#tozette.txt

[tozettastone]

I'm being so serious right now: there are people out there, just wandering around in fandom, who do genuinely think podfic is primarily an accessibility tool.

Podficcers get such a raw deal in fandom:

they have evergreen hosting issues (unless grandfathered in under the Paraka clause) that the OTW typically considers outside its infrastructural wheelhouse

they have to carefully ensure they have permission to actually make their works because their works contain the complete text of someone else's work

which means they have to go ASK or else hope someone has a blanket permission statement

which means they ALSO have to read fic writers' weird hostile non-consent statements when an "I do not permit people to make podfics of my works," could really have done the job

they get really low levels of engagement on their works and while that's rarely people's only reason for making something, most people do like engagement

they have to constantly educate other fans about how what they're making isn't glorified text to speech, but actually a performance in its own right

now, apparently, people think they're performing some kind of charitable function for accessibility (a take I've seen casually mentioned three times in the last few months)

And I still see people just floating around through fandom like: "wow I'm so glad the podficcers are. making fanfic accessible. even if I don't need to use podfics."

Nobody NEEDS to "use" podfics. You can run a fanfic through text to speech if you want that. Podficcers transform a fanfic through the power of both their performance and a whole bunch of [elements of mysterious sound-based expertise, here represented only by CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA played backwards at 25% speed¹], which they have kindly recorded and packaged up neatly for you to listen to.

Like... Sir? What? They are ...making art? As a hobby?? Like the rest of us??? Yes????

Just like if it was fanart, you don't have to like other people's art but it's NOT "an accessibility tool I don't need to use." They are not just like a weird extra interface between you and the "accessible" version of a fanfic, okay? Accessibility is a really cool side benefit, but it's not the main purpose.

1. I'm not a podficcer, IDK what they're doing about the sounds. Other than kindly not pronouncing all my typos. Please.

[tozettastone]

Update: my YouTube recommendations are now safely returned to their usual state of dumb stories about people's pets and cats yelling out the window, with only the occasional look in from BookTube. Phew.

[tozettastone]

People keep posting about how bad they feel in December and I'm sure for many people in the northern hemisphere that IS a wintertime thing, sure enough, but

Have you considered?

December is also Big Routine Disrupt Time.

Everyone wants a piece of you in December. Public holidays. Family events. SOMEONE is bound to be drunk. You have to travel. Your workplace either goes into overdrive or becomes a ghost town. You have a list of obligations as long as your arm all happening at once.

Your routine is being disrupted by outside forces and it won't slow down until. Like. Mid January at best. 💀

[tozettastone]

Hot take: the boxes in Deadpool comics are boxes because they're a comic book format, and he's aware (sometimes) that he's in a comic.

The text-only equivalent for fanfic purposes would be either to lean really really REALLY hard into the classic comic books feel and describe other comic book conventions with equal dedication, or to use obnoxious footnotes to the same effect.

But if Deadpool is actually aware he's in a fanfic, as a type and format of story with its own conventions, what you are actually looking for is a 2003-era "(A/N: ...)" in the middle of the text. Metatextual delusions should be sensitive to the meta-text in question I think.

[tozettastone]

Reading through people's feelings about plagiarism has suggested to me that, quite aside from a lot of fear and confusion on the topic of what plagiarism actually is, a surprising number of people simply do not understand how to write an undergrad essay.

When you're writing an essay for university, you are not meant to be mired in a scary bog where you're too intimidated to offer an opinion but still trying to support it with other people's ideas.

You are meant to come up with a single-sentence reply to the essay topic (call that your contention or thesis statement) and then use original arguments and carefully selected evidence from other sources to elaborate upon that single point. You are meant to make other people believe the point you made up could be true. Your job is to draw a bright clear line through all your evidence and analysis to the inevitable conclusion that your contention is right.

Finishing a basic university essay should feel like you have found the hill someone else¹ is going to die on today.

¹ Not you, though. You're going to win the argument, after all.

[tozettastone]

Fine.

MY Naruto OC is a genjutsu master femme fatale missing-nin whose raison d'etre is to investigate the inner workings of the grass-roots, organised criminal networks that support missing-nin.

She is 52 and she has no name, no bank account, and six different illusory personas she uses as she deems necessary (some of them are real people who already exist) (some of them are real ninja who already exist).

She considers herself a criminologist and collects quantitative data about client-nin interactions, including negotiations, prices for services, murders and double-crosses, and the like. She publishes them and sometimes missing-nin just... discover they are in her case studies.

She has been stalking Kakuzu, her greatest outlier, for 35 years. He is an outlier in several ways, usually because he is a legacy object in the whole missing-nin network. She is unwell about him. Accordingly, 13 year old Itachi joining the Akatsuki—with his genjutsu proof eyes—almost ended her whole career.

[tozettastone]

I think there comes a point at which a fandom is large enough that you get fans in it who aren't actually even slightly interested in the canon, let alone fans of it. And one of the bizarre symptoms of this size of fandom is that they become loyal fans of characters who aren't really characters in canon.

For example, there are so many characters in Naruto who have almost no page time, very little evident personality, and weirdly intense fans. Usually, in fandoms of all sizes, fans love characters and ships that feature relatively defined characteristics. We've all met the But Sasuke Did Nothing Wrong people, listened to the the Kisame girls, or nodded along to that one friend who has fallen down a Minato/Kushina rabbit hole and can't get up. These are all characters with characteristics (although we could argue for days about their quality—that's a post for another time). You would get that kind of fan activity anywhere there was fandom.

But then, when the fandom is big enough that there's a mass of content that actually concerns extremely minor characters with few characteristics, you get something else. In Naruto fandom... you get the person who is dedicated to any given Izuna ship. You know, Madara's brother who looks like Sasuke and whose primary role in the manga is being dead? You get the person who insists Shisui is "a joyful flirt." There's more than one person who appears out of nowhere to ask: I am sick with my longing for romance fics about Rasa, can you write more about Rasa?

Ra... Who? Gaara's dad? Yes, Gaara's dad!

We have all encountered these people. And I say "people," because I've encountered more than one of each of the above examples.

I think this is the same phenomenon as people who get really into, like, Regulus Black. You have to like, wrap your head around the idea that they're not actually fans of the canon material. They're fans of the fandom.

The fandom is so large, and so many layers deep, that it gives characters who are really just answering a little question in the canon storyline ("Where did Gaara get that demon?" "Who put the locket in the Black townhouse?" "Why is Madara like this?") much more significance and, well, character. So now ...they get fans too!

[tozettastone]

I know it's considered old fashioned now, but the traditional etiquette is actually that if you invite someone to go do an activity with you (like going out for dinner, or to the cinema, or to an exhibition, or whatever) the person who extends the invitation is the person who pays.

The idea is that you offered by implication when you extended the invitation. You're the host. You're picking the itinerary and you need to be prepared to cover it. (Of course, if your companion offers to split the cost with you, that's their own business.)

Obviously there are some circumstances where this may not apply, but those are case-by-case expectations created within specific relationships. Generally, the person who extends the invitation pays for the amusement. The person who is invited is offering their company, which is all that has been asked of them.

I'm not Miss Manners, but I really think this particular item of etiquette has disappeared somehow? And that it ought to make a comeback. Because it's easier to manage your expectations if you know that there actually ARE RULES to this kind of thing.

[tozettastone]

Online queer communities do like to talk about how you have to be THIS level of oppressed to be a real queer. And here's the thing.

If you define queerness via oppression, either your identity hinges on being a perpetual victim of oppression, or else the end goal of your activism is to annihilate the community out of existence.

I advise you to acknowledge oppression, but pick something else to hang your sense of self on.

[tozettastone]

Five fun sized KakuHida one shot ideas—

ONE

Hidan has a deeply dumb business idea. Whatever it is, it is so so stupid. It makes zero sense in a rational market. It's also wildly successful anyway because Hidan is hot, and that's more of a superpower than being smart or having a bloodline limit and MAYBE more of a superpower than being functionally immortal. It totally defies Kakuzu's predictions (which were of course of failure and collapse). Hidan is a terrible winner. He's also gone and donated all his profit to an obscure monastery in the back hills off the swampy end of Hot Water. He says money makes you dumb, and also sinful. Mostly dumb. Kakuzu is going to kill him. Like, again. Harder this time.

TWO

Hidan and Kakuzu have been married in the secular (and thus meaningless) sense for tax reasons for several years now, but recently Kakuzu has realised he can get free food at all sorts of places if they pretend they're honeymooning. He has been 'honeymooning with Hidan' for eighteen months now. The rest of the Akatsuki are pretty evenly split on what the hell kind of relationship this is, which is why today Deidara has embarked on the incredibly fucked up mission of interrogating Hidan's severed head about his sex life, yeah.

THREE

Hidan is a nightmare travelling companion. He is variously: too cold (put a shirt on), bored, tired, sunburned (put a shirt on), hungry, sick (shouldn't have eaten that, then), dirty, damp and miserable... Kakuzu has killed him five times this week alone, and so far all it's done is make him complain that he's bloody and he needs another bath. The next time he slings the body over his shoulder and carries the head in the crook of one arm, mouth sewn shut and hands inaccessible. It does not help.

FOUR

Itachi and Kakuzu must work together when the Akatsuki is hired to defraud someone's insurance provider via a genjutsu that can fool the insurance adjuster. Kakuzu is bringing the knowledge and context, and Itachi is bringing the godlike genjutsu skills. Itachi-san is on time, polite, quiet, and absolutely professional. He respects Kakuzu's combat abilities and bizarrely complete understanding of insurance regulations. Kakuzu respects his genjutsu skills. They're nailing their mission, effortlessly! Also, just as an aside: it's been three days since Kakuzu last heard someone complain about blood in his hair or scream a hymn to suffering twenty minutes before dawn, and he thinks he's losing his fucking mind. He's... unstable. Mentally. Mentally unstable. That's the only possible reason. Obliquely he broaches this with Itachi, who is an actual foetus and who is definitely judging him. It doesn't help and it's mortifying.

(I think this one needs POV breaks where we switch to Hidan, who is bored out of his mind and driving Kisame to drink.)

FIVE

There's finally a bounty taken out on Hidan, which has taken a damn long time to arrive because a) nobody cares about shinobi from Hot Water, really and b) most of the time Hidan doesn't leave enough people alive for anyone to notice how much of a menace he is. Kakuzu is having an amazing week. He's handed Hidan's head and body off in two pieces at six different drop points this week alone. He just sits on a rock and counts his lovely, lovely money until his partner stumbles back down the road, covered in blood, holding his head on one-handed, and glaring and wildly annoyed about it. And then he just does it again. Kakuzu has made so much money. Finally, one weird trick that works.

[tozettastone]

Very few fics need to be longer than a short novel. When we start getting into multiple hundreds of thousands of words, usually, we've actually just planned poorly, gotten stuck in the interminable middle of a story we haven't planned an ending for, or caved to peer pressure to write more of something that's come past its expiry date as a concept.

[tozettastone]

I think I speak for everyone when I say: weeeehhhhhhhh.

[tozettastone]

I think my biggest language pet peeves now are all just the plague of business jargon in which some genius consultant makes up a bizarre frankenword that we must all now understand and use instead of the very well known word that already exists for its purpose.

Today's example was 'solutioned,' (do you mean solved?) but business language is absolutely plagued by this phenomenon. Examples like... 'decomplexify,' (simplify?) and 'learnings,' (lessons?) which is now particularly ubiquitous.

God. I'm still holding a grudge against kpmg for 'disbenefits'. Disbenefits.

[tozettastone]

It's sometimes pretty interesting to watch people struggle to navigate the murky space between "AO3 is a website that exists to support a social hobby," and "AO3 is categorically not social media and does not invite ephemera."

It really inhabits a space that many contemporary young adults simply do not seem to recognise. A non-profit text archive available to anyone in the era of the for-profit internet is like a weird bird that evolved on an island unpopulated by humans lol.

[tozettastone]

The thing about Kakuzu and Hidan is that I think they each think they're the normal one in this relationship and neither one of them could possibly be any further from the truth.

They're both absolute fucking freaks, but when you're writing POV, each is the straight man in his own internal narrative.

[tozettastone]

Reading is a skill. Storytelling is a collaborative effort between writer and audience. It is in the in-between spaces where meaning is constructed.