#and i am Not doing discourse if it starts up. i'm too old and busy being gay and loving women in the beautiful real world <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[plumbogs]

why is every single character of your lesbian au AMAB

probably good to clarify first here that they're not specifically transfem versions of existing characters. they're primarily afab (aside from tycho, who is an alien and probably intersex idc they're technically not part of the lesbian cast but are the kid of two of them, and phoebe who is a transwoman) in the canon

second to clarify that this is an anti-terf account, amab lesbians exist, and this story is Not for anyone who disagrees with that

[kittenintheden]

okay listen I'm so tired lol

I am a fandom old. I've been around the freaking block like eight dozen times. I'm at the point in my life where I enjoy media because it's FUN and ENRICHING for me personally, rather than something I base my identity on. I adore the community that happens in fan spaces (mostly).

here is why I never trust an anon that's clearly just being a dick: I've been in way to many scenarios where people who aren't even invested in the thing just think it's so fucking funny to watch segments of a community fight with each other. it tickles some part of their lizard brain. their mom never taught them not to be an asshole to strangers. idk.

there's a political term that you may or may not be familiar with called astroturfing. it's frequently used in marketing and politics to falsely create the image of vast public support for something that doesn't actually have all that much natural support. for example, people who don't especially have strong feelings about trans issues being encouraged/paid/instructed to respond to any and all trans support a certain way. responding to blogs, sending letters to the editor, posting on message boards, etc. their goal is to create a broad public perception that most people are anti-trans (untrue).

and it works. entire fucking laws and legislation and protests and fearmongering come out of that shit. people make up FAKE PROBLEMS (cis men dressing up like women to go be pervy in public bathrooms???) and spread the word via bad actors and controlling the public discourse. the media conglomerate that gamed Facebook to disproportionately support asshole authoritarian alt-right clowns and got them elected was EXCELLENT at it.

a similar thing can happen in fandom, ESPECIALLY when that fandom is a haven for women, POC, queer folk, and other minorities. you guys might remember GamerGate and SadPuppies? yeah all those fuckers are still active and still purposely being shitty at every given opportunity because they think it's funny to make the "libs" fight amongst themselves.

look up #yourslipisshowing if you're not familiar. it was a movement by Black Twitter (specifically Black WOMAN Twitter) to expose bad actors who would create accounts posing as Black woman activists, learn the surface-level terminology, and just purposely cause discord in leftist spaces under the ever-familiar activist method of "being morally pure is a thing that can exist."

anyway: any time I get an ask or comment without a name attached that is very obviously intended to poke me in a sore spot, I delete that shit and assume it's some fucker trying to start fan drama for kicks. even if I'm wrong, I still don't need to feed into that shit. this is my fun, happy space. I'm an activist and do activist shit and get angry at the world in real life, I don't need it in my little fandom corner of the internet too.

which is not to say that shitty fans and shitty fandom takes don't really exist. they very much do. but I don't give them much air unless there's an actual name attached. and even THEN it can be hit or miss because people can and do create fake accounts if they're especially dedicated to being a shithead.

so: if you're minding your business and some goober comes into your ask box with shit that's clearly intended to push a button, give it like 24 hours to cool down and decide if it's actually worth it to respond. for me, most of the time I determine that it's not.

don't get me wrong. calling out bad behavior in fandom IS IMPORTANT and SHOULD BE DONE. I just also think it's important to try and find the joy and camaraderie in these spaces as much as possible and that people who try to disrupt that for jollies suck real bad and give a disproportionate perception of "what X fans are like."

in summary, my philosophy is be the best person you can be, be as kind as is warranted, focus on the parts of your fandom that make you happiest, and carry a big stick for when the jerks won't take a hint.

also like. shitting on other characters to prop up your fave is such a freaking middle school move. are you in middle school? if so, I'm sorry. if not, I'm still sorry, but for a different reason.

[hamsamwich23]

Well hello there!

Howdy! My name is Sam and/or Mort.

I'm a 20 year old queer-asexual demiboy who uses he/they/it/xe pronouns. I am polyamorous and have one partner whom I love dearly💛

My main hobbies right now are creative writing and photography, but I also enjoy video games, roleplaying, cooking/baking, and reading in my spare time.

My bigger interests right now are Hello Puppets, 1nv&d³r Z¹m, Doki Doki Literature Club, Undertale/Deltarune, Cats Are Liquid, Pressure (Roblox), Regretavator (Roblox) and Cult Of The Lamb.

Video game interests (or games I Enjoy): Milk Inside/Outside A Bag Of Milk, Sucker for love! Games series, smile for me, Amanda The Adventurer, Undertale Yellow, Happy game, Night In The Woods, Limbo, Inside, *Omori*, The Dog Island, Minecraft, Needy Streamer Overload, *Bendy and the ink machine*, Yo-Kai Watch (1st and 2nd games), Hollow Knight, Okami, Backrooms games, Sonic Frontiers, I'm On Observation Duty, Among Us.

Show/series interests: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, Adventure Time, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood (just started), Tuca and Bertie, Nexo Knights, Ninjago, The Mandela Catalogue, Angel Hare

Music interests: GHOST/GHOST and pals, Lily Vane, RIProducer, Jack Stauber, Vocaloid, Peculiar audios, Penelope Scott

Misc interests/just stuff I like: Welcome Home project, Liminal Space, Moths, Space, The Backrooms lore, SCP Foundation lore, stickers, plushies,

*- I do not support the creator(s) behind these. And if anyone behind above listed interests has done something that I am unaware of then feel free to inform me.

I dabble in Self-shipping sometimes...I'm perfectly fine with sharing f/o's just don't be. Like. Weird or nasty about it? Like be chill be respectful and we're all good

My DMS are always open to mutuals who want to talk, or anyone who's interested in my AUS or wants to talk about mutual interests, however please note that I have physical and mental health issues as well as work a full time job and am not always active or able to respond. I just appreciate any patience when it comes to talking to me.

My Two current main AUS at this moment are:

Unreality Au: A multi-fandom AU inspired by weirdcore and horror themes where the world has been overtaken by a unknown curse caused by dark magic. OCs and Characters from Hello Puppets, Doki Doki Literature Club, Undertale (somewhat), Fetch from mf Fazbear frights, MAYBE pressure (as a little treat) maybe Regretavator dashed in and Hatsune Miku. This story so far is planned to be told through one shots and short fanfiction. Not every fandom listed here is part of official lore but is implied to exist in the same universe for my own little fun

If interested, you can follow my blog: @unreality-au-content-hoard

Dimension 2020 AU: Revamped I/Z au featuring my Z¹msona/OC Twenty rewritten (as when I was younger the au was poorly written/executed). The new summary of this story is as follows:

"After being lost and found as a mere smeet, Twenty is finally able to move past the incident from years ago and live a normal life among other young irkens within the academy. Everything is going very well...until one day..... everything begins to go wrong."

While I will post links to the official fanfiction when it is started as well as updates on Instagram, I will not be posting anything about it on Tumblr for my own comfort.

Aside from these projects, Writing commissions and trades are CLOSED for an indefinite amount of time, as I am too busy to fulfill any more work. However, requests for Unreality one shots or suggestions are usually open.

DNI

While I am fully aware that people will most likely ignore my DNI boundaries, I am still going to put them out here that I will just block you if I see anyone in my DNI interacting with me. I may even end up blocking people out of paranoia or due to compulsions. I very much utilize the block button.

You will be blocked if you are- bigoted in any way/shape/form, pr0sh¹p/c∅msh¹p/similar, ship discourse focused blog, LGBTQ+ discourse focused blog, Rad-exclusive, a pro-harassment antishipper, people against self-shipping and/or OC x Canon, support use of AI art and AI content, support creators like Viziepop and JKrowling (or anyone I'm uncomfortable with), people who believe "black washing" is a thing and/or defend whitewashing, L∅l¹/sh∅t& con supporters/enjoyers, people who call themselves "M.A.Ps" (pedos. You're pedophiles), and anything similar to what is mentioned above

Though technically, even if you are none of the above, I still end up blocking people out of paranoia or if they give me bad vibes. I understand that it is irrational, however it is for my comfort and mental health.

Kink/NSFW blogs are okay to interact, but if you're pr/ship or make fetish art of minors/siblings/ect then uhhhh get lost

Please do NOT talk to me about Ship Discourse, LGBTQ+ Discourse, The Walten Files (ill allow it if we're mutuals) I.Z Fandom Discourse, HazbinHotel/HelluvaBoss

Tags

Tags I would recommend blocking if they make you uncomfortable are:

woah sam that's REALLY gay - suggestive tag for future just in case(?) I doubt it'll ever be used but it doesn't hurt to have a warning

morts sad time - vent tag

If you're interested in my works or talking outside my Tumblr, my socials are below!

Discord: hamsamwich23

Instagram: hamsamwich23

Wattpad: hamsamwich23

SquidgeWorld: hamsamwich23

And most importantly...

This blog stands with the people of Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and the many other countries that are suffering and struggling right now. Below me is a post linking to resources to help these countries and more.

This master document was originally created by Seaweedlagoon on Twitter/"X" and reposted on Tumblr by user eggyolkperona3000

Thank you for reading!!

[friendofthecrows]

I posted 13,486 times in 2022

That's 7,462 more posts than 2021!

1,003 posts created (7%)

12,483 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@friendofthecrows

@i-was-once-a-flower

@araccoonthatlikesmurder

@nucg5040

I tagged 3,398 of my posts in 2022

#hal rambles - 690 posts

#goncharov - 148 posts

#funny - 125 posts

#shitpost - 87 posts

#ask - 69 posts

#tumblr - 64 posts

#good things - 60 posts

#art - 58 posts

#unreality - 45 posts

#goncharov (1973) - 42 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#you're definitely very friendly with your friends though. you are unhinged but you are free. go put that dirt in your mouth! go eat that bu

I sent 8 gifts in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

It's so impossible to be annoyed at strangers when you come up with elaborate explanations for whatever it is they're doing.

Two middle-school-aged kids pushing a giant cart of hoodies down the street? Yeah, it could just be a family side hustle. OR they could be fundraising to buy the materials needed for an elaborate scheme to rob an old folks home, which sounds awful, but their specific target is Great Aunt Joan, the most wretched creature to ever live, who bequeathed her entire (sizable) fortune to an already elderly chihuahua named "Lemon" who no one knows whether he's named that because he constantly looks like he's just bitten a lemon (and he does love to bite) or because of his deep, relentless, bitterness.

The guy running down the sidewalk, almost knocking people over? Yeah, he could be late for an important meeting. OR he just got news from a cohort that the chihuahua, Lemon, who they kidnapped as part of a scheme of their own, is ESCAPING and is rushing to try to contain the bastard.

The man yelling and it's obnoxious but he's too far away to tell what he's saying? He could be shouting some pitch about stuff he's selling. OR lemon's tiny, hungry jaws have latched onto the front of his pants and won't let go. The man is in a panic. He's yelling to his friend at the hardware store to get the vise grips. And industrial-strength disinfectant.

823 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

#4

Listen, if this was the latest shipping discourse or whatever I wouldn't care and I wouldn't get involved.

But this is about censorship in an archive.

I am extremely passionate about the preservation of information.

Even from a basic ethical standpoint, if you create an archive dedicated to preserving fanworks, you cannot simply turn around and start deleting "problematic" works from said archive.

3,618 notes - Posted August 15, 2022

#3

If this gets 20,000 notes in the next 2 weeks I'll make a Goncharov remake.

Edit: I can see some people working very hard for this to reach 20k! That makes me so happy, although time is meant to be up. So I'm giving it 10 more days (now the goal would be Dec 14) to reach 10k. I really want to make this movie, but I need to know there'll be support! We're already working on it (see pinned post for details) so I don't exactly want to call it off haha. Let's get it to 10k at least ❤️

10,544 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

#2

I don't care if people "aren't motivated to produce as much" we don't NEED to produce as much as we do we are OVERPRODUCING and it's killing the planet. Businesses shouldn't NEED to constantly have higher profits than last year to please stakeholders. Making enough should be enough. And actually, I think people will still want to work to have nice things or even just to work and contribute. That's actually a pretty fundamental human drive.

10,671 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I compiled this a while ago but I was just looking for references and found the file so...

Best places to find reference photos:

Body types, poses, and anatomy:

http://reference.sketchdaily.net/en

https://www.posemaniacs.com/

https://quickposes.com/en

https://www.characterdesigns.com/#home-section

https://www.adorkastock.com/sketch/

https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/

https://www.proko.com/browse/tools?af=242

Giant anatomy reference tutorials Pinterest board:

https://www.pinterest.com/deedee1232/body-reference/

General:

https://unsplash.com/

https://pixabay.com/

https://www.pexels.com/

https://stocksnap.io/

https://www.freeimages.com/

https://kaboompics.com/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

https://morguefile.com/

https://www.flickr.com/

https://www.dreamstime.com/

https://pmp-art.com/

https://www.freepik.com/

https://photobash.co/

https://picjumbo.com/

https://burst.shopify.com/

https://magdeleine.co/

https://wordpress.org/openverse/

See the full post

11,482 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[bigbeautifulcartoonpeople]

These are some conversation I've had with several people in discord:

1) Other Person: Idk if this is an unpopular opinion, but find myself being more anti harassment then anti anti. Like im proship but I also think that people, when they tag correctly, should be allowed to talk about why they don't like a character, a peice of media or a ship... I think that also ties in to WHY im proship. People should do what they want but I don't want to see anti xyz or even a tonne of ship stuff in the main tags.

Me: Tbh same, that was actually the way of the internet before all this proship and antiship and anti-antiship shit started. Literally people liked what they liked, criticized what they didn't and moved the fuck on. The people who demonized, shunned, suicide bated, etc. other people in fandom were the people looked down upon and excluded from fandom. Now it's just okay to hurl death threats and the like over literally 2-D pictures, characters and even stories willy-fucking-nilly. Like seriously, I don't think a lot of people have even looked at a library otherwise they would start trying to burn them down because they lack such common sense and awareness over the fact that fiction is QUITE LITERALLY not reality. Consuming it doesn't make you IT, but the sad thing is is that this isn't even a new way of thinking, it's only newly been on the internet and is now spreading like a cancer/wildfire.

Purity culture has always been a thing due to Catholicism and Christianity and the like, claiming video games cause kids to be violent, even further back, metal music made kids devil-worshipers and violent, even further back, IT the book made people murderers and that Stephen King(the author) is a murderer himself! Hell, the ideology is still standing strong with conservatives believing that if their kid consumes queer media that will somehow magically make them queer and that's just not how that works. If you go into media thinking murder, incest, etc. is okay irl beforehand, nothing is going to change about that except figuring out you are okay with it irl and not just on paper/screen. Same with queer kids, they were already queer or questioning before they consumed the queer media, they're just figuring out what the words are or what it looks like now that they've consumed it and can now define themselves.

I'm genuinely growing more and more concerned that people really do believe that fictional characters are real. Like, if they just believe hard enough it makes it so, and that because they think that the fictional characters are real anyone who'd want to hurt them, sexualize them, put them in harm's way, etc. are awful people cause they believe you would do that to real people and, to them, that fictional character is real.

It's so fucking concerning because I am becoming more and more aligned in the belief that people shouldn't be handed the internet until a certain age cause technology and screens and the wide wide web are rotting kids' brains, holy fuck

2) Just casual discussion:

Me: Antis are ruining fandom space and it ain't even our fault, wtf

Person 1: creating unnecessary drama too! they...outed...a 12y old...sexual fantasies from a PRIVATE conversation

Person 2: These guys need to realize they're not the fucking police it's none of their business what other people do online unless it's ACTUALLY illegal

Person 1 in Response to: they...outed...a 12y old...sexual fantasies:

that was some years ago, and i didn't know proship and anti discourse

for ppl that love to say legality isn't morality, they sure love to bring up the law "it's illegal!!"

"no it isn't, [proof]"

"legality isn't morality"

Me: I'm seriously starting to think the majority of antis are minors, like kid/tween minors, cause the lack of reasoning skills, inability to tell fiction from reality, and basically little sociopaths sound both like antis and children and that's starting to make me super fucking uncomfortable. Cause there are so many parents who will hand their kid an ipad or even a whole ass phone at like 4 or 5 and then they're left to their own devices (pun not intended) and expected to figure the wide wide web out on their own...like, THEYRE FUCKING CHILDREN, we are A) not responsible for parenting your random ass child in place of you, B) expecting adults to interact with is adults and will reply and interact as such.

And so we've got LITERAL CHILDREN with no moral compass established being told that x, y, and z people are the worst possible people to ever exist ever.... Kids already take everything to the extremes, and that shit is only gonna make everything worse for us and everybody else just trying to enjoy fandom

Person 1 in Response to: I'm seriously starting to think the majority of antis are minors, like kid/tween minors, cause the lack of reasoning:

yea, kids usually see black and white

they don't notice the grey also cause they're easily convinced, and when they're convinced, they're gonna keep insisting

Me: Like, for example, I was watching a Jacksepticeye vid yesterday and he was looking at reviews of him on this website and read a review of a literally EIGHT YEAR OLD who said that they had been watching him since they were a toddler and jack was shocked....I WOULD BE TOO, like who just hands their kid the internet and say "salavi, go be kids, go have fun", like NO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING????? At the very least try to curate your child's experience or reach on the net until they're about 13 or so, like I promise shitting out a kid is not the only step to being a parent, I promise you

Person 1 in Response to: Like, for example, I was watching a Jacksepticeye vid yesterday and he was looking at reviews of:

since....they were...a TODDLER??

Me: Yep, and the kid didn't even see anything wrong with it, seriously, somebody needs to start trying to be parents and it shouldn't be the people who didn't ask to be, aka random adults on the net

I'm starting to find evidence on twitter of antis encouraging each other to shun friends and family for not being one of them and I am deeply concerned. This is some cult shit.

"should I shun my friend for being proship even though they're my only irl friend?"

"Should I shun my mother for being proship?"

The answer to both of these is GET HELP. You are being brainwashed into thinking that your friends and family are dangerous when you know that they wouldn't hurt anyone. See a therapist, take some time off the internet, reevaluate your situation. Fiction does not take precedence over your loved ones.

I'm tagging this with "antis please interact" because I think they need to see this too, and hopefully it helps someone. Your loved ones are not dangerous because of their taste in fiction.

[neonstatic]

i've reached this stage where every little thing pisses me abt my coworker oh noooo like i dread coming in on days we work together cus there is a certainty that he'll cross a boundary or start some unnecessary discourse or talk abt the dumb drama at his college and like. i am too old for this. scratch that, WE are too old for this. i rly need him to grow tf up.

what did it for me today is two things:

he got reprimanded for repeatedly coming in late the past few weeks. he was adviced by management to either come on time or change his availabilities so he can be scheduled to start later but still end his shift at the same time. a perfectly valid complaint and an easy solution that pleases everyone, right? but he wasn't happy abt it. that is advice even i gave him, cus when i used to do the morning shift and him the night shift, he would be late and i'd have to stay later too. it's often school that makes him late, which i understand, but still. come to work on time. anyway i told him i agreed with management on this one. he could fill up the form right as we were talking abt it. that's how easy it is. but he was being all contrarian, saying that well he could just work one day instead of two since they're so unhappy w him, and "oh well i'll just show up at 7 or 8, i don't care, i'm not gonna change my availabilities," and i was like ohhhh you're being a fkg baby. you're 23 and you can't handle valid criticism and responsibility so you're being contrarian. got it.

yesterday's close was perfect. bins and donation boxes were mostly emptied, and all that was left were abt 4 large items to price and put on the floor. tell me why i come in at 1pm and that man hasn't priced any of the 4 items, nor any of the other large items he got. i asked him, "was it v busy this morning?" he says "nope!not at all." .....it's a 3-hr shift on a sunday morning before 1pm, it was quiet and uneventful, and you couldn't price shit. the last time he decided to be this lazy, i had to move all by myself a mattress that was left on the side of the buiding that was there since open but that he couldn't be arsed to take care of. it wasn't heavy at all, thank god, and he would've realised that had he even tried to touch it. but clearly he didn't! AND with his quiet morning, he made more of a mess.....and punched out! knowing that i'd have to pick up after him!

so yeah i was pissed. i wanted to tell him off but i'm no good at being confrontational in the moment esp when i am actually angry. and i rly didn't want to explain myself to him cus he has a track record of not listening. i was just silently fuming after he answered my question, and gave him a v dry and pissy "bye." and look, i'm not proud of me either, i know it would've been better to just tell him directly that i'd wished he'd make an effort. but i've been having a rough time and he does this every fkg week on top of being a fkg dumbass and the world's most shallow conversationalist 😭 i hate himmmm

but yes i know i know, next time if he does smth i don't like, i'll be upfront abt him and not rely on mild passive aggression to get my thoughts across :/

[lindwurmkai]

Fascinating thing that's been happening since I started experiencing sexual attraction on a regular basis and consequently also started having sexual fantasies way more often (as well as different kinds than before) is that my brain apparently realised it could use sexual fantasies to process all kinds of shit.

Like. From dysphoria to fears and trauma and phobias, a lot of the negative things I am dealing with end up mixed into these scenarios to varying degrees.

As a result, I went from being someone who was like "I may have opinions on shipping discourse, but I'm not actually into most of the things it's about" to rapidly ticking off boxes as if I were playing the world's weirdest game of bingo. And can I just say, I'm so glad I had already developed an anti-censorship, anti-shame attitude before that started. (Or maybe it would never have happened otherwise. Maybe I would have had one "problematic" fantasy or read one "problematic" fic and then shut myself off from this mode of processing out of shame.)

Some people may find the "ticking off boxes" comment alarming, thinking of slippery slopes. But if there is a slope, what lies at the end of it? Weirder sexual fantasies, greater self-understanding, processed traumas, fears that are now easier to cope with perhaps. It literally does not lead anywhere else. The idea that some kind of temptation to commit crimes irl is even remotely on the same trajectory makes no sense.

Not too many years ago, I had an actual for-real anxiety attack after finding out that someone on a Discord server I had recently joined was into underage fic. It had never occurred to me that people could have benign reasons for reading such things, so I panicked because I thought anyone who could not only stomach that stuff without feeling sick but sought it out on purpose had to be dangerous. But why had I not even heard of this mode of trauma/fear processing at the ripe old age of approximately 30?

Because I was a sex-indifferent and occasionally sex-repulsed asexual. I had only very recently started reading porn on purpose instead of skipping the sex scenes in every fanfic I read, which happened after I got into BDSM and realised that sex could be appealing in that specific context. It was all new to me. I'd had maybe two or three years to explore what that meant for me personally, but in that time I did not happen to stumble upon any discussions of, say, the psychological reasons for having a rape kink or whatever since that was not something I was into and in fact it squicked me out big time.

I was clueless. I had never had a reason to engage with such topics and surrounded myself largely with people who did not, either. Encountering sex talk unexpectedly made me super uncomfortable, so of course I wasn't going to follow anyone on social media who posted a lot of it! I imagine many minors and sex-repulsed asexuals are probably in the same boat.

In the end it was a survivor of CSA talking about their experiences being groomed by so-called MAPs who opened my eyes to the dangers of pro-censorship attitudes, and from then on I wanted to understand. I wish I could have gone through that learning process a decade sooner.

You'll note I haven't mentioned which boxes exactly I have thus far ticked off in my absurd game of bingo, which is in part because I am still afraid of getting in trouble for it and in part because I don't think it matters. The "thus far" is there for a reason; anything else could be added to the list at any moment and it would make no moral difference. Caveat: as a white person, there are some things to do with race that I think if I were fantasising about them, I should probably examine why the fuck. But since that is not the case, I'm sticking to quietly reading along when I see people of colour discuss the topic and otherwise minding my own business.

If you want to talk details for any reason, feel free to DM me because I no longer have any qualms about anything whatsoever lol.

[remythologise]

Hello! I found your blog via you amazingly summarizing all that's going on with the spn drama. Due to my schedules, rl stuff, some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me, my availability to find a place to watch...the rollercoaster I was used to with this fandom was more me binging it in a weekend to going months to over a year without watching it. I still haven't watched the last season(but with a fandom this big it's pretty impossible not be spoiled so I more or less know what happened) BUT oh great one I ask of thee for more information if you have it...other than being busy and whatnot, I'm not really one to keep up with the actors as well. So could you also maybe do a summary of all the stans? I'im seeing terms I haven't seen before. Who is Kelios(sp?)? Hellions?? probably messed it up but like...I guess what are the name of each legion? Who do they have alliance towards? What was their desires? Que paso?!?!?!?

Hi there! 'Some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me' me emotionally quitting Supernatural in Season 7 after they killed Castiel 😂 Anyway I totally get it, I went through the same culture shock mid-last year when I got back into SPN and tried to find where fandom was at! There's really a LOT of lore and content after 15 years though so I'll just do the broad brushstrokes based on my impressions and personal stereotypes PLEASE remember this is oversimplifying groups and individuals to tendencies and I'm very biased! Also important that there are sub-factions within sub-factions - again, I'm simplifying here!

I've also linked to the 'Super-wiki' in terms of some definitions because the Super-wiki has pages for them where the Fandom-wiki does not. Great introduction actually - only in the Supernatural fandom. There are two Supernatural wikis. One, through curation and twitter activity, supports BiBro/Wincest factions and does not support Destiel users. One is more neutral or Destiel-friendly (I don't know that the Fandom wiki has a personality/social media presence per se). You cannot make this up. There is a factional war... within use of fandom wikis.

Destiel faction

People who primarily ship Dean/Cas, love Castiel and (often, although not always) Jack, and the 'found family' of Supernatural as well as the brothers, and like the post s3 seasons too. Hated 15.19 and 15.20 for killing Dean and ignoring the other characters/narrative arc of the show. Nicknamed 'Destihellers' by the Wincest faction as a derogatory term, 'reclaimed' and shortened as 'Hellers', a nickname they use affectionately to describe each other. See more info on nicknames here.

Sometimes also ship ‘Cockles’ (the ship between Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles) although generally speaking they're more respectful of the wives of the actors than J2 shippers, who are notoriously responsible for... a vast series of insane-fan misdemeanours. Historically most were also good at keeping RPF to themselves and not harassing celebrities with it directly, although recently, particularly with younger twitter fans, that has not been the case.

Sub-factions:

The ‘Desticule’ or ‘Destiel tumblr’ - general grouping of Destiel-shipping tumblr users around 20-30 years old, usually LGBT+, most who came back to the show post-15.18 after leaving it for various reasons including getting sick of the queerbaiting. Funniest bitches alive etc. and responsible for the best text posts you’ve ever seen. Can also start stupid discourse and in-group drama when they’re bored.

'POLOL' - People of Lots of Letters, a discord group (of tumblr and twitter users) that ran on the assumption Andrew Dabb was playing a hugely intricate game of 3D chess to do with gnostic symbolism among other things, and would make Destiel canon. Have since had their own factional sub-wars and fallen apart a bit. Some of their meta was and is good and interesting! Some of it was wildly off the mark. Now generally insist that Dabb/the writers were all pushing for Destiel canon and the network is entirely to blame.

Twitter fans (TikTok edition) - younger fans around 18 and younger who (FOR REASONS BEYOND ME) started watching the show around 2018-2020. Definition of 'stans'. Tend to be very loud and aggressive on twitter when Events Happen, which like. I do get, because they've grown up in a completely different media environment and this kind of Dinosaur Politicking around LGBT+ issues is beyond them. Fancam central. Anyway stream #CASTIEL for clear skin!

Twitter fans (AO3 edition) - older fans around 30+ who kept going with the show but either don't have a large tumblr presence or just prefer twitter. A lot of fic writers, GISH-ers, and BNFs in this group. Some of them are very cool and reasonable in their opinions, some of them act like the younger stans. Some of them too accepting of what happened wrt 15.19-20 in my opinion, because, in contrast to the younger twitter stans, they grew up expecting Destiel to NEVER be canon or respected. 'Can't believe we got this far' etc.

Multiship faction

Multishippers or shippers of things not as large as the two main behemoths . Sub-factions based on shipping, e.g. Megstiel and Sastiel. I don't think these groups are very large though, and seem to have very little influence in the Discourse.

Wincest faction

LARGE overlap with the 'BiBro' faction and their opinions, which I'll get to. Ship Sam and Dean romantically. Often pretend to be BiBros on places like twitter and reddit in order for outside groups to take their opinions more seriously. 'Wincesties' etc. are derogatory nicknames given by the Destiel faction.

Sub-factions:

Multiship fans - ship Sam and Dean but respect Castiel/the 'found family'. Politically overlap with the faction of multishippers, I think. I don't have a lot of insight on this group of people honestly, but I know they exist.

Bronlies - the typical BiBro and 'Wincest' shippers most people think of, twitter user 'Kelios' is one of the would-be ringleaders of this faction - typically tend to be older white midwestern women. Historically have been pretty nasty on twitter (leading to Robert Berens, writer who made Destiel canon, occasionally subtweeting Kelios). Also tend to ship 'J2' - and take it very seriously as a legitimate thing that is really real. This is called 'tinhatting'.

BiBro faction

People who think the show should JUST be about the brothers, love Supernatural s1-3 and everything after it should have been just like Supernatural s1-3. Hate Castiel, Jack, and the 'found family'. Largely loved 15.20. Go to literally any comments section on any Supernatural article and You Will Find Them complaining about how the show should just be about the Brothers. Tend to be older, straighter, and more conservative/Republican (and male) fans. (I am aware that the definition of 'BiBro' used to refer to people who just liked the brothers but there's no definitional difference now in the discourse.) The Wincest and BiBro faction are generally much more wealthy than the Destiel faction (they being younger and more diverse/queer/left-leaning in general) and would be the biggest revenue generators at conventions etc.

Sub-factions:

Reddit bros - literally anyone who visits r/supernatural. Well, that's not fair - there are people who post reasonable opinions on there, but it's pretty rare and they get downvoted a lot. Like to talk about 'toxic Destiel fans' 'ruining the show' and how Dean is a straight man who is straight and could never possibly be gay. Might even think the confession was platonic despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm Not Homophobic I Have Gay Friends, But No Gays on MY Show!

Old Guard - group of older fans who overlap strongly with the Wincest faction, but might not necessarily ship Wincest.

GA faction

'General Audience' - These are the group of audience members that aren't 'online' so to speak; most watch the show on TV as a Casual Viewing Experience (are therefore also sometimes referred to as 'casuals'. Mostly their opinions tend towards BiBros, but they have a vast range of baffling views thanks to being Not Online and usually Not caring about Supernatural that much or thinking that deeply about it.

Sub-factions:

People who simply watch Supernatural on TV and then don't think about it very much after that.

I said they weren't 'online' but that's not entirely true; I'd probably classify people on Supernatural Facebook Groups as GA, along with friends of friends who post statuses about how 15.20 was a neat finale that wrapped up the series.

Conclusion

Supernatural is famously the show that appeals to both Republicans and Democrats, literally All Orientations, so there's a WIDE range of factions. However, most warring online boils down to Destiel vs. Wincest/BiBro - the war that started in Season 4 and has simply never ended. In terms of the 'actors' and their stans, in general, Wincest/BiBro fans love Jared, like Jensen, and dislike Misha. Destiel fans love Misha, like Jensen, and dislike Jared. Of course as with everything, there are variations and this is just a generalisation. But that's the summary of it, from my perspective!

This didn't even get into Sam girls, Dean girls and Cas girls. God. Anyway.

Hope that answered your question, anon!

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married) 

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse. 

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS 

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

[rose-wine-selfships]

Before you follow / Do Not Interact

Before you follow me, I should let you know that I do have a general fear/discomfort of:

-Insects

-Parasites (especially if they're inside a human)

-Festering wounds/flesh

-Arachnids (Spiders, scorpions, etc...)

-Bees

-Cockroaches

-The Deep Web

-Ghosts and/or shadow people

-Demons

-Cursed Dolls

-Ouija Boards

-Sleep paralysis

-Demonic possessions

If you are a mutual of mine, I don't mind if you post any of these things for yourself. If you even talk to me about this stuff through my DMs, I'm ok with just that. However, if you show me any images related to the above I will get very anxious and uncomfortable. Just remember to tag any visual posts of the listed stuff above with either #rosedontlook or #pinkprophetdontlook.

Also, I am an adult over 20 years old. That means I will have tagged NSFW and suggestive stuff on one of my R18+ side blogs. However, I don’t post anything too suggestive on this self shipping blog (if I do, it’s usually heavily censored). If you are a minor and that makes you highly uncomfortable, feel free to block or unfollow me for your own sake.  I don’t mind if you do, for whatever the reason might be. 

Do not interact if you are any of these:

-Nazi / Nazi apologist

-General exclusionist/gatekeeper towards ANY kinds of LGBT+ people

-TERF / Transphobic / Transmed

-Biphobic person. This is ESPECIALLY important to me since I am bisexual. If you don’t like it, then LEAVE my blog. It’s as simple as that. 👍

-Ableist person. I have autism and ADD, and once again, if you don’t like it get off my blog.

-If you’re a minor under 16 years old. This is just a personal preference and boundary of mine, but I would prefer most minors under that age NOT interact with my blog since I am an adult, and I do post heavily censored NSFW content here and there on this side blog. Thank you.

-Supporter of Mentalism / Sanism

-Panphobic

-A-phobic / Ace-phobic

-Allo-phobic

-Demi-phobic

-Homophobic

-Racist and/or sexist

-Radical Feminist

-Trump Supporter / Voted for Trump

-Pedophile / MAP

-Supporter of Cringe Culture

-Person that actively hates all self shippers

-Person that likes to start drama and discourse

-Passive aggressive person and likes to send indirect messages to people to make them nervous. If you have a problem with me, TALK TO ME. I have a DM that’s open all the time anyways!

-General bully/abusive person on Tumblr

-Someone who self ships with real people (That’s a HUGE no-no in my book!)

-Older adult who self ships with a minor (and yes, that includes if they’re aged up!)

On a side note, I should also say to new people who follow me that I do tend to cuss a lot on this side blog. If this bothers you completely I recommend you either block me, tag my posts with TW swearing, or don’t interact with me at all. Thank you.

But other than that, if you are a decent person, I don’t mind if you hit me up in my DMs for talking. I love getting to know different people on my blogs and I’m always happy to start a conversation whenever you want to. I won’t always get back to you on messages if I’m busy, but I’ll do my best to reply back when I can!

🌹🍷✨

[tothemeadow]

I've been a proshipper for awhile now but I don't think I want to be anymore? I'm not an anti either though. Maybe I just need a fresh online start? I know it all comes down to not bullying others, which I would never do but there's so much casual racism in the community and whenever I bring it up I get told it's just fiction. As a poc seeing people with blm in their bio creating media that exists solely on race, whitewashing, or stereotypes feels bad. My friends also screenshot teenagers that say they don't like problematic content (not being violent, just complaining in their circle) and then make a whole thread mocking them and it makes me feel sick. Idc that "that's what antis do", two wrongs don't make a right. Idk, I just feel too old for discourse posting (I'm only 22) and I realized that I want to enjoy my problematic content on my own I guess. Barely any of these issues exist off the internet. I like all the characters I want without judgement AND I can also freely say "fictional 18+ content of a 5 year old is weird" and not get an essay about how I'm trying to commit mass censorship. I don't want to be harassed by people for what I like, but I don't want to be called a cop for saying "maybe writing the N word in this fic as a white person is bad." I ESPECIALLY don't want to be gaslit and told that the people doing it aren't "real" proshippers. Sorry for ranting, I just feel alone on this I guess.

I’m glad you feel comfortable getting this off your chest, and I appreciate your honesty. Perhaps I can provide some comfort ot advice?

First and foremost, ship whoever the fuck you want. As long as it’s legal, go for it. Frankly, I ship characters because there’s nice pieces of art/writings? Also, it’s a fictional character and there’s worse things in the world to worry about?

Anyway, the internet is a shit place. While there’s incredible things out here, people strive for negativity to the point where it isn’t even funny. Since things are “anonymous” or not face-to-face, people act like cowards and target others since they “can’t get in trouble.” In my opinion, people tend to lack maturity when it comes to the internet and it’s disgusting. This is a big reason why I don’t have many social media accounts, and by god it’s one of the best decisions of my life. I’d rather spend my time worrying about my frail grandmother who has Alzheimers rather than argue with some stranger over an issue that neither of us can control.

As for the race issue, I try to keep things neutral as possible in my works. Unless somebody specifically asks for something, that’s how I try to do it. I myself am white, and I know a lot of works cater to lighter skin people. It’s unfair, yes, but there’s nothing I can do personally about the issue. (This is where my POC writers come and serve justice, to kudos to you 👏👏👏)

What I’m trying to say is that the internet is not a good place. While there IS some safe spaces, overall it’s shit. People do get sensitive for the wrong reasons, and it completely blows my mind for their arguments. Maybe I sound like an asshole about this, but I truly do think people are wasting their time and energy on trying to bring others down. If someone randomly left a message in my inbox saying something along the lines of “you suck, fuck off,” like... Who cares? They’re probably gonna be on anon anyway? Whatever I write and post is not affecting your life whatsoever, besides the point of you “not liking it.”

And that’s what it boils down to. If people don’t agree with each other, they tear the other down. And it’s like hey, if you wanna act like a damn monkey, go to a zoo. I understand that people don’t share the same ideology as me, but come on. It’s not hard to not treat others like shit. Then again, common decency is too hard to understand nowadays, at least at a majority level.

I probably sound like I’m preaching or I’m saying I’m better than others. And you know what? That’s okay. Why? Because I respect others, especially online. If I don’t like what I see, I click away rather than target them and try to make them feel like shit. Like what RuPaul said, it is NOT your business what other people think of you. If they don’t like you, who cares? If they don’t like what you’re into, who cares? As far as I’m concerned, it’s your own life and you can do as you please.

I realized I’m rambling, wow. I may have gotten off topic >.> Either way, I’m trying to say is “do what you want.” Granted, I’m not saying you should do illegal shit, but just... enjoy what you want? I don’t think I can convey this through text, and I apologize. Being online means you have to walk on eggshells constantly, and that’s what sucks about it. I mean, aren’t most things out there for our enjoyment? Who decided it would be a good idea to knock that idea and turn communities into such toxic places?

If I could rewrite the world, I would. I personally apologize if my words seem “typical” in any sort of way. I know people tend to write with their familiar with, and maybe of caution? Like, they don’t want to screw something up? I dunno. This is a big rant, yada yada, and I don’t know if it makes sense or even helps. I’ve said numerous times that I want this blog to be an open place, so I thank you for being honest.

[carolyncaves]

Hey op, I was wondering if you could give me some advice? High school senior here and I have no idea what to do with my life. Is accounting really as painfully boring as it's reputed to be? I'm a perfectionist and a good student and I feel like that might be helpful, but I've also nearly fallen asleep many times in math class. (I'm more a science and humanities person.) Is accounting actually as tedious and unfulfilling as people say? Do you like your job? Do you have any career advice??

Oh, no, advice ...

I've been sitting on this because I wanted to do your ask justice, and then it ended up extremely long - I'm apparently constitutionally incapable of giving advice without giving all the advice, just to be thorough. I started with my impressions of the accounting field and why I went into it (in case any of that resonates with you either way) and made it all the way to a probably-too-abstract meditation/ramble on careers, work, and purpose. Since I'm just a dumb 27 year old who is not entirely successful (yet) in any area of my life, you should maybe (definitely) take everything below with a grain of salt. But here are some things I think I've learned:

I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life either. I went to an engineering high school, but decided it wasn't for me because I didn't really care about it and wasn't spending my spare time tinkering with robots like some of my classmates. I almost majored in physics, but switched to accounting at the last second because I decided I probably didn't want to spend my whole life in a basement fine-tuning lasers.

I went into accounting because I thought math was boring but I was good at it, and I figured accounting might straddle the math-type-brain with the people-stories-humanities things that were more interesting to me. This is somewhat true - financial accounting is not math (thank goodness), but someone who is good at one will probably be good at the other and it is quite satisfying the way balance sheets always balance. (You can get into more math-and-statistics-intensive applications, but base accounting is just adding and Microsoft Excel, which is unironically one of the greatest tools humankind has ever created. How you feel about that opinion might tell you a lot about whether it's the right field for you lol.)

'Accounting' is really (at least) three entirely different types of job:

‘Industry accounting’ is the accountants who work for a business and keep track of its numbers. They record everything, analyze the data, and organize it into reports called financial statements, which are then given to the CEO, the board of directors, the shareholders, etc. to tell them how the company is doing.

‘Public accounting’ (as in Certified Public Accountant) has two main subclasses:

Audit, where you get hired by businesses to independently examine their financial statements and provide some verification that the managers who prepared them aren't lying or mistaken.

Tax, where you do taxes for people and businesses.

(+1: If you're a tech-savvy person, there's a huge amount of potential for crossover into technology work - data science, financial software, etc, etc. Though IT work has its own delights and frustrations.)

All three flavors of accounting require not only technical accounting knowledge but also at least some degree of business acumen to be truly good at (you'll develop this over time; I barely have any, the partners at my firm are very astute), and any of them can can put you literally anywhere, because everyone in every industry and lots of individuals need an accountant. (There are cross-state licensing issues that can affect how literal 'anywhere' is, so if you want to work somewhere specific that's a good thing to research in advance when planning out your degree, but even these are for the most part eminently surmountable). So particularly on the public side of things, it's a field that can expose you to a lot of different people and situations, and that's interesting. I like getting a glimpse of someone's life when I prepare their tax return. (I think I prefer individual returns to business returns for this reason, among others.) And if you're someone who likes business, it is a fantastic field from which to study it and could position you well for a more generally-businessy position down the road. (I have frankly found that I ... do not, so much. So keep that in mind when considering the rest of this opinion piece.)

All three types of accounting are, by their very nature, repetitive, in the sense that they're cyclical - you do the journal entries and close the books on one month, or you do a hundred tax returns and get through tax season, and then you do it all over again. Accounting isn't a field that really makes or does things - it measures what other people are doing, over and over and over again. It's a keeping-the-lights-on-and-wheels-running kind of field. It matters, because all three of those functions above are important in the context of our current economic arrangement. But some people are going to be happy doing that and some people are not.

Public accounting also has pretty punishing work schedules during crunch times. I can attest to that for tax (my current field), and have heard it's at least partially true for audit. This can be a good thing in some ways (I happen to like it), because it means there are some relaxed times as well - but again, some people are going to like the up-and-down rhythm and some people are going to want something more steady. (If you find this one isn't for you, you can always leave public accounting after a year or two and go into industry - that's what many people's planned trajectories are from the get go.)

In all three corners it's a field about developing expertise. You're doing something complicated for people which they don't know how to do for themselves, and you do sometimes get to come up with crucial information and/or creative solutions to help them. And in the broad societal scopes of public policy and the health of the economy, people having that expertise - in tax and its ramifications, in business, in financial accounting, in principled and accurate auditing - is important.

In a world where most of us regrettably have to do something for money, accounting is a pretty okay thing to do, and it pays money.

Being in the workforce for a few years has made me come to imagine a lot of things are tedious in some ways and important and interesting in others. Our incredibly complex global civilization goes because different people become experts in the minute, tedious details of their own different things, and then they all work in their own corners of the huge, infinitely complex machine. Tinkering with robots and living in laser-filled-basements are not that dissimilar to reading discourse over the minutia of the United States tax code. (These are all examples from relatively technical/'professional' career areas, because I don't really have first-hand experience with anything else (yet) - but maybe someone will chime in on that front in the notes.)

The extremely good news, which I can't emphasize enough, is that you're going to have a lot of opportunities to pivot, or change direction, or try different things, to eventually find the thing that at worst you don't mind becoming something of an expert in, and at best you absolutely love. I've already had three extremely different jobs, all of which have been very informative in terms of what I Do and Do Not like. It's surprising how often that doesn't line up with what I expected when I was younger. You might of course have a different experience - the point is you have plenty of time to experiment and find out.

But if I don't LOVE my career, isn't that terrible? Time for a confession, or something: I've always been an achiever-type, and in my youthier youth I would've answered the above question 'yes' - but in my first few of years out of school, whenever anyone would ask me what my future plans were, my answer was always '... I don't know? Try to get promoted, I guess?' I was really leaning on the external validation of what a 'good career' was without running that past whether it was what I wanted to achieve with my life. And over time that had a noticeable effect on my wellbeing. You're right that perfectionism will help, no matter what you go into - but you should be careful to keep an eye on whether it's really mostly helping your boss, and whether it's doing it at your expense. Don't get me wrong, this will make you a fantastic and therefore valued (read: employed) employee. Just be wary of it getting out of hand. (You might find you need to practice figuring out how and when to prioritize yourself even if it's inconvenient for others. I'm still practicing that now.)

Anyway, after a lot of reflection, I began to refine my idea of my capital-P Purpose, and it has little to do with working in a shiny fancy office or having a successful-sounding job title next to a well-known employer's name or really anything to do with accounting. Those things were only superficially rewarding. I'm working on rearranging my life to abandon some of the more costly ones to make room for my Purpose as I've come to understand it, and my license keeps me in overpriced coffees and, like, a house. It means even an occasionally disastrous person like me is doing reasonably okay (so far).

Some people love careers like that, though. Some people love living in basements full of lasers. It's really so individual. For me, it became clearer when I connected the dots between the things I kept coming back to time and time again, even in my most difficult moments, even years or decades apart. For other people, it might be very different.

But at the moment, you may not have all the information you need yet to make determinations about Purpose. Why would you, you're a baby; heck, so am I. It might evolve over the whole course your life. My main advice for you would be to just try something, or several things - whatever seems most interesting, or most practical, or ideally both! - and see how it goes. Like I said above, that will give you experiences instead of guesses, which will help you know. And you really do have so much time to work with. The most important thing, the thing I would tell my younger self, is to make sure that every so often you pause and honestly look. How do I feel about what I'm doing? Does it feel good because I like it, or because other people like it? Am I actually interested in building on and using the things I'm learning? Do I have a plan for the future? Is there anything about it I want to change, or add, or that doesn't actually matter to me? (And perhaps "What would I be doing right now/want to be doing in five years if I didn't have to make money?", because that might give you hints to what you want your money-career - if it isn't the same thing as your Purpose - to give you room for.)

Did I mention I think it's very individual? I think it's very individual. I invite anyone to add their own numerous-cents to this post - alternate takes on the accounting field (do you love it passionately? please tell this person why), additional career or life advice, etc. I'm just one person who's walking my one narrow path through the world with its particular terrain. Everyone's is going to look different.

P.S. Ask a Manager is imo an indispensable resource for getting a job - resumes, cover letters, interviews. Literally it has gotten me all my jobs.

It also gives a lot of great advice about what to consider in an employer and potential red flags - and I can attest that the culture of the company you work for and the management skills and style of your supervisor(s) matter more than almost anything when it comes to your day-to-day happiness in a job. This is part personal fit, part objective competence. It's not the end of the world if you take a misstep here either - it's something you figure out, just like everything else. You can do almost anything for a year - and you are NOT COMPELLED to even stay that long if it's really not working out.

P.P.P.S - and this is way out there ... I was exceptionally good at both reading/English and math as a young person - and it’s interesting that when that’s true, the careers people throw at you are all STEM-related. It’s almost as if people are predisposed to thinking STEM fields are more important, and that smart people belong in them. I have come to feel strongly that isn’t the case.

A lot of people (at least in my western/US culture) feel the humanities are an afterthought, but when I think about it, I think there are and have always been two main sources of human suffering in the world: nature and its limitations (hunger, health and disease, weather and environment, etc.) and other humans (war, murder, racism/sexism/all oppression and hatred, conquering and imperialism, poverty/socioeconomic inequality, and also elements of the way societies are organized that affect hunger, and health and disease, and weather and the environment, and so on).

STEM work is hugely important to making improvements in the first category, and helps with the second (it gives us the internet and weapons to defend ourselves from evil people who want to destroy us, for example). But a lot of the fundamental root issues in that second category are in the sphere of culture and the humanities - law and politics, sure, but those are derived from history, sociology and psychology, literature, cultural studies, philosophy, ethics, education, journalism, literature and the arts and pop culture (which informs and is informed by all of the above). The world needs smart people in those fields as well as STEM and business.

STEM fields often offer more money, or more certain money. Business fields offer sometimes significantly more. That’s a practical element to consider. And if you like a STEM thing, or a business thing, and want to go into it, please do and do fabulous things with it. All I mean is that if you find yourself considering a career in a humanities field, don’t be dissuaded only because people seem to think you’re too smart for it and would be better off doing something else.

[antiterf]

It has been a while since I started to study about radfem and the term TERF. I'm am from the most violent country for transpeople (brazil) and we don't use this term here (we say transphobic). I am into most part of the guidelines of radfem but I don't think it's right to exclude the transcommunity. I've been trying to inform myself about this subject but radfem is not common here. So, since u seem to know a lot, could u recomend artcles/videos about it? (1/2)

(2/2) Especially how the trans conmunity see it as a whole? I’m searching about this because the last that I want is to be disrespectful towards trans people. I apologize for my awful english Have a nice day

Before I go out on a hunt for a few things my best suggestion is to try to find people who know your first language so that way you can just talk to them in general about it. I can’t exactly come up with what to say but I can sort of read Spanish if that’s it. I would probably be able to comprehend and answer in English. I know the common language is Portuguese but I want to put in anything that could be slightly helpful here. (Even though I don’t know if anon would even want to go through with this if anyone would be willing to talk to them and knows Portuguese please say so).

I honestly don’t get as much information from videos and articles as I do from being on Tumblr over time. Social media is mostly where it is and they only occasionally show up in news articles. I just don’t watch videos in general because I have the attention span of a goldfish. 

A lot of info or arguments I use and save are on this one doc I made and a few blogs I follow are @azurowle (a really cool trans dude), @terfslying (an ex radfem disabled cis lesbian), @nerdylilpeebee (A friendly and nerdy trans girl), @thefiresontheheight (a trans lesbian that works in a psych hospital, she doesn’t go much in discourse anymore since she’s too busy being gay but her old stuff is still good to read). I swear I feel like I’m forgetting people… crap yeah @tygressofaera (she posts a lot of articles, has practically been here before time and has defended me in the past). 

“What Is a Woman?” I haven’t read through the entire thing but it seems to have good information. 

I don’t agree with this persons take on radfems as a whole but it may still be useful. 

The Trans Advocate is honestly a really useful site. 

This has a lot of general information but seems pretty damn useful

I hope you’re able to find the information you’re looking for and I’m sorry if I wasn’t much help. Also, don’t worry about your English, I honestly wouldn’t have even noticed anything if you hadn’t brought it up. 

If anyone else has any recommendations for anon please say so and thank you in advance. 

[kyunsies]

WAAAAH i just realized i never responded 😭😭 i’m sorry. i too wish i had know about kpop in high school, i was very much into 1D and bieber 🙃 i transitioned from CNCO and reggaeton to kpop….that was a ride going from spanish to korean 😂 but anyway i agree about 3rd gen music being so timeless, i do love it very much.

about 4th gen they really are getting younger and younger. every time i see their ages i audibly gasp, they’re younger than my sister (she’s 03). i personally think they shouldn’t be debuting any younger than 19 but i’m considered ancient to kpop stans so who am i to have an opinion lol but i keep thinking of all the discourse over shohei, the new sm rookie and ppl complaining about him being 96 line. personally I AM ALL for him debuting!

anyway i do hope ppl migrate back to tumbly bc twt is so ehhhh. i mean i use it a lot but i barely follow anyone except the groups i stan. though it would be nice to have more moots lol but only good ones

HI AGAIN LINA !!!! i hope u have been doing well these past few weeks we didn't talk!!! ITS TOTALLY OKAY !!!! i've been a bit busy so absolutely no worries, you just take your time <3 but LSDKFJ STOP i was such a hard core directioner in high school it's not even funny ;____; listened to all their albums kept up w everything they did all that jazz lsdkfj :') but ooooooh spanish music too!!! that's cool that you have experienced a lot of fandoms tho skldfjs it's always interesting :) and YEAH i don't want to sound stuck in my ways all the time and ofc i think there is talent all over the place, 3rd gen will always just have a special place in my heart <3

and yes 4th gen just keeps on getting younger and younger and like, i do think that it's cool that ppl are recognizing talent at a young age! but i agree with you in that there has to be some sort of system behind this stuff lol like, i think i've heard somewhere that nct has some new SM rookies and one of them is a 98 liner or something (which is my age lmao) and like !!! fans are getting mad that this is considered 'old' like,,,,,,,how messed up is that?? sorry i don't think children should be exposed to the crippling industry that is entertainment where you are basically being stripped from your core under the eyes of millions of ppl SLDKFJ ;____; i'm sure i'm considered ancient for kpop fans standards (i turn 24 this december hhh) but it's literally crazy how the younger generation has such a warped idea of what is "old" and in kpop it's no different,,,,, like did anyone give other ppl crap for liking one direction at literally any stage of life ?? i don't think so !!!! i am ranting at this point i am SORRY SLDFKJ but i just think it's getting really toxic that so many younger fans are putting like, an "age limit" on how to enjoy things that genuinely make us happy and that the younger you debut is the better when it's like no you need to become a resilient older individual i think !!! AND THOSE ARE MY THOUGHTS LOL i completely agree w you lina !!!!!

and PLS DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THATTT after wonho left there was such a huge migration from monbebe tumblr to twt because of hashtagging and stuff but i was surprised mbb never migrated back here :( tumblr although is a hellsite LMAO gives you much more creative freedom not to mention the algorithm just makes SENSE. i hate twt besides being updated on stuff as well kdsjf <3

[randomnessunicorn-imagine]

hOI!!! May you please do "I'LL PROTECT YOU! I'M BATMAN!" with UF Sans from the meme prompt? Thanks!!😘

— Post Scriptum: This prompt is so old but I had no time and inspiration for thinking about fanfictions before, so I am doing it now. Even now, the reader has a name that is neutral, since I prefer like this, their name is Alex, simple. It’s totally random-!I hope someone can enjoy it since I am not truly sure if it’s good enough eue’’

Prompt: “I’ll protect you! I am Batman!” ( From this list )Pairing: Fell! Sans x Neutral! ReaderRating: Green (General contents)

A Drunky Mess ~

It should have been a calm and relaxing afternoon and Alex should have spent this day in peace. Sadly, a certain skeleton has decided to get drunk just today. Actually, Sans had promised to Alex that this was the last bottle he touched but it was not true. There were so many bottles he had not only touched, it was like he was doing love with them since he was hitting to the bottle like Gollum was attached to his precious, so it was not a beautiful picture since it appeared very creepy and Sans was still a skeleton. The sense of macabre was part of his nature. Alex did not know the reason why he was drinking since when they came back home, he was already in those miserable conditions and Alex was looking at him with pity.Actually, those last days Alex was very busy with their job so they stayed by themselves most of the time and Sans could not tolerate to be ignored like this so he felt a little offended like he was the child who felt less loved by his mother. He was losing time and he hated working so much, it was a waste of energy and time for him. Sans said he did not want to be part of this capitalist society to justify his laziness. He felt just like the protagonist of the famous movie Fight Club, the man without a name who lived his life without any purpose and his main passion was reading Ikea’s magazines searching for the perfect furnishings that would have given to him the peace of mind. It was impossible anyway, and even this drunk Sans was telling free nonsense without a purpose. At least, he did not start to frequent clubs of terminally ill patients who got testicular cancer, and it would have been so problematic. Maybe Sans would have been a member of the A.A. if he kept on drinking like this. Alex tried so hard to dissuade him asking for an explication about his obscene behaviour, then Sans looked at them with a sad expression confessing the truth. Alex was avoiding him because they did not want to stay with him anymore for some mysterious reasons. The eyes of Alex became wetter and they felt a warm feeling in their heart since he seemed so serious in his drunkenness and everybody knew drunk people never lied. They hugged him instantly, patting their skull since this was a scene too adorable to be denied. «I was just busy with my job, you know? It’s the thing people do for living and pay their bills and all that capitalist stuff…», Alex said ironically, laughing a little, «That thing you should do but you are a lazy ass…», they tried to be playful even if this phrase was a hidden critique. It seemed, this explication did not help Sans to stay better because he felt tired and lost anyway, «Ouch—Ya’re gonna to become a maniac worker like my bro, fuu–», he said with confusion in his voice and then he started to sob searching for the bottle that was his only friend and his only hope in this moment. Alex was losing their patience since he acted like a little child and maybe they had to behave like Papyrus to have some consideration from this impertinent skeleton. «So, do you want I ask to Papyrus to kick your ass or you decide to be less lazy and act like a mature person, hum? ». It seemed “Papyrus” was like the magical word because Sans’ sockets became black and he started to panic, sweating like he already went out of a sauna but the sense of looseness was not the same.  Sans could not even speak and he felt pain in his ass yet so maybe it was the time he could stop with this awful show. Alex felt a little sad because it seemed Sans listened only to his brother ignoring them like they were not truly important. So many times, they have told to him to stop with those bad habits but he has never considered their opinion like it was not worthy. Only now, Alex realized it, and this consideration filled their heart with rage and gloom. Their expression became darker, and with a low tone of voice they said, «Ah, I am not going to call your brother, I don’t want to disturb him.» Sans seemed more relieved after this conclusion. Before he could answer, Alex continued their discourse, «Since you are unable to be serious and you don’t give a shit about me and my worries, I think I will go. Cheers to you-!». Then, Alex took their things moving towards the door because maybe Sans was not the only one who needed to drink.

Even if he was drunk, he could understand Alex was mad at him and they had all the reasons to consider him like a total insensitive bastard. Before they could leave, he started screaming that he did not mean it and he cared a lot about them. Sans was just a freak, so Alex was free to leave him since they had kept persevering to him even if he did not deserve anything. Then, his voice became harsher and the act of speaking seemed so difficult to Sans since his words turned into sighs and he exploded in tears like a little baby. Since he was still drunk, Alex doubted he could remember this conversation since it seemed he was suffering so much and maybe the alcohol was not helping him to dissimulate this stress. Exhaling a deep breath, Alex turned around saying they were sorry but they felt truly sad for his childish behaviour, «Ah, ok… We both crossed the line, and maybe you should stop to drink and I should stop to overwork myself… Ok?». Alex got closer to Sans showing a little smile, maybe it was all useless since he was going to forget everything when he became sober, but Alex wanted to try anyway. Sans looked at them like a frustrated dog, «Uhm… You are not going to leave me…?», that was not suppose to be a question because he wanted them to say the same phrase, but he was still unsure. Then, Alex embraced him kissing his bone cheek and his crying get intensified since his emotions were so much and he could not understand his mind anymore. «I am not going to leave you but stop to cry, you are such a crybaby. Where is the badass skeleton I know?», Sans sniffed in a way that was not that badass and Alex laughed. He grunted full of embarrassment because he had to be strong and cool for them, without acting like a spoiled baby. Sans, trying to act chillier than ever, stood up on his feet staggering like a monkey, then he took the bottle and Alex started to worry he was still too drunk. He raised the bottle up, screaming between his sobs, «Yeah, you’re right. I decide, I stop with this shit–», he looked the bottle with the most hostile glare he could ever do even if it appeared funny because he did not appear scary, at all. Then, he continued saying, «You know, you said I don’t have a job, but I actually have and it’s very cool.» he was raving again and Alex looked at him with curiosity, asking, «Oh, really? And which one?» they raised an eyebrow, dubious. «I’m a fucking hero babe, and if I’m drunk I can’t protect you… Yeah!», it seemed he had a revelation, « I’LL PROTECT YOU! I’M BATMAN!». Alex face palmed themselves but it was better if they would have seen the next scene because Sans’ drunkenness was still exponential. He hit his skull with the same bottle, like it was a normal thing, then he started laughing like a mad man saying he was fine and it was the final demonstration of his coolness because he was still strong and worthy to be their mate. Yes, it was crazy but Alex was happy seeing the usual jerk they loved so much. Maybe Alex had to be the one to protect him especially in these weird situations where Sans lost his rationality becoming a freak of nonsense.

[sage-nebula]

I'm done watching the TMSE eps! The action was cool! And Alan jumping to reach Lizardon when he's hurt was great.

I’m happy you enjoyed them!! ♥ And YES, aside from how much I love (beyond words) what Alan sparing .01 seconds before leaping out of the aircraft to go save Lizardon says about their bond and how much Alan loves that dragon, I also think that was one of the coolest bits of animation the series has had to date. (That, and Lizardon corkscrewing around … I think it was one of Kyogre’s attacks, might’ve been one of Groudon’s, though.) It was just so fluid and smooth, and so realistically done, in that you know that Alan’s body weight and the momentum of his jump would swing him around like that. God, it was awesome. One of my favorite parts. ♥

But that aside … yeah, no, I don’t think you’re being picky at all. While I did like it the first time I watched, the more times I’ve watched TSME + Alan’s main series episodes (and I’ve rewatched them all dozens of times—I have some parts of dialogue straight up memorized), the more I’ve come to realize that Alan’s and Manon’s relationship is not only unhealthy, but was also very poorly developed and written (which is part of what makes it so unhealthy). I’m putting the rest of this under a cut, because it’s an unpopular fandom opinion that’s very critical, and I do not want Discourse™, so no one better start any with me when I’m being as polite as I can by putting this under a cut to begin with. 

(And that includes vaguing about me, because so help me, if I find out you’ve vagued about me / made passive-aggressive posts whatsoever as a result of this, I’ll block you at best and give you the aggressive fight you’ll clearly be craving at worst, no forgiveness and no mercy. I’m seriously not in the mood whatsoever. So if you really like their relationship / believe Manon did no wrong ever in her life and can’t stand to read opinions to the contrary, just do literally everyone a favor and don’t click to go under the cut.)

To begin with, Alan’s and Manon’s relationship is predicated on Manon ignoring Alan’s boundaries and denied consent for companionship and partnership. She develops an interest in him when she sees him use mega evolution, and overhears him say that he wants to “defeat all mega evolutions and stand at the top.” Manon believes that Alan has a lot of personal ambition, which is something that resonates with her (given that she also has personal ambitions, and she admires / values those who believe similarly). All of that, plus the fact that she (as part of her own personal ambition) wants to use mega evolution for her own strength, power, and glory, leads to her latching onto him so that he can lead her to mega stones.

The problem is that Alan does not want her company. He makes this explicitly clear time and again throughout TSME 1. He calls her “pesky” (i.e. annoying), he tells her flat out “don’t follow me,” he tells her that certain things about him aren’t her business, he ditches her at every opportunity, et cetera. It’s made abundantly clear, over and over again, that Alan does not want Manon’s company. Manon, however, ignores this. When he tells her, “don’t follow me,” she shouts at him, “I can do whatever I like!” When he ditches her at the PokéCenter and goes to meet Siebold for a match on his own, she chases him down and shouts at him to stop leaving her behind in the middle of the restaurant, causing a scene because he didn’t wait for her even though he never consented to their partnership (and flat out told her that he didn’t want it). Some have argued that since he stopped to help her capture that flabébé, and that since he escorted her to the PokéCenter, that clearly meant he wanted her to come along. However, not only is Alan not anywhere remotely near that level of tsundere (calling him a tsundere shows a blatant lack of understanding of his character; if anything he would be a kuudere, but he’s not that, either), but he stopped to help her capture the flabébé because he saw that she was struggling (he flat out says, “You’re struggling” before he offers assistance) and he doesn’t like to see people struggle or suffer. He always steps in to help, first thing. And after that, he escorted her to the PokéCenter because she demonstrated twice in that battle that she was prone to getting distracted, the second time of which was at the detriment of the poisoned pokémon she had just captured. (“That’s great, now get it to the Pokémon Center so you can treat the poison,” Alan says, as Manon celebrates her capture.) Alan stopped to help an inexperienced trainer, and then escorted her to the PokéCenter so that her flabébé wouldn’t suffer from poison any longer. Once both things were accomplished, he left, because he did not want to travel with her. He had his own journey, he didn’t want to be a Babysitter™.

But Manon didn’t respect that. She continued to hunt him down, no matter how many times he said “no” or “don’t” or “stop.” His refused consent meant nothing in comparison to her own desires. Eventually, by the end of the episode, she wears him down and he gives up, allowing her to “do whatever [she] want[s]” because he realizes that nothing he says or does is effective enough to get her to back off. (I mean, if I were in his shoes, I would have resorted to calling out Lizardon to scare her into running away, but Alan is a lot nicer than I am.) Manon railroaded over his boundaries until he gave dubious consent because nothing he did to turn her away was effective. 

So the very foundation of their relationship is Alan saying “no” and Manon saying “yes” and Alan sighing and giving in because she won’t take “no” for an answer. They didn’t enter into truly consensual partnership at the end of TSME 1, because someone giving in purely because saying “no” and “don’t follow me” and “stop following me” isn’t the same as truly consenting to partnership. Perhaps because of this, we don’t see anything of them enjoying each other’s company in either TSME 2 or TSME 3. In TSME 2, we see Alan having to pull Manon out of jam after jam; she trips down the hill and gets stuck in the bramble, and Alan (exasperated, and having to pull himself away from his work) chases after her, only to find that Steven rescued her first (which Alan thanks him for). She does the same thing a little while later, and this time Alan—grousing over the fact that “you’re always like this”—goes to get her again. During the Mega Rayquaza attack, she gets thrown off her feet and Alan dives to catch her. He protects her, obviously, and looks out for her, but again: This is the type of person he is. He’s not going to let a ten-year-old child come to harm when he can do something to prevent it. He’s not going to let her be stuck in bramble after she tumbles down a hill if he can help get her out of it. He can’t stand to see people hurt or suffering, even if it’s a minor inconvenience they brought on themselves, and even if they annoy him (which Manon does, because these are two whole specials in which he doesn’t once smile genuinely at her). To that end, while I still find the scene funny because of how big brother - little sister it is, he flat out tells her to “go somewhere else” when Lysandre arrives, and is constantly stressing over her annoying or agitating Lysandre (because you know, the last thing someone who has been emotionally abused for several years wants is for their abuser to be set off by something), so yeah, in TSME 2 it’s readily apparent that he found her presence more stressful than fun.

TSME 3 is along the same lines. Manon insults Alan when he follows Steven into the Devon building so they can communicate with Lysandre about the megalith and Primal Legedaries (“Don’t you have this thing called ‘emotion’?”), because she, I guess, doesn’t recognize or respect the fact that he’s working, this is serious, it was never meant to be a fun journey, she should have realized that when she refused to stop stalking him. She then grows agitated when he volunteers to go stop the Primal Legendaries, because she has finally realized that he does not have personal ambition, that he is the type of person who will volunteer to “fight against the world’s destruction” because it’s the Right thing to do. Manon is not that type of person. That type of motivation doesn’t make sense to her. When she does stow away to go to the Primal Legendary battle site, she does so for Alan’s sake, because she’s attached to him and views him as one of her own. (You may notice all these Slytherin qualities piling up, and yeah—Manon is very Slytherin, as I’ve discussed at length before.) Regardless, she fights with him over it, and Alan—recognizing that she cares about his safety, and feeling a bit touched by that, but not wanting her at the Primal Legendaries site because it’s dangerous and she would just be at risk again like she was before, particularly if she doesn’t even want to be there (and she doesn’t—she flat out says that she’s not going)—tells her to go back to Kalos. Again, some people take issue with this, but Kalos is her home region, she only went to Hoenn to tag along with him, she can resume her badge quest (if she’s even on one—tbh, she never says she is) once she goes back home, and anyway, he’s not forcing her. Even if she doesn’t go back to Kalos, she can go somewhere else in Hoenn. The point is, he’s telling her—once again!—not to follow him. 

 But she does. And to be fair, it works out for the best; thanks to Hari-san’s quick thinking (because remember, Manon did not give him a single command in all of TSME 3) and Steven’s Mega Metagross, Manon was able to drag Alan’s body to safety after Primal Groudon knocked him unconscious and almost killed him. And this, at the tail end of TSME 3, is what finally makes Alan warm to Manon. It’s not that she saved him, but rather, it’s their conversation near the end of the episode. This exchage:

Alan: “Were you scared?”

Manon: “Yeah … but … I was really worried, so—!”

Alan: “Thank you.”

This is the very first genuine smile we get from him to her, and it’s at the end of TSME 3. Alan is not only courageous, but he values courage; there’s a reason why he specifically asked Manon if she was scared when she did what she did. He was confirming a thought, which is that she was terrified, but did what she felt was right anyway, which is important to him. True courage is doing what must be done despite being frightened, and that’s what Manon did. When Manon showed true courage, that won Alan over. It took nearly three entire specials to do it, but she did it. She finally did it.

The problem, as you pointed out, is that this isn’t good writing, because we never actually see them bond. Not once does Alan want to be around her. Not once does he actually enjoy spending time with her. To be fair, in TSME 2 and TSME 3 he’s stressed the entire time because Lysandre is there. But even before Lysandre shows up, Alan shows exasperation at Manon’s antics, rather than enjoyment. He’s not spending time with a friend; he’s babysitting a child that won’t stop tagging along with him. TSME 1, the entirety of which shows him repeatedly trying to ditch her while she refuses to be ditched, doesn’t help this. Lysandre isn’t physically present at all in TSME 1, so Alan is as relaxed as he ever is in TSME, and yet he still doesn’t have any desire to hang around Manon. The fact that he repeatedly tries to ditch her cements this.

So even though he warms up to her due to her act of courage in TSME 3, yeah, we have no real reason to be invested in their relationship, unless Manon’s feelings are all that you care about, in which case you just want him to be a pretty trophy for her to finally win. If your objective is to see Manon happy by having her “get the boy,” then yeah, I guess that would make you happy. But as for me, well, I actually care about Alan, so to see his wishes and consent explicitly disrespected again, and again, and again, and again in TSME 1, and then to see him having to just try to babysit / protect her in TSME 2 and 3 until she finally does something for him in return … yeah, that relatonship doesn’t do very much for me. I’m not a fan.

That said, we can kind of understand why, perhaps, the sudden (platonic) affection he felt for Manon in that moment made her so important to him if we consider the fact that he has not only been protecting her throughout the past two traumatic events, but also that he’s been emotionally abused by Lysandre for the past two years (well, the actual time span isn’t given, but it’s been a long time, and that’s the time frame I gave it), and that Manon’s hug is probably the first hug he’s had from another human being in that time. He hasn’t seen Sycamore since he entered Lysandre’s service, which also means that he hasn’t had any emotional support from another human being at all in that time. He has Lizardon, of course, and Lizardon is irreplaceable, but it’s a bit different when you can get that affection from another human being. Alan already demonstrated that he never wanted Manon in danger, over and over again in the specials, and that was just when she was a kid that was tagging along with him. Now she’s someone who genuinely cares about him, she’s given him the first human hug he’s had in potential years, and now he wants to make absolutely sure she’s not in danger. He wants her to be safe, he wants her to have a good journey. He wants her far, far, far away from him. When we think about it like that, Alan considering getting strength to protect her can make sense, even though I once again agree that it was rushed as hell and doesn’t feel as emotionally satisfying as his relationship with Sycamore. (Because even though we only have flashbacks of their relationship at this point, the very first flashback we get of them in TSME 1 is one where Alan was enjoying spending time with Sycamore, where he grinned and smiled genuinely at him; and in TSME 2, we not only see him once again beaming at Sycamore (and calling him voluntarily), but we also see that the only reason why he agreed to Lysandre’s service was to protect Sycamore, so that makes their relationship feel satisfying even before their main series interactions, which is something that—despite all the on-screen time they spent together—we just did not get from Alan and Manon.)

Of course, then TSME 4 happens, and Manon once again hunts him down (across continents, this time!) when he leaves her behind. She confronts him, and he rebuffs her. Contrary to what some try to claim, in this fight, he does explicitly tell her that they cannot travel together, and when she demands to know why, he explicitly tells her because she will be in danger again. And she doesn’t care. Not only does she repeatedly cut him off when he’s in the middle of talking during this argument, but she rebukes each and every attempt he makes to end the partnership (that, as he points out in this fight, he never even consented to) before he screams a lie at her. He tried every single tactic he had to try and end that partnership. He told her no, and that didn’t work. He told her not to follow him, and that didn’t work. He tried leaving her behind, and that didn’t work. He told her they couldn’t travel together anymore, and that didn’t work. He told her he was worried about her safety, and that didn’t work. I have to point out that if their genders were reversed, people would be up in arms about a girl getting so desperate to get a boy to stop following her that she has to scream a lie at him to get him to back off, and they wouldn’t feel any sympathy whatsoever when the boy cried later for it. But sexist double standards mean that the fandom hates and trashes all over Alan for this instead when Manon finally leaves, and then sends her chespin away from her (instead of recalling him to his pokéball), which then results in him getting in trouble and landing in a coma. Fandom thinks that’s Alan’s fault.

It’s not. It’s hers. Her constant railroading of Alan’s boundaries aside, she was the irresponsible trainer who sent Hari-san away instead of recalling him to his pokéball. It’s no different than when newbie!Ash abandoned Metapod in the first few episodes of the OS, to the point where Metapod was taken hostage by the beedrill. The only difference is, Ash was raked over the coals for it, and forced to own up to his own irresponsible behavior. He learned his lesson and grew as a trainer and person because of it.

Manon never did. Not only is she never called out by fandom, but Alan blames himself as well, feeling guilty for yelling at Manon, somehow construing what happened to Hari-san to therefore be his fault (presumably because he didn’t protect her, as he feels was his responsibility). Therefore, he decides to devote his gathering of mega evolution energy to healing Hari-san, so that Manon will no longer be in despair. (Because remember, Alan hates to see people struggle. He didn’t even want to see Manon struggle with bramble. So how do you think it makes him feel to hear someone, much less a child like her, sobbing? Alan cares too much. He can’t shrug and say she should have been more responsible. It kills him to see someone heartbroken like that, so he decides to save Hari-san to make her smile. Again, it’s just the type of person he is.)

Without giving too much away about the future episodes, the problem with this is that Alan’s motivation is guilt. He feels guilty for what happened to Hari-san. He wants to make it right. And because he blames himself for yelling at Manon, which he then thinks led to what happened to Hari-san, how likely do you think it’s going to be that he’ll tell her “no” to things in the future? The last time he asserted his boundaries, Hari-san ended up in a coma. He fixed that, but he won’t want it to happen again. This makes their relationship very unhealthy, especially because later episodes make it very, abundantly clear that Manon has not learned a damn thing from any of this and continues to push her own desires onto him. (What happens in XYZ045 was so bad that it actually triggered me re: bad memories of my own boundaries being violated in my youth. It’s a huge part of why I disavow everything after XYZ044.) Unless Manon learns her lesson and stops overriding his boundaries, and Alan has it reinforced that he’s allowed to set those boundaries, their relationship could get very toxic, very fast, and all at Alan’s expense. And again, this is on top of being so poorly developed that we don’t actually see them enjoying each other’s company, that we don’t actually see Alan wanting to spend time with her, that the most we get is that he’s grateful for her assistance, responds warmly to her display of courage, wants her safe, and feels guilty about Hari-san. The fact of the matter is, these two characters are just incompatible, but because the anime team was worried that the children in the audience wouldn’t be able to relate to Alan since he’s a teenager, they inserted Manon to be a viewpoint character for the audience. No wonder their relationship is so poorly developed; Manon’s function was to be an audience surrogate, not to have a positive impact on Alan’s life.

So yeah, just … you’re not being picky. I’ll admit that my feelings are especially negative given the way fandom likes to treat Alan as Manon’s pretty trophy, stripping him of just about everything he is so that he can be a prize to prop her up instead, but again, I’ve rewatched TSME and Alan’s main series episodes at least ten times each over the past year. And every rewatch I have makes me realize more and more just how underdeveloped and honestly not good their relationship is. I try to fix this in my own writings by having Alan assert his boundaries more + having Manon go on on her own separate journey at the end of canon, without him, so that she can learn and grow as an independent trainer and person (because she’s barely a trainer by the end of it all, tbh; she never once battles, and the series repeatedly draws parallels between her and Bonnie, a seven-year-old who also doesn’t battle because she’s too young). I try to fix the damage as best I can, but it’s damage that had no real reason to exist in the first place. If Manon had been in the main series instead as a traveling companion for Ash’s rival Shouta, and a rival / protégé for Ash, then she and Alan could have met as opponents in the League, she would have had more screentime and agency in the narrative, and literally everything would have been improved by a thousandfold.

But c’est la vie, that’s not what happened. Not very much I can do about it. :/