#I won't go in and change those

[luimagines]

I'm talking like... if I were to set up a patreon, mailing list or something for monthly chapters until it's complete, would you guys be interested in that?

I'd naturally have to change it all to actually fit out of LoZ and such but I'll be keeping the main ideas the same. You would likely be able to tell who's who if you've gotten context clues from the boys themselves. XD

And this is for King! Dragon! Time. Not the other one.

[astrolavas]

my art style is too simple for this but just know that when i draw post-ttt hunter, in my mind he has central pink-brown heterochromia. like this, kinda:

[theminecraftbee]

okay, so in a rare moment for me, there's a discourse thing i want to bring up, and that thing is. okay. so on iskall's stream there's this thing that can happen where someone brings up a criticism of his content or vault hunters. frequently it's self-evidently wrong, but sometimes it's not. and then iskall spends the next thirty minutes shadowboxing this guy, explaining himself, and completely derailed. and this is an iskall trait we all know and sigh bemusedly about, because he cares about the community and wants people to understand his intentions! he wants the community to understand his decisions!

however, it's not the community as a whole he's fighting; he is in fact, arguing with One Guy, who often doesn't represent the wider community, and who normally won't have their mind changed. hell, sometimes it's believable that they're satisfied having just managed to upset iskall, and they'll leave, no change to their mind, perfectly pleased that iskall's responding at all (that's what i firmly believe the people who poke at the 'you don't upload enough and that means you're falling off and a bad person' wound are trying to do, at least).

in the vault hunters community, we refer to this as iskall getting One Guyed, and it's typically viewed as bad, because it ends up focusing an entire moment on a single guy's negative opinion as opposed to on the larger picture. and it's an understandable thing to have happen! but it's frustrating to watch from the outside.

and so now i am looking at that cat poll. and the way everyone is still shadowboxing someone who has since apologized. and the way i would have never ever known about any of the negative comments about jellie if it weren't for fellow mcyt fans constantly putting them on my dash to dunk on them. and it's like. if you look through the notes most of them are just... normal? it's only a tiny few of people (and the pollrunner, who has since apologized) who were being dicks. it's a very, very ignorable demographic.

but. well. there was One Guy. and we had to correct them.

and folks, i don't know how to say that i almost never see "lol mcyt is cringe" type comments unless one of you puts it on my dash. both because i don't go looking through the notes of things that are likely to have them or go looking for reasons to be upset and because it's just... not that common! very frequently these days it is, in fact, One Guy!

i have almost never seen that poll on my dash without at least one instance of the One Guy. instead of being for fun, it's mostly become about explaining ourselves to someone who will not listen and will not change their minds, and treating this as a the whole of the Other Side of that poll, when most people are being... fine. they're fine! the majority of the people voting for the other side are doing it for perfectly normal reasons that don't require fighting about.

and man. let me tell you. after spending as long as i have watching vault hunters development? it can be just as frustrating to watch a fandom get One Guyed as it is to watch iskall.

[little-pondhead]

Oops.

While learning to control his powers under the guidance of Clockwork, Danny accidentally curses his own bloodline with the Curse of Sentient Food several centuries in the past. Originally, a witch was supposed to curse his family. Oops. Well, the Fentons were always adapting, and technically, either way, he'd end up battling dino nuggets at three am in his underwear, no matter who the curse came from. So he shrugged and continued on.

Unfortunately, this also means that out of nowhere, the timeline shifted, and some of his very distant relatives are now battling their food into submission at every meal because Danny is ultimately way more powerful than some mortal witch from the 1600s. His version of the curse reached literally everyone he could ever be related to for the last few centuries. Even if they were adopted into the family!

So, returning to the present time after training, Danny is a little startled to see some news clips of people's dinners coming to life and beginning revolutions. Wow, John Fentonightingale really got around, didn't he? He felt a little uncomfortable that now all these random people had to deal with their share of Fenton luck, but from some of the interviews, everyone seemed to be handling it pretty well!

Especially his so-distant-they're-on-another-tree cousins, the Kents, who contacted his family directly, asking how best to prepare a zombie turkey. Their son was coming for Thanksgiving with his new wife and some coworkers, and they just refused to make the guests fight for their lives on a holiday!

They invited the Fentons to join them, of course.

[that-butch-archivist]

Making a birthday cake for a friend tonight (something I haven't done for a while), and I forgot how much I love baking & cake decorating. I'll post pics when I'm done, I'm very excited. 🥰

[bonefall]

Feel free to ignore you've probably got a lot going on right now, but considering you know a lot about DOTC and Clear sky, I had a question...

We know that he's a terrible, misogynistic, woman beating and war mongering lunatic who was excused of all his actions because his equally misogynistic brother said " But-But he's nice! Deep down! This isn't the real him! "

But! In a world where the Hunters could write such a character, what do you think Clear Sky would look like as an actual sympathetic villain?

Idk if that makes sense, but what I've thought of doing is taking purely cannon Clear Sky and attempting to change him enough that he's still an antagonist, but not too far where only Reddit defends him.

I don't think he works as a sympathetic villain, on any level, ever. I think you're making a huge mistake to even try, and I have never seen an AU where it was done well nor am I interested in entertaining the thought.

Characters. Are. Tools. They exist to tell a story. The story that people tell me, by obsessing over some alternate universe where he was "ACTUALLY sympathetic and had a REAL redemption arc," is that they're not fucking interested in his dozens of victims. Nor do they actually care about the abusive impact he had on the minds and feelings of his family. They're JUST interested in Clear Sky himself.

Just like the Erins. Everything that happens in DOTC revolves around him. Everything. All his wives die so he can be sad about it. His brother defends all of his actions and BEGS you to sympathize with his pain so he can be 'redeemable.' One Eye comes out of nowhere so that there can be an example of "real" evil to contrast Clear Sky so he's less bad in hindsight.

The first three books of DOTC are bad, but the last three are fucking insufferable because SUDDENLY all that Gray Wing apologia pays off, and they take their main villain and throw him out a window. You CAN'T have "redeemable" Clear Sky and the plot of DOTC without dragging in someone else to drive the conflict, to BE the bigger threat to "unite" against. Slash and One Eye have to be conjured up out of thin air so Clear Sky can WHINE about how people only suck his toes instead of deepthroat them after he killed all their friends.

And yet, in spite of this absolute failure of an attempt, we continue to see this bullshit "redemption" be a mistake because Clear Sky is a fantastic villain, with major antagonist roles in nearly EVERY bit of follow-up material for DOTC that came after.

He's the most consistent monster in all of Warriors.

He's a fragile, egotistical, self-absorbed megalomaniac who ALWAYS sees himself as the victim, REFUSING to self-reflect and blaming everything else for all of his terrible choices. He will USE your love of him against you like it's a chain through your nose, step out of line and he will yank you into place with guilt trips, manipulation, public shaming, and violence.

He's a child abuser. He's a tyrant. He abandons the sick and disabled as soon as they're of no use to him, with grand speeches about "illness" and "weakness." He's a murderer who stands above the shredded corpse of his victim and bellows, "I'M NOT GREEDY! I'M JUST STRONG!"

And you'd write a "good" redemption arc for this, why?

Why are people so chronically unable to accept that there are LOTS of people like him, and you can't save your abuser? Why don't you ask yourselves why you're not interested in exploring Thunder, or Petal, or Gray Wing, and how his toxic influence impacts them? Why does the sympathy fall on Clear Sky? What about the DOZENS of victims who are dead by Book 3, and how THEY could have been saved?

Why ruin a perfectly good villain?

What's behind this trend where a billion people say to me, "Yes Clear Sky is a walking cavalcade of fucked up abuse apologia, and an incredibly realistic depiction of an abuser, but how would you change this while keeping it all the same?"

I wouldn't. You can't. It wouldn't be the same story, or it wouldn't be the same character. Never seen it done well, and I have seen it a lot. So I don't entertain this deeply frustrating "Well What If Clear Sky But Nice" impulse.

[bitchthefuck1]

Rewatching succession it really is wild to see Kendall and Shiv convince themselves over and over again that they can "fix ATN/Waystar from the inside" only to completely abandon their morals the minute it gives them a strategic advantage.

When they're on the outside it's an endless diatribe about how evil and rotten the company is to its core, but the second they get the slightest whiff of power they suddenly decide the problems are actually really manageable and that with the right leadership it could be a force for good, and like...the saddest part is that they genuinely seem to believe that.

[the-l00ker]

(to clarify I mean this from a writing perspective. Like I don't think the writers necessarily, originally intended for Stolas to be racist and when you break it down I think they were going for him being more classist but at face value he seems racist.

Put together, and at face value he's racist. Breaking it down and from a narrative point, it seems he was supposed to be classist. WHICH IS STILL A BAD not defending the man in that front

Genuinely don't think they intend for Stolas to be a completely racist person/didn't intend for old (season 1) Stolas to be racist, but when you look at it all put together he's definitely got SOME racist energy.

But they definitely doubled down in season 2 on "old Stolas was racist bc of the people he grew up with"

But I'm just breaking down why I DON'T THINK THEY ORIGINALLY WANTED IT TO BE THAT WAY and it wasn't really an error, it was more of a one-track mind approach)

Someone on twitter said that Stolas is racist

ALSO DON'T GO TRACKING THEM DOWN TF?!+

...

BUT HE'S NOT-

(from a writing perspective/break down perspective)

He has been conditioned into being classist. Stella's the racist one-

✨🧵AhEm🧵✨

When lil Stolas was meeting Blitzo for the first time, and he bows to him, paimon says something along the lines of "don't bow, he bows to us idiot" before smacking him over the head

Paimon implies ( and outright says) that he should bow to him because he's not worth it, because they're better then them. Richer. Power. Just "better"

However Stolas, continues to treat them like equals even when they're playing. He doesn't look down on Blitzo for being an Imp. But Stolas doesn't acknowledge that they have different lives because Stolas is rich.

He just assumes Blitzo could read, has a education and wants to learn but changes his tune when Blitzo awkwardly stares at him and suggest something else.

In the future right after the whole "omg you slept with someone" happens to Stella.

Stella says "You slept with an Imp in our fucking bed!" now today isn't a discussion of how much of a narcissistic bitch Stella is so we'll leave it out there to chill

BUT Stella says you slept with an Imp. Not a person. But an Imp. STELLA IS THE RACIST ONE BECAUSE SHE ONLY SEES HIM AS AN IMP AND NOT AN ACTUALLY PERSON

(and if you don't see it, imagine saying "I can't believe you slept with a person of colour!" that's basically what Stella said)

Stolas doesn't even acknowledge it, saying he didn't have enough time to get a Motel. Stolas doesn't say anything about Blitzo being "just an Imp" he just talks like he's sleeping with anyone.

You could literally change Blitzo name for anyone else and I'd still work.

But here's the thing, Blitzo is one that see Stolas as a bit of a racist because he thinks Stolas was the one who bought him for a day or so.

Like he thinks Stolas bought him. But it wasn't Stolas. It was Paimon, he bought him so that he won't have to deal with Stolas being upset. Stolas didn't even have a choice in the matter so it wasn't his fault.

But here's how he's UNINTENTIONALLY classist.

AhEm

Literally the entire relationship and dynamics-

Stolas technically bought the IMP services TWICE, once in the trailer/pilot and another in the Loo-Loo Land episode.

Stolas rented Blitzo team out for the day, because Stolas was paying him to do so. He practically bought Blitzo's time.

He looked down on Millie and Moxxie because he really only intented to buy out Blitzo time and not there's. He didn't need protection as we can see at the episodes end, he just bought Blitzo's time for entertainment. FOR ENTERTAINMENT

Stolas initially thought that he was entitled to Blitzo's time because he bought out THE WHOLE BUSINESS SERVICE FOR ONE DAY.

And at the beginning of the Stolas literally says "We're rich and we're hot, people want our money and our bodies" HE'S IMPLIES THAT HE'S SUPERIOR TO EVERYONE ELSE NOT BECAUSE THEY'RE IMPS OR HELL-BORN DEMONS

IT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE RICH! AND HE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT!

And then he tells Blitzo that he'll pay him for his time- HE'S LITERALLY THROWING MONEY AT HIS PROBLEMS HOPING IT'LL BE OKAY BECAUSE THAT WHAT HIS DAD DID!

And in the Harvest Moon episode Blitzo defends Stolas because Stolas is literally the secondary breadwinner with in his business. If Stolas dies then Octiva gets the book and then Blitzo doesn't have it, so they can't make money anymore.

Stolas again is in someway shovelling money to stay in someone's life, taking advantage of the fact that Blitzo NEEDS HIM.

But in the episode Truth Speaker, that's when Stolas changes his mindset (all be it, off screen) he realizes when Blitzo is endangered but he can't just throw money at problems and actually has to do something to keep him safe.

This is the first time that he is not thrown money at a problem and it worked.

Moving on in the story Stolas has some on screen and off screen character development, in which the power dynamics and throwing money as every single problem isn't right anymore and it was never right.

Because before then he'd been practically throwing money in the face a not-so-successful-at-the-time Blitzo just for his company.

That was some level of autonomy in that relationship but it was mostly him just throwing money and buying him out and buying his time.

It Highlights the absolute wealth difference between the two characters.

Before the episode Truth Seeker, Stolas was indeed a classist character it may have not been as obvious as some other characters but he was a bit classist at the least.

Before the episode Truth Seekers, Stolas saw Blitzo as somewhat below him, because he could just afford to buy him out. But after realising that he was indeed a person and could be hurt, I believe after that episode is when he actually begun to care.

Ozzie's was the eventual big push for him to get better. It was obvious that Stolas WAS embarrassed to be with Blitzo. And not because he was an Imp like Ozzie implied because Stolas could have just clapped back with "AND TF ABT U BITCH?? HUH?"

No, it's because Ozzie made the Association that since he was with an Imp, then that equals poor, which equals embarrassment, which equates to him asking why did you throw away your marriage for someone who is poor?

Because I don't think Ozzie would have been racist, on stage, infront of other Imps and his Imp boyfriend.

After this episode we can see that he has a change of heart and a change in which he views things. After this episode he realizes that Blitzo's feelings could no longer be bought because he'd made him genuinely upset and there was no amount of money you could throw on that 🔥dumpster fire 🔥to make it okay

By that point the business was already successful so it was no longer a matter of money.

After this Stolas has some off screen development it seems. Better himself as a person and truly beginning to see equals but as a consequence he had to acknowledge over pain and the sheer power he had in the relationship.

That's when in the episode Oops, Stolas decides to get Big Boss Ozzie-mozzie Crystal to try and end this constant power dynamic and classism that was in their relationship.

I'm in the episode we can Stolas helping out his "equal" when it came down to Fizz. He didn't just turn around and go "well he's an Imp, icky not helping him. I'll come back later"

He sat there through the entire thing helping Ozzie out, not out of obligation. He literally could have left but didn't because he didn't see Fizz as Ozzie's problem, he now saw Fizz as a genuine person.

And the set up to this was great because Ozzie would have had to sign away alot of money to get Fizz out of trouble, and its a nod back at when old him would have probably just threw money at this problem but instead of that he advises his "equal" to NOT throw money at the problem and instead read the entire contract to make sure that everything goes well.

LIKE OLD STOLAS WOULD NOT HAVE CARED ENOUGH TO READ THAT ENTIRE THING, AS MUCH AS HE LOVES WORDS

this act alone not only let Fizz and Blitzo work shit out but also showed the viewer that he had changed for the better, and he was going through character development to not be a dick

And now we're at Full Moon and at this rate Stolas has already had all the necessary character development off-screen to no longer be as classist as he was before, and it's a bit disappointed that this was in highlighted a bit before but you gotta read through the line sometimes

Stolas now sees them as equals. But he hadn't shown Blitzo that. Blitzo is still scared of Stolas and his influence and status and money, last Blitzo check he'd had to spend time looking for Stolas daughter so that he won't be as mad and he won't banned him from the book.

An honestly if he had it his way Blitzo probably never would have went to the human realm to help look for his daughter.

But at that rate it was out of sheer obligation-

And as much as the episode tries to play it off as a gag, Blitzo still has to drop everything to help him out, YES because he does care but also out of fear of losing his only source of income.

So for Stolas to rock up in Full Moon and be like, "I see you as an equal and I love you" WOULD HAVE FUCKED BLITZO SHIT UP

Because all Stolas and his family did was, BUY HIM, BUY HIS TIME AND MAKE HIM FEAR FOR LOSING HIS ONLY SOURCE OF INCOME ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS-

He'd only been inadvertently put down by Stolas not because that was Stolas intention but because that's what is actions gave off in terms of vibes.

And that's why in the Helluva universe Stolas is unintentionally a classist character, to which he didn't know about it UNTIL IT WAS TOO FUCKING LATE-

No I will not be taking question. Yes this took me 30 minutes to write because of my inability to spell. Shush!

[bluepallilworld]

After Aftermare week 2021 and Aftermare week 2022! Get ready for the 3rd edition of the event!

Aftermare week 2023!

11th of july -> 17th of july

Prompts:

✧ Day 1: blackout or illumination

✧ Day 2: discovery or lost

✧ Day 3: light or heavy

✧ Day 4: walk or run

✧ Day 5: Spring or fall

✧ Day 6: fight or flight

✧ Day 7: the end of a beginning or the beginning of a end

Now the boring part, rules!

- the ship "aftermare" is between Geno and passive/uncorrupted Nightmare. You can use the corrupted version but the 2 must have known the other before corruption <3

-you can use aus (you can even do crossovers if it tickles your funny bone :3)

- Nightmare must be adult obviously !!!!! (I'm saying that since canonly Night' had the accident when he was 6 >w<)

-there are 2 prompts for each day, you must choose one OwO/

-Ooooooor you can mix the two prompts ;). For exemple : day 4 -> "a runny walk" ; day 6 -> "fleeing fight" etc (there aren't as easy to combine as the last years since they're short :P)

-Have fun, mess around, break the rules (not the rules I'm writing here tho 'k òwó). I love seeing creativity ! Jump over days, mess with the order, find an original way to follow the prompts or just ignore them ! I dunno, collaborate if you feel like it! The prompts are more guidelines than anything :D

-only SFW please UwU

-romantic or platonic ship your choice ;)

-tag properly anything you think could bother or trigger someone, we respect others and their boundaries in this house

-don't forget to tag it as "aftermare week 2023" so people who want to avoid it can!!! (And tag me I wanna see everything) 🎉

-if you don't finish on time no worries, you can still participate just late :D

If you're going to participate or are just interested by the event, don't hesitate to give this post a reblog ÙwÚ👍

Or to ask questions if you have some ;3 (in dms)

------------------------------------------------------------

Geno!Sans belongs to @/loverofpiggies

Nightmare belongs to @/jokublog

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Almost forgot to tag my fellow aftermare goblins @dragon-tamer-1 and @shinechermont :)

The drawing without the prompts (phone drawing with my fingers go brrrr XD)

[keelanrosa]

started reading the cass review because i'm apparently just Like That and i want everybody crowing about how this proves sooooo much about how terfs are right and trans people are wrong to like. take a scientific literacy class or something. or even just read the occasional study besides the one you're currently trying to prove a point with. not even necessarily pro-trans studies just learn how to know what studies actually found as opposed to what people trying to spoonfeed you an agenda claim they found.

to use just one infuriating example:

Several studies from that period (Green et al., 1987; Zucker, 1985) suggested that in a minority (approximately 15%) of pre-pubertal children presenting with gender incongruence, this persisted into adulthood. The majority of these children became same-sex attracted, cisgender adults. These early studies were criticised on the basis that not all the children had a formal diagnosis of gender incongruence or gender dysphoria, but a review of the literature (Ristori & Steensma, 2016) noted that later studies (Drummond et al., 2008; Steensma & Cohen-Kettenis, 2015; Wallien et al., 2008) also found persistence rates of 10-33% in cohorts who had met formal diagnostic criteria at initial assessment, and had longer follow-up periods.

if you recognize the names Zucker and Steensma you are probably already going feral but tldr:

There are… many problems with Zucker's studies, "not all children had a formal diagnosis" is so far down the list this is literally the first i've heard of it. The closest i usually hear is the old DSM criteria for gender identity disorder was totally different from the current DSM criteria for gender dysphoria and/or how most people currently define "transgender"; notably it did not require the patient to identify as a different gender and overall better fits what we currently call "gender-non-comforming". Whether the kids had a formal diagnosis of "maybe trans, maybe just has different hobbies than expected, but either way their parents want them back in their neat little societal boxes" is absolutely not the main issue. This would be a problem even if Zucker was pro-trans (spoiler: He Is Not, and people who are immediately suspicious of pro-trans studies because "they're probably funded by big pharma or someone else who profits from transitioning" should apply at least a little of that suspicion to the guy who made a living running a conversion clinic); sometimes "formal" criteria change as we learn more about what's common, what's uncommon, what's uncommon but irrelevant, etc, and when the criteria changes drastically enough it doesn't make sense to pretend the old studies perfectly apply to the new criteria. If you found a study defining "sex" specifically and exclusively as penetration with a dick which says gay men have as much sex as straight men but lesbians don't, it's not necessarily wrong as far as it goes but if THAT'S your prime citation for "gay men have more sex than lesbians", especially if you keep trying to apply it in contexts which obviously use a broader definition, there are gonna be a lot of people disagreeing with you and it won't be because they're stubbornly unscientific.

Also Zucker is pro conversion therapy. Yes, pro converting trans people to cis people, but also pro converting gay people to straight people. That doesn't necessarily affect his results, i just find it funny how many people enthusiastically support his findings as evidence transitioning is… basically anti-gay conversion therapy? (even though plenty of trans people transition to gay? including T4T people so even the "that's actually just how straight people try to get with gay people" rationale for gay trans people is incredibly weak? and also HRT has a relatively low but non-zero chance of changing sexual orientation so it wouldn't even be reliable as a means of "becoming straight"? but a guy who couldn't reliably tell the difference between a tomboy and a trans boy figured out the former is more common than the latter + in one whole country where being trans is legal but being gay is not, sometimes cis gay people transition, so OBVIOUSLY that means sexism and homophobia are the driving factors even in countries with significant transphobia. or something.) anyway i hope zucker knows and hates how many gay people and allies are using his own study to trash-talk any attempts to be Less Gay. ideally nobody would take his nonsense seriously at all but it doesn't seem we'll be spared from that any time soon so i will take my schadenfreude where i can.

Steensma's studies have the exact same problem re: irrelevant criteria so "well someone ELSE had the same results!" is not exactly convincing. This is not "oh trans people are refusing to pay attention to these studies because they disagree with them regardless of scientific rigor", it's "one biased guy using outdated criteria found exactly the numbers everyone would expect based on that criteria, i can't imagine why trans people are treating those numbers as relevant to the past criteria but not present definitions, let's find a SECOND guy using outdated criteria. Why do people keep saying the outdated criteria is not relevant to the current state of trans healthcare. Don't we all know it's quantity over quality with scientific studies. (Please don't ask what the quantity of studies disagreeing with me is.)"

Steensma also counted patients as 'not persisting as transgender' if they ghosted him on follow-up which counted for a third of his study's "detransitioners" and a fifth of the total subjects and. look. i'm not saying none of them detransitioned, or assuming they all didn't would be notably more accurate, but i think we can safely treat twenty percent of subjects as a bit high for making a default assumption, especially when some of them might have simply not been interested in a study on whether or not they still know who they are. Fuck knows i've seen pro-trans studies which didn't make assumptions about the people who didn't respond still get prodded by anti-trans people insisting "the number of people claiming they don't regret transitioning can't possibly be so high, some of the people who responded must have been lying. (Scientific rigor means thinking studies which disagree with me are wrong even if the only explanation is the subjects lying and studies which agree with me are right even if we need to make assumptions about a lot of subjects to get there.)"

and this is not new information. not the issues with zucker, not the issues with steensma, not any of the issues because this is not a new study, it's a review of older studies, which in itself doesn't mean "bad" or "useless" -- sometimes that allows connecting some previously-unconnected dots -- but the idea this is going to absolutely blow apart the Woke Media, vindicate Rowling and Lineham, and "save" ""gay"" children from """being forcibly transed""" is bullshit. At most it'll get dragged around and eagerly cited by all the people looking for anything vaguely scientific-sounding to justify their beliefs, and maybe even people who only read headlines and sound bites will buy it, but the people who really believe it will be people who already agreed with all its "findings" and have already been dragging around the existing studies and are just excited to have a shiny new citation for it.

the response from people who've been really reading research on transgender people all along is going to be more along the lines of "……yeah. yeah, i already knew about that. do you need a three-page essay on why i don't think it means what you think it means? because i don't have time for that homework right now but maybe i can pencil it in for next semester if you haven't learned how to check your own sources by then."

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Sparkstember day 23: Two Hands One Mouth✨

[uncanny-tranny]

A really sinister aspect into how people view children and parents is the idea of children being a replaceable commodity.

I've seen this in the way people talk about parents who have lost children but have surviving children... "Oh, at least you have other children," as though a child is just an interchangeable tool, a machine that dispenses what you want from it without it being sentient, whole, and feeling. The fact that people say that in order to comfort somebody shows, to me, how deep this mindset is engraved in people's brains: children are interchangeable items, and they do not fundamentally matter.

[loopdile]

transcription under the cut!

The worst ship chart ever.

Ship name: Loopdile

[insert very tiny math] Ages: 43 and 31? Age difference: 8?

Portrait of Odile with an eyebrow raised saying "I'm not telling." Name: Odile. Gender: trans woman (maybe nb but idrc rn). Sexuality: Aro lesbian.

Portrait of Loop with a finger raised saying "I'm not telling~" Name: Loop. Gender: Nonbinary (??? what is identity). Sexuality: Ace bi

General sliders. "Relationship starts quickly vs the slowest burn you can possibly imagine" is marked fairly close to slowly and trails off towards slow burn. "They'll be together forever vs They'll break up after 2 months tops" has two marks, one at 2 months and one really close to forever. "Cute couple vs dear god they're ugly" is marked a quarter slider away from cute. "Reasonably healthy and normal relationship vs They're dying and getting killed and hurt man" has a wide mark all the way from the halfway point to a quarter away from healthy. "Extremely popular ship vs literally no one ships this but me" is marked fairly close to no one.

Specific sliders. "Giddy and happy to be in love vs they just killed themselves 40 times in their head at the idea of being in love" has loop at died and odile fairly close to died. "The madoka vs the homura" has loop at homura and odile a third of the slider away. "Telling anyone who will listen about their partner vs rarely brings up that they're in a relationship" has loop a quarter away from telling anyone and odile fairly close to rarely. "eats and/or encourages a healthy diet vs eats dry instant noodles only" has loop at noodles and odile a third away from healthy. "crazy ass vs truck freak" has loop at crazy ass and odile fairly close to truck freak.

Tell me why your ship is interesting... go!

What draws them together? Odile is the only motherfucker that can handle them; Loop is weird and intriguing.

What stands in the way? Poor communication skills; Loop is clingy but Odile often needs space; Loop lashes out and self-isolates.

What are their good traits? They're both hilarious and dedicated to the bit; they're both devoted to their loved ones.

What makes them hopeless at romance? Odile is aro-spec and uninterested in romance; Loop both hates/fears and craves romance; Luckily they can just be something stranger!

Describe them with one trope: found family, deadpan x emotional, secret third thing, I'll protect you from yourself.

[jonathanbiers]

Argyle never gets frustrated with Steve when he doesn’t understand something. He doesn’t roll his eyes, or give That Sigh. He explains things patiently, if a bit abstractly, and when Steve is way off base Argyle runs with it. Is Vecna a vampire? Whoa that would be wild, man! Do you think he can’t have garlic? We could just take him out with a gnarly garlic pie, my dude!

the way you're seeing into my mind.... argyle being really soft with steve and taking the time to make sure he doesn't feel stupid when he's confused is something i've considered AT LENGTH (specifically in dms with @himbohohoharringtxn who has the unfortunate luck of being on the receiving end of Most of my argyle thoughts fdjghkdfj)

i would like to preface this by saying that i am firmly in "argyle and steve are both genuinely smart" territory. i think steve is very neurodivergent coded (i see the arguments for adhd/autism/dyslexia/ocd and as someone who might be autistic but is diagnosed with the other three....i see these arguments and i agree on all fronts) and there's also the head trauma of it all, though that's not what this is about. he's not fucking dumb, he just needs things broken down and explained to him in a very specific way. nothing wrong with that!

as far as argyle is concerned - we've literally seen him in action noticing small details no one else has(one of my fav parallels between them), which ends up being the reason the cali group finds nina and el. he's not fucking dumb either, just delivered to us as a comic relief stoner character with little dimension because the duffers need to be fucking stopped

BUT ANYWAY! you're so right! argyle would see the way steve sometimes gets brushed off and spoken over. the rest don't mean it to be hurtful and steve tries not to show that it does sometimes sting (because it's really not that big of a deal to him and it's not like they're being outright mean) but he would ABSOLUTELY "yes and-" whatever steve's off the wall question or idea was, if anything just to make him laugh, relieve some of the tension. AND IT WORKS is the thing.

it's not just, "duuuude, what if we just lure vecna into the sun? he'll be TOAST in five seconds flat, no fighting necessary. nancy, you can put the gun down, we're gonna hurl garlic cloves at him with a slingshot!" in one fell swoop, argyle is 1. making sure steve feels heard and not spoken over; 2. acknowledging steve's input and effort in a way that, let's be honest, the others don't do very often; 3. putting a smile on the group's faces for a while because fuck they're kids in a stressful situation and need a laugh; 4. putting himself in the line of fire so the others can rag on him instead.

argyle would do this when they aren't even dating yet and steve definitely would not be normal about it, he'd be smiling so big and soft and then argyle would catch his eye and smile back and they'd have this little quiet moment between them amidst all the chaos and dread.

after they're dating though? oh, they'd be INSUFFERABLE. they'd be such a pda couple, with the ridiculous pet names("what the fuck did you just call me?" "don't worry about it, my lil sweet potato pie."), and the open flirting until their friends are fake-retching, the whole nine yards. argyle is hanging off of steve's back with his arms around his waist and not even acknowledging it as he makes his argument to the rest of the group that, "no, no, listen. steve is onto something here, i just know. what if-"

and when they're alone, it'd be less of the theatrics and silliness and more of the gentle patience. they're both smart in really different ways and when argyle gets something steve doesn't and steve is getting a little frustrated about it, he'd take his hand or pull him close and just distract him with a little bit of affection to get him to cool down because he knows being frustrated isn't going to help steve figure out whatever it is. conversely, steve does the same when he's trying to explain something to argyle - though he's less likely to get as frustrated when confused, and more likely to pretend to take longer to get it than he actually does because listening to steve explain a subject he's knowledgeable about is fucking hot, can you blame him? they're just soft with each other, okay

[froganni]

Maybe a little overly serious approach to the situation, but y'all have GOT to be more respectful towards the creators you watch and consume content for. fWhip's message about getting a lot of hate is honestly abysmal.

Like, don't get me wrong, I love lore-related series! I think they're a lot of fun and I love watching them.But give non-lore series a chance! They're also a lot of fun!

These creators are all responsible adults who are very capable of creating boundaries for themselves and deciding amongst themselves what rules they want to follow when joining a project.

Obviously, there are many viewers and community members who this isn't directed at. :D

Please don't send hate to anyone, it's not helpful. If you don't like something, don't engage with it. Just leave it at that. Show respect to the community you're apart of, and to the creators that head it.

(It's fine to be annoyed with something and talk about it, but don't force a creator to see that negativity. It's not benefiting anyone.) The more hate a creator gets, the less they engage with and organize fun things for the community. Please remember to be kind.

[vulpinesaint]

cannot emphasize enough how awesome i find the whole venom concept. how infrequently do they offer you love that comes inextricably tied to not just blood but Gore. there's a whole poetic essay to be written here about the relationship between love and personhood and consumption and cohabitation and symbiosis and violence but i'm gonna be so real i just really like that the symbiote eats people. you can have the all-consuming companionship you always wanted but you Have to tear people's heads off and eat their brains raw to do it