#I would have had so many issues otherwise

[amethystfairy1]

Regarding the Iskall Situation...

I've received a lot of asks wondering about what my take is on it, and since I'd prefer to have it all taken care of in one swoop so we don't have to continue to focus on it, here's my stance on the subject.

A: Yes, I have seen the credible evidence from Kasszki, I read the doc they posted, and I feel awful for them and the other victims that they had to deal with this. I'm glad to hear that the Hermits and others were supportive of them and helped them handle this situation in as professional a manner as possible. I have also seen the credible information from False that Stress left for her own separate reasons.

B: I strongly denounce Iskall's behavior, and I have absolutely zero intention of supporting him as a creator ever again.

C: Please don't pester the creators or the victims. I said it in my initial response to this situation before we knew what had happened, but my opinion remains the same here. Any information we get from the Hermits is a privilege, not a right. Hermitcraft and it's associated fandoms are well known for being healthy, good spaces, and I'm proud to be a member of this community. Now our money is where our mouths are. Please don't feed into the rumor mill, please continue to support the Hermits as you always would and don't pry or demand more details from them. This is a very difficult situation for all of us, and I'm certain it's even worse for all of them. Please keep in mind the Hermits are all grown adults, many of them had professional careers before they joined Hermitcraft, and they are handling this in as professional a manner as they are able. I applaud them for that. As their fans, we need to do the same.

What are my plans for Iskall and Stress in TTSBC?

Understandably, I've received several asks about what I plan to do about Iskall and Stress's characters in TTSBC. I've answered them individually, but I just want to put this here as a one-stop spot for what my stance is so it's clear.

I've always been a 'character not content creator' author. My characters are just that, characters. Does that mean I can completely remove them from the creators upon which they are based? No, of course not. That's not how this works, either. So here's my plan moving forward.

The two stories that heavily feature Iskall in TTSBC, "Run with It' and "Carry me Home Tonight" will remain up. They are timestamped with their dates of posting which was long before any of this came out, and again, they are very clearly meant to be characters, not the creators.

Iskall will be removed from the TTSBC: Wiki, and I will not be writing any new content for his character.

Does that affect the plot of TTSBC? Yes, it does. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't, and those of you who have followed the series at length can likely see where the issues arise...but I'm an author, and I can pivot. I also have an awesome little team behind me of @silver-sunray, @boo-the-ahh, and @khoirkid who are helping me to make sure TTSBC carries on smoothly despite this unforeseen struggle.

Stress will not be removed from the TTSBC: Wiki. As I mentioned in an ask earlier, her role in the story is very minor, and I hadn't planned for her to have any other pieces to herself outside of Hermit-a-Day May anyway...so aside from specific instances where it might be necessary to mention her, she will not be making any more major appearances. This is mainly because I'm a Hermit/Traffic/Empires writer, and I plan to stick to that notion unless future events cause me to pivot otherwise.

Lastly, I would appreciate if we could avoid anymore asks about the situation. If there are any further updates I'm sure I'll find that out on my own, I'm very active in this fandom and I see things pretty quickly when they spread, so if any new things related to this situation spring up, while I greatly appreciate your concern for me and my work, please don't send it to my inbox or in DM.

I'm very saddened by this, as I'm sure many of you are. Hermitcraft and it's associated fandoms have been my safe space for many years, through some of the hardest moments of my life, and with the mess that MCYT has proven itself to be at times, it felt like we were untouchable here. But like Doc said, the Hermits are good, and they are strong. And as their fans and supporters, we need to be the same.

Be good, be strong, and let's make sure our lovely community continues to be the positive space it always has been.

-Amethyst

[ayeforscotland]

what if TGAGWCAGA had a more serious and unique name? i think the idea is wonderful and i would love to see it become a regular thing, but i feel like the parody aspect makes it hard to take it seriously, and might cause legal issues. it's also just really verbose.

I think the parody aspect is why it's resonated with so many people, and the title is deliberately verbose! There's loads of great award shows out there which offer serious awards with a judging panel, I'd encourage people to check out the Indie Game Awards as well.

TGAGWCAGA is a showcase first - for both upcoming and released games. If we get a few more eyes on games they otherwise would have missed then I'll consider it a success!

[disheveledtranquility]

A little Eddie whump character analysis deep dive.

And defending symbrock while I'm at it and why I think movie Eddie was actually well thought out as a character and not just because "the stereotypical macho blonde asshole would not have been popular."

I'm exhausted so hopefully I didn't mess up the details too bad. Been a while since I read the comics.

Sprinkle in some of my ADHD so expect a bit of rambling. I added some gifs because I do love a picture book.

It's canon that Eddie Brock was abused by his father growing up. And the abuse was mostly emotional, lack of love, and lack of concern.

And gentle reminder that not everyone handles trauma the same, no matter which kind, and I feel like the way they wrote Eddie for the movies showcases another side to that trauma versus the comics. There's so many little details that even if it's just Tom being the amazing actor that he is portraying that side and not actually having those details written for him, it's still amazing.

Because Eddie's father was cold and emotionless after he lost his wife during childbirth. And of course Eddie tried everything to gain that love, just to be constantly subpar and never good enough for even a second glance.

After an accident involving drunk driving where Eddie hit a child, their relationship only got worse. And later in the comics, he disowns Eddie completely after he loses his job.

The movie version of Eddie is the broken version of that trauma.

He tends to shy away from situations where you'd assume he'd rush in to, like saving Mrs. Chen.

Trying to help or inquiring when he notices Maria missing. Anything that involves complex emotions. He's a reporter, yes, and he's cordial when he needs to be, but he seems to stick to his job and otherwise keep to himself. They don't exactly show that he has any friends, just Anne. So he's probably introverted because of the years of abuse and having to feel like he has to do everything alone with little to no strings attached.

Even simple things like getting into Anne's emails can be misunderstood. It's not malicious, but more misguided. He loved Anne. He didn't do what he did with intent to get her in trouble. But his poor decision making is probably also a part of not actually being raised and not knowing how to handle certain situations such as actually talking to your partner before you do things on your own? So much could have been avoided. And Eddie had good intentions of getting rid of Carlton Drake, but ruined his own life and Anne's as well because he didn't think things through.

He can't handle his emotions well (might also tie into the noises issue he seems to have that are not related to Venom, a possible trigger for him).

He has a lot of nervous ticks that also tie in with someone growing up in an abusive household. Emotionally stunted ticks. Like holding eye contact when someone he cares about is upset with him and he doesn't know how to fix it (because everything he does is wrong).

Even something you might think is simple, like apologizing, have had negative consequences as a child and might be why even though he's no longer in that situation, his brain isn't used to connecting any good emotions between them. He's probably not used to apologizing sincerely because doing so never meant it would change the outcome.

His mannerisms get worse when he's particularly anxious, like when he might have thought Venom didn't want to come back just as Anne when she left and never wanted to come back.

Again, because he pushed them away, just like Anne. Again, because he messed it up. And again, because he didn't know how he was supposed to fix it.

Because Eddie cares so much even though his head is always such a mess. Makes me think his dad had a say or two about Eddie constantly groveling for his attention and the way it might have made him seem weak, and Eddie in turn stopped himself from letting himself be so open and able to talk about these issues because of it.

His inability to form and/or hold any kind of positive relationship is a good telling sign.

He grew up vying for love without success. He doesn't know what a healthy relationship is supposed to look or feel like long term, even though he tries.

He probably just looks for some level on comfortable routine in his day to day with someone, assumes that's the best he's going to get, and hopes for the best. Any change and it throws him completely off center. He's not used to communicating in a relationship when he grew up talking to a wall.

Also why I think he handles being with Venom so badly. It's not the eating heads and it's not the whole 'alien living in my body' ordeal.

If something isn't obviously positive it feels negative to him in his mind, which makes everything worse. He's selfish in needing to keep his mental state positive. It no doubt contributed to his alcoholism.

He became a people pleaser. Not in the way of gaining attention, but because he's constantly trying to avoid any negative sentiments directed his way. He's already damaged. He doesn't want to have to feel worse.

Eddie is in constant fight or flight with Venom without knowing what the symbiote will do next and how he, Eddie, will be perceived. He becomes very anxious, and later, angry. He's always walking on eggshells.

But the relationship is different with the symbiote than it is with Anne. Even if Eddie doesn't explicitly say it, he feels safe with Venom. More able to let that rage out that he couldn't before. And because he doesn't feel like the symbiote is going to actually hurt him, when his stress gets to him he tends to lash out at it. It's a lovely little cycle of abuse and Eddie really needs therapy.

Venom didn't fully understand the layers of Eddie's traumatized mind yet in LTBC, which is why I think it lashed out as well. Like Anne had with Eddie. Again, it's different though. Venom understands enough to see through that mess and see that Eddie doesn't mean anything with what he says.

It never does damage with malicious intent to Eddie, comedic acts aside. Not even with the fight between them in LTBC. It breaks Eddie's nose twice just to heal it immediately twice, and doesn't leave him with any lasting damage at all.

Because it cares about Eddie. And because it was never meant to harbor emotions, it's probably going through the damn gambit having to feel everything through Eddie and feeling just as hurt by him.

This is also why I think Eddie is constantly complaining in TLD. He's again in constant fight or flight and too comfortable with Venom, so he's just lashing out. But you can tell the symbiote takes none of it to heart, sometimes even seeming to ignore his remarks completely.

Maybe after a year with Eddie it finally understands the pain underneath all that stunted emotion, anxiety, and anger. That, and Eddie no longer drinks his negative emotions away, which means he has less ways to calm himself when he gets too stressed.

Through everything, Venom is the only one who has the ability to see the issues that are deeper. It stayed through all that mess and decided that what was under the baggage was worth holding on to, without Eddie having to try and explain why he is the way that he is.

[ahamkara-apologist]

people gotta start thinking critically about destiny's conflicts. of course the vanguard is on the side of the 'good guys' a lot of the time due to the witness going "its shaping time" and witnessing all over the place but there's been a good many times it's just been a war. a bloody, painful war where two sides fought only for survival. both sides did pretty horrible things, because both sides believed the other had to be driven away or killed if there was any hope of survival. I wonder what things would have been like if the factions had come across golden age earth, though- maybe there would have been next to no fighting at all, and the eliksni would have been allies way earlier

no fr, people need to understand that the issue with the Eliksni-Human wars is that they were both about survival, rather than how the rest of the conflicts we experienced worked. With Ghaul, it was about conquest. With the Witness, it was about preventing the total extinction of the known universe. But with the Eliksni, it was always about survival. Raiding gangs hit human civilizations not because of pure malice, but because the Eliksni were just as starved for resources as we were after the collapse. This isn't to say that they didn't also kill out of cruelty, because of course many of them did, but killing human children because the alternative is starvation for your own hatchlings is not some great transgression like people paint it as. It's just life in a time of great scarcity. It's only a step above simple predation, and that does not account for the massive scope of retaliation that humankind did in return. As far as I'm concerned, we're equally matched in terms of awful shit being done to each other

I was just reading the Stolen Intelligence and it starts off with the account of a Hidden agent who was speaking about the need to prevent Eliksni unification, how the near-complete collapse of their society was a good thing for the goal of eradicating them from Sol, and which Eliksni in particular needed to be destroyed to prevent Eliksni reunification. Granted, this was from Season of the Drifter, so it's outdated, but even accounting for human-Eliksni aggression, its fucking horrifying to hear about a people who only came to Sol because of the near-complete annihilation of their home planet. Here are the excerpts.

The recent trending emergence of so-called "crime syndicates" (cf. report #004-FALLEN-SIV) is emblematic of the continuing destructuralization of Fallen society. Likely an artifact of multi-generational colonization of human strongholds, this agent believes that because these syndicates have no relation to indigenous Fallen culture, young Fallen are appropriating and imitating human mythology in absence of a strong cultural heritage of their own. Much like the dissolution of the Kell/Archon theology, this is positive news for those interested in the complete extirpation of invasive Fallen from the system.

This isn't about settling a war, this is about extermination of a species through cultural genocide. But wait, let's hear what this agent has to say about Misraaks. You know, our buddy Misraaks? Our best dude that we're working our asses off trying to save?

VIP #3987, another former confederate of the Awoken, is a lesser-known personality known as Mithrax. Scattered field reports suggest that like #1121, #3987 styles himself a Kell of the so-called "House Light," an otherwise unknown House apparently founded by #3987 himself. We have secondhand accounts that Mithrax has engaged in allied operations with Guardians in the field, though we have not as yet been able to corroborate these accounts with any degree of veracity. This agent is inclined to treat these reports with a healthy degree of skepticism until otherwise confirmed, as they may be propaganda from Fallen sympathizers in the Old Russian and Red War Guardian cohorts. We have requested intelligence records from the Awoken which may further clarify the matter. In addition, whatever the findings of said intelligence records may be, it should be stressed that one or two sympathetic outliers cannot be relied upon to erase the wrongs of past centuries, nor should their good-faith efforts to correct the sins of their forebears be taken as sufficient symbolic reparation.

Charming. This is bad enough, but listen to what they had to say about Eramis. Now try to tell me again that she's being a bitch for not trusting us, when this was how they were speaking about her barely a few years before she was captured by us in Revenant.

VIP #2029, a once-known personality known as Eramis, or Eramis, the Shipstealer. A House Devils Baroness incarcerated during the Wolf Wars, #2029 successfully fled the Prison of Elders during the mass escape orchestrated by #1121. #2029 is a classical Fallen pirate of the old ways: vicious, uncompromising, and possessing cunning of the highest degree. Field reports indicate that she is rallying violent dissidents to reconstruct House Devils from the ground up. This agent believes her to be the most viable candidate for universal Fallen reunification, and would urge the Vanguard and other interested leadership to aggressively prioritize her destruction. We have come too far to pull our punches now.

This goes beyond simple warfare. The Eliksni did not hold any sufficient power to actually destroy the Last City since the Final Attempt. This Hidden agent wanted complete annihilation. This is talking about going around a beaten-down people that barely holds any more legitimate threats to the Last City and systematically wiping out any attempt for them to even reform their society on the minute basis that they might be able to mount an attack. This is calling for the utter annihilation of a society that suffered an apocalypse that was quite possibly worse than what we suffered in the Collapse, after they were already beaten.

Like, idk, maybe I'm just being extra sensitive bc I live in America, but family is Iranian, so I've been hearing our government talk about how they need to eradicate Middle Eastern threats before they ever come to fruition. But like. Holy fucking shit. We were not the good guys in this scenario. This doesn't make the Eliksni the saints, either, but it's very, very fucking clear that we weren't fighting for the greater good, either. There is no reason that military operations should ever go this far when the enemy is already as good as defeated. It's frankly a fuckin' miracle that any Eliksni are putting any faith in us at all, and it's really only because there's no other option at this point than to try to cozy up to our good side to avoid annihilation.

[cowardlypenis]

so i completely changed my mind on curly mouthwashing! while obligatory disclaimer he's not as bad as jimmy he absolutely fucked up Big Time

mouthwashing the game is so interesting to me for how narratively dense it is and how many lenses through which it can be analysed... and i think curly's a really interesting example of a pretty nice dude who (seemingly uncharacteristically) is incapable of calling his friend out on shitty or abusive behaviour. i've not seen many characters like him before!!

before i was of the opinion that due to both the abusive company and ship conditions that facilitate highly abusive crew behaviour that realistically curly couldn't have done much to jimmy without risking him crashing the ship regardless - then i thought about it some more and realised that's a pretty backwards way to look at it! like, jimmy had the potential to crash the ship so curly can't criticise him at all in case he does? he crashes it anyway!

what really changed my mind was looking at the scene where daisuke gets stuck in the foam and the entire segment just prior to jimmy crashing the ship. in the utility room, curly is totally capable of telling swansea off for allowing the foam accident to nearly damage a cryo pod and is respected when he does so. so it's not as if curly as a person is such a people pleaser that he can't put his foot down around people he considers friends! and the "dead pixel" analogy doesn't apply here - curly doesn't just see the bigger picture that the pod Wasn't damaged, and makes sure to take responsibility and give swansea a warning.

then later 0 days prior to the crash, we see totally different behaviour from curly. something else that really changed my perspective was the line from anya saying "i told you." when curly asks who the father is, then curly immediately understanding. it demonstrates that despite curly being told about the assault, he seemed to have filed it away and dismissed it as something out of character for jimmy, similar to how friends of rapists excuse or dismiss their behaviour. curly also continues to insist that he'll just talk to jimmy and that he's known him a long time, which was likely the type of reaction that lead anya to lose faith in him and be proactive in hiding the gun in the first place. indeed, curly is exceptionally weak-willed when talking to jimmy, and effectively lets him lead the conversation to his own conclusions. initially i thought this discrepancy between curly's treatment of swansea and jimmy was odd, but i think it acts to emphasise that men considering others their friends Before their colleagues or employees will excuse or cover for very poor behaviour out of a sense of loyalty. this is probably also exacerbated by jimmy's status as co-pilot, essentially elevating him and curly to a status above the other crewmates and more equal to each other.

while curly does seem to be in somewhat of a panic in his conversation with jimmy, this really doesn't justify his outright agreement that a tragic accident leaving their reputations intact would be preferable to facing the music upon their return. another possible explanation for this behaviour is that with the foam situation, if a cryo pod Was damaged it would unambiguously be swansea's fault and a morally simple issue to handle as captain. however, anya's assault (and the pregnancy as undeniable proof) reflects badly on curly personally for both judging jimmy's character as safe to bring on board and failing to safeguard his crew and allowing an incident like this to happen. it provides an interesting look into how an otherwise well-regarded and kind person's behaviour will completely change as long as there are personal stakes for them. i see some posts talking about how curly and jimmy are opposites, and while i agree they are absolutely foils of each other, i do believe they share this character trait of ultimately being concerned for themselves first when the chips are down.

curly absolutely acted as jimmy's enabler throughout his time on the ship, not by actively enabling his abusive behaviour but rather through passively allowing it while fully aware he was the only crew member in a position to discipline him. curly's pride in his judgement of jimmy and sense of self-concern at the most critical moment overriding his responsibility to look after the crew were his two big mistakes that allowed jimmy to crash the ship. by no means was curly an irredeemable villain, but as captain, the person who brought jimmy onboard And jimmy's friend, he absolutely shares the responsibility for everyone's deaths and uncomfortably parallels "friends of rapists" in real life who excuse their friends' assaults but come across as nice guys otherwise. this ties into one of the game's larger themes of abuse and the ways in which it can be perpetuated and fester in non-ideal circumstances, which goes beyond the scope of this post.

[artofalyksandr]

Redraw-tober week 3: fan art

Original: September 4, 2021

[moongothic]

So I'm confused about something. There was a cover story about Ms Goldenweek and other Baroque works agents breaking Crocodile out of prison but he just. Told them no? And stayed there with Mr 1 and Mr 2? I don't get why he wanted to go to Impel Down just to break out when he had the chance

I can't tell you 100% why Crocodile chose to stay in prison and go to Impel Down, but my best guess really is that he was just...

Taking the L with grace

More specifically. Crocodile had lost everything. I think deep inside he might've been literally too depressed to want to go free again.

Like he does literally say that. He gave up.

He had been building his reputation as "the Hero of Alabasta" for at least 10 years at this point. He had built not just a criminal organization that he had been running for four years, but also he had been running legal business stuff (like his casino) for probably longer than that. A decade's worth of work and effort to take over a country, and most importantly, get away with it. The reason he had orchestrated that whole rebellion was so that the rebels and the royal family could "take each other out", leaving the country wide open for a World Government Official such as himself to take up. The reason Baroque Works was doing this all in secret was so that the WG never found out, otherwise they wouldn't have let him have Alabasta.

But indeed, his plans were foiled by a kid in flipflops in less than 24 hours, just at the final moment before Crocodile would win. He lost everything. And the World Government found out about what he had been planning.

So even if he escaped from that prison with his former agents, what was he going to do?

He wouldn't be able to take over Alabasta anymore because he did not have manpower (as he had lost all his goons), and having lost his financial empire he wouldn't be able to build a new army any time soon. And even if he did, now that they knew what he had done the people of Alabasta would not accept him as their new king, even if he personally assasinated Cobra and the entire family. Not to mention, the WG finding out about his plans meant that they had every fucking reason to try and stop Crocodile if he did as much as set foot on that island again. By which I mean, they could launch a Buster Call on his ass. Send all the fucking Admirals after him. And so, even if Crocodile still believed Pluton was somewhere in Alabasta and that he just had to comb through the entire desert to find it... Between the Alabastan people and the WG in the way, finding Pluton would not be easy. Especially when Robin wouldn't even be there to just point him directly to it. It could take years, if not decades, while fighting off the WG by himself. And that's while assuming Pluton was somewhere in Alabasta. Like WE the readers now know Pluton is in Wano, but since Robin didn't tell him that. All Robin said was that the Poneglyph "didn't mention the weapon", and Cobra's reaction to the name merely proved the weapon's existence in Crocodile's mind. But surely, because Crocodile is a smart young man, he'd understand there was a risk that Pluton could exist, but just not be in Alabasta, right? Like that would be a possibility too, right?

I think this is why Crocodile has given up on Alabasta. He had one opportunity at seizing the country, and he failed. And without Robin, he could spend the rest of his life combing through a haystack for a needle when there's no needle, and he'd have no idea. I think is why he explicitly says in Impel Down he no longer has "interest in that country". He won't be able to pull off another stunt like this, ever.

And that leads us back to "why not escape earlier and avoid going to Impel Down to begin with". Thanks to his status as a Shichibukai, Crocodile hasn't been on the run from the WG for like two decades. And the past 10 or so years he has seemingly lived a life of luxury in his funny little casino. But now, having lost everything, he'd be back on the run. And because he's a world famous former "hero of the people", there would be nowhere he'd be able to go where people would not recognize him and send the marines after him. So he'd be on the run, for the rest of his life or until he'd get capture again. And mind you, the guy does not trust anyone, so he'd be on the run alone. Without any purpose or goal.

And you might be thinking, "Daz and the rest of BW was still there!", yeah, arguably true. But at this point Crocodile had no reason to trust any of them. Like personally, I think the reason Crocodile ended up taking a liking to Daz was BECAUSE he chose to follow him to Impel Down when he really did not have to. Like Daz showed an unusual level of loyalty to Crocodile, and I think Crocodile recognized that. That's why Daz is still with Croc, post-timeskip. But Miss Goldenweek and co? Crocodile had no reason to believe they wouldn't betray him if given a chance and a reason. And if the WG would come chasing his ass, they'd have plenty of reason to try and betray Croc (handing Crocodile over to spare their own lives). Not to mention, when they come release their former boss from jail, what did Miss Goldenweek say?

"Let's do Baroque Works again"

As I've already explained in detail, I think we might know why Crocodile wasn't interested in being Baroque Works' "boss" again.

So. Yeah. If in Crocodile's mind he'd be on the run from the Government for the first time in two decades all alone, in a situation where rebuilding what he had before would be bloody hard if not downright impossible, and he wouldn't be able to obtain what he had spent the last decade working for regardless...

Taking the L and just going to prison might've been the easier option

[crabussy]

man its absolutely crazy how far simple politeness gets you. if you are polite to strangers on the internet who hate your guts 9/10 times they will LISTEN to you and TAKE YOUR POINTS INTO CONSIDERATION????? I've have genuinely very pleasant conversations with people whose worldviews COMPLETELY contradict my own and have come away knowing that they're thinking about what I said and may have even changed the way they think about the issue we discussed. it feels like it shouldn't work but it works almost TOO well. if people feel like you're listening to and considering THEIR opinions and experiences, they'll listen to yours too. it goes both ways!!!!

[sonknuxadow]

they werent lying that knuckles series barely has knuckles in it

[lionblaze03-2]

sometimes I think about writing and singing music not because I’m an incredible singer but because no one has my fucking voice, especially in popular music, and its disheartening to be born a girl, told you’ll only get girl roles or try to voice match other girls, or ‘sing with the girls’ and then only be able to match male voices because you’re a fuckin tenor and not anything higher. I can’t think of any girl Broadway roles I can hit all the notes on. Most songs I love I have to pitch down for myself or use falsetto for singing along to. It bothers me a lot less now because I’m an adult who’s more secure in myself but as a teen in kids musical theatre it FUCKED with me, BAD style. And I know for a fact that even now when I hear people with a voice like mine singing I get excited and immediately invested in their work because they’re like ME, finally, for once. A brother in this world of being afab and having the voice of a recently pubescent boy forever. Maybe I should be that brother too.

[lhrry]

x

[dutybcrne]

Smth smth Kae may worry abt any biological child if his getting afflicted with the Curse, whether they ought to be informed abt their Heritage or held secret up until a certain age, or worst case, them being hurt by Celestia or sb, but you can BET he’d jump his partner’s bones in a heartbeat if they so much as said they thought abt kids

[buysomecheese]

Preventing myself from freaking tf out by remembering that even my hormones don’t want to be in my body even my body is trying to prove that it’s Wrong and it’s funny that everything agrees with me except my mom and the government

[seamistgale]

*digs my lost tags up from the ether* uhhh… what did i have in my drafts….?

Dangerous and equally Volatile bf Dan with his Positive Exposure boyfriend who has Experience with Anger Issues like you wouldn't imagine.

He lets Dick most of the moral heavy-lifting decisions instead of defaulting to violence now, bc the Sudden and Unexpected, but Not Unpleasant Codependance has a chokehold on his emotions and need for positive reinforcement. It's nice not to have to worry about things he doesn't get anymore, yk? Who cares if a couple of cities get leveled? Not him, that's who. Dick would though. He'd be so angry. Dan can deal with angry Nightwing-- he can't quite deal with a disappointed, anguished Dick that's angry at himself up because 'maybe i didnt help you when you needed me' Grayson. It's like Jazz crying for him. because of him. It hurts.

Babs thinks it isn't healthy, and has said so and tried to reason with Dick bc you have to see this can end up terribly, right? Given their history, this situation in particular sounds familiar (Dick butting his head where people don't ask him to.) and they've been here more times than she wants to keep count of.

Dick knows he has his bf on a bit of a 'hey tell me whenever u got The Urges babe' leash, but counters that it's helping?? He might be fumbling a bit in the dark on how to phrase things in a way that a) Appeal to Dan's sense of feelings-driven logic thing he has going on, b) Doesn't come up as manipulative because the intent isnt to, to restrict but help his bf redirect all those extreme impulses into good things. bc he believes in him. He's already used to being a good chunk of the hero community's morale booster, and he'd like to say his own moral compass is usually pretty accurate. With Dan he can roughhouse a little bit. just a little. Apparently playfighting is healthy, and by god does he still have some good old flare ups on that suppressed anger he keeps under wraps a goos 80% of the time.

Meanwhile, Dan lets his bf try to be sneaky, it's funny to let him think this whole 'I can fix him' rabbit hole. It would make him angry usually, but Dick's so sincere about caring for him its just… nice bc it reminds him of the family that got taken away from him amusing instead. yeah, that. He goes along with these silly exercises and gets some dates out of it. Oh hey, is that a hobby he actually enjoys? huh, he thought he wasn't capable of those anymore, but whatever. He's pretending, alright? He knows he's a monster, and you can't just un-fuck a ghost, or something. They're all violent in some way or another, that's how they all are. He mentions as much to Jazz with a shrug, because well, its true.

Jazz, making use of her hard-won professionalism, keeps her lips sealed this time. She prods a little, keeps count, and watches as the two prowl around each other like a couple of cats learning to live together. She thinks they're good for each other; sure, codependency isn't something anything rometely positive on any other health professional standard, but this is a halfa ghost made out of two people, and a vigilante that protects the (second, now?) most crime-infested city in order somehow.

Dan CAN change, he just doesn't want to think about it, won't admit it. It's good that he's letting someone else help with things he can't; with his issues around people leaving him, pushing people away via anger, and control issues surrounding himself, it's a miracle he hears Dick out let alone allow him to sway his decisions. He trusts Dick to help. From her perch, Dan's whipped; but she won't be the one to say it, because she knows he's stubborn enough to try to prove her wrong. Jazz isn't going to put ideas in Dan very talented hands for self-destruction and be a homewrecker.

And Dick…? Jazz doesn't know him as well, and assuming is a pitfall, but she also kinda has to judge him a bit, she's dating one of her baby brothers after all. He sounds like he also has issues dealing with control, but on the other way around; it's not malicious trying to gain control of your life, but whenever that extends to others, people tend to fall on the tin balancing line between trying to be helpful and being overbearing. Dan giving Dick agency over some of his decisions probably soothes that sort of compulsive urges too. They keep each other from being a worse version of themselves, at least-- and on the better end (which is the one she hopes for) they'll probably keep developing routines that keep uplifting each other.

Danny would love to stop being Jazz's soundboard about Dan's love life with (the first robin!!! whoa!!) this Totally Random cop that didn't get the ACAB memo. He's SO ready to make popcorn for the inevitable day Vlad finds out his sort-of son is dating Brucie Wayne's son though; those two get along like oil and water.

(funny prompt)

Dick: Were you serious about becoming the final boss?

Dan: Ha ha. Do you think I'd go along with a sweet deal planned by someone else?

Dick: I don't think you did...

(Not sure if I really understood this prompt, but I had fun lol)

Dan: I would kill for you, Dick. I would tear apart this world and gift it to you on a silver plate with a necklace made of stars and a ring of sunlight. Whatever you want, it’s yours 😊

Dick: … okay. So could I ask you to not take over the world?

Dan: No ☺️ Make a list of who you want to save, I’ll spare those people, but that’s it.

Dick:

Dick: *flattered, horny, and very, very afraid*

[scientia-rex]

When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”

He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)

I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.

What is your objective?

Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.

I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.

I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.

Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.

Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.

How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?

Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.

Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?

[pastadoughie]

many people were confused about some of my previous posts, so for the sake of clarity i am condensing everything! tumblr has extremely transphobic moderation practices, often flagging completely innocent posts as explicit, solely for containing trans women in them or mentioning transgenderism. while letting untagged porn in sfw tags (ive literally seen porn tagged as "sfw agere") and blatent hatespeech, especially twards trans people (just look at the "gender critical" tag) go completely unchecked recently the CEO of tumblr had a big public hissyfit about people (rightfully) calling him transmysogenistic, going into random trans womens dms to harrass them, and saying that predstrogen saying she "hopes he explodes with hammers and then explodes again and hammers fly everywhere" is a death threat and saying he is calling the FBI on her (repeatedly misgendering her and calling her "it") and many bloggers, apon speaking out about it or even making harmless jokes (one trans woman posted a picture of a car and a hammer with the caption "reblog to scare matt" and got nuked for it) and many are very very angry (rightfully) about this whole affair and tumblr in general. if you would like to look into it i reccomend scrolling the "predstrogen" tag as she is the case most people are talking about at the moment. So, what can we do? this is clearly an ongoing issue, and, dispite having lost a lawsuit about their transphobic moderation in the past (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement) its clearly not gonna stop with just user complaints, as staff members are perfectly content to just go scorched earth on users who even so much as lightly poke fun at them well if you want to help you should contact the human rights commision (i will give clear details further down) ! you dont have to be in the US, nor be an adult to file, and it only takes a few minutes. this is the best and most effective method to fix this, because it hits tumblr where it hurts. human rights acencies have a lot of legal and financial power and tumblr CAN NOT just ignore them, and given that this will be the seccond time this is happening, the commisions shouldnt be playing nice anymore eaither. its really important that AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE FILE, and with different examples! while maybe your case might not be enough to prop up a lawsuit on its own, we need to prove a general trend. so every little bit counts! to respond to another question abt this ive gotten, as for what exactly to report, you should a) write about an act of discrimination youve recieved on tumblr that was eaither administered by a staff member OR that staff refused to give adequate moderation action in for example : a terf posted some blatent hatespeech targeted twards you, and you reported them, and staff looked at the issue and refused to persecute it. example 2 : you were unfairly flagged, deleted, or otherwise punished by a staff member and you are queer ( AND the post they banned you for has some kind of tie to your gender, ex : a sfw transition progress photo ) OR b) if you have not personally recieved something like that, please look for other peoples stories (THEY SHOULDNT BE HARD TO FIND, within the last couple of hours trans people have been being banned LEFT AND RIGHT for trying to speak on this. i would reccomend checking some of the tags related to what happened with predstrogen) and you should describe that incident as best as possible (be sure to disclose that you are speaking for someone else, ideally you should tell the story of someone you know, if possible.) you can also mention any reports you have made twards people posting blatent hatespeech that, opon reveiwing tumblr refused to prosecute dispite it being very obviously against terms of service. just so nobody gets confused about the filing process, im laying it out in more plain languadge!!

first you should email the SF HRC (san francisco human rights commision), at hrc.info@sfgov.org and say something along these lines :

Hello, I am [full name] from [country or state] and I am filing a complaint against Tumblr, witch is owned by the parent company Automattic Inc. located at 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110.

Tumblr has had previous issues with the NYC DHR for their moderation being unfairly biased against trans women (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement).

Despite a legally binding agreement with the NYC DHR, staff members still regularly harrass users based on their gender or sexual orientations. For example : on [date of most recent infraction] [describe incident] (if you are describing an incident that did not happen to you specifically, say something like) This incident involves the user [username] who I am not affiliated with (or/) who I am filing on behalf of.

I can be reached for further inquiries about this incident at [email you want to talk over] or [phone number you want to talk over]. (if you would like to be anonymous) However, In the event of legal prosecution against Automattic I would refer to be kept anonymous, where possible, in court proceedings. alternatively, you can also call the SF HRC at : 415-252-2500, you can use the above text as a starting point for this as well, next you want to fill out the form for the NYC DHR (new york city department of human rights) here : https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/report-discrimination.page for company you wanna put : Automattic and/or Tumblr for address you wanna put : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 for phone number you wanna put : (646) 513-4321 and for category of discrimination you can put : Discriminatory harassment and basis of discrimination you can put : Gender; Gender identity you can then use a similar script on the written section of the form. when describing a specific incident, you should attach as many screenshots and links as possible! (for links, include both a live link and an archival link, so take a capture with the internet archive and have that as an alternative, incase a staff member gets petty.) this should only take a few minutes at most, and it helps alot! you can fill this out if you are a minor, and you dont have to be a us resident, please please take the time!!! and, just to clarify because there are many posts going around that are confused about this tumblr moved offices to san francisco recently, so their main HQ is at : 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110 they DO still have an office in new york city, and thats where their PREVIOUS HQ was, the address is : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003