#also for some of them it's just a straight up self callout

[ravenmold]

pick your poison poll

Hello! I was tagged by the lovely @mutuallyprime ☺️💜

Now, which of my favourites do you like best?

This was very hard btw but I tried to limit myself to the guys who really make me gnaw at my wrist bones

What this taught me is that I need to go sniffing for more female characters to obsess over. But also we need better writing for female characters bc a lot of these pieces of media have female characters in them, their goals and traumas just don't speak to me the same way. Also advocating for all characters always to be more Unhinged™ 😂

Not gonna tag anyone but please join in if you want!!! It's actually very fun to judge myself based on my faves. Kinda looking at myself like 🧐

[angels-heap]

I mentioned this in my post but what even happened to freemance in 2020?

Hoooo boy. To make a very long, very weird story as short as possible...

Prior to the Half Life: Alyx announcement and subsequent emergence of the Half Life VR But the AI is Self-Aware (HLVRAI) fandom in 2020, freemance was by far the dominant ship in the Half Life fandom. It seemed like most active fans at least passively shipped it, the vast majority of fanworks featured it in some capacity, and people who preferred other ships or didn't like freemance just... didn't like it. They didn't act like they needed a reason.

However, after the aforementioned events led to a huge surge of new Half Life fans, freehoun (Gordon/Barney) became much more popular, practically overnight, for some combination of the following reasons:

Lots of new Half Life fans were discovering the series via HLVRAI, where frenrey (Gordon/Benrey) was/is a popular ship. Some of these new HL fans essentially transposed their preferred frenrey dynamics into freehoun fanworks, often with very little knowledge of (or interest in) the HL games and the relevant lore.

Large fandom did what large fandoms do and gravitated towards shipping the two hottest white guys, regardless of context.

Old and new fans who enjoyed ships other than freemance became more active and creative when they were no longer in a minority.

And this was fine! A little annoying at times, but had it stopped there, we wouldn't still be talking about this. Alas, around mid-2020, a couple of kids (independently, as far as I can tell) wrote "callout posts" about freemance and its shippers in an effort to justify their personal tastes... and all hell broke loose. These posts, and the many, many posts that followed, relied heavily on the following argument:

Gordon has known Alyx since she was a small child (he hasn't) and may have even been a father/uncle/brother figure to her (he wasn't), which means pursuing 24-year-old Alyx romantically would make him a pedophile (it wouldn't) because he's been "grooming" her since she was a child (despite having been in stasis for approximately 83% of her life) and is obviously imagining her as a child every time they smooch (and they think we're the weirdos?). This means freemance shippers are also pedophiles because they condone this behavior (no), and also they are anti-feminist/homophobic/racist for shipping Alyx with a white man who's actually 47 years old (Gordon is canonically 27 in HL2) instead of shipping him with a man and her with a woman or not shipping her at all (despite the fact that Alyx is canonically attracted to Gordon).

If this sounds insane to you, it's because it is. This is an Olympics-worthy reach. They 100% pulled this whole theory out of their asses. But these posts picked up traction quickly, given that a large slice of the fandom had little to no knowledge of actual Half Life canon and really wanted a reason to dunk on freemance beyond "ew boring straight ship." It was like this awful game of fandom telephone, and the wildest part was that a lot of these kids (and yes, it was mostly kids) actually believed these accusations, despite having never seen or sought out any direct evidence of them.

For the following 6 months or so, freemance shippers faced relentless harassment -- death threats, doxxing threats, accusations of child sex crimes, etc. Here's the long post I was eventually forced to make about the situation, which includes several examples. Check out my ship discourse tag for more highlights if you want to go down the rabbit hole. Things settled down a bit after the original shit-stirrers left the fandom, but the harassment continued on and off for a couple of years and it still crops up every now and then.

It makes me so sad to remember all the cool people I met in early 2020 who ultimately left the fandom due to the harassment. The overall fandom vibe was so rancid that even people who didn't ship freemance just couldn't take it anymore. I've stuck around because Half Life is an enduring fixation for me (and out of spite), but the fandom lost a lot of amazing artists and writers and I hope they're all living their best lives out there.

I don't know how to end this post on a non-cheesy note so I'll just say it feels nice to finally refer to this whole thing (mostly) in the past tense and I am excited to see new folks joining the fandom who are unburdened by the Freemance wars. Live your dreams. :)

[gregorybacon]

squeezy anon do you have any headcanons you hold dear you haven't talked about on here? i love hearing people's headcanons. i go rabid. i won't steal i promise.

YOU WANT ME TO TALK ABT MY HEADCANONS??!?? FR??? I’LL BE GLAD TO!!!! I already made a post about my infodump of Gregory and Christophe headcanons, but I have some extras that I haven’t posted / recently developed! (Make sure to click the "keep reading" to see all of it)

Gregory HATES theater kids, and he doesn't exactly know why. Maybe it was cause they're full of overly dramatic, ignorant, self absorbed people? (At least in his school and previous experiences) Maybe it's the overly cheesy performances that he likes to scoff at and gets second hand embarrassment... thinking that they don't do as good as the professional musicals and is an insult to them. But anyways, there is one acceptation to why he still attends at watching school plays, and it's cause Christophe IS a theater kid! Gregory thinks that Christophe is the only theater kid he actually respects, cause his performances are more better than others (even if it's overly dramatic sometimes) and he pin points tone and body language almost perfectly. Gregory will rant about how all the other theater kids should be more like him and how Christophe is carrying the success of school plays.

Fun fact I based off of my interpretation of Gregory's personality and nature mostly the same as Peppermint Patty from Peanuts. I just feel like Patty fits how I see Gregory..

I like to think that Gregory's the type to make full on callouts on someone's bullshit by somehow getting evidence of it and throwing it all over their faces, insult them, clowns on them, and then making them cry if they deserve it.

Christophe really loves how fluffy, soft, and curly Gregory's hair is, he's almost jealous of it. But at the same time he doesn't want to properly take care of his hair cause it's too much work and it doesn't matter to him. So instead he likes to walk up to Gregory and ruffles his hair for a bit getting it all messy (which Gregory finds it fun) just to appreciate how nice his hair feels

Whenever it rains, Gregory will literally come over to Christophe's house just to ask if they can play in the rain and dance in it together :] and then have mud fights

Gregory has hand sensory issues, his hands are very picky on textures to the point where it bothers him extremely. This is why he wears gloves! But he has an issue with them where sometimes they get too warm, or if he doesn't need them at that time, he takes it off. Which is my excuse to why in the movie, Gregory's gloves randomly disappear

Christophe does keep small animals as pets, lizards, ducks, frogs, mice, etc.. but an incident happened where Gregory's snakes ate a bunch of the smaller animals Christophe has, and another time where the snakes ate Pocket's rabbits when petsitting them... this is why Christophe is terrified and hates snakes. Gregory deeply regrets that and tried his best to not let that happen again 😭

Ok, now that I got those extras out of the way.. I have some Gary headcanons! Cause I love him and I've been wanting to talk about my headcanons for him for a while

Gary has dyslexia, which in his case fucking sucks! Gary has a passion for reading, and literature in general, so having dyslexia is the worst combination ever while having that hobby, but he tries! (This is coming from an dyslexic person who also likes literature

Speaking of books, Gary has a really big interest in Warrior Cats... I don't know how this thought happened, I just feel like it would be funny

Gary's also obsessed with things relating to stars, or just space in general. He's also a little inpatient and doesn't wait to give an answer about those topics (This is in relation to the episode where he appears in, where he straight up didn't wait to be called to give an answer on the rocket landing question and he just full on yells it out)

Gary loves Hawaiian Pizza.. he doesn't understand why people hate it so much lol

Gary also has a habit of not getting jokes, the punchline flies right over his head unless they're blunt. But he just laughs along even though he fully doesn't get it and just goes along to be friendly

Since Gregory is Gary's cousin, they hang out a bunch. Christophe, Gary, and Gregory is like their own little mini friend group! And since Gary sticks around with Gregory a bunch, sometimes he picks up Gregory's accent and it will randomly show, in which he will immediately correct himself

Gary and Stan are dating in my headcanon ofc, but Gregory and Stan have a huge rivalry going on... Gary gets stuck in the middle of it cause Stan is his boyfriend while Gregory is his cousin, it's a constant back and forth between trying to keep both sides from mauling each other.. poor Gary :[

OK I'm gonna stop it here, I can't remember all of them but these are the ones I can think of so far! Honestly might make more posts about my headcanons for the side characters... Ty anon for letting me go rabid <3

[yallemagne]

This year, I'm not doing Dr*cula D*ily

Or any other substack but DD is the biggest. I have numerous reasons for this decision that none of y'all are gonna particularly care for, but ya know, just so we got our expectations in order: I'm not gonna participate in DD this year (maybe never again), I'm probably not gonna reblog many posts related to it (doing so would be counterintuitive), but I am holding myself to finishing Orice (at LEAST the base fic).

Now, why?

TL;DR: Mental health crisis brought on by internet harassment and overprioritizing social media. It's not fun anymore, folks.

DD just... it completely ruined the novel for me.

It was a nice phenomenon, but it took a wrecking ball to my mental health and self-worth. Now, I'm not saying DD's creator personally did something to spite me (or maybe I am, he knows what he did /j), but this whole thing? It wasn't good for me. It was never good. It was sometimes fun, but most of the time it made me want to end it because of thumblr notes.

That's fucking stupid. My life is not worth internet validation. My art is not worthless just because my numbers are not as big as the biggest big shots in the fandom. I'm not a horrible person when other people handle personal disagreements regarding headcanon with defaming rumours and impersonation. But hell! My view of reality was horribly skewed.

A while back, I unfollowed all the gothlit tags I previously followed because 1) Some people (active and popular members of the fandom, mind you, not bots or trolls) were posting honest-to-god name-dropping harassment in the tag because "it's a popular tag so more people will see my callout post" and 2) I reached a point where seeing anything related to the novel on my dash just set me off. It didn't even need to be drama-related anymore. Mentions of the characters, mentions of popular AUs, just the very content of this book became triggering to me, and I really didn't miss the content when it was gone, as sad as that is.

And the kicker? I've come to realize that I probably dislike more things about the novel than I actually like about it. Not only is it tied to some of my darkest moments in recent memory, but it's also just... a book with many flaws that I could go on and on and on about. Sometimes, it straight-up made me furious, like seething mad, and I think I'd rather just be happy. But even when I would try to channel that energy into being happy, I always felt I had to over-clarify or else I’d get bombarded with anonymous messages. If you’ve seen any of my posts from during that time… chances are there is a passive aggressive “btw people can have opposing opinions from you about an old book and it doesn’t give you leave to stone them” or several tags of “#this is a joke #a jooooooke #for the love of god #if y’all don’t stop”. I bet it was as annoying for y’all as it was for me.

P.S. Mutuals/friends, do not worry. Y'all keep doing y'all. I can and will block tags if seeing your posts triggers me. So, I suppose my only request is to properly tag, but I've been saying that from the very start.

I just want to move on to other things.

I took a break for Lent. I needed it terribly. And... not gonna lie? I almost didn't want to return. I never got an itching to just log on and "check in". I very successfully avoided tumb altogether. I came back because "I gotta come back eventually" and also like, this is my main hub where I update when I've written a fic, and ya know... I'm not gonna let toxic fandom bs rule my shit.

During my break, I got back into gaming. More specifically, I started playing Hades again. And listening to Epic the Musical. Aaaand boyyy did that bring me back to my Greek mythology phase. I have a Greek mythos/Hades sideblog btw: @areopagusimp. It's cringe, if you can't tell by the blog name.

Back when I was into Hades game and general Greek mythos, my expectations were so much smaller, but yet, my goals and will to create seemed so much bigger. I made art that no one gave a single solitary shit about (except for my friend), but I was happy. Maybe I'm wearing rose-tinted glasses, but... even if I wasn't as happy then as I remember being... haha at least I wasn't receiving threats and insults in my inbox back then :))). That was the most fun thing about the gothlit fandom. I hope every single chickenhearted angry anon is proud of their behaviour.

But yeah, whatever I end up doing, I’m striving to not let it run me into the ground.

But... What do I do now?

I have so many WIPs (art and writing) for the novel, and it's very disappointing that I didn't get to finish them before it all turned sour. Hopefully, I can still finish them, it just won't be with the same distress I worked with before. Hopefully, I can post that stuff and fully manage my expectations, not crash and burn when only a few people like it. Because hell! A few people liking my stuff? That's amazing, really. I shouldn't take that for granted. At the same time, I'm setting a boundary for myself. Placing my self-worth into the hands of people who I don't know, who don't know me, and who aren't even paying for the art? I need to stop that. Who the hell is that gonna serve? Absolutely no one.

My number one goal is to finish Orice. It is somehow untouched by my aversion to the novel; it is my safe space. I want to honour it and honour the longtime readers who have stuck with me. It's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be worth it for me.

This feels attention-seeking, and it kinda is. I'm not tagging the main subject and I'm not allowing reblogs because I want this to stay isolated (and hopefully prevent backlash/misunderstandings), but ya know, no matter how much I try to keep this small, I'm still posting it online. But I just feel like I needed to get this off my chest. I don't really owe everyone an explanation, but I want there to be one for my own sake... also it's much easier to generalize and make a post than contact each of my friends/mutuals on here and unload stuff onto them that I'm not sure is too personal or not.

For those of you who are reading: I love y'all. I love the good people I've met through all this mess. I want to keep the good apples, not throw out the whole harvest, alright? Dunno how much you'll care for my art when the subject is different, but... eh. If y'all are willing to try?

[possum-quesadilla]

Chapter three of Time’s Arrow is out, “A mask of my own face, I’d wear that”! Please read the warnings carefully. You’re welcome Beetlelands fans! Also sorry Beetlelands fans. As always, here are the extras!

Chapter Three:

- The lyrics for this chapter’s title is from “A Mask of My Own Face” by Lemon Demon! I feel like this one is perhaps the most self-explanatory of the chapter titles, haha.

- The songs for this chapter are “Darren” by Jack Stauber, “Ghosting” by Mother Mother, “A Mask of My Own Face” by Lemon Demon, “Parrot” by Stepdad, “Snail” by Cavetown, and ESPECIALLY “Stray Italian Greyhound” by Vienna Teng.

- The basement is partially cleared out to prepare for Lydia’s dark room in the basement! And also a special Other Thing.

- ���… new rugs to replace the ones he bled all over.” - Yes, Beetlejuice managed to ruin two rugs with his blood. That sucks.

- “His right eye’s vision was still fuzzy. (Perhaps it wouldn’t ever fully come back, like his hearing.)” - Yes, unfortunately it is permanent. He’s hard of hearing on one side, visually impaired on the other. Poor buddy.

- “Thankfully, his teeth had grown back quickly. They were always one of the first parts of him to regenerate anyways. (Much quicker than his organs, that one night. Or his legs. The memory still made him shudder.)” - Yikes, I wonder what or who this is referring to!

- “.. friendly neighborhood reformed demon.” - Yeah, a silly little Spider-Man reference for brevity.

- “(He found he still had no idea how to tie a tie. Thank God/Satan whoever had washed his suit had left it tied.)” - This is sort of a callout on myself. My friend tied my Beetlejuice suit’s tie for me once, and I’ve just left it tied since I can’t tie a tie for the life of me.

- Black onyx - apparently, black onyx represents strength, and is one of the most powerful crystals! At least, according to my friend.

- Lydia dying her hair - Lyds is a natural blonde! She dyes her hair black for Reasons.

- “Can’t keep a good… not-guy down!” - This is both a reference to “Child’s Play” and another fun non-binary joke.

- Adam’s tapping - I and a handful of other neurodivergent people I know do this, gentle tapping to signal we want affection. I have been told it is endearing.

- “I’M SO NORMAL-” - This is something I like to proclaim when I am being Not Normal. Like how Beetlejuice is being Not Normal.

- “He couldn’t tell what either of them were thinking, their expressions were new. It was certainly frustrating.” - Hm! I wonder what expressions Beetlejuice has never seen before on another being.

- The Freeze, Brimstone Flu, Red Moss - these are all demon diseases/illnesses that I made up. They will probably only make minor, silly appearances.

- “(Beetlejuice had to seriously fight the urge to bite her arm.)” - Beej has the urge to out of affection, but holds back due to his sharp teeth and it generally not being socially acceptable.

- “Dial up that smile.” - This is a reference to my other current hyperfixation, “Late Night with the Devil”.

- “Beetlejuice exited the guest bedroom to find Lydia waiting for him just outside, repeatedly kissing Pluto’s forehead as the cat laid contentedly in her arms. She let out a little ‘GAH’ as the door opened, standing up straight.” - CAUGHT BEING SOFT IN 4K

- Lydia, sorting - one of her favorite activities is sorting, as you may have noticed. Sometimes she un-sorts her belongings so she can re-sort them when she is stressed out.

- Lydia, biting - she also bites out of affection/when she is excited. She does not care if it is socially acceptable when she is around Beetlejuice.

- “The teen eagerly motioned for Barbara to come closer, holding up an old, yellowed version of The Wheel of Fortune.” - I wonder if this particular card means anything?

- “Some of them are hand-painted!” - Thank you to the movie “Tarot” for informing me of hand-painted Tarot cards. Also fuck you, because they’re expensive.

- “Some of the decks are incomplete.” .. “That’s what happens when you got a lotta things for a lotta years. Some of it just… goes missin’.”- What a suspicious answer from Beetlejuice. I wonder what he did with those cards?

- “I know you didn’t mean it, but that was rude, Beetlejuice.” … “Wh-rude? It was?” - this is an experience I and a lot of other fellow autistics experience. We have to be informed when we’ve been rude because we truly did not mean to be!

- “… they sat next to each other in silence while they separately sorted through various piles of moss and rocks they’d collected on previous outings in the woods.” - one of the ways these two often hang out is parallel play. I love you parallel play…

- “Lydia forced Beetlejuice to do some strange dance in front of her phone with her. They only understood half of the words she said while explaining it, but it certainly made her happy.” - Yes, Lydia made Beetlejuice do a tiktok dance because it is funny. I don’t know any of them so I can’t give you a specific, so you can imagine the funniest one here.

- “Already, his mouth was watering at the smells of soy sauce and chives wafting out from the kitchen.” - mouth watering is not always a good thing. Sometimes it means a vom is imminent.

- The Great Gatsby - beetlejuice is not stupid (sometimes), he just takes longer to process some things! This is honestly the first time someone has recognized this within him, and he has yet to fully process that. Also I love The Great Gatsby. There are Jay and BJ parallels that only make sense to me.

- Freaky - I LOVE THIS MOVIE. I watched it with my father and it was quite amusing, so I thought it would be funny to have Lydia experience watching this film with a few of her parents.

- Adam and Barbara conspired to have Beetlejuice have his Talk with Charles, by the way. They also, obviously, conspired to cuddle up with him.

- “I’ll be right back,” … “Beetlejuice, that’s violating rule number three!” - Yeah, this is a “Scream” reference. No I am not sorry. Yes it will happen again maybe.

- “Oh no. … Oh no, not now. … Please, not now. … But, of course, some sort of ridiculous “Feeling” had to come along.” - These are pulled from one of the pivotal songs on Time’s Arrow’s playlist, “Stray Italian Greyhound” by Vienna Teng. Please listen to it during That Part of the chapter.

- “Was it love? Were they in love? They couldn’t be. They were a demon, they were unforgivable, they were rotten and broken-” - Part of this is a reference to “Good Omens”, part of this is another callback to his mother’s hurtful words from chapter 3 of Time is a Flat Circle. They really seem to stick with him, huh?

- “The ritual was much harder than Beetlejuice remembered. Perhaps it was their drained energy, but they didn’t remember it burning so much.” - That’s so weird. I wonder what this ritual entailed? Couldn’t have been good. But he got a Book out of it!

- “ “Your humans?” This seemed to pique his interest, as his silhouetted form suddenly drew in much closer. “Have you a coven now, little lamb?” ” - I wonder why Cyrus was so interested in BJ having a coven? Also say hi to my rotten bastard everyone! You will hate him.

- “little lamb” - Cyrus calls BJ this due to his sheep features! Also to demean him. (If you couldn't tell from his other nickname being “pet”.)

- “Tomorrow is another day.” - shameless FNAF 4 reference. FNAF made me who I am. It reprogrammed my brain as a child.

[misssugarpinkshome]

Author Update!

Hey y'all! Here's the author update. Just posted Chapter 58, I'm so excited since the next chapter will be incredibly challenging for me to write. I hope you guys are excited as I am.

I'm... actually gonna put the update this time under a cut, cause it's A Wee Bit More Serious than normal, lmao.

The TL;DR: this boy can fit a whole lot of trauma in him, and he's kinda tired of it. It's been an incredibly hard month, but I'm also looking at the amount of growth I've done and I'm proud.

Thanks for reading, folks!!

(Big ol' trauma dump below the cut!)

OOOOKAY so like. Yikes!

I got called out by someone I look up to basically telling me I needed to shape up, and while they weren't WRONG, it really fucking hurt. As in, I got so incredibly triggered that I cried for about 48 hours straight.

This also led to me and a friend of mine having a really big falling out, and while it got resolved, oof it was exhausting.

At the end of those 48 hours, I had to deal with a situation in a server I moderate for where someone made some incredibly serious allegations about another server member.

The allegations turned out to be false, so we did not ban the server member who was accused -- which led to a callout post being written about me and the server, with false allegations about me that were incredibly triggering.

:) This was all right before a very nauseating 14 hour car ride :) Definitely did not fuck up my brain :) Definitely did not cause me to maybe split again :) Oops

My vacation to see my partner's extended family went really well at least? They're really awesome and good family. But I spent all of my free time working on a (currently around 50 page) document detailing all of the bullshit that happened with the allegations. Yes. It was that many pages. That's about a fourth of the bullshit.

Remember how I was on vacation? Well. I lied to my parents about my location. And they found out. And one thing led to another, I called them, they screamed at me, and... I broke my phone. I've made the decision to cut them off, because I just... can't handle this anymore.

Anyways. Cut to the present. I still haven't told them, but they figured as much since they can't reach me through my old number. My mom keeps emailing my workplace trying to contact me. I haven't been able to read them yet. My therapist is helping me compose a letter to my parents and my sister to let them know. My partner and my friends and family-by-association has been really supportive and caring, and it's a lot. Not to mention, school has started again, so now I'm back to being overworked and underpaid (and... actively dealing with some severe harassment from a homophobic student each day at the moment... ugh)

It's been an incredibly fucking hard month. The way I have to look at it, though, is that I am incredibly strong and I have grown so damn much. I have a lot going on, and normally, this would be enough to make me completely self destruct.

But (with the help of friends and my chosen family alike), I managed to help clean the living room. Today I did some dishes. I am ROCKING teaching. And... I'm desperately, hopelessly in love with my fiance, and feel safer than I ever have before.

I've always hated the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" because of what I've been through. But right now, I'm feeling very strongly a variation of the phrase: "what you survive influences who you are; processing that makes you stronger." I feel like I've grown a lot in the past year alone, and it's only going to get better.

So... yeah! There's a huge big long trauma dump. I'm so so sorry lol I just... I want you guys to know about the person behind the T_T profile picture. It feels good to be seen. <3

[rosedear]

Book Review: Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Rating this book a good 3.5/4 and I'd like to say this is my first time reading a book by this author. I've heard a lot about the Love Hypothesis and some of the other ones but I simply wasn't interested in STEM related love stories. But wow, I was pleasantly surprised by this one! And I'm pretty glad I picked it up for several reasons. But firs I want to get into things that I didn't quite enjoy.

Personally, the writing style might just not have been for me. The stream of consciousness adds a lot to Elsie's character since it's in first person POV but it's not my favorite. I don't usually read books in this POV so that's already a big obstacle. However, the first person POV didn't bother me too much which is great! I just didn't like the constant insertion of like twitter memes into the writing. I guess it's quirky but I thought there were too many references that weren't funny to me. But that might just be because I just like a completely different style of writing. Something that did bother me genuinely was the constant reminder of how big Jack is... like I know he's big. I get it omg. I don't know why there needed to be so many mentions of his size. I love a good size difference but man...

Anyways, onto the things I really liked! I related to Elsie LOTS! Especially her people pleasing tendencies and her APE method. I didn't even realize I was using the same methods as Elsie herself to keep some friends happy and it felt like a personal callout when she was talking to Cece near the end about whether she would leave her just because she doesn't like artsy films much. I understand her self doubt that she just couldn't believe someone like Jack could have feelings for her. But I didn't get why she didn't realize even though he straight up said it to his face. I just took it as though her self esteem is that low which I relate to as well. I also love Jack's character who wasn't a carboard cutout and had real personality. Sometimes the heroes in these books make me mad but I found myself loving the way Jack wants to take care of Elsie. How sweet it is that's his fantasy! Also loved the way it framed the setting of the academic community and the realities surrounding being an academic or having a career in it. I never would have found out the systematic ways in which the people in these communities are disadvantaged or even how their careers work! I didn't understand adjunct professors or tenure tracks and all that. So the way both Jack and Elsie were tangled in this community was super fun to see! I feel like I learned a lot.

Of course Jack and Elsie's chemistry and banter was super fun their slow burn was extremely tasty and their smut was pretty good. I was expecting much more... wild? smut scenes? Maybe because I'm used to that. But the slow and steady pace they went in fits them. I was afraid there might not be any smut scenes at all (and I'd be disappointed because I went into the book thinking there would be pretty hot smut) but it was pleasantly surprising. Their dynamic was pretty inspirational and I'd love to read books with characters with similar dynamics so I might check out another book by the same author.

[seagrassthiccass]

》rules《

》 tae, 30, she/her, but in the not cis way

》 I’m Timid with other people, I am mainly here to fuck around with my wife, and as such i have co-opted her rules page, and they are laid out below. While written by her, and not fully indicative of me as such, consider them my own ---

》 im a violently sex positive socialist anarchist. im not nice about it. i will kill you.

》 I don't tolerate conservatives, centrists, terfs, racists, pedos, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc, s****de baiting, doxxing, or harassment. if I'm interacting with someone who has partaken in one of these feel free to let me know, but I reserve the right to assess on a case by case basis. There are a lot of abusive people in these spaces who will falsify accusations and write callouts for clout.

》 I refuse to take sides in the anti/pro ship war as it is the most terminally online bullshit I've ever fucking seen, but again I am extremely sex positive, and a lot of those involved are just self-deluded christian fundamentalists wearing activists clothing. I don't fuck with you. Get lost.

》 im (my wife is) a fat femme presenting person irl and i will kick your fucking ass if you try to disparage feedism as a method of self reclamation against fatphobia because you met some shitty straight guy chubby chaser that one time. get over yourself.

》* (edited for my interests) im into monsters, transformation, sizeplay, furries(ish), primal play, pet play, and a whole lot of other specific noodly shit

》 dont talk to me about religion and spirituality. yes yours too, even yours. deeply traumatized exvangelical. what beliefs i have are my own and im not interested in yours. (I am not these things but also Do Not talk to me about them as im mainly here for the wife and id rather not fuck her up accidentally because of your stuff on my blog)

》 triggered by addiction/alcoholism, spiritual talk and imagery, slugs & snails, demons & angels, dungeon meshi, gorey imagery that involves pain. if you post these continuously I will unfollow you. (see above parenthesis)

》 unless you already know me like that im not RPing sex with you. that's only for close friends and partners. Kink however is a different story. Feel free.

》 if I don't like what you do I will erase any contribution you've made to this blogs canon without warning.

》 I need extensive communication when I rp. I expect you to be willing & able to retcon or alter any shit we do together if it hits a snag. I will extend you the exact same courtesy. mun comfort comes before muse continuity in all instances. no exceptions.

》 I tag triggers in the form of #trigger // if you need anything tagged please hit me up. I will also be trying to tag #nsfw // in this way. I won't apologize for missing some horny posts tho. that's par for the course here.(i will do my best for triggers, i make no promises for nsfw content)

》 if you made it to the end of these, thank you. I'm actually much more timid than these rules make me sound. I try to be nice. but this community is full of really batshit people. gotta fire off shots to keep the rent low.

[eulangelo]

callout for @genderfluidlucifer

google docs

tw for transmisogyny + TERFs + emotional manipulation

Transmisogyny

Lucifer is a huge transmisogynist who will complain 24/7 about how TERFs hurt the ace community, but the moment @randomclustermissile , a trans girl (who is not an exclusionist at all) tries to point out transmisogyny in inclusionist circles (in the most vague and general way possible, without pointing fingers nor calling anyone names) Lucifer will immediatly jump to block her and so they did with me (another inclusionist) and i have to suppose to everyone else who agreed with that post, even arriving to vagueing about us in private group chats to suggest that we were “sympathizing with exclusionists”. all because we dared point out transmisogyny in inclusionist circles. lucifer is TME but apparently they think they’re the authority on TERFs and their talking points but actual trans women are not, according to them, since this is the stuff that they would go and spew to other people. (screenshots from @enbyoctoling​)

here’s more examples of Lucifer (again, a transmasc person) going deep in detail about how according to them, TERFs/SWERFs hate aro/ace people and are an active threat to us

1. link

[Image ID: Three screenshots of a post by Genderfluidlucifer. The first screenshot is of a paragraph that reads, "Hey. So I can actually answer this. Anon your commentary about how you thought terfs would approve of sex repulsed aces is sort of it. Except...not. Basically terfs hate ace people for not wanting sex in the approved by terfs way. Terfs are actually extremely interested in [forcing] amatonormativity onto everyone. Because for as sex negative as terfs are...they don't want to actually acknowledge or change the fact that amatonormativity is at the root cause of rape culture and misogyny."

The second screenshot is a zoomed in section of the post that reads, "So yeah no I have NO idea where exclus allies are getting this idea from that terfs would even remotely care about the sexual rights of ace people. Terfs generally hate any sexualities in the LGBTQ+ acronym that aren't LGB because they can't force a gender binary onto those sexualities. At least, not as easily. That's why it's actually a massive sign of someone who doesn't call themselves a terf being a crypto terf if they use the term LGB in a positive manner. Along with the term SGA, as it is deliberately exclusive of nonbinary and not inherently SGA centric queer-aligned sexualities. /END ID]

link to the full post, these are just excerpts but the whole thing is just a very long rant about how TERFs hate ace people and so on (i think it’s worth noticing that although the actual post is kinda long, trans women are never once brought op in a conversation about TERFs issues and the only time transmisogyny is mentioned is not relevant to the conversation)

2. link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog by genderfluidlucifer. The original poster is nothorses. It reads, "Because apparently I have to say it: Testosterone is not a 'violent' hormone. It doesn't make you 'more aggressive' or a worse person, it doesn't make you 'dangerous,' or 'toxic.' Transmascs do not need to be 'warned of the dangers of T.' We do not need to spend our transitions terrified that we're going to become a danger to those around us - that HRT is going to turn us into a monster.

Everyone experiences mood swings during hormonal shifts (pregnancy, menstruation, menopause, estrogen HRT, etc.) and while you might have grumpy moments or feel anger/frustration that you need to learn to handle differently, that doesn't make you a bad person.

Testosterone can change the way you access/process emotions somewhat, but if you're already thoughtful about how you handle your feelings and treat others, you're going to be fine. It's normal to lash out on occasion, by accident, then apologize and work to do better. It doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone on HRT is prone to this, and everyone experiencing hormonal changes is prone to this.

Getting HRT should be positive and affirming; you should not have to spend your entire transition terrified of becoming a monster."

The post then has a reblog by captainlordauditor that reads, "The big danger of T is that needle ouchy." /END ID]

here’s them reblogging from known transmisogynist user @nothorses (once again, the irony that a post about how testosterone is seen as the "aggressive hormone" does not mention transfem at all which are literally the main victims of this rethoric in the first place)

3. link (1), link (2)

[Image ID: Two screenshots of posts by genderfluidlucifer. The first screenshot reads, "Queer exclus: We're not repackaging terf rhetoric! Saying that is transmisogynistic! Also queer exclus: Remove the plus from LGBT!" and has tags that say, "I will pay these people to grow some god damn self awareness. Imagine being this dense. Queer discourse." The post has 15 notes.

The second screenshot reads, "Honestly it is so stupid and frustrating to see ace exclus continue to deny that the ace discourse was started by terfs. Proof was given countless times. And a big name terf like galesofnovember even admitted to starting it. Those of you who demand proof but ignore all of this never wanted proof to begin with." and is tagged with, "ace discourse. The post has 38 notes. /END ID]

heres another two post of theirs conflating TERFs with ace exclusionism

4. link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblogged post by furbearingbrick. The original poster is boxlizard, Lucifer's old account. The original post reads, "By the way for people still in denial about it, here's galesofnovember, a terf, admitting that she intended to start the ace exclus movement. She's taking credit for it. Normally if the victims of this behavior weren't ace/aro or other queer identities y'all be ready to rightfully lynch her. But since it's us, y'all just still wanna stamp your feet and go, 'Nuh uh!' instead of acknowledging facts." The part that says, "admitting that she intended to start the ace exclus movement" is a link to a galesofnovember post.

There is then a reblogged addition from furbearing brick that reads, "archived versions of the receipts" and has two links to the webarchive. The tags read, "Bringing this back since it's apparently still relevant. Terfism mention. Aphobia mention. Queerphobia mention. Blocklist." and has 1,455 notes. /END ID]

this is their post that ive already talked about but basically they found a 52 notes post made by a TERF in 2012 and this one person said "i dont know why i dont get to be the princess of the anti-ace-brigade" and apparently they are convinced that this means TERFs started the ace exclusionism movement and that this is one of their goals. which is insane when TERFs in real life only care about making life miserable for transfem people first and foremost.

5.link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog by genderfluidlucifer. The original poster is yu-gay-fudo. It reads, “Just in case you happen to be unaware, some of the “radfem lite” they post to warm you up to their rhetoric, just off the top of my head:

- Ace/aro exclusionism

- Bi exclusionism or claims that bi people are “less queer” bc of “straight passive privilege”

- Saying you have to be dysphoric to identify as transInvalidating nonbinary people

- Calling queer a slur regardless of context, saying people can’t identify as queer, and saying that it can’t be reclaimed

- “Mogai hell”, “kweer”, or otherwise mocking less common labels and claiming they are “just cishets who want to feel special”

- Excluding sex workers from feminist discussions or claiming that sex work is inherently evil

- Basically anyone who thinks they can determine what other people identify as”. The tags read, "queerphobia tw. twerfs tw. no id." and has 70,727 notes. It was reblogged on March 22nd, 2021 /END ID]

another example of conflating radfems to things that, while wrong, have little to nothing to do with them because being a radfem, again, is something very specific that has all to do with transfem oppression.

Emotional manipulation

Lucifer has done nothing but block, break boundaries, spread lies and vague about people, some of which were even mutuals with them knowing they would see the posts. when confronted about it Lucifer's only answer was "just say you hate me and block me" but they actually ended up blocking everyone first, making it impossible for anyone to set some boundaries with them or even just to calmly confront them about anything.

[proof: Io(popncourse) and Lucifer had a disagreement in a shared discord server, which prompted Lucifer to vague Io in a vent post. Io confronted them, as being vagued is one of buns triggers, to which Lucifer initially agreed to delete the vent post, but then proceeded to victimize themself and immediatly blocked Io. later on, Jude(malewifedeckard) was confronted by Lucifer, then after Jude told them “I’m worried that you’ll vague me just like you did with Io” they proceeded to block Jude and vagued about him too. when Io made a post (which was not a callout, it was just bun setting buns boundaries) explaining what Lucifer did, Lucifer immediatly jumped to victimize themself, acting like they were being called out and straight-up lying, even going so far as to say that no one tried to hear them out, which is a blatant lie if you consider the aforementioned Io and Jude’s attempts at doing so, with Lucifer immediatly blocking and cutting ties with the both of them. ] 

(screenshots taken by @popncourse and @malewifedeckard)

as seen in the proof above Lucifer’s behaviour is not ok because they don’t accept any kind of confrontation and immediatly jump to blocking, and after blocking, they'd immediatly go and vague about the people who confronted them pacificly, spreading more lies and painting themself as the victim and even arriving to say “no one hears me out at all��� which is simply not something you can say when you block people who are trying to hear you out in the first place.

this is by no means an invitation to go and harass them, send them hate or anything like that. i absolutely don’t want anything even remotely hateful or negative to be sent their way after this post. 

this post was only made because:

1. as an ace person who fully supports the inclusion of aspec identities in the lgbt+ community i don’t want to support an enviroment that costantly downplays transmisogynistic oppression in order to be taken seriously. there are hundreds of ways to make aspec activism without acting like we(as in TME aspecs)are the victims of a system that seeks for the annihilation of transfemenine people in real life everyday. i especially don’t want to support TME individuals who act transfem-friendly but then block any transfem who tries to speak on transmisogyny without a second thought.

2. Lucifer’s behaviour has hurt two friends of mine and i don’t want to associate with someone who actively breaks people’s boundaries without taking accountability when messing up.

3. i cannot associate with someone who spreads lies about me accusing me of sympathizing with exclusionists all while having me blocked so that i can’t see it nor defend me. they complain about people not hearing them out but they’re the very first person who does not try to hear people out, and instead jumps to spread baseless rumors. this is not someone i can nor want to associate with. 

(image descriptions provided by @malewifedeckard)

[wirewitchviolet]

The older I get, the more exhausted I get with people's naivety about "callouts." Nearly everyone will unquestionably believe and pass on the most obvious, easily disproven lies about anyone, without having any clue who the subject is, who the person making the accusations is, how they came by the knowledge they are passing on, and never research anything. Not only is this true of anyone you know who "always knows what's up with things like this," it's even more true with them.

It is also absurdly common for people to just straight up make up horrible things about people. Not even people they have a particular grievance with. And of course, for whatever reason, people are extra extra prone to both make up and spread the most horrible things about trans women. Like, prior to coming out as trans, I don't recall ever having to deal with any of this, but since coming out a decade ago my life has been an absolute hell as people I have never had any form of interaction with in my life have gone around claiming, amongst other things, that I...

am a cis guy pretending to be trans for some reason, am a cis woman, am a hot and popular girl in the grand hot popular girl conspiracy, am a virulent racist, am a nazi, am the leader of my own personal terrorist organization, co-lead a terror-organization with along with some particular nazi, own several newspapers, launched the career of a certain TV writer turned full-time cartoon villain, slept with said villain to get ahead in life, slept with said villain to help him get ahead in life (I think I was supposed to have received like, free proofreading in exchange or something?), spurned the affections of said villain prompting his fall to evil, am actively conspiring with some guy's mom to have him re-committed to some involuntary in-patient psychological treatment/incarceration of some sort, have a long and storied history posting things on the Something Awful forums, have a burning hatred of a good number of random strangers, as well as several people I have only ever been on the best of terms with, am this guy, am some manner of billionaire heiress, am a cop, am a CIA operative, am specifically a Brazillian cop, am being payed by George Soros to do something or other, lie at the heart of some vast conspiracy involving both DARPA and DiGRA, live in Texas, California, Washington, Brazil, England, and Russia, am some sort of "skinny little bitch," weigh over 500 lbs., have a beard that reaches the floor, have no hair whatsoever, have blue hair, have, and I quote, "breast milk sack implants," all manner of terrible horrors in place of genitals, every fetish under the sun, and I'm sure some laundry list of violent and sexual crimes along with just generally being super mean to who even knows how many people.

And I am just... as dull and unimportant as people come. I live alone with a cat in the middle of nowhere, talk to practically no one ever, don't even have... whatever people use to message people these days, and kinda just sit here minding my own business, updating this blog, designing niche little games, working with electronics, and managing my growing list of health problems. But I'm trans, see. So people make up all this crap, and people, including self-styled anti-harassment who've known me for years, and people at least pretend to take enough of this obvious nonsense seriously enough for me to be both publicly shunned, blackballed out of multiple industries, and has necessitated me to completely lock down my whole life, never share any personal details that could be used to identify me, or even share pictures of this super photogenic cat next to me, and I've still had to move to new undisclosed little boltholes more than once thanks to in-person violence.

So I don't know, maybe when you hear someone talking about how terrible someone is, rather than just assume by default that that is legit, you instead maybe make it a policy to assume someone is arbitrarily making up nasty rumors about someone, and honestly unless the subject is running for some political office you can vote for or you're contributing money to someone directly funding hate groups or something (in which case, you should still take the time to independently verify things), just sigh at how people waste their time with stuff like this, don't acknowledge it, and move on with your life.

God, it's fucking remarkable how people claim to support predstrogen and oppose transmisogyny, while still participating in transmisogynist harassment campaigns like the one against the co-host co-founder.

Like that's literally what the scandal is about. Predstrogen was the victim of years-long harassment campaign which used mass-reporting and got her account banned. And tumblr let her harassers blogs stay up while deleting her accounts. And the ceo took criticism of tumblr's transmisogynistic moderation practices as a personal insult to his self-image as a cool dude, so he has repeatedly personally justified it. Matt Mullenweg isn't the only villain here, the hate mob driving harassment against her is too.

I remember the callout posts against predstrogen, sometimes thy were outright terfs, but others justified the harassment in the same coded ways they do for every trans woman. "She was into problematic kinks or defended them, and therefore basically a pedophile sexual predator." Or "she is a transfeminist, therefore she is a transandrophobe that hates transmascs."

Like it's the same pattern of bullshit, it doesn't explicit target her identity as a trans woman, but these callouts repeatedly happen to transfem after transfem every fucking time. And they always use the same bullshit accusations that just so happen to line up with the widespread transmisogynistic image of transfems as sexual predators who oppress real wombyn.

The reason predstrogen's story resonates is because it vividly shows what it is like to be a transfem on this platform.It didn't just happen to her as an individual, It's part of a larger systemic pattern of transmisogyny.

If you participate in these transmisogynistic callout harassment even by just reblogging the callouts, you are also a villain here. And you can't claim to support predstrogen while participating in the process that drove her off the platform.

You can't condemn Matt Mullenweg when you are a willing cog in the same transmisogynistic hate machine that he is defending. The only difference between you and Mullenweg is not that you lack his bigotry, it's that you lack his millions of dollars, and the immense individual power and influence that brings.

[anewz]

removing logos on gifs [tutorial]

hi guys!

i’ve seen some cc’s put out various tutorials so i thought i would do one on a technique i use to remove logos from stage gifs. this is to avoid having to blur logos, crop weirdly, or, most tediously, paint over the logo frame-by-frame.

example:

introduction:

i use this technique, which i’ll just call patching for the sake of this tutorial, fairly regularly because i have a personal vendetta against any and all show logos. obviously, the best way to get rid of a logo is to crop it out, but sometimes this just isn’t possible.

patching is basically using another part of the same gif as a “patch” over the logo. thus, it works best with backgrounds that are nondescript (such as the example before the cut) or repetitive in some way (such as the example below). conversely, backgrounds that are noisy/chaotic are not suited to this technique. it is also preferred that the performer doesn’t cross underneath the logo too much.

this technique has the benefit over simply blurring the logo because it can sometimes erase the logo completely. by using a part of the same gif, it also adjusts to the camera’s movement.

example:

as you can see in the above example, the patch itself isn’t perfect. however, most people who hadn’t seen the “before” version probably wouldn’t notice it, which is the goal.

steps:

apply your sharpening as you normally do

make sure you are working in timeline mode with the frames of your base gif in a smart object

duplicate your base gif layer

using the lasso tool, select the area around the logo on the base gif copy (which we will now call our patch layer) as shown below:

apply a layer mask and unlink the mask from the patch layer by clicking the chain icon (which will make the chain icon disappear). this will allow you to move the layer mask and layer contents independently of one another

while having the layer mask selected (as above, indicated by the white outline around the mask), i suggest you also refine the mask (right click on mask > select “refine mask”) to soften the edges of your mask so your patch blends better with the gif below. you can do this by increasing the feathering. alternately, you could use a paintbrush with low hardness to paint around the edges of your mask selection

now click on the patch layer content to select it instead. if you do not select the layer content at this step, when you try to move the layer you’ll actually just move the mask around, which is not what you want to do

using the move tool, move your patch layer contents around until you find a part of the background that is reasonably similar to the background under the logo. it’s best to do this with the layer mask enabled.

in the example after the cut, i dragged the layer contents up and to the left. in the example above the cut, i dragged the layer contents straight up because the background lighting was vertical

the example below shows what the layer contents look like in the patch layer when the layer mask is disabled, then what area is used in the patch, then finally shows what it looks like when the layer mask is enabled

now you should check to see if this patch works reasonably well for the rest of the frames in your gif by dragging around the current time indicator in your timeline. hopefully, the background won’t change too much over the course of your gif, but if it does, you can use another patch using the same technique to fix a certain area of the background that isn’t quite right in the first patch

if you’re putting out multiple gifs from this one base gif, you can also use separate patches for each gif to adjust for movement/background changes that happen in specific parts of the gif

you may also want to use your paintbrush (low hardness) to increase the size of your patch to better fit the background. the original mask i made was the area my patch needed to cover, but as you might be able to tell in the most recent gif, i made my patch a bit bigger to the left of the logo to fit the pattern of the background

conclusion:

hopefully this little tutorial can help some of you out! masks are super useful in photoshop, and they’re fairly easy to use, so my main goal with this tutorial was to show you guys a way to use them in a way you might not have thought of before.

while it can take a little practice and intuition to figure out the best patch to use for your gif, remember that you’re always your own worst critic. in fact, if you don’t ramble in the tags about how you’re annoyed at the patch not working the way you want it to (this is a callout for my idiot self), you’d be surprised at how well patching can fool people!

feel free to ask me if you have any questions! if i get any, i’ll try to edit the original post too for any others who may have the same questions.

if you found this tutorial useful, please consider reblogging it so that a) you can find it again and b) it can help others as well.

thank you for reading!

[mueritos]

I'm yet another suicidal person who has had to struggle with mental illness and... Idk. I know the difference between someone telling a bigot (someone who has probably told a lot of gay teens to kill themselves) and someone telling me (a gay trans person) to kill my self

In fact, I don't think the bigot who said I should go through electroshock therapy because he thought that I was crazy had the best thing in mind when he said that. I think honestly he wanted me to off myself, I have no reason to believe that this dude really believed shocking my brain a lot would turn me cis and straight except for being very stupid

I've never told a single person to kill themselves, I'm not saying you should, but if a bigot is attacking someone and they defend themselves, you don't go "uh uh! No no!" And slap their wrist while the bigot is still punching. You fucking PUNCH the bigot and then teach them how to better defend themselves in private, where the bigot can't see

Idk if this makes sense. Sorry

No you make perfect sense. Its the one of the reasons why im not convinced about and im gonna be upfront and say that I Do Not Care how a marginalized person responds to people who want us Dead. I dont! And i also cannot bring myself to, because again, I dont have it in me. If you want to show compassion, go ahead! If you want to tell them fuck off or that you want to staple their nipples to their eyelids, go ahead! Im not going to police marginalized people’s responses to active real life harm.

And great point because its something that I fell back on in the time reading what yall have to say and thinking on it: punching up is NOT the same as punching down. Marginalized folks will ALWAYS have far less support than those who oppress us, and punching up in defense, in exhuastion, or in retaliation will NEVER amount to the scale of harm that has been caused when oppressed punch, kill, maim, and incarcerate our communities.

Normalize focusing on ur communities, yrself, and your communties’ wellbeing and protection. Like i cant believe the discourse, are u guys seriously gonna make a callout post for community members who engage in de-arresting, who engage in protection of their own communities, who beat up and silence bigots? Because knowing how chronically online some folks on this site are, yea I can already imagine the callout posts being made.

I’ve been in IRL spaces where our survival and wellbeing DEPENDED on excluding, gatekeeping, and barring bigots and liberals out from our spaces. Sometimes this includes literally being honest and telling people to FUCK OFF! And i know there are lots of other communities who do far more to ensure no bigot, fascist, or abuser enters their spaces. Online respectability politics will never translated into IRL because you cant just block or mute bigots. You need to make them scared.

So yea. Thanks for bring this up cuz it def helped me solidify my thoughts on all of this.

[art-i-know-yes]

AHH I'M EXCITED LET'S GO

Spoilers Ep.66

The dEscRiption because like a WHAT to WHAAT WITH GLENNNNN

I'm sorry literally one of the only things I've wanted to see is emotionally open Glenn

not the spotify ads

Darryl plays Matt

Hot Take: Darryl hates the environment

That's an oof, Henry

Biiiiig therapy

Horses vs Henry and Cows vs Ron

oooohhhmygahwdbeth

"I know what you said and I ignored it"

WOOOOOOOOO RON THERAPY

Imagine going to therapy

Awww Ron

I was just high key thinking about them listening outside the door

geeEENETIC TIMELINE

"That's depressing"

Those are liike good rollssssss

mmmnnnnn nevermind

Kinda wanna dig up clams

I-I mean why not

I guess that's a good idea to teach them how to drive huh

"No, that's ok"

WHY'D HE SAY IT LIKE THAT

They're too emotional right now

The keyword they didn't use is HOPEFULLY THEIR DADS SHOOT AT IT

Excuse me too young some countries learned by like 8

Hiiiissss voice

Noooo

"11, that's sounds like it's gonna be sad" "Oooo that tracks for you"

Really!! Glenn followimg laws!!

Kids have these neat abilities called vroom vroom speed vehicle where they get self control

YEEEE KIDS GET TO DRIVE

Ehhh come on Darryl you're making this so depressing

Henry shut up please

"Doooope" "Definitely Lark or Sparrow"

I remember seeing someone call Sparrow a furry

I think that is good idea for flexibility because I did not think if that because if I'm honest I only trust TJ to drive we saw what Lark and Sparrow driving was like

Can TJ still like use magic

THE LAUGHTER THAT THAT CAME OUT OF ME I CAN NOT DESCRIBE NEAR TEARS IM TELLING YOU NEAR TEARS

"I'm sure Grant is gonna be fine, but if ya know, Lark dies or something-" "WHAT THE FVCK DARRYL" DARRYL YOU CAN'T USE THEEEEEM AS AN EXAMPLE

But also my second thought was Nick and I made myself lose it

"Ok so Terry dies-" "NOOOOO-" "Ok fine you have two kids. Let's say Sparrow dies-"

THEY COULD JUST BE INJURED WE DON'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THE WORST SITUATIONS

We should camouflage it again, both of them

Toooo thhhee raaaaaat

A LITTLE CONCERNED

Well I'm already in tears so

Real Nick Jr.? It's just Nick

Don't bring the Lawwrdd into this

Accidentally teaching him to dRIIIVVEEE HE CAN BARELY REACH THE WHEEL LET ALONE THE BRAKE OR GAS

But like literally watch Nick Jr. have to drive and does it perfectly

They are way to into the crab mech

He immediately started yelling-I'm just making noises at this point

Not the escape static I mean USEFUL but like the reverse j-turn is a little later

What did your dad teach you Glenn

This is why they're doing different sections

...I can barely do a regular reverse turn...

"I'M ONLY DOING THIS BECAUSE I WAANT TO FATHER"

Straight cut to "A few quick things in no specific order"

This is about what I expected with Willy as his father

Terry Jr. is having an existential crisis

Roooonnn

Understeer????

GlArK

"My son's name is not Glark" "HAVE YOU BEEN CALLING ME GLARK AND I JUST HAVEN'T NOTICED"

Not quoting the handbook

W-was Ron used as a getaway driver

TJ is big brain

"Use morse code" "Ok anyone wanna teach me morse code"

I just imagine Glenn turning around and like the Office "Quite an imagination on this kid"

"I'm in a dark place" respectable. thanks for being honest.

Honestly that's what I was thinking. Actually very close to that tune.

AWWWWWWW

CYCLISTS

I love you so much Sparrow

"*sniffle* you run 'em over son"

I... am so scared to see who's getting this roll

I desperately hope that twins aren't 1 and 2

This is a competition to them. I know it.

A 23!!!

Awwwwwwww poor baby nonononono

AWWWWW RONNN COMFORTING TJ

I'm not sure if you can tell who's my favorite father-son duo (or characters im general)

Noooooo Terrrryyyy (but like honestly SAME)

A VESPA

HE'S NOT THE DRIVER BUT LIKE STILL I KINDA THINK IT'S THE BEST CHOICE

"I know!"

"I purely know maps I'm the advocate"

CALLOUTS

This is the perfect team up

"And then also Sparrow"

"Idk we can tie them to like a stick or something"

Oh yeah the pillars

Doug is better than literally all philosophers

NONONONO

Is...Ron meta?

Not Elizabeth Warden

OH FVCK

That...doesn't sound good cause like...the underground part

mnnnmmnnnmmmnnn bombssss

"There was this show called Chernobyl" PFFT-

Yesss Bomb shelter beer

Ron's a genius

Hesoundsalittlesalty

"Sounds like somebody cares"

It doesn't sound like we'll make it to ep. 69

The humming is so funny to me

Ron *is* meta

I would LOVE to figure out what Glenn is actually thinking about Nick

YA KNOW WHAT THAT IS A BIG PROBLEM

I don't think mentally I'm ready for what is going to come out

I SCREAMED emotionally i am not recovered from loosing Nick hypothetically I am completely very ok it

*Cooooool*

Just the way he said it Hennrrrryyyyy

"Well, that sounds healthy"

He's really switching this conversation at them

We love Ron-Glenn solidarity

ahhhhh Henry rants

TOLERANT, SORT OF AFFECTION AHHHHAHAHHAHAHAHA

"We are Olive Garden"

Sir, that's a ring of self-sacrifice if you're willing

oooooo that hurts

I..dont know what to say. I'm in shock. My body literally has like tingles all over and my heart dropped. Is Erin ok? How'd he get there? How much does he know? I can't feel anything right now so much and many emotions

~20 minites of sitting in silence and shock later~

I WAS THINKING WHY WOULD THE DRAGON BE AFTER HIM CAUSE HE TOLD RADIOLAB WHAT HE WAS DOING AND WHY AHHH HE MADE HIM ROLL TWICE FOR THAT TO FUKIN WEAKEN HIM I KNEW IT WAS FUKING WEIRD THERE WAS NO WAY GOD

THE GASPS THEY KNEW IT THE MINUTE HE SAID IT

WTFWTFWTF IM SHAKING

CAN YOU HEAL THIS?! NO YOU CAN'T WHAT DO WE DO?! THE COUNTING! THE REMOTE REWIND? THE NEW ITEMS? 15SECONDS15SECONDS15SECONDS. WE CAN NOT LOSE GLENN RIGHT NOW CAN WE PAUSE. CAN WE BREAK THE SPELL LIKE THAT? WHAT IF IT DOESNT WORK? HE SOUNDS SO SERIOUS. IM SO SCARED BUT LIKE FUVK. HE'S GOOD BUT LIKE NOT THAT GOOD RIGHT BECAUSE GLENN WAS ALREADY WHAT 3 LEVELS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE? YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!AHHHHHH GLENN! NOOOOOOOO GODDAMIT HE PROBABLY HAS LEGENDARY ACTIONS I FUKIN THOUGHT ABOUT IT! OMGAWWD SLIGHT OF HAND SNEAK ATTACK. AHHHHG MODIFIERS SCARE ME.

I KNEW I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT

FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR YES HAHAHAHAHHA FVCK YOU

OH GAWD HENRY HEALED HIM

YOU FVKING SLVT ANTHONY

they were sooooooooo close

I swear to god we better see Glenn again or I'm killing someone

I'm having a late reaction tears are coming once I fully process.

BUT REALLY *RIGHT* AFTER THE HEART TO HEART

[irithnova]

So instead of reaching out to the people you've hurt personally you decide to make some self centred apology trying to save your own ass?

"I am aware of my humour" no, you're a racist Han chauvinist and you have a history of racism spanning back to 2019 even before you came into contact with us. Yeah we know about it now. This isn't your own brand of "humour" this is who you truly are and truly have been for almost 5 years now.

"I was accused of being abusive" you WERE abusive, PERIOD. You purposefully triggered someones ED and caused them to relapse. You suicide baited, manipulated and guilt tripped. You victim blamed someone for being assaulted as a child and tried to twist it into them having some sort of fetish. Amongst a plethora of other things.

You have some fucking nerve trying to sneakily deny what you did, pussy.

There is no way that after years of consistently bad behaviour, NOW you suddenly want to mature and become a better person? Now? AFTER you've been publicly called out?

We know for a FACT that you would have continued with this behaviour if we did not come out with this? Why? Well, not only because you clearly showed 0 remorse by responding to Tianshi with "have a nice life" after she told you pretty politely how much you hurt her, blocking everyone with no proper apology and 0 closure, and then reaching out to a friend of ours to try and DARVO us, but guess what?

Your former friends have straight up told us that you have been lying to them about the entire situation!

I know you've admitted that you've been talking about us behind our backs in this God awful apology, but holy shit are you seriously expecting us to take this apology as genuine in the slightest? Again. WHY ARE YOU ONLY APOLOGISING AFTER YOU'VE BEEN PUBLICLY CALLED OUT? YOU'VE HAD MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO DO THIS PRIVATELY. INSTEAD YOU CHOSE TO BLOCK AND SHIT TALK AND LIE.

AND ONCE AGAIN, WE KNOW YOU WERE FORCED TO PUT THIS APOLOGY OUT.

EVEN NOW YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO REACH OUT TO THE PEOPLE YOU'VE HURT PRIVATELY. THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES.

If you can't change in 4 YEARS, what makes us think you've changed in 4 days?

"I recently found out that they were receiving hate after the callout" if you've read the callout we make it abundantly clear we do not blame these friends because they're minors and that no one should go and harass them. Don't try and pin this on us.

If anyone who is reading this has ever sent Meito or anyone else in the doc anon hate, you are just as pathetic as Panda is. We made it clear that we did not make the document to facilitate harassment and straight up disavowed harassment in the doc itself.

Quit the bullshit and leave them alone.

Oh, and Meeru/@/meliissa-art? What fucking hate has Meeru got, other than me confronting her for brushing off your abusive behaviour and calling US toxic for going public about it? I gave Meeru 4 screenshots of your behaviour (including the screenshot about how you wanted Manchurians to be mass genocided and her genital cutting/sterilisation paragraph about Hokkien people) a list of the things you did, which also included victim blaming Mango for being assaulted as a child, and explained how we tried to handle it privately MULTIPLE TIMES...

And she STILL proceeded to call it boring cancel culture, tell me that I "only see morality in black and white" (I don't know how wishing genocide/sterilisation upon a whole group of people or victim blaming someone for being assaulted as a child can be justified but you do you Melissa! xoxo) and then blame me for ruining her Christmas when SHE was the one who engaged without apparently reading the whole document (idiot).

So yeah. I called Meeru the FUCK out and I don't regret doing so. Her response was all the more egregious because she built her blog off the back of Northern Asian and Siberian cultures, but will read a screenshot of you saying you want Manchurians to be genocided and then brush it off and shit on the victim for speaking out about your racist abuse! Meeru can fucking cope and seethe for all I care and so can you! And just like you, Meeru deleted all 3 of her accounts after I showed her the fuck up and is trying to rebrand. Birds of the same feather huh?

Meeru didn't have to engage. She engaged HERSELF by posting a backhanded and insensitive post about the whole thing, and doubled down when I, someone who was a victim of your abuse, confronted her about it.

@/Meliissa-art is not a victim of "hate" here! Be for fucking real!

If you're gonna be an abuse apologist on main Melissa, maybe you should expect some backlash? Just a thought.

The (almost) full interactions between me and Meeru. I couldn't get her final response to me because she blocked me after and then deleted her whole account but her final response was her excusing your behaviour again and blaming me for ruining her Christmas

This was first response to her.

This was her response to my first response. I cropped parts a lot of the parts out because a lot of her response was her yapping on about her God awful ocs but you can go and read the whole thing on my blog if you scroll back or look up meerudraws on the search for my posts.

Continued/the ending but with 90% of the yapping about her ocs taken out:

My second response:

Unfortunately she blocked me and deleted all three of her accounts after (I wonder why?) so I couldn't get the final response in a screenshot.

However I did see it as I was typing up a whole response to it and then went to hit reblog and boom I was blocked. But in that response she pretty much doubled down in her support of you and accused me of ruining her Christmas LMAO. This is why in a few posts after she blocked me, I made fun of her for blaming me for ruining her Christmas, as I had no way of replying to her directly at that point. Again, scroll through my account to verify this.

I have 0 pity for Meeru/@/meliissa-art. She doubled down in her demonisation of the people who were victimised by you just for speaking out about your abuse, even after I told her you victim blamed Mango for being assaulted as a child! How disgusting is that?

She showed herself up to be someone who's interest in Northern Asians/Siberians is purely orientalist. How fucking dare Meeru spin this on Tianshi to make it seem as if Tianshi was in the wrong for speaking up about you calling her racial slurs like ogre/mongrel tatar whilst building her blog off the back of Northern Asian and Siberian cultures! She's now attempting to rebrand, like you are.

"I never knew how far my actions were" oh but Panda you did know. Tianshi told you that you made her relapse, and all you said in response was "have a nice life" and block her. Don't play stupid. I told you about your shitty behaviour, and you did the exact same thing to me. You still went around spitting vitriol about Mango.

How are you expecting us to believe a word you're saying now, when you've consistently been lying for months? You've lied about people within our friendgroup whilst you were still a part of it, and up until now you've been lying to your new friends about everything that has happened. This is disingenuous as fuck.

"I will never cross the lines ever again" you've been crossing the lines since 2019 girly.

"...and also badmouthing them and manipulating the situation to favour me, which after months of reflection, I realised that that was truly despicable behaviour." ANOTHER LIE. Panda, you have not been "reflecting" for months. You lied and shittalked to as many people you could make listen to you for months. Your former friends confirmed this. You even admitted this yourself within your own apology ! "and I admit that I was talking bad about them behind their backs despite me promising to them that I would not talk about them".

Also, after you "promised" you wouldn't talk about us? ANOTHER LIE. You didn't promise SHIT. You just blocked us and ran off to spread lies about what happened. You can't help yourself from lying, even within your own apology huh?

"Thank you very much for reading this letter, and I hope that the victims of this will find peace and help, and I wish everyone the best and happy holidays."

Is this just a fancier way of you saying have a nice life?

Anyways. This you?

I'm posting these because these came from a person who was a victim of your behaviour in 2019. You also guilt tripped them, suicide baited them, and overall ruined their mental health. You also lied to them about us, just like how you lied to your new friends about us!

List of other things you did:

Say that Taiwan should be bombed

Say that Taiwanese people should be hunted like dogs

Say that HKers are ungrateful dogs

Say that Filipinos are dirty

Yes these are from 2019. But you have not changed an ounce since then. You are still lying about your former friends, suicidebaiting, guilt tripping, being racist, being a wumao. Again. If you haven't changed in 4 years, what makes us believes you've changed in 4 days? Holy shit I literally recoil in cringe at shit I even did 6 months ago, let alone 4 fucking years.

Let me guess, like you did to us, you're gonna come back to the fandom sooner or later, make a new friendgroup, tell them how your former friendgroup "gave you trauma", proceed to abuse your new friends, leave again once being called out for bad behaviour, come back again, make a new friendgroup, etc etc etc

You can take this disingenuous apology and shove it up your ass you fucking coward.

Have a nice life!

In response to @lemonyholyny

1) 12 year olds shouldn't be on tumblr OR tiktok. This isn't even me being an annoying adult, they are genuinely not allowed on those sites at that age. Tiktok AND Tumblr.

2) Viimi was being publicly racist/Sinophobic and was given stern but fair pushback from Mango. They were harassing Mango publicly and in a racist manner. Being a minor does not excuse racist harassment. Did you expect Mango and other Chinese people to just accept the racist harassment just because it came from a minor?

3) The apology was whack, period. Mango is under no obligation to accept it. Mango was the one who was wronged in the situation. Not the person who was being racist to her. It doesn't matter that they were 12 (again, you're not even allowed on these websites when you're that age).

The apology was also self admittedly disingenuous. Again, Mango is under no obligation to accept their apology ESPECIALLY BECAUSE IT WAS DISINGENUOUS.

Here you can see how they admit that they only wanted to apologise to Mango to escape accountability.

"ill just apologize so that goofy ahh artist takes it down" - Viimi

The apology itself was terrible too, and obviously it was because of this.

4) You wanna make this about minors vs adults? It was a (most likely minor) East Asian who reached out to Mango who was upset about Vimii's racism. They wanted to use this as an example to talk about issues that East Asians in online fandom spaces face.

Screenshots from @miyuecakes

Had to start collaging them as tumblr only allows 10 pics at a time.

5) I want to reiterate how ridiculous it is to use the "you're bullying minors!!" defence. If a 12 year old called an adult a slur, is the adult wrong for showing disgust towards such behaviour? Are other adults wrong for showing disgust toward such behaviour?

Again, Mango's response was stern but fair. Mango could have responded far worse considering how racist Vimmii was being.

That does not constitute harassment. Mango's friends (many of the friends in the screenshots you provided being East Asian/Chinese themselves so yes they have a right to be offended it doesn't fucking matter that they're 12) publicly being disgusted with Vimii's racism is also not harassment.

Mango's friend's being publicly disgusted at Viimi's selfish and (AGAIN, SELF ADMITTEDLY) disingenuous apology is also not harassment.

I wish an adult called out my racist bullies when I was 12 and they were calling me racial slurs and harassing me. Maybe they would have learned something and not went on to become horrible adults. But instead they got away with it because they were young and no one took them seriously. Sound familiar ?

If you're going to be racist, you will get people being offended by it. That is obvious. The burden shouldn't be put on the victims of racism to just take it laying down if they so choose to.

It's unfortunate that the racism came some someone so young but no one could have predicted that they were as young as 12, especially because you should not be allowed access to these sites at that age as per the site rules.

These same friends also tried to explain things to Viimi in a fairly gentle way.

Yet Viimi doubled down and then went on to post a self admittedly disingenuous apology in an attempt to get away with being racist. So yeah. People expressed their public disgust at this. This is not harassment.

Viimi started the racist harassment, Viimi was told fairly gently by multiple people to stop, Viimi doubled down, Viimi posts a self admittedly selfish and disingenuous apology to Mango, Mango does not accept the apology for these reasons, Mango's friends express disgust at Viimi's behaviour.

Don't you dare try to paint this as a harassment campaign against a minor by being purposefully dishonest through leaving out large important chunks of context.

Apology to the fandom

Hello everyone, I am Panda (Potaxiepower formerly known as Kimetsunozushi69) and I want to write this post in order to own my mistakes and to apologise to the ones involved in this situation.

First of all, I am aware of my humour, which has crossed the line many times. I want to seriously apologise for the disgusting jokes that I did without any consideration of people's feelings. I want to clarify that I am not racist, I have no intention of discrimination against anyone.

I will never cross the lines ever again, and I will face the consequences of my actions which harmed many people in this fandom.

I do not expect people to forgive me, because what I said was truly unforgivable, but from now on, I will mature and I will become better.

In regards of others aspects, I want to talk about the way I treated the members involved in this situation, I am sure you all know this, but I was accused of being abusive to some members of this fandom, which I will admit that my behaviour was unacceptable, and my personal struggles and my own problems do not justify the actions that I committed against the people involved.

I admit that I was a very toxic friend, and I never knew how far my actions were until I realised that my harm to them was scarring and traumatising. I admit that my behaviour towards them is irredeemable and that not an apology can fix the consequences of my actions.

None of them truly hurt me, I was the one who was in a bad mental state and because of that I started to wrongly accuse them of things that they were not, and also badmouthing them and manipulating the situation to favour me, which after months of reflection, I realised that that was truly despicable behaviour.

I admit that I did all of this based on my own envy over them being better artists, academically brighter and better writers than me, which made me have an inferiority complex against them and because of that I was acting toxic towards them. 

Even when they supported me in my hard times, I was ungrateful and despite them showing emotional and financial support, I was not willing to recognise their efforts to be my friends, because of my ego.

I understand why this situation is happening, because I cannot escape from my actions, I do not expect the fandom to ever forgive, and I understand that, I will face the consequences of what has happened this summer time.

I am sorry for ghosting the victims of the situation after doing enough harm and not apologising genuinely because I was a coward who did not want to accept my mistakes, and I understand why the situation escalated to worse after months.

I also understand why everyone in this fandom is currently furious over this, because I escaped and deleted everything without any explanation, this time, I will face the fandom and listen to your complains, I also will leave the fandom after this in order to start a new phase of my life where in the future I will not commit the same mistakes again.

I also want to clarify that none of my old followers or friends stalked any of the members, I was not aware of them facing harassment online, I am not lying when I say that I had everyone blocked which made me not interact with their posts or be interested in what they were posting, because I didn't want to see what they were doing (because I was ghosting) and I admit that I was talking bad about them behind their backs despite me promising to them that I would not talk about them, but I did not send hate because all the frustration that I had was thrown towards my close friends who were not interested in creating conflicts.

I recently found out that they were receiving some hate regarding the call-out, I did not send anyone. I promise everyone that I was inactive online and was scared of looking at what was happening, and I was with family members and real life friends these past two days.

MeitoMela and Meerudraws are innocent, they never had any vile intentions nor any interest in engaging in discourse, and them being friends and mutuals with me does not mean that they are on my side, nor do they agree with my actions nor are they interested in engaging in this.

Thank you very much for reading this letter, and I hope that the victims of this will find peace and help, and I wish everyone the best and happy holidays.

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 12 Reactions: Mando goes on a self care sidequest with friends and now the Razor Crest can fly again

- before we talk about ANYTHING else I have to mention once again: 

shut UP they have a statue for IG-11 in the town square!!!!! right outside the school like he’s guarding it!!! I am  c r y i n g

- that opening scene was Everything; I have had exactly this type of conversation with my dad so many times when I was a kid and he was fixing up our about-to-fall-apart house (though he’s an electrician so he wouldn’t have let me within fifteen kilometers of anything electrical that was still powered lol. it’s okay tho let’s just assume that star wars tech has extra fail safes for these things that we don’t, the baby is clearly fine)  

callout post for Din Djarin: does not own furniture, literally sits on a crate in the middle of the cargo hold to eat dinner, has presumably been living like this for decades, help him 

them sipping soup perfectly in sync 😭😭😭 (for some reason I find it so funny that din lifts up and then lowers the helmet for every mouthful fsaldkfhjsadfh it’s such a... I almost want to say dainty? way of doing it and my heart is full of so much affection)   

I wonder if they’ve been eating together like this for a while or if it’s din doing just a tiny bit of testing his boundaries now that he knows there are different schools of thought on the helmet thing to see how he feels about it? the baby is extremely curious, but that could also be because he’s seen people take the  helmet off completely now and made the connection that presumably his dad has a face above the chin under there too lol 

-

grandpa greef... things I didn’t know I needed but am delighted to get

the way the mando music goes soft and relaxed and almost playful when din spots greef and cara? fcking kills me ludwig göranson going for my throat once again

 - 

“hmmm why isn’t this working... the puppy eyes usually work on dad eventually this is unprecedented & concerning” 

a baby committing baby crimes through the force and getting away with it mostly scot-free... delightful, wonderful in every way    

‘batuu!’ ;_________; baby has a word for food?

- 

din’s Dad Instincts kicking in... I’m emotional over how casually protective he is with things like this, and that he showed signs of it even before meeting the baby (he’s also the last one to stay behind on the platform to make sure the rest of them make it out safely before they start running.... your honor im love this man more than anything he is Dad)

that soft steady protective-but-not-possessive masculinity baBEY 

- I am entranced by the difference between din’s fighting style in the last episode -- when he was continually on the back foot and out of sync with the people he fought with -- and in this episode, where he’s back in one man army mode. (he does take on sort of a protective role when he fights with friends -- he’s not quite fighting with them all the time he’s more like a shepherding dog circling them and making sure they’re okay lol) turns out he fights much better with -- for! -- people he actually trusts and knows and likes and who aren’t manipulating him huh :)   

- the mythrol dude says in the first episode that he’s a ‘fledgling’, and it makes everything about him so much funnier when you assume he’s his species equivalent of a teenager/twentysomething fsdfsdjkfhsd (he oh so 100% sold din out at the beginning there tho :( the most charitable interpretation is that he didn’t quite know the scope of it -- he did seem just as surprised as the rest of them that gideon isn’t dead, so maybe he thought that weird alien mechanic dude wanted to know about the crest for more mundanely nefarious reasons?)

they are kind of shitty towards him tho I feel a bit bad for him haha 

- at least din knows moff gideon is still alive now and can take appropriate precautions as far as possible? on the other hand he doesn’t know about the tracker and I am so scared help  

- man I wish gina carano wasn’t such a godawful person so I could appreciate cara dune’s overarms and interesting character development in peace but as it stands... yeah 

- @ all the people whining about when we get to ahsoka... meet me in the ring for dishonorable combat I am smol and sort of skinny these days but I have decades of pent up rage and no compunctions about fighting dirty on my side lol 

listen... I love ahsoka as much as the next person, but we already have two shows’ worth of content for her. just let me have my thirty minutes a week of slice of life dad and baby nonsense without it being overshadowed by Plot and more established characters okay (and also if the rumours are right about who is going to play her... double  y e a h  that’s going to be fun to navigate emotionally :/)    

- I actually really liked that they went back to nevarro to answer some old questions (where did those empire dudes even come from?? what’s going on with pershing and why am I so weirdly happy to see him again when clearly he is bad news??? what do they need the baby for exactly? how are cara and greef but mostly greef now sadly doing?) and update that whole storyline a bit, while opening even more questions. also stop midichlorian-counting yodito’s blood you fucking creeps

the (likely) midichlorian mention didn’t bother me that much because this show already thrives on the tension between the mythic and mystical and the weirdly mundane and realistic, it’s the one star wars thing I trust to handle the Force the same way without losing the magic of it

- seeing the armorer’s forge like that was honestly upsetting to me haha, I know the forge isn’t what makes her what she is but still 

-

greef karga is a huge bitch and I like him so much

I do like greef’s character growth, though -- it feels a bit like some older and more idealistic (well comparatively) part of him has finally gotten out from under the empire’s boot and restored itself, it’s sweet. he’s doing administrative things that have the whole town blooming! there are plants and living things thriving there now! he wants to establish a safe trading hub!

- f for this poor harried new republic officer, captain carson teva, who along with trapper wolf is apparently responsible for policing the entire outer rim haha

I like the complicated tension between him and the other characters here -- both sides have very good reasons to hold the points of view they do and it’s easy to see why it’s so hard for them to work together but at least this guy is trying to be fair about it     

- the way they all immediately agreed when din went straight into ‘get. baby. NOW everything else is secondary’ dad mode and let him go off on his own even tho he would probably have been real useful to have around T______T friendshipppp 

baby FINALLY strapped in securely I gave a little shout of triumph haha

the way he was like ‘free cookies! (everything’s free if you steal it #baby yoda life hacks) helping dad with stuff! high speed dog fights! BEST! DAY! EVER!’ through the whole scene right up until he was finally sick but it’s okay because dad is here and will fix it even while he’s driving... don’t even look at me I can’t 

- din being in a much more stable and happy place after going to friends for help (and the way it’s reflected in his ship! my theory still stands strong haha)....... mngh im not crying give this man some community he so clearly needs it 

[ratsmp4]

holding myself accountable .

i would like to start off by saying that no one is required to forgive me for what i've done, both in the past and in recent weeks . depending on how long you've followed me, you may have seen this post from a few months ago . it was poorly worded and written in a moment of anger, where i was not thinking straight . i was in a very dark place when i posted it, and i was encouraged by one of my good friends, who will not be named for their safety . additionally, you may have seen this callout post made by one of my former mutuals . if not, i encourage you to read over it, as it could provide much needed context about what happened .

more about the situation will be included under the cut .

Garrett is the protagonist of the Thief games - a cynical master thief who wishes nothing more than to be left alone to steal in peace, but who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a series of epic events.

Garrett exhibits a strong sense of survival and self-interest. While on the surface Garrett is callous, cynical and sarcastic, with loyalty only to himself, he does seem to have deeper feelings for a few of his contacts: Artemus, the Keeper that recruited and trained him; Basso the Boxman, a fellow thief; Cutty, his fence. In extreme cases this seems to extend to even to past antagonists such as Viktoria, although that may be a result of Garrett's own self-interest.

Garrett also exhibits a strong sense of professional pride as a thief: he usually refuses to kill while on the job, saying that he's a thief, not a murderer,[1] though Constantine and Karras died as a result of Garret's actions only because he was able to sabotage their evil plans. Lotus was a mercy killing, as he begged for death due to the inhumane conditions that Garrett found him in. Other than that, Garrett has not killed any humans in the Thief canon. It is implied Garrett also never steals from his allies or the poor.[Fact Check]

Orphaned, Garrett spent his youth on the streets surviving as a pickpocket and message runner.

One night, he saw Artemus walking on the street as people, 'just passed him by like he wasn't there'. Thinking the man had some valuables, he decided to make a grab. However, he was caught, and Artemus, impressed with his ability to see a Keeper, offered Garrett a new life. Garrett was then recruited into a secret organization known as the Keepers, dedicated to observing and maintaining stability in the City.[2]

Not much is known about Garrett's education with The Keepers, except the fact that he was given initial training in the arts of stealth and subterfuge practiced by the Keepers. But, he found that it was much more profitable to make use of these skills as a thief than to continue working for the Keepers as an agent.[3] He was called "the most promising acolyte" in the Keeper annals, but left around the age of 20 due to his "imbalance." It was brought before the council to deal with him using the Enforcers, but Caduca informed the council that Garrett would be needed in the future.[4]

At some point in time, Garrett is now working as an independent thief in the City, making contacts with people such as Basso the Boxman, Cutty and Farkus Bernard. Garrett's first known large score comes from stealing an expensive scepter from Lord Bafford. After which, he breaks into the Hammerite prison to spring his fence, Cutty (who dies while still in prison). This leads him deep into the old Hammerite catacombs looking for treasure. Shortly after this thugs working for the local Warden, Ramirez, attempt to kill Garrett for non payment of tribute. Garrett turns the tables, escaping and going on to humiliate Ramirez by looting his mansion, even going on to rob the local thieves guild. This brazen display of skill attracts the attention of Viktoria, a somewhat mysterious independent fence. She contracts Garrett to steal a magical sword from the eccentric nobleman, Constantine.

Upon successfully returning from Constantine's bizarre mansion, Viktoria reveals that she and Constantine are old associates who were testing Garrett. Constantine offers Garrett a fortune for the job of retrieving the gemstone known as The Eye. Getting to The Eye means Garrett must venture through the abandoned and walled-off Old Quarter of the City to the old Hammerite Cathedral. A mysterious catastrophe, rumored to involve great fires and many undead, caused the area's abandonment decades ago. Garrett finds the cathedral sealed, but the Eye itself tells him of an old Keeper library hidden nearby. Writings there tell of where the talismans that open the cathedral are hidden and how the Keepers almost revealed themselves in order to assist the Hammerites and the Hand Brotherhood in containing a great evil. The first talisman was found in a place called The Lost City, the ruins of an ancient civilization buried beneath the existing city, its entrance hidden by the Keepers. To get the second talisman, Garrett enters a Hammerite temple in disguise. The third talisman was kept with a brotherhood of Mages. The fourth lay inside Keeper secured caverns. Unbeknownst to Garrett, the Talisman was recovered by the guards of the Opera House above the caves. Successful, he then returns to the cathedral and collects The Eye from amid the many undead, escaping with the help from the ghost of Brother Murus, a long dead Hammerite priest.

Garrett visits Constantine to hand over The Eye and collect his payment. Instead of paying, however, Constantine reveals himself to be the fabled Trickster (aka The Woodsie Lord), the entity worshiped by the Pagans, and Viktoria, his consort.

They bind Garrett in vines and Viktoria plucks out one of his eyes, using it to seemingly activate The Eye stone, and leave him for dead. Some time later two Keepers find and free the unconscious Garrett from the vines. The Keepers then leave Garrett to escape by himself through the caverns beneath Constantine's mansion and amongst some new and strange beasts. Once he reaches the surface Garrett decides the only thing to do is visit the Hammerites and tell them about what has happened in the hopes they would provide assistance. He heads for the temple but discovers that the Trickster's minions have gotten there first. Venturing inside he finds the remaining Hammerites in a hidden sanctuary down in an underground cavern. With stealth being the only hope against the Trickster's army, the Hammerites provide Garrett with a booby-trapped copy of The Eye. Garrett descends into the Trickster's realm, where he finds the Woodsie Lord performing a ceremony with the Eye. Garrett stealthily swaps the Eye for its trapped copy, which then explodes, thus striking down the Trickster as he attempts to finish the ritual.

The coda shows Garrett walking back to town alone through the snow. Life appears to be returning to normal. A Keeper approaches, Artemus. The two converse and The Keeper warns Garrett, telling him of a book he should read, and that he can't run away from life. Close observation reveals Garrett now has a mechanical eye. Garrett rejects the Keeper's 'help' in his life and says to tell the other Keepers that "I'm through. Tell them Garrett is done". He then walks away into the city streets. Artemus answers quietly "I will tell them this: Nothing is changed. All is as it was written. The Trickster is dead. Beware the dawn of the metal age.", foreshadowing the sequel, Thief II: The Metal Age.

Garrett's role in The Metal Age begins innocuously. Garrett provides a favor to an old acquaintance, Basso, helping him rescue his love Jenivere, so that he may retire from thievery and elope. Next Garrett breaks into the dockside warehouses to get some extra cash for rent. It soon becomes clear that the City Watch, lead by the zealous Sheriff Gorman Truart, is waging a war on crime, brutally persecuting thieves and conducting nighttime raids on the poor neighborhoods with the intent of rounding up criminals. Truart stages a sting operation in an attempt to assassinate Garrett, but he escapes by using a Flash Bomb. With the newly strengthened police force making burglary more difficult, Garrett begins to wage a personal war against Truart, attempting to blackmail him into loosening his grip on the City by exposing his corruption. In the process, Garrett acquaints himself with the Mechanist Order, a splinter faction of the weakening Hammerites led by the charismatic Karras, whose robotic security devices have begun to guard the City's wealthiest businesses and residences. In addition, he discovers that the Mechanists are manufacturing some sort of weaponized "Servant," made from a human body and emitting a substance known as Rust Gas, and that Truart has agreed to round up vagrants under false pretenses to be used for the project.

When Garrett confronts Truart, he finds that Truart has been slain by a strange creature. Trying to unravel the conspiracy, Garrett reunites with Viktoria deep in the Maw. Viktoria identifies the Mechanists as the true enemy, and the two form a tentative alliance. The combined skills of Viktoria's pagan operatives and Garrett's stealth abilities reveal that the Mechanists are gifting the Servants to the City's nobility, and that they are working on a top-secret endeavour known as the "Cetus Project." The Cetus Project turns out to be a gigantic submarine, the Cetus Amicus, and that the Mechanists are using it to access the remains of The Lost City in search of ancient artifacts. By interrogating the head of the Cetus Project, Brother Cavador, the pair discover that the Mechanists have recovered an object known as a Cultivator, and that they have already begun mass-producing them and installing them inside of the Masked Servants. While Garrett stakes out the Gervaisius Estate and steals a mask and the prototype Cultivator, Viktoria's agents observe Karras hermetically sealing Soulforge Cathedral. The pair conduct an experiment with the Cultivator, revealing that the Servants could be commanded to release Rust Gas, which would react violently with the plant matter inside of wealthy nobles' gardens, wiping out all life in the city, with Karras safe inside of Soulforge Cathedral.

Viktoria claims that there is no time to spare and proposes a plan: Garrett must gain control of the beacon controlling the Servants and command them to return to Soulforge and trick Karras into releasing the Rust Gas, while Viktoria fills Soulforge Cathedral with plants, to wipe out the Mechanists instead of the city. Garrett claims the plan is "suicide", claiming he will think of a better plan, and re-affirms that he works alone. As he leaves, a Keeper informs Garrett that Viktoria has begun an assault on the Cathedral herself. Garrett hurries to the Cathedral but is too late to save Viktoria as she is attacked by an onslaught of Mechanist forces. Her dying action is to fill Soulforge Cathedral with plants, as promised. Left with no better plan, Garrett proceeds to assemble a new guiding beacon and redirects the Cathedral's signal towers back to the Cathedral itself. The plan succeeds, and Garrett locks the servants inside the Cathedral. When the rust gas is released, Karras is killed and Soulforge Cathedral is left in ruins.

Garrett returns to the Cathedral after the reaction is complete and is met by a Keeper, who explains that the events of The Metal Age transpired exactly as written, and that the prophecies contain even more predictions. Garrett, previously skeptical of the Keepers' mysterious ways, reluctantly requests to know more.