#and then I just put things that don't include any fandoms that are relevant to me now. how cool. who cares.

[cindersnows]

the problem with mitsi (or as i like to call it. mitsogyny)

(context: this was written under a youtube video, which i'm sure most of us have at least seen pop up in our recommendeds, in response to many people taking criticism against the new episode. it has been edited a little to be more cohesive as a somewhat-essay)

ok, i wanted to write out a rant/essay/ramble/whatever sort of summarising the criticism against mitsi's plotline because a lot of the people here seem to be misunderstanding the fundamental issue that people have with it, including some of those people themselves.

first off, an analysis that i think tell both sides of the argument very well which i feel should be read before reading the essay: Mitsi: What Makes A Fridged Character (and why y'all are wrong about it) | an AvA essay by InksandPensblog. i will note: i don't care to discuss whether mitsi was fridged or not and that won't be of much importance in this post. the above link gives some insight into some of the fandom's criticism of mitsi and how she was "fridged", defining common tropes for examples. that's what's relevant to this post.

the main issue with mitsi, in my opinion, is less with the fact that mitsi's a girl and moreso the fact that she's one of the only female-coded character in the series, and that her character's main purpose was to further victim's own development. the other arguably female-coded character in the series is pink, who (like navy) only really exists to explain purple's motivations. i don't have much of an issue with that since they're not meant to be important or sympathised with at all. that's not their job in the story.

with mitsi, i've seen people point out that she has more character to her than just victim's love interest and supporter: she invents rocketcorp, she's smart, she's kind, innocent and helpful. narratively speaking, she shows other creations' relationships with their animators, parallels her innocence with victim's trauma, and introduces victim to the outernet (as most fans call the stick realm).

but most of this things imo are either stretches or invalid arguments. she's not really a 2/3-dimensional character in any way; her main character traits boil down to the fact that she likes to be in service of others with no nuance behind why she likes helping people. she hypes up victim for the villagers, she starts a company with him to share his talents with the world, and she helps him overcome his trauma from alan's torture. all of her main plot beats center around victim: and while technically the sticks are genderless and free to be interpreted however the viewer wants, alan and most of his team see all the main characters as male, and that subconciously affects how they're written. mitsi, the first major female-coded character, spends most of her storyline in service of victim, a character not written as female.

there's also the issue of her being victim's canonical love interest. i feel like this statement from alan is important to keep in mind (don't mind the sound effects and edits, this is the only isolated clip i can find at the moment). in particular:

"i just assume that [the ava/m characters] are just a bunch of bros]. i haven't thought of adding any female stick figures but i think it'd be good. i don't want to introduce any romance though, i don't want that to be a theme."

he seems to have changed his mind on that last part, which is fine, but the notable part for me is that he seems to associate female characters with romance from the getgo. before anyone misinterprets this, i'm not trying to call alan sexist or anything. but there's a common issue with women in stories being reduced to just a romantic partner for the male lead, and mitsi falls under this, with her entire character existing to serve victim. (not to mention people will make things about romance whether you like it or not. that's just basic fandom. search up grapeduo or chodark.) even her death is to put victim on the path of vengeance--- it doesn't need to happen to show the extent of tco and tdl's destruction, because that's already made pretty clear in ava s2 the flashback and the earlier scenes showing various characters escaping burning buildings. when you write a female-coded character whose only purpose is to serve a male character, you're contributing to sexist narratives.

a counter i see many people point out with the idea that she has no character is that she does have character traits, it's just that they're generic ones like "kind" and "innocent". the issue is that she has no flaws to counterpoint this; it's not that she didn't have enough screentime. in ava4 for example, we see tsc's flaws pretty clearly; they can be very mean when they want to, they're petty (albeit for a fair reason), they're a little impulsive. this is shown in 11 minutes (from the moment they come alive to the end of the video).

with mitsi meanwhile… she doesn't seem to have any flaws? she helps victim whenever she can. she's nice to all the villagers. her customers all like her and she's a great leader at rocket corp (to note, specifically as part of a pair with victim. they're a power couple, she's barely given credit for her work alone). she has 13 minutes of screentime, or 10 if you count from her waking up in the outernet. there's plenty of opportunities to show her having flaws; maybe she acts a little selfish during tdl and tco's attack, only wanting to help herself and agent smith, or maybe she overworks herself, or feels awkward at having too much attention (and that could also be why she redirects so much attention to victim, she's shy). you could argue that the episode needs to develop victim and agent smith too, but ava4 shows that's easy to do too: just a few seconds dedicated to showing rgyb fighting over who leaves first shows that they can be selfish and childish. it's very easy to insert a moment like that for mitsi.

it's a little disappointing when the first major female-coded character in ava is completely flawless, with no personality outside of being nice and helpful for others.

also, slightly unrelated, check out this quote from mitsi's plushie website: "her white featureless face seems to ooze mystery and feminine power all at the same time." her main character trait, as a woman, is being feminine. it's irritating as someone who's been raised a woman to see her reduced to just her gender. she feels more plastic than a person, like the concept of what a woman should be (perfect, kind, useful) and not an actual character/person.

i would expect more from the writing in the series seeing as it's not just an independent passion project anymore, and has multiple writers that all could've worked to flesh out mitsi, or at least get a sensitivity reader of sorts to point these issues out. it's extremely disappointing and i can understand why people were upset.

tldr: the problem isn't just that mitsi's a girl, or that she's nice or dating victim, it's that she's written in a misogynistic way.

[copperbadge]

Hi CB! I've followed your work for a while and I'm curious - I've seen that you do many times on a repetitive and consistent manner.......how? By the love of gods, how? What is this magic? Is it inherited? Genetic? Signed, please-halp

Hey, thanks for reading! I think you may have missed a word in the ask so I am taking a best guess at what you were inquiring about, but I'm guessing you were asking about consistent and repeat ability to write and post fiction? Gosh that sounds egotistical of me but I used to be known for being prolific and I think I'm still known for, if not having the BEST prose, at least having the ability to be of consistent quality. :)

The good news is that it is neither magic nor genetic, and one of those things that anyone can achieve -- it just takes time and a bit of effort. The secret is that I wasn't always even a good writer; what I have always been is a passionate writer. My early fanfic, from fourteen to eighteen, was actually very bad. But I did it a lot. It's hard to get truly good at something if you aren't passionate about it because you won't want to do it so often that you get good at it, but fortunately I fell in love with it. And once you're good at something you do want to do it all the time!

In my teens I wrote absolutely tons of fanfic, and if you were to read it (you can't, it's not under my name and some of it is lost to the ages) you could actually see me improving, because I started out so terribly bad. We're talking "Multiple people speaking in one paragraph" bad. But I kept writing and took feedback and when I went to college I took classes (I had a kind of unofficial minor in playwriting, including having several short plays produced) and when I came back to fandom after college I was...decent. And this you can trace, if you start reading at the start of my AO3 account where all my fanfic since 2003 is stashed; you can see I used to be more awkward in my prose, my pacing wasn't as good, what I considered relevant to include for the story wasn't as polished as it is now.

So, there are almost five million words on my AO3 account, which doesn't include anything I wrote before 2003; I'm forty-five and started writing when I was just shy of fifteen. This will be my thirtieth year writing fiction in April. If you spend that much time writing, even if you don't necessarily TRY to improve, you will learn and grow. And you learn how your own creative process works and how to wrestle with that, so you become consistent simply because you gain a kind of mental muscle-memory.

The thing is, quality and consistency is nice, but it's not necessary to enjoy either fandom or fanfic, or even writing. If you love to write, that's the best thing; you will bring yourself joy. It's one reason I never even considered making a career as a writer, because I didn't want my joy to become my job. That's not to shit on professional writers by ANY means, I have several as friends and of course I admire many well-known authors. But for me, it was important to preserve the parts I loved best, and I didn't think I could do that and still try to get a paycheck from it.

So the trick of quality, consistent writing is to love it enough to do it until you develop your skills and grow as an artist. But the real trick of any artistic expression is to love it for itself, to put heart into your work, and to do everything you can to protect what gives you pleasure. Quality and consistency are nice but if you love what you do they really, eventually, cease to matter. :)

[cooking-with-hailstones]

Statistical analysis of the most popular A:TLA fics on AO3

(All of this is accurate as of May 27 2024)

I like numbers and statistical analysis and for some unfathomable reason I find it calming. So last night I made this spreadsheet!

DISCLAIMER: This is not a judgement of the quality, value, or merits of any of the fics on this list. It's just me being curious about what's popular with the A:TLA fandom on AO3. I was genuinely surprised at some of the results!

Observations and analysis under the cut:

TL:DR, the fandom fucking loves putting Zuko into Situations.

Methodology: I'm including all fics from the first page of results from the most kudos'd, commented, hits, and bookmarks tagged under the Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon, 2005) tag on ao3. I am deliberately not including any larger multifandom flash fiction or drabble collections because I don't think they're super relevant. This ended up including 38 fics in total.

I put all the fics into one single spreadsheet in order to compare the differences between fics that are really high on the kudos count but not the hit count, or what has a lot of comments but fewer hits. Basically, I'm throwing a lot of things together to observe what gets engagement and looking at patterns that emerge!

Top 5 most popular fics by hit count:

Salvage - MuffinLance

Fractures - EvieNyx

Embers- Vathara

Towards the Sun - MuffinLance

The Art Of Burning - hella1975

Max: 1,407,170 (Salvage -MuffinLance)

Min: 78,168 (Risking it all - Sreeder)

Average: 349,442

Top 5 most popular fics by kudos count:

Salvage - MuffinLance

The Family You Choose - TunaFishChris

where the stars do not take sides - WitchofEndor

Fractures - EvieNyx

The beginning of a new and brighter birth - aloneintherain

Max: 59,947 (Salvage - MuffinLance)

Min: 3293 (Risking it all - Sreeder)

Average: 19,868

Top 5 most popular fics by number of comments:

The Art Of Burning - hella1975

Salvage - MuffinLance

Fractures - EvieNyx

Towards the Sun - MuffinLance

War Games - Lovely_Elbow_Leech

Max: 13,469 (The Art Of Burning - hella1975)

Min: 358 (Hallowed - Haircrescendo)

Average: 3634

Top 5 most popular fics by number of bookmarks:

absence of heat, excess of destiny - theycallmesuperboy

Salvage - MuffinLance

where the stars do not take sides - WitchofEndor

The Family You Choose - TunaFishChris

The beginning of a new and brighter birth - aloneintherain

Max: 150,317 (absence of heat - theycallmesuperboy)

Min: 430 (Risking it all - Sreeder)

Average: 9297

Highest kudos/hit ratio: Safety First - Haircrescendo (20.36%)

Lowest kudos/hit ratio: My Heart Burns For You - alwaysZutarian (0.89%)

Average kudos/hit ratio: 8.25%

Fic Ratings:

G: 9

T: 18

M: 6

E: 2

Unrated: 3

Popular authors (people who showed up more than once):

Aloneintherain (3)

Haircrescendo (5)

MuffinLance (4)

WitchofEndor (2)

Characters:

Literally all of these fics are Zuko-centric. Not all of them are Zuko-pov but every. single. one. focuses on Zuko as a main character. At least one of the following tags is on every single fic in this list: "The Gaang & Zuko", "Zuko & Zuko's Crew", "Zuko & Iroh" "Zuko & Azula" and "Zuko & [insert gaang member here]"

Relationships:

Ok this is what actually shocked me the most. I fully expected to see more Kataang, Zutara, etc in the top rated fics, but NO! Only 21 out of the 38 fics had any relationship slash tag, and of those, 20/21 were Sokka/Zuko (shoutout to My Heart Burns For You as the token Zutara fic to make it into this list). I did NOT realize Zukka was so popular! Now I'm super curious about what it would be like to run these numbers on FF.net because I know so much A:tla fanfic was written before ao3 existed and most hasn't been cross-posted, and Zukka wasn't a popular ship until more recently.

Other random observations:

There seems to be a pretty even split between post-canon firelord Zuko fics and canon-divergent "Zuko joins the Gaang early" fics.

Only one modern au as far as I could tell! (shoutout to "The Good Vanilla")

We all seem to love a Dadkoda fic

There is a very strong correlation between one-shots and a high kudos/hit ratio.

Seemingly no correlation between word count and number of kudos. The top kudos'd stories were mostly under 10k words, while all the other catergories were dominated by fics in the 100k+ word count.

I didn't really see much correlation between hits, kudos, and comments overall.

There were LOTS of fics that only showed up in one category, which was really interesting! I figured each list would look pretty much the same, and there were several fics that did show up on the front page of every category (Salvage definitely sweeps the board for overall most popular fic), but there was a lot of variation between each list! Some fics had TONS of hits but very few comments, some had truly wild kudos/hit ratios, some were just massively bookmarked.

Thank you for indulging in my nerdiness, and feel free to tell me what I missed or anything you're curious about!

Update: I did it again, this time with Legend of Zelda

[bogboy420]

ok so i hav THOUGHTS and FEELINGS abt ep 4 of tadc that r honestly kinda difficult 2 put into words? but im gonna try

so i actually genuinely liked this episode even tho it was kinda difficult 2 watch (in a good way!!) but then after watching it i immediately went into the tags 4 tadc and specifically tadc ep 4 2 c what every1 else was saying abt it and tbh i think that was a mistake? like now tbh the problems i hav w the fandom r kinda almost overshadowing the actual content of the episode 4 me which is rly sad bc the episode was a rly good 1

okay so i may as well get this out of the way and accept that im probably gonna get hate 4 it but i gotta say smth that ik basically no1 else is gonna agree w me on,,,

GANGLE WAS NOT THE VICTIM OF EPISODE 4!

and i don't just mean that in the "she wasn't a victim of jax's antics this episode" way i mean like,,, i keep seeing ppl still doing the "oh no poor baby" thing w gangle even w this episode and like? it's tiring!? tbh i honestly thought this episode was the 1 that would get ppl 2 c in gangle what i was seeing in gangle the whole time tbh which is that gangle is the embodiment of weaponised "im just a girl" white woman tears

also 2 get this out of the way since ik the fandom is kinda split on this 1 yes i hc gangle as white, i feel like her character would b different if she was asian both in how she interacts w anime and in her design

so okay 2 explain that, if gangle was japanese i don't think her design would include the european comedy and tragedy masks so heavily and it would be more likely that her design would instead be modelled after japanese kabuki masks since she wouldn't hav the same connection 2 the european comedy and tragedy masks as a european person would and we see that cultural signifiers do in fact change in the character designs with pomni who i think likely is supposed to be asian, her jester costume is more similar to asian styles of clothing than european and her hair is in a style that's very popular with asian working women, now because im not asian and i don't know a lot about cultural signifiers in asian culture aside from what i've heard i could be wrong about some things here and if there are any asian people who would like to correct me please feel free to, just to be clear bc i keep having this problem across my blogs WHEN I SAY IF U R IN A MINORITY GROUP IM TALKING ABT U CAN CORRECT ME THIS DOES NOT EXTEND 2 PPL OUTSIDE OF THAT MINORITY GROUP WHO WANNA START BEEF W ME OVER NOTHING!

so okay in my head gangle is a white girl, this is relevant 2 how she weaponises toxic positivity and then weaponises her crying, white women hav been doing this 4ever and it's how i was able 2 c her being like this from a mile away, i knew she was gonna b like this the whole time but it feels like every1 else in the fandom keeps falling 4 it idk, like at least 4 me this episode rly highlighted how gangle and jax r narrative foils of each other

jax is abrasive and rude and wants ppl 2 think he's just an asshole bc he doesn't know how 2 connect w ppl on a deeper lvl but realistically all he would do if he had a bit of power over some1 would b 2 mess w them a bit bc of him being chronically bored

gangle if she had even a tiny bit of power over some1 would literally b micromanaging them and incredibly controlling and abusive but wants every1 2 think she's harmless

jax when he bullies the others it's clear that it's him lashing out bc of a lack of control in his life so he acts as a bully 2 try 2 feel like he has a dagree of control over his environment

gangle when she starts treating the others badly it's when she's finally in a position of power

gangle is literally being an abusive manager this episode but every1 is more focused on the fact that jax was a bully in the previous episodes 2 notice! hell even some ppl r glorifying gangle's actions! like wtf!?

like okay, early in the episode jax throws ragatha into the deep fryer, that's bad we all know it is, w that being said we also know that physical damage in this world is not permanent and that ragatha will b fine even tho she's having a bad time of it, jax is very clearly doing this as a way of lashing out bc he doesn't like that the adventure they r doing 2day is working at a fast food place

gangle,, seemingly doesn't care abt what's happening 2 ragatha? and is more focused on punishing jax's behaviour, telling him off and then having a conversation w caine who is "upper management" 4 the adventure abt how she wants a punishment 2 b awaiting jax 4 his behaviour at the end of the day, she then also delights in holding this power over jax the entire episode, it's worth pointing out i think that gangle never bothers 2 get ragatha out of the deep fryer and is even shown walking away from ragatha still in the deep fryer showing that she really doesn't actually care about the fact that ragatha is being hurt

later gangle consistently keeps piling work onto jax throughout the episode and seems to delight in holding this power over him, jax gets more and more tired and depressed throughout the episode and eventually stands up for himself but in a way that is less violent than usual, gangle tries to get him to do a job that isn't in his job description, jax then points out that that should be handled by the people who's job it is to do that, gangle then asks jax "doesn't he want to be a team player?" and other office buzzwords that managers often use 2 coerce employees into doing work that isn't in their job description, jax then says no and that he doesn't care abt any of this which is a very normal attitude 4 a fast food employee 2 hav and that's when (if i remember correctly) gangle sends him 2 the brainwashing room also this bitch has a brainwashing room where she tries 2 brainwash jax but no1 cares bc every1 is still defending her 4 some reason!?

another thing that i think is relevant is that i hc jax as having ASPD bc i hav ASPD myself and i relate 2 jax a lot bc of this and hav noticed ways in which jax's behaviour is very similar at times 2 how my ASPD symptoms show up, there r some differences obviously since jax is living in a video game simulation where physically harming ppl leaves no permanent effect and i don't live in that situation but the cycle of messing w ppl around u 4 entertainment, lashing out when things don't go ur way and then not being able 2 connect w those around u thus making u less able 2 control these behaviours in the future and making u lash out more is very real, the chronic boredom is there, the irritability is there, jax using messing w ppl as a primary source of entertainment and also a primary way of trying 2 connect w those around him is there

this is relevant because this would mean that jax is being punished by gangle for showing symptoms of ASPD, smth that he can't control not just that but while gangle is the main villain every1 is kinda a dick 2 jax in this episode, pomni assumes that jax must hav an ulterior motive when he asks how she's doing, zooble basically tells jax that his actions r making it more likely 4 caine 2 kill them all (which i don't think caine would do but zooble seems 2 think he would) and ragatha says that she hates jax but doesn't want jax 2 hate her and basically confesses that being the actual reason why she pretends 2 b nice 2 him, (also yes i say pretends and not tries since she gets mad at jax earlier in the episode 4 smth that jax points out "was actually a mistake that time") and the thing is? jax isn't even surprised, he knows that ragatha hates him already he just also knows she wouldn't say that if she was sober

also side note i rly need ppl 2 stop saying that gangle's brain washing was successful and that's the only reason jax was more friendly/agreeable/less of a bully this episode like no, it's bc he's depressed af this episode also pls stop saying that gangle brainwashing jax would b a good thing if it made him act differently that's legit such an ableist thing 2 say omg

anyway i think im gonna leave this here 4 now bc i woke up not long ago and this post is getting long so idk lemme know if any of this is coherent ig? lol fr tho i hate gangle and i don't understand y u guys like her and hate jax so much

edit: seems like i may not hav made it super clear but i hc jax as being a black queer man as a black queer man myself, i didn't make that very clear initially bc i legit 4get that not every1 sees him that way, idk man 4 me as a black queer guy the coding was there and gangle picking on him in the workplace i think was definitely partly motivated by her doing that white woman thing of seeing a man who doesn't hav as much power as her in society and then leaping at the opportunity 2 abuse that power in the work environment as a perceived "revenge" thing

[bloggingboutburgers]

I think everyone will benefit from properly tagging posts. xreader fics abd ship fics ONLY include the relevent _x_ tags but none of the character's name on its own, allowing all the usual fanart, theories and such to stay on the main name tag and not be crowded out by horny fanfiction (I say this as someone who very much enjoys very horny, very smutty xreader fanfictions. I want to be able to search the fics I want directly without having to trawl through headcanon posts, fanart, unrelated ship posts, etc.).

No one really has a tailored experience on the internet (I'm glad tumblr is at least a little more user dictated than advertiser algorithm based), but I do get the frustration and discomfort that comes from the abundant hornyposting feeling inescapable.

It's tempting to take offence to persistent cries against xreader stuff. I like special POV episodes of shows for the same reason I like xreader fics. My favourite characters WERE the company I kept, my only real form of companionship (albeit simulated) for many many years. Not because I am allo, basically. I sought something to meet my social needs growing up where I was unable to find community or companionship in real life.

Unfortunately, because they are usually sexual in nature I just came to associate a need for human connection with sex (so am I allo or just conditioned to blend sexual, platonic and romantic feelings and actions together?). I was just happy to feel like I had someone to hang out with. I knew they weren't real and that I needed to find real people to connect with (not for lack of trying, kids are just cruel. Finally made friends as an adult, yay).

Didn't intend for any of that to be so sad or pathetic, but hopefully it gives context for the prevalence of xreader fics. Alongside the varied reasons people write / read them (no just blind allo horniness), especially in light of the widespread loneliness epidemic over the past decade.

It's still more than ok to not want anything to do with them either (be it due to being aroace or not - I know plenty of allos who find xreader fics cringe).

Something I need to clarify here – we get it. Well, we don't fundamentally get it, but trust me, we've been told time and time again why people would write/draw/be into xreader content (it's all part of the package of "aroaces MUST put themselves in allo people's shoes at all times"), and we know they're perfectly legitimate reasons, and we don't find it sad or pathetic, or cringe. At the very least I don't at all. That's not what it's about. It's not something as surface-level at that.

The thing is... The same kind of understanding effort is VERY rarely put forward in return for us. And the fact that we're perceived as naysayers is symptomatic of this. We're not crying against xreader content. People are free to do whatever they want. We just want it to be tagged to keep ourselves safe, and so we can appreciate some variety and find fandom content we can properly connect with with the identity we have.

The issue isn't that there is xreader content, or heck, that there's lots of it. It's that, as @kaoruko-han put it, "everyone is assumed to be into this", and that you can't express something as simple as "I'd rather read something else" without being finger-pointed as a villain.

Yeah, no one has a tailored experience online, but there's still a very clear lack of balance on what is acceptable to tailor to or not (and for us, that includes tumblr). And trying to find fan-content while being sex-repulsed? Bruh, you'd better pray on your lucky stars and be ready to trudge through an ocean of stuff that's loaded with the very thing that makes you scared, uncomfortable or downright triggers a feeling of sickness in you, because a lot of it ain't tagged. An alarming amount of people don't bother, because why would people like you exist, right? There's only ever them, and puritan bigots. It's that black and white in a lot of people's heads.

Here's the difference though: we, too, want people to be able to vibe to whatever fan content they want. We just wish "people" included us properly in this case. As it stands now, trying to find fan content that won't give you an uncomfortable feeling as a sex-repulsed person feels kinda like this (I'll try to illustrate that to the best of my ability as a vague comparison, please no one take that as a clear parallel, I'm literally just trying to explain how it feels in a way people who have no idea how it feels might understand): you're not into gore at all, you don't wanna look at it, but your streaming platform keeps recommending you those series that are loaded with gore. You try to filter it out, but no matter where you go, you keep being recommended those series. And no one ever gets your discomfort and you're being branded as nothing but a wet blanket for not wanting to see gore. It's kinda like that.

At this point I admire sex-repulsed or romance-repulsed people who still TRY to find anything at all in fandom spaces. I've stopped reading fanfic altogether and I've largely stopped engaging with the large majority of fandom spaces for those reasons. And that wasn't an easy choice, or one that I find fun because it feels incredibly lonely, but it's the result of years of exhaustion and strain on my mental health trying to navigate something that's so hostile to me at its core, even if it's unintentional.

So... Yeah. We know the reasons, just like the content itself, they're kinda impossible to ignore. But we are largely being ignored in this, and it's not just something at an "ick" or "picky" level ; for a sex-repulsed person, being spammed with sex entails much more than that. It's not even frustration anymore at this point, it's downright despair a lot of the time. So... Yeah, like you said, everyone would benefit from stuff being more properly tagged. For us it'd be so huge to know our safety is taken into account – that we're taken into account at all. Thing is, we're not, and we're so invisible in this and most other things that at this point, I don't have much hope. Sex-related controversies allo people can understand would sooner create a change than anything done for our sake.

[elainsgirl]

It is actually so naive of eluciens and gwynriels to think the bracket thing is just a popularity competition. As if it isn't a marketing ploy. As if BB themselves didn't obviously have a hand in what moments were selected. As if they didn't design the pairs to be beneficial to their pr and marketing strategies. We're talking a whole ass industry running on more money than any of us could grasp. They don't mess around to please raging fans when they have a business to run and casual readers to capitalize off of (no shade, we get our books, they get their money). And yet I only ever see Elriels even talk about publishing as an actual industry.

The antis should seriously just think about it for a second.

AS IF Blooomsbury would let Lucien be absent from that bracket thing if he is to be the next MMC. AS IF they would set Gwyn up against an iconic Feyre moment and doom her to fail, if she was to be the next FMC. AS IF they would include not one but two Elriel moments (yes, I think both are Elriel moments because they chose to explicitly mention TT in the Elain moment), and put them up against each other to make sure it moves on to the next round. As if they'd do that if Elriel was an "ended ship", not relevant for the future plot. And right before we are likely to get an announcement. To do all this and then pivot to Elucien or Gwynriel, is  incompetent marketing. It would never happen. The idea is laughable.

This isn't fan service. It's marketing, cheekily framed as a fan service event, ahead of an anniversary and an announcement of a huge release. But anyone can see that this is carefully orchestrated. It HAS to be, because publishing is an industry. Its orchestrated, and not in a nefarious way. Just in a perfectly normal standard for the industry type way.

Seriously, I've had quite a low opinion of BB given how they have handled Acotar the past four years. But this? Top teir marketing. Chaotic, to the point, no mercy for the small but screeching crowd of antis. Just ignoring them, dropping casual truth bombs about Elain. Whoever came up with this? Mad respect. Give them a raise.

And antis? Are antis really this naive? Or are they just holding on to a fantasy for dear life?

idfk atp. Its so obvious its a marketing stragety to bring engagement to their page and allow acotar to reenter the romantasy audience all before the big ACO10. BB had full control over what enters the brackets, some where fan submissions other selections where always going to make it. BB has a very a good idea of which moments are going to win each round and what type of narrative they’re creating. They do not gaf about catering to any fans. Right now their main priority is bracing the fandom for aco10. BB aren’t stupid. They know which topic is running hot in the fandom and what their readers are expecting.

Lucien didn’t make it into the brackets at all…it says a LOT about 1) how little the fandom cares about him aka he’s become irrelevant to the main fandom 2) BB haven’t prioritised him as important…hypothetically if an elucien book is next - by not including Lucien, they’ve just shown us he isnt that important RIGHT NOW. Yes Gwyn made it into the bracket but we all know how many people and which people voted for Gwyn moments- it would be to obvious that this is all calculated if Gwyn wasn’t included regardless…she was put up against a very iconic feyre moment. BB did it on purpose. Gwyn had no chance of making it and look - her scene is out. She’s gone…for a gwynriel book being next again this isnt a good look.

An Elain AND an elriel moment made it through. BB intentionally set them up against each other…why? Because 100% one scene will make it through. They even have a chance of beating the next few scenes. For an elriel book being next - this is very interesting and telling. Its bringing focus to Elain and elriel. AND both moments had TT which we know for sure will play a role in acotar 5 due to HOFAS.

it IS marketing. Its reminding old readers of acotar, convincing new readers of acotar and making the fandom active - with many people constantly visiting BB’s page. They’ve been very active and its not a coincidence that the last few months many big outlets are talking about acotar - all of this is building up towards aco10. Their big event. And you’re right - it is all orchestrated. Sarah is aware to an extent of whats happening and what her publishers are doing. The book is probably ready to be announced.

BB has been ruthless towards antis. They haven’t interacted or given in to the antis that where whining about elain killing hybern not being canon - ruining the event for everyone else - instead just ignored them which goes to show how irrelevant these people are. People aren’t going to believe a random account with a few thousand brought followers over the actual PUBLISHERS of the series whose reach is in the Ks. Its a slap in the face for antis, putting them back down into their positions. Reminding them, they’re nothing compared to the publishers of the series. The ones that have the final say and know what’s happening.

You know what I think? I think some antis are beginning to realise they’re wrong. They can’t jusyify everything - and this is making them insecure which they take out by being bitter towards elriel. Some antis have convinced themselves they’re popular names in this fandom - enough to believe majority would agree w them arguing w the literal publishers over a canon scene in the books they published when in reality everyone else was cringing and laughing at the sheer disrespect and audacity. Antis are only going to get more insecure and bitter. But I do think some are naive about this whole thing and are looking towards others to help them feel secure in their crackships again.

[loki-zen]

also what alternative tumblr is that person on. that he's a groomer and a sexual predator is basically all 90% of locked tomb fandom has to say about john gaius.

I mean this is a common phenomenon on tumblr i think and really it's a consequence of what's wonderful about tumblr which is that most people aren't using tumblr in a way that feeds them all the same shit through The Algorithm, they're using tumblr in ways that create completely different experiences of the website for different people. So sure, whatever, i believe them that "John Gaius is a Woke King" is all they see and they don't see stuff about him being a groomer; weirder things have happened! Apparently there are folks whose experience of tumblr is that they're always interacting with queer people who don't follow or reblog from any transfeminine people, and moreover that it's possible for people who aren't consciously deliberately avoiding transfems to end up in such a situation by accident, which sounds like a description of a whole other website to me but who knows! Maybe that's just the circles I'm in. I know there's people who claim that they block anyone who doesn't put their age in their bio on sight; logically I must assume that these people are largely interacting with a completely different "Tumblr" than the one i see and am a part of.

But yeah anyway, yeh those are the takes I've been seeing too, at least lately. I'm not engaging with that person in that debate any more because it doesn't feel like that's gonna be productive, but I think it's blatantly the author's intent that we see John from both of these angles; that initially upon first discovering his existence we do see Jod as a bit of a (Problematic, for sure!) Woke King.

After all, we grew up in a world only a generation and change into women being legally considered full adult humans - to the extent that we can be said to have achieved that at all - and the prototypical TLT reader is going to find it very personally affecting to dive into a world where a girl can grow up on ideals of butch womanhood apparently completely normalised in mainstream comics (which, yes, are likely also military recruitment propaganda); Where nobody considers it worthy of comment that a large number of the important political leaders are women; where indeed powerful women are capable of the arrogance of one who has never been required to justify herself or Overcome Adversity to get where she is; Where as far as we can tell, there is no word for "lesbian" or "sapphic" because the ordinary unmarked concept of "attraction" is just assumed to contain attraction between women, by default. It's perhaps a little easier to miss on the first read (or it was for me, with my perspective, I don't doubt that it may be different for others), but we're also looking at a world where there's no trace of racial divisions as we know them, not even the vestigial nomenclature that would lead a narrator from our universe to be more likely to at least classify characters as "white" or "black" or whatever else instead of solely describing their physical appearances, including skin tones, as if this simply wasn't a relevant distinction.

It makes perfect sense to think of a bisexual mixed race guy from approximately our world who made his space empire colourblind, queer-positive and gender-egalitarian as kind of a 'Woke King', and the positive affect we have towards him as a result of all this is imo intentionally there as a complicating factor when we notice all the rest of it.

It's like yes he's an abuser, and he's one of those abusers with (at least partially) completely genuine leftist/feminist/queer/woke bona fides, they exist and really the fact that so many people will insist you can either have those or be an abuser is incredibly helpful to them vis a vis getting away with it.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for banning a minor from a discord server?

I'm pretty sure I'm nta, since most of the server backed me up, but I am also autistic and would like some impartial judgement. I (23M) am the mod of a fairly small (~40 people) discord server. The server is focused around a character we all like, and frequently includes discussion, art, and fic related to this character, various ships, and 18+ content ranging from tame fluffy smut to much darker, dead-dove type content (largely because the original source material is pretty dark). For this reason this server is strictly 18+. We don't really have specific 18+ channels, and a few of the artists in the server are primarily NSFW artists.

I only became the (sole) mod about 3 months ago, when the previous mod/admin (who started the server) didn't have time anymore. For the most part things are very chill- I've never had to deal with any conflicts before this, the worst problems I've had are trying to keep the bots running and channels organized.

The youngest member of our server is (we thought) 18, the next youngest being 20. I recently found out through a series of screenshots that the youngest member is actually 17, turning 18 in about six months. I asked them about this in dms, since the screenshots were from their priv account on twitter (of them jokingly bragging about getting away with telling people they were 18 when they weren't). (and regardless of whether or not this was true, I wanted to let them know if someone on their priv was taking and spreading screenshots).

They got very upset at the screenshots being leaked (which is fair) but also confirmed that they were 17. I said that I was going to have to ban them from the server due to the NSFW content and they got very upset, saying I was infantilizing them etc. They also briefly tried to backtrack and say that they were just joking about being 17 and were actually 18, but stopped when i didnt believe them. I explained it wasn't about maturity-- imho if they are mature enough to handle the source material, they're mature enough to be in the server- but rather that there are potential legal repercussions for having a minor in a NSFW space. I even said that, while I was upset about them lying, I would even be open to letting them rejoin the server after they turned 18 (AFAIK they weren't lying about their bday, they just said they were a year older than they actually are to get into 18+ spaces).

They were really angry about this so I put it to the server for a vote and to let everyone know what was happening. Honestly I don't know what I would have done if the server voted to keep them in, but they voted almost unanimously to ban them at least until they were 18. I'm not on twitter anymore but I know that several of the people on there also blocked them from their accounts (since they posted 18+ art, fic, etc).

Other relevant info:

- this person didn't actually post any art or fic that was outright explicit, but they definitely participated in NSFW discussions (all fandom related, nothing related to personal lives).

- they were added to the server by the original admin--she apparently had no idea they were underage and also blocked them from her twt account.

The younger person is really upset at me and has sent me multiple angry paragraphs in dms about how I was ruining their fandom experience, discriminating against them just because they were a minor, and said that this wouldn't be an issue if we weren't all so porn-addicted. I half jokingly replied that I'm not sure how the last one could be an issue for me personally, given that I'm asexual, which they then said was problematic for implying ace people couldn't watch porn (???). I stopped replying since I didn't know how to respond and they have sent me some more messages in the same vein (I'm bullying them, all of their online friends hate them because of me, etc).

Kind of unrelated, but I don't actually know who on their priv took the original screenshots- they have ~80 followers on there, none of whom are in the server as far as I can tell. The person who sent me the pics is someone in the server, who said she got it from someone who is actually on the priv account (because she posts 18+ art and the person who took the SSs wanted to let her know that a minor was following her).

Why I may be TA: I do genuinely think this person is mature enough to handle the discussions we were having (except for the recent string of angry DMs, they've been very chill and level headed), I banned them because of legality, not morality. I also wouldn't have known about this if it wasn't for the daisy chain of screenshots that were unknowingly taken from their priv account, which idk seems like an invasion of privacy to me.

I did also tell the server all of this so they'd know why I was kicking this person, and then several people in the server posted about it on twt which apparently got the 17yo blocked from a bunch of accounts. I do feel bad and understand why they're upset- but I can't knowingly allow a minor to access 18+ content since that is legitimately illegal and could really fuck up my life.

Anyways, hopefully that all makes sense, sorry for the silly petty chronically online drama but still. To anticipate what most people will comment-- yes, I will go outside and touch grass-- but AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[lesmisshippingshowdown]

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!!!

Hello everybody! I just wanted to say a massive thank you for the love for, and enthusiastic participation in, the Les Mis Shipping Showdown so far. It's been incredible to see so many people get on board with my silly little gag and I'm so excited for the tournament to continue playing out

HOWEVER - currently we are lacking in two very important things that only you guys out on the frontlines (on the barricade???) can help with.

1) PROPAGANDA

In 2009, Cheryl Cole dropped her debut solo single and changed lives by reminding us all that we've gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love. I need you all to be more like Cheryl. Don't be discouraged if your OTP is currently losing - and don't become complacent if they're currently winning by a landslide. We're not even halfway through the round of 32 yet, and you - yes YOU 🫵 - can help turn the tides of battle by telling the world, in an easily shareable format, why your preferred Les Amis pair the spare combo deserves to take victory in this noble contest.

Examples of things you could submit as propaganda include: fanart, fanfiction, AMVs, clips or gifs from your favourite screen adaptation or grainy bootleg that prove your blorbos' love, well-researched meta with supporting quotations from the Brick, completely unresearched rants based entirely on vibes, etc.

Ways you can share your propaganda with the world include: appending it in a comment reblog (not whispering in the tags!) of the relevant poll, sending asks to this blog, submitting posts to this blog, or making an original post and tagging it #les mis shipping showdown. (<- please use this specific tag. we're not checking any others. if you just put it in the generic les mis tag or ship tag with no reference to the poll we won't know it's for us)

2) FANART AND/OR EDITS

As much as I loved trawling through Tumblr tags and Google Images (and editing a few really stupid stock photo memes) to find visual references for every ship in the Round of 32, this was a) very time consuming and b) not as collaborative a process as I'd like for a fandom wide enrichment activity, especially for a bracket that's SO chock full of fanon-based shipping.

So, in preparation for future rounds, we would LOVE to receive submissions of fanart and edits for your favourite ship(s) to be used - with credit, of course - in polls.

We are looking for submissions for ANY AND ALL SHIPS INCLUDED IN THE BRACKET, regardless of their popularity, the amount of canonical visual content (like screencaps and production photos), or how likely you think your ship is to make the round of 16. As I've already said, we're only partway through this round and anything can change, plus I have a little surprise planned for the eliminated ships anyway that could still use your artistic contributions ;)

Here's a reminder of the current bracket so that you know which ships we're looking for artwork for:

As a bonus, if you send your art to this blog or tag it as #les mis shipping showdown, it also counts as free propaganda for your ship!

FURTHER RULES FOR FANART & EDITS:

No AI-generated content. Not going to get into the discourse on this one, I just don't want to see it.

No NSFW art, including artistic nudity. This is a theoretically all-ages contest, plus random polls getting flagged as mature will just make sharing that specific match up a complete mare.

Please ensure any art/edits are formatted so that they can be added to the poll as one single photo.

If you prefer to be credited by a different pseudonym to the URL you're using to submit your artwork, please make this clear to us at the time of submission!

Again, if you're posting art with the specific intention of having us use it, make sure you specify that either in the caption or by tagging it #les mis shipping showdown. We won't know it's for us if it just appears with no comment in the general tags!

To keep it simple & avoid any suggestions of favouritism etc., fanart, as long as it abides by the other rules, will be used on a "first seen by mods, first served" basis. We'll make an effort to reshare all art that isn't able to be used in a poll proper either because you got there too late or because your ship got eliminated before we could get round to using it.

Thanks in advance and happy propaganda-ing! 💋

[unhinged-domestic-raccoon]

Miraculous Rewatch Where I Overanalyze Everything: The Bubbler

Man, I was eleven the last time I watched this episode. Season one was still airing. My fifth grade teacher was a fan of the show and put it on in class as a Friday treat and my life has never been the same since.

I wanna start by saying that the soundtrack for this show is extremely underrated. I love that it shows it's anime roots by being all techno instead of more classically superhero. It may just convince me to finally watch the movie.

continued under the cut:

Ah Marinette being clumsy! When I was a kid I was mostly just annoyed by this (possibly from the secondhand embarrassment), but I actually found her clumsiness very charming in this episode, and I hope that continues. She's just such a failure at existing and it's very endearing to me.

NO WAIT I FORGOT THIS WAS A THING! Chloe and Sabrina are actually frequently paralleled by Gabe and Nathalie in the show! I think it's an important detail to recognize! It shows that Chloe and Sabrina's unhealthy relationship really is just modeled after all of the terrible adults they're surrounded by, and that this includes Gabe and Nathalie! The Andre/Audrey and Andre/Roger parallels may be more relevant, but the Agreste household only exacerbates the situation. They really don't have any good examples in their lives, which is how they got to be as dysfunctional as they are.

I think it also does some lifting for framing Nathalie in a more sympathetic light and Sabrina in a less sympathetic one. Nathalie has just as much care for Gabe as Sabrina does for Chloe, and Sabrina is just as much of a willing accomplice as Nathalie is. Those parts of their characters are frequently overlooked, and I think this is a good reminder!

I'm gonna use this as a moment to note that the writers fully managed to instill the sheer awkwardness of being a teenager into Marinette. I (aromantic) was sitting here going "why is she hiding her crush from her mom? What's the purpose? Oh wait, all my friends hid their crushes from their parents in high school just to avoid getting lovingly teased. Right." And for all the stress Marinette gets put under as the show continues, I honestly don't think this ever changes. She really does just encapsulate the feeling of being 15, and I love her for that.

HANG ON, I didn't realize they were doing alternate expressions for Marinette's transformations so early! The only other example I can recall off the top of my head is Angrybug in Psychomedian! I'm gonna be keeping a counter now!

Marinette. Honey. You just came bursting out of your house as Ladybug. This is season 1. Remind me how nobody but Felix (and Luka I guess but he cheated with time powers) has put together her identity yet?

Y'know, for all the fandom jokes about Adrien having a skewed idea of normal. . . he knows his life is depressing and his dad is not a good parent. His dialogue here is (sarcastically) "Wow. That was a birthday lunch break to remember." Even way back when he was just so depressed. Poor dear has been doomed by the narrative from the start.

And here, you can see Plagg in his natural habitat, encouraging Adrien to be selfish and being my favorite character in the show! I probably won't bring it up again too often, but I just wanna make my Plagg bias clear from the start. Just so we're all on the same page.

Hey guys, remember when Chloe was smart? Cuz I do and it's a big reason why I like her so much! This episode is a great example. She knows exactly what to say to Nino to manipulate him in to doing what she wants. She isn't an idiot, she's actually pretty good at reading people. She's just also loud and has a short attention span/one-track mind.

Ivan, I fully respect your right as a fellow introvert to glower on the wall at The Function, but that is a whole supervillain. The Hawkmoth issue is well established at this point in time, you have got to know this isn't a good idea at this point. Actually, that's an interesting thought. Do we think Ivan is maybe less afraid of akumas because he was the first and knows what it's like? Something to look for during this rewatch!

This is during Ladybug and Bubbler's fight about adults, where Ladybug's dialogue is "Kids need adults! [. . .] Adults keep children safe and protected, they care for their kids, they love them!" I wanna draw your attention to the fact that while everyone else during this scene looks sad or scared or exhuasted and is largely checked out of the conversation (they just wanna get their parents back and go home), Chloe is not! She instead looks confused and is very invested in the back and forth these two have going on. Wonder why. Surely it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Chloe has never experienced any of those things from an adult in her life! Moving on.

Here, we can see that even at the height of the status quo with no crazy extraneous circumstances driving a wedge between them, LadyNoir still had problems in their dynamic! Chat is already fully relying on LB to *tell* him when to use his cataclysm, but in return, she's all too ready to boss him around. That's an interesting hurdle to explore in their relationship!

Ugh, I don't miss this. When Miraculous designs hit, they hit hard, but when they don't? We're stuck with the face-melted-on, Adam-West-Batman-Villain looking bald cap. Also, Gabe, those are literal children you are monologuing about crushing and destroying? I've seen talk about how his mental state got worse with time, but uh. No, I think he was just as bad from the beginning.

I don't talk enough about how much I love the core 4 of Miraculous, and this is my apology for that! I love that Nino and Alya show affection for their spiraling mentally ill bestie with exactly the same shoulder touches, it's too cute.

[aizawashuichi]

If you still have it (and I know you do, you're not me, to delete things and regret later lol) please please post again that detailed presentation of wammy's layout and structure, please...

My greatest piece, so I can't delete it even under torture lmao. Since it was an ask, I included that part too.

Anonymous: Salutations. First off; I would like to thank you for humoring my questions, by far. Having been in the fandom (Death Note) for quite a while can be daunting at times considering how persistent everyone is on certain views that, more often than not, contradicts the canon itself, though I do not mind the originality. Some of the questions you might remember answering from me would be; 1. How unfair it is for everyone in this fandom to go full autobiography mode on Light Yagami but wrote a piss poor characterisation of other characters. 2. L would not enjoy fighting for Justice under Light's idea There might be more, but these two are the ones that I remember writing and asking. I rather enjoy reading your point of views. Being an avid Lawlight shipper myself (which you might found dissapointing, and for that, I apologise) I found it rather... boring that most, if not all, were very insistent that L would join Light's side if given the opportunity while writing him very, very poorly. I enjoy these two through the energy they emitted while actively going against each other. Not when they shook hands and went about it all the same like a carousel ride. Second: What is your opinion on the whole Wammy's House organisation debacle? On A and B? The whole Successor Programme? I don't like it. Having being nurtured the same as these children does, I absolutely resented it. Partly because of how harmful the product of the whole environment, largely because of how it reflects the morale ground Quillsh Wammy stood and what he believes in. I despise men in suits, even more so than people in orange jumpers or stripped, black and white outfit. (Call me E.H. I would like for us to be friends. Mutuals.)

Please, E. H., I would be honoured to be mutuals, but how could you betray me like this? Mid-message? Dropping a bomb of that size on me and my blog?

Seriously, though, I would like that. I will overlook this little flaw of yours, because not everyone can be perfect, and I will accept you with open arms.

Okay. Really dropping the act this time. You don’t have to apologies for shipping them, even though I suppose it was more ironic than anything. I already have mutuals that are like you. I filtered out the various tags concerning L/Light – there are a lot of variations –, and I am fine.

I will survive if I add one more… Hopefully — but I think, in this case, it is more of a “probably”, because you do seem to share some of my views on the whole manga/anime and that means we have some common ground, even though I believe that is not that difficult.

I am really glad you like reading my long-ass posts, because I do enjoy writing it. I actually was waiting for some kind of feedback from you, because, truthfully, I wasn’t sure if your opinions were supposed to be just published without any input from me or if you actually wanted me to say something.

I was both confused (didn’t understand why you decided specifically my blog, since it’s not that well know) and delighted by them.

In any case, I am happy to see this message, especially the last part. You are the first person on here who explicitly stated the wish for my friendship. I didn’t expect that at all. I’ve been told that I seem intimidating, and I still don’t get why, so seeing that someone isn’t put off by this, it’s a nice feeling.

I will now get to your questions, and the post is going to be long, because it’s on a topic that I am actually working on and wanted to do a post of my own, but felt like, “why would people care?”, so I am glad that you do.

PREMISE

I need to make a premise before, because I feel like this is relevant to understanding my opinion.

I would love to kick myself in the face every time I happen to mention it (even though I do so to help my motivation), because it seems that I bring it up so many times and it’s making me annoyed, like, “can this bitch (me) just shut the fuck up already?”. However, it’s important in this context.

I am writing a fanfiction about the Wammy’s House, during L’s years there. And, since I am doing this, my idea of the Wammy’s House is crafted in a way that can make my story work, but I do realize this, so I will try to eliminate all my OCs’ stuff (I think I’ll mention them), even though I still believe that some roles or events I have created can be considered plausible (not canon, of course), because they help explain some things that I noticed about L while reading the manga.

Another thing is that this is a work in progress and while I have an outline for the plot, a lot of things about the Wammy’s are still not definitive. So, everything I say is not set in stone. [This question also made me realise that I made a huge error when it comes to the timeline of my fanfic, which screwed up half of the outline, but thank you, I guess.]

Other than this, Ohba left a wide-open door for any interpretation of Watari and the Wammy’s, because he didn’t think too much about them. He just wrote them in for plot purposes and never developed them properly, so anything goes, theoretically, so maybe I will be a bit more lenient on both. I don’t deny the possibility of them being pretty fucked up, because I cannot say that what I think is completely backed by canon. To each their own, but since you have experienced a similar environment, I had to preface this, because my view on it doesn’t adhere to the reality of some of these institutions, and I don’t want you to believe that I’m oblivious to the real-life problems that occur.

I think I took more liberty here, because I had few things to start from, and I’m really fond of the idea that the people (Roger and Watari too) at the Wammy’s were like a family, with its ups and downs (more downs than ups – even in my fic, so I realise that not everything is all peaches and cream). It’s just the wishful thinking of my younger self that so desperately wanted to be part of that world, and I have a hard time getting rid of it.

I must also say that most of my choices regarding the Wammy’s structure and organisation is based on “gut feeling”/intuition. More often than not, I feel if something is right or wrong, even though I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s the reason for that. I just have the impression that something must be in a certain way, and if I don’t comply to this, it just feels uncomfortable until I fix it.

WATARI & ROGER

I want to start from them to explain exactly what I think of these two, particularly their past and what led them to create the Wammy’s.

Reference to another post I wrote – headcanons about Roger – but you needn’t to read it, since I am going to repeat it here, and it talks more about their relationship than the Wammy’s.

In my mind, Watari was both a professor and an inventor. The professor job needed to provide for him before his inventions took off and gave him enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life, since it seems that he was quite rich, even before L gained something.

So, together with Roger, who was his assistant, he was in close contact with different types of students and noticed the disparity between those who can study and have the resources and those who don’t have them but have the abilities to continue. Of course, they couldn’t intervene in the private business of these people. Instead, they discussed knowledge, intelligence, and the social economic situation of England (and later around the world) that didn’t allow young kids, especially orphans, to develop themselves and their abilities, since they didn’t have the means.

Not trusting the state institutions with their money, they decided to take matters into their own hands and had in mind to create an orphanage that had an internal school, so they can provide them resources and knowledge, without making them sacrifice any of those.

But then a dilemma appeared: “what if some kids can learn faster than others and we end up slowing them down?”

[learn faster than others – because “prodigy” doesn’t mean anything when it comes to orphans that don’t have resources or any help from adults.]

And from that dilemma, the Wammy’s House was born. It was a specific type of the institution they had in mind, which was meant for those who seemed more capable than others.

It’s said that Watari owns different orphanages, but they are not talked about like the Wammy’s, so it’s safe to assume the main difference is this one – what kind of kids are there and what they learn.

About Roger, I honestly think that the “he hates kids” was added to have some sort of comedic effect. However, if it was meant to be taken seriously, and I do consider it canon, there are two reasons to me:

He began to hate them, as he continued to work at the Wammy’s, because they pulled pranks on him. He’s not fierce – shown to us by how he responded to Mello grabbing him and how he stopped Mello from bothering another kid. He is quite passive and not confrontational, so I believe he was an easy target for the kids, and he grew to despise their behaviour and to be quite afraid of them in a way, because, while he tried to stop Mello, his attempt was shallow. I don’t think this is because he didn’t care, but because Mello was angry at him, and his explosive nature made him wary.

Romantic reason: the kids, and especially L, took Watari from him – before and after his death. Watari was too occupied with his work that he almost forgot what he and Roger had. That obviously pained Roger and he began to resent the situation and those who stole him and his attention. That would explain why their relationship grew cold, because we don’t see Roger communicate with Watari once, so it means that something happened that drove them apart – aka these kids got in between.

No matter what the reason is, Roger tries to be emotionally distant from them. I have this trope that I associate with him of the grumpy old man having to deal with a kid because of circumstances he cannot control, and he grows attached to them, wanting to protect them at best of his abilities. But this is my wishful thinking, but I believe he has those moments in which he thinks, “maybe they are not that bad”, and they then do something that makes him annoyed, and he’s like, “never mind”.

Watari is emotionally not present too, not because he doesn’t want to be involved, but because he is still an inventor before becoming L’s right hand indefinitely and full-time, so he has to fulfil that role and be involved in that community to promote his stuff, to develop it, and etc. Also, the Wammy’s and the other orphanages are relatively new in my opinion, because he first established them when he’s around 40-45, so a few years before L was born, and he has to make sure they all work as he wants to, and he has to make connections so he can find these kids to bring to the Wammy’s. So, he has a lot on his plate.

WAMMY’S HOUSE

Location

I have actually thought about this for a long time, and even wrote a post (after I finished this section, I noticed that I was repeating word for word what I had put here, so please, consider reading it for all the reasons).

Littleton, in the north-west part of Winchester.

I know I’m kind of going the extra mile by doing this, but I’ve always dne it for every structure I had to write something about, so the Wammy’s gets a real-life location too.

The actual true reason for which I chose this location is because it’s near big fields, and I needed that for plot purposes, but even without considering that, it seems to fit what we know about L’s life there.

He played tennis – there’s a tennis court 20 minutes by foot from there. Relevant that it’s by foot, because I imagined that Watari couldn’t constantly leave the Wammy’s with L for long periods of time and multiple times a week. He had other affairs to attend to, aside from his responsibility at the Wammy’s. In my mind, during L’s time there, Watari was still working on his inventions, which meant he had to attend meetings and conventions and whatnot.

A’s suicide – there’s a church where he can be buried. It can be reached by foot, so the kids could attend his funeral. I also have a morbid headcanon that B took his body from his grave. I also liked to tie the church to L hearing bells before he dies, so this closeness would make it possible for everyone inside the Wammy’s to hear them.

Big space – because the Wammy’s seems to be pretty big by the manga panels we have, and I have a specific idea of how it’s structured, both its exterior and interior, so it was necessary to have many hectares available.

Structure (New floor plans)

I made floor plans. I started this a while ago and never actually completed it, because the site I was using was infuriating, but I found an app, and managed to copy what I had done in the other one. I forgot to change the names of the rooms, because I created this to help me visualise the setting of my fic, so ignore them for now (I will point out some names there, just to explain one thing).

It’s not definitive, because I still don’t understand where I should put their stairs – or if to put them, ‘cause based on Mello and L’s egos, they already think so highly of themselves that I don’t think they need a staircase to reach the first floor.

In my fic, I didn’t explicitly state where they are supposed to be. I’m letting the readers figure that one out for me, while I just stick to say if they go down or up them. The main problem is not if they should face or not the entrance, because they have to, but where the hell are on the first floor? My gut feeling keeps making me imagine them next to Lex’s room, but that doesn’t make sense and would be pretty ugly on the ground floor – they would be too close to the entrance, and I hate it. So, I’m just going to ignore it, until it becomes a problem, which I doubt because I’m the one writing this, and nobody is going to police every single detail.

[EDIT 2025: fixed it. They are a pair of stairs with landing halfway that merge from there in one staircase.]

The two unnamed bedrooms on the ground floor are for people that work there (cooks, cleaning people or the nurse) that can’t go home for reasons.

In my fic, one of the rooms is always vacant, because I imagine that the employees are near the Wammy’s, so they don’t need to stay there, and it became a storage closet, with all of things – costumes and decorations for all kinds.

It’s a pretty big institution. The size of the rooms might not give that away, but it’s big. It has high ceilings, and the classrooms and bedrooms are longer than wider, but they are still very spacious. When I write and imagine it, even it’s from the perspective of small children, I envision everything to be comfortable even for older kids.

I couldn’t add everything I think it has, so I’ll just list them:

A small football field on the left with two benches, so the kids can rest.

Some big trees next the corners of the garden and some bushes here and there.

A stone path from the main entrance to the gate.

A shed on the right, with all the gardening tools.

The interior might not coincide with the way it was portrayed in the manga panels, but I like to imagine that after A’s death and L’s parting, things got restructured and the internal organisation changed.

Internal organisation - from the year it was founded to 1993, so even during L’s years there.

I placed L’s arrival in 1988, when he’s about to turn 9, because L is shown to us to be in relatively light clothing in the one-shot “L: The Wammy’s House”, so it can’t be after 31st October. Winchester usually has a high of 11° and a low of 4° in November, and 8° and 2° in December, so I don’t see why he would be dressed up like that.

And 1993, because he says to Light that he has been in England for 5 years, which also means that he is not from there. I headcanon him to be born in Scotland, because it’s hilarious to think he has a Scottish accent that he hides. – “Bang! if Ah was kira, yoo'd be deid.” | “Looks loch someain drapped thes ceel phain in th' crowd earlier.” and so on. It’s so funny. And also, it kind of makes sense why he wasn’t in England before and why he knows standard English. He could also be from Northern Ireland, but he gives me Scottish vibes.

1993 is also the year in which I place A’s death. I don’t follow the timeline from Another Note, because I cannot imagine A and B being younger than L. I’ll talk about this later.

ENTRY

The first requisite for the kids to be brought to the Wammy’s is to show that they are more able than others (as in “able to learn to a faster speed”), and they usually are kids that were in another orphanage already. Watari managed to have a wide social network and, to me, he’s called by the people in charge of that institution (that could his, like he just owns it and is contact with the ones who take care of it) when they realise a kid’s ability. For this reason, rarely there are kids who are very young, and I put that the second requisite is that they have to be at least 5 years old, because the school inside it goes only from elementary school to high school.

Only in exceptional circumstances, the Wammy’s House takes on young kids, e.g., if they were in danger and the Wammy’s was the closest place where they could stay. However, after everything is settled (a matter of a few days), they are transferred to other orphanages administrated by Watari if they are that young. They still can come back, when they are older, but it’s a lot more work to look after toddlers or pre-schoolers.

After passing the entry exam, all the kids have their own personal folders with all their existing documents – birth certificate, medical records, etc. – that will be given back to them once they leave the Wammy’s House.

While the whole letter system became a thing when L appeared, the kids still have to choose their alias, because some of them surely have a troubled past and choosing a new name is a fresh start, as if the bad things that happened to them can’t reach them anymore inside those walls. Since making only some choose it would make them stand out, it was implemented as a general rule.

ENTRY EXAM

To enter the Wammy’s House, you need to take a test. Since every one of the kids that are sent here is with the idea that they are more able, the admission rate is 100%.

The exam covers different abilities: raging from knowledge the orphan should possess for their age to difficult stuff (this knowledge is chosen based on the national curriculum for students up to 18 years old), and it includes other scopes (e.g., musical, artistic, etc. – to understand if they have an inclination to something or if they are interested in that).

There is also a social part. Since they live into a community, it’s good to understand how to live with others. If you don’t pass this part, it doesn’t mean you get automatically excluded, but it can lower your position a bit.

There is an obvious fallacy, because if they theoretically know how to behave towards others, it doesn’t mean they employ that behaviour. In fact, most of the kids “know” how to act in a community, but they have some behaviour issues, and the higher they are in the grade system, the worse they are. I like the irony I created, so I’m keeping it in.

This exam focuses more on the thought process than the result.

THE GRADE SYSTEM

I created a system made by 6 grades + 1, which is called “Apex”.

All of them have a basic requirement in knowledge.

The first three (1 is the lowest, 3 is the highest) are more socially oriented and coincide with elementary and middle school. They mostly teach kids social skills, so they can work all together to get to a common objective, aka pass the grade. They focus on play, conversation, emotional and problem-solving skills.

When developing this, Watari thought it would be quite easy to pass it, but he was wrong. He found out that letting the kids try the test – which is, like, a presentation, a competition and a debate – every year created more hatred between them, so he had to add another year, so they could defuse these feelings and make them understand that cooperation is the best option.

The result here is not that important. The most important part is how they got there and how they all behaved towards each other, which should be inclusive. And, while the kids can maybe work better together as a class or big groups and pass the first two with ease, grade 3 is tricky. Not because the curriculum is hard, but because they need to find a person and trust that they are on the same page as them, but not everyone is eager to get to the new grade.

It never happened for someone of the age 13 to still be in the grade 3, so it was never a problem to “what if they remain there until they become 18?”, because Wammy’s existence is short at this point in time, and usually they find someone, but, in case it happens, Watari has a plan B and it’s individual classes to teach them what they should know at their age. They are still in grade 3 and they still have to do the debate with someone else, but if they pass it, depending on how much they have learnt, they can also do the exam to get to grade 5 or skip the classes about the things they already know, because the other three grades (4 is the lowest, 6 is the highest) are more individualistic. They don’t have to work with the others to pass it, so here is more important the result.

The last “grade” is not a grade, but a category. These are those who fulfilled all the requirements and are “free” to do whatever they want. It’s like they finished high school. They are not required to go to class or take some exams, unless they ask to get a degree or a master, in which case, if they need it, a professor is called to assist them and then, an external qualified examinator to test them and their knowledge. But, other than that, they are completely free.

CLASSES AND TEACHERS

Classes are semi-mandatory, and everyone is greatly encouraged to take part to them. Watari may even talk to those who deems more needing to go to them, which are usually those in the first grades, especially if they misbehave or show anti-social behaviour.

For the first grades, there is one teacher per grade for every subject, since the syllabus is not hard. They are of course specialized in those parts. This choice was made for consistency and to create a great bond with them, since having different teachers might throw off the dynamics that exist within the class.

For the other grades, since the topics are harder, there is a different teacher for subject.

School time is a bit different from the one for the public school:

Youth Month represents the start of summer break.

Classes are resumed in September.

They have all the other breaks like Easter, Christmas and so on.

The classes are from Monday to Friday, and every student has their own timetable that may or may not coincide with those who share their same grade – it depends on what they know already, determined by a test at the end of every quarter.  

ACTIVITIES

Youth Month

For this, I took inspiration from youth games in Italy, which is basically an event that promotes inclusivity, sport, healthy competition, and social relations.

It’s in May, and every Sunday there is a different activity in which pairs compete. There are two different competitions based on age: 7 – 12; 13 – 17.

In 1989, I put that:

May 7: three legs run.

May 14: relay race.

May 21: treasure hunt.

May 27: cops and robbers (the last game is divided into two big groups to give a chance to gain a lot of points for those who didn’t until then).

In 1990, the only change I made is that the third game is ping pong, since it was raining outside.

Holidays

Halloween and Christmas two are the main two holidays that are celebrated, because even though I believe that Watari is Christian and the Wammy’s has an affiliation to Christianity, I don’t think he indoctrinate the kids. That would go against the core of the Wammy’s in my opinion, because kids are supposed to think critically and accepting the existence of God without questioning it is not. They can always turn to that religion if they feel close to it, but it’s not mandatory. They don’t go to Church (imagine two old gay men having to make sure 30+ kids don’t destroy it every Sunday) nor celebrate other very Christian holidays, like Easter. They might have a feast, but it’s not publicly associated to the resurrection of Jesus.

This is a choice I made based on the fact that nobody showcases any belief in any type of supernatural entities. Mello wears a rosary, and it seems more symbolic than him actually believing and practicing the religion. I associate it to his mother, who I like to headcanon as a devoted Christian, since Eastern Europe/Balkans are very, extremely, to a worrying extent religious, to the point that people would rather go to church or call a priest home and pray instead of visiting a doctor to cure any kind of injury.

[Tangent about Church in Romania removed.]

Halloween:

I put that a few days before Halloween one of the older kids is appointed to go around the Wammy’s and take notes of what the kids would love to eat (candies) and what they want to dress up as. Everything is done in the realm of possibilities. Watari is going to buy the costumes he can find. Usually, they are passed down from one person to another, so during L’s years, there have been enough requests to have pretty much the ones that are more common, and the only change is to make them fit the new person wearing it. Kids like also to be crafty, like for a mummy costume, they are going to use toilet paper and so on. It’s more about the candies, because he needs to buy something they will like.

In the first part of the day, Watari calls some people to help him decorate the Wammy’s and carve pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns. Some kids give a hand, but the others are more preoccupied with their costumes.

The party usually starts at 17:30, after they take a group photo under the “Hallowe’en XXXX” banner over their head. They then play games and just do their things, while eating candies and other sweets. At 19, there is a feast. After that, Watari or Roger tell the kids some age-appropriate scary stories, and 23, Littleton has fireworks, but you really have to be lucky to see them, because it doesn’t have to rain, and it usually does.

Since trick and treat wasn’t popular in UK until the late 80s-early 90s, I put that the kids at the Wammy’s experienced it for the first time in 1992, both because Watari didn’t understand it and he was wary of letting the kids roam around the community, even if accompanied by those who are older.

Christmas:

I wanted to do something different. Watari doesn’t ask the kids what they might want, but tries to surprise them, so that he can make up for all the time he isn’t present, which is a lot. He buys the gifts and places them under the tree in the main hall. After the kids open them, they take again a group photo next to the tree and the kids have all their presents in their hand, showing them to the camera. It’s very cozy and calm holiday. They have a big feast, and the kids are let playing with their new toys. Then, they have some Christmas movies playing.

New Year's Eve:

Watari doesn’t prepare anything special, other than a feast. There are fireworks, that everyone can see from the garden of the Wammy’s.

Valentine’s day:

There are two types, for those older than 14 and those younger, because I think the Wammy’s is strict when it comes to romance (mostly about PDA), which is not that serious at that age, but it’s an important part of growing up and they cannot go around fearmongering that liking someone in a romantic sense is bad. That would defeat the purpose of the first 3 grades. If you can’t like someone in that way, then you can’t even get near them, as to avoid the possibility of that feeling to develop.

Generally, everyone gets chocolates and candies, but they are also required to write a nice card to someone else. This person is chosen by extraction – done by Watari, who can actually pretend that is random, but it’s actually not.

In my fic, they usually write stupid things, like “you are funny”, but some of them get someone they have petty rivalry with, and so they write backhanded compliments, because they can go to Watari and complain of the card, and the other person can just lie that they meant it, that it’s all in good faith.

Those that are older than 14 can ask Watari a gift to buy to someone, but of course, it’s fucking embarrassing to go and ask him that, so they usually just gift their sweets to that person and do a hand-made card for them, if they feel like it. Only those that are more brave go to him ask him to play a rose, a special card or something.

[Edit 2025: on 5th November, there's also Guy Fawkes Night. They do a little bonfire, with each kid burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes. If they are lucky, there are also fireworks.]

Stargazing

I added this activity for the summer break, in which they all gather in a nearby field and look at the sky on some specific. There is also an astronomer called by Watari that can answer their question, but the reason for this was to let the kids feel a bit freer and not confined within the gate of the Wammy’s, especially the younger ones that can’t go to the recreational ground. They can play some games there, but usually they just lay on the ground and talk with each other. There is a telescope they can use.

Recreational ground

There’s a park near the Wammy’s – 20 minutes by foot, but they usually use bicycles to get there. Only those age 13 or up can go there. They can’t go alone, but always with someone. If someone age 11 or up wants to go, they need to be accompanied by someone age 15 or up, because those of 13-14 might not pay attention to them that much, even if they say, “yes, of course”. For extra measure, Watari has the numbers of those who live near the park, that can contact him in case something happens. Those under 11 can’t go there under no circumstances. I decided this because the roads that take to the park are not safe for riding bicycles and there is an age limit for doing that on the road.

Other than the necessary stuff for riding the bicycles, they have a tag with the number of the Wammy’s and a bag with Wammy’s insignia on it, because I did create it. It was just a vision in my mind, but I did a draft using picsart and color, so here you go. It’s not well made, since the lines of the ribbon banner are not straight. The ribbon banner I took from Google was so bad quality that I could see each other pixels, so I had to draw over the border to make it more full. The first idea was to have a W with an H behind it, but I decided to do it like this, also because it has all the letters of Watari. Everything that is propriety of the Wammy’s House has this.

SUCCESSOR PROGRAMME

Premise

First and foremost, I don’t like the idea of Watari being the one to impose it on everyone, without any regard for what they want to do, because I think he’s experienced enough with kids to know that you can just force them to do something. They won’t. You can coerce them by using violence and threats, but none of the kids that we know of showcase any sign of being physically abused.

It’s also important to note that not everyone in the Wammy’s is competitive. Mello is the only one who wants to be at the top. Mello and Linda don’t care, and neither does Near. He is just first, because he is that smart. However, this is after. Competitiveness is more prevalent in the system I had created, because being in the Apex means not having to follow classes or have to listen to teachers. That’s the prime reason for why people want to reach it. It’s not about prestige, because I don’t think the kids, especially younger ones, have that concept wired in them. And usually, as a self-preservation technique, people tend to either consider negative something they cannot reach/have and that opinion is automatically applied to those who can enjoy it, which makes them want to stay away from it so nobody thinks that of them, but if they had the chance to join it, they would take it in a heartbeat.

E.g., imagine someone that wants to go to a water park, but they find out that the entrance costs a lot or it’s far away. They are more likely to think, “well, it wasn’t that good to being with” or that it’s only for rich bastards or something, rather than accept that it’s just unfortunate. They will even talk badly about it to others. However, if they managed to get in, they would enjoy every second of it.

So, in this case, while advancement is okay, getting to the higher position is pretty much a curse, because if you act in a certain way that it’s redeemed rude, then the reason is considered to be your status.

In my fic, when A and B got in to the Apex, people started to have a negative opinion of them. They have always been on their own, but since they are now reserved AND in the Apex, then it’s because they think too highly of themselves and less of others, which makes people find them some times annoying, even when they are doing nothing wrong. They might still interact with them nicely, but that doesn’t mean they like them.

Secondly, the general theme of the Death Note is that people are responsible for their own downfall in a way, so I’m going to follow that when it comes to its establishment and organisation.

L’s idea.

Unlike others in the fandom, I consider A and B to be older than L (4 years apart), so the successor programme was first tasted out when L was living there. Decided this because I want him to see what he caused, and for the reasons in the post I hyperlinked.

I have a kind of specific yet not definitive idea of how L’s life before the Wammy’s was. I won’t write all down because I don’t think it’s that important. The only part that is, is the fact that he managed to stop a terroristic attack to get Watari’s attention, because “go big or go home”, and he was the one who decided to establish the successor programme.

Establishment

When he arrived at the Wammy’s, he wanted immediately to get down to business, and asked Watari to talk to the smartest people there: A and B, together.

L introduced the idea for “when I’m away”, as in “when I am taking a break” – because I imagine him to ramble about his career to Watari in the days they stayed together before going back to the Wammy’s and on the 8-10 hours long trip, and Watari pointed out to him that he needs to have time to play/free time, and L said that he was right, that he’d put someone in his place for that time, he’d teach them what he knew, because he was very good at it, he was basically justice itself for how many things he knew – but A and B took that as in “when he dies”.

It was in that moment that L took everything more seriously. They talked for hours. A and B asked him lots of questions about that project, the possibility of that to happen, and how to make sure that it can last for a long time.

And while the conversation started as more of an abstract idea, after L showed them what he managed to do, they were both impressed and eager to learn to be able to do the same. They too had an interest in solving riddles, and… C’mon, it’s cool to be a detective, especially one that was supposed to be the greatest.

They discussed the technicalities and decided not to limit themselves only to two members, so that’s how the successor programme was actually created. It was also A and B to decide their own names, because they said that, since he’s called L, they too should have they own letters, and, while talking, they said, “I would be an alternative” and “if you are that, then I’ll be your backup”, so that’s how they got them.

Basically, it started with L, but A and B became co-owners of this programme in a way, and L didn’t mind it, because they were older than him, seemed wiser, and he looked up to them in a way.

For the others, the letters were chosen in two different ways: the first smartest people there would be the first letters of the alphabet, while the others would have their own letter based on their real name, because five people were enough.

And I say, “smartest people”, but A and B advised L to look for other qualities other than that, because you can have someone that is extremely intelligent, but if they are extremely reckless too, then that detective persona is doomed to fail.

All three of them talked to kids in grades 4-5-6 and the Apex (in my fic there are other two people here) about this project, but they weren’t obliged to accept. They let L speak, who explained what they were planning to do, showed them what he did, and gave them the choice to accept or not. If they didn’t accept, they would ask them to not divulge the information they discussed. In my fic, no one actually says no, because they think it’s awesome.

In case they accepted, he granted them a wish, something that he would fulfil, so that, if they wouldn’t get chosen, at least they wouldn’t think they wasted time. It’s a quality I noticed in L, while reading the manga. I explained it in my long post about the characters: he compensates his actions, which I think it’s something he picked up as he started to be interested in solving cases (before he arrived at the Wammy’s), because he saw what criminals had to do after they got caught doing something bad, and wasting people’s time is bad.

So, everyone had a choice and L, initially, worked mostly with the first five people in the successor programme, but not immediately.

In my fic, there is the MC that tries to destroy him and his project, but even without her, it makes sense that he would take time, years even, to make sure this project can operate without any vulnerabilities. He’s far-sighted and took things more seriously, thanks to A and B’s inputs, so he wanted to create a solid foundation for this detective persona and the project.

However, he didn’t spend all his time over that, because we know he was into stocks. He is also a child, so he experienced a bit of his childhood: he participated in Wammy’s activities, played with the other kids, spent his time picking and giving up interests, etc. He even had tennis practices and tournaments, so it’s not like he just solved cases. He still did – smaller cases – but not all the goddamn time.

To me, he started when he was 12-13 to solve them periodically, but not publicly, just to have some credibility in the eyes England’s law enforcement, that could then recommend him to other national law enforcement, slowly building up his empire.

There wasn’t this urgency or this pressure to be like him. It was like a long-period plan that still had to show its fruits. L wouldn’t even tell all the members everything he solved – just the first five, because he would give them the case files to practice their skills.

ALTERNATIVE / A

So, he was older than L and participated to the establishment of the successor programme.

For the first years, he didn’t actually think to much about it, but as he was slowly approaching being 18, he started to have doubts about his abilities, because, as said before, L gave him case files to solves and he wasn’t able to get any of them entirely right. He still didn’t want to admit defeat and be a disappointment in the other eyes’, so he tried times and times again. This had an impact on his mental health, of course.

L noticed this change in attitude and told him that he can switch places with B. He had no problem with it, but A, instead of admitting that he wasn’t fit for the position, preferred to argue with him, damaging their relation.

The situation was really heavy for him, and since telling the truth was worse than anything else, his first attempt to leave it was by running away from the Wammy’s. That didn’t go well, because B, with a group of people there, managed to find him. A invented some kind of excuse, that he was being followed, and didn’t want to bring them to the orphanage. B didn’t buy it, and they too started to argue.

So, in that case, telling the truth was worse than death and he couldn’t bear the idea of being a complete failure, and killed himself.

That’s how I see how things went, more or less. And L was blamed for it. The successor programme was interrupted, and some of them decided not to participate anymore, even though they could always return, once and if it would be resumed.

L leaves the Wammy’s the same year, before he turns 14, which is important, because B kills a 13-years old girl by bashing her head, and that what I think he wanted to do to L (in my fic, it’s the MC, but whatever) at that time, but couldn’t.

In my fic, A’s name at the Wammy’s is Natal, because it means birth/birthday. And B’s name is Elioenai, which means “towards him are my eyes”. Now, this can have different interpretations: the “eyes” could mean the Shinigami eyes and “him” could be Natal, or L. I am not sure how much I consider him having the Shinigami eyes to be canon. It’s an interesting concept, but I don’t understand how that would be possible, like what led to that and what else does it mean for B? Is he part Shinigami? Or his mother had wild sex with a Shinigami, that then got some time of punishment by the King, because it’s against the rules?

I don’t know, so I don’t count them as canon, to be honest. Cool, but I don’t get it.

For me, Beyond Birthday means also “After Natal”.

BEYOND BIRTHDAY / B

I don’t believe he went completely insane after A’s death. In my mind, he was always kind of shady, ruthless, based on survival instinct and self-preservation. He had an attachment to A, but he had no problem to consider him also a tool that he could use and then discard, if he needed to. He loved him, but he always prioritized himself, at the end of the day.

If things went differently and A became L, that would not last long, because B would kill him so that he can succeed him, and nobody would question it, because they wouldn’t know what truly happened.

A’s death screwed up his plan and blamed L for it. He wanted to take his place, but he first needed his detective persona to be well established. He let L do the hard work to create it. A mostly gave some inputs to help him, while B supervised it, to make sure that everything was going according to his plan.

Since A was chosen as first successor, he couldn’t convince him to switch places, because he didn’t want him and L to have the impression that he really wanted that.

He honestly believed that L would be the first one to crack, because he was younger, but when A died and the project stalled for an indefinite period of time, he couldn’t take it. He planned his life to go in a certain way, but now L wouldn’t work as L anymore for an indefinite time, making no progress, and the project stalled, without any information on when or if it would be resumed? That made him see red.

If he couldn’t become L, then nobody deserved it, and he decided to impersonate L and ruin his career. If he had managed to kill himself in Another Note, while Misora still believed him to be L, then that would’ve had irreparable damages to L’s credibility, and L would’ve needed a lot of time to get that trust back.

That’s one of my interpretations of the LABB case, because I can’t really explain why B decided to that. We take for granted that the Another Note is canon, given also the praise by Ohba, but… It’s not. I have a hard time to consider things about L published after the manga conclusion canon, because they follow the fandom’s reaction. I consider the two one shots about Near canon, because Near has never had the same kind of fanbase L did and does, so it’s easy to not be influenced by what other people think.

In Another Note’s case, it’s written by someone else and, even though it might be weird to say it, it’s a fanfiction in my eyes, that Ohba considers canon because he is lazy, and couldn’t come up with any type of case L solved. He said that himself.

I pick and choose, basically. I could also throw Another Note out the window, with A and B, and pretend they don’t even exist, and I wouldn’t be “wrong” in doing so, but I like them, even though some parts of the novel leave me confused, because it contradicts the canon.

After A’s death.

I haven’t thought about this too much. I have just a general idea of the fact that the orphanage got restructured in some way, but don’t know what exactly changed. It’s just my gut feeling telling me that, as well as saying that the grade system got replaced by a simple graduation list, who ranked the kids based on points they gathered during the year by doing tests, and etc. Can’t go in-depth, because there is nothing here that I actually explored. It isn’t important in my fic, so I haven’t paid too much time to that. I might start to think about it in the future, but I still want to submit my answer.

It gets tricky when it comes to who decided that Mello and Near are meant to be his successors. It makes sense that it would be something imposed to them, but they seem to want it. Near takes on the title of his successor and even tells Light that he is that, meaning that he does not despise it. Mello clearly wants to be the best, and the best in his eyes is L, and I think this is due to the fact that L, during their time, is an established figure in the world and they want to be like him. He came from the Wammy’s, which tells them that they can reach that level of grandiosity.

In the “It’s not about justice” speech L gives, it said that some of the kids lose respect for him and keep their distance, so it is not mandatory for everyone to be part of the successor programme. Maybe even here, it’s catered more towards the best in the institution, so that position was offered to Near, Mello and Matt (third in line). Mello accepted for obvious reasons. Near because he likes to solve puzzles. Matt because, “yeah, why not”, but never believed that he would ever end up actually taking on that role, because Mello was in front of him. Here, they are not given letters in an alphabetical order, so there isn’t a first or a second for L’s position (it exists only inside the Wammy’s), and it ties well with what I said before about A and B. A felt like he needed to become L and couldn’t back down or ask for help, but now, who feels fit will take on L’s role and can also work with the other, without feeling like they need to do things alone.

I doubt L would make the same mistake twice and impose such job on them, without any regard for their opinion. Besides, I don’t think L believed to die that young, so while they taught them some important skills to be a detective, the idea was that they will become L later in life – 40/50s. Unfortunately, L died young and so even the successors were young.

Maybe it’s just naivety on my part, and the interpretation of the majority in this fandom of the Wammy’s House, Watari and the Successor Programme is more accurate than mine.

Of course, characters’ individual experience of the Wammy’s can be absolutely horrendous and they are not fond of the institution, but I don’t think Wammy’s House was born or became as something meant to create copies of L, especially because Near and Mello’s, as well as Matt and Linda’s, personalities and thought processes aren’t a carbon copy of his. They are their own people, in some way.

That’s all I had to say. I think I wrote enough to get a grasp of my idea of everything, even though there are some parts that I did not disclose or aren’t definitive. So, keep that in mind – I might as well wake up one day and decide to consider Wammy’s a factory of Ls, that resembles the common depiction of Hell in cartoons, but I highly doubt it.

Hope you like it. Let me know. And thank you for the ask, as always.

I kept thinking who you might be, based on when you sent the asks and my notifications around that time – maybe to find a correlation (e.g., you read something I wrote and thought of talking about that) – and I identified some accounts. Some of them are mutuals, that I can now exclude. The other non-mutuals that ship L/Light but have views that are different from yours. So, when I said that maybe I know who you might be, I think I was wrong, so I am quite curious to find out the truth.

Take care, E.H.

[autisticlalna]

okay ive managed to get some sleep, let's try and explain this in a way that makes sense outside of my brain

so Viking and Ruby both have like. extensive multiverse going on. and all of how it functions is established in a different series, but is still relevant to Skyblock Kingdoms because of whatever the beans Cherruby is up to.

the most basic gist is: they have shared lore where Viking is the manifestation of space and Ruby is the manifestation of time, although i guess only when they're in the same world together? there's also an infinite number of Vikings and Rubys throughout the multiverse, and we have this info because of a version of Viking that has space powers and a version of Ruby that has time powers on Twitch SMP. this is also all connected to the clock and compass that Ruby has on Skyblock Kingdoms, so that's why this is getting upgraded to "oh god this is relevant and i need to explain it" rather than me going "HEY THIS IS WHY I CALL THEM SPACETIME SIBLINGS BTW :D"

for the more complicated explanation, I HAVE DRAWN SOME DIAGRAMS.

behold: a basic Rubyco and a basic VikingPilot. they're siblings! they're also universal constants, seeing as you can't have a functioning world without time and space and these two dinguses represent those foundational aspects. we have no idea how this happened, and 99% of them dont know either, or even know what their roles are. they're just hanging out.

also, like, if one or both of them permadies, stuff presumably explodes. so far this hasn't been like, relevant, but it's been brought up so i should probably include that tidbit somewhere.

along with Ruby and Viking, there's also the Clock and Compass-- the Clock belongs to Ruby, and the Compass belongs to Viking. if neither of them are in a universe together, then the Clock and Compass show up as separate entities. (also they're labeled Tempus and Locus in galactic when we saw them in Twitch SMP, but there was also a bit where the fandom was nicknaming a Ruby and a Viking Tempus and Locus so it gets a bit confusing.)

however, if one of them is missing-- like, say, there's only Ruby and there was never a Viking in that universe-- then the other sibling gets demoted from "load-bearing pillar of the universe" to "normal guy" and the job of stabilizing space and time is instead done by the Clock and Compass, just like if they were both gone. i think.

for any situation where it's only Viking or only Ruby you can disregard this chunk of their lore as "not relevant" - they're a pair, do not separate. this was also the part i was confused on before, and to be honest im still not sure if im getting it right because the phrasing was vaguer than i remembered. we'll see what happens when i start transcribing tsmp lore again.

ANYWAY. we know this because of these dorks:

...specifically the bottom two, but tRuby and tViking are also important here.

Sapphire and Navigator are... sort of a matching pair? Navigator's a mess, let's pretend he's paired with Sapphire. (Sapphire's actual counterpart Viking is missing in action.) they're also the only two we know of so far that a) know about their roles and b) have the powers to prove it.

Sapphire can reset the timeline at-will (mainly to bring tRuby back to life, but has also used this to drag Navigator back when he swapped out), and has knowledge of past and future. Navigator can swap himself and other people between universes, and has knowledge of things going on in other universes involving his counterparts. Sapphire can't leave the universe he's trapped in, and Navigator is bad at anything involving time.

however, neither of them are native to the Twitch SMP universe! we don't know where they're from, but Sapphire got put there as gay baby jail and Navigator pops in to check in on her. tRuby and tViking are also not native to that universe; they were originally from TwitchCon SMP, but Nav felt bad that they're from a short-lived world and transplanted them into TSMP. they're also the only other matching set we know of besides Nav and Sapph, which might be why tRuby is able to remember past timelines and why tViking is aware of things other Vikings have done. also removing them from their home universe was probably a bad idea for that universe's continued survival but it was literally about to end anyways, so,

Nav and Sapph also can't manifest a body outside of their home universe (???), so for gay baby jail to work there needed to be a Ruby for him to possess and, uh, there kinda wasn't one in TSMP. before Nav's intervention, there was the Clock and Compass keeping things stable. (probably a good thing, because tRuby dies a lot and tViking exploded. he got better.)

but out of the Vikings and Rubys we've seen so far, Nav and Sapph are kinda the outliers in category of "actually knowing about and being able to do stuff with their powers". god wait shit fuck this raises even more questions about Navigator but im not going to get into that right now. ANYWAY

so now we've got a mismatched pair! Cherruby isn't from SBK, but we don't know how it got here or what the world it left behind was like. there's a possibility that Cherruby has a corresponding Viking back home (bc she did mention missing family), but there's also moments pointing towards her being solo. also somehow they found the Clock and Compass and has been holding onto them, and they're under observation for reasons probably related to that.

Summertime, meanwhile, presumably has No Fucking Idea. without there being a Ruby native to SBK*, he's been demoted to Normal Guy status and therefore doesn't have to deal with any of this. maybe. it's, uh, getting kinda fuzzier now that the whole "had a flashback to Dominion" thing happened. god i have no idea what's going on with him

(* Cloneby got brought up, but i don't think ze qualifies considering ze was created partway through. and also i don't know if Avid can, like, do that. especially with Cloneby being an imperfect replica, and cc!Ruby drawing attention to the fact that Cloneby doesn't have the clock despite it being part of Cherruby's design.)

you can now see why i decided to include drawings bc otherwise this is an absolute brick of text. TWITCH SMP IS A SERIES WHERE SO MUCH HAPPENS IN IT.

[brb-on-a-quest]

Tumblr should really let you pin multiple things as a blog introduction. (I wish).

Anyway, hi, hello, (new friend?), I'm Brb/Birb/(real name redacted). I'm an almost graduated student from the general land of cornfields and more cornfields. There's not much around, that's why I'm here, lol. (Also I've met a bunch of cool people, so now I think I'm kind of stuck here - come join us!).

⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦

If you happen to be a New Person Who Has Found Me (Hello!) and You Want To Talk to Me, I don't bite, I swear. I am a Birb with the heart of a Golden Labrador Retriever. Feel free to Tag Me in any tag games or haunt my inbox. <3 Come say hi! i love friends.

((Art by the amazing @mayamohini jfkfjjfkjgjgjgjfj it’s gorgeous)

(my "character sheet" that is based on my real life attributes--yes, I did roll all of these numbers. I use canva a totally healthy amount sometimes)

⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦

Anyway, more information y'all should know: This is the main account; I do have a sideblog. I reblog a lot of friend's nonsense, post a lot of my own even more nonsense, kind of have a whole "I want to be a hobbit living my best life somewhere not here vibe" I think. You will also see posts about things I think are wholesome/sweet, writing, psychology, fantasy, whatever fandom I'm in (or a friend's fandom),....just general nonsense I suppose. I do post some amount of life stuff when relevant or whenever I find things funny. Although the pic above is an owl, I am probably more akin to a magpie with much reblogging of things I find "shiny" to add to the chaotic mess that is my tumblr dashboard.

⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦

@brb-on-a-side-blog is also me! This was created to hopefully separate original writing content from the rest of the reblogging I do so it doesn't get buried in theory. This may not work out in theory as well as in practice, but I promise to reblog the cool writing stuff to my main blog if you don't want to have it clogging up your dash :).

There are other ones but as I am currently not using them it seems futile to put in an intro post.

⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦⚔️🐦

Tags to help sift through to find me in the hoard of posts!

#brb-rambles: Original thoughts about something (or at least as original as I can be).

#brb-(insert part of moots name here): interactions between me and said moot! I'm actually really not great at this but will get better and I forsee mass post editor being a BFF if I do this.

#brb-life: original content relating to my life/thoughts.

#brb-writes: original writing content (this will be potentially moved to sideblog).

#brb-memes (i make memes sometimes).

#brb-library: posts that are either really funny/really struck me so I'm going to save them to print out

#brb-adventures: the hopeful travel tag for some upcoming trips (either the grocery store or New York who knows).

#brb-learning-things: Things I have learned (although it's from my school/classes so questionably but I reason sourced; if it's not, I'll include source link/some kind of citation).

#brb needs a laugh check: I am joking. Please do not take me seriously.

#brb vs the call of the academia: school posting?

#brb-asks/#brb-report:s hopefully new ask tag if I can remember to add them.

#dear north canada love south canada (and associated tags I will not be typing out here) is a fun series I have with @igotthisaccountunderduress (she's absolutely cool, check her out). Again, that won't cover all the posts but again, vibes).

[lucabyte]

your ocs!!!!! please ramble about them!!!!

i love your art so much

(GRABS YOU) H. CAN DO BOSS.

So ! My ocs. I guess I'll do an overall explainer for the overall groups. If you check out my Toyhouse (LINK!) there's a bunch of folders up top that are how I categorise them. It's primarily by universe except for the folders that are just "misc."

So folder 1: Blatant favouritism:

These are silly little guys that don't fit in any specific wider universe, but I really really like. So I'll spotlight the two important ones before i get real in the weeds with my main universe.

In here are notably, my Fursona (self explanatory), Ali and Pittsburgh Cincinnati. There's also Hauntkit and Clearpelt who are warriorcats ocs that *is dragged away by airport security*

... So, Pittsburgh, lovingly sometimes called pissbug, is a weird little Thing who I made as like, an homage to characters like happy bunny and Sweetypuss. She (and her weird dog) exist to stand next to strange and offputting captions. I love her. No further context. She's just silly. and violent.

Now. Ali.

Ali Alighieri has thoroughly stolen the show, and also ties into the next folder along, Making Your MK.

With over a hundred extra images compared to second place (Sorry, Tabitha). Ali is my fucked up little scrunkly. My little baby guy. They're a shared character of mine and @samhainian's, and is from their Creature Feature setting (A modern fantasy setting wherein Cryptids and Magic are real but in our modern world.) They are as such, a modern human young adult... Who is also a demon + magic user.

Strange little pansexual altersex genderqueer poetry-nerd that they are... The modern setting also means they are literally just a tumblr user. A fellow countryman, so to speak.

HOWEVER.... Ali's true origin was in *Purrgatorio*, a scrapped visual novel of mine set in the MYMK universe! They were simply retrofitted into CF as the joke with Purrgatorio was that a regular human had mysteriously just shown up in MYMK's pure-furry setting.... And then when we scrapped the project we got all attatched to our little not-so-blank-slate protagonist. But I'll put a pin in Purrgatorio for later.

Making Your MK.

(Guest of honour: My super unfinished website <3)

Okay so here's the big one. The setting with.... (looks at spreadsheet) 109 characters not including so-called incidentals. At time of writing.

MYMK is home to... Multiple stories. As you would hope when a setting has 100+ characters. I'd wager each story has about 10-20 relevant characters tops but with a big shared universe like this there gets to be overlap between casts!!! Yay !!! 😊😊😊

MYMK is the name of the main story in the setting. Pronounced "Making your Mark", it is centered around Markus Felidae (The purple one) and their family. It's very action-adventure-y. It's also the plot I'm most secretive about the backend of since I WILL!!!!! Turn it into a nice prose story with pictures SOMEDAY!!!!! But for now tee hee hee secrets secrets. Markus' family is strange and ragtag and is keeping something from them... I can't ramble on too long here unless further prompted in asks about specifics but!!! Everyone in the MYMK folder has a fully furbished little profile with a blurb about them. So if you're curious....

But yeah, I tend to think of the MYMK setting more in terms of its Locations than its Casts, due to the overlapping nature of them all. The Malbranche may be the villains of the main plot, but they're also major players in relation to The Palsgrave who are the antagonists of Moraine, etc etc,

The country everything in MYMK is set in is called New Orphidian, Southern hemisphere little thing, here's a very cartoony map of it.

Um. Cliffside!

Since it's the best map I have... Here's an exclusive sneak peek of a Zine I'll be getting back to once the fandom brain cools down a bit.... :3c

(... I REALLY NEED TO DO A TOUR AROUND THE MINECRAFT CLIFFSIDE SAM AND I BUILT..... IT'S SO CUTE....)

Cliffside is situated on a big ol' Cliff.

A tiny hamlet of a place, it used to have reason to exist, and now does not. It's not even a good tourist locale, as the cliff is much too dangerous compared to the nicer tourist spot of Welkin just a little north. Not to mention nearby Moraine's allure as a tax haven with no labour laws place where a bunch of TV and Movies are filmed!

It's where most of MYMK's main cast reside (except the antagonists from the Big City Varmonte), and is as such a location I have a lot of tiny little worldbuilding thoughts about :)

I won't go into the other locations here just because then this post will SUPER get away from me but... I think most importantly for Cliffside right now...

Is that it's where Purrgatorio is set. Yes, that VN I said got scrapped. It's not dead. It is in fact serving it's original intended purpose as "A (mostly) noncanon exploration of character voice and setting"

It's back and its prose babeyyyyyyy!!! (A BUNCH OF THE EARLY STUFF IS ME BEING SUPER RUSTY ... BE WARNED)

Purrgatorio is currently the most publicly available coherent work I have out of my ocs! It's very low-stakes and serves mostly to bash my toys together and see what character dynamics come out, but you can look if you want to!

(There's also a whole THING on the meta of its Canonicity... It's not canon, but it's also not NOT canon. But if I talk about Metanarrative Timeline Collapse in my normal mundane non-magic setting im gonna sound bonkers ✌)

Ali's dynamics with the MYMK cast are so goddamn funny to me. Like I literally just handed my OCs some ET shit but ET is a sexually repressed tumblr user with a mood disorder.

But yeah I don't think I can coherently string together much more about MYMK without just actually explaining THE WHOLE PLOT.... Though I will absolutely elaborate on any given character's Whole Deal if i'm prompted. (OH MY GOD I DIDNT EVEN TALK ABOUT CHROME AND TABITHA. WAIT. OKAY THERE'S. OK NO IF I TALKED ABOUT THEM IT'D JUST END UP AN ESSAY ,SORRY..)

So here's some bonafide classic images for the road.

(IF TUMBLR BREAKS THE FORMATTING AND JUST PUTS THESE ONE AFTER THE OTHER INSTEAD OF IN A GRID IM SO SORRY LMAOOOOO)

... And as for the other folders on my toyhouse!

Misc and Fandom are what they sound like. Self explanatory,

Then, Ysden is @samhainian's fantasy setting. It's where our DnD games happen to be set but it's also a general fantasy setting :)

and Monster of the Week... Is currently being revamped! It used to be a modern world setting with hidden magic, now it's going to be more... Adventure Time-y. Fantasy world get iphone. Yknow. It has a lower Age Rating than MYMK's "anything goes", as it started as a Pitch Bible Project in my animation class. They're a little neglected but I still love them :) The revamp is extemely recent and not reflected in any of the art/writing yet but I'm workin on it. It still doesn't have a proper title..... OTL

So yeah!! Uh. This wasn't as comprehensive as I was hoping but it turns out I have way, WAY too many thoughts on my guys. And no idea what to do when im actually asked about them so !!!! This was not a very coherent ramble but it was a ramble !

There's things like essays on Chrome and Tabitha (Link) and also The Queer Gender Identities Of The Whole Cast (Link) hiding around on my toyhouse, and once again, Purrgatorio (Link) serves as my sandbox for playing with how these characters act in situations.

But..... ! I did try to make my toyhouse approachable for the average layman. Every character in the MYMK folder (Link) has a *blurb* of information, rather than a giant wall of text explaining everything about them. I want people to be able to understand their general vibe at a glance rather than be overwhelmed.

In any case ???? Uh. Fun game for everyone: If you know your homestuck classpect, every single MYMK character has a classpect and lunar sway. and a birthday. Try and find your andrew-hussie assigned kin! As a Prospitian Witch of Heart, I share my classpect and lunar sway with Chrome. No I don't know what this means. It worries me honestly he's kind of an asshole.

[nevraeldarya]

Hello! Im sorry, but this is gonna be a long rant😅

I just wanted to tell you that I love how you have written Rheas interactions with Piper, because I absolutely hate her character and think that the plot would have been easier if she wasn't there.

I like how Rhea challenges Pipers opinions on femininity, but I especially loved how you called out the feather!! I am indigenous (not Cherokee, but Mohawk), and I never liked how Rick wrote her, cuz it was clear that he did not do enough, or any, research on indigenous people's and just how serious eagle feathers are, or other topics that he included for her. I get that it changes from an eagle feather to some other feathers then a Harpy feather, but I still didn't like how he had his first indigenous character wear a feather. Like she needed a feather for the fans to know she is indigenous 🙄

(I especially didn't like how fans defended him saying it is just a feather, and that is isn't a big deal)

Also, I just wanted to include that I was not a fan that he had her so sexualized in her claiming, where she says that the clothes were revealing and made her feel embarrassed. Ignoring the fact that she is a minor, which was already an issue for me, but it's espescially worse cuz she is indigenous. Indigenous women are over sexualized (look at Disneys Pocahontas, native Halloween costumes (which were referred to as "Pocahottie"), and Nicki Minaj's Pocahontas paper magazine cover), and this sexualization is actually apart of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). I get that her mother is Aphrodite, but if he wanted to show her in beautiful clothing, then he could have written her wearing nice, comfortable clothing that a TEENAGER would normally wear, not add to this problem.

I would also like to add that I was unimpressed that he wrote her father sending her to a Boarding School, which she made clear she did not want to go to. Idk how to explain it, but I just felt that it was just a poor writing decision, one that did not age well after 2021.

I'm sorry again for the long rant, and bringing up things that arent relevant, but I just really wanted to tell you that I am really glad that you called out the feather and how offensive it was. I don't think I have seen that in any fanfic I have read in this Fandom and it makes me so happy whenever I reread that part. I remember just pausing and smiling so much when I first read that because it made me happy that someone finally put into words why it is .

(So i get that this isnt a part of the fic, but i feel that this needs to be explained so that it makes sense because not everyone knows this or was taught this in school. For context, indigenous children, in both America and Canada, were forcibly taken from their homes and put into government and church funded religious boarding schools called Residential Schools, where they were forcible converted to Christianity, could not practice their religious beliefs, had to change their names to white names, and more. Many were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused, and thousands of children died. The last of these schools closed down in 1997 (in Canada, at least), and they also had their own motto: Kill the Indian, Save the Child. It is considered a Genocide, that was how bad it was.

I will say that this writing decision is one that has aged POORLY, because in 2021 the bodies of 215 children were found at just one of these schools in Canada, and there were more than 130 in the country, and I am unsure of the number in the US.)

(Also also, I just need to say that I don't think Rick meant any of this maliciously, I just don't think he did his research on these subjects and how sensitive they are.

I completely understand, especially cause how fanarts mischaracterised Samirah who is Muslim in Magnus Chase, although Rick did some research in her regards, the fault mostly stays whiting the Fanarts on that side of the fandom.

And when going thought Piper's wiki reading about her, I wanted to understand more about the culture and significance of things which is HOW I fell into the "Meaning of the Eagle Feather", which is pretty fucked up.

Which as you mentioned lead into me finding out more and more fucked up things like the ones you listed.

And it's true that Rick should have written Piper claiming without getting sexualised, like beauty doesn't always have to be revealing, he could have giving her a "cute appearance" which is something she clearly hates.

TBH it's the whole Aphrodite Cabin and many other Cabins being useless in general is something I hate, not related but still, Aphrodite was a Goddess of War too before Athena helped a hero into tricking Aphrodite resulting in injuring her, which resulted into Zeus revoking her War domain (Aphrodite Areia - Wikipedia)

thank you for your feed back btw ❤️

[musicallisto]

𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨'𝐬 𝟏.𝟓𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲 :: 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆

♡ : · • now playing... how you get the girl by taylor swift

hola guapas <3 no, your eyes are not deceiving you... clara's back in town with a follower celebration!! so much has happened since i left—i hit 1500 followers (which is an insane number, thank you guys so much!!), and i & this blog turned 21 and 6, respectively🩵 and how else can we celebrate this than by doing what I do best: throwing a party? sooo yeah, put on your cutest swimsuit, get your piña coladas ready, because we are pregaming on the beach <3

from nov 1st to nov 8th...

ੈ♡˳ reblog this post when you send one of these in¹!! so more people can join the party<3

ships!!! send me 🐚 + a description of you (gender preference, hobbies, personality, turn ons and offs, and any relevant info you want to include! the more detailed the better) + a fandom² = i will tell you who i ship you with & write a few headcanons about your relationship :)

playlists!!! send me 🌅 + a character + a scenario or relationship trope and I will make a little playlist and moodboard associated with it :)

playlists x2!!! send me 🥥 off anon and I will make a little playlist and moodboard based on how I see you or your blog :)

battle royale!!! send me 🦈 + a fandom and I'll spin a wheel to randomly select three characters and I'll tell you who I think would survive the longest in a death match. if you send no fandom i'll randomize my mutuals instead

((mutuals only)) simselves!!! this one's so self-indulgent but if you know me at all you know a core characteristic of my summers is spending 9 hours/day on the sims send me 🍍 + your ethnicity (just so i don't accidentally whitewash you or anything sob) and i'll create you in the sims!! or at least how i imagine you look based on your vibes lmao

go crazy and send as many as you want (in separate asks though, please)!

¹ it's really important you rb this post so more people can participate and i don't feel like a human flop pls & love you

² fandoms i will write for: formula one, stray kids, grishaverse, bridgerton, game of thrones, stranger things, the haunting (hh & bm), the hunger games, top gun, red dead redemption

tagging the girlies (gender neutral) because i love them @tsuncda @permanentreverie @eclliipsed @mishelin @cosmic-railwayxo @hotgirlsrk @catsbooksandmusic @starkeyslut @mgcldydrms @its-me-satine @margofiore @atlabeth @faerieroyal @softeninglooks @amirahiddleston @ughgclden @magpiencrow @heliads, @destourtereaux, @daydreaming-optimist