Fandoms and Stuff

[polytrixaf]

dont forget that YOU 🫵 are the backbone of this fandom. oh but im not a- DONT CARE. write a bad fic, draw that silly art, make that tumblr post with your headcannon. oh but i have nothing to share- DONT CARE. kudos that fic, write a nice comment, gush in the tags of a reblog.

YOU 🫵 ARE CREATING A FANDOM SPACE BY EXISTING AROUND AND ENCOURAGING CONTENT CREATION

what YOU 🫵 say has impact. make it a good one.

[undertheinfluencex1]

The most underrated act of kindness is letting people be. Let them mispronounce a word, talk too much about a show they love, or get excited about something you don't understand. Everyone got something that lights them up. let them shine, even if it's not your thing

[creativepromptsforwriting]

I do not write to be the greatest writer out there. I write because...

I LIKE it

someone else might LIKE it

it is FUN to do

I get those THOUGHTS out of my head

it's fun to look BACK on

have I mentioned it's FUN?

it's CATHARTIC

it's nice to see what I CAN DO

And also because I just like it.

[boykingscourt]

10,000 lebanon fics where john realizes sam defers to dean and then john realizes that this horrifies him please

[awesomebutunpractical]

The first draft philosophy that has finally gotten me writing for fun isn't "worst version of story" type framing, it's "tell the story to yourself."

Your story isn't ready for polished prose, you don't know what happens yet. This doesn't make it Bad Writing, it's a different type of writing. And this ties into why I think the plotter vs pantser debate misses the mark - both detailed outlines AND make-it-up-as-you-go first drafts are ways to make up the story. This part is for you, so how you do it should be whatever is the most fun or satisfying way to tell yourself the story.

[auncyen]

This is something I've been trying to grow into! Basically, I want my first draft to be "all the scenes I'm excited to write" + "scenes OR notes to explain to myself how it ties together"

and then maybe let it sit for a breather

and THEN come back to "ok. what do I need to add/restructure so someone ELSE gets the story."

[maybeiwasjustjade]

This might be a truly unpopular opinion, but I don’t think Arthur’s failure to repeal magic was solely his fault, but rather Merlin’s and Gaius’—to an extent. At least, the latter two shared equal responsibility in whatever future that never came to pass.

Because if there’s one thing the show repeatedly bludgeoned over audience heads, it’s that when allowed the chance to make the right choice, Arthur always does. But in order for him to make that choice, he has to be allowed to make them in the first place—something Merlin, unfortunately, often took away from him. We see this with Morgause, with the Disir, with Dragoon even, and so many more that might’ve happened off screen. Arthur was willing to listen (or coerced into listening) but sometimes they didn’t even allow him that choice.

How could he, as king, make the extremely dangerous decision to repeal the ban on magic after 25 years of zaelous persecution if no one would even grant him the dignity of having an honest-to-god, truthful, conversation?

Because you can’t just unban something like magic all wily-nily the way we do in fanfic! It has to make sense; it has to be logical and be allowed to carry the weight and political ramifications fanfics could simply skip over with enough time skips to the happy ever after. Magic was banned and persecuted for 25 years before Uther’s death at the hands of magic (accidental on Merlin’s part, but was Morgana’s doing). Arthur spent a large chunk of his adult life getting attacked and nearly murdered because of Uther’s sins, and even his ascension to ruling monarch was tainted by a magical attack. Camelot was subjugated by Morgana—who most knew as a nice, sweet girl until she went missing and came back an evil, murdering Witch.

Did y’all honestly think it was ever going to be that easy?!!!???

I think the fact that no one, not even Gwen, ever brought up repealing the ban legally and politically just shows that no one actually knew what that would entail. It was always about safety, about no longer having to fear being hunted down like an animal. It was freedom, in a sense, to be themselves without certain death. But if that were the case, what’s so different about that and Arthur’s short-lived reign?

Five years Arthur ruled as King, and do we ever see or hear about him hunting down or persecuting magical beings? I don’t mean people who committed crimes who so happen to have magic—those are just criminals and Arthur was allowed to deal with those as is his right. I meant actual innocent Druids and Sorcercers who were killed simply for having magic, because to be honest I don’t even remember seeing him arrest anyone without some kind of accusation of a crime. Not even Kara, who was executed for trying to assassinate Arthur and not because she happened to have magic!

And to top it all off, when was the last time Arthur was even allowed to make a knowledgeable, educated decision on something magic-related that wasn’t somewhat tainted or manipulated by Merlin (and Gaius and the damned dragon)? They wouldn’t even have an honest conversation with him about his mother, and frankly, Ygraine’s death was probably the easiest way to ease Arthur into accepting magic once and for all. Because he was willing to listen, you know? More than once, he gave the people he loved the chance to actually be truthful and no one ever took him up on it.

And sure, most were too scared of Uther or Arthur’s own reaction, but really, I think they were all just too scared to make the leap because what would they do if it turned out their preconceived notions of Arthur were all wrong? If in the end he cared more about being lied to for years and years and years, than he ever did them having magic? Maybe then they wouldn’t be able to convince themselves that it was all for the better that he didn’t know; maybe then they can just watch him make decisions blindly without all the information and perhaps choose wrong, and sigh to themselves asking why they were disappointed in the first place. Then the fault would be on Arthur for being his father’s son, and not on them, for making sure he’d never escape that role in the first place.

I just think it’s so interesting that anyone who ever met and got to know Arthur ended up respecting him and loving him, even. How even his enemies and foes could look at him and see someone who’d be a great king, someone they’d respect and follow and die for, all by being himself. It’s almost as if when you allow someone to make their own decisions or to interact with them beyond your own preconceived notions of what they would and could do, they might even surprise you. Even Mordred, after Kara, didn’t think Arthur was beyond saving. Beyond understanding. It was Morgana who wrote him off, even when Arthur himself never once did anything to her. Who would have loved her and protected her from Uther had he known.

But it’s so hard to be a great king, to be prophesied as some kind of messiah for a whole nation, when everyone lies to your face but gets upset when you make the wrong decision because of it. When they lie because they’re too scared you’d make the wrong decision, and end up doing so because of it.

[omegajor]

software for writers

okay many people are tired of google docs and their fucked up privacy policies so i went into my own search for alternatives but most of them are online with a subscription plan and i refuse to spend my money on that. also, most of the alternatives out there have ai plugged in in one way or another, so i've decided to curate my own list of recomendations. this is the criteria:

has to be free, possibly offline as i don't fully trust clouds

has to be free of ai, or, in the worst case, it doesn't have to be one of the main features

made for writers

Ellipsus

free

online, web based

clear anti-ai stance

direct export to ao3

lots of templates to choose from, very clearly catered towards fic writers

has a feature to include collaborators so you can share it with beta readers and they can comment on the doc

plenty of customization options

cons:

the only big downside i see (for now) is that it's still in beta so we don't really know how the monetization will work yet. they stated that the current free features will stay free, so it's a matter of trust i guess.

if you're the type that needs boards and timelines and such you will need something else to do that

also the spellchecker is still a work in progress

Wavemaker

free and open-source

online, web based, although it works locally so it doesn't hoard any of your data

has an option to sync with google drive

many planning features if that's your jam, boards and sticky notes and such

cons:

i'm not sure if it works properly offline

not many customizations options if that's a must for you

it has an ai option, tho it's optional and you have to sign up for that

novelWriter

free and open-source

offline, but you can easily set up your own sync

plenty of options to export

very customizable

many tools for planning and managing bigger stories

it's the one i'm currently using it and i think it's severely underrated!!!

cons:

the ui might not be the prettiest for your likes, tho, again, is highly customizable

if you're the kind of person who gets overwhelmed when there are too much options this might not be for you

you might have to download your own spellcheckers if you write in anything else than english

similar to word or google docs

LibreOffice

free and open source

offline, available for any os

as it is offline none of your data is stored or used to train ai

you can easily set it with your own cloud service

cons:

some people don't really like the ui, but i think it's gotten a lot better and user friendly

the spellcheckers aren't as good as microsoft words for what i've seen, at least if you write in something else than english

OnlyOffice

free and open source

offiline, the same as before tho many people prefer it over LibreOffice in regards to the ui

it has a paid cloud service but also easy to set up with your own or selfhost

cons:

has ai integration, i don't know how invasive it is

markdown based

if you're more inclined to markdown editors but also would like to avoid notion due to privacy or anti-ai reasons, these are some options

Obsidian

very useful for worldbuilding, plotting and planning in general

offline first, available for any os. you can either pay for obsidian sync or set up your own sync system.

truly customizable, with the right set of plugins you can turn it into your own personal writing suite. the most used by authors i've seen are Longform, Readability Score, LanguageTool and KeepTheRhything, and there are plenty of videos of authors sharing their own set ups

cons:

if you're the kind of person who procrastinates by customizing things and trying to find the perfect set of tools before even starting, you'll probably have to be careful of falling into the rabbit hole of obsidian vids.

it isn't really made for long writing so you might feel some friction with that even with the right amount of plugins

it's easy to get overwhelmed by the variety of tools that it offers and that maybe serve not purpose to your writer needs

Ghostwriter

free and open source

offline, but as any other can be easily synced by your own means

minimalistic but it has some writer oriented features like stats and outlines

cons:

it's mostly for linux, with a portable app for windows and on mac you gotta do your own compiling

i think it doesn't come with it's own spellchecker

Joplin

free and open source

offline, with a paid cloud plan and plenty of resources to sync it by yourself

similar to obsidian, very customizable and a jack of all trades

plenty of plugins too!

cons:

it might have a steeper learning curve as the ui isn't as friendly as obsidian

again, you might get lost in the rabbithole of endless customization

for the techies out there…

VisualStudio Code

free and open source

has plenty of easily accesible extensions

i've seen someone say it has a really neat export to markdown tool, big if true

there are some tutorials out there for you freaks

cons:

it's owned by microsoft so expect your usual telemetry and ai integration

i don't know just because you can it doesn't mean you should

Emacs

free, open source

endless customization options

if you wanted an excuse to dig your nails into emacs this is your chance

there are many tutorials of people helping you set up your writing enviroment

cons:

if you're not into tinkering and getting your hands on the mud for your software then this might be actually scary

i don't know i tried one tutorial and failed ok

Vim

free and open source

the same, the possibilities are endless

big if you hate to use the mouse

cons:

i don't know i haven't even tried but i've seen people use it so. it can be done ig

ALTERNATIVES FOR THE CLOUD

if you refuse to pay for another cloud service, many people use the ones they already have, or selfhost if they're more tech savvy. i personally use Syncthing which works end-to-end on my local network, synchronizing my desktop pc with my laptop. it only works when they're both online, so if you need immediate access to changes this might not work for you, but on my side i only use it to have a backup. if you are still using Google Drive for some reason or another, you can as well install it on your computer and use it as a backup for any of the offline apps. i think Dropbox works the same. Proton Drive also has been gaining popularity between the privacy enthusiasts, and it has 5GB free it seems. other people use iCloud, tho i don't own any apple products so idk about that. whichever of these you choose, you're still dependant of those companies to keep your files safe, so always have a local backup if possible. lastly, i've seen many people (mostly the one's that use obsidian or something from the techie section) use git and upload it to a private github repository or another service for git management. you always have the choice to host your own server, tho i can't really guide you on that there are plenty of tutorials and documentation online, and the only downside if that maybe you don't have the same safety net as the Big Companies tm in case your server breaks

[animentality]

[poppyseed-art]

[ruegarding]

hello! I hope your having a good day! If you don't mind me asking, what is your opinion on the Cupid Scene in Hoo? And if you could how would you change it?

my opinion on the cupid scene…well, i don't think a traumatic coming out scene is automatically bad. the problem i have w it is that rick capitalized on shock value instead of good writing. rick retconned a bunch of things to make nico alone and miserable so that he could have this scene, and it was completely unnecessary. ppl can have friends without coming out. and, as i’ve repeatedly said, the way hoo is written is literally a repeat of his arc in pjo but worse, because we’re acting like important events in pjo didn’t happen in a series that’s supposed to be a sequel to pjo and rick is inconsistent so the payoff is questionable.

the solution is…good writing. creating a cohesive and intriguing plotline where this scene is either necessary or scrapped if it isn’t.

thus begins an unnecessarily deep dive into all the retcons, inconsistencies, and general what-the-fuckery of nico’s arc in hoo bc i’m the verbose king and we've accidentally stumbled into something i have a lot to say abt.

first retcon. in son, frank explicitly says that nico does not make him nervous and describes nico as mysterious. not weird, creepy, off-putting, or anything similar. and nico is! he is clearly hiding things and shows up infrequently. this is a neutral description, and frank goes on to say that pluto’s powers, and specifically the underworld, isn’t enough to make him dislike pluto or nico.

also this, showing nico is comfortable enough around frank:

but then in hoh, frank thinks going somewhere with nico, alone, is terrifying.

at worst, frank would’ve felt awkward. they’ve never had to talk alone bc nico is at camp jupiter for hazel and doesn’t have any reason to talk to frank by himself. if frank didn’t want to be alone w nico bc of that, it’d make sense. but that’s not what’s said or implied! and nothing has happened! nico got kidnapped, they saved him, and since then he’s been chilling on the boat, exactly as weird as before, if a little more understandably distressed. like, nothing happened to change frank’s opinion this drastically. even the difference between pluto and hades (wealth vs death) doesn’t matter bc nico uses his powers in son. also frank literally summons a skeleton guy in son and hazel is a zombie, like…

(the source isn’t important but i've been quoting these five seconds for years)

oh! and that’s not all, it gets worse!

these scenes from hoh are incredibly infantilizing. why are we treating nico like a feral dog that needs to be domesticated??? yikes. and once again, it’s not true! nico was fine talking w ppl in pjo (if a bit over-enthusiastic). and then in son he was perfectly civil and was fine having the conversation abt the quest. his issue w ppl was that his powers/parentage put ppl off, and, even in son, that he had to keep a secret.

nico is perfectly capable of speaking like a normal person and working as part of a team (see: final botl battle, final tlo battle, the sword of hades). like, nico’s struggle in hoh should be 1) that ppl are calling him creepy behind his back (and therefore has nothing to do w his social skills) and/or 2) that he just survived an incredibly traumatic experience and is understandably withdrawn. neither of these are properly addressed and instead the implication is that nico is hiding himself bc he’s gay and everything will be solved if he accepts himself.

edit: i never actually explicitly stated this, but nico's queer coding and disability coding overlap, which is why this infantilization/ableism is important enough to highlight despite the conversation specifically being abt the queer aspect of it.

second retcon. percy…as i’ve said many times before, percy explicitly calls nico his friend in tlo.

this immediately makes hoo trying to act like they don’t know each other and were never close a retcon. they were friends, they saw each other frequently, nico made silly jokes w percy…and we’re ignoring all of this in hoo.

i've talked abt this previously (in response to tsats), but nico is the one putting distance between him and percy. percy reached out to nico repeatedly thru pjo.

when percy notices that nico excludes himself, percy finds a private place to talk to nico and assures him that percy wants him around and offers solutions to his discomfort (this is not percy’s responsibility. percy is a child). when nico insists that he won’t stay, percy sees it from nico’s perspective and, instead of forcing nico to do something against his will that may totally backfire, says “i hope we don’t have to be enemies,” leaving room for nico to decide whether he’s willing to be friends.

bc percy understands the root of nico’s issue (that no matter the accommodations made at camp, there’s always going to be the implicit message that he doesn’t belong there), he addresses it and uses his wish to make sure that nico has a home at camp.

and when nico tries to prove he’s useful, percy proves he would’ve invited him in whether nico was or not. bc he thinks nico deserves to be a kid.

“i wonder if [nico] had ever had a birthday party,” percy thinks at his own birthday party where he didn’t invite his friends bc he felt it was too much of an inconvenience, in a story where he never had friends prior to these ppl he didn’t invite, and the only person he had for twelve years of his life was his own mother. and percy uses his own loneliness to empathize w how lonely nico is.

percy is not some distant figure nico is idolizing. he's a kid trying his best to care for another kid at a time where no one else did, while experiencing his own trauma. all of their hang-ups exist bc of that.

going back to their relationship in hoo, even trying to make percy uncomfortable w nico’s powers (and therefore not wanting to associate w nico) doesn’t work bc percy has gone on record and said he thinks some of nico’s powers are cool and has neutral responses to others, not to mention percy is also a big three kid who makes other ppl wary (i could write a whole meta on how what percy finds disturbing w nico’s powers is directly tied to what percy finds disturbing w his own powers, but i’ll restrain myself. please clap).

and if that wasn’t enough, the entire reason percy stood up to hera in botl is bc she was willing to let nico die specifically bc he doesn't fit in bc of those powers.

this plotline was tired before it even began.

you could argue that all of this changed w nico’s betrayal in tlo. but then why didn’t percy tell anybody when it happened in tlo (annabeth would’ve reacted to it if he had)? why did percy trust nico to come when he called? why didn’t any of percy’s animosity come out afterwards at camp? and in the throne room, percy didn’t have to single nico out w his wish. he didn’t have to watch nico to make sure he was settling in. but he did. and because he did, any writing that suggests percy doesn't trust or care abt nico bc of that is bad writing. maybe rick forgot this, but u can be angry w and hurt by the ppl you love and still love them.

even the justification that nico lied in son isn’t good enough to completely change their relationship, bc it’s pretty clear why nico lied and percy says he can’t stay angry at nico when they rescue him, and let me remind u, anger is a core part of percy's character. while nico lying might be enough for characters like leo and jason, who have no rapport w him, to doubt him, it’s not enough for percy. and why are we so obsessed w dismantling percy and nico’s friendship anyway? why is that necessary to the story? like i said before, ppl can have friends without coming out. isolating the only queer character (at the time) isn’t necessary.

this conflict doesn’t even work in hoo bc their distance is still one-sided…

when did percy not give nico a second chance in hoo? the only times they’ve interacted prior to this was when percy remembered nico in son and tried to talk to him and then when they saved his life. and then nico brushes off percy's gratitude and tells him to back off. this is not nico idolizing percy who doesn't care abt him. this is percy reaching out and yet again nico putting distance between them.

and, obviously, this doesn’t work at all w pjo when the entirety of botl exists, you know, where percy chose to trust and protect nico and then went out of his way to make sure nico knew percy held none of nico’s anger against him. it’d be one thing if nico was supposed to be wrong, but considering how there’s an entire arc in hoo abt jason being the first person to trust nico, and tsats seriously acts like percy only ever talked to nico when he needed something, it’s safe to say this comes from a place of stupidity.

ok. this sections getting long, so i moved the it was stupid to have percy give jason a reason to doubt nico section to a new post. but know that i'm aware and i think it's stupid.

back to the point of all these retcons w percy. there's nothing in hoo that necessitates changing percy and nico's relationship from pjo. while percy in hoo is never cruel to nico, they act like strangers for some reason. so, it's changed for no reason and it's written poorly.

sigh. and then all of chb is retconned (or recycled if you’re feeling generous).

the ppl at camp accept him while his cabin gets built. pretty nice. then in boo nico reveals they got tired of him after a week–which is still summer–despite there being an influx of kids from all descents, some of whom would be weird or uncomfortable or whatever this justification is. that’s not even mentioning how percy’s own experiences (remember how he was ostracized…multiple times…) should have made them more accepting of nico.

why…was this necessary at all…? especially when u have an entirely different camp that treats nico as weird bc they didn’t have that good experience w him? this is really what gets me. if rick wanted to be lazy and repeat nico’s arc, he could’ve done so without retconning things.

for example, with the seven, leo, piper, jason, and maybe annabeth (she doesn’t have much to say abt nico in pjo), i could understand having animosity towards nico, as well as camp jupiter, but retconning established relationships to make ur only (at the time) queer character isolated and miserable only to then have his coming out be violent and traumatic is. well. bad! especially when the person who is w him for that experience is not someone he has built any sort of camaraderie w. nico isn’t choosing to trust jason, he’s being forced to.

and the whole nico-needs-to-learn-to-trust-ppl plot doesn’t work anyway bc of rick’s inconsistencies.

jason has a moment much like frank where he doesn’t want to go anywhere w nico bc nico is so weird and scary. nico has every right to pull himself away from ppl who treat him like he’s got something contagious. and there’s more:

“since when does jason defend nico,” as in they have shit on nico before and jason has not, in the past, defended nico. as in nico had every reason to not trust jason prior to this bc everyone, including jason, were talking shit behind his back. why are we acting like nico is being unreasonable? oh no, y’all are talking behind my back…clearly it’s my fault bc i push everyone away and that has nothing to do w ur behavior or anything…yes this is good writing.

and we’re supposed to believe that jason (and reyna and hedge and will) is the first person to be kind/reach out to nico, but we have this scene from botl where percy comforted nico and gave him a piece of his childhood back:

and this is after percy cleared the air to make sure nico knew he didn’t hate him and offered to make accommodations for nico at camp and then respected and understood why nico wouldn’t want to. like,

woah, you’re telling me that a character reaches out to nico after a traumatic experience in an act of kindness and this helps nico grow as a person? and it happens multiple times?! yeah, apparently rick and fandom have completely forgotten abt this (also hazel exists???). they’re even phrased similarly! “maybe it’s time to take a risk and embrace something you’ve pushed away.” furthermore, they both support their point by helping nico, percy by inviting nico into his home to enjoy cake and ice cream, jason by drinking from the chalice. once more w feeling: nico has been loved the entire goddamn time!

i get what rick was trying to accomplish w the whole cupid scene concept. which is that it’s okay to be gay and that it can feel very “othering” to be gay. nico has to accept himself in order to make friends. that’s what this

and this

are trying to say, right, but this doesn’t work when you’ve blatantly retconned established relationships to have characters push nico away for his powers/parentage/whatever. nico’s struggle is not an internal issue that can be solved by accepting himself, it’s an external issue caused by how other ppl treat him for his powers/parentage (which he has never been shown to reject btw).

the thing is, the powers-as-queerness metaphor only works when you don’t have, you know, characters who aren’t queer going through similar ostracization. not only was percy ostracized at chb in tlt for his powers/parentage (very similar to nico!), percy has a moment in this same book where his powers terrify annabeth, and then piper in the next book, in which he, you know, lets himself almost die to poison bc he feels like he “deserved it” for using those powers. again, this is not queer-coding for percy (unless…?). moreover, like i said, nico doesn’t reject his powers, so the whole queer-coding w powers and needing to accept himself is already iffy (...rejecting powers...hold the fuck up…percy isn’t…unless…). even the out-of-time metaphor doesn’t work bc it’s something he shares w hazel, who is not canonically queer (unless…?!). so, already, we’re on shaky metaphorical ground. all of this could work, theoretically, if combined w strong writing, but combined w the retconning and inconsistencies, this plotline makes no cohesive sense.

we’re supposed to believe that nico is the one pushing everyone away while they are secretly super supportive while simultaneously being shown that everyone talks and thinks shit that affirms nico’s thoughts abt them that makes him want to pull away. and then in boo we completely ignore that these ppl have been pushing nico away and suddenly everyone (reyna, hedge, will, etc) is supportive.

pick a struggle!

also nico’s coming out scene in boo sucked (yeah this is the segue).

this is the culmination of nico’s arc in hoo. he’s finally accepted himself enough to speak the truth without pressure. we ruined percy and nico’s established relationship for this. and they don’t even have a conversation. then nico walks over to will bc percy, “regular guy” percy, is “not [his] type.” don’t look too deep into that.

so, how would i fix the cupid scene? well.

there were a million different ways to write a better arc for nico and earn that cupid scene. for example, rick could’ve stuck to a plotline.

the trust plotline could’ve been good. bc this exact thing is what causes the accidental kidnapping situation in tlo. nico doesn’t trust percy enough to tell him the truth and chooses to manipulate and lie to percy instead. this choice is what sets up their conflict bc percy views this as betrayal (something that’s important to a guy who’s fatal flaw is loyalty).

it’s also interesting bc nico does choose to trust ppl in hoo; he eats the pomegranate seeds despite not knowing that someone is coming for him, he just trusts that someone will (we’re ignoring what boo says abt nico’s tartarus experience bc fun fact! that is also retconned). and it pays off, bc not only does he get saved, we see hazel and percy even willing to challenge the other members of the seven to make sure he gets saved. so, it’s not a lesson he’s already learned, it’s a lesson he’s learning. but, going back to the main question here, would the cupid scene still be necessary? was being dragged into tartarus and almost dying not enough spectacle?

regardless, my biggest problem w the cupid scene in all of this is that it gives the impression that u have to come out in order to have ppl love u and trust u. a much better message to send is that the ppl who love u will love u before and after u come out. no isolation necessary.

[r0zeclawz]

its important to have a game on your wishlist that keeps going on sale every couple of months and you still never buy it

[satrinaflane]

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[satrinaflane]

[mistressaccost]

can you imagine 😭😭