#REPLIES ARE DUE SAME! DAY! AS DISCUSSION POSTS

[3am-cheerios]

take engl101 over the summer i said, it won't be so bad and then it's done i said

[pochx]

man it's kinda ugly out here......

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Great Expectations 1

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, power imbalance, age gap, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Professor Holmes' class is your most difficult, but he's about to make it even more challenging.

Characters: Sherlock Holmes (modern AU)

Note: It was a drabble then it weren't.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You're not certain. Not at first. But when are you ever confident in anything?

Yet you're assured by the dark curls and vibrant eyes, the slanted brows never devoid of judgment. More than anything, it's his posture that confirms his identity. Professor Holmes is staunch and indomitable even as he browses shelves of antique style pens; crystal, wood, and brass. He considers each as he would every word of a term paper. 

You're doubt turns to what to do next. Do you say hello? Or pretend you don't see him? Would he know either way? You're fairly convinced he can't pick you out of the lecture hall. 

So you do what you do best and fade into the scenery. You trail along the shelves and dip around the other side, putting your attention to the spools of thread, organized in a perfect spectrum of hues. As you mindlessly touch the thread, your mind wanders back around the row.

You would never expect to see the professor there, though honestly, you've never thought of him outside the classroom. You avoid that as much as you can, you stress enough over his unattainable standards. His is the only class which has you below an A. 

You contemplate the silver twine. You've been looking for the very thing and yet the price is much above your budget. All that for some shine? 

You move on, turning around to the balls of wool and needles arranged from thinnest to thickest. Your ears are pricked by the familiar timbre. The professor's voice carries as easily as in the lecture hall. You try not to listen but you can't help the instinctive decipher of each syllable. 

"Are these genuine silver?" He asks, presumably of a passing associate.  

"Um, I'm not sure, sir," the squeaky adolescent reply is met with an impatient sigh. "I work in the back." 

"Work in the back doing what? Sorting stock? Do you not know what you put on the shelves?" Professor Holmes' disapproval is unmistakable.  

His tone make you want to run. It is the same detest wrought into the feedback scribbled in the margins of your assignments. If it isn't perfect, it's not acceptable. 

You should go. You don't have the money to waste on hobbies you don't have time for. Nor do you relish an encounter with the very man responsible for your lack of free time. 

You make sure to walk toward the far end of the aisle and avoid any possible sighting. The very thing you meant to distract yourself chases you from your procrastination. Two days before your paper is due, and you've not even touched the readings due for that week's class discussion. 

📕

You’re barely awake as you claim a seat in the melancholic lecture hall. The coeds are silent, only yawning between slurping from paper cups, or slumping dangerously over the narrow armrests. There’s a dour commiseration in the air; a sort of resignation. 

Papers are handed in and yet the outcome is almost assured; Professor Holmes will surely find at least a dozen reasons to dock marks. Sometimes it seems even the font can draw his ire. Yet, there is more to be done. He will expect a lively discussion before that three-hour block is done and if he doesn’t get it, you will all sweat for it. 

You flutter through your notebook. Unlike your other courses, the paper is crinkled and the writing is erratic. Each week sees you with at least another twenty pages added to the reading list. You don’t understand how anyone can keep up with it all; the work alone is as much as all your other classes combined. 

You jump in your seat as his even-keeled voice rolls through the air. He hardly has to project as his baritone fills the large room. You look up and fumble for your pen. Professor Holmes doesn’t permit devices. The last person caught merely looking at their phone was dropped from the course. 

You chew the end of the pen as he begins his introduction, but not without a sharp remark about your midterm papers. It’s as if he’s already made up his mind that you’ve all failed. There’s no bell curve in this class, just an impossible mountain. 

“To make it simple,” his accent lilts off his tongue, “I’ve decided we will do things a bit differently this week. I will have you sort yourself into groups and each will discuss an assigned article. At the end, we will reconvene and you will nominate a member to present your conclusions. You may use our usual guiding questions for these purposes.” 

You nod and furrow your brow thoughtfully. The idea of splitting into groups is daunting on its own. It’s one thing to put your hand up amid the wide sea of your peers but it’s another to parse yourself down into a smaller group amid strangers. Despite weeks of sitting side-by-side, you don’t really know anyone. They all seemed to have made friends before that and made no effort to find any more. 

“Well, off you go,” Holmes flicks his fingers, “you’ve two minutes to arrange yourselves. I’m no kindergarten teacher, certainly you can figure it out.” 

There’s a low murmur then a lull before anyone moves. You hear the chatter that connects the smaller pairings to each other; aren’t you in my econ class? Oh, you were at the Delta party? You gather your notebook and stand, searching for an in. 

“Um,” you approach the nearest cluster of bodies, “room for one more?” 

It’s as if you’re invisible. You wince and clear your throat. Before you can try again, a deeper ahem comes from behind you. You crane to see over your shoulder. Professor Holmes stands at the end of the row, one brow arched as he crosses his arms. His old-fashioned vest strains as his chest bulges against the buttons. 

“Eh, she’s in need of a group. Have some manners.” 

You’re surprised by his intervention, but grateful. You try to smile but it’s probably more of a pathetic simper, “thank you, professor.” You nod and turn back to the other students. 

“Uh, sorry, yeah, can I tag along?” You ask. 

They shrug, none of them daring to ignore Professor Holmes. You sit at the edge of the group, heat speckling up your back in embarrassment. The others as good as ignore you as they go back to complaining about their papers. 

“I didn’t sleep,” a blond you think is named Ethan mutters, “fucker had me tearing out my hair.” 

“Yeah, I was supposed to go to a Barbie party but I need this class,” a pretty redhead rolls her eyes. 

There’s at least ten other students circled between three rows. You glance around at the others as they bow and chatter in kind. You shuffle your notebook in your lap and lean in, trying to seem involved. 

“Right then, you,” Holmes points to your group, “take Jones et al,” he moves his finger towards the next group, “Halloway,” he continues down the list of readings as silence pervades the space.  

It isn’t until he bids you to start that anyone dares speak again. The professor paces at the front of the room, hands in his pockets, as his longs stride take him from one end to the other. As you watch him, he seems to sense it, and his blue eyes meet your own. He hardly reacts before he puts his attention back to his repetitive route. 

“Alright, so Jones et al,” you redirect your attention as your peers continue their griping over lost sleep and shitty coffee. “So uh, we should go over main arguments first--” 

“Didn’t read it,” Ethan scoffs and two girls giggle. 

“I don’t know how that tight ass thinks we have all day for the stuffy bullshit,” another guy snorts. “Some of us get laid.” 

You blanch and chew your lip. You look around and receive only agitation and indifference. 

“Since you’re such a smarty pants, why don’t you do the presentation, huh?” The redhead chirps, “you always have so much to say.” 

You frown. You only put in what you need to get a decent mark. You’re hoping the discussion grade can save you from your disastrous first assignment. Besides, aren’t you all facing the same foe? Shouldn’t you be allies? 

“Well, we should talk about the article a bit. Did anyone else read it?” You insist. 

You don’t get an answer, only scoffs and sneers. Shoot. You look down at your notebook and shrink into yourself. It’s just like high school. You’re the one building the diorama by yourself until midnight. You’re the one doing all the talking in the class debate. 

You scribble notes in the margins as the other garble on about some party and the new cafe opening up at the Student Centre. You keep a hand on your neck as the heat builds under your skin. You should’ve just stayed on your own, not that you have much of a choice. None of them even want to acknowledge you. 

Professor Holmes calls time and you pop your head up, catching your glasses before they can bounce off your nose. You fix them as the lecture hall hushes and you all twist and turn to see the professor. He walks up the centre aisle and points to the group in the very back. 

“You, come on,” he demands. 

There’s crinkling of paper and scratchy coughs. A guy in a polo sweater stands with a cluster of lined paper in hand. He reads out with fractured syllables as if he can’t make out the writing. Professor Holmes sighs and you glance over at his scowl. He’s not impressed. 

“Right, and beyond the obvious, what were your final reflections? Did you have a single thought about the author’s narrative on the consequences of the railway on colonized communities?” He pauses and waits, tapping his clefted chin. Silence. “Mm, absolutely compelling,” he remarks dryly. 

You gulp as your group fidgets. Holmes jabs a finger at another group, calling out a student by name, “thank you for volunteering.” 

The woman with the buzzcut stands, looking nervous as she peers around her group members. She sways and wets her lips, playing with the ring around her lower lip. She laughs nervously before she begins, pausing and umming and ahhing. 

“Enough rambling,” Holmes shakes his head and turns toward your group. Your eyes go wide as the rest peek over at you. You rise as the professor stands just at the end of the rows. “Ethan, you seemed to be doing most of the talking, let’s hear it.” 

Ethan grimaces and sends you a look. He shakes his head. You shrug. You don’t know what to do. You offer your notebook and Holmes clucks. 

“I’m sure he can do it himself, he’s a big boy,” Holmes insists, “let’s hear your take on Jones et al. They have some rather interesting arguments about the cultural significance of the Silk Road, did they not?” 

Ethan exhales and stands, a tick in his jaw as he faces the professor. You chew your cheek as he stutters, “well, what we were talking about was that... er, the Silk Road... um...” 

“Yes, yes, you made some rather intriguing arguments about the Gammas, didn’t you? And how you have so many important things to do, eh? Well, Ethan, if you can’t keep up, you don’t have to bluster,” Holmes reproaches, “your boasting does suggest incompetence over importance.” 

Ethan chokes. There’s a low titter of laughter from further back as the rest of your group stares at their hands. You hug your note book and lower your head as well. 

“Come on, then,” Holmes wags his fingers and calls your name, “stand up. Let’s hear something coherent.” 

“Oh, uh,” you lift your chin as Ethan falls into his chair with a snarl. You get up and focus on your notebook. You swallow tightly before you get your vision to clear, “typically when we think of the, er, Silk Road, er, we fixate on, uh, on uh, on the movement of goods such as dyes and, and, and rice...” you can’t help your stuttering. You just know the professor will have your throat next, “but Jones et all argue that, ummmm, um, the movement of peoples and contact between various cultures is just as... as important--” 

“Ah, yes, someone has done their work,” Holmes proclaims with a clap. 

“All of you. One thousand words on your groups assigned article by the end of the week. You may drop them off at my office.” 

“What?” Several students burst out in shock. 

“It is an individual effort, yes? Not a group project. You have until Friday at 6pm.” 

“Professor,” a woman whines from the back. 

“Would you like a thousand more words?” He turns to face the lecture hall completely, “no, alright then. I can be generous. You may go early so that you can catch up on your readings.” 

He smirks and tilts his head smugly. He spins on his heel and strides down the low steps to the front podium. You glance down at your notebook and slowly flip the cover. 

“Fucking browner,” Ethan growls. 

[feasibilities]

Physician-Patient Privilege | Jonathan Crane x Reader (NSFW)

Synopsis: After weeks of harassment, Jonathan finally accepts your request.

Warnings: Discussion of Murder, Sexual Harassment, Non-Con, Choking, Knife Play, Breeding Kink, Medical Malpractice

Author's Note: Thank you to @mothhball and @cillianslvt for your amazing ideas. I hope I wrote them well!

Jonathan prides himself on maintaining neutrality and quietude in the face of the most unwell individuals. His job requires him to speak to perpetrators of the most macabre crimes in Gotham. Any reactivity on his part could delay the progress of his patients. However, there was one patient in particular that pushed his buttons like no other. Your constant teasing and vulgar words chipped away at the dam of his psyche. You lie in wait for the dam to break and for his true personality to come out. He tried to move you to monthly sessions but his superiors assumed it was a safety risk. Jonathan constantly read over your case file before these meetings.

Patient is serving a 10-year sentence in Arkham Asylum due to a series of sex-related murders in Gotham. Victims were lured in through means of prostitution and were killed post-coitus. They were mutilated in various ways and also had postmortem injuries. 

When he walked in, you perked up at his presence and smiled sweetly.

“I’ve waited all day to see you, Jonathan.” You piped, standing up.

“Dr. Crane. Please sit down.” He corrected you. 

“Yes, sir.” You obliged. Jonathan tensed at your words but kept his peace. He sifted through his folder before he found the medical notes from the previous session. 

“Have you dealt with any suicidal or homicidal ideation in the past 24 hours?” He asked plainly.

“Of course.” You beamed. He shot you a vexed glance before he scribbled on the nearly full page. 

“I will continue to prescribe you Seroquel. I’m not sure what else to do for you.” He said, feeling quite frustrated. 

“You could tell them to let me out of that stuffy room sometimes. I promise I’ll be a good girl.” You teased, fluttering your eyelashes. He paid you no mind as he continued to write. 

“Oh, that medication has given me some odd side effects.” You said.

“Like what?” He asked, not looking up from the paper. 

“I sleep all day except when I wake up and have to touch myself.” You said, barely hiding the smirk on your face.  

“Well, I have all the information I need. I will forward your input to my supervisor.” He said, gathering his notes. He felt himself grow hard and needed a quick escape. The enchanting visual nearly broke him.

“We have 20 minutes left, can’t you stay?” You asked.

“I hate to cut this short but I have somewhere to be. See you next week.” He replied, walking to the door. Before he could react, you stood between him and the door. You pressed against him uncomfortably. He avoided your gaze and swallowed harshly at the physical contact. 

“I think about you every time. I know you want me, Jon.” You cooed, unbuttoning his suit jacket. He glared at you before snatching your hands away and wedging out of the door. You were amused by his panicked state. 

Once he completed his rounds for the day, he went to find your cell. You managed to stay asleep through the loud clanks of him unlocking and closing the door. To him, it was now or never. He loosened his tie and sat his wireframe glasses on your desk. He pulled the blanket off your body to admire you in your entirety. His hands ghosted over your breasts as he counted your breaths. He brought his hands closer and closer until you were flush against his palms. He could take you like this but it wouldn’t be as fun. Your eyes shot open at the sensation. Jonathan hurriedly covered your mouth to muffle any protests. 

“Don’t scream. You promised me that you would be a good girl, right?” He whispered. His arctic blue eyes were distinctive in the dimly lit cell, much to your consternation. You had already gotten yourself off before bed but felt the same agonizing heat between your legs. You nodded in agreement as he removed his hand from your mouth. He hastily took your underwear off and caressed your thighs.

“Stop teasing.” You whimpered, toying with your moisture. Jonathan took your hand away and sucked the residue off your fingers. He pinned you down by your throat and squeezed hard enough to restrict most of your air flow. His cool fingers circled around your taut hole before shoving them inside. A strangled moan left you as he pumped them steadily. Although your tears blurred your vision, his gaze burned through you. His dark pupils swallowed his austere blue irises. You clawed at his wrist to make him loosen his grip. 

“You can breathe when you cum.” He dismissed you, curling his fingers against your g-spot. Your walls fluttered around them as you tried to stay conscious. His jaw clenched as he clung to the last pieces of his self-control. His breaths grew ragged as tried to stop himself from finishing in his pants. Your legs trembled while you came around his fingers. Raspy mewls escaped your mouth when he swirled his thumb around your clit. You slipped into a benumbed state as finally let go of your throat. Jonathan nipped at your collarbone to wake you. You kissed him gently and smiled against lips when he moaned. 

Unbuckling his pants, you yanked them down his legs halfway and straddled him. You took a switchblade from underneath the mattress and clicked it open. You grazed the tip of the blade against his plump lips. Moving it to his throat, you sheathed yourself on his length and pressed the blade against his skin. You resisted the urge to dissect him like one of your many victims. 

“You would bleed like a stuck pig.” You teased, bouncing slowly. Jonathan’s heart beat out of his chest while he moved his hands to your hips. His eyes were drunk with pleasure. 

“I want you to give me a baby. Can you do that for me, Jon?” You asked in the most gentle tone you could manage. He mindlessly agreed as you bounced faster. You tossed the knife aside when you felt his tip brush against your cervix. Your arousal coated his dick as you pinned his arms above his head. Soon after, spurts of his seed spilled into you. Whether he wanted it or not, you were in his life forever. 

[destinationtoast]

*waves shyly* Hello!! First off, I absolutely adore all of your stats and get excited when you post new ones -- thank you so much for all that you do!

Secondly, a friend and I have been discussing fandom longevity lately, and I wondered if you have thoughts? Subjectively, it seems to us that new fandoms tend to have more quick bursts of fandom activity when a new season/movie/book/etc comes out that fades quickly with time, whereas older established fandoms have more staying power. I'm curious if you have any insight about whether this is objectively true in most cases or not, and as to whether or not the type of canon source material matters (eg show-based fandoms vs book-based fandoms). I hope you're having a great day <3

Hi there, and thanks! :D This is a great question, and one I have been having a bunch of conversations about lately.

I share this subjective experience -- it sure seems like the attention span of fans and lifespan of fandoms is shorter than it used to be, when I think of how quickly people stop talking about a bunch of newer movies and TV shows these days. And then I see some of the older fandoms like Harry Potter still producing a ton of new fanworks, and I think, "Wow, maybe new fandoms just don't have the staying power of older ones." At the same time, I also question how objectively true/simple that story is for a few reasons, including:

Memory bias: When we look back on the past, the fandoms we remember most are usually the ones that lasted a long time. So our estimates of past fandom longevity may be overly generous.

Changes to fandom size: Maybe any changes to fandom lifespan are mostly due to some other change, like fandom size... Attention is more splintered these days than it used to be across more streaming services/etc, and I think there are more, smaller fandoms than there used to be. Maybe if a fandom doesn't get really huge, it's just not likely to last that long.

For TV fandoms -- changes to canon release schedule: most TV shows used to have seasons that lasted most of the year, so they had a lot more reason to stay in the public mind longer. Now many seasons are shorter and sometimes drop all at once. Perhaps if we compared popular TV procedurals with 22 episodes/season from now vs. ~a decade ago, we'd see similar patterns of fandom activity?

I've been thinking about ways to try to gather quantitative data about the changes, and testing out a few methods. A few ideas I've had:

Look at the Tumblr official lists of top fandoms and see whether the top fandoms tend to leave the top 20 rankings faster now than they used to. (The Tumblr rankings go all the way back to 2013 on a yearly basis, at least -- I'm not sure how long they've been releasing the weekly lists; those may have started later.)

Look at AO3 fandom activity after new canon infusions - how quickly does activity drop off after a new movie/book/video game release, or after a TV season ends? How has the rate of activity dropoff changed over the years? (And how much of that seems to be explained by other factors, like fandom size?)

See how quickly AO3 authors/creators tend to migrate to new fandoms, and how that's changed over time - many authors tend to be active in multiple fandoms, so we'd have to define what it means to migrate to a new fandom, but I think we could do so in a way that would allow us to look for changes.

Look at Tumblr, Twitter/X, and/or Reddit activlty after new canon infusions - same as AO3, but on a platform where people are posting shorter content and there's more of a discussion. (This data would be harder to collect, though.)

I'd love to also hear other ideas. I think I'm going to need some volunteers to help gather data if I do any of the above, though... Readers, if you'd be interested in helping to gather data for an hour or more to help investigate this question, please reply/DM and let me know! And/or join the new fandom-data-projects community.

Also if any readers know of anyone else who has looked into this/similar questions, I'd love to hear about it!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I were to report my ex friend's antisemitism to their university?

So I 20nb have been friends with most my current friend group since we were 11. Two years ago I stopped being friends with a guy in my friend group due to toxic behavior on his part (not antisemitic yet, just giving background info) He would constantly say things like "don't make fun of neurodivergent people's special interests and hyperfixations as they can't help it" and then would go and make fun of my special interests (note: said ex friend has ADHD). Over our friendship he had a lot of double standards like that and one day I had enough. The first time I brought it up he dismissed it as someone else in the friend group did the behaviors I'm accusing him of. I kinda dropped it as I didn't want to deal with that level of denial and thought that if I waited a few days he would have had some time to reflect. So I brought it up again and he continued to blame it being one of our other friends doing it and that I was simply "misremembering". I gave specific examples and rough time frames yet he continued to deny it. All I wanted was a simple "I'm sorry and I will work on that" yet he refused to do that. So I ended our friendship.

Since then we have been on rocky terms. We are still in the same friend group since the issue was between me and him, I didn't want to involve my friends and make people pick sides. He was moving away soon at the time of the end of our friendship so it wasn't like I was going to see him when the friend group all hung our together.

Since we are still in the same friend group, he is in the discord server our friend group has which is just like a massive group chat with things categorized into topics.

Recently there is the current conflict going on in Israel and Palenstine. I am Jewish and vented to the vent section of that discord server about how I have seen people I know irl post online antisemitic things. I am very much against Israels actions and made sure to include that in my vent so no one coukd twist my words. I didn't initially say exactly what I was seeing as I was still processing the fact that I was going to have to cut some people off.

He then replied to my vent saying that he has never seen anything antisemitic online and that if he has, he has seen Jewish people saying that it isnt. I replied that his reply to my vent was weird and that i was talking about people saying that all jews should die. I felt hurt as yet again he was being hypocritical towards me as he has said before that you should say that (what he said) when people complain about seeing hateful things towards a group (eg racism, homophobia, etc).

He then responded that I was only calling him antisemitic because he was arab. The thing is, I never called him antisemitic and I myself am also arab. (Yes I know, most people have never met an arab jew but we do exist).

I pointed out that I never called him antisemitic and I am also arab which he seems to have forgotten. I said that his response was still weird considering what he has said in the past about people who say what he said. I then invited him to dm me privately to discuss things further if he wants to as it's not fair to do this in front of all of our friends.

He did not respond and ended up blocking me on discord.

This irked me quite a bit but in the end I decided that him blocking me was for the better if he stands by his original response. I was talking to my partner about it who is not Jewish and he said that my ex friend's response was definitely weird and the fact that he was so quick to defend himself about being called an antisemite without even being called it was indicative that he probably is. I decided to look at my ex friends tumblr to see if there was anything to suggest that and there was. I saw a few posts which he has recently reblogged which used anti Semitic dog whistles like the echo, example: (((insert text you which doesnt say jew but you are implying jewish people are))).

I was quite appalled to see that and am debating if I should send it to his university. The university he attends has spoken out about antisemitism before and has kicked out people in the past for using racist dog whistles due to a potential danger to POC students so it is likely that he would get kicked out for using antisemitic dog whistles.

In my mind, he fucked around and therefore should find out aka face natural consequences for his actions.

WIBTA if I contacted his University about his antisemitism?

What are these acronyms?

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

ok I need you to discuss this John is My Son thing because like I also feel that Sometimes I Felt Like His Priest is also really underdischssed!

okay here we go!!!

The quote you're referring to is from the Foreword of The Lyrics. I grabbed some more of it because it's all quite interesting to me.

This was about the same time that I met John Lennon, and it’s pretty clear now that we were a huge influence on each other. Readers might detect duelling emotions in my recollections of John; that’s because my relationship with him was very mixed. Sometimes it was filled with great love and admiration, but other times not, especially around the time The Beatles were breaking up. In the beginning, though, the relationship was a young Liverpool guy looking up to another guy a year and a half older. It was hard not to admire John’s wit and wisdom. But as I came to see him as a person and a human being, there were, of course, arguments, though never anything violent. There’s even a movie out there in which John’s character punches my character, but the truth is that he never punched me. As with many friendships, there were disputes and there were arguments, but not many. Sometimes, though, I certainly thought John was being a complete idiot. Even though I was younger, I would try to explain to him why he was being stupid and why something he’d done was so unlike him. I remember him saying things to me like, ‘You know, Paul, I worry about how people are gonna remember me when I die.’ Thoughts like that shocked me, and I’d reply, ‘Hold on; just hold it right there. People are going to think you were great, and you’ve already done enough work to demonstrate that.’ I often felt like I was his priest and would have to say, ‘My son, you’re great. Just don’t worry about that.’

It's like… there's so much going on here, you know? John is almost paradoxical to Paul: the source of one of the biggest hurts of his life and also one of his great bringers of joy; he's forever petrified as a teenager in Paul's mind and also on some level remains his fairground hero whose shadow Paul cannot escape; a traitor and yet don't you dare depict him being violent towards me; wise and simultaneously stupid.

At its root, I think many of these contradictions exist because Paul is on some level aware that a lot of the pain John dealt him was at least in part due to something John could not help (i.e. mental illness). He can't bring himself to blame John entirely, in a similar way a lot of us fans wrestle with John's behaviour that we know came from a place of great anguish. This has contributed to Paul infantilizing the memory of John; he has an instinct to look after John, and it's exacerbated by the fact that he has aged whilst his conception of John has not (you can see this in the way Paul constantly circles back to the early days of their friendship), which is in great contrast to Paul's memory of, say, Brian:

"I find that one of the interesting aspects of ageing: Brian Epstein never got beyond thirty-two, but I think of him as an older guy even though I’m already twenty years older than he ever got to be." – Many Years From Now.

But there's another element to this… A lot of people on here speculate about why Paul "can't get over John". My answer:

1) John's death was uniquely traumatic to John's loved ones in a way we tend to gloss over.

2) We are not letting Paul get over it! Paul has been asked about John in interview after interview for four decades and his image directly suffered due to the lionization of John post-1980 as well as the way he (Paul) was judged for not grieving correctly. Perhaps he's started bringing John up a lot in interviews in part because he feels he has to, lest he be deemed callous and cold again. (and perhaps he is seeking to nip the Lennon Question in the bud before the questions become, ahem, horribly insensitive) That's not to say Paul isn't weird about John – I think he is! But I think the way he's been made to both carry John's legacy and accept criticism used to build John up and bury his own unresolved anger at John and grieve over a senseless murder publicly and defend John now that his image is being torn down… it accounts for a huge chunk of this weirdness, IMO. Again, I want to reiterate: I think these are generally Paul's genuine feelings and thoughts (and I certainly don't want to imply that all of this only started post-1980... but perhaps there's a reason Paul seemed more measured throughout the '70s) but I think it's naive to act like society didn't help shape the way Paul talks about John and sees him. When you live as publicly as he does and your childhood friendship is one of the most talked about relationships in music history, you are bound to be affected by the general reception.

I also think Paul is often doing reputation damage control. It is very important to him that he and John are remembered first and foremost as friends (hence the offense he takes in the depiction of John punching him in Nowhere Boy) and it seems like, since at least Goldman, he's been trying to emphasize John's softer, more lovable traits. I think this, mixed with the infantilization mentioned above, is where you get stuff like the clip of Paul calling John a little baby or a lovely broth of a boy.

It's all so damn complicated you know? And so fascinating.

[hirayaea]

Seiya: Your emotions are spilling out.

Kinoa: You’re the same! You weren’t able to keep your cool when you met her, right?

Seiya: …

the jp lines differ so greatly from the eng lines in this part of the story; and to discuss it, we have to start with jeremiah’s voice acting

in the jp dub, when jeremiah meets mc, he’s so excited, then when mc thanks him he begins to sniffle, saying:

Kinoa: No need to be so thankful. I never would have thought the day would come that I could be of service to you… huhu

the “huhu” there literally exists as 「ううっ」 which indicates sniffling/crying, and we can hear that clearly in the jp dub

after this, mc is kinda weirded about by how sincere jeremiah is, and this is the point where xavier steps between them and says something to the effect of: ‘ah, this guy is just overly friendly’

this is, of course, xavier’s way of covering up for jeremiah’s tears, because mc has absolutely no clue why jeremiah would be emotional about her

mc accepts this reason, and has that cute conversation with xavier where he gives her all the james bond stuff + flowers, and then she goes on her way

when she leaves, jeremiah and xavier have the conversation as seen at the start of this post

but in english, this is the conversation:

first of all: I am very much aware that the main text is in cn, hence I’m not sure if, at this point, it’s just translator preference coming into play; but as I can only understand en and jp, I will focus on comparing those

I really don’t know why he says “it’s flawed” in the en version—it raises the question: what is flawed? mc’s presence? the plan? mc’s entry to the forbidden zone? it even makes less sense when jeremiah steers it back by asking if he was able to keep his cool when he met her. there’s no continuity to “it’s flawed”, but because jeremiah changes the topic, we accept it and the story goes on

now, if we go back above to the jp version, seiya uses the term 「綻びだらけ」 —which is a actually a very nuanced phrase. it usually means “full of tears” or “full of open seams”, but it can mean “full of emotions that broke through” or “being unable to keep emotions in” such as suddenly being unable to help but smile or cry

we use jeremiah’s voice acting and his response to identify our nuance. jeremiah was sniffling, then he replies 「お前も」 to seiya, which basically means “you too”, followed by the line “you weren’t able to keep your cool when you met her, right?”

so it only makes sense that the meaning of 「綻びだらけ」 here is being unable to keep emotions in, as both of them accuse each other of being emotional when they first meet mc, but they’re supposed to be not (because of their secret + non intervention policy)

it’s interesting also how in jp, jeremiah is certain seiya wasn’t able to keep his cool, as he phrases his sentence in an accusing manner; but in en, he asks it like a knowing question

honestly, in the end, the overall storytelling is the same, but I feel like due to the conversation, the subtleties of jeremiah’s character as both mc and xavier’s best friend is more pronounced in the jp version

again, just thought I’d share my thoughts on this!

/

ofc this post is for @skynapple as she made a post recently about jeremiah’s role in xavier’s life

/

source: main story

disclaimer: i am not a native jp speaker but i have studied it formally + lived in jpn! but if you see anything that needs to be corrected I’ll be glad to learn and discuss it! thank you!

[generic-sonic-fan]

I’d love to hear your headcannons on what G.U.N. thinks of the sonic cast! Idk what it is exactly but the idea of G.U.N. coming up with a bunch of plans in regards to (mostly) a bunch of teens and kids is intriguing to me

This is such a fun and interesting prompt, thank you so much for sending it! I love worldbuilding in the Sonic universe lol. LONG post below cut

Sonic:

The ultimate worst case scenario.

Much in the same way an ICBM can be anywhere in the world within 30 minutes, Sonic can be anywhere at any time and cause MASSIVE amounts of destruction.

GUN wasn't nearly as worried about Sonic before they tried to frame him in SA2. They thought it'd be easy to pin the blame of Shadow's behaviors on Sonic and then pardon him later.

They were wrong.

Now GUN threat evaluators place Sonic just behind Eggman in world threat level. They struggle to understand what his morals might be and all their attempts to reach out to Sonic and ask him to clarify have been met with a "nah!" from the hedgehog himself.

There's one group in particular within the organization who are extremely paranoid about Sonic to the point of suggesting proactive measures against him.

. . . which everyone else in the organization either laughs at/ignores/prohibits.

There is no set-in-stone contingency for Sonic, as nobody can agree on one, but the plan that has the most consensus is to somehow utilize Team Dark.

Any attempts to discuss this with Team Dark have been turned down. Shadow refuses to speak of it, Rouge laughs it off, and Omega refuses to collaborate because he promised Shadow he wouldn't.

Tails:

Due to Tails' extensive social media presence, GUN feels like they have pretty good tabs on what's going on in Tails' head at any given moment, so they're a lot less paranoid about him.

A very exclusive group of people brainstorm what the contingencies might be on the off chance Tails does present a threat to the world.

(Because even in discussing Tails, they're much more worried about Sonic's reaction to them have contingencies for the fox)

A lot of their contingencies for Tails are the same as those for Eggman. GUN feels pretty prepared for any sort of Tails Overlord scenario, actually.

Minus Sonic, that is.

Current GUN protocol is to treat Tails very very nicely so that Sonic doesn't start getting concerned.

This is why Tails is allowed to be Omega's primary mechanic.

Knuckles:

GUN sent drones directly to Angel Island. Once.

Their old protocol was for him to remain "uncontacted". Yikes.

After Knuckles started getting more involved in struggles against Eggman, GUN started doing more research into him.

Because he mostly stays up on Angel Island and acts as a competent guardian of the Master Emerald, GUN isn't too worried about him? If anything, they're glad that someone with a significant power level is preventing Eggman from stealing the ME.

They've tried to initiate diplomatic contact with him but he's turned them down every time

He knows that GUN monitors the ME from afar- sometimes on clear days he sees a GUN drone floating a few miles off of Angel Island.

It's a bit of an uneasy truce honestly. GUN's biggest concern is that Knuckles could start using the ME for his own purposes, but so far it hasn't looked like that would ever be the case.

As for contingency plans- GUN has asked Rouge if she thinks she'd be able to steal the Master Emerald. (To which she's replied yes, of course.)

The plan is to get the ME off of Angel Island and into a specially designed GUN stronghold in an undisclosed location.

Once the guardian is separated from his emerald, GUN is pretty sure they'll be able to deal with him.

(They are VASTLY underestimating him due to a lack of data)

Amy:

No contingency plans. She's flying under GUN's radar.

They probably should have something in place for her honestly.

See Knuckles' note about vast underestimation due to a lack of data.

Shadow:

The contingency for Shadow is the most detailed contingency file GUN has.

. . . and Shadow himself has helped write some of it.

The file has a long and storied history reaching all the way back 50 years. It's always been something on GUN's mind.

The current contingency is based on the idea that the first thing he'll do once he goes rogue is try to collect the chaos emeralds.

A lot of the plan involves setting a trap with lots and lots of firepower.

There's also an addendum of the plan about utilizing the other members of Team Dark, either to combat against Shadow or as hostages. Shadow is unaware of the latter. In either strategy, Omega is considered vital.

GUN has a lot of scientific data on Shadow's weaknesses to certain kinds/amounts of chaos radiation and all that jazz, so they feel a lot more confident about their ability to bring him down compared to Sonic.

Something about the enemy you know being better than the enemy you don't.

Rouge:

GUN has determined that Rouge is very unlikely to be a world-ending threat.

But a GUN-ending threat? Absolutely.

Rouge going rogue is the worst case scenario for GUN's continued survival as an organization.

They know they can't keep her out of their files or any of their locations. If she wants to sell all of their secrets or steal all of their tech, they know they're very unlikely to stop her.

Current contingencies include using the other members of Team Dark to persuade her against destroying the organization if they're willing to cooperate, or taking them hostage to negotiate if they're not.

They also plan on a public smear campaign against her- basically revealing everything they know about her while she tries to reveal everything about them.

Rouge knows about all of these plans, of course.

There's definitely a tension between her and GUN because of this.

The current plan is to treat her well and convince her to stay on GUN's side at all costs (usually through bribery!)

Omega:

GUN's contingencies for Omega are really, really barebones.

It pretty much just boils down to "destroy him".

They aren't too worried about him, kinda like with Tails. GUN knows how to destroy Badniks. They've been destroying Badniks for lots of years at this point.

If anything, they consider Omega to be the least threatening member of Team Dark and the best lynchpin for if either other member of the team goes rogue.

(It should be noted that they still expect any scenario where Omega goes rogue to have the highest number of immediate civilian casualties.)

See my fic on this

Silver:

HOO BOY, is GUN worried about Silver.

Not because of his powerset- GUN is pretty sure they can just knock him on the head to neutralize him.

(Like Knuckles and Amy, they are vastly underestimating him)

But the time travel shenanigans scare the shit out of them.

GUN is the sort of organization to have protocols in place for working with future or past versions of themselves.

They also fund a shitload of research into detecting changes and potential threats in the timeline.

(They detected the Sonic Generations incident when it happened and it remains one of the most intensely studied events.)

(They've also detected a strange sort of time blip over Soleanna, but every time someone gets interested in studying it, their drive seems to wane until they're no longer concerned about it. Strange. . .)

TL;DR: They treat Silver like a fucking SCP. Current protocol is for all agents to limit contact with him in order to prevent damage to the timeline.

Honestly if GUN wasn't so scared of him, Silver wouldn't exactly be opposed to getting their help managing the timeline shenanigans.

Blaze:

Blaze has not initiated any sort of formal diplomacy with any government or organization in Sonic's dimension.

GUN tracks the unique energy signatures of the Sol Emeralds through their strange link/interaction with the Chaos emeralds.

They haven't quite figured out what's going on.

And frankly, they don't actually know that Blaze is from another dimension.

They see her very rarely. They know that something is strange about her energy readings but just assume that she's one of Sonic's lesser known friends who doesn't get out very often.

Team Chaotix:

I'm grouping them together because GUN doesn't have any contingencies for them. Vector, Espio, and Charmy are all under their radar.

They should be worried about Espio. They're already worried about Rouge's stealth capabilities. I'm pretty sure whoever's managing these contingencies within GUN would have a heart attack upon learning that somebody on this planet figured out how to actually turn invisible.

And that's it!

I'd actually like to end this post with a bit of a weird note- I don't think that GUN would be evil for developing contingencies like this.

I myself work in the field of safety. This field includes things such as occupational safety, and most pertinently for this post, emergency management. I've actually helped write protocols for companies about what workplaces should do in the event of an active shooter or other outside threat such as a natural disaster or a civil conflict.

(If I lived and worked in Sonic's universe, I would most certainly have to write safety protocols about what to do if Eggman attacks, for example!)

It's important to have protocols in place for the worst case scenario, no matter how unlikely or unthinkable that scenario is. And in Sonic's universe, this is especially important! This is a universe where society is regularly attacked by a mustache-twirling, robot-building terrorist! Of course GUN is going to keep tabs on other individuals who could post a similar threat and plan on how to stop them should they ever become a threat to the public.

I'm definitely not excusing GUN for any of the shady things they've done in canon, but it is an interesting point to think about that they're the best equipped to handle any sort of Dark Sonic/Sonic.exe/insert your favorite name for "this character but evil" here/mirror universe scenario.

[ladyofthebears]

Boundaries for my page:

PLEASE READ BEFORE FOLLOWING AND INTERACTING

ASOIAF:

I fully believe that the first men are meant to be representative of indigenous people. If you dont agree with my thoughts, thats fine but do not insult what i believe or come onto my page to say any form of racist comment about it. I will block you immediately.

I fancast my fic and cast in the same way that the Brandy Cinderella casting director operated meaning, if a characters race is important to that characters story and experience, they will specifically be that race, otherwise, I cast whomever i believe fits the image in my head, no matter what race or ethnic background they may have. If you say hateful things about this or who I cast due to their culture or background, you will be blocked.

I also think this fandom is horribly anti- black and I will call you on it and block you if i believe you are stating said hateful views. (I mean anti black as in anti black people and using characters like Laena, Baela, and Rhaena as torture porn or pawns because of their blackness and being women.)

I am team Black but I am anti abuser in everyway, meaning not only am I anti Aegon ii, Aemond, Daeron, Otto, and Viserys, I am also staunchly anti Daemon. I am willing to have civilised discourse about the dance, but will block you if you try to justify any abuse performed by any characters or celebrate said abuse. This includes people who rejoice at the “Bastard blood” line or think the Velayron boys death was justified. This includes people who fantasise about torturing or assualting any characters but specifically the children in HOTD. This ESPECIALLY includes people who rejoice at Blood and Cheese. You will be blocked and I will not be sorry for it.

I know a lot of asoif lore but have not read the books due to my own CPTSS diagnosis and due to the triggering material in said books. If i make a mistake lore wise, please kindly let me know and I will fix it post haste.

I am not here to fight with people on my take of the book or shows. I will tell you my opinion, and if you wish to discuss yours and why you think that way, and can do so kindly, i will gladly talk to you. But at the end of the day, when i post my opinion, I am merely doing so to have an outlet on which to voice my thoughts in a way I am not able to in real life due to my not having many irl friends who have seen hotd or got.

Not Fandom related:

I am pro Palestine and find the unneeded killing of any innocent life deplorable. I am not here to argue about my political views. If you post any kind of hateful, islamphobic, or palestinian phobic comments under my posts, I will block you.

Overall:

If you post or reply with any Homophobic, Racist, Misogynistic, or any generally hateful thing under my posts, I will block you.

This is not up for discussion. My views are my own and if you find them to be harsh and unreasonable, feel free to block me and never interact with me again. I am here on Tumblr to interact with people from the fandom and to get my fanfic out there. I am not here to validate that people deserve to live even if they are different because that should go without saying. If you cannot respect my outlined boundaries, if you cannot be respectful to other people under my posts, if you cannot allow others to have different opinions then you on such trivial things as a made up world- please do not interact with me.

I know i have very few followers and most people rarely see my posts, but i do not care. These are things that are important to me and I feel if I am unable to speak them, I would be a hypocrite of the highest order. I hope to create a safe space on my page where peaceful and kind discussions can be had.

Much love

O’Leigh Fredericke

[cearthduo]

Decoding c!George: Discussing the fandoms mischaracterization and disregard of Gnf [Explaining George's character.]

Note : I will not be using "c!" because i find it tedious, but this is about the dsmp characters. I will be using she/her pronouns for George throughout this blog and all of the following ones. If this bothers you, feel free to read this using whichever pronouns you prefer. Enjoy.

I couldn't count on seven hands the amount of times i've been hit with "Does George even have lore??" in response to me mentioning her at all. Due to how obnoxiously genuine I find that question usuallyis, I decided to start a little series! In it, I'll be going into depth about George's lore whilst critiquing, hating, and debunking common potrayals/headcanons for the character.

This post will focus on George's general character traits, while the next ones will go more in depth on specific arcs, details, dynamics and theories. The next planned posts will be about George's lore and Dnf.

Alright, now that the introductory portion is out of the way, I can start with the analysis. The first step to understanding a character is figuring who the character is. So our first section will be talking about the basics of c!George as well as common potrayals, misinformation and more below the cut.

The bones of c!George ))

Let me also get this out out the way first and foremost: George a fully developed character. Traits of ccGeprge should Not impact your portrayal of her AT ALL.

With that out of the way, how do you portray George correctly? Who is this character? What are her motivations?

At her core, George is actually a very similar character to Dream. George also craves power and control. They have the same aspirations (that being the servers reunion and a return to the early days of the smp), the same opinions on L'manberg and Tommy (George's takes during the pog v swag debate seem to parrot Dream's (or rather, Dream parrots George later)), the same violent outbursts in response to a loss of control or respect, and the same belief that they are above the rules of the server.

A big part of c!George's character is her obsession with strength and power. This has been a core part of her since the very beginning of the server. Prior to L'manbergs existence, George spent the majority of her time maxing out her armor and weapons. She was the first member to have fully enchanted gear, and it was op. To the point that Dream and Sapnap wanted to strip her of everything because she was using her power to terrorize the server and they couldn't fight back. Due to this, George was the first character to ever be labeled a tyrant.

Contrary to most potrayals, George is a very social and energetic character. She'll talk to and hang out with anyone on the server, despite any negative relations. People typically portray her as being constantly sluggish or lazy, but this portrayal is incredibly inaccurate. George does not sleep for long periods because she's tired, but because she lacks the ability to wake up. This is shown during the elections where George is genuinely upset and bothered by the fact she wasn't able to attend. Whenever she's actually active on the server she's always in action, running around, building things, pvping, gathering resources, etc. Her constant sleeping/dreaming does not define her character and instead something that seen as negative even by George herself.

George also tends to cling to titles that represent power. The most prominent example of this is the dethronement conflict, where George tries to keep the title of king. It's to the point where she plans a takeover of the entire smp in order to reinstate herself as leader. George also seems very keen on taking control of L'manberg, saying at one point that "It could've all been [hers]" had she made it to the election. In the godhood stream, George continuously refers to herself as "God" even denying XD's divinity. When Karl says that there's already a god of the smp, George replies with "I am God." She even has the confidence to call herself God to XD's face. She seems to see herself as powerful even when she lacks power. A good example of this is her telling Eryn that she's king of the smp, despite having lost the title an entire year prior.

It's very common for people to lean into George's "apathy" in their portrayals. Although it is a part of her character, it's commonly over-exaggerated or misplaced. Usually, George's lack of awareness is accidental. She lacks a lot of facts about the server and its members due to her sleeping for so long. Many people seem to think this is on purpose, as if she purposefully avoids events. This is incorrect. There are many examples of George trying to be a part of the main server. Some examples include: George wanting to build her house closer to the action and refusing to live with Sam because his home was too far away, clinging onto the vice president title despite easily being able to drop out after missing the elections, trying to help blow parts of L'manberg after the war, and her asking other characters for tours and updates. I could list a million more instances of George actively trying to join in on the lore despite not actually being able to contribute much, but it would take up too much of the blog.

So far, you have a character who is obsessed with power, strength, and titles. One who's very social and energetic, who tries to be a part of the server despite never being able to, who cares for her friends and property, and who wants to return to a more peaceful era.

So George isn't apathetic towards events, but what about towards other characters? For the most part, people who portray her as not caring for others is completely accurate. George doesn't care about other people being hurt/dying or about countries exploding. Especially if these things are in her interest. George only reacts negatively to her own countries and friends being hurt or threatened. This is most noticeable during the godhood stream, where George becomes panicked when Dream talks about destroying Kinoko. George also worries when Sapnap and Dream get in an argument during the dethronement, repeatedly asking them why they're fighting. She also tends to defend her friends from mobs, showing that she has care for their safety.

There are, however, instances of George having a strange care for L'manberg. She seems upset about it's destructive but it's likely because she blames herself at least partially for it's destruction. That being said, she seemed to have a dislike for new L'manberg and only cares for the Manberg era of the country (likely because she was in power.)

Is that all there is to George's character? No, of course not. George is a very complex character and these are only her base characteristics. Unfortunately, this is getting long and probably hard to understand. So, I'll leave it here for now and in the next portion I'll talk about the dream lore and what it tells us about her character.

Also

I hate writing my thoughts down. So I actually might not ever speak again. Especially because nobody fucking cares about this character. UGH.

[vickyvicarious]

Who’s Read What in Dracula? - Jack Seward

A spoiler-free breakdown of what documents Jack has read, and when. I will add a new entry whenever he gains access to, creates, or finishes a document.

Links to other characters’ posts, explanation of the color-coding I’ve used, and all other notes/explanations relating to how I am sorting/tracking this can be found in my WRWD Masterpost.

Tracking begins below the cut.

May 25

Phonograph Diary

Jack makes his first (on the record) entry in his audio diary. He's sad about Lucy rejecting him, and has an interesting patient in Renfield.

July 1

Renfield's Notebook

It doesn't seem like Jack has been able to properly read Renfield's notebook, so much as catch glimpses of him writing it. But he has still seen it to some extent, enough to know generally what's inside, so I'm making a note of it here. He first mentions doing so on July first, but I'm guessing that Renfield has had his notebook at least as long as he's been keeping 'pets', so on the masterpost I tentatively dated this notebook as beginning by at least June 5.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook (glimpse)

July 20

Renfield's Notebook

Today, Jack drugs Renfield unconscious so that he can take and thoroughly read his "pocket-book." He doesn't discuss what he finds within in any detail, but he does talk about how it supports his theories and also that Renfield has "closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record." Despite this, I'll still count it as one document moving forward since he seems to be writing in the same notebook, and we don't have access to either record ourselves.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook

August 19

Renfield's Notebook

It's still unclear how often Jack reads Renfield's notebook, but in his entry this day he remarks on some of the writing inside again, so he at least glimpses it again today.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook

August 31

Letter to Jack

Arthur sends him a letter, which he probably received the same day, asking him to visit Lucy the next day and sneakily examine her health without letting Mrs. Westenra know.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack

September 1

Telegram to Jack

Letter to Van Helsing

Arthur sends him a telegram to inform Jack he won't be able to come to Lucy's for tea as planned (due to needing to be with his sick father), and asking him to pass along information about her health. We also know that Jack writes Van Helsing a letter requesting his help, which we don't get to see. Given that it has to travel to Amsterdam and it was already afternoon when his visit was done, I'm presuming it must have been written the day before he gets the reply.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing

September 2

Letter to Arthur

Letter to Dr. Seward

Jack sends Arthur a letter detailing how his visit to Lucy went yesterday, and saying that he's asked his former professor Van Helsing to come and help. He also receives a letter from said man agreeing to come by the next day.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Arthur, Letter to Dr. Seward

September 3

Letter to Arthur

Jack writes another letter to Arthur, relaying the events of Van Helsing's visit to examine Lucy.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur

September 4

Telegram to Van Helsing

In addition to an entry in his diary, Jack sends Van Helsing an update on Lucy's condition, via telegram.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegram to Van Helsing

September 5

Telegram to Van Helsing

Jack sends Van Helsing another telegram update on Lucy's condition.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing

September 6

Telegram to Van Helsing

Letter to Arthur

Jack sends out more updates on Lucy. She's taken a turn for the worse, but he tries to talk around how bad the situation is in his letter to Arthur. His telegram to Van Helsing is very urgent, asking him to come assist immediately.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing

September 8

Telegram to Van Helsing

Telegram to Arthur

Telegram to John

Jack sends telegrams to both Arthur and Van Helsing, letting them know that the transfusion worked and Lucy is doing better. Van Helsing sends Jack a telegram back from Amsterdam, asking him to stay with Lucy during the night, and letting him know he'd be back in the morning.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing, Telegram to Arthur, Telegram to John

September 8

Telegram to Van Helsing

Telegram to Arthur

Telegram to John

Jack sends telegrams to both Arthur and Van Helsing, letting them know that the transfusion worked and Lucy is doing better. Van Helsing sends Jack a telegram back from Amsterdam, asking him to stay with Lucy during the night, and letting him know he'd be back in the morning.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing, Telegram to Arthur, Telegram to John

September 15?

Letter to Arthur?

On the 18th, Arthur says that he hasn't heard from Seward in three days. This indicates at least one letter sent to him which we haven't seen, which must have been sent during the time she was more recovered after her third transfusion on the 13th. It's possible there were more updates on Lucy's health as well which we don't see, but this is the only one specifically mentioned.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing, Telegram to Arthur, Telegram to John

September 18

Delayed Telegram to Seward

Telegram To Quincey

Lucy's Memorandum

Mrs. Westenra's Death Certificate

Telegram to Arthur

A busy document day for Jack. He gets Van Helsing's telegram the day after it was sent, due to the lack of proper address, and thus is unable to stay with Lucy at night. When he is at her house this morning, he is shown Arthur's telegram to Quincey requesting his help. He and Van Helsing both read Lucy's memorandum from the night before. The doctors work together to write Mrs. Westenra's death certificate in order to forestall an investigation into her death. And finally, when he is on his way out to take it to the registrar, he sees Quincey's telegram reporting back to Arthur.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing, Telegram to Arthur, Telegram to John, Delayed Telegram to Seward, Telegram to Quincey, Lucy's Memorandum, Mrs. Westenra's Death Certificate, Telegram to Arthur

September 18

Telegram to Summon Arthur

Lucy, who is probably dying, asks for Arthur. Jack says "we telegraphed for him", so it may not have been he alone who wrote the telegram. But for simplicity's sake, I'm assuming he probably did so under her request and maybe even dictation. Regardless, it's likely safe to assume all the men there saw this before sending it.

Total documents: Phonograph Diary, Renfield's Notebook, Letter to Jack, Telegram to Jack, Letter to Van Helsing, Letter to Dr. Seward, Letters to Arthur, Telegrams to Van Helsing, Telegram to Arthur, Telegram to John, Delayed Telegram to Seward, Telegram to Quincey, Lucy's Memorandum, Mrs. Westenra's Death Certificate, Telegram to Arthur, Telegram to Summon Arthur

[plutorine]

An Analysis of Raskolnikov's Natal Chart Placements (Part 1)

this is in continuation of my post re: raskolnikov's birth chart, as i did say i would make another discussing his major placements. before we begin, here are some things i wanna mention:

under the replies of that post i linked above, i used rostov/rostov-on-don as rodya's birthplace, but as user vintageshits pointed out, there is also textual evidence that suggests rodya hails from zaraysk. i tried using that too, and it more or less gives the same placements that rodya might have if his hometown was rostov.

i am not a professional astrologer, and most of what i have deduced from rodya's chart is merely an accumulation of my own observations/learnings over the past seven years of studying astrology. there will always be different interpretations for each aspect/placement; you are more than welcome to add on to the discussion if you wish to do so in the replies! :^)

also, this is a LONG read. maybe have some snacks / drinks ready XD spoilers about the book too

ARIES RISING, PLUTO in 1H

Gives off commanding, individualistic vibes; Rodya often prefers to be left alone and has grown accustomed to being alone (although I’d say that this is also due to his personality/way of living); he likes to be given his space and he is not above demanding it.

RESTING BITCH FACE!!! Every Aries rising I know has a signature RBF and they can’t hide it even if they tried. Couple this with the fact that Rodya also has Pluto in the 1st house; it’s very easy for him to come off as intimidating and sullen, and may also be critical of how he looks. remember that scene when somebody pointed out his worn out hat in chapter 1 and he started grumbling about it? yep. exactly.

BUT — never forget that what is intimidating may also be weirdly charming in the eyes of others! makes absolute sense why Dostoevsky wrote Rodya to be “exceptionally handsome… with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown (translation is debatable but i’m a dark brown-haired rodya truther) hair”; i had a classmate who was an aries rising and they had the most defined, alluring eyes ever — it was like they could see right through my physical body lol

Another applicable description that matches these placements is the passage: “...there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though he were keeping something to himself.”

This one, I think, comes off as more of a result of having an Aries ASC square Saturn and Jupiter: “He seemed to some of his comrades to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in development, knowledge, and convictions, as though their interests were beneath him.”

Saturn touching the Ascendant often makes one come off as standoffish, cold, and reserved; people with this (undeveloped) aspect may seem as though they’re “above you” and act like they “know better than you” when really they just have a stick up their ass (this is a self-drag, I have Saturn in my 1st house and I used to act like this). Jupiter contacting the ASC may also have a hand in the passage above, especially the “haughty” part. Rodya acts as if he’s more “enlightened” (Jupiter) than his peers when really… he’s having delusions of grandeur due to not having eaten/drunk anything for days 💀

On a more physical perspective, these two aspects may contribute to Rodya’s “above average” height! Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and Saturn “elongates” what it touches (though, some may also say that having these touch one’s ASC may make them short/stout bc Saturn is also about limitations and Jupiter also “expands”, but ig in Rodya’s case we can interpret them in the former way.)

May be quite restless too; they often come off as agitated or always “on the move”; this was probably one of the reasons why Rodya hated his small room so much — there wasn’t enough space for him to be able to literally move around and draw out all that pent up energy inside him. This can also be explained by his chart ruler (Mars) being in Virgo, which is commonly known for its very nervous Mercurial energy.

His ASC also squares his moon, which I think also adds to the whole jitteriness he has; and his overall moody demeanor. The Capricorn moon in him wants him to suppress his emotional reactions, but his Aries rising wants it to be on display! Not anymore surprised as to why it was so easy for him to threaten Luzhin that he was going to throw him down the stairs LMAO (and more fittingly, because he didn’t want another word about his mother [the Moon, in astrology] coming out of Luzhin’s mouth). He can also be quite sensitive about the topic of his family, though may also be distant when he’s actually with them. There’s a lot of struggle with accepting his needs, as well, and this is also in connection with his Virgo Mars, again.

It makes sense too, that Rodya has a disconnect with his innermost thoughts/emotions and the things he does. Remember, when Razumikhin described him to Pulcheria and Dunya, he said that Rodya “...does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely.”

Also irritable, due to that Martian influence. My previous roommate had this placement; it was really easy to excite her / rile her up, be it for a positive or a negative reason. Acting out of instinct is also a main characteristic of Aries Risings. They always do the first thing that comes to their mind — in Rodya’s case it’s to help people (financially), which he ends up regretting afterwards because he’s already so broke XD — which may or may not always work in their favor.

Maybe it's just an observation on my part, but I find that Aries Risings always have to be the first in everything…? Or at least, they always want to do something that makes them stand out or confirms their suspicion/thoughts about an unknown thing that no one else has dared to do before. Perhaps that explains why Rodya was so hellbent on testing that theory (which he ended up not actually believing LMAO)

Another note on Rodya’s propensity to help others; his chart ruler is also in the 6th house, which is the house of service, routines and health — part of what he frequently does is quite literally go around helping people.

SCORPIO SUN in 8H

Quite possibly the most fitting adjectives in the book that can sum up Rodya are “...morose, gloomy, proud and haughty”; “suspicious and fanciful”; and “...fearfully reserved” (thank you, Razumikhin). These words capture what Plutonic energy is, in some of its rawest forms.

Being a Scorpio Sun myself (though I have mine in the 5th house), Rodya mirrors a lot of who I was when I was younger: heavily secretive, paranoid(as in, always feeling like everyone is out to get them); prideful and conceited at times. Rodya knows he’s intelligent, that’s why he can’t help but feel as though he’s the smartest in the room, but his propensity to detach and isolate himself from others renders him unable to realize how he and his ideas relate to others, and this leaves his identity and worldviews/perspectives unchecked. He’s just stuck in his own little world; inside his echo chamber where he repeats his ideologies to himself over and over again, convincing himself that he’s “enlightened” above others. All that talk about wanting to prove whether he was a trembling creature or if he “had the right” ties in with this.

The catch is, this makes him so terribly lonely. Part of what I have learned from astrology is that the house opposite where one’s Sun is the area of our life which we have to learn to “exist in”. For me, this was the 11th house. My methods of self-expression were always just limited to the purpose of “putting on a show” (5th house) for others, but as I grew older, I learned how to use my talents for more humanitarian causes (11th house). Going back to Rodya, his manner of experiencing life (Sun) is stuck behind the private screens of the 8H, which hides it away from the grounding reality of the 2H, ruled by Taurus. Another way to look at this 2H-8H juxtaposition is that Rodya's ego is on some obscure, nonphysical place (8H) instead of being grounded in real life (2H). He lives only for his mind, and forgoes his physical state. Well, we all know how he wouldn't eat for days and that his sleeping habit is shit. Dude's probably rank too. Oh Rodya.

I guess the best and most redeeming quality of Rodya being a Scorpio Sun is his capacity for rebirth and transformation. We get a glimpse of the initial stages of this while he’s serving his sentence in Siberia. His old self slowly begins a path of renewal towards his transformation into this “new self” that will have shed all what used to be who he was when he was twenty-three.

Sun Sextile Saturn: This reinforces even more that super serious and uptight nature of his (to a degree that is almost comical, like bro would it kill you if you stopped taking yourself so seriously??) Sun aspecting Saturn also denotes heavy responsibility as a young child, or having thrust into the role of a parent at an early age. We aren’t exactly given an age for Rodya when Roman Raskolnikov died, but we can assume that it happened pretty early. This heavy responsibility to fill in his father’s shoes is one of the reasons why Rodya feels so, so burdened by the fact that he’s not going anywhere with his education in St. Petersburg, knowing that Pulcheria and Dunya are also counting on him to get a job so he could support them, being the remaining man in the family; this may also be another reason why his pride couldn’t take it when he learned Dunya was getting married to a rich asshole like Luzhin, so she could contribute significantly to the family — he should be doing that, not his younger sister.

Sun Square Neptune: Did somebody say LIGHTWEIGHT? One of the possible interpretations of this placement is a heightened sensitivity to alcohol and other substances. I fucking cackled when I saw this aspect (I, unfortunately, have this as well), and it brings me back to that scene in Part 1 Chapter 5 where Rodya was absolutely zonked out because he drank a “wineglassful” of vodka 😭 On a more serious note, this placement also points to an absent father figure, or at least having experienced the loss of a father. The person’s sense of self also tends to fluctuate. Ever wondered why Rodya is so prone to switching  between his god complex and crippling depression? This is one of the reasons why.

Little astro tidbit about having 8th house placements: these natives are often the types who’ll just randomly have people involve them or tell them about the wildest shit in their lives, like unprovoked. For example, they’d be just chilling then suddenly a random ass stranger or somebody they don’t really know well starts telling them about their personal business. This was the same thing that happened to Rodya when Marmeladov suddenly approached him in the tavern and started narrating his life story to him 😭 and the entire time Rodya just,,, took it all in XD

CAPRICORN MOON in 10H

Just when we thought Rodya could not be more service-oriented (that is, when he’s not busy being an asshole), he’s also given a Capricorn moon to top it all off! Most Cap moons I know go out of their way to make sure the ones they care for are alright; they spend much time and effort on that sort of thing. Will they let you take care of them though? No LOL they’d rather be caught dead in a ditch than admit that they want to be taken care of

All that pushback Razumikhin got when he helped Rodya out makes so much more sense. Rodya could not fathom why Razumikhin would himself go out of his way to learn about his trifles despite the fact that they don’t really talk much (like,, Rodya doesn’t even say ‘hi’ to him at all out in the street) and aren’t close; although, Rodya is aware that Razumikhin is kind, and he even tells him this when he dropped by his place

When a Cap moon does care, they will put others’ needs first and foremost, esp if they can see that the person really needs help and is in a more dire situation than they are. Not above setting themselves back just so they could help.

Another one of those moon signs who come off as really serious, cold, and calculating; but they’re really softies (and drama queens) deep down, especially when they have water placements. Might also like to keep themselves busy with other things so they won’t have to experience an Emotion™️. I always like to say that Capricorns are just Scorpios in suits lol

I also noticed that with Moon in 10H, it can indicate a tendency of your parents to baby you?? idk but i definitely feel those vibes from Rodya and Pulcheria, esp when she first sees him, his room ("this isn't a room, this is a coffin"), and when he visits her for the last time. or maybe this manifests even as becoming "softer" when you're with your parents?? there's something so sadly endearing abt how Rodya talks in this scene:

"Here you are!" she began, faltering with joy. "Don't be angry with me, Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears. [...] Sit down dear boy, you must be tired; I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are." "I was in the rain yesterday, mother..." Raskolnikov began.

They might also have a thing for needing something to hold onto when they’re feeling upset/unwell? Capricorn’s cardinal energy mixed with a fixed Scorpio sun further points to being “twitchy” bc they can’t sit still (all that Mars influence,,) — cue “where’s my sock!! give me my sock!!!”

Another placement that points to Rodya's want of gaining some sort of "power" or "control" — and he has the capacity to do so, too (how he goes about obtaining it though, is another conversation). He can be (could have been) really successful if he wills himself to. Moon in 10H natives have this air to them of being well-established in whatever field they choose to dedicate their efforts in.

Feels emotions really deeply when they do allow themselves to (or when faced with the inevitable fate of experiencing them lol). I find that Saturnians are also kind of like Plutonians when it comes to feelings. When they invest in an emotion, you best believe they will feel it to its fullest; which is why I believe that underneath Rodya’s prideful and cold exterior is a heart that is capable of feeling love in the deepest, most profound way. What he said in Part 6 Chapter 7: “But why are they so fond of me if I don’t deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved me, and I too had never loved anyone! Nothing of all this would have happened.” (Constance Garnett translation) — really broke my heart knowing Rodya fought against the desire to jump into the Neva because he knew he was loved despite his wrongdoings and all his rough edges; this consciousness was very strong that he felt regretful about being so loved by the people around him. He’s so,, :^(((( I just want to give him a hug :^(( he’ll probably cuss me out but whatever :<

Pig-headed, and will not stop until they get to do what they want to do. My partner is a Capricorn sun and it’s more or less the same — the moment Capricorns set their mind on something, they will see to it that they get it done, no matter what. Pair that with a really driven Aries rising and a Scorpio sun, and you have an unstoppable force.

Moon Conjunct Jupiter: drama queen placement wbk; i made a post about how i always associate Rodya draping himself over his couch like a D*sney princess would XD we just feel emotions deeply and we tend to get pretty extra about expressing it too, esp in front of people we trust,, or idk anyone who's willing to listen really. Though in Rodya's case, his Moon is also conjunct his Saturn, which means he limits his expression of emotions; or that he hides it from others — bro would rather choke than be direct with what he actually feels

Moon Square Pluto: another limiting aspect on his expression of emotions, though this aspect gives his capability to feel more depth and dimension. so when Rodya gets into his feelings, he really plunges into it. at the same time, the obscure yet volatile energy of Pluto also adds another layer to his Aries rising's impulsivity. Additionally, his Moon coming into contact with his Pluto in a square may also indicate pain that stems from the family / the mother. all that this placement reminds me of is that last conversation he had with Pulcheria. the most gut-wrenching shit i've ever read/watched.

WHEW. That's only like half of his big 6 placements. I'm currently working on the others (Mercury, Venus, Mars), but I might not be able to finish/get the post up any time soon because I'll be starting the last semester of my undergrad next week, and I'll no doubt be very busy again 😔

[aerodumb]

Wade/Nancy is an artist who's been surrounded by negative opinions. She currently works under the username Grisgrisdoll, but she's widely known as the name that haunts her past, Kastoway.

I've seen many, many accusations being thrown online against this artist, but I noticed that for many people spreading them this knowledge is secondhand. I found her Deviantart account some time after she changed her username to Kastoway in the beginning of 2014 due to my hyperfixation on creepypastas at the time. I never actually followed her, but I visited her account every now and then, so if I missed something important, it was because of that and I will be glad if you tell me. In this post, I'll list the incidents in chronological order *with evidence* and then give my own opinion at the end.

One thing to know about Wade is that she has had many different names and usernames throughout her life. In addition, she is comfortable with people using either "she", "he" or "they" to refer to her. I'll be alternating the pronouns and using both her names.

He was 13 when she created Ticci Toby [1]. He posted her first drawing of him on the 19th of November 2012 on DeviantArt [2] and Toby's origin story one year later on the 23rd of May 2013 [3]. Wade changed the personality of Toby to make him less upbeat, more tragic and more scary. One of the first instances where he showed discomfort with how people portrayed Toby that I remember was in a publication she posted on the last day of 2013 [4]. This situation ended up with a small redesign of Toby on 5th of February 2014 [5].

She took a short break from DeviantArt around July [6]. It was this year when her creepypasta blew up out of proportion. Previously, she had expressed her desire for Toby to only be shipped with another creepypasta character called Clockwork. However, many people didn't like Clockwork and didn't respect this wish, leading her to further getting tired of the creepypasta community. By october of the same year, her Deviantart bio said: "Most people know me as the creator of the creepypasta story "Ticci-Toby"-- which yes I am, but I prefer not to be constantly called out for it nor only recognized or appreciated for it. I do not contribute to the creepypasta fandom anymore so please don't ask me about it. Thank you" [7].

One issue that is frequently overlooked when discussing Wade's actions is her problem with impersonators, as she stated on a status in November [8].

On 14th of December 2014 he made a post trying to solve all the turmoil that had formed because of shipping [9]. He stated that he had asked people not to ship Toby with anyone but Clockwork because that was what he was comfortable with, but he realized that decision was pointless and didn't care at this point. The situation had gone out of control and there were people bashing creators who shipped Toby with others or with their own characters. He apologized to the hurt and asked people to stop the white knighting. In addition, he recognized "I wasn't prepared for my character to become popular on the internet. I really wasn't. I never thought it would happen and I'm still not good at dealing with it. In fact I suck at it, it's true". He was 15 at the moment.

In 2015, they got into Marvel, even having a tumblr blog where she drew Deadpool replying the asks of her followers. At the end of their bio, it could be read: "I will not reply to notes or comments regarding Ticci-Toby or anything Creepypasta related, sorry." [10]. This message was deleted months later, so their profile didn't mention Toby or creepypasta anymore. They kept the folder for her creepypasta drawings in their gallery tagged as "old".

In April 2016, he had to warn the general public that Toby wasn't real and that he was his creator [11]. People had been spreading misinformation, saying that Toby was real or was based on a real person. Wade feared that something like the tragedy of Wisconsin could happen again, it was a serious concern.

In May, Nancy made a post saying that people could still ask her about Toby [12], but later in June that year, she decided to step off the internet with the purpose of trying to improve her life, archiving the majority of her work [13]. Later in 2017, she updated her bio to let people know about her new instagram account where she mostly posts original art. It was at this point when I stopped checking her content completely, as this account, called bonejars at the beginning, was private for a while. She hasn't been very active on DeviantArt apart from the times she announced her podcast.

On the porch: Episode 2, 16 April 2020, started a wave of negativity against them. I didn't watch it at the time and it is now private so I can't say much about it, but they did some clarifications on her instagram stories later. Many users took screenshots of them and they can still be read [14]. In them, Nancy says that they came to terms many years ago with the ships, that they left the fandom because all of the drama made them miserable and that they'd wish Toby to no longer be associated with the creepypasta fandom. Despite this, they don't want people to stop doing what makes them happy, they said they're ok with headcanons and people reinterpreting the character, that they like the fanart as long as people don't profit from it. They said "I know what escapism is like and using fiction to cope with life. I would never wanna take that away from anybody". Later, they had to make further clarifications because people accused them of wanting to take Toby away from the fandom.

On 25 abril 2021, Nancy posted a new redesign of Toby on his Instagram account [15]. This version of him was significantly different from the last one. The character is older, wears different clothes and looks more realistic due to Nancy's art style development. With this design, he looks like a character from a slasher.

Many people weren't pleased with the redesign due to thinking the reason for it was to invalidate the previous one. Consequently, they brought to the surface controversies from the past. Nancy was accused of having supported two controversial figures in the creepypasta community: Laughing Jack's creator Steve Aikins (Snuffbomb) and Sally Williams' creator Shilo (la_mishi_mish).

Steve presumably harassed his ex-girlfriend and talked indecently with several young girls back in 2014 [16]. I haven't found evidence of Wade supporting him and I can't remember exactly what she said. If someone has screenshots of it, I would be grateful.

Shilo used to draw NSFW art of Sally [17]. This character is canonically 8, so she usually aged her up in this kind of content. However, she posted a compilation of sketches depicting Sally and Jeff the Killer having sex in 2015, stating it was ok for them to have intercouse because they were both 13. Shilo was 22 at the time. Several sources indicate that she stopped drawing mature content due to social pressure. Nancy and Shilo follow each other on instagram to this day.

There haven't been more references to Toby on Nancy's part since then.

◇ Ok people, get the pitchforks because now I'm gonna give my opinion!

So, what can we accuse Wade of? Of being an idiot and a hypocrite when he was a teenager, of having bad companies and managing fame poorly. I don't think we can blame them for anything else and feel that a big part of the hate they receive is undeserved.

I think she was a hypocrite because she got angry with an interpretation of Toby that she had at the beginning. What's more, Toby's story uses an interpretation of Slenderman that was invented by the fandom, proxies are not canon. It's like a fanfic of a series inspired by just a couple of photos.

Still following Shilo is yikes. However, we don't really know if they're still close and I'm personally gonna give her the benefit of the doubt. Defending Steve was a bad move, but, as some people have pointed out before, he was a teen when that happened, way younger than Steve and she could have been convinced to think he was innocent. Shilo is older too.

Being that young, she wasn't prepared for facing the bad sides of fame. Ignoring stuff, going radio silent and then saying things in the heat of the moment didn't help her a bit, but it was all that occurred to her at the time. She's tried to explain things in more detail in recent years just to go back to saying as little as possible because at this point, people get angry for whatever she says.

People say they're homophobic. Their instagram account refutes it.

People say he was mean and insulted the fandom. I remember reading a couple of statuses on DA that I thought were insensitive, but that was a long time ago. People grow and he's changed his mind a lot as you can read in his instagram stories. If you say these things referring to the post where he told people Toby wasn't real, I'm sorry, but I think he had all the right to be harsh. People said Slenderman was real, it ended up in a tragedy and now the same things were being said about Toby. Can you imagine how it's to feel you're responsible for someone's death? He was trying to protect people.

People say she went after artists that portrayed Toby in a different way than hers, yet every time she's said something that ended up hurting people, she took responsibility and apologized for it. I don't believe this person could go and directly hurt someone. Remember what I said before about her issues with impersonators and people white knighting? That could be what's happening. Even now she has problems with people pretending they know her, so be careful!

People say they have abandoned the character many times. It's true they've said they didn't want to talk about Toby on four different occasions, but I don't think they did it with that intention. Why did they redesign him then? The design we all know is inevitably tied to the creepypasta community and they want to move on from it, that's why they didn't want to talk about him. Now they made a version of the character that isn't tied to that world, so we have two Tobies, one for them and one for us. I think that's cool!

Many don't like that they can't use the old version to earn money, but I want them to understand that this is a really particular situation. Usually, people making commissions of characters that aren't theirs isn't a problem when the creator is getting money on their own (unless you're Disney, Disney has no chill). This isn't Wade's case, she has never been monetary compensated for creating or drawing Toby and she has the right of choosing not to allow the commercial use of her characters. "Give for free what you were given for free" is a rule that makes sense in this case.

I don't expect anyone to stop disliking Wade, you're free to feel whatever you want, but at least I hope that this post helps people to see that all of this is more dimensional than just "kastoway is evil". At the end of the day, she's just a dude that fucked up many times and I think her experiences can help us to not commit the same errors.

◇ Here you have all the evidence

[1] Wade's age (look at the replies)

[2] First art of Toby

[3] Toby's Origin on Kastoway's DA

[4] Post where Wade complains about the difference between fanon and canon Toby

[5] Updated Toby design

[6] Wade's DA on hiatus

[7] Wade saying he doesn't want to be known just for creating Toby

[8] Wade complaining about impersonators

[9, 11] Nancy clarifying the issues with shipping and people saying Toby was real (look at section "Kastoway and his creation")

[10] Nancy saying he won't reply asks about Toby

[12] Nancy apologizing and saying ask about Toby are welcomed

[13] Nancy announcing her departure

[14] Nancy's deleted instagram stories

[15] Toby's new design

[16] About Laughing Jack's creator

[17] About Sally's Creator

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Aita for sending two final message to a guy who is ghosting me?

I have submitted something here about the same person a while ago (like last August).

I (21f) had a friend (22m) last year who, due to a series of miscommunications, thought that we were dating when that had never been established. The gist is that we met on tinder and kissed on a night out, but no conversations were ever had about actually dating. Because we'd met on a dating app and I'd kissed him he thought we were dating, I did not think that because we never discussed dating. It was stupid. I kissed someone else on a different night out - because I was single I didn't even think about it - and he was very upset. I know I should have communicated better. I was in the mindset of "if he wanted to, he would, we talk all the time." I get now that other people won't take the initiative so you've got to do it yourself.

There was a whole thing, we were staying friends, then months after he blew up at me out of the blue, accused me of trying to "psyche him out before exams" because i wished him good luck. He apologised for that. Over the summer he came to me with super personal traumas and I tried to help him through it. We'd met up a few times at the beginning of this academic year for coffee. We had another series of miscommunications because he thought I was mad at him when I wasn't and drew me into a 3 hour argument about whether I was mad. This wasn't a great relationship, I know that.

We were mid conversation in November and he just stopped replying. Zilch. Nothing. I know he's still alive cos he's been posting Instagram stories, but he's just not replying to me. I left it cos fuck him if he wants to play like that. by Christmas though I was a bit worried about him, so I texted him "Hey, I hope you're doing okay. Merry Christmas" on the 20th Dec. No reply. I left it. On New Year's day, I texted him "Hey, happy new year. If I've done something to upset you, I am really sorry. Hope you're well". I've sent nothing since.

I think I may be TA because he clearly does not want to talk to me and I don't want to harass him. I also think I may be TA to myself because this friendship is awful and I'm prolonging it like this.

However, I may not be TA because I think it's pretty normal to want to check up if someone is okay if they just stop replying mid conversation like that.

Idk

What are these acronyms?

[nunalastor]

(Reply to the cursed webbed hooves incest ask from a few days ago)

When occurring alone without any other disorders/syndromes, syndactyly (webbed toes/fingers) is always autosomal dominant, meaning that it cannot be inherited through a parent which doesn't have it. We know that Charlie doesn't have it, but since we've never seen Luci's feet, he could have webbed feet/hooves, which would be really cute if he did. But in that case, the syndactyly wouldn't be caused by incest, but rather by one of the parents already having the genes and simply passing them on.

Inbreeding is dangerous specifically because family members tend to carry the same (potentially dangerous) recessive alleles due to them being closely related and likely receiving them from the same person. Some of these recessive alleles might be deleterious mutations, which are the reason why incest is so infamously associated with health problems.

The most simple genetic model to explain how this works is Mendel's Punnett square (I recommend googling this to visualise), which goes as follows: 2x dominant alleles result in offspring with a phenotype (visible characteristics) of the dominant allele (genotype AA), and 2x recessive alleles result in offspring with a phenotype of the recessive allele (genotype aa). It gets more interesting when putting together 2 people with each 1 dominant and 1 recessive allele (genotype Aa), this results in 75% offspring of the dominant phenotype (genotypes: 25% AA and 50% Aa), and 25% of the recessive phenotype (genotype aa).

In this case, syndactyly is caused the allele A (simplified for the sake of this fucking post), meaning that AA or Aa genotypes have the syndactyly phenotype, a.k.a. people with these genotypes have webbed fingers or toes. People who don't have syndactyly have an aa genotype, meaning that they also cannot pass on a syndactyly allele to their offspring.

Since syndactyly is caused by a dominant gene, it isn't and cannot be caused by inbreeding outright.

You might have noticed that I explicitly talked about syndactyly separate from any other disorders/syndromes. Well, that is because syndactyly can also be a symptom associated with a number of rare conditions. I'm not going to list all of them because there's a lot, but what you need to know is that its most commonly associated condition is none other than Down's Syndrome, which is believed to be caused by chance alone. Said chance increases as the parents age, but it is not inherited, and its chances of occurring are probably not increased via inbreeding.

With most of these other disorders, it is quite apparent if one has it, therefore we can safely say that neither Charlie or Luci have such a condition. And since most of the other conditions are dominant, which means that we can skip these since the argument has already been made.

However, Carpenter Syndrome, Filippi Syndrome, Fraser Syndrome, and Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome are all autosomal recessive conditions which might have syndactyly as an additional symptom. But if you take a look at what the other symptoms of these conditions are, you'll find that syndactyly is the least concern. Hypothetically the frequency at which these conditions occur could be increased via inbreeding due to (once again) recessive alleles coming together, but because of their rarity, we know very little about these conditions and how they are inherited as of now. The initial cause cannot be properly traced back to form a proper conclusion. And I couldn't find any studies that discussed any of these conditions and the impact inbreeding has on them.

When not outright inherited from a parent, the remainder of these conditions are caused by various types of mutations, and contrary to popular belief; incest does NOT cause mutations, it simply makes it more likely for already existing mutations to cause problems because of recessive alleles coming together.

So no, Charlie and Luci's incest babies wouldn't have webbed hooves, and if they did, it would be because of sheer bad luck unrelated to incest, or because Lucifer already has them (which is now my headcanon).

Sources:

"Webbed Fingers" by Adrian E. Flatt (scientific article)

"Genetic Consultations in the Newborn" by Robin D. Clark and Cynthia J. Curry (book, specifically chapter 33 "Syndactyly")

I'd cite my sources better but it doesn't allow me to ask anonymously if I put in links :(

Also, I should probably mention that this post is not peer-reviewed. Let me know if I messed up somewhere xoxo

adding sources is crazy