#indie discourse

[owlpero]

free will is all about headcanoning your faves as autistic

[critical-dxrling]

I love not pitting indie animation shows against each other and instead embracing all of them. In the midst of ai slop, corporations always choosing live action/CG over full animation, and the rise in conservatism, we have all these shows that just embrace animation (and usually queerness too). I love TADC, helluva boss, hazbin, lackadaisy, gaslight district, murder drones, all of them, just for what they represent. Animation is not dead and it never will be.

[malcolmschmitz]

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

[bump-inthe-night]

Although I don't ship JimCurly I do understand why people do: it's because of how fucked up it is. Curly is an enabler who believes there's good in Jimmy and keeps trying to push him in the right direction. He keeps putting his hand out for him, despite him never improving as a person. Curly felt like it was his responsibility to help Jimmy and chose to be blind to his behavior.

Jimmy leeches off Curly, despising and envying him while also needing him to survive. He wants to ruin Curly's life but still needs him to stay around in some form. Jimmy has become so dependent on Curly that being around him brings him a twisted form of comfort despite his hatred for him.

Jimmy and Curly have an unhealthy but interesting relationship, and I can understand why people would want to romantically explore it.

[theoddest1]

Hey guys, check out this thread on twitter! Has all the vital info and everything. Also has some people share even more info of Viv being a fucking ass

Like this, for example. Here, we have Viv's sister having to speak for her to talk with Starvader, someone Viv quite literally fucked over....Vuv refused to speak to her herself in dms and refused to properly apologize.

[barelyanartblog]

Miriel Serinde and Indith the Fair

[ungraceds]

*/ 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 for m / nb .

"   if   you   want   to   make   her   jealous   ,   then   sitting   over   here   and   pouting   isn't   going   to   do   shit   .   "

[crownedwithstars]

Anyone who has followed me for some time knows that I like to complain about the treatment of women in fiction, and particularly in headcanons and fanon that treats a female character in a more venomous - and dare I say it, misogynistic - way than canon ever did. There are multiple instances of this in the Silm, but I think Indis is one of the female characters who gets done dirty most often.

The funny thing is, you see it often disguised as "giving her nuance", or as criticism. But when you look at what is presented as said nuance or criticism, and then consider what Tolkien actually wrote about Indis, too often these things have little to nothing to do with one another. In fact, "nuance" appears to mean making the female character more responsible for a male character's bad actions than she actually is.

I don't mean to say that you can't dislike Indis or that it's inherently misogynistic to do so. But it's good to realise the existence of internalised misogyny and how that impacts the way you expect a woman to behave - and if you're criticising her chiefly because her interests and actions are in conflict with those of a male character, it may be useful to examine that criticism more closely.

Some of the things I've seen Indis accused of are: she is creepily obsessed with Finwë (as if unrequited feelings for someone unavailable aren't a common enough phenomenon), her motive is (improper) sexual interest in him which may in fact be predatory, she bears more responsibility for Finwë's actions than he himself does, she actively schemes to make sure Míriel will stay dead so that she can have her man (even though she doesn't get involved with Finwë until after Míriel has declared her desire to remain dead and the Valar have given permission to Finwë to remarry), she may have used some magical means to enchant Finwë, she hates her step-son and is an abusive step-mother to him, and actually she's so terrible that Fëanor's downspiral is more her fault than the literal Satan figure's (who is in text explicitly stated to be responsible for the fact). Fëanor is also presented in the terms of modern understanding of mental health as if these could possibly apply (and as if we had enough information to diagnose him), and his issues are in large part designated to Indis and her actions.

Tolkien didn't really write that much about Indis - certainly not enough for most of the said criticism of her to be more than conjecture. What little he does say about her paints a picture of a person of sweet and joyous temperament who's not embittered in a situation that could have made her deeply unhappy. You can argue that she's selfish or at least inconsiderate of Fëanor - nevermind the fact that Finwë is bent on remarrying and would probably have done it with or without her - but the other way to see the situation is that she thinks she's doing a good thing for them both, helping a man move on and giving a motherless child a new caregiver. Obviously, Fëanor does not want that (although it would explain a lot about their relationship in a way that does align with canon without making one or both of them a bad person: Indis hopes to be a mother to him in a genuinely well-intentioned way, but he feels she's trying to replace his birth mother, and resents her because she's not Míriel). But nothing in the situation indicates that Indis herself has bad intentions, and it's not her or his fault that it doesn't work out. Sometimes it's just not anybody's fault. We don't even know what Fëanor's first reaction is upon learning that Finwë means to remarry: we only know that he does not love Indis or her children and that he moves out of his father's household while still young. It doesn't imply the degree of resentment applied to this situation by fandom.

The idea of Indis wanting to comfort both father and son is also conjecture of course, but it's no less so than any of the ideas listed above where she's presented as an unsympathetic, wanton schemer, and it certainly is no less plausible. Indis is a rather blatant example of how in too much media, women are allowed only two roles: either she's Madonna, or she's a whore, and this is determined by a male perspective. Indis clearly falls into the latter category as a woman whose chastity, obedience and willingness to self-sacrifice do not bend for the male favourite.

If you judge Indis, at least judge her fairly.

[luckthebard]

CritRole putting out a green version of the large Dice Bag of Hoarding has reminded me of one of the most embarrassing moments in CR/TTRPG twitter history, when CR first launched the bag back in 2019 and it started a Discourse about CR’s shop destroying the livelihood of all small creators in the tabletop space. If you don’t remember this, I WISH I were joking.

[edennill-archived]

...you know you can like Indis and think her stepson hating his siblings just for the circumstances of their birth was a jerk move and think Indis & Finwë & Míriel didn't handle things well and sympathise with Fëanor's position...

[wowitsverycool]

damn i thought about how pro-copyright people on the internet are getting and got really mad again

[petrenocka]

Not to doomer too much, but unless some tax police gets the Unity CEO Twit-Muskrat style, the policy changes will probably go into effect despite any backlash or harm to company value. The CEO in qestion was selling Unity stock the whole year, so it seems pretty clear cut to me that this is some king of scheme and sinking the company is the point.

The good news is that this is most certainly insider trading, market manipulation or some other flavor of illegal. The criminal being a CEO and therefore rich makes it a toss-up weather laws apply to him or not, but making a huge stink (making this situation a mainstream topic) will probably tip the scales in the right direction.

There's hope is what I'm saying, and being mad online is helpful for once.

[bump-inthe-night]

Bullies are pissed off at Wrong_Organ because they’re being reprimanded for their behavior instead of rewarded. They expected the Mouthwashing developers to side with them and pat them on the back for harassing people and making the fandom toxic.

Imagine being an asshole who’s so far up your own ass that you believe the developers are “problematic” for being against you and others harassment.

[adam-sadmon]

I've found it: Videogame Journalism³

[starryjkoo]

that 1billion project is such a poor idea and the way that it’s being run feels so sinister to me sometimes…

the fact that they (armys) started it after like crazy got 1B...

Oh, absolutely. They couldn’t even let 24 hours pass after LC hit 1billion before they started on this project, like they were in a hurry to co-opt the energy for LC and have it distributed to the other members. And I think that’s because there’s a good section of ARMYs who genuinely can’t comprehend the fact that Jimin has a really large solo fanbase (I don’t even mean just solos, just anyone who casually listens to his music). I’m not sure why they thought the energy for LC would suddenly transfer to this 1billion project when overall ARMYs have just been losing energy as time goes on in CH2.

They could have started this project anytime during CH2 or after Seven hit 1billion but they literally waited until the day that LC hit that achievement because imo it feels like so many of them use Jimin and his achievements as the goal-post for the entire group.

It’s like, why are they choosing to update that 1billion projection chart suddenly during Jimin’s comeback, knowing how the quotes/comments would just be full of people being vile. IIRC they did this during SGMB too, where they literally started pushing the 1billion project hard after it had been quiet for a few weeks. They even did it during SGMB’s 1st tracking week. I understand pushing some SGMB x 1billion goal focused playlists, but why entirely try to divert the attention from a NEW song if you’re actually OT7?

Like I said, they suddenly see a lot of energy on the timeline because Jimin is releasing music and they try to co-opt it to get people to push for other members too. And I understand to a point because they just think that this is the fandom being energized, let’s take advantage of it to boost the members that need a push, but… this is solo era. And the excitement and energy for Jimin’s music is because… people are excited for Jimin’s music. There’s just something off to me about trying to use the hype for Jimin, created by Jimin (because of his consistency with releasing music that resonates with the fandom and having engaging performances) and using it for other members.

Especially when doing so has led to so much nasty discourse being AIMED at Jimin, as if all the western stans and kpop stans and akgaes and shippers going after him nonstop every day wasn't already enough. And that’s why I side-eye the main people doing this, because they should know that by pushing this project in the way that they are, it just brings hatred towards two members specifically, and in particular Jimin when it’s during his comeback. Is it really worth it, instead of just setting more manageable goals for HL and using positivity and small improvements over time to encourage ARMYs instead? Isn’t that more practical to begin with?

Mind you, I know the reason that this is being pushed so hard by some ARMYs in particular is because they want the BTS members to get the achievement of “all members of a group with one solo song reaching 1billion” before the BP members do, and that’s just… so dumb imo.

Anyways sorry this got away from me, this 1billion thing is just really driving me up a wall lately for a lot of different reasons. And I want to specify I'm talking about some of the organizers and main people behind this project and not ARMYs at large (and ANOTHER disclaimer I don't think everyone organizing/pushing this project has bad intentions).

And ofc I wish we could do better for RL, but I feel like there are SO MANY different projects we could be doing instead of whatever this is, which imo is just so counterproductive and just brings hate towards Jikook, and especially Jimin considering they keep doing this during his comebacks.

[ungraceds]

*/ 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 for f / m / nb .

" you really expect me to believe you when all you've done is lie to me ? "