#may do another poll if i get any interesting results from this

[moldybits]

notes: symptoms in this poll are defined as ptsd/trauma symptoms (dissociation, amnesia, hyperarousal, etc)

this is an inclusive poll for any type of system/system origin. but it’s specifically how weed affects systems with trauma. this is not syscourse and i want nothing to do with it!

reblogs are encouraged for sample size

i’m convinced that all the progress we’ve made since december has to do with THC and our endocannabinoid system and i’m curious if other people benefit the way we have.

[faebaex]

Tangled in Wonderland - Library Liaison

author note: Winner of the first 1000 follower event poll was Riddle! every time I write Riddle, I forget how much I enjoy writing him (≧◡≦) he’s such an interesting, complex character. I hope I do him justice, I think he deserves it. Next up is Leona, who won the second poll and the Octavinelle poll is currently running, so go check it out if you haven’t seen it already! Enjoy~

characters: Riddle Rosehearts x GN!Reader

You sat, staring into space in the Ramshackle dorm lounge. The ruined interior really helped you zone out, your mind still reeling after the odd situation that you found yourself in.

Despite your best endeavours, your life in Twisted Wonderland had so far proceeded exactly as it had for the main character. The chandelier still ended up breaking, you still ended up going to the dwarf mine and getting attacked by the overblot monster and, in the end, you ended up becoming a joint student with Grim. You had developed a rocky friendship with both Ace and Deuce, despite how you tried to distance yourself from them. It wasn’t anything personal, you just sort of hoped that the events in the game wouldn’t occur if you kept yourself low profile and didn’t get close to any of the game’s named characters.

Unfortunately, so far that plan hadn’t worked out.

Ace still ended up coming to your dorm, collar and all, complaining about his housewarden. You had attempted to slow the inevitable ride to disaster, even suggesting that Ace and Deuce transfer and become students of Ramshackle dorm in an attempt to cool the tensions. But your suggestions fell on deaf ears, and Ace and Deuce ended up challenging Riddle to the housewarden duel that ended up resulting in his overblot. Safe to say, your attempts at laying low and floating undetected through the student body weren’t going well so far.

And to top it all off, Crowley had been avoiding you, as you had been using any opportunity to ambush him and ask him if he had made any progress on finding a way home for you. If Crowley’s monumental negligence in the game was anything to go by, he likely wasn’t even looking into it, so the least you could do was make his life as miserable as possible. When you weren’t accosting Crowley, you spent every spare moment you had in the library.

Every day, you’d comb the library for any material that even had a hint of information about your situation. You were always surrounded by books, piled high around you as you poured over the often-dry material. You’d entirely absconded from any of your schoolwork, leaving that particular gambit to Grim. Whilst diligence wasn’t Grim’s strong point, there was nothing bribery with a can of premium tuna couldn’t solve. So from after classes to when you could barely keep your eyes open any longer, you were huddled in a discreet spot in the library, an agreement with one of the library ghosts meaning that this table was basically reserved for you.

It was just another day for you at the library, surrounded by dusty tomes that obviously hadn’t been touched in who knows how long. You were currently absorbed in a publication about summoning magic, so absorbed in fact that you didn’t notice the figure who had approached your table until they cleared their throat.

“Hello prefect. I see you are in the library again today.”

You froze in your seat, reluctantly looking up to see Riddle standing at the opposite side of your desk. With a purse of your lips, you nodded once before lowering your eyes back down to your book. “Yup.” You responded flatly, turning to the next page, not seeing Riddle fidget awkwardly in front of you.

“You are very studious, prefect. I’ve seen you in the library every day for the past two weeks, Ace and Deuce could stand to learn a thing from you,” Riddle remarked, reaching out and settling a hand on the chair opposite yours, readying to pull it out, “may I?”

“Um… I’d rather you didn’t, actually.” You responded, looking up from your textbook again with a neutral expression. Riddle’s hand froze on the chair and for a moment he looked like a deer caught in lamplights, before his grip tightened on the back of the chair.

“I… See…” Riddle mumbled, and an awkward silence settled between you. You gave a small, cold smile, hoping that Riddle would get the hint and leave, and he did turn, but hesitated and turned back to you, a conflicted frown on his face. “Have I… Offended you in some way, prefect?” Riddle broached and internally you sighed, wishing the pile of books surrounding you would tumble down and hide you from this awkward situation.

“Well… When you throw a tree at someone, its hard not to take it personally.” You quipped coolly, turning your eyes back down to your book and trying to find the line you were on, hoping that Riddle would finally leave you alone. But as ever since you had gotten into this world, luck was not on your side.

Riddle looked absolutely mortified by your comment, and to your chagrin, he pulled out the chair opposite you and sat down, leaning forward in an attempt to keep your conversation as private as possible. “I-I’m sorry if I’ve given you a negative impression… I’m aware that my behaviour was unacceptable and—”

“Look, Riddle,” you sighed, grabbing a spare bookmark so that you didn’t lose your place, considering Riddle seemed to have no intention of leaving you in peace anytime soon, “it’s nothing personal. Really, it isn’t. I just…” You sighed again, putting your head in your hands and rubbing your temples for a moment, “its hard for me adjusting to life here, so I prefer to spend my time alone. I hope you understand.” Once again, silence fell between you and you found yourself shifting impatiently in your chair. You didn’t hate Riddle, not at all. How could you? Riddle had very compelling reasons to be the way he was, and you knew that after his overblot incident, he did make deliberate steps to change and accept his flaws. But… You had your own world to get back to and if being cold and unwelcoming was what it took for you to get back there, then so be it.

“I- I’m sorry, Y/N. I had no idea that you were feeling that way… I should have realised that given your situation…” Riddle trailed off, and the two of you once again lapsed into silence. You shifted in your chair uncomfortably again, exhaling heavily before you began to speak again, “Riddle, its fine—”

“You’re welcome in Heartslabyul, anytime. I would offer you a dorm room but we are at full capacity and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.” Riddle stated, with the same air of finality that he spoke most things with, and you ended up blinking at him in surprise. “O-oh, that’s really not necessary—”

“I… I may not be the best person to preach about family but…” Riddle’s cheeks dusted slightly red as he continued, “I would like it if you were able to seek some solace within Heartlabyul, to help you feel more comfortable and adjust to your circumstances.” You stared at Riddle, your expression blank and hiding the turmoil of emotions that you felt inside. You were really trying your best to put on a cold front and keep distant, but Riddle just had to be so… Endearing.

“That’s… That’s really kind, Riddle. Thank you…” You mumbled, before you sighed and collapsed onto the book you were reading. “But I don’t want to adjust, I want to go home…” You complained, your voice muffled by the pages of the book. Despite finally complaining aloud about the issue that had been on your mind since you got here, it felt oddly cathartic to vent. Until you felt a tap on your head.

“Don’t lay on the book like that, Y/N, you’ll crumple the pages.” Riddle scolded, and just like that he was back to being the Heartslabyul housewarden that you knew. He tapped your head again until you leaned up, shooting him an unimpressed look as he pulled the book towards him, smoothing the pages and checking for any damage before looking over the book itself. “I thought the headmage was looking into your situation?” Riddle queried, flipping through the pages of your book with a judging eye. You resisted the urge to glower at the mention of the headmage.

“Does it seem like he’s looking into my situation?” Riddle’s eyes looked towards you briefly at your tone, but he nodded shortly once, “no comment.” Suddenly, he slammed the book in his hands shut, and you opened your mouth to complain at him for losing your page before he pushed his chair back and stood up. “There are better books on summoning magic than this one in this library, wait here a moment.” Without waiting for you to respond, Riddle was gone.

Over the next hour, Riddle had systematically gone through all the books in your ‘to read’ pile, replacing several books with other ones that he personally ferreted out himself, claiming that they would be much more appropriate for your needs than the one you currently had. You could only stare on in amazement, having no idea that he had such a breadth of knowledge about the books contained in the library. Sure, you were aware that at a young age when you were still reading picture books, he was reading hefty tomes, but watching him so easily sort through your mish mash research pile really did hammer home a respect for his character that you’d never appreciated when you’d played the game.

“Y/N are you listening? I said I’ve made you a list of the order I recommend you read in. I know you are eager to find some information that could lead you home, but if you walk before you can run, you might miss a vital clue.” Riddle lectured as he passed you a crisp white piece of paper, with his elegant script looped throughout it, “I’ve colour coded the list by subject, so you shouldn’t get anything mixed up—”

“Thank you, Riddle. Really. I truly appreciate this.” For the first time since you ended up in Twisted Wonderland, you found yourself genuinely smiling. Riddle blinked in surprise, before a red hue burst forth onto his cheeks, and he rose his hand in an attempt to hide it. “W-well, its nothing. I consider you an honorary member of Heartslabyul now, and I-i’d do this for any of the students under my leadership.” Riddle stuttered, before clearing his throat and trying to get a hold of himself, “but of course, don’t expect this to happen often. I have my own study schedule to adhere to, and its important that you develop these research skills for yourself. For your future assignments, of course.” Riddle said sternly, his usual strict demeanour starting to fall back into place. “But… If you have any questions, or need to use someone as a sounding board then… I’d be happy to lend my services.” Riddle mumbled softly, almost quiet enough for you not to catch, “b-but only if my schedule allows for it, o-of course!” He quickly added, a fresh wave of blush tinting his cheeks.

You found yourself charmed by Riddle’s generosity, your mood feeling genuinely lifted for the first time since you’d thrown yourself out of the coffin. It was odd, the warm feeling in your heart as you watched Riddle fluster, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Thank you, Riddle. I think I might take you up on that, sometime.”

[gffa]

Over the last week, I decided to go ahead with bookmarking all the fics I've recommended over the years on AO3 since I abide by tumblr poll results always (and man pour one out for all the fic that never made it to AO3 or has since been deleted, sooooo many gems lost to time!) and it was a bit more than the ~3,000 I was expecting:

Hopefully, this will be easier than browsing the hundreds of recs posts I've made, since you can filter for any of the author's tags now! These are mostly focused on Star Wars and DC fandom, but I did my time in the anime mines and occasional tours through some TV fandoms or movies. You can dig into everything unfiltered and start your own filtering, or the bigger fandoms you'll find:

MAJOR FANDOMS: Each of these should have 100+ at minimum and, in the case of Star Wars, literally almost half of them are in that fandom. Look, Star Wars fandom might be a trash fire in a lot of ways, but it is ON FIRE with some good fic. (Older bookmarks not guaranteed to match my current sentiments, especially re: the Jedi, but they did catch my fancy at that point in time!)

STAR WARS: - All Star Wars -OR- All Star Wars minus the Obi-Wan/Anakin ship - OR- Nothing BUT Obi-Wan/Anakin

BATMAN/DC: - DC can sometimes be tricky, but you can do a Batman* search and get most of them (though, sometimes Nightwing* or Young Justice* or Superman* will catch some of the others). Honestly, though, you might want to just do a search for what character or dynamic you like and have fun from there, because otherwise you're getting a face full of my Dick Grayson Is The Center Of The Universe And I'm Making That Everyone Else's Problem agenda. ;)

MARVEL/MCU: - Marvel* will probably get most of the various properties, though you may want to filter for Defenders* or Guardians of the Galaxy* if you're interested -OR- Marvel* without the Thor/Loki - These focus a lot on the Thor* fandom if you want to witness the results of like 8 years of constant voracious reading in that fandom (Minus the ship), because, seriously, I read a LOT of Odinson family fic. - Bonus, just do a search for Maximoff* to find some really good X-Men: First Class-verse because, listen, I have been ALL ABOUT the Maximoff twins since long before the movies or MCU brought them over and I will DIE ON THE HILL of "Marvel, make Magneto their bio-dad again or I'm never reading another comic of yours ever".

TOLKIEN/LORD OF THE RINGS/SILMARILLION/HOBBIT: - Tolkien* -OR- Hobbit* -OR- Lord of the Rings* searches will turn up most of my Elf-hunting, I primarily focus on the Sindar Elves, but look I can't resist my problematic Feanorian faves or that I will die on the hill that Fingolfin is the best ever. (You have NO IDEA how sad I am that so much fic on Stories of Arda or FFNET is not easily bookmarked on AO3, sob. I externally bookmarked a few of the bigger ones, but sooo many shorter faves are missing from my recs tag.)

CLAMP: - X/Tokyo Babylon legitimately bums me out because it's not a huge fandom and yet so much of what was written was pre-AO3 and lost when CLAMPesque went down or was never brought over from Livejournal, yet this fandom (well, the Seishirou/Subaru pairing) still burns brightly in my heart.

MINOR FANDOMS: Ones that probably only have under 100 bookmarks (often around the 20-30 bookmarks range), but will at least give you a place to start! ANIME/MANGA: Bleach | Cardcaptor Sakura | Dragonball | Finder no Hyouteki/Viewfinder | Katekyou Hitman Reborn! | Kuroko no Basuke | One Piece | Sailor Moon | Madoka Magica | Naruto | Princess Tutu | Trigun | Weiss Kreuz | Yuri!!! on Ice

BOOKS: Chrestomanci | Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

DRAMAS: Nirvana in Fire | The Untamed -OR- Modao Zu Shi

TV SHOWS/MOVIES: Community | Game of Thrones -OR- ASOIAF | Good Omens | Hannibal | Highlander | The Old Guard | Our Flag Means Death | Stranger Things

VIDEO GAMES: Dragon Age: Inquisition | Final Fantasy 8 | Genshin Impact | Okami

BANDS: Arashi

All right, whew, that was actually a fun project, despite how much work it was to hunt down a lot of older faves to see if they were on AO3, hopefully you'll find this useful!

[sotwk]

Would you mind talking a bit more about Theodred? I loved your headcanons, by the way! Do you think he would have gotten a lot of attention from the women of Rohan who were interested in him simply because he was a prince? And what kind of high standards, in your opinion, did he have when it came to finding a wife and a queen? What kind of qualities would he be looking for? Thank you so much!

Thank you so much, Anon! I appreciate your kind words and high praise, since I am no expert on Rohan (or the race of Men), but I try my best in my contributions. :)

More Théodred Headcanons! (SotWK AU-based, of course)

Elfhild, Théodred's beloved mother, was a full-blooded Rohirrim from a barely above middle-class family. Her marriage to Théoden was a successful love match. Although Elfhild passed away (at childbirth) before Théodred got the chance to know her, he heard endless stories from both high-born and common folk about her kindness, wisdom, and strength, and he idolized her.

Théodred was also often told of how much Idis took after their mother. As a result, he looked up to his sister (who was 5 years his senior) and modeled her good examples, particularly her humility, gentleness, and dedication to the welfare of their people.

What qualities did Théodred look for in a wife/Queen? Someone like his mother and sister (see above). Definitely tough shoes to fill!

All the people of Rohan LOVED Théodred. They respected and trusted him as though he were already their king, and would have followed him to any battlefield, to any end. Full of wisdom and integrity, he could not be corrupted as easily as his father. This made him very dangerous in Saruman's eyes, which was why the White Wizard could not allow him to live.

What set Théodred apart from his forebears was his more pacifist, less militant nature. He had a generous and forgiving heart and would choose mercy over vengeance. He was loathe to jump into battle or start wars, for as long as it could be avoided. Saruman used this quality (I hate to call it weakness) against him.

He definitely drew a lot of attention from the women of Rohan; pretty much all of them were smitten with the Prince. If a poll had been taken, he would easily have beaten out Éomer as the most desirable husband. And this was not because of his princely status; his genteel nature simply made him more approachable.

In his pursuit of a wife, Théodred's rank as heir to the throne actually worked against him. The few women he entered into serious relationships with could not handle the pressure of being measured against a man so adored and placed high on a pedestal. Théodred was always gentle and encouraging towards his potential Queens, but his zeal for work and determination to serve and put Rohan above all else ended up intimidating them all. How does one keep up with a saint??

(Here is where my HC may get controversial.) If there were women who pursued Théodred for his title, they were noblewomen of Gondor, driven either by their own ambitions or that of their parents or lords. The chance to rise to the Queenship of Rohan by marriage like Morwen Steelsheen famously did, was probably tempting to many noble houses. It fact, it was another Morwen (daughter of Húrin the Tall,) who came closest to a betrothal with Théodred. But when Théodred realized that a Gondorian wife would have principles too different from his own when it came to governing Rohan, he began to dismiss all political matches pushed before him, which diminished his options even more.

SotWK Fancast: Charlie Hunnam as Théodred

Thank you again for the Ask, Anon! I am grateful there are folks like you who care about my thoughts and keep me encouraged. <3

[circlique]

Color Theory in ATLA: Part 1

Let’s talk colors! ATLA is a colorful show! It’s pretty obvious at first glance that each element and thus each nation has a color association. But how else does ATLA use color narratively? Today I’m gonna be doing a little analysis at two levels: surface and narrative. This post will cover the visual, surface level.

By the way, this is actually a propaganda post for @multicolor-fandom-tournament, where you should totally go vote for ATLA in the final. As much as I love Pokemon, I wanna see someone else win a poll for once. Give ATLA some love. Anyway, let’s get started.

For individual characters, there is some pretty obvious color coding/representation going on that is notable. For instance, Ty Lee wears pink and is girly with a bubbly personality. Mai wears dark red and black and tends to be gloomy and serious. Zuko wears red and is often prone to passionate, angry outbursts. Aang wears yellow and tends to be cheery and positive. Sokka, for all his cool collectedness, wears blue. Toph is represented by green and is first introduced as a vision in a swamp, where there are themes of connectedness, growth, and new beginnings. These are all fairly obvious and surface level, so I’m not going to go into them too much.

Beyond individual characters, each nation gets its own color. This is fairly straightforward. Fire is red, air is orange/yellow, water is blue, earth is green. People from each nation wear their nation’s color for the most part, leaving us with recognizable character designs that easily allow us to discern any particular character’s origin.

There are a few other interesting cases where specific colors are reserved for specific things, such as purple, which is only worn by royalty, Princess Yue, and gold, which is used in small accents in the Fire Nation, but larger usages seem to be reserved for the royalty there as well.

However, throughout ATLA and some of the extended material such as the comics and Legend of Korra, the colors a person wears has been further used to show their multiculturalism, and sometimes detachment from culture altogether. In ATLA, there is a travailing music troupe that wears a variety of colors, presumably due to their travels necessitating the need to replace worn out garments with whatever colors are available. In the comics, there is a plot line about conflict arising in the former Fire Nation colonies, where people have been raised in a mix of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom culture. Some of the people there wear both red and green.

Later on in Legend of Korra, we see that while Republic City is multicultural, many of the people there don’t identify super strongly with any one nation. After all, many of the people there have never lived anywhere but Republic City. As a result, a lot of the Republic City characters such as Mako and Bolin wear more muted colors such as gray. Although their outfits still have accents in their respective bending colors, their outfits reflect their heritage to a place that does not strongly emphasize any one nation’s colors over the others. Notably, Amon and his chiblockers wear gray too, because their entire deal is equality among benders and nonbenders.

Another thing that is heavily color coded in ATLA is eye color. Each nation has a corresponding eye color too. For fire it’s gold/amber, air is gray, water is blue, and earth is green and brown. Eye color is so heavily color coded that it even picks up some narrative importance. When Azula takes over Ba Sing Se, she, Ty Lee, and Mai disguise themselves as Kyoshi Warriors. Katara runs up to then to warn them of the coup, but realizes something is wrong when Azula’s pretty Fire Nation amber eyes flash in the light.

Eye color is used like this in a few other places too. In the Kyoshi novels, there is a character who goes undercover who must disguise his eye color to avoid being discovered. In the Yangchen novel, there is a character from and island in the Mo Ce Sea (which is roughly in the middle of the map) who describes how her home became so cut off from any one nation that she didn’t feel allegiance to any of them. Her eyes are specifically described as hazel/brown, which can be found in all four nations.

Eye color is so heavily nation-coded that it has spawned plenty of fan theories and arguments. Suki, for instance, has green eyes in some art and blue in others. Fans argue about what her eye color actually is, with some suggesting blue-eyes Suki may have Water Tribe heritage due to Kyoshi Island’s proximity to the Southern Water Tribe, and others suggesting it was just an animation error and that they were actually supposed to be green. Another example is Ty Lee, who is a nonbender but has gray eyes, causing many people to speculate she has Air Nomad ancestry. Notably, Zaheer ALSO has gray eyes and later gains the ability to airbend, so the popular theory is that he and Ty Lee may be the descendants of airbenders who survived the initial attack and hid amongst the four nations.

Indeed, different eye color is used to show people with mixed heritage, a notable example being Asami, who has green eyes but is descended from Fire Nationals who settled in the colonies in the Earth Kingdom.

And there you have it! Those are the surface-level uses of color in ATLA. Next time we'll talk more about color theory and narrative usage of color symbolism.

[wjbminecraft]

"How Minecrafty is the #minecraft tag anyway": a scientific study (and also a graph I guess) by WJ Beck

Ok so I was curious about just how many people were mistagging their stuff, so I scrolled through the #minecraft tag to find out how many posts were not directly Minecraft related, and my findings were... interesting.

To start with, let's talk about classification; since this will be represented as a basic pie-chart, I needed to come up with a way to categorise posts as "tagged well" and "mistagged", so I'm using the following criteria:

If the post's main content is a Minecraft build, mod, OC etc. or to do with a Minecraft spinoff, that's a Minecraft post, and it's been tagged well! This also goes for tournament-polls involving official MC characters or mobs, regardless of opponent, and crossover fanart, regardless of how Minecrafty it is (characters from another franchise in the MC world are as valid as, say, Steve interacting with another franchise's characters) and also Smash-related stuff where Steve is there.

If the post's main content is related to any Minecraft YouTube (MCYT) content, which - in this case - refers to both role-play and animations, then that is mildly mistagged, and I can see why the OP did that if they didn't know about this specific case of mistagging.

If the post's main content is not anything to do with Minecraft (I saw a non-fandom post which had a bunch of random, irrelevant fandom-related tags, including #minecraft) or if Minecraft is tangentially mentioned once but still included in the tags, that is tagged terribly, and might even be against the terms of service (don't quote me on that though).

The posts were recorded by me scrolling and counting them, then adding them to each category until I lost count and stopped adding, resulting in 265 posts total. A couple of posts were shuffled around between categories, meaning that the numbers might not be 100% accurate, but I tried.

Graph and stats below.

Of the 265 posts viewed,

228 (86%*) were Minecraft posts,

32 (12%*) were MCYT posts,

5 (2%*) were neither.

*(Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number)

What this means is that the tagging problem may not be as bad as I've seen at least one person claim it is, however the problem could get worse in the future.

Please, for all our sakes, tag your posts properly.

[solradguy]

Still one dlc char to be announced in 2023, when do you think it'll happen?

According to the timestamp on this ask, you sent this like literal hours before the new Developer Backyard dropped and answered your question haha December!

Link to the post: https://www.guiltygear.com/ggst/en/news/post-2013/

Relevant text from the DB:

The next update is coming up in December 2023. In addition to a new character, this update will introduce the second round of new special moves, this time for 2 characters. There's also a small-scale balance update in store, focused on adjustments to the new mechanics Wild Assault and Deflect Shield. This will include the aforementioned changes to input options for some characters' new moves such as Giovanna's Chave as well as fixes for issues.

In the Q&A section they teased the possibility of a future artbook that collects all the works between Xrd to now. Fingers crossed it happens!!

The other Q&A responses said that they would consider putting in a way to toggle things like Jack-O's mask and Sin's eyepatch (?!) like how you can toggle Johnny's beard or between the two Asukas, though they said they can't promise anything. They also said that they would like to hold a character palette contest OR survey some day and that they're looking into refining the input for Deflect Shield

The upcoming qualifier tournaments for Arc World Tour are: FIGHTERS SPIRIT (November 18 to 19) in Korea; Battle Coliseum (November 24 to 26) in Brazil; Ultimate Fighting Arena (November 24 to 26) in France; Frosty Faustings (January 25 to 28) in the USA.

So far they've only done big character announcements at events either in the USA or Japan so I'm not sure they'll announce who's next at any of these. There might be another big event going on that I don't know about though. Guess we'll find out soon!!

They also covered the survey results in this entry, which are always interesting. These results stretch this post a bit so I'm gonna slip them behind a readmore.

Lots of young players!! No wonder I get Dadguy'd on here so much lol

Bridget is also the current most favorite character globally, followed by Sol and then Ramlethal in 3rd:

Regional favorite character poll for just Strive's cast. These votes were limited to just one character and the DB entry suggests they may allow two votes for this part in future polls:

I've posted this one on here before when it was shown at Tokyo Game Show earlier this year, but here's the overall favorite character rankings by region. A.B.A., Elphelt, Slayer, and Dizzy are the highest:

[calaisreno]

Point of View in Fiction: Some Observations

I did a poll on point of view in fanfiction a while ago. The results didn't surprise me; I knew that some people just don't read 1st person stories, and most people don’t care about POV. I was more interested in the reasons people gave for their preference.

It's a personal thing, how someone tells you a story, and if you don't like the narrative voice, you will associate it with other things. Readers don’t often think about voice, but it is one of the most important ways a story draws you in, or sends you to the back button. I suspect it's narrative voice that is affecting some readers more than POV.

I’ve never hit the back button on any fic because of the POV. I have hit that button because of format, paragraphing, and a few other issues. I’m an English teacher who taught creative writing for many of those years. Now I don’t read things that feel like student writing-- simply because I can’t enjoy reading something if it feels like I should be grading it. If there are spelling errors or common grammar mistakes that I see over and over in student work, I don’t read it. It might be a good story, but I can't put myself in the right headspace to appreciate it because it feels like work.

Judging from the replies to the poll, some people associate first person POV with bad writing, but there are many other things that flag a story as badly written. And a badly written story isn’t necessarily a bad story. (Barbara Woodhouse assured us that there are no bad dogs; this may be true for stories as well, but choice is an individual matter. There are some breeds I would not choose as a companion.)

I was given the task of teaching creative writing because the admin in charge of the schedule at my school needed another English elective and I had a hole in my schedule. I was an avid reader and had written a lot of original fiction at that point, and thought having students write poems and stories might be a nice change from essays and book reports. My feelings about it were not relevant. Nobody cared whether I was qualified; it was either Creative Writing or Study Hall (i.e. Purgatory) for me. I did not hesitate.

The reality: I loved it and hated it.

Many of my young writers were reluctant, having been placed in my class to fill a hole in their schedules; they did not enjoy writing in the least. A hundred words was an accomplishment for some of them; if they could break this barrier, they got smiley faces and exclamation points. Others were wildly enthusiastic, producing pages of badly spelled and punctuated narrative, a chaotic jumble of scene and dialogue with random flashes of brilliance.

Grading a story is not like grading an essay. The fledgling writers who are serious need to know that spelling, punctuation, and grammar matter: it’s the suit you put on for the interview so you get the job. The ones who dislike writing need encouragement to see that it doesn't have to be punishment. It can be play.

A few observations from my years working with student writers:

Inexperienced fiction writers tend to use POV 1st person more often. Most of these writers are also enthusiastic readers. First person POV helps them find the camera eye focus they realize fiction needs. However fantastic, the story they write is their story, intimate and personal, and 1st person feels most comfortable to them. They need encouragement and a few friendly suggestions, not a paper bloodied by my red pen. In writing process, first drafts are allowed to be horrible.

The non-readers in my class were the most reluctant writers; they often failed to understand POV and wrote from an outsider third-person POV which ended up being more of a summary than a story. My job was to show them how to pull scenes out of the summary. People talking, doing things.

We all start somewhere.

Publishers note that first submissions are often written in first person. It is not that they reject these stories because of that; the stories have other amateur flaws and the POV is just a flag for other issues. First person is not bad, it’s just harder for new writers to pull off well.

Several novels I’ve recently read use first person narrator to good effect: Piranesi comes to mind, The Rule of Four, and Moriarty. The Left Hand of Darkness is a story I can’t even imagine in third person-- and it has two narrators! The original Sherlock Holmes stories (all but a couple) are written in first person, with Doctor Watson narrating.

There are choices even within a first person narrative. The main character doesn’t have to narrate. Watson isn’t the main character in ACD’s stories, Holmes is. Watson is an involved/interested observer (a common use of first person); he stands in for the reader, seeing the mystery unfold, not understanding what all the clues mean until— surprise!— Holmes reveals the solution. I have read mysteries where the first person narrator turns out to be the murderer; the shock value of this fades if you use it every time, but it’s effective on some stories. First person is not bad, if chosen for a good reason.

And third person has its own set of problems. The multiple “he” and “his” that need clarification. The accidental wandering out of limited point of view into semi-omniscience. Even a close, third-person limited narrative provides some distance from the viewpoint character.

Second person is rare and considered gimmicky. I wrote a story in second POV once; the only comment from my most admiring reader: NO. Just, NO. Since that horror, I’ve used first person with second person address in a couple stories (Blessings and The Story of Us, if you’re curious). It’s not a choice I’d often make, but sometimes it’s the right one.

Several of my favourite fanfics use the first person brilliantly. (Pointing to ivyblossom’s The Progress of Sherlock Holmes and The Quiet Man.) When reading, I generally don’t notice point of view unless I think about it; if the narrative flows, the choice obviously works. I don't read much in other fandoms, but think that the Sherlock fandom has a lot of really talented and experienced writers, better than many published stories I’ve read.

I use first person in some of my stories, usually because I’ve found a narrative voice I like. I’ve also rewritten stories after the first draft, changing POV (first to third, or third to first) because I thought it would work better. My feeling is that neither is better in general; in a specific story it should be a deliberate choice, not an accidental one. It’s one of many things to think about when writing a narrative. Voice is one of the most important.

My conclusions:

Reading for pleasure means that the best story is the one you love. It’s a personal choice, not a debate.

Writing well develops over time, as a product of many things. If you’re writing for pleasure, not pay, you should write what you love. Do not change your story because of what a poll says.

If you’re unsure or unhappy about what you’ve written, find a beta reader. Ask them questions. Pay them in adoration. Return the favour; it’s a great way to learn.

Polls are useful only for provoking thought. My thanks to all who participated!

[bl-bracket]

Logistics for Finals Poll

So: this is my first time doing a double elimination/loser's bracket kind of deal and as we're approaching the end, there's a particular thing that I'm not too sure about what to do.

You see, in a double elimination bracket, contestants must loose twice to be eliminated, which is pretty straightforward till we get to the very end. What happens is that we have what would be our traditional final round between two contestants who have won every match they have been in. And we also have a final round between two people in the loser bracket. Now whoever loses that traditional final round will go up against whoever wins the loser bracket final round. So far so good.

The tricky bit is that whoever wins that round now goes up against whoever won the final round in the main bracket. Which would be fine except there's the possibility that it was the person who just lost in the traditional final round who won the loser bracket final round. And I don't know how I feel about running two identical polls right after another (and it's less interesting because most people will vote exactly the same).

To illustrate what I'm talking about, here are some poor diagrams:

Situation A

Here the Main Bracket Final Round 2 is different from the Main Bracket Final Round 1. This is fine and not a logistical issue at all for me.

Situation B

Here is the problem because the two main bracket final rounds are the exact same. And while I'm not opposed to doing it, it's something I would only do if the majority of y'all want that. Because having two identical tumblr polls nearly back to back does not make for fun and engaging content, UNLESS everyone is into it.

So here are the options before us about what may happen here:

1. The Main Bracket Final Round pt 2 happens if and only if the winner of Loser Bracket Round 10 is different from the loser of Main Bracket Final Round pt 1 (Situation A)

2. The Main Bracket Final Round pt 2 happens regardless of who wins Loser Bracket Round 10 (Situation A or B)

3. There is no Main Bracket Final Round pt 2

If 2 or 3 wins, then Loser Bracket Round 10 will be a week long (either in order to ensure that we don't have two identical polls back to back or because it will be the final poll for those in the loser bracket)

If 3 wins, but 1 + 2 have the majority together, I will go with whatever wins between them

[archoniluthradanar]

A Day of Mini-Golf with the Volturi Masters, and how you came to be living with them

The fifth place winner and final story for the Summer Fun with the Volturi Masters, story poll results.

A Day of Mini-Golf with the Volturi masters, and how you came to be living with the Volturi.

Summers in Volterra could be mild or hot, depending. It had been rather warm for you, a human, while your Volturi hosts never felt the heat. The interior walls of the castle were better suited for Summer than Winter, keeping the temperature down. You were very happy when this week seemed cooler than the one before it. Now you felt like getting out and doing something fun, and you wanted the masters to join you. If they were unable to, surely Felix and Demetri would accompany you.

You checked the Internet on your laptop, searching for locations for the best mini-golf courses in the country. You were usually good at mini-golf, but then you assumed the vampires would be as good at that, as they were at any game they had played with or for you. Their hand-eye coordination was perfect. Their strength was already well known to you. Somehow you'd have to come up with a way to better your chances at winning.

After much browsing, you decide that the Caribbean Golf mini-golf course looks the most interesting. It has a pirate theme with lots of atmosphere and decor that immerses players in the time of the buccaneers. It's located just up North not far from Venice.

You look for Aro, since he basically makes all the decisions. You find him in the throne room, sitting in a chair while perusing an old manuscript. Neither Marcus or Caius is with him, oddly. The masters almost always seem together in nearly everything they do.

You step up to Aro, waiting for him to acknowledge you, since he knows you're there by your scent alone. You can't sneak up on a vampire.

"Yes, my dear, how may I help you?"

You walk up to the Volturi master and place your hand on his shoulder, smiling down at him. "Aro, are you and the others terribly busy tomorrow?"

"Not at all. Have you something in mind?" He puts down the manuscript and looks up at you, waiting for you to make your request.

"Well, the weather has been so nice, I thought maybe we could go to Jesolo?"

"And what is in Jesolo, dear one?" Aro knows it to be a resort town on the coast, something he was surprised you didn't know, but he humoured you with your requests to go to various locales, even out of country.

"Mmmm...mini-golf? I haven't played in forever, and I found a course called Caribbean Golf that has a pirate theme. It looks like a ton of fun. But I'm not sure if you would care for it. If not, maybe Demetri and Felix could be given permission to join me?"

Aro stands and takes your hands in his. He is trying to give you your privacy as you've requested, but it can be difficult to just turn off his gift. He smiles, pleased by what he has seen. "No, my dear, we will be happy to go with you. Another piece of humanity to be shared with us. Let me speak with Marcus and Caius, but I'm sure they will say yes."

You kiss his cheek, and say, "Thank you, Aro. Let me know." You bounce out of the room, not noticing the Volturi master shaking his head, but he is still smiling.

Aro does as he said and speaks with both Marcus and Caius. As usual, Caius huffs while Marcus plays devil's advocate. As little as he shows it, he enjoys the outings with you.

"Brother, golf? Mini...golf? Is this just for some absurd game?"

"No, Caius, it's for our young ward. You do want her happy, don't you? She so enjoys sharing her experiences with us, and when you think about it, she doesn't ask much of us."

"All right, Aro, we spend a day playing mini-golf for our little human. Besides, the theme is one of interest. I have never been to the Caribbean in all my centuries."

The next morning, Aro's car is waiting out back by the gate, freshly washed and gassed up. Aro insists on driving today, so Caius sits on the right, while you and Marcus sit in back. The air conditioning is turned on since the day is warm and they want you comfortable. The private jet is waiting at the Pisa airport for the short 4 hour plus flight to Venice, then another car will be waiting to drive to the resort town of Jesolo.

On the flight, you lean into Marcus while sitting on one of the sofas, your hand playing with his long graceful fingers. He leans over to kiss your forehead, inhaling your scent that draws you to him. Aro and Caius are sitting at the back of the jet playing chess, deep in the game and ignoring you both. Or are they? You have a feeling Aro is always listening when you're with Marcus.

Aro insists on driving once again until you reach the golf course. Already you see skeletons wearing pirate clothing hanging in the trees and off netting.

At the equipment booth, you each pick out a putter and a ball. The masters go straight for the black and you protest, saying they must each choose a different colour. But when you see three smiles looking at you, you know your leg's being pulled. Caius keeps his black ball, while Aro and Marcus choose new colours.

You start at the first hole, explaining to the masters how to play the game. You go first, making the 2 stroke par easily.

On the third hole, which consists of three hills the ball must go over, you make par, but the three masters make holes-in-one.

"How do you do that?" you ask. "Why doesn't your strength make you hit past your goal? How can you see behind things as if you had Superman's x-ray vision?"

Aro frowns and shakes his head. "My dear, I have no idea the meaning behind what you just said. Who is the super man?"

"Oh, nothing, Aro. I just have a feeling my ego will be taking another bruising today."

By the fifth hole, Caius has made his displeasure known. "This is too easy," Caius says. "Where is the challenge?"

You pull something from your pocket and go over to Caius, then reach up to put a cloth pirate eye patch on Caius, something you found at the booth. "This will be your handicap, smartypants. One-eyed golf." While you straighten the patch, you can hear Caius inhaling. "Will you stop that? Good grief, you guys are ruled by your noses. Ok, there you go. Try playing with no depth perception."

Caius did find it a bit more difficult playing with one eye. But he still managed not to do too badly, as did the other masters. You were holding your own which made you somewhat proud. These were vampires, after all.

On the seventh hole, everyone has to put their ball into the bottom of a keg where it comes out the other side and down an incline to the hole. On another nearby keg, sits a buxom female pirate, her concrete breasts high and round, tied by an appropriate shirt. When it was Caius' turn to putt, he could not stop staring at the statue.

You tap your foot, finally, saying loudly, "Master Caius, you're holding up the line, and...they're not real!"

He gives you a glare, then smiles. "Jealous?"

You throw your ball at him, the ball merely bounces off his chest, while you mutter beneath your breath.

He, of course, hears every word you mutter. "Any day, any time, my little human," he says with a brow-lifting leer.

Behind him, Marcus is not amused.

A while later, on the twelfth hole, you are standing at the far side of the end of the putting green, with Caius up. He takes half a second to judge the distance to and the position of the hole, then swings without considering his strength. The ball flew a bit higher than he meant it to go, when it grazes your head, sending you to the ground. You try to rise, but fall back, unconscious.

You were newly arrived in Italy, a tourist with little more than a small carryon, a passport, a map, several reservations at inexpensive B&Bs, and about 500 euros that would have to last you a week. This was more an immerse yourself into the Italian people and culture trip than a vacation. On your second night, you had been walking the streets of Volterra, enjoying the sights, and talking with some of the locals who wanted to practice their English. It was the trip of a lifetime, and one that nearly ended your life.

It was after 10:00pm, and you hadn't meant to be out so late. You were trying to recall where your hotel was. The street looked familiar, but when you turned the corner, the next one didn't, and now you were lost. While looking at the various buildings hoping to find your B&B, you think you see something behind you, but you hear nothing. Maybe it was just a cat roaming the neighborhood.

You are beginning to feel panic set in. Perhaps if you went up to a door and asked for directions but then, what if they didn't speak English. Then you looked behind you again. There was something there in the shadows, quiet and watching. You chided yourself for the over dramatics. It's only because you're in a strange city at night. You walked faster, with no idea where you were going. If you could just find an open business, they would most likely have someone who spoke English and knew the layout of the city, and could tell you how to get to your B&B.

You continued walking, now sure someone was behind you. Maybe you should stop and face them, yelling loudly. Isn't that what some self defense books say to do? When you turn, a hand grabbed your mouth from behind. You felt hot breath on your ear, and Italian being spoken. Your purse was pulled from your arm roughly, causing you pain. A man on a scooter pulled up beside you, the man holding you throwing your bag to his confederate.

"No! I need that!" you shouted. Before you could continue shouting, the man who was holding onto you was pulled away. You found yourself on the ground, dragged down when your assailant was taken. Maybe you had a knight in shining armour saving the day, but you still lost all your money, and your ID and passport.

You looked up to see another man, dressed in black, grab your assailant, and bury his face in the man's neck. What the hell is he doing? Strong arms picked you up off the ground but when you cried out in pain, you were instantly released. When you turned around, you saw a tall man with long dark hair looking down at you. Soon another man with hair as pale as creme came to stand beside you. His expression frightened you because he didn't look happy at all.

You took a step back from these men, their appearance too odd to fathom. The street light was even making their eyes appear red.

"I just want to thank you for..." You saw the man who attacked you lying in the street. Was he dead? You started walking backwards, tears welling up in your eyes. Were you saved from a robber to end up with something much worse?

The blonde man said, "Brother, you cannot leave him there", only it's Italian you hear.

The tall man picked up the supposed dead man and disappeared. You looked around, wondering where he went. He was there and then he wasn't. A hand suddenly grabbed your good arm, while another was placed over your mouth. You squirmed, feeling cold air on your neck. "Please stop struggling. We will not harm you." It's the one who attacked your robber. In the few seconds you saw him, you notice he has very dark hair, pale skin and...red eyes. That's the last thing you remembered.

When you awoke, you were lying on a bed. You squeezed your arm which felt better. You yawned and looked around the room...to find the three men standing as still as statues near the door. How long had they been there, watching you?

You sat up, and decided the best defense was a friendly offense. "Hello. I just want to thank you for rescuing me. I lost everything I had though." They merely stared at you in response. "What I mean is, is it ok if I stay here for a few days? I need to get back on my feet. Damn, I'm sorry, I should not even be asking you this."

"Child, there is no need for this. You're safe here. We give you our word, you won't be harmed," the tall man had said.

"Harmed. Harmed by what?" you asked, worried.

"In case you haven't already guessed, we're vampires, an ancient race of beings. Yes, my dear, we do exist. And in telling you this, by all rights, you should die. But we feel compelled not to kill you." He smiled oddly. "I am Aro, these are my brothers, Marcus and Caius."

"Um. Aro, is this some sort of vampire code of honour? I mean if I go to sleep, I won't find you've changed your minds."

The blonde you know to be Caius only smiled enigmatically.

You stood up off the bed and walked to them. "Let's assume you're telling me the truth. That means my life is in your hands. And since you were the ones who saved me, I am beholding to you with all due gratitude." You saw the black-haired man called Aro look at the tall one named Marcus, both men nodding once at each other.

"Your life does belong to us, my dear, but it will be for the better, we assure you. You're our...guest. Consider this room and everything in it, yours."

You rouse, hands on you, helping you up.

"Dear one, are you alright? Your have quite the lump on your head." Aro glares at a contrite Caius.

"I am sorry, little human. I never meant to hurt you."

You smile at Caius. "I forgive you. It was just an accident."

"We are done for the day, brothers. Let's get our ward home and into bed."

"Marcus, please help me." You expect him to give you his arm for support, but instead, he lifts you in his arms, carrying you to the car. You lean your head against his hard chest and close your eyes.

You don't realize you'd fallen asleep until you wake up in bed, a cold hand brushing across your forehead. It feels so good, you reach up and hold it on your face. Your eyes open to find Marcus sitting on the bed beside you. You smile up at him, whispering softly, "Thank you." Touching your head, you feel the bump left by the errant golf ball and wince

Marcus gives you a small smile, sympathizing with you. "If you play your cards right, dear one, Caius will do anything you want of him for quite a while."

You laugh, scoot over and pat the spot beside you. Marcus stands, then lies down next to you, his cold body feels so good this near to you. The Volturi masters saved your life one night in Volterra almost a year ago, and now you will be saving the life of one of them. Marcus, a man long dead in spirit and desiring nothing more, finds he has a chance for a new existence, in you. He's glad they didn't kill you that night.

[yxstxrdrxxm]

POLL RESULT—! > ALBEDO. Maybe they judged him too early?

Out of all the men, ALBEDO was the only one that didn't struck them as far too opportunistic nor distant. Even when he looked as though he didn't want to be near anyone, they can tell that he was still an okay guy. Maybe they even hoped that he wouldn't be so cruel, just like what they feared him to be.

They doubt that it would happen, but they weren't prepared for such an outcome... If that ever happened, of course.

[ AFFECTION ↑ 8+ ! ]

Speaking of, that order of his... I need to get to it soon, lest I end up forgetting and tell him to come back at another day when I get back home, they mused, their eyes drifting over to the next batch of flowers and their meanings. Though, they stopped at one for Gerbera Daisies.

... Gerbera daisies symbolize innocence, purity, cheerfulness, nd loyal love. Some believed that it can lessen the sorrows and stresses of everyday life...

Lessen the sorrows...

Gerbera daisies aren't a common flower in the district. That was something they told to their previous client, and they knew that is the truth of the matter. However, this didn't mean that they can't grow some and even get the remaining ones they had for them.

... Alright, I've decided.

Tucking a bookmark on the book and closing it shut, they nodded once in determination, standing up from their seat.

"I need to get those daisies and prepare their orders tomorrow."

And no one will stop them from doing such a thing.

In the midst of the chaos the florist was going through, the familiar sounds of papers being moved and a paint brush going across the canvas simply echoed in the empty studio.

Save for the lone painter in the room, who seems content to put his focus on the artwork before him... Even if it looked no less than the ones he had been doing for years.

...

With a huff, ALBEDO simply grabbed his half-finished painting and yanked the canvas from the easel, tossing the thing to the side like it mattered little for him. The thud echoed in the room, but he remained quiet, eerily still for that matter.

How bothersome. What was it that made him so lost in his work? What was stopping him from thinking of something to draw for days?

He huffed, raising his hand to sift through his hair. Truly, such a nuisance to think about. He had hoped that moving with ALICE would've yielded some better results, but that blasted plague seem to follow him.

Looking at the window, he frowned, pondering over his recent interactions. Not many perked his interest nor caught his eye, except for them.

That masked florist, as he penned it, was the one that caught his attention. Not in the way many would think, but because of their mannerisms.

Socially anxious, introverted, and a tad bit awkward... Yes, those are unappealing for many, but ALBEDO can tell that it is far more than those things. It's what made them appear in his mind, especially during the first he's seen them.

His hand wandered over to his pockets, grabbing the sketch he drew of them in a loose sheet of paper. The sketch was rushed, but it wasn't bad— at least, to his standards.

"... What a curious mask they have," he murmured, tracing over the mask— hidden eye and a big, lopsided smile. It was creepy, but he found it intriguing.

Truly, what was it that they hid behind that? He had hoped that he'd be able to ask them, but it may not be possible now.

...

"Time will tell," he murmured. "Time will tell."

For now, he must paint.

He needed to finish a piece today.

Congratulations, you are now able to unlock ALBEDO's route — "The Birth of Imperfections"!

As a reminder: choosing this route locks you out of potential routes with KAEYA and DILUC. If you decide to not pursue this route, the option remains open, but gaining any additional affection points caps out at 15.

And finally, you may still get affection points for the other men, but this may risk gaining points for their obsession (and likewise to ALBEDO). Choose wisely.

This poll will receive answers until TOMORROW (GMT+8). Keep in mind that the majority will win, so vote what you think is right.

Additionally, any poll after this with additional votes WILL be null when the results are out. Choose wisely, focus on the recent poll, and ignore the past.

FLAWED TAGLIST: (send an ask to be added for Flawed!) @beloved-blaiddyd ; @mixed-kester ; @mochinon-yah ; @fffiii ; @leftdestiny-posts ; @ambrosia-divine

[crimsoncold]

Polls, Plans for a Future ASOIAF art series, and some Criticism of Antis and thoughts General Fandom etiquette ...

First of all thank you to anyone who participated in my poll on which pair of House Stark characters have the most underrated/underappreciated similarities or paralells (and for so many of you for taking the poll in the spirit it was intended and staying respectful in your tags- I always worry about that as part of the asoiaf/got fandom, particularly being a Sansa-stan and Jonsa shipper in general)

I was using this poll as a bit of research/inspiration for a future art series I wanted to do (there are just so many possible paralells/comparisons that I find intriguing or emotionally compelling, but i can only devote so much time to one specific art piece/series and was really struggling to narrow down the specific character pairs I wanted to focus on- hence the poll I made!)

So after getting an idea about which parallels resonate with people -and feel are underrepresented or unappreciated by fandom- and holding to the idea that if you want to see something specific or rare discussed or done in fandom/fanfiction/or fanart sometimes you just have to do it yourself ... I've checked the results and have decided I'm eventually going to do a cross-generation art series exploring certain characters' narrative parallels/similarities to eachother as well as a tribute to any canon relationship they have to one another...

It will include a Sansa & Ned piece, a Robb & Lyanna one, and lastly an Arya & Catelyn one.

Side note I'm also thinking of doing a separate Jonsa art piece that focuses a bit on the many ways their plotlines/arcs/dreams mirror one another.

(It's all going to take awhile- a few months probably but I'm very excited and I've already started brain storming ideas)

Ok now that I've expressed my appreciation and shared the more positive outcome from this poll now I want to take a moment to vent a bit about some of the negative backlash, address my general stance on antis, and give a little reminder about general fandom etiquette...

(I've tagged this accordingly so I'm unsure that any of the people this is directed at/could benefit from reading this will ever encounter it... but still I think its important to put it out there- even if only because it allows me to process my own thoughts and feelings on the matter)

(This may at times come across slightly bitchy- I'm alright with that but I decided I'd preface this by emphasizing... This is intended as a criticism of toxic stans... it is not the condemning of a specific character/certain character parallels, and it is not criticism of people who are simply fans of said character in general... everyone understand that? Good lets move on)

So I'm sort of feeling darkly amused about how (with I think a single nice exception?) the comments made on this poll (even multiple in a row from one user) were people wanting to complain that I chose to excluded some pair/parallel that they prefer ....

Instead of taking... what 10 seconds?... to read my explanation around why certain pairs were excluded from the poll- which would have apparently saved them a lot of grief...

(I.e. its not that the parallels between these pairs aren't present OR that I don't think they are meaningful... it's simply that I feel those sets of characters are very high profile and are frequently discussed in terms of their parallels by a significant portion of fandom and thus should NOT be included in a poll meant to consider underappreciated Stark character parallels)

...And then say deciding to either take this poll in the spirit it was intended (once again... to consider what is the most underrated/underappreciated stark paralells? NOT to focus on or reiterate some of the most talked about ones in all of asoiaf fandom?) or choosing to simply scroll past if they weren't interested in the options/design of the poll..

They instead chose to have a hissy fit in the comments about how offended they were that Lyanna was listed as having parallels with any Stark kid other than Arya (not just Sansa- which unfortunately is not exactly an unexpected response but apparently the idea of Robb + Lyanna having paralells was also deeply offensive. Who knew? I would have expected all the house stark boys were completely immune to the unecessary hate/criticism/dismissal that so much of fandom and many arya stans gleefully direct towards Sansa)

Or took the time to explicitly complain that I didn't include Arya being compared to.... whoever? Ned and Jon I think, maybe others? I've forgotten their explicit instructions on all their arya stan approved comparisons. Because isn't it sooo biased of me not to include these pairs because clearly Arya is the only character who can rightfully be compared to Lyanna or Ned... even in a post explicitly about parallels underrated by fandom!!! These commonly discussed parallels absolutely NEED to be an option even then... and if it isn't it has to be because the person who made it is prejudiced and biased-not because the pair/character parallels dont actually fit the poll criteria.

Really this just further justifies my disappointment in certain types of stans and makes me feel I wasn't being pessimistic or jumping at shadows when I listed my second reason for avoiding including those as pairs in this poll (i.e. wanting to avoid devoting space to pairs/paralells that bring out the worst in certain toxic stans- i just dont need to deal with that and neither does anyone else)

...when I say that certain character parallels bring up weird defensiveness/unpleasantness/stubborness in fans .. well these people choose to respond to such a statement by just literally proving my point.

If you dont like this poll instead of leaving comments to complain about it and its creator maybe go make your own Arya centric one?... would that not be a better use of your time? Or are you so lacking in creativity/the ability to think critically and express yourself persuasively that you can only ever complain about the content other's make and never actually be a productive or positive member of fandom through creating your own content?

All your actions do is make it less enjoyable to read or discuss said popular character or character parallels... you actively drive people away from the fandom discussion around your favorite characters/character parallels... which is an interesting choice to say the least.

I would love to plan out fanart that explores both the major and subtler ways the stark sisters echo both of their parents and even each other... but I am hesitant... Arya stans like these totally just reinforce both my concern that such content would not generally find acceptance/appreciation and my certainty that I would not even simply be peacefully left alone to explore or share these ideas without toxic stans invading my blog to bitch to me about... i don't know? How I'm awful for choosing to taint asoiaf things that sacredly belong only to Arya by including/linking them to evil incarnate Sansa or fandom nobody Robb? That I'd dare malign someone as precious as Arya by having the audacity to think or say that she has similarities to the useless female characters Sansa or Catelyn?

I'm a fan of all the stark kids (including Arya- i love the Stark sisters and wish more fandom discussion around their relationship was based in empathy and nuanced consideration rather than being mostly vitriolic and obviously biased) but stans like this make me not want to branch out beyond the more Sansa/Jonsa centric circles or content... because at least with this part of fandom I encounter people used to seeing/experiencing rudeness or outright harassment and who are not interested in behaving that way themselves (notice people weren't up in arms and taking to the comments in outrage about me choosing to not include and list Sansa and Catelyn parallels ... almost as if Sansa-stans don't harass or criticize people in their own posts... unlike many others I could list)

(including me!!!! I tag my content/art as in depth as possible not just to make it easy to find but also as a curtesy to be easy to filter or block for those who aren't interested in certain fandoms/ships/or even my art and content in general

I wish these people would remember that fandom is a hobby and we do this because we enjoy it... curate your fandom experience, scroll past things that don't interest you/filter any tags you want/block content or blogs that you don't like or don't care to see.

I am doing my part!

I am not willfully invading/infecting your space in fandom with my terrible interest in the starks/sansa/jonsa... use your damn filters and/or block my blog ... don't leave nasty comments for me or the other people to see)

Seriously!!!! Don't waste your energy on negativity, or your time on being rude or purposefully invading specific fandom spaces just to criticize and argue with people in fandom who you disagree with

... because I'm not going to engage with you or argue with you or in any way validate/reinforce your shitty behaviour, I'm not going to sink to your level by invading your blog or your posts to complain about you or your interests... I'm going to block you wearing a smile (just one less unpleasant person to run into in this fandom)

and lastly I'm just going to continue to post/enjoy all the characters/topics/ships that you hate.

and if I complain about what you've done or use it to emphasize my stance on specific antis or fandom conduct in general it will be only ever be in my own posts on my own blog- without explicitly identifying you/referencing your blog/or directing actual harassment or negativity towards you ... (I'm not going to make you feel justified in your negative opinions about/harassment of sansa-stans, jonsa fans, or just literally anyone in fandom who you disagree with... I'm not going to give you evidence/ammunition to slander or smear segments of fandom you consider undesirable... I'm just not going to lower myself the way you do... i have more respectful for myself and for other people in fandom... I'm content to let you look like the asshole and never have to think about you again)

if you failed to develope the ability to give enough of a shit about other people to be respectful in fandom spaces, filter and block accordingly, or at least be civil in your interactions please have enough respect for your own free time and at least care enough about your own emotional well-being and happiness to start acting this way ... Swear to god this will make things more enjoyable not just for others but for yourself as well

Now I'm going to go back to reblogging/making fan art of things I like... because it makes me happy and I don't wish to invest anymore time on negative things or negative people.

- Crimson Cold

[underratedmhapoll]

So About the Brackets... (Important Update)

I've been thinking about where the logical end point of this blog should be recently. I have a lot of other projects and personal things in my life I want to have more time to get back to. Because that free time was spent monitoring poll posts and photoshopping screenshots together for the last few months.

It's been fun, it really has, but I can't be committed to this sort of thing forever. At that realization, I've decided to do three things.

I'm going to take a break. I'm going to finish the crafts that have been lingering half finished on my desk. I'm going to redouble my efforts into the AUs I have. I'm going to finally try and finish the writing challenge I took on last year. Point being, making content for this blog isn't going to be a priority for me anymore. We had our fun but it needs to end at some point, right?

However! We're going out with a bang with a 64 character bracket (and possibly another secret special bracket). Suggestions will be held as normal for the next two weeks. These will be the final brackets this blog takes part in hosting.

I still want to drop content on this blog on occasion but it won't be planned out projects like the brackets anymore. Maintaining the brackets, updating them daily, making sure I use different images for every individual poll, making extra visuals like the blog headers and final results page; it was a lot of work that required constant monitoring and maintenance. To put it simply, any polls I do post from this point forward will be much less work, and I won't be keeping track of results. Most likely, I'll just drop random MHA related polls whenever my brain comes up with one. I still have some bonus poll ideas that never got posted so I'll throw those out first and foremost but I'll also take suggestions for polls as well. Little one offs basically. They'll be sparse and silly but it's something to justify keeping this blog around. More details for those will come at a later date.

If someone else wants to run a similarly themed bracket you are more than welcome to! I may even post my assets if people are interested. I am honored you'd want to keep the idea alive but it's about time I put down the tournament template and call it a night. If you do make one, or any kind of MHA bracket, feel free to tag me and I'll happily reblog and boost as I've done before.

See you in the mega bracket.

Plus Ultra!

[darkfictionjude]

Etymology nonnie here!

I'm not gonna comment on the poll that is going on (anyone who has read anything I've written knows who I voted for and support). I don't want to make campaign, and unlike the future IF poll, there are no major consequences. So no corruption this time from my part. I've been tempted to comment on the poll, since it's interesting to witness how the results fluctuate as people vote. Yet, alas, I don't want to spam more than I already do speaking about something that has varied so much as the day went.

That said, I've been interested by two things discussed today: The RO's as parents, and Lorcan's long relationship with Orla. In this ask I'll focus on the former, and I'll write another ask for the latter. I don't think I can tie them together well enough to justify including it here. So, take this as an omen for what it is to come.

1) The RO's as parents:

So far, none of them really fit the idea of a character who is ready to have children. All three, plus MC, need extensive therapy before they are in a good place to consider parenthood (which is something you already pointed out). Having that established, they are not the same. In the sense that I could see Nia and Imre being able to adapt to being parents with more ease than Lorcan. Perhaps not in every aspect of parenting, but in plenty.

Nia is logical enough that she probably would find a way to make it work alongside her career. Her family, if I remember correctly, has enough resources than a child shouldn't be that much of a hydrance economically. And, since in all these scenarios we are assuming the RO's is with the MC, then we can expect MC to stay at home while Nia studies/works (depending on which point of the time line we are talking about). That said, I imagine Nia would expect MC to work too (especially if MC is female, for some reason I imagine Nia would prefer another fellow woman to be a part of the workforce, and feel somewhat vindicated if a male MC took a more traditional femenine role by staying home, although I may be entirely wrong on this; yet, I still would expect her to want MC to work, regardless of gender). I imagine MC would probably have a part time job, or one that had flexible hours.

As a mother, I think you established already she would be strict. I believe she would be rather cold, but still affectionate. Like, she will be there for her kids when they need her. But otherwise wouldn't be over them all the time to give them affection. I also believe she would be the kind of mother her children would be scared of. Especially because she wouldn't yell, she wouldn't even raise her voice a bit. She would just give one cold disappointed look, and the kid would live with regret for whatever they've done to deserve such look.

Imre probably could throw money at some of the issues. But I also expect him to try to one up, if subconsciously, his own father by how he raises any child. Money also has the advantage that he can stay at home more than he would be able otherwise. Although I do think he would try to work as a paleontologist, and maybe bring his kid alongside him once the kid is old enough (not much of an option for Nia, if she is to become a doctor). Here again it would make sense for MC to stay at home more than Imre. Yet, unlike with Nia, I don't think Imre would expect MC to work (there's not really a need, after all) unless MC wanted to pursue a particular career.

As a parent, I imagine Imre is affectionate yet a bit distant. In the way some fathers can be. I'm not sure if I can explain it. Interestingly, I think he would be the kid of parent the chidren would love more when they are younger, and grew a bit more desillusioned when they get to adulthood. Simply because Imre, so far, seems more ideal as a romantic partner than as a parent. The kind of person who doesn't really want to settle down (didn't he want to marry MC like in his 40's? I think that would be devastating to many MC's if they were dating Imre since their early 20s). I don't think he would be neglectful, at all. I just see him as the cool dad, who becomes less cool when you realize what his coolness demands from him and his time.

Lorcan is a different story. I think Lorcan would love any kid of his no matter what, but he is not in a situation to have them. He is too poor for it to be responsible. And given that MC wouldn't bring any money, both would need to work. So, forcefully, they are less involved with their children. And I don't know if they can afford a nanny or equivalent as Nia and Imre would, so the situation becomes significantly more complicated.

But there is also the aspect of Lorcan, at least as of now, seems less mature than the other two RO's. Which may be because of his hotheadedness, but also due to him expressing his hatred and emotions with significant lesser control than the other two. Some of his behavior can be a bit childish too. So, at least for me, he would have the hardest time adapting to be a parent. Both due to money and maturity.

Which I think can explain why you see him as someone whose children won't respect him. I see Lorcan as someone who would love them too much, and wouldn't know how to discipline children. Depending on MC for that (which, I don't know how that'll work). So money could be even more of an issue if his kids don't realize early how poor they are. But that's a bit sad to think about.

Overall, I think the other problem when trying to imagine the RO's as parents, is how you fit MC in that image. Simply because MC is too wide of a variable, based on how different you can play them. And the thing about parenthood, is that is something that ideally should be a partnership. And if you can't be sure what half of said partnership may be like... Well, I don't think is easy to imagine how it'll go. For a reader, like me, it's easier since we just put our own MC without considering the other possible ways MC could be and develop. But for you, it probably is hard to imagine MC as anything but a very flexible and varied entity.

I say this adding over the point of the RO's and MC being very young as of now. It's hard to imagine them as parents when they have do much to do before that. Even if in the 90's people married and had children earlier than today (on average, although don't quote me on that, as I have not done any proper research on the matter).

I feel you’re pretty spot on actually. Nia would want mc to work in some capacity, she would like for them to have equal time for work and child raising. Imre would be a bit more distant as the children grow up, I likened him to a father who has his kids when he’s old, he’s a good dad but he isn’t as close as he can be when they’re teenagers and adults. And yeah I did say Imre would prefer to be married in his 40s. And Lorcan, yeah he has too many issues with parenthood, his own self doubts and that he’s not sure if he even wants children.

In the 90s there was a rise in how old people had children, still a bit young but from what I remember it’s 22-24 ish

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

(tag!anon again) Thank you! I appreciate the immense effort you put into entertaining the rabid masses with polls <3

You're welcome! And thank you. :)

I'm going to use this ask as a jumping off point to make a masterpost of the tags in use.

The original posts get collected into rounds, and reblogs don't go into these tags (but statistic and chaos-causing posts sometimes do). So far we have #Preliminaries, #Round 1, #Round 2, #Round 3, #Round 4, #Round 5, #Round 6, #Round 7, and finally #Round 8.

The original posts will have more variations on character and podcast names, in order to show up in the tumblr-at-large search results.

Propaganda reblogs will be tagged with #Propaganda, #[Character Name], and #[Podcast Name]. There will be two character tags if the character has an accent in their name, and some of the podcasts get both an overall podcast tag and a campagin-specific podcast tag (but not all of them).

#Anti-Propaganda is used for anti-propaganda. I try to only reblog things in good fun as I explain in detail here, but my sense of fun isn't everybody's sense of fun, so I suggest people blacklist that tag if it's something they don't enjoy.

#Results is for the winner announcements and some statistics. I reblog with the number of votes and the percentage the winner won because the website version of the blog (versus the dashboard version of the blog) doesn't show results.

#Statistics is for statistics. ^_^

#Mod Update is for updates from me, the moderator. I put stuff in here both about the brackets and about things going on with me that might interfere with my presence as pollrunner (for example, traveling for the eclipse and thus not being here for the final hours of Pickman vs Glenn Close.

#Rules has announcements for how the brackets are run.

#Not A Poll is for posts that aren't polls.

#Other Polls are for polls from other tournaments (I only reblog ones with podcast characters, feel free to send me any you find).

#Technically A Poll is for polls that I make that aren't head-to-head match ups.

#Podcast Networks is for my poll on podcast networks, a subject I don't know much about.

#Bonus Poll is for non-bracket match-ups that I am personally interested in, and may not be as impartial as I am for the actual brackets.

#Adaptations Poll is for polls about stories that were originally fiction podcasts and later adapted into other mediums. I'm always taking recs for this one!

#Friendless Bracket is for a hypothetical 32-entry redo of the Unscripted Bracket that would only happen if a Friends at the Table character wins the Unscripted Bracket. This did not occur, so this bracket will not exist. In 2024 I will have stricter limits for how many characters from a single podcast can enter the bracket.

#Eye Bracket is for the bonus bracket that will occur after the main tournament has finished, focused on podcast characters with an eye motif.

#Monster Bracket is another bonus bracket, this one focusing on uniquely powerful characters that straddle the line between divine and monstrous.

#fictionpodsexyperson is my attempt at finishing the bracket that inspired this blog. Carlos won that one too.

#AI Bracket is yet a third bonus bracket, about artificial intelligences.

#Honorary Mention are for characters that didn't make it into the brackets.

#Ask is for answered asks. I also tag these with the username of the person who sent the ask. This is not because I am keeping a record of you all, but rather because I've been on Tumblr since before @ mentions and before people got notifications when their asks were answered.

#Last Reblog goes up roughly 1 day before the poll ends. These are scheduled posts that have only the propaganda those characters started that round with.

#Weekend Reblog, #Monday Reblog, and I'm sure there will be others are midweek reblogs of the polls, assuming I have the time to make them. Round 1 took 5 days to post so did not get midweek reblogs.

#Post-Polls Reactions is for reblogging people's reactions to the results of polls.

#Mod Interferes is for when I make an announcement during an ongoing poll in an attempt to get an interesting outcome.

#Love Wins is for ties. :)

#Voter Fraud covers what is and isn't allowed during these polls.

#Art Propaganda is for art that was added as propaganda, made in response to the polls, or that was sent to this blog to reblog.

#Masterpost is for big long posts like this one that I might edit and add to over time.

#Actual Play Rec List is for all non-D&D actual play podcasts and games.

#Listen List is for podcast recommendations.

#Valentine's Day is for childhood style valentines, and will only be posted in when it's February 14th somewhere in the USA. If you find any I haven't reblogged feel free to send them to me at any time, and I'll save them in the drafts until next year.

I will update this post as I remember or create other tags.

[pruning-the-minds-garden]

Hypnokink Safety Polls, Round One

My first round of poll results were as follows. I will show the results first, then give my breakdown and analysis of what the results mean at the bottom. All of that is under a "Read More" for the sake of brevity.

General Caveats: This is not a scientifically valid or representative polling method. If I were designing a study on this topic this a Tumblr poll is not how I would do it, because of course it isn't. The sample is self-selected, which introduces irresolvable sampling bias, there is a wildly different number of respondents and a different polling sample for each question so each is independent of one another, and there is no way to calibrate the questions against any sort of independent metric or demographic weighting. So, it cannot possibly capture the whole complexity around this and cannot truly be accurate. I will cop to that right at the top of this, so that none of you are under any illusions about it, but I still think that asking questions like this has value in niche communities like ours so it is worth doing and worth breaking down our responses.

That said, lets get on with it.

Analysis: This one is fairly straightforward. Aside from a slight fishhook at "minimal" it is a lightly front-loaded normal curve with a mean value of slightly above "moderate." Doing the math on this by turning "minimal" into 1, "low" into 2, etc all the way up to "very high" as 7, and adding up the weighted percentages then finding where the mean is, the mean value is 4.037, or veeeeeery slightly above "moderately risky." So, the average community perception is that hypnokink is a moderately risky to slightly greater than moderately risky kink activity.

Caveat and Cautionary Statement: This was a question of perception, not truth. That is to say, this is what people perceive to be the case, not what is necessarily true for a given person or what is their experience. 4.5% of (or 19) people perceive hypnokink to be a very high risk activity and 8.1% of (or 34) people perceive it to be a very low risk activity. Those perceptions are each informed by their personal experiences of hypnokink, and are valid insofar as they are themselves concerned. It is not right to discount either of them for deviating from the community "norm," but knowing what the community perceives collectively to be the norm does still have value. That could have been skewed by the specific examples I chose for low, moderate and very high, though, to be fair.

Analysis: It's approximately a coin-toss whether a given respondent has or has not been party to abusive, unsafe or unethical behavior that was seemingly intentional. Specifically, the plurality of respondents have been party to such behavior, but the size of the sample is such that the margin of uncertainty on those percentages would be pretty significant, meaning that I can't say for certain whether that plurality number is genuine or not. Still, that number is pretty darn high. 10% of respondents have been party to such behavior numerous times. FWIW, I think the dip between "few" and "numerous" is probably to do with the fact that I didn't put in a numerical qualifier, and so respondents likely couldn't quantify the difference clearly.

Overally though to me, that says that we have a lot of work still left to do as a community, though I suppose harm already done cannot at this point be erased.

Caveat: It was pointed out to be a couple of times that "party to" may not have been very clear. It was my intention to avoid things like "the victim of" or "subject to" because that sort of language can itself be traumatizing or dehumanizing, but still point in the same general direction, but that lack of clarity might have caused a bias in the poll responses. If so, though, then it probably skewed the responses toward "never" and not "numerous."

Analysis: This question has several moving parts, and each of them is interesting in its own right. I want to look at them all in turn.

First, we have the "not been involved" option, which is the plurality of responses. That is interesting in that it reveals that the hypnokink community is a lot newer to the kink than I thought, and therefore the community is growing at a significant rate. That alters the kinds of things that are useful and necessary to the community as a whole, in my mind. It also recontextualizes the previous question, because if 40% of the community has been involved for less than two years and approximately 50% of the community has not been party to intentionally abusive, unsafe or unethical behavior... then that potentially means that as few as 10% of people who have been involved longer than two years have not been party to those things. Now, that is the absolute statistical floor, and I do not have reason to believe that the true value is that number... but it is still a worrisome figure to even think about.

Next is whether the respondents perceive the norms getting more, less, or staying as stringent. About 30% (28.7%) of respondents said that they saw the norms getting more stringent with time, about 20% (20.8%) said they saw them staying the same, and about 10% (8.9%) said they saw them getting less stringent with time. That only adds up to ~60% because 40% answered that they had been in the community fewer than two years. So, on the whole, the half of the community that has been in the community longer tends to see norms growing more stringent, though with significant exceptions.

Finally, there is the question of whether that's something people want. When asked whether more stringent norms, less stringent norms or as stringent norms are what they want, about a third (33.7%) of respondents said they wanted more stringent norms or that more stringent norms were a needed change. About half that number, or one-sixth (16.8%) said that less stringent norms were desirable or necessary. Lastly, about half that number (7.9%) said that the norms should stay where they are. All that adds up, to me, to a fairly clear preference for the norms growing more stringent from where they are.

That combination of things tells me that the community is divided on the idea of changing norms. While the least popular option is for norms to stay where they are, and the most popular option is for them to grow more stringent, the second most popular option is for them to grow less stringent... and that results in something of an impasse. The community as a whole has less of an appetite for changing norms (16.9% over/under for whether more stringent is good is versus 19.8% over/under for whether they perceive norms as becoming more stringent) than it has a belief in whether norms are changing. I think that might contribute to a feeling that change is being forced upon certain people, who may not otherwise believe they are doing anything to merit having such change forced upon them.

So, what that ultimately tells me is that we need to communicate with one another better. Talk with each other more. Listen to each other better. Understand that having different values doesn't mean that one of us is wrong and the other right, one of us a hero and the other a villain. In other words we need to build community, because we are a community at the end of the day.

Analysis: This one is also fairly straightforward. I know that some of the ideas - especially comprehensive safety suggestions, the controversy around which I've written about before - are controversial, but the responses on the whole speak for themselves. I put this one in there more-or-less for my own edification, to inform the kind of content I make going forward. I was intentionally leaning on the selection bias of the polling format, knowing that the audience of the poll was going to skew to my readers and followers, and took the answer to this question to mean "this is what my followers want to see me give them."

I already have a list of bad actors, so I will keep that updated when I can as well as calling out people when they cross my radar. I have written some material for new subjects, but I can definitely write more. Most of the guides I have written are framed for new hypnotists and I tend to find that most guides are written from that perspective, so it is a decent hole to fill to produce that kind of content.