#Long and complicated and vagueposting

[nihilnovisubsole]

something i've been thinking about as GDC comes around again: it's amazing to sit in the same room with Real Industry People and hear the truth of why certain story decisions happened the way they did. studio games are odd group projects that take a really long time to make, and there are many irons in the fire and many interests at play. sometimes the stars align and a team gets a laser vision, creative freedom, and the budget they need, and they ship the thing they meant to ship.

but not always. if a character you love got killed off, it's entirely possible that their original writer left or they couldn't bring the voice actor back. or leadership wanted to close down old story arcs and tie up loose ends, or someone felt new characters would bring in a new audience. if a series seemed to drop a plot thread in a sequel, it's possible that the narrative team wanted to include it and it got cut for scope. or shareholders wanted to appeal to a different part of the playerbase. or the team had internal creative conflict, or any number of reasons as simple as "it got lost in the shuffle because we did so many rewrites". [important disclosure: i'm not vagueposting about specific games here. i'm just rattling possibilities off. resemblance, unintentional, etc.]

and of course that's not a phenomenon unique to video games. tv shows make snap decisions when they get canceled before the planned end of the story or a cast member wants to leave. movies' plots can change when a new director comes on board, or they bring in a script doctor, or an actor's problems interfere with the shoot. even louisa may alcott changed little women's ending over concerns that if jo remained unmarried, the book wouldn't sell. i'm not sure whether it was her publisher or she worried about it herself, but the point is, something got altered, and it can happen anywhere.

as a fan, i found these developers' stories both comforting and vindicating. for a long time, i've felt like someone riding two horses at once: the fanfic-and-OC girl playing on other writers' playgrounds, and now also the staff writer who sees how the sausage gets made. i've been affected - probably overmuch - by a character's sad end, only to learn that some third party or outside motive influenced it. i've met writers who also didn't like where a plot was going, but didn't have enough seniority on the team to protest it. i've heard stories along the lines of, "we were trying to make lemonade, man," and what shocked me more than the revelation is the peace i gained from it. it's a miracle the games shipped at all. the things that got made, got made. between professionals, it's neither heretical nor some wild flight of irrationality to ask, "what if things had gone a different way?"

and, i mean, it would be both cynical and incorrect to wave it all off and say that no storytelling motives are ever wholesome. some characters die because it's the logical conclusion to their arc. some universes with complicated worldbuilding benefit from narrowing their focus and shaving off a few subplots. i'm just saying many things are possible. when you only sit on the fan side, it's easy to feel like Canon™ looms above you, inviolable, when you're really in conversation with it. there's a lot of power in saying "i respect the team's accomplishments, but i would've made different choices." you'd be surprised how often the team agrees with you.

[syncopein3d]

CW: discussion of a real life death / loss of a parent

Hey, whump community! I know I haven't been around as much lately, and I'm sorry to the person who tagged me in a game recently and I didn't reply. I'm pretty new around here compared to many of you, but I have a few followers now, so I thought I'd do a small update. This is about some difficult personal stuff, so you don't have to read this, I just thought I should maybe explain because I hate it when people vaguepost about how they're doing poorly and I don't want to be that person. Just know that I appreciate you all and whump has helped get me through a bad time.

I've mentioned at least once that we lost my Dad in July '24. He collapsed at home on the bedroom floor. I did compressions until the EMTs came and took over, and he died at the hospital. All our lives revolved around his medical and personal care for years before that. Me and Mom and my sibs are still trying to build a new life for ourselves. I'm mostly over the nightmares from that specific night, the guilt that I wasn't better at cpr, and the worst emotional fallout, but none of us will be "normal" for a long time. I am not young, but you're never really ready for something like this. Sometimes even people whose parents are awful still aren't. Dad, while our relationship was complicated (I've never been out to him about being agender, I think he guessed I was ace), was part of my life consistently for pretty much all of it to date.

I will not share the details, but things were pretty awful in the hours before it became clear he wasn't going to wake up and we had his ventilator removed. All of us were in the room with him right up to the end.

After a bunch of connected bits I wrote proved ineligible for a big event and I'd written over 30k words, I really wanted to turn them into a novel about this modern supernatural clinic for vampires, witches and hunters (set in the Trifold Balance universe my Jack Ford one shot is in and also the now very long Left Alone). Obviously, I haven't finished it. I just couldn't put myself into a medical environment for a while, even a very fictionalized modern fantasy one. I've been writing drabbles and short pieces off and on, and interacting sporadically with other people's work.

My bigger regency-era fantasy wip, closer to 200k words now, also was untouched for months apart from basic edits, because I just didn't have the mental energy to write. Yesterday I wrote another 1200 words on it for the first time in ages. I finally have some hope for being able to finish this thing and maybe, just maybe, eventually the other one, too.

I have all of you to thank for that, because all of your prompts and bits and stories helped keep bringing me back to what I love about writing. I'm still 17 lbs heavier than before the funeral (down from 20), I have psoriatic plaques on my face when I never have before, and I still sleep slightly worse than before it happened. If I hear anything like a thud in the house I still run there in a panic. But things are slowly improving for me as they do for all of us. And this place is where I can go away from the part of myself that isn't better yet.

I'll go back to just the fun parts after this, I promise, but thank you. We hardly know each other, but I appreciate you and your writing and reading and comments so, so much. None of us is normal here, but I've always felt at home.

[widevibratobitch]

Hi! It's me, the rant anon again. I wanted to ask about two things:

1. What was the drama with opera bracket? I've only heard legends but nothing certain.

2. Who is your favourite living opera singer? And what do you think of Diana Damrau, Rolando Villazon and Dimitri Chrostovsky?

Sorry if I'm bothering you with questions. Love, S

hiiiiii anon dear <3

1. WELL. long story short: basically it was just an innocent poll contest that got a little heated and split operablr in two. some people "took it too seriously", some not seriously enough perhaps, which resulted in a wild vagueposting storm from both sides, some blocks, some frankly hilarious memes, and finally ended with a beautiful callout post (happy anniversary btw, it was exactly one year ago <3) and the most mediocre opera of all time ultimately winning.

2. now that is a complicated question since there are opera singers nowadays whom i have a lot of very indulgent fondness for even though i personally think they don't sing that well at all (some of them genuinely sing Very Badly lol). there are also some that actually sing quite well but i just cannot fucking stand them alas.

from the ones who are alive and still active, I'd say Saioa Hernandez is worth checking out, god knows she has her issues, she's been becoming more and more wobbly these last few years and just lacks the idk. grace? in her singing but damn is she loud + i don't know of any other soprano (OR mezzo for that matter) who uses her chest voice this freely and audaciously in the very old school fashion that's been steadily disappearing since about mid 20th century to the point where it's near nonexistent nowadays (and I'm a bit of a chest voice fanatic fyi). to me she's akin to Alessandro Moreschi aka the last and only castrato we actually have a (wax cylinder actually, ha!) recording of - basically, you can tell the technique and execution is not quite it, but with their singing we at least get the idea of what it Could have sounded like.

Damrau - absolute fucking wreck of a singer, im sorry but she's a disaster. i get physically tired just listening to her. totally inaudible live too. i do enjoy her totally over the top acting sometimes tho lol

Villazon is I'd say somewhat self explanatory. He completely ruined whatever voice he had and is now singing as a baritone if i recall correctly? Good technique doesn't do that to a singer. Don't hate him tho, he seems like a very sillygoofy dude and i remember him being somewhat entertaining.

Hvorostovsky, ah yes, certified operablr sexyman. He started out really, really good and kept like that for a while, went downhill from there but I do acknowledge his severe health problems. I get where people obsessed with him are coming from and I have a lot of respect for him. he just never quite did it for me, we never really vibed, sorry. Definitely a solid artist tho.

so. definitely not bothering me! quite the opposite actually! i love talking into the void about things im passionate about and sorry if i sound like a pretentious big-headed cunt, that's probably because i am just that, peace and love <3 totally seriously tho, thank you for asking!

[paragonrobits]

One of the things I've been working on behind the scenes and I've vagueposted about it a lot here but I've never actually written anything down because its a work-in-progress and I feel weird about committing to any definitive statements, is a pair of on-going projects; the Exalted Project (an story and exploration of characters in the Exalted setting, using a system to emulate natural character growth by expending experience point and determining story events based on what they purchased) and the OC Project, creating various original settings and a group of characters to focus on, and they're linked because most of them are derived from the Exalted Project overall

and one of the trickiest bits is adapting stuff from Exalted that's integral to a character concept, but making it original or not strictly bound to the particulars of Exalted's cosmology.

Let's take one of my favorites from the Exalted Project; the Infernal Exalted whose working name is Mazrogul (working title: the Brass Beast). She is from the Slayer caste, meaning she is empowered to excel at combat and her primary patron among the titans of the setting is Malfeas, whose iconography, visual aesthetics and powers are just so goddamn COOL that he is 90 percent of the reason I like Infernals almost as much as I love the robotic pseudo-Transformers/Reploids of the Alchemical Exalted.

There are a few interpretations to be made just from this description. Just going on what Malfeas' powers do narratively for Infernal characters, you can infer that in translating her into a purely original character not tied to Exalted, she probably has powers based around tanking attacks (Malfeas grants high defense powers), getting stronger the more she gets hurt (more Malfeas tricks) and overwhelming power by doing Hulk Smash type stuff (Malfeas' basic power grants superhuman power to any action as long as you do it with overkill and overwhelming power), but some stuff gets complicated.

An example.

One of Malfeas' most iconic powers is called Green Sun Nimus Flare, a basic and reliable attack that does more damage, causing wounds to erupt in green fire. Upgrades make it stronger; doing more damage, attacking entities normally immune to physical attacks, manifesting it as an energy weapon, making it a ranged attack that can act freely... its all very cool and a huge part of this character's imagery, and not too hard to disassociate from Exalted. Just make it all Asura's Wrath projectile punches but green.

But this same skill tree is also closely associated to themes of radiation; this is very literal.

Malfeas' charm tree, starting with that particular power, thematically draws on the most horrific aspects of nuclear radiation and its effects on the human body. Killing with these powers produces a fungal cloud that burns people's shadows onto the floor and gives people nightmares for thousands of years, for nothing less suits the limitless hatred of Malfeas, he who was once King of All Kings before he was cast down into the obscenity of physical form (or so his lore goes).

It gets horrifying; these attacks often inflict a magical form of what is very clearly late stage radiation sickness. No detail is spared, and it is gruesome, horrific and unspeakably painful.

So, stripping all the context from it and making it just something she does, what does it say about this character that she has such powers, whether or not she has conscious control over them?

The thing about it is that in Exalted, her patrons are Malfeas (raging, cruel and destructive beyond measure) and Kimbery (a vast acid sea, of impossible expectations and overwhelming hate at any betrayal or failing to live up to her expectations, motherhood played as grotesquely as possible, and sea imagery in all its Lovecraftian horror). Both are cruel, sadistic, violent (and fundamentally tragic, broken entities), and they suggest a bloodthirsty berserker who craves violence and cruelty, either breaking people into pieces for mild disrespect or murderously torturing allies for percieved betrayal.

She is, instead, the heart and soul of the team; a steadfast guardian and protector, a mild-mannered and easy going person who'd rather not splatter people all over the world. World's bad enough as it is, she says, no need to hurt people worse unless you don't got a choice. While her powers are horrific in nature, they don't compel her to do those things, and while her character is clearly modeled after the likes of the Hulk at his most fearsome, she is ALSO modeled after Hulk at his kindest and most tormented, as well as Steven Universe and Hellboy. Part of her core concept is 'what if Steven Universe was exactly the same except all his powers were unspeakabiy horrifying and he had to work around those limitations?'

So, in making her specific to an OC-verse, the question is, do I lean into those themes? Do I try to nullify their most gruesome themes, or lean into them on purpose to raise questions about herself, or give her a challenge; she COULD win fights easily by leaning into it, but what about the cost to herself?

Does she look into a mirror and ask herself what it says about her if she's capable of such things, or do I skirt away from it? Would it work better if I leaned into this as hard as possible, playing monstrosity as a theme both in terms of positive (beat the living SHIT out of tyrants everywhere) and negative (she doesn't wnat to think about what it says about her that this is the shape the power of her soul takes; revealing the monster inside for all to see as her misery, hatred and rampaging hatred blossoms).

[stilettobitearch]

NAME?: fable! PRONOUNS?: he/him MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: cece is my only tumblr one rn, but ellie lives in my head 24/7 and i might be bringing her to a blog soon… self-control? i don't know him RP PET PEEVES?: oh, i have a few of these... the biggest one has to be vagueposting, or doing that thing on the dash where you're like oh i'm just going to log off for the night, no-one wants me here anyway, i haven't come here to be guilt-tripped into writing with you, and if i follow you, i do want to write with you! but vagueposting in general. bleh. EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: oh no (on tumblr, 10 years, off tumblr, 15+ ish? i can't remember when i started but it was a goodly while ago)FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?: yes. (if there's angst, i do like to do some fluff to balance it out for my achey breaky heart, but its not a requirement) PLOTS OR MEMES?: memes for starting interactions, but there's nothing like a little bit of plotting, too. anything that lets me make pinterest boards and spotify playlists,,,, LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: this fluctuates depending on the thread and the position the stars are in, but i am a little bit of a waffler in my writing, i end up writing longer than i mean to even when i try to keep it short! sometimes though, you want those quick little rapid-fire threads TIME TO WRITE?: when i'm not in pain and can think straight, so who knows. this being said, of an evening or late into the night is wonderful ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: this one is complicated, bc like, no. no i'm not, except for the ways that cece is exactly like me when i was 20. obviously the bloodlust wasn't really my scene, but there is an amount of secret's self-doubt, jealousy, and general Charming To Hide The Pain that definitely came from before the therapy started working better for me.

tagged by: i shamelessly stole this from @lunarrepel tagging: @hxllowedblood @sporefound uhm idk who has or hasn't done this, so if you see this and want to, you!! tag me so i can read!!

[ratabethchase]

i looooooove to comment on fics i will comment paragraphs and paragraphs. one time i wrote a comment that was 1000 words long. but oh my fucking god!!!! authors (really just 1 author i have seen that i suppose i am vagueposting about lol) need 2 stop guilt tripping readers!!!

this is not about when authors are like. please comment. this is specifically like, putting in your notes at the end of your fic "i guess you guys hated this one 🙄 you are all just draining me of my energy and not refuelling my tank by engaging"

like okay!! comments are vital and i definitely think readers do not comment enough. you also sound like my mother !! you can have a good point and still be really fucking annoying about it.

and i don't want it to get misconstrued, (although this IS tumblr and of course we piss on the poor) i think authors asking for comments is totally fine, and sometimes needed for people to actually comment. its just this one author is continually guilt tripping readers into commenting, and then not even replying to any of the comments they do get! and its not like theyre getting zero comments, they are getting like average 15-20ish comments from what i have seen.

i know this may be a little selfish to say/admit, but part of the reason i love writing really long comments is because i love to see the authors reaction to my comment. but if an author is going to make people feel like shit for not leaving really long comments, and not even acknowledge any of the comments, why should i bother?

i don't know if this is super entitled of me to say, but i feel like if ive written a paragraph, i'd like to know its at least been seen! i don't even need a thank you or anything, just a reply with a heart or something idk.

only one or two comments if any at all get replied to by the author, and usually they are because they have asked a question or said something that the author feels the need to correct. i feel like i would be a lot more lenient and less annoyed at the guilt tripping if they simply REPLIED to comments! even just a random emoji!!

idk . am i being an asshole here? i am very open to feedback i genuinely dont know if i am sounding like a huge sack of shit and need 2 rethink my thoughts.

tldr; an author is guilt tripping readers into comments and it makes me NOT want to comment, especially because i often write long paragraphs and don't get acknowledged for it.

[bbg100]

Vaguepost that I refuse to reblog the content for

'you have a finite but nonzero amount of disposable income' I literally do not. My disposable income is zero. The only reason I don't ebeg is a desperate desire for independence. Using up my (actually finite but nonzero) amount of free time to read a very long post that just tries to make me feel stupid or illogical for not donating to Gaza is an overstep that has me Pissed Off. I know the logic would be to go 'oh, I'm not the target audience' and move on, but because of the purposefully obscured nature I already sunk my time into it. Not to mention the fact that the hypothetical is designed to over complicate the situation instead of simplify. Lecture instead of connect.

The implied insistence that the (finite but nonzero) amount of donations to Gaza, would increase if only people could mentally comprehend the benefits of donating, comes from a place of ignorance at best. I would prefer to attribute a different reason, but I cannot think of any. People have lots of reasons to not donate, such as feeling insecure in their own financial situation (regardless of reality), lack of trust that the money will be used correctly, interest in other values (ie donating to abortion causes over donating to humanitarian), cluelessness on where to donate, and many more.

You didn't even direct people where to donate.

Normal translation: that post is acting like people are stupid, it's not very nice. I'm mad it's acting that way, and I don't think it's useful. It doesn't try to get to know people, it just assumes everyone's stupid. That's fucked up.

[ajora]

Fic stuff

Cut because maybe 3 people care.

I've been writing a lot more than I have in a while. Chapter 10 is done and I'm about 3000 words into Chapter 11. If momentum keeps going, I'm hoping I'll be done with the game novelization part done by the end of the year and can move on to exploring the fallout of smashing worlds together that had been separate for 1000 years + complications of maintaining a long-term taboo relationship in one place where there's not a lot of privacy.

I'm thinking of spacing out chapter releases instead of dumping them all at once.

Marginally related and kinda selfish thought: I really wish other people would write/draw F/L without me pushing them to. It would just be nice not to be the only one on this boat for longer than a day or so. I miss being able to flail happily about my ship and not get frowned at and vagueposted about by fandom thought police who can't just scroll past and/or block.

[no-psi-nan]

Me: I only have a little bit of time to work on fic rn. Maybe I'll just work on the next platonic chapter!

Aiura: so it's time for .*✨ quantum physics✨*.

Me: ...girl help...

[tswift]

agree !! feeling like this space is super charged and i dont agree w all of the things being said, but know that if i express any of that all i'm going to get is vagueposts about how i am too far up taylors ass. when thats nothing ti do w it, i just believe that what's going on is not as important as everyone is making it out to be. arrrghhhhh

Oh I am sure people are vague posting me already hjgdsgd but I do believe that it is important. But it's also super complicated. How long she's known him, the fact that he's so enmeshed in her closest friends' lives, friends that she deeply respects. Like, how much does she know? How much of what we're even being told is true? What kind of conversations are being had? Are any conversations being had? There's just no way to know unless Taylor herself makes a statement.

Do you do an internet deep dive before you become friends with someone? Can people change? Can they be redeemed? Is he even sorry? Is all of this just an incredibly misguided and offensive bit to spark conversation like certain people close to him claim? Is there even a genuine bone in his body???

Why are men like this so easily protected??? Just A LOT to discuss it is not as simple as "Taylor is evil now and doesn't care" or "Taylor owes us nothing, shut up!"

[izamationbroker]

Gee, I wonder who they're talking about! ☆

Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty about this post, I want to make clear of one very important thing:

I don't care whether they headcanon Izaya to have ASPD or not.

In fact, this post isn't really going to be much about Izaya at all. Sorry if you were hoping for a big debate, but per my disclaimer about fandom discourse, I really don't care when people disagree with me. Everyone has their own headcanons, and they're free to enjoy those headcanons however they want.

However,

What rubs me the wrong way about this post is the vaguepost slander and blatant ableism they cite as their evidence.

The language they use to describe people who headcanon Izaya as having ASPD is consistently and intentionally derogatory in an attempt to emphasize inexperience and discredit. That's crossing the line for me from "let it be" to "stepping on my lawn". I know they didn't directly mention me, but it the statement above it's hard to think of anyone else they could have possibly been referring to. That's a deliberate attempt to put me down and start beef from my perspective.

I addressed this at the very beginning of my original essay on Izaya, making clear that I was not a psych professional and that I relied a lot on basic research and the experiences of loved ones who had ASPD. I admitted that I hadn't read all of the novels. I wrote that essay in response to an ask from a friend who wanted me to go in detail about it. Naturally, differential diagnosis is a thing, and on top of that, this is a fictional character we're talking about. It's only fair that different people will interpret the text in different ways.

I was in no way trying to make the case that it was canon, because the only way one could argue it's canon is if Narita said so himself. I won't step on other people's toes about their headcanons if I don't agree with them. Just because I don't personally headcanon Izaya as autistic doesn't mean I'm going to make a long-ass post "debunking" the very possibility and vague the guy who did a writeup on how Izaya fits the criteria (No, in fact I was actually inspired by that post for the format of my own on ASPD).

This person, on the other hand, felt such a visceral disgust to the very notion that this fictional character could possibly have ASPD, that they felt the need to make a post to "debunk" it, like some kind of gross rumor. What does that say about how that person views ASPD and the real people who have it?

That brings me to my second issue with this post: The blatant ableism.

This post makes two main points about why Izaya couldn't have ASPD, and both of those points reek of ablism. "Lack of remorse" is a complex issue in the realm of ASPD, and I see it all the time with my brother and partner, who both have ASPD. From what I understand from the post, the poster seems to believe that people with ASPD are simply incapable of feeling remorse. That is really not the case. In fact, the quoted diagnostic criterion in the DSM V they are referencing says this:

"7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another"

It's more than just a "lack of remorse," the DSM expands further to describe that this criterion is met when some either displays indifference or otherwise rationalizes their actions. Furthermore, there is a marked difference between regret, guilt, and remorse. Like I said, it's a complicated matter.

I know my partner has talked about it already on their own blog, but I wanted to restate it here: People with ASPD are capable of feeling remorse is select situations with select people. For example, in my essay about Izaya, I mentioned that he regrets how Mairu and Kururi turned out because he raised them. They're his family, and very close to him. It makes sense that they would be important to him and exist as an exception to his tendency to rationalize everything he does.

My brother and partner regret things all the time, but usually that's more because of outside consequences rather than internal belief that what they did was wrong or that they hurt someone. Sometimes they feel guilt, but it's quickly rationalized away before they could ever take action on it. In certain circumstances, they have felt true remorse, and because they almost never deal with it, it's probably one of the most painful things they've ever experienced. To make the blanket statement that people with ASPD simply do not experience any form of this complex emotion is extremely dehumanizing and ableist, disregarding the possibility that people are complex and should not be limited a stereotype.

The second point this poster made was that Izaya's disregard for social norms could be explained away by his IQ, and to that I say

What year are you living in?

IQ is a funky little quiz that tests your logical and spatial reasoning rooted in eugenics as an excuse to dehumanize people who don't score high enough. There is nothing social about it, and even if there was, science in this day and age have discarded its relevancy. It's been reduced to a quirky number that puzzle game apps use in their mobile ads to entice you to download them. "People with an extremely low IQ are not capable of understanding the social norms"? Just say they're r*tarded and call it a day. Seriously. Autistic people everywhere (myself included) would be disgusted at this display.

TLDR: Don't gossip and spread ableist propaganda. Oh, and

Stay off my lawn.

[sour-n-salty-citrus]

I'm screaming,,please talk more about aftoncest!! When you mentioned fnaf and shipping, I thought you were talking about Gregory and glamrock freddy

AHAH, i have seen gregory and glamrock freddy around (which looks very 👀👀👀 might i add), but I haven't gotten onto security breach quite yet.

Yes, it's true, the ship i was vagueposting about was aftoncest! I figured it was time i got back into fnaf (the last time i was "into" the series was... oof, 2016 probably?) so i looked up a lore guide. I knew afton was the child killer at this point due to osmosis and occasionally hearing something, but I wasn't aware he had kids! (I remembered the crying child from fnaf 4- and very very vaguely knew about the girl from sister location). I saw Michael's sprite and was like "oh hey, he seems like the oldest- Michael, huh, wonder how he fits i-" and then it went "the Mike Schmidt who's the protagonist of fnaf1" and I was like he's THAT MIKE????

I was curious to see if he had any voice lines so i looked it up, found a video on the SL cutscene(?), played it, and immediately heard,

"father."

...

And yup, that did it for me, I was 100% sold. I already figured Michael and William probably had a twisted relationship (i mean it's the fucking purple guy and his son akdhajdhaj *wheeze* how could they not) but then I read more of the lore and wow. WOOOW. These two uh- they have... well they have a relationship-

It's really interesting to me! I mean, from what I remember of michael in fnaf 4, the kid was kind of a bully (RIP crying child lmao)- even if I'm sure he didn't actually mean to ever hurt Evan. It makes me wonder, what kind of a parent Afton was to his children- was he so absent that this behaviour went unchecked for so long? Did Michael just think that it was okay- that teasing and bullying was a natural part of showing affection (just think about those implications for a second oh no-). Maybe Michael took the brunt of all his father's bs, and that's why he lashed out at Evan, in the form of pranks and teasing (even if it crossed the line)- maybe on some level he hated how free Evan got to be, he still got to be a crying child, blissfully ignorant, whereas Michael was more grown up, was less illusioned to the reality of what went on inside their house- not to project or anything, but as the eldest lemme tell ya, we absolutely get the brunt of any issues with our parents. Maybe Michael wants his father's love and attention, but also sees the truth behind who is father is (even without the child murdering ajdgsjdhsjdhsj)- which makes their relationship delightfully complicated.

Michael becoming an adult makes it even more interesting. Michael still clearly respected William enough to do what he said without question seeing as, well, not just anyone will do you a favour and go put your dead daughter/their sister "back together", endangering and dying themself in the process. It makes me wonder about how close they must have grown. How the absense of Michael's mother, Elizabeth and Evan must have affected their relationship, how it might have twisted from already unhealthy to codependent. Michael suddenly overlooking all his father's flaws and mistreatment out of guilt and desperation to keep him around. William growing obsessively attached to the only person he has left. I feel like William is attached to Michael, too- he's the only person he trusts, and, well, when someone is willing to do almost anything for you, you're going to feel fondness for them (as twisted as it may be). I like to think of it as a really fucked up lowkey servent and master dynamic- Michael is William's favourite little tool, whom he can use and abuse but is strong enough not to break under it (until he does- but its fine, because he can always pick up the pieces.)

(He's good at that. Breaking things and putting them back together.)

Just hnghfnfhfnfhdhd these two! Ah! They're basically the protagonist and antagonist of the series, and you know i love me some hero/villain ships sometimes. Its so delicious, you get to add a whole extra topping of manipulation and inseparability and obsession and all kinds of spice to the mix with this ship! The familial ties making it so that they'll always be connected to one another, the attachment, the history! *mwah*, brilliant, 10/10.

[ahappydnp]

A trend i’ve noticed lately is some of the phandom has gotten mean. There’s Dan (no explanation needed) and with Phil when he was silent for a while people were saying he abandoned us and didn’t care but it turned out he was dealing with health issues. He’s unlisting LAP videos and people are saying he’s trying to get rid of the old phandom when it’s probably more complicated. People are also upset about the paywall for members posts when we always share them right away and no one misses out but it seems like dnp can never do anything right to some people. How do you deal with all the negativity?

Honestly, I deal with it by heavily curating my fandom experience. I fully support blocking/muting as much as you want and not engaging in things that upset you or you know are incorrect. I don't respond to anons who want to talk about discourse (I'm answering yours since you've asked how to deal with it).

I just stay out of it and keep my experience here a positive one most of the time. And honestly, I find that ignoring those kinds of ridiculous takes is the best thing to do because when you reblog to argue or vaguepost about them...you're still spreading around their message. So my best advice (and how I've been able to be here for so long while still very much enjoying the phandom space) is to keep what makes you happy and yeet the bullshit. Don't let it take up space in your brain! This is your happy place and you're allowed to curate it

[leannan-sithe]

An Incomplete List of Pagan Red-Flags

Saying "[Deity] is/does [Thing]" and arguing that anyone else who says otherwise is wrong. This can include simple preferences like food or drink (re: Spongecake and Loki) but can extend into complicated subjects like race/ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. Deities are different for everyone. A deity who shows up as black for me might be hispanic-seeming for someone else. That doesn't mean one is real and one is fake. They're just different faces.

Vagueposts about how people are attacking them for their beliefs. Although this can be real and legit, I've found that most mature / grounded folks don't publicize that info. This doesn't include comments like, "yeah I got in trouble with Tumblr a while back for saying XYZ thing". It's more aligned with multi-paragraph venting about being attacked to the point of sounding like they're a martyr for suffering under the slings and arrows of grievous misfortune. Bonus points of Concern if they also cite their trauma / mental health issue within the vaguepost as a reason they can't possibly be wrong, weaponizing it.

Is dismissive of research / academia unless it directly supports their argument. You see this frequently in larger polytheist subsets, like Norse or Hellenic. This person will push back against being 'corrected' about something with sources and complain about academia taking over religion, but then when it comes time for them to argue, they cite sources and expect everyone to take it as serious.

Passes on messages from a Deity to another person without consent. Messages passed from deities between close, trusted friends can be a beneficial part of being pagan, but it can also lead to a slippery slope of gross nonsense when applied to a larger community. Anyone who gives a message from a deity without asking first doesn't have your best interest at heart. The same goes for doing divination on someone without permission. They're not looking to be helpful; they're looking to be nosy and Right and get attention for it.

Encouraging dogpiling during arguments. Although sometimes this happens with tumblr about the most random of topics, a pagan actively encouraging it is not a good thing. If they've been on tumblr for any amount of time, they know that a tumblr dogpile can result in hate anons, su*cide baiting, and other forms of harassment. Encouraging people to dogpile means that they want their opponent to suffer, which is just not a good trait.

"[Deity] is responsible for [world event]." Although weird as fuck to list here, there are some folks who will actively assign blame to a deity for world events, such as a god of medicine or disease being blamed for the pandemic. (Real example I've met in the wild.) Although like, obviously, deities might be involved in real world events, treating them as being solely responsible for horrible things isn't healthy for anyone involved. I'm in the camp that deities are limited in how they can interact with our world, so I don't personally believe this can happen. However, blaming a single deity for a world event in public on a forum known to catastrophize is just baiting tumblr to flip out.

Saying they don't like a deity for personal reasons then publicly listing those reasons, implying that anyone who likes that deity after reading that is bad. Deities present different to everyone, which means they can be nice to one person and mean to another. That doesn't make them 100% nice or 100% evil as a whole. They're neutral and widely variable. Everyone has a bad story about a deity if they've worked with them for long enough. Publicizing that info and actively talking shit about a deity is not a good thing. It implies that they're willing to push their interpretation of a deity onto everyone else and then judge people based on how they react to this one personal instance. (These convos can be held in private, safe spaces, but publicly declaring the deity as a Bad Person is not mature nor good, really.)

Suggests that deities are infallible / always benevolent / cannot be corrected / cannot be refused. This is just a sign of bad boundaries and therefore some kind of immaturity. Deities are people, and they should listen to a follower/spouse who wants to set boundaries. Often times this is a kind of (US Evangelical) Christian Hangover, so it's worth looking into for your own sake to root out these beliefs.

Has a long list of deities they're working with from a disparate and unconnected number of cultures. Although not a red flag, this is worth taking note of. It can be a sign that the pagan is only working at surface level with their deities and their cultures. Sometimes that's fine. Sometimes it means the pagan doesn't actually know much about the cultures or the deities themselves, and they're just picking and choosing or trying to 'catch them all'. There's a saying about roots spread thin among the surface of the soil makes trees easy to topple, but deep roots that take time to grow and make for a sturdy tree. Especially with the internet, it's entirely possible for someone to be 'deep-rooted' and have a bunch of connections to a ton of deities from a variety of cultures. It just takes a lot of research and effort, two things the internet at large is not known for doing.

[thankskenpenders]

Can you elaborate on what Flynn has said about behind the scenes legal stuff you mentioned earlier? I tried searching Google and Twitter and all I seem to get for results are people talking about Penders and Fulop.

Okay so I dug through the recent BumbleKasts to try and find Ian's exact quote and found it 17:19 into the big June 7th live Q&A. After saying that whether Breezie is a robot or not in the Archie comics will be answered in Lost Hedgehog Tales (his long-delayed series of posts revealing his scrapped Archie plans), he says:

"Now I know there are a lot of people who are rolling their eyes at this point going 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lost Hedgehog Tales. And ya got a bridge to sell me in Brooklyn, too, don'tcha Flynn?' I can't give you a concrete update because I don't have concrete timelines myself. BUT. The concerns I had were... I don't wanna say validated, but the reasons why I was delaying things I did have confirmed. And it means good things might happen.

"Don't set your hopes too high, I'm not talking about a revival of the series. That ship is never going to sail. But... I am validated in waiting. And gears are turning that I do not want to cause to slip. So it will happen, eventually. I promise. But I need to wait for some other stuff to happen that's beyond my control, and in the end I think everyone will be happy. Except for the wait. But I can't help that. So, thank you for your patience. Thank you for enduring all the vagueposting, so to speak. It is progressing, just at a glacial pace. And it's not really something I can control. So, it will happen. I promise. And there are factors that are real. I just can't talk about any of it right now. So, hang in there guys. Hang in there."

(Kyle: "People in the chat are wondering where that bridge is. They want that bridge.")

This could all mean many things, but the main thing it tells us is that there are almost definitely still legal things going on behind the scenes with the Archie comics for one reason or another. They could still be trying to settle things with certain parties, although we haven't heard news of any new lawsuits since Fulop lost. And Ian is of course talking primarily about his ability to post Lost Hedgehog Tales here, but it's obviously more than that. I'm sure whatever's going on, Ian posting or not posting his scrapped story ideas isn't the main concern to the other parties involved

One potential reading of all this is that they might be trying to work out a deal to put the Archie comics back up for sale digitally, or something like that. Ian did not say this, so don't take this as me saying Ian said that. Nothing is confirmed. But it's certainly one possible explanation for why the legal situation with the Archie comics is still unresolved. It could be something else entirely, though, as this situation is complicated and there are tons of factors we still don't know

[emmersreads]

not to vaguepost or anything but i keep seeing posts about how reading a certain number of books in a certain amount of time are crazy grindset posturing and like my friends you are badly underestimating how many books a person can get through 

like if you set aside 30 mins - 1 hour a day and choose books that are shorter and less complicated than idk lotr 30 books in 30 weeks or 50+ books a year is not an incomprehensible number 

reading the name of the wind over six months does make you smarter or more appreciative of literature. there are many short books of all sorts of genres that are complex, insightful, and deep. Annihilation by jeff vandermeer is 195 pages long, Animal Farm by george orwell is only 94. 

reading easy or formulaic books is entertaining and refreshing and no less valid as reading than only choosing titles deemed to have ~literary merit~ and significantly more valid as reading than not reading anything 

anyway if you are intimidated by book volume consider: - graphic novels like Heartstopper, or Fun Home - poetry like Split Tooth - novellas like Murderbot, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, or Binti

it just really grinds my gears that reading a lot of books is painted as some sort of cynical and malicious play for clout rather than simply enjoying reading and wanting to sample a lot of different books