#i usually like more feel good content which is why most of my faves are kids cartoons

[musashi]

I’d LOVE to talk about it!!!! There is NOTHING like holding a physical copy of a fanfic you love in your hands, whether it is yours or someone else’s. Though I do recommend you get a physical copy of your own work first and foremost, it really cements the fact that you wrote a whole ass novel, or a collection of short stories. The first few fics I ordered were ones I wrote myself and I still go out into my living room to pull them off the bookshelf and just hold them, sometimes.

There are a lot of websites that exist where you can print books without publishing them. The website I use to print fic is Lulu. There are other websites but this one is my fave. Some people have probably written beautiful guides on book binding but I would rather just have a service do it for me.  i thought it might be fun to make a whole ass tutorial on my process, if anyone is interested? Because I really think this should be something more people do, I am telling you it'll change your LIFE. Wanna re-read that old fave in your bookmarks? Cut down on screentime! go GRAB IT OFF YOUR SHELF and settle in all cozy :3

SO: HERE IS A WHOLE ASS TUTORIAL ON HOW TO ORDER PRINT BOOKS OF YOUR FAVE FICS.

I use google docs. There are probably ways to do this in other word processing software but google docs is my friend. So this is how I do it. Google is also your best friend when figuring out how to make these adjustments in other word processors fghdg.

So you kinda want to set up the skeleton of your physical fic first. You wanna make a blank document, go to file > page setup and change the paper size to A5. This’ll put it in peak book format! Hurray. You’ll notice things are a bit cramped here but don’t worry, the margins are supposed to be like that. I like single spacing with the typical indent (.50) so thats what I do. I know some people prefer double spacing, so if that’s your jam do it! Just keep in mind it’ll make your book a lot thicker, it really depends on how you want to condense things. Font size is also a factor here. Personally, I LOVE to condense–12 point times new roman font and single spacing is my jam, heres what that looks like:

But again, depending on how long of a story/collection you want to make, you can space things out too. 

Make a nice title page! Mine are pretty simple, just the title and the username. Sometimes I’ll put the fandom name like ‘a [fandom] fanfiction’ but for the most part thats just for PDFs i share of my own fic. When it comes to my own fic I also like to put little dedications at the beginning for flair. Again, that’s just for me.

this is from my sicktember anthology, which is just all my sicktember fics in a neat little book. here's Down's:

this is my favourite part of printing my own books. i like to get sappy with it.

Add page numbers! This is something you can do automatically in most word processors. You can put em anywhere, I always put mine as footers ‘cause I really just like my fic to feel like a real book. This is under 'insert' in gdocs.

If you’re doing an anthology collection or a lot of fics in one book, a table of contents is good to have! If you apply a heading effect to each story/chapter in google docs, you can automatically insert a table of contents. I usually have to play around with mine a little (and edit it after, pin in that for later) but it’s a good thing to have. But in order to make a table of contents you have to actually have the fic in the doc, so let me teach you how to do that.

Congrats @pictureswithboxes, you are hereby my guinea pig. Because your fic is a good length and it’s the first one that isn’t my own that I’ve turned into a physical copy. Everyone please watch as I turn Turnabout Substitution into a book.

There are many ways and many formats you can download an AO3 fic in. Personally I prefer the HTML format–don’t ask me why, it’s just the best one I’ve seen for keeping things easy to edit and intact. If you work better in PDF or EPUB feel free to download those, but it’s my tutorial so you get HTML.

I drop the HTML file into docs. When you open it, you get this nonsense:

'cause that's a whole ass webpage, obviously. so open it AGAIN, this time using this button up top:

And that gives us… well, a lot more nonsense–it drops all the tags in, authors notes, whatever. You’re welcome to keep author’s notes if you like, personally I do without them (i love to read them digitally! I just keep them out of my physical copies) and everything is in 11 pt times font. The first thing I do is highlight the body of the fic and ONLY the body of the fic. I do this chapter by chapter.

Once I have chapter 1 highlighted, i change the font to my preferred size and typeface–in this case, 12 point times new roman. And then, with the body of the chapter still highlighted, i fix the margins/indent–left to 0, first line to .50, and right to 6.50. Then, with all of that highlighted, I paste it into my ‘book’ doc and all the indents/font choices carry over. Easy peasy.

I go ahead and make a chapter header. I think when doing a proper manuscript a chapter is supposed to start at the mid-point of the page, but i usually have the title at the top and the body text starting halfway down.

(my doc is in grey to avoid eye strain. if you do this, make sure it's white when you save it xD)

After a chapter–or any time you want to move onto the next section–use a page break! These are under the ‘insert’ tab. They will automatically jump you to the next page, and they will be necessary, for many reasons, but also because!!!

A new chapter should always start on the right page. In order to keep this correct, I take note of if my right pages are evens or odds in page number. Your first page will always be on the right. If you add a table of contents, it should also start on the right–so add a couple page breaks between the two to make a fully blank filler page. In my experience, because page 1 is always right, this usually means your right page will always be an odd number, but for some reason I'm having some weird mandela effect where i swear it wound up evens one time. huh. never hurts to double check! and triple check.

I ignore this all while I’m pasting the chapters in, but then at the end I go through all of them using google docs’ outline feature. Which is honestly NECESSARY for something like this, if you aren't already using it:

(anything marked as a heading will show up here! or you can highlight something, right click, and add it to outline manually. It's great!)

If my right page is odd-numbered, i check each of them one by one to make sure they all start on odd pages. I add an additional page break in the chapter before if they’re not, to make a filler page. it might feel weird to have all these blank pages in your doc but trust me you will appreciate them when you are actually holding the book.

As I am doing this, I also scroll up to the end of the previous chapters to look for orphans/widows. These are single lines that wind up on their own on the page and look kind of awkward and personally irritate me. Most word processors also have a feature to get rid of these, in google docs you just have to highlight the whole paragraph the line is in (or the paragraph before it, if it’s dialogue or a single line on its own) and apply a heading to it. You can highlight it and click ‘update heading to match’ to do this without changing the font. Good as new! It’ll show up on your outline on the side, but you can delete it by hitting the x beside the lines.

Another thing I do with the body text is i scroll through the whole doc and look for line breaks. AO3 has built-in ones you can insert, and you’re welcome to keep those if they are in a fic you like. Personally i prefer the look of a space to separate, though, so I actually edit them out and replace them with 3 line breaks. Literally just hit the enter key 3 times.

TS here is a case fic, told in the style of the ace attorney vn, which means each chapter has a few locations and timestamps displayed. I do 3 blank line breaks before these, and two after. Because it’s what looks nicest to me. You can play around with aesthetics and see what you like.

Once everything looks good, I scroll back up to update the table of contents if I have it. Google docs has a feature where you can ‘refresh’ it, but… I do not recommend this, because if you formatted your table (which you most likely did, it looks kinda terrible on its own) this will reset the formatting, and that will more than likely space out things or add unnecessary things (like those widows and orphans you marked before) which will add to your page count which means your TOC will be wrong ANYWAYS. So what’s the alternative?

Open your doc in two tabs. Same doc, two tabs. In one tab, stay on your TOC. In the other, click through your outline and input the new page numbers yourself. A little painstaking, but less prone to error. Easy peesy! Here's a bit of my finished TOC for my sicktember book:

Like all things, you can play with fonts and margins.

Your book is READY TO GO. Save it as a PDF, you can do this by hitting the print button in docs and most other word processors. Then instead of choosing a printer hit ‘save as PDF.’ Scuttle on over to Lulu and make an account. Yes it is worth it. Fic!

Lulu is awesome because it has lots of customization options. If you wanna get fancy with it, you could insert images into your PDF and get a colour book! But I just order print books, basic black and white. Once you name and upload your PDF, you can choose EVERYTHING. What kind of paper you want. If you want hardcover or paperback. The world is your oyster. Lulu will then give you a template for your cover, fitted to the dimensions of your fic book based on page number and what options you choose. They technically have a guide that lays this all out for you, but I find it incredibly confusing, so here is the streamlined wendy version:

There are a lot of options for how to make this cover. You can use an image editor, like photoshop, or you can draw fanart, or you can simply go into MSpaint and add some shitty little text to a solid colour if you don’t feel like anything fancy. A lot of people also use canva, which has tons of templates and assets you can throw together. I use canva so much i actually paid for a pro subscription lmao fsdghfgh but I also use photoshop a good deal. I made DTE’s covers in photoshop:

And Down’s cover in canva:

When I’m doing canva covers, I always just save the PDF, pop the template into photoshop, and then paste the images over it and rearrange them to my liking. I think Lulu also has an in-site canva editor but I don’t like learning new software. Photoshop is easy gfhfhg.

WHEN YOU ARE SAVING YOUR COVER. LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN THIS IS IMPORTANT ESP IF YOU NEVER TOOK GRAPHIC DESIGN OR HAVEN’T PROFESSIONALLY PRINTED ANYTHING. When you are saving your cover. SWITCH YOUR COLOUR PROFILE TO CMYK!!! Do not save it as RGB! RGB is good for digital graphics, but if you EVER print something you need to switch it to CMYK. I FORGOT TO DO THIS SOMEHOW when I printed my first two fic books, so their covers look a little washed out. When you do this in your photo editing software, they will look washed out there too–this is normal. They will print SO much better. Just trust me. 

Make sure you save your cover as a PDF and pop it onto Lulu! It’ll show you a preview of your book and cover which you can go by page by page to look for mistakes or anything you may want to change. In this preview the cover will ALWAYS look like a shitty, jpeggy mess. IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THAT IRL. I was so concerned fghfg but they print fine the preview just sucks.

wow so cool. this is for Down's hardcover which has a lot of margin. the closest summation of what your book will be like is to turn everything here off but the folds:

so cool. thats my book.

And you’re good to go! Enjoy your fic!!! PHYSICAL FIC IN YOUR HANDS!!! I got to experience the most magical thing recently: my friend bought a copy of Down, and then SHIPPED IT TO MY HOUSE, and i got to SIGN IT. I got to SIGN a copy of a BOOK I WROTE. They loved it that much. And I had the PDFs. PDFs I need to update, because I didn’t know half the shit I just wrote here when I made them. BUT I GOT TO SIGN MY FIC!!! SOMEONE LIKED IT ENOUGH TO BUY IT, AND THEN SEND IT TO ME, TO SIGN!!!

All the money here goes to printing costs, if that wasn’t obv. Paperbacks on Lulu can be under ten bucks depending on how thick they are, and hardcovers are usually under 25. It’s insane to me how cheap it is to print fanfic, and once you try, you WILL be addicted.

I tried to make this tutorial easy to follow, i hope it was! If anyone has any questions about the process, I am always happy to answer. Or, um, if you just want me to do all this formatting FOR you… I might be open to doing it for free. Mutuals get first dibs but I genuinely LOVE formatting docs for printing. I can’t help you with covers (i flounder even making them for stories I love) but I’ll always format a fic or several fics for you. Just HMU ghfghgf

#fic printing #fic printing tutorial #wendy rambles

[hyuk4sbf]

TXT AS CAMBOYS

+ boys on film<3

content: smut! masturbation, voyeurism + exhibitionism, subby boys and mentions of bottoming, sex toys, the usual shebang u would expect from my acc <3

minors dni!

> SOOBIN

so big but so shy the first few minutes of every stream :(

gets so hard knowing he’s being watched, that people are paying to see him get off <3

probably won’t use many toys, maybe only a cute vibrator while he makes the prettiest sounds and bites his pretty lips to show off a little.

plays w his own nipples and rubs all over his own skin to tease himself before he really gets into it. it’s just too cute watching such a big bunny leak all over himself because he can’t stop teasing his tip w his favourite toy ^^

> YEONJUN

a tease. through and through.

probably owns lots of toys and definitely a fleshlight that he uses the most often<3

smirks so breathlessly at the camera while he fucks himself into it, so messy and wet from all the lube while he moans a, ‘i wish this was you,’ to the camera.

will probably call himself some type of name if someone tips him enough, but he thinks he might like sir the most.

> BEOMGYU

oh he’s so cute he likes to doll himself up every stream, it makes sure he gets the most compliments every time without fail<3

he doesn’t care much for skirts, wears them every now and again for the extra tips but his personal favourite is thigh highs ♡ he knows his legs r pretty and he loves how delicate they make him feel ^^

loves making his viewers watch as he squirms on his favourite dildo and clenches pretty sock clad legs before he cums with a loud whine.

keep commenting how pretty he is w every tip and he just might send u special pics for more of ur attention, who knows?

> TAEHYUN

absolutely obsessed with watching his own body, and good for him! as he should be!

only really jerks himself off for streams, hands wet with lube, and he loves the tensing muscles of his thighs when a particular stroke feels good <3

knows his worth and knows certain things can get him double though, which is why he uses those big pretty eyes and lets easy (more than likely faux) tears form and fall over his flushed cheeks.

fucks himself with toys sometimes because he knows there’s so many ppl out there that want someone like him to bottom, and he doesn’t mind. thinks he might rly be into it too, in the end. ^^ ♡

> HUENINGKAI

he’s so shy u wouldn’t even think it remotely possible that he gets himself off for an audience.

but the filthy feeling of knowing ppl are watching, that people think he’s cute enough to pay for this, is just all part of his fun!

shy abt using his toys at first, probably keeps his shirt on until he starts to get too hot with every movement he makes. probably has a fave plushie he humps to get himself worked up enough that he needs something inside n the friction just isnt enough :( </3

sticks his tongue out w those big eyes pleading for something in his mouth^^ too cute

inbox here<3 reblogs appreciated ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ

#txt hard thoughts #txt smut #beomgyu smut #yeonjun smut #taehyun smut #hueningkai smut #soobin smut

[seaweedbraens]

Saw a recent ask of yours about percabeth was sidelined during BoO and totally agree. I've read all of WCWSTHWAS and I think you did a better job than rick at giving the new AND old characters their time to shine. What's your opinion on the new and old characters and their "screentime" through the series?

VERY interesting question - and thank you for the compliments! personally, i am struggling in my own fic to give every character their Moment. i think jason and piper got theirs, and hazel, leo, and frank will get theirs next chapter. i feel like percabeth's getting all the attention overall ahahaha, but i can't stop myself. i JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH-

hoo is an interesting series. it's very hard to balance a story like that because the way rick did it, he introduced a new cast of characters while keeping the older fan faves (percy & annabeth) still VERY pivotal to the main plot. with this structure, he had the hard task of keeping the new characters fresh and interesting, while also having to make sure that he doesn't do a complete disservice to percy and annabeth, who are already well-known and incredibly loved within the fandom.

it's HARD. i am struggling with it right now, and i have a lot of respect for rick for accomplishing it (partially). i know i criticize rick a lot, but he hit a perfect balance with the first three books of hoo. tlh gave us good stuff from jason, leo, and piper with the PERFECT sprinkling of percy mentions and annabeth acting as a support. the son of neptune gave us all the percy content we were missing + 2 new characters with GREAT origin stories. the mark of athena gave us annabeth. and percabeth. need i say more?

the next two books are FUCKED. rick tried to give hazel her moment, but she is completely overshadowed by percabeth in tartarus. frank gets magicked hot and loses me entirely. leo went from being my favorite new character to my least favorite with the addition of calypso. idk what piper does, and jason is just a vehicle to show off the new favorite - nico. and then rick adds in the nico reveal, which, okay?? i personally was never THAT invested in nico, and his coming out (which is incredible for the lgbtqia+ community, not denying that) came out of left field, didn't align with what we saw of him in pjo, and his coming out itself was forced. literally. which left me feeling...super off about it. if he was gonna come out, it should have at least been his choice.

my point is: the house of hades has SEVEN POVs, a HUGE step up from the usual three, which is...a choice. percabeth (and to some extent hazel) gets the spotlight. the lost hero trio doesn't really get too much screentime other than leo meeting calypso, so why did we get ALL OF THEIR povs? and then...nico is thrust into the spotlight?? why???? we already have 7 characters to focus on. why did we need another? a mess.

and then, in the blood of olympus, we get...five povs. jason, leo, and piper, and...reyna and nico?? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. i did not give ONE FUCK about the journey back to camp with the athena parthenos, and even if it was necessary, why did we need BOTH reyna and nico's povs? at the MOST we just needed one. i HATED leo's new lovestruck ramblings. and the characters that we had grown up with, percy and annabeth, were shafted on a whole new level. i don't remember frank and hazel getting much time to shine either. it's offensive. it's genuinely offensive.

with those last two books, rick completely shatters the balance he spent the first three books doing VERY well. with the last two books, i lose complete sight of who the fuck to care about within the new cast of characters, and so the only ones i DID end up caring about were the ones i cared about all along: percy and annabeth! and what happens to them? they are completely wasted in the final book. after tartarus, we needed one of their povs to know that they were okay, and we got none of that. yeah, NO.

i know i went the fuck off on this and i didn't mean to, i swear! it just gets me so angry, because rick just...was not making good choices towards the latter half of the series. his choice to include percy and annabeth in an important role in the new series was to keep the old audience hooked while still attracting a new one, and he completely botched it. if he was going to make them lynchpin characters, he should have given them the respect they deserve in the final book. if he wasn't going to use them, he should have just left them in supporting roles, the way he did in toa. you can't get both, and i think hoo proves that.

in the end, none of the characters got a satisfying ending (imo), other than maybe nico (LOL), and the audience isn't fuckin happy. or maybe they are, and i'm just an old bitter grandma in her rocking chair screaming about things long forgotten.

(a very late disclaimer: this is all just my opinion. you can disagree with me, and that's cool!)

[paperandhis-paper]

Arc-V Day 6 and 7

I'm a bit behind. Please @arcvmonth, spare me. Don't turn me into a card.

Anyway, for Understudy Spotlight I wanna briefly talk about Roger. I say briefly, because I'll save most of my thoughts for the Villains Prompt. For now, I gotta say, he's my vote for most underrated Yugioh bad guy. I LOVE villains who think they're hot shit, but turn out to be nothing but smug snakes. Plus, his voice actor NAILS his breakdowns. I was surprised to see so many people disliked him (probably Shōnen fans who can't accept a villain that isn't super-duper powerful). Finally, I love me some Disney Villain Deaths.

Anyway, Day 7: Of Amores, Per the Prophecy

Oh boy, does Arc-V have some banger ships. Some of my faves:

Fruitshipping:

Main-guy with Main-girl ships in most Shōnen anime tend to hit with the force of a wet fart, with Yugioh being no different. This is because they fall under the trap of making the girl be the only one who constantly thinks of protagonist-kun, whereas the MC is usually only thinking about fighting, eating, and their male rival who they're totally-not-gay-with.

Therefore, it's wild that these two idiots enamored the Arc-V so much as they, and it was via the use of a very simple trick: have both parties be clearly interested in one another. Seriously, Arc-V turns into an epic, interdimensional romantic drama from Season 2, and it's so strange for a franchise like Yugioh (even if it already happened in GX). Yuya spends as much time thinking about Yuzu as she does about him, and that's so refreshing.

One thing I love about this ship is how much they emphasize that the distance between them doesn't diminish their bond. In fact, it's the opposite, when they're separated that their feelings are most in display. Yuzu's duel with Chojiro is one such example: despite not being allowed near one another, Yuzu still had her feelings reach him.

Them being enemies in their past lives but lovers in this one also adds an extra element of brainrot for me.

Appleshipping and Fallenangelshipping:

I wanna re-emphasize this: we NEED more F/M ships where the guy is completely, stupidly in love with the girl. This applies more to appleshipping admittedly; seeing Yugo explode with joy from seeing Rin will never stop melting my heart. Male characters in anime are often shy of showing physical affection toward their love interests, but not Banana-boy. Plus, imagining how they grew up in poverty is interesting.

Serenadeshipping:

OMG THIS SHIP IS SO GOOD. LIKE I KNOW I HAVE MASSIVE YURI BIAS BECAUSE LOVE LIVE FAN BUT STILL. Ok so you obviously got badass and serious Serena with ray-of-sunshine Yuzu, so the dynamic is fun from the get-go. But we also have the fact that Yuzu became one of, if not the, first friends Serena's ever had. Plus there's the "changing clothes" scene and I'm sure you could do some gay awakening shit.

Also Yuzu is so happy upon seeing Serena late in the series. Just look at her!

And then when Serena betrays them she's so sad. DAMN IT ARC-V, THIS IS FROM THE FREAKING CAPTAIN SOLO EPISODE, WHY IS MY HEART IN PIECES?!

(Extra angst when you consider this is the last time they spoke before getting thrown into Arc-V)

Finally, I imagine she'd be happy to forever be with Yuzu at the end of the series

Lustershipping:

similar dynamic as Serenade, but with a rival-to-lovers tint. It's just cute, mmkay? Aesthetically, this is one of my favorites, Masumi's design is great

Genesishipping:

Sometimes, ships are more interesting for what they don't tell you than for what they do. The showrunners left the nature of Zarc and Ray's relationship ambiguous, which means there's a lot of possible avenues to take it. Enemies to Lovers? Sure, go ahead. Enemies that become lovers because of their new incarnations' unique souls? Works too.

Plus Zarcray fans make some Fire content.

Honorable Mentions: Guiltshipping, Candyshipping, Emblemshipping, Braceletshipping,

#arc v #arcvmonth #arcvmonth2023 #yugioh shipping #fruitshipping #serenadeshipping #lustershipping #genesishipping #yugioh arc v

[eoinmcgonigal]

So I saw a post about tumblr wanting to try this 'communities' thing, and I just gotta vent/say my piece. (the tl;dr is 'fuck that shit')

1. I really hate the current trend of fracturing and fragmenting things down into little pieces so they can be categorised into boxes. That's not natural. (Also, discord pushing threads, which I already detest for 1) making me feel like I'm gonna hurl from the violently dissonant, ugly layout, 2) the severely narrow topic problem, and 3) how neurodiverse-hostile they are.)

Like, naturally conversations meander. If you're only allowed to discuss one topic, it's gonna be stifling. You WILL run out of things to say. Making another little box isn't going to fix it, it'll just add to the clutter

2. Quite importantly, honestly, just stop fucking changing shit. It's unnecessary

3. It's not going to be neurodiverse-friendly. As if fandom hasn't changed enough to become increasingly unfriendly to people who are just here to enjoy their hyperfixation and/or special interest. I don't need another thing to learn to navigate. I don't need another place with different rules to carefully traverse. Yes, I'm fandom old and salty. I'm AuDHD and a spoonie with about half a spoon to spend on a good day. I do not have the energy to do all this switching about and jumping from thing to thing. It's exhausting. I want everything where I can find it, and where I can be passionate without having to perform tasks like it's some customer service job, or job interview

4. FOMO shit is toxic. This whole 'be a part of the thing!' necessity if you want to 'engage' or see the conversations and 'content'. Why? I guess it's a social media model that drives engagement, but the stress of it is going to fuck people up. What if you don't have the time, energy, health, spoons, social skills, etc? I have no idea how much interacting will be expected with other people in the 'community' but I can see it becoming a twitter-like circlejerk, and if you're not one of the 'in' crowd doing your required interaction/reblogging/commenting then you might as well not exist to that fandom/group

5. From the description, it looks like these things will be ripe for drama, toxicity, clique shit, becoming echo chambers, etc. because 'semi public' means you gotta opt in/join in some way and whatever's said isn't visible to any old user

Like, who is going to create and mod these things? Who decides what the rules are? What if your fave is 'problematic', or your kink is 'gross' (if nsfw is allowed at all), your take doesn't fit with fanon, or you are just a bit weird and people shun or turn on you for that?

I hope I'm wrong and either these things never happen or they're not as bad as I fear, but fuck sakes I have the above worries because it's shit I've seen happen time and time again, and I don't want to see given a place here

Also, genuinely, what the fuck is tumblr going to be like if you can't/don't want interact with these community things?

Quickly, 6. it creates an 'us' (in crowd) vs. 'them' (not part of our gang)

And then 7. who is going to be dominant in these 'communities'?

Yes, I'm upset right now, because tumblr was just fine (well, fine enough) until this point. I mean:

We have the ability to make sideblogs! (My Star Wars sideblog from... well a decade ago oops... is still out there, I don't touch it any more but I left it up for people to go through). Tumblr even made it so we can reply with sideblogs, which was a very neat update.

Tags!! I don't think it's as usual these days for people to go through tags to find new content, but that's how I do it, how I've always done it, and how I always intend to do it. I'm not following everyone who makes an SAS:RH post. I love you guys, but no. My dash would cause me to have a panic attack. It's already too much for me most days.

EFFORT!!!! I can be here every day full-time doing Stuff if I want! Or I can zone out for weeks if I want/need, materialise and contribute a silly meme, then drift off into the sunset again. If I 'miss' anything, I can go back through the tags, or scroll someone's blog. But honestly, who notices/cares on here if someone lurks or goes afk for a bit. It's super low pressure, because I'm doing what I can/want when I can/want

I want to opt in/out on my own time and terms. The thought of having to be part of a 'community' so I can see/not miss Content TM is freaking me out. I don't want there to be an 'appropriate' time window to interact with things like there is on other social media sites.

So, idk how the shit will look, but I don't agree with making things harder for people to access/find. I won't be posting stuff 'semi-privately'.

And you know what's super upsetting? The thought that I won't be able to see conversations and creations for things I love, because they're hidden away behind some complex new social thing I can't navigate. (Which is already an off-putting, ostracising problem on discord.) That's not how fandom communities should be.

The thought of there being less stuff 'out there' because it's in some 'community' somewhere... really not the direction I'd ever hope this site wold go in

I'm fuckin exhausted. Just lemme do my fandom whateverness without having to perform to some arbritary social interaction standard/requirements that I neither understand nor can do

#i want to murder discord threads because this feels like similar bullshit that's just gonna exclude people #JUST PUT SHIT WHERE PEOPLE CAN ACCESS IT EASILY #aim to be as inclusive as possible with as wide an audience and engagement as possible! #why is that so damn fucking hard? #also lol how long until they'd turn communities into a subscription thing or something #they keep changing shit and the newer people to things like discord and tumblr and fandom in general have no idea what it was like before #things have not always been this bad! #they were bad in other ways but nothing as exhausting as this social-media-model bullshit #yes i'm very fucked up over discord's update #i detest threads with a violent passion there's no fucking need to separate everything out until nothing is left in the channel #i can't even turn the ugly icon off in servers i own #i miss irc #i miss forums #i didn't like lj that much but goddamn #i miss pre-jumbled-up-tags tumblr #i miss pre-threads discord #we do not fucking need this change but it's being shoved down our throats because investors want to see new shit #i'm off to see if i can fix discord so i don't nearly throw up when i open it #the horrible thing is that it looks faintly passable in light mode but i can't read in light mode and you get light or dark and nothing els #personal #vent #just in case anyone hides those tags idk this has been a vent post #i'll go back to rogues soon

[thegoldencontracts]

Okk this post is a lil thing I had to get off my chest (hot take ig) but I saw a post recently that was complaining about azujamj fandom dynamics and it made me so angry, not because it was disagreeing with my take, but because it just seemed so?? Angry?? It's completely okay to dislike a common trope but don't be a pretentious mf??? It's really not that hard??? Don't bash people who happen to have a different interpretation of characters than you and say they're completely OOC (bc as an avid reader and writer azujami has so many good fics)

This is my thing: Please, please, dislike a thing as much as you want. But don't get upset with others for liking that thing. There's a difference between, 'I don't like trains and wish there was less train content of my feed' and 'ughh god I would like trains but God most train-lovers are so annoying and only share the most boring facts ever I swear'

Also, if you want to see more of something and you're gonna be like this tm about it, I have a much better idea for you:

Spread your takes in a nice way. Write fics that feature your interpretation, if you can't write post small HCs and theories, in a kind way that doesn't bash people who disagree with you. I see headcanons about Azul that I disagree with, some of which are pretty popular. And yeah, I can make a post about how these stupid people who enjoy the same thing as me and make content that I get to enjoy for free dared to disagree with me, but you know what that makes me? A dick.

I know, I know, it's weird to get so worked up about it, but this feels like such a common trend in this fandom. If you have a darker interpretation of the characters, that's lovely! Diverse interpretations make a fandom with media literacy. But don't complain about how everyone's woobifying your faves just bc they don't think the twins loved Azul's overblot and were really disappointed they couldn't eat him please. It feels belittling and very pretentious - your take isn't necessarily the correct one.

And you know the funniest part? A lot of people who complain about everyone woobifying or excessively darkening their faves or whatever? They don't even make anything for their fandom. If you want to see more X, don't complain about people not making X, make X or request X from someone who takes requests if you really really don't wanna write.

I'm not criticizing takes here - you can say that you feel, or just straight up evidence contradicts X take. You can analyze X take and say it seems implausible. But when you criticize people and complain about real people who do x thing, you're not trying to analyze, debate, or share information anymore, you're being a dick.

No one gets hurt by someone saying that the twins and Azul deep down consider each other friends, and no one's hurting anyone by saying that they find jamiazu 's funny scenes a major part of their HCs. No one's sinning by disagreeing with you.

So please, for the love of all that is holy, if you're going to criticize a take, actually bring up reasonable criticisms - 'Azul being treated like a crybaby because of his breakdown may be a popular take, but it belittles his character and clearly contradicts Canon', isn't that much harder to write than 'Ugh why doesn't anyone realize that Azul's actually a terrible person, Jesus he'd murder you for a single corn chip', and it's more accurate because it's a genuine criticism not just you complaining people don't have the same interpretation as you, but also kinder. It's not that hard just BE NICE. Please! The people who have those takes and still people, and also, even then, their takes are usually backed up by some form of evidence. Don't act objective if you're not even gonna be open to criticism of your own takes.

#listen azul Ashengrotto is my pookie and i love him #but I'm not gonna moan and groan about how everyone daring to view him differently is murdering my baby #twst analysis #kinda ig #discourse

[nibwhipdragon]

what are some of your favourite fics?

Oooh boy. I have...a lot. Uh. How do I start. OK this is getting long I'm putting this under a cut

One of my faves is definitely Chasing Stars by @midnighteraser ! I read the fic before actually playing Sonic Frontiers, and when I ended up experiencing a celestial starfall I ended up being disappointed in it. This fic is so beautifully written that it wasn't done justice by the game (usually when people say that it's the other way around...funky). Tbh I like all of Kirsten's fics and simply chose this one due to it being my favourite out of them all, she leans quite heavily into description and they always end up being super good! It's just so. Ough. If I had a printer I'd print out her fics, blend it with some fruit into a smoothie and drink it the descriptions are that good

Another one I definitely am NOT leaving out (because I have too many to feasibly make a list of) from this is Would You Love a Werehog? by @pajulammas ! This fic man. Cannot even describe how much I love it. There isn't much werehog stuff on AO3 (and even less that I'm actually interested in reading, why is a good chunk of it NSFW 😭) so this fic was a lovely gem to find when browsing AO3 one night. It explores Sonic and his feelings towards the werehog form which was something critically underused in Unleashed, and what can I not love about deeper explorations into things shown in canon? Not only that but the sonadow dynamic here...not the biggest sonadow shipper, just neutral on it, but GOD does this fic get their dynamic right. All of Paju's fics get the sonadow dynamic right actually, the plots he has for his fics are great but the great characterisation is also a nice bonus, like getting sauce in a burger you ordered. I will go into his fics and come out with a million thoughts per second and not a single one of those is a "He would not fucking say that" or anything along the lines. It is great. I am also getting off of track. Getting back on track, Chip is in there so the fic is guaranteed a 10/10 in my eyes. I love Chip he is like. Probably in my top 3 sonic characters of all time.

Moving on, there's also Bloody Macarena. Shin almost dies from doing the macarena. And despite the fic being about something more on the comedy/crack side of things, it also goes into some nice detail on Shin and Kanna's relationship, as well as more on Shin's inner thoughts. None of the yttd fics on AO3 have really ever hit the spot, but this one certainly does!

Genuinely surprised it's taken this long for me to list a jjba fic here, but Connected is just. Ough 👍. I am a big fan of horrors, and this hit all the grooves in my mind, it's so good in terms of horror, I love the open ending sm! Though. Only problem is that the fic was so interesting I want to know even more, knowing I'll never be able to. In a hell of my own making... It also reminds me a little of Superhot. And that is always a plus. Superhot is a great game we all love Superhot here

...I'm gonna be real with you all. This fic is actually very good. Please hear me out on this though I have proper reason to it I beg. Anyways if this is how you find out about the existence of Joseph and Caesar enjoy a burger then I am sorry. The contents of the fic is nothing short of cursed and messed up. It's most certainly crack. It sometimes keeps me up at night simply by thinking about it. In horror. Because I've read this a few times to my friends to see their reactions in real time. And repeated reads of things allows you to notice things you didn't notice before. This fic. This fic is genuinely well-written. And that scares me on so many levels. This fic knows that it's cursed and that it's crack, and by knowing that it knows how to throw its punches. You'll get the general crack vibes out of it with the blatant mischaracterisation of Joseph and Caesar. And then out of nowhere the fic will jump you with a sentence that makes you feel like you've been hit in the face with a frying pan (biggest one that comes to mind here is "The pregnant man groaned." and I actually can't believe I'm writing those words on my tumblr blog. This sentence actually hit me so off guard I literally had to pause my reading). There is good structure. There is actual foreshadowing there. How do I live with this info. Help Me

Now, onto more...normal fics. dinner date. is so so SO good I love it so much. Domestic fluff with Joseph and Caesar is always great. And I love food in any and all ways so having it be food oriented is a bonus. I also love the way Joseph is written in this, it's very cool and awesome and feels very in character :3

And to end this off (because this is going to be ridiculously long if I continue, and because it's literally almost midnight here), a more angsty fic in the form of Too Far! Ough. I love fics (and just stories in general) where a character accidentally upsets another character by getting too angry and snapping and saying something they don't mean/shouldn't, it opens up so many possibilities for things to happen it's wonderful <3

There is definitely more but it's not feasible to list them all. So here's a select special few :3

#also completely off topic. but paju's art and kirsten's music are both really good too! go look at em for me please and thank you #i can. talk about fics i like for ages if i choose to #answered asks #anonymous asks

[saberamane]

I love how people mistake my words as 'loving' a character that I really have no feelings for, make a whole post saying how me saying I 'like' that character under a post of another character is basically invalidating the second character and this persons views, tells me to to write them to discuss it, and then BLOCKS ME so I can't.

So acgames, since you want to make me a bad guy over YOUR misunderstanding, I shall write it here. I can't post my initial response since not only have you blocked me, but my secondary tumblr account can't see my response since I assume you deleted it in your childish tantrum.

First off, here's my response to their tags on the Alexios post, which are (asgames reblogs, Alexios of sparta, Finally someone gave alexios credit he deserved, Everyone who posts alexios content over Kassandra is my favorite person, Alexios fans-you are my fave, assassin's creed odyssey.)

As you can see, I agreed that Alexios is a great character, but that yes as acgames said, most odyssey posts are of Kassandra. I went on to say that I believe this is the case because she is 'canonically' the 'correct' protagonist (ie. from the viewpoint of ubisoft) And then went on to try and make conversation by saying I have started odyssey and picked Kassandra, not for any 'correct' reasons or anything, but merely because not many games have female lead's, so I like to choose that when it's an option. Not for any other reason. I didn't pick Kassandra because she was the 'correct' protagonist or whatever, I literally thought it had no actually plot point like in Valhalla where no matter if you picked man or woman, the main assassin is called Eivor and that's it. Didn't know Odyssey was going to have a 'the gender you didn't pick is now a 'bad guy' that you will have to spare or kill at some point in the story.'

Now, acgames's post, which I responded to trying to explain the above in a shorter format.

As you can see, they tagged me in this post where they say "I never mentioned I consider you being wrong for playing as Kassandra." Of which I did not say that...at all. "I have no idea why you feel you have to defend your point about playing as her." Which I wasn't. I was simply stating a fact. I started Odyssey. I picked Kassandra. End of story. "You should play the way you want and no one should tell you otherwise (which I am pretty sure I didn't at any rate.)" No, you didn't. And that's not what I was saying either. You took what I said the wrong way.

Their next paragraph I completely agree with. Kassandra and Alexios are both possible canon protagonists, depending on who you choose at the start. I simply said that Ubisoft basically wrote it as Kassandra being the 'canon' option, if her showing up in Valhalla means anything.

"This is what I expressed: I love people who play as Alexios because of how underrepresented he is. I see scraps of Good guy Alexios story, I show love to that, but at the same time I never throw any shade towards Kassandra players." Which is also what I expressed.

"If story has favored protagonist and underdog protagonist, who "canonically" is villian, I will always prefer underdog, because there so much less content and love shown for them and I just vibe with underdog more." My favorite characters usually are the 'bad guy'. Final Fantasy 9- Kuja. Marvel Movies- Loki (though this is... questionable?? sometimes?) Winter Soldier (Again, questionable, but he is a badass villain.) Final Fantasy 10- Seymour (Honestly love the crazy bad guy hair, and his Aeon which you can also get? Badass) Naruto- Itachi, Sasori, Deidara (And many, many more)

"So why you have to write your testimony towards (I assume) me, it's very weird to me" It wasn't a testimony, it was trying to start a conversation with a fellow AC fan and sharing my own gaming decisions. Not that it actually matters. (My mistake for trying to talk to you.)

Their tags under that post.

Not once did I try and 'pressure' you into liking Kassandra over Alexios. I was perfectly respectful, you making a passive-aggressive shit post, however, is. Again, I wasn't defending my choices. I was trying to make conversation and simply sharing my choices. I never said you hate Kassandra. Again, I have no preference to either Alexios or Kassandra, I haven't gotten that far in the story yet to really 'like' the main character yet, so you saying I prefer Kassandra over Alexios is literally you putting words in my mouth. I definitely don't see you as my role model. I'm a grown ass woman with a job and a mortgage, not some teenage girl looking for a role model to obsess over. I wasn't challenging your preferences, nor was I being 'serious'. I was making conversation.

I LITERALLY can't write you an ask with any issues I have, as you've blocked me. Very childish. I also wasn't posting my issues with you under other people's posts. I had no issues with you AT ALL until now. You're the one who created issues where there wasn't any.

In your post itself? Not really. But your tags and these comments after the fact that I can't respond to? Yeah, pretty aggressive. About something that was merely suppose to be a friendly conversation. I wasn't defending Kassandra as a character, simply stating what I chose at the beginning to start a conversation about Odyssey. Which you took issue with.

As for me saying 'You should have dm'd me' in the comments you blocked anyone else form seeing? I meant your apparent issue with me stating simply what I did in a video game. I was being nice, trying to start a convo, you came back with a passive-aggressive post about my 'defense' and 'love' for Kassandra, of which didn't happen and not what I feel for her.

"Idk, posting under alexios themed post that you prefer kass because she's female protag... I do not get what dialogue you are trying to make there, because I otherwise miss the point..." You very much have missed the point, and made yourself look like an ass doing so. I NEVER said I preferred Kassandra. I simply said that's who I picked. I can infer you probably picked Alexios then?

I wasn't making excuses to you, I was trying to explain what you obviously misread or misunderstood. Again, I do not 'love' or 'prefer' Kassandra. I really don't give a shit about her. I simply stated I picked a female protag in a game because you don't often get that choice, and you've twisted it into this bullshit. I picked female Eivor too. Are you going to say I hate male Eivor because I chose to play a female protag because I'm also a female?

And as you can see, acgames did hide/block/ or remove my 2 comments trying to explain what my original comment was about.

But that's not all! Acgames continues to go on about me and twisting my words to make themselves a victim! How fun!

For your information, I touch a lot of grass. I own a farmstead, with vegetable gardens, berry patches, starting on orchard etc. Plus flower gardens. I spend a lot of time outside. I play very little video games anymore. Because I'm a grown adult with responsibilities. In fact, saying I can't take normal discussion? Sorry, that's you. With how often your post's are 'I can't deal with people, I'm gonna be gone from tumblr for a few days.' etc. I am owning it, btw. Your the one throwing a tantrum and blocking me after making several posts saying I should send you an ask or dm about issues. And you only allow messages from people you follow? I can't contact you anyway, so why tell me to? You make all this shit up and then run away?

"Read the notes to make your own assumptions of our spat." Wasn't even a spat, and people literally can't see my two notes because you removed them. "Some people just want to start the fights..." Wasn't starting a fight, was trying to explain to you how you mistook my words. Now I'm pissed off cause you make these allegations, ask people to back you up by reading everything, then HIDE what I said so people can ONLY side with you. "I am too old for tumblr drama bullshit." But are you?? Didn't you make all of this into drama??

Like you, I am also 28, but one of us is obviously more mature than the other. It feels like there's already some bs drama going on in your life, and you mistook what I wrote and decided I was to be your punching bag. I hope you get whatever help you need, because if this is how you react to people trying to start friendly conversations with you, well... Good luck to you, because you'll never make it through life or work with this kind of attitude. And maybe put my messages back up on that post so people can actually get the full story and not just what you're selling them.

#acgames #call out #personal

[amanitaphalloides]

17, 20, 23, 24!!! 📚📚📚

mwah!!

Did any books surprise you with how good they were? YES! i don't usually read manga or rly any comics these days but my brother's husband made me sob. more stephen king content sorry but dolores claiborne shot to the top of my list possibly my all time fave of his which really shocked me after reading a few of his absolute stinkers. and i had basically no expectations for walking practice by dolki min but something about it just delighted me so so much i was cackling with joy every page. oh and desert of the heart by jane rule! for some reason i thought it would be pretty pulpy (which i also find fun) but it felt like way more a literary accomplishment than i was expecting.

answered 20!

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? i read the glass hotel and sea of tranquility back to back in one day and it was my most magical reading experience of the year. i also read tell me how to be by neel patel in one sitting so that i could make a book club meeting. and did not like it 👍

Did you DNF anything? Why? yes! I’m really working on this!! i have such a tendency to just push through books i'm not enjoying and i'm trying to learn how to just toss something aside. this year i dnf'd yellowface by rf kuang (just wasn't feeling it at the time but i might come back to it), fledgling by octavia butler (i have been told this is one of her worst...sorry octavia), and kiss her once for me by alison cochran (i really did not enjoy her last book so this should not have been a surprise). everyone please feel free to tell me if i'm missing out on anything great by dnfing these.

#book asks

[inspiteallthedanger]

Why do you think that people on tumblr (and increasingly elsewhere but more here) are so desperate to defend Paul. I think there are like one or maybe two blogs that ever seem to criticise him and yet there’s all these people desperate to defend him and say he never makes any wrong decisions. Even when he demonstrably has. I’m asking you because you clearly love John but also don’t seem to hate Paul so I thought you’d have a decent perspective

Hello darling - it’s very funny that we know you sent this a couple of days ago, and it’s not related this these couple of most recent conversations. But, I do think it’s probably proving the concept I think you’re talking about. I’ll put this under the cut so everyone can just scroll by if they feel so inclined.

In short, I think it's that people want to have fun and that's different for everyone.

Anyway as a starter, I'd like to say, I don’t think there are people saying, “Paul was the worst man alive, the break up was entirely his fault and he sucks” in the same way that most of his stans aren’t saying, “I think you’ll find Paul has never done a thing wrong in his life”. What you do see, is that when you do point out something at least two or three people will leap in to explain either why Paul was doing it or why the other person was actually to balme. And, this is real life; people are complex and I think Paul is a good person. He’s not trying to upset people (most of the time but certainly sometimes he’s also just being petty). But, at the same time, he’s also certainly hurt people, as he himself readily admits. 

As to why this is happening, I think it’s probably very normal to want to stick up for a person you care enough about to make a blog focused on. I think it’s increasingly a thing to feel you’re not allowed to like someone who isn’t morally correct. So, I sort of think people take it personally when you say someone they adore has done something wrong or hurt people. On top of which, there usually ARE reasons (obviously) for why he’s doing what he is. 

I love Paul a lot, but I love him because he’s a weirdo that can be petty and mean, while also being sweet and charming. But obviously I’m okay with that because I adore John too. 

Finally my answer to all these things is always… it’s Tumblr’s fault. It often feels like once one person says they disagree with a take, it opens up the floodgates for a load of other people to all agree. But, because of the way Tumblr works, it means you’ll need to scroll through those takes with no way of avoiding them. So it can feel like it’s an avalanche when really it’s not. 

I would say that I think part of what you’re seeing is that Paul just has more fans than the others. As John very much said himself, was always the case. I see who follows me and I would say that 60% of them at least are Paul-focused rather than Beatles overall. Then probably George. So, that acerbates the above problems.

I do this too, of course. My friends on here will tell you that I will defend one of them, often even after starting the conversation with, “He’s literally the worst and a bad person”. But at the same time, I’m very happy for people to be mean about J or P because they were shitty at times. I think I will discuss it, if I feel there’s evidence that this is simply an opinion that’s not based on much. But, again, a lot of people aren’t here for that sort of engagement. They want to look at pretty pictures and feel good about their fave. Which is totally understandable - and again - why Tumblr sucks. Because all of those things all fall into a mixing pot and you can’t really filter them out. So. Yeah. 

In short: people defend their fave and don’t always appreciate criticism when they’re actually not here for that sort of content. And we should find an alternative to Tumblr. 

#fandom meta #beth rambles #I'm here for all this #but I do totally understand #that really people wanna have fun #but what's fun will vary #person to person

[milfmacbeth]

what got you into classic literature and mythology in the first place? i want to read more of it to get better at analysis but i can never figure out where to start :(

hi anon! i’m not an expert in the slightest so take all of this with a gigantic heap of salt

i got into classic literature by being a pretentious smartass who wanted to look Sophisticated™ and somewhere down the line i discovered that classic literature is actually fun and worth reading for more than just bragging rights. that being said, i think the issue with getting into “classic literature” might be that the definition is so broad as to be meaningless. seriously, dante’s divine comedy and jane austen's pride and prejudice can both be called “classic literature” so i’m going to break this down a little to be more specific. 

here’s how i started or how i think you could start: (essay under the cut)

the classics (as in literature from ancient greece and ancient rome)

start with homer. seriously, i see no point in starting anywhere else. i started with the iliad which took some convincing because i expected it to be boring and incomprehensible. what did i get? one of the best fucking stories i ever read, filled with blood and death and tragedy and love. it’s beautifully written and so so worth reading. although i feel obligated to mention that "graphic depictions of violence" doesn't begin to describe it. homer isn't content with telling you that a character died, homer needs to tell you the exact angle at which a spear pierced a characters liver. it's a book about the horrors of war, after all. i read the robert fagles translation which is excellent and which brings me to my next point: i cannot overstate the importance of a good translation. with most ancient greek and latin stuff, you have the luxury of multiple translations and trust me, it’ll take you like three sentences to figure out whether or not you vibe with a specific translation. online previews are your friend!

(and if i may rant for a bit, the iliad should be mandatory reading on this hellsite and anyone who wants to act like they know what they’re talking about because they read a patrochilles fanfic once can fight me)

classic literature (as in anything older than a few decades that we as a society still give a shit about)

this can be anything which makes it really difficult to recommend stuff but here are some starting points 

when it comes to english literature, you can never go wrong with my good friend billy the bard (shakespeare). my faves are macbeth (witches! prophecies! a mad king on a downward spiral!) and hamlet (ghosts! depression! one of the rawest monologues i’ve heard in my life!). but you can literally just pick any play and go with it. 

as for getting some media analysis practice in. i really liked ray bradbury’s fahrenheit 451 and george orwell’s 1984. they’re filled with Themes and Metaphors. they’re both short and they’re both about as subtle as a neon sign on fire. they are practically hitting you over the head with how much the curtains are not just blue. fahrenheit 451 has a more hopeful tone whereas 1984 is as bleak as it gets. 

[spoilers] 1984 ends in such complete and utter defeat of the protagonist, i wanted to throw that book across the room when i finished it and i had to stare at a wall for a few minutes to process what the fuck just happened. good times!

as for media analysis, you can practice with literally any story. the classics just happen to be more thematically intricate than your standard hollywood movie. it just comes down to trying to figure out how a story works. does it work? if not, why? what was the author trying to do and did they succeed? i think the tv tropes wiki is a really good resource that explains tropes in layman’s terms and provides examples for each. 

mythology

this one’s tricky because there are so many mythologies. if you’re just getting into it, i’d start with the big ones (greek, roman, norse, egyptian)

the big ones usually have primary sources:

greek: iliad, odyssey, theogony

roman: metamorphoses, aeneid (i think)

norse: prose edda, poetic edda

egyptian: ???

if you want something a little more accessible, there’s a lot of books recounting the same stories for a modern audience. i personally love neil gaiman’s norse mythology because it first introduces you to the gods and then recounts the most important stories from the prose edda and the poetic edda. i’m usually a slow reader but neil gaiman somehow has the magical ability to make me rip through his stuff in a day or two. highly recommended!

and i only quickly rifled through roger green’s tales of ancient egypt but i really liked what i saw.

on the slightly more obscure side (irish, japanese, persian myth, just to name a few) you can probably still find some primary sources. the first few paragraphs of wikipedia will tell you where to look.

anything more obscure than that takes a special kind of masochist. (i’m researching slavic myth and it makes me want to kill)

so yeah, i hope this was somewhat helpful. there is a lot of classic literature and myth. i haven’t read nearly enough of it but if you consider me qualified to give advice (big mistake) then my asks and dm’s are always open.

#anon i am so sorry if you expected a straightforward answer #but i can't not ramble for paragraphs on end if asked about something i care about

[notmoreflippingelves]

A, E, M?

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

*whispers* Elena/Esteban (EoA S3 era or afterward). Either just the two of them or an OT3 w/ a third character( that I won't spoil b/c my friend is still catching up w/ the show and there are specific plot reasons why specifically these 3 together give me every feeling). But like, platonic is good too. I guess. Even if my feral little gremlin brain is like "yes, my precious..."the whole time. To be fair though, pretty much anyone with Esteban will probably make my brain spin happily as though on a hamster wheel. Also from EoA, Princess Valentina deserves to smooch *everyone* and it makes me sad that there isn't more content of her with anyone other than Alonso or occasionally Elena. (Esp. feeling the lack of Val/Naomi, Val/Chloe, and Val/Esteban content.)

I mean Phoenix/Kristoph from Ace Attorney will always have huge chunk of my heart and they still do even if Kris is no longer my main blorbo. Also from Ace Attorney, Gumshoe/Lang/Edgeworth are still THE OT3 (and Kay & Gumshoe & Edgeworth are THE BROT3) and Apollo/Klavier/Ema are the 2nd fave OT3 (tho I can literally only conceive of them as a poly ship. I can't ship any other permutations of them.) I've also as of late been having a lot of Cykesquill feelings which I imagine will only intensify when the AA 4-6 port comes out and I can revisit Dual Destinies.

I haven't really been doing much except thinking, reblogging and admiring from a distance, but "Rebel Captain" (Jyn Erso/Cassian Andor from Star Wars) have also been hitting all my buttons lately. Just the inherent eroticism of being narratively coded as soulmates AND also literally doomed by the narrative at what should've been the beginning of their story. It's just so good.

I've also been missing Malcolm/Nicola from The Thick of It and Jane/Michael from Jane the Virgin a lot lately. Just nostalgia for old OTPs coming back and hitting me unexpectedly in the feels.

I also had an unexpected craving for Gwydion/Achren from The Chronicles of Prydain recently. And was dismayed to learn that it barely exists. Not that I should've been surprised. The fandom itself is pretty tiny and I am queen of the rare pairs after all. But the potential is just exquisite and it's depressing that barely anyone else sees the vision.

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

"Adding to your fandom" makes it sound so serious and powerful. I don't think I have that kind of sway. Maybe in the Father Brown fandom a few years ago but like probably not any more. Though people did seem to like the Barbie Selfie Generator post I made for the characters. I think I was one of the first people using/popularizing "malcola" as ship name for Malcolm/Nicola and I did make a (not very funny) joke (that Nicola might have appreciated) that they are the "bad soda" ship because "mal" as in the root for "bad" and "cola" as in "coca-cola."

I've also made some pretty outrageous things for AA that almost no one knows about since I didn't widely share them and I have no wider influence on the fandom as a whole. The most notable and hilarious of which is an absolute absurd batshit AU that my friend and I came up that just exploded to the most ridiculous and entertaining (imo) nonsense imaginable. (Ask me about the "larryan and the klavengers" I dare you. You will almost certainly regret it. But I probably won't :P)

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

It's tricky to say, since a lot of the characters that I am drawn to aren't necessarily the same characters I would want to hang w/ irl. In part because there's usually a lot of projection going on and because I'm awkward/shy/sensitive and I just sort of assume that my faves wouldn't want to be around me even if I wanted to be around them.

However, I feel somewhat safe in saying that I would probably get along well w/ (and feel really cherished and validated by/happy around) Athena Cykes from Ace Attorney and the title character of Father Brown. (I mean probably the whole squad tbh but Fr. B is an especial case. He's so kind and he would look out for me even if I felt intimidated/shy/overwhelmed by the rest of the squad's utter fabulousness.)

Link to Questions

#ask meme

[bigskydreaming]

Spoilery thoughts on the Wheel of Time Season 2 premiere:

The casting remains the show's biggest strength. Nynaeve is still pitch perfect and my absolute fave. She is everything Book Nynaeve always had the potential to be if gently (forcibly) removed from Robert Jordan and his complete inability to write female characters. That scene where she drank the water just to get out of that lesson without technically losing ground......lmao this woman absolutely will cut off her nose to spite her face and say you're damn right I meant to do that, who needs a nose anyway?

Ishmael is also perfectly cast....I'm not familiar with his actor but he conveys the character's emblematic charismatic menace PERFECTLY. His scene gave me chills. Rosamund Pike continues to be great as Moiraine, what more is there to say about Lan other than Best Warder Is Best, I would kill people for Perrin as long as they were completely hypothetical people who don't count stop looking at me like that its a figure of speech you KNOW what I MEAN gosh, and Egwene's character isn't even close to getting to the real meat of her character arc but her actress has already displayed more than enough range to convince me she's going to nail it. Liandrin is perfectly awful, A+ depiction, and of the new characters, Verin is everything I hoped that character would be. Too early to say if I'm sold on this Sheriam though. Same with Elyas though he seems promising, and we only got a glimpse of Lanfear in the 'this season on Wheel of Time' preview, but what little we saw has me excited. (Lanfear is my ultimate fave baddy, I have such high hopes for her character though, you don't even know).

In terms of characters who don't have rave reviews from me, its mostly just a lack of content so far, leaving me undecided as of yet. I still don't know why they recast Mat before last season even ended up airing, and I liked the original actor for Mat quite a lot, but I THINK I'll be just as happy with this one. He didn't have much to do this episode so its hard to gauge, but he seems likable enough, and its not like Mat's currently in a position to be his usual devil-may-care self at this point in the story.

Honestly, Rand remains the weakest link in the show so far, to the point where even though he's nominally the most central character, the fact that he was barely in this episode didn't bother me even a little bit. I think it was a good choice, pacing wise - I'm just not sure what it suggests about the production's view of the character/actor that they were confident they could sideline THE 'main' character of the series for almost the entire first episode of a ten episode season and nobody would mind. And the fact that I didn't really miss him this episode has a lot to do with him easily being the least compelling of the cast in the first season.

That said.....over the course of the books, Rand's character undergoes the most dramatic evolution out of all the major characters, and we're still at a very early part of the narrative where he's just....at most mere hints of the character he ultimately becomes. His character hasn't yet been given a ton to do, relatively speaking.....like in terms of screentime, he's certainly been front and center, but as of right now he's SUPPOSED to be hesitant, mild-mannered, unsure of himself and all that....which is exactly what his actor is delivering. Its just.....not as interesting as what other characters are already undergoing, and especially when you have his book character arc to compare it to, knowing what kinds of things are coming for his character makes what we've seen so far feel a bit like treading water.

Which brings me to my next point, which is that I am pretty impressed with the show's pacing so far. In hindsight, the books start out pretty slow compared to how the story flows once it fully gets going, probably around the fifth book or so, IMO.....and those first books were still just as long as the later ones. So I do think the show's done a good job of condensing an enormously long narrative into something that can viably be told in ten seasons or so, & in such a way as to 'get to the good stuff plotwise' without actually cutting out too many of the early events necessary to build a foundation for the more complicated later storylines.

I do not envy the writers trying to figure out what to keep, what to streamline, what to alter and what to cut out entirely, so it is pretty impressive that as of this episode we very much FEEL like we're in familiar territory, like I recognize whereabouts in the narrative we're supposed to be, but most of the storylines' specific events have been so heavily altered as to make it feel unpredictable and I'm not sure what entirely to expect, in terms of how the show will get from where it is to certain major beats that I'm expecting to happen. Rand's storyline in particular has been pretty dramatically deviated from how the events after the Eye of the World stuff played out in the books....but he's still positioned to be right where he needs to be for all the Lanfear stuff. On the flip side of things, Mat's storyline technically doesn't have him too far removed in the show from where he was in the books at this point, but they've changed just enough that it FEELS completely different and has a much more ominous tone to it than the way that part of his storyline in the books felt like just kinda.....him sitting around until the Seanchan were in place and his storyline could really get going.

And speaking of Mat's storyline, ugh Liandrian is just the worst. I mean. She's supposed to be. So....good job, I guess.

Elayne and Aviendha should be showing up soon, and definitely impatient for that. Aviendha's a fave. I don't dislike Elayne by any means, but Elayne showing up soon also means that Elaida, Galad and Gawyn are all about to show up and I literally hate all three of them. Gawyn hasn't even appeared onscreen yet and I'm already ready for him to shut the fuck up. LMAO. He.....irritates me. Like Galad's full of himself and self-righteous as fuck but at least he KNOWS that and is like yeah, I get why other characters don't like me. Book Gawyn spends several volumes absolutely convinced he's in the right about certain key things he absolutely is NOT in the right about, and he never is actually made to own that or face it, once its made undeniably clear the narrative just kinda....moves on from anyone ever being in a position to point out hey dude, you just spent five books being an absolute dick about this thing that never even actually happened, maybe you should reflect on that. And like. Change. As a person.

Book Gawyn: Nah. Even though I wasn't right I didn't KNOW I wasn't right so I was basically right to do all the stuff that I now know was completely wrong.

Me: Ugh, shut the fuck up Gawyn.

Ohhhh just realized, Faile should be showing up soon too. I love Faile, so that is also something to look forward to. I'm STILL pissed about their totally unnecessary decision to introduce a whole extra helping of backstory trauma upon Perrin when like....nobody fucking asked, and Im very curious who's idea that was exactly and what their precise reasoning for it was, like what the fuck did they think it added to Perrin's arc that he needed, how does it benefit his storyline at all, you didn't need to fucking do that lmfaaaaao, but oh well. Course, its inevitable that its going to alter the shape of his storyline with Faile, particularly their earliest interactions, and I guess I'll wait and see if that's for the better or not, I just....don't see the point of those specific changes. Whatever. I'll die mad about it I guess. Its fine.

Other than all of the above, my biggest remaining thoughts are I want them to hurry up and clarify just which of the Forsaken made the cut and will be appearing in the show and which five got left on the editing floor. I hope they don't drag it out, they better at LEAST get named this season so we know who we're working with and don't have to wait a whole additional year to like, find out whether Sammael will be in the show or if he got scrapped for someone like Belial for some random reason.....mostly I just want to know if Demandred the Dull is going to be taking up one of the slots simply because the books like to pretend he's important even though he literally only appeared in one book and a chapter and there's nothing he does that can't be done just as well by far more developed characters like Aginor. Who unfortunately probably WON'T make the cut. Even though he's fantastically terrible. As a person. Not a character. He's the worst. But in that 'I can't wait to see him get murdered' kinda way. You get it.

Also I hope Asmodean's passive aggressive ass is in this season because the only thing better than Lanfear is Lanfear vs Asmodean: The Passive Aggressive Olympics.

[iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife]

I need at least one of you to recommend me your favourite batman related media before I lose my marbles ok go.

#for reference i have a deep love for beware the batman as a series #i loved brave and tha bold as a kid but i can barely remember anything about it i should probably rewatch it at some point #the batman lego movie is a favourite of mine #i usually like more feel good content which is why most of my faves are kids cartoons #but i also love dark and edgy so edgy recommendations are very much appreciated #you are welcome to recommend comics too #just keep in mind that unnecessarily violent depictions of my boy bruce male me wanna gouge my eyes out #*make #that's!! not! who he is! as a character!!! ! #batman #dc #Al's ramblings #anyway the reason why im asking for recommendations is because i finished beware the batman for the third time #and the fact that there no second season is killing meeee i need ro obsess over something else to dull the pain #TAGS TOO GOD DAMN LONG DIDN'T READ: i am in agony. i love edgy. i love animated shows. pls give me recommendations i'll owe u my firstborn

[shijiujun]

on the danmei twitter fight

okay guys i didn’t wanna say anything about this and yes it’s that hot danmei twitter translations saga thing that’s going on, because honestly i feel like there’s nothing much to say but when i see dumb posts on tumblr taking about that, by people who present a misleading hot take and their friends or moots run off with it without even knowing what exactly is going on - it really pisses me off.

and also if you shit talk translators for not continuing their translations or locking their translations whatever - the door is that way on your right and left, but anyway here’s a rundown on what happened because i am seeing people make comments without two brain cells put together, without the slightest bit of consideration for the people who bring them translations

here’s my hot take and thesis: if you enjoy english translations made by fan translators, you don’t, in any way, no matter happens, shit talk fan translators. fan translators do this for free, and whatever their intentions are, whether genuine sharing or like some of you like to say, for clout, if you consume, and you enjoy these translations, i’m sorry, you’re not uninvolved, and you don’t get to sit on a high horse and say translators should or shouldn’t do something. you should just keep quiet, honestly, because someone else is doing you a favour, a favour that you are enjoying and taking. that’s what respect is.

i’m presenting both sides or i guess three sides of the story as objectively as i can, altho my support is still for fan translators who were just minding their own business before this blew up.

===

🔺 what happened:

so it started because one of the bigger translators in the fandom did this poll - i’m not blaming her at all, i doubt she had any intentions of shaming anyone or causing any controversy and was plain curious, but her poll asked english speaking danmei twitter how many people buy the digital, print copies of the danmei they read, and who did not. 

in my honest opinion, it’s not strange at all for her to have created that poll, considering just how much work she’s put into making sure things are accessible for the eng-speaking danmei fandom. i mean i’d be curious too, to know out of my thousands of readers, what the reading and buying behaviour is like. do yourself a favour and don’t read too much into it.

obviously in an era where a lot of people do consume content for free whether the underlying content is profit-making (like anime, donghua, manhua, manga etc.) or not (fanfiction etc.), it was unsurprising to see that the last option - the ones who consume danmei without paying a single cent, came out as the majority. i don’t think this is a surprising result at all, for all sorts of reasons that i will not get into now.

anyway, this is obviously kind of a sore point in the fandom especially for translators who want a wider audience to support their fave author’s works - i won’t get into that for now, but the issue began because other translators or fans started to criticize the majority of people who don’t pay for objectively rather affordable danmei and just consume things for free. 

and yes, i don’t deny that the argument on both sides got really heated and emotionally charged with both sides calling each other names which i believe is uncalled for, but it totally derailed the crux of the issue, which basically is that the majority of english-speaking danmei fandom - consumes danmei for free.

anyway this whole thing escalated and fan translators were brought into this for no fucking reason at all except that the people who didn’t want, or were unable to pay for the danmei they usually consume, made what i call a LOGICAL FALLACY in argument by going to the extremes, i will explain why later.

the end result is that fan translators were brought into this (most of them, the bigger ones i know at least) without even participating in the direct crossfire. and obviously, you can see why they’re hurt and decided to lock their translations. let me explain why

===

🔺 kind of like four camps:

(1) translators and fans who criticized those who consume danmei liberally but do not pay for them in any way - no merch, no digital copies, no physical copies, no audio dramas whatever

*** their arguments:

danmei is so cheap right, that technically people should be able to pay for it in one way or another, even if not all

danmei and its authors are, at the end of the day, out here to earn a living, and the industry, like any money-making industry, is a for-profit enterprise - and unlike public goods, if you cannot afford danmei, then there is no obligation for others to make it free for you (fan translators or otherwise, it wasn’t super clearly stated while this shitshow happened) when it is inherently a for-profit industry

yes, i don’t deny that some of them did call the peeps who don’t pay at all, “leeches” and other sort of names. personally, i wouldn’t go that far or even like venture there to be honest because in general, if it’s something that i’ll get punched in the face for if i called someone that in real life i tend not to do it, but i’ll leave my opinions, whatever they’re worth, for later

(2) the readers and fans of danmei who do not pay in any sort of way for them

*** their arguments:

some of them really cannot afford, even the dollar or more, to spend on danmei for several reasons: upbringing, culture, money-spending mindsets, real poverty, struggling to make ends meet etc. - some definitely more valid than others (and when i say not valid, it’s because SOME, a minority or like those few stragglers, say they cannot afford and then you see them like idk, throwing $50 on other merch on kpop and stuff - i’m just bringing up ONE example. not shaming anyone for spending more money on one aspect rather than the other, but yeah you can see why some of them, when making this same argument, are a little invalid, that’s just a small number of them tho)

if translators are blaming them for consuming free of charge, then the fault lies, at its foundation, fan translators who translate illegally, which i mean, in that definition, all of them including me 

did i mention that we were called illegal translators like you know in response to being called leeches? anyway-

(3) others translators who literally were just minding their own fucking business before some smart alec dragged them into it

i don’t think most of us had an argument. we were just quietly munching on popcorn and staying out of it and yeah, can you imagine, we provide a service, however illegal it is, for free on our own time, we don’t even check whether people support legally or not, we just... provide, and pray that those who are able to, at least support in some small way or another do so, on their own time. i mean i don’t check, most of us don’t, not the bouncers at your local club before COVID happened do, and then suddenly, to be used to derail an argument, we were called illegal translators. and that we should stop translating, and that it is our fault that there are free riders in the fandom

(4) people who offered to provide JJWXC credits to those who said they couldn’t afford it etc.

honestly i think they were just trying to help - no different than a gofundme. there’s no shame in taking a free thing that people already weren’t intending to pay for. it’s there, just take it!

===

🔺 the shitshow that led to fan translators locking their stuff up:

i would provide some actual examples in the form of screenshots but i’ve blocked most of them, and i don’t want to direct any sort of traffic to them so i guess you’ll have to take my word on it or go search on twitter yourself but-

(1) the affordability issue: i can understand the frustration at being called leeches, and some if not a majority of people, do have valid reasons for not being able to afford something or anything and end up pirating content they enjoy. hey, i am not about to crucify anyone for pirating at some point in their lives. we all have done it at some point, or for example hate disney+ and that $30 they were trying to rip off us for a subpar Mulan live action. i don’t have anything to say about that. inherently, is it wrong and illegal? yeah sure of course it is. do we call people leeches? i wouldn’t go that far.

if anyone cannot afford, cannot access for whatever reason, fine, i’m not gonna go check if jjwxc truly is banned in your country, or is your postal service so terrible that you definitely won’t be able to receive a hard copy of the book you like at affordable rates.

and if you have to pirate? go ahead. i mean it’s always been a rampant thing. the only thing fan translators and fans can do is encourage, motivate and incentivise as much as possible to get people to support legally. they can only put up REALLY COMPREHENSIVE guides as to how to access jjwxc or taobao or whatever. 

and if you still cannot afford it and pirate, honestly no one cares about the story behind it. you owe no one justification, just as how no other person is obligated to take it into consideration or understand you or empathize with you. i don’t say this in a malicious way - i do think that in general, you just do you. 

(2) the poor people don’t deserve nice things argument: honestly, this was not the point of this entire debacle, altho yes, people were rude to those who could not afford to support legally. but this is not the point of this whole thing.

main point - there are free riders who can support but choose not to because they choose to just consume it for free and if you are able to you should support

everyone going off on a tangent - you guys hate poor people / you guys are leeches

well guess what, no one wins in this argument. 

there were a lot of people saying “reading danmei is our only source of happiness, are you saying poor people who can’t access legally don’t deserve to read danmei” (this is just one example i’ve seen, there are other variations), and it wasn’t put across perhaps in the right way, but the other camp of people were saying “you’re not entitled to it for free if you cannot afford it”, which raised a lot of hackles and anti-poor yellings 

altho i do not deny that there are those who mean it maliciously, i think what everyone is trying to say is - the danmei industry, like any other profit-making industry, is looking to make profits. the people working in the industry, the authors even, are looking at numbers - traffic to jjwxc or other legal platforms, how much revenue they’re making from their live actions etc., comments, rankings, etc. i think @/hunxi-after-hours made a really succinct post on this aspect which yall should read.

it’s the same as - if you wanted to purchase a standee which costs $20 USD, but you cannot afford it = you don’t get it. there’s no way you can get this standee unless some gifts it to you for free. what the camp trying to ask people to support legally is saying, is that danmei is NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. it is a private, for-profit product. it might be intangible, but it is a PRODUCT that has a price that needs to be paid.

if you cannot afford it, you either don’t get access entirely (i’m saying this objectively and honestly from an economic standpoint). if someone gifts that standee to you for free, count yourself lucky - if someone makes a danmei accessible to you for free, COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY. you don’t have to be grateful and treat them as gods or like obey their every word, but it’s not rocket science. someone did you a favour that you accepted and consumed, show some respect. 

if you cannot afford to buy the standee - you do not go on twitter demanding that someone ensures that you have access to the standee for free. do you see how ridiculous this sounds once it’s a tangible product? and danmei novels ARE PRODUCTS. they are not FREE CONTENT. if someone cannot afford the standee, this is the equivalent of people going “we didn’t get the standee for free because poor people don’t deserve nice things”

totally missing the point. i don’t even know how it got to this. once again, i do admit that some users were unnecessarily mean, but going to the extreme of this is ridiculous. in argumentative essay writing we call this a logical fallacy:

e.g. “if you cannot pay for merchandise or danmei, it is a fact that you might not have access to it” morphing into “if we cannot pay for food, does this mean we cannot have access to it?!” - this is a slippery slope, and factors are not equivalent!!!! do they not teach people anything in school

don’t confuse fanfiction with danmei - danmei novels ARE PAID PRODUCTS unless for free chapters, just because it’s released online doesn’t mean it’s free public property, and also selected novels (did you guys know the WHOLE of SCI novel is free? about 500 chapters sorry, random, just a tidbit)

there are of course nuances right, like if anyone told me they were pirating disney+ content i’d be like yeah hey get one over those bloodsuckers, they take enough of our money and produce shit content anyway. the difference is that danmei authors, and the danmei industry itself can still be considered a nascent and not-yet matured industry, with a majority of authors if not all, depending on monetary flow, likes, comments, virality on the sites their content is hosted on, for a living, unlike hugeass MNCs trying to squeeze us dry for content that isn’t even interesting.

danmei is priced rather reasonably - and this brings me to another argument that was made, that the value of money is not the same for everyone. i don’t want to make comments on this because yes this is correct to a large extent. a $6 book might be cheap to most of us, but might be expensive to someone else. i’m not gonna comment on how cheap or whatever it is, if you gotta use your money for other things, definitely! i still maintain however, that a novel less than a dollar should be affordable to most people, a majority of people. and i definitely side eye some users who obviously have money but are just creating noise because they wanna continue free-riding

(4) the “they’re losing out on their international audience” argument: honestly, i feel like english-speaking danmei fandom gives themselves a bit too much credit. danmei has long thrived in china in its domestic market - sure the international audience is a plus to have and i’m sure the authors are grateful and flattered that people who don’t understand chinese love their content and love it a lot, but do they and their companies care about fans who basically don’t bring in money? i’m not sure (okay i’ll get to the fan translators doing illegal shit later okay i got it don’t be impatient)

and international fans are great, i don’t deny that - but when i see arguments like “oh but it’s their loss if they don’t cater or deny access to us, they get more popularity and sharing overseas”, i honestly think they don’t care as much as you think. once again, hunxi made a really good argument regarding non-sinophone audiences, but it really irks me, because this is the same as:

an instagram influencer saying they’ll give a restaurant exposure for free to their followers, if they get a free meal

it’s par for par - danmei authors wants earnings, popularity, tangible results that show that they are succeeding. this is life. if i put something out there for sale, i better be getting returns, simple economic logic. they probably don’t care that a non-paying reader is bringing them greater ‘exposure’ - once again, i mean this objectively. 

and yes if they’re thriving without the international market then why should it matter that people are pirating right? which brings me to the next point~

(5) it’s fan translators faults for so many people pirating, and fan translators are the ones doing the “illegal” work: this one is like... wow where do i unpack this and how-

firstly, we are talking about assholes who can pay but decide to free ride and not pay for danmei, and we assume that if you really cannot afford and have to pirate, no one’s saying anything as long as you don’t go around spreading how to pirate, how the hell did it get to fan translators from “you guys are anti-poor” and whatever

yes, fan translations are indeed illegal, i don’t deny that, and i also don’t deny that there are translators who translate for clout and popularity but putting these aside - here’s what i have seen from people who ran their mouths and made this argument

“if you guys care about us pirating the book so much than fan translators shouldn’t have translated in the first place” and “if you wanna come after us for reading illegally, then fan translators, you guys should go get the copyright for the book and then translate it cuz what you guys are doing is also illegal”

hooooo i’m telling ya, i am all for translators locking up their translations at this point. see how fucking hurtful that is? you eat from my hand and then now you biting at the hand that fed you the gays in love?

honestly if you’ve made this argument or supported this, you can basically go to hell. yes this is personal because what, you think fan translators don’t take out their personal time and effort and hard work to make translations accessible to you? if you’re ever consumed and read translations, don’t be a hypocrite and make this argument. you benefitted from it, now you wanna say it’s their fault? 

most translators want to share and spread the love they have for a novel right, want to show you how wonderful all these authors are, how much enjoyment u get from reading these wonderfully thought out stories of gays in love. yes we all know we are illegally translating, which is why on top of sharing we first, purchase the novels legally ourselves first, and then we try to encourage people to buy etc. and actually put their money to use. it doesn’t make it any less illegal, but we are bridging the gap between danmei and basically the english-speaking fandom, albeit illegally

we aren’t that self-important to ask for gratefulness but some respect would be nice. like i said, you read it, you consumed it, you enjoyed it, you can only access it because of illegal translators - a bit counter-intuitive to yell at these translators, who are simply telling you, if you can, please support. and none of us went “if you cannot afford, begone!”

===

🔺 some people tried to help by offering jjwxc credits so people who cannot afford as they say, can get legal access: honestly, just take it right, guess what some of these users did in response

they said the people giving away credits are trying to redeem themselves for their comments by giving away free stuff

they also said that we are trying to shame the people who cannot afford it with this handout to them, to show that they are the bigger person - the fact that they think this is a handout to them is TELLING. the people offering this is giving their money not to these readers, but to the authors! that’s the point of this exercise!!!

one of them even said “instead of trying to do these giveaways, here, there are greater world problems out there, donate instead to these causes” - love the initiative, but how did we get from being able to afford danmei and entertainment content to saving the world? i just- i cannot

===

🔺 so why i get why fan translators are locking up their translations, because wow, so hurtful:

you have no idea how many fucking assholes went “sure, lock up your translations, deal with the consequences” - ermmmm firstly, thanks for making a threat. like who the fuck do you think you are?

the consequences is... the authors still don’t get the money these free riders weren’t going to give them anyway, so no loss, and they weren’t reading on jjwxc anyway so you know, the authors don’t lose or gain any readership numbers or traffic they didn’t already have. instead, it WILL push and force people to pay for the PRODUCT. once again, it’s a product.

this works, and i’d say Word of Honor’s payment model worked marvellously for Youku, because they fucking forced everyone to pay to access content. ALL OF THEM. sure ok some people still pirated it, but how many MORE people paid on Youku, on Youku Youtube, watched on Viki etc. than if they didn’t? even english-speaking fandom were wracking their brains trying to purchase a Youku pass even if there were no subs initially - and other examples that lovely hunxi brought up in her amazing piece

and for translators?! honestly me for one, i’m glad i don’t feel pressured anymore to churn out a chapter every week since we get called names etc. most of us are glad to have a break to be honest. we’ve lost all motivation to translate because it’s a free service, at the very least we don’t expect like hate, or rudeass fuckers. for those who are doing a proof of purchase thing - go for it honestly! 

hopefully it’ll minimize the free rider problem - some people for whatever reasons really cannot buy or support legally, that’s totally cool and they don’t have to justify it, i get that. but for others making the same argument but obviously are just unwilling to pay because they can’t read chinese, think it’s too troublesome when there are guides and translators provide it for free anyway so what’s the point - we all make concessions and make decisions to grab what we like (not talking about the ppl who have their various troubles and difficulties!)

===

🔺 and those who are saying why is it the ‘rest of us suffer’ from locked translations just because of a few bad apples:

IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU. where the hell were all of ya when we were getting called illegal huh? it’s about us fan translators getting shot at for no reason, and then people still demanding things for free. i don’t see any of the people i’ve seen on tumblr complain about fan translators stopping or locking translations defend any of us in any way. instead, you’re complaining.

it is the translator’s prerogative to start, stop and end translations, unless of course the original author starts to sue i suppose. i see people on tumblr going like if they were gonna do this, they shouldn’t have started in the first place etc. - i don’t what world you live in, but when i do something for free, then get called names and am attacked or get dictated on how i should do something that’s already like free, i tend to be less generous.

i’m sorry, do us illegal and free translators owe ANY OF YOU? i wasn’t aware any of us were being paid for this hobby. readers, especially those who CAN and just refuse to support, don’t get to say SHIT. translators deal with so much shit and so many entitled readers, i say they get to lock whatever they want as long as they aren’t profiting off of this monetarily.

let me give you an example - nan chan, which is translated by lian yin, completed translations by the way for all chapters. it is all free for viewing, and she only locked up one extra and asked for proof of payment. some dumbfuck quotes that locked up extra chapter tweet and said “honestly, this turned me off reading this novel because they restricted access”.

the. fucking. entitlement. the whole of nan chan is free, that’s like what more than 80 chapters. she locked up the EXTRA and the money goes to the author, she doesn’t earn anything. AND HERE THAT BIJ is (yes, i’m going to call them names because you know, fucking asshole who didn’t bother to check) going “yeah i didn’t wanna read because 1/80+ chapters were locked”. 

AN EXTRA. LITERALLY AN EXTRA!!!!!!

at the end of the day, translators are not like DYING to translate, not like some of you are DYING to read the translations. once again, this isn’t a “BE GRATEFUL” message, it’s a please be respectful to the people who put in time and hard work for free and share the goodness ya know? what’s the use of yelling at fan translators as if we owe you anything?

================

🔴🔴🔴 TOO LONG DIDN’T READ 🔴🔴🔴

some people may need really need to pirate - and no one needs to justify why they cannot afford to purchase etc. pirating happens all the time, translators only hope that when you can, and in whatever way you can, to support legally - in general we don’t ask and we get it! we’re just annoyed that some people think that it SHOULD BE FREE, when it is a paid product, especially for those who CAN afford it

readers are not entitled to shit on translators for what they do with their translations - once again, you’re not OBLIGATED to have it. so what if i start and stop? i’m the one doing the work, i get the only say. don’t be a hypocrite and shit on translators, whose works you’ve read - it’s no loss for translators, we read and enjoy danmei just fine

yes, fan translations are illegal, but you can’t read and enjoy them like some of you have, and then turn around and point the finger at translators - a lot of us are happy to stop translating - this isn’t a threat, but at the end of the day, shitting on translators simply decreases access, and sure, some people can indeed live with you know, MTL or shitty translations from people who’ve learnt chinese for only six months or whatever, but you’re gonna be reading an entirely different book tbh

the people saying illegal translators are at fault - funnily enough, most of them consume the translations, so what the fuck? i mean we know it’s illegal, we’re trying to share the love and trying to minimize the illegalities of it by redirecting people to hopefully support legally. it’s still illegal yes, but i think it’s hypocritical for people who have read translations, stab translators in the back. and now that translators are indeed ‘restricting’ and ‘removing’ their ‘illegal translations’, yall yelling again? and threatening?

fan translators aren’t “elitist” or “classist” - just looking for some respect in a community which seems to have taken them for granted, and also looking for support for their fave authors - and honestly a lot of us were caught in the crossfires truly, don’t be an asshole and demand things from fan translators - who are you talking about? do you know why they decided to lock? do you know know what their locking system is like and what for? 

it’s not EASY to lock the translations up - it’s more admin work, it’s putting together a whitelist of people, if given the choice i’m sure translators would prefer to share everything. but not when there are assholes who have a comment on how they should translate etc. and yeah!!! calling us illegal!! i mean we are but still!!

the last straw was seeing that post on tumblr and people in the comments going like fan translators shouldn’t or should do something, without getting the whole picture, without even considering how hard it is for fan translators being caught in this situation. 

whoever puts in the work gets to decide, and everyone else should leave them alone. 

be nice to the people who really cannot afford as they say so (or just don’t think about it), be nice to the translators feeding you content, and the people who free ride and shit on translators - honestly, i’d say ready the pitchforks.

edit: i forgot to mention this is my hot take and i’ve tried to like present all the arguments i’ve seen so far. i’m definitely not doing all of it justice and i don’t claim to speak on behalf of any of them except maybe one or two- and i’ve definitely left out stuff, but anyway, lmao we’re just tiny people doing what we love. i wish we could solve you know inequality or poverty or hunger or other pressing concerns. if i was that great i wouldn’t be stuck on tumblr or twitter or have to make posts like these like a loser.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#danmei #danmei twitter #rambles #long post #literally cannot take the stupidity of some people anymore

[baku-bowl]

broke 1,000 followers (the fuck? I don't even make content people), so decided to write up a list of some (but not all, I'll make other lists later) of my favorite Bakugou-centric fic recs. my tastes run towards hurt/comfort, as you'll probably figure from the list. if there are some Baku-centric fics that you've enjoyed that aren't on here, please add them - this is definitely not a complete list of the ones I've read and love, but I'm always up for some recs. <3

fair warning, most of these are wips.

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Social Media 101 by WindsChild8178

Part 1: Survival Guide to Fucking Up

[Solely Bakugou’s point of view]

Katsuki Bakugou doesn’t have a gentle bone in his body. He’s aggressive in everything he does and does everything with 100% of his heart in it. After the Sport’s Festival, Katsuki starts to get harassed by strangers for his unheroic demeanor. It starts with letters but it doesn’t end there. The moment Katsuki realizes the harassment has entered dangerous territory and he needs to tell someone, it’s already too late.

Part 2: Post Traumatic Life Disorder

[Point of View opens up to Bakugou, teachers and classmates]

When the Dorms are finally built, everyone is settling in well, but things become tense as people begin to realize something isn’t right with the recently rescued Bakugou.

[Cannon compliant right up to after the License Exam]

hands down my favorite fic in the fandom right now. it’s the one that converted me into a Bakugou lover. if you have any fondness for Bakugou as a character then it’s likely you’ve read this one already, but if not, I can’t recommend it enough. incredibly depressing, but with the hope that comfort is coming soon in the next few chapters.

The Kids Will Be Alright, Eventually by NotWithThatAttitude

Bakugou is spiraling in the aftermath of Kamino and his friends are starting to notice. He's stubborn, aggressively independent, and less than willing to dig into his past, but after a breakdown that ends with a painful secret revealed, he starts to get help.

Whether he likes it or not.

Meanwhile, a new kind of villain threatens an uneasy peace following the loss of Allmight. Whispers build as a new narrative slowly takes shape:

Hero society needs to change.

Feat. Therapy, Dadzawa, best boy Kirishima, dysfunctional families, healing, growing up, and the mortifying ordeal of being known

guys.. the medical accuracy of this fic is just... *chef’s kiss*

I rarely see mental health genuinely handled well in fics, but this one goes above and beyond. kudos to the author for doing such excellent research into psychology, and making the application of it in here not-boring. also, while this one does have abusive!Mitsuki, it’s done in a way that feels realistic, and how I usually will see it occur in real life, rather than just for the hurt/comfort feels.

fair warning, the fic can be incredibly triggering (themes of severe depression, PTSD, panic attacks, rape survival, abuse survival, suicidal ideation/attempted suicide, among other things), so be safe and heed the tw’s if you decide to read. legitimately one of my Top Favorite fics in this fandom.

Lock and Key by autochorystalize

Bakugou made a choked, gravelly noise before croaking out a low, “You can’t be serious.” His fingers ached to blow up everything in the room.

“I’m sorry, young man, but you can’t change reality! This sometimes happens.” Recovery Girl clicked through his file, adding a new symbol in a previously empty slot.

- - -

A pair of eyes discreetly locked on to an explosive blond plowing his way forward, parting people in his path. He recognized the kid, of course. Anyone in the underbelly of society would recognize him, after the publicity of both UA’s Sports Festival and the events leading up to All Might’s fall. The uniform he was wearing cast away any doubts about the young man’s identity.

It was a bit of a surprise that the little firecracker presented as an omega.

- - - - - - - - -

Or: there are certain types of evil that seemed too distant, archaic violations and perversions that would never actually threaten bright-eyed heroes-in-training in the clean, modern world...but sometimes those evils aren't as distant as one might think.

remember when I said that I love a/b/o fics that are full of plot and world-building and gender-induced tension? that’s this one. the OC’s are fabulous and you love to hate ‘em. also, it’s the fic that made me fall head-over-heels for the TodoBaku dynamic, so it’s got a special place in my cold, dead heart. 

be warned, there are rather explicit non-con scenes between an adult (OC) and a minor (Bakugou) in this one, but the author warns for them in advance, and you could likely skip those parts without missing too much if you need to.

Never and Always, Eventually by Wawa_Boonliang

"Katsuki can remember the exact moment that he and Deku…that he and Midoriya Izuku became friends. He can also remember the moment he and Izuku became fierce rivals, a time when they were almost enemies.

However, what he remembers most clearly about their relationship is the moment that they moved passed rivals and became something more close than mere friends. Something more like brotherhood, something forged in fire and secured in the middle of a battlefield or in the midst of natural disaster where the number of the dead was climbing ever higher. And then it was torn from him."

Katsuki is given a second chance. A chance to save everyone. A chance to change everything.

But should he?

y’all. I’m a slutty, slutty whore for time travel fics. a time travel fic with autistic!coded Bakugou? it was love at first read.

Lessons Learned by Sif (Rosae)

Rather than the police station, Katsuki's friends bring him to a hospital after rescuing him from the villains. His wounds were minor, but it didn't make having them treated any less important. As it would so happen, Best Jeanist was also brought to this hospital after the attack.

Sometimes, small choices have a big impact on how a story plays out.

classic Bakugou hurt/comfort. this fic opened me up to the potential that could be a genuinely good Best Jeanist & Katsuki mentor-mentee relationship, and I kind of dig it and search ravenously for it in other fics now. I’m also a huge fan of the behind-the-scences Pro Hero Chat group.

Slope by sunfleurmoon

“I’m not a hero. Or a good person,” Katsuki says, giving Aizawa a pointed look, “So leave me alone. I don’t care about the League or UA, or you—” The two years he’s been away have been fine, more than fine, fucking fantastic actually if you ignore the bi-monthly near-death experiences. He doesn’t need this place. He doesn’t miss this place.

And yet, longing, a childish desire to tear up, or maybe blow something to bits, they all twist in his chest like a band of traitors regardless. “—I just want to go home.”

Or: the one where Katsuki and Izuku fail the first term exam, Aizawa discovers their pasts, and Katsuki is booted from UA. Featuring questionable descriptions of villain organizations, a slightly illegal moving shop, and your favorite emotionally constipated badass in distress with a newly discovered penchant for collecting strays.

paaaaaaiiiiiiiin. the hurt is ALIVE in this one. lots of tortured, angsty exploding child goodness. the OC’s are excellently crafted, and the Bakugou & Eri relationship? beautiful. definitely deserves a read.

Ground Zero by WindsChild8178

In the wake of Kamino, Katsuki is tested more than anyone could imagine. Bound by a villain’s quirk to keep his silence or die, he lives each day knowing it might very well be his last. He continues to work towards becoming a hero, keeping his secret from his classmates and teachers, focusing on making it through each day and trying not to allow the panic or depression to get the best of him. When the villain finally corners him with demands in exchange for his life, there is really only one answer Katsuki Bakugou can give.

honestly don't know which I want updated more - social media 101 or ground zero. this author's fics are amazing, and I really wasn't expecting the twist in this one. can't wait for windschild to come back to this fic some day.

The Defect by LadyGreenFrisbee

"Why do you want to win the Sports Festival so badly?" 

Because I want to see if the defect could usurp the masterpiece.

(In which Endeavor holds a terrible secret and Bakugo has to suffer since childhood for it.)

a great concept, and I adore the shouto and Katsuki sibling interaction here. hoping the author will come back to this one some day.

A Name That You'll Remember by Heronfem

Kirishima Eijirou is a Hero. Bakugou Katsuki... is not. Trapped in his toxic workplace and increasingly desperate to get out, Red Riot's days are only brightened by a new villain known as Caution, who's not exactly villainous and keeps accidentally doing good deeds. But when a real villain appears, a threat from the past that demands that Red Riot make the ultimate sacrifice to keep the public safe, Bakugou is forced into saving the day... and eventually, Red Riot himself.

sob story good guy villains are my weakness, this fic is a gem, and I'd kill for the sequel.

Our Hero by AnonymousTwit

He felt everything jerk to the side and throw his balance off before he saw anything, dust clouding his vision and irritating his lungs as the earth itself opened up to swallow them whole. For a single moment, in a millisecond's time, his wild eyes locked with Raccoon Eyes', hers alight with fear and adrenaline-fueled desperation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that it was the first time she'd looked at him with something other than long-deserved hatred in days.

And then he was free falling.

Or

After a particularly nasty encounter between childhood friends, the class learns about Bakugou and Midoriya's dark history and practically ostracizes Bakugou while trying to defend Midoriya. An earthquake during an outing has all sides regretting their decisions.

just fucking tear apart my self-sacrificing faves in every way imaginable while their loved ones watch on in terror. 💖🥰💖 this one is heavy on the Bakusquad and Class-1A feels, and VERY heavy on the Mina & Bakugou relationship (platonic).

Running back the tape, watching it replay by Faralyne

For someone ripped from their time, ripped from the few but strong relationships built by time and personal development, by self-reflection and swallowed pride, ripped from the one thing that made him feel worthwhile and needed and put-together, and forced to forge everything over again—Katsuki thinks he is handling it pretty fucking well.

Or

A villain’s quirk sends a 29-year-old Bakugou back in time to his middle school days.

am I a sucker for time travel? yes. am I a sucker for vigilante!bakugou? also yes. am I a sucker for this fic? literally refreshing the page in wait for an update as we speak.

Liability by sandelf

After All-Might dies rescuing Bakugou from the League, Bakugou is determined to prove it wasn't for nothing.

But the world is against him, his grief is overwhelming, and his stability is splitting at the edges.

very self-indulgent bakugou angst. tw for harassment, severe depression, and suicidality.

Special Mentions:

How To Win The Sport Festival: A Step By Step Guide by mhwright

Short re-imagining of the Sports Festival Arc if Shinso had planned a little better and worked a little harder to win the Sports Festival and if the match-ups had been slightly different. Self-indulgent fic of watching him succeed.

this is completely Shinsou-centric, not Bakugou-centric, but I love and adore it and am dying for a sequel. Shinsou is Best Boy here and you'll be rooting for him the whole time.

#fic rec #katsuki bakugou #bakugou #seriously though if you have a rec for me please always assume i will be unbearably grateful for it #and hit me up with it in the comments or through messaging #thanks for the follows y'all!