#bc there are great ppl doing great work all over the place and it is possible to build decolonial queer movements

[seventh-district]

again and again i find myself lamenting that audio roleplay isn't taken more seriously by some people. like yeah, they often have a romantic element, and by nature they usually directly involve/address the listener- and i totally get that those things aren't to everyone's taste. no art or entertainment is universally appealing, and that's okay! but.. it still makes me a lil sad that the "cringe" reputation of asmr/audio rp precedes it. there's a whole lot of talent and creativity being poured into these audios by so many people that i feel goes unrecognized and/or disrespected simply due to the medium that the stories are being told through.

[fireinanhourglass]

i really regret participating in the “queer survival is revolutionary in its own right” rhetoric when I was younger, i think its led to incredibly self-centered takes on liberation politics. the absolute disappointment and failure of identity politics as a basis for community solidarity over the past three months has been completely unbearable, with queer folks (especially white folks) smugly declaring our apathy towards genocide because we “care more about trans people in this country.” i will never give up on queer liberation, but this is truly making me rethink how i go about participating in local queer organizing.

i don’t think liberals have clocked the fact that the “first they came for…” poem is speaking to them and their politics directly. once you start justifying entire swaths of people as acceptable losses, you’ve secured the noose around your own neck. y’all are so eager to talk about “achievable” and “incremental” changes, not realizing the arrogance in deciding what is “achievable” and “incremental” as you speak over the dead and vulnerable (despite what MLK warned regarding “white moderates” over 50 years ago and their insistence that they define the timeline of other people’s freedom). your deepest, most personal issues will be on the chopping block someday — who will be left to speak for you?

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[inchidentally]

Inch what is your opinion on this clip? https://www.tumblr.com/eightyonefour/762429464940527616/what-kind-of-guyteammate-is-oscar

It makes me sad that Lando isn’t able to find a lot of words to describe Osco ;-;

ohhh anon I know for most ppl this is all so boring and not interesting but the way excitable!nervous!shy!butextroverted!fidgety!sassy!emotional!squirmy!insecuresometimes!pleaseloveme!whydoyouhateme?!seeIknewyou'dloveme!creative!sexualconfidence!HORNY!travelstheworldintechnicolor!babyfever!workaholic!Lando exists against calm, placid, self-assured, does his job well,what's the point in doing less than his best, work life balance, lowkey, rational, good with kids but talks to them like adults Oscar makes me so emotional for god knows what reason ??? ;_;

but to Get Into It, I know this is the choppiest messiest compilation I've ever done but hopefully it'll be both self-explanatory and also go along well w my usual dissertation on something that has no real life importance for me but that makes me Feel Things

x x x

so the main thing with how Lando's stops for long periods to think and mull it over is for two reasons: one is that he hasn't done the usual PR aspect of his rs with Oscar the way he has with other drivers/teammates - and the other is that if he found Oscar dull or uninteresting then he wouldn't have had to sit and think aslfgsaljfgsajl. Lando's rly good with the media and honestly this answer would've been rly easy and quick if he could just say "yeah he's very fast and a good guy! hard worker and solid teammate!" bc it's not like anyone is expecting any more about a guy like Oscar anyway!

and with everyone else, Lando's got lots of anecdotes and jokes and shared activities as well as lots of experience interacting on camera in ways that give fans something to enjoy. it's not being disingenuous, it's just that they can easily tailor the friendship to be useful for publicity.

but !!! it's also the case of all of Lando's friends on the grid being extroverts as well as being great on camera. and Lando maybe could be seen as an extrovert but he's also naturally (self-confessed as well as confirmed by those closest to him) painfully shy and he relies on extroverts around him to help him out a lot. I got this ask that we don't even need proof of bc it's exactly how Lando is when he's alone among strangers or around huge crowds. same with when he has to do publicity stuff all alone the thinking silences stretch and he gets that upward inflection where he's trying very hard to see if the other person knows what he means??

and Osc is very much not an extrovert and while he likes the odd shared activity, he has said he prefers quiet conversation in small groups away from public places. so literally ! the ways he and Lando are compatible are simply in enjoying spending time together and being extremely low pressure friends who don't like the publicity aspect encroaching on that.

so how do you describe someone to a stranger if they're just quietly a good, reliable person who you like and work well with ?? Oscar himself needs a fair amount of prodding and encouragement to describe himself, let alone Lando being asked to do it !!

which I think is why landoscar has actually had this strong resonance for a lot of us who have those kinds of friendships or love those kinds of people - you can only see it and get to know it by observing it and knowing it in a way yourself. the way Oscar stares at Lando and does his little self-assigned duties to Lando and the way Lando watches Oscar in that wide-eyed trusting way and lets his brattiness out bc Oscar will always find it endearing. none of that makes for snappy PR content but if you get the vibes then it's so so sooooooo sweet ;__;

it's also why their dynamic lends itself so much to fic authors bc you've got a strong foundation of their authentic dynamic since they can't/don't fake it or play it up, from which you can put them in any scenario or any roles and they just… write themselves! not in a sense that the author isn't putting the work in as a writer skfgalsfg but the strongest thread among landoscar fic is that dynamic always coming through so consistently (even in the more challenging dark fic or out there AUs) the classics I can think of first off are playdate by debrief, that one from work can come over on monday night by higgsbosonblues and q&a by corsi

the common development of how Oscar is so blatantly changed by Lando in ways that seem either superficial or purely practical so that Lando ends up initially missing out on the depth of what that means - and misinterpreting Oscar not changing emotionally for him as disinterest. only to find that when someone who is solid and reliable and knows who they are decides they love you, they show it by changing their life for you and not changing themselves for you.

and that irl considering that Oscar always says how important it is for his relationship with Lily that he spend time with her that isn't connected to his career/life's passion, it's clear that he considers that to be proof of how much he cares. so all of the little ways Oscar bends and adapts and fulfills Lando's practical needs are ways for him to say "I value you" "I make you a priority in my life" "I want to fit you into my life" "I am willing to give up something/change something for you"

like idk how much Lando realizes the significance of those things and that's how I interpret him spending a very long time mulling and thinking rather than just getting past the answer in a neat, succinct way. bc Max F is a very emotionally intelligent guy and very capable of expressing his feelings, all of the guys on the grid are varying levels of emotional awareness/intelligence but they all have the same regular expectation of using their words to express how they feel about friends, and ofc the people surrounding Lando for the past ten years are highly attenuated to his needs. Oscar stands out as this very very different person to what he's used to!

and lastly, there's the whole gentleness and communicating through their kitten smiles and their ways of getting lost on a random subject - they're just such a quiet, gentle introverted dynamic. there's this moment after Japan last year waiting for a train, as well as this moment from Vegas where the crowd is singing happy birthday to Lando that I think are like, poetic levels of how their shyness/introversion fully matches up. bc neither of them feels easy or comfortable actually interacting with the crowd, so they keep looking to each other and smiling for comfort and reassurance. if another driver from the grid were around they could probably rely on him to brazen out the situation, but these two kittens just find solidarity in each other to get through!

so a lot of what makes landoscar a flop for bromance-only ppl is what a lot of us love about it <3<3<3 like I love a good bromance and self-aware PR ships too but landoscar made me want to get an f1blr and write insane pointless dissertations about them so shrug emoji !!

[lostinlovingrevery]

Logan headcanons u say...

I think Logan is such a big animal lover and animals love him.

Also im psyched about my spider girl reader fic with Logan so ive been doing research in his relationship with spidey and omg its so cute they're such a good pair.

This is relevant bc theres actually a story with them where they team up and Logan is there to stop hunters from killing these animals while spidey is solving a series of murders and Logan is super protective of the animal that everyone thinks is killing ppl

ugh i love this man sm

HI ROSE!!!

NO I TOTALLY AGREE!!!!!!

Also Im excited as well!!! They sound like an adorable pairing- I actually saw smth once where one of the spidey people said that he is hell of a kisser LMAO. You come up with the best stuff so I know you're going to do great with this fic!!!!

Logan with Animals

a natural instinct comes to logan to protect the innocent i think

and that DEFINITELY includes animals!!!

I believe he has a natural connection to them due to his mutation!!!

dogs, cats, deer, rabbit, mammals are probably the ones he likes the most BUT he'd definitely protect a fish too!!!

Good luck to any asshole that tries to be mean to an animal in front of him. he WILL kick their asses

he isn't OBVIOUS about his care for them. He'll still have that "We dont need a cat" attitude, but of course be besties with said cat lol

ocassionally you'll catch his soft spot. clicking his tongue at the feral alley cat so he could pet them. talking to a little squirrel thats sitting nearby. maybe whistle back to that little songbird

animals are relaxed with him too. They know the good vibes.

he talks to them like people sometimes! hes talking to a dog and hes like "Cmon bub, you absolutely know better than that." (snatched his sandwich off his plate)

fun fact about me- i am SUCH an animal lover. and so is my family. My mom used to work at a local petstore, and she'd bring home pretty much the loners!

rabbits, frogs, cats, birds, chinchillas

i had mice, bunnies, and hermit crabs growing up!

of course we have cats and dogs too

if thats you (i actually have an ask buried about a reader who brings pets home all the time to logan!) logan would be SO exsperated but then is like "okay but i guess they're cute"

he's not afraid of them either

will yoink a snake (Gently)

will get extremely close to an alligator

doesnt get offended when attacked by random chance. he just heals and was like "well now you feel stupid don't you."

but he doesn't get angry because he knows what its like to be scared and alone

anyhoo like I said he would be so protective of animals!!!!

obviously wolverines are predators but i think he has a soft spot for prey animals!!!

imagine him with a little bunny !!!!!!!!!

Bottle feeding newborn kittens you found in the alleyway, you brought mom in too- but you got kitten milk to help keep the babies healthy!!!!

he is on it every 2 hours. weighs them and everything. so gentle and careful and he reassures momma cat that he'll return her baby promptly

and yes, he has NO patience for any type of abusers or any kind of cruelty towards animals!!! he will hunt them down

imagine a mission involving a lab that was using animal testing, he'd get SO ANGRY. of course you all set them free, get them to the proper places to fix them up and find them good homes/habitats but lord he'd still be so livid. will beat the shit out of those responsible!!!!

man he just does have a soft spot for the cute fuzzy babies. hes on the floor on his belly with those newborn babies from earlier, they're opened their eyes and ears and starting to walk again and they're climbing over his arms and hands

based on a true story with me : one of them gets extremely attached to logan and SCREAMS everytime they see him because they want his attention!

of course you guys kept that one

your pets are allowed on the couch and bed of course. why wouldn't they be?

they only get the best food too btw. none of this cheap dollar store crap

animals just make him happier. they accept him more easily than people do!!!

[ennard-is-near]

Some Michael Afton headcanons and crack theories and whatnot

🚨 warning, If you know me irl (You know who you are, I see you) be aware that I’m not serious hahahahaha I would never be cringe hahaha 🚨

Okay, here we go:

Kid/Teenage hcs:

He’s super quiet after The Bite of ‘83. Like won’t talk to anyone or answer most questions outside of occasional one word answers. [I’ve talked about this before]

He was 13 during the Bite of ‘83.

Wasn’t really popular or a bully or anything before the Bite of ‘83. He was just like, a regular kid whose dad was well-known. It’s like if the mayor’s son was in your class or something. Yeah he’s kind of an asshole, but so is every middle school boy.

Ppl tend to avoid him after The Bite just because if you had the choice between talking to the guy who killed his brother or not doing that, you’d probably pick the latter. People felt bad for him or whatever but it’s not like they wanted to befriend him.

Cannot drive because he just never learned (William was NOT about to teach him). He walks most places.

I know this is semi-canon but he likes drawing stuff. He’s not very creative though, so he mostly draws what he sees around him. He ends of up drawing a lot of animatronics and TV show characters.

Mowed lawns and washed cars around the neighborhood for money when he was like 11-12. William was the type of dad who didn’t give pocket change and made his kids work for their own money. Michael wasn’t great at his neighborhood jobs though so people only hired him if they had money to give away and were willing to go through and fix the spots he missed.

The rest of these are Post-Scoop:

The FNaF 3 hallucinations are like a semi-regular issue for him. He occasionally just sees shit. Doesn’t have to be phantom animatronics, though. Can be more chill (by comparison lol) and like people he knew just standing there, weird shadows (especially in reflections) and sounds and voices. [I‘ve talked about this before too, sorry]

Really scared of the dark. Lights on in every room + flashlight on him at all times scared.

The power went out in his house a couple times when it snowed and (even though it didn’t get pitch black because of light from the windows) he did not like it.

He’s also the master of batteries, they’re scattered all over the house.

His power bill is so much. Like you’d drop dead if you saw it. TV and lights and air conditioning on 24/7 drive it up. His water bill is virtually nothing, though, so that’s good.

Doesn’t have issues with money because he has access to William’s bank account somehow.

Still lives in the house he grew up in. I just feel like he does.

Sort of has an issue with animals. They do not like him and will bark at and attack him whenever given the opportunity. He’s literally a dead body and animals tend to not like those. Birds will literally swoop down and attack him sometimes. He has fought two raccoons.

Absolutely a creature of the night. Only leaves the house past midnight and is back before sunrise. This is for a couple reasons, mostly just because there’s less happening at night. He carries a flashlight around when he goes out though bc he’s so scared.

Has like one guy who he’s on good terms with. It’s some random graveyard shift worker at the local corner store. He goes to the same store like every Tuesday or whatever and it’s always the same guy working there. They don’t even say that much to each other but they’re still buddies. When Michael works at the FNaF 1 location the employee is actually kinda sad because he doesn’t come in that week and he’s really confused as to where that guy could have gone or if he finally died or something. And then Michael comes in the next week and the routine continues and the employee will never know what happened that one week the weird guy didn’t come in.

Okay that’s it. <3

[goat-fanatic]

Wait I'm actually lowkey really interested in the whole vampire thing and like how it works and stuff in your creature AU!! Could you explain please? /nf :3

hopefully you mean the biology and society around vampires so i dont look stupid... but yeah.

so in order to be turned, one has to be bit, then consume/come in contact with the sires blood, then die and boom you wake up a vampire! very important fact of this universe is that creatures and humans have been assimilated for centuries atp, so society has been built around that. humans and creatures dont attack eachother, and theres laws in place to accomodate all the different species that are part of the world. so vampires dont need human blood to survive since there are whole shops, restaurants, cafes and bars that base their products on animal blood/synthetic blood, cuz lets be honest plain blood would get pretty boring fast. vampires dont take any nutritional values from human food but can still eat it, even tho it does taste slightly different to them. for that reason drinking from humans is looked down on as animalistic and crude, and without the humans consent its plain illegal. ofc there are humans who are into being a 'drink' and theres communities and clubs in place for that sort of a thing. theres also humans who want to get turned and can do so after a psych and medical evaluation and a bunch of legal paperwork for both the human and the vampire. but again turning someone without consent and agreements is a crime. after turning the vampires body stays in roughly the same state as at the time of death (fun fact, thats why gee is colder and paler than most vampires, cuz he bled out so at the time of death his body was almost bloodless). it kinda freezes, thats why thwy dont have pulses but if yoy cut them they still bleed. they also have wacky fast healing which is great for small injuries but kinda sucks for bigger ones (again thats where gees chronic neck pains come from. the skin over his bite wound scarred very fast but his muscles and nerves didnt catch up so theyre all messed up resulting in frequent pains yowch). the only thing i could not get a ligical reason for is vamp gee aging but hey its my universe so behold the sciency medical aging pill/treatment engenereed for vamps wjo want to age along with their loved ones! the aging is still a bit slower than the regular kind but its something.

silly facts include twilight and other 2000s' sexy vampire movies being the unhealthy vampire beauty standard that some of them hate and are working to abolish. makeup companies are selling sparkly lotions for that skin of a killer look. also yes they get irritated by garlic but its more like an allergy. also my vamoires have two sets of fangs. and more batlike ears. and nocturnal eyes so sunglasses are on high demand. their skin is sensitive to sun but doesnt exactly burn, more like very potent to sunburn. and theyre nocturnal but just like humans, they can have fucked up sleep scheduels and kinda train themselves to function in the day, altough most dont do it. vampires gather in clans which are usually a few families or completely non blood related ppl froming a tight community. theres some slight differences between turned and born vampires and there are vampire purists who only accept born vampires as real ones. theres also some more conservative humans who dont like turned vampires for abandoning their humanity.

i think thats most of the stuff that matters but feel free to ask abt anything bcs im serious when i say i put an unnecessary amount kf tought into the worldbuilding of this thing lmao

[pumpkinsy0]

headcanons for what purly get up to in like casual day to day life? (they drive me crazy they’re like the rats in the walls of my brain)

reaaaaaallllll

•ok all bs aside, i think they do dumb things daily, but its on a scale, yknow??? the crazy things i say they do def do happen but not AS often as it seems!!!

•they like, never 100% know where the other is, they have an IDEA, but they just ask around till they find each other,,,like two rat lovers in a maze,,,the prize isnt the cheese,,,but its finding the other, THATS,,,the real exit,,

•id like to think that curly brings pony along to help him fuck w his #enemies!! DOES pony wanna b apart of the beef??? not not rlly, but as long as it doesnt involve straight up jumping them, pony’ll go, ponys loyal but not “im not gonna help u jump someone idk” kinda loyal

•on a similar note, dare i say sometimes curly also takes pony along to do some of tims work w him, they arent THAT dangerous otherwise tim wouldnt let curly do it, plus all pony rlly does is stay in the car, curly likes it that way bc 1) makes him look more cool and mysterious 2) keeps pony safe

•they argue all the time, its just not BAD arguments, i mean yea they tend to tell but thats bc they dont have inside voices. if ur hanging out w them, expect to b a thirdwheel until they ask u to pick a side

•a solid amount of ponys clothes is thrifted, when darry gives pony money to go and get clothes, curly tags along and treats it like theyre gonna go on a honeymoon, “u would look great in this😏😏”, and the shirt would break if pony even attempted to try it on, he needs the clothes to LAST

•shhhh dont tell anyone i told u but they try to sneak into bucks place sometimes shhhhhh, but it never works so they just hang out at an arcade, particularly the pinball machine

•if u r a store owner and these two walk in, do urself a favor and accept that today u lost more money than u gained, 60s version of bonnie and clyde over here

•loveee carving their initials anywhere they can, they claim their territory bc they think theyre sm better than all the other couples in tulsa (they r but whatever🙄)

•ponybknows curly doesnt have much food at home so when its ponys turn to cook at his place, he asks if curly wants to come over, and chances r curly will agree. not bc hes hungry, but bc he wants to see his MALEWIFE in action

•ok look if curlys hair is in braids or whatever, pony helps him take it out, this is a good and bad thing bc sometimes curlys hair tangles up either bc he didnt take proper care of his braids while it WAS in braids or bc pony somehow messed up while talking them out

•they talk about the future wayyyy more than ppl would think!! while curlys wayyy more of a “im in the present im gonna live it up” baby, he thinks about what he wants to do NOW in order to b tougher and fiercer in the future, and i dont need to talk about pony and the future now, BUT MY POINT IS, they have their down times where they share their hopes!!

[arthenaa]

Hey bro I like your writing and I was wondering if you could give us some Mizu x Filipino!Reader hcs🥺👉👈 ̶(̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶n̶n̶a̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶j̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶m̶y̶s̶e̶l̶f̶)̶

I have to make this poetic I'm so sorry but also making it modern!au and canon setting teehee (ALSO DOUBLE UPDATE?) slight nsfw ig!! mdni.

canon divergent, just think of this is as that scene from Goyo where Remedios and Gregorio Pilar do a wholeass pining scene idk

Absolutely met you at some fancy ass noble party

You're a child of a wealthy Senor who's in great partnership with the Lords from the Commonwealth

Mizu's camping in and disguising herself in the party to find more intel on her next target and then she bumps into you

at first you're like very inquisitive of where she came from (considering that you view her as a man at this point), how she enjoys the party and what not

then you're suddenly like ik what you're doing. you're not from here.

Mizu's thrown off bc haha this is an international gathering of sorts and like ppl here are mostly foreign

you're like well its bc you're so obvious when it comes to occasions like this that I've already spotted you from a while back

and so youre like dancing and all and Mizu has no choice but to extract info from you

she reveals that shes looking for a white man, and that he may have connections here in the ph

and coincidence cuz you, who's also a part of the resistance, have been tracing the weapons provider of the spanish army.

so you guys work together. you give her intel, she helps you hunt down the provider and their little goons

it kind of starts like an enemies to lovers .... kind of a forced situation where Mizu has to deal with the resistance in order to get to what she wants but rlly theres no other way around

falls in love w your love for your country

despite your privileged upbringing, you're deeply interconnected with your roots, and have been fighting for the filipino people

you guys fight over the simplest of things, like how she doesnt wear things right or holds weapons correctly

you definitely bond over weaponry though and its history. the first time you've seen her katana, you were so amazed. in return, you showed her a kampilan—a sword carved and forged by your grandfather. she had so many questions.

yeahh overall i think what pulled you together was your shared anger and desperation for justice. No matter the situation, whether it be a resistance against oppression or looking for the man that caused a hellscape within your life, y'all resonated with the emotions and trauma that came with that.

BEST BELIEVE THE SEX WAS GOOD and rough and yes hbejawhejehe mhm

anys thats all. you're like PARA SA PILIPINAS and shes on her knees.

modern au hehe

met through int sch program. mizu is a transferee from japan who joined their uni's international program and got linked w ur sch

she was in one of ur classes and like yeah, she was nearest to u so she had no choice but to ask u for sch stuff

YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS PRETTY CUTE but like u wanted a good impression so u tried to help her as much as u could

even gave her a tour of the campus

showed her a few iconic eating places that she could go to jic her budget was on a limit or wanted good filo food

you wanted to expose her to the culture as slowly as u could just so that she could adapt and pace herself

definitely stuck by your side since then

you learned that she's going to study here for 3 years before going back to japan for her masters, and you're like wow thats so cool and shes like thanks

definitely a gamer

you guys hang out at one of the comp shops nearby (IF NAGAARAL KAYO SA TAFT .... guys suki ako don HAHAHA)

loves learning abt history, esp filipino craftsmanship

you definitely treat her to various street foods

mizu : what's this

you : we call it kwek kwek, but u can call it neon balls

mizu: neon balls????

showed and taught her how public transpo works once, and she gets a hang of it a week later

knows her way around manila than you do (author is projecting mb)

knows basic filo words when navigating. you teach her the slang.

basically friends to lovers guys omg, ayon sana all eme

you do that lips thing where you point w ur lips and at first, she was so confused (this is during your relationship)

she thought you were asking for a kiss and she kissed u and you were like ?!@!?@??$?

mizu: ha

you: I WAS ASKING FOR THE,ASd MUGWTF

mizu: ahhh my bad haha

walks u to class teehee

hangs around in empty class rooms esp comp labs and you guys watch movies there

momol sa dorm, momol sa clasroom na madilim, momol sa may agno charot

MOMOL = MAKE OUT MAKE OUT LANG

revels in simple pda like linking ur pinkies together, thigh against thigh when seating, and just yk so landi. landi niyo.

you have her id pic on the back of ur id and she yours on her clear phonecase

EWWWW GAY PPL (affectionate)

unintentionally matching

loves gifting u jewelry esp necklaces (likes to see it when u guys are in the bedroom, splayed on your chest and just yk decorating your collarbones so nicely)

holds your hand and helps you cross the street omf

pays for ur commute fee when riding the jeepney

memorizes ur kwek kwek and fishball sauce combination

loves exchanging one shoe w u for funsies

loves taking pics w u w the cats on campus

OVERALL A CUTIE TEEHEE!

A/N: DEDICATED KAY DELULU RECEIVER!! eto para sayo sorry ginutom keta ng sobra huhu @ianiralvs may isa pa kong utang sayo na req mo hihi gagawen ko pa yon to muna HHAHHAHA

[olderthannetfic]

hii! does anybody have any advice on how to feel okay with not having friends? i spent years abroad, so in the meantime my irl friends from hs found other friends to hang out with who they seem to like more than me or else are very busy with work and uni and such. which is cool, good for them for having such a vibrant social life, but it feels like they have no room for me anymore and i'm a person who can't make friends that easily. i don't drink or smoke, and i feel uncomfortable in big gatherings and feel better getting to know ppl one-on-one over a longer period of time, but that makes it hard for me to connect to ppl bc most irl people don't have much patience or already have their own established friend group and little old me doesn't hold their attention.

i'm starting a new job in a couple of weeks, so hopefully that will give me the necessary social interaction plus i have a great family, so i'm not going stir crazy, it just hurts a little that my friends don't bother to text me for days if i don't text them first or invite me out to places. and i'm trying to make new friends, it just doesn't come that easy and in the meantime i wish i could just feel at peace w being alone instead of questioning why people don't want to hang out with me or why i don't feature into their leisure plans. (not that i'm blaming them, it's just that it's hard not to feel inadequate.)

so yeah, anyone have any advice on how to feel at peace w being alone? like, maybe i'll never manage to make new friends or make new connections, maybe through lack of trying, maybe through lack of luck, idc, i just want to be enough for myself, but i don't know how.

so any wise words are appreciated and thank you, OTNF, for letting me vent in your inbox :)

--

Well... those feelings are pretty common and a natural reaction to the situation. You may not really get rid of them entirely, but you can accept them as a natural part of things and not a sign that anything has gone wrong.

HS friends rarely stick with each other even during college, let alone after, so you would likely be in this same boat regardless. Making new adult friends can be a pain, but it's something most of us face multiple times even if we luck into some good friend groups at points and even if we're more social.

The thing to do for many people is to keep busy with hobbies. A crafting meetup or book club isn't usually massive. I know you don't like groups, but nobody is going to go off one-on-one without meeting you in a group context first. Finding some more manageable groups to meet people casually and see if you click is how most people do it. The only way to get to know people over time is to show up in the same places with the same people a lot.

--

Another important thing to realize about adult friends is that many of them won't be good about texting you or inviting you because they're all out of energy for doing that with anyone. Maybe all of their energy is reserved for a job. Maybe for a child. Maybe for a romantic partner.

Even if you're their very best friend, they may still not respond much at certain times in their life. If you guys are just post college, maybe that's not the issue yet, but it will be at some point.

Every single book about the plague of loneliness and how people suck at maintaining core friendships outside of their household is fixated on this. People suck at recognizing when they aren't putting enough energy into maintaining relationships.

I would axe that hangdog attitude about little old you not holding people's attention. They probably just aren't allocating time to building friendships at all.

--

Liking being alone has a lot to do with loving yourself in general and having hobbies and things you want to have time for that are solo pursuits.

It's also about not waiting to do things like go to a restaurant you want to check out. Go alone. Go with a book. Anything can be a solo activity unless it literally mandates 2+ people. Missing out on friend time shouldn't mean missing out on everything else, but a lot of people let it become that.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[capcollector]

sorry if this is too much but how did bunny, leon, and alfredo meet their main companions?

not too much at all! unless you meant how many times this ask came through bc yes it came in several times😭 anyway can’t promise these responses won’t be a million words tho

in general it plays out basically as it does in-game, though in some cases i tweak the circumstances or conversations slightly (and in some cases certain companions never travel with them at all; leon’s probably the best example of this, with ppl like butch or jericho never joining him).

i actually imagine alfredo having the most…variety(?) of companions he travels with, as in i think he spends pretty equal time amongst all of them during his travels, often with a few at a time. it’s funny bc he’s comparatively the most averse to having companions but. he’s made some friends😔 anyway i’ll get into more specifics under the cut

ig for the sake of this, i’ll say “main companions” are the ones my characters become closest to and decidedly travel with the most. this is undoubtedly gonna delve into me talking about my MC’s and their closest relationships so i apologize in advance😭

LEON

so in leon’s case, that would be charon and fawkes. so leon knew right outta the vault he needed someone to help him. he was a scrawny 19-year-old vaultie med student—he was certain he would die if he didn’t get help from somewhere. so when he winds up in underworld and sees what he assumed was a 7ft bodyguard for hire, he’s knows immediately he needs someone like that. ofc, once leon learns the situation, he absolutely refuses to kill anyone. so he barely scrapes together the money and buys the contract. and ofc watches as charon just as suddenly blows ahzrukhal to bits, but by this point he’s seen so much already he just. fine. whatever. he grabs the caps off what’s left of ahzrukhal, takes whatever’s left in his own pockets, and hands them all to charon, telling him he’s hiring him as a bodyguard.

and for awhile it stays strictly professional. charon is there when leon and james reunite, and he’s there when james ultimately dies. he gets to see leon at his best and worst. and it’s like. suddenly charon is left with this kid and still not knowing how to talk to him, let alone comfort him.

immediately following james’ death, after they’ve escaped to the citadel, leon just needs to get out of there and charon follows bc. what else is he gonna do. charon doesn’t know what to say. leon doesn’t say anything either. they’re staring at the water’s edge when suddenly leon spots what looks like a child all by himself in the middle of these dangerous city ruins. leon, looking for any means of distraction, rushes over while charon follows. it’s bryan wilks, the kid begging for help bc of the fire ants attacking his home. leon springs into action bc he needs to do anything but think about what just happened. so they start clearing out the ants together and. well. they’re both kinda having fun playing exterminator. and maybe it’s getting a smile out of leon too. suddenly makes him feel less weird to be around, y’know? but all at once they realize bryan’s father is also dead. and leon doesn’t want to let him feel the way he feels so they search for the source. charon is there as leon and the scientist talk about the ants, as leon kills the ant queen, and as leon seriously considers taking out the scientist in a fit of grief when the man’s turned around. he ultimately walks away.

this was based on the actual gameplay in leon’s file, just how the timing worked out between quests, but it was a really great coincidence. and it’s during that ant quest that the walls fall down a bit and an actual friendship begins to form. maybe it’s the result of being there for such traumatic moments for leon but charon finds himself starting to care about him and it’s unfamiliar but they keep doing these quests and finding these places together and it’s like. oh. and suddenly leon can’t imagine going anywhere without charon, without his friend.

so they keep exploring the capital wasteland together, growing closer with each day. they find little lamplight together and subsequently find vault 87 together.

and suddenly leon is kidnapped by the enclave. and while charon tries to go with fawkes, fawkes insists he do it alone and charon goes back to underworld. eventually fawkes returns with leon and leon goes back to underworld to reunite w charon and tell him that…he doesn’t need to travel with him anymore. that he can’t ask him to keep doing this shit bc he knows this doesn’t really concern charon. but it’s like. that’s where he’s wrong. he wouldn’t outright say it but he knows he would care if leon was gone. charon tells him he must keep traveling with him bc “that was the deal,” and leon understands what he means.

i’ll cut myself off here bc i’ve rambled for long enough, but charon and leon’s dynamic is deeply important to my canon.

leon meets fawkes just as it plays out in canon. i like to think leon, charon, and fawkes all travel together at times, especially near the end of the main story. fawkes is the one who goes into the chamber, and when leon falls into his coma, charon and fawkes stay by him until he wakes up. and honestly, he couldn’t have asked for anything better to wake up to.

ok cutting myself off for real this time but please feel free to ask more about this dynamic bc i promise there’s plenty more to say. leon and charon also go to point lookout together post-main story. ok. moving on.

ALFREDO

ok i’ll try to hold myself back more going over the other ones. key word being try. anyway for alfredo, while he does end up traveling w all of them, i’d say his closest are veronica, arcade (kinda), and raúl.

alfredo meets his companions pretty much exactly as it goes in-game. i think veronica is the first one he meets properly, and she sticks around as one of the people he’s gotten closest to. he’s still pretty amnesic when he meets her, and he’s just kinda like. sure. whatever. follow me if you want idgaf. you look capable. but they don’t really become closer until after his memory comes back. so we’ll circle back to them in a minute.

similarly alfredo meets arcade when he’s still trying to remember himself, and though in-game he recruited arcade through the confirmed bachelor perk, i like to think alfredo never actually overtly flirted with him. rather, arcade found himself weirdly attracted to him. maybe it’d just been awhile since the last time he’d had a man, but something about alfredo. he has a certain magnetism, that confidence that comes from just accepting your good and bad qualities. strangely compelling. and maybe if he’s really lucky the sex will be good (it’s not).

but jokes aside, arcade is the one there for when alfredo really regains his memory. this is something that happens pretty early on in alfredo’s story, around the end of the first act/beginning of the second. arcade was there when alfredo told him about the fragments he had coming back, the pieces he kept seeing but couldn’t really explain, and he’s there when alfredo just completely breaks down in the middle of the desert one night. bc all at once it feels like everything just makes sense, all at once alfredo’s forced to confront the truth. he remembers who he was. he remembers how he got to this point. arcade gets to be one of the only people who’s seen this once-infamous mercenary sob.

but y’know. once alfredo regains himself, he does recruit ppl easier. he remembers how to talk to ppl and not so much rely on his intimidating presence (tho i mean. he still uses that too). he and arcade start sleeping together, but it’s more of a friends with benefits situation. but perhaps it grows into something more fond…? if alfredo will allow himself that much.

anyway. circling back to veronica in particular, alfredo becomes genuinely fond of her. her spirit reminds him of his daughter, and as such he feels comforted having her around. he’ll never say no to her. he calls her ronnie. pretty obvious favoritism and veronica knows it.

and coming back to raúl—he’s one of the first companions who joins post-memory returning. this is honestly just a case of them being on similar wavelengths. i think alfredo just appreciates raúl’s attitude, reminds him of ppl he used to know. they’ve both been around a long time and seen and experienced so much shit, and alfredo does find it nice to have someone who can relate a little more closely to that. he also just thinks he’s funny, tho alfredo’s never really been one to like. laugh really hard at things. but raúl can get a dry chuckle outta him so. that’s something.

BUNNY

bunny’s interesting bc i think she has the most, idk, reach? she builds up a whole community post-game, so her relationships are crucial. and she continues to have all these relationships after the main game bc of how important it is to the larger world. with that in mind, i’ll be highlighting relationships based slightly more on the main game, but just remember (as i’ve talked about before) her relationship w ppl like preston and desdemona are vital to the larger post-game community. and some dynamics become much more pronounced or even alter slightly post-game. ANYWAY. all that to say. deacon, nick, and maccready really stick out to me when discussing her main game dynamics.

so again, i do think generally the meetings play out as they do in canon. she finds codsworth first, then preston, then nick, etc etc. and i think nick in particular, bc he’s actively working this case as a hired detective alongside her, is the first companion she really begins to develop something deeper with.

nick’s there to help her find kellogg, he’s there when she kills him, there to comfort her when she feels at her absolute lowest. nick sees bunny at some of her lowest points so early on, and the fact that he was determined to help her see this through to the end was something that will stick with bunny the rest of her life. she believes she’d be dead without him, and she cherishes their friendship and trust so deeply.

and nick’s there w her when they find the railroad’s hideout, and gets to see the first “real” meeting between bunny and deacon. ofc we know deacon had been trailing her from the start, and she even thinks he looks familiar, but this marks the start of what will become each other’s most enduring relationship. like what else can i say here that i haven’t said already. bunny and deacon. it wasn’t like bunny was looking for love, and it wasn’t like she thought it’d be with deacon either, but suddenly one day she wakes up and realizes she can’t imagine life without him. honestly i’ve written a bunch of posts on their dynamic already so if you somehow haven’t seen those i really recommend just checking out bunny’s tag. also worth mentioning i did answer an ask about deacon’s affinity conversation in particular so check that out too if you’re interested.

and maccready i wanna bring up bc they really do become best friends. the girl knows how to haggle and mac respects that, was even able to knock some caps off his hiring price when they first met. she always leaves an impression. i think bunny has always seen something in maccready that reminds her of her cousin; he was several years younger than her and kinda became like a little brother to her even though she was an only child. when she woke up 200+ years later, accepting that he (among other loved ones) was almost certainly dead was something she struggled with. so having maccready, having that sarcasm and wit, it makes her happy. but especially when he opens up and admits he has a son too, finding solace in each other over something like that…it goes a long way. they’re grateful to be in each other’s corner. they trust each other so completely. and i don’t wanna get too into post-canon stuff when discussing this bc whew this is long enough but maccready is the first person bunny tells she’s pregnant, so that should give you an idea of how strong their bond is.

ok my eyes are glazing over. please as always if you have any questions about any of them or their dynamics w characters are anything else, lemme know!! i love talking about them more than anything

if you read all this i love u thank u

[promethes]

tell us about the date!!

girl. genuinely so many things where it was just so clear we are two very different kind of people. for one when he initially asked me out he sent a christmas pop up event that had literally closed weeks prior. I didnt say anything and waited for him to figure out bc i wanted to see if he would and also I had a backup idea planned if it came to that. bc I value ppl who plan ahead of time and look into things like that. he did not realize until 2 hours before the date and switched to an ice skating spot instead. again, it was a place you have to buy tickets online in advance but i didnt say anything bc i dont want to set the expectation that i’ll do that shit for him and wanted to see if he’d check which he didn’t we ended up having to go off to the side to buy the tickets when we got there.

I will say he’s nice enough and polite and drove and paid so that was cool whatever.. but like for example he basically had me being his personal photographer the whole time and had me retake the same video of him skating three times from different angles bc he wanted to post that and that is just not me I hate that shit. when I wasn’t recording him he was recording himself it was ridiculous. also he loved going fast the whole time and it was like more of a circular path than a traditional ice skating rink so I deadass gave up on trying to keep up and went at my own pace that man deadass zoomed off and left me for a good 10 minutes which thank GOD it was the best ten minutes of my life.

he remembered absolutely nothing I said and asked if I had siblings like 3 times and just kept making weird comments that i wasn’t fw at all. and I gave him a lot of grace bc english is his second language but at a certain point weird is weird and also sometimes i told him like you can just say it in spanish i understand and even in his first language it was like ur just…. WEIRD!!!! like at one point he said i look really “innocent” and then he said Im probably a “daddy’s girl” like who tf are you talking to rn.

also he wore a fuck ass jacket and said he didn’t want to wear his beanie even though it was cold bc it made him look “hood”. mind you 1) i am literally from said “hood” chill out 2) 90% of my attraction to him was based on seeing him in his work clothes and in that beanie. the second he was in his preferred normal clothes and fuck ass gelled hair with his fuck ass big ass truck it was like oh yeah we’re two very different people.

idk he was just kind of vain all around and made some weird insinuations and we did not match at all. initially I tried to convince myself it was cultural differences and that I needed to cut him some slack but sometimes u just have different values and perspectives and that’s how it is! im just glad he only kissed me on the cheek at the end of the night omg I was so repulsed when he leaned over. sue me for being normal i guess

worst part is i’m so fun to hang around and a great conversationalist and super accommodating and also he’s vain so he for sure thinks I had a good time bc he had a great time and now i have to figure out how to stop this without making things weird at work and without having any kind of retaliation but whatever worst case i’ll agree to another date and act in a way that makes him hate me so he can cut it off and we’re both happy

[apollos-boyfriend]

what's a festa junina if you don't mind my asking?

i don't mind at all!!!! i love sharing stuff about brazil <3

okay SO. festa junina directly translates to "june party", and are sometimes also referred to as "festas de são juão" (saint john's parties) because we're in brazil and everything has to be related back to religion somehow LMAO. they are festivities that take place in, obv, the entire month of june, although some can last up until like, late august because by god do brazilians love a good party. traditionally, they're held to celebrate the harvest season, rain, and marriage (*cough* which is why it'd be great to celebrate it now with the spiderbit wedding on the horizon *cough*). it's brazil's second-biggest festival, second only to carnival ofc, and has very rural roots in its celebration style due to largely being a harvest/farming based celebration!

so!! festa juninas are typically held in wide open areas and absolutely COVERED in colorful decorations. largely banners, as shown above, but there are also different tents/stalls full of food, games, and other stuff for people to enjoy!! festa junina is kind of heralded as the best time for food/snacks bc it's FULL of sweets and other treats that aren't that common to find en-masse during other times of the year. as shown above, it's also super common for HUGE campfires to be lit (fogueiras) for ppl to dance around and stuff :]

due to being so heavily inspired by/created in rural areas, the standard dress code is very much of a stereotypical rural farmer (called caipira in portuguese!). the standard is for men to adorn straw hats, flannels, and working boots/pants, while women wear their hair in ribboned braids, dot freckles on their faces, and wear rustic dresses on top of it all! the dresses can be EXTREMELY over the top sometimes to the point of camp and i fucking love them so much. genuinely some of my favorite memories are shopping for dresses for festa junina.

as i said, games are a BIG part of it too! a lot of festa juninas are hosted by schools so they need stuff to entertain the kids, but honestly, as a grown adult i still will go to them in a heartbeat. they're largely the typical festival games of ring toss, three-legged races, etc, but i cannot put into words the certain Charm of them. like. by the time festa junina starts it's at least sundown, if not fully night, so all the stands are lit up by the yellow-orange glows of shitty lanterns/fairy lights and. ough. that is my heaven. (fun fact, me and my cousin once won like, a dozen goldfish from one of these. good times.)

and last, but certainly not least, i GOTTA talk about the dancing!!! we call it quadrilha, and it's kind of like square dancing, i guess? it's a very silly and over-the-top dance that's The biggest even of the night. the dance follows the story of a wedding ceremony (rehearsal? i can't recall) which again would be PERFECT for the current events on the smp.

and yeah!! there's a lot of other stuff and they can vary from region to region (i'd love for other brazilians to share things i may have missed :Oc) but overall they're just a HUGE event in brazil and for brazilian communities that really just unite everyone in one huge night (or nights) of partying!!

[cleromancy]

Something has been bugging me recently. Do you ever notice how people (particularly Jason stans) go on about how Tim victim blame's Jason for his own death, but fail to mention how Alfred and Bruce are guilty of doing the same thing in the past? Why do these two (especially Alfred) get a pass?

LMAO LIKE... EVERYONES DONE IT. BRUCE ALFRED DICK BABS *SELINA* OF ALL PEOPLE ONE TIME... actually id have to double check that one idr exactly what she said about jason it might have just been that hes unhinged (<- also a thing everyones said at some point) but like. everyones freakin done it. or at least *implied* it.

tim is a special case for a reason though--and ill come back to bruce and alfred later--and its not just bc fandom wants a scapegoat to pin All The Victim-Blaming on. on a meta level tim was specifically created to be jasons opposite, and to ~rehabilitate the robin role and make robin palatable again to modern readers. (and to be clear this wasnt bc readers didn't like jason specifically--it was the idea of robin at all, and to a lesser extent just replacing the orig. jason just took on the mantle at a really unfortunate period in comics culture.) so the comparisons to jason are baked in right off the bat. and tim has to be "better". tim had to prove that a robin was necessary so that dc could keep having one, he had to justify it so that the blame didnt fall on bruce for getting a child killed (or yk even just out there fighting crime at all). theres also an element of class dynamics thats. i mean. jason was a homeless street kid and tims this fancy little distinctly upper middle class kid who replaces him, without derailing to get too deep into that the optics already arent fucking great.

but tims creation aside, just as far as how often it comes up... tim also takes the role of robin really seriously, and its everything to him, so he spends a lot of time thinking about it, what it means to wear the uniform & fulfil the role. so hes the one whos most frequently in the position to be thinking about jason, after bruce. so tim winds up being the one pushing the bulk of the bad/angry/impulsive robin narrative retcon dc wanted to push bc... its the most directly relevant to him. bruce doesnt have much narrative need to think about jason "failing" or not being good enough until under the red hood... except to be like "i dont have to worry about tim bc hes not like jason." lmao. and then you have tim who does not want to get killed, like jason did, so he spends time thinking about how to not end up like jason. which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how being a victim of murder works but i think understandable thing for a child replacement of another dead child to latch onto (particularly one as prone to arrogance & god-complex-itude as Our Timmy, lol). and both on a meta level and in-universe this is about shifting the blame off of bruce and onto the victim because tim needs to keep filling the role hes filling without it being bruces fault that jason died in the first place, bc reckoning with batman and child endangerment is not smth the comics had ever really planned on doing in a serious way.

but as for why singling tim out over bruce and alfred-- the kind of ppl who do this already generally think bruce sucks past the point of being interested in ~holding him accountable~ for absolutely anything... like "bruce sucks, everyone knows he sucks, enough said." i think the logic is generally like "if tims not a total shithead like bruce, then why is he doing shithead stuff like bruce does :/" and then pinning it all on tim as opposed to considering like "hey uhhh do you think maybe hearing stories about jason from bruce influences how tim thinks of jason over the years." if that makes sense

as for alfred. people do not want alfred to have any interiority or to ever have been mean or wrong bc then theyd have to actually think about the fact that bruce has a 24/7 domestic servant in his employ, which is just the. tip of the iceberg when you start thinking about alfred as a full character and not a convenient cardboard cutout to prop up whoever the narrative needs him to. also alfreds role in almost every batman narrative is strictly as support, almost no agency within the story to have a meaningful impact, and people generally respond to the character in kind.

finally i think tim mmmmight be the only character at least as of the reboot who ever talked *to jason* outloud style about certain things relating to jasons death... this answer is already getting too long so i dont want to get into depth about titans tower. but tt 2003 #29 is a great example of the comics pitting tim and jason against each other to make Jason look worse by comparison--for all that tim doesn't actually *say* anything victim blaming jason for his death, *and* for all that jason totally kicks tims ass in the fight and its not even close, on a meta level the story is 100% presenting jason as the bad robin, the robin who failed, Unlike Tim Drake, A *Good* Robin. (i accidentally reread the issue ... im going to make a post about it later probably. god i wish this fucking issue had been good)

but yeah i could probably go on and on even further but yeah, i think thats where people are coming from when they single timmy out. tim only exists at all bc of jason n would be fundamentally unrecognizable without having been crafted to be the anti-jason. and on top of that he has repeatedly been used by dc to make jason look worse (or rather jason was used to make tim look better), and a lot of my fellow jason stans understandably resent tim for it. i however am built different, and want them to kiss.

[whumpsday]

my unhinged rant about the whumptober discourse, below the readmore for the benefit of ppl who dont wanna see that crap. im just gonna go insane if i don't say this somewhere bc i feel like i'm losing my mind

this drama is genuinely so mind-blowingly stupid it's unreal, and it's been bothering me so much that i just HAVE to talk about it or i'm gonna go insane, if for no other reason than to get it out of my system. i honestly never expected the whump community to go on the kind of bad-faith tirade that's taking place.

disclaimer right here that i do not support AI scraping creative works without permission (like chatgpt and a whole host of AI art programs do) or these AI-generated works being passed off as legitimate creative works. obviously that stuff is bad, and literally everyone on all sides of this agrees it's bad. i used chatgpt exactly once one week after it came out, before i knew how shit it was, and haven't touched AI stuff since. because it steals from creators and it sucks.

now:

saying "whumptober supports/allows AI" when their official policy says plain as day:

"we are not changing our stance from last year’s decision"

"we will not amplify or include AI works in our reblogs of the event."

"we discourage the use of AI within Whumptober, it feels like cheating, and we feel like it isn’t in the spirit of the event."

is bonkers! whumptober is a prompt list, there is nothing TO the event other than being included in the reblogs. they literally cannot stop people from doing whatever they want with the prompts.

someone could go out and enact every single prompt in real life on a creativity-fueled serial killing spree and the whumptober mods couldn't do shit about it. it's not like it's a contest you submit to. it's a prompt list! someone could take every single prompt from the AI-less whumptober prompt list, feed it into chatgpt right now, and post them as entries. and the mods of THAT wouldn't be able to stop them either. because it's a prompt list.

the AI-less event have also made just... blatantly false claims, like that grammarly isn't AI. grammarly IS AI and they openly advertise this. hell, this is grammarly's front page right now:

and this is a statement from grammarly about how its products work:

its spellchecker / grammarchecker is AI-based! claiming it's not AI is just... lying. saying "this is an AI-less event" and then just saying any AI that you want to include doesn't count as AI is ludicrous.

and you know what? whumptober actually pointed this out. they said they don't want to ban AI-based assistive tools (like grammarly) for accessibility reasons. this post has several great points:

"AI is used for the predictive text and spellchecker that's running while I type this reply."

"Accessibility tools rely on AI." this is true and here's an article about it, though the article is a little too pro-AI in general for my tastes, there's nuances to this stuff. it's used for captioning, translation, image identification, and more. not usually the same kind of AI that's used for stuff like chatgpt. THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS!

"But we can't stop that, nor can we undo damage already done, and banning AI use (especially since we can't enforce it) is an empty stand on a hill that's already burning, at least in our view of things."

and people were UP IN ARMS over this post! their notes were full of hate, even though it's all true! just straight lying and saying that predictive text isn't AI (it is), that AI isn't used for accessibility tools (it is), that whumptober can somehow enforce an anti-AI policy (they can't because it's a prompt list).

in effect, both whumptobers have the EXACT SAME AI POLICY. neither allows AI-generated works, but both allow AI-based assistive tools like grammarly. everyone involved here is ON THE SAME SIDE, they all have the exact same opinion on how AI should be applied to events like this, and somehow they're arguing???

not to mention that no other whump event has ever had an AI policy. febuwhump, WIJ, bad things happen bingo, hell even nanowrimo doesn't have one.

and you wanna know the most ridiculous part of this entire thing? which is also the reason why none of the above events have an AI policy.

no one is doing this. no one is out there feeding whumptober prompts to chatgpt and posting them as fills for whumptober cred. it's literally a hypothetical, made-up issue. all of this infighting over a problem that DOESN'T EXIST.

to the point that people are brigading the whumptober server with shit like this:

saying "everyone who participates in whumptober is a traitor, you should go participate in this other event with the exact same AI policy but more moral grandstanding about it" is silly. every single bit of this drama is silly.

in the end, please just be nice to people. we're ALL against the kind of AI that steals from creators. the whumptober mods are against AI, the AILWT mods are against AI, whumptober participants are against AI, AILWT participants are against AI. there is no mythical person out here trying to pass chatgpt work off as whumpfic. let's all just be civil with each other over this, yeah?