#edit: actually i'm adding the discourse tag

[basket-of-radiants]

Proposal for Re-working the Kholins’ Character Arcs - a semi-coherent “essay” by me (feat. @akpaley​, thank you for your contributions and for your attempts at editing.)

Hey guys. Different kind of post this time around, compared to my usual brand. It’s time for some fix-it fanfiction masquerading as literary critique. I won’t be using a readmore, I dunno, probably to punish anyone still following this blog or something. So! In this post I’m going to solve the all the issues of racial theming associated with the Kholin family.

I’m often very harsh on the Kholins for benefitting so much from exploitative power structures while doing little to help those below them. But then I’ve also criticized them for actually addressing these very problems in-universe. How can I be upset at them for their inaction and then also be annoyed when Jasnah ends slavery? The short answer to all of this is just that the ways these topics are addressed all feel very inauthentic. For example, in real life history it took over a century of protests, slave revolts, political campaigning, and civil wars to legally end slavery in Europe and America, and abolitionists were met with fierce opposition at every turn. A fictional world need not follow our same historical trajectory, but it still seems a little disingenuous for a monarch to just decide to end it within her first year of power because it doesn’t mesh with her philosophical framework. It’s more like trying to wrap up a subplot than actually address the topic.

Ultimately however, there’s only so far this line of criticism can ever take me because the Kholins are the protagonists and you can’t get rid of them without turning the whole story into something else entirely. And Sanderson shouldn’t have to, these are characters that he created and he’s allowed to tell a story about them. And I actually like a lot of their personalities and arcs and outlooks quite a lot. I do think it’s...unfortunate...to have used slavery and racism as disposable props in a story that ultimately turned out to be about a bunch of royals learning to be better people and saving the world along the way. So I guess what I’m interested in is if there’s a way to keep the premise, keep the characters, keep the general story beats, keep the themes of honor and personal growth, keep the basic structure of everything, and still handle those themes with grace. You know, could this be a compassionate story about addressing racism told from the point of view of nobility? Is such a thing possible?

Well, I’m going to try my best. And I’m going to be imperfect about it, obviously, so if you actually care enough to read all this shit, I welcome discussion and disagreement. 

Jasnah is the most obvious example to point to as being indicative of the problem, but I also think she has the easiest character fixes. She’s already been established as an outspoken dissident on many of her society’s deeply ingrained values. Just add to her atheism and feminism that she’s also always been an outspoken abolitionist. Give her ties to an ongoing reformist movement. Have her lecture Shallan about it in Way of Kings. Make that a reason she’s butted heads with her family so much. I do think it’s poor writing to have a ruler end slavery on a whim, but I won’t deny that having the right person in power can make a huge difference. It’s not as cathartic as having Kaladin lead a slave revolt (or as having Moash destroy society <3) but that doesn’t make it inherently bad so long as the topic itself is still treated with weight. Have her moralistic ideology be firmly pre-established so that when she has to explain why she’s abolishing slavery, her reasoning can be purely pragmatic. The reason she’s moving so fast is because this is a historical point of heightened change, and so her reforms are more likely to work, but if she waits too long and things settle back into a new status quo, she may have missed her window. Not to mention, when her nephew comes of age, her own legitimacy as a ruler might be challenged, so she needs to do as much as she can in what may be end up being a short reign. As a character, Jasnah has always been able to girlboss her way past political realities through sheer force of personality, and that’s great and all, but I think it heightens her character’s competence if she does have to deal with real backlash, not just to her but to her policies as well. The narrative doesn’t even need to linger on her opposition, but acknowledging it and acknowledging that she’s simply a member of a preexisting and ongoing movement would have done wonders to portray slavery as a real and prescient issue. Then again, this is a topic which people have fought and continue to fight wars over, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have receive major backlash either; perhaps when the Kholins hear in Words of Radiance that she was assassinated, the news could come as tragic but not entirely unexpected so as to imply that her opposition has attempted such in the past. All this is to say, I don’t think it’s at all wrong for Jasnah to do what she did. I also don’t think her entire stance on abolitionism should have come down to a comment where she tells her uncle she’s trying to rule according to ethically consistent values. The fact that slavery was insultingly easy to end not only delegitimizes is as a topic worthy of discussion, but also is a really scathing indictment of literally everyone else in the ruling class who didn’t even think to try.

Jasnah done, easy, Dalinar next.

Dalinar is probably the most complicated character for me to discuss and form coherent statements on. He’s just so rife with contradictions down to his core. That’s probably why I continue to like him so much, why he’s still my favorite, even though I still consider him to be a Bad Person over all. I think deep down I’ll always lean a bit too pacifistic ideologically to ever consider a warlord/general to be a good person, no matter how honorable he may be or how much growth he may undergo. Don’t get me wrong, I still do love his growth. Dalinar is characterized by his constant change and forward momentum, even moreso than the rest of the cast. So for discussing him, at what point can I point to him and say “this is Dalinar, this is who he is, this is what he believes and what he cares about”? Of course, during any point in his arc, you’re going to have to grapple with the fact that all of his lofty rhetoric about honor and striving for personal betterment is ultimately going to be pretty useless to all the people whose lives he’s meaninglessly thrown away across his military career. For me personally, when I talk about his character I like to take the end-of-oathbringer approach, where I acknowledge everything he did in the past as Blackthorn, I agree that it was pretty fucked up, and I forgive him and grant him a clean slate. All this to say that even if I’m judging him purely by his behavior as the current Dalinar within the present day continuity of the books, he’s still a massive hypocrite with horrific amounts of blood on his hands which he’s never even bothered to consider. I dunno, when I first read Way of Kings and I first got to meet this general who’s leading an army in a literal genocide campaign, I sort of figured he’d get some kind of “wait am I the bad guy” moment at some point in the future. And he did get a moment in Oathbringer where he has to fully confront his guilt over past actions, it was great, I really really loved it! But it was also all about actions he took before the series even started, so I guess wiping out the listeners wasn’t a sin he thought needed any atonement. I’m not going to get into the narrative’s treatment of singers and listeners on this post (for no other reason than because I have waaaaaaay too much to say there) but the point I’m getting at is that however good Dalinar’s growth is and whatever direction it takes, it’s always going to have poisonous roots to me. And his treatment of class/racial issues is no different. 

Fixing Dalinar is going to take a lot of what Dalinar does best: introspection. In Way of Kings, Dalinar dislikes how Sadeas treats his bridgemen because he believes it to be dishonorable, because he believes Sadeas is forcing others into a situation that he himself would never put himself into. He also has various sympathetic reflections here and there about how sad it is when soldiers die, and about how without the benefit of the Thrill, violence is actually kind of bad. You know how it goes. But I don’t think he ever put himself at risk to actually help or protect any of the people who are dying. Whether he wants to end the war or not, he still continues to participate in it. And he’s still willing to set aside the lives of literally everyone beneath him so he can pursue his dream of unity. The book ends with Kaladin and the rest of bridge four saving him and Adolin, and in gratitude, he purchases their freedom and gives them honored positions in his household. You know, because he’s so honorable. Everyone loves this scene, so I’m going to make it the catalyst for Dalinar’s new and improved character development. The problem with saying Kaladin helped Dalinar so Dalinar helped Kaladin is that when I’m being reductive and uncharitable (like I’m being right now), I can argue that their relationship basically started as a quid pro quo. This scene is meant to prove that Dalinar really is the most honorable person in Alethkar, just as Syl thought, only it doesn’t actually do that. See I don’t actually want Dalinar to start treating Kaladin as an equal. I want Dalinar to, in that moment, realize that Kaladin is better than him. That for all of his pontificating about honor, he would have never even considered risking his own life and the lives of his own family to rescue a bunch of bridgemen. I want him to see Kaladin’s honor, and rather than be validated in his beliefs, I want him to be thoroughly humbled. Let him spend all next book reflecting on all the lives of darkeyes he’s destroyed. Let it shame him, as Evi’s death shamed him. He already flirts with these lines of thought, and he already has an arc about confronting his past actions. Let the racial injustices he’s participated in be a part of that. Let him abandon his books and traditions instead look to Kaladin to learn what honor truly means. I don’t know how any of this would translate to his actions, because if we’re being honest his ideals are already quite incongruous with his actions, but the fact that he manages to have such strong theming regardless makes me think maybe that’s okay. I guess ultimately it would be enough for me if his character, as someone who symbolizes the ideals of a nation, was able to look at a darkeyes publicly be a follower rather than always trying to lead by his own personal example.

That’s Dalinar. Elhokar next?

I actually don’t think there’s too much wrong with Elhokar’s writing, especially in the first two books where a much greater emphasis on these themes were placed. He’s not a protagonist and we the audience aren’t supposed to endorse his actions. Most of what I’d change about his story is more about Kaladin and Moash than it is about him. I definitely don’t love that he can throw away the lives of his own people by the thousands in the genocide campaign that was the vengeance war, and then have the narrative just ignore all that in favor of him being sad about his own incompetence. If Elhokar is meant to be a sympathetic character, then when he calls himself a bad king, that’s what he should be thinking about, the number of lives he’s wasted over these years. I actually like him a lot more as a less sympathetic character, and I think I would have preferred if in oathbringer the narrative and the other characters would have stopped making so many excuses for him. Back to Kaladin and Moash, those are the two characters defined by their experiences as members of the downtrodden caste, so I personally sort of judge the problematic-ness of the whole story by how they get treated. Everyone loves to talk about how those two are foils. So. In order to strengthen Kaladin and Moash’s characters, either Elhokar needs to be as much of a monster as Amaram, or Amaram needs to be just as sympathetic and conflicted and having-of-a-toddler as Elhokar. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love the trope of finding at the end of a revenge quest that the person you hated has changed and grown. But I hate how this means that Moash’s hatred is wrong and unjustified, whereas Kaladin’s is validated at every turn. I don’t actually dislike Elhokar. I mean I think he’s a bad person, but I like a lot of characters who are bad people. I just think that if this story really wants to grapple with class and race (because it sure brings them up a lot for a story that doesn't want to talk about them), then Moash is a much more important character than him, with a lot more to add to that kind of discussion, which is why I think Elhokar’s characterization would have to come second to Moash’s development. (Obviously if this series were being reworked to be better on this topic, Moash would have to be written with a lot more compassion in general, but this post isn’t about him.)

Intermission time. Gavilar.

Gavilar is already perfect, 10/10, great character all around, what a guy, no notes, no wonder he’s so universally beloved among all of the fans, social justice icon.

Okay onto Navani.

I may not be the best person to talk about Navani. She has never been a favorite character of mine, and so compared to the others I haven’t thought as much about her values or the way she thinks or the narrative impacts of her actions. Someone who has more love for her would probably write better criticisms of her. (I’m going to reject any premise that falls along the lines of “Navani isn’t racist because she feels X,” but I’m not wholly confident in my analysis here, and I welcome any good faith critiques both of my own thinking and of her character when come at from other angles.) It’s hard to say where she should have grown from how she starts out viewing darkeyes because I don’t actually know how she starts out viewing darkeyes. I know I’m probably meant to assume she just treats everyone equally because she’s a Good Person on Team Good Guys, but it’s hard to just accept that she had all around good values when she married a warlord and was in love with his more violent brother. I dunno, was her “good guy” status meant to have always been an element of her character, or did she get it secondhand from her association with the new and improved Dalinar? With someone like Adolin, we got to see what shitty values he held at the start of Way of Kings (I’m talking about the Alethi warmongering, not his interest in fashion) but we also got to see how his father gradually won him over throughout the course of the book, and then later on we get to see him develop further on his own. For someone like Navani, I find it strange how she’s always so proactively supportive of Dalinar in everything, even when his own goals and values are in flux. I assume her character is just meant to be super ride or die when it comes to her family, and I do like that in a character, but that also means that she’s been wholly willing to support or at the very least excuse her family’s oppression and exploitation of darkeyes without comment. (See, Lirin is a much better parent than Navani, he would never have let his son start a whole genocidal vengeance war for fun and profit (I say this as if I’m joking but I’m kinda not.)) Some people have reminded me that she was pretty much shut out of the political process by Gavilar and Elhokar, and I agree with that, but I don’t really have any evidence that she would have cared much about darkeyes even if she had been more involved. In general it just seems like the whole topic doesn’t matter much to her. So what I would wish for the narrative would be to lean further into this. Draw attention to her cognitive dissonance and try and make the readers feel conflicted about her as a person. Highlight the fact that she’s willing to overlook the suffering that befalls other families if it means success for her own. I think one of my issues with her is that to me, this is a major (and interesting!) character flaw, but the books never seem to treat it as such. Honestly I think if this were intentional, I’d probably find her character really interesting, but from my reading of the text, I feel that I’m supposed to think of Navani as a generally decent person who’s by and large on the right side of things. The thing is, with the caste system playing such an integral role in their culture, I think she needs to have some sort of feelings about it, or else the fact that she doesn’t should be an issue to overcome. Otherwise she becomes another factor delegitimizing racial oppression as a real and important problem. If she’s a good guy and she doesn’t care about racism, then that’s saying you don’t have to be antiracist to be a good person in this world. 

Probably could have done that one better. I dunno. Leave me angry and hateful comments if I’m totally misrepresenting your favorite character. Moving on.

Adolin already has some great character development across the books. And he already has kind of engaged with this stuff in his story. Unfortunately, that’s less used in the “this person was racist but is becoming better sense” and more used in the sense of “Kaladin learns that #NotAllLighteyes are bad” which is pretty unfortunate for a number of reasons. Especially since, if he actually was going to prove he’s different from other lighteyes, out of all the Kholins I think Adolin is the best candidate for being a full on class traitor. I’m serious, looking back over the events of his plotlines, it would suit him shockingly well while disturbing the overall narrative shockingly little.

Adolin’s current plot is loosely as follows: in Way of Kings he likes all the things someone of his station is supposed to like, clothes, violence, dueling, warfare, swords, hangtime with the guys, all the good stuff. At the beginning of the book he doesn’t understand why old, stuck-up Dalinar can’t just let loose and be a relelntless war-monger like everyone else, but by the end of the book he’s come to understand a certain value to honor and thus has begun to become a better person himself. Words of Radiance has him lose his popularity, fall out of favor with all of his friends, grow disillusioned with his society, perform a prison sit-in in solidarity with Kaladin, and murder Sadeas. Most of this is done again, because of his father, and how Adolin now wants to help and support him and his ideals. In Oathbringer he mostly isn’t involved in courtly politics, being away on a mission for much of it, but he does make a pretty big move by rejecting the throne. In Rhythm of War we see the schism that’s formed between him and his father until he leaves on another long-distance mission. Summary over. In general I reject the idea that making the Kholins be individually less racist makes for a better, or more nuanced and compassionate discussion of the topic, but if anyone is primed for a “lighteyes learns racism is wrong” character arc, I think it’s Adolin. Imagine him following a bit less in Dalinar’s footsteps and a bit more in Jasnah’s. You almost don’t even have to change any story beats: in getting to know Kaladin, something clicks in Adolin where he realizes that if he wants to treat Kaladin as his equal, he has to treat all darkeyes as equals, and so he realizes to his horror that he and his entire caste of friends and family are all monsters for treating them the way they do. (Actually, there is one plotline in WoR I’d probably scrap, and that’s his slowburn bromance with Kaladin. I mean I get what Sanderson was going for with the ribbing and then eventual friendship, but Kaladin was an absolute stranger who risked his own life to save Adolin and his father from certain death, and so I feel there should probably have been a bit more overt respect upfront there.) In pushing for his newfound belief in equality, he ends up burning through all of his intracaste goodwill and political capital, causing all of his friends to drop him. When he kills Sadeas, it doesn’t have to be about protecting Dalinar or about personal revenge, it could also be that he’s gotten to know Bridge 4 and learned firsthand about the atrocities they’d gone through, and so there’s no way he’d allow such a pioneer of human rights violations to stay in power. In the following books, maybe he’s become so politically toxic due to challenging the very foundations of his own power, his own family has to send him away on missions so he can’t rock the boat too much at home. Maybe refusing the throne was more of a political statement than a personal one, because he’s come to understand that being a ruler means oppressing thousands of others. Maybe this is another form of hypocrisy he criticizes Dalinar for, how Dalinar might claim to value darkeyes but how he still retains power bought with thousands of their corpses. None of this has to modify actual events very much, it just affects the reasons for them. And it would also meaningfully show why he gets to be a “good lighteyes” if he actually engaged with his status and rejected it, knowing it comes at the expense of others.

Okay, enough about that. Renarin maybe?

I won’t say too much about Renarin here, because I’d probably just end up repeating a lot of the same criticisms of how he’s used as a “good lighteyes.” From a narrative standpoint, all those criticisms hold for him as well. You know, he wants to join Bridge Four, and future-villain Moash doesn’t like the idea because he doesn’t trust lighteyes, but Kaladin reassures him that Renarin is a good boy, so don’t worry about it, and everything works out fine in the end, proving that lighteyes are good people just like you and me. This isn’t a problem with him as a person or character, it’s just more of that general theme of “the caste system is fine so long as nice people are at the top” which I clearly think should be interrogated. Thus far, in contrast to the rest of his family, Renarin is very young and has had much less of a political presence, not to mention fewer POV chapters anyway, so I think delving too much deeper here will feel a bit hollow to me.

Does Shallan count as a Kholin? I’d like to talk about her super briefly.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually think Shallan is one of the better characters on the topic of race insofar as how she’s written, especially compared to the other Kholins. But wait, I hear you say, what about all of her dozens of instances of casual racism? Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I like how Shallan demonstrates how ingrained these harmful ideologies are in their society. I like how every time she has a distasteful thought, we the audience are reminded that racism still exists and even good people will continue to promote it if they don’t view it critically. I like that Shallan is problematic, because their society has problems! At least with her it doesn’t feel like the story’s trying to sweep the fact under the rug. There are plenty of issues with her writing, plenty of jabs at Kaladin that probably shouldn’t have been treated as cute. She’s actually the main character whose racism and classism I see criticized the most. And I think that’s a good thing! My issue with the Kholins isn’t that I think they should all be less racist, my issue is that their positions are inherently oppressive, and it seems as though the narrative doesn’t think that matters so long as deep down they’re good people. When people critique Shallan in specific instances, I tend to see a fair amount of consensus and agreement there, but when I critique the Kholins people will argue with me by pointing out that Dalinar/Adolin/Navani/whoever actually treats darkeyes as equals, so my arguments are invalid. Purely my own anecdotal experience of course, but it tends to make me think that there’s something in Shallan’s writing that’s working right, something that isn’t working for the other lighteyed characters.

Now obviously with all of this, I’m not saying I want these books to have more racism in them. What I’m arguing is that if the books are going to explore the topic (which they do) then they should treat the topic with an appropriate amount of gravity rather than acting as if it can be solved by having aristocrats become nicer people.

If you’re still here with me, thank you for reading, I love you, I hope you enjoyed yourself through my descent further and further into rambly nonsense. If you just scrolled to the bottom, that’s fair enough, there won't be a tl;dr but you’re welcome for filling your dash with massive text blocks.

[muninnhuginn]

gonna have a go at a tbhx liveblog. tbh, idk if I'll keep this up or if it'll fade away, but let's have a go.

context in terms of my current knowledge of the series going in:

superheroes? something about public perception dictating how they're seen and some kind of 'trust' rating

one character takes on the role of another

yaoi in episode two(?)

crimes against women discourse

3d/2d animation - given how the other to be hero series operate I'm going to guess this is dependent on world but idk fully

I've seen 'to be hero' and 'to be heroine' so that'll also be informing some stuff here. oh! also, I'll be watching in chinese, though not sure in this case whether the japanese release gets edited down as it did for the previous series in this collection

will be using the tag '#mun watches that hero show' so as not to spam the main tag

Episode 1 thoughts below cut

unsubtle visuals my beloved. anyway, starting themes of the show are "everyone can be a hero" vs "the only path is to accept reality and work hard".

oooh okay nice episode title card. again, on the nose, but it's not like it *needs* to be subtle. also "41 years after commission", iseeisee.

"one day you'll be replaced by someone else" - okay, so. given one of the only spoilers I do know for this series, that's. well.

two seconds later. fingerguns out. wasn't expecting it *quite* that quickly, but comedic timing on point

"who you are is of no importance" - same thing as he was saying himself earlier, but context makes it come off pretty differently

"nice has been doing poorly ever since 'that incident'" taking notes taking notes. that'll definitely come back later

ah, belief system is largely how I'd thought it'd be? belief makes reality, essentially. "as long as we package you flawlessly" and they're having an ad guy do this. fitting.

this question is more fitting to be posed to an obsessive fan than a romantic partner ngl. oh nice, glasses blonde agrees with me

oof rip he actually knows the answer right down to the runtime. that's... kinda embarrassing. obsessive fan it is.

oh. right. okay, I forgot he'd been involved in making a load (all?) of these ads. he gets a pass but he's on thin ice

"she's always been my goddess". I'm taking so much damage here.

oooh the comboing 2d with 3d for the liquid and smokey effects. reminds me of arcane.

trust vs fear. another theme, methinks

so, the villains will represent a fear - in this case, being fired? makes sense. it's presented as though it's a general fear, but I expect that each fear will be relevant to lin ling in some way or another and become increasingly close to his personal fears as the show goes on....?

2d replay of 3d scene. backdrop is somewhat different now though. or rather, the lighting emphasises the poster with the shattered face and saturates out nice almost completely

not the falling imagery. I wasn't gonna make any of this about link click and I know link click doesn't have the monopoly on falling off buildings but. creator footprint.

"I hope that someday I'll be able to protect those worth protecting" noting down as more arc relevant words even if I suspect the first time around will Not go well

moon pulling lin ling out of his fear, not through any actions of her own, but through the marketable version of her he remembers

pshh the flickering between selves as he punches. jjk op vibes.

first re-emphasis of "anyone can be a hero"

interesting how he carries through the final attack still in 2d

visual contradiction. neat.

discussing nice choosing to throw himself off a building as they're heading up to the very top of another building. topical.

yeaaah. wasn't sure exactly how it'd happen but the crimes against women discourse had me thinking she'd die. I'm... not sure if it sticks or if she "comes back" then dies again? I was kinda trying to avoid spoilers but also vaguely curious. I guess I'll find out

Some misc thoughts overall:

Visually, this show seems really strong thus far. Imagery, how it combines the different art styles, how it switches between them for emphasis. Really works

Tonally... kinda all over the place. A lot of this is presented comedically with dark undertones so it's hard to know how seriously you're *meant* to be taking things

The ending (opening) sequence is incredibly focused on a guy we've not met yet, but with visual similarities to Nice. I've managed to avoid most of the promo stuff so I don't actually have a clue who this guy is, though the chess pieces make me think potential "chessmaster" archetype?

oh right. The part about the belief system that struck me the most was the way that Lin Ling's eye colour physically changed. Currently, we're getting all the mirror visuals and seeing Lin Ling's thoughts with him as "himself". I'm curious as to how far his "becoming" Nice will go and whether he'll be able to "return". There's also been a lack so far of information whatsoever about his life prior to this. Whether he has (had?) friends or family. He didn't seem to be calling anyone when he was at the top of the tower but that doesn't mean he *doesn't* have anyone.

Lin Ling's profession as an advertising guy in the context of the trust system. He tended to be on the back end of the marketing work rather than the forefront before this, sure, but it seems super relevant to me that his job was all about public perception. Also, the sheer number of advertising posters/video ads in the backdrop at all times was overwhelming but intentional. Weirdly, am being reminded of Go Go Loser Ranger with some of it

[transmutationisms]

can u talk a bit more about working as a bibliographer? like what does that actually entail?

so the bibliography i worked at was affiliated with the major academic professional society of my subfield, and the society sponsors the bibliography as a kind of sister publication to their journal. this means 1) we were almost exclusively grant-funded, and 2) the staff positions at the bibliography go to grad students. there are jobs in bibliography and related information sciences that are not exclusive to academics/grad students, but i can't really tell you anything about them personally; i had this job as a graduate research assistant (ie this was what i did to get my paycheck for two years instead of TAing).

anyway the purpose of a bibliography like this that's affiliated with a journal or subfield is usually to aggregate data on what's published in that journal or subfield. ours was aimed at capturing the whole subfield. so, the bulk of the staff job is to comb through recent academic publications (journal articles & books) and pull anything that's topically relevant. we add the abstract and metadata to the bibliography (meaning basically a searchable database) and then we do subject tagging. this is the most fun part because you have to think about how knowledge is categorised and what's most useful to a user and whatnot.

so like let's say i'm entering an article from the journal of the history of psychiatry. i already pulled the metadata from the online journal listing and put it through zotero, which then talks to the bibliography's back end. i do the authority control (link it with the author's other publications in our bibliography, and with some external identity profile like viaf or orcid). i link it to the journal in our database and make sure it has the right date, page numbers, etc. this article is about philippe pinel, so its main category tag is probably 'psychiatry - 19th century'. then i aim for 5–10 additional subject tags, maybe 'france, metropolitan', 'psychiatric hospitals and institutions', 'therapy and therapeutic methods', 'philosophy of medicine', 'nosology and diagnosis', 'pitié-salpetrière hospice', etc.

once this is all entered, the article is searchable by any of its metadata, by going to the author's profile in our database, or by those subject and category tags. institutions (universities, libraries, hospitals, etc) all have their own authority controls too. you can browse the database by data, by subject tag, by searching keywords, etc; it also has a few visualisation tools that show strongly associated subject tags, histograms of a person's or publisher's history of publication, etc. this all means that things are more easily discoverable than they might be, and once you've found them you can also browse related things easily, or look at some provisional info on the state of publications in the field.

because this bibliography was affiliated with a journal, we also used to publish a yearly print edition with the entries published in the last year (this was satisfying to hold but honestly way less functional than the online database version lol) and we also published a special edition of bibliographic / historiographic essays on pandemics that i worked as managing editor for. idk how common this would be at other kinds of bibliographic job positions; we used the same publisher as the sister journal, so mostly all i had to do was correspond with people and deal with typesetting. anyway once that was published we also added those articles to the bibliography itself too.

anyway super fun job tbh, like a lot of it is data entry but haggling over subject tags was honestly enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. i lost the battle to add "total institutions" as a subject tag but won when i said we needed to revamp our system for entries dealing with weight management; as a result those subject tags are now clearer and more useful, and capture scientific discourses about both 'underweight' and 'overweight'. our best tag imo was "controversies and disputes", which was like a catch-all for any time there was some kind of haterism in the literature. it kind of changed how i view knowledge categorisation (like, the process; philosophy-of) and because we spent so much time reading abstracts to tag them, we would basically have walking encyclopedic knowledge of recent publishing in the field.

some of this functionality can ofc be replicated in library catalogues or google scholar or whatever, but the real value-add is the subject tagging and the relationships between those terms; this is where the bibliography is useful both for finding things and for showing an additional layer of information about the field and publishing in it. lots of academic fields have some equivalent of this, although i will say that our database was generally better (in the sense of more data and useful detail) than others i've used; it was a well-funded project run by a very dedicated prof who's been doing this for over 20 years now, and that continuity and institutional memory is really paying off for it.

but yeah if this is generally something that interests you, like i said, this is really just one specific form of bibliographic work. definitely look into what else is out there (i dunno how much of this would require a degree like an mlis even) and see what you think :)

[lurkingshan]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by @dribs-and-drabbles, thanks dribs! It's kind of fun to go back and see what I was on about at various points this year.

January

This blog was a mere bebe this time last year and I hadn't started posting anything substantial yet, so nothing of note here.

February

most popular — Making fun of Hira in Utsukushii Kare 2 (affectionately)

favorite — Praising Moonlight Chicken's character writing

March

most popular — The Glory does revenge right

favorite — Whining about people using the friends to lovers label wrong

April

most popular — Celebrating Queen Ae Ri from The Eighth Sense

favourite(s) — Making sure people understand Ji Hyun is a drama dork, helping to kick off the most batshit week of discourse in T8S fandom, and of course the first (of many) appreciation posts for Porsche's sweater

May

most popular — On Step By Step removing a scene critiquing BGP because of fan outcry

favorite(s) — 10 Things I Love About WDYEY and 10 Things I Love About Khun Chai (please watch them if you haven't yet people!)

June

most popular — Having a ball with King the Land

favorite(s) — Breaking down Pat's effect on Phupha in Our Skyy 2, the complexity of family trauma in Our Dining Table, and Jeng's reaction to his failed confession in Step by Step (ugh remember when this show was good). And of course this was the month that the La Plue meta round up was born.

July

most popular — Bitching about romance discourse (it was about King the Land at the time but it's quite widely applicable lol)

favourite(s) — Hysterical praise for La Pluie's conflict writing, kudos for Be My Favorite's character work for Kawi, breaking down where Step By Step went wrong

August

most popular — Ah the good times when we were still so amped about Only Friends

favorite(s) — Every moment of the My Ride rewatch, great moments in subtitlery from Laws of Attraction, and praise for Sing My Crush

September

most popular — That one time I actually liked a Mew thing in Only Friends

favorite(s) — Trying to get y'all to watch Love in Translation, comparing Someday or One Day and A Time Called You, clarifying the differences between Boston and Brian Kinney

October

most popular — Boston and Nick my beloveds (it would be shocking if they didn't make this list they are responsible for many of my most popular posts)

favorite(s) — A couple I Feel You Linger in the Air breakdowns: why the romance works despite being underwritten, and Fong Kaew's excellent character arc

November

most popular — Goofing on the unseriousness of Kiseki: Dear to Me

favorite(s) — Breaking down how the writing choices in Only Friends sent toxic messages and final thoughts on the IFYL finale

December

most popular — Japanese BL starter pack

favorite(s) — Simping over Mohk simping over Day in Last Twilight, yelling about Cherry Magic Thailand, kicking off bl superlatives 2023

--

In addition to all the people dribs tagged that I am double tagging because I want to see your answers (@wen-kexing-apologist @grapejuicegay @btwinlines @twig-tea @rocketturtle4 @waitmyturtles @telomeke and @respectthepetty) I am adding some other folks I know wrote/created a lot this year because I'm curious what stuck with you most: @bengiyo, @ranchthoughts, @jemmo, @chickenstrangers, @chicademartinica, @slayerkitty, @my-rose-tinted-glasses, @colourme-feral, @blmpff, @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @troubled-mind, @benkaaoi.

[sleepanonymous]

I can't remember exactly where I saw it or even if it's true, but I've read somewhere that the Espera girls said they do not like being called "The Vesselettes" because it's demeaning, or something along those lines, yet you continue to refer to them as such. Why? Isn't that disrespectful? Please do not take this question as an attack on you by the way, I'm simply curious as to your reasons for it.

Hello Anon 🖤 Ty for the question, I'm happy to answer it, actually.

TLDR Answer #1: I'm too lazy to go back and change 100+ tags. TLDR Answer #2: I keep the #the vesselettes tag for visibility, especially for new or casual fans.

For a longwinded answer, Espera technically have three names: Espera, the official name for the background trio; The Choir, which encompasses their identities/part in Sleep Token; and The Vesselettes, which is a fandom created name given to the trio before they revealed their identities. I have actually called them Espera in the non-utility tags, and I've also thought about adding/editing the tags as well to include #espsera and/or omit #the vesselettes. It's just... a lot at this point 😅 Also in my mind Espera does not equal Sleep Token, but The Vesselettes and The Choir does equal Sleep Token.

As far as I know, and with a tiny bit of research, the girls in Espera didn't say they disliked being called The Vesslettes, only that they preferred to be called Espera. Granted this was in an Espera Q&A that was on the Espera Instagram page (hence why Espera does not equal Sleep Token in my mind). I wasn't present, and I haven't found a screen recording of the Q&A, but the consensus is that they didn't specifically state they disliked the term "Vesselettes" or found it offensive. The reasoning behind their preference is because they're a for-hire group and work with different artists outside of Sleep Token.

The its disrespectful point of view most likely came from fandom doing it's thing and expanding on what was said with their own feelings. There's been a lot of discourse I've seen on Reddit and in the band's Discord about the fan name. Its one of the things brand new fans or casual fans get jumped on for doing when there's actually nothing inherently wrong with what they've said. Case and point:

In addition to my extremely unnescessarily long-winded answer: the lady who claims to have coined the name "The Vesselettes" is actually a very lovely, fellow nerodivergent, woman. She's been using the name for over two years now, and (from what I can tell) it has picked up in popularity between fans. She never intended for this sort of discourse to happen; it was never disrespectful, demeaning, or sexist in any way.

Also if you want to get super ultra technical Vessel's name is not Vessel and he's literally the First Vessel of Sleep, or I, but fans kept referring to him as "Vessel" instead of "I" and it stuck and he rolled with it because early band lore was kind of a mess for reasons i probably cannot safely get into

ANYWAY if I have actually missed something, and Espera have publicly stated "Do not Call us the Vesselettes" or "We do not like the name Vesselettes," then please tell me and give me sources and I will force myself to correct all of the tags on my blog.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

About

Made a tumblr account so I can join the Warhammer 40,000 fun here.

A quick Q&A:

What first caught my attention about WH40K I love the living WMD human rights violations that are Space Marines. To protect humanity, their own humanity is surgically excised, then they're raised in a death-worshipping warrior cult teaching them their only purpose in life is to die gloriously. This makes them great literary vehicles for a lot of themes I enjoy exploring (and fun to poke with sticks).

First WH40K novel Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe (2003). I do own a first edition copy of Ian Watson's Space Marine (1993), but I read that a bit later.

Favourite WH40K book or series Everything by ADB, everything by Abnett, a lot by Simon Spurrier and Graham McNeill, some by Chris Wraight (I need to read more of his novels so he can move up the list) and Guy Haley.

Most re-read WH40K book or series I added this question because I realised I hadn't actually named any books in the previous one (I have a lot of favourites). However, these are (some of) the novels I'm currently revisiting, either for fanfic purposes or just for the joy of reading them: - The Night Lords omnibus by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - The Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett - Eisenhorn (+ Ravenor and Bequin) by Dan Abnett - The Unremembered Empire (+ the prequel Know No Fear) by Dan Abnett

Favourite character(s) As the blog name reveals, I do have a soft spot for Gabriel Seth, the most misunderstood character in the setting. I also like Guilliman, another character who is often misrepresented in the fandom. If my AO3 account is anything to go by, though, it's Septimus, along with First Claw – they're fun to poke with sticks.

Army/faction played 15 years ago, it was Grey Knights. Now I just enjoy reading the books.

Favourite faction Night Lords. They're horrible people, I love them.

Take on the current state of WH40K lore I'm old-school; Gaunt's Ghosts was my main serial when I was most involved with the wider fandom, and I'm nowhere near done exploring the M40 and M30 eras of the lore. One day, I will make the jump to M42, but it won't be today. So I have no takes on the newest lore. Fandom-wise, I'm likewise happy to play in my own corner of the sandbox.

What I do in fandom I write fanfics (slowly). I participate in a handful of annual AO3-based fanwork exchanges, and also post my own ideas (mostly NSFW, mind the tags). FYI, this blog is pro-shipping. I remember when this meant shipping Scully/Mulder in the X-Files, which means I'm too old for all that discourse nonsense. All ships are welcome here (yes, also that one).

Goals for this blog To get a little more involved with the fandom again, hopefully participate in some discussions, post my fics and book recommendations, etc.

Feel free to get in touch if you like!

[whump-it-like-its-hot]

So, lets do this once more and properly.

Hey there! Nice to see you have found your way to my funky little blog here. As mentioned in the header, this is a Whump blog where I'll also ocassionally post some other unrelated stuff, but the main focus will remain on Whump and similar themes.

About me? I'm Pyro, a young adult and my pronouns are He/They. I'm autistic and I have memory issues, so if I don't respond to a tag/ask/dm, or act in a way that's otherwise odd, I can assure you it's not maliciously intended.

Info about what I'll post here, as well as some other important stuff is under the cut!

Mini disclaimer: When I talk about Loki in my tags, I’m talking about my OC Loki, not MCU Loki, just to clear up confusion :)

First off, a couple of ground rules if you want to interact with my blog!

Leave your discourse at the door. This is a hard rule. I'm not apolitical, however I will not take any sides on any conflict on this blog. This applies to fandom stuff, as well as real life happenings and actual politics. There's places to get into that, and this blog is not one of them.

Be civil. I take the freedom to block whoever I need to curate my experience, and that means if you're an ass on mine or someone else's blog, you're getting the boot. I will not explain my reasoning for blocking someone.

On the same note, you're also free to block me for whatever reason. Don't vibe with my posts? Can't stand my blog colors? Don't like me for any other reason? That's cool, lets block and move on.

You're welcome to use my prompts and the tags I leave on other people's post for your own stories, that's why I post them here. Though I'd love if you tagged me in the finished piece, so I can see what you made of the idea!

Please feel free to tag me in tag games and under your stories if you want to! Even if I might not get back to it right away (or even forget it completely), I still appreciate it very much!

If you want something removed from my blog, that's no problem. Just throw me an ask or something and I'll oblige, no questions asked.

This list may be edited at any point in time. I'll note this at the top of the post though.

A couple of my favorite tropes, from the top of my head and in no particular order:

- Concussion/Head injury - A good old fashioned Beatdown - Broken bones - Magic Whump - Major character death - Whumpee dying in Caretakers arms especially - Phobias - Falling (Down the stairs, off a cliff, you name it) - Fainting/Passing out - Hidden injuries along with Injury/Scar reveals - Blood from the mouth/Coughing up blood - Drowning/Falling through Ice - Pinned down by rubble - Whumpee getting impaled on/by something - Hypothermia - Carrying - Gore - Medical stuff - Historical/Fantasy Whump

And here's some tropes you probably won't see here!

- Pet Whump - The BBU - NSFWhump - Lab stuff - Long term captivity - Conditioning/Dehumanization - Paternal Whump (Either as Caretaker or Whumper) - Mouth stuff - Nunhuman Characters (To an extent. Farthest I'll go will be immortality and perhaps a vampire here and there)

I‘ve ditched my tagging system since it was stressing me out, so most reblogs are untagged or only have commentary added to them. I tag common triggers such as vents and mental health stuff, and if you need anything tagged in particular, feel free to tell me! I’ll usually be happy to help out.

I'll also make some introductions for my OCs at this point soon, so stay tuned for that :)

Now, I think that is all for now. My asks and submissions are open, and I usually don't bite, so feel free to hit me up about anything!

Pyro~

[tormie-tormie-chopper]

Hey, I'm Tormie!

You can also call me Tor. Whichever. I'm an artist! I also write.

I intend to post a variety of different things for One Piece -- ship art, general/non-ship art, fluff, memes and shitposts, sfw, nsfw, whump, gore/body horror, blorbo appreciation, and so on -- so hopefully there'll be something here for everyone! I may also post things for other fandoms or for original characters, but I have a separate blog for ocs so I probably won't post too much of that here. I have a sideblog specifically for reblogs @grand-line-tormie and an account for ocs/personal art and writing @tormentum-ab-intra.

Here there be freaks, and here freaks are welcome. Let's be weird and fucked up and into weird and fucked up things together <3

Bigotry, hate speech, and so on are NOT welcome. TERFS are not welcome. I'm not interested in starting or engaging in discourse, so racists, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, zionists, and the like will be blocked expeditiously. Like just be chill and I'll be chill back.

Commissions: open! DM for info or check out my info post here! You can also find my Ko-fi page here.

Look below the cut for askbox info and info on my tagging system!

Some common general tags I'll be using: -#tor draws for anything with my own artwork in it -#tor thinks my yapping tag. may be fandom or unrelated -#tor answers for answered asks -#tor speaks for announcements -I will usually tag fandoms where applicable, characters in the post, ships in the post, and any other relevant aspects

Some common CW tags to look out for or block according to need: -#nsft for explicitly nsfw posts and artwork, or for posts with links to explicitly nsfw fics or artwork (because I expect tumblr won't let me post certain things and I may have to share links to those things instead) -#suggestive for posts and artwork that are risque or mildly nsfw in nature but don't describe or depict anything explicit. somewhat hit or miss whether i actually use this one ngl -#nsfwhump for posts and artwork that are nsfw and depict noncon -#gore for all posts and artwork with excessive amounts of blood or graphic depictions of severe injuries -#cartoon gore for posts and artwork with excessive amounts of blood or depictions of severe injury that are described or drawn in a cartoonish way -#body horror for posts and artwork with body horror, particularly when depicted in intense or grotesque ways. I won't be using this tag for the canon-typical body horror that's often seen in One Piece -- for example, Luffy's rubber powers or Buggy's chop-chop powers -- unless I am specifically talking about or drawing them in ways intended to invoke disgust, discomfort, or horror, with the main focus of the post or image being on the body horror in question. -#blood for posts and artwork with excessive amounts of blood in them. I probably won't use this tag for posts that only have small amounts of blood in them unless the blood is somehow the focus or part of the focus. -Additional tags for relevant triggering subjects will be added when applicable

I will try to make sure my artwork has image descriptions in the alt text. If I forget to add an ID somewhere and you'd like me to add one, please let me know! I'll either edit my original post or add a description in a reblog.

[ardienothesieno]

Hello hi I'm here I was the one who started the war 👋

In an edit to my original post, I added that my vision for this was basically Artfight but with our gay robot blorbos. I think some people saw the word 'war' and just assume that there's a ton of discourse going on. That was never my intent!! As you said, there's been a lack of sunstone content-- and I can only draw so fast! I was summoning the sunstoners cause I enjoy seeing sunstone content.

I get that not everyone enjoys shipping content, which is absolutely fine!! I'm normally not that big of a shipper myself (I was just indoctrinated into the rain world gay robots club). If any of this makes anyone uncomfortable, feel free to block the rain world shipping or sunstone tags.

I think the main reason for the misunderstandings is that my original version of the post wasn't 110% clear that it wasn't actually a war. I've tried to add clarity in edits and reblogs, but I realize that not everyone is going to see those and thus not fully understand my intent behind this. I also had no idea this would blow up as much as it has!! I had originally hoped for a couple dozen notes and maybe one or two people to actually draw something. Now my 'call to arms' is my most noted post, and this entire thing has gone way out of my control.

Let me reiterate this again. I called this a war because I couldn't think of any better terminology. This is not a war. This is intended to be motivation to draw gay robots.

I'm sorry if I've made anyone uncomfortable because of this.

Yall whats happening in the rw shipping community??? Like not necessarily drama but its getting brought up more than usual? Is it because of the war or something

[nonbinarychaoticstupid]

genuine tips for twitter users: - the 250 character limit doesnt exist go insane - reblogs do not function like qrts. don't treat them like they do - block people who mildly annoy you i'm being so serious your experience will be 100% better if you do - REBLOG STUFF!!! no one pays attention to your likes!!!!!!!! 'ohh every genuine advice post has that on it :/' GOOD and i'll say it AGAIN - use the tags!!!!!!! saying 'lrt [commentary on previous post that is just some variation of 'wow']' does nothing for anybody - literally no one can see your follower count and it bears repeating. unless you have like 60k followers no one knows how big you are or if you're just some fever dream - filter tags that mildly irritate you. filter trigger tags. filter fandoms you're not interested in. filter discourse terms. filter blog names. filter everything. 'um i don't like mcr' filter the tag then - don't tag triggers by censoring the actual word that helps no one. and don't start inventing new trigger tag formats because that makes things worse. putting trigger warnings in posts instead of in tags also helps no one. - starting up actual discourse will just make most people annoyed with you - no one else thinks neopronouns are the worst thing to happen to mankind ever that's a you problem - 'art is dying :/' that's because none of you REBLOG ANYTHING so REBLOG ARTISTS!!!!!!! that includes commission ads and fics and gifsets and icon edits!!!!! - literally just assimilate it's all good

[ashlynniis-bracketeers]

Alrighty, have a remade Pinned Post

Decided to go ahead and remake my old pinned post. This should have all the info about me you need lmao. Will probably have some copy-pasted info, this is mostly for formatting, adding extra information, and the like. Also should be easier for me to edit.

I don't use "Carrd" or whatever you people are calling it nowadays. I grew up in the era of “don’t give out personal information dear god wtf are you doing”, so this is basically going to be the only info you’ll know about me, most likely for a long time. You are not obliged to give out your legal information (age, living location, etc.) to self-entitled randos on the internet. The internet honestly shouldn't know anything about you lmao.

Also no real specific DNI, if somebody doesn't like my content then there's no need to bitch at me, and if I block somebody, this is my space first and foremost for me to curate. My blog, my choice as to what I reblog. Closest thing is that I don't trust people who make aggressive dumbass discourse/stupid in-fighting discourse 99% of their identity lmao, people like that could be actually learning about nuances and doing actual activism instead... And I'm going to leave that at that.

Seriously, stop in-fighting, you're just making it easier for jackasses to legislate you out of existence because you're divide-and-conquering/eating yourselves instead of having proper solidarity and respect for people's personal choices/experiences/variance/identity. It's getting extremely annoying. I guarantee that 99% of people outside of the community/microcommunities don't even know about all of these arbitrary distinctions/arguments, let alone care. You're just cannibalizing yourselves while alienating potential allies/potential members of your community. This world isn't black-and-white, stop stressing yourself into grey hairs before the age of 16, what the fuck.

Shipping/fanfiction discourse is stupid. Don't come to me about shipping/fanfiction discourse. None of the terms used in the "greater" discourse mean anything, they're vague, ephemeral, and easy to rewrite. Both "sides" are ridiculous and filled with jackasses and fools, both have serious problems with using abuse survivors as "gotchas" against the other, being racist, queerphobic, xenophobic, and literally every other prejudice under the sky, and not having any discipline, tact, or the ability to mind their own damn business. Both sides need to learn some self-awareness, proper tagging (especially if being posted in a public forum), proper blacklisting, and that 90% of the shit they're fighting about doesn't matter in non-fanfic media spaces. I don't consider myself to be on either "side" because my experience with people who get so wrapped up in it has been overwhelmingly negative and with people on both sides accusing me of being on their opposite side. There's a lot more nuance here. Some people just read things in bad faith, whether it be through ignorance, being deliberately malicious, or the story just being really badly written. It's ridiculous.

If you have no unique icon+description+content when following me, I'm probably going to report you as a bot. I know about this place's bot problem (and the forms the bots can take) and don't really like taking chances on that.

I also do not share donation posts. Those are not my wheelhouse and I can never tell if it's a scam or not.

Related to the above: Guess who turned off Anons? I keep getting anon scam donation posts. I don't know when/if I'll ever turn the Anons back on.

Other than that, if I think you're annoying and/or the like, I block. I've been getting more liberal with my blocking lately.

Name: [REDACTED]. I am not giving out real names, what the fuck? Just call me Brackets, though I still respond to Ashlynnii and sometimes to Frost/Ashes (i.e. my Steam username).

Just try to figure out my pronouns lmao. I don't really give any fucks, this is the internet and again, nobody is entitled to that information. I'm honestly fine with anything that isn't neos/xenos.

Also, Asexual (I think... I've don't really recall ever having sexual attraction to anyone, real-or-fake) and [still-figuring-it-out]romantic. 👍‍

I’m all over the damn place with my fandoms, honestly. That’s for you to figure out. I also feel gender envy for unhinged middle-aged/old men lmao.

I draw and write, though I only post my writings on DeviantArt due to their… strange content. Art tag(s) here are “Brackets Draws” and “Brackets's Art”. For original text posts I use "Brackets Talks", for posting original video game-related stuff that isn't art I use "Brackets Games", if I make a poll I use "Brackets Polls", and if I add something to a post in a reblog (and not just ramble in the tags) I use "Brackets Adds". If I tag something “lmao” it means I’m filing it under “funny”.

...Politics has been heating up more and more lately, so if you don't want to see when I reblog stuff like that, then watch out for the "politics" and "discourse" tags.

Misc. interests include memes, being a furry (just have a fursona, not really a fursuit-er or the like. Fursona’s name is Brackets.) and Transformation content. No, not bloody Transformers, Transformation! They’re different! That’s what my “strange content” that I write about on DA is about, and I also make memes of it on Reddit/YouTube. It’s commonly just called “TF”. If you look in my TF folder on DA… be warned! Weird shit! I post it to Reddit (on a specific subreddit), but I don’t post it on Tumblr! I've seen enough people brigading against TF content exclusively on this site way too much for me to risk drawing in those asses. If you post weirdo horny comments on them you're getting cursed out lmao.

Now to list off other places you can find my content:

DeviantArt - Newgrounds - Reddit - Youtube - Art Fight - Toyhou.se - Neocities (Still huge WIP)

[the-breloominati]

With respect, please don’t send me personal donation asks. I’m not posting them, and I will block you.

This post has links to several subreddits people can post to if they are in need of financial assistance:

Moving this to the top of my pinned so hopefully people will see it before they send me an ask. Apologies if you genuinely need financial assistance, but there are people who try to take advantage of and exploit other’s good faith and I don’t have the energy to scroll through and try to vett every blog that comes my way.

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Somewhere you can donate to help provide relief for the people in Gaza:

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Please take care of yourselves 💕

More mental health and stuff carrds

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tried to clean this up a little since I was already editing it >.>

The info about my blogs and tags is under the cut! (tired of scrolling through this every time I refresh my blog-)

All my sideblogs:

@siaku-fr : my flight rising sideblog. i reblog flight rising art on both, but fr stuff that isn't art gets yeeted over there

@ghasts-scare-me : my minecraft sideblog that I barely use

@searingsalad-liowolvden : my lioden and wolvden sideblog. again, i'll probably reblog art on both, but ld/wd stuff that isn't art gets put over there

@do-breloom-dream-of-fungal-sheep : my dream journal/archive sideblog. putting my dream posts over there in case the search tool gets weird. all of my previous posts have been reblogged with their original tags (for convenience)

@dumb-bastard-juice : an ask blog for my sonas (currently empty, might start working on it once unus annus is over)

How I tag things:

Every time I update this section, I'll make a post about to (hopefully, I can't guarantee you'll see it) let y'all know!

NSFW stuff

the "mild nsfw" tag is gonna be the catch-all for stuff that's like.. not necessarily explicit I guess? but still kinda nsfw-y (trying to figure out how to organize this >.<)

the "nsfw text" tag is for.. mild nsfw text I guess?

the "nsfw" tag will be for stuff that's like.. actually explicit. Probably not gonna use it all that often, but I had that one markiplier post in the queue and it was tagged accordingly.

Please block all of the above tags if you don't want to see that stuff.

Trigger warnings:

blood: tagged "blood tw"

gore: tagged "gore tw"

organs: tagged "organs". things that aren't really gore but contain/talk about organs

decay: tagged only "decay". "gore" didn't really feel like the right tag for some stuff? So I'm adding this one. Pretty self-explanatory I think? Bones and rot probably

animal death: will be tagged both "animal death" and "animal death tw"

body horror: tagged "body horror"

insects: tagged "insects tw"

bugs: tagged "bugs tw"

spiders: tagged "spiders tw"

Please note that these are the things I currently tag for regularly; if there's anything you want/need me to tag (or if i reblogged a post you didn't want to be reblogged), please let me know!

Not trigger warnings, but still important:

horror: things that are either spooky or unsettling; may often also be tagged aongside "creepy"

creepy: usually the more unsettling things

Posts may also be tagged "spooky" or "bad for sleep".

cursed: usually thing that are just cursed; also includes things somewhere between ew and eugh. Be warned that there may be some really eugh stuff in there.

Please feel free to let me know if I should start tagging other kinds of discourse and/or if I should tag them more specifically.

General tags:

life tips: general things that would probably be pretty useful at some point in life (like tutorials or stuff to generally keep in mind)

important life tips: things are probably too important to have to scroll through the "life tips" tag looking for them (usually relating to health and safety and stuff)

very important life tips: usually things relating to what to do in dangerous situations (I think I have a post about what to do if someone's drowning in there somewhere?)

note: all posts tagged important/very important life tips will also be tagged in the more general "life tips" tags above it in this list

art tips: like "life tips" but for art! has tutorials and guides and stuff in it

oh hey look it my art tag: my art tag :o

a fungus plays [insert game here]: my tag for yelling about games that I'm playing! mostly just pokemon rom hacks at the moment I think. Games will be listed as [franchise name] [game name]; for example: # a fungus plays pokemon fool's gold

a fungus watches [insert series here]: the tag where I scream about shows/series I'm watching! Names will usually be shortened to their acronyms or shortened forms; ex: # a fungus watches atla

a fungus reads/rereads [insert written media name here]: where I scream about books and manga I'm reading (probably fanfiction as well at some point)! Will most likely be tagged with the full title of the work.

this is my hole it was made for me: "I'm in this picture and I don't like it" but make it ✨individual✨

crying over spilt time: my personal Unus Annus tag

[volturialice]

Hey! How are you? How did you end up having a blog here? And how did you manage to get so many followers? I mean I'm pretty sure you have hundreds of followers... Anyway, thank you for your time!

I’m good, thanks! and that’s an excellent question! I ask myself the same things every day tbh.

how did I end up having a blog here: in fall 2018, ads for the twilight 10th anniversary showings in theaters prompted me to check whether there was an active twilight fandom on tumblr. “oh, that’s cool,” I thought upon discovering it, “maybe I’ll lurk this a bit.” I had no intention of making my own blog. then I was scavenging the Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale tag on ao3 and came across shannon’s magnum opus and just HAD to make memes about it!! I needed to! and for that I needed a blog! so I made one.

how did I manage to get so many followers: I think a lot of factors went into this. #1 is timing. I showed up right at PEAK renaissance, when this hellsite was flooded with nostalgic people rediscovering twilight. I gained about 500 followers between nov 2018-jan 2019 just by reblogging shitposts/edits and occasionally posting my own observations/takes/whatever—which I think was true for most people posting at that time. everyone was starving for content and following each other like CRAZY.

then in jan/feb/march 2019 a bunch of things happened almost at once:

I tried my hand at making some name edits

I opened up fic prompts

the fandom exploded into a nasty round of Ace Discourse. I was fairly outspoken about being ace myself and (once I had finished blocking a dozen or so people) tried to signal boost as many aroace-positive blogs as I could—with the result that I was signal boosted in turn by some pretty big blogs.

and that’s right when this blog really took off. kind of crazy, because I’m 99% certain I lost followers due to my stance on aroace inclusion—but my count was rising so fast by then that if I did, I didn’t notice. it’s hard to attribute the sudden influx of followers to any one of the three things above, but I think it was kind of a case of the planets aligning so that suddenly I was getting reblogged a lot by tons of different people for a bunch of different reasons. and then, of course, the more followers you have, the more you get reblogged, etc etc, until you just…have a lot of followers.

I also had several shitposts last year get up to 1k+ notes (starting with this one,) which isn’t exactly something you can control but it def made that follower count skyrocket, and by the end of 2019:

started from the bottom now we’re here. actually that’s a lie I’ve since blown way past this but it’s the aesthetic that counts.

but yeah. it’s tough to come up with a 1:1 explanation, but there’s a lot of little stuff you can do to gain followers! it just so happened to be stuff I was doing anyway because it’s fun and I really like interacting with the twilight renaissance community ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. y’all the goat. 

G’s tips for gaining followers:

make sure you’re using tags! this one feels kind of obvious, but has to be stated, since tags are extra important if you don’t already have a large following. tag for ships, characters, actors, individual books/movies, and categories like “#twilight renaissance,” “#twilight edit” “#twilight fanfiction” etc.

shitposts. this fandom is all about the shitposts. basically, leave yourself open to inspiration, and whenever you come across something (text meme, reaction image, netflix screencap, product in a store, etc) that could easily apply to twilight, edit & post it!

interaction. comment on things, send asks off anon, participate in ask games, dm people if you have questions/observations/recs (and even if you don’t!)

rec things yourself! and tag the creators! it’s easy to make rec lists and it makes people SO happy

if you make content of any kind (art, edits, moodboards, fic, etc) taking prompts will hella boost your engagement. (just be careful not to overwork yourself or bite off more than you can chew!)

design posts that are open-ended/interactive. examples include “tag yourself” games, generators, posts like this one. basically anything that’s a conversation, and invites some kind of response!

hosting contests, giveaways, and challenges also gets lots of engagement. @twilight-af‘s recent 15 (extended to 25) Day Challenge is a great example. I hosted this ridiculous contest last spring and it was SO much fun! I absolutely plan to host a similar contest this spring (stay tuned)

read-along/watch-along content is fun and easy to post. examples: see the time I read the graphic novels or the time shannon and I invented a drinking game

if anyone else has suggestions, feel free to add on!