#I know my actual followers understand that I would never gatekeep a character or anything like that

[bunnwich]

Hello Bunnewhich! Sorry if that anon bothered u, if it makes you feel better! I love your Leona art!! ^^/pos /gen

You're very sweet thank you!! 🥺 Forever grateful for you guys.

[sagesariadnd]

I Don't Understand Rules Lawyers

I don't really follow tiktok. I don't know much about the group in this video. I barely even know anything about Curse of Strahd which is apparently what they were playing. But this is one of my favorite D&D videos of all time.

I'm sure you've watched it by now but a quick summary since it matters to this conversation: character failed a crucial check, and an unconscious player volunteered a failed death save to give her advantage, through some sort of astral projection. The DM agrees after some negotiation, and that roll causes her to not only pass the first save, but get a natural 20 on the next one to save the encounter.

I barely know anything about who the players or their characters are, but the reactions to her second roll, and the roleplaying of the moment, still make me cry. The relief on her face, the excited scream of the person behind the camera, the absolute chaos that unfolds at her nat20, including the DM himself running a lap and screaming "this is why I play this game!"

This IS why I play this game. For these absolute clutch moments that tell incredible stories that you'll be telling all your friends for the rest of your life. This video is my platonic ideal of the Rule of Cool.

A few months ago, I got into a fight on facebook (my first mistake, I know) with someone who was vehemently against Rule of Cool and giving players any sort of concessions that weren't based in Rules as Written. He argued that the rules were there for a reason, that the only way for players to learn how to play was if they followed the rules exactly. And most of all, he argued that if the DM made a single solitary Rule of Cool ruling, then the table would fall into absolute anarchy of everyone coming up with ridiculous plans and saying "Rule of Cool!" I have a lot of feelings about this.

First of all, if your players are taking advantage of you like that, you don't have a rule problem, you have a player problem. Those are the kinds of people who will take advantage of you using the rules, let alone Rule of Cool. Focus on the actual problem and get better players.

But second of all, this idea that you can never bend or rewrite the rules at all, purely because they're the rules, is against the entire spirit of roleplaying to me. Watch that tiktok again. Look at the reactions to the reroll. Look at the excitement and relief at the table when she proceeds to pass with flying colors. Look at her sobbing as the other character projects himself to her and tells her to believe. So much passion and emotion and excitement and beautiful roleplaying from one DM concession.

Why would anybody want to deny their players that? Why would the rules ever be more important than this kind of moment with your players - your friends?

It wasn't even like he was asking for a rule bend just for the sake of it. I don't know the character, but in their negotiation and the effects in game, it's clear that this has a basis in character, be it abilities, backgrounds, or simply the bond between the characters. And there was still a risk; he expended a death save, bringing him to two failures, and she still had to roll again. She could have failed that roll even after all that. There was still risk. It wasn't just "I win because Rule of Cool."

That's how Rule of Cool actually works. Being given the chance to try. And even if a DM did rule something just worked without the risk, why is that bad thing? Why would you not want to tell a better story that makes your players happier?

I also feel that kind of strict adhesion to the rules could easily become a form of railroading and even just plain gatekeeping. Imagine you're a new player, who was told that it's a game where you get to use your imagination and be creative. Then imagine being told every step of the way that this clever solution you came up with to a puzzle doesn't work because 'it's not in the rules.' You'd decide pretty quickly that you didn't want to play anymore, wouldn't you. You're not actually being taught anything except that you're not actually allowed to be creative, so screw that idea that rules lawyering teaches better.

DMs of the world, please remember: it's not a competition between you and your players, it's a conversation. Both of you are working together to tell a story. And if someone suggests something that's not in the book but would be really cool if it worked, considering letting them try. Nobody is going to care if something was in the rules or not years down the line, but they're going to care immensely about how their crazy plan worked...or laugh about how it didn't. And they will care a lot if the idea they were excited about got shut down without another thought just because this hyperspecific plan wasn't in the rules.

Let go of your need to be handcuffed to the rules. Rule 0 exists for a reason. Your games will be better and more memorable for it.

[psychicthepsychic-daily]

purple guys hc spiral

oof this got really long really fast, sorry lmao

"purple guys" is the platonic ship name now bc I said so /lhj

alternatively you could have "fourth cousins thrice removed" or "all is hell in the afton family"

no one knows when or how these two became friends at all. like it's kind of known that they met a couple years back at the same function but no one knows how they actually managed to get along enough to be considered pals

the hahaha funni "we are not related" jokes spiral into "this is my fourth cousin psychic the psychic, don't follow his twitter follow my twitter" "thanks cousin"

it gets to the point where they actually do kind of see each other as their weird cousin that they pull stupid shenanigans with (read: arson)

"hey bestie (derogatory)" to "hey bestie (affectionate)" pipeline fr

^half-joking, DD is canonically Psychic's forever bestie and Void will always come second to that.

if he had to choose between them, Psychic would pick Dearest in a heartbeat. Void is aware of this and is only mildly bitter about it.

Void is no more close with Psychic than he is with Radi or the Space Gang. they don't really have any emotional investment in each other's lives.

however. they do understand each other in a way that no one else does.

the others have noticed how separated Void and Psi's friendship is from everyone else's. they don't really know what to make of that.

Psychic is the first one outside of BF and GF to figure out that Void is a black hole.

he doesn't bring it up by himself for a long time. Void doesn't want to either, so it takes a long time before either of them address it.

but when they finally do, it becomes very clear that Psychic is not going to tell anyone. he's not going to see Void any differently. not that he thought much of the guy before but this isn't something that's going to affect that.

Void is glad but doesn't like. appreciate it the way one would. he's just as whiny, just as self-absorbed as before.

but this is the point where he and Psychic come to understand each other a little better.

Psychic doesn't actively try to hide his interests, but he never bothers to bring them up either so Void actually has no idea what he does outside of read and also kill people probably

Void has no clue what working for the Dearests entails and he doesn't care enough to ask

meanwhile Psi knows practically everything there is to know about Void. not that Void has much going for him beneath the surface /hj

Psychic mainly sticks around because he finds Void's character interesting, not out of any genuine care for his not-cousin

Void hangs with Psi mostly because Psychic is smart and funny, and in case he ever provides anything Void could use against the Dearests. gotta weed out that competition ykyk 💅 ✨

if Void was Sans in Underverse season 1, Psychic would be Frisk.

^i dunno how to explain this one lol just go watch underverse s1 and look at their dynamic

^added on to this they might actually have swapped roles by the time s2 comes around

over time, I like to think they do come to genuinely like each other a bit more. over time though lol, none of that tenpiye nonsense here /lh

Psychic is dangerously loyal to the people he cares about. we see this primarily with the Dearests. not with Void.

Void shows loyalty to no one. he'd drop any of his friends if he felt he had to, even the ones he enjoys the presence of slightly more.

(with the exception of Jet. nothing could force Void to abandon Jet.)

but maybe if you gave these two time and also enough character development... 👀

Psychic is gaslight. both of them are gatekeep. Void is girlboss.

[shitisaysometimes]

Actually! Aziraphale would still be a Cherub in Eden! The angels that guard the gates of Eden are said to all be Cherubs!!

I think he is made a Principality after he gives away the sword (aka, gets a demotion). But that's not based on in-universe clues, it's mostly based on what I know of the Lore™️. Principalities are in charge of guiding and guarding specific areas (cities, countries, Soho 👀) and are related to changes in leadership. (Ho ho.) So since there aren't any kingdoms/countries/neighborhoods etc. in Eden, and the gatekeepers are usually depicted as Cherubs, I think he's still a Cherub. (Genisis 3:24 specifically mentions a Cherub with a flaming sword guarding the Tree of Life.)

My theory for the pre-fall scene is... kinda two fold. First: I think the wrist accents follow military systems - the more stripes and higher up the stripes are, the higher your rank. Like so:

The lower ranks on the right have stripes lower on the wrist than the higher ranks on the left. (This is just an example not what I think the character's ranks actually are.)

I think the show indicates Crowley is a higher rank than Aziraphale which we know from other evidence too.

This brings me to my second thought: I think the collars and sleeves are simpler in this scene in general because... there's been no war yet! No need to distinguish different ranks so overtly if there's no conflict. In real life, the herarchy of three Ordera of Three Choirs each wasnt established until Pseudo-Dyonysis in like the 3rd century AD and not solidified until the Middle Ages. Before the that, the only real distinction was between Angels and Archangels. Which is why Michael, Gabriel, etc are called Archangels even though the archangel choir is the second lowest. I think the simplified robes pre!Fall are a reflection of this. At this time there are Angels and Archangels and that's it. So... Aziraphale is an Angel, Crowley an Archangel.

As for Eden, I don't see any specific symbolism in the embroidery design. I always thiught it just looked like a snake if I'm honest and figured they did it to draw a connection to Crowley. This was also filmed before anything in season 2 was written, so there may be no connection to ranks at all because it wasn't an important point like it is in season 2 because of the promotion at the end. Same with the ragged collar. It may just be a way to show the transition between "old" and "new" throughout the flashback scenes.

However, if you want my theory/headcannon about it, I actually have two. First: I think Azi and Crowley both have more ragged clothes because of the fall. It happened pretty recently. I don't know what the biblical cannon says but I do know that in retellings like Paradise Lost the Fall happened immediately before the Apple incident. So, thats my theory for the ragged clothes. My second theory is: This outfit is human facing, so, there's no specific need to indicate rank because Adam and Eve wouldnt understand or care anyway. His clothes indicate his allegiance (to heaven) but that's all. Even in scenes like Rome where he's wearing the wing pin, there's no indication of rank just a general allegiance to Heaven because its again a human facing outfit.

Aziraphale's fluctuating between ranks is kinda unusual as far as what other texts and sources claim. Gomens presents Heaven/Hell like a company with promotions/demotions but more classically, an Angel in X rank is only ever X rank. However, it is established Lore™️ that once God gives a gift, that gift is never withdrawn. And I think Crowley shows evidence that this is the case in Gomens Universe. So, if Azi started as a Cherub then was demotied to Principality, he would still have the abilities bestowed on him as a Cherub which may explain the collar. It may also just be that he's the Main Character and gets special treatment.

I did see that the Background Singers have some variation in their collars, but I cant see them with enough detail to make any guesses about what it may indicate. 😩At a guess they'd be Angels/Archangels/Virtues with more complex collars indicating increasing rank. If anyone can get me some clear photos/gifs I'll see what I can see!

So they make it pretty clear in Good Omens that demons when in the human world seem to always display some sign of their demon nature, whether it's Crowley's snake eyes or the frog on Hastur's head. I also noticed that Aziraphale frequently wears wing decoration items - like the pin he was using for his toga in Rome.

But one that I only noticed recently is the gold shirt collar that Aziraphale wears in the Job minisode.

This pattern fascinates me. I was initially very distracted by the pearls, they seemed a bit unnecessarily eye catching in the design. Then I really looked at the pattern.

This is a wings and eyes motif, very reminiscent of the way angels were supposed to actually look according to the old testament:

I don't know that it means anything really, but I thought it was a delightful - and easy to miss - touch on the part of the costume designers.

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 170

Honestly, I love the wonderful and tragic implication of Lisanna being alive in Edolas. it’s great it turned out to be Lisanna and the reunion with Mira and Elf is so beautiful, but I fully understand people who don’t like it too. 

There just wasn’t any meaningful buildup to that reveal before we were suddenly given whiplash at the end of the arc. It felt like a shock for the sake of shock, especially since Lisanna doesn’t do anything meaningful narratively after she returns. 

I’ll say it first. I love Lisanna a lot. A LOT. But only in flashbacks and as my fan version of her. In canon, Mashima chucked her aside and sometimes I almost wished she stayed dead because I loved her as who she was in the flashback, as someone so kind and meaningful to everyone. After she came back, Mashima stopped caring about her character, and everything I once loved about Lisanna just stopped happening and was replaced by another face in the crowd. I wish she continued being a wonderful and hailed character, and Mashima should have stopped before he ruined her. 

Often I wonder how it all would have been with a Lisanna that truly wasn’t ours. If this truly was Edo-Lisanna instead of Earth’s. I love how tragic the Nali story is, similarly to how I love how tragic Jude and Lucy’s story is. It just adds so much depth around Natsu’s personality and dynamics with other characters, and I feel that is a bittersweet note of growth and development for him. 

This moment was a powerful climax to Lisanna’s so long buildup of existence. I just wish more was done with it in Edolas before she just returned home. Did she even need to return home? Like, even if it wasn’t to bring her home, what was the point of reintroducing her in Edolas if she wasn’t to become an important/semi-vital part of the Edolas narrative like Edo-Lucy? It would capitalize on their similarities one last time, you know? 

I wish more was done with her potential in Edolas, because just look. Natsu was about to cry. Lisanna being here actually brought a genuine, emotional tear to Natsu’s eyes, and as I’ve mentioned, we don’t usually see that in the manga.

I wanted to see more of this. More of Natsu figuring out how to deal with Lisanna being alive here. I want a dilemma of him not knowing if he should care for her, if he should ignore her, if he can ignore her. Not just Natsu nonchalantly moving on to the serious issues, that makes no sense. (Even if you don’t ship Nali romantically, please, you’ve got to understand, his long-dead childhood friend showed up alive. Who just moves on like it’s nothing?) There was so much buildup to how much Lisanna meant to all of them, so Mashima not following through with it upsets me just as much as the Mystogan-Wendy situation. 

Heck, not just Natsu, I want Happy to react! Natsu is strong enough to hold back, Happy is lost and confused and there’s no better opportunity for him to run to Lisanna for comfort because someone he thought was dead is alive. 

So you know, I will forever despise how Mashima turned this situation comedic for no reason. It’s just so tone deaf to the buildup thus far. Even if that wasn’t their Lisanna, Natsu deserved a moment to actually be vulnerable and express his damn emotions without being thrown into a comedic light. 

Like, I just want Natsu and Lisanna to interact. How ridiculous is it that they don’t ever interact? Literally Lucy and Gray gatekeeps him from it, they can’t even share a greeting before Lisanna is whisked back into being nothing, the plot captures them, and they never interact again. 

This is the stupidest way to end their old friendship without any closure, and I can’t believe anyone could justify this horrible writing. Even the fucking Mystogan-Wendy reunion had more substance to it and that is also rock bottom. 

[mxndwitch]

PSA

This is a PSA about the changes that will be implemented on this blog from now on. I will put them under a read more, so that I don’t clog anyone’s dash, but I would kindly ask everyone to take a look at them and then decide for yourselves if you want to keep following me, or not. 

I am going private and mutuals only. That means I will no longer reply to people who are not my mutuals and most likely stay away from following blogs first. Following people has become such an anxiety inducing task in the last year that I will just keep my inner circle small. If you follow me first and I decide not to follow back, please don’t take it personally. I will be much more selective with who I follow from now on than I was before.

I will unfollow people who have never interacted with me/ have not made any effort in a couple of months to interact. I understand that life is busy and sometimes the muses just prefer certain people, but I don’t want to clutter my dash with people who have no interest in actually being mutuals. I don’t collect writers for the follower count, but actually want to write with the people I follow

Anon will be turned off until further notice, so if you’d like to send me hate, I guess you’ll have to do it while showing your face

I have already unfollowed all inactive blogs. If I have accidentally unfollowed one of your sideblogs, please let me know. Sometimes I forget who is who

I will not tolerate any hate on my dash whatsoever. That includes anon hate, continuously shitting on MCU content, gatekeeping, gaslighting and general lack of human decency

Last but not least I’m gonna be very blunt here and put it out into the world once and for all ( with the preface that if this is a reason for you to unfollow me, no hard feelings bruh. Do whatever you need ): I will not change my fc. I am aware of the gatekeeping culture concerning the Maximoffs in the fandom and this past year has been the absolute worst for me here when it comes to getting hate, solely over the fact that people cannot separate the MCU from the comic contents. Yes, the Maximoff twins had an entirely different background in the comics than they have in the MCU now and I would have appreciated it to remain the same, but fact is, the MCU did not have the legal rights to use the comic background and therefore created a completely new origin story. Elizabeth Olsen has poured her heart and talent into portraying Wanda Maximoff and I will not stop using her to cater to other people’s needs for political correctness ( or their idea of it ). I have personally met and worked with Lizzie and she was one of the kindest, most considerate people I have been blessed to encounter. She has never personally done anything to me that would make me want to stop supporting her and I am tired of defending myself for my choice. I have lost year long friendships over this debate and the constant hate i have been getting for over a year now has gotten to me. I have been very close to leaving recently, but I will not let other people take away something I thoroughly enjoy. I’ve had Wanda since 2015 and I will not throw away 7 years of writing a character I have loved since the moment I first saw her on screen.

If this is something you feel strongly about and cannot tolerate, that is absolutely fine with me. Everyone has their opinions and personal preferences and unlike some people, I will never tell anyone what to do with their own blogs. We are essentially all here to write and to develop the characters we’ve fallen in love with. For some that comes with the faceclaims of said characters, for others it means finding a new one they like more. Both is absolutely valid and should be respected. I wished the fandom would be a more considerate, open minded, tolerant place for all of us to peacefully exist in, but since that is apparently not possible, we all have to do what we can to make our dashes safe spaces.

Thanks if you have read all of this. If our ways part here, I wish you all the best and hope your future in the fandom will be fun and filled with amazing plots. If you decide to stay, I am looking forward to interacting with you in the future.

Cheers, Katie <3

[sserpente]

Ok, i dont have anyone to talk to about the new episode of Loki, so imma dump my thoughts here (please), what are your thoughts?(thank you)

I just wanna say that I aint here to gatekeep or hate on any thought, my feelings and opinions are my own.

Ok, the first thing I gotta say is: why did, whatever moment Loki and Sylvie had, make a nexus? By the TVAs own rules, nothing they did should have made a blip cause they were still on/at an apocalypse.

Next bit is that i dont understand the hardcore leaning the episode had to ship Loki and Sylvie. Like, personally i dont think the ship makes sense, but that aside, why would Loki, a dude who keeps his emotions close to the vest, fall in love with anyone in a 12 hour period. Thats like a fanfic oneshot writing right there.

And even *if* they did have a romantic relationship, why does that matter? Loki has love. He loves his mom, brother, and even jerk face Odin. So platonic love isn't enough? It *has* to be romantic love for it to mean something?

Good on Mobius and 15 for taking a step towards rocking the boat.

And while I did think that the Sif bit was a bit harsh (again being told he is alone AND physical pain), it was nice to see a reference to mythology stories.

I heard rumors that a season two could already be green lit. If its true, i hope Tom can come back so we can have more of his take on the character.

Okay, I'll go through this because I've seen quite a few reactions like yours to this episode, so here are my thoughts and I hope they'll help! ♥

So, I assume that their connection and feelings for one another (whether they're romantic or not) are so strong they could create that Nexus Event. Loki also said that they may lose but never die so maybe that hope and strength also helped with the Nexus event--it was so strong that it actually created a branch even though they were in an apocalypse! But maybe we'll got more information on that in the next episode!

I freaked out about it and I seriously thought he was going to kiss her. It makes sense to me, somehow. While Sylvie is the Goddess of Mischief and hypothetically a Loki Variant, technically she was born as the Goddess of Mischief because of an event that we still don't know about--so there's still some secrets around her character. So what I'm trying to say is that Sylvie has always been her own person and never just a "photocopy" of Loki himself. So technically, just because Mobius claims he fell in love with another version of himself, that doesn't necessarily mean that's 100% what it is.

I don't see what's wrong with fanfic oneshots? 😅 I must say, I don't really like that comparison, love. That makes it sound like fanfiction is some low-quality fangirly work to quench our Loki thirst. You probably didn't mean it that way but MEEEH, I disagree with that comparison completely!

Listen, I completely understand your point. It happened so fast. But you know what? I bought it. 100% I bought it. Maybe that's purely because of Tom's marvellous acting but it's actually more than that. I write romance novels myself and yes, in most cases it doesn't make much sense to have the protagonist(s) fall in love within a day and kiss and live happily ever after. But it always depends on the situation and when I watched the episode I did not once get the feeling "how did this happen so fast". So I sat down and thought about it and the conclusion I came to is the following: Yes, Loki has only known Sylvie for a very short time. But she is the Goddess of Mischief. She is just like him but different. Loki has finally met someone who resonates with him, someone who went through similar things. I feel like part of Loki feels like he has known Sylvie for much longer (and he has because she's ALSO the Goddess of Mischief) which is how he could develop feelings for her so quickly (plus, Loki admitted that this is new to him, that he's never had anything "real"... I think it's overwhelming for him. If Sylvie turns out to be his love interest then it's probably the first time for Loki that he feels this way which also explains his strong reactions). Now I say feelings and I definitely got that romantic vibe from them and it does look like he's in love with her and I'd be SO here for that (if you've seen my reaction to the episode you'll know how excited I was) but ultimately, we don't know yet if this will take off in a romantic direction after all. It might as well be that through Sylvie, Loki finally learns to love himself (not in a narcissistic way--if anything, him "admitting" that he's a narcissist proved how much he struggles with himself; that narcissistic side of him is part of the show, part of the mask he wears to protect himself--and he seems so broken and sad now that he actually started believing it, especially since others, including Mobius, kept telling him that as well; I mean that's just one theory but there's 100% more to Loki believing that he's a narcissist) which would be equally beautiful.

I mean... sure he loves his family but ultimately and even though they all love him back in their very own somewhat twisted way, they are one of the main reasons why Loki suffers so much. Odin treated him like the second fiddle all his life, never told him about his Frost Giant heritage until it was inevitable and Thor? Remember when Loki told him "I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness" in The Avengers? The romance, whether it is one or not, doesn't overpower the plot to me, it's part of Loki's self-discovery. So it's not so much about the "it has to be romantic love" aspect. Loki's family was pretty toxic, you can't deny that. It's about him feeling for a person who accepts him just the way he is (including the fact that Loki himself doesn't quite know what he actually wants) and Frigga (don't get me wrong she's a wonderful mother and I like her very much but she too kept that secret from Loki and helped gaslighting him in TDW, she's not perfect), Odin and Thor all failed to do that. Not to mention that this Loki doesn't have a timeline and is, in fact, COMPLETELY alone. No one he loves is here anymore. So it's not far-fetched that he'd get attached to Sylvie (and fast too), in whatever way that may be.

Mobius and B-15 going against the TVA were a HIGHLIGHT for sure!

I loved that reference too and yes, it was very harsh, I agree on that. Sif acted like he cut off her nose and not her hair, so she must have been REALLY angry.

I thought it was already confirmed? Either way, I am 100% certain there will be more seasons! I mean, it was clear from the beginning to me that if they're making a Loki series, there will be more than one season! 😅

[alixofagnia]

OpheThorn III: Back to Rambling

The Memory of Babel…Wow.

If nothing else, this book GOES. We’re dropped onto Babel just as lost, bewildered, and determined as Ophelia to get to the bottom of this ark. Boy, was it worth the wait! Babel is exquisitely written and, incredible as it sounds, even more treacherous than the Pole. The backbone Ophelia shows in this book is awesome! I love that she’s taken the measure of her worth—all the things she’s been through and survived in the previous novels—and come out resilient As Fuck. This book is definitely a penultimate novel. Dazzling as it is, much of it feels like groundwork being laid for the finale.

OpheThorn is less nuanced and ambiguous in Babel. While I feel there’s less to analyze, I do really love this pairing and I like writing about their dynamic. So, I’m just going to put my thoughts down and see what comes up!

[There will be spoilers]

[All fanart images credited to @patricialyfoung​]

Intro

One of the things that drew me into The Mirror Visitor series is the relationship between Ophelia and Thorn. Theirs is not a traditional love story at all; in fact, it avoids clichés and instead plays about with two romantic tropes: enemies to lovers and marriage of convenience. The series spins these tropes anew by offering subtle signs of attraction (discussed here) and giving both characters antisocial tendencies, as well as—in Thorn’s case—possible ASD traits (discussed here).

When we left these two in Clairdelune, Thorn had just put his feelings on the table. Before she could give her response, however, they were separated under upsetting, even traumatic circumstances. Years later, we meet Ophelia again…

Ophelia

…and, oh dear, she is in a sorry state indeed. We find her disastrously operating a waffle stand during a kooky Animist festival for, of all things, clocks. Just what the girl pining for Thorn needs, right? All is not well with Ophelia. As Aunt Rosaline points out,

“No, you’re not fine. You don’t go out anymore, you eat any old thing, you sleep at any old time. You haven’t even been back to the museum.” [19]

Although her mother, sister, and to an extent Aunt Rosaline all believe Ophelia is wasting away, shutting herself in her room, she’s actually been quite busy. She’s been studying and developing working hypotheses about God and the Other: where they are, there she’ll find Thorn. She’s convinced of it. Working from obscure clues dropped in Clairdelune, Ophelia settles on Babel as the ark most likely to yield some answers, and when the chance to travel there appears, she wastes no time at all.

She. Is. Going.

Thorn

In Babel, Thorn has made a name for himself as Sir Henry, rising to become a Lord of LUX, the gatekeepers of Babel who serve a similar function to that of the Doyennes on Anima. He is commanding, magnetic, and aloof as ever. It is unsurprising to find that he has been playing close to the fire again. But the stress and tension of his investigative life on Babel is certainly heightened in a way that it wasn’t at the Pole. 

We also learn that his nickname in Babel is the Automaton due to his unceasing energy. Thorn, thus, has dealt with the separation by predictably burying himself in work.

The Reunion

To Ophelia’s disappointment, the reunion with Thorn does not go quite as she had envisioned, and that’s because she hadn’t really envisioned past the goal of finding him [203]. Ophelia is very much a character who takes things one at a time as she’s confronted by them. When Thorn seems less than pleased to see her, she must consider all these Troublesome Feelings and why his underwhelming reaction upsets her.

The thing is Ophelia is waiting for Thorn to take the lead. But he already did, and she didn’t follow—at least, not in a way that he could understand. As previously discussed, Thorn does not function well with non-verbal cues. He needs to be explicitly told how someone else feels, or how he is making someone else feel, in order to know when to adjust his behavior. That can be quite flustering, especially for someone like Ophelia who struggles to vocalize her feelings exactly as they are.

“Is that it?” Ophelia murmured. “You have nothing more to say to me?”

 “I have, actually,” Thorn muttered, not stopping all his connecting. […] “And you?” he finally asked, in turn. “You have nothing more to say to me?” [263]

She doesn’t. Thorn coldly dismisses her and continues to keep her at arm’s length, especially when he gives her a second chance to confess her feelings and she still refuses to take it. 

Ophelia has social anxiety. She’s not exactly shy, she just gets tongue-tied and befuddled sometimes. It’s part of her make-up, but it doesn’t just happen around Thorn—there are plenty of instances where she has trouble expressing herself to those she cares about, such as Ambrose and Blaise in this novel, or Fox in Clairdelune. She even struggles to express basic gratitude toward Aunt Rosaline in Promise. Unlike them, Thorn challenges her to uncomfortable levels. Her feelings for him are complex and utterly foreign; she has no idea what to do about them. 

Unfortunately, Thorn is fresh out of fucks to give over her see-saw act. He’s well-past this stage of confusion and cowardice she’s experiencing because he’s been in love with Ophelia since Promise (“I’m starting to get used to you”) and dealt with the ramifications of that in Clairdelune (“I don’t give a damn whether people find me suspect, as long as I am not so in your eyes.”). 

Thorn does nothing half-heartedly. In no uncertain terms, he left her with the bluntest of blunt confessions (“By the way, I love you.”), which was a milestone in his emotional growth. It is clear that he does not love frivolously or casually in the way of his foil, Archibald, so for him, nothing has changed in three years. Likely, he thinks this should be obvious to Ophelia, and it probably should be at this point. He’s done all he can, after all, what more can she want? From his perspective, it’s Ophelia’s turn to make a move, not his.

Ophelia, though, functions differently. She has always needed verbal reinforcement and reassurance. That need has been heightened by their long separation. Essentially, they’re out of touch with one another and, in Ophelia’s case, she’s completely out of touch with herself, which is why when prompted by Thorn she doesn’t provide an answer, even though there could be only one reason for her going to Babel. Things finally come to a head when Thorn loses all patience and replaces her as his assistant. Ophelia is pissed.

“You weren’t available. Waiting for you would have slowed me down in my research.”

“Slowed you down? For your information, I was also doing research of my own. It might interest you to learn…”

“Of your own, that’s precisely the problem,” he interrupted her. “I advised you never to leave your division, and you were supposed to warn me if you discovered anything new. Nothing has changed, you still always make your decisions alone.”

“I wanted to help you,” Ophelia hissed, through gritted teeth.

“I don’t want any of your finer feelings. I need efficiency. If you don’t mind, I now have a flight to take.”

Ophelia’s blood ignited in her every vein. “You’re an egoist.” She had wanted to anger Thorn, and she knew, by the way he had frozen on the spot, that she had succeeded. All the shadows of the night suddenly seemed to  have been drawn to the center of his face. He threw Ophelia a look so hard, she reeled from its impact.

“I am demanding, a killjoy, obsessive, antisocial, and crippled,” he intoned, in a forbidding voice. “You can put all the defects in the world on me, but I will not permit you to call me an egoist. If you prefer to do things your way, go ahead, but don’t waste my time anymore. Our collaboration is over.” [305]

OMG, this is harsh. But it’s the kick in the ass Ophelia needs. Since taking up a secret identity as Eulalia and aspiring to become a Forerunner (essentially a scholar and a scribe), she’s already been confronted by the fact that she’s not as good a researcher as she’s prided herself on. Now, she’s being confronted by the suggestion that she’s not a very good partner, either. It leaves her feeling “drier than dust.” [321]

I think it’s interesting how Thorn’s dialogue here has a double meaning. He’s talking about their partnership as an investigative team, of course. But it just as easily applies to their personal relationship. He can’t keep waiting around for Ophelia to make up her mind. He’s got a God to hunt down, an Other to face. Having to wonder about where he stands with Ophelia is getting to be too much. By once again haranguing off on her own, Ophelia has made it plain to him that she prefers to do things without him. In his eyes, she’s pushing him away.

Eventually, she is able to see this perspective and she is ashamed to realize how badly she’s held Thorn to a double standard. He gave of himself through words and gestures as far as he was able, while she gave him nothing in return. Finally, FINALLY, Ophelia fully expresses her love for Thorn and, as he once did, asks him to forgive her shortcomings. It’s a very sweet scene, I must say.  

Now, to go back for a moment, what’s really gutting about Ophelia calling Thorn an egoist is this:

“God said he would keep his eyes on you,” he muttered, in a choked voice. “Right in front of me. I make a lamentable husband, but I permit no one, particularly him, to persecute my wife. It’s impossible for me to tear you away from God, but I can tear him away from you. If a book exists that contains God’s secret, and allows his invulnerability to be punctured, I will find it.” [392]

For context, Ophelia had admonished Thorn for his dogged pursuit of this quest, expressing outrage that he should be doing this for a world that’s done nothing for him. At one time, yes, Thorn may have been acting in the interest of the world. Then, he met Ophelia (who is too curious for her own good) and he met God. God threatened her, and Thorn is not a man who could allow such a thing to go unpunished, no matter the consequence. Ever since they met—through every consideration, every move in this impossible investigation and despite each rejection from her—he’s been acting out of love for Ophelia. 

As Thorn said, he is not an egoist.

The Blind Spot

After their “egoist” argument, Ophelia feels instant regret and tries to stop Thorn from walking away. She doesn’t succeed, however, because she is struck by his claws. At first, she believes he may have done this on purpose, the thought of which really scares her because it indicates that Thorn is absolutely done with her.

Later, after she finally makes her confession, we all learn that, in fact, Thorn has lost a bit of control over his family power. He has no idea that he used his claws on Ophelia. I’m a little bit unsure what caused this vulnerability—I don’t really follow the given reason, so I’m wondering if Thorn doesn’t quite know himself why this has come to be.

My theory is more euphemistic. Ophelia had reached out to touch his turned back and the gesture badly startled him. He overreacts then overcorrects, and they both take a memorable tumble. Thorn explains:

“Never again accost me from behind my back or from any of my blind spots. Don’t do any movement that I can’t see coming in advance, or then warn me out loud.” [389]

He further explains that he can retain control as long as his claws don’t perceive her as a threat and asks her not to be absent-minded with him. I think it’s entirely plausible that his control over his Dragon power has weakened due to his deep emotion regarding Ophelia. I also feel that this speaks closely to their recent conflict as well as Thorn’s coding as autistic. It’s like Thorn is saying, “No more hide and seek. No more games. Tell me straight, or not at all.”

Ophelia knows how deep his passions run. She once held his dice and thought she might die under the weight and intensity of his emotions. Perhaps it is her Animism that has wrought this change in him. Perhaps it is simply her existence. Either way, she can no longer afford to be careless when it comes to Thorn’s feelings. In the final chapter, Ophelia and Thorn have a true heart to heart, reaffirming their partnership. But Thorn has something to add.

“No half-measures,” he interrupted her. “I’m not and do not wish to be your friend.” [445]

What he leaves unspoken is that he wants to be her husband, in every version of the role: Partner. Protector. Lover. Now that Ophelia has given him an answer, Thorn is comfortable leading them forward and it is the role of lover that he specifically has in mind. Considering this is probably the first time he’s ever propositioned a woman for sex, he is understandably quite awkward. Ophelia quickly realizes that she’s added to his inner turmoil by repressing her own sexuality around him and inadvertently making him feel less than attractive. She also understands that she, too, wants to be his wife in every version of that role: Partner. Protector. Lover. What follows is a really beautiful expression of honest acceptance and true value.

Desire

My dudes, our girl is constantly at risk of exploding (or maybe imploding?) with desire in this book. It’s consuming her, emptying her, and driving every atom of her being. Look at this!

Ophelia had received no news from Thorn after his escape. Not a single telegram, not a single letter. She could keep telling herself that he couldn’t run the risk of making contact, that he was a man wanted by the law, perhaps by God himself, but it was eating her up inside. [22]

Whenever she crossed a man who was a bit taller than average, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back as she passed, with a frantic pounding in her chest. [83]

Ophelia would have recognized his voice out of a thousand. The resonance of a double bass, solemn and sullen, that echoed through her inner emptiness, shook her to the core, welled up to her throat, choked her. [240]

She waited until her heartbeat, taxed by the run, had returned to normal. But it didn’t happen. Her entire flesh seemed to be pulsating to a single chaotic rhythm. This evening, she would see Thorn again. [249]

She wanted to be with Thorn right there, right now. She’d wanted that every second of every minute of every hour, for almost three years. [249]

Although she knew the temperature of this place was strictly maintained at minus eight degrees, Ophelia felt as if it were fifteen degrees warmer. Never in her life had she cared about appearances, and yet she ran a nervous hand through her hair to tidy it up. [253]

She suddenly realized that there wasn’t much she would have refused him, had he but asked. [278]

Instead, he disinfected his hands for a second time, as if they really were repulsive. They weren’t in Ophelia’s eyes. From a distance, she took in the network of veins under the skin, the long, curved fingers, the bone that          rose up on each wrist, and suddenly, she felt something like pain in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening to her, but looking at those hands made her want to scream. [283]

She felt it again, even more violently, this urgent call from deep inside her. [446]

Ophelia is so horny and I’m so here for it!

Closing Thoughts

Do I think Ophelia’s internal conflict over Thorn is drawn out? Yes. 

Do I think it’s contrived? No.

I think it falls in line with Ophelia’s characterization and I think Thorn’s frosty reaction to her presence in Babel falls in line with his characterization. These characters aren’t perfect: Ophelia is quirky and endearing, but that doesn’t make her immune to cowardice; Thorn is highly skilled and competent but is deficient socially and sometimes emotionally. I can’t emphasize enough how well Christelle Dabos knows her characters and allows them to be who they are rather than force them to make weird changes to fill plot holes.  

We can’t forget, either, the fact that they have been completely cut off from one another for years. Yes, we might think in that time Ophelia could have done more to sort out her feelings. But as we’ve seen, she just doesn’t focus on more than what she can handle at a time. She always thinks in terms of breaking a problem down into steps. The first step was following up on those clues from Claridelune. The second step was finding Thorn. The last step was dealing with herself. 

Their relationship here, which has progressed in a way that felt natural and believable, is the most straightforward it has ever been. That made writing about them this time around kind of hard, actually, because it’s all plainly there in the text. For me, I think the notable takeaway is being able to mark just how far these two characters have come in their individual and mutual journeys. Now and together, they can tackle the gargantuan, perilous task ahead. It might all end on a bittersweet note. But for this couple…that seems about right, and I can’t wait to read the conclusion.

Thank you so much for reading these long posts and leaving such kind feedback! I’m glad that you, too, enjoy Ophelia, Thorn, and this magical series. 

[jilljoycearts]

About the situation with the previously mentioned reposter, reposts in general, and the fandom. This is mostly about the russian part of the internet, the dark and fearsome place.

This post is very long, so I’m hiding it under the cut.

To sum it all up:

If you see drawings (fanarts) for the game Enderal and for the rest of the SureAI games on the russian social VK, published not by the authors of the drawings or not by their art groups, pages and communities, then they are placed against the will of these very authors.

About the rhetorics (mostly for the Russians that stumble upon this post): what people on VK call repost (share button) is an actual reblogging or retweet. In fact, a repost is re-uploading something not by its owner. Now let's start. The retelling is quite detailed. Also, a warning: although I can retell this whole thing in english from scratch, the post is translated from russian with the help of almighty google. I don't want to bother much with this and spend my energy on it. Most of the mistakes I still fix, but the sentence structure and phrasing might seem weird.

The man (hereinafter "character T"; we do not mention his name because he is only interested in your attention to his person) took under his wing a long-abandoned community (Enderal themed), asking to be a moderator. For several months he was posting stolen drawings (without permission and credits), until his vanity drove him into a trap: with a request of "reblog for reblog" (wanted to promote his own fan-creation) he messaged a small russian community of artists interested in the SureAI games. Naturally, seeing his reposting activities, everyone was utterly indignant. He was incredibly lucky that my drawing was the last one published on the dash of his community. Again, no credit. I left a comment urging him to remove the stolen things and explaining the common truths. To which no one answered, but suddenly a link to my tumblr appeared. I wrote another comment telling to delete again, and again no one answered me. When he had to start talking to me, Character T decided that it was a good idea to load a girl (who was so lucky to know both of us a bit) with the work of a negotiator. I leave it to you to judge the "honor and dignity" of this character and his decision. I scroll forward: he agrees to delete my work, while rolling out a post consisting of articles of the civil code, in which he puts the meaning “I reposted, am reposting and will continue that, because the law allows me”. At the same time, the negotiator girl gets tired of working as his secretary. I already intend to contact him personally, but I find myself in his blacklist. It would seem, "Well, calm down, hedeleted yours." But his intention to repost further stunned everyone. Naturally, the time has come to inform the foreign authors about this chronic stealing.

A new location was unlocked in our amusing adventure: a server of the game developers SureAI on Discord. There, one of the artists from whom he stole called him out, without mentioning the names (yes, the character T was active there, whilst annoying the local inhabitants). He responded after a while, again rolling out his cart of articles on the legality of reposts. He also managed to threaten me personally with something. In general, he was kicked from the server of the developers for lack of culture and propaganda of copyright infringement. Further, another foreign author tried to contact him personally, but in the same way received a cart of laws. In the meantime, the English-speaking part of the fandom artists decided to write an official letter of complaint, attaching all links to posts to be deleted, and listing the authors with whose content the character T is strictly prohibited from interacting in the future. This letter was tried to be sent by a German artist, who specially registered there, but she stumbled upon some tech difficulties. Firstly, she was blocked by the owner of the stealing community, where the character T was appointed as the moderator. Her page was empty, the name was not Russian - he thought it was a bot, I can understand that. She then dropped the complaint letter to the support of VK social itself. Even tried to message the stealing community specifically but another lag made it impossible. (and this was required according to the new "rules" of the character T, according to which it was decided to play. "So that your complaint was considered ..." and so on.)...

Sensing something is wrong, character T made an attempt to contact some Russian-speaking authors himself in the meantime. And they told him the same -- that he steals, and not “shares” for some “purpose”. And here comes an interesting thing: the phrases "well, something needs to be posted to fill the community" and "but I am not on their Facebooks, I found it on Yandex"(that's russian google). That is, our drawings turned out to be just a filler, because something needs to be posted. Searching by image is difficult, but he still has to post! Something. Anything. What for? I have an explanation and an answer to this, but since this is the purpose of the character T - to draw attention to his fan-creation, I will not mention it 👌🏻 Another of his phrases was that due to the increased attention to his community now he HAS to credit the authors 🤦🏻‍♀. In general, he banned the Russian-speaking artist, whom he contacted and received a well-scented bucket’s content on his head (and well-deserved of course).

Now let's return to the official letter of complaint from foreign artists, which never reached the stealing community, and after all it was sent by the Russian-speaking author L. This time the character T was able to read it, but as expected, he refused to remove reposts, said that the artists were arrogant, accused of gatekeeping and again expressed his intention to repost not only without permission, but also against the will of all these fandom authors (38 people). After all, he has a great goal - to popularize games and the universe in the ru-segment.

The same or the next day the owner of the stealing community contacted me (who had previously lost interest, abandoned it, and a year later gave it to the character T). The owner asked what was happening, I explained, and passed on the letter of complaint from foreign artists, which the German artist could not send because he blocked her. That I explained to him too and he unblocked her. No reaction to my explanations abot the character T followed, but we’ll come back to that later.

And now we decided it’s time for our last resort -- we contacted Nicolas (the main screenwriter, the owner of the rights to this universe and the main figure of the fandom as a whole). Here I will digress from the main line and note that interested people have dug out both the provisions of the Berne Convention and the laws of the Russian Federation, which the character T chose to ignore in his activities, hiding behind only those that are convenient for him. Now let's return to Nicolas, who had to take a break from vacation because of this circus. As it turned out, character T, sensing the smoke, came running to him first. But alas, Nicolas was on the side of the authors (who would have thought). As a result, we almost decided that hurray, it helped, because posts with pictures disappeared from the wall of the stealing community, and character T even disappeared from the list of moderators (I will return to the stage with the owner of the community: I assume it was his work). But it was clear that it was too early to celebrate the victory.

Change of location: again the server of the developers on Discord. After the kick of the character T, three days later, a brand-new account appears, which broadcasts about the character T in the third person using Google translate “ if he had not been pressed upon, he would repost peacefully in his community of a thousand subscribers. And now he will attract some audience of a dozen more groups and will repost there too”. Naturally, without direct evidence of the second coming, no one have kicked him yet.

On the same day, the VK support told me that the most effective weapon in our case is the DMCA form. This is inconvenient, but it works. Moreover, the stolen has already been removed from the stealing community.

Then people came across the news - the stealing community advertised a new community of the character T, which was shaped exclusively for reposting other people's drawings (and there were already several works, including mine). The adv post called to support the character T “and his work”. Naturally, in the comments, I and other people urged not to support this. We even managed to explain the situation to some random person. After that the post was deleted. We don't know who deleted the post (still the character T or the community owner).

At this point, I ask Nicolas to message the tharacter T again using the simplest words that reposts cannot be allowed without permission. At all. Even with links attached. Doesn't help because the main now-not-stealing community shares a new post of the new one stealing community again. That is, even the main copyright holder and owner of the entire thing is not a figure of authority for the character T. Summing up -- “I will “popularize” your fandom against your wishes. The laws allow me. "

But after a while, the reblog from the new community is removed from the main one.

And again, the change of location: to the discord of the developers, where the character T himself comes back and writes something (under the new name ofc as his old account is banned). He declares that he will now repost to some huge audience of 300k people (before that there were 200, and even before that 100, yeah), he is outraged by the complaint letter from the authors with the ban on reposting, he will deliberately not credit, and also he wants to reupload my fanfiction somewhere. After that, he was kicked again 🥾.

Naturally, the entire audience is shocked, the character T literally became famous and crowned himself with a clown wig in just a few days, and now the entire fandom and the informed ru-segment hates him. The retelling is over.

Almost. Now I thank google translate for the help above and I'm gonna retell even more without it as this information is rather new. He wrote his own “explanation post”, where he somehow found relevant addressing the sexuality of one of the authors who called him out, called Nico indifferent and passive regarding this situation, insulted literally everyone but him, the white knight, whom we all should be grateful to for his will of promoting our content. I facepalm very hard. And he reposts art to some small communities but no one gives a shit (surprisingly so, huh?). He adds the links to the authors. Now I don’t want to give him any attention anymore, I have some work to get done.

Here comes the part about the and for community itself (google translate helps me again):

For the artists:

For the people registered in VK there is a "Nemesis" algorithm (dropdown - report - copied content). It will want a link to the previously published content on the VK as a primary source. Its effectiveness is still in question, but if someone tried it, then share your experience. For the rest, there is a dmca form that wants passport data (the only one I know of that asks for it), which I personally do not want to share, but in general... It's up to you to decide. Advice: Include readable text with @ of your page, community or yourself in your watermarks. Thus, an adequate person will always see where to go for the primary source.

For the readers/viewers:

Fandom existence is based on respect for other people's work. This work is the reason fandoms exist. If you like the drawing, then praise the author, support them in accessible ways (like - comment - subscribe - send a link to a friend(reblog the thing) - give some moneyz). People will be pleased, honestly. And if you disagree with something or you go "Ew" for other reasons, then just walk by. This is, in fact, all that you can do. If you have ambitions, ideas and “I need to fill my dead community with something” (you are considering taking the author's drawing and placing it somewhere yourself), then you ask for permission and accept any answer. There is no other way. Otherwise it's a violation of the law. 

Why reposts (= re-uploads) are harmful I think there's no need to mention, but still:

First of all, it drives away traffic from the authors. It doesn't matter if fanart can be monetized or not (spoiler alert: it can). Example: If a figurative reposter hadn't taken away figurative content, then a potential viewer interested in this content would go to search for it himself. And would have found it posted by the author. And then it is already possible to take a closer look at the other work as a whole, and even give the author money so that they draw something personalized for this viewer personally. That’s an example. It seems to be clear. Artists on the Internet care about their traffic, which is responsible for audience growth and all subsequent opportunities. This is the basics.

About monetizing fan content.

It depends solely on the developers / authors of games and books (original owners of all rights). Sometimes the ban on monetization hangs for some time after the release of the game (as was the case with Hades), sometimes you can sell keychains / posters / whatever with fanarts on them right away. And sometimes you can't, everything is individual here. Again, I think it is clear that if a viewer finds the original image posted by the author themselves, then this viewer has more chances to buy merch with this image. After all, the author will definitely add that the drawing is available as a merch. Reposter -- never. He does not know that, he found it on Yandex/Google.

Specifically about me and my community:

You know that my main audience are not russians. I have already abandoned my russian community once. Would I want to disappear from there again? So far, there is no such desire. People I have there are nice and friendly, despite the small number. How much do I really care about reposts of drawings on an objectively dying or already dead fandom? I'll leave it to you to decide. I have been here since the 2016-17, with me the fan activity started, and with me it will end. Everyone who is interested in SureAI games knows me. And although I have the permission from the devs to monetize fanart and fan content in general, it is obvious that $20 from posters and magnets every few months is not my motivation. I am here because I love the game universe and its characters. I make my own thing, quietly rejoicing, and I don't look around much. Reposts are evil on a different level, and not on this one. Does T's intention of re-uploading my fanfiction or even rewriting it somehow thrills me? I don’t care at all. Let him read a well edited and thought-through text for once. But I doubt it will help a little.

In general:

My subscribers / readers / followers know where to look for my updates. A thinking person that sees a repost will go and find the author themselves. Be it pictures that they see, text or something else. Those people who don't think are obviously not interesting for me as an audience. Other authors share this position.

Finally, end of this text. It has taken me 4 hours to write this all in russian, maybe another one to edit the google output and add more things AND almost one week of my time to deal with this all (and don’t forget other authors involved, they spent a shitload of time on it too). From now on my position is “time is money” and if the character T resurfaces he’ll have to pay me for the attention he seeks, lol 

[weaselbeaselpants]

I have a lot to say and not enough time to say it. It hurts, but ya’ll know what this is about so if you want my full fandom retrospective opinion thing guys, here.

I’ve been following Vivienne’s art and career since I found her on dA in 2009. I’ve basically grown up with her and have a wide range of opinions up and down her collective work. I must stress that I do not know her as a person and no matter how critical I get in my personal time if I somehow met her in real life or converse with her online again (like, back in the day we went back and forth. She was pretty nice to me), I’d be humble and congratulate her for her success.

Critique does not, EVER equate to attacking people.

But

the reason I don’t call myself a VivziePopVivzmind-fan is the exact same as to why I don’t like the proud use of ‘anti’. Let me try and explain -

The vast majority of Viv fans are just that: fans. Viv’s one of their favorite artists and they’re happy for her and obviously defensive when some mouth breather pops into their fan discussion calling her and all of them trash. Quite a lot of the Hazbin fans I know in my circle of friends are all pretty accepting and agree on the problematic notions and implications of her work.

HOWEVER, there’s a vocal minority in the VivziePop fandom that were and still are toxic. Their specific interest in Viv back in the day was toxic...and now that she’s moved on into a successful career I doubt they’ve gone away, considering the things I’ve heard. These people - they’d flood Viv’s comments sections and stuff with messages like they were talking to her when they weren’t and they’d unironically call her a god in a way that feels like gaslighting, ex: “I’ll NEVER be as good as you Viv! My art is just sooooo unpopular oh god you are incredible no one will ever like you as much as meeeee”. It made me uncomfortable. It made me not want to be around her because these people took Viv’s role in their lives so seriously and their demand for her attention...it struck a nerve.

These same fans have been around long enough to see actual shitlords - the likes of Kiwifarms and tapatalk wikis - come in and actually harass Viv. Viv’s been sent revenge porn by sick freaks who think they’re funny and believe she deserves it. No. In my non-name fan bystander opinion, Viv’s got some shit to work on, but no one deserves raperevenge porn. EVER. It was genuinely bad and yes Viv and her base have every reason to NOT TRUST these communities. Unfortunately, when these incidents happened, these particular fans took it upon themselves to gatekeep the fandom and act like Viv’s unofficial guard against any kind of decenting opinion of her, all without her say so.

((to the critics who will be all “but Viv or Faust said THIS to their fans-”, like I said, Viv’s far from perfect but regardless of how much she prolly wanted people to side with her I’m gonna guess that she didn’t want people sending transphobic death threats to DollCreep. Again, and this is coming from a bystander here, I have a feeling Viv knows about some of the toxicity but doesn’t know how/want to address it - which is a conversation all it’s own.))

This particular breed of VivziePop “fan” holds so much toxicity in her fandom(s). They aren’t the only cause, but they’re there. They feel entitled to her attention and her approval. They creep me out. Having spoken to other much-less critical admitted fans of Viv around me, these fans appear to creep everyone else out and put the rest of the fandom on edge. They’re gatekeepers. They’re creeps. Like the bronies and SU fans of yestertodayyears, they know harassment exists and that people have crossed the line - so they think any means is necessary to prevent that is automatically good. I could pile together all the incidents and folks who’ve had bad runs ins with this aftershock of Viv-obsession, but I do have a life of my own and this post is already stupid long so I’ll just list out the biggest examples and provide receipts when asked.

Critical blogs have gotten RAPE and death threats because they don’t like Viv’s art. HonestZoophobiaCriticisms, a blog I interracted with back in the day, def got one. Now Viv’s opinion of crit-blogs is that they’re “bad takes” but I can assure you she doesn’t want that shit being said on her behalf.

I’ve seen young artists get blacklisted from sites and forums cause they so much as post a redesign. Viv and co get told through the grapevine that someone’s making hatespeech and so preemptively block said person (prolly cause they’re in the middle of WORKING and can’t deal right now) only to find out after the fact that no, it was just a kid drawing their version of her characters. There’s serious miscommunication issues within the fandom about who’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and once you get the actual staff involved in this game of telephone you’re begging for trouble. The problem acknowledged, however, it’s souly from the “Viv never did anything wrong camp”. No word is said about how ugly the fandom is under the surface it’s all one type of person’s fault and not complicated’. Blah

I’ve only ever had ONE obsessive ‘fan’ who’d stalk me, mock me, and then redraw my art just to get attention from me. That shit fucked with my head. As a follower hundreds of miles away from Viv who’s agreed/disagreed with her through the years - I absolutely believe her when she says she hates ‘creeps’ and that she doesn’t want anyone in her fandom spreading hate on her behalf. It’s the one thing about her I’m POSITIVELY sure of. Whether she believes that said underlying harassment exists and/or is even a problem within her fandoms is anyone’s guess. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to write stupid blog entries like this, talk about fandoms and media and how they and the real world affect one another, and rb fan art I like. I’m cautiously optimistic fan with a side of salt.

Mixed opinions and critique within a fandom CAN and SHOULD exist. Hazbin Hotel has been greenlit by a studio! It has a product line of merchandise you buy. Helluva Boss is getting eight more episodes this coming year (yeeee:3yeeee). Two of Viv’s properties are now products. Nothing is immune from critique. And in critique you will find a lot of people who are not ‘nice’. Critique or analysis doesn’t have to be nice. There will be, in Viv’s words’ ‘bad takes’ on her writing. Maybe they will be actual CinemaSins-styled bad takes or maybe Viv is just mad that people don’t love and feel inspired by her characters the way she wants them to - it’s a fact she’s going to have to get used to.

((TBH, I’m pretty sure she’s already realized that criticism of all types need to exist. It’s just that, again, her and the SpindleHorse staff are kind of overwhelmed by all matter of takes and opinions coming their way they kinda can’t deal weeding out the fair ones from the assholes, so she lumps them all together.))

Shitposters, ironic fans, unironic fans, critical fans, just critics of Hazbin and Helluva CAN and WILL exist. They should exist and not feel threatened by the megafandom. There are people out there who are one step further and rightfully bothered by Hazbin/Helluva’s use of incorrect symbols, portrayal of certain topics, and the response by creators. These people have strong opinions and are actually disgusted by Viv. They deserve to exist too and should not be vilified because, like me, they’re commentary doesn’t consist of anything personal towards the people at Spindlehorse or the fans of her works. They can rant, they can be professional, they can be petty and they can be fair. But they will exist. You have to deal with it.

I am an ADD/OCD ridden autistic woman with serious anxiety issues who has no one to talk to half the time and so only HAS my fandom to communicate with. But that’s just it - it’s a fandom. A community. You have to learn to not think souly of yourself and of others in a community. A fandom doesn’t exist just for you or any one person. You have the right to be angry and defend or be offended. And it’s in the spirit of that that I ask, prrraaaaaay even, that I please

NOT BE CALLED AN “ANTI-ANTI” for not liking the moniker?!

I DON’T TO BE AN “ANTI”. Not ironically, not unironically. ‘Anti’ should be for politics and shit like pedophiles, necrophiles, nazis, serial killer stans, Trump, racists, antisemites, terfs, animal abusers, rapists, and antivaxxers. Anti should only come into critical media analysis when these ethical issues follow suit IN TO fandom discussion. ((EX: Anime and MLP proudly waving their cp and non-con into the public eye; Hazbin appropriating cultural symbols which are not satanic; Basically anything that concerns John K or Butch Hartman.))

If your DNI list unironically consists of the entirety of one fandom:  CONGLATURATIONS! You have done the exact same thing these particular creepy Viv fans have done: monopolize the conversation. And yes, people I’m referring to, IT’S STILL A PROBLEM EVEN IF YOU’RE FIGHTING RACISM/SEXISM/HOMOTRANSPHOBIA.

There are hundreds of Vivziefans who ARE more critical, accepting of faults, interested in discussion and especially rewrite and redesign stuff who would LOVE to engage with you and give you a follow. There’s hundreds of people who no doubt agree with you!

But the thing I’ve seen these very proud AntiHazbinVivzieHelluvaWhatever blogs do is lash out at fans for continuing to like Viv and consume Viv’s art in a healthy way. What the actual fuck is your problem?

I get it. Say a crazy Hazbin fan gets on your case for even SUGGESTING Viv could be homophobic ((”SHE’SBIANDWORKSWITHGAYPPLblahablahblah”)). They get in your face, make some callouts, try to rile up support against you, leave disgusting harassment throughout your social media? Absolutely ban worthy. After that it’s perfectly understandable why you don’t want to engage with anything HHHBZPVivzierelated because you’re so fucking tired of being labeled an abuser or “just jealous” for having an opinion on a show you don’t like. I’m with you!

But,

A fan agrees that something in the canon is bad or that Viv did something they don’t like?

A fan likes your silly shitpost meme?

A fan asks if they can like Hazbin and follow you at the same time? 

A fan does fan art of something you don’t like?

If your response to any of these ^^^ things is to get LOUD and accusatory, Vivsplain them about how they’re an absolutely awful person to ever question YOUR opinion, or just block them without a second thought? You’re a petty, vendictive shit and you also need to learn to let things go. I’m sorry but you do. As I already said, Viv’s work is a brand at this point, not just the work of a singular person. As such, there are gonna be mixed opinions and you can’t judge every single one of these people by what they like. You’re a shitty critic with a shitty attitude and yes that will demean the value of what you’re saying. This is bad because, if you’re trying to point out how Angel Dust’s abuse IS handled terribly; gay rep in Viv’s work is weak and terrible; the show appropriates closed practices; the fandom makes excuses for predatory artists and creepy behavior and individuals who have sketchy pasts - I’M WITH YOU. WE NEED TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS SHIT. JUST BECAUSE THESE ARE ADULT CARTOONS SET IN HELL MEANS THERE SHOULD BE ANYTHING CLOSE TO 2013 PONY-TUMBLR. <<<---- this shit is as important to me as it is to you and I really don’t like being called an abuser or apologist for saying “hey maybe blowing up at ppl for the shows they like ISN’T the way to go about this”. 

But I have, just like the good old days of 2015 Zoophobia of yore, been blocked because I admit to being tired of ‘Anti’ being equated to ‘critical’. Same with hater.

Critical DOES NOT = Anti+Hater. I’m fucking tired of people saying it does and I’m tired of people taking up the term as some weird form of fandom reappropriation. It’s stupid.

Tl;dr: Once upon a time, I was in a budding fandom for something I liked made by an indie artist I watched on dA. I wanted to be a bigger fan than I was already, but was told by toxic people within said fandom that I couldn’t be part of it for reasons they’d made up in their head about my ‘motives’ against Viv. My admiration for Viv or what I liked about Zoophobia didn’t matter because I thought the story was really rushed and people weren’t being truthful with how they really felt about it - ergo, I HAD TO GO. 

Flash forward 8 years later- My opinion of Viv’s body of work has changed but I still find myself in love with her style and some of her characters. I want to be on a forum or service that gives a healthy look at the problems there are with this series and fandom...and I’m met repeatedly by petty bs where people are again at each other’s throats. And yes, I do think it’s causing more harm than good especially when you insist there’s a “x person shouldn’t be trusted” mentality when fighting actual fucking racist, xenophobic, predatory bullshit.

[stray-tori]

TPN S02E09 - Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

[ Reaction video w/ captions/subs ] we collectively have a breakdown about the pen, please enjoy it pff-

.

... hmmm... yeah I... ain’t feeling it. I think my tpn feelings overall are carrying this more than anything pff. I didn’t hate it, it was just...... mediocre... like if this wasn’t tpn, I probably would have dropped it at this point.

BUT IT IS TPN SO LET’S GIVE SOME THOUGHTS.

.

. Random thoughts I don’t want to re-arrange

when Emma was like “share your pain with us!!”, I liked how Norman turned to Ray like “Ray. help. tell her I’m right” kind of like Ray did in s1 pfff-

Norman cried the words he didn’t allow himself to say in s1 :( I’M EMOTIONAL. it might not be the icing on the cake execution wise but GOD MY HEART. And knowing he’s going to die to it’s just- (well not if the pen has something to say about it but more about that later)

where- wheres my trio hug :((( RAY HUG THE CHILD NOW

it’s interesting that while Emma got the entire emotional speech spotlight, only Ray got a reaction shot to “I won’t live long”?? equivalent.... exchange...?

I thought Norman had a seizure when he broke down in front of Emma and Ray and I kinda wish he had because while it’s good to have him say it outright (a win for communicationnn), imagine THE ANGST. “I want to live with yo- *coughs up fountains of blood*”.

So. yknow that hideout Cislo or Vincent referenced when talking to Emma and Ray. Yknow where Norman hid the children they stole from farms, making it look like demons did it? ... w-what about them? will we see them? Are they getting left behind? it would have worked for Norman’s plan, since all they had to do was stay put and wait for demons to be yeeted. But now... he’d have to take them all too. But... I doubt we’re gonna introduce a bunch of new designs and characters? Or are we? Who knows. I don’t. I have unreasonably amount of protecc feelings for those children I’ve never even seen haha- WHERE ARE THEY. I mean... the plan rn is to immediately use the gate right? or is the plan to eradicte the GF farm staff and higher ups? I guess if thats the plan it might work. Or I guess the plan is to save Phil for now???

the idea of Sonju just... slicing his arm and throwing it at demons in a loop sounds so funny to me please someone make that.

I liked that Mujika turned to the lambda kids after giving a cup to the demon children but then we didn’t see their reaction or anything and then it cuts to the temple??? that was weird. was there sth missing there? confusion.

I also like Isabella remarking "[a radio] was supposed to be there" regarding the shelter, because it further heavily implies they know of the shelters and just let them be. Which further confirms that they should have just reframed the shelter and had the kids escape from it quickly but oH WELL.

I really liked demon Emma apologizing and Norman's reaction to that. it was a sweet little moment and like, the realization of apologizing for something that she didn't do but is aware of and all that. Cycle of hatred and all that shiz hell ye. Ik the anime won't rly delve into that but I kind of relish in the angst potential of the village - sure it was undone but some were still eaten and died and transforming people back won't bring those back. So, that’s some hella terrifying implications for families; and I'm assuming Norman is aware of those so. guilt time! not that he wasn't aware it was bad but yeah- I teared up at that moment :<<

I feel like this season really does its best when it’s doing the whole two worlds/species angle. Mujika and Sonju, the village, demon and human Emma... all that stuff.

I wish we had gotten more time (god this is really the season’s downfall) thought to see Vylk talk to the GF kids more often. it’s implied he told them not to hang out there before but I would have liked to have him show up a few more times before that but yeah. Runtime very RIP.

I also feel like CW is bending over backwards to put cliffhangers at the end of episodes. that was already a problem in s1 when they had Phil come in when Don and Gilda were in Isabella's room. it was obvious it'd be a copout but they still did it. I'm just wondering why we had to have Vincent disagree with the group to this extend (and if the shock value might play a part in that). we have 2 more episodes, why are they introducing more plot threads? Just streamline it you dofuses. I just don't know what good can come of it unless it's like an ultra big brain move to help them?? (and then we're back with the forcing cliffhangers thing) - if it's actual conflict, this'll just make things more confusing and clustered, and we don't have time for that right now imo. But who knows maybe it plays into something I just don't understand yet and it'll work out somehow

.

. Animation flow kinda dead.

I felt like this episode was kind of... awkwardly executed whenever something that was a slightly dynamic movement happened?

The whole bit while Emma is walking up to Norman could have been better, but it’s passable, except that a lot is spelled out for us.

But then she takes his hand really weirdly in a far away shot with bad inbetween timing?? what is that haha-

Or him collapsing is cut really weirdly. you barely really see it, you just kinda piece it together from Emma’s reaction and her catching him.

Most facial expressions are good though, which is arguably the more important part in this scene. I feel like a better execution just would have elevated it even more.

The only one I felt was really awkward in its entirety is Barbara’s scene with the children demons. I felt like that was in particular kind of stiff and the cut between the child and her was too sudden and felt jarring. TPN anime doesn’t really do that sort of stuff a lot, so imo it’s kind of “??” when they do it. With Norman it was too, but that at least had a good transition over to it (with bg and fg panning) and nice animation. Barbara’s just kind of switched. Tbh don’t switch it out, and as the child screams, switch over to her facial expression as her own voice fades into the scream? I think that would have done it too and also be low effort.

I think it’s moreso the flow of the shots than the actual shots though? it’s a bit too fast paced and sometimes missing inbetweens (like the wild demon eating sonju’s hand is literally just 2 frames) - it’s very weird. It’s jarring, but I can’t really explain why.

I’m sorry for the staff, I’m sure the production hasn’t been easy. maybe with the bluray release we’ll get some updated animations/inbetweens.

Some appreciation though:

as mentioned, most of the facial expressions, even if the body language was a bit stiff.

the cut from the trio talking to the eye-transition of the demon and the following breath animation looked nice. Also his arm regenerating!

Sonju smirking as he cuts his arm off, what a bastard

they didn’t have to show Vylk’s arm regenerating casually while they’re talking but they did.

.

. the lambda crew

If only I cared about you guys. Hahhh it’s just... introducing characters so close to the end is just. A mess. A recipe for disaster.

Where has the anime’s “show off the younger kids” angle gone? I thought they were always pretty good at that. but they haven’t really contributed anything since the whole tidbit about the older children always eating less for them. And even then it was just Lani and Thoma.

Potentially, what segments we saw in the shelter will come back for the GF raid thematically but I’m just... EH?

.

. the cure pen

at this point, just stick a syringe part at the end of the stick and just inject it and it’s gonna solve everything probably.

I just don’t understand why that needed to happen. Assuming they go to the human world, it’d be perfectly acceptable for me for medicine to be so advanced that it’d be able to like, lessen their symptoms and significantly improve their lifespan.

Don’t just... REMOVE their struggles. It’s okay to not be normal and cured. it’s okay for their lives to be impacted by it going forward. In fact, I’d much prefer that.

(added in later) OH wait they literally spell out why the cure being in the pen is meaningful - because it opens up a path where they can live through not having annihilated all the demons - it's essentially the moral "reward" for not killing them. Since they probably wouldn't have gotten it if they did that. I still think it wasn't needed and the blueprint on its own would suffice for another pen-convinience moment but I kind of get what they're going for, I just don't think it's worth it . In their case, going to the human world (while they don't know it) means having more medical expertise at their disposal which they can then use to survive. UNLESS they're actually not welcome over there and have to hide or something, in that case... that might be hard, true. I guess I'll come back to think about this once it's over. For now, it feels kind of unearned and it wouldn’t even have to be this way in my eyes which makes it somewhat worse.

But good, let’s say in-universe you need it NOW, then at least don’t put??? the medicine??? recipe??? INTO the hologram.

What if they just checked the GF blueprint and Norman goes “hey, Vincent... do you think this [database/archive room] could have some data on our experiments?” - Norman said he tried to develop a drug to help them but the supporters who had that data were purged. but... they had Smee to help them too. But SOMEHOW, a dude from 15 years ago just HAS the cure??? (at least let Norman develop it himself and have the data be just THE DATA and not the recipe).

It might still check out somewhat??

15+ years ago, James Ratri was assumingly still the gatekeeper since the switch to Peter seems somewhat recent considering his big "era of James has ended" speech.

I guess the implication is that just like Smee => Krone => Norman, a supporter all that time ago gave random person the pen when they escaped.

When Vylk found him, he also had just the data medium of the pen (not the entire pen), so maybe the farm thought they eliminated it and that’s why they didn’t change their methods to not work with those drugs anymore? It's still a bit curious that their experimentation hasn't changed at all in 15 years but maybe that's because they keep killing the smart people instead of making them scientists to research for them :D

Somewhere since those 15 years, Smee gave Krone the pen (probably a few years before she got to GF?), which means that at that point the gate the keyword "future" sent them to, was still in tact when Smee gave Krone the pen. Maybe WM wasn't discovered yet at that point?

then WM got discovered, James was chased. He made that phonecall update and was probably eventually killed, along with the human location (and likely bunkers since they knew a radio was supposed to be there, begs the question why they didn't remove it) being discovered (the one with the future keyword) and the gate there being destroyed.

The problem is just that it can make sense when you think about it for way too long and assume things in good-faith, but it still feels unearned.

Maybe I would care more or this would feel a little more earned if we knew ANYTHING about that person? They seemed fairly young, so it’s probably not Minerva/James Ratri. The “hope” talk reminded me of the book in the shelter, but I’m not sure if that checks out either? The cookies were rotten but not completely. I know cookies hold out relatively long, but would they rly not be completely rotten after 15 years? I MEAN. Maybe not. Who knows. I tried to google it but didn’t find anything. 

But anyway. That tidbit is going into my “shelter kids OC project” I guess.

But even if the worldbuilding makes sense, I think the data set in itself makes little sense?? How did they find that pen part? Did a supporter give it to them? Why do they have the cure? Clearly their group of escapees wasn’t doing too hot (#help) and they seemed relatively young too so they probably couldn’t have worked in the farm.

Were the shelter escapees lambda escapees? but if that was the case, wouldn’t the WM group have secured the cure information more properly than in just one pen (maybe it was and those were just destroyed, to be fair) - it’s just WEIRD to put the cure for Lambda experiments on the same blueprint as the GF layout??? that makes so little sense.

Plus, why would you send them to GF, when it’s so secured and all that, and not just send them to the human support place our GF kids were sent with the “future” keyword, which had a gate. Maybe it didn’t exist 15 years ago (that the humans had control over it, that is), but even then it seems weird to me to imply to send them to GF instead of one of the other gates that existed. I mean. The “future” location’s gate wasn’t destroyed when Krone got the pen right?

I’m guessing maybe it was meant as help for escaping? But then again, why the cure? I guess if they met lambda experiments? I’m just confused.

Also: do we just accept that the layout of GUARDS and SECURITY MEASURES has not changed in 15 years???

.

*sigh* welp. Still looking forward to seeing some stuff with Isabella hopefully. Time... is not on their side and it shows. Neither run-time wise nor production wise.

[osdd-1bitch]

#1: Emily's introduction:

Hallo, I guess I’ll be the first to do a little entry thing! The Computer explained it to me, and said it wanted some basic things first, so I suppose I’ll start with an introduction.

Salut! I’m a member of the Astral Assembly-or well, that’s our name for now..? It’s, well, pending approval and there’s some others that have been suggested. I personally like that one the best though.

My name is Emily! I’m a physical caretaker, though I do occasionally help out with the kids. I’m and I’m in my mid to late 20s, a cassgender girl (she/they), and a semi-frequent fronter. Though it’s all pretty fluid nowadays…

My favorite color is green, my favorite animal is butterflies, and I really like cake when it’s cold. I love drinking tea, mystery and nonfiction novels, and hiking! I’m arospec, and sapphic.

I used to be a part of the Anonymous Enclave area, and avoided that layer shift, as well as the one with the JM, so I’ve stuck with the main fronting group for a good while. My best friend is Cookie, a gatekeeper, but she is a little hard to reach right now.

I know the most French out of all of us-though that isn’t much anyways-and really love doing my/our nails! I do the showering stuff, telling people to eat, that sort of stuff! I’m not anyone super important internally, though I was an ‘honorary gatekeeper’ for a while and helped Cookie, and that was really fun. Lanuages, like I said before, are also really really fun to learn!

I mostly hang out with Sia, Mia, and Nia when I can get down there, other than Cookie of course. I’m probably closest to Mia, though all of them are nice. Nia’s just a bit loud and Sia and I just don’t have much in common.

I’m probably the most human of the system(s) to be honest. Well there are technically humanish people around, they are mostly varying levels of humanity. Claws, teeth, extra appendages, the works. I’m just a normal human person though, but I don't mind. It probably has to do with my role, well I don’t really look like the body I certainly have more in common with it than most. And since my whole job is taking care of it, it’s pretty useful to be comfortable in it, helps me stay intune and not tap out and miss something.

About the new era, I..don’t know 2co that well, I’ll be perfectly honest, but I know ACI pretty well. 2co seems like a good match to balance it out, so I hope they’ll do well working together! Things are looking up, though it's going to be a rocky road for a while. Mmm...rocky road ice cream...

I live in a sort of secluded area of the headspace, in the Cosmic Sea. It’s this weirdly moving sort of galaxy with floating islands. Mine’s a tad lower than the rest and in a place without many of the brighter stars, mostly blue ones and dwarves.

Mine’s mostly woods, with my house! Basement, kitchen, it’s pretty quaint and cozy if I do say so myself.

The woods are pretty, and the seasons change randomly. Rivers, and birds, that sort of thing!

Or well, the general ambiance of birds, since i never actually see any, so it might just be for the aesthetic.

The Cosmic Sea is part of the Plane, but it’s only connected through a big tunnel that used to be a hub, but it’s not really very active now...it’s sort of strange to walk through that place, it’s gigantic. There’s rooms full of papers, big signboards, chairs, and doors upon doors. Most are locked nowadays. I hope it comes back into use someday, I know it’d be a great help with comms, but we need to get better at that to even start using that place again...ugh.

But it’s a very scenic trip! I walk everywhere, which most people don’t bother, but it really is beautiful. I love taking in the time to appreciate it whenever I can!

I tend to follow my routes though, so i can't really tell you much about the furtherest corners of our headspace or anything like that.

I don’t front for fun much, most of the time there’s something that's been neglected that I should take care of. But I really don’t mind, I do love my role and I don’t blame anyone. Mental health is screwy, and quite a few members are pretty clueless about how the body works.

I’ve been outside of a specific subsystem, cluster, or layer for a long time now. I suspect I’ll probably keep free floating in the future. I’m unsure why there hasn’t been any other physical caretakers, since there are repeats of every other role (I think) but things are weird.

I don’t have very many outside hobbies. I would love a cat or pet, and feed some strays. Otherwise, I’m pretty easy to miss.

Some random questions I found looking around:

-Have you ever had a nickname? What is it?

Mia calls me Emmie, and a few people call me Em or just M. The last one has caused some confusion since my name starts with a E, not a M.

-What is your favorite book? Least favorite?

My favorite genre is poetry, though I love older classical books! Sheil Silverstiens collections, Jane Austen, Red Fox, Call of The Wild and White Fang, lyrical works or written in older styles. The flow of it is just beautiful and so rich with ambiance! I don’t think I’d be able to choose a specific one….

But unrelated to those two genres, I read the works of a certain mystery/horror novelist who was wonderful in crafting pretty interesting characters and dynamics of trauma and such, and doing nothing with it. Oh, and there was an incredibly frustrating lack of action, by action I mean plot important things. The mysteries had little to no build up, and if answers were given it was randomly at the end of the book if not at all. Oh, and the cleverly set up problems and things for the characters to deal with magically vanish at the end. Like, no.

It was incredibly frustrating to read, but I fell in love with the characters and the world. They deserved better plots though, it was painful.

-Favorite food?

Oatmeal cookies and tea! I could eat them forever, way better than chocolate chip. It’s not really a meal, but it’s certainly healthier than other types of cookies.

I do really love cake though, but refrigerated! Broccoli is delicious too. Ice cream is a guilty pleasure.

-Least favorite food?

Oatmeal by itself, red meat, and carrots are all gross. I don’t like most candies, they taste of chemicals or are too sweet for me.

-If you were stuck on a deserted island, what one thing would you take with you, and why?

Would a survival kit count as one thing?

If not, one of those person-sized books about survival and animals and stuff you’d drag out of the library at age 3 and read for hours.

I can make my own fun, but well I am a physical caretaker, I certainly don’t know enough survival skills to live on an island for who knows how long!

-If you were a superhero, what power would you have?

Some sort of mind control, since it’s the easiest and most nonviolent way to keep the peace. If I can just suggest people to stop doing stuff, no need for punches. It’d also be way more efficient and I would have more time to myself, and could just mindwipe anyone who saw my real identity.

Though, that’s if I needed one. I could just brainwash people well casually hiding somewhere, rather than have to learn what spandex feels like. Seriously, I understand the want for a good aesthetic, but some of these costumes are shamefully ugly...I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing outside underwear in public, thank you very much

That’s all for now I guess. Next time I want to call up some of the other caretakers and do a bit of an introspective, maybe I can get a hold of Cookie too..

And probably find Scatter, we have a bit in common in our exclusion from the normal laws of syssics (system physics)!

I've actually posted here once or twice if you would believe that! Maybe I'll sign some posts? Either way, see you!

Emily (9/11/21)

(Ooh, bit of an ominous date.... Well, cant be helped I guess.)

(Partially transcripted by Liam)

[wastingoxygensince1983]

WandaVision, Social Media, Fan Theories and Criticism

I want to apologize for everyone that follow these tags for my rant in here; to be honest I don’t follow the tags to know if it is happening the same in here that is happening in Tiktok and Twitter, but Tumblr is the only place I feel that I can express my thoughts in the best coherent way.

Is funny how that all the process is happening right now. If no ones know; there’s a lot of issues in the Marvel/MCU community in social media about the finale of WandaVision. And I want to give my two cents about it because is extremely funny.

A bunch of people, big fans like( moose_O, jstoobs and supes on Tiktok) started watching the show creating a ton of fan theories. Every week, after the episode aired; there was hundred of videos and posts both on Twitter and TikTok about theories, possible outcomes, and more.

The show ended in a very different way than the fan theories they create, and there has been a lot of criticism towards the show. Mostly people said that they have being disappointed with the show ending.

Those fans have receive a lot of criticism towards them because how can they be dissapointed? Right? and now they are here talking that is gatekeeping and they should be allowed to criticize.

I want to talk about all of that. 

I feel there’s has being a misunderstanding about all of this and it has being very difficult to express this, so please let me try. 

As a fan, you are totally allowed to create your own fan theories and expectations towards something you consume. I don’t think that there’s a problem about that, and these creators are right to express that. 

Also I agree with the feeling about False Pietro being mostly a boner joke. That could be feeling weird at the end. 

BUT, and this is extremely important for me to say, the entire process has more insight than they try to claim and it would be more considerate about this.

The issue that I see is that in context none of the fan theories create were about the plot of the show or the characters within the show. 

It was most big cameos that people were expecting. People talked about mutants, X-men, Magneto, Pietro, Dr. Strange, Mephysto, Far from home(for some reason); but is was pretty obvious at first that almost none of these people talked about Wanda, her trauma and what it was happening on the episodes that aired.

So when the finale came and the show finished, everyone was a little bumped because none of these theories were fulfilled.

I understand disappointed, a lot; but those claims are technically wrong. There weren’t any indication for the show to bring any of these things; and also, it was never important to the plot of the show.

The show dealt with wanda’s trauma and make her overcome those traumas and accept what she always supposed to be. 

Vision was able to accept that he was fake and helped White Vision to become himself again. 

That, in the plot of the series, a series that is called WandaVision, that is supposed to be about them and their story, is basically perfect and it was supposed to be like that. 

But all those people are now claiming disappointed because they expected mutants instead of seeing Wanda becoming the Scarlet Witch?

And now they are somehow making it seems like they are playing the victim in here? That’s feels weird. 

If anyone check, there are more videos about the curtains that made the shape of an M than Wanda’s emotional concerns. 

Something like the MCU has to work more than big cameos and fan service. And if the fans are expecting all the time these kind of things are gonna be always disappointed.

The show is the first content from the MCU that actually shows a female character lose herself and overcome that lost in a actually real way. And being able to let go of the cope mechanism she create to start to heal and accept herself, is way bigger than the bunny was supposed to be Dr. Stranger or something like that.

There were more things about anything else than her and the plot of her own show, so when the show focused on her and her plot, how can they don’t be dissapointed?

Fan theories are great, but maybe is better if you keep the fan theories within the length of the show’s plot.

At the end all of this, felt more like they care more about the other stuff than Wanda.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Strange the Dreamer. By Laini Taylor. New York: Little, Brown Books, 2017.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: YA fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, Strange the Dreamer #1

Summary: The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around— and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: blood, violence, drug use, rape, sexual slavery, abduction and imprisonment

Overview: I really enjoyed Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, so I decided to give her new work a go. Overall, I also really enjoyed Strange the Dreamer because it had a lot of things that are characteristic of Taylor’s writing that I love - lush, lyrical prose; tragic, star-crossed love; a political conflict involving otherworldly creatures. The reason why I’m giving this book 4 instead of 5 stars mainly has to do with the pacing and the way events played out. There wasn’t anything wrong, I think, with the way Taylor handled her story - it’s just that I felt like things started to rush to a close too quickly, and I would have liked to spend more time in the book exploring character emotions.

Writing: Taylor’s prose tends to fall into two categories: lyrical and descriptive or straight-forward and economical. Part 1 of this book is more lyrical; the metaphors are more fantastical and the prose evokes a sense of longing and fascination. Taylor really captures the feeling of being immersed in a library, surrounded by stories, as well as what it’s like to have a dream (not a dream in your sleep - more like a goal or a wish that has a small or nonexistence likelihood of coming true). Part 1 was probably my favorite part of the book for this reason, as subsequent sections tended to lose that lyrical quality and fall into a style more typical of YA books.

Taylor’s pace is also fairly well-done in that I didn’t feel like I was being rushed or that I was plodding through the book. The only thing I would change in terms of pacing is the book’s ending; I felt a lot of things were dropped on the reader all at once, and though they were foreshadowed earlier in the book (which I very much appreciated), I tend not to like endings where too much happens.

Before I close this section, a couple of notes on descriptions and worldbuilding: though I know teenagers have sexual urges, I was a little put off by the descriptions of teenagers’ bodies in certain places. I can remember a few instances where Taylor describes the look of one character’s breasts, and though it wasn’t gratuitous, I didn’t like that these descriptions were included. I also thought the worldbuilding detail of “women get tattoos on their bellies as a rite of passage/coming of age marker when they become fertile and Sarai longs for one of her own” was a little uncomfortable. It made me feel like the world Taylor built was concerned with showcasing female reproductive capacity, and that just seems exclusionary. While it could have worked if the story was more about pushing back against reproductive regulation or exploring what such tattoos would mean for trans characters, as the book stands, that doesn’t really happen, so it was a weird detail that I felt distracted from the main themes.

Plot: This book primarily follows Lazlo Strange - an orphan who dreams of finding the lost city of Weep - and Sarai - the daughter of a dead god and a human who must hide her existence in order to stay alive. Lazlo is surprised one day when some inhabitants of Weep - led by someone called “the Godslayer” - show up in his library, asking for assistance from the land’s greatest scientists. Though Lazlo isn’t a scientist, he is the most knowledgeable person about Weep and its culture, so the Godslayer elects to take him along. Meanwhile, Sarai and several other demigods live in a secluded Sanctuary, hiding from the inhabitants of Weep so that they won’t be slain on account of their parentage.

Without spoiling anything (which is kind of hard, since there is a lot that happens), I will say that I really liked the central conflict of this book. Taylor does a good job of setting up a problem with no black-and-white solutions; it seems like everyone had a legitimate reason for acting the way they do, and no matter what happens, someone will be hurt.

But perhaps the thing I appreciated most about the plot was that Taylor never sets up a surprise twist that comes out of nowhere. I feel like I’ve read a lot of YA books that drop a bomb on the reader with no set up, and I personally feel like such twists make the story feel less cohesive. Taylor sets up all her reveals and twists by dropping hints early and frequently, and rather than make the story feel dull, I felt like they made the end emotionally fulfilling.

If I had one criticism of the plot it would be that the romance doesn’t feel genuine. Lazlo and Sarai seem to fall in love with each other too quickly, which made it seem like they got together because they just hadn’t had opportunities to meet other people. I didn’t see what they saw in each other aside from looks and special qualities like “oh, he’s able to share my dreams” or “she was kind to me when so many other people weren’t.” I wanted more out the romance, like Sarai falling for Lazlo’s kindness and Lazlo falling for Sarai’s compassion towards those who would harm her. Maybe there was some of that, but it was definitely overshadowed by lengthy descriptions of kissing, which I wasn’t much a fan of. I also wasn’t really a fan of the “dates” that they went on; some parts were cute, but overall, they dragged.

Characters: Lazlo, one of our protagonists, is likeable in that he’s pretty much the embodiment of a lot of book nerds. He starts off shy, completely absorbed with fairy tales and folklore, and loves to roam the abandoned stacks in his library. What I liked most about him, though, was his willingness to help people even if they treat him poorly. For example, there’s a character named Theryn Nero who is basically a Science Bro. He’s rich, beloved by everyone, and gets famous for cracking the secret of alchemy. While he puts himself up as the lone genius, he was actually aided by Lazlo and takes sole credit for a lot of things that Lazlo proved to be key in discovering. Lazlo, though annoyed, never lets his feelings get in the way of helping Nero when the greater good is at stake, and I really admired that.

If I had any criticisms of Lazlo, it would be that I wish his “dreamer” status or knowledge base was put to better use. After Lazlo gets to Weep, he isn’t quite as interesting as he was before, probably because he no longer needs to use his vast knowledge of stories to make his way through the world.

Sarai, our other protagonist, is fairly sympathetic in that all her problems feel undeserved. She is forced to stay locked away in a hidden Sanctuary in order to protect herself and her little found family (composed of other demigods), and though it’s for the best, it also feels stifling. I really liked that Sarai was not single-mindedly fixated on revenge for the things that happened in her past. Without spoiling anything, I will say that something happened which put the demigods and inhabitants of Weep in conflict with one another, and there is no easy solution that would guarantee that the demigods stay alive. Sarai has a lot of dreams like Lazlo - of finding family, of living a normal life, of living among the humans - but it’s not really viable for her, and instead of letting hate consume her, she tries to think up other ways of existing.

Sarai’s “family” is also charming. The group consists of 5 demigods who are the last remaining offspring of the slain gods, and all of them feel fairly complex. They all possess some kind of magical “gift”: there’s Sarai (who can produce supernatural “moths” that allow her to enter people’s dreams), Ruby (a girl who can turn herself into flames), Feral (the only boy, and he can summon clouds), Sparrow (a girl who can manipulate plants), and Minya (a girl who can make ghosts do her bidding). I liked that these characters had different personalities that often put them in conflict. Ruby is boy-crazy and seems to be obsessed with sex. Sparrow is more passive but has sweet moments where she makes a “flower cake” for Ruby’s birthday and braids Sarai’s hair. Minya is completely consumed by her desire for revenge, and it presents some real barriers to finding a solution to the group’s problems.

The supporting characters down in Weep are also fairly compelling. The Godslayer is sympathetic in that he doesn’t revel in his heroic image or title; instead, he feels complex and seemingly warring emotions tied to guilt over what happened to Weep and his role in it almost 20 years prior to the events of this book. The Godslayer’s companions are also sympathetic and have emotions that are easy to understand, and I loved that they seemed to take to Lazlo so quickly. They welcome all outsiders with open arms, but they have a soft spot for Lazlo, which I liked because it meant that he didn’t have to face bullying or gatekeeping from people he had longed to meet his entire life.

The inhabitants of the world outside of Weep were interesting. There’s Theryn Nero, who seemed like he would be a primary antagonist but doesn’t have enough “screen time” to truly be a threat. I liked that his conflict with Lazlo was low-key - it was intense enough to be annoying, but no so intense that their rivalry consumed the whole story or put petty emotions above the greater good. The other “scientists” who follow the Godslayer back to Weep served their purpose; not all of them had rich, complex lives, but they didn’t really need to because if they did, the story would feel crowded.

Overall, there weren’t any characters I disliked, per se. While I do wish Lazlo got to develop differently, there wasn’t much wrong with his character, and I think all of the main players had interesting backstories and motivations, and I appreciated the layer of complexity they all had. I do wish there had been more queer characters though. There is one wlw couple, though they aren’t too prominent in the grand scheme of things. Of course, that could change, as there is a whole second book to go through, but I wish some of the demigods had been lgbt+ so it felt like Taylor’s world wasn’t overwhelmingly straight and cis.

TL;DR: Despite some pacing problems at the end and minor details that didn’t fit my personal tastes, Strange the Dreamer is a lush, evocative fantasy about the power of dreams. Readers who enjoy epic fantasy and stories about gods, star-crossed love, and will probably adore this book.

[wulved]

i feel like a tl;dr on some of my lore is needed because i essentially built it from the ground up, and the show only gives us like 10% and i had to fill everything else in and i also rewrote a lot .  this will be temporary until i get my ass together to put it all up on a google doc.  hopefully i got everything, but if i missed something i will go back and add to it as i remember

first some of the vocab from the show that i use that’s probably confusing:

zweilt’s / zweilt guardians :  “god’s warriors.” a group of individuals who are continuously reincarnated and gifted with different supernatural powers that aid them in fighting demons and keeping the balance of the world in order

duras :  the word for “demon”

niedertracht :  lowest ranking demons, normally appear in the form of animal like beings ,  with red glowing eyes    &    black crystalline skin

mid-villain :  mid ranking demon, as the name suggests. appear humanoid, but closely resemble sprites or fae. they do have the ability to gain more power and rank up to opast over time

opast :  the most high ranking type of demon, just below the demon king himself. known to be deceptively and strikingly beautiful, usually spotted by their tell tale fangs, claw like nails, and slitted pupils

the demon king :  their ruler of hell, the highest ranking and most powerful demon

infernus :  their version of hell / the underworld. the home of the demon king    &    all demons

the black lake :  a lake that takes up a vast majority of infernus. its waters are pitch black and deep, reflecting only the starlight above. it is said that any who try to journey through it have never returned

lore changes from the show that i personally made    (  if you’ve never heard of the show or read anything about it, you probably don’t need to read this part  )

luze does not exist. the idea of him is stupid im so sorry

the demon king is not “lucifer,” but an entirely separate entity named alcmena

the “bloody cross” is both a branding and a contract / blood pact made between luka and alcmena. this does not make luka his servent as the show suggests, but instead makes luka unwaveringly loyal :  i.e. he cannot directly harm or usurp alcmena’s throne. he can still hold distasteful feelings, and downright hate him, but he cannot commit any acts to betray him. this contract also placed luka as the leader of alcmena’s demon army, and binds him to stay in that position eternally

the zweilt’s know luka’s real name. for the love of god i don’t know why he used the codename zess, that just doesn’t happen. what a weird idea

since the zweilt’s usually retain their memories with each reincarnation, that means they KNOW luka, and he’s close with at least some of them, specifically touko and tsukumo. they consider one another family

luka is the most powerful demon to exist to date

luka has jet black angel wings, we see them in the intro and then never again. he has them. they are hidden most of the time, only visible and tangible to others when he wills it

now luka’s backstory / lore in as short as i can get it

luka is the son of alcmena, the demon king, and an angel named mora crosszeria

from his very birth alcmena was wary of the power luka could possess. the combination of the most powerful demon in existence, and an actual angel was potent, having both divine and demonic blood in his veins

mora noted this, and became afraid of what alcmena would do if left with their son, and she ran away with luka to the mortal world, where she hoped to raise him on her own. 

despite this alcmena still sent demons to watch luka as he began to grow, and after noticing severe power spikes that lead him to believe luka would grow to be more powerful than him, he had mora killed and brought luka back to infernus as a young child

alcmena treated him decently, not well, but not horrible. he never acted as a father, and often passed him off onto a demon named elya to care for him. elya, secretly an old friend of mora’s, tried her best to shelter luka from alcmena while raising him. alcmena mostly just wanted to keep tabs on his growing power, and other than that left him alone

once luka became an adult, alcmena banned elya from seeing him any longer, after gathering that she had spoken ill against him and told luka to follow in his mother’s footsteps. at this point alcmena was well aware that luka had become more powerful than him, and that if he so choose it he could very well usurp the throne. he was lucky, however, because luka himself was not aware of the full extext of his power

now an adult, luka began to speak out against alcmena and defy him, often starting fights wherein his untrained powers would explode and injure alcmena. to stop this, he forced luka into a contract of loyalty. luka did not yet known the full extent of how cruel alcmena was, and did not bother reading the contract. luka was then branded with two blood red x’s on his upper forearm, and the deal was sealed with blood. 

luka was now unwaveringly loyal to alcmena, and would therefore be unable to cause him any physical harm, or to start any sort of uprising against him. along with this, to keep luka busy and exhausted, he put him in sole charge of the demon army. he was to watch after, train, and lead them into battle day in and day out without rest. it was only then luka began to see the full extent of his father’s cruelty. tricked into an eternal contract, and constantly battle torn and exhausted. and because he could not strike alcmena due to the contract, any form of speaking out against him or disobeying commands would result in punishment

eventually exhausted by this ordeal, luka takes his familiar and decides to try to look for the path out of infernus. he single handedly crosses the black lake, and finds a cave that leads to the mortal world

there, he meets yuki giou. a zweilt guardian, and someone he had seen briefly on battlefields fighting against his armies. 

luka and yuki begin to sneak off together to meet, with luka traversing the deadly lake in infernus to see her. eventually luka tells her of the contract binding him to alcmena, and she offers him a deal. instead, he could make a contract with her. a contract bound by heaven, and the divine, would overrule anything alcmena had done. and because of the angelic blood in luka, this contract would be especially binding. in return he would swear to protect her, and to stay by her side. luka agrees. the contract with alcmena is broken, and he never returns to infernus again

luka remains bound to yuki and the other zweilt’s, fighting against other demons to protect them. he is known as a traitor, or betrayer to his kind

npc’s of my creation

alcmena :  luka’s father, the demon king

mora crosszeria :  luka’s mother, an angel 

elya :  one of the first demons created, sister of laelia and phaedrian, represents “speak no evil.” caretaker / adoptive mother of luka. mute, speaks strictly telepathically, lives at the far edge of infernus, deep within a thick woods, exiled

laelia :  one of the first demons created, sister of elya and phaedrian, represents “hear no evil” deaf, resides both in the castle and on the shores of the black lake

phaedrian :  one of the first demons created, brother of elya and laelia, represents “see no evil” blind, the gatekeeper of infernus

wolf mrithun :  the first of death’s reapers, often appeared around luka when he was in infernus, andreas’ love interest

andreas :  a mortal prophet who foretells of luka’s eventual overthrow of alcmena

canon characters

sodom :  luka’s familiar, a giant dragon that often takes the form of a large wolf. found shivering and abandoned as a baby on the shore of the black lake by luka

yuki giou :  “god’s light,” the most important member of the zweilt’s, luka’s love interest and the focus of the show

touko, tsukumo, hotsuma, and shusei :  the other zweilt guardians

takashiro giou :  leader of the zweilt’s ,  immortal ,  in an eternal dogfight with reiga because he killed his girlfriend like 500 years ago

cadenza and elegy :  two high ranking opasts that torment luka, very powerful, ranking just below luka and alcmena. cadenza took over leading the army once luka abandonded infernus

reiga :  basically just the bad guy, hates takashiro which i think is understandable

[beizhuo]

alright folks , i made this post last night about amending my carrd rules . & now , after calming somewhat down from getting sick to my stomach about it , i must now make one final update post about this to make people really & fully understand where i stand . why ? because i am , once again , having / needing to finely comb through the people i want to follow & interact with due to some very , VERY toxic behavior & terrible , childish individuals that think its real cute to stalk , harrass , steal , & gatekeep folks . 

understand that i will NOT be namedropping anybody in this post . this is not my intention . i am not out here to isolate folks or make people ‘ chose sides ’ . making people do that is absolutely horrible ! i do not give a damn who other people interact with . i do , however have extreme issues with theft ( amongst other things ) . i can draw a god damn line at theft ! 

harassment ? don’t care . you’re trolling , i can ignore you . gatekeeping . you’e petty and attention seeking im here for friends anyway . but actual literal theft - i can draw a line there . please get out & OFF MY BLOG if you are so unoriginal that you haveta steal from me or my friends !

please know that you can interact with those thieves & gatekeepers , i don’t care ! but understand that i will most likely softblock you because i genuinely do not want them to find me . no hard feelings . ( they have found my other 2 blogs , and i am tired of them finding me ! especially for baizhu ! i don’t even follow some of my friends here cause of this ! ) i am not even in the genshin community to begin with . my group ? we don’t do communities for toxic behavior and people being so exclusive to the point of driving people out & away . its distasteful and mean ! do you know that i have some friends that were cut off from communities entirely all because they were a dupe ? tHAT is the kind of dupe drama i fucking hate . along with theft . anyway . i will start from the beginning of my rules that i deem important .

DUPLICATES . ( AND MIMICRY / THEFT )

the irony that this is the first point . it is like it was a wonderful transition . anyway . this is actually having to deal with two rule points . and i want to group them together cause they are related .

myself & a few other people have come to find out that .... there is somebody AT THE VERY LEAST taking inspo from us . i will start with dupes .

my friend has a character and was WHOLLY mistaken for another mun . which is fine . that happens , but things took a turn for the worse when they were then shunned / cut off because they werent ‘ good enough ’ . do you know how HORRIBLE that is ? to be told that you aren’t good because you weren’t the mun that they wanted ? this is the type of shit i cannot stand with dupe drama . DO NOT EVER COMPARE DUPES WITH ONE ANOTHER !!! i mean it . 

i follow different childes ! and you know what i adore them both . they are both amazing ! 

sure i may have my mains / exclusives ( and im not inclined to interact with other blogs of that same character ) but i still like portrayals . i do , in fact , just READ threads sometimes . i don’t necessarily follow for interactions . like ffs man . i like variety . jesus christ .

going to mimicry / theft . you know ... i have fucking seen this with a couple of friends . there is a difference between coincidental similarities , however ! for myself & for my friends , we have SEEN inspo taken from us . im gonna say this really loud for people .

MIMICRY IS NOT FUCKING FLATTERY . 

do not take inspo from me . especially without credit . absolutely do NOT do it . you are very unoriginal for doing that shit . 

now , you like something i make / made ? you are inspired to want to make something ? fine , that’s okay , you can ALSO fucking ask me , you can also credit me . as you fucking should ! you can notify me and go , damn , i really like your style , do you mind if i use it in xyz ? sure , go right ahead . do it . im begging you , go ahead and do it IF YOU FUCKING ASK ME . god im so fucking angry about this , but this is some vile shit . and im angry .

i am angry and terrified cause i literally cannot get away from these people cause they seem to be wherever i go . i DO NOT DO COMMUNITIES BECAUSE OF THIS .

as a good friend said : it’s like they are a virus that you cannot get rid of .

thats what happens with attention seekers unfortunately , but for the sake of my safety & health , i will not have it on my blog or dash . if i see these people on my dash often , i will unfollow .

and it isn’t like a specific person , its a GROUP of people . which leads me to my next point .

DRAMA / CALLOUTS.

imagine having beef with an individual , and then going around and gatekeeping that individual and getting people to unfollow / block them . im not talking about , ‘ hey this person is vile because they ship incest ’ . i am talking about ‘ i had a disagreement with this person & they hurt my feelings >:/ they are mean and will hurt you . etc etc etc . ’ 

i do not give a flying fuck about somebodies issues with another person . so you guys don’t get along . not my problem . i have people that hate me . i have friends where i hate their friends . shit happens . i am probably absolute scum to some people lol . i get mistaken for other people sometimes . it’s fine , hate me cause you think im that person . that person is snowflake repellent anyway , go choke on your kool aide that you are drinking ig . 

okay sorry i am angry but still . people claim and cry about wanting to talk & communicate . but then . guess what . sometimes shitty people are like , so this person said this to me , and they are mean . IF YOU ARE THE PERSON THAT GOES ‘ OH MY GOD HOW DARE THEY ’ AND BLOCK THEM THEN YOU ARE THE PROBLEM . i will give an example . of using my two names that i have .

somebody goes to amphy and says ‘omg ghost said this , and im frustrated and angry with them cause what he said was uncalled for . ’ if amphy goes ‘ omg ghost is shitty ’ and then unfollows / blocks them without any other discussion , then thats an issue cause ghost has no idea wtf happen . amphy got involved in YOUR relationship with ghost even though ghost has been nothing but kind and sweet to you . you also don’t know if amphy is just victimising or being emotional either . so why they fuck would you believe somebody who is venting to you about it and then block somebody who did literally NOTHING to you .

i dont know if i explained that correctly but i will give you something more realistic , again without namedropping .

i have a few friends that hate one another . i’ve known all of them for years . but they all , i kid you not , they ALL fucking hate each other . there’s three of them . and they cannot stand each other . i just happen to be somebody who gets along with all of them . you bet your ass that at one point , they all came to talk mad shit about the others . what did i do ? i went , oh okay . well im sorry that you have issues with them . sounds like a bad experience , but i can’t do anything about that cause i am not you and i am not them . if you are gonna change my mind , it isn’t gonna happen , sorry !

i have had people shit talk people i have no idea who they are , and i just sit here just being a source for them to vent , but i never NEVER EVER act on anything i hear . why ? cause its petty drama and gossip . if you do that , then damn , sorry kiddo , get some help on that alright ? maybe be nicer . i dunno .

now . racism ? pedophilia ? incest ? HARMFUL SHIT ? that’s different . but again , theres a lot of miscommunication . i have people coming and pulling the cards like they are hot shit  and that isn’t fucking cute . THAT ISN’T CUTE GUYS . you are the problem if you try to victimize yourself cause of something YOU misinterpreted .

i have a friend that has this on their blog .

i am literally going off on a god damn tangent . anyway . :) 

fuck you if drink kool aide .

THERE ARE OTHER MENTAL DISORDERS! YOU ARE ABLEIST IS YOU ERASE THE OTHER (UN)COMMON ONES.

i know that autism is the ‘common’ one here . you are valid okay . but guess what . ADHD , BPD, DiD, and straight up depression and anxiety are also things as well ! there are MANY folks here that are also undiagnosed as well OR they lay on some sort of spectrum as well . I am once again not going to disclose my own things here cause again THAT IS PRIVATE INFO , but fuck you if you refuse to see other disabilities .

also there are physical disabilities as well btw .

if you are not understanding of any other disability , or you wanna mute / deafen other mental disorders , YOU ARE THE FUCKING PROBLEM .

end of story . 

treat other people how you want them to treat you and don’t you dare ever shove your baggage at them . thanks . 

please be more understanding that some people are not okay:tm: . 

i implore you to get help if you need help , but sometimes some people dont have to take your shit . and they most certainly do not need to sit and take your issues if they are not okay either . its toxic and very unhealthy behavior to expect others to help you . they can help you as best as they can , but you need to understand that everybody has their moments . do not guilttrip them . do not gaslight them . 

but also understand that sometimes , people are saying things cause they genuinely need help ! you can be there for them but as a friend , you need to also tell them your own boundaries as well and tell them that they need to seek professional help .

but also , if somebody refuses to get help , then that is on them . not on you . 

anyway another tangent , but back to the point . autism , while you need to understand is something you need to see and understand , is not the only mental disorder ! and you need to understand that some people suffer from really REALLY shitty things and are sometimes undiagnosed . i am really REALLY tired of depression , ADHD , BPD, and DiD getting brushed under the rug like they are not important . cause guess what , there are spectrums ! all mental health is important . fuck you if you disregard the other disorders , you are being ableist .

STOP HATE READING PEOPLE.

im really sick and tired of this . you don’t like something somebody said ? you can either : ask what they meant or block / unfollow them . 

DO NOT FUCKING STALK THEM EITHER . 

you have an obsession if you hover on their blog too .. do not do that . that is SO unhealthy for you . here is what a friend said on twitter . ( not name dropping them , just copy pasting them )

❛ i stg people need to fine a better hobby than to hate read a persons blog or profile. not a good look on you when you go and read what they post about just to get angry at something you think they said and then you go off spewing lies about it cause 'youre offended.'  

like you already hate them in the first place. you weren’t 'looking to see if they were a better person.' youre just looking to find another thing to hate about them. 

that is what hate reading is about. so you can read their posts and find just another reason to hate and laugh at how bad you think they are.

but it doesnt make you a better person. it just makes you a sad person with no life. stop hate reading people. grow tf up. go breathe on some plants or something idk.

i say this very loud and clear . if you hate read me , i live in your head rent free . not my problem . but it does become my problem if you begin to steal shit and start spewing lies about myself or my friends . grow up and move on with your life . sorry my life seems more interesting than you ig . idk .

anway this got long , and at this point i am going off on a tangent but !!!!

TL ; DR

read my rules ig . idk .

you can dm me for more info if you want . at this point i have blocked the problem blogs for myself. if you are curious you can ask . HOWEVER. i am not going to tell you to block or unfollow . why ? cause at the end of the day , it is MY beef . this are my issues . i am NOT here to gatekeep .

i will say that i will tell you IN private the for MY story . but keep in mind that it is MY story . not yours . not theirs . it is all about perception .

my perception is that they are scummy gatekeeping thieves . they gatekeep the people they dont like or are intimidated by . i am somebody who fucking bites and calls people out on their shit , because of this ? i make enemies . but my enemies are not yours . i dont care .  dont give a damn . i am intimidating to people who are cowards and i don’t care . 

if they feel bad when i call them out , if they try to go around and do damage control , then that means they are guilty .

and then you can ask yourself this : why are they reacting like that ?

i am once again going to bring up that other twitter user that i quoted before .

❛  you dont like hearing that because someone is holding a mirror up to you and it makes you uncomfortable because you know you . and you know the parts of you that are good . so in your heart you have to come up with a narrative that makes you feel better about the fact that somebody is asking your to confront the parts about yourself that you hate the most .

anyway . this got long . im so sorry for the long read . im so sorry i sounded hostile ad angry . im just volatile sometimes . im just really tired . and i dont need to come on this blog and have a panic attack . 

anyway . cheers loves ! stay happy , stay healthy . drink your fluids . take your meds !