Qashqa’i gabbeh (deep-piled sleeping rug) from Southwest Persia.
@bacchanalium Don’t worry about it being a long response, I had to make a whole ass post with multiple paragraphs when I wanted to reply to you, RIP. If anything I miss to see you writing here. You know how to get a point across and with a peculiar humour. I know that sometimes when we do write here we do so out of anger, when we’ve seen all too many say the same hurtful or stupid thing. I try not to be a part of the problem by writing paragraphs upon paragraphs that are not only unrebloggable, but that if such an option didn’t exist people would have no desire to reblog anyway–at least I try to make it so. This is a matter of preference, not of morality, but I always try to make it clear that it is me that is saying it and nobody else, and that if anyone agrees or disagrees it is not because I aim to proselytise.
As I am writing this I imagine that I am talking to you and that you are wondering, “When are they going to get to the point?” And as I imagine you interpreting me, trying to predict what I am getting at, I think, “Was there a point that I was trying to make? Or am I imagining that we are having a conversation though @bacchanalium is not there?” And well, there is an answer to that! I don’t have to tell you what it is. I always tell you how I picture things, to put things in context when they cease to be making sense. At this point I imagine that we are about fifty years old, we are public intellectuals of some sort, I am watching a recording of us talking sitting in comfortable chairs, interviewing each other in front of a black background. Someone is watching us in one of those old-fashioned televisions where the image is made up of vertical lines of colour. In my mind, we have been talking about lots and lots of things. We live in a backwater country (mine or yours or a third or fourth) where there is not so much competition, the brains have been drained already so they will have to put up with us! We’re the smartest ones left. All the brilliant (and rich) young people have taken the family money to run away, only to find that, in time, their own children will have turned into Americans. Oh no… (That’s how they call it, because when you make such a decision, there can be only one America.) By the time they have realised this, it is too late. No amount of overseas vacations can unmake it.
But you are too right about what you said, that people are eager to take offence at what they don’t understand. You remember that group that is always looking for arguments with people of my demographic–they are angry because some cultural signifiers are illegible to them and they cannot easily slot a person into the social hierarchies that they use in their country. You’ve seen how they get mad at a person for their facial features or for talking about the situation in their country or region, it’s ridiculous and it makes them look foolish especially at their age. Some people are sheltered, or young, but it makes me angry that so many choose to remain ignorant. Now, I don’t know too many things about the world, but I do not speak about them with authority, and that’s the bare minimum. The world is so big, why do we make it small?
The sign-up form is live as of August 15! The deadline to sign up is September 15. Between September 20-24, the list of participants will be posted, then assignments will be given for the secret gift swap, then the public portion of the event will go live in the form of a google sheet.
In summary, the sign-up form will ask you for your experience level with the game/lore for purposes of evenly matching participants, your likes and dislikes, your comfort level with spoilers, and if you want your OCs to be included.
I’m aware it can feel daunting to write about others’ OCs, and it’s entirely optional! Ideas for types of fics to write include: NPC character studies, second person/game style, explorations of locations, etc.
Most of all: be creative, have fun, and enjoy practicing the craft of writing! Don’t be nervous. Your writing is good enough to participate.
How it works:
There will be both a secret admirer gift swap and a public portion of the event. For the secret swap, everyone will be randomly assigned another participant to write for (matches based on game experience level), to ensure everyone receives at least one fic. The deadline for the secret swap will be November 4. You have over one month to write.
The public event will operate similarly to “artfight,” in which you’ll be able to view people’s wishes for fic and write something for any participant(s). This portion of the event will officially end on November 12 as in I will no longer be actively managing it, but you’re free to continue writing for as long as you want!
If you need an extension, need to drop out, or need any other accommodation, please don’t hesitate to reach out! This is intended to be flexible and not stressful. If you wind up needing to drop out, I prefer that you give me notice by October 28 so I can arrange alternatives for the secret swap. (After the participant list is posted, if there’s anyone you absolutely don’t want to be paired with, please DM me and I’ll try to work something out)
Rules:
This event is limited in scope to Fallen London and not the tie-in games. I’m aware some overlap exists with the tie-in games which is okay to reference, but fics should be focused on Fallen London.
Submissions should be a minimum of 250 words with a limit somewhere around 2000 words. If you go a little over, it’s ok.
Keep it relatively 13+, around the same level as the game.
You are required to write an item for your secret swap partner. The rest of the event is optional.
Respect others’ wishes. You will be shown people’s preferences for what they do/don’t like and their comfort level with spoilers. Please follow those guidelines when writing something for someone. If you have questions, reach out to me and I can reach out to the person you’re writing for on your behalf.
When posting a fic, please tag this account and the person you wrote it for. You agree to having your work shared on this account.
You’re free to share your work on any social media you like, but it must be posted on tumblr. I will be creating an AO3 collection if you wish to be included in that, too.
If you have any questions about sign-ups or need anything at all, please feel free to ask. (This event is fan run, unofficial, and not affiliated with FBG)
@bacchanalium that’s Americans not seeing foreign people as human beings. That’s why they always put people to the impossible standard. Like when they tell refugees who fled extremist violence. “Co co co go back to your country where you can be killed and fix it. I am so smart!”. And when people do oppose extremism by supporting education and human rightds, they are still called slurs, accused of being “not real” or “as bad as”, ignored or further insulted
It’s like people who come from the situations like the one in Afghanistan are doomed if they do, doomed if they don’t speak about their experience or seek better life. They have impossible expectations on them to not only fit Western sensitivities, but Western imagination of them.
Hope that it’s OK to reply like this, if not tell me and I’ll delete it!
I don’t think it’s only people from the United States, though a lot of them are from there, but also those who spend too much time on social media and watch people get piled on for having a slightly different opinion than a bully.
I remember that we had a conversation once about how you could go on Reddit and find that the top comments were indistinguishable from each other, even on threads about different topics. That is, you wouldn’t be able to identify any of those users because of their ideas or speech patterns because users tended to upvote those that had references they recognised or ways of writing that they identified with. And that’s talking about people who use it to share a positive feeling I would imagine–you approve of the thing, you belong to the group of those who approve of the thing. On Tumblr and Twitter I’ve seen a more aggressive way to promote sameness, where if you don’t follow the script it means that you disagree and that’s bad, and then people allow themselves to talk to you in a way that would be considered very offensive if they did it in person. Some people are very hurt by this! It’s also creepy because it gets to the point where you literally wouldn’t be able to tell any of these users apart.
I refuse to believe that any one nationality is full of idiots. If I could talk to a regular person about the problems that people face in different parts of the world, I am sure they would understand that it’s not nice to live through all of that and that no one should be punished for suffering in a way that does not fit your mental schematic of the world. It might take a moment to explain the situation but I think most people would get it.
But with a lot of what you see online, it’s like they’re just repeating what their cooler friend told them. They also want to be cool, so they repeat it to someone else without understanding it. It might not make any sense but they’ll sure as hell say it. After all, it takes a few seconds to type. It reminds me of when I was twelve and pretended to be more familiar with certain bands that the other kids were listening to, but now they use the same dynamic to talk about what opinions are evil and racist.
It could be that we’re bombarded with the real-time thoughts of twenty-one year-olds that are specifically fluent in English, with all of their cultural biases and the issues a lot of people have at that age, and because of how social media works, this is what ends up being pushed–the half-baked thoughts of the average teenager or very young adult–not the most mature, well-read, or most empathetic person in that age group, but the most average. Whatever that means. I know that at that age I was saying very messed up things. Definitely not ideas that I would like to be amplified in any way.
You see some adults acting that way, but I don’t know if it’s adults acting more like teenagers nowadays, more eager to impress and with a lower frustration threshold, or if it’s because when I was a kid adults weren’t losing their temper in front of me and when they did it was so rare that I considered it the sign of a person being very mentally unwell. I’m not a scientist, I really don’t know. People definitely have always had thoughtless opinions but now you see it all the time and it continues affecting what others think and say long after the fact. I can’t say I like that.
its really concerning but ultimately not surprising how so many people seem to think they know about the nazis and that they understand what made/makes them evil while not knowing anything about their actual ideology and their racist pseudo science. i guess this is what happens when you teach people abt the 30s & 40s like it was a video game where the bad guys lost
terrorcels i’d like to open up a debate bc i’ve been wondering… who do you think is crozier’s favourite or just his least hated lieutenant. bc he doesn’t seem to like any of his awful sons (except, ofc, jopson). and i want to hear your reasons why you picked them
It’s a complicated question for me to answer… I think Crozier cares about Edward but I’m not sure if he even likes him or if he’s annoyed by him if that makes sense. I don’t know if that puts him above or below the other two. They’re just kind of there.
