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This is 100% a vent post and it should be treated as such.

I started posting on tumblr again. It's mostly random thoughts about the media I'm consuming/I'm fannish about and small updates. The thing is, I'm a craving a space for these kinds of posts, where I don't have to be as articulate as I am on dreamwidth, but I'm not sure tumblr is the place for it. Maybe it's a personal vendetta, since I've recently had a blog terminated. I've been posting and reblogging stuff on that blog since 2019, and one day, without any sort of notice or reason it got purged. I sent a couple emails to support but as you'd expect, didn't get anything back in return. So now I'm left thinking... this has happened to me once; who's to say it's not going to happen again?

I love tumblr as a space and what it offers. I love the userbase (more or less) and how fandom still thrives there, but the site itself is a mess. If I can't have the security of not getting my blog randomly purged then I'm not gonna feel like home there.

The things is, I couldn't find a better alternative. I love dreamwidth, but I don't feel like it's the place for this kind of posting: messy, disparating posts, reactions and first time impressions of things. The stuff I'm interested in isn't that popular on pillowfort or cohost and twitter/x is wayyy to toxic for me. It sucks, but I feel like tumblr is still my only alternative to expressing my thoughts, finding community and engaging with it.

All I can do is keep doing what I've been doing since 2021 -- back up all my posts. But that's hardly enough, because if my blog is gone it's not only my posts, but all the replies, comments, tags.

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I’ve always been a fan of AO3 and the idea of OTW as a whole. I mean, how could you not, seeing as these guys are actively trying to support and preserve fandom culture? Having a place where all fanworks are welcomed indiscriminately and neatly archived sounded like a dream come true. It was a dream come true.

Except, well, you know…

AO3 has a lot of problems, and while I am extremely thankful for its existence and for the possibility to safely host my fanworks somewhere, I am not going to delude myself into thinking the OTW is a perfect organization. They have a big racism problem that they still haven’t addressed, years after. And now, on top of everything, the AI generated works bullshit. A lot of great points have been made regarding the matter and while I’m not going to go over them yet again (I invite you to scroll through the eight hundred something comments left on the original announcement), I can’t help point out the hypocrisy behind the OTW’s stance: they are against data scraping but have no problem hosting the results of said data scraping.

I think this is the proverbial slap in the face for a lot of fans that have been defending OTW and AO3 no matter what — they’re run by people, and people are shitty. While I get that the OTW ass kissing made sense in the anti/proship debate, I’ve seen a lot of people that take the archive for granted and are extremely uncritical about it. Yes, it is not run by a megacorp that wants to harvest our data and make a profit out of it, but it is still an organization, and a pretty big one at that. Organizations are run by people with agendas, and that’s a fact.

Perhaps there is a way out of this — as I said, OTW is not a megacorp that deals in user data and ads to generate revenue. Things can change through voting. Donating to OTW doesn’t only ensure that the archive stays running, but also that your voice as an user gets heard, and I encourage everyone to make your voices heard. Will anything change substantially? It’s hard to say. It’s been three years since their promises to address the racism in the community, but nothing has really changed. Perhaps the decision regarding the hosting of AI-generated works will have a similar fate, and it will be something that people will learn to live with. Should we learn to live with things like these? Absolutely not, but perhaps this is the price that has to be paid in order to have a place of our own. It’s never going to be a perfect place and we shouldn’t pretend it ever was.

I genuinely wish there were alternatives to AO3. Not like FFN or wattpad, but alternatives made in the same spirit: by fans for fans, with maximum (although not unlimited) inclusivity, where any fanwork made out of love and good faith could find a place.

As for the time being, I am unsure what my future on AO3 is going to look like. I don’t necessarily want to archive-lock my fanworks, although that might be the best course of action. I am also wary about posting any new works on the archive, at least until we get a clear, not half-assed announcement regarding OTW’s stance on AI-generated works.

(crossposted on tumblr)

Here I am with some Patalliro meta because if I don't do it then who will, am I right?

I love Patalliro — both the series and the character. I'm well aware that most people are in for the pretty boys and so am I, but I can't deny that Patalliro as a character is very interesting. He's mostly there for comic relief, yes, but he does have some fantastic character development in the anime. Although not many, there are some great moments that dive into his character (one example that comes to mind is the Robbie incident). Naturally, I love seeing his character getting explored.

The canon establishes that he is mature for his age (referring back to the sparse moments of clarity he had in the anime) and yet I get the impression that he wants to hang on to his innocence. He wants to be king because it is his duty. If he doesn't do it then nobody else will, and perhaps he's not entirely hating this position, but he is not exactly prepared for it. Think about it, the king's death is quite sudden, although already anticipated, and right after it Patalliro is expected to take the throne. He's a ten year old boy that had just lost his father. Instead of being allowed time to grieve for his parent, he gets this enormous responsibility on his shoulders.

Patalliro's behaviour is always unpredictable, silly, and borderline dangerous. I'd call it childish and attention seeking, but sometimes it feels like an act. Sometimes his actions get so outrageous that I'm sure they might come as a surprise to Patalliro himself. I see this as an act of saying I'm still a child and I want to be a child. I don't want to be stripped of this — I want to keep doing silly things and make jokes and be myself and fuck it, I will.

We know that Patalliro is not dumb by any means. Etrange pretty much confirms that by revealing details of his infanthood and later, he builds robots from scratch, at 11 or so. He's undeniably gifted and everyone is well aware of hat. But he's also very lonely.

He does have the ability to do his work, not get into danger and be a responsible king. He can meet the expectations imposed on him, but he does not want to. He's entitled to his childhood and he does everything he can to live it the way he thinks he should, even though that might inconvenience the people around him. Ultimately, Patalliro choses his emotional well being over his duty and responsibilities, fully aware of that entails.

I can't judge the morality behind his decisions. He does get in trouble a lot, and he does get other people in trouble more so. He causes pain and emotional distress to people, and learns his lessons from it, the way any kid would. What I can do, instead, is admire the complexity of his character and the masterful writing of Maya Mineo.

Anyway, watch Patalliro you fools!

Crossposts: https://fabaulti.livejournal.com/785.html

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Welcome, welcome

other places you can find me

I'm back on tumblr — and not happy about it

I gave in and read The Foxhole Court. I have questions

regarding otw

Patalliro is way more than the comic relief character