#this is a post aimed at a very specific person lmfao

[db-shipposting]

😇

[zumurruds]

for the choose violence ask game: 8, 13, 16, 22 🔪

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about 

these popular claims:

damen is a fuckboy

damen is abusive 

damen is a rapist 

damen is repressed

damen is toxically masculine

damen is an inherently violent or aggressive person

damen is bad at politics or leadership or ruling 

damen is stupid or oblivious 

damen is an unreliable narrator 

damen is responsible for laurent's abuse (that's the regent's responsibility alone + the regent's goal was to get rid of auguste regardless + the regent being alive means laurent was never safe + damen isn't to blame for someone else's actions)

laurent was justified in sexually assaulting and abusing damen

erasing damen’s bisexuality

writing damen as a heterosexual straight man whose first gay relationship is with laurent

damen fell in love with laurent's abuse of him and would stay in an abusive relationship with him

flattening damen into a shitty frat boy stereotype

jokaste's misogynistic treatment in fandom in general

kastor deserving a redemption arc and downplaying his villainy

stripping damen of his friendships/relationships/love interests and giving them to laurent

saying both damen and laurent are “equally bad” lmfao

denying that damen is laurent’s moral compass

denying that there’s any sort of racial component to capri, damen/laurent, and fandom

writing auguste, the white damen, as smarter/more politically savvy/etc as opposed to dumb, clueless damen when they’re literally narrative parallels and pacat said auguste had no head for deception in the books

any variation of damen deserving to be enslaved, raped, abused, mistreated, etc because of his upbringing

there’s more, but this post would be longer than it already is

the insidious racism that pollutes the perception of damen within certain segments of the fandom is not just disheartening—it's downright appalling. despite pacat's deliberate efforts to break stereotypes and provide representation for marginalized communities, some fans have unfortunately chosen to use damen to spread toxic narratives.

damen, a character painstakingly crafted to embody nobility and heroism, becomes the unfortunate canvas upon which fans project their most harmful interpretations. the laundry list of misconceptions—ranging from baseless accusations of being stupid to downright deplorable insinuations of him being a rapist or abusive—is not just a disservice to the character but a damning indictment of the fans themselves. let's unpack this, shall we?

the distinction between real slavery and the eroticized fantasy of slavery within the story is crucial here. pacat emphasizes that the slave system in akielos is designed to be a consensual and safe space for erotic exploration, with slaves chosen for their pre-existing submissive tendencies and masters culturally bound to treat them well.

to conflate damen's interactions with slaves within this fictional context with real-world acts of rape is not only a misreading of the text but a failure to acknowledge the author's explicit intentions. pacat's words serve as a clear reminder that the portrayal of slavery in capri is a deliberate narrative choice aimed at creating a specific kind of fictional world of erotic escapism—one that should not be equated with real-life atrocities.

this goes hand in hand with the false fandom assertion that damen is toxically masculine. not only does it have no basis in the books, it directly undermines pacat's intent in crafting damen as a positive representation within his community. it contradicts the very essence of damen's character and pacat's creative vision to reduce him to a blatantly racist caricature. damen embodies healthy masculinity through his consistent demonstration of respect for laurent's boundaries, his promotion of healthy attitudes towards sex, his superior emotional regulation compared to laurent, and his unwavering sense of duty and care for others.

and then there's the erasure of damen's bisexuality, an egregious offense that not only disregards the author's intent but perpetuates harmful stereotypes about sexuality. the idea that laurent is somehow damen's "first real gay partner" is not just absurd—it's offensive.

and let's not forget the vile suggestion that damen is somehow complicit in his own abuse, and more, that he's deserving of any of it. damen, like any character, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of the circumstances he finds himself in. to suggest that he somehow deserves the abuse he endures is a deeply disturbing reflection of victim-blaming attitudes within the fandom. likewise, claiming laurent was justified in sexually assaulting and abusing damen is outrageous. regardless of what someone has suffered in the past, it can never justify inflicting harm on another person. no amount of personal trauma or past experiences can excuse or rationalize abusive behavior towards others. each individual is responsible for their own actions, and it's essential to hold perpetrators accountable for any harm they cause, regardless of their own history of suffering.

but perhaps what's most alarming is the racial undercurrent that permeates these toxic interpretations. damen, a character meant to challenge stereotypes and offer positive representation, becomes a lightning rod for the most insidious forms of racism within the fandom. the visceral hatred and violence directed towards him—expressed in disturbing fantasies of his downfall (manifesting in popular blogs and posts salivating about wanting damen to be killed violently, humiliated, abused, cheated on, “humbled”, abandoned by everyone he knows and loves, etc)—are not just indicative of a few bad apples but a systemic issue that must be addressed. while damen is subjected to victim-blaming, erasure of his agency, and other forms of mistreatment, laurent often escapes similar scrutiny in fandom. this differential treatment is evidence of the covert nature of racial biases within the fandom, where characters of color like damen face heightened scrutiny and unfair treatment compared to their white counterparts.

in the end, how fans choose to perceive damen speaks volumes about their own biases and prejudices. it's time for fans to embrace the nuances that make damen the well-rounded character he is without reducing him to a harmful stereotype. anything less is an affront to the spirit of the series and a disgrace to the fandom as a whole.

13. worst blorbofication

kastor, and laurent to a degree.

kastor, despite being depicted as a ruthless villain within the narrative on par with the regent, is often portrayed as a misunderstood and sympathetic figure by fans. this portrayal conveniently overlooks his heinous actions, including the cold-blooded murder of his own father and attempted murder of his child brother, in his pursuit of power. despite lacking depth and complexity compared to other characters, kastor is inexplicably given a pass by some fans who sympathize with his imaginary mistreatment, usually stemming from a place of disliking damen.

laurent, on the other hand, is elevated to almost mythical proportions within the fandom. any attempt to critique or point out his flaws is met with vehement backlash and even cancellation by some fans. this idolization of laurent, while understandable to a certain extent due to his complex character arc, becomes problematic when it blinds fans to his faults and shortcomings.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

all of the above.

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

i don't have a particular preference, and i've distanced myself from fandom due to the reasons mentioned earlier. fandom hasn't felt like a safe or inclusive space, particularly for people of color, minorities, and those who don't unquestionably idolize laurent or who simply appreciate damen to some degree. therefore, i find it difficult to form an opinion on fan-created content, especially as it's created to cater to one specific type of fan.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores my favorite part of canon that often gets overlooked is how damen breaks out of traditional masculine norms. despite his stature as a big, muscular warrior, damen embodies emotional depth, tenderness, and vulnerability, qualities that defy societal expectations of masculinity. his capacity for love and forgiveness, especially towards laurent, showcases his emotional intelligence and strength. damen's portrayal is a beautiful reminder that masculinity is not defined solely by physical prowess, but also by emotional depth and compassion.

it's disheartening to see how damen's fanon portrayal often strays from this wonderful characterization. instead of embracing his kind-hearted nature, he's reduced to a toxically masculine alpha who is repressed, dumb as bricks and devoid of emotional intelligence. this shallow interpretation does a disservice to damen's character, removing all depth and reducing him to a mere accessory to laurent.

[firelxdykatara]

Katara x Aang :3c

are you trying to get me in trouble

-cough-

no but in all honesty, my genuine feelings about kataang boil down to three major points: 1. it's boring, and does not jive thematically with either of their character arcs, to the point of, 2. actively hampering character development on both sides, and 3. katara deserved better.

points expanded under the cut. (please, if you're a kataang shipper and you see this, just keep scrolling. i've tagged it appropriately and put the bulk under a cut and at this point that's literally all i can do lmfao.)

send me a ship and get my (brutally) honest opinion!

1. It's Boring: This is the most subjective point on the list (I mean, in fairness, it's all subjective, but I have evidence from the show and post-canonical materials to support my other points; this one is just preference), but there's just... nothing to kataang. It's cute (when it's not actively aggravating), and... that's about it. It's not even that I dislike friends-to-lovers as a shipping trope (though it's not my overall preference), because there are a lot of friends-to-lovers couples that I do ship (kanej comes to mind, also will/elizabeth from potc, karolsen from supergirl, romione and hinny from hp, among others), but one thing that I think all of those couples have that kataang doesn't is that both sides of the pairing are teens or adults when they get together, with teen/adult dynamics and issues and stories to deal with, rather than one half being a teenager and the other being literally prepubescent.

And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with age gap ships in general. And as far as atla goes, Katara, at 14, has the same age difference from Zuko (16) as Aang has from her, and it's never stopped me--because both Katara and Zuko are well into puberty when they meet and I have no problem picturing them being into one another and growing together as they enter adulthood. Aang, on the other hand, is a child. And he acts like it. Which wouldn't be a problem, if the show weren't expecting me to believe he is a) ready for a romantic relationship, and b) ready for one specifically with Katara, who is not only older and far more mature but is specifically cast as his caretaker in a very maternal role for the entire show's run.

This show asks me to believe that a teenage girl well into adolescence is going to be attracted to and develop romantic feelings for a pre-adolescent child--and it asks me to believe this while showing us otherwise that Katara's type is actually older boys with fabulous hair and angsty pasts in all of her other potential romantic dalliances--and then enter into a relationship with him, all while ignoring the elephant in the room that is the fact that she was basically acting like his mother for the entire series to that point. (Something that is heavily lampshaded earlier in the very same season.) That just stretches the bounds of credulity way too far for me, especially when there's no evidence that Katara herself would get anything out of their romantic relationship.

There's nothing there for me to sink my teeth into. No delicious development, no parallels where they help each other grow, no internal conflicts that they have to work through together, nothing. Certainly no reason for me to actually believe Katara feels (or would grow to feel) anything for him other than the platonic affection of a caretaker. I can easily believe she loves him dearly, as a friend and quasi-little-brother, but I just can't see that developing naturally into romantic love--not the way it's presented in the show.

And even if they did manage to at least make the development of Katara's feelings believable, unless they changed something fundamental about the nature of their relationship, it'd still be boring, so.

2. It Actively Hampers Their Character Development--On Both Sides: I've written before (extensively lol im so sorry) about how kataang is actively detrimental to Katara and to Aang. In short (because ye gods this post is already getting long enough), Katara is narratively harmed by being shoved into a relationship that completely ignores her stated feelings--a relationship that had been presented as a one-sided puppylove crush for the vast majority of the series--and it inhibits her growth as a character in ways that become far more obvious in the comics and lok, where the very same creative forces that lead to her beginning a relationship with Aang in the first place reduce her to 'the Avatar's girl' and very little else, all the way through to the end of LoK (where she is a Healer and the Avatar's wife and, again, very little else).

As for Aang:

As to how this relationship is detrimental to Aang (other than the comics and LoK nonsense)? Just take a look at book 2, when he’s trying to learn Earthbending from Toph. Katara constantly coddles him. Much of the time, she’s afraid to be anything other than gentle and understanding with Aang--partly because of her fear that if she pushes him too far, he’ll run away. (Which he does, several times.) But sometimes, what Aang needs to grow is a sharp kick in the slats, which Toph was more than willing to provide--and which worked. Katara was great for teaching Aang to waterbend, but he needed more than that to grow as a person. And he can’t get that while he’s in a relationship with someone who will apologize for getting upset when he was very explicitly neglecting her.

In addition, it is pointed out by Guru Pathik at the end of Book 2 that one of Aang's chakras is blocked by his attachment to Katara. Aang takes this to mean (incorrectly) that he has to stop loving her in order to become fully realized as an Avatar, but this is actually part of the problem--because the issue isn't that he is in love with Katara, it's that he's possessively attached to her. He believes himself entitled to her love in return, rather than selflessly loving someone regardless of whether or not they return that affection. (This is obvious come the EIP episode, where Aang demands to know why he and Katara aren't in a relationship already--because he kissed her without asking [or even checking to see if she'd be ok with kissing him], which he phrases as mutual even though it very much was not, and he gets angry and violates her boundaries when she says that she is confused and doesn't want to think about it right then.)

It is his attachment to Katara--the need for her to return his love, the belief that she will and it is only a matter of time before he gets what he wants--that he was supposed to let go of, not his feelings for her in general. Unfortunately, while he pays lipservice to doing this (far too late for it to be useful--if he'd stayed with the Guru for five more minutes and unlocked his chakra there, that battle would've gone very differently), he almost immediately backtracks on that development come book 3, and there isn't another single whisper of Aang maybe growing up and moving past his one-sided and possessive crush and realizing that even if Katara doesn't feel the same way, it doesn't mean she loves him less or that their friendship is less important.

What really needed to happen, for Aang to grow as a person and become fully realized as an Avatar, was for him to grow up. To realize that his feelings were not of paramount importance, and that even if he was in love with Katara, he was not entitled to her love in return. He should have been able to move past his need for her to love him back, in order to get past that stumbling block, unlock his chakras, and regain the Avatar State in time to face the Firelord. But he didn't. As a result, they had to find some other way to just give him the Avatar State (a well-placed rock) and the means to defeat Ozai without killing him (the deus ex lionturtle) and his entire character arc just fell apart in the third act rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion.

3. Katara Deserved Better: This really ties into how her romantic relationship with Aang hampered her own development, but I'm still bitter enough about it that it gets its own bullet-point. And the biggest single reason I could never ship kataang--the thing that would've turned me off even if there were substance and a halfway decent storyline for them--is the fact that Aang kisses her without her consent (for the second time) in Ember Island Players, Katara gets angry at him and storms off, and then..... she walks out onto the balcony to make out with him.

With nothing to bridge that gap.

It's bad enough that a show aimed at children had a scene where the child protagonist kissed the object of his affections without her consent when she didn't want him to (made explicit by her angry reaction)--and this is absolutely an issue when the show is aimed at children and it may well be the first experience they've had with consent issues portrayed in media--but this moment is never addressed again. Katara just decides--completely off-screen--that she does love him Really and walks out to make out with him in the epilogue. There's no conversation, no apology for violating her boundaries, no discussion of why that was wrong or any indication that Aang understands what he did and why it upset her. They don't have a single one-on-one interaction between that kiss and the epilogue, and the only other time they are on screen together, Aang yells at her and storms off.

So, even leaving the comics and lok aside, Katara deserved much better from her own romantic plotline. In fact, she deserved to have one, rather than simply being the oblivious object of Aang's affections, given a couple moments where she blushes but otherwise remains completely ignorant of his feelings (she looks shocked and upset when he kisses her prior to the invasion, and then she completely forgets that even happened because she's confused as to what Aang is even talking about during EIP until he brings it up; that's not the behavior of a fourteen-year-old girl who was kissed by someone she was developing romantic feelings for), before the epilogue where it becomes clear that she figured all of that out off-screen and had feelings for him after all.

She's a main character, not a side-character written in solely to give one of the mains a love interest. She deserved a romantic plotline of her own. (She could have had one with someone else, with very few changes made to what was actually on-screen prior to the epilogue, but that's another conversation entirely.) She deserved to have her feelings considered at all important by the person she was going to be paired with in the end, rather than having him just assume she felt the same way and then get mad at her for never giving any indication of it when he'd never asked about her feelings to begin with. She deseserved agency in her own romantic narrative, and she just didn't get that with Aang.

So yeah, at the end of the day, my biggest issue with kataang is that it involved doing Katara dirty, and she's my favorite character and she deserved so much better damnit.

[thetroublesofbeingtrans]

Did you consider that maybe, just maybe… that tiktok was someone’s specific wants as a non-binary person. They could literally just. Have chest dysphoria and that’s why it’s part of their video. Not everybody transitions or feels trans in the same way, freaking about it does nothing but makes you look kind of embarrassing lmfao

I did consider that actually, that's why I have multiple posts clarifying my point which also state that I am in no way upset at the person who made the tiktok- which is why I didn't post their username, a link to the video, or literally anything that would identify this person. The video was meant to be a general "nonbinary aesthetic", as was made clear by context clues and the fact that they had made other "_____ aesthetic" tiktoks.

In all honesty if you felt the need to send this, I think you should evaluate why you're so defensive over the idea that the "nonbinary aesthetic" of pixie cuts and binders is not universal by any means, and that tons of nb people have expressed their distaste with this overwhelmingly exclusive and very popularized image of what nonbinary people are expected to look like, of how they felt the need to conform to this to be "valid" and how the narrative that nb people are all aiming to be flat chested, androgynous, and lets be honest, afab, hurts people who can not or do not want to fit into that box. I've stated this before but I'm nonbinary, I binded for 8 years and got top surgery just recently. I am not the one whos saying this "experience" is invalid! I am very sorry if for whatever reason you interpreted it that way.

If I am being completely honest I think the fact that people are acting like there's binder hatred in the wider nb community makes no sense- if anything we are pressured to bind even on non-dysphoric days to be respected by cis people.

[jrueships]

i know you posted it like 5 days ago but please go into detail about joel/brad i am intrigued

OKAY SO . It all started with 'bradley beal keeps trolling the sixers, SPECIFICALLY joel embiid' and embiid's response was just "Shut up" which honestly kingshit like wizards were getting swept why is bradley going insane asylum???? BUT after the games they...

SO ... what *I* read into it was rivals who banter and annoy each other incessantly but just enough to create the romantic tension of a begrudgingly respect. We all KNOW about Joel's kinda very cocky humor. Though he IS cognizant of his confidence, so he brags with a purpose (unlike pg who just does it for ego really). He wants to get in opponets' heads and make em mad. A true troll! But with beal it was different. Bradley fought hard against them even if they were outclassed and he didn't lose any hope, and I think joel can really respect that. He never gave into any old teasing technique and joel didn't really try any against him tbh! And I think that's because he knew he didn't have to because Brad is just a kinda laid back cheeky kinda guy now! Also bradley can take Joel's jokes and taunts really well instead of just getting mad and giving up. It seems like a ship that has very good back to forth banter where there isn't a clear aggravater for all the clashes. Sometimes beal is the little shit. Sometimes joel!!! It's an even matched battle of the wits and the comedy!!!

Though I think joel is definitely better at the new gen z humor while bradley is still kinda catching up. He makes joel cringe sometimes but joel can't help but continue being invested in his funny little antics!

Also um .. height difference lol . BUT really what drew me to it was their bickering dynamic. Both probably finding the other super annoying but can't help but be amused by the other's shenanigans!!! Joel could easily just. Push bradley over and smite him but he doesn't because bradley is just Too funny to banter with and doesn't back down!

ALSO also they both have similar styles on helping the rookies! Like they're both actually really supportive to them but also LOVE to pull at their strings and make them groan like embarrassed teenagers. It's a teasing kind of platonic love! Idk I'm weak for couples who'd make great 'parents' to the rookies. Joel properly calls his rookies his "little ones" and Brad calls his rookies "his kiddos"

BUT the main fic that is fueling this is my wip superhero au fic about them going against Ice Trae (trae with ice powers. I know. I get 5 damage everytime I write their superhero names.) And his (sidekick) supervillain partner Cool Collins (john Collins with .. wind powers. So he can like. Carry and aim the icicles trae makes. Shoot em out LMAO). The battle happens on Washington turf so beal, a B class hero with simple wizard powers (silly magic tricks), is there to stop him but to his surprise, The Process, Joel embiid whose powers basically increase the longer a fight goes on but restart when a fight is done, jumps 'to his aid' mainly because he doesn't believe Beal is strong enough to fend off the two villains LMAO. He's just there to rub in his strength to Beal's face. Banter ensues, they both kinda get in each other's ways. It's two dumb people vs two dumb people because trae and John are also very dumb. They have chemistry but they're just... really stupid. Like in one part trae needs to hydrate for more ice so john gets him a glass of water... from the lake. Trae spits it out and I like "bro wtf why did u give me salt water???? That just dehydrates u more??" And john genuinely is surprised at his negative reaction, "??? What do u mean it dehydrated u?? It's WATER??? that's literally the opposite of its??? Function???? Sorry I wanted your water to have some flavor in it bro! What are you???white??? Can't stand salt?????"

And meanwhile brad and Joel are just competing against each other by showing off their powers. Joel just collapses an innocent building to show off then brad rebuilds it. It's just a ton of dumb people being dumb with each other

But there's mandatory "one person saves the other but then they get saved by the other". Joel pushes beal out of the way and shields him from a collapsing giant icicle that just shatters all cool against his durable back. He kinda smirks down at Beal underneath him and goes "you're welcome, little man" and beal rolls his eyes and laughs. But then a blast of wind sends them tumbling too close off a cliff. Beal grabs hold of a ledge and catches the falling joel by creating a teleporting portal under him. Joel lands safely and Beal, while still scrambling for purchase on a cliff, grins at him all cheeky-like and replies "my pleasure, big man"

BUT YEAH... it's just a really good dynamic! I'm a sucker for good switching banter despite my hatred for writing dialogue 😭 but like even younger Joel and Brad are so good with each other. Younger Brad was a lot more snappy and moody so I think joel would have a lot of fun bothering him LMFAO. They cameo in my highschool theater tech markelle fultz x jazz piano player theater geek de'aaron fox.

Basically joel is on the tech crew as well, a senior/junior (I'm still deciding). But he's SUPPOSED to be supervising markelle and helping him with the lights and sound during a jazz concert but of COURSE he's too unbothered to and just spends the night playing nintendogs on the ds (he's just there for the mandatory community service hours) . When he finally notices that markelle is drifting off with the spotlight and keeps aiming it at Fox instead of Donovan during his drum solo, joel kind of gets up and is like "hey... I should stop this..."

But then he thinks and sits back down like "hrm... nah I'm too lazy lol. I still need to teach my dog how to sit." And just goes back to not helping.

So bradley, a senior/junior stage manager calls them on their shared radio. First fultz picks up the walkie talkie so brad is all nice to him and has a kinder tone like "heey fultz buddy<3 can you please put Joel on the radio please? Thank you dude, you're doing greaat <3!!" And as soon as Joel gets on the radio he just starts screaming at him KABDISJWBDA like "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN EMBIID?? yOU DUMB BITCH!!! GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASS AND REPOSITION THAT LIGHT!!!" And joel just replies "no." So then beal reveals the reason why joel is letting markelle get away with taking the spotlight off donovan's drum solo, which is "YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS THAT DONOVAN TOOK YOUR SPOT ON THE JAZZ 1 BAND BECAUSE /YOU/ GOT KiCKED OUT FOR PLAYING THE PORN SONG ON THE XYLOPHONE." which REALLY gets joel going because it's true lmao. They start arguing on the phone, joel defending his actions by saying "fultz is MY little. He can do whatever he wants!!" And brad replying "Shut the fuck up. Go be a supervisor and fix your shit!!"

Eventually they get so caught up in arguing with each other that they just forget about the whole situation altogether because they're THAT angry with each other.

Markelle eventually repositions the light when he comes to the gay epiphany that fox doesn't NEED a spotlight to shine because he'll always be beautiful no matter what or smthin so he shines it back on Donovan and everything resumes normally

buT yEAH! There's my essay that really doesn't explain why my mind works the way it does <3 but it's written anyways LMFAO I hoped it helped somewhat!!!! THANK you for asking I LOVE talking about my nonsense rarepairs even if they still end up being nonsense LMAO

[serpentsapple]

(This post includes major spoilers for The Grisha Trilogy and the Shades of Magic series.)

@dykeblight replied to our introductory post with the following:

alright bud since u decided to put this in the main tags of the books ur critiquing ur ready to hear my take on this. first of all the wording in this post is pretentious as hell and it bothered me all thru out reading it. second of all, let’s lay some shit down: the only books ive read discussed in this post are adsom and tgt, and while i agree that tgt isn’t the most radically feminist book series out there, i have to ask: why are u focused on women writing this? why is this post generalizing

horrible male authors but name dropping female ones? alinas journey was largely about her realizing that she could make her own choices. about her not needing to be queen or supreme ruler or some shit. about how she could literally settle down with the worlds most boring dude and still be happy. anyways, beyond that: adsom. first of all, whenever someone pulls the “not like other girls” card for lila, i have to pull the “she’s genderfluid” card. it wasn’t Explicitly stated in the series, and v

has expressed regret for that, so it’s probably going to be more obvious in the next series. also, adsom is very much a period piece. you couldn’t be a woman in the early nineteenth century doing what lila did without like, yknow, *not being a woman.* the threat she got on that first ship— a period piece! if it was a male author, then that’s gross. but it’s not, a woman wrote it! lila also proceeded to burn the whole goddamn ship down. sometimes authors don’t want to write traditionally feminine

characters!!! sometimes women want to write about what THEY can relate to! and ve schwab, as a queer woman, probably did that. so now we come back to the question of WHY are you calling out only female authors for this? you could have accomplished the same goal by just including books and authors that you deemed Respectable. not to be that bitch, but there was literally no reason for you to post this lmfao. i think we should first tackle the issue that is men having access to keyboards, and

maybe then we can broaden our horizons by critiquing everything women do thats decidedly not perfect.                            

We created this blog to discuss these topics, so we welcome other opinions and interpretations!

To reiterate our goal and perhaps clarify... male authors already receive enough publicity and analysis - to the point they eclipse, at times, their female peers, even when it comes to writing female characters. How wonderful of them to treat fictional women as fellow human beings! (How shameless of others to treat them as their personal sexual fantasy!) Yet we would like to hear what women have to say about themselves. It is why we focus exclusively on their works.

Furthermore, we believe these works as worthy of analysis as any text written by a man. And it is precisely because of this conviction - their books potentially as grandiose, as mediocre as any man’s - that we will not refrain from criticising them. To treat them differently would be implicitly agreeing with the notion they aren’t as intellectually engaging as men’s writings.

Moreover, we are not advocating for “feminist” books from women. In fact, we dislike this qualifier: too often misattributed, rarely useful, always commercial. We desire convincing female characters, as talented as they are flawed, as just as they can be immoral. Thus, while we have grown tired of uncreative, unnecessary sexism in fantasy, we are not expecting perfect little militants in every story. We expect to be moved and stunned, to be left inspired or reflecting on what we read.

I hope this has cleared up our intent with the blog. Now, for the specific series discussed...

While I could see this be Bardugo’s aim for Alina’s journey, I disagree with it being well executed. Narratively speaking, I do not think Alina was treated fairly and was able to make true choices. Throughout all three books, Alina remained unobservant and somewhat self-centered, never challenging the affirmations of others and instead regarding them as truth. Let’s take the example of the Darkling: she accepts his supposed initial good intentions and views him, to the very end, as some kind of lost and anguished “boy”. Yet that isn’t what the text shows - on the contrary, the Darkling is a hollow character that spent centuries sitting on his behind, doing nothing for his fellow Grisha. Alina is never given the chance to realise this and reevalute what happened to her.

Beyond this, I feel like Alina’s journey was contrived from the start. Bardugo does not allow her to see beyond the words of others, nor does she allow her to actually grow. Alina’s crush on Mal and her fixation on remaining with him - despite him disliking what she is! - stems from a child’s anxiety and solitude. Instead of becoming her own woman, making her own choices and yes, having to face losing relationships, Alina regresses to the safety of her childhood, powerless and normal, just like Mal. Let us remember that, to remain with him, she sealed her powers within herself, endangering her health! So symbolically, it is a slap in the face: just when she embraced her powers - meaning letting go of her fears, of Mal -, she loses it all and go back to square one.

This is why I don’t find Alina’s journey satisfying. Even if it hurts, I wish to see female characters confronted to their fears and their flaws, and grow from them*. That is not what we witnessed with Alina. And: why is it that female characters must be “depowered”? Why does the Darkling (and Ilya Morozova) get to keep his immense powers, must live with his guilt, yet Alina loses every and any scrap of magic? Why is she punished for her greed so much, when she hardly is the greediest? (This echoes also Genya’s “punishment”, so heavily tied to her being a beautiful woman and beauty being, in Bardugo’s world, a key quality for women. Nikolai’s monstruous transformation is cruel but never specifically targeted at his sex.)

Why is it female characters only whose “happy” ending involve going back to their boyfriend’s house, complete with potential children? In a fantasy world, is it the best we can offer to these characters? Why does “making her own choice” usually involve them being unambitious and - I am barely caricaturing - happy housewives? Where are the female characters being greedy, powerful to the point of madness, and fascinatingly ruthless? Where are the genius, the good but scheming inventors and princesses? Where are the female Darklings and the female Nikolais?

Yes, it may not be Alina’s story and that’s alright. But reading the story she received, I could not help wondering: is it truly her story, or is it her story in a narrative unfair to women?

As for Lila... what Schwab stated confusingly in interviews or twitter threads cannot be used to analyse the text itself, though it may help. In this case, it holds a very different perspective from what she may affirm outside of it, so let’s keep close to what she wrote.

I disagree that it is a period piece. Her series is firmly set in a fantasy version of our world, with four alternate but equally real Londons, and with interactions between them that differentiate her England from ours. She chose to keep this England similar to ours, so the departure from it could be obvious; she chose, again, to have Lila threatened with rape by sailors even in Red London, her full invention. She chose, still, to never mention the miserable reality of lots of poor women like Lila in our England - namely, prostitution. She picked what suited her, as authors do, yet could not come up with any other plot than sexual assault. That she is a woman does not excuse her utter lack of imagination on that front! I find the notion that female characters are condemned to sexual threats depressing, on top of insulting towards authors who still strive to be creative.

And this is all ignoring what Schwab forced her other female characters to endure, which is sexual slavery, somewhat coerced pregnancies and social isolation, plus being sexist caricatures and butchered so men could be sad about it. In that context, what is Schwab exactly saying about women, if even her heroine is misogynistic and desperately trying to escape this reality? If Lila isn’t a woman - which she is in the text, she never denies being one, she only affirms being different, meaning a full human being! -, does that mean women’s place is in caricature and distress and death? If she is, then must they reject their womanhood and deride other women to be in the spotlight?

And this is all, again, ignoring that Schwab who, yes, admitted wanting to write a female character she wished to see in fiction, that resembled her... had Lila’s whole development derailed in favour of male characters. Lila’s ambition and excessiveness vanished in a third book dedicated to temptation! Lila’s anger and recklessness receded in front of Holland, all so we could learn about his sad backstory. Which involved, as salt to the wound, the stereotypes of a greedy girlfriend and the ever failing mother Schwab is so fond of.

Our post never suggested that women should not write non traditionally feminine women. Rather, that would be quite refreshing! I would love to read about these women that we hardly see.

Is it what Schwab wrote, though? Lila indeed crossdresses and appears androgynous enough to sometimes pass as a man (not always, in a manner that is most convenient to the author). Yet: she constantly mocks other women for being vapid, gossiping, feminine, in a word weak. Yet: Schwab has her, in the second book, attend a ball dressed femininely and feeling insecure about it, all to state she is - quoting! - “not most girls” and have Kell, her love interest, compliments her. She has the happy tomboy reaffirmed as able to be feminine and beautiful that way! How is that not depressing for every woman and girl who never want to be feminine? Why did Schwab choose to have her in a dress instead of a suit, like Lila would probably have preferred? Why did Schwab choose to strictly divide women and men into two categories, dress-wearing and not-dress-wearing? Why is Lila alone in her plight as an androgynous woman? Why didn’t this fantasy world have women and men dressed in a way they felt comfortable with?

This isn’t a period piece. Schwab was free to make that choice... and she did not. I would add, too, that women in real life have always struggled and fought against misogyny. They were women and they were still complex human beings and they still tried to live as comfortably as they could. Sometimes they failed, yes, because society wouldn’t want them to. But women like Lila have existed, and behaved like her, and dressed like her, and dreamed as big as her. Why should not we expect as much of fiction, then?

Sidenote: I am especially critical of that awful “tomboy turns into a lady” trope that fandom will seize it and run. It is disheartening to see countless edits and fanarts of Lila depicting her as feminine instead of androgynous as she was written, and often in feminine clothing at that. So if even the narrative later ends up confirming it...

*Or perhaps spiral down, willingfully blind. Alina’s story isn’t supposed to be a tragedy, however, so this does not apply here.

(If you don’t mind, I would like to hear why you found the post’s wording pretentious?)

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 90 - 86

90. Suzy - “Queiro ser tua” Portugal 2014

~Huawei Wa Wei~

I have mentioned earlier that Moran Mazor is arguably the saddest NQ, but Suzy is definitely up there in people whose success I was rooting for. Indeed, I mostly love Suzy because she was a TRAGICALLY ROBBED UNDERDOG.

You see, Suzy was ~BULLIED~ from the moment she had won FdC, and beaten Catarina in the F2. Now, I personally don’t mind “Mea Culpa” itself (my favourite was the drunken pirate hag known as 😍 ZANA 😍, but that’s for another ranking). However, I don’t think I’ve *EVER* witnessed a fanbase as  downright evil as the Catarina stans. These ‘people’, by the lack of a better term, make the Beyoncé and Ultimo fans appear like kind and rational people. These... self-proclaimed ‘eurovision fans’ tried to intimidate Suzy into quitting by sending her death threats, all because she DARED to beat their erstwile female-mediocre flavour-du-jour. Who the fuck does that? Human pieces of shit, that’s who. 😤

There’s an *additional* sociocultural connotation to the entire Suzy vs Catarina debacle, but my friend André, who is Brazillian and has Suzy in his 2014 top three made a great post about the issue back in the day, so I’ll just quote him for those who want more backstory:

Quero Ser Tua belongs to a music genre called "pimba", which is perceived by the Portuguese middle and upper classes as tasteless and vulgar because of simple melodies and dirty metaphors (the latter not present in Quero Ser Tua). So they despised Suzy and (...) went in a fucking frenzy [when she won FdC], attacked the composer of Quero Ser Tua (also the father of pimba music), and accused him to rigging the televote and even started dozens of petitions (alol) and regularly vandalised Wikipedia writing that Portugal's entry was "disputed" or that Catarina was the real winner (holy alol).  This drama speaks to me because Quero Ser Tua and pimba music in general sound like other genres of popular music we have here in Brazil that are also derided by the snotty-nosed middle class as vulgar and devoid of "culture", often with racial connotations on top of the social class ones. To me, Suzy's victory (rigged or not) has a political message: pimba IS culture, like any other kind of music, and it deserves to represent a country as great as Portugal because it's part of their culture and they should be proud. It's definitely a bigger statement than the bourgeois, mediocre Mea Culpa and I am proud of every Portuguese that voted for Suzy to win. <3

As for ~my~ layman’s opinion, well, I just think the song possesses some great summer sprit.😊  It’s a colourful explosion of cheerful accordeon, moody percussion and ethnic frivolity. 😍 Listening to “Quero ser tua” makes me very happy about 100% of the time, almost as much as the knowledge that, after being disliked for most of the pre-show, Suzy won everyone except for her most diehard haters over, becoming someone who is now almost unanimously deemed one of the most robbed NQs. STAY PRESSED, HATERS. >pasta :victorydance:

________________________________________________________________

89. Jana Burcheska - “Dance Alone” F.Y.R. Macedonia 2017

[2017 Review here]

Like many of the 2017 entries, my passion for Jana dropped over time. Make of it what you must but I think the live of “Dance alone” kind of cheapens it... and you know what I think about cheap and trashy, I LOVE THAT OBVIOUSLY.😍

However, I also think the cheapness does Jana dirty, because “Dance alone” also happens to be one of my favourite songs OF 2017. Its 80s synth sound and high voltage fierceness left me bald and straight UPON IMPACT, with madly quotable lyrics that I STILL use in friendly banter to this day. 😍 

The awesomeness is only further enhanced by Jana, who is -independently from her song- also one of the best humans in 2017. I absolutely ADORED this goat-voiced gremliness from the SECOND she spent her first interview shading the fuck out of Rykka 😍 (check the 2017 review for the dirt) and then proceeded to troll the press people by teasing that she actually couldn’t sing for no reason. 😍

Which brings me to the live act which.... conceptually is a match to the song, but which also doesn’t do it justice. Don’t get me wrong, Jana contorting her body as she’s assaulted by a Carolean windmachine sustains the crap out of me, but I have always thought “Dance alone” had more potential than shown in the live. (Getting rid of  the “Wishing you could hold me close” closer is particularly upsetting imo.) Moldova and Azerbaijan would’ve turned “Dance alone” into an EASY top 30 in this ranking, but in the hands of Macedonia it’s a mere top 90 for me. 😭

________________________________________________________________

88. Lake Malawi - “Friend of a friend” Czech Republic 2019

only a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend 

Lake Malawi live the ultimate BorisBubbles dream: IMMENSELY annoying song whose appeal hinges entirely on how uncomfortable it makes other people, somehow convinces about ~95% of the loyal eurofans that it’s a fantastic masterpiece. 😍 ADVERSI-DEITIES 😍

Of course, the axis around which Lake Malawi spins is Albert, a human spark plug and mankind’s youngest thirty year old. Seeing Albert fling himself around the stage, never losing his entheusiasm is the main reason why “Friend of a friend” exceeded my already high expectations! Another, slightly-less awesome reason however is the D-sound-like staging:

It really just is a clever, likable entry. Of course, that doesn’t take away that “Friend of a Friend” is objectively one of the most irritating songs ever, making it anathema to the televoters’ tastes <3 😭(😍)

________________________________________________________________

87. Jamala - “1944″ Ukraine 2016

It is only FITTING that Jamala and Lake Malawi rank alongside each other, star-crossed lovers that they are. ALBERT x JAMALA 5ever:

A greater love story than even Alfred x Amaia. However, this post is mostly about Jamala, so LET US discuss a great, if controversial winner. I will start with a small caveat and say that “1944″ isn’t the song for me. One of the biggest dealmakers in Eurovision songs for me is replayability “1944″ just doesn’t have that quality for me. I only really relisten to it when I must, for rewatching purposes. However, that does make the few times I DO revisit “1944″ all the more magical to me. If we take on board that songs are a means of expression, then “1944″ is one of the best songs ever, for the themes it expresses are all too real. I don’t even NEED the gutwrenching, defiant lyrics to *FEEL* the pain the nation of Ukraine is going through. The act sends shivers down my spine, body aching all the time. The Jamala Tree is one of modern Eurovision’s most iconic visuals: 

Of course, that ALSO makes “1944″ one of the most notoriously political entries of all time. Now, other fans of Jamala might argue that, “No, it’s not about the Crimean war at all, just the historic deportation” and well... no? There is a reason why Jamala wrote this song *NOW* and not the last time she entered Vidbir. It *is* Jamala’s way of coping with the Russian invasion, something which *also* ties into her own family history. “1944″ is a very elegant, tasteful middlefinger aimed at Putin, but it’s a middlefinger nonetheless. However, what if it is? The Ukraine vs Russia conflict is a notoriously heated one and potshots are to be expected. If I have to chose between an open attack and a backhanded one (such as that rubbish entry from the Tolmachevy Sisters, or the two rubbish ones by Julia Samoylova), I will always pick the former. 

Overall, I greatly appreciate “1944″ and think it’s a great winner. The composition is evocative of both Ukraine’s history and musical traditions, as well as their current predicament, making “1944″, despite pertaining to a specific year, a timeless experience. It is very deservingly considered one of Eurovision’s best winners by the fanbase, and I hope it remains a favourite for future generations to come. 

________________________________________________________________

86. Joan Franka - “You and Me” The Netherlands 2012

Yes, Joan ranks one spot above Jamala lmfao. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!!! 😈

Back in 2012, I obviously was a feverish Joan stan, mostly for Ironic reasons: “LMFAO JOAN TARD... it’s YOU... and ME! SO SILLY <3″ -- me Circa 2012, when my wit amounted to calling lovable dimwits “tards” and quoting song lyrics. 

In 2019, I can say that... I still love Joan for her ineptitude and frivolity, but with the added layer of *genuinely* loving Joan for Joan. From the consistently offkey singing, to dressing up like a Lakota warchief (completely oblivious to how inappropriate this is 😍), to the bonfires (pandering to the Land Of Fire, Azerbaijan 😍) and the general-happy-go-lucky vibe, “You and me” just feels so.. real? Like a real person regaling real stories of a real romance with a real (boy)friend. It is so disarmingly earnest, which of course, being stuck in 2012, meant that it was unceremoniously offed by the professional juries. TOO PURE FOR THIS DAMN’ WORLD. 😭

Since this update booted the final entries from Portugal, Macedonia and the Czech Republic, I’ll disclose my final thoughts below, as to not disrupt the ranking:

PORTUGAL:

Honestly, a pretty good chart for Portugal, despite being the fourth country to be fully eliminated from the ranking. I was hoping that Salvabrat would have started a hot streak, but alas. Portugal just keep getting screwed over by subpar staging and their own stubborness, leading to insistent dismissal by the fanbase. I fucking hope people (Portugal deniers) come to their senses though because they are consistently robbing one of Eurovision’s best fucking countries. 

NORTH MACEDONIA:

Sean Tarbuck from ESCUnited nailed Macedonia the best: they are a country of amazing music and utterly disastrous lives. They are probably the single worst stagers in Eurovision? The numbers don’t lie, with a qualification rate equivalent worse than San Marino’s. Just look at what Slovenia and Serbia are doing, Maco, and you’ll be fine!!!

CZECH REPUBLIC

There isn’t much to say about the Czech, but they’ve finally contributed with an entry I not only liked, but loved. I do think we are in the beginning years of a Czech Golden Age though and if they can keep that hot streak going, Eurovision might be coming to Prague very soon (ie: within the next five years.)

[evotter]

jan, march, sept + one of your choice, love. have a great day, u icon

thank u kyra i adore u

january: what was the first fic you posted this year?

the first fic i posted this year TECHNICALLY was the epilogue of a different path. the first standalone was chewbacca (aka my introduction to the jily world once again and i have such a soft spot for it)

march: do you listen to music whilst writing? 

yes! pretty much always; if it’s not music, it’s a TV show.

september: share a comment or review which still warms your heart?

quite literally anything you’ve left on any of my fics BUT there are a few that i hold dear to my heart. i’ll post them under the cut cause they are LONG :’)

ancient: the first fic you ever posted online?

hahahaaaaaaa. it was my own version of rick riordan’s the son of neptune before the actual book was published. it was on ff.net, and the first chapter got 7 reviews, and i felt so good about myself after that lmfao. who knew i’d still be writing 8 years later?

ask me questions!

OKAY so i have 3 top favorites:

from a different path:

okay so i had seen this in someone else’s bookmarks the other day, thought it was an interesting concept—especially since i too love slytherin!percy and strongly subscribe to ofswordsandpens’ headcanons about it—but didn’t give it another thought until i was listening to a video about the cursed child and went: wait, there’s a percabeth hogwarts au that i saw somewhere. and immediately i hunted this down and i’m just in awe? i tore through it. belatedly, i realized that i made a mistake: i didn’t write down my thoughts as i was reading, which is definitely a disservice to you. however, here are a generalized list of things that i loved.

first of all, with hogwarts au’s, there are three main aspects that i look for: plot, characterization, and quality of writing. normally, fics of this size lack one or more of these key factors, but i was astonished to find that the plot is tremendously tight and intriguing (my lip bled from biting it so much because i’ve been stressed to the max), you write these characters with such distinct voices i can easily picture them saying everything—except, of course, now in a little british accent—and your writing flows so well, it feels almost like i’m reading an actual harry potter book, just with percy and co. you also do a masterful job of weaving together aspects of the pjo universe with the established canon of hp.

and there are so many specific things that i love. primarily, the way you write the relationships in this story; not just concerning percabeth (though i will get to that in a minute), but also with each of the interactions between all of the characters. i applaud you for how you handled luke/annabeth and rachel/percy, and the friendship among them all is just incredibly well done. i especially love how well you wrote connor and zoë and just, a lot of characters that i don’t often think about when i think of pjo. grover and percy’s friendship especially is heartbreaking, i just. he’s so protective because he loves his friends and holy fuck i also love how you wrote grover in this. but i just adored how you wrote annabeth/percy—the love between them, both platonic in its early stages and the romantic all throughout, was doubly apparent. i ached when they kissed each other’s cheeks, and i inwardly cheered when she kissed him in the locker room. there was just such a natural progression, to me, of their relationship. and man did i dig it. i’m excited (and maybe a little scared) to see where you take their relationship in the future.

boy, this is getting long. sorry. but some more just little quick things: loved the b99 reference, with both of their competitive natures playing out in a similar way to jake and amy’s. i kind of want to go back and see if i can find any other references that i missed because i was just too engaged in the story to catch them. also, zoë’s death killed me all over again, thanks for that. i like how you’re working the kronos plot in, and i can’t wait to see how the Final Battle plays out. what else? oh! professor hestia? beautiful. eventual maybe professor percy? outstanding. percy kissing the top of annabeth’s head? breathtaking. rachel being a quidditch commentator? earth shattering. (truly i cackled when i saw that.) mrs. o’leary being a cat? incredible. how you incorporated percy’s water powers? stunning.

ooh, this exchange was beautiful and had me cackling it was so in-character:

“None of us are dying.” Connor clarifies. “Not you, not me, not Annie, not the rest of us.”

“I might have to dispute that.” Annabeth says, from Percy’s other side. “Call me ‘Annie’ one more time, Stoll, and I’ll kill you myself.”

Connor only grins at her. “Sorry, love. No more ‘Annie’. Can I call you Beth?”

“No.”

“Anna?”

“No.”

okay, so i just finished chapter nine and i am blown away. sorry for how long this comment was, but a fic of this magnitude truly warrants it. i can’t wait to see what happens next.

i leave you with just two words: “holy shit.”

from a different path: 

god, oh my god, am i the only dumb bitch who didn’t get what the prophecy was??

anyway, i stumbled on this fic last year, patiently waiting for its completion, and now that i’ve rediscovered it, i’m so glad i finished it all in one go! i couldn’t imagine the tension of waiting for the next chapter, especially since the tension is so well-crafted!! i hardly noticed the tonal shift even as the story got darker and darker as it led up to the war, and in that way i was reminded of how extremely similar it felt to reading the hp books for the first time! you nailed percy very well i might say, and the awkward-yet-caring relationship he has with his dad. i daresay you gave connor and zoe more characterization than rick riordan himself, and the percabeth you wrote is perfect to the nth degree. i appreciate that you didnt bother with all the love triangle and unrequited feelings nonsense as well.

but i have to say, even as i cried at sally and paul’s wedding, or at dionysus’ quiet mourning for castor, what really struck with me most was the way you handled silena. for that, i have no words. that was a job extremely well done. thank you so much for blessing us with this fic.

from chewbacca (a comment from u!): 

A girl in a bright yellow hooded raincoat stumbles into the cafe on one of the slowest nights James has ever seen. Her coat is dripping all over the floor he’d just cleaned (but it’s fine) and when he leans over the counter he sees that her boots match the coat.

First of all!!! Thats the best opening line in the world and nobody can convince me otherwise. I want to become a publisher just so that if you ever write a book, I’d be able to publish it. ( like omg, what an honor??? )

She looks like sunshine, standing there with the amount of yellow in her wardrobe. Briefly, James wonders if that’s her favorite color. It’s got to be.

Im going to quote this whole fic but I really love these lines? Like, you have this distinct style of writiting that I aim to acheive and you’re literally such a rolemodel!!! These are my favorite kind of fics to read. Funny story but I was going through a ‘no thanks Jily’ mood (  a horror, i know !! ) but your fics are just,,,,exceptions? You could write about trash and I’d love it and ask for you to sign me up.

 “Say it again, but convincingly this time.”

ooof this dialogue??? let me breathe

This is the longest he’s stood still since he started working. It’s actually a miracle.

and the funniest person award goes to YOU. also, the most talented and cutest but thats neither here nor there.

james taking care of fleamont, switching off the lights gives me just a nice and realistic vibe? its so simple but i love how you added it.

honestly at this point, ive been sucked again by the fanfic. it feels less like a fic and more like a masterpiece that belongs in a museum but anyway.

“James is supposed to be helping.

James is on his phone.”

ugh i love ur mind. im rereading and its so nice and lovely. even if its like 1am and im exhausted, this fic is sustaining me.

“Do it off the clock, would you?”

PEAK HUMOR

have i mentioned how much i love that scene with euphemia? she seems like such a lovely mom. i love ur euphemia the most. and ahh, both of them just rushing to the hospital ? another 100% good scene.

“Euphemia smiles too, but looks at Fleamont rather than at her son. “Yes,” she says. “It really does.””

fic? or shakspeare? HMMM

A girl in a bright yellow hooded raincoat stumbles into the cafe on one of the slowest nights James has ever seen // “Get fucked.”

the fic!! has made a circle!!! i love how it begins and ends along the same lines. I really want to know how??? are you so talented im in love.

i just really love this fic, okay? i love how james is just the kindest, lily is allowed to have feelings, its just so soft and warm. and it makes someone feel loved, want love anyway.

the dynamic between the characters are just so real and great and im astounded, in short.

your sirius is everything. so many fics potray him as a dick??? which is first of all #rude and also, not at all true. you made me love these characters even more so i sincerely hope you never stop writing.

you’re such a beautiful writer and the way you string words together is just poetic and gorgeous and all the other good adjectives you can think of. i read your spiderman x reader too and i was a goner for you. EVERYTHING YOU WRITE IS SO GOOD. i read it so long ago but i can vividly remember peter whipping the mask off and she just going wtf stop on the window ledge. what im trying to say is that you leave this lasting impression on people that make them remember random scenes and words / prose long after they’ve read it which is a remarkable feat, i believe.

and im so sorry im not on tumblr rn bc i cannot keep recing this fic but i have told my friends about your writing and they loved it too. you’ve got like a million fans. when i do get back from my hiatus, im going to keep recing your fics and people will cry because their universe will shift thanks to the newfound joy of your presence in their life.

lastly, im more of a dog person and that, more than anything, should tell you how much i love this fic. i love u. and basee on your writing, i want to hug you, be your best friend and make you cookies bc again

WOW

[gundampilot]

Inspired by @dialup2002 to post some more old stuff. :) This is a desktop screenshot I posted on my DevART account January 2005. Kicking it with Windows XP, but I loved/preferred the classic style that I was accustom to (95-98-ME). I made the wallpaper used, but I’m having trouble finding a copy of it. I’ll prob try to remake it in non-1024x768 resolution lmao. Not sure if this is from 2005. It might have been from 2004, but I hadn’t posted it yet. I did that a lot. Some fun notes about some of the software icons pictured (lots of info):

Firefox - THE FIRST BROWSER TO DO TABS OMG. I was a huge advocate for Firefox, especially in its initial releases. They were doing things on the internet nobody had really seen up to that point, and made it popular! Since I had so many issues (as most people do) with Internet Explorer, I was shopping around for a new browser at the time of this shot. Google Chrome didn’t exist yet. (Can you imagine??)

IE - As stated above, I disliked IE. It was kept for various reasons, however. Such as testing website layouts, since the mass-majority of people used it and things looked different in browsers when you were coding.

Opera - While giving Firefox a try, I also managed to snag a very, very early copy of Opera. I’ve always been the type of person that loved to try out new stuff as early as possible, and this was a very special piece of software that I wanted to give a go. The reason that it was special? You had to send away for a CD for it. That’s right, kids. They snail-mail’ed me a CD because it was considered “commercial software.” I paid to get that browser lmfao. I was super super hyped later in 2005, because it became “freeware” and I was able to more-easily push my friends to try it out. The devs were (and still are) seriously awesome. This is why I still use Opera as my main browser today! Ya’ll should try it if you aren’t already! You can even use your most-beloved Chrome extensions on it. :)

Soulseek & WinMX - Holy crap, you guys! lmao Is anyone here old enough to remember these programs?? XD This was basically where most people went after Napster bit the dust. This was when we were all scrambling, trying to find a new P2P sharing program. This was right in-between the eMule/Donkey phase and before the Limewire/KaZaA fiascos where people’s computers were being overloaded with viruses from companies trying to stop pirating. Ahh, the wild, wild west... Days were so exciting when you spent hours downloading something that could potentially ruin your computer lmao

WS_FTP - Still one of my favorite FTP programs for Windows! Works like a charm! These days I use Transmit 5 for Mac, but this was my first program ever for file transfer protocol. It’s basically a tool for uploading files to my website’s server, because back when I first registered it, there was no web uploader for that kinda stuff. Now I stick with that because it’s easier and I’m used to it lol

Veo Digital Studio - Used to use this for my webcam back before webcams were built into laptops, and before they were common enough to have amazing freeware available for them.  (Also this is hilarious.) The quality was horrible, but I was hella excited to take pictures and share them with friends and on my blog at the time. From what I remember, there was something I used after this that was some type of South Korean selca software. Haduri? Something like that. It was really cute and even let you do little animations. :) 

Animation Shop - Okay. So... from what I remember, this might have been owned by the people that made Paint Shop Pro? I think it was Corel. I honestly don’t remember where I got this from, but this is what I used to use to make animated gifs (because Photoshop just....didn’t for some reason? I had to use PSP at some point, I remember that. I just don’t remember why lmao. It might have been my copy didn’t allow it, or my computer was just too shit to run it good enough, or just stopped working because....Windows). 

Adobe Photoshop 5.0 - I originally got this rip from a friend of mine, whose dad got a CD from his company that he worked at. It was an official/real license, which was really awesome! I think this was the first version of Photoshop I ever owned (!!), which is pretty amazing to think about about! I had that CD copy for a few years. I initially was gifted a copy of the CD around 2001-2002 or so. I know for a fact I had newer versions (7.0 was legend before CS suite came around), so I’m not sure why I was using this one at this point lmao. My guess is, like mentioned above, something happened with my computer and I didn’t want to format it and reinstall everything lol or because it was the fastest version I had installed to boot up and do a quick photo edit.

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - I do remember this took a long time to start up. I can only imagine this was like a bad pirated copy or something, or was so bloated with new stuff in it, and that’s why I kept 5.0 for a quick boot. I know I used this majority of the time, though. Most of my backups for brushes and fonts are from backups that include 7.0 as a zip. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  My computer wasn’t the most powerful at the time, despite what I pushed it to do, so this is prob why.  But hell yeah! Photoshop represent! lol I still use it today, and its still one of the first things I install on a fresh OS install. Enjoying CC 2017 these days.

Nero Start Smart - I was so excited to make mix CDs and share them! Back in the day before you had stuff like playlists that were sharable on YouTube/Spotify, etc, you had this to share music. Or play in your car. Or CD walkman. Nero was a software you could burn your CD-Rs and make your own laser-etched album art! I begged for years to get a CD burner lmao. Back when casette tapes were still around enough that my parents were like “but why???” lmao. They were not common back in the day like they became over time, just, like, included on your computer. Back then you had to buy one and install it into your computer tower yourself! I got mine I believe.....in 2001? It was the year after the Playstation 2 was released. The first one I got was just a very standard burner. Did a very specific type of CD burning at a low (slow af) speed. It was $700 lmfao. Let that sink in for a minute because my parents didn’t let me forget about it for the next four years lmfao. I saved up birthday and Christmas money and went halves on it. Then I upgraded to the one that this one was! c: Which did the laser etching, and DVD burning! (And you better believe I was burning DVDs of stuff I was downloading online lmfao this was the golden age of the internet where everything was just available everywhere as long as you had the patience to download that shit, because it took forever to download)

Volume Control - My dad and I messed with the wires on all of these random computer speakers and stereo speakers that we had collected over the years and hotwired our own version of a 5.0 surround sound in the room, which was mounted to the ceiling corners and above the computer station. It was lit. I needed Volume Control easily accessible because sometimes the speakers needed redirecting, or I needed to turn the beats down because my mother was tired of my fifth time playing the Gundam Wing OSTs and Miyavi. (It was metal, okay???)

Windows Media Player - I did not use this to listen to media. Let me reiterate that. I did not use it to listen to media on. lol this was specifically used to rip tracks from CDs that friends lent me, because it was the easiest software I was able to use to change the KBPs for quality control and the ID3 tags so I could save it and organize it for use in Winamp and know wtf I was listening to lol. Nobody used WMP for listening to music.... xD 

Winamp - The best music player. Period. Still. Nothing beats it. Pls, pls, Nullsoft! Come back and make a native version for MacOS. :’((((  I would buy it! Doesn’t even have to have new features or look different. Classic look, pls pls! 

Media Player Classic - Do people still use it??? This player was amazing! Paired with k-lite codec pack, it played everything. It was like VLC before VLC. And it looked good. Clean. Small. Could be installed anywhere which was nice. And the codec packs just made everything look and run fantastic! 

Recycle Bin - .... Trash XD 

Magnifier - This was for my dad because he had bad eyes and couldn’t remember CTRL +/-/0 to increase the text on pages that he wanted to read.

My Documents - Where I saved all the stuff I downloaded. Not the real My Docs. Just a folder that I named as such, with a custom icon. I don’t know why I wanted it there lol. I think to just have a uniform square on my desktop haha

Journal - I renamed this. I forget the original name of the client, but it was the official client of LJ. It was basically a program that let you write up posts for Livejournal and you could format things, draft them, etc, and post without uploading to your journal/blog. I liked it because sometimes I couldn’t post right away, and it made making drafts a lot easier for me to go back and edit. It also let you edit past posts, which was really convenient instead of looking for it on the web version one post at a time.

AIM+ - I loved AOL Instant Messenger, but over time the ads became too much. I invested a lot of time in 3rd party clients. I was constantly switching between AIM+, Adium, DeadAIM, Pigeon, Trillion, etc. Depended on what I wanted to do that day. Want to clone a SN? Want to skin the colors of the chats? Need transparency? Want to customize your lists? Want to log into more than one msg system at once? They all had their strengths. This was my msg service of choice. Back in the day you were either on this, MSN, or Yahoo!. Some people rocked ICQ and there were a few others, but these were the most common from who I knew/hung out with. I miss those days. <3 

You can see WinMX running in the taskbar lmfao so I was prob downloading something at the time of snagging this quick shot. I also had DevART open (prob because I was gonna share this on there). I really wish I had more programs open at the time of this! XD It’s wild to look back at some of the software changes over the years!

Anyway, that’s one of my oldest screenshots that I can find that I’m able to share right now. :) I’m going to be posting a remake of that wallpaper that I did later today for those of you that want that, too.

If you read this far, thank you!! Hope you had fun reading about old stuff! 

[goldie-claws]

bubblebobble reblogged your post:OK so according to the post that says “don’t post...

i assure you guilting people into reblogging your art makes most people ignore it lmfao especially with that attitude

Guilting people to reblog my artwork is not my intention, never has been, and never will be. I’m a little bad with my words so let me try again:

Many artists will and have tried various ways to get out there in the world and get noticed. I understand there is a fine line between this, and generally just guilting people into reblogging their artwork. I have seen artists do what I do currently, adding Reblogs > Likes to their descriptions (that is the only thing I have ever done. I only ever started adding that into my posts when I moved over here, and only for about a year or so). I have also seen artists add links to their other sites (redbubble; twitter etc. which is something I don’t do, since apparently links can break easily). I have even seen artists say they won’t continue posting until their latest drawing gets X amount of notes (personally, I feel that is pushing it too far, but I can understand why they may do that, depending on the context).

Like I said in the post, “when you’ve been drawing on this hell site for 4 years, have moved from a previously very popular blog for personal reasons and only about 2 people follow onto this current blog” it can get to you, something I won’t deny, but that’s just life I guess.

Also, that post is aimed specifically and only at Tumblr and its staff for being absolutely atrocious with its coding, not other users in general, and all I was saying overall was that I will start encouraging people to check out my blog and see what I have to offer with a little advertising. I am in no way saying you MUST check out my blog and you MUST reblog my art (there are various artists I myself follow, and even I don’t reblog everything they draw), I am simply trying to promote my work so that I may gain an audience. If they don’t like my attitude, then so be it.

[wellthatwasterrifying]

100 questions with 100 answers

One time in 2012 I answered all of these questions and I wanted to redo them because it felt fun to see what all had changed 

http://wellthatwasterrifying.tumblr.com/post/24306127834/100-answers-to-100-questions

The old one. ^^^^

The new one vvvv

1) Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.

  Honestly I don’t use iTunes very much anymore. I use a lot of spotify but here’s iTunes

“Who’d have known”- Lilly Allen

“Forever” - Youngblood Hawke

“A Poetice Retelling Of An Unfortunate Seduction“ - Bright Eyes

“Shot of Love” - AC/DC

“Something in the Way You Are” Kimbra

This feels silly because I haven’t listened to most of these in years

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

  I’ll keep it with Brendon Urie. /shrug

3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

  “Like Gansey, he had studied the ley lines for years”

4) What do you think about most?

Lately I think a lot about the future and what I want from it. Are the choices now leading to the future I have imagined or will what I’ve imagined change drastically in the next few years? Are the decisions I’m making now good enough? Of course they are.  

5) What does your latest text message from someone else say?

 Oh it’s much less academic than what I had in 2012, almost shamefully so. 

“I can ask him tomorrow but we are good with pretty much anytime Friday”

6) Do you sleep with ____ or without ______  on?

  I sleep with music on or without the TV backlight on.

7) What’s your strangest talent?

  Honest to god I can’t think of one. But I think that speaks more to my lack of being able to think on the spot than my lack of a strange talent. 

8) Girls…. (finish the sentence); Boys…. (finish the sentence)

 Girls are hurricanes; boys are sea shores. 

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?

 Yeah I have. Good times.

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?

 Probably the last time I answered this. LIE. It was when I was thinking of ideas for a bar.

11) Do you have any strange phobias?

I still don’t think I have anything that I’d call a phobia, but I’m not fond of speaking in front of large groups.

12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

 Most likely

13) What’s your religion?

 I’m a Christian. Baptist. Southern Baptist. Only in the sense that I was raised that way, it doesn’t really impact my life or sway any decision that I make anymore. I don’t believe that there is some omnipotent being controlling or judging every decision we make. 

14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

  Lately it has been studying because there’s a super nice little court yard area outside of the pharmacy building that I really enjoying sitting at

15) Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

 I prefer to be behind the camera. Forever behind the camera.

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

  I don’t have a specific favorite anymore. I’d still probably say Say Anything out of reflexive habit, but overall I don’t listen to any one particular artist anymore.

17) What was the last lie you told?

  "It was only 3 scoops.“

18) Do you believe in karma?

 Yeah. Yeah I do.

19) What does your URL mean?

  There was one time my tumblr post started getting posted on my twitter account which my mom followed. So she sent me this text message about how my account must have been hacked because it was not a “teresa’s daughter” post. That was a terrifying moment. 

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

 I’d say my greatest weakness is my inability to believe in myself sometimes, I put myself down instead of realizing that I am actually pretty amazing. My greatest strength though is realizing other peoples strengths and pushing them to utilize them to their greatest potential.

21) Who is your celebrity crush?

 BREEENDON URIE [told you he would be back again][and again]

22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

  shhhhhhh

23) How do you vent your anger?

  I don’t have a great way to vent my anger anymore.  I used to write it down, but now I just internalize it until it bubbles over. Like I said not a great way. I’m working on changing it into “talking” about  my feelings.

24) Do you have a collection of anything?

 A collection? Not unless the sheer amount of books I’m trying to amass is considered a collection.  lmao I’m still collecting books. 

25) Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

 I prefer talking on the phone

26) Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

  I am really happy with the person I’ve become. I do still have a lot of things to work on but it would be boring if I weren’t a work in progress.

27) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

 I haaaaaate the sound of Jenny doing flea bites. Drives me crazy. I love sleepy voice.

28) What’s your biggest "what if”?

 What if I had realized I was holding onto the wrong thing sooner

29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

  It’s possible

30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

  Both touched the arm of the chair. Because I’m in an arm chair.

31) Smell the air. What do you smell?

   The smell of some vaguely gross carpet that is in the process of being fixed. 

32) What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

 The farm my sister was on all those years ago. Still true. 

33) Choose East Coast or West Coast?

 East Coast, but I’ve never been on West Coast.

34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

 BRENDON URIE [and again]

35) To you, what is the meaning of life?

 I think the meaning of life is to find as many of the moments that make you feel like exploding from happiness, that bubble up from the inside and pour over. 

36) Define Art.

 Emotional outlet for those who can express themselves through a medium. Damn. I was smart in 2012. What happened!

37) Do you believe in luck?

  A lot of where I am now feels like luck

38) What’s the weather like right now?

 I wanna say overcast and maybe drizzling

39) What time is it?

  11:02pm

40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

  I do drive and yes I’ve crashed. whoop whoop.

41) What was the last book you read?

  The Raven King, again.

42) Do you like the smell of gasoline?

  Not very much but I do like the smell of it on someones clothes after they’ve been messing with a car or something. 

43) Do you have any nicknames?

  I do. The kids at work call me Aims and sadly the people at school call me Boose because I was trying to tell them my last name is said like rice but I shorted out and told them it sounds like juice. So I’m forever known as Boose.

44) What was the last movie you saw?

  Venom

45) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

 I accidently cut my hand on a pocket knife and had to receive stitches. I was only like 6 though, so that’s no big deal. Still the worst

46) Have you ever caught a butterfly?

 Are there people who haven’t done this? Like not having caught a firefly, sure, but a butterfly??

47) Do you have any obsessions right now?

 BOTW

48) What’s your sexual orientation?

 Straight. Honestly probably Bi.

49) Ever had a rumor spread about you?

   Yeah but I can’t remember what it was anymore

50) Do you believe in magic?

Only in a young girls heart.

51) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

Not intentionally. I seem to have gained some unhealthy habits from my parents and may have accidentally gained their ability to have a hard time letting things go. But not for everything. Right?????

52) What is your astrological sign?

 Sagittarius! I’d hope this was the same, except there was that scare where they talked about adding another sign and that would have changed mine.

53) Do you save money or spend it?

 Save it. Mostly.

54) What’s the last thing you purchased?

 It has been a few days since I’ve bought anything…gas?

55)  Love or lust?

 Sometimes I think lust would be more fun, but love is more worthwhile.

56) In a relationship?

yeeeeeees (but I want to know who I was dating in 2012??? Zach??? noooo Matt????)(was that you matt???)

57) How many relationships have you had?

7?

58) Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

 No. No I cannot.

59) Where were you yesterday?

I went to my parents for family day/jackson’s birthday.

60) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

  Gummy worms

61) Are you wearing socks right now?

 yesh

62) What’s your favorite animal?

 Dogs. I really think they might be my favorite. I feel so guilty not changing this to cats because blueberry is the light of my liiiiiife. 

63) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

  I notice little things about them

64) Where is your best friend?

  At her home.

65) Spit or swallow?(;

 HA. Wouldn’t you like to know!

66) What is your heritage?

 Dutch on my dads side and Irish on my moms. (supposedly)

67) What were you doing last night at 12 AM?

Laying in bed debating whether or not I should sleep.

68) What do you think is Satan’s last name?

[                                      ]  Did I even type anything here in 2012?? I tried to copy and paste and now I’m thinking I was playing a trick on myself.

69) Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

This is like the butterfly question. Hasn’t everyone?

70) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

 Sometimes, but I also know I’m a bit odd.

71) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

LMFAO. I wish you knew my boss now. I’d save the dog. Thomas can suck it.

72) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

A) I wouldn’t make it public but I would tell my core.

B) I’d spend as much time as I could with the people I love because that’s what this is about for me.

C) yes

73) You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

 Trust.

74) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

Stonewallin’ by Jane Decker(?)

75) What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

 2259. This wasn’t true in 2012. What was I doing???

76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

 I think it’s communication and trust. Knowing that they’re there for you and vice versa. 

77) How can I win your heart?

 Listen to what I have to say

78) Can insanity bring on more creativity?

 Depends on how insane you are

79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

 To go after what I want and not look back. I will climb this damn mountain. 

80) What size shoes do you wear?

8.5 I think…

81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

 “She was…”----this is actually still fine because right now all i can think is “She tried...”

82) What is your favorite word?

  incorrigible

83) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

 felt

84) What is a saying you say a lot?

 This is true. Awwwww man. 6 years later and I still say this a lot. How do people put up with that?!

85) What’s the last song you listened to?

  Them Dirty Bones - Mike Waters

86) Basic question; what’s your favorite color/colors?

 Red!

87) What is your current desktop picture?

  Hipster shit.

88) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

 There isn’t anyone I would kill…

89) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

 Why

90) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

SCREAM my head off. Or panic and have a heart attack. 

91) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

   Teleportation without having to have visited the place before.

92) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

  That one.

93) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

 blogger. or that one time in the parking lot at UGA where I felt like the world was falling apart again.

94) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

 BRENDON URIE [again again]

95) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

  Iceland

96) Do you have any relatives in jail?

 Yes

97) Have you ever thrown up in the car?

No, but I almost did once instead I threw up in a CVS parking lot which felt fitting

98) Ever been on a plane?

 YES

99) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

  get a grip

100) Give me your top 5 favorite blogs on Tumblr.

sheissuffering

Cooncomic

thatoneismine

burgertv

done

I don’t know. I’d say I only have two favorites