#but i'm not putting that in the main post because it isn't even the point

[maryellencarter]

so i can't be arsed to actually give this OP the opportunity to verbally jack off at me, but i just saw a post where someone was complaining (validly) about the ludicrously high hardware requirements for upgrading to windows 11 -- i have a gaming macbook made in 2018 which i partitioned to windows and *that* can't even meet the motherboard specs -- but then turned it into a diatribe on how this was only a problem because you, personally, are too much of a little whiner to switch to linux.

and if i could climb through my phone and slap that person's face right off their skull, you can bet i'd do it. linux is crossfit for nerds. the first rule is that you have to holier-than-thou about it to everyone in earshot at all times, and the second rule is to give yourself a repetitive stress injury failing to make it work. not only is linux completely unsuitable for 90% of what people want to do on a computer, its whole design philosophy is antithetical to many of those things, such as "have a program I can find documentation for" and "work without having to write any code myself".

(and, crucially, "not have to listen to linux dickwads being snide in order to find out how to do things". calibre, the drm-stripping software, is a good example: it's permanently on my shitlist because some years ago, i picked it up to attempt to strip some drm as you do, and discovered that the part of the "manual" which would have told me how to do that was "The exact command line to use has been left as an exercise for the reader." Go jump off the continental shelf.)

i'm not turning off reblogs. feel free to share. but if you feel obligated to defend the honor of linux to me, consider that you've been sucking your own cock for so long you don't even realize your spine is stuck that way now, and don't bother.

[anonyanonymouse]

🙈

[steakout-05]

i think having TF2 as a special interest really early in my childhood influenced so many things about myself and my identity.... my gender is big men my sexuality is big men and my sense of humour is big men. i even named myself after the "very tiny and scrawny but still big" big man and i think about all the big men in TF2 on a semi daily basis,,,,,, anyway yeah i like the men in TF2 :)

[constellationcrowned]

((I want everyone to keep something in mind in regards to this blog and this is going to sound like a general, common sense post (and in a way it is) but it's also hi I'm in your house, whispering into your ear, telling you to call ga//amestop and ask them if they have bat//tleto//ads---, blah blah, basically it's personal too:

With me, regardless of blog or content, both communication and engagement go hand in hand. Communication and engagement needs to go both ways.

I love posting and reblogging memes and calls and will continue to do so but you folks---old mutual or new mutual doesn't matter---need to take the initiative yourself sometimes too. Be enthusiastic. Be spontaneous. Be proactive. I don't want to ask people to write with me all of the damn time nor do I want to chase after people all of the time because if I have to do that constantly over and over again it starts feeling incredibly one sided even when it isn't (because ofc people have lives, specific interests, anxiety, and whatever else which are all things that I deal with myself and I understand how that can stop someone from doing something, but that's how it feels especially over an extended period of time) and I don't need to explain how disheartening and draining that can be.

My seeming to interact with only one person---and for both of my blogs it's @magioffire and we all know that---it's not because we're being stuck up, elitist or whatever inane and incorrect term people want to throw at our feet it's because we engage and communicate. The give and take between us (both from an ic and ooc standpoint) never feels imbalanced or even transactional (I really hate using that word but, again I gotta stress this, that's how this makes me feel) and I have never felt like I needed to chase them down for an interaction or had to fight for a scrap of their time---which feels like a feat bc Blair has a lot of people scrambling at their door---and I cannot tell you how huge that is. That sounds like a huge sweeping thing to say, I know, but I mean it in all of the little ways too. I could post some stupid bullshit on here; not a starter or a meme just a little random muse thought or observation, and 100% of the time here comes Blair telling me what they think or adding on to it or just...whatever. They're here for both me and my muses for the big and small things, whenever I've asked and, more often than not, when I haven't (or couldn't) and that's incredibly important. It's that kind of stuff that makes what we have special and that's putting it super lightly. And yes, our relationship both as friends and as writers has developed over a long time, and we did click immediately that's true, but there's never been any doubt to cast upon the work and effort both of us have put forth.

And this post isn't to say that I'm demanding constant or immediate attention from you all---because, again, we all have lives, health issues, etc, etc, and all of that takes precedence over a hobby as I've said before and will say again and again---but....put some effort into it when you have the capability. Yes, like the calls that I post or send a meme in, absolutely, but also message me on your own and ask a question or shoot a muse a random prompt or just @ me in a post. Show me some enthusiasm and engagement on your end because right now it feels like I'm doing all the work all of the time and that's tiring. I'm tired of handing stuff to people all of the time---I'll keep doing it, obviously, because I need and want to engage on my end and love throwing stuff at people and providing opportunities---all I'm asking for is understanding and reciprocation.

If you can't reciprocate for whatever reason? Tell me.

If you're unsure about something, no matter what that something is? Tell me.

If you need help or even a specific kind of accommodation in order for us to start interacting or continue interacting? Tell me.

Don't just assume that I don't want to write with you or that you can't ask me for things. Don't assume that I'm being a snob or whatever else just because I seem to be paying attention to a certain mun full time because do you know what that actually is? That's friendship. That's effort. That's me giving back what I've been given. That's me reciprocating the enthusiasm, love and creativity that I've been handed, nothing more. There's nothing unobtainable or gatekeep-y about that either, you just need to be earnest and forthcoming with me and I can assure you that I'll return the favor in kind.))

[thedreadvampy]

I mean sure, I can understand this perspective, but I'm not sure whether most people feel less shaken to be thrust into conversations about "self-unaliving" than conversations about "suicide"

and I for one as a survivor would much rather unexpectedly encounter somebody talking about "rape" than somebody talking about how funny it is to have sex with somebody when they don't want to, a normal thing that doesn't need to be named because it's So Normal.

which is to say. this is a post about words. the words are not the distressing thing about the discussion. the distressing thing is the distressing thing about the discussion. sugarcoating, dodging or renaming the distressing thing doesn't make it less distressing but it DOES often make it harder to have a frank discussion about it or address it in serious terms.

[pinch of salt: solid probability from their blog that this person is a Literal 14 Year Old and the perspective from 30 and 14 are very different. I do stand by all the points I'm making but I think this conversation lands a lot different for people at different life stages - there is something to be said for the general issue that the internet has flattened social groups to the degree that I as a 30 year old can make a post to my audience of largely adult millennials that immediately enters the same conversational space as people half my age and still in school. that seems. ungreat. as the primary way we engage in conversation. but I don't have solutions to offer.]

you gotta be able to say "die"

you gotta be able to say "suicide"

you gotta be able to talk about "sex"

they're uncomfortable topics, YEAH for SURE

because LIFE is uncomfortable. Death and suicide and sex and pain are straight up going to happen. not having words for the way it discomforts you doesn't make it more comfortable, it just makes you less able to reach out about it.

even more vital, you gotta be able to say words like "rape", "abuse", "queer" or "racist". cause we fought fucking hard to name those experiences. to identify "rape" as distinct from "sex" and "racism" as distinct from "acceptable behaviour" and "queer" as distinct from "invert"

like the function of communication is not to minimise immediate discomfort. we gotta be able to talk about stuff that's hard or sucks or causes difficult conversations.

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)

[loganlermanstanaccount]

Show me where it hurts (part 1)

Miguel O'Hara x spiderwoman!reader

(AO3 Mirror), Part 2, Main Masterlist

summary: Miguel's acting weird, and you make it your mission to find out exactly what's going on.

warnings: no warnings for this chap, pg-13, swearing and canon level violence. smut next chapter xoxo

a/n: this is a combination of 2 asks and this post I saw on here a while ago: flirty/ snarky fem reader, Miguel during a ""rut"" (I don't know if it counts as a rut really, but its to do with his animal instincts/DNA) and Lyla playing matchmaker.  I had so much fun writing this, enjoy :D

(i wrote this pre seeing spiderverse 2, so i think characterisation is a little off, esp for Lyla, apologies! I'll fix it in my upcoming fics)

edit: I use the term "bichita" which I have been informed can be read not as I intended in Spanish. I'm not a native speaker so I want to apologise in advance. I'm doing more research for my future fics and leaving this up as a testament to my stupidity. Spanish speakers, feel free to correct me / clown my ass in the comments. My bad guys :(

wc: 3.6k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You think Miguel is avoiding you. 

One of your closest friends, giving you the runaround for months, it seems. Calling the two of you close friends is a little extreme, sure. You've only known O'Hara for two years, and been in love with him for slightly less than that, thank you very much. And yes, he refuses to call you by anything but your last name. And the last time you saw him he wouldn't so much as look at you, but that was besides the point. 

"..the point," You tell Lyla, in between exasperated bites of cereal, "... is that aren't elite forces of spiderpeople supposed to, you know, have some spiderpeople kick ass once in a while? And where exactly is our fearless leader? I haven't seen O'Hara's scary ass in weeks, and I'm starting to miss it."

She gives you a look, one that says this isn't what I'm programmed for , but you pointedly ignore it. 

"His ass, by the way." You clarify. "I very specifically miss his ass. Remind me to get his routine. I know girls that would kill for…"

"How the fuck did you get in here?" A voice croaks. You turn behind you and see Miguel, not in his suit, but wrapped up in a blanket like he's just woken up. And he looks rough, like a train ran him over on the way here: puffy eyes, splotchy skin, tension kneaded into his brow. 

"Wow." Your spoon drops into the milk. "You look like shit.." 

He furrows his brow even deeper, if that was possible. " Mierda. You shouldn't be here." 

"This isn't quite the welcome party I was expecting, man. I'm the only one to actually turn up to one of your meetings, and this is what I get?" 

"I thought I told Lyla to cancel," He mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

"Cancel? Since when do you miss a chance to talk about rules and protocol?" 

"I don't have time for this-" 

"-and I'm not leaving without a proper explanation. Is everything okay?" 

"It's actually way worse now you're here." He deadpans. 

"Haha ." You turn to Lyla. "You drop everything to travel halfway across the multiverse and this asshole won't even say thanks." 

"Thanks, but this asshole needs you to leave. Now." 

This is the most he's spoken to you in forever, and you hate that you like it. You just want his attention, however it comes. If that means dragging this out so maybe he acknowledges you, touches you, looks at you - then so be it. Squinting, you get closer to him. You scan his face for anything to latch onto. You put a hand on his shoulder, still searching. 

"You sure you're alright? You know you can tell me if-" 

"Si, si." He grits his teeth, looking away. "M'just fine. I'll explain��. later."

"...because I'm your right hand man?" You grin, poking at his brow. "Stop frowning so much Miguel, you're gonna ruin that pretty face of yours."

He flushes, nervous, and swats you away. "-what? N-No. You're not my right hand man and I like my face just the way it is. Now, leave. "

Making your way to the door, you tap your nose teasingly. "You know where to find me!" 

When the door closes with a click, you make your way down the corridor, and stop in your tracks when you hear it. It's muffled, but with the strain of your supersenses you can make out Miguel's voice just beyond the wall. 

"I just…. don't want her to see me like this… Lyla, it's not happening… I can't tell her…." Tell her what, exactly? 

Resolutely, you make up your mind. Miguel O'Hara's got a secret. And before you leave for home, you're gonna do everything in your God given power to wear him down and find out. 

~~~

Despite his insistence otherwise, you liked to think of yourself as O'Hara's right hand man - and most of the other spiderpeople thought so too. You were one of the very first he recruited, after crash landing onto your earth like a spiderman-shaped meteor; the two of you were inseparable. Miguel was stubborn and headstrong and thought he was right all the time. Infuriatingly, he was, but that didn't stop you from telling him to get his head out of his own ass when his ego grew too big. 

He was different around you, you think. Softer, sometimes. Harsher, other times. He told you what you needed to hear whether you wanted to or not; the result of mutual respect and agonising persistence. Slowly, you had chipped away his hard exterior; the one he built because he thought he needed to push people away. In that regard, you were similar, but this need manifested in you like a weed - an awful, awful compulsion to joke and laugh at your own expense, to keep others at an arm's length. You had spent your whole life picking and pruning away at yourself, looking for perfection. Even after all this, multiverse-hopping and fighting alongside people who were the closest things you had to friends , it wasn't enough. There was still something missing. 

Ironically, Miguel had told you something similar the one of the last times you had spoken. You had fucked up a mission, well and truly. In the aftermath, all you can remember is coming back to base, limping on Jessica's arm. 

"She's hurt!" She cries out. Lyla materialises and leads you both to the med bay, inspecting any visible wounds. There's a deep laceration, sticky with blood, at the base of your stomach. You shift onto the bed and hiss with pain. 

Miguel is quick to follow, face twisted with confusion, pain, sadness. Even in your haze, you feel the tension radiating off of him as he drags over a cart of supplies. 

"What happened?" He strains. 

"I don't even… it happened so fast. We got ambushed, and all of a sudden I'm on the ground. I wasn't thinking straight and… " She sobs. "...she jumped in front of me. God, she saved my life-" 

"-wasn't your fault, Jess." You croak, trying to sit up. "And I'm fine. Just need to walk it off…"

"Sit, bichita," His nickname makes you frown, despite yourself, and you settle back down. "Lyla, what's the damage?"

Your vision goes spotty, and Lyla's voice barely registers. All you can feel is searing pain in your side, but Miguel is warm, oh so warm. You clutch his arms, and force him to look you in the eye. 

"M'ready, Miguel." He nods weakly, but you don't think he understands. "I mean it . I can lead, j-just need another chance and I won't let you down… Jess, tell him that I can-" 

"It's okay. I believe you. You just need to relax for me, hmm?" He clutches at your hand, tight, and it's like you're the only two people in the world. "You did good. I promise."

Faintly, you nod. You feel a pinch at your arm, and Jessica's there, with an empty vial of something in her hands. The pain washes over you, and you fight to keep your eyes open. In those last few moments of light, you swear you feel a shaky kiss pressed to your temple. 

"Sleep, mi bichito amoroso. Sleep."

When you come to, you're still in the medbay, moonlight streaming through. Well, artificial moonlight. Time worked a little differently here, something Miguel explained to you a while ago - God knows what about dilation and quantum interference. It makes you smile now, remembering his frustration as he tried to explain to no avail. You were the only spiderman this side of the multiverse without a degree in quantum tech, you had said with a lopsided smile. 

You move to sit, and pain shoots up your side. Groaning, you push through it, determined to get out of this bed and find the others. As if on cue, Miguel walks in, almost leaping towards you. 

"You should… mierda ! You should be resting in bed."

You pout as you stumble into his chest. He hooks an arm around you and leads you back. You clamber in, sighing. "M'fine, O'Hara."

"Your guts were halfway out of your body less than 24 hours ago. So stay put, or you might give me another heart attack."

You scoff, incredulous. "You were worried?" 

He shrugs. " 'Course I was."

"Why? You know I'm practically indestructible." You give him a shit eating grin, and poke the frown appearing at his brow. He doesn't bat you away like he usually does. 

"Famous last words, bichita." He sighs. You can't speak a lick of Spanish, but you know he only calls you that word when you've frustrated him to his limit. So you take it as a win, for now. 

He drops into the chair next to you. "How are you feeling?" 

"Just peachy, dollface." You wink, and he doesn't so much as groan. 

"I'm being serious. You went through something pretty traumatic…"

"You want me to tell you it hurts, so, so bad, daddy? " You pout and flutter your eyelashes mockingly. Miguel shifts in his seat, unable to make eye contact. 

"That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean, O'Hara? I feel fine. And in a couple of days, I'll feel even better, and I'll be up and about. I can finish what we started and-" 

"-no, absolutely not." He frowns. "A couple of days? I'm sending you home-" 

"You can't do that! On whose fucking authority?"

"On the authority of you almost fucking died ! Keeping you safe is our priority right now-" 

"God, is this my punishment? This is a low blow, O'Hara. You know how hard I've worked for this: months of surveillance and intel a-and I did everything by the book, just like you told me to." You croak. "I fucked up . I know that, and I feel terrible. Give me a chance to make things right; that's all I'm asking. I can do it, I know it. "

He looks at you for a moment, something heavy in his expression. His face contorted, he strips you down to the bone with just his gaze. His voice is so quiet, you almost miss it. 

"....you're still trying to prove yourself, aren't you?"

Honestly, it catches you off guard. You don't even know what the fuck that means, let alone why he said it.

"I don't… I d-don't…?" 

"They all love you. Respect you. More than me I think, sometimes." He chuckles at that. "You're good at what you do. The best . What else are you trying to prove? What else do you need ?" 

Your throat goes dry. You couldn't speak if you wanted to. 

"I'm not punishing you. You made a mistake, but you don't need to be crucified for it. I just want to keep you safe. I can't… we can't lose you."

"Miguel-"

"-this isn't a discussion. And I'm not trying to argue, although I know how much you like to argue." He inches closer, cupping your face gently. You try to move away, blinking back tears. But his hands are steady and he strokes your jaw with so much tenderness you think you hear your heart break. He's pretty, so pretty. You don't deserve him, you think. "There'll be time to fight, bichita. Rest. That's your mission right now."

"C-can't sleep." You breathe. "It hurts." 

Miguel pauses, head tilted like he's thinking. He taps your shoulder. "Scoot over."

You do as he says, and he slips into the bed with you. It's a tight fit, but he manages, placing you on his chest with an arm gently around your shoulders. You bury your face in his hoodie, sniffling and hoping he doesn't notice you choking back sobs. Absentmindedly, he settles into a rhythm, gentle breathing and playing with your hair, soothing you softly. He pretends he can't hear the tears. 

"M'gonna stay here until you're asleep. For as long as you need."

You nod, unable to speak for fear of breaking down. 

~~~

The days after felt like a blur. You woke up to Miguel gone, and an ache in your heart. Jess visits as much as she can, and Ben calls you a couple times, to see if you're okay. Peter B brings Mayday, and she clambers all over your bed, bringing some life into the room. Miguel doesn't visit per se - you hear whispers of him, Lyla visiting in his stead for comprehensive status updates. Once, you wake up in the night to see him on the adjacent chair, head lolling in deep sleep. He looks peaceful, calm - one of the first times you haven't seen his brow furrowed with worry. Of course, he's gone by the morning. 

The very last time you saw him, he opened the portal home. It was weird, after everything, but if Miguel felt the same you wouldn't know. Talking at a thousand miles a minute, he alternates between assuring you they'll be fine without you and situation reports from spider people all across the multiverse. Things you'd missed whilst bedbound, asking for advice before you left. He trusted your judgement and the thought warmed your heart, almost making you forget that he completely brushed past the previous nights before. 

You still remember the last thing he had said to you, which would've been weeks ago, now. 

"...and if you need anything, and I mean anything, you call me directly. Not Jess, not Ben, and certainly not Peter B. Call me, and I'll answer, I promise. You need help, you need advice, you just need someone to talk to, then-"

"-I call you. I get it, O'Hara. Will do." He opens the portal, watching as you walk towards it. He can't take his eyes off of you, even though you can't see him. At the last moment you turn, and run towards him. You almost knock him over with a hug. Burying his head in the crook of your shoulder, he hugs you back, ever careful of your injury. Separating, your smile almost knocks him over again. Weakly, he smiles back as you head through the portal, back home. 

You're left with that feeling, of his arms around your body - warm, so warm - as you putter about by the switchboard. After careful deliberation (you were really, really bored ) you'd taken to manage the Multi Modal Multiversal Switchboard - as aptly named by Miguel. Everyone else called it the Big Red Phone of course, but he had insisted on calling it by its proper name . Every. Time. 

The thought makes you chuckle as you call up Peter B. His icon flashes on the screen in front of you. With a click, he picks up the call, his face materialising holographically in front you. A little hand reaches up and tugs at his ear. 

"Ow… ouch … Dad's on the phone, honey."

"Aww! How's my favourite Parker doing?" 

"Not bad, actually! MJ just made us probably the best burger this side of New York-"

"-sorry, Peter? Me and May are trying to have a conversation." You hear her giggle in the background. Her gap toothed grin pops into frame and she babbles excitedly. "...yeah, exactly May. That's literally what I said."

"Okay, okay, that's enough." He puts the toddler down and watches her scurry away. "You're feeling better, I see."

"Yeah, back in action. Thought I'd check in."

"All good here." He squints, trying to take in your surroundings. "You're at HQ?" 

You hum.

"Could've sworn Lyla cancelled…"

"Yeah, didn't get the memo. But I think something's wrong with O'Hara."

He gives you a weird look. "Uhhh, what makes you think that?" 

"He won't even look at me. Was it something I said? Something I did?" Your eyes narrow. "...what do you know, Peter?"

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" He scoffs, a little too quickly, clutching his chest like you've offended him. He's stared down some of the scariest villains around, but the look you give him is truly chilling. "Just… uhhh. You didn't hear this from me." 

"Naturally…"

"We tracked 'em down, the guys that ambushed you and Jessica."

"The Sinister Six? From Earth-215?"

"Yeah, but by the time we got there, it was just Kraven and some of his goons. Miguel got there first, and…." He gulps. "He was pissed. Trashed the whole place looking for the rest of 'em. Beat Kraven half to death and we had to pull him off."

"Shit."

"Yeah, it was pretty rough. Never seen him like that before. And just generally? He'd been weirdly quiet, a little grumpy, more aggressive on missions. I don't know what's gotten into him."

"Hmmm. Thanks, Pete."

"No problem, sweetheart. And if the big guy asks… "

"...this didn't come from you, I know." Weakly, you smile. "Say hi to my favourite Parkers, for me." 

" 'Course I will. We should celebrate, if you're back officially. Mine and MJ's is always open."

"Good to know. I'll see you around."

He waves goodbye, and the hologram clicks off. Sighing, you try to piece together what you've just heard. 

Miguel: acting weird. Well, you knew that already. Aggressive was new. And Lyla? She had canceled, but not for you, for some reason. An honest mistake, perhaps. But Lyla doesn't make mistakes… 

You stew for a couple of hours, puttering about the switchboard, twiddling your thumbs. Something's wrong, and for some reason you're afraid to see him. To have him look straight through you, again, when you ask to do the same. Show me where it hurts. Tell me how to make it better.  

On the way there, you chew your lip in anticipation. In the corridor, you're outside the door to his place, hand hovering above the door. To knock, to call. In the harsh fluorescent light, you hesitate. 

"Lyla?" Nervously, you sink down onto the floor. It's hard to explain, but you don't expect her to actually come; to materialise in front of you. 

"How can I assist you?" She says with a ding. 

"Uhh… hi. Just wanted to talk." You pause, clicking your tongue. "Can you be honest with me?" 

"I can only be honest with you. It is not in my programming to lie, unless specified by my owner."

"Sure. Cool. It's about him, actually. Is Miguel okay?" 

She tilts her head, as if processing your request. "Okay is a subjective term. Is Mr O'Hara alive? Yes. Is Mr O'Hara physically well? Yes. By those terms, he is okay ."

Too vague for your own liking. "I guess I meant more… his emotional state. To the best of your knowledge… in your opinion , Lyla: is Miguel okay?" 

"...I believe Mr O'Hara is experiencing some emotional turmoil."

You frown. "Oh. Do you know why?" 

"Mr O'Hara has instructed me not to disclose that information with you."

"Fair enough. But you don't have to tell me… I could just ask questions?" 

She nods. "There is nothing in my programming that prevents me from answering some questions within certain parameters." 

"Did I do something? Not just today but… last time I was here. Did I say something to hurt or upset him? Is that why he's acting weird?"

"No." She says blankly. "And yes. I suppose it is… complicated." She gestures around that word. 

"I'm a little confused, Lyla."

She sits next to you, on the cool tile. Not that she could feel it, but it feels more intimate - like two friends talking. The extent of Lyla's consciousness, you weren't sure of. Was she alive? To you, she might as well be. Could she think, feel, emote? Maybe, maybe not. You weren't smart enough to understand the nuances of her programming. But you were human enough to see it in her - something glittering beyond the surface. 

It could be projection, but you swear her voice is softer. "He has a name for you. When he speaks about you, and to you. I have it logged in my memory database. Do you know what that is?" You shake your head. 

Lyla opens up her palm and projects videos and images - little Miguel's popping up in her palm, tinny and gruff voices ringing through the hallway. They say your name, shout your name, whisper it. Some say other things in Spanish. Curse words had always been your assumption, and he had given you no reason to think otherwise. Now, having it played back to you, you hear a tenderness in his voice you would've missed. Words and phrases that come up again and again…

"Bichita." She repeats. "Bichito del amor. Mi bichito amoroso. "

You shake your head, still confounded. "...I don't speak Spanish, Lyla." 

"Little bug. Sweetheart. Lovebug. My little lovebug." She clears her throat. "I believe they are terms of endearment."

Steadfast, she directs you towards her palm. Another small Miguel appears, and you think it's him from this morning. 

"I thought I told you not to let anyone in, Lyla?" 

"I did not let her in. She let herself in using the code you previously gave her, Mr O'Hara."

"Yeah, for emergencies. Fuck. Mi bichita, too smart for her own good."

"...If you are in distress, I believe she would understand, Mr O'Hara."

"I just think it's too much. I don't want her to see me like this." 

"According to Alchemax files, previous subjects showing this kind of aggression benefitted from-"

"Lyla, it's not happening, no chance. I can't tell her."

The figure blinks out of her palm. "Mr O'Hara has forbid me from telling you about certain things."

"...but not from showing me." Your eyes meet hers. You give her a watery smile. "Thank you." 

With a hint of a smile, she nods and is gone from the corridor. You are left alone, with nothing but your thoughts of little lovebugs rattling around in your brain.

_

_

_

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

[littlelightfish]

Holm nation... I have a heartbreaking announcement to make.

We didn't get to see this panels animated.

(I wanted to see Laios helping him, this one isn't the one this post is all about)

I feel it's important to his character enough that Kui decided to dedicate three panels about how he aproaches and resurrects Kabru.

He is used to resurrecting people, his party sucks at keeping themselves alive. He walks up to Kabru's corpse with a worried look on his face. Then he kneels besides him and takes a second to process what he is seeing. He is seeing a young man, Kabru, dead. It makes him feel unseasy, a bit of shock that he can't take the luxury of process at the moment. He doesn't want to look, so he closes his eyes and focuses on his spell. He is realizing he is the only one alive from his party (he doesn't know where Mick is or how he is). He is the last one standing. The reality of it all slaps him in the face.

The panel of him just... looking at the mess Kabru's corpse is was just... It was important. It talked about him as a character. "I'm not doing this because I want to, but because I have to". He doesn't has time for emotions. He has a job to do.

It's just three panels. But they provide lots of context between the ones that came before and after.

He doesn't just rubs Kabru's head because he's being afective. He does it because he cares. He does it out of relief. "As long as I'm here, any of you'll be dying soon. And I'll always be here. Don't worry." He is far from being OK after all this. Marillier died, Daya died, Kuro died, Kabru died, Rin died, Mick probably died too (but he doesn't saw it). He... By the time he was the only one standing, the fight was over, and he could alredy resurrect them. He wants to feel sad. To worry, to be concerned, to mourn. But he can't. It isn't necessary.

He is a cleric. He for sure has a notion of dead way different than anyone and feels a certain way about resurrection. "Dying is dying, even if you resurrect." It's a bug at the corner of his mind, he doesn't pay it any attention. He gets resurrected multiple times, he is gratefull he is alive. But seeing all his friends dead? And the most of them mutilated? Covered in their own blood? He has this desire to mourn. To cry the loss. To panic. "They are all dead."

He knows they'll come back. He has to make them come back. So he does. And they are alive. But they weren't a few seconds ago. And he just plays it off, he puts his calm face on as soon as there is another party member alive that could ask him what happened that it disturbed him so much. He throws all those sad feelings under the rug and focuses at the task at hand.

They're going to be ok, he just has to do his job: bring them back from death. They shouldn't even be dead. But they are. And he's going to fix it. No point on feeling sad about them dying if they can be alive soon!

I think the concern that the anime puts here it's something that could come close to what he feels inside. Those seconds are the only ones we see him looking something akin to worried for his friends.

But then...

His worry vanishes in seconds. The moment Kabru revives, he does it in such a "Kabru" way, that he tells himself: "This is fine, they're going to be back soon, nothing to worry about, I just have to hurry". He wants them all back to live. We know for sure that in his priority list there wasn't any "reviving Toshiro's party members first". He was going to make sure all his party, all his friends, were alive before even thinking of resurrecting other people if he still had the magic.

Those three panels they didn't animate are something that was there for a reason. To give depth to Holm. This last episode is definitely the one in wich he shines the most. He isn't the main character at all this episode, but he does the most important stuff on the background. He revives them all. This all lack of something if you don't show what Kuy drew on those panels.

Here he just... goes to work. He says: "lemme handle it" and he does. No concern, no worry, no, nothing. He just does. No thoughts.

It makes me sad. Those panels were important. :(

[hiveswap]

Summary of The Cat of The Year poll atrocities of 2023/2024

I'm sure that most people on this side of tumblr have seen the Jellie vs. Nefarious Anglerfish poll going around with like 60k votes at this point, and I'd really like clear up some of what happened since I was around for the whole thing.

Url blocked out for op's privacy. They have already left but don't look for it if you haven't seen it/don't harrass them if you already have.

1. The previous round (preparation)

I discovered the poll in its previous round, needless to say she beat Jort's ass severely. This was around the 3rd of january, meaning that this round finished before jellie's passing with only about 7k votes. Op did add their own piece of propaganda from their main:

...which was FINE. (except for stuff we'll see later) Of course running a poll while biased isn't ideal but I for one didn't even know they were the op until much later. I also added my own piece in a separate thread, and they didn't interact with it at all. There was no drama.

2. The Finale

Jellie unfortunately passed away right before the starting of this poll, which was the catalyst for what happened next. Op did exactly as last time and added a slightly more mean spirited encouragement to vote for the other contestant. This is the point where I believe that i fucked up personally.

I added this thinkpiece accusing op of associating all mcyters with Dream (who we all hate for the record) despite them not alluding to him at all. This is because tumblr has a history of disimissing all mcyters as... everything that dream was been accused of. Op did allude to not caring for mcyt. but they didn't say what i accused them of. This is important to point out because this reblog of mine is still being spread. Jellie was in the lead at the time, but not by the time i woke up next morning.

I won't be including anyone else's additions because I don't want to put blame on any specific person. Just felt like clearing up mine.

3. The Fuckening

Some time later op made this post to their personal blog:

which is insanely shitty because, as other people have pointed out, the "lame ass youtube cat" didn't die to inconvinience op or ruin their fun, and people would have probably voted for her anyway because jelly is universally beloved in the mcyt community. This isn't anti democratic. This post was added to the poll with a caption saying op should not be running this poll, and it took off. Op later went on to say that this was a joke:

This apology was not taken well by people, (including me) because "you were not meant to see it" isn't an apology and they still very much made fun of someone's pet dying. Safe to say this did not make the drama stop and only added fuel to the flame. I believe this was the point where the conversation of mcyt fans being unjustly sent hate to was reignited.

We should discuss that! it's a real thing that happens often and is equal to childish bullying. However, in this case, OP was the only one getting sent hate to my knowledge. The notes were mostly saturated by mcyt fans, and even now i can only find one or two hateful stance towards us under the whole 20k notes post.

4. Conclusions

Op posted a second apology to the catoftheyear blog to try and calm people down (i believe this is comprehensive and a lot better than the previous one) The blog was deactivated shortly after, so i only have my phone screenshots of it that i also added to the poll itself at some point:

(Edit) Here's proof that op did not write the justification they got criticised for, from the notes of the original poll:

This apology didn't get seen, or get accepted by enough people, so op made this statement on their personal:

Needless to say I am deeply dissapointed (and guilty) that it's come to this. Yes, op said tasteless things that made us all angry, but telling a human being to commit suicide is worse than being insensitive about a stranger's pet dying. Even after I posted about the blog being decatived i had someone come into my notes to wish that "they never find happiness" i mean wtf. This isn't like shipping where we can do whatever without the content creator's input. this is fucking harrowing and i can't imagine how i'd feel if this was done in my/my pet's name especially after losing them as recently as a week ago.

I hope no one from hermitcraft who is on here (let alone scar holy shit) learns about this like they did with previous lighthearted tournaments. If you truly respect the creators you claim to be a fan of as people, you do not tell people to kill themselves over them. And finally, let Jellie fucking rest, guys. she had a long, good life. I hope op can come back and also avoids behaving like this if they ever wish to do so. I'm angrier at mcytblr, though.

[prettyinpwn]

Stan Pines: A Masterclass in Character Writing and Symbolism AKA Stan is Godly, Literally (GF Writing Analysis Pt. 5)

If you're interested in reading a similar writing analysis on Ford Pines, please visit this page.

I've wanted to write a post on Stan for a long time, because I'm going to make a bold claim: he is THE best written character in Gravity Falls. I literally have never been able to find a flaw with his writing, and the reason? Not only does he have the markers of quality I mentioned in my post about Ford's writing (a want, need, character arc, realistic flaws), but...

I would also argue he is THE main protagonist and hero of Gravity Falls if I had to pin it down to just one, and his character arc matches the external conflict, that being Bill Cipher and the theme of growing up vs. staying in childhood and ego vs. selflessness, in ways that are just - and I'm not exaggerating - poetic. And the best part is, he had a lot more time and attention in the spotlight in the show than Ford, so everything I mentioned in the other post that was good about Ford's writing, ramp that up x100 for Stan.

His character also touches on multiple other fantastic themes: breaking generational trauma, healing broken familial relationships that seem unfixable, redemption, the misunderstanding of the family "fuckup" (although Stan is not that in the least, but that's part of his character arc), positive masculinity, true brotherhood, self-love, self-identity, and probably a million others I'm missing and will find out even just as I write this.

As for the godly part, well... you'll just have to read to the end. And no, I'm not kidding or exaggerating, either.

Okay, okay, gushing aside, let's get to the analysis. I'm not sure this will be as neatly structured as Ford's was, but there are just so many damn good things about Stan's writing that it's hard to stick to just one point. Let us begin.

Stan's Backstory: I Am Not Ford and That's Bad + Protecting/Providing for Family > Everything Else

So as I discussed in my post about Ford linked above, much of Stan's childhood revolved around Ford. His entire existence as a child was summed up by one question: how do I compare to Ford? This is especially emphasized in how their father, Filbrick, treated them. One of the end credits ciphers in the show reads as follows:

"A STUBBORN TOUGH NEW JERSEY NATIVE, FILBRICK WASN’T TOO CREATIVE, HAVING TWINS WAS NOT HIS PLAN, SO HE JUST SHRUGGED AND NAMED BOTH STAN."

Haha, very funny. But OUCH. Imagine knowing that your whole name is your name, was because your father only expected one son and was too lazy to come up with anything else. So literally, Stan doesn't even have his own name - his own identity - technically. Stan also was apparently the second twin born, so came in "second" even from birth, and being Ford's (either identical or very similar fraternal) twin, well... it's hard for someone to untie their identity from their brother's with those factors surrounding them as a kid.

There are many other factors that illustrate my point (Ford got Filbrick's name as his middle name, the way Filbrick literally put Stan on the lawn for sale as a kid for failing a test, etc). All in all, Ford receives their father's love, Stan does not, although we could argue that this isn't that great for Ford, not really, as I did in my post on his writing. Because it's a love that comes with a, "I'd also like to use you." attached (just like Bill, gee).

All in all, it's very obvious from all these context clues that Ford was the beloved one, and Stan was the unexpected one, from birth to the end of Gravity Falls, where he uses that to his advantage - albeit in a different context - to defeat Bill Cipher.

Worse yet, Stan happened to have a twin that was extremely smart and talented in a way that was easily noticed. Ford is a Golden Child, as I described in his own writing analysis post, and siblings of the golden child like Stan? Well... the other sibling(s) are often the Scapegoat. As the source in the last sentence states, the Scapegoat is "often blamed for family mistakes, discarded, neglected, and has been gaslighted into believing it was their fault. The scapegoated child is usually assigned at a young age and often carries this role through to adulthood and never loses the unfortunate title.". This can highly affect the Scapegoat's self-esteem, even into adulthood.

This page also covers the Golden Child vs. Scapegoat dynamic. Pay attention to these quotes from this source:

"You are the one the parent will come after when things are going wrong."

"You are subjected to their emotional and verbal abuse the most."

"You may even feel like you need to fix your broken family."

Also, take into account these panels from the comic, Lost Legends, released after Gravity Falls ended:

Yikes. A child doesn't say these things unless a parent has taught them that everything they do is wrong and they are lesser than their sibling. This kid's noticed how Filbrick looks with pride at Ford, but not him. And here's the thing: the item Stan stole in this comic that made Filbrick mad? Stan did it to clean it to make his father proud. Sound familiar? In the events of Gravity Falls, Stan works on the portal for thirty years and gets Ford back, and he gets... yelled at for it. Stan always has good intentions. Although, Ford has a point in the above comic panel: Stan does take shortcuts that get him into trouble. He did almost get jailed by the US government and end the universe to save Ford.

But this is a consistent theme with Stan's character throughout the show. Even WE as the audience first see Stan the way his family did - a conniving scoundrel and money-grubbing criminal - but through the events of the show, just as Stan's family starts to realize it, even when Stan does things that seem bad, like stealing radioactive waste, working on a portal described as a potential cause of the end of the world, has a ton of different identities, etc... we find out Stan had good intentions all along.

Even Stan's greediness? That need for money? That also stemmed from the same good intentions, because how ELSE was he going to afford Ford's mortgage to keep the Shack in order to keep working on bringing him home? It was also likely something ingrained into him from when he was kicked out. Because Filbrick told him, basically, until you make us the money that Ford losing his chance at West Coast Tech cost us, GTFO. Literally. :'(

So Stan... really IS not what he seems. He seems like a fuckup, a criminal, a liar, and a greedy conman. But really... he's a family defender, protector, and supporter. Want to have your mind blown? Intentional or not, let's look at the very first scene we see Stan in in the series:

"Oh look, I'm a monster!"

"Just kidding, I'm not. I'm someone else under what looks like a monster."

Yes. Stan's whole character arc is foreshadowed in like... three seconds in the first episode. The very first time we see him. Not just his arc, but also his role as someone that seems deceptively evil but is actually good. And not just the arc that Ford and Dipper take from distrusting Stan to finally understanding his good intentions, but also the realization WE as viewers have about Stan as we follow the story. Additionally - which we'll get into later - it's symbolic of Stan's internal character arc he takes across the series of realizing he himself isn't the monster that his father planted in his mind as a child, but a good person worthy of love.

All of that... in a few seconds of animation. If that wasn't intentional, then DAMN did the writing gods smile on the Gravity Falls team the day they planned this scene. Back to the point about who Stan really is: the family "fuckup" (not really, but we'll get to that later), and a family defender and protector. This is the true core of Stan's character throughout the whole series. Not only was he Ford's defender as a child, protecting him from bullies, but you know those scenes the fandom universally agrees on were Stan at his most badass? Ahem...

"Everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!"

"Turn around and look at me, you one-eyed demon! You're a real wise-guy, but you made one fatal mistake: you messed with my family."

Yeah. Look at what Stan is doing in EVERY single one of these scenes: protecting his family. And as bad as Filbrick was, just like I explained in the post I made about Ford's writing... Filbrick also passed down some things to Stan that make him the hero he is. And it's also stuff that Stan passes down to Dipper:

Yeah, it kinda sucked for Dipper at the time. Was it a perfect way of teaching a child to be tough? Er, no, although another mark of a well-written character is that they can make mistakes and have flaws; Stan's not perfect. And the fandom has criticized the way Stan passed down this lesson to Dipper, because it can be considered very similar to the way Filbrick passed it down to Stan. But look what it did: when the world fights and threatens his family, just like Stan, Dipper fights back. With punches, too:

So... to summarize this first part: Stan was taught from childhood "I'm not Ford, and that's bad. I am a monster unworthy of love that always messes up.", and his role is a family protector, which started with how he protected Ford from bullies as a child. This is the core of his self-identity. So let's get into the writing techniques that make a well-written character that I discussed in Ford's writing analysis post...

Stan's Core Want vs. Need

I'll quote my explanation of want vs. need from my own post on Ford I made about a year ago:

"When I took writing classes in college (and over years of writing in general and drooling over writing advice podcasts and blogs), I found that the best method for me, personally, when it comes to crafting characters is to focus on two major things:

1. Their want.

2. Their need.

On the surface, these look like the same things, but in character writing, they can be vastly different. For example, say that you have a character that greatly desires fame and recognition. They want these things.

But what’s the real reason behind it? Is it because they had a parent that was famous and want to live up to their example? Is it because they want to be adored by people? Is it because they were told they’d never amount to anything by someone and want to prove them wrong?

This real reason behind it all is the core need. Yes, they want fame and recognition, but they need it because, say, they have low self-esteem and need copious amounts of outside validation to boost it.

Tied to this need is usually a backstory reason (sometimes called their wound). Say your hypothetical character was bullied a lot as a child. Or abused by a parent. Etc. Whatever the wound was, it caused a big, painful hole in their heart that they try to fill and fix with their want.

So they go on a journey. The want is often the external journey. The need is often the core journey / character arc. Our example character seeks fame and recognition on an external journey, but deep inside, they realize they need something else, which is to understand that their past trauma/wound doesn’t define them, and fame and recognition will not be the balm they expect it will be. Often, they realize they had what they needed all along. They grow past their flaws associated with their seeking this want through understanding and instead pursuing the need."

I'll summarize Stan's character writing using these concepts right here, like I did for Ford in his analysis post:

“I want to be Ford because I want to be loved like he is, and I want to protect those I care about and do the right thing. But what I need is to realize is that who I am - not Ford, but Stan - was good enough all along, proven by how I've always protected those I care about, and I never NEEDED to be Ford in the first place. This stems from a wound from my childhood where I was a scapegoat child treated like a fuckup who never did anything right and could never measure up to Ford, and was conditioned to think that being like Ford was a ticket to earn familial love. I had what I needed all along: myself, because I am good enough and worthy of love, despite what my father taught me."

Stan's Arc: I Am Not Ford... and That's Okay

AKA Stan's arc is basically: learning to love yourself and be yourself, even when you were conditioned to think you have no value. Don't believe me? Guess what Stan does for thirty years: pretends to be Ford. And he literally does it by pretending to have died. He "kills" Stanley Pines AKA himself in a staged car crash to become Stanford Pines.

And guess how he defeats Bill? By pretending to be Ford. His greatest weakness is actually his strength, and then he flips it: he reveals to Bill that he's not Ford, he's actually Stan. And THAT'S when the antagonist of Gravity Falls is truly defeated - an antagonist that represents stasis, lack of change, and with The Book of Bill's context, an antagonist that never freed himself from his own past - is when Stan learns to accept himself and admit who he really is and learns to let the past go. And it's telling that this is what he says when he does it:

"Heh. Guess I was good for something after all." AKA: "Yeah, fuck what Pa said about me."

There it is. The moment of Stan realizing his father was wrong, and he was wrong for thinking himself a fuckup all those years. And this is the expression he pulls at this moment of realization; at the peak of his character arc, all while burning in flames like a phoenix reborn. It sounds corny when I put it that way, but LITERALLY, all the fire symbolism feels like it wasn't foreshadowing Stan's death, but his rebirth as himself after pretending to be Ford all those years. He's not burning who he is, he's burning away who he thought - who he was told - he was. Funny that it takes place in the mind, huh?

This is the face of a man who is at peace and finally loves himself for the first time in his life. That ain't just his mind burning. That's him punching his demon that's haunted him and his brother their whole lives, protecting his family as always, and, symbolically, punching a demon that represents the show's overall antagonist of the shackles of staying stuck in the past, forgiveness, and the value of moving on. He literally punches the antagonist - staying stuck in the past - to pieces and THAT'S when he wins.

Also, can we talk about how Bill and Filbrick share color schemes, and Filbrick even has a brick-like pattern in his suit (also, I mean... come on, he's got 'brick' in his name)? I'll let you make your own conclusion about what that means for Stan's character arc:

It's also telling that Bill Cipher's backstory is that he burned his home dimension and loved ones - including his family - to ashes. The Axolotl - Gravity Falls' equivalent of basically God, from what I can tell - says himself about Bill in one of the books released outside of the show:

"Saw his own dimension burn. Misses home and can't return. Says he's happy. He's a liar. Blame the arson for the fire."

Bill misses home. He wants the past and to hold onto his family, just like Stan and Mabel do. Isn't it funny how whenever Bill shows up... time stops?

And look what Bill says in Weirdmageddon: "This party never stops! Time is dead and meaning has no meaning!"

Time stopped. He just wants fun. He's almost like a child that never grew up. And... look at what it was that Stan wrecked in A Tale of Two Stans as a teenager:

A perpetual motion machine. That thing that's not supposed to stop, just like time. Stan 'breaking' time by wanting to hold Ford in the past, with him, instead of leaving him to go to college while Stan was stuck in the past/Glass Shard Beach? That's what broke their brotherhood.

But what makes Stan a hero, and Bill a villain, is that he lets go of the past and his childhood. Bill never does. And he's defeated when Stan lets go of the past, something Bill never did. Why? Because he has family to make facing the future easier. He has familial and self love. Bill doesn't, because he killed his own. (Sorry, got off track again, but Stan's arc and story ties so deeply to the other characters' and the main themes that it's hard not to take some detours, because it illustrates just how well-written Stan is. Gravity Falls' story IS his story.).

Wanna know something cute? Wanna know how Stan realized he had worth during that scene after he defeats Bill? Why I'm betting the show runners showed Stan clutching to a picture of Dipper and Mabel as this happens? I'll give you one guess why Dipper and Mabel are so important to Stan, and why he clutches to their photo even as his mind is burning apart in the finale:

They're the first family members since Ford (whose love he'd lost) who loved Stan for who he was, not for who they thought he should have been. Mabel trusting Stan in Not What He Seems is basically the first damn time Stan's heard in thirty plus years from a family member that, "Hey, I trust you have good intentions and aren't just a lying fuckup. You're not a monster. You're not what you seem.".

Also, he's protecting his family. That always makes him happy, too, of course.

Ego Death and the "Stan is Godly" Part

Yep, we're taking this analysis post train all the way to "damn this is deep and PrettyinPwn is likely crazy for noticing it" station. The only reason I'm tacking this part on is that I saw a Q&A with Hirsch recently that sparked my attention. He was on his The Book of Bill tour, and someone asked if there was anyone more powerful than Bill in Gravity Falls lore. Of course, Hirsch said the Axolotl, but what he said about what Bill vs. the Axolotl stands for caught my eye:

The video in question. The question and answer starts around 21:22. The quote I want to point out is, though, is what we learn about these two beings:

Hirsch: "Bill's weaknesses in terms of his overconfidence, his ego, and his lack of ability to focus on one thing at a time are things that a being that has no ego, thinks on a long scale, and does have empathy is actually stronger than him because of those things."

So when we boil the conflict of Bill vs. the Axolotl down to simple terms - what makes evil vs. good in the Gravity Falls universe - is this: ego and selfishness vs. no ego and empathy.

Guess which characters wrestle with these themes? The correct answer is: ALL of them. But especially Stan and Ford. This is really what their conflict is about at the core. They both struggled with ego and selfishness, and that's when - in the story - they lose most. But they win when they choose selflessness and empathy. When they... drum roll, please... partake in ego death.

Well, let's describe an ego death. First, we must define what an ego is (source for all of the following quotes):

Ego: "The ego is a sense of self that you develop at a young age." and, "-relates to your feelings about your own importance and abilities.".

*cough "I'm the family fuckup and poor man's version of Ford because that's what people taught me to believe in my youth." cough*

And an ego death "-is the (often instantaneous) realization that you are not truly the things you've identified with, and the "ego" or sense of self you've created in your mind is a fabrication. In some instances, it can offer a profound feeling of peace and connectedness with all that is, as the walls of separation the ego creates come crumbling down."

*cough "I'm not Ford's poor copy, I'm not a fuckup, I have worth, and I realize this in my literal mind as I pull this expression-

-of total peace as the walls of my mind literally BURN around me" cough*

And, "When one comes through on the other side having released all the things they've identified with, with only their true spirit left, Kaiser says, they begin to live from a place of pure love."

*cough "I'll hold a picture of the ones I love and realize self-love as my mind burns around me because this is who I really am: a man who protects and loves my family and my family loves me" cough*

Cheeky asides, well... aside, are you seeing what I'm getting at, folks? Look, I can't prove that Hirsch and crew intended all this, but in my opinion: you wanna know why there are so many gags of Stan or versions of him melting or burning in the show? Why fire is such an important symbol surrounding him? Why there are so many times he's killed his own identity and became a "new" man again and again and again, be it as a young grifter, or as a drifter who became his brother to bring him back again, or as an old man who "killed" his own mind to save the world and his memories returned?

Because it's ego death. The rebirth of true self from a lie you were living. That's literally what Stan's arc is a metaphor for. Even better, he reaches his character arc's zenith when he does this:

That's not an old man punching a stupid little bastard. That's an old man punching what threatens his family, punching his own past, punching his own demons, punching his brother's demon, punching his prior identity, and - given that we know that Bill is a symbol of ego now - punching the personification of literal ego and letting it burn. There are, let's count, seven symbolic meanings in that punch at the very least. Maybe eight if you count that the rightside-up triangle is the alchemical symbol for fire, and by Stan beating it, it's symbolism of his defeating the fire that's eating his memories AKA why he gets his memories back. I could find more, probably.

And yes, the chubby old conman we love so much - and is the opposite of spiritual both in action and in Hirsch's words (he's said Stan is an atheist as an adult) literally has a character arc where he attains spiritual enlightenment that aligns with the god of the Gravity Falls universe - the Axolotl, who has no ego as Hirsch said - hidden under many layers of symbolism. I don't know if Hirsch and the writing crew planned this with Stan, but holy damn... this is what I meant when I said that Stan is the best written character in Gravity Falls, even if this part was unintentional. There are just so many layers of meaning here.

And the best part? Stan was this hero all along. Everything we cheer him on for - be it punching zombies to protect his niblings or spending three decades of his life trying to get his brother back - is when he's being selfless and empathetic. We love Stan as a character because he has a big heart. He's a good person because, as we described above, he is - through beating ego in a universe where its god represents a lack of ego - godly.

No, fangirls, put the sexy Hunkle art down. I mean literally spiritually godly in the Gravity Falls universe, at least in the way good and evil is portrayed in the themes and worldbuilding. No, I'm not exaggerating, either. Let's return to that quote about the Axolotl's powers and why he's stronger than Bill:

"-that a being that has no ego, thinks on a long scale, and does have empathy is actually stronger than him (Bill) because of those things."

Well... guess what Stan does? He loses his ego so hard he regularly kills his own identity multiple times in his life and goes through a symbolic ego death, he thinks on a long scale (thirty years long), and is empathetic and selfless to the point of sacrifice. And the Axolotl in real life lore? Xolotl, the god of Aztec myth? Guess what he's a god of (source):

Why I highlighted "vulture"? Honestly, this is just a neat little thing I wanted to point out, and was a part of a massive theory I was writing about Stan and Bill that sadly never came to fruition (although I may return to it someday), but here's a hint: what was Stan and Ford's school mascot in New Jersey?

I'll let you take away from all the above what you will. Let's just say: there are a LOT of similarities between Stan and the Axolotl and its real life god counterpart, Xolotl. Does that that mean he's literally the Axolotl when I say he's godly in the Gravity Falls setting? Maybe not.

Here's one last odd something that caught my eye. This is also a leftover from that theory I mentioned above, but I'll just... leave this here, because I don't think anyone else has ever pointed it out before and it expands on what I've been talking about:

Stan in the opening. The first time we see this guy, technically. He's sitting in his favorite chair. And as we all know, he turns to look at something. But just where the hell does he turn to look?

Half of you are like, "Well, what? What's he looking at?". There's a blue glow to his right, and you know what that blue glow is? The tank, which happens to have...

Could be a coincidence, maybe unintentional, but it's... kind of odd, not gonna lie. To have a character that embodies the traits of the setting's god look over at the setting's god the first time viewers see him. Just... a bit strange... and Xolotl was also a shapeshifter god, and given that Stan goes through so many identities in his life... and axolotls are able to regenerate limbs and so are a symbol of healing and rebirth like Stan - whose whole story is about healing and having multiple "rebirths" - is...

Anyways, I've gotten far off track mentioning things from that theory just for fun that I never posted. I may still post it, so I won't spoil all of it or list any more of the very odd coincidences between Stan and the Axolotl, but all you need to know from this post is that Stan shares a lot of similarities with his setting's god in symbolism, and embodies the power of the Axolotl AKA godliness in the Gravity Falls universe: no ego, selflessness, and knowing how to play a long game, because those are exactly the traits he uses to defeat Bill, as well as the traits that help him resolve his character arc wound.

So... now what?

I'm not really sure what to put here, to be honest. This post was a lot more meandering than Ford's was, but that's because there are so many different aspects of Stan's writing that are amazing, especially in symbolism. I hope it was coherent and made sense. A part of me was considering leaving out the ego death and Axolotl parts, but I thought it interesting enough to keep in. Let me know your thoughts!

[respectthepetty]

Petty, I have a wild ass Jack and Joker theory, and I need to know what you think because we often end up in the clown car together, lol.

There's been a lot of talk/fears about Joke (and Toi Ting), now that we know character death is on the table - I'm not worried Joke will die (I am terrified they will gut us with Toi Ting but oh I hope not). I'm not saying that Joke isn't about to feel so responsible for what has happened that he's gonna get reckless with his life, because I absolutely think he will.

I think he's absolutely about to do some very stupid shit that could be his life in real danger as penance.

But I've been thinking for a while - since your initial posts about Hope and Save and their names - that Save is going to die. And now that I just skimmed a post that basically said that Joke and Save are the same character in different fonts and Save's guilt in episode 10, I'm absolutely positive.

Save is going to die.

Hope will live, because he has too. Without hope, we have nothing. (I also have a tangential theory that Save will die to save Hope, so...)

Thoughts?

Why not a third secret option? Why can’t everyone live? Since the show killed Jennie’s character, and the man who tried to run away with his few dollar bills died too, let’s just believe everyone remaining will survive! Even more, if Boss survives, then everyone BETTER live because no shitty father should survive when the possibility of a child dying is on the table. So I'm going to aim high because

Fortune Favors the Monkey King

Move over, Kitty! I'm driving this clown car straight to the opera house.

Because this is a Chinese opera.

We already know there is a Chinese influence in this story, as @veemark pointed out about the meal Joke ate with Jack and his grandma.

So with that in mind, in the fourth episode, when Nang punished the men for hurting her people, she drew the "09" stick (but she said nine-zero), which meant the men had to perform the Chinese opera of the Monkey King, which people in the tags thought was sooooo ridiculous!

In that same episode, Jack received his fortune, which was number 9 and stated, "When the fool changes black to white, the fate of the forgiver will change"

Now, skip to episode 9 when Joke gets "The Fool" card and changes the fate of Jack, the person who forgave him, so Jack's fortune was right.

Now, in episode 9, we also get the iconic team name "The Four Little Pigs"

And this is where the light bulb turned on because this is Journey to the West.

Journey to the West is an epic Chinese story that is 100 chapters long about a group of heroes having to complete a certain amount of tasks to achieve enlightenment.

The main character is Tang Sanzang who is basically a saint who wants to bring good to all the land and who everyone is in love with and wants to marry. We are introduced to him in chapter 9 of the story. He is the heart.

The first person he meets on his journey is the Monkey King, aka Sun Wukong, who was so great at being the best trickster that he became overconfident and ended up getting put in heavenly jail for 500 years. The first chapters of the story are actually about him. He is foolish, but he is also the mastermind.

He has a daughter, Yuebei Xing. She has her own story, Journey to the South. She is a badass. She fights monsters and lives to tell the tale.

The Monkey King is easily the most powerful of the bunch, but Tang Sanzang doesn't like the Monkey King's methods because they are immoral, so there is a gold ring involved that keeps him in check.

Or maybe it's this ring.

I think it's the second ring because a goddess, who keeps helping them along the way, helps them with the ring too. She is also cool.

Along the journey, they meet Zhu Wuneng, aka Pig. He is a smart fighter but he is greedy and selfish so he keeps taking shit he isn't supposed to, which constantly gets them in trouble. He is human nature (the world).

There is Sha Wujing aka Sandy, who was once a god, but shattered a crystal and ended up banished to earth to be a mortal. He is conformity without thought (the moon).

And finally, there is Bai Long Ma, who is a horse that they ride for transportation. He is human will (the star).

There is also a princess somewhere in there who must be saved from a marriage.

The group meets obstacles along the way, and lots of crazy shit goes down, but after 14 YEARS they finally come to the end of their journey.

And on their journey to achieve enlightenment they meet a squire whose loved one is kidnapped with the possibility of murder and another squire who is murdered and his wife is pissed about it because she did everything to make sure he wouldn't be harmed.

Now, if you gasped because you think Hope (or Save) will die, well . . . the number 14 fortune was Hope's.

The fortune was given in episode four which is the same episode Jack got his fortune, but it seemed like Hope's fortune played out in the same episode when he found Joke right across the hall staying with Jack.

But the thing is, in the Chinese story, regardless of which squire it is, they don't just need the Monkey King; they need the Monkey King's help.

So the Monkey King goes to the underworld to get the loved one back and succeeds (both times). But he still needs to save our saint!

Remember, the group has to do a certain number of deeds to bring peace to the land, so the group goes in to save their leader, and the ONLY reason they make it out is because all of the people they have helped along the way (especially the people the Monkey King has helped) return the favor and save them.

By saving others, they saved themselves.

So . . . I don't think anyone else is dying. However, it's been YEARS since I read a very condensed version of this story in Asian Rhetorics, and @journeytothewestresearch's blog helped me piece some of what I forgot together.

So I could be wrong, and everyone dies.

But I don't think so.

*fingers crossed that fortune favors the bold Monkey King*

[caffeineandsociety]

There's a specific genre of shitty antisemitic joke that I have seen fly under the radar (as it was designed to) a LOT more often lately - especially since Kanye started going full mask-off nazi - so I feel the need to issue a warning about it. Namely, the genre is jokes that get spread around by people who aren't willfully antisemitic because outside of conspiracy brain rot land, it appears that the point of the joke is absurdism.

As an example, let's examine the 23-and-me lizard DNA test that I've sadly seen floating around unquestioned.

Because, see, to the average person who isn't willfully antisemitic, this genre of joke comes off as nonsequiturs, or hilarious mistakes - you, as a person with some level of basic observational and critical thinking skills, living on Earth and not in whatever batshit mirror dimension conspiracy theorists think we live in, might very well end up getting a giggle out of it because, HAH, we KNEW those DNA ancestry kits were a scam! If you're not a deliberate antisemite but not really up on the dogwhistles, it doesn't scan as anything awful because you're put in mind of things like feeding a photo of something decidedly not human into that one selfie-to-anime neural net, which sometimes works and produces interesting results because the thing is looking for specific patterns and trying to make anything fit - not things like blatantly lying about doing something like that in the hopes that normies who see the absurdity and want to have a laugh at a scummy company's expense will pass it along to people who unironically believe that Jewish people are actual literal lizard aliens and the test proves it.

This is the same strategy that guy at the game awards pulled. You, a person living in reality where the main source of political corruption is just the basic consequence of an economic system that makes power pool in the hands of anyone willing to exploit enough people, a world of banal mundane evil, know damned well that QAnon-pizzagate-satanic ritual abuse cult conspiracy bullshit is, well, bullshit, if you're even familiar with the details of what they believe at all. When someone crashes the stage and thanks Rabbi Bill Clinton, you may very well laugh because to YOU it is a blatant absurd nonsequitur.

Problem is that to someone else, someone who's deep into that shit, it's either someone letting the truth slip, or someone backing the deep state into a corner - whichever is more convenient to believe.

This is one form of how the far right uses memeification (CW: the example discussed in the link is a rape "joke") - it means something totally different to the in-group than it does to the out-group. To you, it's funny because it's nonsensical; to them, it's fun because they think they're onto something huge and they're about to blow this shit wide open and it's going to be their great moment of triumph.

I cannot stress enough that no matter how absurd an antisemitic conspiracy theory sounds to you, there are people who believe it, unironically. There are people who unironically believe that Jewish people are very literally not human and no amount of evidence to the contrary will ever change their minds. There are people who believe that we're born with horns and tails and pointed ears and have them surgically altered to fit in with good Christian humans like some kind of extremely high-stakes game of Among Us. There are people who believe that we steal, ritualistically abuse, and kill Christian babies. These beliefs, while fringe enough that, yeah, most of you who this post is aimed at have never heard them in the wild before very recently, are not nearly as fringe as you probably think they are. Just look at fucking Kanye. This asshole has more fans than there are Jewish people in the world.

So I'm begging you to please, bare minimum, be careful of "absurdist" jokes about Jewish people, especially if they reference lizards, money, banking, or government power. Also, you may see Jewish people debating how religious laws may apply to fictional creatures, but outside of that context you should also be wary of any time Jewish people are mentioned in the same sentence as vampires, dragons, goblins, zombies, fantasy demons, or any number of other fantasy creatures known for greed, feeding on humans, or both.

If the reason it seems funny to you is because you'd have to be really stupid to believe it's true or makes any kind of sense - it's probably looking for you to spread it to people who are, in fact, that stupid.

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddieangstyaugust.

I'm An Island, But You're An Ocean

Day #13: "Please, stay?" | Word Count: 2191 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Recovering From Injuries | Tags: Post S4, Steve the Caregiver Makes Eddie Want to Run, Self-Sabotage, Angst w/a Happy Ending

They're fighting. Sort of. Kinda. 

Eddie isn't exactly sure what's happening here tonight.

The air feels weird between them, and Eddie wants it to very much stop being whatever this is, immediately.

"Settle down. What's the commotion?" Steve asks, putting his hands on Eddie's shoulders, stilling him.

It pisses Eddie off.

So, he shrugs Steve off, because Steve can't be touching him. Not like that. Not now. Not ever.

Even if he wants him to be. That's exactly why he can't let this continue. It's too dangerous. 

Eddie knows he's being bullheaded, knows he's digging his heels in for no good reason, but he also knows that Steve's pushing. Pushing, pushing, pushing. Always. He never relents. Never gives up about anything that he gets in his head. 

And for some godforsaken reason, Steve Harrington has made him a project. His main one, as far as Eddie can tell. Eddie definitely never asked for, or wanted, that. It makes his teeth itch, to have that kind of attention shoved his way.

Which is weird. Eddie loves attention. But not this specific attention. Because he doesn't know what to do with it. It's too overwhelming.

Steve wants Eddie to eat more. He wants Eddie to walk again. He wants Eddie to go home from the hospital. He wants Eddie to play the guitar. He wants Eddie to take a shower. 

He wants, wants, wants.

Eddie does one thing, and Steve will think up six more to add to the list. It's a never ending list of demands.

And yet, even with all those demands, Eddie isn't sure what Steve wants from him. Not really. It can't actually be the things he's demanding, because those don't affect Steve's life at all. What Eddie does, or doesn't do again, is no concern to him. Eddie can waste away in bed, and Steve Harrington should be unconcerned. Steve doesn't need to be here. He's made his amends, not that any of this was his goddamn fault anyway. Steve didn't drag him into this fucked up mess. Steve didn't bite him, chew him up, and spit him out.

So, he can go.

But he won't budge, just scoffs, and stays. Never taking a goddamn hint. He can't actually be that thick, but Eddie tries to push him away, and Steve moves closer, somehow. It's like they're coming at this from entirely different directions. 

Eddie doesn't know how to make it clear that Steve's repaid his imaginary debt. And Eddie can carry this load, alone. Would prefer it, honestly.

Eddie is an island, Steve is the whole goddamn ocean. 

He's overwhelming, and as much as Eddie wants to grab on, and ride that wave, he's too scared to leave the safety of the shore. Eddie doesn't get things as good, as open, as cool blue as Steve Harrington. Not ever.

"You can leave," Eddie says.

"I don't want to leave," Steve answers, distracted as he looks through their co-mingled tapes. Shuffling, banging them around, like he doesn't have them all memorized. Like he's not gonna choose the same bullshit he always picks.

Eddie can't take another minute of it.

"Well, maybe I don't want you to stay anymore," Eddie snaps, and Steve freezes. He looks like a goddamn deer caught in headlines. Blindsided. Shocked.

Has Steve really never considered that before? That maybe, just maybe, Eddie would like to be alone for a while? Why is that so hard to comprehend?

"Oh," Steve breathes out, and it's like Eddie's slapped him. Then he says, quiet and small, "Sorry. I didn't. Sorry."

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, regretful, unable to watch him crumble. Eddie can see that he's made Steve smaller, and it's carving away at Eddie's ribs. 

His heart. 

He didn't mean to do that. He just wanted to usher him out now, ahead of schedule. Rip the bandaid off. Bad news first, always. Get it over with. No reason to let it fester.

And Eddie's life up until this point? Has been pretty much all bad news. 

Eddie opens his eyes, needing to see what Steve's doing. It's too quiet.

And that means he has to watch as Steve starts to gather up his things, all of his things, and they've quite obviously accumulated over the summer. Like everything Steve owns has multiplied and spawned all over Eddie's room. This isn't gonna be fast, because Steve's gonna need more than one box, more than one trip. 

And Eddie can't really help. He just has to watch.

Eddie sits back against the wall, and as soon as Steve's taken the first load out, Wayne is in the doorway. Looking at him with something akin to disapproval. Of course he is.

"Where's Steve goin' with all that stuff?" Wayne asks.

"Don't know, don't care. Out of here," Eddie says, and he refuses to look up. Because he knows Wayne will read him like a goddamn open book.

"Eddie," Wayne says, soft and disappointed.

"Don't Eddie me. He has a life to get back to," Eddie argues. "Steve Harrington can't hole up in the bedroom of a vaguely exonerated maybe murderer. It's absurd."

And Wayne shakes his head, leaving him be. 

Wayne gets him, at least. 

So, Eddie watches as Steve rushes through his departure. 

It looks like a break-up, a moving out, and that's painful in a new way. Since they aren't that to each other, and never will be.

Just when he's gotten it all, or at least everything visible to the naked eye, Eddie thinks they're done here. Finally.

But Steve comes back, this time carrying in, instead of out, and hands over Eddie's battle vest, no longer as nasty as he'd last seen it. 

The blood is mostly scrubbed out, and some of the patches have been replaced by an inexperienced hand. 

"It was supposed to be for your birthday, but, here. The best I could do," Steve says. "It's not great. I'm not great at, well, much. I know."

And Steve pinches his nose, closing his eyes, "Sorry that I overstayed my welcome."

Eddie wants to say he didn't, wants to take it all back, wants to hand over his heart in his trembling hands. Wants to buy anything Steve's selling.

But he can't.

"Thanks for everything," Eddie says, and he means that. He does. He wouldn't be here at all without Steve Harrington. And that's a lot. A lot, a lot.

But Eddie doesn't know how to do this, doesn't think Steve would want him to, even if he knew how. 

"Can you make it easier for me to understand?" Steve asks, and Eddie doesn't exactly follow. 

"Understand what?" Eddie asks, fiddling with his blanket.

"What I did? Or, not what, maybe. Just. When? How long have I been bothering you?"

"You're not bothering me," Eddie says.

"Then, why do I have to go?" 

Eddie closes his eyes and sinks back into the pillows. The big, thick ones that Steve brought him, thinking his were too flat and sad to prop him up while he convalesced. 

"Because you don't want to be here," Eddie says, waving his arms around. It pulls at his scars, the skin tight and wrong, he winces, hand finding his side.

Steve moves, on instinct, taking one step forward before catching himself. Stilling, again.

"You don't get to tell me what I want, Eddie. I guarantee you don't know shit about what I want," Steve says bluntly, and it's the most forceful thing Steve's said to him in months. 

Everything else has been presented as persistent suggestions. This was just a fact. A fact that fucking stings.

"Yeah, well. Nothing in my life ever came with a guarantee," Eddie says, and Steve hangs his head. Eddie doesn't mean to be so fucking negative, but it's hard. He's stuck. Damaged.

Pissed off.

He thumbs at his jaw, his face, forever fucking marred. He doesn't think he was much to look at before, all big eyes and wild hair. But now? Now he is that monster they all said he was. 

Steve reaches for the vitamin e oil on his desk, handing it to him. Every wince he's made, Steve has had a fix for, and he thinks this is gonna fix Eddie's scars. Eddie's skeptical, at best. He hasn't seen any damn difference. It's all still awful.

His face. His chest. His sides. His fucking dick. Well, not his dick. But right above it. His thighs. His calves. His fucking ankle.

He's beyond damaged goods. Not even The Frugal Hoosier would want to sell the wares he's working with now.

Steve is cautious, but he sits on the edge of the bed, quiet for a minute, before finally asking, "Do you really want me to go? Or are you scared I might want to stay?"

Eddie covers his face with his hands. Of course he doesn't want him to go. He wants to keep him for-fucking-ever. He's just not gonna get to, so sending him away now seemed like the best bet to retain any of his sanity at all.

"I'm an island, but you're an ocean," Eddie finally says.

And Steve laughs.

Which makes Eddie smile, reluctantly.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not a songwriter. I can't speak in riddles," Steve says, still smiling.

Eddie doesn't know what it means. Well, he does, but explaining it makes him feel foolish.

But he'll try.

"I can only rely on myself-"

"That's not true," Steve interrupts. "You've got Wayne. And the rest of us."

Eddie holds up his hand, "Let me. Let me try."

Steve nods, motioning like he's zipping his lip. It's charming. But everything about him is charming.

Eddie's so fucking charmed. 

"I'm just me. An island. Solitary and confined to my own little box. And I'm not mad about that. Not anymore. I don't want to be pestered, or poked, or prodded. I just want to exist, cut-off from the world."

Steve's frowning. 

"And you're an ocean. Lapping at my edges, threatening to overtake me at any time. You're a flood, waiting to happen."

"Eddie…"

Eddie shakes his head, "You are. I feel a lot, Steve. I feel a lot, and it's overwhelming to have you surrounding me on all my edges. Looking for a way to breach your way inside."

Steve raises an eyebrow, expert, and fucking funny.

Eddie laughs, "Not like that, pervert."

Steve just smiles, then frowns again, "I'm smothering you, huh? That is a thing I do."

"No. No," Eddie assures. "Well, yes. But I don't hate it. I'm just scared of it."

"I don't want you to be scared of me," Steve says. 

"Well. I am," Eddie answers, and Steve moves to get up, but Eddie reaches out and catches his arm. 

He's already spilled enough for the blanks to be filled in. He can't hide from this. Not now.

So, Eddie tugs on him. Not allowing him to leave, even if that's what he asked for. He doesn't want that now. Never did. He's just a goddamn idiot that loves to run. And well, his body isn't in running condition at the moment. So, chasing away seemed like the next best bet.

Only, Steve's hard to scare away. Thank god.

Steve smiles, and scoots up the bed, until he can sit right next to Eddie. Then he reaches down and takes Eddie's hand. It's not the first time he's held Eddie's hand, he did it a lot in the hospital, but this is different. This time, Eddie's fully with it, and present.

"For what it's worth," Steve says, looking at him, fully. Not shying away from a damn thing, "I'm not scared of you. Or what I feel about you."

Eddie smiles, teasing, "What do you feel about me?"

"Annoyance mainly," Steve snarks, squeezing his hand, "but other things, too."

"I feel other things, too," Eddie admits.

"Good," Steve says, "Now, can I unload my car and stay already? Are we done with this dumb shit you're trying to pull?"

"Yes. Please, stay? Worry about the car tomorrow," Eddie answers, "tonight, just lay here with me?"

"Okay," Steve says, "I can do that."

And Steve helps him get comfortable, like he's done a million times before. A pillow under his knees, rotating his hips just so, everything very carefully choreographed to take the pressure off Eddie's body so he hurts less. 

Steve's an ocean. 

And Eddie will stay surrounded, and float with him for as long as he can.

Eddie picks up Steve's arm from where it's slung over his side, and kisses his palm.

"I'm sorry I was being a dickhead," Eddie says, maneuvering so he can rest his cheek in Steve's palm.

"Oh, I'm used to that," Steve teases, hooking his chin over Eddie's shoulder, pressing his lips to Eddie's other cheek. 

And Eddie turns his head, catching Steve's lips with his own. It's chaste, and a little dry, but for a first kiss it sure feels like the start of something bigger, and better, than Eddie ever could have imagined.

If this is what being swept out to sea by Steve Harrington feels like, Eddie knows he'll happily drown.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddieangstyaugust and follow along with the fun angst! 😭

Notes: This has references to You're An Ocean by Fastball in it. This was originally gonna be for SteddieSongFics last month, but I went another way, and expanded this for Angsty August. But the references to the lyrics in the song remained, lol.

[starlostlix]

ARCANE S2 ACT 1 SPOILERS BELOW as I analyse the scene between Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn and Isha, what it means for them, and the link to Caitlyn's 3-point plan for the strike team.

I don't usually post about Arcane here but I need a place to talk about it without word limits so here we are. Also my comparison between MTP's telling of A scandal in Bohemia and the og will be done at some point I have just been very distracted.

So the scene I'm focusing on starts here when Isha runs up to where Jinx and Vi are fighting, lying between them a pointing a gun at Vi to protect Jinx.

Now Isha is a kid that has accidentally wandered into Jinx's life and gotten attached to her enough to wish to try and save her from danger - a new found family for Jinx alongside Sevika (who gives aunt vibes to me). But not just any kid is going to run into the line of fire like this. If we know anything about Isha now it's that she's brave - really brave - but also shouldn't have to be in this position.

Taking at look at her face, Isha's expressions seem to flick between anger and fear quite quickly. There's the facial muscles around her nose often flaring for that anger, but also a deep fear you can see too.

I think it's how she maintains focus on Jinx whilst the gun is turned away to Vi that's interesting. It's clear that she's afraid of what Vi is doing and is focused mostly on protecting Jinx - so that gun isn't something she necessarily wants to fire. She occasionally kept trying to press the trigger, but her hesitation isn't necessarily that she can't, but that she doesn't want to. She had ample time to take a very clear shot but she doesn't (this is interesting when we think about Caitlyn nearby who is desperate to take a shot even if it's not completely clear - Isha's motive is protection whereas Caitlyn's is revengeful action). And once she is unarmed all she can do is cling to Jinx. Perhaps both for her protection of Jinx or for Jinx to protect her. Like how a child would cling to a mother or father or even a bigger sister. Isha is supposed to play the role of a younger sibling to, in my eyes, mimic that of Vi and Powder that Jinx is desperate to protect.

I wanted to move on to Vi because I think her reactions/expressions are the most interesting. You get to see her face a lot, and once Isha has the gun to her face the main expression is one of fear. Not fear for her own safety, but a fear for Isha's safety, AND a fear of what she's been doing as an enforcer.

When Isha has the gun, all Vi can focus on is this mystery child - who she's never seen before might I add- suddenly appearing to protect Jinx. Even if Isha is scared she's still trying to protect her, trying to help even. Perhaps Vi sees herself here, a kid just trying to protect her loved ones from the enforcers that oppressed them. Perhaps she sees Powder, a kid throwing themselves in harms way just to try to help. Either way, she sees an innocent kid putting themselves in the line of fire to protect their loved ones. Except this time Vi is the dangerous one, rather than the protector role she used to fill.

When the gun is knocked away we see Vi again, frozen in place as she stares at Isha clinging to Jinx. This one feels so much more like a face of realisation - that Jinx still has loved ones left and that Vi has become the problem she swore to destroy. She's become the enforcer who enters Zaun to 'clear stuff up' with no regard for how it affects the people of Zaun. Instead of a protecter, she has become an aggressor.

If you will, remember Caitlyn's 3 goals - 'Locate Jinx, Dismantle Shimmer, and neutralise any agents still loyal to Silco'. I feel that this is where Vi realises that those goals only truly help the people of Piltover rather than anyone in Zaun.

1 - 'Locate Jinx' - this is basically corporate speak for Caitlyn wanting to k!ll Jinx. Originally, Vi was fine with this, seeing Jinx as a 'monster she created' and who 'taints the memory of her sister' Powder. But in doing so, she now realises that she will leave people behind who care for Jinx - Isha in particular. She's seen in her life so many kids left behind after enforcers k!lled their parents/families who then turn to rebellion (INCLUDING HERSELF AND POWDER!!) that she knows if she k!lls Jinx here with Isha as witness that the cycle will only continue - more kids who turn to violence as a result of trauma. If she were to go through with it she'd have become a direct parallel to those enforcers who killed her own parents, and she's already become a parallel to the ones who terrorised her and her family in her childhood with her activities in the Zaun strike team (especially with their usage of the Grey).

2 - 'Dismantle Shimmer' - whilst the removal of this drug is a good thing for pretty much anyone, the way the team go about it creates huge problems. The team are specifically shown to simply burn large quantities of the stuff (in the opening montage to 'Hellfire') - not only does this add more dangerous gasses to the underground areas (which they've already been releasing the Grey into), but it also creates issues for addicts. With access to it simply cut off, a decent portion of the population who are addicted to it will experience pretty dangerous withdrawal symptoms which could even lead to d3ath. With no system in place, addicts are left entirely on their own, so the destruction of Shimmer like this only helps those in Piltover remove a threat to them without actually helping the people. Meanwhile higher-ups in Piltover like Salo can use it recreationally (for his tattoos, even if frowned upon as implied by Mel's conversation with Lest).

3 - 'Neutralise any agents still loyal to Silco' - I'm pretty sure the Chembarons are considered Silco loyalists due to the Zaun strike team's attack on one of Margot's brothels in episode 2. The Chembarons, now down to 3 of them, were heralded as the only leadership of Zaun besides Silco. Their infighting has caused major issues in Zaun, but their elimination will not necessarily help Zaun in the long run. The removal of the Chembarons will leave a power vacuum, much like the one already left by Silco, that others will only step into over time. The removal of leadership in Zaun will only cause more issues as up-and-comers will try to fill the power vacuum and build their own forces, eventually becoming a new threat but not without a long period of chaos as people try to build resources to fill the vacuum. Piltover needs the removal of those with current power and forces to remove any possible threats of attack like the attack on the councillor memorial. It is, again, only for the benefit of Piltover.

Vi had seen becoming an Enforcer as the only way to bring down Jinx (reinforced by Caitlyn's insistence of doing things together and also partly by Maddie talking about what Caitlyn did to get her the job) AND as a way of protecting Caitlyn, but now I feel that she has been able to see the negative affect she's been having on the people of Zaun - her own people. I think this is why Vi switches into doing anything she can to protect Isha and Jinx, her protective side for Powder kicking back in specifically.

Looking back at Jinx, she was so ready to d!e at Vi's hands until Isha appears. Her expression here is the clearest look at her emotions we really see in the sequence - concern and fear. We know she's not afraid of dying or k!lling (especially when she said earlier before the fight that she's not remorseful of orphaning kids as she's 'done it to herself enough'), but she's so visibly afraid of Isha being hurt, and afraid that Vi would be the one to k!ll Isha. She's grown attached to Isha more than she'd like to admit, perhaps even seeing similarities to her and Powder (especially in their desire to help their family).

Once Isha's gun is shot away she clings to Jinx. Jinx at first is trying to claw her off - get her away from the danger, telling her to 'scram', referring to her simply by 'kid' so she leaves and doesn't get hurt. But when Vi is just sitting there looking rather than attacking she brings Isha in closer as a form of protection and looks at Vi. The way she looks at Vi. That's fear. She's afraid of her own sister again. She's afraid her sister will hurt an innocent kid, who's just trying to help, with a punch again. All her face says is 'Don't hurt this kid'.

And it's devastating. Devastating for both Jinx and Vi. Jinx sees her sister as a threat, whereas Vi begins to see a bit of Powder in Jinx again. She sees herself about to repeat a mistake that previously cost her everything - leaving a child alone with no support. This is also part of what turns Vi to protect Jinx and Isha from Caitlyn.

Last but not least, Caitlyn.

Caitlyn's effect on this scene can sometimes be forgotten (I almost didn't include her in this analysis at all) but it's actually bigger than one may think. I mentioned before how her desperation to k!ll Jinx causes her to shoot even when her shot is not clear (and how it contrasts Isha's reluctance to shoot even with a clear shot), but there's also so much more. For one, she shoots at the gun Isha is holding almost without a second thought. She tries to shoot Jinx whilst Isha is clinging on to her almost without a second thought. She shoots Vi's gauntlets when she tries to stop her. She frankly is unhinged at this point, tunnel vision on k!lling Jinx with no regard for anyone else in this situation, not just Isha but Vi also.

Grief is a strange thing. It can create many reactions from people depending on their situation. In Caitlyn's case, her grief has morphed into a desire for revenge and a thirst for violence, strengthening her pre-established prejudices towards Zaunites that she was so adamant in reversing in season 1. In her grief there is one constant - blame for Jinx - that morphs into further prejudices towards Zaunites as a whole to justify her actions in her own mind. She similarly justified her tunnel vision in this fight with the idea that 'she wasn't going to miss' despite missing her shot multiple times already (specifically when she shoots to k!ll Jinx and only hits her middle finger).

Her actions here are what happens when grief takes control and her usual logic and reasoning is not able to intervene as much as usual. Her insistence on not harming innocents (seen early in episode one), her understanding of how Zaunites were treated unfairly (s1 episode 7) - it's all overshadowed by her grief. However, her grief doesn't excuse her actions - she's still making decisions based on her own internalised prejudices that with her grief are projected outwards and drive her actions.

This has all culminated here, where her tunnel vision has led to her hurting Vi and almost caused her to hurt an innocent child. She's this looming threat to the scene, her hextech rifle being probably the most powerful weapon here - and it's in the hands of someone who is vengeful and seemingly trigger-happy and in a position of power she was not ready for. If Vi was a big danger in Jinx and Isha's eyes at first, there's a bigger danger in Caitlyn, one that even Vi notices. And she's only going to get worse next arc.

[There could be more to say but I think this is a great place to end it! I may make more arcane posts as s2 releases but i'll have to see, I just really wanted to talk about this scene in particular it's just so interesting.]

[unforth]

Alright not to like liveblog my breakdown on main but yesterday was a really bad day after a really bad, like, 4 months, and I've hit a bit of a breaking point and one of the only things in my life that can give is running @mdzsartreblogs , @tgcfartreblogs , @svsssartreblogs , @erhaartreblogs , @tykartreblogs , and @cnovelartreblogs , so that is what has to give. It's been a 99-out-of-100 days thankless job. A small number of people do say thank you and yall I appreciate you so much (HUGE shout-out to the artist I met at Flamecon who gifted me a zine when I said I ran these blogs, @bonesblubs you rock) but I have never done an act of fandom labor simultaneously this labor intensive yet this invisible before and, uh. It sucks. I spend an hour or more a day on this every day, if it's under 2k hours since I started the first of these in September 2020 I'd be shocked. And I do it because I love it but doing it means I don't have time or energy to do other things I love. And I really don't want to just quit, but I can't keep this up.

In a last-ditch effort to try not to just give up, I'm making the following changes:

1. Only watching one tag per fandom for the MXTX fandoms. I am going to check *only* #tgcf, #svsss, and #mdzs. Artwork posted to any other tag, I will not see unless a mutual reblogs it.

2. Reduced tagging (even more). I'm only going to tag characters and maybe overarching au type (eg, "modern au," "fantasy au"). I'll no longer tag creatures. I will continue to tag the same common trigger warnings I already tag.

3. If a work's appearance doesn't make it obvious what it is AND the tags aren't clear, I'm not going to reblog. I can't keep spending 5 minutes or more trying to figure out what I'm even looking at, scared that if I guess wrong the artist will get mad at me for mistagging their work. If I do reblog, I'll tag only the artist name and/or whatever else I can identify for sure.

4. I am no longer going to follow #link click. The fandom is just too big. I've started dreading checking it. If I was more into it and less busy I would make another spin off just for it but neither of those is true. (The art is so good, I hate to do this, but. If you love link click, highly recommend the main tag, lots of great stuff there.)

5. I will no longer tag any non-cnovel content in the art/post. Like, if someone draws, idek, Xie Lian and Marinette from Ladybug, I'm not gonna put any tags for Marinette, just for Xie Lian.

6. Basically if I run into something hard to tag or confusing or unclear, my new policy is I'm not gonna fricken bother.

I think those are everything but idefk, I cried for 3 hours last night and got 4 hours of sleep so I'm mostly fueled by exhaustion and desperation right now and my memory is even more fried than usual.

How artists can help. This is obviously all optional. You do you. But since some people might want to know what would make my life easier, I'm sharing. I'm not claiming I feel entitled to dictate how people fandom or anything like that.

1. Put the tags for the character(s) and ship(s) early in the tag list.

2. If you make art for a fandom that isn't one of the big ones (right now the only big danmei fandoms on tumblr as far as I can tell are the MXTX fandoms and maybe 2ha) I am begging you to use my tracked tag #cnovelartreblogs

3. Do mdzs art? Tag #mdzs. Do tgcf art? Tag #tgcf. Do svsss art? Tag #svsss.

4. Not only artists, but everyone, *please* stop tagging fandoms not discussed and/or depicted in your post. It's gotten to be stupid common for people to blanket the danmei fandom tags with posts only about one fandon (like, svsss-only works also being tagged mdzs and tgcf and 2ha for some damn reason). This isn't about just my sideblogs tbh this is just fandom etiquette that seems to have been forgotten or never learned by many. Tagging unrelated fandoms isn't "reach," it's annoying. People go into the #mdzs tag to see mdzs, not whatever not-mdzs stuff people have decided to tag for ~reach~, and seeing the same post in 8 tags, none of which it's related to, is so damn irritating, and makes scrolling the tags looking for content that IS relevant take that much longer. Knock it off.

Okay. I think that's as much as I'm prepared to meltdown where everyone can see. Thanks in advance everyone for your understanding, and apologies to everyone about to see this 8 times as I reblog it to each sideblog.

At least I'm not tagging it to everywhere. 🤣🤣🤣