#not really critical but that tag is useful for people's filters

[naranjapetrificada]

Izzy becomes a "real boy"

So obviously I haven't been able to shut up about the way Izzy has been written in season 2 and I stand by my disappointment and criticism, even knowing that the writers were given a herculean task of cramming 10 pounds of season into an 8 pound bag. Even knowing that, his "arc" such as it is has felt very off to a lot of people, present company included. I'm a cogitator at heart (thanks AuDHD!) and that can turn "make it make sense" into a prime directive sometimes. So here I am, trying once again.

I felt a particular way about Izzy after the end of season 1, which I would describe as "not especially strongly" because I primarily saw his character as a storytelling tool/useful foil more than anything else. But his presence and characterization in season 2 have been haunting me this time and not in a good way, because I've spent this season trying and failing to make it make sense. But something just occurred to me that I hope I can explain in a coherent way:

If season 1 Izzy was more a storytelling tool than anything else, maybe season 2 was an attempt to turn the puppet into a Real Boy. And if so, maybe things did not go as planned.

There are so, so many good posts going into the things that don't work about how Izzy has been handled this season, to the point that I'm not gonna try reinventing the wheel. Some of the reasons it hasn't worked for some of us include:

Much of his alleged growth apparently happening offscreen, most likely due to the reduced budget and episode count.

The lack of connective tissue between many of his scenes, some of which can be attributed to the previous point about corporate fuckery but other parts of which are hard to explain beyond "idk I guess the writers felt like it?"

The unfortunate connotations of sidelining nonwhite characters like Jim, who was the only character beyond the central pair to receive a detailed backstory, flashbacks, and a multi-episode character arc

The unchecked racialized comments he gets to drop about Edward (calling him a "wild dog" or seemingly mixing him up with Roach) that in season 1, would have resulted in violent retribution as a sign of the story's disapproval

The lines we get from Izzy that feel like they should have been said by other characters, and maybe that would have been based on the expectations of the show that we left season 1 with

The way it seems like Izzy's suffering is being used as a stand-in for actual moments of reflection or atonement, which is a pretty fucked up dynamic to set up as precursor to redemption

The way Izzy now gets to partake in the very behaviors he denigrated in Ed last season, which would be a cool and moving character beat if there was a single, solitary narrative acknowledgement in the harm caused by his treatment of Ed in s1e10. Ditto for him apparently just being cool with shit that once would have been his worst nightmare.

The fact that so many of these issues could have been addressed in a quick throwaway line or two that showed that the narrative understood what was wrong to reassure us all because by definition if a character is getting a redemption arc, it's because they did something wrong, right?

There's plenty more of course, but that's not why I made this post. I made this post because regardless of why the decision was made to handle Izzy this way this season, the attempt was made to flesh him out in ways that his role last season may not have been initially written for. Con's performance and certain production choices hinted at a depth to his character that may or may not have been on the page, but helped make for a pretty interesting season 1 antagonist.

For season 2 they decided to make Izzy a real boy, but the combination of a reduced budget, a lower episode count, and whatever creative darlings they couldn't seem to kill in order to give us more development of his transformation made sticking the landing impossible because we're lacking certain elements for basic comprehension.

Imagine you know almost nothing of the story of Pinocchio and someone starts up the Disney movie version of it for you but it's a weirdly edited version of it. There's no narration from Jiminy Cricket, mostly because there's no Jiminy Cricket at all. We see Geppetto crafting a wooden puppet, but not the part where he wishes for him to be a real boy, which makes it kinda weird to then see the part where the fairy brings him to life and says he can become a real boy but okay, let's go with it.

Now let's say the one thing you've always heard about the story is that Pinocchio's nose grows when he lies. So we get to the scene where he lies to the fairy but for whatever reason, his nose doesn't grow. No one comments on the inconsistency, and when you mention the nose thing all anyone wants to talk about is how great Pinocchio's nose looks.

Then Pinocchio goes to Pleasure Island and while the animation and acting seem great as usual, and the language of cinema appears to be setting up something dark on the horizon. Then Pinocchio's new friend Lampwick starts transforming into a donkey, this random well-dressed cricket shows up to admonish Pinocchio, and our puppet friend is randomly immune to the thing turning other kids into donkeys. No one comments on that either. Maybe Pinocchio even gloats about it a little, which seems like a weird storytelling decision that merits a follow up discussion later.

And I guess this is the part of this over-extended metaphor where you remember you have somewhere to be but you'll finish the film later, because as an audience we won't know how things shake out for season 2 Izzy until the finale. Presumably we'll still get the scene where he magically turns into a real boy, but there isn't exactly time for anything else like all that stuff with the whale. Maybe the real boy scene will happen, but for whatever reason the animator kept drawing him like the wooden puppet and every time you point it out no one will take you seriously.

Wouldn't that be a weird thing to experience?

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #izzy hands #izzy critical #not really critical but that tag is useful for people's filters #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd season 2 spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #tbh I don't even understand how Izzy fans feel good about his arc #if this happened to a secondary character I loved I would be pretty upset

[averyhollow]

That Man’s Amazing Journey: How That Man Can Win While Still Being The Worst

Y’all notice how Stede Bonnet (*mimes spitting on the ground in disgust at the very mention of his name*) and Pennywise have never been seen in the same place at the same time? Something to think about.

Be Forewarned

This deals with a line reportedly in the OFMD S2 trailer.

If you don’t do criticism/disdain/negative opinions towards or about characters, please let the above (totally accurate, I’m just saying) observation, the fact I refer to Stede as That Man, and my blog being sponsored by Humanity Against Stede Bonnet, set the tone for what’s to follow.

I haven’t actually seen the trailer

and have no intention of watching it, but by no means does my general disinterest mean I’m over my specific hatred of That Man and Gentlebeard. Finding out That Man refers to Ed (could be someone else I guess, but I choose to believe it’s Ed) as “shipmate” instead of “co-captain” means I can dream That Man is not calling himself a captain anymore or being indulged by his put-upon crew.

Intro

It is my belief That Man must be removed from captaincy - never again to ascend to said position - for his own good (which I don’t care about), the good of all around him, and the sake of basic piratical decency. That man saying he and Ed are shipmates instead of claiming to be co-captains is a sign of growth and self-reflection on his part, as it signifies he’s accepted that he’s no longer the captain, never should have been, and that he needs to apply some elbow grease and see himself as a pirate and not a patriarch.

His Own Good

Dude’s captaincy was bought and even if OFMD portrays (so far) the pirates in the show’s universe as less than egalitarian, democratic, and inclined towards talking things through as a crew; it still has created a world where captaincy is earned. He can’t truly claim to respect Ed, Ed’s world, and Ed’s accomplishments, if he continues running around calling himself a pirate captain.

That Man expecting to be welcomed back as captain, let alone actually being allowed to resume captaincy, would be a continuation of him having bought his captaincy in the first place. He should be happy to accept that the position was taken from him and apologize for having ever held it by use of economic coercion. That Man is accustomed to living by exploitation of others. Time for him to put some sweat on his brow and give working to meet his base material needs a go.

He embarked on a life of piracy where he intended to menace the poor and downtrodden for fun because exploiting them in the conventional way wasn’t enough for him, and then left every cent of his unearned wealth to his equally vampiric family. The least he can do is acknowledge that he was an utter fool and proper ass to appoint himself captain, and that he can never be with Ed if he’s holding onto any of the trappings of privilege and power he left behind.

The Good Of All Around Him

The crew doesn’t need him or to cater to his whims. That Man was only running the ship because he was running them checks, and he not only can’t do that but didn’t take enough money to give them one last bonus. They’ve selected a captain in the proper way of pirates - something That Man doesn’t know a damn thing about - and they selected him for damn good reasons.

That Man rolled in knowing nothing about piracy and decided he was going to set about “fixing” the culture based on his own assumptions of its problems. The crew deserves better and have chosen better.

And the fishers. What of the fishers? Do they not deserve to fish in peace? Do they not deserve to have one of the few pieces of ornamentation they have safe from a man who would steal it from them at gunpoint, even though that man could afford a thousand such plants and pots should he want? They were probably fishing to supplement their meager diet because they barely make ends meet due to the exploitation of That Man. They’re probably literally on the verge of starvation now because they’re too traumatized to go back out fishing.

Let the fishers fish and let That Man have several fucking seats, but only after he’s done with a day’s work. Matter of fact, make him make his own damn seat. He can use the wood from the broken sitz bath he had the crew sharing while he had a whole ass porcelain monstrosity for his own use.

The Sake Of Piratical Decency

There’s no universe (I’ve checked), where That Man can change for the better (and his better will still be The Worst) and end the show as a pirate captain. With the exception of perhaps a 20 year time jump where he leads a crew of pirates new to both piracy and sailing in general.

But That Man earning captaincy over any of the crew as it stands? Nope. That Man earning a captaincy of another crew without work and experience? Nope. And should That Man do the bare minimum of learning about piracy and sailing, he should then realize the true extent of his ignorance and hubris, and never again dare to put himself forward as a captain. At least not anytime soon.

The Show Must Go On

I accept that the show is a romcom and therefore certain things must happen and that it has no real world-building or sense beyond what happens to get Ed and That Man together, and what happens to get Ed and That Man to a place where they can be whole enough in themselves to be wholly together.

As such, certain inherently fucked up things about That Man (that the show didn’t have to do, but chose to and chose to quite flippantly and clumsily imo, but that’s neither here nor there) must be handwaved and ignored, but I don’t think the ridiculousness of him buying a captaincy is one of those things.

Co-captains might be fun to say (for some people) as a cute ship name and reminder of when Ed and That Man first acknowledged their affinity for each other and desire to share a life and future in any form; but the version of That Man who first proposed co-captaincy is not the version that I think can ever truly be family with the crew, or a partner to Ed.

#fuck hinges #to hell with chill #rails? why would I wanna be on the rails? who do I look like? one of Snidely Whiplash’s victims? #stede critical #OP only uses Stede critical as tag b/c they get impression the addition of critical to a character name is what people use to filter out #negative opinions of their blorbos or whatever. #But make no mistake - critical isn’t the half of it. #OP genuinely hates Stede Bonnet #and the show’s handling of him. #That said I really do think he has some interesting directions his growth as a person can go. #And Rhys Darby is a genuis for having made a character with that clusterfuck of a personality and background tolerable. #No doubt Rhys’s every acting choice is going to be downright inspired in how it conveys That Man’s journey and growth. #ofmd spoilers #ofmd speculation #ofmd s2 spoilers #stupid fucking stede bonnet #ofmd critical

[elytrafemme]

one day i might want to make a master post with all of my AO3-user tips because (and this is a toxic trait of mine ik) i get REALLY irritated with a lot of ‘advice’ posts that just repeat the same basic information in a patronizing way without offering like... actually specific input. 

and i think ao3 as a whole is a relatively easy site to use you just gotta get the hang of it. in a sense i would really liken it to tumblr because one of the things about tumblr is that you can’t just join the site and then hit an explore page directly, that’s not really how this place works, you usually have to populate your dash with blogs. with ao3 it is significantly harder to just search up ships and works imo, it’s best if you already have favorite tags and how you do that is finding specific fics and then going from there and exploring in a branch off method. so once you use it for a while it’s extremely comfortable and remarkably convenient it’s just not really the easiest from the get go.

#nightmare.personal #i think a LOT of people talk about like. don't over tag. but idk do people know when they should and shouldn't overtag? #that's a specific thing i think about because. i mean TLDR i think when it comes to characters and ships #you tag them if by removing them from the fic you would lose a substantial portion of the fic's content #like a fleeting mention to a background character eh you don't need that #but if a background character is not directly pictured but is repeatedly referenced then yes i do say you tag that #though you can note them as being mentioned and i think that's a tag that filters into their main so #just helpful as an indicator #also as i was saying earlier you can tag pretty broadly #bc ngl there are a Lot of Really Specific Tags on ao3 but they honestly lack a LOT of tags that i at least commonly use #derealization and dissociation iirc aren't formal tags there so i kind of do my best to tag that anyway and then #clarify in the beginner's notes. notes are SO useful #i think when you approach something like a series of drabbles in one fic that gets a little more difficult to explain but #i think you can find a way to manage that too #it would just mean only tagging the most critical components of the fic or things that are sweepingly occurring #so like a several chapter dump of drabbles might warrant a whump tag if like 4/10 are whump centric #but if like 1 character appears in the background of only 2 of them i wouldn't say tag that #also having a table of contents chapter or very descriptive (non artsy) chapter titles + beginner's note is super helpful

[astraltrickster]

Since the wave of mass site migrations there is one REALLY worrisome trend I've been noticing: the number of radfem posts I've been seeing ending up on my dash, reblogged unknowingly by people who think they're just base-level feminist statements, has all but gone back to c.2014 levels. Everything seems good on a surface level, but I spot one dogwhistle, or something strikes me as being a little too absolutist, and I check into that...and sure enough, the road leads back to terf city.

So here's a quick PSA:

Please be careful with your Feminism 101 sources.

See, terfs and their close relatives KNOW we don't like them here, so they don't tend to lead with their well-known hatred of trans women. On top of that, there is a problem with a subset of radfems on this site who purport to be trans-inclusive - i.e., they openly support trans women...but DESPISE trans men (often more than they hate cis men, because of the whole "joining the enemy"/"gender traitor" myth pushed by terfs) or any nonbinary person who aligns partially with manhood or masculinity, especially if they're AMAB (they often think they can "save" - i.e., conversion-therapy - the AFAB ones).

Therefore, on a single-post level, it is very, VERY hard to tell the difference between a basic feminist statement that, yeah, patriarchy exists and that means there are lots of awful double-standards around gender where women broadly get the shorter end of the stick and these standards AFFECT every individual in a society and that's something we should work to change, and a statement that these things are absolute and inevitable, either because Biology or because those double-standards are too deeply ingrained to EVER overcome without giving up and starting over from scratch (whichever is convenient), and the only solution is hardline female wombyn-born-wombyn separatism or at LEAST excluding trans people from public life for, at best, making it too hard to tell who's ~safe~. In fact, sometimes on that single-post basis, they could potentially even be identical - though less frequently than many people thought in the heyday of "OP was a terf so I stole this post but anyway all men are walking rape threats and need to accept that any reasonable person will always hate and fear them on sight".

So what can you, random newbie, do to avoid unwittingly passing one of these messages on without turning into some kind of horrible "feminism is cancer" chud?

Well, one of the easiest ways is the Shinigami Eyes browser extension, but I personally don't like to rely on it because 1) you can't use it on every platform (sorry mobile app likers), 2) in my experience it's somewhat common for "trans-inclusive" radfems to be flagged as safe because someone saw their positivity for trans women but not their hatred for trans men, and 3) I just don't like to promote the use of browser extensions as a substitute for learning what radfem rhetoric is and why it is, in fact, anything but feminist; it is very beneficial to terfs if the ONLY thing you know of their rhetoric is "they hate trans women".

The hard but better way is to actually familiarize yourself with what to look out for. Here is an inexhaustive list:

Category 0: Tags to add to your blacklist

Your blacklist filters out posts with the blacklisted tags in the reblog you're seeing, OR in the root post. Therefore, if a radfem post that looks like it's just base-level feminism does breach containment somehow and end up on your dash through someone else, it will still get caught if it's tagged with any of these:

Terfsafe

Radblr

Radfem

Terfs/radfems do interact/do touch/please interact/please touch, etc

Category 1: Terf-ese and dogwhistles

Some of these, especially those near the top of the list, are immediate telltale signs. Others are less certain, but they should at least raise some eyebrows.

"Gender critical" - literally a synonym for terf just used to make the ideology sound more legitimate; they often claim that terf is a slur

"TIM/TIF" - "Trans-identified male/female", a way to delegitimize trans identities

"Febfem" - female-exclusive bisexual woman; a bisexual woman who rejects her attraction to men; essentially a modern term for "political lesbian" (a group which claimed that lesbianism is not a sexual orientation that some people just Have, but a political choice to reject men)

"Butch flight" - the claim that trans men are butch lesbians transitioning to escape lesbophobia and gain male privilege

"Adult human female" - this very simplified dictionary definition of "woman" is something of a rallying cry

"Let girls be tomboys/butch" - some people say this in response to old repressive gender roles in things like dress codes, or even people holding trans women to a higher standard of femininity than cis women, but if that is not explicitly the context it's very likely that this means "stop the evil plastic surgery racket from force-transing every little girl who even looks at a truck, which they're TOTALLY doing"

The inverse, while less common (terfs tend to be very open about not wanting men to be feminine in any way because of "deception" and "false security"), is also one to look out for - sometimes it's a statement against binarism and gender essentialism, sometimes it's basically an assertion of the Blanchard "feminine homosexual man vs. autogynephilic man" model of what a trans woman is

"Compulsory heterosexuality/comphet" - an aspect of heteronormativity whereby it's common, especially for younger people, to try to force themselves to experience heterosexual attraction when they don't. Useful as it may seem, the term was coined by radfems. Most people who are not terfs or other radfems who want to discuss it will discuss it under the umbrellas of heteronormativity and amatonormativity

Hogwarts houses - this is a sneaky one; far from everyone who read those books or even enjoyed them is a terf, but since JKR's full-tilt descent into fascism via the gateway of transphobia, terfs HAVE been using this as a way to seek out their own and mark themselves as safe; let this also serve as a reminder that if you are NOT a terf PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR BIO; it WILL both draw them to you AND cause you to be immediately distrusted by anyone else, saying "I DO NOT CONDONE THE VIEWS OF JKR" will not help because terfs can and do lie about that too in communities where they have to stay crypto, at best you're granting them plausible deniability

Referring to men and women as "males" and "females"

Usernames referencing "female" reproductive anatomy - may be a good sign if they're attached to trans-positive modifiers like "boy" or "they", but a username like "divine-vagina" or "ovariesofpower" (note these are theoretical usernames, not ones I've encountered in the wild; if someone does have one of those usernames and isn't a radfem I'm deeply sorry) is probably a terf

Hatred of makeup and plastic surgery - look, no one likes the beauty industry, no one is going to dispute that beauty standards are a nightmare, but this is frequently a smokescreen for hating gender confirmation or anything that helps with the "deception" inherent to transness; be ESPECIALLY wary of anyone talking about "TikTok plastic surgeons trying to sell their services to impressionable teenage girls", this usually translates to "gender confirmation surgeons telling young transmascs that there are options for them", and remember that you either believe in bodily autonomy or you don't, there is no third option

Category 2: Ideological concepts to look out for

This is some of the beginnings of crossing the line from feminism to radfem bullshit - if the rest of the post seems cool but starts heading in these directions, don't assume it's hyperbole; get it as far away from you as possible.

Patriarchy, men-oppressing-women, is THE root system of injustice from which all others spawn. Some will acknowledge that other factors may intersect, but will still claim that they are lesser. Bringing up the long history of white women getting men of color, especially Black men, killed via weaponized fragility and false claims of sexual violence, is just a series of flukes and pointing it out to refute this notion that men vs. women outranks all other inequalities is just whataboutism.

Because patriarchy is so far-reaching, it affects every individual, and because it trumps all other axes of oppression, this means that in every interaction between any man and any woman, the man will be the one with more power.

Men, due to socialization, biology, or both, are categorically incapable of recognizing women as full people. This is not only a broad pattern, but an inevitable fact, true of every individual man, no matter how hard anyone tries to change it.

There is a singular Universal Female Experience. According to terfs, this is an external force; trans women don't have this socialization experience, therefore they can never truly know what it's like to be a woman. According to tirfs, it is internal; trans men process their experiences internally as men from birth to death and therefore have no claim to truly understand any experience of misogyny directed at them.

The experience of being a woman is, first and foremost, suffering. It is therefore to be expected that a certain subset of people would transition to try to escape it - but it's the wrong answer, and this practice of either self-destruction or betrayal must be stopped at all costs. Anyone who wants in on the miserable experience that is womanhood, on the other hand, is at best insensitively looking at a burning building and going "wow, that looks so warm!", blissfully but cruelly unaware of the misery of the situation, and at worst is lying to satisfy a fetish.

Women are categorically incapable of abusing men, because patriarchy outranks all, down to the individual level. Some may also say that this is true because of biological differences in physical strength. (Very feminist, isn't it, to say "the strongest woman is still weaker than the weakest man and nothing can ever change that"?)

There is, fundamentally, no difference between a person with some subconscious misogyny problems and an incel mass shooter; both will abuse women, and therefore both must be treated as threats.

Because the power differential between men and women is so great, a woman cannot TRULY meaningfully consent to sex with a man; all sex between a man and a woman is rape.

Because rape is such a common trauma among women, the very existence of men - or penises, for that matter, even fully clothed ones - in a space where a woman doesn't expect them is traumatic and itself tantamount to rape.

Lesbians don't just have their own unique flavor of oppression experience like any other queer subgroup; they are in fact THE most uniquely oppressed and vulnerable of all, because being a lesbian is first and foremost not about attraction to women, but rejection of men (recall the ties to political lesbianism). Some radfems will embrace contradictory labels or slightly varied personal definitions for other queer subgroups - but if you're anything but a Kinsey 6 who would never even consider making an exception, and 100% a binary woman, you CAN'T identify as a lesbian. You cannot identify as a lesbian if you wouldn't dump your partner or try to conversion-therapy "her" if "she" came out as transmasc. To a tirf, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you're on the butch-transmasc cusp, if they're willing to admit such a cusp exists in the first place. To terfs, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you would ever date a trans woman, let alone if you ever have.

Again, this is far from being an exhaustive list, but it covers most of the most common things that set off my own alarm bells. Additions are more than welcome.

Remember, the danger of letting radfem posts slide because they seem okay on the surface is twofold: one, you're directing more people to their blogs and exposing them to more people they may then target, and two, when those concepts that cross the line bleed out into your gender theory, the result is bad for you and everyone around you.

#internet culture #internet safety #serious tag #internet bullshittery warning #tumblr culture

[sals-sonic]

So what do you think we're supposed to do here? "Stop making problematic content", alright then no more good plots, cause forget having a compelling story or well written characters. Flush down the toilet thousand of years of classic literature and shut down intellectual freedom, cause we all know how much that's problematic and evil, forget even trying to reflect critically on things at all. Most importantly though, let's just fuck over survival victims who dare to even try to express their trauma in a way they feel comfortable with. Of course, the fact that *they* might feel bothered or uncomfortable with your perfectly good and pure content, is simply their problem, it's all about you, don't worry.

Sarcasm aside, let's make one thing clear here: this "ban" (because let's face it, that's what you call censoring media) you're wishing for, is entirely about the content you dislike, stop trying to pretend as if you have a moral high ground when really all you are is selfish at best, and at worst a fascist. Funny how your first thought when you see something that you consider problematic, perhaps even written by a victim, is to censor it immediately cause you think it will "protect" people, as if the content is the issue in the first place. It's not the art, the fics, or the ships that groom you, it's abusers. Stop taking away accountability from their actions and giving them another shield to hide behind. Stop taking away victim's voices in the name of "protecting" imaginary people. You're not helping anyone, you're suffocating artistic freedom just like a conservative who wants to ban all queer media to prevent their child from somehow "turning" queer.

The anon you are referring to has half a brain to realize that you can't control the internet, let alone people's thoughts, so ultimately, YES. It IS your responsibility to block tags, blogs and filter out what you dislike, cause no one will do that for you, and honestly? They shouldn't have to. You say that by ignoring proshippers, you "enable" us, but the truth is, if everyone would bend to the likes of entitled people like you, then we'd be the ones enabling censorship and repression. You're not holding anyone accountable for their "actions", surely not by harassing them relentlessly to bully them off a platform for literal fiction. You know, the opposite of action. Instead of even entertaining the possibility that you may be the one harming real people (which you definitely are by harassing them), all you do is sit there and whine about how your boundaries are being infringed upon, completely disregarding that you're not putting any in place or that you may be violating the boundaries of the people you criticize first and foremost. The difference is that they will block you, but you will constantly leave it up to others, thus making any boundary you have completely useless.

Do better.

#proship #anti censorship #pro fic #pro fiction #pro ship #proship please interact #anti harassment #god antis are so full of shit it's unreal #discourse #my post

[breannasfluff]

Quick question, how do you write so much? I fight the words for an hour and have maybe 2 paragraphs of garbage but you pump out really nice work almost every day??? I have so many ideas but I can’t write them for love nor money

I write almost every day, or I take a break and switch it out for drawing. I generally can write a chapter in one go, so usually stock up some backlog to cover days I’m busy. Having multiple stories now means I don’t have that backlog of some, so updates are a bit slower.

As for writing tips:

1. Remove distractions. Shut discord, exit out of tumblr, mute your phone. When you are stuck, don’t go scroll social media. When writing, the only thing I touch the internet for is if I need to check a story item, like a character name, item history, etc. I cannot overstate how important this is. If you are talking to your friends, you won’t have a writing flow.

2. Do not edit as you write. Writing and editing are two different tasks. You switch between creative and critical thinking and it breaks flow. This is a scientific process and you can read more about it here.

Research electroencephalogram (EEG) suggests both heightened electrical brain wave activity and elevated dopamine levels during flow. In other words, your brain experiences both electrical and chemical changes when you’re “in the zone.”

But once you switch to self-editing mode, you move to the critical thinking side of your brain. You halt all of freewriting’s creative electrical impulses and pleasure-sensing dopamine levels. Your mind flips off one switch and turns on another.

3. Set a time, then be done. Give yourself 20 minutes and write as much as you can. Doesn’t matter if it’s garbage. You can edit garbage into something useful or you can chuck it in a bin. Just try to write, then take a break. Staring at a blank document for two hours isn’t going to make words appear and it just stressed out your brain.

4. Have an outline. Sometimes a magical idea just flows when you sit down to write, but generally not. Have an outline of what you want to have happen in your story or chapter. It doesn’t need to be in depth; for most of my oneshots I literally have a sentence or two at the top of the page. The story needs to have a goal. For example: Wild tries to teach Hyrule cooking. It doesn’t go well. Bouncing ideas off friends can be a big help! It’s why you’ve probably seen me post about prompts and suggestions, and sometimes stories are gifted to people. Talking through plot ideas can help you get a better outline or idea of action.

Misc notes:

Hate to say, but some of it is just practice. I’ve been actively writing for a little over a year with some breaks on and off. Making it a habit is a big thing for making it easy. It’s harder to restart after a break.

When I first started writing I tried to pick one aspect to improve for each story. Filter words, pacing, varying sentence starters, story arcs, etc. Fixing multiple things at once was too much work, but one item at a time was doable.

Filter words make such a huge difference in writing; I encourage you to look them up. It’s a PAIN to remove them in post, but it also taught me to cut them out. Now it’s unconscious and while some still show up, I tend to write them out automatically.

You can learn to write quickly, but if you don’t also work on quality you’ll just…write a lot. That said, it’s fanfic. Sometimes it’s just for fun and quality doesn’t matter. I’ve got plenty of stories that will never be posted because they are just for fun.

Some of it could be writing speed, too? I use a bot a lot of times for timing and tracking and generally average 30-35 words/min. Harder story topics are slower to write, like angst and emotional scenes.

I’m actually writing less this year than last, but I don’t put as much time into it. It also keeps it sustainable as a hobby, although I definitely hit periods of frustration. It can get overwhelming.

If you search my blog for the tag #writing advice or #writing tips, you should fine some other things as well.

This was rather frank, but hopefully helpful! Feel free to drop further questions and I’ll do my best to answer 💜

#asks #writing advice #writing tips #writing #creative writing #fanfic writing

[shoukiko]

Hi, you can keep this unanswered and not post it, but I want to help you understand the thought behind some of the points in your criticism post. Before I start I want to apologise if I come off as blunt and rude, that's not my intention and I'll try my best to show my tone as unthreatening but I'm autistic and not a native English speaker, which complicates things lol

*general you used throughout the ask

First, I want to start with this: they all are part of the army. You don't need to dig much to see you'll rarely see a "morally upstanding" person in the army, be it because they're cheaters, abusers, compliant with all that or they're (insert -ist/-phobe category here). UK military spouses are 3 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence (IPV). I'm not saying the COD characters need to be written like that, but it wouldn't be "unrealistic" if we take real life statistics into account.

Second, and maybe the most important thing, everyone writes COD characters OOC. The majority of the active fandom on Tumblr and tiktok have seen gifs and 10min out of context clips from the game at best. It's to be expected to not frequently find something actually in character for a lot of the guys. Especially with characters that are just operators like König, Nikto and Krueger. In their case everything is and isn't OOC at the same time because we just... Don't know these characters. We lack characterisation past maybe 1-3 traits about them. I'd argue that's why the fandom liked König so much, other than being masked, he's the perfect paper doll! You can dress him up in whatever characterisation you want and it probably won't contradict his canon (because he barely has one and what he has is quickly misinterpreted (anxiety disorder turning into shyness for example)).

Now specifically on your "How are you going to hc a victim as the abuser?" - simple, whether you like to accept it or not is up to you, but it's not far fetched for victims to become abusers later in life. Just look at serial killers statistics - 74% of US serial killers were psychologically abused and 42% were physically abused as children and later in life followed a similar pattern brought to an extreme. Or on the other hand, a tamer example would be generational trauma because that's how we get that (grandparent was abused and because that's all they know, they implement it in bringing up their child who, for the same reason, implements it in bringing up the grandchild and so on).

The final thing I want to say is, it's good to block people who you don't vibe with. Doesn't matter if it's because they wrote something that personally disturbed you or you simply don't like their blog theme or you see them too often in the tag. Personally curating your experience is key in fandom, utilise the tools Tumblr has given us. Of course as you and others have mentioned that's impossible without some assistance from the other side. Tagging is extremely important (tagging with the correct words without censoring!!! Or the filter won't catch! Rape, noncon, incest ✅; r@pe, n*nc*n, 1nc*st ✖️✖️).

I hope this isn't too messy or long aaaa

I really appreciate you taking the time to type this up and actually speak to me about this, your input is very appreciated. /gen

I do think I could've done better on that post since I wrote it in the heat of the moment, all characters are written OOC and it was ignorant of me to say

"Maybe read the characters backstories and actually take their past into consideration because you guys kinda look dumb for making these characters so OOC."

I hope ya'll can really take the time to see my POV, I did not mean. any harm, I've come across some gross things, but blocking and filtering tags so much as begun to be tiring.

My main issue is tagging, without tagging I am left with getting triggered by random posts because the first few sentences may include something on my trigger list.

That's all I want and also what a lot of other people want.

Writing is meant for anyone and everyone, a form of art and perhaps a for of therapy.

Please tag your work, you are not the only person on the internet.

Thank you for reading!

#call of duty #cod mwii #cod mw2 #cod #simon ghost riley #cod mwiii #konig #kiko asks #shoukiko

[antianakin]

Is there a specific pro Jedi tag on AO3 that can be used to filter out anti and criticals? Cause I keep searching for Luke and Leia time travel fics where they save the galaxy and give Palpatine a headache (saving Anakin is potentially a bonus to those other two), but the vast majority are Jedi critical at LEAST.

... Speaking of, do you know any good time travel Luke and Leia fics where they save the galaxy, give Palps a headache (and maybe save Anakin cause Luke kept asking and Leia just decided to help on behalf of her own sanity)?

The main tag I was able to find seems to be "Jedi Appreciation" which includes things like "Jedi Order Respected", "Jedi Culture Respected," "Jedi Culture Appreciated", "Jedi Positive", "Jedi Order Positive", "Pro Jedi", and "Pro Jedi Order". I also found tags more specifically related to the Council, like "Jedi Council Appreciation" and "Good Jedi Council." I'm a TAD suspicious of the second one since the wording of it seems to lean more towards having adjusted the Jedi Council in order to BE "good" as opposed to recognizing they're ALREADY good, but it's potentially worth a look through to see (I found one that claimed to have some Yoda bashing and another saying "they are not the assholes in this story", as just two examples of why this particular tag might be suspect).

There's also the more basic "Jedi Culture & Customs" tag which is likely more of a mixed bag and doesn't necessarily promise POSITIVITY about the Jedi, just that it's EXPLORING Jedi culture and customs, so, you know, take it with a grain of salt.

Some other tags I found just in a basic search: "Jedi as Found Family", "Love Doesn't Equal Attachment", "Clone Troopers and Jedi as Found Family", and "Protective Jedi."

I will also say that it is critical for you as a reader NOT to blindly trust any of these tags. People can and do tag their fics with "Jedi Positive" or "Jedi Appreciation" and then it ends up with plotlines where the Jedi change their culture so that members can marry or they go the grey Jedi route where they realize they should be using both light and dark to find balance or whatever. As I mentioned above, too, it can sometimes mean they just rewrite the Jedi to be closer to what the WRITER thinks the Jedi should be and is now "positive" or it's being positive about the Order at the expense of specific Jedi like Yoda or Mace who are still bashed and vilified. Keep an eye out for other tags on the fic that might reveal more anti or critical elements and just be aware when reading the fic that there is no tag that is guaranteed to filter out EVERYTHING you don't want to read and be ready to hit that back button.

I don't tend to read a lot of time travel fics just in general and the ONLY fic I have read that involves Luke/Leia time traveling is there was a spring of storms by blackkat where Leia's grief in the moment of Alderaan's destruction causes her to reach out in the Force instinctively and propel her, Bail, and Luke back to shortly after the start of the Clone War. It's only 2 chapters in, however, so the story has barely started and I cannot guarantee anything about saving Anakin. With these two chapters, though, I can say that it is absolutely pro Jedi and probably not very Anakin positive. I personally really love this set-up and while it's remained unfinished for quite a while, the author has said in the past that if the fic is still up on AO3 then it's not abandoned, so I am still hoping for the day they come back to this one because it looks INCREDIBLE.

If anyone else has some pro Jedi recommendations for Luke/Leia time travel fics, feel free to let us know!

EDIT: The reason I had to search for tags is because I have never personally used them for myself to LOOK for fics. I usually have a ship or a dynamic that I get invested in and start looking for, find some authors I really like, and then go through all of their fics and bookmarks because if an author WRITES fic that's Pro Jedi, chances are they READ fic that's Pro Jedi too. And then you just rinse and repeat from there. Sometimes there'll be a tag like "X character needs a hug" or something I go through if I notice it pops up enough. I primarily use tags like the ones above as more of a screener when I'm looking through someone's bookmarks or a general ship tag search. I start by looking at the summary to try to figure out the actual premise of the fic and then once I decide I might be interested, I give the tags a scan to see if anything comes up that gives a better idea of what is in the fic that'll make me more interested or immediately back out. Like I said, many a fic has had "pro Jedi" or "Jedi positive" tags and still ended up in what I would consider to be closer to "Jedi critical" these days. A better guarantee for me is knowing that someone bookmarked this fic that has written fic I personally find to be pro Jedi, so that's the method I use.

#star wars #luke skywalker #leia organa #fic #fic rec #jedi #pro jedi #pro jedi order #jedi order respected #jedi order appreciation

[indieyuugure]

Hi! Let me start off by saying that I absolutely adore your ROTP series. This is also one of the very few Rottmnt/2012 crossovers in existance that does justice to both verses and doesn't put a biases on any. I love this comic.

Now that aside, I need to get something off my chest. I wouldn't have gone on Anon but experience has taught me that opposing opinions will make the followers of a blog insult and harass you so I tend to err on the side of caution. You see, I Love Love Love TMNT. And I love 2012 series, it's something I relate to so much and grew up with. It's my most favorite version of TMNT.

But the thing is, ever since the Rise movie got released, I've been seeing nothing but slander against the 2012 series and it breaks my heart every time I come across it. It has escalated to an unfair point that I've seen even 2012 fans who love it just as much begin hating aspects of it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it does have its flaws but it's unfair how highlighted those select few flaws are to the point of extremely biased comparisons and blame games and general 2012 slander which half the time doesn't even comply with canon. Moreover, literally every TMNT has its flaws just the same.

And recently, I've been seeing an increase in posts on your blog that have 2012 slander undercurrents or simply blatant frustrations with it. I love the comic but keep seeing this hatred still is just... it hurts ya know. Like really actually hurts.

So if possible, can you plz tag such posts with something I can filter out? (And let us know what that tag will be?) You don't have to but I really really love your art and comics, it's just the 2012 slander again that hurts me and I don't want to see it anymore. I've been seeing it everywhere.

Again, plz don't take this the wrong way, it's just something that's been hurting me and I had to get it off my chest. And find a solution to it that doesn't involve blocking or unfollowing because I genuinely do love this fancomic

Thank you for your feedback!!💕 (seriously feedback is extremely appreciated to me!)

I sorry my posts came off as 2012 slander, I really never meant it like that. I will admit I do critique media pretty aggressively, but I never mean it in a hateful way. TMNT 2012 is one of my absolute favorite shows and I love everything about! It’s the weird quirky stuff about it that while yes, I will criticize, I still love. It wouldn’t be the same without it. Just like the weather, I will complain about it, but I don’t want it to actually change.

I will try to be more conscious of how my posts are perceived, I really never wanted there to be a bias on my blog. I love all of TMNT for all it presents, and I don’t want to ever be slanderous!

Thank you again for your kind nudge! I’m very thankful to have people like you who’ll tell me if I’m making a mistake! I truly do love TMNT 2012. I can’t fix what I’ve said, but now that I know, I can be sure to be more careful to not sound biased going forward.

Again, I’m very sorry it came off that way, I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I never want to harm a series’s reputation, especially one that I love so much!

You are truly appreciated!💕

I know this won’t fix the things I’ve said, but I’ll say 3 of my top favorite things about 2012:

I love the way they depicted characters! They do an amazing job using indirect characterization that makes the characters feel so real. The characters don’t have to tell you things about themselves, you learn about them from the way the interact with each other, the way they solve problems, the things they like and dislike, and even what they’re doing in the background! It really feels like you’re there getting to know these fun people and go on adventures with them! Truly amazing!

I love the way the turtles look! Seriously I think they look so cool, and at the same time cute. They’re visual designs inspired me so much in my art and I will watch hours on end of them because they’re just so freaking cool!

I love the way their stories are told! The episodes are so well paced that it never feels boring to watch an episode! Believe it or not, I have never once wondered how many minutes are left on an episode. It’s so good at sucking you in and addicting you, that while I was watching it for the first time, I was straight up binging it and would be forced to put it down by my parents. Several times I would stop to eat something and have that weird “wait, who am I? What is my life?” Thing you get from a really good story. The stories and arc pacing are so good that Indie TMNT, my original series is using massive inspiration from 2012.

Once again, I am truly sorry for coming off as slanderous. Thank you for being so brave and telling me what many people were probably thinking. I want to do better. Thank you! :]

#tmnt #q&a #ninja turtles #tmnt 2012 #Please guys do watch it #It’s an amazing show #thank you! #teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #i will do better >:]

[parkitaco]

ok people. i really don't want to have to be saying this but i am once again being struck by the lack of etiquette in the byler fandom and just in current fandom in general so i just. have to say something ok

first off i'm gonna say that fandoms come from a place of love and i know everyone most people have good intentions and love their fic authors but the etiquette around fics and art and all that lovely stuff is,, how shall we put it,, literally nonexistent.

listen. i love writing fic. i love that people like reading my fics that's insane hello?? i love getting comments and kudos and getting messages from ppl who are excited about my future projects it's great!!!

that being said, when i receive messages asking when things will be out/comments on wip wednesday snippets asking if the fic is out yet/messages asking me to tag them when the fic is published, regardless of how good the intentions are it comes off as very demanding and doesn't make me feel good as a writer who is doing this Voluntarily and For Free.

fanfic writers do this for fun!! we are not machines, we are people with our own lives outside of fandom and those lives have to take priority most if not all of the time. this means that yes!! sometimes fics take a while to write!! sometimes chaptered fics take a while to update!! and guess what?? that is totally ok. fanfic writers taking their time is not a bad thing. it means they care and are taking their time to create quality content. it means that they are spending time tending to their real personal lives, which is a normal and healthy thing to do.

there are plenty of posts about why demanding faster updates is bad, and i think that's pretty common knowledge, but i want to talk specifically about these very enthusiastic comments/messages/etc because i don't think anyone means harm but the thing is that fic authors simply do not owe you anything. we don't owe it to you to let you know when a fic will be out, we don't owe it to you to tag you when it is, and we definitely don't owe it to you to provide information that you can easily find out for yourself. as a writer i'm already putting insane amounts of pressure on myself and receiving it from other people, even if that's not the intention, is just not a good feeling.

especially because much of this information is readily available to you!! while you may not be able to find out when a fic will be out (which is probably because the fic author doesn't know either), you are entirely capable of checking the timestamp on a post to see how old it was, then using a little thing called Critical Thinking Skills to determine whether it's likely the fic has been posted or not. if so then great!! most authors have their ao3 accounts linked somewhere on their blog page so YOU (yes, you!!) can go look for the fic on ao3!! if you don't find it, ao3 has a super cool feature where you can subscribe to an author, so you'll get an email notification whenever they post!! and while you're there, if you're truly desperate for something to read, you can always go through the fics they've already posted, and if you've read everything there already and/or they haven't posted anything yet, check their bookmarks and see if there's anything there you like!! and as a last resort, there's always the trusty old search bar on ao3, which you are capable of filtering to every last preference!! the byler fandom is huge and there are tons of fics out there so undoubtedly something will fit your taste.

i know that can feel daunting, and i know it's disappointing when a fic hasn't been posted or updated yet, but the good news is that if you're seeing a snippet it means the author is working on it!! a little patience never hurt anyone, and taking those steps to determine for yourself what's going on with the fic rather than bugging an author who is just trying to go about their life and work on content during whatever free time they have just proves that you care. the simple fact of the matter is that fic authors don't do this for attention, they do it for fun, and therefore we can't cater everything to you or answer questions that you should find the answers to yourself. it's not our responsibility to keep track of people who want to be tagged when a fic is published or want to know when it will be out, because all our energy is going into creating the content you so desperately want!! i'm just begging everyone to be a little bit independent. asking an author for this information just shows you don't care enough to find it for yourself and this sort of laziness is part of why fandoms die.

tldr: fic authors are not machines designed to please you, use some critical thinking once in a while, and please for the love of GOD just go touch grass. breathe some clean air. you'll feel better i promise

#:))) #am not trying to be mean i'm just so fuckign tired #byler fandom #st

[jedi-enthusiast]

Something that I've noticed for a while now, and something that's honestly become really irritating for me, is that people have suddenly apparently lost the ability---or maybe just the courtesy/empathy---to filter their fandom experiences and leave people alone.

I've just seen @antianakin's recent post of them responding to someone who didn't like that they posted about hating Anakin, and it just reminded me of all the fucking comments and reblogs I get about people seeing posts where I'm critical of a character, or a show, or something the fandom does---and, instead of just blocking me and moving on like a normal person, they feel the need to express how much they disagree or think it's stupid that I've decided to make a whole fic/post/whatever about how much I hate or am critical of that one particular thing.

And it's not just me!

Plenty of my mutuals and the people I follow, and tbh plenty of the Pro-Jedi/(x character/show) critical people who I don't follow but whose posts I see, have responded to countless comments and reblogs and asks from people who won't just fucking filter their content. It's always-

"I don't see why you felt the need to make a whole post about this." - a response I've gotten many times on some of my anti-Anakin posts.

-or-

"I think it's ridiculous that you're just writing a whole fic to bash a character." - a response I got to me being critical of Ahsoka in the Ahsoka show and my anti-Anakin fic ideas.

-or-

"Why do you want to make a whole event just to express your hate of one character?" - a response I got to me pitching the idea of an Anti-Anakin Week, so us that hate Anakin could blow off steam.

Like...are people being fucking serious?

I haven't been on Tumblr for a very long time, not even a year yet, but I knew as soon as I got on this hellsite that---if I didn't want to see certain content---I needed to filter the tags and block the people I didn't like.

I don't understand why so many people can't just fucking do that.

It's not like we're not tagging our fucking posts properly or purposefully trying to make people who disagree with us see our stuff, we're just posting our own shit in our own spaces!

And, ironically enough, those people who often come on these posts and complain about us making them---namely anti-Jedi people and Anakin Stans---are apart of the same group of people that literally will not tag or purposefully mis-tag posts so that the rest of us with the tags blocked have to see it!

This has probably been an issue for a while on Tumblr and I just haven't been around long enough to remember, but holy shit can everyone just start blocking people and filtering tags instead of making your discomfort everyone else's problem?

Guess what? I also like stuff in Star Wars, and it makes me upset when I see critique or hate of that stuff too! But I also understand that not everyone likes that stuff and that it's not their responsibility to cater to me---it's my responsibility to make sure I don't see that shit. The only responsibility anyone else has is to tag their posts properly, the rest is 100% on me.

So can y'all please get with the fucking program?

Filter your tags.

Block people.

Leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

#star wars #fandom etiquette #pro jedi #anti anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano critical

[valyrfia]

You feel like a genuine person to ask - how do you feel about dead dove fics, and those who read/write them?

For example, if someone reads an underage or non-con or incest fic, do you think that makes them an inherently bad person? Like, is it suspicious or wrong to enjoy that?

Very curious about your opinion or thoughts!

Wow you're coming in with the hard hitting asks this evening.

My two cents is that dead dove doesn't really differ from any other sort of fantasy, and in a lot of ways can be an outlet. Non-con fics for example don't differ much from the idea of CNC, which is not that uncommon of a kink. Dead dove fics can also have the more serious purpose of a way for author and reader to cope and process other traumas. I don't think art should be policed, but I do think it should be approached critically. Things can be Bad and still be Good Art, and furthermore, no one was harmed in the production nor the consumption of the art, and as long as nothing continues to be harmed, I personally do not think I have the right to police people's personal thoughts or opinions about it.

I think my opinion of the whole thing lies in the full name: dead dove do not eat. Dead dove fics that are appropriately tagged with the relevant content warnings and the dead dove tag I have little issue with. They may not be my cup of tea, but that's the beauty of ao3, I can filter it and not every fic is meant FOR me. If ao3 can continue to function as an archive for works it cannot bring in any censorship, so it is up to us to decide what content we want to see by use of the tagging system. I think the origin of the phrase "dead dove do not eat" describes it best:

#asks #anon #ao3 #fanfiction

[pinkandpurple360]

I think it's also worth mentioning that you can still like a ship but realize the problems with it. I know a lot of Stoltiz fans who shipped it during season one because how 'messy' it was (I wouldn't call forced sex and one dehumanizing the other messy but ya know) jumped ship once season two aired being how it took away the things that they found interesting about it and attempted to make it 'wholesome' when it never was or meant to be so.

I'm complete Fizzomdous trash but even I realize the problems within season two and hate how both were defanged and feeling as if Fizz's personality and treatment from the writers made him less of the gremlin we loved while also taking away his agency (I'm the one who sent the disability ask a while ago). Yes they still have cute moments but I kinda wish their relationship they were treated like...well ya know, like they're both adults. Plus them tag team roasting your sex life. That was fun.

Hell, I could have gotten behind Stoltiz if there wasn't the full moon deal plus while still privileged Stolas at least attempted to get to know Blitzo as a person supposed to only use him for sex. Yes, Stolas still cheated and could be a bit out of touch with reality without realizing how much this is affecting Octavia, but at least there's a chance of character development and a real messy kind of relationship.

Helluva Boss is supposed to be a show for adults yet treats its audience like children more than shows aimed for that demographic. It feels as if it wants to write messy or dark dynamics but then backpedals and tries to 'savage' what's already an unhealthy relationship into something that we should be rooting for. Honestly it wouldn't surprise at this point if Viv chooses to recon the whole of season one being it makes Stolas look bad when he was suppose to be the bad guy to begin with.

Sorry for rambling...

Anon, if every message was like you. I’d never be getting irritated with people. Please know I don’t have a problem with anything said here.

And that’s fine, because we don’t all have to debate things. You don’t have to feel guilty for liking or not liking something. Even if people test me sometimes that’s at least what I try to stick to. I’m tired of shipping wars. You are in no way a bad person if you don’t feel like looking deep into things that happened because everyone will enjoy things differently. I run a blog that’s partially random ‘turn your brain off and enjoy it’ content; and critical content where I really don’t hold back.

So I think this has all taught me to improve my tagging systems so people can filter it and only have to engage with it if they want to.

I completely understand and agree with you, and people should enjoy the fanon in any way they choose. Because those are the fans stories, their content, their original material. They also aren’t above critique when things go to nasty territory (you probably know the kind I mean) but are usually harming nobody.

Its different when we get to ignoring and recontextualising canon events that all of us saw. “That didn’t happen the way you remember” “you’re delusional if you think the scene happened like that” (this oneeee 👹🔥🔥) or when it gets really bad, reaching levels of “actually sex consent is a flexible thing, like paying rent” 😶😶because then it leaves the realm of fiction, and right to reality.

Personally, the romantic relationships other than moxxie and Millie weren’t why I ever watched the show. I don’t really find relationship melodrama fun but if I’m suppose to take it seriously, I will.

I think I’d like Stolitz as exes that are now on ok terms. Almost like an anti verosika. The first relationship Blitzø ended in a more healthy way. Them both realising the spark has gone, the feelings weren’t really “love” but loneliness, and that they learned a lot from each other, but don’t really like each other anymore that way, too much bad blood had happened, and have very different priorities and values in life. A scene where Blitz sees Stolas at Ozzies with someone new, with them both smiling and chatting and stolas blushing at his new crush, and the other guy blushing back and crushing just as hard, then we see blitz genuinely smiling and happy for him without any hint of jealousy, then heading back to pride with his friends, that’s a beautiful ending. To me anyway.

Hell if Via feels this strongly like Stolas’ lustful obsession is ruining his relationship with her. That is grounds for ending it. My dude, he’s just not the one for you. LooLoo land and Seeing Stars, where it ends with Stolas holding Via, only her, while IMP are in their own corner, separate, but happy, those are the happy endings. Not tacking stolas onto IMP and having Via tell us that stolas loves blitz over her even though he honestly…doesn’t. Like cmon there’s no way in any universe blitz is competing with Octavia.

Man can you imagine if Via helped Stolas make a lustinder, do a profile pic, find new dating tactics and choose an outfit? And be very supportive and excited for him? Hi?? yes?? that’s super cute and that’s stolas fixed for me. Stella shouldn’t be his only romantic history and frame of reference, that’s bonkers.

#helluva boss critical #stolitz critical #fizzarozzie critical

[thebroccolination]

it confuses the hell out of me how Tumblr out of all places harbors most negativity toward BMF. situation it's much better now though, but the early period and before the show aired was nothing but spite an vitriol filling the tags. on the bright side, pretty much every other platform is head over heels for BMF, especially Reddit. they're usually critical af but BMF seems to be universally praised. anyways, I'm beyond excited for the remaining eps, and here's hoping for a strong finale so this show becomes one of the often recommended ones 🙏

On BMF getting more negativity on Tumblr than other places:

I thiiiiink it's because Tumblr has an especially high North American/European user base, and that's where the majority of the Krist hate seems to come from. What people still point to (the IG story, the rape filter joke, the "I don't want to watch Singto specifically kiss other men because this is fanservice on a variety TV show that people are going to quote out of context as me saying I don't like watching men kiss" thing) are either debunked or happened years ago, but when interfans arrived in droves in 2020, they kicked up old news like it was brand new and passed around hearsay like it was fact.

I mean, even I've learned new things since I made my post and thread about Krist back in September. For one, GMM didn't arrange his press conference in 2020 to address the issues. Krist did. Even though he'd already apologized multiple times over the years for things he never repeated, he still wanted to take accountability because of the amount of attention interfans were bringing to it. Part of that press conference was Krist even saying he'd never make excuses for what he's done and that he'll apologize as long as he's asked to.

The first(?) apology Krist made for the IG story was long, long ago, one I can't even find a translation for, that's how long ago it was. But Krist's long-time fans said that someone did translate it, but their English wasn't strong, so interfans picked apart their translation as if Krist's apology was lacking. (It's like how some interfans criticized Win in Between Us for being forceful because the subtitles originally said "kiss me" when what he actually said in Thai was "can I kiss you?" Interfans who don't speak Thai just make assumptions based on translations sometimes and it's part of my villain origin story.) Again, I don't have the apology to hand, but apparently one part of it was Krist saying something like, "I responded without thinking of how it would look. As a Y actor, I don't have those kinds of bigoted thoughts. This is my home, and I'm very proud of and supportive of the community that's raised me and cared for me," and the fan translation apparently paraphrased all of that into something like, "As a BL actor, of course I'm not homophobic." So like. Even when he's apologized, interfans have historically found a way to throw rocks at him anyway, so it gets exhausting to see people casually calling him homophobic because Melanie in Minnesota saw a screenshot of an IG story on Twitter and then made a list of six problematic BL actors you should definitely avoid because they skin babies and punt puppies into volcanoes.

On BMF being great:

I'm so excited for the last three episodes. \:D/

I'm so proud of Krist and Gawin for the work they've done up until now. It's wild to think about the amount of information they had to keep in mind as they were filming. Because, like, series already film out of order, but they also had to keep in mind different timelines of the same characters out of order. The fact that you can see not only Kawi's growth but everyone else's as well so fluidly and consistently over the episodes so far says a great deal about the quality of the production, I think. The directing, the writing, the acting. All of it is really, truly phenomenal.

Aaahhhh why is it only Tuesday. :'(

ANYWAY thank you, Anon! Sorry for the rant about Krist. I'm just tired of seeing him get so much hate for years on end when he's such a loving and giving person who's been a vocal queer ally since SOTUS. Not just during Pride, either. He really has been deeply misconstrued by interfans at large, and I just hope the people who've made up their minds about hating him (and the ones who've made their hate so public they're too stubborn to admit they misread him) will just learn to ignore him and stop tormenting him. He's already suffered panic attacks and depression as a result of the constant abuse, and it's repulsive that anyone thinks that's acceptable to do.

#kiranokira answers #krist perawat #be my favorite

[qvincvnx]

on an unrelated note, if you've been using xkit / tumblr savior for a long time, i heartily encourage you to try out tumblr's native filtering system, which is excellent.

IT WORKS ON MOBILE! (unlike browser extensions)

it's located on little person outline -> (gear) SETTINGS on dashboard or person outline -> gear (settings) -> general settings -> content you see on mobile.

this will turn any post of any length into a little block that's like "post blocked for containing [thing you have filtered]" and then you can decide if you want to click to see or if you want to simply move along.

you can filter tags - this will block a post if your friend OR THE OP used a specific tag.

super, super helpful way to find posts made by t/erfs that had been circulating unnoticed - if you block tags like 'g/ender critical' and 't/erfsafe' (with no slash, i am putting the slash in so this post will appear to people who might otherwise want to filter that content!), that'll be blocked on tumblr if OP tagged it that, even if the post is now circulating in genuinely trans-inclusive spaces.

also helpful if your friends have their own weird tags for stuff like one of my friends posts a lot of long screenshots of books and has a tag for that that i have filtered because the posts are always really long and i hate scrolling past them when i'm not in the mood to read. or one of my friends is a wonderful person and i absolutely hate one of her major ships, but she uses a weird individualized tag for that fandom so i just get to avoid her posting about that thing and still see other fandom content for a fandom i don't hate.

this one is going to filter things that are exactly the same as what you put in the filter field. that means that you may have to filter "content", "content cw", "content /" separately, but you can literally add as many versions as you need to. my friends all have slightly different systems for tagging and ykw? it matters more to me that they are consistent in whatever way works for them, so that i can filter what i need to filter, than that everyone uses MLA vs Chicago tagging style.

you can also just filter content. this is for any word that appears in the body of a post (or perhaps also tags? not actually sure)

PARTICULARLY USEFUL WHEN YOU ARE UPSET BY SOMETHING THAT ISN'T REGULARLY TAGGED

for instance: there are certain users who have a tendency to show up in reblog chains. they have consistently rancid takes and annoy me. i filter their url, and then i don't have to see those anymore! or: i know they're going to be in there and when i click through to the post it's not an unpleasant surprise anymore.

for instance: sometimes people tag politics but not specific issues, or you filter the tag "#politics" but then find it hard to click through, expecting funny uk prime minister goofs and instead get posts about genuinely bad things happening. you can instead filter words or phrases like 'crisis,' 'abortion,' 'election' and decide what you wanna see

tumblr's filtering has gotten so so so much better, it's extremely usable, it's cheap and it's easy and it's free to add as many words as you need to. literally no one can stop you and no one is going to notice. you can do anything you want.

#like it's polite for people to consistently tag but THERE IS NO MANUAL OF STYLE. you can block ANY TAG YOU WANT!!! #you can block four versions of the same thing or just one! YOUR LIFE IS YOURS #sorry to write a tumblr psa post but i really do think there's a lot of long-time users who aren't really aware of this #due to prior dependence on xkit. filtering is now super functional! new/returning users should also know this!

[prestonmonterey]

intro

!! plz dont send me chain asks !!

(pronouns page is linked on there but also here if you dont wanna look for it:)

ok so uhh basically the gist of it

hi

im preston

uhh for names call me preston or pres or squid or orion or jaxon or actually just whatever you want i dont mind (more on my prounouns page) (if we're friends/moots feel free to gimme a nickname if ya want)

pronouns are it/he/they (the order of preference changes from time to time also neos are alright just anything other than she/her)

fandoms im most active in: varian and the seven kingdoms/tangled the series, camp here and there (will wood too!!), adamandi, the art of pleasing princes, starkid, spies are forever and percy jackson (mostly the musical bc im in a production of it :)

you can always interact with me! apparently im intimidating but i swear im really nice (i think) and id be really happy if you sent an ask at any time :3 i promise i wont get annoyed even if you think youre being annoying i just really like interacting with cool people :3

you can tag me in anything and everything! i promise ill look at it :3 and i try my best to do tag games and stuff (lmk if you dont want me to tag ya) but if i dont uhh, just assume i was like, really tired that day, or ive been tagged by another moot in that game before and im too lazy to dig it up :P sry

uhh im a minor too so like nsfw/18+ blogs dni

i try my best to use tone tags but if i forget and you need them please let me know!! (i also find tone tags helpful for myself) :3

theres more info on my card about like other stuff too

tag key:

#marble musings = original posts

#marble monologues = long posts/reblogs usually about chnt or just like existentialism idk

#marble draws = art/fanart/crafts/cosplay type thing

#marble games = i make games on google forms! hoping to learn to code or get an actual game engine to make full games past like choose your own adventures

#marble music = song covers :3 (yes i have all the filtered instrumentals i used for adamandi, lmk if you want them i can send em over discord or something)

#marble asks = answering stuff in my ask box

i think thats all of them :3 might add more eventually, and sometimes i forget to tag properly so sorry about that :(

i have some sideblogs if you wanna check em out (not super active on them but ill still try to respond if you shoot me an ask)

vent/writing sideblog: @lonelyinkcap (you can interact with my vents i dont really care. i mean. if im talkin about someone please dont fucking go like "but have you considered that theyre going through something" because uhh yes i have and also fuck you stop making my panic attacks worse :P) (if you know me irl. um. you can do whatever ig. i mean i cant exactly stop you. but proceed with caution. some of them might be vagueposts about you. im not gonna fuckin tell ya tho. also if you see anything concerning there. um. no ya dont. and definitely dont bring any of it up in conversation irl.)

hatchetfield rp sideblogs: @thelilcloverpatch @fading-angelic-starlight @marble-man @honey-sparrow @ivy-wreathed-arches and @hatchetfield-bone-thief (not sure why that one isnt properly linking but i swear its there you can search if you want)

#intro