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i swear to god if people don't start understanding that responding to doylist critique of a piece of media with watsonian exonerations is not an actual rebuttal

the whole point of a zine is that it's cheap to produce, amateur and homemade. if you're being asked to apply to participate in a print project, it is not a zine. if the final product is being printed and bound professionally, it is not a zine. if you are being asked to enter into any kind of licensing agreement more complex than "my work can be reproduced as part of this publication" it is not a zine. nine times put of ten if the final product costs more than $5 you have left zine country. im so serious about this.

I have some random thoughts about Vace from Teenage Exocolonist. (It's been a while since I played, so hopefully I haven't gotten anything incorrect.)

He was always so insufferable at the start, but I really like characters who can grow and actually become better people, because that doesn't happen often enough in real life. And he really does change, if you can get through to him. It's not an instant, overly perfect change, it's still a struggle for him, but he never stops trying. He doesn't even ask for forgiveness from the people he hurt, he understands they don't owe him that, he just acknowledges his wrongs and tries to right them and be better.

And when you think about what the Helios society is like and learn about his upbringing, his past, it doesn't make some of his actions excusable, but it does make them make more sense. He was abused by his parent. His enhancement, according to the artbook, is a perfect body or something like that, though in-game it's listed as having a big dick. That's what he was raised to believe is most important in life. Helios seems to be a society of toxic masculinity and bullying and "might makes right." He says himself, "I was born because they knew they'd need the next generation of soldiers to fight." IIRC, Rex and Nomi are anomalies on Helios. Vace is the norm. Vace is the ideal. And he's still young. All the adults in his life are just as much to blame, and at least (again, depending on the ending) he's breaking that cycle. That's a credit to him. That he's willing to go against so much of what's ingrained in his mind, to face the regret or shame or pain that comes with acknowledging your wrongs, and say, "I'm going to be better than that from now on." The world would be a better place if more people did that.

Listen, in real life, I'd have most likely avoided him pre-change because he is a real asshole at the start, and I wouldn't blame anyone hurt by him for not forgiving him. But as a character, I like him a lot *shrug* There's more depth to him than it first seems there is, and he has a great redemption arc. And although some of his convo after he starts therapy is a bit cliche and maybe a bit more insightful than is realistic for most people, it's a great look at how someone's upbringing can mess them up and what it means to genuinely change and try to do right by the people you've hurt.

Also he did sometimes make me laugh when he was just being grumpy or full of himself 😅

look, it's easy, okay? High Fantasy has An Hero whose Destiny is Sword, and Low Fantasy has Some Schmoe whose Job is Sword.

(To Shauna) Welcome back Donna Sheridan

Omegaverse readers & writers!! I want to hear from you!!!

Firstly — Yes — I have already done a lot of research. I don’t need the basics explained to me or the fact that it is an incredibly diverse genre with examples good writing, bad writing, good social commentary, bad social commentary, expansive thoughtful worldbulding, raunchy porn without plot, and everything in between.

What I’m looking for with this post is personal experiences and opinions from people who read/ write this content since I am not one. Feel free to link any fics that exemplify what you’re talking about.

you can write as much or as little as you like, answer as many or as few of the questions as you like:

What fandom introduced you to omegaverse?

What trends and developments have you noticed as the genre has grown over the past 14-ish years?

what initially intrigued you about it?

Are there similar genres, tropes, etc, that you also enjoy? (ie. werewolf or other supernatural romance, science fiction which explores alternative biology) basically, how does omegaverse fit into your wider literary tastes?

what do enjoy most about it?

what are some elements you avoid or are critical of?

Any specifics or nuances you want the non-omegaverse reading public to know about

In case anyone is coming across this post without knowing who i am — Hi! I’m a youtuber and I make videos about online subculture, fandom, and such.

Your comment on this post may be read aloud in an upcoming video!! Please specify if you would like me to censor your url or leave it visible.

My friends showed me the Descendants movie for the first time, and I am very clearly not the target audience for this franchise and that's fine lol.

But for fun, I wanted to do this redesign if I were tasked with imagining the Descendants characters. I personally don't dig the modern setting, so I would've leaned towards a fantasy aesthetic closer to something like The School for Good and Evil.

I knew I wanted Mal to have her mother's (and father's) unnatural complexion, and yellow eyes from both. I also wanted to give another small nod to Hades with the blue flame (if she were to use ger spellbook, the magic from it would manifest in blue flames). I gave her little purple baby horns that would turn black as she got older. I also put hints of red in her outfit, which I wanted to be her main color (especially for her coronation look at the end of the story) later on instead of just purple and black like Maleficent, to reflect her slowly coming into her own. Overall, my goal was to push her look to be a lot more witchy and supernatural looking.

I'll likely redesign the other villain kids as well. Let me know if you'd like to see them too!

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Check out more of my work on other platforms!

My Instagram -- My Twitter

"if you want to hear about my ocs, my inbox is ope-" NO!! START YAPPING UNPROMPTED!! DO NOT WAIT FOR OTHERS TO TAKE INTEREST, POST THINGS THAT WILL MAKE THEM TAKE INTEREST!!!!

beginner’s guide to the indie web

“i miss the old internet” “we’ll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever again” “i’m tired of social media but there’s nowhere to go”

HOLD ON!

personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someone’s personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! here’s how:

use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)

need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.

there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if that’s your sort of thing!

stack overflow is every programmer’s hub for asking questions and getting help, so if you’re struggling with getting something to look how you want or can’t fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no one’s asked the same question before.

websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.

want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google won’t show you!

you can also use directory sites like yesterweb’s link section to find websites in all sorts of places.

if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)

if you are making your own site:

get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heart’s content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you can’t do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.

don’t overwhelm yourself! if you’ve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesn’t look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! you’re learning a skill that most people don’t have or care to have, and that’s pretty cool.

keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and don’t just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.

you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website you’re currently viewing. it’ll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. don’t use this to steal other people’s code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, don’t steal.

don’t hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource you’re taking from says it’s okay! it’s common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone else’s site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, you’re taking up someone else’s bandwidth.

if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your website’s content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, don’t sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.

visit other people’s sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.

if you are browsing sites:

if the page you’re viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say “love your site” in their guestbook.

that being said, if there’s something on a website you don’t like, simply move on to something else and don’t leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. it’s not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.

take your time! indie web doesn’t prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. you’ll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read what’s in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someone’s art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.

explore! by clicking links on a website, it’s easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.

seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someone’s site about a topic you’ve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.

i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3