#social rules still exist even if everyone can be anonymous

[adelaidedrubman]

one clown fifteen lines

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!

i was tagged by dears @simplegenius042 @direwombat @gwynbleidd @sofrosine @nightbloodbix @corvosattano @voidika @quickhacked to post a lil bit of oc dialogue samples! outgoing tags below cut + like here to opt in:3

1. “Yeah, ya know, they’re actually teachin’ all kindsa folk how to read an’ write these days,” she answered his second question with a sarcastic exaggeration of the natural twangs of her accent, ignoring his first entirely. “They ain’t even makin’ you go all the way to law school for it no more.”

2. “Piss off, Earl,” she spat, elbowing him out of the way. “I mean, honest to god fuckin’ piss off, alright?”

3. “Opossums are fuckin’ marsupials, Mary May!”

4. “I would fuckin’ carve out your eyes and throw them in the lake first, so that the only thing you’d ever see of me again is my fishing hook when I came back here to catch whatever trout had the bad luck of eating you.” 

5. “Familiar enough to know that if you’re calling me a ‘Delilah’ or something that’s some misogynistic bull —”

6. “Probably do a little publicity tour, once it all makes news. A few TV specials, tell-all nightly news interviews, a true crime podcast here and there. I bet I could make a good buck writing some kinda fucking memoir or something about this shit. Everyone would eat it up, you know, out of guilt, ‘cause —” she paused, raising her pitch a bit in nasally mocking, “‘cause we should really be focusing on the victims, not making the perpetrators famous,” she chimed, followed by a dismissive wave of her hand at the thought. “But you know, they’d still all be reading it to see what I said about you of course. But no skin off my ass, as long as they buy it. Figure I could spend… two, maybe three months as America’s sweetheart, then slip back into anonymity. Live off the royalties. The occasional consulting fee, anytime someone decides to make a movie about you and your fuckin’ cult.” 

7. “Head wasn’t that good,” she replied flatly. 

8. “Yeah, pretty sure they make a pill these days for when a gal realizes she’s made that kinda mistake,” she retorted with an exaggerated batting of her eyelashes as she pulled the flask from his hand. “And if you’re the baby daddy, she really would be wising up to take it.” 

9. “Oh, I’m back, baby.” She forced the smile to fall from her face, lips and brow tensing with sudden gravity. “And I’ve rigged this whole fucking mountain with explosives set to go off any second now. This thing is gonna blow sky fuckin’ high, and you and I are going to blow up with it. ’Cause I —” she feigned a gasp, brought her wrist to her brow as she threw her head back in a pantomime of being on the verge of fainting. “I can’t deny it any longer — I’m in love with you, and I want us to fucking be together forever in the fiery abyss of death.” 

10. “Tell your big bwother to make his stump speeches even scawrier next time — I’m sure it’ll make the canon fodder he sends out harder to kill, if he gravels his voice a bit more.”

11. She snorted. “You worried I’m not playing with a full set or something?”

12. “I jest,” she hissed, knocking his hand away. “You haven’t fuckin’ gotten that by now? It was a fucking joke.” 

13. “C’mon, that the fucking best miss church camp coachella can do to scare me?”

14. “For the fuckin’ record, I’m prolonging the void of nothingness when my organs stop functioning and I cease to exist in conscious form, not eternal damnation,” she finally spat. 

15. “It’s gonna be hilarious, actually,” she replied, pushing herself off from the door frame with a parting wave. “Tell your friends!” 

tagging: @cassietrn @shallow-gravy @derelictheretic @socially-awkward-skeleton @lordundying @florbelles @henbased @belorage @8bitpizzacoupons @firstaidspray @theresaruggedroad @afarcryfrommymain @clicheantagonist @v0idbuggy @orionlancasterr @strafethesesinners @deputyash @confidentandgood @strangefable @stacispratt @miyabilicious @omen-speaker @nowandthane @hctknives @wrathfulrook @fourlittleseedlings @galaxycunt @josephslittledeputy @just-another-wasteland-merc @voidika @captastra @blissfulalchemist @shellibisshe @thedeadthree and anyone who would like to share!

#sorry to joseph for not getting a roast featured://

[ao3commentoftheday]

Several people asked: Is posting fic searches, server announcements, or 'send me prompts' against the rules?

I am going to start off by asking everyone to please only report works you encounter during your normal usage of AO3. PAC doesn't prescreen content uploaded to the site, so please don't go searching for works to report.

Works that just ask for fics, prompts, and roleplaying partners are only some of what PAC calls non-fanworks. Here's the sparknotes on what is not considered a fanwork:

personal messages or social media posts like updates, polls, or announcements (including fandom event announcements)

fic searches and requests for fics

advertisements for roleplay partners or communities/servers

prompts or requests for prompts

recommendations or lists of other works

placeholders for works that haven't been created yet

This doesn't cover everything but those are some of the more common types I see.

It's somewhat important to mention that you can include some of these things as notes or chapters in your existing fics. If for example a prompt request work also has fills in it, well, it has fic and PAC's not going to take down a fanwork unless it's currently breaking our Terms of Service.

Someone else asked: When commenting on that user’s work yields no change should we report it? How? What info would make reviewing faster? Is it even worth it? What happens if the user orphaned the work? Can it still be removed?

You never have to report if you don't want to. Politely commenting on the work is nice because it gives the user the chance to fix it themselves without getting an official warning email from us. Also it helps spread the word that this sort of thing isn't allowed.

In general, it's helpful if you include the username for the person you're reporting. Or if the work is orphaned or anonymous, then tell us that. If something is against our Terms of Service, we will handle it.

If you notice that one user has several non-fanworks on their account, please just include all of the links in the same report instead of reporting each work individually. If you notice the same user has different kinds of violations (like one non-fanwork and their other work has a wrong fandom tag) then it's easier if you report those separately since those are different categories.

Also, personally I appreciate it when you describe in the report what kind of non-fanwork you think it is. So instead of just saying "not a fic" say "[username] posted a request for prompts". Non-fanworks are our largest category and all the reports blur together after a while. Having some way to distinguish them without having to open the work is just really nice.

Someone asked: If I see a non-story posted years ago, should I assume it has already been reported and not dealt with yet, or should I go ahead and report it myself?

Honestly, it is up to you. One duplicate report on its own doesn't create that much extra work for PAC. The issues happen when people start searching for works to report or telling each other to report something, because then we get people reporting the same exact works over and over.

The other thing is when a single person is reporting dozens of times non-stop. I think our record was four hours straight, not only was it overwhelming but lots of it was stuff that was already reported.

— guest mod tealight

The form is now closed. I'm just working through submissions.

Disclaimer: I am speaking for myself and not behalf of AO3 or PAC. While I can answer general questions, I cannot tell you if a specific work or user is breaking the rules. If you want to file a report or otherwise need an official PAC response, you can find PAC's contact form by clicking on the "Policy Questions & Abuse Reports" link on any AO3 page.

#pac takeover #ask a pac volunteer #guest mod tealight #being pac

[brehaaorgana]

The thing is, websites being slowly destroyed because of capitalist greed is bad in general for many reasons, but I would like to point out that one of those reasons is that not every social website is built to handle the same kinds of engagement in the same ways, and this destroys spaces that can't simply be ported elsewhere because they are symbiotic to their origins.

You destroy specific kinds of communities and communication styles that rely on the uniqueness of individual platforms. You can't move that to somewhere else with a different structure without fundamentally changing something.

This has always been true, but I feel like not everyone is fully...aware or familiar with how this happens. It's not even entirely a Gen Z thing either - there are plenty of Millennials/Xers and older generations who did not have a ton of internet access in the early-mid 2000's and so don't necessarily have familiarity with what vanished. Internet access has only recently been "expected," for more people across the class spectrum.

As a Millennial(TM) who has been connected to the internet basically since infancy (my dad did IT/software engineer management stuff and would literally sit me on his lap while he was on the computer as a baby), I am keenly aware of a) the fact that there are entire internet social communities which I didn't engage with but are now gone and b) that there are ones I did engage in and are lost or no longer really the same because of capitalism.

Like...forums are just not as popular anymore as they used to be. They still exist, but it's harder to find them and they usually see way less activity than other platforms. And we lose so much knowledge/advice/engagement without them. Things like: I turned around one day and found a digital art forum I used to lurk on was totally gone, along with all the inspiration, tutorials, and tips. I remember one thread was this one guy wanting to learn to draw, and it was basically just his progress journal of learning to draw. It went over the course of YEARS of progress from like, stick figures to beautifully rendered art. Shit inspired me so much, and I think it just...vanished?

But then there's things like, entire social norms, jokes, and kinds of engagement that also vanishes or becomes a graveyard. Forums usually have karma systems (which reddit apes, sort of) and that could tell you a lot about an account lol.

Look at the slow death of livejournal! Dreamwidth sort of...tried to fill the gap but there's so many platform specific expectations and experiences that Livejournal had:

Icons that you change based on: interests, content or intent of your post/comment, that you can create and have others use and which change often.

Related: icons and graphics communities.

CAPSLOCK COMMUNITIES WHERE YOU DON'T LAPSLOCK EVER!! EVERYONE TALKS LIKE THIS

Locked communities (especially age based!) Or dedicated communities with moderation and agreed upon rules unique to that comm. Tumblr literally can't recreate that. It doesn't port to how Tumblr specifically works.

Comms like ONTD, stupid_free, or comedy shit like weepingcock, - or even like, scanlations comms. Shit that just doesn't translate to tumblr's style, especially without optional anonymous engagement and nested conversations. There's no such thing as FFAF on Tumblr. It doesn't work. You don't break the internet here the same way ONTD did when Michael Jackson died.

Dedicated fandom/ship comms. As someone who was quite literally harassed on Tumblr for years because I didn't like a specific non-canon ship between a literal teenaged child and an adult and talked about it without tagging it (and even censored it when just words suddenly showed in tags!) I miss dedicated fandom comms so much. Because I had way more control over who engaged with me on my personal LJ and NEVER would've bothered people on a comm about a ship I hated because it's shitty behavior and because people who do that got banned! Shared communities with moderation and better blocking settings were benefits I didn't have on Tumblr.

Just...it doesn't translate to Tumblr and now it's just a tiny space on DW and the zombie of LJ.

Similarly I don't think AITA translates very well to Tumblr because Tumblr doesn't:

Have nested comments/comment threads that can be collected all on one central page

Have easy to make throwaway accounts

Allow for anon responses to posts directly (it's only asks! They can't reblog anonymously!)

Have an upvote system

Have a "sort by most popular" or "sort by oldest."

Have autoretention/bot capture of the original submission.

A way to click through to someone's comments in other communities, or see what their responses to the thread as the op easily.

A collection of moderators and standardized community rules and community ability to report trolling/spam/fiction/shit posts.

Call me a killjoy but AITA won't fully translate to Tumblr for the same reason why ONTD isn't translated to Tumblr, and even a similar concept to ONTD looks totally different on reddit (see: deuxmoi). It will look different, it won't have the same community or feel simply because the platform itself is different enough that it inherently changes how we engage, what that engagement looks like, and what can even feasibly be done.

When a website dies, the unique communities and communication styles of that platform also start to die.

[hourlymbti]

How Si (and Ni) Transform Reality

Someone asked "is Si about internal body sensations” as well as other questions regarding Si/Ni. Even though I assume it is just this one anonymous user who’s asking all these questions for Si/Ni, I’ve decided to use this question to further describe Si as well as its similarities with Ni. Skip to the 3rd paragraph after this if you're more interested in that. Skip deeper below if you’re more interested in how they shape reality in relation to Se/Ne.

To first answer the question, this is not a Si thing. I assume in an attempt to differentiate Si from Se, people thought that introversion would mean sensing something inside. However, we are talking about a psychological concept. What constitutes "you" is not your body, but your mind. The subject is the self. When it's about the mind, it's about the brain. What is internal are the contents inside your brain. In introversion, stimuli travel deeper into the mind, reacting to other contents within (that can be getting mixed with those content, triggering those content, etc.). Bodily sensations are raw stimuli. Your body exists separately from your mind, making it psychologically external until the information becomes a stored experience or is transformed by the inner world.

On a related note, calling Si as past is an incomplete truth but still has value to it, just that people forget that we need to interpret "past" in terms of the mind since we're talking about psychological processes. When it comes to traditions, Si sets baselines (by baseline, think of game rules or trend lines. They're not strict rules that are always exactly followed, but they do serve as a reference point for what to expect) based on available information (e.g. what they have done, what they have seen been done, what seems to be supported by what they know). It is when we spend less time & effort to think where you’ll most gravitate towards these baselines. A big example is a habit. When done a lot, an act/thought becomes the default option; requiring little thought to be chosen. Since social traditions are norms, there will be many people who have those as their own traditions. That does not make Si about other people's past. Its baselines can be the norm or not the norm. If the stored information of Si mainly skews towards a non-normal baseline, then that's what it will likely be set to. This causes Si to be a big player in how your circumstances (e.g. social environment, financial situation, any interactions with people or objects) influence you, since those circumstances will influence your experiences and therefore your data. Your understanding of what romantic love (something everyone seems to understand well, yet isn’t something with clear & concrete lines to distinguish from other sorts of feelings & relationships) is will depend a lot on what you observe from your parents and the media you consume. If your observation consists of plenty of gifts. Then you'll largely associate with and think of romance as full of gifts. If your observation consists of plenty of disrespect, quarreling, oppositions, and instability, then your baseline understanding of love would be a bit negative, because what comes to mind is a toxic relationship. Let's say all humans see the same variety of colours, however, each color is different to each individual. Your "orange" can be someone's "purple". Person 1 and 2 are both looking at the same apple, but they see different colors. The color person 1 sees blue, while the color person 2 sees is green. But they both learn to identify & label the color as red, because that’s how they learned to call it. In simpler terms, if the color red was always taught to you as if it's the color blue, then you will probably refer to red as blue, not knowing that what you see as blue is actually red to others. If you've always observed that prison is an unsanitary, violent, depressing environment with poorly maintained appliances, then that's what comes to mind when you think of prison. Basically, Si's traditions and knowledge could fit the norm or not fit the norm, and that's because personal traditions are largely based on the user's personal experiences. 

When we are talking about a psychological past (i.e. how the past influences the mine) we are not looking at the world's past but at -their- world's past. A web of interconnected individual information becomes a database with a search bar. Information that strikes an impression to the user becomes the input for the search bar to seek related information on the input (and the results of the search are basically "what comes to mind" no matter how irrelevant they may seem to the input. This is because what information is related/mentally tied to each other is subjective.). Layers of data culminate into your personal understanding of a word/concept/symbol. It could also be a simple recollection of an experience/data point. In summary, when it comes to Si, stimuli is not absorbed raw, but through an inward lens with content shaped by previous experiences (primal knowledge is also involved with Pi, but that's a topic you should learn from Jung's writings where he discusses a lot about archetypes or the primitive mind). Si uses the database to identify & associate. 

—------------------------------------------------------------

Now lets use all this to see how Si can be biased or subjective in application. When it comes to stimuli, introverts tend to have a stronger focus on particular details. Since introversion means oriented internally, this means things that strike/resonate with them (e.g. those that attack/fit with their view, those, those that spark the formation of a view). Functions oriented externally do not inherently pick one over the other, they are oriented to external conditions overall. Due to how much introverted functions rely on the inner world, they're more likely to be 'niche' rather than well-rounded (e.g. Ti is prone to be creatively stupid or very insightful when compared to Te's typical conclusions).

In many situations, we merely see the exterior of a household. Only when we open the door and enter the place can we truly know its contents. However, Ni and Si allow us to see beyond what are actually the closed doors. Or to put it more accurately, to assume what else there is. Ni does this through thematic pattern recognition while Si does this through a network of information relations/associations. Si is an online browser that analyzes the search input to bring up stored information. The top results of the algorithm may end up being integrated into their perception of the situation rather than treated as separate. Regardless, all these connections make up Si’s understanding of an object/topic. Ni is more similar to an image recognition software. The precise stimuli do not matter as much as long as the overall structure resembles the object. Different faces are still recognized as faces. They don't remember the exact image, just that it's a face.

In a way, Si transforms the actual stimuli based on their subjective experience of it (lens that are colored by inner content such as archetypes and memory). At the most basic level, stimuli means more than itself. All those pixels on the screen are meaningless until it is processed by the brain through all sorts of associations/connections from existing data. It is "identified" into something meaningful to the user (something they understand). With this, there is a lot of potential for interpreting these otherwise meaningless sights and sounds. It is as if everything is a symbol (e.g. letters individually or combined inherently mean nothing, but we learned to identify them then attribute them to particular sounds and meaning). Once stimuli are identified, Si uses associations to bring up supplementary data (what comes to mind). They identify what they see as x,y,z, then suddenly a,b, and c come out.

Like Ni, it can start filling up the gaps in information, or even replace information with things that aren't fully confirmed. An example that will help you visualize it is trying to identify structures/objects despite having blurry peripheral vision (now imagine this with flatout blindspots). This applies to many other things such as 'what comes to mind' when a certain 'keyword' or key stimuli pops up. It is likely that Si has something to do with when an experience is improved simply because the environment is improved (e.g. eating food in a non-crowded, peaceful, aesthetically-pleasing, and comfortable setting can influence how much you enjoyed the food). You can summarize Si as psychological 'experiences' that arise as a result of the stimuli (these experiences can be treated as supplementary data: data outside of what is actually being observed at the moment). You could argue the intuitive functions to be experiences as well, and I would agree. But to differentiate the two: sensation seeks to experience the world (but not necessarily the actual world since one's absorption of stimuli can be significantly faulty, especially with introverted perceiving functions and a strong lean against sensation. Si does this through the inner world, I am referring to content stored in the mind rather than thoughts in general. Consequently, this also involves dreams. Dreams are an amalgamation or "blob" of synthesized content in the mind. Those contents are within the scope of Si and Ni. All the made up information is also from Si/Ni. Not only are dreams rooted in Si/Ni content, but since processing is about abstracting meaning from things, Si/Ni are the main functions in experiencing dreams.) while intuition does not seek the world itself, but rather, its potential (Ni specifically pursues one of the potentials). This is why Ni leans more toward foreseeing (this word is more accurate than 'predicting' which can be more deliberate than what Ni actually does) the future (the future isnt something you 'experience'). 

So when Si fills gaps, it's almost like 'predicting' the present. Look at it as datapoints vs trendlines, Si sees the datapoints while Ni sees the trendline. Si can use the datapoints to make assumptions about more data, while Ni uses the trendline to see the data (the made up data of these functions can be accurate or not accurate, what matters is the process). Seems a bit similar? That's because they are. The content itself is different, but the brain tends to use them in similar ways. These are personal functions in the sense that they extract meaning that isn't a part of the stimuli, to the extent that it leads to a conclusion (a conclusion that is empirical in nature. To the mind, it is not deliberate. It is more of a sorting/matching activity, than a problem-solving activity). The objective functions, on the other hand, are objective and impartial. They're fairly disconnected since they care not for what the stimuli has to do with the self, they look externally. When compared to Si & Ni, Se & Pe are more like "observations" than "experiences". Nothing is personally meaningful (they don't extract meaning/extra info from what they see), they're just spectators. Se sees the world for itself, Ne sees all of its potential. Si tries to identify the world, and Ni resonates with a particular path; which then integrates or colors their experience of the world (almost in an illusory form….not to say that Si/Ni are always incorrect, but they are like illusions)

Now about how their reality-transformation affects their relationship with the Ne & Se functions:

Pe functions explore and discover. Pi functions filter and organize.

Inferior Ne dislikes uncertainty while Inferior Se dislikes change/chaos. Si and Ni deal with these dislikes effectively:

Ne has difficulty filtering their possibilities to what's most realistic or fitting given what they know. This is done by connecting information to related information collected from other contexts. Ne extends to possibilities, then Si connects each possibility to data of past and present. Both data and possibilities come out upon seeing a situation. Si brings up data to assess each possibility. Every suspect is investigated not directly, but with existing records. The world is full of uncertainty, but information can make things a bit more certain.

Se has difficulty filtering their waves of stimuli  into the one's most useful for predictive/confirmatory purposes. Can't distinguish outliers, nor can it recognize any to be particularly significant. Ni-Se cares for the context but not for the entirety of it as Ni dilutes the situation into broth. It doesn't try to look at info from other contexts, there's an in-context focus, but it is very reductionist. Ni seeks to understand the context (Se) by recognizing particular broths (broths apply to various contexts). It forms a narrative over what is inherently a chaotic world.

#cognitive functions #Si #Ni #mbti #Se #Ne

[patriciavetinari]

As a content reviewer, it gets very very clear for me that consolidation and endless strive for growth of social media in particular is centrism reinforced and is in the end always going to empower bigotry, no matter how hard will companies try to make it seem progressive and intolerant of hate.

I'm not very old, but I remember Ye Olde Internet, before twitter, instagram, youtube and even before facebook. Much like divine right of kings, social media that is so big seems inevitable right now, it's basically 2-3 monopolies consolidated into swollen creatures trying to grab everyone and force them into same space. Trying to make life outside of that blob impossible. That's never good and as humans, we don't actually need it. All of the benefits Internet connection granted us were arguably much better before Internet became synonymous with modern social media. Internet is possible without twitter, youtube, facebook and instagram (and now tiktok and also linkedin).

Before that, we had personal homepages to store our interests and dox ourselves if we really wanted to. We had message boards and forums for our hobbies and interests. We had cooperation on matters of science, art, technology, language, any professions that existed. We had chatrooms to meet new people, and we did transfer those friendships into real life, people became lifelong friends without twitter or tumblr and people got together without tinder or grindr or what have you.

I miss those days. Yes, those communities were smaller, there were no influencers, there was much less advertisement. Separating your online spaces, much like real life spaces, based on the topics, made sure that you could spot and weed out hateful communities early on. Hateful communities were known, skinheads had to indicate that their message board is for far right groups to ensure they will get the right people.

Should hosting hateful information be outlawed on a judicial level? That is a question of philosophy and law that we should have tackled if the Old Internet was to remain.

In the old days, it was much easier to create Safe Spaces. You create your own message board and chat room. I've been an admin of a message board. I could block people as easy as I do now on my Tumblr, so I could ensure me message board is for decent people discussing topics I want to discuss. Now, when I block an account on tumblr or twitter, I cannot ensure other people in my space will not get bothered by bigots or won't fall under their influence.

In the Old Internet, in smaller cliques of people, on personal homepages and in small chatrooms and on message boards very few people were in charge of making the rules what is acceptable on certain platform. It was very easy and absolutely ok to make a chatroom or message board and disallow conservatives. No issue whatsoever. You just blocked people and deleted their messages and could focus on discussing politics in your community with like-minded people.

With the social media that we have now, all of this sounds like sci fi, especially to young people. It seems inevitable that there are some idiots that might retweet you or comment on your post or lurk on your facebook. You can block them from interacting with you personally, but you are forced by the company to share platform with them still, they might bother your friends etc.

The Olden Days were not perfect. Message boards got big and messy and there was scandal and power takeover etc. But that's what was also good – it was quite easy to leave all that behind. If your message board turned nazi or violent, you grabbed your people and made a new message board and kept talking about lord of the rings or whatever.

It had very little influence on your professional life. People were more cautious with their info online in general, but no employer was googling your lord of the rings message board as they look up your facebook and twitter now. If you wanted to talk hobbies or cringe ships or politics anonymously in relative privacy with like-minded people — you could do that, very easily.

It was harder to grow and amass same following people on modern social media have. But instead of cherishing it for the good thing it was, we were sold the idea that it's bad.

It's bad because the strive for endless growth and endless popularity always means compromise. No big social media will ever ban conservatives from spouting hate and bigotry and outright evil shit. Every social media has gone softer and softer on hate speech policies specifically to accommodate bigots, even while claiming they are a safe space for all groups. It's an oxymoron. You can never have a safe space that is safe for both wolves and sheep.

And it's not even an issue. It's not an issue of free speech because those companies are not government companies. Access to twitter is not a basic necessity nor a human right. Just as I on my message board could outright ban anti-abortion talk and block every pro-lifer, twitter could do that in one policy update. Very easily. There is nothing legally stopping them. It's like a restaurant setting a shirt policy, you can just choose to do that.

I feel like young people especially view being banned from facebook for nazi shit same as imprisonment for denouncing the government or something. It's not. It's not a human rights issue. We are not punishing people for speaking, we just don't want them speaking that shit in our space. Just like a restaurant can deny you entrance for not wearing a shirt - it's not infringing on your freedom to wear whatever you want, but people are allowed to set rules for their spaces. I want the guests in my house to take their shoes off and wear slippers and me enforcing that is not infringing on my guests freedom to wear shoes – they can do that, just outside of my house.

A company could easily take such a stance. The reason no company is doing that is profit. It's not difficult to ban bigots. It's my current job to ban bigots. The reason I'm shit at it is that companies want bigots on their platforms because those bigots are profitable. They create content that gathers both support and outrage and all of that means more clicks, more people viewing ads and spending a lot of time on the websites in question.

Tumblr will never ban terfs not only because terfs are among @staff , they won't ban terfs because terfs are people doing the clicks and watching the ads and being active users.

Social media has a profit incentive. Small online clubs did not have that. They were free spaces where you did see some ads, but also had certain authority over what kind of people were around you in that space. If you wanted a message boards about community gardening with no nazis and no xtians and none of that trad shit - you could arrange that, it was very easy. You wouldn't be a tiktok community garden influencer, you wouldn't get sponsorships or free stuff or anything, you would have to actually be interested in what you do and talk shop with like minded people.

I miss that time.

#long post

[spottedpumpkin]

(Un)bundling Twitter

Last post I started considering what it means to move from a learning-based-internet to an identity-based internet.

One of my far out ideas is that the way this plays out echoes the Unbundling Craigslist pattern: Just like every section on Craiglist became a startup of its own, every account on Twitter (or X) is starting to look like it came from a different social site.

LinkedIn: Ever since the algorithm was updated to prioritize the For You feed, posts from people like "The AI Guy" have been everywhere.

Pinterest / Instagram: On a slow day, after refreshing the feed a few times, X will start serving photos from photographers around the world who seem like full-time content producers.

Substack: Several parts of X are just people active in the internetworked cultural scenes on Substack, very actively talking to each other.

4chan: The rise of "schizoposting" means there are several corners of X heavily influenced by schizo culture, including parts of the Milady scene (this isn't even mentioning the Richard Hananias and Steve Sailers).

DeviantArt: One of the largest subcultures on X is and has always been artists who use it to share their work, and even though some left because of the Nazis, many are still around.

Tumblr: There are still a bunch of designers, art world folks, and other people from around the world who use Twitter as a place to anonymously journal about their life. It's one of the last pure parts of the site.

Reddit / 9GAG. I hear about how X is becoming "more like Reddit" all the time. There's a class of people with accounts like "White People Taking Ls" and "Cartoons Hate Her" who use Twitter like a content farm.

HN / Tech YouTube. Dev Twitter has always existed, but it used to be much more dynamic, with accounts from influential builders or young technologists mixing dev work with personal life. Now it's mostly made of tech influencers with YouTube channels.

You might ask: hasn't Twitter always been like this, made up of different subcultures? And this would be true except that the most important subcultures were never mirrors of other sites, but rather made of individuals participating in a global conversation.

It was hard to make being a Substack Guy or AI Guy your identity back then, when anyone worth following on the site would refuse to take you seriously if you did that. Nobody made those things their identity back in 2020, but under today's algorithm, posts that emulate other social networks or "types of guy" do well, and posts that break from one of these identities never get seem by more than a few people.

Today, once you've made it to a few thousand followers, you can start posting with something that resembles a personal voice. (Or, you can hang out in one of the subcultures of Twitter that are about personal vulnerability forever, although know that those subcultures have their own rules of the game that everyone strives towards too - have a recognizable profile picture, reply to everyone, and so on.)

Even the path to getting to a few thousand followers today is hard, and usually involves being some kind of misinformation or sensationalist content farming, like Ate-a-Pi did with fictionalized superconductor research. Or, you need some friend who is already deep in a subculture to retweet and repost you, or some real-world thing you've written or made to become big.

When Elon renamed the website X he said that he wanted it to become an "everything app". In a way, by tuning the algorithm, he's already been successful at that. Instead of a global conversation, Twitter has become a conglomeration of maybe two dozen social sites from around the web, and the central point of discourse for all of them. People write their essays on Substack, share them by email, and check back on Twitter to see what other people are saying.

Many tech people I know hate the idea of a "super app", probably because of the level of blandness and pastiche that it implies. But maybe that is the natural end state, the place this line of evolution goes in the end.

[badedramay]

Low key so embarrassed at times to be a Pakistani when it comes to fandoms. I — for better or for worse — have been in several different fandoms that span the world, yo. MCU, Harry Potter, K dramas, J dramas, K-pop, Turkish dramas, Bridgerton, anime… literally everything.

I have never seen this mentality of fans trying to dictate who an actor can or cannot work with, and I thought I had seen pretty much everything. I mean when youre as big of a BTS fan as me, you legit think you’ve seen it all when it comes to toxicity, but once again pakistan unpleasantly surprises me.

Plus, with pretty much zero exception to this rule, it is always the female in the situation who is blamed for working with an actor which is their job, regardless of if the female is part of the hit pairing or the kebab mein haddi. The Maya and wahaj thing is recent, but it was the exact same with sajal and Ahad. Fawad and Mahira. Ayeza and Imran Abbas for a while. To some extent, mawra and Ameer Gillani, and the two leads from fairy tale whose names i can’t ever remember.

Where does this come from in pakistan? What is it about our culture that makes people think this is acceptable? Can you tell me if you’ve seen it anywhere else aside from Pakistanis? I legit don’t even see Indian/hardcore Bollywood fans say this type of stuff about their faves. A part of me is wondering if it’s the same subset of people who think telling an actor their clothing is acceptable or not is saying these things and that’s where the entitlement comes from, but I don’t want to falsely accuse the deen of something if there’s another cause.

ps you should check out “the glory” K drama on Netflix. I think you’d like it.

one word: misogyny.

it's a misogynist society and a frustrated society. there's no welfare for the people. economy is shit. the political state of the country is shit. there's literally no security of future here. things get progressively worse and worse for the people who are living here on monthly wages, God only knows how the people surviving on daily wages are faring. no one is having it "good" here except for a very very VERY select few. and there's no way of showing that frustration for many people. social media gives people an anonymity to channel their frustrations in different ways. kisi deewar pe toh sar phodna hi hai.

btw, I disagree that Pakistani fandoms are so worse of the lot. this story is the same everywhere. the only reason why it looks bigger here is because compared to other fandoms, by quantity, Pakistani fandom is smaller. it's like a small town where everyone knows everyone. there's no escaping the trash at the side of the road cuz everyone is using the same road to travel. while other fandoms like kpop for instances can still allow fans the make their own safe circles away from the negativity and still manage to enjoy the feel of a large community. itna toh main likh ke de sakti hoon that by no comparison is Pakistani fandom worse than the stuff kpop fans, specifically armies, pull out. it's all about where you are getting your news from.

twitter is just ONE of the platforms where fandoms exist. before the monopoly of social media came into place, we had multiple platforms which housed fandoms. idk if you have interacted with fandoms at different places. for me, the tumblr fandom culture largely shaped how i interact with the media (a mix of meta analysis+edits). the twitter side of fandom interacts with media different. Indiaforums had a very different way of interacting with media. soompi and dramabeans were where I went for kdrama side of fandom. we also have reddit which is a completely different beast. and these are just English speaking platforms. the local Korean/Chinese/Japanese platforms which remain the biggest and most influential communities for the East Asian media content have a culture that outsiders simply cannot understand no matter how good the translating account is.

so yeah, yes Pakistani fandoms have problem. but which fandom doesn't? the general rule of "mute and block and be vigilant in maintaining a timeline that caters to only your interest!" applies here as well as to every fandom ever. ignore the shit takes and the negativity the best you can; they only exist to sour your personal good time here.

(i LOVEEEEEEEEEE The Glory. i showed my love for it decently enough on twt back when both the parts dropped)

#type: opinion #fandoms

[imladybbq]

Tumblr Uniting Marginalized Communities 

Tumblr is one of the many social media that exist and is used by young people for entertainment. What makes Tumblr stand out among the rest is that it is viewed as a “wild” or free-spirited platform (Wood 2022). Okay, let me explain it in a way that is easy for you to understand. Let us think of social media platforms as regular people in our life.   

Firstly, we have Twitter. It is known for its concise content, where people post or, as they call it, ‘tweet’, whatever topics within only 280 characters. Twitter users tend to tweet their personal thoughts on any interesting subject. I like to think of it as a younger sibling who is obsessed over trivial things and forcing you to listen to the nitty-gritty details of their day 😒.

Moving on, we have Instagram, where everyone can upload pictures or short videos. Typically, it ranges from their daily outfits, precious memories with friends and families, or a shoutout to various brand products. The culture of Instagram is aesthetically pleasing that it gives off the vibe of a person who takes hundreds of selfies per day, including everything and everyone around them.

Then, the star of the show, Tumblr, has everything from texts, pictures, videos, GIFs, music, and more. It is a crossover of blog sites and social media (Internet Matters Team 2022). Plus, people can even customize their own Tumblr accounts that represent their personalities. The media logic for this platform is not fixed like other platforms, and it provides its users with the freedom to express themselves (Wood 2022). There are no rules in whatever form of content you want to post! Personally, Tumblr really comes across as an introvert, maybe a weirdo, but definitely a cool creative person 😎.  

The reason I said that is because of the nature of Tumblr. There is no profile or friends list on the user’s account. It is anonymously created and may be tricky to identify who the owner is (Keller 2019 p 7). One doesn’t need to use their own pictures or names. Hence, this anonymity delivers a safe space for people to express themselves without judgement. Plus, this allows them to bring people together, creating a community with similar interests (Internet Matters Team 2022), be it film series, books or funny memes.  

What I want to bring up here, the anonymity culture really helps those marginalized communities, such as women and LGBTQ+ people, to bond and share experiences. I believe every woman has experienced some form of harassment, such as catcalling. Some even have gone through worse, and it can take years to get over such trauma. On the other hand, LGBTQ+ people have experienced harassment or isolation for so long because society still considers them abnormal. This makes them feel alienated from themselves and question their own worth.  

Not to worry, Tumblr is here to save the day! 🥳 As mentioned, the anonymity culture allows people to interact with their respective communities safely because each can connect to one other. A survey among LGBTQ+ respondents on their usage of Tumblr, and one of them said that Tumblr is a space to relate to each other through their experiences. It is a platform where they don’t necessarily ask for advice but more on gaining attention and support from other users (Byron et al 2019 p 2247).  

It goes the same for the feminists who use Tumblr to talk about feminism. A controversial topic can lead to debates, and sometimes it just goes south. But Tumblr provides a space where it is converse among those within the community only, which they can control and expect a better interaction result. They can control the flow of information and the people that can access it, which is called social privacy (Keller 2019 p 8). Due to this, Keller (2019 p 8) said that a lot of girls feel safer sharing their thoughts on this matter without worrying about the hate comments.  

Tumblr's ‘No Rules Allowed’ culture undoubtedly pushes the boundary of conversation topics we rarely hear daily. To some extent, the exposure of these taboo topics really helps, especially young individuals to learn about themselves and gain clarity of their identity. It tremendously helps in showing that there are many people out there who are like us and let us know that we are not alone.

References:

Byron, P, Robards, B, Hanckel, B, Vivienne, S & Churchill, B 2019, ‘“Hey, I’m Having These Experiences”: Tumblr Use and Young People’s Queer connections’, International journal of communication (Online), University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, Annenberg Press, p. 2239–. 

Internet Matters Team 2022, What is Tumblr? What parents need to know, Internet Matters, viewed 13 April 2023, <https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/news-blogs/what-is tumblr/#:~:text=It%20is%20host%20to%20more,people%20of%20similar%20interests%20together.>. 

Keller, J 2019, ‘“Oh, She’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular of Girls’ Social Media Feminisms’, Social media + society, vol. 5, no. 3, SAGE Publications, London, England, p. 205630511986744–.

Woods, K 2022, Tumblr is back. What does that mean for marketers?, Sprout Social, viewed 13 April 2023, <https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tumblr-marketing/>. 

#mda20009 #week 4 post #SUTxINTI #tumblr #women #lgbtq+

[earnestly-endlessly]

kind of an odd request — do you have fics where erik is grumpy with everyone else but a ray of sunshine with charles?

Hi anon, thank you for the ask. First and foremost, I'm so sorry for how long this took me but I've been searching for all the fics that come to mind that fit your request. Second, this is not an odd request because I love this trope so much. I mean, it's basically canon that he's grumpy with everyone except for his Charles, right? Anyway, I might add to this list later on, but I can't sit on this any longer and hope that you have found some fics that you enjoy!!

Fic Recs Where Erik is grumpy with everyone but a ray of sunshine with Charles

Twice as Blind – Darksknight

Summary: Erik is probably the biggest asshole on the face of the earth, and because of this, he'll probably die alone. Charles is a complete flirt and playboy and, probably, will never commit to anyone ever.

(The lesson here is that when you have two friends who are BOTH secretly seeing someone, well, it's probable that they're seeing each other.)

In the moonlight, on a joy ride – scarlettblush

Summary: Librarian AU. Charles is the young librarian and Erik is the college student who is completely besotted with him.

The Proper Care of Actors – Clear_Liqueur, Clocks, Etherei, afrocurl

Summary: Erik is an A-list action star who is notoriously difficult to work with, until the day he gets cast alongside Charles Xavier, rom-com darling who can charm the pants off movie audiences the world over and apparently even one Erik Lehnsherr. The paparazzi catch them out and about soon enough, and their real-life Hollywood movie romance becomes instant tabloid fodder.

Rumor Mill – ikeracity

Summary: Erik is the grumpiest, most foul tempered worker at Stark industries. His grumpiness is the stuff of legends.

So it's obviously the talk of the office when Erik is being made to go to the company party and he's bringing his husband. There's rumors flying round about how much of a masochist or equally antisocial bastard Erik's husband must be to put up with him. Others think he must be a meek mouse perhaps bullied by Erik.

What they weren't expecting was the confident, charming, adorable and unbelievably nice Charles that turns up on Erik's arm. What they certainly weren't expecting was how much Erik obviously adores his husband and how happy he is to let others see this.

Work/Life Balance – pocky_slash

Summary: Alex is pretty sure his weird, anti-social boss is a robot. Right up until the guy's adorable husband shows up. His adorable husband who happens to be a famous actor. His adorable husband who happens to be the very same famous actor who was the source of many of Alex's teenage fantasies.

Terrifying Domesticity – ishipitsobad

Summary: Erik is the most dangerous and notorious mafia boss around for miles, and yet the strangest things terrify him.

For example: his children, and his very pregnant mate.

Of kittens and teacups and love – Ren

Summary: Modern AU in which Charles and Erik are flatmates. Charles studies psychology and likes tea and chess and keeps bringing home stray kittens, and Erik lets him because he's maybe perhaps a little bit sort of in love with him.

Fools Rush In – LoveSupreme

Summary: Erik owns a cafe on the edge of campus and accidentally starts maybe-stalking a Biology Professor there.

Growing Pains – ikeracity

Summary: Twelve-year-old Erik Lehnsherr is an angry, closed-off foster kid with trust issues and a bad temper. Ten-year-old Charles Xavier is a lonely kid in boarding school who just wants a friend.

Logan pretends he doesn't think they're both fucking adorable.

Series

Home Together (The Finding Our Way Remix) – significantowl

Summary: Erik is not the sort of person other students strike up conversations with. His expression, his posture, every part of his manner say: Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to talk to you. But none of that stops the boy ahead of him in line with the collapsible white cane, and nothing can stop Erik from falling for him, like it or not.

Melted Ice Cream and Macaroni Art – pocky_slash

Summary: Everybody likes Charles. Nobody likes Erik. And that's really the source of Erik's doubts. Also, there's ice cream and a baby. Part of ‘the Daycare’ verse.

Walling in or Walling Out – stlkrchck

Summary: Erik stifles a sigh. Of course this is Mr. C. F. Xavier. Of course.

For the prompt: Charles and Raven are throwing a holiday party. Erik is the grumpy neighbor who is annoyed by how loud they are being. So he goes to complain, and Charles makes it up to him.

(Wise Men Say) Only Fools Rush In – wildelybroken

Summary: After reading a fic where Erik and Charles are super sluts, meet at what is presumably Raven and Emma's engagement party, and end up sleeping together, I made the following comment and just inspired myself.

"They start casually texting each other throughout the day, maybe while they’re bored or frustrated at work, and start out meeting up and sleeping together semi-frequently. And eventually they accidentally start dating without noticing it at first, not until Raven and Emma get them alone and are like “wtf you two super sluts are actually dating??” And at first they deny, but then they’re both like “holy shit, we are!” And they meet back at one of their places and they don’t have to say anything, they just look at each other and come together immediately, kissing passionately and ~making love~. In the middle of it they realise that’s what they’ve been doing for a long time now and they confess their love to each other and they live happily ever after because they deserve all the good in the world."

For Charles – Shigai

Summary: Tired of being told he has to find his 'heart', classical piano graduate Erik Lehnsherr decides to travel to Italy and drink from the famous Italian passion for music. While searching for it, he meets Charles Xavier, a graduate in Fine Arts who is basically travelling around the world perfectioning his technique, and who will turn his world upside down.

Together they will discover that, sometimes, what you thought you didn't need is what you needed the most.

Erik Hates People – Anonymous

Summary: Erik hates people- it's his rule, a way of living.

Sugar – humanitys_cutest

Summary: Erik glances at the clock for what feels like the tenth time in less than half the minutes. It feels like he's been in some meeting or other since the day started almost 10 hours ago, and he's had just about enough of listening to these pompous old men discuss what would be the best design for his building like they know anything about it. He tries as subtly as possible to massage his temples to assuage the building migraine, but he knows it's no use.

He just wants to go home.

Everyone Likes Charles – Rosawyn

Summary: '“Everyone who's met him likes him.” Cain's grin was even stupider than before. “Once you meet him, you'll see.”

It was almost like a challenge then. And damn. Erik hated saying no to a challenge.'

Still Going Strong – JackyJango

Summary: Speaking of forty-eight, Erik hates it. Hates it even more that others are aware of it. While he’s pragmatic enough to know and accept that aging is inexorable, the increase in number gives the people around him the freedom to pounce at him with questions, opinions and advice he'd fought to keep at bay all year.

Besides, Erik believes that youth is a state of mind, not a phase in one’s life.

You have a child’s mind in a man’s body, Charles constantly tells him.

But despite his age, Erik is healthy. He works out daily. His muscles are steel and he can dead-lift four hundred pounds. He can break bones without breaking a sweat. Most importantly, he can still carry Charles to the bedroom and fuck him senseless. And as long as Erik can do that, he’s perfectly happy.

All I know is pouring rain and everything has changed – hllfire

Summary: Charles meets Erik, the man he had heard about many times from his sister and some friends, on a rainy Sunday morning. The stories about Erik paint him as a distant and intimidating man, but Charles finds out that maybe the stories had been wrong.

How to Successfully Ruin Your Life – humanveil

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Charles Xavier accepts a job at his local café, expecting nothing more than a fun, new pastime. What he gets is a mysterious customer and a schoolboy crush.

Stolen – ishipitsobad

Summary: Erik is a miserable, grumpy, cantankerous bastard, and he has every fucking right to be. He drew the short end of the stick when he got the Underworld as his domain, and there isn't very much fun to be had in judging and governing dead souls who would rather be anywhere else but with Erik in the depths of Hell.

So when he meets Charles, brilliant and lovely Charles who is more popularly known amongst the mortals as Persephone, and feels the promise of something wonderful that could make his eternally doomed existence infinitely more bearable... you can bet all your drachmas Erik's not going to let Charles go any fucking time soon.

Erik Lehnsherr's Guide to Saving the Universe By Meeting Your Soul-Mate and Falling in Love in Less than 72 Hours – magneto, pangea

Summary:Army Pilot Erik Lehnsherr is just trying to enjoy his day off when a mostly naked person crashes through the roof of his car. Even more alarming, the strange falling naked person—who goes by Charles Xavier when he's not speaking an ancient dead language—brings tidings of the apparent potential end of the world, and begs Erik to help him put a stop to it.

Well. His mother has been nagging at him to go out and meet new people.

The Theory of Partnership Dynamics – Pangea

Summary: “Detective Lehnsherr, how wonderful to see you out on the job!” The fed in the front greets him as they draw nearer. He’s shorter than the other two by a full head, and he’s beaming at Lehnsherr as if completely undeterred by Lehnsherr’s paint-peeling scowl.

“What do the feds want?” Lehnsherr asks bluntly.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” the fed answers cheerfully. Then his gaze lands on Alex, and, impossibly, his grin gets even brighter. “Did you get a new partner?"

“No,” Lehnsherr says through his teeth while at the same time Alex says, “Yes.”

#fic recs #cherik fic recs #cherik #asks #earnestly answers #I'm sure there are waaaay more fics out there #might add more later

[bigbadredpanda]

Hi,, I hope I'm not bothering you with this and I'm sorry if my English isn't good, I hope you can understand my questions. I've been thinking about this for a while now and I tried to find information online but I found nothing.

MDZS is the first Chinese Novel I've read and I still haven't finished it yet,,but I've heard about rumors that said that MXTX is in jail, because she sold copies of her books. The rumor isn't true, however it made me wonder something,, I know China's censorship on lgbt related stuff is really heavy and that's why the donghua and drama adaptations of MDZS and other bl works are censored, but I didn't know that authors couldn't sell their novels.

So my question is,, how does MXTX earn money if she isn't allowed to sell her works? She has already finished 3 Danmei novels, and her works are really popular, they even have manhua, donghua or drama adaptations. The adaptations have earned quite a lot of money, but since she's an anonymous writer, does part of it even go to her?

To make the drama, the donghua and the manhua, producers had to ask her permission, I think. So, since the adaptations are doing well, she should get part of the profit, but how does it work? If the Chinese Government really is against lgbt themed works, shouldn't they have done something about her?

I really love her works and I hope that she earns something since she is the one that created all of them. Thanks for considering my question!!

Hi both of you and welcome to the cnovel fandom! Quick intro of the author, MXTX uses a pen name like many webnovel authors, it’s the abbreviation of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu which literally means “Ink Fragrance, Copper [Money] Stench” (墨香铜臭). Fun fact, it’s her mother who coined that name. MXTX wished to pursue a major in literature during university but her mother wanted her to graduate in economy instead while keeping writing on the side, that way she would have the fragrance of ink in one hand and the stench of money in the other.

We also know that she is fairly young, she wrote Scum Villain while she was a university student and she started working on the outline of MDZS in her final year. Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven Official’s Blessing) is the third book she completed and a fourth novel is/was in the works, its provisional title is “No rest for the death god” and is supposed to be a supernatural story taking place in a modern setting.

MXTX is one of the most popular webnovel authors on Jinjiang Literature City, the webnovel platform, but her popularity also comes with a great many detractors. You’ve heard some of the malicious rumours circulating in the English-speaking side of the fandom, it’s just a drop in the ocean compared to the outpouring of heated controversies in the Chinese side as the latter can have real-life consequences. There is a different nexus between the creator and the audience and the fandom culture is not the same either, it can be quite deleterious due to the tendency to report any content that one disagrees with.

Censorship in China is... ever-changing and nebulous. How severe it is depends on the medium. Nevertheless, gay literature (同志文学) does exist in China and it is distinct from danmei. I also want to nuance a bit the pervasive idea that anything lgbt is systematically and relentlessly censored in China. The reality is more complex than that and it would be dismissive of the hard-fought gains and visibility that Chinese lgbt activists have obtained these past two decades (some concrete examples: the work of the lgbt centre in Beijing or the pride festival in Shanghai). I don’t know if people are aware of this but lgbt dating apps are thriving in China, the most popular one, Blued, is also the largest lgbt social network worldwide. With that said, the official policy towards homosexuality is the three No’s: “no approval, no disapproval, no promotion”. A stance comparable to the “don’t ask, don’t tell”. It’s not explicit persecution but it manifests in the silencing of public discussion and the limiting media representation of homosexuality. In 2017, the top media regulator that oversaw radio, film and television  issued guidelines banning a number of things, this included obscene and violent content, homosexuality, superstitious pseudoscience (such as reincarnation or spirit possession). On top of that, there is also an ongoing crackdown on online pornography that gets increasingly intense. And that concerns everyone on the internet, it’s astonishing the lengths netizens will go to in order to circumvent the censorship, new slang is developed to refer obliquely to banned words, fanfics are published in image format to prevent text recognition, etc... The censorship might be increasingly prevalent but netizens push back with their resourcefulness. Pushing back is also not without significant risk. Perhaps you have heard of the case of the danmei author that received a severe jail sentence? A few Western media picked up on that and criticised the ruling that was deemed homophobic. Chinese reactions tell a slightly different story, the author's crime was not writing danmei, she was in fact accused of making a profit by illegally producing and disseminating pornographic material. I’m not too keen on the details but it seems she printed the books herself and sold them online. To some Chinese observers, the ruling was not discriminatory because she did break the law. To others, it was absurd because this law dates from an era when internet barely existed and it would have been much more laborious to mass-produce and share porn at that time. There’s a bit of truth in all these points of views. It’s also not disingenuous to say that lgbt content is more likely to be targeted than het content even if the charges are not directly lgbt-related.

Usually contracted authors of webnovel platforms have a more secure status. They get a fee from the purchase of VIP chapters as well as tips from the readers. Other sources of revenue arise when webnovels get popular enough to get the opportunity to be published through official channels or when adaptation rights are sold (I assume that the author receives a share of that deal but perhaps does not get any further financial gain from the adaptation or its merch).

To support the author, I would suggest purchasing TGCF on Jinjiang (guide) or buying the physical versions of her three novels in Chinese (shop, change to English with top-right world icon), the special boxsets of MDZS and TGCF come with tons of goodies!

Hope I could be of service and that my tirade was mildly informative ^^'

#mxtx #answers #nerdsupreme #meandering thoughts #trashysiomai

[tortilla-of-courage]

Describing it as being like home is actually pretty accurate yeah.

And YES! I am totally willing to talk about my modern AU.

I've been calling it the Adoption AU because Time ends up adopting all of the boys. It mostly started as, I saw an edit for a tweet someone did with Wars and Wild that involved Taco Bell (cannot remember the blog or post for the life of me though), and so I wrote a thing about Warriors sneaking out of his university dorm to pick up Wild, who snuck out the window despite his broken arm, and then got extorted by Legend in exchange for silence at 3am.

This was followed by a fic where Groose decided spray painting a public building was a good idea and got himself and Sky arrested, set earlier in the timeline.

So then I made a timeline. Twilight is Time and Malon's biological son, and he found Wild on the side of the road one day (Wild's backstory involves a bad car wreck and an underground hospital, but no conspiracy bullshit. Yet). Wild has no memory, so they keep him. Wild brings home Legend, who was told his uncle died at school before a holiday. They then also keep Legend. Malon finds Four in her barn one morning for complicated reasons, and they keep him too. Twilight finds Warriors, who is in his class, hiding in an alley one day after he ran away from an abusive home and brings him home too. SS Impa (who I've nicknamed Shield because there are enough prominent Impas here that they should get nicknames too) is a social worker who's trying to find Sky a home and has run out of options, and turns to Time, who has a record of successfully housing 'unhousable' youths, and asks if he can take one more. He can. Wild finds Hyrule and brings him home because 'Rule needs a shower even more than Wild does. Hyrule stays. Wind's grandma ends up with Wind and his sister but can't financially take care of both and so Wind ends up with the boys and everyone is +1 Grandma.

Twilight has a fic detailing how he knows Midna and Dusk and I ended up shooting him (oops) but at least their social project gets handed in on time.

Then I started hashing out Time's backstory and suddenly this AU had plot. And organized crime. And a conspiracy. And secret societies.

The summarized version is that the gems from OoT are like, Idk what they do yet. Haven't gotten to a point where I need to figure that out yet. But they are Important and have to be carefully guarded. The Great Deku Tree (just called Deku because he's not a tree here) was Time's foster father before Ganondorf killed him. Also, Ganondorf is Deku's half brother. Because. However Time 'stole' the Emerald and he and Navi ran until OoT Impa (Sage) and Lullaby found them. So Time got adopted into Lullaby's family. Ruto inherited the Sapphire from her mother who also died from mysterious circumstances, and Darunia has the Ruby. Lullaby got the Ocarina from her late paternal grandmother.

Then Ganon finds them and tries to steal the Emerald from Time, so Lullaby goes looking for help and thus finds the sages. Saria is an anonymous hacker who uses the screen name 'Kokiri'. Time reveals he didn't steal the Emerald, he was Deku's heir, and then Navi goes missing. Time is home worried enough that he's physically sick, and Ganon decides to try and attack the home. Only Lullaby's family is Olde Money, and they live in a big, old manor, so Lullaby as Sheik decides to play 'Home Alone' with the secret passages in the walls and they piss off Ganon because when did that brat get a sheikah bodyguard??? Sage and Rottla (Lullaby's mother, who is fully sheikah as well) rush home from a thing and Kokiri is running a play by play watching the security cameras.

I pull in my headcanon that Time was killed in the Downfall Timeline by getting impaled on Ganon's tusk and Ganondorf stabs him with the tusk of a mounted boar head and then Sheik shows up to protect his brother, and then Mama gets home and is not happy to find this man in her home attacking her kids. Time is fine, but Navi stays missing. (She's alive tho.)

Also, Time's foster dad was the last leader of a secret society known as The Order of The Lost Woods, and Time learns this upon meeting Tatl, who gets him sucked into another event that would probably make a good action movie. I have thought too much about the Order and it's hierarchy, but what's important here is that Time ends up with a standing job offer and Tatl and he remain friends and we find out how I fit FD into this AU. It's not pretty. This is where Time loses his eye too.

The AoC came out and I added that Link in as Wild's twin brother and he shows up during the main plot.

Which starts with Twi getting kidnapped. (I'm not really meaner to him than the others, I swear, he's just the most logical choice to be Time's heir. Which he is. He doesn't know this though.)

So he's kidnapped by Ganondorf, who broke out of jail, Zant, who shot Twi in highschool, and Ghirahim, who has some history with Sky I haven't fleshed out yet and a very public rivalry with Warriors over twitter. About six weeks later Sage finds him in an abandoned warehouse (because of course) with a shackle on his left arm and a lot of new injuries. He ends up fine, but he tells Time later in the hospital what happened and he's both message and messenger and Time is this close to just committing murder. Tatl talks him down.

Somewhere here is the half finished fic where I introduce AoC Link as Luke/Knight, and this is as far as I've plotted thus far.

Other tidbits: Wild and Lullaby/Sheik are both genderfluid, Lullaby/Sheik married Ruto, Wild has a very popular YouTube channel, Twi does drag racing sometimes, Sky has a pet bird, Four has DID to explain how the Colours are here too, and Wolfie exists in the form of a random wolf-dog Wild found and brought home that Legend somehow convinced half the family was Twilight. Also, Warriors has somehow befriended an entire sorority and he doesn't know how this happened.

This... got long. As you can see I have a lot of thoughts about the Adoption AU. It's gotten a bit away from me, I'll admit. This went from 'Wild does stunts on his motorbike and keeps breaking bones but somehow not the bike' to 'Twilight got kidnapped and Time is the target of a mafia that Ganon runs and also maybe killed a man once' and I don't know how that happened. Also, this is the condensed version of the summary. My actual summary/outline is much, much longer than this. So if there's any detail you want more on, feel free to say so and I'll happily go into more detail (there are so many things I didn't even mention....)

And yes, Robbie having a bong is very important to my best friend, for some reason. He has one in a modern AU and he probably invented one in canon. I happen to agree that this makes sense for his character, if anyone would invent a bong in LoZ it's Robbie (this is such an anticlimactic end to this ask after the stuff about the modern AU...)

Also, sorry for the long ass ask. I genuinely don't know how to condense the Adoption Au down any further. There's a lot of important plot beats to cover, and I still skipped things.

-Attllhak

oh my GOD???? if you ever write and post this somewhere id love to read it, the level of "crazy" conspiracy/action movie elements implemented sound sosososo cool, from Ganondorf being Deku's half brother to trying to "send a message" via Twi and- just- all of this is SO good.i sat here and reread this ask like 3 times as if that would magically spawn more info about it ahaha

there's so much to unpack here but it's honestly so worth it i love every single detail!!! i can imagine the actual outline being way longer, nad honestly that just makes me the more excited/curious about all that might be missing from this ask - i cant believe it started with Wild and Wars going to Taco Bell of all things

also i can totally see Robbie making a bong, no matter the setting or AU. fits him a lot I'd say

and dont worry about long asks!! i adore opening up my askbox to see one ask take over the entire thing, it makes me really happy aha

#attllhak #im once again rendered speechless (in a good way) by your creative mind attllhak #tortilla asks #long post #linked universe #ask to tag #injury mention

[karliesbuzzcut]

hi buzzcut, i’ve recently discovered your blog after being sent one of your threads by my hardcore taylor swift fan friend. it is hilarious and now i know more about josh kushner than i ever wanted to. i thought i could shed some light on all things entertainment PR - i was a PR assistant for a publicist with many A-B list clients (mostly actors) for years, and now i am a publicist for a premium streaming network (slightly different than being a publicist for an individual but the industry rules don’t change). per the last q, i HIGHLY doubt that anyone from taylor or karlies team keeps tabs on these kaylor blogs. they def know they exist but most publicists i know have much more important things to worry about than some teenagers on the internet thinking your client is gay. and as you’ve pointed out before, that narrative is not a bad thing at all. i’m sure both teams are aware of this section of the fanbase and happy to have them, if only because it is another dedicated group of people absorbing all of your clients content, obsessively. the reason they are not worried about these sort of blogs is because none of what they are claiming is true, and so the risk is zero other than maybe mild annoyance from some of the aggressive shippers on social media. but a publicist with an A list client (in the case of tree) keeping tabs on a tumblr account? chances are zero. it’s not the same as tree keeping tabs on enty for example, who is also known within the industry to be a hack who gets lucky with a legit source 30% of the time. maybe karlies team would keep tabs on someone like ttb if they have nothing better to do and because “kaylor” is still a significant part of karlies fanbase and sm presence. but still, the chances are so low. the biggest client i ever worked for wasnt as famous as taylor but was certainly leagues ahead of karlie - and we just had our small team of 2 PR assistants helping manage his social media presence. we definitely did not have time to patrol random tumblr blogs, even if they had been circulating conspiracy theories he was having secret affair. it’s just not a big deal, poses lino threat when it’s untrue, and doesn’t really matter to be quite frank. a couple more things: i’ve noticed the way some people on your blog speak about “PR relationships” and “pap walks/stunts” in general are just.... untrue. again, perhaps in the world of taylor swift this is more normal and i can only speak from my own experience, but these things are NOT common industry wide. yes PR relationships do happen but i’ve never once heard of a contract being involved! that would be a horribly disastrous PR nightmare if it was ever leaked! NDAs are not magic binding curses, they can be broken and are often avoided bc they cause such a legal headache. it’s also at times hard to trace who leaked a story to the press. if kaylor was this widespread, it would 100% have been leaked. PR relationships are short lived, no commitment required, and typically happen during the promotion of whatever product is being pushed. they are not binding (i’ve never seen any such thing) and that’s the point - if one half of the couple gets drunk and is seen making out with someone else, we just say they broke up weeks earlier and everyone moves on. the talk of all these menacing contracts and NDAs is SO absurd and funny. i wish i worked in that industry bc it would be much more exciting. and finally, yes, publicists do call the paparazzi to help promote upcoming headlines (i think everyone knows this by now) but just bc a photo is on Backgrid or is HQ doesnt mean it was pap promo. the general rule of thumb is - if the client looks content or unbothered or is smiling, it’s promo. if they look unhappy, confused, or like they don’t know there’s a camera, it’s organic. anyway, sorry for the long post, but figured this is the only anonymous message i will ever leave someone and why not share some of my insights. oh the incredibly boring and inane things you learn in celebrity pr! props to you for being so discerning buzz & have fun!

Not gonna lie. I started reading this message and I was mentally preparing for:

“I work in the industry and I can tell you that I have seen Taylor and Karlie making out in front of me plenty of times — there was some tongue action too. They’ve also held hands and chanted in perfect unison ‘we hate our beards’. I just thought you’d want to know”

And while those type of messages are endlessly entertaining, I must say I enjoyed yours more. Thank you for taking the time to type it all down!

#pr anon

[mittensmorgul]

Can’t everyone use tumblr how they want?

YES!

This site is exactly what people make of it for themselves. That was the exact point of that post. The fact that people reacted negatively to it at all proves my point. Seriously.

I have a number of other anons that are clearly from people who don't actually follow me, and are only here in a reactionary fashion having seen it on someone else's reblog, or else heard about it in passing and decided the best reaction to an ultimately harmless and rather bumbling post was to take personal offense and bring anonymous hate to a stranger on the internet. (and at least one not-anonymous "go kill yourself" type comment on the post itself)

THAT was the point of making that post.

For people who might be new to this fandom or new to tumblr in general (or even for people who have been here for years), your experience here is exactly what you make of it. I haven't seen that sort of vitriolic kneejerk reaction to anything I've written or posted in years. That post touched nerves. So it was a bit of an experiment, and I'm sorry to everyone who experienced any of that negativity second-hand. NOBODY should be made to feel like shit when engaging with something that is supposed to be fun. But I've learned over the years that that's exactly what some people consider fun.

There are new people to this fandom since the absolute free for all of the weeks after November 5th. We all reveled in those weeks before the show collapsed in on itself two weeks later. It was like 15 years worth of Hiatus Blogging followed by... well... some of the worst genuine hurt and disillusionment I've ever experienced or witnessed inflicted on a fandom by a piece of media.

There have to be at least a few people who floated into this fandom during that emotional roller coaster who want to make sense of it all, who were at least curious enough about how a show could've brought the characters to that emotional moment in 15.18 before effectively ignoring it all and burning the entire 15 year narrative to nothing just two episodes later.

Some folks stuck around to dig through the ashes of fandom in search of carrion, and that's fine. Some have zero desire to ever engage with the show or the fandom beyond mocking it for ever having existed at all, and that is also fine! But some folks? They might be wondering why anyone ever saw anything in this narrative to begin with, and they might be interested in knowing that there is this vast collection of information available to them (funny that none of my self-righteous anons even mentioned those, outside of one pointing out that my phrasing introducing that section of links was easily interpreted as condescending... which... yeah... again that was the point, and no I will not edit that language. none of us are free from sin).

Tumblr hasn't "changed." It was always this way. This site is not a monolith. Fandom is not a monolith. Even smaller groups within fandom aren't monoliths. Things that are considered "tumblr standard etiquette" do not exist across this entire website. And even within the supernatural fandom, and even within the tumblr-destiel-portion of the fandom there aren't "rules" dictating how you interact with anyone. Well, the one specific rule we should all be able to agree on is that you don't bring hate to real actual human beings, and yet...

There has ALWAYS been the option to engage with fandom here on whatever level an individual chooses. And that hasn't really changed since the finale aired. Anyone who thinks that Tumblr or the fandom has "evolved" or "changed" has likely just fallen in with a different fandom bubble then they'd existed within before. None of the bubbles have actually popped or disappeared. But which one you experience is entirely your own choice. You curate your experience here.

That was the point, illustrated by the vast array of comments I actually got on that post, structured with a little bit of everything including "tumblr mom from 2014." Everything pisses some people off, you know? Even the perception that some stranger on the internet might dare to lay down an arbitrary "rule" that zero people actually have to follow. See what I mean?

Because if any of the people who kneejerked at it actually followed me, or knew me at all, they wouldn't have kneejerked. They would've seen the point.

So your experience is what you make of it here. There are resources for people actually interested in engaging with the narrative or the fandom or the history of it. People mock "tumblr moms" or "fandom moms" all the time, but there wouldn't ~be~ a fandom without the people who actually build those resources. I.e. adults with the time, money, and personal investment in actually sustaining the fandom, instead of running around with torches trying to burn it down at every new whiff of perceived ~drama~ to latch on to.

For example, all of the scripts we've been acquiring and sharing with the entire fandom free of charge. I know that the fandom bubbles who seize on those scripts like hungry vultures to cough back up out of context "gotcha" posts postulating whatever theory of the differences between script and screen will dredge up the most drama or outrage in their fandom bubble... they haven't even considered how those scripts were acquired and made available to them. To them, they are "leaks." They are gifts that fell out of the sky and landed in their laps. There isn't even the barest curiosity about their origins or relevance beyond whatever social nourishment they derive by making up stuff and spouting it out with unearned authority. It's sad. But if that's how they enjoy the fandom, it's nice to remind them that none of the fandom they cannibalize would exist without the rest of us, too.

Yes, even the people you disagree with. Even the people who ship the things you find disgusting or repulsive. Even people who have an entirely different experience to your own. Even the people who are only here for those gotcha posts.

Fandom is not by nature a nihilistic shitshow, or no fandom would survive the amount of drama the 1% try to bring to it. Here have a fanlore article about this phenomenon. Right now, in Supernatural fandom, it feels like more than 1%, but I promise it really is only 1%. They're just really loud. There's actually other avenues to participatory fandom available to anyone who chooses to find them. Parts of this vast fandom that aren't focused on that 1% of reactionary leg-chewing at every turn. None of them are (as the linked article confirms) truly 100% free of unnecessary drama or bad behavior (including ME, I mean I MADE THAT POST!), but on tumblr you can curate your own experience. Fandom actually can be fun without burning down the thing you claim to be a fan of, or attacking other real human people for having the audacity to exist on the internet in a way you might believe is out of touch or pathetic. Seriously, nobody deserves to experience that from anyone over a fucking television show. Like seriously, take a step back and examine your life and your choices at that point.

Tumblr was exactly the same as a fandom community when I joined as it is now. Throughout my entire time here, I've curated my own personal experience to exactly what I derive the most personal satisfaction from. During that time I have had numerous friends and mutuals lament that their personal experience had become so toxic, but they were afraid to trim those blogs from their dash for fear of having no content left to engage with at all. For years there have been follow lists and blog recs and people desperate to find a more "peaceful and fun" fandom experience. People grow exhausted and embittered when their entire experience of fandom is an emotionally draining drama train. It's like pandemic doom scrolling, but for the thing that should be a respite from that sort of mindset, something that's supposed to be entertainment. The show did enough to us all, we don't have to turn around and re-inflict it on each other day in and day out on tumblr dot com.

So if even one person saw my post and thought well shit maybe I actually want to engage with a wider swath of fandom and see what's there, after seven months of post-finale drama, this whole other region of fandom is still here, still being the curators of the archives, the creators of stories and art and meta and gifs and videos and actually caring about it all that will keep this fandom going long after the current round of exhausting drama inevitably plays itself out.

The amount of in-group language in the negative replies I got was unsurprising. It's like folks are living in an alternate universe that doesn't mesh at all with what I experience on this exact same hellsite. Almost like we exist in entirely different bubbles of fandom, with entirely different purposes for existing at all. Everyone on this hellsite gets to pick which bubble (or bubbles) to take up residence in. Some people simply forget that their personal bubble isn't the universal defining experience of this site. Unfortunately, I doubt my little disruption to their bubbles will actually make any of them see that, but you anon... I think you did.

You are highly encouraged to engage with fandom EXACTLY THE WAY YOU CHOOSE. You have the ultimate power in controlling your entire experience here. Tumblr and Supernatural Fandom on tumblr is not Just One Thing that everyone who wants to participate in must conform to one specific code of ethics or behavior to be part of. And that NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else they're doing it wrong (including ME! I am 100% including myself in this!).

It's not MY job to dictate how anyone else experiences this fandom, as much as it was not the job of the people who reblogged my post (which I did not personally shove into their eyeballs with a demand for compliance... how did any of those people even *find* my post?) solely to tell me how *I* need to change how I experience the fandom, you see? Don'tcha love hypocrisy!

But the point was made for those who care, and a lot of people got to update their block lists (I still don't block anyone, as I said I curated my fandom space here and generally don't follow folks that don't personally make me happy and enrich my life by engaging with their content. However other people choose to engage with *my* content (any of it, going back nearly 50k posts over the last decade) is their business entirely. Sometimes I just feel the need to draw out people who are all too eager to expose their own whole asses in public. Mission accomplished.

#fandom problems #and again i'm sorry that anyone i know was exposed to ugliness because of this #but everyone i know also knows that i'm probably the least easily upset person in this corner of the fandom #if even one person achieved a modicum of self-awareness that their experience is not universal #that there IS no universal experience even #then i guess the point was made

[folerdetdufoler]

I don’t know who to ask, because I don’t think I have anyone in ~not online life- to ask, and I don’t really have any online friends.. and please, if this makes you uncomfortable don’t answer. but has being into Isak and even and maybe other gay pairings made you question your.. gender? Or gender presentation? Is it confusing for you?

hey - first of all, thanks for coming to me with this question. i know how difficult it can be to find the answers you need both online and in person because it requires a lot of honesty for everyone involved. as anonymous as this is i’m still honored you would ask me and i hope this can help somehow...maybe by just opening up the topic for other people to chime in.

the short answer is no. i’m going to ramble to give you context but my interest in Isak & even and male homosexuality in general has never made me question my gender. or of the things it’s made me question, my gender is not one of them. i’m open to that happening later on in my life, but so far it hasn’t happened yet.

i’m older though. i just turned 30. my mind has been shaped by a youth raised in an evangelical christian school system. i’ve bucked against religion from a young age but i was still surrounded by a community that passively inhibited questioning of any kind in the first place. i had the internet growing up but i didn’t use it to the extent that i do now, and even what i have access to now, i know is still a very limited awareness of human possibility. skam never posed the question of gender beyond eskild’s pride speech, i think, and i would consider that a stretch. if anything i’ve seen a lot more on tiktok, which i’ve been addicted to for almost two years now, but i also know how narrow that world is because of how the fyp functions. i see a lot more gender representation and discussions on there, which are interesting and educational, but they’ve never been enough for me to question my own identity either (also the censorship on that app is disgusting).

i’m a cis woman. i enjoy dressing in a feminine style but mostly avoid it because of the shape of my body. my goal in presentation has always been to hide my weight, and i would lean toward loose-fitting cuts that would help me feel invisible. i have this faint feeling that this desire to not be perceived might be tied to gender in a way but if it is i haven’t figured that out. i feel like if i were to lose the weight and be comfortable with the level of attention a skinny body attracts, then i would be comfortable in any gendered clothing. i like my female body, i just don’t like my fat body.

which leads me to what i’ve questioned the most: my own misogyny! or maybe it’s not a questioning so much as it is this growing concern that misogyny has shaped a lot of my attention and attraction, leading me to media that just...allows it to thrive. i favor mlm over wlw (is this because i don’t want to see myself represented? or because i don’t want to see women represented? how much of my self-loathing is misogyny, or vice versa?). i read male-centered romances and i write them. i consume male porn almost exclusively (though porn is never a great place to start evaluating your appreciation of women). if i ever insert myself into sexual fantasies, i’m always a woman...i’ve never used gay male porn to like, replace my own desires. but i do find the male body attractive and their attraction to each other is attractive.

while i do write about the male body exclusively, i do want to share my motivations for that as not simply being this thirst for the male body. i find great comfort in isak and even’s basic plot, where they find love and self-worth despite battling both external and internal demons. when i write stories i am mostly chasing that high, that victory. the fact that they’re dudes is just, y’know, the circumstance. and then the fact that i’m writing them explicitly is probably more motivated by my own sexual repression. i’m not getting any because i’m not worth that, but they are so they can. this extends to the other mlm stories i read in that their romance has this social roadblock already in place. the homophobia is implied, whether or not that’s what the actual plot is about, and i give more value to that relationship because i know a struggle has been built in. and then i find comfort in watching other people figure out that their love is worth that struggle, and that their fight is as simple as daring to exist.

(oh god maybe my fantasy is being able to blame someone else for my own problems and still receiving love despite it. let’s unpack that.)

annnnnnyway, back to your point. i think it’s possible that an interest in mlm romance and/or sexuality could reflect a shifting sense of your own gender. there’s that classic question of “do i want to be with you or just...be you?” and sometimes the answer looks a certain way when you identify as a cis woman interested in gay male pairings. maybe that’s what’s happening to me, and maybe i’m just trying to throw different excuses at it to avoid it. like i won’t rule that out, but i also feel confident and comfortable with my identity as it is.

#kerryrants #sorry this is so long #as you know i love talking about myself #i do feel bad for throwing up so many excuses #because it feels like i'm trying to shut it down entirely #but i've been exposed to more queer identities post-skam #and as representation has grown in the novels i read i feel like i've been able to witness more identities #but those have never made me question myself either #skam was painfully heteronormative despite its gay season #and i do feel kind of weird continuing to push that through my fic #maybe that's where my age and upbringing limit me though #in that i continue to promote this heteronormative society #when i actually have the power to create something more meaningful rather than just the status quo #maybe that tells you something about why i've never questioned my identity #because i'm still okay with accepting what i've been raised with #to the point where i've found comfort in it #so maybe you would need to talk to someone younger #or someone who is less afraid of themselves

[aion-rsa]

From Bridgerton to Sanditon—Putting Island Queen in a Period Drama Context

https://ift.tt/3dpMXo9

This article contains book spoilers for Island Queen and a trigger warning for racism and sexual assault.

Caribbean history is often ignored in US discussions of the era, despite myself and many other Americans having ancestry from this part of the world. Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park has extended references to Caribbean slavery but many adaptations sidestep these implications or briefly address them before moving back to the white main characters. In addition, the focus is often on male leaders of rebellions such as Toussaint L’Overture leading the Haitian rebellion, or on women with island ancestry such as Dido Elizabeth from the movie Belle living in England. All are written by white novelists and screenwriters who miss cultural nuances and are unaware of subconscious bias. Island Queen, Vanessa Riley’s latest foray into Black historical fiction reveals a hidden figure of Caribbean history. Dorothy Kirwan was born into slavery in Montserrat, but secured her own freedom by becoming an astute businesswoman. 

Riley’s novel takes readers on a complex but emotionally fufilling journey which brings up serious historical questions on slavery, class, gender, and business ethics during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Riley’s novel is the answer for fans who feel recent historical dramas prioritize varying levels of whitewashing or escapism over featuring real Black history. 

Kirwan’s story has incredible relevance today as many look to understand the enduring legacies of British colonialism and the slave trade in the late 18th and early 19th Century. Her diary does not exist but Riley assembled birth records and other primary sources to trace her life. This is in contrast to sources such as the anonymously published novel The Woman Of Colour which historians are still looking to corroborate authorship and connections to real Caribbean figures.   Kirwan at times the mirror image of the fictionalized story of July from The Long Song, but there are also flash points of difference along class and timeframe context. July was born roughly 50 years later than Kirwan in Jamaica.  In addition, Dorothy’s life journey takes the reader from Montserrat to Demerara (off the coast of modern day Guyana), Grenada, and Dominica. Most importantly, Riley is an Caribbean-American writer while Andrea Levy wrote The Long Song for Black British readers. 

Dorothy’s in-character first person narration is the glue that holds the story together through frequent flashbacks to her childhood and young adulthood to her life in 1824 as a grandmother. The main theme of self-determination in a world where rich white men decide the rules everyone must play keeps the reader engaged even when it is not clear where the plot is heading. In the present plot, Dorothy has returned to London after many years away to petition colonial leaders to retain hard-won rights for Black and biracial women in Demerara. These unequal laws threaten Dorothy’s children and grandchildren and could even take away the freedom and inheritance she has spent her whole life to build. 

Bridgerton’s critics will find solace in Island Queen. Those who wanted the Black aristocracy of Haiti and other Caribbean islands featured in the series will find this history at the center. Kirwan navigates a world with inherent inequality, despite how much she has achieved in property ownership and savings. When she interacts with British and colonial elites, they never treat her as if she has power over them. The racial caste system in existence influences all of her interactions. After a breakup, she takes up an offer from Prince William (Queen Victoria’s uncle who died with no legitimate heirs) to travel with him on his ship. In Dorothy’s story, he provides a temporary emotional distraction but also a recognition that she would never fit into the British elite because of her skin color and island background. Unlike Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton, the real prejudices of the era held Dorothy back from ascending completely into the highest levels of royal society. Riley’s narrative, especially, ignores what could have been and shows readers the truth. 

These rich white men who placed artificial limits on Dorothy were also the source for young Alexander Hamilton’s childhood poverty. However, his solution as featured in the opening song of Hamilton was to leave the islands to pursue his education in America. This was an option steeped in male and to an extent white privilege as women at this point in history were not allowed to attend college. In addition, American society had already enacted severe restrictions in the rights of free people of color. Hamilton also was an orphan. Dorothy’s parents and her children kept her rooted to the Caribbean. 

The road to Dorothy acquiring a thriving business and heirs was lengthy and arduous, and Riley does not sugar coat the dynamics at play in her life. Kirwan’s mother was a slave and her father owned a plantation. The more percentage of white ancestry you have in your blood, the more freedom and rights you have. In her teenage years, Dorothy’s white half-brother Nicholas rapes her and she ends up giving birth to a daughter. Dorothy is forced to run away with a trusted friend to another island and has to leave her daughter behind. This is the beginning of many sacrifices she makes in order to protect her family. 

Although many readers may object to Riley portraying incest and sexual assault, the historical research makes this clear that this was the reality for women in slave societies. Dorothy’s narration is carefully crafted to show not only the trauma of the event, but her processing the trauma. For Dorothy, healing comes in the form of survival. The objective isn’t exploitation or the male gaze, but to illuminate ignored history and the intersection of race and gender in sexual power dynamics. Dorothy has to repeatedly establish consent and trust in a world where her partners can and will refuse to agree to those terms. The debate over rape culture in historical fiction revolves around characters that are fictional facing fictionalized situations, especially in the TV adaptations of Outlander and Bridgerton. Additionally, Outlander has sidestepped any serious contemplation of exploitation dynamics in slave societies despite plots featuring 8th Century Jamaica and North Carolina.  It is difficult to apply this same critique to Riley’s novel as her intention is historical recreation and reconstruction of Kirwan’s life story. 

Riley’s explanation and contextualization of race and gender dynamics is something many viewers wanted the first season of British historical drama Sanditon to address, past the show alluding to Georgiana’s ancestry and £100,000 inheritance. In fact, Riley explains in the Author’s Note that the journey to finding Dorothy Kirwan began with figuring out who the real Miss Lambe could have been over a decade ago. For Georgiana to have that kind of wealth, she would have had to have a white male ancestor willing and able to use the law to secure her freedom. Sidney’s connection to Georgiana as her legal ward isn’t clear, representing a missed opportunity that erodes the story’s worldbuilding. Dorothy’s explanation of social rankings and her own background means it is highly likely Georgiana is the product of a relationship between a white planter and an enslaved or indentured woman. Georgiana isn’t the only example of an fictional heir from the islands around this time period. Rhoda Swartz from Vanity Fair has Black and Jewish ancestry along with thousands of pounds. Island Queen has the space and interest to completely center the story of women like Georgiana and Rhoda position from the perspective of a Black writer and historian. 

Dorothy also reveals through her life experiences that interracial relationships with unequal power dynamics were often one of the only ways enslaved Black and biracial women could gain their freedom. In stark contrast to America during the late 18th Century, interracial relationships were never officially outlawed, but it was very rare for white men to officially marry women of color. More often, these women were mistresses and concubines, and any children from these relationships legally belonged to the father. Any relationship an enslaved woman undertook carried the risk of losing her children, with her past often used as a weapon of misogynoir, or simultaneous racist and sexist discrimination.  

One plot line unites Island Queen and The Long Song: both July and Dorothy lose a daughter to their white slave holding father who wanted to raise them in England. This trauma drives July to poverty while Dorothy had to wrestle the trauma alongside her mission to to fight to secure manumission papers for her children and also to develop a source of income that cannot be controlled by the men in her life. 

Read more

TV

How The Long Song Spotlights Ignored Black Caribbean History

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

Books

How Bridgerton Season 2 Can Improve On Season 1

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

At one point, she engages in survival sex work, then finds work as a housekeeper. Eventually, she is able to start her own housekeeping and domestic worker agency. She was well aware that some of her employees would choose to have relations with their bosses, but she made sure that she was not seen as a brothel owner for legal reasons. This is in stark contrast to some of the characters from Harlots on Hulu where brothel ownership or their sex worker status was an open secret.This is another area where Black women would suffer worse consequences for perceived immorality in society compared to white women. In fact, rumors of sex work follow her  Dorothy doesn’t intefere if her housekeepers decide to engage in sex work but she insists on mutual consent.  Riley does not apply any modern notions of slut-shaming or anti-sex-worker rhetoric. The reader understands that options for women’s employment outside of domestic service in these island colonies were severely limited. 

Dorothy’s narrative exposes both vulnerability in her relationships with her children and her significant others and also in her resolve to maintain her status. Far too often, Black women in historical fiction are reduced to tropes such as the “strong Black woman” that are not realistic to historical or modern readers. Or even worse, authors who completely erase the presence of Black women in the late Georgian and Regency Era by only featuring white women. 

The challenge in reading Island Queen for those uninitiated in Caribbean history of this era is to separate our modern historical knowledge from the reality Dorothy faces. Although Riley’s narrative does not make excuses for her questionable decisions, the narration makes clear that Dortothy is navigating a racist, sexist and classist society. Part of Dorothy’s later wealth comes from owning slaves. This was not a decision based on wanting to inflict cruelty, but due to the power dynamics in colonial society which punished those who refused to participate in the slave trade. Dorothy opposes slavery but also realize that open rebellion will cost her life or the lives of those around her. She is not isolated from the violence of slave rebellions and of the consequences of suppression. Riley in the Author’s Note says Kirwan freed all of her slaves in 1833 when slavery in Demerara was officially outlawed.

Dorothy’s narrative may have the background makings of a tragedy, but Riley reveals that her life was ultimately a success. Kirwan built her business and eventually reunited most members of her family. She even saw her children marry successfully and met several of her grandchildren. None of her children lived in poverty and she prevented all of them from working as slaves. While some may wish her various relationships could have created a permanent happy ever after, the real satisfaction comes from seeing Kirwan preserve her legacy for the next generation. Real Black historical stories such as Kirwan’s are incredibly rare in US and UK media as wholly fictional composite characters dominate existing period dramas and historical fiction novels. Island Queen, if enough people read it, could become a TV or movie adaptation that would give viewers the real truths of late 18th Century/Regency Era Caribbean history. The genre is overdue for a biography adaptation led by Black writers without the white gaze. 

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Island Queen will be available in bookstores July 6th. You can order the book here.

The post From Bridgerton to Sanditon—Putting Island Queen in a Period Drama Context appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[mondscheinprinzessin]

I want to start writing fics but I am kind of scared my ideas are too silly or not realistic enough because I don’t actually know how people behave in real life, I’m not very sociable :(

Hello anon!

First of all, it’s great to hear that you want to dip your toes into writing. It’s a great hobby to have in my opinion. First rule is to have fun, never forget that. This is foremost about you, not to satisfy anyone else and go with their opinions.

Then second of all, as it is your writing you can do whatever you want with it! There are no such thing as too silly ideas. After all, crackfics and fics purely cantered around humour exist. The most ridiculous crossovers imaginable are written, published, read, and liked.

When it comes to realistic: It doesn’t have to be. And even if you want it to be and it doesn’t work out the way you intended then be assured that often readers won’t notice. Most flaws are only seen by you and not as big as a problem for everyone else. We’re the biggest critic of our works.

And not having a distinct social life won’t hinder you at all.

I’ve written fics about topics I have no connection to at all, but I was interested in it, so I just wrote them. I have never been in a fight, but I wrote one. I know nothing about flirting, but I incorporate it anyway. Same with basically a lot about the friendship within BC, I have no experience with this, I have barely any friends or a deeper connection with anyone. I just imagine what it could be like.

I’m sure you have watched a few shows and movies in your life or read books or fanfiction. I’m sure you picked up on a lot of how people behave around each other just from watching from the sidelines and unconsciously analyze their behaviour. You don’t have to go through it yourself to be able to write about it.

And also, you’re not the only person who is not very sociable. I bet there a lot of people out there who could relate to your story if you decide to portray it how you see the people around you.

I would say, start writing and see where it leads you. If you’re not confident in publishing it, you can find a person you trust and let them read over it and after you can still improve some parts. You can also publish it anonymously when you’re unsure about putting your name out with the story. Whatever you’re feeling comfortable with.

I hope this helped yout a bit. If you have any further questions or concerns, you can leave them in my askbox :)

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