mirasmirages

[mirasmirages]

nice pair of characters who trust each other more than anyone else in the whole entire world it would sure be a shame if one of them betrayed that trust for the sake of trying to keep the other alive. it would sure be a shame to love someone so much you destroy them

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i've had so many conversations with people in fandom/creators' circles who are genuinely afraid to make the stories or art they want because they fear (often with good reason!) that their friends might kick them out of their circles, or worse, launch a public harassment campaign against them.

as someone recovering from this fear-based mindset, i want to affirm:

- friends who use implicit or explicit threats to maintain social control are not your friends

- communities that monitor your social media and ao3 to surveil you for perceived transgressive content are not safe communities

- the vast majority of people are NOT going to hate you if you make the art you want

- if you find yourself in a friend group that makes you feel afraid to speak your mind, it's in your interest to disentangle yourself from that group as quickly as possible

- real, honest disagreements between friends can be solved respectfully without the use of public shaming

- if you're feeling afraid in a community, it's likely that others are feeling afraid too. support your friends who may be struggling to leave an abusive fan or creative community, and let them know you're a safe person to voice doubts and disagreement to.

- if you're feeling like you'll never find a safer community of people, i promise there are others who feel that way too. it may take some time, but you'll find people who treat you and your ideas with respect. a good place to start is the people who make the type of art that you admire but that you're too afraid to make yourself.

ok that's all, take care of each other and be nice 💜

[mirasmirages]

can you take my white ass to funkytown

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guy who gets home from being held hostage by another guy and the first thing he does is google “i think i like men”

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Whumpee being allowed to roam free in Whumpers lair and running into their underlings...

Maybe they take just as much pleasure in hurting whumpee as their master/boss/employer, testing out the limits of what they're allowed to do. It's never as bad as whumper, but whumpee tries their best to hide and stay out of anyones way. They are not safe with anyone.

Or maybe they nervously ignore whumpee, shooting them short glances and not responding to anything whumpee says. They really avoid any kind of interaction, because their boss made it clear that whumpee belongs to them alone, and they are weirdly possessive about it...

Or my personal favorite:

They treat whumpee normally. They eat alongside each other, do some smalltalk and smuggle them some painkillers if it's really bad. But they willfully ignore all of the other wounds and painful twitches whumpee does everytime they move. And they make it clear, with every conversation and action, that their loyalty lies fully with their boss and they will not hesitate even for a heartbeat to follow whumpers orders, no matter what it means for whumpee.

No matter which outcome, whumpee always realizes that in this big lair filled with all kinds of different people, they truly are alone.

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i'm obsessed with characters who are like "i'm a self serving piece of shit who never does anything that doesn't benefit me personally, and if anything goes wrong i'm out of there without a single thought about helping anyone else out of danger" *cut to them repeatedly sacrificing their own best interests to help the ragtag crew of misfits they've collected to help them pull off their criminal activities, just random strangers in need of protection, and small animals*

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whumper who is obsessed with rules and forces whumpee to agree to them, framing it as kind on their part for setting boundaries and limits that should be so easy for whumpee to follow :)

"why don't we write that down, it'll be easier for you to remember :)" "oh dearie, it seems you broke a rule. its your first time though, so i'll be lenient. you can have a little punishment now and - oh, or would you rather a big one later? what about hurting [loved one] instead? no? i didn't think so."

"if i didn't know any better, i'd say you're trying to break a rule right now. no, bending it counts. bending it is worse, actually, because you're trying to trick me :( now, i think that makes is reasonable for me to retaliate, yes?"

dropping the act when they get really angry - "i have given you chance after chance, and what do you do? you break my trust, you break my rules like you didn't agree to them in the first place! you might not be true to your word, but i am."

[mirasmirages]

Those "modern fairy tales where the princess saves herself" types of books not only misrepresent the gender roles in fairy tales (there are tons of stories where girls get to save the day), but they fundamentally misunderstand the entire genre.

Fairy tales aren't about saving yourself.

These aren't epic myths or heroic legends about the great warriors who slay every monster in their path because they're so awesome. Fairy tales are almost always about ordinary, even incompetent, people who get thrown into strange situations where they only succeed because of the help of others.

It's not a gendered thing. The boy who goes off to seek his fortune is usually the dim-witted third son whose older brothers are the strong, smart ones. The third son succeeds because he is kind to the magical helpers who then complete the tasks for him--and the exact same thing happens when a girl is the main character.

The characters in a fairy tale rarely succeed because they embrace their own strength and take their own path. Much more often, they are told step-by-step what to do, and they succeed because they obey--respecting the wisdom of others.

The core virtue of a fairy tale is not pride, but humility. It's not a story about the strong, but those who are weak, small, helpless. The people who can't do it all on their own, but can recognize the worth and wisdom of others.

Turning this story into a "girl power" (or even a "boy power") story warps it into something that is fundamentally the opposite of a fairy tale, and it has nothing to do with the gender of the main character.

[mirasmirages]

my favorite thing about navigating fanfiction is finding a really good one and being all “oh boy this was good, I hope they have more!” and literally every other story they’ve ever written was for like Miami Vice 

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im working on a silly thought right now but: it deeply sucks that advertising is annoying, irresistible, and omnipresent, and we all just have to cope with that constant ongoing sandpaper irritation. meanwhile there's less and less grace for humans that are annoying, which is something that every human is at some point, and some of us are really annoying for most of our lives.

like. everyone has to be beautiful and graceful. everyone has to be sensitive and kind. or else they have to be apologetically disabled: autistic, bipolar, deaf. they have to be so so sorry for inconveniencing you, cutting you off, weirding you out, holding you up, annoying you. they have to take responsibility, they have to listen and learn, they have to make it up to you.

i don't think i want to live in a world where advertisers get to crawl into my eyeballs and earholes as often as they possibly can, but if im abrasive and clueless to someone i better be a card carrying member of the Broken Brain Club or prepared to grovel.

[mirasmirages]

living weapon whumpee—once a myth, that used to scale battlefields, and used to strike fear into their enemies.

Is now sealed away, left to rot in a forgotten cave.

Leader hears about a legendary weapon—-perhaps from Whumper or some other source—-and sets off with team to retrieve it, expecting to uncover an ancient weapon.

Once they find the cave, leader is mortified when they discover a malnourish child wrapped in chains, bearing the scars of the past.

[mirasmirages]

the problem with buying food is after you eat it you have to go buy more food

[mirasmirages]

source

4 Reasons to (Re)Normalize Masking

1. Apathy is violence: resist white supremacy by refusing to contribute to mass infection, disability, and death.

2. Destroy the state's argument that masking is only used by "criminals" to hide their identities.

3. Protect mask wearers from targeting: cops can't single them out if everyone is wearing a mask.

4. Combat the exclusion and erasure of disabled people from public spaces by making them safer.

[mirasmirages]

> read library book

> it's good

Thank you library

[mirasmirages]

embroidery from peacockandpinecones my friends and I have been losing our minds over all morning.

[mirasmirages]

I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but more people should read incomplete/unfinished/in-progress fanfics.

I've noticed this huge trend where creators on tiktok and tumblr who will be explaining how to use Archive Of Our Own to new users and they always say "and make sure to scroll down and click completed only" or how people will go out of their way to mention they only read completed fics 'because they were traumatized when they forgot to check the dates and didn't realize this fic hadn't been updated since 2012'.

The thing is - I think by not engaging with and/or actively avoiding writer's WIPs readers are potentially adding to the aggregate of abandoned works. Now this obviously isn't the case for all abandoned fics, anything from major life events, to loss of interest, to getting busy can be a reason for a fic getting abandoned - but at least on some level I just know that writers are quitting while they're ahead when they aren't garnering any response or feedback because reading WIPs has become unpopular. If you're worried about reading something that hasn't been updated since 2012 then you can use the date updated function to sort out old fics.

Anyways, support your favorite fanfic writers by engaging with their WIPs.