#but i didn't write this dialogue so i claim no responsibility

[starflungwaddledee]

lost a bet with @eliastheownerof0axolotls, so here's today's starstruck shipaganza entry (and also a belated birthday present for elias) featuring his oc flower dee and the rather absurd "blush off":

#starstruck dee #others ocs #my art #you've heard of toxic yaoi now get ready for: super wholesome yuri #for the record i am not... 100% sure that starstruck would even understand what marriage was. joint bank account??? #but i didn't write this dialogue so i claim no responsibility #however i do think this is probably her 'flirting' mechanic. #like totally unintentionally on her part but she blushes cutely at you and suggests you could be in love with her #then you're just like 'ohh uhhh hmm well i guess i *could* be...' for days #🎀💖 #edit: auughh i should have saved this for waddle dee wednesday! damn! shit! oh well.

[inaconstantstateofchange]

Who Builds Theseus' Ship?

This ties in to a greater discussion about Larian's changes to the game post-Full Release, and whether you consider those changes to be a good thing or a bad thing. Personally speaking, the quality-of-life and gameplay mechanics improvements were appreciated, while the direct changes to characters and especially characterization were not so much.

In such discussions, I often see people downplaying the actual changes to characterization that have been made thus far as "minor" things, but I often see one of the most glaring examples of a characterization change left out, because so many people aren't even aware of it ever happening:

Halsin.

For those who don't know, if you were romancing Halsin at the time of the original full release, and for almost four months afterward, if you took him with you to Act 3's orgy scene in Sharess's Caress, he would open up about a situation in his distant past. He would tell you about how he had briefly been "something between guest, prisoner, and consort" in a drow House, and been kept there for three years before escaping.

He stated that this was something that happened "a long time ago", when he was "a foolhardy young druid", which would mean it would likely have been between ages 100 and 245 — or at minimum 105 years ago, and at (likely) maximum 250 years ago. He closed the discussion with a line that really struck me, and that gave me such an appreciation for his character, and for the writers who had created it:

The passage of time has a strange way of polishing even the most arduous of memories into precious keepsakes.

As someone in their late-20s, with a number of traumatic events in my past, this resonated so much both with my experience of those events – once harrowing and haunting, now just simple happenings that do not affect me the way they once did – and as an inspirational message, that hurt would not necessarily linger forever.

Not only that, I really valued the insight it gave into Halsin's personality, further showing him to be someone who was deeply complex and meditative, always looking for meaning and something to take away or learn from any experience. It also served to showcase the likely reality of the relationship elves and druids both would have to the concepts of time and memory. (Another example of this is the experience of Shadowheart's father compared to her mother at the hands of the Sharrans.)

I started playing the game almost immediately upon its release in August, and was intrigued by Halsin from the start. He was someone who was kind and heartfelt, but also very settled in himself and with a simultaneously rigid and very flexible moral code. It was that complexity that drew me to him, and I appreciated the inclusion of a character distinct from the Origin companions, all at close to the lowest point of their lives.

It was to my surprise to find that this appreciation for his character and perspective on his Act 3 revelation was not unanimous. As it turned out, there was a vocal group of people claiming that this writing was problematic, and that Halsin clearly didn't even realize he was actually traumatized, and that Larian needed to fix it. Not everyone joining in with this crusade had even played the game.

And, ultimately, in a pattern they have continued to follow, Larian responded. They fixed it. At the end of November, as part of Patch 5, they uploaded an edited version of the scene with new dialogue, where the player could express this "reality" to Halsin, in one of the most gallingly patronizing statements I've ever seen.

Sounds traumatic. You may need to reflect on that.

(If someone said this to me after I had opened up to them about my trauma and my experience of it to them, we would not be maintaining a cordial relationship afterward.)

Halsin's new response to these dialogue options is a cringing, self-deprecating cascade of how the player is of course right, and he should have known better, and time could "prove to be a trickster on one's recollections" and that perhaps he had "lost perspective".

Quite frankly, it is a completely different character answering, and an almost directly opposing overall message about the role of time in healing, and the path forward when it comes to trauma. No more "one day these events will not hurt to recall the way they do now". In its stead: "only healing that looks a specific way and follows a specific path is acceptable - anything else and you are simply a poor fool lying to yourself."

The following quote is from a comment left on a video of Halsin's original dialogue in that scene, before the changes, and is just one example of how much that representation meant to more than just me to see:

That said, Halsin is trauma recovery goals for me absolutely. Being able to remember without actually being triggered? Being able to fully and freely engage HOW ID LIKE TO instead of being fettered by trauma responses? Goals. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there 100%, we don’t get elven lifetimes irl, but his level of healing brings me hope.

Ultimately, this post is not meant to argue that you should agree with me that one is better than the other. More so, I want to highlight that this existed — for many people, this was their experience of events and characters, and that is not so easily redacted. And I also want to just state, for the record, that Larian's way of approaching narrative and characterization changes to their full-release game has been incredibly frustrating. I did not agree, in August, to play an Early Access game with the inherent understanding that any potential narrative aspect might change at any time. I purchased a full-release game, and immersed myself in the story and the characters, to get to know them as the writers had originally presented.

And when Larian makes these changes based on fan feedback, they are explicitly making decisions about which fans matter, and specifically, which fans matter most. Rather than allowing everyone to experience the story they decided to tell, and draw from it what they take away, and let that spark discussion and engagement, they made the decision to defer to some fans over others, and prioritize their experience of the narrative — something that, no matter how well-intended, is always going to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

#voidling speaks #bg3 #bg3 meta #my meta #it feels insane to have to do archival work for a six month old game #but here we are #halsin #larian #larian critical #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 halsin #meta

[thefirstknife]

The Veil and the history of the universe

I've been thinking about some connections between certain very specific concepts for a while now and mostly about how they relate to what we know about the Veil. It started with wondering about the reason for Lightfall's Collector's Edition books to bring back the concept of the OXA Machine and give us extra knowledge about it.

From there, it spiralled into more similar concepts that connect other prediction technologies, the Vex, the Darkness and most importantly how Maya Sundaresh seems to be involved with all of them. There's a lot of little details in a lot of different places about this (as well as from different times of Destiny, including one very interesting one from vanilla D1).

It's not really a theory or an attempt to solve everything, but more like an interesting dive into some possible overall connections between concepts that tend to repeat, most of which are tied to the new discoveries about the Darkness; how it's connected to the psychic aspects like memory, fear, pain and so on.

Contents:

The OXA Machine and the Psions

Inspiral raid lore book

The Device of the Future War Cult and Maya Sundaresh

The Veil

Since my line of thinking started with OXA, I will also start with the OXA here.

The OXA

What is the OXA Machine? Originally mentioned in the Collector's Edition booklet for Destiny 2 which is about Calus recounting his conquests and all of the actors that betrayed him in the Midnight Coup, the OXA is a "clairvoyant Psion machine." It's assumed the Psions made it and it was destroyed when the Psions were conquered by the Uluran. However, years later, a Psion scientist called Otzot rebuilt it and this time, Calus ordered for it to be captured and used. He also freed Otzot so she was known as "Freeborn Otzot." She joined the coup against him because he wanted to free all Psions and she feared that would ruin her unique position as the only free Psion.

It was also mentioned by the Psion Match, who wrote the entries in the lore book Confessions. Match was a councilor to Calus during his exile and wrote many entries on Calus' descent into what we know him as. Match writes the following (and gives it a possibility that the Psions simply inherited this machine and didn't make it originally):

Now I think of the OXA Machine, eternally lost and eternally rebuilt, passed down from civilization to civilization like a ship's black box.

This was a fairly vague concept, but we can easily figure out what this thing was: it's a machine used for storing information and prediction, much like any other in the Destiny universe. It wasn't used much as anything other than background flavour and you may know it from the strike Insight Terminus which mentions the OXA and Otzot in the dialogue at the end of the strike. We'll get to that a bit later.

For some reason, OXA was returned with extra details in Lightfall's Collector's Edition. It massively expands what the OXA is and gives the full description of what the acronym means. Page 13 in this transcript (chapter named "I am thirty-five years old" in Caiatl's book):

"The Odyle Xenotaph Anarchive. Sometimes OXTA, depending on how you construct the acronym. The alien oracle that led us to the graves of Aark." Must be wary, now. OXA is a Psion myth, and the Psions are a sensitive topic. My father wants to free them from bondage. "It claimed to record the story of the galaxy, and to prophesize what may yet come."

"A black box for galactic civilizations, if you prefer it in pilor's terms.” The Evocate-General nods to the pin on my right pauldron. I am conscious of my shaved-down tusks, of the sores left by the fighter's interface. "The doomed and the damned left the record of their downfall in the OXA."

The full name - Odyle Xenotaph Anarchive - isn't random gibberish. The odyle is a reference to the Odic force. This force (od, odyl or odyle) was thought to be responsible for some natural phenomena like magnetism, hypnotism, electricity or light. It was primarily tied to the human nervous system and relied on people's natural psychic sensitivity to perceive it or feel it. In this context it's most likely being used to represent some form of mental/psychic way of being influenced by or using this machine. In order to access it, one must have psychic abilities to access the source of this primordial source, like the Psions, who made (?) and remade it.

A xenotaph is most likely a play on the word cenotaph; a cenotaph is a symbolic grave built for someone or multiple people when there are no actual remains to bury. Literally, it's an "empty tomb." Here, the term swapped to "xeno" to indicate "alien." A xenotaph most likely means that it's a tomb of alien cultures which is also explained in the full definition given to Caiatl: it is literally a recording of dead alien civilisations. Similarly to a cenotaph, it's also technically an empty tomb; it's not direct remains of these civilisations, just a record of them.

An anarchive is a really tough concept to explain, but basically where the archive is simply a collection of information, an anarchive is the process of engaging, analysing and changing of the archival information for new and future purposes. This is possibly where the predictive aspect of the OXA comes in; the OXA holds information of the past civilisations, requires a powerful psychic to access and allows them to engage with this archive and come out with new information about the future, "prophesising what may yet come."

So in conclusion, the OXA is a psychic link to the history of the universe which allows those with special abilities to not only access this information, but also engage with it and learn of possible future events.

Why add this information for Lightfall? The OXA has always been more of a curiosity of an alien culture, not some sort of a major plot point. But when they take a past curiosity and add new information to it, much like with Nezarec, it may signify some sort of importance in the future.

As I mentioned earlier, pretty much the only time OXA was mentioned directly in game was in Insight Terminus strike. The Vex had information about the OXA and the Psion Kargen was trying to access it through the Vex. Two different lines at the end of the strike mentioning OXA:

Hmm, there’s only one data artifact here, labelled “OXA,” and it’s seriously corrupted. Metadata says it was last accessed by an “Otzot” centuries ago.

And:

There’s an almost unreadable data artifact here, labelled “OXA.” It’s heavily corrupted, but I’m able to make out “MSund12” from the access log.

The Vex records show that the OXA was last accessed by Otzot, but that it was also accessed by MSund12. This is Maya Sundaresh. So in one go we have a link between the Vex, the Psions and Maya Sundaresh who was a Golden Age scientist. They were all aware of and able to access the OXA.

There's one more Psion that mentions the OXA, in the Sisters weblore which is from Season of Dawn and relates to the Psion sisters that hijacked Osiris' Sundial. When they discovered the Sundial and inspected it, they were happy to find a machine that allowed to manipulate time and offer predictions. One of the sisters, Tazaroc, compared the Sundial to the OXA, but noted that the Sundial was better:

“It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.”

“Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc.

Tazaroc considers the OXA to be "a mad thing" and that it only offered "troubled ramblings." The Sundial is far superior in its design somehow, but it's important to ask the following: do the Sundial and the OXA tap into the same (or at least similar) source? Are there other similarities between the two besides just the ability to look through time?

What should we take from this section? There is a great repository of knowledge and information about the history of the universe and the species that inhabited it which is stored and documented somewhere and it is possible to access and interact with it. The OXA is one example of this as presented through Psions and how they utilised it.

Inspiral

The lore book for Root of Nightmares raid is a curious one. The whole concept is that each entry in this book (10 total) is a record of the past that left an imprint of itself... somewhere. Each entry begins with a description of who left this information and how.

The first entry is immediately relevant here. It starts with a description of the recording:

It most definitely fits the feel of there being some sort of "black box for galactic civilisations" where data fragments are left to "mark their passing." This first entry is about the Ecumene, an alien conglomerate of species that united together to form the Ecumene itself. They are also extensively documented in the Books of Sorrow, as the Hive have came across them and wiped them out.

In this lore tab, we learn a little bit more about them. Their space was called the Habitable World and it consisted of a lot of different species joined together in the Ecumene through the power of the Deep. Aka the Darkness. This is interesting because we'd always think that any species alligned with the Darkness would be evil, like the Hive. Hell, the Hive themselves wiped out the Ecumene, despite essentially being tied to the same force. But obviously, now we know that the Darkness is not a uniformed force. It too has factions and different types of use.

The Ecumene were specialised in using the psychic aspect of the Darkness. The first entry, The Habitable World reads (still not on Ishtar and I will omit the big screenshots and just paste the text):

Meanwhile our Habitable World always grew. We offered the Fathomless Deep to any who wished to learn of our synergy, and it glossed the way to become more than we were.

And:

A new client-species drank of the Deep and understood the World as we tasted it.

And:

In the Deep may we be kept.

The third entry in the raid lore book, The Art of Symbiosis, is similarly interesting. It's a memory of the alien species called Qugu, also attacked and wiped out by the Hive. The title of the chapter refers to what we know of the Qugu from the Books of Sorrow; they are a species bound in symbiosis with another life form that they need to live. It begins with:

The Qugu were able to enter some form of altered state of consciousness known as "night-trances" to access past memories. This is noted by them to be an ability related to the Darkness.

I still hear from our parents, from our great-parents, distantly in my night-trances. And there are those nectar-made moments -- you know the ones, when you turn your thoughts to the Darkness and just listen, and the long sum of Qugu history graven there reflects dark-comforting advice.

And:

I have lived out my life with the tenebrous warmth of our ancestors over me like a (cloak/atmosphere?) between us and nothingness.

And:

I miss you. Funny, isn't it? How can you miss someone when you know they're always in the Dark? I close my eyes, and in the warm nest-hide of sleep, I know you are real and happy and out there on some other part of the world, far from the river, far from the [untranslatable] where our ancestors (dream/exist) together.

Both of these species had a connection with Darkness that was built exclusively on the aspect of the mental which is the domain of Darkness. As explained by Osiris in Lightfall, the Light is the domain of the physical, while the Darkness is the domain of the psychic, the mental. Darkness controls fear and pain and thought and memory. These species utilised their knowledge of the Darkness to form entire civilisations where these powers are crucial aspects of their lives.

The lore book details other characters and species that left their data fragments in what appears to be the memory of the universe. While some may have left their data fragments on purpose (like the Ecumene and the Qugu who mastered this Darkness ability), it's unclear if leaving a trace of your existence and your memories is voluntary.

For example, entry four, The Dark Below, is from Eris and entry seven, Irae, is from Mara who are both skilled in Darkness but it's not entirely clear why they would leave the few specific thoughts they had as data fragments on purpose; both entries are personal instead of representing their species. Entry five, The Brass Gardeners, is from the Vex who don't understand paracausality so it's unclear how they would leave the data fragment on their own. Entry six, Dark Glass, is from a Ghost recounting his close encounter with Darkness; again, this is a personal story, not a representation of Ghosts. However, consider that the Qugu entry is also a personal tale, it just happens to tell us more about the Qugu as a species as a byproduct.

Speaking of entries five and six, they're somewhat connected. Entry five, from the Vex, is heavily related to the Black Heart. Entry six is from a Ghost called Piri which we know from the context clues in the text. Piri is the Ghost of Lisbon-13, the only surviving member of the fireteam called Kentarch-3 who explored the Black Garden.

What do we have now with all this combined? Much like the OXA, we have information about how the Darkness is a repository of memory and history, how different species used it as a civilisational tool for collecting and sharing thoughts through psychic means. Even the Vex have somehow tapped into this, despite not being able to understand paracausality, though we do know that they tried, and they tried especially with the Black Heart which is a product of their attempts to recreate the Veil.

The Device of the Future War Cult and Maya Sundaresh

The Future War Cult was established in the Golden Age by Maya Sundaresh. Maya and her team experimented with a device, creatively named the Device, which was built on Vex technology.

We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. An observatory, yes, but I think of it as a mind-ship. Capable of displacing its payload across space and time.

They experimented with it by letting different test subjects connect to it and observe what they see. Connecting with the Device had a lot of negative effects on people. A lot of them went mad with exposure, some died following exposure (note that going mad is a common thread with the OXA as well). Maya and her team eventually stoped their work with the Device, but the Device survived and was used again for tests by the contemporary Future War Cult during the City Age.

They acquired new test subjects and began letting them enter the Device to use it in order to experiment with the predictive Vex technology it was built on. It was crucial to the FWC and even their new leader, Lakshmi-2 was frequently using it. This is the source of their core belief that war is always coming and that they must always prepare for it.

This is interesting to us here because it's fairly similar to the OXA and what we've discussed so far. The OXA and the Device and even the Sundial to an extent are all predictive technologies tapping into some form of a source where the vast knowledge of the universe's history and future is held. It relies on a psychic connection to establish a link and to see through time. A lot of this is also built on Vex technology or ties in with the Vex in some form.

A very interesting bit here is the logs that the Future War Cult made from the experiments held in contemporary time, during the City Age. One of the test subjects exposed to the Device spent thirty minutes inside of the Device experiencing various visions and other sensations. Full log of her experience:

At 11:03 she reported a sensation of floating. At 11:06, a sensation of lights within the darkness of the Device. Between 11:06 and 11:32 she reported these lights variously as white, golden, and blood-red. At 11:32 she reported a sensation of someone taking her hand; a stranger, but also herself. Twelve subjects have reported similar experiences. At 11:33 she reported the sensation we have called "The Opening Of The Veil." The Device recorded temporal displacement of her consciousness to the order of six degrees. At seven she began screaming. Brainscans near-death. Removed from the Device at 11:34.

That's quite the line, isn't it? The Future War Cult logged a sensation that was presumably common enough among participants that it was given a name.

The Opening Of The Veil

Now, first, super important to note: this grimoire entry is literally from the beginning of the game. It's from vanilla D1. The game has gone under numerous changes for its plot and story. I feel like that's something that has to be said before jumping to conclusions. It could be a coincidence, something that feels more meaningful than it is.

However. Current writing can easily go back to what has been released, pick something and use it in the future, creating an apparent connection. This is such an evocative phrase right now, with current context, because...

The Veil

... has been described as a "physical manifestation of incomprehensible cosmic energy. Window into the mind and memory of the universe."

We consistently have this idea that there IS a memory of the universe's history and that records of it can be written and accessed through powerful psychic powers and mental links. The OXA records it, Inspiral records it. The Vex are a common theme of prediction engines and attempts at understanding this energy that permeates the universe. People peering into things like the OXA or the Device routinely get exposed to vast incomprehensible information about the past and the future, almost like they're accessing some common source where this information is stored.

While the concept of the odyle is not a real scientific thing, it might be a thing symbolically in the Destiny universe; a source of incomprehensible cosmic energy that functions on the basis of psychic connection. The Veil might be that odyle; a source from which the OXA and the Device and possibly the Vex (who have sought the Veil out in the form of the Black Heart) pull their information from.

The Veil might also be something akin to the OXA; like the OXA, the Veil is perhaps a similar device made by some civilisation somewhere to tap into this cosmic energy which is capable of connecting consciousness and allowing access to history and memory. This might be closer to the truth given the raid lore where Nezarec explains to us that the Veil is "the sapid secret of its [The Witness'] first victims." Whoever they are, perhaps they had the Veil and used it in the same way the Psions used the OXA; to access the memory of the universe and learn more about the past, but also about the future as well.

The sensation that FWC called "The Opening Of The Veil" might be describing that moment when someone successfully accesses this source, this odyle, where they can experience this memory and see how the history can potentially evolve into future events.

It's also interesting that Maya Sundaresh seems to be quite involved in pretty much every aspect of this. She started with Vex research on Venus. She and her team ended up becoming Vex simulations and her Vex research led her to the creation of the Device. She was also known to have accessed the OXA. Maya eventually curiously ended up founding Neomuna, a place where the Veil is kept and used to build the CloudArk, another exploration of linking minds and consciousness in a quite similar way to how it was described by the Ecumene and the Qugu.

The timeline here is unclear, as ever. Maya followed her creation, Soteria, to Neptune. At the same time, the Veil somehow ended there as well. We know that the Veil was stored in Nezarec's ship until Savathun stole it from him and hid it on Neptune. Did she hide it prior to Soteria's and ultimately Maya's arrival? Or did it get there because Maya was already on Neptune and Savathun deliberately left it in her care? Did Maya follow the Veil or did the Veil follow Maya, given her possible previous experience in touching it by heavy exposure to the Vex Network, simulations, the OXA and the Device through which she has touched the source of the memory of the universe?

Even if there's no connection between most of these, there's still a common thread of how Darkness governs consciousness, thoughts, memory and all other mental states of being. It's not just a way to see these things, but also a way to transfer them, merge them and interact with them in other ways. And this is also apparent through strand:

As I understand it now, it is the elemental manifestation of psychic connection. All minds are connected in a web of consciousness, which we can now see and feel. To wield Strand is to pull on the hidden connecting threads, and to use them to create, manipulate, and unravel.

Strand, being a manifestation of the Veil, further strengthens this idea that the Veil either is the source of this web (the odyle, the force responsible for these phenomena) or is capable of tapping into it in a very powerful way. Strand was also familiar to the Neomuna founders who understood that the Veil emits a "paracausal byproduct."

One way or the other, there's an underlying thread about the Darkness and how it relates to memory, history and consciousness and how different civilisations have been using this power for billions of years in different ways. There's definitely a point somewhere in this whole pile of information about the Veil's origin and purpose in its abilities to link minds through psychic connection and how all of that connects to other attempts at the same thing; to see the past, to see the future, to transfer minds through time and space.

And ultimately, possibly, why the Witness needed the Veil in particular to create a portal; the Light of our Ghost to transfer its physical form and the Darkness of the Veil to transfer its consciousness. Out of all of these different machines and devices, only the Veil is flawless in its execution when it comes to consciousness and psychic powers.

A problem to think about further: if this is on the right track, why would the Vex want the Veil, why did they want to replicate it (did they have it before? Maybe they're the first victims?) and what would it do for them outside of possibly being the source of predictive technology which is a very tentative link?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading and that it makes some sense. As usual, if it activates brainworms and gives you ideas, feel free to comment, suggest, correct or add anything!

#destiny 2 #the veil #psion #maya sundaresh #vex #darkness #strand #lore vibing #long post #been pondering this for days #just wanted to compile it all in one place #very interesting details overall and i wonder how many are deliberate hints to something important #hoping for some future season to deal with the psions. that would be a banger #it would be an excuse to bring back oxa now that it's been mentioned again in CE #and if ties into the veil then it would be a good way to research it #ghost asks 'who was otzot' but I ask WHERE is otzot #also the vex boggle my mind here. they tried recreating the veil... why... wuogh #and of course. maya?? she just casually relates to everything here. funky science lesbian

[chaifootsteps]

(long ask, sorry - there was a lot of unpack)

I read the fix-it fic (it's very cute and wholesome!) and looked at the comments expecting to see a few flames or people disagreeing with the premise, but it's an out and out dogpile in there.

it's so ugly to treat someone just writing a vent fic like that, & they must have been actively looking for people daring to criticize Viv given that there's nothing in the tags to suggest it

also like, one of the flamers being like 'how can you say Viv and Raph didn't handle the topic of SA well but still say people are entitled to like the episode or find it cathartic? if people like it and you recognize that, that proves Viv and Raph handled the topic well!'

which is like, no. that's not remotely what they were saying or how it works. they're just giving grace to people who got something out of it, but they still think the depiction and handling of the topic as a whole was bad themselves. being compassionate for someone else's take on media & their feelings doesn't objectively prove that take is correct, they're just making space for other opinions in a way a lot of these 'it was handled well, end of discussion' type people aren't

it's such an all or nothing, combative way of thinking about art, that if you dislike it you must also call everyone who likes it stupid or something otherwise it means you secretly recognize it's good or some nonsense like that. that and it's just populism - if some people like it that means it's objectively good. which is funny because usually we treat something everyone likes as just 'having mass appeal' not 'high art'.

but I guess when people get terminally online they assume the vote of the majority is correct - it reminds me of this one debate about something pewdiepie did (I think it was an edgy joke or something, I'm not interested in relitigating it, it's just an example) where one of his supporters claimed 'we've [already framing a constructed audience] already decided he's innocent because the amount of support/likes he got on a response to [insert controversy here]'. it's literally the logic/rhetoric of 'if the mob decides something is good, it's good' which is horrifying logic and has been used to justify any number of irl awful things. but I digress

you could just as easily argue it the other way - if someone likes the scene but makes space for criticism of it, does that automatically make the criticism right?

also like - there's so much evidence in those comments that people do not understand what SA is. like so many people have this conception that SA is the same as rape - like, unless there was penetration of some kind no assault happened. but like if you actually look at the legal definition of SA, multiple places define it as

1 did person A touch person B? 2 did person B not want to be touch and person A should have reasonably understood that? 3 then it was sexual assault

dragging someone into a room while they yell and plead and say no is sexual assault, even if they got away before they were penetrated. being set upon and kissed and groped by a crowd of people is sexual assault, even if they also were not penetrated (and given Blitzo's dialogue there it's doubtful)

Sir Pent was SA'd, Moxxie was SA'd

anyone who has been held down or groped against their will but was rescued or escaped was sexually assaulted. sexually assault can include rape, but it doesn't always

we desperately need better literacy around this, it's legit disturbing to see how many people will pull the 'well technically the show doesn't mock SA because [insert logic solely reliant on the idea that Sir Pent and Moxxie were not SA'd]'. & it's such a revealing line of debate because they know they can't argue whether or not the show is making light of sensitive topics (it absolutely is) so instead they do the internet thing of making the next argument - they claim no, this wasn't SA and demand people debate them on those terms instead. it's falling into their trap because the issue behind that is the one they don't want to talk about - that Viv does not know how to handle this topic with the slightest bit of sensitivity

(tangent but back when HB aired I didn't judge Stolas as harshly for the full moon deal mostly for the tone the show had set up, if that makes sense? I thought the show wanted us to understand that Stolas and most of the cast were all terrible people and that was the entire 'joke' of the show. that Stolas definitely did a bad thing but the show was more interested in dark humor and the audience just kind of had to meet it where it was at. when they started moving towards there being dramatic consequences in Ozzie's I still though the show understood Stolas was a bad person, only now they were actually paying off a dramatic plot point they'd set up so he would actually have to grow and change. Then season 2 happened and the show is insisting he never did anything wrong, he's perfect, etc. and everything that happened in season 1 looks way worse by comparison. it was already bad, but I thought the writers understood that. they don't. instead they've engaged in the most laughable, embarassingly written domestic violence storyline I think I've ever seen in any media, ever, just to get him off the hook for anything he's done. do I respect the opinions of people who find him standing up to Stella cathartic? yes. does that automatically mean those people are right and it's good writing, actually? no. hard no. a million times no. survivors of dv, especially male ones, are often starved of media representation. I want them to feel seen. it doesn't stop me thinking they deserve far better than being represented by a terribly written character like Stolas, who himself is accidentally the show's best representation of a convincing abuser, but that's a rant for another time)

also also, it's kind of annoying that A03 allows guests to post under any handle instead of assigning a random one, because now if anyone points to AyyLmao that it's unhinged behavior to try to police fics people post on the Organization for Transformative Works (the clue's in the name what fanfiction is for!) he can just claim someone tried to frame him, even if there's plenty of reason to suspect he would totally do that (some of the more hateful bigoted flames strike me as exactly that - going as far as possible with it to be able to turn around and say 'look how hard the Viv haters want to frame me! look how cartoonishly bigoted they make me out to be!'

this is so deeply bizarre to me. I've been in fandoms where the media in question is less than perfect and fix-its exist for entire arcs of shows and everyone else is happy to be like 'I see why you had a problem with this even if I think it was OK or not a big deal', or 'I don't see the problem at all but I'm just going to let you vibe like an adult would do'. and the same with character shilling fics, I'm old enough to know that the best solution for fanfic or transformative works you don't agree with is to just click off. but some HH/HB fans are actively out to create a high control group where any criticism must be policed. if I ever get annoyed enough by HH/HB to make my own vent fic, I'm posting it under anon and with comments moderated. I'm not interested in providing an open forum for people to send me hate for a show that is far from worth defending (and even if it was, who cares? they ought to be able to get on with their day if their fave show is so obviously above criticism)

last point, sorry for the rant - it's kind of laughable to me that the author in the comments provided a long, objective list of what Viv and Raph have been doing that anyone can check and all of which happened publically, because they did it publically, and I don't recall seeing many comments in that thread attempting to respond to any of it; it just got ignored. it's pretty funny they simultaneously want to act like Viv is the victim of unfair hate campaigns when she's actively cultivated a fandom that attracts people like them, who bully people to the point they fear making even the mildest critiques. like you want to act like Viv is some bullied saintlike professional, but can you imagine the showrunner of any much bigger TV show encouraging the worst elements of their fandom to the point that said worst elements think harassing an SA survivor in the comments section of a fanfiction where they process their feelings about how lousy the show is in handling SA, and trying to claim said showrunner is still a professional?

to repurpose a point Viv herself made, a professional would know that any show with more than a cult following will attract criticism. a professional would not encourage people like AyyLmao and Norry, they would shut that shit down and know to leave the writers of a fanfic a couple hundred people at most will see that's dealing with a topic sensitive to them, in peace

No apologies needed, it was an excellent ask!

It's absolutely insane that any of this happened. In all my years of moving through some pretty aggressive fandoms and seeing (and writing) some pretty contentious fics for them, never have I seen anyone dogpiled like this just for writing a small, intensely personal fix-it fic. It's just beyond disgusting.

#Anonymous #vivziepop fandom #hazbin hotel critical #viv stuff #actual blog post

[messiahzzz]

Not sure who made you Gale's Sole Interpretor, but could you fucking chill with CALLING PEOPLE ABUSERS over what smut they write with him? -.- Thanks.

it genuinely took me a while to figure out what you could possibly be referring to, since i didn’t talk about smut fanfiction & abuse anywhere on my socials. i presume it’s this post, yes?

gale’s sexual preferences & kinks

which i started off with:

note: this is merely my read on gale’s sexual preferences/kinks. i don’t want to police anyone on their headcanons or claim they are “incorrect”. since the game doesn’t provide too much detail, many things remain up to interpretation. (and lest we forget fanfiction has always encouraged the exploration of dynamics that may not be present in canon.)

this is the part of my post that addressed dubcon within the game’s writing, not fanfiction:

gale is also not a voyeur, nor a cuck. the entire scene with the drow twins leans way too much into dub-con territory for my tastes. the only way you can get him to participate at all is by rolling a persuasion check with DC 25. in every other dialogue option, he immediately (and explicitly) declines. even if you do manage to pass the persuasion check, he is still very hesitant about participating.

here i talked about the parallels to common abuser rhetoric (i.e. “you just have to try it, you might be into it” after already being told no.):

i am aware that fandom uses the fact that his “orb lit up in telltale excitement” as a justification that persuading him was the right choice, as well as confirmation that he was secretly into it and “just needed a little push" to explore his desires/get out of his comfort zone. that implication alone is very suspect and goes straight into the sort of logic abusers often use. you can be physically aroused by certain scenes, images, or sounds, even while being visibly uncomfortable with the presented scenario. it is a natural response that you can’t often control. which is what he is showing throughout the entire scene: discomfort. he was coerced into this situation, without any prior discussion or an opportunity to talk about his boundaries.

in fact, the devnotes (as well as the patch 6 notes) even explicitly stated that gale is very uncomfortable with this entire scenario. this is nothing new:

gale: "ahem. i hope you're not here to ask about our recent, erm, activities. i'd rather those were consigned to the footnotes out of romance, if it's all the same with you." nodecontext: clears throat awkwardly at the start. the first time you've spoken since having a threesome.

improved player attitudes in the dialogue options when gale expresses discomfort at the drow twins' four-way proposal and removed the persuasion roll.

yet again, what i was addressing in said post is the writing within the game and the interpretations of the game canon — this is not about fandom exploring the smut aspect of this scene in fanfiction. i didn't mention anything along those lines once.

how you choose to examine this scene within the confines of your own writing is solely personal/another matter entirely. as long as you practice common courtesy and tag your work with the according trigger warnings so people can avoid your content/they're not exposed to it without their consent: it’s all good.

#there is a strict difference between: ‘this is how it happened in canon because it conveniently aligns with my kinks’ #& ‘this aspect is intriguing to me so i’d like to explore it more in my own writing’ #on that note: there is nothing wrong with addressing abuse in your own writing either. you do you #just tag your work #dubcon mention #abuse mention #coercion tw #asks #it speaks #fandom discourse #gale dekarios

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

how do you write jahaera in the fathers clad in fire? Does it come natural? Or do you have certain idea of who she is and based on that you write her dialogue you write her response?

because i just innately feel characterization of her in the story is so authentic. This makes me wonder how the heck you guys achieved that with lack of material on jaehara?

how do you see her personality, her values, her interests? How do you think she would express affection and love?

I love this! Thanks so much for asking about Jae!

The kids are some of my favorite characters to write. Aside from being a high school history teacher, I'm a mom myself to two teenagers, a son and a daughter. I draw on my own experience with kids a lot when I write Jaehaera, and my personal and professional knowledge of children! Kids are hard to get right, especially traumatized kids. Children, I think, are one of George's weak spots and he writes without a clear idea of what is developmentally appropriate for kids at various ages (think about the scene in F&B when three year old Joffrey tries to stop Aemond from claiming Vhagar). That's something we wanted to avoid. We want our eight year old to feel eight, our fourteen year olds to feel fourteen. Most of all when I write the children I try to think about what would be an age appropriate responses in the situations they face, what sorts of things my own children were fascinated by when they were at these ages, the kinds of reactions they had to setbacks and successes, and the sorts of relationships they formed with adults and with other children. (more below the cut)

It was important for us that all of the kids have personalities of their own that, while informed by their trauma, are not entirely comprised of their trauma. While they're traumatized kids, they're still kids! Our Jae has a fascination with the spooky and the weird that we extrapolated from her dragon being named Morghul, which basically is "Death" in Valyrian. It's a lot of fun to imagine the various odd myths and creatures and odd stories that Jae would get fixated on. Experiencing the real life horrors didn't make Jae less fascinated by scary things, but she likes her horrors to remain otherworldly. Stories about Ice Spiders are fun and cool, stories about scary men with knives are not. We also picked up on Jae's likely neurodivergence from the books, which tell us she was quiet and didn't show emotion like other children. Of course, those are accounts of people who didn't know her or really care about her. Our Jae is a bit older, so she does speak, and we see her through the eyes of people who love her and know her (or Baela, who is interested in knowing her), so her quirks are just that, quirks. Aegon is very protective of her and hates when people insinuate that she's simple because she's actually quite smart, and when it comes to her hyperfixations, she reads a ton. Basically, for her characterization, we took what little crumbs were there, and ran with them, extrapolating from there to create our version of Jae who is serious, opinionated, protective, possessive, and fierce.

I love that you ask about how Jae shows affection because that's a big part of the next chapter. Jae is much more likely to show affection with actions rather than with words. As Jae is usually quite possessive (as you saw when Gaemon played with papa's lute), it's a big deal when she shares something that is special to her, especially the things that bring her comfort (a trait she shares with her dad, only Aegon is usually sharing food or drink rather than things!). And if you mess with someone she cares about, watch out! To illustrate, here's a small snip from the upcoming chapter, when Baela's sister Rhaena makes a surprise visit with her dragon, Morning:

“Why are there two of you?” Jaehaera asked. She was sat at a low table nearby, a large paper in front of her as well as several inkpots with various colored inks, drawing what looked to be a large spider. Aeg sat beside her with a paper of his own, although his drawing was of Dragonstone’s keep. At Jaehaera’s voice he looked up, his eyes darting from Baela to Rhaena. “Princess Jaehaera, Gaemon, this is my sister, Rhaena. She and I look alike because she’s my twin," Baela said. Jaehaera narrowed her eyes, clearly skeptical. Of course, Baela thought, her twin had been a brother, not her own mirror image. “Aegon,” Rhaena said, a plaintive note to her voice. “It’s me. It’s Rhaena. Come here, sweet boy.” Aeg stood from the table, his eyes fixed upon Rhaena. Baela knew the exact moment he noticed Morning upon her shoulder, for he shook his head. “Why is it here?” His voice trembled. “Baela you promised.” “She’s just a hatchling, Aeg,” Rhaena said. “Her name is Morning. Don’t you want to meet her?” Aeg backed up, tears filling his eyes. Before Baela could stop her, Rhaena took a step forward. “No,” shrieked Aeg. “No! No! Rhaena, no!” Jaehaera glanced at him, her eyes wide, then glared back at Rhaena. “He’s afraid of dragons, stupid.”

I'll tag in @aifsaath in case she has anything to add!

#jaehaera targaryen #writing asks #our fathers clad in red #aegon iii targaryen #aegon ii targaryen

[soleminisanction]

I just went through most of your character rants and analysis and I love them so much!❤️ It’s so nice to find someone with a lot of the same opinions as me, especially after seeing a good bit of Tim hate in TikTok comments lately. I love the animatics and cosplays on there but it sucks that it seems like it’s seen as cool to be nasty to Tim’s character over there, or maybe it's just the comments of the videos I get? It’s usually people thinking he’s a misogynist or that his character steals from and or makes other robins look bad to hype him up. I don’t get these comments because I feel like all of the bats have been written with misogynistic dialogue at some point, even the girls! I don’t understand why people latch this on to Tim as some big character trait. Maybe it’s some joke I’m just not understanding. Also with the bringing other characters down to prop his character up, isn’t that what pretty much every character that is currently in the spotlight does at some point (like Steph’s Batgirl run infamously does to Babs and Tim)? Why do they attribute this only to Tim? Also, all the robins steal traits from each in adaptations and other comic runs, again why do they act like it’s a Tim only thing? Basically, all the other Bats do what they claim they hate Tim for?! It’s genuinely mind-boggling to me!

TikTok's algorithm is the worst thing about that app, because it's got a terrible tendency to send peoples' feeds into negativity spirals, and that in turn fosters a community of people who are either looking for rage-bait, are mad because they can't get away from the rage-bait, or try to bait other people to rage because that gets them engagement. There's no way off the merry-go-round once you get on it either, it's just miserable; it's why I eventually had to drop the app and now only watch the videos ported over to YouTube or Tumblr.

For my money, the reason Tim specifically gets blamed for this thing that is very obviously a problem with comics as an industry, not with his character specifically, comes at least in part from the drama involving Steph.

Because see, defenses of Steph tend to start from a seed of truth -- she was the subject of sexist writing in War Games, both in the fact that they chose to fridge her for Bruce's manpain and that artists during cuts away to the infamous torture sequence (which did not need to be as long as it was) drew her in a highly sexualized manner. But some people took that truth and ran with it, leaping onto this frustrating, stupid second-wave feminist idea that women are inherently innocent and can only ever be victims of The Patriarchy and therefor if anything goes wrong in the life of a woman, it MUST be the fault of A Man. And since it can be hard to pin-point which comic creators are responsible for these things, the brunt started to fall on the in-universe men.

So all the men around Steph became scapegoats, and Tim is the man she's both around the most and whom she has wronged the most. And then that attitude got amplified by her Batgirl run, which does this really manipulative bullshit where it only brings up Steph's past in terms that make her look like a helpless victim with no agency, without acknowledging or even mentioning any of the things she chose to do of her own free will. It especially went out of its way to demonize Tim and paint him as unreasonable, judgey and sexist, because the alternative would mean acknowledging that Steph had done some really fucked-up shit to him in the last days of Robin, and it was in fact perfectly reasonable for him to want her out of his life.

But see, that would mean that a good guy (gasp) didn't like her. And had a good reason not to like her. And trying to write a character who rises to become a true hero because they're fighting to make up for the shitty things they did in the past is so much harder than writing a innocent widdle victim who only has the best intentions and whose only problem is that the world is unfair to her specficially. White women with no self-awareness can project themselves on the latter, but not the former.

Amplify that by the faction of Damian stans who treat fictional rivalries as Deadly Serious Business and the fraction of Jason stans who hate him for existing as the result of Jason's death, both of whom will jump on and amplify any criticism no matter how baseless and uninformed just to score points against their perceived "enemy," and there you go. That's what I've observed unfolding since about 2007 anyway.

#fandom ramblings #dc comics asks

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Autism does not cause racism, Cait.

I got newly blocked by Cait for stating that,

"Made Goodreads accounts to downvote only PoC debut authors' books, got caught, was offered a way out, doubled down, made a really bad Photoshop post with horrible dialogue as an excuse, got caught hating on the fandom she came from. Blamed her mental illness. Blamed now autism."

which isn't really accountability.

BTW, which is true. I didn't at her, just explained to someone above asking what was going on.

Sitting here with Neurodivergence, and telling you straight I deal with some inferiority complex issues, but it doesn't make me go out and try to sabotage other people's works, especially people from my own groups I belong to. Punch up or talk about the complexity of the issues, don't punch down.

(I'm aware I'm like the quintessential red shirt and I tried so hard to deny that part of me. That's what my therapist is for.)

I get Sensory Processing issues. I have that. But what happens when I get overload? I lay down and try to calm my senses and check out with a fucking headache. That's what fucking happens. It's not the sexiest TV moment ever. Sometimes I also get dissociation.

What happens when I get Sensory overload and dissociation? I go WTF, and work it out and then check out of social media, or try to do *other* things. I take responsibility. I forget shit because of the dissociation and I still say sorry, I forgot.

BTW, also my English skills go down the drain and I make a lot of fucking mistakes while on dissociation and sensory overload. Paragraphs will skip or miss parts of sentences. Hers were way too coherent.

I get depression and anxiety episodes. I fuck up. I try to still take responsibility for my fuck ups.

I have C-PTSD, but I've worked so fucking hard to not continue the cycle of trauma to violence–emotional and neglect that it's set me back in my life goals in a lot of ways before I got it compounded. But I've never, ever tried to take it out on others.

What happens when you fuck up? You apologize, you self-reflect, you try to make real amends (say deleting those accounts you have up on Goodreads), try to reverse direction and then leave those people you hurt alone. You don't go back in the middle of Black History month to defend your shitty actions.

To come clean, I have a Goodreads account I forgot how to get access to. Which was under my old name, and my story is reviewed on it. The ONLY thing I ever did with that account was claim the story I pro published and then left it alone with the reviewers.

I have inferiority complexes directed at the outside world. I totally get that, but I didn't upvote the story. I didn't try to talk back to my reviewers. I didn't go to my fellow authors and downvote their stories. Because this is what you all have to understand: Writing at every stage is a battle against yourself, not others.

Shitty people might steal your ideas, shitty people might attack you for no good reason, but at the end of the day it's a battle between you and the blank page/editing what you've got to make it better. The better you are not a shitty person, the more you act like this is a cooperative and respect people' boundaries, the more likely you're going to do better.

The authors not published? They are not worse than me. The people that are published aren't necessarily better than me (This has to do with the market) The person who started yesterday isn't necessarily worse than me. The person who has been at it longer isn't better either—art is an equalizer in many ways as a nebulous form. And the biggest battle isn't with others (unlike what a lot of early reality TV shows on the subject made it out to be). It's a battle between you and yourself. Repeat that until you get it.

That said, remembering that, go support the authors Cait hurt via link. They really need the boost to their self-esteem.

#cait corrain #no–not autism #are you seriously going to blame your racism by being ableist against your own group? #It's not mental illness or the drugs you took for it #the added addiction that suddenly disappeared and the perfect command of English while on sensory overload is suspicious #support the affected authors

[sorcerous-caress]

My writing used to be really descriptive and environmental, but I've abandoned that for more a narrative heavy storytelling where a narrator is your window for the world.

And honestly idk, the narrative comes naturally to me, and the descriptive has to be actively put in, I have to train myself to write it each time and squeeze my brain.

It also gets dull with time. there are only so many ways and times I could describe the sun shining in the morning before it gets redundant. but the same can be said for how much I love narrating longing and end up resusing the same phrases.

So far I only describe what I think is important to the environmental telling, unless it has a purpose then I leave it up to the reader to imagine what colour the couch was or what sheets the bed had.

But I didn't realise that readers' default response is just... to keep it blank. if I don't tell them there are curtians then they'll never imagine it, If I don't spell the way the food smelled then they'll never find it delicious, if I don't describe the ways the tree swayed then they'll never get a meter of how windy it is.

I never got criticism or hate comments for it, the opposite, I got compliments on my descriptive works saying how much they could imagine the world clearly, praising how well I've painted it. And those compliments motivate me to try more and put in more effort than a wall of criticism ever could.

I guess I need to hit a balance. "a beautiful webbing" was one of my works where I hit that perfect spot of balance between narration and environmental telling, but also that fic was a special case, a project I held immense passion for and it seems exhausting to have to do that to each fic especially with how i need to post at least once every three days.

ik quality over quantity and all but let's be realistic, this is fanfiction and not every story is a one I want to be top tier quality. not everyone wants to read an S tier fic, sometimes the B and C tier are absolutely preferable and easier on the mind. like a snack, there are many of them and they get to the poin faster.

I hate people who claim they're hard to please in fanfiction and only read completed works with 20+ chapters and 60k words. Who demand perfection for free and are proud of it whilst being willfully ignorant of how each type of fic shines differently. Not everyone wants to tell a story the same way, one shots are not less superior than multie chaptered works.

Your preference isn't superior to everyone else's, that one shot you glossed over could've been the most in character thing every written in the history of the fandom. Could've told a complex story through a couple lines. I've always admired people who can say so much in so little, who can summerise long paragraphs in multiple words.

It could also just be an average normal one shot, and that's fine and okay and is absolutely someone's preference. A lot of people like comfort snacks to enjoy.

Anyway the point is. I will try to get more descriptive, i try to avoid watching writing guides or reading about writing tips and tricks. The advice they give is really generic and I find that it boxes you in this regressive view of how writing should be. No matter how good the advice is, If it gets too overwhelming and it feels like you're doing nothing right then please take a step back and ignore everything everyone else has ever said.

Art is you, it's expression and communication. You want to feel it so you make it, you want to tell it so you share it. That's all, that's the end.

Be it erotica, crack fics, alternative universe or whatever. No one in this world can make it like you, it's fully personalised to your own mind and no one in this life could tell that story but you.

Oh I also have a clear lack of dialogue, I feel like it's one of the trickiest things to write because how easily it could break characters. How I have to keep spreadsheets analysing the way each character speaks.

Which, there are no spreadsheets, btw. I keep it in my mind.

Take Minthara for example, she is direct, forward and orders things. She never says "I think" or "maybe" she never asks either, she demands.

She wouldn't say "I hope we don't lose" instead she'd phrase it as "We will emerge victorious."

She likes using complex or flourishy words but never like Gale or Wyll, their type of flourish is entirely different and means to honey the words, whilst Minthara's mean to make the sentence more regal, aristocratic rather than noble. She uses them deliberately to show off statues while Gale uses them to show off intelligence, and Wyll does it for charm and theatrical poetry.

She doesn't take shortcuts either. She doesn't say "don't." Instead she separates it to "Do not." And forces you to listen to her long phrases, a small form of power play where she never makes herself or words smaller, she always uses them fully as they are.

And I have to do this for each character, you see how exhausting this easily can be. How every character also speaks as if they're from a different time. Karlach speaks more modernly but it's never like the common people talk in bg3, so she just...has access to modern dialogue and phrases for some reason?

Astarion never speaks like he is 200 years old either, not like an elf either. Halsin speaks like an elf, Cazador speaks like an elf, but not Astarion for some reason, and I have to keep that in mind.

Wyll is the easiest to write because his way of speech flows so well with my own writing, they compliment each other. Unlike how jarring Karlach dialogue in one of my fics.

Shadowheart is a character who uses filler words a lot, stalling or just uncertainty? She uses "I think, Maybe, is that so, I don't know but, I guess." Inbetween her sentences.

Maybe it's bc of the gaps in her memory? But it works in her favourite because I just need to remove the filler words whenever I want her to appear serious or whenever I want to flush out an important moment, it brings attention subtly to how reassured she is of her self.

Lae'zel speaks her heart in a way, she vocalises her observations to others and they take it as either criticism or praise when it's most likely that she meant neither and is just observing. Honestly to make it simpler, Lae'zel speaks autisticly which I relate to a lot, and which is why so many misunderstandings happen around her character when people assume she is mean or making fun of them when in reality she is indifferent and saying her thoughts loud and clear as they are.

People don't usually do that, they don't express their feelings as directly as Lae'zel. They hint it at, subtly or they play it down or exaggerate it. Lae'zel does neither, she speaks directly from the source and every word is deliberately chose and is exactly what she meant it.

But people aren't used to that, taking words at face value. And because they're used to people exaggerating or down playing their words, they assume Lae'zel is doing the same and filter her words through the same social protocol which ends up making her look too horny or too mean when she is neither. They needlessly attach meanings to her words that weren't there and complain about the results that they themselves made up when she already delivered the final results herself.

Astarion speaks like a 13-year-old who just learned what irony and sarcasm are. But put it through a modern dracula adaptation Snapchat filter, and you get the final results. He thinks he comes off as smooth, and sometimes he does, but it mostly falls flat and he comes off as johhny bravo.

His looks are what's important here, since they more than make up for his failure in words. Much like most of Edward Cullens lines were absolutely wild but because a sexy vampire was saying it then suddenly it becomes palatable.

But Astarion has his moments in relatablity. He is by far the most relatable character in dialogue. He says what we all wanted to say, but we didn't just to save face. He makes the crude jokes, he makes the sex innuendos andpenis dagger lame puns.

He also screams at the word and calls out. He also curses back at the gods who dammned him. He embraces his rage and resentment and expresses it without any shame. He lets the smooth facade fall and claws at the other performers on the stage of life as his own masks start to crack down. The only thing Astarion has ever been fully honest about is his own wrath, it's the single unpolished spot on his perfect surface, the single crack in his procline mask.

And there is something about how a one can't describe Astarion without resorting to poetry, how it writes itself at certain points because just like the sea, he is as beautiful as he is ruthless, as tender as the crashing waves against the jagged rocks, as fleeting as the dissipating sea foam receading back from the shore.

He can never be broken much like the fluid water can never snap. And it's this burning flame behind his failed flirting that pulls you in, the sparks of his passion that slip through that make his lame lines actually work, that make him so enticing.

#♡writing #♡character study #♡Astarion #♡Dialogue study #♡Minthara #♡Shart #♡Wyll #♡Gale #♡karlach #♡laezel

[whenshesayshush]

fic asks

Thanks to @septemberrie for tagging me!

How many works do you have on ao3? 7

What’s your total ao3 word count? 30.187

What fandoms do you write for? Just Fate: the Winx Saga at the moment.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

You haven't told me anything (that I didn't already know)

You found me dressed in black (hiding way up at the back)

Let’s put some light into our lives (but keep the storm that’s in your eyes)

The dead of the winter of my life (in the middle of the summertime)

It’s only war if there’s a winner (it’s only hell if there’s a sinner)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do. Because yes, I write for me, but if I didn't I want the engagement with people who like the same thing as me, I wouldn't have to post my stories. I like thanking the people who take time to leave a comment, because it's not common and it's gotten less and less since the show got canceled.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? It's only war if there's a winner, I'd say.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Hmm...toss up between You haven’t told me anything and I won’t let my demons win? I haven't really written overtly happy endings, just 'we're in a decent place right now' endings.

Do you get hate on fics? I haven't, no.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Not so far. I don't think I will ever write fully explicit content, but I might dabble into something a bit more suggestive at one point, who knows?

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? No. They're usually not my jam, because I'm canon compliant to a fault.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Stolen as in someone else claimed to have written it, no. Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, but without my permission and I believe it's since been taken down. I prefer to keep my works in English because that's the only way I have some control over how my words and ideas are interpreted.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have not, but I did collaborate with @rivusa for the Fate Reverse Big Bang this year! I'm not saying no to co-writing something in the future, but I am very particular about my writing and the things I like and dislike, so it would have to be the right match.

What’s your all-time favorite ship? The first one that comes to mind is Bellarke, which is funny because I was never really in the The 100 fandom or created any content for them, but God, their scenes just hit so hard. It's also definitely the ship I'm most disappointed about in terms of how it was handled in canon (that's some bullshit, man).

What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I pretty much write one thing at a time and then post, so while I have a document of snippets that I may or may not use at some point, I don't really have any abandoned WIPs that were ever intended for posting. I guess I would have to say a plot I was developing for an original novel at some point that I barely wrote anything for but do still like the idea of. I'm not suited to longer stories, though, so I don't think I'll ever write a book.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue is the one I feel confident enough in to throw out there. And maybe subtle intimacy? Like, establishing emotional connection through small developments. So the really slow slow burn, I guess.

What are your writing weaknesses? I don't think I'm very good at composition. I do have a full picture in my mind of what scenes look like, but I'm usually so focused on the dialogue and the impact of it on the characters that it takes me significant effort to go back and describe things like movement and setting. Oh, and @septemberrie (love you😘) consistently tells me to add more internal monologue in at least one spot in my fics.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Fine by me, but if it's an existing language, I think it's a writer's responsibility to make sure it's correct. So if I didn't speak the language fluently, I'd always ask a native for a check.

First fandom you wrote for? CSI:Miami

Favorite fic you’ve written? I'm torn between two, but I think based on the fact that it's the fic that got me to share some of my writing for the first time in 10 years, I'm gonna have to go with You haven’t told me anything.

Tagging @medusanova, @leadingrebel and @amchara if they want to, but anyone else feel free!

#my writing #personal

[sparklyslug]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @aidaronan and @softbrah thank yewwwwwww!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

50!!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

405,752

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now it's all Stranger Things, all the time baby. But you never know when the madness might strike for something new. Or re-strike for something I thought I was done with haha.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

In Focus (Check Please) Up the Punks (Stranger Things) we're gonna fight til we do it right (Check Please) If you want him, come and claim him (Stranger Things) t'hy'la (Stranger Things)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I'm usually really good about it for the first day or so after a fic has posted, and then I kind of.... fall off with it usually. I read all comments! I appreciate all comments! Usually what happens is I see the email notif on my phone, mentally go "ah I will craft a perfectly thoughtful and appreciative and stirring response to this later when I have time to do it justice!" and then I do not do that.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The one that comes to mind is a fic I wrote for the Hobbit, hands too small to hold it, which is an AU where everyone lives but Bilbo still has the ring and the events of LOTR are still barreling towards them.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Let Us Dwell in Fair Ithilien and There Make a Garden with @greenlikethesea is ONE BIG MASSIVE HAPPY ENDING (after 10+years of tragic angsty pining but w/e). I also wrote a little happy family ever after Garak/Bashir for Star Trek DS9, between the noise.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

noooo it's never happened! If I'm getting hate it's behind my back ahaha who knows what goes down in y'alls discords, that’s none of my business! Im a Leo and I work in marketing, so I am not terribly tortured by that kind of thing ahahaha

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

SURE DO! I don't know what "what kind" means. The smut kind. I've done closed door fade to black, I've done some explicit stuff, I try to give you range baby.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I LOVE A CROSSOVER! Star Trek/Stranger Things is pretty crazy. My current project is Stranger Things/You've Got Mail put in a blender with Supernatural, so that's decently zany too.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I thought Quorum had been translated into Chinese, but I can't find any evidence of it, so might be all in my head ahaha.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I love to collaborate with folks! When the creative chemistry is right it's RIGHT, and it's so fun to ping-pong ideas and paragraphs back and forth. I co-wrote Check Please fics with @softbrah, have written a universe of Stranger Things fic with @greenlikethesea, and it's all been a blast. Me and @aidaronan are cooking up some ideas, if the two of us can ever stop signing up for bangs and things long enough to get to em.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Well of course I will say Steddie right now because I've been living here for over a year and a half. It truly does have just the most delicious dynamic, however the setup and wherever you take their characterizations.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't know if I'll ever finish my Vampire Eddie immediately post-canon fic, I didn't have much direction with it, just Vibes.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm good with atmospheric sensory details, it's something I really care about when writing at least. I definitely enjoy dialogue, too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes are hard, and I struggle with nailing (heh) the physicality of sex scenes. My haters in their discords are welcome to chime in here 😂😂

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I have no thoughts in particular. If it works in the fic and you've made sure your translation is right if you're not fluent in that language, hell yeah.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Lord of the Rings. You will never see this fic.

N E V E R.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

IT IS REALLY HARD TO CHOSE AMONGST MY CHILDREN. I put a lot of my heart into I was open to pain and crossed by the rain (Wayne Munson my beloved) and I'm really proud of what I did with that one. I truly wrote Can't We Be Seventeen knowing it was really just for me, to scratch one of those desperate writing itches after an intense period of fixating on the Heathers musical soundtrack, and I really like that fic too.

Tagging @occasionaloverboy@greenlikethesea @thefreakandthehair @henrystars @capriciouslyterminal

#my fic

[ocshipscanonwaters]

OCxCanon Week Day 1

So I actually managed to write something for all three different possible inspirations today! Day 1 Prompt - Play Fighting Nigel Leeds x Isaac Lahey (MTV's Teen Wolf) Isaac snarls, the yellow eyed werewolf's sharpened teeth are on full display as he continues to try to seem imposing to his opponent. With his claws out he circles the beast in front of him. Isaac's opponent currently stands at nearly ten feet tall, and while werewolves only show a few sharp teeth, their changed eyes, claws and pointed ears when they are in their beast form the same is not true for Nigel.

Nigel is a Jersey Devil, covered in a light brown fur, with a long muzzle full of sharp teeth, pointed deer like ears, a massive rack of black horns, cloven feet, a long fur covered tail and large bat like wings. Despite how powerful, and impressive Nigel looks in this form he's still skinny enough that his ribs can be easily seen under his fur. While for any Jersey Devil the ribs are always at least a little visible, Nigel is skinnier than most for the same reason his eyes still glow a light ice blue; his refusal to eat the flesh of people keeps him from filling out fully and gaining his full possible strength.

In response to the werewolf's growl Nigel gives his own aggressive cry back, a growl mixed with a roar that instinctively sends a shiver down Isaac's spine despite him knowing that they are just messing around and not about to really fight. Jersey Devils claim themselves to be apex predators and there is some long lost instinctual part of Isaac deep, deep, down that may mean his ancestors knew that to be true at some point.

Isaac goes on the attack, trying his best to learn how to move around and react to the Jersey Devil's movements, defences, and counter attacks. Nigel ran away from his family because he didn't want to hurt or eat people and there is always a chance they will show up looking for him. Therefore Nigel and Isaac have to practice, Isaac has to try to learn how to fight against a Jersey Devil because if Nigel's family shows up for him they will spare no quarter to anyone who stands against them.

Sadly though it isn't long before Isaac finds himself on his back, wrists pinned to the ground, a massive beast on top of him pinning him in place. Nigel lets out a dark chuckle; “Guess all that's left to do is eat you now little wolf...”

Before Isaac can say anything Nigel is giving him gentle play bites along his shoulder and neck, Isaac can't help but shiver a little at the action. The shiver causes Nigel to pull back to make sure he hasn't hurt or upset his boyfriend. Understanding the shiver didn't come from fear Nigel licks the side of Isaac's face dragging his tongue high enough up that it messes up a bit Isaac's hair in the process.

“Oh! Oh! Hey! No slobber in the hair!”

Nigel is off Isaac, back to his human form and laughing in less than the blink of an eye. He can't help but keep laughing as he offers Isaac a hand. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!”

“You don't sound sorry.” Isaac grumbles as he gets up, when Nigel is in human Isaac is taller and way more physically built than Nigel is. At first it was hard to believe that both forms of Nigel were the same person. After all in human Nigel looks like he may weigh twenty pounds soaking wet, a soft breeze risked knocking him over. To go from that to the beast...seeing still wasn't believing; at least in the beginning.

Isaac wipes at his hair and can feel that the slobber has changed his hairstyle; “Time to go home and have a shower...”

Nigel's laughter quiets down. “You are getting better.”

“Doesn't feel like it.” Isaac grumbles.

“Believe me, you are. Sorry again about your hair...” Nigel pouts.

Isaac sighs, he knows that Nigel is putting a little extra effort into his pout but still it works. He shakes his head; “It's alright. Let's just go get cleaned up and then we can go out for dinner.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dialogue - “Yeah, it'd be totally weird if we kissed...Totally.” Laurie King x Steve Harrington (Stranger Things)

Steve still isn't sure exactly what to do when he's dating a boy. He knows that Laurie keeps telling him that it's the same as dating a girl just with a boy but Steve isn't sure. After a few weeks though what he is sure of is how much he finds himself liking Laurie, so much so he doesn't want to risk screwing it up by doing something wrong.

All this confusion and concern has come back to the forefront of Steve's mind because as he and Laurie are watching movies while sitting on Laurie's couch the slender blonde haired boy has started leaning against Steve. Steve's heart feels like it is going a hundred miles a minute as he decides to react the same way he would if Laurie had been a girl. Steve wraps an arm around Laurie and pulls him closer. To his joy he feels the other boy readjust a little so that he can better snuggle against Steve's chest.

Laurie works hard to hold back the tears that want to come out. As originally he never thought he'd get to talk to a boy who may like him till he had managed to move from Hawkins, let alone snuggle on his couch with 'King Steve', the boy that had unknowingly held Laurie's heart since like grade six. Getting that Burger King mall job post graduation was the best decision he's ever made.

He stops paying attention to the movie instead allowing himself to focus on the feeling of Steve's strong arm holding him close, the solid muscle that he currently is laying his head against, and the various smells that make up the scent of Steve Harrington.

For some reason Laurie gets the urge to adjust his positioning and look up at Steve, to his surprise he finds that Steve is looking at him. They stare at each other for a moment before Steve speaks. “Would it be weird if we kissed right now?”

There is so much nervousness, and concern not only in Steve's voice but even his eyes are saying he's worried that he's doing something wrong. So Laurie answers the question the only way he thinks he can. He leans up, presses his lips onto Steve's for a moment, giving him the softest of kisses before pulling back just a bit to whisper. “Yeah, it'd be totally weird if we kissed...”

He gives Steve a quick second kiss before saying; “Totally.”

With that Steve pulls Laurie close and kisses the other boy the way he's been wanting to, the way he needs to. Feeling Laurie melt causes Steve's confidence in himself and who he is to grow.

Maybe being bi isn't as confusing or weird as he was afraid it would be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fashion – Historical Robbie Brooks x Norbert 'Shaggy' Rogers (Scooby Doo) “Okay I understand that the trap needs bait but why do Shaggy and I have to dress like this?” Robbie asks.

Fred shakes his head, Robbie feels that he is asking Fred the equivalent to 'Why do we have to breathe air?'. “Cause every trap needs to have bait! Our ghost is apparently a 1960s police man who constantly mutters about the 'damned kids' and 'hippies' so there is no way he'll resist a couple of hippie kids!”

“But he was calling us hippies when we were dressed normally...”

“There's, like, no point in arguing man. Once Fred's got the idea in his head, it's like just easier to go with it.” Shaggy says as he enters the room. Robbie covers his mouth and tries his best to swallow his laughter.

Shaggy is wearing faded blue jeans, with a denim button up shirt currently unbuttoned, an old stretched out dirty white t-shirt underneath and scarves, so many tie-dye scarves but they aren't around his neck. For some reason there is a long scarf hanging half way between each elbow and shoulder, half way between each elbow and wrist, and halfway between each hip and knee but no there are none around Shaggy's neck.

Scooby is also trying to hide his snickering. “I look goofy don't I? I, like, told them the scarves were too much!”

Robbie shakes his head, “No! I'm sorry it's just the...the wig man.”

Poor Shaggy was stuck wearing a wig that was styled in a bowl cut but looked to be two sizes too big for his head.

Robbie looks down at himself again, “I actually look goofier I promise.”

Robbie's hippie disguise included a pair of bell bottoms made of the same floral pattern you'd expect to find on your grandma's couch in the 1980s in a variety of oranges, tans and white colours, a light brown vest with tassels, and a bright orange button up shirt underneath. His blonde wig gives him hair nearly down to the floor.

Fred looks Robbie up and down, rubbing his chin. “Something's missing...” Shaggy shrugs; “You look good to me.”

“Really?” Robbie asks incredulously.

Shaggy nods but before he can speak Fred snaps his fingers apparently having an idea and a moment later he puts a ridiculously bushy fake blonde moustache on Robbie's face without warning. “What broom did you cut this from?!” Robbie demands to know, he thinks it may have actually come from a broom with how much it feels like straw is tickling him under his nose.

Fred doesn't respond, Robbie looks back to Shaggy and wiggles his moustache. “How about now? Still looking good?”

“Uh huh.” Shaggy says with a nod. Robbie can feel himself blushing, he is not sure how to respond but thankfully he doesn't have to worry about it as Fred is now pushing him and Shaggy out the door. “Get in place quick! He should be coming by any minute now!”

#oc x canon #oc x canon shipping #steve harrington #isaac lahey #oc x canon week #oc x canon week 2024 #oc x character #shaggy rogers #mtv teen wolf #scooby doo #stranger things

[cosmonavo]

Koala Átropos 2

(Yeah, her name is it) Previously, some time ago, someone sent me a question about my OC, and I felt tempted to write this because, well, she has a story that I find particularly amusing. And yes, the majority of my oc's have anyway relation with Chrollo, (it's more strong than me) Compilation of informations

Koala (yes, the marsupial), unlike the others, has its own separate story, but still maintains a connection with Chrollo, just like the other characters. If you're not familiar with them yet, you can learn a bit about them in another post, here.

Koala doesn't have a predetermined story leading to where she is, nor does she have a desire to gloriously register her existence in the world. Instead, Koala seeks to learn about human interactions and what it means to be human in practice.

She appeared in the desert of the Yorbiano continent, naked and without objectives. This is how she conveniently met Chrollo Lucilfer, who happened to be driving in the same area. Even after years, Chrollo never managed to understand what was going on in the mind of this spectral woman, and she didn't make much effort to explain about her wisdom and lack of life experience to him. Koala claims she was cast down to Earth by the gods as a form of punishment, and now she roams the world as a disciple of fate, collecting fragments of her memories. Chrollo, on the other hand, simply nodded and didn't question further.

Koala always appears in work uniforms, ranging from cleaning uniforms to fast-food attire. Chrollo discovered that searching specifically in these places is the easiest way to track her down when he needs her skills. Once, Chrollo asked her why she always wore pizzaria and cashier uniforms, and the dialogue went something like:

"Do you know you can buy your own clothes, right? Or steal, if you prefer."

"Weird, they always give these to me for free, I just need to ask for a job."

To begin with, Koala doesn't have defined Nen abilities. Koala is a calamity, and like all calamities, she originated from the dark continent. Her abilities allow her to foresee how people will die, and she is also capable of weaving the thread of death, meaning she is responsible for causing people's deaths (used in a more metaphorical and philosophical sense). She is aware of the impact this has and refrains from using this ancient power bestowed upon her. In general, she remains a spectator, letting things happen according to the flow of destiny. In moments of mercy, she finishes the job, relieving humans from the agony of death. Within the possibilities granted by this power, she is also restricted from dying, or in other words, she can only die when she cuts the thread of her own life.

Chrollo attempted to steal these abilities because he believed they were too useful for his personal cause, but he realized the attempt wasn't worth the risk. Chrollo mentioned hearing something similar in a book about the Moirai of destiny, he vaguely said. After witnessing these abilities, he began to wonder if the woman had truly descended from the heavens to fulfill her said punishment (or he just finally crazy).

Koala fascinates Chrollo in a way that borders on obsession. He doesn't pursue her, but he feels naturally drawn to her. He questions whether this is some kind of witchcraft from the woman that keeps him as a prisoner, or if his admiration is the purest devotion to the divine.

Koala lacks much sense of humor or discernment for sarcasm. When she attempts to be rude, it's very evident and direct. She struggles to express how she truly feels, not because she feels very little or nothing, but simply because she lacks the experience of putting it into words, so she opts for silence. She is also very tactile, touching things, even the most dangerous, is always an option. She often pokes people and things she encounters along the way.

Koala doesn't have any traumas, at least none she considers. She holds no strong grudges and prefers things to have a neutral scale, something beyond "black and white." The problem with her interpretation of things is that she doesn't see the impact that events can have on different people other than herself. For example, she considers herself a friend of a killer but talks to the person who suffered the loss caused by this killer (Chrollo and Kurapika references).

Koala is not a good communicator, but her silence makes her a good listener. She can listen to someone complaining endlessly about how hard their life is or how boring the night shift is, and stare at the speaker with her round koala eyes, waiting to add small phrases at key moments. These are her favorite types of dialogue; she loves hearing others talk but hates being the speaker.

Koala is the representation of one of the three Moirai of Greek mythology, being Atropos, the one who cuts the thread of life, and also the oldest of the three Moirai. Because of this, she has a lesser appreciation for her surroundings, knowing that when things reach her, it means they are near the end.

Koala has two younger sisters, both of them being the other two weavers of the wheel of fortune.

She has a somewhat melancholic life ideology because of this. It doesn't mean that she is necessarily a sad or dissatisfied person with her own existence; rather, she is someone who knows that bad things will happen and are inevitable. She sees evil and witnesses the end of things, how they are prone to wither inevitably, and yet manages to live with the looming darkness surrounding her like a heavy blanket

Under no circumstances would Koala form a romantic pair with Lucilfer, even though the man is somewhat devoted to her. If they were in a relationship, it would be something like:

Chrollo / Koala

(lol, sorry)

Jokes aside, Chrollo sees her with curious eyes, intrigued to search for answers in her puzzle. Initially, he simply enjoyed having someone to tell him crazy stories about gods and creatures capable of foreseeing people's futures with a stern and serious expression on her face. However, over time, he independently developed an interest in the subject and the woman in question, who captivated his ears with stories that could transport children to the land of dreams and make adults cry with emotion.

He appreciates the duality of their beings, walking in opposite poles yet bearing a striking resemblance, creatures seeking redefinition through their actions and doctrines.

At the same time, he knows so little about her that it's challenging to clearly discern any of her intentions, he don't know if she lie or not, this kill him for inside. Thus, he seeks answers and tries to get closer to the abyss.

In a yandere scenario, Chrollo would be the one saying, 'We were specially molded for each other,' while Koala looks at him with her dumb koala eyes, like, 'Bitch, what's your problem?'

(However, if the occasion is opportune, reproducing the scenario wouldn't be difficult).

(curiously: Coala is part of "Cornerstone," a creation of my own.)

i got a little carried away

#oc #hxh #hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter oc #chrollo x reader #chrollo lucilfer #chrollo #chrollo x oc #hxh x oc

[chaifootsteps]

long ask, sorry - there was a lot of unpack)

I read the fix-it fic (it's very cute and wholesome!) and looked at the comments expecting to see a few flames or people disagreeing with the premise, but it's an out and out dogpile in there.

it's so ugly to treat someone just writing a vent fic like that, & they must have been actively looking for people daring to criticize Viv given that there's nothing in the tags to suggest it

also like, one of the flamers being like 'how can you say Viv and Raph didn't handle the topic of SA well but still say people are entitled to like the episode or find it cathartic? if people like it and you recognize that, that proves Viv and Raph handled the topic well!'

which is like, no. that's not remotely what they were saying or how it works. they're just giving grace to people who got something out of it, but they still think the depiction and handling of the topic as a whole was bad themselves. being compassionate for someone else's take on media & their feelings doesn't objectively prove that take is correct, they're just making space for other opinions in a way a lot of these 'it was handled well, end of discussion' type people aren't

it's such an all or nothing, combative way of thinking about art, that if you dislike it you must also call everyone who likes it stupid or something otherwise it means you secretly recognize it's good or some nonsense like that. that and it's just populism - if some people like it that means it's objectively good. which is funny because usually we treat something everyone likes as just 'having mass appeal' not 'high art'.

but I guess when people get terminally online they assume the vote of the majority is correct - it reminds me of this one debate about something pewdiepie did (I think it was an edgy joke or something, I'm not interested in relitigating it, it's just an example) where one of his supporters claimed 'we've [already framing a constructed audience] already decided he's innocent because the amount of support/likes he got on a response to [insert controversy here]'. it's literally the logic/rhetoric of 'if the mob decides something is good, it's good' which is horrifying logic and has been used to justify any number of irl awful things. but I digress

you could just as easily argue it the other way - if someone likes the scene but makes space for criticism of it, does that automatically make the criticism right?

also like - there's so much evidence in those comments that people do not understand what SA is. like so many people have this conception that SA is the same as rape - like, unless there was penetration of some kind no assault happened. but like if you actually look at the legal definition of SA, multiple places define it as

1 did person A touch person B? 2 did person B not want to be touch and person A should have reasonably understood that? 3 then it was sexual assault

dragging someone into a room while they yell and plead and say no is sexual assault, even if they got away before they were penetrated. being set upon and kissed and groped by a crowd of people is sexual assault, even if they also were not penetrated (and given Blitzo's dialogue there it's doubtful)

Sir Pent was SA'd, Moxxie was SA'd

anyone who has been held down or groped against their will but was rescued or escaped was sexually assaulted. sexually assault can include rape, but it doesn't always

we desperately need better literacy around this, it's legit disturbing to see how many people will pull the 'well technically the show doesn't mock SA because [insert logic solely reliant on the idea that Sir Pent and Moxxie were not SA'd]'. & it's such a revealing line of debate because they know they can't argue whether or not the show is making light of sensitive topics (it absolutely is) so instead they do the internet thing of making the next argument - they claim no, this wasn't SA and demand people debate them on those terms instead. it's falling into their trap because the issue behind that is the one they don't want to talk about - that Viv does not know how to handle this topic with the slightest bit of sensitivity

(tangent but back when HB aired I didn't judge Stolas as harshly for the full moon deal mostly for the tone the show had set up, if that makes sense? I thought the show wanted us to understand that Stolas and most of the cast were all terrible people and that was the entire 'joke' of the show. that Stolas definitely did a bad thing but the show was more interested in dark humor and the audience just kind of had to meet it where it was at. when they started moving towards there being dramatic consequences in Ozzie's I still though the show understood Stolas was a bad person, only now they were actually paying off a dramatic plot point they'd set up so he would actually have to grow and change. Then season 2 happened and the show is insisting he never did anything wrong, he's perfect, etc. and everything that happened in season 1 looks way worse by comparison. it was already bad, but I thought the writers understood that. they don't. instead they've engaged in the most laughable, embarassingly written domestic violence storyline I think I've ever seen in any media, ever, just to get him off the hook for anything he's done. do I respect the opinions of people who find him standing up to Stella cathartic? yes. does that automatically mean those people are right and it's good writing, actually? no. hard no. a million times no. survivors of dv, especially male ones, are often starved of media representation. I want them to feel seen. it doesn't stop me thinking they deserve far better than being represented by a terribly written character like Stolas, who himself is accidentally the show's best representation of a convincing abuser, but that's a rant for another time)

also also, it's kind of annoying that A03 allows guests to post under any handle instead of assigning a random one, because now if anyone points to AyyLmao that it's unhinged behavior to try to police fics people post on the Organization for Transformative Works (the clue's in the name what fanfiction is for!) he can just claim someone tried to frame him, even if there's plenty of reason to suspect he would totally do that (some of the more hateful bigoted flames strike me as exactly that - going as far as possible with it to be able to turn around and say 'look how hard the Viv haters want to frame me! look how cartoonishly bigoted they make me out to be!'

this is so deeply bizarre to me. I've been in fandoms where the media in question is less than perfect and fix-its exist for entire arcs of shows and everyone else is happy to be like 'I see why you had a problem with this even if I think it was OK or not a big deal', or 'I don't see the problem at all but I'm just going to let you vibe like an adult would do'. and the same with character shilling fics, I'm old enough to know that the best solution for fanfic or transformative works you don't agree with is to just click off. but some HH/HB fans are actively out to create a high control group where any criticism must be policed. if I ever get annoyed enough by HH/HB to make my own vent fic, I'm posting it under anon and with comments moderated. I'm not interested in providing an open forum for people to send me hate for a show that is far from worth defending (and even if it was, who cares? they ought to be able to get on with their day if their fave show is so obviously above criticism)

last point, sorry for the rant - it's kind of laughable to me that the author in the comments provided a long, objective list of what Viv and Raph have been doing that anyone can check and all of which happened publically, because they did it publically, and I don't recall seeing many comments in that thread attempting to respond to any of it; it just got ignored. it's pretty funny they simultaneously want to act like Viv is the victim of unfair hate campaigns when she's actively cultivated a fandom that attracts people like them, who bully people to the point they fear making even the mildest critiques. like you want to act like Viv is some bullied saintlike professional, but can you imagine the showrunner of any much bigger TV show encouraging the worst elements of their fandom to the point that said worst elements think harassing an SA survivor in the comments section of a fanfiction where they process their feelings about how lousy the show is in handling SA, and trying to claim said showrunner is still a professional?

to repurpose a point Viv herself made, a professional would know that any show with more than a cult following will attract criticism. a professional would not encourage people like AyyLmao and Norry, they would shut that shit down and know to leave the writers of a fanfic a couple hundred people at most will see that's dealing with a topic sensitive to them, in peace

Replied to this one here!

#Anonymous #actual blog post #viv stuff

[flightfoot]

You know, it just hit me that a good chunk of the salt going around is just salters reading the show as author's objective intent instead of a biased deep Marinette POV.

Like Marinette seeming to be blamed for a lot of things unfairly? It could just be Marinette blaming herself as it is canon that she catastrophises things out of proportions. Complaints about the narrative seeing Adrien as a perfect do-no-wrong Gary Stu and its refusal to acknowledge his flaws? Marinette has a rose tinted view of him thanks to her huge crush. No one criticizing Chat Noir's less than heroic acts and not being as useful as Ladybug? Marinette is forgiving and understanding and doesn't hold most of it against Chat Noir. Heck, maybe Marinette herself subconsciously underestimates him (there are a few dialogues, especially in early seasons, that indicate so), hence, his downplayed role. Alya being an enabler of her worst traits not being called out on? Marinette appreciates her constant support amd encouragement and both teens aren't aware of the more negative conotations of some of their actions (and its not like Alya doesn't draw the line at anything, but salters are just gonna salt on her whenever she does). Chloe's wasted redemption arc and Zoe subsequently getting shilled into her place when she doesnt deserve it? Marinette is not obligated to forgive Chloe nor does she have to keep working with her if she doesn't want to, especially when there's this shiny new person she would prefer to have on her team. Master Fu still being depicted as a good mentor while Master Su Han being nothing more than a straightman not allowed to be right? Between the two, at least Fu was kind and tried to help Marinette while Su Han did nothing but scold her. Despite having good points, Su Han didn't really help her at all while Fu did the bare minimum... Before foisting his responsibilities on her, but Marinette doesn't see it that way.

The actual writing has a lot of flaws in general and does rely on a lot of suspension of disbelief, which has been pushed too far for some, I am not defending that. There are narrative choices that I myself don't like. But thinking of the show as a heavily biased deep Marinette POV with a few breaks here and there makes sense to me as she is their intended protagonist. It helps me accept a lot of things about the show.

I mean, it kind of depends on the specifics of what's being talked about. Like, we see things from a third-person view, so we can see objectively the facts of what's happening.

But you're right about a lot of the framing being from Marinette's point of view, which isn't exactly unbiased. Like, Marinette thinking that no one listens to her, as Marinette, in Risk. It's true that people didn't really believe her in that case, since she was making a major claim about Adrien that didn't align with what other people saw, and was advocating for action that could potentially be harmful if she was wrong. But it's not a case of people never listening to Marinette, and just listening to Ladybug. People would listen to Ladybug because when it comes to things that are Miraculous-related, she IS an authority figure on that, more than anyone else they might interact with is. While with Marinette... well, her classmates do listen to her about most things, just not everything. Marinette's not an authority figure on other people's relationships or feelings the way that Ladybug is an authority on the Miraculous. So that was less of an objective statement by the narrative, and more something that was framed from Marinette's POV.

#ask #miraculous ladybug #ml fandom salt

[elapsed-spiral]

For the fic writer ask meme - 🎈🍉🕯️💞 !

Thanks anon!

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

I flatter myself that if you took my name off a fic, it would still be fairly obvious that I wrote it. My fics are stripped back, they tend to be funny and I think they sound in character. My style doesn't change dramatically (I did try a more descriptive style for a while but it just isn't me. I prefer to convey stuff through action and dialogue) but I am always trying to hone my style more by weighing every word.

🍉in what ways has writing helped you process trauma and/or navigate through your own life?

(CW for discussion of trauma and suicidal behaviour in this response).

Honestly, borderline embarrassed by how much writing has helped me process my trauma, mostly by chance. 

I used to write to feel less alone but since I started properly processing things I've used it more intentionally as a way of putting distance between myself and my experiences so I can avoid falling Into The Trauma Pit. 

Flag has been both a blessing and a curse in that regard. I'm convinced there's people on the writing staff with experience of trauma because the way they write about it rings true. At the risk of oversharing and also being like 'he's just like me fr', the show has thrown me a few times with the parallels I've seen between Ed's and my own personal history, though predictably it took me a while to realise that's why I was Feeling Weird. That's included threatening suicide and having someone who claimed to love me tell me to just kill myself then (I hadn't shot them in the leg though, so there's that), having a spectacularly shit childhood (which came with a bullshit diagnosis I now need to spend thousands to get removed from my medical record) which led me to believe I was a monster, and similarities with the whole Ed threatening to sink the ship scene. Standard romcom stuff, amirite?

Anyway, I guess my point is: writing has helped save my life by giving me the space and safety (it's a space ship etc) to think about what I've done and had done to me without it consuming me and I'm forever grateful for that.

🕯️was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

Restructuring took me to weird and heavy places multiple times, mostly on purpose, sometimes by accident. I'm really glad I wrote it and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The Morning After the Night Before also helped me to get a lot of heavy thoughts out of my head that eps 1 to 3 stirred up. I feel a lot lighter for having written it and I really think it captures how I was feeling and thinking. 

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

The characters, absolutely. I love figuring out what makes them tick, putting them in Situations, getting their voices right. Everything else is just accessory to the characters for me. 

writer ask meme