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turtletaubwrites · 2 months

Text

Misty Eyes ~ Part 2

Thank you so much @pinejayyfor this delicious request!!

Pairings: Trafalgar Law x Fem!Reader, Doflamingo x Fem!Reader (Past)

Word Count: 3377

Misty Eyes Masterlist

Ao3 Link

Summary: Law can't trust you yet, so you do everything you can to prove yourself. Will your memories help or hurt you?

Author's Note: I'm really enjoying writing Law in multiple fics, so I can slap different vibes on him like he's trying on different shades of eyeliner 😅

THIS FIC CONTAINS DARK CONTENT.

Rating/Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content, 18+ ONLY, MDNI, AFAB!Reader, She/Her Pronouns for Reader, Reader-Insert, Devil Fruit User Reader, Swearing, Eventual Smut, Angst, Pet Names, Degradation, Punishment, Emotional Abuse, DARK CONTENT, DUBCON, Grooming, Trauma, Past Sexual Abuse, Manipulation, Power Imbalance, Dubious Consent, Donquixote Doflamingo is His Own Warning, Bondage, Other Additional Tags to be Added, Dissociation, Inappropriate Use of Akuma no Mi | Devil Fruit Powers

!!! SPOILERS !!! This story begins during the 2 year timeskip before the Punk Hazard Arc, and there will also be spoilers for the Dressrosa Arc for backstory lore

~🦩🦩🦩~

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do, young master! You–”

“Now, now, Y/N. What did I tell you? You’re my pretty little thing now, so you get to call me Doffy, alright?”

His large hand cupped your face, warming your cheek that was already warm from his attention.

He’s smiling at me now. I’m special to him. I mean something to him, finally.

“Well? Are you going to answer my question properly?”

Doffy’s hand traveled down to your neck, long fingers circling your vulnerable flesh as he waited for you to obey him.

“Yes. I love you, Doffy.”

~🦩🦩🦩~

“Y/N?”

Law repeated your name softly until you returned, finding yourself in that metal room, a shrine dedicated to his hatred and rage.

“I’m sorry to have to ask you this,” Law rasped, dipping his face to meet your eyes. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through all these years…”

His brows pinched together when he caught your grimace, and his shoulders slumped.

Guilt pulled at his features, while you tried to understand which of the emotions inside you were worth focusing on.

“I shouldn’t have asked you that–”

“I don’t know,” you confessed. Your voice was empty, as if a machine were spilling truths instead of your own lips.

“I did love him. I know I did,” you continued, staring a hole through Law’s wooden desk. “I’ve been… feeling guilty for a while. Why am I not feeling that anymore?”

Your misty eyes looked up, almost pleading with him for an answer.

“Loving Doffy is the only thing I’m good at. The only reason he needs me. What use am I–”

“You are worth more than what he takes from you,” he growled, your eyes widening until the mist turned to tears.

Law relaxed his shoulders again, releasing a breath. Those tattooed hands cupped your cheeks, and you sighed as his thumbs wiped away your show of weakness.

“Y/N,” he soothed, his lips quirking before he continued. He dropped his hands away, and you missed their warmth, especially as those golden eyes hardened again.

“I don’t want to keep you prisoner, but as much as I'd like to, I can’t trust you yet.”

Nodding, you tried not to shake as fear rolled back over you.

“I can’t risk this mission. It’s not safe for me to leave you somewhere on your own. But if I let you roam the Polar Tang, interact with my crew… Especially when you can sneak into any room you like–”

“I would never,” you choked out, reaching for one of his hands on the desk. “Please, Law. I won’t betray you, I swear.”

He squeezed your hand in return, but shook his head.

“I want to believe you, Y/N. But we both know the power he has over people. You might not think you’d betray me now, but he’s been in your head your whole life.”

The weight of loneliness pressed your body down, your hand going limp in his. He squeezed it a few more times until you looked up again.

“If you're willing to trust me,” he started, his eyes a bit wide, “I have a way to make sure that I can trust you. It won’t hurt–”

“Hurt,” you whispered, wetting your dry lips as you waited for whatever he wanted to do to you.

“I can remove your heart,” he explained, pulling a key from his pocket to unlock the large bottom drawer of his desk.

With all of the gruesome things you’d seen in your life, you were surprised at the gasp you let out. Law had pulled something from the drawer, holding it up so that you could take a look.

It was a strange cube, almost glowing with blueish pink light. It looked squishy, and you reached out to touch it before you noticed the steady pulse. It was a beating heart.

“So that story is true,” you breathed as you watched it in fascination, “you really did steal all of those pirate’s hearts.”

“I did,” he nodded grimly, tucking that heart back into the drawer. “I’ve done a lot of things to prepare for this goal.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? You–”

“Take my heart. It’s not helping me out anyway, it might be good to have a break,” you laughed, trying to cover the hollow sound in your words.

Law stood, and you followed suit, his powerful voice vibrating through you.

“Room.”

You watched in awe as he created a blue sphere of light to fill the space before coming toward you with his sword.

“This is just a precaution,” he explained, his breath going heavy. “I won’t hurt you, Y/N. I'll protect you.”

“I trust you,” you admitted before you held your breath.

You couldn’t follow all of the emotions that crossed his face, until he drained them all away. He looked at you as if you were just a problem to be solved. A loose end to tie up to make sure his plan would succeed.

His sunny eyes were as cold and distant as the vacuum of space when he held the tip of his blade to your chest.

“Scalpel.”

You couldn’t remember the last time a weapon had hurt you. There was no need to worry about being injured in battle when you hadn’t left the castle in so long.

Doffy was the only one that could hurt you, besides the sea and its stone.

Nothing could cut through mist.

Law was so confident in his ability that you hadn’t questioned him. Instead, you tried to cooperate, somehow willing your body to stay solid so he could rip you open.

But the blade at your chest seemed as weak as your own abilities.

Until it pierced your flesh.

“You’re okay,” Law assured you as he pressed further, your gasping breaths slowing as you realized there was no pain.

“Would you like to hold it?”

Such a strange feeling, gazing at your own beating heart. The very core of your being, the thing that keeps you alive.

Sitting in the palm of your hand like a piece of fruit.

“What happens if I squeeze it?”

“It would hurt very– Y/N, stop!”

Law pulled your heart from your grasp as you fell to your knees. The pain was indescribable, radiating from your chest through your whole body, as if your veins were on fire. Nausea came as the pain burned through you, and you leaned your forehead against his desk as he knelt beside you.

“Why would you do that,” he questioned, almost scolding you like he would when you were kids.

“Most things can’t hurt me,” you choked out, tilting your head up to see his grumpy face. “I was just curious.”

He frowned before sitting on the floor beside you, pushing the chair out of his way as he looked you over.

“How are you feeling, Y/N? Have you been having thoughts of harming yourself?”

“What? No,” you exclaimed, sitting straight as the pain started to fade. “I promise, I just… I don’t know. I’ve never been handed my own fucking heart before. It was like an impulse.”

“You’ll tell me if you start having thoughts like that,” he requested after a pause, making you squirm with embarrassment.

“I promise, I’m sorry. I was stupid.”

Law helped you to your feet, then gripped your shoulder until you were caught in his serious glare.

“That was a stupid thing to do, but you are not stupid.”

You scrunched your face up, and sat down, itching to forget everything that happened in the last hour.

“This is just a precaution,” he repeated, locking your heart in that bottom drawer. You tried not to stare as he tucked the key into his pocket, but a sick taste of guilt hit your tongue.

I wouldn't need a key to steal my heart back. I could just mist into the drawer, and absorb it.

You gulped down the pressure to confess, to tell him to hide it somewhere else.

I’m not gonna steal it back, but I don’t know him anymore. I should be careful.

“Now,” Law cleared his throat, picking up his notepad again, “do you know anything about Doflamingo’s dealings with Kaidou?”

Your mouth opened, but nothing came out. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to tell him. Everything just felt blank.

“I don’t… I’m not important enough to know anything,” you explained, the words burning your throat on the way out. “I’m sorry, I probably won’t be able to help much.”

Law sat back in his chair, tapping his pen against his lips while he assessed you.

I’m still fucking useless.

‘Can’t do anything on your own, huh? Just listen to Doffy, you’ll be the perfect little doll for me, alright?’

“Were you with him a lot?”

“What,” you coughed, your skin flushing to the tips of your ears.

“No, I– that’s not what I…” Law sighed, shaking his head to clear his own words away. “Did he have you with him throughout the day? During meals, maybe while he took calls or meetings?”

“Oh,” you said softly, noticing yourself going fuzzy again, staring into nothing as you tried to recall.

~🦩🦩🦩~

“I mean no offense, Joker, but shouldn’t we be discussing this in private?”

“Oh, don’t mind her, Caesar,” Doffy laughed, rubbing his hand over your back as you lounged in his lap. “She can’t do any harm.”

The scientist frowned at you for a moment. You couldn’t tell if he was wearing makeup, or if his skin really was that pale, his lips almost purple. He met your eyes before shifting his own away from you, and away from Doffy’s fingers that trailed over your thighs, your neck.

Doffy always touched you so gently when visitors were around, and you melted into him.

If not for Caesar’s grating laugh, you might have drifted off. Instead, you jolted now and then, Doffy’s hands clutching a little tighter.

~🦩🦩🦩~

“Are you al–”

“I remember something. Doffy sent Monet with a scientist, this weird guy with–”

“Caesar Clown,” he prompted, his brow arching a bit.

“Yeah. And I guess you wouldn’t know Monet, she joined after you…”

Law pointed to a picture on the wall, your gaze slow in following the gesture.

“I know of her.”

Your eyes were drawn to a shot of Monet, her wings curled around her as she read a book with those odd, hypnotizing glasses of hers. Memories of her disapproval hit you, a sigh escaping your lips as you tried to rid yourself of her judgments.

“She’s even more loyal to Doffy than the rest of– than everyone else. She’s almost obsessive. That’s probably why he sent her.”

Law’s body had gone taut, like electricity was running through him as he set his pen to the paper.

“Please, Y/N, tell me everything you can remember. Even if it doesn’t seem important.”

Your brain felt like a wet rag, with Law wringing out every detail of every call or meeting you could think of.

It seemed strange how much you could recall from your quiet perch on his lap. You were always so bored, but had to fight yourself not to space out or yawn.

Doffy’s possessive fingers along your skin were wonderful, your revealing clothing giving him so much access. As bored as you could get, those teasing touches in front of visitors prepared your body for what came later.

It was a relief to wet his thigh with slick before he dismissed the guests. He rarely had the patience to prep you any other way.

You’d spaced out on those memories, Law’s face pinching in concern as he watched your nails digging into your arms.

“Are you hungry? We can continue tomorrow.”

Groaning at the thought, you followed Law back to the galley. He didn’t have much luck in calming his crew this time. They surrounded the two of you until Law begrudgingly introduced you, and your hand was shaken by many greasy, steamy hands pulled out of gloves, and one bear’s paw that you were very hesitant to touch.

“I’m sorry about what I said before,” Bepo drawled, true sadness seeming to drip from his voice. “I just really love our cap–”

“Bepo,” Law scolded, and you turned to scold him back as the bear scurried off.

“How could you be so mean, did you see his–”

“Don’t fall for his sad bear eyes,” Law bristled, and you held in your smile at his discomfort.

“Is that something you’ve learned from experience,” you teased, earning you a scowl.

Law tucked into his meal, not meeting your eyes as he replied.

“I know my crew.”

“Oh yeah? They all seem to think you’re the most wonderful man in the world. Could the Surgeon of Death be a big softie?”

If looks could kill.

“Okay, sorry,” you teased between bites, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You do realize that I could take away your tongue if I wanted to,” he threatened, with what looked like the barest touch of pink gracing his cheeks.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d enjoy some alone time with it.”

Law raised his brows as you clamped your hand over your mouth, your face going hot. He looked too smug, his lips curling as if trying not to laugh.

“Shut up,” you choked out, putting your misty hands in your lap.

“I’m not the one whose tongue keeps wagging,” he taunted, somehow keeping that stoic air about him, just a hint of playfulness showing through.

You stuck that tongue out at him before focusing on your meal, and the low chuckle he let escape was hardly noticeable over the nearby conversations of his crew.

But you noticed it.

Warmth tingled through your body, and your face was still burning by the time he led you to your room.

“Will you be alright in here,” he checked in, standing outside the door to the small room he’d set up for you in the barracks. “The crew are on rotating shifts, so there will always be someone sleeping or getting ready nearby if you need anything.”

“Okay,” you said in a small voice. The realization that you were about to be alone in a cramped, metal room made your skin crawl.

“Are you o—“

“I’ll be fine. Thank you,” you lied with a smile. You were good at lying with smiles.

“Okay,” he nodded, clearing his throat. “I’ll, uh… I’ll come wake you in the morning, alright? We can have breakfast before we continue going over what you remember.”

“Sounds good,” you chirped. Your cheeks started to hurt as you waved him out, letting your muscles relax after he’d closed that heavy door.

Quiet.

Not completely. Clanging sounds of the sub interrupted the stillness. Soft voices floated in the hallway beyond that door.

But now that you were alone…

Thoughts. Memories. Fear. Shame. Guilt.

Falling back on the single bed, you choked out silent sobs, the flood of emotions slamming into you. You had left your world, dove off the edge of a waterfall, but now you were caught beneath the crashing water, drowning while your body was ripped apart.

What have I done? How could I leave the family? How could I betray Doffy?

I’m nothing but scum. Useless my whole life, and now I’m a traitor.

Your mind went in endless loops. Gratitude for Law taking you away. Guilt for betraying the family. Relief that you weren’t stuck in that mindless existence anymore. Terror that Doffy would find and kill you both slowly.

It hurt. Your whole body hurt, your head pounding like the clanging metal of the submarine.

And you couldn’t understand how you could feel your heart breaking and burning in your chest when it was locked up in Law’s office.

“Y/N, can I come in?”

His knock had sent you to the ceiling, your body spread into cowardly mist while you tried to calm down.

“Y/N,” he checked again, concern staining his voice.

“Just a second,” you stalled, going solid in front of the door. You shook yourself, wiped your tears, and took a few quiet breaths before opening the door with another beaming smile.

“What’s up?”

Law didn’t look at you like an old friend, an enemy, or a captain on a mission.

He looked at you like a doctor, and you tried not to squirm.

“What’s that,” you pointed to the lump of shiny fabric he held under one arm.

He coughed, looking down at his shoes before returning your gaze, seeming to rebuild that doctor persona.

“You’ve been through an intense amount of trauma, and the shock of… If you would feel comfortable, I’d like to sleep on the floor in here tonight, just to make sure you’re okay. I could sleep outside the door if you prefer, I just—“

He glanced down at your clenched fists, and you tried to relax them as he continued.

“I want you to feel safe.”

I’ll never be safe. I’m a traitor. I’m weak. I’ll be tortured before they kill me.

Doffy will…

The lump in your throat burned, and you filled the room with thick mist so he wouldn’t see you shatter, sinking to the floor as you clawed at your empty chest.

Law closed the door, calling your name as he moved blindly toward you. You could feel him in your mist, and you could have avoided him. You could have let yourself expand into tiny droplets of water, keeping yourself away from any care or comfort he could try to provide.

But you couldn’t think. Just heave silent sobs, and struggle through breaths that took in more mist than oxygen.

“Y/N– fuck,” he cursed, stubbing his toe on the bed as he waved his arms around slowly.

The mist told you that he’d gone to his knees, crawling close to you in the small space, but you couldn’t do anything with that knowledge.

Warm fingers found your arm, pressing lightly along to figure out what he was feeling.

“I’m sorry I’m touching you, I just need to make sure you’re alright,” he breathed, tracing along your shaking body until he found your neck. His fingers almost burned your clammy skin as he took your pulse before gripping your shoulder gently.

The way that you could see through your eyes was different than how you could see as mist, or through the mist you create, but you had no way to describe the difference. Through the mist, you saw him lean close, his head above yours as if he could see through the mist too.

“I’m here. I’m right here with you, Y/N.”

Time was impossible to track as you alternated between crying and dissociating, Law’s calm presence never wavering. Eventually, your mist cleared up, from exhaustion instead of choice.

He lifted your limp body, tucking you into the small bed before rolling out his sleeping bag.

“You don’t have to sta–”

Law interrupted your slurred words with a harsh glare, but sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“I’m not going anywhere, Y/N.”

His eyes seemed brighter in this dim room, his voice too soft, yet firm.

Staring into nothing, you felt numbness trying to take you again, but words jumped out of you before you drifted away.

“Why does it still hurt,” you accused, tapping against your chest with angry fingers, desperate to rip these feelings out. “You took my heart, Law. Why does it still hurt so bad?”

Somehow, more hot tears fell, your body too weak to keep tearing at the hole inside.

Law’s eyes trailed away, gone to some other time, some other place. When he came back to you, he took your hand in his, running his thumb over your knuckles.

“If I could cure a broken heart, I wouldn’t be able to complete my mission.”

His words felt as hollow as your chest. You managed to squeeze his hand, pulling in his distant eyes.

“So we can be broken together then,” you asked, your voice still hoarse as your lips lifted into a weak smile.

Law huffed a laugh, lifting your fingers to his lips before kissing his promise onto your skin.

“Broken together.”

Likes, comments, and reblogs bring me much ✨dopamine✨ thank you so much!

a/n: I knew I was going to go crazy when I started writing for Law, and I was correct. I'm obsessed with this emotionally wrecked man 🖤

Tag List: @shewrites02 | @jadeddangel | @nothing-but-brass

Part 3

Operation Olive Branch has compiled a working spreadsheet of ways to help families fleeing from the genocide in Palestine. If you enjoyed this fic, and are able, please click the link to find a list of GoFundMe's, as well as other ways to help.

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naryrising · 11 months

Note

Hi Nary! First off, thank you for your positive and impactful presence in fandom and on AO3. Both are better because you’re here with us.

Quick question: I’ve seen a lot of posts urging AO3 authors to lock their accounts for members-only to prevent AI scraping for things like sudowrite. But isn’t that like closing the barn door after the horse is already out? From your knowledge, does locking down an account starting today provide any benefit from AI issues?

Thank you for everything you do!

Ok, well, I wrote the AO3 news post that went out about that topic, and in it I did suggest that locking works is a way to potentially help avoid scraping. But I can expand on that somewhat, because it's really quite a bit more complicated. (And as always, I'm not speaking in an official capacity here, just my own personal outlook).

Will locking your work stop AO3's data from being used in things like ChatGPT, Sudowrite, etc? No. Those tools are all based on the CommonCrawl dataset, which was collected years ago - it began collecting in 2011 and continues to this day. Specifically, as far as I understand, Sudowrite and ChatGPT and others were trained on a version of the dataset, GPT-3, which was released in 2020 (and therefore, based on data collected earlier than 2020). Therefore, if that is your primary concern, yes, the horse is very much out of the barn - this data was collected many years ago at this point, and any prospect of removing it is going to probably involve legal challenges about how such data can be used. This is very much uncharted territory as far as the law is concerned, so it may take years for courts to sort out what rights authors have in this situation. (For instance, can you request the removal of your copyrighted texts? Who knows!)

What about scraping in the future, though? When AO3 became aware that this data was being used to train AI text generators, it blocked the CommonCrawl bot. Therefore, assuming CommonCrawl behaves ethically, it will respect that block and not scrape further data from the site. Therefore, locking your works today will makes no difference if what you're trying to avoid is being scraped by CommonCrawl, as AO3 already took measures to prevent that going forward.

What about other types of data scraping? Great question, and that is the murky area. There are many other people and companies out there who are not CommonCrawl and may have other goals and motives. Some of that could range from a dedicated fan wanting to scrape a copy of their entire fandom's contents on a certain date to keep as a private backup, to academic researchers working on entirely above-board projects in linguistics or literature or media studies, to companies wanting to build their own dataset for training some other future kind of AI, or something none of us are currently able to guess. If that's your concern, then locking your work might provide some degree of protection. It will, for instance, probably protect against fairly crude large-scale mass scraping. (AO3's coding team has also stated that it will block these type of mass scrapers if and when they become aware of them, and has already for some time taken measures such as rate limiting to make the scraping process harder.) But - people, including people who want to scrape data, can make accounts on AO3. It's free, anyone can join, it typically takes about a week to get an invite. They can log in, see the works that are only visible to logged-in users, and scrape them, just with a bit more effort. Now, these are currently, I suspect, more likely to be the kind of scraping projects like "I just want a personal copy of every work in my fandom" or "I'm an academic doing research on fanfiction and I'm collecting data about how fic writers use tags", which some people might be okay with. But it could also be someone with less ethical motives. It's hard to stop one without also stopping the other, from AO3's side. From users' side, locking your works is probably protective against large-scale data scraping, but less so against this type of smaller scale data scraping. But also, I can't predict the future, and maybe there's some project happening right now to figure out a way around this! I don't know!

In short, if you don't want your data scraped, never put anything online anywhere ever, or support legal changes that will allow for stronger data protection. Right now, nothing is completely safe. Locking your works might make them slightly safer, but is not a total guarantee of protection.

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thydungeongal · 9 months

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Let’s make a Rolemaster

It’s one of those slow days and I have nothing better to do (done grocery shopping for the weekend, done all my chores, so on) so to keep myself at least a bit occupied I’m going to make a Rolemaster character just so all of you know what a massive hurdle it is There’s a reason I keep saying that Rolemaster is my favorite RPG in spite of everything. The character creation is one of those everythings.

I’ll be doing this in Rolemaster Classic (the revised reprint of Rolemaster 2e released sometime in the 2000s) because it is the most familiar to me (I first cut my teeth on 2e) while having backported some improvements from Rolemaster Standard System as optional rules. I’ll also be using one optional rule from Rolemaster Companion I (also revised by Guild Companion Publications in 2007 alongside the release of Rolemaster Classic) which while not altering the rule to a major degree does something fun to the math imo.

Sadly, I have yet to find a good form-fillable character sheet for Rolemaster Classic, so I’ll be doing this shit old school: by writing it all down in a text file.

This will be done in a long reblog chain, but using read-more links so you can skip parts you’ve already read. If you don’t want to get updates on this, you can go and blacklist the tag “let’s make a rolemaster” to save yourself from seeing these posts.

Without further ado, onto the first section:

1. Choosing Profession, Realm & Race:

The first and arguably biggest choice in Rolemaster is choosing your Profession. This is akin to choosing your class in D&D, but with a bit of nuance: while Rolemaster utilizes levels and professions, it’s not strictly a class and level system. It’s more like a skill-based system wearing the skin of a class and level system. While your character’s profession has an undeniable effect on them, affecting such things as level-based bonuses on certain skills, skill purchase costs, as well as what spell lists are considered Base lists for you, your Profession isn’t quite as prescriptive as class in D&D and other such games is. Ultimately the effect is much the same, though: yes, you could make a Magician that doesn’t learn a single spell and puts all their development points into using arms and armor, but why would you? What this system does achieve is allowing you to expand your character outside of the identity determined by their Profession but at a cost.

For most characters, choice of Profession also determines your Realm: Realm is what Rolemaster uses for what in D&D 4e terms would be Power Source. Characters are divided into six Realms: Arms (this would be Martial), Channeling (the closest D&D equivalents would be Divine and Primal), Essence (the closest D&D equivalent would be Arcane), Mentalism (Psionics), Hybrid (a combination of two of the aforementioned Realms of Magic), and Arms & Magic (Arms combined with one of the Realms of Magic). For an example, a Fighter is from the realm of Arms, as is a Thief. Clerics are pure users of Channeling. Mystics are hybrid users of the Realms of Essence and Mentalism. Rangers are semi-spellcasters of the Realms of Arms and Channeling.

So, for most characters your choice of Profession also determines your realm. But characters from the Realm of Arms still need to choose one of the Realms of Magic. This ties into what I said above about Profession not being completely prescriptive: Fighters can learn a bit of magic, albeit at a much slower pace than even semi-spellcasters. But like spellcasters (with the exception of the hybrid spellcasters) they must dedicate themselves to a singular Realm of Magic.

Spellcasters in Rolemaster start out as notably weak, but there are a few tricks that you can pull off with them that allow them to survive through the early levels. While I do have a soft spot for Astrologers (hybrid spellcasters of the Realms of Channeling and Mentalism), I’m going to go for something different this time: a Mystic, a hybrid spellcaster of the Realms of Essence and Mentalism. Mystics are experts at spells that relate to altering their forms as well as clouding the senses of others. They are very much not combat casters. This choice also locks our choice of Realm as Essence and Mentalism.

I’ve also spoken about how in the Rolemaster Classic Character Law the example character is a half-elf Sorcerer (another hybrid spellcaster, of the realms of Channeling and Essence) whose choice of Profession also reflects their hybrid nature and being stuck between two worlds: the human and elven. I like that concept but I feel the Mystic reflects that concept even better than the Sorcerer. There’s something very non-Elven about Mentalism in Rolemaster (partly because most Mentalism users have Self-Discipline as one of their primary stats and Elves in Rolemaster have a penalty to Self-Discipline for some reason).

So I’m going Half-Elf, but just to give you a brief idea of what kind of spread we’re dealing with here: Rolemaster is very Tolkien and it shows. You have two types of humans, Common Men and High Men (the latter are very much modeled after the Dúnedain of Tolkien), Half-Elves, three types of Elves (Wood Elves, High Elves, Fair Elves), Dwarves, Halflings, two types of Orcs (Lesser and Greater, very much a regular Orc vs. Uruk-Hai split) and Trolls. As I said, very Tolkien.

With that out of the way we’ve tackled the first hurdle of character creation and oh boy I can’t wait to get to the part where we get to do math!

#rolemaster #long post #let's make a rolemaster

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sophieinwonderland · 9 months

Text

Angry

I just out about this post from November. I think this might be the oldest post in the "Sophiecourse" tag. It starts with this screenshot of my post.

The ask itself was super gross.

And... I legitimately thought that was it. I shut them down, and I don't think the anon said anything further.

And then I found this...

Apparently, gender identity is only worth respecting if you explicitly identify as transgender. Otherwise, this is totally acceptable behavior. /s

And just a reminder, we're not in the minority when it comes to having headmates who identify as cis while having headmates of differing AGABs.

This is the overwhelming majority of systems who answered.

But the post still got 13 likes...

Which might not seem like a lot, but it's legitimately surprising to me that 13 people saw that, nodded their heads, and decided this was acceptable discourse because it was against somebody they didn't like.

And yes, I'll say it: misgendering headmates who don't identify by their body's AGAB is transphobia, even if the headmates don't identify as transgender.

It's also pluralphobic, sanist and ableist to try to justify misgendering systems using that as an excuse.

Everything about this post is completely disgusting.

And you know what I just learned... here is a cherry on top.

The system who made the above post is the admin of the Survivor's Network discord server.

Wait... do most people even know about this... I'm going to need a separate section dedicated for this. Well, this post is getting way longer than I meant it to be. I just was going to make a quick post here, but okay! Let's get into this!

The Survivor's Network

For those who aren't aware, there was a bit of discourse several months back with a former member of The Survivors Network who left and started talking about disturbing behavior they witnessed there.

This included multiple users making fake Tupperbox profiles of me to roleplay as me and mock me. And to be clear, the one speaking out on this was anti-endo and very passionately hates me, and whatever was going on there made even them uncomfortable.

They didn't mention the server by name at first, but immediately got several hate asks, as well as people calling them out the Confessions blog. And again, they didn't even name the server by that point. They just said they had been in a server that had done these bad things.

It was only after continued pushing that the user finally named the Survivor's Network as the place responsible.

I... don't like making cult comparisons... but in the days after this user blew the whistle, several major Syscourse blogs started making posts praising the Survivor's Network. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a little creepy as an outsider how the Survivor's Network being barely criticized, not even by name, elicited that type of response. Both the instant praise to prove their allegiance to the group, and the attacks against the whistleblower.

Other anons sent in asks to the whistleblower talking about bullying, toxic and clique-y behavior they witnessed in the Survivor's Network

Ugh...

I legitimately started writing this with no idea of the connection. I just was going to write about this really gross post I found out about. But this does give me a much clearer picture of the Survivor's Network if the admin is saying things like this.

And many of the major syscoursers are part of this group. Especially anti-endos, "neutrals" and "unaligned."

Anyway, if anyone is considering joining The Survivor's Network, I think it's important to know the type of people who run it.

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seancurry1 · 4 months

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Hey, I really liked your article on what the Internet is like in 2024. For many of us the way it is now is all we have ever really known. How did people navigate an internet before Google owned search bars and the same 10 or so sites ran public opinion?

Thanks for the ask, anon! I got into that a little in the beginning of the article that excerpt was from. Repasting here, and I'll elaborate further down:

There was a solid three years in college—maybe even longer—when I literally read every single article on CollegeHumor.com and Cracked.com. Whenever I had some free time (an abundance I was tragically unaware of at the time), I’d type their URLs into my browser bar, scroll down to the last article I read, and start reading. Once I was caught up, I’d check in on a handful of other sites the same way (mostly webcomics, and a few blogs). Questionable Content, Penny Arcade, XKCD, Ctrl-Alt-Del, and, yes, even some more embarrassing to admit than CAD that I’m not going to mention here were all readily-available in my browser bar’s autocomplete. When I ran out of new stuff to read, I’d hit StumbleUpon, or Reddit, or Digg. There were always some new URLs out there for me to uncover, good or bad (and there were a lot of bad ones), and I loved finding them. Please don’t take this as me flexing my OG internet cred; nothing I’ve said here is all that different from the mid-00s experience of any online American goober. I say all this to point out a fundamental shift in how the internet (at least the internet that I’ve experienced, within my social and geographical bubble) has worked over the last ~10 years. Those early days were defined by websites, not social feeds. When I “went online,” I went to specific URLs to see what the people behind them were up to. Sure, there was Twitter and Facebook, and Myspace before that, but those were still avenues to direct traffic to websites, more or less. People went on those platforms (and later, those apps) to be social, not make content. The most “content creation” you’d do on Facebook in those days was upload a selfie or tag all your friends in a party photo from the night before.

Before the feeds, everyone had a website, and you'd spend your online time going from URL to URL to check in on them. If you've ever heard the term "blogroll," this is the time that was from.

Let's say it's 2006 and I have a blog with a bunch of dedicated readers. Somewhere on my blog's page, I would have section dedicated to linking out to other blogs I liked. That was the "blogroll", and before that there were "webrings" which accomplished a similar thing in a slightly different way.

Webcomics were really, really good at this. They organically created a lot of the social infrastructure that earlier internet ran on, and that the later web 2.0 stuff was built on.

After a while, RSS readers became much more user-friendly, and blog owners made their blog's RSS feed as accessible as possible. If you input a website's RSS feed into your RSS reader (RIP Google Reader, we didn't deserve you), then your RSS reader would update.

[Random screenshot of Google Reader I found online. This was Google's take, but all the other ones more or less worked the same way.]

It looked a lot like email, to be honest. And on that note, I think the recent surge in newsletters is recreating that experience, to a degree. I subscribe to over a dozen newsletters, from Substack and other platforms/outlets, and I filter them all out of my inbox and into a separate label. This is a screenshot of my newsletter inbox:

I don't have to log into Twitter, or Threads, or Bluesky, or whatever to get the content I want from the people I want to get content from. I don't have to worry about how the algorithm is sorting it; this feed is always chronological. There's nothing between me and the writers, artists, and other creators I want to keep up with.

With the collapse of the algorithm-driven era*, I think we're heading back to this (or at least, I think we should be). What's great about this is: we don't have to be beholden to the whims of platforms anymore. We can just get the stuff we want from the people we want.

*The algorithms are still very much alive and still very much want you to keep yourself hooked up to their slurry, but they've dropped their end of the bargain. The spell is broken, there's no longer one place that feels like everyone is logging into to talk about whatever's happening on the internet in any given moment. Elon Musk ruining Twitter was the final thing that broke the spell, but it started happening after everyone got mad at Facebook for helping get Trump elected in 2016. Now that everyone's looking for something else to replace what they used to get from algo feeds but failing to coalesce in one place again, that's never going to come back.

So that all answers your question: "For many of us the way it is now is all we have ever really known. How did people navigate an internet before Google owned search bars and the same 10 or so sites ran public opinion?"

But I'd like to focus on the second sentence there for a second. You're right, right now it feels like Google owns search bars and the same 10 or so sites run public opinion. However, that's only because we've all given that power to them. I understand it, and sympathize with it. Creating an intentional presence on the internet is a lot of work, and it's hard to keep up with it as all the services we use to do it change their policies and settings.

I think this straight-to-the-source model would be better for all of us in general, and the best part about it is you can just start doing it for yourself whenever you want. You don't have to wait for a platform to start offering it, just find the writers and creators you want and subscribe to their newsletters. If a platform changes something that puts a wall up between you and the people you like there, doesn't matter. You're following their email newsletter and will still get those emails as long as they keep sending them.

That early internet I described was full of people still figuring out how it all worked, so the gears and inner workings were a lot more apparent and easier to play with. As the internet has gotten more polished, those gears have been covered up and less visible, but they're still there.

In fact, every Tumblr page has an rss feed, just add "/rss" to the end of its URL like this: https://seancurry1.tumblr.com/rss. You could set up an RSS feed yourself, or figure out a way to convert RSS updates to emails. Here's an IFTTT recipe to do it, but I'm sure there are other ways.

The platforms all want you to think the way the internet currently exists is the way it's always been and the only way it ever can be, but all the gears are there if you look for them. You can start ripping the guts out and seeing how it works for yourself, and even make it better.

Anyway, happy to pass on my Elder Internetter knowledge if you have more questions! I think we're at an exciting turning point in the internet where the power to shape our experiences is up for grabs, but it's up to us to grab it.

#internet #decentralization #platforms #algorithms #newsletters

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smreine · 2 years

Text

The writing advice on Tumblr tends to be very limited

and not super accurate, in my opinion.

Which is a decent opinion, given that I have written over a hundred books, sold over a million copies, and made a living as an author for about a decade.

I see a lot of “do this” and “don’t do this” bestowed upon authors with the tone of religious decree, which makes me think this is probably coming from people who are fairly absolutist in thinking, and maybe not as experienced as someone I prefer to take writing advice from.

There are zero writing rules which are broadly applicable and always true.

Even if you intend to cohere to Modern Best Practices, advice SHOULD change based upon what genre you’re writing in, what platforms you publish upon, your intended readership, etcetera. I have not yet seen writing advice on Tumblr that acknowledges its limitations and specificity in this way.

My almost-universal advice:

Write deliberately.

I mean, if you are already looking for writing advice, you are not slapping shit out thoughtlessly. (This can be a very fun practice too.)

But maybe you think “I shouldn’t use dialogue tags besides said/asked” or “I shouldn’t slow down the narrative with too much exposition” or “I should use fewer adverbs” because this is advice you read somewhere, and someone said it with a lot of authority. Maybe you have heard it from a hundred people so now it sounds universal.

So you’re writing based on someone else’s expectations, mostly.

“Fuck that shit, throw it out the window.” -New York Times Bestselling Author and Tumblr User SM Reine

I’ve been reading Books About Writing for thirty years. I have read Books About Writing (fiction, television, etc) going back even longer. And the advice is not consistent within, say, a fifty year time frame, either.

Writing advice that is Commonly Considered Correct is still so very much a product of our present place in time and culture. It wasn’t true a hundred years ago. It won’t be true a hundred years from now. So many things we take for granted about storytelling are just modern Western story conventions!

Indeed, the American Central Intelligence Service is known to have interfered with modern writing standards.

What if society has been lying to you about what/how you should write, in just the same way that society lies to us about our options for gender?

What would you write if you had no expectations about what it should look like?

Now you are in a spaghetti nonsense world of creativity where nothing makes sense and nobody can tell you anything. You don’t have to have a protagonist. Or an antagonist. Or a plot. You can dedicate six out of twenty chapters to historic whaling practices. Every page can be about a different character with unconnected events.

You can do anything.

So Write Deliberately.

Ask yourself some questions:

What do I want to say?

What experience should readers have with this book?

Who are my readers?

Does this need to make money?

If you want to say something about historical whaling, and you want readers to have a contemplative experience with a book, then hell yeah put in all the exposition you want, baby.

Deliberately consider your adjectives, your dialogue tags, your exposition levels, and do what is right for the project. Even if it’s not conventional.

Does this need to make money, though?

We already know that many more stories are written than are ever published-for-sale, by an order of magnitudes. If you’re not here working a job, then I also urge you to think of yourself as your reader, and only you.

I urge you to look at yourself, your tastes, and your very specific scenario in order to carve out a book.

For the record, YES! I am giving you permission to write things that are completely incoherent to readers. Things that are only personally meaningful. I’m giving you permission to break every single rule, if that’s what services the story you want to tell.

In any case, when I set out to break every rule and Write For Myself, I still tend to produce something that is more readable than I expected and far more distinctive than I might have created if I created from a place of boundaries.

I’m telling you to shoot for the moon, push every boundary, and write a story that feels so much like your story that you radiate off the pages.

Even this advice isn’t universal, honestly.

If you’re writing for a hobby, if you’re learning to write, if you’re Writing for Art, I think this is lovely advice. Obviously. I just gave it.

If you’re writing to pay the bills, you need to write to market. And that’s a wholly different set of advice that I prefer not to give. Even so: in writing to market, you will ALSO need to ignore most Tumblr Writing Advice and look almost exclusively at your comps.

This has been your neighborhood grumpy old writer’s rant of the day.

#writing advice #writing #fiction

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

Text

Let Them Talk

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female) ft. Sykkuno

Warnings: Swearing, Jealousy

Genre: Fluff, a bit of Angst

Summary: We can all agree Among Us is a fun game on its own but what makes it ten times better is playing it with the right company. Y/N could agree 100% Being a streamer herself, she loves playing with the streamer gang that includes her boyfriend and best friend. But, what happens when her boyfriend starts doubting her feelings for him due to her close relationship with her best friend.

Requested by @cheetoscat . Thank you so much for your request! Sorry it took so long to write, I hope the final product is worth the wait. Enjoy! Love, Vy ❤

Y/AU/N - Your Among Us Name

I settle in my gaming chair, adjusting my webcam one last time before joining the Among Us lobby with my friends.

“Hi everyone!“ I say into the mic, a smile plastering itself on my face. Discord is a magical thing, man. It’s so easy to forget that the people you are talking to aren’t around you or within arm’s reach. You could be separated by miles and miles of land or - in our case - oceans as well. Distance becomes negligible when you hear your friends’ voices, their laughter; when you have a good time together despite being each behind a screen, often times alone.

Well, I’m one of those lucky ones that isn’t alone. No one knows that, though. Everyone thinks I’m a single, self-employed girl that’s straight out of college. And they are 90% right. Only thing is - I’m not single. That would be a shocker in and of itself, but revealing who’s changed my relationship status would be a bomb with a whole new intensity.

Speaking of my significant other who shall remain unnamed - just kidding, it’s Corpse - his form materializes in the doorway of my recording room. I give him a hand signal the camera isn’t able to capture, alerting him of the fact that my mic is on. He replies by blowing me a kiss and walking off down the hall to his recording room where he’ll be stationed for the next three or so hours.

I owe this relationship to my best friend Sykkuno. I’m a pretty new and not very well known on the platform, however, thanks to him I haven’t only obtained a boyfriend, but a following of a little over million subscribers as well.

It all started with an invitation to fill a spot in the Among Us lobby him and his friends had created. It took him quite a bit to convince me to join, but I eventually caved and agreed. Suddenly, there I was. In a Discord call, in an Among Us lobby with some of the most well-known names on this platform. I’m talking YouTube legends. I was that puppy playing with the big dogs. The newbie tagging along with the big leagues. Or at least that’s how I felt until we all started vibing - talking and teasing each other as though we’ve known each other for years and not minutes.

When I joined the call, Corpse wasn’t present. After everyone else introduced themselves, Sykkuno informed me that we were waiting for Corpse to return. The name sounded really cool to me and I was genuinely very excited to meet this Corpse guy.

And then, out of the blue - no prep, no warning...

“Did you get someone to fill the spot? Oh- Hello, Y/AU/N.“

…he started talking and he had me star-struck. Apparently, he also had me a blabbering mess cause I remember blurting out: “Whoa, who’s this guy speaking in bold and underlined at the same time?”

The entire lobby, including Corpse, laughed. Sean, or Jack like they called him most often, answered my question, “That is the voice of God, Y/N. Its source is named Corpse, though.”

Heat spread from the bottom of my neck to the tips of my ears. I was mortified by my own stupidity. I was well aware they couldn’t see me and I was incredibly thankful for that, but I simply could not get myself to open my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” I said through nervous laughter.

“No, no, I like that description. Bold and underlined at the same time, huh?“ His voice sounded even more pleasant when it had that teasing, mischievous note to it. That thought popping up in my head only made things worse for my self-esteem and only made me more embarrassed, causing me to hide my face in my hands. “You sure it’s not in Italics as well?“

His question got a weak laugh out of me. “Nope, definitely not. Nothing Italic about it.“

Yes, I don’t even know how some terrible jokes about MS Word fonts got me as far as a romantic relationship, but they did! We’ve been living together for quite some time now, dating for even longer - hiding it just as long. It’s not that we have been actively trying to hide it or something, we just wanted to see how long it would take someone to become sus of us. When we realized no one would notice, we decided that if any rumors about us started, or even fans shipping us, we’d come clean. That hasn’t happened either, so we haven’t had the proper chance to address our relationship and neither of us minds.

At this point, I’m honestly afraid of revealing it to the gaming squad. Sykkuno especially. He’s my best friend, after all. I can see him being hurt by the fact that I kept a secret so big even from him. The last thing I wanna do is hurt my best friend but it’s already too late for that, it’s inevitable.

“Y/N have you looked at Twitter today?“ Rae, another streamer I’ve become close with over the months, says urgently.

Overlooking the tension in her words, I answer: “Nope, haven’t had the time. Why? What’s up?“

Before Rae can say anything else, Sykkuno joins the conversation, his voice somehow even more urgent than Rae’s. “It’s nothing, Y/N. If you see it, just don’t let it bother you, ok?”

Hearing such a tone from Rae isn’t unusual, but hearing it from Sykkuno is completely different and a lot more worrisome. “Well if it has the potential of bothering me it can’t be nothing. What’s going on?”

Just then, my phone dings with two notifications. I check to see they are messages from Rae.

“I sent you screenshots. Sorry, Sykkuno. She has to know in order to address it and defuse it as well. I know better than anyone how fast these rumors can spread, especially if no one reacts to them.“ She says, her tone barely apologetic at all.

I open the screenshots she has sent me and I find myself frozen in shock. Some old pictures of Sykkuno and I have been posted on Twitter by some random user. These pictures have started an entire thread of suspicions surrounding our relationship.

The pictures in question are from a New Year’s Eve party a mutual friend of ours held two years ago. Sure, in the pictures we are a lot closer than what would be considered a platonic proximity. And yes one of the pictures is of me kissing his cheek. Yes we were both a bit tipsy. I acknowledge all those things and yet none of them are concrete reasons for these rumors to have started piling.

“This is silly.“ I finally say after maybe five minutes of silence on my end. ”This is absolutely ridiculous! And why are people so serious about it as well? Actual, important matters get discussed more nonchalantly than the potential relationship between two online personalities! What is this world we live in?“ I know I shouldn’t let these rumors get to me like this, especially not on camera. Still, I can’t help it. I feel it’s so unfair to Corpse. He has to put up with this as well and it’s by no means easy for him. I’ve been shipped with people from our group in the past and he always took those rumors to heart despite acting like he didn’t care. Neither of us should get worked up, but him getting upset about them creates a domino effect with my emotions - causing me to be hit just as hard as him, in some cases harder.

Rumors of the past aside, this one is the worst by far. Mostly cause even Corpse himself suspected something between Sykkuno and I at the very beginning, when we were still acquaintances, barely crossing into the realm of friends.

I pull up Twitter to look for the whole thread, barely sparing my stream chat a glance in the process. It seems pretty split - those who agree with me and those who think Sykkuno and I make ‘such an adorable couple’. The thread is ridiculously long, and if we take into account that it was only started approximately five hours ago, you can either view it as impressive, amusing or sad. Why sad? Because someone has dedicated so much time and effort into fueling the fire of a weakly supported theory.

I love Sykkuno with all my heart. Everyone knows that - fandom, streamer squad, Corpse and Sykkuno included. I love too much and too platonically to ever even dream of having a romantic connection with him. I thought that was more than obvious, but people are either blind here, or just grasping at straws. One thing’s for certain - they’re stepping on a nerve.

“Hey where’s Corpse? Did he disconnect?” Felix asks, gaining my full attention. My eyes dart to the monitor, searching through the little avatars in a desperate search for the one of my boyfriend. It’s nowhere to be found.

“He just messaged me saying his connection is unstable but he might join us later.“ Rae says, “You guys can invite someone to fill...“

“Bathroom break.“ I interrupt, not waiting for a response before shutting my mic off, putting the ‘BRB‘ graphic on my stream and yanking the headset off. I basically run down the hall to Corpse’s recording room, my heart pounding like a bass drum.

“Corpse?!“ I call out to him, one hand already on the doorknob. When five seconds pass by without a response, I barge in.

Inside, I find his usual spot on the gaming chair empty and his slumped figure seated on his bed.

“Corpse?“ I try again, watching for even the tiniest change of body language. He remains still as a statue, not bothering to look up at me either.

His hands are gripping the edge of the mattress, his head hanging low. His eyes are covered by the short curtain of his dark messy curls. I can’t gauge much. Is he angry? Is he sad? Both? How should I approach the situation?

Before I find the answer to any of those questions, I am kneeling in front of him, our height difference eliminated. I gently pry his hands off the mattress and take them in mine, holding them firmly but tenderly. With one hand I reach up to tilt his head so his eyes can meet mine. He complies, his tear-filled brown orbs meeting mine. Those tears have the same effect on me as fifty sharp knives stabbing into my chest. These tears focus their attack straight on my heart, tearing it to pieces.

“Baby....“

He cuts me off, “Why is it always someone else, huh? Do they deem me not worthy of being with you? Do they think you deserve better?” His voice wavers, “Well, they might be right. They are correct and there’s little I can do to prove them wrong. They mean you well, Y/N - pairing you with guys better than me. Those are some loyal fans you’ve got. They only want what’s best for you. And so do I. If ‘best’ is being with someone else then...”

It’s my turn to cut him off. I put an end to his nonsense ramble that’s slowly killing me by pressing my finger against his lips. The sternness of my gaze is beyond me as I get up and walk over to his computer setup. I put on his headset and hop into the call as well as the lobby with his avatar.

“Hey Corpse’s back!” Toast says, “Good to have you back buddy.”

“No, not Corpse.” I say in a casual, nonchalant voice.

“Wait, wha-“ Sean’s voice shows just how confused he is, representing the confusion of the entire lobby actually.

“I know all of you are streaming so this message will be heard by several different audiences so I’m gonna make myself perfectly clear.“ I take a deep breath, “Sykkuno and I aren’t dating. He’s a lovely guy and he deserves to find a girl who will treat him right. That girl isn’t and won’t be me though. I am already treating someone right. Someone who treats me more than right as well. An amazing person. A man-child with a heart of gold. You know him, to a certain extent. He goes by the name of Corpse Husband, but I prefer to call him ‘Love of my life’. Thank you for your time and attention, goodbye.“

I exit the call and turn around to find a stunned Copse looking at me.

“That was meant for you just as much.“ I say with a fake strict attitude, one hand on my hip the other rested on his desk behind me, “Were you listening?“

Within milliseconds, he’s on his feet standing directly in front of me, his lips inches away from mine. “I heard and memorized every word. But...” he pauses for a moment, “I think you have no idea how big of a chaos you just created.”

I smile mischievously, “We’ll worry about that later. For now...” I close the gap between us, connecting our lips in a sweet and passionate kiss.

@susceptible-but-siriusexual @simonsbluee @save-the-sky @hacker-ghost @itsminniekat @bi-andready-tocry @imtiredaffff @jazzkaurtheglorious @hereforbeebo @fandomgirl17 @chrysanthykios @maehemscorpyus @loraleiix @letsloveimagines @annshit @i-cant-choose-a-username-help @enigmaticmaze @divine-artemis @waterlilypat @idontknowwhatthisisfam @evi-ka @classyandfabulous00 @redperson58 @lilysdaydreams @the-fuck-up-of-today @slashersdream @chiefwombathoagiepizza @solowheein @mythicalamphitrite @axen-gers @luckygirl144 @nj01

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saintapoptosis · 3 years

Text

Dark Entries: A Goth Music Overview

The tags on that aux cord post are really grinding my gears on this Monday evening so I’m making it my responsibility to educate people on this site as to what goth music actually is. I know this is going to get on some people’s nerves and generate some discourse because the “what is goth?” debate never seems to end, but at the end of the day I’m just some stranger on the internet who’s not even old enough to be in most goth clubs in my country. This is just my interpretation and explanation of it all for the curious.

The long and short of it is that goth is a music based subculture. there’s no requirement to being goth other than listening to the music- which seems to be what’s confusing a surprisingly high people on this site. i’m not going to judge you for calling mother mother or my chemical romance goth up until this point. the subculture is largely underground and obscure by nature. Popular legend has it that the goth scene was born in 1979 when British rock band Bauhaus released the nine-minute long single Bela Lugosi’s Dead, but if you ask me that oversimplifies how it all started and isn’t even their best classic goth song. Goth is better understood as a progression from the punk explosion of the late 70s to what came after: the aptly named post-punk genre and beyond. Goth wasn’t the only genre that came from post-punk- new wave, shoegaze, and most alternative rock as we know it did too! Post-punk (British post-punk specifically) was and continues to be a lot of things compared to punk: noisier, faster, slower, stripped-down, more “intellectual”, weirder, and more emotional than early punk rock (the early British goth scene was also heavily linked to one particular club in London called the Batcave which just makes sense). Bands like Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure and the Sisters of Mercy also brought a dark, gloomy feel to the experimental do-it-yourself attitude of post-punk and are widely considered to be the founding gothic rock bands. Groups like Xmal Deutschland, Clan of Xymox, Sex Gang Children, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, and Pink Turns Blue are also hugely important to understanding the sound of the early scene (as well as the look) but didn’t achieve the same mainstream success.

But to make matters more complicated, there’s more than one goth “genre” because none of this is simple and no one agrees on this stuff in the scene. The usual laundry list of “goth” genres is as follows: gothic/goth rock, post-punk (widely contested ), darkwave, ethereal wave, deathrock, coldwave, and sometimes industrial. Angela Benedict explains it well in this video. Deathrock in particular is interesting because it was basically the “American version” of goth music and subculture for a long time and is widely called “too punk for goth and too goth for punk”. Darkwave and industrial are products of the scene getting its start in the early 80s when synthesizers became commercially available. Whether or not industrial in particular counts as “goth” or not is one of the quickest ways to start a fight among goths and also because nobody seems to be able to agree on what’s “real” industrial music. Metal isn’t widely considered to be goth music proper but I have yet to meet a goth who doesn’t like at least a little bit of metal. Historically that crossover didn’t really happen until metal started getting more creative as well (after all, the 80s were the golden age of fratty hair metal and toxic masculinity and neither of those things mesh well with goth style and sensibilities).

Now that I’m done rambling about the early history of the goth scene, here’s some short answers to the inevitable goth faqs:

Isn’t goth also about aesthetic and fashion?

Yes, but they can’t be fully separated from the music and community. The music generally inspires the fashion and we really like copying the outfits, hair, and makeup of musicians. Goths don’t own in dressing in all black and there’s plenty of goths out there who don’t “dress like it” (including myself and MANY goth and post-punk musicians).

Are you all satanists/pagans/witches? Are you all kinky?

More often than the average person but it’s more a consequence of being in a counterculture community than anything else. Goth and alternative women aren’t your fetish or your future “big titty goth gf”. We just like a certain style of music and just happen to dress weirdly sometimes.

Why don’t more people know that goth is about music?

Goth music generally doesn’t sell well because so much of it is too abrasive or weird and most artists are pretty far underground. Goth musicians also had a habit of denying involvement with “the goth scene” early on and goths, punks, metalheads, and emos are generally lumped together in mainstream media. Gothic fashion is much easier to rip off and sell than the subculture itself is. You (and more likely than not) your parents have probably heard and enjoyed semi-“goth” music before if you like Depeche Mode or The Cure.

How do I get into the goth subculture?

Listen to the music. Spotify’s Dark and Gothic playlist is surprisingly good and I’m partial to this massive Spotify user-created playlist of old and new bands and this mix on Youtube with lesser-known bangers. Goth music varies widely but a fuckton of it is made to be danced to because we hang out in clubs a lot of the time. The map below isn’t quite accurate but may be able to help you find your local community be it a club or a nonprofit organization! It’s fine to be confused and it’s perfectly alright to ease into it slowly without worrying about how to dress.

Where’s Your Goth At? A Worldwide Map of Goth Clubs and Events

Why do you guys like vampires so much?

They represent the pain and suffering of the human experience in a way that humans don’t plus Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire came out in the 80s and Bauhaus and David Bowie were in a movie about vampires. They also just straight up look cool.

More resources:

Before Bauhaus: How Goth Became Goth - a history of the dark music that paved the way for the scene. this channel has a couple more goth history videos.

Poseurs, Elitists, and Goth - a good explanation for why listening to goth music matters as well as why being a hardass about listening to the “right” goth music sucks. also very entertaining and made by @cadaverkelly who’s posted a TON of goth music on this site and has an entire channel dedicated to the subculture.

The Music of the Goth Subculture: Postmodernism and Aesthetics - an academic paper for nerds like me to parse through that has a ton of context and analysis on the goth movement and its origins.

#goth music #80s goth #goth subculture #goth #gothic #zemmoa.txt #what prescription adderall does to a mfer #long post #bauhaus #the cure #joy division #post-punk #siouxsie and the banshees #new wave #music history #punk

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jkjms · 3 years

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Hello. I hope you're doing great. I'm pretty new to the fandom, so jikook have honestly been consuming most of my time, tbh. So, I wanted to know your thoughts on Jk calling Jimin "Dangshin" and baby (in Korean, i don't remember how is it spelled) multiple times. For some reason, non shippers have decided to turn a blind eye at this, despite it being pretty serious according to Korean culture. Greetings from Colombia 😘

Hey! Thank you and Greetings from Canada! I’m doing well. Hopefully you are as well.

Welcome to the fandom, is Butter your first comeback or are you just new to Jikook? I’m sure with such an abundance and never ending flow of content it can be quite overwhelming, just take it slow. Now onto my opinion on terms of endearment.

*note that underlines are links

Here is a very good breakdown from sappoto on curiouscat on the topic of pet names. (password is 4 digits, kookmin’s number)

Here is another good breakdown from dalloga on tumblr

My thoughts basically aligned with what they said. Now for my personal thoughts below and examples of the uses. ↓

당신 Dangshin

Means ‘you’ and is not something rooted strictly to be romantic. It’s very ambiguous in meaning, as it can be used in a variety of different ways not just for a spouse; but in formal settings, or it can also even be used to insult. It’s a highly contextual word; just as Korean is a highly contextual language, therefore the meaning can differ.

In Namjoon's 171007 Vlive Namjoon calls Jimin dangshin 'are you (dangshin) an angel without wings?' because Jimin brought him a coffee @36:45

In 200903 Billboard Interview Jungkook calls Taehyung dangshin. Jungkook talks about his birthday/Dynamite #1 party with the members. Taehyung is messing with Jungkook and asks 'who bought the champagne?' Jungkook replies 'you (dangshin) did'

Dangshin has been used multiple times with JiKook, but I’ll just use two 2 examples:

1. Comeback Vlive: 방탄늬우스 : Behind The anSwer @53:25 'I drew your (dangshin) big sleeve'

2. 2019 Summer Package in Korea DVD @26:25 'Jimin ssi, you (dangshin) lower your voice'

애기야 Aegiya

The time Jungkook has called Jimin baby or 애기야 (aegiya) was in Bon Voyage S2 ep.2 Behind @9:10. It is a reference to a very famous line originating from an old Korean TV show from 2004 called Lovers In Paris, episode 4.

가자 애기야

가자 (gaja) (let’s go) 애기야 (aegiya) (baby)

However, despite him using it as a reference I still get a flirty vibe coming from Jungkook.

In Memories of 2015; disc 3: The RBT: First Half Jimin told Jungkook 'okay baby, 30 pushups' @12:20

Another thing to factor in is that sometimes BTS uses terms of endearment/pet names with each other, it’s not something that’s extremely out of the ordinary.

In Run BTS! 121 Taehyung called Jhope baby 자기야 (jagiya) 'Jagiya, it’s not over yet.' @14:40

In Bon Voyage S3 ep.1 Jungkook tells Jhope 'yes baby' when Jhope tells him to change lanes. @20:30

In Bon Voyage S3 ep.6 Jimin called Taehyung 'my baby' when he ran to comfort him. @11:00

This doesn’t negate when Jungkook and Jimin uses pet names. I do however, think it’s important to understand the dynamics within the group and not just Jikook. By doing that, you see what is imo distinctive and that is their hyung-dongsaeng relationship or rather the blurring of lines, not so much the use of pet names, but that doesn’t make it unimportant.

here again is a short breakdown by sappoto

I have a tag dedicated towards this -> who’s hyung?

Narrowed down further:

This clip from Run BTS! 53 Behind here

An explanation from satellite-jeon on tumblr here

Another one:

From Magic Shop DVD (jpn edition)

An explanation from dalloga on tumblr

One term of endearment that I had an ‘huh..okay..’ moment, and from what I’ve read korean speakers too is from the 190425 M2U Fansign Jimin about Jungkook is

반려 Banryeo

Both individuals I already mentioned have touched upon, so I won’t comment on it.

Additionally; I really recommend the tumblr users dalloga and leminione9795 both are k-army and so they both have knowledge on the language and more cultural nuances we as I-army may miss or have the wrong thoughts on.

Back to your ask; overall people turn a blind eye to dangshin and aegiya because they’re not actually definitive or overtly serious and are both terms BTS has used with each other in the past. However, there could be some times where it’s used between Jikook with a deeper meaning, however Korean is a contextual language and I don’t have the knowledge on the Korean language, to make solid yes’s and no’s.

I hope this helped answer your questions! If you have any more feel free to hit me up! 💜

#niki asks #laucontrerasv #I apologize for the wait!

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papirouge · 2 years

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Girl we need MORE blogs like yours to speak FDS 😭 IM hooked on how confident so many women are and I love that they dont let any man get away with low value behavior

I WILL!! What do you want me to talk about❓

For now I've been mostly putting subliminals on my tags lmao But I've been feeding myself with so much interesting content of this one blogger I've been listening non stop these last few days. She's a Black woman and she's telling so much truths about the issues of Black women, such as: colorism, interracial dating, self hate among the black community (wigs, skin bleaching, featurism), media shoving negative stereotypes about darkskin Black women (while uplifting lightskin), etc etc.

It is soooo refreshing to FINALLY hear someone say what your intuition always told you. For example I always HATED how black women were put in position of "soldier" and masculinized to the point of being on the forefront of manifestations in defense of Black men... when Black women have no business defending black men, who for the most part disrespect us on a daily basis, humiliate for our ugly features and dark skin and are so bold to say how their preference are women from other races. I like how she compells black women to cape for themselves & themselves only, embrace their feminitity, and ley (Black) men to deal with their own issue and trauma #burnthecape 🚫🦸🏾‍♀️

You'll NEVER see me cape for no man, let alone some thug/deadbeat self hating colorist who had it coming (and no, I'm not saying anyone deserves to be unfairly killed by the police). Sorry, but I am too cute for this 💅🏾🧖🏾‍♀️💆🏾‍♀️

If you follow me long enough on this blog you've probably realized I'm on my own lane, and although I'm not that "tee-heheeee I'm a woman so I will dedicate entire existence and personality on being feminine ☺️🌸 tee-heheheee me dumb dumb woman, me needa husband to do basic tasks in life coz being incapable be peak female energy🙈" kinda woman, but I still do acknowledge gender roles have a purpose and that no woman should be on the frontline to defend men. Period. Men are supposed to protect women - not the other way around.

Women desperately pandering to men, positive posting about them, and white knighting them... when male pay them dust is pathetic at best, but for the most part, utterly embarassing for BOTH sides, for the reasons I just explained.

The user I've been binge listening these mast few weeks is Chrissie. There are sooo many videos I would recommend, but in this one, she does an amazing job at summarizing the point of "corrective promotion" & feminity for (dark skin) Black women + rebukes some false ideas ("feminitity/hypergamy promotes the idea of being rich to make it"), and she is so on point...!!!

(It starts at 8:37)

youtube

YES confident women are everything. But also INTELLIGENT women. I am personally extremely attracted by intelligent men so that's a quality I'm really working on myself (actually that's what I like the most about myself : my intelligence & outstanding perspective on things 🤓) and since I'm a firm believer that you attract what you are, I'm hopeful I'll attract an intelligent & masculine man one day 🔥🧡🙈 that's also why I cringe soo hard whenever I see women dumbing themselves down to appeal to men because it's the best way to attract low value men who feel threatened by clever women

#answered #FDS #black feminity #<< new tag I guess🙃#interesting

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rolescape · 3 years

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Since you asked! On the RPH end, it would be amazing to have options for asks beyond simply anonymous and not. I get many questions, obviously, and it would nice if RPers could select from a few options regarding the primary topic of their ask, then have the view of the inbox aggregated in this way. Then, I could filter by things like general/multiple question, vent, formatting, writing, interaction, and so on. When answering several questions in a detailed way, it can be much easier to tackle them by doing like questions one after the other. Also, I'm sorry if you've answered this and I just missed it, how would being both a roleplayer and roleplay help mun work on Rolescape? I know there are different account types, but if I have both, would I need to create two separate accounts still, or would I be able to switch between the dedicated RP and RPH spaces? The latter would definitely be so much easier and streamlined!

I hate having to have multiple accounts up, but do not want my RPH blog directly affiliated with my RP blog on tumblr. It can create some anxiety for inexperienced RPers when they see my actual writing, for example. So, as a further question, if it was all contained in one account where I could switch back and forth, would it be apparent to others what RP account was running the RPH account?

Hey there, these are fantastic questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

You've brought up a few features that I'm currently in the middle of working on as part of an overall larger project that will eventually roll out later on down the line after we've been live for a bit. One of those features was regarding the switching back and forth between multiple accounts/everything being on a primary account, and your questions pertaining to whether or not your followers would be able to determine which accounts belong to whom. As it stands currently, if you want to have an RP blog and an RPH blog, then yes, you will have to have separate accounts. HOWEVER, this will not always be the case. Eventually, you will be allowed to create a Parent account/convert one of your accounts into a parent account, which essentially opens up a whole other set of options that gives you access to a setting page titled "User Accounts". On that page, you can add as many separate accounts as you want (all with their own e-mail and password) These accounts can be any member type you want: creator, multi muse, character, rph, etc. When it comes to switching back and forth between them, any account listed as a child on your parent account will have a button that says "Switch" on their profile, as well as in your users page. Clicking "switch" will automatically switch you to that user's account. You can switch back by going to your parent account and clicking the same button. Nobody but you will be able to see which accounts belong to whom.

Now, as for your question regarding messages--what are your thoughts on me just allowing you guys to make your own contact forms with drop downs and such? I could also automate things so that when you create a dropdown subject, it creates a tag for it as well.

#rolescape answers #rolescape answered #rolescape #rolescape features #rpbetter

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purity-town · 3 years

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Little late getting to these -- that's fully the fault of a class project I spent all of Monday/Tuesday and most of Wednesday working on -- but I finished my project and wrote up some long replies to these!

(Apologies for any funny formatting -- I'm trying out the beta for the new post editor!)

Absolutely not.

Nope! There are a few people who do know (other guides Andrew's met before, the Dryad, and I'd imagine the Witch Doctor knows something's up even if he doesn't know why), but none of them live in Purity Town proper, and the Dryad and Witch Doctor aren't the kind to participate in rumors or spread what isn't theirs to share. The old man is also aware just because he and Andrew have talked about their curses, but he's 1) not currently in town and 2) not going to share even if he were.

Most folks don't know much about Andrew in general; Becca probably knows the most out of the townsfolk, knowing a little bit about his family and where he's from (he has some pretty specific skills as a hunter that betray this, but he doesn't talk about his exact town of birth), but no specifics and certainly not time periods.

Andrew is good at keeping things quiet; he has to be.

I would actually appreciate if you didn't post to Pinterest -- usually I'm fine with people reposting with credit (several of the things I've posted to my DeviantArt have found their way to Instagram, for example) but Pinterest has something of a reputation for stolen art (things being reposted from another Pinterest post without credit this time, or credit being hard to view for users not logged in or just viewing through Google). So reposting elsewhere is fine (though if you repost to Reddit or Instagram, tag me at u/Ariibees or @Ariibees)! I'd just prefer my works stay off of Pinterest.

The terminology related to The Guide/Andrew/The Guardian/The World’s Core/The WoF is all confusing because on some level, they’re all the same being. Kind of like trying to talk about Jekyll and Hyde -- same guy, different looks/actions, haha.

For all intents and purposes, references to the WoF being the barrier/core/whatever behind or within which the spirits of light and dark are contained is equivalent to saying “these spirits are held trapped by the magic of the Guardian, who when summoned appears as the WoF.” I do break slightly from the official lore in how the WoF/Guardian/thing holding back these spirits works (mostly because I don’t really like the idea that the Hallow is a “temporary guardian” or whatever), but the basic concept of “these are trapped by [thing that makes up the WoF]” remains unchanged.

If “loony cultist” is a reference to something, I’m so sorry, but I’m lost on it. If you’re just talking about the lunatic cultist in a funny way, then yes, they’re in here as a very plot-significant character!

I had to google what meme you were talking about, but it did make me laugh.

Andrew’s most annoyed by the nickname because people do like to call him Guide, and for someone who’s dedicated his whole life to his role, it can get tiring. He doesn’t really *mind* being called Guide -- it’s fine, that’s what he is and as long as people are respectful of his job he’ll take what he can get -- but at the same time, he’d like for people to stop thinking “Aah! Monster!” or “Weird academic know-it-all” and just...treat him like a normal person sometimes. So he fights to be called Andrew. And...Malik comes along and gives him a nickname that he doesn’t like and doesn’t allow others to use, save for maybe a small group of people of which Malik is not a part. So, not cool, man!

People love to overcomplicate explaining shading/lighting, and if you wanted to you could certainly go on and on about reflections of light off the ground and shading colors and all sorts of things, but as I’m writing this at 1 AM I don’t really care to.

If you really want to get into shading, I see nice ones on DeviantArt or Tumblr from time to time, or you can always watch a YouTube video on it. Really, though, just keep at it, think about how the shadows should look and work, and you'll get better at it eventually and pick up new ideas on how it all works. (And this is coming from someone who is new to making comics and actually started as a painter.)

Purity Town’s shading comes down to this: simplicity. As much as I’d love to spend hours and hours redrawing the panels I don’t like and carefully shading every fold of fabric and painting detailed backgrounds, I’m a full-time college student and will be working full-time over the summer -- I don’t have the time. So, I cut corners: I reuse backgrounds or use brushes (see: bricks, trees, clouds) that make certain details easier, and I try not to obsess too much over panels I’m not fully happy with. Shadows go where they feel right, and light on the opposite side.

For shading, this comes down to making things quick and easy. For these last few pages, character shading/lighting has only been five layers. One hard light layer for the bluer soft shadows, one overlay layer for darker soft shadows, one linear burn layer for hard shadows, one soft light layer for soft lighting, and one overlay layer for hard lighting. I’ll often also make use of glow dodge layers for lighting, or change the color balance or add more hard/soft light layers if there’s a very heavy color filter on the scene (such as a celestial event, blood moon, or outdoors at night).

Using all the different layer types is essentially a cheat code to fancier lighting -- don’t want to use flat black? Boom, hard light or overlay or burn will give you colored shadows. Want to make your light brighter? Glow dodge will make it burn your retinas.

Sorry that this isn’t a very comprehensive guide, but in my mind, shading and lighting is really something that you pick up over time and it’s hard to sit down and write a guide for it without making it into a massive essay on art theory that I don't even know proper terminology for because I'm not an art student. Of course with some googling you’ll find *proper* guides for this sort of thing from art majors and the likes, and those can be super helpful and technical! But for Purity Town, I just sort of go with what feels right and what's easy to replicate.

Firstly, I’m happy to hear you’re liking the comic!

Secondly, those buttons are actually there due to the theme! (For those on mobile who can’t see it, I have the theme set to only display on desktop as I prefer the current mobile layout on phone.) I’m using the simple webcomic theme (a quick Google should tell you how to install it for yourself) -- except I’m not actually using it for the webcomic features; rather, it’s a case of “this is the most simple, nice-looking non-default theme I could find.”

The previous/next buttons are added by the theme with the intent that the blog is being used as a typical webcomic website, with nothing but comic pages being posted. However, I post asks and other art here too, and I do so with the intent that people looking at #Terraria or their dashboards in general will see it. So...I use html formatting to make the first/previous/next/last links, along with an index and chapter-by-chapter viewing (using /tagged/chapter##/chrono) so that no matter where you’re coming from, you can still navigate just the pages!

If you want to add just the previous/next buttons, I can’t really help you -- web development is not my area of study in the slightest. But you can check out the theme that they come from and if you want to install only them, you can surely find a tutorial on it somewhere!

(As a side note, the comments section is not from the theme, it’s from a site called Disqus. I don’t expect many people, if anyone, to leave comments, but since I link back to this site a lot and many folks don’t have Tumblr accounts, it’s an option I like to make available.)

Hiya! My hike was pretty nice; it was a short and easy one, but that was quite appreciated as the trail is unmaintained from November to April, and the trail was covered in fallen trees and quite rocky. Still had fun, though!

And for backgrounds, it depends! For indoors scenes (or outdoors scenes with buildings) I don’t tend to use references, outside of looking up things like “which side of a door is the handle on.” I will, however, integrate real-life textures (see: the quilt and rug in Guide’s house, the wood walls on the building in the background of this week’s page), and paint over paintings from the Terraria wiki.

For outdoors scenes, for simple backgrounds (such as foliage-heavy) ones, I typically don’t need references. I like the difference between detailed, lined indoor/man-made object scenes vs. painted, messy outdoor scenes. But for things like mountains, I do sometimes look up references to help with color choices and the likes.

The town’s layout is a bit strange in that depending on the scene, the background could be drastically different. One side of town faces more mountainside, one side faces the orchards/open hillside, and the other two sides face various degrees of open space and more mountainside/forest. References taken on top of mountains are helpful to get an idea of what degree of foliage I should include between the characters and the sky.

Though this is very specific to the town of Purity -- other towns/villages will have significantly different-looking backgrounds, even the foliage-heavy ones.

That said, what's even more helpful than looking at photos is looking at paintings. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is really good for getting an idea of how to draw grasslands and distant mountains, plus Studio Ghibli movies in general!

#purity town #pt asks #terraria #not an update

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tracing-ao3 · 3 years

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Fanfiction’s Biggest Platform Wasn’t Built in a Day: The History of Archive of Our Own

Hey! What do you know about fandoms and fan works? Chances are that the answer is a lot. People here on Tumblr are rarely strangers to fandom and that’s pretty much what this social media platform is used for. Fandom has become a big part of the human experience, and there are loads of places both online and in person to get excited about the media that interests you. From stan twitter to the Dashcon ball pit, there are plenty of ways we share fan experiences.

Most notably are fan works, the art and stories created by fans to extend, “fix,” or build upon the stories from canon. Arguably the most popular method for sharing fan works, specifically fan fiction, is Archive of Our Own. AO3 is popular now, but it is far from the first of its kind. There is a long history of fandom culture and similar technologies that lead to the creation of this platform. More under the cut since things get a little long.

From Humble Fandom Beginnings

First, we have to acknowledge that the first building block to Archive of Our Own was the existence of fandom itself, which existed in different terms long before there were internet platforms to share it on. A Fanbyte article shares some funny perspectives of where fan culture might have started, and it involves Sherlock Holmes (but not that Sherlock). When the Holmes books were originally being published by Arthur Conan Doyle, readers easily became very invested. So much so that there were angry letters and actual protests when the author killed off the title character, so at least we know today’s Sherlock fans come by it honestly.

It may not have been called fandom back in Doyle’s day, but consumers have been highly dedicated to the media they consume for some time now. However, if a modern fan is unhappy with a decision to kill off a character or any other looked down upon plot decision, there may be a different place for them to turn aside from protests.

What the Fanfiction?

Moving on from the 1800s but still before the rise of the net, the fandom landscape was about to be shifted. Popular sci-fi series Stark Trek had its fair share of dedicated fans. Together a group of fans would help in the movement to popularize fan fiction. A zine called Spockanalia was published in 1968 and was comprised entirely of fan work, responses to the show, and, yes, fan fiction.

Prior to widespread internet access, fic was distributed in similar zines, at conventions, or even passed among students in schools.

This zine was probably not the first example of what we think of fan fiction, but it sure did help shift the landscape and make way for the digital versions of platform to come.

Fan Fiction Takes the Web

With the existence of the internet increasing people’s ability to share their content, it’s no surprise fandom found a new place to thrive. Fans were now posting content online, but we were still a long way from the platforms we have now.

Tech savvy fans developed online spaces for their specific fandom or even a certain ship. This became the storage place for fic and true hubs for fandom activity. These designs are a little outdated, but they represent a blueprint for later fic hosting sites.

Images from Vice’s “The Forgotten Early History of Fanfiction”

In October of 1998, we see FanFiction.net pop up. This site serves as a true predecessor to AO3. FF.net was one of the first sites dedicated to fanfiction that housed multiple fandoms, not just one specific fandom per message board. This platform received a lot of attention from fans and writers for its unique offerings and ability to read from multiple categories in one place. Despite the popularity of FanFiction.net, the site had its own host of problems that would come to fruition in the coming years.

Censorship and Greed (Come Before the Fall)

FanFiction.net offered a service that fans were looking for, but it was somewhat restrictive in the content it allowed. This included the array of content rating, bans on sexually explicit content, etc. Additionally, there is no fic to be posted by authors who have voiced their criticism of fan fiction.

Casey Fiesler, a professor in information science, also has a fantastic video on the rise and death of various fandom platforms, which discusses some additional predecessors to AO3 and the issues that arose from them.

For example, LiveJournal was being used as a platform for fan content creators to post work and communicate with other fans. This was effective until a change in LiveJournal’s policy affected the type of content allowed on the site, once again banning sexually explicit works. This policy change resulted in over 500 journals being deleted overnight and without warning. Furthermore, some of these accounts didn’t even host fan fic, and instead were accounts from survivors of sexual assault. LiveJournal clearly made some mistakes in this move, and users were pretty unhappy with the treatment.

In 2007 around the same time as LiveJournal’s purge, a new fic platform was breaking into the scene: FanLib. The creators behind FanLib seemed to notice the growing popularity of fan fiction and aimed to turn a profit off of these works. Naturally, the site faced a lot of criticisms and distain from the community.

With the outrage caused in fandom communities, it was time for a change. Controversy surrounding censorship and profit on existing fan work platforms fed directly into the creation of Archive of Our Own.

By the Fans, For the Fans: Archive of Our Own Sheds Restrictions

As much as AO3 was created in direct response to these aforementioned, it also borrows from their structure. It is a place for all multiple fandoms, much like the bold move on FanFiction.net’s part in the 90s.

While AO3 built off the existing technologies of prior fic hosting sites, it also boasted quite a few differences in regards to the content allowed.

Whereas FF.net restricted what authors fan fiction could be posted for and both it and LiveJournal posed restrictions of erotica, AO3 took the opposite approach. Their policy allowed any and all content to be hosted on their cite, as long as the work tagged the necessary archive warnings (including major character death, rape/non-con, etc.).

More recent years have inspired much debate on this concept. Some advocate for further restrictions that would prevent fics featuring incest, pedophilia, and other illegal and disturbing topics. This viewpoint certainly has merit, but these works do nothing to violate Archive policy as long as the content is indicated within the warning and tags. It is also worth considering that user are able to filter through warnings and tags, excluding ones they don’t want to see.

The other side of this argument points to the long history leading up to the Archive’s creation. Indeed, given that AO3 was developed to combat censorship on similar platforms, the lack of restrictions makes far more sense. There are certainly valid points to be voiced on both side of this debate, but looking to the textual predecessors of AO3 makes it clear why such a policy would be in place.

An additionally difference in AO3’s structure lies in the profit. While FanLib met a premature death due to its desire to profit on the back of content creators, AO3 does no such thing. In fact, it is run by nonprofit group Organization for Transformative Works and the site’s work is done by volunteers.

Archive of Our Own builds upon the conventions of fan work sites while adapting them for its own needs.

Borrowing From Other Social Media Practices

The Archive also demonstrates trends that can be seen across social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and here on Tumblr. The hashtag that is used to sort posts and material online is also utilized on AO3, but in a slightly different fashion.

Tagging on other social media is sometimes ineffective when users include different tags to talk about the same concepts (think one user tagging a post “Doctor Who” while another uses “dw”). This makes it difficult for users to find the content they’re looking for.

To improve upon the tagging system used across social media, AO3 uses a method called tag wrangling. This involves volunteers sorting through new tags that are used and linking them to other tags that mean the same thing. As such, a poster can use whatever tag they are most familiar with, and tag wranglers will make sure it shows up under any tag that has the same meaning. Tag wrangling solves the issue that alienates users from finding content and also ensures that the filtering system is as effective as possible.

Fanfiction’s Biggest Platform Wasn’t Built in a Day

It’s clear that AO3 is far from the first of its kind. The widely used platform built upon the existing structures and uses of similar platforms, structures, and communities.

By building with and improving upon these existing formats, Archive of Our Own has created an online space that utilizes existing technologies in a fresh way that attracts users.