#Also asking here and not Twitter bc my Twitter is dead and never gets any traction since its a tiny acc

[artheresy]

I fear I'm preparing for the worst since the moment I got in at right after 9:00 am it was already sold out and I'm so so tired

Does anyone know the actual best place to buy resold tickets for Miku Expo, I know they're literally gonna be more than twice the price in some places but my spirit is so crushed that any suggestions of where to get them will be a godsend because I doubt I'll get anything good by the time it's the general public sale if each and ever single pre-sale including the local one is anything to go by?

[some-rotten-nest]

Random DC/DP headcannons bc I can't sleep

Expect many typos

Danny hates storms, especially thunderstorms bc of the lighting cracking in the sky

Danny wears a power cuff like a bracelet that dampens his more violent powers bc he's scared of them (wail, large-scale ice like with undergrowth etc)

In one of his magazines, instead of bullets Jason keeps solid ectoplasm just in case, and so it's not conspicous

In his Phantom form Danny has a streak of black hair where his white usually is

Jason is fright knight (unless it's a Jason-Danny biologically related fic. Ghost Zone law says no one you share blood with (clones included) can become fright knight (but they can join the court and have other ranks))

Danny made a contingency plan against himself and with the help of a sibling (Cass most likely, though she did seem a bit sad) got it on the bat-computer. Password protected so Danny can't get into it. Bruce doesn't know and won't know until/if Danny goes bad. Bruce made a separate one for him.

Tim gets low and non-harmfil doses of ectoplasm in his coffee bc it is like a shit ton of caffeine for a living person. (Yes, some Amity Park drinks have ectoplasm in them too)

Danny asks Bruce, Tim and Lucius for help with Ghost King Shit TM

Duke has to squint when looking directly at ectoplasm (Danny's trying to find some solution but there isn't one)

Jason has a shadow core

Damian got extinct animals from Danny as a birthday gift multiple times (a dodo bird named Delilah, a messenger pigeon names Luke and a splendid posion frog named Ares)

To piss Bruce off, Jason got a pterodactyl he's named Flynn that he takes on patrol. Safe to safe, people get a hella more scared of Red Hood. Bruce hates it but Jason does actually love Flynn and Bruce can't bring himself to take Flynn awya

Danny made a patrol playlist for every member of the bat family and beyond bc he has one for when he goes out as Phantom (they all listen to their playlists and love them)

Before Danny was fully pulled into the family, he'd flinch at Dick's escrima sticks and still catches himself staring the weapon, his heart pounding

Danny found out Captain Marvel was a kid bc while on a mission with him, Captain Marvel pointed out that there was a pirate ship hovering above them and that Danny should probably deal with that. He'd, and any other Amity Parker that overhead, never laughed so badly in his entire life. Billy was never so scared & confused.

Bart and Danny are friends bc Dan had leveled most of the future before the Beatles took over what was left (I'm actually not that sure about Bart's backstory so feel free to correct me if something's wrong here)

Cass and Danny have staring contests alot. Sometimes the others think they've fallen asleep with their eyes open. They didn't.

Danny had a Twitter account for Phantom without Bruce knowing, but when Steph was trying to convince Bruce to let her have one she mentioned it and Danny had to delete it (he has an alt he now posts every embarrassing thing Batman does and has ever done)

Puns. So many puns between Dick & Danny.

Danny mumbles in his sleep

Crows flock to Danny like hungry tigers. Damian's envious but he gets to pet & feed them so it's mostly okay.

GW likes Jason and let's him borrow books whenever he wants to (also any destroyed book ends up with GW but that's a pretty common hc) but Jason has to swear not to give them to Danny. Not that Danny wants them.

Duke is helping Tucker out with studies and Tucker Duke with tech. Technus sometimes shows up too to help.

Johnny and Jason are dEAD bffs

Sam and Babs get on like a house on fire

Talia met Danny and they're actually friendly to each other. Sure, she's trying to trick Danny into giving her his throne, but Danny knew that and wasn't about to let that happen

Danny will randomly punch his siblings, smirk, then bow and say "my leige" and run away. The sibling now has the crown and is chasing to punch Danny back because honestly fuck that

Constantine is slightly terrified of Danny and Bruce uses it like a threat-- "John, if you don't answer, Danny will contact you." It works like a charm

When too excited, Danny and Jason will start talking in Ghost speech. It freaks everyone else but Damian and Cass out bc the same sounds came from the pits

Take, edit, have fun with whatever you want here. It's just bs that crawls around my brain for funsies and won't let me sleep.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

re the “can’t wait to see what you write next” comments, i commented that on a fic bc i also follow you here and you’ve talked about the halloween fics you’re working on, i meant to express excitement about those as well as what you’ve already written. sorry if it’s annoying!

Hello dear, your excitement isn't annoying! I love that people are excited, and that they express it.

My frustration was directed at people who were commenting on one of my very recent fics, who made it clear they were new to my writing and the fic they were commenting on is the first they've read, and they want to see what I put out next.

I'll get a little more specific than I did in my post:

I've had a flood of new readers in the last few months who have come to one fic or another from a recommendation on TikTok or Twitter. They read that one fic, and no other fic. They then say they want to see something new from me. I know all this because they tell me so (where they come from/how they found the fic, that this is the first/only fic of mine, etc).

I try to be kind and patient because I appreciate people reading any of my works, and I don't want to police readers and make them feel they owe me or tell anyone how to comment or set rules or something. But it does get frustrating that these people waited for the algorithm on their other app to present my fic to them, and then don't make any effort to check out any of my other work before making requests or asking for more. Ao3 is an archive, it won't feed you anything, and it honestly makes me scared for people and the future that these readers seem incapable of just clicking my name to look through my fic.

I will say that this is also why commenting on an author's fics are important - I've found out people are recommending my fics all over the place and not a single one of them has told me they liked it to my face. Someone could be a long time reader and I'd have no idea.

(I understand leaving comments can be nervewracking! It's just frustrating to me that people will find the words to talk so kindly about my fic but only where I can't see it.)

I'd also like to say I've seen an uptick in people apologizing for reading older fics of mine? Do you guys also apologize for reading Lord of the Rings (published in the 1950s) or Dracula (published 1897) or The Hunger Games (published 2008)? Fics are like books in that they are meant to be read and enjoyed at any time. You are never "late" to a fic and it's not weird, cringe, or upsetting to read older fics, and if that's the reason you're not reading my older work, get over yourself and go forth, read whatever you damn well please! I read some great smut from 2007 the other day. Had a fun time.

Anyway, that's what I'm talking about in this post. It's a very specific, "a meme is dead in a week," art-is-"content," algorithm-driven mindset and it's deeply concerning to me. Not for myself as a writer, although the experience is frustrating and disheartening, but for the minds of humanity.

I'm very glad you're excited for my Halloween fics and that you enjoy my work dear, thank you. I hope when I post them that they live up to expectations. ❤️

[just-mebs]

I' ve seen you mention the trans fetish thing a few times now can you fill a guy in por favor

I'm feeling fairly violent recently so I'll bite. The guy has me blocked and if any of his friends wanna come around again then they can choke for all I care [under the cut bc this got long]

About 2 (??) years ago when I was more active in the tf2 fandom, I made a lot of SFMs and posted them regularly. At some point I started making nsft ones and posting them on twitter where I would promote them here since I had 0 followers on twitter at the time.

Things started to go down after i posted my second one - read that again: my SECOND one. It was a DemoSpy piece where Spy was depicted as a trans man. (The first one, by the way, was a HeavyScout where you couldn't even see Scout's junk so its not like I was making/posting copious amounts of these or that I was only making trans porn).

So yeah. I make the DemoSpy piece. I share it here but in order to see it you had to go to twitter to see the full image. A few people reblogged it but nothing crazy. After a few days I got a message from someone saying that [blog] was posting about me and calling me a trans fetishist.

Now, I had been a follower of [blog] for a while at this point. Never interacted beyond reblogging/liking some posts but I was a fan for the most part, so I was a bit upset by this so I reached out to them because I didn't understand what was happening/why they would say that considering we had NEVER talked at that point.

Like how can you look at ONE (1) image depicting a character as trans and just assume that the artist - WHO IS OPENLY A TRANS GUY HIMSELF - is a FETISHIST. Like WOOO baby I don't know how to tell you this but you have so much internalized transphobia lets make that clear.

And to be clear: if he just didn't like seeing that kind of content that was fair. I believe in blocking generously. What I DON'T believe in is calling someone stuff like just because you don't like their content.

Anyway, so I talked to him. He doubled down on me being a fetishist because I (a trans guy) made Spy a trans guy and a bottom.

(I'm also a bottom ??? Which you guys don't need to know but also its like ?? So am I fethisizing myself beucase I'm both a trans guy AND a bottom??? Like there is 0 actual thought here. If you equate being a bottom to being "the girl" you're actually just both homophobic and transphobic)

I got really upset (who wouldn't), though mostly because for ME depicting characters I love as being like me actually made me love my body for the first time since I transitioned so now all that self-love I was feeling was dead and I haven't recovered despite this being 2 years ago <33

Trying to wrap this up: I ended up purging all/most of my posts and wiping my twit because I was so overwhelming and made to feel disgusting. A few people that were [blog]'s friends started harassing me over everything and I made a post on twitter saying that I wasn't going to post anymore and someone from there decided to come here and send [blog] a bunch of hate (I genuinely don't know who it was and no one I asked owned up to it but now thinking about it I think I know who it was and I don't associate with that person anymore so eh) which only made me get a bunch more harassment.

Anyway I blocked him and all of his friends that I knew and this was essentially the beginning of the end of me being in the TF2 fandom </3 everyday I wish ill will towards him and everyone associated with him <333

obv I'm not going to share his @ but if you know who I'm talking about leave him alone he's literally not worth the effort.

[buckymilf]

you titled your ask "let it out" and thats what im gonna do <3

you are under no obligation to respond to this, of course, i dont want you to get into trouble bc of fandom drama regarding polls

also a disclaimer - i condemn all sort of typical-tumblr-anon-hate behaviour and i always had. i will never get behind *anyone* sending death threats to *anyone* under *no* circumstances.

that being said.

i keep scrolling through the tags and replies on the poll post. wasnt the point of it to celebrate fandom *history*? everything regarding stucky has already been said by other ppl - the impact this ship had - on the fandoms, fanfics. tumblr in 2014 was the stucky site. it trended on twitter in 2016 thus scaring the executives and forcing them to backtrack out of *any* scenes between steve and bucky bc they were so so scared of a gay fanon ship. the ship still has this impact, bc now mcu is pushing ste*gy while using stucky thropes and scenes.

if we are talking about celebrating fandoms history - we have a fanon ship going back over a decade and a one year old canon ship.

and this is the only thing im salty about. i watched [pirates show] and i loved it. i really did. but i dont see how a ship being canon makes it better than fanon, especially in this context.

(also i dont understand ppl saying that stuckies voted against pirates bc "we hate taika" and that we are racist? and all those mentions of stucky being a white ship - are we racist bc both characters are white?)

(on the other hand i missed most of the discourse under the poll post, so maybe this statement is justifiable, i have no idea)

(also, this one person saying that yeah, [pirate ship] is toxic, but what about bucky's war crimes, steves oposition to the accords and them leaving poor tony in syberia - we've been over this so many times... im just gonna leave that like that)

thank you for reading my rant, stay hydrated, dont post it if you dont want to <3

well... today was really something wasn't it?

some shippers are nasty no matter where they're from, some of them don't know how to lose, and some of them clearly don't know how to win, the whole discussion is pointless since it was just a poll, but people hold a fucking grudge somehow, and you're right, there's no point into comparing canon with fanon because that was never the case, stucky was never meant to be canon or something like that

and no! we are not racist for shipping stevebucky instead of *insert interracial ship here* because shipping is NOT activism and it will never be.

those people are just too young to behave properly and don't know how fandom and shipping properly works, so it's just sad and poor behavior of them, no one is hating taika or something like that, i literally didn't saw anyone from our fandom being racist or hating a real actor for a tumblr dead website tumblr poll lmao, some friends of mine on the other side, got real nasty anon asks from that other side,

but I won't blame a whole fandom for it and i have nothing against the show or the ship, the pairing itself seems nice to me and my most dear friends likes them and they're real nice people! unfortunately that's how internet works, some people are real bullies online over... not real people haha

[jovenshires]

I feel like the real problem with the shourtney isn't the weirdo (affectionate) tumblr side but stuff like tiktok. Bc with almost every other ship it is only weirdo tumblr kind of people that treat it as ficition but with shourtney there are so many normies that are doing truther shit.

Tiktok is so so so so bad. There is a tiktok with half million views analyzing courtney and shayne selfies and account of their family to "prove" that they are a couple.

They scare me.

I am not part of either group but if you a weirdo tumblr shourtney shipper just know that when people complain about shourtney "shippers" they are talking about the second group of people mostly.

(sorry for so many people using your inbox to do ship "discourse" haha, I am doing too but feel free to ignore and delete this if you don't want to talk about it anymore)

okay so to start off - totally agree with you that it's not really tumblr that's the problem. i will say i don't go into the sh/ourtney tag (bc. not my monkeys not my circus) but at least as far as the mutuals i have that do ship sh/ourtney, they're super chill about it! as we do, they treat the dynamic as purely fiction, they don't ya know. harass anyone.

i (and i say this thankfully) am not REALLY on smoshtok. i get the occasional smosh men or angela thirst edits and that is About it. but i will say this: you all know i am totally against tinhatting in all senses of the word. i try to stay as far away from those sides of every social media platform. so i'm with you, that shit is nasty.

but even after all that - i saw that tiktok. multiple friends sent me that tiktok. i didn't like it or anything or engage with it on purpose but i saw it. and then i found out later that they were both tagged in it, as was the official smosh account. my brother in christ i truly wish i'd never seen it. i think its one thing to look at a picture and be like 'omg they're so cute here' but another thing to compile it as evidence and throw it back in their faces. at that point, it feels like forcibly outing an aspect of their life that they clearly either do not want to or cannot discuss. they are still people with a right to privacy. rpf is just that - fiction. this is something different and i hope they one day have the clarity to see that.

tbh i really appreciate your input; you worded it much better than i did!! this is what i was talking about when i said that this epidemic isn't a huge thing here on tumblr, and i think a lot of that is in part bc the cast isn't here for us to interact with. the official smosh blog has been dead for years and as far as i know (?) none of the cast uses tumblr anymore. i was thinking more of the instagram, tiktok, and some twitter fans. (twitter is a mixed bag though and i won't get into that here. ever.) 9 times out of 10 i am Not talking about tumblr fans when i critique shipping at large. (that is to say not always. we can always work on ourselves and grow as a community. i, myself, am always learning and growing.)

anyway! i wanted to publish this ask, because i think it's very succinct and touches on a subject that i think was very valuable to this discussion (re: tinhatting). this ask is totally fine and did not cross a line in any way and i genuinely appreciate the thought you put into sending it!! that being said - this is probably the last ask i will publish on the subject. though i adore you all and i want you to feel free to speak your piece, frankly, i would also like to maintain my peace knnfnfk i do think that these discussions are important and worthwhile but that being said. i am just one lil guy.

[jittyjames]

For the Fandom asks! 1, 2, and 4!

thanks anonnnn!!!

alright so for number 1. for hamilton- the community by far is the best part (although there have been a few bumps lately) there are so many genuinely talented people who here, and it's been an honor to create with you guys and brainrotting with y'all over these dead assholes. even if I don't talk to most of you, I still love everyone in this community.

I also like how long I've been here. like i grew up with hamilton. I've been around for all of it (though I was a twitter girlie, not a tumblr girlie) but you better bet your ass I was scream-sobbing when lin cut his hair after his final performance. then I laid in the floor for the rest of the night. I was there for the hamildrops. I was there for ham4ham wednesdays when they were still a thing. I was there for lin on snl. i was there for lin's g'morning/g'night tweets. i was there for sons of libertea updates. I was there for the tony awards when i was 13. like I've seen people come and go from this fandom, and I'm still here. like it's truly my fandom. that's why I'll never truly leave

there's also constantly some form of content to be consumed. it's endless. there will always be something new to look at.

for jcs- it's lowkey helped me heal??? idk if that makes sense but I used to not be able to even stomach the mere mentions of religion bc of my upbringing, but now I'm literally fine with it. and i actually can enjoy things with religious undertones again. it might sound dumb, but I really appreciate the humanization that the fandom has helped bring to something that used to haunt me. the way the fandom genuinely cares for these characters is so... so good.

THE PEOPLE. ONCE AGAIN. THE PEOPLE. I might not talk as much as I want to bc I'm terrifyingly shy, and honestly so intimidated by the sheer amazing abilities all of you have, but I'm constantly just reading everything with the biggest heart eyes. I love y'all. genuinely some of my favorite people in existence, and you've made jcs one of my favorite fandoms to be a part of. I'm honored to be able to call you guys friends. I genuinely admire all of y'all so much. you guys have my heart.

finally, i kind of like how small it is. like we all know each other. obviously I would like jcs to get more love and would love to see more content, but I love the little community that i've joined. it's so intimate. and I love getting to see all the amazing ideas being born in real time and watching the creative process.

2. hamilton- when I was a kid, i didn't like the asshole hamilton trope (is this even a trope?? is this not canon??) and would avoid any fics that painted him in a negative light. thankfully i grew out of the hero worship stage tho, and can enjoy the complexity of characters.

jcs- listen when i was hardcore religious, the entirety of the headcanons i subscribe to would have freaked me outtttt. like all of them?? especially jesus/judas dynamics?? especially judas being sympathetic??? (once again these aren't headcanons. that's literally just the show.) ok let's go more specific tho from the time when i was normal. a headcanon i didn't think i would like but absolutely adore now is mostly to do with smut, so I will refrain from sharing lmao

4. hamgelica- alright y'all. I don't see the appeal in it. even in the musical. (shh it's my least favorite part even if satisfied is such a good song) i like angelica and alexander to have a sibling type relationship, but y'know... i do like the way they're both intelligent and seem to match each other's vibes. '

as for jcs. I don't have a ship I don't ship. they're all so shippable. I see the appeal of all of them. I could take two completely random characters, and it would work.

[booperbeanv3]

ok i know this ask game is from Þe Olden Times but.

everything except 1, 2, 7, 8, 30 and 31. covering all the bases

“Homestuck Isn’t Dead” Tag

jesus a full faq here

Well I'm incredibly vain and love talking about myself so here goes

3. Do you call your s/o a matesprit? 4. Do you call your best friend your moirail?

S/O, no. Best friend, sometimes.

5. Are you “kin” with any characters or commonly called a character?

I've never taken kinning seriously and never will, but I strongly related to Dave and Karkat thanks to that "born wrong + childhood neglect" flavour. But my friends (SIDE-EYES YOUR URL) have holed me into Jake English, so, y'know, whatever. Not everyone can be davekat, I get it

6. God Tier?

Knight of Light!

9. Do you roleplay homestuck? where and how often?

I haven't been able to do it often thanks to the circumstances. I'm too scared to use dreambubbles.xyz. But if you're interested, my discord is boolean2390 and while I main alphabeta boys (i.e. Dave, John, Jake, Dirk), I have RPed Dave and Karkat before in actual, concrete examples I can show you.

10. Do you cosplay homestuck characters? Who and where?

I was gonna cosplay Karkat before Omegle shut down.

11. Are you apart of ask blogs?

I am not and I have actively avoided this! I'm gonna be real here, I'll never top the current set of kid ask blogs, so I'll just watch from afar. Plus, it's quite a bit of work when my faves are so popular, and therefore will not fill any real niches. (a jake english would be kinda funny even if it already exists tho)

12. Are you in any homestuck groups?

Hoesslut server on Discord

13. Favorite character?

you can make a tri venn diagram of all my faves with the headings "waifu", "literally me" and "actually good/interesting character" with some mild overlap

that said

objective best is jade and personal fav is karkat

aradia is super based also. best part of act 5 but utterly forgettable afterwards. served cunt, died, served cunt, revived

14. Least favorite character?

tri venn diagram of "obsessive hatred", "boring" and "annoying"

most of my "least favs" disappoint me from lack of potential being utilised effectively

idfk doc scratch??

15. OTP? 16. NOTP? 17. BROTP?

JANEROXY 4EVER!!!! that's the only consistent one. i can like any ship if given some good enough motivation (even if it's my dick).

that being said i scour johndave and johnkat most often. however i am THE blackrom vantas and johnkat/davekat must be spades ONLY. spades johndave is fun but no one writes it. dude i just love spades

18. Do you want homestuck to just die already?

No, I just got here!

19. Are you following up with hiveswap? Do you play? Watch YT videos?

I don't, and I don't care.

20. Tell us how homestuck has affected you in real life?

Locked myself in my room and did nothing but read Homestuck for about 2 weeks to a month. I finished it during this time

Got so high I tripped balls thought I killed my best friend and got stuck on Prospit while Homestuck music was playing in the background. Last summer!

Started laughing uncontrollably in the middle of a psychotherapy appointment since I was being so Davecore

My karkalicious x wannabe remix is on my friend's playlist bc she genuinely enjoys it. This remix also haunted me during an important art project I was doing and singlehandedly cursed the entire thing

Wore sunglasses IRL for a bit. (It does help.) Would keep doing it if I didn't lose my clip-ons

My sister thinks I sell Karkat foot fetish art now. She follows me here

21. Have you met anyone through homestuck?

IRL? No. Online? Duh

22. Have you left the fandom before?

No, I'm a total newfag

23. How many times have you read through it?

TOTAL newfag. Only once

24. Did you ever skip intermissions/dialog/animations?

I'd scan over them, but not totally skip. I also read act summaries in full when they were there because I am a baby with goldfish memory

25. Opinions on the fandom?

Depends... I think it's gotten a lot better from my observations, but of course, Twitter is still a cesspit full of retarded babies that shit their diapers. But that could be said about any fandom that's majority kids. Also any stridercester that thinks theyre oppressed for liking shota boy twincest should btfo and jerk off in peace. Which in fairness, most of them do! But to the ones that don't, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY NOTES FAGGOT

Besides those, I think it's great, but I also main Tumblr, so...

26. Opinions on the comic?

Personally I enjoyed it a lot, but I'll get a more rounded impression once I re-read it. All plot shenanigans aside, Homestuck's main selling point has always been its characters, and its method of introducing and developing them is one of my favourites. Also its humour

27. Do you favor the trolls, humans, or carapaces?

Humans, because I'm a boring fucknut who reads sci-fi for the humans and will put them in an office building and say "imagine if they did IT"

28. Favorite moment of all of homestuck?

29. Least favorite moment of all of homestuck?

beginning of act 6 felt like i nodded off on dope and woke up in the hospital. retcon was kinda mid

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

[ashdumpsterpile]

I know you talk abou st*cky in the interracial ships stuff, but can we talk about st*ny? Iron husbands is literally right there, but I also always sees Rhodey as Tonys moral support only. And ik Tony is very shippable with most characters, but the fact his ship is Rhodey is one of the lowest ships in ao3 (ironstrange, winteriron and god forbid stark*r all had more fics in ao3).. It's pretty telling this side also has racism problems...

I'll go ahead and answer this here, but letting y'all know that I do have a marvel sideblog if you want to hit me up there (@themarvelarchives).

Hey, I'm going to ramble for a good minute.

So after I posted my very incoherent, controversial take on St*cky vs SamBucky, there were a ton of ppl who came onto anon saying that St*cky shippers were racist. I think I only answered a few, but y'all were pretty insistent on it. I personally have not observed that St*cky shippers are so I'm not calling anyone out on that side of the fandom for that.

I also did not call out anyone on this side of the fandom bc that's not what my meta was about. I think I mentioned maybe once or twice in the whole post that there was underlying racist in the fandom, but since you asked, we can talk about it here.

Covert Bigotry In Fandom Spaces.

To understand what's going on in the MCU, we have to first look at what I call "woke-queer" fandom.

So "Woke-Queer" Spaces is the phenomenon where certain fandom members like to call ppl out on their bigotry, while covertly harboring their own queerphobia/racism/etc. An example of this that we're all familiar with is TERFS and how they like to claim that they are progressive and woke, while also claiming that trans women are fake and trans men are sexist.

How this translates to fandom, however, is the hypocrisy that is cancellation and callout culture.

For example, Supernatural in particular is a fandom that likes to call out the writers on their homophobia and racism, and yet, somehow, the fandom is chalk full of homophobia and racism. If you want to read more about this, here is a truly excellent article from the perspective of a queer woman of color.

Moving on, I've also talked in a previous meta post, on the internalized acephobia that exploded in 2019 after Good Omens was released. Rather than reiterate everything I said in that post, I'll just leave it at this: the controversy in the Good Omens fandom can be summed up by the fact that queer audiences are claiming that Ineffable Husbands is the wrong kind of queer. The hypocrisy oozes off the screen, doesn't it?

A final way this viably translates to fandom, is in how the Doctor Who fandom evolved over time.

So Steven Moffat takes over as head writer and showrunner in 2010. It's a new series, a new Doctor, a new Tardis, and new branding. He steps up the action, changes the color grating, and raises the stakes. Women are sexier, the Doctor is smarter (and more of an asshole, but that's another meta post), and every companion comes with their own impossible mystery that makes them Special™.

Series 5-10 got tons of woke points for having lesbian characters, an episode where the Doctor is homoerotic with James Corden, and an underlying trans narrative with the Master's reincarnation. What a lot of people forget, however, is that his series was incredibly sexiest, incredibly lesbian/biphobic, and basically turned the Doctor into everyone's fantasy sex-object.

This, unfortunately, brought out the worst of the fandom. There was RTD Era vs Moffat Era wars exploding in certain corners, TenxRose shippers vs ElevenxRiver shippers.

What does this have to do with covert racism in fandom cultures though?

Hnnngng ok, so back in RTD era's we get Martha Jones, the Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show. Except for the fact, of course, that she is written to be in love with the doctor. She's a brilliant character--smart, sassy, flawed, funny, flirtatious--and her entire plotline is reduced down to a school-girl crush on a white man.

She doesn't do well with fans, they scrap her after one season.

We move on to Donna Noble (The Other Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show) and RTD's era ends with them scraping her too and regenerating David Tennant's Doctor.

It will be five more series (not seasons, SERIES) until Doctor Who will have another black companion--who gets extra points for being gay--only to fall victim to "bury your gays" at the end of the season (but not really bc no one stays dead on Doctor Who).

The fandom's reception of Martha Jones was historically bad. The comparisons to her predecessor, Rose Tyler, were rampant and everyone was finding a reason to hate her.

The fandom's reception to Bill Potts was also historically bad, as everyone was screaming that she was being written for more "woke points" and that they wanted Clara back.

Fandom has a historically bad reputation of being problematic and, I would argue, the majority of it has to do with these toxic undertones of bigotry that slip under the radar. "Woke-queer" spaces, as I call them, are these instances above where spaces that claim to be inclusive of gender/orientation/race are covertly bigoted.

Marvel and Cancelling

Now is an excellent time to talk about the MCU.

Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson) has recently come under a lot of criticism from fandom members for shutting down shipper speculation.

"The idea of two guys being friends and loving each other in 2021 is a problem because of the exploitation of homosexuality. [...] something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves."

I can't find the rest of the quote, but Mackie goes on further to say that it was important to him to portray "a sensitive, masculine figure" without insinuating that there was romance involved.

Woke culture lost it's shit. Everyone was suddenly claiming that Mackie was calling them exploitative for shipping a gay ship as a queer audience, which could not have been further from the case.

Mackie actually makes some very excellent points in that sensitivity is not gay/queer. Woke culture loves to rag on Toxic Masculinity, but the minute someone plays a character who is loving and sensitive with no queer narrative in mind, they are immediately canceled.

What Am I On About

Okay, let's actually address what your ask was about, Nonnie. You pointed out--rather truthfully--that it is unfair to call-out racism on one side of the fandom, while ignoring it on the other side.

Well, I've gone back through my St*cky vs. SamBucky analysis (which is incoherent at best, I apologize for that) and I see maybe once instance where I called out fandom members for being racist. Here's what I had to say about racism:

"[...] Iron Husbands is a rarepair, probably because it’s an interracial ship."

"[there is] nothing wrong with shipping two white men, but it does become a problem when you ignore/bash POC/interracial ships to the determinant of your own white ship."

And then there was the post you brought up where I addressed interracial ships in the fandom. That one is probably more relevant to this topic, to be honest, as I actually addressed fandom racism there. I assume that your reason for bringing up Stony is because it's a ship that is more relevant to my side of the fandom, HOWEVER, the reason I highlighted Stucky instead was because I was comparing the fact that they've both been around the same amount of time and are relationships that feature the protagonist and their best friend.

You brought up St*ny in the ask, however, so I'm going to talk about St*ny for a minute.

As someone who never has nor will ship St*ny, it never even occurred to me that some of the problem behind the Iron Husbands tag being so small is because everyone ships the white, boring ship. You brought up a very valid point, but because I was never in that part of the fandom, I can't really speak to any possible underlying racism there, besides what I've already said above.

I would be interested in hearing a St*ony shipper or ex-St*ony shippers thought on this, but sadly I don't know any. If you have any more thoughts regarding this, Nonnie, pls drop back into my inbox.

You do make some excellent points in this ask though, and I would like to talk about racism on my side of the fandom.

So back to Mackie and his Twitter cancellation. Notice that Disney made him address the rumors and not his co-star, Sebastian Stan. Anthony Mackie is put on blast and made to answer fan demands and receives backlash, while Sebastian Stan gets to fly under the rader. This is not, by the way, a criticism of Stan, but instead of the blatant racism Disney has been displaying over the past few years.

How this ties in with the rest of my post has to do with my "woke-queer" spaces bit. The outcry across the MCU fandom over Mackie was swift and unforgiving. He was cancelled on charges of homophobia and bigotry--all the while these same fans turn a blind eye to any queer interpretation of other interracial ships and discourse in their own fandom.

The racism that I'm speaking about, of course, is an almost passive racism. Of course if you don't ship a specific ship for reasons other than their race, it's perfectly fine. It's okay not to ship Iron Husbands or SamBucky or any other interracial fandom ships. However, the distinct lack of shippers in the fandom IS telling because there are people who would ship that exact ship if not for the fact that one of men is black.

I don't have much more to say about this except to thank you for bringing it up and for listening to my long rambling post.

(Feel free to bug me about Tony Stark, MCU ships, MCU Meta and anything you want to talk me about on this blog and @themarvelarchives.)

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. theres so much unrealistic stuff in LO but rachel is a fool if she thinks people would totally be ok with hades wanting to be with a 19/20 year old who acts like a child. yes i am aware relationships can happen at any age (BETWEEN ADULTS) but theres a lot of legitimate reasons why people are disgusted by huge age gaps, and LO just makes it worse by emphasizing how childish and immature persephone is compared to hades yet all of three people in comic approve of it? what world is RS living in?

2. At anon 2 from the recent bunch of critiques, I had to chuckle at your keen eye! Honestly, Artemis' "dress" is just a slightly oversized shirt for her, since it barely covers Persephone's bits.

3. you know the "my wife" slip would actually be kinda cute if they had bee secretly dating for months/years and he just gott too excited over the future, as opposed to only knowing she's existed for all of a month at most, their first kiss being under un-romantic circumstances, not even going on a single date, and their marriage possibly only happening not out of love, but rather to keep persephone out of jail. what could be a cute slip is instead super creepy and possessive in the actual context.

4. lets be real here, rachel learning greek doesnt mean shit. she can be fluent in it and it wouldn matter when her whole MO is taking greek stories and culture to make it an american knock off. its like her claiming to be so well researched on myth, it doesnt matter when she just makes up whatever she wants anyway. she could use that time to actually making the comic good instead of trying to market herself as the next Madeline Miller (who actually has the credentials and none of rachel's ego)

5. im sorry, im greek and i dont want more greek stuff in lo. she cant even keep the actual myth or basic relationships in line, her adding random lines in greek wont do anything besides make herself and her fans feel like she now has more claim over a mythology she's already messed up beyond belief and constantly insults us with with her entitlement and bad attitude. she does not seem to love or respect our myths or culture, and learning our language (if she actually tries) will not change that.

6. i always see it as a bad sign when the only way to even try and make sense of a piece of work is the author(s) having to fill in the gaps via tweets, so the fact rachel has to constantly clear up confusion and try and fill in plot holes or just add stuff we never see in comic via her twitter is bad?? like she already drags it out so much and most readers arent going on her social medias, so why not just put this actual info and work into the actual comic? i dont understand that mentality at all.

7. IDK if this is just the issue of the romance genre itself, but it's bad writing that Persephone is only really defined in importance via Hades only. Her status and power in only being his wife. Her fertility powers are not defined in what it brings to her, just in how it can be useful to Hades (like his want for heirs). Even the comparison to Hera is not in that it shows she's queen material, but that she reminds Hades of the woman he wanted first and she won't reject him like Hera did.

8. i think lo fans just range too privileged to realize how bad the LGBTQ+, class system, and POC rep actually is. It's not a big win that Psyche is a WoC when she was introduced with non-black features, she's illiterate, and had her story was taken from her to focus on Eros, it's not a win that nymphs are low class who oppress the rich and are hated unless they're a "good one" (echo, daphne) to defend the rich, and its not a win the only LGBTQ+ rep is between two asexuals who just "got over it".

9. rachel would rather attempt to learn a new language (she literally can just ask a greek to translate lines for her also webtoons literally have translators on staff already) than use that time to make character sheets or double check her work for spelling errors. like she constantly always picks the dumbest ways to waste her time that she thinks will improve the comic than the stuff she could actually do (like fix the writing and art) like??? hello??? ma'am???

10. yeah im also confused bc the AOW happened but persephone doesnt actually seem to care. like she snapped bc the nymphs died, but she doesnt even tell us their names or mourn them, and her trying to pay for the dead mortals was not out of the goodness of her heart, and that was dropped for her to party and make out with hades. i love morally complex characters, but LO persephone isn't that, she's a spoiled child who cries she's the real victim as she gets away with figurative and literal murder.

[floweryavenue]

Ugh, so, I don't even know if anyone is actually gonna read this, and I'm not really the one who would participate in fandom very actively (I was always a passive observer, liking other's people content), but the stuff with the leaks of the extra 8 pages of snk ending has been really bothering me for the last few days, and I really need to get a few things off my chest.

I really wanted to wait till 9th June to form my full thoughts. However, since basically all pages have leaked anyway and quite a reliable source confirmed there is basically no additional context to them whatsoever, I decided I might as well write this anyway and vent somewhere to clear my head so I can finally move on with my life to focus on other things I like and with other important irl stuff. Moreover, since Tumblr seems like a reasonably safe space to do so (comparing to one hell of a Twitter...) I might as well do it here. So, let's go.

So, basically, my main problem with those pages is simply that... you just don't do that. No. You don't release an ending, make people think it's really the end, then say you're gonna release a few additional pages that won't change anything but simply clarify some things, and then, two months later, release these pages indeed but not only they don't actually clarify anything, but in fact, create even more plot holes. Furthermore, as a cherry on top, they change the ending quite completely. If those pages had been included in the original release, most people, myself included, would've moved on by now. But noooo, make us go through this hell again. Great :))))

And as for the content of those pages, well... I can't help but feel they really did quite a disservice to Mikasa, one of my favourite female characters ever. My biggest problem isn't even that she 'moved on' (whatever that means at this point, coz I feel like fandom has been successfully managing to butcher that term ever since 139 has dropped) and started a family on her own because I'm fully aware that falling in love again after you first love died is an entirely normal thing irl. But ffs, we're not talking about irl here; we're talking about snk and Mikasa. And the thing that MAINLY bothers me, is the way it has been presented.

I'm not going to delve into the husband's possible identities, 1) I'm not interested at all in participating in any ship wars, 2) because we don't even get to see his face and sources say we indeed don't get any direct confirmation in that regard. Not that this matters anyway, because we get presented with Mikasa on the one hand staring her own family, but on the other, still continuing to visit Eren's grave repeatedly throughout her life and in the end, getting buried with a scarf on, her dearest remembrance of Eren, and maybe even getting buried next to him (even tho, the latter is still not 100% confirmed, bcs here sources are contradictory, but judging by the general mood of those pages, I'd not be surprised at all if it turns out to be the case).

That makes me think the whole family-stuff was used only to present the passage of time and the fact that Mikasa never fully got over Eren, bcs we don't see the family in any other context besides the visits to the grave. And that leads me to my other question - was introducing the family really NECESSARY, then? Couldn't Mikasa simply visit the grave with Armin, and maybe even with Armin, Annie and their kids? Idk about you, but that would make 100% more sense to me. Also, don't get me even started, how much in the wrong way it rubs me that Mikasa, the character who, as we know, always deeply cared about others, even strangers (Gabi, etc.), would just drag her husband, her children and grandchildren to the grave of her first love on which she had written 'my most beloved, my dear'? Do I really need to elaborate on how WEIRD that is?

But I guess that's on me for believing a male author would write a satisfactory conclusion to the main female character (not Mikasa touring around Hizuru, not Mikasa playing with kids at the orphanage, no! Forced family plot, instead! Take that!)

As of Eremika, aka my most cherished paring ever since 2014... I guess the only good thing in that mess is that at least it doesn't invalidate them. If anything, it validates them even more, because the stuff I've mentioned earlier prove their love was eternal and Mikasa never truly got over it. So, all in all, I'm gonna still cherish them forever. There are still many unexplored aspects of their bond, so I believe we, as a community, have a big room to explore (pls, I'm begging you, explore with me all the possibilities of their four years in the cottage in the mountains, I swear, that sh!t has so much potential it's unbelievable).

As of Paradis getting destroyed, well, that leaves me bitter, even though after doing some thinking, that really might be the least out of place thing in those pages. At least according to sources, it happens when Mikasa is already dead, so at least Eren's wish of giving his friends long, secure lives came true. However, that would be it.

And as of titan's power still being there and some kid apparently finding the source of it... this just screams 'sequel-baiting', AND I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT. That's it.

To end my definitely too long rambling, I just wanna say, I really would have liked to wait till 9th June to publish my thoughts, but as I've said, those last few days have been driving me crazy and I really wanted just to get all of it off my chest and move on. I want for now to just focus on my irl things, like working on my master's thesis and other stuff giving me joy, like Eurovision next week coming back after 2-years-absence due to pandemic. Eurovision is one of the few things that I love, and I intend on fully enjoying it next week, not sulking on those leaks too much. And if by some completely unexpected miracle I get pleasantly surprised on 9th June (even tho I truly doubt it at this point) - that would be only a win for me, I guess.

Anyway, please remember, all that I have written here is ONLY MY OPINION, and if you disagree with anything, that's valid, you're completely entitled to that. I'm not publishing this to argue with anybody, only to clear my head. That's it.

If anyone has read this too long personal rant of mine - thank you, I'm kissing you on the forehead right now. 

Oh, and remember - EREMIKA IS CANON. And always will be (no, that one is not up for discussion). 

Also, we have that official High School AU, and Eren right now is quietly snoozing on Mikasa's shoulder during another Twilight marathon she made him to take part in, and Armin and Annie are dissing people together on reddit while bonding over their pretentious taste in music. That's canon, Isayama told me after I had phoned him to ask wtf.

PS To think I was almost sure those extra pages will be about Mikasa's reunion with the rest of the alliance... I guess it's time to put that clown make up on. 

[parkersbliss]

i saw your hc about the avengers and one direction was mentioned so i had an idea where the reader stayed up on july 23rd and she was crying because of one direction and then the avengers come in and ask what is wrong but when they say what happened they can’t stop laughing or something like that. hopefully that made sense :)

this may or may not be how my day went??

If y’all want more directioner reader stuff I am so down

Manifesting | Avengers

—

So obviously, like any other directioner fan, you were not ready

Here’s the picture: it’s July 22nd, 9 P.M New York time

You’re in your room, listening to one direction and crying your eyes out

It’s like Christmas Eve, except you don’t really know if tomorrows Christmas

Something could happen

Nothing could happen

It’s a very stressful situation

You had opted for staying up all night, after all, they were 5 hours ahead of you

But instead you decided to just wake up early

So 5 A.M You’re out of bed, first thing you do

Grab your phone and check it

AND WHAT DO YOU SEE

NOTHING

Nothing??

BUT YOUR HOPE WASNT GONE

There was an interview scheduled with Liam in two hours, that had too mean something

Right

RIGHT

WRONG

Seven minutes of nOTHING

I mean, seriously

By now all the avengers were up

You were still in your room, blasting one direction as one does

“kid?” Tony asked knocking on your door

He opened it all the way and… he’s not sure what he saw

“Are you meditating?”

“SHHH”

“What the hell is going on?”

“be quiet!” You hissed

“kid, what the he-“

“she’s manifesting,” Peter anserwed, standing behind tony.

“what now?”

“manifesting, she’s manifesting that something happens. now, if you’ll excuse me, I must join.”

So now Tony is just kind of staring as the two of you ‘manifest’

He mumbled something about it being too early for this and walking out

You had your phone’s ringer on, notifications turned on for instagram, twitter, youtube, you name it, you had it

You hourly checked your phone, just in case

But at some point, you decided to take a shower

So it’s like 9 am

You just got out of your shower and you’re in a towel

And then you hear it - a small ding from your room

You waste no time in throwing the door opening, hitting Bucky in the face who stumbles onto the floor

“(Y/N) what the-“

But you’re gone

You race into your room grabbing your phone

And there it is

Twitter

A TWEET BY ONE DIRECTION

You screamed

Very loudly

And so Peter raced in, laptop in hand

“DID YOU SEE”

“OPEN IT OPEN IT”

The two of you quickly get to work opening the website and

It crashed

OF COURSE IT CRASHED

“WHAT DO WE DO” Peter asked frantically reloading the page

You turn to him, mouth set in a straight line “We hack it”

“genius.”

So you hack the system

You break in and-

“OH MY GOSH”

“ITS REAL”

Cue the tears

But as you go deeper, and you enter the 2010 stage you LOST IT

The website it blasting what makes you beautiful and you’re just in tEARS

Because literally what the fuck one direction come back

Peter is sat beside you, praying frantically

“bring them back . They can save 2020. Please I’m praying on harry’s rings, louis’ accent, Liam’s fear of spoons, Niall’s bitchy tweets and Zayn’s non existence, PLEASE”

So you’re going through liking everything bc uh yes?? You love it all

Your visions also kind of blurry from tears so you can’t really see anything

But then you get to louis’ highlight

It says he’s 5’7

You and Peter both look at each other

“LIES ITS ALL LIES ITS FAKE”

And then harry’s and

“he’s not 5’11” you said

“he’s six feet”

“they’re lying to us”

And don’t even get me started on the ending page

THE END

HELL NO

“time to manifest again”

So you and Peter are once against praying, your mixtape in the back

When your phone goes off again

And again

And again

And there it was

The boys posts, each one of them thanking the fans, TAGGING ZAYN

You’ve never cried so Hard in your life

And louis’ tweets

And then your door burst down

And in walk tony, bucky, cap, nat, bruce, Thor, Clint and well the whole squad

“WHO IS IT”

“What it going on?”

Peter shakes his head sadly, holding onto you as you hiccup

“It’s - it’s them - ONE DIRECTION THEY’RE ALIVE”

Tony rolls his eyes

Cap bursts out laughing, grabbing onto sam

Nat and Clint are howling as they clap

And Thor is still holding his hammer as bruce tries to explain that one direction was a boy band and not a group of evil space aliens

“you slammed a door in my face fOR A BOY BAND”

“IT WAS NECESSARY”

“NO IT WASNT”

“if you’re done now, we must manifest for Zayn’s reply” peter spoke up

“we can only hope” you said sadly

“you guys are crazy” cap said

“no” Peter corrects “We’re a Bunch of clowns with depression”

“i’m concerned” Nat whispered

“me too” peter said

Needless to say

It was a very emotional time

And the avengers did not shut up about it

“so did he ever reply?”

*cue crying breakdown*

“NO”

“so now what?”

You look Tony dead in the eye, “we’re staring the kitten direction”

“(Y/N)”

“it must be done” Peter said, bowing his head

“kid”

“Tony we NEED THEM BACK”

“They could save us all”

“with what?”

“you don’t understand their power”

“they’re adults mEN”

Instead of replying, you grab your phone and blast one direction so you can’t hear them

And this was how you and Peter stayed up all night theorizing about it

Louis’ wouldn’t egg Liam’s house over this

He’s not 5’7

Harry’s 6’0

All lies

And it’s up to you and Peter to figure out the truth

They could save 2020

You just have to save them

[marksloan]

woah, can you tell us what happened with your dad and aunt? and how buzzfeed wanted to help? i am so curious

oh lord this is a story and a half. i can't believe i've actually never spoken about this before??

if you want a story about a messy family, buzzfeed unsolved being like aight yeah this is sus we want to help out, and my dwindling sanity, this is all going to be under the cut~

also side note, i have receipts of most things because we were terrified that my dad was going to gaslight about everything which, eventually, he did. we also knew that a lot of things were going to be deleted off of the internet for reasons we didn't know, so this is why i have a lot of shit just lying around omg. i literally sat here and watched every piece of evidence get deleted as i refreshed the page so this is the best i can do

TD;LR: we found out that my dad had a secret twin sister and he did everything he could to hide her from us alongside her mysterious death.

a few years ago, i started doing ancestry so i could find my family history and one thing lead to another and i found out that my aunt on my dad's side had also made a tree. while going through the birth records for births in the same area/time frame as my dad's birth, i found that there was a second kid listed under a mother with the same last name AND maiden name (because they list both the father and the mother's last name) alongside the same area code. this was super weird because neither name is super common and it was just a little too weird.

(name blocked out because ohhh boy this is supposed to be a sensitive family issue LMAO)

(here's some receipts of me messaging a friend on facebook because this whole situation is insane and i feel like i need to back myself up bc not even i'd believe myself omg)

flash forward to me going onto my aunt's family tree and finding out that she'd listed this random woman as my dad's twin sister. beyond sketch. we have never heard of this random woman and, when i mentioned it to my mother a few weeks later, she had no idea about it either, although, after a few days, she did recall a conversation she'd had with my uncle (my dad's older sister's husband) when my parents had just started dating. she said that he'd made a comment about my dad and just jokingly said 'oh, it's like a twin thing' and, very confused, my mum had played along. she hadn't thought much about it until i was sat there showing her screenshots of some random woman on my aunt's family tree. basically, she was fairly sure that it was right just from the genuine vibe of that side of the family, they're ex-military and very secretive and we've always got the feeling that something was a bit off.

she told me not to mention it to my dad and like a dumbass i did. i told him about the random woman on this family tree and he was PISSED. he told me that it was wrong and that 'it was easy to get lost and find the wrong people', despite being an account that was actively linked to his older sister's facebook account, and i decided to drop it. my dad can make your life hell when he wants to and i just left it alone.

but then my sister got involved oml. she picked right where i left off during quarantine in the summer and immediately dove right into this twin sister mystery. she discovered that this woman had died in the 90's, right before my parents got together, right in the vicinity that my dad's family moved (which, if you remember, they're military so they basically moved around the uk a lot. for someone who was originally was born in the north of the uk to randomly turn up and die in the most specific, random southern town was more than a coincidence.) however, my sisters ability to investigate extended a lot more than I did; she actually messaged my aunt over facebook and asked about this mystery woman that.

it didn't go well.

at the same time, she started tweeting about it on twitter and jokingly started saying 'oh maybe buzzfeed unsolved would be interested?'. this all happened around a week after aria uploaded his first(?) video investigating his father's best friend disappearing. i'm not sure what drove my sister to message aria but she eventually sent him a message on instagram and he (somehow???) responded and was very interested in helping us with our little family mystery.

this is what he sent my sister in response to her DMS.:

basically, this woman was impossible to trace. she only had a birth certificate and a death certificate, which in itself is very weird because in the uk you can at least follow people around the country with the regular census.

when my sister messaged my aunt we noticed that my dad was getting a lot of text messages constantly while he was out in the garden. we were deadass sat there listening to his phone just ping over and over. so my sister (like a stan twitter psychopath) decided to reset her twitter password, of which was linked to my dads phone and ended up actually going through his text messages.

i can't find the sc (my sister got a new insta account and it's what she sent me all the scs through) but if i remember rightly she sent him a message that was like: they're asking about [insert nickname for the twin sister] what should i say? and my dad I SHIT YOU NOT answered with i'll handle it. like I'm sorry sir is this an action movie? ur a taxi driver not james bond sit the fuck down.

(EDIT I FOUND IT IN A FACEBOOK CONVO)

f(he also, notably, lied to us and said that his sister had all of the family photos ~~~ imagine the way my ass fell out of my stomach when i read these text messages.)

we mentioned aria to my mum and explained how he might be able to help but she was very against it. instead, she took me and my sister out for dinner when quarantine eased (cmon eat to help out) and sent my dad a thick ass paragraph. i can't remember what it said for sure but there was something like 'do you want to be remembered as a liar by your kids because they're either going to find out the truth now or after your dead? its your choice xoxo'. god I'm so excited for the therapy I'm going to need in twenty years about my trust issues.

basically he admitted that it was true, but only over text message. he didn't give us any information, nor will he admit it in person or even speak about it. we know nothing other than the fact that this woman caused a lot of family drama and probably trauma and that they refuse to talk about her due to something she did to my grandmother (who as you can tell from the ancestry sc above, is long deceased.) basically this whole thing was a shit show and eventually aria agreed that there were too many messy factors, mental health and privacy etc.

there's a lot more involved surprisingly that i had to condense into this post but hopefully that explains it a bit. like i said, i'm beyond excited for this to cripple my ability to trust my family and men in particular and i'm just so excited for the therapy I'm going to need!

[themillsdaughter]

Okay, so I have thoughts on the bensler reunion and feel like if I don’t write it somewhere, it’ll just become one of those subjects one ruminates over for the rest of their lives until they become bitter and old and shake their fist in silent rage.

Twitter is filled with people who haven’t watched it yet, hence me posting about this here after years of being inactive in this fandom. if anyone’s interested, I’d love to chat about this too, but in case it isn’t clear by now, major spoilers and unhappy ranting ahead.

Alright, first off, I feel like I should put a few disclaimers from the get-go: one, i have not watched the Organized Crime episode past the letter part bc who even has the energy, two, despite everything I say here, I do genuinely love the characters, and three, I was never, ever, ever fully on board with Stabler coming back. I thought it was a stupid idea since I first found out about it.

I mean, come on. It’s literally been ten years. Ten freaking years without any contact (do not get me started on that semper fidelis thing) and NOW they wanna bring him back? Now that Olivia is settled as the captain, now that she has moved on with her life and is finally as happy as she can? Are you kidding me? And not only that, I had a feeling the show wouldn’t handle all the emotional bagage as it should. SVU is one of my favorite shows, I’ve quite literally watched it for half of my life (even before I was even fluent in English). I love this show with a ferocity I can’t quite put into words, but it has, without a shadow of a doubt, been losing it’s power for at least a couple of seasons now, if not more.

As I said, I haven’t been participating in the fandom for some years, so I can’t speak as to why it’s been going a bit downhill, though I do have a suspicion that it has something to do with the fact that it’s been going on for, hahah, literally over two decades.

But anyways, that’s beside the point. What I’m trying to say here is that I thought it was stupid to bring Elliot back. The show doesn’t need him. It might need the drama, but absolutely not him.

Either way, since what I think has no actual implication in the serious world of tv dramas, it was happening anyway and the thirteen-year-old bensler shipper in me could not help herself. I had to watch it.

I expected to be angry, I expected Olivia to go against her better judgement at least once because he asked pretty please. I expected them to share at least one kiss.

Only one of those expectations wasn't met (to my delight).

Two minutes into the episode, I was already yelling at the TV because I swore she was going to hug him when she first saw him. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but the eye contact was already too much.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for Kathy’s part in this episode. She was hurt. Someone tried to kill her. Uh-uh.

Thinking from a creative point of view, it does make sense. She’s been his wife for god knows how many years now, he’s involved with some pretty big crimes, someone wanted to kill him, she was colateral. Beautiful, classic, awesome.

What does not make sense is how the episode was set up. WHY should we feel this anguish, this great sadness over Kathy? Sure, we’ve known about her for as long as Elliot was on the show, that is, since the very beginning. But, and I’m sorry to repeat this again, IT HAS BEEN TEN YEARS. The viewers attachment to Kathy is a very very thin thread.

And yes, I do understand that the point was to focus on Elliot’s loss, on his pain, his fear of losing his wife, the mother of his children. However, that wasn’t even properly done, either. Were they in love again? He said they were happy, but how so? Where were they at in their love story? Were they a family again, were they facing problems? Were they distant, but still married? The show didn’t answer any of that, so, when she passes (which, to be honest, was predictable), that’s that. She’s dead. Elliot cries, Liv’s in shock. Okay.

Granted, it was the very first episode of his return, I cannot speak over what will be revealed in later episodes of either shows, but I personally feel that we weren’t given enough to feel. It was all based on the expectation that we would remember everything that happened and that we would still have the same attachment to everything.

And now we get to the duo of the hour: Olivia still-in-love-with-the-same-man-who-abandoned-her-a-decade-later Bensler and Elliot agressive-man-but-with-a-tinsy-bit-of-more-control Stabler.

Here I do admit that part of my frustration is my own fault. I wished, prayed, hoped and desperately wanted Liv to get angry. To give him some sort of verbal smack-down for what he did. Yes, it makes perfect sense for her to just shut it out as best she can. It’s Liv we’re talking about, so that’s very in character for her, but it still didn’t give me the satisfaction I feel we deserved to see her tell him to go to hell. (Furthermore, I think it would have been a fantastic way to showcase how much she’s grown without him. Yes, she used to be soft with him, but now she’s assertive, she wants more for herself, she knows she deserved more than what he did).

The tears, the apology, the hug in the hospital.... it was all....fine. It was fine. It was them. It just lacked something more. It lacked some sort of spark.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to love their reunion despite myself. I wanted to be wrong and watch a beautifully executed, messy, sweet reunion of the ship which literally made me join fandom life, learn about fanfiction and learn English. I wanted that more than anything, but I didn’t expect it.

What I expected was exactly what I got. I smelled that scene of Elliot begging her to let him in the interrogation room, giving her those Puss In Boots eyes and Olivia just folding from the minute they announced his return. And it made me angry, because the whole message they’ve been sending us through all these seasons, of Liv growing into the main character, into someone who wasn’t El’s partner anymore, into a f***ing Captain was backpaddled real quick.

And yeah, there is something to be said about the effect he will always have on her, no matter how many years. But is that really what she, as a character, deserves? Is that even healthy?

I probably have more thoughts, but this is far, far too long already.

In general, the episode was fine. It wasn’t awful. it was also not great. Do I wanna watch the rest? No. Will I? Probably.

Oh, and just before I go: WHAT THE F*** WAS UP WITH FIN???? HELPING HIM OUT??? TELLING ELLIOT UNSOLICITED INFORMATION ABOUT LIV’S LIFE??? ABOUT HER LOVE LIFE??? Yeah, sure, he was a bensler shipper, whatever, but excuse me??? You’ve actively participated in her life for twenty years and think it’s healthy to try and make her patch up with a man who just, in her own words, DISAPPEARED?

Love the dude, wanted Olivia to yell at him too.

Anyways, if anyone made it this far and feels like talking about it, I am absolutely open to that.

[artemissoteira]

Do 10 50s!!!!!! (Any questions you want)

thanks casey ily for enabling me <3 (d&d ask meme here) this is, obviously, a long post bc of who I am as a person. you're all welcome.

6: Which of your d&d characters has been the least like you?

Honestly, probably Medea! And even she has slipped so much towards me lmao. Girlboss is not really my vibe but has been so so fun to play. I don't think I could have found her without Isaac's Sphinx to play off of because I don't have to feel bad about being mean to him sfdsdf and she needs an outlet for that. I'm not a person who carries much guilt or bitterness so that has been really interesting to poke at.

12: Have you ever fought a beholder?

Yes, an undead one, in a oneshot @brogendered ran! iirc we fucked up trying to get into the house over the wall instead of through the door and dropped right into a deadly encounter. we scooped a magic sword and fled back over the wall but left the beholder in some AOE damage spell, then took a short rest, and by the time we came back it was fully dead lmao. Extremely scary surprise encounter to start off the oneshot and extremely kind of jake to let us cheese it that way instead of killing us immediately which we probably had earned.

16. What is your favorite D&D pod/vodcast?

Anything by the Streampunks (Twitter here; most of their shows & others currently hosted on Queuetimes on YT/Twitch). Most of their stuff isn't in the D&D but all of it makes me cry. I started with Callisto 6 back on Geek & Sundry as my first ttrpg foray outside of CR and have never looked back. Strongest of recommendations to anyone interested in superheroes in dystopian cyberpunk Los Angeles 2119 combatting megacorporations with the power of eternal gay love and direct radical action, with a ton of loving care put into worldbuilding and rooting their characters in specific neighborhoods of the city.

It's a story about deliberate compassion and the enduring connection of communities in an unkind capitalistic world, with a storyteller who knows and takes care of his players by giving them every chance to explore what choosing kindness means and to reclaim agency for their own characters, allies, and antagonists alike. Fundamentally changed my understanding of ttrpgs as storytelling you can do, on purpose, with everyone throwing themselves wholeheartedly into a shared story with a deliberate commitment to theme. I think genuinely every single character made me cry at least once, including the ones I originally didn't connect with who ultimately had such powerful arcs that revealed the actors had been paying real damn attention the whole time.

Also has my favorite gay flirting via mechanically suboptimal combat choices that I've ever seen. I simply can't get into it here because I WILL scream but my jaw dropped. gina devivo’s mind. if you want even more longform gay yelling from me send me questions about callisto 6 or other streampunks shows lmao.

watch the first 2 seasons (24 eps) of callisto 6 on youtube. season 3 currently only available on geek and sundry's twitch archive, which you can access for a month for $5 and binge all 12 episodes.

14. Have you ever had a romance with an NPC or another PC?

Casey I will love you forever for turning my sheer lesbian energy and chronic Support Women syndrome into an actual romance for Medea and Medusa. Galaxy brain. I think that's the only romance I've dealt with, unless we count Tony wingmanning Tuck by strongly implying she'd fucked a lot of giants, which we shouldn't, even if it was iconic.

18. Do you use props/minis/terrain in your game?

using this as an excuse to say Roll20 my beloved. still extremely proud of the first oneshot I made from scratch last spring, when I taught myself javascript in order to code puzzles into the Roll20 API. I made: pressure plates that trigger walls to move up and down to allow water to flow; an automatically rotating lantern puzzle that revealed hidden text on the walls and featured actually climbable lanterns that I could hook character tokens to; and most importantly a secret button to change the icon of the goose barbarian, Duck Duck the Goose, from the standard Untitled Goose holding a knife into an edited version of the icon with "then perish" laser eyes.

Oh also a secret pressure plate trap that would only trigger when the bard stepped on it, played a magical sound effect and teleported him to another page where he had to solve a penis nonogram puzzle to be sent back to the party.

Aaand a magic electrical spark that worked as a laser pointer to guide a kitten around the map, complete with both the spark and the kitten’s icons switching orientations as they moved depending on whether they were above/below and left/right of each other.

20. If you run a homebrew game, give an out of context spoiler.

The rats don't like weasels.

21. Drop a picture of a mini you painted (if applicable).

No physical minis, but in the dark ages before heroforge had color options I manually recolored this mini of Tetra using fake photoshop by isolating each part of her body and fucking around with hue filters until I liked it.

tetra with hat dot png:

[ID: a purple merfolk mini from heroforge with webbed ears, an orange-tinted vest, a bright green kelp skirt, gold leather armbands, a large pink shell on one shoulder, a green kelp headpiece and orange flames rising from one hand. a clipart image of a purple propeller hat covered in gold stars has been edited onto her head. end ID]

yes the propeller hat image is from club penguin. yes i added the stars myself. yes I am this sexy and correct all the time and yes it is exhausting.

32. Most memorable NPC you've encountered in a game you played in.

There's so many, but I've periodically heard Najiba's voice in my head saying "Ithren, are you crazy? Like, you're a little bit crazy, right?" for weeks. her voice is so lyrical I want to listen to her talk for hours.

Ithren doesn't get her at all, but they like when she asks them questions bc it makes them feel like they are doing something useful by answering, even if their answers are completely incomprehensible to the party. I love that after every big thing that happens she goes, "Um, was that okay? That we did that? Like is that a good thing or did we do something bad here?" & makes everyone give their opinions. queen of nosiness.

34. Favorite accent to do for characters?

I've only found one accent I can do reliably so far and it's, like, surfer bro frat boy himbo burnout. Instant hit with the children and got my hapless bandit captive adopted by the party so quickly and now he's in charge of their horses. I love him so much.

all my other NPCs inevitably slide towards vaguely british snooty woman or gruff gravelly uncle no matter what I try to start them as. the two genders etc etc.

36. What was your first d&d character you made?

Tony the Tabaxi, my beloved. Orange tabaxi thembo swashbuckler rogue. The name is a fakeout for Tony the Tiger; they're actually named after Antonio Banderas who voices Puss in Boots. They’re just Puss in Boots. Thought I was gonna have to do something funky for the build but swashbucklers literally get the Panache ability at level 9 that is a free non-magical charm that works perfectly for Puss's big sad cat eyes. Love them so much.

Shrek 2 isn't on Netflix (or wasn't at the time) so for character research I watched Puss In Boots (2011) as well as "Puss In Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale", which is a choose your own adventure interactive special?? And a few episodes of The Adventures of Puss in Boots which (spoilers) takes place in the town of San Lorenzo which puss protects for years until the bloodwolf gets summoned and puss & friends get sucked into a dimensional portal (?) and Puss has to choose to have his friends' memories of him erased in order to correct the timeline, but carries them with him always. From what I recall. He adopts some piglets I think.