#with like. a competent author yknow lol

[beauzos]

and see you can tell Sunyi Dean caught how fucked her worldbuilding was re: the incest thing and she was so uncomfortable with leaving it be that she just had to bring it up in the story in order to argue it away by saying they’re not that inbred because of the rotating door of wives girl fuck OFF

so the Six Families are inbred because there’s only these families in the UK and they cannot travel to the rest of Europe due to having 0 documentation that any of them exist. having a daughter is extremely rare and all female book eaters have about 2 kids at max before they become infertile because Reasons, except for sometimes when they have 3. so you’re trying to tell me that all these families wouldn’t be inbred to hell considering they all rarely have fucking female book eaters in the first place? get real

[transmutationisms]

i am the world's biggest wikipedia defender (especially against people who say that it's unreliable) because, while i know it's not infallible (is anything, though?), it is peer-reviewed. once, my friend edited the othello page to include a joke we had made and she got her account banned. how do you reckon with wikipedia as a source of knowledge? my understanding of it is that it can serve as a good base for things, but learning never stops and one should read as many sources as possible to gain a fuller understanding of whatever they want to know about. this is a very long-winded way of asking your opinions on wikipedia. my apologies, and i hope today is alright for you :~)

wikipedia obviously gets a lot of flak for the fact that anyone can edit it, which means that people certainly can and do check each other's work, but also that anybody with an axe to grind or just a poor understanding of a subject can potentially really distort the presentation of that topic. there have been some high-profile cases of bad and even dangerous editorialising, like the woman who basically single-handedly is trying to correct a whole bunch of pages for former nazis that really whitewashed their legacies and cited various antisemitic and white supremacist sources to do so. i think it would be foolish to claim that crowdsourced knowledge is inherently accurate, fair, nuanced, &c. wikipedia replicates the biases people put into it, and just having more people edit it doesn't instantly 'average them out' because yknow, we're often talking about widely held positions or prejudices that have also caused distortions in many of the cited sources. also, wikipedia has many more gaps than most people realise, partly because an encyclopedia is necessarily a massive undertaking and also because, by design, it excludes eg oral traditions, non-literate people, &c.

however i do find a lot of wikipedia criticism annoying because it will usually involve trying to counterpose wikipedia to approved academic channels of knowledge production, specifically in a way that sets academic institutions and publishing as an intellectual gold standard that crowd knowledge simply can't compete with. academia is not some kind of magical solution to problems of distortion and bias; academics have their own ways of perpetuating and rationalising prejudices, and reinforcing rather than challenging each other's epistemological authority and laziest, most harmful assumptions. not to mention that many shitty wikipedia articles do actually cite approved academic sources published by university presses! because these characteristics do not actually guarantee that a source is good, only that it passed quality control at a reactionary institution lol.

ultimately i approach wikipedia basically the same way i approach any academic text, which is to say i have to read both with attention to how the arguments are being developed, what evidence they rely on, what ideological assumptions are being made or defended, and so forth. i can't really think of a source or genre of source that i would endorse just reading and uncritically believing; in that sense i certainly agree with people who point out the major potential for inaccuracy in wikipedia articles, only i think this line of criticism is totally useless and blatantly elitist if it simply exempts 'respectable' academic sources or presumes institutional channels of knowledge to be epistemologically infallible.

anyway i use wikipedia to check dates of major events and it's sometimes useful or intriguing simply to see what about a topic interested people enough to write an entry about it. but i don't automatically trust any arguments or analyses in wikipedia articles, any more than i would the thesis of any nonfiction book i pick up.

[lorata]

So I've been having Enobaria Thoughts again lately, and I remembered in Fixed To a Star, Claudius mentions that "villains never win unless they're over-the-top and get a gimmick like Enobaria". So I'm curious as to how Enobaria managed to pull it off without the Gamemakers interceding the way they did with someone like Jasper?

Anyways, she's so... I was going to put in the stick figure gore meme picture of the guy getting chomped (/pos) but then I remembered I was talking about Enobaria and that would be. yknow.

like with anything, you have to convince them that you're worth it, and enobaria did that. the audiences loved her enough that, for gamemaker calculus, pulling an outright intervention like titus would not be worth the riot. part of the thing that helps with enobaria is she was like that from the start, rather than losing it part way through, and she didn't have a competing narrative -- that is, in order to be a losing villain, you need a hero to lose against, if that makes sense.

jasper's problem was getting reaped the same year as a dark horse outlier with a sob story. as soon as that happened he was a dead man, especially since misha was already like ... the medium villain and his only option was to Go Big in response. calli knew it, and if D6 had managed to accidentally off himself early (a girl can dream) then she would have done her best to change the narrative, but at this point there was too strong a story in play. mind you she did NOT authorize the multiple hours of child-torture, as soon as jasper did that no way was he walking out, but he was stressed and angry and didn't care.

enobaria being from D2 also helps bc you have fair odds that mentor will be able to rein her in after and get her to play ball with whatever promo stuff they want her to do. titus? he's not gonna go on a gameshow, but enobaria will, y'know? it's not just about the arena.

but yeah, enobaria didn't have Pretty Boy with Child & Girl Back Home or katniss & peeta's love story to compete with and cast a hard light on her, she was free to do what she wanted and the audiences lapped it up. especially since the previous year in my timeline cecelia poisoned everyone so I think they were ready for some good old-fashioned bloodshed (oof). enobaria absolutely delivered

(re: meme, i like this one lol)

[disengaged]

(hi hello it's saintviscera from the main cause i'm dealing with shadowbanning problems 🙄) but THANK U i'm glad i'm not the only one so i don't feel stupid saying that the grading felt kinda wack!!! tbh as much as i Do want to contest it ... its worth very little in the grand scheme of things anyway so idk if it's worth the trouble LOL

@saintviscera cast out into the shadow realm .... wtf .........

i respect ur right to do whatever the hell you want in this situation but tbh if it were me (obsessive, certified freak, etc) i'd be so indignant. esp cuz like ??? even if smth is only worth 5-10%, at the end of the sem it can still be the difference between one letter grade and the next

like personally i'll own it if i've done a shit job on an assignment, but i barely ever do that, & i KNOW i'm a competent student, so. yknow. on principle i just don't think a TA should have the authority to do that to someone

[iamanartichoke]

[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]

I need to talk about the Avengers. 

I just want to express how much I hate that the Avengers aren’t on the hook for all their time travel nonsense bc they were “supposed to” do it and Loki is on the hook bc he wasn’t. 

I mean, I am glad that they addressed it right away - that Loki was inadvertantly caught up in the Avengers' time meddling, and that apparently they were doing what they were supposed to and that's why none of them were on trial, but - there are two things going on here that I have issue with. One is, of course, the scapegoating of Loki once a-fucking-gain, but the other is that there's a legitimate problem inherent in framing the Avengers' deeds as The Right Thing So There Are No Consequences, especially because it directly leads to Loki (and only Loki) being scapegoated since, apparently, someone's got to answer for all of this. 

Why Were The Avengers Supposed to Undo the Snap?? 

Of all the possible options they could have gone with (such as reversing time back to just before the Snap happened), going back through time to gather the stones and use them to undo things five years later is, like, one of the worst?? Best case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously incompetent in managing the sacred timeline and worst case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously adept in managing the sacred timeline, if their goal is to have it be the worst possible timeline anyone could end up in. 

The Avengers may have done an arguably good thing in undoing the Snap - I don't disagree that those people should've lived - but they also royally fucked over a lot of things in the process and left Earth (and presumably many many other worlds) in total post-Snap chaos while fucking off to die be with their families and/or start new lives. 

This goes back to the plan itself. One of my many issues with Endgame is that not only is the plan convoluted and, frankly, stupid, but also I have a real problem with the concept of the Avengers just saving the world as they see fit, regardless of whether or not that's actually the best thing to do. (If the Russos hadn't done such a shit job with explaining what the Accords were actually supposed to do, then maybe this could have been addressed somehow - like, okay, together we may have the brains and resources to carry off this plan but does that mean we're the ultimate authority on whether or not we should? Maybe we should check with, like, the UN or something about this? [and it’s entirely possible the UN was mentioned and I have forgotten it bc I’ll be honest, I watched Endgame once and have bitched about it ever since.] I digress.) 

The narrative in Endgame and into the MCU beyond plays like the Avengers only care about saving the world when they stand to personally gain from it (they want their friends and family back, they want to feel like they didn't fail, they have unilaterally decided that what they want is the Best Thing for everyone) and once the Good Deed is done and the smoke clears from the battlefield, there's no concern with saving the mess of the world they created. 

TFatWS addressed so many of the problems with the post-reverse-Snap, which implies that the MCU (both in-universe and out) is aware that things are fucked up now. People's lives were literally ruined by what the Avengers did. Refugees are displaced. Humans are coming back to a world where they've been dead for five years and their loved ones have moved on and their homes have been sold and their bank accounts have been closed and they have no jobs. And that’s just on Earth. Yet no one (again, both in-universe and out) feels the need to hold the Avengers accountable for any of this. 

Plus, what about the people who died as a result of the Snap but not from the Snap directly? What about the planes that fell from the sky when the pilots turned to dust? The cars that crashed and collided when the drivers poofed? Etc. Like, fuck all of those people I guess? 

And who, exactly, is "supposed to" clean up the Avengers' mess now that the actual Avengers are either dead, old and living on the moon, or retired? Is it on Sam's shoulders alone (or, rather, Sam and Bucky's)? Is Peter Parker (yknow, the 15 year old Nick Fury went and recruited bc there was no one else) supposed to be fixing things? 

The TVA takes responsibility for none of this. They sit back in their nightmare DMV-esque office and claim that all is as it should be but my question remains: please explain to me how the outcome of the post-Snap universe is ultimately satisfactory to anyone besides the Avengers? 

There's also the fact that Loki figures out right away that the Avengers were engaging in some time travel shenanigans ("the cologne of two Tony Starks is hard to miss” lmfao Loki you snarky shit). Loki recognizes that there's been an opportunity created of which he can take advantage, but he isn't responsible for creating it. The Avengers messed up and created that opportunity so, even if they were supposed to be doing what they were doing, there are still no consequences for the fact that they made a mistake that allowed Loki to then branch off and create a new timeline. 

Let's also say that we accept that the Avengers were supposed to undo the Snap exactly as they did. Okay, sure. BUT: 

- Was Steve, then, also supposed to decide to fuck back off to the 1940s and marry Peggy (which created two Steves, right? The one who was married to Peggy all along and the one who was in the ice?? The TVA is just okay with two Steves?)? 

- What is the actual point of Stephen Strange having the time stone and using the time stone both to gain the advantage over Darmammushumuuyourmom (I’m sorry, I can’t remember his real name) and to look at all the possible timelines to figure out how to defeat Thanos? 

- How is it possible that there are 14 million potential timelines in which the Avengers failed if the TVA’s entire thing is that there can only be one true ring timeline to rule them all? The fact that Stephen can look ahead and determine so many outcomes based on the choices they're making would mean that people do have free will and that their actions aren't automatically dictated by what's “supposed to” happen. They had to make the right choices in order to get to the one timeline in which Thanos failed. 

- What’s the point of Stephen having to protect the time stone, anyway, if there are presumably a few others in Casey’s drawer?

- On that note, if there are a lot of infinity stones hanging around in the TVA’s desk drawers, what makes the original six the specific, correct ones that Thanos had to collect in order to pull off the Snap and why is it then those specific six the ones that the Avengers had permission to go back through time to get in order to undo the Snap as the Timekeepers intended?

- And actually, in fact, if there’s only one sacred timeline and anyone who fucks it up without permission gets “reset” (aka made nonexistent, along with their timeline branch) then, again, why does Stephen have to protect the time stone? Either anyone who steals it was supposed to, or their timeline gets eliminated and the theft ceases to matter. 

- Less significant but also still kinda significant is how Agents of SHIELD figures into all of this. The TVA knows that Loki killed Coulson but they don't know (or don't care?) that Coulson was brought back to life and proceeded, with his team, to go on and get heavily involved in time travel and going back and forth and bringing people from the past into the present? So the TVA is okay with Daniel Sousa leaving his timeline but not with Loki leaving his? 

... I have literally confused myself with all of this, so if anyone followed my train of thought here, congratulations and maybe you can explain it to me lmao. 

But here's my ultimate point: the sacred timeline that the TVA is tasked with maintaining is not sensical or linear. It's full of gaps and holes and people taking matters into their own hands to determine both their own fates and the fates of others. As a result, a lot of people suffer kinda needlessly based on the events in said timeline, and apparently it's perfectly fine for all of this nonsense to occur so that everyone else has some element of control - 

- but Loki is literally the only one who is told uh, actually, no, you are supposed to live a shitty life and die a pointless death and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it bc it's supposed to happen. 

What in the actual fuck kind of logic is that??? 

Thus, either the TVA (and the Timekeepers) are grossly incompetent, or else they're extremely competent and also really fucking shitty beings who just enjoy the needless suffering of others. 

And somehow this is all Loki's fault!!

And then Mobius has the fucking audacity to say, to Loki's face, “you only exist to prop up everyone else and you, Loki Odinsonson Laufeyson mischief god and king of space lol, do not have any inherent worth or value as your own person. You were born to be a scapegoat and you will die a scapegoat and there's no getting around that, if we have anything to say about it.”

To quote Loki, in a very twisted way - yes, it's funny. It's absurd. 

Does, uh, does this make sense? At some point I crossed over from meta-writing into straight up ranting and so, well, here we are. 

[pretty-little-pink]

Joseph's sounds took a turn quickly as the other began to aim for his prostate when he took notice to the reaction it got. Crying out and whimpering like a bitch in heat now as tears rolled down his cheeks once again, this time from the continuous abuse to his sweet spot. His tongue soon lolling out of his mouth in a lewd display of his pleasure, eyes rolling back as his cock leaked and twitched pathetically on his tummy.

He too could care less if being held in this position hurt or not, all he could bring himself to care about was the cock inside of him and how much pleasure he was feeling. Joseph couldn't recall a time he had ever felt this good during sex, and if he was competent at the moment that realization may have scared him. But right now all he wanted was more, and the beast seemed dead set on giving him just that.

[[ Now that's interesting because I have dreams in full color and I can for the majority remember them, but I can't like picture them but I still remember details but i couldn't like draw it out.

Also I find it incredibly hilarious as well, lmao my friends totally think I'm weird for it but I can 100% hold a conversation stone faced while reading and or writing like the nastiest smut ever 🤣 ]]

- 🥄 Anon

// same though i write so much porn it doesn't faze me at all lol // i super rarely can see in my dreams, but they're super weird to explain anyways lol. like knowing what things look like but not actually seeing them, it's hard haha // when i do remember my dreams its just the knowledge of it, but not yknow. pictures of it.

Author was very pleased when he continued to bring such pleasure onto Joseph, able to watch him get overstimulated. Able to hear his pleasure was better than before, able to see his tears and how fucked out of his mind the man already was. It was such a treat to have such pliable meat beneath him, able to take whatever he gave him, fucking him as much as he liked.

He could feel his knot beginning to swell again slowly, cock throbbing and twitching inside of Joseph. He was ready for another orgasm, to pump more cum into the man beneath him, to fill him with all that he had, until his body was exhausted. He was grunting and huffing harshly as he kept slamming into Joseph, watching him keenly to make sure his mate would come again as well. Not that he needed to, but the possessiveness he was beginning to feel wanted his mate to come as well.

[amjustagirl]

Nikkiiii !!! i've said this before but i'll rephrase in case it becomes more comprehensible, YOUR BRAIN IS VERY SEXY.

in all seriousness, the fact that you like your characters only proves that you aim to write good and enjoyable pieces instead of writing for the sake of posting, no matter how uninspired and unfaithful to the characters the work might be.

and that is precisely why you're one of my favourite authors here AND IT'S NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION !! you have authenticity and it shows. so no, it is not shameless to enjoy your characters when they're beautifully written !!

my trip it's ,,, i don't know how to describe it, im currently camping in the middle of a forest, on a god forsaken island, on the other side of greece so it's uhhh interesting? i come here every year to enjoy the nature, mediate, reflect on myself, and set goals for self improvement before i go back to a year of intense studying 🤧

almost everyone comes here for the same reason, a small community is set up every may and people come and go until september. i'll be hitchhiking my way to natural hotsprings and waterfalls for ten days, so i'd say that this is bliss! but this kind of more primal, i guess you could say, situation isn't for everyone so i'll just say that my trip is interesting instead :>

no no no girl you're doing amazing !!

even in irl situations most dialogues we have aren't exactly the profound type but isn't that okay? to talk about seemingly unimportant things i mean, it's like 'love knows not it's depth'. the same way negative things that get swept under the rug end up pilling and can even dissolve a previously good relationship, conversations about 'nothing seemingly substantial' can grow into the substance of a relationship when shared between the right people, me thinks.

and now that i've said me thinks, i forgot to mention something very important earlier, MIYA KAIYO SUPREMACY ME THINKS !!!

kaiyo and atsumu though 🥰🥰

truth be told reader chan and i both share the anxiety and overthinking thingies, so i can't wait to read the next chapters and witness at least SOMEONE making some progress and shake these off, even if it's just with hot mr. Perfect Shinksuke

ahhhh i mean isn't it natural that he did ????

take care love ♡ i admire you for even trying to skate tbh, just give me a cup of coffee and a book and let me vibe, i can't get behind more athletic activities :(

pretty much already replied this even though i wasn't asked to lol, i'm doing well !! im enjoying my vacation but i also want the days to pass faster because i'll be moving out of town next month and it's exciting !! you find me in my usual paradoxical mindset tbh

ellie!!! thank you bb!! yeah i feel like an indulgent parent to my characters sometimes - i love them so much, but then i wonder whether my love for them is misplaced HAHAHA. and yeah no it's a matter of personal honour to never publish works that i'm personally not happy with (hence why the osamu installment of storm chaser is still in limbo LOL).

oh on another note - yeah it's something i struggle with, writing reader insert characters with strong personalities of their own. i can't ever write blank slate characters (or unrealistic characters for that matter, yknow the characters that sit around the house all day and wait and cry when their hq bfs come home late fr work) but sometimes i wonder if ppl don't want me to write personalities into my characters cos it makes it harder to relate to them? idk. something i grapple with from time to time.

HAHA it's actly so much fun writing both kaiyo and the reader in this fic cos they're pretty different but yet they're such good friends and continually support each other! personally i feel like the reader here is a lot more relatable - she's a bit like yachi in the overthinking department, and she's obviously anxious despite being v competent in her own right. also, *waggles my eyebrows about her progress w dear shin-chan*

omg greece....you know i grew up reading the corfu trilogy by gerald durrell and i've had a hankering to just spend a whole month kicking back and enjoying the greece countryside so im exceedingly jealous but happy that you're enjoying yourself, bb!!! i love the food i love the culture (even tho i just spent a couple of days on santorini and athens) and when travel reopens i defo wanna explore more of greece! in the meantime, take care and rest and recuperate!!! it's so exciting to hear you have so many things lined up ahead!!!