#and tried my best to explain why

[mossy-aro]

ultimately i think my insistence on aro positivity honestly is as much a political stance as a personal one.

when i say aro positivity is crucial and that i dislike doomer-ist posts that express sentiments like 'I hate being aro so much I wish I was dead instead’ it's not because I don’t think there can and should be a space for negativity and acknowledging self-hate, or the many ways being aromantic can really suck sometimes. i find that to be very important!

that being said. there is smth here about how self-hate posts are sometimes just arophobia that we inflict on ourselves. and when we put that out into the ether it (intentionally or not) can become arophobia that we inflict on other members of the community. i think there absolutely needs to be a place for negativity and the expression of anger and frustration and self loathing even - these are all good things to talk about because these are things that we experience. that being said, it can also be genuinely upsetting and triggering to people to have what is essentially arophobia shown to them and then have that be validated by other aspec people. your personal thoughts can affect your wider community on a level you may not anticipate. and i understand it i truly do! it took me so long to be able to recover from accepting being aroace - it threw my entire world off kilter and made me question everything about my place in the world.

but my insistence on aro joy and positivity is because ultimately i do believe that building is at the core essence of it all. that ultimately discussions and the purpose of community should be about construction, not destruction. and this is both a personal and a political stance. talking about how much you hate yourself and cultivating online discussions/spaces where negativity about aspec identity is the main and only theme is destructive - if that’s where we let the conversation end. these thoughts can and should be used as a vehicle to look for a path forward!

joy and positivity create a space where the focus can become on forging a path forward, on construction, on community building instead of tearing ourselves and others down with negative thoughts. it’s not productive or healthy when it stops at a place of negativity - it becomes actively destructive to the essence of community.

and i do think that this is especially poignant considering the fact that being any kind of queer, but especially aromantic (and/or asexual) means forging a path for yourself and making your own happiness where there is no obvious way forward. our communities exist mostly online (right now, anyway), there is little recognition of our existence in the real world, the effects of amatonormativity are both pervasive and actively dehumanising, and there are legal, economic and social structures in place actively making our lives more difficult. yes that all sucks! it’s good to acknowledge that. we need to in order to change it. but more importantly, that’s not the end. we are still here and our happiness, our future is for us to determine. even if we can’t change the laws or society, loving yourself and understanding aromanticism as a political identity (as well as personal), as a radical worldview, and as a protest against amatonormativity is essential for both community and personal well being. the personal is political.

tldr. i guess my point is that as a community, we should focus on building, improving, and nurturing ourselves and each other (construction) as opposed to destruction. we should recognise aromanticism and asexuality as political identities as well as personal ones and rely on community and self-love in the absence of anything else as a form of protest and political power. destruction (the recognition of everything that is wrong) is essential as a starting point - but where do we go from there? we rebuild.

[mokeonn]

Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

[seariii]

i know everyone is really mad at kotoko, but i’ve been thinking a bit about why she ended up like this

I have a friend who has a really similar mindset to kotoko, so i'm kinda familiarized with how it works. as i've said before, she really sees everything in black and white, and while she originally said she would forgive those who did the same as her (basically amane, and fuuta to some extent), after her t1 inno verdict, her ideals got reinforced, well, more like radicalized and pushed them a step further, losing her original self/mindset in the process

every time i talk to this friend about kotoko, they really do see themselves in kotoko, and with everything currently going on (and them going to therapy and trying to be a better person, and just getting bad looks from others when they talk) has made them notice how some stuff isn't that good or how it's frowned upon. my friend has a black and white sense of justice, and when i told them about how kotoko would’ve harm amane, they went “it's good to know she wouldn't spare the child” (i know, messed up). their context to that is, we all know how children can be some of the most horrible people in earth, innocence can be seen as beautiful, but it can also be terrifying. their argument is that when children commit a crime, they're not trial respectively to what they committed, a child who killed someone doesn't get the same repercussions as an adult who killed someone. 

having said that, that mindset comes from a place of black and white morals, of difficulties during childhood, of seeing how people arent brought to justice and of how one suffers so much but no one cares. this friend struggles with empathy and struggles to understand others in general. the main difference they have with kotoko is that they try, that they were put in situations where they had to face reality and other people 

i believe kotoko must’ve went through something that in the end pushed her to this belief system. “it doesnt excuse what she did” i know, but i still think if she have had someone to guide her towards the right path, someone who she actually connected with and showed her why her actions and beliefs were harmful, this wouldn't have ended like this… 

now here, im not asking people to forgive her, i actually think that a guilty verdict this trial would be really good for her and hopefully would force her to face reality in some way

[bugspray333]

a twt oomf found my zammbu post on here and dmed me about and im genuinely so fucking annoyed and frustrated and just GOD FUCKKK im kind of venting but also loke bro. Dont. DM ME ABOUT SHIT FROM TUMBLR? THERES A REASON WHY I KEPT IT ON TUMBLR ! I DONT WANT CCS WHO ARENT LIKE USED TO THIS TYPE OF FANDOM STUFF SEEING IT AND I KNOW DAMN WELL IF MORE PEOPLE ON LSTWT SEE IT ITS OVER FOR ME like bro just oml, i cant have shit

[angy-grrr]

Not to sound pessimistic, but the so-called ''cliffhanger'' seems to be about building up for a love confession rather than secretly trying to add a subversion of a (shounen) trope.

We literally have only 2 chapters left. What can he even do to change this atp? And that interview doesn't sound that great. It reminded me of my AoT fan days back in the day and how disappointed we were by the author's interviews abt that show.

sorry idk what interview you are referring to/gen

you can interpret it as a build up for a confession -I’m not the author, I have no authority over the work, and my perspective is as valid in terms of canon as yours. But I want to make you another question:

what part of this chapter made you think that?

when reading it all together, the feelings she is hiding during the whole chapter are revealed at the end -she is sad over Himiko’s sacrifice and can’t pretend to be happy with this ending even if everyone else is smiling. And Izuku gets worried about her, noticing there’s something wrong along Tsuyu -they are both her closest friends and perceptive; in the dorms, she tells others Ochako said she’s coming home but doesn’t even read her messages (implying this is weird for her), and when looking for her, using OFA probably to get faster, he sees her holding her stomach and crying on a cliff.

You can see all of this however you want, even if you don’t like what you interpret in the end, but personally I completely understand why Deku would do that for her -I too have gone out of my way for a friend in possible danger- and I can’t see how Hori could make any of them confess and focus the conversation around each other when she’s grieving heavily. “What can he even do to change this at this point” change what? if you mean to twist this cliffhanger, I think it can easily be done -for example, instead of focusing on a romance talk between them for some reason, keep talking about the villains and heroes. Because there’s no footage of their fight Izuku probably doesn’t even know Toga sacrificed herself for Uraraka, so there’s a potential interesting conversation that brings back the whole “I’m kinda weird” theme while confirming they are characters with their own ideals and feelings that can be different while still similar. Also, they just need to have a talk no matter what -whether Horikoshi decides to bring it up to make them a couple or not, a call back to the conversation before the final war is good, they need it. It would be harder to go for a love confession between them in my opinion -how do you even go from feeling devastated and missing what looks like a dead person, to focus on loving another one and wanting to pursue a relationship? Even some shippers who are reading the leaks feel it’s wrong, not even bittersweet, just an insult to the ship and the characters. How do you make Izuku and Ochako a couple in two chapters when the last thing we have is her crying over someone else? It was as simple as also mentioning her feelings for him in this chapter -then we would understand she needs to express those too or she will break. But this just tells me she has to talk about Toga and what she felt about their fight, reconciliation and sacrifice.

[suffarustuffaru]

ok but im getting emo over heinkel again so im gonna talk about him again because yeah hes yet another sad character in a sea of sad characters and i love rezero for that but like he is a character consistently characterized by one loss after the other. it's a rollercoaster and its going straight fucking down and he is so miserable and absolutely alone and its both his fault and not his fault at all. but the way it starts is - its all out of his control. the more you think about the trajectory of his life the sadder it gets.

imagine you are heinkel and your parents are the sword saint and the sword demon and you come from a long line of knights and sword saints so thats almost definitely where youre headed, right? thats whats expected of you. you are nineteen years old and youre a knight in the royal guard, which was expected of you, and you have a wife and a beautiful baby boy, which was also expected of you, but at least you have so much joy and love for the latter while the former is just another chain on the astrea family line of people who are stuck to knighthood whether they like it or not. but your family is also just another chain because youre nineteen and your mother is still the sword saint and youre playing with fate here because either youre going to be the sword saint or your son will be.

your wife, the only equal you have, falls asleep one day and never wakes up. you are twenty-one years old and a single parent and then you are twenty-three years old and your son's fate is so much bigger than youll ever be. having the worlds love means that your love pales in comparison, doesnt it? everyone knows about your comatose wife because you keep searching so much for a cure that its just another thing to gossip about. every year that passes by she just continues to look the same as she did when she was awake and alive and loved you. (you dont know it yet but your son is going to reach the same age as her, because you dont find a cure for another sixteen years and you know that she wont love you anymore because who does? theres no one left because your son doesnt count.)

and everyone knows about you because of your family. because yeah, youre a good swordsman, but youre not liked by anyone in the knights. youre not a friend and youre certainly not a sword saint or sword demon. your son mind controls someone because he loves you so much that he would do anything for you and looks up to you like youre some hero, but youre just a wreck whos scrambling to keep what little you have. youre twenty-four and you lose your mom because you were too scared to go on the mission you were assigned on, because youre a coward and youre in over your head and you know, because everyone knows, that you dont measure up. you could never be prepared for this. in a long line of people who have to carry the weight of the world, you crumble easily. your mom goes on that mission and dies and your son becomes the sword saint like this was always going to happen. this is what being loved by the world means. you just killed your mom because you just couldnt suck it up and die on that mission instead. on top of that, your dad says that your five-year-old god of a son killed your mom. its just you and your son and the two of you both killed your mom but youre the worlds biggest laughing stock and your son is the up and coming hero and monster. but you still love your son. you really do.

right?

[sentientstump]

i know its been a little but id like to hear moreabout the team canada deity au ^_^ i think bout them now and 4 ever,,,

(oof its been real awhile!! im so sorry ^^" heres a short story)

Once there was Nothing. It wanted to be bright, so it created The Light. The Nothing overdid itself, The Light was too bright.

The Silver Fox appeared. He hid the scorched ground behind a heavy cold blanket. He hid The Light behind a wall of dense clouds.

The Maroon Kite appeared. He said to The Silver Fox that the blanket is too cold and The Light is not there to be hidden that long.

They agreed to switch every half of the year. "But what to do with the blanket?", The Silver Fox asked. "Turn yourself into a crucian, I will carry you and it will splash into an ocean", The Maroon Kite said.

They did it just like that. Year after year. The Maroon Kite wakes up life and The Silver Fox brings it to sleep.

And that's how seasons started.

[dirtytransmasc]

Do you think that when alicent warn rhaenyra about the milk came from her nipple during the council she was doing it to humiliate her?

complicated.

personally it took me a few rewatches to totally get the scene (I'm autistic and the social and personal nuance of the scene was personally hell for me for some reason) but I can safely say, I believe it wasn't her intent.

I don't think Alicent meant any ill will, she was trying to be kind, alerting Rhaenyra that she was letting down milk and that she needed to go clear herself up. they're both mothers, this is something they both know well, and I'm sure Alicent has gotten mastitis before and she felt sympathy for Rhaenyra. she had attempted to be discreet as well, Rhaenyra was the one who made the problem evident when she looked at it directly. overall, I think Alicent was just trying to be kind, one mother to one mother, even in her frustration.

I will say, I think her frustration caused her to blunter then she could have been and opened Rhaenyra up for potential scorn by the court. she was annoyed with her, pissed off about the betrothal offer and Rhaenyra's actions at council, so even in her attempts at kindness, some of that well deserved animosity seeped through. a kind gesture turned sour by her frustration with the other women.

I also think that alicent forgets that while Rhaenyra is not entirely immune to the judgement and misogyny of the court. it's s very small part of this encounter, but as Rhaenyra has always acted and been allowed to act above the court, I think she underestimated how much pointing out such a womanly problem could effect Rhaenyra. I don't know if that makes any sense, I don't really know how else to put this concept into words though so you'll have to bear with it.

at the end of the day, I don't think Alicent did anything explicitly wrong, but I can understand why people could feel like she had tried to scorn Rhaenyra or humiliate her. my thing is, is that she doesn't look at her in a way that would suggest that. she looks tired, she looks tired and frustrated, but you see her sort of "step out" of councilwoman mode to something much more natural and less... like a facade I guess. she makes this comment to Rhaenyra as Alicent, not the queen, not as Viserys's wife, not even as her stepmother (she only speaks to Rhaenyra like this a few times, but it's an honorable mention), she speaks only as a long lost friend and s mother who understands. she wasn't thinking about court or humiliating Rhaenyra, but only giving aid, even when she didn't want to.

[mar64ds]

don't be mistaken by the horrors welcomehome is genuinely really nice to experience as a neurodivergent person, seeing wally being openly autistic without having to mask and everyone on town being nice to him is something awesome and genuinely means a lot

[vonpharma]

“handwaving genuine, good-hearted concrit, to refusing to even engage in the conversation at all, to constant changes that make the event less fun for a huge chunk of us”

Do you mind if I ask more about this? I’ve also participated in sicktember (casually) and I haven’t really noticed anything that fit this, so I just wanted to ask more about your experiences if you were comfortable elaborating. I’m mostly curious what changes were made that made the event less fun (other than delay in prompts released I heard about that)

yeah sure! right off the bat i wanna say that this is not something i was like. PISSED OFF or intending to start any drama about, just some stuff that made the event less enjoyable for me.

i also wanna say that you haven't noticed it because sicktember is very very careful to not publish anything that makes them look bad. they do not engage with any of their replies or asks unless they can spin it in a very sanitized, pr-friendly manner. try creeping through the tags and replies on some of their posts, and while a lot of shit is deleted or lost, you can still see traces of it, some of which i will link to here.

the prompts becoming more delayed. i wasn't here in 2021 (when they dropped in early march), but in 2022 they dropped in mid may. that was awesome because it gave us all lots of time to prep--my favourite thing about sicktember is how accessible of a prompt event it is! the prompts don't all drop like a week before the event starts, you have all summer to write so if you have a full time job or responsibilities you can still participate. this year they made it very clear the prompts were ready to go in may but didn't drop them until mid-june.

when people started sending asks about this, they responded thusly. they maintain this weird kinda... pr-friendly, stepford smiley vibe whenever anyone tries to open a dialogue with them? and it just comes across as so dismissive of anyone trying to make genuine points.

here they say that "many things go into planning prompts" but don't elaborate on that at all. for context, the night before this ask, they had made it clear that the prompts were all ready to go. the hand-waving comes in the form of all the "suggestions" they offer here--"well, you don't have to do every prompt!" (but i want to. it's fun. it feels good. and that's what i've done in the past) "you can write after september!" (i did that last year. it was kind of miserable. i like posting with everyone, it feels like a big celebration!) "we give you like 100 days!" (that's cool. but you could give us more at no detriment to yourself. a lot of us didn't make the deadline last year.)

check the notes on this post and you'll see several disappointed contributors/fans who are trying to open a dialogue with the event runners, all of whom were ignored. several people have reached out to me saying that their asks about this were ignored.

2. last year, they said they would only be accepting fills on the sicktember blog through submissions, and only posting 10 random ones a day. in the past, sicktember has reblogged every single fill directly from the writers.

here's why this is shitty:

when you submit something to a blog, the blog owner then becomes the one who effectively "owns" its engagement. that means any notes, reblogs, comments, follows, etc. all go to sicktember. they do not go to the person who MADE THE STORY. if you, the author, want to see what people are saying about your work, you have to pull up the sicktember window and obsessively check it. if you want to respond to any comments, you give sicktember more notes.

this is just more work, especially if you still want those notes. you would then have to make TWO posts, one on your personal blog and one on sicktember's. and people are probably disinclined to reblog a story twice. it is not exposure or engagement to do this, it actively robs authors of engagement.

sicktember might not even post your fill. they pick ten random ones a day. this is because...

they literally admitted that they lose followers when they reblog every fill. they said aloud that it is all about engagement for them. maintaining followers means more to them than highlighting the contributions of all the people who are making their event what it is. they are quite literally trying to maximize followers and stealing engagement from their contributors. it's kind of fucking insidious.

the only valid point here is the thing about reducing mod workload. still, they could've just... opened apps for another mod? inquired for some extra help? lord knows i would've jumped at the opportunity to curate! i'm sure others would've too.

contrast this to whumptober, who religiously reblog every single fill despite being a much longer running event than sicktember.

this is why i started @sicktemberfeed. with permission, but the mods were even weird about THAT... i asked if it would be ok to make, and they said "well, it's not like we could stop you." weird fucking answer. it's fine to say no.

3. i didn't speak out about point 2, but did speak out a little bit on this blog about point 1. @yes-i-am-happyaspie's husband (@spaceninjas42) dug through my blog, somehow found my untagged critique (it was not vitriolic or cruel, just a plea for an open discussion) and started getting on my case for talking about it on my personal blog. there was a second, much more vitriolic reply that he left but i was a dingus and blocked him as soon as i saw it, which means it's now marked deleted and i have no way of getting it back or proving it. that's kind of a "just trust me bro" situation.

4. the prompts this year were not very good. that is a purely subjective opinion i have, but a lot of us agree that they really stray from the concept of sickfic. we have a lot of heavier whump events floating around and the appeal of sicktember is that it is for fluffier, more low stakes stuff. seeing "cardiac arrest" and "anaphylaxis" and "medieval treatment" on there had me and a lot of others scratching our heads. their response to this is always "just sub it out!" but when we start running out of alt prompts because so many of the main ones are not what the audience is vibing with... there is room for critique there. there is room for a discussion.

i can't stress enough that the problem isn't necessarily these changes--they are not dealbreakers! the problem was sicktember's attitude. every single time anyone in the community tried to say 'hey, i think this idea could use work/tweaking' the response was basically just, again, the happy-go-lucky stepford smiler pr voice "we'd like to remind you that blah blah blah! happy writing, authors!" and absolute refusal to talk to their community at all. as i've said many times, this is not a dichotomy--where one side is "we fold to any criticism! our fans control us!" and the other side is "you're not entitled to anything! we run this event for free despite our busy lives!" like you can very much find a happy medium there but they just. do not.

none of that is a deal breaker, genuinely. i was still planning on participating up until the very end, and i obviously am now.

what was a deal breaker was them posting harry potter shit.

[makedonsgriva]

after not indulging in any kind of omegaverse fanfic/novel/webcomic etc etc for my whole 21 years of life, i finally started tadaima okaeri and it’s cute asf????

[anaalnathrakhs]

"i thought you said you'd make an effort" MOTHERFUCKER THIS IS ONLY COMPLAINT #1 OUT OF A VERY LONG LIST JUST BE GRATEFUL I CAN WAIT UNTIL THE GUESTS ARE GONE TO SNAP

[oddishblossom]

Hey I have a question? How do you produce such high-quality gifs. It's so cool and I've been trying but it usually just doesn't come out well

Thanks! I’ve been making gifs for about 2 years, so I’m by no means a pro. Sometimes it feels like I’m just throwing things at the video until it looks the way I want it to look.

I didn’t use any guides, so it took a lot of trial and error to learn. Just to compare, here’s the first gif I ever made!

My advice for starting to get into gif-making is, you gotta really choose a media or character you love because the process is time consuming and it can be frustrating if it doesn't end up the way you wanted right away. Plus, you’re gonna stare at the same picture for like a loooong time. Over time, I’ve gotten a lot faster at making sets. Like that killua x start over gifset only took me an hour to make, but I barely edited that one. I normally spend a few days on each set.

I still don’t completely get photoshop, so I don’t feel like I can give a tutorial for it. But I do make a lot of gifs on my phone so here’s a more in depth look at that.

For starters, I always get video footage in 1080P. Either download or record the footage you want to turn into gifs. I’m gonna use Killua as an example. Here’s a picture of what the clip looks like before I’ve done anything.

I find that the shorter the clip, the easier it is to make it smooth and crisp. This clip is only 5 seconds long. I try to keep my clips 5 seconds or shorter. I can do longer clips, but then I’d have to shorten the frames used and the speed of the gif (frames per second), which I don’t like doing. Next, I crop it. You want to crop before you start editing.

After that, I can start recoloring. There’s a couple good apps I like using for this. VideoDay and InShot are pretty good, but they’re pay to use. The free one Apple provides in the photos app is good, too. I’ve got a different coloring style for most of my sets. But I mainly focus on making dark colors darker, making colors more saturated so they pop, and brightening the video. On VideoDay & Inshot you can find this setting under Filter. Then go to Adjust. This is what it looks like after boosting up the contrast, saturation, brightness, shadows, and definition. Mess around with different settings until you come up with something you like.

Now, I recolor it a second time with filters. Sometimes I use Inshot or VideoDay, but I mostly use the app ImgPlay. ImgPlay is what I’ll be using to actually turn this video into a gif. I use different filters depending on what colors I want to stand out. CL2 and HW3 are a couple favorites. For this set I use HW3. Then I added more contrast, saturation, and sharpened it as high as it could go.

Now that it looks pretty, time to make it move smoothly. Through a lot of trial and error, I’ve found that these settings work okay. I have it set to 90 frames for this clip. For frames, I usually try to keep it within 80-90 frames (or 30-80 if it’s a shorter clip). If I push it past that, like say 100 frames, it’ll start to look blurry once I condense it.

For speed, I either use .04 seconds or .05 seconds. For frames per second, I always go with 20 FPS at least. This will push up the frame count, so you’ll need to make the clip shorter. You can do that by using the slide bar or that little area with 9 squares in the top right corner.

Now it’s time to export! Just click on save and GIF size. Set the loop to infinity and size to 10 MB. Tumblr has a limit on GIF size, so it needs to be 10MB or under. You can also click on GIF dithering to make the colors blend a bit more.

And we’re done! Hope it wasn’t too confusing and that I explained myself clearly! There’s a lot more cool effects you can do once you get the hang of video editing. This is by no means a strict guide or anything! Heck, even I don’t follow this exactly and I try changing things around, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Gif-making can be super fun, so I hope you keep at it! 😊💖

[watercolor-hearts]

.

[forcedhesitation]

completely rhetorical question, I know exactly why they do, but also why do people succumb to pairing star/gale? or rather, how do they? is it not boring, do you not get bored? I cannot imagine being continuously entertained by such a bland pair. wyll is right there, man.

[jvzebel-x]

🦋