Echo the Owl's Musings @echo-the-owl - Tumblr Blog

My hottest fanfiction take is I think people should stop posting multi-fandom oneshots as a single fic with like 50+ chapters and instead post them as individual fics

frontmansdefender

imadeasideblogjusttopostthisjoke

aoiberrie

express rendezvous

leonardcohenofficial

back at it for the third year in a row—how far down in your 2025 spotify wrapped playlist does the first black artist appear?

2-5

6-10

11-20

21-40

41-60

61-80

81-100

none (embarrassing)

Voting ended onDec 7, 2025

every year that i post this poll people MELT down and go out of their way to misinterpret the purpose of this exercise and just say insane racist shit; the "i don't pay attention to the race of the artists i listen to" comments also demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of this poll's goal—which is to get you to reflect on whether or not you engage with black music and black art and artists, and if you seem to avoid doing so, to ask yourself why that is

consuming media is not an inherently liberatory action but what it does open up are new paths for gaining cultural knowledge, appreciating creative innovation that you might not have otherwise consciously sought out, and also just allows you to check out a ton of great art. if you would like, feel free to share the song/artist in the tags to share recs! always easier to begin or continue diversifying your listening habits with suggestions :)

#ill be honest #i dont know the race of a lot of the artists on the list?#cuz i just dont know who they are beyond the song itself #so the first one i know for sure is the thirteenth song #but its possible there is one earlier #the first two songs in the list are chinese and number 5 is japanese #actually i dont know what language the first song is in but its from a chinese game #so my list is all over the place

papanowo

magma + some doodles i liked :p

#i dont go here #but my friend drew these #and they are very good

guineveresghost

Me: Okay, Brain. Think about what happens next in this chapter.

Brain: *Skips three chapters ahead*

Me: No, no. This one, this chapter, the one we are writing right now.

Brain:.......*47 scenes forward*

Me: NO

schkalanschen

I already kind of have the ending done but of the actual story I have about half 💀

an0neemouse

Being an author means rearranging twenty-six letters until they accurately portray just the right amount of information and feeling. Yes, we're all insane.

iimjustwanderingg

Insanely in love with all twenty-six letters.

naruta-deactivated20201013

you have to roleplay your url every time you open tumblr how screwed are you

#hoot hoot

fairycosmos

being an ugly bisexual who doesn't really date is so funny. hypothetically i should be fuckingggggg but none of that is happening

epitome-of-an-openbook

I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but more people should read incomplete/unfinished/in-progress fanfics.

I've noticed this huge trend where creators on tiktok and tumblr who will be explaining how to use Archive Of Our Own to new users and they always say "and make sure to scroll down and click completed only" or how people will go out of their way to mention they only read completed fics 'because they were traumatized when they forgot to check the dates and didn't realize this fic hadn't been updated since 2012'.

The thing is - I think by not engaging with and/or actively avoiding writer's WIPs readers are potentially adding to the aggregate of abandoned works. Now this obviously isn't the case for all abandoned fics, anything from major life events, to loss of interest, to getting busy can be a reason for a fic getting abandoned - but at least on some level I just know that writers are quitting while they're ahead when they aren't garnering any response or feedback because reading WIPs has become unpopular. If you're worried about reading something that hasn't been updated since 2012 then you can use the date updated function to sort out old fics.

Anyways, support your favorite fanfic writers by engaging with their WIPs.

mrsmungus

Legit, getting a subscription on a fic I'd abandoned 10 years earlier spurred me into action to finish it (and write a sequel!)

epitome-of-an-openbook

#The journey of reading a fic while it's updating is part of the fun!

Yes exactly this! I love subscribing to fics forgetting about them a bit and then being pleasantly surprised when they update again and they show up in my inbox. It makes me feel like I'm a Charles Dickens fan living in 1830s London waiting patiently for his new chapter to be released via the daily paper.

#as someone who writes multichaptered fics often #part of the fun is the interaction after each new chapter #cliff hangers and anticipation fall so much shorter when you binge a fic

cringecorp

they say you can't pour from an empty cup but i've been doing it my whole life and aside from all of these mysterious ailments it's working out great for me

sweet-coconat

Tribbie asks only valid questions.

aspenflame-song

she really called them out

bigfrozensix

“Ariel sold her voice for legs just because of a guy“

Meanwhile Ariel with legs;

Ariel already loved the human world long before meeting Eric (you don’t get a collection like hers overnight) and when she finally got a chance to explore it, she took it.

Ursula made it more about Eric than Ariel ever did.

gae-bolg-alternative-dot-exe

atalana

and i mean hell this has been talked about before in more depth than i can, but when people complain about how the ending was changed (the original fairytale does not give ariel a happy ending, she dies trying to protect the prince), i think about the fact that this was written by a gay man in the 1980s

and i think it’s entirely valid (and gives her an extremely strong connection to the queer community) to change the story so she doesn’t die because of who she loves

starlitskvader

Triton made escape a necessity. Once someone goes to the point of destroying your possessions in a violent rampage, there is no staying and sticking it out, there’s no safety. (And Ariel, even in Ursula’s lair, gave Triton more thought than he deserved at the time.) Nowhere in the ocean she could go and be safe. Everyone’s always ‘why don’t they just leave :|’ in abusive situations until the leaving is not something they find 100% worthy of approval.

Ursula made it about Eric. She didn’t have to. Ariel had to get out from under Triton’s thumb, it could have been literally anything. Ursula took advantage of a desperate victim for her own agenda. Realistic predatory behavior toward a vulnerable person.

And also

There’s always the ‘Eric didn’t want her until she was silent and meek’ criticism - FIRST OF ALL he started out looking for a woman who wasn’t silent, and second of all what part of the carriage driving bit (or any of her other actions on land) is meek, exactly?

People above have noted the queer subtext. Now, on the subject of Ariel being willing to leave her family, aside from the baseline ‘this is an abusive environment and she was not safe there’ angle I already mentioned, consider: Ariel’s father made it clear he would stop at nothing to crush and tear down who she was and replace it with what he wanted her to be. Now - what demographic might that resonate with? And given Ashman’s involvement, do you think that was a coincidence?

tokidokifish

there has been scholarly discussion about the idea that the og little mermaid story, where she dies at the end, was written as a queer allegory.

so taking that into account… there is something very touching about taking this story from hans christian andersen from beyond the grave and being like “things are different now. they get to be happy. she gets to live.”

atropus-belladonna

This is why I forever will say she is transfeminine. This post does a better job of explaining it than I ever could, and will forever be what I show to people when I defend my claim.

Her story is sososo similar to that of myself and a handful other trans people I’ve known, where we have siblings or close friends (in Ariel’s case, her sisters, Sebastian, and Flounder) who don’t get it, but still try to help out, and then we have an older person, who helps us to learn more about our community, whom we’re maybe not allowed to be around, for risk of disrupting the box we live in. (For me, it was my lovely robotics teacher, she has helped me in ways I cannot begin to describe, and forever will be a woman I strive to emulate)

Eventually, we get pushed to a point, where our parents, or other family members, make an ultimatum, and we run, to someone we maybe don’t know, but that we have heard can help us (clinics, places we can get hormones), as Ariel runs to Ursula, who gives her what she wants, for a price…

She loses her family, and her ability to speak for herself. Do any trans folk here relate? Because I sure as hell do. In my real life, where I’m not out to most people, I’m respected and my voice is heard, my opinion considered. There are people who see me on the internet who see the trans flag and start ignoring my very valid concerns, and when I ask questions, explain it as if I were stupid.

Eventually, she finds someone, who loves her, deeply and truly, for who she is. And that love, that respect, and the fact her family almost lost their daughter and sister, is what leads her to her happily ever after, at least in the movie. A family overcoming its internal transphobia, so they don’t lose the one they lose.

The book, follows a different story. She doesn’t get her happily ever after, she dies, and is not mourned as the human. She is mourned as a mermaid.

Unfortunately, reflecting the way many trans people, who find their only acceptance and way to peace in the blade of a knife or barrel of a gun, take their own life, and they are not mourned as their true self, but as their deadname, by the same people who don’t realize they pushed them to that edge.

I know I almost ended up there, and it was only the love of the people who served the same role Eric does in that story- the person who loves unconditionally the trans person in question, regardless of how they were born and raised.

This has been my mini essay on why Ariel is the ultimate trans icon, and by extension, why I have her name as one of my middle names :3

kawareo

Got reminded again of my old coworker who was a massive misogynist but also trans inclusive. Told me he believed trans women are indeed women because "only women would be stupid enough to want to be women"

I wonder what he's doing now

kawareo

He also aggressively corrected himself whenever he accidentally misgendered a trans guy we knew because "there's already more women than men in the world, the more numbers we steal from them, the better." Did that even when the trans guy wasn't around.

kawareo

I need to point out that he was completely serious btw. This man had no sense of humor if he tried.

He was a cook at the restaurant/bar I was a bartender at, and almost punched a costumer once because he overheard him talking about how women belong in the kitchen. Told me he thought women should stay out of kitchens, that cooking is a man's job and when I asked him what he thinks women should be doing, he went quiet for a moment, then proceeded to explain to me the following

"I trust a bitch to run a kitchen as much as she can run a country, they should do shit like plumbing. Or electricity. Something you can just learn to do and don't need to lead, you know?"

Apparently women are good at "fixing shit". He claimed that he doesn't trust male plumbers or electricians except if they're gay because "something most be wrong with you if you want to go fix other people's houses, that's that maternal instinct"

kawareo

Love that you guys seem to like the stories about my Guy, here's another. (also for context i need to say that english is not the language he spoke, and when i say 'fag', i'm using it for our version of the slur. Our Guy insisted that that's just how you call gay people in our language (it isn't))

We had an openly gay coworker who looked like it (crop tops, dyed hair, make-up) and he was often harassed by the waiters from the football bar next door. The gay dude had the same name as the Guy, who insisted that we would specify the he isn't gay, so they just became "Name" and "Not Gay Name". He was fine with that.

Oh he also once went on a rant about how he respects our gay coworker more than "those other fags" because "at least he has the balls to look like a fag, yknow? None of that sneaky shit where you can't tell if they're trying to fuck you or your girlfriend." When I then told him I was bi, he looked me over and called me some slurs before telling me that I don't need to rub it in that I can get both. Then he asked me if I think he's hot and when I told him no, he informed me I should stick with women because I clearly have shit taste.

kawareo

He once accidentally bullied one of our younger waitresses out of an early eating disorder she was developing before working there (she told me about it after)

Boss gave us one meal from the menu a day as a job bonus, and we had this very shy seventeen year old working with us who was already nervous around men, but Our Guy was a 6'3 dude who only stopped yelling and cursing when he was not speaking at all. If he was the one cooking that day, he'd peek out of the kitchen an hour before he'd start closing it up, and would shout at you if you haven't ordered your meal yet because he hated cooking once he already cleaned. The waitress was scared shitless of him, and so whenever he would yell at her to "fucking order already", she'd panic and just pick something.

She didn't eat much but the first time she tried to throw out almost the whole plate, he got so personally insulted that he berated her for not picking something she'd like, and demanded to know what he did wrong. He got really upset about apparently not being able to cook something that this kid would like and I'm pretty sure he started putting in extra effort to make sure she would eat it this time? It lead to him quite literally standing over her like a hawk when she ate to "see her reaction" and demand an immediate review to see what he can improve.

She later told me that it she was so scared and awkward around him back then that it kind of overrode her fear of food, and that she still sometimes pretends she's back there, when she feels a bad episode coming on, so. He did do something good for the world i guess

kawareo

Our Guy met a nonbinary person once when my friend came to visit me at work. He was just on a smoke break so I had to introduce them and when I said "They're visiting" he got confused and asked us how many people are there (and then threatened murder if they dare order something while he's on a break). I had to explain this man what a nonbinary person is, he thought about it for a second, called the whole thing "fucking stupid, there ain't that shit in nature" and then proceeded to very mockingly refer to them as (our language equivalent of) "your majesty" and use the pronouns you use for people you're supposed to respect (which is genderless and very formal)

My friend thought he was really funny before I explained to them that I'm pretty sure he thought he was being mean (but hey he it wasn't misgendering so yay)

Then (after his break) they ordered a vegan sandwich and we heard him cussing them out about how "they should pick a fucking struggle". Later I asked him about it and got told that "how much shit can you deny yourself? Cheese, gender, the fuck's next?"

veal7creative

"Cheese, gender, what the fuck's next?"

I like how his issue isn't with the "that shit ain't in nature" thing he mentioned, but the idea that being nonbinary is some form of self-deprivation and that they deserve a gender like everyone else.

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