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fall0utmind · 26 days ago

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MEDICAL LEAK AU pt2

Part 1 here

Chapter 2 is up on ao3

🤍🤍

Please be advised of content warning for suicide - no descriptions but some cruel words - see ao3 for sections to skip and message me if you need to.

Feedback is always appreciated

Would you still love me if I told you my darkest secrets?

Ch 2-

~3k

They stumble through the doorway to the motorhome, Marc instantly collapsing onto the worn couch tucked into the corner. Alex has procured a blanket from somewhere and is busily tucking it around him, refusing to let Marc out of his sight. He bustles around the small kitchenette, busying himself with making some coffee.

Neither of their parents were able to attend the race this weekend. Marc doesn’t know if he is grateful for that, or not. They both knew, of course. It had been a testing time for the family, the fallout with Valentino, along with the public backlash, and Marc’s declining mental health had left him heartbroken and hopeless. After his first attempt, Marc returned to his room stripped bare. All signs of Valentino Rossi expunged whilst he was in a hospital bed; the only reminder was his broken heart. It had just made Marc cry harder at the time, Roser wrapped around him in his childhood bedroom. It had taken him many years to pick up the pieces after that, with several other falls along the way. But he takes comfort in the fact he is still here, life has beaten him down over and over; he has been kicked (literally), beaten, and spat out by both Vale and the media, but he always kept going. His family has made it out, they are safe, and he is safe. And really, that is all he can ask for.

Alex observes Marc with increasing concern. He has been on the sofa, swaddled in blankets, for 45 minutes with no signs of movement. His coffee mug is forgotten in his hands, as he stares blankly at the wall, no doubt revisiting the years that haunted them both. As much as Marc likes to pretend that he is unaffected, Alex knows that those years did lasting damage to his psyche; he has noticed in the way he acts around others, how he no longer trusts so easily, and how he seems to be acting around almost everyone except a select few people. He knows that his older brother harbours a lot of guilt for the past, thinking that he had done Alex some kind of disservice. Alex is just glad he still has an older brother.

At some point a Gresini representative knocks on the motorhome door, speaking to Alex in hushed tones. After they leave, Marc numbly listens to his brother relaying the extent of the damage. The media has found out about Marc’s suicide attempts in 2015, but no one knows the details, and it is hoped that it will stay that way. So far, no other records have been accessed, or at least not published. Legal is already working tirelessly to understand what has gone wrong, but for now there is nothing Marc can do. News has spread fast, and Marc does not doubt that by tomorrow the entire grid will know about how fucking pitiful he is. The thought makes his head hurt and his eyes water.

“You should try to get some sleep. The team are putting out a statement about respecting your privacy but for now there is nothing more we can do”.

Marc nods slowly, feeling adrift amongst all that has happened today. He rises unsteadily to his feet and shuffles to the bathroom. He flicks the switch and blinks heavily at the harsh lights which blind him. He almost doesn’t recognise the person in the reflection, with a pale face and hollow eyes. He shudders, it reminds him of a time when every mirror would render the same hideous portrait of despair every day. Marc pointedly avoids looking at his reflection again. He knows Alex won’t leave him alone tonight, fearful of the unhealed wounds the past has left which have once again been reopened. Instead, with a resigned sigh, Marc finishes in the bathroom and hauls himself into bed, Alex curling up on the other side. The position is so reminiscent of their younger years, filling him with a hollow kind of sadness. A heavy blanket of exhaustion weighs upon him, and that, alongside his brother's soothing presence, lulls him into a deep sleep.

Marc awakes to an empty bed and the sound of knocking on their motorhome door. He takes a moment to recentre himself. It must be around 8 am, given the way the light spills in from the window. It is Saturday morning in Misano and yesterday the entire MotoGP world discovered arguably his biggest secret. Marc isn’t sure good morning is appropriate.

The hushed whispers of two familiar voices filter in from the living area, clearly speaking softly to let Marc rest. He groans and blindly feels around for his phone, before remembering that Alex had taken it off him at some point yesterday. It was probably for the best that he didn’t know what the media were saying right now. Bastards.

He rolls out of bed, grabs a pair of sweats and the first t-shirt he sees (it is definitely Alex’s, given that it’s way too long for him) and stumbles into the kitchen, where a cup of coffee is already waiting on the counter. He has never been more grateful for his little brother and his worldly knowledge that 8 is too early for Marc. He’s a little shocked to see Aleix Espargaro sitting next to his brother on the sofa, both watching him with matching worried expressions. He would laugh at the sight of the two men mirroring each other in such a dad-coded way, if not for the current circumstances. Instead, he frowns back at them. Aleix rises to his feet, approaching Marc cautiously, giving him a chance to move away, before drawing him into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

The older man holds him for some time, Marc’s head tucked into his neck. As he pulls away, Aleix’s hands come to the side of his face, holding him gently.

“Promise me you will tell me if it happens again, I do not like the thought of you in so much pain. But now I see that you have already been through it. You should never have had to do it alone, Cariño.”

His eyes are anguished but sincere throughout his speech, observing Marc with undisguised worry and affection. Marc can’t stand it and looks away once Aleix has released him, worrying his lower lip. The older man takes this as his cue, thanking Alex for his coffee, and quietly making his way over to the door, not before shooting him a concerned glance.

“You will let me know if anyone gives you shit today, I will keep an eye out for you. Look after yourself, Marc.”

And with that, he’s gone, the quiet snick of the door behind him. Marc raises an eyebrow at Alex.

“What was that?”

Alex sighs, “He is concerned about you, hermano, he has always had a soft spot for you. He is annoyed at himself for not noticing sooner.”

“I hide it well”

“I know”

The rest of the morning is relatively normal. The people he interacts with are evidently unsure of the acceptable conduct for this situation; Marc finds it terribly amusing, in a dark kind of way. He has decided the best course of action is to pretend nothing has happened in the twisted hope that if he ignores it, everyone else will too. He’s sure his old therapist would be delighted. The security presence in the paddock appears to have suspiciously doubled overnight. People are staring, he can feel it in the way the back of his neck prickles, but no one approaches him. He doesn’t care if they must bring in the goddamn military if that’s what it takes to prevent another PR disaster.

He makes it to the pitlane in record time, dodging all signs of human life, taking the back alleys wherever possible. He enters the rear entrance of the Gresini garage, finding his crew to check in before qualifying. He is pleased with the bike set-up from yesterday, feeling confident in the pace this weekend. On the bad days, Marc thinks he will never know the feeling of winning again, that he will never experience a champagne shower from the top step of the podium, the world chanting his name. That he will fade into irrelevance, a has-been of the sport, once Valentino Rossi’s great rival, now just another name. But this year is the closest he has come in 3 years, and he is not willing to let go without a fight, because Marc Marquez is synonymous with winning, it is his purpose and his destiny. If he is not riding, if he is not winning, he does not know who he truly is.

He watches the junior categories warm up, reminiscing on those days of his career, before the pressure and before Valentino. He is glad to see David achieving so much this season. He sees a younger version of himself in the boy and it scares him, terrified that the young Columbian will get burnt in the same way that Marc did. He vows to do everything in his power to protect him but let him grow into the world champion he is destined to be. They already training together, and Marc can see the way he is rubbing off on the teenager, he just hopes that does not become a curse.

The second free practice of the weekend occurs without a hitch, landing both Alex and Marc into Q2, much to the chagrin of the Italian fans (and really, could people not let it go by now?). Marc is determined not to let the recent events hinder his performance. Despite this, he is increasingly aware of his rising anxiety about facing the others on the grid. His mind is consumed by thoughts of judgement and disgust, creating pictures of his colleagues deserting him, refusing to be seen with him as in 2015. No matter how hard he tries, even after his talk with Aleix this morning, he is frantic with worry, unable to sit still.

“You will wear a hole in the floor if you do not stop soon.”

Alex appears from around the corner, watching him pace.

“We need to get ready. Are you feeling okay?”

Marc can’t face the idea of putting the younger through even more pain because of him, so he simply nods in agreement, refusing to meet the unconvinced look Alex is no doubt giving him.

He already has his leathers on, so he grabs the rest of his kit, and starts towards his crew, Alex heading in the opposite direction. He shoves down his fear and greets the people waiting for him with a plethora of fist bumps and hugs. He is grateful that his team are treating him as usual, seemingly recovered from yesterday’s shock. Some had wrapped him in a hug earlier this morning, others laying comforting hands on his shoulders, unabashedly showing their support and filling him with warmth. He holds onto that feeling as he prepares to ride, knowing a few more people are fighting in his corner.

Marc feels alive. The bike is singing underneath him, so responsive to him. Every move is calculated to perfection, cornering on the edge of impossible - he’s probably giving the guys in the garage a heart attack every lap. But he feels like he’s flying, whipping around the track on a bike that loves him as much as he loves it. He knows he’s putting in good times, his pace almost matching the newer Ducati, something which is the talk of the paddock at the moment. The move to a different constructor has brought a new lease of life to his career, quieting the doubts and prompting the whispers: “Marc Marquez is back”.

By the time the checkered flag falls, Marc is on top of the world. His mind wiped clear of the media, Valentino, and 2015. He doesn’t know where he placed, and it isn’t until he looks up at the timing board and sees his 93 at the top of the list, that he allows himself to grin.

Marc rides back to the garage, tailed by Alex, still grinning under his helmet. He is greeted and is greeted with a warm reception from the team, cheering as he and his brother come to a halt. He is rained in congratulations from his team, hands slapping his back and wide smiles directed at him. It is then that he spots Dovi. His old friend is standing to the side, a proud smile face. Marc has no idea what he is doing here, but he isn’t about to complain, having missed the older man in recent years. Dovi was one of the few people who had his back all those years ago, for which he is endlessly grateful. He jumps off his bike and almost straight into Dovi’s arms, uncaring of the cameras trained on the pair.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ah, can I not come and see my friend outperform everyone in the sport that we both love?”

Marc huffs a laugh in response, a faint blush colouring his cheeks. He knows why Dovi is truly here, despite his friend’s bullshit, but he cannot bring himself to be annoyed about his obvious weakness. It is nice to have a friend who is not Alex around. He knows affection is rolling off him in waves but simply does not care -pleased at the ease that is quick to settle between them, despite the years.

“I will be with you in a few minutes, go annoy someone else whilst we debrief”

Dovi laughs at that, making Marc grin, all teeth, in return.

Debrief is a quick affair, the team are delighted with p1, and simply want to talk about the race set-up, as well the minute areas for improvement on track. They release Marc after 20 minutes, giving him proud smiles and comforting touches as he leaves. He is once again overwhelmed by his love for the team which has re-awoken his passion for the sport which has taken but also given him so much.

A quick scan of the garage tells him Dovi has found one Alex Marquez to annoy, much to Marc’s amusement. He grabs his phone off the table (he had regained possession of it from Alex earlier) and turns it on for the first time in 12 hours, desperate to check his messages since he has 5 minutes to himself. He scrolls through his notifications.

His manager and parents have messaged, the latter asking him to call them when he has a chance, although he’s sure they have probably spoken to Alex, explaining the lack of urgency. He has a message from Casey Stoner, telling him to keep his head up and to ignore the media, although his choice of words is a little stronger. Marc lets out a startled laugh, warmed by the unexpected gesture from the older man. The next text makes him stop in his tracks, confusion bubbling inside him. It’s from an unknown number, and simply reads “Stop playing games.” A sense of unease fills Marc as he deletes the message, unwilling to entertain whoever thinks they can hide behind a screen and say what they want, he should just forget about it. The final and most recent text is from Dani. It simply reads “Tell Dovi he’s a dick for stealing my thunder. Unfair advantage, he was already in the country. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

A hand lands on his shoulder from behind, and Dovi’s head follows. Nosy fucker. He lets out a cackle at the text, pulling away to laugh even harder. Marc very much feels like he’s missed a joke, and he has no clue who “we” refers to. He simply replies to the chat with a thumbs up and accepts his fate of being coddled by the older riders for the rest of the weekend.

The pole position high doesn’t last very long. Marc and Dovi are walking back towards the motorhomes when he comes crashing back down to earth. Saturdays are always a bit chaotic at the track. But today, it feels worse than usual, with people staring and murmuring as they pass. Some of the comments are less than pleasant. Marc tries not to let it affect him, portraying a persona of indifference, no matter how much the words sting. Dovi talks lowly as they walk, his presence reassuring amidst the harsh whispers washing over them, swelling in a crescendo of cruelty.

“-he should have taken more pills”

“-can’t believe he actually did it”

“How selfish-”

“Have you seen the articles? I read that-”

From the limited information he has been given, or overheard, Marc gathers that the public reaction to the news has been mixed, to say the least. Some people are outraged by the leak and the subsequent media frenzy, destroying any sense of privacy left in Marc’s life. Others have been senselessly cruel, spewing hatred online about his mental health or even going as far as suggesting that he deserves it. Marc swallows the bile in the back of his throat, unwilling to break now. He knows he can’t let the public see his defences crumble, it will only give them more opportunity to kick him when he’s down. He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice who they’re walking towards, until it’s too late.

Marc hears Valentino before he sees him, talking to Pecco in hushed tones. His rapid-fire Italian is so familiar, yet also a distant memory. He feels the way his companion stiffens as they approach the pair and senses their eyes burning into him in return. No doubt Pecco has already told the older all about Marc’s breakdown yesterday. The reminder that Valentino is once more witnessing his life falling apart is nauseating. Marc steadfastly ignores them as Dovi steers them in the right direction. A confrontation is not what he needs right now.

He doesn’t register anything is off until someone careens straight into their path, sending Marc stumbling backwards in shock. He flinches at the look of pure hatred on the fan’s face.

“You should have done it properly; you couldn’t even kill yourself correctly. The world would be a better place without you.”

Marc chokes on his breath, his eyes burning, rapidly blinking as he tries to parse the scathing words. Dovi is frozen in shock, horrified that anyone would utter such a thing. Time freezes as the people close enough to have overheard all turn to look in their direction, willing a response from Marc. Ironically, it’s Pecco who breaks the moment, face like thunder as he storms over. Marc watches in a haze as Pecco reaches them, breathing heavily and shooting a look at Dovi, prompting him to drag the Spaniard to safety. Marc distantly registers Valentino frowning over at them, a flash of unreadable emotion in his eyes as he watches Dovi tugging him away.

Marc doesn’t look back, mind too preoccupied with the stewing self-loathing in his gut and the cloud of dark thoughts in his head. As such, he doesn’t see Pecco looming over the man who spat such vicious words at him, gesturing at security for him to be removed and permanently banned. He doesn’t see the older Italian glaring at Marc and Dovi’s retreating forms, a mixture of resentment and jealousy staining his features. He does, however, hear Valentino whispering that it’s not worth it, leading a distraught Pecco away, cracking Marc’s heart clean in two, once again.

#rosquez #motogp #marc marquez #motogp rpf #my fics #marcs medical records getting leaked #medical leak au #bit of a heartbreaking one sorry #but also DOVI #anddddd we get dovquez fluff next time :)

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cinnamontoastcrunch-15 · 3 months ago

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Red Flags

Oh my god I've been so burnt out I'm so so sorry but I WROTE SOMETHING FINALLY

“Right, so…” Lily starts, settling down in front of the others with a coffee in hand, “what are we thinking?”

“I have a feeling we’re all thinking the same thing,” Mary says, shaking their head to themself. As Lily glances around, everyone nods in agreement.

Remus Lupin has terrible taste in men.

It’s an infamous fact among the group, really. Somehow, Remus manages to find every weird, rude, and downright horrible man on the face of the earth. He's not stupid, but he is impressively good at ignoring all of the warning signs. Lily remembers, more than once or twice, picking up the pieces, shouting at the exes, even stopping Remus from taking them back. It always sucks to see him that upset, and Lily just couldn't take it anymore.

So, they've developed a system.

It involves a lot of internet stalking, going through social media after social media, looking for pieces of evidence, things they can mention directly to the guy in question. If they can figure out if they're exactly the same as the others, which they usually are, they can scare him away before it’s too late. Remus isn't exactly… aware, of their system, but it works, and they need it to keep working. It's better that Remus is a little upset that his boyfriend of two weeks has ghosted him, rather than a painful betrayal.

This newest guy, though? They can't find anything.

“You’d think someone with the name Sirius fucking Black would have something slightly shady on his socials!” Marlene says with a groan.

“I mean, the name’s red flag enough, right? Everyone knows the Black family,” Peter says, but James is intervening before anyone has a chance to agree.

“Hold on, they essentially got rid of him five years ago. I don't know that we can still hold his name against him.”

Yeah, that makes sense. Unfortunately.

“Okay, well… what does he do for a living?” Mary tries, only to get a good few shrugs.

For someone who posts ten times a day, this guy is really quite quiet about his private life.

“I think he's a doctor,” Peter says eventually. “That’s what I found when I looked him up. Pediatric Surgeon?”

“Oh, so he literally saves kids lives,” Marlene says, exasperatedly throwing her hands in the air. “I'm sorry, he can't be Mr Perfect! This isn't how Remus works!”

Lily wants to say that maybe it is, maybe he's turning a corner, but she bites her tongue. They don't actually know anything real, anything substantial, about this guy. All they know is that he grew up in a very prominent family, and can build a careful social media presence. That means nothing.

They need to dig deeper.

“You know what this means, right?” Lily says grimly. “We have to meet him.”

Remus knows exactly what his friends are up to.

They think they're so brilliant at hiding their little… background checks on anyone he even so much as mentions wanting to date. Well, he can't exactly blame them. He's dated some absolutely horrendous people, and he knows that. Showing up at Lily’s as a crying mess wasn't exactly his finest moment, so he gets why they're so concerned.

Sirius, though? God, they’re never going to have to worry again. For a good few weeks, Remus had thought he'd made Sirius up. He's never fallen for someone as quickly as he's fallen for Sirius, even though they're taking everything so slowly. Honestly, he'd move in with Sirius tomorrow, if he asked, but Sirius is too good to ask that so soon.

That doesn't stop Sirius from panicking a little, as Remus keeps setting the table for dinner with his friends.

“What if they hate me? I mean, what if I set a really bad impression and they hate me forever-?”

“They definitely won't hate you. Believe me, you'll click with them. Especially James. I have a feeling he's going to love you.”

James is always the most supportive. He at least tells Remus before the others start to interrogate them.

“But what if-”

“Hey, don't panic.” Remus reaches out and takes both of Sirius’ hands in his. It sends a little thrill through him, the way Sirius’ breath catches in his throat. “Just… don't feel intimidated when they start asking too many questions, and you'll be fine.” Sirius nods once, and Remus squeezes his hands reassuringly.

There’s a knock at the door before they can kiss.

Remus groans as Sirius drops his head onto Remus' shoulder. He takes a breath and takes a step away, as Remus tries to quash the nerves. He knows how much they're going to love Sirius, but it isn't really helping. He doesn't want them freaking him out and scaring him off.

Still, it's too late to give them all the boot now, so, with a slight hesitance, he accepts his fate and opens the door.

“Hey, guys! You’re all here… at the same time,” he says, sticking a perplexed expression on his face. Mary smiles brightly as Remus steps aside to let them all in.

“What a coincidence, right?”

They’re really bad at hiding things.

James is the last one in, and Remus holds him back quickly.

“Please tell me they're not grilling him. Sirius is nervous enough.” He knows the answer already, but James shrugging apologetically only confirms it.

“They didn't find anything online. You know what that means.” Remus nods once, trying to bite back a groan. “They're doing it because they care.”

“I know. Just… please give him a chance. He's… Prongs, he’s amazing.” He watches James’ face soften, and it gives him the slightest glimmer of hope.

Maybe this'll be okay.

“So, Sirius…” Marlene starts, the moment they all settle at the table.

God, it's already starting.

“What’s your favourite thing about our Remus?”

Honestly, Remus is pretty sure that's a tricky question. He's never seen anyone answer it right. There's always something wrong with the answer. It almost feels like a cruel start.

“Oh, wow, I don't think I could pick!” Sirius says with a smile. “I mean, unless you let me pick everything,” he adds with a wink. It draws a smile out of Remus, and James is already positively beaming. The others, though, exchange a confused glance.

“What, so you can't think of anything?” Peter says disbelievingly.

“Oh, I just meant- I think everything about him is amazing.”

A blush immediately spreads it's way across Sirius’ face and, oh, Remus could look at him forever; could watch his face turn rosy until the end of time.

“What d’you think of his writing? Y’know, his breakout piece on euthanasia?” Lily asks, resting her chin in her hands.

“I thought his breakout piece was his intersectionality one?” Remus turns to him, stunned. He didn't even know Sirius had read any of his articles.

He's also right.

Christ, he must be ticking some kind of box for his friends.

“Right, this is stupid,” Mary interrupts Remus’ train of thought, and he's already dreading whatever they're about to say. “If you have any intentions of hurting him, we’ll quite literally kill you.”

“Mary!” Remus says quickly, his hand reaching out to grab Sirius’.

“No, he needs to hear this!”

“Why? Because you couldn't find anything when you looked him up?”

It's enough for the group to lapse into silence.

“Listen.” Remus forces himself to take a breath and slow down. “I know why you do all of this, and I get it. Really, I do. I appreciate how much you care. Sirius, though, he's… guys, he's wonderful. You don't have to worry this time.”

James nods, Mary also seemingly placated. The others, though, turn to Sirius.

Yeah, that makes sense.

“Honestly, I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I wouldn't dream of hurting him. I'm falling in love with him more every single day-” He cuts himself off with wide eyes, immediately turning to Remus.

Oh.

Oh, wow.

“You love me?” Remus asks. It's almost like his friends just… vanish, in that moment. All he can see is Sirius, sitting beside him, telling him that he loves him.

“Shit, I didn't mean to say it like that!” Sirius groans, his face reddening by the second.

Okay, accidentally telling him that he loves him.

“I wanted to plan something nice, think of the right thing to say, not just- God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this-” He buries his head into his hands, muffling his panicked rambling.

“Sirius?” He tries quietly. Sirius just shakes his head minutely. It's really bloody endearing.

Remus is going to have to go about this differently.

Slowly, gently, he reaches out and pries Sirius’ hands from his face. He lets himself lace his fingers through Sirius’, as their eyes meet and Remus’ stomach flips.

“I love you, Sirius,” he says softly. “Christ, how could I not?”

Sirius’ face brightens in an instant, and Remus can't help but beam right back at him. He can practically feel the tension in the room lift.

He has a feeling his friends won't be worrying about him anymore.

#please be nice i've barely jostled myself out of writers block #i PROMISE i'll post more chapters of my actual wips soon #wolfstar #sirius black #wolfstar oneshot #marauders #remus lupin #remus x sirius #young marauders #moony x padfoot #atyd marauders #marauders oneshot

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mrfartpowered · 5 months ago

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you don’t hate Howard, you hate fatphobic tropes

Here at Mr Fart Powered Dot Com, I’m a long-time hater of the “fat best friend” trope and a long-time lover of jerkass characters, so I think I’m uniquely qualified to comment on this LOL

The biggest critiques I see of Howard are as follows: he’s gross, he’s stupid, he’s selfish, he’s lazy. Below the cut, I deconstruct each of these four criticisms not as faults of Howard, but faults of the writing, largely as a result of fatphobia.

These are all traits associated with the fat idiot trope, popularized by Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. Think about any other character who possess all of the above characteristics. Far more often than not, they’re a fat character. Plenty of non-fat characters possess any of those traits individually — selfishness, stupidity, laziness, and grossness are not exclusive to fat characters. Nor do they inherently make a character 'bad,' irredeemable, or otherwise unlikeable! But all too often, especially in dated media, we see this flimsy, weak writing apply to the fat villain...or the fat comic relief...or the fat best friend.

Howard falls victim to these ugly, annoying 'fat guy' tropes whenever the writing is in need of a cheap laugh, or when they need to make Randy look extra good. Howard does have unique, interesting traits, but they are painfully underutilized in exchange for role fulfillment as the comic relief.

Stupidity

Contrary to what the show wants us to believe, Howard is not a complete idiot. His intelligence may not be of the academic variety (and even this is debatable), but I would argue he is more clever than Randy. Of the two of them, Howard's got more common sense. Randy misinterprets almost every lesson the Nomicon gives him, while H quickly understands each riddle he gets the chance to know about. (See “a ninja’s choice must be chosen by his own choosing,” “don’t go in someone else’s house,” “when facing an unfamiliar foe, seek an unlikely ally.”)

You could argue against this point in Shloomp! There It Is, where he literally gets to see the lesson as it is presented in the nomicon and doesn’t get it. But I’d argue that this was purposeful mischaracterization in order to further the plot, a point which will unfortunately recur in this essay. The writers care more about Howard as a tool than as a character, but instead of using the capabilities they build within him, they default to stereotypes.

Where conventional academics are concerned, we have one concrete example of his abilities: Howard is incredible at chess. It’s the iconic nerd game; it requires strategy, careful thinking, and the ability to predict your opponent’s moves. Who cares that he doesn't know the pieces' names? Who cares that he doesn’t abide by typical strategies? He can kick artificially-intelligent ass at the game, not to mention follow someone else's plays the way most people follow a football game.

And he's got street smarts that save Randy's ass on multiple occasions. He's more sociable, a better liar, and a quick thinker in stressful situations. Much of this particular point is pulled from @cunningweiner ‘s brain, who pointed out that Howard is really well-received by crowds (Heidi’s MeCast, the talent show, the Tummynator). Another interesting instance of this is Howard’s time as the Ninja — both the fake monster drill ninja, and the actual Ninja. He may not have accomplished his duties as a hero, but the onlookers Absolutely Ate Up his crowd work. He’s not the most physically willing guy around, but he knows how to appeal to an audience. His major flaw in remaining a well-liked public figure is that his ego gets real damn big, real damn fast. But he’s 15! If you blame a teenager for having empathy and esteem issues, I don’t know what to tell you.

Despite his emotional immaturity, Howard is wise beyond his years as a businessman. Before we move forward, I need to tell you: look at this section purely from a business standpoint. You have to forget morals, you have to forget standards, this is Disney XD meta and we are analyzing a man named Weiner, okay?

Okay. Howard embarks on a total of three business endeavors throughout this show, and each one is highly successful. Ninja Agent, weapon reseller, and McFist-o-plex manager. He embodied “work smarter, not harder” every time. Being an agent takes social skill and smooth talking, and clearly he appealed to a wide range of clients (not to mention earned their trust! What would you say if someone called you up and said “yeah, I manage Superman. Want him to appear in a commercial for you?”). Being a manager requires delegation skills and good memory. Reselling Ninja weapons is honestly just genius and I can’t believe he’s the first guy to do it.

Everyone around Howard, and Big H himself, views him as a dumbass. But time and time again, the episodes show us his mental capabilities! Imagine how much fun the writers could’ve had if they’d leaned on a lazy genius trope instead of a fat idiot.

Grossness

I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t think of a single thin character who relies on gross-out humor. Take, for example, Total Drama, a franchise with a bodily diverse cast and a heavy emphasis on gross-out humor. I mean, there’s an entire episode in the original season where every single character pukes onscreen. TD overall utilizes irreverent humor, but while grossness is a major player, it is not the only source of comedy.

And then you’ve got Owen, the only fat character in the original cast. His whole shtick is being fat, greedy, and nasty. Other characters will fart and burp and overeat — all things that Owen does frequently — but they also have other gags. Maybe they’re bitchy, or they’re geeky, or they’re a literal convict. Owen does not enjoy the luxury of character depth. He is only good for grossing out the audience. (Side tangent: Owen has notably made me laugh out loud a handful of times over the course of the four seasons he featured in. But guess what! Every single one of those laughs was begotten from a rare moment when, instead of farting or burping or eating something he shouldn’t, the writers stepped outside the ‘Owen zone’ and gave him a joke unrelated to his fatness. Fatphobic humor is truly a plague.)

I know I’m being a bit heavy-handed, but I want to emphasize how similar that is to RC9GN! Randy does schnasty shit too sometimes, but he gets to be funny in other ways. Grossness is Howard’s primary mode of comedy. During my first watch-through of the show, I remember being outraged at Howard’s tendency to eat Randy’s food, which, of course, was followed by digestion noises or farts. I was too angry to write down which episodes, but I counted four separate instances where they used that exact convention specifically to get Randy angry at Howard, thus catalyzing the episode’s storyline. (At some point I will have to go back and fact-check that, but we’re 900 words deep at this point and this has been in my drafts for over a month, so we move forward for now okay!!)

We do get to see flashes of other humor from Howard, especially into Season 2! His cleverness and apathy make for hilarious setups. But even these instances are undercut by something foul. An example that comes to mind is Fear Factor, a perfectly fine episode — one that I love quite a lot — except for the very last gag. Really? Howard gets to be normal-funny the entire episode, until the last minute? The idea that his biggest fear is running out of food literally only works because he is fat. Had this joke been given to any other character, it probably wouldn’t have even made it to storyboards. Even worse, if Howard had not been fat, this joke would never have been conceptualized in the first place. It is almost as if the writers are trying to hit a quota of gross-out jokes for Howard. At a certain point, my anger morphed to pure disappointment. That’s how disheartening it is to see.

Selfishness

Okay, Howard Weinerman is selfish. I'll give you that. But just because he's self-centered does not make him a bad person. May I bring to mind Gumball Watterson, Marcy Wu, Louise Belcher? All are textbook examples of selfish characters, and frequently act in their own best interest, but are ultimately good people. I mention them as proof that characters can have negative defining traits without sacrificing the audience’s sympathy.

Here's where I really get frustrated with RC9GN’s writing... They want to portray Howard as a jerk with a heart of gold — such as in Debbie Meddle — but they always undercut his few selfless moments with a gross-out gag, or a rude offhand comment, usually directed at Randy. Sometimes, Randy will reciprocate, in which case I give it a pass. There, the grossness or general assholery showcases their friendship, instead of putting Howard down for a stale laugh.

But like I said, that’s the ‘sometimes.’ The ‘often’ is every time we see him almost embody the ‘heart of gold’ part of his attempted archetype, only to be thrown out the window for a lame gag. A specific example is in “Bro Money Bro Problems,” where Howard has cash to spare for once. He immediately opts to spend it on Randy!….until Randy shloomps into the nomicon, then comes out to find that Howard spent everything he had on the Food Hole’s dinner menu. Sure, this was used to set the rest of the episode in motion. They run out of money, but they need more, so they go out and sell ninja weapons. But here’s the thing: for the rest of the episode, Howard spends his money on both him and Randy, rather than just himself, effectively making that dinner menu joke inconsistent with his characterization.

“Well how else would they set the episode in motion?” They could spend it all on arcade games. Or they spend it all at the boardwalk both times. OR, they are just excitable teenagers who realize, hey, this shit is lucrative! Let’s go get rich! Boom. Fixed your episode, fixed your Howard, fixed your fatphobia.

Laziness

Over and over again, the show tries to tell us that Howard is a lazy piece of shit. Other characters regard him as such, and honestly, so does Howard himself. But I would argue that he is no lazier than your average teenager — not to mention, no lazier than Randy! The difference is that for Howard, the writers intertwine his laziness with his alleged stupidity. They try to convince the audience that Howard is too stupid to care what’s going on.

However, this trait is unique from the other three, because I think this one manages to give him depth. Or at least, in my heart of hearts, it has the potential to do so. This characteristic lends to Howard’s most clever jokes, I think, because ultimately:

Howard is capable, but apathetic.

From the earliest episodes, it is established that he aims for minimum effort, maximum benefit. There’s the bit where Randy asks Howard to come up with the plan for once, and they both laugh at the idea of Howard doing the heavy lifting. Or even all the way into “Mort-al Kombat,” he says people are ‘really handing him the answers today’ when Randy puts in the work to get Howard ungrounded.

But just because Howard prefers not to do any work, doesn’t mean he won’t! And when he does put in effort, the results show that he is damn good at what he does. His time as Le Beret more than proves this point: from his ability to work under the radar, to the plans he forms, to the knowledge he has about Mort’s job & McFist Industries that allows him to get all the cool equipment he uses. We also see his skills and capability in “Debbie Meddle” (the ninja dummy), “Viva El Nomicon” (learning Spanish quickly), “Secret Stache” (commitment to the bit), “The Ninja Identity/Supremacy,” and more.

He very much operates under the mindset of ‘work smarter, not harder.’ He’ll get the job done if he has to. He’ll excel at the job if it benefits him. This is a really interesting character mechanic that would have been so much fun to explore. Like I said so many times above, though, the writers most often choose to undercut his abilities in favor of comedic expense.

Conclusion

Howard, in comparison to Randy, is obviously a lot harder to root for. Overall, Randy is a more conventional character with conventional flaws. Like most duos in media, the sidekick juxtaposes the hero — I would even argue that Howard, in some ways, is Randy in reverse. Randy is highly moral, but still has a lot of learning to do skill-wise; Howard is already extremely capable, but also very amoral. Because of this, the narrative places Randy at a higher value than Howard — which, yknow, fair enough! He is the protag, and that’s a great setup for a protagonist. But simply by virtue of being fat, Howard is not treated with the same level of respect as other sidekick/best friend characters.

For all his quirks and flaws, Howard is not a supremely unique character. His basic core aligns with so many other characters. But because the writers lean on his fatness, instead of leaning into his potential and his complexities, it is much harder to root for him — and it strips him of originality. I love this show with all my heart, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t mind the way it treated Howard. He had so much potential, even as the show was airing, and I will forever be upset that the crew squandered it on fatphobic tropes.

#howard weinerman #rc9gn #randy cunningham 9th grade ninja #character analysis #rc9gn meta #also I HAAAATED howard for most of s1 it took me a long time to warm up to him #trust that I have really mulled this over #this isnt randy hate either btw. dont anyone go putting words in my mouth #UPDATE: dudes…..I’ve been working on this for over two months now #on and off #and I’m STILL not happy w it 😭😭#but I have GOT to post it so. PLS lmk ur thoughts ur comments ur questions….#I loooove ninja meta. teehee #ninj-originals

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alice-after-dark · 4 months ago

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RadioStatic Post-Makeup Headcanons for 150 Followers

Literally have been working on everything but this and now I'm almost at 200 fuck (already know what I'm doing for that though hehehehehe).

Thank you guys so much for all the love and support! You guys are the sweetest!

Theme suggested by @hiemaldesirae. Didn't get into NSFT, but...uh...that will be later...😈

Contains toxic StaticMoth.

Things don't go right back to sunshine and rainbows when they do finally set things aside and call a truce. Both were hurt and there's many years of bitterness and resentment to wash away.

Vaggie gives Alastor the advice to take things slowly and to let them happen naturally. Angel and Husk give similar advice to Vox. There's a wall between them that is years thick. It will take some time to come down.

It's not easy. They bicker a lot and take things very personally when it comes to each other. Sometimes their fights get so bad they have to be broken up by the others to stop them from getting physical.

They never end up apologizing to each other for these fights, just agree to put it behind them.

The thing that finally truly cracks the wall between them is actually one of Alastor's shitty puns. It's Angel who opens the door and Alastor just can't resist and everyone groans except for one single solitary genuine laugh. And every just looks at Vox who's got a hand over his mouth and looks mildly embarrassed. "What? It was funny."

And suddenly Alastor remembers what it was like to make Vox laugh and smile - a real smile, not that fake shit he wears for the cameras, for the public - and it becomes his personal mission to get more out of him.

The tension begins to ease between them. The bickering becomes banter. The jabs turn playful. The fights dissolve almost as quickly as they start.

Charlie nearly faints with happiness when Vox apologizes for starting their most recent squabble. She actually does faint when Alastor returns the sentiment.

"Uh, is she okay?"

"This is normal."

Things take an unexpected turn when Vox shows up at the hotel late one night, clearly upset, and requests to stay overnight. Charlie is concerned, but he doesn't want to talk about it so she doesn't press and gives him a room for the night. Vox thanks her and goes to grab a drink from the bar.

Vox always insists on paying for his drinks since he's not an actual guest of the hotel, but Husk talks him out of it this time ("You're staying the night, aren't you? That makes you a guest").

Alastor pretends he is not at all concerned about how much Vox is drinking. Because Vox doesn't drink. Not in any serious capacity. Maybe a glass or two. Never anything serious and never enough to make him lose control of himself.

The seventh glass has Alastor locking eyes with Husk and joining them at the bar for a glass of rye.

Husk makes some excuse to leave and they sit in silence for a long time before Vox finally speaks.

"I broke up with Valentino."

"Isn't that normal? I'm sure things will smooth over in a day or two."

Alastor bites back that scathing remarks he wants to make about the moth. It is not the time nor the place, not when their renewed friendship is still so raw and delicate.

"No it won't. Because I don't break up with him. He breaks up with me. Always." Vox stares into his drink. "I don't know why it made me so mad this time. It's not like him blowing me off to go sleep around with his whores is anything new. I just...I got so angry...and then he wouldn't stop screaming outside my fucking door..."

"Does he know you're here?"

"No. I left through the building's wiring. Idiot still probably thinks I'm in my room ignoring him."

Alastor wants to do something. Wants to rip and tear that moth to pieces. Instead he takes Vox's drink from his hands.

"Let's get you to bed."

Vox doesn't resist when Alastor takes a hold of his arm and guides him up to his room. The alcohol is clearly starting to hit because the Media Overlord is off balance and needs to hold onto Alastor and the railing to make it up the stairs.

"I'm gonna regret drinking so much when I wake up tomorrow, aren't I?"

"Oh certainly."

Once they reach Vox's room, Alastor loans him some sleep clothes and prepares to leave.

"Hey Alastor?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

"Of course, my friend. Any time."

#hazbin hotel #hazbin vox #hazbin alastor #radiostatic #hazbin husk #alice rambles #hazbin headcanons

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tf2thoughtdump · 1 month ago

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TF2 Thought of the Day

Headcanon? Yes.

Character(s)? All the mercs, team not specified but for simplicity’s sake, the red team

Long or Short? Long. This may take a while.

You're free to use any thoughts of mine in any form of media you make.

Thought

This one is real simple, it’s how I think the mercs would handle being given a baby. Enjoy!

Scout

Literally going crazy

Like, about to explode levels of crazy.

Gushing over every inch of this baby from her big eyes to her tiny nose and down to her chubby little hands and feet

Luckily, the little munchkin doesn’t seem to mind his intense energy so it works out

He does his best, but admittedly he is a bit… rusty

The first time he tried holding her, he wasn’t properly securing her head

The second him, he was just holding her upside down

He’s not the WORST merc to leave a baby with, but you have better options.

Soldier

Not really sure what to do with this….

Recruit.

He held her FAR from his body before opting to just tuck her under his arm like a loaf of bread

This didn’t last long though because he eventually found a way to keep her strapped to him with his belt

Uncomfortable, sure, but the baby could care less

She was more concerned with who gave her to this man in the first place

Soldier is your last resort

Pyro

Is most likely to set the baby’s diaper on fire when it gets full

He’s not BAD with a baby, it’s just…

There are so many better options!

They can hold the baby right, that’s not the problem, the problem is the outfit

The rubber, the material in general

Babies need skin-on-skin contact and Pyro.. doesn’t exactly fit the bill with that one

She’s definitely gonna make the baby uncomfortable but it’s nothing a good tickle won’t fix!

Demoman

Why?

Just….

Why?

Did you run out of options again?

Was Soldier too busy so you had to wake up Tavish?

What on Earth could be running through your mind to think leaving a baby with a drunk is a good thing?

He might rock it to sleep, but that’s about all you’re getting

Heavy

Your number 1 go to if you need a babysitter

He’s got three younger sisters! How hard can taking care of a baby be?

You’ll soon come to find out that with Heavy? Taking care of a baby is a piece of cake.

No complications, no fusses, no unchanged diapers

Just Heavy asleep on a couch too small for him, and a baby resting in his giant hands.

Engineer

Also another good one!

Doesn’t have much experience with REAL babies, just his mechanical babies, but he’s sure he can watch her for ya!

Don’t worry about a thing, buttercup, he’s got everything under control

Turns out, he kinda did?

In the time you were gone, he built her a rocking crib

Plus an automatic diaper changer

He’s just a little to busy with machines to be worrying about diapers

Relax though! If the baby cries, he’s putting down everything to figure out what’s wrong and how to solve the problem

Minus the guns in the equation

Medic

Well, uhm..

He’s not a bad baby-watcher!

He will keep that little rascal in his sights at all times! No doubt about it!

He could stare at that baby all day!

Best babywatcher in the world!

But…

This is Medic we’re talking about…

There’s no way this baby is coming back the same baby..

Sniper

Not.. sure what to do?

He’s a bit of a recluse, so he doesn’t hang around people that much

That also translates to him not really being able to understand what to do when given a baby and told to watch her

You know that TikTok audio?

“Your mom told me to watch you, but.. you don’t do anything.”

That’s him.

He takes “watch her” seriously

Now granted, Mick will let her play with his fingers occasionally but is really just staring at a baby in his lap for 2 hours straight and freaking out every time she cries or soils a diaper

Spy

Spy is a neglectful dad

We see that with Scout, so it’s no big surprise there

However, he’s not horrible with kids

He can take care of a baby just fine, change her diapers, feed her, burp her, lull her to sleep and the like

He just won’t be very enthusiastic about it!

If you want your baby to have a good time, pick Scout or Engineer

But if you want someone who actually has some idea what they’re doing, get Heavy or Spy for the job, okay?

#team fortress 2 #team fortress two #tf2 #tf2thoughtdump #random thoughts #tf2 headcanons #medic tf2 #tf2 medic #spy tf2 #tf2 spy #scout tf2 #pyro tf2 #engineer tf2 #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 scout #tf2 sniper #tf2 engineer #tf2 soldier

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fictionkinfessions · 7 months ago

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Reply to @ 748650924689555456/real-talk-but-i-hope-i-dont-ever-cross-the-line

First of all, it was nearly impossible for me to read this essay. You’ve gotta start breaking up more of your ridiculously long paragraphs.

Anyway, this is such an elitist take, which why in the WORLD are we making kinning elitist in the first place? Congratulations on not having that problem or not kinning from every media you consume, do you want like… a medal for that? Some praise? I mean seriously, want do you get from shitting on people who DO kin from everything they consume? Gods forbid they watch, read, play something and see themself in it. I’m not saying it doesn’t become a problem at times, because it definitely can from what I’ve seen, but for serious, what do you think your borderline villain monologue is going to do in this situation beyond making people feel like shit? What’s the point of popping in here, writing all of this ON ANON, and acting like it’s so cool of you?

The people you’re ranting about probably already know it’s a problem and are trying to work on that, or, if they aren’t, have made some peace with it because gods forbid someone finds something that briefly helps them when the world is quite literally falling apart around us. Having a little escapism or a little something to focus on beyond the world being shit is good for people, believe it or not. Makes people happy to find themself in media they consume, little pieces of themself that make them feel better to learn about. Fuck, some people are uncomfortable with exploring parts of themselves without the barrier of kin for trauma reasons, isn’t it a good thing they find multiple parts of themself all over the place?

Anyway. It’s so cool that you kin in the specific way that you do, but the majority of people don’t. Fuck, tons of people don’t even kin spirituality. Regardless of that, who cares if they have an “identity crisis” or split? That doesn’t concern you and frankly, acting like it does and you’re going to make a documentary on the people who probably have life rough enough already is so shitty. This entire ask is so shitty lmfao!!!!

There are tons of problems in fandom spaces that are encouraged by people who kin, I won’t lie, but kinning a ton or pairing two white guys who have “no chemistry” or whatever else you said is REALLY not the issues to focus on. Let’s talk about white people who use names from closed cultures. Or how fandom spaces promote misogyny? How about we focus on something that has real, genuine meaning and doesn’t make people feel terrible for no reason beyond YOU don’t like something?

All your “exposure” is going to do is get people who use kinning as a method of escapism from already horrible lives targeted and harassed more and more by nonkin. I just don’t see the point in this ask beyond “I’m better than you and everyone will see how weird and hollow you guys are 🫶🏻🫶🏻” like idk anon??? Touch grass or something lmfao

Sorry if this is mean mpc, I’m trying not to be, but still get the point across.

#fictionkinfessions #fakeclaim #bullying cw #mod party cat #ask response

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draculovemp3 · 9 months ago

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@revenge-of-the-assbutt @firstaidspray @sachermorte thank u for enabling me NEWAY since I’ve been too dead to do any of my own hobbies here’s some thoughts on House & Co’s physical hobbies/lil crafts & such they do in the comfort of their home<3:

House: canonically does a ton of shit like piano/guitar/cooking/so on but In the spirit of him resisting change (At Times!) I think he’s gotten very good if not makes a fun time out of mending clothes🥺…. Didn’t wanna throw away his favorite shirts so it started w small hems+resizings until he looked up more tips online and get decorative w it. Pretty contrasting colors/patterns now randomly laid on his shirts and pants w only the careful eye(Cuddy+Wilson) to notice. If anyone cares

Wilson: gardening. Well as much one can do within his apartments/pretty nonplant friendly homes. He’s not a super greenthumb expert but it always gives him a lil confidence boost when he’s able to grow out spices and herbs & such to use in his cooking ♥️

Cuddy: she seems like a collage-making kind of girlie💗💗 no specific theme in em or anything but she still holds onto the potential self-aid of making vision boards and it’s relaxing for her to go thru magazines/etc + cut out whatever interests her enough to use. Rachel tries and cutely fails to help 💓💓💓

Chase: ironically enough for the prodigal son lol but . He genuinely seems like someone who enjoys spending time in silence/music doing puzzles w 1000+ pieces & such #DWEEB❤️. House once got him a 5000 piece puzzle of a kangaroo or w/e as a joke and he is Determined to complete it. In due time chase…

Foreman: the thought of Foreman crocheting is so dear to me….. he doesn’t rly tell anyone ab it but there’s a lot of half-finished + worn projects as proof around his home. #angsting it sorry but I think he took it up after his mom started deteriorating bc she crocheted too and it was a fonder reminder + sumn they could do together. One yr he gave the fellow ducklings scarves he made as Xmas gift. Not that he told him he made it tho😅#repressed

Cameron: I think she has a moderately sized zen garden on a table somewhere in her home she takes SERIOUS. Changes the lines/circles in the sand periodically, sees what new arrangement of rocks she can do etc etc. Girl that thing is meant to be relaxing!! also colorcodes/sticker-covers/etc her planner like a CHAMP.

Amber: she has the most well-detailed prettiest most concerning-when-read journal/diary everrrr. Dedicates a specific time in every day to it w specific pens of various colors. Some of the recounting even have lil doodles or if she takes the journal out w her she draws her view wherever she is<3 they’re literal chickenscratch but its still fun and fulfilling. It’s a bibleesque piece to Wilson’s Amber shrine btw

Thirteen: she’s hard to analyze for me soz 13heads I do love her #trust… nonetheless I bet she goes to hella dance classes. Partially for the exercise partially for the fun partially for the need to experience Life partially for the women. Heh. She’s rly into zumba, jazz, contemporary classes to be specific.

Taub: ok ok so remember when he did/bought pottery or w/e to convince his wife he was being faithful. I think he’d do it for real as a joke/alibi then be like wait…. This is kinda fun…? There’s no constraints to what he can make + the sculpting reminds him vaguely of plastic surgery work so he keeps it up.

Kutner: I think he draws + writes his own lil comics/zines 🫶 they’re mostly scifi or superhero and more than a lil inspired by his fave preexisting medias . He likes using the crazy cases he’s experienced w House as story inspo. Also he 4 sure runs dnd campaigns so well and fun. Btw

Masters: she’s a suckerrrr for trivia nights my lil nerd wife<3 but um anyway when she wants to relax she Really doesn’t want sumn that can become info overload so in free time she’ll make friendship bracelets, lil shapes/figures out of string, etc. Will someone please give this woman a full on loom to go cray with!!!!

Park: I can see it so clearly . I can see her lil handpainted warhammer and other tabletop game figures so perfectly in my head. She paints more than she actually plays(but she does !). God save you if you touch or tumble them.

Adams: I kinda DGAF about her sorry women… hmm there’s sumn compelling ab her doing blackout poetry plus occasionally full-on written when the inspo hits! started as a boredom thing in her job in the prison w whatever book she brought in then she kept on doing it w more and more written pieces she comes across.

I put so much time into this. Perhaps too much.😭feel free to gimme y’all’s thoughts on this/ur own ideas :3

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icyrambles · 5 months ago

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hi friendly reminder that everything said in this post is my personal opinion. i actually really enjoyed earthspark season 1 and i was really really excited for season 2. i do not expect a piece of children’s media to be a perfectly written masterpiece but good lord was the bar low. anyways extreme spoilers below the cut. proceed with caution :3

i do not think it an untrue statement to say that the writing quality went down significantly between seasons. the plot, while not perfect in season 1, was far more fleshed out and actually took a whole season's worth to complete. meanwhile we had a plotline with much higher stakes get finished within the span of about a third of what the first season got. additionally while many of the episodes had some sort of connection to the wider goal of this batch of episodes, that being reclaiming the emberstone shards, many of the episodes did not focus specifically on the emberstone itself, instead sidelining it to a background plot or merely having characters randomly finding bits and pieces of it just lying about.

i would not think this a bad thing had the episodes not felt so rushed. starscream's plotline of obtaining all the emberstone shards should've taken the whole season, not just 9 episodes. the rushed writing reeks of corporate interference and slashed budgets and i have nothing but praise for the writers who scrambled to try and salvage a story that should've gotten 1, if not 2 seasons for a well rounded plot. however this does not stop me from wishing that they had tried to focus on creating a plotline that felt at least marginally more connected and tonally sound

it's an issue that i noticed throughout the first season where the dialogue and general morals of the show seem to be marketed towards a much younger audience and then the actual content of the show is not at all suited for children. obviously rampant child endangerment is a common theme in a lot of children's media (steven universe, she-ra, literally every tf show to ever feature a child character, etc...) but it's very strange to me that so few of the adult characters seem to care or understand how much danger mo and robby are in whenever they are part of an active combat scene.

neither dot nor alex seem all that concerned that their literal children are fighting alien robots who are more than twice their size and could easily maim or kill them without much trouble. obviously they have plot armour because they are the main characters but even then that's not a very good excuse when it's been established within the show that the characters are in highly dangerous situations that could get them killed and yet mo and robby's parents simply stand by and let their very young, elementary/middle school aged kids throw themselves into the line of danger.

and it's specifically the tone issue when it comes to the violence. if the combat in earthspark was treated as though no one could get hurt seriously and everyone would be okay, like it is in many prior transformers shows (like G1, TFA, and cyberverse) then i wouldn't have any issues with this. but it's not. fighting the decepticons is treated like it's a majour risk and that mo and robby could die every single time they leave the house to go on patrol. but their parents, beyond a few verbal warnings, do not do anything to keep their kids out of the way. they do not question why their children must be the ones to fight the decepticons, instead of leaving it up to the much more capable autobots.

it was bad in the last season but at the very least most of the fights then were simply due to the maltos being caught up in combat they weren't actively seeking out. but now, they are actively hunting down and searching for pieces of the emberstone that frequently lead them into situations that could risk their lives.

another issue i have with the tones of the show is how it treats injuries. hashtag seemingly gets very badly injured in the first episode because of aftermath and we, as the audience, are supposed to be very worried for her. however this lasts for all of about 10 minutes before she's back on her pedes and rolling around just fine, which once again leads to the confusing question of whether we're supposed to care if characters get injured.

in transformers animated as an example, i was never particularly worried when characters got injured because of the allspark key. it was functionally a fix all tool used to repair any cybertronian character who got injured. therefore, whenever there was a majour battle, i never was in disbelief when a character would get seriously injured because it was previously established that the characters have a tool that can fix them should they require such drastic medical care. and it even tied into ratchet’s character arc and him learning to trust newer forms of technology.

wheeljack is another example of tonal dissonance when it comes to injuries. he gets stabbed in the face by a weapon called the cyberslayer. he then passes out and his optics turn completely black. we see dot grabbing him and looking very worried and then we don't get to see him again until the very last episode (which takes place two episodes after when he first gets injured) where he only appears for a split second fighting nova storm. no one mentions the fact that he got grievously injured, not even characters who saw him get hurt, like twitch, who has a strong emotional attachment to him and should likely care about him getting injured.

mind you beyond a cybertronian’s frame going completely grey, their optics are how their physical and emotional state are often portrayed to most animated audiences. it’s not like in the comics where they can be covered in gore and lose limbs without consequence of scaring a young child. so seeing wheeljack’s optics go completely black and having people be worried about him and then never mentioning him again for two fucking episodes is really poor writing.

and speaking of characters getting grievously injured. let me talk about spitfire and aftermath.

i do not enjoy the fact that they were killed. in fact i am appalled that they took two characters who were maybe less than a month old and then had them killed in what is to be implied to be an extremely painful manner. i’m unsure as to why the terrans are treated as though they are fully grown cybertronians when they are clearly not. they may have fully developed frames but they have the minds and personalities of children. additionally the way the chaos terrans are treated makes me deeply uncomfortable considering their age and the way they were brought into the world.

it is implied that the emberstone brings terrans into existence depending on the situation and in both cases of a chaos terran being created, that situation is combat. aftermath was created when breakdown fumbled an emberstone shard and it landed in a puddle of water. he was then immediately hit by a truck and began attacking the rest of the terrans. spitfire is much the same, being created when a shard of the emberstone was tossed into a thunderstorm while twitch was being chased by laserbeak.

the way that the maltos talk about the chaos terrans, addressing them as evil and corrupted versions of the other terrans is deeply unsettling to me considering season 1’s themes of acceptance and understanding for those around you. it’s very weird to have jawbreaker go from being buddy-buddy with aftermath in one episode and then upon meeting spitfire in the next episode, distrusting her. obviously aftermath did betray jawbreaker’s trust by stealing the supply of cave water, but it feels incredibly out of character to see jawbreaker, who is friendly, kind, and unrelentingly positive, suddenly stick his nose up at spitfire, an individual he has never met before in his life.

i’m aware that the terrans are proven right about aftermath and spitfire but it’s so gross to see characters who are less than a year old get thrown under the same bus as the decepticons who have committed literal war crimes.

and then there’s the fact that they were killed by starscream. now to be clear, i did not expect starscream to be a good person in this season. i was tentatively hopeful that he would get a redemption arc of some kind considering megatron’s whole deal, but i was fully expecting him to be the main antagonist of season 2. however… it feels bizarrely out of place to see starscream quite literally murder two newborn babies and then not have said babies get revived at the end of the season.

aftermath and spitfire are dead. just straight up gone. and it’s a waste of potential in my opinion.

these are two characters who could have gone from side antagonists to genuine fan favourites given enough time and proper development. that’s what i though their plotline would be to be honest; i assumed that we were going to see them grow and develop over the course of the season (not just the first nine episodes) with the two of them eventually leaving the decepticons to join the autobot side.

instead they are murdered in front of four main characters and banished the realm of never having had existed once again. there is the possibility of them being revived but i am highly unsure of that being the case considering how their existence sort of depends on the emberstone being shattered into several pieces.

additionally, going back to starscream, i honestly do not want him to get a redemption arc now. there is no way in my mind that the writers can make him a good guy after he murdered two children. like, zero chance. unless they just bumped it under the rug, it’s fucking impossible to go “yeah starscream, the guy who killed two babies and then tried to destroy an entire town full of people, yeah he’s a good guy now!”

that just would be tone deaf.

okay i’m moving on to the various plotholes and open ended questions that have been left on the floor now because if i keep thinking about how the chaos terrans were treated it’ll make me sadder

so first big question. why are the cons bad now? no genuinely, i would like to know why exactly the decepticons suddenly turned evil. the excuse of “oh that’s just how cons are” is not an excuse, it’s a fucking shame explanation that goes entirely against the themes of the first season. like even a fucking line of just “oh we tried peace but like many of our past ceasefires our ideologies just clashed too much” or something along those lines.

and it’s been a whole year since season 1. something must have happened for the decepticons to have suddenly flipped sides on a dime. it’s so weird to me seeing a character like breakdown finally have the opportunity for something tangentially related to peace and then become a con once again despite having zero reason to actually stay with them.

like ghost is gone (which is another thing i’ll bring up later) so why wouldn’t he chill with the autobots where he’s not in active combat and being starved for resources. like i can understand soundwave, shockwave, and starscream leaving considering their ties to megatron, and novastorm and skywarp leaving because of starscream seems about right.

but swindle? hardtop? the insecticons? why the fuck do they care about the decepticons? surely those individuals don’t have the same loyalty to the cons as the others? and it doesn’t help that the insecticons get no lines this season and swindle and hardtop get like 6 collectively. we don’t learn anything about them or their motives. we can’t deduce anything because the narrative doesn’t care enough about them to actually explain or show why they’d choose to stick with the decepticons over the autobots.

and starscream’s motives are another really weird thing. we’re told it’s because he wants to build a new cybertron but that feels so wildly out of character when he’s shown to generally just dislike megatron and his rule. why would he want anything to do with earth?

“oh well shockwave hasn’t found anything that says cybertron is still around”

well he hasn’t found anything that says cybertron is gone either. like one blown up spacebridge would not fucking explode an entire planet. and it would make far more sense for starscream to be building a new spacebridge powered by the emberstone instead. and the decepticons being the antagonists instead because of them wanting to go home quicker and not wanting to be patient and resorting to violence.

like you’re telling me that shockwave couldn’t build a fucking space bridge when agent croft and mandroid could. pathetic. he would probably do it faster and with better materials because he knows what he’s doing.

additionally if we got a space bridge up and working that would mean getting to see cybertron which would provide a lot of really good character building for the terrans! like it would be very fun to see them getting to explore and grapple with their cybertronian side!

ignoring the whole mess that is decepticons are the bad guys again because of “reasons”, i wanna talk about the carnival episode

now overall i actually enjoyed this episode. like beyond the whole crush plot not really being my thing (which is more a result of me not enjoying romantic subplots within kids media to begin with which is in it of itself just a result of me being aroace and disliking unnecessary romance in media) i actually really liked this episode! i enjoyed seeing the terrans interacting in an environment that isn’t a fight scene. and the use of their bond in regards to robby’s crush is actually a really cute concept that i felt was well executed.

absolutely zero thoughts on robby’s crush. other than they both deserve jail for that food crime abomination of a funnel cake. but to each their own i suppose.

but now comes the questions… what the fuck was up with cosmos man?!

from his dialogue about not knowing that megatron was an autobot we can assume that he’s been trapped there for minimum of like… 40 years give or take. and that’s a fucking horrifying thing to think about. he’s trapped in his altmode for decades without any way to communicate with his allies all while this random human uses him as a method of making money.

i don’t particularly know how those altmode devices work, but surely his spark signature would still be recognisable correct? did the other autobots just assume that he was dead? did they not care? were ghost preventing the autobots from rescuing him?

so many questions that will probably not get answered because having weird al voice him probably increased his budget several times over.

oh and also are we going to learn where fairemestro got his tech from? did he just get it all from swindle over the years, that would seem the most logical, but also maybe he was working with ghost, that could be an interesting plot threat if the writers decide to bring him back.

the quintessons are another group that leaves me with a lot of questions. like clearly they’re being set up as the main villains of the rest of the season but it’s so weird to me that they’re not set up earlier than that.

why on earth make starscream the villain if you’re going to just get rid of him nine episodes in. surely it would’ve been easier to simply dedicate the time and energy into building up the quintessons in the first batch of episodes, with the decepticons as minour supporting characters along with the autobots and then have the rest of the season be about fighting the quints.

it feels so oddly structured and rushed.

i understand that time constraints and budget cuts most likely caused them to cram everything into season 2 because season 3 might not be a guarantee but considering how big of a threat the quintessons are likely going to be, having them get their own season to fully realise their goals and/or plans is a better writing decision than a singular episode of setup that immediately got forgotten for the rest of the episode batch.

and okay, personal bias here. the quintesson executioner model was ugly. it was weird and it was gross and it’s fucking limbs made of jelly energon was just not it man. like give that thing some tentacles with blades on the end. not whatever the fuck that creature was.

and also small tangent, i don’t like quintus prime. i do not like the fact that he enlisted two literal children to do his bidding and then having the writing team puppet said children around saying “yes quintus prime is our friend :)” while he has done nothing to earn their respect or trust. he’s a fucking dick who is leaving his mess for two kids to clean up.

mo saying to the executioner “but quintus is my friend” pisses me off so much because he’s really not. he appeared in one vision for about 3 minutes and in that time he got angry at mo for being scared about her brother being in mortal danger. that’s not friend behaviour.

additionally alex’s nonchalance about the quintesson executioner is so strange to me. he literally saw his probably 9-10 year old daughter getting hunted down and just doesn’t do anything afterwards to ensure that it won’t happen again. no sitting down with dot and saying “honey maybe we shouldn’t let our children do this anymore. it’s clearly dangerous.” nothing of that sort??? really??? do neither of these parents care about their children now???

season one dorothy malto would never do this. she would be furious that her children are regularly throwing themselves into life or death situations.

not to mention the fact that these kids are still in school, actively!!! mo finding the quintus temple is literally only because she has to do a history project on witwicky, meaning she’s actively in school during the season. so that means that not only are these kids in school during the day, but they’re also training, going on patrol, and fighting beings roughly 2-3x their size on the daily????

how are they not exhausted physically and mentally? how have their teachers not noticed something is off? do they just not have any connections with their classmates? do they merely just go to school, go home, work, and then repeat?

this problem could be easily fixed by just saying they’re homeschooled or that it’s the summer. but nope, they’re in public school.

okay end tangent. moving onto characters.

i’ve already talked about the assassination of characters like dot, who is suddenly a background mom who seemingly doesn’t give a shit about her seven kids throwing themselves into life and death situations and the same goes for alex, but there was a noticeable lack of character time from pretty much every majour character from season 1.

like bumblebee, someone who lives with the malto family and was their teacher and mentor in season 1. he’s just fucking gone for 90% of the season. he has like three total scenes and most of those are dedicated to him being comic relief. it baffles me that he’s just missing. everything from season one, his silly moments with alex, his awkward dynamic with optimus and megatron, his love and dedication with the kids is just gone.

it breaks my heart because bumblebee was one of the highlights of season 1. he was silly, kind, caring, strong, and the perfect mix between the bumblebee’s of tfa, g1, and cyberverse.

megatron, arcee, and grimlock also got almost no screentime. arcee and grimlock i can sort of understand because even in season 1 they were relatively minour background characters who featured in only one or two episodes… but megatron, fucking megatron, mr. i’m an autobot now. mr. i’ve changed for the better???? why is he not more prominently featured as a potential mentor for the chaos terrans.

he of all bots would understand what they’re going through? why does he just brush off spitfire? why is he not more concerned when the chaos terrans are merely left to the side and dehumanised like the rest of the decepticons?

it’s so strange to see him become this random guy who says almost nothing and is mostly in the background when he played such a prominent role in season 1. and it’s especially weird that he’s also just okay with the terrans and malto kids collecting the emberstones by themselves. like he was very clearly protective and caring towards them in season 1 so why the sudden shift in character in season 2?

starscream is also such 180 from season 1. like did i expect him to be a perfect little angel who can do no wrong? fuck no. i was fully expecting him to be mean, ornery, and snippish when he interacted with megatron and the autobots. but to have him go from “look out for yourself” to hashtag and then straight up murder two children for a plot point that barely makes any sense is just so fucking out of line.

i’m a firm hater of most starscream’s that are just evil guy for the sake of evil. i fucking hate what skybound did to him good lord. so to see him suddenly flip from being relatively sympathetic (i say relatively because he’s not like a good person. i fully understand that he was actively part of the group that invaded earth and probably killed a lot of humans) but having him just straight up kill two children… no man. i will not accept a redemption arc after that.

he had so much potential to be a good character, who actively struggled with becoming a good person and dealing with his trauma in a healthy way and to see that potential get tossing into the trash just makes my blood boil.

zero thoughts on soundwave and his team. he got like three lines and was mostly just a cardboard cutout of his season 1 self. weird that we never got to see frenzy considering laserbeak and ravage got scenes. is she just dead now?

shockwave betraying (or at least not listening to starscream’s orders) was pretty interesting. i’m ready to see what he’s going to do in the rest of the season. then again there’s a good chance that he’ll just be cardboard cutout later on.

skywarp and novastorm. nothing much. they’re fine. i like the few interactions they got. i enjoy the fact that skywarp is allowed to be a little stupid like her g1 counterpart and her fight scene with elita-1 was pretty nice. i’ve seen people complain that they didn’t change enough about her to justify the pronouns change but i subscribe to the notion that cybertronians do not use pronouns in the same way that humans do, so like, i don’t really give a fuck about the she/her usage. it’s a silly thing to get hung up over in my opinion.

insecticons are nothing burger characters. swindle and hardtop are boring as hell. also someone get hardtop a new arm for fucks sake. it’s been a year. surely they could manage that.

another dropped plot was the combining concept. like it gets put into an episode and then it gets dropped only one episode later. i honestly did not like how jawbreaker was portrayed in the episode that he features more prominently in. he’s upbeat and happy sure, but even he isn’t that emotionally dense. you’re telling me that while combined with aftermath he really couldn’t figure out why aftermath was so pissy. or that he was going to end up stealing all the cave water? really man?

additionally i’m not a massive fan of combination as a concept in tf to begin with. it feels very much like a toy marketing scheme and after idw1 i just cannot bring myself to give enough of a fuck about such things considering how massive combination was in the comics. it especially feels out of place in earthspark. i did like the scene where mo and robby devour like three plates of food after combining, that was really cute!

quite literally zero thoughts on hashtag picking out a new altmode. it was cute but it felt highly unnecessary to be perfectly honest. also i genuinely hope that her ai doesn’t turn evil like i’ve seen some people saying that it will. i prefer the interpretation that hashtag is now plural and the ai is simply her headmate. hashtag’s new model is just fine. i don’t like her helm though, it feels too naked for me. but the colours and everything else. fine. no notes.

in terms of animation i honestly don’t have too much to say. most of the models felt oddly stiff. like the people in charge of animation didn’t get paid enough to properly emote them during scenes beyond moving their mouths and maybe stretching their eyes. (this is a gross exaggeration. there is a lot of time and effort that goes into rigging and creating 3d models and i understand that on a tight budget it’s probably very hard to try and make every character as expressive as possible.)

the fight scenes felt so weirdly rushed and/or oddly choreographed. like it might just be a me thing but most of the scenes felt either too slow or too fast with the rare exception (i like spitfire and twitch’s scenes. they were good)

aftermath’s model is overall pretty good. besides his helm. it feels a bit too small.

already stated my opinions on the quintesson executioner model above. it’s shit. i don’t like it.

terratronus is honestly pretty good. the detailing is nice. don’t like her glorification of quintus prime though. like it’s in character but that doesn’t mean i have to like it. she wasn’t around long enough to make a big enough impression on me. she feels like a lore exposition dump and that’s about it.

alright this thing is getting too long. like 4k words long. before i go, let me say something.

i did actually enjoy watching season 2. despite my paragraphs and paragraphs of criticism and questions and annoyances with so much of the season, i think it’s perfectly fine by itself. but in comparison to season 1, it’s a poor fucking sequel. it fails on almost every level and i think more people should be more comfortable with admitting that it’s just very bad. that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, that doesn’t mean you can’t like what it did. i just think that people shouldn’t sweep the massive issues these episodes have with pacing, dialogue, and animation simply because some parts of it were decent.

i’m probably going to watch the rest of the season when the episodes drop (purely because prowl is there tbh. if he’s there at all.)

#icy writes #earthspark spoilers #earthspark season 2 #earthspark critique #transformers earthspark #tfe #it's like 5am as i'm writing these tags so if the last few paragraphs seem lazy and/or less developed #it's cause i'm tired and should go to bed #i've been sitting on these thoughts for the past few weeks and need to get them out #feel free to rb and/or leave thoughts in the tags/replies #i like hearing people's thoughts #long post

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supersoftly · 8 days ago

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In regards to the squirrel, the man rescued the squirrel in Connecticut where there's no laws against adopting wild animals, but purposefully moved to New York, which does need a permit, in order to make social media content about the animal and start an animal sanctuary. Squirrels not being able to get rabies does shift my decision in regards to the morality of putting it down, but it seems silly to say that he wasn't breaking the letter of the law in every way.

The real concern was the raccoon, which was the rabies risk. You also need permits in NY to own those, and his own neighbors reported him for the way the animal was being taken care of. The owner claimed the raccoon was being 'rehabed' but he was being hand fed by people. It was 100% being exploited for content, and being interacted with in a dangerous way.

I want to make it clear that my stance is, in an ideal world, people would need permits to own domesticated animals like cats and dogs because the majority of pet owners are not equipped to handle their animals. Most pets are miserable. And very dangerous things can happen if idiots try to apply the same philosophies to wild animals. I do not want the man who owns an animal shelter to have multiple animals in his possession that aren't being properly taken care of or licensed. Its extremely irresponsible. Killing was probably an overreach but I think that in a just world, the animals never should have gone back under his care.

I read a post on tumblr recently about an old woman who began feeding cat food to some raccoons, which led to a herd of about 30 wild raccoons becoming violent and territorial over both her yard and her neighbor's yard. Every raccoon had to be killed. Wild animals are not pets. They are not domesticated animals. They should never be treated as such. Get a cat or a dog if you need an animal in your personal life instead of trafficking squirrels and giving raccoons ice cream.

I understand where you're coming from, perhaps for me, I have a deep mistrust of government handling animal welfare appropriately, and cross that with excessive use of force in regards to whether people have proper permits or not yet they'll do nothing about the illegal dumping, theft, gangwarfare, squatters and drug use abundant in these urban landscapes, New York especially, it just completely reeks of overreach.

I believe between our positions, it's likely just a differential of priorities and how we believe it's best solved. I've tackled the idea of forcing permits on all pet owners because I do agree with you that many people are incapable of taking care of their animals, but we have to recognize the law is a tool, creating new laws are effectively just printing pieces of paper without proper enforcement and simply put, it's absolutely unfeasible to enforce. Where's the funding for it? Are you going to have beat cops asking ID for every single dogwalker? Are we going to charge a fee everytime a farmer has a litter of cats and didn't tell the state? Vets now have to turn away anyone who owns an animal that isn't registered. Pet stores are basically going to be an 18+ since arguably minors shouldn't have access to things they cannot afford. Homeless guy has a dog? Better euthanize it since he doesn't have a permit. And even when we do have proper permits in place, still accredited zoos end up being rife with abuse, but because they have the blessing of the state, for whatever reason, that gives them a pass to continue to profit from said animal abuse just cuz they appear "professional" (see Marineland).

And personally, as I've done research into animal sanctuaries and rehabilitation (it was my original post-secondary accreditation), they desperately are in need of more help, more money and more awareness literally everywhere as most of these places that aren't supported directly by state fundraising (which is only a pittance) or a wealthy billionaire are volunteer run by bleeding hearts. More red tape would absolutely destroy these things as they've done with laying down the law for homeless shelters or feeding the homeless. I would be more optimistic if when the state gets involved they make things better, but as with most animal welfare, it most always gets worse. Even in the case of animal rescue, our greatest state solution to exotics running amok was to shoot them all and be done with it. It's easier to deal with a problem when they don't have rights afterall. I do agree things should be handled better especially when it comes to wild animals and social media, lord knows there's an idiot willing to pet a wild bison for a Tiktok video hiding behind every influencer, but I don't concede that every social media-er who boasts animal welfare is doing a bad job, when as with all things social media related, it's through a lens and there's a hidden perspective behind it. We can judge as outsiders as best we can, but only the people directly involved with the animals know what's going on.

You don't have to trust me though in regards to my scrutiny of government managing animal welfare, there are many YouTubers who from the love of their heart started their own animal rehab/sanctuaries who speak very candidly about how difficult the law is to obtain proper certification, but are very happy to let you kill it and skin it any way you please without batting an eye. For example, people often will dump animals on rehab properties without permission and if it's an animal they cannot rehab, they have to get rid of it quick to either a proper sanctuary or kill it, else they will be charged.

I understand this is all of us upset starting from a perspective of care for the animals, and while I don't necessarily condone the brash attitude people have about this whole situation, I do believe this particular instance was government overreach and likely outright negligence. You can't tell me this was the only and optimal solution when even in Canada we didn't euthanize the famous Ikea monkey, but encouraged the owner of her own volition to give him proper care at a sanctuary where he still lives today.

I'm not sure if this is also worth bringing up, the the anonymous tipster was found bragging about it on FB and did not even live in the state she was supposedly worried about, so I'm less inclined to believe their intentions were pure and not straight up just malicious use of state enforcement.

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