#Research is just fascinating

[kuuyandere]

I just realised that I have poll capabilities! I can find the demographics of the yan community!!

Please reblog for a higher sample size! And I would be interested in hearing about how your romantic or sexual orientations impact your obsessive/possessive feelings, if at all. Thank you!

[lucky-fy]

For the Laicion nation (aka, me and three other people)

I had this illustration commissioned (a big thank you to @lunehowls) for my werewolf AU Laicion fic (still a WIP).

The general pitch is as follows :

AU in which Laios never got to meet his sister again, putting his life on a whole other path, a more desperate one. A military deserter with barely a coin to his name, Laios hitches a ride on a boat to one of the elven continents, where he learns about magical tattoos that binds one’s soul to a wolf’s, effectively making them artificial werewolves. Illegal magic be damned, this feels like the answer to… everything.

In the process, he learns about the existence of an illegal fighting ring in one of the elven cities, where beastmen gladiators gather. Freshly tattooed and without anywhere else to go to, Laios decides to head there, where he meets Lycion, an elf and artificial werewolf gladiator. If they first bond over a simple shared meal, by spending time together (sharing the same room in the barracks, maybe the same bed? gasp) they find that they have a lot in common, notably a shared distaste for the body they were born in, a dysphoria partially remedied by becoming a werewolf.

They bond :)

NB: I commissioned another piece, go take a look :D

[aroacewxs]

im not romance or sex repulsed, im romance and sex curious. romance and sex inquisitive. im a little scientist jotting down notes and connecting dots to dots in my head, trying to figure out this little puzzle that is attraction and romantic/sexual gestures because one of the worst things to me personally is feeling confused

[sneez]

morning in the green box [id in alt text]

[jesncin]

meta essay on Caped Crusader's portrayal of race is well on the way~ the only thing the essay won't cover is Harley, who will have her own separate essay.

[ryllen]

jade who got heartstruck by someone who listens, and trey who generally takes interest on really listening to what people have to say, about things he doesn't know yet

[amethyst-crowns]

my art for how greedy my heart by @matchingbatbites | for the @steddiebang

Chapter 1 is up now!!

[afsosville]

Time to over-analyze things with limited canonical information just because. Here are some of the reasons why Qing Jing may have been a hindrance to Shen Jiu's emotional development and solidified his corruption arc>>

Qing Jing was like the perfect peak to let all his mental wounds fester if you think about it.

Shen Jiu acting like nobility or an educated young master (as most disciples of Qing Jing are) is purely a coping mechanism. It literally screams masking! While the exact circumstances of how he got chosen for Qing Jing is unknown, we can assume he didn't have a choice since most disciples typically just follow their new master to wherever they take them from the selection grounds (with the exception of Bai Zhan lol). He was most likely hoisted onto the Qing Jing peak lord, as no master would've wanted him because of his fucked up meridians and late age. They acquiesced to take him anyway coz of Yue Qingyuan's/the sect leader's insistance. And because it's Shen Jiu, he would naturally do whatever it took to get to the top, and if he started acting like the very sort of people he hates, then so be it.

You can imagine how disastrous imitating his abusers is going to be (he's imitating noblemen in general, but he's definitely taking the Qiu's as a primary example). Shen Jiu clearly is trying to remove and forget everything about his past, and even accepts the rumours of him being a spoiled young master to cast away suspicion. He is coping hard. Not to mention, he was named QingQIU when he became Qing Jing's succeeding disciple. Listen I don't care if it was a bad coincidence or not but that doesn't endear me to Shen Jiu's shizun in the slightest (I'm only talking abt SJ's shizun in canon, not fics, the fics are great. But it's more than likely that SJ's shizun was negligent or abusive as well. Here's why I think that). Between all of this, there's no way he's processing any of that trauma when he's constantly forced to remember all of it. No wonder he slipped into the abuser role easily since he's literally out here actually being made to copy their behavior.

Qing Jing and even the rest of Cang Qiong were always hostile to Shen Jiu, even in his discipleship. These ppl went out of their way to run interventions on Shen Jiu when he's minding his own business. Yes I'm talking abt the whole brothel thing. There were doubtlessly so many disciples who went for the very reasons Shen Jiu was assumed of going for, so why is he the only one getting shit for it? Not only was going to brothels not even a crime worthy of conviction, it was even normalized to an extent. And it would've been so easy to figure out if he really was going for anything "lecherous" by just asking the women there. The fact that, that whole ordeal was never cleared up just shows they didn't actually care about the women or what he was supposedly doing to them. They only cared because it was Shen Jiu who was involved.

Shen Jiu being on any other peak would change things for sure even if it's marginally. Its probably just wistful thinking, but I know at least half of those peaks, even the fanon ones, would be better than Qing Jing at any rate. Again, Shen Jiu would claw his way up and try to succeed any way he can, so if he were put on another peak that would be a somewhat healthy environment for him, he would do well, regardless of the peak. Him doing well on Qing Jing doesn't mean anything other than showing off his awesome(horrible and problematic) coping skills. So really, I can't help but think Qing Jing wasn't a good fit for him, especially with Shen Jiu's specific brand of trauma.

I did a pole once asking if Shen Jiu would've done better on another peak, or if they were just curious to see him anywhere else, and I'm not surprised that the most voted for peak was Yin Hui, the fanon peak for espionage and assassins. Now I'm going to go another tangent why Yin Hui would be good for him later.

[polaroidcats]

happy international workers' day, what a beautiful day to join a union and never stop advocating for shorter work days/weeks ❤️‍🔥

[biblically-accurate-dca]

day 19: dolls/puppets/ect.

it's a puppet themed dca!! or maybe it's actually a dca themed puppet?

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hello,

I’ve found myself entangled in a bit of a situation, and I’m hoping you can help me make a decision.

I am what is known as a boroboroton. I am, specifically, a twin sized pale coral futon, of quality make with silk innards, if you can believe it. I’m not a full set, I’m ashamed to say- lost my mattress - but I get by. I manifested some fifty years ago (roundabout the time of my mattress’s loss) and since then have changed owners a handful of times.

I like to learn new places thoroughly so I don’t often smother my sleepers right off, but I was getting bored and there was a shop down the street that did second hand and my owner was getting on in age, you know how these things go.

Anyway! Once I was in the shop I was purchased by a young man from the United States. It’s been quite the exciting move, to be honest- I don’t get slept on nearly as much as I used to save for the family cat, but I do get used for television and games, so I’ve come up to date on all sorts of media, and I’ve even gone outside for a picnic! It was lovely.

None of that’s why I’m writing, though. My new sleeper is, as I said, a young man. He was in Japan for a religious trip, a- a mission. He was a missionary, from- I believe they’re called Mormons? And to each his own and all that you have to take a long view of things when you’re half a sentient futon with a bent for murder, but I don’t think it’s good for him.

See, he keeps looking up information about leaving, and then deleting the searches. There’s another person who messages him often and I think it might be his lover. His lover’s name is Steven, which I am certain that these Mormons- and more importantly his parents- would not approve of. They keep making noise about sacred duties and marriage and temple sealing and someone named- Crystabeth? Crystal Meth? I can’t quite tell, I learned English rather on the fly.

It would of course be much easier for my sleeper to leave a religion that no longer fulfills him if his parents were out of the way and it wouldn’t be hard, just a nights’ work. I might be sold again or put in an attic but I have my ways and I’m an adventurous sort. Only I’d hate to interrupt all the researching he’s doing.

I could smother him, then he wouldn’t need to worry about what might happen if he left, but where would that leave Steven? Steven sends the loveliest late night texts.

Is it any of my business? Do I just let it lie? He’s been a good sleeper, brought me across a whole ocean AND looked up the best way to keep me clean! I hate that he’s so miserable.

For what it's worth, I think you're quite right in your assertion that your owner would be better off out from the clutches of people who are stifling his sexuality and pushing him to place duty to their church over his own freedom.

There is a reason many people consider Mormons to be a cult. They are a high-control group which expects – and enforces – an unhealthy degree of power over their members, using the threat of ostracisation and punishment to curtail their liberty. I'm not at all sure I would apply the otherwise admirable sentiment of “to each their own” to such a group.

With that said, I'm afraid I can't agree that leaving the church would necessarily be easier for your owner if his parents were to suffer some kind of tragic, nocturnal “accident”. Rather, I worry such an emotional blow would in fact leave him more vulnerable, and give others in the church leverage to use against him – the phrase “it's what they would have wanted” looms darkly upon the horizon.

Your suggestion of smothering your owner himself is also rather wanting in nuance. The goal here is to support him to make his own choices, not to remove the question of choice altogether. I can't help but wonder if your perspective might be a little limited by your form. To a man with a hammer, everything's a nail. To a sentient murder futon, everything's a potential futon murder.

Fortunately, it sounds as if he might be well on the way to making this difficult decision for himself – which is, after all, the only way this change can come about. If he's already doing his own research about leaving the church, and developing a support network separate from his church contacts, then it seems only a matter of time before he takes the plunge and leaves for good.

I'm afraid there's not much you can do right now to help him come to that point any faster. He needs to find his own path, and to find it in his own time. The best thing you can do for him right now is offer him just what you've always offered – a safe, supportive place where he can take a breath, research his options, and relax. The rest – so to speak – is up to him.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[micewithknives]

"wow i'd LOVE to do some research right now"

*looks at the research i literally get paid to do*

"no not this one"

[cookinguptales]

I was trying to learn more about Japan's parapsychology craze in the 80s and 90s and was having a surprisingly difficult time finding good sources on Google. So I kept trying different search terms and finally this comes up

cia??? freedom of information act???

Anyway!! I clicked on it and the page is "down for maintenance" and I have never been more consumed with curiosity lmao.

I had no idea that Google would search through FOIA documents...

[yellowocaballero]

Omg hi Ms. Yellow Caballero big fan of your work <3 For real though, I'm really excited that your sharing the Weekenders, it was a joy to read and I'm bongocat-ing now that others also get the privilege to read it as well.

Referencing your tags, would you please elaborate of ableism in fandom and, like you said, how fandom treats characters with unpalatable disabilities?

Hi Ms. Bud Lite I'm a big fan of you <3

TL;DR A fear of writing characters of highly marginalized identities shields you from criticism and discomfort, but it's actively stigmatizing to people of these identities and as a writer you really need to get over yourself and write The Icky People.

I guess I'll come out swinging on this one and say that fandom doesn't like severe mental illness. (As a note, when I say severe mental illness (SMI) I mean illnesses such as psychotic disorders, bipolar disorder, substance use disorders, personality disorders, etc)

Obviously, nobody likes people w/SMI. It's just insanely egregious in fandom to me, since fanfic writers absolutely love writing characters or HC characters with depression, anxiety, or a specific variety of PTSD That Isn't Scary. People actively reject any character HCs for a SMI. When people write a character with SMI, they nicely downplay it, ignore it, substitute it for a disorder they like better, or rewrite it. It's completely untolerated, in both headcanons and in fanfiction, and every time I bring it up I always get the most interesting reasons why somebody couldn't possibly acknowledge a character's SMI in their writing. I've heard all of these:

"I don't know enough about the disorder to write it accurately." Do research.

"I'm not X, so I can't really depict it." You probably aren't a cis white man, but you depict those guys just fine.

"It feels insulting to the character." There is no shame in having a SMI.

"I can't understand what it's like, so it's better to be cautious and avoid giving characters stigmatized identities." There are LOTS of experiences that you'll never understand because you've never had them - you just don't want to write anything you're uncomfortable with. People with SMI make you uncomfortable, and you don't want to write anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, or think of a comfort character in an uncomfortable way. SMIs are marginalized differently than solely depression/anxiety/The Nice PTSD, and by refusing to write them you're actively contributing to the stigma.

I think (?) I've spoken in the past about how I believe that the rigorous external and internal policing of writing people of marginalized identities is actively harmful towards efforts to increase diversity of experience and background in fiction. A lot of fanfiction writers are just terrified to write people who they can't directly relate with, because they're worried 'they'll get it wrong' and be Big Cancelled. I think this is negative enough when it prevents people from going outside of their comfort zone, but on a macro level I think this results in people refusing to write characters of marginalized identities as all. It's an insidious thought process, and it's reflected in people's unwillingness to diversity their writing or acknowledge canon diversity.

'Well, I don't understand what it's like to be Black, so I don't want to write Black people'. 'I want to project on this character, so I only want to write them with mental illnesses and identities I have'. 'If I write a marginalized character incorrectly people will yell at me, so I won't write a marginalized character who's marginalized differently than me at all'. Can you imagine writing a lesbian character with a boyfriend because 'you feel uncomfortable writing lesbian experiences'? It's blatantly homophobic. But people do that with disability and race/ethnicity ALL THE TIME.

People with SMI notice that you feel uncomfortable with them. It's obvious. They notice when a character has a SMI + anxiety, and you only write their anxiety. They notice when a character displays symptoms of a SMI in canon, but you write it out. And POC notice when the characters of color are written out. I know we all like to project on the blorbos and relate to them, and in the joys of your own head do whatever, but as a writer if you only stick to identities you're comfortable with you are actively being a worse writer. Which to me is the REAL sin lmfao.

[i-need-of-a-hobby]

if i were to write a jegulus and wolfstar fic based loosely on the 1920s new york mafia, would anyone read that or am i crazy?

[bleue-flora]

There has been a lot of discussion regarding c!Quackity, c!Tommy and c!Dream recently, a good portion stemming from the recent video circling around, where it is depicted that c!Tommy not only knew of c!Quackity’s torture but approved.

But while I could write an essay about it (ok yea I did…but) instead I want to shift the focus a bit, away from the same debates we keep having year after year. Because I think we’ve become too focused on the characters themselves over the audience's perception of them and too focused on morality, justification, and right and wrong in a story where everyone is morally questionable. Because at the end of the day it isn’t whether c!Dream or c!Tommy were actually right or justified, it is about - Who you root for and why. It is about (you) the audience's perception of the characters, not the characters’ perceptions of each other. Sure, c!Tommy himself feels justified in hurting c!Dream but do you believe he was.

With that thought in mind I found myself reading a 24 page research paper last night on a psychological study that looked at: What an audience defines as the hero and villain, Why they are naturally pulled to like certain characters and hate others, and What is the audience’s classification of morality in regard to the characters of fiction, where the conditions of morality are often not defined. One of the things shown in the data and line up to real life is that at the end of the day, heroes and villains are not defined on true purity and morality itself. If they were, action heroes and anti-heroes wouldn’t be successful and enticing. And yet, anti-heroes are some of the most beloved characters. In fact, I for one am typically drawn to violent anti-heroes, some of which are the heroes despite being perhaps sadistic murderers and torturers. But if the audience doesn’t simply define hero and villain as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ then what is pulling us toward taking one side over the other?

The answer is actually more complex than you might think. According to this paper, the first thing taken into consideration in a viewer’s appeal or unappeal of a character has to do with what the viewer considers “appropriate behavior.” Simply put, “appropriateness” is basically a social judgment which serves to approve or disapprove of a character’s behavior. This can be based on many things, such as cultural norms, societal code of conduct, your personal morals or experiences. And I think this is key, because I for one see stealing and griefing when I play Minecraft as seriously hurtful things to do (even though you can always rebuild). To the point that if you blow up the house I spent hours building or take my items it can ruin the fun for me entirely. So my definition of the appropriateness of such behavior might differ from people who take those things much more light-heartedly, causing me to disapprove of c!Tommy more than they would for that behavior.

Even further, when it comes to determining their appropriateness of behavior as in whether we tend to approve or disapprove of them we can look at moral domains, which spark our moral intuition instead of simply categorizing everything into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ since not even our subconscious brain is always so black and white. In the research I read, they looked at two sets of domains (aka sets of relating attributes used to measure and compare): The person-perception domains of Warmth (tolerant, friendly, warm, polite, gentle, trustworthy), Competence (intelligence, cleverness, opposite of stupidity, efficiency) and Duplicity (mad, tormented, violent, and tragic), which help to measure our perception of morality in characters as well as the five moral domains of MFT - harm/care (concerned with the suffering of others and empathy), fairness/reciprocity (related to justice), authority/respect (related to hierarchy and dominance), ingroup/loyalty (common good and punitiveness toward outsiders), purity/sanctity (concerned with contamination). According to the research behind these domains, we, the viewer, evaluate characters immediately and without cognitive deliberation. In other words, when characters fulfill domains it sticks with us and when they violate domains it can send out major red flags to us as soon as it happens without us thinking about it, not later in more considerate retrospect. So then, it makes sense that now as we debate we struggle to find common ground because our judgment was made ages ago and it's hard to reason with our already defined moral intuition.

As such, since I started getting into the dsmp first by watching all of the recordings of previous streams in order in this one playlist then going onto watching all of the blueberrytv videos (at the time of course), which edit the streams to allow you to see things from multiple perspectives. Therefore, I watched things from the very beginning, back when it was just c!George and c!Dream goofing off and dying in the nether. So, my intuitive judgment of c!Dream involves him building the community house, always trying to keep the peace between his friends, exploring the world so he can bring back all the types for wood for people to build with, building the prime path to connect everyone's houses together to make for easier travel, rebuilding Tubbo’s house after c!Tommy burned it down, helping c!Ponk when people kept burning down his house. These are just some of the moments I suspect helped to form my evaluation of him. Showing him as being very empathetic and caring, being loyal to his friends and accepting of new people, being a mediator and trying to keep things fair between his friends, fulfilling at least 3 (since he kinda is the authority that is hard to classify) of the moral domains. The streams also depicted the characteristics with warmth as well as competence and intelligence. So immediately my perceptive moral intuition deemed him the hero. As he fulfilled the warmth and competence domains of the one method and most of the domains of the other method without violating them in an obvious enough manner for me to remember at this moment (These are by no means the only reasons why I’d be inclined to root for c!Dream but that's beside the point).

On the other hand, my introduction to c!Tommy was him immediately breaking the three rules, by going around taking down donator’s signs, griefing, stealing, claiming things and property as his, trying to kill people until he ends up being banned. So he hurt others and causes harm, he is invited to join and have fun but fails to reciprocate that by going about and messing things up, he immediately disrespects everyone and defies authority by breaking the rules, hard to say on loyalty though (as mentioned above) him burning down c!Tubbo’s, his best friend, house doesn’t give me the impression of loyalty, concerning purity he scams and lies, is obsessed (though hardly the only one) with male genitalia (which I personally find unsavory) and is disrespectful towards women so definitely failing in the purity and sanctity domain as well. In regards to warmth, I wouldn’t say so, nor particularly competent, though certainly meeting the more violent and aggressive elements of duplicity. So in other words, in just his first few streams he has violated every moral domain, while also not meeting the warmth or competence but meeting duplicity. So immediately my impression of him is to dislike and disprove as my moral intuition labels him as a villain.

In other words, perhaps our affinity for characters and perception of their morality has less to do with actual legal or other measurements of morality but more of what our initial impression was that formed our judgment from the very start. Because at the end of the day, I feel like the discussion needs to be less about whether this character or that character is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ because their motivation or trauma justifies their behavior and more about what qualities do you appreciate about the character. At the end of the day, it's fiction and you should be able to love or hate whatever character you want regardless of morality or right & wrong. It’s your opinion and I don’t see other fandoms shaming and bashing other people for liking a certain character that others dislike and/or the protagonist dislikes meaning therefore they are bad so how can you like them. But in the same way, I should also be able to hate a character without being bashed for not being empathetic to their trauma… Anyways I think the idea that we all see characters as justified and innocent in our own way is cool, especially in respect to the dsmp which is told from all angles, and that’s what I set out to learn more about and share with you. Hopefully, you have enjoyed my findings and I made sense (…..and if it didn’t, you are always welcome to ask or add on :D), sorry for the length I’m beginning to realize conciseness is not my strong suit…

I hope with this interesting angle, we can lean away from discussions on legal, moral, crime, trauma and more towards questions of preference and characteristics and personal perception - Why do you root for them? What was your introduction to the characters? How do you think that impacted your viewpoint on the story? Has your viewpoint ever changed? What do you think helped define your definition of ‘appropriateness’?… etc <3 <3