#also would have posted my art sooner but I did not know how to do the cut offs so I didnt 😭

[dresshistorynerd]

His family owned the arsenic mine and he divested his interest in it eventually, though of course profiting off of it was certainly a hypocrisy he engaged in for several years even after becoming a socialist. I can't really ask much more than he should have done it sooner, since he could hardly decide how his father had made his fortune. I agree that his continued denial of arsenic poisoning was insane, but his factory did stop using arsenic in 1879, 6 years before he send that letter. And he didn't use the other poisonous dyes that were used frequently at the time. I'm sure his position on arsenic specifically was influenced by his family's fortune coming from arsenic mine and the need to be defensive about it. My point was rather that there has been no debate at all past many years weather viscose method is dangerous to workers or not and still it is used, even though the owners know and believe it's dangerous, which clearly he wouldn't have approved of. Overall his factory was reported to have good working conditions, much better than what was typical at the time.

I know he was a Victorian man and while I fully admit I very much enjoy his writing and work, I'm not hero worshiping him. I do have many criticisms for him, but surviving under capitalism in a way where he tries to make some positive impact is not one of them. I know every write up on him loves to paint him doing business as a hypocrisy and a point of criticism, but I find that very silly. He never became rich with his business, though it did most of the time bring him enough money to live a comfortable life (though there were times during which the business was not as great and he lived a less middle class life), because he despised commerce and did it enough in order to do arts in his own terms and survive. This whole criticism feels so much like that meme "you criticize society yet you live in society, curious, I'm very smart".

I would much rather criticize him for his racist attitudes. Even though he was anti-colonialist and opposed the British Empire and he didn't believe in inherent biological racial qualities, he did accept the premise that there were distinctions between races, he just thought those were caused by the living conditions of different peoples both environmental and the material conditions forced upon them. It's still racist. He was also clearly ignorant about many different cultures, especially non-white ones, and did sometimes engage in cultural supremacy. He also was part of feminist causes, but he very much did uphold very binary gender roles evident in the way he wrote about men and women, even as in some ways he tried to oppose them.

Edit: I took this comment in a way it wasn't intended, understanding now better the point, I can agree that it would have been better if I had brought up some of those valid criticisms too in the original post. For context, here's the additional exchange we had!

The Morrisian case against fast fashion

Today I discovered that H&M made a William Morris collection some years ago. The heath death of the universe can't come quickly enough. We can stop now. Satire is dead and we killed her.

It's not just the whole concept of H&M using William Morris' designs for their fast fashion which is insanity inducing, but also the critical response it garnered. Like sure, people did realize this is insane and there was a lot of think pieces about it at the time, but I read several of them and they all seem to still miss the point in spectacular way.

The basic premise of these think pieces go along the lines of: "Would William Morris spin in his grave with a speed of light because of the H&M collection of his designs? A difficult question indeed. William Morris was a complicated man. He wanted art to be affordable to everyone. Isn't H&M affordable? That kinda fits. Though probably he would have some concerns about H&M's practices."

On the surface - yes - but like in reality - fuck no. There's no nuance in this particular issue. He talked about many times what he though of the H&Ms of his time, the retailers selling poor quality industrially produced "fashionable" bullshit. We know exactly what he would have thought of H&M. Here's couple of quotes from his 1884 lecture "Art and Socialism", which makes it very clear.

"It would be an instructive day's work for any one of us who is strong enough to walk through two or three of the principal streets of London on a week-day, and take accurate note of everything in the shop windows which is embarrassing or superfluous to the daily life of a serious man. Nay, the most of these things no one, serious or unserious, wants at all; only a foolish habit makes even the lightest-minded of us suppose that he wants them, and to many people even of those who buy them they are obvious encumbrances to real work, thought and pleasure. But I beg you to think of the enormous mass of men who are occupied with this miserable trumpery, from the engineers who have had to make the machines for making them, down to the hapless clerks who sit day-long year after year in the horrible dens wherein the wholesale exchange of them is transacted, and the shopmen, who not daring to call their souls their own, retail them amidst numberless insults which they must not resent, to the idle public which doesn't want them but buys them to be bored by them and sick to death of them."

He is describing the birth of consumerism, which was taking form during his lifetime in the late Victorian Era, which fast fashion is the extreme logical conclusion of, and he fucking hated it. He specifically railed against endless consumerist products, which H&M is the perfect representation of. It was definitely not the art and beauty he believed everyone required and deserved. He makes the distinction often.

"Now if we are to have popular Art, or indeed Art of any kind, we must at once and for all be done with this luxury; it is the supplanter, the changeling of Art; so much so that by those who know of nothing better it has even been taken for Art, the divine solace of human labour, the romance of each day's hard practice of the difficult art of living."

"And here furthermore is at least a little sign whereby to distinguish between a rag of fashion and a work of Art: whereas the toys of fashion when the first gloss is worn off them do become obviously worthless even to the frivolous—a work of Art, be it ever so humble, is long lived; we never tire of it; as long as a scrap hangs together it is valuable and instructive to each new generation. All works of Art in short have the property of becoming venerable amidst decay: and reason good, for from the first there was a soul in them, the thought of man, which will be visible in them so long as the body exists in which they were implanted."

When he thought of popular Art he thought of the craftsmanship of the common people. The art people have made from useful everyday objects with skillful handicrafts. This is what he means by "divine solace of human labour". It's not reverence of Puritanical work ethic, on the contrary, it's the reverence of creation, of the earnest joy people feel when they get to express themselves through their creative pursuits. He certainly didn't believe in work for work's sake, work needed to be worthwhile and enjoyable. He summarized his own position on what labour should be thusly:

"It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should he done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious."

He urged his middle class audience to reject consumerism (the lecture was for a very much middle class atheist society):

"For I say again that in buying these things: 'Tis the lives of men you buy! Will you from mere folly and thoughtlessness make yourselves partakers of the guilt of those who compel their fellow men to labour uselessly?"

I think it's glaringly obvious H&M and fast fashion in general is what he would consider luxury. Rags of fashion that are just churned out and discarded without thought and produced by compelling people to labour uselessly. It's not popular art that's made by workers and craftsmen, who are able to express themselves through it. There's no agency for the abused workers in H&M's sweatshops, they are not expressing their joy of creation, they are simply labouring uselessly.

Morris didn't shame workers for buying affortable things even if they weren't Art with big A, because that's the problem he despised the whole economic system for, for taking away the popular Art from people, making it inaccessible, and selling back mass produced products with very little practical or aesthetic value. So I don't think he would have problem with people who can only afford fast fashion today. They are the victims of capitalism too, because Art has been taken away from them. But the idea that some of these think pieces had that perhaps the H&M's Morris collection can be good actually if you squint, that H&M has the capacity to bring the art and beauty Morris advocated for for the people, is level of stupidity that's hard to express in words.

Morris didn't believe anything made with exploited labour could be truly beautiful, truly art. In his 1879 lecture "The Art of the People" he put it like this:

"That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour."

The way I understand this, is that art is communication. Through it we communicate feelings, ideas and thoughts, that is it's purpose. So for that communication to work, for it to be imbued with message, the person making it needs to feel passion and love for it's creation. How can there be love and passion if the hands making the garment belong to a tired exploited worker who has no egency what so ever in their work and can only think about survival to the next day?

Beyond the fundamental exploitativeness of H&M and fast fashion, this collection would still get zero points on aesthetic values from Morris even with his own designs. Because the work itself was such an important part of art for Morris, good design was nothing without good craftsmanship. Good design in his mind was always relative and dependent on it's purpose.

"For everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be indifferent." (The Lesser Arts, 1877)

Here when he says nature, he means the nature of the thing that is made - basically it's purpose and function - and the nature of the materials it's made from. Basically, the design must always be made to bring out the function of the art and the qualities of the material it's made from, not fight against them. This is because he believed handicrafts were uniquely suitable for expressing the love of creation, therefore superior labour, and to really bring out the qualities of the craftsmanship and enjoy the creative process, the design should be suitable for that craft. The other side, which was the joy of using and experiencing art, required the craft to be selected for the suitable purpose. Using poorly functioning furniture for example is not very enjoyable, nor is using clothing that's made from materials that are not suitable for the climactic conditions it's supposed to be used in.

H&M of course utterly fails in this. They use Morris' designs in fully unsuitable ways. They print patterns made for example for wall papers on poor quality fabrics with synthetics dyes they weren't made for. This line from one blog post I came across really got me: "Therefore, without cheapening the artistic value of Morris’ designs, H&M’s collection offers an unparalleled potential for accessibility to them." No. Fuck no. They do in fact cheapen Morris' designs in every single way possible. Literally this is atrocious.

Despite the popular depiction, Morris wasn't in fact against industrial machinery or industrial art even, or at least he wasn't once his views on art and politics matured. He did think technology was useful, but he thought the people should use industrial methods for the benefit of all, not be enslaved by the industrial machine.

"I have spoken of machinery being used freely for releasing people from the more mechanical and repulsive part of necessary labour; and I know that to some cultivated people, people of the artistic turn of mind, machinery is particularly distasteful, and they will be apt to say you will never get your surroundings pleasant so long as you are surrounded by machinery. I don't quite admit that; it is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays. In other words, it is the token of the terrible crime we have fallen into of using our control of the powers of Nature for the purpose of enslaving people, we care less meantime of how much happiness we rob their lives of." ("How we live and how we might live", 1887)

However, he thought that the designer should approach it the way they approached any craft, by designing for the strengths of the machine work.

"But if you have to design for machine-work, at least let your design show clearly what it is. Make it mechanical with a vengeance, at the same time as simple at possible. Don't try, for instance, to make a printed plate look like a hand-painted one: make it something which no one would try to do if he were painting by hand..." ("Art and the Beauty of the Earth", 1881)

He did use some machinery for fabric and wall paper printing, but he was very intentional about their use. Still his designs weren't made for the type of methods these modern H&M machinery uses and he did for example use natural dyes. Particularly insulting is that some of the H&M clothes are made from viscose, rayon made with viscose method. Viscose method is extremely toxic and is known to cause long term health consequences for the workers and the people in surrounding areas. This has been well proven knowledge for ages. William Morris' wall paper factory in the beginning used the typical method used at the time which involved arsenic, but once he learned this could pose risks for the workers, he changed the method. Many of the new synthetic dyes were toxic at the time, which is the major reason he so favoured natural dyes, known to not cause health issues for workers or pollute the environment.

The question many of these think pieces about the H&M Morris collection posed was, would Morris disapprove and should we care? The first part of that is very easy to answer. Yes. Of course Morris would disapprove. He is currently powering the whole of British isles with purely the kinetic energy his grave-spinning produces. Should we care though? If you care about Morris' art, if you want to see more of that kind of art in this world, you should care. Morris' art is not about the superficial qualities. Copying his designs and aesthetics and styles, will only lead to hollow imitations, that are exactly what he described the rags of fashion to be; as the shininess of novelty wears off they will reveal themselves to be soulless, useless and utterly empty. This collection is just that. To see more of the kind of art that makes you feel like his art makes you feel, not just something that reminds you of that feeling, you should focus more on the way the art is made and less on the specific aesthetics. If his vision of labour and art was realised, all art produced of course wouldn't be loved by every person, but all of it would be loved by someone, even if that someone was just the maker. And that would be more worthwhile than every single rag of fast fashion.

I will stop William-Morris-posting now and return to my thesis.

[adultemophase]

A VERY LONG ARCANE S2 REVIEW (Not spoiler free below page break)

Firstly, these are all my opinions and everyone is entirely entitled to their own. If you hated S2? That’s fine but I didn’t. So, I will be doing a kind of general breakdown of my thoughts on each act below but first my general review is that I think in terms of overall story telling, season 1 is better.

To ME, S2 seems like more of what they initially had in mind for the show, and they just really nailed the exposition of S1. This is what I think made S1’s pacing feel a lot better - it’s all exposition for S2. Season 2 had to fit a climax and resolution for all of these characters in the same amount of time that they took to set up all of these story lines in the previous season. I genuinely think that each act could have been it’s own season but w/ how expensive the show is to make and the amount of time production took between seasons, I see how that’s not practical. Especially if they want to explore other regions sooner than 15 years from now.

TBH I really enjoyed this season. I understand some people are hating it because of the parts they don’t like but it’s still a visually stunning show with great characters. Do I think there were areas where the story fell flat? Yes. I also think given the time constraints and restriction of this being the last season, the visual story telling was very well done and a great way to move along the story without sacrificing time. I genuinely think it’s such a phenomenal feat of animation that characters expressions convey thoughts and emotions that feel real without dialogue. I still am blown away that it’s a LoL show because despite my love of league lore and characters, I never would have expected that Riot could produce such a heart wrenching show about the tragic nature of love and loss, the things we do for love, and the flaws of our own humanity.

I also think some people set their expectations WAYYY too high for the social commentary aspect of the show after s1, as far as I’m aware there was never any claim made by any part of the prod or writing team that it would be one. Idk overall, I thought it was a lot of fun and still an exceptional show. Not what I was expecting but I’m not upset about how it ended. I think it was conclusive but also not so finite that it leaves zero room for interpretation of the characters implied futures.

It is a little disheartening to see so many immediate negative reactions to it but, again, people are entitled to their own opinions and as much as I complain about people not using critical thinking skills or passing grade 9 literature - art is subjective. Animation, ESPECIALLY at this scale and complexity, is a form of art. I, as I’m sure many other’s did, found it a fulfilling end to one of my favorite shows. Yes, I wish there was more but I can’t bring myself to be disappointed with what we did get.

Below is my (again PERSONAL and NOT SPOILER FREE) 1-10 rating and my thoughts on each act (not really going to analyze anything because I need about 3-5 weeks to scrub through every episode so only my little reviews) :

ACT 1 (7/10) : I think this act is the one with the worst pacing, but I said a whole back in a previous post that I believe to some degree it was intentional. There is suddenly a war happening so I think it’s supposed to feel chaotic a bit chaotic. However I can concede to part of it just being, well, bad pacing. This act is definitely one I wish could have taken up more episodes if there were more seasons since I would prefer flushed out development as opposed to music videos at the beginning of each episode. However, for what it was, they serve their purpose narratively and relay the information that the viewer needs to know. Otherwise, as heartbreaking as the act is, I gotta put myself on blast and say that I LOVE the end sequence of ep 3 when Ambessa makes Caitlyn commander. Like it’s so daunting and cool. Ep 1 fight scene at the memorial? super sick. I also loved the development of the dynamic between Sevika and Jinx. You can feel the characters devolve into a version of themselves that truly is worse and I think that’s so fun. Most of my drop in rating is from how fast it feels.

ACT 2: 9/10

I simultaneously have so much and so little to say. I won’t talk about Isha’s death because to me it was fairly evident that she was going to die from act 1. Anyways, for me this was the most tragic act and I’m still trying to decide between this and act 3 as my favorite. I love them both, in different ways. Seeing Jinx and Vi be brought together and Vander was so touching and sad. You get a real look of how much they still care for each other despite the fact that they’re perpetually ripped apart. I’ve already made a post about the scene between Caitlyn and Vi, so I won’t just say the same thing I’ve already said. I also honestly am not upset that Vi’s “six-ish months of going insane” wasn’t drawn out. Again, I don’t LOVE the music videos, but narratively, it tells you virtually everything you need to know about what’s happened to her and where she is mentally. It’s literally a montage of her life for the past several months. As a recovering addict and someone known to self destruct, I would much rather they condense that like they did rather than draw it out and not handle it well. If you’re going to be cynical, you could say they didn’t anyways but, recovering addict, so I was more worried before the act 2 release that it would be triggering rather than handled poorly.

Jayce coming back and tweaking out was also such a fun touch when it wasn’t explained until the next episode why he was acting that way. Like I figured it had to do with the hex crystal now fused with his body but it was still so interesting.

ACT 3: 9/10

Maybe unpopular but I LOVED this act. Everything was so visually intriguing that on my first watch I wasn’t even fully locked in just because I was focused on how good the imagery/animation is. I thought I was going to hate ep 7 because, unfortunately that leak was real (no I won’t be changing my pfp to a clown like I said I was bc I’m stubborn) but the implication to me of that episode was not “Vi dead so everything good!” it’s that they saw a kid die because of the crystals Jayce had and, in brevity, saw what the tension between the undercity and Piltover was doing to people. I am curious what happened to THAT universes Jayce but I imagine he was probably imprisoned.

Obviously, I have to address the sex scene, and honestly? I don’t mind that it’s in a jail cell BECAUSE of the very obvious parallel to how they first met. It was also done in such a wonderful way that it feels like a legitimately intimate scene between the characters and not just a “man well I suppose they need to fuck, huh.” or male gaze-y “lesbians 🤤” way.

I will be honest and say I don’t like multiverse stuff since it kind of kills the whole “arcane is cannon” thing. I also just don’t love it in general because in recent years it’s been just a cop out for companies to make more money off of IPs (see Marvel) but it makes me want to go back and rewatch s1 again to see if this has always been the plan. I don’t mind Viktor being the wizard that Jayce sees when he is a kid since they tied that up in a way thats really cool. I do think it’s an episode though that, after seeing it a couple of times, is easily skippable since it doesn’t really do a ton for the main plot. Like Ekko gets his Z drive, heimerdinger (i think?) dies, and Jayce discovers the damage hextech can do. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the episode, unfortunately it is just one that I feel like viewers can skip over upon rewatch because of the AU stuff.

Also MEL, I love her storyline with the black rose and I really hope that her putting on the Noxian clothing in the end is an indication that we will get more of her if Riot does a series based in Noxus.

[sourbombz]

UHH raincode full game spoilers yeah yeah

Anyway I think I'll post some if my Number One art hi I'm obsessed with Number One I love Number One so much he's so awesome and cool... so have some if my Number One art/art of Yuma of what I imagine his long hair was like before loosing his memories hehe

[tbaluver]

hello! I hope you're having a nice day ✨

can I request LADS men reaction to MC sending them videos of their baby like it's either them saying their first words or anything adorable since the men are away from home for quite a while and MC and their baby misses them ehe (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

Sending Them Baby Videos When They're Away- The Love And DeepSpace Men

parings in order: Xavier x Reader, Zayne x Reader, Rafayel x Reader, Sylus x Reader genre: fluff fluff c/w: for sylus there's mention of him using his evol to x_x someone, no gore tho a/n: hihi anonnie! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ this was such a cute concept to write and i had to write this immediately (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ ) ‧º but i dunno if i did this justice so if it didnt, you alr know just pretend this doesn't exist ദ്ദി ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ ) anyways them as papas are such a cute concept i have so much of it in my drafts that i'll post soon ): enjoy reading and have a nice day or night anonnie ! (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Xavier:

He was sent away for a mission for a couple days due to fluctuations of Wanderers in the area. Unfortunately if he was by himself, it wouldn’t have taken days but his teammates were dragging him down.

His phone chimes, signaling a notification from you. Opening his phone he sees a video you had sent him.

“Rahhh!!” Your son squeals, hitting his toy sword at your plushies that you both won a couple years ago. Your laughter was in the background, making his lips tug into a smile. He missed you both as he watched the video. He was quick to text you back.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎: is he protecting mommy

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎: it seems i have taught him well

He clicked off his phone, determination bursting through him. He wants to go back home. The warmth of your laughter and the sight of your son, drove him forward. This mission dragged on way too long, he was going to finish this himself.

He moved swiftly, slashing his sword with precision. The hours flew by as well as the number of Wanderers. Without any word to his teammates from the mission, he headed out. He couldn’t wait to see the look on you and your son's face when he walked through the door.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎:  i’m on my way home now. does our son need a partner to protect you?

Zayne:

Zayne isn’t easily distracted except when it comes to you and a box of macaroons. Now if it was you and a box of macaroons that would be a deadly combo.

During his meetings or when he’s about to head into a surgery, he always lets you know if he’s occupied so you know he won’t be able to reply right away. But right after all of that is over, he’ll immediately check his phone for you and ignore any of his notifications.

But when he’s in his office, the moment he receives a message from you, he can’t help but glance away from the reports he needs to file or send over to the nurses. Your messages always pull him in no matter what.

He unlocks his phone and is instantly met with another cute video of your baby daughter. She’s wearing his freshly clean white coat, which she had pulled from the laundry basket. She’s also wearing his oversized shoes that are comically too big for her tiny feet. “Papa!” She squeals, her face lighting up with a silly smile as she looks into the camera.

A soft laugh escapes his lips and he can’t help but replay the video a couple more times, his heart melting each time. It’s as if he can hear her giggles through the screen. With a wide smile curling up on his lips, he texts you back.

☃︎ ♡: How adorable. I think we need to get her one that’s her size

☃︎ ♡: I have one more break after I finish this report. I can call you both when I finish.

☃︎ ♡: I’ll finish up my work quickly so I can get home sooner.

Rafayel:

He didn’t want to be at this art exhibition, or quite frankly any art exhibition if you weren’t there. All he could think about was being home with you and the babies. Leaving them behind felt like one of the hardest things he could ever do.

You sent him a cute and chaotic video while he was away. “Quick, show daddy what you just did!” you exclaimed, as you aimed the camera at your baby waving a crayon clumsily in their tiny hands while you cheered with enthusiasm. “Glub! gub gub!”

He couldn’t help but let out a wide smile, his little baby was going to be just like their papa, an artist in the making and even better they were learning Glubglubnese. The video ends up with your other baby blowing bubbles to their sibling and they start wailing.

Watching the video, his heart ached with longing for his family. He was a father. He was your husband and he shouldn’t have to miss out on all these precious moments he has wanted with you for a long time. He wanted to be there in person and experience the joy with you.

He texts you while making long strides to the exit, ignoring all the reporters and critics that tried to approach him.

𓆟:  tell them to stop being cute until i get back

𓆟: cutie im on my way

𓆟: i miss you and my little glub glubs

𓆟: getting the fastest plane ticket there rn

𓆟: see you soon cutie ( ˘ ³˘)

Sylus:

He was away for another business deal for a couple of days, a business deal that shouldn’t have taken this long and Sylus was getting irritated. “Mr. Sylus, we’re really sorry! Please give us a couple more days! We don’t know what happened to half of the inventory!” The man begged with desperation on his face but Sylus did not have the time for a couple more days.

Before Sylus could respond, his phone chimed with a familiar notification. He raises a finger, signaling for a moment while Luke and Kieran keep the restricted men distracted.

Opening his phone, he was met with an adorable video of your baby daughter. She was dressing up Mephisto in her doll clothes, her giggles flooding through the speakers of his phone. “Caw....” Mephisto caws defeatedly, his head drooping down. “Caw! caw!” Your daughter squeals, her laughter and yours was infectious as she lifts him up in the air, dashing around the living room with pure joy.

He couldn’t help but chuckle, a smile tugging at his lips as he watches the video. Once he clicked off his phone, a sigh escaped his lips. His heart ached with so much longing for you both and he couldn’t bear missing even more precious moments with you and your baby girl.

As Luke and Kieran snicker, stepping aside, crimson swirls began to surround the men, slowly suffocating them until they vanished into thin air.

“Send their team another warning. We’re going home.”

𓅪: The business deal is finally finished. I apologize for the wait, sweetie.

𓅪: I’ll call you both before I get on the plane. I hope I didn't miss much.

𓅪: I'll pick up more doll clothes for her on my way back.

Once he was in his private jet he couldn’t wait to have you and his baby girl in his arms again.

[bendyartistic]

Be aware of alexbstudios.

Over the course of what I believe a few months maybe, Alex has been harassing me with strange behavior and as of recent hurtful remarks too. He's been bothering other people as well from what I've seen. Probably going to say I should've just blocked him, but I wanted to keep an eye on things just in case. Today was the point in time after everything that I realized I should let people know about this kid.

I want to show from the beginning to present time of the interactions he's done with me. And maybe something can be done about getting him off the platform...

Firstly I want to say Alex has admitted to being 12 years old... apparently. I know this from this reblog. This already is a very large red flag. Considering the young age, no a callout doesn't seem right but I still want to warn people regardless since he's still active on the platform.

Though I am uncertain if this is true, he did not confirm nor deny my question about it.

Now lets get to the start of things. I don't like people reposting my art anywhere without credit, surely that can be said for everyone.

Randomly in May Alex reposted my art, no credit, mention of who made it, or where it came from. I should mention Alex had been following me well before this post, so he knew who I was. Rightfully I responded with a request to take it down as I didn't appreciate this.

Upon making this request he made a small complaint about it, which was unneeded. While he did "delete" the post, it still technically there, just edited. Therefore never officially removed like I had asked.

He also uploaded two other drawings I did, but he did not remove those ones.

Not too long ago on a post I made showcasing my Chris model, as it had been a while since I posted it, and I wanted to let people see it.

Alex later said some... questionable things about it. And it really made me uncomfortable to say the least.

For context in my AU, my Chris is 29. This has been stated before a few times.

I want to get to the biggest thing here however, as this is what drove me to make this post. The consistent weird and hateful DM's he has sent me.

I have told Alex to leave me alone on several different occasions and he has refused to do so. Again I know I should've blocked but as I said, just wanted to wait in case. Truth is I don't like blocking people, never have, I feel weird doing it. But anyways Alex made a poll a week ago if I recall correctly of whether or not he should keep or delete his account. The poll won on keep. No sooner did this happen, Alex was in my DM's bothering me about it after I again told him to leave me alone.

The DM's are as followed with context and info:

He responded with something along the lines of "Then my account would become lost media!" to which I only responded "No one really cares."

Next post is where Alex starts to mock me for being slow with my replies. I don't quite understand what speed he expects me to write my replies at, I guess 5 seconds?

So as you have noticed Alex is now making fun of my autism, and it's going to continue in this unfortunately. Bringing up a disability in an argument should not happen. However at some point Alex accused me of creating alts to vote against his poll, I have none.

I'm not sure why me specifically... and I hate how me being "slow" keeps getting brought up. Also racism is somehow brought into this as well.

He spammed me with the same image repeatedly, and it continued for a while. Passing that, he wanted me to run the same poll he did on if I should keep or delete my account. I obviously declined.

He then blocked me after this.

Alex in the past DM'd me, when he made those remarks about my Chris model. I wasn't happy then and I'm still not about it.

I'm still puzzled as to why he calls being blocked as banned. Besides that this comes to the end of the DM ark. Alex has done other things, such as suggest people to draw strange stuff, edited other peoples work, steal other peoples work, and tried to stir up drama at one point.

In conclusion,

Alex is immature. And should not be here, especially this fandom. But in general he should not be online, it is clear he has unlimited access to whatever he wants.

I am sorry to my friends and others who have had to deal with him. That is all I have to say.

Any questions or whatnot is fine. Reblogs are appreciated in order to spread the word.

[devilart2199-aibi]

I know I already said this prior to you, but I adore your Stunticon designs so much and feel an absolute rush of joy when I see you post art of any of them. I yearn for more information on your AU versions of them, and what happens to them all when they get to earth.

Where does Dead End go when he helps Breakdown, where do Motormaster, Drag Strip and Wildrider go after the split up in the team and how do they all handle it? They're all connected through the gestalt bond, which makes a gestalt closer than any other cybertronians, and how do they handle Motormaster hurting Breakdown, and then losing two of their own?

Does Motormaster ever regret what he did to Breakdown?

Thank you again! Hearing your interest in my AU really does make me so happy!! 🥺💕 So feel free to ask away! I've been pretty busy recently so I haven't had any time to work on the au sadly. But let's answer some questions now! With some drawings!! >:3

Also long post warning! !

"Where does Dead End go when he helps Breakdown?"

In short, undecided atm! But this is what happened if he was planning to leave with Breakdown:

Dead End and Breakdown agreed on a meeting spot a bit outside the Stunticons base. But when Breakdown doesn't show up for a long while, Dead End figured he got cold feet and began heading back to base only to get a coms transmission from MotorMaster telling him to meet up with Dragstrip and Wild Rider who are currently in pursuit of Breakdown!

Dead End would be wayyyy behind the others and only end up catching a glimpse of Breakdown and Knockout being apprehended by the Autobots, the other Stunticons long gone.

Dead End wasn't really sure what he would do now. It seemed like the others didn't know he wanted out like Breakdown. But what if they did? Does he risk it and go back? What was he going to do if the plan had gone smoothly even?

Well... he hadn't really got that far. He just knew he was tired, and Breakdown suggested an out. But joining another group of hot-headed 'Cons? Really?? He needed something different... maybe just... roaming around earth would be fun? It definitely has to be calmer than anything he's experienced the past few Megacycles.

For Dead End, since I wasn't sure if I would have him leave with Breakdown or not, I hadn't chose a story for him yet, though i did have a few ideas in mind.

"Where do MotorMaster, Dragstrip and Wild Rider go after the split up in the team and how do they handle it?"

They probably wouldn't go far, maybe just relocate their base. The remaining team would stick together for the most part. They're still the Stunticons, just... less.

MotorMaster would become hell-bent on getting the two back one way or another... or maybe even making them pay for such treachery to their team.

"How do they handle MotorMaster hurting Breakdown, and then losing two of their own?"

They were used to MM's intimidation techniques to get them back in line, but nothing like this. Sure he'd give 'em a good toss, smack or yelling at, but this, this was something else.

For Dragstrip he'd think to himself "What did Breakdown think would happen if he told MM him off and ditched the team? What a fool" as a kind of way to make sense of the situation. He'd definitely stand a bit further from MM than before.

As for Wild Rider, he loved a good fight. Heck he didn't mind killing a few bots! But never each other. He got an uneasy feeling from the whole thing.

For Dead End, they always remember him voicing his annoyance and tiredness with everything, but they never actually thought he'd do anything about it.

"Does MotorMaster ever regret what he did to Breakdown?"

Sadly not. He probably only regrets not being able to see Breakdown's desire to leave sooner. Not that he'd know what he'd do then.

And I think that was it? Thanks again for the questions and curiosity towards my au!! :3

[oneatlatime]

A Precariously Stacked Pile of Random Season 2 Thoughts

These are notes I took as I watched the season. Usually after I’d already posted about the episode in question, and I thought of something I would have added to the post. Rather than edit them into my posts, I’m rounding them up and posting them all at once. As such, they are vaguely chronological. Unfortunately, because I made the notes legible to me and me only, I didn't bother to write down what episode I was referring to. I've also added some notes in as I was editing these notes. So this is also a bit of a scavenger hunt. Enjoy!

Iroh poisoning himself: dumbass moment or 5D chess?

My autocorrect corrects “Sokka” to Sock, and “Sokka’s” to socks. This causes double takes when editing.

Badgermoles have excellent eyeliner. Is that where the Kyoshi Warriors get their jaw dropping cat eye?

Why is Ty Lee spelled Ty Lee and not Tai Li? Why is Dai Li spelled Dai Li and not Dy Lee?

Sometimes Sokka makes me think of Mulan. Am I crazy?

Are the swampbenders’ moves based on a real martial art style too?

Why didn’t Aang use his swamp sense to locate Appa post-appanapping?

Where did Toph, who spent her whole life as a prisoner of her parents’ house and a moonlighting WWE wrestler until Team Avatar busted her out, get such emotional intelligence?

Why did Zuko’s dad put forward the plan to disinherit Iron in favour of him less than 24 hours after Lu Ten’s death? Why did he think that moving quickly was the right approach? Does the Fire Nation not do grieving periods? In what world was 'strike while the iron is hot' the correct course of action here?

Looking back, I’m amazed that season 2 didn’t end in Zuko’s redemption. I didn’t much like Zuko Alone, but I was sure that a season that included that much set up for a Zuko redemption arc would prioritise finishing that arc.

I haven’t even met this Firelord guy yet, but I am peeved that that twerp has a name as cool as Ozai.

Why haven't I met that Firelord guy yet?

I really thought that the older brother character in Zuko Alone would make an appearance later on in the season, giving Zuko a chance to flex some newly acquired morals. But the parallel to Lu Ten and the general message about the evils of war lands better if we never hear of him again.

Zuko in the first half of season 2 had me so annoyed that I was incredibly uncharitable to him in my write ups. Reading through some of the stuff I wrote while watching episodes, I kind of wince now. Zuko in the second half of the season was much less annoying. Which I feel bad for saying, because he’s clearly not in a good place in the second half of the season.

I would love to know why the writers decided to have Toph and Iroh meet in the wilderness. I think it’s a good choice, but I want to know how they came up with it, and why those characters? Is there anything about Toph (especially at that point, when we’ve known her for 1 episode) that suggests that she and Iroh should meet? Or would get along if they did?

Zuko has so many rock bottom fake outs this season: Zuko Alone? Nope, he gets worse in The Chase. The Chase? Nope, he gets worse in Bitter Work. Bitter Work? Nope, he gets worse in the finale.

I’m still peeved that Azula won a 6 on 1 showdown. Sorry, but that breaks immersion.

I bet the Blue Spirit could make lightning.

If water is the element of change, why does the Northern Water Tribe have such strictly defined traditions? I get that it's literally the element of change, in that water can exist in different physical states, but shouldn't the metaphorical interpretation also be true?

I like that Toph can think like an Airbender sooner than Aang can think like an earthbender.

What is Sokka’s boomerang made of? Is it metal? Because if it’s metal, does that mean that there’s a blacksmith somewhere in the South Pole? With a forge?

I still can’t get over how dumb the whole eclipse plot was.

Suki is TINY!!!

I mocked this guy’s 80s aerobics video leotard aesthetic, and I stand by that mockery, because this guy is ugly. Those colours are awful. But do you know who else has those colours?

Jet this season fascinates me. He’s positioned as genuinely repentant and legitimately seeking a second chance and I don’t believe him for one minute. Why don’t I believe him? This show has a theme of learning from mistakes and doing better, so shouldn’t Jet be a perfect fit for this show’s themes? I should be primed to believe him. And yet I don’t.

I have to applaud Iron’s enthusiasm for their new life in Ba Sing Se. A lot of that cheer (at least before the tea shop) is put on for Zuko’s sake. I don’t know where Iroh gets the energy to keep trying with Zuko after years of minimal results, but I’m glad he does.

I think Aang and Ty Lee should hang out. They have similar circus energy. Or maybe it’s that they’re the only two characters in the show so far who are remotely playful.

Aang = surface silliness, core of calm. Not that the silliness doesn't run deep, but he seems to have an untouchable anchor of calm deep within that rarely gets disturbed. Gyatso raised him well.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~Poetry bouncer ~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

I need next season to have more Appa & Mono subplots à la their escapades in The Swamp. Not à la Momo’s Tale.

Tales of Ba Sing Se definitive ranking: Momo Aang Sokka Zuko Iroh Katara & Toph

I love that Momo still sleeps in the Momo bag from The Blind Bandit

Are Suki and her warriors sitting in the middle of some Earth Kingdom forest in their underwear?

So are Smellerbee and Longshot just done? Will they be back in season 3? What happens to their life now? They are known associates of an enemy of the state who was just executed. It doesn't look good.

Everyone on this show has big ears. Zuko has the smallest ears simply because he has the least amount of ears remaining. But everyone else? Big ears.

Can I have more Gyatso? I forgot how cool he was. More Guru too please.

Hakodilf.

Everyone in the SWT has such wonderfully fluffy hair.

I like Sokka’s boots. Southern Water Tribe boots in general.

If this is the grand total of the SWT, I have some bad news about population dynamics.

Is there a proper naval term for what the SWT are doing? They’re a stealth strike force that seems to be going after individual enemy ships, using both direct and indirect tactics. Not pirates, because as far as we know they aren't going for FN supplies. They're doing what submarines do, but above water. There’s got to be a proper name for that.

Is there a raft of FN corpses chilling in the waters in front of the NWT's big wall?

I saw ATLA described as a show where all the characters are Asian-inspired people of colour, but isn’t Suki a blue-eyed redhead?

I had no idea that you could decline an Agni Kai. Zuko should have done that.

Why are the Dai Li so in love with Azula? I get that they're pissed with Long Feng for getting arrested, but wouldn't the logical choice be to direct their loyalties to the Earth King rather than a wildcard princess? I'm not going to pretend for a minute that the Dai Li are loyal to the Earth Kingdom or to Ba Sing Se, but the Earth King is a known quantity. Seems to me that it would be easier for them to re-puppetify him, rather than a FN princess.

Katara & Zuko bonding over their missing mothers is the same “makes sense until you think about it for five seconds” as Song & Zuko bonding over losing their fathers to war. Technically the same, sort of, on paper, but actually kind of rude to equate them once you know the full story. Same with the parallel between Lu Ten and the older brother in Zuko Alone. The proper dead mom parallel is Katara and Jet. Although Katara doesn’t object to the Zuko comparison, so I have no grounds to do so.

I’m really glad that Katara didn’t remove Zuko’s scar with her spirit oasis water. Both because she kind of really needed that water, but also because one thing this show has always done right is permanence. No quick fixes, no fake outs, no take backs. Lu Ten is dead, and he stays that way. Princess Yue is the moon, and she stays that way. Half a dozen people’s moms are dead, and they stay that way. Aang is the last Airbender, and he stays that way. Zuko is scarred, and he stays that way. There are no hand waves, no easy fixes. All the characters can do is learn to live with it, and go forward. And I’m grateful the show is like that, because that permanence, as well as being a good lesson to learn, functions as a reward for audience investment.

Aang did come to a crossroads of destiny in the finale, chose his duties to the world over his friends, and got aggressively slapped down for it. I have a feeling that he’ll take the wrong lesson from that, since he was already inclined to shun that path.

Overall Season 1 was prettier.

Ty Lee was the cause of more than one Beat Up Sokka Quota fulfillment this season. Make of that what you will.

Will Zuko & Azula spend season 3 bouncing between the FN and Ba Sing Se? They could be heavily involved with establishing the FN governance over Ba Sing Se, since the city is already inclined towards royalty.

Favourite episode this season? The Guru. The Blind Bandit and The Swamp are tied for second place.

[dinsdjrn]

gone, from austin | j. miller | part two

brothers best friend!pre-outbreak!joel x f!reader

summary: Joel Miller: the one that got away; right person, wrong time. Now you’re back in Austin and it hurts just as bad, as if you’d never left five years ago. [w.c. 2.4k]

warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, no use of y/n, light angst, Sarah is alive and well, f!reader, smoking, depression, brief mentions of a mental breakdown, implied cheating (not joel), ex-lovers to lovers, eventual smut, slow burn, lmk if i missed anything <3

💌 a/n: FINALLY a part two? who am i?? anyways not sure how i feel about this story... but i know how i want it to end so ill keep going for that. lmk your thoughts <3

previous part | next part | masterlist

Part two | May 2002

You were a work of art, that’s the hardest part.

It had been three weeks since you had gotten home. You had become more than a bit of a hermit, looking and applying for jobs. You made yourself sparse in the house, you understood everything your brother did was an open invitation to you, but it was easier to disappear. It also gave you time to process, when you left Toronto it was a whirlwind, but now it was a dulling ache. Friends had reached out, wondering where you went, if you were okay. You gave them enough information so they wouldn’t worry, but not enough to come looking for you.

It was Friday morning, just like any other morning, you were searching through medical journals and websites looking for job postings. Search, apply, wait, and wait some more. It wasn’t very thrilling, but it was something to do to keep your head above water.

The alarm on your phone had begun ringing, 10 am, you reached into your desk drawer and took your meds. They filled a hole in your head you hadn’t known was there until you had a small breakdown two years ago. It was something only a few people in your life knew about, it wasn’t something you ever really wanted out there. There was almost a shamefulness to it, no one in Austin knew, and then one person in Toronto who knew about it was no longer welcome in your life. So you move on, continue as you have and hope that your ticket out comes sooner rather than later. 

A soft knock came at your door. 

“Come in!” You said, closing the desk drawer quickly. 

“Hey! Someone is at the door for you,” Kelsey popped her head in and smiled. 

You looked down at your Dell Med School t-shirt and Roots sweatpants and laughed lightly. 

“Is it anyone important?” You asked embarrassed gesturing to your pajama centered clothing choices. 

“I am sure they won’t even notice.”

You sighed and stood up, you lightly stretched and made your way downstairs. Just as the entryway came into view there was Sarah and Joel, Sarah with her backpack on and Joel shifting uncomfortably looking at the floor. 

“Hey guys,” you said, smiling at them. 

“Hey!” Sarah smiled. 

“What’s up? Shouldn’t you be at school already?” You questioned. 

“I had a dentist appointment this morning. We just came back to the house to grab my bag, but I wanted to see if you were around tonight,” She swayed, clearly hoping you’d say yes.

“I’m uh-, not sure,” You looked at Joel for guidance but he wasn’t paying any attention to you his sole focus was on Sarah. 

“I just really wanted to have that sleepover you promised! My dad is going out tonight and suggested it would be a good time for us to hang out and -“

“But only if you are available and want to,” Joel interrupted.

“Oh, yeah! That sounds like it could be fun. Why don’t I come over around 5ish and we can order some pizza?” You smiled at her. 

It would be much more comfortable without Joel there, you had felt like you were walking on eggshells when he would pop over to have a beer with Jake or help Kelsey fix things around the house. 

Joel nodded. 

“Alright baby girl, time to get you to school,” he began shuffling Sarah out the door. 

“See you tonight!” Sarah called over her shoulder. 

You waved at her in response and when the door clicked closed you pinched the bridge of your nose. 

“You know, she really did miss having you around,” Kels leaned against the doorway behind you. 

“I know,” You sighed, “I just don’t know what I’m getting myself into.”

“What do you mean? You’ve known her since she was just a little kid. You’re not getting yourself into anything except maybe forgiving yourself for hurting her.” Kelsey said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“You don’t fucking get it! This isn’t a permanent solution. I can’t stay, I don’t belong here anymore! I don’t want to get her hopes up that I might by hanging out with her and letting things go back to the way they were. That will just hurt her again.” You snapped, a pang of annoyance in your chest.

“You being here and ignoring her, it hurts them both. You can talk a big game about how you don’t belong here, but this is your home, your family. I don’t know what happened between you and Joel, but it is clear he still cares about you. Is staying really the worst thing? At least thinking about it?” 

“They are not my family, you and Jake absolutely are. And you’re right, maybe this was home once, but it’s not anymore. All that’s left is a permanent scar of what could have been. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” You turned to walk up the stairs. 

Kelsey came and put her hand over yours on the railing. 

“Look I’m sorry if I overstepped. I only want to see you happy,” Her voice was soft and apologetic. 

You just nodded in response and made your way back up the stairs, once in your room you made your way to the bed and cried into your pillow. You knew the love for Austin was there, it had always been there, but so was the hurt. The pain would always be there too, it painted your soul in blues and grays. That’s the hardest part, how beautifully life painted your anguish here. 

The day came and went quickly, and you felt unprepared for your sleepover with Sarah. You knew it would be nice to hang out, do face masks and watch a few movies, but your anxiety was palpable. You were worried it would feel like grasping at a life you could’ve had, but were strictly denied. 

You made your way next door around five and before you could even knock the door had swung open and Sarah was pulling you inside. 

“You’re here! Finally, I’ve been thinking about what we could do tonight all day. Dad said he would call a few pizzas in, we went to CVS after school too! I got nail polish, face masks, and some weird snacks,” Sarah spoke excitedly. 

It gave you a bit of whiplash, barely able to even get in a few “Alrights” or “Sounds Fun”’s in. 

“Woah, woah, Sarah slow down,” Joel said as you made your way into their living room. 

He was sitting on the couch in a black t-shirt and Levis, his hair was wet and the messy ways were pushed off his forehead. He was still so devilishly handsome, he never tried too hard with his looks, but that didn’t mean he didn’t look good; it arguably made him more attractive. 

“A’right, I’m going to get outta here,” He put his hands on his lap and made his way to stand, “Tommy is gonna be here any second.” 

“Dad, did you remember to order pizza?” Sarah asked with a hint of annoyance. 

“Oh shit,” he felt his pockets pulling out his phone, “I’ll call on the way over to the bar.”

“Don’t worry about it, Joel. I’ll get it,” You smiled softly at him, pulling out your own phone. 

“Y’sure?” He asked. 

“Yes, yes, she’s sure, now, go have fun. We have a very important girls night to get started on.” Sarah shooed her father toward the door.

Joel just laughed and rolled his eyes, you shrugged in response. 

As soon as you heard the door shut Sarah came rushing back to the living room. 

“Sorry, he’s a mess,” Sarah laughed.

“I can see that nothing has changed,” You laughed with her. 

You both fell into a comfortable conversation, it was nice to see Sarah so happy. She was completely different then when you had left, yet somehow exactly the same. 

The night was spent watching cheesy rom-coms, doing face masks and nails, and eventually Sarah had fallen asleep in her pajamas on the couch. It was nearly one in the morning, you placed a blanket over her small frame and began quietly tidying the living room. 

The night had warmed your heart in a way you weren’t sure you’d be able to feel again. Sarah was such a light in your life for so long, and now she was turning into this beautiful and kind teenager. You had talked all about her school, Joel and Tommy’s shenanigans, and what’s been happening around Austin. She didn’t push you though, you had talked about Toronto and being away from home without delving into any fresh wounds.

 It was nice, it felt good to know when you left it wasn’t your last memory of Sarah. You worried for years it had been and you’d have to watch her grow through the lens of your brother, but here she was in the flesh. 

You sighed, putting the leftover pizza in the fridge and pouring any extra soda from your glasses down the drain. You went and checked on Sarah after you had finished cleaning up to make sure she was still sleeping. She hadn’t even stirred, so you took this as the best opportunity to step outside and have a smoke. 

It wasn’t something you were proud of, but was something that you would normally only do after particularly stressful days. Today would classify as one, you didn’t like fighting with Kels. That, plus the anxiety of coming to the Miller’s and not knowing what to expect, warranted a need to de-stress. 

You made your way into the backyard, only closing the screen door in case Sarah woke up, and placed a cigarette between your lips. Just as you were searching through your bag for a light a voice startled you. 

“Hey, I didn’t know you smoked?” Joel. 

Fuck, you knew he probably wouldn’t have been much later, but it felt pathetic to be sneaking a cigarette on his back porch. 

“Not often, but you’d be surprised how common it is in healthcare.” You said finding the lighter and lighting the end. 

He looked at you for a moment, and you realized maybe he didn’t want you smoking on his back porch. 

“Oh, shit sorry, you okay if I-“ 

“Oh, yeah, I don’t really care,” he hurried before you could finish your question.

“Cool,” you said. 

The silence grew uncomfortable between you two. 

“I, uh, didn’t mean to startle y’a there,” Joel said. 

“Oh,” 

“I just saw the light on and wondered if you were out here.” 

“And here I was…”

“Here you were,” He shifted, “You always loved it back here. Sitting looking up at the stars after Sarah went to bed.”

“Yeah, I think I missed the stars the most while I was in Toronto,” you sighed. 

“I always thought they’d’ve had more stars up there,” he looked up at the sky. 

You had finished about half of the cigarette and put it out, it wasn’t doing anything for you at the moment except make you want to shower. 

“Not in the city, it was like a shitty, colder, New York,” You laughed. 

Joel chuckled at your comment. He came closer to you and leaned on the railing of the deck with you. It felt almost suffocating, he was so close to you and it felt so intimate. 

“Y’know, we’re really happy you’re here,” He said quietly. 

“Joel, don’t…” you warned. 

“I mean it, Sarah never stopped asking about you. She missed you, this girl's night made her whole year.” 

“Joel, please,” you whispered, tears welling in your eyes. You already carried so much guilt for leaving Sarah with nothing but a goodbye. You knew he was trying to comfort you but he was crushing your soul with guilt instead. 

“I’m sorry darlin’ I just… always asked myself what if things were different. Where we would be, how would Sarah be different if you had stayed,” 

His words ignited a fire within you, one that burned in anger and resentment. Who was he to ask what if, when he gave no choice in whether or not you had a chance at finding out. 

“We could talk about maybes and what ifs until we’re blue in the face, it doesn’t turn back time. Doesn’t change anything between us. You made a choice, Joel, and so you don’t get the what if’s,” You snapped. 

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. 

“I’m allowed to wonder,” He retorted. “You weren’t the only one hurt, y’know?”

“Well guess what, I wasn’t the one that wanted out when things got a little bit complicated.”

“Wanted out? You think I wanted out?! Fucking Christ, I didn’t want to hold you back. I have no choice but to stay in Austin, letting you go meant that you wouldn’t be tied down here!” His voice was quiet, but he was clearly irritated.

“I didn’t need you to let me go, I’m very capable of making my own choices. And if I had chosen to stay I needed you to tell me everything would be okay.” 

You weren’t speaking in a hushed tone like he was. You were frustrated, angry, he had completely backtracked on your breakup. Tears stung your eyes, you were frustrated and confused. 

“I’m done talking about this, Joel,” You said, wiping the tears away from your eyes. “You said your piece five years ago, and nothing is going to change that.”

You turned to head back inside, now that he was here you’d be able to walk back over to Jake’s and go to sleep. Make an attempt at forgetting this conversation ever happened and pretend your night ended with you and Sarah asleep on the couch. 

Joel grabbed your wrist before you got too far. 

“Please, just let me explain.” He pleaded. 

You pulled your wrist from his grip and left as promptly as you came. 

Your chest was tight and it was as if you could feel your heart shattering all over again into a million little pieces. The ghost of his love haunted you for years. He was still the same man you fell in love with, that much was certain. In that, it also meant, he was still the same man who broke your heart. 

And that was a risk you were not willing to take. 

To spiral out, to try and float, to see a friend, to see a ghost.

tags: @thetriumphantpanda @fruit-frogs @wand-erer5 @missgurrl @casa-boiardi @harriedandharassed @undrthelights @wishyoudaskme @reader-without-a-story @morning-star-joy @tightjeansjavi & once again sorry if i missed anyone or lmk if youd like to be on the taglist xo.

[moonlightdancer26]

I love Percy Weasley (and Ronnie, but thankfully I've seen more Ron defenders and appreciation posts popping up in recent years, as they should) SO MUCH. He's legitimately one of my favourite characters and my poor little meow meow. Him and Severus have SO MANY parallels. They were both intelligent, ambitious young men who came from poverty and experienced bullying from the people who were supposed to support them. Controversial opinion, but the other Weasley kids (ESPECIALLY Fred and George) were unnecessarily brutal to poor Perce to the point of being malicious. Of course young Severus and Percy went along with the "wrong" crowd when the "right" crowd continuously mocked, belittled, and taunted them, while the "wrong" crowd told them that they were brilliant, that they would go so far, and that anyone who tried to belittle them just didn't get it, that they were just jealous of how successful they were gonna be. Long story short, Percy is adorable and precious and so cute and smart and I want to brush his hair out of his face and kiss him on the nose.

I just drank carrot juice for the first time in 15 years I’m currently going through something

Anyway, I 100000% AGREE. I’ve answered a somewhat similar ask a while ago. I have a headcanon that Percy was actually Snape’s secret fave student. I just know Percy would scold Ronald in a Hermione-like way whenever he’d say anything bad about Severus, “Who cares if he can be a git sometimes? He’s an absolute genius at Potions and passes down his knowledge to his students. If you just got your head out of your arse for a bit, you’d see just how much I’m right.”

Percy’s like my fourth fave HP character, I totally see a younger-Snape in him. Percy was belittled and ridiculed by his family and his ambition and desire for power led him to walking out on them and going after his dreams so his talents can finally be acknowledged. Snape was relentlessly bullied by the Marauders (four Gryffindors) which was dismissed by the headmaster of Hogwarts (also a Gryffindor) and was already ostracised by the rest of Hogwarts for being a Slytherin, he soon joined the Death Eaters alongside Lucius and the Slytherins after graduating because he likely believed that he would finally get recognition for his great knowledge in the Dark Arts. They also both did it at age 19 (I think Sev might’ve joined a little before he turned 19, either way it was after graduating).

Controversial opinion, but the other Weasley kids (ESPECIALLY Fred and George) were unnecessarily brutal to poor Perce to the point of being malicious.

I CAN’T EXPLAIN HOW MUCH I AGREE WITH YOU. I’ve made a few posts talking about this and defending Perce, x, x, x, x, x (my all-time fave Ron defender liked this post and I’m simply never getting over that), x (probably my fave post I’ve made on my blog), and x. Also I hate the claim that their treatment of Perce was normal because “that’s just what siblings do,” like no I literally have 5 other siblings, and while yes we all act like psychos together, we’ve never come close to doing the shit the twins did to Perce and Ron. There’s a difference between being an asshole to your siblings and endangering their life and constantly mocking them. They never took his dreams seriously, and honestly that would be such a horrible thing to go through. Tbh I’m impressed Percy didn’t leave them sooner 💀

and same, I’m such a hardcore Percy apologist that I will go absolutely insane if I see anyone criticise him 😭 He’s literally so hated and for what

[berrypass-de-murdler]

89. The Post-Production Process

So like I have said my only outside-of-family human interaction comes from my Discord server, so I would very much love if anyone else was willing to join :3 It's a safe space for any (SAFE) discussion and any fandoms/art projects and stuff... only for people I know though bc I hate public servers.

so if you'd be willing to join lmk, I need frens ;w; <3

Mx. Tangerine is FINALLY FINALLY HERE (you think they'd be here a bit sooner for how often they show up), they are Champagne's American cousin and also, for no apparent reason, a mechanic! I LOVVEEE how they turned out ToT

That leaves only one more character left for book 1 that doesn't have a design... and if you can name them you get idfk rip

DON'T READ THE EPISODES UNTIL YOU'VE FINISHED THE FIRST BOOK!!

MIDNIGHT: Welp. The movie is done. LOGICO: OH, THANK GOODNESS. [flops] I am so done with this. MIDNIGHT: I was being lame. The movie isn’t done. The shooting is. You have so much more work to do. LOGICO: LIKE WHAT?!? I DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING IN THE MOVIE!! MIDNIGHT: We have to edit, score, sound mix, colour correct, and you need to solve the murder of the assistant editor. LOGICO: Seriously

The assistant editor was human. Obviously they were doomed to die. Maybe by the hands of Lavender?? Or Pearl, or Dusty, the actual film people. Or that other idiot.

ABALONE: A-LIST ABALONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!

You know, the clam woman. 

Anywho. Dusty is stomping around at the post-production lab.

DUSTY: DAMN IT TO HECK! I WANTED TO BE IN THIS FUCKIN’ MOVIE! I DID! ME!!

And Lord Lavender is… ironically… driving a golf cart around, making little vroom-vroom noises.

LOGICO: [ahem] Well. LAVENDER: [violent scream] WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??? LOGICO: Now who’s a rough-and-tumble guard tower militant? LAVENDER: AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUU! 

He tries to run Logico over, and doesn’t manage. Logi dives and rolls. He waddles to some bench and looks at the stars and… 

LOGICO: What is… happening? What… what is my life? Why are things like this? I just nearly got steamrolled by a llama in a golf cart, I… [hhhhhh]

His hands shake, and he picks up the phone again. Despite his efforts, there is no answer, and a tear falls from his single eye as the recording plays.

“I’m sorry. I’m currently away from the phone right now. If this is Deductive Logico, then the marot says that a film strip was in the water tower.”

Logi takes a deep breath and tries to recover from his sudden breakdown. Turns out Logi wasn’t the only person flattened by Lavender’s new toy.

LAVENDER: You can’t jail a lord! It’s against the law! LOGICO: I’m too lazy to check your kill count but truly, everyone does this, just… be quiet and get over it. 

Logico watches him be dragged away, very unsatisfied. His stomach clenches and his eye warbles. Something is wrong.

ABALONE: I WAS GOING TO REVENGE MY FATHER!!! LOGICO: ‘Avenge’. ‘AVENGE’ your father. [facepalm]

She’s probably not the only thing bothering him, right?

The end!

I lov you!

The power of Goat Lord compels you!

See you next time murdlers!

[stars-n-spice]

TBB S3 TRAILER

Holy FUCK I was not prepared for this.

As soon as I saw the trailer posted on Instagram, I grabbed my laptop and casted the trailer on the TV and stood in front of the TV like an old asian man; hands behind the back, spine bent, feet planted shoulder width apart.

Cannot believe it's finally here and I've got a lot of thoughts that I'm going to put under the cut because holy shit, this trailer hit me like a brick.

Idk if they will be comprehensive honestly but I'm writing them down as I rewatch the trailer.

In summary though? This season is going to absolutely wreck me and I will never recover from it emotionally and probably financially too if we get a new wave of merch and shit with it too.

Anyways, thoughts and reactions under the cut-

What the fuck are they doing with that transport? They stealing something? Retrieving something? Is it a tank? Hello, where is Echo??? IS THAT FUCKING CROSSHAIR?! IN S1 ARMOR???

PHEE GENOA!! so fucking great to see her again, I'm going to be absolutely devastated if they show us her reaction to Tech's supposed death.

CAPTAIN REX MY LOVE YOU'VE COME HOME!! "I thought the end of the war would mean the end to losing more of our brothers" <- that better be about Tech and not about Cody, so help me god-

OMEGA'S NEW HAIRCUT :( she looks so much older now :((

STOP CROSSHAIR LOOKS SO FUCKING SAD. I feel terrible actually... this is like,, this is a shell of a man,, like,, this is a man who's got like,, nothing. He looks awful and I swear if he doesn't get some peace of mind I'm going to lose my mind.

"Omega's been waiting for us a long time." NO NO NO DON'T FUCKING DO THIS TO ME. I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD IF YOU DO A TIMESKIP, ANY MEASURE OF TIME THAT OMEGA HAD TO BE WITHOUT HER BROTHERS AND WONDERING WHEN THEY WERE GOING TO COME AND GET HER IT'S GOING TO BREAK ME. I fucking hate timeskips so much, I swear if she's been by herself for more than a year, or even just a year, I'm going to be PISSED. If she doesn't get the chance to be a kid like she deserves I'm going to fucking lose it.

PALPATINE?! "There is nothing of greater importance to secure the purpose of this Empire" <- y'all talking about cloning? About cloning Palpatine because you have to explain why "somehow Palpatine returned"???

HEY WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?!

Holy shit the animation is really good. Like that whole fighting montage?? The fucking scene on the bridge looks like,, fucking live action to me. Idk how to describe it but the animation is fuckng beautiful and I wish Star Wars did more animation because this is gorgeous.

FENNEC SHAND MY LOVE!! MY WIFE RETURNS!!! PLEASE BE IN MORE THAN ONE EPISODE MY QUEEN I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! and Cad Bane is there too ig-

"They are coming, for all of you." <- who is this. do not come for me but I cannot for the life of me figure out who this is. It's not Cody, I don't see the scar. Someone help me out here-

WOLFFE IS BACK BABY!!! FUCK I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE HIM IN TBB ART STYLE

HUNTER ON PABU! Thinking they probably went back after everything and I want to see how they've adjusted and settled in, please, I am begging.

My baby, my angel, myivida, the light of my life. Fuck it's so good to see and hear you again. If anything happens to you I swear to god-

LMAOO DID HUNTER JUST GET YOINKED BY A SPACE CROC?!?! WAIT THEY'RE ON THE BOAT WITH FENNEC!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA

There are two clips that allude to the fact that they get Crosshair out of there before they get Omega and I'm going feral over it. If this means we get them reuniting with Crosshair sooner than later I'm fucking ecstatic. Like because,, that's Crosshair's rifle and they clearly cropped the screen for the sake of the trailer, right? Right??

Hey where is the zillo beast?

ASAJJ VENTRESS??!?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! You're telling me,, I get a season,, with Wrecker, Wolffe, Fennec, AND Asajj? Oh be still my beating heart. Anyone hear something meowing?

Also I know in the trailer it seems like she's facing off with TBB but the backgrounds don't really seem to line up so I'm hoping they don't actually face off with each other.

Tech literally only being indirectly mentioned and showing his death scene again but recolored and shit makes me feel all kinds of things.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

3 EPISODE PREMIERE?!?!?!?!?!?! fuck me.

Echo wasn't in this trailer enough and where the FUCK was Cody?!?!?!?!

Fuck.

[ddvauconspiracies]

In this post I will be going more in depth about my previous 3 conspiracies running around Martyn and Ren concerning this image from @kitsuneisi

In short my three conspiracies were Ren was being punished for working with the Emerald soldiers, Martyn was being punished for helping CG/Grian and HG/Scar and the Mimic was not too happy so he is trying to force Martyn to hurt the one he loves, Ren is a part of some third party that is hated by the vigilante group.

The first conspiracy is pretty straightforward so I will skip that one, and also I really don’t think this is it. Otherwise I feel like Ren would have been introduced as a soldier sooner. And maybe him and Scar would know each other, other than being just coworkers and their teaching jobs. But so far there has been no clues to this, but I’m adding it in anyway because I don’t like ruling things out AND WHO KNOWS? Maybe it is this, that’s what I love about creating conspiracies. :)

For my second reason that I put in my last post, the one I find to be the most believable out of all of them, that Martyn helped CG/Grian and HG/Scar with something and the Mimic (Martyn and CG’s boss) did not like it too fondly. And choose to punish Martyn by forcing him to fight/hurt/kill Ren, his wannabe loverrrrr. How do I know Martyn likes Ren? Wellllllllll Doody and Maruu have made quite a lot of things like this:

Now that we know That whole business let’s get into a list of conspiracies of why Martyn is being punished.

Martyn was digging where he doesn’t belong. Idk, trying to get information that he should not have known.

Failed to do something the Mimic told him to do. Wether that be something small or something as big as killing HG, harming CG and HG relationship (making them lose the trust them have in each other) and maybe, who knows, ending a romantic relationship. (I don’t actually think this, this could be my hopeless romantic talking)

The Mimic making him hurt people, think exploding builds & bystanders being hurt. Martyn couldn’t pull the trigger, the Mimic is not happy by the missed opportunity and chooses to punish him for it by kidnapping Ren and forcing him to fight/hurt/kill him. For fighting, think wrestling match vibes. For hurting, think torturing. And for killing, execution style.

And now we get to the last reason, Ren is a part of some third party. I’m thinking not with the vigilance and not with the emerald soldiers, a little far fetched I know but it is fun to think about.

I will be making another post explaining why Martyn is a part of the vigilance, but I’m realizing now I never explained it with any evidence backing it up.

-Shroom, the conspiracy theorist <3

(Reminder this au and all the art is made by @kitsuneisi and @xmaruu11)

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update (but not really) 8.29.2024

Well, that went worse than expected.

My summers are never good for creative activity--I'm off my schedule, my house is full of people, every week is some new thing to get ready for. I know this, and I tell myself to lower my expectations and just get through it, and then I always end up disappointed with myself anyway. So that's where we are.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who sent in requests for me to do! I didn't do as many as I had hoped, but I did do six of them (including one that I basically just pulled out of my drafts and dusted off, but at least I did it). I do want to reiterate that quite a few of the ones I didn't do was because they were specifically things that I have planned to show up in my regular fanfic. There were also two that I started and couldn't manage to finish, so there's always the possibility that I could finish them someday.

I actually got inspired and wanted to write a B-part for the last one I did, which I started the day after I posted that one, but then I left for vacation, and a whole lot has happened since then. I've gotten, like 1300 words of it written, but I just haven't managed to finish it yet. I'd been kind of hesitating to call the requests "done", because I wanted to get that out first, but I haven't managed to, so I'm calling the requests done, and if I finish that other thing, I'll post it, and if I don't, obviously I won't.

I'm frustrated because I had big plans to get back to writing this fall: I am steeling my nerves to finish a little in love, now and then, which has lingered on far too long without being finished. I was going to be all ready to go by the time my kids were back in school and...well...I am not yet ready. Everything just took a little longer than I expected and then my grandfather passed away (the funeral is this weekend), and it's all just been a lot at once, and I don't feel at all ready to take on a new project. I mean, I had a number of "getting ready" activities I was going to do, and I haven't done them, and I can still do them, it's just not where I expected to be right now. Kind of like last year when I got covid and took all of September having covid and recovering from having covid and being exhausted. How does anyone get anything done in this crummy world?!!

Also, I guess Bleach Returns is coming up sooner than I expected, in the sense that if I want to do anything for that (which I do), I should be working on that in the near term, except that I've put off a little in love for so long and I don't want to keep putting it off. I think maybe the answer is to try to do some drawing for BR instead of writing this year, and try to keep my efforts low-key.

The upshot of all of this is just that I'm not ready to get back to work even though I thought I would be by this time. I do intend to start these updates up again soon, but I just wanted to put this one out there so no one is expecting anything from me. I want to want to write, but I simply do not have the time or the energy or any ideas whatsoever, so I'm just trying to get thru the stuff that's in front of me, and we'll see what happens after that.

[rebeccadumaurier]

will martha wells dare to imagine the end of capitalism? and other thoughts on system collapse (and the rest of the murderbot diaries)

I'm writing this post because the wait for System Collapse is killing me and I need something to do. These are not so much predictions of specific, concrete events—I am terrible at predictions and bad with plot—so much as exploring existing thematic arcs in the series and tracing them to what I think are their natural ends. (Also, this post uses "bot" and "construct" interchangeably because I'm lazy. Sorry, MB.)

Some points I think the rest of the series (SC and onwards) may hit on:

Further development, and let's say "stress testing," of ART and Murderbot's relationship, and bot/construct relationships in general

Every day I go insane about this conversation MB has with ART early in Artificial Condition, which is not very subtle foreshadowing:

[ART said], My crew always considers me trustworthy. I shouldn’t have let it watch all those episodes of Worldhoppers. “I’m not your crew. I’m not a human. I’m a construct. Constructs and bots can’t trust each other.” It was quiet for ten precious seconds, though I could tell from the spike in its feed activity it was doing something. I realized it must be searching its databases, looking for a way to refute my statement. Then it said, Why not? I had spent so much time pretending to be patient with humans asking stupid questions. I should have more self-control than this. “Because we both have to follow human orders. A human could tell you to purge my memory. A human could tell me to destroy your systems.” I thought it would argue that I couldn’t possibly hurt it, which would derail the whole conversation. But it said, There are no humans here now.

But in the future there will be humans who could tell ART to do something undesirable to MB (technically, NE already did this to some extent, but it didn't fully address the issue). Artificial Condition in fact explicitly notes ART doesn't have a refutation to that particular argument, and that's why they can't trust each other. We get some initial glimpses in Network Effect of this—ART makes its own decision to save Murderbot, and thankfully its crew agrees with the plan, but we can't expect ART and its crew to be in agreement forever.

Frankly, a lot of ART's plans seem to rely on either (1) its humans / the people in charge of it agreeing with it or (2) them not being around to disagree, which is going to be a problem sooner or later, especially as Murderbot's view of humans is not as ... positive as ART's. Network Effect dances around this problem because both the Preservation people and ART's crew are good people who largely support ART and MB in their decisions, but I don't think that will always be the case.

(Side note: I am once again thinking of Murderbot's surprise that Don Abene allowed Miki to override her orders in Rogue Protocol, and the bot spectrum of "cannot disobey orders literally ever" (like SecUnits) to "can disobey orders in the right circumstances" (like Miki) to "can mostly just do whatever but ultimately bots still have their programming" and how MB views ART's place on that spectrum. Also I am once again begging Murderbot to please reflect more on Miki's death, but given its current level of emotional repression, I am not optimistic about this.)

Leading me to my next point—

The question of ownership, independence, and property in the Murderbot universe

As Murderbot has mentioned various times, the people of Preservation call themselves "guardians" of bots rather than owners, but it's still very much ownership (and MB is right to point this out and express discomfort about it). MB knows it's fortunate that its owner—sorry, guardian, Mensah, allows it a ton of freedom, but legally, MB is still Mensah's property. Mensah's approach is a single, individual band-aid in that it may (for now) allow MB to live a life more or less of its choosing, but it doesn't address the larger systematic issue that actually, owning these bots is fucked up and many people exploit the bots they own, including people who think that they're already being incredibly generous and goodhearted simply by not abusing bots. (I'd need to go back and review, but I got the latter vibe from many of the Preservation bot owners in Fugitive Telemetry.)

Martha Wells seems like she will address this larger issue later. I don't know how, but I'm sure "Murderbot gets dragged into it and has to *gasp* talk about its feelings" will happen somehow, since that recurs frequently.

What healing from trauma looks like for a bot/construct

Dr. Bharadwaj has already suggested that Murderbot could use therapy ("trauma treatment" but like ... sounds like it's therapy combined with some other self care / community care strategies), and Murderbot is not subtle about its whole "I have been through many horrific things but I will pretend it's totally fine and not a big deal" coping strategy. I'd be interested to see what role ART plays in this—it's quite scarred from the events of Network Effect, will need to heal, and is unlikely to do the "yeah whatever that's just what my life is like" strategy MB adopted, because that's not what its life is like.

(Side note: in NE, MB says being taken over by targetControlSystem "would be like having a governor module again. No, not again. Never again." To MB, the loss of control ART experienced is similar to what MB's life was like every day until it hacked its module. I'M SO. 😭)

But therapy for a bot would look very different from therapy for a human, and I'm doubtful there's any therapists out there equipped to handle it. The "nicest" humans, if you will, seem to be the PreservationAux citizens, and they still have a long way to go on their understanding of bots. Also, much like in real life, therapy is not a cure-all for everything and there's a lot of terrible therapists, issues with psychiatry, etc. I will not get into—so I'm not actually saying that Bhadwaraj's idea of "trauma treatment" is the specific route MB will take to heal, I'm just curious what it's gonna take to get it to open up and be willingly emotionally vulnerable.

Who is Murderbot outside its day job? (aka its hypercompetence with regard to security)

One of Murderbot's defining traits is that it's an incredibly competent person, even when (often especially when) surrounded by much less competent people. The Goodreads blurb for System Collapse implies this won't always be the case:

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!

My first reaction is: "hey, why is Murderbot the only one who has to figure that out?!" (Not that I think ART or the humans are jerks who don't care about its problems or don't want to help; I think Murderbot has trouble asking for help or even imagining people want to help it, e.g. its assumption in NE everyone just left it behind to die when it was captured.) The inherent question with characters who define themselves through their hypercompetence at something is: who do they become when they can no longer rely on that? (For example, who is a star athlete when they get a permanent injury? Who is a brilliant painter when they go blind? etc.)

ART already had to grapple with that to some extent when it lost control of itself in NE and couldn't rely on itself or its crew, so it resorted to kidnapping MB to fix the problem. But that doesn't deal with the larger identity crisis / struggle for self-definition at play, which is essentially: Who is Murderbot when it's not useful, when it's not able to do what it was created to do?

Speaking of which, this is very relevant to my title question—

Will we see Martha Wells envision the end of capitalism???

The Murderbot Diaries is the story of a single bot and its friends / enemies / etc., and I'm perfectly happy if it stays that way and focuses on MB's internal journey. But Martha Wells seems like an ambitious enough author to imagine wider solutions to the problems that plague the Murderbot universe, which is namely that corporations are evil. If corporations were not so evil, we wouldn't have our corporation-hating traumatized-by-corporations created-by-a-corporation-and-struggling-with-it protagonist. There's indentured servants in Rogue Protocol. There is literally a space version of the Underground Railroad in Fugitive Telemetry. It is impossible to understand this series without understanding that it is a very, very vicious critique of capitalism, and without this critique laying out its foundations, we would not have most of its characters, including Murderbot itself. Preservation is already a first step in that it seems to be some sort of utopian commune devoid of corporations or privatization—which is a huge step in itself, that Wells envisions a world devoid of capitalism—but it's one small (and still imperfect, re: earlier discussion of treatment of bots) planet in a large, dysfunctional universe.

So far the series has been Murderbot dealing with individual evil corporations (GrayCris, Barish-Estranza, etc), but mainly in the context of one crisis at a time, with regard to saving only its friends / clients. (It's fine with leaving Eletra to Barish-Estranza in NE, for example.) I do not think Murderbot will singlehandedly destroy capitalism or that its goal is to do so—it's not a fix-everything save-everyone hero, no one is, one of the points of the series is that you should not attempt everything alone—but this series has done plenty of exploration of the evils of capitalism; I would like to see Martha Wells explore how we could end it.

[angelhairpastawithherbs]

I will not try to make this comfortable. There is no way to make it. There never has been and never will. There is no way to make anything that has happened feel better. Because it was not from the very start. I will not make apologies for being mean or sounding harsh. That being said now sexual harassment warning and no matter what you think that is what it was both by what happened and how it was handled and by definition of the term. Shiba has done much of what happened recently before and while the exact parts were of course surprising to me it did not feel any bit shocking to know the way she handled it. While reading please think and make connections between what is said and what she did because it does not have much of the same exact content but it shows that she has done this before and has not learned both because of people encouraging her behavior and not being held accountable. My feelings are not easily explainable because there is not a way to say what it feels like to know she was like this and not be able to say anything before now. I feel frustrated because this did not happen sooner. I feel okay that people finally know. I feel happy almost because they do. I feel a lot of things. I feel nothing at all. I say this because you should know where this is coming from. I did not know if I would ever be able to say any of this and quite frankly I have no desire to but it needs to be done and it has to come from me.

Some of you were friends with her so I knew her at least from every now and then her being around. But I never talked to her directly enough to get to know her or for her to get to know me. That part is very important because it gives you what you need to know for this next part. If you do not know someone then you do not know what they feel good with. It makes sense that you would not make certain risky jokes that you would not make to a complete stranger if this was in say a real restaurant. Long story short there was a post where someone was saying how weird it was that they had designed Leona to have sandles. Not made by her or me but a third party. Because the talk was about his feet I made a joke asking why his toes were so long because it was going off what other people were saying about how jarring it was plus the art style is not helping with the proportions being weird. Remember that she was not the original poster. She asked me if I wanted to suck on them and that was why I was talking about them. Remember we did not even know each other well enough to even know if this was a character both of us liked let alone to know if saying things like that was okay with each other. Had it been someone else maybe it would have been different but point is this was someone who was a stranger and had no business making a comment sexual in nature towards me. Whether you think so or not this was not okay to do and never has been and never will be. No matter what the intention was there was no reason to say thing and she had less that no business saying that. You do not ask someone who you do not know if the reason they said a very simple and very much not even close to sexual little sentence that happened to involve toes about wanting to suck on them. Just having to say this because some people think it is fine to do that is completely disgusting. When I asked her to please get rid of it she did and that was what she should have done so she at least did that. Also remember from before what I said about connecting what she did with this situation to what she did recently. Her apology was literally just saying okay sorry and privated with absolutely nothing else to say on the matter and not caring even though I said it made me feel very bad. Even as strangers she should have known to at least say she would not do it again or that it was something done on impulse which would not make what happened feel better but it would at least show that she actually cared. Being privated was not the issue but the fact that it was plus it being a super half assed not even full sentence does not lend any credibility. This was something she could hide with one person whereas recently it was something that could not be hidden. I posted about what happened a while later because it did not feel good to go without saying anything but keep in mind that nothing said was a direct attack to her and simply had all my feelings about what happened and what moots could do to make me feel better which was unfollowing her at the least and specifically had a paragraph dedicated to telling them not to give hate or bully her. I blocked her and have no clue how she came about knowing since it was generally a very quiet moment and the most said outside the post that directly related to it was a simple hey moots please go there so that they could know about my boundaries regarding the situation.

What happened next made me physically ill because of what I felt after having to both go through it not only a second time but also to be told that I was overreacting is not something that I can put into easy words. As said before, she somehow knew about it and I was then talked to by some of her friends who will not be mentioned directly. They told me that her intentions were not to make me feel bad which is a fair point. However they both went on to say thay there was no reason for the feelings I felt. That I was just overreacting to the situation and also I should think about how she felt about it despite her obviously not caring a lot when she had a chance to make a direct and sincere apology to me. There was quite a bit of time between all parts of what had gone on too. She could have taken the chance to think it over and get someone to say something to me in this same way. She could have been sincere about this and not have had her friends say that my feelings were invalid. There are so many things she could have done and could have made it better and decided not to. Again think where she has chosen to make fun of emotions that she caused in another person and how it must have felt for them and how condescending she was. I did not want to say any of this ever again to anyone and this was not something that comes out easily. While there was much said there is still a fair bit that has not been said. The whole thing still feels like it did when it first started and she has not made a difference with the way she goes about handling things despite knowing damn well the harm she caused others. I do not want to make people feel uncomfortable but if you are feeling that way after this that is because there is nothing good about what happened and there is no way to put it that will make it feel better. She has done similar things before and continued to get away with them until she did something that she thought she could get away with again but this time she went too far and could not escape the fact that she majorly fucked up which caused her to deny and blame the same way she did to me after realizing that was she said to me was not okay. She began digging this hole a long time ago but this time she stood too close to the edge while not thinking of where and when she was now digging and disregarding the warnings from others she had gotten along the way. This small hole has become a sinkhole that will only keep growing the more and more she tries to get out by using the same tactics of shoveling dirt around that made it so wide in the first place and my suggestion is that we do not try to quell this but let her realize again that what she has done is wrong and this time there is nobody to throw her a ladder to get out.

[crowleyholmes]

Flaming Sword Foreshadowing

Last night I was peacefully editing my video just vibing having a good time when I skipped over a scene that had confused me for a while and it struck me like lightning that it HAS to be foreshadowing because WHY ELSE would they have shot it that way????

And I have to add I'm relatively new to the fandom so I'm sure this has come up many many MANY times but to be fair I've spent the last few weeks basically living in the tags and the meta and I while I've seen the theory once in a piece of fanart, I haven't seen connections to this scene so I figured I might as well share my thoughts in case there are any other new fans like me out there who will appreciate (aka absolutely hate) it!

So one of my absolutely favorite theories is that Crowley used to be Lucifer, yes? I have many reasons why I believe this, maybe I'll make another post all about that, but for now let's just roll with it.

Okay so Aziraphale has a flaming sword. Which (I think, don't quote me on this, I'm not religious and don't know much about it at all, most of what I know comes from art and/or just general knowledge) in the Bible, is used by Michael (who is the supreme Archangel), who stabs Lucifer with it as they throw him from Heaven down to Hell, right?

And at first I wasn't too worried about that because like. Aziraphale isn't Michael. Michael, in Good Omens, neither has a flaming sword nor is the supreme archangel.

BUT NOW. At the end of season 2, who is about to become supreme archangel, taking the position that Michael has in the Bible, and owns the weapon that Michael has in the Bible?? Yeah.

So even upon this realization I was like nahhh idk it's. A fun theory but there's SO many other ways things could happen I'm overthinking this for sure.

But then I noticed this scene again with this theory in mind and WHY DID THEY SHOOT IT LIKE THIS here look I made some gifs to illustrate:

Aziraphale is standing over Crowley, sword raised as if he's going to attack him, and Crowley looks up at him TERRIFIED.

Now, I realize there are explanations for all of this, but let me elaborate on my thoughts one by one.

WHY did they make Aziraphale pick up the sword in the first place? There is NO reason for him to hold it, I mean I GUESS he's afraid of Satan, who is about to pop up for a visit, but - what's Aziraphale going to do about it, right? He's just one small low/ish-ranking angel, and the way Satan is portrayed in this show, I doubt the sword would make much of a dent in him. So, okay, perhaps Aziraphale picked it up simply to have Something, Some kind of weapon ready to feel a Little bit safer, but STILL - why pick it up one second before he turns to Crowley, why not sooner, then? And why raise it AT CROWLEY in the way that he does, when what he says to him has nothing to do with the sword at all? He would NEVER want to actually hurt Crowley. And the way this shot is framed, the way the sword is so prominent and threatening, I just don't think they did this only for comedic value (in juxtaposing the threat of the sword with "I'll never speak to you again"). He also briefly looks at the sword right after "I'll -", almost as if he's actually considering it. (OR as if he's thinking "why the hell am I holding this and why am I holding it like this, Crowley's going to think I'm going to stab him?!" which was what I WAS THINKING.) But, again, Aziraphale would NEVER point a weapon at Crowley or threaten him in any serious way - centuries ago/millenia ago, maybe, but not for a long time now, under no circumstances, not the way they are now.

Another question I have is WHY did they make Crowley fall to his knees? Sure, the earth is shaking, everybody is quite wobbly, but Crowley is so sure-footed usually, I find it hard to believe that he would fall when even Newt manages to stay on his feet (no offense Newt, I love you). But okay, I guess, maybe they wanted to show how desperate Crowley was? Visualize him giving up? I can't really argue with that one, but in combination with Everything Else, it just seems like they put them in these exact positions WAY too intentionally.

I just know that this scene is going to come back to haunt us, it will happen again but with a very different, very serious threat from (a possibly/probably memory-wiped) Aziraphale, an actually FLAMING flaming sword, and an even more desperate and terrified Crowley.

Bonus: