#it's literally such a niche experience but I know I can't be the only person in this position

[whiskeyswifty]

.

[erin-gilberts]

The niche support group I need is one for people who became long COVID-damaged during or shortly after their conversion process because it truly fucks everything when newfound memory issues start pulling the bricks out of the foundation you had to lay by hand yourself

[horrorshow]

Can you talk about why you think blocking and moving on is a bad thing? I thought it was a way to curate your space and avoid drama

idk maybe i'm too idealistic but fandom is a much more friendlier, welcoming, supportive, creative, engaging, active, diverse and interesting space when it's treated like a community where people are encouraged to participate and talk about their interests and where there's space for niche or more unpopular opinions without these people having to worry about being blocked and feel unwelcome by the majority of the fandom they are in. i can't stand how blocking everyone you disagree with has become the first thing to do.

you say its 'to curate your experience'. but blocking people does not only curate YOUR experience. you're also forcefully curating other users' experiences. and not for the better.

people say 'i will block you for literally anything' and then those same people wonder why engagement is down, why no one sends asks, why no one reblogs, why rarely anyone talks in the tags anymore and why this place feels so dead and boring and quiet. i wonder why!!!!

people treat real people as annoying ads they can dispose of at their whim. but that's not how a fandom or a site like tumblr works. (besides, if you really care about people curating their own experience you wouldn't block people. you can filter and blacklist and never see them again while still granting them the same freedom instead of actively making their experience worse.)

you say its to avoid drama. but seeing a post you dont agree with is not 'drama'. and blocking is not solving anything except for you personally. fandom was more fun when we remembered that every user is a real person you share a space with, and probably some mutuals as well, so you find a way to live with each other. starting with a restraining order seems a bit excessive and is not contributing to anything. it's not that hard to be respectful and tolerate others and acknowledge people have different opinions and interests and still co-exist in peace. its not that hard to be nice to people and try to find common ground with them and interact with the stuff you DO like. you do this in every aspect of your real life, so why not online?

i hear you say: 'but that requires WORK and i don't NEED to do any of that bc i can just block them'.

yeah, you can try to create your own bubble and only hang out with like minded people but you wont EVER fully achieve that (no matter how much you block, social media WILL keep feeding you posts you disagree with bc it makes them money). social media WILL pressure you into an 'us vs. them' mentality where you constantly feel like everything online is a threat or an argument you have to win and where being mean and unnuanced gives you the most notes and where you don't even see, let alone be able to treat, other users as people anymore bc you don't interact with them anymore other than to block or fight them. that's not how i want it to be online. it's not fun to me. and maybe i'm a pessimist but i think it will eventually be the death of online fandom and sites like tumblr. look at the state of twitter right now. DOES blocking give you a better experience in the long run? i doubt that it does. overall, i think it makes people even less tolerable and more vulnerable to hate and fear mongering, and social media an even more hostile place.

it's everything i hate about social media and everything i want to fight against and WILL fight against. i won't pretend my meager contribution will change anything, but i LIKE to just scroll past posts i don't vibe with and not see every argument online as a personal offense. it keeps me curious. most posts aren't that bad when you know the person behind it. i mean, you do you, i'm not gonna say what you should or shouldn't do bc that's up to you, but i recommend it: free yourself of the block button and bring back supportive user communities based on a shared love for the same thing and focus on what you have in common with people, just like you would do in real life. save the block button for the rotten apples who DO keep trying to pick fights and exclude others.

(which is, now that i think about it, probably the main difference: most people see the block button as a neutral way to prevent worse. but. that's only the case on an individual level. and treating everything online as an individual choice to which there are no further consequences, especially if they happen on a larger scale, is already a loss.)

[abyssalzones]

What's your comic writing process like? I'm starting to get into making my own comics and I really admire your work!!! Any advice?

Ah, intrepid traveler, you've done well to journey to this secluded mountaintop spire, in search of the answers you seek. I indeed can provide such forbidden comicmancy knowledge... at the cost of your mortal soul...

coughs. anyway, I'm going to warn you immediately that what works for me does not work for everyone else, and in my experience the way I do things can prove very slow and discouraging for anyone who is more interested in the actual "drawing the damn comic" part of the process. I only do it this way because I enjoy weaving a narrative web that feels not only fully contained but re-readable, but my projects are often so long and my memory so shitty that I can't just keep all of it in my head! It would spill all over the place and make a really embarrassing mess of brain-juice. Not ideal.

but as for my own process, uhh... I suppose a comic would be fitting, right?

a little choppy but you get the idea.

as for turning words into art, I've been experimenting with figuring out the best way to do that for a little while now. Originally what I was doing for something like Ad Astra Per Aspera was to take my "script" and sketch it out on paper very loosely, before transposing that onto my canvas and working from there:

...but, I've found that can make it kind of difficult to space everything around on your standard page-size, and the thing I'm having the most problems with currently seems to be finding the sweet spot of panel-size proportions. So, I've taken to printing out standard thumbnail templates (you can just find these on google) and sketching very tiny panels in those, which seems to give me a slightly better sense of scale... (mild chapter 5 spoilers, sorry ad astra fans)

but I have yet to totally pull through on this, so who knows, maybe I'll try something else in the future!

As for advice, this is probably most applicable to me, but as a disabled artist I have a very hard time managing my workload without literally working myself into injury. I don't think I talked about this publicly but when I was working on that ten year anniversary comic I was literally drawing every single day for 3 solid months. Sometimes, in my case, I really can't bring myself to stop once I've latched onto an idea, and sometimes I find the most rewarding thing I can do with my time is to draw- but I seriously cannot overstate: Do not fucking do this.

You will fuck up your wrist, your back, your neck, your eyes, and probably your mental health. It's a well-known fact that mangaka have a lower life expectancy than the average japanese person due to the intense workload imposed on them by deadlines and personal expectations. Comics are a very demanding artform, and even though I'm not on any sort of mandated schedule there are times where I've toiled away at something when I likely should have been exercising or taking vision-breaks. Therefore the best advice I can give you is to chill the hell out.

Namely, find parts of the process you can be lazy about, and embrace the laziness! You don't like digitally sketching? Don't do it! Skip it, or maybe find a way to traditionally sketch things out in advance like I do. Hate lineart? Don't fucking do it. You really don't feel like wasting your time writing 72k words of comic scripts? ...then, don't be like me. skip that part. I'm a flawed human being and what works for me might not work for you.

The second most important piece of advice I could give is to read comics. Of all kinds. The reason for this is pretty self explanatory: In order to figure out your own comic-making style, you should first pick out bits and pieces from the artist's buffet to add to your plate. Manga, graphic novels, american comics, european comics, weird niche little webcomics, funny papers, anything and everything. This advice rings true of pretty much any art form, but I find it to be essential to honing comic-making skills because so many things you feel will just come intuitively often don't. and that's okay! nobody is born knowing how to leave space for speech bubbles or shape their panels in a way that imitates stretches of time. The best way to figure out stuff like this, in my experience, is to study the "masters", and then after becoming well accustomed to the basics, figure out what rules you want to bend or break to create your own style.

I consider myself to be in equal parts a writer and an artist, which lends itself well to making narrative comics, but maybe you're a bit more of an artist and want to focus on panel-by-panel visual storytelling. Or, conversely, maybe your talents lean closer towards writing, and the art itself is more of a secondary skill. Regardless of your unique blend of talents you can and should make a comic, you should just also be aware of your strengths and try to hone in on those- there will always be opportunities to build up skills you lack, but focusing on what you do best will always lead you in the right direction.

Anyway, that being said, here are some recommendations in no particular order:

Monster, Naoki Urasawa (!!)

Bone, Jeff Smith

Witch Hat Atelier, Kamome Shirahama

The first IDW run of Transformers comics (namely More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light)

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (!!)

Through the Woods, Emily Carroll (really any Emily Carroll comics)

Kill Six Billion Demons (webcomic) (!!)

Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo

The Third Person, Emma Grove

Tintin, Hergé (can be super racist please be wary)

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson

Maus, Art Spiegelman

Cucumber Quest (webcomic)

Jellyfish Princess, Akiko Higashimura

Golden Kamuy, Satoru Noda (!!)

Note that I did not grow up with manga so I am seriously behind on a lot of extremely influential japanese comics such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, basically any of the original Shonen Jump comics, but they're widely considered building blocks of the genre so if you love the artform I think you should give them a try! Same goes for classic non-shonen manga genres like various Shoujo, Josei, Yuri, Gekiga, ETC.

same as above applies to a lot of classic DC and Marvel works, I unfortunately am just not a big fan of superhero comics... but I'm sure there's good stuff in there. a couple of my mutuals talk about booster gold and the blue beetle all the time so I'm assuming there has to be something worthwhile.

...and many, many, many more that I'm forgetting! I noticed as I made this list that, to my knowledge, hardly any of these are made by black or just non-japanese-mangaka BIPOC artists, which makes me sad about the gaps in my own comic collection. Therefore, anyone is welcome to add their own recommendations in the replies!

now go forth, and combine images with text!!!!!!!!!!!

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

OK, people were very nice to me yesterday about my latest absurdly niche blorbo: Guthláf of Rohan. I wrote a little story about him (it's below and it's only 500ish words). But I feel like I can't post it in isolation without explaining myself a little better first.

The fact that he's Théoden’s banner bearer is the only detail about Guthláf’s life in the canon. But just that by itself was enough to grab my interest because I took a class on ancient warfare in college, and one of my major takeaways was that the flag bearers were often the bravest and most selfless guys in a battle. They were highly visible, highly vulnerable, and highly prized as a target for the enemy. That's not an encouraging combo, and they had an appallingly high casualty rate. And yet, the ones who pursued it did so willingly and considered it an honor!

Although Guthláf's name literally means "battle survivor", he did not avoid the flag bearer’s usual fate. He’s listed among the fatalities at the Pelennor Fields (along with Halbarad, the only (?) other named flag bearer in the books). So I wrote the drabble-ish story below about Guthláf’s experience of his own terrifying job. (I also, of course, have a full head canon about his personal life—how he spoke Rohirric with a rural accent that stood out in Edoras, how the early loss of his family drove him toward recklessness, how he was maybe in love with fellow obscure blorbo Wídfara, etc.—if anyone is interested! And I decided that he's the tall, blonde drink of water on the left below, who I believe is otherwise unnamed and is too young to be Elfhelm or Erkenbrand.)

Anyway. Story (ish) here:

Alone among his éored, Guthláf carries no weapon. In his left hand, he holds his shield, his one and only means of protecting himself; in his right, he carries his banner, a charging white horse on a field of deep green that whips furiously in the cold wind above his head.

Alone among his éored, Guthláf does not strike blows. His war is fought not with strength of arms but with strength of spirit. He has only to keep himself going long enough to let his banner do its work. To signal the direction of the charge and mark the vanguard of the attack. To be the rallying point around which scattered troops coalesce. To lead the way, like a torch in the dark, so that those behind know where to follow. He has only to keep that banner flying, set high and stark against the cool blankness of the winter sky, so that every Rohirrim heart can see that they are yet unconquered, that victory still lies ahead.

Alone among his éored, Guthláf can never hide or blend in. His banner draws the eyes of foes just as easily as friends. His every move is visible. Noted. Tracked. Hunted. The hope he kindles in his fellow riders is equaled by the hatred he inspires in their enemies, and there is no greater blow such an enemy can strike than to bring him down, to achieve with the death of one man the turning of a tide that can change the fate of thousands.

Alone among his éored, Guthláf has no hope that he will survive unscathed to see old age. Banner bearers don’t last long in times of war, and Guthláf is his éored’s fourth bearer in five years. He has only to walk the streets of Edoras to be confronted with the reality of how the lucky banner bearers end their days–empty sleeves tied up where an arm used to be, angry red scars across unprotected faces and necks, canes and crutches that will never fully compensate for crushed legs, twisted spines, shattered hips. The unlucky ones end instead in hastily raised barrows, resting eternally in the sometimes distant and friendless lands where they finally slid from the saddle, bloodied and broken and desperately looking for a loyal hand into which they could pass the banner before everything went dark at last.

And yet, Guthláf wanted this job. He fought for this job. It means everything to him. Because even as he rides to his death, charging into battle on his gray warhorse with his banner streaming brilliantly in his wake, he has never felt more alive. He has never felt so much bigger than himself. When he carries his banner, he is no longer just Guthláf, son of Hulac. He is instead the spirit of Helm, and Eorl, and Frumgar and all the great warriors of old. He is the sound of thousands of hoofs thundering together across an open plain. He is the sight of the jagged white peaks towering over the lush green and gold grasses of the Mark. He is Rohan itself, not just a man but an idea. And an idea can never be slain. When he carries his banner, Guthláf becomes immortal.

[ariddletobesolved]

of preferences and headcanons.

Hi! I know I haven't posted real content in over a year, but since I've been on Tumblr the past week, I can't help but notice a discourse happening on Helsa tag.

I believe as a community, we should all respect other people's takes and opinions, especially in a fandom, where everyone may perceive things differently. Everyone has their own preferences that not everyone could get or understand, and that is okay. For example, and also to address the elephant in the room, if you prefer a ship (in this case, Helsa) to not be canon, it's totally fine. And if you would love for it to be canon, then that is fine too. It's not okay when you try to tell people how they must feel towards a certain media (in this case, Frozen) and tell fellow shippers they're not a true shipper just because they don't share the same preferences as you do. Stating an opinion of your preference is not the same as telling others to change that preference to suit the one that you like.

"I would prefer to not have them to be canon."

"If you're a true fan, you would have done THIS instead!"

See how different those two sentences are? The first one is neutral, while the other one is more demanding.

Honestly, I want to respect both, but I believe respect is earned and not given, and if the person is being disrespectful then I will return the disrespect back to their faces. Treat people the way you want be treated, remember?

I've been in between fandoms for over a decade, so I've come across discourses over headcanons and preferences plenty of time. Here's a reminder: Be respectful! It's not hard if you recognise that everyone perceive things differently and that the world doesn't revolve around you and your opinions only. You can always agree to disagree.

Being respectful also means being respectful to fanartists and fanwriters. Have some decency and refrain from using someone else's works without their permission (it's not hard to ask!). Just because you found it on Google does not mean it's public domain. As for appreciating fanwriters, you can start by reading what you want to read. You can start by filtering keywords and tropes or genres that you don't like. AO3 has a tagging system for a reason. If you don't pay attention to the tags, don't blame the writer for writing what they want to write and not how you want it. They create contents for free and you are not the boss of them. If you want something that specifically suits your taste buds, you can commission them.

Learn how to differentiate between what's canon and what's your own headcanon and interpretations, what's canon and what's a mere concept. Maybe you're reading too much into it, maybe it's in your head. Headcanons are fun, being delulu is literally my middle name, but not everything that you perceive is canon. You can disregard canon (like I do, most of the time) but you have to be clear about it, and draw a hard line to separate them, label them with 'canon divergence' or 'canon compliance' (you can look up each definition). A concept that did not make into the final product can hardly be considered canon.

This fandom community is supposed to be a safe space for everyone regardless their reason in shipping Helsa (be it because of their appealing aesthetics or others) as long as they're being respectful to each other. I didn't think I would be here writing all these to address the bad apples. Sure, the bad apples are always there in every community, but when these bad apples are the loud majority, I feel like I have to say something to clear up some misconceptions about this fandom. Helsa fandom isn't exactly popular, even back in the day, and it's mostly because shippers of other ships and fandom purists have already assumed the worst when they interacted with the ship before they did the shipper, which once again is out of the shippers' control.

From my experience, name-calling fellow shippers over these niche stuff will drive people away and discourage some creators from creating content (I already am on this stage). So, in my opinion, let's just agree to disagree. It's probably just me, but it's not like we have the power to make the writers write what we want anyway (Frozen 2 is already a proof that they would write what they want to write).

[madfantasy]

To fan art and fiction enjoyers:

Please excuse my rage slipping if it happened over having to address this literal mediocrity of a subject in comparison to endless things that actually matters in real life. Because this would be at the scrapping bottom of it, but since the occasion presented itself, here we are:

Do you know there are some, let's say, manners, being in fandoms, and/or in using social media in general? NOOO? 8U

Well, Lets start somewhere!

Like it or not, YOU NEED TO ACTUALLY READ STUFF PEOPLE WRITE. Before you follow, before you comment, before you interact, because if you come across something you don't like, or you started to assume things— that's a you problem and not the fault of the poster.

If you DO NOT enjoy a character, a pair of ship, or a certain head cannon, filter the tag it's used for, Google has free tutorials on how. Most social media have these settings and most decent posters tag their posts correctly. If you keep seeing that pair, you can block the people who create it. You are free to do so ofc but WHY WOULD U come on main and air that out? Personally I find it so bizarre and it could show the type of person you are to other people — a toxic company over fictional substance — and I'd say that is not a flex, more like showing your dirty nappy in public. Those characters you love are not real and so not effected by your high ground stance, but actual humans that share you that love notice and get that impression, and it's a weird one. You SHOULD, of course, set your boundaries, and usually where that is be in your profile, on your bio or a pinned post.

Loving bizarre, villainous, creepy concepts DOES NOT EQUAL morality, nor loving good sunshine and flowers does. It's what a person does in real life what counts, not what they consume in entertainment. In fact, it is not a sign of a good person those who be shaming humans who like different fictional concepts. Or when someone keeps using ai generators knowing full well it's based on constant data theft of all sort of human creators across generations and can not exist without the continuance of this theft. Or those supporting creators that they know did irl crimes. Or those who are Policing what's can and cannot go into fiction as if the fickleness of preference have never let alot of things survive its judgement. And I can go on with the miniature examples. You are forgiven if you did not know before, some people learn through experience, but not anymore when you continue this behaviour. And maybe if you can't differentiate between reality and fiction, and what's more important than what, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be consuming fiction.

DO NOT POST WHAT YOU DID NOT CREATE. Do you like it when people keep posting your selfies that you only ment to share for funsies and what not? Isn't worse if you did not post that selfie in the first place or never wanted it to be used like that? It's the SAME FOR ART. This is the artists work just as much as your face is yours. Social media at the baseline is about who ever the poster is, their posts are theirs. So you posting an artist's drawing, with no permission, no credit to them, no nothing, is not allowed and people can report that. Don't be an ignorant thick fig and play the victim when schooled like this precious dear\s .Reposters disconnect so many content from their creators and this is how alot of beautiful things in life die, by simply not knowing they are loved, shoved into the over consumption machine..

And lastly, You don't have anything nice to say to OP? Don't say anything! It's not your misguided duty to educate people on how embarrassingly self centered you are, it's okay to be a basic #&★— I promise. It okay to feel out of place in a niche that doesn't concern you. It's okay to realise other people have different perspectives of the fiction work you enjoy. You can sit down.

And I'd like to add, Mani is a safe space for au and ships even if I don't like em, cuz they are only FICTION and will remain FICTION no matter how much I loved them or hated them.

Good day, dears🍀

[annaki-octo]

Autism ramble incoming lmfao

Something I want to see more of is art projects related to DID.

I want to see more short films, more artwork shared online, more video projects, unfiction series, etc. I've always thought the idea of an unfction/ARG/analog horror type project with DID themes would be amazing.

Like, there are many unfiction series and ARGs and short films and more about depression, struggling with suicidal thoughts, self-harm, anxiety, trauma, and I want there to be more stuff like that about DID.

There are a few short films I've seen, but they're not for me, and often are really only about systems who distinctly know their alters and are usually smaller systems with distinctly different personalities between them, so they aren't for me, though some of them are still accurate ofc. They also tend to be more like "documentaries" in that they talk about DID in a scientific, direct way, usually about a specific person's experiences, which is perfectly fine, but I want more things like someone writing a comic series where a character has DID, or some kind of representation of DID - in a genuine/accurate way, of course.

I LOVE looking for niche, hidden little art projects, like vent art animations with like 10 views on YouTube or random Neocities websites, stuff like that. And individual peoples' short films with themes about trauma and so on. And I wish more stuff like that existed for DID. I'm not sure if other people also feel the same, or similar?

I love being able to take things in media and make them about DID, or some kind of experience of 'plurality', when they aren't meant to be.

For an example, I love Frankie Stein from generation 3 of Monster High so much, we have an introject of them lmfao

Their entire Thing is that they are LITERALLY made up of different body parts. Their brain is multiple different brain bits from different monsters attached together to make Frankie as "one", Frankie refers to their brain as "brain bits" and I propose we all throw out terms like headmates, alters, parts, and replace them with brain bits lmfao

There's an entire episode dedicated to Frankie struggling with their identity, struggling with having to present themself as "one person."

For picture day, the camera captures the "real you" or something like that (it's been a while NFKJDNSAK) and Frankie doesn't know which side of themself to "show" for the picture because they are not just One of their parts, but ALL of their parts. And that episode made me cry probably lmfao. That episode means a lot to me.

Also Frankie Stein canonically has the Monster High equivalent of Sigmund Freud as one of their brain bits, so take with that what you will lmfao

Frankie struggles to figure out what outfit they would want to wear, what "side" of themself that they would want to show, because they want to be able to show All of what makes up 'Frankie', which is extremely relatable.

At the end of the episode, when Frankie finally sees the final result of their yearbook (FearBook photo as it's called in the show lol) photo, it shows a photo of Frankie, but like a fragmented photo with lightening bolt cracks separating different Versions of Frankie.

"It's me! All of me!"

Frankie's friends are all supportive and affirmative of Frankie being "Multiple" and it brings me joy.

This mostly happens in the movies, but there will be times where Frankie will say that they don't know something, but then immediately change and suddenly know. For example, Clawdeen asking Frankie if they knew anything about something (I can't remember what it was) and Frankie said they didn't and then suddenly straightened up their back and turned to face Clawdeen and said "Actually, I do know!" and explained it.

Frankie will sometimes have "flashbacks" to a memory that belonged to whichever specific monster in their brain lol

Anyways. That's all lol

[ace-exploring]

Do I have any grayace book recs?

Short answer: no.

Here's why: I primarily read either YA or very adult smut. In YA, the characters are usually experiencing their 'firsts' and very few of them have the self-awareness or maturity to know that they are any kind of ace. YA is still under-represented in gay and sapphic lit, and 'ace' feels even more niche than that. A lack of attraction doesn't really mean anything as a teen, because a) everyone develops differently and b) it's so much more romantic if the love interest is your first love ever (barring unrequited crushes). If you're sixteen and experiencing sexual attraction for the first time, is it because that's completely normal or is it because you've met the exact person that you're sexually attracted to? (please read the rest of this post before you jump on me, I promise I go into this more and I am not erasing teen aces! I am only speaking from MY experience as an adult reader of teen books.)

Teen books with asexual but not aromantic main characters that I have read and can recommend:

What We Devour by Linsey Miller, however this also goes heavy into self-harm as a form of magic so maybe tread lightly if you're a teen, speak to an adult about it. Incidentally, THIS was the book that first triggered the idea that maybe my experience wasn't mainstream. I'm not sure if the main character is graysexual: I need to read it again.

Deathless Divide (Dread Nation #2) by Justina Ireland, but read the first one, too, because it's awesome. Also, I can't specifically remember if the character (Katherine) is aromantic as well, it's been a few years since I read it, and I read it before I realised I was ace, so I didn't actually pick up on Katherine's asexuality until much later.

I'm grayace and I didn't figure it out until I was 35, so I don't really expect teens to know and understand asexuality. I am still amazed that people younger than 18 identify as asexual, and that's purely because they're still in school and likely haven't travelled widely or met a whole bunch of people, so how do they even know who they're attracted to? Also, I'm asexual, so I never experienced sexual attraction as a teen and part of me still thinks it's all just an elaborate hoax. When I was 18 I had no idea I was asexual. I just thought everyone else were complete horndogs and I was the only normal person around.

That leads me to the very adult smut I read. I also don't expect to find a bunch of asexual people in adult smut. This is because, well, they're horny motherf*ckers. I'm still waiting (wading) to find characters who have an aesthetic but not sexual attraction. Unfortunately, most of the adult smut I read are very heavy on the sexual attraction and not so much into romantic attraction or development, let alone emotional or aesthetic attraction.

And part of the reason for this is because if you want to write a romance book, especially a smut book, with an asexual character, that WILL turn a LOT of mainstream romance readers off, because they do not understand what asexuality is. They think it means sex-repulsed.

Adult books with an asexual but not aromantic main character that I have read and can recommend:

Role Playing by Cathie Yardley - demisexual biromantic male lead.

More Than I Can Bear (Ursa Shifters #4) by Sam Hall - demisexual female lead, but she has multiple love interests so this is NOT a mainstream romance.

I also want to mention BUT DO NOT RECOMMEND AT ALL the Fifty Shades of Grey books, because I believe Anna actually is graysexual. Until she met Christian at age 21, she had literally never been attracted to anyone else before, nor experienced any kind of sexual feelings. I identify with that HARD, having had sex for the first time when I was 22. I have not read, nor will I ever read these books, and I do not recommend them to anyone, but I do think this could have been an amazing opportunity for an actually asexual character to be thrust into the mainstream. Now, this book is actually about an abuse victim and her rich and handsome abuser, so please do not read it expecting to find ace rep. This is my headcanon and the author does not have the skill to present her as asexual, relying instead on her naivety and inexperience as part of the titillation and submissive angle.

On a side note, I am a writer, and I am currently trying to figure out how to sell an asexual/graysexual main female character in an adult smut book while appealing to the masses. It's not the writing part that I'm struggling with (see this whole-assed post I just wrote). It's the marketing.

[canpandaspvp]

KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE SBI FIC THING IM REALLY INTERESTED!! I've always wanted to study that side of the fandom under a microscope but it's scary.

buddy that place is WILDDDD. ok so things you need to know abt sbi side

1. they're damn good writers

2. i don't think they know how to write fanfiction

3. in another universe they create some very well known, published authors

because essentially everything they write is so fucking detached the second it enters an au. with dnf and the general dt side of things, there are differences. sure often times it's a bit more identifiable as fanfiction but that's not a BAD thing. it literally just means people know how to write fanfiction which is what they were intending to do anyways so like hooray

with sbi, i've read SEVERAL (as in i can go into my bookmarks right now and count out at least 10) fics that have just changed and deviated so far from the original source material that it's hard to even understand what they're talking about. in that regard, 100% dnfers get caught out before sbiers, but that's only in the circumstance that they get published at all. sbiers are really creative -- TOO creative, obviously to the point of creation ocs with names and descriptions that often times only vaguely resemble phil, tommy, wilbur, and techno -- which gives them the upper hand publication wise.

that leads into dark sbi which, let it be known, i have NEVER EVER liked. i personally thought it was harsh and unenjoyable but also goddamn did they make some good stories. obviously i read them bc even though i hated the vampires and the kidnapping and shit, it was good. the upper hand of writing fanfiction is that shit is more fast paced and attention grabbing, due to the lack of exposition and shit. so sbiers likely get published first, get discovered on booktube (not booktok cause they only read romance that's packed with tropes to the point of dysfunction), and they at least semi-spread from there until someone is who can't handle any difficult topics in fiction gets upset. but that's a different kind of controversy entirely

sbiers are good authors but they're stuck in this weird limbo of "it's not fanfiction it's just inspired original content" which sort of creates a new genre entirely. they pull some good fanfiction elements into its own realm entirely and it's really frustrating when you want to read fanfiction of something but if you're looking for something fast paced and good to read that aligns with the weird fanon universe they've created, they're your subfandom.

a lot of fics also appeal to personal issues that people are able to project onto easily (i speak from experience) so, while dnf is typically shorter, more accurate, and lighthearted, sbi has dynamics that people often crave in their real life and more people that they can insert themselves into. um that sounds weird but ykwim

they also have The AU's which dnf has but it's just not to the extent that sbi has it. the trifecta:

1. superhero aus

2. royalty aus

3. foster care aus

ran that tag for a good 2 years minimum. those are the sort of Peter Parker Goes On A Field Trip To Stark Industries type of aus where you have a good baseline that people get attached to, so you can sort of rewrite the same story different enough that people feel like they're reading smth new each time. and it works!! if people were to publish an sbi fic (which would likely fall into one of those 3 categories), it'd be realllyyyyyy recognizable just bc it was such a staple in the community. ifl im missing some other big categories but those are just the aus that i remembered off the top of my head that showed up a fuckton

don't get me wrong, i ❤️ dnf fanfiction and you def could publish it if you tried hard enough, but those authors do shit right. the characterization is so niche and specific, the dynamics are so unique, and often times, there just isn't enough in one fic to build and create a story. so much of dnf fanfiction relies on the fact that you already know those two, you know who they are, how they behave, their stakes regarding each other, etc etc. with sbi, the authors end up essentially writing their own stories so much so that they have to tell the story like it's a novel rather than fanfiction. it's very interesting imo esp bc fanon tommy for example is so extremely, incomprehensibly different from c!tommy or cc!tommy, with only enough hits of similarity to keep you hooked into the story with the illusion that you're actually reading the same character, when more often then not, it's like 1/4 tommy, 1/4 fandom misinterpretation interpretation, 1/4 author projection, and 1/4 recycled oc. again, speaking from experience.

also, sbi authors are pretty cocky about their writing, and it's really noticeable when they write a fic with the intention of changing the names and couple minor details to submit to an editing company for a few rounds of revision before they publish their nyt bestseller a few years down the line. they didn't need to leave the fandom to abandon their shit. lorehead analysts have a decent grasp of their content (but i'm biased), but lorehead writers?? different monster entirely. the second dsmp stands for something like "delicious small mtown pforsuperherovillanvigilanteshenanigans" then you know they're too far gone. they're attached to THEIR characters, not the dsmp's; if it means sacrificing the original source material for real life recognition, they'd do it in a heartbeat. i don't blame them but the point still stands.

this is all over the place i'm so sorry idek if i said anything you wanted to know but

tl;dr sbi fanfiction sort of became its own medium between fanfiction and original work so they're more likely to get published, but they fall into the same dynamics in the same type of universes that would easily get them figured out. dnf writers just seem to mind their damn business more. anyway, most dnf writers that left the fandom seem to want to completely forget that they ever did That. usually they just orphan/delete and move on cause they're embarrassed.

sorry again i'm so not good at explaining my thoughts but i did NOT spend 2 1/2 years reading sbi fanfiction 24/7 for nothing. i need to put my experience to use somehow so thanks for letting me do that 😭😭😭

[not-poignant]

hey pia! i love your work, hi!!! im a young writer interested in posting some of my big projects online (not that i really expect them to get any traction lol). i was wondering how you protect your work from plagiarism, or how you deal with people plagiarizing your work. it seems like the internet is kind of the wild west, and that’s only sometimes a good thing :/ im probably a bit too poor to afford any sort of copyright or whatever online authors do, but maybe i can save up? 🙏🙏

PS - i didn’t actually care whether or not this ask was anonymous, but from my experience on tumblr it seems like an unspoken rule🤨 so i guess i’ll turn it on🫡

Hi anon!

Tbh the only real difference between anon and attaching your name is that I have the choice to reply to you privately if you send an ask under your name (which is sometimes preferrable if the question is personal or really niche!) and that gives me more options. Anon forces me to only answer publicly (which is probably why you're seeing that so much!!), but the downside is that sometimes I have to delete anon messages when I don't want the responses or even the ask/s on my public blog.

Anyway! This is something I'd respond to publicly anyway, because I think this is a fear a lot of new and young writers have. The tl;dr is that copyright is often assumed on the internet, provenance makes it easy to send DMCA takedowns, and letting a fear of piracy stop you from putting your work up is one of the biggest ways I see new authors handicap themselves on the web currently (idk if it's confirmation bias or what but it seems like I see this several times each month atm from specifically new authors), and it's like...not a thing...to be hampering yourself with.

Okay, now for the longer explanation:

The first thing with copyright is that it by and large depends on your country and what you want to do with the story. In Australia, every created work by default has legal copyright protection simply by being created by someone. We don't need to pay to apply for copyright on creative works, we automatically have it and if we can prove provenance (i.e. if we can demonstrate we created it first, with like a document date etc.) we are legally protected.

So I can't answer for the country you're in, anon, but honestly, this is how it works on most of the internet where you're likely to put a project online. AO3 will respect that a work is yours if it gets stolen, if you can prove you came up with it or published it before another person did (literally all you need is a screenshot or a link). In the Properties or Details of most of your documents, the 'date created' is your best friend.

I've had my work stolen quite a few times over the years. It's been stolen the most from AO3 over to Wattpad (it's almost like Wattpad authors don't realise that sometimes we look lol).

In one case, blanket commenting on one of the fics that the original fic was on AO3 *and complete and not stolen* was enough for the author themselves to take it down. x.x Otherwise what you generally do is send a DMCA takedown notice, which almost all creative sites give you access to when reporting theft (your readers cannot do this for you, you must do it.)

Similarly, on AO3, if this happens, you can just report it. The big downside here is that it can take the volunteers there some time - sometimes up to two weeks or more - to get on top of that, so it might feel like nothing at all is happening. Patience is recommended.

Look, theft happens, you can't avoid it. It is a normal part of putting your work out there in the world. And I can't tell you how many new authors I know who kind of shoot themselves in the foot trying to prevent the acts of thieves, while not realising they're hampering themselves in the process.

Pirating is the worst, but so is never putting your work out there, or waiting for a magical protection from piracy. It doesn't exist - and there's a general rule where the more steps you introduce to stop or reduce piracy, the more you actually alienate your general readers - think about how having right-click disabled on a website can feel, for example. It's considered hostile internet architecture that is often very inaccessible.

(There's also a phenomenon where the authors most scared of theft are the ones least likely to encounter it, because their works are new, and they'll need a lot of time to build up readers and engagement in the first place. Most of the time, those who plagiarise don't want to take the works of new/young authors over the works of experienced authors who just won't think to check the sites they're using. By the time you're popular enough for that to be an issue, you'll probably have more confidence in yourself and your ability to handle this. I will say theft of ebooks on sites like Amazon etc. is way more common than theft of original stories and fanfics on AO3, but both happen more often than they used to, that's just...sadly a part of life.)

Also, applying for copyright doesn't mean your work won't get stolen. You'll still have to send DMCA takedowns, and you'll still have to get in contact with websites. A lot of the time websites have a form you can fill out. You still have to do all that labour and pay to register copyright. The filing of copyright is sadly not a magical shield against theft of a creative work. It does make it easier to take someone to court, but that's expensive, often not worth it, and the labour someone can spend chasing down thieves is often better spent amongst the readers who actually give a shit (they're the ones who often notice the theft in the first place when it comes to serials).

If you plan on publishing ebooks, there's software and organisations you can pay a monthly fee to, who just exist to issue takedown notices to piracy sites so you don't have to. I've never used these personally, but from what I've read on Facebook writing groups, they're often not worth it compared to the past, because new sites spring up all the time. But different authors have different experiences with online theft (and different levels of income to combat it) so you'll hear different things on that front.

I'm...pretty zen about it. To me, it's only a worry when I have to send someone a notice about it, which I don't actually have to do all that often. Like, it sucks, but almost always it never happens as much as a new author like yourself fears it will. That doesn't mean you won't hate it when it happens, but you'll live, and your works will keep finding readers, and it won't be what you're likely imagining it will be. It's for most authors, just an occasional giant pain in the ass that we forget about a day or two later sdakfjdsa

[olderthannetfic]

To the anon who responded to my speedrunning friends story:

"The fact that those very normal milestones made you uncomfortable sounds like a red flag about the other person and the dynamic of the friendship, not about the speed at which the friendship was progressing."

Oh I agree. My point was less that a friendship progressing fast is inherently worrisome, and more that if it's progressing fast, you should evaluate whether you're actually okay with the speed and this person and this case. It's easy to get caught up in the giddy feeling of really clicking with someone and ignore the ways you're letting them get overly familiar because you don't want to hurt their feelings by challenging them. (In this case, the discomfort was less over them wanting to send me something, and more on the sheer capslocked excitement that made it hard to say no, the fact that they asked me twice but didn't pick up on my reluctance the first time I failed to answer and only got MORE excited and capslocky the second time, and the fact that the "postcard" was actually a big envelope containing a postcard, a letter and a keychain, which they ended up paying over THIRTY BUCKS to send, and it all felt a bit lovebomby. But once again, I'm not blaming them for my bad communication. As I said in my original anon, this was a clear fuck-up on my end. I should have just said "No thanks, I'm good". The problem was that it literally felt like kicking a puppy at the time.)

Nor do I think age gap friendships inherently lend themselves to being overly parental, though with this person it absolutely felt like they were expecting me to be their parent or therapist or both. They hadn't moved out of home yet, had a strained relationship with their own parents, and it absolutely felt like they were pushing me to fulfill that need for them.

Also, I had to double-check, but the age difference was actually over 10 years - when we stopped talking, they'd just turned 17, and I would soon turn 29, and at that point we'd been friends about a year and a half. I was a bit taken aback when I found out how young they were (a couple of months into talking) because of how knowledgeable and skilled they were at so many things from art skills to political theory to various random niche things they've picked up like cryptography and lockpicking. So I mentally adjusted my attitude from "this is a peer" to "this is literally a fifteen-year-old, bear in mind what you say to them and how you say it" but I feel like I pivoted too hard into... what, babying them? Spoiling them? Overcompensating for our gap in age and life experience by feeling like it was primarily on me to manage disagreements or relationship dysfunction? I don't even know, but I still wonder how I could have resolved that better short of just not getting "talk every day"-levels of close to them to begin with. Which might have been better. Certainly for my mental health - their ever-increasing, insatiable demands on my time and attention came at a time when I was already struggling with heavy IRL demands and barely holding on as it was.

Oh, also. I had a barely-active RP blog of a character from our fandom. They made several RP blogs for the fandom, including one for that character's canonical love interest, and kept replying to my RP posts in shippy ways. On the one hand, I'm extremely glad I had the sense to not engage with that. (I'd only briefly resurrected that RP blog to begin with and dealing with this made me abandon that RP blog for good.) On the other hand, I'm once again kicking myself for not having a clear and solid "Hey, so you know we can't do a shippy RP, right?" conversation with them. Especially since months later they were guilt-tripping me with "I'm sad that you don't RP anymore :( " shit as part of their "venting".

Just, argh. I really didn't want to say anything to them that would assert my boundaries or challenge them until things boiled to a point where they couldn't continue, huh? It's so surreal to have been manipulated like that by someone TWELVE YEARS younger than me, and even now it feels vaguely scummy for me to accuse them of manipulation or hold them accountable, but this attitude is also exactly how I let things get so bad in the first place. The mentality of "I'm the adult (by quite a wide margin) so anything that goes wrong is on me" is extremely hard to shake, and I let it lead me into "they're a child so they can do no wrong"-style infantilizing. At the same time, I unquestionably helped this along by failing to say no clearly when I needed to. What's weird about it to me is that this has never happened to me before. If anything, I'm a pretty blunt person who prefers giving and receiving direct communication. I already had a very good idea of what different kinds of manipulation look like, from bitter experience. And later in the friendship, after things started spiraling into dysfunction and while trying to salvage it, I started being a lot more clear about things they said or did that I wasn't okay with. But by that point it was too late to put things back on track.

Sorry for the wall of text, this got longer than I meant it to and I'm sure the peanut gallery will have a field day with this pathetic attempt to summarize a year and a half's worth of dysfunctional friendship into a few salient paragraphs. I don't think I'll even dare looking at the notes on this one, because I feel like people will just tell me it's my fault and it's scummy of me to accuse a teenager of being manipulative when I was the one failing to set clear boundaries until it was too late. It took me two years to get over the sheer repressed and belated RAGE from the emotional abuse and how long I let it go on insufficiently challenged, I already spent too long feeling like this was all my fault. But maybe someone else will find this insightful or helpful.

And it was, 100%, emotional abuse by the end. I haven't gone much into it much because frankly even typing it up brings out that rage in me again, but picture your typical clingy-insecure abuser who accuses you of not caring about them because you were DMing in parallel with them and with someone else. Picture someone so afraid of change, and so entitled to a certain static version of you that lives in their head, that they will use words like "mourn" to describe their reaction to you making slightly less fanart for your shared interest than usual, or when you start engaging with your fandom more through streaming than through fanart. Picture someone who, when you ask them how their day went, responds with "Are you pretending to care?" Picture someone who, when told "You can't control your emotions but you can control how you act on them", responds with "I LITERALLY CAN'T", and fill in the blanks. And some hard-won advice: If someone responds to you that way, don't try to parent them, don't reassure them that you don't hate them, don't send them helpful links. Set. A goddamn. Boundary. And make it clear that you cannot and will not be friends with someone who claims not to be able to manage how they act on their emotions.

--

[genderqueerdykes]

Genuine question, I saw a screenshot of one of your posts, and how can some trans people get euphoria from not passing? I thought to be trans you had to have some form of gender dysphoria, gender euphoria, or both. I don't mean any malice with this question, I'm just trying to understand perspectives outside my own. I've never heard of trans people getting euphoria from not passing and I would like to learn more!

i appreciate you taking the time to ask!

dysphoria is not required to be trans! i that doesn't really make much sense. i don't know where people have gotten that from over time. i think people might be getting confused with the diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder, which is not required to be trans and is pretty outdated, if you ask me. we don't have to pathologize transness to accept the validity of the experience. being trans just means identifying as a gender that differs from your assigned gender at birth, dysphoria is not a required part of the experience.

misery is not inherent to the experience for every trans person. the discomfort that comes from being misgendered is crushing and evading it is very important to some of us- but some of us simply do not care what others think about us or how they address us, and for some of us, being addressed incorrectly gives us power. some trans people just literally don't care about being misgendered, or don't view it as entirely inaccurate.

for me, confusing people is part of the experience. as someone who doesn't have a sex or gender to "pass" as, i enjoy my niche of being a funky little gender shapeshifter who nobody can seem to figure out what they are. = ) it's fun! try it some time. i literally got the most gender euphoria i've ever received in my life when someone came up to me and addressed me by "Sir? ....... Ma'am?? .... Look, I'm sorry, I can't tell."

the only "criteria" for being trans is identifying as a gender that differs from your AGAB. the rest of the experience is up to the individual trans person. some trans people may never ever get gender euphoria- many people don't! many trans people don't experience dysphoria OR euphoria and simply just have moments of gentle realization. it's not always a life-consuming experience- some trans people don't even transition! some of us do. it really just depends on the individual

some people don't have a gender to pass as- some people are nonbinary, genderqueer, crossdressers, drag performers, genderfuckers, genderfluid and gender non conforming people or have "other" genders that you can't "pass" as. hell, most of the point of genderqueer and gender non conforming identities IS to "look trans" and not pass. some people just don't care if they pass at all. i don't care if i pass, because i never will due to being intersex. there's nothing to pass as, no matter how i've tried to gender myself, it's always "wrong" in the eyes of greater society because i'm "too manly" to be a girl but "can't be a guy".

genderfuckers, nonbinary people, neutrois people, genderqueer people, gender non conforming people, and any binary trans man or woman who don't pass and don't care about passing are just as trans as anyone else. every trans person who "doesn't pass" doesn't take away from those who have to for their own safety and survival- there's as many ways to be trans as there are people on this planet! it doesn't help to force every single trans person into a box of "you have to meet all of these check boxes Or Else" and it really doesn't help to enforce the idea that trans people Have to be miserable in order to Earn their transness.

hope that helps! take care, and have a great day =)

[velvetineblue]

What do you think the fandom for your character would be like? Are they a fan favorite, a love to hate villain, derided for whatever reason, or something else?

By contrast, what would their haters dislike about your character? Is it a petty complaint? A mischaracterization of the character or their intentions? Are they just a woman in a largely male-centric series?

What is the quote between your character and their love interest/whoever they might be shipped with that their fans would latch onto? ( i am here...for taiquinn content any day :DDD )

What do you think the fandom for your character would be like? Are they a fan favorite, a love to hate villain, derided for whatever reason, or something else? This is tough; I don't really know how other people see him ! But to me . . . I know that I do not see Tai as being the 'main character' or fan fave in a potential narrative. I know if I were ever going to pitch a show using my OC's, he wouldn't be the main character: not in a bad way, like it's not that I don't think he can carry that role!! It's just that I think his best and most natural position is ... as part of a duo. Or part of a group. I think he's the type of character who may not nessecarily be the fan favorite, but if you took him out of the cast . . . the group would suddenly feel very off. The chemistry would be off, and it feels a lot emptier without him. He contributes a lot to the 'heart' of the group -- perhaps more than anyone realizes, until he's not there, and his absense is suddenly felt very strongly. I think he is a glue or essential member that most people like, but only a rare niche part of the fandom LOVES to the point of like, caring enough to write fic about or make fanworks that focus on him, heh. but those niche people who do obsess over him individually are super cool ; ) bahahah By contrast, what would their haters dislike about your character? Is it a petty complaint? A mischaracterization of the character or their intentions? Hmm... well, the way he experiences love can be very intense. Obsessive. All-consuming. Unhealthy; problematic, sometimes. I know from feedback I've seen & gotten before that some people understandably don't like that... and that's fine ! His personality is the result of trauma that manifested in a variety of ways: some of it unfolded in a positive way, into healthy coping mechanisms, but a lot of it . . . very much did not. But ... I'm not the kind of writer who cares about giving all my characters positive character devolpment that makes them their 'best', healthiest self. Some people say that's romantasizing or 'normalizing' unhealthy attachments, but, idk ... I think it's a 'to each their own' thing. Because for myself, I prefer seeing characters/relationships I can relate to in media, rather than characters/relationships I aspire to be/have? I hope that makes some sense... But tbh, I really wouldn't care if anyone dislikes him, for any reason— whether it's a valid reason or not. ( Excluding racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Then ur a lil bitch baby. ) But other than that... not every character is for everyone ???? And I mean that both in the sense that you can't possibly expect everyone to like your characters, but also literally: not every character is written for ME to like. There are characters out there that I LOATHE or feel absolutely nothing for: but they reach their intended audiennce: other people in the fandom will feel represented by that same character, and/or that character brings them great comfort/entertainment... so yeah. I truly do not care when someone hates my characters JASJAJ. It doesn't offend or bother me at all; I will simply tip my hat to them and suggest they seek out other characters who do speak to them!! : D

What is the quote between your character and their love interest/whoever they might be shipped with that their fans would latch onto? ( i am here…for taiquinn content any day :DDD ) BLESS U, FERRE, for I too am here for Taiquinn content any day !! I have no idea what quotes potential shippers would latch onto ( if there's one thing I learned from answering these asks, it's that I actually have no idea what fandoms like & how they perceive things??? ksksksk WHY DID I EVEN REBLOG THIS MEME???????? ) , but to give this an answer, I went through their threads and found many quotes from Lynnie's replies that I love, hehe. THERE'S MANY I COULD PICK, but I think I'll say this one 'cause it summarizes/depicts many things about them that I love &lt;3 “I missed that. This. Us, doing what we do best.” Trouble? Violence? She means being side by side, connected, looking after each other - what was taken away from them when they were apart. “I said something earlier. Something that I know hurt you. I keep on thinking and… I don’t know if it’s you I’m truly mad at. I believe I’m mad at.. This world. This world that rejects us, that rejects the life we’re living in a way we’re never safe to exist together. A life that’s made of This. Of having to run away.” She pauses. Each one of her pause leaves her voice suspended in the atmosphere, with a thought, a look, a caress on his hand. “But… I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.” I think this shows the duality of why they are so good together. Taiquinn work so well together because they have shared ideals, a shared goal, and shared interests. They both want to fix the world, because they consider it broken and unjust. They both enjoy thrills, action; they like playing games and challenging others. It's easy to see how they were drawn to each other and why they make a good team: they have very obvious compatibilities right there on the surface, which anyone with eyes can see asjajj But Quinn also mentions their more private inner world together, which is not necessarily apparent to others: their relationship is not all about how fun it is being rebellious and revolutionary and beating people up together; it's also about them looking after each other. (The 'something' that hurt Tai was her saying he had 'abandoned' her. And that hurt him deeply because... ) Another thing that bonds and glues Taiquinn to each other on a more intimate level is that they became each other's safe place. The safe, warm, loving home that neither of them experienced before they found each other. Both of them grew up in unstable homes without ever feeling safe, without ever feeling truly seen or heard, and without a family they could rely on... and so they did for each other what nobody else did for them. They protect each other. They can trust each other completely. They understand each other. They built the home and family that never had, with each other. So they have these two very strong reasons they are bonded together, and sometimes those two things are even at odds !! For example, they both want to change the world for the better: but it's hard to 'look after each other' when you're always making yourselves targets... 🤔 But despite how complicated that dilemma is, they make it work, because yes their lives are constantly full of chaos and things blowing up and unpredictability... but THEY remain always there for each other: the one stable, reliable, trustworthy, dependable thing you can always count on is that Tai will be there for Quinn and vice versa. IS WHAT I'M SAYING MAKING ANY SENSE IDK I feel like I just rambled a lot, but basically. tl;dr: they are chaos gremlins with a cause, and they love it, and wouldn't have it any other way............ but the one constant, reliable, faithful thing in each others live is their love and trust in one another. and they also wouldn't have that any other way, either. so it's like they get the best of both worlds: the revolution, AND the comfort of each other < 3

[ace-sher-bi-john]

Me, feeling lonely: I should try to make more friends

My brain: Here's a list of all the reasons why we don't do that,

I experience hyperfixations which take up all of my mental energy to the point where I barely have enough energy to take care of myself. I can't handle having more than two obsessions at a time, and even that is draining. When my friends talk about their obsessions, I try really hard to listen, but lose interest quickly if it's not my current hyperfixation. In turn, I love to infodump and obsess over small details in my hyperfixations. I try really hard not to do this when talking to people because it feels very self-centered. Like they would care about hearing every single detail about my obsession, with no room for them to talk about their interests...

I'm an introvert and find human interaction exhausting unless that person is my mom (who I could literally talk to all day and never be tired, and she in turn would never tire of talking to me). Even talking to friends online is super exhausting and I overthink everything I say, which is even more exhausting

I have zero ability to gage how close I am to someone. I don't want to make things awkward by being super clingy, because several friendships failed throughout my life due to me being clingy and only wanting to play with one specific person even if they didn't feel like playing with me. So I've overcorrected and now I don't make any attempts to progress in our friendship out of fear of appearing clingy. I'm either the most clingy friend or the most distant friend. Friendships require a healthy balance of both and I am incapable of that, so I go for the option that will be seen as the least annoying/selfish and we remain at best really good acquaintances

My interests are very specific and change every couple of months. Even if I found someone who was obsessed with the same thing at the same time, as well as my more niche hobbies, the friendship would last as long as my hyperfixation. Once we no longer share common interests, I would inevitably talk to them less and less until one day, we're no longer friends. My brain would no longer find that person interesting and I would forget about them

I believe that I have it in me to be a really good friend. To get it right. But it would be at the cost of myself. I would try to make enough room in my brain for everyone else's lives and I wouldn't have any interests of my own. I would constantly be exhausted.

So instead I choose the option that sometimes makes me happiest, but other times leaves me sad and lonely wondering why I can't just be better at being a good friend?

I do have friends IRL. I have four people who I would consider to be close friends, possibly even best friends? Two of them have given me the label of being their best friend. But I don't talk to them as often as I probably should. I talk to one of them almost daily for hours at a time, because they just so happen to be obsessed with BBC Sherlock, the MCU and cosplay. But I fear that the second my BBC Sherlock obsession ends, I will stop talking to them.

Outside of those people, I don't know where I stand with anyone who's not family. I have my old classmates from high school. Some of them I talked to every day and had friendly interactions with, but I don't make any effort to stay in contact with them now and didn't feel much of a connection with when we were in school. I have my co-workers who I don't feel much of a connection to, but they're always happy to see me and sometimes interact with me in a way that makes me feel like we're friends. One of my co-workers hugged me before she went home on the day before she started her holiday break because she was going to miss seeing me everyday while she was off. That caught me off guard. I guess we're friends if she felt close enough to me to hug me?

Apologies for the rant. I just really needed to put that somewhere. I won't make a habit of this.

[laura-de-milf]

Doom Patrol. A Eulogy

*inhales deeply*

This. show.

It isn't really a show about superpowered people. I think it's actually a show about underpowered people who, sure, can occasionally pull off a cool stunt, but for the most part are so broken that they can barely function. With such a strong focus on character, personal growth and The Human Condition- this isn't just something I haven't seen in superhero media; it's something I haven't really seen in all of television.

Shall I list all the ways that this show has improved my outlook on life? (ok, not all-)

The queer rep. Need I say more? Genuinely though--I can't recall ever watching a show where I trusted so implicitly that the queer relationships would be a) intentional, b) integrated into the plot naturally, and c) handled well throughout the show. Looking back on my Doom Patrol experience- not once did I worry about queerbaiting or the queer rep feeling tokenistic. I never worried that the queer storylines would be unceremoniously written out to "improve mass appeal". The queer themes were there, intentional, and unique. We have the classic repression/acceptance arc with Larry, but we also have the slow-burn courtship arc with Jane and Shelley (Jane's block being her personal trauma rather than shame for being queer). Characters like Cliff openly accepting the queer relationships to the point where Jane feels completely comfortable opening up to him--and only him--about her and Shelley. Rita and Laura might not be a canon romantic couple, but those two forged a deeply loving bond faster than you can utter the phrase "uhaul lesbians" and have had a tumultuous relationship that is entirely different from Jane x Shelley. Absolutely magical. There's nothing formulaic about The Gay Plot here: the queer relationships (plural!!!) are unique and explored, given just as much importance and screen time as any of the heterosexual relationships. (I know there is still time to fuck this up but the point is: I have trust in this show in a way that I don't normally for most shows. That's really special.)

The Sisterhood of Dada. I know they weren't everyone's cup of tea, but personally I cared less about their plot relevance and more about what they represented: the pure, wholesome and shameless creation of art. Literally any art. Film. Interpretive dance. Sculpture. Spoken word poetry. Bent paperclips. Don't "choose a niche" and pigeonhole yourself as just A Filmmaker or just A Writer: try whatever you want because it's fucking fun. You'll learn something. Shit doesn't even have to be good; it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to empower you against the forces which seek to hold you down. Maybe Dada is nonsense, but it's subversive nonsense. Most of all, though, I loved the found-family aspect of the Sisterhood: a safe place in which one could experiment creatively without fear of judgement from the outside world. I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to cultivate elements of this in my real world, even if I can't necessarily build myself a secret teleporting salon out of fog where I can be weird and free with my 6 eccentric pals. The world needs more room for creative experimentation.

Lastly but so very not-least that it's actually the most important point of all: this show gave me Laura. I'm admittedly not as well-versed in the DC/Marvel universes as most fans, but I can't tell you how floored I was to find such a captivating mature female superhero. I've finally started to understand the appeal of having a fantastical super-powered person to look up to--even as a grown-ass adult. She's not a 25-year-old in a latex bodysuit with a physicality I'll never be able to (retroactively) attain. She's not here to be a looker for the boys. She's real. She's fucked up. She's incredibly intelligent, street smart, competent in her ability, and benefits from a wealth of wisdom forged in life experience. She deals with intense trauma. She struggles. She's made huge mistakes. But she's trying her best and she's genuinely growing. Probably most importantly of all, she reinforces how, contrary to what society will lead us to believe, a woman's life, growth, wisdom, wit, accomplishments--and, hell, beauty!!--are only just getting started, even as she turns 40. And that she's so heavily queer-coded?? Sublime. We need people like Laura. I need people like Laura.

So...yeah. I am SO grateful that a show like this exists and that I found it. Thanks for the good times.

🖤

...now all that being said- Doom Patrol has nothing to lose now. Go ahead. Give us the Rita x Laura smooch. As a treat. 😇