#so it's harder to make it standard practice in fandom cultural spaces then it is in more social justice focused circles

[betty-bourgeoisie]

It occurs to me that, sense there does seem to be an uptick in new people joining the Hetalia fandom and things are a little less 'the same five people reblogging from each other' then they were even a month ago, it would probably be good to start doing image description on fandom posts for accessibility

#Hetalia #maybe we could even organize a side blog with multiple mods where the point was just to add image descriptions of things 🤔 #seems like a lot of work #but also I am in a constant state of bitterness #over the fact that even though I'm dyslexic and have a genuine disability that makes writing things hard for me #I am almost always the person who gets the job of image description writing at my work and volunteer spaces #because I am the only one who gives enough of a shit about accessibility to write them 🙃 #I would maybe be willing to make a 'how to write image descriptions' post tho #part of the issue is obviously that most fandom content requires a much more in depth image description #then say an informational graphic #so it's harder to make it standard practice in fandom cultural spaces then it is in more social justice focused circles

[evilvarric666-archive]

This is gonna be long, so sorry in advance, but as someone who enjoys long fics here are my two cents:

I get why some ppl may not want 75 tags in fics, but this is gonna hurt long fic writers. On a long fic there are probably gonna be more relationships that are central to the plot that aren't the main ship. And side pairings that may be a squick to some ppl. Not to mention trigger warnings and tone tags.

For example: a long fic with the pairing Y x Z. Z had an abusive relationship, and that's gonna be explored. So the author tags abusive relationship, bc that's a trigger, but an explanation next tag saying "not current ship" or smth.

Then Y has very important friendships with some of the cast. These are central to the plot so they're tagged too.

Turns out, character W is controversial in the fandom, but they're central to the fic too. The author is gonna tag after the character tag W positive/negative; so ppl who don't wanna see positive/negative things about W can skip this.

And guess what? Ship A x B appears in this fic too. Maybe it's not that central, but this ship is also disliked by some people, so the author will tag it, so ppl can filter through.

Another problem is with media that has different mediums, like, the media Y, Z, etc are from has movies, and books, and games and a tv show. All these things actually have different stories, different enough at least that ppl may only want to see fics written for the movies! But the author wants to take plot from the movies and the books. So instead of just tagging the all media tag for that media, they also tag media (movies) and media (books)

These tags end up accumulating. And especially in long fics. The author could make the first chapter a list of tws and stuff that they keep updating, but that destroys the purpose of ao3 tags: you can't filter content like that, you can only filter tags.

I honestly think they should just find a way to delete the fics with the trolling tags, or make a readmore thing so it doesn't hurt the browsing. At the very least make the tag limit longer.

sorry in advance that this is going to be rambly and weird. I have a lot of thoughts.

I get where you're coming from but I also still disagree. Like it's definitely going to change the way longfic writers tag, but I really don't think it's going to hurt them. I think it's going to encourage more effective tagging and that that's going to be better for everybody in the long run. If anything, I think that overtagging is what's hurting longfic writers, it makes their works look unappealing, and actually important information gets buried in a wall of text.

i will admit though that I do understand better now why less room for trigger tagging is going to be an issue. My preferred tagging style is "General/umbrella warnings in the tags, with whatever elaboration/specifics the author deems necessary in an author's note/author's notes at the beginning of each chapter" (example: "animal death" in the tags, so that the filters catch it + people who can't handle the subject At All know to keep scrolling, and then the author's note specifying that its in the context of game hunting & not a pet death, so that people who were uncertain and needed more info could click in and get the specifics.) and I thought that preference was pretty universal? But apparently a lot of people use the tags as an exhaustive list of warnings, which I didn't know because when I see a work with more than, well with more than 75 tags, I just start scrolling until it's gone.

(this is a tangent and I get that my experiences are not universal. but I genuinely dislike full warning lists in the tags because, for me at least, it makes it harder for me to figure out if the story is something I can/want to read. The things I Really Do Not Want To Read about are rare, and rarely tagged the same way twice, so the exclusion filter isn't really helpful for me. I have to actually read the full list of warnings and if the things I'm looking for are sandwiched inbetween a bunch of trope/character tags in a big wall o text I am going to miss it. This has happened to me multiple times.)

I think that that's an ineffective tagging style, basically. Lots of tags is kind of the opposite of useful tags, imo. Short, to the point and consistently worded warnings are better and I think having less space will encourage people to do that. I understand why people do this other style, though, and also why it would frustrate them that they can no longer do that. I think it really sucks that ao3 let everyone wild west their website for so long that it managed to spawn like three distinct groups of people who all use the website in completely incompatible ways, and now it's at the point where any new rule implemented is going to screw a lot of people over no matter what. But I digress.

Anyways, as long as someone isn't putting Revolutionary Girl Utena levels of warnings in their tags (and if your fic needs that much... maybe you should just put yur top 10 biggest warnings on there and slap a Dead Dove Do Not Eat on the end there, yknow?), I think that 75 tags will fully accommodate them. I get that tags start adding up, but also I think a lot of people are underestimating how many tags 75 tags is.

Like to just add up how many tags are used in your example: three / pairing tags, lets go crazy and say three more & pairing tags, tag every character tag in those pairings that's twelve, #abusive relationship + #not main pairing tags, three fandom tags bc multiple source mediums, a #[controversial character] positive tag... that's 24 tags. Like all the necessary character & pairing tags are handled in less than a third of the space given (and personally I consider this slightly over tagged. I think the only character tags you should put on a fic are the very mainest/pov characters, but yknow) and honestly if you can't then figure out a way to communicate the rest of the necessary information about your fic in 51 tags and a 1250 character summary then I really don't know how to help you. I personally would have to really push myself to figure out how to put more than 75 tags on one fic, regardless of the length of the fic. And I can't help but notice that a lot of the fics I could find with over 75 tags while searching last night had a lot of... unnecessary duplicate tags, often for information that could've been easily otherwise intuited (tagging #mandolorian #mandolore #mandolorian character and #mandolorian culture on a Jango Fett pre-series fic, for example)

I do have some criticisms about the current change though. I think it would've been better to have individual tag number limits for each individual field (x number of fandom tags, x number of character tags, etc.) instead of a 75 tags over all limit (or make a "warning tags" field that's separate from "additional tags" but that's a separate essay and would... probably mean overhauling the whole site. so not very practical.) A readmore option would be good too, and I'm not sure why they didn't go for that? I also think that this change will be most effective if done in combination with other changes. Like posting very loosely or not at all enforced official tagging/style guides for the site. I really think that even a tepid attempt at standardization will increase the site's usability like, A Lot.

I'm not sure how cohesive that was. TL;DR I appreciate hearing your thoughts, mine are that I still think this is a step in the right direction. And that cutting back on overtagging will lead to more concise, effective tagging which will make browsing and filtering easier in the long run.

#ao3 tag

[skeletorific]

(Sorry if it’s already been asked)what’s your interpretation/view of the quadrants? What in your mind makes an healthy and unhealthy quadrantship?

*distant drumbeat* I’ve been WAITING for this one! Turn it up!!!!

So, a few general notes about quadrants before getting into a breakdown. First, I don’t think there’s a hard and fast definition of what makes, say, a healthy kismessitude, any more than there’s a hard and fast definition of a healthy human relationship. What would be toxic and terrible for one couple may be exactly what keeps a different relationship together. Meowrails is very different from pale Vrisrezi, because Equius and Nepeta are different people with different wants and needs in a relationship than Vriska and Terezi. As with all bonds, it’s important to look at a broader trend of behavior and the individual mental health levels before you can say “this is unhealthy”. I DO think there are certain things to watch out for, but ultimately I probably have ships in that quadrant that may violate one or more of those “no-nos” just because of how those characters bounce off each other. 

Second, I think there’s more fluidity in quadrants than the fandom typically allows for, because human relationships are also by their nature fluid. We’ve all seen a set of best friends who act like a couple even if they aren’t romantically interested, and we’ve seen couples who bicker and squabble despite being deeply in love. How you choose to identify your relationship is ultimately nobody’s business but your own, even if red love for you looks like pale love to someone else. Alternian troll culture is romance obsessed and this can lend itself to an obsession with defining the attraction, but this doesn’t mean that’s necessarily how it HAS to be.

Finally, I’ll be listing ALL confirmed canon examples of each quadrant to provide a context for what I’m referencing. This should not be taken as necessary endorsement for any of these ships, or even that I think they were a “good example”, simply that how they chose to identify influenced my own definition of these quadrants. I will also be leaving out a lot of ships that would seem to fit a particular quadrant (noteably Rosemary and Arasol) because their own status is complicated in-text (Rose explicitly refers to wanting to be in all of Kanaya’s quadrants and their relationship has tended explicitly pitch at points, Sollux is referred to as Aradia’s “boyfriend” and yet there is apparently no issue between either of them when his flush quadrant becomes occupied)

With that, let’s dig in

Matespritship:

Successful/Actually Date(d) Examples: Dad/Mom, Latula/Mituna, Meulin/Kurloz, Aranea/Porrim, Mindfang/Summoner, Meenah/Vriska, Sollux/Feferi, Konyyl/Azdaja (currently vacillating), Stelsa/Tyzias

Crushes (unrequited, vacillating, or thwarted): Eridan/Feferi, Kanaya/Vriska, Nepeta/Karkat, Equius/Aradia, Tavros/Jade, Gamzee/Tavros, Sollux/Gamzee, Jack/PM, Lynera/Bronya

What it means to me: Matespritship tends to be an opt-out quadrant for a lot of people, I think. Most seem to stop reading at “closely analogous to human conceptions of romance” and turn off their brains. However, as with all things troll culture, I think there’s more to it the deeper you go, especially considering the fact that your moirail is expected to do a LOT of what we would consider standard s/o stuff: caretaking, comfort, intimate knowledge, closeness. I absolutely refuse to buy that the only thing distinguishing the two is that matesprits have sex, especially since that stumble into some VERY UNCOMFORTABLE territory in regards to troll asexuality. So then, if it’s not that, then what is it?

Ultimately I keep coming back to the idea of passion. Your matesprit I think is the person who you genuinely see in the best possible light. Unusual for Alternian society, you’re unable to ignore the depths of your admiration of them, or to let their flaws filter into your perception. Moiraillegiance is about total honesty and unflinching recognition, but matespritship to me is about that kind of fairy tale passion. Its a person who, even if you know on an intellectual level they are not perfect, that you genuinely have a harder time seeing the darker side of because you are so consumed by this passion for what you see in them, your unfiltered awe and appreciation for who they are. 

Additionally, I see matespritship as on some level inherently possessive. You not only admire that person, but you fundamentally crave their attention in a way that is probably a bit on the selfish side. Its not enough to want good for them, it has to be good alongside you. This is typically where it’s more prone to flipping caliginous. 

Warning signs: Matespritships seemed to vacillate pitch FREQUENTLY on Alternia. This is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong. As Karkat says, it’s often a matter of communication and timing. However, it does have the potential to explode in everyone’s face if not carefully managed, in no small part due to the passionate emotions involved. Some things that tend to go bad fast:

-Admiration is key to an effective matespritship, but pedestalling your flushed partner too much can be dangerous. Once the flaws do become apparent (as they will in any relationship) they can become increasingly hard to ignore, and that can be SHATTERING if you don’t prepare.

-Especially on Alternia, matesprits are the quadrant I see as most likely to neglect the communication aspect of their relationship. Safety isn’t a factor for them like it is for more caliginous quadrants, and the expectation is usually that feelings jams are for moirails. Especially for younger trolls, there’s an idea that we’re in love and thus should just know what the other person needs/wants. If you don’t pick up on it, then maybe we aren’t meant to be. This is a trap. ALL relationships need communication in order to function on a day to day basis. Opening up to your matesprit about something that’s bothering you isn’t a sign of fading passion, but of maturity and your own changing needs.

-Despite a fondness for fate pairings I think matespritships are usually expected to fade out, in no small part because they’re founded on a level of passion that can be hard to keep up long-term. This is actually fine. Not all relationships are meant to last eternally. However, if you know your matesprit is a person you want in your life long-term, part of that is learning how to cope with periods of low passion. Its normal to not always feel an all-consuming desire to keep your matesprit in arms reach. It’s normal to need space. What’s important is that YOU know that you still love them, and that they have the confidence to know that’s true even when you can’t always express it.

Moirallegiance

Successful/Actually Date(d) Examples: Kanaya/Vriska, Eridan/Feferi, Gamzee/Karkat, Nepeta/Equius, Kurloz/Mituna, Meulin/Horuss, Terezi/Vriska, Kuprum/Folykl, MSPAR/Polypa, Xefros/Dammek

Crushes (unrequited, vacillating, or thwarted): Eridan/Karkat, MSPAR/Chixie, MSPAR/Stelsa, Tegiri/Polypa

What it means to me: To start out with, I haaaaaaaate hate hate the perception that moirails are just BFFs. To me, there’s too much evidence to suggest otherwise, not the least of which being that after Feferi ends their moirallegiance she tells Eridan she still wants to be friends with him. How many of you break up with your best friend and then tell them you can still be friends after?

To me, moirallegiance on Alternia is as much a coping mechanism at it is a romantic entanglement. In a society where there’s no such thing as therapy, your moirail ideally functions as a release valve for you, to help you exercise softer feelings in a safe, sanctioned environment. Two things are key in that dynamic: honesty, and selflessness.

There’s no pretense in a moirallegiance, but an unflinching embrace. The successful moirails we’ve seen (Meowrails, KupFol, arguably GamKar) have always been rooted in banter that may come off as pitch at first glance. This is partly due to general Alternian socialization practice, but I think it also stems from the fact that pale love is founded in knowing every inch of your partner. You know what they are, body and soul, the flaws and the highlights, and while you do not uncritically accept it like a matesprit might, some part of you fundamentally identifies with. Your moirail is that person who you feel like you’ve known for years after talking for a few hours, because something about how they’re wired clicks with you in a way most don’t. As such, there’s less need for posturing. A feelings jam is one of the few places on Alternia where you are allowed to admit to vulnerability, to fear, to frustration, because you know that the other person will have your back unquestioningly without letting you get away with bullshit.

This mutual support stems from the other half of pale love: the desire to see the other person flourish, no matter what. If the matesprit wants you to be happy at their side, the moirail wants you to flourish even if they do not stand to benefit. You experience your moirail’s success like it was your own, and want as good for them or better than you want for yourself.

Some warning signs:

-Burnout. We see this in most clearly in Eridan and Feferi’s case (and a bit in Gamzee and Karkat’s case), but its a genuine risk in moirallegiance. The caretaking HAS to go both ways or the relationship is doomed to fail. More often than not, burnout indicates a failure within the relationship. Your moirail has not been caring for you to the degree you need, and quite possibly you have not been communicating HOW you would like that behavior to change. As I said, honesty is essential, and things ideally should never reach the point of burnout because you are in constant complete openness with your moirail about how you need taking care of.

-Fucked expectations. Romance is a dominating subject on Alternia, for obvious reasons, and one of the biggest hits a moirallegiance can take is a person questioning too far into pale desire until they mistake it for something else. The two are very close, but they are not exactly the same thing and often times the relationship can be sunk by one person getting in their head about that intimacy until they try to make it something it isn’t. Moiraillegiance is not a stepping stone for matesprit or kismesis, and most importantly it is not a consolation prize quadrant. You should never “settle” for moirail, or pale date someone who will accept you as a moirail only if they can’t get you as anything else. You need to want a moirail for a moirails sake, or its just a crush with extra levels of fuckery and expected free therapy.

Kismessitude

Successful/Actually Date(d) Examples: Spades Slick/Sn0wman, Jack Noir/Black Queen, Eridan/Vriska (now broken up), Karkat/Karkat, Mindfang/Dualscar, Terezi/Gamzee, Tagora/Galekh, Bronya/Elwurd.

Crushes (unrequited, thwarted, vacillating): Eridan/Rose, Vriska/Tavros,  Karkat/John, Gamzee/Dave, Sollux/Gamzee, Eridan/Sollux, PM/Bec Noir, Terezi/Vriska, John/Terezi, Konyyl/Skylla, Daraya/Lynera

What it means to me:

I want to structure this as a dismantling of two very common misconceptions I see for this quadrant. One, kismesis is NOT the inherent abuse quadrant. This I believe is working with a faulty definition of what abuse is. Abuse is not simply being mean or engaging in a physical manner with somebody. As has become something of a mantra for this essay, its about expectations. Abuse requires someone to be taking advantage, exploiting a particular vulnerability (or creating it if none inherently exists). What makes a relationship abusive is a situation where someone you SHOULD be able to trust or care for uses those expectations to hurt you, either for personal gain or simply to make themselves feel better. A kismesis is not that, because a healthy kismesis goes in with the expectation of rivalry. For some kismeses, this looks like basic sniping, insults, and jabs. For others, it looks like actual fighting. In either case, its the difference between a boxing match and assault. As long as the rules are being respected, both parties are consented, and someone is checking in to ensure that no one is hurting themselves (sometimes your partner, sometimes your moirail, sometimes your auspitice), then there is nothing inherently wrong with having a circumstance in which you are allowed to work through some nastier feelings without fear of consequence or hurting someone who can’t take it.

The second misconception: kismesis is not just a relationship with some bitchier dialogue. As we’ve seen, being a little bit rude is not restricted to pitch feelings. We have many examples of it in relationships that would be considered unequivocally red or pale on Alternia (KupFol, MeenVris). I go back to the Karkat dialogue constantly. Your kismesis is not just a person you make fun of, but something closer to your true rival (in the shonen anime sense). Its a person who you see so much good (or potential for good in), but who is brought down by some kind of fatal flaw that just grates at you. And so, you fixate on the idea of pushing them out of that flaw, through whatever means necessary.

Its from this fatal flaw that I believe the benefits of kismesis come out. Your kismesis, like your matesprit, has intense passion for you, but doesn’t idealize you. In fact, at points your kismesis may be incredibly aware of the WORST possible version of you. What distinguishes it from platonic hate, though, is the fact that you at your worst doesn’t make them flinch. It makes them want to provoke you, to see how you can change. Kismeses sharpen each other, which is something that rarely feels good but is so often necessary. You should never let your kismesis sit back too far on their laurels, because it is your job to be consciously aware of their faults and call them out on it. 

Additionally, while the hatefucking aspect is often overestimated, I think its not surprising that passion in these kinds of relationships tend to get intense, which is part of why it so often requires some kind of ashen intervention. Once harnessed, though, that passion can be turned to powerful ends for both yourselves and the world around you. 

Some things to watch out for (unsurprisingly there’s a LOT for this one but I’ve distilled it into two broad ones because this thing will be long enough):

Power imbalance: As I said, kismesis is not inherently abusive. However, it DECIDEDLY has the potential to become so, in particular in a society like Alternia where the power strafes are often so significant. This is particularly the case in pitch relationships involving a highblood and a lowblood, especially when the highblood is “steering the ship”. Vriska/Tavros is a good example. If summarized, her feelings for Tavros pre-Sgrub are very straightforward and healthy pitch ones. She admires his potential and envies his kinder relationships while despising his indecisiveness. All fine enough groundwork. However, three factors collaborate to make it a hot disaster: Tavros’s disinterest in her (meaning the pitch advances are unwelcome and in some real sense nonconsensual), Vriska’s own lack of restraint (meaning she takes things too far even for a kismesis), and the inherent caste imbalance (meaning Tavros has no meaningful way of fighting back and nothing in Vriska’s rearing has taught her to care if a lowblood gets hurt by her actions). This isn’t to say a highblood-lowblood (or any humanly imbalanced relationship) can NEVER work, but it requires both parties to put the work in to even the playing field. The highblood needs to actively show restraint, both physically and situationally. This is also where an auspitice generally comes in handy, ensuring things never get to a point where the action becomes one-sided.

Misdirected Rage: As I said, kismessitude is a Space, much like moiraillegiance, that gives you the opportunity to work through some less-than-palatable emotions. Using a pitch date as a way to burn off stress is not inherently invalid; in fact, its often expected and as long as your partner is willing can be one of the better ways to cope with something without having to address it directly. However, this CANNOT be built into the foundation of the relationship. Your kismesis is not a punching bag, but their own person, and the focus always needs to eventually return to that. You cannot effectively sharpen someone else if your anger is never about them, and it is ultimately unfair to constantly ask someone else to consistently bear the brunt of your bad days. This is (debatably) where pitch Gamrezi went wrong. Ultimately that kismesis was never really about each other, but about both of them projecting their self-loathing onto the other person when they were both at incredibly low place, thus making their anger unproductive and meaningless for both of them. As such, any kind of empathy was impossible and they were not able to self-regulate. 

Auspiticism

Succesful/Actually Date(d): Vriska/Kanaya/Tavros, Karkat/Jade/Karkat, Spades Slick/Doc Scratch/Sn0wman, Liv Tyler/Courtyard Droll/Wizardly Vassal, PM/Jade/Bec Noir, Kanaya/Vriska/Rose

Crushes (unrequited, thwarted, vacillating): Vriska/Kanaya/Eridan, Gamzee/Rose/Terezi (look I know this one is practically canon but Rose kind of implies she never really used those auspiticism lessons), Rose/Kanaya/Horrorterrors, Eridan/Feferi/Sollux, Gamzee/Kanaya/Karkat, Dave/Kanaya/Karkat, Konyyl/MSPA Reader/Azdaja.

What it means to me: Ahh the bastard child of quadrants. I’ve got a lot of unpopular opinions on auspiticism (most notably that Kanaya isn’t actually that good at it), but let’s start with defining some things. I believe there are two kinds of auspitices. 

One is the “breakup” auspitice. This is the version described in the infamous romance pages of Homestuck. This version is meant to prevent a black romance from breaking out where one shouldn’t occur, either because one or both parties already has a kismesis or because there is some other mitigating factor that means neither can afford to get bogged down in this crush. A breakup auspitice should ideally be a figure that both parties trust, even in the midst of heated feelings. They should also have the strength of will to continually interfere, and a clear enough head to cut to the root of the issue. Its a thankless task, often, but a very vital one, and most importantly, short-lived. This auspitice’s job only lasts as long as the feelings last. Once both parties have had the chance to cool down (or the circumstances creating the rivalry are at an end), their job is considered over.

The other kind is the version that we arguably see more of in canon, what I call the Third Leaf. This is less an intercessary party and more the third member of a particularly tempestuous kismesis, who will act to ensure the other two leaves don’t cause serious harm to themselves or each other. This relationship is far more long-term, and thus has more requirements. To me, your auspitice is someone who has pale potential with both you AND your kismesis. They know and care about you both on a very deep level, to the point that they are willing to put themselves in the middle of your bullshit very consistently. This means that you trust them enough to call it quits even in the heat of your anger, and you also believe what they tell you about your own pitch partner when their actions need greater contextualization to keep things on the level. This task is often equally challenging, but (hopefully) not as thankless or as pragmatic.

I’ve previously referred to the auspitice as a personified safeword, and I believe that’s very emblematic of the Third Leaf. Even healthy kismeses may reach a point where one needs a day off, or something hits in the wrong way. In a rivalry, though, admitting that isn’t necessarily easy, as its both breaking kayfabe and has the potential to read as more weakness that needs to be excised (”it hurts because its working”). The auspitice is privileged to go between and be believed every time. If your auspitice says its a no go then you better have a pretty damn good reason to ignore them. For some kismeses, overriding the auspitice is grounds to break up once and for all. 

Some warning signs:

Burnout: As is the case with the previously discussed concilliatory quadrant, caretaking can be exhausting. This is especially the case in auspiticism, where the care is often expected to be very one sided, and usually involves dealing with a lot of vitriol, anger, and even physical violence. Obviously its more prevalent in Third Leaf dynamics, but even breakup auspitices can reach a breaking point if they’re not careful. Its important as the ashenmate to understand your own limits. For better or for worse, the focus will not be on you. If you are reaching a low point, then you need to be vocal about this with your other two leaves, or disaster is almost inevitable. The trade-off for this is that (according to my headcanons at least), your ashenmates are expected to drop everything to care for you if you need it. The kismesis will not be safe to proceed until you are back in fighting shape, and as such a truce is declared until they have both done “aftercare” of a sort for you. What this looks like is different for every auspiticism. For some, its alone time. For others, its blanket burritos, movies, and forehead kisses. No matter what, though its IMPERATIVE that you find a method that works for you, because the relationship crumbles without self-care.

Doormatting: As I said, auspiticism is a concilliatory quadrant. As such, there can be a tendency to over-forgive or overwork, especially if your other two leaves have stronger personalities. In particular, ausptices who are closer with one leaf over the other need to be vigilant for favoritism or bowing down. It is your job to contextualize the actions of your ashenmates. It is not your job to do apologetics for them or atone for their actions. Hold them all accountable. They need to be putting in at least as much work as you do to make their relationship work and not just offset the emotional repair to you.

Controlling: The inverse of this is the power-tripping auspitice. This seems unlikely, but its more of a threat than one might think, in my view. Because of the trust auspitices command by virtue of their position and their relationship with the other two leaves, their word is in some sense law. This can be addictive to some people, and lead to an abuse of power that can be just as toxic as in any other quadrant. It can look like scolding your ashenmates far too much, placing yourself at the center of their issues, or even punishing them for annoying you when what they’re doing is perfectly acceptable within the context of a kismessitude. As I said, self-care is important for an auspitice, but selflessness needs to be at the core of concilliatory dynamics. You are here because you genuinely want good for the people you are mediating for. If the relationship has become all about you, then something has gone horribly wrong. Avoid the urge to power trip just because the role is sometimes a Lot. 

#Anonymous #homestuck #quadrants #matesprit #matespritship #kismesis #kismessitude #moirail #moiraillegiance #auspiticism #auspitice #headcanon #long post