#what do you mean this is just a dumb gifset on tumblr i am an ARTIST lololol

[chloecherrysip]

"This guy's a lunatic. A psycho! He will eat you for breakfast. He won't even notice it, probably, because you're very, VERY small."

"Y'know what? Make fun of me all you want, but you are gonna help me find my brother."

(The Super Mario Bros. Movie, 2023)

[jangyeevns]

he likes you, they said !

y’all are flirting, they said !

he’s just an idiot dw, they said !

it’s the way i never once fully believed a damn thing people told me and now that it seems i was right not to, i... don’t know how to feel.

like, i didn’t really see him like that fully, just because i confided in him a ton so i automatically assumed we’d be friends and that’s it. but between people giving their takes on how we spoke publicly and just how i felt heard and shit, i guess a little part of me was hoping there was a slight crush — at worst, to feel better about myself when i never feel considered, and at best, in case whatever confusion cleared up to me feeling the same. but the banter just became sexually charged jokes that were said to our other friends and being a little mean but never meaning it, so it became less likely that anything that was said by outsiders was true. and then to see him still conversing and being close to an ex who another person i know has feelings for and thought might be going somewhere... i’m not thinking very highly of myself right now, to say the least. being defensively pessimistic is always the best option, because it means i’m less likely to get hurt or to feel insignificant, defeated and undesirable, but i messed up by giving even an ounce more credence to friends’ opinions than i normally would; simply because the possibility made me feel good, and now here we are, me feeling like i’m a nuisance and not wanting to talk to him much anymore. i put too much weight in my feelings of security that between my few outbursts over petty things, fessing up to injuring myself as a means of reacting to a trigger/some morbid act of self-preservation and constant teasing/chatting, i feel like i’m slowly being seen as the inferior version of myself that i’ve always seen myself to be — whether it’s in friend form or something beyond that.

and that digs just as deep as the opinions that set me and my already low hopes up for failure.

[thewanderingace]

I just wanna say that it's a good thing I make gifs because I love doing it and that I do it for myself because the like to reblog ratio is atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. If I did this for followers or attention or notes or whatever i'd have stopped by now because it's so incredibly discouraging.

Let's just take a look at some of my more recent gifsets that I've posted on my various blogs:

That ratio is awful.

Guys, I love likes. I do. I love and appreciate every single like i get. More than you know. But likes do nothing for visibility. This is not like Twitter or Instagram where you like something and others see it on their page. Here on tumblr, that's what the reblog is for. If no one reblogs content, that content doesn't get to anyone else to be seen.

I'm not saying don't like. That'd be dumb. I like stuff too. Most of the time I like a post and then once a week I go through my likes and build a queue from it, reblogging everything I've liked throughout the week with proper tags because I like being organized. But people arent doing that! People like and then never reblog it every.

So I am asking you all to please, please consider reblogging a post you like as well. Please. It gives content creators more visibility which makes us so happy which makes us want to make more things. Reblogs mean visibility. Reblogs are important to how tumblr functions.

Now personally, never gonna stop making gifs because I love doing it and I make things I want to see but it does sting a bit when I get barely anyone reblogging them. Feels like no one likes it that much.

And I know content creators have been saying this stuff for so long now but it's still just as important. We shouldn't still be fighting for visibility.

REBLOG CONTENT IF YOU WANT MORE CONTENT

[hoforwonho]

check in tag ✅ Tagged by @sapphicshawol! Thanks!<3

1. why did you choose your url?

It's just who I am as a person

2. any side blogs?

I have a side blog for horror, but that's just between me & god.

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

I've had this blog for almost a year now? I made it in October 2020!

4. do you have a queue tag?

Absolutely not. I reblog things in quick bursts and then disappear.

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

I didn't want to annoy my friends with k-pop talk, and I figured Tumblr would be a good place to go to find content & learn about different groups.

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

The answer's in the URL

7. why did you choose your header?

I thought about changing it to something else, but... I'm just a thirsty bitch that loves Wonho.

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

The lil gifset I made in like, 5 minutes, because I was losing it over Lose. Like, Wonho's hot, but it's wild that those gifs have as many notes as they do.

9. how many mutuals do you have?

36? If I counted right? I probably didn't, I'm a certified dumb bitch.

10. how many followers do you have?

150

11. how many people do you follow?

149

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

Never

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

It's usually always open on my laptop, but like, lost in a sea of tabs. I check it a couple of times a day.

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Yes, I'm constantly battling people who don't fully support tiny sluts.

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

I usually ignore them. I'm literally only here to reblog kpop idols and a few other things I like.

16. do you like tag games?

Absolutely. I need to be tagged in literally everything or I'll die.

17. do you like ask games?

Yes!! They're super fun.

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

No clue? I mean, over 2000 followers feels like a lot so probably Jenny?

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

Nope

20. tags?

@kihyunsgf @allerdalehalls @pinkhyojin @devil-mp3 @shiningwonho @uh0paque @kingleedo @taeminsupremacist

[nishihiroto]

check in tag ✅

tagged by bestie @jaehyukkies thanks friend ✨putting this under read more since it’s so long! 

1. why did you choose your url?

honestly i had no idea what to do for my url (as erin knows because i made her help me brainstorm) but i ult a.c.e and knew that i’d be posting a lot of them on here so i did a mashup of donghun (my ult bias my beloved) and byeongkwan. 

2. any side blogs? if you have them name them and why you have them.

nope just this absolute chaotic multistan mess of a blog

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr in 2010 but i have since wiped that one from the face of the earth because it was a very depressing mess of high school sadness and hardcore music. i made this one in january i think! 

4. do you have a queue tag?

nope!

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

mostly because erin told me i should looool and that it would be fun so i decided to give it a try! 

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because pink fuzzy sweater donghun my beloved

7. why did you choose your header?

i was inspired to try to make my own header (using a template though) so i made it with some colors i like but honestly i do not love it and might try to do something else at some point soon 

8. what's your post with the most notes?

as of right now it’s my donghun set from the down music video!! which makes me very happy 

9. how many mutuals do you have?

honestly i do not know, but i love every single one of you!!! 

10. how many followers do you have?

166 as of right now! 

11. how many people do you follow?

260! 

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

i am not exactly sure what that is but i write a lot of dumb text posts lol

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

i’m lurking on here randomly every day and i try to reblog as much content as i can! i usually post like one gifset a day but sometimes it’s more like 3 a week if i’m busy/not feeling inspired. but sometimes i’ll post like three in a day lol 

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

lol who has time for that i have a job 

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

not sure exactly what this means, but in terms of social impact stuff i think everyone interacts with important issues in their own way. i feel that it’s important to be informed on what’s going on in the world but it’s also important to get information from trusted sources and take real, meaningful action in a way that feels comfortable and appropriate for you. i also don’t think it’s anyone’s place to tell anyone else what to share on their own page. hopefully that makes sense lol. 

16. do you like tag games?

yes they are fun and i love doing them! but sometimes i forget to do them because i’ll see them at work and just like, totally forget by the time i’m off. 

17. do you like ask games?

yes i love screaming into the void about things and making new friends 

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

erin knows that i think she is tumblr famous and i am always in awe of the amazing community she has built here! and i have mutuals who make some amazing content that i am in awe of and they are tumblr famous to me lol

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

i have friend crushes on all of my mutuals plz be my friends thank you

20. tags?

i’ll tag @24hoursofdaisy, @yootaeyanq, @shuaway, @blacckestrose, @takatamashi and anyone else who wants to do this! but please feel free to ignore since this is very long lol 💖

[reputayswift]

Ever since I saw your exile literati gifset I cant get over how cyclical their relationship is! They really have seen this film before!! Why do you think Rory keeps coming back to Jess especially when she’s in a relationship with someone else?

Hey there! First off, thank you for checking out my Exile edit, I appreciate that a lot :) Secondly, this question sent me into an analytical spiral which is why you’re getting a response a few days late lol! I wanna preface this by saying that I’ve read a LOT of GG takes so anything I’m about to say has probably definitely been said more eloquently and concisely by someone else. Also I’m not going to get into comparing the boyfriends specifically because 1. I’ve watched the Jess eps more than any other so I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to talk on the other bfs 2. Conflict scares me :)

Okay so!

1. My (Somewhat) Reasonable Answer

I think they have a certain level of understanding that draws them back towards each other. I know Jess saying he “knows [Rory] better than anyone” in s6 is pretty controversial in the fandom (and I would never say Jess’s connection with Rory is deeper than her and, say, Lorelai’s) but that theme of “knowing”/mutual understanding crops up a lot for them (I’ve also seen a quote floating around from the writers saying they were intended to have a “meeting-of-the-minds” situation going on but all the sources I found for that were from Tumblr so not sure on the legitimacy of that).

Aside from both being bookworms they’re also both dealing with having others’ narrow expectations placed on them. The people of Stars Hollow (and in Jess’s case, his mother as well) reduce them to archetypes/caricatures of themselves (Town Sweetheart, Bad Boy). We see this pretty clearly when Taylor takes issue with Rory not wanting to play “Ice Cream Queen” once she sets her sights on college and Rory being hailed as the (literal) “poster-child of censorship.” Early on Jess susses out that Rory’s not exactly pleased with having this role forced on her (when Rory complains that her censorship poster is “stupid” Jess responds that “it’s the people who are stupid” and switches around the movie discs to get it taken down), which is one of our first glimpses at this understanding/peeling-back-their-images theme.

Teach Me Tonight has probably some of the most obvious examples of this. When Rory asks Jess why he’s not planning on attending college (when she knows that he’s more than capable, despite his lack of effort in school) he says:

“Ask my mother, she could give you a couple reasons. Oh, and I’m sure Principal Merton can chime in with a few good ones. In fact, ask your mother. She doesn’t know me all that well but I’m sure she could improvise a few things.”

Notice his response has everything to do with others’ uninformed expectations and nothing to do with his own desires! Then we have Rory saying her dream is to be an overseas correspondent and Jess initially thinking it sounds “a little too rough for [her]” (going off of that gentle Town Sweetheart assumption) then immediately pushing that away and assuring her she’ll do it.

Then we have Lorelai’s Graduation Day/The New York ep which is a huge turning point for their relationship! This whole interaction when Rory boards the bus back home really emphasizes the breaking-through-expectations point:

“Why did you come here?... I mean, you ditched school and everything. That's so not you. Why'd you do it?”

“Because, you didn't say goodbye.”

“Oh...Bye, Rory.”

Especially in conjunction with Rory’s confusion regarding her own actions after the fact:

“This is not who I am. If I were to write this down in my diary and I would read it, I would be like, Who is this freak? This isn't me.This isn't my diary. I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't skip school when I have finals coming up to go see a guy that isn't even my guy and end up missing my mother's graduation, which I wanted to be at so badly. That's someone else. That's someone flighty and stupid and dumb and girly.”

So we not only have Rory going against her own responsible schoolgirl image, but also Rory breaking through Jess’s assumption that people expect/desire him to leave (not caring enough for a warning or explanation). My friend @sanssa has a great post expanding on this better than I ever could :)

Alright so! The controversial s6 “WHY DID YOU DROP OUT OF YALE?” ep! Jess showing up (denim jacket, tousled hair, sparkly eyes...) having finally harnessed his own smarts with a published book is perhaps the perfect example of how the Jess x Rory relationship empowers them to seek out their own desires despite expectations:

“Jess, you've got such a great brain. I knew that if you could just sit down and stop shaking it around, you could do something like this. I knew it. I knew it.”

“I know you did...I just basically wanted to show you that. Uh, tell you...tell you that I couldn't have done it without you.”

Fast-forward to their mid-dinner argument, where Jess says:

“I know you better than anyone. This isn't you...What are you doing? Living at your grandparents' place, being in the DAR, no Yale — Why did you drop out of Yale?!

You could (and many have!) argue that this wasn’t his place to interfere (if you’re not invested in Jess I can completely understand how having the boyfriend with the least screen-time show up — tousled and sparkly as he may be — to tell her he knows her best and she’s — in kinder words — wasting her life away would have you saying “Who’s this guy?” lol) but when you look at their history of pushing past each others’ fronts and get to Rory’s resulting realization;

“[Jess is] doing something...I’m not. I mean, what am I doing? I'm living with my grandparents... I'm palling with my grandmother and being waited on by a maid. I come home, and my shoes are magically shined. My clothes are magically clean, ironed, and laid out. My bed is magically turned down. I'm in the DAR? I'm going to meetings and teas and cocktail parties?... And wasting my time partying and drinking, just hanging out doing nothing,”

I personally interpret it as him telling her a hard truth she was shielding herself from accepting. And of course we see his intervention in-part sets off her reconnecting with Lorelai and getting back on track with her schooling/dreams, in much the same way Rory pushing past his “no one expects anything of me so I’m going to do nothing with my life” assumption motivates him to pursue writing more seriously.

Then finally we get to the Revival where Jess finds Rory in a slump again and encourages her to write a book about her and her mother:

“Where is this coming from? What inspired you?”

“I was frustrated. I was talking to Jess —”

...

“Last night I outlined the first five chapters just like that. That’s a sign...This is it, this is what I’m supposed to do.”

TL;DR: They understand each other in a way that lets them see past others’ assumptions/expectations to the true, complicated them in a way that empowers them to follow their dreams and be better versions of themselves

2. My Extremely Biased Hopeless Romantic Answer

There’s some sort of soulmate/red string of fate thing going on, Alexa play Invisible String

[sifeng]

Love and Redemption: Some Thoughts and a Comparison with Ashes of Love

So, I’ve been watching Love and Redemption (琉璃) and while there are some visible faults, I also quite like some plot points and characters. So here are some of my thoughts and also, if your an Ashes of Love fan I totally recommend you check this drama out! The themes are similar, the character setups are similar, the worlds are similar too. 

I’ve just finished the 35th episode, and I’ve gotten to a point where a flower creature of sorts has been forced to become Ling Long 2.0. I actually really like this idea because it shows that a lot of people become evil because of the people they are around, not because they are naturally evil, their personality is naturally cruel or anything else of the sort. Ling Long grew up around “orthodox” people that, while also imperfect, weren’t sadistic like Wu Tong. Because of that she became a person that liked to fight for peace and removal of evil from the world. However, when her exact same personality was placed in a different atmosphere without previous memories she became just as sadistic and cruel as the people around her. I think that actually fits super well with the overall theme of this drama, which is that good and bad aren’t black and white. Even a person who is “good” in the subjective sense of that term can just as easily be “evil” if placed in a different growth environment. Honestly I find it so interesting that Ling Long went from A Zhu to A Zi (Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils reference) in like one episode. 

A Comparison

When I first started liking cdramas, one of my first favorites was Ashes of Love (香蜜沉沉烬如霜), but I actually like this drama more. First of all, I think the pacing is better. The beginning of AoL was a little draggy now that I think about it, and Jin Mi only began to really show her feelings for Xu Feng around episode 30 (and it wasn’t even Jin Mi liking Xu Feng it was Saintess liking the King). In comparison, in Love and Redemption, we see from the very start that Xuanji likes Sifeng in a different manner then she likes, for example, Minyan, thus not only making it easier to ship them, but also being able to get to the tragic elements of the story faster. The CGI in Love and Redemption is simply amazing, beats 99% of cdramas honestly. I wish the cinematography was a little better because with this level of CGI, it truly deserves better camerawork. 

Also, I dislike when people call Xuanji stupid, because while in the beginning she is a little dumb, she really isn’t as bad as some other characters out there. She’s like what 20? And she’s never left home or her training place in her life. Why would anyone expect her not to make trouble? Or get in trouble? That’s like teaching how to memorize all the math formulas in the world, but not teaching you how to use them and then blaming you for not being able to apply them. I haven’t gotten to the really tragic part where Xuanji and Sifeng get separated, but so far I like her more than Jin Mi honestly. Xuanji might not be the smartest person, but I love how trustworthy she is of her friends and how high she holds her friendships. Unlike so many of the adults in this series, she actually uses logic to try to understand problems not just problematic and contradictory pieces evidence. Like when Minyan is accused of being betraying their sect, she doesn’t just go “oh there’s ‘evidence’? Then he must be guilty”, she actually thinks about his character and personality and how illogical it would be if he actually betrayed them. 

I also like Sifeng more than Xu Feng. When he was being accused of being a demon, he managed to bring up inarguable pieces of evidence that clearly proved he was not a demon, or at least not a problematic one instead of just going like “you should believe me because I’m so great!” (not that Xu Feng did that, but he did use ethos instead of logos, though, both apparently don’t work if you’re a male lead in a tragic xianxia). The tragedy of his character is done so well honestly. He died for Xuanji in 9 lifetimes. NINE. Please give him a happy ending. (Okay but I really dislike his second hairstyle with the two strings of hair hanging out and also Teng She’s hairstyle. Why can’t they just tuck that piece of hair in? It makes me feel so annoyed for some reason.)

No one likes Hao Chen, and I’m glad. He hates people manipulating Xuanji, but he manipulates her all the time. I do agree that if Xuanji is happy without her six senses, she shouldn’t be forced to search for them, but she isn’t happy and she wants to search for them. So why should anyone who actually likes her try to prevent that? But I actually think his character is written relatively well. As the ruler (or second in command?) of the heavenly realm, he has to put matters in front of romance, though that doesn’t mean he has to manipulate her. I understand why he does what he does and I don’t think his character is as illogical as Wu Tong, but yeah, I definitely don’t agree with what he does. In comparison, Run Yu is truly quite likable. He does try to keep Jin Mi to himself instead of letting her be happy, but overall his story is written really well and evokes our sympathy.

Oh and when it comes to friendships I also prefer the ones in Love and Redemption. First of all, it’s not just Xuanji and Sifeng who are cute together, I like that Sifeng is friends with Ling Long and Minyan as well, and they also become friends with Yanran (or Xiao Yinhua) and Ruoyu as well (though they could’ve avoided some tragedy if they hadn’t befriended him). I don’t know why, but I’m really excited to see what tragedy our OTP goes through later on, because I’ve seen the gifsets on Tumblr and boy am I excited for some tragedy!

But one thing that is better about AoL is definitely the acting. I think Cheng Yi and Yuan Bingyan did pretty good here, especially Cheng Yi, but Yang Zi, Deng Lun and Luo Yunxi (especially Yang Zi and Luo Yunxi) are more experienced and thus obviously better, especially when it comes to really emotional scenes. 

FInal Thoughts

One problem I have with Love and Redemption, at least so far, is that the evil demons have no motivations to be as evil as they are. I’m pretty sure I’ll get a reason, but so far I have to say that they aren’t really well done characters in that sense. Especially Wu Tong. Like this guy has no backstory whatsoever, but is extremely cruel and sadistic from the first second we meet him. Maybe he’s like really just insane or something, but his whole “sympathy story” for why he joined the demons makes zero sense. He wanted to murder someone because him cheating gets revealed and then gets mad that the father of the person he tried to kill wants to get revenge. His story also contains two (as of so far) unexplained plot holes: 1. why every single sect decided to chase after him and 2. why he managed to escape death despite a bunch of skilled martial artists running after him for like a really long time. 

Lastly, I like the fact that the orthodox people aren’t exactly “evil” but their goodness is what makes them annoying. They don’t mean harm when they tried to test if Sifeng was a demon or if Minyan is a betrayer, they truly are thinking for the overall good, but their constant paranoia and need to do “what is right” and not “what makes sense” is truly what makes them unbearable. They sometimes throw away all logic for love, or sacrifice their own daughter in order to “do what’s right” instead of actually thinking of a method to not only save the daughter and keep the world at peace. It’s because of their goodness that they are able to be manipulated into idiocracy by Li Ze Palace. 

Oh and one last thought. I don’t know if it’s on purpose, but the lack of people in the heavenly realm is really interesting. Like, maybe the producers didn’t have enough money, or shots of the heavenly realm with more than like ten people (not in war) don’t exist in the book either, but it creates the image that the realm is super empty. The human realm, despite all its faults and cruelties, feels so much more alive and full of life in comparison to the boring and cold looking heavenly realm. 

[bellamyblakru]

HEYYYYYYY i’m so excited to respond to ur ask it made me so happy to see u in my notifs and i’m so excited for u for ur milestone! anyways i kinda want all of them but i decided to cut down to 🥺 :)))) 👀 pls rant i will read it all and ☕️ for morgwen andddd manon from the tog books. <3 <3 :*

HEY AMY!!! i hope you had a lovely day today🥺thank you for the ask💞

🥺- for my mutuals, ill talk about why i follow you and why everyone should be as well

omg im pretty sure i met and started following you like the day of that bellamy scene™️ because i remember thinking how fucking horrendous that episode ended, and, at the same time, how amazing that night on tumblr was aksnakaaj. so that night, tumblr was a fucking disaster and chaotic and funny asf. i remember texting @tkstrrand the entire ep (bc she couldn’t watch it for some reason) like how boring it was/how she wasn’t missing much blahblah and then when the death scene happened at the last fucking second, i sent her about a thousand separate incoherent texts in the span of like two minutes LOL tumblr was in shambles and i made a few posts about how fucking dumb the show was—one post i made i told my few new followers to fuck the 100 and just watch merlin and you texted me about it!! we have literally so much in common (with merlin, atla, the 100, tog!!!) that when you texted me about how you felt about that scene compared to merlin’s ending, my thought was like “this blog is so kind and we feel the same way and i need to follow asap.”

you are literally so sweet and lovely to talk to🥺that night™️ may had been disastrous, but i can look on it with a lighter heart because we met because of it!! every time we talk i always smile so much (and dw, i know i still have to get clone wars for our boy anakin👀👀)

dude, everyone should be following you because your blog is incredible, your tags are superb, and you are literally one of the sweetest people i’ve met on here😭💞 i adore you.

👀 - and ill tell you a parallel from merlin or the 100 that still fucks me up

this post for merthur still FUCKS ME UP by @camelotsheart

THE EYES. THE GIFSET’S BEAUTIFUL COLORING. THE EYES. EYES. I CANT. THIS GIFSET HAUNTS ME. parallels, man, i fucking love them.

☕️ + send me a ship/character/movie/book and ill give you my opinions on it

my opinions on morgwen:

I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I SHIP IT WITH MY WHOLE ASS SOUL. dude, their potential as a ship is incredible😭i fucking love them together. i wrote them as a side pairing in my first multi-chapter merthur fic and i adored writing their interactions and dynamic sm. if morgana was going to be with anyone, my first choice will always be gwen. i also read them as a pairing in fics all the time because the pure power-couple potential is insane.

hot ☕️ here™️: i think if someone was to bring morgana back from the brink of hatred, it should have been gwen (not merlin). so, like, i could definitely see merlin telling her about his magic and whatnot and maybe that would have stopped her from going dark side...but...i didn’t think merlin should have (ekk probably an unpopular opinion).

see, i love merlin with my entire heart..and tbh telling uther fucking pendragon’s ward that he had magic was just too much of a gamble—especially with arthur’s life on the line, which literally became merlin’s sole purpose in life (another matter for a different essay™️). i understand his need to keep it a secret from her even more when the large reptile repeatedly got into merlin’s head that she was bad news from the jump (also another matter for a different essay™️).

SO. that leaves two options for our miserable magical gal: arthur or gwen. now, i honestly believe arthur wouldn’t have hurt her if he was told. and i even think he may have became more sympathetic to the magical community because of it—especially when he saved mordred wayyyy early on that cemented the fact that arthur was not uther. but i can also understand why morgana wouldn’t tell arthur, and it’s pretty much the same reason merlin didn’t tell her about his magic: the risk was too big and she didn’t want to gamble her life with an unknown reaction.

now we get to the main point: gwen would have been the best option for her. whether it is platonic or not, gwen was always there for morgana. gwen is such a kind, loving soul, and she deeply respected and adored morgana—you can tell by the way she smiled around her in the beginning seasons, how she would get her flowers, how she would worry about morgana’s wellbeing. even though gwen was morgana’s servant, she cared for her in more ways than were required and it showed. they were best friends. the entire incident with gwen’s father, which was horrendous, might be the reason gwen would be rightfully upset about the subject of magic; however. she knew her father wasn’t magical, she knew uther was a tyrant, and she knew morgana’s heart. someone is gonna tell me that if morgana had explained to gwen what happened, how her magic was innate, how morgana would never fucking choose to have magic anywhere near her shithead guardian (who probably would have killed her imo if he knew bc you know the whole “fire will purify” bullshit), that gwen would hate her??? I MEAN LITERALLY WATCH THE LAST EPISODES AGAIN. when QUEEN GWEN realizes that the whole time it was merlin saving everyone’s asses, and she connected all the dots, her face showed nothing but pure understanding and acceptance.

gwen was such an underused character. her fucking potential arcs could have been phenomenal (again, LOL, another matter for a different essay™️), and the way canon made morgana use gwen was fucking gross and im not a fan🙃 but fuck canon. i ship them and i love them to pieces ✌🏻thank you for coming to my talk✌🏻

my opinions on manon mf blackbeak:

oh boy, where do i start? i would die for her...is that too extreme for the starting place? i fucking LOVE manon blackbeak dude. oh my god, so, remember when her and aelin fought for the first time in QoS? i remember jumping up from my lounging position with my hand over my smiling mouth because i love both of these badass hardcore women with everything i am. i mean, aelin owns my ass (she is probably my favorite character of all time rn) but manon hits differently. her storyline at the beginning was so bleh, but, man, did it escalate fast to “holy shit” to “i fucking love her” to “oh fuck im sobbing.”

the only thing i will complain about with her character in canon was the fact that my girl was straight???? excuse me?? she has been alive for fucking forever and she is straight? no. i cant accept that. tbh i ship manon and elide🥺 (i also ship dorain and chaol oops). but her character development was everything and i cant think too long on what happens because i will start crying tbh sksjsmakks

okay wow im so sorry for, uh, spilling every thought i had into this. it legit took me like a day to respond 😔

i appreciate you so much. thank you🥺💞

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

a message.

This whole post is full of things I’ve wanted to say for a very long time. So yes, this is going to be very long.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say I’m sorry to the innocent people who had nothing to do with this. I’ve never ever been involved with online/fandom drama before, I hate being in this position so fucking much with all my heart and soul, and I never thought in my whole life that I’d be in this position, either.

Secondly, this is about the DEF LEPPARD FANDOM ON TUMBLR. If you’re not part of this fandom, kindly fuck off :^) This is not about you.

This post explains why I feel this way. And to those innocent people who aren’t involved with this, I’m sincerely sorry if any of this has changed your opinions of me.

I’m in a mood and a half, so I’ll do my best to effectively tell everything from my perspective. Read if you want, but this is just what I’m thinking.

I’ve been running this blog for almost three years now. When I first joined this fandom on tumblr at the beginning of 2018, there wasn’t really a ‘fandom’ per se; all the main blogs were dead, no one ever really posted, and there wasn’t much content. I decided to start a DL blog of my own to vent my love into it and not spam my main account. 

Within a month, I could quickly see that some sort of renaissance was happening in this fandom; more blogs were popping up, more people were posting, and more people were just participating in general. There were memes now, there were conversations now- it was great! There was a real community; it was all about sharing information, spewing our love, getting creative, and interacting! 

There was integrity, and there was respect for the band as well as one another.

I, as part of this community, wanted to do everything in my physical power to contribute in any way I could. I was insanely active and hyper-productive and could not be stopped. I still haven’t stopped, but I certainly have slowed down significantly (due to lack of new activity from the band and increased mental health issues I won’t get into). I don’t want to be self-centered and say that I was “running” this branch of the fandom for the past 2.7 years, but I was certainly a big player in it, and I feel everyone agreed (and some still agree) with that as well.

There were some times where disagreements happened. There were times where many of us knew that someone else was crossing a line in a post. We knew what qualified as “not okay” in terms of being perverted and such. We’d solve this by not blaming, not hounding, not sending anon hate, not calling out, but by presenting facts, talking maturely, and trying to right the wrongs as maturely as we could.

Yes, it was possible. Was.

I don’t think you guys realize just how much content I’ve contributed to this fandom. I have spent basically every single day of the past 3-ish years trying to spread information/content/photos/videos/links/etc. to everyone who follows me (and everyone who doesn’t). This fandom was (and I cannot stress this enough), literally my entire life for the past 3 odd years, and I really wanted to spend the rest of my life contributing to it the way I’ve been.

I don't think anyone on here realizes everything that I have done for this community. Because of me:

this fandom has access to Animal Instinct for free

this fandom has access to the rare picture disc interview

this fandom has numerous scans of photos that may have not ended up online otherwise (I also paid $70 to have access to some of these. You're welcome.)

we have Fabulist Icons content

we have a decent amount of fanfiction that doesn't only focus on the boys banging each other/sex in general (seriously, this simply didn’t exist on here before I started posting my shit)

we have a little more fan art

we have content from Phil's and Ross's books

we have hundreds (yes, literally, HUNDREDS) of edits/moodboards/memes/etc. that I made myself

we have gifsets of things that no one else would have made

we have achieved justice a lot of the time when content was stolen because I have defended everyone without question/rallied up armies the second I heard it happened

some of you have gotten updates on news/facts/history/details/etc. that you’ve never even heard of

probably a shit ton more things, but that’s all I can think of for now. You get the point.

But that’s only half the story. This band and fandom has given me so much to cherish over the past few years.

Because of this fandom and the people (that were once) in it, I have:

met Rick in person

met, quite honestly, my two best friends ever, @ballistic-lipstick-dream-machine (my true Terror Twin) and @paper-sxn (adopted little sister/cousin)

became in contact with Phil's guitar tech from the mid-80s (Mike)

gained creative ambition to play guitar, create art, write stories, make edits/gifs, travel, and basically just better myself

began a record collection that is now in the hundreds and gained a lot of knowledge from it

discovered a whole new genre of music

found a community/culture where, for the very very first time in my life, I felt like I BELONGED.

fallen in love with something and someone for the first time

felt like I actually mattered to people, like I was actually important (because people would always come to me for information or help if they needed it)

basically impacted every corner of my life

just about a million other things, too, but I will be here all night if I try to list them all.

To put it delicately: Def Leppard and this fandom on tumblr absolutely changed my life, and was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

I have spread so much information around, you newer people wouldn't imagine. I have gathered and seen so much information, you wouldn't believe how much I know and how much I've learned. I have bounced back and forth between formats time after time again that I feel like I’m stuck in a time warp. I have edited so many things on non-professional programs that I am an MS paint expert. I have been here so long, that I’ve seen 98% of the people in this branch of the fandom rotate in and out at least two or three times. 

That being said, all of the toxic people in this fandom will most likely be gone within the next 6 months. 

Def Leppard has taught me so much, but a big thing was love and loyalty. It's clear that the majority of people in this fandom (read my lips- I am N O T saying anyone’s names. I mean that.) do not know the meanings of either of these words. I've been practically running this fandom on Tumblr for nearly three years now, you’ve seen all that I’ve done for you, and what have I gotten in return?

Slander, cyberbullying, disrespect, consistently stolen content, etc. That’s what I’ve gotten. I’ve never attacked anyone on here, and that is still something I won’t do.

Yes, I am against slash fic, and I can’t believe that THAT’S the only reason why I’m being torn down like this. Something so dumb and immature as that has torn my beloved community in half. I have never attacked ANYONE for writing slash fic, yet I’ve been getting attacked since August (it is November now) for simply believing it is wrong to openly admit you want the boys to fuck each other.

(I’d also like to point out that someone from the KISS fandom ((god knows why)) had the balls to call me “homophobic” for hating slashfic. I can’t even begin to explain how much I laughed at that.)

I just wanna say that these are REAL people you’re writing about, you know. Don’t you think THEY would be against it? I know I cannot stop anyone from writing slash (I’ve said that before, but no one seems to remember it). I don’t think any of you realize that there is a certain line you shouldn’t cross when it comes to the internet, and being perverted in such an explicit and disrespectful way is one of them. We always had integrity in this fandom, and slash was never part of something we stood for. We knew when to stop, and we kept the slash on rockfic.com (where it belongs imo. That’s like their element).

I was very confused when more slash fics started appearing on tumblr this year. Now, it seems like that’s all there is, and I’m disgusted.

Whenever something close to that happened in 2018, everyone would be totally against it, and we’d talk it out and explain. While we all had our fair share of horny (and maybe then some) in this fandom, but we always knew where to draw the line. That was the line. That line doesn’t exist anymore, apparently, and nobody knows how to be mature and respectful to the band, to each other, and just for fuck’s sake. Now, I’m being slammed that being perverted for them fucking their best friends is “just fandom, bitch” and “the norm” and that it’s done “out of respect”, which I will never understand. You can’t use “slash” and “respectful” in the same sentence, and you can’t change my mind, but I know I can’t change yours, either. 

Slash is not, nor will it ever be, respectful. This fandom has become toxic.

Fanfiction is an outlet for creativity to be used for fun, not to be used as an excuse to project your sexually perverted sexuality headcannons/fetishes onto innocent, REAL, LIVE people. If all you write/read is them having sex with each other, then it really makes you wonder if it’s about “respect” anymore, doesn’t it?

In my opinion it’s fucked up that it’s “normal” and “just part of fandom” to create sexualities for- again- REAL, LIVE PEOPLE, and it’s everyone’s first instinct to argue that it’s fine, apparently? If you “respect” your idols so much like you claim you do, then why don’t you maybe respect their actual orientations instead of creating masturbation material for random 12 year olds and boomers, perhaps?

I don’t know what I did that was so fucking wrong in your eyes, as I’ve always tried to keep integrity in this area of tumblr. 

I'm very deeply hurt, more than I've ever been by this. It physically hurts me to admit that this fandom has become as toxic as it currently is. I don’t feel welcome here anymore at all, despite practically running things on here for so long.

I don’t know how I could ever live without this fandom, but now it looks like I’m going to have to try, or at least try and rebuild it on my own (again). I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop posting about Def Leppard, and after all, I only started posting about them for myself to begin with.

We were supposed to be the good fandom, the happy fandom, the fandom with no drama. I am ashamed to be associated with you now. I tried to stop it as best as I could, and hoped people would back me up, but I’ve received nothing but hate for simply trying to preserve some dignity.

You guys have been immature to say the least, and I find it very hard to believe that some of you are legal adults (but let’s be honest; most of you toxic people are probably too young to even be behind a computer, anyway). 

I’ve had to block some people that I really didn’t want to, but the deed is done. Keep your slash to yourself, tag it, do a read more, post it somewhere else, even- that’s how you co-exist. Just don’t come after me because I think it’s wrong. I never came after anyone specifically like that.

This isn’t goodbye, but I certainly am leaving for a while. I hope I got my point, my history, and my perspective across.

And I hope you’re fucking happy, because you’ve destroyed something I loved.

-Rachel

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

Hey, I know it's easier said than done but please don't let lack of notes/lack of interaction on fics here get you down. I love reading fics on here, but I think people get nervous about interaction and I think the way the site is set up it doesn't favor fics as much as art, gifsets and visual mediums. Your stories are good and I really like them.

This accidentally got real long and too personal, and for that I apologize.

I mean, I don’t see why people would get nervous about interacting with me, I even answer the people who hate me and write nasty messages. But true, I suppose tumblr isn’t really the best interface for like...messaging and the such, though my private messages are always open and my askbox is open most of the time.

And the way I do my fandom so to speak is, if I don’t like something, I don’t interact with it. I don’t hate on it, and in some cases if I don’t want to see something I just block the account since it’s the easiest way. So I relate that to my work. If I put something out there and it doesn’t really get any feedback or interactions, it’s clearly not something people like or want, so I shouldn’t do it again, or at least not in that space. And lately, that seems like no matter what I write, gen, shippy, shady relationships, kosher relationships, I’m just really not getting much of anything.

But, and I’ve complained about this before, even when I DO get interactions, it’s demanding I write something for them. It’s a prompt. Despite how often I say I am not taking any of those. It’s the internet demanding I do something for them because they want it, not because I want to. And I’ll beg for people to just...send headcanons or tell me about their day or something, and I get nothing. But I know they lurk, waiting for that post that says ‘hey I’m taking short story prompts right now!’ because then I’m blasted with them. But then when I say ‘hey, submit the commission or support my patreon’ and there’s nothing. Now, of course I understand a lot of my followers are children or have no money. But...my interactions the past few years have boiled down to just...greed.

Basically - the interactions I get make me feel used, not a part of the fandom, or a community. And most of that happens here on Tumblr. So why should I stay or make an effort on a site that makes me feel like garbage?

Now, I try to keep the real hella personal stuff off of here, because, ya know, who cares? But I hit rock bottom in real life in 2019, so have been trying to use 2020 and all its dumpster fire-ness to take a ‘gap year’ so to speak. Refigure myself out, where I want to be, what I want to do. Who I am. Some days are good, and some days are bad. Lately, the past few months, most days have been bad. Really bad. I felt worthless, with no skills, no friends, no future, no anything. Every real life interaction I had made me just feel like I didn’t deserve to be here, didn’t deserve anything. I had an anxiety attack in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, where I ended up texting one of my oldest friends at 2am all the ideations of disappearing and dying that were going on in my head. The only reason I got out of it is because Damian, my fucking cat, apparently knew what to do and calmed me down. 

And that’s real life. Then I come on the internet, and those feelings are just magnified in an art form I do as a hobby. This place is a choice, so why would I choose to keep doing something that’s just adding on to how shitty I feel?

So. I mean, I appreciate the message, I really do. And I wish it was as basic as ‘the website doesn’t amplify text over visual’ or ‘people are nervous to talk to each other’ but I know it’s not. I’ve been here for ages, I know how this dumb website cycles. And I’m just tired of putting in the effort of shouting into the internet void.

But thank you for liking my stories. that’s very kind of you, and I appreciate it more than I can ever say. :)

[bomberqueen17]

firefox and i am a grouch

Well, I went back to Firefox. I’d been a big mozilla/firefox user back on Windows but I got a Mac starting in like, ‘04, and we didn’t know any better back then and Safari seemed fine and Chrome harmless because Google’s motto used to be “Don’t be evil” and anyway. Been on Chrome for like a decade now and it crashes every time I leave my computer plugged in more than three hours, and so when I woke up this morning to it crashed again I was like, fuckit. I’ll switch back to Firefox.

But of course, that means I lose whatever tabs I’ve got open. So there were a bunch of AO3 comments open I was going to reply to, and some DW entries with comments I was gonna reply to from like, months ago probably, and I also had a pile of tabs about research for various novels I haven’t worked on in uhhhhh longer than I care to admit, and anyway.

Firefox seems fine but so far it has totally failed to let me use a verification code to log in-- it said “invalid parameter: state” when I entered it, and then the only option was to send the same exact code again to me. So I closed the window, and went to the login window and it let me log in just fine without any kind of code, so uhhh I guess that’s a whole sham. Then immediately it was like “let us text a link to Firefox to your phone!” so I was like ok sure and typed in my phone number, and it was like “ta-da, we sent it!” No, you did not. I re-checked the number, and it was correct, so I hit the “resend” button and the exact same absolutely nothing happened, so. I’ve given up on that. It’s dumb anyway, you could just go to the app store and download it, having the direct link isn’t even useful, and I’d say that was just them getting your phone number to sell except it’s sort of their whole gig that they don’t so now IDK what that’s for.

I installed Facebook Container while I was setting shit up, because I do not have the discipline to log out myself. I just don’t use Facebook on any device but this one-- it’s never been logged in on my phone. It’s not that I think Facebook is going to like, have me murdered or whatever. It’s just that my data is worth money and I don’t want them to have it, since they’re not going to compensate me. Like, fuck ‘em and fuck their advertisers. I realize it’s futile to resist since i use Instagram so much and Facebook owns them, they’re still getting their money’s worth and more out of my data, but at least FB itself won’t have me. Whatever.

Anyhow. Tumblr doesn’t work in either browser; my workaround for getting to the old dash from the activity page stopped functioning yesterday. It makes my computer run like a jet engine, to use the new dash, and no images load, so I’m probably going to unfollow a lot of you who post huge image-heavy posts that don’t load and also freeze up so I can’t scroll past. No hard feelings, but some of y’all I only have one fandom in common with and I can’t just blacklist every other fandom you like... especially since y’all don’t often tag the gifsets with what fandom they’re from, so it’s not like i even know. Anyway, what used to just be a normal part of Tumblr is now like, an unsurvivable obstacle to using the site, so. Bummer.

(cut text= in which I am just cranky about shit)

(Yes, my Blacklist is fucking huge-- I blocked the phrase “Doctor Who” within five seconds of joining this site, believe me, and I have never once looked back, and fucking Buffy was number two, no thank you, and I still see SO MUCH content from both because y’all don’t tag shit, and Blacklist never slowed my dash down before but apparently it does now. So either the site is unusably clogged with content I am so sick of I can’t bear to look at, OR the site is unusably slow... I don’t really see a choice there, I’d rather never log in again than see that much fucking Doctor Who shit, I get that y’all love it but please keep that shit far away from me. Here’s my filthy, cranky secret: I fucking hate basically every fandom. I watch maybe a show a year, I couldn’t even get through the Untamed because I’d already watched the Witcher, see? I can’t watch that much TV. Can’t do it. I’m stuck on episode 30 and read all the spoilers and I’ll maybe watch the last 20 episodes in the winter or something. I just can’t do it. And yeah, y’all, I am on the verge of blocking Leverage, because I haven’t gotten to it yet and I have seen so many fucking posts about it I’m sick of it before I ever got to. Let me know if the reboot/sequel is any good no don’t do that, I’ll surely see eight hundred thousand posts about it on my own, and once that’s all out I’ll decide if I have room to watch it. Oh my God I don’t like watching things. No, not that thing either. I don’t care how much you like it, it isn’t about that, it’s about how I don’t watch TV and about the inside of my own brain, and nobody’s going to be able to talk me out of that, once in a while I can get it to cooperate and then I’ll watch a thing, but it’s fleeting and that’s all I got. It averages out to two miniseries *or* three movies per year, about, though there are years when I’ve not managed even that much.) (I’m going to watch a cheesy 80s movie on Saturday night for social reasons and I hope that doesn’t count because I was hoping to get to watch The Old Guard at some point and I’d hate to find I was tapped out before I got to see it, because I’m gonna get fucking sick of it if I can’t get it to Thing I Care About status in my head pretty soon.)

Oh holy shit, Firefox, we are just gonna go uncheck the “check spelling as you type” option because you can’t fucking spell, holy shit. “Unsurvivable” is a word, I just looked it up, as is “unusably”, those are words, leave me the fuck alone. Fuck, so is gifset. Christ.

So, yeah, I’m feeling traumatized because my eighty or 100 or whatever tabs are all gone, but I wasn’t using them and I wasn’t seeing them anymore anyway so it’s best to have a clean start, but I’m upset and that’s not how I function, so. Anyhow. Sorry to be grouchy, y’all can love what you love, but for the love of GOD will you please fucking tag your gifsets with the fandom, sometimes I see shit I’m even intrigued by but since there’s no tag there’s literally no way for me to ever find out what it was. But let’s be honest. I wasn’t intrigued. I don’t watch stuff.

[tjkiahgb]

On August 13th, 2018, at 8:20 PM, TJ Kippen performed a basketball-themed apology rap for Buffy Driscoll and completed his redemption arc. In doing so, he became a full and complete hashtag good boi and fulfilled this blog’s ridiculous destiny.

This post is scheduled to go up on August 13th, 2019, at 8:20 PM. It only feels right that I retire this blog on the one year anniversary of that moment.

Okay. It’s not that dramatic. I’m not deleting my account or logging out forever or anything. I’ll be around. I’ll check in and like some posts and hang out like the kid who graduated high school but won’t leave. He keeps coming back and acting chummy with the teachers and it’s like, doesn’t he have better stuff to do?

The point is, my queue is depleted, my drafts are empty. I don’t have a shift in fandoms planned. I don’t have anything planned. It’s time for me to turn my attention to other things and stop thinking about this show and writing about it and working on this blog.

So that’s basically the tl;dr of this whole deal. I’m going to write some rambling personal stuff so if you don’t care, which most people probably won’t, then thanks for reading and thanks for all the memories. It’s been fun.

Okay, lemme ramble. And if you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ve probably heard some of this already, but whatever, this is my goodbye post.

Way back in October of 2017, I came across a post on a website for TV news that said “Disney Channel to Feature Its First Gay Main Character in Andi Mack Season 2″. I didn’t know what Andi Mack was, and I hadn’t watched Disney Channel in well over a decade. I remembered reading about the two moms on Good Luck Charlie when it happened, but I also remembered that it was, you know, mostly nothing. A lot of controversy for what was just a quick little thing. But this headline noted that it was a Main Character. And I’m reading the article and it’s talking about how he’s going to have this journey in season two and the producers had talked to GLAAD and other groups to get it right, and I’m like, wow, this is pretty cool, this really seems like they’re putting some respect into this. (I’m also thinking about how much young, closeted me would’ve killed for something like this.)

So I set my DVR to record it not knowing what to expect. Mostly thinking it was just going to be your standard Disney Channel show: cheesy and corny and bad jokes, but I’ll catch the coming out scene and it’ll be cool to see how they handle it and that’ll probably be that.

And then I’m watching the episode and I’m like, this is... not bad? In fact, more than not bad, this is way better than it has any right to be. And then I got to the coming out scene, which was so well done, and I’m just... shocked. This is like Pixar. Like, it’s for kids, but I can watch it as an adult and pick up on themes and subtleties. This is not like the shows from my childhood. Where was this show when I was growing up?

Next thing I know I’m watching the next episode. And the next one. And I’m starting to care for these characters. I can forgive a lot of issues with plot if I care about the characters and what this show did, maybe as well as any show on television, is made you care for the characters, from top to bottom.

So now I’m watching the show regularly. At some point, I went back and binged through season one on DisneyNow. I’m in, as a casual viewer at this point at least.

And then I get to 2.11, and the swing scene happens, and I watch it wordlessly, and it ends, and I feel like I’m losing my mind. I could not believe what I just saw. I thought for sure this show was just going to have a couple of coming out scenes and that would be the end of it. Had I really just watched a scene that was hinting at a gay romance?

I wanted so badly to talk about it with someone else to see if they were seeing what I was seeing, but, as you may not be surprised to learn, none of my adult friends were watching Andi Mack. So I started looking around online. And I eventually found my way here, to this site, to the tag. And people were seeing what I was seeing. And people were excited about it, and I was like, okay, cool, I might’ve found my community.

So I started lurking around here. And I would check in after 2.12 and 2.13, and I was really starting to enjoy it. Most of the stuff I watch that I care about I’ll watch with friends or family and talk about it with them, so I never really thought being a part of a fandom would be worthwhile. Plus, I’d hear about shipping wars and other nonsense like that, and I’m like, I’m not going to make an account to argue with people over fictional characters’ relationships.

But what I was finding about this community was that it was more positive than that. There were arguments, sure. You’re going to get them in any group of people. But for the most part, people just seemed happy. They were posting theories and memes and gifs and jokes and fanfics. And they were celebrating the characters and developments. I don’t know if that’s special to the Andi Mack fandom or not, but it seemed special to me.

That’s around when I started thinking about making an account, during that hiatus between 2A and 2B. But I was like, do I want to commit to this? What’s the point of my account? What do I want to say? And at some point in the hiatus, I was checking the tag, and I saw a gifset. It was by an account, since deleted and gone, but who, at the time, was very prominent in the fandom. And the gifset was all about attacking Tyrus. It was trying to take everything nice about what had happened between TJ and Cyrus and stomp on it. Tyrus was like a little baby ship at this point. People were just starting to get into it, the numbers weren’t that big. There wasn’t even really a name for the ship back then. The Tyrus tag was mostly that professional wrestler and the CJ tag was even worse. And this account had decided they were going to use their platform to try and make this small group of people in the fandom feel bad about liking their ship. I just remember thinking, why? Why be like that? It just seemed so unnecessary. And for the briefest of moments, I thought, okay, maybe I’ll make an account to be a troll and argue this stuff. And then I was like, nah, that’s just going to make the tag worse. When you see someone trying to ruin things for other people, you can give them attention and power, or you can just do your own thing.

So what I decided to do instead was to make an account that would add to the positivity I had been seeing. To just be one of the many voices doing fun stuff to drown out the bad. I could put out dumb posts to hopefully make people laugh, or eventually start writing recaps to give people something to do after watching the episode. There wasn’t really any bigger goal than that. Kill some time while celebrating the show and making the tag a more fun place, if only incrementally.

I’d like to think I did that. That I haven’t written or made too many things that have bummed people out and that most of my posts have hopefully made things better for people who wanted to hang out on here and talk about the show.

That’s all. At the end of everything, that was all. Just try to leave a net-positive wherever you go.

So that’s why I joined tumblr. Here’s why I stayed.

I am an unemployed writer. I’m an employed something else, but I would like to be an employed writer and I am currently not. And what that really means is I’m an unread writer. It means I write stuff and I try to convince people to read it and buy it, but most of the time they don’t. Most of the time, my stuff sits around waiting and hoping to be read. And when that’s the case, you can start to feel doubt.

What I didn’t realize when I started this account was that I would also be getting positivity back. I mean, I probably should have. It was the whole reason I started this, because I liked the positivity here. I guess I just didn’t expect it to be returned to me.

But it has. It has tremendously. Just writing this silly stuff that I do and putting it out there and getting feedback on it has meant so much to me. People saying something I’ve written is funny or interesting or just saying that they enjoyed it is such a confidence boost. You feel like, okay, people like my jokes or the way I think or whatever. There’s an audience for me somewhere. People who will get me. I just need to stick with it.

That’s what you all have been for me this last year and a half. More than just making this a fun place to share our love of this show, you’ve made this a place for me to feel seen.

I try not to tie too much of my self-esteem to the amount of interaction my posts get. (Seriously, don’t do that, it can be really unhealthy. I’m like, if a post flops, it flops. No biggie. Move on to the next one.) But every note I do get on something I’ve written lets me know I’ve done something right. The reblogs, the likes, the follows, the nice messages in my inbox, the comments on the posts. Any of it. All of it. It lets me know I’ve been read. It makes me feel like I’ve made a connection. And that means the world to me.

So thank you, to any and all of you who participated in this thing with me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being a part of my experience on here. Thank you for being so cool that I wanted to join your group in the first place and thank you for being so great afterwards that I’m eternally happy I did.

It’s meant more to me than you could possibly know.

Keep the positivity.

- Jay

[hydrospanners]

fic masterlist: swtor

at the request of literally no one, i’ve created a masterlist of all my swtor fic. first is a chronological collection of all the swtor fic i’ve written in my “canon”. it’s broken up into snippets of time relative to the events of swtor. aus and gift fics are at the end. this is more for me than anything else, but if you have a bunch of time on your hands and want to read some fic--enjoy!!!

i am the most self-indulgent author known to man so there are numerous fics that don’t feature any canon characters in any significant way. i’m not sorry, but i did mark them with an asterisk for everyone’s edification. i also wrote actually vaguely descriptive descriptions instead of whatever bullshit i put in the descriptions on ao3. all links go to ao3 because tumblr was not designed for reading and it shows.

53 fics below the cut... what a trip, y’all.

backstory these fics are about things that happened before the opening of the class story. 

* a very velaran life day - snippets of different life days in the velaran family history. no canon characters in it yet, but maybe this christmas i’ll get to some fics that aren’t solely about my own ocs.

* the shape of things to come - the story about how rea finally joined the jedi at the ripe old age of sixteen.

* a dimming star - the first steps on rea’s jedi path. they aren’t fun ones, lads!

* necessary sacrifice - like three years down the timeline and still no canon characters! rea continues to struggle with this whole being a jedi thing, and it continues to struggle with her! this one features a haircut as a symbol of a turning point in the story.

bars and stripes - canon characters??? in my fic????? its more likely than you think. this is a shameless ripoff of an episode of m*a*s*h masquerading as doc backstory. does it have cameos and/or mentions of other healer companions? maybe!!!

prelude these are fics set during the prologue of the class stories, everything that happens between the start and completing the capital planet missions. 

* memories - rhese? do you finally get a say in all this??? this is the moment rhese and rea finally see each other for the first time since they were recruited to the jedi, set at the very start of the class story.

attachments - kira and rea talk about rhese. that’s it. that’s the fic.

act one all the stories set between killing tarnis and beginning preparations to capture the emperor (everything after coruscant ending and pubside balmorra starting). rip orgus. one day ill finish all those wips about how sad it was when he bit it. in the mean time, can i interest you in some gifsets?

lessons - now rea’s padawan, kira reflects on how bad rea is at teaching, though maybe without as much clarity as i just implied.

a tangled web - so stupid it’s basically crack, kira has to rescue rea from an embarrassing situation.

of flowers, failure, and the virtues of friendship - kira and rhese start to bond over the shared torment of having to be around rea. rivals to friends (one day i’ll write the “to lovers” part that comes after).

act two all the stories during the time when the knight is prepping for the assault on the emperor’s fortress and then assaulting it. everything between pubside balmorra starting and breaking free from the emperor’s fortress after that super successful plan to bring him in alive. great job jedi!

filling the table - is that shipfic????? the reason i started writing swtor fic in the first place??? this is rea being thirsty disguised as me sewing seeds for the eventual doc x rea romance. pazaak themed for some reason? (doc x rea)

when the wicked play - this is me being obsessed with the translation of video game violence to vaguely realistic circumstances posing as doc feeling some kind of way about rea murdering a whole bunch of dudes who wanted to hurt her but weren’t powerful enough. not primarily romantic but definitely some setup for their relationship.

night shift -  everything is doc x rea and nothing hurts. rea’s got work to do but who can work when there’s a horny mustachio’d doctor trying to persuade her back to bed??? it’s not love it’s just good sex!!!!! honest!!!!(doc x rea)

these nights never seem to go to plan - rea isn’t yearning for affection, she’s just too tired to get out of doc’s bed after so much boning. okay maybe this is about slightly more than good sex after all... doc x rea TENDERNESS.

somewhere we’ve not been before - this is the good shit lads!!!! doc x rea!!! first dates!!!! shenanigans!!!! honest to goodness falling in love between all that fucking that do!!!!!!!!!!!! (doc x rea)

no better taste - a sequel to the last fic featuring the morning after!!! some post-horniness introspection!! tenderness!!!!!! hints of yearning!!! god i miss the days before the mind control and the carbonite when the problems were normal things like commitment and abandonment issues. (doc x rea)

heart - rea sends doc a rocking “thanks for the great sex” gift!! rhese is disgusted by every part of it! this is comedy folks!!!! (doc x rea... i guess)

interruptions - rea takes a work call while she’s boning doc. that’s the whole fic. i think this was my first spicy fic?? i can’t remember. (doc x rea)

* where you go to rest your bones - sibling tenderness!!!! their relationship is super complicated, but rhese is reminded that underneath all the bullshit rea really does love him a lot.... it’s both sad and not sad at the same time. schroedinger’s sadness.

gifts - the crew tries to plan a gift for rea, but what do you get for the woman who’s banned from everything?? so dumb it’s basically crack and i’m not sorry for it.

crapshoot - the crew takes bets on what rea’s next Bad Idea TM will be. she shows them you can’t predict chaos. basically crack but i don’t care.

spoonful of sugar - vignettes about the jedi knight crew dealing with sickness. almost entirely comedy and/or fluff. doc x rea content is present and rhese x kira content is suggested.

a little eggstra - grocery shopping gone awry, based on an old tumblr text post. hella stupid, yet hella fun. doc x rea is in the background.

to break our bones for kindling - you thought we were just having good times??? you’re a fool. doc’s job is to heal people and rea’s job is to break them. sometimes they have work-related disagreements!!! be sad with me. doc x rea.

* when a problem comes along, you must whip it - i can only stop being stupid for so long, so here’s the story about how rea came to possess her lightwhip, the stupidest weapon known to man. these events do not go well for rhese.

things unsaid - a dumb doc x rea drabble about stupid shit rea says when she’s been mortally wounded. if doc were to just let her die, no one would blame him.

* the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one - a bit of a character/relationship study about what rhese is willing to sacrifice for love of his sister, no matter how complicated things are between them. a second chapter about what rea sacrifices for rhese is in my wips and will be completed... .eventually. 

lovesick - doc x rea ship content. my interpretation of that one conversation where doc’s like “hey would your jedi powers tell me if im going crazy also do you love me? check yes or no. i will not elaborate.”

* the things we left behind - oh no lads.... we’re building up to the fortress shit.... our good times are over. rea does some underhanded shit to make sure her brother doesn’t go on this mission to capture the emperor cause the plan does not seem like a great one.

act three wow wasn’t act two fun??? so much silly nonsense and love. now get a drink assholes it’s Time To Be Sad. act three covers everything in the class stories after coming back from that super successful assault on the emperor’s fortress (great job jedi!) to finally stabbing the bastard in the dark fortress and hoping that gets the job done at last. (spoilers: it doesn’t!!!!!) aka stories from belsavis to the final assault on dromund kaas.

everything we left there - it’s trauma time!!! rea’s fucked up from the fortress and feeling the pressure (thanks for the prophecy scourge!!! love that!!!!) so she hurts people she cares about to protect them. it’s her signature move!

the only thing that’s real - rea continues to be fucked up from what happened on the fortress but hey... at least she isn’t fucked up alone??? sad doc x rea content.

into the jungle - the gang is on belsavis and no one is having a good time! since rea isn’t herself, doc tries to pick up the slack and reassure kira that it’ll all be okay! it goes about as well as you’d expect.

interlude now that i’m looking at it, there are some serious gaps in my fic coverage. anyway, sad hours are over, the emperor is (kind of but not really) dead and there may still be a war on but things are looking up! this covers everything between the emperor’s death and the beginning of kotfe, including forged alliances and the shadow of revan.

hands too hungry - doc finally takes rea on that honeymoon she didn’t really care about in the first place! tragically, rea is way too horny to be impressed by what an amazing vacation he planned for himself them. peak rea x doc content.

no kind of romantic - it’s doc and rea’s one year anniversary but they are both working on opposite sides of the galaxy. sad! it’s doc x rea fluff disguised as angst.

a little help from a friend - rea and theron are worst/best friends and i recycle romance tropes into annoying friendship ones. this is the least sexy sharing body heat fic you’ve ever (not?) read. bite me.

retirement - rea has some feelings about her very violent, stressful job and how it interferes with her husband doing things that actually help and heal. doc x rea content.

the dreaded kotfe content these are sad hours!!! this is everything from arcann’s invasion on, cause i’m not breaking it up by post-carbonite storyline you bastards. i don’t know why i’m being so hostile no one asked me to do this.

every doubt we had - after watching what may have been his sister’s death by exploding starship, rhese is having trouble sleeping. no one is more surprised than him when seeks out doc for comfort! doc & rhese brothers by marriage solidarity. carbonite angst...

love is a waiting game - rea’s been MIA for six months since the ship she was on bit it and her crew is finally making some changes. doc is sad about it. doc & rhese brothers by marriage solidarity again. doc x rea angst.

waiting - some time has passed and now rhese is the sad one again!!! grief is so funny isn’t it??? hahahaha haha hahahaha why is no one else laughing? doc & rhese brothers by marriage solidarity yet again.

the greatest distance - rea’s back baby!!!! oh but this isn’t a celebration. she’s taking a tour of her long lost ship now that all the people she loved aren’t in it. it’s a sad one, fellas. 

* when the stars are the only thing we share - rea tracks down some people from her past to help her track down her brother since he went missing while she was having a nap. no canon characters were used in the making of this fic.

leave her sleeping a little longer - rea has a dream and wakes up missing doc even more than she was before. sad hours. doc x rea angst.

take back what the kingdom stole - after theron pulls some Shenanigans (you know the ones) his friendship with rea is in peril. they both break character and actually talk shit out for once.

a wish your heart makes - rea dreams a dream. so does doc. it’s a wet one. this makes it sound lighthearted but actually it’s angst with a side of porn. doc x rea supreme spicy/sad content.

overserved - back to crack baby!! rea gets drunk and acts a fool based on a joke made in a discord server. this is the best shit i’ve ever written.

thrusting back into my skin i feel anew - the band is back together again and everything is fine!!!! just kidding -- actually people change a lot in six years and rea and doc are having some trouble fitting back into the marriage they had back then. doc x rea angst but with a hopeful ending!

non-canon fics i’ve written a couple of things with my dumb characters that are too stupid even for me to put into their canon story or are otherwise aus. these are them, listed in no particular order.

the lies we tell ourselves - a sadder (yet possibly more realistic) take on the ossus reunion and what follows. a bit experimental. doc x rea angst au.

archiban frodrick’s kennel - a romance au where doc is a vet and rea has a pet with a health issue, inspired by my own stupid dog whom i love very much. doc x rea. spiciness suggested but not detailed; sorry horndogs.

fallen - a fun au where rea’s shittiness as a teacher and everything being bad leads to kira falling to the dark side... its angst lads.

the new recruit - rusk’s squad adopts a kitten. that’s the fic.

cruel - ever wonder how things would have turned out if rea was never smuggled off eriadu and got plucked up by the sith?? no??? well i have and i wrote about it. the self-indulgence never ends.

fill my lungs with sweetness - a gift fic for @hoiist; flower-themed vignettes about doc expressing his love for hoiist’s knight, vii. this is some real soft shit, lads.

remember me, love - another gift fic for @hoiist; this time some ossus-flavored angst about doc seeing through vii’s eyes in his dreams. what he sees is not comforting!!! all aboard the angst train--choo choo!!

[pfudorqueen]

I am here with random questions since we've been mutuals for awhile but barely talk. How's isolation going? What do you teach (I just noticed your a teacher in your little bio)? and in what season did you start watching Teen Wolf?

Hi there! So nice of you to drop by *o* 

Isolation is going... ok, I guess. I’m usually all for staying home and just lying in bed doing fuck all/watching Netflix (that’s how I usually spend my weekends because i’m tired of seeing people during the week) but I gotta admit that it’s getting... long. We started out third week today and I only went out once, on the 18th to get some groceries.Yesterday one of my best friend sent me a message telling me he’d gone for a walk with his boyfriend (they live together) and I actually got super annoyed because he was outside when we’re, you know, not supposed to, and I kinda gave a passive-aggressive answer which prompted him to tell me they needed the walk because they were going kinda crazy in their apartment (at least they have a balcony they can go on....), which in turn prompted me to realize that, yeah, i also need a walk, but i’m not going to, because i’m actually among the “at risk” people so i’m not taking any chance. Sooooo... It’s getting long. And I’m on my period these days so everything is just super annoying times 1000 ahah !But at least my mom stopped sending me messages about my weight and exercices to do at home (she did the first week and a half, i was so pissed xD)

I’m an elementary school teacher, which mean I’m supposed to be able to teach anything to kids 3 to 10 (french, maths, history, geography, sports, music, art...) At the moment I’m working with kids 11 to 14 though, but they are in special classes for kids with learning troubles that can’t follow the “normal” classes in middle school. I teach french, history and art this year there (because that’s how the subjects were divided between us teachers).

I started watching Teen Wolf... when season 3B was starting, or just before it started if i remember correctly. My story with TW is actually pretty stupid/funny/tragic ahah. I’d seen a LOT of Sterek on my dash, but I wasn’t AT ALL interested in TW because it was just another dumb show for teenagers and I was sick of these, so I had ZERO interest in it. But after seeing so much Sterek, I started becoming invested in it and went “okay, I wanna see how this Sterek thing works, imma watch the show”.So, I start watching, season 1, season 2, season 3... And i’m like “wait, still no Sterek ?”. At some point, the scene with Danny and Ethan lying in bed comes up and that’s when I realize something’s wrong. Because i’ve seen this scene in a gifset... about Sterek ! So I google “when do stiles and derek get together” and GUESS WHAT? I learn it’s not a canon ship.

I WAS SOOOOO ANGRY and sad I stopped watching for like four days straight (i’d been binge watching like all day long the episodes). I was SOOOOO disappointed. But I’d fallen in love with the characters (well, with Stiles’ anyway) and so I went ‘ugh sure let’s keep watching!”. I’m pretty happy I did because season 3B was pretty awesome, and the fandom was fun - we did win against Destiel that one time - and then... well, season 4 came, with the Malia shit and stuff and I stopped watching after the 4th episode. I looked at ... i don’t remember which tumblr did ‘recaps” but they were hilarious so that was how i “kinda knew” what was going on with TW xD But yeah, never watched another episode again after 4.4. I was just so pissed.

I’ve never been in the TW fandom tbh, I started watching TW for Sterek, thinking they were getting together (and let me tell you, when you watch the show believing they’re a canon pairing, you SEE every little detail and you BELIEVE IT, like seriously, i had ZERO doubt they’d get together on screen until that Danny/Ethan scene), and years after I’ve dumped that shit show, I’m still team Sterek x)

[robertdowneyjjr]

I’m sorry if this is a bother but I’ve followed you awhile & u seem great. I work with victims of violent crimes (sexual assaults, human trafficking, intimate partner assaults as we call them and families of homicide victims) usually I am okay and deal well but with everything happening in the States which I’ve been watching unfold I’m just feeling so much stress at the end of work I’m feeling in a constant state of anxiety. This may seem dumb with what’s going on but the way ....

Part two...I’ve always relaxed when things are getting to me is RDJ twitter fans with pics or just interacting. Just cheers me up and sometimes these past few days I’ve really needed it just a few minutes here or there but I see a lot of hate about if he’s commenting enough or donating enough and then I’m stressed again because seeing hate stresses me out even more. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal or even friendly ppl I can follow. I don’t know a lot and the..

Ones I do have had some hate on them so I’m at a lost every time I look him up for a pick me up I’m anxious now. I just need something good for a few minutes after work and watching the news. I love helping victims of crime but sometimes it does get hard and I need a time out of you know what I mean. Any help or advice is appreciated

hey there! nothing about this is dumb, especially when it’s concerning your mental health and wanting to find things to de-stress and stave off your anxiety.

to be completely honest, i haven’t been as involved with social media and stan twitter/fandom in general for the last month or so, and even during the days when i’m more active i only really follow under 100 people on twitter and tumblr. i’ve seen the posts you’re talking about, with fans criticizing celebs, including robert, for not speaking out about the injustices that the black community and other poc constantly experiencing, especially in america. and while i understand where they’re coming from i also get that it’s hard for other fans to see these comments.

right now, most information exchange is happening through social media, so fact of the matter is fandom accounts aren’t going to be focused on posting about their faves -- and those who do, without acknowledging current events, will get criticized. so i think if you’re looking for a way to disconnect and not engage with these sorts of posts after you’ve had a long and stressful day at work, the best thing you can do for yourself is to just stay away from social media for the time being. i totally understand that you want to be able to talk to others with similar interests, but with the focus of current events, i don’t think you’d be able to have those sorts of conversations right now. for example -- pictures of robert going bike riding surfaced a month ago and stan twitter went wild. yesterday, similar pictures of him came out but barely anyone said anything because there are more urgent matters at hand. it’s just not something people will be talking about because of the state of the world right now.

honestly, the internet can be a very toxic place, and with how things are right now, it would be harder to avoid posts that may make you anxious or upset. so the best thing you can do for yourself is to just remove yourself from the situation and unplug, find ways to relax offline. if rdj is what makes you happy and de-stress, then pop in one of his movies to unwind. watch youtube videos of him. read his old interviews. there are plenty of ways to be a fan right now without going online.

if you’re looking for accounts to follow that aren’t as outspoken about current events, then the better option would be to follow the more generic updates accounts. on twitter i’d suggest rdjfrance and luvrobertdowney for the latest pics and videos. on tumblr, @dailyrdj and @rdjnews have a bunch of gifsets queued.

hope this helps, and take care of yourself 💗

[sheikah]

Ugh, I know what you mean about that ant*-darkling community, I've seen them around talking bad about anyone who likes Aleks. The Darkling is one of the most popular YA villains there is and I still remember how some of them were angry that Ben Barnes and the Darkling were the most talked about things when the S&B cast was announced (mostly everyone just thirsty lol). What we need to do, is to ignore them and make as much Darkling and darklina content as we can, and they can stay mad about it.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. Which was why my first reaction was to make my little gifset I posted haha. I didn't interact with or engage any of these people. I guess I was just surprised? Tumblr recommended a blog literally called "wehatethed*rkling" (don't want this to show up if they track a tag or anything lol). And I thought to myself, "Wow. That's a little extreme." So I went to the blog and the person is 100% serious. They're active, and though they appear to post content in addition to anti stuff, that's the url of their personal blog! And I scrolled a bit to find that they have a whole circle of people who are very passionate about being ant* darkling and/or darklina to the point that they're posting about this daily.

The only reason this surprises me is that it seems to be a bit of a moot point with a villain character. I come from the GOT fandom, for example, and there was a lot of anti content circulating, especially between stans of the leading ladies. And since those ladies were protagonists, the anti content focused on trying to prove how awful and evil Dany or Arya or Sansa was--because the stans of each of those characters defended them as heroes, and antis disagreed. There was no anti blog for, say, The Night King. Why would there be? He's a villain. With a character like the Darkling, I don't get why there are antis or what they are trying to prove. He's the villain. We get it. We know. He delivers dialogue specifically calling himself a villain. I get that and I like him anyway just like I like Anakin Skywalker and just like I continue to love Dany. It's not that serious!

I just blocked all of these people, so hopefully it won't really be an issue for me moving forward. It's just that it like instantly activated my fight-or-flight lmao because I was like, "Oh, no... not AGAIN." Because the bulk of my tumblr experience was dedicated to stanning Dany and Jonerys and that became all about discourse. My whole presence here was about being on the defensive. I was constantly answering asks both from antis and fans, defending Dany and trying to justify myself for loving her and shipping Jonerys. It ultimately became miserable. My whole experience with GOT became about the discourse. Every new thing that would happen in the series became weaponized either by antis or by those of us on the defense, and it made the whole experience less fun. So seeing that there is already a robust anti community before the show is even out is really disheartening to me.

I don't want to be that person this time. I'm hot blooded and impulsive and a huge flaw of my personality is that it's very difficult for me to drop it and move on when I see hate in my inbox or on my dash or in a tag I track. I'm DETERMINED not to be the wank blog when S&B comes out. I'm going to talk about what I love and that's it. I've been doing ok so far! I didn't engage with those antis and I've gotten about four anti anons since I got this URL and I've deleted them all instead of posting and trying to defend myself.

And that's the crux of the issue by way: having to defend MYSELF. Idgaf if these people trash talk the Darkling. The problem is that they take our interest in the Darkling and use it to make character judgments on our morals as real people. THAT is what's hard for me to ignore--people in my inbox saying I support grooming, paedophilia, and abuse because I like the Darkling. That's stupid, of course, and I'm getting better at breaking the habit of responding to that to defend myself. I don't have to! None of us do! This is supposed to be fun.

The only thing I will say directly addressing their wankiness, though, is actually related to what you said about Ben. You're right: it's all anyone talked about, and we were thirsting and celebrating. But in my brief trip down the anti rabbit hole last night I saw two very shocking (and honestly hilariously dumb) claims by anti bloggers:

1. We Darkling stans are mad that Ben was cast. Apparently we wanted someone young and boyish because we refuse to admit the Darkling is old as hell.

And I have to laugh because all I saw was widespread celebration and flailing over the casting news. Literally every single fan I've encountered is over the moon about this. Why wouldn't we be? And yeah, the Darkling is an immortal old guy. An overused trope I am still 1000% obsessed with. Happy to acknowledge that.

2. We Darkling stans will hopefully stop stanning him now that they cast someone "ugly" with a "patchy beard" to play him.

Yeah, you read that right. This person called Ben Barnes ugly with their whole chest and I honestly have nothing to say to that 😂

Anyway sorry this got so long! Like I said I'm going to try to be positive wrt this fandom and the stuff I like so I'm getting as much salt and sadness out as I can now, while we don't really have new content to discuss anyway 😅