#potentially soapboxing a bit

[aparticularbandit]

that said, you know when you're starting to get attached to a thing when 1) you start thinking of fanfic ideas and/or, more importantly, 2) you start thinking of crossover ideas with other stuff you are or have been attached to.

aka: i really want to a thing where junko and dottie underwood are together. for whatever reason. because. there's some crossover thoughts there.

aka: my who framed roger rabbit tumblr background that someone keeps bringing up is now giving me what would junko be like in toontown tokyo aka if junko is a toon portraying a role, what is junko outside of the role as a separate entity and also i really want to throw her at haruhara haruko from that expanded universe because they would hate each other so much but also.

....

i really want to play with wfrr!junko. so much. i have no reason or place to do that right now because the jess & agatha thing is very firmly early 2000's (and because dr1 didn't come out until 2010, that would be when roger died if i was playing with timeline canon, and then jess would be in that year of default, and right now i'm writing jess gets a happy ending for once).

so really that depends on if i return to the greater wfrr universe for other shenanigans.

mostly i want to play with a wfrr concept of junko.

#musings #bandit brainstorms #prompts #bandit #look the great thing about wfrr concepts and versions of characters #and deciding how much of their self is tied to the character they portray #and also if junko is the first role that junko portrayed - otherwise she's going to potentially have more character traits of whomever she #may have played first #but also because of how i structured toontown tokyo to function differently than toontown usa (the toontown we see in wfrr) #junko as a villain would be top of the toon hierarchy and also own herself vs. someone like jess who is bottom of the toon hierarchy #and also has her copyright owned by someone else #(although by the time we get to 2010 eleanor would be dead and she left jess's copyright specifically to jess so i guess by that time jess #would own herself. maybe. i think there was a variant where eleanor left jess to one of her granddaughters - anna - but that's deep lore #and most of the time when i wrote jess in that time period it was timeline canon and she was human so eleanor would have left her to her) #...i apologize i know this doesn't make sense to a lot of you and i'm sorry #remember when i had a fanfic vs. profic soapbox #please don't tell me the amount of effort i put into my worldbuilding is lesser just because bits of it are fanfic or rp #or because it may have started there #a n y w a y #ramble in the tags woo! #but also the idea of who MUKURO would be in ttt #is fascinating #because she's much more easily other characters too

[allastoredeer]

Archangel anon again! Here for those extended Gabriel headcanons. Okay! Gabriel's the messenger of heaven, so i imagine that it's his's responsibility to convey messages between heaven and hell. That makes Gabe the only sibling Lucifer has been allowed to have simi-consistent contact with since his fall. They're not allowed to have long, deep conversations, but they do try to catch up a tiny bit. I see Gabe as a trickster with a heart of gold. Seemingly a charismatic goofball who takes very little seriously. A fast-talking, smooth-talking, ALWAYS talking jokester who can make you want to tear your hair out one second, then charm the pants off you the next. He's the best liar of the family, incredibly good at playing dumb despite actually being quite cunning, strategic, and above all else, PETTY. He is very protective of his siblings, especially Lucifer nowadays (side-effect of being the only sibling allowed to talk to him) and can hold a grudge like no ones business.

But, the main reason I wanted to give special attention to Gabe is because of his patronage. As I was doing research on Gabriel I made a delightful discovery ripe with potential. Remember how I said Gabriel is the patron of communication services? Well another way to phrase it would be he holds patronage over all forms of transmitting information from point A to point B. This includes telecommunications that transmit information through electrical means. Such as telegraph, telephone, internet, and broadcasting. ALL forms of broadcasting. Including both television AND RADIO.😃😃😃

Do you see? Do you see the abundance of potential that I see?? Gabriel is the Patron Archangel of both TV AND RADIO. He holds dominion over

TV AND RADIO

I cannot begin to describe the joy I felt when I made that discovery! Instantly got the brain buzzing.

Alastor and Gabriel have the capacity for either becoming instant best friends or instant enemies and I can't decide which one I like more... Oh who am I kidding, it's enemies. Imagine Gabriel is visiting Lucifer and Charlie and he inevitably buts heads with Alastor. Either Alastor says something snide about Gabe himself, or maybe Lucifer. Meanwhile, Gabe has gone uncharacteristically quiet and just stares at Al for a long moment. Then, an unreadable smile slowly forms on his face and he laughs good-naturedly, slapping Alastor on the back a BIT too hard but otherwise just says "You got me there, buddy" before sauntering away.

But the next morning, Alastor tries to enter his radio tower to do his morning show, only to find the door is locked tight and there's some kind of powerful ward keeping him from shadow-porting in. Then, every radio in hell suddenly comes alive as none other than Gabriel's loud, bombastic voice comes pouring enthusiastically from the speakers.

Gabriel has redefined the term "pirate radio" by not only hijacking Alastor's radio tower, but also literally every radio in hell. And worse, he's turned Al's show into one of those "zany" morning-zoo radio shows. The kind of shows thar are more annoying than funny that always play on the radio on your way to work or school? I imagine Alastor considers those shows a perversion of his medium. And as the cherry on top, Gabe refuses to relinquish control back to Alastor calls in (the number is 1 777 3625, that's 1 777 DMBK🤭) and apologizes ON AIR for all of hell to hear.🤣🤣🤣

You know what, I'm kind of with Alastor on this one.

If someone messed with my passion like that, I would never apologize. I would double down. I'd never stop pushing those buttons, consequences be damned. You want me to say sorry? Nah, bitch, how about you stop being a wuss?

LOL I think Alastor would take a megaphone, plop himself on a rooftop (or just roam the streets) and do his broadcast like that. He'd find himself a soapbox to stand on. You know, the old fashioned way. I mean, depending on if Alastor can control radiowaves, he might be able to hijack one of the speakers he set up all over Hell. He'd pick a new one every day, and diss on ol' Gabe. He'd go into how Heaven keeps repressing the sinners of Hell, first it was the Extermination, and now Heaven's silencing their voices. When will the tyranny end? How long will they put up with this??

LOL Idk now that I'm thinking about it, the idea of Alastor starting a revolution against Heaven purely out of spite is incredibly funny and I love it.

(Also that is really interesting about Gabriel patron of communication 👀 that has so much potential)

#my ego would not allow me to apologize #I wouldn't #I'd die on that hill #Alastor i getchu boo #I would rather eat my own toes before apologizing on air for all of society to hear #archangel or not I can't see him ever ever apologizing to Gabriel #he's start a revolution instead #now Hell's REALLY rising against Heaven #just as Heaven feared #and its because Gabriel confiscated Alastor's microphone #this kids #is what we call the domino effect #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #the radio demon #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor the radio demon #gabriel #archangel Gabriel hazbin hotel #archangel Gabriel hazbin #asks #anon #anonymous #worldbuilding

[littlethingwithfeathers]

What to do if you get caught by the Adderall shortage:

So, it’s not getting picked up by the news much (at least not that I’ve seen... NPR, BBC, AP), but there’s a pretty serious Adderall shortage happening right now. It’s been building for awhile helped along by the usual suspects (labor shortages, limited manufacturing facilities, shutdowns due to illness... blah blah) and some not so usual ones (More people getting diagnosed with ADHD... when you take away someone’s coping mechanism, which for some people it’s their in-person work environment and social activities, people start to have more issues!). And it looks like this could last until the beginning of 2023... so... what to do?

Please note, I’m not a doctor or medical professional of any kind. I just had to deal with this, and it’s worrying and a little troublesome to manage, so I thought I’d pass on some advice from my experience. It might not be one size fits all but it might help someone to know who to talk to and what to ask.

Also, if you’re going to use this as a moment to spout some drivel about “Maybe we don’t neeeeed all these meds, you guysssss!” please kindly fuck entirely, completely, and all the way off into the void. Same goes for people who are looking at this as an excuse to whine about “addicts” or drug related crime. Read the room. This post is not your soapbox. 

SO! You’ve gotten a call from your pharmacy that they can’t fill your Adderall prescription because your scrip is on backorder. Wat do??? Step one: Don’t panic. It is one pharmacy out of one version of a drug. You’ve got options, though it might take some legwork. If your prescription is at a chain like CVS, Target, Walmart, etc see if the pharmacy tech will call around to other stores in the area and ask about their stocks. Step two: 

Call your prescribing doctor, inform them of the situation, and ask for a paper prescription. Go pick up the prescription. Ask them for their advice and for information on which pharmacy to call (they might know of a pharmacy with the med in stock).

Step three: 

Start phoning pharmacies. Begin with the big chains. Places like CVS, Walgreens, Target, Walmart, and major grocery stores... places with multiple locations in town. Start here because they might be able to check with other stores in their chain to find out who has your prescription in stock, which will save you a phone call or three potentially. They also have more integrated supply networks and will have a better handle on their inventory. Fan out from your location with the help of Google. If you live in a big city, don’t be afraid to start checking in the ‘burbs or outlying towns. Also, if the pharmacy tech doesn’t seem like they’re in a rush, ask them if they’ve got other options... the generic form, other measurements, other types (long acting, short acting, etc). That will potentially save you this rigmarole a second time if you come up dry.

Step four:

If you call every pharmacy and have no luck, call your prescribing doctor back. Tell them you’ve phoned literally everyone and no one can fill your prescription and ask if there is a way you can change it by a few milligrams or switch to generic for this month? Could you get a shorter prescription (fewer pills, thus easier to fill)? Could you do short acting instead of long acting or vice versa for a few weeks until backorders get filled? In short, see if you can get an alternative to tide you over. Go get that paper prescription, and then start over (this is why asking some of those questions to the pharmacy techs could pay off).

Concluding advice:

-You do not have to do this by yourself. You don’t even actually have to do this yourself. Someone can do 90% of this for you. Other than the call to your physician for the script, a parent, spouse, friend, sibling or otherwise can help with this. They will just need the paper prescription, your insurance card, your name and date of birth, and your prescribing physician’s name and place of business. Get someone to help you if you can.

-If you’re not getting bit by the shortage, take this as a sign to stockpile your meds a bit. And this kinda goes for everyone, not just the ADHD/Adderall people. Shortages and supply issues are not going to go away any time soon. Next it might be blood pressure meds, or a particular steroid... who knows. Talk to your doctor about how to effectively plan for this with the meds you’re taking. Future you will thank you.

#adderall #adderall shortage #advice #adhd #adhd advice

[bluegiragi]

I'm enjoying your Soapbox, though forgive me if this was explained elsewhere and I missed it.

I know Ghost gave Konig permission to act on his attraction Soap. But did Ghost and Soap talk about Soap wanting to also sleep with Konig, beyond teasing him. It's kinda leaving an ick if Ghost wasn't okay with sharing Soap and Soap did it anyway, kinda forcing Ghost just to roll with it if it meant still being with Soap. They're in an established relationship and I just hope communication was had and consent was given long before Konig was even involved.

I know they're fiction characters and this sounds dumb, even typing this out I'm cringing, but my brain just won't shup up about this. :(

hey anon!! don't worry, it's not cringe, i'm happy to clarify this sort of thing.

In this story, I see Ghost and Soap as being a very well established relationship. They both know each other extremely well at this point so Ghost was always going to take Soap's attraction to Konig with a grain of salt (he knows that above all else, Soap is his and he is Soap's. doesn't mean he still doesn't get possessive but this part about reminding him who he belongs to was more to just give Johnny the reaction he was looking for).

I think in this part of the series, the two of them talked after the kiss (and what probably came after the kiss) a bit more clearly about what they wanted to potentially pursue. The fight brought Ghost around to Konig a bit more, and he's sort of just too in love with Johnny to deny him much. Also like...they're both secure in where they stand with each other. Johnny's just a bit of a slut, and I think Ghost accepts that with a bit of fond exasperation. He definitely gave Soap permission to do what he wants with Konig, but I don't think Soap was expecting Ghost to intentionally become a part of the situation until he showed up (hence his surprise in this part). But I think Ghost is slowly realising he likes how reactive Konig is. He enjoys messing with him a bit more than he thought he would so...now he's involved too.

hope this put a few of your worries to rest, anon. let me know if you want anything else cleared up!

#tldr #ghost and soap communicate well in their relationship regarding boundaries #soap wouldve never pursued konig to this extent if he knew it'd seriously bother ghost #they're sort of just both having fun #askbox #anon

[beanist]

this is probably a bad idea and will probably alienate a lot of my yugioh followers, but it looks like ill be leaving the website soon anyway so i guess i will soapbox for a little bit

people on tumblr have a serious problem with how they handle "sexual deviancy" and potential sexual crimes, as evidenced by the nonsense that happens with trans people, black people, etc on this website.

but so do the yugioh tumblr people in specific.

sometime last year, i was accused of sexually harassing someone over discord.

the person who accused me of sexual harassment wasn't even the person i allegedly harassed, it was someone who was hearing about it secondhand and decided, completely on their own, although the "victim" was not claiming sexual harassment, that it was indeed sexual harassment. they proceeded to then spread this rumour to the people i was talking to the most about yugioh. one person did the courtesy of breaking the news to me, i believe weeks after the rumours were spread.

the next few days after hearing that someone was accusing me of being a sexual predator and that this was causing me to be excluded from a group, i did my best to correct these rumours. the "victim" spoke up and clarified that no sexual harassment took place, which helped my case massively. if they stayed silent, i fear that i would have been branded a sexual predator forever, although there was absolutely no evidence to support that accusation. the accuser also admitted it wasn't true.

but i was completely mystified by what happened next. i expected the accuser (again, NOT the supposed "victim") to be banned from these communities for spreading rumours that i am a SEXUAL CRIMINAL, because that indicates this person is willing to make AND SPREAD serious accusations at the drop of a hat. (there were other claims they made. i will not memtion them for the sake of brevity.) this did not happen. i was told that i was overreacting, and that this person would not be dropped from these communities. at the same time, many offered to remain friends with me. how am i supposed to peacefully exist in communities where someone who has baselessly accused me of SEXUAL CRIMES is allowed to participate? in fact, some people DEFENDED that person against me because i was being "too aggressive" in my attempts to find out what was going on.

i have been very distrustful of the tumblr yugioh fandom since and withdrew from most yugioh discord servers as a result. i have very little faith in this fandom's ability to choose the correct course of action. the person who would spread rumours is on default protected against the person who is falsely accused.

i tell this story because i want people to know that this exact fandom, OUR community, is absolutely not safe from this bullshit either. i'm sure there are many, many stories similar to mine.

we must all do better.

[steamypits]

🔞ミ 😈 ミ🔞

helscome my porn art account. it's not done yet. i'm mira i'm a trans bitch (27) who tries to draw boobs pictures sometimes. (and maybe write a little bit)

let's lay down some ground rules:

🔞 NO KIDS OR OTHERWISE IMMATURE PRUDE MOTHERFUCKERS 🔞 ⚠️ DON'T LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? CLOSE THE TAB! DON'T MAKE IT MY PROBLEM ⚠️ 🔞 CHARACTERS IN MY WORK /ARE/ CONSENTING ADULTS 🔞 ⚠️ I RESERVE MY RIGHT TO BLOCK YOUR ASS FOR WHATEVER REASON⚠️ 🔞 KEEP THIS ACCOUNT SEPARATE FROM MY MAIN ONLINE PRESENCE GDI IF YOU'RE GONNA BE HORNY DO IT HERE 🔞 ⚠️ BE COOL ⚠️

all strictly explicit art will be posted here as a crop with a link to a full version elsewhere (work in progress lol)

⚠️ FAIR WARNING: KINKS RANGE FROM MILD TO SEVERE ⚠️

in no particular order,

hyper (various aspects and degrees)

armpits/feet/sweat/musk

feeding/stuffing/weightgain

tf/body modification/weird anatomy/amputee

bdsm/s&m/bondage

monstergirls/kemonomimi

anthro/furry

vore

candy gore/mild eroguro (potentially. very rarely.)

size difference (varying degrees, though likely not macro/micro)

probably other stuff (it is a mystery)

i'll likely try and tag my stuff both for organization and blocking purposes, tag formatting and list will be established eventually ™️

my askbox is open to requests, character prompts, questions, comments, etc. it ain't a soapbox. if i leave your ask unanswered, i either forgot about it, didn't have anything particularly interesting to say, or just plain didn't see it. i do love receiving and answering asks tho so fire away 👽

#and there's my pinned #i probably forgot to mention something but whatever

[mapsofnonexistentplaces]

25 for end of year asks!

25. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one

GODDAMN DID I! came up with most of the ghosts in ccs this year and it was fun but i think i’m gonna soapbox a bit about the facsimiles because i haven’t really anywhere else….

these guys have technically existed in the narrative since last summer but i hadn’t really developed them nor designed them until like. literally this summer so about an entire year later. their whole deals just being sentient bits of code derived from the memories of two other existing characters. person who made them (marjolaine) has been experimenting with evolving human consciousness from raw code and the facsimiles endeavour was basically just another expression of that with the addendum of an animate human origin point

in the past i’ve like described these two as “new shoots of a plant growing from the same root of an established organism” because they both arise from younger incarnations of their bases and have like. basically fully split apart in ego despite maintaining the memories and foundation of them.

these two guys also just basically exist in the computer. which is also the sky of the entire world. don’t worry about it. but they don’t exist corporeally and can only really commune through a computer interface

frances on the right is a younger copy of marjolaine…. for context marjolaine used to be a prestigious opera singer who ended up straining her voice so heavily she retained permanent vocal strain that completely killed her career and also weakened her ability to consistently speak at all. frances was built from memories PRIOR to that as a way for marjolaine to relive her glory days but frances themself became like. very unimpressed with that responsibility and was much more interested in manipulating their own existence and partial omniscience (as a result of being expanded on with code) to just become a major gossip basically hehe. they love peoplewatching the living and coming up with absurd ‘theories’ and assumptions about their behaviours, making bets on things that will happen, peeking into potential ‘timelines’ for fun….

eventually though marjolaine grew extremely ornery with their waywardness, and started to pressure and berate them into fulfilling that desired snapshot of her own life. this placed a lot of stress on frances and they basically just shattered into code under it which. although not a permanent affliction is something that requires a prolonged period of recovery. and prior to ‘dying’ they basically vowed to never commune with marjolaine again so. that bridge is burnt. fucked up your clone real bad!

(also yes they’re named after that One Album. for no reason really)

sezim on the left derives from another guy (olzhas, who has many problems, such as being friends with marjolaine) who basically ‘donated’ eir own memories for this experiment only to like. very quickly regret it once it turned out sezim developed into kind of just. an embarrassing immature bratty version of emself from like 5 years back. he’s much more vexed about setting himself apart as a distinct individual than frances was, to the point that it’s what occupies his mind most…. his main pastime WAS hanging out with frances and testing the precise vastness of their knowledge, together, but once frances exploded and shit, seething about his general existence kind of took priority lol. he’s basically just got an entire thing of “i’m a terrifying being of great wisdom and power but i have to be tied to this random motherfucker that i hate and i wish i could shed all that influence off. and also i’m confined to a computer.” he sort of just ‘fled’ once frances exploded (which he’s EXTREMELY bitter about btw) and has formed an undying grudge against marjolaine, thus never contacting her again afterward….

these two have a weird role in the story where they’re kind of just setpieces for their bases’ story arcs. funnily enough. but they’ve got a bit of meta to them that i think is interesting…. mostly just embodying the idea of “here’s ‘people’ who both literally and figuratively sit ‘above’ the narrative and the traditional idea of being developed characters” by design they’re kind of just witnesses or, more aptly, critics of the main conflict of the story which is all about really convoluted and annoying interpersonal drama radiating out into more serious conflict. they kind of think it’s all stupid and avoidable and they are 100% right. but who’s going to listen to them! nobody’s really casting an ear to them since they’re so above it all to begin with….

or something like that. i like these two catty fucks

#it’s so hard trying to talk generally about my ocs LOL my convoluted ass setting…. it’s fun though #ccsimulacrum #ccs.text #ask

[hopeless-eccentric]

re: Éowyn, I think the OTHER problem is that patriarchy is inconsistent in Tolkien’s universe.

Númenor seems to have developed it as an institutional force independently (LaCE’s whole section about Noldorin gender roles indicates that even if the author is a bit sexist the elves don’t seem to be, even down to an absence of a requirement that marriage be heterosexual*, and Haleth and Andreth respond to some gendered pressures but they don’t seem to be systemic) but challenges it through the legalization of absolute primogeniture. Despite this, Gondor and Rohan have their own versions of patriarchal norms, in contrast to Harad and potentially to Umbar. The Shire is written as a land of benevolent sexism, and yet Merry never questions Éowyn’s capacity to murder things with a sword when he realizes he’s been riding with a woman. So we’re left with this nebulous thing that obviously exists and impacts the life of one of the most significant female characters in the text, but that also clearly exists in a way that’s different from our own modern conceptions of patriarchy as all-encompassing and global even as the author isn’t thinking too hard. I wonder if a more feminist LotR written with, say, input from Joy Davidman, would have featured the non-Gondorian Aragorn calling out the patriarchy, but that’s simply because Tolkien tends to do those sorts of things in response to criticism (see Gimli).

* LaCE-compliant elvish marriage being queer-friendly is sort of my personal soapbox, I apologize

ok, so ill admit we're starting to edge out of my area of (if you can call it that) expertise since ive done the most research on the real-world mythological/literary connections within the Men (celts and anglo-saxons specifically, lord above ive read so many eye-splitting middle english poems in the last few months), but i would love to hear more about the stuff with gimli, which i havent heard about before!

also for the sake of transparency im about 2/3 of the way through the silmarillion until my local library's hold comes in so im a bit new here

so something ive done a lot of reading/writing on myself is that patriarchy in rohan/gondor is very closely tied to war and "warrior culture," i.e. this concept that glory via violence should be celebrated above all else and the association of this idea with masculinity. this is more prevalent in rohan than gondor, but tolkien writes that that the presence of a budding warrior culture in gondor is some sort of "fall" from a more peaceful (and implicitly wiser) culture of the past, which very well could be a reference to a more Elvish, numenorean culture (if im reading your ask correctly in assuming that numenor's culture isnt quite as patriarchal as we see in later ages)

so the thing that gets complicated is that these ideals of peace, wisdom, the arts, intellectualism, etc over war are strongly gendered. in The Feminine Principle in Tolkien, Menalie Rawls (who also saved my ass on that paper god bless her) suggests that a lot of the aforementioned traits associated with this "better" (i.e. aligning more with tolkien's internal moral compass for the book) numenorean-refugee culture are strongly in the feminine category, while the warrior culture stuff sits in the masculine category

so that leads to a bit of a weird point. i think a lot of patriarchy as we see it in lotr is related to this idea of the descendants of numenor falling away from their roots and becoming more hypermasculine (the thesis of Rawls's paper is essentially that tolkien's heroes are either expected to have an internal balance of gendered traits or an external one where they balance their gender expression with strong opposing forces to become their most heroic self, i.e. legolas and gimli, eowyn and faramir, varda and manwe, beren and luthien, etc) as opposed to their more balanced, and therefore, in the eyes of the book, "better" past. essentially, like the warrior-worship, patriarchy seems to be an adverse effect that centuries of war can have on a culture

the weird part of it is that i dont know if the whole fall from a golden age thing was supposed to include patriarchy as a symptom of societal decline or just had it coincidentally because tolkien personally associated femininity with peace. it feels like a bit of a chicken or the egg situation honestly

but, like most of tolkien scholarship, this all completely falls to pieces when you try to apply it to the hobbits. i would hazard a guess that the hobbits do a lot of weird shit that doesnt click with the rest of the world (i.e. golf, wristwatches, a mailman) because they're supposed to be the closest thing tolkien has to a normal english human reader in his worlds, so they probably dont have any views/cultural norms outside what someone in the rural england of his childhood would have. best i've got is a reason, but not an explanation

in certain pockets of the world, i think the culture of patriarchy is pretty well justified. however, i agree that there are some major inconsistencies. the hobbits, as per usual, break any theory you try to apply universally across the text. the crowning of aragorn, which is meant to represent gondor's rebuilding to its former glory, has very little to do with how women are treated (which does make me lean more towards the "patriarchy just came along with tolkien liking peace and not warrior culture while also gendering those two concepts" theory now that i think of it). if anything, femininity is treated better after aragorn's crowning (i.e. focus on healing, very gender-balanced king, rewarding small heroes, marrying an Elf, rewarding faramir, tree blooming again, so much celtic symbolism stuff i dont have time to get into but they were considered effeminate as well, etc). but that's how the concept of femininity is treated which is. yknow. different than actual living breathing women

so point is, 1) there's some insight onto why gender concepts look different among different cultures, especially with Men 2) hobbits confuse me

#thank you for the ask! #lotr #lord of the rings #lotr meta #absynthe--minded

[my-mt-heart]

I wonder where the criticism of NR is supposed to lead. Is it just venting? Does someone expect him to get canceled? How does complaining about him improve our situation or MMB's? For full disclosure, I think NR seems a bit of an ass, but AMC is the employer, so they decide who to hire and I'm more concerned about MMB having a job than the man baby du jour. NR will get what's coming in the reviews anyway, so I don't need to rub his face in the feces.

Being critical is one thing, but all the unfiltered hate comments do is create headlines about how "toxic" Caryl/Carol fans are. So even if the intention is to support Melissa, it ends up hurting her chances of landing more roles in the future. Studios pay attention to who and what their potential lead is going to bring with them. You're right that whatever payoff there is or isn't will set the record straight anyway and you're right that it's far more productive to put the pressure on the people who have more power and played a much bigger role.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about where I'm at right now as far as Norman goes. The haters think I'm an apologist and the die-hards think I'm a hater, so let me try one more time to explain. I definitely don't think he's the evil mastermind some people are making him out to be and I strongly disapprove of the vitriol that's out there i.e. shaming his looks, age, health, family etc., hence why I delete the asks leaning that way. Like I said, I love Daryl. I love the way Norman plays him and if Melissa wants to keep playing Carol alongside him, then of course I love that too. But I'm extremely disappointed that Melissa, Caryl/Carol fans, and the version of Daryl that we love have all been sacrificed for less than admirable intentions over the past year and I also don't want to further victimize someone who was at least privileged enough to have AMC, JDM, etc. take his side. Melissa and Angela didn't get the same treatment, so that's why I think it's important to stay focused on their needs and in general, the needs of women in the industry.

This concludes another segment of "The Soapbox" with MT.

#caryl #caryl spinoff #carol peletier #melissa mcbride #darylneedscarol

[coccolithophore]

2,9,19 (book asks) 💖💖💖

2. top 5 books of all time? OH MAN ok idk if i can categorize things like this but ill put down a few off the top of my head

the left hand of darkness, ursula le guin

parable of the sower, octavia butler

why fish don't exist, lulu miller (read this recently its sooo good please read it)

to the lighthouse, virginia woolf

never let me go, kazuo ishiguro

9. when do you tend to read most?

recently ive been reading before bed every night to try to get myself to fall asleep and curb my phone addiction. and on planes and vacations i read obsessively

19. most disliked popular books?

im just not a huge fan of cliche Y//A romance novels 😶 like, ive tried, and ive read some ok ones in the process, but like... this new booktok advertising trend where people give recommendations based solely on fanfic relationship tropes has driven me away from the genre entirely. its a very capitalist way to consume literature and i like books that bend my mind or even change my worldview, and i definitely dont pick the media i consume based solely on... shipping potential. sorry for that lil soapbox it just drives me a bit crazy.

#THANK U EA LOVE U #asks

[kireshai]

Here's the rest of my top 15 BLs.

Once again a warning that some of the gifs are pretty spoilery for some of the shows.

I did the top 2 tiers of my favourites (8/15) in the first post, to be found here.

This consists of my third tier of favourites, entitled:

Damn I Still Love This Tier So Much

RakDiao

I'm putting RakDiao first in this post because it has received very little attention comparitively, so I want to encourage more people to watch it. It's more a traditional sitcom with a gay romance, but it's so funny and really adorable. It does have laugh track, which I personally found grating, but it's so worth withstanding that. The plot is enemies to lovers with flipping power dynamics depending on whether the characters are at home or work and you should go watch it now on the official youtube channel.

Cherry Magic

Oh my god, Cherry Magic is just so goddamn wholesome. You'd think that a story with mind-reading would have so much potential for horny cringe, but Kurosawa is the definition of purity even while jonesing after Adachi like it's no-one's business. Featuring writing sappy love poetry in his head while on a bus, there is not a BL sweeter than this one.

Word of Honor

Honestly, I don't know how people manage to categorise this as bromance. It's so very very gay, Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu are basically married about a third of the way through. There's a cast of really great supporting characters, but I do think some of the political intrigue drags at times. It is also not the happiest of endings, even taking into account the mini-epilogue.

TharnType

I am quite happy to admit I like Mame shows, especially when they have chemistry as good as in TharnType. We can just ignore that Mew looks all of his 25-or-so years while playing a 19-year-old. I love this melodramatic mess and its production values are pretty damn high. A warning to anyone who hasn't heard of it that there's some trigger warnings regarding sexual assault both in the story itself and in backstory.

Tonhon Chonlatee

I'm... sorry? Tonhon Chonlatee is very funny. That's it. I love how insane it is - they had me with the Wuxia naughty dreams and lethal abstinence and I loved the rest of the wacky ride. Also featuring a very babby Neo as best-boy Na.

Not Me

I was told that Not Me was not very BL until it suddenly was 7 episodes in, but that is a lie and it is very BL the whole way through. There's some really interesting themes on show here, and some great performances that I really loved. I do think it was a bit soapbox in the way it presented the themes at times, but overall it was really enjoyable. Shout out to First and Gawin who really shone in their intensely emotional scenes.

KinnPorsche

Good lord the love and money behind this show. The production values are top notch and it is so obvious that the people involved really cared about what they were making. I found myself very much caught up in the Vegas and Pete storyline in the latter half, but can you blame me with how well they both performed? That being said, this show was solid through and through, with amazing creatives pulling it together from start to finish.

And that's it from me for now. I hope at the very least I may have opened someone's eyes to an unknown gem today.

#bl drama #rak diao #not me the series #cherry magic #kinnporsche the series #tharntype #tonhon chonlatee #word of honor

[tathrin]

Revan = Isildur but with Light Side ending how?

Oh, okay! So I haven't actually figured out exactly how things went down, and actually trying to write it out semi-coherently now may end up toppling the whole house of cards let's see lmao...

But: I've extended the existence of the Empire from 20 years to 400 (I picked that number because Revan was 4,000 years ago in SW canon so it's tidy to just lop a zero off, but there's no actual specific plot reason for why it's 400 years specifically; that might get shortened a bit?) because I want this to be something that's been going on for multiple generations. Likely the Empire did not take over quite so immediately in this universe, probably because it had to actually conquer some places instead of just slot itself in as the auto-replacement for the Republic? So it's been in complete control of the galaxy for less than 400 years, but 400 years ago is when it started.

Revan themself is a rather ambiguous figure at this point (because I LOVE ambiguous Revan! that's the whole point of the game! Revan has to be ambiguous enough that they can potentially be anyone because you need anyone to be able to be Revan! ahem sorry I'll get off that soapbox now) so no one's exactly sure how things went down...but the legend goes that Revan defeated the Dark Lord, but then Fell themself and that was how Dark Lord II survived to ultimately lead the Empire to victory in the end. So Revan died (or "died"? no one is sure! but they sure did disappear from the historical narrative at that point!) a hero, but their victory was short-lived and ultimately led to the Empire's rise and conquest of the galaxy.

Aragorn may or may not be an actual descendant of Revan, but he's definitely descended from the survivors of the Jedi Purge. They have lived in secret, at the edges of the galaxy, passing their teachings down, training any Force Sensitives they can get to before the Empire does, their numbers slowly dwindling. They often wander alone, trying to help without attracting too much notice; they do not wield their lightsabers, for those would be too noticeable. They do not call themselves Jedi in public any longer (although they always remember what they are; why it matters) but rather the Grey Company, for they bring light to the darkness—but the darkness is so thick now that it is only a faint twilight. But there is a prophecy that someday their light will shine forth again, and it will be time to replace the crystals in their swords, and blaze bright again in one final stand against the Dark Side that will decide once and for all the Balance of the Force. Aragorn has carried an empty lightsaber hilt and a cracked kyber crystal around for ages...perhaps one once carried by Revan themself?

But there is a second story about Revan, one whispered by the Grey Company among themselves: that it was in fact Revan who was the Dark Lord who rose from the defeat of the first one; that in order to destroy the Dark Lord Morgoth, Revan leaned too far into the Dark Side and fell. The power was too tempting and they became what they had once fought against, and went on to slaughter hundreds of their former friends and fellows in the formation of their Empire; in the great Jedi Purge that decimated the Order and sent its scattered survivors into shadows and hiding. Aragorn fears the temptations of power above all; fears that the Force itself might be his undoing, even as it is his guide and strength. Because if Revan, brightest of all Jedi, could fall then so could he.

So not Light Side Ending Revan, no...rather, we're set before the game begins (and the tales do not speak of whether Revan died as part of the Dark or the Light, because in the tales Revan dies before they could Fall). Most of the galaxy only knows the part of the story that ends with Revan's "death" in a Heroic Last Stand, a parry-of-two-widows situation if you will; they know that Revan destroyed Morgoth and was destroyed themselves in the doing...but they don't know that in this case destroyed does not mean killed, but rather corrupted. The Jedi know otherwise, but even they do not how the Dark Lord that was once Revan eventually died.

#btw i'm delighted to take Species Suggestions for any of these characters if folks have thoughts! #revan #aragorn #lord of the star ring wars #star wars au #lotr au #my stuff

[quillandsaber]

Soapbox time again, because this is my unreasonable fanfiction pet peeve: while cycle tracking is a fairly easy family planning method to implement (let's leave the efficacy of it out for now), it was a pretty difficult method to discover that requires several discoveries that required far more advanced technologies and scientific infrastructure and some really interesting studies.

(Note: I'm going to use the word "male" to refer to beings who have reproductively-functional penises and testes, and the word "female" to refer to beings who have reproductively-functional uteruses and ovaries. I know this is reductive, but when talking about reproductive capability I do need to be a bit reductive.)

See, the precise mechanisms of how people make more people are really difficult to study for a lot of reasons. While semen is easily observable, sperm aren't unless you have a microscope, and ova are even harder to observe. Unlike a lot of mammals, human females do not broadcast when they are ovulating/fertile, and there is no "mating season". Humans just tend to have a lot of sex (compared to other species, anyway) throughout the year on no particular pattern. We have a lot of random infertility as well. We're smart enough to be able to have potentially-conceptive sex with people other than our assumed partners and at least sometimes not be discovered. We lie about how much sex we have a lot, both overestimating and underestimating. Until relatively recently, most human females had fairly irregular cycles due to nutrition, stress, combo pregnancy/early miscarriage, etc. And it's nearly impossible to get a true "random sample" for any kind of study on human reproduction; you're usually dealing with people who have fertility problems because they're the people who are going to medical professionals.

It was understood that ovaries had something to do with reproduction, and that there was a connection with menstruation and fertility, but that's where the correctness ended for a long time. There were two common beliefs (both wrong) that dominated the discussion of Where Babies Come From. One belief was that a human female internally released an analogous substance to semen during orgasm, and this mixed with the semen to create a baby (really not that crazy a theory, and not too far off except for the issue of when the female reproductive substance is released). Another belief is what I call Seed Theory: that there was no distaff-equivalent substance to sperm/semen and that sperm/semen "planted" in the uterus to make a baby. Neither of these theories involve a reproductive cycle for human females.

It wasn't until the 1850s when some doctors were trying to do a large-scale study on reproduction that they looked at other mammals we often interact with such as sheep and dogs and realized that the females "bleed" when in season, and hypothesized that maybe humans work the same way too. For this reason, they recommended a large number of couples who were trying to conceive to focus on having sex when the female partner was menstruating...and then discovered the results were exactly opposite what they expected. Note, by the way, that not everyone failed to conceive (because human ovulation isn't necessarily the exact same spacing away from the menstrual cycle, it just usually is), but it was a lot less than you'd expect than if it were true that female humans are most fertile when menstruating. The fact that there is a distinct low-fertility period in the human female reproductive cycle is the kind of conclusion you'd be able to come to only with a (relatively) large-scale study.

From there, it took more large-scale studies to realize that human reproduction does require the involvement of an ovum, that the ovaries produce an average of one usable ovum per cycle which can be fertilized only over a short period of time rather than the entire cycle, and that there are several subtle but physically-observable cues (basal body temperature changes - which require an accurate thermometer to measure, cervical positioning, cervical mucus) that can indicate when ovulation is occurring. This process was not quick. None of this was obvious.

So, tl;dr: if you want your fantasy/fanfiction world to have cycle tracking birth control, they need to have the infrastructure for large-scale scientific studies, microscopes, and home-use thermometers, because the fact that uterus-having humans are fertile for only a few distinct days a month is in no way obvious.

#fanfiction resources

[beautyofsorrow]

have your ever considered T'Pring and Chirstine Chapel? that sort of rarepair seems right up your alley and selfishly I'd love to read your writing on them.

FUN fact there was a period of like, 4 days after 2x05 aired when i was prepared to drop everything and write 15k of t'spockel fic because there is just SO MUCH POTENTIAL THERE that the writers aRE NOT MINING [insert soapbox on hollywood homophobia and western society's inability to conceive of relationships that fuck with monogamous romantic norms and also Why The Fuck Are Vulcan Relationships Like That It Makes No Sense For A Spacefaring Species With A Surprise And Fatal Horny Virus To Mate Monogamously For Life] but thankfully that happened on a monday and by the time work ended on friday i realized i did not want to write about spock even a little bit

(if u have read my chapel fic u may have noticed i simply chose not to perceive that whole mess) (too often chapel has been reduced to a foil for (normative) character growth for spock, and i hope they stop that very soon because she's a bangin' character who deserves her own full-fledged non-romance arc)

chapel/t'pring... i will not say never because i have done so many off-the-wall ships lately, but i will say vulcans are v hard for me because i like being extremely feelsy with my writing. and the whole point of vulcans is. they do not. so. it's kind of an unstoppable force meets immovable object situation at this point.

but this is so kind and i will put them back on the consideration list. it is nice to know there is an audience for it. and i have been very into stoicism lately so maybe t'pring might be fun. actually.

#chat box: that fanfic lyfe

[get-x-media]

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[thekimspoblog]

Fanfic idea: "Last Clear Chance Doctrine"

Cannon divergence from "Black and Blue" (6x05): Kim shows up to box Howard instead and confronts him - point blank - about why dragging out the Sandpiper case is unethical and how, because HHM kept stealing cases out from under Wexler-McGill, their options have been limited to (1) continuing to live paycheck-to-paycheck, (2) taking on high-paying but unsafe clients, or (3) stealing Sandpiper back by any means necessary. She explains how - animosity aside - the sabotage is not about revenge; she's tired of needing Howard's permission to start her own practice and live her life.

See here's my reasoning... Yes, Jimmy confronted Howard earlier in "Fall" (3x09) trying to convince him to do the right thing. But because this show is all about ambiguity, unbeknownst to Jimmy, Howard is coming fresh off a nasty fight with Chuck and wasn't really open for another debate. And Wexler-McGill went directly from that to deciding to sabotage the case... because they are crazy people and this is a wacky tv show. But it does make you wonder if, had they appealed to Howard one more time after Chuck died, if things could have gone differently.

There are two potential endings for this fic:

Howard sees reason and decides to settle, and we follow what that means for HHM and for his pride. He's redeemed, but is tragically killed in some other freak accident because my HC is that this character is just straight-up marked by the reaper.

Or (more likely) because in case you haven't noticed I don't really like Howard, it would be a character study; on the breakthroughs he is (or isn't!) making in therapy, wtf his problems with Cheryl are, and most importantly why he CAN'T risk HHM's finances by settling, because the legacy of the firm is all twisted up with his baggage about his father and about Chuck. And the rest of Season 6 proceeds as it canonically did. But now with the vindication/absolution that what Jimmy and Kim did really was the only way the old folks were going to see justice in a timely fashion. Probably a little bit of me on my soapbox about late-stage capitalism a bit by the end.

The great thing about BrBaBCS fanfiction is that it takes every possible moment of the timeline, and spirals them out into fractals of missed opportunities and roads not taken. And one of those missed opportunities was making your testosterone-fueled, fan-service, explicitly-canonically-resolved-nothing, plot-cul-de-sac of a boxing scene slightly less pointless by at least showing off what Rhea's biceps can do.

Like Jimmy just is a (supposedly cis) man; so anything he thought he had to prove by fighting Howard was just stupid machismo. Kim on the other hand... her beef with Howard is specifically tied to how Howard is a bit sexist and constantly overlooks her. So even if she lost the boxing match (she totally wouldn't), she'd still have won by calling his bluff and pressuring Howard to hit her as hard as he was prepared to punch Jimmy.

#Rhea Seehorn's arms #better call saul #better call saul 6x05 #black and blue #bcs #bcs fanfiction #better call saul fanfiction #kim wexler #howard hamlin #Residents v Sandpiper Crossing