#the most accurate post on this ENTIRE WEBSITE

[decolonize-the-left]

You are literally going to get people killed by pushing them to vote third party. People voting third party is why Trump won in 2016, which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court with conservative garbage which is going to negatively affect us for DECADES to come (already has, since it led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade which has LITERALLY killed people). I'm baffled, because you've done so much good work on this website (like I still go back and regularly reread your posts on whiteness etc because they're so informative), but advocating for voting third party going into one of the most important elections in recent memory is actively harmful.

Like have you heard of Project 2025? In case you haven't it's literally like a 1000 page manifesto for the Republican party to reshape the federal government to essentially let the President become a dictator. It also expressly mentions plans to roll back rights for women, the LGBT community, and pretty much any other minority you can think of. I know things are bad now - not arguing that at all - but if Republicans win next year, things will get EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

You can sit there and yell about Democrats being "just as bad" until you're blue in the face, but it's literally not true. The Democratic Party itself is obviously just another problematic institution and there are definitely Dems who showed their entire asses with supporting Israel, but like... Progressive Democrats do exist and while they're obviously not perfect, it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Not to mention Republicans literally need to cheat by gerrymandering and attacking voting rights for minorities in order to even get elected in a lot of places, whereas Democrats tend to win when more people are registered and actually show up to vote. They are not the same, and the harm they do is not the same.

Again, I have a lot of respect for the work you do, especially with your recent posts on the Palestinian genocide. But I vehemently disagree with your stance on voting third party in this upcoming election. Ideally I would love if we could vote third party and actually have multiple options that more accurately represent us as a population, but our current system is a two party one and unfortunately we literally do have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one option sucks but preserves what little democracy we have (and gives us a chance of making it better) and one will literally bring genocide against trans people. I would personally rather not see that happen.

How can you say this and mention the Palestinian genocide in the same ask.

Democrats are getting people killed. In fact they're committing one of The worst crime against humanity possible and then only thing you're worried about is that things might get worse for gay people if a Republicans wins.

I'm the biggest queer I know. I'm native. I'm brown. I'm almost definitely on a watch list. And listen to me and understand the depth of my words when I say: my people have been oppressed the way Project2025 outlines.

And maybe you personally cared or helped us protest that. But most people didn't. In fact I can't remember the last time the US supported native rights at all.

But now that YOURE under threat I'm supposed to risk my life because the queer community can't be bothered to stop discoursing about neopronouns long enough to actual give an shit about saving the community?

Y'all got a lot of damn nerve, let me tell you.

Go bark up some other tree cuz this is not the one.

Also I'm not pushing anyone to vote 3rd party. I'm laying out facts. Facts are a Gallup poll says 63% of people would vote 3rd party. Facts are my Tumblr poll says that number is STILL at least 45% on the hellsite.

And since people are interested in voting 3rd party they should know their options. The people who say "I would vote 3rd party but they don't have support" also deserve to see the articles that said 63% of people would join them.

They deserve to know that 3rd parties currently hold a not insignificant amount percentage of support from the two main parties. 20% of votes. When 33% is an even split are good odds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, blue Fascists, but this country is in fact still a democracy and just because you Want people to vote blue doesn't mean they have to and you feeling they're the best doesn't make you right!

Other people aren't "wrong" for not wanting your conservative Jurassic party in power anymore.

They can vote how they want.

And if you see a poll that says 63% of people would rather NOT vote for either major party and your first thought is not: wow 63% is enough to elect someone we want, I'll support that.

And instead you go: how can I force them to vote for my party instead.

Then please understand it is not THEM splitting the vote. Biden will get MAYBE 40% votes. You gonna force 63% of the country to vote for someone they don't even want?

There's a name for that yeah?

How'd it work out in 2016 when y'all "forced" us to vote for Hillary by putting her on the ballot? She lost and she wasn't even actively commiting a genocide.

But you think Biden will not only earn votes from that 63% but he'll also win the election. Against trump. Which less blatantly shitty democrats have struggled to contend with?

Democrats are legitimately delusional.

Your problem is you see Democrats as being better than Republicans. While the rest of us see less and less of a difference every year. And you can only say you're "better" if you're different enough.

See this is what happens when you vote for the "lesser evil." Eventually that evil balances back out and you're left with the truth that your two main options are just evil.

Now the only people actually different enough to make that argument are third parties.

Coincidentally, that's what people are drawn to right now.

I know, go figure. It's almost like it makes sense to lose support when you consistently prop up shitty candidates nobody asked for every 4 years.

We do not have a two party system and you know that, that's why you sent this ask.

Cuz you're stressed dems might lose. Cuz you KNOW people have other options.

Good. Cuz they will lose if Biden is the democrat's nominee and Claudia de la Cruz stays in the race, which she will since she's running with PSL not democrats. So there's no competition. Her party is organized and chosen her and a VP already, she's guaranteed every one of their votes because her party works like a union does.

It's a wrap.

Biden can't use his "lesser evil" script with Claudia De La Cruz on the ballot actively challenging his genocide and imperialism.

Vote Claudia De La Cruz cuz you are a scooping water out of the Titanic trying to get 63% of Americans to think voting for a Genocidal warmonger is what's best for any of us, let alone the planet. And we didn't want him BEFORE he did any of this.

#asked #answered #voting

[phoenixyfriend]

I heard a lot of things I wanted to share earlier today, but haven't reached a non-work computer until recently and was distracted by the airdrop news so I had to talk about that first. Most of the things that stood out to me were in the Democracy Now podcast, but I'll be linking the headlines from their website, which has text versions of the articles instead of just audio.

The Intercept: New York Times Exposé Lacks Evidence to Claim Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence Oct. 7: Shortly after the first Hamas attack, the New York Times published an inflammatory article about systematic rape by Hamas soldiers. It initially intended to have an episode of The Daily (its podcast) about the topic, but the podcast's fact-checkers found that the article's writers had bent a lot of truths and their sources were often questionable at best; the needed rewrites for honest reporting were so comprehensive that the episode script was scrapped entirely. Goes over the ways in which the reporters manipulated facts and opinions, the NYT not really acknowledging the conflict, and how heavily it impacted international response to Israeli actions, especially by the US government.

From their Headlines page, the bold is their titles and the reset is my summary or additional references:

Defense Sec. Austin Refuses to Draw Line in Sand for Israel After Food Aid Massacre in Gaza - DS Austin is grilled by a congressmember and still doesn't commit to anything; notable is that he cites a death toll that is probably accurate to the estimates of real death, but not accurate to the confirmed deaths and so the numbers had to be later walked back by the Pentagon.

Washington’s Largest Union Backs Democratic Vote for “Uncommitted” Ahead of Primary - UFCW is joining the movement that Michigan got rolling. I talked about it more in a recent addition to this post, if you want to know more about which states are organizing to do the same.

Lebanese PM Says Gaza Ceasefire Would End Conflict on Its Border with Israel - Lebanon has been bombing northern Israel for a while now; this is just the 'if you leave Palestine alone, we'll stop sending explosives your way' message that's been broadcast for a while.

There are a number of other stories going on that aren't getting a huge amount of coverage on most platforms, like Texas's wildfires, or are just too complex for me to summarize (they have a longer article on the border visit and policy debate), but these three stood out to me, which is probably why they're the first ones mentioned.

#united states #gaza #israel #palestine #lebanon #Lloyd Austin #death mention #phoenix politics #current events #ucfw #washington #Ro Khanna

[dreamcaught]

There have been so many of these posts, and what looks like an entire website pretty much dedicated to this topic, but nevertheless here I am adding to the mix.

Thoughts on Buffy Season 6, Sex and Seeing Red

This is long and only kind of edited. Content warning below.

CW: Discussions of abuse, addiction, and rape.

Let me just start out by saying: Spike is my favourite character in Buffy. I love him completely. He is contrary and interesting and if there is anything I would do to improve the show it would be to add more scenes with Spike. But, unlike a lot of Spike girlies – and especially many of my favourite fanon creators – I don’t think Spike is out-of-character in Seeing Red. There are some serious problems with it, but I think it’s an important scene.

My reason for saying this comes from the claim that Buffy and Willow are the main villains this season. Well, no, to be fair: in season 6, the main villains of the show are the internal villains within the characters, specifically Buffy and Willow, expressed through their actions of addiction and abuse. The Trio is a red herring Big Bad; they’re pretty much just there to provide laughs and move plot. They’re not like the Master, or Angelus, or Adam, or Glory – there isn’t ever a “gather the troops, we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands” attitude toward defeating them… because they’re just human people, making human mistakes and causing human havoc. (Much like how Buffy and Willow would be if they weren’t already saturated in the supernatural.)

Buffy and Willow’s stories run parallel in this season. They are both dealing with the aftermath of Buffy’s resurrection: Buffy is majorly depressed to the point that she feels essentially soulless, whereas Willow is guilty to such degree that the only way she knows how to cope with herself is through control and the overuse of magic.

Tangent about Sex Because That’s How I Roll:

Before we go further to discuss this, just, briefly, let’s take note that this show does not do justice to sex. In both cases, Buffy and Willow’s “addiction” is to, essentially, use sex like a drug to (sort of) feel, but more accurately numb themselves. Buffy’s use of Spike is blatant, but we must remember that Willow and Tara’s first prominent romantic/sexual connections were initially all linked to their use of magic.

It’s made clear that this idea of magic = sex between the two is continued even in season 6, as exemplified in the Once More with Feeling song Under Your Spell lines: “You make me complete,” which are cut off at the most deliciously appropriate time – and if you haven’t noticed that until I’ve pointed it out here, then well done, you!

Here there is a bit of a problem I have with the show’s messaging because it’s essentially saying that sex is bad. Tara asks Willow to stop using magic (yikes, imagine asking your lover to please stop sexing so much, babe, it’s bad for you) – and at the same time, in the parallel story, Buffy feels the need to hide her sexual tryst with Spike because it’s wrong to want to feel good.

I think it’s important to note that Buffy isn’t really upset about it being Spike, specifically. She makes a big deal of saying that he’s “everything she’s supposed to hate” and “soulless” and “evil,” but Buffy had every opportunity to have this affair with literally anyone else – in fact, she could have very easily gotten her rocks off with a different, random person every night, but chooses to use Spike. And here we can move back to the main points –

Miscommunication

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is abusive, but hardly for the reasons they make it appear on the show. At this point, Spike is a soulless demon. That he doesn’t just kill her as soon as he realizes that he can hurt her is a testament to how much he loves her, despite this. But, because he is a soulless demon, he does try to take advantage of Buffy’s attention to him by trying to convince her that she should be with him. He plays on her fears of being soulless/evil/demonic. Other than trying to persuade her to stay with him, this is the full extent of Spike’s abuse of Buffy.

At no point in their physical relationship does Spike ever abuse Buffy’s consent.

Between Spike and Buffy is a travesty of miscommunication. Need I say again: Spike is a soulless demon. From the moment he realizes his feelings toward Buffy, he is constantly trying to figure out what she needs from him, because he simply does not understand. (“What’s it take?”) He actively tries to learn what Buffy wants and how to respond to her desires. From their passionate kiss in Once More with Feeling: “The day you suss out what you do want, there'll probably be a parade,” to literally his last lines of the show, “No, you don’t,” Buffy and Spike’s communication is the worst!

And this is all Buffy’s fault, by the way! She absolutely, stubbornly, resolutely refuses to talk – to most people! It’s practically a miracle that Spike understands Buffy at all – and to that end, I truly, fully, completely believe that Spike is the best partner for Buffy, simply because he’s the only one who does.

Their first time together, Buffy is verbally telling him it’s never going to happen while at the same time ripping off his clothes. At nearly every encounter between them during their affair, Buffy says it will never happen again, it will be the last time, it was the worst thing ever. These are outright lies, and Spike learns through conditioning to see right through them. When she says “Stop,” he doesn’t have to stop – because that is not what she means. He learns through the complicated, complex, contrary Buffy Talk what she actually wants and then proceeds to give it to her.

Up to Seeing Red, Buffy’s consent has always sounded like: “No.”

Buffy the Villain

Buffy has chosen Spike as her lover because he already loves her. He is emotionally invested in their relationship. He takes care of her. (“I can get money.”) She can be herself with him. (“I can be alone with you here.”) She is safe with him. (“Dawn is safe with Spike, so I can stay as long as you need.”)

During their affair, Buffy takes everything that she’s feeling about herself out on Spike. She calls him soulless, she calls him nothing, she says he’s empty; she beats him up, she kicks him out, she refuses his affection and forces him to hide his own. Spike takes it because he is loyal and in love with her, and this is the extent that Buffy abuses him. She conditions him to think that she can’t love him, she conditions him to think that saying “No” means “Yes,” she conditions him to think that her abuse of him is kinky and will lead to sex.

Buffy’s goal is only to feel something. She wants Spike to take advantage because it makes things a lot easier for her to deal with. If she says “No,” that means that she’s tried to stop him, despite it not being what she really wants or expects of him.

Because of this abuse, in a very real way, Buffy is the one who destroys the safety that Spike represented. Her abuse of him corrodes their trust, but she doesn’t know that. Buffy, despite denying it or acknowledging it, still believes in Spike’s loyalty. And not only that – by this point, Buffy has fallen in love with him. The bathroom scene in Seeing Red happens, in part, because she’s pushed Spike too far – and she’s not ready to admit to anything, because she refuses to acknowledge that she was an abuser.

The events of Seeing Red are the culmination of Buffy’s actions with the complete absence of honest communication. It is because she tells Spike to move on that he sleeps with Anya. It is because she expected his loyalty that Dawn talks to Spike. It’s because she trained Spike to do the opposite of what she says that he tries to connect with her physically to make her happy.

It is because she refuses to acknowledge not only her abuse of him, but also her love for him, that he chooses to show her instead. Because Buffy doesn’t talk – she only acts, and that’s what Spike tries to do, in the way that she taught him – from the start of their affair to the explicit events in Gone, all the way to this scene, Buffy has told Spike that sex is how to get close to her.

The Bathroom Scene

A lot of people have been traumatized by this scene. It is very difficult to watch, since we’ve got these two beautifully complicated people trying so hard to communicate and failing so badly at it. Buffy, finally, is saying what she means, but Spike can’t hear it. Spike is, as he’s been taught to do, servicing her to show her his devotion. These two people are in love with each other but are deeply hurt. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Buffy is hurt by Spike’s actions while he’s hurt by her words, since these are the languages they understand.

If done well, this scene could have been healing. They could have finally come together in grief of their broken relationship and tried to fix it to something healthier. But instead, they were using the scene to push Spike into getting a soul, so he had to go too far, and she had to say too much.

I don’t think that Spike is out of character. I think that both Spike and Buffy act exactly within their character consistencies. Spike would totally seek Buffy out if he thought she was hurting – especially if he had any hope at all that he was the cause of her hurt. Buffy would completely deny, deny, deny any emotional attachment to Spike and take no responsibility for having hurt him. She’s still stuck, here, projecting her own numbness onto Spike with the false idea that he can’t love because he’s soulless.

Because of the constant, completely screwed up ideologies within this show about sex (that sex is bad, that too much sex is bad, that kinky sex is wrong, etc.) and because of the cumulative events that arise from their abusive sex=closeness relationship, the only way they could think of to make it even worse was to escalate to rape.

I know why they did it, because it makes sense within the story of their physical affair. It’s The Worst Thing you can do to someone else. We have to remember that Buffy doesn’t care about being killed, because she sort of wants to die. Also, Spike would never want to kill her. The only other thing he might want to do is turn her, but, to Buffy, that’s the same thing as being killed. Since her belief is that a demon takes over the human host, she might even welcome being turned as much as she would welcome death.

But importantly: there is the significant and completely intentional reverse of their villainousness actions here. In this scene, Buffy can’t be the villain anymore. It doesn’t matter how much she’s abused Spike, it doesn’t matter that their relationship was murky and confusing. Because it is rape, the only villain is the person committing the act of rape.

Spike must be made the villain here because anything else is victim blaming. It was the only action the writers could take to give the title of villain back to Spike away from Buffy. Spike has to end this season being the Big Bad because he must absorb all the hurt, the pain and the soullessness that was entangled with Buffy and incorporate it into himself (“You think I like having you in here? Destroying everything that was me, until all that's left is you, in a dead shell. You say you hate it, but you won't leave.”)

He takes Buffy’s pain and heals them both by – after these events – getting his soul.

The Problem

The writing staff knew their characters (for the most part). They knew that Spike was soulless and needed something drastic to instigate his search of a soul. Hurting Buffy this way did make the most sense in the framework of their affair and in the framework of making sex akin to drugs. But attempted rape was too, too far for the viewers. Talking about sex is already difficult for society, especially at the time this show was made. Talking about and explicitly showing attempted rape caused trauma to viewers and made a lot of people turn away from the otherwise very beautifully complicated relationship between Buffy and Spike.

People against Spuffy use this scene as the ultimate fodder against Spike, but doing so is disrespectful to the story, the lore and the characters. Spike loved Buffy enough soulless, but she was only strong enough to accept that once he went out and got one. In addition to that – Buffy forgives Spike for what he did that day. She admits to her side of the abuse, acknowledges that what they had was real, and doesn’t blame Spike for his actions. This conversation exists in bits-and-pieces in the Buffy comics – it would have been incredible to see it on screen in season 7, but I guess by that point the writers didn’t want to bring it up again and had way too many other things to deal with (which is another topic altogether).

I like the bathroom scene in Seeing Red. I think it’s horrible, and raw, and terribly authentic. The portrayal of hurt and betrayal by both actors is one of the strongest scenes in the show. I do wish, though, that they hadn’t taken it quite so far.

My Problem

Season 6 of Buffy is my favourite season. It is powerful and painful. But, if I could change it, I would have changed the messaging that sex is bad, because it isn’t, and both Spike/Buffy and Willow/Tara deserved something better.

#btvs #btvs meta #long post #spuffy #sex in btvs #seeing red

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

ATTENTION PLZ READ: Serious Post & Call To Action

I almost never get serious on here, but this is an emergency that effects ALL of us. This is gonna b a long post, but there's a lot of info so plz bear with me.

If you're not on tiktok, you probably haven't heard abt this cuz I've heard and seen NO ONE outside of tiktok talking about this and that's scary.

We have a major mass internet censorship bill that Facists- I mean "Conservatives" are trying to get through congress that was co-signed by Dove (yes, the soap company) & LIZZO of all people back in April of this year.

This bill is called the "Kids Online Safety Act" or KOSA for short.

Under the guise of "protecting children" it is the worst mass internet censorship bill to date and if it passes, it will give state senators and the government the power to censor and destroy anything they don't like off the face of the internet. And by that I mean in a recent video interview of Senator Marsha Blackburn (one of the senators that introduced the bill) said the quiet part out loud and detailed EXACTLY what we knew they were gonna do.

If they pass it, they're going to use it to wipe any LGBTQIA+ content & info off the face of the internet, but ESPECIALLY anything to do with Transgender people and being Trans. And they intend on targeting Transgender children especially.

Due to the purposefully vague wording of the bill giving the gov. the power to destroy anything they deem "a danger to kids" you know that's what they're gonna use it for instead of censoring anything that's an actual danger to kids. They said it themselves.

But it gets SO MUCH WORSE than that. This bill would also give th4em the power to control EVERYTHING you do and EVERYWHERE yo go on the internet and no. A VPN won't help you.

This goes way beyond just lgbtqia info and fandom content/culture being in danger. This also means our right to free speech, access to accurate and factual information, and ability to communicate & organize with each other is also up on the chopping block. They're trying to make it harder for us to fight back against what they're doing.

And even if you don't live in the US, this will also effect you too. Access to any US based content creators and US based media as well as your ability to communicate with your US friends & Family as well as access to info on what's happening in the US will also be in danger as well.

If you're on tiktok and want more info, I reccomend looking up omarsbigsister who has an entire playlist on the bill as well as info and petition links in her bio and a call script to read off for contacting your senators. but I will also be providing those same links at the end of this post.

So what can we do to stop it?

Sign petitions

COntact your senators and reps. Call them, email them, send physical letters,

but most importantly,

SPREAD THE WORD.

share and repost this because the fact that no one oustide of tiktok is talking about this even though it will effect ALL OF US and could spell the end of the internet as we know it is SCARY

This bill is text book fascism and we need to kill it in its crib.

Here are all the links:

Resources for learning about KOSA

Sign this petition and call your senators! (this one includes a call script for you to read from

Sign the open letter against KOSA

Stop KOSA movement's linktree with even more petitons and resources to help

#emergency #please reblog #please repost #free speech #stop kosa #internet censorship #lgbtqia #trans rights #transgender #trans rights are human rights #protect trans kids #antifascist #human rights #activism #help #call to action #united states politics

[rosewaterconley]

I solved a mystery that only I care about lol

ok so I have no clue what I'm doing and social media terrifies me. I will probably never touch this account again. why did I have to follow 3 algorithm-selected accounts to get into this website? I can actually name 3 people I'd want to follow on here and it's none of the people your fucking robot told me to follow. but hey, I feel like I have to post it here rather than my blogspot since nobody in the world actually uses blogspot and I want people to see this!

so anyway, there's this band out of the city of Milwaukee called Hero of a Hundred Fights. they dropped a couple CDs in the early 2000s and seem to have broken up, though all their members have been in bands since. that'll be important a little later. for now, Hero of a Hundred Fights are important to me on 2 levels:

I'm a Wisconsinite who has a tiny bit of an obsession with local history and art and really fuck with their weird mathy little corner of the 2000s hardcore scene

I'm a Faction Paradox fan and their 2001 EP The Remote, The Cold contains numerous references to the series! if you've heard of this EP before, it was probably in the context of some "music that references Faction Paradox" list or another

about #2... see, everyone already knows that track 2 is called Faction Paradox and track 3 is called The Celestis. we've all long since put together that the title is a reference to Lawrence Miles' Interference. but what about the lyrics? unfortunately, we don't know. they're not online, and the vocals are good, mind, but rather incoherent.

well, we didn't know. until I ordered a CD copy for like $8 lol. that's all it took! so here you go, the lyrics booklet plus some of the other artwork featured on the CD. artist Nick Slough did a great job on this art and it's a shame only the cover is widely available online (though that's hardly a problem unique to the physical version of this one album). turns out, this is some kinda concept album based on the Miles novel Interference. cool! really love the lyrics on Rope especially. "I need your blood to get this vessel running" and "my life was in your hands, I cut them off and now they're mine" are both raw as hell.

the cover art is pretty interesting. this album was recorded in 2000, released in 2001. the entire creative process occurred before the first standalone Faction Paradox release, The Book of the War. this means the album is entirely Doctor Who-based, not based on the FP series itself. it also means, if we assume the humanoid characters on the art are supposed to be the Remote, that this is the first-ever professional art depicting them!

disclaimer: the booklet lyrics don't 100% match up with what's said in the songs! it's mostly accurate but unfortunately there are some sections missing, some repeated bits that are only written once et al. that's all par for the course but I figured I'd mention it - especially in the case anybody wants to use this to transcribe the lyrics on Genius or some other site like that.

and while we're here, Hero 100 member William Zientara has been in a billion different bands, and I think he's probably the most responsible for the Doctor Who theme on this album. See, he was also in a short-lived band called Managara - named after a Doctor Who tie-in novel so obscure even I, owner of a complete set of Virgin New Adventures who spends my work breaks combing through digital copies of old fanzines, have only ever heard it discussed a handful of times. one of their songs is called Happiness Patrol. more recently, in 2021, he was in the band Fuiguirnet, who have a song called What Grows From the Seeds of Doom! which means Zientara has been randomly tossing Doctor Who references into songs from at least three different bands for twenty years!

so uhh without any further rambling here's the lyrics and art:

#faction paradox #hero of a hundred fights #music

[melodygatesauthor]

Okay guys, I can't believe it's been a full year since I published the first chapter of my first fanfiction story and I'm still going strong today. - (Side note...it was actually yesterday but I wanted to get all my fics posted to AO3 so I could get an accurate word count and tell you all what I've done so...it took me an extra day)

This is going to be a really long post, and I thank everyone in advance for reading all the way through if you make it. I'm taking a moment to allow myself to talk about my accomplishments over the last year, my goals for this next year, and gas myself up just a bit. As an artist, it's really hard to talk about myself in a positive light without being critical, but I'm going to do it anyway. No one asked, but this is one of the ways I wanna celebrate my ficversary so...I'm gonna do it lol.

My First Fanfic Ever

I'd like to start by sharing my beginnings with writing. If I really think back to the very first fanfiction I wrote, I thought it was a Gorillaz fic (which I still have a handwritten copy of in my closet lol), but it wasn't. I think the very first fanfic I wrote technically was a Pirates of the Caribbean fic when I was 11. I didn't even realize that's what it was, I just knew that I was SO into POTC that I wanted to write about it. It had just come out by the way, so I'm really dating myself. This was...2003.

We had this thing we had to do for school, it was like a writing assignment or something, one of those big ones that they gave you, a standardized whatever. I managed to find a way to spin it into a POTC related thing and I went OFF writing this story. It had its own twists and turns unrelated to POTC, but it was a fanfic through and through.

The Beginning of My Fan Art

When I was 12 I started listening to Good Charlotte, to a point that it was my entire personality. Everyone who knew me, knew I loved them. Every fucking art project I had in middle school (7th and 8th grade) was revolved around this band, particularly Joel Madden.

My love for them has come and gone, but I still remember how I felt at the time (not unlike how I feel toward Oscar Isaac now lol). I mean my art teacher literally had to be like "I want you to branch out, you can't make everything about them." And as an adult, I'm wondering -why the fuck not but- ...I digress.

The First Fanfic I Ever "Published"

When I was 12 (or maybe closer to 13), I became OBSESSED with the Gorillaz. When I say obsessed I mean...I listened to the album Demon Days on repeat until it fucking broke. I changed my G's when I would write by hand to match the G in their logo. I made tons of fan art and it was a damn vibe. This was the first time I really discovered fanfiction and learned what it was.

I remember reading one fanfic from some girl on this website (I'm really dating myself here, some of you will know what site this is...) Quizilla. Quizilla was THE site at the time (other than LiveJournal I think, but I never used LiveJournal and didn't know it existed at the time) for fanfiction and what you would now call "buzzfeed quizzes". This girl's writing inspired me to write my own fanfic, which I handwrote and kept in a green folder which, as I said, I still have to this day sitting in my closet.

My very first fic, and yes at 13, included some romance, some non-con (don't fucking ask me why idk even how I knew about that at 13. I was never exposed to this type of thing as a child fortunately) and other nonsense. I published it on this site, and it made me really happy. I don't remember if anyone ever read it or not tbh, but it will forever hold a place in my heart <3

My Best Friend/Emo Era

I met my best friend in high school when I was about 14. She and I are still close to this day. Not as close, but I can still tell her my most unhinged thoughts and she loves me regardless. We met because we both wrote fanfiction and lost our minds over the fact that we did. Thus started my emo era.

She was into My Chemical Romance, and I was into The Used. 2005 was a time lol. The two of us had either a binder or a composition notebook where we'd handwrite our fics and pass them back and forth between classes. I still have the ones I wrote tucked away in my house. When we'd read them she and I would leave little notes in the margins like we all leave comments today.

Most of these fics never got published, they were just for us to enjoy. I did, however, publish a fic when I was about 15, that I wrote to completion. Quizilla ended up going down, and most of us moved to Mibba.com instead, which is still a website.

Edit: I looked at Mibba, and it looks like the website is still there, but you can't search for anything, so Mibba is gone too. Not gonna lie, broke my nostalgic heart just a bit to see...Some fics I wrote on there will be gone forever. Maybe for the best, but it's still kinda sad.

The Avenged Sevenfold Era

When I tell you that Avenged Sevenfold has been my favorite band since I was 15, I'm dead ass. Are they the best band ever? Not by a long shot, but damn the way I still lose my shit over them is unhinged. Anyone who was around during this time fucking knows...they were fucking HOT. Matt Shadows really had the bulky but not shredded body type going on, they all kinda did, and I'm so here for it.

Why I'll never post any of the fics I wrote during this time, even if I get my hands on them...

I wrote them when I was 15, and I was writing about things 15 year olds shouldn't write about.

You don't know cringe until you've read those fics.

It's about real people and I'm not a fan of rpf anymore. I'm all for writing whatever you want and fiction being fiction but there's something that gives me the ick about real people fiction. No offense to anyone who writes it, that's just my feelings.

The way these guys had a hold on me for the next 5 years was ridiculous. I wrote about them a lot, by hand, on my laptop, however I could. I had so many unhinged ideas and stories it's insane. I loved every minute of it, and I always look back on this as my true start into fanfiction.

The End of an Era

All good things come to an end. After graduation, my best friend and I stayed in touch, but grew apart. I went to college and continued writing fanfic. I was pursuing a major in graphic design with a minor in creative writing. I was convinced that even though I was writing fanfiction, I was going to write a book too and it would be a bestseller.

As time went on, probably when I was about 20 or 21, I kinda stopped writing fanfiction all together. My friend wasn't really writing it anymore, and the community around Avenged Sevenfold was slowing down. I was also in the middle of a breakup and it was a whole thing, so I kinda stopped writing around this time.

I'd also, unfortunately, felt like fanfiction was for kids/teens, so didn't feel the need to continue writing anymore. I didn't want to seem like a loser writing fanfiction in my twenties...so I didn't.

For the record, you're not a loser for writing fanfiction. It's a very valid artform and it's fun. We only live for so long, so enjoy it doing what makes you happy, period. I'll probably be writing in my 50s I fucking hope lol.

Anyway, at that time, that's how I felt. I now know it's bullshit to think that way. So fanfiction fizzled out for me, and I kinda moved on to other things.

My Not-fanfiction Era

What was I doing instead of writing? Going through an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship, working on trying to build what I thought was the 'dream' (marriage, kids, a house, e.t.c.), working and playing video games.

Fortunately that relationship ended. After years of therapy (which he told me I needed because he gaslit me into thinking I was crazy lol), I grew the balls to finally tell him to fuck off and leave. It was the best decision I ever made, especially considering this was JUST before COVID hit. I shudder to this day thinking about the fact that I was almost stuck in a house with that freak during lockdown.

When that relationship ended I moved back to Maine to be with my family. I missed them and had spent basically my entire 20s in another state with some loser.

Back to Fanfiction - Kylo Ren Era

So how did I get back here? How did I get back into writing and creating fan art? The truth is, a switch literally flipped in my brain over this guy right here...

I mean...

The funny thing is, I wasn't SUPER into Star Wars before this. I liked it, I'd seen the sequel trilogy in theaters, but to me it was just a movie series. I was literally watching a Sam Collins video on YouTube where he made fun of a Kylo Ren cosplayer's thirst trap on TikTok and was like...oh that's actually kinda hot.

Thought nothing of it though, just moved on with my day...until I dreamt about him too. And then I felt this spark inside me that I couldn't shake. I literally was like...👀 something is happening here.

So I remembered this feeling from when I was a teen and recognized the impending obsession immediately. I actually googled "is fanfiction still relevant" and "is it ok to write fanfiction as an adult?"

The short answers are - yes - and - of course it is -. This was how I discovered the VERY popular Kylo Ren fic Fix Your Attitude by Kassanovella. I read it in a matter of a week, and in that time I started writing my own fic. I also rewatched ALL the Star Wars movies, and then continued rewatching the sequel trilogy on repeat just so I could get Kylo Ren's character down. I wanted to make sure I captured his voice and personality perfectly. - When I say I watched the sequel trilogy 20 times, it's not an exaggeration, I had it on constantly.-

The fic I wrote was called, Yes, Master

The first chapter of that fic was published on 09/05/2022 (one year ago today), and the last chapter was published on 10/14/2022 with a word count of 100,701. Not only is it the longest fic I've written of all the fics I've done, but it's the one I wrote the fastest. I was posting a chapter a day every day until it was finished. I mean...I literally went OFF on this story. I was so proud of it that I went to lulu.com and made myself a physical copy of it that I intend to read as part of this celebration I'm doing lol.

Wondering if anyone would be interested in me revamping this story (rewriting and updating it) and posting here? I would definitely do it if there was enough interest.

I then wrote a sequel called By Your Side which taught me SO MUCH. Here's what I learned when creating this sequel...

Not everything needs a sequel.

Writing a chapter a day isn't realistic.

I should've planned a full outline before diving into this fic.

I'm not into pregnancy fics/domestic fics all that much as far as longfics go.

It's okay to genuinely dislike something you've written and you should try to learn from that.

By Your Side is still to this day one of my least favorite fics (if not my LEAST favorite). I am still proud of myself for finishing it, (it sits at a hefty 85,599 words). I don't have to love it though. I'm just grateful for what I learned in the process of writing it and proud of myself for finishing it despite being sick of it by chapter 8 and still writing 20 chapters after that.

I also wrote my very first Yandere fic, Just You. It's a bit darker, in my opinion, than The Fractured Moon. This fic was a blast to write, and it felt very freeing to write something so disturbing. It was fun to just let myself get into a dark headspace without holding back and not feeling bad about it. It was more

The Rainbow Six Siege Era

During my time writing for Kylo, I went back to a video game I used to play a lot, Rainbow Six Siege. My Oscar Era bleeds into the Kylo and R6S era a little but I'll talk about that soon.

The Siege fandom was an interesting one...one that I'll probably not go back to much, though I may still write a little fic for it here and there as I feel inspired to. I won't dive too much into this as I know most of you are Oscar fans, but I'll mention my accomplishments here and the things I learned.

I wrote another novel-length fic for this fandom called The Recruit and the Hunter which has another 83,888 words. I actually LOVE this story, and still look back on it fondly. It was a fun one to write, and I really challenged myself to write less smut for it, and I succeeded. It focused heavily on the relationship that built between the main pairing and in my opinion it's one of my better slow-burns I've done.

Why did I leave this fandom?

Well, I'm not going to throw shade, I don't like doing that unless I have to, so I'll keep it brief. The long and the short of it is this...

The readers were getting EXTREMELY demanding. I have comments on RATH of people saying things like "I'm going to be upset if you don't give us a happy ending" and "there better be smut or I swear...". It can get really discouraging as a writer when people seem to say "I love your fic but I'll only continue to love it if you do xyz." It puts us in a dilemma, and makes it hard for us to find a balance between providing fan service, and doing what's fun for us to write. It definitely changed the outcome of RATH and I'm not happy that I gave in like that.

The requests I got were confusing and downright weird. I didn't do some of the really weird ones, and I'm not meaning to kink shame, but it was just very niche things that I couldn't get myself into. I think part of why I felt obligated to provide fan service like I mentioned in the point above, and why I caved and wrote some fanfics for these more unique requests, is because this fandom is very small, and I felt an obligation to provide.

Some of the other writers in the fandom are fucking rude. I'm not going to mention names, like I said, but I had very poor experiences with several writers in the fandom, and since I was also integrating into the Oscar fandom at the time, I could see a stark difference in the way I was being accepted in one, versus the way I was being pushed away in the other. There aren't a lot of x reader writers in the R6S fandom, and I was one of them, and there seems to be some animosity between the people who ship characters, versus the people who write x reader and that's where this mistreatment came from. I don't know, I tried making friends over there, and felt like I was getting pushed out.

So anyway, it's not for me anymore, but I still think back to certain parts of it fondly, and I may write a little more here and there as I see fit.

The Oscar Isaac Era

This really is THE era, isn't it?

As I was working on the last 10 or so chapters of Yes, Master, and after my 12th time rewatching the sequel trilogy movies, I started to fall for Poe Dameron, naturally. How could I not? I mean look at him...

So I decided that I would give Poe a prequel to my Yes, Master story called One Hell of a Pilot. This fic was so fun to write, and it's how I became involved with the Oscar Isaac community in the first place. Immediately I started following Dee, and through her I found Mona, and it was just snowballing from there. Whitney and Romana were some of the first to follow me and my shenanigans.

In December, which is when I started writing One Hell of a Pilot, another novel-length fic that ended with 80,517 words, is when I started reading Dee's fics, along with Mona's and many others. I saw their interactions and felt excited by the prospect of making new friends who were just as into some of this stuff as I was. A place that I could be myself and lose my shit over this idiot and not be judged.

I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into.

It all started with a fic that Dee had written, I can't remember which one, probably a dbf!Santi fic, and I asked the innocent question of...

What movie is this from?

Oh shit...I didn't realize what the fuck I was getting myself into. After she told me it was Triple Frontier and I should watch it, my brother and I watched it right away. I told him a friend of mine suggested it. The way we spent the entire 1.5 hours laughing at how bad it was is still a memory I hold dear to my heart. I still didn't know at the time that this loser (Oscar my beloved) would hold a place in my heart from that day on.

My first Santi fic was a headcanon about Santi w/ a plussize reader that I called Preciously Plump. A headcanon that later got a full fic, appropriately named Preciously Plump the One-shot.

So then I read something about Moon Knight, and between Dee and Mona shoving me into it (peer pressure ftw) I caved and watched the show.

Phew...

That gave way to the first Moon Knight fic I ever wrote, How Unexpected which came out on January 3rd, 2023 of this year. I was sure that between Steven's adorable nerdy behavior, and Marc's tough exterior, I'd be head over heels for those two. I was nervous to even TOUCH Jake, because I didn't know shit about his character, and the last thing I wanted to do was write a character without it sounding like them.

I was also afraid at the time of writing the Moon Boys with DID because I didn't know anything about it, and I didn't want to misrepresent something like that. After some time went by, I got my bearings, and started working on A Bit Dodgy.

ABD is definitely one of the fics I'm most proud of. I had learned a lot from my past fics I'd written, Yes, Master, e.t.c., and figured out what it was that works best when I'm writing to not only keep myself interested, but to create a good balance between smut for smut's sake, and pushing the story forward.

When I first started writing ABD, I was sure it was going to be a 30-40 chapter fic, but as I started writing it more, I realized quickly that a lot of the chapters were just porn. Is there anything wrong with that? No...but as someone who's written nearly a million words in this past year, I don't feel the need to draw my chaptered fics out with smut just to say I wrote something x chapters or x words wrong.

That's why ABD ended up getting cut down SO MUCH from my original plan. I just made some decisions that I felt maximized the story more and used the smut as a major plot device, rather than the fic revolving around smut as the plot...if that makes any sense lol. I'm happy to say, that as of today, A Bit Dodgy has concluded, though it's the only fic I've ever finished with such a heavy heart.

I was an Oscar stan HARD after that, diving into Sucker Punch and other silly little movies filled with that silly little man whom I love so so much.

Statistics

Numbers aren't important when it comes to kudos (AO3) and likes (Tumblr) so I'm not focusing on those. What I am going to focus on...is my personal accomplishments. Like I said, I don't normally toot my own horn, but I fucking wrote A LOT this year, and I'm going to take a minute to pat myself on the back.

So NOT including my random blurbs (since I'm not bothering to cross-post those)...

My total word count from 09/05/2022-09/05/2023 is (drumroll please):

791,829 words

OH

EM

GEE

I had thought I would've hit a million by now but I am NOT going to complain. By the grace of the horny demon that runs the smut factory in my brain, I've written more than I ever even thought possible.

In the Moon Knight fandom alone, I've written:

238,950 words

I think the only fandom I've written more for is Star Wars, but I'd have to add it all up and I'm not doing that rn haha.

Just kidding it's:

368,566 words

----

I wrote 6 novel-length fics, a total of 147 works, MK holds the record for most fics I've written at a whopping 82 fics!

----

It's shocking to look back and see what I've accomplished, and to look forward to seeing what else I can do. I know that this next year I won't have the same word count, probably not even close.

I'm focusing a lot on drawing now as well as writing, plus I'm working on my first novel that I'd like to publish so things will definitely be slowing down. I'm going to continue writing, but the speed at which I churn out fics will be slower in the future.

In Conclusion

Thank you all for the support throughout this year. There's no way in HELL I would've had the drive and desire to continue writing if not for the amazing community (most the Oscar Isaac community lol) behind me. It's not just the kudos and the reblogs, it's the people who I've grown to know since joining the world of fandom.

I never had a ton of IRL friends, and I live alone (happily btw) with my dog. Being able to make some friends here that I genuinely call friends, not just people I know online, has meant the world to me. I would list everyone out, but I have a fear of accidentally forgetting to tag someone despite how much they mean to me so I'll leave it at...those people know who they are.

And to my readers (I hesitate to use the word "fans", that makes it sound so conceited), thank you to the moon and back. Without out, I wouldn't have had the drive to keep going. Kudos, Likes and Reblogs aren't everything, I can't stress that enough, but they do help keep the drive alive. (Particularly the comments). Without the little boost of excitement I get when I see that other people are just excited about what I'm doing as I am, I probably would've given up ages ago.

You all are the reason that this was even possible.

With all that being said, I have a small celebration planned that I'll announce later tonight. In the mean time, stay amazing. You keep supporting me, and I'll keep providing the fics that you all love so much

Love, Melly

#melody talks #moon knight #steven grant #jake lockley #marc spector #triple frontier #santiago garcia #poe dameron #star wars #kylo ren #good charlotte #avenged sevenfold #the used #my chemical romance #pirates of the caribbean #rainbow six siege #oscar isaac #ben solo #melodys 1 year ficversary #ficversary

[katelynsimpsince2016]

Katelyn has BPD analysis

i love psychoanalysing my favourite characters whenever i am currently questioning my own mental state.

disclaimer!!

this is based off extensive research,, the people in my life who deal with this condition and my own personal experience. i very much doubt jess intended any of this but once i began to notice the dots connecting when it comes to katelyn’s behaviour and common symptoms of bpd my brain had to make this post.

i aim to have be as accurate as possible with the resources and knowledge i have at my disposal about bpd. if you wish to add anything or believe i’ve said anything inaccurate please feel free to say!

so finally,, without further ado…

1. causes

“If you get a BPD diagnosis you're more likely than most people to have had difficult or traumatic experiences growing up, such as […] losing a parent” - Mind.org

in her early years,, katelyn’s mother left her and the rest of her family,, leaving them poverty stricken and in a single-parent household. losing a parent in any context can be deeply traumatic,, especially if the child does not have the right support systems and/or has to fill the role of the parent themselves. losing an attachment figure can increase a child’s poor psychological well-being,, changes in behaviour and mental health issues. although we don’t have much information,, losing her mother most definitely negatively affected katelyn. this is amplified by the fact this happened roughly during her preteens where a parent’s death is more likely to have a significant effect as the child and parent would have developed a close bond by then.

with what information we have on how elizabeth’s disappearance specifically affected katelyn suggests that there was a refusal to move on. it is said that she would throw tantrums whenever her father planned to be with another woman. this shows that katelyn was likely one of the most affected out of her entire family by this trauma; whilst the rest of her family attempted to move on with their lives katelyn was still stuck in the moment where she first learned that her mother was gone. she was stuck in the trauma. a fear of abandonment was instilled in her and her father disrupting the walls she had made would throw her into a state of distress. witnessing her father treat other women the same way he treated elizabeth possibly even triggered a return of the past trauma of losing her mother.

katelyn describes these episodes as “tantrums” a common way to phrase bpd episodes when the person experiencing them is undiagnosed. without the proper tools to address and control these episodes katelyn likely was left to process it all herself. this would have added to her complex trauma as a mishandling of an episode can also be a form of trauma. having no idea why not only your mind but your body is having such a violent reaction and your cry for help is being met with even more mishandling only leads to the problem becoming worse. if you struggle with any kind of mental disorder and your symptoms aren’t being questioned this will negatively affect you. these outbursts are usually cries for help in some way or another and them being simply ignored only digs the hole deeper.

with all this said katelyn does state that she eventually overcame her grief and was able to move on. we see that the grief over elizabeth’s disappearance does not affect her nearly as much as it once did as an adolescent and is no longer debilitating. but at what cost?

2. emotional instability

“If you have BPD, you may experience a range of often intense negative emotions” - NHS official website

one of katelyn’s most defining traits is her intense emotions,, usually extreme anger. in the early seasons of mystreet we see her snap and become easily irritated with people,, even with her friends. when she displays emotions such as panic or rage it is always extreme. furthermore,, violence is usually the next step as she regularly threatens the people around her and even sometimes goes through with it.

an important note to make is that those who struggle with bpd are not inherently violent. not in any sense of the word. however,, this does not mean people with bpd cannot be violent,, whether this is a byproduct of their bpd or something else. katelyn is someone who i think is violent because of her intense emotions brought on by bpd. she is not equipped enough to deal with these and consequently,, let’s it out on other people. no one has questioned why she acts like this and so she doesn’t find an issue with it. her problematic behaviour has been so normalised and the people around her are seemingly used to it,, aphmau and nana mostly notably so.

Nana: “Oooh you know Katelyn~Sama… she just likes to get in a snarky remark. She does that… a lot… to our customers at the restaurant.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 1

nana and aphmau do not take any notice of katelyn’s behaviour,, simply brushing it off as her being well - katelyn. this shows that she’s been like this for the majority of her life,, long enough for her two closest friends to consider it normal. her knee-jerk reaction is defensiveness and fury and it’s a habit that goes deep and is ingrained into her.

it is deep in her veins,, so intrinsically a part of her being that she cannot be separated from it; the people around her quite literally solely associate her with wrath. this passive acceptance of this toxic trait likely enables her behaviour,, preventing her from healing. although she mentions that she does meditation it cannot replace actual professional help. she doesn’t appear to have enough self awareness to keep herself in check that she ends up hurting others in an irreversible way. but that’s for later on.

another example of her extreme emotions is her anxiety.

Katelyn: “Do you not remember high-school? I always freak out before tests.”

Travis: “Oh yeah. But you usually passed so why worry now?”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 23

although anxiety over exams is common, travis points out that katelyn has been repeatedly successful in tests so this worry seems to be a lot more like paranoia than simple nervousness. katelyn feels like her whole world is ending and is completely frazzled.

Katelyn: “There’s no way I can [calm down]. The test is in 10 minutes - I need more time.”

no amount of rationalising will make the situation any less stressful for her. she only experiences in extremes; in terror and alarm and not simply nervousness and worry. on top of this,, she doesn’t appear to have any proper coping mechanisms for this outside of meditation. no grounding method. no breathing technique. she either lashes out or freezes up. for a character who when it comes to picking between fight or flight usually chooses fight she has a pattern of being so overwhelmed by her emotions that she cannot function. her brain’s rationality is drowned out by anger,, anxiety,, sadness whatever she’s dealing with and all that is left is pure instinct.

3. impulsive behaviour

“Impulsivity is regarded as a clinical, diagnostic and pathophysiological hallmark of borderline personality disorder” - PubMed.gov

impulsivity in the context of bpd is thought as usually being something of the like of drug misuse or unprotected,, risky sex. however,, it can also present as less extreme actions (although still harmful) like binge-eating or going on a spending-spree. impulsivity in someone with bpd goes deeper than individual reckless actions and can affect the personality of the person. for example,, maybe they’re charismatic and charming or dramatic and seek thrilling activities. this all can actually be tied back to lower impulse control.

i bring this up because although we don’t see katelyn acting impulsive much,, her true symptoms may be more clear in her personality and this does happen in those with bpd. for example,, katelyn is playful with her friends and has flirted with quite a few people. her flirtatious behaviour doesn’t seem to hold much meaning,, however,, usually being meaningless. this kind of attitude to love and relationships is an example of how reckless behaviour in bpd can affect someone’s personality and day-to-day life. in episode 31 after a chaotic string of events due to zane and aphmau faking a relationship whilst zianna visits,, katelyn ends up stepping in and lies about her and aph being in a relationship and even goes as far as being willing to kiss her. all of this is obviously in jest but that is the key issue here. to katelyn it is a joke,, nothing serious. she appears to be much more comfortable with the idea of romance and intimacy than having a genuine and raw connection with someone.

in this episode once zianna is told this lie by katelyn she encourages katelyn and aphmau to kiss. aphmau is flustered and is made even more distressed than she already is whilst katelyn immediately leans into it.

Katelyn: “Well, if you insist.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 31

again all of this is casual but the fact that she gives less than a second of thought before agreeing to this clearly implies how lightly she takes the situation. it’s superficial at most. not in the way that she has no desire for intimacy but more so that she doesn’t view it with the same meaning and significance as someone else would. as a result,, this leads to her impulsivity.

this recklessness,, especially when it comes to romance,, comes to a climax when katelyn kisses travis in an attempt to prove a point to lucinda.

Katelyn: “Because he doesn’t deserve a kiss from you. Plus you’re terrible at kissing.”

Lucinda: “Excuse me but I am amazing at kissing… because I have a potion for that.”

Katelyn: “Pft let me show you how it’s done.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 34

katelyn promptly kisses travis and doesn’t realise the implications of what’s she’s done until a good few seconds later. in response to travis reading the kiss as a declaration of love she immediately punches him and runs off,, denying any meaning behind the kiss. she doesn’t realise the implications of what she’s done until it’s laid out right in front of her.

a lot of her impulsive actions seem to be done to prove herself or a distraction from reality. when egged on to prove her confidence or superiority in some way she lunges at the opportunity. she doesn’t critically think about the effects this may have on others or the general aftermath. if it seems like fun to her she won’t hesitate to do it. this ties into her general lack of care for other’s feelings in these situations. when she pretends to be aphmau’s partner and when she kisses travis she causes both of them to be flustered,, clearly not thinking about how her words/actions affect those around her. although these instances are not severe she shows a pattern of disregarding people’s feelings. she isn’t self centred per say but her impulsiveness leads her to not register the severity of what’s she’s doing. not until it slaps in her the face.

4. intense and unstable relationships

“To split something means to divide it. Those with BPD tend to characterize themselves, other people, and situations in black and white.”

- healthline.com

splitting is when a person with bpd alternates between extremes of idealization or devaluation. the key part of this is the exaggerated and rapid change in perception of a person or situation. this usually applies to relationships,, causing the person with bpd to have a distorted view of their partner,, seeing them only in the best or worst possible light. sometimes this derives from projection,, pushing their negative view of themself onto their partner. this black and white can destroy relationships as the person with bpd is consumed by their distorted thinking whilst their partner is left in the dust.

katelyn exhibits this black and white thinking very clearly. she antagonises people like zane,, refusing to get to know him and disregarding any possible positives about him. in contrast,, she adores her friends like aphmau,, thinking only good of her and defending her at every chance. she clings onto quick-second first impressions of people and doesn’t let go even when she’s been proved wrong. very rarely does she feel neutral towards someone,, either loving them and showering them in praise or despising and only thinking the worst of them.

this is shown when aphmau asks her to be nicer to zane and she refuses to change her stance.

Katelyn: “Um.. I think you already know the answer to that. You know he and Jeffory don’t get along and Jeffory is my friend. So no.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 15

even if she may not have a negative experience with someone personally if someone she trusts and values doesn’t like someone she will automatically share that same opinion.

this kind of black and white thinking doesn’t appear to massively negatively affect her relationships as she appears to have enough rationality to keep her thoughts to herself. however,, this awareness that good and bad can exist together in one seems to falter when it comes to her relationship with travis.

from the moment that katelyn meets travis her view of him is engulfed him in negativity

Katelyn: “I also bet you didn’t know what pain was until I-“

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 15

in their very first interaction katelyn punches him. without any thought or remorse she just hits him. however,, this first instance of abuse is somewhat understandable as he approached her by flirting which reasonably and justifiably upset her. travis is the one mainly in the wrong in this situation,, even if his flirting is mostly humorous.

what appears to anger katelyn specifically in this context is that nana appears to be ignorant to travis’s inappropriate behaviour.

Nana: “Katelyn-sama that’s not nice. Travis has a broken heart and needs more chocolate!”

Katelyn: “How blind are you Kawaii~Chan? He’s just trying to smooth talk you!”

this passive reaction to travis’s behaviour is a pattern throughout the series. no one particularly appears to have a problem with his comments or flirting. but katelyn does. everyone else doesn’t feel uncomfortable around travis and her friends expect her to feel the same. her discomfort around travis is undermined and minimised again and again,, played off as a joke.

an instance of this is when in an attempt to distract katelyn,, lucinda teleports travis into her home.

Travis: “Oh- what the- where am I? I was just about to take a shower and… heyyy Katelyn.”

Katelyn: “What the- Travis?! Lucinda you said….”

Lucinda: “I said I wasn’t going to use any spells on you. You said nothing about a teleportation spell. Oh, and don’t bother to smack Travis I put a temporary spell on him to prevent physical injury.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 28

this is presented as lighthearted fun between katelyn and lucinda. just another instance of two friends trying to annoy each other. very clearly,, katelyn wants nothing to do with travis,, even despising his presence but she is forced into the same room as him repeatedly whilst all her friends laugh at her. it’s no surprise that she reacts with violence.

this is in no way to excuse her actions but her abuse towards him grows more and more extreme because she’s being constantly taunted by those around her. her own friends push her buttons with no regard for how she feels and treat her like a rag-doll. both travis and her have been pushed onto a stage,, all eyes on them and forced to play caricatures of themselves. the only difference is that whilst travis appears to live off the attention katelyn cracks under it. she smashes to the ground and shatters into a million different pieces. and they all aim towards travis.

where katelyn’s behaviour veers off from being simply weirded out by travis to physical assault and abuse is when she starts taking out all her of anger on him and him only. it goes from her only hitting him when he flirts with her to when he even utters a word.

this is why her behaviour is so toxic because it seems she begins to want to hurt him for merely existing. she already has a history of allowing this black and white thinking to harm those around her,, even those she cares about,, and her own self-destruction turns into destruction of others. too blinded by her own anguish and suffering,, she doesn’t realise her wrongs and that she’s hurting people.

why she likely doesn’t see her mistakes is because she’s been told all her life that she’s dramatic and overreacts. as i said previously the mystreet cast brushes off travis’s harassment and pushes katelyn to be in situations with him. despite what her friends say,, she doesn’t believe that she’s in the wrong to be suspicious of him and stands her ground. but that doesn’t mean their words don’t affect her. her friends’ lack of understanding worsens katelyn’s mental state as she feels misunderstood by her own friends. this leads her to grow suspicious of them and ignore them. at every turn she’s told that’s she overly aggressive and no one attempts to even comfort her or try to understand why she doesn’t like travis.

on one occasion when she displays this distrust she is only met with mockery.

Lucinda: “I assure you it wasn’t any potion I used.”

Mystreet Season 1: Episode 25

on the surface this may not appear that malicious but it’s the fact that this isn’t the first time someone has brushed off katelyn’s concerns is what likely pushed her over the edge. cutting back to when travis first moved in nana does not listen to katelyn and defends him.

Nana: “Katelyn-sama that’s not nice. Travis has a broken heart and needs more chocolate!”

Mystreet Season 1: Episode 15

but despite her seeming hatred for travis katelyn is revealed to actually like him. sprinkled through season 1 and 2 katelyn is shown to have some sweet,, soft moments with travis; moments where her perception alters and it appears that she tolerates at him and at times is even… fond of him.

this is called splitting.

this flip-flopping between hating and loving travis is not due to her discomfort being an ‘act’ or her being ‘dramatic’ instead it is as a result of her own distorted thinking. most of the time she only views travis in absolute negativity and disgust. even when she appears to tolerate to him she treats him coldly and considers him with suspicion.

Travis: “H-Hey Katelyn, these flowers are for you.”

Katelyn: “Oh… thanks.”

Travis: “Y-You looks beautiful….”

Katelyn: “What’s wrong with you?!”

Travis: “Why, can’t a guy be nice?”

Katelyn: “No suggestive remarks? No trying to get close with me? No looking at my butt?”

Mystreet Season 1: Episode 25

however,, as per the nature of splitting,, there are times where she thinks the complete opposite of him. during season two when travis suddenly appears katelyn initially regards him with a lot more care and kindness,, especially after shoving him off from atop a building.

Katelyn: “Travis, you really worried me.”

Mystreet Season 2: Episode 7

this drastic change is a clear indication of splitting and its effects. in a very short amount of time katelyn goes from completely despising him to seemingly harbouring romantic feelings for him. this juxtaposition only confuses travis and worsens their relationship as katelyn continues to stick to her black and white view of him,, without any communication.

this all comes to a climax at the end of season two where travis finally confronts katelyn for her mistreatment of him. travis admits his own faults and puts out a hand to katelyn,, asking for a fresh start between them. all that is left is for katelyn to own up to her mistakes too.

Conclusion

do i think all of this was intentional? no. do i think it’s a justification or excuse for katelyn’s toxic and abuse behaviour? definitely no. am i emotionally drained after writing all of this? yes

hope you enjoyed reading !

#in conclusion i hate everyone in the mystreet cast #this took the fucking life out of me #please someone read this i did not sit through a rewatch of mystreet season 1 for this shit #i feel like some of this is a bit of stretch but i stand by this interpretation nonetheless #aphblr #aphmau #aphverse #mystreet #minecraft diaries #aphmau minecraft diaries #aphmau mystreet #katelyn the fire fist #katelyn the firefist #katelyn aphmau #aphmau katelyn #tw abuse #abuse tw #mental illness #katelyn neg #travis neg

[dies-in-bi]

OKAY PEOPLE!!!!! This is VERY important! I have reblogged a post explaining this in more detail and please have a look!

Here is a link to the petition.

https://chng.it/L8FQ6pMtNQ

More info under read more.

Youth Internet users, millennials, and Gen Z advocates, we must band together to prevent the passage of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), preserving our free and open Internet! Stand with the ACLU and Fight for the Future against a bill that jeopardizes our online privacy and legitimizes targeted censorship.

In 2022, senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn introduced an alarmingly repressive new internet censorship bill – the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which presents a direct threat to the plethora of helpful online resources for minors. KOSA, or S.3663, would grant the federal government an immense breadth of control to censor websites containing content that officials deem “inappropriate.” As evidenced by the continuous attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, queer visibility, and discrimination education, crucial havens on the Internet could be subject to complete censorship. Senator Blackburn herself has continuously condemned education about racism as “dangerous for kids.” KOSA’s restrictions would be entirely at the jurisdiction of state attorney generals, many of whom could impose personal political beliefs upon the Internet at large. In order to prevent unfettered homophobic, transphobic, or racist censorship, we must urge our senators to oppose this bill in Congress!

The Internet provides essential tools for minors’ entertainment and education. KOSA would force platforms to filter content heavily, which would likely fall upon crucial LGBTQ+ support sites, suicide prevention pages, and abuse awareness. While such sites contain adult themes, they often aid in the necessary education and safety of minors utilizing the Internet. KOSA increases the use of age verification and parental monitor tools. Most platforms rely on self-selected age confirmation, and there is no accurate system without entirely jeopardizing individual privacy. Pushing the Internet to somehow accurately censor information for minors alone is an impossible task. Instead, we would see widespread censorship for both minor and adult users.

For many millennials and Gen Z, media and fandom spaces provide us with a special community, cultivating a safe environment with fanfiction, edits, or conversations. A National Library of Medicine study found that many LGBTQ+ youth primarily find mental health resources online. However, right-wing politicians are determined to condemn any LGBTQ+ messaging as predatory and harmful to children, even as queer minors largely benefit from digital solidarity and creativity. Even beloved sites such as ArchiveOfOurOwn (AO3), Wattpad, Tumblr, and Twitter could be heavily restricted or taken down. But we as Gen Z are not a monolith, and neither are the incoming generations. Censorship that is safe for one child may be life-threateningly restrictive for another. Pushing for constant age verification and filtration of messaging will invade children’s Internet privacy, resulting in far more harm than good.

KOSA claims to solve the uptick in the youth crisis regarding mental health issues, but instead gives the government unparalleled control over the Internet. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of American teenagers use social media. Social media is one of many reasons that we – as younger generations – suffer from stress, depression, and other disorders. However, overwhelming Internet surveillance and censorship of essential resources will not aid children’s mental health. Rather, we need to provide funding for public mental health care, focus on creating better federal privacy laws for all Internet users, and allow for the free dissemination of online resources. Social media is here to stay, but there are far more ethical ways to protect children than blatant censorship.

We must take action together! Join us in:

Urging senators Blumenthal and Blackburn to wholly rescind their support for the Kids Online Safety Act and redirect their attention to a comprehensive federal Internet privacy bill instead.

Raising awareness to gain the attention of our state senators (calling, emailing, signing this petition), thus compelling them to oppose KOSA on the Senate floor.

Aiding the ACLU, Fight for Future, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in lobbying against KOSA through digital, offline, and financial support.

Protecting our free and fair Internet, so that all users can find essential information without government censorship!

KOSA will not achieve widespread safety for kids. Instead, it will threaten our right to privacy and prevent the dissemination of essential safety resources for various youth groups. Unite with us to sign this petition and put an end to unclear, repressive Internet censorship laws like KOSA

#stop kids online safety act #stop kosa #help #the owl house #gen z #queer #lgbt #politics #gay #non binary #lesbian #biromantic #asexual #bisexual #queer stuff #gender noncomformity #trans #:) #important #petition #staywoke #gravity falls #amphibia #helluva boss #nimona #across the spiderverse

[practicalsolarpunk]

I was raised by parents who never taught me the basics of anything. I’m trying to learn how to do the basics of taking care of myself and others in a solar punk way. Do you have any recommendations on where to start. All i know how to do is sew and i have a basic grip on how to garden

This is a really fantastic question, and I actually have a basics/getting started masterpost in progress that you'll probably find helpful once I get it finished. In the meantime, here are some thoughts.

When it comes to deciding where to start, many people want to jump into something big - start a community garden or organize a renter's union in their building or convert their whole apartment to solar power. But if you're starting from a place of "my parents taught me nothing useful," think smaller. Learn how to take care of yourself first, and then you can expand it to others. Like a garden, you have to plant the tiny seeds first and invest time and water in them before you get big plants that can feed others.

Since you didn't mention any specific basics or skills you want resources and thoughts on, I'm going to cover a lot of general ones here. If there are specific areas you want more information/resources on, please feel free to respond (or send in another ask)!

Gardening: I stand by the assertion that the best way to learn about gardening is throw some seeds at some dirt and see what happens. If you're an apartment-dweller with no balcony or patio, try a small pot or a bottle tower garden in a windowsill. Even one of those houseplants that survives in low light will give you experience in what a plant needs to live. This post has some resources for gardening without spending money.

Sewing: I don't know if your sewing skills extend to mending, but if not, it's definitely something to look into! I've made entire dresses and quilts and I still find most of my sewing is repairing and mending other stuff. We have a mending tag, but I also love YouTube for this. Searching "how to mend X" (e.g. "how to mend hole in crotch of jeans") gives you a bunch of awesome tutorials. (And if you want to learn more sewing techniques, I highly recommend historical sewers on YouTube - Bernadette Banner and Morgan Donner are my favorites.)

Cooking: This is one of those things that's great for you (easier to feed yourself), great for gardening (growing fresh veggies is even more useful if you can cook things out of them), and great for community (humans be bonding over food). I don't have any particular resources for this, as my general philosophy is "if you can read, you can cook" - a good recipe will tell you everything you need to know to make it. If you don't have a good cookbook to work from, Smitten Kitchen has very clear recipes, many of which aren't difficult or time-consuming at all.

Building Community: One of the foundations of solarpunk is that it's about community. Even if you start out doing it by yourself, eventually you need a community to do bigger things. My favorite way to start is by meeting the neighbors. Taking over some food (cookies are great) and introducing yourself is a great way to open a relationship. We also have a community building tag for more ideas.

Finances: Not the most solarpunk of topics, but we have to be able to financially survive the current capitalist hellscape if we want to be able to do anything useful for anyone. I highly recommend Bitches Get Riches for this (website here, tumblr here). They're not specifically solarpunk, but they do have the "anticapitalist punk big sister" thing going on.

Integrate the 7 R's: There are more R's to sustainable living than just "Reduce Reuse Recycle". See this post for a primer.

Explore permaculture as a design system: Permaculture is often understood as a method of gardening, which isn't really accurate. It's actually a design system that can be used for a bunch of different areas of your life to make them more eco-friendly/solarpunk. I highly recommend Heather Jo Flores's work for more about this concept - this article is a good place to start.

I'm sure there are more things that I'm not thinking of right now. If you have more specific questions or topics you want me to cover, please ask! I love tracking down resources for people, too, so if I don't already have something I'll do my very best to find it.

- Mod J

#asked and answered #basics and getting started #resources

[simplyavatrice]

In the spirit of learning from the people you admire, would you be willing to share some tidbits about your writing process? Along the lines of 'do you draft chapters at first then polish them up/are there any resources or programs you use/do you outline your stories or just wing them/how do you approach research/do you try to write every day or simply when the muse strikes/what does it take for you to turn an idea into story?' etc., that kind of thing. If you're not comfortable sharing, that is absolutely okay. I hope you have a wonderful day. <3

oooh okay let's break some of these down

do i draft chapters/then polish them up? i don't write drafts, i just write out the chapter and then read through it once or twice and tweak what needs to be tweaked before i post it. i think you can get way too into your own head when you do drafts or spend too much time editing. the last chapter of angels like you took me a while to finish because i got in my head about it and kept changing things. you just have to trust your instincts and put it out to the world

do i outline my stories or just wing it? i do very very simple outlines, and not all the time. I'll know where a fic is going and have a general idea of the plot, but i like to leave most of it open so there's room to explore and expand and honestly stories change a lot as you're writing them, at least they do for me. i'll have a destination and a handful of scenes in my head, but the path to get there is wide open

how do i approach research? i do a lot of research for my fics. i'm not knowledgeable in many of the things that i have ava and/or bea doing in any au so i take my time to research it. in an old fandom i wrote a pregnancy fic and literally created a pregnancy calendar on a website to track the progress throughout the fic so i could write about milestones and things that come up during pregnancy, etc. i do my best to make sure things are accurate and if i can't make it work, i'll just go vague and hope no one notices lol

do i try to write every day or simply when the muse strikes? i try to write every day but if i don't manage to do it that day that's okay too - if you're writing and not into it then you're probably not going to be happy with it. a skill i've learned is to write slow, and i'm talking physically slow - where your fingers are not rushing on the keys as you start. I think it's a good way to let your brain catch up to what you're doing and get into the vibe of whatever it is you're working on. also sometimes you just have to write with your brain turned off entirely and clean up whatever comes out

what does it take for you to turn an idea into story? i need to see it, i need to be able to visualize a scene or multiple scenes and have them create a map to the plot i want to get to. mom!ava started because i thought the idea of ava and lilith raising a kid together was fun, and then i slotted where beatrice would fit into that and it was like 'oh, this is complicated!' then it turned into 'wouldn't it be funny if everyone wanted ava and lilith to be together but they both hated the idea' and then that shifted to 'okay but what if lilith DIDN'T hate the idea' and so on and so on. for me, an idea turns into a story where i can take the original premise and string it along the path to an actual story

sorry this got so long! i hope this helps or was at least interesting lkfsjalfaj, take care!

#thanks for asking <3

[secretsofthestorymakers]

Translating the Runes in Secrets of the Magic Makers

Ok, so I already said in my previous post (X) that I love Secrets of the Magic Makers and the runic writing in Frozen in general, but now I’m going to actually talk about the translations of the runes.

Most* of the runes shown in Frozen movies and shorts are historically accurate and translatable. They are Younger Futhark runes, used in Nordic regions beginning around the 9th century. The Younger Futhark alphabet has 16 runes and is a simplification of the Elder Futhark, which had 24 originally. The Younger Futhark alphabet was used throughout Scandinavia in the Viking Age and declined after Catholicism was introduced. (Source: Runes Illustrated by Rachel Newcombe)

* I say most because the runes in Olaf’s Frozen Adventure on the bell are not historically accurate. They are simply a direct English transliteration of the words “Ring in the Season”

Disney worked with Old Norse language expert Jackson Crawford (you can find his YT channel here (X)) to ensure that the runes in F1 are historically accurate.

Ok, history lesson over, let’s actually talk about how these runes are relevant to the Frozen story.

I did not translate these myself, although I have kind of taught myself how to now. These translations come from Panya on this website. If you are interested in the detailed translations, I would highly recommend checking it out, as it is truly fascinating!

Here is the cover of the book. It translates roughly to Runes of Knowledge, but I believe this book to also be Secrets of the Magic Makers (see my previous post for full explanation).

The inside of the book is 9 lines of text, repeated twice. It appears to say something like

Someone (subject is unclear) was turned to stone (ice?) by the power of the moon. The trolls from the dark mountain realm have healing hands. A soul wounded from cold will heal if brought very quickly to the field of them (the trolls). Trolls have such a nature that they can get sorcery out of the body to save it. Such action done in true love is the only one which can thaw a heart stoned (frozen?) very quickly.

It isn't exactly clear or easy to read, but I think that it tells the story of an ancient Arendellian (possibly Aren, but that’s mostly just a headcanon) whose heart was frozen by some power of the moon. It goes on to say that trolls have the power to remove magic, but that the only way to thaw a frozen heart is an act of true love.

This is VERY interesting as it implies that someone in the ancient past had a frozen heart. It could just be an old story, something that never actually happened. I personally don’t believe there was ever a single person who was the fifth spirit before Elsa and by extension no human who ever wielded ice powers like hers before. Another option is perhaps whoever it was that angered the spirits in some way or ventured too far into Ahtohallan and began to freeze? Or it could be a figurative frozen heart in the sense of a lack of love and compassion. I suppose only Ahtohallan knows this answer.

The other thing that makes this interesting is that it directly says that an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart. Which means that the answer was right there all along. The entire message of love will thaw was summed up here in runes at the very beginning of the movie. This also means that this was part of an Arendellian myth or story at some point and has been forgotten by the time Elsa is born.

So yeah, not really a big revelation or anything, but it is certainly interesting. I would love to know more details about this story and its origin, but again, only Ahtohallan knows. Overall I do think it's fascinating, as it gives us more information about Ancient Arendellian beliefs and traditions that still hold relevance in the time Frozen is actually set. As someone who is OBSESSED with the ancient myths and stories of Arendelle and the surrounding areas, this is so so intriguing to me and I absolutely love it!

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen analysis #arendelle history

[sharaxofficial]

bestie i am struggling the undertronic wiki has PERISHED do we have a fast way to get info or is it easier to make my own conglomerate (and, secondary question, would making a sort of "wiki blog" be entirely unacceptable? or like a google site?)

Originally I was gonna wait until the comic was ready to be posted to publish a website for undertronic ^w^ It's gonna host the comic (it'll be on webtoon/tapas as well) and it'll also have all the information you'll need in a convenient place, as well as extras like free wallpapers, concept art pieces (for those interested in behind the scenes things), translated versions for your language and anything else I feel would be fun/useful to have on the site (feel free to suggest ideas you'd like to see on there as well!)

But to answer your second question, you are welcome to make a wiki/blog in the meantime, I know previously the old wiki was more community contributed throughout the years ^w^ As for a fast way to get info, my discord server has dedicated channels for undertronic, including my "cat-cafe" channel that i answer very quickly personally if yoyre looking for some info, so feel free to drop by there! But I def will have the most accurate information on my website, I might start setting it up atleast but I aim to have it available as soon as the comic is released so new readers can learn more about the characters & world right away, if I can get it set up earlier than release I'll try to do that!~ ^o^ 🌸🌺

#sharax #undertronic #cider #chronos #zephyr #hex #seth #seris #ask me anything

[thegeminisage]

as someone who wasn't around in 2014....can you tell me what it was like? (stucky) can you give me a taste of the gardens of babylon etc

what was it like...this is such a fun question i want you to know i gave serious thought to my answer and also discussed it at length with my 2014 friend last night and i know already it's gonna be so long. sorry that i answered your ask at fuck o clock in the morning i am scheduling it to go up later and also at the time you sent the ask in to make sure you see it

ok so like. i mean, you're on the fandom website, right, so i assume youve been in fandoms. idk if youve ever been in a really, REALLY big fandom, at the same time that said fandom was also producing content (even if the source material was not). think d*stiel post nov 5, or undert*le circa late 2015/early 2016, or z*lda after totk came out, or h*rry p*tter as the seventh book was being released. (i'm censoring to avoid a false positive of anybody's blacklist except in the case of the last one, which i am censoring out of <3 disrespect.) like there's something REALLY luxurious about being in ANY large and active fandom and it's mostly the power of crowdsourcing. st*r tr*k 2009's tarsus iv headcanons. the storm trooper lore re: the f*rce awakens before the second two movies came out. everyone just kind of agreeing that dean w*nchester was a teenage hooker. you know?

like, that's "just fanon," sure, but part of the beauty of it is that no one person makes up fanon, we all gather in the biggest writing group in the world and collectively go insane and bat ideas back and forth. there are a hundred THOUSAND fics about bucky barnes on ao3 and that's just the people who were writing, not even counting artists and gifmakers and meta-writers and people who just reblog stuff. i can't possibly begin to put an accurate number to how many people are in any given fandom at any given time, but imagine (on the low end, i'm sure) there are THOUSANDS, perhaps tens of thousands, of people going nuts about stevebucky at all times. tens of THOUSANDS people doing "yes and" with each other on the internet 24 hours a day seven days a week. it's just like being in any fandom, you log on to your dash and see what the mewchies posted while you were gone, but in a fandom so huge and so active you were getting bombarded with idea after idea after idea every single second, so if you don't like one you're spoiled for choice in what you engage with next. it didn't even matter that cap3 was two years away or that it sucked when it finally got here because we collectively wrote cap3 a million times over. like, genuinely, it was a mass creative exercise. it's the biggest writing group in the world. for better or worse, we were shaping our own version of that universe, without any input from or regard to the people who actually created the characters and movie, in a way that compelled most strongly to our own tastes and demographic.

what made this particular movie/fandom special though was a few things. firstly i still genuinely believe it was ahead of its time...marvel shit pre disney was allowed to be political in ways it is ABSOLUTELY not now. like, cap2 could say "the government is secretly full of nazis and they all need to burn" in 2014 two years before the 2016 election and 7 years before jan 6. like you just couldn't say that now. "war bad" is an oldie but goodie, but "our entire government is corrupt and needs to be torn into flaming pieces and cast into the potomac" is um. pretty radical. so is, by the way, "men as victims" and "men having emotions" etcetc. like, not in fandom, fandom all but invented that shit, but as far as dumb superhero movies go. i can't tell you the number of metas i read AND WROTE discussing steve rogers and masculinity and how all that was portrayed, intentionally or not, in that fucking film. i had entire separate universes built up in my head for steve who was born a cis girl and steve who decided later in life that "nonbinary" or "trans woman" was a better fit and then steve who was born as a cis boy and remained a man his whole life but felt weird and different ways about being queer which clashed with the weird and different ways BARNES felt about being queer. i'm not saying the film (or the fandom! good lord) was perfect, it was a product of its time, but it was also WAY ahead of its time too. it was weird to expect the next film to come out and actually, like, be good. it wasnt, but we fully believed it would be and that wasn't delusional behavior because the last one had been. i would never have that kind of faith in a marvel project now because they've been bought by disney.

oh yeah and that's the other thing too like. speaking of queer people. gay marriage wasn't legal in the US on a federal level until 2015, and you couldn't just flip on your TV and see them whenever you wanted. ten years doesn't seem like that long ago in the grand scheme of things but like, we lived on glee and cw/mtv queerbait (disclaimer that i personally only participated in cw queerbait) and that was it. we had crumbs. and like when people write gay characters theyre Just Gay, but if you decide to be crazy stupid in a slash fandom you can decide these layered characters are gay and that's even better rep than um whatever was going on in other pieces of media. these guys are both so lonely and out of step with time and lack other people with "shared life experiences" (girl what the hell was that) and their connection w each other keeps them afloat in a world that doesn't want them so like of COURSE it seems like it's supposed to be romantic. and like, i could and did make myself and my tumblr buds crrrazy (and got made crazy by them) thinking about:

how steve's size when small and again when big interacted w his gender identity and his sexuality and how that sexuality manifested. barnes's identity As A Man hinging on his ability to go to war for his country bc Thats What Men Did but now he's no longer fit because theres worms in his brain. loss of bodily autonomy which usually happens to women and natasha being later in that journey than steve and bucky are and so close to being at peace with it but not there yet. stigmatization of seeking treatment for mental health issues lessened by the presence of sam who could have been a Macho Tough Guy but actually gives off strong Talk About Our Feelings And Be Soft vibes. don't even get me started on the relationship (predatory) between steve and rumlow and how it parallels the one between barnes and pierce (and if any of you motherfuckers BREATHE a word of that h*dra tr*sh p*rty shit in my direction i will END you) and the stigma that comes from being preyed on when vulnerable As Men. steve's depression and ptsd and him getting triggered by, yes, the fucking ALS ice bucket challenge. the collective belief that he was conscious when he was frozen even though nobody said that so that he and barnes could have that in common too. the headcanon about barnes having roma heritage - shoutout to not easily conquered my beloved, and the 14k smut coda i wrote for it✌ speaking of smut, i would be remiss also not to mention there was a STRONG element of collective lust involved. i'm immune to 99% of it bc im ace but the winter soldier was uh. VERY graceful. you know? i didn't write 14k of porn because i was uncompelled. we were on one. we went fucking crazy. fandom in general but especially big fandoms have a kind of nonstop endless well of creative energy born from obsession that is the absolute envy of people like my mortal enemy grrm. we NEVER quit.

also, HISTORY (and other vaguely educational subjects). we were all so desperate to know how steve and bucky would have lived in the years we couldn't see them it sparked a sitewide interest in 1940s american history. there was a thing about bananas tasting different now because of a plague. m&ms being invented as wartime candy. stuff about how shoebox apartments looked and how rations worked. 1940s recipes and radio shows. the 1940s queer movement and how it interacted with ballroom dancing and private drag get-togethers. how amputations work and how prosthetic limbs work in real life so we could extrapolate it to fantasy. how to hand-draw that fucking arm in photoshop. why soldiers are trained to say their serial numbers when captured. what ww2 was like. what dog tags are for. what did they get in the ration packs. what brand of cigarettes did they smoke. what brand (and i am being so serious, i STILL own a tube) of LIPSTICK did peggy carter use. caloric intake of someone with a 4x speed metabolism and how much famine peanut butter he'd need to eat daily to keep from starving to death. oppression of irish immigrants and their children/grandchildren back in the 1940s. the difference between conservatives and fascists, back when there was a difference. what activities generally took place on these mysterious but ever-present new york city docks. just exactly HOW many terrible movies and tv shows has sebastian stan been in ranked by his resemblance to james buchanan barnes in each one. (i personally went through his entire imdb list at the time and then made a venn diagram.) electroswing! teachers and professors would have killed for their classes to have the kind of enthusiasm a bunch of mentally ill teenagers and 20-somethings on tunglr dot edu were showing about this one very specific set of subjects. this film also sparked my love of fight scenes. if you've read this fic or this fic and liked the Big Fight Scenes in them, you can thank cap2 for leading me down that path.

and then yes there was also discourse. my personal most hated thing was the above mentioned h*dra tr*sh p*rty (DO NOT GOOGLE THAT, i will just tell you it's nazi rape porn🤢 and i hope everyone involved is having a bad day today) and also the fact that SOME FUCKING PEOPLE can't understand "don't be shitheads about a fanfic where the author can see you doing it." but then ofc people were also sexist about nat and racist about sam and minimalizing those guys (and every other character besides tony really but sometimes him too) for the two white male leads was a whole thing. and on the funnier side of things you had (justifiably, i suppose) bitter st*ny fans who HATED what those two got in avengers and got real mad when stucky started outpacing them on ao3. and people complaining about the characters being too uwu soft. and then other people arguing whether or not barnes counted as disabled when he was missing a Whole arm. and THEN discourse about was it ethical to remove the arm and build him a new one ESPECIALLY without his consent (if people don't know they're being ableist in their fanfics hypothetically is it still ok to kill them with hammers?) and why was tony doing it if that guy killed his parents and is it ok that we keep making tony not that mad about his dead parents is it not enough that barnes stole his limelight as the guy who gets shipped with steve but what if all three of them fucked but can you really fuck the guy who offed your folks but ACTUALLY isn't it cringe to like tony anyway since RDJ and gwenyth paltrow are bad people and who says chris evans are sebastian stan are such good people etcetcetc. and let us not even get started on the plausibility of the avengers tower fanon after age of ultron came out and it turns out nobody became friends and they all still hated and mistrusted each other. and whether or not the avengers could be considered found family if the other characters were constantly getting shafted into being barnes's little support animals. and then ofc every once in awhile one of the actors of people involved creatively would say something ranging from mildly controversial to absolutely horrible on the internet and we'd all fight about THAT for awhile like a dog with a bone. i mean. typical infighting of any fandom tbh.

but i was very happy. it was all the most enormous thought experiment and creative endeavor (and semi-educational adventure??) that we all participated in daily for like two-ish years without stopping ever. i loved doing it. AND, when you click with a piece of media like that, you also click with other people who clicked with that same piece of media, so in addition to the sheer level of dopamine going into my brain at all times i also formed decade-long friendships that will certainly last the entirety of my lifetime, and when we're in our 90s in nursing homes i will be able to say, "we are friends because i wrote 14k of smut for your fanfic" or "we are friends because i couldn't get enough of your gifsets" or whatever because you know, we quite literally went to stucky together.

#liz answers asks #anonymous #personal

[echoes-silence-patience-swar]

Goodbye Eri (2022) + Long long ramble about Film

Review/Analysis

Goodbye Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto was a one-shot web manga released on the Shonen Jump+ Website and published in print later that year. I read it in print, this review is actually a reread. Spoilers for first third or so of Goodbye Eri and implied spoilers for Fujimoto's other works mostly Fire Punch. Also like TW for mentions of: Terminal Illness, Parental Death, Suicide, Domestic Violence

(Eri, Sorry for blur but I thought it was in theme)

Now that I think about it, Eri or Togata should be the profile picture, I just had Asa on hand. Goodbye Eri is a work I very much enjoy ^.^ It and Togata's film metaphors in Fire Punch are major reasons I started posting reviews particularly of movies in the first place. That as well as a High School film class with the most tired teacher on Earth, who seemed to actually like all the work I submitted. I think that a lot of the time it's hard to find good movies coming out, most movies in good ol' USA anyway are mostly made for money. I mean I can't really blame them I guess movies are freakin' expensive dude but it's not so often I feel you find something real nice that's not from an already well established director like my good pal Wes Andy. You see stuff like spider verse maybe but then you here about the horrible working conditions behind the product, ugh product that's nasty let's go with.. uhh piece? movie is probably the best bet.

Anyway Goodbye Eri is about watching movies, making movies, relationships, memory. By the way I promise you this is not just going to be a plot summary though this next paragraph will be the start of the book. Yuta's mother gets him a smartphone for his 12th birthday and asks him to record her dying moments as she has some sort of terminal illness. The entire manga is shown through a phone camera btw usally using landscape shots. After he runs away, failing to capture his mothers final moments, and turning it into a movie ending with an explosion. His movie gets mocked and he decides to take his own life, but before he can jump off a hospital roof, he meets a mysterious girl named Eri. Eri recognizes him from his movie, drags him to an abandoned building, and makes him to watch movies so he can make a better one. This like reignites his spirit.

(Eri Intro Panel)

I really really like Goodbye Eri. I know Eri probably gets the MPDG allegations and that's like.. stupid sorry. I'm sure she does in the same way Togata (Fire Punch) does, but Togata is like not that he's pretending to be that. I'm not gonna go very far into that this isn't about Fire Punch. Anyway I think Eri is far too interesting for that. Yuta also is a very interesting character he's kind of a weirdo but of course he is I mean it seems like he's sort of an outcast he spent his entire middle school making a movie about his dead mom. This book actually inspired me to watch a movie everyday which I consistently fail but y'know I get better at committing every week. I think this one-shot also really shows off Fujimoto's grasp on like the "Silent Panel" how he can show a lot without any dialogue or very little for even whole pages, he's also insane at slightly shifting expressions. There are also several pure black panels, this is interesting to me because since the story is shot through a phone and it is a "video" his phone must be face down, there's probably background noise. I also think the subtle habits Yuta and Eri notice from each other is very accurate to what happens when you spend a lot of time with someone. There's also a very cool blur effect in this manga, someone told me if you remove all the blurred panels the story is different, but I don't think that's necessarily purposeful? Idk, tell me if anyone knows anything

Major Spoilers Past Here

It's absolutely worth buying this because it's so interesting on reread due to sort of a major twist in the middle/end. His mom wasn't a good person. You could guess this by her strange almost cruel request of her 12 year old son to film her death and Yuta's father crying earlier on but this could all be interrupted as just the grief of her tragic situation. But no, she yells at her son and her husband, she hits Yuta at one point, criticizes what he films and is calls him useless to his father in her final moments. Yuta's father was shocked when she was a good mom in the movie, Eri says he shoots his mother beautifully. We also find out later after Eri dies(?) from Eri's one other friend that she had glasses and a dental retainer, which were taken out from the movie. This means every single shot with Eri that actually happened was reshot. This kind of explains her movie like dialogue in some bits where she's just trying to be cool or dramatic. I love the ending, it's so interesting that where you think would be a title drop it's only implied by an earlier shot.

(Yuta and Eri)

TLDR: Buy Goodbye Eri from a bookstore or pirate it I'm not your boss, you'll always find something new when you read. Heavily Recommend. It made me cry it's awesome.

#movies #films #manga #goodbye eri #tatsuki fujimoto #fire punch

[marshallpupfan]

Outside of my usual update posts, I try not to talk about my Marshall collection too much. I'm often worried someone might get jealous if I bring it up a lot, or that others may see it as me trying to brag... or, in the case of someone on Twitter, use it as an excuse to whine about a character they don't like! However, while looking over my shelves to find spots (heh) for my latest purchases, I realized something that I felt was worth talking about...

My collection's becoming a time capsule, huh?

PAW Patrol is ten years old now, and throughout its history, we've seen so many toys, plush dolls, and other types of merchandise based on its characters, films and themes. However, once these products fulfill their purpose, most of them disappear, never to be seen on store shelves again (at this point, you'll have to hope you can get lucky and find them on Ebay or something). Granted, this isn't a new concept, as companies have been doing this before any of us were born. But whether it's a figurine based on a subseries, a candy-filled tin cup, or something else entirely, many of these products are now starting to become lost in time.

Take this ornament, for instance. When I first found out about it, I could only find a single picture of it on an old page on a Sears website (listed as "out of stock" for many years). If you go looking for it now, you likely won't find anything about it anywhere. Unless I'm mistaken, the only place you'll see it now is... well, on my account.

How about lunch boxes based on particular themes? I feel like Sea Patrol was pretty big for a while, but with the launch of Aqua Pups, you probably won't see any of its illustrations anymore. There's also that figurine and plush doll of Marshall wearing his winter Sea Patrol coat... which popped up once and then never again.

How about this product? It was never sold in the USA, so I had to import it from the United Kingdom. I still think it's one of the coolest items in my collection, since whoever manufactured it clearly put in the extra effort to make it look quite accurate to the character... and it's just a shampoo bottle! It was made in 2016, so you won't see too many of them anymore, especially unopened and in good condition. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if only a handful exist now.

What about the old plush designs? Some have floppy legs, while others can stand on their own. Now that Spin Master's switched to a new style, you likely won't see these in stores anymore. Some websites might still sell them, but otherwise, they're a thing of the past now.

How about my Ready Race Rescue theatrical poster? Yes, believe it or not, it actually played in some! As far as I'm aware, these posters were never sold in stores, which means they were made specifically for use in theaters. Once the mini-movie drove ran its course, most of them were thrown away. I was fortunate someone not only kept one, but also put it on Ebay, too. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the few that still exists.

I could surely go on about the many other products we'll likely never see in stores again, but no doubt we'd be here all day. Again, this isn't anything new or surprising, since the old always gets pushed out in favor of the new at some point or another. But hey, just because something is old, that doesn't mean it should be forgotten! Honestly, I like tracking down these older products and, in a way, preserving them so they can be viewed by fans once again... especially if it involves a favorite character of mine!

Of course, it's difficult to say if any of this will mean anything in the future. PAW Patrol is big, but it's no Mickey Mouse or Star Wars. I have to imagine a Pup-Fu Marshall toy from 2015 can't compare to a Luke Skywalker action figure from 1977. Thus, I have to wonder... will PAW Patrol ever become just as big, or will it inevitably conclude and simply fade from our minds as the years go by? Will anyone look back at these toys and see them with the same level of fondness? It's possible that, in ten or twenty years from now, everything I've purchased will only be worth a dollar or two at a Goodwill or yard sale. Perhaps my collection's only good for collecting dust?

Well, even if that's true, I don't mind. These items are linked to a character I love, so regardless of how the future views them, they'll all remain special to me. Perhaps, in the end, that's all that matters. :)

[anarchywoofwoof]

all of this handwringing over how bad social media has gotten and still yet not enough people have realized that all of this is by design and that, like most things in capitalism, it will always come down to selecting the most profitable business model possible. every last decision is made with money in mind.

these are not people who love maintaining a website for blogs. this isn’t a volunteer staff like ao3.

this is a corporation who owns a website that is part of a portfolio, like shares of stock. money is going into maintaining this place (and all social media): massive amounts of server costs 24/7/365, entire departments and cost centers of staff and with it, salaries, benefits, etc.

for a site of tumblrs size to even remain functional, a lot of money has to be put forward. and every single month, “tumblr” is a red line item on a massive corporation’s business sheet. long term, they are going to do one of two things: 1) do everything possible to make tumblr a money making business or 2) abandon/shut it down.

there are no alternatives to this. you can replace “tumblr” with almost anything in a capitalist society and this post would still be accurate.

#text #bork bork thoughts #capitalism #fuck capitalism #anti captalism #anticapitalism #anti capitalist #anarchism #anarchy #social media