lauraneitor

[lauraneitor]

We need to bring back the athletics body type post

[lauraneitor]

a feel like the new generation of fanfic readers NEED to understand that clicking on a fic (interaction) does nothing. ao3 has no algorithm. your private discord discussions of fic do not reach the authors. if you do not actively engage with writers they will stop posting. this isn’t social media this is community.

[lauraneitor]

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[lauraneitor]

You see, Luzosan works despite the fact that we can all agree that both Zoro and Sanji are definitely a very exclusive with who they're dating. Zoro in the first place isn't the one with the most intrest in dating anyone, then we have Sanji who stopped being girl crazy when it came to getting married with Pudding (even when he didn't want to).

If they were to date each other i assume it would be something very close knit, but when it comes to Luffy it's a whole new story.

Luffy somehow tamed the wild animal that was Zoro, he wouldn't let just anyone be his captain, but it's different with him, they promised to each other that they'd reach their dreams together. Remember the last time Zoro made a promise like that with someone?

Luffy literally went dressed in RED (look up the meaning) to crash Sanji's arranged marriage, and to beat up Big Mom's crew in order to save Sanji princess-peach style. Sanji is a cook with a big respect for food, all for his captain to be the hungriest man in the grand line?

We can say whatever about Zoro and Sanji being gay to each other, but it's very obvious that they're both gayer for Luffy. These two deserve each other because there's no one else in the four blues that'd be ok dating someone so obsessed with their captain without feeling jealous. They understand each other's infatuation with Luffy because they're both DOWN ILL for that autistic pirate boy.

The wings of the king of the pirates? More like the wives of the king of the pirates.

[lauraneitor]

bout to hit my bitch coworker with the 'do you treat everyone like this or only your gay coworkers?' because i know she'll bluescreen about it. and im gonna make sure to do it when no one else is around just like she does to me with her snide bitch-ass comments. i've literally never pulled the gay card before, but i talk about my wife often enough that everyone knows. I've also got a reputation for being very level-headed, straight-forward, and conflict-adverse. No One Will Believe Her.

[lauraneitor]

I saw a post that described the sentiment a very long time ago at this point, but it gives me hope.

I love humans. I love that it is built into our DNA to pattern-recognize faces. We are such social creatures that we look at a tree and find a face, we find a face in everything. We just actively look for others to love and be and celebrate life with. We need the community.

And like! We saw big vicious predator animals (cats and dogs) and went "fluffy! I am gonna keep you" and gave them food and, because they're also social creatures, they were like "yeah, okay ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

We look to the stars for more friends! For adventure, for hope.

Our brain is also so wired for pattern recognition that sometimes, among the white noise, it fills in voices, or music. Not necessarily in a psychosis way, but some people's brains hear silence and just fills it with music! We have such a tenancy for patterns that we just make something out of nothing.

Things are really scary all over the world rn. But sometimes I feel a bit better thinking about how much love still exists in the world. People are not born cruel. We can fix things. We will get better.

[lauraneitor]

[lauraneitor]

im getting really fucking sick of all this “it gets better!” bullshit. im going to have depression for the rest of my life. it’s not going to “””get better””” fuck you

[lauraneitor]

what annoys me about explaining evolution to people who don’t think it’s real is that everyone’s idea of how it works seems to be from this

Whereas the reality is far more like

[lauraneitor]

Speaking as a survivor of child sex abuse: the world would be a lot better if yall spent less time talking about the ways in which pedophiles should be punished and more time supporting survivors and preventing abuse

I get it, punishment can feel cathartic. I’ve certainly spent time imagining all the ways in which my own abuser might be punished. But ultimately, him dying, or being jailed, or publicly shamed, isn’t actually going to help me nor will it stop more kids from getting hurt in the future.

I don’t want more prisoners. I want free therapy with trauma informed counselors. I want better sex education for young children that teaches them about consent and body autonomy. And I want a society in which I can openly discuss my trauma, or at least as openly as yall discuss the evils of pedophiles

[lauraneitor]

btw if you’re fat and your partner doesn’t love you wholeheartedly, if they’re attracted to you “despite” your body, if they avoid touching you, if they look away from certain parts of you, you’re allowed to break up with that person. look at me. you can do better. you are not unloveable and you don’t have to settle i fucking promise.

[lauraneitor]

I'm reading this history book about Victorian Era gay sailors (Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail) and one chapter is about sailors' tattoos, and specifically ones that can be interpreted now, or were understood then, as queer tattoos. A lot of the tattoos described in the book are filthy, absolutely meant to be seen, interpreted, and enjoyed in a sexual context (which i have included under the cut). But there's also some very sweet and romantic ones. The French Victorian criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne found a few themes among the queer criminals he researched:

"Two times the interlaced hands were surmounted by initials. Below 'Friendship Unites Hearts', hands holding a pansy, over and above were initials. Hands holding a dagger with the inscription 'To Life To Death.' Four times there were initials below a flaming heart or a pansy with the word 'Friendship.' Four times there was the name of the 'friend' written out entirely. In one case it was surmounted with a portrait."

And Unruly Desire's author found other sweet ones recorded in the US Navy's Enlistment Rendezvous records of tattoos of enlisting men from the 1800s:

"The only tattoo that appeared on the body of Richard Devine, a 25 year old former barber from Aberdeen, Maryland, was a flower on his right forearm above the unexpected name of 'Jose Peralta.' William Young, from Marine City, Michigan, was more straightforward; on his right forearm appeared the declaration: 'I love Wilkerson J. Perry.'"

and now onto the debauchery:

"Perhaps the most overtly homosexual tattoo of any recruit listed in the [US Naval Enlistment] Rendezvous records could be found on Charles D. Moore, a 23 year old former bricklayer from Indiana. Moore had the words "Ticket Office" tattooed on his lower back, with a drawing of a downward pointing arrow "directly above anus." The [Tattooing Among] Prostitutes and Perverts article describes a similar decoration, an American sailor had a tattooed arrow on his back, along the spine, pointing to the anus and an accompanying inscription that said "For Men Only." Another man [...] had on his buttocks two inscriptions: "Open All Night" and "Pay as You Enter."

It should be noted that despite the provocative and explicit advertisement for his proclivities that his "Ticket Office" tattoo presented to the recruiting officers, Charles D. Moore was welcomed into the United States Navy on 29 of December 1864." - Unruly Desires

The criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne also found queer tattoos on penises, including quite a few of boots, which the men told him were related to the French phrase "Je vais te mettre ma botte au..." (basically, 'I'm going to put my boot up your ass and fuck you with it.")

[lauraneitor]

The thing about gay sailors in the Victorian era is that England and America had totally different takes on it. In the british navy they could, and did, literally kill men for having consensual relationships with other men. But in the US navy, even tho John Adams literally copied England's naval regulations when making America's version, he chose to leave out every proscription against sodomy. And no one knows why!!! England was like hmm yes the death penalty and America was like i dont really see how thats my business. And like gay American sailors could still be charged with things like "uncleanliness" or "indecency" (charges that were vague enough to cover a lot of different things) but bc it wasnt specifically forbidden in the regulations "the commanding officers [were given] wide discretion to prosecute, punish, or ignore."*

And by and large US officers seem to have ignored it. We literally have the records of every flogging (the most extreme form of punishment allowed during these specific years) onboard a naval vessel for the years of 1846-1848 and almost all of the cases that involved homosexual activity "unambiguously refer to male/male homosexual activity involving attempted assaults on children, not consensual couplings between adults."* There are also multiple recorded instances throughout the Victorian Era of an American sailor coming forward with a charge of sexual assault and pulling in other sailors or even officers as witnesses who tell their captain yeah i totally saw them and didn't say anything until this sailor told me it was nonconsensual. There are even records recorded by naval recruitment officers of men with extremely explicit gay tattoos being allowed to join the navy. Why did the US navy not care enough to even include it in the regulations while the British navy literally hanged men for it??? Were we so hard up for sailors that John Adams was like bitch we need every gay sailor we can get????

And weirdly enough this was true on American Whaling ships too! In the recorded cases where homosexual activity led to sailors being disciplined (in some cases punishment so mild as just being dropped off their ship at the next port) it was usually in situations where rape was involved and/or there was a high degree of ship disruption related to it (guys getting into a public knife fight for example). Idk I just think thats so interesting especially when America and England were so similar to be so different in this particular area is fascinating

*quotes from Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail by William Benemann

[lauraneitor]

[lauraneitor]

not to be a bitch but we gotta stop giving disney attention, end stop. they think they can do LESS than bare minimum (not even remaining faithful to original material) and make money and they CAN. they’re selling nostalgia and infusing it w right wing propaganda and you’re still giving them time and money

[lauraneitor]

The children's show villain is a figure who sadly is not seen outside the children's show. There are few stock characters who as succinctly declare, from sheer stage presence, "the world is unloveable and it is painful to live here; that which delights mankind is like ash on my tongue" without being too fucking whiny about it.

[lauraneitor]

There’s this guy in town who owns this little house, and a while back he rescued a street dog that was going to get put down. Turned out she was pregnant.

Problem is, he has mental health & drug issues and couldn’t afford to get them all spayed & neutered, so now there are 6 grown bitches with 15 puppies total, and they’ve dug under his fence in multiple places but he can’t afford to fix it so they go roaming all around town. (When I say can’t afford it, I mean his house is currently running on a generator because he can’t afford his electric bill.) He’s also a day laborer so he cannot take multiple full days off work to take them to the vet an hour away. He’s in a really rough spot.

He’s not a bad person. He’s just overwhelmed.

And this little conservative town with 6 churches for 300 people, have they tried to help their neighbor? Have they adopted the puppies he’s been trying to give away? Have they offered resources?

NOPE! All they wanna do is talk shit about him and complain about the dogs but never lift a finger of their own. And they come to his house to yell at him and cuss him out about the dogs, which does not exactly engender in him a cooperative attitude, as you might imagine.

So after a while of this going on, my mom gets fed up with all the NIMBY bullshit and starts talking to the guy, because she’s done animal rescue for 20-odd years and has Connections. He’s resistant at first, but when he realizes she’s not being an asshole to him on account of his addiction or the dogs, he decides to let her help.

She gets to work organizing and networking. Finds a non-profit that will cover vaccinations, spay/neuter, and flea treatments for all the dogs. Talks the next-door neighbor into paying for materials to fix the fence, since this guy can do the work of it himself. Gets him in touch with another non-profit that will adopt out the adult dogs.

Less than 2 weeks after she decided to do something, all puppies have been to the vet, 10 puppies and 4 adult dogs have been adopted out, and the second non-profit is coming by next week to pick up the remaining 7 dogs to ship them out for adoption.

I’ve learned a lot of things from my mom—some good, some bad—but I think the most important positive message she lives as an example of is this: sometimes, when something needs done and no one else is willing, you gotta stand up and say “I’ll do it.”