#this is unedited and unbetaed lmao but ENJOY

[lululawrence]

Can u please be nicer on ao3? Maybe you should try answering people's comments

when i read the first line i was honestly flabbergasted and wracking my brain trying to figure out when in the world i wasn't nice on ao3 ever. because i honestly truly try to be nice to everyone always, even when i'm angry or frustrated or people are going after those i love and want to protect. if there was a time i WASN'T nice on ao3, i wondered if it was maybe because my comment had been misunderstood or someone saw me razzing an author i'm good friends with and they didn't get that we are close and i said what i did with so much love and appreciation, you know? like what??? did i do???

but then i read your second line. and please forgive me if i come off as rude in my response to this, because honestly i'm in a pretty bad spot mentally and emotionally in general right now, but PARTICULARLY today, and this ask triggered an anxiety response in me. so. i'm trying really hard to word this in a way to educate without being condescending or mean, but i might not succeed.

firstly, thank you for your comments i'm assuming you've left. i'm also assuming they were nice comments, in which case extra thanks. i'm sure i'll send you effusive responses on ao3 when the time comes.

secondly, please understand that sending an ask like this, on anonymous no less, is incredibly entitled. writing is not my profession, i receive no compensation for my works that i post for free online, and as a part of that it is not required of me to respond. i do my very best to reply to every comment i receive, but it is not always in a timely manner, because i have other priorities in my life. all of which leads us to my third point, which is:

writers do not owe you a reply to your comments. end of. there are no other qualifications or quantifying modifiers to be added to the statement. is it nice to be acknowledged and know your comment was seen? sure. but do they OWE you one? hell no.

in fact, i'd like to offer you a suggestion. a way of tweaking your thinking about the comments you leave on fics. instead of looking at comments you leave as being something that deserves a reply from the author, think of your comments as your way of paying the author for the gift of their time and talents that they have shared with you by posting their fic. that's how i think of the comments i leave for authors. i'm giving them my thanks for the words they've shared! i want to help THEM feel as amazing as they have made ME feel when i read their fic. in fact, my hope isn't necessarily a response from them, but instead my hope is THE GIFT OF THEM SHARING MORE FIC WITH ME. i'm a selfish bitch in that way and i always want all the fic to read. i never want that well to go dry. one way i can ensure that doesn't happen is by supporting authors and being kind to them and spreading all the love and excitement i can about their writing in the hopes that my words will inspire them to share more.

because whether they reply or not, i GUARANTEE they are seeing your comments. i PROMISE they are. and for all you know, your comment might be the one that keeps them writing even when their words aren't coming easily or when they are tempted to give up.

but, again, please remember that no matter what, these authors (including me) don't actually owe you anything.

the rest of this is going under a cut, because honestly my reply is already far too long and i have a LOT more to say now that you've gotten me started.

now, all of this in mind, i'll explain to you why i'm not great with keeping up with comments made on my fics the last couple of years. i don't owe you this explanation any more than i owe you a response to your comments, and i'm honestly not sure you deserve this explanation either, but i'll still offer it anyway. it'll help me feel better knowing i at least put this out there, whether you care or not, mainly because if i don't do that it will cause me greater anxiety having you possibly think i am not responding to people because i feel all high and mighty or that i think i'm better than the comments or whatever the fuck kind of motivation you're attributing to me to see my lack of a response as something "not nice" towards the commenters.

i'm not sure if you've noticed, but i put out a lot of fic. like a lot. a lot of words and shit. i love writing, it's often my therapy and a way for me to help keep my anxiety and depression and ptsd at bay.

now, more personal shit for you, i've got three kids ages 9 and under. the oldest has adhd which we have yet to find a med for that helps to the extent she needs without side effects that aren't healthy for her to continue with, she also has anxiety, AND she's extremely gifted and starting a new program at a new school, all in the midst of a pandemic. and all of those situations exacerbate her anxiety! huzzah! she's also dealing with the beginning of her tween growing up shit, which is great fun because it means where she used to be pretty damn understanding of her younger brother, she is finding it much more difficult to. because the second oldest? he's autistic with some pretty significant gross motor, speech, and socialization delays that have only been exacerbated because of the previously mentioned pandemic. PLUS he transitioned from his special needs preschool to a fully integrated elementary school for kindergarten last year and then had to deal with all the ups and downs of the switch from e-learning to hybrid to all in schooling when everything in him screams for a normal schedule he can rely on to keep his own anxieties and fears and struggles at their minimum. and that youngest child? he was born in january of last year. he STILL barely leaves the house and has only met other children in close range a couple of times because, once again, pandemic!

add onto all of this my own mental health issues, the fact that my husband ALSO battles major clinical depression, adhd, and anxiety, AND we live with my parents who have their own health issues, both mental and physical. i run the home for our house of seven. i keep this place functioning, fed, clothed, clean, and everywhere we need to be for all of our five million appointments every. fucking. day. there is a REASON i've been borderline burnt out for the last fucking year and a half.

now, for fun, i have fandom shit. i love it here, even if it is a dumpster fire on the best of days, and getting to be a part of the writing community is so very lovely. i adore it. honestly, it's because of those friendships i've built with other writers that i have been able to keep writing and have found just how helpful it can be for my mental health. but i'm REALLY. INCREDIBLY. BUSY. i hardly have time to get on tumblr for just a quick swipe through my dash most days. i put off asks so long i forget i have them. i don't have the mental and emotional capacity to talk to people on here or interact fully a lot of the time. but i do my best to do so and be kind while i'm at it even when i don't want to be.

then, on top of that? i also run fic fests like @wordplayfics and help friends run their own. because not only am i a writer, i'm a reader. i LOVE fic. fic has saved me soooooo many times over the past seven years that i've been here. i want to do what i can to support other writers the best way i can, which is to provide a space for them to create their works that welcomes and helps promote them, but also by doing my monthly fic lists and pocast highlighting what i've been able to read, reblogging their fic posts, and then commenting and kudosing their fics too.

sometimes i get really fucking down on myself because i'm so behind on replying to comments, but my brain is very much a "if you start this, you have to finish it" kind of a brain, and i feel even WORSE sometimes if i reply to comments on some fics and not all of them. but i do my best and reply when i can. i was actually really fucking proud of myself because i had a couple days to myself in june, and i spent hours replying to comments on 20 of my fics. when you have almost 150 fics (i think? i don't even know how many fics i've posted by now), that is only scratching the surface. but i tried and i was so so happy i did that many fics at once. it's exhausting, though, and takes a lot of spoons for me to reply to them in mass like that plus time consuming. so i tried to be happy with those 20 fics and the comments i responded to there and told myself that when i ha a moment to breathe, i'd go and work on replying to some more.

but see, that again causes anxiety and guilt. because i haven't replied to all of them. and that anxiety and guilt can cause me to put it off further OR to put off important things like feeding my children or getting sleep in order to finish it, so i have to make myself put things into perspective and ensure i'm doing the important things, like taking care of myself and my family, first.

and then, i have a moment where i CAN go ahead and reply to comments... but i also have MANY fics that are on deadline and i actually have a schedule. a SCHEDULE. for when i'm going to focus on which fics. i can spell it out for you if you really want. i made it back in APRIL to make sure i didn't sign up for too many fic fests because there are so many going on right now that i want to participate in, but i know i can't do all of them so i had to pick and choose. and when you are SO overscheduled and busy that back in APRIL you had to figure out what fics you would focus on at what time to ensure you got everything written when you wanted to through THE END OF THE YEAR, more choices have to be made.

for example. my writing time and time for myself came down to only one evening a week for ALL fandom things i'm doing and a part of right now once the kids were out of school for the summer. it quickly became apparent that for my own self care i needed more time, so i worked with my husband to find two other days i could carve out at least 30-60 minutes to myself to write every week. and i did. but if i'm already only getting that much time and have committed to those fics and fests and things that you're running etc, you have to choose am i going to use this time to try to squeeze in some comment replies? or am i going to write? and i choose to write. simple as that.

so yeah. see it as selfish if you want. see it as mean. you can honestly see it as whatever the fuck you want, but for me? i know that as soon as i possibly can and i can breathe freely for once and not feel like i am constantly drowning in my day to day life and am doing pretty well when it comes to my fic deadlines and getting started on those christmas cards i'm once again going to be making by hand for everyone on tumblr who chooses to sign up for one this year out of the KINDNESS of my heart and the love i really do feel for so many of you, then i promise i'll be on ao3 catching up and commenting. my friends laugh and make fun of me for it sometimes, because they will sometimes get 10-12 replies to their comments in a single day. they know that's how i work. i WILL reply to every single comment i get, no matter how old it is. but for the love of all that is holy, do NOT add to the anxiety and guilt i already feel over it. the only place that will get you is the ask/comment getting deleted if it's a good day, a fucking long rant like this one if it's not, and a block if it's a REALLY bad day.

if you're asking me to be nice on ao3, then i ask in return that you also be nice by not demanding things of people that they are not in any way obligated to give.

#long post #rant #i almost deleted this #but you sent it on just the right day and instead i let loose #this is unedited and unbetaed lmao but ENJOY #or don't #whatever #writing stuff #i should tag it #writing SHIT #but that's not really a tag i keep cause who wants to keep track of the negatives #not me

[awhiskeyriver]

omg can u do their first kiss in Madge's POV?

   Madge, you’re a freak. 

    I rolled up the sleeves of my thermal shirt and hoped that I wasn’t visibly sweating. Twenty minutes ago, the idea of washing Gale’s hair had seemed completely normal. Rational, even. We were friends, and he was stressed. I’d learned in my pain management class that massage was an excellent stress reliever. 

    But, I was almost certain this crossed a boundary friends shouldn’t. It wasn’t like I stood in the bathroom washing Darius’s hair every time he had a bad day.

    Oh, Darius. Thank any and all higher beings that he wasn’t there to witness this train-wreck. I could already envision his amused expression--eyebrow cocked and crooked smile. I could live forever without him knowing about this.

    Gale looked up at me through lidded eyes and I felt a new wave of heat creep to my skin. He thought this was weird too. He might’ve not been saying it, but I could practically hear the joke forming in his mind.

    Where’d you get this idea from, Undersee? One of your porn books?

    It really was like an opening to a very, very bad sex scene. Though in my defense, I never asked him to remove his shirt.

    My eyes dipped in a quick inspection of his bare chest. The way every muscle was outlined. Clenched with tension. Jesus, why hadn’t I offered to wash his stomach instead? 

    Because, boundaries.

    He was still staring at me. Deep brown eyes challenging me as he looked up. Did a quick scan down me as well. Noticing how close we were to one another. Nearly chest-to-chest.

    “Sorry,” I laughed, awkwardly. “There’s not really any way around the awkward position in here.”

    I motioned to the small bathroom, and how if I moved the leg currently positioned between his back any further it would be in the shower. Gale smiled lazily up at me, an expression I’d come to read as amusement.

    “I don’t feel awkward.”

    Just me then. I fought to maintain my composure, running my fingers through his hair to remove any knots. It was so soft, the ringlets stretching out with the water before curling a bit at the ends. I could play with it for hours.

    But then he moaned.

    Moaned.

    I think I felt the sound all the way down in my core.

    I blinked, eyes twitching to his face which was pure bliss for a solitary second before he seemed to remember himself. It was embarrassing how such a small, involuntary sound could make my body react so starkly. Pulsing. Alive. Intoxicated.

    “Sorry,” he muttered, his voice a low timber.

    “We keep apologizing.” And I kept laughing like an idiot. “I think we’re scared of freaking the other one out.”

    He opened his eyes more fully, sitting up a little.

    “Are you freaked out?”

    Not even a little. 

    I’d more so been referring to him. Whatever it was that was going on in his life--details I was sure I’d only barely scraped the surface on--it had a hair trigger response. One wrong move and I wasn’t positive he wouldn’t go running out the door. 

    But me? Standing there with him literally at my fingertips?

    Yeah, no. I was good. 

    “No.” 

    He smiled a little, relaxing back into the chair.

    “Neither am I.”

    “Oh,” was the only reply I could think up for a moment, before tacking on a lame, “Good.”

    He kept his eyes closed through the rest of my ministrations and if it weren’t for the small movements of his limbs or facial muscles, I might’ve thought he was sleeping. I stalled longer than necessary, feeling more confident without him staring up at me, but when I’d given a thorough rinse three times, I finally placed my cup down and rung out his hair.

    “Finished.”

    He let out a breath through his nose, relaxed.

   “Thank you.”

   “It was…” My pleasure? Too weird. “Anytime.” 

    He stared back at me wordlessly, making no move to stand up. So damn close that I could actually feel electricity coursing between us. 

    I’d kissed and been kissed before. Obviously. But the desperate need I felt to close the distance between us, to connect with him completely was so overwhelming it almost felt painful. 

    I could hear Darius’s voice in my head, telling me to just do it.

    Kiss him.

    Just kiss him, Madge, it’s not like it’s a marriage proposal.

    I leaned in, squeezing my eyes shut tightly as our lips brushed against each other and then pulled back just as quick. Mortified, I stood over the top of him, half straddling his waist as I tried desperately to gauge his reaction.

    When I pressed my glasses up higher on the bridge of my nose, he smiled.

    “That it, weeny?” he taunted, and I felt my eyes roll even as I laughed with relief. 

    His hands came to rest on my hips softly, and when I went in for a second kiss he made no objections. I tangled my fingers through his wet hair, tightening my grip and Gale let out a rushed breath through his nostrils. His thumbs stroked over my hip bone, helping to guide me down onto his lap as my legs began to wobble.

    I’d imagined it an embarrassing number of times, but nothing added up to reality. The feeling of his bare chest pressed against mine, tongue seeking out mine as our lips parted. The way his hands tightened on me with just enough pressure to make heat course through me without a nagging nervousness. 

    He had an erection. I didn’t need to have experience to know it was his penis I felt against my thigh, with just the fabric of his sweats and my sleep pants to separate us. What amazed me was that I wanted to feel more. The idea of it didn’t scare me or make me retreat...it left me hungry.

    He moaned again, a deep, primal sound from the bottom of his chest when I moved my hips and then his lips pulled back from mine slightly, foreheads still connected.   

    “Rule number one?” he panted.

    Ah, rule number one. How innocent I’d been when I’d adamantly refused to have sex with him.

    Past Madge would be disappointed. It was taking everything in me not to completely jump him there in the bathroom.

    I bit my lip, pushing his hair back with a smile.

    “Rules are boring, anyways.” 

    As our lips connected again, an intricate dance that felt so familiar already, I think I changed my mind.

    Past Madge wouldn’t be disappointed. In reality, it wasn’t the night I was going to lose my virginity. Just...a preview of sorts.

    But when the time came, the idea of it being with Gale didn’t send me panicking. It made me excited.

    For that, I think past Madge would be proud.

    That’s mother fucking growth.

#anon #ask #the challenge #madge pov #this one got away from me a bit lmao #enjoy! #unedited and unbetaed #mistakes are mine #writing #the panem nightlocks series #gadge fanfic #gadge #the challenge spoilers #fanfic spoilers

[chris-tea-n]

Voltron meta: Keith’s biracial identity

im aiming for quality content but... im lazy so ill just post what i have tweeted lmao (also because i want to set more time aside for more yaoi-centric content) anyway here goes nothing

warning: this is not quality content because im basing this analysis off statements made in the context of singapore and theyre just statements ive collected through my teenage, so take whatever claims ive made with a pinch of salt and healthy skepticism. (also this is unedited, unvetted, unbeta-ed, please dont judge me by this lazy piece ;_;) anyway here goes nothing:

analysis im referencing (long post): http://scrawlers.tumblr.com/post/159924044164/i-hate-when-people-down-play-keiths-piloting

ok i know i said that as a joke but im starting to think that his bom sword really symbolises his mental maturity. he carried it around all the time like a phallus and (quoting the analysis) he doesnt think of it as a weapon ie an obj of aggression so its like a phallus before maturity (since men are developed physical strength for aggression while boys arent) therefore keith using it in bom missions later on to kill signifies his adulthood. the fact that he used his mental phallus in bom mission after leaving voltron can mean that either 1. (from the analysis) he accepts himself ie his galra side or 2. he adopts his galra side as his full identity and i will be explaining biracial identity in a moment. first all he doesnt have anyone on earth (save for shiro) so there are no one from his human side that he relate to.

but in bom, hes surrounded by galra and could take part in his galran identity knowing that he will be accepted (eg 'you fight like a galra') whereas it is unclear in voltron (cue hunk's racist jokes) to both keith and the audience. overall hes more comfortable in bom in regards to his identity (especially since he was thrusted into the position of leadership that he didnt want) however it is not an indication that keith is adopting his galra identity exclusively for the rest of his life.

1. he could have chosen to be with bom because being galra is still a novelty for him because he had only accepted this identity not long ago.

2. he grew up as a human, he was told hes human in his formative years, so it is possible that he return to human culture.

another thing about biracial identity in reality and in media portrayal (*examples are exclusively adolescents) is that biracial individual often ends up choosing 'a side' ie racial identity. eg in the wolf children, both siblings ended up picking a side. and irl i have spoken to a few biracial teens and have seen their attitudes towards certain identifications (which are really interesting)

i once spoke to a danish-japanese girl who said that she identify more with her japanese side because she is more reserved and collective than her sister who is more individualistic and western. stereotypes/concepts of a certain race shape how biracial teens see themselves and affect how they identify themselves.

all the malay-chinese that i have met identify strongly with their malay side and speaks malay (and dont enjoy mandarin chinese at all lmao one even refuses to be addressed by their chinese name) it could be due to how SEAsian parents tend to be more 'caring' while their chinese parents appears to be relatively stern and distant. extended family members tend to be more intimate in seasian families vs chinese families. this trend is also observed in malay-indian teens. (they also spoke malay>tamil/hindi) so familial relations affect racial identifications.

all in all, biracial identity is really fun to explore (esp in sg given its diversity and race-mixing) and theres really a lack of fictional narrative depicting biracial people so what voltron did was exceptionally progressive to address a modern, unspoken problem of biracial adolescent struggling with their racial identity during puberty (the years where people 'find themselves') his coming of age ie mental phallus growing in length could mean that he had chosen his galra side as his adult identity because he identifies with it more than being human. he even mentions in his vlog that he thinks the reason why he doesnt relate to 'human' is because hes part galra.

biracial kids (especially eurasians) have faced familial ostracisation due to racism, and thus they feel somehow 'left out' of the community. they wont be able to understand one of their races as well as a result. what strikes me (and heres the criticism of vld's portrayal) is that keith 'feels galra' despite not knowing galra at all before voltron. it is more likely that hed 'feel' more human because his surrogate brother shiro impart on him human culture and values. he didnt 'choose' galra as his side but he ended up in bom ie a galra-dominated community by 'fate' or instinctively. it sounds illogical as he had no prior positive exp with the galrans (in fact he was told that they are all evil) but given how some people choose a side based on personality/stereotype, it is likely that he will be galra for his entire life because he feels that his trait is more bom than voltron eg for the greater good, 'cold' as remarked by humans in voltron etc

it is also possible that he would return to shiro and his human identity after the war against the galra empire because he wouldnt need to be fighting constantly and he has no purpose to serve. it might seem as though 'yeah you just adopt certain traits for certain occasions' but biracial teens hear stereotypes all the time and it sticks

so yeah tldr if a biracial teen has a side with more intimate familial rsp, theyd end up identifying with it more; if both are as intimate, theyd end up choosing by their personality trait. for keith, it is much more interesting as he is an orphan w a surrogate brother.

#vld #voltron #Keith #Keith kogane #biracial identity #meta #analysis #Keith voltron