queerofthedagger

[queerofthedagger]

i feel like people forget that sometimes characters in fic are written like that because it's a reflection of real life.

people have sex without setting boundaries. people have unprotected sex without talking about their sexual histories or producing recent sti tests. people play with kink without discussing it ahead of time or establishing a safeword. they have anal without 'enough' prep or lube—they may even prefer it like that.

and none of this is really a fantasy. it's all pretty normal. you can feel that it's inappropriately normalised, and you'd probably be right! but it is normalised: one study found that 58% of female undergraduate students on the campus studied had been choked during sex. 20% of those students said that they'd never been asked if it was ok; another 30% said they'd only sometimes been asked if they consented. fully half! (non-paywalled journal article on choking during sex here, including these numbers.) despite a rise in stis of all sorts, condom use is declining. (pdf link to the full text of this study about declining condom use in the us; aidsmap article about an australian study with similar results.)

even when people do talk about things—sex or anything else—they communicate imperfectly. 'yeah, but don't go too far' is consenting and setting a boundary, and also relying that the person you're talking to has the same metric for 'too far' that you do. for some people, 'the trash needs to go out' is a neutral, factual observation; for others, it's a request that the person they're speaking to take out the trash.

even when people understand each other perfectly, people react unpredictably to things sometimes! we behave irrationally! people laugh uncontrollably at funerals, or get angry at the straw that broke their back rather than the enormous load they were already carrying. they get scared and lash out at people trying to help them. when hurt, most people do not instinctively reach for therapy-approved grounding exercises and 'i feel' statements.

pretty much any bad choice that characters could conceivably make is a choice that people make in real life, on purpose, all the time. people do things that can have catastrophic, life-changing effects because it felt like a good idea at the time, or they're leaning into the vibe, or they just didn't think about it all that much, or an infinite number of other reasons.

fiction isn't intended as a guide on the best, safest, and most responsible ways to live your life, and fanfic isn't any different. it's not a narrative flaw to let characters do things that are messy or harmful or downright stupid—it's a reflection of what people are actually like, and not something that authors should feel they have to apologise for.

[queerofthedagger]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

[queerofthedagger]

WIP Train

tagged by @babyseraphim and @bitterdesert thank you both so much! 😭❤️

Rules: Tagger gives a word, then for each letter of that word you share a sentence/excerpt from your WIPs that starts with that letter.

my words were: BOOK & MAGIC, i opted to skip the second O in book just to save some space since i had two words. these are from various dead boy wips i have in the works 🫡

B - But Edwin learned years ago there was nothing to be done when it came to Thomas’ scantily clad ways, especially when it was a Friday night and he likely wouldn’t be seeing him again until Sunday evening.

O -  “Oh shit, like the Charles?”

K - Kids in the neighbourhood were told he got into a fight with some other kid, excuses were made, lies were said.

M - Maybe he would have asked Charles about his past, maybe Charles could have owned up to his lack of experience in a way that didn’t make him want to bury his head in the ground like an ostrich. Maybe Charles would have told him that it feels good—or it’s supposed to. Maybe he would have told Edwin to go wank one out and see how he feels after that.

A - At the end of it, there was a feeling of slamming back into his body at the sight of Edwin’s crumpling face; the both of them shocked, coming up for air.

G - Getting hit sucks, yeah, but a smack on the hand with a ruler is kind of nothing compared to your own father’s bloody knuckles coming at your face.

I - In fact, Edwin probably thought many things that were inappropriate to feel for a coworker when it came to Charles.

C - Charles is breathing very hard, like he’s reached the end of a race. “I would have—”

zero pressure tags for @queerofthedagger @insane-ohwhyfandoms @wolfiery @e-payne @tumblerislovetumblerislife your word is NORTH!

[queerofthedagger]

Scribbles & Drabbles writers wanted!

We can now confidently say that, with over 200 arts in the galleries, we have something for everyone.

Let's go through the main arguments in favour of a sign-up again, shall we?

You only have to write 100 words per claim.

You can claim as many arts as you can write 100 words for.

Your drabble doesn't have to be narrative prose...or anywhere near finished (the real treat is the friendships made along the way).

You can come back to your fics later and continue.

Every art can be claimed thrice, so you don't have to lose out on your fave.

We have a discord where you can exchange thoughts, puns, and cursed ideas with the artists and your fellow writers.

The arts are really cool...and so are the artists. (But what if it's all those weird, flammable, stabby Elves from that Frankensteined book? It's not, we promise. We have LOTR, we have Hobbit, we have less-known books, we have very open prompts.)

S&D has a long-ish timeline, you'll have time to completely lose your mind and be enabled encouraged to write much more than you'd planned to write.

There is no bar to reach other than your own enjoyment (while respecting MH and DNW of artists). You don't have to speak to the artist. You don't have to speak to us. Just write, post, disappear again if that's your desire.

We have a full buffet of funny, heartbreaking, and/or ludicrous prompts. From deep-felt gen to questionable explicit, we have all your heart could desire...

You can sign up and not claim, so you might just want to do this to be safe and stave off the FOMO.

All in all, Scribbles and Drabbles is a laid-back, low-pressure, high-fun event. If you want to spend the summer holidays with friends, sipping ice-cold drinks and talking about blorbos leisurely...

✨Join us!✨

All pertinent information can be found @fall-for-tolkien. (Serious post with dates and infos ➜here)

Also, the more the merrier! Bring a friend! Bring your sibling, your neighbour, a stranger on the street! Everyone is welcome. Come as you are...and end up staying because of the awesome people you'll meet!

ALSO ALSO: if you've signed up as an artist...you can still sign up as an author too. Just go back to the form and sign up! Many have done it, you wouldn't be alone...

🙆🏻‍♀️🎣🎣🎣

[queerofthedagger]

Inktober 2019 11.) Snow

Fingolfin getting past the snowy Helcaraxe.

Inktober 2019 Arts -old to new | new to old- Inktober 2018 Arts -old to new | new to old-

[queerofthedagger]

Loki and Thor by noonrema

(permission to upload was given by the artist)

[queerofthedagger]

— A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day... this day we fight.

[queerofthedagger]

Black holes love light so much they devour all of it

[queerofthedagger]

Louise Glück, from “Nest”, Poems 1962 - 2012

[queerofthedagger]

“Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society. Also, its inhabitants are no longer “obedience-subjects” but “achievement-subjects.” They are entrepreneurs of themselves.”

— Byung-chul Han, The Burnout Society

[queerofthedagger]

social contract is all fucked now, nobody wears ear buds on the train anymore and almost nobody will assassinate a politician for the greater good

[queerofthedagger]

Scribbles & Drabbles writers wanted!

We can now confidently say that, with over 200 arts in the galleries, we have something for everyone.

Let's go through the main arguments in favour of a sign-up again, shall we?

You only have to write 100 words per claim.

You can claim as many arts as you can write 100 words for.

Your drabble doesn't have to be narrative prose...or anywhere near finished (the real treat is the friendships made along the way).

You can come back to your fics later and continue.

Every art can be claimed thrice, so you don't have to lose out on your fave.

We have a discord where you can exchange thoughts, puns, and cursed ideas with the artists and your fellow writers.

The arts are really cool...and so are the artists. (But what if it's all those weird, flammable, stabby Elves from that Frankensteined book? It's not, we promise. We have LOTR, we have Hobbit, we have less-known books, we have very open prompts.)

S&D has a long-ish timeline, you'll have time to completely lose your mind and be enabled encouraged to write much more than you'd planned to write.

There is no bar to reach other than your own enjoyment (while respecting MH and DNW of artists). You don't have to speak to the artist. You don't have to speak to us. Just write, post, disappear again if that's your desire.

We have a full buffet of funny, heartbreaking, and/or ludicrous prompts. From deep-felt gen to questionable explicit, we have all your heart could desire...

You can sign up and not claim, so you might just want to do this to be safe and stave off the FOMO.

All in all, Scribbles and Drabbles is a laid-back, low-pressure, high-fun event. If you want to spend the summer holidays with friends, sipping ice-cold drinks and talking about blorbos leisurely...

✨Join us!✨

All pertinent information can be found @fall-for-tolkien. (Serious post with dates and infos ➜here)

Also, the more the merrier! Bring a friend! Bring your sibling, your neighbour, a stranger on the street! Everyone is welcome. Come as you are...and end up staying because of the awesome people you'll meet!

ALSO ALSO: if you've signed up as an artist...you can still sign up as an author too. Just go back to the form and sign up! Many have done it, you wouldn't be alone...

🙆🏻‍♀️🎣🎣🎣

[queerofthedagger]

Didn’t Gwindor also charge first at the Nírnaeth Arnoediad after they tortured his brother to death in front of the armies, which prompted Fingon to have the army charge so he wouldn’t be going in alone and thus played a huge role in the Union of Maedhros turning into the Battle of Unnumbered Tears? Morgoth played him like a fiddle and he made the whole Free Peoples of Middle-earth get annihilated

Indeed he did :)

[queerofthedagger]

Ashtray from Mona’s 440 Club, circa 1940s.

[queerofthedagger]

advocating for scrivener is all very well, but i use android and it doesn't have an app - so either i use gdocs and potentially lose my stuff/have it scrapped for ai, or i switch to ellipsus with the potential of being scammed in the future ):

I do use android too, but I may not be the best one for advice here because I don't write overly much on my phone, tbh. That said, my simple notes app lets me convert my individual notes into, like, 10 different file formats that I can then just transfer to my laptop and copy/paste into scrivener*. alternatively, if you use libre office, you can just initially convert it into the appropriate file (doxc? I think? don't quote me on that). That does admittedly take a minute longer than having something that syncs between devices, which is genuinely more inconvenient, but I'm sure it's not even the only way. Hell, more often than not I just type my stuff into a message in my private Discord and then copy it over.

Which, again, if you do most of your writing on your phone, I get that's inconvenient and not a solution! And like, also again, I'm not telling people not to ever use ellipsus or whatever. I'm just saying, maybe back up your things elsewhere (locally, preferably, once again pointing at libre office), be prepared that this might not be a permanently great solution, and maybe stay a little critical of what they claim to be doing. Maybe I'm a grouch who's bitter and pessimistic and should trust more easily and it'll all be fine! who knows!!

*sidenote on scrivener: I do think this makes only sense as a purchase if you do write mainly on desktop, even if you do have an iPhone. I'm not sure on the apple interface, but the level of organisation and drafting seems, to me, to lend itself better to a mainly-desktop-setup.

[queerofthedagger]

I'm usually and in a canonical-reading-context way a very 'the eagles came because it was fingon specifically who asked' kind of truther, but recently I've been thinking—what if it wasn't. what if it was for maedhros. what if maedhros was in fact beloved by manwë specifically, what if manwë sent them for him, finally having a chance to do so, with fingon there. what if it did not change anything, and even with that olive branch, with this sign of forgiveness even after maedhros took manwë's name in vain upon the oath, what after all of this, maedhros still descends on his downward spiral, on and on, """"wasting"""" it all. like, as one possible interpretation, as one thing that would actually somewhat parallel him to celegorm (which I do have a whole meta post on its own for but ain't nobody got time for that) that is actually sooo compelling to me, good fucking god

[queerofthedagger]

Just a note on Ellipsus - They have basically said eventually, they'll be charging people so that is a concern there. Realistically, the Google Drive in question likely got flagged because a spreadsheet of movie titles looks like bootlegging. Is it dumb? Yep. But they are unlikely to be monitoring every word doc.

[context]

Yeah I agree that the GDocs thing is probably not as imminently dire as people make it out to be, but people should still stop using GDocs, honestly. And in comparison, ellipsus is probably less bad, but "we'll implement Some Kind Of Subscription Model Without Giving You Any Further Info On How That'll Look" is also not remotely a sufficient reply to the very valid question of how they finance themselves.

Like, just to repeat this outside of my tags: if you don't know how a service sustains itself, you are, 9.9999 times out of 10, the goddamn product. Ellipsus has a more-or-less shady funding sponsor that funds startups (https://www.speedinvest.com/portfolio/ellipsus) which already means their "independently run" claim is shaky, at best. It also means, said sponsor must expect profit at some point, at least—or at least that is what I'd assume, considering the lack of other information. I don't feel like I should have to go down a research rabbit hole to figure this very simple question out either. Ellipsus isn't upfront about how it's financing itself now, you have to actually go google this to find it. It isn't upfront about its future financing plans, beyond said "oh there will be a paid tier eventually." How that'll look, what they'll do if that doesn't pay off their costs, if and what it does with your data? Nothing about it in the FAQ, certainly. Only that it doesn't "want to steal your content." Trustworthy, truly.

I don't mean to drag a, most likely—I am, for the record, not accusing them of being a scam or anything—well-intentioned project. But call me a pessimist or whatever, but a company that markets this fucking aggressively to fandom and queer people needs to do better. These are not things I should have to dig out and still find no answer to. This should be information transparently available when asking writers to store their drafts on their clout platform and make it their writing software/tool. This isn't rocket science either. I would not trust them with any of my stuff further than I can throw it, which isn't any distance at all. You get the idea. It's probably fine (read: better than GDocs) as an additional thing if you want to share drafts or whatever. Anything beyond that, I am actually begging you, use libre office, scrivener, or other more transparent services. At the very LEAST for regular backups.

(And, again, at the end of the day it's probably still better than GDocs, but let's be real, that's a low fucking bar to begin with).