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dw-flagler · 11 months ago

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In this post, I will attempt to calmly, reasonably, and in-a-good-faith-manner argue all the points raised by tumblr user @library-bat-girl in the following posts. I am starting a new thread so as not to further destroy the original poster, @skitterenjoyer's, tumblr notifications. Worm (+MHA) spoilers ahead. This will be a long post.

Firstly, I would like to apologize on the worm fandom's behalf. We will not engage in ableism of any kind. I sincerely hope that this was a singular incident and @skittersdrippygirlcock will be better about this in the future.

"MHA has better characters,"

My Hero Academia's primary achievement, I think, is managing to make many decently well rounded characters in a fairly short time-span. It certainly has very good visual character design, with easily memorable character designs, like Mina Ashido or Tsuyu Asui. Most of Class 1A is shown to be more than single-note gimmick characters. For a story with such a tight schedule, and only so much page real-estate, that's impressive! For instance, a character decidedly outside of the main cast, Fumikage Tokoyami, is shown to have more to his personality than "is an edgelord," showing a humility and friendliness that is highly against-type. This is very different than a lot of its peers, especially in Shonen manga, where side characters (and sometimes even main characters) are never more than their tropes (see Fairy Tale, One Punch Man*, The Seven Deadly Sins, or Black Clover). My Hero Academia does clear that bar, by making side characters little more than their tropes. This is to say nothing of the primary cast, who, again, is largely defined by tropes and easily slotted into standardized interchangeable Shonen roles. Rival, Love Interest, Rival but Nice About It. Additionally, MHA has an uncomfortably sexualized main cast, for one composed primarily of minors.

This is compared to Worm, in which many characters are fully realized and could have been the protagonist (and often were in older drafts of the story, due to Worm's 10-year development hell). Every character that gets an interlude, and most that don't, all have fully realized interiority, traumas, and wants. In fact, this is one of the major themes of Worm. Every character, from the protagonist Taylor, to characters so minor they're seen only once (see Damsel of Distress, Dauntless), to major antagonists and monsters (see Jack Slash, Bonesaw) all have their own story, even if this is never shown on-screen. There are no "side characters" in the same manner as in My Hero Academia, because every character is a protagonist of their own story, and not in a trite "life is so beautiful" way.

Taylor isn't the center of the universe, there's an entire world outside of her 3-block bubble. The mechanism by which all characters get their superpowers means that the mere fact of having powers implies this about them. Even the seeming exceptions, aren't (see Alexandria, Garotte). Taylor is a good character. I don't even know how to elaborate on that. She just is. Worm does not have the character Minoru Mineta.

"a better plot,"

What... what is the plot of My Hero Academia? For the life of me, I can't seem to recall. I can tell you the general formula of most of the arcs for the first ~2/3rds of the story. Class 1A goes to do a hero high school thing, like do rescue training, or on-the-job training, or on-the-job-training, or on-the-job-training (they do it like 4 times for some reason), the League Of Villains shows up (even when it's seemingly not the league of villains it actually is the league of villains) they fight about it, the class beats all the villains, and Deku beats up strongest bad guy and also breaks his bones. Repeat step 1. But like. What's... the plot? The League of Villains is evil and wants to kill people and do bad stuff. They explicitly do not have greater motivations. There's generally themes of passing-on-to-the-new-generation, so there's Tomura Shigaraki as the arch nemesis to Izuku Midoriya, just as All Might's Nemesis is All For One. Eventually they fight a big fight about it and I stop reading because I find out about Worm. From what I understand (I have not read the conclusion) the series ends without addressing any long-running questions, wrapping up any character arcs, or concluding anything in a narratively satisfying manner. As if severely rushed.

Worm, there are maybe 15 main stories going on simultaneously, which are all tied into the final confrontation with Scion. The most obvious is Taylor's and the Undersiders' story, about taking over Brockton Bay and defeating Coil, which is a smaller part of Coil's story about taking over the bay, until their confrontation with him in arc 17, when it supersedes Coil's story, and then intersects with Cauldron's story, the Traveler's story, the Case 53s' stories, the Wards' story, all of it, in arcs 18-19. This is one example. A great deal of attention is spent making sure the reader knows that Taylor, the Undersiders, Coil, all of them, are bit players in a very large game. Despite this, it's never hard to follow, because Wildbow, while lacking some of the more flowery prose, manages extremely well at making his stories easy to understand.

"I feel like even people who like Worm can agree that Worm is not the most consistent piece of fiction ever written. The disjointed way it was written meant that emphasis was primarily put on 'What Wildbow thought was cool in the moment', [sic] and the story RADICALLY shifts gears every time a new arc starts."

What? Huh? Worm is extremely consistent. Like. 1.1 to E.x. It's, like. Not disjointed? Oh my god, are you talking about interludes? Is that what you mean? The interludes shift gears? Because that makes sense. It's one of the hardest things about worm, yeah. It's gripping! The interludes are a great idea to expand the world of worm, but the problem is that taylor's story is so intriguing that stepping away from it to focus on something else is hard, no matter how individually interesting. I want to read about taylor's escalation spiral, not the travelers! (As opposed to My Hero Academia having random escalation and de-escalation between arcs with no real explanation. We're reading about lives-on-the-line battles with child-slavers and then move to playing on a playground with little kids? Best I can think of is that this whiplash is intentional, but this is never communicated to the reader. Worm does not do this. Any de-escalation is met with the explicit understanding that this is merely a period of calm before things get even worse). Taylor's story wraps up in an extremely narratively satisfying fashion, following her story to its logical conclusion. There were so many ways it could have been avoided, but there was really only one way that it could have ended.

"better worldbuilding,"

This actually offends me. MHA could have had great world-building. It doesn't. Every potentially interesting bit of world-building is backpedaled out of or stopped before it could get anywhere. Or it's just never elaborated or expanded upon. Everyone having a superpower could have been cool, but the implications of this are nonexistent. The reasons for this having no real implications, that being the banning of quirks, also has implications that are also immediately backpedaled out of. It's been hundreds of years since our time, yet life is exactly the same. Nothing ever happens. Endeavor is a cool concept. I like Endeavor. his existence implies such interesting things about the world, how important hero ranking is to these people's lives, that he would create this horrific system of domestic abuse to try and get to the #1 spot. What does this say about this system of heroes that operates like a popularity contest? It could have said a lot. It says nothing. What does the League of Villains, a league of people who call themselves out-and-out villains, who base their ideology in opposing this system of heroes, say about society? Nothing. On purpose. Worm does something with this. One Punch Man does something with this. My Hero Academia puts it in the story, and lets it sit, unused, for a decade.

Worm has... unique world-building. Because it's both good and bad at the same time. Worm's #1 feature is its world. It's brilliant, full stop. Triggers, The Birdcage, the PRT, Exclusion Zones! Why does the status quo exist? what does it say about that society? What does it say about our society? Why hasn't society radically changed from how it is in our world? This is explained. This plays into the themes. The story wants to say something about this world, and so it does. There are characters whose stories explicitly delve into these themes that are set up in the worldbuilding, like Armsmaster, or Battery, or Bonesaw, or Coil, or Piggot or Alexandria or Taylor herself or Brian or Lisa or ANY OF THEM THEY ALL DO THIS. Sorry.

Anyway, the bad part is that the actual world is not well built (and is kind of racist). What's going on in Europe? There's a 3 blasphemies! a 3 what? never explained. What's going on in Asia, aside from Japan? China is a monarchy for some reason. Why? It's never elaborated on. India gets a little bit of elaboration, we're told its different but not how it's different. Wildbow uses machine translation wrong and names some guy caliph of dogs. This is like worm's #2 problem honestly (#1 is Amy). Wildbow tries to make the implication of a well thought out globe without actually making a well thought out globe.

"stronger themes,"

It really doesn't. As I said in the worldbuilding section, MHA makes a point out of not saying or doing anything. I don't know if editors made Horikoshi walk back the more ambitious story beats or what, but there are multiple points in the story where the author pretty much looks you directly in the eye and goes "This Story Isn't Saying Anything At All Even Though It Looked Like It Would. Lmao."

Worm has lots of themes. I think Armsmaster/Defiant's story is my favorite. His entire character arc (which is fully realized despite him being a background character for nearly the entire story) has a point to it. It says something. It's misanthropic and uplifting simultaneously, and manages to feel like it earns both. It's a shared theme with Bonesaw/Riley's story, explored in two different ways.

"Meanwhile MHA establishes an actual overall theme/message right from the start that expands and develops throughout the story. The worldbuilding is informed by the message, which informs the characters arcs and the people they become by the end of the story."

I notice that you never actually say what that message is. What is it? Like, for real. I'm not being confrontational or anything, like what is the message? Cuz' I can't think of one. My Hero Academia, at its very core, is a defense of the status quo. Much like its world-building, but much less forgivable, because it does do something new and unique with its world-building. MHA could have done some extremely interesting stuff with its early implicit critique of heroic society as shown with characters like Bakugo, or Shigaraki, or Endeavor, or Overhaul, or Midoriya himself! It just doesn't! It doesn't do stuff that Worm does do!

Worm does have a message. It has a lot of messages, actually, some that the author disagrees with somehow. Prison abolition, for one. We know Wildbow loves prison. Anyway, the big one is in the subtitle: doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Taylor's constant spiral of escalation, her dwindling attachments to her friends and greater focus on treating herself like a soldier is prevalent, and it is to be avoided. Taylor isn't a sin-eater. They don't exist. From what I remember, this is sort of explored in Deku's character arc for a short period of time, but much like everything else in MHA, it is backpedaled out of.

The funniest is "don't text and drive" though.

"Just on a basic level the way that the audience is meant to feel about Taylor oscillates wildly between being directed to think of her as a misunderstood victim of circumstance, or history's greatest monster."

That's kind of the point. Like. the audience isn't meant to look at Taylor the same way throughout the entire story. It's meant to change as she changes. Taylor's opinion of Taylor changes. The mistake here is saying it "oscillates wildly." it doesn't. It's a slow and steady change for the worse, as Taylor gets more violent and starts throwing away greater and greater parts of herself to become more like a robot and less like a person.

"But a bigger issue in general is tone. It's very focused on being dark and gritty and edgy, and it makes the mistake a lot of consciously edgy media does. IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic. It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is."

Did you read the boys and think it was worm? What? It's not being smart when it's bleak or graphic? I actually personally like the endbringers or the slaughterhouse 9, and not because I like watching people suffer. These things exist for a reason. It's not being dark for the sake of being dark. The heroes could stop the slaughterhouse 9. We see that, when they almost stop the slaughterhouse 9 (it's explicitly shown that they are stopped from destroying the slaughterhouse 9). The question then becomes why don't they? It's a grim, brutal calculus, and one that wasn't worth it. That's the point. The Endbringers are different. It's not until arc 27 that they're really explained. You could either read them as a criticism of Eidolon or of ableism, honestly. I mean, it wasn't intentional, he didn't create them on purpose, he needed something to fight, because without that he's nothing. His powers are all he has.

"Worm spends so much time trying to be edgy that as with a lot of edgy media the edginess loses all impact quite quickly and becomes sort of cringe."

I don't really think so, but like. Okay. I don't think this is a reconcilable viewpoint (none of this is really but this especially), so like we're probably gonna have to agree to disagree. The only thing I can really think of as edgy for the sake of edginess is Amy's arc. But even that's not really true. It's meant to be an utterly avoidable tragedy that could never have been stopped because of the people involved. Much like Taylor, actually. Amy could have stepped back from the brink, but she didn't, because Amy could never have done that, and nobody else was willing/able to help. It's supposed to be a thing where you sit back and think of all the tiny ways this could have easily been avoided, but wasn't.

"When body horror happens it still has impact because it's not happening constantly."

I mean, I guess. But like. I never got desensitized to the body horror in Worm. It hit pretty consistently for me throughout. As opposed to MHA, where it was usually walked back by the end of every arc. I never felt much tension or suspense because it felt as if there weren't actual consequences. In Worm, when Brian was strung up on his nerves, it felt disgusting because I was fully aware Worm would explore the ripple effects of this. It felt entirely possible he would die there, or never recover, because Worm didn't pull its punches. MHA did. This is a matter of opinion. We'll just have to agree to disagree about it.

"But most importantly - you root for the heroes because the world actually seems like it's worth saving."

that's just, um. sorry. I'm really trying here. That's just. Uh. Dumb. Do you root for Batman cause Gotham is a nice city? Everything's worth saving, that's, like, at its most basic what the concept of a superhero is about.

"Not only that but MHA simply does villain protagonists objectively better than Worm."

um. No? There straight up aren't villain protagonists in MHA. The villains are the POV characters for, like, one arc? You know what, here's a good spot for it. It's stated throughout the story that Shigaraki and the League of Villains have a goal, beyond just death and destruction. They're here to stop the corrupt society of heroes (that MHA hints at the existence of before backpedaling away from), and bring about a fairer society. But then, and this part pissed me off, one of the characters, I think Bakugo, says: "you're just using that as cover! you just want to kill people, you have no noble goal!" and shigaraki's like "dang you caught me." and then it happens again with Deku! Because My Hero Academia is allergic to saying something. Nope! They're villains! No moral depth here! They're Villains, We're Heroes, Go Put Them In Jail.

This is opposed to Worm, where- "The characters of the villains and their origins are used to highlight the flaws in the Superhuman society"

"Most of the villains are only villains because society failed them in some way, and the specific ways in which that happened become big plot points that then play into the future arc of our heroic characters."

I had to walk away from my computer for this one. It's hard to be civil. It's really hard. Polite and reasonable.

So Worm is about this. To even say this without a shred of irony makes me thing you've never once read a single word of Worm and are doing this purely as bait. Or you've read all of Worm and are doing this purely as bait.

"They're actually extremely complex in a way that ends up being fundamentally important to the overall story - where in Worm the villains are either based heroes fighting a corrupt system or they're histories [sic] greatest monsters... until they're presented as heroes again."

I think I get it now. I really think I do. You're not supposed to agree with all the characters. Like. Worm is inconsistent, in that it follows the perspectives of inconsistent people. Of course Triumph and Armsmaster don't agree on what is right! They're different people, they have different perspectives!

"See. Worm fans keep saying "This is Bait." It's not Bait, you all are simply ridiculous and obsessed with this series to such a degree that you feel compelled to say "This is Bait" instead of just... ignoring it, because you have no actual counterargument."

Perhaps worm fans are inclined to believe you posted rage bait because you brazenly walked into another fandom's post and wholeheartedly proclaimed that the thing they liked was Stupid Idiot Bullshit For Fucking Morons, and refused to elaborate until prompted, at which point you said several things that are demonstrably false about Worm.

"Your only response to anything I've said is pedantry, bigotry, and deflection. If it was obviously just bait why are you engaging?"

Well, I'm engaging because I've been in a foul mood since I woke up this morning. Also because you, again, said some very rude and patently false statements about a story that I really enjoy and find narratively rich, even in its faults.

"MHA's characters do fall into archetypal shounen character roles - but they are all given a solid amount of focus explaining why they are like that and developing them into something bigger."

Again, as I said, it's a genuinely impressive feat to have an ensemble cast like what My Hero Academia has, and give so many of the characters a degree of depth, with such little manga to work with. I think worm does it better, but worm doesn't have to be economical about it. MHA does. The problem I have with this statement is that it becomes a question of scale. How much bigger? They're no longer defined by their tropes, instead defined by their opposition to their tropes. It's still a one-note character, you've merely changed the note from C to C sharp.

"so almost every member of the cast has an arc that either develops them past the person they initially seemed to be or explains why they're like that."

This is probably my favorite part about MHA. They do have arcs! I love ensemble casts! it does a much better job in this than all of its contemporaries, even One Piece. However, they are comparatively simplistic arcs that all follow a similar formula.

"I've heard people say MHA is neocon or pro-establishment but the story literally concludes by showing that society HAS TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE or the same problems that created the villains in the first place will keep happening. The entire time skip specifically focuses on the fact that for eight years the main characters have been forcing change in the world and addressing the issues the villains brought up."

Now, I'm going to be clear. I stopped reading My Hero Academia around chapter 275. I don't know the exact number, but it was the latest chapter in ~mid 2020. I would occasionally attempt to reread, in an attempt to catch up, but give up around chapter 200 out of boredom. I don't know exactly how the story ends, but I have read ~2/3rds of the story. I feel this gives me a pretty good understanding of the general tone of the story, unless it wildly changes tone at the 3/4ths mark, which you have explicitly said it does not, as it is extremely coherent and consistent. Therefore, I believe I can state with some degree of confidence that MHA does not do that.

I would certainly believe that it tries (and fails) to SFP it, but SFP does not promote a fundamental societal change. That's the problem. Strong Female Protagonist was willing to come up and say that Alison lived in a fundamentally unjust world, even if it was never willing or able to offer real change. And hey. You do what you can. I sincerely doubt My Hero Academia is even willing to call its world fundamentally unjust, from the 200+ chapters that I did read.

"In the case of the actual main characters, they have extremely comprehensive character arcs."

Adding this behind the last point just so that I don't have to reiterate I haven't finished the book. I am, however, very much not inclined to believe the actual main characters had extremely comprehensive character arcs.

Which plays back into the initial theory that ANYONE CAN BE A HERO.

man, spider-man did that better (not a real argument, but like, spider-man totally did that better). Not least because midoriya specifically could not become a hero were it not for all might giving him a power.

No, the Villains don't get happy endings,

Why not? Why do they go to jail, even the ones who changed and wanted to redeem themselves? Endeavor never goes to jail. He did some horrible stuff. He's redeemed himself in the eyes of the story, right? Anyone can be a hero, right? So why not them? Why haven't they redeemed themselves in the eyes of the story?

You may wish to turn this back on me and ask why doesn't Armsmaster go to prison? Because he's similar in some respects. But worm never calls prison justice. (for some reason, even though wildbow totally loves prison). Prison is punitive, a tool for those in charge to control those it manages to capture. Maybe some deserve life in the birdcage. Many don't. It doesn't matter. Because the birdcage isn't a tool of justice. It's not meant to be. it's a box to put the uncontrollable capes in, until they can be used as meat shields. So Armsmaster doesn't go to prison because the story says explicitly there is no point to it. But MHA? MHA says there is a point to it. Endeavor needs to go to prison if he wants to atone. He's escaping justice every second he's outside.

I have actually read Worm, and for the first half to two thirds I loved it.

Weird. That's exactly how long I really enjoyed MHA. Not, like relevant, to anything. Just odd. I mean, I don't actually dislike MHA. I think it's fine, actually. It feels like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to me. Funny (when Mineta isn't around), bombastic, and a good time, even if I don't think it's super thematically rich.

I'm not coming at this from the perspective of someone who has never seen any of the merits of Worm, I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right.

See, this makes me more inclined to think it's bait, actually. since you said "Oh yeah. MHA is published. MHA's been an ongoing publication with a large following for ten years, in a notoriously competitive industry. Now this might seem kind of unimpressive, it's a very low bar to clear I know. But it's one Worm hasn't, so. I dunno, I'd say that's fairly objective. Now you may think "Yeah, but Trash fiction gets published all the time." And that's true but again - Worm hasn't. The worst piece of fiction you can think of got published and Worm didn't. You wanna be an asshole about this? The thing you love is so mid that it was self published in 2013, couldn't get picked up for professional publishing until 2019 and as far as I can see has stayed in development hell since then." in your previous post. Sure, perhaps we can say you were pissed at the time, but "the thing you love is worse than trash fiction, an altogether nothing piece of literature that isn't even worth the paper it would hypothetically be printed on" does not strike me as the words of someone who "really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right." In fact, going back through your other statements on the story, you seem to have genuinely disliked it from the very beginning, on grounds of being too edgy (which I can fully understand the logic of): "IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic," thematically incoherent: "It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is," and utterly devoid of purpose or meaning. "When it does introduce new lore that new lore is almost always overly convoluted and acts as a catalyst for things happening, but not really things happening that play into a wider theme or message. It's just "Oh and here's this team of god-level serial killers who are gonna string a dude up by his nervous system." Like yeah, cool visual, but what is any of this actually saying?" This does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the first half of Worm to me. In fact, this sounds like you hated every second of it.

"And frankly given the number of comments that are just people saying "Bait" - I don't think any of y'all have engaged with this in a fair or honest way"

I'm going to reiterate on my previous statement. I like my hero academia. Capeshit is my favorite genre, it probably always will be. They're my favorite genre of story. While I find the themes—or lack thereof—extremely frustrating, I still think of it as fun. I gave it a fair shake. I would probably really enjoy the ending if I didn't have a reading list that was 300 books long.

#worm spoilers #MHA spoilers #*One Punch Man is partially an exception as characters are “never more than their tropes” for the sake of parody.#i don't dislike my hero academia by the way. in fact i rather like it. at least the first three quarters or so #L style contessa should have hit eidolon with a car and been like “look at that the endbringers stopped crazy.”#well it would have actually been crazy considering she had no way to know he was causing them #sorry n0brainjustvibes i never finished that MHA fanfic you recced me #quote text is colored to stop your eyes glazing over at the wall of text #armsmaster is what endeavor could/should have been #like they have a very similar arc. but they differ in that armsmaster's redemption is earned and endeavor's isn't #how so? there's like a reason armsmaster has an epiphany about his previous behavior #endeavor's like “oh the narrative is focusing on me as a protagonist i better be a good guy now!”#the fixing society thing is what ward should have been about but wasn't. but we're not talking about ward #by the way i wish they just killed teacher instead of birdcaging him. ward would have been so much better #^that was a joke #sorry about making the quotes smaller i'm trying to save some space in this tumor of a post somewhere #please don't say “god-level serial killers” by the way. for my sake if nothing else #you know i made the comparison to gotham being a shithole somehow without any thought that the person i am disagreeing with is a batman fan #or at least a batgirl fan

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antisocialxconstruct · 8 months ago

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okay I've been thinking about this poll all day and. I have some thoughts lmao

Obviously we all know a tumblr poll is not exactly a reliable way to do a demographic survey and of course you're disproportionately going to get responses from active rebloggers because... the people who don't reblog aren't going to reblog your poll, are they? BUT I do think there's something to be said for the evidence that people currently active on tumblr are disproportionately people who have been on tumblr a long time, and trying to lay the issue of declining engagement at the feet of "new users" not understanding site etiquette is... well, flattening a more complex issue (gasps of shock and horror). So I've been thinking about other things that could explain the supposed issue people are identifying:

new users who don't know site etiquette: okay yes, I'll admit that it IS A Thing. I have seen the very very small sampling of people who recently joined and didn't think reblogging was "for" them for whatever reason--they think it's rude to reblog from someone you don't know, or they feel obligated to add something insightful to every reblog, or whatever else. But I also don't think people realistically operate under these misunderstandings for very long. All you have to do is use the site for a while and follow a few different people to realize no one else is abiding by those kinds of rules, and people who want to be active and engage with other blogs will start doing it pretty fast.

a lot of early users left: there have been a few waves of people leaving tumblr for various reasons, especially the porn ban and various other Bad Decisions made since then, and also some people just migrated to other social media sites that suited their needs better or aged out of their interest in fandom/blogging/etc. Some of the people who used to most actively use tumblr the way you think is "correct" may just not be around anymore.

shifting demographics: I know tumblr used to be almost exclusively associated with fandom, but you have to accept that there are a lot of people doing a lot of different things here now. Some people are treating it like a diary, or a dev log, or just a place to be really obsessed with something singular and niche. They may enjoy your work, but if it's not what their blog is for, they're not going to put it on their blog.

larger numbers don't translate 1:1 into more interaction: I can tell you this one from extensive personal experience. After a certain threshold, your follower count, the size of a fandom, the overall userbase of the site, none of it actually means a proportional number of new people engaging with your work. You will have a stable base of established fans/followers who have stuck around long enough to be invested, and an occasional new person who discovers your work and is enthusiastic, but for every one of those there will be five, ten, twenty tourists and casual enjoyers who might like to see what you make but don't resonate with it enough to directly respond to it. (Double that ratio again if you're asking for money.) Expecting all or most of them to make the switch to active fans will drive you nuts.

you're confusing interaction you want with interaction you "should" be getting: look. Nobody wants to hear this one. But is your engagement actually bad or are you just not reaching your desired audience? This could mean any number of things, if you're trying to build a presence or start a career, are you posting at peak hours? Are you posting in a way that's accessible to people? Are you using relevant tags, doing enough self promotion? It's grueling. People want to be so proud of how tumblr has no algorithm and no influencers so you have to accept that you're playing on hard mode. Alternatively, if what you want is a cozy, close-knit fan community, are you cultivating that? Are you engaging with other people's work with the energy you expect from them? Are you starting conversations and respecting boundaries? These communities don't just spring into being organically, they have to be fostered and maintained.

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defining-skyology · 1 year ago

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Finding the Light. (Defining Megabird #1)

I've mentioned the term 'loremoth' quite a lot, but haven't really elaborated on my definition of it. Within Sky's in-game social community, being a 'moth', or a new player, is a visually traceable status, showing on their backs and of their clothes, showing by the lack of seasons they've experienced and glitches they've overcome. But the Lore community is a Space held externally from the game, leading to it not being so much of a visual dogma, but rather more of... An Experience.

Hungry new lore theorists are fueled by their own personal preferences of thumbnails, baits, and key words; pulled in by what they find interesting, and after they devour that magical initial subject, they hopefully will look and then find the next thing.

Each of these sudden lore hooks end up being their Drive to have more, to dig for more, and to understand more. They feel it's become special to them; that they're in on 'the secret' now.

And one of the best topics to make loremoths feel like they're in on an absurdly colossal secret...

Is the topic of the Megabird.

[[[Continue Reading]]]

In the early crazes of Lore, during the first year of Launch, interest in the Megabird skyrocketed, and when curious Sky players asked others who seemed more involved and invested in theorizing about the story, many users of Lorechat in Skycord would casually reply, "Well it's basically the god of Sky".

Most murals and concept art depict the Megabird as a giant flowing golden angelic thing, with extravagantly long wings or tails. Sometimes it would be made of feathers, sometimes it would seemingly be shown as made of Creatures of Light.

Early concept art refers to it as "One", some concepts say "Megabird", while others say "The Megabird", and late-stage concepts begin to refrain from calling it Megabird or 'The Megabird' at all, instead detailing a concept of "The Light" that was still unarguably the same 'character' from before. Post-launch content has never described it as The Megabird.

Despite this, Megabird ended up being heavily personified from 2019 to late 2021 by the community, and fans gobbled up anything about Megabird, especially Megabird as a character; as a god who would interact with the Elders and skykids. Megabird's fanbase grew to the point where it'd be given nicknames; it's most famous moniker being "Megan the Megabird". If only for the sake of having a character to use as a foundation for bountiful headcanon and fanfics, people seemed to cling fanatically to the idea of Megan; to the idea of having a deity. Perhaps there are or aren't some further psychological takeaways from the eagerness of the fanbase to have a 'god of Sky', but let's move on to a different notation for a while, and head back into the game.

Picture posted to Tumblr by lowkey-loki245

For the 4 years that players found themselves in the Descendant's era, creatures of Light have always been seen migrating at all times towards the beacon of Ascension in the Eye of Eden, but this isn't an absolute rule. Creatures often will be found frolicking and soaring wherever they want, far from the main path to Eden. Mantas will take elegant laps around wide open areas, and rarer creatures are either hardly or never seen ascending up into Orbit.

But water doesn't halt its cycle, and Light shouldn't either. Water rushes down mountains, through valleys, flooding plains and reservoirs, yet not all of the water gets to the Ocean like it should. But though it gets stuck in spots, underground rivers and evaporation ensure the water cycle will always occur. It has to be the same for Light.

The lore community has long since determined that all beings in the world of Sky (so far) all are made of Light. {There can be a post explaining that on another day, because not everybody is so willing to believe this.} This includes: creatures of Light, Ancestors, Descendants, and yes, even dark creatures are made from Light; just warped light, to be exact.

If we're to continue with our comparison to the water cycle, then this means all of those living Beings are made out of {metaphorical} water. Water flows from the Source and descends until it reaches the Main Body of the ocean, and all Light cycles throughout the world until it can get to Orbit again. This cycle of the life energy of Light flowing in and out of a main body is exactly what we need to focus on, and lo and behold, quite a few pieces of concept art confirm this.

The meaning and purpose of some of these concepts have been long forgotten, and don't reflect the lore of the game today in post-launch, but there is one big theme going on here that they still intend to this day; all Beings of Light will eventually journey to rejoin the Megabird.

We talked before about how they slowly transitioned towards using a simple base word to describe the megabird instead of giving it an almost characterizing name, and I believe they had to have done this intentionally. (Well, as intentional as TGC ever gets.)

We can and may still call it 'the Megabird', but from now on we understand that we are referring to 'the Light'. So, why did they depersonalize Megan into a character-less thing? As we ascend through orbit and into the Ocean of Light, the Main Body of our life energy; lore theorists all over the interwebs would still be looking for the character Megabird. "Where is Megabird? Surely it's that constellation above us? Maybe it's the giant gate that sends us towards rebirth? Maybe it just hasn't shown itself?" But as the voice of Aurora calls to us and the warmth of the ultimate Light pulls us in, vaporizing darkness as we come, I just have to ask:

"Isn't that the Megabird that we're entering?"

A pure, deep, limitless orb. We are drawn in by its intensity, and as we get closer to being Absorbed we can see creatures swimming in and out of its surface. In the Sea of Light. All things here in unison, all things belonging to One; each moving speck of Light, a drop of water in an endless pond of pure harmony.

Whenever we enter the Light; when we enter the Megabird, we become dissolved into that sea, and we join One in it's neverending song.

You might notice we're not going to end with any solid Defining going on, and that's because you're supposed to take this in and think about what you make of it. It'll be important for part two.

But we'll have to research further into proving THAT on Thursday, because unfortunately, this post has gotten way too long.

{{{Megabird Part #2 is out! Click here to continue Our journey.}}}

Thank you to the two readers who got this far, and I hope you can all think critically, never perspire, and have a wonderful rest of your week.

#sky children of the light #sky children of the light lore #sky cotl lore #sky cotl #sky game #sky lore #sky rambles #skychildrenofthelight #skychildrenofthelightlore #skycotl

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pbpsbff · 1 year ago

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happy 1 year of r&r :)

i know it's a lil cringe to like. celebrate the birthday of a series on ao3 but r&r is literally my child. my baby. i birthed this series. and you all signed up for this when u started reading my fics thank u

soooooooo thank u guys for all the support i've received over r&r i know it's hard to stay a consistent reader when my posting schedule is entirely non existent but i am so grateful for everyone who's stuck around this long and been with me for this journey (calling it a journey because a year ago i did not have any sort of overarching plot in mind and now we're 17? 18? fics deep and so many things have happened and i'm usually just as surprised as my readers) it's rlly u guys that have kept me going this long

ANYWAY. i rewrote this like 500 times cause i hate being like. overly sappy on this account because it's way funnier to act like a celebrity with a huge ego, but real talk i am so proud of everything i've done w this series & what it's become in the past year

i've been posting my writing online since i was like 10, so we're going on almost 9 years now and i don't think i've ever ever ever received as much support for something as i have for r&r and something about that is soooo special to me??? idk it's just so nice to see a completely self indulgent series become so loved by others, especially since the only other fics i had up before gmm&m were a little more on the "i'm gonna write what seems popular right now" side???

like shoutout to everyone who was here before/around when i started the series because my account was so empty like. 2 fics and one gets updated every 6 months. r&r pulled me out of the trench i fear. it also cured me of my very horrible disease that makes me delete all my fics after 9 months and then completely disappear from a fandom so everyone say thank you r&r

but yeah idk where i'm going with this i'm very grateful for r&r and all the friends i've made and people i've met through it because i was very lonely before i rejoined tumblr and r&r was like. 90% of the reason i made my account

AND SPEAKING OF FRIENDS. thank u to

@spidergrotto & @sapoteylx for being the first ppl i met on here to openly talk about and support r&r which i thought was so so cool even if you guys have become my haters in the past few months i've known you :/ thank u r&r nation u keep me humble and miserable (and i am very thankful for our friendship i think some aspects of r&r would be very different if we'd never met)

& ao3 user classactical because you've been here since like. a month or two into the series i think and i always always always look forward to your comments because i feel like if you comment, i did a good job on the fic LOL thank u for sticking around for so long, even if ao3 has been actively working against you for a whiiiiile

there's a lot more i want to say and a lot of people i want to mention but that would take a very long time and i always feel weird tagging a lot of people in posts so just know if u read r&r we are kissing rn. or high fiving idk whatever floats ur boat i guess

but yeah anyway tl:dr happy birthday r&r i'm very proud of this series & very thankful for everyone who has read any part of it ever u guys are so cool and hot and have amazing taste and i'm taking your kudos and bookmarks etc. as you swearing your allegiance to me and promising me your undying support no matter what (legally binding btw) thank u guys

#r&r tease #ough i cannot believe r&r is a year old #happy birthday r&r you are my favorite child #gonna go post that fic now #or in like 10 minutes #idk i haven't edited anything #stay tuned

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brotherdusk · 2 years ago

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it's time again for my favourite genre of post: tumblr user bee brotherdusk theorises wildly during the Foundation midseason!

on the menu this time is Poly and Constant's Imperial Vacation From Hell, or "oh god, I just wanted to make sure one of my favourite guys was going to be okay, but somehow I ended up sending over two dozen increasingly frantic messages to the discord while everyone else was asleep, pepe silvia-style"

(today I learned that grandpa joe shows up when you type "pepe silvia" into the gif search. deserved)

I'm gonna stick this under a readmore as it gets pretty long and image heavy, and potentially contains big spoilers for upcoming episodes, and I know some people want to watch the show completely unspoiled. all theories are based on official promotional videos already released by apple. no leaks or insider book knowledge here!

so I sort of stumbled into this theory in three stages, and I'm going to stick to that template as I talk through my analysis here, starting with:

Part 1 - I'm Genre Aware Now And Everything Hurts

let's be real, nobody saw Hari's (apparent) death coming in the last episode. death is far less of a concern in this show than in others, as the narrative all but guarantees the long-term survival of its core characters. Hari (apparently) dying so quickly after having his body restored was a massive shock, and jolted us out of the complacency that the show had lulled us into.

when the title and description of next week's episode dropped, fan concern quickly turned to Poly, who @gaal-dornick and @aquitainequeen noted has started to exhibit the classic symptoms of Tragic Mentor Figure Disease:

also, there's, y'know, The Guillotine Situation as shown in Trailer 1:

Poly's death seemed so likely that I was beginning to dread the coming episodes, but something was nagging at me; I had a vague memory of seeing a trailer where he was on Terminus and in a situation that we haven't yet seen him in. maybe he does survive his brush with Brother Day, then? I started rewatching all of the trailers, teasers, and character spotlight videos that Apple released in the run-up to season two, and came across something way wilder than I'd expected:

Part 2 - Star Bridge 2: Council Boogaloo

I found another camera shot of Poly and Constant's apparent execution in the Brother Dawn character spotlight video - note the pillars in front of the crowd, the flags in the back, and Dawn, Sareth, Demerzel, Dusk, and Rue standing on the platform behind Day and the prisoners.

note also the onlookers in the maroon robes, who are also visible in the guillotine closeup I posted above...

...hey, it's the Galactic Council as seen in 2.06, with their GILF-y leader at the front in both scenes!

remember how terrified Cleon XII was of their judgement in the season one finale? we still don't know what their exact deal is, but they're clearly big cheeses politically if XII of all people is afraid of them:

here's yet another angle of the execution from Trailer 2 - same setup, same arrangement of Empire on the podium:

let's see what happens in that shot, will we? ..... oh

... did an explosion just go off in the heart of Trantor and potentially take out the entire galaxy's government in one go???? (I mean, Empire are probably fine with their auras and nanobots and backups, but I'm not feeling too good about the Council's chances right now...)

wait - the pulse and shape that appear on the horizon bear a striking resemblance to the new Foundation whisper ships - especially Poly and Constant's ship, Spirit Rising, which is currently in the hands of Hober Mallow...

why did he take their ship, again?

holy fucking shit Hari Seldon you insane rat bastard (admiring, horrified, impressed). what have you DONE. a blade in case the religious hand of friendship doesn't work out, you say??

(sidenote: this was literally the Anacreon plan for the Invictus in the first season - the scale of the destruction would have been magnitudes worse due to the Invictus' size, but same concept)

honestly, I kind of hope the entire Council perishes in the Mallowpocalypse, if only because it would make this exchange in 2.06 deliciously ironic:

the worst detectives in the world finally found their shared braincell and made a deduction! I'm proud of them!

also, Glawen literally saw this coming in 2.04 and Bel brushed him off. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ sad!

regarding casualties - I think this shot from Trailer 1 is the aftermath of the blast. Day was standing much closer to the explosion than the rest of Empire and Dominion, and so would have taken more damage, aura or not. I also see Sareth, Rue (?), and Dawn - jury's out on whether being dead is the latest item added to Dusk's rapidly expanding list of problems?

a direct attack on Trantor would also explain why Day goes on a personal tour of the Outer Reach and ends up on Terminus, screaming for an audience with Hari Seldon (Trailer 1 again):

and hey, Poly's right behind him! he's Empire's best chance of getting a personal audience with the Prophet, after all. Poly also pops up in Day's character spotlight video, in what I'm guessing is the execution scene again, judging from the collar and the guard restraining him. it might even be the aftermath of the blast, since the shot is pretty chaotic and dusty looking. what's got him so upset?

... and it was at this moment that I realised that while Poly is present in the later Terminus scenes with Day, Brother Constant is not, and I started to worry that I'd been focusing on the wrong person the whole time, leading to...

Part 3 - What About Constant?

oh no. the question of Constant's safety has been hanging over both Poly and the viewer since 2.02. oh no

I thought I might have caught a glimpse of her in the Teaser 1 video - being restrained in the background as Day does his infamously-giffed-to-hell Big Steppy on Hober's throat - but I still wanted more concrete proof of her wellbeing.

and finally I found her in the Pillars of Foundation video, alive and well, but -

HER NECK!! HER NECK!!!

if Constant's life is just barely saved by Hober showing up in the nick of time to prevent her decapitation by an insane tyrant I will literally never be normal again. romance. that's romance. (also incredibly shitty of Vault!Hari to take her blind faith and turn her into a pawn for the Empire to slaughter, but I guess that's expected behaviour from him by now.)

... I was literally about to hit post on this theory, but I just realised; that scene in Teaser 1 where Day is facing down a bishop's claw... we all assumed he was being attacked by a wild beast in the Outer Reach - but what if he's lying in the ruins of the podium on Trantor, and the bishop's claw is a freed Beki going on a rampage? god I hope this happens. imagine being Emperor of the Galaxy, about to perform some casual executions before dinner, and suddenly you're flat on your ass with a Hell Dinosaur about to bite your face off. incredible scenes

and that's all I've got! TLDR; Hari knew that the emperors and Galactic Council would become increasingly paranoid and aggressive as the Empire contracted, and would jump at the chance to publicly end an attempted religious takeover by the "barbarian" Outer Reach. That mass gathering at the execution would be the perfect time to strike with a whisper ship, a technology which the Empire has no idea even exists. This enrages Day into visiting Terminus to deal with the Foundation in person, and potentially destabilises the Empire further if the Council have been wiped out. Empire's structure and dignity are decimated without a single shot being fired - and if there is going to be an eventual, physical war, the Foundation is now in a much better position to fight it.

again, this is just me making a theory and connecting everything together with red string etc etc. I haven't attempted to explain everything, such as the Spacers' or Riose's involvement, and have doubtless got some details wrong - but I'm really excited by how things are connecting and can't wait for next week's episode :}

#foundation #foundation season 2 #foundation apple tv #foundation meta #hari seldon #poly verisof #brother constant #hober mallow #brother day #cleon xvii

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percahliaweek · 2 years ago

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FAQ

What tag should I use?

#percahliaweek should work nicely - you can @ us @percahliaweek so we can reblog your contribution on the corresponding day.

Will you be doing anything on Twitter/other social media?

We considered it! However, as other social media sites have proven unreliable (especially lately), we'll be hosting the event only on Tumblr. However, you're welcome to post your work wherever you like!

Can I do _ for the event?

Yes. Yep. Seriously, so long as it focuses on Perc'ahlia (and is appropriately tagged to avoid spoiling people), you can do it. Cosplay, inspired recipes, beadwork, podfic, go wild! Well, with the caveat that no hateful content will be permitted - don't use a joyous event to rain on someone else's parade or promote hatespeech, alright?

Is NSFW content allowed?

Given the ship in question and just how canonically horny they are for eachother - yes! However, we request that you tag this content as #nsfw and use the appropriate content filter on it. If posting in the Discord server, keep it to the 18+ chat. Be mindful of potential minors in fandom space + people browsing content in public.

I want to participate but haven't watched Campaign 1!

We welcome fans of The Legend of Vox Machina with open arms. As a result, it's requested that campaign fans do their best to avoid spoiling show fans for anything beyond what Season 2 has shown (Umbrasyl's defeat). That means late Campaign 1, the oneshots and any mention of them in other campaigns should be tagged as #cr1 spoilers (using just this tag for simplicity). Show fans, if you want to remain unspoiled, I recommend you block this on Tumblr and mute spoilery channels in the server.

Is there an AO3 collection for the fanfics?

One can definitely be set up closer to the start date!

Does my submission have to fit one of the prompts?

That would be ideal, yes! Anything freeform should be posted on Day 7 for Free/Random prompts. But fitting the prompt can be very loose - maybe you just use the word as a motif, or you take it in an entirely unexpected direction. We want to encourage creativity and fun more than anything else.

I don't know what to do for the Free/Random day!

We have a few recommendations (we are unaffiliated with the websites linked): Random page of the Encyclopedia Exandria Random word generator OTP prompt generator AU generator

Ghost’s Spell prompts [roll 2d20?]

Wild Magic Surge table

Life events table

If you've made prompt lists and would not mind them being featured here, reach out!

How did you choose the prompts?

Prompts were chosen over a day or two while talking with friends - they were intended to be open-ended enough to allow flexibility while also touching on key elements of the ship! Some obvious ones (ex: courage, heart, that sort of thing) were left out so that, hopefully, they could be included next year. If there's enough interest, future prompts could be chosen via fan poll.

Will this be an annual event?

We sure hope so! Hence optimistically keeping back some prompt ideas for the future. Let's see how this goes ;3

Why late September?

On September 29th, 2016, the Critical Role episode 'Passed Through Fire' aired, which features an iconic Perc'ahlia moment (no spoilers for show fans!). Following Burr's poll on which scene is most iconic for the pairing, we decided to have the week celebrate the anniversary of that episode.

So why did you announce this so early?

Because Maggie has been a gremlin about the idea since April. Also, most fans in this space are adults with jobs and responsibilities - allowing more time to create without a rush benefits everyone.

A Discord server?

We have set up a little server for this event on Discord, mostly to hang out with other Perc'ahlia fans and motivate eachother to work on our respective projects. The current link is HERE - let us know if it's not working!

Who is hosting this?

At the moment the users running this blog are @burr-ell and @blorbologist! If the event expands beyond our abilities, we will look into taking on other users to help out - you'll know if we need a hand <333

Any more questions? Feel free to send in an ask and we'll do our best to answer in a timely manner!

#percahliaweek #percahliaweek23

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kingeorgey · 7 months ago

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i have some new followers bc of my wwdits posting so here’s a little ‘about me’ post. i am a little tumblr inept so bear with me, i did try to format it somewhat! <3

basics—;

riley, 22 🕊️

she/her

american

mdni

more below!

fandom info—;

i’ve been a fangirl my whole life, starting with harry potter way back in 3rd grade. i’ve been through everything- one direction, 5sos, COD men, Marvel, every musical ever (especially les mis). i was a famous hamilton and deh fanfic writer in middle school, roleplayed for many many years, and still write fanfic once or twice a year.

my ao3, tiktok, and discord are all @/kingeorgey, but i’m also going to link them below, followed by a bit more about who i am personally.

—

links—;

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kingeorgey?_t=ZT-8rxBw7Uc0YU&_r=1

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingeorgey/profile

Discord: @Kingeorgey (not sure how to link it)

—

personal info—;

i’m riley, i’m 22, and i’m a good ol midwestern american girl. i grew up in rural michigan on a farm (more of a hobby farm than anything) as one of five children, am a lifelong theatre kid, and a forever fangirl. i don’t disclose what my job is specifically, but i have the most amazing job in the world and that’s usually what i’m busy with. i travel more than you could possibly imagine, especially to scotland and france- family in scotland, and work always sends me to france.

i’m queer, about to go back to school to finally finish one of my degrees, love diet dr pepper, and my favorite food is a red delicious apple. i started out studying accounting and theatre, then switched to history (focusing on Islamic studies) and communications when i left my initial college. then i left to focus on getting my job.

i collect vintage clothes with a focus on dresses- i attached a pic of two vintage outfits as proof;) and i’m on a bit of a fitness journey that is mostly cardio based- i have lost weight but it’s still something i’m working on maintaining long term.

hobbies include: theatre (last year i returned to the stage as cinderella in into the woods- first time since i graduated in 2020 that i was in a show, i hope to be in another soon!), traveling, writing fanfiction, riding horses, running / going on walks, singing, hanging out with my pets

a big something about me: i’m a queer Christian, and i don’t debate people on my own existence. if you are atheist, struggle with religion, whatever- i love you, i see you. you are not lesser than, and my journey with my religion has been very turbulent. i deconstructed when i was outed in middle school, due to pressure from homophobic Christians, and eventually came back and reconstructed. my beliefs are very tender and special to me, and if you’re ever struggling, even if we’ve never talked, feel free to vent or reach out. i will not try to ‘fix’ you or turn you ‘back to the light’ or any of that BS. your worth and goodness as a human is not dictated by being or not being a Christian. your experiences and existence are cherished, and valid, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

so. i believe that’s the big stuff! i don’t really know how to format a blog with tags and stuff but there is that. see you all around! please message me and send asks and stuff. i am a very open book and want friends :^)

here are some pics of me!

#meet kingeorgey #kingeorgey #hellooooo tumblr

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bunny-heels · 1 year ago

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all my blogs are finally fully backed up so.

Matt is a fucking idiot. imagine being in charge of a website that advertises itself as the gayest place on the web when in reality all you do is sulk in your office being upset and whiny because people rightfully call you out on your hypocrisy, ignorance, neglect, and blatant bigotry.

there is a literal genocide happening that's been going on for years killing innocent people. a non-binary teen was beaten to death and the killers have basically gotten off free. and this fucking dumbass decides to worry about what people are saying about him online as if he isn't sitting in a pile of money like every other jackass CEO is dong. the fact Palestine isn't one of the listed trending tags on tumblr when i see news about it every 5 posts is ridiculous.

he's just like any other rich guy. he doesn't care about the wellbeing of others, thinks only for himself, puts others down when they feel threatened, and just wants more money.

tumblr stopped being a safe place for "outcasted" people years ago, even before the porn ban. in fact, maybe it never really was for outcated people. trans, black, and disabled users have been getting put down by this site for a very long time, and its fucking disgusting. this site literally houses the largest percentage of LGBT+ and disabled users i've ever seen if we're going by the polls where literally the option of cisgender and neurotypical is always under 1%. they literally are the reason this website still exist, because they've created their circles and safe spaces for them to feel comfortable sharing their life experiences and adventures through life.

most people on this site can't go a day in their real life without some form of harassment or hardship, they don't need that transferring to their digital life. every group of people deserves their own corner for them to have fun and get away from everything for a while. if that's taken away, you are left with people who are just throwing tantrums, and the actual users who made your site usable are now out there probably doing better than you and getting more respectable support than you will with your group of crying babies.

Matt is not a 13 year old kid running a GMod DarkRP server. Matt is not a 26 year old forum mod. he is a 40 year old CEO who is the founder of a well known blog creation site. he has an extremely important and powerful position, yet he is choosing to put his own immature feelings first before thinking about the safety of his own userbase that is literally used as this sites selling point.

the fucking audacity to do this shit to your own users that you literally use for a selling point when you won't even allow for certain tags to show up in the search because you claim for them to have sexual content meanwhile other tags are full of hatred, bigotry, and downright defamation of innocent people who just happen to live different lives is fucking gross. i absolutely cannot believe society and social norms have let the minds of people in power get this fucking bad. it's almost impressive, in a tortured lab monkeys way, not in an innovated and breakthrough way.

please protect all trans users, especially trans women/trans fems. please protect black users, disabled users, all people of color users, homeless/financially struggling users, harassed users, victims of assault users, Palestinian users, jewish users, any religious users-any user that you know for a fact could be thrown away by this bullshit system any day now, protect and take care of them, and make sure they know you'll always be there no matter what.

this post will be rebloggable because i want to pass these links.

palestine related links:

arab.org

gofundmes

esims

PCRF

funds for gaza

POC related links:

BHM mutual aid

american indian college fund

black family mutual aid

trans related links:

freedom oklahoma

transformationskc

trans liberation

suggestions for more plus any corrections are appreciated. reblogging and replying to add your own links for mutual aid and donations is extremely acceptable and encouraged. i apologize if anything in this is worded incorrectly.

if this is taken down despite me being a cis straight chick, you know why.

#the bun talks #god my brain is fried #anyway for my mutuals if i DO get fucked over from this #my carrd has links to my other socials

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magixfairyix · 11 months ago

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Stasis

~This is my way of fixing the age thing/yada yada.

~SO! Fairy/witch magic is a part of them and influences them unconsciously. From their emotions, as explained in my other headcanon post about 'main emotions' and sometimes has a life of their own, especially if not controlled properly.

~Imagine magic as a partially sentient thing inside a fairy/witch. It fights for the holder, and follows its holder's will. Magic also keeps those who use it alive for longer than normal, but only when the magic and the holder are unconsciously content.

~I'm going to use Faragonda as an example later on.

~Stasis normally starts in later young adults (20-50's) as that is usually when a holder is content with how their life is and the state of their life. Up until this point the holder grows physically and matures like a human would, but after stasis (typically unconsciously) occurs they do not age.

~(Though note: Ages in relationships are based on how long you've been alive. 20 yr old who had been in stasis for one year counts as 21, and a 20 yr old who had been in stasis for a hundred years would not be in a relationship. Mental aging still occurs which will be explained below)

~Stasis is magic's way of keeping the holder physically alive in a place of safety, where the magic can focus on keeping its holder long-living/fuffiling life and not on fighting countless actually danger-inducing battles. Mental again still occurs/maturity developing, and that's why how many years one has actually been alive for is a basis for relationships.

~Faragonda (using my headcannons for her backstory) started stasis a long time before the battle against the Ancestral Witches started. She found Hagen, Saladin, Oritel, and Marion, (five years after Faragonda graduated from Alfea) and was extremely close with all of them. She deep down felt like she could stay like this for a while, with her friends, with this holding her goal of protecting the magical universe in her heart.

~She then started stasis, as both herself deep down and her magic felt like this was somewhere 'safe' to be. Both could be content.

~During the years after, during the battle against the Ancestral witches, and for a year afterwards, Faragonda was still in stasis. After that year though the impacts of the war did hit her (it was a very long war, still need to create mental lore on that).

~At this time so was around 600 (magic users typically live to a maximum 1000yrs) and so the stasis left, and thus she began aging the way a normal magic user would though faster because of the stress on her magic/mentality, so she aged to how she looked in season 1 in the timeframe of 16 years.

~So holders age, stasis occurs, and then their magic and themselves feel like they've gone through all that the wanted to in life/that it had taken a toll on their magic stasis stops and they begin aging until around 1000 years (faster or slower depending on how 'exhausted their magic is.'

~I truly hope that made some sense but once again, tumblr is where random ass thoughts are shared XD

#winx club #winx club headcannons #winx

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sophieinwonderland · 2 years ago

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While I'm venting about the SN, I should finish this draft post that's been sitting in my draft box for a while now... so here is me venting about a couple more of the bullet points from that document.

(Here are my responses to some of the other bullet points laid out in the document. [1] [2] [3] [4])

This is just objectively true. 😉

In all seriousness, this point is really bizarre.

Reminder that this is the context for the bullet points:

During November of last year, a moderator made a post on tumblr speaking to Ghost of the SophieinWonderland system. It was angry, it was charged, and it was bad. For context, during that month, Sophie had posted the following: [bullet point list of things I did in November] As well as more posts that I feel are unrelated at this time. The reason this is all detailed is to provide context (but not excuse) the behavior of the admin.

This along with the other bullet points is to provide context and help explain why the SN admin was in a mental state where they were intentionally trying to hurt me through fakeclaiming and malicious misgendering.

(You can find screenshots of the post the admin made here.)

So supposedly, part of the reason they were so "emotionally charged" was because I said God, who under the Trinity Doctrine where God is 3 people who are simultaneously 1 God, is plural.

I've talked before about internalized pluralphobia, and this absolutely reeks of it.

If calling the Trinity plural sends you into a rage spiral where you're fakeclaiming and misgendering systems, you need to seriously evaluate why you find the concept of God being plural so deeply offensive to you.

This one severely needs context. (Here's the post that was about for even more context.)

This was about retaliatory crosstagging. Ever since I got to Tumblr, anti-endos have constantly invaded pro-endo tags. This has pretty much exclusively gone one-way, with nearly all pro-endos besides myself avoiding anti-endo tags. And general DID and OSDD tags get to be completely free of posts from endogenic systems most of the time aside from positivity posts.

And one thing you certainly NEVER see is endogenic systems going into a traumagenic tag and posting hate about traumagenic systems.

It felt at the time that there was an anti-endo hate post in the endogenic tags almost daily.

There's an inherent unfairness when a double standard exists that a hate group is allowed their own spaces while endogenic systems aren't allowed safe spaces to exist.

So what I decided around July of 2022 is that if an anti-endo crosstags into our tags, I would write-up a response and post the response in their tags. These response posts would be tagged as anti-endo to make them appear to their community. And I would be sure to @ the offending user and request the anti-endo community take it up with that user if they didn't want me to continue posting in their tags.

This was actually a more respectful stance change for me.

Before this, I would occasionally just make random pro-endo posts crosstagged to anti-endo tags that I thought might convince them to change. Especially those that showed scientific support of endogenic systems back when I was naive enough to think you could convince anti-endos with evidence.

What I did here was turn around and say "if you don't want me in your tags, I'll stay out of yours and leave your community alone as long as you do the same for ours. But if we can't have a safe space, then neither can you."

I stopped making random posts in anti-endo tags like I had done before, and switched to a more defensive tactic where I would solely crosstag as punishment for bad behavior.

The reality is that my "support of crosstagging" late last year was me trying to prevent crosstagging in pro-endo tags, while resolving to only crosstag into anti-endo spaces in retaliation when they crosstagged to ours.

And... I think it worked. I think there have been fewer anti-endos breaking into endogenic tags since I started doing that.

We still get occasional offenders, but I don't see it happening every day or two like it had been before.

Of course, I'll acknowledge that correlation doesn't equal causation so I can't be certain how much of this was because of me. But personally, I believe that if I hadn't taken that step, we would still be seeing the same level of constant crosstagging in pro endo tags that we did before.

One SN mod, the one who I believe wrote up that list and the rest of the document, believes this is wrong. They argued with me over my tactics last August, and believe it should simply be our responsibility to endure and ignore a barrage of fakeclaiming and hate sent to our tags from the other side, while all the other anti-endos plug their ears and rant about the evil endos "invading spaces" the next day, spinning a fiction of victimhood while they're ones entering our spaces to attack and harass us.

I believe, as I did then, that the end this tactic has achieved has justified its means, and helped secure safer spaces for endogenic and pro-endo systems.

(For full transparency, you can see my history of posting in the anti endo tag here. It looks like I only broke this rule once since August, when instead of calling out crosstagging, I called out anti-endos engaging in art theft from endogenic systems and passing it off as "reclaiming".)

#syscourse #pro endo #pro endogenic #survivor's network #survivors network #vent

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paula-of-christ · 2 years ago

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Why You Should Take Dating Advice Unseriously

I decided to go look and see what a former tumblr user is up to, who was rather infamous so I will not be saying who, and I'm astounded at the relationship advice they were giving out. Someone who has presumably not dated for over a decade, because they are married and have children older than that, giving advice to women that amounts to "radfem" hatred of men. As Catholics we ought to love all of our brothers in Christ, even if they can only afford "cheap" first dates, like coffee or drinks. I'm not sure the poster has been out to have drinks lately, but alcoholic drinks (and the food that generally goes with them) are not cheap. And is a good, casual place to go to so long as you 1) do not drink more than what is appropriate and 2) are in a well populated area. For safety reasons this should be adhered to on the first 5 or 6 dates. But even then, a coffee date which can turn into a walk in the park, is a great first date. Why should a man have to spend an exuberant amount of money on a first date, for someone he may not like, or for someone who may not like him?

The post was just so degrading to men as well as women. Saying women who pay for dating sites were just desperate and asking to be taken advantage of monetarily by men. And that men who cannot afford a subscription to a dating service that allows him to message someone back or allow the other person to see their message right away, are just too poor to date.

It boggles my mind because this is not how dating websites work. By and large, to be able to send and receive messages without waiting to open them, BOTH people must have a subscription. That's just how it works.

And even if for some reason only one person needs a subscription to view the message, you still won't be able to message them back. You might be able to send an emoji or react to their message, but actually having a conversation is impossible. So, how are you meant to meet this person? You don't put contact information into your biography or your profile. And if a man provides his contact information, this poster says that you should not be the first to message as a woman. So you are completely left to look at men whom you have no idea how to contact, and that you may not even be interested in. Since the advice in showing men how you are interested, is simply going to their profile, since dating sites will tell them that you looked at their profile. However, when I was on the market, I could not tell you how many men I wasn't interested in after seeing their profile, because of not having similar hobbies, or they didn't fully agree with Catholic Teaching, or because a different photo made me realize I wasn't attracted to someone. Many men, with the idea that I looked at their profile so I must be interested, messaged me, but I wasn't interested in them, so it was a waste for them to do so. This means it can take many months or even years for someone to find a person to even go on one date with, let alone to marry.

My point being, having a shallow view of men - that is, that they are not worth the time of day if they won't spend hundreds of dollars on a dating site every year, and in fact are stingy or cheap for not doing so - as well as a shallow view of women - that being sure of yourself and what you want and being direct about it - is not what we are meant to do. Yes, a man ought to pursue a woman, and continue doing so even after they have entered a relationship or marriage. But, a woman ought to equally pursue and show her significant other that she is interested in him. It will look different, but it is not wrong to have a crush on someone, and wish to further your relationship with them.

If you have the money and you feel it is worth the money, by all means, pay for that subscription. When I was dating it was not worth it, especially since I found my husband in person, and he is a man who does not use social media. But, there are plenty of good, solid men out there, that will respect you, earn a good living, and will not waste money paying an astronomical amount of money for dating sites, when they do not have a good track record.

#catholic #catholicism #christian #christianity #traditional catholic #traditional catholicism #tradcat #tradcatholic #dating advice #lifeadvice #tradcatholicism #traditionalcatholic #traditionalcatholicism #queue me up (queue me up inside) can't queue up (queue me up inside) queue meeeee

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lone-rhapsodist · 2 years ago

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Some major updates...

I am going to try to sum up the things that have happened in the past few weeks. I am trying to get back on track and move on and I need to get a few things off my chest before I can do that properly.

This post contains major updates about my Classics project, my Discord server, and a few new and upcoming projects. This is definitely a very long post, so I will put a 'Keep reading' below to make it easier on your dashboard. If you do want to read it, please make sure you have a tea or a coffee on the ready. As always, thank you for your patience and support!

First, the 'no' news. I received no reply from Working Classicists. I know I should insist. I know I should probably send a second email before giving up. But the reality is, no one is interested in my project to create an online community for Classics. Not in the way that I intend it, at least. So, I am quitting. Or to put it more positively, I am shelving this particular project for the time being, if not for good. I know I could try reaching out to Asterion and other organisations, but to be honest, I am not convinced. I am not convinced that anyone is really interested in the idea, or willing to work with me to make it happen, or both. The only person who understood what I was talking about and wanted to support me was that ex lecturer of mine from university. She is the best, bless her. But anyone else, whether academic folks or not, has been largely unresponsive. Christ, even the people I started working on this project with abandoned me just after a few months. I have been working on this on and off for years now. What is the point of keeping on banging my head against this wall? I no longer have the drive to keep going. Therefore, I shall stop.

Second, the 'bad' news. I deleted my Discord server, SymForum. I had been thinking about doing it for a while. I was keeping it as an experimental platform, in the hope that things with other organisations would pick up and I would be able to move on from it soonish. In the meantime, it made sense to keep the server as a testing ground for ideas, to see what worked, what didn't, what to keep and what to throw away. Turns out, what to throw away was the whole thing. Because the server was basically dead. And so there was no point keeping it if it was just going to stay dead. I would like to point out, there is no problem whatsoever with that. If anyone on here was on it and they were just lurking, that is absolutely fine. I am lurker number 1 here. I lurk on Facebook. I lurk on Twitter. I lurk on Reddit. I lurk pretty much anywhere but here, and by most Tumblr users' standards, I reckon my activity on here is pretty much lurking anyway. I lurk on Discord too, especially since I've got nothing to contribute to most conversations. When I have something to say, I'll say it, but that ends up being like one time in a million, and then that one time is fine, but it's one in a million, so, it is what it is. Anyway, as a major lurker myself, am I really going to blame people for lurking on my server? Hell no. But am I going to blame myself for it? Hell yes. Because I'm supposed to run the show here. And I hate doing that. I hate being in charge of things. It's the story of my life, and I just can't do that anymore. So I deleted the server. And in my opinion, good riddance. If it was supposed to be a playground for my project, it showed that people are not interested in bringing in their ideas and asking for advice on how to develop them further nearly as much as I thought they would be, and that's fair enough. But if it was supposed to be a Discord server in the traditional sense, then there's already plenty that fit the bill, and I'm happy to recommend them: Classics Central; Miletos; The Cambridge Latin Discord Server; Tychon's Symposium; and for those of you who like hoarding stuff, the Classicists' PDF Society. There are also several subreddits that are valid, such as r/latin, r/ancientgreek, r/classics. I hope you find these useful.

Now, the 'good' news, at least for me, I guess. While I was damning myself with these questions about how to create an online Classics community in any way, shape, or form, something remarkable happened. A local Classics community popped up on my Facebook feed and I was invited to attend an event. Literally 15 mins away from my house. The timing couldn't have been better. While I was in the depths of my struggle, I had at some point contemplated the idea of moving this project of a Classics community from online to physical. I am not going to give away where I am based, but I live in a pretty big place, and it always struck me as odd that, amongst all these very official Classics academic societies, nothing existed that was more open to the general public. I did look into how I could get something like this started, but options seemed limited to using Facebook and word of mouth, and even then, I wasn't quite sure what the actual thing should look like. Online, I always wanted something like a forum, but in real life, what would it be? A monthly meet up? A book club? No idea. So, when this society came up on Facebook and I went to their first event, I was very impressed. The aim of the society is to promote Classics among everyone, through informal meet ups in which we read something in translation and then have a discussion alongside it. It's very chilled, very simple, and to be honest, very enjoyable. Our first meet ups have been about a few Platonic dialogues, and again, I was so happy with them -- we just sat down with tea and biscuits, took turns reading the dialogue, and from time to time had a pause to discuss what we just read and share our thoughts on it. From conversations I've had with the person who started this, it is clear to me that this is intended for anyone with an interest in Classics, with no need for prior learning, which I really appreciate. So, to me, it seems like a no brainer that I should invest more time into the society, and that I should help them develop further. I am currently applying to become part of their committee, and hopefully I will be able to join them soon. But even if for some reason I was unable to, this is a very valid project, and it makes sense that I should try to contribute to it, since it is very local to where I live, and it's perfectly in line with my job, and indeed, if there is any way in which anything even remotely close to my own original project could ever develop, it is through things like this -- grassroots approaches to Classics communities, similar to Working Classicists, grounded in reality, with real people, through real conversations. That's not to say that what happens online isn't real! But it is something I'm noticing, at least for myself, with all this 'online living' that I do, that because of it, sometimes I tend to lose touch with reality, and in turn, I end up not doing things in the real world that I would like to do, as if doing things online could be a replacement for that. Online can complement reality -- indeed, it is an extension of it. But online is online, and reality is reality. It's not easy to articulate, and I still struggle with the concept myself at times, but I do see a nuance, a difference, a distinction etc. I think that me moving the project from online to physical is a positive thing, and I look forward to exploring it further, and this not just for this particular project, but for other ones too.

Of course, technically speaking, the society does not (yet) fully replace the project, and in that sense, there are still some things which I would like to experiment with online, if at all possible, some more in an active way, some more in a passive one. An example of passive project is what I would like to refer to as 'Classics Helpdesk'. You know what a helpdesk is. It's a form of IT or other support desk that you go to or contact to ask questions about a problem that you need help with. That's what I want to do, but for Classics. Basically, the idea is to create a helpdesk where everyone who has any questions about anything Classics related (a text, a topic, a bit of Latin, university, work, you name it) can ask it, and I will respond, and I will try my best to help them with it, and hopefully it will actually help. It's essentially the idea that was at the heart of the project -- to help others develop their ideas about the ancient world -- but stripped to its core and reduced to something like "I'm a Classics person, ask me anything" as a service for anyone to use. I like it, because it requires no real work -- it will probably be just a pinned post at the top of my main blog, inviting people to send me any asks, even anonymously, or just message me, and I will respond, either publicly if it's an ask, or privately if it's a message. The details can be refined as I go, but basically that's the gist of it. Again, it would be good for me because it would require essentially no work, and I could just sit here and mind my own business, and then, whenever someone sends me a request for help, I can info-dump them with whatever they need, and hopefully make them happy, and definitely also make ME happy in the process, because let's face it, this is as much about making me happy as it is about making you happy -- with making you happy being more important by a pretty good margin, but still, it's a win-win. And don't get me wrong, this is not intended to rival or replace the already great number of brilliant people on here who also offer this kind of service. If anything, I would simply like to join their number in a more official fashion, by putting myself out there through my own helpdesk service, and hope that I can actually be of service to anyone. In the past, I've had a couple of people send me asks with questions about Latin stuff or Greek mythology, and it was so fun to sit down and respond to them, and I hope that I may be able to share again that kind of happiness with others in the future. So yeah. Classics Helpdesk. Please watch this space.

As for the more active side of the project, the one specifically about helping people develop their ideas about the ancient world… I think it's about time I faced the fact that the one person who really needed help developing their ideas… is me. So, one of my personal goals with this thing for the upcoming academic year -- yes, I still measure my year goals using the school calendar… I'm a teacher, don't judge me -- is that I should actually start, well, writing. And not give a fuck about it. Like, what it looks like, whether it's good or bad etc. This is an incredibly painful thing for me, and so far I have found it really hard to make the time to make it happen. But I just can't bear to keep not doing this any longer. So, here we are. The great idea to help me make this easier for myself is to do a bit like I'm doing for my Classics project and try to ground it more into reality. One thing I had considered was starting a podcast, because I noticed that when I talk about my ideas out loud with people in my life it's a lot easier to get the words out and make things make sense. However, lately I have been thinking that something that could work well for me instead is writing dialogues. This is something that goes back a long way for me personally, as dialogues were some of the very first original posts I ever wrote on Tumblr -- not on this blog, but on my old one, and in my native tongue. It was a great way to get thoughts out and do some self-critique without being too harsh or lenient on myself. As an informal way to explore my own ideas about the ancient world, I think it could work very well. Not to mention that dialogues are literally THE form of self- and collective reflection from the ancient world par excellence. So yeah, I cannot think of a better way to do this. I could still try other things. Letters are a possibility. Essays too. But first, I need to regain some confidence in my writing. I hope that this will help.

Lastly, I should perhaps mention that, at some point, you might end up seeing some of my own poetry on this blog too. This is mainly because Poetizer, where I first started posting my poetry, is now turning to a subscription-based model -- those bastards… So now I have to consider moving somewhere else. I always thought I would end up on Tumblr with my poetry too anyway, so I suppose this is just the sign that I need to make the move. I don't know when, I don't know how. I don't know whether to make another blog for it. I guess it would make sense. I already have neon-rhapsodies as an archive for my blogging, plus ideally that is where the dialogues would go as well. However, I do think that the poetry should be separate. I think I'll probably stick with the identity I had crafted for myself on Poetizer, but we'll see. In the meantime, it's exciting to think about all the possibilities that might materialise in the future.

Man, this was a long post. Thanks for sticking along for the ride. I am sorry if you were invested in my Classics project as it originally was, and wanted me to keep going with things as they were. I hope you can see why a change was needed, and that you will be happy to keep following any developments in this sense. I am grateful as ever for all your encouragement and support. Thank you, and take care.

#lone-rhapsodist #tagamemnon #personal #classics #project #discord #server #reddit #community #society #helpdesk #writing #dialogues #poetry #thank you

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