#curious to know who’s blorbos end up in the tags

[thatssroughbuddy]

but your honor he’s my favorite fucked up and tortured guy who maybe looks a little worse for wear but has a heart of gold despite it all

[olderthannetfic]

How I would do 2023 ship stats

You know, normally, I don't bother to do much with top AO3 ships stats. That's partly because someone already does it and partly because I think they're stupid stats that just lead to people gloating about their blorbos "winning". But I do routinely have a look at what's new and popular when I'm doing things like making a dance party playlist for Escapade Con, just so I know what fans might be getting into lately. I have to say, collecting these is not hard. It's not even particularly time consuming.

Doing it super efficiently would be easier with a script, yes, but most fandom stats aren't actually collected with scripts, and if you're only looking for the top 100 ships, you can more or less do that by hand. How I would set about it for you, the random fan who's curious but not curious enough to learn to code, would be to log into AO3 and then find tags where you can see the sidebar. They should be tags that encompass the whole archive and that are mandatory and unique… in other words, ratings.

Since every AO3 work must have one and only one rating, you can just check these five and get a good sense of what's on there. There are some minor wrinkles to iron out, but it's a good preliminary research step.

The way you want to do it is to start with a spreadsheet. Open up your ratings URLs (and also paste them in the spreadsheet for convenience—google sheets will make clickable links). Copy all the sidebar top ships into a list. Filter out all of these ships. Copy the next set, etc. After a while, you'll have a good list that's longer than 100 ships but that most likely contains everything really popular. (Filter for things posted/updated/whatever in the past year if that's the data you're after. Filter for f/f or whatever topic you're interested in if that's the question you're asking instead.)

Use your spreadsheet to generate the actual links for each of these ships. AO3 URLs are predictable: you can generate them from knowing the exact spelling of the tag and the normal format of this type of URL. (There are a bunch of standard spreadsheet functions that can be used to get rid of the work count numbers you've copied from AO3 to get just the pure ship tags. I'd use things like =right() and =left().)

Open the links. Copy the work totals back to your spreadsheet. Voilà!

One drawback of this method is, obviously, that it's boring and tedious, but if you didn't like boring and tedious, why were you collecting fandom stats anyway?

A more important drawback is that in using exclude filters, it's possible you could miss a ship. If the posting patterns are just right, there might be something that has its numbers reduced by excluding other ships that should be on your list. You could have a similar issue if the ships on your list are mostly one rating (so higher in those searches) and some other slightly larger overall ship is spread more evenly. I would try to ameliorate this problem by looking at the sizes of the smallest ships you're covering. They will likely be bigger than the entire fandom section for most fandoms. Taking another look at the bigger fandoms that could be hiding a small-end-of-big ship can help double-check that you haven't missed anything. Grabbing the top 130 or 150 ships in some search while only looking for the top 100 will likely find most of the edge stuff too.

Add any ships that look like they should be double checked to your spreadsheet. Add their work totals. Re-sort your list.

Another thing to consider is that AO3 keeps track of the most recent update date on fics. That's what's easy to search by. If you're only interested in when a work was first posted, easy manual filtering isn't the way to go… However, if the objective is to see which ship tags were active in a given year, most recent update date is the relevant piece of data anyway.

You're not going to recreate centreoftheselights' exact analysis unless you collect data year to year, but you can come up with something pretty similar that answers a similar question, and you don't need to be a programmer to do it.

In the end, accept that some data require hard collection methods that a site doesn't easily offer you and you might have to scrape multiple times a year with a script if you want to know that particular thing… or you might have to randomly sample and hand-count as with FFN shipping stats. (Yes, I've done it. It can be done. It's just annoying.)

So when you're setting out to look at some stats question, the big first step is to decide what you're even asking and why and whether you're just wimping out and going with what's easy to collect instead of what you actually want to know.

...now I'm kind of curious. Maybe I'll go pull some 2023 numbers.

[msperfectsheep-posts]

Okay Note here. CHARACTER ASK. i7 Torao, Haruka, and Nagi. Ouran High School Haruhi. Batman Jason. Anyone in persona you must talk about (I don't know anyone there). Did I miss someone? (You don't have to do all. I am mereky curious)

THANK YOU NOTE!!! I'm gonna put all of these beneath a cut just so I don't clog up people's dashes <3

Torao Mido: (IDOLiSH7)

Torao is the kind of character where you're like "literally why is he in the main cast when everyone else is a banger" and then you realize that his arc is just 4-5/6ths of the way into the story and you go Oh. Oh. I get it now. That's him. That said, I want to blast him with a fire hose.

Haruka Isumi: (IDOLiSH7)

Haruka was my discord pfp for several months and I think that says a lot already. I love him so much, he's like. so bulliable and he should be bullied. Dramatic ass teenager baby that dresses like an e-boy. I love him so much and every time he bleps (:P) in official art I want to Die. Prime blorbo material.

Nagi Rokuya: (IDOLiSH7)

I'll admit outright that, as someone who had Ouran High School Host Club change my brain chemistry forever when I was a child, and with i7 having a main character named Tamaki, I CONSTANTLY called Nagi "Tamaki" during the first season just because he was the silly blond weeb guy!! I was like holy shit there's two of them. And then I got to parts 3 and 4 and I was like Oh Holy Shit they're even more similar than I thought :'). Nagi is a BELOVED character of mine but it took a moment for me to grow into loving his character. I wish I saw more fan content of him because he fucking rocks, but he's also just on a different plane from a lot of the more popular characters and I get it. I love how everyone respects him as they should though. My king forever and ever.

Haruhi Fujioka: (Ouran High School Host Club)

SPEAKING OF OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB. Haruhi's arc in the anime and manga is a little different, and obviously the anime wasn't supposed to end where it did, but with the changes the director and writers made, I truly believe that it would be impossible for the animeverse to end the same way the mangaverse did. Anyways Haruhi is a really funny character because she's supposed to be the straightman in a lot of the jokes, but she's just as dramatic and silly as everyone else. And it's great. 10/10 protagonist, every time I think of her I think of that tumblr post about her with the big brown eyes and I go Yeah. yeah.

Jason Todd: (DC Comics; Batman)

(If you can't read that square, it says "SCOTT LOBDELL")

Jason was NOT my favorite DC character or even Robin for a long, long time. I only really got into his character when I started working on my fic, Beyond Imagination, and had to start analyzing what a younger Jason was like and how he would interact with the world in a modern day and age. All of the Batman characters get flanderized and mischaracterized by fanon and canon a lot, so it's hard to figure out what was generally agreed upon as canon unless you read yourself, but Jason's got a strong story and personality that really shined with his resurrection. I'd say it's one of the best uses of reviving a character thought to be dead, and every time I think about his death and like. both the in-universe and real life events that lead up to it, I get emotional. Great character that makes me deeply ill to think of from a meta-perspective.

Maya Amano: (Persona 2 Innocent Sin & Persona 2 Eternal Punishment)

Okay so. You may have noticed I tagged two Persona games for her and that's because, spoilers for Persona 2, the first Persona 2 (Innocent Sin) is a timeline that fails. The game with you resetting the timeline because you fucked up that badly, and the second Persona 2 (Eternal Punishment) is your second shot and doing things over. HOWEVER. Maya changes with the timelines because she was doomed to die with how things were set up in Innocent Sin, and fixing that to give the timeline a shot in Eternal Punishment changes her as a character. This bingo is more about Innocent Sin Maya, who is a 23 year old girlfailure reporter that makes me Deeply Deeply Ill. If you're ever curious, you can send me an ask and I'll talk about her more in depth because Persona 2 isn't the easiest game to play

Thank you for the ask!!!

[spark-lapis]

Hihihihi uhm I’m the anon who submitted the “keeping secrets from my coworkers” thing on AITA blorbos and I just wanna say your tags made me very happy. The post was based on ocs of mine and it makes me extremely happy that someone thinks the story is cool. Uhhh yea that’s all I wanted to say. If you wanna know more about the story, I’d be glad to share more details if you let me know haha, but thank you for those tags they made my day and I hope you have a great day/night/secret third thing!! ^^

oh !!!!!!!! sorry I'm seeing this so late !!!!!!!

(the AITA in question for anyone curious!!)

i also have ocs involved in organized crime so obviously it's a setting i like a lot, and it was just such an awesome setup??? like that is a genuinely FASCINATING moral dilemma. especially like, that it's actually really reasonable to be hesitant to reveal anything that could get you targeted by someone who's already killed you once, but on the other hand, where's the Trust... the burden of the secrets that dig the hole deeper and deeper with every passing second, month, year.... the burden of knowing that not only could your found family know more about you and your true identity, withholding this information also affects someone else's ability to know more about and understand themselves......

it's genuinely such an awesome plotline and this kind of thing is one of my favorite things about following the aita-blorbos blog!! congrats on the super cool storyline and complex characters!!! (and if you end up posting more details somewhere i would definitely be curious to see!!)

[hugheses]

I'd love tips on everything honestly! But I'm very curious how you find candid info (random cute photos, wedding pics, who's hanging out in the off-season) or interviews/videos that aren't blatantly on the official team youtube channel. I feel like I can only find the obvious PR-filtered stuff, and for guys who aren't all-stars there's way less of it being published

well for the first part the answer is mostly instagram. you have to check tagged photos pretty regularly and also find out who they’re friends with/dating/family members etc (with public accounts) and follow them. it helps to have a burner account unless you don’t care about irl friends wondering why you’re following all these people. i have an account specifically for this purpose and follow 212 players and associates and team staff etc lmao. for wedding pics if you want like, the official ones then typically the photographer will post them on instagram or their website! you just have to figure out who it is lol. and while a wedding (or other kind of event) is happening, i often try to be camped out in location tags on instagram to find out who else is there and what they’re posting etc. for interviews, google is your best friend. you can set up a google alert but also just search blorbo lastname (-site:nhl.com if you don’t want official team stuff) and filter by a date range and go to town for a few hours. other good places to search are twitter, facebook, vimeo, flickr… basically any place you could think of where ppl might post stuff, but not all of it ends up indexed by google. the more niche your blorbo is the easier this will be actually, because there’s less junk to get through. unless they have a common name, in which case u better put your wading boots on. i hope this is helpful haha i don’t really know how to explain it very well. if you have any other questions lmk and i do plan on posting a big resources post with some links and stuff.

[shadowgamerhalo]

Hello there, welcome to this blog. I am Shade and here's what you need to know before interacting.

-As of 2023 I am 21 years old, introvert, genderfluid aroace polyamorous lesbian , norse heathen witch, who has unspecified neurodivergences and disability.

-Personally I'd sum up my personality as chaotic, tired, and socially inept. I have trouble with social interactions at times, either forgetting how to interact with people normally, low spoons, or my social battery is dead.

-My vocabulary changes from fanciful wording to the weirdest slang. Example. Whilst I enjoy the yeeting of my blorbo around my cerebral cortex, I am up for putting them into the salad spinner for their uwu crimes. You stick around on this blog, and you will find more of that I assure you.

-My genderfluidity is a mystery to even myself sometimes, so I tend to go by they/them for simplicity. I'd say I'm still figuring out what some of my genders are, though I'd say none of them fall strictly into masculine or feminine categories, even if I like more feminine or masculine pronouns at times.

-I use the term lesbian cause it feels right. I am not attracted to men in the slightest. Edit: changed cause well, figured out identity stuff. Aroace, short for aromantic and asexual. I also am polyamorous. For anyone curious I am single, mainly because I don't know how people flirt and talking to people is hard.

-I am in many fandoms, that it has become a game of what fandom I shall fall into next. That also means my brain is full of so much fictional knowledge that I wonder if I will run out of space in my brain.

-This blog had gone through several changes over the years I've had it due to many reasons. This change particularly is me deciding fuck it, my blog means I can do whatever the fuck I want. I am nice and apeshit I suppose.

-The blog will contain mainly things I decide to put on it, whether if I like it, helping boost it, tagging potential for mutuals, and sometimes for chaos. An example of that last one would be scheduling 'thank the gnome it's friday' for a couple fridays just for kicks.

-If I send you asks, expect chaos or compliments, sometimes both. I like being a little gremlin on here, just now I am being more open about it. I have sent things of this nature on anon back when I was in my shy era.

-I have two sideblogs which are much more fandom centered. I used to keep them hidden cause I didn't want people to know I had them, but now I am letting myself be the feral nerd I am. @monkiesgobrrrr is lego monkie kid centered, and @starscreativity101 is murder drones centered.

-When interacting please don't directly dm unless I know you, you'll end up getting blocked.

-Asks in my inbox are more than welcome, expect inconsistencies as answering asks depends on my mental health and energy levels.

-If you see a reblog with the tags that I am eating your art or going feral because of it, that is my way of showing my love for it. This also applies to writing and edits.

-When I make stuff on here, I prefer reblogs over likes, and I want someone to go feral over it. Commentary is welcome as long as it doesn't derail the post.

Upon your readage of this, I hope you enjoy your stay even if it's short. Now interact as you see fit.

[cuppajj]

Each time you do this ask game I scroll through you oc tag because I can't decide on your blorbos, hope I didn't spend too much time on it kljsdhfksd xD This time maybe Xenophin reacting to Strongspark? Or if you feel like it a different oc can react too!

Strongspark was found after the war in some forgotten by Primus place. There must've dropped some radioactive bomb or sth that fucked up the place and everyone in it. Most died, some turned into mindless monsters... and a few protoforms got messed up mid-creation. Sparky was the only survivor as he ended up close to an energy source.

Years later ex-autobot Morphine and ex-decepticon TerrorRain were supposed to check out the place and see if it can be used. They killed what tried to kill them and then Morph found the messed up pile of crying parts that had more determination in the fragile spark than the depressed medic. Morph started caring for the little guy despite the many conditions others would consider fatal.

After many ups and downs Sparky was somewhat functional. Tiny, not much bigger than a human. Blind with no optics to see, constantly distressed, for a long time it was uncertain if he can even hear. Many said it'd be more merciful to let him die. Terry defended him only 'cuz that was Morph's only thing able to make his optics glow with determination.

Eventually after a lot of work, surgeries and rehabilitation turns out that Strongspark can hear and understand. He also learns to speak tho he can't comunicate much more than a human kindergarten kid.

But he understands and sees much more. He may not have optics but he can see ghosts and souls and sparks. "Pretty glow!" is something MiniMint heard from him a lot. ":0!! Bright!" Morphine hears when smiling. "Hmm. Not hap." Sparky says when he sees someone hiding their feelings under a fake smile.

He has trouble comunicating with the world but anyone patient enough and willing to listen can notice that he's more than a pile of scrap metal with malfunctioning processor. Despite his disabilities he's more than willing to live the life he got!

Xenophin's lantern would 100% get his interest and calm him down when he's distressed. He would also notice the ghosts in his frame. He'd say "oh! lots." Morphine would explain that some Xen's friends or family who passed away must still hang around and care for him if Spark can see more than one person in the place where only Xen stands.

Xenophin would be fascinated. He isn’t the social type so it’s very likely that Spark is the one to run into him (in his little obscure and ornate looking library). When he does, he’d see the otherworldly mist leaking from his seams, as well as a couple of spirits surrounding him at his desk (not many are able to permanently create an incorporeal form, only ~three who compose the largest percent of Xenophin’s frame. the rest are voices of varying volume). He’d also be able to notice that the other emanates a strong aura of death, like he has been around it for a large part of his life—or, at the very least, one pivotal moment in which an insurmountable number of deaths happened.

I’m sure it wouldn’t take a lot for them to notice that both of them can see ghosts, though unfortunately Xen wouldn’t be able to see any beyond his own. Xen would brighten up considerably, curiously; there is someone else who has this… blessing? Curse? Whatever Mortilus deems it as. He’d want to know if Spark has made any sense of why he has the ability he has, and the answer would determine how content he is with it. But, at the end of the day, he’d walk away a little satisfied that he’s not alone.

The spirits in his plating would be curious too, some wary, some unsure of what they’re seeing.

[donut-entendre]

I was searching the myostatin tag and saw your gigantism + myostatin deficiency speculation. It can happen in humans. My endocrinologist says it's very rare. I'm the only case she's ever seen personally, but there have been a few cases. I'll ask her for some citations when I see her next month. Basically I'm 7'3 and my body just turns any extra calories into muscle, it doesn't really make fat. My weight fluctuates between 400-420 lbs. So far my heart and bones are fine. Health has been great, especially since she hooked me up with a nutritionist who figured out I need to eat a lot of fat.

Just curious, why was the prospect of these two things coexisting so exciting? Thanks!

Specbio is a special interest, it really isn't that complicated of an answer. Medicine is just interesting - I like to know things, I like sharing my knowledge, I'm not always right but I do have a tendency to be really close to the real answer (and, still, not always.) I don't remember what all I talked about in that post anymore,and come to think of it I had more than one so you might not even have the context that I was talking about Blorbo from my Shows, but I assure that my excitement wasn't about the conditions specifically but instead the opportunity to speculate.

I knew my post had ended up in the tags but I wasn't really expecting anyone to see it from how barren the tag was when I looked. Been a while since I made those posts. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me about yourself! I know it's not always easy.

[direwombat]

That anon again. Thank you for listening to my rambling. And if it matters any, Joseph gets plenty of chances to Suffer during my dep's canon. Because we're (plural because this is all from an RP verse my best friend and I have where she plays Joseph and a 'John fucker' GFH while I play my dep and John) bitches like that and can't let the Seed boys get away with being the worst without suffering for it. (1/?)

A major theme of Joe and Dep's relationship is 'be careful what you wish for' since he spends a good early portion of things wanting to change her to fit his whims (for her 'own good' of course), but oops, he gets attached to who she is but by the time he realizes it, his actions are already responsible for her having begun to change for the worse. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Joseph. Now suffer. And I'm rambling again, but I had another question to ask. Two actually.

First: how did you first get comfortable with sharing Syb with the rest of tumblr? I ask because part of me is tempted to do this with my Dep, but the other part of me is scared of being perceived and judged for my dep, my interpretations of characters, etc. Two: With Augustine becoming Faith, did Joseph specifically pull this to punish Syb? Because I'm getting big 'you took my family member, now I take yours' vibes. And it sounds about right and petty and fucked up enough for Joe. (3/3)

f;lakdjfaldfkj that's TOTALLY FAIR i sure as hell don't let jacob off easy either fal;dfjkadf

and OOF well...to answer question 1: i've been shouting about my ocs into the void of the internet for the past several years (got started in the dragon age fandom, moved to the general dnd fandom, and ended up here) having friends already on tumblr/in the fandom space to share ideas and bounce off of certainly helps. it's for sure scary!, but tbh? the more you talk about them the more curious people will get. at least that's been my experience. and then of course, engaging with other people who have their own ocs, rb-ing their art/fic/sending asks for ask games and prompt lists are a great way to kind of find your place in the fandom/community and make friends! And to address your fear of being judged for your dep/interpretations of characters, i'll just say this: fandom would be boring if everyone had the exact same interpretation of the characters and it's ok to disagree with an interpretation as long as you're not a dick about it, yk? And, just like people irl, everyone's deputy is different and adds to the fandom!

my advice: do whatever you feel most comfortable doing. make your characters in picrews and do those uquizes! I normally open tag, so if you see one from me that you like! tag me! this includes wip wednesdays/whenevers too if you ever feel brave enough to share any writing you have! BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, you are your oc's number one fan! if (god forbid, and i've never seen this happen personally) someone doesn't like them and has the gall, the sheer audacity to say that to your face? block them. have fun with your oc is what i'm getting at. they're your little barbie/bratz/whatever doll that inspires the most nostalgia for you. we're all just playing little games, telling little stories and dressing up our personal blorbos however we want. :)

as for question 2:

ahh.. poor sweet Augustine. So, Augustine is a park ranger who was on duty at the Whitetails Ranger Station the night of the Reaping and was injured in a pretty nasty fall. One of his coworkers (another oc, Shaw) is one of Jacob's Chosen (who spent a lot of time undercover as a civilian), and after hearing that the Deputy escaped, he essentially lets Jacob know that they have a piece of leverage against her. He's sent to Joseph to heal, where he's very subtley and slowly indoctrinated into the cult. He keeps Augustine hidden from Syb and he also keeps it secret that Syb is the one causing misery to the Cult/newfound family Augustine has found himself welcomed into (as much as he and syb love each other, they're not perfect and uh...there are some abandonment issues there). anyway, i'm still kind of ironing out the details of it all, but essentially, after john and faith are neutralized (john dead and faith/rachel safe and getting clean) jacob and joseph are like, "alright, time to use our secret weapon." Syb knows they have Augustine at this point, but she's under the impression that he's a prisoner, not a member of the cult.

So they meet up on neutral ground (i'm thinking tanami island) only instead of a loving and wholesome reunion, Syb finds out that her brother drank the kool-aid and Augustine finds out that his sister is the one causing the "unnecessary" violence plaguing the Project (which also, Joseph is very careful to shield Augustine from the actual violence, and paints the Project as a much more peaceful organization than it actually is). Anyway, cult tactics win over in Augustine's head and he turns against Syb, and given the power vacuum in the Henbane and his *ahem* closeness to Joseph, he's offered the mantle of Herald/Brother Faith. And. Yeah. It's definitely a method to punish/break Syb, and it's also a way to reward Augustine for his loyalty. Even she wouldn't kill or arrest her own brother. That reunion with her brother is the beginning of Syb's breaking point, and everything after that is just her slipping into misery, helplessness, and despair. everything about this is exploitative as hell :)

[whetstonefires]

If you feel like answering, I'm curious who's your blorbo (and others) from mdzs!

Smaller, more structured cast! Let's see if this is more or less challenging than the vastness of DC/Batman.

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most) ...Lan Wangji. I don't know he's just compelling. He's a mood.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped) Wen Ning? Yeah. Wen Ning. Lan Zhan hit me like this initially and I still want to obnoxiously pinch his cheeks sometimes but he's just so much of a dick also. Oddly not Sizhui much as I love him, I weirdly have too much respect and also the camerawork in The Untamed kept handling A-Yuan like a prop instead of a character and it squicked me out.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave) Oh this is harder, there aren't like. That many side characters allowed in mxtx's writing style, and everyone seems to have a little fandom of their own atm due to the high pitch the fandom's running at. Jiang Yanli. She is criminally underrated, sometimes even by people who like her. I saw a fic the other day tagged 'make jiang yanli relatable' and I'm like maybe she's not to YOU. Maybe she's just not for you! She's pretty thinly written in the novel but she's got a reasonable character core and her drama actress did great work! (Do not talk to me about animated Jiang Yanli pls.) Particularly underrated is the part of her power move at Phoenix Mountain where she declares wwx is her little brother, and should be regarded as such wrt things like whether she needs a chaperone to be alone with him, because like. He's definitely never been formally adopted, so the only way for that to be literally true is if he actually was Jiang Fengmian's bastard. So what she's doing there is drawing the line that her dead father's reputation is expendable if it will help protect and maintain her connection to her living foster-brother, which in that social context is bananas. This woman knows her own weaknesses intimately but she is fearless.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) For reasons cited above this is literally impossible unless I want watch The Untamed enough times I memorize the extras' faces and pick a fave from amongst them, which admittedly I would if I did. Maybe it'd be that guy who's sitting with Lan Qiren basically in his lap, after he goes down in the cursed objects saferoom trying to deal with the arm, because that guy is a real champ for watching Hanguang-Jun and this random flute maniac music together at the problem like that, and just rolling with it. I wonder how many scenes that guy would turn out to be in if I did. I wonder how many sects he belongs to lol. But it's Ouyang Zizhen. He gets left out all the time, including from scenes he is definitely supposed to be in in the donghua, and I adore him.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave) Haha I mean I think wwx is technically a meowmeow and he's built around fucking with villain and villain-protagonist norms. But. He's also the MC. So. Oh, it's Lan Xichen. He is very pathetic by the end of things and while his popularity in-universe is titanic he's got a lot of live human haters and people who hold him casually in contempt. As we know from the existence of the Oldest Sibling Cinematic Universe, he is my Jane Bennett and I love him.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason) I...look the leads of this romance are built to be tormented. If I'm tormenting anyone it's them. Also maybe Jiang Cheng a little but only for his own good.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell) Jin Guangshan I suppose, he is The Worst. Nie Huaisang already basically handled sending Jin Guangyao to the torment dimension, and he doesn't really inspire that kind of aggressive impulse in me anyway I just want him to cease from problems. Oh. Lmao it's Xue Yang then I suppose. I really, really want that guy to die and stay dead. Which is after all the true meaning of superhell.

[sunfoxfic]

This is something that I brought up to another blog, and now I'm curious about what other ML blogs think:

Do you think that ML sugar blogs should follow ML salt blogs (and vice-versa: ML salt blogs should follow ML sugar blogs) to keep each other humble?

Anon, I'm going to do my best to interpret this in good faith, but I also need you to know that you've misunderstood exactly what ML salt and ML sugar are.

Now, hear me out:

The issue is that sugar vs. salt isn't "good vs. bad" or "positivity vs. negativity" or "agreement vs. criticism," because sugar and salt are diverse categories.

If I had to put myself in one of those categories, I'd say I'm sugar. And I know a lot of other people who'd put themselves in sugar, many of whom I have blocked because they pissed me off. Plenty of sugar blogs I've unfollowed, or disagreed with, or vagueposted about.

Likewise, I know of ML salt blogs that have beef with each other. I see it, somehow, despite my best efforts not to.

Of my sugary mutuals, I couldn't name a single one who thinks this show is unproblematic and has no qualms with it. The ML analysis side of Tumblr is geared toward picking apart the workings of the show, and that often means seeing when it's failed at its job. Some people care more about the structure of the story; some the representation; some the characterization. But analysis blog I know has some problems with the show, in one way or another.

How do you define sugar further when many sugar blogs disagree with each other on huge aspects of the show?

Salt, I think, is even more complicated. I, among many others, tend to group salters in with each other, but at the end of the day, there are different salters, and I've actually drafted a post then deleted it because I didn't know where I was going, but I think sometimes the fandom's tendency to group different salters is counterproductive.

What do I mean by different salters? Well,

A self-proclaimed salter who writes Maribat fics on AO3 tagged with Adrien Agreste Bashing and Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed on every fic is probably not a Marinette salter.

A self-proclaimed Marinette salter who writes think pieces on why Marinette is an abuse apologist probably does not like the aforementioned Adrien salter.

A salter who writes about Lila Rossi wrecking all of their shit for her own pleasure because she hates the entire Miracuclass probably doesn't like either of the above two mentioned salters.

A Fu salter who has slipped into the sugar community and is blocked my me may not like any of the three people above.

(Just, for the record, that's not aimed at anyone in particular; I have not blocked anyone for Fu salt to my knowledge, but don't test me, he's one of my blorbos.)

But none of this really answers your question.

The thing is, anon, that to establish whether ML salt blogs would need to follow ML sugar blogs and vice versa, you have to define those things.

Do I think salters should follow ML sugar blogs? Depends which ones. Not the ones I have blocked, certainly. I have a feeling the same answer would come from anyone on the other side.

Salt is not necessarily one thing; or, at least, you can get no more specific than defining it as salt. Sometimes it looks like bashing a character for personal pleasure. Often it's rewriting that character because the original was not up to par. Sometimes it's choosing not to engage with that character (which, honestly? Fair).

If anyone chooses to follow ML salt blogs in order to see the other side, all the more power to them. If they start agreeing with, for example, Alya salt that is angry that she isn't confining herself to the Black Best Friend stereotype, then I'm probably not going to disagree with them.

What is salt born of? That's a great question. Bad faith analysis is part of it, sometimes racism or sexism or abuse apologism, sometimes looking for a community, sometimes fandom purity culture, etc. And frankly, those things aren't all equal.

I'm not gonna sit here and claim that sugar is born out of the opposite of all that stuff, because that's also untrue. Sugar is often born out of frustration with those things, but frustration with something does not necessarily equate to combatting it. For example, just because bad faith analysis is annoying you, does not mean that what you're doing is good faith, or even analysis.

All of this said: If I had to name one common link in ML salters, it would be that they, on some level, take enjoyment out of negativity. On some level, they've decided that it is fun to engage in watching a show that makes them upset. I am sure this doesn't apply blanket to every salter, but it's probably the closest thing you could find to a common thread. And I know, firsthand, that you can engage with critical thinking and criticism without being salty, but I don't see nearly as much evidence that you can engage with salt without subjecting yourself to negative feelings for fun.

If I were to follow salt blogs, I would be subjecting myself to negative feelings. And that doesn't make me happy on any level, so I wouldn't do that, but if it did make me happy, then I would be the people who I dislike, and what's the point of fighting against salt if you can't even recognize exactly what it is that makes them so salty and fight against it, even for yourself?

Like I said, if you want to follow a salter just for educational sake, fine, whatever. But if you want to spend your time getting pissed at the enemy in the name of staying relevant, here's a website for you to visit. It will be much more productive for you to read through those and understand where they're coming from than to read through a salt blog and understand where it's coming from.

[backhurtyy]

Please give me any show/movie/book that has the trope of your tag from this post

I need a new blorbo that fits those same conditions

hi okay so the characters that i was thinking of when i wrote that were specifically:

obi wan kenobi (star wars): he loses everyone close to him but never ever falters or lets himself feel it because he has a duty as a jedi to let go and help others. earns his weird card because he adopts wildlife and the barkeep knows his order and he was going to let his friend get infected by a parasite because he was curious about it would happen.

stede bonnet (our flag means death): he is oh so very sad and very alone but he shoves it down to fit in to society, and then even when he’s with the crew he’s still so lonely until ed shows up, he just stifles it because he’s like. no this is where i wanted to be, i cant be unhappy now! and i have a crew to lead! i shall stay strong! earns his weird card through literally everything he does ever, but particularly lines such as “maaaaan for sale! maaaan for sale!! check out this fabulous booty i’m hawkin’!”

roy mustang (fullmetal alchemist): okay he’s a little different because he does have his team that he’s very close to, but he’s still very much like. alone because of his ambitions, and he stays true to them because he wants to make things better, but there are only a few people he can trust and even those he can’t really let in because they just end up being used against him. earns his weird card by being a very very dangerous alchemist, who is useless when wet and looks like a soggy pomeranian (affectionately coined pomeroynian by yours truly)

gojo satoru (jujutsu kaisen): oh boy. oh oh boy. again, he has lost everyone close to him, but instead of letting himself feel any of that pain, he goes. hm. our system is corrupt, fuck the higher ups, this is their fault, i’m gonna remake our world. and then he’s teaching and dedicating himself to his students and tasks, but there’s just this underlying sense of sadness to him. he tries to stifle it by being silly and loud and showboating, and that of course is where he earns his weird card.

anyways those are my weirdest little men that i have right now, and i love them all very much.

[baltears]

hi shai ^^ i've watched westworld too years ago,which is your favourite season so far ? Also what do you think of the setting in s3 ? And if you really really only get to pick 1 character as your favourite, which one will that be ? :p i am curious.

If you like Westworld I want to recommend you to watch another show, it is actually Jonathan Nolan's earlier work, I don't know if you know that/have heard of that already but it is called "Person of Interest". It is one of my favourite show : ) i hope you have a great day/night and i enjoy seeing all your westworld edit/reblogs :3 x

hi chuck!!! 🥰 thank you so much for asking!! im obsessed with the show rn so im delighted to talk about it with you lol.

favorite season so far is probably season 2! particularly the way it expanded the character of dolores. it's probably one of the most interesting and compelling arcs I've seen for an AI character in that she ends up coming to a conclusion a human would never come to and moving in a direction a human would have difficulty going -- ie that her positive emotions and the genuine love and hope she possesses are intentionally programmed in and carefully designed to keep her where she is, so what for a human would be natural feelings and part of our humanity, she begins to see as elements of her enslavement and tries to keep them locked away but at the same time she's unable to help holding them dear. just really beautiful character and thematic work and i also love the expansion of william's backstory and persona, the truly crazy amount of willores parallels, bernard's storyline about identity and memory and agency and his continued complex relationship with ford, akecheta (!!!!!), lee's redemption arc, maeve's reunion with her daughter. It's a tough choice because i really really loved season 1 as well, and season 2 occasionally had issues with wasting some time, but overall i think i like season 2 the most. :)

As for season 3... it's tough because i really love the environment of the parks for a lot of reasons, partly because that idea of an artificial, tightly controlled world is just a very interesting setting with a ton of potential. I do hope we'll get to see more of the parks again at some point. But that being said, thematically the story was at the point where it just couldn't stay in the parks anymore and dolores needed to have this arc of kind of seeing beyond her own experience and working through how westworld was in many ways just a reflection of the real world, and ultimately humanity broadly speaking was not her enemy, but just a bunch of other people who are trapped under systemic oppression and not given a real chance to meaningfully choose, just like her. I did think season 3 was the weakest season thus far by a pretty wide margin, it felt largely like setup for a future part of the narrative to me (especially maeve's and bernard's arcs which felt like total afterthoughts, they barely even fit into this part of the story at all except on paper and were basically just tagging along after dolores the entire time) and the setting was definitely more grim, felt a bit flat due to the quick pace and was generally less fun. But I do think it was a necessary change at least for now and it basically worked for what it was. I'm curious to see how they characterize the outside world going forward as obviously they intended for it to look very different after s3, but it's not clear how yet or what that will mean for the characters.

my favorite character is william! 😔 i dearly love all the characters (esp the main 4) and i think they're all interesting and compelling in their own ways but he is my #1 blorbo for sure. It's hard to explain why i connect with him so deeply but i think it has to do with (I've said this before so you might have seen that) my own issues with struggling to see myself as a good person, because he has this thing where he'll behave ethically or do something good, but everybody around him keeps insisting that it doesn't matter because deep down he's bad and nothing good he does really "counts" or weighs in his favor. It sounds a lot like the voice in my own head that tells me i'm just faking it every time i do something nice, and that i don't deserve it when people are kind to me in return -- and of course william has actually done terrible things to an extent that i haven't, but I really like that the viewer is kind of repeatedly encouraged to consider how real his supposed "badness" actually is and exactly how deep that goes, and what that idea even means. because after all we as the audience were made to care about and really fall in love with william initially, as dolores did, before finding out everything about who he really is at the same time that she did, and there's a part of us (and of her) that wants to see the good in him and wants to believe he isn't fundamentally bad deep down, or at least be able to authentically honor the goodness he's had in the past and the concrete benefits of help and care that he's given to others. So there's definitely a very sharp intentionality to the dualism of his persona that i really love on a craft level as well as relating to it personally, and i love how the show has explored the question of his character so far (especially as of the ending of s3). Also this is maybe a bit on the nose but i like that he's a total insane weirdo freak because... i relate to that too for obvious reasons lol. <3

I am familiar with person of interest!! I've seen some of it although I don't think i got past season 1, (it's just kind of a long show and i think i got distracted) but it's a really cool premise with some great writing so I'll be sure to watch more :) thanks for the recommendation!

thanks again for asking chuck, you really made my evening ☺️💖💕 hope i answered all your questions but feel free to ask again if not! I'm really happy that you're enjoying my westworld blogging because i keep worrying that I'm being annoying about it lol, so it's nice to hear that it's actually appreciated and entertaining. you have a great day too!! <333