#Also I think I've mentioned in some tags before but imo it's clear that the Lancastrians stood a monumentally better chance at

[wonder-worker]

how do you think the Lancasters stood the best chance at winning the war?

Imo, if they'd won at Mortimer's Cross or Towton, the Yorkists would be finished.

A lot of the WotR depended on military victories, tbh. We tend to get distracted by fancy discussions like "Who had the best claim?"* or Propaganda Roulette 101, but the fact remains that it was ultimately military victories that sealed the deal and got rid of opposition**. Everything else was pretty wrapping on top of the already-won or to-be-won prize.

*The most useless debate of all **The exception was Richard III's usurpation but that was a fairly unconventional and entirely unexpected usurpation, and in any case it was a military defeat that ended his reign.

[freckliedan]

please forgive me for being wildly late to this party but how did we become so sure there will be a hard launch.. at all? all I know is they joked about soft launching the gay before really coming out so I thought the coming out videos were the proper launch. how does that translate to hard launch meaning confirming they're a couple?? 😅thanks

no sorries! i have a few points i'm going to hit in replying to you and i'm going to number them for convenience's sake.

1: imo, use of soft/hard launch to describe both them coming out as individuals and as a couple is just bc it's a common phrase

you're right that they've only ever talked about hard launch/soft launch in terms of their coming out videos! but it's clear that those did not function as a relationship hard launch, because there's still loads of people assuming they're not together. so coming out as a couple would have to be a separate event if it happens, which is why people also discuss it in terms of hard/soft launch .

as far as i know hard and soft launch get used often to describe people announcing they're together—someone might soft launch their partner on social media by including glimpses of them in insta stories for a while before explicitly saying they're with someone. explicitly saying it would be a grid post where the nature of their relationship is mentioned in the caption.

2: not everyone is certain there's going to be a hard launch!

a lot of people think they will maintain their privacy and commitment to the ambiguity bit. and they might! it's clear they're having fun with it, & i forever admire queer people who say "none of your business" & stick with that.

3: i personally do think they will hard launch for a number of reasons, but also just enjoy playing in the space of speculation.

reasons i believe in a hard launch:

they've been engaging in the same pattern of behavior re: escalating openness and queerness as they did in 2018, and a relationship hard launch is the only thing that they could be coming out about jointly. i talk about this at length here. part of the repeating pattern is the build up to tour, but that was guessed separately based on an entirely separate pattern we collectively recognized.

i am mostly serious about thinking they want to get married, though do play in that space sometimes just because it's fun to do so. marriage is public record, so necessitates a hard launch. my engagement theory tag is here, i answered some asks on it earlier this year, but i'm not confident that everything i've said recently about a hard launch/engagement can be found there & i do not think i've comprehensively written about it post dapg return.

i was actually starting to shift into thinking it was less likely before @pseudophan acknowledged it as probable in late april, but nora is never wrong and i don't think they'd be joining marriage hill for fun. this deserves its own bullet point.

i have an insanely good track record of being right about dan and phil. i am often wrong if i try guessing timing or the details of something, but have never been wrong about the big picture. this is big picture. i'm trusting my gut on this.

you can check my jam thoughts & den thoughts tags for more of my theorizing, if you'd like. i am a thorough tagger and also collect things in a number of tags, including meta, analysis, & history.

[vashti-lives]

So like, I have a lot of complicated feelings about the whole discourse around comments and how people comment so much less than they used to but one thing I think people my age have forgotten and younger people have no idea about is that in the era of LJ and the height of ff.net there were A LOT more negative comments than there are today, at least as far as I can see.

For one thing, in the mid 2000s really fucking mean negative comments were so common there was a term for them "flames" and people would regularly mention them in the authors notes of their fics. "No flames or I will delete this story" "flames will be used to roast marshmallows and which Inuyasha and I will eat while laughing at you" "this story contains SLASH! that means boykissing!!! DON'T LIKE DON'T READ! NO FLAMES!!!!!!" etc. You get the picture. It was a different time don't judge. This happened more on ff.net than it did on LJ but it definitely also still happened on LJ.

If you've ever looked into the whole Ms. Scribe thing and puzzled over why anyone believed her, this is why. She was making shit up for fame and attention but lots of authors experienced similar harassment that was actually real. I know people like to be like ~in my day people knew how to use the back button~ but let's be real. Some people weren't using the back button they were going into the comment section to be homophobic and explain all about how you'd burn in hell one day.

I'm not saying nobody gets mean comments anymore but the fact that we don't have a special word for it now and people aren't constantly talking about it in their author notes strongly suggests it's less of an issue.

Even aside from that in 2024 we have commenting etiquette that just, didn't exist in 2004. Its commonly understood now that offering unasked for critique is bad but like, that didn't come out of nowhere. "Are people allowed to send critique to the author of any fic they read?" was an absolutely HUGE fandom fight that got hashed out again and again for years before finally settling on, "mmm let's not." In 2004 this was not a settled debate and imo leaving unasked for critique was much more common, and in fact people who were coming from closed forums and things like yahoo groups felt it was *good* etiquette to always leave critique because that's how it was done in their much smaller communities, which were often more focused on improving specific skills.

If it is true that people leave fewer comments now* we might be experiencing the reality that you can't have your cake and eat it too. The more rules we have about what kind of comments you can and can't make the more people at the fringes are going to decide its safer to just not comment because what if they do the wrong thing and make someone mad? Several years ago my dash was just awash with artists begging people to reblog their art and also awash with artists complaining about the tags people left on the art they were reblogging, it was extremely clear to me that this was a choose one situation. EITHER your art gets reblogged a lot and sometimes people say dumb shit or you shield yourself from bad tags and get a lot fewer reblogs.

There are a number of posts going around right now about how don't you know authors can SEE the comments you leave on bookmarks!! And I've often thought that the end result of this campaign is going to be even less engagement than people are already getting. It's not going to result in nicer comments in the bookmarks its only going to result in less bookmarks.

TBH I actually think getting less negativity in your inbox might be worth fewer comments? Like, I'm not sure fandom made the wrong choice here but I do think continuing to police the kinds of comments people leave is going to continue this cycle so if you really really want your readers to engage with your fic you are going to have to accept that some of those comments will be shit like "UPDATE PLZ" or whatever. I don't think there's a way to get less of the bad comments without getting fewer comments period.

*In addition to everything I've written above there is a part of me that thinks the biggest problem is just that AO3 has a hit counter and LJ didn't and so when people were primarily using LJ they just didn't know how many people read their work without ever interacting. Combine that with the fact that everyone is functionally writing for much smaller fandoms because there aren't mega fandoms like there used to be and you get authors who feel like they're getting less engagement without actually meaningfully getting less engagement, because their OFMD fic isn't getting the number of comments that their 2010s era SGA fic got. Even when they understand OFMD is tiny compared to SGA they don't have the hit counter for their SGA fic to see just how many lurkers there were. the ratio might actually not have been as far off as you think!

[bawbio]

My Media Thread

Ok so before i get started i just want to say that i'm gonna be doing recommendations vs giving things an x/10 score like on my twitter media thread since the scores i gave were honestly arbitrary and a recommendation would give a much more clear view on how i feel about a game. Down below are the categories this thread will be using Don't recommend/Don't play it (Whichever one my brain remembers in this category at the time of writing) - I personally think no one should be subjected to playing this game and i would highly recommend not engaging with it at all costs like not even as a joke

Play at your own risk - I personally wouldn't seriously recommend this game to someone but if you want to give it a try go for it it could be really funny who knows

Maybe - This one will mainly be used for if i recommend the game but i think it's definitely not for everyone whether it be for difficulty or for potentially triggers in the game or even just some really weird shit

Recommend - I recommend this game wholeheartedly and would gladly suggest it to pretty much anyone

MUST PLAY - PLAY THIS GAME IMMEDAITELY RIGHT NOW

Oh and one final thing i'll be using the tag #beeb's media thread for this whole thread idk if you can mute tags or anything but if you can you can use it to mute this whole thread

So i guess without further ado i'll be starting my media thread here with danganronpa trigger happy havoc, So the first danganronpa game sure is an experience that's for sure and my opinion on the series has changed a LOT since i first played through the series and wrote my original media thread posts so i guess i'll just say this now. I don't like danganronpa as much as i did back then since my recency bias for the series went away ages ago and i've had plenty of time to look over the series retrospectively but the first game still has some pretty fun stuff. The whole mystery of why they're all in hope's peak i'd still say is pretty cool and hope's peak itself is a fantastic killing game setting and gives off a perfect atmosphere for the whole thing. The characters in one are kind of a mixed bag, on one hand you have characters who i think are genuinely pretty solid like sakura (She's probably my favorite character from 1 it's either her chihiro or mondo and maybe hina) and on the other you have whatever the fuck toko (in this game at least UDG helps her out a fair amount) and hifumi are where they honestly really suck just kind of being really annoying/weird most of the time. The chapters in this game are also mostly ok aside from like chapter 3 which is probably the game's lowest point trialwise and chapter 2 for how it handles chihiro (I refuse to get into any chihiro related drama so i won't go really in depth on that here) and just that really chapter 2 is mostly ok otherwise. Chapter 4 was especially nice and is my personal pick for my favorite chapter in the game and chapter 1 while it starts out slow imo has one of the absolute best executions in the trilogy. Thankfully this game also sticks the landing fairly well with its ending and it didn't completely fall flat on its face and seriously fuck up the rest of the game by ending on a sour note (Don't worry danganronpa 2 you're next) Personally i'd give danganronpa trigger happy havoc a...

Maybe - While danganronpa's concept of the killing game is something i unironically think is one of my favorite mechanisms for telling a story with how much cool character shit it can cause the execution the games do with the concept can be uh, less than stellar at times. Also aside from the obvious (violence, blood, and a whole lot of murder) stuff that would lead to me seriously consider giving a game a maybe. The game (and the series in general tbh) has some really weird shit in them like both toko and hifumi are really big offenders in this game and i don't even want to get into the chihiro discourse not to mention the gross shower peeping bonus scene in chapter 3 although that one is completely missable (thankfully) if you didn't get a certain item from the monokuma machine but still regardless all of that is enough for me to give this game a maybe, if you think you can handle the blood, gore, everything else and more in danganronpa i'd honestly say it would be worth picking up and trying the series out.

[notquiteaghost]

congrats on making a public inquiry on a line of interest situated in the middle of a venn diagram of like four things i've been thinking about a lot lately, your prize is this ask that is so long that in the time spent writing it and checking info someone less annoying may have directed you to some of it! this is all like easy enough to google but just in case it feels less uuhh to have someone with an approximate knowledge on some things offer you some pointers: here are some pointers

(i AM ALSO a thousands of CD's type of guy, but i've not done any big digital management of them since the last time i was regularly using ipods in the 2000s, n i am kinda Prepping for big digital management around my current standing main hyperfixation (participants of a season of an old korean idol reality competition show, a collection of Too Many Gotdamn People who have made Too Much Gotdamn Music) but i don't actually currently own a lot of the physical media there, so none of this are pointer from like. oh here is a workflow i am using etc, but)

answers to your two questions are 1) file sizes really depend on lots of factors but rule of thumb is that in a collection of 'normal song' mp3 file size averages out to 5-7MB a song, and a 3-4min mp3 file being >10MB is surprising

and 2) re: storage prices, 1TB (~1,000,000MB, so probably ~166,666MB 3min mp3's) in external harddrive will run at about £50 in western digital brands atm (western digital is what i've been occasionally looking at for my data management thing bc i've seen it mentioned specifically as more reliable than seagate, which i have had issues with; anecdotally, my mum's WD elements has lasted her about a year longer than her seagates kick the bucket). prices atm on curry's stack up at £80 for 2TB, £108 for 4TB, £180 for 8TB

refurbished is an option when it's 'rectified' and sold by the company itself; for WD, those prices atm stack up at £30 for 1TB, £35 for 2TB, £55-60 for 4TB (their page for these are https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/recertified) (i do not know enough about this area and would wanna look up specific reviews on a company's rectifying track record before purchasing myself, so obv do the same)

answers to questions you DID NOT ask but may have later on if you do set out on the CD Digitization Project that i have answered preemptively bc i am ANNOYING:

tagging music with correct info is often the most time-consuming part of this shit, so a tagger is your friend. the musicbrainz database should have a lot of stuff covered, so their tagger picard might well do (https://picard.musicbrainz.org/, also has some good plugins for like formating multi-disc albums etc if you wanna scan through those), but tagscanner (https://www.xdlab.ru/en/index.htm) can also pull from discogs if needed, though you may still need a discogs account + to make an api key do use that

i was like. spike will probably appreciate it if i provided ways in which their dad could still be autistic about music in a digital format, but i'm having a hard time pulling up music players that meet my vision / make it clear if they do re: you can see cd booklet, and also this info seems to not typically be in databases. i'll carry on looking for players in this area bc i ALSO want this, but suggested desktop windows players other than windows media player / grooveshark / vlc (which are all fine, but imo none are the most intuitive for regular heavy listening) are my best friend foobar2000 (https://www.foobar2000.org/, also has a tagger that pulls from musicbrainz and maybe discogs?), musicbee (https://getmusicbee.com/, tagger plugins available), and aimp (https://www.aimp.ru/); deadbeef (https://deadbeef.sourceforge.io/) is created more to get your hands into with the technical stuff, but it's got custom metadata fields. really after you've looked to see if you think your dad would want a particular feature, unless space is a major consideration then it is just well what looks nicest.

file backup! backblaze (https://www.backblaze.com/) allows an external hard drive to be added in an image backup of a machine, which is the only good way to do a (pseudo-)sync backup without paying for cloud subscription or setting up a NAS etc; at $70/year it is obviously A Cost but way less than premium cloud drive subscription, so if it feels useful to know,

if the NAS mention / video at the end of that post wrt turning an old computer or laptop into a media server (so thing that is plugged into a wall that has files on it + a media player --> other computers / phones / etc on the same network (which can be outside the home too) can connect to that player and files) was interesting lmk bc i've also been looking into that a lot mostly as like, storage nerd aspirations, it's just a whole other thing that's irrelevant if you're more interested in just bunging stuff on an external drive (i've send this as an ask with the intent for you to keep it On File, so sent me another or a dm to lmk!)

you are not at ALL annoying you are a godsend!!!!

the thing abt my father is he is actually better at tech stuff than me (he ran his school's website & also michael's website, in the 00s, when that meant he built them from scratch) (he's still a little bitter abt his school outsourcing their website to whatever service every school uses nowadays. he used to add little falling snowflakes in the winter n april fools jokes n such), so yes i was very much anticipating saying to him like. find a backup storage method you like and i will do the legwork of actually ripping n sorting everything

i did NOT know taggers even existed but holy shit yes i will definitely need one. i do not anticipate him ever actually getting rid of his physical copies – smth he has already done is buy a ton of plastic wallets n move the CDs & booklets into them so instead of ur standard plastic jewel case taking up all that space it's effectively as thin as the actual CD – & also he no longer has a computer (i do not get this decision either. he just uses his phone????) so i doubt he'll need music player software. my thought is really 'he needs backups spare CDs and a CD writer so if any die they can be replaced'

however i will definitely look into the music player software, and maybe also forward this info to my brother (if it's even news to him, he's the kind of music autistic who has a £200 pair of headphones). thank you SO much <3

edit: just saw ur second ask n shdgdhd yeah i am gonna bookmark this post, my askbox is a pit things vanish into forever

[touyaz]

OKAY TWO QUESTIONS FROM SOMEONE NEW TO ENJOYING YANS

what separates a soft yandere from a hard yandere?

how do you “push” or “bring out” the hard yandere from a soft yandere?

WELCOME 2 THE CLUB !! 😁😁

Under the cut bc . I ended up talking quite a bit lmfao.

TW dark content, yandere, discussion about heavier elements like abuse, violence, murder, kidnapping, escape attempts, punishments.

I dont think there's a clear cut 'This is what a soft/hard yan would do' rulebook to follow or a certain mould for each, but for me I've always imagined the soft yan to take the nicer approach to getting their darling. Theyre considered more tame and less of a 'threat' (to the darling but also to others around them. Tho i think even a soft yan could be pushed to harm others). And i tend to associate darker/heavier tropes to a hard yan - things like mental/emotional/physical torture, body mutilation, affinity to violence/breaking a bone as punish type beat - because they tend to think light of the more extreme methods to get what they want. Whereas a soft yan would imo want something that resembles a somewhat normal relationship, they might only delve into darker things (maybe still not as extreme as the things mentioned before) if need be.

For instance if the yandere kidnaps their darling, I'd imagine a soft yan would give them their own room, let them explore the new house, give them some freedom & ease them into the situation a little more. Whereas a hard yan might chain them right off the bat and force them to fit into the situation. But that's not to say it has to be one way or the other, like the soft yan could also lock the darling up. I would just think that they'd do it in a nicer way, e.g. still giving them some leeway to move around the room where a hard yan might make the chain short; a soft yan might spend more time with their darling where a hard yan might decide to neglect their darling a little, give them a lesson, so to speak, that'll end with the darling realising there's nowhere to go but stay by their side. Ultimately, i just relate a hard yan to the more extreme methods, but i think it's important to bear in mind that even if the hard yan goes is willing to go to extreme lengths, they're a yandere. It's all coming from a place of love - a twisted, delusional perception of it, but love nonetheless.

(I point that out just because i see things tagged as yandere! character but it'll be like 'reader gets stuck somewhere. character fucks them for the power trip and then never does anything w them after that' and that's what I'd call dark! character as opposed to yan! char bc there isn't that element of lovesickness which is... literally what yandere means.)

I think the difference btwn them is just something fun to explore at the end of the day, and you can do it by asking yourself different questions. Like i gave the kidnapping example, but another might be murder: is it necessary? a soft yan might not kill then, but they could if their character is otherwise someone who likes planning ahead or makes a point to always tie loose ends. how do they do it? do they ever show it off to the darling? why? how? etc etc. This post +here talks abt the danger levels of a yan some more if you're interested!!

For your second question, i dont think there's always a hard yan in a soft yan, so there might not ever be something to 'bring out' - but it could lead to punishment in other, softer ways. I think it all depends on the character and their own limits. E.g. a purely soft yan might neglect you for a couple of days but that same offence might make a different character act out and accidentally break their darling's bone (which seems more soft -> hard. I imagine a hard yan might do it on purpose and might not give the same aftercare/treatment or express sorrow over the situation). But yeah i think the push from one to the other is individual to the character; in rin's case i said he's a hard yan in the shell of a soft one bc i imagine him to want a normal relationship, but he knows that if push came to shove, he'd at least be willing to do the more extreme methods. E.g. if darling kept trying to escape, rin might eventually break a leg so you learn your place (which I'd say is the soft -> hard push) whereas nagi would probably just keep you chained up, i cant imagine him ever resorting to physical violence like that (which I'd say is just soft). A hard yan might break a bone on the first attempt, but rin might do it after the 10th. I think it all just depends on the character's limits and how much they can handle before they snap - if they ever do. It depends on their capacity for the things you deem dark, and then how much patience they have before they show you that darkness.

And i think the push would come from the darling not conforming to what the yandere wants, not settling into the relationship, not listening to them, not reciprocating their feelings. I gave the example of escape attempts but it could be lots of little, 'less serious' things piling up, like not welcoming the yandere home in the proper manner, not making food on time, not using petnames, talking back, rolling eyes, etc. These things might be seen as less serious, but maybe a welcome home kiss is something the yandere has always looked forward to, so they view not getting that as more disrespectful than an eye roll - this is where looking into the intricacies of the character's background would be helpful! Ultimately, it depends on the character and what they want out of the relationship, and what they want from their darling, and whether or not they're getting that. How long can they last until they're fed up of not being satisfied? How do they deal with that?

[daltoneering]

a few personal thoughts on this week's episode re: some of the discussion i've seen in the tag around pacing, tone and the tragic lack of vegaspete

we've been running at pretty high tension levels since mid-episode 4. ep 5 was ANGSTY (the angstiest ep yet, imo), and while 6 was obviously really lovely and romantic and tonally different, it still had a weight to it and high stakes that kept the pressure rising, not to mention the ending. last week's episode was probably one of the plottiest yet and certainly full of tension. if we think about the shape of the show, eps 1 - 3 were much more comedic and character-establishing, while 4 - 7 started tightening up those character narratives and pushing that tension higher and higher until we reached a climax at the end of ep 7 (literally, lol).

episode 8 is the lull after that tension has broken. it's the swell of water coming back down the beach after the wave has landed--coming back to the ocean where the tension will rise once again. from a storytelling perspective, it wouldn't make sense to continue increasing the pressure after that climax, not unless you want to exhaust and frustrate your audience. we needed this rest, not only because for once we finally get to see our couple actually spending time in love and enjoying each other rather than being rewarded for getting together with an instant new angsty plotline, but also because without it there's no contrast for that angsty plotline that is about to come. think about the shape of most films--halfway through there's a moment of minor conflict that the characters manage to overcome, propelling them into a sense of security and confidence, before it all goes terribly downhill and we don't know how we're going to get out. that place is where we are now. enjoy it while you can.

on tone--this show is first and foremost a comedy. yeah, it's a mafia drama and we crave the dark bits of it, but it made itself clear from the first episode that it's a comedy. after all that tension it was time to harken back to the lighter comedic tone of episodes 2 and 3. it is even sometimes unbelievable in its humour (kinn catching the dildo in his mouth), but it fits the tone of the episode, and feels very BL to me, in a wholly enjoyable way.

i don't think the vegaspete i want would have fit tonally into this episode. i am CRAVING them and FULLY UNHINGED about them and i need them NOW but also i have accepted that this was not their episode. when we do get their episode it's gonna be dark and fucked up and tense and delicious. i also think it's gonna happen fast--while kinnporsche have needed this space to let their characters breathe, i think the vegas and pete that this series is giving us are going to be on each other's level from the get go.

and a final note on what we didn't see--we didn't see vegas, gone silent after his plan was foiled by kinn. planning his next move, and i am ON MY GUARD because there's nowhere to go for him but up--to strike harder and hotter. and also, we didn't see any verbal confirmation of affection from kinn--it's pretty clear that he does love porsche, in his actions and touches and RADIANCE, but interesting that he's holding himself back, especially as we're about to embark on the tawan arc.

[echo-bleu]

hello! I saw one of your previous asks and I was wondering if I could ask you for some writing help too! I have an autistic character that i love, but I'm not sure how to convey that this character is autistic in a way that feel aunthentic and organic instead of stereotyped, specially since she's a girl and I haven't seen many (accurate) representations of autistic girls in the media. I've seen videos about autistic people and they've been very helpful on what not to do, but + I would still love

to get some of the 'do's' what i have so far is that she has a Fixation on the sea, she has a hard time reading sarcasm and/or emotions in others, and she has an overall seemingly 'detached' personality (even if I wouldn't call her that, since she cares about the people she loves, she's just bad at putting it into words). I jsut want to make sure i'm on the right path! thank you so much for listening and I hope this is not a bother!

Hi Anon! I’m not bothered at all and I’m happy to answer this kind of ask. As always, I can only speak for myself, but I’ll try to give you a few pointers. (The previous ask mentioned is this one.)

First, it’s lovely to hear about an autistic girl! I’m not sure if you’re speaking about an adult or a child/teenager, but either way, it can be interesting to read about how autism can look a bit different in women. The gender distinction that has often been made is something I don’t agree with because I feel that it’s an unnecessary shortcut, but a number of autistic people, in majority women and people socially perceived as female, learn to “adapt” more to neurotypical standards by masking their autistic traits a lot, and might not be detected as autistic until adulthood. Masking takes a lot of energy, which can translate as feeling “socially exhausted” all the time and lead to burnout. This article list traits that can be found that are less common and obvious. It is far from perfect imo, but it can give you new ideas!

You didn’t really say if your character is a main or a side character (which changes the amount of detail you’ll want to go into) but so far to me you seem to be on the right track! Having a hard time reading people is something a lot of us struggle with. It might not just be sarcasm, btw, understanding metaphors and jokes can also be hard. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a sense of humor: it’s entirely possible to be able to use sarcasm and struggle with noticing it when it comes from other people, and a lot of autistic people have a very developed and specific sense of humor that can be seen as odd.

The “detached” personality is something you may have to handle with care because lack of empathy is a harmful stereotype. Maybe look up the difference between cognitive and affective empathy. Some of us do struggle with empathy, many of us struggle with expressing it in a way that’s comprehensible to neurotypicals, but it doesn’t mean that we lack it. It’s fine for your character to struggle with it, but be careful that she doesn’t end up seeming cold/robotic if she’s not the POV character.

Now for some “do’s”: I’m only going to talk about autistic traits here and assume that you’ve fleshed her out with an actual personality outside of her autism, just like you would any other character.

- I agree that it has to come up organically, but it would be a lot better in terms of representation to make her explicitly autistic, ie use the word autistic. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the story. If you’re in a fantasy setting or for some other reason you can’t use the actual word, then describing something like neurodiversity would be a good way to make it explicit. In fanfic, I personally think that tagging “autistic [character]” is enough if the fic is short(ish) and the word isn’t used in the story but the character’s autism is fairly clear, but in an original story, you don’t really have that possibility.

- Something I like to do when coming up with original autistic characters is to choose a few specific stims from them, that regularly come back in my descriptions. It falls under the same umbrella as choosing mannerisms, it gives characters their own specific flavor. You can choose a happy stim, a nervous stim and a bored stim, for example. Autistics stim a lot and in a lot of ways, but I think most of us have a few stims that come back often. It can be things like chewing on a toy/finger, flapping in a specific way, rocking on their heels, twirling hair, fidgeting with a toy or jewelry.

- Sensory differences. It’s also something that you can choose for your character: maybe she likes to listen to music very loudly, and often speak a little too loudly, or on the contrary she’s hyperacusic. She might wear sunglasses outside, or need lights on all the time. She might need subtitles to understand a movie, or be super distracted by sparkly things. She might not make eye contact, or make it too much, or seem to make it by looking somewhere close to the person’s eyes. She might find touch painful or difficult, or seek it constantly, or both (can depend on the moment, how tired she is, or if she trusts the person).

- Like I’ve said before, meltdowns/shutdowns are a delicate thing to portray if you’re not autistic yourself, but overloading can and does happen without going all the way to either of them. It’s actually fairly frequent, and happens when there is too much sensory (or emotional) stimuli at the same time or a too long day or something. From the inside, it can look like struggling to think, feeling like your skin is crawling, feeling like everything is too much, and struggling to initiate actions/figure out the steps to do something. From the outside, it can look like the person is rejecting touch, needs to isolate themself, is irritated, might struggle to speak/be very quiet. As long as the character isn’t mocked for their behavior, I think it’s something you can portray without too much risk.

- A specific interest about the sea is a nice idea! The sea is a very large subject, though, so she’ll probably have a predilection for some things. Is it water currents? Fish species? Underwater plants? Beaches? There’s a lot of options to choose from here.

- Maybe think about co-occuring conditions, because most of us have at least one. Some are very hard to distinguish from autism itself, like dyspraxia or ADHD, because they’re linked or similar to autistic traits. A lot of us are also disabled in some other way:  for example there’s a clear (though unexplained) link between autism and hyperflexibility, which can lead to joint pain, gut issues and chronic illnesses like EDS. Many of us have mental illnesses, growing up autistic in this world is honestly traumatizing and it’s hard to find autistics without some kind of C-PTSD or anxiety (on that subject, this post points out that the current diagnostic criteria can probably only diagnose traumatized autistic people anyway).

- A pretty good portrayal of an autistic girl (and to my knowledge the only one where the actor is also autistic) is Matilda in Everything’s Gonna be Okay. I didn’t actually watch until the end and I’ve been told the last episode isn’t great, but the start was pretty good. She’s a teenager, and at one point gets a girlfriend who is also autistic and has a service dog. In Elementary, while Sherlock is only autistic-coded, there is at one point (season 4 I believe) a recurring character named Fiona who I thought was a pretty good portrayal as well. She’s an adult, and she’s stereotypical in some ways but it’s better than most portrayals I’ve seen or read.

I would advise you to have a look through the blog @cripplecharacters. They answer asks about disabled characters, and I know they have answered a number of questions about autism and have at least one autistic mod. Their answers are usually very interesting!

[b-rainlet]

Just want to say I love your blog. Your TUA content is lovely and I can't say what a breath of fresh air it is to find another Luther champion. The fandoms treatment of him, istg, some of the most ludacris nonsense I've ever had to read. Especially love how you point out he's ALWAYS been so sweet and selfless when it comes to Allison and her personal happiness. Anyway I saw you say you seem confident alluther will actually happen. I sure hope so, but why do you figure? The antis are so loud.

Awwwww, thank you anon, you’re so sweet! Yeah, this blog is on 24/7 loving Luther lockdown! I feel like the antis are easing up a little bit after S2 aired because most of Luther’s scenes were used as comedic relief and the faves he was clashing with (Diego and Vanya) seem to have a better relationship with him now, so it’s not as bad anymore, but I have to admit I never ever go into the main tag so I can’t be 100% sure. 

Maybe you should try looking through the ‘Luther Protection Squad’ tag to find some more like-minded people? I swear there are more of us out there!

But to come to the Alluther question: 

I know that the antis are loud and I’ve noticed that most of them have counted S2 as a win for them, talking about how Allison ‘moved on’ and how Alluther won’t happen but I disagree (and I will now launch into a rambly post about why lmao).

WARNING: CONTAINS S2 SALT. PROCEED WITH CAUTION

All of this is based on the assumption though that they will be somewhat consistent in their writing regarding Alluther and S2 taught me that that isn’t very likely, so maybe I’m completely wrong and Alluther will never ever be mentioned in S3, but based on what happened so far, I could see them as an endgame couple. 

I mean in S1 they were a pretty big plot point so I don’t think I have to say anything about that but even though the Alluther scenes have been toned down in S2 they were there. 

Let’s see what antis would say about why Alluther won’t happen: 

Allison is married

And? Allison has been married before and still mentioned comparing every man she ever loved/dated to Luther. Allison has been married and she has had a kid with another guy and still Alluther was going strong. 

Not to mention that the end of this season has made it very clear we won’t see Raymond again.

Raymond (and Sissy) are temporary love interests for this particular season and both of them cannot leave their timeline without majorly fucking things up - at least according to Five, but the whole timetravel rules can change at the drop of a hat - but more importantly, both of them had a talk with their respective lovers about wanting to stay in their timeline. 

So unless Allison will return to the 60s (which doesn’t seem likely tbh), Raymond is gone for good. 

 Raymond was her true love tho! Like Klave!

I don’t think antis actually word it like this but I’ve noticed how all of them hopped onto the Almond train immediately and keep gushing about how good and cute they are and that’s great! You can ship what you wanna ship! But I think a lot of the love for this ship has to do with how it prevents Alluther from happening. If Allison is deeply in love with this wholesome man, she can’t ever like her brother. 

But tbh….I didn’t buy Almond. For two people who are happily married they crumble and burn awfully fast. 

And tbh, I was thinking about making a post about this so I’m gonna add this rant here but I just wanna preface this with the fact that I don’t hate them and I don’t hate people who ship them, I’m just….using this opportunity to poke some hole into their relationship. 

I think it would’ve been more believable if Raymond and Allison would be in the early stages of dating while all of S2 goes down. Think about it.

They are married? After one year? I mean, as far as I know, Allison has been in the 60s for about two years - since Luther was the first one who arrived and he spent 3 years there??? But I am not fact-checking this, so correct me if I’m wrong - so she had time to get used to being there, adjust to having no voice, meet Raymond, fall in love with him and get married to him. 

And considering she could already talk again it must’ve have been a while before she started talking to/dating Raymond? I don’t think a wound like that wouldn’t take a while to heal but with this show’s consistency, maybe it did. 

I was actually hoping Allison would stay mute for a while longer but alas

So, they got married pretty fast imo, and you could argue that it’s the 60s but 

Allison isn’t from the 60s

Allison just got out of a bad marriage. There’s like, a year?? maybe?? between her first marriage and her second one and tbh, I don’t think Allison would get married again so fast, tying herself to someone again almost immediately, especially if you consider what getting married in the 60s means for a woman and her personal freedom (it’s hinted at with Sissy but not with Allison and even though Raymond was probably a good husband who let her have her freedom and her say in things - as we can see with their movement - it’s still the 60s. Women couldn’t earn their own money. They couldn’t even spend any money without having to ask their husband. They were basically property of their husband and I can’t believe Allison would immediately jump back into being married, no matter how nice and good the guy is). 

“That just means it’s true love! That’s why their marriage may seem rushed!”

Yeah true love. I also keep secrets from my true love.

I mean, I understand that Allison couldn’t start talking about time travel or Raymond would’ve started thinking she’s crazy or something - and maybe would’ve sent her to a mental institution as is his right as a husband, so good idea getting married! - but she didn’t mention stuff like “I had a child.” or “I lost my family.” either and those are vague enough to not raise questions.

I mean, she could’ve lied! She could’ve said Claire is dead, which considering the apocalypse was what they were escaping is true!

She could’ve talked about how she had a family, but they kinda lost each other - maybe talking about how they all moved away and she doesn’t know where they are now, even though she misses them terribly. 

I mean, I simply can’t believe that she had to grief for her own child all on her own and she didn’t even tell her husband (and she couldn’t even properly be sad about it since Raymond and her lived together, so she probably didn’t have many moments where she could think about the future and the things she lost without the possibility of being walked in on). 

And how much it would’ve meant if there would’ve been a scene of her crying over Claire when she thinks she’s alone, but alas.

Then there’s also the whole added drama to their relationship. Which was btw, so unnecessary.

@showwriters: Why do you establish a relationship you obviously want to be viewed as full of love and instead of letting it be the steady rock the character can lean on during all the already ongoing chaos, you add drama to it and let it fall apart as a side plot which immensely suffers from not being shown/explored enough. 

I mean, we already have relationship drama with Vanya/Sissy and that relationship feels more natural because their obstacles are outside forces and not...one of them distrusting the other. 

You know, I get why Raymond is suspicious, I totally do! I just don’t think it makes the relationship believable. 

Once again, if they would’ve been in the early stages of dating and suddenly Allison’s weird brothers appear and she seems to be in cahoots with the cops, I would also think ‘???’ and it would’ve made perfect sense for Raymond to be confused and distrustful and not want to talk to Allison. 

But they’re married. They’re married and they vowed to love each other in sickness and in health and yet Raymond immediately jumps to ‘Allison is a spy’.

The woman you love enough to marry. That’s your first thought. Okay. 

(And if you wanna compare that to Vissy...Vanya suddenly drives off in the night to meet her family and disappears for a while and she apparently did something to Harlan and now he’s behaving weirdly and has powers….and she’s talking about taking Sissy and him to the future…..and yet….Sissy trusted Vanya). 

And tbh, I was done with their whole relationship the moment Allison spent the whole night calling every single hospital, trying to find out whether her husband was in one of them - was even alive - in tears and close to breaking down because the last time she saw him they were both involved in a riot and the possibility of him being in jail or hurt is very high only to find out…..

…..he had a meeting with their group without telling her because he doesn’t trust her. 

And what? He couldn’t have called her to at least tell her he’s okay and he’s gonna stay somewhere else overnight because shady shit did just go down that they need to discuss but he wants to be alone for now? That’s the bare minimum and yet he doesn’t do that. He doesn’t even call to make sure she is okay since running away doesn’t mean she couldn’t have accidentally been dragged into a brawl and hurt. 

Once again: They are married. 

So tbh, all I got from this relationship is the feeling that Allison simply didn’t wanna be alone in this new timeline and that isn’t an explicit point against Alluther. 

Okay, but….Allison moved on! So she still won’t get with Luther!

Did she? Did she really? I don’t think so. I mean, one of the first things we get from Allison aside from ‘She’s married’ is ‘She looks at the moon so often, her husband notices and gets her a book related to that’. 

That’s one of the most blatant ways they could’ve said: ‘She misses Luther.’

And Luther only. Not the whole family, Luther. If they wanted to somehow make this platonic or familial, they wouldn’t have taken the character she is canonly interested in romantically (which she is and has been since S1, no matter what antis say). 

I mean, if they only wanted to show ‘She misses her family’ they could’ve added a scene where she listens to the kid next door playing the violin or sees a boy in schoolboy shorts or maybe mistakes someone for Diego or whatever, endless possibilities. But they didn’t. 

They made it very clear she misses Luther and I don’t think she had a scene that shows her missing any of her other siblings in such a way (which is btw paralleled by the scene where Luther mistakes someone for Allison, which is also the only scene where he’s shown thinking about one of his siblings to the point he thinks he sees them - as far as I remember). 

But that’s probably only a coincidence, right?

Then there’s them meeting for the first time. I mean, they hug and the rest of the world disappears.

They took the time to shoot/cut this scene in a way that, when Allison and Luther hug after years of not seeing each other, everyone else isn’t in the shot anymore and it’s just them. Because they tried to make this as platonic as possible. 

(In comparison, Allison and Diego don’t even hug. And Klaus and Allison do hug and it’s a happy moment but there is no romantic music and it’s more focused on them being happy to see each other and not framed as a romantic scene. I mean, I have no clue regarding things like ‘motifs’ and ‘scenery’ but just watch those two hug scenes back to back and you know what I mean). 

Then the scene proceeds and they talk and sit down and Luther mentions her marriage and Allison tries to apologize. 

Just think about that. She doesn’t outright apologize but she does try to explain why she got married by saying how hard it was and is only stopped by Luther telling her he’s glad she wasn’t alone. 

How….how can you read that as a platonic convo between brother and sister? Just replace Luther with Klaus. Why would she feel the need to explain herself and seems guilty about being married? Is it because it implies she gave up on finding her family? If so, that would be her reaction with every sibling but she is explicitly like this with Luther. She tells Klaus she’s married too, and in that scene it’s definitely a ‘siblings catching up’ moment and it’s a happy moment and she doesn’t seem apologetic about being married. 

She is with Luther. 

Because they both know that there’s something between them and has been for a long time, to the point that Allison is visibly jealous when Luther has other relationships (his one-night-stand in S1) and this is the second time Allison has turned towards another man instead of waiting for Luther. And that’s why she tries to apologize. That’s why she tries to explain that she couldn’t know whether they - whether Luther - would ever show up, so she tried her best to move on - but she didn’t really, hence the moon scene. 

(This is also the scene where Luther could’ve been angry with her - and she probably would’ve thought he’s in the right - since during the days leading up to the apocalypse it seemed like they were slowly working towards being together - even if the kiss never happened, there’s still the phone booth scene which is basically Luther confessing his feelings - and now she once again leaves him standing alone, waiting for her to possibly return to him. 

But he isn’t, he just tells her he’s glad that she wasn’t alone. Because he is the actual embodiment of a gentleman and this world doesn’t deserve him). 

And this is just what I remember from watching the season once and then not really engaging with it, I can’t understand how antis can see those scenes and come to entirely different conclusions. But I guess, you really only see what you wanna see, huh?

But, but…...Incest is disguting! Even their siblings think so!

They don’t. They really don’t. There’s a gifset on tumblr somewhere compiling the scenes in S1 that show how chill the sibs are with Alluther, but let’s disregard those and just focus on S2 since they changed up a lot from the prior season and antis seem to think S2 was them finally saying ‘No Alluther’. 

I guess there’s the hair salon scene where Vanya, Klaus and Allison talk about relationships and Klaus lightly teases Allison for liking Luther. 

Now, he mentions Allison crushing on their brother in the same sentence where he talks about Vanya and her ‘Farmfrau’ and unless I missed it, he doesn’t change his voice. He doesn’t suddenly sound completely disgusted, or like he wants to vomit or whatever people think, so either, he thinks Vissy is as ‘disgusting’ as Alluther, or, he thinks both are simply relationships his sibs are interested in pursuing and he teases them about them like a sibling may do. 

And then you have Allison’s reaction. 

She doesn’t go: ‘Oh yeah, that was gross, what was I thinking’, she doesn’t make a face or disgusted noises or what, no, she tries to defend herself and her feelings. 

Which tells us: 

Despite popular belief to disregard Allison’s say in the Alluther relationship, she wants the relationship and she is obvious enough about it their siblings know (and Klaus makes it a point to say ‘Allison is into Luther’ and not ‘Luther likes Allison and Allison tolerates it). 

Alluther is brought up while they talk about current relationships, implying Allison still feels this way (especially because the way she reacts doesn’t make it seem like it’s a long over relationship with no longer relevant feelings. But again, I watched the season once and I don’t remember everything that was said. I think this is telling enough though). 

So..tell me again how everyone thinks Alluther is disgusting?

By now anon is thinking: ‘What is the point of all this rambling?’ 

And yeah, I am sorry for going way too into detail but I just wanted to make it clear that if the writers were intend on killing Alluther off in S2 - like antis believe - then everything I just mentioned wouldn’t have happened.

(And that’s without even mentioning the cpr scene). 

Alluther did get reduced but it didn’t vanish even though they decided to completely erase other things (like Claire and Eudora who are barely or not at all mentioned or things like Kliego being very close). 

This would’ve been the best opportunity! They re-meet in the 60s and Allison is happily married and takes the time to tell Luther he should move on. Or both are single and Luther tries to ask where they’re standing and whether she would like to try with him and she goes ‘This would be a mistake’ and that’s it.

(I am making Allison the one who ends things because it would be ooc for Luther to just end the possible relationship after waiting for Allison for years and there needs to be some consistency even in the mess that was S2). 

But! This didn’t happen!

Alluther is more or less back where it was in S1. Allison isn’t in a relationship anymore and won’t get back with the guy and Luther loves her no matter what. And the cheek kiss seems to leave them both on a hopeful note of finally getting together. 

So unless they use S3 to once again redo the show, it feels like Alluther is set up to be endgame. Like, I am getting ‘star-crossed lovers’ vibes where you’re just waiting for them to finally get together - because they just belong - but things keep getting in the way.  

You could compare it Diego/Lila in that regard, I think it’s pretty obvious those two are gonna end up together too. 

I have another ask about how they could get together, where I will definitely ramble more, but this shall be it for now. I hope it was halfway consistent. (And doesn’t have too many typos, I’m too lazy to check).

Also the formatting is shit but idc, I spent like two hours on this

[werevulvi]

What is the difference between "gender euphoria" and just satisfaction over doing/getting something one wanted?? i've seen so many ppl describe GE and (excepting the agp boners which clearly are being sugarcoated as "euphoria" to deflect fetishistic stigma) i don't really see the special difference between that and general satisfaction over say, getting a promotion, or buying an object or book we really craved. Does it depend on ruminative filtering though a lens of gender roles in the subject??

Thank you for your question, I think it's an interesting topic! :) Honestly, I'm not entirely sold on the concept of gender euphoria myself even, but I understand it as a strong sense of ease/satisfaction at gender dysphoria being relieved, which I myself experience on occasion. I mean, I was being a little facetious in the tags when I said "I guess this is what the kids call gender euphoria" if that wasn't clear. Although I think there's merit to the emotional/psychological experience of a strong sense of ease/satisfaction at relief of gender dysphoria, I don't know if calling it "gender euphoria" is helpful for communication, aside from putting a feeling into words, a feeling which would not exist without a (pre-existing) feeling of gender dysphoria, which would make it a feeling unique to dysphoric people, and that alone could make it worthwhile to give a name to. However, I think there's a risk that naming it like that makes people reduce gender dysphoria to merely a feeling, or indeed merely a reaction to gender roles... instead of seeing it as a real medical condition, similar to how someone may reduce clinical depression to simply "feeling sad." I think this makes it harder to convey and explain what dysphoria is, in discourse, to loved ones and even to a doctor, by even just mentioning gender euphoria - which I think poses a risk to gender dysphoria being even more disrespected, misunderstood and overlooked than it already is. People then calling even their boners, hairstyles, etc, gender euphoria makes it even harder for people to take (their) dysphoria seriously in the first place. To answer your first question, I think the difference between "gender euphoria" and the satisfaction one might feel over getting a promotion for example, is that gender euphoria is a direct response to the ease of symptoms of a medical condition. I think gender euphoria is (or should be used as) more akin to the satisfaction of no longer suffering chronic physical pain, or the satisfaction of a difficult skin condition finally clearing up, etc. But of course people these days throw around the term gender euphoria all willy nilly. I mean, 10 or so years ago, people tended to only really use it for the satisfaction of relief of physical/sex dysphoria. But even then, I think it poses the same issues as I mentioned above. So to answer your last question, yeah kinda. It depends on first having the medical condition of gender dysphoria, and secondly that treating it with any form of transition that changes the appearance of sex characteristics, is indeed helpful for the person. Then it can be a good indicator that transition is indeed a helpful form of treatment for them. I would not say gender dysphoria (and by extent euphoria) is the exact same as relating to gender roles, although I think the euphoria feeling is absolutely very similar to the sense of satisfaction a GNC person may feel from being able to express themselves freely after having been forced to conform to gender stereotypes for an extended period of time. I think dysphoria is probably related to distress around gender roles, but that the distress originates from dissatisfaction/disconnection from one's biological sex, which then may (quite often) also extend to discomfort with the gender roles associated with one's bio sex, because gender roles are intended to enhance what sex people look like, if that makes sense. It's a medical condition primarily targeting bio sex, which then might extend to gender roles, not the other way around. For those whom it is the other way around (meaning distress with gender roles extending to distress with one's bio sex) I feel wary that it may be because of other issues, such as dysmorphia + being GNC. Gender dysphoria also doesn't come from ruminating, imo. Although ruminating may be the result of trying to rationalize and understand one's dysphoria. (This is from talking to other dysphoric people and how they tend to respond to medical transition, although I admit I may be too harsh on what I count as gender dysphoria, so maybe take that as a personal opinion based on source: this feels reasonable and like it should be looked into more deeply by the medical research field, because honestly I feel like it might even be a highly important factor to who is helped by medical transition and who is not, before even starting such treatment, which would be huge, but I'm not an expert by any means.) So to sum up, I'm not a huge fan of the term gender euphoria, because it causes a lot of problems with communication, but as I do think there is some merit to it as an internal experience in and of itself, I do occasionally use it very light-heartedly.