#also some people are very involved in irl activism and post about it very little bc of like. their own safety

[pjharvey-moved]

you can literally know all the right things to say and still be a very bigoted person and i take issue with the idea that posting about social issues constitutes activism because reblogging a post especially while doing zero fact checking doesn’t take effort, parroting rhetoric from marginalized people and often speaking over them in the process doesn’t take effort, advocating for social justice is an action, not an identity. ie, almost every horrible man i’ve met has called himself a feminist and then turned around and treated women like their value depends on their fuckability and also mainstream choice feminism has made it even easier for abusive and manipulative men to call themselves feminist because if feminism is just about women getting to choose to do whatever they want, what if some women choose to be sexual objects to them? to be objectified, degraded, assaulted, you fill in the blanks … ? what if simply sleeping with a man as a woman — or not even doing that, just being nice to him — means she’s made that choice?

[xx-slug-xx]

I’m returning from the depths for a short bit lol

Mostly to make something very clear to people who aren’t on proship Twitter or TikTok. Or like, certain radqueer communities (not all of them, just specific ones). Not that I’m engaging in any sort of call out, or informing anyone over any situation directly. Honestly, I just want to make people aware that certain things are not ok just because you drew a picture or write a fanfic.

It’s not “just fiction” if you actively want to sexually abuse someone. It’s not “just fiction” if you draw a depiction of a real life child and talk about how much you want to sexually abuse them. It’s not “just fiction” when what you’ve drawn or written is created as a form of harassment directed towards another individual or a group of people.

If you’re going to be profic or use an adjacent label, that does not make it acceptable to sexualize REAL children or harass people because they don’t agree with your self-proclaimed “right” to sexualize a REAL child. And it’s certainly unacceptable to sexualize someone’s young family member simply because you have some personal beef with them.

The moment real people are involved, it’s no longer just fiction. You can draw and write about fictional scenarios, yes. But when you involve real people (not specifically talking about celebrities and other similarly high standing figures, just internet randos) it becomes more than fiction. This is where harassment in the proship community (by proshipers) becomes the most prevalent from what I’ve seen at least.

Also, if you preach about how x-real-person or x-real-group needs to be raped, and then go on to draw those depictions, and it’s not a joke, I’m sorry but that’s more than a little concerning imo. I understand people who draw and write to cope with their intrusive thoughts or paraphilias, but when you preach about how your sexual desires that surround the concept of abusing others then you go on to draw depictions of said desires, people have every right to be concerned. Abuse should not be normalized for someone’s selfish desires. And the big three certainly should not be normalized (in practice, people with big three paras can vibe as long as it’s not acted upon irl).

Artistic expression, no matter what kind or what the driving force behind the creation of said art, is fundamentally morally good. Don’t get me wrong. However, people have every right to be upset when your driving force for creating said art is because your opinions are in favor of acting immorally in the real world. People have every right to be fearful of what someone may do when they want to hurt people and creating art that depicts it (and it’s not a way to cope). Art is just fiction, it can’t hurt you. You can enjoy it or be discussed by it. In the end, it’s not real. But the persons intent with creating that art can hurt you. It can be in the form of propaganda, it can be in the form of direct harassment. As much as I am profic, there are certain kinds of fiction that are created by certain kinds of people that are a tell for what that kind of person is capable of behind the screen. The art itself is never the red flag. It’s what the creator of said art believes in that becomes a red flag. It’s when that creator wants and plans on abusing people, and in some cases then may already have.

Sorry for my ramblings that make me sound like a mad man, but I’ve seen some horrible things said by horrible people in this past week that hasn’t set right with me. I don’t want anyone to fall down the wrong hole of the internet and not realize what they might be getting into (certain pipelines that lead to “irl child sexual abuse is fine actually”), and I want people to realize that some forms of art (the kind that depicts real people to harass someone) doesn’t mean you are immune to criticism. This could have been two separate posts, but I didn’t feel like writing two posts lol

[werewolfetone]

2nd try—

did the british have a big role regarding tensions between the catholics and protestants in Ireland (as in making them) as opposed to taking advantage/exacerbating them? the speech im reading uses Ireland as a similar situation to caste in india (hence the ‘ireland jumpscare’ lmao) . a common argument used to dismiss/ignore the latter is that it is an imperialist import (so we don’t really do anything bad, we don’t really have any privilege/advantage cause of it, etc etc)

does the same hold true for ireland? said speech (annihilation of caste, dr ambedkar) was written in 1930s iirc, so maybe late 19th cen-20th cen? (i am very ill versed in irish history, school had one page for the whole uk)

Ok so short answer, the way I look at it is that while we do have a responsibility to try and lessen protestant/catholic tensions and break down barriers for the benefit of everyone &c &c today, yes, Britain did play a role in creating protestant/catholic tensions in Ireland. Longer answer:

It's important to remember in discussions of Britain + Ireland + sectarianism, that, to quote the book Scripture Politics by Ian McBride, "there was nothing peculiarly Irish about the eighteenth century obsession with popery." Nor was there with the seventeenth century, or the sixteenth century, or the any century since the Reformation -- since the categories of protestant and catholic have existed, with the possible exception of the 21st century,* Britain and British people have been fighting for one and against the other, often as violently if not more violently than Irish people have. The reasons for this were complex -- questions of freedom, religious doctrine, and national identity too complicated for this post and which I need to do more reading on before I can speak at length about. What matters is that any actions involving Britain and sectarianism must be put into the context of Britain being a very sectarian state itself for as long as that was possible, rather than a state which just exacerbated sectarianism elsewhere. Admittedly most of what I know about caste in India comes from my Indian friends irl talking about it, so this comparison is almost certainly not perfect, but imo it's a little less like the British exacerbating caste in India and a little more like if the British had been butchering one another over caste independently and then come over to India, realised that the same caste system existed there, and immediately decided to bring the conflict over with them. Essentially it can't really be said to have been something Britain just "exacerbated" because, well, Britain was playing an active role in it.

Secondly, & perhaps more crucially, it's important when it comes to Irish history that "protestant" and "catholic" don't just mean what church one attends. In a similar way to how the Israeli occupation of Palestine is not "Jews VS Muslims" but a case of settler colonialism, "catholic" in the context of Irish history usually means one considers oneself Irish, while "protestant" usually indicates a connection to Britishness. There are many exceptions, of course! There are lots of protestant republicans and catholic loyalists, especially historically, but if, like, someone from Derry were talking about "prods" in the modern day they would almost certainly be referring to ethnoreligious conflict between people who are considered Irish and people who are considered British, rather than genuine disapproval over doctrinal disputes (there are exceptions to this, too, though. some of the stuff my mother says...). Both of these labels also often denote a whole other set of cultural behaviours apart from religion (pronunciation of certain letters, what school one attends, so on and so forth). Mentioning this mostly just because I think it's interesting, but wrt this issue I often think about how when modern sectarian violence in the north of Ireland really emerged in 1780s Co. Armagh, rather than "catholic" "anglican" and "presbyterian," those involved would distinguish the three groups by referring to them as "Irish," "English," and "Scotch**," respectively, indicating that the understanding that sectarian violence has been just as much about questions of identity and nationalism as religion for a really, really long time.

So. Do I think that, had British colonisation not happened, Ireland would never have gotten involved in any religious conflict? No. Getting into religious wars was really just what European powers did for a very long time, so a hypothetical free Kingdom of Ireland or whatever in an alternate 17th century probably would have been just as eager to butcher the protestant dogs as other catholic countries like France or Spain were. However, as real history stands, the fact that Britain's crusade against Irish catholics in the real life 17th century was part of Britain's own protestant/catholic religious war, and the fact that 'protestant/catholic conflict' in Irish history is nearly always just settler-colonial violence (perpetrated by Britain) with fancy dressing, mean that yes, I would say that Britain must take at least some responsibility for the existence of protestant/catholic tensions in modern day Ireland.

*personally I wouldn't include the 20th century in this due to the continuation of sectarian tensions in scotland

**historical term for "scottish" I am using as I am quoting historical documents where it was used. if u start discourse over the use of this word on this post I will block u

Sources under the cut

Farrell, Sean. Rituals and Riots: Sectarian Violence and Political Culture in Ulster, 1784-1886. University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

McBride, Ian. Scripture politics : Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late eighteenth century. Clarendon Press, 1998.

Cone, Carl. The English Jacobins: Reformers in Late 18th Century England. Taylor & Francis Group, 1968.

Coward, Barry. Oliver Cromwell. Longman, 2000.

Rees, John. The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640-1650. Verso Books, 2017.

[skymaiden32]

Hi everyone! This isn't a very happy post, but it is very serious. Something happened yesterday and I just need somewhere to vent.

(No members of the Thunderfam are involved; it's about people I know IRL.)

I used to have this friend. My closest childhood friend. Our parents were also friends and had the two of us around the same time. I remember he used to have a lot of Thunderbirds toys. I guess that makes him the first friend I ever had in the fandom, even if we had no clue what fandom was back then. 

Something I should get out the way is that we grew up in a religious background, and we were in the same congregation as kids. Later on when we were teens, we had a trio with another boy, who beta-read my stories for me for a while. During COVID, all our religious activities moved online, and we drifted apart. I’ll call my former bff ‘Z’ and our other friend ‘J’. 

The longer the isolation went on, I started noticing that Z was no longer attending the online meetings, and whenever his parents were there they had these weird looks on their faces. Well, one day Z organised a Zoom call between the three of us and told us he’d moved out of his parent’s house and had converted to Islam. Me and J supported his decision, there were no hard feelings, and we promised to keep in touch.

Well, we did keep in touch for a little while. Z and I met up a couple of times, but that’s pretty much it. When the pandemic ended, me and J stayed in our congregation without him there. J got baptised and Z was there. J left for university, and my communication with him broke down as well, but that’s another story. At this point, I decided to change congregations for reasons unrelated to Z and J, which I’m not gonna get into here but let’s just say there were issues. I’m happy in my new congregation, but back to Z.

My mum and her husband are still in that old congregation to this day, and once I was there visiting them. That’s when I saw Z. He must’ve come with his dad. His mum wasn’t there for health reasons, which I’ll get into in a bit. That’s when he told me that he’d met someone at university. Mind you, he’d been at university for just about a year, and they were already engaged, talking about having kids, the works. He even told me they were planning on moving to another country. He showed me a picture of his fiance, and told me I’d be invited to the wedding. That was last April.

Now, I’m already annoyed at him because we’ve barely talked up until now, and any conversation we do have is by text, extremely short, and initiated by me. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen him in person, I doubt he would’ve told me he was engaged. I’m even more annoyed.

We get to his mum now. Z pretty much cut his parents off when he left, and his mother was understandably beside herself with worry. His mum is a lovely person. I adore her and when we were younger, she was like another mother to me. When I’d come round to his place she made me feel like part of that family. Hearing that Z’s hurt her so much really drives the wedge further.

Fast forward to yesterday. I wake up early because I had a congregation meeting at around ten. I open up TikTok. I see that Z has posted something, so I click on it. It’s a slideshow post with him and his fiancee goofing off. I look at the caption. It says, “marriage has changed me”.

…

She’s not his fiance anymore. She’s his wife. 

He said, to my face, that I would be invited. I wasn’t. I was heartbroken. I still am. Not because I was interested romantically, but because I’d realised I’d lost one of my best friends. I went to that meeting, because I needed to be around people I trusted after what I just saw. But I kept thinking about it over and over. Eventually, I decided that it was a lost cause, so I sent him a congratulations on TikTok, and blocked him. I made a vent post on TikTok too. It’s still up, but I may set it to private at some point. The bridge was already burnt; I just cut the rope because there was no way to repair it.

20 years down the drain. No one ever mentions how painful friendship break ups are. He was like a brother to me, but I can’t be friends with someone who treats me like that. Like those two decades didn’t happen. I honestly think I'll be upset over this for the rest of my life.

Z, if somehow you’ve found this post and are reading it, I want to thank you for the friendship we had while it lasted, and wish you and your wife the best. May you have many happy memories together...

[bbyboybucket]

Okay, a little half mini meta thingy? I’m honestly very surprised that Bucky being suicidal hasn’t been brought directly in the movies/show. And I say this because his PTSD is basically the forefront of his character (other than his friendship Steve in the movies) and his arc in TFATWS was essentially mental health centered. So I do wonder why there wasn’t a tiny line drop or something.

And the MCU is not shy about the topic. In the early days, they had Bruce talk about his attempt, recently they showed Marc attempting and being saved by Khonshu. Also, despite it being a bit of a different situation, we were shown Zemo attempting suicide but T’Challa stopped him. If the mcu/Disney is willing to actually show suicide attempts, obviously they have no problem with talking about the matter.

And the reason why I’m so curious they didn’t mention anything for Bucky, is because it’s been brought up several times by crew members. Raynor’s actress specifically stated TWICE, in two different interviews, that Raynor is actively trying to get through to Bucky in therapy so he doesn’t commit suicide. The actress’s exact words being: “She wants to save his life. She knows if he doesn't do this, he is going to die. He will kill himself.” and “That's why she sees her work with Bucky as a life and death situation…. She can interpret just how bad it would be for him, and if he doesn't connect, he could die. As so many veterans do. PTSD is a horrible, horrible thing. If left to your own devices, if you go inside, you're just going to take your own life…..So her job is to not let him.”

One of the screen writers for the cap trilogy, Christopher Markus, was talking about Bucky’s character and said “Do you want to go on? Do you want to be free? Do you want to put a bullet in your head? What is it?". Seb Stan said in an interview “Bucky’s relationship with Steve may be the only thing stopping him from committing suicide.” And I’m 99.9% sure Seb said something along the same lines as that another time too.

It seems to be a pretty solid consensus amongst the people involved in the making of these movies/shows, that suicide is something that Bucky considers/struggles with. I mean, I do think that it was lightly implied in TFATWS (I could explain but that’s a post for another day) but l’m just begging the question of why they didn’t dive into that a bit, why it wasn’t explicitly stated? Especially since irl the risk factor for suicide in those with PTSD is EXTREMELY high. I mean, I’m not complaining that it wasn’t included, I’m just doin some wondering.

[godbirdart]

Hi there! Short time appreciator of your stuff (I found you a few months ago + love your style sm!!) first time asker, and this might be an odd one, but do you have any suggestions for how to get involved with the furry community? Just, where to meet folk, maybe what to keep an eye out for (good or bad!) and such? I'd love to chat to folk and such but I'm just a very nervous person ^^;

You don't have to post or answer this if you don't want to! But thank you for all the cool art and the funny memes, I love seeing Sebastian with assorted snacks ^-^ you take care!!

aaA thank you!!

i'll be honest i personally skirt around the edge of the community because i too am a shy creature that emerges only every waning moon to hand people artwork

depending on the involvement level you want, you've got a number of options. a lot of people are still active on twitter, and mastodon and cohost seem to be picking up! i know mastodon has a few furry instances, such as meow.social, though I don't use mastodon that much so I cannot say if the community there is good, bad, or otherwise. same goes for cohost. last i checked it's very much so a twitter clone, but many furries i've noticed have skipped over there. pillowfort.social has a small Furry Artists community. if in doubt, there's also /r/furry on reddit.

if you just want to appreciate art and maybe comment every now and again, tumblr is pretty good. sure the tags can be a little broken sometimes, but at least you'll find the content you're looking for when you look up Furry in the search. same goes for deviantart and furaffinity, ofc depending on your interests you may have to dig around a little to get to the content / art style you specifically like. both tumblr and twitter i find are somewhat good at recommending similar artists if you follow some. sometimes there’s a recommended that pops up after you hit follow on the profile on twitter or a “blogs like these” section on tumblr, so there’s that.

telegram and discord are still popular as ever, though i feel finding a Good chat can be a herculean task. the r/furry reddit mentioned above has both telegram and discord [both sfw].

it’s super likely there’s a local / regional furry group for your area. some meet irl, even! most of these groups have telegram chats or discords if you want to meet people closer to home. of course there's also the Countless furry conventions going on too

it all depends on your social level as an individual. you can dip your toes in just by commenting on and following other furries, or opt to attend meetups and conventions and meet people in person

as for things to stay away from, the two biggest problems i want to mention are:

furry raiders. an alt-right furry group.

people with the zeta symbol “ζ“ in their bio /  name. now, the presence of a symbol isn’t always indicative of someone’s affiliation with something, so use discretion; but the zeta symbol is often used by people who are zoosadists / into be*stiality. these people are not furries, they don’t represent what the community is about, and everyone hates them. we can and will call the authorities on these people for animal abuse. if you see someone telling “zoos” to fuck off, there’s a 99.9999% chance these are the people that person is talking about.

these aren’t the only issues of course, but i feel they’re the most prominent ones. also maybe be wary of people who constantly say things like “no politics uwu” - especially if they turn it into some furry pun like “pawlitics”. maybe i personally have just had too many uncomfortable interactions with people like this and now i’m biased, but i’ve grown to never trust that.

apologies, i’m a bit of a hermit in online spaces and can’t offer anything more specific. if anyone has cooler recommendations they’re welcome to add them in the replies / reblogs!!

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

OC Tag Game

got tagged again by @shivunin! <3 You're right that this is a curse to do fsdkljfls, i am indecisive af so prepare for rambling

Favorite OC: Wow starting with a mean one :( It rotates and switches between all of them, but Liam and June probably occupy the spot the most often

Newest OC: Uhh i guess Robin? They are In My Brain but i have yet to do a playthrough with them lol

Oldest OC: In general? Des xD (she was a warrior cats oc i made when i was 11 but she's still very dear to me <3). For DA, it's Neira! I played he games in order & she was my first Warden :)

Meanest OC: June for sure lol. Both in that she is very blunt and does not belive in lying for the sake of being nice, and in that she is the most likely to be actively mean on purpose. 2nd Place goes to Noya because she can also be really nasty when she wants to be.

Softest OC: Oof hard pick :') I have come to terms with the fact that i am unable to make OCs who are not softies in some way or another, and they definitely all are. But.. i wanna say Kala? Because she has a big nature vs nurture contrast, and once she has the chance to she is actually very soft, and very deliberately. In that she craves a lot of closeness with loved ones, but also in that she sees the beauty in the small things, and in being determined to spite cruelty through small kindnesses.

Most Aloof/Standoffish OC: Also Kala xD She is. Not sociable at all fsdfjk and is also not overly involved; yes she cares, but she also knows how to distance herself.

Dumbest (affectionate) OC: I wouldn't call any of them *dumb*, but at the same time, all of them are at least A Little Bit dumb <3 Liam is the most likely to have brainlag or head empty moments, June is the one who will do dumb things despite knowing better and/or not think things through, Lilian will have internal "yeah i got this :)" (she has not got this) moments the most, and so on.

Smartest OC: Tie between Ari and June! At least for the traditional definition of smart lol. Ari is very booksmart, is very good at remembering things, processing concrete information, thinking ahead and making elaborate plans. His thoughts are always 5 steps ahead and sometimes it feels like he is thinking for three people at once. As long as he has precise information to work with, he's gonna make it work.

June is the opposite, she is really bad at encyclopedia type knowledge or planning but is super good at conceptualising abstract ideas, at making connections and bending thoughts this way and that, at combining ideas and theorising. She has a good intuition for how conceptual ideas might work in practice, and a creative approach to problem solving.

Bonus shoutout to Var'renan for being the most people-smart. They're very perceptive and very good at reading people and social cues.

OC I'd Probably Be Friends With: Well, i would say i'd probably vibe with Renan or Kala or Ari, but irl i seem attract all the extroverts, so chances are i'd end up being friends with Noya or June or Adriel lmao. Ig Adriel would be the best bet though. Cos she's energetic but not overly so, she'd still be totally down to just hang out and chill; we're both chatty but awkward talkera sometimes and would probably hype each other up really well when we get exited

edit: bruh why did tumblr delete part of the post (part of the last bullet point & the tags got cut off)???? I Do Not have the energy to put in all the tags again, so if you read this, you can consider yourself tagged! If you do it please do tag me, i'd love to read more about all your OCs :3

2nd edit because. It cut off the last category again smh (not the text after this time tho??) and idk why but i am also Not gonna rewrite that again e-e

[kirabook]

My Paralives Impressions~

Relationships [link]:

Back when I was much more involved in the brainstorming of paralives with other peeps, this is an idea that cropped up and it's cool to see how they came up with this concept. You aren't just friends or lovers with people, every relationship has multiple different faucets. Great for storytelling. Also would be fun to switch households and learn this para you like a lot maybe secretly hates your guts. I remember someone bring up a relationship where they hate each other's guts but still kiss every other Friday (I can't remember if the devs confirmed that could happen but I imagine it could) I always liked how in Sims 2 relationships were more of a two way street and this is a great modernization of that concept imo.

Togetherness [link]

Obviously they're still filling in animations here and there, but I remember being amazed by how easy it was to create group interactions. No more clicking a character one by one to make them enter a specific room or sit at a table together or whatever. I feel like it could still be improved… the method to select them all I mean. Well, you can still just click on them to select the ones you want instead of dragging your mouse so you've got options. Pretty sure I read once that the Paras you select outside your household won't necessarily agree to being "together" with you. Can't just select the whole town and demand they do push ups or dance with you.

Togetherness Cards [link] (though the video mostly showed them in group interactions, they are in single interactions too)

I'm generally pleased with the direction they decided to go here. Instead of having to click over and over again to keep a conversation going between paras, you can have an ongoing interaction and influence it every now and then optionally. Just feels a little more natural too. Would two strangers with absolutely no chemistry really become besties after one interaction in a typical Sims fashion? Nope, and that's kinda fun. By going with something like this, if an attraction system is put into place (which I can't remember exists yet or not), then two paras who ACTUALLY have something in common or are attracted to each other maybe can naturally become besties in a shorter amount of time and skip some steps in between.

I remember some people wondering if the card choosing could be autonomous (as in, you don't even have to click it, the game could choose for you) so went to check. Here were some dev comments on the matter,

"Choosing cards is the way to advance relationships, and having Paras select one automatically could have big impacts on your game without you understanding why, it's certainly something we could think about tho :)"

So maybe won't be something available for release, but maybe in the future. I like to play it risky with high autonomy myself so I hope it's a thing.

Jobs [link]

A while back when someone posted that youtube video of a guy saying Paralives is pretty much just the Sims with a different coat of paint and don't have enough mechanics to differentiate itself from the Sims. This is the part that made me scratch my head the most. I mean, other than they different take on social interactions and personality, even the careers system is not something I've seen in The Sims. Not even the active careers are like this. I was even more confused when he claimed he was a patron member and saw everything and still had this opinion.

I like that you have somewhat of a choice in what you want to do with your job. Like me right now irl. I'm very comfortable where I am. I'm not trying to climb a corporate ladder or get a promotion. Sure, I'd like a raise every now and then but I like my current job. With a system like this, you don't HAVE to chase the corporate ladder. You can just have your job and slowly build up perks within it.

Also the fact that there's not really "career tracks". You don't start your job at the local hospital as a bed pan cleaner and someday become a top surgeon. You have to actually apply for different positions and sometimes they're not even associated with the same business/company. I really like that little touch of realism. The road to the top isn't a straight line, but a maze with some dead ends along the way.

They said there wouldn't be active jobs at the time of early access release, so I wonder how it's going to work. I mean, we saw Anisa getting a job in the video but not much else. Maybe she disappears when she gets to the building ala Sims 3 career rugs. I would have no problem with something like that since I'm quite used to it. It's not a complete rabbit hole and still allows you to fill out the town with custom buildings and decor. Maybe the more basic jobs like being a Barista aren't necessarily "active", but Anisa will stand there for 8 hours a day taking coffee orders at the register like an NPC/role sim.

Needs/Wants [link]

This is the part I really wanted to see peoples opinions on. It's quite different from LBY, Sims, and Inzoi. There are no needs meters, just a general statement of what the Para is feeling. I'm like 50/50 on it. I actually like the idea, but I wonder how I will feel playing it? It's like forcing you to be less micromanagy and just enjoy playing the game rather than watching your needs meter like a spreadsheet simulator. But what if there's something going on in the world or the para is sick? I would want to know exactly what I need to fix before it gets too bad and all their needs are suddenly red…. but then again, it's kinda a fun challenge to guess how they're actually feeling without the meters?? I dunno. Still hoping fears or something makes a comeback but not sure how it would work here. Maybe if you do the exact opposite of what the "want" stays. Like "I don't want to talk to this para". You make them talk to that Para and they get upset? Dunno.

Anyway, I really love all the concepts they've developed and implemented. They seem to have fun tinkering around with it but I guess the general audience can't truly know how it plays until we get a chance to do it ourselves. I didn't expect them to announce early access even though I speculated maybe they could. So looking forward to next year~

[zairas-realm-gateway]

when bege met with sanji, he specifically said that he would be marrying the 35th daughter of the charlotte family AND says her name is pudding. he has a nasty history of being perverted towards teenage girls after the timeskip (he literally Turns To Stone upon seeing shirahoshi, who is only 16) and his attitude with pudding is no exception (she even comments on his perversion during the wedding ceremony. there was no "brainwashing" involved, he is just a perv.)

im a sanji fan myself, but you can't turn a blind eye from his behavior towards teenage girls. he is 21 years old in canon after the timeskip. pudding being "mentally 18" is such a gross way to explain why sanji might view her as older than she really is and as someone who was groomed by a pedophile for acting older than i actually was at the time, that phrasing sets off so many red flags in my head.

im not necessarily saying sanji is a pedophile (because i truly dont believe that he is given his attraction to All women and 16 is the lowest age hes acted like that towards), but it is still extremely weird of him and people making fun of him or criticizing that aspect of him is perfectly fine and you shouldn't take it as a personal thing. that is just how oda wrote him. (but hey at least he's not kyros or vander decken who genuinely ARE pedophiles.)

You make some good points.

Alright, I'll take the correction on Bege telling him her name. But that still doesn't give any other details. Sanji isn't told her age, occupation, baking skills, etc.

I have a lot to say on his intricate and nuanced forced relationship with Pudding.

Long post and discussion under the cut

As for for the history with teenage girls post-ts, I think it's just Shirahoshi??? And while I'm not saying that's good, I will say that I am conflicted on some of the characterization in Fishman Island. I haven't read it in a long time so I'm just working off what I remember here. While the plot of Fishman Island is great, I always have some issues with the arc itself. It always feels a little off to me. Like some of the characterizations are just a little wonky here and there throughout the entire arc. It feels like Oda forgot how to write a few characters. It also feels like he's using that arc to see how far he wants to push new gags or personality aspects he's trying to work with after the IRL mini timeskip. Like he doesn't quite know just yet who some of the straw hats are after their time skip. I'm not saying that excuses Sanji's behavior, I'm just saying it makes me conflicted over the legitimacy of Sanji's personality in that arc. Because like Oda doesn't use the "almost die from bloodloss gag" again after fishman island either so it just always kinda feels like Oda was fumbling around in the dark with Sanji (as well as a few others) in Fishman Island. That's just me, though.

As for Sanji being obsessed with Shirahoshi's beauty, wasn't that like the whole thing with her? Wasn't like the entire country obsessed with how pretty she was? I could be mistaken but I thought I remember the citizens being enamored by her as well. I ain't saying it makes it better, I'm just saying that Oda made that a weird prominent detail if I'm remembering it right.

And I didn't say that that Pudding was "mentally 18" nor do I think she is, I said that she could be mistaken for 18 in a quick meeting. Meaning he wouldn't question her age as he actually barely got to talk to her at all. I think he only ever spoke to her like 2-3 times and never for very long or unchaperoned (judging by how Pudding talked about Sanji). Especially since Pudding is an excellent actor and is actively manipulating Sanji in a specific way that Big Mom has coached her to do. Neither family cared if Sanji and Pudding liked each other or cared about what was healthy for them so they would have no reason to let them interact for very long. As someone who was emotionally abused by my mother, when I was a teenage I took on personality traits and speaking patterns of someone older than myself (a common problem with emotional abuse). People often mistook me for being older than I actually was in short conversations. If Sanji never had any actual long conversations with Pudding, he'd have no clue that's she's not actually 18. While this doesn't make things right, it would explain some behaviors.

He doesn't actually want anything to do with her. He just wants to go home.

As for what I consider Sanji basically brainwashing himself is just him talking himself into an obsessive and possibly dissociative mindset. Sanji's under so much duress and his mental health is so incredibly fractured right now that if he's going to survive, his only option is to construct a dreamworld so far out of reality that he's actually happy and in love with Pudding.

Because of the sudden influx of trauma, stress, and crippling hopelessness, Sanji's grasp on reality is quickly crumbling. He needs to take any handhold he can grab. The only handhold he's allowed to take is Pudding. He calls her his "Ray of Hope". And because of this, he throws himself so hard into her orbit that he goes to the extreme of being creepy because now his only grasp on reality is Pudding.

This protective delusional headspace he's in is so strong (again, common for people who have suffered severe trauma and abuse) that he stays in it until he sees her eye. Because he if didn't have this headspace to keep him "calm" beside his would-be murderer, the wedding ceremony on the cake may have ended in actual disaster. And all their plans would be ruined.

After he gets through to Pudding by calling her eye beautiful, the very real danger of him being murdered is gone and he's released from his protective headspace. Which explains why he's so platonic towards her during the escape and all the cake baking despite the fact that she's constantly melting when he even looks at her.

What I am saying is that if Sanji called out for simping on teenage girls was a definable trend in his personality, why is he never all over Carrot? From what I remember (and I could be wrong), he only ever treats her like a little sister. She's young and pretty but still in Zou Sanji simps over the adult women minks rather than Carrot, despite her platonically being all over him (minks are just very affectionate). Hell, he seeks out Pedro more than Carrot.

I'm not saying that Sanji shouldn't be called out for being a fucking perverted idiot. Because he is one. I'm just saying that it pisses me off when people write him off as a one-note creep not worth thinking about instead of taking the time to understand that Sanji is extremely nuanced far outside his single trait of being horny.

I will say that Sanji can be creepy but I don't get the vibe from him about being an active creep specifically towards teenage girls. Especially since he seems to prefer more mature women like Robin, Kiku, Viola or frightening women like Nami.

As for me taking things personally and getting physically ill. That's just me being stupid and having severe rejection sensitivity when it comes to Sanji. I wish it'd go away.

I think it all boils down to Oda having sus choices in character ages... It would have changed literally nothing if he had just made Pudding 18.

[wild-at-mind]

Saw a post yesterday that I got the meaning of but thought the execution was a little misguided. Basically it was saying that you shouldn't shame people for not proving with posts that they are doing all kinds of activism around the war in I/P. But it said you shouldn't do this because maybe they are doing super secret potentiall illegal activism and it's not safe to post about. When in fact I would argue much more generally- stop writing things that attempt to shame people for not 'doing enough' activism-wise AT ALL.

I really don't get this because I've been involved in environmental activism groups for the past 4 years and the most common thing people criticise environmental activist causes for is focusing too much on individual change. (Whether this if fair or not is debatable- sometimes yes, sometimes it's definitely in bad faith, sometimes people are projecting massively, and also often they are talking about some manner of corporate activism or token 'good faith' gesture from big companies that doesn't do much and that environmental activists are alsp criticising.) Therefore now there seems to be a big resurgence in trying to make individuals feel terrible until they put their nose to the grindstone enough to solve huge, monumentally vast conflicts, I am fucking confused. Ok I am being a little flippant here but I keep seeing people who are clearly feeling quilt tripped out of their minds about not doing enough. It is very concerning. What exactly do these ranty posters expect???

There was a period in 2016-2017 where I was really trying to be more involved in activism for a number of social justice issues, but I was also in a massive depressive episode and dealing with a lot of issues with black and white thinking. The way a lot of posts on tumblr were worded like 'hey you! Fuck you because everything you're doing or may even contemplate doing in future regarding activism is wrong somehow! Oh what you feel lonely and isolated? Well don't even think about mixing with anyone local to you who cares about similar issues because what if they disagree with you slightly??? That can't happen! Best not risk it.'

I don't know why people write stuff like this but I honestly find it basically locks up my brain until I can't do anything at all. And judging by some of the recent posting I've seen on here I'm not the only one. I'm not so affected now because I'm on better meds, and now I know a lot of activists IRL which has helped. Once I had recovered from the depressive episode I started getting involved in local environmental activism, as that is the main type of activism around here, and ignored the little voice in my head that I learned from tumblr saying I should get involved in more social justice oriented causes (which plain don't exist round here FYI). Turns out that people who care about one cause care broadly about most, even if they don't always get it right, and being in activist spaces in person helped me turn off the 'oh my god what if these people are...imperfect??!' inner monologue.

No one should have to justify their level of activism to you or anyone else. I'm not even going to give reasons why they may not be able to do more because everyone already knows and also because the whole line of thinking is flawed. Not posting about something does not make you complicit in it. Not exposing yourself constantly to the most disturbing and horrible news coming out of Gaza does not mean you are looking away from injustice. If your brain says that then flip the script on yourself- tell yourself that you personally looking at these things does not help anyone in Gaza. You feeling like shit helps no one.

I think people are much more able to stand up for causes they believe in when they are not being ground down by miserable guilt tripping. I think anyone who wants to avoid this needs to also avoid going along with the logic of these posts. Whether someone is doing a tonne of secret activism or no activism- it's not my business, and it's not for me to try and judge their heart and mind. Or for any of us.

[dairy-farmer]

hi! i have posted a few batcest fics but i was wondering if u had any tips on getting more involved with the community, mostly on twitter. i don't have a twitter acc dedicated to it yet but i follow some accs on my priv (yours included obviously) and the way people add onto threads and talk to eachoter abt it is really exciting. i'm nervous tho because i've never had an acc for something my irl friends aren't into and idk how to get mutuals or if it's okay to reply to tweets from people that don't follow you. i hope this made sense i'm just really scared abt reaching out to ppl

hi!!! first, i want to say it's so touching that you'd come to me for advice ❤️❤️❤️ 🥺🥺🥺. i'll do my best to give you the best advice possible!!!!

ive actually only been active on the batcest side of twitter for a few months (august was when i got more active and started following accounts)! before i got into batcest i didn't really go on twitter but so many talented people are on there and make such amazing tweets and au's i basically go on there once a day now haha 😄! that's probably because outside of places like discord there's really no concentrated communities or places to interact with people who like batcest in a way that feels more...active? on tumblr you can go weeks or days without every directly interacting with someone. tiktok is hostile to anyone with a brain plus it can show your videos to complete steangers outside of your intended audience which can be....yeah. instagram isnt bad but it would definitely be a weird way to interact. ive heard that facebook groups can be fun but how that pans out with 18+ content is...

from what i can tell most batcest accounts are pretty chill however i'm only speaking from the perspective of tim centric accounts. in terms of things such as "etiquette" there's only a few things most accounts do to sort of identify and differentiate each other.

- if you're following nsfw account or making nsfw tweets be sure to include that in your description whether that means having 'minors dni', 18+, 🔞, your age and an nsfw warning' it varies.

-you don't have to do this, in fact i don't even do it but it might make it easier to find mutuals, and that's to include your favorite ships in your bio as well! mentioning things like jaytim, jaydick, brutim, brudami, etc. a lot of batcest accounts have multiple ships that spread over different characters so them listing it makes it easier for people to see what they're about!

-inluding the link of your ao3/linking your twitter in your ao3 fics is a good way for people to follow your work! a lot of people might recognize your fics if they click on your ao3 fic and you can become mutuals like that!

in terms of how to interact with other accounts i get being nervous!! i definitely was when i first started posting my tim tweets!!! even now when i interact with mutuals i've been interacting with for a while I still get a little nervous sometimes!

but i do have some tips that I think have helped interact with others and keep it fun for everyone!❤️❤️❤️

- if a tweet talks about 2 specific characters or a specific ship and you really like the idea but don't care for the ship don't directly reply to the person saying something like "THIS but with x- instead would be so good!". i know wanting to give recognition for an idea is tempting but it's rude to try and change the intent of someone's tweet.

instead: you can make your own tweet and include something like "just saw someone on my tl talking about x-topic and now i can't stop thinking about y+z in that situation-" that way you're acknowledging the outside source but also not changing the tune of someone else's tweet

- if a lot of people on your timeline are all talking about the same idea and they're all coming out with their own spins and you have no idea who started it that's okay! twitter can be a bit of an echo chamber sometimes and no one's going to go through all their mutuals and find who tweeted what first. plus the very nature of art is that it often repeats itself.

if you want to join in: you can say something like "my tl is full of people about x and let me just say that-"

- emojis are your friend! i use them a lot because i have a hard time reading tone from text and think everyone else might too. when you're reading something it's hard to pick out whether someone is joking or saying something sarcastically without any indicators (ex. /joke /sarcasm at the end of a sentence, wrItInG LIkE tHiS tO MakE suRe someone knows they're being mocked/made fun of).

adding an emoji can really help change the tone of what you're saying making it sound less like you're stating a fact or making a demand or some other misinterpretation.

ex:

he deserves it.

vs

he deserves it 😈

he doesn't deserve that!!!

vs

he doesn't deserve that!!! 🥺🥺🥺

you just like torturing him don't you.

vs

you just like torturing him don't you 😭😭😭

you can tell there's a few tonal differences between the statements which helps ease the slide of interaction (at least I think so!) by making it clear you're joking or being humorous.

- it's common to see people adding onto each other's threads and while you may be nervous about who is okay with it at first, the general rule of thumb is that on twitter anyone can add on to anyone's thread or respond whether you follow them or not (i don't think anyone will even notice who is following who) but if it does make you anxious you can click on their profile and look at their replies to see if they've replied to other people's threads or been replied to.

you can reply even if two people are already having a convo, you can just split off and start a new one! ive seen and had multiple split off convos with different people from the same original thread who all had different ideas or things to add on.

ultimately a lot of conversations on twitter are people prodding each other's brains for their shared interests and mutuals come about from people seeing that someone has similar interests and is talking about them and so follow because they also like that thing and would love to see more of people talking about that thing!!!

try following people who share a lot of your interests in terms of ships and characters.

mutuals may take a little while (in some cases ive done two scrolls of a person's account and immediatly followed them back without any interaction because we both clearly had the same interests) if you want exact steps of how that might happen you could start with

a. commenting on people's threads. telling them you loved it, reacting to it, sending emojis. etc.

b. send tweets about your thoughts, headcanons, aus, etc. don't feel discouraged if no one likes them yet you're just starting!

c. after you've gotten comfortable with commenting with an account you can start adding more to the interaction, adding on, proposing a direction for the tweet, etc.

these are just a few of the things ive learned and seen and nothing here is fully concrete either so if you feel more comfortable doing something else then feel free!!!

besides in the first conversation i ever had with one of my current mutuals i revealed to them that i'd secretly written an entire fic about one of their tweets even though we'd, until that point, never talked even once 😭

i guess what I'm trying to say is: go for it!! you never know, it might go a lot better than the worst case scenarios you may be thinking of!! ❤️❤️❤️

[ask-obt]

Is Inigo asexual or aromantic? I remember it being mentioned as asexual but he often talks like he just doesn't have romantic feelings for others.

// I've always used sexuality/romanticism labels interchangeably due to my own personal experience of living in the middle of nowhere where a lot of the folks here have a hard enough time understanding sexuality, let alone romantic attraction and the difference between them. I guess that muscle memory is something that carried over to OBT a bit when pride month comes around? Of course I understand the importance of using such labels for a lot of folks, and encourage people to use the labels they identify with! I myself am on the asexual spectrum and am biromantic, and I write Inigo as demi/ace- but for both of us, I would casually use the romanticism label as the catch-all term to describe attraction (so I'd call myself bisexual, and him asexual/demisexual).

I will be delving into some more pondering about how sexuality works in OBT's worldbuilding below the cut here- I will give a soft CW for talking about sex as a concept.

(Adding this parenthetical after the fact, but for those out of the loop, sexuality = sexual attraction, and romanticism = romantic attraction.)

This does bring up how sexuality and romanticism differ in OBT- I quite frankly don't really like the idea of pokemon reproducing sexually in my own comic's lore, so the worldbuilding makes it so they don't need reproductive organs to reproduce. And I don't think the process of creating eggs by blending aura imitates the sensations and experiences people feel when they do have sex in real life. Maybe pokemon would feel a little energized after? But I don't think it'd be exceptionally pleasurable.

So when you take out the pleasure part of sex, it stops becoming a recreational activity and a bit more clinical... The only real reason poekmon would participate in OBT's aura breeding is to create an egg. So how does irl sexuality translate into OBT's world?

While writing this post I thought maybe sexuality could indicate the willingness to have children and start a family, but that would really alienate the experiences of people who enjoy sex as a bonding experience and just want to get closer to their partners without committing to a whole family. I also thought about sexuality maybe being just cuddling? Though for me I consider kissing, hand holding, cuddling, etc. to be what differentiates a romantic relationship from a platonic one. Maybe there's still a form of heavy petting in the world even without genitalia that would constitute the label of a sexual experience? (I certainly don't think genitalia has to be involved to have sex haha)

But to be honest I don't really think about it that much since it doesn't interest me.

So I guess the conclusion I boiled it down to for OBT's world is that sexuality/romanticism end up being the same thing. I do still believe some characters are more into physical contact than others- Inigo would probably be less interested in kissing and cuddling than Dielle, who is very touchy-feely.

[jaelijn]

I had this rant in my drafts for a few days thinking about not ever posting it, but I just saw *yet another* post of this kind, so f* this.

I hate how much fandom and tumblr has informed me that it's cool to hate on the Avatar-the-blue-people film series because the first film is "ssoooo cringe and hahaha there is noooo fanfic haha because it's soooo bad even though it is one of the highest crossing films hahah" and "AtLAB is soooo much better". Like: WHY is it necessary to shit on people's enjoyment when it does nothing to hurt you? It's not the funny "gotcha" you think it is. It's just mean-spirited. Like sure hate on companies and big name creators, but have you thought about what this does to people *just like you* who just happen to enjoy a thing?

It's grown to a point that I don't even want to mention I enjoyed it even a little bit, never mind admitting how much I loved it back when the first one came out. And yes, it has issues - which big film doesn't? But it was such an eye-opener in terms of scifi - not only in terms of how FUCKING GOOD scifi could look on screen without being all "spaceship tech and battles hehehe ooohehehe" but also in terms of what a full alien ecosystem could be. I still have the movie poster hung up. I own the artbook. And the soundtrack. There are literally no other films I can say that about.

It was massively influential for my taste in scifi as well as my way of writing alien landscapes and I felt seen for the way in which my love for nature transcends any care I have for humanity as a species.

Anyway I have been to see part II and love it no less and if not for this stupid nonsense you'd think tumblr'd be all over it - like they have made such strides from the issues of the first one.

It's a story of a family that isn't defined by blood. Of belonging even when you're different. Of loving and protecting nature. There's a heavily neurodivergently coded character who explicitly has epilepsy (and a FEMALE one at that). There's no shortage of strong women without the need to make them... act especially male. There's significantly less white-savourism than in the first one. There's a culture that has a heavily sign-language based conversation style that is completely normalised. It looks *amazing*. The soundtrack is fantastic. It's become an ensemble cast. It's opened up the world even more.

Is it trope-y as all hell, very unsubtle in its message and is its plot flat (and/or repetitive from the first one)? Sure. But the same is true for literally every action/super hero movie, and everyone seems to love those. (And at least in terms of repetitiveness some is definitely intentional - as in relevant to the story! - parallels).

Is it fairly amato- and heteronormative? Yeah. But again, that's pretty much every media.

Is there a significant amount of violence and death - also yes. But to me it's the brutality of a war film - it's supposed to be brutal, it's supposed to be unpleasant and raw in places, whereas a lot of violence in movies otherwise feels to me like I'm supposed to enjoy it.

There are probably other ~~problematic~~ things, and if not in the film then with the people or businesses involved, sure. And I'm not dismissing them. I'm not saying it's perfect. But unlike other media I could mention, as far as I'm aware, it's not an active instrument in a hate campaign, and yet all I see is criticism and I have no one to talk to about it IRL and, following this tumblr attitude, no one I really want to admit to that I like it on here, either.

Anyway. I'm ranting. But if a movie has the power to make me cry from beauty as well as pain, make me lose myself in awe and shake with incandescent rage, have a sheer RANGE of emotional responses, I can't honestly pretend I didn't enjoy it. Just let people enjoy it.

[marley-manson]

character opinion bingo:

MASH: henry, BJ, margaret doctor who: martha, ten, jack harkness

do as many as you want!

Thank you! Doing them all lol, I can never resist. But I’m separating the fandoms, so I’ll do the Mash characters first and do the DW ones in a new post. Cut for length but mostly for wasps nest/baseball bat BJ opinions lol, if you love him you may want to skip this post.

Henry:

I don’t think it was a bad idea to kill him off, but it seems obvious that it was a little motivated by spite lol. I would’ve liked to see him in the dramatic seasons tbh, I think McLane Stevenson could’ve pulled off the transition, so wasted potential. But he’s not one of the Mash characters I think about a lot, so I like him, I think he was great for the satire, I prefer him to Potter, but I don’t have a lot of deep thoughts on him as a character.

BJ:

Some explanation required lol.

He gets done dirty by the fans who brush off and ignore or sweep everything that makes him less boring than cardboard under the rug to turn him into Hawkeye’s perfect supportive partner; he got done dirty by the creators who, as I’ve realized while rewatching season 4, seem to have conceived of him as a cardboard cut-out Hawkeye could talk to. Like seriously, it’s baffling how little character he has, I can’t believe the writers of an otherwise great show full of interesting characters wrote him. It’s honestly bizarre how bland he is.

I was very torn on ‘the popular ships for this character suck’ because I don’t think Hawk/BJ sucks per se, I like it in my own way, but I’m not into the popular take on it. And BJ/Peg and any combination involving them sucks to me. I think he’s overrated in that a lot of what’s interesting about him was in no way intended by the show, and I genuinely think he’s overrated in his first three seasons, like this is 100% personal opinion but he’s as interesting as watching paint dry to me no matter how much I project the gay repressed read onto him. I’m happy for people who loved him from day one, but I cannot relate at all.

I’m holding up songs to him bc I want to vid him lol. He has too much screentime in that he’s boring and I’m bored when he’s on screen and not making Hawkeye feel like shit, he also doesn’t have enough screentime because the writers REALLY should’ve written him some fucking plotlines in which they could’ve explored interesting character facets sooner than 4/5 seasons into his run.

I wouldn’t mind meeting him briefly becauses he’s nice on a surface level, but I wouldn’t want to be friends with him. See above and below for the reason my opinions are like hitting a nest with a baseball bat. And honestly... yeah I gotta say I actively dislike him. In his first few seasons I dislike him as a character construct for boring me. But in later seasons I dislike him in the way that makes me like him more as a character, which is ultimately a good thing because it holds my interest. The ways he sucks aren’t ways that endear him to me as a person, but they’re ways that engage me emotionally and intellectually. Wheelers and Dealers and Period of Adjustment are two of my favourite episodes, after all.

Margaret:

She’s often awful and i love it when she’s awful so my ‘what’s wrong with them’ is very affectionate. I would hate her irl so I wouldn’t want to meet her. And I love her character arc, I think it’s incredibly impressive for an episodic 70s show, and even just in general. I’m not obsessed in terms of like, character analysis, but straight up in terms of ‘wow that is some good ass writing what the fuck.’

[ace-attorney-prison]

i love ur blog can i get some april may hcs/analysis/etc :DD

YES absolutely, I love her!!

(Sorry this blog is kinda slow right now, between college and moving houses I've been pretty busy, but I love receiving asks and I'll always get around to answering! I love these characters <3)

I imagined that April May grew up in a kinda toxic household. She has lots of siblings, and her mom was emotionally absent a lot, frequently stressed and snippy. Imposing her own internalized issues onto her daughters. Plenty of in-fighting and meaningless competition among her siblings. Weird toxic relatives over at random times.

She grew up lower-class, but her mom wanted to project the image of being higher class, so the family would have a lot of furniture and clothes etc that are faux expensive.

April dealt with some typical Mean Girl-esque drama in high school, and plenty of misogyny. Expressing her anger would only ever lead to worse treatment (in whatever environment she was in), while acting cutesy and flirtatious would make things easier, even if she had to swallow her venom while doing so each time.

To get a sense of control & and have outlet for her anger (albeit an unhealthy one), she started finding ways to gather intel on people. Found ways to get back at them without anyone knowing it was her. Anonymously blackmailed some people, posted people's secrets in public areas, stuff like that.

While trying to find even more dirt on the people around her, she ended up finding Bluecorp. Redd White took an interest in her- both because of her abilities and her appearance. She ended up working for him, because he had an interest in her and it seemed like a solid investment.

But he had way more unethical ways of going about things than she was comfortable with. She didn't want to be involved in the level of blackmail and violence he engaged in, but she became terrified of him, and couldn't really leave. And of course, he didn't treat her well.

So... that's the backstory.

I also think a whole lot about post-canon, when everyone is in prison together. In this post-canon stage, while there's a lot of drama that happens, I like kind of... nudging most of the characters in a positive direction.

So while prison isn't great, I wanted to make it a lot less terrible than most IRL prisons. Somewhere the characters have a chance to exist for a while in a semi-neutral environment where they're not dealing with their usual circumstances, y'know? (I DO have a section of the prison that's pretty bad, but that's a topic for a different post.)

April May has a lot of time to just... be away from things for a while. She still gets in spats with inmates sometimes, but the environment is a lot different, and there's a lot of time where she can just slowly unpack things. She's able to earn some money through her prison job, and buy a few things here and there, and has the space to get into her own hobbies a little more. (Again, wanted to make the environment better than most IRL prisons ^^;)

She eventually ends up cellmates with Mimi Miney. (Mimi gets a crush on her, April doesn't notice, April's a lesbian but still thinks she's straight, Mimi is eventually like 'okay welp' and responds to Calisto's interest in her instead, April gets jealous, Mimi is confused and annoyed, yada yada.....)

As the years go on, April starts to shift her focus. She actively works towards releasing some of the anger and trauma, lets herself be softer - but in a very VERY different way than she used to display in her outwards persona.

The anger used to be repressed and hidden, replaced by a Socially Acceptable UwU front. For the sake of having to conform to men's standards for her for survival.

The anger isn't repressed anymore. She isn't swallowing her venom anymore. Isn't compromising her safety and comfort anymore. Instead, she's able to release it more as she asserts her boundaries in the moment, and has someone (Mimi) she can vent and process with. She finds a genuine softness, for her own sake and no one else's, that she embraces with safe people in safe environments, instead of having to put out a false UwU persona for survival. Has the space to focus more on what makes her happy, what she's passionate about.

(Here's a fic I wrote with her in it - Mimi's POV - that shows her and Mimi interacting after she's been in prison for several years.)

Since April didn't kill anyone, but they DID most certainly find additional charges against her after investigating into Bluecorp, I imagine that she's in prison for about 6 years. Afterwards, I like the idea of her being hired by a company with friendly / familiar faces, where she can decorate professionally.

[lexidius]

hey! sorry, i’m really awkward. we’re mutuals and everything but i get super anxious being the first one to dm people. i just wanted to say it’s really nice to find someone with similar views, especially on syscourse and shipping. we’re very rarely able to be open about being a system, kin stuff, or any fandom interests really because of how intense the harassment from antis can get. also the fat positivity is wonderful to see as well :) i hope your pillow is always cold and you find $20 on the sidewalk soon

hey i totally get it anon! i used to be pretty heavily involved in both the pro and anti sides of Discourse on both tumblr and xitter (pronounced "shitter") and no matter the subject, be it plurality, alterhumanity, shipping, politics, fatpos... spicy furry cringe porn... it was... usually a mess that could have been avoided if I'd stopped worrying what others thought about my interests or what kind of personal autonomy I carry with my identity. Nowadays I usually just decide "fuck it, I can't get everyone to agree with me, who cares." If they're not willing to hear me out after I've tried to hear them out, and their arguments don't seem to be able to sway my opinion or come from a place without personal bias, then it's not worth my time to give them any attention or let their bullshit get under my skin.

Haters gonna hate, I'd rather just keep doing what I'm doing and as long as I'm not hurting anyone irl or imposing anything on anyone, or condoning/endorsing/excusing anything that could be harmful outside the realm of fiction/fantasy, then who the everlasting flying fuck cares? A majority of the shit I like in fiction is also stuff that I'd be downright terrified to try or see emulated irl tbh, or it's stuff that literally can't be done safely eg. fuckin... objectum/conceptum sex with a lightning bolt or tropical cyclone or whatever. because basically my fappin-and-zappin fun times would just fry me to a crisp and kill me on the spot, which is very... not fun, lmfao. I actually want to write a proper fully fledged post one day about the fiction vs reality dilemna and how to balance these things in a way that allows Narnia to still feel real and valid while not actively affecting reality outside the wardrobe, keep putting it off though. But I digress, that's a rant for another time.

I hope you can find some form of safety and comfort within a niche corner of your fandom experiences, even if it's only small. A large part of navigating fandom, imo, is just learning not to give a flying fuck about what other people in fandom are doing and if someone's going to be a nasty-ass fuckwit and start threatening to doxx you, making up shit, throwing around wild allegations and generally just stirring the point because of whatever personal vendetta they have against against others in the fandom, then they're just bringing everyone else down by being a NASTY-ASS LITTLE FUCKER who's only going to end up digging their own grave and eventually too many of these kinds of wankers are going to kill the fandom in question. Unfortunately there's only so much that legal action can do against the sincerely malicious people, but for anyone else, 99% of the time they're just talking out their ass and King/Queen Shit is literally standing up to their neck in a mountain of their own shit.

Stay safe out there moot, you're welcome to come off anon and dm me whenever, I'm completely judgement free as long as you're not like... a terf or racist or pro-offender or anything like that but if you were I probably would have blocked you by now so you're all good /gen