#not tagging the main fandom cause i know some people don't like that

[pinkyjulien]

I did not expect hostility over my Flat Chest mod, so I'll half acknowledge it and kill some of the assumption before they take roots in other people's minds

No, I did not make this mod *because* I refuse to support Na's flat chest mod

Initial Mod idea was a working "binder" for Fem, something you'd equip to flatten the chest- like a real life binder, basically. It's part of my To-Do list of June, for Pride

The mod evolved as I got more ideas, I also started working on a body replacer, it's basically ready to ship as well, but I decided against it; not to step on toes and causing confusion with two "flat chest" body mods, knowing there is also another one in the work from a fellow modder

(the binders themselves will come much later, and will be available for both fem and masc body frames!)

Again, the mod started as a "binder"- I mentioned it multiple times, either in servers where I started sharing the idea, and in the tags of my mod post

"Binders" are not costumes. They are gender affirming aid, something a lot of person use; I've made a couple of "wearable" / "switchable" body parts mods in the past already, including a trans masc vagina, I really hope you don't see this as a costume as well?

In the universe of Cyberpunks, implants and synth skin are used by everyone, for all kind of purpose; GNC people, trans people and gender-fluid people would probably use implants and cyberware to sculpt themselves, feel comfortable in their body

Who's to say some rich citizen wouldn't have some fancy switchable body pieces- hell it's even canon in game, Mr.Stud and Mrs.Midnight? Switchable boobs are already a thing, I don't see what's wrong with switching up for a flatter chest

The survey's results aren't out yet, so I couldn't know. But that's beside the point, as my mod isn't a "bandaid" for any issue this fandom may have

If the name is causing trouble, I'm open to changing it; but the main goal, again, was to flatten the vanilla fem V chest, and I think "flat chest" is pretty straight forward for nexus users

Mmmh. Sorry but, no

Everyone is different and handle their own space differently, and I do not want to support people who did me, or my friends, any serious mental health damage. Be it from harassement, witch hunt and whatnot

I won't be dragging in there old drama from 2 years ago, but I simply won't support someone who tried to get a friend of mine fired from their work place, threatening to send a 30+ pages google doc to their leads and boss, and dragging all of their personal beefs to the public on multiple social medias. They ruined my friend's mental health, and I simply won't forgive nor forget.

That is my right. And I wish people would accept and respect that.

I won't tell anyone who to support or what mod to use/not use, NOBODY should tell you what to do, what to support, who to like or dislike; and nobody can control who I must support and what I must do. Simple as that

And I'm glad the flat chest body mod exist for people who wish to use it! I'm offering another option that I'm sure some people will find useful

Thank you :)

People already gave me trouble in the past for "doing work that already exist"

Those past few weeks has been eventful when it comes to "drama" especially involving Zwei, who's notorious for having a modding monopol and gatekeeping ideas in general

Let's not bring that same mindset here, yeah?

Everyone is free to mod what they want, whatever body they want, to refit what they want!

Again, just to point it out, mod isn't there to fix a problem, that's just a mod I wanted to make

It's a brand new mod, meaning it needs refiting; I did not test the flat chest bodymod, nor tried the already existing vanilla refit. And I won't, for the reasons I cited aboved a few lines before.

I'm glad you agree! Nobody has to do things they don't want to

You call it disingenuous, and I call it having principles/self respect; again, crazy how different people are from one another, and how we just can't assume everyone work and react the same as we do

I see, I see, the name is a big issue; I'm open to suggestion, feel free to leave a reply and I'll see what catches my eyes

Cause It's still my mod, so I get to decide

Anyway, hope this cleared up a few things, and sorry this made people upset!

For everyone else, thank you for the support 🧡

[thehiccupingbanana]

Keys to my Heart

PAIRING/FANDOM: Nicholas "Nick" Nelson/Charles "Charlie" Spring GENRE: fluff WORD COUNT: 2,112 WARNINGS: none SUMMARY: "Maybe you can move in with Charlie? You basically live there anyways, and for some reason pay your share of the rent here. Not that we are complaining.” Christian joked. “I don’t live with Charlie. We haven’t been together long enough to live together.” Nick said. “I don’t think that is true.” Sai interjected. or Nick's flatmates decided that they were not going to renew their rent for the next year, so Nick asked Charlie for help finding a flat. Charlie was under the impression that Nick was already slowly moving in with him. ADDITIONAL TAGS: Established Nicholas "Nick" Nelson/Charles "Charlie" Spring, Alternate Universe - College/University, sappy boys, no beta / editor [READ ON AO3]

It’s been four years since Charlie sat next to Nick in their form room back in secondary. It’s been three years and eleven months since Nick and Charlie have been best friends.

It’s been 2 years 6 months 13 days 20 hours and 58 minutes since their friend group decided to skip the last party fresher’s week; the plan to have a film night like when they were in secondary school. Since Nick and Charlie both got a little too drunk and said yes to a game of truth or dare. Since someone dared Charlie to kiss Nick, and Nick was pretty certain Charlie was going to kiss his cheek. Since Nick decided he didn’t want Charlie to kiss his cheek and moved at the last moment for their lips to meet. Since Nick and Charlie kissed for the first time for an unknown amount of time, only breaking apart when Darcy yelled “Get it son!”. Since they fell asleep together that night and decided to be boyfriends the following morning.

Not that Nick has been counting or anything.

Present day Nick is aware he is undeniably down bad for his best friend and boyfriend. He is also aware that he still can’t keep his hands off his boyfriend, so he understands that Charlie wanted a distraction free evening to get a project done for a class. Nick thought about just going to the library for a few hours but he was feeling a little bad that he has only seen his flat mates during rugby practice or matches for the last few months; so, he decides to go to his flat for the night. 

“I’m back.” Nick yelled into the flat he shared with a couple of his mates from the rugby team. The three guys that didn’t “banter” at him because he is bisexual, but because of how much of a sap he is about his boyfriend, Charlie.

“Hey, what happened?” Christian asked, from his spot on the sofa next to Sai.

Nick drops his backpack with some clothes in it for tomorrow at the bottom of the stairs. “Nothing’s happened, Charlie just has a project due in a couple of days, and he wants to get it done. He said that if I’m around he gets "too distracted".” Nick answered, making air quotes for emphasis.

Christian and Sai laughed at Nick’s use of quotation marks.

“Well, one of you has to be the sensible one I guess.” Sai said, once he settled down.

“I know.” Nick pouted, plopping down on the recliner next to the sofa.

“Well, it’s good to see you, we’re glad you’re here, even if it is just for one night.” Sai smiled softly.

“I’m not gone that much, and I see you at rugby 4 times a week.”

“But you’re not here, at home. Which is okay, and something we wanted to talk to you about.” Christian replied.

“Graduation is coming up in a couple months, and we talked to Otis about some things, and neither one of us are planning on staying here in Leeds afterwards.” Sai stated.

“Oh.” Nick sighed.

“We know you are going to stay here for your PGCE, but maybe you can move in with Charlie? You basically live there anyways, and for some reason pay your share of the rent here. Not that we are complaining.” Christian joked.

“I don’t live with Charlie. We haven’t been together long enough to live together.” Nick said.

“I don’t think that is true.” Sai interjected, “People move in with their partners at all different times, some don’t even live with their partners if they are married. There’s no rule book on that.”

“Also, you and Charlie have been best mates since secondary school, people can live with their friends.”  Christian added. “But we’re not saying you have to move in with Charlie. There are some guys on the team getting a flat share next year that I’m sure they wouldn’t mind for you to join in on the rent pool.”

“Yeah. I’ll look around too, since I don’t have to be so close to campus next year, I’ll see what options I have.” Nick replied.

After having some take away pizza with the guys, Nick goes to his room to start looking at some flat options.

Upon stepping into his room throwing his overnight bag on his bed, he remembers that his good pillow is still at Charlie’s flat. That’s fine, I’ll be over again tomorrow.

Nick pulls out his laptop and looks on Rightmove and starts looking at flats closest to Charlie’s flat and flats that are just close to the University; both with the idea of making it easier for Charlie if he was to come over. Finding a potential flat easily.

1 Bed | 1 Bath | Recently Upgraded | Nearby University of Leeds

Nick looked at the map and could confirm it was indeed very close to the University, but on the other side than Charlie’s flat, and the price was on the higher end of his price range. Nick decided to look through the photos on the posing anyways seeing that the bedroom barley fit a double bed in it. Maybe. Nick thought as he scrolled on to the next listing.   

1 Bed | 1.5 Bath | Paved Front Garden

Nick looked at another listing that was fairly close to Charlie’s flat, but further away to the University. It was much more affordable but the photos showed a very small kitchen. To Nick, the kitchen is the only thing that has to be perfect, everything else doesn’t really matter that much. However, not having a place to live trumps a small kitchen so the flat also gets a maybe.

He decides he may not find anything better until closer to the summer when people are moving out, so he closes his laptop and texts Charlie a “good luck on your project <3” text, and watches YouTube on his phone until he falls asleep.

~●~

“Charlie, can you help me find a new place to live?” Nick asked, laying down with his head on Charlie’s lap. Charlie lounging on his bed, one hand playing with Nick’s hair, the other holding the book he was reading.

“What?” Charlie questioned, shoving an old receipt he’d been using as a bookmark in the book and putting it on the nightstand.

“Well, the guys said that they aren’t going to stay in Leeds for another year after graduation, so I’ll need to find a new place to live.” Nick responded. “I found a couple of different options that might work, but I want your opinion as well.”

“If it’s where you want to live, then it should be your choice.” Charlie replied.

“But I don’t want you to hate it and you never come over.” Nick started, “Like one is expensive and the bedroom is barely big enough for a bed. Another is close by so you can come over whenever you want, but the kitchen is so small, you couldn't even bake brownies from a box in there and have room.”

“Sweetheart, get up for a moment.” Charlie bent his knees slightly to prompt Nick to move, both guys shifting so they were sitting and facing each other.

“Or I was also thinking that I can go down to the leasing office here and see if there are any vacancies available, so then we can live in the same building.”

“Nick-”

“Or if you don’t want that then that’s okay! The small flat is cute, and if you don’t want to come over, that’s fine! I can still come here.” Nick interrupted, already going into a spiral.

“Wait.”

“Or not, it’s okay. I can look on my own, you don’t have t-”

“Hey.” Charlie interrupted, putting his hands on either side of Nick’s face. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know.” Nick sighed, “I guess I’m a little stressed out about finding a place that works for you.”

“Works for me?” Charlie asked, furrowing an eyebrow.

“Yeah, close enough to campus so if you want to stay the night, you’re not late to classes or study groups. Or close by so you can be with your friends. But not like I’m saying you have to spend the night with me-”

“Darling.” Charlie gently interrupted Nick’s spiral again, “You have another place to live that isn’t with the rugby guys.”

“Char, I don’t want to go back to live with my mom, I want to stay here with you.” Nick pleaded.

“Nick, I’m not talking about living with your mom.” Charlie smiled, moving his hands over Nick’s hands. “Why don’t you live here? With me?”

“But what about Tao?” Nick asked.

“Tao already told me he’s been thinking about moving into a flat with Elle.”

“You don’t think it’s too soon? Won’t your mom be really upset with you?” Nick whispered.

“My mom’s been upset with me half my life Nick, you moving in with me is not going to change her feelings of me.” Charlie half-joked. “Plus, we’ve been best friends for four years, and by next school year it’ll be 2 years since we started dating...”

“But-”

“It’s not like you don’t already practically live here…”

“I don’t live here.”

“You might as well just be paying rent to the wrong bill, love.”

“That’s what the guys said. I do stay here with you a lot, but I don’t think I live here. Plus isn’t your room kind of small for two people? It definitely felt bigger when you moved in.”

“All of your stuff is here Nick; half this room is your stuff. This room has slowly become our room. Even this quilt is yours.” Charlie said, picking up the corner of the quilt closest to him for emphasis.

“Your quilt was too heavy; I was overheating every night.”

“Yes, Nick, that's what I was saying. Every night.” Charlie jokingly poked. “I’m not complaining though, I love my personal human radiator.”

“I knew you just loved me for my body.” Nick fake pouted.

“Yes, duh. Amongst other things.” Charlie chuckled. “But that’s why you have your cooling pillow on your side of the bed. Where the night stand has your reading glasses, and your half empty glass of water. Half my dresser is full of your clothes, half the closet is your clothes.”

“Is that what you’re calling the row of my stolen hoodies.” Nick poked Charlie’s side lightly.

“You needed clothes for when you stayed here, also they’re our hoodies Nicholas. We have joint custody.” Charlie joked, grabbing Nick's finger and not letting go.

“Okay so maybe I live in your room.” Nick acquiesced.

“You have all your soaps in the shower, and half the bathroom sink counter is covered with your stuff. Hell, you even have a cabinet in the kitchen full of your baking stuff.” Charlie started, “And it’s okay, I like it. I want you to feel at home here.”

“You are my home.”

“There’s you being sappy again.”

“You were sappy first!”

“Shut up, I am never sappy.”

“You are, and I think it’s because you love me.” Nick joked, pushing Charlie onto his back with Nick hovering over him.

“No, I don’t.” Charlie shook his head.

“You don’t mean that.” Nick mock gasped, tickling Charlie.

“Nick!” Charlie gasped between laughs. “Stop!”

“Are you going to take it back?” Nick asked, stopping just long enough to get an answer out of Charlie. Charlie used that moment to flip them back over, grabbing Nick’s wrists and pinning them above his head, to keep Nick from tickling him again.

“I do. I was going to say it’s because I really love you, but I’m not sure any more.” Charlie pouted.

“Well, I really love you so I hope you really love me.” Nick smiled.

“You are. Such. A. Sap. Nicholas. Nelson.” Charlie said, punctuating with a poke to Nick’s side.

“I’m your sap, Charles Spring.” Nick said, slightly dazed with the feeling of Charlie’s weight on him.

“Ugh.” Charlie rolled his eyes, before leaning down and kissing Nick.

He kept his hand pinning down Nick’s wrists in place and kissed Nick until he heard a small noise in Nick’s throat.

Charlie pulled back from the kiss gently, laughing softly when he heard Nick groan “Why’d you stop?”

“Nick, if you want to, I would love for you to officially live with me.” Charlie prompted.

“Uhm- YES. Char, obviously. As long as you want to.”

“I just said I want you to!” Charlie laughed, shifting downwards to continue kissing Nick.

~●~

It’s only 2 months and 5 days until Nick gets to officially live together with his boyfriend, not that Nick is counting or anything.  

~~~

title by the lovely @sleepywriter00 who always helps me with titles because i suck at it <3

if i missed any cw/tws, please let me know!

[fluffle-writes]

I wanna. Pick them up in my mouth and shake 'em around like a dog obliterating a squeaky toy

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

[batpham-discord-highlights]

A PSA for tagging DPxDC Content

This post will include:

The proper tags to use when posting

Why we use them and not the parent fandom tags

A chart of key words to help you filter

Image descriptions under the cut

We know we can't control who tags what, and how tumblr chooses to work, or not work, but these are just some general guidelines to help everyone find or block our content.

What DPxDC Tags should you use? 

General: dpxdc always

More Specific Tags: Batpham, dpxjl, dpxyj

For ALL ships please add “ship” after the ship name. For example: Dead Tired ship, Dead on Main ship, Double Edged Sword ship

What Tags should you NOT use?

Parent Fandom Tags: Danny Phantom, dp, Phandom, Phanart, Phanfic, DC Comics, DC Universe, dc, Batfamily, Batfam, Superfam 

Variations of General Tags: dp x dc, dcxdp, dc x dp, dp x jl, dp x yj, dp/dc, dc/dp, 

For ships please don’t tag JUST the ship name. For example: Dead Tired, Dead on Main, Double Edged Sword

As a general fandom tag we are using dpxdc, WITH NO SPACES.

Why no spaces? Tumblr is so glitchy it’s baffling a very functional website. Because of this we’ve received reports that sometimes if a post is tagged "dp x dc" or “dp/dc” then, even when the tag is blocked, the posts will still show up in the individual "dp" and "dc" tags. That isn’t cool.

Why is it important to tag separately?

dpxdc is a big crossover. The crossover fandom has been rapidly growing over the past year. The crossover fandom drowns out the original dp/danny phantom fandom by a lot, especially for people who may be interested in dpxdc but also want to enjoy regular phandom content. By not using the dp and danny phantom tags, it helps a lot to not drown out the main fandom's inhabitants and content. dpxdc as a fandom tends to pump out a lot of content (which is amazing), but that means that we need to be careful to not suffocate the main fandoms. "Why can't I tag the danny phantom or batfam main fandoms? it's a crossover" -- yeah, it is a crossover, but it's a crossover that is huge (especially in comparison to danny phantom) and dpxdc has taken over the main fandom tags. It's causing a lot of animosity and tension on both sides.

Additionally, the crossover (like most fandoms) comes with some common characterizations, tropes, aus, and concepts that tend to be interpretations that do not link back to the main fandom well. While fandoms come up with their own characterizations, tropes, aus, and concepts, it's important to know when a crossover fandom has existed long enough to establish its own sets of common themes that the main fandom may want nothing to do with.

This doesn’t mean you have to pick between dpxdc and its parent fandoms, like Danny Phantom or DC or Batfam. Indeed, by NOT tagging dpxdc with its parent fandoms, you are ensuring that people who want a space for dpxdc and a space for its parent fandoms can have both! We don’t have to pick sides! But in order to have both, we need to tag dpxdc content with a tag we can search (that is, dpxdc), AND we need to make sure we’re NOT tagging the parent fandoms (such as, danny phantom).

What if I don't want to see dpxdc content?

Here {link} is an in depth guide on how to block tags and filter certain content from appearing on your dash. We also ask that you please keep any venting out of the dpxdc.

However, if you’d like an easy list of terms to just put into your filters, we’ve made a chart!

Thank you!!! 🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇👻🦇

[image description: A table with 3 categories, “DC Content”, “DPxDC content” and “DP content. 

Under “DC Content” are listed: dc comics, dc, batfam, Young Justice Cartoon, Young Justice , Teen Titans, Teen Titans 2003, Batman, Gotham, Bruce Wayne, Justice League, Superman, Clark Kent, Metropolis , Jason Todd, Red Hood, Tim Drake, Red Robin, Damian Wayne, Lazarus Pit, Lazarus Water, Ras al Ghul, Watchtower, Constantine, John Constantine, Robin dc.

Under “DPxDC content” are listed: dpxdc, dp x dc, dcxdp, dc x dp, dp x dc crossover, dp x dc prompt, dp x dc fanfic, dp x dc au, dp x yj, dpxyj, dp x jl, dpxjl, dpxdc event, Batpham, Danny Fenton/Dick Grayson, Death Defying, Danny Fenton/Jason Todd, Dead on Main ship, Danny Fenton/Cassandra Cain, Dead Silent, Danny Fenton/Tim Drake, Brain Dead, Dead Tired, Danny Fenton/Damian Wayne, Dead Serious, Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd, Anger Management ship, Hardcover, Jazz Fenton/Cassandra Cain, Silent Jasmines, Dani Phantom/Damian Wayne, Serious Chaos, Double Edged ship, Dani Phantom/Mar'i Grayson, Space Princess, Demon Twins.

Under “DP content” are listed: Danny Phantom, Phandom, Phanart, Phanfic, Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Vlad Masters, Vlad Plasmius, Ghost King Danny, Ghost Zone, Infinite Realms, A Glitch in Time, Amity Park, Nasty Burger, Everlasting Trio, Badger Cereal, Dan Phantom, Valerie Gray, Team Phantom, Jazz Fenton, Clockwork, Skulker, Fenton, Jack Fenton, Maddie Fenton, Eldritch danny, Fright Knight. end]

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for telling someone to stop posting their takes?

🎶✨

to recognize if this ends up getting posted

To start, this is a fandom thing. I don't know the other person (a minor I will call G) personally, but I have seen her appear in my searches before. I typically avoid speaking to people like her because the things she say would cause drama.

Most of her posts were about how the female avatar was meant to be the canon one of the game and that the male avatar was never meant to exist. This is false. The game was not made with just female avatar in mind and many people had pointed it out to G, but she would deny it. It did not help that some people apparently supported her and would join her with the "you are all misogynist for wanting to deny the game was made for female avatar."

It isn't misogyny if we are stating facts. The concept art for when the game first started shows the male avatar was the first to have a design. female avatar was designed later.

I'll start with, I have nothing against female avatar.

But back to the main point. Since G would tag her posts about how much she hated that male avatar was created and was "stealing" female avatar's attention and potential ship partners, I got annoyed by all that and decided to dm her about it.

I told her something along the lines of "that kind of hate isn't welcomed in the fandom, but if you want to continue posting like that, you should keep it out of the tags." G responded by vaguely referencing the dms in a post and deleting it when she got backlash for it. She eventually ended up deleting her account after that.

My friends are saying I was an asshole for messaging G like that and getting a minor bullied off the internet. They also said that I should have just ignored it and that they felt pity for G and were going to show their support for her by only talking about female avatar and excluding talk about male avatar. I had said that if it was the opposite happening, people would be up in arms and that what G was doing should still be considered sexist. My friends said I was an asshole for saying that standing up for a woman in the light of having a man outshine her was sexist. Which wasn't what I had said at all?

I get that could have just blocked and ignore her, but I did not want other people who were fans of the male avatar to have to see hate about him. That was why I chose to dm G. I did not intend for her to get hate about it.

AITA for telling G to stop posting her takes in the tags?

What are these acronyms?

[chocolatepot]

Twitter is rapidly sinking as people are only allowed to look at it for about ten minutes a day, so I thought I would put together a post explaining the best way to get started on Mastodon! It can be an intimidating prospect as it's not as immediately user-friendly as Twitter or other corporate social media sites.

Selecting a server

The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that you don't just "sign up for Mastodon". Mastodon is effectively made up of hundreds of small sites (called "instances") that are all interconnected ("federated") and use the same interface. The instance you choose has only a minor effect on your experience. The main one to be aware of is that if an instance is known to be poorly moderated and have users who cause a lot of trouble, other instances may unlink from it ("defederate") and make it more difficult for people on it to interact with you. This is rare. The very big, unthemed instances like mastodon.social are more likely to have this problem than any fannish one, in my experience. (You can also make a personal choice to block an entire instance if you have an issue with it.)

The other effect is that each instance has its own universal feed of all users on it.

The sidebar looks almost exactly like Twitter's, except for "local" and "federated". Your home feed is just the people you follow. "Local" is everyone on your instance, and "federated" is everyone on any instance yours is federated with. The local feed is why it's worthwhile to choose an instance that has some sort of theme you're interested in, like fandom, tech, queer issues, history, etc.

The two main fannish instances I'm aware of are fandom.ink and federatedfandom.net. There's also wandering.shop but that seems to be more for writers, in my experience. If you want a different sort of instance, just google "[topic] mastodon instance" and you should find it.

Applying to your instance

Because instances are more tightly moderated than the rest of social media, you can't always immediately get into the one you want. (Though I suspect that many have opened up slightly as Twitter flails.) You may need to submit some kind of application and wait a few days.

If you know someone on the instance you want to join, they may be able to get you an invite code so you can skip the queue. I have unlimited invites for fandom.ink, hit me up if you want to join.

You can also join an instance that's currently taking new accounts and then transfer into the one you want later. For the impatient souls.

Posting

The mechanics of posting are just like Twitter's.

You type in the box, you hit "toot" (I know), and out it goes. You may notice that you get a 500 character limit! This is nice.

If you add an image, make sure to add alt text. Not including alt text may get you flamed or shamed. You can also make a poll, set privacy levels, and add a content/spoiler/trigger warning that will require people to click through to see the text.

Use of hashtags is strongly encouraged on Mastodon. I've seen some talk praising Tumblr's style of having a separate field for tags and suggesting Mastodon add that, but I don't know if it'll happen. But unlike Twitter, there's an earnest culture of incorporating tags into your text (eg "I just bought a new #fountainpen") and following tags to get posts about different topics. This is the main way to find people with similar interests to follow, outside of your local feed.

It's also Mastodon culture to write an introductory post with your interests, including hashtags, so that people can find you.

Something else to be aware of is that you can edit your posts! If anyone has already rt'd ("boosted") them - they will just get a notification of your edit.

You cannot qrt on Mastodon at this time. It's a hotly debated topic. You will have to settle for boosting and then replying, or making your own post with context and linking to the post you want to qrt.

Following other people

If the person you want to follow is on your instance, that's all well and good. Click on their name, go to their profile, click the "follow" button.

If they are not on your instance, you need to make sure that you're accessing them through your instance. Clicking on their name from your federated feed, or if someone has boosted them onto your home feed, will automatically take you to the version of their profile on your instance. Also all well and good.

If you get to their profile from somewhere else, such as a direct link from another social media platform, that's a problem. If you try to follow, their instance will bleat at you that you don't have an account. There are two ways to get around this.

One is to paste their entire username (eg "@chocolatepot@fandom.ink") into the search bar on your instance, from your home feed. The other is to navigate to "http://[your server address]/[their whole username]" in your address bar. Both will take you to the same place.

[azi-sings-calliope]

The Sandman female characters - why are they buried?

I'm gonna make a series of my thoughts on the female Sandman characters, both critiques of how they're treated and appreciation posts for them. (These are just my opinions, everyone is entitled to their own) Hope you enjoy!

Also tagging @thesandwomen because I'm also very curious to hear your takes on her.

Part 1: Rose Walker

As a character, she gets an obscene amount of hate. Even her actress was bullied terribly when the show came out (which is a whole other issue).

The thing with Rose Walker is that she's strong, complex, powerful, but not in necessarily always visible ways.

She's making her own way in life, traumatized but loving, ambitious and creative. Her inner dialogue and workings is complex and tragic but not in always... I guess cinematic or traditional ways.

She shows the realistic side of someone, specifically someone growing up through tragedy.

She's endlessly creative but she's cursed as this Vortex which destroys and she can't escape that, unless she dies. While she's going through all this she's dragged for not being more dynamic or charismatic.

I found Rose Walkers character to be awfully realistic, because in my eyes, a way of interpreting her story is that one of a young woman, growing up, promising and creative, has been pushed down by society and other people's actions against her. She's creative, loving, ambitious, searching for her brother and making a life for herself. But then she's pulled down into this Vortex, this series of awful and inexplicable events where things are happening around her, she knows she's causing it, and she can't stop it, and the only way to solve it is to die and leave a life she has fought for so hard.

Strange people are telling her what to do, she doesn't understand it entirely, but she does it to the best of her ability. She pushes back at them (Dream and the Corinthian) at times, because what else can she do?

In the end, she ends up with one of her last living relatives dying in front of her and realizing there was no other way for it to turn out. And she's hated, because throughout these events, she isn't entertaining enough.

I'm not someone best suited to talk on the racism that undoubtedly impacted how the fandom impacted the character, but it's worth noting that racism certainly played a role.

Rose Walker shows the sides of a character, specifically a young, strong woman character that I feel like isn't often marketed.

Some of those who claim "girl power" dislike her because she isn't what they're used to seeing. I'm not claiming that she's revolutionary, I'm saying that she IS that type of character, portrayed perhaps more realistically.

She is powerful but she's not cocky and smiley and she won't punch you in the face. Female characters are only perhaps worth paying attention to if they have any qualities that are surface level beneficial or amusing to the audience.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rose Walker is disliked because she's realistic, she has no amusing qualities.

Female characters often have stock marketable traits, such as humour, physical strength, or maybe magical. It's almost as if they're being paraded around, but not as a celebration but as a freak show. These are fake empowerment characters, and I feel like a lot of the basis for initial main female characters in big media pieces was written like this.

Rose Walker has marketable traits, but mixed in there are the real thoughts of a young woman, panicked and trapped and loving, and deeply honest. And it's honesty people don't like.

A young woman's struggle isn't fun to watch, it's not funny, there's no action, it's realistic.

I'm not trying to call her the female character of all time, I'm just trying to articulate my thoughts.

Rose Walker can make people uncomfortable. A female character not being pushed into the box of marketable, but real.

I think it's telling that we as a fandom dismissed her because of her lack of marketable qualities, because if you look deeper into the character, there's so much more.

Anyway, I hope this didn't come off as too rant-y, and thanks for reading!

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Wish there were more people like you who were open to exploring dynamics between two characters in an alternate universe where they are not bound by familial relationship/title or whatever it's called. I get it tsams/tlaes have a lot of family things going on and a-specs things but eh what do I expect from a fandom that started the hate on sunxmoon shippers? I'll continue shipping sunxmoon, eclipsexsun, solarxmoon and solarxearth(thanks to that one anon from before for introducing me to this) not as family related, and the fandom can suck it

Honestly.

Like one person told me "Moon and Solar are brothers" once.

And?..

They're not.

That's like saying Ink and Dream or something from the Undertale Au verse are brothers cause they're alternate realities of eachother and people ship them all the time???

"but they have the same face"

So???

So does Lolbit and Funtime Foxy. They're a couple in SBshow verse.

Mickey and Minnie mouse have the same face and no one raises stink about the most classic example of same face syndrome.

They're robots and I think physical appearance matters very little to them in the grand scheme of things. But that might just be my demisexual ass talking.

On a side note, I know the VA for Earth, Aka: Kat has been very "ship and let ship" with the fandom. And I think that's why in the Solar therapy session, she clarified that she knows Solar isn't biologically related. Technically none of them are, she just wants to consider him part of the family.

I remember awhile back the fandom was so hostile to people who saw Lunar as an adult and would draw him in adult situations. (Like taxes/half joking you know what I mean)

And I believe that was the last big drama the actors like Davis was directly involved in before he took a step back from that and told the fandom to sort it out themselves. And I really don't blame him. There are people who are crazy and just feel entitled to things.

And in more recent episodes, Lunar has stated more frequently that he is an adult animatronic of sound mind who can make his own decisions, so that they can put that issue to bed with the discourse.

(I personally think that gen1/2 Lunar was very much a kid psychology and through the course of the course of the show, and due to his experiences and truama he grows up in two years and he's a young adult now. This reflects in every time he has a model change or appearance.)

See this is what I mean when I say they are robots. Robots can grow up from 13 to 24 (approximately) in the span of two years. Robots can change their mind about family dynamics and say "you know what I think that i don't feel like a cousin, as what I feel for Moon is more intense then familiar bonds. So I change my mind." And this is allowed. This is allowed. Like I would not think this way about human characters.

People in the transformers fandom are really familiar with this concept as well. At least the few people I talk to from an outsider perspective. The transformers robots change their relationships in canon to eachother all the time from what I hear.

And yes. I know tsams is focused on themes of family and found family and togetherness. Like I'm not media illiterate. I know what one of the themes are. For some reason, people think I don't know tsams is about family.

Like bruh.

This whole show took two years for them to build the family and support network they all have with eachother when before the show was a toxic family relationship with Sun and Moon only. And I think it's beautiful how it evolved and how many characters there are and how big the family is now!

It's great!

And I do separate in my brain what's going on in canon and what's going on in my shipping brain.

This doesn't mean I can have fun on the side. With silly speculations and silly headcanons.

Giggling to myself and twirling my hair about the "what ifs" and aus

Staying out of the main tags and talking to my own friends with my own company.

While also analyzing the show and leaving tsams lots of long lovely YouTube comments about what the show is actually about.

Also. Consider this.

Since the multiverse is canon in tsams, in definition, by their own rules, there is a universe where everything in tsams is the same, except your ship is canon.

Evil!Sun even said that Sun and Moon being brothers is more rare across dimensions then we initially assumed.

So they're either enemies, strangers, they killed eachother, or something else.

They only are brothers after their canon event of separating and agreeing to work together. So there are some universes where that never happened.

Meaning most likely that our Moon's portal runs on a central finite curve.

So take that as you will.

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 4 (1/4)

Propaganda under the cut!

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

ANAKIN SKYWALKER

-war criminal -murdered a bunch of toddlers like five seconds after turning to the dark side -exploded his daughters home planet that one time -murdered an entire village bc some of them killed his mom (and not just the men, but the women and the children, too) -choked out his pregnant wife and sent her into early labor -murdered a bunch of jedi -had a really dumb braid at one point -tried to kill obi-wan (his mentor, brother, friend, guardian, and basically the most important person in his life) -failed to kill obi-wan and got his shit fucked up so badly that he became basically a walking iron lung, if iron lungs were an ill-timed sneeze away from killing you -went back for MORE a decade after obi-wan beat his ass just to be a dick. like he dragged the poor fucker's face through fire just to be an asshole -annoying

[cafeinthemoon]

It's a Fire - Chapter I

Chapter 1

Wordcount 3,5k

Title Retired Hashira

Fandom Kimetsu no Yaiba / Demon Slayer

Symbols ⭕ ➕ 🖤

Warnings: arranged marriage; age gap; mentions of increasing in criminality and poverty; grieving; non diagnosed depression (the condition wasn't properly understood by the time this story is settled)

Tagging ? (If you want to be tagged in any of my stories, just leave a comment on this chapter or send an ask or a message)

N.A.: So Kimetsu no Yaiba returned and I'm taking the opportunity to finally start posting this story that has been in my list of ideas for several months!

A while ago I made a poll where I included the option of writing a fic with the Rengoku family, and it was this one I was talking about. I know there are other stories I need to work on already, but let me tell you that this very fic just saved me from a creative block, which was caused by what I suspect to be the beginning of a burnout (I'm about to go on vacation and I just can't take it anymore, but I don't want to discuss this rn).

A few words about the ff itself: It's a slow burn, arranged marriage story between reader, who's 27/28 yo, which makes her closer to myself who's a bit older than this, and Shinjuro Rengoku, who's struggling with the same problems we see in canon, but somehow accepts her as his wife: she was the daughter of old acquaintances of his, so the marital contract is sealed to allegedly honor the friendship between the families. However, things are way more complicated in reality.

Of course, because of the things we see in the original media, such as violence, alcoholism and etc., I need to make it clear that my personal opinions on these subjects may diverge from what I'm putting in this story (due to personal family experiences), and each chapter will carry the necessary warnings. Also if you notice similarities with Beauty and the Beast, know that it isn't just a coincidence haha Finally, the title is a song by Portishead, which didn't influence my writing but its lyrics somehow fit this plot 🌹

I hope you have a good time reading this ❤

“You walk a lonely road 

Oh, how far you are from home” 

(Enya, May it Be) 

That fate didn’t care about your preferences and desires, you knew well. 

You wished you had your mother with you for long years, and that your relationship grew stronger as you spent your time together, dedicating yourselves to the art of the sword, but most of her time and energy were directed to her work as a member of the Demon Slayer Corps, and it was like this until the day you received a messenger from Ubuyashiki-sama to inform you about her death: she didn’t fall to the Oni, but couldn’t resist the injuries from a battle against a group of them. 

You also wished your father, after losing the woman he claimed to love, stood up to his remaining family, that is, himself and you, and took reasonable measures to protect his territory and the people who lived in it, but he preferred to lock himself in his office and ignore the demands outside it, firing half of the house’s servants for the sake of saving money and willing to leave the property to the dust and the insects, not seeing this happening thanks to you, who took the task of maintaining everything by yourself, even doing some of the physical work. 

There were, in fact, many other things you wished for, but didn’t have the chance to see them coming true. One of those other things were continuing to live in the house you grew up in, and using your education to dedicate your life to a career of your choice, though your options seemed limited by your sex. But even this was taken from you when, on an ordinary day, you saw your father leaving his office in the company of a man you’ve never seen in your life. You wanted to question him about this strange visit, but you didn’t have to: your father came to your chambers later, and without measuring his tone or giving you time to process such news, explained the meeting’s main subject. 

– I’ve recently contacted an old acquaintance of mine, someone who was also known by your mother – he started – And explained our situation here. 

You knew what he was talking about: after your mother passed away, your lands’ protection has been neglected, and appearances of demons have been reported more often by your servants and the people who live in the villages near. No one dared leaving their houses at night, and the local economy were deeply affected by this, since part of the basic work used to be done in this period of the day; this led to an increase in poverty and criminality. You, on your part, weren’t immune to these difficulties despite growing up in a privileged family. 

Your father addressing this situation to you, however, was something new, and you exposed this impression to him. 

– Things are getting harder for everyone here, that’s true – you agreed – But why are you discussing this with me now? 

– Because I asked this acquaintance for help, and he answered me – he took slow steps toward your window, half opened by that time; he closed it with firm hands, but without making much noise – The thing is that, at the same time our lands are now dangerous to people, specially to young women like you, it’s time for you to take the next big step in your personal life, daughter. After all, you’re almost twenty-eight. 

You frowned. 

Next big step? What is he talking about?… 

Your father might have noticed your confusion, because he soon clarified his words… and you wished he never did it. 

– I’m talking about marriage, y/n – he spat – You declined the last two proposals, and I respect your reasons for that, but this time the circumstances aren’t in our favor. This man who visited me earlier is a messenger from the Rengoku House, and he brought me a positive answer from their head: I offered your hand and a good dowry in exchange for your protection, and in respect to your mother, who worked for the same cause as him, Shinjuro Rengoku accepted you as his wife. You’re leaving the house this week. 

You were speechless. You tried to stand up and show a sign of protest, but your legs didn’t obey you; you opened your mouth to say something, but no word left it. You knew your father have been struggling, but you could never suppose he was becoming insane – arranging a marriage for you without your consent? Other men used to do this to their daughters, but the man who married your mother would never… But, apparently, he was no longer this man. 

Maybe he was expecting some disagreement, but seeing your silence made him frown. 

– Don’t you have anything to say about this? 

You finally seemed to wake up. You gave him a dead glare, murmuring your response. 

– And what do you expect a woman to say after being sold and sent away from her own house out of nowhere? – you moved your head to the side, irony leaking from the gesture – Thank you? 

Your father clenched his jaw. 

– I certainly don’t expect your gratitude – his voice was lower now – I know this isn’t the future you wanted for yourself, and I didn’t want things to be like this either, but… 

– Why marriage, father? – your tongue was released, interrupting his thread of thoughts like a storm – I could stay temporarily with them, work for them, anything! But marrying someone I’ve never met?! Don’t you remember that I’ve declined the other proposals after at least seeing the faces of those men? 

– You’ll meet him on the wedding day, and you’ll have all the time of the world to know anything there is to know about him – his tone was louder again, as his patience was running low – Besides, Shinjuro is an old friend of mine. I give you my word that he’s a decent man, besides being a formidable warrior. He was married to a respectable woman once, and built a good family with her. I trust him, and so did your mother. No problems should be expected from his part, so the same must be expected from you. 

Shinjuro. It was only the second time you’ve heard that name from your father’s mouth, and you didn’t know what to think. In fact, you’ve learned from your mother that among the Demon Slayer Corps there was an elite group known as the Hashira, and one of them was Shinjuro, the Hashira of the Flames. He was the current head of the Rengoku family, but personal struggles – including the death of his wife – forced him to a retirement despite his capacity as a warrior, so that his eldest son, Kyojuro, took his place. However, you also heard that this young man was dead, so it was impossible to tell how things were going for his family members now. And that was the environment your father was willing to throw you into, even spending money in the process. 

You sighed. 

– Father, when was the last time you’ve met this man? I don’t remember you talking about him – you crossed your arms – I’m only familiar with his name thanks to mother, but now you’re telling me that he’s an old friend of yours. How old is he, exactly? 

– Not as old as me, of course – his reply came with a mixture of embarrassment and indignation – I can’t believe that, of all the things involved in this arrangement, this is what concerns you more! 

You scoffed. 

– I’m not that futile, but if he’s old enough to have a son capable of replacing him in the battlefield, I think I have the right to be concerned! – you took a step toward him – If I have no choice, I want to know exactly where I’m getting into. Can’t you even make such a small concession to me, father? 

No, he couldn’t, and you soon realized that. 

Your father decided the conversation was over. He returned to the room’s door and opened it. 

– It is decided, already – and, with a sort of sadness in his eyes – I’m doing what I think it’s best for my daughter. I only wanted her to trust me, at least for once. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat. 

– I wanted this too, father. But you’re making it too difficult for your daughter. 

He stared at you for a moment, then left without any word. 

*** 

Things really happened the way you feared, in the path your father stated they would follow. He said that, but until the end he kept acting like he had no control over the flow of events, in a frail attempt to soothe his own conscience that only served to unnerve you, and not even seeing the disappointment in his daughter’s eyes each time he looked at you was enough for him to leave this pretense aside. Had he no shame anymore? 

During that fateful week, you avoided his company, leaving the burden of communication to the remaining servants and only speaking to him when utterly necessary. What was left for you to talk about when, as he said, everything was decided, and when you had nothing but sadness for him — for him, the adversities he’s been through and for the way he chose to behave in face of them? It was useless to argue on this, and whether you liked it or not, you had little time to put everything in order and couldn’t have the luxury of wasting it: would it be worthy to cause a delay in the arrangements under the risk of leaving a bad impression in your future spouse, even when he was someone you’ve never saw before? 

You sighed at the thought. 

And, as if I hadn’t enough things to worry about, I still have to consider this. 

In fact, you didn’t want to take much stuff from that house with you at the same time you didn’t want to cause any difficulties to the servants, who have already seen their load increase the last months, so you were quick to select essential items and packing them with the help of a maid, from your clothes to the gifts brought by your mother, and instruct her about what to do with the other things: some of them you gave to her, knowing that she had a daughter who was younger than you and who’d appreciate your charity, and the others, such as the furniture, should be sent to the villagers, for you wanted your things to be with people who would make good use of them instead of letting them rot in a place to where you’d never come back. 

Among all of this, the last object you packed was the only thing you made a point about carrying by yourself, and the only thing you didn’t trust anyone to pack but yourself: the sword of your mother, which was sent to your house by Ubuyashiki-sama and now belonged to you. Your mother has been teaching you lessons since you were a teenager, but she hasn’t lived long enough to see if you were going to develop your own Breath; well, until that day you haven’t, but you’ve never stopped practicing even under your father’s disapproval. You didn’t know what you would find once you stepped into your husband’s house, but you wouldn’t want to depend on his protection on everything; besides, having a wife who knew how to wield a sword must be an advantage, right? 

The train of thoughts, feelings and concerns was such that you were robbed from sleep the night before the ceremony. You knew women who had their marriages arranged as well, but you never got to talk to them about it; you had no idea of how you were supposed to feel, or how you were supposed to see the whole thing. How one should feel when they saw themselves trapped in a situation from which they couldn’t get out? Without having answers, you just relied on the feeling that seemed reasonable to you, that is, utter fear. 

The next morning came silent and inexorable, just as the ones before it, and you saw yourself leaving your bed and taking care of your duties without putting your thoughts on them. It was only your body working by itself, saving your soul from the burden of being conscious, or perhaps you were just accepting your fate after a night of tears and rage. 

Having dismissed the maid’s help, you bathed and dressed alone, and left the house where the most important moments of your life took place without one last look. To be fair, your eyes were so sore and tired that they barely registered the appearance of the weather while you walked to the carriage, but you guessed it was a warm, sunny day, though not enough for you to get sweaty. Your father was already in the carriage’s interior; you took the seat beside him with no signs of acknowledging his presence. 

The coachman shook the reins and yelled something to the horse, and the crack of the wooden wheels was heard as the vehicle moved along the road. 

*** 

The ceremony took place in a building in the city of (…), near your father’s property, which served as the head office of a group of law professionals, including the man responsible for your marital contract. 

You wouldn’t call it a ceremony, really: it was more of a sequence of bureaucratic procedures than a social event with the purpose of uniting two families; a mere formality to allow you to move to a man’s house without ruining your reputation. It was quick, direct and cold like a financial operation, and the people involved seemed to make sure it looked like this. 

Your father led you to a sequence of stairs and then through a narrow corridor, until he stopped in front of a door and opened it, entering the room and inciting you to follow him. You did it, and found out you weren’t the first to arrive: the officiant was already in his position, behind a table upon which you saw an open book; at its right, there was a small inkwell and a feather; around him, two officers which function you couldn’t guess and couldn’t care about. And, finally, in front of the table and observing your arrival with a stern glare, the man who was about to become your husband. 

Whatever you were expecting to see, Shinjuro was nothing like you might have imagined, except for the fact that he was younger than you supposed – and, indeed, younger than your father – and stole the attentions among all those men despite the quiet, composed manners. Well, he would do it in any place he’d step in, for his appearance was extravagant, to say the least: on his severe face he carried a pair of orange eyes under two thick, black eyebrows, a wild trait that made you think of a lion; framing his expression and matching his eyes, he had thick, blond hair that decreased to red on its edges, spreading over his shoulders. And, as if his looks weren’t enough to draw the whole room’s attention, he was dressed in sober, dark clothing, more like someone attending a western funeral than a wedding. 

As you walked to the center of the room, led by your father, and took the spot beside Shinjuro, you felt your skin burning in discomfort under his merciless eyes. You breathed deep and, when he nodded to acknowledge you two, you made an effort to greet him, as well as the other men. 

I knew he wasn’t the same person my father claimed to know. He stated that he was good and trustful, but everything in this man screams danger. What kind of hell I’m getting into… 

The officiant announced the beginning of the ceremony, and you turned to him in silence. After a few, composed words to the new couple, he gave you both clear instructions on where to sign your names, and you did as he said, Shinjuro first, then you; you glanced at his hand offering you the feather and took it in a second, taking care your hand didn’t touch his. You tried not to think of your gestures as you wetted its tip on the ink, but a tremble reached your wrist the instant you approached the feather from the paper. 

So… That’s it. I write my name in a book and enter a path from where I can’t go back. 

The realization was too much to bear and time was passing, so you bit your inner cheek to prevent your mind to entertain the thought and scribbled your name at once. When you moved the feather away and put it back on the inkwell, your hand acted by itself, and your arm gone numb once you recoiled it to your side. 

Your mouth was dry, and a hole seemed to have taken the place of your heart. You barely noticed when the officiant and the other witnesses analyzed your signatures and approved them, bringing the ceremony to an end. You refused to believe all of that was real until the man announced you were free to go, and both Shinjuro and you turned away, preparing to leave. He didn’t bat an eye at you while doing so. 

The head of the Rengoku family stopped to exchange some words with your father. You were close enough to hear the conversation, but didn’t want to pay attention; you just wanted to leave this place, even though you weren’t going to a familiar one after it. 

You only understood their conversation was over when you heard your father’s voice calling your name. You turned to him and your stomach curled in disgust when you saw the pleading smile on his face, the only thing that reminded you of home and now a sign of everything you lost. You’ve never felt so alone. 

Later, you’d try to remember his exact words for you at that moment, but you’d find yourself unable to do it. Maybe it was a formal wish of good luck or something. The only thing you remembered was your reaction: you stared at him for a few seconds, then, without a word, you turned your face away, walking toward the door. You knew your husband was observing, but his approval was the least of your preoccupations now. 

*** 

Little was recalled by you from the travel to the Rengoku house, except that it was silent, even calm period. The only abnormality was caused by you: unlike your other belongings, who were sent in another vehicle ahead under the supervision of a servant, you decided you were going to carried your sword with you in the carriage, to everyone’s surprise and your father’s discontentment. 

That occasion was also when Shinjuro spoke to you for the first time. 

— Why are you doing this? 

The question, made when you were already in the carriage, was direct but not devoid of politeness, so you granted him an honest answer. 

— This sword once belonged to my mother, and now it is mine. If my father had his way, I’d never carry it with me, but I refuse to leave it behind — and, glancing at him, — I couldn’t risk him checking my things and subtracting it from them without my consent. 

Shinjuro only murmured an “I see” in response, and the conversation died there. 

You were beside the carriage’s window and might have slept to the warmth of the sun and the constant noise of the wheels in movement, but you weren’t sure if you did. As your body was now avoiding visible reactions, your spirit was suppressing the emotional rush for your own good, since no advantage would come from a breakdown in the middle of the road, right in front of your new spouse who, just like you, didn’t seem all pleased with the whole thing: sure, he didn’t show visible discontentment whether with your appearance or your manners, but you’ve been dealing with middle aged men for too long to sense when they were seeing something they didn’t find appropriate; and, in the present case, it was clear to you that Shinjuro already formed his opinion: to him, you were a stubborn, spoiled brat who didn’t have her way and was decided to make it everyone else’s problem. Yes, the idea of acting like that wandered through your mind for a while, but you thought you were better than this, and opted for a balance between bitterness and decency, not wearing plain clothing and displaying rude manners, but also not being extravagant in anything; still, you couldn’t convince the man of your good nature, and he let it clear with the inquiring about the sword, so now you completely gave up on seeking his favor. 

You were just waiting for the travel to end. 

Chapter 2

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda under the cut

Alana Bloom

she kissed will graham in s1 and dated hannibal in s2 so you can imagine how bad the fandom is to her. fun fact she's in a canon lesbian relationship now tho <3

The show literally does the yaoi treatment of victimisation for the benefit of the male leads to her. And then the fandom mistreats her

I'm not sure if this even counts but...Literally a victim of Yaoi along with several other characters in-series, but she got it almost the worst. The entire show is just people dying because the two male leads are OBSESSED with each other and can't be normal about anything. Alana Bloom, actual PhD of psychology and consultant to the FBI, got kissed by one guy, fucked and fed people-meant by the other, and pushed out a window by the murder husbands' forced-surrogate daughter. Like. Actual victim of several crimes caused by yaoi. She's probably one of the few examples of a Yaoi Victim overcoming and evolving past her yaoi-related trauma into a stronger person/character, though: She gets an entire character overhaul and a hot, millionairess for a wife. She kills a man with an eel. She becomes head of the BSHCI, effectively putting her in complete power over her jackass cannibal ex-bf. She does quite well. Unfortunately, the rest of her screen time is spent trying not to get killed in the ongoing fallout of Hannibal and Will's fucked up courtship, but hey. Can't have everything. I don't even know if I'm saying anything valid here: the fandom loves her, but I supposed her position outside of the Hannigram relationship relegates her to a non-subject in a lot of Hannigram-focused fanwork. She's an 'obstacle' to their relationship only in the sense that Will had a crush on her once that went nowhere and Hannibal started an actual relationship with her SPECIFICALLY to piss off Will. I guess she's also a more literal obstacle as Hannibal's jailer and Will's friend who's constantly pointing out to him that Morals exist and he should try having some of those, maybe

Maya Fey

OKAY SO She's definitely NOT the love interest coz she's like 16 n he's 24 or smth but in literally all fandom she's just... the wingwoman. that's all. EVEN WHEN SHE'S IN A LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP IT'S IN THE BACKGROUND N SHE'S SUPPORTING THE YAOI GROWN ASS MEN..... it's horrible... detestable... she's a main character... she has ARCS..... and yet.. her own most popular ship tag is just.. her n her gf as background yuri who are supporting and wingwomaning the fucking main guys. it's a tragedy. Maya Fey would make Phoenix Wright buy her burgers everytime he made her listen to his love problems and then she'd tell him that every complaint he makes will cost another burger. SHE WOULD NEVER BE SUPPORTING YURI.. 

Phoenix’s best friend and partner in solving crimes. She often gets shunted aside by the fandom, reduced to Phoenix/Edgeworth cheerleader and matchmaker. 

okay i wouldnt say shes exactly mistreated, shes pretty well liked in the fandom, HOWEVER shes always seen as like an accessory to wrightworth, her only role being to make jokes about how in love they are etc. i feel like a lot of people ignore her depth and backstory to just use her as a tool in wrightworth stories. she plays a very important role in the games as well and has been through a lot, and has always been helpful to wright, so she deserves to be more than the setup to a joke about wrightworth

[t00thpasteface]

Hiiiii₍⁠₍⁠◞⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠௰⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠◟⁠₎⁠₎

Could you explain the hipster Vs fandom war. I've been on here for like four years and I never knew that existed lol and btw I really really love your art and you are one my biggest inspos for how I imagine and draw my Clark.

i'm not sure i can explain it in a way that makes sense, and certainly not in a way that makes you say "i understand why this was such a big deal", but gl'bgolyb knows i can try.

first, let me take you on a sensory experience... picture in your mind the following things... skinny jeans... nerd glasses... a weirdly dapper fashion sense in a time where everything is baggy and neon... boom, you have 2010-2014 online tumblr hipster culture. and also 70s elvis costello, oddly enough.

although admittedly i don't know his stance on pumpkin spice lattes.

anyway. now that that's burned into your brain, consider a significant population of this exact type of person that has already been well-established on this microblogging platform around the turn of the decade. tumblr doesn't really have an app yet because smartphones haven't taken over everyone's life yet, and online fandom culture is still largely dominated by deviantart as the main "fandom hub". most people, myself included, are getting their main meme fixes from facebook (which your parents were not yet on) or the icanhazcheezburger image-aggregator network. THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FANDOM NATION ATTACKED.

somehow, a huge crowd of people who considered their favorite books/movies/games to be core personality traits began to set up shop on this fair slate-blue isle. i number myself among this crowd, having been lured here by google-image-searching for miscellaneous fanart in 2011. the "old guard" largely belongs to, and continuously attracts new bloggers within, a burgeoning subculture that 100% defines itself by bucking popular trends and social expectations... whether or not this is actually accomplished by purchasing beverages from starbucks and putting old film filters on every photo, i cannot say.

you may be seeing an issue already arising: hey, if the hipsters hate everything that's popular and gatekeep all their interests, and the fandom bloggers are obsessed with extremely popular franchises and are hell-bent making them even more popular, isn't that going to cause a little friction?

well, yes. it caused a fuck ton of friction. a division arose early on between "the fandom side of tumblr" and "the hipster side of tumblr." some people, like myself, played both sides. others abstained from the rigid dichotomy and considered themselves to be on another "side," like the science side of tumblr, known for explaining relatively straightforward STEM concepts in large essays that began with something like "listen up fuckers."

ahhh, unfriendable. such a narrow little window in time where cheezburger sites and facebook had equal sway in the online zeitgeist.

interestingly, as someone who trawled a LOT of aesthetic tags, the most popular of which was simply #aesthetic (it was shockingly consistent in there), i never actually saw hipster bloggers complaining about fandom bloggers. it was always the other way around, with fandom bloggers bragging about how much they're freaking out the squares to get cool points with other fandom bloggers, all while never actually engaging with the hipster bloggers because their tags rarely overlapped.

hi, marge! we're freaking out the hipsters!

regardless of whether there was any material reality to it, or if it was simply a Minitrue level of entirely fictional warfare, this concept entrenched itself into the fandom bloggers, likely as a way to still feel "edgy" and unique while, again, obsessing over extremely popular and mainstream things like doctor who, pokemon, avatar the last airbender, the brand-new mcu, and other decidedly non-counterculture media. even with things it felt like no one irl had heard of, like hetalia and homestuck, those were online juggernauts nonetheless, the former of which had dominated deviantart for years and the latter of which prompted hotels and convention centers across the world to implement very strict rules about unsealed body paint. people treated fandoms like they were some sort of exclusive country club with membership fees and a dress code. and dunking on hipsters became an entire genre of Fake Internet Story, which were already pervasive on this website.

what's the point of being in a clique if there's no outgroup to flex on? #swag

this whole phenomenon ran concurrently, even symbiotically, with other tumblrisms like "tumblr university" and those horrendous "not like other girls" memes...

which means, of course, it was absolutely dead in the fucking water once DashCon happened in 2014. i don't need to tell you what happened at DashCon (there's a million essays and videos about it if you're one of today's lucky ten thousand who's never heard of it), but all across the fandom side of tumblr, it felt like finding out your parents lied about santa claus. turns out the fandoms you're in don't actually say anything about who you are as a person, a bunch of tumblrinas can't just will a fully functional micronation into existence just by wearing tacky merchandise in a public venue, and magic probably isn't real.

i wish i had some grand way to end this story, but really the moral is the same as it ever was: online drama is eternal, inescapable, and completely fucking worthless. if you only post to get mad at shit, especially if you're just making up a guy to get mad at, cut that out. touch grass. look at images of cats. i don't remember any of the enemies i made from this era, but i fondly remember all the friends, and i'm richer for making those positive connections. that's all for today's episode of Tumblr History with Toothpaste Face... remember to tip your waitress and stay minty.

[theodysseyofhomer]

this is not to single anyone out, but i have a lot of new followers, and i would just love for you all to know... the search function on my blog is operational. if you search for epic the musical, you will find that i have dabbled in it. it is slightly annoying to be asked over and over whether i've heard of it, even by lovely, enthusiastic, friendly people.

i have another reason for not answering those questions, which is that when someone is being enthusiastic and friendly to me, i don't want to be mean to them. but if i'm going to speak from my heart as an odyssey lover, i don't think epic the musical is that good. it doesn't especially interest me as a standalone piece, but i also don't find it provides much insight on, or compelling points of comparison with, homer's odyssey. i'm glad you're all having a good time! please stop asking me about it.

bullet point review below the cut, for those who are more curious about my opinions.

things i like about epic:

astyanax's murder doesn't get brought up a lot in stories that are sympathetic to odysseus. it's optional when adapting the odyssey or the iliad, but i am definitely of the opinion that odysseus did it, and even if he didn't, he convinced the other greek leaders that it needed to be done.

the athena/odysseus duets.

i found the reframing of polyphemus' blinding compelling, where he's doing the same thing he does in the odyssey for a different reason. i also liked that the audience doesn't learn his name until he reveals it to polyphemus. that's a neat touch.

earwormy as hell.

the fanart! i saw odysseus fanart maybe 3 times a year before the troy saga dropped. i'll take that trade (for my sanity when i try to navigate the tags).

jorge seems to be invested in odysseus/penelope, which is like the bare minimum to hold my attention, but still.

anyhow jorge seems charming; all his videos and interactions with fans seem nothing but excited about what everyone can contribute. commissioning wolfy to animate a trailer? widely regarded as a great move.

things i don't like about epic:

as gutsy as i think it is to start with astyanax's murder, the main thing to me is not whether his hands physically threw the baby, but whether he is in some way responsible for it. more than that, astyanax's death isn't divinely mandated: it's a ruthlessly pragmatic preemptive strike against vengeance that the greek leaders are afraid of. it's 100% human. so framing it around zeus, known troy stan, forcing odysseus to do it and he feels so so bad about it ????????

baffling to me to start with a moral conflict about infanticide, and after committing it, odysseus is still like... maybe kindness is brave? maybe i'm not a ruthless person? please be serious. you murdered that baby.

(been talking to @littlesparklight about this but you could have started out with some version of sophocles' ajax, a death caused by the gods that odysseus actually is complicit in when he didn't necessarily want it to happen. i digress.)

don't like the way the fandom talks about astyanax, specifically, as if odysseus raising a kidnapped trojan boy whose people were destroyed and whose mother was sold into slavery in another land is ever going to be a fluffy au and meanwhile odysseus did very much murder that baby, so!

the songs are not... good. like i said, they're earwormy, but that's also because they're repetitive and predictable. the lyrics are distractingly bad at times, not only from a character perspective, but in the sense of using words wrongly or awkwardly to try to fit them into a rhyme scheme.

i like the reframing of the polyphemus episode. not so much the aeolus one. at that point, you have odysseus doing the opposite of what he did in the odyssey for opposite reasons, which makes him a character bearing no resemblance to odysseus at all.

and this happens while other characters (mostly gods) try to drag him kicking and screaming into his actual homeric characterization.

like, odysseus is haunted by the war in the odyssey, but not because he regrets what he's done as a moral injury. he chose violence on purpose. the gods did not force him to be this person. it's a narrative throughline that serves only as a bid to make odysseus more sympathetic.

... and in doing so, strips away his agency — in sacking a city, in lying and obscuring the truth with his crew (his lies are more than a quirk that endears him to athena, they have consequences!) — some might say his personality. i do have sympathy for odysseus, even at his worst moments morally, because i find his character as a whole compelling. you don't need to try to absolve him of these things! they tell you about what kind of person he is! they are evocative (and provocative) already! take them away and he is boring, because he is not choosing to do anything.

the new wave of odysseus fans seem unable to handle homeric odysseus' complicated aspects and character traits, and to a degree i blame this on the musical characterization. it's allowed to be its own thing, certainly, but now i regularly get people arguing about whether he's a good person when all they know is something epic made up and that was never the fucking point, anyway.

are we really going to pretend he didn't have sex with circe and calypso at all

[thefakehedgehogaroundhere]

Redoing my blog intro post

Hi, I'm Logan/Faker. I use any pronouns except she/her, though I prefer it/he. If you want the specific labels just ask me. I am of Irish and American heritage. Spam liking/reblogging is always okay, just don't repost my art without credit.

Fandoms: Sanders Sides, Sonic, Owl House, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, Steven Universe (only sort of though), Wings of Fire, Warriors, Billie Bust Up, Starkid

DNI: Terfs, MAPs, Dream/Wilbur stans (if you're a mcyt fan I don't mind you being here, as long as you don't support Dream or Wilbur) anti-furs, zoos, racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes

I'm a minor. I don't mind adults interacting with my page, but if you're going to be weird, please leave.

I'm currently in a relationship. Sarcastic flirting is fine, but don't take it super seriously. I also am known to prank people or tease them, so if I say or do something that hurts you in any way, please let me know. It's all sarcastic, but I don't want to cause any real problems.

I'm an atheist. I will respect all religions, but please do not push your religion onto me.

I'm a multishipper. While it's likely you'll see mainly Sonadow on this page, for example, you'll also see Sonally, Sonamy, Sonknux, etc. Don't be confused if you see something you didn't think I shipped.

OTHER BLOGS: This is my main, but it consists mostly of Sonic. My TSS blog is @muppetable, my WC/WOF sideblog is @coyotix, and my Sonic AUs are all on @faker-aus. Some of my other blogs include @coyotix-studios, @fakers-sonic-headcanons, and @fakers-au-shitposts.

FRIENDS: @aerie-stotle, @trailertrashtobias @jupitercl0uds, @chao-tea08 @nolongeronlyhereforthewhispangle, @sleepymushrxxm, @pacifistcowboy, @oddogoblino, @nico-the-overlord, @nodulemodule. I know there are several others, but I can't tag everyone and some of them don't know this blog exists.

TAGS I USE: faker.txt (textpost), faker.png (image post), faker's askbox (questions), faker and friends (threads or collabs w friends), motherfuckin ari (something ari said specifically)

SOCIALS:

Discord: thefakehedgehogaroundhere_17580

Youtube: Coyotix

Tiktok: idonthavethevocabulary (I only really use this for edits and shitposts, Im not active much)

Email: azaleaedits2008@gmail.com

[my-name-is-bunnyfoxy]

So for the TMNT shipping thing…

Leosagi maybe? It doesn’t matter which version though.

I'm not gonna include 1987 and 2012 since I'm pretty sure in those versions Usagi is an adult. I'm unsure whether I should put Yuichi since most people ship him with Leo but you know what why not.

2003 Leosagi:

I actually really enjoy their dynamic and how they act towards each other. It's so sweet and wholesome.

I also love their ship name, katana duo (I think-)

Honestly to me they work as both bros and gays.

I do like the episode where Leo was yeeted into Usagi's dimension.

And oh my god them in the big brawl episodes>>>>>>>>>>>>

TMNT WHY DON'T YOU MAKE THEM GAY ALREADY??

Please just give us normal Leo love interests...

Wish we got more of them though

Pretty much I'll give this ship a solid 10/10. Very nice.

Rise Leoichi/Leosagi:

This was my actual introduction to the Leosagi ship. Also ironically Rise was what got me back into the fandom last year xd

I really wanna watch Samurai Rabbit because of Yuchi. He's such a dumbass.

Dumbass x dumbass who have the ability to be smart but don't use it

When Worlds Collide fanfic... (Okay i haven't actually red it but from the animatics and fanart GOD DAMN IT)

Blue boys

They definetelly would talk about their ancestors 24/7.

Like 2003, I'm cool with them being platonic friends who maybe as a joke act gay cause they find it funny.

My BIGGEST gripe however, with this ship is how much I hate the reused stereotype and how they meet. I stopped liking and ended up hating Yuichi being a bartender at Run of the Mill. It just became overrated. And sometimes Yuichi has almost little to no personality and is reduced to the love interest the main character must have. Also I feel like people should tag Rise Leo x Yuichi Usagi as Leochi because Miyamoto Usagi and Yuichi Usagi are two different characters. Plus I don't like how some fans get pissed off all because you don't ship them (ngl I have a huge fear people will attack me cause I ship Leo with a girl HOLLY SHI- Honestly that also would be funny at the same time xp)

I kind of doubt they will use Yuichi as a crossover with TMNT but we can always rely on fannon.

A good enough ship, 7/10. Mainly because I want more original ideas for Yuichi and that people stop copying each other's stories.