of color. If you asked for a historical-styled portrait, the generator will infer a muted, neutral color from that, based on actual examples. Asking for "illustration" or "concept art" should default to white. With "photography" and similar keywords, all bets are off. For example, "prison mugshot" left to its own devices either went with a nondescript dark background or prison-related things like bars and wire mesh fences. Asking for a "cook" filled the background with a generic kitchen. "Bottle of beer" gravitated towards tables, pubs and dining rooms. "Anime art" with a "medieval" subject either left the background blank or went for stone walls, castles and the like.

If you want a specific background, though, keep it simple. Even one word can be enough, particularly if the generator infers the rest from the character description. For example "garden" background for an "asian woman wearing a qipao" will add stone lanterns, torii gates and pagoda-roofed pavilions as needed. "City ruins" background for a "scifi soldier" will be full of damaged skyscrapers. What you can specify is weather and time of day - for example, the young Madonna example above specifies "alleyway at night" as a background.

And finally, lighting and stuff. With everything I mentioned already, this just adds an extra polish, but has to be applied with caution. "For example, "Dramatic" or "cinematic" lighting is good if you're going for chiaroscuro in paintings or a cinematic look in photos (it tends to infer a bit of movie-like haze) - for example, it works fine if you're asking for Rembrandt or Caravaggio, but it's gonna ruin the prompt if you're going for da Vinci, for whom "soft lighting" is more appropriate. You can also describe the lighting more directly, like "bright sunlight", "sunset", "torchlight", "candlelight" and the like (as long as it doesn't logically contradict the soft/dramatic/cinematic description). You can also add general quality keywords here, like "worn" (to get a bit of distressing on vintage photos, for example), "detailed" (it's a bit of magical thinking, but it might influence the look of armor and interiors), "black and white", "desaturated", "faded" or "vivid colors" etc. "bokeh" will also work for photographic styles, as a shorthand for low depth of field with background light sources.

Also, do not copy negative prompts from the internet. Stable Diffusion can't parse the concept of correct or incorrect anatomy or any other common fuckups it makes. Instead, one overly-specific keyword can wreck an entire concept of anime-style drawing or heavy makeup. Start with a blank negative prompt and correct from there. Your perp in the mugshot has a hat you don't want? Add "hat" to the negative prompt. Explorer in the savannah is sitting on a gimpy pony? Add "horse" to the negative prompt. You can also rule out a specific eye color, hair color and general use of color that popped up ass outta nowhere (if you can't trace where the use of color blue comes from despite being absent from the positive prompt, you can add "blue" to negative prompt and the problem should go away).

The Numbers Game

I explained this one before: diffusion-based generators can have drastically different results depending on the number of steps in a generation process and the guidance factor that defines how closely the generator follows the prompt. Web-based generators, if they allow tinkering with that, often obscure the exact values with wording like "short", "medium" and "long" rendering time. No matter what, don't go below "medium" with anything.

Then, there's the matter of image proportions and resolution. Proportions, if you can tweak them, are usually typical: 3:2, 4:3, 16:9 and their vertical equivalents. If not, you get a square by default. From my experience, going for 2:3 or 3:4 proportions for portraits with the shorter size as close to default 512px as possible yields the best results, as a lot of input images that were portraits before being pounded into mathemagical fairy dust also had those proportions. Also, some web-based generators tend to obscure resolution as well, maybe with a tooltip specifying the rough dimensions (like Nightcafe's "medium" size being about 400px on the shorter side).

Practical Magic

Okay, so now you know what the knobs and levers do. You got the dictionary, the grammar, etcetera. Time to talk the talk.

Google searches for "fantasy art" and "sci fi art" are going to give you listicles naming some hotshots like Anato Finnstark, Simon Stalenhag and Bayard Wu, and my tests contain a who's who of the classics I first learned of in the Upper Triassic of mid-1990s.

If you're going for something a bit more down to Earth and classy, like creating a who's who of your dark fantasy local nobility, classical portraits are a good idea. Be advised, however, that if you go for a specific artist's look, you'll be wrestling with peculiarities too numerous to list. For example, Sir Baldy Bald as painted by da Vinci refused to lose his hair in most attempts, and women in armor as painted by Rembrandt tended to look much older and more masculine than intended - meaning all that had to be included in the negative prompt. Rembrandt, however, is good if you intend to create portraits of commoners, burghers and nobles in the same style.

Early 20th century or its analogue can swing two ways: either vintage photos or pulp artwork. For the latter, I need to run more extensive tests, but if you know who Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker or Earl Norem are, you know where to start.

#gm tips #dm tips #npc art #dnd character art #ttrpg #tabletop rpgs #ai art generation #ai image generation #ttrpg character art #character art #rpg resource #tabletop rpg

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depressedstressedlemonzest · 1 year

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Ten Tag Thursday

Rules:Post 10 facts about yourself and pass it along to a few favorites!

I am pretty close with my brother, he's three years younger than me and he lives 5 minutes away. We'll talk about anything and everything with one another. I thought most siblings were like this but my husband's aren't. The defining moment of difference when I was getting wheeled away for surgery and my brother licked my face. My husband was like WTF, and I was like we've always done that. Our reason being our mom saying "if you really love someone you'll lick them anywhere" demonstrating by licking my stepdad's armpit at the time. Granted we're adults now, but every once in awhile we'll face lick.

2. I have a bump on my forehead from when I was younger and fell off a wobbly kitchen chair and hit the VHS cabinet corner and got a nice slice. I was like... 8 and trying to get my paints from the back room when my mom was napping.

3. I have a weird memory, I can't remember most of childhood before like 10, but I can still remember lines from movies and tv shows I haven't seen in years.

4. I want to have kids, like so badly. But I'm terrified that I have something wrong with me to where I can't. If I can't I wouldn't mind adopting, hell I would want to adopt anyway, not as a last resort, I just want some kids. But husband and I have those types of appointments this month to make sure we aren't damaged.

5. I'm one of two granddaughters on my dad's side, the other one is almost 20 years older than me so basically I'm the only one in the last batch of babies.

6. I'm scared of birds and mice. Birds if there are more than two together can swarm and attack, they can poop on you, they can flap in your face. And the mice fear I blame on my mother.

picture it 1997, six year old Lem, with a sprained ankle, hobbling down the hall to the bathroom, mom helping me walk because I was hurting. She opens the bathroom door and turns on the light only to see a mouse. She shoves my ass in the bathroom, shuts off the lights, slams the door and runs screaming for my dad.

7. I've written three books, wrote them in like middle school and they are HORRIBLY cringe now, especially when I remember asking my english teacher to proof read them AND SHE DID. One was an old victorian romance with the main male lead living in a treehouse, one about a werewolf romance, and one with a vampire romance.

8. I'm afraid that I'm not a good person, that I'm only pretending to be one.

9. I've always been a fucking smartass, and have always had incidents of malicious compliance. My mom shares a story about when I was in softball at age.... 10? 11? When I was pitching and the coach kept getting on my ass about "Presenting the ball" and I just straight up Vanna Whited the ball to the players and the stands, hand flourishing and all.

When I worked at a Walgreens one night the manager wanted me to put together a display of russell stover chocolates for easter, and as I was working a coworker was the only cashier and he was busy so I went to help a lot. Then at the end of the shift I had to stay late because I wasn't done with the display and it pissed my manager off. The next day the managers were wanting us to write down what we do during our shift and the time frames we do it on index cards to help with our time management.

I used up about 5 index cards for my 8 hour shift.

5:00 clock in 5:01 walk to locker and put things away 5:02 walk to photo booth

alll up until my shift was over. Every minute accounted for and the managers never bitched at me for time management again.

10. I don't know how to ride a bike. I know the logistics, but once the training wheels came off for me that was it.

@witchboywitchboywitchboy @xninetiestrendx @vintagelacerosette @trans-alpha-male @suzy-queued @ian-galagher

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chacusha · 2 years

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Dreamwidth pitch

Sometimes I wish more people would talk to me on Dreamwidth but then I don't really talk about Dreamwidth and why it's good or how it works, so maybe it would be good for me to do that??

So I guess some of the basic selling points about Dreamwidth:

Signing up is free and quick. (Also, I believe you can have any number of accounts associated with the same email address.) It has a similar vibe to Tumblr -- a geeky/fannish space.

It is a journaling website based on LiveJournal. By this I mean that it's almost like having a diary where you can choose to make some parts of that diary public or semi-public (at which point it becomes a blog). Counter to the direction of a lot of social media sites which increasingly focus on metrics, engagement (in a numeric form of views/likes/notes/retweets/etc.), and wide availability and easy (or automatic) sharing of content so as to maximize those metrics, Dreamwidth goes in the opposite direction with a focus on privacy. Each post you make has three possible privacy settings: public (viewable by anyone visiting the site), friends (viewable only to people who you have intentionally granted access to your friends-only posts -- you can also freely define custom friend groups to select subsets of friends, although I don't usually use this level of compartmentalization), and private (viewable only by you). It's very easy to check which privacy setting you've used for a post and to change them after the fact. Because posts on Dreamwidth cannot be shared or reblogged, when you revoke access to your post, it is immediate and total because you control the only copy of the post. Usual internet exceptions apply: People may screenshot your post; the internet archive may manually or automatically take a snapshot of older content; or a person might still have "friends" access and then leak the details of a post outside of "friendslock", which would make semi-private material accessible to the public again even though you've tried to lock it down. But for the most part, you much less run into the issue where something you wrote when you were 16 is still public knowledge and can't be scrubbed from the internet. And because privacy settings are such a big feature of the site, there are strong social norms against violating someone's privacy by sharing details they've posted semi-privately outside of that space. I really like this aspect of Dreamwidth because being able to write up my thoughts on very personal things I'm thinking about or going through and have some close internet friends who I trust share their thoughts in response has been so helpful to me throughout my life. There are a lot of mental health benefits to keeping a diary and even more so when you can get semi-anonymous advice from people you know and trust on the internet. I cannot tell you how invaluable it has been to panic or vent about some situation I'm encountering for the first time and have an older and wiser friend give me some advice on how to approach it. I've really grown as a person through first LiveJournal and now Dreamwidth as its replacement because of the semi-anonymous (pseudonymous) AND semi-private way you interact with the site and other users, and I don't know any other social media website that can do this, except I suppose through DMs, but that always feels like having a side conversation whereas doing it on a journaling site makes it the main conversation, where it's easier to organize/search/sort through.

Dreamwidth was forked from LiveJournal many years ago by a small group of people who are very thoughtful and intentional about site design and purpose. You can see in the way DW and LJ have diverged since what the value is in having site runners who have a philosophy about approaching websites that's more than just "make money/break even." Dreamwidth is very "shoestring budget" in its feel -- it has fewer features, development is slow and (I'm guessing) largely done by the site founders or volunteers, and bugs are slow to fix. But on the flipside, the site is simple and loads quickly, the default look of the site is very clean and easy to read, and in addition, the site allows you to fully customize the default style in which content is displayed to you, something that other social media sites will never do (aside from a "dark mode", I suppose) because being able to establish and fully control the site look is key for a company's/website's branding. However, Dreamwidth goes another direction, because accessibility and accessibility features have been a value of the site owners from the founding, and they take that seriously. Dreamwidth is also very intentional about its content policy and takes pains to maximize free expression while still maintaining a safe environment conducive for dialogue and debate for its users. Finally, there are no advertisements on the site anywhere at all. Zero. How does the site support itself, then, you ask? It's based on a paid subscription model where a core of passionate users are willing to pay some money each year so that the site is able to support the amount of users/traffic it gets. This funding model means that the site remains the product being sold rather than the users (and their data/eyeballs). This is a good alignment to have because you want the site to be incentivized to be useful and valuable to users rather than to harvest as much as it can from its users so as to be useful and valuable to advertisers. Dreamwidth takes security seriously and keeps its users informed about potential security breaches (e.g. one where LJ's passwords were compromised, which led to DW accounts using the same password being similarly compromised). A comparison of what Dreamwidth and LiveJournal are like now is illustrative -- I find LiveJournal almost unusable because of the ads, loading times, and just general janky interface; LJ has also been subject to multiple purges and controversial content policy changes over the years. Being on Dreamwidth is almost calming and relaxing by contrast, even though it is clearly missing some obvious and sometimes very useful features like post-/comment-liking, video uploading, post scheduling, etc.

How tagging works on Dreamwidth: This is probably the biggest difference in how Tumblr/AO3 and Dreamwidth work. On Tumblr and AO3, tags are universal across the whole site. When you tag a post with something, then it will appear in global searches for anyone browsing that tag. Heck, on Tumblr, it might pop up unsolicited on someone's dash if they follow that tag. Tags are the main way people find and are recommended content from people they're not already following. On Dreamwidth, though, tags only apply to your blog. There is no universal tag search. I mean, you can search Dreamwidth for content you're interested in; you can also search users based on what tags they've listed in their "Interests." In my experience, though, this tends to not really turn up much useful stuff; you'll likely get a lot of weird/niche content probably not meant to be viewed by a wider audience, as well as users and communities who haven't updated their journal in, like, five years. Not very useful. (In general, content production and content discovery are extremely anemic on DW, a downside I discuss more fully below.) However, what this means is that tags are 100% geared toward the function of helping you organize your own blog. You have full control over your tagging scheme. Much more than any social media website I can think of (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram for sure), Dreamwidth facilitates having a complete record of every post you've written and helps you easily find specific content again even if you wrote it years in the past. This is why I say the site is very good for journaling. It's easy to double-check things like: "In order for people to understand this part, they need to read that post where I talked about that grocery store incident. Where is that post?" "How long have I been having this issue at work? Oh wow, my first post on this was eight months ago." "Where are all the posts I've made with my TV show reviews?" (Tip: The default setting on Dreamwidth is to display only a selection of the most frequently used tags in alphabetical order on your main journal page; I would recommend overriding this immediately to set it to show all tags because your tags are going to be a SUPER useful navigation tool for sorting through your own posts.)

Features that support having actual conversations with your friends rather than shouting one-sidedly into the void and maybe getting a supportive like in response IDK: Fully-threaded comments (and also, no "like" button). *old lady voice* Kids these days don't appreciate the value of a fully-functional comment threading system! Okay, so Dreamwidth allows you to start new comments in response to a post and reply freely to other comments, creating a kind of hierarchical tree structure. All the discussion associated with a post is viewable on a single page, and this means you can have a pretty detailed back-and-forth with the author of a post without coming off as hostile or without awkwardly spamming your followers with one half of the conversation, which is how conversations work on Tumblr. The comment character limit is 16k characters (~2500 words) so you can reply fully to a post rather than needing to condense the essence of your reply into a brief comment. You can talk not only to your friends but also to your friends' friends who are contributing to the discussion too. Separation of public and private spaces: I won't go into this too much but Dreamwidth has "personal blogs" (private spaces) and "communities" (public spaces moderated by the leader of the community) that work very differently (have completely different mechanics underlying them). Unlike Tumblr and Twitter, this means there is a clear separation between public and private spaces, behavior norms in each, and who you're accountable to when interacting in each space, which does a lot to ease social interactions and make them less fraught and contentious. And unlike sites like Reddit, you actually GET a private space without having to interact entirely in communities/special interest forums. These sets of features means that you can have a very deep, easy-to-follow conversation in a semi-public forum on a wide variety of topics while keeping the conversation all in one place and allowing interested people to follow the conversation. It's just a set of features that prioritizes responding to content with high-quality conversation rather than the mere sharing of content without comment.

If you're interested in joining Dreamwidth, here is a word of warning and then advice:

The warning is that, unlike Tumblr, it is very hard to make friends on DW. On Tumblr, you can make friends by browsing tags and journals of people who post things relevant to your interests or who interact on the posts YOU'RE making and sharing; you can follow someone whose content you enjoy and want to continue seeing and maybe they follow you back and start interacting with your posts! Cool. Easy. DW makes this process problematic in many ways: (1) as mentioned earlier, content discovery is difficult, (2) in some cases, most or all of people's content may be friendslocked which means you cannot preview it before you decide to approach someone suggesting to be friends, (3) assuming you do find a stranger whose (public) content is interesting, you can "subscribe" to them (the equivalent of following on Tumblr; their content now regularly shows up on your dash ("friends page")) and/or "friend" them (this will give them access to YOUR friendslocked posts); the person you subscribe to or friend will get a notification of this action, but this doesn't actually mean you are or will be "friends." You see, in order to be friends, someone needs to subscribe and friend you back. For the first thing, that means being interested in your content (usually not an issue; even if you don't have any content, people are willing to take a chance on you and subscribe back). But the second thing is more important -- by friending you back, that will grant access to all the friendslocked entries. Just because some stranger on the internet is interested in what you post and is like "Friends?" and give you access to their friendslocked entries doesn't mean you actually trust that person enough to give them full access to your years and years of friendslocked writing, you know what I mean? So making a random friend request might just result in being completely ignored. Instead, you often need to give someone the context for why you are interested in being friends, introduce yourself, and ask for their permission to friend before hitting that button.

Okay, so what this means is that it is very hard to find potential friends on DW and trying to friend people can be way more work than creating a new account and clicking some buttons on people's profiles. So how do people make friends on DW?! In order to get around this, people have come up with several things:

Friending memes: These are activities that happen every so often where someone gives people a form to fill out (where you talk about various interests and type of things you post about on your blog, potential dealbreakers in your content, etc.) and people browse through other people's comments and when they find someone who looks interesting, they can reply and be like "Hey! You seem like an interesting person. I also post about camping and photography. Want to be friends?" It's like, uh, speed dating but for online friends? This is much better than a cold approach as described above. In particular, every January on Dreamwidth, a group of people runs an activity called the Snowflake Challenge, where they have various fannish activities and challenges and you can choose to participate in whichever ones you like. A lot of them act as kind of icebreaker questions, and you can strike up conversations with other people by browsing things they've posted, and at some point in the activity, there's always a friending meme. Usually reccing active communities and helpful resources on DW is also part of the Snowflake Challenge (which is SUPER useful because being on DW can be like walking through a graveyard sometimes), so it's great for people who are new.

Stickied friending posts at the top of journals. These posts will often explain what kind of journal the person keeps, what content they post, how much of their journal is friendslocked, requirements for friending, etc. Comment there to introduce yourself, explain why you are interested in friending this person, ask to be friended back, etc.

Participate in public-space "communities" first and use that to find friends. Okay, okay, a bit difficult because there are a lot of communities on DW that are *tumbleweed blowing in the wind* -- dead. Abandoned. So quiet and unresponsive that it's almost worse than being fully dead because there are people there who will sometimes give you a bite but it's just not enough to feel worth the time and now you're all embarrassed for yourselves and each other. Here are some recs of active communities: dw_community_promo (for finding (newly) active communities, not necessarily fannish in nature); fandom_on_dw (any kind of fannish activities/communities); fandomcalendar (fannish events); thefridayfive (a currently active community that posts a collection of five questions each Friday; great for icebreakers and you can browse other people's answers); addme_fandom (if a friending meme were a community instead; this comm also has a lot of resources for new joiners of DW in its sticky post). Active but maybe a bit drama-llama-y (you may or may not enjoy these): fandomsecrets (an EXTREMELY long-running community run by maybe the most tireless/superhuman mod I know of; you can anonymously submit images containing a fandom-related secret you have, and they get posted in random order over the following week and people discuss in the comments -- it's a great multifandom space, especially if you want to vent about some fandom drama you're going through or an unpopular opinion you have, but can be intimidating to interact there non-anonymously due to the nature/contentiousness of the secrets/discussions sometimes; also, sometimes people are mean :(); fail_fandomanon (a fandom gossip comm, essentially, but also a good multifandom discussion place; very difficult to find friends, though, due to the anonymous posting requirement but it's very active and gives you plenty of reading material if you largely like to use social media to read interesting stuff you didn't know about before. Also, its "Ask meme" threads and its personal posts are great for getting anonymous help and advice -- like you know those newspaper advice columns or r/AITA or r/relationships? That kind of thing. You can be very detailed about an issue you're having in your personal life and people will give you advice. Even more so than fandomsecrets, "lightly bitchy and petty" is kind of the vibe of this place, and anonymous trolling is commonplace (one rule of the comm is "don't be THAT much of an asshole" which kind of gives you an idea of what baseline level of politeness we're talking about here). It's got a complicated set of norms that have developed over time (see, for example, the elaborate comment titles and the sheer number of acronyms flying around), which can make the learning curve for delurking pretty steep.

Weirdly, the type of communities in which I have made the longest-lasting LJ/DW friends have been "landcomms," a special kind of competitive fannish activity community. I think they were based on the House Cup of Harry Potter. At least, it's easiest to explain it that way: there are multiple "games"/"rounds" (each lasting 3 months, say) where all the participants are sorted into teams, and they earn points for their team by participating in various challenges and activities set up by the mods. I no longer have time to really be active in any of these but WOW they really help you make friends who you know pretty deeply because you're interacting and strategizing with your fellow teammates, and over time you get to know the regulars quite well. These communities often lock all their content and activities to members only, which means that it's a good sandbox to experiment with fannish creation because the audience is fairly small and a priori quite supportive. You can experiment and put your work out there in a way that isn't like "now everyone on the internet has access to this and can judge it." Anyway, I'm too old to participate in these, but apparently lands_of_magic is an active multifandom landcomm and might be worth checking out.

Some other random features of Dreamwidth that I like, and also the major weaknesses of Dreamwidth as a site:

Strength: You get multiple icons/userpics. It's kind of weird to me that social media sites have done away with the ability for users to have multiple userpics (I suppose it does make it easier to identify who is saying what!), but in any case, this is a weirdly unique feature that LJ/DW have -- you can upload multiple 100x100 little images and choose which one to accompany each post and comment you make (or just use your default icon). Icons on DW, to me, are like custom emoji on Discord. They are ways to be expressive through images without the need for words, they can be quite personal, you get some slots for free, but because a lot of people get REALLY into them, users are literally willing to pay money for more slots that they can use. Anyway, you get 15 icon slots by default, and there are a lot of users and communities dedicated to making icons that people can use. It's fun!

Strength: Dreamwidth has a very powerful and simple HTML editor. Weakness: I have never used Dreamwidth's rich text editor, and everything I hear from people who have used it suggests it is an unusuable eldritch horror. Cannot verify that experience, but even without using it, I am pretty confident that DW's "WYSIWYG" editing ("what you see is what you get" -- that is, however you format a post while drafting it, that's what it will look like to other people when posting) is extremely far behind other social media sites. If I were to post and format this post on Dreamwidth (and I will), I would be able to do a lot more with controlling how the bulletpoints look and are nested, and I could do things like create sections in the post that make it easy to navigate to specific sections, and I could do things like add tables and collapsible sections because I think Dreamwidth allows almost any HTML5 tag (more so than e.g. what AO3 allows). On the negative side, however, it is much harder to do things like arrange images in a photoset on Dreamwidth. In short, you WILL need some kind of HTML knowledge to do anything fancier than paragraphs of text (images, embeds, polls, bulleted lists, etc.). However, if text is all you're doing, it's a really nice editor. And for power users, HTML is a good skill to have and unlocks a lot of possibilities with your posts, and DW is one of the best interfaces for doing pared-down, simplified HTML editing I've ever used.

Strength: Some more on accessibility: So remember how I said that DW lets you control the way the site is displayed to you? This means you can heavily customize how your reading page and blog looks, what links and sidebar widgets are available and where they're placed on the page, etc. But you know, that kind of freedom can be dangerous. As you might know well from Tumblr, what about people with custom blog styles that are a horrendous viewing experience -- autoplay music, flashing gifs, low text-background contrast, color scheme that makes your eyes burn, etc.? Well, DW has thought about that. Whenever you get a link to a DW post or someone's DW blog and you don't like the style, you can just append ?style=site OR ?style=mine OR ?style=light to the URL and voila -- it's readable again. ?style=site will display the page in DW's standard style which is a light grey + red/pink highlights style that is designed to be easy on the eyes. ?style=mine will display the page in YOUR custom style, so if you've made tweaks to the site style to optimize your reading experience, you can now apply it everywhere you like. Finally, ?style=light displays the page with minimal styling so that it can be loaded quickly in situations where your connection is bad. All of these things allow you to have an optimal reading experience.

Strength: Polls. If you have a paid account, Dreamwidth lets you make polls. This is probably the number one reason why I have a paid DW account, to be honest, because polls are really useful for running communities and getting feedback. Like, when I mod communities and I want to get the opinion of members, I can post a poll, and my paid account lets me do this in any community as well as on my personal journal. I used to run a lot of fanwork contest type communities, and you can conduct voting pretty easily that gives each user one vote, which is hard to ensure through third-party voting mechanisms. The downside here is that the opposite is not possible -- you can't run a poll that is open to the general public. I believe all poll participants need to have a DW account in order to participate.

Weakness: Dreamwidth's image-posting capabilities are still quite weak. It is only relatively recently that Dreamwidth allowed you to upload images to the site at all. A free account gives you only 500 MB, which is enough if you want to post a graphic or a photo here and there but not a lot if you're posting e.g. your full set of vacation photos or gifsets or reams of screencaps or whatnot. The upload interface leaves much to be desired. It is very difficult to add images to posts -- you either need to use the rich text editor (which comes with its own set of challenges) or you need to be pretty comfortable with HTML and understanding what <img src=""> means. DW does provide some copy and pasteable HTML code to put your image into the HTML post editor, but yeah, putting an image in a post is not the click-and-drag experience that it is on most modern social media sites. When I want to add some images to a post, the process is like this: Open a new tab and go to the DW homepage. Click Create > Upload Images. Upload files. Make sure the privacy settings of the images match my post. Get each image embed code and go back to my other tab where I'm editing my post and paste it in. Repeat for all images. Yay. It is certainly not a simple experience.

Weakness: There is no reblog function. This can have some benefits: as mentioned, you own the only copy of your post -- if other people want to share it, they have to give people the URL to it. However, let me be very frank about the downsides: it means that Dreamwidth is not a low-effort content-sharing website like most social media sites are nowadays, which has two major ramifications: First, you cannot create an interesting blog simply by following interesting blogs and curating an interesting feed. I mean, I suppose you can kind of do this by collecting interesting links and posting them as a DW post every so often, but that's still very different from how modern social media works where you just directly share the interesting content and that IS your blog. What this means is that in order to have an interesting blog, YOU have to consciously craft/draft your own interesting content from time to time; you cannot just rely on encountering interesting content from other people. What THIS means is that your DW blog is inevitably going to be quite personal. This can be pretty intimidating for someone who is starting out. I remember my first LiveJournal post (which even 18 years later took me about 10 seconds to pull up on my laptop -- the archival functions of DW are AMAZING) was essentially me saying "Hm… well I got this LJ but I don't know what kind of things to use this thing for or how long I'm going to keep it…" Anyway, it's always very awkward starting up a DW blog because you can't just find some content you find really cool and just share it and people get to know you and your tastes and your interests that way. Nah, you're kind of thrown into the oversharing deep end here. You're going to have to personally write something if you want people to have something to read. Second, keeping a DW blog can be a non-trivial amount of effort. Like I mentioned, you can certainly use your blog to curate content, but it requires some amount of work and effort to do even that. You can't just scroll and click and bam, you've added some content to your blog.

Weakness: Dreamwidth is very lo-fi and text-based. I mentioned the difficulties of uploading images; I mentioned the lack of a share button. What Dreamwidth is geared toward is plain text posts. I recognize this is very not ideal -- where are the visual aids? The images to break up all the dry walls of text? The whole experience of being on Dreamwidth is doing a lot of reading. And a lot of writing. A LOT. Sometimes people just don't have time for that. I get it. I mean, you can choose how often and how much to write and how much of your reading page you want to read, but regardless of how frequently and for how long you choose to engage with the site, it is never going to be an easy scrolling, filling-a-three-minute-lull-in-the-middle-of-the-work-day sort of experience, IMO. The content can be very interesting but it's got a high barrier to entry.

Weakness: Content discovery is very difficult. I discussed this earlier. But Dreamwidth really doesn't do much to shove content in your face. It doesn't have recommendation algorithms. This can be good because it helps you curate your feed to content you enjoy and people you trust, so you rarely have to block people because they are irritating you. You can just not follow them or easily scroll by their posts (DW is very text-based and high barrier to entry, right, so it takes a lot of conscious effort to consume content; it's not the type of site where you can run across the worst opinion you've ever read in your life and by the time you realize what it is, you've consumed the whole post). Spammers also aren't really a thing. But it means that you really do need to build up an interesting set of people/communities to follow or there's nothing for you to read or DO on the site. It also means that people will not just stumble across YOUR posts unless you put forward effort to promote them somewhere (e.g. in an active relevant community, which, you know, may not exist). You're never going to get that dopamine hit of people liking and reblogging your stuff instantly after you post it. And even when you want to share something widely, it can be tricky trying to figure out whether that's possible at all. Strength: On the plus side, I suppose it really is like having a private little sandbox. Like you're over here going "vroom vroom" with your toy cars or whatever, and it's extremely unlikely you'll get some rando barging into your replies talking about how your car-playing is all WRONG and here's what you should do instead.

Weakness: Dreamwidth is "dead." I mean, you can still find plenty of people who are active on DW. I have a great, very active set of friends whose posts I enjoy reading (and they all post different sorts of things; I have enough friends that I can't actually read all the content I'm interested in, but I do try) and who regularly respond to my posts. I'm very happy there. Personal blogs are doing fine. But personal blogs are only one half of Dreamwidth -- the other half are communities (public spaces) and those are not doing so well in my experience. You have a couple of active islands I mentioned above, and if your fandoms are sufficiently big, you can probably find an active discussion comm for them. But if your fandoms are small or even if you're in a big fandom that just doesn't seem to have found a dedicated mod and a critical mass of active users interested in public discussions, then you're shit out of luck when it comes to public discussion venues on DW. Depending on your needs/interests, this might be fine, or it might be a dealbreaker. For me personally, as someone who was on LJ in its heyday, the lack of communities is a bit demoralizing. It's certainly quieter and it has this feel of there being a few towers of refuge in a barren landscape that people are flocking around. And like I said, communities help you make friends. And it's just a different way of interacting with people, which I value in a social media site, and I can't really meet that need on DW with the current size of its userbase.

Weakness: There is no ask system. There are DMs; sometimes people play askbox meme-style games in the comment of posts (someone posts a list of questions, people comment to select the ones they want the OP to answer, OP replies in the comment thread with their answers); and I suppose you could create a stickied post with anonymous comments enabled to act as your askbox, but there's really no equivalent to the big set of functionality that is the askbox system on Tumblr. There's no way to privately ask someone a question, and that question can then easily be published or replied to privately at the discretion of the blog owner. If you'd like to poke someone to check in with them, the only way to do that is with a DM or a comment posted on a random blog entry; there's not really an easy way to ask a question or propose some content to someone's blog with asks the way there is on Tumblr.

Anyway, I think I've covered the main things about using Dreamwidth. I always want more people to come talk to me on Dreamwidth because I feel like that site is the only place that facilitates people getting to know me both on a purely fannish level and on a very personal level (I know people can make the personal + fannish sharing combo work on Twitter and Tumblr, but having everything be out in public just really does not work for me). But I realize it's hard to just start using a site you're unfamiliar with, especially one like Dreamwidth that tends to have a bit of a learning curve and is generally out of step with the direction of modern social media. And especially when you don't have many friends there already, which is probably the case for most people. But it's a site I respect and trust a lot, and I think it facilitates deep, long-lasting friendships. More than anything, I think the main difference between DW and Tumblr is that Tumblr is mainly a site for sharing content with other people and reacting to it, while DW is more geared toward helping you organize your life and your thoughts. They have a lot of overlap in terms of the kind of personal and fannish musings and experiences that can be shared, though. Anyway, if you're interested in joining Dreamwidth but it's intimidating/confusing, please reach out! I have lots more recs for active communities depending on your interests, too!

(Probably the best way to do that is on the Dreamwidth version of this post.)

#anyway posts like this are why I'm not a good fit for Tumblr lol #social media #dreamwidth #complaining about tumblr on tumblr

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notthatborderline · 8 months

Text

Why I fight the patriarchy.

Since the age of 18 before I realised what the word even meant, I became a feminist during my last year of A Levels.

And let me tell you how much of a minefield that can be in terms of meeting people. It's almost like you polarise friend groups, family members and generally the people around you because hurrah, you've found a tribe who you feel belonging with.

Your feminism is basically a threat to the toxic people who prevade your life with their unhealthy ideals of how a woman should be, and how their ideals of household labour and freedom jar with their need to be a constant influence in your life. How your needs come after theirs in terms of what you believe in. You essentially become selfless and lose yourself.

Why I'm writing this? So when I left my recent partner a month and a half ago, I essentially found myself again after years of mental illness and self invalidation through dating, the end of my DBT Life Skills therapy and roller derby. Because being a feminist with a serious mental illness can be trying at the best of times. We don't ask for a lot, believe it or not, just fundamental, basic human rights. Without sounding poor mouth, I'm a fucking resilient person in her early 30s who realises where she went wrong in life before her diagnosis. But right now, I'm a bit fed up with how our brand gets a bad name due to a small group of people who have claimed the feminist movement for bad.

We're man haters. We're basically sluts. We ask to be raped (some classic male arguments against feminism). The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on. And don't get me started on the TERFS and the SWERFS (I will explain these terms later).

Let me expand this. If we have too much sex, we're easy. If we don't have sex, we're frigid. The double standard, pretty much. If we get tattoos, or any other body modification, we're betraying the cause. Some of the most confident women that I know in my roller derby group have tattoos and it shows. I'm tattooed in different areas of my body and would also like one or two more if I can.

I'm also sex positive and the current person that I'm dating likes that I bring that into what we have. Despite suffering sexual trauma in my early 20s it doesn't invalidate that I can have a sex life and be in touch with my body, like both my rapists decided at the most vulnerable time of my life that I had to. I decide who has access to my body and who can't now.

But the catalyst for this post is the constant dogwhistling towards prominent women who granted, have the privilege of being in the open on account of their career, but at the end of the day are just that; women. The utter reduction of their role to a single event (they got botox, a tramp stamp on their back; think Cheryl in the 2010s) and then the added insult of proclaiming that they don't have any solidarity with other feminists is just not okay. What feminists are trying to say here is that once a woman is open about her life, they are conveyed as somehow a traitor, a fallen woman. And this is the exact portrayal of feminism that we need to move away from.

I could sit all day and read about critical feminism, but sadly my Masters' degree and my part time job don't allow that all the time. My critically thinking mind, however, allows me to see that the hateful comments being paraded online aren't in solidarity - they attack the person, rather than the cause, which is internalised misogyny. And that is the main reason why I fight the patriarchy - to create a feminism which is inclusive to all, to let other women, both trans and cis, and also sex workers into the movement. Because at the end of the day, this is a safe space and gatekeeping of feminism will almost always occur from someone or others who don't agree with what another feminist has done, and so the efforts to cancel them are desperate. And that isn't an act of solidarity.

And as a final word from me - whilst I may be a cis gender, bisexual white feminist, I also have my own handicaps and therefore struggle at times. This is where being kind to other women comes in, and I'm thankful for the group of women and men I've met during the last 15 years who I have empowered, and they me likewise.

Since the age of 18 before I realised what the word even meant, I became a feminist during my last year of A Levels.

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