#Actually this kind of sucks I may delete it

[niko-jpeg]

I just think shes neat.

[meaningless-mayhem]

Being asexual and possibly aromantic but also being a huge shipper and hopeless romantic is such a wild experience ngl. I'm always freaking out about my favorite ships and giggling internally reading ship fics, getting invested in characters finally kissing or reading about their pining and their love and I think "I want what they have!!"

But then sometimes you have a slamming realization that your sweet shipping scenarios you imagine in your head look totally different irl and that you are extremely aspec.

One time I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and stumbled across Vsauce's "Why Do We Kiss?" video and let me tell you. When I saw that stock video footage of two people kissing each other I was a little flabbergasted lmaooo

[dokjaism]

[pepprs]

bruh ok. the guy who i had a huge crush on in hs who i almost ended up in a rs with until i chickened out of it is dating someone. cool day to discover this 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[chipped-chimera]

Okay. Gamedev nerd here gonna throw in some inputs. Also neuroscience nerd because it's actually relevant here, believe it or not. (This is long so buckle up)

No game needs to run faster than 30 fps

So this one is a funky one. Whether frames are 'detectable' or not to the human brain, comes down to exposure. Human brains are amazingly efficient at sifting out what I'll call 'junk inputs' - floaters in your eyes (that everyone develops eventually), the phone you chronically keep in your back left pocket to the point you're slapping your body going 'where's my phone?' only to find it exactly where you left it - the same pocket as always. Your brain got so used to those inputs, it's filtered them out because they're deemed 'not important' to be constantly shoved in your experience of reality.

Up until maybe the past 10ish years, most media that we've been exposed to has run at about 30fps. Our brain is used to this and makes it indecernable. As tech has improved, allowing for higher fps rates, you can now be more exposed to 60fps - in fact 60fps has been the broadcast standard for quite some time. If you get used to the higher frame rate, your brain grows to EXPECT this frame rate in order to efficiently throw out the junk information (the pauses between frames) so anything below that threshold becomes noticeable.

I run a pretty beefy PC with a high quality monitor, and it's gotten to the point where I can now distinguish whether something is running less than 60fps to the point I start fucking around in graphics options because I feel like my game is lagging slightly. Sometimes I will consciously run at 30fps if it's more stable for various reasons, but I do notice. 60fps comes across much smoother to me now, whereas 30 has this barely perceptible jitter - that's because my brain is no longer used to filtering out those junk signals.

So with regard to this - it is true that games COULD only run at 30fps, but it would have to be literally EVERY GAME to stay imperceptible to the user. It'd also have to be every video, every film, every piece of media we ever consume in order to REMAIN imperceptible.

Studies have been done on this and while 60fps has been accepted as the 'upper limit', it's uncertain if that will hold. Current data suggests 75fps might be the last noticeable threshold before diminishing returns. Ultimately this comes down to the user and what kind of monitor they have available, and what that refresh rate is capable of. After all, we don't see reality in FPS. End of the day, more frames = closer experience to a frameless reality = smoother experience. Now since I'm talking about the tech component, that brings me to -

No texture should be bigger than 2k

While for the most part this would have been a yes ... the fact is tech is changing. Or honestly has changed. Like yesterday. 1080p, once known as your 'HD' has not been 'High Definition' since maybe the mid 2010s. Your average phone screen - arguably the thing that most of us are exposed to on the daily - if it has been built later than 2014 is likely to be running a 2k to 4k definition screen. If you ever wondered why text looks so damn crisp on your teeny tiny mobile phone, but not on your monitor - this is why.

I upgraded to a 2k monitor last year after my ancient, literally pre-hd Cintiq drawing tablet of 15 kilos made the death knell of glitchy buttons. She had dead pixels. She was 12 years old. She was my beloved, glass topped art workhorse I had gotten as a high school graduation present that I'd slap the side of and say 'don't make em like her anymore'. But as good as she was, the difference between her and even my basic 1080p monitor was noticeable. After doing some reading, and a lot of that reading was saying '4k is now the standard' which sounded INSANE but now they're putting out 6k/8k resolution screens, I decided it'd be more cost effective to just get a screenless drawing tablet and a better monitor. I could always upgrade the screen, therefore keeping my tablet in action longer.

Hooking up that 2k monitor for the first time, last year, when this was considered literally the 'lower end' of the current market? It was like I'd put on my glasses. But I was already wearing them. Everything was so much clearer and crisp to work on. It was VERY noticeable.

But what happens when you have a 2k monitor? Well now 2k is the baseline. A 2k texture on a model, displayed on your screen where it is close enough to be at full resolution is now noticeable if it's NOT 2k. You know when a character is talking on your screen and you're getting distracted by the pixellated quality of their armour texture? That's because the texture is no longer matching your monitor resolution. It has more pixels to fill, and if the information isn't there ... well that's how you get pixellated looking textures.

So what is a Gamedev to do? 2k resolution textures are NOT SMALL. Ballpark average for a single image might be around 2MB for 2k resolution with standard channels. If you need MORE channels embedded in the image, like an alpha channel for example - well that's more information for the image to hold, therefore more file size. Crank that up to hundreds of images - diffuse textures, normal maps are a bare minimum, add on other stuff like alpha masking, tintmaps - if you want a custom character creation system that's actually decent? Multiple armor options? Recolouring options? Textures? That's a lot of images already + a lot of file size and you haven't even put in the actual game yet.

So you've now got to get creative with it. This actually brings me to what made me want to write this post:

There’s zero excuse for Baldur’s Gate 3 to be 150 GB when Skyrim is 6 GB

I'm a recent modder, but I've had the privilege of messing with Baldur's Gate 3 and I intimately know exactly how their textures are formatted and used at this point - and they are the epitome of 'get creative with it'. So I mean it when I say you're lucky BG3 is JUST 150gb.

Anyone following me knows I have gone on about it before, but as someone who was trying to rebuild models in blender post launch, you'd know that BG3 uses a very unique texture system for character models to basically stretch these textures to the absolute limit while maintaining a high fidelity resolution.

This horrendous flow-chart-from-hell is me attempting to reconstruct this system (and this is maybe only half of it). While it's likely since been cracked by someone else since I last looked at it, the best I could do was get close.

Here's how BG3 textures work: they are not your typical 'baked into one diffuse texture' image thing we're used to for most games up until this point, where you've basically flattened the skin out into a 2D picture with all the colour information.

What Larian has done is make everything grayscale, and most of them work like layering masks. For those familiar with digital art, this would be your transparent layers layered on top of each other, with or without effects. For an even more basic analogy - think of stencils, on top of each other, until you have made a composite image. This means, instead of making a texture for every single skin colour available in the game it's now only three pictures -

These three pictures contain stupid amounts of information however, because while we see a composite image, actually you're looking at 3-4 images PER IMAGE. Because in reality, this is what it looks like -

This is my reconstruction folder of separated images to reconstruct in blender. Each contains a layer of information - how much freckles to put in the face, where the ambient occlusion goes, the vein amount yadda yadda. Remember what I said about 2k images being big? Larian managed to reduce that to three out of a potential seventeen. And while an absolute pain in the ass to reverse engineer in Blender shaders, honestly I was kind of giddy at the genius of this.

It's actually what makes the entire game really flexible and modder friendly, because once you understand how it works the engine is SUPER versatile when it comes to being able to recolour things. You can share these textures across multiple models and make them look completely different by altering the value of each colour, per layer, per texture.

So if we were to extrapolate this onto the old 'flat diffuse texture model', I'll be generous here and say it's three images (eyebrow/makeup masks + flat diffuse + normal map a.k.a. the thing that adds microdetails like pores and shit) at a very modest estimate of 2MB x the 350 skintones available in the character creator?

That's 700 Megabytes - because to get the colour for each one, you now need a separate image for each one. Sure that sounds 'small' but that's just faces, and only ONE face! For the character creator. Then you have your multiple face options with different textures. And multiple races. Then there's hair. Tattoos. Armor. NPCs. World textures etc. It adds up and it adds up quick. Instead this means they can use just 3 images, for one face in the character creator for all 350 skin tones. That comes down to a measly 6 Megabytes.

Even then they cut corners where they can. There's a reason there's so many upscaling mods available for BG3 - some textures aren't 2k. So to say that they're somehow at fault for not making their game smaller while maintaining the current visual fidelity is honestly doing Larian a major disservice. These Devs scrimped and scraped for EVERY inch of room they could possibly get out of their textures, and I've seen it. I'll say it again for emphasis -

We are lucky it's ONLY 150gb.

lower poly counts > high poly counts

Okay so as a Gamedev-student-turned-modder, I agree. Most gamedevs will agree too - because they're likely already using the smallest polycounts they can within the restrictions of current generation consoles (which are always less powerful than PC) and while maintaining the baseline fidelity of likely at minimum 2k textures. I spent 3 months learning how to make 'Real Time Hair' for games a.k.a. hair that can be rendered real time as you play the game, as opposed to engine heavy simulated hair you see in CG film. If you don't want your game to turn into a frame-sink slideshow you have to keep the polygons as low as possible. And it is actually really, really hard to get nice looking hair with volume while sticking to this. If you wondered why so many hairs in game tend to be super straight and flat - this is why. It's easier to obscure a lack of volume when you're basically constructing a cardboard cube. Once you start distorting layers, like with curls for example, you're more at risk of exposing that this is just a really thin mesh.

This is the hair I built. It looks great - but it's about double to triple the standard polygon count for most of Cyberpunk 2077's in-game hairdos. I only went with it because it was a personal mod and I knew my PC could handle it. (And even then, it's still more modest than some mods out there - I've checked).

Super low poly can work too! But it often affects style in turn. There's no point putting a 2k texture on what we associate with 'low poly' models, but that's a completely different game at this point like Zelda: Wind Waker. The unfortunate reality is, if you're going for realism in your game, the faster the frame rates, the bigger the textures = the closer to literal reality it feels, and the more current your tech needs to be.

There's a bit of a psychological phenomenon around this. I vividly remember sitting cross legged on the carpet of the library as a mere 10 year old listening to my computer science teacher go off topic to gush about the 'realistic graphics' of a game that'd just come out with the boys in the class.

For context, I am 31 this year. That game? Halo. The first one. No not the remaster, the literal, first, potato-ass looking Halo.

Also remasters are a fiddly metric to measure by - often what can be done to improve the game is limited by the engine, which is also probably a dated engine. But also using a tiny resolution image to compare larger resolution improvements in textures is not going to make a discernible difference. (And also arguably the technical skill of the Game Developer and given I call Bethesda 'Bugthesda' my bar ain't very high for them but that's my personal opinion.)

End of the day, the fact is this:

Whether a 150GB game looks any different from a 20GB game comes down to a lot of factors, and the majority of them come down to what you're running. For some people yeah! Below 1080p at 30fps will run absolutely fine and look great! And there are plenty of low-poly games with smaller graphics that do really well - a good game is a good game!

But as tech evolves, things change - and so do industry standards. The current 'standard' definition television? 4k. So what might not be noticeable to you, might be very noticeable to someone else.

And Gamedevs are aware of that. They are also keenly aware of the fact people complain about filesize, and you bet whatever size you are presented with (unless you know that company to be notorously incompetent coughs loudly in Bethesda and arguably whatever the fuck the sims 4 team is doing atm) that is the smallest size physically possible that they can present you with on launch day after way too many crunch hours.

Be nice to your Gamedevs guys. The majority of developers are out there just wanting to give you a fun experience and tell a story. And I think that should be appreciated.

here are my biggest gaming hot takes:

- no game actually needs to run faster than 30 FPS

- no texture needs to be bigger than 2k, and most don’t need to be bigger than 1k (save for megatextures). A good chunk should actually be smaller than 1k

- lower poly counts > high poly counts

Once you pass a certain threshold, it doesn’t even affect the style of the game that much, and you’re just using exponentially more power to get exponentially smaller results

Like, for example, the original Skyrim was 4 GB. The remaster is 22 GB. That’s five-and-a-half times more space for the exact same content! The graphical improvements are honestly negligible, especially when you consider the massive leap in storage and RAM used.

These sorts of things just hit diminishing returns so quickly— My eyes can’t tell the difference between 1k and 4k textures.

We have so many fun ways to get the maximum mileage out of every pixel and every polygon. It’s sad to see those techniques slowly trickle away from big-budget games!

Even as storage space becomes less and less of a concern, there’s something satisfying about keeping everything as small and tidy as possible

[anonymousicecream]

Mile-High (Ryujin x M Reader)

Kinktober Day 7: Mile-High Club

The day couldn't have gone any worse for you. You were shouted at by your superiors for failing to complete the duties you were assigned to, which you actually did, but your direct supervisors thought it would be fun to delete your parts. You were also stressed at the fact that you were sent on an unexpected trip to South Korea on a 3-month assignment, which, in your company's terms, is basically a guarantee of you never being able to work at HQ again.

You boarded the flight at 10PM, and the company was kind enough to give you first class tickets, which you embraced to a whole. You started off by ordering quite literally the most expensive glass of spirit, kindly putting it under your direct supervisor's card, reminding him of his mistakes.

"S-Sorry." You heard a woman say, and you were mesmerized by her attire, wearing almost basically nothing. "It's alright." You said to the girl as she took the seat next to you. As the plane took off, the two of you started chatting, discussing both of your lives, as well as the stress life brought you.

"So, I noticed about how we've both been stressed, so how do you feel if I relieve it for you, and in turn, you do the same?" Ryujin asked you teasingly, and you smirked back at her, before you moved your hands onto her midriff, moving down towards her leg. "May I?" You ask, and she nods, before you moved lower onto her leg. You moved a finger under her fishnet, into her panties, getting in touch with her wet panties.

"Horny huh?" You said, and she nods aggressively while moving her hands under your pants, getting in contact with your cock. You flinched, feeling her cold hands, but it became warm as she starts stroking your cock, getting it hard. After getting it hard, she fished your cock out of your pants and exposed it to the open air. Her strokes got faster as her hands got tighter as well, forcing you to match her pace as well, fingering her even faster. It didn't take long before your breathes got heavy but it surprised you when she was the first one to start moaning.

You leaned in to kiss her, and she replied it as if she's in desperate need of one. It didn't take long before you felt close to cumming, so you moved your kisses down onto her jawline and neck while also informing her. "I'm close." "Me too, let's cum together." She replied. The two of you increased your strokes, pleasuring each other faster. A sudden tightness in grip proved to be everything the two of you needed as the two of you reached your peak, climaxing together, on each other's hands, while the two of you kissed.

You felt your cum spurt out of your cock up onto her hands, while her juices squirted out onto your fingers, coating your fingers fully from the intensity of her orgasm. After the two of you finished cumming, you saw Ryujin suck the excess cum off her fingers, and you then sucked some of her juices before she sucked the rest of her juices. "First class toilet. Now." Ryujin instructed, dressing herself before walking to the toilet which is RIGHT in front of you. You dressed yourself back and waited 5 minutes before standing up and walking into the toilet.

As you closed the toilet door, you saw Ryujin, topless, only in her bra and panties, still with her fishnet, sitting on the sink, seemingly fingering herself. You took your top off before walking to her, leaning in to kiss her which she replied in the same manner. The two of you wasted no time to get handsy, masturbating each other aggressively while your kisses also get even more intense, leaving bite marks all over her neck and collarbone. "I need you inside me now." Ryujin said. "I don't have condoms." "I'm safe. If you don't trust me, just pull out." You stripped yourself naked before tearing open her fishnet, setting her panties aside before pushing into her, earning a moan from her.

You start thrusting slowly into her while also helping her get adjusted to your size, helping her wrap her legs around your hips while still caressing her thighs. She started returning your kisses by sucking on your neck as well as giving you permission to go deeper, which you did. Your thrusts got deeper after each thrust and with the help of her legs behind your hips, you managed to bottom out inside her, going deep again repeatedly before finding her g-spot, where you brushed and hit it a few times, making her moans louder. "You like that? You like how my big cock brush your spot?" Ryujin nodded hard and fast in agreement, making you start thrusting faster and harder into her.

The kisses Ryujin left on your neck along with the scratches she gave on your back was enough motivation to fuck her faster and harder, helping her cum soon enough as your thrusts were halted by a sudden clench in her pussy, before tonnes of juices squirted out of her pussy and onto your cock, as well as onto the floor of the bathroom. You continued fucking her through the orgasm, leaving her no time to rest while prolonging and intensifying her orgasm, giving what is possibly one of the best orgasms of her life.

Not long after, you reached your climax as well as you waited until the VERY last moment before you pulled out, stroking your cock a few times as you came, spurting your load onto her pussy, stomach and thighs. Ryujin helped with stroking your cock, making sure she milked out all of your cum.

"T-That was very good." Ryujin said, still gasping for air while you also took deep breathes, resting your head on her shoulder as you caressed her back while she caressed your hair. "Let's clean you up." You said, before helping her limping body off the sink, walking into the shower. "We only have 15 minutes of water, so let's maximize our time well." You said as you entered the shower, followed by Ryujin.

You turned on the shower, setting it to a warm temperature before putting Ryujin under the shower. You helped clean her up while she also did the same to you. The excessive touches on each other's body proved to be a major turn on as you felt her juices leaking again, at the same time as your cock got hard. "Turn off the water." You instructed Ryujin. Ryujin did so and as she turned off the water, you pushed her towards the glass door, leaning her face against the door as you align your cock with her pussy before pushing into her.

Your thrusts were merciless as you went fast and hard from the get go, attempting and successfully getting deeper inside her after each thrust. Her once tight pussy was now wider after your aggressive thrusts into her, allowing you to easily slide in and out of her faster while also getting deeper into her. It didn't help that the shower got even steamier from both of your moans. It didn't take longer before you felt her clench her pussy before gasping "I'm close."

You used your right hand to play with her clit and left hand to play with her tits, rubbing them aggressively while also kissing her upper back and neck, helping her cum while also helping you get close. It took a few more thrusts before you actually gave in first, cumming inside her womb as you thrust deeper and deeper after each spurt, cumming inside her and filling her up.

The intensity of your spurts and hot breathes, followed with how much you played with her tits and clit, helped her orgasm as well as she came a few moments after you, squirting hard onto your cock, mixing both of your cum together. The two of you just stood there, taking deep breathes to calm both of you down before you pulled out of her. You continued showering, this time without any sexual actions, helping her clean her body parts, before the two of you then dried each other up, before getting dressed and returning to your seats after 30 minutes inside the bathroom WHICH was NOT suspected by the flight attendants at all. The rest of the flight was just you and her sleeping, cuddling each other until the plane eventually landed.

(Next week)

The first day of your job couldn't come sooner and you couldn't wait any longer. You entered the building and was assigned your office by the company. You got to meet your new team, which consists of Choi Jisu, Hwang Yeji and Lee Chaeryeong. "Morning everyone." Your eyes widened after hearing the familiar voice. You fearfully turned around and your eyes, and hers, got wide open after noticing each other, after fucking each other in the plane last week. "Ryujin" "Y/n" You two muttered under your breathes.

[karniquefreak]

Homelander bombarding Hughie with thousands of voice messages, having a meltdown because his boy is not picking up. Meanwhile, Hughie just innocently fell asleep on the couch or something not aware of the shitstorm he’s inadvertently caused.

"Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. This number is not available. At the tone, please record your message."

[05:19 pm] Are you fucking serious?

[05:20 pm] Very funny. Hughie, why aren’t you answering my calls? Is this some kind of joke? Pick up your phone.

[05:21 pm] Hughie. Babe. What the fuck is this? Why are you ignoring me?

[05:22 pm] Where the hell are you? Why aren’t you picking up? You’re kind of pissing me off. You have to know you can’t just fucking go offline on me like this. It’s incredibly rude. Am I going to have to punish you later?

[05:34 pm] I’m trying my damnedest to be patient, but you’re really testing me here, sweetheart. Pick up your phone. Now.

[05:36 pm] You don’t seem to understand how this works. When I call you pick up. You don’t make me chase after you like some limp-dick schmo. Did you forget who I am?

[05:40 pm] We’re really doing this, huh? So what, you don’t want to be with me anymore, is that it? And instead of having the common decency to face me like a man you just ghost me. Of course. Jesus fuck, that's classic you, isn't it? Son of a bitch— [audio cuts off]

[05:42 pm] I’ll rip out your spine and laser your dick off andthrowyourbodyinto— [audio cuts off]

[05:45 pm] Hey. It’s me again. Hughie, I know what I said wasn’t...nice. I know, I know. Yikes! I'm just going to start over. I’m sorry. Look just—just pick up, alright? I miss you.

[05:47 pm] FUCK YOU! You miserable insect! I always knew you didn’t take us seriously, you two-faced shithead. I hate you, truthfully you were nothing to me, you know that? Just another nobody to get off with, you never meant a thing to me! You weren’t even a good lay, I could have gotten better dick-sucking from Deep for half the trouble!

[05:51 pm] Ugly sobbing noises 

[05:55 pm] Hughie, you know I love you, right? It's ok babe, I forgive you! I'm not angry, I promise. Just come over, we can have dinner and talk. It doesn’t have to end like this. I’ve calmed down now, alright? It's fine. We're good. Honest.

[05:57 pm] Are you having an affair? Is that what this is? So who the fuck is she then? Are you with Starbitch? Bet she's laughing at me while you're fingerblasting her, she must be getting off to this. But let me make this perfectly clear, you don’t fucking cheat on me. I’m The. Fucking. Homelander. Does your tiny brain even comprehend that? I am the most superior being on this earth. You should be honoured— [audio cuts off]

[06:00 pm] I’m sorry, Hughie. I may have overreacted a smidge. I'll admit that I jumped to conclusions. Yeah, fine. You win this round. Happy? Now pick up the phone.

[06:04 pm] distorted sounds of inhumane screaming, furniture getting smashed, walls collapsing, palms are sweaty knees weak, arms are heavy, there's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti

[06:06 pm] S-sir is everything ok? We heard— GET THE FUCK OUT ASHLEY, I’M BUSY! sounds of glass shattering Bunch of braindead fucks.

[06:07 pm] You better be dead, Hughie, because nothing excuses this kind of bullshit behaviour. Not from you, you hear me? I don’t give a fuck anymore, in fact I never did! Truth hurts, doesn’t it? I admit you were amusing, good for a laugh or two, but it's gotten boring. I need more and you're clearly not delivering.

[06:08 pm] I know I said you playing hard to get is a turn on, but this is ridiculous…

[06:09 pm] Hey asshole, I deleted all of your nudes. You can keep mine because I genuinely feel sorry for you, seeing as it's the best you'll ever get. I should charge you a pretty penny every time you jerk your sad little cock to me.

[06:10 pm] Ok you got me. I didn’t actually delete them, but I’m going to if you don’t PICK UP YOUR MOTHERFUCKING PHONE! HUGIE!

[06:19 pm] Fuck why do I keep— I’m sorry babe, you know how I get. You know I didn’t really mean any of it, right? I just forgot myself for a second, you know me. That’s what I love about you though, you understand me like no one. I need you Hughie, it's true. Please answer me.

[06:21 pm] What is it this time, huh? Did I hurt your fee-fee's, you big fucking baby? Did I make you cry? Aw boo fucking hoo! Why don’t you grow a pair already! I’ve given you everything and this is the thanks I get?! I’m a fucking catch! I was voted Sexiest Supe Alive for seven consecutive years! I'm the best thing that's ever happened to you, Campbell! You’re lucky to breathe the same air as me!

[06:24 pm] Is this because I accidentally sprained your wrist that one time? You’re still mad about that? I offered you head and you said no! That’s on you for not accepting my apology, it wasn’t even my fault so quit your moping, it's not fucking cute. Always such a goddamn drama queen. Jesus Christ, get over it, Hughie. Fuck's sake.

[06:27 pm] You said you loved me, you lying whore! I believed you! You know how much I fucking hate liars! YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET THIS CAMPBELL. I'M COMING FOR YOU!

[06:40 pm] Hughie, I’m here. Open the fucking door. I’m not going to break it down because you bitched me out like a little pussy the last time. C’mon, I’m being nice here, it’s more than you deserve. 

[06:41 pm] Hughie enough. I’m not going to repeat myself.

[06:42 pm] ALRIGHT THAT'S FUCKING IT. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE, CAMPBELL!

Hughie this whole time: 

[doomhamster]

Okay so since my therapist is being no use: how would YOU deal with a situation where your brain isn't even allowing you to THINK about things that make you feel bad?

[Mental health stuff under cut: nothing obviously triggering but maybe avoid if you, too, are having a bad time.]

Let us posit that you have an impressive collection of things that make you feel bad. Even ones that shouldn't!

Family occasions? Make you think of previous family occasions that you've missed, and how you may miss this one because of your shitty mental health, and what a bad daughter/sister/aunt/in-law that makes you, and how your loved ones probably think you don't care about them at all. (And *do* you really? Wouldn't you be able to Find The Energy and Just Do This if you really loved them?)

The insurance payout you got a few months ago after years of poverty? Makes you think of the relentless flood of advice from your family, all of which amounts to "don't waste this on frivolous things like you always do". Makes you feel guilty because you bought that new bed, even though your back was starting to act up from how much the old one sucked. Makes you feel even *more* guilty because some of it went to living expenses during that one month recently when you literally did not manage to cook even once.

Let's not even get started on things that stress out even normal people, like bills and appointments and important phonecalls.

I've suffered from executive dysfunction all my life, so I'm no stranger to struggling with actually doing things, but now I can't even THINK about doing it. I set the alarms and I make the notes, and I hear them and I see them, and then I just... don't. Gone. I almost miss the old days of sitting for a whole day knowing you MUST do this thing and it really would only take five minutes, and not doing it, because at least then things didn't just get deleted from my awareness?

Does anyone have any advice on what to do about this? Books to read? Videos to watch? A clue about what the fuck is even going on, because at this point I'm starting to suspect some kind of stress-induced early dementia?

[Disclaimer: if you're going to type anything on the lines of "You really need to just pull yourself together and do it"? Don't. I can't brute-force this shit or I would have, and neither of us will enjoy my reaction to that kind of thoughtlessness.]

[many-but-one]

So, our system spent a looooong fucking time trying to reblog a post by someone that goes by @system-junk-spam but after typing it out it became unrebloggable, and then upon restarting the app we found that either they spontaneously deleted their blog or they somehow blocked us while we were typing something up, despite us having never interacted with them before. That, or tumblr mobile just straight up sucks. Highly probable.

Anyway, we worked really hard on the post and still want to share our thoughts, so we’re gonna put them here. We may get eaten alive for this take, but we’ve learned to not care what others think of us. We are allowed to believe things differently than our followers do and that’s okay. Hate will not be tolerated on this post. If I see it, you are blocked.

This is our theories on how endogenic plurality can possibly exist. We’ve talked about this before but not in great detail. We are literally just gonna copy-paste our response because oh my god it took so long to type out and then transfer to our notes app because the tumblr app was messing up. To TLDR the OP’s post, they were asking for genuine examples of endogenic plurality that wasn’t just someone actually having a CDD and thinking they are endo.

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So, for starters, I used to be anti-endo. Kind of a dick about it to be honest, but not overly hateful towards endos. I have a post explaining that situation, where I also came forward with explaining that when I was a teen I thought I was an endo because I didn't have trauma—except I did, I just didn't know it yet. I also used to do roleplay—though not as a system, for the record. I just had characters I made that I later realized were heavily based on real alters in my brain and it was that alter's way of expressing themselves before they could be known by the host part at the time. So to say I understand where you are coming from, I understand where you are coming from. I have been that person. I went hard anti-endo at first, but slowly as I've begun healing and deciding "I don't really care what people do in their lives and it's not up to me to police that" I have become what I consider "syscourse neutral" but "fine with endos, I just don't interact with the community much because I'm not endo." Mainly with the feeling of "live and let live" and "they're people deserving of respect too" driving that stance.

I start with all of that preamble because at the end of the day, whether endos "really exist" or not just…doesn't matter. They're not actually taking our resources, they're not seeking out DID specialists because most of them know they don't have DID, and the whole narrative of them "making a mockery of the disorder" is pandering to fake claimers, who are the ones who point and laugh at the disorder whether you are endo or not. Endos are not the enemies of DID systems here, fake claimers are. And whether endos exist or not, fake claimers will still fake claim people with DID no matter what.

If you make this post with the concern that people who say they are endo may actually have a CDD and that can be damaging to their healing long term (it was for me personally) or they may take longer to realize they have a CDD (happened to me), the thing is, they will eventually discover that they have a CDD if that's what they really have. You have all of these examples of people realizing they actually had a CDD because those people eventually realized that's what they had. No matter what, at some point in someone's life, if they have a CDD and the right support, they will eventually realize they have a CDD—even if they initially think they are endogenic.

To go on a personal tangent, it was actually a very good thing that I thought I was endo for so long and got completely alienated from the entire CDD community because if I had discovered I had a CDD at the time, that could have had catastrophic consequences to my safety. When I finally started questioning the system thing again my first year of college, I not only nearly ended my life multiple times (other parts attempting), but I also ended up returning to my abusers and getting hurt again (callback programming, l'm a RAMCOA system). If I had discovered that as a teen? It could have been much worse than it was when I was an adult. I could have been retrafficked if I went back, rather than just reprogrammed and sent on my way, because I was still young enough to be “good product” as a teen, but as an adult they weren’t interested in my “service” anymore, they were more interested in making sure I remained programmed so I wouldn’t report them and they wouldn’t get in trouble. (Joke’s on them, I’m reporting them to the FBI. Suckers.)

My system finally allowed itself to be discovered in my final year of college because I was a mere month away from moving out with my then-fiancée at the time, who we believed could keep us safe should we display harmful behaviors. And we were right, even if she did end up being an abusive POS later. However, I still found out I was a CDD system and did get the help I needed. And even if the situation is not quite as dire for others, if someone who has a CDD believes they are endo, chances are, the system wants that for the time being. And who are we to try to disprove that endos exist just so people will be more accepting of themselves having a CDD? You said it yourself, that people knowing before they are ready can be damaging, so it's really not such a big deal whether or not endos are "real" if that's a way for a system to exist without having to hide while also still kind of "hiding" in a way.

HOWEVER! Now that I have become more open to the concept of endogenic plurality, I have put a lot of thought into "what if it really does exist? How would that happen??" Because gosh, how brains work is exceptionally cool, and if there is a way for endos to be real, that's pretty fucking neat.

So, for the record, I am not endo and I am not fully in their circles nor do I know much about origins whatsoever, so if anyone wants to chime in their thoughts or correct me on something, please do! For this next part, I'm calling endo alters/headmates "parts" just to keep the vocab streamlined and succinct.

Some common themes I notice in endos (for the most part):

They have basically no amnesia between parts

Some can create parts at-will, while others feel like they can't just create parts at will, but their parts just kind of exist

They usually can switch at-will or control switching to some degree or even completely

Some folks usually have some kind of trauma, but that's not saying much because all humans have trauma to some degree or another. Something I've noticed, though, is that this trauma is usually not in early childhood, but in later childhood, teen years, or adult years. (Please know this is not indicative of everyone, just what l've noticed in endos l've spoken to, don't come at me if your situation looks different please!)

All of these aspects come into play for my “theories” on how endogenic plurality can exist. For the record, my “theories” are more like…my own ponderings on the subject rather than something that should be taken as fact. Only endos can decide how they exist, not me.

So initially, my main theory with endos (which l've spoken about once, a while ago) is that it is "IFS on steroids."

IFS functions with the belief that all people have parts, and that to create cohesion in everyday life means finding ways to communicate between these parts and reach healing conclusions between them. Kinda like DID treatment except these parts don't have the "becoming autonomous and elaborating" part of DID. This is often seen in therapy related to addressing your "inner child" or "inner teen" but this can also apply to "the part of me that hates my dad" and "the part of me that wants him to love me." Remember, this is a singlet we are talking about, here! Singlets can also have conflicting and contradictory feelings about their family members. Having a "conversation" between these two parts might look like one of them stating all the reasons why it's better to cut him off because he always causes harm, while the other side may explain all the reasons why they want to keep him around. Weighing these "pros and cons" in this sort of scripted conversation between these two "parts" can help singlets come to an agreement between these two contradictory feelings and find a solution that is best for that singlet "as a whole."

However, what if someone who has parts of self like any singlet does finds a different way to converse with their parts? Or maybe not just converse, but imagine them? Consider that their "responsible self who is good at keeping on track" is the self that they kind of "dial into" at school or work, so that they stay on task—so then later, the part of themselves that prefers to goof off and have fun can have more time to do that. (These may be labeled as a “school/work self” and “home self” by singlets)

Maybe that responsible side of themselves feels like a guy whose name is probably like, Richard. And he's a boring, middle aged, office worker looking dude. And that fun and goofy version of themselves that would rather ignore homework feels like a teen named something funky like Rainbow. Well, the side of themselves that's responsible (Richard) is probably gonna get into a lot of arguments with the fun-loving side of themselves (Rainbow), which can look and feel like an internal debate or struggle of "well I can totally skip this assignment because I have a good grade and my show's season just dropped and I don't wanna fall behind while my friends are caught up" being answered with "um, no, if I don't stay on top of things, I'm gonna fall behind on my schoolwork, which is WAY more important than my show"

See how that can feel a bit like CDD but not actually be a CDD?

These endogenic IFS parts of self might even become slightly more autonomous (or seem slightly more autonomous) than a normal singlet's IFS parts over time, especially if having these internal conversations are a major coping skill during stressful times. These "stressful times" can literally just be "being a teenager" because holy shit being a teenager is stressful!! Does this mean every teen who is an endo in this sort of “IFS way” will grow out of it? No! If this is a positive coping mechanism that doesn't cause harm, they may still have these parts of self well into adulthood or even their whole life. Because guess what? Being an adult is also stressful as hell. It would make sense that these parts would follow them into adulthood.

They may even have traumas they have to address in therapy that these parts of self can help them address. This doesn't mean that trauma is held within a singular part to keep the others safe from the knowledge of said trauma like a CDD system, (even if that trauma is repressed—because even people who are traumatized as adults and non-systems can have repressed trauma) because most likely, all parts of self in this IFS situation are probably either totally aware (if it is not repressed) or totally unaware (if the trauma is repressed) and when it comes time to address said traumas, the parts (while maybe not quite as fully autonomous with completely separate experiences and memories like a CDD system) can still likely be quite elaborate and be very helpful when processing these traumas or negative experiences. Brains are cool! Brains are weird! They do weird stuff to cope with shit! I totally think it's plausible for someone's IFS parts to elaborate to some degree if it helps that person cope with life, even if they don't realize it's IFS or a singlet's version of plurality at all.

Does this mean they would technically be a singlet since they don't have a “genuinely” fragmented consciousness? Maybe?? Who are we to say, you know? If they feel like they are plural even if their consciousness is not fragmented in the same way a CDD system's would be, why not let them say they are plural? They are experiencing some kind of plurality, just completely differently than someone with a CDD-related fragmented consciousness would. Which is kinda neat, if you ask me.

I recently saw a tiktoker who explained they were misdiagnosed with DID, that they'd been re-evaluated by MULTIPLE CDD specialists and been told they do not have DID, but they have some kind of parts influenced by them being schizoaffective. They genuinely have parts of self that feel like they kind of "step in" to handle certain things, with names and appearances to boot, AND this person is very dissociative based on their scores on dissociative scales— which is why they were misdiagnosed by a trauma specialist (not a CDD specialist) in the first place. Their parts are coping skills based on their delusions. Does that make their parts any less real to that person? No, they still exist and they have for a long time, but they are not dissociative parts like in DID. They have some kind of parts that get them through daily life even though they do not have a dissociative disorder. How cool is that!!! They don't cause harm, so they're not something that has to be done away with or anything. This person can just BE schizoaffective with parts. And the therapists are cool with it. Go figure.

I haven’t even gotten to the part where someone with BPD can have schema modes that are kinda like parts. Not to mention that just because people with CPTSD and PTSD may not have fully autonomous ANPs and EPs like people with CDDs do doesn't mean that the person with BPD/CPTSD/PTSD may not try to “purposely” (or accidentally) semi-elaborate those parts by assigning names or identities to help them cope.

For example, if someone has an explosion of anger due to a trigger and that non-autonomous EP is responsible for it, they may associate that non-autonomous EP's anger with someone like, I dunno, Bakugo from MHA. (I know nothing about this anime I just know this is an angry guy don't come for me please lol) So every time this person gets triggered into an anger spiral, they may assign that behavior to a version of themselves that gets really angry like Bakugo, even though it's really just the ANP being influenced by the emotions of the non-autonomous EP. “Bakugo" may never “truly” be autonomous like an EP in a CDD system would be, but that person who has CPTSD or PTSD may feel like they "become Bakugo" every time they get triggered and angry because of that non-autonomous EP's influence. Eventually, the ANP may learn how to communicate with that non-autonomous EP Bakugo and learn coping strategies for “his” anger and process the traumas that caused that emotional response, which can actually help that person heal in the long run. I think non-CDD parts can totally be a helpful coping mechanism for trauma healing. Consider how much easier it is to be kind to someone else rather than yourself. A lot of trauma survivors are incredibly hard on themselves, but may do a 180 for their friends and uplift them when they are struggling with the same thing. If someone with C/PTSD finds it easier to communicate and encourage healing to “Bakugo” rather than themselves and it ends in them healing in the long run, I’d call that a net win.

Like sure, you can say "but they're not actually endo, they just have CPTSD" but like…if they don't have a fragmented consciousness but they feel like they "become Bakugo" every time that angry non-autonomous EP is triggered, wouldn't that kinda mean that they don't have CDD alters but still experience SOME form of plurality? They may have an extremely anxious non-autonomous EP that is like a different blorbo from their shows, or they might name a non-autonomous super depressed EP after Sadness from Inside Out. While they aren't experiencing CDD plurality, one cannot really argue that they aren't experiencing some kind of plurality, right?

And gosh, what about the folks who genuinely don't have serious enough trauma to have PTSD or CPTSD and aren't really needing the IFS parts to cope, but created their parts just because? Why not? Especially if they aren't trying to demedicalize DID a la Astrea's Web or purposely trying to throw vitriol into the community, what is the harm in it? I already mentioned that they really aren't making a mockery of the disorder, fake claimers are. So what’s the big deal, really?

Why can't we as traumagenic systems just let endos exist without concrete proof? From what l've gathered, there have been studies on non-traumagenic plurality (I believe @sysmedsaresexist has shared these studies before but I may be mistaken...sorry for the tag, SAS) so clearly scientists have noticed this is a thing that happens.

Aren't you, as a traumagenic system, fucking sick of fake claimers CONSTANTLY questioning your existence, your reality? Don't you think endos probably feel the same way towards us? Like yeah, we have a lot of scientific proof we exist, but fake claimers will straight up ignore that shit and say the scientists are wrong. Why are we doing literally the same shit? Like come on, put yourself in their shoes! Let them exist whether there's a bazillion studies on them or not! As long as they aren't trying to cause active harm to others or the community (most endos just wanna exist in peace without being constantly fake claimed and harassed, for the record—just like us traumagenic systems!), just let them be! Live and let live. We cannot dictate how they experience their life, whether it's real or not. (I personally think it is, it's just not the same as a CDD—our experiences with plurality are inherently different as a traumatized system of parts.)

I hope my very long ramble was of help to you and others?

Since opening up to the possibility of endos being real and not being so stressed about whether it is or not, l've just been a much happier person overall—not to mention have a much greater appreciation for how cool the brain is and what we as people do to cope with shit. Plurality as a whole is really fucking cool from a scientific perspective. I think being more open-minded and accepting in general will also just make you feel better as a person. We don't need to be asking all these questions, we can just let it be! It's way less stressful, tbh.

[licorice-and-rum]

Snape's Full Character Analysis

Okay, so I’ve already made this kind of post in my previous account (licorice-lips) but since it got deleted, here I go again because I think the world should hear more about this.

I do hate Severus Snape — and I have little to no patience for those who do and try to justify his actions with whatever. But unlike many people, my dislike for Snape doesn’t stem from “oh, he’s a child abuser” or “oh, he didn’t love Lily” but from a mix of many factors involving among other things, the way R*wling portrays supremacist ideology and its followers, the way the fandom often downplays supremacist ideology and its followers, and Snape as a character himself.

Now, I’m going to extend this essay into a full character analysis instead of just commenting on how Snape’s redemption arc sucks like I did previously because I’m feeling like it. To begin, I need you to understand how… biased R*wling’s portray of supremacist ideology really is:

J.K. Rowling is European and English (duh), which means she descends from a people who benefited (a lot and still do) from colonialism and imperialism, and both things are the basis for modern day fascism. As an author myself, it’s painfully clear to me how intrinsically close my characters and works are from myself and my own personal values. As such, it’s not such a hardship — especially if we remember how the elves and goblins are portrayed in HP — to understand how Rowling views political issues such as colonialism, imperialism and fascism.

She may not realize it but the way she does talk about the matter is such a right-wing way of tolerance to fascist thinking: as it’s very clear in Harry Potter just because of the story, the problem for the author isn’t a system of prejudice and bigotry, it’s those very few people who have become corrupted. Rowling does not identify the problem as the tree being bad when most apples — save one of two — have turn out bad. And that’s the core problem of so many things in Harry Potter but it also shows in the core problem I have with Snape’s portrayal: the way she absolutely downplays the fact that the man was a death eater for years of his life by pure and absolute conviction.

As someone who lived through a fascistic government, I’ll say it with all certainty: even the slightest support to fascistic views will propel further an agenda that will end up killing innocent people by the dozens. The truth is, even with all the undeniable good Snape did as he worked as a spy, he was a Death Eater for his conviction and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter why he chose to become one.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that he was neglected and abused by his parents, or that he was bullied in school, or that his crush didn’t reciprocated his feelings: he still became a Death Eater, he chose to become one. And that is unforgivable. It unforgivable because it means he supported and actively worked for a system of thinking that ridiculed, persecuted, tortured and murdered hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people. He advocated for a political view that has no regard for human life, that perpetuates the abuse he suffered firsthand — just in a slightly different direction. He didn’t just not break his cycle of abuse, he actively perpetuated it. Advocated for it.

And don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying here that the abuse Snape went through isn’t important at all: there is definitely something to be said about the preying of supremacist groups for young isolated men who feel left out and emasculated. But that doesn’t mean Snape gets to be absolved for his own choices because that’s what they were: his choices. He chose to become a Death Eater, he chose to uphold the cycles of abuse he had been a victim to not long before, he chose to protect it even in the face of people — good people — telling him that it wasn’t a good thing.

That’s my point, actually: Snape may have been preyed upon by the blood supremacy ideology as a teen but at some point, he chose to be influenced by it more than by millions of other influences around him. He wasn’t completely isolated or ignorant of the world to the point that the only influence he could possibly choose was the blood supremacy one, no: he had people telling him the contrary and still chose to follow blood supremacy. So, no, it’s not forgivable that he chose to become a Death Eater because he did know better than that, his very friendship with Lily proved it.

But because Rowling sees the system — a system whose very roots are prejudice and bigotry — as not actually the problem, we see these problems sliding down the hill of “oh, he was just a misguided boy” even if that’s not what she herself says: it’s what her work says.

The truth is, as much as some supremacist’s core reason for their beliefs are a deep feeling of inadequacy, that’s not enough simply because they’ll cause as much damage with their actions than any other supremacist that’ll become a supremacist for the hatred alone. Snape, who (for some) was propelled into supremacy for his isolation in his teenage years, persecuted and tortured and killed as many people as Lucius or Bellatrix did, the result is the same. And at the end of the day, the reason why you did something doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you did do something.

We can cry a river about how our intentions were good but that doesn’t mean that what we did was. Between our intentions and our actions, there’s an abyss, and it’s not until we crossed it that we can see whether or not they are alike. In Snape’s case, considering he genuinely believed the supremacist ideology he upheld would turn the wizarding world better, it doesn’t really matter: he still caused damage.

And he has never been redeemed because for a redemption arc to work properly, you need to

Acknowledge what happened — there’s not much Snape is liable to deny it happened because, of course, he’s always caught on the scenes we are privy to.

Take accountability for what you’ve done — which Snape doesn’t do, as it’s exemplified perfectly many times throughout The Prince’s Tale in Deathly Hollows. He deflects, he lies, he declares he had no intentions of doing what he did, but he never, not once, takes accountability for what he has done and what ended up hurting other people:

“There was a crack. A branch over Petunia’s head had fallen. Lily screamed. The branch caught Petunia on the shoulder, and she staggered backward and burst into tears.

“Tuney!” But Petunia was running away. Lily rounded on Snape. “Did you make that happen?” “No.” He looked both defiant and scared. “You did!” She was backing away from him. “You did! You hurt her!” “No – no, I didn’t!” But the lie did not convince Lily.”

““…thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying, “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all –” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny –” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape.”

“It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just –” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice.”

To make amends for what you did — I’m not even going to deepen my argument on this one, it’s clear he didn’t. Not when he hurt Petunia, not when he hurt Lily, not when he hurt anyone really, the only exception being him protection Harry after telling Voldemort about the prophecy, but that’s not overcoming any patterns here, which brings me to my next point:

To accept the boundaries that you put in place as they’re on the path to earn forgiveness — which Snape also doesn’t, as exemplified in this excerpt of The Prince’s Tale:

The scene changed… “I’m sorry.” “I’m not interested.” “I’m sorry!” “Save your breath” It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just –”

It’s very important to understand here that Snape doesn’t respect Lily’s boundaries of not wanting to talk to him after he called her a slur, which is also a sign of not being in a path to earn forgiveness. And forgiveness must be earned: no amount of trauma explaining our actions actually counts as an excuse for our behavior. It can explain it and thus, making forgiveness easier to achieve, but trauma doesn’t change the fact that we are responsible for our own choices and acts throughout our lives, and if we hurt someone, we have a responsibility to be accountable and make amends.

So okay, we’ve stablished that Snape has some heavy trauma to work through but that doesn’t mean he’s not liable for his own actions. Now, what we need to understand is his relationship with the Marauders. That’s a much more complicated theme, which will bring me back to Rowling and her point of view of things and how they impact her narrative and the way things are portrayed in the books.

The first thing we need to notice is that Rowling doesn’t seem much preoccupied with portraying bullying in a responsible way throughout the series. It’s clear that many of the comedic reliefs we have — especially in the form of Fred and George — are bullies in the modern, more “strict” way of seeing children’s behavior: their acts not only can be considered humiliating for some (such as Neville and other side characters in the books) but also downright cruel or dangerous. So it’s clear by her account on other similar relationships portrayed in the books that Rowling didn’t consider what Snape and the Marauders had as a bully/victim relationship.

That can be because of her age, or because of the character’s age even (they were in the 90s after all), or even a mix of both reasons, but the fact remains that she didn’t view it as bullying, so anything she writes about it will be a gross exaggeration of what she considers child rivalry. It’s one of the reasons I have the icks when anyone starts asking her for a book on the Marauders because I just know she’d butcher her way into their stories, to be completely honest.

Unfortunately, this also means it’s how Snape views it all — as something that happens between children (not saying that it didn’t cause trauma, just that he doesn’t see it as a trauma) which makes him even back up the people who do the same when he becomes a teacher, such as Malfoy and his friends. My point is that, in the building of Snape’s character, his problem with what the Marauders used to do to him wasn’t what they did but rather that they did it with him, someone Snape viewed as undeserving of it, as opposed to when someone who did deserve — such as muggleborns — were the target of said treatment:

“We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all –” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny –”

So the problem in the end wasn’t the Marauder’s behavior but their target — which, of course, was him.

But the origin of the Marauder’s dislike for Snape at that point ran deep and very intricately: there was a lot of reason why we could attribute to their hatred for each other, such as house rivalry, Snape’s fixation on Remus’ secret, James’ jealousy for Lily and Snape’s friendship, Snape’s inclination for dark magic and supremacist views, Sirius overcompensation for being raised in such a prejudiced environment and as such becoming a little too aggressive about it, and many other reasons. The point is, there was a meddle of everything by the time we reach SWM.

So their relationship is just as intricate and difficult to entangle. I’m not saying here that any of my analysis exempts the Marauders from what they did — it was serious and bad and something that shouldn’t have happened at all regardless of how I feel about Snape. But as I try to analyze Snape’s character in the books, I need to be very careful on how to approach this: my morals and interpretations of what happened shouldn’t come first to what Snape’s viewed at the moment and what he took from this. So at last, what I’m saying is: as much as I know that was some hard bullying going on there, Snape didn’t see it that way, either because Rowling herself couldn’t see it that way and because the time and the time’s belief’s system wouldn’t allow him to.

Anyway, if we take any only the facts, we have — James attacked Snape sometime after Snape tried to catch Remus in the Shrieking Shack, Snape also instigated fights with James, Snape and his friends also bullied muggleborns and blood traitor — it becomes very clear that we need to balance power relations very carefully here:

On the very top, we have supremacist purebloods, which are the most privileged social group at the time, which would include people like Lucius, Bellatrix, the Lestrange brothers, most of the Blacks, and others. Then, right below, we’d have purebloods who didn’t believe in blood purity, such as Sirius, the Potters (James specially), the Weasleys, the Prewetts, the Longbottoms and others. Plus, the more I consider the wizarding world of that time, the more I realize how close halfbloods who adhered to the purist cause had a place in society that rivaled the same importance with purebloods who were considered blood traitors, sometimes ranking even higher depending on the environment or situation.

Just to be entirely clear: when I say halfbloods, I’m not only talking about those whose heritage are certain (children of muggleborns or muggles with purebloods) but also to those whose heritage couldn’t be drawn back. For example, the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the account of all pureblooded families in Great Britain, is admittedly an incomplete and slightly biased and unreliable source. They didn’t list the Potters as purebloods, for example, solely on the account of, whilst the family didn’t have any muggle relatives, there were enough muggles with the last name Potter that they weren’t sure about the family’s heritage. So it’s fair to assume a lot of people we’d been presented to as halfbloods could be pureblood familys whose heritage was slightly questioned. So yes, I’d put halfbloods who stood with blood supremacy as just as privileged as a pureblood who sided against it because of all this background. Then, we have halfbloods who didn’t approve of pureblood supremacy, muggleborns, then muggles.

It’s quite understandable by the books that, while in SWM, Snape was in a clear place of power imbalance in relation to the Marauders, the truth wasn’t always this. Mulciber and Avery are quoted as the closest to Snape (and we know very well what they’ve become after school), and although I found nothing in regards to the Mulciber family, the Averys were purebloods, so I have to place Snape as being just as privileged as the Marauders within normal (normal, not exceptional) school social dynamics in relation to blood. Of course that wasn’t truth to every power dynamic presented within the Harry Potter world, such as the Slytherin conundrum for example.

Okay, I’ll be honest with you guys here: I feel like the imbalance people accuse the adults of Harry Potter of having is grossly exaggerated sometimes. Yes, Slytherin was in disadvantage in relation to other houses, and it was looked upon by them, but the point is: ancient pureblooded families, especially the ones who were knee deep in supremacist ideology, often favored Slytherin, that is a fact.

Regardless of it been productive or not, the most blood supremacists within the house, the more we’d get comments and actions against muggleborns within school grounds that would inevitably be punished by the taking of points (and by the way, Snape was not helping congratulating Draco for his own bigotry instead of rewarding Slytherins who were actually interested in studying and working hard on their grades).

Plus, Gryffindor is the house of the protagonist — of course it’ll gain some privileges for that. If it was Ravenclawn, we’d be discussing this issue with Slytherin versus Ravenclawn points. It makes no sense accusing other of having biases like that because it’s obvious we’d have this kind of biases exactly for the plain reason it’s the protagonist’s house.

Anyway, I digress: because of the points I just made about it, the Slytherin versus Gryffindor rivalry is not enough to grant James and the others such a significative upper hand on their privilege in relation to Snape, although I would argue that Snape’s pre-existing bigotry did him no favors in the adults’ eyes on that matter, so it may have.

Now, why am I focusing on that? Because it’s clear to me that, while James and the others had a clear upper hand on their treatment of Snape in Snape’s Worst Memory, it’s not so clear as people seem to believe what the picture looked like the rest of the time. And of course, I do understand that it seems very much cemented on everyone’s minds that the configuration of the Marauders and Snape relationship was always the one we see in Snape’s Worst Memory, but that’s not completely truth and there are hints of it since the fifth book:

When Sirius said James wasn’t the only one to initiate fights, when he said Snape was always trying to sneak up on James, when we learn of the spells Snape had invented as a teenager (we can half-confidently say they were for the Marauders considering Snape’s trying to use Sectumsempra on James, but not limited to them, of course), when we get to know that Snape was “always trying” to prove that Remus was a werewolf to get him expelled, among other moments.  The truth is, as much as I would like to point out the Marauders were not so bad, I can’t say this with certainty, but Snape apologists can’t say for certain they know fully the dynamics of their relationship either because even when the Marauders weren’t good people, they can’t say Snape was only a victim as well.

Or at least, they can’t say that he was the kind of victim who didn’t victimized people just like he was victimized too. And that’s probably even more reason why I dislike him, but I’ll get there. What I do know is that Snape, for his supremacist views alone, was doing a lot worse than what the Marauders were doing as teens. I’m sorry, it’s true: as much as I despise bullying, I can’t get over the fact that Snape was the equivalent of a Hitler youth child soldier in the wizarding world when he was a teenager. I’d punch him myself if I was his classmate, to be honest. Hatred aside, however, I do understand that what the Marauders did had little to nothing to do with supremacist views and all to do with being idiots, so yeah, fuck them. I’m not here to defend the Marauders anyway, just to condemn Snape (which, surprise, surprise, it’s actually possible).

Now, I dread having to go there, to be honest, but I want to talk to you guys about Snapes’ feelings for Lily. I’ve read the most grotesque and misogynistic things I’ve ever read in my life scrolling through Snape stans posts and let’s be honest here: Lily and Snape’s relationship was so toxic I would come back healthier if I went to Chernobyl than going anywhere near them together — because of Severus — and it’s actually appalling that some people doesn’t seem to think so. I’m sorry, but all the signs of classical emotional abuse signs are right there, just in the Prince’s Tale:

Belittling and constant criticism — I’m sorry, but his behavior alone says everything: you can’t treat muggleborns like they’re trash and then try to convince your muggleborn best-friend they she’s not. The belittling is in his actions. And then there’s the fact that Snape brings up accusations of Lily liking James more than once as a form of criticism as well (because neither have a good opinion of James, which is fair, but it’s still veiled criticism of Lily). Plus, his belittling of Lily’s feeling over Petunia’s hatred of her is obvious:

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said in a constricted voice. “Why not?” “Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore.” “So what?” She threw him a look of deep dislike. “So she’s my sister!” “She’s only a – ” He caught himself quickly; Lily, too busy trying to wipe her eyes without being noticed, did not hear him.”

Gaslighting and controlling tendencies — when he tries to convince Lily he didn’t use magic to hurt Petunia with the tree branch, or when he questions their friendship because she’s trying to make a constructive critic of his life choices (“I thought we’re supposed to be friends?... Best friends?”), or when he tries to dictate who she’ll be friends with (when they’re discussing his own friends by the way). Even if Lily doesn’t let him, doesn’t mean it’s not abusive.

Isolation of loved ones — Constantly belittling Petunia, setting Lily and himself as above her because of their magic, convincing Lily to invade Petunia’s privacy thus isolating her further, causing rifts between Lily’s friends in Gryffindor and her because of his supremacist tendencies…

Jealousy and Possessiveness — I do think this one is self-explanatory.

Humiliation and Shaming — I also believe this one is also self-explanatory.

Unpredictable or Inconsistent Behavior — This is perfectly exemplified by their conversation when Lily is pointing out about his friends’ bad influence on him. We can see perfectly how inconsistent Snape’s behavior is, jumping from deflecting his accountability, downplaying his own bad deeds, to possessiveness and jealousy over absolutely nothing Lily has ever referenced to (try not to read what they’re saying but instead just concentrate at how abruptly Snape goes from one to the other):

“…thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying, “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, ’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all – ” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny – ” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His color rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter got to do with anything?” said Lily. “They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?” “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill – ” “Every month at the full moon?” said Snape. “I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold. “Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?” “I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush. “They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” She dropped her voice. “And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there – ” Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too! You’re not going to – I won’t let you – ” “Let me? Let me?” Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. “I didn’t m ean – I just don’t want to see you made a fool of – He fancies you, James Potter fancies you!” The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. “And he’s not…everyone thinks…big Quidditch hero – ” Snape’s bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily’s eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up her forehead. “I know James Potter’s an arrogant toerag,” she said, cutting across Snape. “I don’t need you to tell me that. But Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them.” Harry doubted that Snape had even heard her strictures on Mulciber and Avery. The moment she had insulted James Potter, his whole body had relaxed, and as they walked away there was a new spring in Snape’s step…

There’s also the fact that their friendship began in a relation of power that met its inevitable demise once those specific conditions tumbled down: when Snape met Lily, he was all the source she had about the wizarding world, he was her only link to that part of herself she felt was so different from anyone else. Once Lily arrived at Hogwarts, this dependance quickly came to an end with Lily spreading her wings, which probably also took a heavy tool on their relationship because its foundation was already fragile to begin with.

However, I’m not saying here that Snape was this evil mastermind at nine years old he managed to consciously ensnare Lily into this emotionally abusive relationship all by his astute manipulation. Snape was a child of abuse and neglect and, as such, he never learned how to properly bond and stablish healthy relationships. Much like the child starved by love he was, Snape probably saw every and any other relationship Lily had as a threat to their own relationship, because he doesn’t know love is not finite — he doesn’t know love stretches to accommodate other people with the time. It’s not unreasonable for me to read their relationship as such, although I’m sure that wasn’t JK Rowling’s intentions when she wrote HP, in fact it’s more than possible to admit their friendship sucked even when Snape remembered it so fondly.

As a person who actually went through an emotionally abusive relationship, I can tell how exhausting it is to carry this person along and make up excuses for everyone around you who can clearly see that this friendship sucks but doesn’t want to tell you because it might make things worse. Specially if I’m talking about someone who believes the way you were born makes you inferior in some way, that shit really hurts even when they say you’re different because deep down, you know you’re not. Deep down, you know that you’re the exception over some crooked perception you somehow beat the odds of an inferior condition and that’s what makes you “special”. And it’s gross just to think about it.

Okay, so now I think I analyzed everything about Snape I’ve wanted to analyze, so I’ll end here my enormous rant about him and if there’s anything else I want to talk about when this starts to get hate, I’ll probably post a part two.

Bye, guys!

[misc-obeyme]

DID BEELSCUSTARD GOT TERMINATED WHY

Okay I saw about this when I checked Tumblr this morning before work. Normally I don’t post during work hours (thanks to the queue), but I couldn’t stop thinking about this & I think it’s important for people to know.

beelscustard & I think a few other blogs that did image editing were terminated due to copyright laws.

I don’t know enough about these laws to speak on it & presumably they’re going by the laws in Japan. I was always under the impression that as long as no money is being made from it, fanworks of all kinds are permissible. But that may not be the case for Japanese laws & there may be some ambiguity when it comes to editing of images from game content.

That being said, I think this is a really shitty move.

The fandom has been lagging already & now they’re going to come in & hurt their own fans by not only deleting years worth of dedicated work but depriving other fans of that work as well? This is something that will only hurt them, not help them.

They have continually made some upsetting decisions, but this really takes the cake in my opinion.

I don’t know if they’re planning on doing anything else like this. My understanding is that it has to do with data mining & image editing, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come for other fanworks as well. I’m not telling anybody to panic about it, but just make sure you’ve got your stuff somewhere. There’s a way to backup Tumblr blogs I think. I’ll see if I can find the post about it after I get off work & then I’ll reblog it.

As fans, all we can do is support each other. It sucks, but this game exists to make money. That’s always going to be their priority. We get to decide for each of us as individuals how much money we’re willing to give to support the underlings who are working on the game that actually care about the content they create.

I don’t think it’s likely that they would crack down on fanfiction blogs, but I have posted plenty of screenshots. So if you’re worried about losing me, you can go follow me on my main blog @misc-magic if you would like to. It might not matter but I’m not sure how serious they’re going to get with this.

I’m sorry to use your ask as a more general announcement, Kian. I know you already follow my main 💕 but hopefully this also answers similar questions for others as well.

If I see anything else that I can share I’ll keep you all updated.

[xclowniex]

I don’t know if it makes me a horrible person but I’m actually kind of glad seeing Yuval (feels very weird saying that seeing as my uncle is called יובל) getting ripped to shreds by his ‘supporters’. Like, not happy, but just sort of satisfied??? I had to unfollow him when I was still on tiktok because he was promoting ahistorical bullshit and demonising Israelis. It’s extra shitty because the first ever video he made on the conflict was actually fairly balanced and recognised Jewish self determination and being indigenous to the levant, and then he deleted it, apologised, and started erasing Jewish history because he thought he could bend to these people’s will. His account prides itself on being informed and factual and fair, and yet he pulls a stunt like that, and I can only imagine how much worse he’s gotten since I deleted tiktok

We all knew that this would happen. The harassers knew it would, at least in their subconscious. It was only him who didn’t. They’ve pushed him to the very edge because now the baseline for being like them is to view the Shoah as a couple thousand people dying for basically being Christians, and it’s made special because they were white, and now that he’s stepped out of line a little they are coming for him. Maybe it’ll snap him out of being an idiot who sells out his own people so that he can be seen as a good person instead of like, actually being a good person. But he’ll probably just try to curry their favour again and fail over and over and over. Idk. It’s a weirdly gratifying but also incredibly depressing thing to see that what you predicted was going to happen was exactly right

(and I know some idiots are going to try to twist this into saying ‘you think fundraising for Palestinians is evil!!!’ because the anons you get are absolutely deranged. That’s not my problem with him or his account, wanting to fundraise for families is great and, as long as they’re verifiably real, it’s a good way to directly help people without their aid being taken away and siphoned off by Hamas. My problem with him is that in an effort to be the token Good Jew tm he completely revises history, spreads propaganda and false info, and vilifies every point of Israel’s life as a state. Plus he can’t even pronounce his own name right lol)

100% with everything you said.

I don't think you are a bad person for having a sense of "I told you so" towards what he is experiencing. It sucks and no jew should experience antisemitism, however two things can be true at once.

Its only natural to feel almost a sense of vindication, a "see look, I told you all this was going to happen and none of you listened to me and now you're suffering too"

I also agree that he will likely bend to their favor. He has shown some backbone in regards to his apology video where he stood behind his original message but apologized if his wording was off and re-worded his statement. This is all my assumption as I am not in his head, but I feel like his backbone on this came from sheer disbelief that face eating leopards ate his face. We may see this end up as a turning point where he stops pandering, or he might continue to pander either out of wanting to be accepted or because of other commitments like Ayame. She might not want to continue to make content with him due to the backlash and boom there goes his biggest series + a potential relationship as I'm unsure if it's just for views or if they are genuinely interested in each other.

[nullnvoid911]

How do I manage to cite thousands of photos?

I have officially passed 1,000 posts cited on this blog! That's 1000 posts of riots, exercises, mildly disgruntled guys in balaclavas, whatever.

If you were wondering if I do all the citing myself, you'd be correct! Every citation has been agonizingly researched by me. Is it a waste of time? Definitely. But I'm too far in to stop now...

However, it's not all by hand. I'm a software developer by trade, so I did make something to help with citation. Using the Tumblr API, these are the tools I made to make the process just a bit less painful!

You may have noticed all of my posts follow a certain format. Well, this is why! The citations view brings up my most recent unattributed post for me to add a citation to. Then, I can search multiple reverse image websites to find the source!

Google Lens is usually best for most things (even Russian pictures on VK and official military websites). TinEye is great for photos that are heavily cropped, or are stock, since they're sponsored by Adobe and Alamy. Everything else, including Yandex, kind of sucks.

I can also create new posts using this tool, which you've probably seen recently:

Throughout it all I've developed an auto tagging system that picks up on keywords inside the posts I write. This list goes on and on! Who knew there were so many special forces with three letter acronyms...

BRI SEK AOS KSK BAC B2R CDI DSI СБУ DSU BMD KSM SAS JTF! Which ones can you name?

You may have seen me delete posts that you liked. That was the job of the duplicate remover, which helps me find and delete identical posts. Even I forget what I've reblogged...

Of course, I have to fetch all 6000 images first and compare them using a unique "perceptual hash", but... it's worth it!

Through all my editing, posting, sorting, and loading, I need to keep an eye on the Tumblr API limits. I can actually reach them with the amount of posts I'm making...

And that's pretty much it! I probably won't release the tool since I doubt anyone would actually want to waste time doing this, but I'm pretty proud of it.

I might make a post later about the things I've found, but here are some fun facts:

France and Germany make up almost half of my entire list. For reference, the USA is about 40!

137 posts are marked with #needs-attribution, or about one in ten. 14 are under #needs-more-info. The sources for these are lost to time :(

There's a limit of 1000 likes per day. I've reached it...

There's a limit of 1000 posts in the queue, which I've pretty much been at since I started this blog. However, my current "cited" backlog is about 10 days long at 25 posts per day.

I still have about 3500 posts left to go before everything's done...

Thanks for sticking with me as I add summaries to posts that most people would have probably liked more if it was just the picture :^)

Maybe my captions are making things... too real?

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I say this as a salty fan and not someone trying to be hateful (if it comes off as so please delete this ask), but I don't think Dana deserves Belos. As a villain, he's just too complicated and it sucks seeing his character kinda get ruined.

Personally, I think she does better with one note / one off villains like Tibbles, the inspector from "The First Day", the elderly ladies in the Body Swap episode, the publisher demon and the merchant demon from "Sense And Insensitivity" etc.

With those characters, you can enjoy them because they are meant to be one note, but not Belos.

Honestly, I feel that a lot of the characters remain either one-note or are reduced to one-note characters and it's not just the villains. Willow and Gus barely grow outside of being Luz's friends; they do get mini-arcs of their own but for the most part, they sorta stay in the background so they don't really stand out on their own.

Poor Amity went from a stuck-up perfectionist to Luz's Girlfriend. Once she breaks away from Odalia's influence, her characterization is reduced to just Nice and Kinda Dorky. There's none of that sarcasm or ruthlessness that she had in season 1 and if you're raised by a parent like Odalia, those kinds of attitudes and beliefs don't really go away. Amity may become nicer and more well-adjusted, but her edges have been sanded off, she's just boring.

Hunter was brash and self-confident yet once we learned more about him, his original characterization was replaced with Sad Boy Who Is Also Kinda Dorky. Now, could his cockiness been a mask this whole time? Absolutely. But we don't get much of his old personality Post Heel Turn, instead the show spends an inordinate amount of time traumatizing him and giving him barely enough time to process all that.

Lilith does better in the characterization department, but we still get Cool Aunt Lilith in the end. It seems like if you're a former Bad Guy, you get turned into a dork character to signify that you're no longer a threat and on the Good Guy Team. All of these characters had their edges sanded away and now they're nerds with interests like sci-fi/fantasy or academia.

As for Belos, I feel like the writers never had a real interest in him outside of him being the main villain. But his backstory makes him a complicated character and as we see with the above examples, the writers struggled with distinguishing their characters, let alone handling a nuanced portrayal of villainy.

Sometimes characters outgrow their creators and a character like Belos needed a crew that was actually interested in him in order to bring him to his full potential.

[bestshipsmackdown]

I think, for the record, it takes a lot less effort to say “JKR is a pos and has caused unequivocal and irrevocable harm to a minority/marginalized community by using her money and voice to advocate against trans people, and I do not support her,” than it does to go on a rant about how no one is entitled to your “political opinions” on your poll blog. Because trans people should not be treated as a political novelty instead of real human beings. And even if your blog has “nothing to do with politics”, queer people are surprisingly not just whittled down to a political stance you can take, and I have no problem publicly stating that this blog is safe for the lgbt community and is not founded on bigotry.

Yes, I agree that, curating your internet experience is important, and that fandom is not necessarily made up of people likeminded to their creators. HOWEVER with HP, it is much more likely that you are transphobic when you publicly tolerate it. Seeing as that is the main trend when we observe blogs still circulating HP content.

I really never had intent to even allow JKR/HP to even appear on this blog because I wanted to be as far removed from it as humanly possible. Hence why I have, in the past, just deleted HP submissions without even ever stating they weren’t going to be apart of this poll.

All this to say, I followed a blog that allowed HP characters be apart of it’s poll (explicitly stated in the submission process), which was already a red flag. And then, to truly no one’s surprise, when they were (actually very politely, considering this is the internet) asked for their stance on JKR to make sure that it was a blog they were okay with following, they had a very long winded answer, without ever actually condemning JKR [links to give an example of my first thought of how their answer sounded] besides a throwaway line about “sins of the creator.” Which, if you publicly post HP, yeah you’re gonna be scrutinized on if you’re transphobic or not. That’s the risk you assume at the current time. Just kinda what happens when you support loudly transphobic people with no reassurance that you actually can separate the art from the artist.

Now, I have made a post about my views on separating the art from the artist, previously. And I still stand by that post. When I said “There’s some creators you can’t avoid how nasty they are, because they scream it from the rooftops,” and “There are some people who do things that are so far beyond wrong that they cannot be looked at without that standing out as the most important thing about them. Their failures as a human outweigh any good that has or could ever come from them.” I specifically had JKR in mind. It is common knowledge what kind of person JKR is at this point. There is no question on what she is.

I recognize that the person behind the poll blog, that this post is about, may not like my view on this or on their statement regarding it. And I do in fact classify them under my general “no creator is a good nor perfect person” umbrella. But I will not be attaching their name to this, as I do not want anyone to harass them about it. I do not want harm to come to them about this. I would hope they would rethink how they had answered and perhaps actually acknowledge that they aren’t transphobic. But considering that would have been the easy answer to begin with, they probably are transphobic, and that really sucks.

And to anyone reading this, please do not harass the person this is about, if you do find them, or know who they are already. They are entitled to their privacy and safety, they are not actively spreading hate nor harm.

The fault I saw was in the way in which they answered the question. Because while no one is entitled to their political opinions, trans people were largely not a “hot political topic” until JKR stuck her nose in it and changed the political landscape drastically to include the prosecution of trans people. So yeah, people wanting to know if someone posting content, from that monster, is in line with her way of thinking, is actually them making sure they can curate their internet experience, by giving you the chance to be a part of that experience, given you weren’t a transphobe. Because HP itself does not condemn people for their gender nor call for their removal in spaces specifically for their gender, the writer does. The creator is 100% the problem.

People are allowed to post about HP all they want. While HP has other issues beyond it’s creator, such as the antisemitism laced throughout (also at the hands of the creator, fancy that), it is possible for people to enjoy it while standing against the creator. But those who are able to do that, are generally the kind of people who could actually articulate that they do not support JKR. And if you can’t articulate that, then it’s pretty glaringly obvious why that is something you would rather not talk about. And people who enjoy HP, but do not support JKR and would like to ethically consume HP media (without the burden of JKR supporters) are absolutely going to ask if you support JKR when you don’t outright keep HP off your blog.

TLDR: JKR is a pos and has caused unequivocal and irrevocable harm to a minority/marginalized community by using her money and voice to advocate against trans people, and I do not support her. I don’t actually think anyone is a good nor perfect person in the black and white of things. Don’t harass creators who aren’t using their platforms to cause harm to people. I will not be advocating for the removal of any content, because I have a perfectly functional block button and so do you. Make sure to register to vote/vote in your elections. Queer people are not something you can be politically/socially/economically against or for, because queer people exist and deserve to be treated as humans. And uhhh cis/cisgender/cishet aren’t slurs.

[wyntereyez]

I'm going to talk about Holiday Matsuri before I forget everything.

I found out about the convention at nearly the last minute, probably due to deleting my Twitter account, so I didn't see Neil announce he was going. Since I hadn't seen Neil since MegaCon in February, I was excited. He was going to be near me again! The tricky part was that it was the weekend before Christmas, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get time off my retail job. However, I was prepared to call in sick if needed, because after the hellish holiday months, I deserved this.

Turns out, I didn't have to call off. Which was kind of disappointing. So much for my small act of rebellion.

I was able to attend Friday (I just worked five hours in the morning) and Saturday, which I had off. So I planned to get some ops and autos with other guests on Friday, and devote Saturday to Neil's line.

Due to CIRCUMSTANCES, it was nearly a disaster. I ended up still being in the looooong registration line about ten minutes before my first photo op. I may have been panicking a bit. By which I mean, a lot. Fortunately, one of the staff was going down the lines doing arm bands to save time, and when I explained my situation, he told me to go up to a desk, and they took care of me. So, now it was five minutes to my op, and I hadn't had any time to figure out where anything was. A staffer showed me on a map - but it ended up being a different photo room from the actual celebrity ops. Those were on the complete opposite end of the convention center from where I was.

And the convention center is huge. I was sweating by the time I actually got to the right place, with a lovely glistening face and frizzy hair. Joy. But I'd made it.

My first photo op was with Maggie Robertson, Resident Evil Village's Lady Dimitrescu herself, as well as Baldur's Gate 3's Orin the Red.

I was the only one in line for her.

I was also the only one for the following photo op, which was an RE Village op with both Maggie and Neil.

Maggie asked if I was there for RE or BG3, and I told her both, which seemed to delight her since she'd mostly been encountering BG3 fans.

After we took the photo, Neil was brought in for the RE op, asked if I wanted RE or BG3, and when I said Resident Evil, he immediately started doing Heisenberg lines while Maggie just elegantly loomed over us (she's tall, and Neil was crouching). It was hilarious!

Once I'd finished, I immediately went to Theo Solomon's autograph line. He saw me wearing a Legend of Zelda shirt, which I'd joked was appropriate for a holiday convention because it was green and Link is elf-adjacent, and we talked about those games for a couple minutes. I also thanked him for coming to another American convention, because he's done very few of them compared to the others. For my autograph, I picked the gorgeous art print he had of Wyll, and admitted that I thought Wyll looked really good with the horns. Theo agreed. (Look, the circumstances about how he got them sucks, but he did look good, okay?)

I then went to Maggie's line and selected a Lady D print that matched a Heisenberg print I had. There was an option for Maggie to draw her special Vampy doodle for an extra $10, but I was spending enough as it was, so I just went with the regular signature. Maggie warned me she liked to deface herself in prints with her photo, and asked if that was okay - I was fine with that - and she went to town on the print. And drew the Vampy I didn't pay for. Oops.

For our table selfie, she directed me through a variety of poses, and it turns out I will in fact let Lady Dimitrescu boss me around with no question. LOL.

And that was my first day.

On Saturday, I'd arrived early, intending to secure a good place in Neil's autograph line. And I would have been third in line, but there was a snag - they weren't letting people hold places in line for photo ops unless you had someone else actually, physically there with you to hold your spot. I had a photo op with Neil, and autographs didn't start until after the photos, so I would have ended up waiting four hours only to lose my spot.

Yeah, not happening. I'd take my chances and get in the auto line after my photo. But that freed me up for the BG3 panel!

There was already a line for that, even though it wasn't for another hour and a half. So I sat down in line and made myself comfortable and sat on my foot, which fell asleep.

Deeply asleep.

When the line started moving, I stood up, took a step, and promptly fell, scaring the hell out of some volunteers. I got up, then fell again. It's like my foot just wasn't there. So now I had some lovely bruises on my knees, and my hand somehow, and some freaked out staff. (I'm fine besides the bruises; I just didn't give myself any time to get feeling back in my foot because I didn't want to hold up the line.)

I got great seats for the panel, though.

They didn't cover any new ground; they'd been doing panels for about a year now, and mostly this was the panelists having fun and the moderator, Wee Claire, doing her best cat wrangler act.

She tried to bring them out one by one, but when she got to Jen and Aliona, Jen had Maggie's hand and Maggie was pulling Neil behind her.

They tried to start with a lightning round with fast, short answers (the other guests all turned to Neil here, LOL!)

Things we actually learned:

Ranch ornaments are a thing

Wee Clair doesn't like Ranch, which caused Dev and Jen to walk off stage in a huff

Neil is BAD at answering questions where you're supposed to choose between two things without thinking about it. (For example, Wee Clair asked for them to choose between Christmas sweaters and Christmas pajamas. Everyone else snapped off an answer. Neil seemed at a loss, then defended that he doesn't wear either. He continued to be bad at this game.)

The cat that Astarion was based on passed away. Apparently, he was old; he'd been a neighborhood stray for 15-20 years, so he'd had a long life of mooching off his various families!

Wee Claire said she'd read Neil would have been happy to play a goblin in a tavern if it meant he could be involved in BG3. She then asked him to act out a goblin character, which she named Kevin.

My Neil photo op was next. The line was pleasant, because we all shared common interests, obviously. The woman ahead of me was going to do a Y'allstarion op, and had brought a cowboy hat to give to Neil if he wanted it.

When I saw him wear the hat in her op, I realized I had a dire need to also get a pic with him in the hat. So I did. No regrets.

And then came the autograph line. We'd been assured that Neil had gotten faster, and the line did seem to progress pretty well. I think I was in it about three hours? Still long, but nowhere near what his waits had been.

When I got up there, I included my internet handle as well as my name, because I wanted to see if Neil continued to ignore my real name and call me wynter.

Blue Owlz Medic was sitting next to him, chatting with everyone waiting, and to my surprise, she recognized my name! I wasn't aware I was that visible, yikes?

And then it was my turn for an auto. Neil was once again very polite when he introduced himself, then he looked down at the little post-it with my name and immediately recognized my handle. He remembered that he'd seen me somewhere earlier this year, though not where (I'd seen him at MegaCon), and then broke my brain because he thought I was one of his mods.

How... how am I so visible he thought I was a MOD?! I'd considered applying, but decided against it because I'd never been a mod before and that would be an overwhelming community to start with. But it sounds like I would have had a chance to get a position because they 'know' me?!

Halp.

Neil and Blue both thanked me for my contributions to the community (halp?) then I got my table selfie. And Neil asked if he could hug me. I've never had to ask him for a hug, but I've gotten hugs every time I've seen him.

And that was my Christmas present to myself. I managed to accomplish a lot in two days!

And that was basically it for me. There was a search for an Astarion charm that I saw next to Blue; someone had given it to her and I had a DIRE NEED for one.