Lvl. 24 // Libra // SPA & ENG //🇻🇪 (She/Her) Vivo con inocencia de niño, precaución de adulto y necedad de adolescente... Sometimes I write on Ao3: renegade__soul
Not sure who needs to hear this, but if it’s a helpful counterweight, I might as well:
I started watching and binged RWBY late last year and was taken aback by how much I fell in love with it. I’m not going to caveat that by going into its flaws either because I dont have to do that with any other flawed show I enjoy, and we’re all capable of assessing media in its totality.
And there are a lot of others who started the show during the hiatus that feel the way I do. So like…take comfort in that.
I’m new to the show and largely ignorant of fandom, but it’s a show with a looooong run time. So it inevitably has its critics, coming from a place of good faith, bad faith, calcified headcanons that dont pan out, the show going in a direction they dont like, etc etc.
I know it’s hard not to respond to a bad take, dug-in stance, or bad faith reading of something, but the only way to do that is just to be secure in the thing you enjoy and let others yell into the void/echo chamber. So if it helps, there are a lot of fans (including myself) who watched this narrative in one gulp — without the week-to-week or hiatus-to-hiatus or controversy-to-controversy thorns — who can see this show for what it is, and its a fun, enriching and rewarding one.
So just like…please, for yourself, just ignore the stuff that’s trying to ruin your enjoyment.
I need people to know how much harder it is to promote work that involves sex online, especially on social media.
(Yes, this is about being shadowbanned. Yes, this is about Patreon and Paypal and Tumblr's new tip jar feature. Which I can't access, of course, because my blog is "explicit".)
I write novels about queer women having adventures and falling in love. It's my full-time job. I don't make a lot of money, but that's okay, because I love what I do. I believe my books have a positive impact on my community.
Sometimes, the characters in my books have sex. But it's hard, so incredibly hard, to share my work online because it is considered "explicit".
There's no nudity or pornography on my blog, but my posts are all marked 'explicit' anyway. They're shadowbanned. Unsearchable. My blog itself is unsearchable. The only way I get in front of people's eyeballs is through reblogs.
AO3 (understandably, because of copyright concerns) does not allow me to link or advertise my books there, despite my fanfiction being quite popular. So I try and steer my readers toward tumblr. But they can't look me up and my blog is hidden from them. It doesn't matter what tags I use. I'm invisible.
Also, people on social media are shy. I totally get that. But because my books have a sapphic romantic element, with a couple sex scenes sprinkled through the action/adventure, people are hesitant to share. They're hesitant to review on Amazon or Goodreads (which I *really* need because of Amazon's draconian algorithm). They're hesitant to share my Patreon link.
And you know what? I don't entirely blame them. It is lovely when people share my work. Truly, it makes my day. But I get why some people don't feel safe enough to do so. Safety reasons, mental health reasons, etc. Which is why it's so important that my books, blog, and posts actually show up in the relevant places!
Yes, I want my readers to shout about how much they love my books. I need reviews on my work to attract new readers and grow my audience. But, come on. How much reach can I expect from word of mouth alone when the websites I use to promote myself are actively hostile toward my blog and posts?
I don't have a solution. I guess I just needed to vent.
But what happens when the team is plugging along on the path to get the hell out of Ever After, and one of WBY stops to ask Ruby what about Crescent Rose, because they've been moving along on their goal at such a good clip they haven't gotten to look for it?
What happens when Ruby doesn't even blink and just shrugs it off? What happens when, once pressed about it, she says "what do I need it for anymore anyway?" and her hopelessness is so pronounced she doesn't even care about the 'part of her soul' that became a huntress to help people anymore? Huh? What are you gonna do when Ruby Rose feels like she's failed so completely at being a fairytale hero even being in a fairytale isn't enough to inspire her out of her funk to want to help make the world better anymore?
#this bothers me about a lot of tumblr Discourse #that gleefully inverts vocabulary of derision and exclusion #instead of saying: maybe norms of oppression are bad actually (via oldshrewsburyian)
I dont really care if you use the term bisexual or pansexual, but what i DO care about is that you understand that bisexuality at NO stage in history was EVER trans-exclusionary. Bisexuality has always included trans folks, and non-binary folks, and the entire spectrum of gender between male and female, as well as Definitively Gender and agender. It has ALWAYS meant "attraction to more than one gender." It has NEVER meant "attraction to cis men and women only."
So, pan, bi, use whichever label you will. But do NOT buy into the recent-years innacurate concept that bisexuality is attraction to cis men and women only, because thats literally never been the case.
Opening old wounds that one had buried and forgotten can hurt more that the ones that recently healed. Coming home and meeting an old friend was never supposed to be this bittersweet.
Mélie & Amicia. Post Requiem Epilogue.
This drabble was written in about 20 minutes while I was in a writer's block for another fic I should probably be writing in. I am not proud but I'm not sorry. Enjoy!
Fallen leaves crunch beneath boots that carry a soft march with them. It's a pace one takes while wandering, while feeling nostalgic, while admiring the surroundings. The forest ends at the sight of civilization, though abandoned and left to rot: a city that burned down, that couldn't be saved, the memories that once were warm are now painful to see up close. Amicia thinks it was a bad idea to go back.
Unbeknownst to the last de Rune, the last spark of life left in the God forsaken city is one that is trapped in by a collar– one that she didn't think she'd see again. The felon is barely breathing, afflicted by the Bite. It is embarrassing to not be caught for years but the one thing that kills her is a goddamn illness. Her mind's drifting but her senses still keep her aware, though one would think it is her mind playing tricks on her but she knows better when she recognizes the silhouette of a girl approaching.
She closes her eyes and smiles sadly. One's in relief and joy, because at least she got to see her again. Two in nostalgia and sorrow, because this may be the last time they see each other and she would've liked to see her while in a better state, physically and mentally, instead. Mélie doesn't try to speak, she knows her throat is dry and the effort may only get her closer to her demise. She just opens her eyes to regard the former noble. Amicia had changed a lot, Hugo's not with her, her clothes make her look more like a warrior than the princess she used to remember, her hair is short– shorter than she had seen a woman sport ever, and fuck everything and her miscalled sin, she looks regal even with all the dust and dirt on her. Mélie then wishes she hadn't left.
Amicia recognizes the blue eyes amongst the ashes and the scarred skin. The mischief is gone, the playfulness is gone, the voice that carried so much irony and sarcasm doesn't come and fill her ears, the banter doesn't happen; and so she just mourns in advance of what could have been. She walks over but notices that Mélie tries to move back, slowly and painfully in vain, as if not wanting her to come closer at all. She noticed the signs of the Bite while approaching but it didn't stop her, it hasn't stopped even after two years of his death.
Mélie tries to look up and meet her gaze, but the collar makes the action difficult. So carefully tiptoeing around to find the chains, she brandishes her sling and frees her old friend without touching her at all. The thief can barely stand but Amicia can't do anything but watch, feeling her chest tighten at the sight, unable to do anything – once again. She had already resigned herself to these situations. Every single friend and companion she had, died in front of her or in her arms. It didn't make it any easier though.
The scar, shaped as a hook: guilt so deeply entrenched that it is quite literally sunk into her flesh.
The cane, its handle as a hook turned upside down, as a mirror of that scar — one may escape one's reflection upon glass or water, but not this doubled shape upon which she must carry her own weight (and by whose blade she may now also protect herself, her sisters, her beliefs). It's the recollection of a past mistake (foolishly allowing a mother to die) permanently at play, inescapable.
(And then the Grace that comes with repentance and death and rebirth, hooks at last pulled out, redemption through the love of a daughter rather than the forgiveness of a tyrannical Father... A daughter, as she was a daughter then, as if a portion of pardon came from a reflection of herself in Ava, of who Suzanne used to be, who caused this to begin with.)
