#A Hundred Thousand Words

[pseudophan]

PHANNIE COOKBOOK SIGN-UPS!!

Do you have a really good recipe you think Dan and Phil would enjoy? Consider submitting it to this collaborative phannie cookbook that will be given to DnP at a meet & greet! It will also be available to everyone to download as a PDF.

Family recipes or your favourite dish from your country/culture is a bonus, but it doesn’t have to be that personal. All I ask is that you don’t go rip something random off the Internet right now just to be in the book, I want food you genuinely enjoy!

I’ve decided the most efficient way of doing this is to let you submit up to 3 different options, that way if there are any repeats (and I’m certain there will be) I won’t have to message everyone it concerns to ask if you have any alternatives. Besides, that way I can choose which version gets in based on your other options rather than which one “sounds better” to me, cause I think that would be a little unfair. I also have no idea how many people will actually participate in this yet, which is currently the biggest hurdle in terms of planning. If only a few sign up there is a chance we’ll end up using multiple recipes by some, and if somehow we get too many I’ll have to pick and choose. I do really want to include as many people as possible, but until I actually see the recipes it’s hard to tell what will end up happening.

The main focus of this will be actual food, but we obviously need to include a few desserts, so feel free to submit those as well just be aware the chances of those getting picked might be lower. The same goes for soups, I assume a lot of people have soup recipes and we might include a couple, but for obvious reasons it's a low priority.

Some key things to keep in mind:

Phil is a bit picky and has some dietary restrictions! He shouldn’t have dairy or chocolate and he doesn’t like cheese or mushrooms, among other things. That doesn’t mean you have to avoid these things entirely, but maybe your grandma’s mac and cheese recipe isn’t the best choice

While neither of them is vegan they do eat a lot of vegan food, so we definitely need some vegan dishes. I also think it would be really great if you suggested vegetarian and/or vegan substitutions you know work well with your recipe! That isn’t a must for every dish, but it’s a nice addition where possible

Tragically, Dan and Phil are British, meaning they won’t necessarily have access to all the same ingredients as you. Luckily they are also rich and live in a major city with a lot of options so they aren’t limited to what they can find at their local Tesco, but since the aim of this book is to encourage them to cook we probably shouldn’t be sending them on a scavenger hunt either. I don’t think this will be a huge issue, but if your recipe calls for something you think might be very niche or local to you it might be worth googling it or asking around

The final book will be using UK measurements, but if your recipe doesn’t then don’t even worry about it for now. We’ll get to that later. You also don’t have to worry about typing out the whole step-by-step in detail in the sign-up form, I just need a list of the ingredients and roughly how to prepare it to gauge whether it’s a good fit.

I promise I’m almost done yapping but lastly, about some of the questions on the form - you don’t need to know exactly how long the dish takes to prepare, that will depend on the person or people making it anyway, but we do need a rough estimate. The difficulty level is obviously quite subjective, but I just want to hear how you personally would rank it, and if there is a specific part of the process you think someone who doesn’t cook a lot might struggle with. As for the last question about photos, I’m asking both if you have the time and opportunity to make the food and if you are able to take a good photo of it. Obviously it doesn’t have to be anything professional, a phone camera is fine, it just needs to be well lit and decent quality.

Okay, I think that’s everything-

Here's the sign-up form

The deadline is in a week, at midnight Thursday to Friday CET :)

(I also made a blog for this @phookbook for information and updates! A lot of it will probably still be on this blog, but I'll try to post/reblog the most important things on there for those who want to keep up with everything but who may not want to deal with all the chaos of pseudophan)

[desertthorn]

Dude congratulations! That's one Hell of an accomplishment!

i... i finished my first edit of my novel. 107,098 words.

i don't even know what to do now. do i just... start from the beginning and go through it with my metaphorical red pen again?

do i invite people to read it and give any notes?

idek how i'm gonna be publishing this when it's Finished Finished. i want it to be accessible to the target readership (queer neurodivergent young adults) and i hate amazon so like. idk where to host it. or if it should just be a file to download. or what. AAGGGGGHHHH.

but anyway... I JUST FINISHED MY FIRST EDIT OF MY NOVEL.

[conundrumoftime]

My Haladriel fics

I haven't grouped all these together before, so here's a collection of all the complete Haladriel fics I've written so far since October '22. Cannot believe it's been almost two years!

(Some of these fics also feature Celeborn/Galadriel, Celeborn/Sauron or all of them together, because I like a) Celeborn b) multishipping and c) mess. I'll make it clear here which stories those are, so if Celeborn is not your guy or if multishipping confuses or distresses you then that's! fine! just please don't read those ones and then be weird to me about it in the comments.)

Multi-chapter fics

Shadow-Bride (E, 265k words): This is my long long longfic, started in December of '22 and now complete after 43 chapters. Canon-divergence from the middle of s1.

Banquets have burned for you (M, 24k words): Written for eastwynds for the spring '23 Haladriel fic exchange, where the prompt was "one thing happens differently on Númenor, and everything changes." Went heavy on the Greek tragedy influence for this one because it felt fitting for Númenor.

A man is a god in ruins (E, 21k words): At the time this was the longest story I'd ever written and the first multi-chapter story I'd finished since the LiveJournal days. How things change! Canon-divergence from the very end of s1; what if Halbrand decided to leave Eregion before Galadriel got suspicious?

All the kinds of alive you can be (E, 13k words, also Celeborn/Galadriel, also Celeborn/Sauron/Galadriel): so loads of us have written "what if Sauron shapechanged into Celeborn to seduce Galadriel"; this is "what if Sauron shapechanged into Galadriel to seduce Celeborn, because he's furious with her and obsessed with her and sort of wants to be her all at the same time"?

So Wide a Sea (E, 6k words, also Galadriel/Celeborn): After Sauron's final defeat in the War of the Ring Galadriel remembers a long-ago day on Númenor.

One-shot fics

Five times Halbrand's secret got revealed (T, 6000 words): the first Haladriel fic I ever wrote, of five scenarios of Galadriel learning his name. 'Shadow-Bride' is a continuation of one of these five; 'A man is a god in ruins' is the '...and one time it didn't.'

Tar-Mairon of the Shire (G, 3000 words): entire fix-it fluff, probably more '&' than '/', Hobbits make everything better including Dark Lords.

Tempered (M, 3600 words): written for @thecoziestbean for the spring '24 Haladriel fic exchange.

And white winter, on its knees (M, 1800 words): written for the Haladriel Winter Solstice '23, a what-if Galadriel said yes to Sauron's offer story.

Weakened like Achilles, with you always at my heels (M, 4000 words): written for Haladriel Week '24. A little moment after the Tirharad battle and before the volcano.

I have loved flowers that fade (M, 1700 words): they deserved to have at least one nice time in Eregion before she found out who he was!

Weighed Against Our Future (T, 1800 words): A delirious (or is he?) Halbrand on the road to Eregion.

Shine (T, 3300 words) and its sequel Lady of the Seas (E, 3700 words): Halbrand makes Galadriel's armour on Númenor.

Silver Queen (M, 3600 words): my first 'what if Celebrían was Sauron's daughter?' story, sort of a Haladriel fic and sort of a fix-it for Celebrían.

Civil Twilight (M, 10k words, also Celeborn/Galadriel): for Haladriel Week '23. A 'what if Celebrían was Sauron's daughter?' and 'what if Galadriel finds her missing husband?' story combined.

The turn of the tide (T, 1700 words): For Haladriel Week '23. In the Fourth Age after travelling back to Valinor, Galadriel still feels called to the sea.

Though I sang in my chains like the sea (T, 3000 words): For Haladriel Week '23. They were on that ep2 raft for a while; so this is a gapfiller of them getting to know each other better. Or not.

Blood Sugar (M, 7000 words): the only time I've ever done a modern AU, and even then it doesn't really count because he's still literal Sauron in it. Anyway: Glasgow, professional disillusionment, and difficult relationships with your history.

Ficlets under 1000 words

You built a nest inside my soul, you rest your head on leaves of gold (M, 800 words); Numenor alleyway smut.

How shall summer's honey breath hold out (M, 600 words): and why shouldn't Galadriel get to command an army and have a nice time with the enemy general while heavily pregnant.

Gilded (G, 550 words): another 'what if she said yes on the raft' fic

Not for all my little words (T, 775 words) s1 ep8, Elrond-POV on Galadriel and her weird new friend in Eregion.

Miscellaneous fics:

Half-Maia Celebrían short fics: Suo Gân (G, 1000 words), Arda Sahta (G, 1100 words), As Little Might Be Thought (T, 2600 words). All these are Galadriel/Celeborn (and the last one is also Celebrían/Elrond) and Sauron isn't really in them, but they're all about the impact of that being his child.

To hold all the promise of blue-velvet dark (T, 1700 words) - another 'what if Sauron impersonates Galadriel?' fic, this time featuring baby half-Maia Amroth.

Silmarillion rather than TROP: As certain dark things are loved (M, 8000 words, also Galadriel/Celeborn, also Galadriel/Celeborn/Sauron), for @softlighter for the Sufficiently Advanced '24 exchange. Annatar in 2nd Age Ost-in-Edhil.

[stardustedknuckles]

Okay but I need to know what the people who have only watched c3 think about Beau and Caleb because I've been rotating them in my head for three years too long to be objective anymore but like. Getting to see them through the eyes of a new party just reminded me that even though so much of our delight in C2 was focused around the constant indignity of the Nein, they are objectively a flickering metronome between "how the fuck are these people alive" and "this is the most hyper competent group of mercenaries I've ever seen" and I just. Do they know. Do they know that Beau is so fucking cool. Are there people who learned these two npcs have a whole campaign and want to learn more about them. I look at these two and see a montage of tiefling dicks and red eyes and promising to kill the other if something goes wrong. I see Caleb smearing mud and bat shit on Beau's face and Beau just resigned even as she makes the most aggrieved and annoyed sounds, Beau hauling Caleb's dissociated ass over her own skinny shoulder and walking him to safety. I look at them and see 500 hours and more of the empire siblings. The weeks and months they spent going from hating the parts of themselves they saw in each other to loving in the other what they still struggled with in themselves. I see chosen siblings, best friends. What do other people see?

[gingerswagfreckles]

Literally when was the last time that even one single post about feminism that wasn't a criticism of feminism got any traction at all. Like. 2015 maybe?

[sersi]

Ghosted (2023) dir. Dexter Fletcher

[sergle]

I really truly, from the bottom of my heart, hate you bitches so much, because on the tiktok of literally COCK AND BALL jokes w brittany broski, there were a few notes/messages like this:

And I KNOW you don't think anyone's going to check. You had someone go into your askbox and say "hiii brittany broski is shitty about palestine she's really ignorant :/" and you went oh omg I didn't know!! thanks for telling me! So I checked! This is in reference to her talking in her podcast, because people were asking why she hadn't done any big press statements about Palestine, you didn't retweet this or that, you must not care, don't you care, what's your stance, etc etc please say more OKAY COOL. So what's going on there? What did Brittany say on her podcast? Is she a Bad Person? Can I have some transcript, please? ____ "Hey guys, before we get into this week's episode, I want to talk to you about the ongoing and prolonged suffering and loss of life in Gaza, in Israel, and the oppression of Palestinian people widespread. I don't ever want it to be a question that I would ever not be against the oppression of any group of people, that I would ever stand on the side of the oppressor." "There was a lot of fear of misusing my platform." ... "I will admit that I was nervous to talk about it, because I don't want to say the wrong thing. And this is too fucking serious of an issue to misspeak, or to spread misinformation, or to speak over or for someone." ... "So I want to take a moment on my biggest platform- which is this podcast, to say that I stand with the people of Palestine, I stand for the liberation of Palestinian people." ... "Every day, to log on to social media, and be just inundated with graphic, unimaginable violence, and loss, and grief, it's just--There are no words." ... "And I feel helpless. That's part of it too, when you feel helpless, the last thing you want to do is talk to people about it-- but visibility is a resource in and of itself. And I can offer that." ... "The outpouring of rage and passion online, and anger at what's happening, I would argue needs to be dedicated and focused on our elected officials. We live in a democracy- albeit an inherently flawed one- we live in a democracy where we have elected officials who were elected and put in power to represent us, and if we feel misrepresented, if we feel underrepresented in foreign affairs? These officials have public phone numbers and emails. There are scripts available online to express your disdain and your rage, and unfortunately that's one of the only ways we'll see actionable change."   "If you expected more from me, it's a terrible feeling- but I don't want to center myself, this needs to be all eyes on Palestine right now, where the real activism is happening. I would encourage you to follow journalists that are on the ground, people who are in Gaza, we need to be listening to them. I would also hope that we're at a point in this conversation where I can express my desire to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and that NOT meaning or suggesting or condoning anti-Semitism of any kind. There's a rise of anti-Semitism and islamophobia in the United States and it's just-- it's disgusting, and it's scary, so I want that to be said too. I just wanted to share that I am experiencing part of this collective sense of helplessness and hopelessness-- but it DOESN'T HAVE to be hopeless. I'm going to include a phone number in the description of this episode where, if you don't know the name of your senators or your Congressman, it's never too late to learn, and you can reach out to them." _______ Hm. What a bitch!! Yeah, just so ignorant and uncaring. Obviously she's not keeping up with anything. Should've retweeted more shit ig!

[braceletofteeth]

depicted: the calmest most patient fandom out there

[labelma]

Men need to STOP bringing up Thrawn to me on a first date unprompted it’s making me crazy 😭

Most recent guy asked me who the blue guy is to test if I knew who he actually was??? And I had to refrain from being like “you should see my fucking Google docs”

[avo-kat]

youtube channel that has a "team of writers" but still goes like "umm soy bad cuz so much defosteration in the amazon :)" as if they made at most 1 google search and looked at the preview of the first result.

its embarrassing.

another youtube channel with 1m+ subscribers talking about wool and acrylic and cotton fiber and going like "cotton needs a lot of water", while not saying a word about how much water all these sheep in australia need.

its embarrassing.

going vegan is like realizing 99% of people have bought into this misinformation and even if you say anything theyll just think you are biased, emotional, unreasonable and, gasp, classist/racist/ableist.

hbomberguy do a video on the animal exploitation industries, please.

[sqrkyclean]

what i really wanna do is make a dating sim with my ocs

[starcraftt]

Ponyboy Curtis: Sensitive and Reckless

The sun trailed over the cut of the valley, silver linings reflected against the sunset, shimmering in the early morning sunlight. A small wisp of sunlight rose further, pink shining above it – different colors almost in cut layers. Gold to orange, the colors faded into each other. Reddish hair covered with blond bleach, the colors reflected in a swirl of gray and green eyes. The sunset is quite admirable, with its colors and mist. Most people tend to enjoy watching it, and so does Ponyboy. Ponyboy Curtis – a character from the novel: “The Outsiders”, written by S.E. Hinton – is quite thoughtless with his actions, sensitive with his feelings and thoughts, and considerate for the wellbeing of others.

Ponyboy is very thoughtless – without consideration of the possible consequences – of the future or dangers his actions might cause; getting told off about it by his eldest brother quite often. At the beginning of the book, Ponyboy is jumped by the Socs, a group of upper-class boys threatening the fourteen-year-old. Ponyboy had gone with no one with him and hadn’t brought some type of weapon as well. “I glanced around for a pop bottle or a stick or something – but there was nothing” ( S.E. Hinton, 4 ). The quote proves that Ponyboy was desperate for a way to defend himself, meaning he hadn’t brought along something that could’ve helped him in that situation. He hadn’t thought ahead and brought a switchblade despite knowing that the Socs could jump him at any given moment. Something that also could have prevented that happening is if he had waited for one of his older brothers or asked a friend to go with him, as it’s doubtful the Socs would jump two Greasers. With thoughtlessness though, comes recklessness. It’s quite obvious Ponyboy didn’t think about the future consequences of walking alone, with nothing to defend him but the hands at his sides, which he wouldn’t be able to use against a blade anyway. When Dally brought Johnny and Ponyboy back to the church from Dairy Queen, it was seen on fire, and Ponyboy almost immediately jumped out of the car to go and run inside – after hearing that there were children still inside the burning building. “I jerked loose and ran off. All I could think was: We started it. We started it. We started it!.” He just ran inside after thinking that it might’ve been his and Johnny’s fault for starting the fire, which also slightly goes with being considerate. Ponyboy, instead of thinking of what might happen to himself if he did go inside the burning church, decided to run inside, despite all the warnings from the others around him. Jerry and Dallas to name a few. The only thing mentioned that was on his mind was the fact that Johnny or himself might’ve started the fire with a cigarette they didn’t put out all the way. He felt guilty enough to try and make up for it, which again, goes with being considerate a bit. If he had thought of what may have happened to him or anyone who followed, things that did happen might’ve not. He faced the onerous emotion of guilt and couldn’t stop to think about it. Ponyboy is not very conscious of how his decisions might affect him in the future, making him thoughtless about how things may play out. He’s not very pragmatic about what he might do, and this affects most of what happens in the book, the obvious being him getting jumped at the beginning and the church fire, but also when he ran away from the Curtis household after Darry had hit him, and when he talked back to Bob and Randy at the park, mocking the Socs in return to a similar insult.

The youngest Curtis brother is also quite sensitive, a contrast to what his older brother, Darry is. Ponyboy is sensitive to his feelings and often finds himself spiraling down his emotional thoughts. Ponyboy, whilst in the church still with Johnny, had to get his hair cut so the paper reporting the murder wouldn’t describe what they looked like correctly. The author writes, “Johnny flipped out the razor-edge of his switch, took hold of my hair and started sawing on it. I shuddered. “Not too short.” I begged. “Johnny please . . .” ( S.E. Hinton, 72 ). This part is particularly obvious of Ponyboy being sensitive, as Johnny’s just cutting his hair. Of course, Ponyboy mentions that it’s his pride and joy against the Socs Mustangs and Madras, but it would be more logical to not be recognizable by anyone who’s read the paper. He’s desperate for Johnny to not cut his hair, practically begging Johnny not to cut it ‘too short’. During the chapters when Johnny and Pony were at the church, Ponyboy wakes up early one morning, in time to see the sunrise. Johnny soon follows and the two end up watching the sunset together, with Ponyboy reciting a poem by Robert Frost ( Nothing Gold Can Stay ). Ponyboy states “I was trying to find the meaning the poet had in mind, but it eluded me. ‘I always remembered it because I never quite got what he meant by it,” (Hinton 78). This sunset scene, and quote, show that Ponyboy takes time out of his day to enjoy the small things such as the sunset, something his brothers may not do. He’s sensitive instead of cold and logical, memorizing a poem he didn’t understand instead of ignoring what he didn’t understand and moving on to what they did know. Spending his time trying to make sense of the poem instead of forgetting it and progressing. Ponyboy’s sensitivity affects many points in the books, most obviously what differentiates him from the others, who are all tough, cold, and mean. He’s not afraid to speak his feelings to most people, anyone who’s really willing to listen, he ends up speaking to them about things he enjoys or needs to talk about. For example, when he told Cherry what happened to Johnny without really realizing it he started rambling about the story.

The fourteen-year-old in high school is also very considerate of others' well-being, for some reason only thinking ahead for that reason: if he can help them, and not what might happen to him if he does end up doing what may help them. He’s very conscious of what might make others feel better or worse — having sensitive insight. Later in the book, before the rumble, Cherry meets up with Two-Bit and Ponyboy as they’re heading home from the hospital. Cherry and Pony talk for a bit, ending up in an argument of sorts, and when Ponyboy notices this, he attempts to make Cherry feel better – and also silently admits to himself that he would help Cherry if she needed it. He states, “I would. I would help her and Randy both if I could” (Hinton, 129). This shows that Ponyboy notices Cherry about to start crying from their argument – or her grief about Bob – and he’s willing to try and fix it to make her feel better. This indicates that Ponyboy is quite considerate of other people’s feelings and emotions and he’s willing to try and make them feel better; maybe at the cost that he won’t feel better himself. Near the end of The Outsiders book, after all the events of the rumble and Johnny and Dally’s death, Ponyboy finds himself in a predicament where a group of Socs try to attack him, and as a weapon, he shatters a glass bottle. After the Socs leave, Ponyboy ends up picking up the glass shards, and he thinks, “I didn’t want anyone to get a flat tire,” (Hinton 172). Considerate means being careful not to cause inconvenience or hurt to others, and Ponyboy is doing just that. He’s being careful not to hurt anyone who might injure themselves if they step on the glass, and he’s making sure the shards aren’t inconveniencing anyone driving as well, and picking up the glass shows he is thinking of others. Being considerate is just a simple addition to the multitude of attributes Ponyboy has, and even throughout the events that happen in the book, such as losing two of his best friends and having to go through trial, Ponyboy stays considerate — still continues thinking about others. I figure this affects most of his decisions, such as how he went into the church fire to save the kids stuck inside, and when he listens to Randy despite the fact that he could’ve been hurt.

Ponyboy Curtis is quite thoughtless of future consequences, sensitive, and considerate of other people’s feelings. He is quite relatable with these traits, as many people could relate to not thinking ahead, or being more connected with their feelings than other people. 

[aevallare]

Do you write nonhet ships? All your Tavs are women who you pair with men...

am i a joke to you.

[lakesbian]

so i blinked & accidentally wrote 2.4k words of alec analysis, content warning for extended discussion of child sexual abuse

i am actually like. genuinely surprised by how common of an alec opinion it is that people would probably feel more negatively about him if we had a chapter from the perspective of one of his victims or if we had more details on his life prior to the undersiders, because the idea goes directly counter to one of the core Things you have to get if you want to understand alec: much like taylor, you should take absolutely fucking nothing he says about himself at face value, because--also much like taylor--he is Absolutely Fucking Terrible at understanding himself!

and speaking of taylor, she is also absolutely fucking terrible at understanding alec. nearly all of the commentary we get on alec is from taylor’s point of view, and she’s frankly incredibly ungenerous towards him.

her very first thought about his childhood mentally classifies him as not being one of heartbreaker’s victims, and the pity she’s offering him wears out pretty quickly when he doesn’t speak about the abuse in terms she finds palatable--while she does secondarily recognize that living with heartbreaker impacted him on some level, she regards him primarily as someone who does Bad Things because he’s a Bad Coldhearted Person.

she and alec are fairly similar--they’re both people who have been abused, people who are remarkably desensitized to violence because they’ve been abused, they’re both people who have ended up on the same villain team where they regularly commit terrible acts of violence, and they’re both people who are terminally oblivious to their own emotions while they commit those acts of violence. their actions are both similarly horrifying from an outside viewpoint, but by sectioning alec’s actions off in her mind as being horrifying because he’s ontologically a bad person w/ no interiority or justifiable reasoning for his actions, she doesn’t have to face that her own actions are horrifying regardless of how she justifies them to herself. neat little compartmentalization trick! alec stabbed that guy to death with a fork because he’s a Bad Person, but when she used triumph as a bargaining chip by filling his lungs with bugs, it was for Understandable and Interiority-Having reasons, so she’s fine.

what this means is that nearly all of the commentary we get on alec is from the perspective of someone who has a very strong psychological incentive to avoid being fair to alec.

much of what taylor thinks about alec is blatantly irrational and wrong, and the fact that he (similarly emotionally oblivious wrt himself + probably entirely unaware she feels this way about him) never directly confronts her misconceptions means that we spend the entire book being told “hey, here are the reasons you should think alec sucks” without any alternate viewpoints to consider. i think that if we saw the worst things pre-undersiders alec did without the repressed way undersider alec describes them or taylor’s biased perspective obscuring what actually happened, most people would feel Really Fucking Bad for him!

even in the very first discussion of his childhood, it’s clear that taylor’s reading of the events is wrong--aside from the fact that she’s not classifying the kids as victims (girl what), there’s these lines from alec:

“[He] pushed my limits, made me do stuff that was dangerous, stuff that was hard on my conscience.”

“I had convinced myself I didn’t care about the people I was hurting or about this guy I’d just killed, and maybe I didn’t. Maybe I don’t, still. Dunno.“

taylor’s response to this is:

“He’d been made to do it, he’d been in fucked up circumstances with no real moral compass to go by, still a kid. The way he described it, though, it didn’t sit well with me. Cold blooded murder.“

that is not how he described it. 

1. he outright says that what he was forced to do was “hard on his conscience”

2. he outright says that he “had convinced himself he didn’t care about the people he was hurting,” i.e he was a 10-13yo child being forced into extreme violence by his ridiculously abusive father & he naturally repressed his emotional reaction to it because there’s no other way to feasibly psychologically cope with feeling the full brunt of the emotions that induces. he’s not a Cold Blooded Bitch, he was a kid desperately convincing himself he didn’t care because he couldn’t care if he was going to survive.

3. yeah, he says “maybe i don’t [care], dunno.” this is because the 3+ years he spent learning to cram every emotional response he had to his abuse into a box & then solder-iron that box shut do not magically disappear the second he escapes from his father. it’s not at all unreasonable that taylor (also 15 and horribly emotionally repressed) misses this, but the “maybe” and “dunno” are indicators that he genuinely can’t tell whether or not he cares! as imp points out after he dies, it’s not that his emotions aren’t there at all, it’s that he has no ability to read them--much like taylor, he’s great at convincing himself of things regarding his feelings and then genuinely believing those things. he’s fifteen and has been out of his abusive home for all of 2.5 years--he’s not capable of grasping the full impacts that the abuse had on his psyche, and the way he describes everything from a detached perspective and waffles about on allowing himself interiority is a natural result of that.

if we saw this or any of the other murders alec was forced to commit as they were happening, we would not be feeling less generous towards him, we would be thinking “i want to beat heartbreaker to death with his own bones, because this is an evil thing to do to a child.”

okay, that’s the murder out of the way. now onto the significantly more controversial aspect of what alec did as a 10-13yo.

taylor generally regards alec as a special type of ontologically real & distinct class of person called a rapist. many people in the fandom share her viewpoint on that one. and, like, objectively true--he is a rapist, he raped people. but applying “rapist” as a descriptor meaning “evil piece of shit who sucks, but i guess he gets some leeway since he was a kid, but he still sucks and is bad and probably a sociopath” is massively flattening the circumstances under which he committed sexual violence & severely underestimating how it impacted his psyche.

taylor--and again, most other people in the fandom--tend to unilaterally go “gross and fucked up, he sucks, moving on” during bits where alec discusses that aspect of his childhood. but if we actually pause to read between the lines for the details and then address the actual context (which alec is not capable of doing, because 1. emotional repression to hell and back and 2. it was, as he said, normal to him), it becomes very clear that it’s unjustifiable to slap the “Sucks + Evil Predator” label on him and then move on feeling comforted by the straightforward moral judgement.

“’Sure,’ Alec drawled. In a more normal voice, he said, ‘But what I’m saying is he wouldn’t mind. Now, it’s been a little while, but there was a time when I had someone in my bed every night.’

‘When you were with Heartbreaker,’ I said. From the look of disgust on Aisha’s face, and what I imagined was a similar expression on my own, I suspected we were on the same page. At least on this one thing.

‘Sure. Cape groupies, my dad’s girls, people I used my powers on toward the end.’

There wasn’t even a trace of guilt or shame on his expression, no regret in his tone. He just looked bored.

He went on, ‘What I’m saying is that I’m speaking from experience.  Having someone cuddled up beside you, even if it’s a little bit of a pain in the ass, having that body contact isn’t so bad. Especially when you’ve had a bad day.’”

like, okay. let’s unpack all the implications there.

1. alec is bringing up this whole topic as an attempt at empathy--aisha is effectively saying “i’m pissy at taylor for being intimate w/ brian while he’s experiencing the worst pain of his life” and alec is effectively responding with “i support them, because when i was in similar circumstances, physical intimacy made me feel better.” it is extremely notable that he’s implicitly comparing brian’s “bad day” (getting fucking bonesawed!) to his own “bad day” (living with his dad)!

2. alec grew up in Emotional Neglect & Abuse: The Household. this is established in buzz 7.1--he recounts that there was zero attention paid to him & the other kids except for when heartbreaker was terrifying the shit out of them for either a perceived slight or in an attempt to force a trigger event. he also grew up in Sexual Abuse: The Household. as detailed in one WoG, the heartbroken were a massive group hiding out in significantly less massive houses--6-8 people sharing a room was common. alec was constantly in close quarters to normalized sexual abuse from the ages of zero to thirteen, e.g the memory mentioned in his interlude where he starts crying over not being given the TV remote and a sweaty, wearing-nothing-but-briefs heartbreaker stomps out of the bedroom to terrify alec for interrupting what was, very presumably, a marathon of sexual assault. exposing children to abuse happening in their environment is a form of abuse itself. there’s also the WoG in which this is mentioned:

“Look at it this way - at the age that many boys are raising an eyebrow at boobs, family members were saying 'hey, here are all the boobs you could want...’ Interested in dick? ... Dad's not that into it but a sister can hook you up. At an age when many are just figuring out enough of the world to ask 'what's heroin?' or 'what's weed?' he was given heroin and weed and everything else that was theoretically obtainable and told to only indulge if it was someone else's body. At an age when many are saying 'sex must be awesome' he was given free reign.”

which is sexual abuse! it is in fact exceedingly sexually abusive for alec’s father & older siblings to go “hey, 10-13yo son/little brother, i notice you are Hitting Puberty! here’s a fucking tidal wave of sex and drugs, have at it.” he didn’t magically get the idea to commit acts of physical violence w/o grooming & coercion from his family, and the same goes for the sexual violence. it’s not a hard extrapolation to make that after 10 years of isolation and abuse he leaps on the chance for physical intimacy, for something that actually makes him feel good when good is a feeling he’s never really gotten to have before--and how would he have a frame of reference for this being bad when his childhood was one long march of his own autonomy being violated + constantly seeing other peoples autonomy violated?

alec did not leave the house as a kid. alec Wasn’t Even Thirteen. the people he assaulted were victims, but he’s inarguably not the person with primary culpability for the assault--that would be the family members significantly older than alec who directly groomed him into hypersexual behavior, kidnapped + brainwashed victims also significantly older than alec, shoved them at alec, and said “have at it, buddy.” (which he, considering it to be normal and desperate for any positive attention or emotion, immediately adopted as a coping mechanism.) it would be absurd not to regard alec as a victim in this circumstance as well, and the fact that the way he was victimized led to him hurting people doesn’t change that. he was a chronically abused and manipulated preteen--he couldn’t issue meaningful consent or exercise any real autonomy in his decision-making. his lack of emotional reaction to casually sharing the story isn’t a moral failure, it’s an indicator of how badly the abuse skewed his perception of what’s normal.

and despite All Of That, taylor’s immediate reaction is to judge his lack of guilt, shame, or regret. which isn’t a wholly irrational reaction from her by any means--it makes complete sense given who she is and what information she has. but it does mean that the judgement we’re given on alec in this moment is nearly entirely detached from the material reality of what happened & how that reality should reasonably be regarded.

3. i think i’m literally the only person i’ve ever seen point this out--the first category of person he lists off as having slept with is “cape groupies.” as in, fans of capes. 

what kind of person do we suppose would be a fan of heartbreaker’s cult? what kind of person would have a thing for heartbreaker’s sexual abuse and mind control cult? the fact that he specifically mentions “cape groupies” means these were people who liked the heartbroken and were picked up by it voluntarily--what kind of person would want to sleep with one of heartbreaker’s barely-pubescent superpowered children?

yeah, that one sounds less like alec committing rape and more like heartbreaker providing access to his children to pedophiles w/ a Thing for the powers involved, presumably because it was a fantastic honeypot for people he could drain for money or otherwise use as a resource (which was his primary method of staying undercover & getting by). which alec parses as normal enough to casually slip into a random sentence.

alec’s childhood was not a lengthy tour of him committing sexual violence because he sucked, it was him being sexually abused, and a portion of that abuse included him being groomed to perpetuate it onto others. because that’s one of the Core Things about his character: he was a victim of grooming to perpetuate a cycle of abuse, he ran away from it at an impressively young age, and he spent the rest of his life making stumbling attempts to jerry-rig a distinct system of ethics & decision-making so that he wouldn’t be like his father.

no, the abuse he experienced & the way he responded to it wasn’t straight-forward or palatable. he’s not a stereotypical or idealized Good Victim--none of the traumatized teens in worm are. the specifics of what happened to him & what he did as a result are uncomfortable. he participated in hurting other people very badly. he still doesn’t really understand everything that was wrong with what happened. he doesn’t open himself up for pity or add caveats when discussing it to make it clear that he’s viewing his childhood the Right Way. he doesn’t feel or talk about it the way he’s “supposed” to. he doesn’t understand why or care that it upsets and disgusts people. the abuse left him with low to no empathy, and he’s not ashamed about admitting that.

and absolutely none of that changes that he’s still undeniably a victim, and if we saw any of the things that happened to him from the perspective of anyone involved, if we saw the abuse he experienced without the normalized lens he views it through or the villainizing lens taylor views it through--everyone would probably feel really fucking bad for him.

or in other words: alec vasil is a little boy whose life fucking sucks, and we all have to be nice to him, okay?

[enigmaticagentalice]

that feeling when someone goes through your entire back catalogue of fic for a pairing giving kudos to every single one and you’re like…I appreciate that you clearly enjoy my writing but for the love of god…would it kill you to leave…one single comment…on any of them…

[trytogethappy]

famous last words, stitched together from every performance from the reunion tour