#I need to get better about using less parentheses lol

[myopicry]

Me againnn what a surpriissseee... I just have a lot of fun reading rambles about things I'm interested in lol, I haven't thought of perspectives like yours so it's super informative to read for me, especially considering that I've been rethinking a lot of things lately. Anyway, prompt of the day !! You mentioned in your last post something among the lines of "not believing in an lgbtq community"? Could you tell me more about that pls? I'm quite surprised considering the history of LGBT people and different cultures we have (such as lesbian culture, or whatever you want to call it lol). ~🪼

always happy to have you here!!

I swear when I start writing these I think it'll be a paragraph or two and then. well. you'll see. keep reading breaks my beloved you keep my blog a tolerable scroll...

[mandatory preface because I like keeping the peace lol] now honestly, this take mostly might be more of a personal opinion/observation moreso than a generally applicable argument or anything, I don't really care how "agreed upon" the take is and I don't think by any means my silly tumblr blog opinion on how communities exist really matters to those communities themselves lmao. plus, I think I believe this mostly due to my exposure to how lgbtq or "queer" community things manifest in people of my age (early/mid gen z) as well as how it interacts with some of my more anti-consumerist stances, so it might not even apply to a lot of people who have a different mindset than me. I mean, I'll still defend my opinion if someone asks, but I don't need anyone to agree with me if they don't want to.

[oh and a bonus semantic distinction! fun!] when I say lgbtq+, lgbtq, or queer community, it is specifically referring to the modern day, mainstream one that labels itself with these terms as such now, I don't equate it with historical lgbt movements, groups, or lgbt people in groups in general in the past. I also don't equate it with the individual communities that are literally a part of the acronym lgbt, like lesbians or gay men or bisexuals or the trans community, and their specific unique cultures and histories. I try and use lgbt when referring to that, but it's probably not really clear to people who don't literally share my brain lol. I basically consider me using lgbtq as interchangeable with "queer", I personally just don't prefer to use the word queer too much because I respect that a lot of people still consider it a slur, and though I guess I have "the pass" to say it or whatever, I don't like the term anyway (you probably get how I feel about general open-ended definitions at this point lmaoo), but a lot of people in the specific demographic I'm talking about use it as identification so it also helps to summarize who I actually mean. dunno if this is a necessary precursor I just realized halfway through that even though I elaborate on this distinction in what I wrote this might be a good just general heads-up on what I'm working with in my brain as I write! if it's still unclear feel free to ask further!

--- actual answer to the question now lmao ---

obviously, general lgbt solidarity and activism has had very important effects, and individual communities and their cultures. and for the most part what people would consider the collective lgbt community has at least historically helped with visibility and activism to normalize gender non-conformity, and promote visibility and acceptance of sexual minorities. that's all super rad and very cool!

however, at least from what I notice now that lgbt acceptance has become mainstream, a lot of the most important activism has been secured has gotten to a relatively stable point in the western world. (well, in the US, I guess it's actually not as stable since it might depend on who the president ends up being and how dumb our supreme court decides to be lmao) and the lgbtq community has become more and more of a cultural movement than a political movement (which is again, good! people's sexuality shouldn't be inherently political). but, with this emphasis on culture vs. activism within the community combined with the reliance young people have on social media and the growing culture of consumerism in the west, the "lgbtq community" becomes this sort of forced consumer demographic and personal aesthetic rather than an actual community focused on bonding over shared experiences and collaboration to further shared goals.

besides, at least how I see it and how I've experienced being a part of the "community", outside of being same-sex attracted and the impact that has on life, even gay men and lesbians don't share much culture or experience outside of being closeted and coming out (which are experiences that already will vary anyway based on other factors such as ethnic background or social class). when you add in transgender with the t, or other newer labels with the q, or even more things with a +, there becomes even less overlap that would necessitate a community to form.

yet a community has formed, you might say! yes, but from my experience, it's formed mostly around artificially produced trends and now--increasingly--social media and branding. in my opinion, this is not only just a weak start for community building, but also it sucks and makes even real social interactions and gathering feel hollow. this is something I had to think about a lot when I found lgbtq+ communities in real life seeking, well, community, but actually found very little in common with most people that I supposedly shared community with. now, I could say this issue might just be that I suck at identifying myself and couldn't find my real community! and straight up didn't even acknowledge my actual experiences and feelings at time! which is true, but I would still need to realize that as a naive teenager I wasn't able to understand my actual sexuality or anything because the community that was supposed to help was either too general or too focused on outward manufactured culture rather than material experiences or realities, and that the mainstream lgbtq community's conception of what the specific communities within it were also following that trend. when I was bi-curious, the community I could find told me bisexuality was clear phone cases, cuffed jeans, and having a golden retriever boyfriend to wear pride merch with. when I was identifying as aroace, I found discussion of cartoon characters and flimsy metaphors. when I was trans--okay that one is a bit more complicated because I was basically almost a transmedicalist at points lol but within the more mainstream trans community with non-binary stuff--it was about passing and fashion and surgery (which in some cases, is quite consumerist) and the feelings/vibes. and always, in every real life lgbtq community I could find, it was like this, plus mostly discussions about celebrity culture, the same dozen or so popular community memes at the time, and probably fandom. and at that point too, there wasn't really a discussion on being closeted and dealing with that, as (again, positively) acceptance is more widespread, but also because with social media, it almost became an extra little "self-branding" point to share online.

are many of these personal problems? yeah! I don't care that much (anymore) about clothing trends and buying accessories or even how others perceive me, and I try to not be as "online" (it's a process :p obviously I am still very online...to my own detriment). I did find more of what I wanted to from communities, but it was always the specific separate ones (like the lesbian community, which definitely has a unique culture and history isolated from the mainstream lgbt ones) and usually it was from reddit (which sucks for so many reason still so that wasn't ideal) or old forums that were long dead because people my age do not use forums lmao. however, I think acknowledging the trend of lgbt community basically being a consumer focused demographic more so than an actual community is important as trends of consumerism become more and more hostile to the environment, to labor rights across the world, and just to critical thinking.

additionally, I think continuously propping up the lgbtq+ community as a monolithic community of shared culture and voices rather than what historically was a community of solidarity for activism and civil rights born out of necessity, creates a false dichotomy of "straight" and "not straight", with straight people being seen more and more as "uncool" due to the social media landscape promoting hyper-individualism. this not only alienates people outside of the community and gives people already homophobic more causes to generalize people unlike them negatively, and also promotes people who want to be differentiated from that negative "straight" identity to find a way in to the community. which again, by itself who cares, I'm not policing what people want to identify as, but that also dilutes the commonalities of the lgbt community even further and allows for even more of the absence of real community tenets to be filled with consumerism.

and look, maybe people just want to have fun and they want to be catered to with fun products and events and parties and that's their right, even if I disagree! but I can't really bring myself to understand it as what a community actually is/ideally should be: a group of people with something in common enriching each other and forming social bonds around that commonality. for a bit of a comparison, it gives me the vibe of a modern push to have things like AAPI or BIPOC or labels for communities like that, where the point is to outline your identity for brandable purposes more than it is to connect with others with shared identity (because, spoiler, most groups pushed together into these communities have very little in common!). I guess you could make a differentiation here that genuinely helpful community is based on people, where as communities that lack in actual community are based on labels. something like that. there's probably a lot more nuance I could explore with this including how "american" this whole kind of label-based community is but that seems like an actual thesis and unfortunately doing real research is a bit above my pay-grade on this blog :p

all that rambling to basically say: I don't think the lgbtq+ community has that much in common amongst itself and the variety of specific groups clumped within it anymore (outside of being affected by the same bigotry which if you really think about it also isn't necessarily true but that's like so many more words and so much more discourse lol and my brain is running out of steam). so, it kind of makes for a subpar actual "community" in my eyes. it's nice to have other queer-identified friends at times, yeah! actually being able to openly talk about being attracted to women with others for one, is really great especially in a misogynistic society that demonizes female sexuality especially when it doesn't involve men. but, what does it help me, or any other young lgbt person, to go to so-called community events and just be sold things or told to buy things based on a label that I honestly only assign to my self because it's definitionally important for me, not because "I feel the vibes". or told to look a certain way because it's cool and that's what my identity really means, how I look to others? what am I, a walking bundle of tags labeled for advertisers so I can be sold the exact thing that appeals to me because I'm gay? if I think too much about it it gets dystopian lmao and I get a lot of people in my generation don't think about it at all, or choose not to care. for some reason or another though, I care a lot. oh well!

as always, pick any random offshoot comment I said and I could probably write you ten more paragraphs lolol, but I'm happy to do it! this one especially, it's based on so much anecdotal experience that if anyone wants more examples, I can absolutely do my best to provide !! (I have too much free time and this beats my bad habit of laying catatonic phone scroll time)

realizing now also that I do have some thoughts about lgb seperatism that relate to this but it's a bit late to rework this train of thought, I'll just say I can definitely understand that sentiment, but I have yet to lurk enough in actual explicitly lgb communities so I can't speak clearly about it. interesting stuff though.

also also I actually remembered there might have been a point to be made further about how the modern lgbtq community might have historical roots but historical revisionism and misinformation is so common for the up and coming waves of the community (young people do learn facts from tiktok yeahhhh unfortunate) diminish the actual culture from the past anyway, but I forgot to mention it above and it would've been another two paragraphs or something and that one might actually be good to have more sources to supplement, so...I'll file it for later!

really, this is a personal exercise for me more than it feels like a response to someone, and despite that people still take the time to prompt me anyway lmao. all people hitting up my inbox in good faith you're awesome and great and other nice adjectives!

and jellyfish anon I hope you have a delightful day after reading this (or in between reading this, it might be long enough to deserve an intermission tbh lol) !! thank you again !! happy thinking and whatnot!!

[grandma-battle]

hello and welcome to the grandma battle! here your favorite grandmas will battle it out to see who’s the ultimate grandma! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و

the end day for submissions is april 14, since i’m most likely gonna be without internet for spring break lol

the rules are as follows:

they must be fictional grandmas! as much as most of us would probably like to submit our own grandmas, we’re going fictional

i ask your submission be an actual grandma (by blood, by choice, etc). though, if you have someone who just gives off like, intense granny energy you can submit them too, just know that there is a less likely chance of them getting chosen!!

going off of the topic of there being a less likely chance of getting chosen, grannies from like, super popular media also has a less likely chance of getting chosen, srry!! though there will most likely be “popular” grannies in this poll, i wanna try and keep it as least skewed as possible! o(╥﹏╥)o hope y’all understand!!

i also ask that any character you submit is female.. and if they’re trans, they have to be canonically or heavily implied to be trans.. i might do a full grandparent battle in the future, but for now, we’re going with grannies!

do as many submissions as you want, just please don’t submit them more than once! when doing submissions, i ask you give at least a lil info on them since i honestly have the most scuffed interest taste ever lmao ◔…◔

talking about submissions, i’m going the unconventional way of reblogs! to submit your character, reblog THIS post !!

here is a loose template— you don’t have to copy it directly, just some pointers that are probably important ;)

template thing:

character name: (if they have a full name, please put it, and if they have a common name they go by, add that in parentheses beside it)

media they’re from: (as stated)

why you think they should be nominated: (here you could give info on what they’re like, what they’ve done, etc! this info can also be about when they were younger if that is known, as long as they’re still a granny :) also go at it with propaganda!! go crazy so stupid with it!!!)

add a photo or two if you can, mostly so i know what to put if they get chosen lmao

example of a submission:

char name: erina pendleton

media: jojo’s bizarre adventure

erina is like, super cool <3 she was able to keep joseph in check which is honestly an achievement in it of itself— also when she was younger she washed her mouth out with mud after dio kissed her bc that was better honestly what a queen <333 (btw you can still submit erina if you were thinking of doing so think of this as admin propaganda)

tags used !

#grandmapolls - used for the actual polls so if that’s all you wanna do, keep an eye on that one \(^-^)/

#grandmainfo - announcements, info, and extra deciding polls

#grandmabattle - used on all of the posts here ^^

#grandmapropaganda - for any ask submissions, reblogs, or posts that are character propaganda :)

#grandmaasks - just for general asks & stuff !!

inspired by ! (｡◕‿◕｡)

@ultimate-divorce-tournament, @ultimatefnaf-favoritecompetition, @sleepsmackdown, @irishtourney, @i-need-to-fuck-that-old-man, @protagonistpolling, @fashiondisastertournament, @white-boy-bracket, @cry-baby-anarchy, @fictional-malewife-tournament, and more !!

admin: @abba-cchio

[thiefking]

i'm autistic. hi. i am op and i have autism. i am not allistic. autistic people can have different preferences and opinions on things

i put that at the front in big huge letters so even if this gets TLDR'd the most important point is communicated as soon as, god willing, someone sees this in the notes BEFORE essentially accusing me of being allistic, which is something that has happened multiple times now and is very important context to this post and the points i will be making in the following text that is simply missing in the original thanks to that post being made, well... entirely on the fly with 0 intent or expectation for it to blow up.

my being autistic is precisely why i dislike tone tags; because it is a strange social rule i do not understand nor did i ever consent to, i understand why they are used but not the tags themselves, which is my primary issue:

why are other autistic people, who presumably should understand the issue with this, imposing on me some strange special social rule i apparently HAVE to study on my own to understand (or directly ask the person what they mean, which can be embarrassing to do, or possibly misunderstand what for example /gen means and assume i was correct when i wasn't), when they could simply type the entire word out?

to address the screencapped replies: i disagree on the comparison to lol and ttyl because those are not meant to be ACCESSIBILITY TOOLS, which are what people insist tone tags are. lol, ttyl, fwiw, etc, are all just quick, convenient internet speak abbreviations. it's fine to have to google those, because people do not brand these as a quick and easy way for autistic people to understand tone, and they were never meant to be that. a good tone indicator would actually be clear from the beginning without further questions necessary, the same way that, for example, a wheelchair access ramp should be a permanent part of a building's entryway, and not a detachable object that half the time or more you have to go ask an employee to grab for you, or even have to bring on your own. (knowing someone's tone on the internet is very obviously less dire than not being able to get into a building, i am comparing the accessibility aspect here and how a "constantly available and immediately effective at first glance even for a completely uninitiated person, and as a bonus even works for someone who may not actually need it" option is very obviously better than the "i have to ask for help or figure it out myself" option. yes, many things in the world are the latter, but if you have the OPTION of using the first, why wouldn't you? that's the same difference between "genuine" and "/gen")

returning to my disclaimer at the top, the amount of times people have decided i am not autistic just because i happen to dislike tone tags and didn't explicitly mention being autistic in the original posts (made on a whim, wasn't even that serious a suggestion mostly just me thinking about how funny using a bunch of parentheses is In General) honestly and genuinely bothers me. me disagreeing with you does not preclude me from sharing traits with you, firstly, but more importantly, while the initial post was just some inane rambling, i do firmly believe my points and even said inane ramble are valid, even if i weren't autistic!

tone tags would be easier to understand if you used the entire word/words; that on its own is as objective fact as it is to say that typing laughing out loud would be easier to understand than typing lol. it is also my own personal opinion that i would rather have someone specifically type out the entire word for tone indicators. and if you read the actual post i wrote, that is... exactly what and ALL that i said, barring the small mistake that i said "tone indicator" instead of "tone tag", which are two different things.

allow me to take a moment to just say this very loud and clear as well: SORRY GUYS! I FUCKED IT! I HAVE NO ISSUE WITH TONE INDICATORS, IT'S JUST TONE TAGS THAT I THINK ARE INEFFECTIVE! THEY'RE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS! THE PARENTHETICAL METHOD I SUGGESTED IN THIS POST IS ALSO A TYPE OF TONE INDICATOR!

anyway, again, literally all i said was "they're easier to understand typed out fully" and "i would prefer it like this". i didn't say "they're all always terrible" nor "you should not use these and it's bad to do that". "prefer it if _" is not a demand for someone to stop doing something entirely, it is a request for someone to not do this with or to a certain individual, one which i, personally, do not even enforce: i have never asked someone to stop using tone tags at all, let alone to use parentheticals instead. and, crucially, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an allistic person agreeing with this! even allistics can't read tone online sometimes, that's why the og </sarcasm> (its modern form is /s) existed, and it is completely, perfectly valid for an allistic person to express that they prefer the entire word to be used because it's clearer that way. but for the record a HUGE swath of people on this post who do agree are indeed autistic, it's not just me! turn on tag viewer and just scroll through!

i should also mention just for the record, i don't expect (and never expected) this method to solve the issues that tone tags have that are unrelated to them not being the clearest thing in the world for the uninitiated. stuff like the excessive clarification being taken poorly by allistic/neurotypical people who don't understand/accept that it's just how autistic people talk sometimes and other forms of stigmatism that crop up in response to just... Existing while being autistic, that's not getting resolved until ableism finally explodes forever (god willing [recreational agnostic use of phrase]). all i can say is i fully agree that it sucks

and finally, again. i do not care if you still prefer or use shorthand tone tags instead of extended ones. your life your opinion whatever. and indeed if you, dear reader, are not even a dear reader because you didn't even read all of this, idgaf if you didn't, really, i am just hoping maybe once in a blue moon someone will see this in the notes BEFORE they reblog and accuse me of being, saying, and doing a whole bunch of shit i am not over one (1) nothingburger post, and seeing it in the notes is basically the only way to possibly transmit that info cause i have had to explain basically aaaaaaall these points before but none of those spread as easy as the first two and boy is it ever a little late to edit the OPs, though i'm still considering trying it anyway. ok quick you have to look at that disclaimer from the top down here too, now you can't pretend you didn't see it: i am autistic i have autism this is the opinion of an autismhaver i made this post expecting like 5 notes from my mutuals it's not that deep you can also do whatever you want this is just my personal opinion & preference btw don't forget i'm autistic etc etc etc

actually you know what that's exactly it i would rather someone add 5 parantheticals after every sentence than use tone indicators it's 1. accomplishing SO much more in terms of clarity 2. extremely funny to look at depending on how they're used

[bookwyrminspiration]

hello! just curious, how do you plot out your stories? (for example, what have you done to plan out the wings au? do you have it all in your head? do you plan it out on paper or in a doc specifically for it? do you just go with the flow? sorry if this is a lot of questions lol i'm just trying to convey my point-)

hello, synonym!! lovely to see you again! I'd love to share my process!

as I explain my personal methods (again, personal, just how I do things!), I'll use the wings au as an example because i know you've read it and it'll just be easier over all. but essentially, yes to all of the above, just with different parts of the story!

my progression is: chaotic doc, background (as needed), basic written plot, expansion on the plot, any other details needed, and then just write things! but don't worry, I'll provide more detail, i say as if i'm capable of being concise

(putting below a readmore for simplicity)

chaotic doc: so, the very first thing I do when i have a story is open up a doc, and write down everything i know about it in little bullet points and rambling sentences, just basic information with no organization. the organizing can come later, right now I just want to get as much of what's in my head onto the paper as possible.

I type out the basic premise of the story or the few things I know about how I want it to go, the things I know I want to remember later, things I'd need to think about to set it up, etc. for the wings au, this was details like everyone's wings (things to remember later), how they got those wings and a sentence or two about what the world was like now (things I needed to think about to set it up), a little blurb about where the story would start. this is less writing details about the story, and more noting down the details I want to figure out later in the expansion. i find it works best to type this out because i'm a much faster typer than I am at physical writing, which allows me to follow the flow of my thoughts a lot better and go back and change things.

background: background prepares me for the next step, but the amount of effort I put into this section depends on how complex my story is. it basically means write down (we've moved to pencil and paper now, but this could be digital too if you prefer) anything you need to know in order to set up the rest of your story. what do you need to know in order to tell the story you need to and to get you where you want to be? for the wings au, the background was that the world had been overrun with monsters and everyone was living underground now. the neverseen had been defeated, or so they thought, coming back later. all these things that essentially prepared me to get to the plot. it told me where the story was happening and the emotional/physical environment everything else would happen under. if you have a more worldbuilding heavy world, this step might be a little more complex, or if there's something very specific with the characters you need as context beforehand.

sometimes the readers will be aware of pieces of the background, and it's even necessary for them to know--for example, you all knowing the elven world is in the middle of a monster apocalypse and living underground; if you didn't know, the rest of the story wouldn't make any sense. but there may be things you write down that are just for you to know, personal notes. for example, I have notes written about how the monsters came to be, more specifically, that you all haven't been made aware of and may never be. planning this out is for you, so if there's something you want to remind yourself to keep in mind while writing, this could be a good place. but now that we know the world we're writing in, we can move on

basic plot: for me, I struggle to figure out where to take a story, and if I don't have the basic concept laid out before I start writing, I ended up with really weird stories that completely deviate from what i wanted (I say this from experience). so I break it down into the bare essentials. literally as basic as I can be. there are five crucial parts of a plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. just those five. for each of those, i write--writing, because it takes more time (allows me to think) and feels more organized to me, but you can do it differently--just the general idea I have for each section. just as few words as possible. detail comes later. for the wings au I literally wrote "they get wings" for rising action. having read the wings au, you know just how simplified that is.

one things that might help is consider how you would explain this idea to someone in one or two sentences. you just want to make sure you have a beginning, middle, end, and the transition between them. from there you've got the skeleton of your story, and everything else can fit itself into this idea.

expansion: now that you have the skeleton, it's time to fill in some of the more essential anatomy. this is where you add the specifics. for me, i write this physically in bullet points in a journal of some kind. I take the first section, and write down how the story is going to start. where am I going to begin this journey. for the wings au I wrote "beginning: sneaking into breeding facility to destroy monsters. problem: caught/monster breaks loose." if you remember this is essentially the events of the first chapter but in two sentences. I'm giving enough detail that I know what I'm going to write, but not so much it's going to be stifling to follow my exact notes when I actually get to writing. this will be different for different people, so you may want more or less detail than I provided, I'm just giving an example of how I did it.

I continue this for the rest of the plot, but that doesn't mean every single little detail that will ever happen is planned out. I'm not patient enough to be super thorough with every little thing, so I go long enough until I have a solid understanding of what I'm going to start with when I'm writing, or just until I'm bored and can't deal with planning anymore. for me, that meant I was more detailed when planning from the mission in the facility to them getting to the abandoned gnomish village, as those would be some of the first things I would be writing about. after that, I got more vague and just touched on some of the key part of each of those five sections. I take those two/three words and turn them into two/three bullet points. I also didn't want to be too specific with the later details, because I knew i'd be influenced by things as I wrote and would be inspired to fill that out.

any other details: this is kind of any afterthoughts you might have or details you need to keep i mind that aren't necessarily plot. you may have a lot of these, or you may have none. for me, this was where I wrote down what kinds of wings and other animalistic traits each of the characters had (yes, I wrote them down again). it's not strictly plot, but it does affect the rest of the story. this is also where I write anything I forgot to when going through the first time, and then i can draw a little arrow pointing towards where it fits in to the rest of the story or is relevant (which is part of why I like the writing aspect, but this is entirely achievable on a doc). another example from the au is me writing "domestic" to the side and pointing it back to my notes about the gnomish village, because while it wasn't essential to moving the plot forward, i wanted to touch on some aspects of domestic live with the ten of them while they were there.

just write things: now that you have all this planning done (good job, you!) you can get into the writing aspect. you've already decided your beginning and know where you want to go, so this is the part where you just starting putting words on the page. it can be pretty daunting to just look at a blank page, so if you'd like, start a paragraph in. skip the first paragraph and just start in the middle of something else--you can add back what's missing later. I personally note things that I want to come back to inside [brackets like this], and that can be words, sentences, entire paragraphs. i use the square ones specifically because I don't use them in my writing unlike (these parentheses), and then I can search the document for them all at once and see all the places I need to go back.

this is also where the "just in my head" and "make it up as I go" part comes into place. you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but you're going to have ideas as you write, so sometimes you just follow the flow of your brain and write things you could've never even planned for. and if you're interacting with others as you're going (like I'm talking about theories with you all while writing future chapters) then you may be inspired by them to add things to the story. originally, I wasn't going to even have any messages from Bronte or Oralie, but now because I saw what some of the people reading it were picking up on, I realized the potential there and added them in on a whim

and sometimes when you get stuck, the best way to get yourself out of that is to just add something random, which can spiral off and affect the rest of the story. I've said it before, but the dragons were not planned. I'd actually seen a piece of writing advice months ago that if you're stuck, change the weather. so I was stuck and made a sudden rainstorm, but then I needed an explanation as to how things got so wet so fast because I'd mentioned clear skies earlier. so in my attempt to explain it, dragons came to exist. writing is a process, so don't limit yourself to everything you've written. you'll be inspired along the way, so try to take it in stride.

one final note: as much as you plan, this is not going to be a definite map for how the story will go. maybe something makes sense as you're planning it out, but when you get to actually writing it makes no sense as all and you need to change things. that's fine! this kind of a plan is just to get you prepared and keep you afloat amongst this ocean of words trapped in your head that you want to transcribe. if something isn't working, change it! in my original written plan for the wings au they weren't going to run away for a few weeks, instead sneaking out for an hour or two at a time over those few weeks because they couldn't stand being underground anymore, until Linh was actually the first one to make contact with a creature and realize it didn't immediately want to kill her. but because she's not the narrator of this story, I couldn't write it the way i wanted, so I gave that to sophie in the tree.

this is just my approach to my more complicated stories! for some of the really quick ones, I just open a doc and start going. this kind of thinking keeps me organized so that I'm doing the idea the most justice. but just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. if it does work for you, great! but if there are parts you need to modify for yourself, you are more than encouraged to do so. personally, if I could only chose one part of this process to rely on, it would be the basic plot. that's the key to everything for me, but for others it might be something different.

I hope this helps with whatever it is you're writing!! I wish you luck and look forward to seeing whatever it is (should you chose to share it, no pressure)!! if you'd like more of my process on how I write it consistently and update on a schedule, I'd be more than happy to talk about that too!

[ghoulishhusband]

I just realized I can actually talk here. Like this is my account fuck u

Fucking uhhhhhh, hi ig lemme ramble abt my God ocs yea?

Ignore this part if you don't wanna hear (likely) unedited rambles lol it doesn't matter

CW: neglect/abuse, assholery/narcissism, manipulation, tread lightly!

read the under cut owo

Also don't steal my art I'll fucking?? Fight you????

So

I have three main gods that I wanna talk abt especially bc they've been on my mind lately.. Less get it, side notes are in (parentheses) and are bolded cause I have perception issues whoo I don't want it to jumble together is my point lol

First up is my asshole,

Giodine

they/them (preferred)

god/godself (i like pronouns that fit my characters, so I'm giving a bunch away for one night only at--)

ID : Giodine is colored with gold-ish yellow skin and ginger hair. Their eyes are a muted purple and they have tiny eyebrows. Their lips are a muted brown and are full looking, their nose is sharp and points down. They have wings for ears and is wearing a blazer with a long-sleeved, collared shirt underneath it. The background is beige with a yellow square and a dark purple square partially encompassing it. It is signed GH (for ghoulish husband), Spork, 21.

(lemme know if that helps at all! I'm sure I can do better so lemme know!)

If they look weird here it's bc I accidentally made their face too long but believe it or not this is in fact just a doodle Ik I'm so fuckin talented babes.

Anyways, they're basically the first God to ever exist on my version of earth (though even that is fickle rn, world-building is hard unless I hyper-focus on it, and haha Guess What I Haven't Been Thinking About) and they're very egotistical and selfish. As I'll probably yap about later is how they're manipulative as well, especially to another God I'll mention, and very neglectful to the other... other one.

Their partner(professionally), or fiend as they call him, is sam who for the first few eons was, unsurprisingly, absolutely terrible to him. A few tender moments are few and far in between in what could only be described as a completely rancid relationship. I'll describe giodine's side and in sam's lil ramble, I'll describe his :]

I have to explain this because it's a big part of the lore and how they can't work together, even when one of them is very much near The Void (technical death for gods) BUT basically, with Sam, giodine created purgatory. The issue here is that they basically seduced sam into doing it. Well, even if they hadn't, sam was in lesbians(happy pride month lmao) with giodine and would've done it anyway. But the ISSUE is that with the creation of purgatory came complications. See, my gods have to take time to develop into their power, and considering giodine was first and sam was around 666th.. you see the issue. Sam wasn't into his complete power yet and thus lost a giant part of it that went into purg.

See, giodine saw no problem with this (until much later, they do get a VERY SLOW BURN redemption arc cause this ain't even the worst of it), they got what they were aching for out of them and thusly had no need for..sam. They laid him in the spot where she was made (fwi it isn't inherently sexual, it can be, but literally, they just merged together-- taking bits and pieces of each other (which sam did not have enough of) and earth and light yadda, yadda I'll post the story I wrote for that later if I'm up to it) and left him there in the grass.

Again, they saw no problem with that, the deed was done, they didn't care anymore. A common issue in their qualms, sam and Giodine. They did find an issue in Sam finding an issue in the lack of aftercare, which resorted to any message going to or coming from sam going straight to his assistant and going back through them for a couple of thousand years. They found that infuriating-- how could he not face them over something so small! and for years?! it was ridiculous. After forcing a face-to-face meeting, a heated proclaim of hurt from sam, and a bitter agreement to meet up every now and again, they got what they wanted from him. Again. It was a business after all, there was no point in making it harder than it needed to be. 

Giodine doesn't necessarily like boundaries and tends to overstep sam's frequently. They also don't like his reaction to his boundaries being long jumped over, which thusly ends up in disgruntled messages being sent back and forth between them and his assistant for a month or three. It slowly gets through to them, but they tend to say some stupid shit and if they want sam to stay, they have to try and avoid mentioning how "overly sensitive" he is to something that happened eons ago.

(quick mention, there isn't like. time. here. so in all honesty, giodine probably counted earth days instead of Heaven 'days' to get that) Soon into their arrangements to meet, they seem to get on at least tolerable terms, obviously, a few meetings where neither of them feels like going apeshit and taking proper shapeless (or in sams case, he's got a newfound form for ANGER OO just for giodine 🤗) forms isn't going to fix a grudge that has yet to be apologized for by the way. But it's a start to a very long process down the road. Tolerance.

Giodine as an entity is very fickle and rude and demanding. They tend to have a short temper that no one else is allowed to have or comment on-- They were the first therefore they were the most important!

This is very obviously an issue. But it's mostly directed to purgatory. Almost all of their seething rage is pointed towards the poor entity, she's barely been alive yet and they already seem to hate her for things she doesn't know how to do. Honestly, I don't think Purg will ever fully forgive them for the unnecessary abuse of her character, but just as Sam and Giodine get on better terms, they had barely just begun fixing the hole in their relationship. As of now, Sam/Giodine don't have any minor plot points with purgatory other than the major one so I don't have a lot to say about their relationship right now. Maybe one day.

I'd go into details, seriously, but I just wanna ramble about their relationships with each other and their impact on each other's existence. Hope you don't mind a few secrets 😉

But, now, it's time for a new God, one I think most people take a liking to...

Sam (Samuel)

He/him

ID: Sam is surrounded by clouds in the light blue, fading to a darker blue sky and the yellow sun. His horns are a darker beige, which is being highlighted by the sun shining down on him, he also has pointed ears. His skin is red which is very prominent in the sun. His eyes are completely yellow, his hair, beard and mustache are also black. He has an orange scar crawling up to his Adams apple. His wings are a darker grey which is also being highlighted by the sun. His nails are painted black and his hand is holding up the black fabric barely covering his shoulders. Around the painting is a gold and red shaded frame with swirls complimenting each side and a crystal at the bottom of it. It is lightly signed GH, for ghoulish husband.

Sam, Sam, Samuel.

If you don't realize right away, Sam is basically Satan, he's the ruler of hell

Like how giodine was the first to appear on earth, as mentioned before sam was 666th for funnie reasons. Sam was made from bugs, dried blood, and sunlight which sounds pretty gross, but he's far from it. He's a silly, yet neat, guy. He wears Hawaiian shirts and khakis (not around giodine lmao) for cryin' out loud! how bad of a person can he be? Apparently to giodine (for a while obviously) he was the most retched entity to exist. This very much hurt him considering the amount of fake care they showed him before. With a mixture of confusing feelings (which wasn't supposed to be a thing but Univerce went "lmao you'll be fine" and left... short explanation, Univerce is the Universe and is the entity who simply builds these planets and gods that'll appear there and leave them to their own devices, xyr not extremely important in this story. Nor would they care.) and feeling used, he decided that no he wasn't going to take that.

If there is one thing Sam knows how to do is to self preserve himself, even if that means getting passive-aggressive notes sent to him every once in a while. While this period, Sam was surprisingly the least productive (unfortunately giodine knew this and eventually mentioned it in one of their meetings which made him hide away cause like hell giodine was going to be critical of /him/) but he managed. It wasn't terrible, but unfortunately, Sam being able to talk it out with someone who does practically the same work as he does and gets newer, more helpful ideas was better in the long run.

Unsurprisingly, Sam was the first to initiate the healing of his and giodine's relationship but it wasn't reciprocated. Who would've figured, aye? Giodine kept pushing it back onto him and ignoring any progress that could've been made before. Which was frustrating.

The painting above was 'painted' by giodine, which is sorta where their relationship gets somewhat on an understanding of each other. Giodine gets to take a deep long look into who Sam is and tries to express it but it never fit him, it makes them realize that they never really-- truly got to know him. And all it does for Sam is make him even more confused about his place in giodine’s mind. He figured it's another fluke to get him to do something, so he ends up distancing himself when they start actually reciprocating his friendship advancements.

Suddenly, like a flash, Sam was forced to stay with giodine which is where the majority. I'll explain.

Sam...isn't actually the ruler of hell. Anymore, anyways depending on the timeline. His and purgatory's relationship has always been complicated, she always avoided him, and when they talked she always seemed scared of him. So in the end, they've never been close. Distant. Sam always wanted to talk to her, he made her, but if she didn't want to talk to him he wouldn't force it. But imagine his surprise as Purg singlehandedly took over hell in a hazed frenzy.

And not only that, had a personal vendetta against him!

Well, that would be the only explanation to Sam considering how he ended up broken and barely 'alive' at the hands of her. Horns broken and in tatters, pain and almost obliterated it felt like a hate crime. He didn't know what to do when he made it to the office, Purgatory was creating chaos outside his door and barely being able to breathe he felt like it was the end. So he called giodine. 

Purgatory

She/her

ID: Purgatory is surrounded by flowers that are dark grey and white. The light fades down into a dark green. The light shines down on top of her straight, white hair that has yellow flowers tucked into it.  Her skin is a dark brown and has a orange-ish yellow scar on her shoulder trailing up to her neck. Her skin is also highlighted by the sun. In one of her eyes, her sclera is black with an orangey, glowing iris. As for the other eye it it has a white sclera and the same, glowing orange iris. She has wings for ears, one dark grey and one white along with beige horns. She has a white fabric covering her chest. The frame is gold with white accents, but also has vines and moss crawling up the side. 

(may have goofed a bit and forgot to color the sclera of her other eye white but ignore that pls)

Purgatory was made by Sam and Giodine, but to her it felt like a mistake. Why make someone that you’re going to be terrible to, she believed. Giodine seemed to hate her and eventually made her section almost obsolete because she simply wasn’t able to keep up with the backlog that she wasn’t taught to deal with. Not only that, she didn’t have any help with any of it, it was almost like she was expected to just do it on her own. Until Death came along to help, but that’s not what we’re going to be talking about right now. 

And also, Purgatory is Purgatory yadda, yadda, I wont insult your intelligence.

Giodine’s thought process (other than wanting to be Real Close to Sam and once that thought filtered out, promptly ignored it) was that all the extras that don’t fit in either category of their thought of good and evil they’d go to her. (doesn’t matter cause in Sam's system it filters through ‘levels of assholery’ and depending on how bad you are you either just vibe in the upper city under rule of capitalism and possibly many under paying jobs or being actually tortured for his amusement if you’re just evil. Morally grey. Anyway, it could work p well in heaven if giodine wasn’t such a damn stickler.) But in the end, every day, less and less people ended up in purgatory, leaving her with barely any people and more verbal abuse from giodine who ‘HAS to take them or they would be more dead than they already are’. You see the pain she has to go through, right? 

~Idea section, this is probably not canon anyways so dont take it serious~ 

My thought is that another oc (BA, you may have heard of him idk) takes over simply because Purg took multiple hims from alternative timelines (which isn’t allowed but what’re they gonna do, undead a dead clown? multiple times from multiple timelines???)) because she adored him and they figured ‘well we gotta redo purgatory may as well do it like this’ and make him a demi-dead-god. i think thats a cool idea right? anyhoo

~Idea section over uwu~

Purgatory overall is a fairly timid character, she doesn’t like conflict, is easily overwhelmed, and generally keeps to herself. She doesn’t see the point in being in any drama if she’s just going to be yelled at and scolded even if it’s not about her. The only way i could describe her taking over hell is this: 

She was tired. She was angry and after feeling like nothing was in control or in her hands, she snapped. Why doesn’t she get anything or get to be ‘all powerful’ but they do? She knew if she took on Giodine she’d likely get thrown to the void, but sam? He felt fair game. Considering her fear of both of these gods, she planned and got her courage up to take him over. She had considered negotiations but in the end, she ended up going into a haze and ruining everything in sight. She was more powerful than she thought and once she started, she didn't stop until Death restrained her and Sam was already in pieces at God’s doorstep. 

The aftermath was fuzzy for her and for everyone really. Godine was planning a take back hell while actually worrying for sam, sam was planning for a retirement, and she was being consoled while trying to get in contact with sam to apologize. Giodine wouldn’t dare let her talk to him, until she just showed up in their office. She didn’t have a problem with Sam, honest, she just was going to take shit over, but it got out of control. 

Spoiler, Sam took her apology and they actually became.. somewhat closer after reaching an understanding. 

I wanna say that giodine took them being okay and sam retiring as good as sam did about purg running hell, but they didn’t. Giodine and purgatory actually barely got along in the first place, and only begun ‘working’ on their bitterness toward each other because they both had sam to encourage it. I can’t say for certain if they’ll get better, as theyre both undying and have time, but I’ll just say for now its uncertain. 

Also, Death is Purgatory’s girlfriend after all of that lmao.

And.. yeah, i hope this makes sense and that you like my drawings and ramblings about my lil story in my head, i guess this is my way to develop it without just keeping it to myself cause god forbid i keep things to myself hshsh. If you made it to the end, thank you for taking the time to read and attempting to process everything, and even if you didnt read and just looked to look at my art thank you to!!

I may post some art over on @ghoulishhusbandart cause.. it was my art account before i completely forgot about it but i might reboot it! But if you wan art NEOWWW follow me on insta (ik cringe lmaoo) by the same name as this account @ghoulishhusband​ or just click that insta link! also ignore the fact that giodine is the only one without a portrait, maybe I’ll replace it the next time i draw but im graduating on monday and my dad’s coming TOMORROW?? so i won’t have too much time to do it... but i hope you like my art anyways :]

ok!! ty!! ily!!

[lemonynesser]

ok this is really funny so i thought i’d review each point and my thoughts on ‘em

———————————————————————

indented text means it’s from the original post

non-indented text means it my thoughts

———————————————————————

ok, let’s begin:

you’re a terf

ok this one makes sense, i wouldnt wanna interact with ‘em either

lgbtphobic (not including panphobic, see below)

annnd we’re already getting into “what?” territory (in case i’m not clear, im talking about the parenthesized text here)

but let’s take a look at that “see below” now, shall we?

you’re pansexual or support pansexuality. pansexuality is rooted in transphobia and biphobia. i am not going to write a who explanation as to why just please go away if you’re pan or demi or whatever the fuck. if you call yourself pansexual you are literally just bisexual. it is the same thing. duplicate identities are not necessary especially if the copy is rooted in transphobia bisexuality includes attraction to all genders, not just two, and it always has

ok now, while this is the first entry that made me think: “wtf?” i’m gonna start this off by saying (at least in one part…): yes! i agree, bisexuality can include more than 2 genders, and always has. however, i feel that the original posters’ actual definitions of pan and bi sexualities are a bit off from mine. just so we’re clear, here’s what the definitions are to me:

Bisexual: Sexually attracted to two or more genders.

Pansexual: Sexually attracted to all genders/Sexually attracted to people regardless of gender.

so, in my opinion, it’s less of a “oh another one exists that already defines this one so i guess we don’t need this one!” and more of a: “i feel this one describes me better”/“i think it’s cooler”

to put it another way: all pan people could be described as bi (however not all of them want to be), but not all bi people are pansexual

also there’s that very out-of-pocket comment about pansexuality being biphobic and transphobic???? ok, biphobic makes sense. someone (like mx. wall of text up there) could (incorrectly) assume pansexuals are “erasing bi ppl!”, but transphobic?????? honestly i would have expected someone like this to think bi people are transphobic, considering how regurgitated the lie that is “bi people are only attracted to the 2 genders!!1!1!!” but i’m honestly confused on how the sexuality that says “i’m attracted to everyone! :)” could be interpreted as transphobic. i’m genuinely curious on how someone could end up at that conclusion, but they unfortunately said they wouldn’t elaborate on it so…

whew! i spent so long writing that, i forgot what the next one is, hopefully it’s not worse than what i just ranted about lol

you think that bi lesbians, lesbian men and shit like that are a thing. thats not how it works lol ( he/him lesbians and nonbinary lesbians are fine, one of my friends is a nb he/they lesbian ( hi skylar :] ))

ok, i’ve seen people talk about bi lesbians before but have no clue what it means, so i can’t exactly comment on that part (if someone could please tell me what it means i would be very grateful!)

however, i want you to put a pin on that part in parentheses, it’ll come up again later (if you don’t have a pin, here: take one of mine! 📌)

if you use the blue mlm flag, or as me and many others like to call it the toothpaste/listerine flag. just use the fucking rainbow flag dipshit!!!

ah yes, the classic “other people have the same opinion as me, so it totally isn’t trash!”

so, let’s go over a hypothetical: a femme-presenting nb person that uses she/her, she/they, etc. pronouns who likes men. what would you call that person? what flag would you give that person? calling them straight would be disingenuous, calling them gay would be technically correct but not only would that also mean that every nb person is gay no matter who/what they’re attracted to (i will elaborate on this point if someone wants me to), but if a femme presenting person says they’re gay and uses the generic rainbow pride flag, your average person might think they like women instead of men. the solution? the flag that this person so rudely despises. it easily says “this person likes men” without any ambiguity.

oh and it turns out the part that i told you to keep a pin in is coming back up sooner than i thought! (…now.) (…it’s now.)

📌 ( he/him lesbians and nonbinary lesbians are fine, one of my best friends is a nb he/ they lesbian[…])

so, this person is fine with nb people being lesbian (and also using the lesbian flag, i would assume) but not fine when someone uses the mlm flag to get their point across more clearly than the rainbow flag? i smell hypocrisy!

also they’re being kinda mean :(

racist

agreed.

a pedophile or support pedophilia

again, agreed.

are an “anti anti” or proshipper. if you ship underage or incest or etc shit get out of here fucker fiction affects reality dumbass

ignoring the excessive curse words, i agree with about half of what is being said (the incest part and the part about fiction affecting reality) but, saying shipping underage characters is bad makes me think that in this persons mind “shipping characters = you want them to have sex” which is not true even slightly. there are many ship dynamics, many of which don’t even involve sex or sexual desire at all!

also: i don’t know what “proshipper” means. ive seen it here and there, but not enough to form a definition in my head. if someone could tell me what it means that would be great! thanks!

you think it’s okay to age up characters that are minors so it’s “okay” to sexualize them, or make fankids out of them

ok, so. i think aged-up characters is more of a grey area than a lot of people say. i personally think it’s gross a vast majority of the time, but i understand why people say it’s not black-and-white as it is an of-age character at that point.

also about the fankids part (i know what fankids are don’t worry): i think it’s fine if it takes place after a timeskip or something of the like.

you’re a fan/watcher of any streamers/youtubers who are friends with or are dream. idc whatever your excuse is, i don’t wanna be near you. other mcyters are fine

i hate dream as much as the next guy, but this is a bit much, any yter who is even remotely associated with dream? does this person even know how many people are associated with dream? (answer: a lot)

i hate dream, and even according to this rule alone, i would be blocked (i watch Fundy, who was part of dsmp [also probably one of the best parts of it (ive seen clips)])

you like friday night funkin. the creators an asshole and one of the characters is literally from an insensitive game about school shootings. stuff like madness combat and other things that got famous because of fnf i also don’t like or trust (ENA is exempt from this)

in general if you have the “ng” letters emojis in ur twitter display name or have a link to your newgrounds with other stuff like twitter or tumblr i do not trust you. the sheer amount of creators on there that gladly support fnf and in general just other weird terrible shit on newgrounds makes me Not trust that. at all. very shitty community

great, another long one. been a while since we got one of these.

as someone who has been on newgrounds for (i believe, i haven’t checked) slightly less than a year, i would like to say a few things about the claims made in this section.

I havent seen much of the creators (and yes fnf was made by more than one person), but from that little ive seen of them, they seem like ok people.

I havent seen nor played the game pico (the character the original poster was talking about) however i do know it covers the topic of school shootings. however, even though i don’t know how tastefully they covered that topic (especially considering it was made in the early 2000s) i feel like they must have had some level of tact with the topic. how else would pico become the newgrounds icon he is today (and yes, he is an icon. he’s been featured in multiple newgrounds related things, and is almost like a 2nd mascot for them behind tankman)

I also like where they say madness combat became famous from fnf, when it was already one of the most popular animated series on newgrounds, and i also like where they imply the same thing happened with ENA when the only ENA fnf mod i can think of is one that got like 12% finished before being scrapped.

also , while we’re on the subject, they’re making these sweeping generalizations about things that were “made famous” by fnf, only to exclude something little to no one would’ve thought of. but that brings up an important question, what would be considered being “made famous” by fnf mean with that context? anything someone has made an fnf mod about? because holy shit that’s a lot.

not trusting someone because they have an account on a website you dislike is a bit petty, even for someone like this.

the reason people support fnf isn’t because it has a school shooter in its character list or whatever, it’s because of the music, the art, the animations, and how much life and passion is in not just the main game, but most mods too!

the reason there is so much “weird terrible shit” (as they put it) on ng is because the admins only take stuff down if it’s illegal (beastiality, child porn, stuff like that) or for rare edge cases. this is why their slogan is “Everything by Everyone”, because the mods often leave stuff up.

also, there’s actually less of said “weird terrible shit” on ng because of the blamming system. for those who don’t know: when you submit something to newgrounds (after getting it age-rated for its content) it is in a state called “under review” where it is hidden from a lot of places including most of the front page and the “new releases” tab for any one type of media. when a thing is “under review” you can determine if it stays on the website, or gets “blammed” (aka deleted) off of it. how do you do this? by rating it, of course! you can rate something 0-5 stars (including half stars) and the higher rated something is, the better chance it has of staying. and if something of yours gets blammed, you are encouraged to make it better and post it again when it is!

“very shitty community” again with the sweeping generalizations, just because some teenagers made some edgy jokes on it, doesn’t mean the entire website’s like that. (bonus points if said teen that posted an edgy joke actually grew out of their edgy phase by doing that

sorry that that was a long one (i like ng if ya couldn’t tell :3)

following the above, if you’re one of those people super into “[insert thing here].exe” shit. creepypastas can be fun but now every time a creepypasta is made fnf bitches flock to make a mod out of it. if i see “OMG FNF” when the fun is infinite screen is mentioned one more time i will be so angry. plus iirc the creator of sonic.exe is a freak

first off, about the creator of sonic.exe being a freak, yeah but sonic.exe has been so far divorced from its’ creator at this point that i don’t even remember their name!

aside from that, i can actually understand where the op is coming from here. don’t get me wrong, i still think it’s judgmental and kinda mean, but i would be lying if i didn’t say that i, too get peeved by people who don’t know what something is from and say it’s from something else. however unlike this person, who seemingly shuts them all out, i do my best to inform them that said characters/concepts are from something entirely different. most people enjoy learning more about a character they like, so there aren’t any issues most of the time.

billie bust up fans. GET AWAY FROM ME I FUCKING DESPIIIISE THAT GAME iykyk if you dont Dont ask. Please.

huh? ok, i know about Billie Bust Up, never played it, know vaguely what it’s about & plays like. so i’m not sure what could possibly get someone to react this way. i was gonna say that maybe they saw some fetish porn of the characters but considering the say they despise “THAT GAME” implies they hate the game itself. i wish i knew more about why this person hates a (from what i can tell) fairly clean, kid friendly game but they said not to ask so oh well.

you like any of the obviously problematic material in general- omori, homestuck, steven universe, hazbin hotel / helluva boss(any vivziepop shit honestly), harry potter, GENSHIN IMPACT. FUCK YOU

so, not only do i not understand why half of the things here are considered “obviously problematic” but also, some of the reasons these things are “problematic” is because the creator(s) got into some drama/were bad people (omori, harry potter) however from what i remember, omocats’ situation (omoris creator) had more shades of grey than a novel in the adult section of a bookstore, and most harry potter fans are the people to denounce jk rowling the most.

i also understand that hazbin/helluva has murder, drugs, sex, etc. in it. however, im gonna say something that has been said multiple times in defense of these shows.

they take place in hell.

the people in hell are not good people.

that’s literally the whole point.

also about hating genshin impact: yes. i agree. it is a terrible, skinner box, microtransaction-infested disgrace of a game. but you shouldn’t demonize the people who play it. that’s on the same level to me as demonizing people who are addicted to drugs because “drugs = bad” it’s unproductive and ignores the root of the problem.

you use the words waifu / husbando unironically

thats just mean

you make genderbends or any variations of it ( genderswaps, cisswaps, whatever else theyre called nowadays. transgender hcs are cool though :D for instance transgender tails or sonic truthers are awesome. genderbent tails or sonic likers GO AWAYYYY you get the difference. hopefully. and hopefully i as a nonbinary person dont have to explain why genderbends are bad )

ok first off i wanna say that i don’t know what sonic “truthers” or “likers” are, from context clues i guess they’re people who like trans and genderbent sonic interpretations respectively. if i’m wrong, pls correct me thank you!

next is that, as someone who’s is currently questioning their gender, i don’t think there’s any problems with genderbent interpretation of characters, there very similar to trans interpretations if you think about it! most genderbends make it so that the character acts like they had the different gender and sex from birth, or as more of a “what if” scenario. and trans interpretations of characters seem more grounded in reality (wether the source material is or not)

if you ship date and ryuki. the age gap makes me uncomfortable, joking about him having a dumb crush is okay. just like. outright shipping the two is weird as fuck

ok, i have no clue who the characters they’re talking about are or what they’re from, so I’ll pass on most of this

just wanted to throw a line in that show this is a bit hypocritical. they’re ok with talking about them having a crush but not them being “outright shipped”? tell me if i’m wrong but …aren’t those basically the same thing? the only difference is in the latter, they’re in a relationship, and in the former, they’re not in a relationship yet.

nothing wrong with this one but if you’re a fan of the “tales of” series, specifically tales of destiny. or any crossover tales of content with tales of destiny characters in it. again, nothing entirely wrong with liking tales of, i just have bad associations and would rather not see anything about that specific game in the series

ok, now, even though i don’t know what “tales of” is, i don’t need to know, because their problem isn’t anything in the actual series, but outside associations (aka im pretty sure they saw porn of one of the characters).

now, i see where they’re coming from for this one. something causes bad memories to resurface? don’t look at it! however, i also feel this could’ve been handled better than a blanket “don’t interact”, because this also discourages ppl that have a passing interest in it from interacting.

a better way this could’ve been handled would be to make a separate section called, like, “don’t talk about” or something, which has the above “tales of destiny” stuff, and anything else they might not wanna talk about for one reason or another

…aaand we’re done. whew.

that took WAY longer than i thought it would

(i’m talkin hours spread over days spread over months)

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi Meat, page 4 reaction

So, is John going to zap to the next plot point now, or will it switch back to Earth C?

I wonder, if it's the latter, whether we might see something from an antagonist, or a less important character, like Jack Noir or GCATavrosprite. And if the former, I wonder if John will venture further into (a retconned version of) the Game Over timeline, or not?

---

"You arrive in the Land of Heat and Clockwork in a flash of white." OOOoooh, LOHAC! Will he visit Dave - well, presumably yes. But will he revisit the moment he zapped back to, when he came to ask for help regarding his retcon powers?

... I kind of like Blaperile's idea better, that he revisits the point in time he disrupted before, the conversation between Dave & Jade, but which he afterwards retconned again, sending himself to go find Roxy? ... Wait, it was never really explained where that John that bapped himself on the head came from, I swear, if this is (out-of-comic) retconned as having been this 23-year-old John... Okay, I might have forgotten if Rx John had already gone back. ... Okay yeah, it already happened. Page 8333 vs 9047 of Homestuck. Anyway...

Hmm, GO Dave never used the eggsword much in the end (Caledfwlch), as he went after Jade's body and tied to a critical devilbeast combo. But I don't think John'll take it?

"Through the condensation you can make out the shapes of Dave and Jade below, as well as two more of you hovering in the air above. Both Johns turn to look at you." PFfffffff, of course he draws his other selves attention. Why would it resolve so cleanly as they zapping away in the background. Dave had a fit before when he saw one, but now, if he'll acknowledge all three...

"On the ground, Dave is talking in a particular cadence, one that is familiar to you, his longtime best buddy. Casual, wandering, verging on droning. It’s a good indication he’ll be monologuing for a while, and probably already has been." Yeah, GO Dave was summing up all the reasons he didn't particularly want to do anything about LE. Retconned Dave just thought he should fulfill the prophecy to get it over with, but that's about the end of his commitment in the matter too. Only Davepetasprite^2 really felt like going up against LE. Will Caledfwlch make it into their hands?

"DAVE: thats what...DAVE: you do...DAVE: with..." Awesome, he even gets trailed off at exactly the same moment in his monologue. :D

"DAVE: karate. john what the fuck are you doing hereDAVE: or... waitDAVE: actually three johnsDAVE: hey three johns what the fuck are three johns doing here" Dave is so whatever about this, it's hilarious. Then again, he's been all around LOHACSE thrice in a single day, he's got some experience in the matter of walking around alt time selves.

Also, I wonder if Dave (and Jade) will notice he's an older version of John. If not, his god tier powers probably keep him youthful, like Superman.

"It’s a fair question, which logically should have been directed to the oldest and most knowledgeable John. Nevertheless, one of the younger Johns replies first." Pfff, the second oldest one then? The one that came back here with a semblance of purpose, not randomly zapping through canon? Plus, if Dave wouldn't notice a difference between the Johns, neither would the younger ones.

"(JOHN 1): er.(JOHN 1): i don’t know." Ooooh! Cool, not just are they parenthesed, the Johns are now also numbered! Yeah, we wouldn't want them to just all be named John, that'd be insane and probably what Jade went through with PCG & FCG from her end (aka two ?CG's).

"JOHN 3: john, don’t worry about it. i’ll take things from here.DAVE: johns dont get me wrong its cool that you all randomly dropped by again but this wasnt really the best time" Hah, yeah John, try and get that semblance of knowing what you're doing back, like you acted out on LOPAN against your past selves. I'm actually interested to see whether he will be as dismissive towards his other selves as back then. Right, this is the second time Dave saw John, after the time he dropped in when Dave was looking at his old photographs.

"DAVE: we were kind of in the middle of a thing here(JOHN 1): whoops. sorry.(JOHN 2): uh... actually, i only came here to swoop in and zap this john away without being seen, to retcon away the mess i made earlier.(JOHN 2): i didn’t expect to see another john here.

JOHN 3: hey, other john, i said i’ll handle it!

JOHN 3: i’m the only one who actually knows what’s going on here.DAVE: god damn it johns what the fuck did you do" John 1 fucked it up, John 2 would've fixed things but then John 3 came back and fucked up some more. It's like the goddamned Primer movie all over again.

"JOHN 3: young dave, please.

JOHN 3: let me deal with the johns first, then i’ll explain.DAVE: young dave???" Why did that make me think of WV's polite commands. "Sir John" and all that. :P I think the other Johns will be able to get resolved easily enough, one zapping the other away to bop him in the head, both confused over the mess they left behind.

"DAVE: ohDAVE: yeah why are you a fucking adult now" OOOOOOh, nice! Okay, even though it'll be all shades of awkward, I really like the age difference isn't getting skimmed over.

"DAVE: did you grow up and start time traveling dude" Take that, reverse it.

"JADE: will someone tell me what the fuck is happening???????" Oh right, Grimbark Jade's text colour thingy!

"JOHN 3: johns, there’s no reason for you to hang around anymore.

JOHN 3: not to sound like a wet blanket, but the things you’re trying to accomplish are now useless, so you can just zap away and do whatever you want.(JOHN 1): ummm...(JOHN 2): useless?? wait." Harsh much, John. Also, just cause they won't/aren't you, they can just go become you, or whatever how you want to put it.

"JOHN 3: ok, maybe i shouldn’t have said that.

JOHN 3: i’m sure you can still go and do what i did when i originally did what you’re currently trying to do...DAVE: jesus john" Dave's inner time logistician is crying. John's retcon powers are so OP, he doesn't have to take any care in keeping time loops going if he doesn't want to. But that'd just result in copies of him flying around, so he'd best to just send them on their way, hopefully never to run into them again.

"

JOHN 3: in fact, it will still probably be a very rewarding experience!

JOHN 3: some of my best memories happened right after you do what you’re about to do next." I was thinking of the meet-up with his friends in general, but yeah, it's probably mostly about meeting Roxy, which is the closest thing to happen to (John 1)'s point in time.

"JOHN 3: the point is, you should just go do it, so that you aren’t here anymore." Savage.

"JOHN 3: i’m here to make sure some new and different important things happen, and those things don’t include you.

JADE: :|(JOHN 1): oh...(JOHN 2): ...ok.

The useless Johns zap away. You sincerely hope that they have a beautiful and fulfilling youth." ... That's not what your mouth ended up conveying there, John. Nor your thoughts, I mean, "useless", dear god man, have some alt self respect. :P

"DAVE: adult john what the fuck have you doneDAVE: is this some time travel shitDAVE: please dont tell me youve been spending the next however many years bungling through time like this because tbh if what i just witnessed was even remotely indicative of shit you get up to on a recurring basis then your future is almost too embarrassing to even think aboutDAVE: and this is coming from a teenager who was just in the middle of an angsty episode" Self aware Dave tirades are still the best. :D

"JOHN: i used my retcon abilities to travel here from the future, in a manner of speaking.DAVE: sounds fuckin stupidJOHN: it is stupid. but that’s just how things are." Glad they can agree to agree on that very valid assessment. :P

"JADE: im a little confused

JADE: im supposed to be hunting you down and capturing you... but im not sure if the adult version of you counts?

JADE: i think the condesce might just be... confused if i brought her an adult john?" Oooh, is this conflicting with her "programming" some how? Doggy Jade is confused, that's actually intruiging that she's given pause.

"JOHN: no, you don’t need to capture me, and you wouldn’t be able to even if you wanted to, since my existence literally transcends the confines of canon.

JADE: well...

JADE: i guess that simplifies things then?" John bullshitting his way to victory over people smarter than him, it remains a sight to behold.

"

JADE: in that case, would you mind giving me and dave a few minutes to wrap up our conversation?" XD Lol, wut????? Hahahah, Paradox Space really can only handle so much derailment to a timeline. At some point it just throws up it's arms and goes "leave me be, for five minutes, I was busy here!"

"JADE: we were sort of in the middle of something important... i thinkJOHN: no, you really weren’t.JOHN: sorry to be the bearer of lame news, like i just was to the other johns.JOHN: but whatever you were doing doesn’t matter anymore.JOHN: nothing that’s happening here matters at all.JOHN: this session, this whole takeover by the condesce... this isn’t how a universe gets made.

JADE: its not?JOHN: no." Sorry to break it to ya, but you're in a doomed timeline.

"DAVE: so what nowDAVE: if its all a done deal like preemptively speakingDAVE: can we all just relax or whatJOHN: actually...JOHN: no." Okay... So, what, can he just recruit these guys off and zap off with them to the next plot point? Won't something have to be done about the grimbarkness first? Also, if the next plot point is in the same timeline... Game Over really gets derailed. No Jade, no swapping Derse for LOFAF.

"DAVE: fuckJOHN: ah! i just realized why she sent me to this point in time to start recruiting you all.DAVE: whatDAVE: who" Rose, but not your Rose, although perhaps with the memories of that Rose, so kinda your Rose. :P Okay, so it's not that Rose's letter gave more detailed instructions than to zap there & recruit. So John'll have to figure out what to bring besides the people, in some cases at least. Like, here that would be Caledfwlch.

"JOHN: this is the moment just after you made your legendary cue ball sword.JOHN: you’re going to need it.DAVE: for whatJOHN: to come fight lord english with me.

Dave’s eyebrows descend beneath his sunglasses. You feel pretty bad because you’re about to completely circumvent the life-changing epiphany he’s just had that you know for a fact will make him a happier, chiller, and altogether more well-balanced human being." :/ Yeah, Dave really was happier cheating his way out of the prophecy. But then, he could only become so happy if someone else took care of the REAL Lord English for him. Guess another Dave'll have to bite the dust for "alpha" Dave again. Then again, epiphany or not, GO Dave might have ended up happy... but then he'd have been a happy ghost, for just as long until LE or the black hole got to him.

Still, man, I'm feeling for the guy. It's one thing to reject the call when it's an abstract prophecy or artefact thrust on you. But now it's his best friend asking him to join him in a crazy last stand. That's... actually one of the toughest challenges any Dave has had.

"DAVE: oh shit" ... Best underwhelming response he could have. :D

"JADE: what??

JADE: john. he is NOT going to fight lord english just yet

JADE: he is staying right here

JADE: old ladys orders :PJOHN: actually, yes he is." I'm sensing a showdown coming, but I wonder how swift John will take care of her, can his mangrist trump First Guardian swiftness? Oh, yeah, and he could turn into the Breeze too, I recall. Yeah, Jade's gonna bite the dust.

"JOHN: and so are you. we all are." Oooooh, okay, he wants everyone from the GO timeline to take a swing. Cool that he's getting his gang back together. Still, the age difference! :P Everyone but Roxy might be a little wary of it. (I'm saying that because at one point Roxy crushed on Jane's Dad.

"JADE: omg

JADE: how dare you?????JOHN: jade, you’re brainwashed.JOHN: sorry. but nothing you’re saying now means anything." Like, I understand where he's coming from, but dang John, still so brutal.

"JOHN: it’s fine though, you’ll stop being brainwashed once i zap you outside the influence of the condesce." Oooh, round trips to blankspace it is? I don't think it'll be to LOWAS, just to "a" point in blankspace they can be "stored" until the gang is assembled.

"JADE: youre not zapping me anywhere!!!!!JOHN: ha ha, yes i am.JOHN: watch this...

> Zap Grimbark Jade outta there." Has he learned to do a snap to zap her away while staying behind himself? Like how Jade zapped everyone to LOMAX.

It would be anticlimactic for John's retcon powers to suddenly cease working here. It would also be very Hussie for that to happen spontaneously. :P But then again, not likely as he'll use the same power to go to LOCAM (Caliborn's planet).

"You set a hand on Jade’s shoulder and zap her off to a better place. Then you touch down on the concrete surface where the whole pointless confrontation was taking place so that you can talk Dave around whatever it is he’s going through right now. Dave, like his ecto-sister, really needs to get in an absurd amount of extraneous words before he can fully process a situation.

The Mayor tips his head at you and fiddles with his sash. God damn, you missed the Mayor." Ah, okay, that particular conversation we might not see in its entirety? Or maybe we will. In any case, right, WV was there! Aww, yes we missed him. But hey, seems like John at least took a little time before they travelled into the future, to get to know WV? I wonder if he ever found out he was his exile, probably not.

"DAVE: so what do we do nextJOHN: well, i’ll leave you to hang out with jade for a bit, while i go round up the others." Hey, it occurred to me, Dave & Jade could have a chat while they wait, work some things out. A similar conversation as that GO Dave & Jade presumably had right after their deaths, when they woke up next to each other in the dreambubbles!

"DAVE: what others... likeDAVE: everyoneJOHN: yes. rose, and the other four." Yeah, this is speeding things up rapidly as far as the meetup between the kids is concerned. Dave & Dirk might benefit from some alone time out in blankspace together, mirroring their LOTAK conversation. Also, this means John will be zapping into the outer reaches of the session to retrieve Dirk, hahah. ... I wonder if the glitches from the stardust will be causing any disturbance, probably not anymore since the stardust was blown out of the cartridge, admittedly at a "later" point in the timeline.

Blaperile has a good point, what about Roxy? I'm going to assume that, by the time gets around to breaking her out of jail, John 1 or an equivalent John has already visited her. But I don't remember if they talked about the ring already back then. I do still think John will be giving her the ring to go revive Calliope, but the exact feelings around the moment will remain to be seen.

"DAVE: i seeDAVE: so...DAVE: sorry if i seem a little slow here im just trying to figure this outDAVE: youre telling me that i made this sword because im destined to defeat lord english and weve all been training for that day our whole lives to some extent more or lessDAVE: and we are actually successful here like we overthrow the condesce and make a universe and everythingDAVE: and thenDAVE: we..." ... Yeah, this timeline won't spawn a universe, it's already been done, it exists, no point in repeating the whole process. This session is now void again. Dave tries to build a timeline in his head that makes sense, but the sad thing is, his future is uncertain. Though, he might not be sad at all? I mean, not if the future is his to be written, right?

"DAVE: sit on our asses for several years in the new universe and become adults and lead mostly boring lives instead of going off to fight him?" ... Or, does Dave really DO understand what has happened, that he's picking up left over plot behind some other version of him.

"JOHN: yes.DAVE: guess that makes senseDAVE: now that i think about it thats probably what i would want to do by the time we finally wrap up this whole hot messJOHN: yep, it is what you wanted to do.JOHN: and pretty much everyone else agreed, including me. so that’s what we did." Not sure how conscious the decision was for them at the time, but sure.

"DAVE: which uhDAVE: i guess begs the questionDAVE: if it seemed pointless at the time and nobody could be assed to go fight him when we all had our shit togetherDAVE: why does it suddenly become important to go back and beat him years later after we become a bunch of lazy adults with boring lives" You'd have to ask Rose but she wouldn't remember in this timeline so the point is kind of mute. :P

"JOHN: i pretty much had the same questions, dave.JOHN: there are probably some pretty good answers to that. definitely some complicated answers.JOHN: but to be honest... i kind of forget what they actually were?DAVE: god damn it john" Pfffffff. John "it seemed important at the time so here i am" Egbert, everyone.

"JOHN: it has something to do with canon unraveling, and such.JOHN: we all live outside canon in the future, and if we don’t do go do this, everything will stop meaning anything.DAVE: does...DAVE: anything you just said actually mean anything in the first place" There's a song that comes to mind from Volume 9, "Everything means Something to Somebody". To Dave, it must be sound like the same level of fortune cookie wisdom.

"JOHN: that’s a great question, dave.JOHN: one that i can’t say i’m qualified to answer!JOHN: i think the bottom line here is, this is what rose said we had to do.JOHN: so, that’s why we’re doing it.DAVE: sounds like a bullshit reason if i ever heard oneJOHN: you might be right.JOHN: but is it less of a bullshit reason than any other reason we currently have to go fight him?DAVE: ...DAVE: damnDAVE: youre rightDAVE: i dont know how you did it but you somehow instantly sold me completelyDAVE: fuck you adult egbert" At some point, the scales will buckle just from the shear heap of bullshit piled on.

"You zap Dave off to where he needs to go. The Mayor is still staring at you, blinking his buggy little eyes. You shoot him a warm smile and a thumbs-up before bouncing off into the ether of infinity." Awww, actually, leaving WV behind can't be all bad for him. He can find Serenity in here, PM too. Condesce might very well leave for the Furthest Ring, and then this session is up for sale to anyone. And with the royalty down for the count, WV can take over. Well, okay, WQ... probably blew up when Union Jack broke Prospit. Yeah, WV, PM & the still alive Derse agents are the top bill around, and if PM can trump Jack again (the three of him, Spades Slick & Union Jack included), then the remaining Derse agents would follow.

That marks the end of Meat, page 4 for us!

[yeeyee-alumni]

This will be my last response to these essays because I don’t think we’ll get to a point where there’s mutual ground and that’s okay lol. I did want to respond though because you offered some valid critiques on my post as well. This won’t be as long as the other for sure (at least I hope not).

You’re correct in that it’s up to interpretation of whether or not Abby feels guilt and if the small moments they provide us with are a indication of that. I can’t help but feel had she had a conversation with someone about guilt, it would have been met with resistance and notions of “so predictable” and not made a difference (not from you specifically. A lot of players of the game would have hated it no matter what because it didn’t live up to what they had in mind). Maybe I'm wrong with this and it would have been well received but no way to know.

As I stated in my previous response, the connection with Lev and Yara seemingly was brought on by them saving her and vice versa. Whether or not she feels obliged to help them because of this, there’s no reason to believe she would have gone back to the WLF after going AWOL. Owen couldn’t go back after Danny. Lev and Yara absolutely wouldn’t make it past the front gates. It goes back to the theory about purpose. If she’s found a new purpose in caring for the two of then, then why would she go back to the WLF? That’s not saying that after 4 years she wouldn’t have befriended anyone. We saw small interactions with a few characters but nothing that would lead us to believe she created deep connections with multiple people that weren’t a part of the Salt Lake Crew. Is it possible? Yes. Was there sufficient evidence given to support this? No. She had a choice though and after 48+ hours of hell and back with Lev and Yara, it doesn’t seem out of the box that she would choose them (Lev,Yara,Owen/Santa Barbara [again pre Mel conversation] over a group that wanted her dead). That ‘you’re my people” line feels like the most obvious indication that her allegiances have changed and that it had something to do with the bond she’d developed with them through their ‘adventures’ (putting that in parentheses because adventures should be fun and not messed up lol).

In no way shape or form did I say you are not allowed to criticize writers. People have every right to criticize. What I said was it’s not cool to resort to personal attacks. Criticizing a story that you find to be poorly written is different than calling the writers talentless and not creative. Bring up whatever issues you have with pacing/character choice/scene structure/lack of thoroughness/etc, but simply calling writers less talented and less creative isn’t conrtsuctive criticism. That’s lobbing personal insults at them, not offering any sort of feedback on their professional choices. That’s where I have issues. Not with offering criticism in general. There is a difference.

As for the theatre, I’m honestly not so sure why you continually dismiss the reality that Abby also had traumatic experiences, not just Lev. No ones trauma is greater than anothers. Trauma is trauma. Nearly everyone in this game with a substantial role in the story has experienced trauma. If we look at their 3 days and limit it to that time frame: Lev lost his sister, had to kill his mother in self defense, and was running from a group he grew up with. Abby was nearly hung, had Manny killed in front of her, and found Owen and Mel killed (Owen being of most importance). Those are just a few examples for each. I never said I didn’t care about her choices and whether or not they were questionable. That’s you assuming. What I did was offer up a possibility that Lev was aware of what would happen upon giving her the map.

Eye for an eye is a concept for retaliation/punishment at its very core so suggesting dhe should have let Joel go because he saved her doesn’t make sense as an eye for an eye scenario. That could be viewed as a reward or a compromise which by definition is not what eye for an eye is about.

The retort to the essay wasn’t intended to have any personal bias so if there were points of that, it wasn’t intentional. My response was based off what the game itself presented and the writing it gave us at face value. The whole point was playing devils advocate with offering counter arguments. I am very much a ‘devils advocate look at things from a neutral perspective’ person because I enjoy discussions.The whole point of me writing it was that aside from the bias, the writing came off as you knew better and that it was your way or the highway. That’s what was mentioned in the response to the Joel essay that I don’t think was posted, that the bias gave off a vibe that wasn’t approachable and that it seemed like an “I know better this is how it is” piece.

As for the add on reblog after the initial post, you are entitled to feel how you do. Once more, I never said that wasn’t allowed. Sort as I echoed above, I’ve pointed out multiple times that the main issue was the tone and how it came across and that it doesn’t necessarily feel like it offers up an environment that would foster a constructive discussion. This game is something lots of people get very emotional about. I’m simply saying if the intent is to write a persusasive essay vs an essay in general, bias and tone could be hurting you instead of helping. But if the intent was to get all the thoughts down on paper and out and not necessarily to try and ‘recruit’ (very loose use of the word), then having the bias/tone/emotion makes more sense. You have a very valid point that perhaps a verbal discussion can work better because some things get lost in translation through writing as it is quite often these days. Again, I enjoy reading different takes on different mediums and seeing that a couple of your essays had popped up in the tags, I went ahead and read them. Keep doing what you’re doing and I look forward to future essays. (this might have ended up just as long as the other, I honestly have no idea lol, my bad but I enjoyed this back and forth!)

I really did too!

And I think it's totally fine for us to not come to an agreement regarding this. I feel like discussions like these (especially about art that tend to be quite subjective) need more of "two people voicing their opinion, having an exchange and the conversation ending with both parties sticking to their point of view and accepting/respecting each other for that".

This discussion, at least for me, has been enriching, entertaining, and challenging even, which is exactly what I'd hoped I'd get out of posting my essay(s) in the first place. So thank you again for being so open-minded, critical, respectful, and for reaching out in the first place!

Regarding my future essays, I will from this point onward put even more effort into being less "high horse"-y and more neutral, as I do of course understand how that would be much more helpful in getting people to engage in an actual conversation/discussion.