#people are 100% allowed and encouraged to tag me multiple times if you want me to see something but I haven't responded | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sunshine-and-raincloud · 2 years

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I posted 325 times in 2022

13 posts created (4%)

312 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@snowflake19-things

@beca-mitchell

@becasbelt

@maddiedrawz

@ridiculously-over-obsessed

I tagged 306 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#bechloe - 181 posts

#fic rec - 100 posts

#fanfiction - 54 posts

#warrior nun - 22 posts

#avatrice - 18 posts

#brittany snow - 17 posts

#fanart - 17 posts

#anna kendrick - 10 posts

#bechloe art - 8 posts

#supercorp - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 71 characters

#is she even aware of what she's doing to lesbians all over the world?!?

My Top Posts in 2022:

So I’ve finally seen X and this is my comprehensive review:

Brittany 😍😳🤤🔥🔥🔥👀🔥👀🥵🥵🔥

4 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

Fanfiction is like free cookies 🍪 Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s talk about commenting on fics. Don’t worry, this post will not try to guilt you into leaving comments/reblogging/etc. Allow me to use this cozy little metaphor to, instead, encourage you to do that. Imagine that fanfiction sites are huge fairs where bakers (writers) offer delicious cookies (or anything else, really, it could be lasagnas if that’s what you're into). Best part? They’re all for free! That’s right, you can take as many as you want, whenever you want – some of the bakers are nocturnal and will have a fresh batch waiting for you at 4 a.m., which is, perhaps, not the best time to eat cookies, but honestly, who cares 🤷‍♀️ There are very few rules and limitations at the cookie fair. You can stick to just one type of cookie, or try them all. You can come by once a month to eat exactly one cookie or set out camp right on the premises and munch on multiple cookies at once. As long as you don’t cause chaos and destruction, you’re fine. You can just grab a cookie and go, no one’s going to stop you. Would it have no consequences whatsoever though? Not exactly. The bakers can see all the traffic at their stands – they know how many people came by and which kinds of their cookies disappeared the quickest. Now picture this: one of the bakers has just tried a new recipe. But because barely anyone offered any feedback, how could the baker know if people even liked the cookies? Maybe they grabbed them, took a bite, and threw the rest in the trash? Or maybe they did find them tasty, but how can the baker now figure out which ingredient won people’s hearts? Of course, the bakers bake primarily for themselves, they love doing that, but sharing their goods with other people is what they love the most. It may certainly be dispiriting when they receive nothing in return. And nobody wants the bakers to be sad – they’re gonna cry over the bowls of cookie dough and the cookies will not be sweet anymore 🥺 Or worse, they might stop baking altogether... What can the fair-goers do to prevent that? Well, a kind smile (kudos/likes/faves) would be the polite thing to do when someone offers you a free cookie. It may seem small, but when you look closely, it makes the bakers smile, too, and they stand a little taller for the rest of the day. If you talk to them though, you’ll soon realize that’s where the real benefits (to both sides) come from. Not all of us are great with words – no problem, you can just say a simple 'thank you', or 'hey, I like your cookies'. It will let the bakers know their work is appreciated, so they’ll be much more likely to come back to the fair regularly. Once you get that down, try telling them what it is you like about their cookies the most – a specific flavor, extra crunchiness, a delightful smell – get into some detail and the bakers are gonna love you forever! It will likely motivate them to prepare a new batch faster and encourage them to try new recipes. They are also going to think about your words fondly while they hum happily in their kitchens, working on new treats. Pretty neat, huh? Tl;dr: feedback → cookies, no feedback → no cookies. Seems like a pretty simple choice 😉 If you’re still with me, let me first apologize for making you crave cookies. If it’s any consolation, I did that to myself, too. And secondly, if you could reblog this post, that would be cool ❤

5 notes - Posted February 19, 2022

i’m fucking shook. wtf happened, europe??

like, the winner was obvious, but the rest of the results..? wild

9 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

Some thoughts about my favorite piece of fiction that I needed to put into words

Experimentation is finished and it makes me feel things. So many things, in fact, that my brain has trouble computing it. If there was a dictionary stored in my mind’s library, filled with my own definitions for every object, concept, or being I’ve encountered in my life, the entry to Experimentation would be a long string of keysmashes and random emojis.

There are words inside Beca. She's confident enough in her vocabulary to say that there are a decent amount of them, though she can't always remember which one is the right one to use and when or how. They're all there though, she has access to them.

Usually

Alas, I need to make at least some sense of it – for myself, to process the fact that the story that has been a constant for me for years is now finished. Naturally, finished does not mean gone, and I’m sure I will be re-reading this wonderful piece of fiction many, many times, but there is certain grief to be processed nonetheless.

I’ve never been one to have hyperfixations. Growing up, I never had strong favorites of anything, be it books, tv shows, songs, etc. I enjoyed things, I got excited over them, but nothing could ever capture my interest and hold it for a long time.

Startled, Beca blinks as she untangles herself from the redhead and looks around. Sure enough, there are other people besides Chloe present – Cynthia Rose, Stacie and Lilly, to be exact – and she tries to withhold her embarrassment in favour of pretending she'd know that all along. That she hadn't been blinded by Chloe.

This changed when I accidentally discovered bechloe. The Pitch Perfect franchise is not especially popular in my country and I, similarly to Beca Mitchell, am not very fond of movies, so I was not aware of the existence of the said movies until I watched a Rose&Rosie video in which they mentioned it in passing. It sounded like something I could enjoy, so I decided to check it out and the rest is history; I fell into the bechloe hole. I was 19 at that time—technically an adult, about to start uni, and there I was, developing my first (and so far only) obsession, as well as joining my first fandom. I’d read some fanfiction before that, for a few other fandoms, but I’d never shipped two characters as intensely as I do Beca and Chloe.

So naturally, as soon as I finished watching the movies (there were two, at that time), I went looking for fanfiction. I read through the completed ones first—not all of them, obviously (even back then there were...a lot of fics), but I’d say the majority of multichapters—so it took quite a while before I even considered starting any of the unfinished ones.

“Awesome.” She mutters, clicking down furiously on the mouse pad in the hopes that doing so will magically make her laptop thaw its way back from freezing glitchiness. Maybe her dad would buy her a new one if she told him she needed it for school.

“If this is some new way you have of announcing my presence to the room,” red hair and a sly smile greet her as she looks up and finds Chloe lingering at the top of the staircase, “I like it.”

I don’t know when exactly I first started reading Experimentation, but it must have been either 2017 or early 2018 at the latest. I’ve been eyeing the story for a while, as it was on the first page on ff.net (the only fic site I knew at that time—shameful, I know) when filtered by favorites, so I expected it to be good. Having finished the first chapter, I could already tell that it was not, in fact, good.

(On the off chance that anyone is actually reading my stream of consciousness, I shall explain myself before I get hate anons. See, to say that Experimentation is a good story is like saying that Aretha Franklin was a good singer. Ridiculous understatement is what it is.)

"I could carry around like a little white flag and wave it around at the appropriate time?" Chloe bursts out laughing at the image, at the way Beca has made a fist with her hand and is flicking an imaginary flag back and forth, at the stupid too-wide smile she's plastered onto her face. She laughs because she believes, without a shadow of a doubt, that Beca would do that if Chloe asked her to.

I was absolutely enchanted, hooked from the very first paragraphs. Every aspect of this fic was beyond perfect; the language, the pacing, the characterization, the romantic tension with no unnecessary drama. I’ve devoured all the chapters there were at that time, as stopping was impossible once I started. Once I got to the last one, I wondered briefly whether I should have waited until the story was finished.

I am so incredibly thankful to my past self that I did not.

Waiting for updates for months was hard, sure. But it made me appreciate every single chapter all the more. It allowed me to savor every sentence, enjoy every tender moment between the girls. And the joy I felt whenever I would get an email notifying me that Experimentation was updated? Unparalleled. I still have a folder in my mailbox created specifically to house these notifications.

“Thank you,” Chloe’s words of appreciation swing Beca’s gaze back up to her face and she finds the redhead looking at her with such a sense of solemn gratitude that it upends any potential response. Thankfully, Chloe continues. “For everything. Not just,” she gestures between them, “this but….” Chloe trails off, running the fingers of one hand through her hair as she tries to collect herself. “For joining the Bellas. For coming back even though Aubrey was awful to you. For making us important to you.”

You are important to me , Beca wants to say. The most important.

I can’t even imagine reading Experimentation for the first time in one go. A few weeks, months maybe, if one’s busy, and that’s it? That is not nearly long enough to be able to fully appreciate this masterpiece. I started reading it a few years after its first update, but still, Experimentation was with me for long years. It was there, sitting in a tab on my phone when I started university. It was there, five years later, when I graduated and then defended my MA thesis. It was there when I moved out of my parents’ house, moved to a new city, found my first job. And it was there, on the first day of 2022, when I read the last chapter.

During this last chapter I cried three times—one was at the author’s note. What an incredible journey it has been. Now that there’s only an epilogue left, I am sad that it’s over because it’s been such an important part of my life. But mostly I am just filled with love for Experimentation. Just because it is completed, doesn’t mean it is gone or forgotten. I know it will always be special to me, a source of comfort whenever I need it.

“You’re a ten,” Chloe says again and now Beca can hear the warble in her voice. Can feel it like something tangible as it reaches inside her chest and squeezes. Catches her breath in its hand and holds it. “You’re an A-plus.” It’s only when Chloe lifts her hands to wipe at the underside of her eyes that Beca realises she’s crying, sees the shimmer of tears on her fingers as she crosses her arms over her chest. “I love you so much.” Her voice catches, stumbles over a sob in the middle of her declaration, but she powers on through. Doesn’t hold back. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

@redlance, you absolute queen, what could I possibly say to you? You took a piece of your heart, shaped it into this beautiful story, and shared it with hundreds of strangers who now hold it in their own hearts. If there are any words appropriate for that, I do not know them. So let me simply say thank you and I love you <3

18 notes - Posted March 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

she's the weaving road (that'll lead me home)

pairing: bechloe

word count: 1291

AO3 link here

***

Winter has come quietly to Barden, the snow having fallen over the first December night. The white, shimmery stamp of approval marked the beginning of the holiday season in the Bella household. With wide eyes and happy squeals, its occupants eagerly got to work, decorating the house with garlands, wreaths, paper ornaments, and whatever else could be found in the boxes that had been bravely recovered from the basement.

It was now evening and the whole house was bathed in the warm glow of the Christmas lights. The Bellas were sprawled all over the living room, cozy in their fluffy pajamas, about to start their first Christmas movies marathon of the season.

Chloe was sitting at the kitchen table, half-listening to the constant chatter of her fellow sisters coming from the living room as she watched Beca prepare hot cocoa for the both of them. It's been happening more and more lately–Chloe catching herself looking at Beca, a soft smile always present on her lips whenever her best friend was around. She couldn’t help it; Beca was so nice to look at, and Chloe was so in love with her, how could she not look? Especially now that Beca has been single for the past couple of months. Also, Chloe caught Beca looking at her enough times to not feel guilty about her own staring.

Recently, there’s been a subtle shift between them. On the surface, not much has changed, but nowadays, their every interaction seemed to have an undercurrent of something else, something deeper than a close friendship. Gazes and touches lingered, smiles were wider, voices softer. They communicated without words, anticipating each other's needs with an ease born of hours spent at each other’s side. Even the rest of the Bellas seemed to sense the change, as they eased down on their teasing, seemingly waiting with bated breaths for something to finally happen.

As if sensing Chloe’s eyes on her, Beca turned away from the counter, her gaze instantly finding Chloe’s. She sent her an easy smile as she put a mug of steaming cocoa to her lips, taking a careful sip and swallowing with a small, satisfied sigh that sent a shiver down Chloe’s spine. Once Beca lowered the mug, Chloe noticed a brown smudge that the drink left around Beca’s lips.

Her body moved without a conscious command, covering the small distance between them in a few strides, and Chloe blinked in surprise as she found herself standing right in front of Beca, who looked at her with one brow raised in question, amusement shining in her eyes.

“Can I help you?”

“You, um-” Chloe cleared her throat. “You have a little something…” she said, gesturing at her own mouth.

“Oh!” Beca blindly swiped a hand over her face, only smudging the cocoa remnants more.

Chloe giggled softly, raising her hand towards Beca’s face. “Here, let me…”

Gently, Chloe moved her thumb over Beca’s cheek toward her lips. She shivered again as Beca opened her mouth slightly in a quiet exhale. Without thinking, Chloe slowly brought her thumb to her mouth, licking it clean under Beca's intent gaze.

“Did you get it?” Beca’s voice was a bit rough as she whispered the question.

“Almost.”

There it was again, the tension that’s been present in all of their interactions lately, growing more insistent the longer they stayed in each other’s orbits. Beca’s tongue peeking out to absentmindedly lick her own lips proved to be the tipping point. All coherent thoughts have long since left Chloe and she could only act on pure instinct and adrenaline. With her heart pounding wildly in her chest, she slowly, very slowly, leaned in, eyes trained on Beca’s face, looking for any indication that she should back away. Not seeing any, she closed the remaining distance, dragging her tongue over the same spot her thumb has just traced, catching the corner of Beca’s lips and lingering there for a heartbeat or two.

Beca’s soft gasp so close to her ear made Chloe pull away, but she only made it an inch or two before Beca’s hands appeared on both sides of her face, pulling her in for a kiss.

The gentle pressure of Beca's lips on hers was enough to stun Chloe for what was probably only a few seconds but felt so monumental to Chloe that she might as well have lived a lifetime in this tiny pocket of time. She’s wanted this for so long that she could barely believe it was actually finally happening.

Getting over the initial shock, Chloe placed her slightly shaking hand on Beca’s cheek, angling her face to kiss her more fully. She was rewarded with a tiny whimper from Beca, and Chloe might have made some kind of sound in response but she couldn’t be sure, as all of her attention was focused on the girl in her arms, on the softness of her lips, on hands holding onto her desperately, on the divine scent that Chloe couldn’t get enough of. The world might have been ending and Chloe would not care, everything that existed to her in that moment was Beca, Beca, Beca…

Once they eventually managed to separate, Chloe was met with her favorite sight–Beca smiling at her with this wide, radiant smile that seemed to be reserved specifically for Chloe. Beca was looking at her with an expression so tender, so full of what could only be described as love, that it made Chloe’s knees weak.

Needing a moment to ground herself, she lowered her head and focused on regulating her breathing. Beca took this opportunity to press a lingering kiss on her forehead. Chloe closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation of warm lips on her skin and the tenderness of the gesture.

It was then that her senses slowly started to pick up the signals from her surroundings and Chloe furrowed her brows in confusion as she heard some peculiar noise that sounded like someone trying to smother a boiling kettle with a pillow, without much success.

Beca must have heard it, too, as they both turned their heads at the same time, looking for the source of the noise.

There, in the kitchen entrance, a mere few feet away from them, stood Emily. She was visibly vibrating with excitement as she tried to muffle the constant stream of high-pitched squeals with one hand, the other flailing about wildly. Noticing that she’s been spotted, she made a few steps back before turning around and all but running to the living room. Chloe could bet that the youngest Bella would be telling the rest of the girls what she’s witnessed as soon as she’s able to form words.

Shaking her head, Chloe turned back to Beca and they shared a bemused look.

“Was she standing there the whole time?” Beca asked.

Chloe hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not sure… Maybe?”

See the full post

44 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#i have a silly little blog which i barely use #but i still have fun #tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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rexobibang · 2 years

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About the 2023 RexObi Bang

What is this?

This is a Star Wars big bang event focused on the Clone Wars characters Captain Rex and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Also known as the RexObi ship. 2023 is our very first year, so please be gentle with us!

Okay cool, but what’s a big bang?

A big bang, as described by Fanlore, is:

“A Big Bang (or “Bang” for short) is a specific type of challenge usually involving long fics and accompanying artwork. This type of challenge is a reprise of the old zine tradition of collaboration between artists and writers for internet fandoms.

Most Big Bangs have a similar format: Writers sign up to take part in the challenge and begin writing stories. When the early drafts of the stories are available, each one is assigned one or more artists, or artists might claim stories from posted summaries. Artists create fanart to go along with the story. This art can take the form of illustrations, manips, photo collages, vids, icon sets, etc.”

Awesome, I’m with you. Who can participate?

Writers and artists are both welcome, and you can sign up to be both!

Typically, writers create one fanwork of a minimum word count and artists create art for that work. We have three paths a writer can choose from and, based on that path, an artist (or multiple artists) will create works of art based on their fanwork.

We encourage all types of art–traditional and non-traditional. We encourage both artists and writers to approach this event as an opportunity to collaborate with each other, to create something unique, and to enjoy the act of creation together. Bangs should be fun! Stressful and hectic, but ultimately fun!

Okay, so what are the paths?

We have 3 paths to choose from, which are standard in most bangs:

Does anything go? Or do you have limitations?

For writers, your fanwork must focus on the relationship of Captain Rex and Obi-Wan Kenobi, whether it is romantic, platonic, or queer-platonic. They are allowed to be in relationships with other people, but the focus of the story must be on their relationship. So, if a writer wanted to write a CodyWan fic but focus on Rex and Obi-Wan’s time on Kadavo, that would be acceptable. Threesomes are also acceptable.

Any rating is allowed, but your work must be rated.

All stories must be 100% completed by the posting date, or the amnesty period. We have three check in periods, with word count minimums, to check to see how on track writers are (and artists!) so we can spot any pain points in advance and work with anyone who needs it.

All works (art and stories) must be posted to the AO3 collection. Once the collection has been revealed, stories can be posted anywhere the author or artist chooses.

Beta readers are not mandatory but are strongly recommended.

We require all content to be appropriately tagged.

You can find out more on our Rules page.

Awesome, I’m stoked! But who’s running the show?

Uh, that would be me, Jynx, or Karma. Nice to meet you. :)

#rexobibang2023

0 notes

plan-d-to-i · 3 years

Note

Playing off of what that person said about bottom Wangji, I personally find it ooc and wish people would tag it as such. MXTX has said multiple times that while people can ship whoever they want, they should never break up the main couple or change their dynamic in the relationship.

Also Wei Ying loves being a bottom in canon. In incense burner, WY immobilizes LWJ and still is the bottom and tries to break LWJ's restraint to get LWJ to rail him. He could have switched it but he doesn't. I find that their dynamic in canon fits who they extremely well, not because of stereotypes, but for other reasons. WY spends his entire first life taking of and protecting every else while in his 2nd he finally has someone to do that for him. He doesn't need LWJ to that, but it's nice to be able to be vulnerable and let yourself go and have someone take care of you for once. LWJ being top allows him to let go of his self-restraint and his be true self with WY and that WY loves all of it and even encourages it. He doesn't have to be perfect or the ideal confucianist man with WY. It also fits better with their dual cultivation and regrowing WY's golden core. LWJ is Yang energy while WY is Yin so it balances each other out.

Essentially write whatever you want, but do take into account the MXTX's wish for her own characters. She knows them better than any of us, so there has to be reason for her choice of dynamics.

I don't disagree. I 100% wish Western fandom could tag their head canons better like "#characters belong to mxtx #ooc belongs to me" when they go off on their "metAs" made up of 99.99% imagination and vibes, and make it easier for everyone to partake in the part of fandom they want to partake in. But half of this fandom self inserted so hard into side characters they can't even tell what canon is anymore and think mxtx did their favs wrong. Personally I really don't care about strangers projecting on the characters and changing them to match their traumas and dramas etc bc I fell in love w the story as mxtx wrote it. Hot take I know. Like I said I love the novel and their relationship dynamic. People switching them is OOC but I find it harder to endure ChengX!an, ZhanCh3ng, Hetswapping WangXian, insecure weak WWX and whatever other stuff ppl cook up for the mains that doesn't improve on the story in any way. I wish ppl could respect the author's wishes but let's be real ppl are out there wishing mxtx harm and arguing cql made the work better so it's probably not gonna happen in this fandom ( ≖.≖)

#mdzs #answers #WangXian

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rpbetter · 3 years

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"writes dubcon therefore is a freak who should be bullied off the site" ho boy i'm fed up with people acting as if consenting adults writing [insert "problematic" fictional thing here] is the worst thing in the world. seen way too many people justifying harrassment of REAL PEOPLE by "they write thing that triggers me". ok, and? mute the tags or don't follow! "it triggers someone" is not a valid reason to ban a topic. piano music triggers me yet i don't go around demanding everyone stop playing the piano.

Anon, not only is everything you said absolutely valid, but also, thank you for demonstrating that triggers are incredibly varied and as such, we cannot predict everyone's triggers. Making the entire "point" of banning for possible triggers invalidated as hell.

We should be aware of things like the most commonly occurring phobias (things like arachnophobia and coulrophobia that are, additionally, easily triggered by imagery) and tag them. We should be aware of very obvious triggers, that are, again, easily set off by imagery, like blood, eye trauma, and depictions of domestic violence. And we should always read and be aware of our writing partners' stated triggers so that we can tag them appropriately or even decide that it isn't going to work because our muse, canon story, or interests are going to present an unfair situation in this partnership.

But triggers can be highly unusual, as well as activated differently (even at different times) for everyone. I'm not triggered by seeing hotel rooms in pictures or movies, I'm not triggered by writing scenes that take place in them, but I'm triggered to some degree by being in one. It's outrageous oversimplification to act like all triggers are the same, they all display the same way, they're all going to trigger someone on the same basis, everyone's going to react the same to their triggers. There is absolutely no way to prevent 100% of possible triggers for 100% of the population, 100% of the time.

Add to this that way too many people trivialize triggers by throwing around that term to justify the banning of something that makes them uncomfortable or that they take a personal, moral issue with. "I don't like this" and "I'm grossed out by this" and "this makes me feel uncomfortable" is not being triggered. It's just a good way to weaponize the better nature of other people so that they comply.

Most people legitimately do not want to trigger someone, especially if they have triggers and know what it's like. Just like no one wants to be accused of cruelty towards trauma survivors in general, or be designated a pedo, rape apologist, or fascist. They're all things to weaponize in order to isolate, shame, and control. And that's really fucking gross. These are serious, real things that have no business being trivialized to police content, win internet arguments, or garner popularity.

The potential for someone to be triggered isn't a reason to ban anything; we have tags, we have blacklist.

While I'll be the first to say that tumblr's blacklisting can be as shitty as everything else on the site, the primary issue with running into content you don't want to see comes down to two factors: no one tagging/tagging correctly and actively exposing yourself to that content. Going through people's properly done tags and blog warnings about their content in order to "call it out" is actively exposing yourself by choice. You actual walnuts.

Calling people on on their "problematic" content is bringing those topics to the attention of other people. That's the whole point of this gross behavior: look at the freak pedo abuse apologist I found, they write dubcon!! Don't look if you'll be triggered uwu

Buddy, pal, my guy...you just put that on blast for anyone to run across. Maybe their blacklist catches those words in your callout post, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they think you're a safe space because you promote yourself that way, so they click it anyway. Point is, you just willfully and irresponsibly exposed people because it's more important to you to demonize a rando on tumblr RPing something you take issue with. Good job!

Furthermore, dubcon itself is such a hilarious issue to take. Do they realize that isn't always sexual, or? Not? I'm thinking not. Funnily enough, one of the oldest posts I've been working on for this blog is about exactly this topic, the myriad situations that are dubious consent. That doesn't have to be sexual, and neither does it have to be intentionally predatory. You can come up with some amazing character development with a lot of muses in the RPC with dubcon because almost everyone's muse has some manner of trauma that might negate their perception of their own consent...and what do you do then? Is it removing more agency from that muse to shut them down, or is that always the better option? Can you separate your opinion as the mun from your muse's natural reactions? How does this impact the muses involved not just that moment but the next year?

Point is, dubcon isn't always some rapey situation. Even if it was, even if someone is writing it that way, it's literally not your business or your problem.

There's one mutual-in-law on my RP blog that really bothers me. They write things that I find fetishizing, incredibly rapey, all around shit that bothers me. I don't want to see it, some of the things they write makes my damn skin crawl. This person doesn't know it, we certainly don't speak and I don't think they like me very much, but I've repeatedly defended their right, specifically their right as a person with some long-term callouts on them, to write what they want to. I have them blocked and their urls blacklisted so I never have to see my mutual reblogging their threads. It's not a problem because I don't click "show anyway." Why would I, if it genuinely bothers me so much?

That's how you handle things that bother you; you use the tools available to not interact even by accident. Not by launching a morality crusade.

If any of us want to write what we enjoy, we have to allow others that same freedom. It's always a matter of time before this policing grows to include more and more topics, it's been used multiple times to get well-meaning people who don't fall into the general demographics to police queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups off of platforms. We've been fortunate in most of the RPC that it implodes on itself before it gets all the way there, but even so, you can see it.

It starts with things that produce a visceral reaction in the great majority of people, positions this with a repeatedly condemned idea presented as solid fact that fiction is reality, and you've got the start of something awful. Today it's something you don't like, maybe even something that triggers you, so you either support it or you quietly allow it to happen. Who needs to write that "freak shit" anyway, can't they just be gross privately? Six months from now, it's something "problematic" that you enjoy like violence that's canon-typical for your muse, or your OTP because they're gay and that's fetishizing, they're cis male and female but one or both is bi and that's bad representation, or they canonically have a rocky relationship so that's romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

If you can't care for any other reason, you really should care about how it is going to impact you sooner or later. In an environment like this, you can stay in your space, put warnings on your blog, and tag properly and you're still going to get a callout if the wrong person finds your blog. Just takes a single person with more time, energy, and skewed ideas of justice than they have reading comprehension or common sense.

Again, I cannot encourage people enough to give warnings, but it's difficult to ignore why those warnings are slipping; they're a way to be found, designated as a Problem, and called out. Look, it's another reason why callouts actually make things worse, not better! People put that shit in their rules so you can avoid content, they're being responsible and interested in promoting a safe RPC. Let them do it, damn.

You can't tag everything, and if you've never experienced what a giant series of repetitive tags is like on a screenreader you probably should before you tag seven paragraphs of possible issues. You can tag for visuals, you can tag for the obvious things, and you can tag for what's in the rules you agreed to when you followed/followed back. But you should also warn people that you write "dark topics" on the tin, and expand on that in your rules for specific things like graphic violence, toxic relationships, dubon, and addiction.

That's how responsible adults, not over-aged children, make better decisions about their mental health and general comfort. Not by appointing themselves the watchdogs of the damn RPC, here to protect you whether you want to be or not, find that incredibly insulting or not when you're in one of their categories of people who must be protected, by forcibly banning Problematic Everything. Problematic, of course, being entirely in the eye of the content police.

It's fiction. No one and nothing real was harmed. It's great that you are so invested in the fictional world and people that make you happy, but take a fucking big step back into reality. The real people you're harming with your bullshit had every right to peaceably exist. If what they're writing is triggering to you, stay. away. from. it.

Without any coincidence whatsoever, that's how you get from the base-point of Problematic Material to Problematic Mun. Yeah, it's just fiction, it's just RP, but I also took something out of context OOC or was upset by their tone on their own blog or couldn't exercise the minimal adult logic to remove myself from their presence OOC as well. So, now, you've got OOC behavior being added to the callout, if it wasn't already. Everyone is now ableist, transphobic, racist, and a misogynist because it lends that visceral reaction to the callout and ups the game from just being "y'all so gross you aged up a cartoon character to ship" to "this is REAL and it won't be tolerated! OP is actually a pedophile, they told a sexual joke in a discord server with a minor present and I have the receipts!"

What are the most storied callouts in the entire RPC? I'm absolutely certain the same names came to mind no matter what fandoms you're in, and one of them was "Matt." Another was probably "Ares/Snow". They're all successful and keep being brought up out of the closet anytime people are bored enough because their primary punch is the mun themselves being a predatory threat to the community. The mun is verified to be a bad person. Well, of course, that's got to be repeated, it worked. (Even if it did not, at all, work and only made it harder for people to avoid any of these muns.)

Are there people in the RPC who are legitimately a problem? Absolutely, yes. We're all supposed to be adults, however. Part of being an adult is having and acting upon one's agency. If someone is coercing you into things you are not comfortable with, shut it down. If you have difficulties being certain of those situations, run it by a trusted, honest friend or available, impartial source in the RPC for a second opinion. If you can't handle any manner of confrontation, there really are situations in which it's perfectly alright to block someone without any discussion. It's just the internet, you're in control of your space. Own it.

Minors are a whole other can of fucked up worms I'm not even getting into right now except to say that because a minor exists in a space they were told to stay out of does not mean we ban all topics inappropriate for their consumption.

tl;dr: banning shit doesn't work anyway, the whole idea is predicated upon some incredibly problematic takes IRL, and no, there's no justification for it outside of intense personal problems with one's own importance. That energy would be infinitely better spent volunteering one's time to help real people in crisis or after surviving one, or even oneself in developing some healthier approaches and thought patterns.

#hey what if we all start saying we're triggered by callout culture is that bannable then lmao #vespertine #drama cw #bsnf #callout culture #tumblr rpc #rp problems #also thank you again anon I hope you're having a great day!

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rissynicole · 3 years

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Any suggestions for writing dialogues? I mean, when it comes to punctuations and actions the characters perform.

Okay, this ask has been in my inbox for months at this point, and I've been saving it because 1) I wanted to write something meaningful and 2) I didn't know what I could write that hasn't already been said ad nauseam by other writers. I still don't know if anything I say will be particularly groundbreaking, but I'll try to be helpful. Keep in mind, I'm a young writer, myself. I'm still learning new things every day, and I'm far from a guru in the field.

This got long, so I’m going to put it under the cut:

The first thing I did was ask my mother this question, because I was interested in hearing her answer. She doesn't write fiction, herself, but she has been in the editing game for 30 some-odd years. She edits fiction for Harper Collins Publishing and has an eye for these things. However, her answer to this was very plain and simple.

She said, "All editing and punctuation exists to serve one key purpose: to not confuse the reader."

As far as grammar goes, that's the main goal. I was looking for something a little more hard and fast--some sort of rule in a style guide--and y'know, I'm sure there is a rule out there. But in a fairly fluid world of fiction writing and "rules are meant to be broken" mentalities, the most important thing to heed is the comprehension of your reader. As soon as you’ve confused your reader, you’ve made a mistake. Not a failure--but a mistake that needs to be fixed. I’ve made them; I’ve fixed them. Dialogue can be a particularly tricky area, because it’s like a minefield for these mistakes.

I’ll add an example of my dialogue and break it down a little bit:

‘“Soldier?’ Red said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

First and foremost, it should be clear who is speaking. I help this along by making sure the characters’ actions are in the same paragraph as their speech. It keeps it more comprehensive. Otherwise, it would read like this:

‘“Soldier?’ Red said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up.

‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls.

‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

Not completely indecipherable, but distracting enough to make the reader re-read it a few times. As far as formatting goes, it’s also not very pretty. Now, I’m not perfect with this. In fact, I still need to go through Parade and reformat some sections that might read like the above. However, it is a readability rule that I’m trying to follow more closely.

Another difficulty with ensuring you’re making it clear who’s speaking can be the use of pronouns. I’ll be the first to admit, writing with multiple characters who all use the same pronouns can be incredibly difficult. You can’t always just use “he said” as a tag. It’s too easy to hit a snag where the reader gets confused and doesn’t know who “he” is.

‘“Soldier?’ he said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

His grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

Sure, maybe this short passage isn’t so bad; It’s still fairly clear who’s speaking. But imagine if the entire book was that way: three, maybe four characters in the same room who all use he/his pronouns speaking without any further identification. It would get confusing and distracting. Lots of reading passages over again to try to decipher who is saying what and lots of frustration on the reader’s part. At the same time, always using the characters’ names can be tedious and unnecessary. Finding a good balance isn’t always easy, but it is worth it.

The golden rule, for me, is exactly as my mother said: “Do not confuse the reader.”

Below, I’ll add some additional dialogue tips I have picked up:

Constantly adding a tag can get tedious.

‘“Soldier?’ Red interrupted, cutting off the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’ he inquired.

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line,” Red replied.

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again,’” he muttered.

Sure, this makes sense. It’s clear who’s speaking. But it also doesn’t read as smoothly. Not to mention, the overabundance of different transitive verbs (interrupted, inquired, muttered), is stilted and almost mechanical in how the dialogue reads. Oftentimes, “said” is perfectly fine. Fun words like “muttered” and “interrupted” are great, too, but in moderation. Finding a happy medium can make all the difference.

Sometimes, a tag isn’t necessary at all.

This segues into my next piece of advice: it’s important to write dialogue in a way that still allows the reader to use their imagination. This is where I’ll go off on a bit of a rabbit trail, because this is something I’ve had to learn for myself recently.

Put trust in your reader to make up their own mind on how dialogue is spoken

I recently finished reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (which, regardless of your opinions on King, was a very helpful book. I enjoyed it a lot). In one passage, he tells the reader to imagine an orange sitting on a table. Just that. He doesn’t give any further details. There is a 100% chance that we are all going to see something different in our minds. We are going to imagine a different table, a different room, and maybe even a different orange.

Sometime, description helps. Sometimes, a carefully placed lack of description lets the reader make up their own mind and encourages imagination. This advice has served me well in writing dialogue. I know it’s a tired old saying in any writer’s workshop: “never use adverbs in dialogue!” And to be honest, I still believe there can be a time and a place. But relying heavily on adverbs doesn’t do anything for the reader, except maybe shoehorn them into a state where they have to re-read dialogue with the new inflection.

‘“Soldier?’ Red said solemnly, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’ he asked weakly.

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line,” he replied sternly, in a flat monotone.

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again,’ he said lowly, almost inaudibly.

Again, this feels stilted, and doesn’t really leave anything to the imagination.

To better emphasize what I mean by this, I want to use a real example of it in action. (I hope you don’t mind, @sunnymelonpan!) Shortly after I read this advice and starting cutting down on over-describing dialogue and using adverbs, I wrote some IZ sickfic prompts. A friend of mine decided to draw up a comic based on one of them. This was not only incredibly flattering, but unexpectedly enlightening. I was able to see firsthand how other readers interpreted my dialogue. And lemme tell you, it wasn’t always exactly how I had envisioned it.

Here’s some dialogue I wrote for the prompt in question:

“Dib swiped the thermometer from him and pushed his glasses up his nose while he read it. ‘That’s because it isn’t going down. Huh.’

‘S-some help y-y-you are,’ Zim sneered.

‘Hey, give me a break. I’m doing my best. This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend.’

Dib’s outline rose to its full height in Zim’s dimmed living room. He disappeared into the kitchen with the thermometer, then returned with something else in his hands. Without any warning, he placed it onto Zim’s forehead, scowling at the death glare he received in return.”

When I wrote this, I personally imagined Dib acting and speaking in a sort of annoyed, deflated way. Like he wasn’t really taking Zim’s harsh words seriously. Just a sort of eye-roll “yeah, whatever, Zim,” demeanor. That’s how I saw it.

This is how Sunny saw it:

In Sunny’s comic, Dib is genuinely angry. He gets annoyed, stands up, and actually berates Zim with these words.

I never made it clear how Dib spoke this line. Some people might look at this and say I failed as a writer because I didn’t explicitly say that Dib’s line was more casual than angry. I disagree. I left it up to the reader to interpret it as they chose. And Sunny surprised me by interpreting it in a way that was different. Not wrong! Just different. I positively loved seeing Sunny’s interpretation of my prompt. It let me see my writing in the eyes of others; it showed me that I was able to describe scenes while still allowing my readers to use their imaginations.

As a fiction writer, it is not my job to be a stagehand and tell the reader every minute detail of the scene I’m writing. Instead, it is my job to guide them through the story and allow them to envision parts of the story as they see fit. This is especially true with dialogue.

So let’s go back to the original excerpt from Parade that I was using as an example:

‘“Soldier?’ Red said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

In this passage, I tried to apply all these rules:

Make it clear who’s speaking.

Use tags sparingly. Sometimes, “said” works just fine.

Use adverbs sparingly and don’t fall over yourself trying to describe everything.

The dialogue flows smoothly, it is clear who is speaking, and the reader can decide how it’s being spoken. Is Red angry? Impatient? Completely void of emotion in his words? Is Larb scared out of his wits? Trying to keep up a facade of bravery? Who knows! I sure don’t! I’m just the writer! It’s up to YOU to decide.

So... yeah! I know my advice wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, but I hope it was an interesting read, nonetheless.

#writing advice #rissy's asks #rissy rambles #ladyanaconda #keep in mind #i am not a professional writer #i have my degree in communication not english #i just write a lot and have the help of some professionals in my life #i also still have a lot to learn #so i am in no way some sort of sacred fountain of wisdom #sorry if i have some grammar errors too #i know that must make me look like a hypocrite #i'll try to go through later and fix as many as i can catch #this was kind of a 'stream of consciousness' post

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freebooter4ever · 4 years

Text

i’ve seen the discussion going back and forth on boundaries and sexual objectification, and i don’t have much to add to the conversation other than to say everyone is allowed to determine their OWN ‘lines’ and just because we don’t vocalize them doesn’t make them any less valid. but here’s the limits i set for my blog if anyone feels it is important for them to know (<3):

personally I consider ‘characters’ fair game for anything goes, with ‘public personas’ a little more iffy. ‘RPF’ isn’t new - it just takes on a new more accessible/visible form nowadays. i remember reading my first fic about a ‘real person’ back in my LOTR fandom days - it was a story in first person perspective about the main character meeting orlando bloom on a plane before he was ‘famous’. like a lot of these types of stories, it wasnt so much about the person as it was about the meet cute. the actor was just a convenient placeholder with a handsome face and some personality quirks thrown in to make the romance/dialogue more specific. i personally dont read much xReader fic nowadays, but mostly only cause i’m an old fart who can’t relate to the ‘you’ format. i miss the good old days when people actually created OC’s and then inserted them into things LOL. but also LOL if you think i’ve gone an entire year of quarantine without some imagined personal fantasies of joe mazzello (or steve aoki in the years before)(ramilicious can attest to this. she can also attest to most of these fantasies ending in friendship rather than anything explicit cause that’s just how i roll these days lol). the line i draw is i would never post these types of fics in a place where the subject could accidentally find them - you have to go looking for this stuff on tumblr, most fics are given explicit ratings and under read-mores. with the blacklist tags it’s pretty easy to filter things out. its even easier to add filters to ao3 searches. i am NOT going to do something like message steve aoki and say ‘yeah i watched that movie Ibiza like five times, here is my 1k fic where you’re the dj and i’m the one night stand’. but obviously people still enjoy imagining scenarios like these otherwise movies like Ibiza wouldn’t exist?

for art, i consider anything already on display up for grabs, we all know a certain person’s ass is all over the place...all you have to do is google ‘need for speed’ and rami’s name. HOWEVER, in the case of actors i personally would not draw anything more explicit than what’s already there. i’m not gonna draw full frontal nudity for rami (unless he gifts us with it in a movie, i suppose) or anyone. this is 100% a personal choice for me.

i was a sophomore or junior in college when i volunteered as a figure drawing monitor where i’d time the nude model’s poses and help them set up the stage and lighting and such. there was this one guy in his mid forties probably, a regular who came every week, and i always thought of him fondly till one day (the day after i ran into my Hot Programming TA during dinner and later sent him an email begging him to go on a date with me because i was desperate for kissing experience)(and Hot Programming TA emailed me back within minutes saying yes) this artist guy who i saw all the time and thought i knew fairly well, decided to draw me instead of the model. which would have been fine except he drew me naked. i was NOT naked at the time, i was wearing a shirt, and a bra, and a full prairie skirt with alternating calico and floral patterns. he drew what he imagined was underneath all that. he came up to me after the figure drawing session and showed me his drawings and told me i had been ‘glowing’ and my response was to laugh it off awkwardly and get the hell out of there as soon as i gave the model their pay check. but inwardly i was thinking a) i was NOT glowing for this creepy man twice my age and b) i did NOT give him consent to sexualize my body under my clothes and then SHOW me that objectification. i never said anything to him or anything else, i continued to be the monitor, and i continued to field off creepy advances from him including multiple job offers, but when i finally realized i could just...stop..and i passed the student volunteer monitor job on to my friend naeem, i also realized that what that older male artist did was NOT ok in my book. and it was probably not something he would do while naeem was monitoring.

nowadays im working in an industry that regularly objectifies female bodies. in the past year alone i have had to deal with requests to make breasts bigger, i have been given character rigs that in addition to the usual elbow, knee, and spine joints also have ‘nipple’ joints but ONLY for the women (to make them jiggle for animation), every time i send out a female pose i get it back with notes that push it further into the sexy type of body language reserved for women (twist the spine more! sway the back more! give it ‘energy!’), i have been told to erase wrinkles and fat and pores but ONLY for the women (men you ADD pores bc realism! and manliness!) and this is all me working for a company that is actually fairly progressive in terms of sexism compared to OTHER studios.

like it or not, sexual objectification is a huge part of specifically women’s lives and how we react to that is our business. for me, turning the tables and putting men on display feels like fair’s fair. i cant stop the men from doing it, so if i want to enjoy sexualizing male bodies, damn it im gonna! like dang it, boy do i want to send steve aoki a thank you note every time he posts a video of himself doing those ice baths during the sunset golden hour bc holy shit gorgeous or working out in his gym wearing VERY little clothes, but i dont because i know what its like when someone imposes their personal fantasies on the subject. or, god, there was that time i had to unfollow nicole’s insta for a while bc i had a very explicit dream about her and realized, shit, i need to take a break and get my emotions under control before i can refollow. and god some of the stuff i see dudes sending her during her live videos on mental illness/meditation is TOTALLY gross and not something they should be confronting her with. and she’s not even ‘famous’ famous. or how some fans send their idols explicit direct messages without consent. THAT feels inappropriate to me.

a part of me feels like i shouldn’t have to defend this. men don’t. they’re even encouraged in mass media to sexualize women. but i also recognize the importance of talking about consent. the importance of recognizing that a celebrity deserves to have their boundaries respected. these are my lines in fandom. other people have different lines they won’t cross, and that’s okay to me. i block or blacklist any blogs or tags i think go over the top.

heck, even in fandom-only spaces i still try to keep my own more sexual fantasies off this blog and only in private messages with my friends and mutuals, and i feel like that might come across as unintentionally prudish or judgmental sometimes. i’m not ‘horny on main’ very often. but like...every time i reblog that particular ‘washing machine’ gif of joe mazzello am i thinking about him naked and thinking about how he’s got very loooooong feet, and ‘gee i wonder if that means /other/ things are Too Big for my tastes’ but also ‘gosh wouldnt that make a pretty picture to draw’???? hell yeah.

i dont know who is gonna actually read this essay but yolo i guess :)

#journal shit

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deus-ex-knoxina · 4 years

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When you added onto your tags and acknowledged that tightlacing is vastly different than corsetry... I'm ace and I think I'm on the aro spectrum but that was extremely hot of you and I think I fell in love

hey i’m on the aro ace spectrum too high five!! and FUCK yes i’m so glad that my strong feelings on making sure everyone knows the difference are appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!! and also you’re giving me this stellar opportunity to talk about it even MORE anon i love you let the infodumping commence

this gets long so the rest is under the cut:

TL;DR: corsets serve the same purpose as a bra, supporting from the hips instead of the shoulders. today, some people wear them for that purpose, and some people wear them as medical devices for scoliosis. if a corset doesn’t fit properly, it’ll be uncomfortable, which is why we hear actors complain about them so much (because they’re not wearing custom-made ones, like they would have, say, a hundred and fifty years ago).

so when everyone was wearing corsets, they had ones that fit them, and corsets HAD to allow women to breathe and move because EVERYONE was wearing them, including working-class women. tightlacing was done by a tiny minority of upper-class women to get the tiniest waist possible, which was fashionable at the time (and still is, if you look at modern waist trainers). and yes, it was damaging to them, but it’s not the intended purpose of a corset. the reason that so many people today think it IS is because of victorian men, who sucked.

(so don’t draw neil josten like a super-rich super-fashionable victorian woman)

(and that was the tl;dr so as you can imagine! what’s under the cut is quite long! BUT IT’S INTERESTING SO I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE U TO READ)

OKAY SO HERE’S THE DEAL. we always hear about corsets as like, women-oppressing torture devices. that’s not true. the *reason* we have all these misconceptions about corsets is the fault of victorian men, just like so many things are the fault of victorian men

the actual purpose of corsets??? like the ACTUAL actual purpose of corsets??? they have literally the same function as a bra. the benefit of a corset is that it supports from the hips and waist, not from the shoulders, so depending on your bust size a corset might be better for you (and for your back)!

and people do still wear corsets today, *not* just people dressing up. like i mentioned above, they’re practical, they’re COMFORTABLE ACTUALLY, and if you have scoliosis then special corsets are sometimes used as medical devices!

so back to them being comfortable. this is another huge-ass misconception. you know who wore corsets Back In The Day? women. not just rich women. middle-class women, working class women, EVERYONE. because it’s underwear. do you think a woman who lives on a farm and has to help with farm things could do that with a super uncomfortable, super tight corset? no.

you can try to lace your corset up as tight as possible, but if you have ANY form of core/abdominal muscles whatsoever, you’re just. not gonna be able to have a wasp waist. you’re just not! you have muscles there that can’t be pushed out of the way!

and are you REALLY gonna put all that effort in to lace it super fucking tight every single day? no. you’re not. because unless you’re super rich, you’re probably having a family member or spouse or maybe a single maid help you get dressed in the morning, and the two of you just don’t have time to turn ‘putting on undergarments’ into a whole fuckin’ production every single day.

but birl, you ask, why is it that movie actresses (such as emma stone and emma watson, literally just off the top of my head) always complain about corsets? simple answer: they’re not fitted well, and the actresses have been inundated with victorian men’s opinions on tightlacing and think that wearing a corset automatically means they’re gonna have their internal organs fucked up. if a corset doesn’t fit you, of course it’s gonna be uncomfortable!!!

and when it comes to movies/tv, whether it actually fits is... not always treated as a primary concern. because they’re doing it for costumes, and since it’s film, the actresses can change out of the corset and wear something else when they’re not filming. if you’re wearing a corset as part of your everyday clothes, you’re GONNA pay for one that’s made specifically for you (not to mention that off-the-rack clothing is a fairly recent invention, and for the vast majority of human history, clothing was made to fit an individual, so OF COURSE women would wear corsets that fit them)

costume corsets are frequently not a functional garment and they don’t need to behave like one. real corsets are, and they have persisted as a functional garment for CENTURIES, which they would *not* have if they were actively harming every single person who wore them. which, if you recall, was... pretty much every single woman. that’s the difference, and also, like i said, there’s an element of fear that also drives those actresses complaining because they have fallen for the victorian male complaining.

(side note: i watched enola holmes recently, and it’s a great movie, but for FUCK’S sake a corset is not a tool of repression any more than a bra is! i know some of y’all like to say that a bra is a tool of repression, because you hardly have any need for one! but a lot of people actually do need breast support SO THEY DON’T DEVELOP BACK PROBLEMS)

now. on to tightlacing, finally. with a normal corset, you lace it tight enough to get support from it, and no tighter, because why the fuck would you want to imprison your lungs and also you probably have core muscles because only a TINY subset of society was rich enough to afford zero abdominal strength.

tightlacing, on the other hand, is what most people think of when they think of a corset. pulling the laces on the back of the corset as TIGHT AS POSSIBLE (sometimes with multiple people pulling) to get a teeny-tiny waist. it severely restricts your lung capacity (since your lungs go all the way down your back), it forces your internal organs to move, and it can deform your ribcage.

additionally, since you can’t breathe very well, you have to breathe into the top of your chest (this is where the whole ‘heaving bosom’ thing comes from), so you can’t really engage in physical activity AND when you take your corset off, you’re likely to faint because of blood rushing everywhere.

and like i have mentioned SEVERAL times, if you have abdominal muscles, it is NOT GONNA WORK. because you can’t push muscle out of the way.

so this can only be done by the superrich, and IT WAS A FAD. i cannot state this enough. it didn’t last, because it fucked people up! and the fact that it wasn’t healthy, combined with some good old victorian misogyny, meant that victorian men were talking about tightlacing CONSTANTLY. and since normal corsets had been around for forever, nobody was talking about them because everyone knew how corsets were supposed to work!

which means, of course, that if you look at, say, victorian sources discussing corsets, they’re gonna be talking about tightlacing, and if you don’t live in a time where the VAST majority of women are wearing corsets, then you might not know that tightlacing is this weird fad among super-wealthy women and assume that it’s what everyone was doing!

now here’s the thing. we have bras now. we also have modern corsets. guess what? we also have modern tightlacing. those are waist trainers. now, i don’t know as much about them as i do about corsets, but i imagine they at least pretend to be better for you than tightlacing. don’t fall for it. being able to breathe is sexy.

AND if you’re interested in this, bernadette banner and karolina zebrowska have some great youtube videos on it! i actually don’t remember off the top of my head if bernadette banner has a video dedicated to corsets but she does talk about them when analyzing terrible ‘historical’ movie costumes

another side note: so what sparked this initially was talking about the aftg fandom and how neil josten is frequently represented in art as having a tiny waist. having made it to the bottom of this post, i hope u now have an ARSENAL of facts with which to know with 100% certainty that it is impossible for neil josten to have a wasp waist. the guy’s a d1 athlete.

and even if it’s some kind of AU, if he runs as much as he does in canon, no wasp waist. he has abdominal muscles. and body fat, because he is not a bodybuilder and he NEEDS body fat. i get that he’s short???? but he’s not a twink. he’s a future pro athlete. so even if he tightlaced a corset, he would STILL not have a tiny waist. it’s physically impossible for him.

the end!

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kaypeace21 · 5 years

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i LOVE your analysis especially byler ones so please don't take this as hate, it's the last thing i want to do. but while i love the byler theories do you actually think the duffers are smart enough to realize the potential/brave enough to follow through on the relationship. bc tbh i think our viewpoint is skewed i don't think anyone but byler shippers see the canon possibility. and also it really seems like m/leven is going to be endgame? just wanted to know more of your thought process

Even if byler never happens- I’m 100% sure mileven won’t be endgame XD. Regardless of byler, Mike and El are just not going to happen. (Even if they’re ‘dating’ in s4). I could try to explain the reasons why I think byler will be endgame though. I’ll give the cliffnotes version. This will probably be a mess- because focusing on all the reasons isn’t as good as analyzing , each reason as it’s own separate post, in depth).

Why mileven isn’t endgame

- The duffers said, while filming ST, El was supposed to die in s1 (glad that didn’t happen). And this was also their plan when pitching their show ‘Montauk’ (later retitled ST), saying that the hypothetical s2 sequel would be about the boys returning to their town 10 years later. Mileven was never ‘planned end-game’. They also describe mileven kissing but never mention the word ‘love’ like how Jancy was described in the Montauk pitch. Nancy’s bio says “ she will experience love for the first time.” But when they describe mileven, they say, “If Mike is the Elliot of our show, Eleven is our “E.T.” Like that’s … not romantic, Duffers. And if it was supposed to be … WTF did you guys watch the same film? 0-O

- In the byler centric s2, the Duffers kept mileven separated. And the mileven kiss wasn’t written in the show. Millie pretty much said “they had to do it.” Much to Matt’s confusion but then the Duffers agreed. And used ‘every breath you take’ (a song about divorce), and just by coincidence their 2nd back-up song was also a song about a divorce? Nah, they were trolling.

- Most of the women (Nancy & Max) in the show critique Mileven saying Mike treats her as if she’s stupid, can’t take care of herself, or as she is a possession.

-in the first ep of s3 almost all the guys (who had/have gfs) Hopper, Lucas, and Dustin all criticize the mileven relationship and think it’s unhealthy.

Hopper says “ They’re spending entirely too much time together… It is constant.It is constant! Okay? That is not normal, that is not healthy! ”

Lucas mocks Mike, saying “ Oh El, I wish we could make out forever and never hang out with any of our friends.”

Dustin says when they flake on him, “It’s bullshit, I just got home!” (insert Nancy calling Stancy ‘bullshit’)

and before this Dustin talks about Romeo & Juliet (while mileven is out of frame). R&J is all about the dangers of not knowing the difference between love and infatuation. Juliet after Romeo is banished just complains about how in love/sad she is but never pursues looking for him (sound familiar)? R&J claimed that they were in love with each other after knowing each for a few days and deciding to get married-sabotaging the closest relationships they had with their friends/family (all in the name of ‘true love’) . Similarly Mileven thought they were in love after only a week of knowing each other, and the second they are reunited they start dating and spend all their time with each other. El is allowed out of the house (and her friends are allowed to visit), but El hasn’t interacted with Max nor Will? They spend almost everyday in her room just making out. Mike puts very little effort into integrating her into his life or as part of the group. The only time they go out- is for Mike to show off El to Dustin like a possession- then before El can even do the boding activity with the group (with the radio tower)- Mike convinces her to leave to make out. They are both complicit in this and they both bring out the worst in each other and they make each other blinded to their loved ones’ feelings.

- El literally asks Max “How do I know what I like?” Do I have to explain why this could be problematic? She even says “I don’t know”, when Max asks if Mike is a good kisser.You can call me ‘ableist’ my abused-autistic ass will disagree. But El is not ready for a romantic relationship! it makes perfect sense for El to be confused by the distinctions of romantic, platonic, and familial love- when the first 12 years of her life she didn’t receive any form of love , PERIOD! And she is not like normal abuse victims (she has never had proper socialization with peers her own age or even adults).All she had was television. She latches herself on to anyone who is kind to her (something I used to do). Without Mike she used Max as a replacement almost immediately, and even starts repeating/mirroring the things she says (specifically coping phrases from her …over 6 times!). She’s also susceptible to doing what others say or want her to do, “dumping his ass” (with Max’s validation and encouragement). El might love Mike but I don’t think it’s romantic, she latched on to the first person that was kind to her. Before their first kiss she asked Mike “Will you be like my brother?” And she’s hurt when he says “no”, asking “Why not?”. He then kisses her (she watches a lot of soap operas and she assumes it must be ‘romantic love’). You’re telling me that if she was ‘in love’ with Mike she would have been that happy over dumping him? I’m not saying El is dumb for not being able to discern these things (I think people without such backgrounds may still struggle with this concept). But it makes perfect sense for El to be confused by the distinctions of various loves or even the differences between ‘crushes’ , ‘physical attraction’ and ‘romantic love’

- In the last ep El asks about what he said at the cabin to Max, specifying “you talked about your feelings?”. He says and I QUOTE “Oh! Oh, yeah that.Man, that was so long ago. Um…” and starts to scratch his head. Then he excuses what he said at the cabin, saying it was “in the heat of the moment stuff and we were arguing… I don’t actually remember. What did I say exactly?”

Now either he legitimately forgot! Or he lied! You know the thing that broke them up in the first place! The one thing that El holds as her most important value in life- honesty. And he lied- about something as important as his romantic feelings?! Make up any excuse (about being shy/character flaws all you want), but this isn’t real life- it’s fiction (everything is done for a narrative purpose). That wasn’t an accident ( mileven wasn’t “written out of character”- like milevens claim, the duffers were criticizing the ship on purpose) .And the fact he lied again! Wouldn’t bode well for a long term relation with each other. The whole season, criticized their romantic relationship ! That wasn’t a coincidence neither was the fact he looked confused by her confession, and kept his eyes open the whole time and didn’t kiss her back .

And as she smiled and walked away, he looked confused. That wasn’t a directing mistake, like so many milevens are claiming! You really think they wouldn’t make sure their ‘fav ship’ didn’t have a good final kiss?

Especially since it was right after a romantic Jancy scene (which was directed amazingly)- where Nancy even mentions Mileven- to make us compare the 2 pairings romantic scenes even more.

* I know I sound like an assh*le but I’m just annoyed. I’ve always censored my byler posts trying not to offend/criticize mileven. I never cross tagged my byler meta with the hashtag mileven (never will, cause it’s rude). But (without sounding pompous) my byler posts generally gets reblogged a lot- and now the milevens have seen my posts (and are sending lots of hate my way) and worst of all they’ve invaded the byler tag. Today I saw 2 posts in the byler tag saying. “We’re delusional” and “stupid”- and also in the same posts they say they “feel attacked” by us.Um… there’s a difference between byler shippers privately criticizing a ship without bothering mileven shippers (and only tagging it byler) . Versus Mileven shippers tagging things byler (and ranting about the ship and it’s shippers). Loved the comment about how Mike can’t be bi cause “he loves El too much”.I think Mike is probably gay and in denial. But, um that’s not how being bi works- didn’t know bi people love women and men ½ as much as the gays/straights. Thanks for informing me (rolls eyes for eternity).So kid-gloves off, nothing left to lose! Time to compare the ships.

‘The breakup’ vs ‘fight’ parallel

comedic vs dramatic! The casual sunny day vs the dramatic framing of the storm (a romantic trope) . The ‘break-up’ being a scene with multiple onlookers vs the fight being with Will and Mike only (making it more personal/intimate). ‘Cold as ice’ playing after the mileven breakup vs the sad instrumentals playing during the byler fight. The comedic after-math at the mall. El and Max laughing, and another joke being made as the bus leaves.El’s happiness vs Will’s heartbreak.

Mike’s drastically different expressions after their fights. He looks regretful with Will, and almost annoyed with El dumping him. The fact Mike apologized right away more than once to Will, and ran into a storm to apologize a 2nd time. But with El he just lies to cover up the first lie, and then after the break-up he just complains/lounges on the couch (not taking any responsibility). He literally says about El “Why is she treating me this way? What did I do to deserve this? What did I do wrong?”.( He lied and made her feel “like garbage”!) Then he burps and laughs about chips- and makes sexist comments. Neither EL nor Mike are heartbroken by the breakup.

But when he angers Will (by him trying to finish the game early), he immediately tries to de-escalate saying softly “I was just joking- c’mon, let’s finish the game”. But when Will just yells back (much to Mike’s confusion) he doesn’t dismiss his feelings as irrational (like he wrongfully did to El) but chases him to the garage- and begs him to stay since it’s raining.

In the garage, Mike immediately apologizes saying “I said I was sorry, alright. It was a cool campaign.” But after this, they fight and Mike runs into a storm to apologize a second time , and says to Will’s door “ WILL! I’m sorry I was being an asshole. Can you just come outside and we’ll talk? WILL!” He immediately takes responsibility and apologizes. And he’s desperate to resolve things. And when they find him outside castle Byers he just asks (Mike’s catchphrase) “Will, Are you ok?”

Shed scene ( “best thing I’ve ever done” vs “the most important thing in the world to me”) parallel

When Mike says to El “you’re most important thing to me” in the pool shed. El doesn’t even acknowledge the comment (and neither should the audience- cause the words were empty). She completely ignores his words, and responds by asking him about his previous comments. Asking whether Hopper was right about them spending too much time together.

I didn’t edit (or delete any scene after his proclamation) this is how fast it was delivered ! The framing of this mileven scene was not cinematic or heartfelt, and neither was the delivery from Mike. He’s not crying, trying to reach her with proclamations of his genuine feelings. There’s no dramatic music, framing, lighting or shot composition. And El just responds and cuts his supposed ‘true feelings’ off- only to agree with Hopper and says “ she should spend time with her own species.” And if this ‘romantic moment’ wasn’t already undermined enough. This is when Mike realizes she was spying on him , and feels wrongfully violated (something she doesn’t apologize for, saying “I make my own rules” . He even brings this up in a later episode (this clearly bothered him)!

Juxtaposed to the MUCH longer byler scene. A literal single tear falling down his cheek as Mike , recounts the first day they met. Mike being in the back drop of darkness only his face being illuminated (having him appear like a guiding light to Will). Saying “ I felt so alone and so scared… but you were alone too” (alone together/crazy together) . He then talks about asking Will to be his friend, and then he pauses and breaks eye contact , before looking him in the eye and smiling (lost in the memory) saying softly “you said yes, you said yes.” (cough like saying yes at a wedding).

So, after he says “you said yes, you said yes.” It’s important to mention that he takes a deep breath and breaks eye contact again, (looking down and to the side) as he says this line. Subconsciously, I believe he knows this line is romantic and he’s too afraid to say it to his face. Only flicking his eyes up to look at Will after he finishes the entire sentence, and to gauge Will’s reaction.

This whole monologue is only of tight shots of just their faces (their bodies aren’t shown like in the pool shed scene). This is a personal moment between them and them alone- and the fact we zoom in on their faces (expresses this to be important emotionally) . And when we see Will’s reaction to Mike saying “it was the best thing I’ve ever done”. We just see Will’s face only- no music is playing and all we hear is Will’s whimpers and Mike crying in the background.

“ Blank makes you Crazy” vs “ Crazy Together parallel

When Mike tries to confess his “love” to El he says “Well they do say it makes you crazy”… much to El’s confusion.He has to try to explain it a second time to El- who just gets even more confused, by his ‘confession’. Saying “you never heard that expression? Like blank makes you crazy … like the word (love)?”

But when Mike says he “feels like he’s going crazy” Will immediately responds with “Me too”. Mike even smiles at the comment. So that moment in s2 means more than we think, when Mike (with tears in his eyes) smiles at Will’s comment and asks them to go “crazy together”.And when Will responds back “yeah, crazy together” (who also has tears in his eyes). They even linger on the moment as they just smile and stare at each other.

Mike is in denial, and may not even realize he loves Will, but he knows subconsciously that he does. He heard the phrase “love makes you crazy and that damn stupid”, 100′s of times and that’s why he said that phrase to Will. And why it made him so happy when Will reciprocated , by saying “ yeah. crazy together.” In addition to why we see them both go from happy, to immediately upset over the conversation.The scene was already romantically coded in s2 (but the scene in s3 re-contextualizes the whole thing) . Mike thinks “love makes you crazy” , and he asked Will to go ‘crazy together’ with him. And When Will is at castle byers looking at the Halloween pic of the 2 the day Mike said that, Will cries and calls himself “stupid” (4x). Can’t get more obvious… Like look what the duffers did!

El and Will’s opinions on Mike (Parallels)

-When asked if Mike was a good kisser, she just said “I don’t know he’s my 1st boyfriend.” (implying she’s thinking, at least subconsciously, of having other boyfriends ,who are not Mike in the future). But when Mike pretty much asks’ if Will thought they’d never get girlfriends, and spend the rest of their lives with each other’.Will just sadly responds “yeah, I guess I did. I really did!” Unlike, El, Will always saw Mike as his future, his forever.

-And when Mike says “it’s just a break” , Max says “No it’s not!”, and we see El laugh along with Max’s comment. She is not heartbroken at the idea of never getting back together with him, romantically. Right after they break up she was laughing, reading comics, and playing games with Max.

But Will is devastated over the fight! And out of all the memories in Castle Byers it’s the Ghostbusters photo from Halloween that causes Will to pick up the bat and start destroying everything. That was the night that Mike agreed to go “crazy together” with him. He tears it in ½ right in the center where Mike and Will are. He was so stupid to think it meant anything. The “crazy together” scene, that Mike initiated in s2 was always meant to be romantic. Not only because of Will’s reaction to the photo in s3, but because Mike in s3 says “They do say it makes you crazy…blank makes you crazy.” Which is exactly what happens to Will, as he has his breakdown.Castle byers was built on a rainy night , the same day Will’s dad left, when Will was 5 (the same age he met Mike). And lonnie called him a “queer” and a “f*g” and forced him to do “normal things” like baseball to have him “be more of a man”. And then on a rainy night, after Mike says “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”… what does Will destroy castle byers with? A baseball bat! The fact Will has a baseball bat (despite in s1 saying he does not like baseball) in Castle Byers, surrounded by things he loves: drawings, d&d, art supplies, a microscope, comics- just shows what an impact Lonnie’s problematic conditioning and abandonment had on him. He used a baseball bat to destroy something he loves -castle Byers, and symbolically he was trying to reject his feelings for Mike using Lonnie’s old tactics of fixing him.

- Also, El doesn’t even seem to appreciate when Mike acts like his true self (goofy/like a kid). She laughs when Max complains he talks too much. Rolls his at his jokes with the cpr-dummy, covers his mouth and tells him to stop when he tries to joke and sing, ignores him when he gets excited about talking about dinosaurs. Which relates to my next point

The only characters who’s character bios focus on ‘escaping’ through d&d is Mike and Will.

Will in the Montauk pitch was described as having “sexual identity issues… LIKE MIKE , Will ESCAPES through fantasy gaming where he can be himself, uninhibited.” Like what is Mike escaping from… being a nerd? Because they could of said ‘like his friends’. And no it’s not because they’re best friends- they even specifIed in Lucas bio he’s “ Mike’s best friend” (which was even mentioned in s1).

.In Mike’s character description it says “ bullying and near-crippling insecurity. He has never had a first kiss, much less a girlfriend.He ESCAPES his insecurities through reading fantasy novels … retreating into his own vivid imagination. The Dungeon Master of his Dungeons and Dragons group, he writes sprawling adventures with fantastical monsters.When he finds himself on a real adventure, facing real monsters, he will discover a courage he didn’t know he had. By the end, he will even kiss a girl.”

*Interesting that Mike uses D&D to escape his insecurities about not having a gf (retreating into his imagination). While Will (who is somewhat aware of his sexuality) uses d&d to escape and be himself uninhibited. They’re foils in a sense- using d&d for opposing reasons.

So the s3 fight about d&d games has a lot more meaning

Mike equates heterosexual romance with ‘growing up’ and his feeling for Will as something childish he has to grow out of.When they fight over d&d. Mike says “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”, then he tries to ½ apologize only to say, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. Ok? But We’re not kids anymore.” He pretty much explains, this is just the way things are-boys fall in love with girls, get girlfriends, and that’s just a part of growing up (heteronormativity). And tells Will “I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?” And poor Will who is probably more aware of his feelings just responds. “Yeah. I guess I did. I really did.” And after this Mike rushes to Will’s house and apologizes saying he was an “asshole.”When he tries to say he loves El . It was very forced. He can’t even use the world love or explain his feelings, “A feeling … yeah, like, something… like OLD PEOPLE say it sometimes”.

He can’t even describe love and what his “feelings” entail for El , he then says “Yeah, like something , like old people say it some times. He doesn’t even say it back in the last ep, when she confesses. It’s all talk, but no feeling, it’s just a part of becoming an adult in Mike’s mind.

In the last ep before the mileven kiss, he even invites both El and Will over for Christmas saying “ And Will too… we could all have new presents to play with and… *scoffs* Sorry, that made me sound like a 7 year old... ”

And it’s implied in the last ep (before the mileven kiss), because of the 3 month breakup Mike is back to liking d &d. When Mike sees Will put his own d&d book in the donation box he stops him.

Mike: “WHOA, dude that’s the donation box.”

Will: “ I know, I’ll just use yours, when I come back. (pause) if WE still want to play?”

So then Mike asks, shyly …

Mike : “Yeah, but what if you want to join another party?” (cough- girls , the other ‘species’, or just someone else: girl, guy or otherwise)

Will: “Not possible.” (Will will always love Mike- insert Mikes immediate heart-eye reaction to this comment).

I think people don’t notice what the subtext is here- regardless of his intentions, Mike broke Will’s heart. He made him feel “stupid” for ever thinking he ever had a chance with Mike. He always saw Mike as his forever, but Mike shot any hopes of that down in the garage. Will doesn’t trust his own instincts. Mike could straight up flirt with him in s4/5- and Will would dismiss it as his imagination. He essentially said ‘he’ll always love Mike- but if something is going to happen. It’s up to Mike to initiate it’.

Mike was queer coded since ep 1 (and he’s more queer coded than Will)!

I LITERALLY thought (in s1) Mike was queer before Will!

- 3 rainbow references. Mike in s1 in his basement has a red heart being propelled by a rainbow sign. We see this again in s3 as a drawing. Mike also stands next to Will behind a rainbow apple poster in s2. Forbidden fruit + rainbow = queer forbidden romance. Also the apple poster was in the AV Club and at that time the rainbow apple-mac sign was suspected to be in reference to for Alan Turning (the gay ‘father of computers’).

In s1:

- 4 separate characters said El looked like a boy, but Mike doesn’t care! Even one of the men thought El might be the missing ‘Byers boy’. When El loses her wig , Troy said “she doesn’t even look like a girl” to the cops. But Mike just calls her “really pretty”

-Nancy says “I thought you were acting weird, but I thought it was because of Will” And Mike responds “I thought you were acting weird too I thought it was because of Steve … Do you like Jonathan now”?” Nancy: “No, do you like Eleven?”. They literally compared the explicit love triangle between Steve/Nancy/Jonathan to the Will-Mike-El dynamic!

- Mike literally uses gender inclusive pronouns when talking about crushes using the word “someone” (3 times), and embarrassing himself because he can’t articulate the difference between friendship and romance. When he could of simply given the 80s heteronormative answer of ‘when a boy likes a girl’.

Mike: “ you go to school dances with someone.

You know someone that you like”

El: “a friend?”

Mike: ‘not a friend uh … uh someone like a” (gives up and kisses her)

-Mike’s mom said “ What’s been going on with Will, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. I just … want you to feel like you can talk to me. I never want you to feel like you have to HIDE anything from me” (she even emphasizes the word ‘hide” (which is heavily queer coded)

- when Will ‘dies’, “we can be heroes” by David bowie (a bisexual singer) plays, “And we kiss as though nothing could fall and the shame” is the lyric that plays when Mike returns to his house and cries in his mother’s arms over the ‘death’ of Will. Do I have to explain how ‘kissing and shame’ are queer-coded . And how such a lyric is oddly romantic- if we’re supposed to see their bond as nothing but platonic XD

-his dad jokes “Absolutely not” *turns to wife* “our son with a girl?”.

- when Lucas makes fun of his crush on EL, Lucas gets down on one knee and says “ I love you so much, will you marry me?” and literally 1s later, we’re introduced to the bullies and the idea (for the first time) that Will is ‘gay’, and Mike is in the forefront of the scene and unlike his friends he is THE ONLY ONE physically assaulted as they cause him to fall face first into a rock (like a gay-bashing) . They leave Lucas and Dustin unharmed. Even though Lucas just proposed to another guy- which should have gotten him a beating by the homophobic bullies.

It’s supposed to subconsciously hint Mike is queer like Will, and likes Will. The first interaction with the bullies, they mention Will being ‘gay’ right after they mention Mike’s crush on androgynous El and have a guy propose to Mike. Mike says to “ignore them” ( the homophobic remarks) but is assaulted anyways. And when asked what happed he doesn’t want to tell El the details cause he’s ashamed .

2nd time the bullies talk about Will, Mike is once again in the forefront, unlike his straight friends who are in the background . But this time Mike initiates the confrontation), as the bullies say Will is “flying in fairyland with all the other little fairies. All happy and gay”. Mike was literally on the verge or tears at this comment (despite being happy a few moments earlier , telling the others to ‘act sad’ because they’d look suspicious other wise). But this is the comment where Mike snaps and pushes Troy back (because he took it personally/wanted to defend Will).

The framing of Mike once again being in the front and snapping at the homophobic remarks ( gifs don’t do it justice, just rewatch the scene -Mike eyes water at the remarks). Then the last time the bullies appear , Mike jumps off the cliff and “flies like a fairy” (like Troy said) thanks to El . Troy at the police station even uses the word “fly” not levitate.

-Mike sneaking out to find Will, as Steve sneaks in to Nancy’s. They both even make eye contact (and pretend not to have seen each other).

- they share dinosaur toys , in s1 and 2 they appear to be the only ones with dinosaur toys.

- The s1 mom hug scene where Mike feels he lost Will is paralleled in s3 - signifying how he lost him a 2nd time.

- Mike in the 1st ep being the one to insist on looking for Will in the rain (callback to s3). But he never went looking for El when he saw her through his window? Even when Mike saw Will’s dead body, the second he heard his voice he convinced his friends to help rescue him!

- You remember the binder (from s1) that Mike keeps, filled with 100s of Will’s drawings, and how he caresses the drawing after thinking Will was dead. That’s totes platonic.

- Mike in s1 proclaiming “I’m the only one who cares about Will!” Seems like something a kid with a crush might say ( because obviously his other friends care about Will). But he thinks he cares the most. He was even the first to worry about Will not showing up to school, the first to suggest looking for him while speaking to Hopper, and when Hopper and his parents say ‘no’ he sneaks out anyway (and is the first to suggest forming a search party). The first to believe he was alive after seeing his dead body.The only boy to have a scene dedicated solely to him mourning Will. Mike being the only boy to stay awake at the hospital, and the first boy to see and hug Will. The only one to have a private one on one talk before Will goes missing. The only one who was literally given 100s of Will’s drawings. And yet Dustin says Lucas’ is Mike’s best friend? So what does that make Mike and Will?

In s2:

- Will in all 3 seasons identifies as a wizard. But in s2 Mike (the paladin) says Will is a cleric. Meaning this reflects how Mike actually feels about Will. In d&d, they have similar moral values, powers, and generally need and depend on each other in the lore of d&d. Paladins have similar healing powers to clerics, but clerics have stronger healing abilities - which is interesting since Mike has always been viewed as the protector. But to Mike Will has helped him (maybe deal with the loss of El and other trauma) , just by being there. And if Mike says Will is a cleric,despite Will still identifying as a wizard in s3, it shows how deeply Mike actually feels about Will. It shows he views Will as one of the only people who understands him and views him as a healing presence and his moral compass.

“ strength of conviction gave many paladins a sense of common fellowship but did not always endear them to others. In many cases, paladins did not get along quite as well with other non-paladin adventurers, with the exception of clerics with similar beliefs.”

“A Paladin tries to hold to the highest standards of conduct, but even the most virtuous Paladin is fallible. Sometimes the heat of emotion causes a Paladin to transgress his or her oath (of honesty, courage, compassion, honor ,and duty). A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order. After a rite of confession and forgiveness, the paladin starts fresh.”

This proves Mike knows he treats Will special/different than his other friends- and unlike a relationship with El (they are still individuals who are not dependent on each other). And Mike thinks being with Will quite literally makes him a better person. Juxtaposed with how him being in a romantic relationship with El made him blind and apathetic to those closest to him .

- All the mileven s1 parallels vs byler s2 parallels were ALL initiated by Mike. If the parallels were meant to show a one sided love triangle (on Mike’s end). They would of made Will the instigator not Mike! Parallels can be watched here , start at 6:50)

-Mike initiated the “crazy together’ line- and in s3 he said ‘blank makes you crazy’. So subconsciously he knew the line had romantic connotations.

-Mike initiating the hand hold (with a zoom in shot) and in the show this is only done for romantic pairings. Also Mike being the one to initiate the ‘arm thing’ which is generally romantic. But in s3 , Lucas also does this, saying “I am spending quality time with my girlfriend’

-Mike saying, asking him to be his friend was the “best thing I’ve ever done”

-Mike constantly following Will around, asking if he’s okay or biking to his house to check on him in s2 . In s3 running out to chase Will to the garage and apologizing, and running into a storm to apologize a 2nd time.

YOU SEE A PATTERN! Mike is whipped! And is the one constantly chasing and pursuing Will, not the other way around! Before s3, people always portrayed Will as the (stereotypical- problematic trope of a) sad-pinning-gay in a one sided love with Mike. It’s like people didn’t even watch the show (and just assigned tropes/stereotypes they wanted, that weren’t actually there). Will (probably too shy or scared to- because of homophobic taunts) never initiated a single byler moment- it was ALWAYS Mike!!! If people were actually objective, they would of thought it was Mike who was the one pinning!

- Which brings me to Mike literally pinning! Mike forcing Will to dance with a girl (who has a rainbow hairclip), but you literally see Mike’s shocked expression like ‘what,why’d I do that ?’ And after this, they show Dustin looking sad about Max/Lucas dancing and then they have Mike get into the frame (next to Dustin) and look sad when Will/girl are dancing in the same exact frame as Max/Lucas. As they switch between these last 2 shots.

the cannon Spotify playlists-called ‘Mike’s basement beats’- These are character playlists that Spotify and St worked on together after s2.

-his first song is “small town boy” an 80s LGBT anthem about living in a small town and being queer and bullied. Every band member was openly gay.

-his 11th song is ‘don’t you want me’ from a “celebrate your gay pride” album

* But queer people are “delusional” for thinking Mike isn’t straight? And are told to “open your eyes and watch the show” (that was an actual quote in the byler tag). Ok? Take your own advice, then! XD

One of the Duffers cited inspirations for ST is SUPER GAY (and what they based the byler dynamic off of).

In the Will comic, Will throws an old 1970s book called “house of stairs” at the demorgorgan. And in a later chapter Mike and Will just read together at the library (just silently reading together, enjoying each others’ company-totally not a romantic cliche).And Mike warns Will the book ‘could have spoilers’ for the d&d campaign. Also look at this byler-centric cover :)

Peter (Will) is shy, quiet ,initially a pushover, and gay-coded. And as a coping mechanism he has psychological-breaks with reality where he thinks of his best friend from the orphanage, Jasper (Mike) . Another kidnapped boy, named Oliver (who looks just like Jasper/Mike) is also queer-coded (but a violent-sociopath). And, unlike Jasper who actually wanted to protect/take care of Peter -Oliver starts to gets a sick thrill out of making Peter dependent on him (which Peter catches on to pretty quickly). Oliver was insistent on being the only one to ‘wake’ Peter from his episodes (just like how Mike did for Will, in s2), except Oliver calls him pet-names like “sweetheart, baby, etc.”

And again to prove it’s queer-coded I’ll read some of the (shortened) quotes, in the order they were written. These are quotes from Peter (Will’s) pov talking about his childhood best-friend Jasper (Mike) .

-“his room. His and jaspers room. Jasper looking up from his desk, smiling glad to see him. Jasper saying . Something very important. The most important message, the secret message. He couldn’t hear him . But jasper keeps smiling , keeps talking . What was the message, jasper? What was the message? The dream had been beautiful at the beginning, terrible at the end, but he longed to be in it again. If only he hadn’t awakened.”

-“Jasper sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes ,smiling, ‘you’re okay pete, you’re better than a hundered of those slobs put together. Tomorrow I’ll tell them so myself‘ jasper’s strong, hard body as he got into bed ,so different from peter’s. Strong, to protect him to take care of him. Jasper, who always took care of him”.

-“He wanted to think about oliver it it was like having Jasper back again. It would disturb him to see Oliver go off with Abigail… the rejection quite painful. It had never been like that with Jasper…jasper.

-The room they shared with rainbow colors, murmuring comforting words to him , enclosing and protecting him. He let himself drift into it, the rainbow hues dimness.”

-“No one ever depended on him. It was he who always depended on others, on Jasper. jasper, who had always taken care of him. Jasper…”

later he admits his feelings for Jasper to Lola/el. Lola and Pete are plantonic soulmates. The only reason why they survive and don’t succumb to their dark and violent urges/psychological brainwashing is because of each other. Lola has brown hair and eyes and has a buzzcut and is heavily implied to be a lesbian (as she is the only girl in the group who is not fooled by Oliver’s ‘nice guy act’. Which makes the other girls ‘suspicious’ and alienate her). Also this was written in the 70s… she has a buzzcut and is said to “look like a boy”. It’s not that subtle! There was a reason that the author whose first name was WILLIAM (was suspected to be gay/bi when he was alive)! XD

-Peter says “ he was my friend we were always together . Jasper his name was jasper .in the dream he’s taking care of me’. Now he was beginning to cry, his throat constricting and tears welling up in his eyes .’taking care of me … he always took care of me… taking care of me, and , and … and loving me’. ‘”It was the best time in your life’ she murmured’. ‘Yes’ “

* cough protective childhood friend, rainbows, ‘best time of your life = best thing I ever did.

S3 ending (byler centric ending)

When we first see Mike during the Hopper mologue, the moving truck leaves. “Like you’re pulling away from me or something. I miss playing board games every night (d &d)”… (the last thing they talked about was Will visiting to play d&d and their fight this season started because of a disagreement about d&d.)

Then Mike looks back at the Byers house (just lingers there and looks back as his friends leave) like how Will did seeing Mike hold hands with El and leave . “But I know you’re getting older, growing, changing. I guess, if I’m being really honest, that’s what scares me. I don’t want things to change.”Mike , like Will “doesn’t want things things to change”. He doesn’t want his his feelings of friendship to become romantic in regards to Will, it “scares” him (especially in rural 80s Indiana). Right after Will cries, it immediately switches to Mike hugging his mom- to mirror the time he thought Will died in s1 “So I think maybe that’s why I came in here, to try and maybe stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were.” He goes back to his mother for comfort, like he did the 1st time he lost Will. But also to reverse back time, to s1, before he realized his feelings for Will were romantic. When things were simpler.

“But I know that’s naive. It’s just not how life works. It’s moving, always moving, whether you like it or not. And yeah, sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s sad. And sometimes, it’s surprising. Happy.” (byler endgame)

Will (in s2) even says everyone treats him like ‘freak/ that something is wrong with him’ (purposely leaving out Mike from the discussion). And then when Will disparages himself as a freak,and Jonathan agrees but asks Will, ‘who would he rather be friends with- David Bowie (who was openly bi since the 70s) or Kenny Rogers’? And when Will says Bowie, Jonathan agrees saying “see, it’s no contest”.

So, it’s just another coincidence that when Will ‘dies’ (in s1) a David Bowie song (‘we can be heroes’) plays. And as Mike hugs his mom, mourning Will - a romantic lyric from the song plays during the hug?“And we kiss, as though nothing could fall. And the shame” (which is heavily queer coded)?

And then in the last ep (in s3) Mike mirrors this scene in s1, hugging his mom, since he feels like he’s losing Will all over again. And right after the hug (‘we can be heroes’) plays again!? I’m not saying byler is endgame. But- WAIT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING! XD

These men literally invented ‘hetero-baiting’ (with Robin & Steve) and you think they’re going to queer bait?!

Also, if Will was a girl named ‘Willow” no one would call byler ‘delusional’ ! Even the most casual viewer would say it’s obvious they’d end up together in the end!

If the witness said about El in s1 , “ same height… it could be the Byers girl”, instead of ‘boy’ (pointing out the resemblance). Mike only meeting El cause he was looking for Willow. Proclaiming “i’m the only one who cares about Willow!” . Mike getting into fights and getting upset (almost crying) about the bullies insulting Willow. Mike only getting angry at El when he thinks she lied about Willow being alive. Mike being the only boy who has a scene dedicated to his loss of her (with the same romantic lyrics playing). Mike having a whole binder of her drawings and caressing one of the drawings, after he thinks she died. Mike being the only one of her friends to stay awake at the hospital, waiting for her to wake up- so he can see her and hug her first. People probably would of started shipping it the second Willow stared at him and was the only one who didn’t lie to him, in the first ep! Another parallel to El!

If Will was Willow, the majority of the fandom would be byler shippers. Think about it! . Mike having s2 byler scenes that are identical to s1 mileven scenes, and then additional unique byler scenes. Mike staying by Willow’s side 24 hours a day for several days (not even changing clothes), carrying her out of the hospital, grabbing her hand (with a zoom in shot),constantly asking her if she’s okay at least 5-7 times, putting his arm around her twice, being the only one who could tell something was off with her (and it wasn’t her normal type of quiet). Calling and running all the way to her house and banging on the door to check on her, desperate. Watching her sleep cause he’s so worried. That shed scene reminiscing about how they first met in perfect detail, saying “I asked, I asked if you wanted to be my friend. You said yes, you said yes. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. (like a marriage proposal)” The “crazy together” scene. Them being close since they were 5 vs the girl he knew for a week (but is somehow in love with?). In s2 if Mike sadly watched Willow dance with another guy , while Dustin does the same to Max. Forget it- everyone would already know mileven would be doomed to fail.

And again think about s3 if Will was a girl.They parallel the (comedic) mileven breakup vs (the sad/serious) byler breakup. Then Mike just complains and burps on the couch vs apologizing to Willlow multiple times/even going into a storm to apologize a 2nd time (and to ‘talk’). Willow having a breakdown over the fight vs El laughing and high five-ing Max after.The shed vs the pool shed scene- “best thing I’ve ever done” vs “you’re the most important thing in the world to me”, “blank makes you crazy’ (as El stares confused) vs “crazy together’ (where Willow says ‘yeah, crazy together’). Mike going on ‘movie dates with Willlow all the time’ right after making out with El. The last mileven kiss where Mike has his eyes open the whole time, and doesn’t kiss back. And saying he doesn’t remember saying “I love” you to El (and doesn’t say ‘I love you’ back). Right after having a talk with Willow about playing games when she comes back (the crux of their fight). Mike getting excited that he’ll be able to visit El and Willow on Thanksgiving and them visiting him on Christmas (those are holidays where family usually introduces their S.O.) Having the last scene of Mike, be him looking back at Willow’s house, and have that whole monologue about “feelings changing”, and then he goes to hug his mom like the s1 byler scene where he thought Willow was dead, signifying he lost her again. And that’s not even all the scenes- and every time byler won by a landslide. If Will was a girl, we wouldn’t be ‘delusional’! It would be obvious writing on the wall, that Mike would eventually choose Willow over El by the end of the series.

But since they are 2 boys, we’re delusional, because queer kids don’t exist … apparently.

*S3-I’m not repeating my literal essays but they’re probably better than this post so here are the links to pretty much all my s3 byler meta. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

gif credit: 1st few have the name stark in the gifs, 2nd byler gif (found on wheheart.com- user dream_daisy, not sure if they also have a Tumblr , 3rd livelovecaliforniadreams, 4th &10th Cath-avery, 5& 6th unknown, 7-9 eggogorgon . Tell me if you know the unknown one so I can give credit , please.

#byler #byeler

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lavenderek · 4 years

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hi, A/3 volunteer back again! i hope i can answer your questions properly, but i’m on mobile so sorry if i get a bit confused. it’s also going to be quite long but i hope you can figure out which questions i’m replying to. let me know if you need any more clarification!

1 - as tag wranglers, we don’t moderate content via deletion, etc - we just move fics into the correct tags, and it’s typically on a fandom basis (for example, i might solely wrangle for something like the supernatural fandom only). i’ve never come across ‘problematic’ tags since most of the time, it’s just sorting tags into like... more general tags? so example - someone tags a fic with ‘kinda fluffy kinda angsty’. we would then kind of make it so that tag redirects to ‘fluff with angst’, even though it still appears as the original tag on the fic. does that make sense? i’m also a little unsure of the other questions you had here - which is totally my fault, i’m in the middle of writing an essay for uni that needs to be in in like... 12 hours and my brain is frazzled - but if you were asking about a situation where if i was concerned that a single user had a collection of fics that were all entirely based upon something illegal and reported their entire account to mods, would it be deleted - i’m not sure. tag wranglers are kind of like low-level moderators, and we’re not what would typically be thought of as moderators since we simply reorganise content versus actually removing it. since the reporting process is typically through the site itself and is handled by an entirely separate team, i cant speak for how they think or what their process is.

2 - it’s up to our judgement as to if we want to report it, but again, the tags we wrangle are VERY general. tags like ‘dead dove don’t eat’ and stuff that are typically full of polarising content arent something i’ve come across, because i think they make up a minority of most fandoms when put against tags like ‘fluff’ and ‘angst’ and even stuff like ‘chocolate’, lmao. i’m not certain what happens when a report is processed and the fic is found to be removable - what i do know though is that with fics that are seen as breaking specific laws (i.e depictions of CSA, slander, etc) mods are often a lot more hard-handed for several reasons (reputation both within the community and in terms of the fact they could very much get in legal trouble). again though, i’m a low-level moderator and don’t see that side of the process. however, if i report something and it’s not taken down, i’m not implicated in any way. it’s been a while since i’ve been on the site and reported anything so i’m not entirely certain if reporting is 100% anonymous or if you have to supply details like email, but i think if you DO supply things, it’s to ensure you aren’t mass-reporting someone (bc i think that counts as targeted harassment). email is also possible to fake, so i think you can make the process anonymous if you want to. as for how often i personally report fic - not often. i’m a CSA victim (which is why this topic is touchy for me tbh), and i don’t like to go through the process because i find it arduous - you have to give an explanation as to why you’re reporting the fic, and i find it triggering at times. i’ve also never been in a position where i have found a fic while actively volunteering that i feel has been necessary to report, so i can’t speak for that either. all of that being said - i’ve heard of and seen on one occasion fics and entire accounts be deleted for harassment/slander - in particular, i’ve heard multiple times that accounts dedicated to purposely like... making fun of? or like technically harassing? kpop boy group members have been taken down because even though their content is ‘technically’ fanfiction, it’s obviously just there to incite hatred against a specific person. so, imo, if mods are quick on taking down accounts obviously run by 14 year olds in fandom drama writing numerous fics where boyband member A calls boyband member B stupid and tells him nobody likes him, i think they’re very likely just as serious about taking down more serious content. that’s just my opinion and my personal experience though, and it’s distinct from my volunteering.

overall, on the whole topic of CSA on the website - it’s really tough even just as a basic content moderator. there’s lots of reasons as to why people post it, and though people are very obviously welcome and encouraged to think critically about everything, it’s a fact that the topic is really really difficult to manoeuvre (culture, who is posting it, when was it posted, why it’s being posted aka vent fics, etc). as i said, i’m a CSA victim myself, so i understand the frustration, but it’s too nuanced and difficult a topic to be able to say ‘ban it all’. however, i do think the site is doing their best to crack down on stuff that is very obviously on there for one specific reason, and i also think generally, they’re changing things so people are able and sometimes encouraged to anonymise themselves by not giving any profile info and to protect themselves by turning off comments completely, etc. i find that you can make it really easy to curate your posting experience so that essentially, you can post but nobody can really interact.

3 - i like tag wrangling! i got into it because i saw a position on the front page of the site and decided to go for it. it wasn’t very taxing to get into and you don’t have to put much work in - a couple of hours a week is enough, and they’re understanding about work/uni/etc. it’s easy to meet other people through volunteering, and they ensure everyone is over 18. i don’t read through fic myself - just through tags, and then i sort them into their proper places. if something is tagged wrong, we don’t get in touch with the author, we just do our best to reorganise the tag so it redirects into the correct place - again, for instance, if someone writes a fantasy AU that they tag with ‘high fantasy prince/princess AU’ and that tag doesn’t exist, we would sort it into the main tag for a royalty AU or something like that. re: monetisation of fics: technically, monetised content is not allowed on A/3 - if someone is advertising their patreon or kofi in their authors notes or profile, you’re supposed to report it just as a general user. i think it’s because it puts the site at risk of being sued or something? but as a low level mod, i don’t HAVE to report these things unless i see them while i’m tag wrangling (aka i see a tag like ‘my patreon is XYZ!!!!! send me money!!!!!!’) and i personally don’t report monetised fics because ... i don’t find it a prominent issue, lmao. people are also learning to avoid it by being like this is my tumblr or this is my twitter, and when you click on their social media they link their patreon or whatever There instead. also, idk who decided the colour scheme! i think it was just like a generally agreed upon thing with the site designers. i also think there’s been convo for a few years about dark modes and stuff on the site, but i’m pretty sure the site has to get a few more things out of the way before they’ll prioritise that (i know they’re trying to work on a better moderating system for things like spam and harassment atm bc the spam filter absolutely sucks dick lol). i’ll totally drop a mention like WOW, wouldnt it be AMAZING if we could have this SPECIFIC COLOUR SCHEME, tho <3

thank you so much for responding!!! this is really cool to know, i've never even seen a post by an a*3 worker before so you're a total unicorn right now

heh uni-corn because you're in uni. sorry i'm tired too

good luck on your paper!

#haters #who is this even #long post

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olliya · 5 years

Text

Readers‘ engagement on AO3

This time it will be less scientific, and more like me writing down my stream of consciousness. But the methodology was really straight-forward, so I think I can spare us the details, and I wanted to show you a detour I made trying to untangle the reasons behind certain fandom reactions. Join me for a trip?

AO3 is rather infamous for its lack of readers engagement (see all the initiatives supporting the commenting: @ao3commentoftheday, @longlivefeedback), at least among the fics and writers I am in contact with (and I do pay attention to the stats, you can believe me 😉 ). Nevertheless, some people feel very comfortable on this platform and for quite some time already I wondered what leads to such diametrically different writers’ experiences.

I started with analyzing Comments for Sakura’s ships. Since I did the same analysis for four Sakura’s ships: SasuSaku, NaruSaku, KakaSaku and MadaSaku on ff.net, we can have a direct comparison, especially as the time scope of existence Pairing Option and AO3 as a platform are very similar, and fic numbers are also comparable.

Very briefly: I sorted the fics into the following bins: >500 Comments, 201-500 Comments, 101-200 Comments, 51-100 Comments, 21-50 Comments, 11-20 Comments, 6-10 Comments, 2-5 Comments, 1 Comment, 0 Comments. All data are presented in percentage to allow for comparisons between the ships.

So let’s dive in:

On the first glance the graphs look peculiar: there is always sort of a double maximum for “0 Comments” and “2-5 Comments” divided by a minimum for “1 Comment”. But once we remember that the Comments on AO3 include also author’s responses the situation becomes clear: the majority of fics have 2 comments: namely 1 real Comment from a reader and one answer from the author.

To put this hypothesis into a test I checked how many fics have 2 Comments, and it is 316 out of 839 of SasuSaku fics in “2-5 Comments” bin, 84 out of 204 fics for NaruSaku and 104 out of 315 fic for KakaSaku – which gives always ca. one third of comments in the “2-5 Comments” bin.

At that point I deliberated for a while whether I should modify my bins to include “2 Comments” as a separate category, but I opted out of it for the sake of (future) comparisons with ff.net (and because I think by bins are very good, thank you).

As a side note: on the first 4 graphs we can also see that MadaSaku has a different distribution than all the other ships, but it is worth mentioning that it was also an outlier on ff.net. We will come to this later.

Peculiarity of distribution aside – the feedback on 3 main Sakura’s ships is consistently miserable. But, I reasoned, AO3 is famously M/M oriented so maybe the F/M audience is simply not there. Therefore, I set off to check all the Naruto ships in the order of their popularity, which btw is the following:

So, working down the list we get this:

And, WTF Naruto fandom? Most of the fics for hugely popular, established ships have no comments??!! Or one comment and an answer from the writer??!!

That was a really disappointing exercise…

Until I found that:

MadaTobi was the first ship that displayed a different pattern of readers interactions! It has a maximum in “21-50 Comments” per fic which is perfectly decent and corresponds well with the values for the ships I examined before on ff.net.

Encouraged by this discovery I dug further: (And tbh for a moment I thought I have here a “Madara-effect”, since both MadaTobi and MadaSaku displayed encouraging results 😉 )

But Madara-effect was not the case (HashiMada displays the same distribution as all the other ships) and further data were even more disappointing. (Let me repeat myself: WTF, Naruto fandom?!)

Until I found another instance of good readers’ participation:

KakaGai! So, at that point we had three ships that were behaving differently than the norm: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

I looked further to see if I can find more examples of fandom positivity, but, spoiler alert – No. For the sake of appearances lets look at the data though. GaaLee is sort of a borderline case, so let’s flag it as “tentative” for now.

So, what could be the reason for such a drastically different behavior of distinctive pockets of the fandom? Over the course of last year, I was observing how MadaTobi was rapidly gaining popularity, so that hinted me to follow this line of reasoning.

For each ship, I broke down the fics numbers into years when they were published. I ignored all the fics published in 2020 (because the year has only started and including those data would skew the image). To be able to compare the ships (which vary widely in term of fic numbers) I calculated the percentages of fics published in each year. I.e if a ship had 100 fics published until December 2019 and 30 of them were published in 2019, then 2019 had 30% of all published fics. It was at that point irrelevant how many fics were published in 2020, they weren’t counted either the way. I included only data from 2011 on, because earlier ones are very fuzzy due to back-dating customs that were in fashion at that time (for explanations see here).

Let’s look at the data. Tadaaa!!!

Isn’t it absolutely beautiful?! (yes, I know!) Does it look like a tangle of knitting yarn? (yes, I know that as well!)

So, let me break it down for you:

See that, that general trend? This is the growth curve that most of the ships follow – pretty linear, with maybe a bit of acceleration in 2019.

Now let’s focus on outliers: (3 most popular ships: SasuNaru, KakaIru and SasuSaku are included for reference – they illustrate the general trend pretty well).

The ships that grew more than 30% in 2019 are: SasuHina, MadaTobi, GaaLee, KakaObi, HashiMada, KakaGai, MadaSaku and InoSaku. So, among those eight, 4 (3 obvious, and 1 tentative) are the ones which showed outstanding readers’ engagement!

So, are newer, more energetic parts of fandom also the ones with best readers’ engagement? That would be a very optimistic message… But what about four ships that grew tremendously, but still show very poor readers behavior?

SasuHina is an easy case. If there exist a ship that has a captain, then it is this one. And the captain is @365daysofsasuhina who contributed staggering 438 fics (out of total of 966) to SasuHina! (Seriously, a round of standing ovation, because this is amount of dedication, work and talent that we can all only dream about. Talking about being a change you want to see!). And 90% of that contribution was done exactly in 2019, which explains the growth spurt of the ship. Sadly though, the audience response didn't keep up with the supply of new fics, therefore great many of them remain with very few comments.

So what about the remaining ones: KakaObi, HashiMadara and InoSaku?

Scrolling through the fic lists I noticed that great many of KakaObi fics are written in Chinese, so I decided to look into it deeper.

I analyzed the percentages of Chinese fics for all the examined ships (and percentages of English ones, just in case there was a ship with overrepresentation of some other language):

And we can see that both KakaObi and HashiMada have a very strong presence of the Chinese fics!

At that point I thought I have it, and proceeded to look at the distribution of Comments for Chinese KakaObi and HashiMada fics. And indeed, the reader’s engagement is sadly, almost nonexistent (165 out of 182 HashiMada fics and 478 out of 630 KakaObi fics have no comments at all). The reasons for that may be multiple; one that come to my mind is that the Chinese readers are still to follow their writers to AO3, or that the fics published recently are in reality not new (which for sure they are not, given the sheer amount of them) and received already their share of feedback on other platforms.

But, even if one subtracts the Chinese fics from the overall fics, the distribution remains the same! ☹ KakaObi and HashiMada still display the standard Comment distribution, despite having grown 45% and 41% in the last year!

It looks a bit better, but still follows standard, not very flattering trend of most of other ships.

So, then I thought that maybe if I subtract the Chinese fics the sudden growth in 2019 will disappear?

The answer is unfortunately, no. The growth spurt is still there, language independent.

So, at this point I don’t know... I am convinced that there is some effect coming from the influx of Chinese fics, but I cannot put my finger on it. (It is also a beautiful example of how correlation does not equal causation.) I also have no explanation for InoSaku behavior…

Nevertheless, I think it is possible to draw some conclusions, and those conclusions are of vital importance for the health of fandom as it is currently on the move from ff.net to AO3. And I would hate to see the good habits that are in place among ff.net readers getting lost during this move!

It seems that the readers response is better in the pockets of fandom that experience rapid growth, which in itself is very positive news. But one would think that the entirety of Naruto fandom is experiencing such growth (as the fandom is moving to AO3, remember…?). Unfortunately, it isn’t the case.

There can be yet another factor in play: namely the question if the ship is well represented on ff.net, and most of the ships are. Let’s take a final look at our three outliers: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

Quick look into ff.net (by quick look I mean: sum of two main Ship Names plus Pairing Option minus fics that were double-tagged) shows that there are 174 KakaGai fics, 132 MadaTobi fics and 230 MadaSaku fics (my carefully calculated MadaSaku fic number was 232 in December 2019, so now I believe this number will be slightly higher).

MadaTobi and KakaGai are definitely underrepresented on ff.net (though MadaSaku is not). Therefore, new fics are not being published on ff.net in parallel to AO3, but rather on AO3 exclusively. It is a speculation only, but maybe if readers are given a choice between commenting on ff.net and on AO3, they are choosing the older platform. That would imply that the authors who make a complete move can still count on feedback, as with absence of ff.net-uploaded fics the readers would have only one place to comment on. At least that’s my hope…

And finally, dear Naruto fandom – step it up. Those numbers are a shame, and I know that people can do better than this.

#fandom stats #naruto stats #ff.net vs ao3 #sasusaku #sasunaru #kakairu #madatobi #kakagai #kakaobi #madahashi #sasuhina #madasaku #shipping stats

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bettsfic · 5 years

Text

socknography: the importance of preserving fan creator biographical data

i wrote earlier on utilizing collections and bookmarks to boost the archival power of ao3, and in that post mentioned how i wish authors would fill out their bios so we can preserve fanauthor information as well as we preserve the fics themselves. so, here is my rant about WHY WE ARE SO IMPORTANT.

for my masters thesis i wrote about the layered pseudonymity of fanfiction authors, and after doing a ton of research, i find myself still thinking of the pseudonymous/anonymous divide as it pertains to fic. we have authors we consider “famous” and ones whose followings eclipse that of traditionally published authors, but unlike traditionally published authors, we don’t put a handy bio at the end of our fics. in fact, if you want to find out about the author, you have to hope they’ve linked somewhere to their tumblr or twitter or dreamwidth, or they have consistent pseuds across platforms. and from there, you have to hope they have an ‘about me.’ but most, myself included, don’t.

unlike traditional publication -- where amazon and goodreads and even the back of the book contains biographical info -- and even unlike the rest of fandom archival etiquette -- which, despite having virtually no committed rules still maintains its organizational structure -- there is no standard etiquette on fanauthor biographical data.

i speculate the reasons fanauthors are hesitant to write their own biographies is very complicated:

there is no “ask” for it or existing standard. when i publish stories under my real name, i’m required to provide my bio, which contains my accomplishments, where i got my degree, where else i’m published, and my website. all literary author bios follow this formula, so they’re pretty easy to write. other than this post, i have never seen a request for fanauthor bios. so without an editor demanding it, and without a standard formula or platform to draw from, a total lack of information becomes the norm, and almost any info other than the standard “name. age. pronouns. ao3 name. list of fandoms and/or pithy one-liner” of tumblr or occasional ask game is seen as a deviation from the norm. even ask games get a bad rep sometimes, and they’re transitory, a post you see as you’re scrolling through to somewhere else, not static, like a dedicated profile page.

pseudonymity veers too close to anonymity. an anonymous author cannot have a biography. a pseudonymous author can, but biographies may be seen as defeating the purpose of writing under a pseudonym, or multiple pseuds. a sock account is a sock for a reason -- you don’t want it associated with your main. moreover, i believe fandom creates an environment in which to acknowledge your accomplishments and promote your own content is seen as narcissistic. fanfiction can sometimes be seen as a genre of selflessness, donating time and energy into a community centered around a shared canon, not personal gain. to acknowledge the self publicly is to invite attention, and attention is contradictory to anonymity.

shame and humility. the more information you have on the internet, the easier you are to find. very few fanauthors use their real names, or feel comfortable connecting their fan identity to their real one. i hear pretty constantly how often fanauthors hide their fannishness from their coworkers and loved ones, how only the people closest to them know they write/read fanfic. moreover, you might think “my most popular fic only has 10 kudos and 1 comment, nobody wants to know about me” (which is so not true, but i’ll get to that in a minute).

fandom is constantly changing. with a central archive for fanfiction in place, it’s easier now to be in multiple fandoms at once than it ever has been. if you want to read all sugar daddy fics, there’s a tag for that, and if you’re not picky about canon, you have an entire buffet of fandoms to choose from. communities are growing and shifting and changing shape. i move fandoms, and i keep my friends and readers from previous fandoms. i get dragged to new fandoms frequently. my interests and inspirations change, but i don’t erase my history or identity every time i move, i only add to it. i am always betts whether i’m in star wars or the 100 or game of thrones. but if you only read my fic, you don’t know the stories behind it. many people don’t know i entered fandom in the brony convention community in 2012, or that i was sadrobots before i was betty days before i was betts, or how fandom changed my life and led me through a path of personal trauma recovery, or that i co-founded wayward daughters, or ran the fanauthor workshop, or all these other things about fanfic that is not fanfic itself.

if you are a fan creator, your fannish personal narrative matters. telling your story helps preserve the metatextual history of our genre.

i think constantly about what our genre will look like in 30 or 50 years, if it will be like other genres that began as subversions of the mainstream: comic books, beat literature, science fiction. genres that, at the time involved groups of friends creating stories for each other, bouncing ideas off of one another, experimenting with or distorting other genres, and which became, over time, well-regarded forms with rich histories.

maybe one day, like the MCU, we’ll have a dedicated production company that churns out adaptations of longform coffee shop aus written between 2009 and 2015. maybe “BNFs” will be read in high school literature curriculums. maybe our work will end up on the real or virtual shelves of our great grandchildren. and if that happens, if fanfic goes entirely mainstream, how will fanfic authorship be perceived? how will fanpeople in 2080, if humanity is still around by then, interact with the lexicon we’ve created and preserved? what would you do if you found out Jane Austen wrote under five different sock accounts across three platforms over the span of twenty years? how would you, a fan of Pride & Prejudice, even begin to find all of her work?

we have so many social constraints pushing against us. there’s purity culture, which encourages further division of identity -- fanauthors may write fluff on their main and have various sock accounts for underage/noncon fics. if you’re a scarecrow, you’re much harder for a mob to attack. there’s misogyny, which dictates women/queer ppl shouldn’t be writing about or indulging in or exploring their sexuality at all. there’s intellectual property and a history of DMCAs, which, although kept at bay by the OTW, may still have influence on the “illegal” mentality of our work. with social armies against us, it’s easier to exist in the shadows, on the fringe. we change URLs based on our moving interests, and split our identities a million different ways, and keep sarcastic “me” tags full of self-deprecating text posts. we are difficult beasts to catch, because we have not been allowed to exist.

i spent a lot of time today googling the word for “pseudonymous biography” and came up empty-handed (if someone knows of an existing word, pls let me know. “pseudography” is apparently a fancy word for a typo; “pseudobiography” is a fake biography), so for lack of anything better, i’ve come up with the term “socknography” because 1) it’s funny and doesn’t sound intimidating, and 2) it encapsulates the sensitive and complicated way fanauthor identifying conventions work. and also i think “fanauthor biography,” “bibliography,” and “profile” just doesn’t cut it for the actual work of these pieces. they don’t necessarily include IRL biographical data, they include more historical/community context than a bibliography, and the words “profile” and “about me” don’t really inspire interaction, or acknowledge the archival importance of this work.

astolat’s fanlore page is my go-to example. astolat writes under multiple pseuds and has major influence in the history of fandom. she’s also a traditionally published author, but you notice, her ofic novels are not mentioned, nor any other real-life identifying information. fanlore has a really good policy on this in place, for those concerned about doxxing.

(moreover, i am not suggesting you centralize your socks. they’re socks for a reason. but most everyone has a main, and that main identity has a story.)

there are 2 existing spaces to preserve socknographies.

fanlore, a wiki owned by the OTW, you can make an account and create a user page (which is different than a “person” page) using a user profile template

ao3′s “profile” page, which is a big blank box in which anything goes

(i’m not including tumblr on this list because i don’t think it’s a stable platform.)

fanlore’s template is straight to the point and minimal, which doesn’t really invite narrative the same way a literary bio would. ao3′s big blank box leaves us with the question -- wtf do i say about myself? how do i say it? how much is too much? and because of that, most profiles are either blank or only include a policy on translations/podfic/fanart, and maybe links to tumblr and twitter. but let me tell you, if i have read your fic and taken the time to move over to your profile, you better believe i am a fan. and as a fan, i want to Know Things.

here are the things i want to know, or

a potential template:

introduction (name/alias, age, location, pronouns, occupation)

accomplishments (degrees, personal history)

fan history (fandoms you’ve been in, timeline as a fan, how you were introduced to fandom/fanfiction, what does fandom mean to you -- this is where your fan narrative goes)

fandom participation (popular fics/posts, involvement in fan events/communities, side blogs, interviews, etc. 3 & 4 might be one and the same for you)

spotlight (which of your fics are most important to you/would you like others to read and why? what are the stories behind your favorite fics you’ve written?)

find me elsewhere* (links to tumblr, twitter, insta, etc.)

policies on fanart, fanfic of fic, podfics, and translations

*you cannot link to ko-fi, paypal, patreon, or amazon on ao3/fanlore per the non-commercial terms of service

i’ll be working on filling this out for my own profile as an example, but you can also see how my @fanauthorworkshop participants filled out their fanauthor spotlights, and the information they provided. obviously, you should only share that which you feel comfortable sharing, and as your fandom life changes, your narrative will change too. it’s not much different than updating a CV or resume.

tl;dr the goal is to provide a self-narrative of your fan life/identity for posterity. who are you and why are you a fanperson? why do you create fan content? what are you proud of and what do you want to highlight to others? who are you in this space?

#socknography #fanfiction #ao3 #otw

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slywood · 4 years

Text

Think of Yourself Less - Part 1

I didn’t wash the car. Sure, I picked up all my work papers. The mess on the floor was cleaned up. There were no stray pens, paper clips, or company bottle openers left astray. The interior was clean while the rest of the car was an unapologetic mess. I was never into cars, which is even more ironic, because I had just finished the process of buying a brand new one. Regardless, I took off in what my brother had tagged the “lesbian car” to pick up Hannah.

My brother and his wife were both on a mission to have me go out with Hannah. I was always adamant about not dating friends. No friends, no relatives of friends, and no ex’s. All of that sounded like too much drama for me. I was always the type of guy who was eager to date someone but just as anxious to figure out how to drop said girl. So it made sense that I didn’t want to be an asshole to someone I knew or was close to a friend. It just meant trouble.

Hannah was gorgeous though. I remember meeting her around ten years ago. My brother had invited me out. We met up with Hannah and maybe a half dozen of her friends. All of them were pretty, but Hannah stood out. I remember I had just moved to the city and wasn’t as outgoing as I’d eventually become. I didn’t talk to her much but I remember thinking how incredibly beautiful she was. I knew at some point I would give it a shot.

It was a few years later that my brother’s wife was urging me to date Hannah. I considered it but never wanted to pursue it. As I explained in my writings, I preferred for things to be natural. Encouraging someone to date their friend felt forced. It was almost like a blind date. Whenever I date a woman, I know that she’s interested. I know that the only thing standing in my way is myself. So I know what to do and how to do it because I’ve done it 100′s of times before. In this case, it was like a guessing game. So I never pursued it. I wanted to be patient and let it just happen, if it did.

Once again, Hannah was single. Once again, they encouraged me to date her. Not just once. Not even just a few times. Literally every time we hung out the idea of dating Hannah was brought up. It wasn’t even just my brother and his wife. Even Hannah would bring up the idea. She’d casually say, “Sure, I’d go out with him,” and I’d let it go without a response. I just smirked as if to suggest it was a silly joke. All the while, I considered it. At the same time, it felt like trouble.

I was drinking at my brother’s house when I tried to explain why I didn’t want to date Hannah. “It always ends badly for me,” I explained. I continued as they asked why by saying that no matter what, it just goes to shit. I don’t know why, but I lose interest, or something happens. It’s just the way it goes with me. Once I have sex with a girl, they typically get attached and the more that happens the more disinterested I become. I explained all this and yet they pushed.

Eventually, I relented. I called Hannah and asked her out. She told me her mom was sick though. I had no idea what that meant. It could have been a small scare or a life threatening illness. I had no idea. So when I asked for her plans for the weekend and she told me she was waiting on her mother’s results, I just wished her luck and didn’t bother asking her out again. Once she explained that she was doing better I decided to ask her out one last time. It was two weeks later and we finally had a date planned.

I picked her up in one of my work cars. One of the reasons my business took off was because I stopped reading, writing, and drawings and actually working. I sold my cool car. I got rid of all my vices. I didn’t drink, do drugs, or date. All I did was work. It’s been six years. I figured it didn’t matter. Hannah was a good person and didn’t give a shit about fancy things. I dressed up in a blazer, with a button down and some nice shoes though. I wanted to stay classy even if my car was a joke.

Right off the bat, I felt uncomfortable. I called her to let her know I was outside. There was no parking in front of her place so I was positioned a bit further up. I was about two cars ahead and hoped she’d just recognize the car. I’d driven her home in the past so I figured she would. I awkwardly turned around to see if she came out a few times. Everyone takes a few minutes to come out so I decided to stop looking over and just waited. Sure enough, she came over and opened the door.

Hannah was always nice. When she greeted you it was like she was always legitimately excited to say hello. I thought that was cool. I don’t think I could ever be like that on a constant basis. Still, it was nice to be greeted like that even if that was just her personality. Unfortunately, I’m a subtle guy. I can’t force a smile or pretend to be excited without a glass of booze. I figured I could mow through it though once I settled down with a glass of wine.

My biggest regret was going out with my brother the prior night. I had stopped by simply to collect a payment from him. I should’ve known better. For the past few months I’d been getting dinner with him and a friend at least once a week. It was a Friday night and I again was roped into dinner with them. To make matters worse, one of my key salesmen was out using a vacation day the next day. That meant I had to be up early and on time.

I’d quit drinking for about five years. My health was in serious jeopardy at the time. Once that cleared up, I worried that I was an alcoholic. It took me a long time to actually crack and have a sip of wine. Temptation was easy to avoid, but my ex-girlfriend was the only one who actually finally got me to cave. Women, men, even employees and clients always tried to get me to drink with them. It was easy to deny them all. For some reason, my ex was the only one who could.

Alcohol helped me relax. It wasn’t something I needed, until it was. I know that’s typically what you hear from an alcoholic, but in my case, I was different. The reason I had a problem is because I’m epileptic. Drinking is a depressant which means it actually helps suppress any seizure activity. My disorder is well managed, and alcohol itself won’t actually cause me to get sick, it’s the withdrawal that kills me. So yea, I got stuck in a vicious circle where I battled withdrawal with alcohol. Rewind to one of my first stories and you’ll see first hand how trapped I was.

I was five cocktails deep that night. It was way more than I ever intended to have. I simply was not a cocktail drinker, never was. I wasn’t even a whiskey or scotch guy anymore. I could enjoy one, but having multiple meant I wouldn’t be able to sleep well. If I took a shot, it meant I would wake up in the dead of night and then struggle to go back to sleep. Sleep is important for my condition. Sleep is something I did not get that night as I woke up at 4AM and tossed and turned for the next few hours.

Work is something I’ve taken seriously. It’s something I had to commit to entirely. My entire family relied on me to save something that was unsalvageable. I don’t brag, I don’t embellish or lie, and I certainly don’t care what other people thing about me. So when I write, I piss away certain guidelines like, don’t let the truth get in the way of telling a good story. No, I just lay it out the way it is. The truth is, I destroyed myself for over five years to literally save my family. You might say that I really did it for myself and my future, but the truth is, I always felt like I allowed the family business to collapse by never getting involved earlier. I felt like it was my fault, so I way now paying my dues. It was my penance for 10 years of debauchery.

It makes sense that I don’t need alarm clocks. I always wake up on time. I literally wake up one hour earlier on the dot every single morning. Unfortunately, alcohol fucks that up. It means I overcompensate and then I panic. The fear that I won’t be able to sleep and have an attack is something that has always plagued me. Even when I was sleeping around with women I would often not stay the night solely for this reason.

One of the coolest and most beautiful women I’ve ever been with was a victim of this. I actually left her in the dead of night to go back to my hotel room and I knew that probably made her feel like shit, but I was terrified that I might have a seizure the next morning. So I left, but I made sure to call her later and tell her how awesome she was and how I hoped to see her again.

It was 4AM though. That meant I only got around two hours of sleep in when I needed at least 6 to 8. I was in a seriously bad spot as I got up from bed at 7 AM. I felt anxious and I stared at my hands. It was my hands that told me everything. If they twitched, jerked, or shook, I was in trouble. I didn’t feel any of that. Instead, I just felt on edge. So I went ot work and mowed through the day. Saturdays we close at 4PM. I was able to last until 2. I told my general manager that I was done. I needed sleep. He nodded and told me to take it easy. He just assumed I was overworked. I guess I was.

I was in the car with Hannah and I actually mentioned that I left work early that day to go to sleep. I don’t know if I was trying to laugh it off or find some kind of excuse for why I was a bit anxious. When we spoke I was quick to answer. It was weird because I’m not a fast talker. I guess when I’m anxious I try to hide the fact by speaking quickly. I think speaking quickly is my way of trying not to overthink things. My mind always goes 100mph. That night I was speaking without thinking at all.

Hannah mentioned that we didn’t have to go so far to get dinner. I told her I wanted to go somewhere new though. I liked the city she lived in but it was cool to try new spots. I then tried to tell a quick story about a Portuguese restaurant I had gone to with my friend’s wife and how much we hated it. She asked me a few details about the place and said she’d been there and enjoyed it. I was in the midst of telling her how much I hated the place to suddenly saying, “Oh, yea. I mean I must’ve just ordered something weird. I mean I ordered Quail. So yea, probably not that bad.”

As soon as that happened, it was etched into my mind. What. The. Fuck? That was the most pathetic exchange I’ve ever been apart of. I’ve seen guys do that. I’ve witnessed the aftermath. I know that’s like watching an evisceration. I had just forfeited all my convictions, all my integrity. I don’t lie. So why the fuck did I just turn into an appeasing little boy? Hannah was still sitting in the passenger seat as I drove us to the restaurant. I didn’t have time to think it over. Still, I knew I had just stepped into quicksand. The only real question was, could I get out?

#dating #first date #oh no

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