#had to post it again because i had some issues!

[scartale-an-undertale-au]

So... I see this a decade after i decided to simply... Stop instigating conversations because i felt like im simply burdening others with my presence and that they actually felt annoyed having to hear from me and wished i wouldnt send messages.

The thing is that none of them ever approached me afterwards. When we saw each other after a while we would be ecstatic but there was a wall between us already and i dont know if its simply life going on and us being very different than back then, or that they truly didnt see me the same as i saw them (as my besties).

One time i met one of them (this one specifically was my best friend from first grade until twelve basically) on the street and i see that she's married and walking with her husband. Turns out the wedding was that sunday and i wasnt even notified of it happening or of the engagement. I wasnt mad about not being invited, but i was hurt for not even being notified! She then turned to her husband and said that im a friend of her from high school.

Its been a decade from high school so i can see why she said that, but that hurt me so badly that the moment i waved them goodbye and they disappeared around a corner, i collapsed and just sobbed. I was so heartbroken. It seemed that i was the only one who still thought of her as my old school's bestie or had thought of including her in any future milestones simply because she was so important to me.

So i dont know how i feel about this post. I understand where you guys are coming from and its in good intentions, but the main issue is that many kids who become the sole instigators were never shown that they can be vulnerable in front of their friends about this matter. It felt like its your duty and how you contribute to the group. And when it became harder and harder, the friends never questioned why you pulled away or asked for your wellbeing. It turned into a situation when you feel more like a nuisance than a leader.

Fortunately, i have now friends who instigate so much more than me and i keep telling them how i appreciate it and apologise for how terrible i am at texting back and that its never because i dont want them to text me. Its simply because texting or answering messages had become so hard for me and so mentally taxing i sometimes shut down when i see messages i need to reply to.

So rambling aside, as much as i appreciate your sentiment, i think a different approach would be helpful.

My approach (which is not better or worse, just a different approach) is to get comfortable with a 'friends for one day' reality. I go so many times to so many places and meet so many amazing people, we always say we'll contact one another and keep in touch and then never contact one another again, and that's alright.

You have to be comfortable with being friends without focusing on the 'keeping the friendship going' let people come and go. Those who truly want to stick around will stick around, and they usually have a much deeper connection with you that isnt dependant on who instigates the conversations.

My friends are those that mostly text in memes and reels since we dont see each other often. And i do the same in return. Its easier and relays so much more. We have proper conversations here and there, but our actual interactions happen physically. And they instigate meetups much more than i do and i always make sure that they know that i appreciate it. One of my friends and i also have some differences in opinions, so we have some long discussions.

I also have a friend who i dont text to at all but invites me to shabbat meals once in a while and i come over and its like no time had passed. I invite her back for bbq or shabbat as well, but thats also once in a blue moon.

Another friend is across the ocean so its mostly photos and small comments and talks about our lives and since the war began, she keeps checking if im alive and well.

Another friend is also across the ocean and we mostly speak about our realities of being jews or squeal over her precious daughter or make plans for when she finally comes to Israel.

So my friends arent part of one group but many branches of different aspects of my life. I would say i have around seven/eight of them that arent my current co workers (work friendship is also temporary and i accept that fully and enjoy our time together) and im truly blessed because i had let go of the desperate need to keep my friends together.

So please dont call us a bitch for not willing to talk about it. And we're certainly not mini community leaders, we're just people who are friends with those that never cared about reaching out first or affirming our friendship in any kind of way. Its not fair to put the expectations of reaching out onto the one who constantly did that. Friends who truly want to keep up a friendship will attempt to do so when they see that the other side isnt as present as previously.

Sorry im all over the place, im on my phone and its harder to articulate on it

every now and then the internet decides it should revamp the ole “stop texting first and see how many friends you lose” when in reality you could literally just communicate that u feel bad that ur the only one texting first

[circus-clangen]

Hi I’m a new circusclan enjoyer and I am SO confused on what’s happening. Can I get a rundown of the current lore we know? Or like links for me to understand because like who is marquee?? I read the moon updates how do I not know them. Also monkeypaw was only mentioned once I believe? What’s their deal??

You got it! I'm not planning on posting here until I finish the next moon--which most likely wont be until the new year, so it'll be nice to have this sitting at the top of my blog for a while! Here's the official Circusclan Lore rundown, including what happened in the moons, the lost moons, the puzzles, and the 10th ring of HELL that is the discord server: First, the starter cats: Ringstar--previously Ringtail of Heronclan, and brother of @echoes-in-echoclan 's Kestrelstar--and his two kits, Clownpaw and Tigerkit.

The pre-moon events: Ring left his clan and his brother to join the circus and be with a cat he met, named Goldmask. Suffient to say for now, Goldmask's treatment of Ring was less that ideal, but he loved her all the more. They had a son together, Clown. The birth was INCREDIBLY taxing on Goldmask, and almost killed her (detailed here https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/768067551594987520/wait-if-goldmask-wasis-paralyzed-how-did-she?source=share). A little while later, Goldmask became pregnant again. Ring was there when one of the kits was born, and knew it was not his. Goldmask knew she would die in this kitting--she'd barely survived having one kit, and this time, she'd had two. Only, Ring never knew the second one existed, because it's father had stolen it away before Ring could arrive. Goldmask didn't make it, and Ring was left alone in the circus, with Clown and Tiger.

The lost moons: I wasn't intending for Circusclan to become a comic. This, coupled with some technical issues, means moons 1-5 were lost. The technical issues were caused because, around moon 3-4, Tigerkit was taken by an eagle and killed. I wasn't ready for her to die, so I went into the code and brought her back... only, something strange happened. Before her in-game death, she was definitively Ring's favorite child. So much so, that I made jokes about it to my friends. He LOVED her. But after she died--after I brought her back--he hated her. He hated her so *viscerally*. A non-secret about the clangen save behind this comic is that both Ring and Clown's hate stats for Tiger are COMPLETELY maxxed. I knew I had to do something with this lore-wise, which I've detailed here (https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/769542088687747072/anything-youre-dying-to-share-3?source=share). Monkeypaw: In a tale I've yet to reveal, Monkeypaw left Heronclan with Ring, but not long after, became the Starclan guide for my clan. The reason you don't see much of him is some lore I've added. There's a lot to it, but the basics of it is that Monkeypaw is only remembered by Ringstar--none of the ever living cats have met him, and so he can't directly interact with him. Unfortunately, Ringstar's connection with Starclan right now is akin to an Internet Explorer browser windows connection to the internet. So, Monkeypaw is a somewhat abstract figure for now. Marquee: Marquee is the father of Tigertoe and the mystery Tigersibling. He's Goldmask's other mate--one Ringstar didn't know existed until Tiger's birth. A staple of Circusclan is the cats affinity for human culture, and their imitation of it. Unknown to them, Marquee was "there first". He's from an almost cultlike group of cats that have been trying to not only imitate, but steal, humanity, for many many years. It's unclear as of now which of his actions are on behalf of this unnamed group, and which are on behalf of his deceased mate Goldmask. Moons 6-14: These moons were drawn when Circusclan was a fun meme project for me to share with my friends. I had no intention of posting it on Tumblr, much less giving it this level of lore. You CAN glean some lore from these wretched posts, but most notable in this era, is the infamous "hide and seek game", in which the player's failure to correctly solve a puzzle (https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/746608261062639616/you-have-successfully-determined-that-ringstar?source=share) left Ringstar trapped in a burning caravan--the blaze implied to be set by Marquee. The players decided to let him burn, and he lost five lives. Moons 13-18: By this point, Tigertoe got the patrol event where a secret, outside-clan mate joins the clan: Trapezetangle. Also by this point, an outside-clan apprentice named Whippaw joins. Moon 19: I forgor Moon 20: The Experimental Era of video moons that were SUPER fun to make but took my entire life so I'm not going to be doing them every moon. Some people expressed they weren't comfortable watching a scary video, so the rundown of moon 20 is this: Ringstar died again, and Tigertoe found out she was pregnant. (For a rundown of that whole mess of a puzzle, look here: https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/761426559722782720/i-try-my-best-to-never-explain-my-puzzles-even-if?source=share) Moon 21: Present day! Horrible things are going to happen very soon <3 Present, currently-alive (or dead) characters that we're AWARE of, even if I haven't properly revealed them: Monkeypaw, Ringstar, Tigertoe, Tigersibling, Clownwish, Goldmask, Marquee, Trapezetangle, Whippaw Nicknames you should be aware of for clarity: Dave is Marquee. The discord server will only call him Dave. His name is Marquee. Please help. Hope this helps at least some!

[ladyloveandjustice]

So, about two years ago there was a post that claimed that the only time Stephanie's house was ever depicted as looking rough was immediately after Cataclysm and it was a huge misunderstanding because the reason for that was because a huge earthquake had just happened. And that this was proof her family didn't struggle financially and everyone had misunderstood.

I knew this wasn't accurate, that there were other comics that depicted this, but I thought at the time I'd have to pore through a lot of comics to find additional examples and it wasn't worth the energy. However the post came up again recently and I'd recently seen a counterexample (the pages above) so I decided to take a quick look and it was actually ridiculously easy to find additional examples, I barely had to make an effort and likely could have found more.

So, since that post got a lot of notes and contains misinformation (not just about the house but some other stuff too, but that'd take time to go into and require linking the post directly which I'm not comfy doing, I already responded on my blog), I thought I'd unleash this into Stephanie's tag to correct it, in case anyone was indeed using it as a resource.

The first panels are from Secret Origins 80 Page Giant. It basically focuses into Steph' origin story, all flashbacks, and shows her house looked rough throughout her childhood and teen-hood. This is an issue that directly states the Brown's financial issues, stating that whenever Arthur comes home he uses up all their money. This stopped happening when Steph busted him, but that's a huge financial hole to dig yourself out of, which probably explains a lot of the financial struggles, If you blow all your money, that's not something you magically recover from, it takes a lot of time.

Our next example is Robin #41 which was before Cataclysm (the huge earthquake storyline):

This is actually the same artist (Staz Johnson) that did the issue during the aftermath of the earthquake that was used as an example, actually, casting doubt that the cracks in that one were actually supposed to be because of the earthquake, which I honestly doubted:

Anyway, then we have yet another example in Batman Chronicles #22, a full two years after Cataclysm:

Anyway, so the repeated instances indicate that yes, Steph's house was very much intended to look rough as a (kinda lazy) way to depict the financial struggle/poverty, even if Dixon wasn't interested in exploring said poverty all that much because he's a weird conservative.

(also the clumsy recolor is because Steph's hair is miscolored red this issue, and this apparently bothered me so much as a teen I badly recolored the hair before uploading it to my little Steph wiki)

One other fairly direct implication of Stephanie's status as 'poor' is in Steph's Batgirl series, and there are likely more, but this post's evidence is already thorough enough imo. People can, indeed, live in the suburbs and struggle financially.

A good example of the need to do your own research when there's a claim made on Tumblr about comics. And if you would like to do that, I ran a Stephanie Brown wiki as a teenager. I've long since abandoned it like I've largely abandoned reading superhero comics, but there is another user who updates it regularly, and he put together a painstaking chronology of all Steph's appearances in comics, linking to a lot of my uploads and descriptions of appearances I did back in the day. And there's a lot more on the wiki too!

Stephanie Brown Chronology

[bwat5-blog]

Vi and Jinx: Listen To Jinx

**Spoilers For All of Arcane**

The relationship between Vi and Jinx is one of most important parts of this story. It is immensely complex, tragic and heartwarming, the tale of these sisters as they fight to find their way back to one another over the course of this story is truly incredible. I have personally written a full analyses on their story, as have several others. This, is not that. Put simply, if I see one more "Vi got what she deserved" post regarding Vi getting hit by Caitlyn, or her running from Jinx's bombs, or whichever example people want to misinterpret to prove their point, I am going to lose it.

So! What this is, is a hard and fast list of some statements regarding the two of them that will likely ruffle some feathers. I would hope anyone reading my writing by now knows I love both of these characters, and understand the nuance in these situations. But people need some serious perspective. These events will be leading up to season 2, act 3, because at that point they are pretty much on the same page.

**There is nuance and deeper meaning in each of these situations. There are many more things each character does both good, and bad. Neither of them are perfect. But sometimes boiling things down is how we get to the crux of the issue**

Season 1: Act 1

There is not a single shred of evidence Vi was anything other than loving and supportive sister before the night of Vander's death.

Vi was completely correct in leaving Powder behind for the mission.

Vi did not make Jinx. An otherwise loving older sister losing control during a single traumatic event did not completely warp her little sisters mental health. Now seven years as the daughter of a violent drug lord however?

Vi "left" Powder because she was kidnapped as a minor and thrown into a violent and abusive prison without cause for seven years.

From everything we were shown, if Powder had listened their family would have made it out.

Season 1: Act 2

Jinx murders 4 firelights, 1 who she thought was Vi, and six enforcers all in 1 episode.

Jinx is a loving daughter to the man who tried to (and mostly succeeded) kill her entire family and took her for his own.

Jinx puts her gatling gun under Vi's chin during their first reunion.

Vi is stabbed, beaten and chased all in her attempt to get to Jinx.

During their reunion, Vi immediately embraces Jinx, tells her whatever she had to do was for survival, tries to take responsibility for what happened, and fights back to back with her.

Season 1: Act 3

Jinx kills several enforcers and Marcus on bridge

Jinx actively tries to kill Caitlyn and Vi both

Jinx almost kills both herself and Ekko

Jinx abducts Caitlyn naked from her bathroom, makes her put on her enforcer uniform, ties her and gags her with a smiling mask so she can try and convince Vi to kill her

Jinx brutally knocks out Caitlyn

Jinx kills Silco

Jinx murders 3 Piltover counselors including Caitlyn's mom in front of her

Vi insists she can help her sister before the bridge attack

Vi is going back to the undercity to find Jinx before the bombs go off on the bridge

Vi completely blames herself for what her sister has become when they are in Caitlyn's room.

Vi refuses to kill Caitlyn, but tries to get Jinx to come away with her so they can be family again.

Season 2: Act 1

Jinx expresses knowing she could die at any time as "best feeling in the world'

Jinx declare intent to kill Vi

Jinx intentionally lures Cait and Vi into ventilation chamber for battle

jinx encourages Vi to kill her when time comes

Jinx is the only reason Isha is in danger to begin with. She had no business being here.

Vi joines enforcer taskforce: Hunting Shimmer, Chem Barrons, and Jinx

Vi stops fighting when Jinx says she is ready to die.

Vi stops Caitlyn from hurting Isha

Season 2: Act 2

Jinx knew Vi was in the pits, and came to see her at least twice before finally coming to her over Vander. Made no move that audience is shown to help despite obvious decline

Jinx was hiding during entire occupation. She "busted half of Zaun out of Stillwater" because of Isha. Not her people.

Jinx being the symbol on the painting with Vander is laughable. She is known as the daughter of the man who killed Vander and the rest of his kids.

Jinx tells Isha last time she and Vi fought she kicked Vi's ass. Jinx was on her back wanting to die.

JINX IS THE REASON ISHA IS IN DANGER. SHE HAD NO BUSINESS BEING HERE. (Vander hunt and commune both)

Vi comes with Jinx after literally everything above

Vi saves Isha from Vander

Vi trusts Jinx and lowers her gloves.

Vi throws her body over Jinx's to protect her from explosion

In the end, the sisters have found each-other again and accepted who they have become. They are both flawed, they both mistakes,and their story is incredibly moving. Because ultimately their love for eachother perseveres even when it seems like they have totally lost one another.

So why did I do all of this? Because regardless of circumstance, of nuance, of deeper meaning, when you boil it all down Vi is a loving and protective older sister who goes about a million miles past reasonable trying to help her little sister, more than a few times to her own detriment. And guess what? Jinx knows that. She specifically tells Vi to start living for herself and stop feeling guilty over being happy, and being loved. And her last action (as far as we know) in the world of the living, is to save Vi's life. Seems like she knew what an amazing sister Vi always was. Maybe some of yall should listen to her.

[ghostly-rantings]

one of the primary stereotypes for (nonrussian) slavic ppl in the US is that theyre stupid. ive mostly seen this for polish people as i am polish, but ive seen it said for slavic people as a whole a lot as well. in the 40s & 50s, post-wwii, it was a commonly held belief (that still persists to this day to a certain extent) that slavic people must be stupid or else they wouldn't keep getting taken over. this was directed even moreso towards countries like poland, czech, and slovakia, that had to deal with stalin taking over their countries right after hitler, but all slavic people were lumped together in this stereotype (likely because asking the average USAmerican to tell the difference between slovenia and serbia is akin to asking a kindergartener the difference between a W2 and a 1040-ES). these stereotypes are founded in nazism, they later made their way to the US, but they were used as justification by the nazis - and later by stalin - to excuse the invasion & mass murder of slavic nations.

one of the most common stereotypes i see for all slavic countries is hypersexuality, this one is generally aimed towards russian slavs the most, but once again, it trickles over to all slavic countries. there are countless movies, tv shows, etc. that depict some gorgeous woman who immediately starts hitting on a man in a vague slavic accent that gets treated like an object or a prize. she will almost always reference "back in my country, we" before describing something that sounds vaguely sexual, if not outright. slavs have been over-sexualised so much that when i hear a slavic woman on tv, i immediately assume she's going to be used as some sort of sexual object and im almost always right.

the issue here isnt about calling melania specifically a dumb whore. it's about profiling slavic people, particularly women, in general as "bimbos", which just so happens to be a combination of two of the Most Persistent slavic stereotypes.

[theanxiousghostartist]

A collection of Mouthwashing fanart that I don't think I've posted yet.

Spoilers for Mouthwashing

TW - blood, death, (implied) forced pregnancy, eyestrain, gun

1) IBIS Paint X (phone and finger) - Based on an image I found on Pinterest, I thought this could have been a representation of the two things Jimmy had to take responsibility for: Anya and what he did to her, first and foremost, and Curly (represented by the eyes and the idea that after the crash, he was forced to always watch him). I tried to render the water to make it look like mouthwash.

2) IBIS Paint X (phone and finger) - My rendition of Jimmy being haunted from the end of the game.

3) IBIS Paint X (phone and finger) - Basically, I wanted to do something on how Curly enabled Jimmy. After the assualt, he couldn't do much because of Pony Express (ultimately, one of the major villains of the game), Curly still took up for Jimmy and enabled him. He turned a 'blind eye' to Jimmy's issues in favor of their friendship. While again, the environment that Pomy Express created also enabled Jimmy and protected him from most punishment, it also encouraged Curly to enable Jimmy and protect him. While Jimmy's choices aren't completely Curly's fault, he still bears some responsibility for what happened.

4) A doodle of Curly in my notebook. I used one of the multicolor pens, and I was trying to figure out how his bandages worked.

5) Another doodle of Curly in my notebook, this time using a black ballpoint pen. I went for a more realistic style for this one.

6) IBIS Paint X (phone and finger) - I was finishing this up in the wake of the 2024 US election results. I leave my thoughts from my original Instagram post below (I had cut out slide numbers, but everything else is the same):

"I finished Mouthwashing and started this piece after hearing the news about the US election. I took inspiration from the Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser Ophelia painting and Anya's story.

What happened to her was disgusting and while I am a part of the Jimmy-hate-club, it is not only him at fault - it is the system that encouraged him to do this and encouraged Curly to protect him. This is something we arleady are seeing in the States - a rapist was elected president, men are chanting "your body, my choice" a women, and some men on lime are threating to assualt when after hearing about the 4B movement. This piece that started out as an escape from reality turned into somewhat of a commentary piece(?)."

[convexicalcrow]

fic: when the void stares back (ren&false)

a/n: posting a bit late bc i've had family stuff going all weekend oml. written for the @hermitadaymay solstice social event! found out too late that my partner wasn't able to participate in the end due to irl stuffs, so i only have a fic for you, but i hope you still enjoy it. <3

read here, or on ao3

-

"Ren."

"Yes, Falsie?"

"Don't you ever get…"

False walked to the small window in the bridge, watching nothing but stars fill the view. She wasn't sure how to word her thoughts. Perhaps she'd been cooped up here too long, maybe that was it. Certainly, she'd broken the silence because it had grown a little too uncomfortable.

"Don't I ever get what?"

"I dunno, I think maybe I thought space would be … more filled with people or something. I wasn't expecting the silence."

Ren joined her and stood next to her, tail wagging gently behind him. "Yeah, well. It is pretty empty this side of the galaxy. We got another two months travel though, do you want to go back into stasis?"

She scrunched her nose up at the thought. "Oh, it's not that. Besides, someone has to keep you sane out here."

Ren laughed. "I mean, that's very true."

She turned to face him and smiled. "Don't want you hallucinating again, do we?"

"Hey, it was one time! And it was the spores, I promise! I'm all good now!" Ren protested.

False gently moved past him, shaking her head. "I mean, you say that Ren."

"Hey!" Ren pretended to sound offended, but even he knew what he was like. "At least this new planet won't have spores, or so Gigacorp tells me."

"Yeah, but their planetary intel is 20 years behind at this point. I mean, even this ship is old for one of her size. There's so much she can't do that the newer ships can. We wouldn't need to travel an extra two months in a new ship, that's all I'm saying. And the squirtapods create more than enough spores as it is," False said.

"True, true. I've been tinkering behind the scenes on all the blueprints, trying to modernise them, but it's hard. So much of the new tech these days doesn't retrofit easily! It's such a pain!" Ren said.

"At least you're trying. Anyway. Not sure I like the idea of another two months of this, but there's not really much choice there, right? Company policy doesn't let us pilot alone, you know that as well as I," False said.

Ren sat down at a console, pretending to idly check the dials. In reality, they didn't need to do much to run the ship. Grumbot kept it all running well enough with the maintenance drones while they were in stasis and would alert them to any issues. All they had to do was pass the time.

"I dunno, maybe I wish I had…"

Ren's voice faded off. False turned to him. "More people? I think that's it. More people."

Ren idly scratched an ear. "Yeah, I think that's it. More people."

-

This ship was too big for the two of them. A Hermetheus class ship needed a crew of at least 50 to feel in any way full of life. With just the two of them, it felt like they were piloting a casket. Maybe if they had crew in stasis, it might feel okay. She could wake them up to get some more company, take her place while she has some time in stasis as well to keep her own sanity. Instead it was just her and Ren, and the vast emptiness of space.

Had she really signed up for this when she joined Gigacorp? Well, yes, actually. That was the whole reason. Get away from, well. Get away from things. And of course, you didn't need a full crew to scout out planets to colonise. A pair will do. Once they find good planets, then the rest of the group can follow to build up the infrastructure needed for the meganodes or whatever they're called.

She smiled grimly at that thought. She was working for a jumped up telco, of all things. Of course, communications were vitally important in space, she knew that as well as anyone, so it made sense. But it still sounded so silly in her head to be travelling around, finding good planets to put big satellite towers on. Hardly felt glamorous, really. They were tradespeople, electricians, not astronauts. Not that she'd go back, of course.

Her hand clasped around her gun again purely out of habit. It sat at her waist, standard issue Gigacorp weaponry to be used when necessary. It wasn't a very good gun though. It had a janky trigger that False did not like, and its accuracy was atrocious. If there wasn't a sensor in the holster to check the gun was still in there, she'd have ditched it for a proper weapon ages ago. But Gigacorp didn't work like that.

She sat on her bed. She'd been having stasis dreams again. Always tended to happen in the few weeks after leaving stasis. She could tell them apart from regular dreams because they were so strange to her. Figments of places, people, memories of building things and rivers and giant eagles and all sorts. Lots of towers on fire and laboratories she didn't really remember the purpose of. Her sister-

She hadn't thought about her sister in a very long time. Hadn't really seen her since she was a kid anyway. Just remembered her standing in the doorway of a burning ship, telling her to run. So she did. False ran.

She'd dreamed of her before, of course, but not like this. She was her sister, seeing through her eyes. Seeing False leaving her behind. Seeing jail cells and dead scientists and fire and a maniacal laughter. It had shaken her to her core. It was just a dream though, right? Yeah, it was just a dream. Stasis hallucinations to keep her mind busy. That's all it was. Perhaps her hand clutched her gun a little tighter, just in case.

-

False busied herself with inventory. There was still a lot to do before they arrived at the planet, and the sooner they had their equipment and supplies organised, the better. At least, it made False rest easy, and it gave her something to do. Ren usually just took care of the navigation and computers, making sure they had all the supplies on order that they needed. There were always some things they had to order in from Gigacorp, and at least they were finally close enough to tap into the local networks to get more up to date information on the planet they were heading to.

False busied herself in the hangar bay where all the ships were. The exploration ships they would take out to find suitable landing spots needed to be supplied with what would be needed to begin a colony, unpacked from the cargo they'd left with. Sand, dirt, grass, seeds, and, of course, squirtapods and their containment equipment.

The droids were doing the heavy lifting. They were faceless silver things, with simple voices and simple functions. Good enough to maintain a ship at a basic level and lift heavy supplies, but that was about it. But then these droids were as old as the ship itself. A newer ship, and newer droids, would do so much more than they could right now.

She sighed as one of the droids stumbled across a grill and nearly dropped the bag of soil it was carrying. "Oi! Don't you go breaking yourself, or it'll be coming out of our wages!"

"Sorry Ms Symmetry," the droid intoned as it straightened itself up. There was no fluid movement here, just a jerky slow correction to its gait and its foot position as it rebalanced itself.

"Yeah, so you should be. Honestly. You have, like, one job! I have like, sixteen! Get it together!" False said, half-serious, half-laughing at the struggling droid.

She got out of the way once the droid had corrected itself. She didn't really need to supervise them. Grumbot was doing that. But she at least wanted to feel busy, so this was what she did with her time. The thing was, the time would pass faster than she always thought it did. Six weeks very quickly turned into two weeks, and that's when the panic kicked in, even though they were very well prepared.

She sat down on the floor, watching the droids pack the ships up. It occurred to her that Ren was, at least, ten minutes away from her. Maybe twenty if the elevators fucked up like they always did. If something happened to her, something the droids couldn't help with, she was dead. Just, straight up dead. Ren would never get to her in time.

That thought sent a shiver up her spine. She didn't want to die, of course. But they were far too few on a ship that was way too big. The nearest ship could be months away, too. Communications could take days to arrive, if they arrived at all. She tried not to think about this too much. It tended to just make her anxious.

"Falsie, how's the inventory going?" came Ren's voice on the radio, breaking the silence.

"Oh, it's going. Droids are packing up the ships. How's things up there? Still heading on the right track?" False said.

"Yeah, all good up here. You want a break? I'll make you a cuppa tea?" Ren said.

False smiled. "Yeah, sure, be right there."

-

She wasn't, of course, right there. It did take a while to navigate back to the bridge. But she found Ren sitting there with a thermos of tea and a plate of biscuits, a rare treat they'd been saving for months. Thankfully, they had kept well. They'd moved a spare table and chairs into the bridge as there wasn't really anywhere close to take a break or just sit down without risking spilling things onto the consoles. False took a seat and Ren poured her a cup of tea.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Ren said.

"Oh, you know, the vastness of space, how alone we are, how we really should have more crew here, the usual." She laughed to dismiss the fears in her head. It was fine. She was fine.

Ren laughed. "Yeah I hear you, hey Falsie? Wish Gigacorp would stop hoarding their money and get us more crew members. There's all those stasis pods going to waste for crying out loud!"

"I just can't imagine it's cheaper or more efficient to run a ship this big with only two people as opposed to like, I dunno, fifty, you know? We could get prepared for landing in a week instead of two months," False said.

Ren sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. Look, I have told them this repeatedly, but do they listen? No! Of course not! There's too much of the universe to explore, they can't spare 50 person crews for every ship!"

"No, I mean, it's not like they're the richest and only corporation in the universe. Can't hurt those profit margins though, can we now? That's why we run in old ships. Too expensive to get new ones," False said.

"Yeah, well, there's worse jobs out there for sure. At least we get to see a bunch of different planets though! That's good, right?" Ren said.

"I mean, I guess? But you can do that on your own. You can just buy a ship with a warp drive and you're set. Small ones aren't that expensive anymore if it's just you," False said.

"What do you think I did before Gigacorp? I went to so many cool planets, Falsie! And now I get to do it as a job! It's so awesome! Don't you think it's awesome?" Ren said, the enthusiasm clear in his voice.

"I guess so, maybe. If you like exploring," False said.

"Don't you like exploring? Surely you must like exploring! Why else would you sign up for these missions?" Ren said.

False shrugged and took a sip of her tea. "Sometimes you just need to- Never mind."

"Oh! Also! I finally managed to get some images of the planet we're going to! Current ones!" Ren said.

He got up and headed over to the console to bring up the pictures. He flicked through a series of pictures of the planet's surface. They showed a rocky planet with pockets of ocean and green land. It didn't look promising to False.

"I bet it's another uninhabited world," False said, going to join him.

"It might not be! There could be life there! Life can thrive anywhere!" Ren said enthusiastically.

"Hmm." False was not yet convinced. "It's just, thirteen out of the last fourteen worlds were uninhabited, is all I'm saying."

"Look, not every planet can have abundant intelligent life! That's actually what we're doing here! We go to a planet, see if it can sustain life, and leave that information for Gigacorp to deal with. Then we move on to the next assignment. It's a perfectly fine system," Ren said.

"What do Gigacorp do with all these planets anyway?" False said. "Feels like it's just busy work at this point."

"It's for the Giganodes! It's connecting the Gigaverse together! Why wouldn't you want to be involved with that?" Ren said.

"So what you're saying is that we're the chumps installing satellite. We're doing the boring cable laying gruntwork of the Gigaverse more like," False said. "I'm not paid enough to care that much about the Gigacorp vision, if I'm honest."

"Aww, come on, it's great work we're doing here! Spreading the love of Gigacorp to new and exciting planets!" Ren said.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Ren."

-

False ran her hand over her ship, a small Valkyrie class tucked behind all the Gigacorp vehicles in the hangar. They'd been all over the galaxy together, and she'd smuggled her aboard when she joined Ren as crew. She wasn't as old as the ship they were piloting, but she had a knack for upgrades and repairs, so she was as good as the newest ships out there at the moment. Warp drive, chameleon skin, the works.

She could just fly off. She could get inside, open the doors, and fly off. Leave all of this behind. It wouldn't take much. She could stash enough supplies in here and just go.

She got inside, in spite of herself. It was comfortable in here. She knew this ship better than she knew herself. She always had a stash of emergency supplies in here. Sometimes, it was quicker to take her to rendezvous with supply ships and stations than get their Hermetheus to change course.

It was always nice to get away from the ship for a while. Talk to different people. Catch up with contacts and friends. Upgrade her ship. Profit a little on the side when she could. She knew how to take care of herself. Ren was always fine. She put Grumbot in autopilot and told him not to touch anything, and they were fine.

She sunk into the pilot's chair, her hands going to the controls through muscle memory. The desire to fly away was very strong. But she knew it would pass. Part of the training was dealing with that flight response that came from spending too much time with your partner. She knew it would pass. Just breathe. Find a supply station. Talk to other people. She'd be fine.

She closed her eyes. Imagined saying the words to open the hangar doors. Powering up the ship. Disappearing into the void like she always wanted to do.

She opened her eyes, still sitting in her ship. She shook the itchiness from her body and left, softly touching her nose as she closed the doors and powered down the ship. One day they would fly again. One day. But not today.

-

"Falsie."

"Yes, Ren?"

Ren shifted a little in his chair. "Did you know you'd never see your home again when you joined Gigacorp?"

"I mean." False glanced at him. "To be honest, I'd left home a long time ago. It didn't really worry me. I was already homeless. Best kind of person for these kinds of missions, I think. No attachments."

"Yeah, but like…" Ren paused. "I mean, you can die out here, and who'd even notice? Everyone's so so far away! By the time they get here, we'll just be skellingtons in the sand or something."

"You been having stasis dreams again, hey?" False said. "What's brought all this on?"

"I dunno. I guess the distance kind of just hit me earlier. Seeing how far we are from anywhere, really. I mean, sure there's planets out there close by, but inhabited planets? The last one was the one we left hundreds of light years away, you know?"

"I think you should stop worrying. Nothing much you can do about it. I mean, what do you want me to do? Magically make an inhabited planet appear? If it's getting to you, you can always retire, of course," False said. "Sorry, that sounded mean. But you know what I mean, yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Maybe we should stop at that refuelling station coming up in a couple of days. I think I need to get out of this place for a while. It's doing my head in," Ren said, resigned.

False touched his arm for a moment. "Yeah, maybe we just need to get some time off the ship. Before we get to the planet, of course. We don't actually need to refuel, do we?"

"I mean, it doesn't hurt to get everyone topped up before a mission. And we've been travelling a helluva long time to get here, you know?" Ren said. "And, I dunno, maybe it's a good idea, you know, stock up on anything we need before we land."

"Ren, you don't need to justify it this much. We can just stop there, it's fine," False said.

"Yeah, but, like-"

"Ren, it's fine. We might as well if it's close by. And you clearly need a distraction, so. Maybe we take inventory tomorrow, and then we'll know what to pick up while we're there. Then at least it's a business expense," False said.

"True, true." Ren sighed. "I'll be honest, Falsie, there's really only one thing I want, and it's some actual good stinking food! I'm tired of living off the supplemental day rations! I'm wasting away here, Falsie, I swear!"

False smiled. "You're not wrong. I know why it's there, of course, it's all that will survive the journey, but god, I could do with some actual food."

"We're gonna dine out so stinking good, I promise. So much good food we can take to the planet with us! That'll set us up for a good start," Ren said.

"Yeah, of course," False said.

Ren fell quiet. He got up and went over to the navigation console. False saw him adjust their trajectory to head to the refuelling station. They were lucky one was close by. Sometimes they were months away, and they would have to get by on base power until they got there. Which, to be fair, was not that hard to do with only the two of them. Sometimes, they could go into stasis if there was enough power, but other times, it was just to isolate themselves in a small corner of the ship, power that for life support, and shut down most of the rest of the ship.

It would be nice to be off the ship, though. Talk to some different people. See some different things. Trade in some of the, well. Some of the things she'd collected over the years. If she'd learned anything at all over her lifetime, it was to keep your own money that your employer couldn't touch. You never know when you'll need to make an escape.

[copia]

not to get dramatic but one of copia’s dissociative translations in his troubled head was seeing sister imperator’s saucer of pills as a mug of tea and biscuits. he’s clearly an unreliable narrator who sees things we can’t trust to be true; going off of this, can we trust that the mug of tea he was handed before the encore was actually that? who’s got time to down a whole mug of hot tea when you’ve still got three songs to perform? isn’t it a strange beverage to give him out of all the other options? don't get me wrong i'm absolutely not being serious here (also not insinuating that copia is ill like seestor, i'm going down the psychological route) but what i'm saying is he could have been handed medication he didn't want to acknowledge

[ladyloveandjustice]

oh this isn't important but rereading it it's really bothering me as a nerd, Steph didn't operate with zero bat support, Tim gave her a ton of equipment (and I guess Bruce gave her plenty of stuff when he briefly approved of her as Spoiler).

(So no, she did not only get Bruce's support when she demanded her make her Robin. There was a period where she was operating w/support, from roughly when Bruce revealed Tim's identity to her w/o consulting Tim for no particular reason to when he fired her shortly after her Dad died while implying that yes, he does hold her having a criminal dad against her (he sucked sooooo much in that era goooood) where she was operating with full Bat support)

so uh, he (or Bruce) canonically paid for parts of her costume after a while, even her cape and boots and mask lenses. She did not, in fact, likely have to repair her own costume on her own after a while. Even very early on (it was like either the special where she busted the gym teacher cocaine dealer and her Mom officially quit drugs, or the one with Stephanie's sex pest uncle she had to bust? anyway it was around/a bit before pregnancy storyline), she mentions getting smoke bombs and stuff from Tim.

So yeah the reason people forget or overlook it is likely because it's not completely true.

(and oh, here are just a couple more examples of the house in disrepair I found barely looking, from Robin #41, well before Cataclysm....same artist even, too)

and Batman Chronicles #22, well after (uh warning if you read this one, Steph's uncle is clearly a pedophile not so subtly creeping on her. She busts him before anything happens though):

(ignore the bad recolor, her hair was miscolored red in this one and it bothered teenage me so much that I apparently did some kind of paint shop thing before posting it to the wiki)

like again, i'm barely looking. there's plenty of comics where Steph's house looks fine but yeah it's not an earthquake misunderstanding thing, there was a repeated pattern of depicting Steph's house like this as a (tbh kind of lazy) indication the Browns had some financial issues.

If you ever have the time/interest, would you break down the canon surrounding Stephanie’s economic circumstances/home life? It seems like a lot of people have chosen to take it a specific way so I’d love to see your reasoning

Sure. Thanks for asking, it’s honestly a fun topic.

Y’know it’s funny—I actually happen to own something that I think most people, even most Steph fans, haven’t seen: Steph’s first appearance. Not her Robin first appearance, her Detective Comics first appearance, her actual introduction. I happened to pick them up by accident at a con a few years ago because they’re also some of Tim’s first cover appearances. 

Other people might disagree with me on this, but I like to go back to the characters’ origins whenever I can to find the baseline of what they were originally intended to be and try to bring later interpretations in line with that. I like to think of retcons as new revelations, new plot twists in an ongoing story, and not a way to reset aspects of the past just to fit your story. It works especially well for this because Steph’s socio-economic status doesn’t actually change, there’s just kind of a game of telephone that happens across the decades that leads people to misunderstand. 

One thing worth noting in these early issues is just how much Steph, a 16-year-old girl, has at her disposal before she ever even glimpses Batman and Robin. Literally the first shot we ever see of the Spoiler is this: 

And because I am, in fact, that kind of nerd, I have gone in a couple of times and dug out old era-appropriate electronics magazines to figure out what that piece of equipment would cost you in 1992. Baseline for a parabolic microphone is $600, and that price is for much larger, more delicate pieces of equipment meant to be used for like, outdoor nature shoots, which wouldn’t be able to hear through glass. Steph probably dropped $1,000 on that microphone alone. 

Remember also that her costume is homemade—she doesn’t have any other way of getting it. She’s also shown using some pretty elaborate climbing and painting gear, with no indication that they were stolen or borrowed or anything, and you can see that she’s got a pretty well-stocked utility belt there.

Again, for some reason people tend to forget or overlook this but, right up until she demanded Bruce make her Robin, Steph operated as Spoiler with zero Bat support. She got some hand-to-hand training from Cass late in the game and tagged along on some of Tim’s assignments, but was otherwise being actively discouraged from vigilantism for most of her career. She made her own costume, bought her own equipment, and maintained her own motorcycle, all without the financial support of either Batman or her parents. 

So right off the bat we know she’s a teenage girl with a not-insignificant amount of personal disposable income, the only hinted source of which is the implication she works a part-time job somewhere—which I don’t think is ever brought up again when she reappears in Robin. 

We all know minimum wage went further in 1992 than it does now, but it didn’t go that much further. So it’s reasonable to assume that Steph has access to at least some money from her parents to support her vigilante habit, whether that’s in the form of an allowance, gifts that she carefully manages between Christmas and birthdays, or money that she’s able to just, take from Crystal without her noticing. 

But this page is more important to our current interests because it’s also when we see Steph’s neighborhood for the first time. We’re told here that Steph and her mother (who is called Mrs. Agnes Bellinger in this comic, although it’s possible she was using a fake name to visit her ex in prison) live in what is described as “115 South Holden Street, in Manchester.” 

Now keep in mind, the Gotham City map can be extremely fluid and tends to change depending on the needs of the story. But there have been attempts to map it, and “Manchester” has never been on any of those maps, so we have to do some extrapolation. At the very least, we can tell the neighborhood is clearly not in the city, given the very deliberate angle there in the first panel to show that they’re well away from the crowded downtown Gotham skyline.

This implies that Manchester is intended to be one of the mainland suburbs that feeds the island city of Gotham, similar to Bristol Township where the Wayne and Drake Manors are located. It’s not nearly as nice a neighborhood as Bristol—note the fenced-in front lawns, the broken shutters on the neighboring houses, and the vaguely racist lawn ornament on the Brown’s property—but it’s also not some rundown slum. People aren’t afraid to let kids play in their front yards or leave their garage doors standing open. And you’ll note those aren’t trailers, either, they’re decently-sized suburban homes.

Also worth noting: Crystal seems to keep this house perfectly fine on her own as a single mother. Arthur doesn’t live with them; when he’s shown having residences it tends to be apartments in the city by himself, and it’s not like he could support them from prison or with his ill-gotten criminal gains. And yet, we don’t see Steph or Crystal worrying at all about bills or mortgages or anything like that throughout any of their appearances. We see the interior of their house on several occasions and, while it’s often messy, it’s not in disrepair or neglect.

This is a constant portrayal throughout all of Steph’s appearances, from Robin through even her run as Batgirl. So, with that in mind, where does the idea that Steph is poor come from? Well, I’ve got a couple of theories.

One is the usual comics fandom problem: canon is huge, nobody can keep up with all of it, and some people go out of their way to be assholes about it, so misinformation gets spread like wildfire, in no small part because Steph is a character that a lot of people use as a self-insert and therefore she must be the misunderstood underdog in all things.

But on the more-interesting-to-talk-about front… I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Steph’s first big storyline was her pregnancy. Yeah? Like, it’s the first story involving her that really started getting critical attention. Whether it deserves that attention is more open to debate—personally, since reading Icon & Rocket for the first time, I’ve come to view it as Dixon pulling the comic book equivalent of white guys repackaging black music and watering it down—but the important thing right now is that it’s the first time people would’ve been specifically reading the Robin comics for Stephanie Brown. And in those comics, Steph’s house is shown as visibly run-down, covered in cracks and disrepair.

Thing is, there’s a context that people miss if you’re reading for the baby storyline and nothing else: this storyline plays out over the last days of “Aftershock” and early months of “No Man’s Land,” the storyline where Gotham is racked by a destructive earthquake that nearly levels the city and is abandoned by the federal government.

Again, we get the reinforced confirmation that Steph’s house isn’t actually in Gotham because it’s not destroyed in the quake—the neighborhood is damaged and briefly evacuated due to a gas line rupture in the immediate aftermath, but once that’s cleared up they’re free to return home, and their suburb is not part of the federal government’s evacuation. Nearly every building in Gotham is shown with similar damage during this time, including Drake Manor. 

This storyline also plays into, I think, the stereotypes that people jump on when it comes to Steph’s socioeconomic status. Like I’ve mentioned before: Arthur is a criminal, Crystal is a drug addict, and Steph is a teen mom. Therefore, they must be poor, right? Because good middle class families supposedly don’t have those kinds of problems.

But, as I’ve mentioned before, that’s an inaccurate stereotype that ignores reality: plenty of drug addicts, criminals and teen moms live in the suburbs. And the Browns’ specific circumstances are distinctly atypical of the stereotype—Arthur’s not some down-on-his-luck thief pushed to crime by economic hardship, he’s an arrogant former gameshow host who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else and resents the world for not handing him the success he feels entitled to. Crystal’s not some crack addict, she’s a working nurse who used to get her doctor friends to write her scripts for prescription painkillers. And Steph is just a teenage girl who slept with a boy and got pregnant, with the costs of prenatal care and/or childrearing never seeming to be a factor in her decision to bring the child to term and give it up for adoption. 

I could go on but that’s pretty much the long and short of it: Steph is simply not shown as being poor in the comics. Ever. She’s not rich, she does clearly rely on her fists much more than any gadgets or fancy gear and lives with her mother rather than moving out on her own for college, but she’s also never shown worrying about student loans and can apparently pay for all her classes with some government assistance and a part-time job alone.

People just assume that she’s poor because they’re misinformed, or they’re projecting, or they’ve got biases they haven’t examined, or they need her to be an underdog to justify their argument against one of the other characters, or they really want her to be buddy-buds with Jason for some reason. 

Or, y’know, they just don’t want to acknowledge that they’re rooting for a middle-class white girl from the suburbs who commutes into the inner city to pick fights for fun. 

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Broke (2016): BBC Sherlock is a phenomenal piece of media and anything that seems like a flaw just hasn't been fully explored yet

Woke (2020): BBC Sherlock is an incredibly flawed series run by an egotistical writer, it never deserved the hype and is actively bad on so many fronts (especially representation)

Bespoke (2024): BBC Sherlock is flawed and bogged down by increasingly poor writing, which many fans refused to see while it was airing, leading to hugely misplaced expectations (particularly for the final series), AND it has the seeds of some compelling characterizations and portrayals, some genuinely solid performances, and touches--albeit imperfectly--on complexities that are still being discussed today (particularly as it relates to the relationship between Sherlock and John). The huge cultural impact of the show has created a massive pendulum effect in its public perception, leading to most people today remembering a caricature of the show (whether positive or negative) rather than appreciating its nuanced merits and failings...that being said Season 4 sucked

[dykedvonte]

love seeing your takes on mouthwashing and how sane they are. everything's so black or white. I like how you acknowledge curlys abuse under jimmy (which I honestly didn't quite notice when I first watched a playthrough. should rewatch w this in mind) and how that very much doesn't "forgive" his inaction towards Anya and Her abuse under jimmy. I think what happens to him despite all his issues (bc he clearly wasn't OK 😊✌🏼) is very much karmic. I really did hurt huh

I hate the take that what happened to him is karmic as becoming disabled and being tortured is like not in any way an equal consequence for not taking more action against Jimmy. It is a consequence as is the whole game for everyone but it’s one that is very much established as being undeserved and extreme as everyone else’s but Jimmy’s fate.

Thank you for liking my takes but I also try to point out that this exact sort of framing of the events and what happened to Curly is bad especially if you are gonna factor in his own abuse into the equation of his inaction/ineffective acts. It’s like “saying yeah he deserved the abuse he was already going through to escalate because he didn’t do enough” which is like not a message the game tries to deliver at all. It’s like the game shows that abusers escalate

Karma and punishment are not concepts that I think should be directly tied to Curly’s fate especially since during the game and even in discussion he takes on too many consequences of someone else’s actions. Like this framing is the direct thing I describe taking the discussion away from Jimmy, P.E and the factors that created the environment in the first place.

[duine-aiteach]

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m Irish and used to seeing all sorts of haha jokes about how weird our names are etc but yet I’m always surprised how surprised people are when I say that I find Welsh a pretty easy language to get the gist of. It makes sense! Welsh is something I know very little of but yet I find it easy enough to parse out the pronunciation of. I don’t always know what things mean but I’m not usually that far off in how they should be said.

[weareweirdpeople]

I want to apologize for how this post is written. I'm not discounting everything I said, but I acknowledge that I wrote this when very emotional, and that I definitely have built up anger at teachers for a variety of other issues. We do need better systems, and I absolutely belive it is not teachers at the core of it's problems. I was just angry at the time over the fact that despite the 8 (at least) different schools I've been too, I've had awful experiences due to teachers at pretty much every single one of them. A large amount of the issues were directly connected on going abuse and/or neglect happening in the background. Again, maybe its just me, but I hope you understand that after 8 schools, and sometimes behaviors and/or symptoms that were so blatantly obviously something happening at home being completely ignored or outright blamed on me when I was a small child, I have some resentment against teachers, if we don't also add other factors of resentment like ignoring my IEP when I had one, or scapegoating me at 6 years old for all behaviors I had that were directly connected to ptsd, something that teachers were told about through therapists, because I hadn't suddenly been an ok normal child after surving being domestically held hostage for around a year, only to find myself in another volatile abusive situation that was leading towards homicide, just like the one before, only a year later. To put it flatly, I have bias. I will say the fact that teachers can't actually, or at least every teacher, or even mandatory reporter I've met seems to be unable to actually acknowledge any of these things going on in the background to the child is a serious problem in my opinion. If there would've been any as mentioned kindness, or sympathy, or anything that wasn't followed by police showing up or walking away to call the police, like for example, not immediately being mocked and questioned for not knowing the current problems in math class because I had been hospitalized for 2 weeks straight after being unable to handle everything going on at home and telling a councilor, I would probably have less resentment.

I think that the whole system is fucked, and I was angry at the people who were consistently fucking me over regardless of if they wanted to. I was upset when I wrote this, but I hope you can understand why someone would be upset at people who absolutely had direct control over how a crucial part of their life was wherever or not they thought of it that way.

Maybe its just me but I think its really fucked up that the only way teachers can "help" a child is with cps and the fucking police. I think its really fucked up that they're constantly talking about "tell a trusted adult" when sometimes you just don't fucking have one. Because all of them were bad options. I think its fucked up that my, and many many many children's only fucking options have been tell someone and put everything in danger or do nothing and continue on in silence. I think its fucked up that even without saying it I had to start understanding that no matter how kinda a teacher, or counselor, or school staff member was to me at times, that they would never put me over them being held liable or their job. I would never be that important. They get to pat themselves on the back while I get put in handcuffs and put treated like an example of what not to do as if im not even there. I think its really fucked up that at a certain point it will never matter how nice a teacher is, no matter how many "I know it sucks...." or "I'm sorry but it's my job..."s or "I don't want to have to do this..."s you get, because its always the same fucking thing. Your a liability, and no adult is going to risk their job with a child that they could easily just hand to someone else more 'qualified' to handle.

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

i knew it would happen but oh my god. oh my. fucking god. i couldn't imagine it would be so bad when requesting. i was thinking about the lola propaganda and emo boy lovers and the gross freak haters. i couldn't possibly imagine that he would get such a GIANT pass percentage. yes there's six more hours to go but i know it's going to get worse over the night. As the blog curator is he really now the most passed on character I'm curious

Currently Masterson is still at a higher percentage than Beast Machines Rattrap, who I believe is our current Least Fuckable character. Masterson clears the bar by a whole percent.

And with your help we can set the bar even lower. It's not too late to Get His Ass

I don't know beachcomber too well but any humanfucker bots are welcome here.

Admittedly I was thinking at least a little bit about the rescue bots when I wrote the post because I swear to Primus every one of the main cast of bots is trying to fuck humans. Not even necessarily their human partners specifically (boulder and heatwave absolutely are tho), but at some point, every one of the bots has Said or Done Some Shit in the show that reads like they're interested in getting with humans. Prowl "I've fantasized about being human before" TFA walked so the rescue bots could sprint.

(I've also just kinda had Boulder/Graham Brainrot lately, so that might be contributing lmao)

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital drawing of Redd, a fat, white trans man, in fishing gear. He has shaggy blonde hair, a patchy beard, body hair, freckles and acne, and is wearing a gray t-shirt that reads "women want me fish fear me" in all caps red text, a red flannel shirt, a brown fishing vest, gray jeans with a brown belt, brown boots, and a red and gray hat. He is carrying a red tackle box in one hand and a net and fishing pole in the other arm. He is walking with his arms lifted, smiling in excitement. end ID]

~~~~

drew my beloved boy redd going fishing because he does, actually, sometimes (thank you @beesabuzzin for the prompt)

[britneyshakespeare]

Had the extremely upsetting experience of a mutual of like 6 years going off on me for occasionally making posts about supporting Harris because apparently that makes me a g n cide denier who refuses to learn and grow, with all of my views just being assumed not even from what I've told them I believe or what I've posted before, but just because I DON'T post particularly the kind of things they THINK I should be. When I pointed out how much they were just completely assuming about stuff I'd never talked to them about, I was told it doesn't matter what I do in real life or "care" about if I simply disagree with their conclusion and vote for her anyway. Like they were absolutely not sorry for the level of maliciousness they not just assumed of my character, but for some reason thought appropriate to bring directly to me before unfollowing me. No apology whatsoever for how discomforting or upsetting that might be and certainly no acknowledgment that I could disagree with them and still be a good person. I just got another even longer rant about how they fundamentally can't fuck with me because of this one thing, no matter WHAT else I do in my real life (which I pointed out that they do not know), and how I'm directly supporting fascism.

Like seriously what is it about Tumblr that makes people think they know someone based off of occasional posts? There were just such DEEP assumptions they were making of me and going off of very little or absolutely nothing. Around the time I first became mutuals with that person I used to express my personality and beliefs and talk about what was going on in my life a lot more openly, but I've significantly scaled back on doing that in many ways for many reasons. One of my major ones is privacy and the way I've had strangers outside my followers and following circles just find random things I say and dogpile me for it. I was fundamentally changed after some T Fs did that to me like 3 years ago. I also just didn't have many conversations w that person anymore (I message people in general on here like 10x less than I did circa 2018-2019, which I'm somewhat sorry about!). My point is to say I think this person felt comfortable assuming that they knew me, especially who I am in 2024 at the age of 25, much better than they actually did.

One of the specific things they accused me of was being afraid of learning and growing (because I don't perform social media activism on here like they think I should). Like AFRAID to take criticism. When again I've never received criticism from them or had to respond to any criticism on here before as pertaining to my views on... well, absolutely any of the issues they accused me of not caring about. They essentially treated it as if the only thing in the world I cared about was the US election and characterized me as the most out-of-touch liberal they could possibly imagine, because I'm not "pushing" Kamala Harris to be better (Oh?? Should I do that on here?? Does she read my blog??).

And most hypocritically what they said was that I only *sometimes* *vaguely* post pro-Harris things (I often post like 5 or fewer things in a day though?). But here's the kicker. "Because I know I'll get shit for it. And rightfully so."

Really????? Not a single person, anon or not, in my messages or in a tagged post or anything, has ever given me shit before for saying who I'm voting for. I'm actually NOT afraid of "getting shit" for that opinion, I just don't start fights with people who are anti-voting. And why should I??? I genuinely don't believe in trying to change the minds of strangers on the internet about that sort of thing. I'm just not confrontational about it; that is so not the same thing as being "afraid of getting shit." I'm not posting ENOUGH about my support for Harris, therefore I'm afraid. But therefore they can also make all these assumptions about me being their strawman for an ignorant Harris supporter.

I'm afraid of getting shit but I still post anyway? But if I weren't afraid of getting shit I'd be posting a lot more?? This is ALL based on their assumptions of what my blog *should* look like, based on what I really and truly believe. My level of posting every now and then is an accurate gauge of my feelings on complex, sensitive, global issues. Because I'm voting for the Democratic presidential candidate and I'm ok sharing pretty much just that little glimpse of myself.

I really don't think that person knows just how inappropriate and insulting that is to just say all of that to me. Like they really know what's going on in my head. Their first message began and ended with like "I'm sorry I love you I just can't take it anymore" but they clearly weren't sorry enough to try and be more respectful to me, and they didn't love me enough not to default to extremely ungenerous assumptions and attacking me based off of those instead of any actual words I've said that they take issue with.

Online radicalization is real and it's not necessarily bad because your political views can start to fall well out of the contemporary Overton window. The way you find it appropriate to treat people whose views, however common, seem to fundamentally misalign with yours... that does matter. You can't just assume the worst of everyone and then act on that in how you approach them as individuals. And then be shocked that you don't stay friends with them. You can't be confrontational with someone about an issue you've never had an honest conversation about, and then expect them to take your bad faith in them as reasonable well-meaning criticism.

I'm afraid of criticism??? I'm afraid of criticism. No I'm not. This person and I have never had an issue before where they criticized me and I got harshly defensive. It was ALL projection. The entire tone of their messages was as if all their anti-voting posts recently were somehow in communication with the occasional go-vote-for-Harris posts that I make. That's not a conversation. I don't post for your satisfaction. I don't post in "response" to my mutuals I disagree with. I just post what's on my mind, sometimes, about some things. I really again can't stress enough how baffled I am by this