#and this poll existing is randomizing most of my story!

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

PLEASE CLICK A BUTTON

No knowledge of either media is needed. Please. Click a button. Click what sounds cool! You not caring HELPS!

If you WANT knowledge about what you voted for, I've written out a description of each faction down below.

If you know both stories, pick what sounds most interesting to you. Your vote shapes a story!! I'd appreciate a reblog for more votes!

(The top 5 groups will be featured somehow in the fic)

Why am I doing this? Well, I am signing up for the Izzy Hands Bingo! Only issue, I want to use my bingo card to create an AU based around the world of Fallout. I have 1 issue.

I don't want to decide this one choice, as to me, planning any aspect of a fic before a writing challenge defeats a bit of the purpose of the challange. You know? So I'm letting y'all choose Izzy&Ed's background. Their background influences how I write almost everything else. The moral, the main beats of the sotry, the romances, etc. All on THIS choice.

So I am relying on the people who don't know shit about the fallout universe to act as a random dice throw. BUT PLEASE VOTE IF YOU KNOW WHO THESE FACTIONS ARE! This fic is going to be written for those who know nothing about this world, but if you want to see Ed and Izzy with a certain background, VOTE WITH BIAS!

QUICK EXPLANATION OF EACH FACTIONS FROM ME, WITHOUT GOOGLE:

New California Republic: After the world has been destroyed, this group believes on forming another democracy. Taking over small societies, and taxing them in return for protection. Full of modern white collar corruption, this faction is prone to murdering their citizens, or giving them HIGH standards they will fail. This group believes that THEY are the superior organization and wants everyone else to be dead.

Brotherhood of Steel: God, isn't it cool that the US has such advanced weaponry? Isn't US culture so COOL? What if the US was destroyed, and now there's a faction built around gathering technology of the Pre-bombed world, dead set on taking over the US? Willing to die for a pre world toaster. OH- AND they are a psudeo-Christan/Catholic faction built around following some pre war religious ideas. Including chastity, and following a ridged social ladder. This group believes that THEY are the superior organization and wants everyone else to be dead.

Raiders (Unfriendly): Why build a new society when you can just kill people and take their shit? Not a faction, but SOME build small settlements. They are the vultures of the wasteland. Murderous vultures. Very close to historical pirates, tbh.

Raiders (Friendly): Groups that usually don't trust any of these fucks as shit goes wrong WAY too often. A few friends that take over a building/farm and chill. They will raid, but often choose abandoned buildings and can rely on trade.

Caravan Merchants: Traders that walk the wasteland trading their items for money. SOMETIMES affiliated with one of these factions, but not always. They just explore, find shit, and sell shit. Actual vultures. Chill bros.

Child of Atom: AKA the radiation monks. THESE GUYS FUCK. Not to bias this vote, but out of all of these, these guys are usually my favorite in game. Imagine if after the nukes that end the world drop, you decide to worship the bomb. The live/stay in water that is toxic and live their lives surrounded by mutated monsters. Children of Atom LOVE radiation of all forms. In the games, half your quests with this cult is spent secretly deactivating their radioactice items without their knowing so these fucks can live another day. This cult is my wild card, I have no idea how I'd write this lol. (Image below just fucks too hard for me not to include it)

Minuteman: Basically Raiders(friendly) + NCR. A bunch of settlements that vow protect each other, but without the taxes of the NCR. Often small factions that promise to step in if their land/property gets attacked.

The Railroad: Robots are better than people, we are willing to die to save synths(robots) Yes, it is based on the underground railroad. They save robots, kidnap them from the institute(described down below), wipe all of their memories and personalities, and abandon them without resources somewhere far from them. You know...when you say it like that, comparing this organization to the REAL underground railroad is a bit fucked up.

The Institute: It goes like this, kidnap someone, copy their memories, and put these memories into a robot body. Many Synths don't know that they are human. This group believes that THEY are the superior organization and wants everyone else to be dead.

Pre War Ghouls: Congratulations, you survived the nuclear apocalypse! You're reward? Well, you have a chance of being immortal, and a change to turn into a mindless zombie. You live 200+ years and get to watch society rebuild. Only issue, you look like death. Most factions HATE you. You know how Elves are treated in fantasy? That's how ghouls are treated. This path gives Ed/Izzy a SHIT ton of angst as two people that are some of the only people left who remember a life before survival.

Synths: Robot copies of a person. If this is chosen, I am 50/50 on if they themselves know they are synths. If this wins, I will post a second poll on who knows they are/aren't a copy of a living person. Or if they even look human. as some synths, like the guy on the left, don't look human AT ALL.

[To not step in bad water, I have excluded the following 'factions':

*Slavers. In this world, being pulled into slavery is one of the many things that threatens the player chatacer. If a city is taken over by a faction, sometimes people of any race are sold into slavery. I'm not touching this. I'm not making Ed and Izzy into Slavers, or victims of Slavers.

This plot is important to the world and shows how society has fallen back into chattle slavery, I'm not touching it for this fic. In fact, most fallout fans who write fic don't include Slavers or Slavery. These stories that feature slaves predominantly happened in the games fallout 3/new vegas, and often featured women being used as sex slaves. These plots were not picked up in later titles. As this fic is predominantly a survival romance/mystery story, I don't need to add this topic as a narrative tool to build temporary tension. Some narrative tools deserve more respect than others. Especially that of *slavery* (cough cough to the anon who sent me hate about this part, no shit slavery is a thing today....like? This entire post has been summarizing these games. Why would i add a psa about how slavery is still a thing mid post? I swear. Anon on tumblr can be a burden and a curse)

*The Enclave: they believe in social Darwinism, and are generally racist to those outside their faction, and mutated people. (But why did I include the brotherhood? Because power armor. They're assholes, but Izzy and Ed are going to spend this story learning their world view is wrong. Making them Brotherhood members is easy mode plot wise, as they learn to live their lives. Compare this to the Enclave? I can't personally justify fixing an enclave member.)

*Any new Vegas specific groups. I don't want to limit my location to Las Vegas/Nevada. I'm literally going to spin a wheel for a location, and having 'the Kings' be in Missouri doesn't work for me. (If NCR is the most popular I'm fine with it as historical lyrics they spread through a LOT of the wasteland. It excludes like, 20 US States). For the institute/railroad, I'm going to rename the faction but keep the belief of the factions. ]

If you are reading this- THANK YOU FOR INDULGING MY HYPERFIXATIONS lol. I have some lovely ideas for how to combine OFMD and Fallout's humor, and can't wait to dive in!

I would love to hear what you voted for!!

[lonelyroommp3]

*please read the explanations below the poll options before voting*

was thinking about this on my coach home and naturally had to make it into an overcomplicated poll

explanations, disclaimers, etc. under the cut:

until tumblr enables polls with infinite options there is no way for me to account for the entire breadth of human experience here. the categories provided and the examples thereof will not be, and are not intended to be, exhaustive. if you can't find the exact thing you do listed here or you think it falls into more than one category then please use your best judgement to select whatever answer is closest. only choose "something else not covered here" if there is actually nothing even close to what you do listed in the poll (and please elaborate in the tags if this is the case! i'm curious)

i really wanted to include "guy running alongside the moving vehicle you are in" but ran out of options. sorry

if you feel you do two or more of these things in equal measure just pick whatever one answer you want based on vibes

music video: anything you imagine as a standalone, prerecorded visual to accompany the music. this may feature musical performance elements, dance, a narrative, or any combination of the above. if you're imagining your little scene as if it's intended to be viewed on MTV, youtube, etc as the official visual complement to the music, it probably comes under this category

a music video mainly featuring somebody else: this could be you, your blorbos, your self insert OC, another artist you'd like to see cover the song, random actors/celebrities you would cast in the video, etc. whether they are performing the song within the video or not. if the bulk of the "running time" of your daydream is taken up by people who aren't the artist who originally performs the version of the song you're listening to, pick this one

a live performance: this could be in concert (whether a concert version that already exists e.g. imagining taylor swift's eras tour staging when you hear cruel summer, or a version you would like to see), at karaoke, at an open mic night, your acoustic cover that goes viral when you post it on youtube, busking on the street, performing to the other passengers on the bus, etc. could apply to dance as well as singing/music!

a diegetic use in narrative context: imagining the song being performed as a musical number by people in a story that exists beyond the scope of this one song in order to accompany or advance said story. this might be imagining the song being performed as one of many musical numbers in a stage or movie musical, or it could be a performance that takes place in universe (like the performances in glee, or scott pilgrim vs the world)

non diegetic narrative use: imagining the song as the soundtrack to a scene in a story that exists beyond the scope of this one song, but it is not being played/performed/heard by the people within the scene. for example, you imagine a fight scene in a movie taking place to this song, or perhaps it would play in the background during your OTP's first kiss if your favourite fanfiction was adapted into a netflix original tv series.

AMV/edit: a video compilation of existing* scenes from a piece of media, put together by a fan and set to music. (*existing might be taken loosely; e.g. you might be imagining an AMV of scenes from a book with no actual visual media adaptation. the main distinction is that here you are imagining the actual editing process of splicing scenes together as a fan project, as opposed to the music accompanying one continuous scene or sequence of scenes - which would come under "non diegetic narrative use" - or the clips being intended as the official visual accompaniment to a song, which would come under "music video".)

an abstract or lyric based visualiser: 2000s core windows media player visuals, a lyric video, anything that focuses more on objects, scenery, abstract patterns, words moreso than People/Fictional Characters/Animals/etc Doing Things To Music

[riacte]

Idly daydreaming about "choose which Rendog duo you like more" poll but it is appropriately and respectfully seeded, scheduled, managed, spreadsheet'd with the intention of trying to be as well run as the mcytblrsexyman poll which imo is still THE best run poll on the hellsite.

So it's gonna be like 16 duos, not defined as romantic/platonic, just see it as whatever/who they are. Then final 8, final 4, final 2, yay! And I need this to be seeded for my own sanity otherwise we'll get finale-level matchups in the first rounds and that will make everyone explode.

Seeding is beautiful (even if it's sort of unfair to lower quarter of entries). If a poll doesn't use seeding, then I don't trust it sorry.

Anyways I think this could actually work because Ren has so many duos and he does a lot of story, I think most duos have a lot of thoughtful moments that make for excellent propaganda. These aren't random fuckass Twitter duos firehusbands whatever who have interacted for one funny collab. There is history across the seasons and the years. There's storylines. There's babies involved. Multiple babies even. Whatever Ren and Cleo have going on. The king and his loyal knight. The queen and her guard. "But these can apply to different—" yes this is exactly why.

And I would say it's pretty obvious who the favourite is except they have been on a downright hilarious losing streak recently. And losing is their thing tbh. I'm so sorry.

Reasons I would not run this poll (other than lack of time and despite me liking spreadsheets):

Renskall would absolutely get steamrolled in Round 1 against a duo that almost certainly by definition came into existence later than Renskall. And I know it would be an embarrassing loss, think 30/70. This would dishearten me and I would scuttle into my cave and pull out videos from 2018.

False and Ren would most likely inevitably lose to yaoi and. And. Actually I'll keep my mouth shut for the sake of preserving peace.

Ren is so good at teaming up with people that I can probably imagine what the polls will look like anyway:

Final 2: Doc, Martyn

Final 4: False, Iskall (let me clown, he's here and he STAYS here)

And the 16 probably includes: Bdubs, Scar, Grian, Cleo, BigB, Etho, Lizzie, Cub, Xisuma...

Anyways. HomiesBeforeHoes 👍 (my hypothetical motto for the hypothetical campaigning)

[oc-poll-tournament]

OC Poll Tournament Round 3 Finale!

Propaganda below the cut:

Chess (she/her) @concealeddarkness13 (the picture for her is made by the wonderful @drabbleitout, and she is the person on the left with the prosthetics in the picture): Chess is a special character, and I hope to show how special and awesome she is! She’s extremely distrustful, but she’ll trust people who even treat her with an ounce of decency, and she’ll protect the people she cares about with her life. She’s flirty and confident, but underneath, she has an abysmal amount of self esteem and thinks she’s a monster that will never have love or friendships. She is my blorbo who has been rotating in my mind for the past two years, and I hope you can love her as well! Someone described her in one of the AUs I’ve done as oscillating “between being a poor, wet little meow meow and a fierce feral protective lioness being held back by the scruff of her neck because she is still little”. (credits to @ratracechronicler)

She did start out with a loving family, but like all good protagonists, her parents were murdered when she was 10, and she was left alone. Especially because the society she lives in ignores violent crimes and the victims of those crimes, erasing them all from society as if they never existed. So, she technically didn’t exist in society’s eyes, so she couldn’t get a job or own property or anything. The people around her helped her for a few years until she was old enough to take care of herself, and then she learned to steal.

At twenty years old, she was kidnapped and forced into prosthetics experiments that gave her fire magic that hurts her, from her prosthetic right arm and left leg now. She has a magic fire in her lungs that flares up during physical or mental stress and burns her throat and makes her cough up smoke. Aeflin, the person running the experiments, believed her to be very strong (because she snarked at Aeflin so much and didn’t let her see her pain as much as possible), so she decided to make Chess into her weapon.

She changed her name (since Chess’s original name was Ezra) to Chess, and she put her through even worse torture. Finally, Naivi, the other person running the experiments, got Chess her own team and sent her out into the world to do what the experiments were for and to get her away from Aeflin.

Chess tried to escape that, but a random person found her and took away her memories and brought her back into the enclosure, where most humans are trapped. And she realized right away that the humans inside the enclosure found she was from the experiments and hated her and hurt her and called her a monster because God forbid women do anything (just trying to survive). She learned that the only way that she could get a warm place to sleep (not an alley) was to make herself attractive to people and flirt. She liked sleeping with people, but she mostly did it to have a warm and somewhat safer place to sleep. And even then, she’d have to stay alert because her partner could wake up and try to hurt her.

That’s where she is at the start of her story! She will get a found family and someone or someones to love! She’s pansexual and polyamorous and flirty, and she loves physical touch! She just wants people to treat her decently, and if she has to, she’ll fight to protect her boundaries. And she loves punching jerks in the face with her prosthetic! And we love a woman who loves to fight, right? Thanks for reading!

Crislie Crimsworth (she/her) @gailynovelry: The story of Crislie’s life is that she followed a really sad, really pretty girl out of her sleepy little village and got several new scars, a case of lycanthropy, a little bit of god-killing, and lots of trauma out of it. But she did get a girlfriend and a sick ax along the way, so it balances out! Since “sunset orange” is a mourning color in her country, she’s also a casual goth as well as a jock. If you become her friend then she will carry you around like a sack of potatoes and sometimes hand you a little carved wooden animal. I love her dearly.

Nat Finch (he/him) @albatris: I'd like to submit Nat Finch! he/him, 25 years old, brand new baby vampire. he works the night shift at dodgy petrol and convenience store Stop 'N' Go, where he falls asleep on the clock and encourages shoplifting. he's schizotypal like me and he loves cats, cooking, and his friends! he's the protagonist of my campy gory horror trilogy, though he'd rather not be!

he's short and fat with red eyes and lots of freckles. his hair is long and black, often uneven and choppy in length, because he just cuts tangles out instead of untangling them ❤

he's a sweet boy, earnest boy, awkward boy; he doesn't have many friends at the start of the story due to his paranoia, psychosis, and social anxiety, but by the end of it has a whole bunch of good friends AND a kitty he adores named Grub who purrs like a faulty tractor

in this story vampirism is a sentient entity and all connected via a hivemind known as "the Garble".... it lives in the vampires' blood and can manipulate their thoughts as well as give them heightened strength and speed, claws and fangs, and night vision when they need it. it can be useful, but mostly it's a bully and an inconvenience

at the centre of the Garble hivemind lives the very first vampire, an undead rotting corpse and the god of vampires, and a few of their close friends and confidants. all life force collected by regular vampires flows to them at the centre and grants them immortality and power. it's a sweet deal for the folks at the centre, and a terrible deal for ordinary vampires like Nat who rarely reap any real benefits from their condition, but are threatened and manipulated into participating in this system regardless

Nat's story sees him struggling to solve the mystery of how and why he was turned and trying to balance his kind, caring nature with his new violent condition... and eventually leads him to, "hey, I think I'm going to hunt down and eat the rest of vampire god"

good for him!

some other Nat Facts:

huge drama queen (will play up being sad and pathetic to get what he wants)

vampires are hardwired to seek warmth and coziness so Nat is always down to snuggle 24/7

bouncy cheery overexcited lad who will grin for weeks if you say something nice to him

vegetarian, aside from eating people, which he insists does not count

speaking of eating people, primarily preys on rich pricks and abusive bosses

is too awkward to tell his neighbours he bought them a cute knitted blanket he thought they might like for their corgi because what if that's a weird thing to do. this has been going on for three weeks

is too awkward to tell his neighbours his name is Nat, not Matt. this has been going on for three years

has a giant scary monster mode full of eyes and teeth >:3

please consider voting for my boy!

[clouseplayssims]

Gonna babble a little because part of my break this month is figuring out and planning a sims story for the first time. I've always WANTED to put out a proper sims story, because I am an idea hoarder, creative, and clearly like to share my shenanigans, but aside from Edirann which is left best as vaguely defined I could never really plot anything out that I didn't go on to hate ten minutes later. (A common theme with me - in four years I'll come back to old ideas and love them again.)

ANYWAY.

The point is, I'm going to write a got dang sims story.

Sort of.

My premise is to take some of my most well-loved series/characters from existing media and to place them in a new world with different rules and have them rebuild society. I am heavily borrowing from the concept The Neverending Story introduced of a world dying because of lack of belief, and applying that to the magic systems within these specific worlds.

I do not intend to wholesale bring in main characters (sorry, Rand al'Thor) or anything like that, but familiar names should be expected.

I also want to incorporate the idea of TTRPG gameplay, using polls, so the story is a bit more interactive. These won't be for every aspect of the story, but would be a nice breather for when I'm stumbling or want a wildcard.

I will be including ASOIAF (my random video a few months back messing with hood generation was the catalyst for this idea), Wheel of Time, LoTR, Once Upon A Time, Wynonna Earp, classic RPG/D&D, The Crow, Skyrim/Elder Scrolls, the Cosmere, Anita Blake, and the Neverending Story as a starting point in terms of characters. I wanted a blend of different genres to make things interesting when these groups meet.

There WILL be new "gods" helping to shape the world. These will be original characters.

There's a good chance I'll be adding one-off characters based from other world just for fun, though I plan on only pulling from worlds with magic systems.

Anyway, I wanted to share because I'm excited, and any tips, tricks, or tools you know of that make storytelling easier in terms of screenshotting are VERY VERY welcomed! I'm going to go on a posebox downloading spree soon and we'll see how that goes.

I might even deign to edit photos for the first time in my entire simming career.

[smolfangirl]

Saw a poll about why we came to Tumblr and that made me flashback to my Tumblr origins and you're never going to believe this

The short answer: the German Federal Agency for Civic Education

Now you might be thinking why the fuck would a German federal agency be the reason you use Tumblr, and I'm procrastinating doing my thesis so I'll tell you the long version:

I'm in high school. There's a big annual book fair in spring that I've heard from. The Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Bpd, said federal agency) will be there too. They've provided materials for classes before, and I know they're trying to be cool and cater to The Youths. (Which worked surprisingly well on me. They had free magazines and info booklets. They were *good*.) At the book fair, they hand out free planners that don't actually suck like most free planners do holy shit. I've seen someone else use them, and of course I need to get my greedy little hands on this planner if it's the first thing I do at a book fair. (I don't actually remember who showed them to me and my sense of time sucks, but I suspect @hummingbooks. Please confirm) So I'm at the fair, and I make sure I get myself a fun free planner. It's useful, it looks good and it's mine! Throughout the planner there's tidbits of information, fun facts, quotes, tips and most importantly to this long-winded story - a list of websites the staff of a German Federal Agency wanted to recommend.

And on this list?

A random Tumblr aesthetic blog. I'm sure there was a second Tumblr blog on that list, one of those early 2010s meme cards blog, but I can't remember what it was about.

So I went and checked this "Tumblr" out. It looked cool, I liked this aesthetic blog, actually, so I kept going back to it. It took me a while to register, because I could look at the blog from my laptop and stay up to date this way, but eventually, inevitably, I signed up. Not on this blog, this one came into existence years later, but I still have access to my first one. I even became mutuals with that first aesthetic blog. I wonder if she knows her blog was posted in a free student planner by the BPD...

Anyway, that's how the German government is responsible for this girl's Tumblr obsession

[xenoblademisadventures]

Xenoblade X poll answers

Elma is a xeno, a BLADE, and a Xenoblade (Monado)

This is incorrect. Elma is a xeno and a BLADE, but she is not canonically related to the Monado. That said, I really would not be surprised if that was an intended plot twist considering that she shares the same color pallet as the damn thing. Furthermore, interesting how Elma somehow knew the earth would be blown up in a skirmish 30 years in advance. There’s other stuff I could say in evidence to this theory, but this isn’t a post about my crack Elma theories, so we’ll leave it at that.

Some other fun information around this idea. In an early trailer for X, BLADE was referred to as “Beyond the Logos Artificial Destiny Emancipator,” though in the final version the acronym is “Builders of a Legacy After the Destruction of Earth.” Elma also has concept art featuring a Core Crystal. 

This doesn’t support any theory because it’s concept art, but it’s an interesting piece of trivia. 

there is an enemy type that reproduces by firing its sperm into orbit

it’s these guys. what a meme of an enemy. dudes just stand there and then turn into a palm tree abomination that one-shots you. I think the guy in Cauldros is the funnies of men. Like, imagine you’re just minding your business and then you get sniped from orbit by a palm tree of death. 

Every enemy type in the game has, like, a multi-paragraph essay, here’s what the Filiavent’s reads.

“The largest of all Miran mollusks, filiavents stay anchored to the ground, feeding on other creatures that come too close. To do so, they contract their lengthy bodies and then swallow their victims whole—along with everything else in the vicinity. All matter then enters the digestive tract, where it is liquefied by powerful acids.

Reproduction also takes place while anchored to the ground. On the night of a full moon, filiavents release a myriad of sperm and eggs into the atmosphere. While most are eaten by other creatures, one in a few thousand survives to be fertilized. Because infants have many predators due to their small size, few of them survive into adulthood—despite the presence of a defensive electrical discharge."

So, yeah, I’m not even exaggerating, these things do canonically reproduce by firing their sperm into orbit.

Samaarians were human, but not the humans you play as; they're functionally gods; this information was revealed during a random sidequest

I wanted to make this one a single option, but character limit. But yeah, Xenoblade X has a weird amount of major plot twists hidden behind random sidequests. This was just the largest one. The sidequest in question was a post-game quest called The Old Gods, where the God of the Zaruboggan is revealed to look like this.

The lore around the Samaarians is that they appeared when the universe was created and started creating a bunch of life, but they’re not benevolent. There are multiple canon slave races created by the Samaarians for that purpose and the humans we play as are implied to be close relatives to the Samaarians. Perhaps made in their image?

But yeah, that’s about the amount X actually reveals about the Samaarians. I imagine that the story was meant to tie into the Klaus arc, but there’s no way of knowing whether the original plans for X’s story contradict what the writers instead made for 2 and 3. 

Also, some of the other major plot twists given by random sidequests include: 

the protagonist is heavily implied to secretly not be a human, the term used is J-Body, but we’re never given insight on what that actually means. The party member Yelv is also a J-Body. This is revealed during Yelv’s Partner.

The White Whale was communicating with some other ships during its 2 year voyage. These ships cannot have been human ships because no one is aware of the existence of fellow surviving humans. This is revealed during White Lifehold. 

Once something gets stuck on Mira, it is impossible to leave. This is revealed by Professor B during his sidequest chain and it is also alluded to by Goetia during Chapter 6.

There was a species of Giants that existed in Cauldros but they were wiped out, most likely, by Yggralith Zero and the Ganglion built their fortress over the ruins of that civilization. All information pertaining to the giants is told through item descriptions in the collectopedia.

There’s also this entire sidequest chain around the Definians, which are a race of shape-shifters controlled by a robot that have controlled species since the dawn of the universe where you overthrow their leader. You kind of just kill a god off-screen in a sidequest, very. 

one of the alien races is from Bionis, this species is not the Nopon

True. The Orpheans are reliant on this virus called the Ovah, which guides their decision making and is connected to their reproduction. In the sidequest A Fateful Choice, it’s revealed that the Ovah came from a world predating the Orpheans. That world was shared with the Telethia where “the Ovah existed as a single entity floating in the ocean of another world.” So, while the name “Bionis” is never given, it’s heavily implied. Furthermore the Telethia is referred to as “the Ruler of Fates” and “the Endbringer,” which are both noteworthy. In the sidequest, the Telethia is compared to a God and is feared by the Ovah. 

The sidequest also involves someone getting eaten by the Telethia and receiving a vision of the past.

The Nopon in X are given zero ties to the Xenoblade universe. The closest we get is a sidequest where two Nopon look for the Sword of Legendaryness, which looks like this.

This is pretty obviously meant to be a goofy reference rather than a serious piece of lore. The item description reads “A legendary sword left behind by ancient Nopon. When the mysterious lettering on the hilt lights up, it gives one the feeling of being able to use special powers.” But I figured it was noteworthy.

the second strongest enemy is known for destroying worlds; unrelated to Earth

True. This would be Pharsis the Everqueen, which is level 98. The strongest enemy is Telethia the Endbringer, which is level 99. This is the Yggralith enemy index entry.

"Hailing from the depths of outer space, these creatures can strip away the ether from entire regions before storing it in their dorsal spines to facilitate interstellar travel. Any unlucky inhabitants of planets they encounter are also devoured down to the very last organism. When this destructive rampage is finished, they set off in search of the next planet.

Though rare, Yggralith do at times come in contact with one another. The ensuing battles spell doom for any planet unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity."

So, yeah, these guys do destroy worlds. There are three yggraliths in the game. They are no relationship to the Ghosts or Ganglion, which were responsible for blowing up the earth. Pharsis is just vibing. I’m pretty sure it’s an infant.

the Ganglion got stuck on Mira before the humans did

In Chapter 6, we learn from Goetia that the Ganglion were transported to Mira by some light, they are trapped on Mira, and that Luxaar believes the Samaarian homeland could be related to Mira. The protagonists assume the Ganglion followed humans, but they are never corrected. Also, it’s important to note that the aliens responsible for crashing the White Whale onto Mira were the Ghosts, which were the faction that the Ganglion were fighting against.

the Bionis and Mechonis make an appearance in the collectopedia

True. The item in question is called the Privative Colossus Statue. It’s found in Noctilum near the Divine Roost (where the Telethia live). 

There they are. Beating the shit out of each other. The item description reads:

“A pair of gigantic stone idols locked in combat. No one is sure who sculpted them or gave them their name, but their primal beauty often leaves a deep impression on those who stand before them.”

Also, related to this, there’s a collectible that’s literally just an ether furnace called the Lost Memory Synthesizer.

“A machine to fuse crystals that conceal some sort of energy. The problem is, said crystals don't seem to exist. Upon realizing its uselessness, the Harrier Sara-Ariel named it in disappointment.”

But yeah, the Bionis and Mechonis do make a cameo.

humans are not classified as humanoids in the enemy index

instead, they’re classified as Mechanoids because everyone’s in a robot body. 

there is a sidequest where you can kill an NPC by telling them to take a shower

true. for some reason all the sidequests around the water plant are fucked up. But yeah, the sidequest is called Lakeside Getaway. An NPC is mad that her coworkers have stopped contacting her and then you learn that they all died because of an enemy that did an Alien. You can kill an NPC by telling them to take a shower because the monsters hatch from water-related things. So, if you let the NPC shower, this happens.

Fantastic.

[christas-museum]

Christa Winsloe: 80 years ago

(10th of June, 1944–2024)

Full name: Christa Kate Winsloe (own preferred short form of first name since 40's is Chris (or full masculine version, Christian) which was found by people who read Chris' letters to Dorothy Thompson.)

WHO? A high-class pencil artist, a high-class sculptor (second reason of fame), a French resistance member (~ "completed all assignments"), leftist communist, into women, animal lover, wonderful amateur actress (lead Christarole in a play at the boarding school Kaiserin-Augusta Seminary), writer (including humorous mini stories i.e. feuilletones) & playwright: famous for (main reason of fame) Mädchen in Uniform (the book Das Mädchen Manuela (literally The Girl Manuela, known in print as The Child Manuela) . . .

A fact: the film Loving Annabelle is based on Mädchen in Uniform.

A knowledgeable fan can share a lot about this wonderful woman who was a real Manuela but with light skin, father's 9 of 12 siblings were born in Scotland instead of they had "Spanish grandmother"), and who predicted so called 10th of June (not the date, of course) as Manuela's number at school in the book was 55 and 23.12.1888–10.06.1944 is 55. 

Every post, an article (any site), anything related (eBay, (stock) photo sites etc.) means deine legacy and memory about dich lives on and on. Fanfictions and fan art related to anything du wrote are very important too to keep figurative fire burning bright. (One user on Tumblr commented on a poll ~ "as long as I'm in, the fandom exists" (about self as the only one member.) Sad almost complete Chris-related truth if say about text form (but random fans write something once in a blue moon, though.)

Personally, all our many similarities are like an incredible chance to be close to such smart (Art, German, languages (De, Fr, En, It, Hu), Natural History (Science?)), witty & talented woman. And to have Chris as a guide in some of decision making (but using logic mostly) is to be strong when needed. Meine HERO Chris.

The most suitable photo for such day (from Auto-Biographie und andere Feuilletones edited by Doris Hermanns.) My comment: as understandable, the photograph was taken some time after Dorothy Thompson's jealous husband sent Chris to his farm in Vermont? to live with his ex-wife.

Liebling Chris, wir (deine Fans) lieben dich. Ich liebe dich für immer.

[bsd-cherish-official]

BSD: Cherish Second Anniversary Interview

On September 21st, the second anniversary of the fanfic, Bungou Stray Dogs: Cherish, a post was made on this account by myself, its author and first artist, @linklethehistorian, stating that in celebration of the big milestone, I would be running a poll-based interview consisting of 10 polls with five questions each — which fans of the fic could vote on and have the most popular questions in each poll to be answered at the end of the voting period.

This is the result of those polls, and my responses to the winning questions that were determined therein.

Full interview below the cut for minor Cherish spoilers. Proceed on to read.

Q: Why did you choose to have four different artstyles used throughout the fic?

A: Well, in the beginning, you know, for the first…almost a year or so, I didn’t really have a co-artist on the project with me; it was just me, myself and I that was working on Cherish alone, and I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have artwork for — and included in — the fic, so in that first year-ish that it existed, I basically just had to make do with using my own artstyle that was based on the BSD anime.

So, you already have that going on, and I was pretty happy with that, but the truth is that from the beginning, I’d always really wanted to have at least some of the art — especially the cover art I’d sketched up years and years back — resemble the actual official art from Harukawa-sensei in the BSD  manga and light novels. After about a year of procrastinating and overthinking everything about it, I finally worked up the courage to ask my friend, Asachuu, who was not only a fan of the story but also had a very lovely artstyle and was very good at recreating the look I wanted, if it would be possible for us to collab on a piece, and sent the old sketch for the cover, and from there things kind of just…took off. Pretty soon, one single collab had very happily turned into me suddenly having a dedicated co-artist who could contribute some absolutely beautiful BSD manga-reminiscent artworks for certain chapters.

Then, after the Storm Bringer Stage Play had come out, I ended up extremely inspired by a lot of the very cute and lighthearted official chibi artworks and merch that sprung up from it, and thus, by the end of last year, I ultimately wound up endeavoring to create some chibi artwork of my own for Cherish; originally, this was not intended to be any sort of long-term staple for the story, as I expected it would just be a one-and-done thing to surprise fans with during the holidays, but…as I’m sure most of you have seen, after discovering how fairly quick and easy yet still adorable the end result was, I made the choice to continue with that style of art for all of our little celebrations, events, and milestones. 

Lastly, those little chibi drawings also unintentionally came to invent a brand-new style of coloration in regards to my methods, which resulted in the final type of my artwork that you see involving Cherish — a sort of lighter, softer way of coloring that results in an almost crayon-like effect. This was initially a complete accident, as it was nothing more than me using a random brush for the first colored sketch of the holiday 2022 piece, but after some experimentation with keeping it for the finished work, I found that I really liked it quite a lot and later began using it for more than just the chibi-style artworks, as it brought a certain warmth and light-heartedness to the scenes, and reminded me a tiny bit of this one still image from the first season of the BSD anime:

And so, there you have it! Although the gorgeous manga-reminiscent style of my co-artist may be the well-known face of the fic in a lot of ways given that our collaborations are reserved for and make up the bulk of many of the most intense or important scenes and chapters of the story, every artstyle that is involved with Cherish’s official art has its own special and equally important part to play therein.

Asachuu’s manga-like style lends a certain extra feeling of authenticity to Cherish as having its place among the other BSD light novels, and presents certain scenes and chapters in a uniquely stunning form, and with extra attention to detail that likely wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

The more typical BSD anime artstyle that is my usual signature, with its fuller and more official-looking coloring technique, is used to depict the rest of the darker, more somber-toned scenes that do not receive the previous treatment; this, I feel, not only properly represents the anime artstyle in some form as I had wanted to begin with, but also brings forth a sadder, more down-to-earth aspect than its lighter and fluffier, almost crayon-like colored counterpart, which is conversely used to evoke the happier, more heartwarming moments and emotions within the fic.

And, of course, the chibi artstyle allows me to make much more quick, cute, and mostly much less serious little drawings to share with my friends and fans of the story, easily celebrate special events and milestones, and express my endless gratitude toward Cherish’s continued support. 💖

Q: Who are your least and most favorite characters to write for in the fic?

A: Oh, this is kind of a tough one. I actually wouldn’t say I genuinely dislike writing for any of the characters that have appeared in Cherish thus far, but I guess if I had to pick one that I liked dealing with a little less than the rest, that would have to be Ango; it’s not that he’s a bad character by any means, and I honestly like him in BSD quite a fair bit, it’s simply that he’s the most…I guess you could say “ordinary” or “stiff”…out of the group, in terms of outward personality — at least, under the circumstances in which he was introduced and presented up until now. 

“He was still pleasant to write and there was a moment or two there that was a little fun to do, he just didn’t really have the chance to truly show off the more intricate parts of his soul in that scene”, is I guess how I’d put it.

As for most favorite, that’s a bit harder to pin down. haha I like all of the main cast in different ways. 

Obviously, I’m very, very fond of both Arthurs; not only do I just really love both of their personalities and find them both super interesting, but I also relate to them both in a lot of different ways, and the subjects that often get tackled with their scenes, dialogue, and thoughts are all very important matters to me that I treat with a lot of personal care, respect, and passion, so it would be very hard for me to say that those two aren’t one of the absolute main highlights of writing Cherish to begin with.

At the same time, though, also really into writing for Chuuya and Paul — especially when they’re interacting with each other, because of how perfectly their polar opposite personalities, apparent outlooks, and ways of communicating their feelings play off of each other, though definitely not exclusively there, either. I really just find them fun, well-written, and fascinating to explore in general, too.

And then of course there’s Mori. I guess if we had to talk about pure novelty and entertainment value alone when it comes to writing, then he would have to be the top pick for the most fun and smooth experience overall, since his ability to change from cheerful to chilling on a dime, like the simple flip of a light switch — or even accomplish both at the same time, without even doing anything explicitly threatening at all — is a uniquely cool concept and character trait to play with. 

I don’t know, to be honest, I just think they’re all super neat in their own ways.

Q: Are there any outfits you really want to draw someone in, in a future artwork?

A: Oh God, you have no idea how many, but yes; I have a lot of planned outfits for the future that I want to draw and release some proper Cherish art for, and some that I really already have done and just haven’t been able to share with all of you because it is spoilery.

I think two outfits in particular I’d really like to draw in a full-on chapter artwork, though, are the outfit Arthur was wearing to the restaurant in Chapter 10, and then the cute little casual number Chuuya was wearing in Chapter 11. You can actually see both of those in the Valentine’s and White Day chibi artworks I’ve made for this year, but I consider those to be a little bit different from drawing it in a more properly proportioned piece…

Q: Are there any minor plotholes you’ve had to go back and fix that nobody noticed?

A: Well, technically, yes — if memory serves, at least; I mean, I believe the day that I released Chapter 10, I had left in one instance in which Mori called Paul “Verlaine-kun” right there in front of Arthur, despite that the doctor himself had been the one to insist that he use an alias, and I think I then had to go back and fix that retroactively so that he called him “Marion-kun” instead. 

Granted, they were both speaking Japanese to begin with, so it’s not totally impossible that Arthur wouldn’t have picked up on what Mori was calling him, but…yeah, to be honest, I think that’s one thing that both Mori wouldn’t risk and Arthur wouldn’t so easily overlook or fail to hear.

Other than that…well, this isn’t technically a plothole or anything because it did have a reason from the start — it’s more just a case of something not having been elaborated on as much as I’d like — but there’s currently a scene in Chapter 6 where Rimbaud, in a fit of frustration and emotion, goes off to Paul about how no one back home was worth returning to or would even really miss him if he died or disappeared, and he references his past lover fairly clearly as having been a man.

The possible “problem” that I think there’s potential for someone to take away from this moment is that later on, Arthur acts deeply worried about Paul finding this fact out and being severely discriminatory or cruel to him as most people in his original time were about such things and refusing to continue being there for him or even helping him as a result — thereby possibly making it seem like I’d forgotten that Arthur had had this outburst.

That isn’t really the case, though; moreso, it was originally intended for there to be a scene at some point where Arthur would reflect back on what he had said and inwardly question why Paul had continued to be so kind to him despite knowing that he had been involved with a man, ultimately deciding that it was likely that Verlaine didn’t really pay attention or give enough thought to all of the finer details of all of what he was rambling on about back then, in the heat of the moment, too focused on calming the teen down to be bothered with picking apart every statement he’d made — as Arthur himself simply couldn’t imagine he’d have been lucky enough, on top of all the other ‘highly fortunate’ circumstances he’d landed in, to have also just so happened to find someone who would be that ‘absurdly’ willing to overlook his orientation. (It’s not like he could have imagined that Paul simply wouldn’t think anything of it at all — which was actually the case…)

Unfortunately, I forgot to put that dialogue in, so at present, it kind of just has to be inferred by the reader… I do have plans to go back at some point before the start of the next arc and add this in, in some manner, but thankfully no one so far seems to have cared that this wasn’t explicitly explained, so I’m glad of that, at least.

And if you have wondered…well, I guess you have the answer for now. Sorry it’s not explicitly in the fic at the moment, but hopefully it will be quite soon.

Q: Is there anything you’re afraid you might have been TOO subtle about?

A: Well…yes. I’m going to put up a disclaimer here and now that the response to this question could not only be potentially triggering for some people who have experienced certain types of trauma, but also is kind of NSFW, so…if either of those things might be a problem for you for any reason, you may want to skip over this question.

We alright? Have you decided whether you wanted to keep reading this or not?

Okay. Let’s get into it, then.

So…while I don’t exactly want to say there isn’t plenty of room or time or even plans to perhaps go into it more deeply later, since there definitely is and I most likely will in some manner, given that it is my first time delving into such topics, I do wonder now and again if some of the dark implications made in Chapter 7, Chapter 8, and Chapter 13 — namely, that Arthur had been through multiple cases of extreme sexual trauma, in addition to the other emotional and physical traumas he had endured throughout his life — were altogether too cryptic to have been picked up on by the average reader at present. 

I did intend from the very beginning to be more subtle about the matter in these chapters and only make little references to it in passing where it was immediately relevant and/or was natural to come to mind for Arthur in light of the situation, but I frequently worry if the things that I see as having been decently clear indications towards that end actually were decently clear or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter if they were or not, since that is something that as I said is bound to be more obvious at some point in the future chapters anyway, but it is something I think about nonetheless.

I think that if you were fully familiar with and completely in the current know about the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s life as it unfolded in our world, and especially have kept up with all of the most recent findings, then you might have a slightly better chance at putting two and two together on your own, and in that case I think my words will almost certainly have served their purpose, but for anyone else, I do have some minor concerns that maybe my desire to have been more subtle about it at this stage in the story actually ended up backfiring and making it altogether impossible to assume or even question…

Anyway, that particular heavy subject aside, I often also just in general worry about whether or not I’m coming off clearly enough when it comes to any existing or possible future hints towards anything that is remotely non-traumatically sexual or relating to sexual attraction in nature as a whole, since, as an asexual person who myself doesn’t experience sexual attraction whatsoever, it is a subject matter that on some levels is fairly unnatural to my own personal human experience and sexuality; I don’t think that I’m bad at talking about it by any means, I just don’t know that I’m particularly amazing at it, either.

But yeah, those are…pretty much my only main times when being too subtle might have ever crossed my mind, I think…?

Q: What’s the message you most want people to walk away with after reading Cherish?

A: Good question.

The thing is, I wouldn’t say that I originally created Cherish with any specific message in mind at all; I mean, obviously, there were always going to be heavy themes and topics that I knew it would have to tackle, and there were things that it definitely represented to me on a personal level after it came into being, but back when I first created the headcanons themselves that would eventually become this story, considering that I had absolutely zero plans to share it with anyone at the time, I didn’t really ever consider the idea of it carrying an actual message I wanted to convey.

Even now, I don’t want to define Cherish as this thing that exists solely for the purpose of communicating a particular idea to others, because it isn’t; I’ve known from the very beginning that to some people, this tale is just going to be something they look at and enjoy on a completely surface level — as something that is exactly what it says on the tin and nothing more — and I’m fine with that.

To me, Cherish is both of these things: a story that exists simply for the sake of itself — for the love of its characters, its pairings, and its plot, taken entirely at face value — and something which on a deeper level also represents and carries a great deal of messages and concepts which happen to be very important to me, that I hope other people might see and feel touched by as well.

Given that it does represent more than one thing in my eyes, though, that makes this question a little hard to answer; provided I had the ability to ensure it somehow, I’m really not sure which message I would want everyone to walk away with the most.

I suppose, in the end, if I could only choose one thing, then the message that I would most want my readers to see would depend upon who they themselves are, and what they need to hear most.

As I’ve mentioned in one post before, I would very much like it if some victims of abuse and/or trauma might be able to feel seen and heard by the fic, and maybe even find hope or at least catharsis in reading it. I don’t want to say too much about the matter in this particular interview, as a lot of the commentary I could make beyond that could lead to spoilers for people who would rather not know certain things that will happen or the outcome of them, but I will say that there are many questions and themes in this fic that I would like to believe might strike a comforting note for some people who are going through a lot of uncertainty in their lives, in the aftermath of traumatic and/or abusive experiences.

Likewise, I would hope that for anyone who maybe knows someone who has gone through abuse or trauma but struggles with understanding it, because this story has not only been carefully researched and written about, but also by, someone who has been through certain types of abuse and experienced the lasting effects of trauma, it might be able to help them get a closer look at some of the possible ways those things can present themselves and the things that can potentially go through our heads as a result.

For someone who might be reading this with either a newly budding or already pre-existing interest in the real life Arthur Rimbaud who once lived here in our world, I would like to think that this story — albeit having some minor differences here and there that I will get to in a later question — might show a bit more nuance towards his situation compared to how many other forms of media surrounding the topic (especially, but not limited to, the English ones) tend to present it.

Having spent the many, many years that I have researching his life story in multiple languages and every possible remotely credible source I could find, digging to the bottom to find the absolute truth as best as one can, I have found that in many cases, there is sadly far too much of a focus around sensationalism when it comes to coverage of the individuals and events involved, and far too little of a focus on actually bothering to get all of the facts and the interpersonal dynamics straight in order to present the most accurate and nuanced recounting of history that can humanly be given. 

While I don’t want to get too into it in this little interview, as I’ll probably be making a separate post about it sometime anyway, I will put it out there that it is largely thanks to this failure to share crucial details that for quite a while into my earliest endeavors of research, I myself was led to believe the very much false and yet sadly most widely spread, highly sensationalized narrative that either, at best, both Verlaine and Rimbaud were equally terrible people who were, likewise, equally to blame for what happened between them, or at worst, that Rimbaud was the one to blame almost entirely for Verlaine’s supposed “descent” into a crueler and less respectable person — both of which narratives, by the way, cannot exist without completely ignoring and omitting several key facts that provide much more nuance than most of these various coverages were willing to provide: such as the several extreme power dynamics involved in their relationship coming from Verlaine’s side, the extremely traumatic background that Rimbaud had come from and how that had left him a vulnerable target in numerous ways, and most notably, that Verlaine had a pre-established pattern of alcoholism, extreme abusive tendencies of practically all varieties, homicidal urges, guilt-tripping tactics, and exactly everything else for his entire adult — and to some extent even teenage — life, far prior to meeting Arthur, and also continued on that path for the rest of his life even after their parting, whereas Rimbaud by all accounts prior to their meeting was nothing more than what, by today’s standards, would be considered overall a perfectly normal, if (and understandably so, given his background) troubled, teenager, who would later also go on to be a perfectly normal if somewhat withdrawn, well-adjusted adult once their relationship was over.

My hope, then, in that vein, is to tell this story without shying away from or missing those facts, and in doing so, to hopefully present his life story from an angle that is rarely seen or covered by many of the most popular sources of information out there, allowing people to perhaps step away from the great echo chamber of omissions, sensationalism, and misinformation for a moment and view and understand Arthur from a much more real and human perspective — to see him as a real, feeling, troubled human being who once lived, breathed, loved, struggled, and suffered just like nearly anyone else, rather than some dehumanized, over-exaggerated spectacle spoken of purely to be gawked at and made into a shocking and scandalizing caricature into which only the most extreme of rumors and actions are projected, as is so often sadly the case.

So, uh…yeah, those are my main messages I’d like to get across, I guess. I’d like to return to talking about this more in the future when the fic is complete, since by then I can truly get into the topics more, but for now, there you have it.

…I think at the end of the day, though, what’s most important is that people who need it get from Cherish whatever it is they came for; if there’s a message they really need to hear right then, then I hope they hear it. Sometimes as writers, we see a certain message in our stories and we intend to have that come through, but someone finds an entirely different and equally beautiful one inside it instead — one that we didn’t even intend to be there — and it helps them. I think that’s pretty awesome. 

Q: What chapter are you most/least looking forward to recording for?

A: Well, to be honest with you, despite that by the time of answering this, I’ve already finished what I think will be the final recording for it, Chapter 2 has been a massive bitch to work with from beginning to end — nothing like Chapter 1 — so…yes, that would be the one I was least looking forward to recording out of the thirteen chapters that already exist; I’m honestly relieved it’s over.

I don’t really know how to explain what the problem even was with that one; it’s not a bad chapter by any means, but the first time I recorded it — an impossibly perfect take all the way up to the last third of the fic, by the way — I sadly found out that the audio ended up somehow distorted beyond any repair or salvaging, and ever since then the lines for some reason have just refused to be spoken out loud the same way that they do when I read it in my head. 

As of this moment, I still haven’t listened to that recording more than the few seconds that were necessary to make sure that it took this time, so I don’t even know whether or not I’ll end up completely unsatisfied with the result, but it was really the best that I could do, so whatever the case, I’m stuck with it the way that it is. Let’s just hope it doesn’t totally suck.

There are way too many chapters that I think will be a cool experience to record for me to narrow it down to just one right now, but the closest one that I’m really anticipating is actually Chapter 3; I’ve always been really fond of the whole exchange that happened between Paul and Chuuya there, and I think getting to narrate those lines would be really exciting, since up until now, I haven’t had a great opportunity to get into the more emotionally intense lines. I hope that when the time comes, I’m able to do them justice.

Some other chapters I’m really looking forward to recording, I think, are 6, certain parts of 7, 10, and 12.

Q: Is there anything you wish you had been able to keep in the fic, but couldn’t?

A: Well, I definitely think there are some things that would have been more intense and exciting for people who were maybe expecting a more canon-typical plot to what we’ve gotten so far, but I don’t really know that I have regrets about not being able to use them in the fic.

For example, because the very first iteration of the original headcanons that make up what would eventually become Cherish were, well, headcanons, and tied to a much longer overarching storyline with no clear-cut beginning or end, both the way that the story started and, in some aspects, how it will wrap up is somewhat different from how it was back then.

I’m not going to elaborate on that at this time, because there are some aspects of those things that I had to change which I intend to still try to potentially incorporate at a different point in the fic, and thus I don’t want to spoil any of what might happen in the future, but there were definitely things and characters that had to be cut from the final version of Cherish that I do wonder what it would have been like for my readers if I had kept it; I wouldn’t say it’s a regret, though, as I’m quite proud of the fic I have now, and I think it’s probably best as it is currently.

Other than that, I guess my only potential regrets about things I couldn’t keep would have to be some of the deleted scenes and lines delving into certain characters’ mindsets, but I talk about those in the development notes already, so I won’t delve into that here, either. 

Q: Do you plan to find a way to reuse all of the scrapped content for Cherish?

A: As much as I reasonably can without impacting the story in a negative way, at least, yes; it would be utterly impossible for me to keep literally everything in the fic that was ever discarded, but within the margins of good sense, I will try to re-incorporate whatever I feel is important, insightful, cool, or interesting and works with the plot.

Almost anything worth talking about that is left over after that is likely to end up in my Cherish Development Notes, so maybe keep an eye on those if scrapped content tends to pique your fancy.

Q: Do you think Cherish would’ve been as successful if it kept its original title?

A: Honestly? In some ways, I think it probably would’ve been a lot more successful – at least, in terms of marketing. 

The thing about Cherish as a title is that although it’s very fitting for the story, and I do love it a lot, it’s very definitely not even half as marketable as a name like Storm Chaser would’ve been; there’s simply no getting around that fact.

Yes, for a fic, something short, sweet, and romantic like ‘Cherish’ does just fine – it’s expected, even; searching it up as a fic title right now, in fact, there are a total of 764 results, 3 of which by the exact same title are in the BSD fandom – obviously including mine. That’s just the issue, though; sure, it’s a perfectly normal and acceptable title, but that just means that when it comes to marketing, it doesn’t help it to stand out at all from the others.

If we’re talking in terms of more conventional ideas of success and popularity, then for a fic that is meant to be a fully-fledged light novel of the same quality and effort as its official canon kin – and which has been made into such a massive project stretched out across so many forms of media – having a title that sounds like what one would usually expect to be some little oneshot drabble of the most common kind is absolutely a bad move.

Storm Chaser as a title for a fic, on the other hand, has only 29 total entries on AO3, none of which are in the BSD fandom, and it sounds like an actually plausible name for an official sequel to Storm Bringer; there is no doubt that at the very least, something like that would absolutely generate more clicks and hits out of pure curiosity alone than Cherish ever could. 

That being said, though, generating more curiosity clicks doesn’t necessarily mean generating more genuine love and interest, and I’d rather have people clicking out of interest in the summary and description and tags than over something as petty as the title to begin with – not to mention that I decided a long time ago I’d rather make Cherish from the depth of my heart in every way, in accordance with what I want it to be, than to worry about its popularity levels.

Q: How historically accurate do you feel that this fic is in its representations?

A: Well, at least more accurate than a great deal of the more popular sources of information out there, when it comes to irl Rimbaud and Verlaine’s life stories and situations, unfortunately — as I said further up above.

Granted, there are going to be some small differences and creative liberties taken here and there, given that the versions of them presented in Cherish come from a slightly alternate universe to ours, but that’s mostly just to do with the fact that in this alt-world, Paul actually succeeded at making a second attempt on Arthur’s life at the train station where the teen intended to have their final parting; apart from that and the obvious connecting of dots and filling in of blanks wherever information simply didn’t fully exist about the more intimate and intricate details of their lives, great care was taken to ensure that everything was presented as realistically and accurately as possible, according to all of the intensive research I have done about them over the years.

As for the general historical representation of the time period they come from itself, I’d like to think that I’m doing well with it, as I try to do my research on every aspect the very best that I can, but aside from certain highly specific subjects, I don’t claim to be half so much of an expert of the general late Victorian era itself as much as I am an expert on them and their life stories, relationship, and circumstances specifically; if there’s a minor slip-up or two in regards to facts about the era that I somehow managed to overlook or misunderstand, I’m truly sorry about that. haha

Q: What is your favorite fan interaction you’ve had to this day?

A: I’m going to guess that my interactions with my dear co-artist don’t count here, right? In that case, it would definitely be finding out that my new pal, @dazaisshippingcontainer, is making fanart of my fic; that was such a touching moment for me — the thought that someone out there (especially someone that at the time I wasn’t close to) had been reading my fic and loving it enough to actually make fanart for it. 😭 Moments like this are moments I truly treasure beyond compare. Ily Clover, buddy. 💖

Let’s be honest, though; I love and live for every single fan interaction I’ve had to date. 🥺💖 They all mean the world to me.

And of course there’s Art — my dear, dear friend and co-artist, whom I appreciate so, so much… I truly feel blessed by it all.

Q: Do you ever read your own fic?

A: Oh, you have no idea... lol Yes, yes, and a thousand times more: yes. I adore Cherish; it’s not just something I wrote for you all to enjoy — it’s something I wrote for me, too, something precious that I adore with all of my heart, and something that I’m immensely proud of.

Every time I release a chapter, I read it together with my partner, and besides that, I probably re-read a chapter from my fic —if not multiple or all of them — just by myself at least once a week.

Needless to say, I really love Cherish.

Q: How many animatics do you plan to have for Cherish?

A: Ideally, I’d like to have at least one for every arc in the fic, plus one last animatic at the very end as a final look back on the story and a great celebration — which would make for six — but I don’t know how that will actually work out, in the end, given how massive of a project making even just one can be; I may end up making more than that or less — we’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

—

And, that would be all. Thank you for your questions, everyone, and I look forward to the next time we hold an interview like this together!

[emberkeelty]

Gosh I have so many thoughts about the Sapphic Showdown discourse!

Personal bias disclaimer: I've never watched Supergirl and have zero interest in watching Supergirl. Meanwhile, Utena is one of my favorite stories ever that I consider a classic and a masterpiece. Under just about any conceivable context, if you were to ask me, "Which is better, Utena or-" I would cut you off right there and just say, "Utena." Okay? Okay!

I'm going to use this post as a jumping-off point. I'm linking instead of reblogging first of all because I don't want to make my followers have to read through OP's belligerence before getting to see whether I'm agreeing with or contesting it (I am definitely contesting it!) and second of all because I would rather if at all possible avoid dragging OP into a confrontation about this. I don't know anything about her beyond this one post that showed up on my dash via reblog. I have no reason to think she isn't a perfectly fine person overall. Also, just saying, she seems like she has good taste in anime. Anyway, that post is useful because it shows the brackets and also sums up what seems to be the central point of The Discourse:

this is just Exhibit A of Fandom People™ caring more about “shippable” characters and having “ship moments” than they do actual canon queer rep

First of all, I don't think the poll results actually mean much. For one thing, we know that paid bots get involved with polls like these. For another... as far as media that centers female characters goes, Supergirl is about as mainstream as it gets. It's live action, English language, and based on a corporate IP. Superheroes are currently fashionable and no longer even a little bit nerdy. Superman is the most timeless and well-known superhero of all, and most people have probably at least heard of his constellation of spinoffs. Supergirl winning a popularity contest over anything even a little bit more niche is just regression to the mean. All it says about the people voting for it is that they have basic taste, and I mean that in the least insulting way possible.

Second of all, let's say this is a demonstration of what the above sentence claims it demonstrates. In the context of a twitter popularity poll with zero real-world consequences... why would that even matter? What tangible harm is being done by LGBT people - and in the context of "Fandom People" who care either about f/f shippiness or actual canon queer rep (or both!), we are talking mainly about fans who are LGBT, many of them specifically queer women - getting more personal enjoyment out of something basic and mainstream than out of something politically important? How much impact is that really going to have on what media gets made going forward, let alone how LGBT women are treated more broadly on a societal level?

I would say it's actually the opposite of progressive to insist that the mere existence of LGBT people is so inherently political that we shouldn't ever get to relax and do normal, harmless human things like openly enjoying mediocre television, but must instead dedicate every moment of our lives to performing a political identity. The only actual utility value of a random LGBT person's personal enjoyment of media is the enjoyment itself. In this case, "let people enjoy things" isn't a cop-out, but a coherent ethical stance with the aim of maximizing utility.

I do think that some people who went for Supergirl over any of the other options might personally benefit on some level from broadening their horizons, and that personal benefit might in turn have some infinitesimal knock-on benefit to the broader community. But framing this as purely a matter of "supporting" the media with the "best" "representation" as part of a political performance is actively counterproductive to that goal, because it erases the possibility of joy in engaging with queer media and turns it into a chore - "eating your vegetables," as one particularly obnoxious old-school fangirl said in her infamous and widely mocked essay on engaging more with marginalized characters as an unpleasant but morally improving project rather than a labor of love.

Now, all of the above is pretty similar to stuff I've seen said before in the context of discussions about m/m fandom, which I have zero stake or interest in. What makes the Sapphic Showdown so interesting to me is that I have more specific in-depth knowledge and opinions on a lot of the media being discussed, so I'm going to get into some of my thoughts about that.

One thing that immediately jumped out to me was Alphyne from Undertale being held up as a canon ship that everyone should in every possible context care about more than whatever is going on in Supergirl simply because it is canon and therefore Actual Rep. Undertale is one of my all-time favorite games, and it means a lot to me that it contains a canon f/f couple, and I myself love Undyne and Alphys and have had way more intense feelings about them both as individual characters and as a couple than I will ever have about anything or anyone in Supergirl. BUT. It is worth mentioning that they are secondary characters whose relationship gets relatively little onscreen development. I think it is pretty understandable for audiences to get more emotionally invested in relationships that get more narrative focus, whether those relationships are actually canon queer or just shippy! Catradora is so compelling not just because they declare their love for each other and kiss onscreen, but because they do that as part of the climactic scene that the whole story was building up to. Catra's and Adora's love for each other and the thorny, difficult road they took to realizing it is the very heart of the show! And that "central relationship" element can be there even when the relationship in question isn't necessarily canonically romantic. I don't know how much that's the case with Kara/Lena, but one example I can point to is NagiHono from Futari Wa Precure. The show wastes an unfortunate amount of time establishing and maintaining plausible deniability about Nagisa's sexuality, but her het crush is only ever hovering on the margins of the story, where her ambiguously gay bond with Honoka is the very heart of the show. The two girls stand together against the end of the world, repeatedly putting their lives on the line for each other. To me as a lesbian watching this, it means something when Nagisa lies in bed with Honoka and says, "I'll be by your side forever, if you'll have me, even though I'm not good at domestic stuff," and when she calls her "my most important person," and the show's refusal to commit to this being what it looks like can't completely erase that meaning.

Another thing that needs to be said is that it's kind of hypocritical to be having this discussion over Utena in particular, given that the canonicity of Utena/Anthy in the tv series is... uh... complicated. Ikuhara was basically always treating it as romantic, but Saito was vehemently against that! In terms of what made it to the screen, the story only comes together thematically if you accept that they are in love, but it is possible to refuse to accept that without resorting to blatantly countertextual readings. Utena denies that her feelings for Anthy are in any way sexual as late as the third-to-last episode. It's clear that something big changes in the last two episodes when she regains her repressed memories and rejects her false prince, but she never has the chance to articulate that as explicitly as she articulated her earlier denials. And you know, I think any framework under which the Utena tv series could be treated as a lesser work than every and any show where two women explicitly declare their romantic love and kiss each other is not really a framework worth engaging with.

And really, the whole idea that the entire point of media as it relates to LGBT people is to have Good Representation is just a set-up for tearing down anything less than perfect - which is ultimately everything, because it's impossible for any one show to be all things to all people. We've seen this with people denigrating everything that came before She-Ra when Catradora kissed, and again with people denigrating She-Ra when Lumity got together mid-series rather than right at the end. Other people have explained how this is a really bad state of affairs for anyone who cares either about getting to see fictional LGBTQ characters on screen or about the well-being of the real-world LGBTQ creators who put them there, and I'm running out of steam, so I'll just point out that saying people's most important criteria in what ships they like should always be political purity feeds into it, and that's not good!

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

The old Reaper Brothers stories.

So, a coincidence in @baggebythesea 's ongoing Choose Your Own Adventure poll-story got me thinking of a set of old fics of mine. Robin and Jerome's Excellent Adventures. The main OCs also show up in a few of my stray fanfictions that are not a part of the series. They premiered as random characters in a Hordak-centric fic and I borrowed their names for an idea I had an, well, it went from there. I haven't written a new fic for them in a while. This is mostly because the people who used to be interested in them aren't interested anymore. I had a falling out with most of the "clone fandom" that existed once upon a time over some misunderstandings and behaving very awful and self-destructively. I think interest was waning, anyway, and clone-fandom has never been a big subset of Spop fandom. It is very, very niche and I think most people like humor with them, not as much the drama that I like to do. At this point in my life, I do not know if I will ever write a full story / centric on them again. This is because of events in my life. It is honestly kind of weird that I basically spent 1-2 years parsing out a lot of my views surrounding the subject of Death via these stories. They started out as just an idea about the possible needs of clones in a more serious version of the She-Ra setting. I think it may have been possibly subconsciously inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic and seeing massive death-tolls in my own country as well as a comparison worldwide whenever I turned on the news. These were all people I would never know.* I probably had some switch flipped in my brain to deal with it with a fictional species who were of the "nameless mook" variety, because it felt like how most of us were at the time (us "essential" retail workers and such). Anyway, I did these stories and I'm glad I did them, even though they are often brutal and heavy and what humor in them trends pretty dark. (As I think clone-humor would, honestly. I headcanon that most Etherians cannot stomach clone stand-up shows because of the things they joke and laugh about for relief). As my life is now, well... I lost a couple of my aunts last summer. *(One a late-contractor of Covid, compounding a lung-condition). I was rather distanced from them, so I took their loss with a wistful sadness and a small, futile regret that I never got back to Arizona to see them again before they went. Last month, however, I lost my dearest friend. My 39 year old nephew (by my partner) who often came over for extended visits (and was with us for months on end during the lockdown), one of the three geeks in our "three geeks in a pod" group, my gamer-buddy, one of the few people on the planet who ever actually understood me died. I've been dealing with the Hell of grief full-on, although I feel a little better after he visited me in a dream the other night. (Those of you with a depressingly materialistic worldview are free to think that it was just my brain doing a thing, but I would like to keep this as something spiritual, if it's all the same). In any case, I am suddenly dealing with a lot of DEATH full-on in my real life, including "Okay, we have to figure out an appropriate memorial service" and it's making me just feel like I cannot continue this specific set of stories anymore. I can have Robin and Jerome show up in miscellaneous fics not having a direct connection to their job, because I like the characters, but I am not sure I have the heart anymore to continue the series. We'll see, but probably not. I think what these character needed to tell me has already been told. I do, as always, appreciate any reviews anyone wants to leave on the existing fics.

[yashyadavs-world]

Evaluating The Best Ways to Give to the Poor

-By Yash

What are the best things ordinary people living in rich countries can do to help poor people living in developing countries? This is the question the editors of Christianity Today assigned to me for a special issue this month on world poverty. It is a question many people like my parents worry about, people who would like to give money to causes that help poor people overseas, but to put it simply, have little clue about what actually works. Except for the fact that their son strives to keep them painfully abreast of such matters.

A plethora of options exist today for ordinary people with a little bit of extra means to help the poor: donating a yak to a Nepalese family in the name of the “rich uncle who has everything,” making a microfinance loan to a Nigerian cobbler through Kiva, sponsoring a child in virtually any developing country in the world. Courtesy of the web, today it is not just big governments and multinational organizations that do all of the heavy giving. Ordinary people give to the overseas poor now more than ever.

The results of the poll appeared in the cover story article for the magazine this month. A couple of the lesser-used interventions were omitted for space considerations in the main article, but I include them here with an abbreviated synopsis of the commentary.

Here are the rankings:

1. Providing Clean Water to Rural Villages. (Average Rating: 8.31) A colleague of mine at USF had his large undergraduate global economics class take the poll as well. Even the undergrads came up with the same answer for the #1 ranking, so it seems you don’t have to be a development economist to get this one. A million children die from drinking unclean water each year. One famous WHO study found clean water in a rural village reduces infant mortality by 35% to 50% at a cost of roughly $10 per person per year. Bang for the buck, clean water is hard to beat.

2. De-worming Treatments for Children. (Average Rating: 7.81) This one was probably ranked high for three reasons. First, because de-worming is so effective at a medical level, it’s cheap, and also because this early intervention was the subject of one of the most famous early randomized trials. Miguel and Kremer’s celebrated study found that regular de-worming treatment in worm-infested areas of the developing world could reduce school absenteeism by 25% at a cost of $0.50 per year. While impacts of this magnitude are not likely to have external validity in areas with lower worm infestation, there are plenty of places left where deworming impacts would likely be huge.

3. Donation of Insecticide-treated Bed Nets. (Average Rating: 7.31) The Sachs / Millennium Challenge Corporation efforts along with Pascaline Dupas’ excellent work in this area have created quite a buzz around insecticide-treated bed nets in the last few years. Malaria is a leading killer of children in developing countries, accounting for nearly one in five deaths of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa. The new nets last for several years without needing to be re-treated, and reduce instances of malaria by 50% and malaria mortality by 20%. Bed nets are also incredibly cheap—only $5-10 dollars. Another big bang for the buck.

4. Child Sponsorship. (Average Rating: 6.86) Paul Glewwe, Laine Rutledge, and I did a BASIS-sponsored study on the long-term impacts of Compassion International’s child sponsorship program. We used a regression discontinuity/IV framework based on age eligibility at program rollout that examined adult life outcomes for children who were sponsored in six countries through Compassion’s program during the 1980s and 1990s. The adults who as children providentially lay on the right side of the age-eligibility cutoff were more likely to complete secondary school, have a white-collar job, marry and have children later, and have a house with electricity. Evans and Kremer’s (2008) shorter-term study in Kenya also finds big impacts. Expensive, but effective.

5. Efficient Wood-Burning Stoves. (Average Rating: 6.00) Indoor air pollution is worse than many people previously thought: about 1.6 million people are believed to die prematurely each year from it. Poor stoves also lead to more rapid deforestation, where 5.8 million hectares of tropical rainforest are being lost annually. Improved wood-burning stoves deal with both of these issues in one go, with big impacts on both. Some improved stoves are super-cheap. For example for $15 you can buy one of the new high-tech rocket stoves.

6. Microfinance. (Average Rating: 4.19) Development economists now are nearly all aware of one major fact about microfinance: it’s astounding growth over the years is significantly larger than its impact. Most of the recent studies of microfinance using RCTs, including the relatively recent 2011 papers by Duflo et al. study in Morocco, and the new Attanasio et al. study in Mongolia find modest impacts: increases in entrepreneurialism and business investment, but little or no increase in income. Microfinance clearly exhibits some modest positive impacts, but it isn’t the silver bullet in the heart of poverty some had hoped it might be. At least by some measure, development economics and microfinance have lost that lovin’ feeling.

7. Cleft Palate and other Reparative Surgeries. (Average Rating: 3.87) There is little doubt that disabilities such as cleft palates and cataracts create huge obstacles to leading a normal life for kids in developing countries. We have all seen the shocking pictures of disfigured children in magazines that ask for a donation for organizations such as Smile Train, which does corrective surgeries for a $250 donation. Little research has been done by economists to evaluate the impacts of these surgeries in developing countries, but medical research shows excellent long-term results. Intervention is expensive, but respondents had little doubt about impacts.

What does this all add up to? I see three lessons here for development researchers doing impact work. First, there is considerably more awareness and consensus within our own circles about the effectiveness of different types of development programs than there is within the general population. We need to do a better job of getting the word out about what works and what doesn’t. Sacrificing a research project here and there to spend more time doing public writing and speaking would probably constitute a public-welfare-improving reorganization of time for many of us.

Second, there appears to be almost an inverse relationship between marketing hype and rigorously measured impacts. Over the decades there have been movements to bring greater levels of transparency into the consumer product industries, the medical industry, and now the financial industry. The aid industry needs to be next. As a profession we should be insisting that these consumer-oriented aid organizations gain third-party certification of impacts for the interventions they market to the public.

Third, we need to diversify our collective research portfolio. While many of us continue to work on issues like microfinance, water, and education, there are a number of interventions that have had very little research carried out on them, some included here. The work done by McIntosh et al. on fair-trade coffee and by Cristia et al. on One Laptop Per Child should serve as examples of rigorous empirical work that out to help staunch the flow of funds to ineffective programs before more money is wasted. The opportunity costs are too high.

[maxphilippa]

So like... Polls exist now huh

Well, if I were to give the basic story of one of my AU's but more in depth, which one you would like to know about the most? I've only posted few things of them

[oc-poll-tournament]

OC Poll Tournament Round 2 Poll 1

Propaganda below the cut:

Chess (she/her) @concealeddarkness13 (the picture for her is made by the wonderful @drabbleitout, and she is the person on the left with the prosthetics in the picture): Chess is a special character, and I hope to show how special and awesome she is! She’s extremely distrustful, but she’ll trust people who even treat her with an ounce of decency, and she’ll protect the people she cares about with her life. She’s flirty and confident, but underneath, she has an abysmal amount of self esteem and thinks she’s a monster that will never have love or friendships. She is my blorbo who has been rotating in my mind for the past two years, and I hope you can love her as well! Someone described her in one of the AUs I’ve done as oscillating ���between being a poor, wet little meow meow and a fierce feral protective lioness being held back by the scruff of her neck because she is still little”. (credits to @ratracechronicler)

She did start out with a loving family, but like all good protagonists, her parents were murdered when she was 10, and she was left alone. Especially because the society she lives in ignores violent crimes and the victims of those crimes, erasing them all from society as if they never existed. So, she technically didn’t exist in society’s eyes, so she couldn’t get a job or own property or anything. The people around her helped her for a few years until she was old enough to take care of herself, and then she learned to steal.

At twenty years old, she was kidnapped and forced into prosthetics experiments that gave her fire magic that hurts her, from her prosthetic right arm and left leg now. She has a magic fire in her lungs that flares up during physical or mental stress and burns her throat and makes her cough up smoke. Aeflin, the person running the experiments, believed her to be very strong (because she snarked at Aeflin so much and didn’t let her see her pain as much as possible), so she decided to make Chess into her weapon.

She changed her name (since Chess’s original name was Ezra) to Chess, and she put her through even worse torture. Finally, Naivi, the other person running the experiments, got Chess her own team and sent her out into the world to do what the experiments were for and to get her away from Aeflin.

Chess tried to escape that, but a random person found her and took away her memories and brought her back into the enclosure, where most humans are trapped. And she realized right away that the humans inside the enclosure found she was from the experiments and hated her and hurt her and called her a monster because God forbid women do anything (just trying to survive). She learned that the only way that she could get a warm place to sleep (not an alley) was to make herself attractive to people and flirt. She liked sleeping with people, but she mostly did it to have a warm and somewhat safer place to sleep. And even then, she’d have to stay alert because her partner could wake up and try to hurt her.

That’s where she is at the start of her story! She will get a found family and someone or someones to love! She’s pansexual and polyamorous and flirty, and she loves physical touch! She just wants people to treat her decently, and if she has to, she’ll fight to protect her boundaries. And she loves punching jerks in the face with her prosthetic! And we love a woman who loves to fight, right? Thanks for reading!

Viper (she/her) @maple-writes: Loyal and devoted Viper is a member of a small band of mercenaries led by Winter, her definitely not girlfriend (neither have admitted it to the other) called the Aristata. Within the Aristata she is in charge of their horses, training, upkeep, and anything else that comes up, and she loves them all. Unable to speak around those she doesn’t know and trust, she can only manage a whisper with those she is able to talk to. She comes off as a stoic, strong silent type to those around her or in front of anyone watching her while she is actually very anxious around those she doesn’t know and prefers to have a friend she can lean on in social situations. Viper is observant, and smarter than she thinks she is but will swallow what she knows and any feelings of unease in favour of what Winter wants done and will protect her no matter what.

[gendercensus]

On fae/faer pronouns and cultural appropriation

HOW IT STARTED

I had a handful, a very small handful but more than two, responses in the Gender Census feedback box telling me that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative. The reasons didn’t always agree, and the culture that was being appropriated wasn’t always the same, but here’s a selection of quotes:

“Fae pronouns are cultural appropriation and are harmful to use“ - UK, age 11-15

“I’m not a person who practices pagan holidays but, my understanding is that pronouns like fae/faeself are harmful because the fae are real to pagans and is like using Jesus/jesuself as pronouns“ - UK, age 11-15

“I know you've probably heard this a million times, so has everyone on the internet, but the ''mere existence''of the fae pronoun feels really uncomfortable for some of us. I'm personally not against neopronouns like xe/xim, er/em and the like, I am a pagan but apart from the, imo most important, reasoning of that pronoun being immensely disrespectful, I worry as an nb about people who banalize the usage of pronouns ''for fun'', and I'm quoting what some people have told me.“ - Spain, 16-20

“I don't agree with fae/deity pronouns just from a pagan perspective it's very disrespectful to the cultures they come from. Like Fae are a legit thing in many cultures and they hate with a fiery passion mortal humans calling themselves Fae to the point of harming/cursing the people who do it“ - USA, age 16-20

“only celtic people can use far/ faers otherwise it’s cultural appropriation, many celts have said this and told me this“ - USA, age 16-20

So that’s:

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❌ Someone who definitely isn’t pagan.

✅ Someone who is pagan.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

So, just to disclose some bias up-front, I am English so I’m not Celtic, but I do live in Wales so I am surrounded by Celts. The bit of Wales that I live in is so beautiful in such a way that when my French friend came to visit me she described it as féerique - like an enchanting, magical land, literally “fairylike” or thereabouts. Coincidentally I have also considered myself mostly pagan for over half of my life, and I can’t definitively claim whether or not the Fae are “part of paganism” because paganism is so diverse and pick’n’mix that it just doesn’t work that way.

To me the idea that fae/faer pronouns would be offensive or culturally appropriative sounds absurd. But also, I am powered by curiosity, and have been wrong enough times in my life that I wanted to approach this in a neutral way with an open mind. Perhaps what I find out can be helpful to some people.

So since we only have information from one person who is definitely directly affected by any cultural appropriation that may be happening, the first thing I wanted to do was get some information from ideally a large number of people who are in the cultures being appropriated, and see what they think.

~

WHAT I DID

First of all I put some polls up on Twitter and Mastodon. [Edit: Note that this post has been updated with results from closed polls.]

I specified that I wanted to hear from nonbinary Celts and pagans, just so that the voters would be familiar with fae/faer pronouns. I asked the questions in a neutral way, i.e. “How do you feel about...” with “good/neutral/bad” answer options, instead of something more leading like “Is this a load of rubbish?” or “are you super offended?” with “yes/no” options. I provided a “see results” option, so that the poll results wouldn’t be skewed as much by random people clicking any old answer to see the results. And I invited voters to express their opinions in replies.

Question #1: Nonbinary people of Celtic descent (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany), how do you feel about non-Celtic people using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

Question #2: Nonbinary pagans, how do you feel about non-pagans using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

The Twitter polls got over 1,100 responses each, and the Mastodon polls got over 140 responses each. With a little bit of spreadsheetery I removed the “N/A” responses to reverse engineer the number of people voting for each option, combined those numbers, and recalculated percentages.

Obviously this approach is not in the least scientific, but thankfully the results were unambiguous enough and the samples were big enough that I feel comfortable drawing conclusions.

Celts on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-Celts (561 voters):

It's good - 42.5%

No strong feelings/other - 44.0%

It's bad - 13.5%

Pagans on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-pagans (468 voters):

It's good - 47.2%

No strong feelings/other - 39.5%

It's bad - 13.3%

Here’s how that looks as a graph:

The limitations of polls on these platforms means that we have no way to distinguish between people who have more complicated views (”other”) and people who have “no strong feelings”, so we can’t really draw conclusions there. If we stick to just the pure positive and pure negative:

Celts were over three times as likely to feel positive about non-Celts using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

Pagans were over three and a half times as likely to feel positive about non-pagans using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

So Celts and pagans are way more likely to feel actively good about someone’s fae/faer pronouns, even when that person is not a Celt/pagan. That’s some strong evidence against the idea that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative, right there.

~

CORRECTIONS

To be clear, I haven’t done any research about the roots of fae/faer or the origins of the Fae and related beings, but my goal here was to get a sense of what Celts and pagans think and feel, rather than what an historian or anthropologist would say.

On the anti side, here were the replies that suggested fae/faer either is or might be inappropriate:

“I only worry that not everyone understands the origin of the word outside of modernized ideas of fairies.“ - pagan

“As a vaguely spiritual Whatever (Ireland), I think a mortal using "fae" as a pronoun/to refer to themselves is asking for a malicious and inventive fairy curse (on them, their families and possibly anyone in their vicinity, going by the traditions). I have not heard of this term before, so this is an immediate reaction from no background bar my cultural knowledge of sidhe/fae/term as culturally appropriate. My general approach is people can identify themselves as they want.“ - Celtic

So we’ve got a pagan who’s wary that people who use fae/faer (and people in general) might not have a fully fleshed out idea of the Fae. And we’ve got a Celt who doesn’t mind people using fae/faer personally, but based on what they know of the Fae they wouldn’t be surprised if the Fae got mad about it. No outright opposition, but a little concern.

There were not a lot of replies on the pro side, but not because people weren’t into it, judging by the votes. There were a lot of “it’s more complicated than that” replies, many of which repeated others, so quotes won’t really work. Here’s a summary of the Celtic bits:

“Fae” is not a Celtic word, and Celts don’t use it. It is French, or Anglo-French.

“Fae” can refer to any number of stories/legends from a wide variety of cultures in Europe, not one cohesive concept.

There are many legends about fairy-like beings in Celtic mythologies, and there are many, many different names for them.

The Celts are not a monolith, they’re a broad selection of cultures with various languages and various mythologies.

And the pagan bits:

Paganism is not closed or exclusive in any way. It might actually be more open than anything else, as “pagan” is a sort of umbrella term for non-mainstream religions in some contexts. A closed culture would be a prerequisite for something to be considered “appropriated” from paganism.

From my own experience, pagans may or may not believe in the Fae, and within that group believers may or may not consider the Fae to be sacred and/or worthy of great respect. (I’ve certainly never met a pagan who worshipped the Fae, though I don’t doubt that some do.)

And then we get into the accusations. 🍿

“this issue wasn’t started by Celtic groups or by people who know much about Celtic fae. It was started primarily by anti-neopronoun exclusionist pagans on TikTok.“

“[I’m] literally Scottish [...] and it’s not appropriative in the least and honestly to suggest as such is massively invalidating towards actual acts of cultural appropriation and is therefore racist. Feel like if this was actually brought up it was either by some people who seriously got their wires crossed or people who are just concern trolling and trying to make fun of both neo-pronouns and of the concept of cultural appropriation and stir the pot in the process.“

“It wouldn't be the first time bigots falsly claim “it's appropriative from X marginalized group" to harass people they don't like, like they did with aspec people when they claimed "aspec" was stolen from autistic language (which was false, as many autistics said)“

“It's been a discussion in pagan circles recently ... People were very quick to use the discussion as an excuse to shit on nonbinary people.“

“I think it would be apropos to note that the word "faerie/fairy" has been a synonym for various queer identities for decades, too. The Radical Faeries are a good example.“ (So if anyone has the right to [re]claim it...)

A little healthy skepticism is often wise in online LGBTQ+ “discourse”, and some of these people are making some very strong claims, for which I’d love to see some evidence/sources/context. Some of it certainly sounds plausible.

~

HOW DID IT START?

I had a look on Twitter and the earliest claim I can find that fae/faer pronouns are cultural appropriation is from 18th February 2020, almost exactly one year ago today. Again, tweets are not the best medium for this, there was very little in the way of nuance or context. If anyone can find an older claim from Twitter or Tumblr or anywhere else online, please do send it my way.

I have no idea how to navigate TikTok because I’m a nonbinosaur. (I’m 34.) I did find some videos of teens and young adults apparently earnestly asserting that they were Celtic or pagan and the use of fae/faer pronouns was offensive, but the videos were very brief and provided nothing in the way of nuance or context. For example:

This one from October 2020 with 29k ❤️s, by someone who I assume is USian based on the word “mom”?

This one from December 2020, that says “I am pagan and i find it rather disrespectful. It’s like using god/godr or jesus/jesusr.” That’s probably what inspired the feedback box comment above that refers to hypothetical jesus/jesusr pronouns.

If anyone is able to find a particularly old or influential TikTok video about fae/faer pronouns being appropriative I’d really appreciate it, especially if it’s from a different age group or from not-the-USA, to give us a feel for how universal this is.

For context, fae pronouns were mentioned in the very first Gender Census back in May 2013, though you’ll have to take my word for it as the individual responses are not currently public. The word “fae” was mentioned in the pronoun question’s “other” textbox, and no other forms in the set were entered so we have no way of knowing for sure what that person’s full pronoun set actually is. This means the set may have been around for longer. The Nonbinary Wiki says that the pronoun set was created in October 2013, as “fae/vaer”, later than the first entry in the Gender Census, so I’ll be editing that wiki page later! If anyone has any examples of fae/faer pronouns in use before 2013 I would also be very interested to see that.

~

IN SUMMARY

Obviously I can’t speak for everyone, as the Twitter polls are not super scientific and they only surveyed a selection of Celts and pagans within a few degrees of separation of the Gender Census Twitter and Mastodon accounts, but I can certainly report on what I found.

For a more conclusive result, we’d need to take into account various demographics such as age, culture, location, religion, race/heritage, etc.

As far as I can tell based on fairly small samples of over 400 people per group, a minority of about 13% of Celtic and/or pagan people felt that use of fae/faer pronouns is appropriative.

A much higher number of people per group felt positive about people who are not Celts or pagans using fae/faer pronouns. The predominant view was:

It can’t be cultural appropriation from Celtic cultures because fairy-like beings are not unique to Celtic cultures and Celtic cultures don’t call them Fae.

It can’t be cultural appropriation from pagan cultures because paganism is not “closed” or exclusive in any way, it’s too broad and open.

~

If your experience of your gender(s) or lack thereof isn’t described or encompassed by the gender binary of “male OR female”, please do click here to take the Gender Census 2021 - it’s international and it closes no earlier than 10th March 2021!

[thewertsearch]

Thanks to morganwick for sending over the MSPA new reader page we were talking about earlier - you can check it out here!

Some interesting tidbits here. Hussie goes over the website’s reader-command system, and how it’s evolved over time.

Jailbreak: This was the first adventure, one I started well before the MSPA site existed. I created it on a forum, where people would post suggestions in replies to the thread. My policy was to always take the first suggestion no matter what, which naturally lead to a very haphazard feel to the story’s progression.

The unfinished Jailbreak was where it all began, back when commands were strictly first-come-first-served. I decided to finally give it a read, since it's barely 100 pages.

It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a comic with the above premise, controlled by an Internet forum in 2006. Lots of random nonsense that doesn't go anywhere, with grossout commands aplenty.

>Apologize to guard's body 

[...] You sever his head with your trusty pocket knife.

One thing to note is that even back then, Hussie was already twisting user commands into pretzels to mess with the readers. 

Even on day one, even when the author was committed to always letting the first commenter have their way, the control we had over the story was always a bit of an illusion, wasn’t it?

Jailbreak is also where the '-ifiers' make their mspaintadventures debut! We haven't seen the Hugeifier in Homestuck yet - I bet this one belongs to AR.

Bardquest: This was the first adventure I started after launching MSPA.com, back when I had the “choose your own adventure” format in mind for the site as the primary storying device, in addition to the reader-driven feature with a new on-site suggestion box. But the multiple paths turned out to be quite difficult for me to keep up with, and overall, probably pretty hard for readers to digest as well, especially with a longer story.

Bard Quest is less than 50 pages long. It emphasizes multiple paths, with almost every second page having a (usually immediately fatal) story branch. Unlike Jailbreak, it doesn’t even have a joke ‘ending’, it just kind of peters out. 

Mercifully, this one never made it that far. I chalk it up as an interesting failed experiment, and one that I surely won’t go back to finish. After halting BQ, I left the site to gather dust for about six months, then started it up again with Problem Sleuth. 

The impression I get is that Hussie wasn’t really feeling this one. It’s an interesting experiment, though, and one that I think had potential. 

Problem Sleuth toyed with branching paths once or twice, and I could easily see a version of the comic that really leaned into it, with instances of the Sleuths from different timelines interacting.

I also started being more selective with the suggestions [in Problem Sleuth], not necessarily always picking the first one in the box. This made for a more controlled style of action, allowing elements of planning and puzzle solving, while still creating a pretty whimsical feel to the adventure.

Problem Sleuth is where Hussie started cherry-picking suggestions, and I think it was probably a good call. Jailbreak was kinda silly and fun, but there’s only so far you can willfully misinterpret the reader command you’ve been assigned. 

To sustain a real story for any length of time, you need a little more control, and I think the balance struck here was good.

When a story begins to get thousands of suggestions, paradoxically, it becomes much harder to call it truly “reader-driven”. This is simply because there is so much available, the author can cherry-pick from what’s there to suit whatever he might have in mind, whether he’s deliberately planning ahead or not.

Makes sense. 

There is one other way I can imagine doing it - have a suggestion poll, to narrow down enormous lists of commands to the most popular ones, with a live discussion thread below to chat about what they should direct the characters to do next. 

Each individual reader would have less influence, but the will of the mob would still direct the story, and you could have great moments where the crowd is cheering John on as he beats all odds to fight his way up to Skaia...

Man, I miss Twitch Plays Pokemon.

I was planning ahead much more as the story neared its end, and I would tend to A) pick commands that suited what I had in mind, or B) just call a spade a spade and outright MAKE UP a command for an idea I had, which I did most often for many of the later attacks (like the Sleuth Diplomacy variations, Comb Raves, etc).

Ahaha! I knew it!!

You never really know where these commands are coming from. Hussie’s been putting in custom commands since Problem Sleuth, and is definitely still doing it now. 

Homestuck: [...] The adventure I’m currently working on, with a pretty radically different approach from the way the previous adventures started, mostly in the sense that many elements are already preplanned.

I think this is what really sets Homestuck apart from the other mspaintadventures, particularly Problem Sleuth. 

Godhead Pickle Inspector thinks you should just relax and have fun, and not worry too much about it.

You’re supposed to sit back and let Problem Sleuth take you for a ride. I wouldn’t have been able to write theoryposts for it, y’know? And you’re not really supposed to, anyway.

But Homestuck? Homestuck has a plot. Things are happening behind the scenes. Characters are talking to each other, learning about the situation they’ve been placed into, and reacting to it. Hussie has plans, and you can see that everywhere you look. You know you need to be paying attention.