#a reference so niche no one on tumblr will get it!!

[bowofbalance]

This house would imagine perry happy

[givemethedamnflowers]

I had the extreme honor today of saying "he's our spider george" and to be understood it was amazing

[euniexenoblade]

Anyways, baeddel is a slur against trans women.

Yes, there once was a weird group of girls who ressurected this long dead word for representing an ideology (I'm not getting into it but it did suck, just not cuz they "hated" men). This group self destructed before ever getting that many people. It was small. A tiny group. Their ideology wasn't popular either.

But, truscum, anti-sjws (conservatives by another name) and hate sites like kf would start to use the term to refer to any trans woman that they decided wasn't "trans enough" or "woman enough" or more importantly, was "too political" (ie talks about transmisogyny, talks about feminism, talks about leftism, etc.). Baeddel became a stand in for "tranny" "faggot," it's the trans woman stand in for the "nasty man hating dyke" sentiment.

Now, a small niche group of trans mascs on Tumblr dot com have created this concept that the baeddels didn't self destruct, apparently they actually are this insanely popular group whose ideology has spread into modern LGBT politics and has "poisoned" everything. This is just a lie. The baeddels group never had enough members to spread that much, the group didn't last long enough, and it was almost entirely located on Tumblr. The people with "baeddel" in their url or bio or whatever these days have no connection to the political group of old, it's a reclaiming of a word used against them, as explained in the third paragraph.

If someone is calling trans women "baeddels" or talking about baeddels in their posts or whatever, they're just calling trans women faggots. It's "gay agenda," but for the transmisogynists. This is a small bit of why I can't take the "transandrophobia is real" crowd seriously. I knew actual baeddels, the ideological ones, they are not the women they're referring to. They are using a slur to refer to trans women they don't like and are trying to hide it behind some dead ideology that most of them don't even know.

Baeddel is meant to be a scary word, it's meant to silence women. Just like, 5 or 6 years ago, claiming a trans woman was a baeddel was enough to effectively get her "canceled," no matter what she said. But, that doesn't work as easily now. And now these trans masc people are getting information from terfs and lesbophobes and violent transmisogynists about how violent trans women are, about how privileged trans women are, about how transmisogyny is actually fake ("we all experience transmisogyny!") and they did this by lacing it with actual trans masc issues. They present an issue trans mascs do actually face, that could use discussion, and then in the very next post talk about the scary baeddels, the mean baeddels, trans women are so terrible. And these people assume this person can't have an ulterior motive, reblog it, file it away in their brain, so when trans women come in and are like "hey no that's bigotry" these trans mascs froth at the mouth to eviscerate her. It's the dreaded baeddel. Here to oppress me.

I'm going off topic but I digress, if you're calling trans women "baeddel," stop it. You don't know what that word means.

[juliametzgerart]

I have shared versions of this on other platforms before, so I might as well make a tumblr edition: here some tips for MtG portfolios I gathered and might be interesting for some people who follow me. 1. Since this is a trading card game, here comes the obvious one first: Always keep in mind that these are card illustrations, they have to be readable in super small. Which means that strong silhouettes and value structures are a must have. If you work digital, check the zoomed out version on regular basis, or even have some jpgs to check their thumbnails in your file browser. That can give you an idea about their readability. Traditionally you can of course take some steps back, or take some photographs to look at smaller previews on your devices. Also: print illustrations often come out darker than their screen versions, be careful with your darks! It's rather easy for things to go muddy, even if they look good on screen. In doubt, increase the brightness a bit. It's okay to have different versions for screen and print to meet their needs.

2. Be versatile about your topics and compositions. Zoom in, zoom out. Don't fall into the trap of your own comfort zone zoom level of showing things, or one way of doing things. It can be positive to offer purposefully unusual options.

3. Be aware of the focus. If you have a magician with a staff, ask yourself if the card is about the staff(artifact), the mage (creature) or perhaps even the spell. The composition and focus of the illustration should shift accordingly! Clear action is important for readability – since that is not just visual hierarchy here, but also storytelling. Which brings me to the next point: 4. Good narrative matters, but mechanics matter even more. So, again, be very aware of your illustration's focus. You can potentially add extra elements for the story to make it more fun, but it should not get too convoluted, and even less should it distract from what the card it actually about. If you come up with your very own ideas for a portfolio this is of course much more open than if you work from a description. But you can find a bunch of official MtG descriptions online which are super useful for training.

5. Show care. Plan the illustration, get the references in place. It's the best time to get good habits in place, and really finish the pieces. Don't make them weaker by going too fast, that is not convincing. It just lets people assume worse things for tight deadlines. This does not mean everything needs to be rendered to death - but shape design should remain thoughtful and purposeful even where soft and lost edges are used.

6. It's potentially okay to have your specific stylistic or thematic niche. It can mean less assignments at times, but can also mean more special ones. It's cool though for your voice to be visible as long as the other needs of the product are met.

7. Never stop using those references. Get them, make them, use them - take them seriously. (at least for any of the more realistic styles). It's one of the most repeated tips for any student to actually just use more references. They do a ton to get complicated things like anatomy and lighting right, but also cultural references and versatility. Many of the best Magic artists also make the best references – it's not a coincidence. Learn from the people who have already established themselves, they have great wisdom to share. 8. Your quality has to match the current roster. Yeah, sorry, no way around that one. You need at least to be as good as the currently "worst" artist in the roster to have a chance. And the ADs need to be sure that even on a bad day your art can meet their quality bar. Which is the reason why you likely need several art pieces at the required level, to prove it wasn't just some lucky fluke. Though once you're really there, that also means a bit less pressure to perform, since you're likely comfortable at your skill level and can only go up from there.

[duckprintspress]

Fandom 101: The Origin of the Citrus Scale

A guest post by Aeryn Jemariel Knox. (@jemariel)

Ah, the citrus scale. It’s like a cryptid roaming the edges of modern fandom communities. Long-tenured veterans speak of it with affectionate mockery while newcomers google curiously. A relic from a bygone fandom era, the citrus scale saw a brief resurgence in 2018 during the Tumblr porn ban, suggested as a way to avoid the new bot censors trawling for posts with the NSFW tag—though never, I think, in seriousness. 

That may have been jocular and short-lived, but it does point to the reasons why the citrus scale was created in the first place. Certain fandom activities have always had to fly under the radar to one degree or another. Whether you’re trying to evade legal action or simply avoid deletion based on explicit content, a certain level of obfuscation is sometimes worthwhile.

It’s not hard to find the generally agreed-upon definitions of the citrus scale’s levels. According to Fanlore, KnowYourMeme, and others, this is more or less the “official” citrus scale:

Orange: Light stuff, kissing, nothing below the waist or under the clothes. 

Lime: Groping, implied sex without details, fade-to-black, no intercourse or intimate contact.

Lemon: Sex, in full detailed glory. Woo-hoo! Regardless of the actual acts performed, if you can tell who had an orgasm (or, perhaps, had an orgasm denied), how, and where, it’s a lemon.

Grapefruit: We’ll get into this later.

But these tidy categories are clear thanks to the benefit of hindsight. In the Wild West of the early internet, it was not so easy to pin down exactly what you might be getting into based on which term was used.

At its origin, the citrus scale wasn’t a scale at all. It has its roots in hentai (and was always more popular in anime fandoms), stemming from a specific early hentai film by the title of Cream Lemon (1984). Hentai being what it is, this led to certain subculture communities referring to any story with explicit sexual content as a “Lemon.” And for a while, that was the extent of it. Then came fanfiction.net purging explicit content (2002), Livejournal suffering Strikethru (2007), and other events that pushed burgeoning fandom communities out of their growing hubs and back into smaller, isolated communities centered on a single fandom or pairing. In the relatively sparse early ’00’s internet, anybody could spin up an Angelfire website, pass the link around to their friends, and get a reasonable amount of traffic.  Websites devoted to the works of a single author or small group were common.

I mention this to describe the landscape in which fandom lexicons grew and evolved in the early-mid 2000s. Each pocket community had its own rules, lingo, and expectations; venturing outside of your home pocket could lead to some pretty major miscommunications. 

“Lemon” was established early and its definition has hardly shifted. It means that the labeled content (art, fic, mood board, etc.) includes sex. Intercourse, bumping uglies, etc. However, some yaoi fandom niches used it specifically to mean gay sex of the male variety. In some communities, “lime” developed as a corresponding term for feminine gay sex, while other communities brought it up with the usage that eventually “stuck,” “not quite a lemon.” Given that lemon and lime often go hand in hand when discussing actual flavors, the fact that we had some divergent term evolution is not surprising. But coming in from a different pocket of fandom and seeing “lime,” thinking you’ll be reading semi-softcore sexual tension and instead being confronted with graphic sapphic antics? Bit of a shock, I’m sure.

A more dramatic example is the rating level of “Grapefruit,” which occupies two completely different ends of the scale. In some circles, grapefruit was defined as “less intense than lime,” G or PG-rated stories that were more soft or cute than sexy. In other circles, it was used to mean the exact opposite. Kinkier than kink, smuttier than smut, grapefruit art and fic was where you went to have your eyebrows singed off. Some communities were even more specific, using grapefruit for stories featuring non-consensual sex. This was where darkfic lived – in modern day parlance, your “Dead Dove, Do Not Eat” works. To say that this usage difference caused some disagreements would be putting it mildly.

Nobody really worried about orange. Orange just existed, not bothering anybody.

When these terms were coined, the internet was not an assumed aspect of everybody’s daily life the way it is today. There was no Tumblr, no Facebook, no social media to speak of. There were no large repositories of internet lore and knowledge such as Urban Dictionary or KnowYourMeme. It was a playground. And what do you do on a playground? You make friends! The citrus scale, like so many fandom tropes and concepts, was defined by groups of friends that created them ad hoc to meet their own needs at the time. No one could have predicted that it would become so much a fandom history that it’d be enshrined, nor that I would be writing a blog post about it two decades later. From the common source of lemon, people extrapolated what the rest of the scale might look like, and there was no authority to tell them they were wrong. (Except other fans. That hasn’t changed.)

In conclusion, it’s best not to take the citrus scale too seriously. At best, it’s a cheeky way to avoid censors who try to bar a community from engaging with explicit works, but it’s also varied to a fault and open to interpretation. If you and your community have come up with a use for it that suits your needs, then congratulations: you’re part of a fandom tradition stretching back to the roots of the internet. Just don’t try and tell anybody else that they’re wrong. You might start a flame war.

References:

Prokopetz: Orange and Grapefruit

She’s Got Plans: What is the Citrus Scale in Fanfiction?

Unwinnable: Lemon and Lime

Past Fandom 101 Posts:

Everything About A/B/O Dynamics You Wanted to Know (but were Afraid to Ask)

How to Diversify Your To-Be-Read Pile

Recognizing AI Generated Images, Danmei Edition

[tenyearsoftrash]

Ten Years of HTP: A Celebration

Hi all, I (@eatingcroutons) set up this blog with all sorts of intentions about preparation and promotion and then Life Things Happened, but I'm still hoping to go forward with the idea of encouraging some nostalgia and memory-sharing about the last ten years of the HYDRA Trash Party.

The aim here is to be more of a celebration of community rather than your typical prompt fest - if you're looking for prompts for fanworks you might want to check out the @catws-anniversary that has just kicked off and will run until the 4th of April, or of course refer back to the Trash Meme itself!

So for this blog's purposes, feel free to post informal thoughts and musings and ramblings, and to comment on each other's memories - this is all about our shared history and nostalgia, and the idea is for it to be an open dialogue and celebration of community. A few points on logistics:

Anonymous asks and submission are open on this blog if you'd prefer not to participate under a named account. We all know how hostile certain corners of fandom have become to darkfic and adjacent content.

For all the themes below self-recs are also very welcome, if you want a chance to show off something you made years ago that hasn't gotten much attention in a while!

Go ahead and tag this blog at @tenyearsoftrash for a reblog of anything you post about the below themes!

All that said, here are some suggested themes and ideas to get you thinking and reminiscing:

April 4: Rewatch CA:TWS!

Take yourself right back to where it all began! With too many people across too many timezones we're not going to even try to organise a massive synchronised groupwatch, but maybe you could get a few of your old-school HTP buddies together to do a smaller one? In any case: fire up the movie, relive all the feels, and share any HTP-related thoughts that come (back) to mind after all these years!

April 5: Fanwork Recs

Go back and dig up some links to your favourite HTP fanworks - whether big or small, well-known or niche, what are the works that have really rewritten your brain chemistry, and stuck with you all this time? What was it about them that hit just the right spot? Feel free to share your thoughts on Tumblr - and to go back and drop a nostalgic comment on anything on AO3 😉

April 7: Meta Recs

Over the years there's been a lot of meta associated with HTP, from discussions of what CA:TWS and HYDRA represent in a broader social context, to endless back-and-forth about darkfic's place in fandom. Are there any posts that really made you think, or that remain relevant even now? Is there anything that came out of those meta discussions that has turned out to be particularly prescient, in hindsight?

April 8: HTP Fanon

What are your favourite bits of shared or personal fanon around HTP and its related concepts? Are there any Original Characters you're particularly fond of? Any particular tropes regarding characters or events that you will never get tired or bored of? Any ideas that might seem cracky on the surface but which you are totally into regardless?

April 8: Other Media/Fandoms

We've all had those moments where we've come across something in a new canon and immediately been like, "Oh, this is delicious trash bait," right? What other media has had a "Bucky Barnes Obediently Accepts The Bite Block" moment for you? What other characters might your fellow HTP friends enjoy as interesting targets for Trash Party Shenanigans? In what fandoms have you found yourself running into an awful lot of familiar HTP faces?

April 9: WIP Amnesty

Do you have any HTP fanworks that you never finished, or never got around to starting, for whatever reason? Now's your excuse to talk about them! Feel free to ramble about what your plans would have been, lament why they're never going to happen, or share some of those great ideas you never quite had time to plot out. Or, if you're feeling particularly inspired, go back and actually finish something off!

April 10: HTP Community Memories

To finish off the week let's talk about the community itself! What have been the good times, the interesting times, any times that have been personally significant to you, for any reason? What things have you experienced or shared or understood with or through or because of the HTP community? What new friends have you made over the years, and what old friends do you miss?

---

Apologies again for taking some time to getting around to making this post, but hopefully people will still be interested in doing some reminiscing!

[slythereen]

Oh my! I really really need to see the rest of your tag commentary for the Essay!!!!!!!!!

breaking: tumblr (rightfully) tries to silence area maniac’s deranged rambling but the people* won’t stand for it!!! (*one pitying anon)

right so regarding tsarinablogs' glorious essay on rbr, ferrari, and the lestappen marketing phenomenon… the only substantial point i had to add is about ferrari. because nat is totally right, it doesn't make sense for ferrari to be actively engaging in promoting the lestappen friendship if the payoff is charles moving to rbr. not unless their only aim is basically damage control and making the inevitable breakup look amicable.

but if you look at the austin lestappen interactions — and the rbr-ferrari interactions in general this season — ferrari isn't really an active collaborator in the agenda. time to get crazy:

the great rbr-ferrari sticker war

yes, we're coming back to my favorite topic briefly (my beloved rbr-ferrari sticker war agenda). this is the most actively involved rbr-ferrari interaction, though. and it was initiated (accidentally, in fairness) by christian horner.

belgian grand prix (nicely compiled video)

we start with christian covering the ferrari emblem on a fan's hat. this is one of those from-a-distance videos, i don't believe it was initially shared by rbr. not entirely an intentional engagement.

ferrari does start the actual engagement on social media by posting the first "sticker war" video and tagging rbr. they also directly reference rbr's yeti stickers tradition (which, as far as i can tell, is new this season with their yeti sponsor and i think belgium was the first gp they mentioned it) (which is curious in and of itself).

rbr retaliates. war is on. eventually, f1 gets involved with a cute recap... and that's when they go from just responding to one another in comments to actually tagging each other.

what else did we have going on in belgium?

a lestappen podium

rbr debuting (i believe) the yeti cooler on socials

carlos infamously having war declared on him by the entirety of f1twt for bully oscar

so, you could say ferrari actively instigated the sticker war. this has no real lestappen involvement and appears to be entirely the admins having fun with one another. it's also very conveniently timed as a distraction for ferrari and an opportune advertising moment for rbr and yeti.

dutch grand prix (max's home race)

a pause in the sticker war for the dutch grand prix. what we do get is rbr posting lestappen on main (the mclaren camcorder saga) and rbr posting some content about their yeti (and the new yeti sticker tradition). (just as a side note: travel stickers to add to yetis is a bit of a niche Thing; very on brand for the sponsorship deal.)

(similarly, a pause in monza — all ferrari, all the time, for monza. we get the lestappen quali podium and charles asking the crowd not to boo max.)

singapore grand prix (ferrari sacrificial altar)

again, we see ferrari instigating the interaction — now with tagging rbr on the posts. interestingly, rbr tags yeti in response and ferrari's comment on rbr's retaliation brings it back to the yeti sticker tradition. with this "attack" actually targeting the yeti cooler, it's making it all look very... yeti-focused.

but singapore is also when rbr doubles down on the lestappen content — and gets more loud about it. the infamous "lecstappen alert" post. we also got some photos of them chatting in the paddock (which, i believe, were not posted by either rbr or ferrari but were out there adding to the Vibes this weekend).

meanwhile, ferrari is dealing with peak ferrari civil war mode this weekend after blatantly sacrificing charles to defend carlos' victory and then not acknowledging it in the slightest in favor of propping up the "cool carlando operation."

japanese grand prix (f1 takes the score)

rbr initiates the on-going war this time around and makes sure to advertising their new suzuka hats while they're at it. ferrari retaliates. and once again, we see f1 doing a recap/summary of the on-going fight. no lestappen in sight once more...

... but rbr also posts lestappen crumbs, in the form of max talking about his suzuka race start from 2022. which means smiling at a video of one of his battles with charles.

after the race, ferrari is back in civil war mode after carlos complains about being "sacrificed" in suzuka and ferrari gets heat for their interesting quali strategy that put them in this situation in the first place. no post-race hi-jinx this time around.

qatar grand prix ("everybody is a ferrari fan")

rbr initiates the conversation again. this time, ferrari's only response is to like the photo. but this was after the sprint race and after max had already been crowned for the third time; not exactly a time when ferrari wants to be adding to the max agenda.

plus, by this time we had already seen the videos and photos of charles congratulating max immediately, before everyone else. this moment wasn't posted by rbr or ferrari, naturally, but it is out there and being spread around by the end of the time rbr starts posting the ferrari photo.

we also saw charles offering max glowing praise and talking about how much max and rbr deserves it, because they still had to fight even while having a dominant car. on one hand, this is a lot of respect for his childhood rival. on another, it's adding to the idea that hey, even with a super dominant car, the driver's talent matters (so if you catch me in a super dominant car in the near future, keep that in mind, media).

carlos had the dns for the qatar race, there were the obvious health concerns going on that definitely took up everyone's attention. no need for ferrari to do any distracting pr and therefore no reason to engage in the lestappen/rbr narrative for the weekend, despite rbr tagging them.

which brings us to...

austin grand prix and the lestappen resurgence

so far we've seen a fairly consistent rbr-ferrari conversation going on around the stickers and yeti sponsorship. but it definitely has tapered off and has shifted towards rbr being the one to engage and keep the conversation moving on social media. plus, we've been getting more and more of charles and max interacting in the background of all this, casually being friends (and being subtly pointed out by rbr).

and if you look at the austin interactions, ferrari isn't as much of a collaborator in the agenda. rbr is the clear instigator and driving force behind all of the lestappen media interactions — and they more or less force ferrari's hand.

obviously, the great lestappen padel date (cough, competition) sets the tone for the weekend. charles and max hanging out, outside of f1, publicly, is certainly a choice. i think they've always been closer than they let on (at least since covid-era), but the "rivals" narrative had them limiting their public interactions... so why now?

and then, of course, austin goes on a mission to overload us with lestappen. and rbr gets on board with that, quickly. starting with the press conference and lestappen gossip session... which, sure, is controlled by the f1. but max sitting next to charles and as far from daniel on the couch as he is? a choice imo.

next up we have our glorious quali session, and rbr starts in on the lestappen on main agenda. they heard us begging for the congratulations photo and they delivered (twice — with christian posting it personally, too).

with max not even being in the quali presser, you could just call this good opportunism. photos showing max being gracious and friendly with charles despite being upset about his lap being deleted is great pr and a great excuse to post about max and make it about max, to a degree.

we get lestappen being lestappen on saturday morning. so far, so good... a great parallel to the shots of max congratulating charles, this time with max taking the p1 (to rbr's delight).

following the sprint (and max's slight terrorism against charles)?

rbr posts lestappen again (three times), this time calling them out by name twice, and emphasizes that this is the second day in a row that they are giving us lestappen content. they tag charles again, but not ferrari this time. this is what i mean by forcing ferrari's hand — rbr has been posting their driver a lot.

and ferrari did essentially the bare minimum to keep up the fun rivalry vibes (responding to the post with the “back at ya” which in and of itself frames it as them just reacting to rbr). rbr is the one who doubled down by responding to that (the “we’re giving you what you want” reply). so while it looks like cute and very sus coordination, i would say rbr is definitely driving it. and rbr is driving it a lot.

(one strange exception: ferrari posting the charles answering questions video and posting him talking about padel with max. idk. you would think that they would cut it, or charles would have had to ask to include it if this is his agenda, or... something. that detail is just an odd one to me and may suggest greater ferrari support of the agenda.)

ferrari’s non interaction could say two things, i think. either:

they want to make it look like rbr is trying too hard and they are just humoring it (in line with ferrari’s stuffy reputation)… or,

it’s not their narrative and they’re doing what they must to not look too stuffy by not engaging at all (esp. after they joined in with the carlando propaganda previously).

i am inclined to think it's the second option, just based on rbr's behavior and the oddity of the sudden increase in content amidst ferrari's civil war and rbr's own internal second seat drama.

the sticking point for me is trying to figure out what ferrari’s agenda actually is with their recent social media approach, then. it seems far-fetched that they are just bad at social media and keep missing the mark. but seeing the vision… idk man.

if they’re being deliberate in trying to enrage fans it feels like it has to be leading to a driver swap. setting up a narrative of "something clearly isn't working, ferrari is doing awful, we need change" and then magically "fixing" it all with a driver line-up change. in my mind, this only works if they are trying to oust carlos — it would explain the stupid strategies and blatant favoritism, as well as serves as a convenient (and true) scapegoat for the shitty car we have this season. charles talking to espn this weekend about the 2024 car direction and how it is leaning in his direction? curious timing, that.

the alternative, of course, is that charles has already signed with rbr or ferrari suspects that he will. then isolating charles to the point to trying to remove their brand from him and be able to stand alone once he leaves makes some sense... however, not a lot.

the issue with taking a deliberate strategy like this is that it is very risky. they risk pissing the fans off too much. they also risk jeopardizing their results, especially if they are letting bad strategy calls go on purpose to drive the malcontent. you'd have to believe ferrari is willing to give up points and risk their reputation (at least temporarily) to commit to the bit.

which... it seems like charles, at least, is looking towards 2024. this year and this car are a wash. max and rbr already have the championships. maybe it's not such a bad time for ferrari to risk it and throw away some races to feed their agenda. but still, they look incompetent as shit. it's a bad look. and this type of strategy only works if they anticipate a radical turn around next season (and can say "look, all that junk last year was just growing pains and transition, fred came in and this is his first year with just him and his direction, and it's all good now").

their recent behavior is just... shitty. and you would think a brand like ferrari would be better than that. you have to believe there's probably an agenda in there somewhere, because it's hard to believe that they are just that bad at media. and there's not a whole lot that really ties into them playing along with rbr.

so, basically... i'm not sure if they really are playing along with rbr at this point. i think rbr has the narrative in hand when it comes to lestappen, though towards what aim... idk. maybe it's all just leading up to some ea sports shit. maybe rbr just wants to capitalize on charles' likability and boost max's reputation. maybe this is more about charles having more free reign with his image and brand lately, and charles deciding to be more open with his friendship with max (and, of course, more open about the idea that other teams want him). maybe ferrari is just along for the ride and doing damage control.

whatever is going on, it's something. there has just been way too much weirdness with charles' behavior and attitudes, rbr's actions, charles not having a renewal announcement yet, rbr's own seat issues, ferrari's very weird media angles, charles making big moves with his personal brand...

rbr lestappen may have felt like a pipe dream at the start of the season, but idk. let's not forget that max once walked back his statement about not being on a team with charles because you can't have two number ones. i believe his new answer was something to the effect that sure, he and charles could drive for the same team. and, of course, charles' response was always "why not?".

in sum: shit's happening. i'm hoping it's lestappen-in-red-bulls shit.

[horrorisunknowntoyou]

[Simon "Ghost" Riley x Wife!-Reader] Headcanons

A/n: my birthday is today! so I wrote this as a treat for myself. I been hella sick and unwell so yeah :) also there's a lack of fluff and domestic stuff so I'm here to provide! + Birthday stuff at the end! 🎂 🎉

TW// dark topics, mentioned of Simon's trauma and mental illness, It's like brief.

Song recommendations:

Somewhere Only We Know - Keane

------------------------------------------------------------

You been married to Ghost for a long time, hell the task force didn't even know you existed until later this year or so.

Your meeting with your husband's buddies/co-workers (?) was quite a pleasant suprised.

Captain price was a lovely fellow, very much the father figure of the group. But he can be very cruel if need be.

Soap was.... interesting, you understand why your husband both love/hate the guy. But he was definitely fun to talk to. He was the most surprised to see you.

Gaz was a sweetheart, nice young man. Funny definitely. Didn't talk much.

Laswell was nice, she seem like the cool aunt type to drink wine or something.

But they definitely were surprised at the revelation that Ghost was married. Which isn't surprising considering the type of man he is.

(also you definitely showed the team your guys wedding photos/videos much to Ghost's protest.)

------------------------------------------------------------

But speaking of marriage, you been married to Ghost for around 5ish years. You met him by chance during an errand. It was really cliche, you accidentally bumped into him. And he was very awkward, and kinda stood their staring at you. You just laughed it off.

In some sense, you two were polar opposites that was interchangeable. He was the moon and you were the sun, etc. You balance each other out.

Also if it isn't obvious, both of you have some sense of dark humor. His was more shitty dad jokes and yours was offensive ones or very niche references to stuff. *Cough." Tumblr "Cough."

Also considering your husband, you were used to his interest in the morbid or macabre. Of course you had to tell him to dial it down so it doesn't hurt him. Specifically his interest in live leak. Also cause you didn't want to see that.

You were also the only person who could properly calm him down, or deal with his anger issues. Reminding him, it's fine to take a step away to breathe. Of course in the beginning it was hard but, you learn to understand him well.

You knew his triggers, his traumas and fears, of course it took ALOT of time and trust for him to even tell you this. But he slowly open himself to you and vice versa.

Also one of his bad habits, be it anger issues, but he sometimes unintentionally gaslight you. You know it means no harm but sometimes it can get overwhelming or lead up to fights. He tries his best not to do it often.

He may not be a great person for comfort, mainly sitting besides you or awkward hugs. But it's obvious he tries his best and that's enough for you.

And he's very protective of you considering what he's been through.

He trained you to defend yourself and how to use a firearm in emergencies just in case. It helps put his minds in ease. But as mentioned earlier, due to his anger issues. He will have the urge to fight anyone who upsets you or hurts you. That's the only time you can't hold him back much to your pleas.

But at the same time, you, yourself is highly protective of him. Of course he's more then capable to defend himself afterall he's a highly experienced military man. Who's 6'4 and 200+ pounds, but even so you will protect him. After all you love him with all your heart. Of course being a civilian, there's not much you can do but you try. And I think that's enough for him.

Also both of you have this weird complex of "I'll put my life aside for my significant other." You both definitely need to work on it.

He also knows your triggers and issues, he doesn't fault you for it. Be it whatever you suffer from, he's always willing to help you, or at least something to lean on.

------------------------------------------------------------

Domestic life between the two of you is interesting.

First things first, Simon wears his mask even at home. He doesn't show his face often and you don't really mind it. As it just became part of him in some sense.

However he has to do face mask with you to make sure 1. His face is handled and cleaned, 2. To wash his masks and hoodies he wears. It makes you cringe at how dirty his mask are.

You two also sometimes play videogames, funny enough first person shooters. You suck at it though, your not terrible but Simon dies inside when your aim is shit. However you force Simon to play Just Dance with you so that's a win in your book!

Also chores between the two of your are planned out before hand so not much issues between that, but if you both are tired you just order out take out lol.

Also surprisingly, Simon's a really good cook he's just lazy or pretends to suck because he doesn't want soap to know. lol

You both have your own specialized mugs to drink tea or coffee in it.

Simon likes to play and brush your hair, it kinda calms him down. He sometimes braid it or style it. You have no idea why he knows how to do this but you ain't complaining.

Simon is also a HUGE sucker for cuddles, either be it sleeping or laying down in the couch. But specifically in bed he's either sleeping as if he's in a casket or he's holding you protectively around his arms. No in-between.

In the more colder months, even though you have your own hoodies, Ghost allows you to wear one his. It engulfs you and it's very comfortable to be in.

But you, you love spoiling Simon. It being some expensive knife he wanted or little charm to add on his weapon. The glee in his eyes make it worth it at times, especially the slight hints of red brushed on him. Of course you respect his boundaries and not overdo it.

------------------------------------------------------------

During Ghost's deployment he likes to keep a picture of you, either a simple picture within his pocket or a locket he hear around his neck.

Same goes for you, you mainly have a picture of him sleeping peacefully while watching TV as your wallpaper, You smile at it every time.

You also have a Polaroid that you keep on deck in your wallet. It has a little note on the back from Ghost. It's cute.

You even have your own version of his skull mask for you too wear, if you feel lonely when he's away weeks at a time.

He does worry his work will put you in harms way or affect you negativity. It plagues his mind and it makes it hard for him to sleep in his cot or wherever.

You do get lonely while he's away, but you manage it.

------------------------------------------------------------

+ [Birthday stuff!] Characters are ooc lmao

When it's your birthday, Simon is alot more soft around you. He truly does care about you, and thankful for you in his life.

You usually have a small birthday party at your guys house with the task force (and some people of your choosing ) Especially, by now you really grew accustomed to them and it felt like a family to you.

You knew the first time round, they definitely struggled, as it was a surprise party. And Soap and Ghost were arguing over the placement of the banner.

Price was absolutely tired but gaz and Laswell (+ her wife) kept you distracted so you didn't even notice much to his relief.

Eventually Ghost sort it out, much to Soap nagging.

And when gaz and others brought back you were surprised with a birthday party.

You were so happy, you almost cried at how sweet everyone is. You were so thankful for this.

You had alot of fun with everything, they absolutely tried, it was like birthday party mixed potluck. It was fun!

There was also a bunch of moments you remembered.

One, Soap got drunk lmao. After the pinatas in which Gaz got most of the candy in his sweater, Soap starting doing some karaoke thing. He was singing California girls. The best thing though, you recorded it and you can see in video Ghost giving him a death stare.

You and Gaz did rock, paper, scissors over shots. You don't drink but it was fun till price like any father figure immediately stops it before it goes out of hand.

Also did you guys get a bounce castle knowing very well you all are grown adults? Yes.

You have alot of videos of it, mainly ghost and soap wrestling each other in the castle. Even though ghost refused to at first but soap pissed him off lol.

Laswell and price mainly stated out there.

You however joined in, and almost gave Ghost a heart attack when you grapped the roof part of the bouncy castle and got lifted up. He immediately pulled you down.

Gaz was the kid who mainly stated in the corner on his phone. But he did join in for a couple of games.

After that mess, you guys did the birthday cake. It was you favorite cake with white candles. And you say at the center of the table, and smiled.

They sang happy birthday and you blew out your candles.

Opening presents was a mess, you had alot of presents, that you didn't expect. Ghost obviously gave them tips what to get you.

You have alot of photos/videos of you opening the gifts.

Overall it was a really fun! You were the second person to fall asleep. Soap was asleep on the couch, you fell asleep on the recliner hidden in a hoodie.

Gaz fell asleep on two party chairs like it was normal. The rest either left or talked.

Overall you had a really fun night.

Also Ghost definitely teased you the next day over the stupid shit you did. But he's happy you enjoyed it.

[vellichorom]

Hello! I’m new to the Stanley Parable fandom (as in 3 days ago oop) and I’ve heard about the Narratorverse? I’m confused as to what that is. (Also, if you have any advice of people to follow in this fandom, I’m all ears!)

WELL WELL WELL! allow me to welcome you to the fandom & introduce you to it's most recent development ( as the technical hand in it's creation & persistence(?) )! may you enjoy it AND your stay here, there's PLENTY to consume & a little something for everyone, i think!

now, into the narratorverse;

TDLR; the Narratorverse is this idea that every Narrator / alternative TSP design exist in a multiverse & frequently mingle with each other in Tumblr & Discord events.

however, below is where I've compiled EVERY detail & piece of history to this monster in the fandom, so feel free to dive below & educate yourself thoroughly.

otherwise! i'm not really good at just Offering people to follow, as everybody brings something to the table & I hate to risk forgetting / neglecting one user over another, so I HAPPILY encourage other TSP artists to reblog this & promote themselves! ALSO! just dig through the tag long enough & you'll find TONS of amazing artists & creators to follow ( avoid rh/ad/ko like the plague ), I promise it's worth the treck!

Narratorverse Expansive Lore You Can Slap On a Wiki Below;

for the best experience, please read this to yourself in a generic " youtuber introduces & reviews niche topic " voice,

" the Narratorverse, " ALSO known as " the Paraverse " is an "AU" / fandom-wide concept in which every & all personal iteration of The Stanley Parable ( with a heavy focus on the designs of the Narrator ) from the fandom co-exist & mingle in a big, expansive multiverse.

if I'm not mistaken, this OFFICIALLY got started when the tumblr poll function started getting incorporated onto the site & @tsp-narrator-ask would grab up a handful of individual Narrator designs to feature in a " Sexiest Narrator " competition, where - of course, the fandom & any tumblr user alike could vote for their respective favorite design or whichever they found "sexiest" ( loosely ).

this whole competition inspired some participants of the competition ( including yours truly ) to make in-character commentary art, featuring their Narrator reacting to their BEING in the competition or otherwise campaigning for themselves not to lose / the aftermath of their losing; a lot of which would include their Narrator being thrown into some cruel & unusual punishment by the host of the competition. for le giggles. ( the latter linked post is the reason why MY narrator is referred to as Salad Boy, )

with the door open for it, this would spark some MORE drawn, in-character commentary, featuring contestants of the Sexyman Competition-- & even just anyone with a Narrator design who wanted to participate in the shenanigans, all gathered together like this competition & everything involved with it was this big party/event they were all called from their creators to get in on.

a lot of this commentary was featured in MASS REBLOGS, with everyone adding a little response to one's post; the main ones being THIS one, & the Unfathomably Popular Salad Thread, the latter of which, not to pat myself on the back for starting it, but I think REALLY popularized the concept of the " Narrator Multiverse, " & would lead things to escalate FAR beyond the initial Sexyman Competition.

NOW, there's an official Narratorverse / Paraverse roleplay / hangout server that features many ( if not everyone ) featured in these threads, there's other TSP servers that carry the lore & relationships from these events, & there's been a trend instilled of other, similar mass reblog threads that keep with the continuity of the last ones, but also branch out to expand on multiversal shenanigans with everyone allowed to participate.

-such as @blackkatdraws's Gluetrap Thread, the aftermath of THAT, this smaller " thread " featuring my arrator finding @tsp-narrator-ask's kid, & I think there might have even been a few started with the recently held Narratorverse Hunger Games that I just can't account for / didn't get to keep up with.

ALL OF THESE OBVIOUSLY tying into & ONLY adding onto the idea of this multiverse of Narrators & Stanley Parable alternatives alike & popularizing it into this own little delectable square of the fandom in which the community can really come together for some utmost silliness OR actual worldbuilding, given everyone in-character & out of character gets to reflect on every alternative interpretation of the game we're ALL here for.

& that's just about the full " history " of what this whole Narratorverse / Paraverse is! feel free to hop the bandwagon yourself!

who knows, your alternative interpretations could be what the fandom follow next!

[olderthannetfic]

In reference to this anon, you know what, actually, let's talk about "narcissistic abuse" because I'm in psych and I'm about to air some niche drama. "Narcissistic Abuse" was a term coined by Sam Vaknin who's written several books on the topic, his most popular being "Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited" and is one of the most interviewed on the topic. Sam Vaknin is not a certified mental health professional in any capacity and lies about being a "professor of psychology" to increase his book sales and further his career. None of his work is psychologically supported, some of the things he's written directly contradict the DSM. He's also the one that started the "Obama is a narcissist" craze.

But here's the kicker, Sam Vaknin is a domestic abuser and coined "narcissistic abuse" specifically to avoid responsibility for his abusive actions by claiming that it's inherent to his disorder — when you lend validity "narcissistic abuse" and prepetuate it either as a term or concept, you're buying into this man's bullshit. Not only in his attempt to avoid accountability for his own actions, but in his exploitation of vulnerable victims for profit and all his pseudoscientific bullshit.

He's also misogynistic, a rape apologist, queerphobic (and much more tbh) but this tumblr post gets into that pretty well and links his own work as sources. So I'm not going to get into it myself.

--

[hawkogurl]

I'll probably have more to say about this later bc I'm going to sleep soon, but I feel like, you, oliveroctavius, me, and a few other people are like the small minority I've seen anywhere who actually criticize TASM for the eugenics and ableism, and it honestly floors me that no one talks about it when it's so blatant and tumblr loves bringing up disability and ableism otherwise? Like, it's not even a case of how everyone has valid differing opinions and needs/wants when it comes to how the vast range of disabled experiences should be approached in fiction and there's nuance in how to do even tricky, but real experiences like grief and loss - we're talking about a film series where an antagonist meant to be sympathetic makes a speech about disability being a weakness of humanity that must be genetically eradicated to strengthen it (which is never deconstructed or challenged) and has no other characterization beyond sad amputee whose only interest for a decade is his missing arm, and where Peter is some kind of genetic chosen one whose Good Genes give him cool powers, and the whole mess with Harry.

The few other times on tumblr I've seen it brought up is to like, woobify (internalized) ableism even though the films go way beyond realistic personal struggle and straight into eugenics, and as someone with a Lizard niche in the Spidey fandom, I'm floored at how everywhere else, I keep seeing the TASM version of the character topping best adaptation discussions by a huge margin compared to way better takes with zero references of the ableism (this was not the case even a few years ago, idk what happened), and you can correct me on this if I'm wrong bc you would know more about the Harry side of things than me, but I feel like TASM!Harry used to be very popular and be moved, at least until MSM2017 and Insomniac came along.

Hi sorry my brother just graduated college. Anyways, in regards to the Harry side of things, I think a lot of the ableism SHOULD be pretty obvious, but apparently it’s not considering how little critical thought there is with all these villains. There’s the good genes bad genes eugenics of Harry wanting Peter’s blood to cure himself and then it doesn’t work because the spider only worked with Peter’s “good genes” (I don’t care about their in canon excuse, it still buys into this trope) and it reacted so badly with the TERMINALLY ILL CHARACTERS “bad genes” that he turned crazy and evil. And that’s ignoring my general distaste for disability or “insanity” being used primarily as a source of fear for the good, noble, and of course able bodied protagonists.

Something that’s also pretty weird that nobody mentions is the fact that like, Electro in these movies just HAD to talk to nothing. Normally it wouldn’t bother me as much or I might be willing to give it a pass, but it’s these movies, which just love to make their disdain for disabled people clear, so it comes off as super bad taste.

Like… I’m only scratching the surface. Why are there three people who consistently point out how ableist these movies are? Especially when as you said, tasm Harry is pretty popular! Ignoring my beef with him as a Harry Osborn, it’s so odd to me because so much of that is either like, sort of romanticizing his chronic illness and breakdown or getting off on that ableist insanity I mentioned earlier.

And when you bring it up, people get SUPER defensive. I don’t know if like, the amount of invalid criticism just makes people defensive or if it makes people think there’s NO valid criticism but like… these movies aren’t bad for the reasons you think. The issues they have are like… the writing saying that eugenics is cool and fun alongside generally iffy writing.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

@thegoatsongs asked about my Jonathan Is Too Human To Be A Man In This Culture hypothesis and i have to like restrain myself from developing it at length or getting too attached to it as of yet because tbh i have never actually watched any dracula adaptation so i’m going off second- and thirdhand impressions + cultural osmosis.  but (vague spoilers herein!) there seems to be consensus among jonathan enjoyers who have partaken of adaptations that our friend jonathan is poorly served by them on the whole, suggesting that, at the very least, dracula adapters are mostly not looking at this guy and saying as we have declared here “hey this dude is a compelling protagonist on which to focus narrative energy more or less as he appears in the original text.” which has bothered me for like almost a full year now because like i can kind of see how you would get there from the castle portion but i don’t get how you get there from the castle portion PLUS like… everything that happens in october. like, jonathan enters the book as a gothic heroine, but he leaves it on very firm footing as more or less an action hero. i like many people on this website find this insanely viscerally compelling even just at face value as a fun juicy emotionally engaging pulpy fictional narrative. The Culture At Large meanwhile seems to have totally left it on the table over the course of 6 million adaptations.

and like, on the other hand i don’t ever wanna make definitive over-determined claims and i think it’s always worth keeping in mind that adaptations influence future adaptations and once even one adaptation exists future go-rounds are almost never reacting solely to the original source text and are influenced not only by other adaptations but by other cultural trends and developments etc etc etc. but on the other hand i got 5 hours of sleep last night and am Posting through it and we’re all on tumblr to be bisexual eat hot chip and speculate in wild overgeneralizations about The Culture so given all those caveats i will say that especially given that the book’s been fully in the public domain since fucking 1962 and given that its popularity remains such that two separate New Take On Content From The Novel Dracula movies came out this year alone, it’s hard for me not to get a little But Why re: the jonathan of it all, and it’s also hard for me not to feel like part of the issue here is that people don’t know what to make of a male character who is so profoundly vulnerable and victimized, who is shown in moments of terrible weakness both narratively (through his powerlessness and at times literal paralysis in the castle) and emotionally (through his delicate and frazzled post-castle state in which mina must take care of him)…. and who is also shown to be a competent, decisive, courageous, knife-sharpening vampire-slaying badass.

i don’t think this is necessarily unique to jonathan in the cast of dracula or in the culture at large (one thing i’ve been meaning to revisit is megan abbott’s paper on how screen depictions of philip marlowe smooth out the “troubled masculinity” that jumps off the page in chandler’s novels), and i also don’t think the problem of “this whole ass human is breaking gender” is limited to male characters (absolutely unhinged and derangedly niche reference to make but i got five hours of sleep last night: i did think while writing this out that it reminded me of the ways animorphs ghostwriters kind of reduced rachel to a tormented badass while failing to capture her clearly established vulnerability and compassion). but jonathan is a character that i have thought about a lot in this regard simply because i find him so appealing for frankly unsophisticated reasons.

somewhere in there also is floating the thing about straight men responding with incredulity to the fact that any woman might find timothee chalamet hot when meanwhile many women are like “uh guys who look like consumptive orphans are my number one type and always have been hello???” like, something something the assumption that there’s an inherent contradiction between weakness and masculine appeal when many women attracted to men know it’s The Opposite. (what is the castle sequence if not something that would get tagged “whump” on ao3? what did stoker do to jonathan if not break the cutie?) but again (1) this is not a well developed or articulated theory i am simply Posting please no one @ me about coherence or evidence at this time (2) legit i slept like 5 hours. probably less.

[polwigle]

hello and welcome to another episode of Shi Has Strong Opinions on Niche Canon with Citable Sources, this time focusing on something that technically isn't canon one way or the other — my preferred fan-transliterated name for Raven's hometown in Tales of Vesperia, which is never referred to by name in any officially translated material.

anyway it's spelled Pharihyde and in this essay I will die on this hill

Context

In case you clicked the read-more with no stake in this game just because you want to see me being pedantic, let me recap the relevant facts of the argument:

Raven's backstory is never fully explained in the base game, but it was elaborated on in official side materials. The same story, titled 虚空の仮面 (Kokuu no Kamen, commonly translated as Empty Mask), was released in multiple formats: light novel[1], manga[2], and drama CD[3]. None of these have ever been officially translated, but fans have made their own attempts at each over the years.

The town in question here does not appear in the original game, due to having been obliterated during the prequel events. It's also never mentioned by name in the drama CD, leaving only two sources for a name: the light novel and the manga.

Officially, it is named ファリハイド (Farihaido).

The first translation the English-speaking fandom ever saw of any Kokuu no Kamen material was when one fan (whose identity was regrettably lost to time) took a stab at summarizing the light novels, not long after they were first published back in 2010. This fan transliterated the town's name as Pharihyde.

Tumblr user dokidokimaster was commissioned to finally translate the manga in 2015. In this translation, the town was spelled Farryheid.

By the time the manga was being translated, the web page that hosted the light novel summary had tragically gone down. Luckily, I was active enough in the fandom at the time to have had the link to the light novel bookmarked, so I was able to find an archive via the blessed Wayback Machine, but I can't fault dokidokimaster for the inconsistencies.

tl;dr of section: OG town name is ファリハイド; LN calls it Pharihyde; manga calls it Farryheid. Rest of essay is about why me preferring the name that came first isn't just me being a cranky fandom elder I swear

It's About The World It's In

In the world of Terca Lumireis, on the continent of Ilyccia, somewhere far from the capital city, Zaphias, there was once a town called... Farryheid? No, Pharihyde. The latter fits better with the precedents set by the official names around it, and I will literally break it down letter by differing letter to prove it!

'Ph' vs 'F'

Among officially transliterated locations and other "made-up" names in Tales of Vesperia, there are 3 that include 'ph' to represent an 'f' sound (Zaphias, Zopheir, Phaeroh). Only a single name uses an actual 'f' for that sound (Ghasfarost), and it also still has an 'h' as the second letter in the word.

Single vs. Double 'R'

After a ctrl+F pass through the entire list of location names in this game[4], not a single one contains the substring 'rr'. Only one R at a time in Terca Lumireis!

Vowel Choice and Lexical Stress

So, English has this neat little feature where some syllables in a word get more emphasis than others! And that plays heavily into this section, because 'i' and 'y' can sound identical when using 'y' as a vowel, but the existing place names stress them differently.

Now, as the Drama CD doesn't give us a spoken example of ファリハイド to work from (and Japanese doesn't do stress the way English does anyway), where the stress goes in either "Pharihyde" or "Farryheid" is technically unconfirmed... But my default reading is with primary stress on the first syllable, and secondary stress on the last (FAR-ee-hide).

In the precedent-setting place names, based on the English dub of the 360 version*, a lone 'i' is seen unstressed in at least 16 distinct names, including the ones I referenced in my intro scene-setting sentence (ZA-phi-as, TER-ca LU-mi-reis). To my knowledge, lone 'i' is never pronounced with stress in dialogue (and potentially appears only once, in the plot-irrelevant Niffel Lake).

In contrast, whenever 'y' is used as any kind of vowel, it always gets at least secondary stress, as in Hypionia (high-pee-O-nee-ah) and Rhybgaro (RIB-ga-ro). Thus, "Pharihyde" using an 'i' for the middle vowel and a 'y' for the last one lines up with established precedent.

Also, the double vowel 'ei' is consistently and exclusively used to represent an 'ay' sound, as in "day", not as in "hide"! Deidon Hold, Keiv Moc, and again Zopheir and Terca Lumireis — none of these 'ei's sound the way "Farryheid" wants you to pronounce it!

Silent 'e'

I did say I'd break down every different letter between "Pharihyde" and "Farryheid", but this last one's not for flavour, it's just to get the 'y' to act as the right kind of vowel sound. Just a normal feature of English pronunciation rules here (though not entirely without precedent: Halure, Relewiese, Laulyse). Sorry to go out with a whimper ^^;;

Conclusion

The base content of Tales of Vesperia sets up some implied rules about how its made-up-for-the-game words function. "Farryheid" may be a perfectly reasonable transliteration of ファリハイド in a vacuum, but "Pharihyde" follows the rules of the setting, literally to the letter!

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

*Footnote about the pronunciation thing: the new voice lines added in the Definitive Edition of the game pronounce some place names inconsistently. I can only assume that by the time they recorded the new lines, a decade after the original ones, they forgot how some pronunciations worked and didn't check their old work... :/

References

(bc it's not an essay without citations!)

[1] Light novel summary (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/20110806003312/http://www.fancomic.com:80/vesperia/resources/raven/emptymask.htm [2] Manga translation: https://dokidokimaster.tumblr.com/tagged/kokuu+no+kamen/chrono [3] Drama CD translation, for completion's sake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHEDJ_D4tyI [4] List of in-game place names: https://hyouta.com/vesperia/?version=pc&locale=eng&compare=2&section=locations

[gatheredfates]

SEA'S COMMUNITY COMPENDIUM UPDATE

Second update in a weekend? Wild! I wanted to push this one out before I went back to work and my capacity to update the Compendium would diminish. However, huge thanks to those who submitted new resources to the Google Form — it's appreciated! 🪻

As of 04/14, I have added the following resources (in no particular order) to Sea's Community Compendium for FFXIV Creatives:

LARGE SCALE

CARBUNCLE PLUSHY'S FFX|V FISH TRACKER APP — A website focused on tracking fish windows, bait, guide videos, and fish trains for community events.

PASSIADB — A list of houses for sale in Final Fantasy XIV, how many lottery bids are on each, and where to contribute using the PaissaHouse XIVLauncher plugin.

MISC

@stars-and-clouds thought they could escape me in their tags. "I have more resources!" Oh, I found them. I found them. (affectionate). All of the below are created by them!

ISHGARIAN POWER HEIRARCHY — An exploration of the power dynamics of the Ishgardian theocracy and High Houses.

A QUICK REFERENCE OF THE EORZEAN UMBRAL AND ASTRAL ERAS — A visual guide providing a summary of each Umbral and Astral Era.

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here, send me an ask with the relevant information contained on the Compendium, or join my Discord at SEAFLOOR (21+ only)!

As a reminder, the answer to the question of "Is my resource/community applicable to the Compendium?" is almost always a resounding yes. I want to know what's out there. I want to feature your project!

However, for the sake of clarity, I'll pop the FAQ from this post below in a read more for you to check out if you're worried. ✨

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[blonde-and-cat-suc]

choose violence ask game: 3, 12 and 22?

p.s. love your blog, please keep spreading the truth!

And I love blogging <3!!! I do it for the girls and the gays.

>>>><<<<

Answers under the cut . . . This is gonna be a long one.

3) Screenshot or description of the worse take you've seen on tumblr?

Okay, so, the only problem with this one is that I've literally seen too many to count. But the one that I'd often seen and had the most visceral reaction to were definitely the longer, well articulated analysis posts from stans that did SO MUCH bending and twisting to claim Adora being equally toxic/(and or abusive) to Catra. Which, obviously, I also spent time analyzing. Trying my best to understand what was going on. And you know what? I get it. I don't agree. But I get it. Adora and Catra grew up under the same circumstances, so yeah, they wouldn't be entirely innocent of picking up bad habits from their childhood. Realistically. Fine.

But implying that Adora is worse? Worse than Catra?

...

Anyway, I've suffered from my own self-inflicted torture in the past. I wish I hadn't spent so much time reading stan analysis the way I did, but... Here we are.

And that's just on Tumblr. I don't believe that other social media/forum sites are better or worse about c//a and SPOP, but I have seen worse in The Wilds. (At least on Tumblr there's the filtering options. Everywhere else, good luck).

12) The unpopular character that you actually like, and why more people should like them?

Guys. I LOVE SWIFT WIND. I FUCKING LOVE SWIFT WIND I DON'T CARE THAT HE'S ANNOYING THEY'RE ALL FUCKING ANNOYING!!!

First of all, yes, yes, yes, Swift Wind is horrendous wasted potential (surprise, surprise), and yes, of course, I'm still pissed over it. Those scenes where he's so loyal and kind to Adora, and she, having no other point of reference for a friend, much less a resourceful friend... Like, awwhh. Plus, he makes it very clear that he has his own will and isn't just mindlessly following Adora around like a god-honest horse would. He has his own agenda. He doesn't have to go into battle with Adora, and doesn't gain too much from risking his life to help her and her friends in the short term, but Swift Wind does it anyway. He's interested and invested in Adora, personally, anyway. He wants to be there for her and support her growth as a person.

And Adora deserves all of those amazing, raw, sappy, fairytale friendships!

I DON'T CARE THAT HE'S LITERALLY A HORSE HE IS STILL FUNCTIONALLY A HUMAN BEING. THEY ARE BESTIES. THEY LITERALLY HAVE A MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC LINK GOING ON. THEY SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED SWIFTIE TO BE APART OF THE BEST FRIENDS SQUAD, I ACTUALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY HE ISN'T.

MORE LOVE FOR SWIFT WIND!!!

22) Favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores?

In my experience, this is the type of fandom that cultivates, um, extreme niches, for lack of a better term. As in, literally what my blog is compared to a "stan's" blog. They're like. Different SPOP fans everywhere, so I don't truly believe that there's a portion of this show that is genuinely ignored... There's someone out there that liked even the tiniest, unimportant fraction of this show. Just got to go find them. (Hell, I know people that love, like, Tall Star specifically, out of all the other characters. Nothing has gone totally unnoticed, which is something I really love about the fanbase as a whole, despite everything).

Anyway, to keep it short, my favorite "underappreciated" parts are hm... Maybe the parts where Adora gets to explore the world around her? And not in a super plot related way. I know that the BFS goofing off so much isn't totally ignored. But I like to see that Adora especially was still learning new things everyday in canon, just like, randomly. Nothing to do with the Horde or the Rebellion. Just. She should be excited for the new world around her, dude. Those are pretty rare moments in the show, actually. Wish there were more.

[imptwins]

Why making any concessions to puritan rhetoric is a bad idea

(note for the uninitiated: 'anti' is short for 'anti-shipper', 'anti-ship', or 'anti-fan'; in this context it refers to people who get very vocally militant about opposing dark kinks/problematic ships in media, especially creative fandom spaces. Proship is simply the opposite, people who vocally believe people should be free to make/indulge in whatever as long as a line is drawn between fiction and reality.)

(note 2: this was written for cohost, i cbf rewording it lol)

I very often see people - both websites and individuals - making a concession to the people who come up to them yelling about problematic kinks and guilt by association and 'why didn't you block this person' blah blah blah. It's happened with a few BNFs (big-name fans) in the UTDR scene lately, I've seen it from artists I respect, from friends, hell I used to be in this camp myself. And, of course, it happened to this website about a year back, and the conversation has come up again recently due yet another tumblr exodus.

It makes sense. The most common stuff that antis go after is stuff very few people are into: lolisho/cub, ferals, heavy gore, heavy noncon. It's niche, the real-world applications are unquestionably vile, it's very easy to just say 'I also find this icky regardless of whether I really believe that all people into it are secret criminals, so, I'll just block the people who they say are bad and move on.' I can't tell you the amount of times I've seen someone respond to proship/antiship discourse with "I'm an adult with a job." Going to bat for this content is high risk, low reward. You're not going to make friends, you're going to lose them. YOU WILL LOSE SUBSCRIBER, etc. As a result of all this it's very easy to assume that anyone defending it must be into it.

But I'm not. I'm a writer who often deals with darker subjects, but most of the first-on-the-list anti stuff, I'm not into at all. I'm not into ferals or gore period, noncon I like purely as character exploration, lolisho I can enjoy from the perspective of what I call 'trauma repair.' There's probably a proper term for it. But the tl;dr is I've never been actively aroused by any of these things, not in fantasy and especially not otherwise. Whenever I write them, it's just fascination or character analysis. Whenever I have a 'this character can be any age you want' fic, in my head, they're 18+. Writing noncon is a weird challenge for me because I'm constantly battling with the alternate ending in my head where the victim breaks free, beats the shit out of their captor, etc. This isn't me trying to claim virtue through this, just stating my position.

So… Why do I go to bat for these things? Why do I get annoyed when websites block lolisho, when artists have 'proship DNI' in their bio, etc? It's lost me a couple friends, it's certainly cost me followers and general reach, it's gotten me blocked by countless people I respected the work of. It's earned me a few callout posts, multiple with 1k+ followers, and one particular obsessed stalker who tells anyone who will listen that I actually groomed a child (despite all evidence otherwise). It's caused me a really significant amount of trouble. Why die on this hill?

The answer's kind of simple, when you boil it down: fictional fantasies either affect reality, or they don't. This is why I go to bat for things I'm not into, but it's also why whenever you see someone making concessions to antis, it's never enough. Cohost banned lolisho last year (I believe it's still banned?? Unclear), but the antis still make constant callout posts about this site and its owners. Some of the team have even gone out of their way to state very firmly that they're against these things, they've gone above and beyond just 'ban the bad thing' and broadcast their views about the morality of it. You'll frequently see artists write some huge apology or clarification when a callout post hits, usually involving some variation of 'I do not condone x y z and think it's disgusting.'

It's never enough.

But it makes sense, when you think about it. By drawing a line, you have essentially agreed with the core angle of the people screaming at you: that a fictional fantasy affects reality. That it's dangerous. You will, by necessity, now have people start to work down the list. Incest, ferals, gore, noncon, sure. Any relationship with any kind of skewed power dynamic. Sibling-coded, minor-coded, postminor nonsense. All of these things are less easily agreed to than lolisho, I've seen countless porn artists concede with the core idea that lolisho is immoral, then they act like it's unreasonable that people just keep going until they're being told that a knot on a furry is bestiality, or a 23 year old dating an autistic 21 year old is pedophilia. These are genuine examples of things I've seen people dogpiled for. Seriously look up "postminor" if you want to see how bad this can get, on top of being absurd it's one-for-one the kind of gross ableist shit that Autism Speaks gets into.

But YOU AGREED TO THEM. You agreed with the core concept, that the fantasy must reflect reality. Of course they're going to keep demanding more; by the logic you used to agree with them, you are doing immoral things. If fictional lolisho is immoral, so are the rest of them. It's way easier to look at your average pic on baraag or inkbunny and go 'oh, eugh, vile,' but at the end of the day the cutesy played-for-laughs sleeping kiss, the dubcon bondage that you don't call dubcon, or the meet-cute where they're a bit too drunk, they're all immoral fantasies.

That's not even to get into non-sexual stuff. If the lolisho fantasy is wrong, so is running down civilians in GTA. Suddenly your notifs are full of 16 year-old Jack Thompsons with rainbow flags in their bios.

This really is an all-or-nothing debate. If fictional fantasies affect reality, then even the immoral fantasies that you're personally comfortable with, the cutesy coy playful ones, must be immoral. If fictional fantasies don't affect reality, then even the ones that make you uncomfortable, the ones that have you scrambling to close your browser in case the feds are looking, must be fine.

It should have become very obvious over the last decade that you cannot fence-sit on this. There's a huge internal disagreement going on among progressive/queer/compassion-minded people, on whether these kind of things affect reality, or whether they don't. You can learn to apathetically dismiss stuff that squicks you, or you can learn to sanitize everything you ever make so there's not a trace of contentious theming left. Immoral fantasies are immoral, or only immoral actions are immoral.

You're going to have to pick one.