#guess i got a new blog quote.... GREAT... ]

[starberry-cupcake]

To add to the pile of questionable tumblr behavior as of late, and as a psa at large:

I searched a mental health related tag last week and I got immediately a message from a bot called Koko. It intended to put me through to "people who are interested in mental health topics". In this tumblr message format, they didn't immediately facilitate hotlines, specific mental health care services or professional help, just "people".

I didn't respond to it. It's a bot. I didn't block it because I was interested to see where it would lead, but I didn't talk back. In the following days, it kept sending me messages, trying to get me to use their service.

Among the messages, they told me how it works, not that I had asked:

So, it sounds like a recipe for disaster in the making to me. My personal mental health information being passed through random tumblr users and getting a reply from someone who, not only isn't a professional or part of any sort of mental health care group I could get informed about, but they also will provide unsupervised answers to topics of great importance to someone who was looking into related tags.

But, tumblr user thewindandthewolves seems to endorse it, so let's check them out and see what they have to say.

Well. I'm posting the responses in chronological order, but I guess the raving review from a tumblr user was actually a kid who didn't give them consent to use their words as endorsement. Great look.

Today, I got a new message. Again, unprompted.

Second review person has apparently deleted their blog, so no background information on that one. If that's you, let us know.

I decided to look at their blog and read people's comments on their posts. The tumblr userbase came through with the receipts and linked this very detailed article about not only the bot and its founder but the sketchy study it uses as a foundation:

Here's an important quote from this article regarding the study in which Koko is founded as a clear notion of what consent means to them:

Morris [Koko's founder] declined to say whether he thought the subjects had meaningfully consented to the study. He told Motherboard that his goal was to establish a new best practice, where he would be able to transparently show his results to social media platforms. However, when asked if he felt that the experiment was transparent to the participants involved, he said he’d needed more time to think about it. 

It's not a tough one to respond to, Morris.

I suggest you to please read the whole article but the way in which these people perform verbal gymnastics to try to justify the lack of consent from people involved is alarming.

About Tumblr's involvement, the article didn't get comments from them on it:

Stony Brook's IRB [Institutional Review Board] and multiple people tasked with overseeing the IRB did not respond to multiple emails from Motherboard about the study or the process. Facebook, Discord, and Tumblr responded to Motherboard’s initial emails but did not provide comment. Telegram did not respond to Motherboard’s request for comment. 

The article also read the fine print of the Terms of Service, the only thing they provide as any type of consent to users, and the previous situation of using tumblr user posts without them knowing is illuminated further:

The current dynamic between Koko and its users more closely parallels the relationship between most tech companies and their users than that between a mental health provider and patient. Its Terms of Service, for instance, state that, “You grant Koko a fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, transferable and fully sublicensable right (including any moral rights) and license to use, license, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, publicly perform, publicly display, and otherwise fully exploit Your Content.” 

As an editor, that sounds more like a US release agreement form for intellectual property, which should not be used as any form of mediation for personal data. It also alarms me to no end that the "Content" in question, in the example we have was, according to OP, a post they had made on their own blog about Kokobot and not a response or quote provided to Kokobot itself which, in tow, signifies that the data collected could come from anywhere and not only what you actively provide them. But what do I know.

I did more digging by myself and found even more articles denouncing the behavior of this bot and company, this being another interesting one:

This one included the following thing about the peer-counseling aspect of it and the use of AI to craft the supposed "people" responses:

During the AI experiment—which applied to about 30,000 messages, according to Morris—volunteers providing assistance to others had the option to use a response automatically generated by OpenAI's GPT-3 large language model instead of writing one themselves (GPT-3 is the technology behind the recently popular ChatGPT chatbot).

Apparently, Koko has been around for a while, with articles discussing it as far as, at least, 2017. Still, I had never before received unprompted, unwanted, invasive messages from it on tumblr until now.

If you post or search tags related to mental health, it's very likely that you'll get this bot in your messages or you already have. There are many layers of breach of ethics in this situation, in my opinion, each one worse than the last one.

Before using it or sharing any information at all (with any bot ever), I'd advice you to look into it beforehand. I know we are the "trust no bots" website and the fake ladybots have taught us well on how to spot them and protect ourselves, but this one in particular seems very dangerous to me.

I can't talk about whether or not this has helped anybody, I'm not coming anywhere near it, but the sole concept of this sounds like a bad idea. The advice provided doesn't seem to come from selected professionals the platform is endorsing legally but by random people (and/or AI) who are not only not trained for it, they aren't being compensated for work made for a program, which is probably making good money out of all the social media platforms it's working with. It also allows them to not be responsible for the advice given, to some extent.

Even if people with mental health concerns can discuss things between them in very productive and helpful ways, there isn't genuinely transparent communication if it's anonymously mediated by a company and there isn't a proper professional care that can accompany them from someone who is trained to facilitate it. You can talk to a friend without having to provide data to a company that could identify you since, according to the first article:

There is, further, no easy way to wall the collection of such data off from actual subjects, as anonymized datasets can often still be traced back to specific individuals. (A 2019 study found that 99.98 percent of Americans could be correctly re-identified in any dataset using 15 demographic attributes.) This is why privacy experts have been vocal about the exploitation of data privacy and the unreliability of an anonymous dataset. 

I'm not here to tell anyone what to do or not to do but I'm here to share this because I know that I would appreciate the information if someone else had come across it instead. Make decisions with all the information you can get.

Throwing a wild idea for the hellsite but maybe staff and ceo should be a little less occupied in persecuting trans folk and more into reading the fine print of the unethical companies they're signing with, who are exploiting their userbase's mental health, especially that of literal children whose quotes are being used to endorse their business without any legal consent, aside from a terribly worded TOS. But what do I know.

#long post #luly rambles #mental health #tumblr dot hell

[hesterias]

hello lovely 😘 4, 5, and 13 for the arctic monkeys asks! 💞

Thank you so much for creating this and sending asks.

4. which member of the band would you like to spend an afternoon with, and why? how would you spend your time?

my first instinct is to say alex, because i'd love to pick his brain creatively and see what he enjoys doing on a normal day, see his habits. most likely go to the cinema or an art exhibit or a show or just have a nice day in the park followed by some pints at a pub. i think we both have an introverted extrovert thing going on, where we can talk to anyone but actively choose not to. BUT i think i'd most likely vibe best with matt, he seems so fun. we'd probably go to the beach (i live in CA), or stroll the city and take photographs/talk photography and people-watch. he seems hilarious. so either one of those choices would be good. matt would be a fun hang, alex would be an artsy, intellectual hang.

5. which album means the most to you?

definitely tbh+c. before the release of TC, i wasn't a big monkeys fan. not that i didn't like them, i just knew the AM hits and that's it, never investigating further. @reconciledviolence729 got me into the fandom and her favorite album was tbhc and she bought me the vinyl for my birthday last year. such a great, unexpected gift and i listened to it often. i even spent an evening listening to it with my dad while we drank wine and just.... listened to it. it was amazing, such a great experience, so yeah, tbhc is a special (and pretty perfect) album for me.

13. what are some of your favourite lyrics alex has written?

haha can i quote all of tbh+c? (seriously, all of tbhc) as you can probably guess by my blog (and the little nod to it in ASA) i love

i've been on a bender back to that prophetic esplanade, where i ponder all the questions, but just manage to miss the mark (such an introspective line)

My mistakes were made for you / And in the back room of a bad dream she came / And whisked me away

With folded arms you occupied the bench like toothache Stood and puffed your chest out like you never lost a war And though I tried so not to suffer the indignity of a reaction There was no cracks to grasp or gaps to claw

Yesterday's still leaking through the roof That's nothing new

I'd throw the rose tint back on the exploded view Darling, if I were you And how's that insatiable appetite?

There's all those places we used to go And I suspect you already know But that place on memory lane you like still looks the same But something about it's changed

You pushed my faith near being lost But we'll stick to the guns Don't care if it's marketing suicide We won't crack or compromise Your derisory divides Will never unhinge us

But seriously. All of TBHC is gold. Tagging @mrsnarl and @m0nkfys because they asked these too 🫶🏼

#thank you for the ask ✨ #ask

[nervousron]

Chronological Lazlow Jones quotes and facts from Vice City, up to GTAV

22 year old radio intern Lazlow covers his eyes and hides in the corner when ladies enter the recording booth without their shirts

“Im 100% rebel. I got kicked out of school after the 12th grade, man” (for non-american readers, this would be university)

“Dont sell out. I never will”

“I am the master of darkness - that’s why my name’s Lazlow”

“Remember, Im going to be famous one day.”

Lazlow’s V-Rock Radio job application was sent in hand written calligraphy with a bouquet of flowers

Lazlow was in high school band

“I flunked school cuz im parkour”

He is pro gun and conservative

“How is that fair? I mean Im white, middle-class, very erudite -um, yknow, whatever that means- but people just respond badly to me, i don't understand it”

“-and you keep saying ‘im from the streets’, Yknow what dude? Everyone has a street in front of their house, that doesn't make you cool”

“Its kinda been a dream of mine to sleep with housewives…”

“I love your strap, you’re a great guy!”

Lazlow was tricked into joining the military briefly

Lazlow’s mom sent him to inversion and conversion therapy

“This is the west coast. I’m only into lesbians, man”

Lazlow breaking into tears when a caller continuously encourages Lazlow to shave his bush so his dick looks bigger

“Hanging upside down to sleep doesnt make you cool, or alternative. I know because I tried it”

A guy called in saying he moved from Hampshire and Lazlow told him his english was good and asked if it was hard getting used to the language

As of gta III Lazlow is married. As of IV he is divorced, balding, and has a mustache. His wife left him for his best friend after he brought home a heavily drugged woman for a threeway.

He used to look at his best friends dick when he was sleeping.

(About the Brittish)“I think they were speaking English before we were. I mean, the people here were speaking Cherokee and Shoshone.”

Lazlow gets upset when a man implies spanking kids is okay. He gets even more upset when he realizes the man doesn’t have kids and just wants to be spanked

“My father was strangely silent my whole childhood, which y’know, explains a lot”

“So you would MILK your grandmother like some kind of TEAR COW?”

Lazlow pushed a hotdog salesman’s head into a pot of boiled hot dog water and tried to drown him. This was a very cathartic experience for him.

“You stick your hand down a stripper's panties, yknow, and you discover a pair of balls. Well guess what baby? The bitch is back. But im not a bitch, Im a man. Uhh-”

Lazlow was regularly caught kissing men backstage at concerts in the 80s

Lazlow mentions its easier to spike women’s drinks with GHB in Liberty City than Vice City

“Go play sudoku and die peeing on yourself”

“You’re not my type. I prefer unconscious chicks or milfs with stretch marks”

Lazlow has tried blogging, being in porn, vinewood, working glory holes, and taking "facefulls of pills" to be happy.

“dude. Can you really not rub your junk and talk about schools. Dude. dude.”

“And you just wish that ONCE you could share a bed with someone who wouldnt get creeped out by the pictures of my ex wife on the nightstand”

“You can catch an STD! From a Him/Her!”

Lazlow bites strangers when he’s mad

“Im a RAGING heterosexual”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Y’know, I’ve worn some panties. Its not weird if a chick asks you to do it. Then its hot”

He begs strangers on the street to watch him windmill his dick online.

“This mustache once got me laid. Yeah, Yeah.”

“Isnt there one where theres a cup and two girls…”

He accosts Fred Armisen in the street. Fred is somehow much worse than Lazlow.

“DUR DUR DUR text message. EL OH EL”

“You’ll NEVER get to experience the 80s”

“For once, Lazlow is not getting bummed. I’M doing the bumming”

in Episodes From Liberty City, Lazlow’s mother and step-father pay for his radio show and he lives in their home. He hates his step-dad and new step-sisters

“Im the g-spot of radio”

“I’m here to stay. Like the national debt. or syphilis.”

Lazlow’s brother is a tv producer

Lazlow promised $2 to a man to follow him down the street with a saxophone to set atmosphere for his radio show

“I’ve really gotta spread my scent right now. And by that, I mean pee”

Lazlow’s step-dad is a mortician

Lazlow is pro choice, but only because he doesnt want to be a hypocrite

Lazlow’s sister was supposedly kidnapped. He claims he did not personally murder her.

“Nicaragua. Which is a company that sells nicotine… water”

“Do have a second for gay rights?” “Okay, a second. Sometimes five minutes if I’m drunk and nobody’s looking”

Lazlow makes his intern follow him with a camera and pretend to be paparazzi. It backfires.

Lazlow got hairplugs some time between IV and V

Lazlow invented podcasting

“It’s not molesting if they’re ugly. Trust me, i’ve been doing it for years”

“Molesting is when they’re human and cant complain, or dont like peanut butter on their junk. Those sheep wouldnt have complained if they COULD have. They were loving it!”

Lazlow’s intern tells everyone at the gay bar that Laz wants to get railed by three guys. Lazlow, not understanding spanish, is very excited by the attention.

Lazlow knows space facts off the top of his head

Lazlow Wants to cum in zero G

He has a grandma fetish

Lazlow talks about his experience of getting pissed on by groups of strange men

Lazlow is "Left wing", but only because he doesnt want to be fired

Through tears “I dont understand valleys or clouds, it sounds like a nursery rhyme”

Lazlow told the press Michael "molested (him) into cutting his hair"

Lazlow got roofied at his Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting

Through tears “Tony? Can we hug? Please? You shouted at me a lot… And Tony? I dont think you can say ‘Gay Tony’ anymore, it’s not PC, the internet will go crazy”

Lazlow spins records at kids birthdays

“He wants me to beatbox, i’m gonna fuckin get LAAIIDDD”

“One more scandal will ruin me. I’m WOKE now”

#lazlow jones #grand theft auto #gtav facts #im working on replies i promise #but i listened to all his dialogue at work today so. lazlow time

[olderthannetfic]

Two of the recent asks on your blog just made me realise how fucking EXHAUSTED I am of of all the "boy who cried wolf" and "boy who vaguely heard about a stray dog looking for food in their area and decided it was obviously an invasion of rabid wolves" situations on this website, and in fandom in general.

I hate that my first thought when someone on anon talks about being groomed as a minor by an older person who "let" them interact with their nsfw fanworks, is "let me guess, is this gonna turn into a spiel about how because minors often ignore warnings and can't be trusted not to lie about their age to strangers online, everyone who posts nsfw anywhere but on places you need to be given a password or to pay actual money to access is a pedophile?" Because I've already seen every possible version of "checking out the rating, warnings, and tags and clicking "proceed" when the "this work could contain adult content" thing shows up isn't the same as consenting to see adult content" and I'm fully prepared for the day when we all get hit with "if you're an adult and don't have Minors DNI in all your social media profiles and your fandom accounts you're clearly a predator.""

And I hate that my first thought when someone on anon talks about being uncomfortable with some literature classic and getting told they're just too sensitive or equated with pro-censorship people is, "yeah, well, assuming it really went like that, people ARE gonna be on the lookout for the next big clout-chasing "Mark Twain was a horrible racist bastard for not foreseeing how the English language would evolve and not using words appropriate for a modern audience so having students read Tom Sawyer in school is basically a hate crime" or "there is sexist content in 1984 which means George Orwell was a pretentious hack with nothing of value to say about society or politics" thing, or the next person saying "Emily Bronte was just some idiotic romance-addicted white woman trying to pass a toxic abusive relationship as Twu Wuv" and proclaiming themselves the one lonely enlightened feminist in the land, or the next fic writer "Dante was just some racist homophobic creep who wrote some weird Bible fic so his blatant Self Insert could keep on harassing the girl he was obsessed with even after her death" to prove they're so forward-thinking and original and deserve to be regarded as a BNF defending fandom as a whole against the hordes of evil literature professors supposedly out to destroy it... I mean, this is the website that came up with "don't use a quote about Orestes and Pylades for your OTP because that's an incest" and "gay men shouldn't call themselves Achillean because Achilles and Patroclus might have had a pederastic relationship" yet worship Sappho as this relatable quirky wlw icon without giving a single fuck about the fact that she might be the one surviving example we have of institutionalized female pederasty, and I'd trust it to fall for a whole new MedievalPOC scam before I'd trust it to give a nuanced take on any kind of literary work, ESPECIALLY any literary work older than the early 2000s."

Sometimes I just feel the wolf could be right there howling at my door and I'd probably just say "ugh, great, those stupid kids got into my brain enough that now I can't even go about my day without imagining that there's a fucking wolf howling for no reason" and not even check out of the window. Or I'd check and still assume the wolf is just a big dog even then.

--

It's a genuine problem. Because there are still predators out there.

[mizkit]

new blog post: Process Post: on edit letters

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/process-post-on-edit-letters/

Process Post: on edit letters

There was a discussion going on over on Bluesky about dealing with edit letters, and this truth came up: “Editors aren’t always right about the solutions, but they’re nearly always right about the problems.”

That thread went on to discuss how the person quoting it, who happens to be KJ Charles whose books I read all of last year and who is also an editor, approaches edit letters; her approach involves suggesting ideas to fix the problems, because it opens the writer’s mind to the possiblity that the book could have something different happen in that moment, and also it gives them something to reject/bounce off/spitefully correct. Which, like: that seems very valid.

That said, I have recently watched friends get SUPER LONG, to my mind, edit letters, 70%+ of which are ideas & suggestions as how to tackle problems, and I honestly think my brain would explode. My editors have VERY MUCH been of the “this is a problem, pls fix” approach, rather than the “let us brainstorm!” approach, and I think that works for me.

Like, I’ve talked about my two worst revision requests: the short letter that said “these 6 things are wrong, pls fix,” which required forcibly inserting a plot into the book (HOUSE OF CARDS), which had previously lacked one, & the phone call which said “can you cut the hero’s POV (40% of the book!) & revise the book to make that work” (TRUTHSEEKER & subsequently WAYFINDER bc hoo boy were there knock-on effects on that one).

Neither editor had any particular suggestions on how to do either of those things; the second one literally told me it was her job to see the problems and mine to figure out how to fix them.

For HOUSE OF CARDS, tbh, I’m not sure the editor saw the “this book has no plot” problem per se, but the 6 things that didn’t work for her were things that didn’t work BECAUSE there was no plot. It was really well written and drew the reader along, but it didn’t feel quite right, and the elements she picked up on were what should have been plot points but didn’t really support anything.

The “cut the hero’s POV” was bc the book, in the editor’s opinion, fell too perfectly between romance & fantasy & would satisfy neither audience (so it would have been PERFECT for the red-hot “romantasy” subgenre right now ahahah go me 15 years ahead of the curve for once instead of 5 years behind 😵‍💫)

That book, tbh, she was like, “I will send this to the romance line if you don’t want to do this bc this is a HUGE ask, so go think about that” & I thought about it & decided to do it (one of my friends got so upset on my behalf I had to talk HER off the ledge about MY revisions 😅), BUT!

In neither case did they really offer much solution, which is my preference, BUT ALSO: they weren’t wrong.

Editors are rarely wrong, or are wrong about the thing they’ve pointed out but not about SOMETHING in that thing’s support system, so fixing THAT will fix what they actually pointed out.

If I REALLY STRONGLY with them on a point I either discuss it with them or don’t do it, but…personally I prefer the freedom of “this doesn’t work, pls fix” with minimal other editorial input. Mind you, if I need the brainstorming, then my experience has been they’ll do that, which is great!

Which is all very much “ymmv” and “this is me” and not to say that the “here’s an idea so you can reject it” isn’t a totally valid approach that clearly must work for a lot of writers. :)

(The “cut the POV” editor once also asked, about SEAMASTER, which she wasn’t editing but I was having a hard time selling, if I could age up the characters to around 16 & I said, “NO!” indignantly, because I felt that their cusp-of-teenhood ages were very important to the story. Then, as the conversation progressed and I thought about it, I sullenly said, “i GUESS i could and it’d probably be FINE, but i don’t WANT to.”

She laughed at me for about ten minutes. :))

[evermorre]

hiiiiiii it's me!!!!!!!!! please recommend:

Someone who would be great with *assisting* Tree Paine as Taylor’s publicist (let’s be real no one can be Tree Paine so you just get to help)

Someone who knows Taylor’s lyrics better than she does

Someone who is actually a real-life superhero (costume and everything.. but NO CAPES!!)

Someone who inspires you to be a better person 

Someone who would be Jack Antonoff’s BFF

Someone you wish lived closer

Someone that you would follow, wherever they stray

Someone who would be Aaron Dessner’s BFF

omg blog rec anon!! hi!! i was so excited when your name popped up in my ask box. ✨💫

tree paine’s assistant: @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes is the obvious choice, but! i’m also going to say @idsb @cruellesummer because i think they should make all of taylor’s merch. they can be tree’s official design assistants 👸🏽honorable mention to @cruel-style because like doesn’t taylor need a crochet-based merch collection??

knows taylor’s lyrics better: @mustlikemeforme i’m always like “yes!!” when kathryn posts about lyrics and also all the anons & responses from @taylortruther

real life superhero: @thelasttimeyoueversawme for being so sweet and supportive with all your anons! also @blushingallthewayhome because posting pink is important. (i guess tumblr is counting as irl now lol)

inspires me to be a better person: between your edits, asks, tags on reblogs, and other posts @aslowmotionlovepotion your blog always cheers me up! also you were one of the first blogs that started interacting with mine when i got started way back when

jack antonoffs new bff: @standinghoney or @maimyoutoo, you can duel over the position 🤺

come back, be here: @missegyptiana @hozierswift @bitchpack @xcleanx AND ALL MY INTERNATIONAL SWIFITIES so they could more easily join us at the US shows during the eras tour

someone I would always follow: @reputation bc leah's posts are always 13/13…hehe

aaron dessner’s new bff: @youreonyourownkid and @columbusswift because i’m pretty sure they’re both evermore swifties who are too soft for all of it (like moi but also) like every picture i’ve ever seen or every quote i’ve ever read from aaron dessner

#thanks for the ask!! #blog rec anon #also hiii everyone #and apologies to my wonderful mutuals i didn’t mention 😭

[iviarellereads]

Full TLT series to date thoughts on rereading Gideon the Ninth, chapters 6-10

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

It still amuses me that no matter which planet is which House, the whole series is an elaborate way of taking four books and perhaps 2000 pages to say "you can never take Pluto from me".

Harrow saying "Twins are an ill omen" really puts weight on the "necromancy comes from death of a sibling in the womb" theory for me. Twins are a sign that necromancy didn't develop, and triplets and more being even more rare, twins with necromancy in either or both would be almost astronomical odds against. So, twins are an ill omen to a society that depends on death in the womb to perpetuate its power.

Oh my god, Cytherea's shuttle probably got delayed in landing permissions because the scans came back "no living humans aboard". Pro is already dead before landing, as we establish later. The whole "drawing sword on Gideon" debacle is just Cytherea having a laugh. Incredible. "you'd end up a mausoleum centrepiece" yeah and without any further work on him past what you've already done, milady. Bravo. Also, there's such a strong hint about how his skin has a tinge like hers. We know from Corona and Ianthe that necromancers are paler, less vital than non-necros. The fact that Pro is dead and being held together necromantically may very well be what gives his skin that tinge of death, not some tendency of the Seventh.

Adjacent thought: Gideon getting sad about "Dulcinea's" illness killing her, while Harrow is likely to live forever. What fun when none of these things are accurate! A true joy of this series is finding all the little unreliable bits and poking at them to see what they further imply.

Sneaky sneaky, "eight new Lyctors joined with their cavaliers" not "joined by their cavaliers".

If anyone wants some insight into my process: the one thing I can recognize from the Chapter 9 wanderings is what I think might be the pool, the chemical-smell room that's extra nasty inside the "pit", but how does one describe how they think it's a pool without implying that the pool comes back? Especially when my reason for not describing a lot of stuff besides quoting straight from the book is because I don't have mental images so I can't interpret a lot of descriptions. But I do know that a pool, if not this pool, comes back later.

It gives me great joy to call Babs a third wheel to the twins given how they act in Nona at their reunion via Babs's corpse.

Fascinating how Cytherea knows, in chapter 10, to ask to see Gideon's eyes. Have you realized it yet? That the names of the original Lyctors and cavaliers are erased from history, so there should be no one named Gideon, ever again, unless it's outside Jod's dominion. Cytherea knows this, and knows that this means our Gideon poses quite the little mystery. And then, when she sees the gold… Well. WELL. Mercy and August guess how she must have felt, at the end of Harrow. Incredible. This one question holds so much portent, but looks SO innocent at first pass. Muir, you mad lass.

#tlt #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #nona spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb spoilers

[thaliagrayce]

For the character thing: our homeboy, Jason

thank you i love you this is fun!!!

First impression: I honestly cannot remember, so it wasn't great lol. I think I found him pretty basic, I was a lot more focused on the other characters in his scenes

Impression now: he is my baby brother, I want to wrap him in a blanket and hug him for 40 minutes. he's shouldering the weight of expectation and trying to do it silently, he's self-sacrificing to the point of harm, he needs someone to gently smoosh his cheeks and tell him he's going to be okay

Favorite moment: this is a little one, but that time that Leo and Piper just made an offhand comment about how they found Nico creepy and Jason told them he was great, actually. i don't have my book with me rn so i can't look up the exact quote, but it meant a lot to me that he stood up for Nico (even in a really small way!) when Nico wasn't even there. that's the core of Jason! he does the right thing even if it's a tiny action, even if it means potentially making people uncomfortable! thats his best friend and his girlfriend that he just gently reprimanded! for a dude he's not even friends with yet, but who needs the support! he's kind!

Idea for a story: lol i currently have about 6 wips involving jason, most of which will never see the light of day, BUT! i've got a bodyswap fic in the works where For Reasons Jason and Will swap bodies for three days and aren't allowed to tell anyone about it. this is frustrating for both of them, and the most revealing Jason Detail in the story is how little he actually shares about his feelings with the people around him - it's far easier for Will to keep up the ruse in his body than it is for Jason in Will's

Unpopular opinion: see, i don't know how unpopular my opinions about the boy are, because i isolate myself in the jasico nation where we mostly have fairly similar ideas about him. i guess my most controversial take so far is that I hc him as gay, not bi. i look at his relationships with girls and see a whole lot of comp het and doing what everyone else thinks is best for him. (it helps that he's my personal projection boy <3)

Favorite relationship: blah blah blah jasico blog I LOVE WHAT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH THALIA COULD HAVE BEEN. I think the two of them would have been SO good for one another, had Richard decided he wanted them close. Thalia could teach Jason how to care less about the good opinions of others and prioritize his own health and moral compass! Jason could have given Thalia a stronger connection to the mortal world and helped her connect her present self with the girl she used to be! They could have found family in one another again, someone who understands the pressure that comes with being their parents' children! SIBLINGS!

Favorite headcanon: he loved punk music and it surprised everyone who met him :) part of it is that thalia used to play it a lot when they were together because she thought it was hilarious to see a chubby little 2-year-old bouncing his knees to Bikini Kill, and even though he might not specifically remember that, angry guitar and fast drums sound Warm to him. another part is the whole 'he rebelled in small ways' thing he had going on at New Rome. y'all remember that? joined the worst cohort, wanted to change the rules, kept refusing praetorship. he wasn't allowed to publicly act out or express his anger, but Green Day had his back!

thanks for sending this!! if anyone else is interested, here's the ask meme!

#mj talks #lol this was longer than expected whoops #i just have a lot of feelings about him! #my boy

[winter-tospring]

that chapter 6 was so GOOD but I say that about all of them. but it's true. just keeps getting better. I do think we got to the core of the questions of the story with this one, though. I have so many thoughts.

a plague that decimates the world population but doesn't create systemic change :))) "There were no songbirds anymore, either"

Last paragraph, I've seen quoted here, it's probably the big one of the book, one of, anyway. Immediately reminds me of Janet's speech about the universe not being a machine (in The Good Place), and makes me think I should make one of those masterposts where different sources talk about the same idea. It already kind of has a tag of its own on my blog. Anyway. THOUGHTS while reading this:

Everybody kinda wants to change the world, and she asks the question of "What if you could change anything you wanted, easily, but the way to do it meant rewriting history every single time, erasing people, places, memories? What if it meant using someone's body and psyche in a sort of dream torture, to achieve what you think would make the world better? " (which kinda ties in with her short story" the ones who walk away from omelas")

This is more of a general comment than about this book, it's just making me think: There's probably a white western perspective to account for when we think of peace as almost impossible? Ask them to stop wars and the killing of poc, and the answer will be "actually, its not that simple, it can't just stop, or it wouldn't be the world, it wouldn't be humans." is that right? Are we sure of ourselves or are we trying to justify our actions with an alleged nature that people have, to enslave? Is world peace really unattainable? Why is it so hard to imagine peace without having to talk about its flaws, and not emphasizing just how many people would live, and be treated decently, and not go hungry? Why must peace be a utopia? I wonder how other cultures think of it.

Then Orr dreams, and he dreams the world has united to form a front against alien attack.

So it takes a new enemy to unite old enemies? It takes a new war to end an old one? That is not peace. Is it? Can peace have boundaries, and if it's limited to a group, and if that group wages war outside of itself, is it still in peace? Might the people inside the group take out their anger on outsiders instead of people they've now united with?

Now we encounter a valid argument : the theories around how things would change given a prompt by someone with good intentions to someone with the power to change things: can the person with this power imagine, subconsciously, what they consciously would want? There is a lack of control and precision at work that makes the changes unpredictable, despite how well intentioned the prompts are. Different people's subconsciouses would create different dreams and different worlds, even with the same prompt.

It's not only a matter of what we believe, but in this case of the story, how reliable the subconscious is. Very important variable that takes the author's opinion of the possibility of peace almost out of the equation. She's simply giving us an example of what one brain could come up with, and that in itself is also a great analogy for the fact that this book, this story, also only comes from one brain, hers. Peace cannot and should not be dreamt up by oneself. Just as it would never be made real by only one person. It speaks to the truth of how to build peace, really. It requires more than one person, a lot, a lot of people to CHOOSE, to be willing, to come together and figure out actions to take TOGETHER to change things.

The problem with snapping fingers and fixing things is that people haven't chosen to make peace, so they themselves haven't changed, and so patterns are doomed to repeat. I guess one would have to focus on that, to dream of people wanting to make things better. But again, that would remove actual free will and the process of coming to your own conclusion that change is necessary, and that you will take steps to contribute to that change.

And Orr's like "I followed instructions." which struck me so much. This character is quite fascinating in how it's described vs. how he responds/thinks. We keep being told by other characters that he's boring, flat, miserable, pathetic, helpless, yet he's the one who actually cares, so far, about the repercussions of his dreaming. He's the one who's rightfully terrified and wants to stop it, not use it. He's the one who seems most mentally sound, in that sense??? He's not getting carried away by his power, it's more a curse to him. Being the dreamer, he knows he can't decide how to change the world, but Haber thinks he can direct it enough to get his desired result. He's also not afraid because he doesn't suffer the physical and emotional toll of being the one to make those changes.

I find it interesting that we're "supposed" to look down on Orr, but the story does the opposite, because you feel bad for him, and understand his fears (at least I do, lol??). He actually is the most anchored in reality, since he chooses to face it, and to suffer it, suffer the consequences he brings about, and live with all the realities he knows in his head. He doesn't deny them.

YES, exactly!! "Your own ideas are sane and rational, but this is my unconscious you're trying to use, not my rational mind"!! Exactly exactly. "You're trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with a tool that isn't suited to the job. Who has humanitarian dreams?" a killer of a sentence.

We're also dealing with a person who's being forced to dream these ideals. It's doubtful a coerced person who's terrified of their dreams would have peaceful dreams that fit what the prompter intended anyway.

Yep, he's not in control and the subconscious is full of imaginary things.

Ursula is so good at placing herself in an observer's position, while taking a stand sometimes, in a subtle yet profound way, more through what she chooses to write about, and the questions she chooses to ask, than any answers she might give through the stories. It's such a delicate skill to have, so valuable for a writer of sci-fi.

I love Star Trek, and it makes so much sense that she inspired star trek writers throughout the years. This story's questions remind me of an Orville episode about a society closer to ours who could be given the tools to achieve world peace of some kind, but it's against the federation's code to provide these to civilizations not ready yet to use them. This is a thing in Star Trek federation too, I'm pretty sure. Like in their code. I haven't watched all of star trek, lol. I think I remember it in an episode of strange new worlds, too. The idea that you can't just give people peace, they have to walk the path towards it themselves, or they won't be able to sustain it/build it (if they're given tools that are supposed to lead to peace. I'm wondering if that's the prime directive and if it is im gonna go hide somewhere in shame because the prime directive is like the most important thing and yet as a new star trek fan I feel like it's not EXPLICITLY explained enough in new shows for me to remember 😭

Edit: okay yeah it's the prime directive 😂

Mm, so it guess to go back my second point, where I ask Why Must Peace be a Utopia?? WHY MY DUDES. I wonder if the utopia is to imagine people doing the right thing. People considering others' lives and safety, people being compassionate and respectful, and able to live side by side with people they disagree with, without hurting them. People not using others for their personal gain. People not listing for power. Is that a utopia? From that angle, I admit it does feel more like one, lol. But would it be possible anyway? I think that's up to every one of us to decide and act accordingly. If you think it's not possible, you're more likely to act like a shit head cause you feel justified by defeatism.

I sure am losing my mind and trust these past years over people not giving a shit about hurting others. And I don't know how to be fine with it without giving up on the idea that we can have a better world.

#the lathe of heaven #I read books #ursula k. le guin #thoughts

[businesstiramisu]

Your title changed! Before it was an Everything Everywhere All at Once quote! But now it is not! Now it is probably a quote from a Gravity Falls fanfiction! This is all very exciting! May I ask why you changed it? Also would you like to see my cat Toni being very photogenic?

Haha! I'm always surprised when people notice, I guess it's weird to think that anyone pays much attention to my blog formatting besides me. But thanks!

The answer is pretty boring: I tend to change to a favorite quote when a new piece of media starts eating my brain, and since February that's been Gravity Falls. (Before that since last summer, it was EEAAO, as you saw, and before that -- dating all the way back to spring 2020, I think!-- The Murderbot Diaries. I don't remember further back but probably Unsounded? this has always been a very Unsounded-themed blog.) It's not from Gravity Falls fanfiction, it's a line from the show!

Though I have been reading a truly inadvisable amount of Gravity Falls fanfic this month...

(I did find a fic recently where Ford found and read Soos' fanfiction, and --after taking a red pen to all the SPAG errors, for shame, Ford, Soos didn't ask for your concrit-- he is so moved by the story that he tries to make up with Stan earlier. I thought that was pretty great.)

Though now you're making me think of fanfic quotes and I'm tempted to change it to It's a cruel, cruel, world, and cable is expensive. Which would probably be even more baffling to everyone else, but god I love that fic.

Anyways, to get back to your ask, I see you've got a lot photos of Toni (and Tiger and Pushkin!) on your blog! They're adorable! I prefer my pet photos in small doses, but if you keep posting them to your blog i'll try to remember to check in and appreciate their photogenicness :P

#about me #blog management #??? #chatter #fanfic #gravity falls #Everything Everywhere All At Once #The Murderbot Diaries #Unsounded #you aren't seeing much GF posting b/c i've been stockpiling it all to my drafts #but it's been getting ridiculous #i should probably make another sideblog

[babygirlgojo]

Oh ew the OF accounts and sex bots are completely getting out of hand. I haven’t been notified of any new followers but I don’t trust tumblr to do so. I’m have to gonna check on that soon 🙄🙄.

And seriously for what reason are people flagging down your works for like 😭😭?? It literally makes no sense??? Some people are so rude and mean and spiteful for no reason like. Do better or screw off unintentionally quoting Ego here I’m sorry that this happened to you, it really sucks.

Ever since break started I’ve been in a kind of limbo. It feels so surreal not having any work to do. I mean I do have basic chores to do today like the laundry and vacuuming and stuff but besides that it’s a free day. I am. Very very very. Temped to start reading the blue lock manga. I know I said I’d wait for the anime to finish but like I need something to do 😭😭. I was starting my first TR reread since the last chapter but I only got in 3 chapters before I started sobbing and I haven’t even gotten to Akkuns first death or met Mikey and Draken for the first time again yet. I’m gonna have to chunk my way through it while sobbing and taking so many breaks because I will seriously never recover from this manga. OH AND I LOVE CHIFUYUS BIRTHDAY ART. Wakui continuing to attest that yes takefuyu are still canon in the reset timeline. It’s such a relief for me because those two are my comfort duo 😭😭😭. I also want to finish Chainsaw Man soon. I stopped at around volume 9 because I’m broke and was reading it at the bookstore and all I can say is that this series is definitely getting a reread cause I love analyzing strange works and concepts. THE MAITAKE COVER ASJKGFJKHFFGGG. The way I screeched when I first saw it like. I love how you worded it, they literally look like royalty together UGH. Suffice to say that yes maitake fans has a field day with the cover of volume 31 😌😌. I cant wait for the inside cover to be revealed. My prediction/demand is that it’s gonna be then as children childhood-friends-to-lovers. But I guess we’ll see.

Anyways. How are you Belle? Doing better I hope? How’s uni? Oh and when does your winter break start? How’s life? Im so happy tumblr is being cooperative now and letting you see my tagged posts 😭😭. Sorry for the constant tagging tho, there’s just so much I wanna share and I see something and I’m like “oh I wanna show this to Belle” you know? Oh and im so glad you liked that Oliver drabble 🥹🥹. I’ve got another one in mind for him but this time it might be a little more ✨spicy✨ so stay tuned 👀👀😌. I hope you have a great day and that the caramel frappuccino tasted great!!! *sending many virtual hugs*

- ✨ anon

Istg- i got followed by accounts from Czechia and Carolina this morning. Alright, I made my pinned post of Gojo's OF account but this is a writing blog; not even an OF promotion blog (╥﹏╥) unless... i draw some stuff

Tumblr decided to not let me post my rant- so here’s what I had to say

I revisited my childhood with watching DBZ... (i knew i said i would start one piece but the gym bro-ness got the better of me and i started watching it) someone please explain why does Goku's voice sound... i don't know how to describe it. i was so shocked about his voice, i was planning on watching the dub instead cause of it *crying* Honestly, Wakui did a really good job with the cover. Even when I was reading mangas online - I was so awed by the covers of the manga and when TR was on its peak here, i saw a lot of spoilers for bonten mikey. I never liked mikey... but this made me change my mind. And they (like every cover character i saw up until the Brahman arc looked like royalty. Even hanma-) I'm doing well! Contemplating to change the blog theme for some reason. It's not gonna be aiku ofc- he gets 0 screen time cause he hasn't come back from italy and i am mad at him with part 1 to ocean hues I'm on my winter break actually and omw back home. Fifa knocked the wind out of me. I feel sad cause Mbappé played really well (and he was sad too when they lost), i literally went to go keep my plate and he scored in 97 seconds of the first goal T.T . But i'm also really happy for Argentina cause its the first time in 36 years since Maradona that they have won the Wc and i cried cause they were crying on the field not to mention the fact that Messi played in their team as well - so it was bittersweet ending but also very well deserved! And yes i am a football head I can't see you in my activity still (maybe your visibility switch is off? i'm not sure) but i do get the number on my activity and that's how ik that you're there (⑅ •͈ᴗ•͈ ) I actually don't mind being tagged! and I enjoy the things you have to show me as well ૮⸝⸝> ̫ <⸝⸝ ა (i saw some stuff where you tagged me- i'll be answering those soon, promise i'm not ignoring you ૮(˶˃ᆺ˂˶)ა ) I. absolutely. loved. the Oliver drabble ˃̵ᴗ˂̵. I still read it btw, cause it is absolutely precious. the deer headrest and the fact he wants to be a good boy made me go (๑✪ᆺ✪๑) did you say spicy 💀 *here lies Isabelle Aiku; beloved wife of Oliver Aiku who is unaware that he is married to her- * Starry you're gonna make me combust from the heat *sending back bear hugs*

*my man is so handsome (>﹏<) and yours is too*

#belle.☏ #.moot🍦: ✨ anon

[thebtstaekooker]

My BTS Story

Starting off my BTS blog with a little ˚✧₊⁎history⁎⁺˳✧༚ Funnnnn!!! Another ARMY fan girl sob story!!! Yayyyy!!! -_- whatever. Here it is:

With Jin now in the military and the other members soon to follow, I’ve begun to question my relationship with BTS and how it might play out in the years to come as we all await BTS’s return in 2025. Before I begin, I want to make one thing clear. My story may just seem like another boring fan sob story but I think everyone’s story deserves to be heard.

         I was introduced to BTS by a friend of mine back in middle school but it wasn’t until I started high school later that year that I really started to become a fan. The first few weeks of school were extremely stressful. Let’s just say I knew a lot of people from my church and some of them I didn’t have good pasts with.

Honestly, I got into BTS because it was the only thing I had to keep my sanity alive. (BTS is, in a way, my savior which is why I’m now so attached to them)Gradually, I began to get more into BTS and my school life actually seemed to improve. I guess when the military news really sunk in was when I heard about Jin’s enlistment. I had heard about military but I thought it was all a hoax lol 😂 To tell the truth, I did cry. I cried at night, I cried with a school friend who likes BTS as well, and I cried over text. It was and still is really sad for me knowing that Jin’s enlistment is the start of all the members’ soon enlistment. And it made Jin’s enlistment even harder with my birthday a few days before his enlistment date. Now it’s a new year.

        My bias at first was RM. He was my first choice when I was asked for the first time who I liked. But then I started to notice V. I don’t know what it was that first caught my attention. Maybe his voice, maybe his personality and cute smile, maybe his beautiful and seemingly unreal looks, or maybe everything about him. Now I fall asleep listening to his soundtracks, I’m all for Taekook, and I have half a million pictures of V on my phone. Honestly, he’s my first celebrity crush. Wait…no…V, BTS, they’re more than celebrities. They. Are. LEGENDS!!! But yeah. Now my bias is forever Taehyung ❤️🐯❤️

     (Excuse my fangirling. Btw, this is only half of my photo album named and I quote “🐯❤️Kim Taehyung❤️🐯” whatttt?? I’m a fan! A big big fan. 😋 luv u, Tae tae <333)

Moving on.

  Anyway, because of my mistake of not getting to know BTS sooner, my teenager years will be concert-less, fanmeet-less, RunBTS-less, grouppicture-less. I graduate in 2026. Who knows how soon in 2025 BTS will reunite as a group again? I feel like my teenage years will always be missing something and that’s really sad. Also, BTS won’t be as young as they are now in 2025. I mean, V turned 27 just a few days ago. He’ll probably be 30 when they reunite. And he’s also mentioned that he wants to have a family someday. BTS has and will have their own lives to take care of. Who’s to say they will really be reuniting as a band in 2025? Thoughts like these are what make me emotional. 

         Finally, I have thoughts about what will happen to BTS if they decide to discontinue the band in 2025. Like what if BTS decides to pass on the band? Like choose seven new boys to continue their legacy? Crazy thought, I know but wouldn’t that be cool? And imagine 50 years time. Your grandchild asks who BTS was like some kids today ask who the Beatles were. What will you say? I know what I’ll say: “BTS were legends. They were the greatest boy band to ever walk the face of the Earth. They spread love and joy and incredible music everywhere they went, from continents to the internet to books and magazines. BTS were legendary superstars; they ruled the world of music. And your grandma lived to see them preforming, singing, dancing, laughing, crying. I present to you, my grandchild, I present to you, dear readers, I present to you, watching world, the seven pieces of the puzzle of greatness, the seven kings of k-pop, the seven human wonders of the world(lol maybe that’s a bit weird but anyway) Never forget BTS and their legacy.”

Now what’s your story?

#bts #v bts taehyung #jin bts #bts rm #bts suga #bts jungkook #bts jimin #bts j hope #kpop boys #future #blog #new to tumblr #first post #bts pics

[hua-fei-hua]

hey! i stumbled across you on ao3 through genshin (i think? that was in september i have no idea at this point), went to check out your profile and saw my hero academia works there. i am currently very much into it, so i was like let's gooo sooo I found B♭ and that has been a wild journey.

firstly, i don't have any experience with american school system, so a lot of worldbuilding was new for me. moreover, marching band is something from another universe(aka music lover but never got educated on the matter), so fic constantly challenged me with new details-concepts-vocabulary. stepping outside of your comfort zone while reading? great idea! i think i never learned so much from a fic while enjoying it so much ^^

secondly, i am simply amazed by sheer amount of effort you put into it. i decided to read in publishing order, so non-chronological really impressed me. you're honestly a mastermind being able to pull that off. also, having a song for every chapter with specifically picked out lyrics relevant to the content is so, so cool! the diversity of your playlists should be astonishing, i'm jealous :)

thirdly, the characters are just so real. i love all the canon references, i love the reactions that don't feel exagerrated or too mild. they are acting...exactly as i would expect them to in that circumstances and setting. i just accepted leads' ways of thinking and reflecting so naturally

i also read the extra notes when they were available and just...how much thought is put in is mezmerising. for some reason i never thought pulling directly from your life experiences when writing? but it actually makes a lot of sense and it brought me some ideas to try out so hehe ;)

as i am very smart and hadn't scrolled down on the order post, i didn't see until quite late in the reading that the end of perfect harmony is published as notes, so that was a surprise. i understand your reasons and the fact that you're not even in the fandom anymore, but you mentioned in some extra notes that it's ok to ask for them even if years passed so...here i am three years after, complimenting B♭ :D

anyway, i finished it a couple of days ago, and even the notes are quite detailed. images of described shenanigans popped into my head just like that, and i really appreciate that you published them and i got to know what happened next!!

i actually wondered why were the comments disabled since i really wanted to comment on a few chapters bc your work deserves it so much...but yeah, that's what led me here so i guess congrats, you get my thoughts all nicely packed in one place ^_^

there's probably a lot of specific pieces, details, ideas i liked about B♭, so that is merely a summary of exciting things i remember!

i'll say goodbye using my favourite oneshot title:

thank you for the music ✩°｡⋆⸜(ू｡•ω•｡)

not gonna lie i'm kind of obsessed w/the way you just glossed over the fact that you (probably) found me through my (anonymous) genshin fics, which means you jumped through the (minimum three) hoops required to get here, my (named) fandom blog, and then proceed to gush abt a bnha series i did. like i would assume that if someone put in the effort to find my other fandom fics from my genshin stuff, then there must've been smth really worth looking into w/the genshin stuff lmao

for the sake of my mutuals' dashboards, since this ask is so long i'm just gonna chuck the whole (long) answer under a cut lol

anyway yes Bb!! the amt of effort n planning i put into that series was legitimately insane. i made school schedules for EVERY SINGLE BNHA CHARACTER and PUT IT ON A SPREADSHEET so that i could PLAN WHO COULD WALK WITH WHOM TO THEIR NEXT CLASSES n have PLOT-RELEVANT CONVERSATIONS LIKE THAT. i made little profiles for each of the characters, where i chose their favorite musical key (and why), how many years/instruments they play, and gave them each a funny little quote/catchphrase!!!

what possessed me to do this for ~20 different characters i honestly could not tell you

i definitely loved working on Bb a lot. i remember sitting down three years ago, practically to the day by this point, n hashing out the events of every single chapter to the epilogue, then reorganizing them into a proper timeline (i also kept a calendar in my notes with the chapters in order), all while occasionally looking out my bedroom window n thinking how wonderfully bright n warm n sunny the world was becoming again. bc really, 2019 was a very struggle year for me, n i didn't take the time to appreciate the sunlight then the way i have every year since. from there, i worked off that very strict outline, and most of the note-chapters that were eventually put up are primarily just copy-pasted straight from there.

i remember being on youtube a lot for music recs when working on perfect harmony too!! a bunch of them changed in the years btwn walking away from the series n actually publishing the notes (which were actually published mid-december last year, then backdated to 2020 a few days later ahaha), with a number of the tour arc alternate chapter title songs coming from songs that didn't even exist at the time of the fic's original planning. my mp3 collection grew a lot during the planning phases of Bb lmao.

i'm glad the characters felt so real!!! while no one character was based entirely off one single person i knew irl, one could say that writing Bb was a bit of a love letter to my time in high school band in some places, both the events i partook in n the people i knew there. it was a very "write what you know" type of fic.

anyway haha yeah the end of my bnha days were not fun, but i still loved Bb enough to hold onto the idea of returning to it Soon(tm) that i put off publishing the chapter notes for almost two years. even then, that was a difficult decision for me to make bc a part of me wasn't ready to close that chapter of my life. i think ultimately it was the best decision to make though, since the fics are p heavily tied up in a much sadder part of my life that i'd just rather not return to.

the main reason comments were turned off of Bb (and indeed, the majority of my bnha fics) is most simply described as "resentment". it's different from how i feel abt my old snk fics (where i turned comments off of them so that i could pretend no one's really reading them anymore), which is more impersonal "oh my god i was so young back then and i give fewer than negative shits abt any mistakes i might've made on them or what anyone thinks of them" bc in bnha it's kind of hard to avoid the fact that i had a Name in the circles i typically traversed for a while. it wasn't that big of a name, but it's certainly more than nothing.

it's not really a feeling i like to dwell on, so i just archive-locked the responsible works n turned off comments for the most heinous culprits (mostly sparklers, but even tho i love Bb as a story, i do not love Bb as a publishing experience, if that makes sense), and for the most part, that keeps the resentment contained.

still, i'm genuinely happy that you enjoyed the au so much!!! i honestly love love love how goddamn SPECIFIC the premises are for this fic. the world was truly built with love, and the music puns for every title were always such a joy to come up with c':

thank you for the ask!!!! :D

#asks #kid-of-yesterday #long post #if you really did come here from my genshin fics last SEPTEMBER then boy howdy do i know Exactly which fic you came from #(if it was in september then it Must have been the saucy xv fic abt the sharp teeth bc pure identity didn't come out til oct) #i have a lot of Feelings abt my time in the bnha fandom that i just don't rlly like to talk abt publicly tbh #mostly bc (most of those Feelings are 'resentment' lmao) i try actively to not be a bitter person anymore #but also i hate admitting that people Knew me bc it feels like vanity or bragging #(bc if my name had ever been ''worth anything'' then why did Bb not garner the attention i'd hoped?) #i know that those thoughts aren't true n all but they're overall very complicated feelings #regarding how fandom at large treats fan creations and creators that ultimately led to my current decision to publish anonymously #ofc my feelings towards fandom n the fan-fan creator relationship have shifted w/time again n i do often consider just de-anoning #but it's... Tricky.... to say the least #haha sorry for unloading a little gloomily onto your lovely ask but i also think you deserve my honest thoughts #and not a saccharine falsehood / partial truth (oh hey that's the main thesis of rhythm lol) #ALSO to have an izch fic as your fave is exemplary taste when combined w/krbk #i am handing you a plaque that says 'certified good taste in ships'

[booklovertwilight]

☕️ thoughts on different fanfiction sites perhaps? (AO3 vs Wattpad vs ffnet vs whatever else there is lol)

Hi friend! Sorry for the late reply, one of my posts blew up and the notification avalanche scared me off the site for a few days.

So I've been writing fanfic for *checks watch* 13 years now. I've posted it on AO3, Wattpad, FanFiction.net, Reddit, DeviantArt, YouTube comments sections, and blogs I set up myself. I'mma cover the first three individually, and do the others as a sort of collective.

I started off writing on FFnet back in 2009, and even back then I was aggravated by how much work it takes to do something as simple as post a new chapter. The UI to search for and read fic is fine, I guess, but as a prolific writer (I posted over a dozen stories on that site), the fact that it takes like ten steps to post a chapter is just Bad™. Like you have to 1) open your author profile 2) go to the side column and expand the 'works' tab 3) go to 'manage works' 4) scroll through your entire list of fics to find the one you want to add a chapter to 5) click the chapters list 6) click the add chapter button .... etc etc AAAAAAA. I have not written anything on the site in years and I still remember this stupid process. Btw the menus still look & act like this. In fucking 2022.

Wattpad is much nicer in terms of user interface. In fact it's got an option to add cover art which will be displayed front and centre along with the title and summary in search results, which, as a writer/artist who draws his own covers for his fics anyway, I thought was great. Generally, the process of posting new works / new chapters to existing works is a lot more seamless here than, actually, any other site on this list. It's also got this neat feature where you can comment on a fic line-by-line, by highlighting the text, which is a lot more user-friendly than having to copy the text and paste it in quote marks into a comment. But the nice UI/UX can't make up for the fact that -- at least in 2014, which was when I briefly tried writing there -- Wattpad was a cesspool of the most annoying human beings to ever exist. I wanted to post my writing to a community that would give me interesting comments and useful feedback, not write incoherently-spelled rants about how I was taking the source material too seriously. I lasted on Wattpad about 5 months.

After I quit FFnet and Wattpad I went around posting fic to a bunch of random forums, none of which really worked well because they hadn't been designed for that purpose. Posting long-form stories (which is pretty much all I write) to either Reddit or DeviantArt is an absolute nightmare of comment-section-linking. And posting fic to my own blog requires I have some way to bring people to see it, which is remarkably difficult to pull off and requires a lot of work. And on top of all that, there's no community, really, so you get whatever bottom-of-the-barrel internet trolls think it would be funny to harass you.

AO3 is where I post my fic now (@booklovertwilight on there too, in case there's still anyone following me who doesn't know that), and for good reason. I've tried a lot of stuff (perhaps too much stuff) and it's all-around better than anything else available. Its UI isn't the best, but it's manageable. Its site design is pretty good. But crucially, the community on there is just wonderful. Part of this is the fact that the Death Note fandom in specific is just a lovely place to be (nowadays), but even when I've posted fic for larger or more militant fanbases (*cough cough* Sword Art Online), even the criticisms have been coherent and well-thought-out. I felt less like I was being ridiculed in a school cafeteria and more like I was being given a constructive critique by a fellow english major.

There's also the factor of legal recourse. I used to write long disclaimers at the top of my FFnet stories saying things like "I make no money off all this, all rights belong to [creator of canon], please don't sue me I'm broke". Everyone did. I absolutely love the dignity in being able to post fic without having to grovel to the copyright overlords, knowing some lawyer I pay for with my yearly donations is doing it for me. The community is what brought me to AO3, but the legal safety is what's gonna keep me here.

Hope that answered your question, friend! Thank you very much for the ask, this was a lot of fun to think and talk about <3

#asks #fanfiction sites #my thoughts

[eschatologicalblank]

Darkness

This is a post I made on another blog (here) a while ago; I thought I might as well stick it on here too.

A metaphor that crops up in the Bible quite a bit is that of light and darkness. Unfortunately for me, I genuinely like the darkness – not the metaphorical darkness, the actual, literal darkness – which has always made the metaphor a little confusing for me. I find very bright light – especially bright sunlight – uncomfortable, and the dark is by comparison comfy. And there’s a reason I’ve stuck with a photo of the starry design of my bedroom blind as a profile picture for so long – because I hate my face really like the stars.

Well, now I have moved Up NorthTM for my Master’s, my route back from evening services goes through a pitch-black forest and I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for those metaphors.

It is, as you can probably guess, really spooky. I have to observe basically every piece of advice I’ve ever read in a fantasy novel to convince my lizardbrain that I won’t be eaten by some monster out of folklore – no running, no stopping, no meeting the gaze of reflective eyes among the trees, no leaving the path, and absolutely no looking back. But the most important enabling factor is my phone’s torch. In fact, the other day I had to take a massive detour because my phone’s battery got low enough that it wouldn’t let me turn the torch on.

In Psalm 119, the narrator addresses God, saying “Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light for my path” – like my phone. Unlike my phone, the Bible doesn’t run out of battery – that is, there is no point at which reading it stops being illuminating. Even if you’ve read a verse a hundred times before, there’s always something new to draw from it, to comfort and to guide – especially when reading it with others.

But like my phone, it’s important to remember that the Bible cannot illuminate the entire path before us, only a little ways ahead – it’s good for figuring out what to do in your current circumstances, but you can’t figure out what’ll happen five years from now from it. After all, fitting the entire life stories of everyone who would ever read it would make it even longer than it already is.

Of course, sometimes the darkness that strikes fear into my heart is a little less literal than a dark forest. I think most people have had the experience of looking at current events and being afraid; whether it’s climate change not being taken seriously enough, pointless infighting among people who should know better, politicians making statements seemingly designed to stir up hatred and misunderstanding, or large news companies uncritically presenting the opinions of a genocide advocate – and those are just the ones going on in the UK – it can often feel like the world is full of threats formed by the twin evils of apathy and malice.

This is because it is, which makes trying to assuage these fears fairly tricky. There are of course a number of verses I could quote here about dealing with fears like these, but for better or worse the thing that’s helped me most isn’t actually from the Bible at all – instead, it’s an excerpt from the poem ‘The Present Crisis’, written nearly 20 years before the American Civil War about the evils of slavery. Some of the theology in it is a little dodgy – I’m fairly sure people get more than one chance to decide whether to stand “for the good or evil side” – but a lot of it is both generally applicable and accurate, including:

Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. [...] Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

Can you see why I like it? It acknowledges the fear and frustration of looking at a world where it seems that those with power do not have your best interests or your continued existence at heart, and where it looks like God isn’t doing anything, and makes the claim that God knows exactly what He is doing. Sure, Truth isn’t on the throne, but she is both protected and – despite the outward appearance of powerlessness, exile and defeat – in the position of real power. And that is far more comforting than any platitudes about which way the moral arc of the universe bends or whiggish theories of inevitable moral progress because it doesn’t rely on faith in people and in society – who, may I remind you, are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place – but on a faith in a God who is good and steadfast.

It also doesn’t brush over the fact that sometimes Wrong gets the short-term victories, and that really sucks for everyone involved. Sure, Truth gets a squad of angelic bodyguards, but a ‘death-grapple in the darkness’ necessarily involves injury or death. It’s not a comfort of everything being alright for you now; it’s a comfort of knowing which side wins in the end.

I gather that callbacks are an important part of structuring essays, so here’s one; remember earlier, when I said that my phone ran out of battery ‘the other day’? Well, the other day in question was in fact the thirty-first of October. Although I didn’t see anyone doing it, I’m sure someone somewhere dressed up as the creature from Frankenstein – although as we all know, university dropout Victor Frankenstein was the real monster.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a clip from a song called ‘creature’ (wow this is such a good segue) by a band called half alive on TikTok (yep, I’m down with the kids like that /s). Here’s a bit of the lyrics: I know I'm made of clay that's worn Blighted by imperfect form But I will trust the artist moulding me I am creation, both haunted and holy Made in glory Even the depths of the night cannot blind me When You guide me Creature only

See? It’s even got a bit about being guided through darkness, so I can pretend this post has some kind of thematic coherency.

Not too long ago I was talking to someone about what a theology of the body might look like – how faith should impact our views of our bodies – and I think this really articulates my instinctive reaction to that question. The body is both ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Ps 139:14), and ‘this body of death’ (Rom 7:24), both ‘dust’ (Ps 103:14) and destined to ‘clothe itself with the imperishable’ (1 Cor 15:53)- both haunted and holy, broken and being made new. Inasmuch as it is beautiful, it inherits that beauty from being a shadow of better things long since lost and better things yet to come.

So when the body betrays us, does things that we never wanted nor asked for – well, what were we expecting? Things go awry, down here in the dark, and our efforts cannot perfectly fix them – although they can come very close indeed. How fortunate that they will be put right ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ (1 Cor 15:53) when dawn breaks.

Anyway, now I need to think of a conclusion to this weird ramble. Maybe something like “In conclusion, the light that shines in the darkness is beautiful and wonderful, but it would not do to forget that the darkness is as yet still there; though it is a balm for all ills, it is not necessarily the balm we would have asked for or expected.”

Yeah, that’ll do.

#theology #christianity #faith #trans #transphobia #apparently I'm meant to tag things so people who don't want to see them won't and I hope I've done that correctly #also I hope I put the keep reading thing in correctly #also also I apparently might want a tag for things I've written as opposed to reblogged? #mine

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Fortune

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told ABC News that he had “minor but real stroke” while attending the World Business Forum in Mexico City, confirming reports from Wednesday

Here’s hoping for a full and speedy recovery!

The Iconfactory

The latest update to Linea Sketch is now available! From textures to thumbnail cropping, version 4.3 is packed with clever new features to make sketching on your iPad easier and more fun than ever.

By now I think you all know about my deep love for The Iconfactory. They are the brains behind Twitterrific — may Ollie rest in peace — and Wallaroo. But they also make this amazing drawing app called Linea Sketch!

The Iconfactory also does design work and consultations. They recently did the artwork for Stream’s feature in the App Store . They’re extremely talented and so easy to work with. Give them a shout if you needs some design work!

If you’re an artist you should give it a try and see how you like it.

Thanksgiving FYI

Hi, I’m Jim, an enthusiastic and dedicated home cook with more than a dozen Thanksgivings under my belt. I’ve hosted everything from small friendsgivings to giant multi-family affairs in foreign kitchens and I’ve assembled some strategies to help make the day great.

Jim is an internet pal and extremely nice fellow.

Thanksgiving FYI is Jim’s Thanksgiving newsletter chock full of tips and recipes for, you guessed it, Thanksgiving!

Who doesn’t like a good thanksgiving recipe?

I’d imagine you can still sign up and get everything he’s already published if you’d like and at $5 it’s a real steal! You even get access to a Slack so you can chat with others about the big day! 🦃

John Scalzi

FYI, I’m Writing a Film Column For Uncanny Magazine

I didn’t know it but John Scalzi was a reporter for the Fresno Bee at one time. Wild!

It’s incredible to me how much work this man churns out in a year. Here’s hoping his column is well received and long lived.

Kevin Purdy • Ars Technica

It’s not quite the end of Tumblr, but when management is supposedly sending memos with the Lord Tennyson quote about having “loved and lost,” it doesn’t look like there’s much of a future.

I’ve had a Tumblr account for years and years and I cross post to it, like I do Mastodon, but I’ve never used it as my primary blog. I’d considered it multiple times but I was never happy with their fixed taxonomy. I like to publish my posts in a Y/M/D format and Tumblr doesn’t support that. They also don’t publish static HTML which is another strike against them.

I’m bummed out by the possibility of it disappearing. It’s one of those internet properties I’d like to see stick around. It’s also looks like they’re gonna drop ActivityPub. 😔

Jason Snell • Macworld

There’s no real way to gloss over the fact that Mac sales went down 34 percent versus the year-ago quarter. And yet, for some reason, Maestri and Cook got out their Tom Sawyer paintbrushes and got to work.

At some point hyper-growth will stop. It’s just the way it is. Of course Apple offsets this by raising prices, which isn’t a surprise.

I got my first M based Mac early last year and didn’t unwrap it and start using it until early summer because I felt that my x86 Mac was fine. Luckily I decided to take the plunge to M2 land because I went from being a Director back to being a Software Engineer.

For me I’d guess this M2 could easily go for five years before it feels sluggish, and who knows, maybe beyond that?

As I like to say. I’m not compiling Photoshop or Microsoft Word. I’m just compiling iOS Apps. Even big iOS apps written in Swift build super fast. I’d even wager an M1 MacBook Air would blow the doors off my old x86 based Mac. They’re fast!

Marc Anthony Lopez • abc30.com

The founders and co-CEOs of failed tech company Bitwise have been charged for a $100 million fraud scheme following a federal investigation.

This one hurts. I know Irma — Irms as everyone calls her — and Jake. I’m having a difficult time believing they’d do something illegal like this and I still want to believe it was a horrible blunder. 😔

Emma Roth • The Verge

Disney’s combined Disney Plus and Hulu streaming app is on the way. As part of its fourth-quarter earnings results, Disney announced it’s going to launch the new app in beta for bundle subscribers in December, with the official launch coming in early spring 2024.

We are Hulu subscribers, Kim loves it. It makes me wonder how much it’ll change or will it literally be merging what Hulu offers directly into the app? So far Max seems to be fine with this strategy, although I’d prefer to have HBO content front and center instead of the mix of items we have today. Here’s hoping they do a great job combining the properties. I think they will.

Jonathan Lamont • MobileSyrup

Telus has joined Rogers in offering an online tool for customers to manage their eSIMs.

Telus is the grandparent company of WillowTree so I had to share this news.

Mark Frauenfelder • Boing Boing

Trump plans to deploy military on Inauguration Day, seize government agencies, and purge critics

This doesn’t surprise me. I fully expect his next term (he’ll never leave) in office to be a full on MAGA revenge tour. Our democracy will fail under the strain. We cannot let this guy become President again.