#it’s a quote from a popular tumblr post and I may try to find it tomorrow so y’all can experience it

[theshadowrealmitself]

Me: I really need to go to sleep now or I’ll just be upset when I wake up in the morning, and I definitely don’t wanna accidentally miss the bus

Brain: I understand

-Total Silence-

Brain: “Is this the episode where he lost his house?”

[thgfanfictionlibrary]

Active Authors Masterlist (4)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 /

***Active (on this blog) is defined as a blog/writer who has updated within the past year. Inactive (on this blog) is defined as a blog/writer that has not been updated at all in the past year+. On THG Writing Hiatus (on this blog) is a blog/writer who has updated within the past year but has not posted a fanfic in the fandom in the past year BUT they may return to writing in the future. Lists will be updated as needed based on activity. ***

Created: November 17th, 2023

Last Checked:----

Miss_Missy :: ao3

Popular Fic: Boy In The Bubble: The last thing Katniss expects to hear about her best friend Peeta is the fact that he not only got into a fist fight with one of the biggest guys in their school but also the fact that he quote “almost killed him”. Now Peeta is refusing to explain to her or his family what happened or why he punched Brutus in the first place. Katniss is trying her best to help but no matter what she does Peeta just keeps pushing her further away. All she wants to do is help, Katniss refuses to loose another important person in her life

Missgarfield :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: Letters From New Panem: So you get an envelope telling you what happens to you three years from now. What's the worse that can happen? Name: Katniss Everdeen Ocupation: District huntress/bakery co-owner Marital Status: married Residency: Victors village,Number 12 Offspring: 0. (@periwinckles)

Mollywog :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: In Our Favor: “You have to marry him” Her heart sank. She already knew the truth of it, but had been holding hope that Haymitch would manage it. Caught in a compromising position, Katniss must decide how to navigate a potential scandal. (@mollywog)

monabus :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: The Ballad of Snares and Arrows: "At the end of the day, it’s no different. Hunting is hunting, regardless of what’s at the receiving end of Katniss’ arrow. All that matters is surviving, staying alive. No matter the cost. If I were in the Hunger Games, I would stop at nothing to make it out alive. And I know Katniss Everdeen. Survival is in her blood. When the time comes, she will kill." What was going on in Gale’s mind during the 74th Hunger Games? What exactly did the audience back in District Twelve see on their screens? A chance to explore the moments of the Games that Katniss never saw — all through Gale’s eyes. (@mona-bus)

mrsbonniemellark :: ao3, ff.net, tumblr

Popular Fic: Sexiled: Kicked out of her dorm room for the night, Katniss turns to Peeta for help.

MTK4FUN :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: It Takes A District: Summary: Thinking her mother is dying, Katniss Everdeen marries Peeta Mellark to keep her sister out of the Community Home. (@mtk4fun)

oakfarmer :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: Missteps: Gale needs to discuss future plans with Katniss. She's been hard to track down this particular Reaping Day. He hasn't even been able to congratulate her yet. (@oakfarmer)

purple_cube :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: things that you can't say tomorrow day: Katniss and Peeta’s conversation on the night of Finnick’s wedding stays with them for a long time. But slowly, they learn to move on. (@purple-cube)

RannonAce8 :: ao3

Popular Fic: Hidden on this Prairie: Katniss lost everything during the war: her home, her family, and her innocence. Now, just a few short years after Appomattox she finds herself dislocated yet again when a dispute with the landlord leaves her homeless and unemployed. A chance meeting with a stranger offers her a chance at a better life out west but Katniss has no inclination to ever be involved with a man again.

rosaeles :: ao3, tumblr

Popular Fic: all the version of me dead (and buried in the yard outside): “I’m here,” Peeta murmurs. “Brought you something to eat.” Katniss wants to reply. Would like to thank him for everything he’s doing. I missed you. She wants to yell it from the rooftops. Scream herself hoarse with it, but she doesn’t. Because her throat is rusted after weeks of barely using it, so all she says is; “Please don’t touch me.” Alternatively: After the events of Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen struggles to come to terms with everything she has lost. Peeta is there to help her through it. (@rosaaeles)

[tippenfunkaport]

Quickstart Guide to getting into the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power fandom on Tumblr

(Maybe someone has made one of these already but i am behind because of NaNoWriMo so I am making my own because I do what I want.)

Welcome to Tumblr, new or returning user! It's lovely here and the SPOP fandom is still quite active. Here's a quickie guide on how to become a part of it!

Finding content

Confusingly, this fandom uses three main tags: SPOP, She Ra, SheRa (Tumblr ignores case as well as the - in She-Ra so using She-Ra is effectively exactly the same as using just She Ra or she ra). Then there are tags for individual ships (some of the most popular ones are Catradora, Entrapdak, Glimbow, Seamista, Scorfuma etc).

To find content, search for either one of the main fandom tags (spop, shera, she ra) or the tag for your favorite character or ship. They'll be a big blue follow button under the tag you can press so that Tumblr will automatically pepper new posts from your followed tags into your dash.

Then, while you're looking at the search results, take note of who's posting stuff you like and start to follow the people whose posts you dig so they'll appear on your dash. (Understand that some blogs are side blogs so the blog that you followed and the one that follows you back or likes your stuff may have completely different names because one is the side blog and one is the main.)

Looking for something niche? Try a combo of terms! (Tumblr recently changed things so you can search within post content AND tags. So if you're getting, say, Hunger Games and My Little Pony results while trying to search for Glimmer, try searching for Glimmer SPOP instead to narrow the results down.)

Just remember that search results and tag results are different things! Search results show all posts with those terms anywhere in the post while tag results are literally only posts tagged with that exact phrase.

Sharing your content

When posting, make sure you tag your content in the tag field at the bottom of the posting form, each tag separately. As you start to type, the site will helpfully suggest popular tags to get your started. Unlike on other sites, you CAN have spaces in your tags (so it's Best Friend Squad not BestFriendSquad). No need to add the hashtag, Tumblr will do that for you after you hit submit.

At the least, you'll want to include the base fandom tags (spop, shera, she ra) and then any ships or characters in your post (Catra, Adora, Entrapta, etc). Other tags it might be helpful to add are any triggers, descriptors like fanart, fanfic, meta, incorrect quotes, etc or something for your own blog organization (like "my art" or "fics by me"). In yee olden days of Tumblr, you had to do things like make "Catradora fanart" or "shera catra" a tag (and some people still do this out of habit) but the way Tumblr has changed search, if you just make Catradora and fanart separate tags, it will show for anyone who searches for both.

Making Friends and Followers: Reblog and interact!

Tumblr lets you be as social (or not!) as you want. The reason the site is called Tumblr is posts get tossed around and around with other users adding tags and notes that (in theory anyway) make it better and get you more engagement: like a rock tumbler making dirty rocks all shiny. There are a million posts already on here that say this but I'm going to say it again: Likes do nothing. They are basically bookmarks. The way to connect with people on here and to keep the fandom alive is to reblog content and, if you want, add comments or tags.

See a cool headcanon? Reblog and add your thoughts! Someone posts a fanfic idea? Reblog and let them know how excited you'd be to read that! Every post on Tumblr is a collaboration and reblogs are how you pass posts around and support the content creators.

If people don't want you to interact with their posts, they will turn reblogging off so you never have to worry that your commentary isn't welcome. Reblogging your own stuff with commentary is a great way to get more engagement on it (say reblogging your fanart a few days after you posted it with some behind the scenes trivia about what gave you the idea for it or what brushes you used or reblogging to add some of your favorite reader comments from your fanfic).

Reblog the stuff you like and if you really like it? Reblog it now and queue it up to post again later. Reblog your own stuff multiple times. Don't worry about being annoying, that is 100% the culture on here so you'll fit right in. There's no algorithm so your blog is less like a book people will read in order and more like a TV channel: not everyone is watching at the same time so reruns let people catch the stuff they missed.

The more often you post about something, the more likely you are to find others who are into the same thing you are and that will help you find your happy little corner of Tumblr where you can thrive.

Discourse and drama

There is, blissfully, far less discourse and drama on here than other platforms but blocking on Tumblr is secret so feel free to block with wild abandon and no one will ever know. Want to be a little hater yourself? Know that it's a major faux pas to put ship or character hate in the tags. So if you really hate Melog, and you tag your anti-space kitty screed "anti Melog"... just know that everyone who searches for Melog will see that post unless they have specifically blocked the tag "anti melog" because Tumblr search includes tags. If you want to drink your haterade in peace, don't use the main fandom tags on anti posts and tag it as "discourse" or "drama," two commonly blocked tags. If you are a messy bitch who loves drama and WANT the people who love the character or ship to see your Big Angry Fandom Feels... just don't be surprised when the people who do love the characters or ship you are hating on interact with your posts or block you. And, on the other side, blocking the haters is as easy as blocking the users themselves or the hater tags (examples: "anti spinnerella" or "anti swift wind").

Which is all to say, be a little hater if you want but Tumblr is very much an f around and find out kind of platform so choose your experience wisely. And don't be surprised if people choose to block.

Which brings up a very important thing we're already seeing play out with new users: if you are used to a site with an algorithm such as TikTok or Twitter, you probably didn't realize how much it was coddling your fandom experience by specifically showing you posts it knows you'll agree with. Now that you're on a site with no algorithm, you're free from the insular feedback loop that you were in before and many of you are realizing that what you took to be popular takes are actually fringe opinions. It's jarring to realize you've been duped but you should be directing your anger at the platform that manipulated you, not your fellow fans who haven't been brainwashed into believing whatever you swallowed.

Other cool stuff

Download the xkit desktop browser extension for some extra features that make Tumblr even easier to use

Your blog has a queue which lets you stock up posts that Tumblr will release for you on a schedule of your choosing. VERY useful for when you go on a spree and want to reblog a billion things in a row but don't want to completely take over your followers dash. Throw all those posts in your queue and your blog will look active for days to months without you having to do anything. (This is actually the only way I blog, almost everything you see on my blog was queue up in advance)

Open up asks for art or fic prompts, questions or other conversation starters (You can block any annoying askers, even if they are anonymous!)

Schedule posts in advance such as for your favorite character's birthday or holiday / date specific stuff

tags are for visibility... but they are also for chatting and commentary? it's weird but you'll get used to it

there's no visible follower count so we're all pretty much on equal footing no matter how many followers you have

dates are hard to find on posts by design! posts never expire and old post make the rounds again all the time. It's NEVER "creepy" to go through someone's blog and like or reblog a billion old posts but every much encouraged. In fact, going through old posts to fill your queue is a great way to not only give yourself content but also give a blog you love new life!

Welcome to the SPOP fandom on Tumblr, we're happy to have you!

And that's all I can think of at the moment! Questions? Feel free to ask em and I'll do my best!

[redflagtag01]

finalboybyers is heart_byers on Twitter (tw: rape, pedophilia, and abuse).

When they post about Henry and Will, likening them to Father and Mother, Hades and Persephone, Hannibal and Will, Lestat and Louis, Villanelle and Eve, and other romantic fated pairs, they're trying to semi-subtly get more people on the Henwill train.

Don't believe me? Take it from Yarrow themselves (Tweet's date is May 20 and their first Tumblr post is soon after on June 5):

They don't censor their tweets in any fashion and they have a public account, which makes them easy to find when conducting a regular content search about either character, the cast, or simply looking in the Quotes of popular tweets. You don't have to be a proshipper or devils sacrament attendee to find them—they're out there in the open.

They're a proshipper that enjoys child/adult relationships, uses pictures of Noah where he is as young as eleven in their fantasies, ships Henry and Will romantically, and habitually posts explicit sexual and romantic content about them, all of which feature both Will and Noah as minors.

The ages listed on both accounts and their general speech patterns are the same. They post about the same parallels, same ideas, and same desires for the pair. They react to the same things and share their same findings at similar times. Their Tumblr is practically the exact same as their Twitter, just with more sugarcoating, denial of this behavior, and less explicitly romanticized rape.

I found that they tend to post first on Twitter and then refine it into a more elaborate post on Tumblr, but not always. Here are some examples:

It's the same user. If you can stomach that content and decide to see for yourself, then you'll note the similarities listed above and many more (assuming they don't go private or change usernames). Seriously, you will find every parallel and complaint on both accounts, as well as the same typing style and manner of speaking.

Using pictures or the likeness of real minors should never accompany such fantasies. They don't use drawings with no resemblance to real children; that is a real child plastered all over their account(s), and his name is Noah Schnapp. They're using his likeness from when he was a minor, anywhere from eleven to sixteen, when picturing Will and Henry as a couple, as one can see based on their Tweets. Here are some examples (Likes, Retweets, and one of their own) to get the point across swiftly (though they do have their own similar Tweets too):

If you wouldn't feel comfortable with someone thinking of any random non-famous child that way, why would it be okay in this instance?

The fact that they romantically ship Henry/Vecna/001 and Will is clear from the way they speak about them in their Tumblr posts and Tweets, the way that they liken them to romantic ships or dynamics while admitting to there being a romantic element (which is in line with their many Tweets, some below), but just in case you weren't already aware… now you know.

If you're turned on by minors and/or enjoy thinking of them in that way, then you need to seek help. Pedophilia can't be cured, but it can be treated with therapy. That isn't a kink—it's a paraphilia that is one act upon that desire away from being a psychiatric disorder. You wouldn't even have to interact with a child to reap criminal consequences; just producing or consuming any visual depiction of their engagement in a sexual act is a crime itself—and yes, that includes fan art and cartoon depictions.

Most people understand there's a difference between fiction and reality—ergo, enjoying the drama of a fictional abusive ship does not mean you support abuse in real life. However, things change when real minors are involved in sexually explicit materials. No child should be spoken of or viewed that way by adults that should and do know better. Noah could not have consented to have his pictures, or his likeness, used in this manner, and he likely still wouldn't. Children cannot consent and have the right to exist in the world without being sexualized by adults.

Will is fictional, but Noah is real and his underage likeness is the face of their fantasies. Artwork of Will engaged in sexually explicit conduct would be illegal and considered obscene under the federal law of the United States. Such content is illegal to produce, distribute, receive, or possess, and those convicted could be fined and imprisoned. Historically, this has even extended to textual depictions, too.

There's a reason why it's prohibited on many platforms, why these specific proshippers get suspended and have to remake accounts multiple times, and it isn't because evil conservative "antis" are "kinkshaming" the oppressed proshippers again. The material they produce and share is obscene by legal definition. They're not only picturing Noah's underage face in their mind and their works when they romanticize Will being raped and groomed, but they're proving that by always using pictures of him when he was underage, and only those underage pictures.

Yarrow admits to having interest in and consumed such prohibited materials, as noted by this Liked Tweet, and their own admission (one of many):

The fact that Will is a child and was played by someone with a baby-face is a deliberate and crucial part of the appeal to these people. The corruption of a child's innocence and naïveté, tarred by sexual exploit, sinister intentions, and his lack of consent, is all Henwill's charm (and they say this themselves in Tweets added below). It doesn't work if Will is aged up to an adult and that's why he never is in their fantasies. He has to be a child, helpless and pure and preyed upon, and he has to look like Noah's eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen year old self.

They know that it's pedophilic and that's what they like about it. That's the entire point (again, see for yourself beneath the cut). That's why they shamelessly Tweet about it, but deny it here on this platform, where they [hopefully] are not among like-minded company.

I've included an array of tweets that show they do not view Henwill in a platonic fated enemies fashion and never have—no matter how many times they deny this now. You may notice similarities between those Tweets and their posts, how they "refined" their Tweets into something more palatable, as I mentioned earlier. Read at your own risk, but this should be available for viewing to all unless they change their Twitter handle, go private, or delete/unlike them.

There will always be people who become involved after being exposed to this content, but if you already liked to think of children that way, then there wasn't anything anyone could've done to deter you. Pedophilia is resistant to treatment—a Tumblr post wouldn't have cured you and you would've found this eventually. Still, I have blocked out usernames to prevent further exposure. With this post, I hope to inform others who don't share this paraphilia and who were unknowingly helping spread their thinly veiled pedophilic content.

If you cannot stomach explicit pedophilia or rape, then do NOT continue reading this post or visit their Twitter.

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

hi i love love love this idea!! i just wanted to ask if you’d considered putting the poem itself in the body of the poll? i was thinking it could be helpful if people don’t recognize titles (and also i would love to read more poems) but i understand if you don’t want to/it’s not plausible for any reason <3

I put some thought into this, and I have a couple reasons for my choice not to post full poems:

Publishing Rights

Though plenty of the poems I've gotten submitted to me are in the public domain, plenty of them aren't. I don't have the rights to those, so posting a link to a poem (which I plan to update the posts with after the polls have closed) is preferable to me.

One of the goals of this account is actually to expose people (myself, chiefly) to great poems that aren't part of the beloved/beloathed Western Canon, which many public domain poems are from.

Sampling Bias

I, awfully, am a little bit of a stats nerd. Though these polls will have an inherent bias, considering they are only accessed by tumblr users who look at any number of specific tags, I'd like to remove as much bias as possible.

If I post the full poem (or a link to the full poem with the original poll), people may read the poem and change their potential answer from "no" or "I've never heard of this" to "yes."

The main problem...

Still, I understand what you are saying about a recognizability, which is definitely a factor in people's responses. To combat this, I've added two questions to the poll: the option to upload an image (ideally featuring less than a stanza of the poem's text) and the option to include a popular quote from the poem text (which I might end up making a required question).

The first 15 or so polls won't have these, but I might do a little digging to try and find some quotes. I work on a freelance basis, so my ability to do that will probably depend on my workload over the next couple of days.

— BG x

[tentacleteapot]

didn’t want to lump this into OP’s post unasked, but the topic of “it’s okay if you just so happen to dislike somebody while still being civil about them if you have to engage with them, you don’t have to go digging for the flimsiest possible justification of your dislike” is something I think about a lot when it comes to tumblr’s relationship with media over the years, honestly.

like, it would be ahistorical and downright dishonest to say that some of tumblr’s reputation for being “a blog site with pvp enabled” doesn’t come from the fact that there are and always have been users on here who felt like they had to justify their dislike or disinterest in a really popular thing at one point. it’s just plain factual that said dislike motivated them to go digging into a creator or actor’s past to try and find something sufficiently negative that they could use it as justification for publicly dumping on something. I know this because I’ve had people say it to me, seen people say it, and I’ll admit to even having thought it myself a couple times over the years (in my defense, I’ve been on tumblr since like 2010, I was much younger then).

“I can finally make a post about how awful this show is and then I’ll never have to see people talk about it again because my mutuals will feel like they can’t reblog things from it” may not have been the exact words that anybody said, sure. but in a time before we had resources for blocking tags and posts we didn’t want to see, the extremely nebulous claim that something was “problematic” (scare quotes intentional, the term as tumblr uses it has ALWAYS been too vague and unspecific to have any real place in actual discourse or critique imo) was often enough to get mutuals and sometimes even tumblr celebrities to boost your post decrying it. and that attitude definitely extended toward people whose posts or typing quirk or overall vibe just… didn’t do it for you.

is that an okay way to act? no. is it the ONLY reason people might feel like they have to find concrete ‘proof’ their dislike of somebody is justified? definitely not. is it the only time anybody feels that way? of course not. sometimes bad people DO have bad vibes, or a show’s writing or an actor’s behavior are subtle red flags that subconsciously warn us not to get too invested in something. but the very specific “once I have the perfect reason for disliking this crafted, I can bring it up whenever I need to or keep it in mind if anybody asks why I’m so rude to this guy or get so mad when I see gifs from this show” mindset is one that’s sadly had a lot of cultivation and fuel devoted to it over the site’s various eras of discourse. unlearning the idea that you have to have a reason to dislike someone and internalizing “I can be civil to this person or neutral about this thing other people like, and avoid them/block the tag for whatever reason I want”, is one of the healthiest things for a person to do.

[mysticdestiniesarchive]

Day 0: Your Mystic Destiny Begins

there's some things i want to say about this post and all the character teasers if you click read more, but the important note to make is that i'm missing some images for this right now but i still want to publish the post on the right day, so i just won't be including them for now! also possible spoilers for the games in the read more, you've been warned.

And so the final day of our countdown is here! Have you been teased enough? Are you ready?

[missing image]

[missing image]

Huh? What just happened? Looks like we got a glitch…

Well, we’re not sure what happened, this might take a week or two to fix, but since you’ve been so patient, we’ve decided to do a full character reveal!

finally concluding the initial character reveals! for anyone who knows the characters, you'll probably see the resemblance between the final character designs and these ones. and yes, the suspicious ginger man smiling at the top of the post is galinn.

unfortunately, i don't have two images from this original post. there's meant to be one above and one below the image of galinn, assuming the wayback machine was showing me all of the images it couldn't load. i think i may have seen this full post before, but i don't remember where and i hadn't archived then, either because the original tumblr blog was still up or because i saw it back when i was solely interested in information about the game's characters and not so much in development. i only checked the wayback machine for this post, but since i'd collected everything from the other character teasers a long time before i looked for this day 0 post, i couldn't remember how i managed to find them all. if i have some time to kill (probably after the summer this year), i'll try finding the missing images to complete this post.

oh, and if you were wondering, i'm pretty sure the missing images were just glitchy text that hinted at something, like galinn be able to see people interacting with the post. i don't really remember the exacts though, so don't quote me on that.

the other thing is that i tried keeping these posts as close to the original posts as possible, like keeping wording like "we present" instead of changing it to "i present" since there's only one person running this archive.

i did make one pretty major change to the posts, which was basically just deleting all mention of the game's kickstarter. i didn't want a situation where someone manages to stumble across a post mentioning the kickstarter and then get confused when there wasn't one, or think that i was trying to act like this was my game and was in the process of starting a kickstarter campaign for it. this whole countdown was to the kickstarter, and day 0 was posted at the same time as the kickstarter announcement! (i think, i don't actually know since i didn't bother looking at any of the kickstarter posts o-o;;;)

and since this may be the only post where all the guys' original designs are, i might as well talk about them all together here! i'll be mentioning a little bit of trivia from one of serendipity of aeons' art books as well, and i plan on making a full post comparing the different art books (there are two, their content overlaps in some places and differs in others).

shou was the first character drawn and written for in the game's development. he was originally an "oresama" type and managed to do a complete 180 by the time development ended (reminded me a bit of riddle from twst who went from immature brat to serious rule-follower). i think shou's original design definitely gives off untouchable cool guy, it's almost unbelievable that he turns into the absolute sweetheart in the game lol. the original definitely makes shou being a party guy seem more believable (i remember telling my irl friend after we played his route together that shou's the super popular life of the party type of guy and she got so shocked bc his final design looked so innocent)

apparently, tatsu was meant to look younger than his age, which i can definitely see in this design. while it definitely got dropped for his final design, he does look a little younger in his confession cg by the fountain. i think one thing i particular i love about his original design is the way his lips were drawn. i think they're sooooo cute!!! in that confession cg, they're drawn in a similar way to the original design and whenever i see it i squeal. i call them "lizard lips" bc it reminds me of a lizard's smile, and also slightly of toothless and light fury from httyd (like yeji from itzy). i also think kayo and sakuko have similar smiles to original design tatsu and always sob at how adorable they look when they show up in the game (litr the ideal adorable younger sis... also hikki's got similar lips but i don't want him as a younger sister)

i love shinji so much, both old and new <3 his original design was made with basically all his key character traits in mind: a calm, mysterious genius with a rocker vibe and fashion loosely based on japanese visual kei. i have to agree with the note in the art book that his current design portrays him better, but they both have a special place in my heart!! the only other detail that really sticks out about shinji's design is that his original design has the dyed bits looking more red, like described in some trivia on the old blog and in the game, but the final design definitely looks more pink than red, and while i do have a history of being absolute shit at identifying colours in people's hair, i've heard at least three people also say that his hair looks more pink than when it's described as red in game. but either way, pink or red, i love it :)

from the way he's described in the art book, original taku just sounds like final shou. an innocent lil guy who doesn't have a single troublemaking bone in his body. but then they decided to change things up with the childhood friend troupe and ta-dah! the quirky rouge we all know and love was born. it's not mentioned in the art book, but taku actually had a two design changes: one being the change from innocent to troublemaker and the other being quite minor, with just a few changes to his facial features. i think the change is quite noticeable between all three designs that were featured on the blog, and in-between taku did feature in a few of the art/sprite response posts, though i don't know which of the two updated designs were used in the official game art for the main menu and banners (i suspect his final one as the in-between design has slightly bluer eyes)

hikaru was the project's local design problem child lmao. he's just too complex of a character smh (hikki is like my inner monologue's daily punching bag, my teasing is my affection for him and it reflects in my ocs). hikki actually has three designs like taku, but the difference between all three is definitely more noticeable than taku's. the final design for him was decided to be the most accurate to what xel had in mind while creating him, and they were all relieved when the true hikki finally stepped up. the in-between design for hikaru is like his original design in the updated art style, but the final design is definitely the one that most screams "HIKARU" to me, especially considering how the in-between design looks like the youngest of all the love interests when hikki is meant to be the oldest by a few years. while the in-between design isn't used within the game as a sprite, it's actually the design used on the official main menu and banner art, and the sprite is used for the cover of hikaru's "before i met you" story!

[pluckyredhead]

The Jason Todd Book Club

Over the weekend, a friend asked me how accurate the popular fanon that Jason is a book nerd is. “Mmm, medium?” I said. “There’s evidence, but fandom definitely took it and ran with it.”

Since it coincidentally came up on Discord tonight, I decided to compile every instance I know of of Jason either referencing literature, or just enthusing over books. If I missed any, please let me know!

(I don’t have issue numbers because most of these I took from my own previous posts on Tumblr and I didn’t note down the issues then. I’ll try to give as much context as I remember!)

Robin, Pre-Crisis:

Jason quotes the opening (and most famous) line from Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

This one’s borderline: Sherlock Holmes is of course a literary character, but he’s also famous in pop culture in general, and he never said “Never overlook the obvious” in the original canon. (The closest I can find is “There is nothing so deceptive as an obvious fact” from “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” which means...basically the opposite of what Jason’s saying here.) Has Jason read Sherlock Holmes or is he just bullshitting random detective-sounding stuff? We may never know.

Robin, Post-Crisis:

This isn’t a book quote and it’s a very Dick Grayson line, but it is about book/printing history so I’ve included it.

Red Hood, Post-Crisis:

This isn’t a quote, but it’s an obvious reference to Hamlet and how the scene with Yorick’s skull is traditionally staged. (From Red Hood: Lost Days.)

Probably the main source of the fanon! Jason is so caught up in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen that he keeps reading even while fighting other inmates in prison. Presumably he’s up to Darcy’s first proposal and is like “Oh you stupid fucker.” I wouldn’t put the book down, either. (From Batman and Robin (2009) #23.)

Red Hood, New 52:

Jason quotes an extremely famous line from Richard III, making Shakespeare the only writer he references twice (if you count the Hamlet thing). (From Batman Incorporated (2012).)

Red Hood, Rebirth:

Alexandre Dumas is best known for The Three Musketeers,  The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask. I’m assuming Jason is referencing the last in this since literally everyone is wearing metal on their face, but Jason spouts a lot of very entertaining nonsense in this series, so who knows? Dumas is the only non-white writer Jason references, although very much part of the established literary canon. (From Batman & Robin Eternal.)

Arkham Knight:

This is just baby Jay being excited about books in general. Aw, nugget. Your life is gonna be terrible. (From, uh...one of the Arkham Knight tie-in comics. Sorry.)

IN CONCLUSION: Jason’s been around for 37 years and I was only able to find eight book-or-play-related panels, only four of which are unquestionably references to a specific author or literary work. He is shown reading exactly once. They are also all really really famous books/authors/quotes from old books with dead authors, so he’s either a totally basic bitch when it comes to literature, or he’s never read any of them but has heard other people quote them.

HOWEVER, I love this fanon so you’re prying it out of my cold dead hands. If you want to headcanon Jason as a book nerd, I say go with God! I’m certainly going to keep doing it.

Now to see if the nicknames “Little Wing” and “Jaylad” were ever used more than once each...

[azulaang-chakras]

Would love to see you go off about Zukka mah guy 👀 (and then idk Zukaang 👀)

Oh, you want me to go off on tumblr, comrade? ON TUMBLR!?

Okay.

First, let me start by saying to my followers that I'm a very mellow kind of guy. If I dislike something you like or even love, there's nothing wrong with that. Live and let live, whatever floats your boat. So long as no one goes out of their way to be a dick to people, no one should be getting hate or harassment for what they enjoy. Just because I'm not in your lane doesn't mean I'm going to throw a molotov cocktail over to see if someone crashes. My parents raised me better than that. Plus, if I find posts I don't like, I block them. If I find people who annoy me, I block them. These are good pieces of advice, my friends.

That all being said, I'm not going to hold back when I decide to speak my mind, and zukka is fucking terrible. If it was a rarepair with only a small audience, I wouldn't care. It wouldn't rustle any of my jimmies, it wouldn't grind more than a single nerve if at all. But because it's so fucking popular I have to see that shit so frequently. I see talented fanartists use their talents on that ship and I frown cus that energy should be spent on better outlets.

Zuko and Sokka ain't got nothing to build a romance on from canon. The deepest their conversation goes is, "I love my girlfriend." "My girlfriend is awesome too." "Sucks that yours turned into the moon, my dude." Zukka is only as popular as it is because they're both almost 18 and they're conventionally attractive and masculine. The funny (and infuriating) thing on that last part is that a lot of zukka shippers want to feminize the ship by putting them in soft colors, softening their features, and/or putting them more in touch with their emotions and feminine side. This is bad because they will flat out ignore their canon personalities/aesthetics and also badmouth Aang, a man who is canonically in touch with his feelings and feminine side and is super confident in his softer side. This boy will wear a flower crown with a smile. Your fave will canonically never.

(I don't have time to get into why fandoms will feminize masculine men instead of thoughtfully engaging with men who are canonically in touch with their fem side, but the point is there. I will also say that a lot of zukka content is clearly not created by actual MLM. No disrespect to real MLM zukkas, but your club is full of straight girls and also your ship is terrible)

Zukka content, from what I've seen and heard of, is full of bad characterizations that ignore the show and flat out make shit up, and shippers will also make shit up to badmouth other characters. Zukka is so bad that it harms both of them and everyone around them. Just for an example on the two boys themselves:

.Zuko is not an uwu soft boi, this man used to terrorize villages on a weekly basis. If you ignore or try to minimize the parts of a redemption arc where the character was a fucking villain/antagonist, you are doing the character a disservice.

.Sokka is intelligent and it's great that he put in the work to unlearn sexism, but he's not Stephen Hawking and he was pretty sexist. He GREW over the course of the series, but stans and zukka shippers (which is a venn diagram with a huge middle) try to pretend that he was actually perfect from the very beginning. Also, if you honestly think that scenes of Sokka being the butt of a joke (which are 9/10 hilarious) are abusive on the writer or the other characters' part, do yourself a favor: never hang out with Irish people. Google may describe slagging each other as abusive, but it's really not. Slagging is a treasured past time of our people between family and friends.

If every cringey incorrect quotes post was a ship, it would be zukka. Zukka is overflowing with jaded klance shippers who took their bullshit from Voltron and fired it upon ATLA en masse like Persian archers at Thermopylae. Zukka is a notp. I will never write for it, I will never willingly seek out content of it, and if any pissbabies want to start shit over this 100% accurate argument, I will laugh at anything you send me.

As for zukaang, that ship do go deep. "If he's your love interest, why is he my narrative foil?" Protagonist/deuteragonist is top tier shipping, as is enemies to lovers. Their relationship, both on a micro scale as individual people and on a macro scale as the avatar and fire prince, is the cornerstone of the plots of some of the best episodes in the series, including The Storm, The Blue Spirit, The Avatar and the Fire Lord, and the Firebending Masters.

I sadly haven't read much of it, and I raise my eyebrow at just how much abo there is of such a relatively small ship, but I think zukaang is a great ship.

I hate that I spent so much time trashing a bad ship and so little praising a good one, but that's how it be sometimes.

[ariaadagio]

Hi Aria! Hope you're having a good day. I'm new to writing fanfiction, and I wondered if you had any tips on getting your work out there and seen by more people? I've posted a couple of works on AO3, and the people who read them seem to like them, but they quickly get buried under everything else. I enjoy what I've written and I want other people to enjoy it too, so how to get out to the fandom that it's there for the reading? Thanks!

Hi there! Thank you for the ask. My day is going okay so far—I hope yours is as well :)

This is a great question, but unfortunately there is no easy answer.

Lots and lots of authors struggle with this, including me.

Sometimes, you can do everything right, and people still won't read. Lack of readership doesn't necessarily mean your fic hasn't been seen. That's just ... kinda the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Not everybody likes the same things. Don't beat yourself up, and try not to stress overmuch about hypotheticals.

That being said.

My suggestions for specific technical things you can do:

1. Make sure your summary is catchy, actually summarizes what the story is about, and contains no typos or grammatical errors. Do not put what actually qualifies as author notes where the summary should be—if what you're saying isn't specifically about your plot, it doesn't belong in the summary block. Do not say things like, "I suck at summaries. Just read!" A quote from your story probably isn't as descriptive as you think it is—try to actually summarize as well. Avoid asking simple questions with obvious answers like "Will Chloe and Lucifer get together?"

2. Make sure your story is tagged appropriately. Tags should concern major (i.e. not things that occur only on page 42 of your 2,349 page opus) ideas, tropes, ships, characters, squicks, triggers, and kinks portrayed in your story. Be extra sure to tag major tropes the fandom has a collective hard-on for. You can get a feel for what tropes are popular by examining common tags on popular stories.

3. As an addendum to this, Ao3 has required tags: author chose not to warn, no archive warnings apply, major character death, rape/noncon, and underage. "Author chose not to warn" means "any of the other required tags may or may not be present, so read at your own risk." A lot of people who won't read major character death, noncon, or underage sex will automatically skip a story marked "chose not to warn" regardless of whether the fic contains those things. Be aware that by choosing not to specifically include or exclude certain tags, you are very likely losing out on potential readers, not just by scaring some readers away, but by preventing readers actively looking for those tags from finding your story. Also, don't select both "chose not to warn" and "no archive warnings apply" because these two tags are mutually exclusive and clicking both sends a mixed message.

4. And as an addendum to that ... be aware of the difference between & and /. Relationship tags with an & signify a platonic or familial relationship, whereas / signifies a romantic or sexual relationship. Amenadiel & Lucifer and Amenadiel/Lucifer mean two entirely different things. Be aware of what message you're sending to potential readers.

5. Make sure you do not get caught by the timezone bug on Ao3. When you're posting a story, if the timezone you're posting from is on a different date from UTC, you are in dangerous territory. This can cause your story's posting time to get flagged wrong, and you'll never make the front page for your fandom.

6. Make sure you do not get caught by the draft "feature" on Ao3. When you post a story from draft, the date your story is listed as posted actually corresponds to the date you started your draft, not the date you posted. If your draft is a week old by the time you hit post, well, your story is already going to be buried behind a week of other stories.

7. Don't preemptively put yourself down. Be confident. Announcing that you don't have a beta reader, or that you wrote this story in a coked out haze at 3 a.m., or that you think what you've written is trash, is a great way to convince readers your work isn't worth their time. Don't do it.

And then my suggestions for general exposure:

1. Network. Network. Network. Make fandom friends. Use social media like Twitter and Tumblr to actively promote your fics. Join the fandom discords. Talk!

2. Golden rule. If you want people to interact with your stories, it's always a great idea to interact with theirs. Obviously don't do this with the expectation of reciprocity, and absolutely do not lie. I'm just saying it doesn't hurt (and may actively help) to be nice and treat people how you'd like to be treated.

I hope this helps!

[monipoka]

Addressing Content Warning Concerns

I am writing in response to points that were brought up concerning my recent post. If you haven’t read that post, you can find it here.

Be warned that this is a very long post (2.8k words). It deals with the topics of pedophilia and rape. Opinions expressed are my own; however, I do offer some resources for you to better educate yourself on this post’s content.

I will not provide a link to the user that responded as she had no ill intentions. Disclaimer if the said user reads this post, I write with peace and love at 4:00 A.M. There are a couple of places where I may sound aggressive or petty, but it is analytical and not meant to invalidate you or your opinions.

Red = user’s response with minimal changes (adjusted for grammar and clarification)

Black = my response

Part 1: Age Regression and Infantilization

To learn more about age regression, here are two lovely articles describing what age regression means medically and socially.

“Age regression [agere] is a form of coping meant to eliminate stress in potentially triggering situations. Agere is not a part of sexual play and never should be. I believe [Moni] is confusing agere for age play.”

This completely misses the mark. I understand that age regressors enter a younger psychological state often as a coping mechanism. There is nothing inherently wrong with age regression as therapy. My complaints are that people are FETISHIZING age regression. As stated in my post, age regressors enter the mindset of a child commonly called a “little space.” These individuals are to be treated like children as it helps them feel safe and loved.

In my experience on Tumblr, writers commonly misinterpret Daddy Dominant, Little Girl (DDLG) or Age Play (the larger, umbrella term) for age regression. For the purposes of explanation, I am going to be using DDLG and she/her pronouns. DDLG is a type of BDSM relationship where the dominant partner (male) takes on the role of a care-giver while the submissive partner (female) takes on the role of a child. This dynamic is pretend and intended for sexual interactions. Keyword here: pretend. While the submissive portrays childish behavior, she still has an adult mindset; therefore, she can give meaningful consent. Once writers describe the submissive slipping into “little space,” her mindset is corrupt as she has age regressed; therefore, she cannot give meaningful consent making the interaction non-consensual as she embodies a child.

“Infantilization is treating somebody as if they’re a child. For example, ‘babying’ someone is the best explanation for it. This, in my opinion, is not pedophilia because it’s not inherently sexual. If it IS sexual, I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as pedophilic, but it is questionable.”

Again, this misses the mark. In a non-sexual context, infantilization is completely okay. My complaints are that people are FETISHIZING the infantilization of characters. I used this term as an alternative language to age regression because I have encountered both on this site.

“Age Play, in my opinion, is pedophilic due to how the 'older’ of the partners is benefitting from it. So if [Moni] and I are thinking the same thing, but not really using the same terminology, then I agree.”

Age Play is a kink in the BDSM community between two consenting and level-headed adults.

Age Regression is characterized by regressing back to a younger headspace.

Sexualizing age regression is pedophilic because age regressors feel, act, and exhibit childlike qualities; they genuinely believe that they are a child.

If age play includes “little space,” then it is pedophilic because the submissive has age regressed.

“None of these is what I would consider illegal due to the fact that both parties are consenting adults. But age play definitely is pedophilic. But, obviously, if both people are adults, it can’t be considered illegal.”

I called pedophilia (and rape) illegal. In the eyes of the law, sexualizing age play--given that the individual is of age--is legal. This point used the transitive property of equality (Trans POE) to point out the hypocrisy in condemning pedophilia but supporting the fetishization of age regression. To clarify, it may not be illegal, but it is morally wrong.

“Infantilization and age regression aren’t inherently pedophilic because they revolve around the idea of a mindset and not physicality.”

This is contradictory to your previous point and only half true. Age regressors largely rely on physical objects (ie. clothes, stuffed animals, pacifiers) to feel safe. While the root of age regression involves a change in psyche, it is reflected in their appearance and environment.

Part 2: Dubious Consent and Non-consensual

To learn more about rape, here is a wonderful article on non-consensual sex.

“Secondly, I’m quite confused on what she [Moni] is saying regarding calling dubcon [dubious consent] and noncon [non-consentual] rape instead of dubcon and noncon.

They are rape, or at least some form of sexual assault, but I don’t think anyone’s trying to mask them from being as such.”

I whole-heartedly disagree. It is apparent by the staggering number of dubcon and noncon posts that people use these terms to try and justify writing rape because they consider it a “fetish.” The reason I am against these terms is that writers never specifically condemn them. Oftentimes, writers mix the content of the fic into their warning section. So, by writing ‘blowjob’ next to ‘dubcon’ it underscores the severity of the situation.

“Categorizing both of the two as 'rape’ could potentially end up being very damaging. Rape is a very triggering and harsh word for some people, which is why I believe a lot of people use non-consensual sex as a term to avoid potentially triggering people.”

Again, I believe that people use dubcon and noncon to try and justify their rape “fetish.” However, if using the term “rape” is triggering to some individuals and the terms “dubcon” and “noncon” are used as a substitution, why aren’t these writers coming out and explicitly saying that they do not support these types of interactions? Furthermore, why are they writing and sharing this content in the first place if they acknowledge it as rape?

“Also, I think it’s important to clarify whether the 'sexual assault’ in fiction is dubious or non-consensual. There’s a big difference between both parties being drunk in a fic (dubcon) and hard rape, and it’s important to distinguish the two in warning columns.”

Drunk people can’t consent. Both situations are rape. The “level” of rape that you refer to, being how consensual it is, is more damaging in my opinion. Because they were drunk, it means less than if they were sober. This perpetuates victim shaming. She was asking for it. She shouldn’t have drunk so much. Rape is rape. It is never okay. And one rape is never better than another.

“Dubcon is also very important to clarify in fics due to the fact that dubcon is only a fictional concept. It helps indicate the level of consent given in the fiction because someone could be not triggered by sex under intoxication but can be triggered by hard noncon.”

I’m going to use a quote I cited from this source because I feel that the writer describes dubcon more eloquently than I can: “What bothers me the most about this situation, and what I think you are partly getting at here, is when people say that their fic isn't "noncon" or they say it is "dubcon" or "noncon depending on your point of view." Come on! Have the guts to admit that what they're writing is rape. Dubious consent bothers me as a qualifier because if you aren't sure whether someone is consenting, you don't do it or it's rape. No excuses. So, I think that people should just bite the bullet and say, this is a rape fic.... If people want to write rape fic, go for it, and I will probably read it, but let's step up and acknowledge what it is we are writing. I take issue with these qualifiers because I think that it is far more insidious than out and out rape porn. At least when we say it is rape, then we can move on to the next step: saying it's wrong, just a fantasy, etc. But avoiding the label perpetuates the rape myths that have had such a damaging effect on victims and justice: did she enjoy it, she didn't really say no, she was a tease, they've done it before. None of those things matter, and when a person labels their fic, they need to stop pretending they do.”

Essentially, the writer is reiterating what I explained in my previous comment that rape is rape. Another statement that I found describes how damaging fiction can be in real life. While most readers understand that what occurred didn’t really happen, there are real-life consequences attributed to it: “...However, not everyone in fandom uses those terms in those ways. And I think that's a problem that we need to fix. Because, especially when situations that exist in real life and that would be called rape in real life are labeled "dubcon," I think it does real harm to us all.....We currently live in a culture where not fighting back - because, for example, the rapist has threatened to kill you, or someone else, or your pet, if you don't go along with it - will very often get a rape case overturned in court. Where judges and juries and god knows the popular media will pick out and analyze every detail of a person's life to determine whether they were asking for it, whether they secretly wanted it, whether they could have conceivably fought back more than they did, why they didn't scream, why they didn't report the blackmail that was used to control them, whether or not their "consent" might've been implicitly given by winks or nods or secret handshakes or a general miasma of sexual invitation. In other words, we live in a world in which rape culture, a thing we all unwittingly participate in at one time or another, works very very hard to label things dubcon when they're really noncon.”

“Most people 'romanticizing’ non-consensual sex are victims who are trying to gain some sort of control over their trauma, so they have every right to do so. If a victim of rape should have the ability to choose whether or not they want to read/write a noncon fic and if they don’t want to use the word rape because it makes them uncomfortable, they don’t have to and shouldn’t be forced to.

As a victim of rape and sexual assault, I find peace in having the control and ability to write about my trauma. It's a way for me to gain back control that I lost and the word rape does make me uncomfortable, it makes many victims uncomfortable, and if I prefer not to use that word then I should not have to if people know synonymous terms.”

Romanticize: deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion; make (something) seem better or more appealing than it really is.

If you are writing/reading smut, you are trying to get off. If you are writing/reading dubcon/noncon smut, you are getting off to rape. Instead of writing/reading about how heinous rape is and how disgusting rape culture is, you write/read fics romanticizing rape since as a reader you enjoy the content to some extent: it is with your favorite character, it takes place in a cool universe, it got you horny, you felt good after reading it. Romanticizing rape is damaging to society as it subconsciously makes rape appealing. I doubt that is the intention, but you can’t deny that these underlying connections exist.

There is a difference between writing to cope and writing to entertain. My intention has never been to victim shame. But writing non-consensual sex between anime characters and a reader-insert is a form of entertainment. Remember the purposes of writing we learned about in elementary school? Yeah, I have a hard time believing that this is therapeutic. Journal therapy uses reflective writing to work through trauma and mental health issues. In sexual assault cases specifically, victims often write about their experience and/or letters to their perpetrator(s). However, if this is your way to cope, that’s fine. But writing rape fics is not the same as sharing rape fics.

“People know the severity of noncon and dubcon, which is what I think [Moni] is missing. No one is trying to not make noncon rape because it is rape. People know that it is. Most people just chose to say 'noncon’ to avoid unnecessarily triggering others.”

Do they? I think to my previous comments in this section, people use these terms to downplay the seriousness of rape.

“And there are far more 'consensual’ fics out there than noncon/dubcon fics, so I don’t exactly understand what [Moni] means by 'romanticize’ or 'normalize it.’”

Two comments up I describe what romanticization is and how it is being done in the community. I’m going to ignore the number part of this statement because I feel that there is no relevance; If there is a platform for rape fics and people are engaging with them, numbers don’t matter relative to another type of fic. I call that authors romanticize consensual sex because it is oftentimes not explicitly stated, and I think it should be. The character(s) and reader are in a relationship and sex is a byproduct of that (I do not consider this dubcon). Personally, I have found very few fics where explicit consent is written in. People sometimes think that asking for consent interrupts the flow and ruins a moment. Works of fiction have an impact on real life, and writing/reading about consent serves to reinforce healthy practices.

“Going off of that, I don’t understand what [Moni] means by 'fairly young’ audiences. I'm hoping that most 18+ consumers are, you know, eighteen or older (obviously that's not the case in all situations), and eighteen is a legal adult. Most people over the age of eighteen are very aware of what these terms mean, and they know right from wrong. So, there should be no need to clarify what 'noncon’ is for them.”

My point is that this community is relatively young. I have not encountered many writers or readers who are over the age of 25 (if you are, kudos). At this age, you lack experience. Many of these readers have never had sex or been in a relationship before. While you might know the difference between rape and consensual sex on paper, some of these things are more subtle--especially in person. You referenced drunk sex as something that you’d classify as dubcon although intoxicated individuals can’t consent. I recently read a fic where the reader was drunk and picked up at the bar by a character. He asked the reader if they consented to sex and they agreed. This is still rape as you cannot consent while intoxicated since alcohol impairs judgment. Regardless of enjoyment, which the reader experienced, this is still sexual assault. Can you see the confusion by labeling that dubcon? What is a young adult to think when they’ve been manipulated into sex but told they consented? It’s confusing, so these terms should be clarified.

Part 3: Fiction

To learn more about how fiction affects reality, here is this interesting TED-Ed animation that summarizes fiction’s impact. Also, I read this article that cites more examples.

“Also, our writing shouldn’t have to equate 'good practices,’ because a healthy-minded individual knows how to separate fiction and reality. Give people the freedom to write about whatever they want, whether it’s in private or not, that's what fiction is for.”

You claim that you don’t want to use the word rape to trigger people, so you acknowledge that not all readers are health-minded as they could be suffering from trauma or mental illness. Likewise, some individuals can’t discern fiction from reality.

More importantly, there is a connection between fiction and reality.

“Finally, I don't think we should be so open with connecting real-life issues with fictional ones. No one is going to become a rapist or want to be raped because they read fiction on it unless they’re truly a rapist or have been raped. Equating fictional works to real-life problems is a little insulting, whether [Moni] intended it to be or not.”

Watch the video and read the article. Fiction directly impacts culture and society. It may be insulting, but it’s factual.

“Because in the end, in rape fiction, no one actually got raped. In pedophilic fiction (I don’t support it don’t get me wrong), no one was actually a victim of pedophilia. Because they’re all fictional.”

That doesn’t make it okay. Again, my problem is that writers ROMANTICIZE these topics which reflect poorly on society.

“If someone is concerned about pedophilia and rape fiction, I believe it would be best to work towards real-life solutions to those real-life problems compared to criticizing fiction authors.”

If you’re concerned about pedophilia and rape FICTION, I’d hope you’d criticize FICTION authors. Honestly, this seems to be a diversion tactic to avoid accountability.

Part 4: “No Offense, but You’re Wrong About Everything”

“Overall, I think [Moni] had good intentions, but it was poorly worded.

You pose a counter argument to each of my points and make it sound like I did not educate myself beforehand. You then deflect to talking about rape and pedophilia in real-world context to downplay the severity of pedophilia and rape in fiction.

I sound petty here, and I do not mean for my words to hurt. I wish that there was some communication beforehand since it seems that there was confusion. If my original post was unclear, I hope my comments help.

Conclusion

This is for everyone:

Please check out the resources I provided and do your own research to understand the situation before forming your own opinion.

No hate to the writer of the response. I just wish you would have reached out directly for clarification before taking my words out of context and assuming their meaning.

[my-bated-breath]

On an Immensely Popular Post

Disclaimer: What I’m writing here may not be completely accurate -- like most works of art, literature, and even STEM tend to be -- and as a new fan of ATLA, a few of the metas I publish may be obsolete or unintentionally insensitive. That being said, I like to believe that I can contribute something valuable to this fandom. In all my (real) metas, I wish to be as objective as possible and not rely on my biases, fanon, or common “knowledge” that may just be misconceptions. If anyone reading this finds something to be false or contrived, I am always welcome to constructive criticism. What I am not welcome to is senseless hate or bashing.

My first experiences with the ATLA fandom begun a long, long time ago, but the most recent and powerful revival of my love for ATLA started with me actually watching the show and soon after, with me falling into the endless abyss of ATLA metas on Tumblr. Sifting through the well-written analyses and the emotion-based rants had taught me a lot about critical thinking and the power of influence, so now I’d like to present a meta that critiques an extremely popular post with over 60,000 notes. And since it’s so popular, this is the part where I must make yet another disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I hold nothing against lesbians4sokka (whose name has now been changed to comradekatara). They have the right to share what they want, but since this particular post has become so influential that it’s still being reblogged regularly to this day, I believe it is within my right to criticize it - emphasis on “criticize,” which is different from “hate.”

Now that that’s out of the way, let us begin:

Lesbians4sokka/comradekatara covers 3 main subjects in their post, which I will quote/summarize below:

(1) Ma/iko: “...the entire foundation of mai and zuko’s relationship was built on how miserable they were together, and how they would just sit there and hate the world together— letting their misery fester as they enabled each other’s depression— and I think that’s really unfortunate because they would work so well as friends if they weren’t trying to make their dumpster fire of a relationship work.”

(2) Zutara: “similarly, what makes zuko and katara’s dynamic so compelling is that they share the same flaws, only as opposed to mai’s apathy and misery, it’s katara’s rage and guilt that zuko identifies with. they both share trauma over having lost their mothers, and both in a similar way (sacrificing themselves for them) and they both cope with their grief through rage, often misplaced… katara and zuko have a deep & profound friendship, but if they were to be in a relationship, they would only bring out the absolute worst in each other thru enabling each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making.”

(3) Z/uk/ka: this pairing makes for a healthy and wholesome relationship because throughout the boiling rock, we see that “sokka and zuko make an excellent team, as they balance each other perfectly. sokka thinks big picture, and plans ahead, but zuko will charge into situations.” They inspire each other, they trust each other unconditionally, they become more open and supportive of each other, they share a lot of common interests and narrative parallels, and in general, just make each other happy (which could work both platonically and romantically).

As for my response: I’m sure many of you are expecting me to start to save the “best for last.” That assumption would be incorrect because I actually have the least to say about point 3.

I agree that Z/uk/ka can be a good relationship. Their dynamic is funny, playful, supportive, etc. etc. (there are so many positive adjectives I could use to describe their dynamic, the list could go on forever). And they could make a great couple.

…

What, did you expect more from me? That’s it, I’m done.

I’m not here to attack Z/uk/ka as a ship, because while I can never actively ship it (I’m a sad, narrow-minded exclusive shipper, always had been and always will be) I can objectively appreciate them as one. It’s points 1 and 2 I’m more concerned about.

Now, since we’ve already begun working backward, I’ll begin my critiques on point 2: I could write extensively about the parallels between Zuko and Katara, including but not limited to shared pain and a few shared flaws - and just a few, because their weaknesses diverge in many important places. However, since I’m trying to write as objectively as possible and since Zuko-Katara parallels have already been discussed to death, my analysis will focus elsewhere.

However, something from comradekatara’s post that I would first like to address is this-

[Zuko and Katara] both cope with their grief through rage, often misplaced. in the southern raiders, they both act deeply insensitively towards sokka by acting as if his grief over his mother’s death is somehow less valid simply because he is a lot quieter in his coping mechanisms and doesn’t project his rage & guilt onto everyone else.

- or rather, the idea that Zuko and Katara’s shared pain causes them to act insensitively towards Sokka (and though the post does not mention it, Aang as well).

(Note: these points have already been covered by countless metas before mine, so you can skip/skim this section to read a newer argument in the next section.)

Even ignoring the fact that the Southern Raiders had many out of character moments, Katara’s insensitivity towards Sokka is first and foremost a reaction against his insensitivity towards her.

_____

Dialogue from Season 3, Episode 16 “The Southern Raiders”:

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

Katara: [Shakes her head in dismay.] Ugh, I knew you wouldn't understand. [Begins to walk away.]

Aang: Wait! Stop! I do understand. You're feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?

Zuko: She needs this, Aang. This is about getting closure and justice.

Aang: I don't think so. I think it's about getting revenge.

Katara: [Angrily.] Fine, maybe it is! Maybe that's what I need! Maybe that's what he deserves!

Aang: Katara, you sound like Jet.

Katara: It's not the same! Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he's a monster.

Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right.

Katara: Then you didn't love her the way I did!

Sokka: [Hurt] Katara!

_____

While I believe that Aang’s principles of forgiveness are morally sound, the way he pushes his beliefs onto Katara undermines much of her grief. At first, Aang tries to relate to Katara’s experiences by comparing them to his own, but there is a forceful connotation to his dialogue that suggests that Aang considers himself to be the moral authority compared to Katara. Hence, Aang judges Katara (“I think it’s about getting revenge”) without trying to reach out and understand her, forgoing the empathetic common ground in favor of taking on the moral high ground.

Thus, when Sokka tells Katara, “she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right,” Sokka is not only saying that Katara should choose forgiveness, he is implying that Aang is the ultimate moral authority on this matter and that Katara should accept that. Moreover, similarly to Aang, Sokka’s opening line, “she was my mother, too,” had the potential to establish common ground between himself and Katara, but the added “but…” places Sokka on the moral high ground against her instead. Of course, when we remember that just two lines ago Aang equates Katara to Jet, Sokka agreeing with Aang seems even more thoughtless and unsympathetic.

So when Katara lashes out against Sokka, ostensibly “acting as if his grief over his mother’s death is somehow less valid simply because he is a lot quieter in his coping mechanisms and doesn’t project his rage & guilt onto everyone else,” it is important to note that Sokka undermines Katara’s louder, more visible way of grieving as well (though that discounts that for most of the show, Katara only uses her grief over her mother’s death to sympathize with others).

Moreover, Katara’s line, “then you didn't love her the way I did!” is hurtful, yes, but it is not necessarily equivalent to “you didn’t love her as much as I did.” Katara’s love for her mother is different from Sokka’s because her pain over her death is different -- after Kya’s passing, Katara had to carry the emotional burden of becoming a pseudo-mother to Sokka (see Sokka and Toph’s conversation in “The Runaway”), a burden that did not cease after she joined the GAang (see the entirety of “The Desert”). To Katara, Kya was not only her mother, but the representation of the childhood she lost and the sacrifice made to protect her life. Sokka simply does not have that same relationship with Kya.

I do not mean to say that Sokka and Aang unfairly taking on the moral authority in this situation means that this authority instead belongs to Katara (and Zuko) - “The Southern Raiders” is filled with questionable moments from all parties involved. However, TSR is an episode that delves into Katara (and Zuko)’s relationship with a mother’s sacrifice, so how Zuko and Katara respond to this specific trauma from their past does not dictate how they respond to painful circumstances in the present/future. Let’s see how this is true.

Sozin’s Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King

No doubt Zuko and Katara felt some form of frustration upon Aang’s disappearance, so let’s see how they “[enabled] each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making”:

Here, Katara and Zuko make a decision together that turns out to be calm, rational, and not at all emotionally-driven despite their mutual frustration and worry towards Aang.

Sozin’s Comet, Part 2: The Old Masters

Zuko holds immense pain and self-loathing over betraying Iroh, yet Zuko and Katara’s conversation does not enable/exacerbate negativity from any party involved (since Zuko often translates his grief into anger, and Katara was evidently angry at Zuko’s betrayal). Instead, their conversation is open, encouraging, and constructive.

(Note: this is where the review of points made by previous metas ends.)

Hence, to say that “[Zuko and Katara] would only bring out the absolute worst in each other [through] enabling each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making” -  when we are given in-canon examples of the opposite being true - would be a sweeping and inaccurate generalization.

But for the sake of argument let’s say that, hypothetically, Zuko and Katara’s relationship would fail because they only bring out the worst in each other. And here’s where the argument falls apart for me - Is the argument here that Zuko and Katara have an incredibly meaningful friendship yet somehow this “friendship” causes them to enable each other, thus encouraging each other’s worst flaws and regressing each other’s growth? Is a healthy friendship - much less a “deep and profound” one - not one where two individuals can learn from each other in positive ways and balance each other’s shortcomings?

Or is it something different we’re saying here? Are we saying that two individuals can have a “deep and profound” friendship and yet the moment their relationship shifts from platonic to romantic, they are terrible for each other?

While many significant platonic bonds are stunted when they become romantic, I still believe it to be common sense that some of the best romantic relationships stem from a platonic foundation. But since much of “common sense” on the internet sees that “sense” is nonsensical and “common” is a nicer way to refer to mob mentality, I have done my research to show how Zuko and Katara could have been an excellent case of a friends-to-lovers relationship.

An excerpt from my meta, “Research Shows that Zutara Would Have Been the Ideal Friends to Lovers Dynamic.” (give it a read if you want to see references to relationship-research and an overanalysis on diction/tone)

The reason why Zutara is framed as a “toxic and unhealthy” relationship is that their romance would be a classic example of the enemies-to-lovers trope, a trope which modern media has not been particularly kind to. However, when executed correctly, enemies-to-lovers can produce a healthy and loving relationship, frequently relying on friendship as an intermediate between the “enemy” and “lover” stages in the most well-executed versions of this trope. Meanwhile, the trope of friends-to-lovers is just as popular as enemies-to-lovers, though the specific dynamic required between two individuals to achieve this transition is not well-known. Recognizing this, Laura K. Guerrero and Paul A. Mongeau, both of whom are involved in relationship-related research as professors at Arizona State University, wrote a research paper on how friendships may transition into romantic relationships…

According to Guerrero and Mongeau, “...scholars have argued that intimacy is located in different types of interactions, ranging from sexual activity and physical contact to warm, cozy interactions that can occur between friends, family members, and lovers…” Guerrero and Mongeau then reference a relationship model where the initial stages (i.e. perceiving similarities, achieving rapport, and inducing self-disclosure) reflect platonic/romantic intimacy through communication while the latter stages (i.e. role-taking, achieving interpersonal role fit, and achieving dyadic crystallization) often see both individuals as achieving a higher level of intimacy that involves more self-awareness.

In the rest of my research-based meta I demonstrate how Zuko and Katara’s platonic interactions in the show fit into the stages of communicative intimacy (i.e. perceiving similarities, achieving rapport, and inducing self-disclosure) that Guerrero and Mongeau describe as being mutual between friendships and romances. As such, crossing the line between friends and more-than-friends most likely would not cause a dramatic shift in the Zutara dynamic since much of Zuko and Katara’s platonic intimacy easily translates into romantic intimacy. I’ll end off with another excerpt from my meta.

Excerpt from “Research Shows that Zutara Would Have Been the Ideal Friends to Lovers Dynamic.”

“...it would be remiss to simply dismiss the Zutara dynamic as one that would instantly become toxic should they pursue a romantic relationship.”

With that little thought in mind, let’s move onto point 3: an exploration of friendship, romance, and why toxicity is not exclusive to the latter.

Let’s start with what I agree with:

“The entire foundation of mai and zuko’s relationship was built on how miserable they were together, and how they would just sit there and hate the world together— letting their misery fester as they enabled each other’s depression...”

I’m not sure how necessary it is for me to elaborate on this point given that it’s already been accepted by comradekatara and perhaps 60,000+ other users on Tumblr (a gross exaggeration but this remains unimportant), but in her essay, “Zuko, Mai, and the Nature of True Intimacy,” Araeph contributes more nuance to the concept of Ma/iko and mutual misery, stating that,

Unfortunately for [Zuko and Mai’s] relationship, Mai is and will always be a pessimist—a character trait, not a character flaw, in her. The key difference lies in how Mai and Zuko use their negative feelings. When Zuko sinks into negativity, he gives up on any actions that will materially change his world for the better; Mai, on the other hand, can remain negative even at the height of her character development, and it does not impede her ability to act.

So while Mai enables Zuko’s depression, Zuko does not necessarily do the same for Mai. Nonetheless, throughout their relationship for the first half of season 3, neither of them communicate constructively or push each other to grow as people.

This may be the third disclaimer I’m making, but I first want to say I have nothing against Mai. However, I do have something against the idea that “[Mai and Zuko] would work so well as friends if they weren’t trying to make their dumpster fire of a relationship work.”

Their relationship is a dumpster fire, yes, but will the flames cease simply if the amount of intimacy in the relationship changes?

comradekatara state themselves that their entire romantic relationship is quite depressing - they are only able to connect through empty physical intimacy and mutual hatred of the world. Without that, there is little left for them to bond over. Once Zuko overcomes his conflicting morality and inaction from the first half of season 3, he becomes someone who is strongly guided by his principles and beliefs. However, for the entirety of the series, Mai is characterized by her moral apathy. To cite from Araeph again,

It is moral intimacy that is the last and worst omission for Mai and Zuko… Zuko’s struggle to find and follow his principles is the most central aspect of his character, yet it is a struggle Mai neither understands nor respects…

Lack of moral intimacy (not sharing the same core beliefs) is something that applies to both platonic and romantic bonds. Thus, just as transitioning from a meaningful friendship to a romance does not inherently create toxicity in a relationship, switching from a romance that exacerbates one (or both, depending on how you interpret it) party’s misery does not necessarily erase the preexisting negativity in a relationship - perhaps some of it may subside, sure, but as long both parties continue to fail at communicating and understanding each other, even their friendship seems bleak at best. In this case, Mai and Zuko may work well as conditional friends, or in other words, friends who are only friends when they have something to mutually be miserable over. And this tiptoes the line of speculation, but they could be a formidable political team. But unless the Ma/iko dynamic shifts drastically in the lovers-to-friends transition, I’m not sure if there’s much potential in a friendship between them.

In conclusion, there is a lot I don’t agree with from comradekatara’s post, but if there’s one takeaway I want to impart onto everyone who’s read this far, it’s this: crossing and uncrossing the line between platonic and romantic bonds is not always a transformative experience for the relationship, and the nature of human relationships is a complex spectrum -- not a light switch that can only be set between healthy and unhealthy.

Thank you all for reading!

[karasunology]

⸙ ˚₊ ➷ THE MIYA TWINS & BOKUTO KOUTARO AS YOUR OLDER BROTHERS ! ❞

╰─ ─ ﾟheadcanons of the best twins & ace of my heart being your older brothers.

✐ . . . BIG BROTHER HEADCANONS.

[ OIKAWA TOORU & KAGEYAMA TOBIO VERSION. ] [ SUNA RINTAROU & KITA SHINSUKE VERSION. ]

-ˏˋ ➶ character(s) ━ bokuto koutaro, miya atsumu & miya osamu <3

[ trigger warnings ━ slight manga spoilers !! ]

-ˏˋ ✉️ REQUESTS ARE ALWAYS OPEN.

⇣ please read the RULES before requesting.

MIYA TWINS.

➜ oh my goodness, i pray so hard and dearly for your parents because y'all are WILD WILD

➜ when you guys were young, you know those videos of twins confusing their baby on who's their parent??

➜ yeah THESE TWO TRIED IT WITH YOU

➜ it was probably atsumu's dumb idea

➜ he watched it a few days ago in youtube

➜ so he suggested it to osamu which begrudgingly accepted, curious on how you would react

“ c'mon, come to big brother 'samu ”

➜ atsumu says as he stretches his arms out to you while you're oblivious poor innocent ass was doing the grabby hands to him

➜ ngl you looked so cute he felt a little guilty for what's to come

➜ while osamu sits next to him with a monotonous expression

“ no, i'm big brother 'samu ”

➜ your head spun to his direction

➜ and you're just like 👁👄👁

➜ while switching left and right in confusion as you dropped your arms down so fucking fast LMAO

➜ while atsumu was trying so hard, really he promised he won't laugh so soon, that osamu keeps pestering him to shut his bitch as up

➜ until the faintest of sobs were heard, forcing their mini argument to a halt

“ will you stay quiet ─ ”

“ ─ oh no no no, please don't cry ”

➜ osamu is in distraught because he actually doesn't know how to take care of a child crying

➜ while astumu is trying to carry you

“ hngg i ─ hic ─ want big brother 'samu ─ hic ! ”

➜ bitch almost wanted to drop you right then and there honestly

➜ he's like ??? DOES THIS BITCH EVEN KNOW I EXIST EYE??

➜ and when osamu heard you calling out to him, something in him snapped

“ i knew this was a bad idea ─ ”

➜ as he shoved atsumu off of you, hugging you as he tries to coo you, whispering “ shh . . don't ya worry, yer big brother 'samu is here ”

➜ this MANS OHMYGOD

➜ your cries seemed to have ceased as atsumu is standing there like ??

➜ i'm thEIR BROTHER TOO !!

➜ bb boy held a grudge on you for a few weeks ngl

➜ but then you grew up and now you know that you actually have two (2) big bro 'samu

➜ but more annoying & bitchy

➜ you're their favourite victim to bully

➜ well, atsumu

➜ but they won't let their teasing lead to you crying because they actually can't stand the sight of their younger sibling crying

➜ contrary to popular belief, when you realized there was another big bro 'samu, you were now attached to atsumu while he's similing smugly and triumphly at osamu

➜ atsumu would 100% be very competitive for your attention though he makes you hate him whenever he bullies you

➜ but we all know osamu hates losing

➜ so there was definitely a time of your life that their fighting over who was the best big brother

➜ ugh y'all cute cute

➜ while you're helping osamu around the kitchen, atsumu would just watch from the side lines because the kitchen is kinda yours and osamu's thing

➜ though while in his earlier years, he'd get upset because he wants you to hang out with him too :(

➜ while you have the cooking thing with osamu, you have the baking thing with atsumu

➜ shh hear me out

➜ osamu is actually not good at baking shit

➜ the first time he attempted baking was when you joined a baking club & now you're obsessed with making cupcakes and all that good good

➜ and he wanted to also try and back

➜ and how and what did he do to make your cupcakes look like dog shit was beyond you

➜ and while smelling something burning, atsumu ran to the kitchen and after realizing what osamu did

➜ he'd try and make your next batch of cupcakes presentable

➜ because he's?? actually?? good at it??

➜ and now you guys have your baking sessions and brother 'tsumu bonding time

➜ but even though you guys have other things with the other person, you guys LOVED doing chores together

➜ like, your guys' mom would make the boys clean the bathroom and before you knew it, LIKE YOU WENT THERE JUST TO TALK TO THEM WHILE THEY CLEAN, you find yourself cleaning the toilet necause atsumu ain't doing that shit

➜ washing dishes?? that as well

➜ you and atsumu would be the ones washing while osmu would do the drying

➜ 11/10 of the time would leave you guys a damped mess

➜ while cleaning the kitchen, i absoloutely headcanon, like STRONGLY

➜ that you guys would just talk either about random shit, talk shit about someone honestly, or quote reality tv shows

➜ like one thing you would be sweeping the kitchen floor,  and while sweeping, you accidentally hit the trash bin hard that the contents flew out of it as it fell down the floor

➜ and atsumu's like : “ pooja what is this behaviour?? ”

➜ then something clicked in you that made you remember that one show bigg boss something

➜ and you'd be like : “ i'm sorry i kicked it ny mistake ”

➜ osamu would roll his eyes before joining you two :  “ you can't kick it by mistake ”

➜ “ then pick it up if it bothers you ”

➜ ugh y'all aRE ICONS

➜ y'all would be at the pool and atsumu would shout “ oh no my diamond earing is gone ”

➜ and osamu would reply “ kim, there's people that are dying. ”

➜ you'll be their biggest fan in the court

➜ whenever they play with you on the sidelines something in them just snapped and they'll be scoring points by points in a row

➜ they lowkey love to show off

➜ if you're a girl, every fangirl of they have would be wary of you at first, but then realized that you were just their little sister

➜ and to their bisexual fans, they would ngl have a huge ass crush on you too

➜ and if you're a boy as well, oH MY GOD WOULD THEY HAVE FALLEN AMD CAN'T GET UP

➜ LIKE BITCH THE MIYA GENES ARE THRIVING IN THE THREE OF YOU

➜ you bet they'd be throwing hands if someone decided to break your heart

➜ though, osamu would be the more rational one

➜ if they ever meet your s/o, atsumu would want to rile them up while osamu is just being calm but the scarier one of the two?? but he knows you don't need any protecting because you know how to do it yourself & you don't have any need for that

➜ 12/10 would recommend as brothers

➜ in conclusion, you guys may not always get along, but you know damn well they care about you and would apologize right away if they did something too far. and you guys are such good sibling goals😤

BOKUTO KOUTARO.

➜ definitely know how to deal with his emo mode

➜ since you guys grew up together

➜ and sadly, you didn't have an akaashi to help you out with it while you were young

➜ like he'd be the older brother but you would probably be the more mature one

➜ but while you guys were young, he was your knight & shinning armor

➜ like when you scraped your knee while trying to catch him, he'll do a 180° and bitch has never ran faster to you than that time

➜ & if you were crying because of it, he'll make stupid jokes but it'll always make you forget about the pain in your knee

➜ and it's one of those times that you could really see that he was actually older than you

➜ then he'll piggyback you back to your house

➜ homeboy be reliable even while he was young wow

➜ and even 'till now

➜ if you ever got sick or injured

➜ or god forbid, HEARBROKEN by someone

➜ a bitch will throw hands

➜ but before that he'll make you laugh & do his best to take your mind off whatever is causing you to hurt

➜ ngl you would always look up to him, even if he may seem childish

➜ he'll hang out with you the rest of the day, he doesn't care if it's a school day, he'll drag akaashi with him

➜ my boy here GIVES THE BEST ADVICES

➜ though he may reword them differently, but his advices never seemed to fail you

➜ fights don't usually happen, and if they do they're probably serious

➜ he's the type of brother that lets you sneak out the house

➜ he'll usually back you up in everything

➜ and this bitch would take the fall for your faults

➜ ugh WE STAN

➜ but also if you sneak out the house to your significant other, bb boy has to know their number, address, occupation etc.

➜ because he ain't having a broken hearted sibling

➜ and he just wants the best for you

➜ and in the future, though he may be busy with being a professional volleyball player;

➜ he'll always have time for you

➜ he'll cLEAR OUT HIS SCHEDULE JUST FOR YOU

➜ you're that urgent to him

➜ your his first best friend before volleyball

➜ speaking of volleyball, if you aren't found in the stands in his matches ─ he'll go TO EMO MODE Y'ALL

➜ because you're usually always there in his games and it makes him give all his 120%

➜ since he's usually busy, he'll ALWAYS have those covey sisters movie nights

➜ if ykyk

➜ he's a sucker for family bonding time ogey

➜ the type to binge watch all the hsm movies & know all the lyrics to all the songs

➜ the type to defend sharpay with all his might

➜ and you guessed it right

➜ sharpay is his favourite character

➜ no one tell me otherwise

➜ THE TYPE TO DUET SONGS WITH YOU

➜ HIS FAVOURITE?

➜ EVERY SHARPAY & RYAN SONGS

➜ HE'LL BE SHARPAY AND YOU'LL BE RYAN

➜ AND THAT'S ON BOP TO THE TOP

➜ hates horror movies

➜ so if you ever watch it with him, he won't leave your side for the rest of the night & will have a sleepover on the living room

➜ f o r t s

➜ loves doing ridiculous challanges

➜ your phone would be BOMBARDED with crackhead videos of him

➜ probably broke a bone or two ngl

➜ 100/10 would recommend as a brother

➜ in conclusion, he may not always be there, and would be a bit childish & needy at times; but you know that he would step up as a big brother for you ANYDAY, ANYNIGHT, ANYTIME. because how could he want the best for you when he's not being his best on his part?

-ˏˋ playing soleil's tape ˊˎ-

[ 📼 ] . . . tumblr won't let this post show on the tags now i have to repost them all over again phew chile. watch me throw hands😤

[lovee-infected]

I'm about to start my own (twst) writing blog and I'm going around writers that I follow for some advice q*q could you give me any wisdom on what I should do when starting a writing blog? thank you!! I love your works and you're one of the writers that inspire me

Aa thank you baby I'm so happy to hear that I inspire you!! First off, good luck with the new writing blog! I'm glad that more authors are joining the fandom and wish you all the best with your works! 💞💖💞 Other than trying to keep your blog organized by creating a proper masterlist, choosing a suitable aesthetic, having a set of rules and making sure to tag all of the warnings and necessary mentions (gender of reader, n/sfw or trigger warning), I tried to come up with some useful advises that might help!

1) Keep up the great confidence!

First and the most important thing about a writing blog, is to be confident and strong. Look, you shouldn't be afraid of posting your works and sharing with the redt of the fandom, even as they're not as perfect as you want them to be. The more you write, the more you learn! And you'd grow to be better and better as you continue to share your works! Not even the greatest authors had been any perfect on their first days!

2) If you're accepting requests, try to set a limit

Being overwhelmed with asks is never pleasant, if you just open your inbox to face 500 requests you'd be to be terrified and confused and even lose your passion to work on any of them because of the stress and not knowing where to begin from. Try to set a limit based on your personal limits, how many requests do you think you can have at the time without stressing out because of how much they are? 10? 20? 50? 100? 200? Doesn't matter! If you feel like you're fine with huge numbers like 200 and 150, it's totally fine! If not, remember that setting a character limit would not only reduce the possible chance of stressing out and overwhelming anxiety but it'll also help you manage your inbox better and easier! You can start taking requests again just as soon as your inbox in cleared!

3) Try to treat yourself every once in a while!

Working on requests can be tiring and sometimes, boring. It's great if you enjoy working on requests no matter what they are but remember to write for your own pleasure every once in a while too!

Even if you have like 100 requests laying in your inbox, feel free to write self indulgent fics or something that you'd like to write even if it's super odd an irrelevant to your normal writings! Remember that you deserve to read something you enjoy just as much as the others do, so don't forget to bless yourself with that beautiful writing of yours ;) Remember that it's your blog, you are free to do everything that makes you happy or anything that you simply enjoy doing ^^

4) Remember that no matter what, toxicity always exists and it's not your fault

Look toxicity is very common to be found social medias, especially platforms like tumblr in which anonymous function exists. Even celebrities and world-famous artists might get attacked over pretty silly stuff every once in a while so it's something usual to happen! I wish you never receive any potentially harmful or rude asks or messages but if you ever do, best would be to block or simply ignore them! People in this platform can be ridiculous sometimes lol, there are people who DM creators just to spam hate and block the creator whom they spammed after wards lol, so don't even bother t waste your time with such people!

If anyone comes to your inbox/DMs/comments to say something harsh or leave a sharp critique, best would be to ignore them. Even if you like to answer or respond to reply to them tey to be chill and not take them seriously. Remember, even if they didn't like your content they could've just scrolled down without bothering to read your work, so if they had the guts to come and spam you with nonsense just because they didn't like your work, it's their fault! They didn't have to read, and it doesn't even matter if they liked your work or not! It's their problem and all, so remember not to let these kind of people get to you at all!

5) Take it easy with writing

Don't push yourself too hard, remember that not everything you write is supposed to be *perfect. This is even more serious when it comes to requests, thousands of unexpected ideas might pop up in your inbox and it makes it quite confusing to choose what to write or do!

First off, don't be any shy or anxious about rejecting the requests which don't follow your rules or come when you aren't accepting requests. Those who violate your rules aren't worthy of your time and work!

Secondly, keep this is mind that you aren't expected to be able to write everything! Sometimes the requests are hard to write, the idea seems odd or hard to understand, or sometimes you just don't feel comfortable or don't want to write it all, which is okay!

You always have the right to take/drop whichever of your requests and you don't owe anyone anything for this, it's your own blog, your work, and your content. Don't ever force yourself to write something which you don't like to write!

6) Your health is always the top priority

Remember that no matter how popular you are, how many followers you have, how many requests are left in your inbox or how much people are wishing to get more of your content, you're free to stop writing and put this wrong at a temporarily (or even permanent) hiatus.

Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, then don't write. If you feel like you're being too busy with work/family/school and anything please don't force yourself to write! Remember that your real life matters always come first!

Also, you might even need a break from writing without necessarily being really busy or sad, sometimes you just need to take a break from everything, and it's totally fine to do! Take as much time as you need and stay healthy during your breaks. It'd be even better if you don't even think of any new ideas/Aus while you're taking a break from writing so you can fully set your mind off stuff! Doesn't even matter if followers/readers are going to appreciate this or not, it's not about them, it's about you. Remember that your good readers/follwers who understand that authors are normal humans and not writing machines would surely understand if you need to take a break too!

7)Keep yourself motivated!

There might be days when you can and have the time to write, but something's holding you back. You feel like procrastinating over and over at some point lose the motivation to write. First off, that's a really normal matter to see as many of us have to struggle with laziness sometimes lol, but there are some useful tips to keep yourself Motamedi and hyped while you're planning to write! A bit of challenge would not only make it a lot more fun, but is also a good way to keep yourself motivated and inspired!

First, try prompt lists! They've always got plenty of useful ideas and inspirational quotes to use and are absolutely amazing to give you new ideas for a writing!

Second, try to challenge yourself by simple stuff like setting yourself word limits, trying to see how much you can write in an hour, use some suggested words in your stories (ex: Banana, train, knife, turkey) as a small challenge! You can also try small events (like milestone or holiday events) to celebrate on your blog with stuff like: Prompt list requests, CYOAs, character interaction and other new stuff that gives you a better motivation tp write instead of just having to work on the same, usual writing requests over and over.

Also, I suggest putting an specific hour for writing/ checking on your blog in your daily schedule as this is also a way of avoiding procrastination, instead of writing 10 requests a day and not writing anything for two weeks, try to set an schedule like writing 1-2 writings everyday! Remember to put your real life activities in the schedule too so you won't have to go through any trouble to find a balance between your real life and running a writing blog!

8) Remember the crediting/copyrights

I'm just adding this here because I can see quite a few of writers using uncredited art for their stories and it's been much and less of an issue lately ^^;

First off, the arts/headers used in your writing. Make sure not to use any uncredited card or anyone else's edit without their permission, otherwise it's nothing different from stealing the work from the original artst!

If you're going to leave a link to the artist, make sure to check on them and check if they allow reposts with credit or not. If they don't, don't use their art. If they do, make sure to give them a proper credit with a link to them! (:

Editors too on the other hand spend a very long time making their edits and and aesthetics, so not copying their work is just as important as not stealing art from the artsits!

Pinterest is filled with uncredited art and if there's a pinterest art who is not linked to the original artist, putting the empty pinterest pin link would be useless and steal counted as stealing art.

9) Stick with your own writing style!

Writing style is like signature, everyone's got their very own and unique writing style. From the way you portray characters to what elements you use as the story develops, you're totally different from each and every of other authors in this fandom!

You may sometimes wonder if your writing style is any good at all while you look at other creators writings and feel the difference, and I gotta say: It doesn't even matter what others are doing! All that is important, is you.

Don't try to change your style to become close another writer's style, your own style is great as it already is! Even if you aren't yet that experienced with writing and feel like your writing could be better, remember that your writing skills will indeed improve as you continue to write and read newer and newer stuff, so don't worry about it!

Each and every writing style has got its own beauty, not everyone may totally enjoy your style at first but and as you continue to write, you'd get to learn what makes people enjoy your writing even more or how you can attract new readers with your writings, your style will change for the better as you write!

Though it's totally fine if you feel like there are writers who inspire and motivate you, remember that you won't have to be them in order to improve! You don't need to be just like them to be great! Even if you do have some issues like being a non-native speaker which can make it quite hard for you to write, you'd automatically learn and have most of your errors fixed as the time passes. I made LOTS of mistakes in my first writings but I hardly ever make any mistakes now because I'm used to it! Though it was a bit late I finally recognized my mistakes and corrected them! And I'd continue to correct more of my mistakes as I continue to write!

10) It's very good to have different writer mutuals

This one is rather optional, just a small recommendation! Though there are many writers who might recommend this as a rather important factor for running a writing blog, I'd say that this isn't necessary as there are still well-known tumblr authors and even twst authors who gained attention to themselves on their own and not with the help and support of any mutuals or writer friends, so it isn't impossible to be successful even without having any mutuals!

The thing with having mutuals is that it makes everything easier. A totally new twst blog can gain around 100 followers on its first without even posting anything more than a writing and a list of rules only because of being supported and boosted by well-known blogs while a for normal blog without any support or boosting, it may take up to 2-3 weeks or even an entire month to gain that 100!

Also, getting to talk with different authors (especially those who are more experienced than you) is motivational and heartwarming, you can feel like you have a team to belong to. You can discuss different writing ideas/issues/blog chores with them and see what they may think. You can even have their support with new ideas if you feel stuck/unmotivated while writing a piece!

I didn't have any mutuals on my first days either and I admit that this made things a bit hard, but it didn't hold me back from continuing to write! Yet I admit that it's surely very useful to have a couple of writer friends around you whom you can share your ideas with! Mutuals support each other, reblog each other's works and give each other a better chance of having their works read by more users, which is quite amazing and helpful!

11) Go for it and don't give up!

Remember that no one, not even the greatest writing blogs have been perfect on their first days. They weren't well-known back then either! And they wouldn't have been any successful today without being hard-working and strong. Leaving up to the previous 10 rules is the hardest part of having a blog, and it's all about not giving up!

Do not try to judge your writing and talents based on the amount of notes your posts get or how many followers you have, because these aren't ever going to show your true worth and talents! But I assure you, if you continue to write even through your hard days, your unmotivated days and your sad days no matter how hard it's supposed to be, everything will change. The more you write, the higher the chance of having new people find and read your works would be! Keeping up the hard work and believing in yourself is the key to achieving anything you may wish for, even having a successful writing blog!

As you continue to write, you'll get more readers, more notes on your posts, more followers and more people who enjoy your content!

Hope that these are helpful, wish you all the greatest and good luck with your writing blog!!💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞

[shadowdianne]

Author Self-Interview

tagged by @delirious-comfort

Name: Dianne full penname ShadowDianne or ShadowSelene, gods know I bothered quite a lot of people with the double pennaming back at A03. Some others use Dia. I will basically answer to any variation of the penname.

Fandoms: Could be a smartass and say all the fandoms I've written for but let's be honest; It was SwanQueen, Princess Rover and I guess some SuperCorp/SuperCat

Where do you post: AO3 and FFN but I’ve stopped posting on FFN now.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter: [Oh boy, let's do this. I'm just gonna remind y'all that I basically never wrote multichaptered -well, few exceptions- and that numbers never worked for me xD Let's do this... AJ here was very thorough and did ffnet as well but since I erased like 70% of the fics I had back at ffnet a few months ago I will simply go to A03 for simplicity's sake]

Oh! I'm doing it by Kudos

Annnd, that would be “I'm not afraid of the dark” Princess Rover-Shannara Chronicles with 237 Kudos. It's a wip so, heh xD

Most Popular One-Shot: That one would be “Cracked it” SuperCorp -I think??- Supergirl with 667 Kudos.

Favorite Story You’ve Written So Far: I always say the same one but that's because I basically went to my sandbox and said yeeet. I would write it differently now -I basically edited out a bunch of things I wanted to write because if it would have been up to me the romance would have been less upfront but since it was a SuperNova I guess I went the route of “giving focus to the ship rather than the worldbuilding which I what I love -lol-. Either way that would be Metallic Ink. Yet, to make it a bit more convoluted because y'all know how much I love writing long-winded answers my favorite piece was anything and everything I wrote that involved Steampunk -and I have a bunch!- or fae-related writing because that's what I like the most.

Fic you’re nervous to post: Quoting AJ: All of them. The fear of posting never left no matter the amount of times I did it. We all are nervous from a performance point of view.

How do you choose your titles: I curse a lot xD Not in the titles per se but while trying to find something to write there. I usually go with one word titles for one shots and, somtimes, short sentences. Sometimes they are taken from lyrics -either translated or not- that I think aids with the aesthetic I'm trying to go for or, other times, most of the times really- they are a rewritten version of a sentence written within the text. I'm horrible at it.

Do you outline: I did, sometimes, for specific things. I think I've written about this at some point prior to this tag but, and considering the biggest amount of my work is comprised of one shots and prompts at that, there were certain themes I had written enough times to know already what sort of tropes or themes I wanted to go with so those very rarely needed an outline. I wrote several versions of them, though. Sometimes because plot bunnies, some other times because I wrote in batches so if I realized there was something that was being repeated across several prompts/stories I could lean into something different in order to not be overly repetetive. If I was going for multichaptered or worldbuilding I did an outline. Some stories that required particular details -words of desire, hundred steps, words in the cloud...- also used outlines so I could keep everything in order before writing them and I knew what topics I had already written and which ones I hadn't yet.

Complete Fics:  Hah. As always the exact number is something we will never know xD I've erased a bunch so the number is already not the correct one and I'm not even considering tumblr- Now that I think of it I didn't write down tumblr as a site in where I post things... telling. Anyway, according to a03 I have 535 works. Jump that a couple 100s and that will probably be a more accurate number. From those... 513 apparently. It's probably less. Let's be honest xD

Do you accept prompts: *laughs in tired* I did, I do... I guess I still do because what I've last posted were prompts but I consider myself out of most of the whole prompt writing business if it is not for a very particular list of people. If you give me ideas I may implement them but since I don't feel strong enough for any couple atm and the burn out I ended up having is something that still lingers... let's say I'm more the shadow rather than the dianne portion of my penname these days.

Upcoming Story You’re Excited to Write: Fic wise... I guess nothing? I'm not writing fics atm, I may at some point but I'm currently still trying to unlearn a bunch of things and trying to find something I can give back in the form of a transformative work.

Stories You’re Excited to Read: Back to quoting AJ: Give me angst. And fantasy. And hurt comfort with a heavy dose of the first and very little of the second. Pretty please.

Tagging: @waknatious, @stregaomega I'm not remembering if AJ tagged you @naralanis but considered yourself tagged on my end :P

[stillness-in-green]

Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Thanks + Sources and Further Reading)

This post concludes the essay-as-written. I'm going to try to get a full version up on AO3 within the next few days, which I will link here (ETA: here) and on my tumblr generally. It will have properly hotlinked footnotes and a table of contents. It will also probably be all in one chapter, as it was intended to be read, with the exception of the resources below.

Thanks to @codenamesazanka, who provided me a lot of useful links to resources on Japanese law when I was still just spitting overheated hypotheses into the void. Thanks also to @robotlesbianjavert, @aysall and my tumblr-less BF for their game beta-reads, their catches of some grammar and spelling mistakes that would have ranged from annoying to mortifying, and for the checks on my thought process and organizational flow. Thanks to everyone in my chat group for putting up with me when I had a mini "oh god what am I doing I'm not a lawyer" meltdown over my first draft Logistics conclusions.

And thanks to all of the people on tumblr who read and reblogged this! If any of you want some further reading on the topics I discussed, or if you just want to double-check my information, see below to conclude:

Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable: An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front

Introduction and Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four and Conclusion

Sources and Further Reading

I tended to start with Wikipedia and then either follow their source links or Google for further information when I needed more detail or to clear up the occasional bit of conflicting information. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking quite far enough in advance to save a link to every single source I used, but I’ve done my best to either dig them back up in retrospect or find another source relaying similar information.

All direct quotes, excerpted panels and canonical information comes from Viz's official translation of My Hero Academia or My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

///

Overviews on the pre-war Japanese incidents I cited for comparative purposes:

The March 15 Incident

The February 26 Incident

The Rice Riots. Further information sourced from the rather more detailed Japanese page.

The formation and immediate ban of the Farmer-Labor Party.

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General reading on uprisings, riots, coups, and protests that otherwise got out of hand.

The Era of Popular Violence

Rebellions in Japan

Attempted Coups in Japan

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On Aum Shinrikyo and the sarin gas attacks:

Wikipedia has some basics, but further information was sourced from a Congress report on Aum some seven months after the attack and this Aum retrospective written last year.

The Wikipedia page on Underground.

For another story wrestling with these topics, consider giving the anime Mawaru Penguindrum a whirl. Without explicitly telling you that's what it's doing, it deals with the difficulties—stigma leading to ostracization, depression and radicalization—faced by the children of a fictionalized Aum Shinrikyo expy some years following an equally obvious fictionalized expy of the sarin gas attacks, as well as critically depicting the state of society that may have lead members of Japan’s “Lost Generation” to cults like Aum to begin with. There’s a good but spoilerific breakdown on that aspect of the show here.

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International referents:

India’s Million Man March, and a BBC report on the arrests/detainments.

An article about a lawsuit brought by the ACLU over the Baltimore arrests, and the cite on 24-hour releases.

This article is my source of the 1,200 number on the mass trials in Egypt. This one is a more in-depth look at the problems with the trials, while this one shows that the mass trial problems are still ongoing.

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Japan’s laws:

The Peace Preservation Laws

English translations of the Penal Code and the Subversive Activities Prevention Act.

An overview of the state of criminal conspiracy law in Japan circa 2007, looking at the first incarnation of what would eventually become the 2017 law.

A scathing opinion piece on said 2017 law.

A citation on the Subversive Activities Prevention Act being invoked against Aum, and only Aum. Dated year-of, but there have been no invocations of it since, despite Japan seeing a marked upswing in anti-new religious movement sentiment after the sarin gas attacks.

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Japan’s penal system:

A broad overview on Wikipedia.

Two sources for numbers, one less recent, but with more context and detail here; another with the most recent numbers available here.

Cite for 2018 number of arrests.

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The trial process and criminal justice:

An exhaustive report on the structures, status, and proceedings of criminal justice in Japan at every stage from the initial arrest to post-release services circa 2019.

The Wikipedia article on pre-trial detention cells in Japan, which has a decent overview of why they’re controversial. See also the entry for the role of confessions in the indictment process.

Cite for the number of deaths caused by law enforcement in Japan in 2018.

An overview on lay judges, and an article on the Japanese public’s broad discomfort with the system.

A good article on the high conviction rate and what activists call “hostage justice.”

Another good article on the conviction rate, this one touching on several of the aspects I mention about lenient sentences and coerced confessions, as well as some that I didn't, like corrupt or compromised judges.

A broad look at attorneys in Japan and, buried in an article on the lay judge system because I could not for the life of me find the interview I read that talked about it, a citation for the unpopularity of defense attorneys. (Footnote 365)

A Wikipedia page for Yasuda Yoshihiro, who I quipped about in a footnote and refrained from explaining further. Long story short, he’s maybe the example of an unpopular defense attorney in Japan, an anti-death penalty activist who has served as defense in a number of high-profile cases, absolutely the most notable of which was that of Asahara Shoukou, the leader of Aum Shinrikyo.

An interview with the CEO of Cross Career, an employment agency founded by an ex-convict and dedicated to helping others like him find work. Talks some about the stigma around felons and how it impacts recidivism in Japan.

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On children in Japan:

An exhaustive rundown on the state of alternative childcare in Japan.

An article about the way children’s independence is founded on a strong faith in their community, and a post that mentions the TV program Hajimete no Otsukai (My First Errand).

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On AEDs:

An article from relatively early on—back in 2007—in the rollout. From the following year, there’s this rather drier but informative article from a medical journal discussing the effectiveness of the movement thus far and steps that could be taken to make the public more confident in using the devices.

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Further relevant My Hero Academia meta:

Tumblr user @codenamesazanka has posted some excerpts and discussion about Murakami’s Underground and how the issues Murakami raises can also be seen in My Hero Academia.

My take on the MLA and quirk supremacy, part of a much longer piece covering my general lore on the MLA, its members, and its history. For some more specific discussion on why I think the series itself supports the view that the MLA at large was not as hardline quirk supremacist as Geten claims, see Geten’s section “On Quirk Supremacy (and Re-Destro, still)” in this post about my headcanons for the canonical MLA members.