#happened a few times very recently now like is it some trend

[hoaxghost]

Respectfully, stop coming into my dms and asking me to commission you.

[firelightmlpoc]

I recently received a DM from a fellow who was a junior mod in the Shipping Container server, & they’ve been gracious enough to allow me to use their words on the current happenings, covering the events of the 0303Emily internal happenings of the server at that time.

Now, you may wonder why exactly I’m bringing up the 0303Emily debacle, much less in association with Pansear?

Well, besides the fact that the accusations leveled against 0303Emily are baseless themselves (One example of why at the bottom of this post, completely ignoring the fact that Azriel was only a month or 2 away from being 18 at the time of the accusation while 0303Emily was just 20.), they indicate a trend between both accusations that further shows minimal actual PROOF & deliberate misinterpretations of situations to then twist things into a more negative light.

Now, the statement from the junior mod:

“first off, sorry this isnt really that well worded. i dont even know where to start with all this. i wanted to offer my view on things from the internals of the SC server and some info that might explain the origins of all this. ive wanted to talk about this for a while but im not a very confrontational person and i didnt even have a tumblr or twitter

i was a helper (basically junior mod that had bare mininum perms) on SC during the entire event, and while I did not participate in the decision because it was really complex and i was busy with finals but i did lurk the convo and read a lot of it. i dont have any screenshots of this because i left a few weeks later after the entire mod team basically dissolved and the server lost all its users.

basically a while back before the grooming accusations some kids (like under 18) on the server were going around looking up artists on furaffnity, e621, and other nsfw websites and then reporting it to the mods of SC and i think mainworld too. the mods were pretty "this isnt really our business" about it and told the kids to stop snooping, and that was the end of it.

a few months later still before the grooming the issue resurfaced with the same users going after nsfw artists, they were again told to mind their business but a few weeks later came back with the grooming accusations on top of it. the key thing here is that the mod issue was heavily centered around the nsfw art that emily had been making, along with several other users who were in nsfw servers that these kids had joined to snoop around. they logged thousands of messages from multiple users and sifted through them looking for anything that could be added to this report.

again i just want to emphasize that this was not at all about Emily and Azriel at this time. The entire report was about NSFW people were doing in private NSFW sites and places that the kids had to lie and sneak into because they were LOOKING for dirt on these people. It was not just emily but around a dozen users in our server that had been perfectly fine up until this point.

there was a lot of delay with getting this report finalized and the grooming accusation came later. however given the context this seemed to raise a few red flags for the staff because the accusors had been so intense about their search for info and the fact that the conversation between them was months prior, there was some question of if the accusors had coached or otherwise convicned azriel about them being groomed just to get more dirt on emily.

Well the SC mods were tired of the NSFW artists being reported and considering the number of people being reported (again, more than just emily) and the methods the accusors had taken, decided that this was basically tantamount to stalking and kicked everyone involved.

What you see on tumblr is the response to that. They went and said "SC is run by groomer zoophiles" and everyone who had a hate boner for pansear jumped on board and it went nuclear.

I dont really know if this helps but i am just tired of sitting here being unable to speak about it because i dont have a following and i really miss pansear.”

I want to further emphasize this part:

“again i just want to emphasize that this was not at all about Emily and Azriel at this time. The entire report was about NSFW people were doing in private NSFW sites and places that the kids had to lie and sneak into because they were LOOKING for dirt on these people. It was not just emily but around a dozen users in our server that had been perfectly fine up until this point.”

Minors actively invaded adult-spaces, willingly & ACTIVELY exposed themselves to adult content EXPLICITLY to ‘dig up dirt.’

So, with that in mind, why would they stop at that? Why would they stop at something so trivial as faking screenshots? Multiple members have actively made threats to people accused & they care not about spreading a falsehood (Just look at Pansear’s old Tumblr handle!).

And here’s the example I said I’d give earlier. Azriel starts the conversation with mention of the horrors of some NSFW content from the fandom & then gives an example. 0303Emily follows up with a shared experience. This is some of the ‘proof’ that was presented in the doc Azriel & Co. put forth.

This doesn’t even mention any of the other discrepancies in their own ‘proof.’ The ‘Zoophilia’ allegations are once again Anthro on Anthro characters engaging in sexual acts, just like the allegation against Pansear.

Don’t believe me? Their own google doc is right here on this chap’s post. Read through it.

And if you want to read more, read this. It further emphasizes on this matter.

[upon-a-starry-night]

Number Neighbors Pt.20

Natasha Romanoff x Fem! Reader

Natasha Masterlist Series Masterlist

Word Count: 1.2k

Summary:  When you catch sight of the newest trend going around you know you’re all but bound to at least try it, it was harmless anyway. What could possibly stem from something so little?

----

When you’re finally released from the hospital they send you home with a list of instructions on how to take care of your wound and some medication. You sigh in relief at the sight of your apartment, it wasn’t the most extravagant place but it was comfortable and familiar, and you had actual food here. 

Tired of hospital food, you head straight for the kitchen when you spot the roses Leon had sent you. They’re still fresh and it doesn’t feel right to just throw them out considering you two ended on a good note. Instead, you set your bouquet from Nat on the counter and take apart the roses from Leon. You individually wrap them in some leftover tissue paper and despite your stomach grumbling you head back out of your apartment. 

You head to the park closest to your house and begin handing the roses out to random strangers you pass. An old lady sitting by herself, a man and his dog, and a group of women walking down the sidewalk. The deed makes you feel good about yourself and the smiles on their faces help remind you of all the good things in life. 

It’s a reminder you need after what happened.

You go to hand the last rose to a woman sitting on a bench on her phone when she looks up and you realize you recognize her

“Y/n! Oh my god!” You smile down at your coworker and her face lights up when you hand her the rose. “This is so sweet, thank you” You’re prepared to bid her a good weekend and leave when she stops you, grabbing your arm. 

“Wait- okay this might be kind of short notice but there’s this party coming up in a week and I really don’t want to go alone- plus you promised me we’d start hanging out” 

You do vaguely remember promising one of your coworkers that you two would start hanging out after you bonded over workplace struggles. Parties aren’t normally your thing but she’s got this bright and hopeful look in her eyes and honestly, you could probably use the socialization.

Shrugging, you figure it wouldn’t hurt to go, your habit of spending your weekends cuddled up with your TV and your snacks had been less and less appealing these past months anyway. 

“Sounds like fun! Will you text me the details?” She nods excitedly and hugs you and it makes you think of your mother. She would be so excited to hear how outgoing you’ve become and you can’t help but think it was all because of Nat. Not because she told you to go out (Although she did so very often), but because her presence just seemed to have that impact. Her sass and humor pulled you out of the slump that you’d been stuck in for what felt like forever. In the past few months, you’ve done things you hadn’t done in years and it felt amazing. 

You waved goodbye to your coworker with the promise of texting her more often and headed home. 

You didn’t know why but you had a feeling everything was going to change next weekend.

~~~~~~~

You weren’t panicking. You weren’t. You just hadn’t been to a party in a long time and your coworker definitely forgot to mention just how fancy the dress code was and now she was coming in half an hour to pick you up and you had no idea what to wear.

So obviously after a 5 minute mini-panic attack, you opened your phone to text Nat

        Nat🔪:

Y/n🍦:

I’m having a crisis

Nat🔪:

Typical.

What’s going on?

Y/n🍦:

I have a party tonight and

I’m told it’s very fancy

Nat🔪:

Look at you socializing!

Y/n🍦:

Har Har

Don’t patronize me

Nat🔪:

So what’s the problem?

If you need to brush up on 

Pop culture or recent celebrity drama

I am NOT the person to ask.

Y/n🍦:

Noted.

I need help finding an outfit

and you sounded like someone 

with impeccable style

Nat🔪:

If I knew calling you was all I had to 

do to get you to compliment my style 

I would’ve done it a lot sooner.

Y/n🍦:

I’m pretty sure all my fancy clothes 

have dust on them.

Nat🔪:

I’m surprised you have any at all.

What have you got?

Y/n🍦:

Well, I’ve got a red dress, a gold strapless one,

and a black one with a thigh slit.

Nat🔪:

Black. Definitely. 

Y/n🍦:

I should’ve guessed that’s what you’d choose.

Emo.

Nat🔪:

Rude. black goes with everything okay?

And it hides drink stains ;)

Y/n🍦:

…okay you might have a point.

But now the real crisis-

Gold or silver jewelry.

Nat🔪:

Show me your options.

Y/n🍦:

Sure!

*Images Attached*

Nat🔪: 

Definitely that silver bracelet.

And the pearl earrings.

Is that dust on your jewelry box, Y/n?

Y/n🍦:

No! Shut up!

For good measure, you send her a picture of your middle finger, to which she responds with an emoji with its tongue sticking out. It makes you chuckle until you see the time and frantically begin scrambling around your room to grab stuff for your shower. Not to mention you had to find a way to cover up your healing shoulder wound. You send Nat another brief text as the water is warming up since you know you probably won’t get the chance to text her until after the party.

      Nat🔪:

Y/n🍦:

I’ve got to get ready but

Thanks for your help, Nat<3

Nat🔪:

Of course.

Have a good time, Y/n ❤️

—-----

Nat had all but gotten used to the fluttering feeling she felt when she texted you until that damn phone call. Everything in her had been screaming at her not to do it, that you would recognize her voice and everything would fall apart. But after what happened to you she knew both of you needed it, maybe her more than you.

It was brief. So brief.

She was trying so hard to show you her authentic self while still making sure you didn’t recognize her but more of her actual voice slipped out than she intended. She couldn’t help it, she lost all train of thought when she heard your voice.

She loved the way you said her name. She could hear you say it a million times over but the call was cut short by her gift to you arriving. She didn’t mind though, not when you sent her photos of your flowers every day with cute captions like “longest I’ve ever kept anything alive!!” and “they still smell so good!?” and she won’t even mention the backflip her heart did when you sent her a picture of the dying flowers you pressed to keep them for longer.

She was glad you liked them. She was glad about everything when it came to you. She’d never consider herself an optimist but you were definitely changing her perspective on life.

Her mind drifted to the party you were going to tonight and she briefly wondered if it was the same one she was expected to show up to tonight, but it was a Friday night in New York and there was no way out of the hundreds of parties tonight you two would happen to be at the same one. Not to mention she didn’t see your name on Stark’s guest list. 

She sighed as she read your goodbye and looked to her closet. It was about time she got ready for her own party. God knows what Stark would have her doing this time, it was better to prepare for these things early.

Pt.21

A/n: Q& A in the comments while we wait for the most anticipated chapter of this series?~ Starry

---Taglist--

@marvelwomen-simp @cd-4848 @wandanatlov3r @rebeltombraider @ctrlamira @fxckmiup @aliherreraaa @natsxwife @la-douler-ne-finite-jamais @romanoffsgal @moistblobfish @natashaswife4125 @elenimoris @how-to-disappearrr @screechcat @toouncreativeforausername @ordelixx @autorasexy @blacklightsposts @vmpnano @jono723 @sylencr @saraaahsstuff @autorasexy @gay4hotmilfs

[nonbinarypirat]

Okay, I’ve been collecting my thoughts on the many-ears demon race and their subservient stance in the Netherworld. And I think this is a perfect time to make a post since chapter 361 just came out and we are getting the main conflict of the arch: conservative older generation vs progressive younger generation. Plus also the fact that the forming country and school still isn’t stable and all that. Spoilers for chapter 361!

So it’s becoming more and more clear that the main conflict will be changing the minds of the older more fearful generation of the many-ears race. Which makes perfect sense, a newer kid comes into this area with ideas of making them equals (something they have never been in their race’s history from what we know) and with the help of one of their own, starts influencing the minds of their children. Obviously the elders would be scared and want to shut this down. It looks like the many-ears can’t remember or see a past or future where they didn’t have this class system in place and the idea of it shifting could very much lead to pain and suffering. It kind of reminds me of the civil rights movement in America, like sure it lead to the many laws that protect marginalized people today, but it came at the cost of many injuries/deaths, fights, and years of activism. The road isn’t an easy one and similarly to the movement, many people didn’t see a point. There’s a few mindsets that you can fall into for this, either you don’t believe change is possible or you do believe it is possible but ultimately would not be worth pursuing because of the consequences. It seems like most fall into the “it’s not possible” with maybe some believing that even if it could change, why change something that has works for generations. The elder in particular seems to believe the second one, that maybe life could be better for them but refuses to change anything on a chance.

It’s understandable why they wouldn’t want change to happen, especially at the expense of their children. But at the same time, younger generations are typically the ones who are less willing to stick to the status quo (queue high school musical) and engage in activism. That’s why student activism is so prevalent, you become aware of new cultures, ideas, and history and are less willing to settle with what’s “worked.” Think about the recent college activism for Palestine or the student walkouts in Florida against the “don’t say gay” bill. A few examples of a much larger trend. However, as you get older you are less willing to see things change, you become compliant and many ways, complicit. Things that seemed like there wasn’t an issue or shouldn’t be an issue are now being questioned and that forces you to question your whole system. And many don’t want to confront that.

In the case for the many-ears, they have survived off of honing their hearing skill to careers that would best benefit from having superb hearing. However, what about many-ears who don’t have incredible hearing like Nova or you simply don’t want the jobs you are trained for like the children in chapter 360. What happens if someone wants to be a florist like the Monmo-chan that doesn’t require good hearing to succeed? If you base your value on your hearing alone, does someone who doesn’t want to base their worth on that lesser in their society? Are they seen as misguided, helpless, or even traitor to your race? It seems chapter 361 confirms that fear. If you don’t have great hearing, you do not have value or worth. And sure, we can argue that he was just saying that to get him to quit teaching the students, but no matter what, his statements were ableist. There’s no other way to slice it. He literally told Nova he has no value in their society because he doesn’t have the many-ears hearing skill. He may be able to hear like most other demons, but in reference to the many-ears, he has a disability that makes him “worthless” in their eyes.

I think another thing I find interesting is that they believe (probably based on a fact(s) of some kind) that they are weak. Weak in body and weak in magic. First, weak in body is something that we can, for the most part, can agree about because of their stature. They are very small compared to most demons and this easily makes them prey to many other demons. But why do they believe that not training your strength and combat isn’t at least worth pursing? Same for magic. Right now we haven’t seen much evidence this is true since we have only seen Nova sucessfully do magic, but let’s say this is true. Does learning some easy or basic spells not seem worth it? On some part the lack physical and magical prowess seems to be innate in the many-ears, but I believe a larger issue is them internalizing this perceived weakness and deciding it’s not worth learning to better themselves. We know that there does exist spells that doesn’t require much magic from Momonoki’s flashback when she was a newbie teacher. Demons come in many shapes and sizes, including magic. This wouldn’t be a new issue that there exists a demon who has small magic reserves (like Kirio for instance). There has to be more spells that exist that you can use if you fall into this category. And just because someone is smaller doesn’t mean that can’t learn how to fight or train athletically. Sure you may not be as strong as other demons, but you can always learn how to use a weapon. At the very least, learning the theory could protect them if nothing else.

At this point, it seems like the many-ears are just shooting themselves in the foot because they’d rather not even try to learn another skill that could benefit them in the future. Sure the jack of all trades may be the master of none, but as the end of the saying goes, it’s still better than the master of one. This really feels like home schooling verses public school debate too. Like sure, the school that the love trio made isn’t perfect by any means, but it provides them with a more well rounded education that doesn’t just focus on the one. The elder talks about how mastering magic isn’t guaranteed, but couldn’t we say the same with their hearing? Just because others have succeeded doesn’t mean the children are bound to accomplish greatness just because of their hearing. You can’t ever know that.

Children are full of potential and as a teacher you are supposed to give them a plethora of chances to do new things and learn new skills. By stifling them, you essentially are saying they don’t have any other potential to grow. And as a future teacher, it really makes me mad to see that their parents don’t also see their children’s potential. Not to mention that even if you are good at something, it doesn’t mean you are destined to be happy. In fact, I think many of the skills we have are better left as hobbies or something you do for fun. Making a career out of every little skill you’ve honed makes it just that, a job. And maybe not a fun one. They are just repeating a cycle that makes everyone miserable but “works” not for their children’s benefit but for their own because well, at least they are “safe.” Idk, I’d rather be happy but that’s just me.

This is also not to say that the many-ears’ issues are all created by them, clearly other demons are also to blame for this problem. A broken system doesn’t just sprout from no where, it is created by years of oppression and oppressive thinking. What demon wouldn’t take advantage of a race that seems powerless without the strength of the powerful? It creates a back and forth systemic issue that works in theory but is broken if you even think about it for two seconds. The many-ears cannot base their entire worth on their hearing, it just causes unaddressed pain and self worth problems. And not to mention, while it may be working out for them now, it isn’t sustainable. What if at some point demons decide they no longer want to rely on the many ears and start training others for the jobs they are known for? What if a disease or virus spreads that attaches their hearing? What if a large majority of them get hurt or injured, damaging their ears? Not to mention, on a small scale everyone can be disabled in their life time. If you become disabled with your hearing, you wouldn’t be able to fall back on anything. Because you based your entire existence on being able to hear well.

Ultimately, I think this is why it needs to be Nova or Nova in the future that needs to rule the many-ears because he’s living proof that your hearing not only doesn’t define you, but also that the system is built off ableist ideals. Nova should be seen as less valuable because he was born without excellent hearing, especially when he clearly loves and cares for his people. Change is built off the backs of not those in power but by those who’s been suppressed, who want to see change for themselves and for others like them. I hope Nova can see his own value even if his people don’t right now

[olderthannetfic]

I always see people who have never been antis, talking about/questioning how some antis even ARE antis when you look at their taste in media - ie the ever famous joke of "Hannigram is #problematique" "but it's a show where he eats people" or whatever.

I thought I'd weigh in as someone who could, hypothetically, be called an ex-anti (which, thankfully, nothing ever really came out of it - it was just very 2014 keyboardwarrior-esque behavior of me being a chronically online young adult who would share posts in a group chat making fun of certain shippers, or reblog posts about how 50shades is The Most Problematic Media Ever to exist -- basically I was an anti with anti-lines of thoughts, but i never, like, a ran a Shipping Discourse Blog or whatever)

For me, personally, it was a few different things. I can now see how it's incredibly hypocritical that teenaged me shipped Light/L, while still thinking that Dramione was Bad And Abusive. It ultimately boiled down to a) being pretentious, and b) just not understanding media or what proshippers REALLY believed, with a side of c) not realizing that nuance exists. like i was pretty late to join tumblr, I think I immigrated here during PEAK "yourfaveisproblematic" era which definitely did have an impact on my opinions and my tastes.

to elaborate, a.) being pretentious. i mean this one just kinda goes without saying. "I engage in media in a way more intellectual way than you do, don't you know that? You're a filthy and disgusting person who writes Snape/Hermione because you're an actually disgusting pedophile IRL who would probably date your own student that you're abusing if you could. Meanwhile, I'm a very smart, good, and pure person. When I read Uncle Vernon/Harry, I'm doing it in a G-d honoring whump way that clearly condemns abuse, incest, and rape. Unlike YOU who only writes harmful stuff as a way to get people off :/"

(as an aside, i think this line of thinking will ALWAYS be present in fandom and popculture in some way, sadly. ie the recent trend of people hating on booktok bc the books are 'trashy' and how these porn addicts should read real classic literature instead.)

as for b.), not understanding media - i cannot emphasize enough that i was GENUINELY stupid and disconnected enough to think that proshippers REALLY WERE pro-All Of The Degenerate Dead Doves That They Wrote.

why did i feel this way? why did i understand that Lolita clearly isnt pro-pedophilia, but for some reason i thought that someone shipping weecest was? well, first of all, i think that fanfiction is (generally) seen as Less Serious than classic literature, and fandom is a fun place, so i guess i somehow thought that every fanfic/fanartist who wrote Problematic Things, especially Problematic Things that they portrayed as Sexy, really DID enjoy the thought of that Actually Happening To Real People.

and i think THIS is the bulk of why antis ARE antis. i'm not calling them all stupid - i do think BEING an anti is stupid, but at the same time, there are people who are truly smart and good-intended people who just have some really off color opinions about, like, homestuck ships or whatever. Lawlight is okay because notebooks that kill people don't exist so it's IMPOSSIBLE for the Harmful Aspects of Light/L to be romanticized! but schoolyard prejudiced bullies DO exist and are a REAL problem so Drarry is BAD (*truly completely unaware of the fact that there's 'realistic' aspects of the Light/L dynamic and 'unrealistic' aspects of Drarry - such as, for example, Hogwarts arguably being even MORE of a fantasy setting than DN is.*) I know that media literacy is the hot buzzword of the year to throw around in 2024, but, like, i really did not have media literacy.

as for c.), not realizing nuance exists - ok "nuance" might not be the best word here, but i dont know how else to describe it. like, each time ive typed the word "problematic" out in this ask, i've done so in a very tongue in cheek/ironic/retroactive way, but, like, those posts about how Everything Is Problematic, Including Your Fave ARE true. and i didn't like the fact that my favorite media or favorite person might've Made A Mistake! i need to Talk About Its Issues Because I'm So Betrayed That My Dear Sweet Comfort Media Would Do This To Me. I Need To Prove I Clearly Condemn It.

like, i legit morally could not justify reblogging a twilight post without adding in the tags '#this is my guilty pleasure it sucks that the books were so racist though' or whatever. Most people were lucky enough to avoid that line of thinking, but there was an actual group of people who felt a genuine need to virtue signal all the time, partly bc, hey, they WERE passionate about talking abt #issues in media, but also bc of a subconscious fear of If You Reblog A Singular Piece Of Hetalia Fanart, You're Literally A Nazi And Will Get A Callout Post Written About You.

and during all of this i was at the tail end of my high school experience (yes i know im younger than most of your audience, ha). i was going through A Lot emotionally, going through a lot of life changes, and lived in a very . . . interesting household/place where i couldn't do ACTUAL good in the world that i was passionate about. so to make up for the fact that i was genuinely in no place to do legit activism, clearly i had to save the gay community by arguing about johnlock queerbaiting or whatever.

^ and honestly i do think that is the position of most antis. theyre isolated and cant seem to do Enough in the Real Scary World so they have to resort to talking about how bad of a person someone is for "shipping abuse", bc theyre not in a situation where they could, for example, ACTUALLY fight the good fight to end abuse or raise awareness for it.

There was way more to it and way more that I could say, if I wanted to, but this post is long enough as it is and probably doesn't make much sense.

I feel bad for antis, honestly, or at least the ones who are antis in the way I used to be.

--

Oh yes, passionate young fools who think they can at least fix the internet if not their lives make up most of the cannon fodder. Some of the ringleaders are just mini dictators and wannabe cult leaders, but most anti-leaning types are just traumatized or clueless, even a lot of the ones who do serious damage and don't just mock shit in private with their friends.

[childofsardior]

What? Iggy's Headcanon from my AU? Here we gooo!

↓↓↓ Read it all below! ↓↓↓

General Info:

Full name: Ignatius Koopa. Iggy was the very first victim of his mother’s realization that she was giving her children long names that could be easily shortened in popular Human's Dimension musicians. Since she already gave Lemmy and Roy longer names, she continued the trend of searching for something that could be compressed into Iggy to mention Iggy Pop. An old Latin name was the only thing she found. By the way, Iggy doesn't mind. He claims that, in reality, Ignatius sounds perfect for a mad scientist, but he's saving his full name for the time he'll be a famous and acclaimed researcher and inventor.

Gender and pronouns: Pronouns are he/him. He claims that "gender is way too complex to be compressed by a single label and even with a one-year-long accurate explanation about how I'm feeling right now could not bring justice to a person's fluidity during the time". If Lemmy asked him to bring a flag for a hypothetical Mushroom Pride, Iggy would probably take the Agender flag with him, even if it's just an "arid and inaccurate simplification and oversimplified approximation of the Koopas and other sentient creatures' complex nature".

Sexuality: He's aro/ace. Again, Iggy's love for accurate explanations will lead him to claim that, of course, one's sexuality is a lot more complex than a single word and the (potentially fluid) result of a mix of innate and cultural factors, educational background, personal experience(s), and even more. But he actually adopted these labels since he found out they are very convenient to quickly describe his lack of attraction - at least, physical and romantic - towards other people, especially if someone is trying to flirt with him and he's like "Oh no". Despite what his siblings think, tho, he would not refuse the idea of a platonic relationship in the (distant) future... if he'll ever find a genius brain that could match his love for science, of course.

Age: He's currently 16 (in calendar years), sharing his age with Roy and Wendy since their eggs were from the same clutch and hatched just a few hours away from each other. He's the one that hatched in the middle, the day after Roy and the day before Wendy. As Royal Koopas mature faster than Humans and such, Iggy could be compared to a 18/19 y.old Human. Just like Ludwig, tho, Iggy has always been even more precocious, being very intelligent and smart since he was a tiny hatchling - but curiously enough he didn't learn how to speak until 1.5 years old, later than all his siblings.

Species: Tarrasquin (also known as "Royal Koopas" or "Dragon-Turtles") - that happens to be a powerful and rare species related both to Koopas and Dragons. The lack of horns at a young age and the number of spikes on the shell may point to the subspecies known as Plains/Field Tarrasquin, while some other details could suggest a "mix" with the Vulcanic bloodline. In addition, all the Koopalings seem to share an innate inclination toward magic and some other unusual details never found before in Tarrasquins, such as tail feathers or natural armors protecting the limbs, along with peculiar tiny gem-like scales scattered around their bodies in different patterns.

Physical appearance: Iggy is a yellow-scaled Tarrasquin with some green accents scattered around his whole body, especially on his head and limbs. On his shoulders and joints, he got some harder, spikier scales. He has long, straight acid-green hair, and blue eyes with the iris detached from the pupils for an unknown mutation. Iggy's Royal Fangs follows a lateral quartet and curved pattern, a slightly rarer variant of the straight quartet one. Some tiny spikes sprouted recently on the top of his tail. He's the tallest among his siblings, and not only thanks to his usual hairstyle - even his green shell is oval-shaped instead of round. He's also very slim, and he looks quite frail for a dragon-turtle. Iggy is actually the most delicate of the family, talking about his resilience and health, and the fact that his body is incapable of digesting meat in the right way doesn't help it.

Personality: Iggy's known as the mad genius of the Royal Family, acting crazy all the time and all. If you meet him in person for the first time, you'll probably agree with the rumors. He often talks by himself, laughs crazily even during dangerous situations, and will always tell you what he's honestly thinking without even pondering his words. He's also easily excited and tends to act hyperactively while he's among other people, while sometimes becoming extremely annoying and even childish when he's hanging out with his siblings. But Iggy's crazed facade is just one side of the coin of his whole personality. He mostly adopts (unconsciously) his extremely mad behavior when he finds himself in new social situations, or between his whole bunch of siblings as a sort of coping mechanism to fight an overwhelming social anxiety. In his comfort zone - usually shared with Lemmy - he'll show a more tranquil and nerdy side, full of curiosity and random facts about whatever he's researching this month. He's also extremely clever and intelligent, mostly in a scientific and inventive way - always thinking about his next projects and mechanical inventions - but somehow a bit naive and usually not very wise. At the same time, he can't really understand most of the things that do not fall into his interests - he can't understand sports, he can't understand politics, he can't understand why Wendy likes so much spending hours at SPAs receiving massages from strangers?? - and nobody can really insult or joke with him, Iggy just won't acknowledge why you're trying to offend him, and will just laugh in response. On the other hand, he actually likes to joke by himself or about his rivals, and even insult his opponents in his own way, leading his siblings to believe he just pretends to not understand how irony works. Most of the time, you will find Iggy content about his next great idea, or way too busy working on his next super-duper-cool machine to worry about life at all, but from time to time even the most clever of the family gets blue. Sometimes he just feels lonely, especially during these days in which he suddenly finds it hard to communicate with others - and he will probably spend them working alone in his labs, talking to himself or even in a deep, thinking silence. He also strongly dislikes being touched without warning, an exception made only for Lemmy, and some days he will just... need a pause from social overstimulation. All of this usually leads to Iggy being one of the most reclusive brothers in the group. In these cases, he prefers to spend time with the weirdest insects in his terrariums or with his Chain Chomp pet instead of being around people. Last but not least, Iggy can usually manage his stress and anxiety when it's about people - he will just go somewhere more comfortable and quiet, be that his room or a lonely tower - but something that really breaks him down is losing or breaking his eyeglasses. It's probably one of the only times you can see him really panic or even cry in fear with wet eyes if that happens during a fight or at a bad moment in general.

Hobbies and passions: Iggy's passions are just a few, but he's extremely dedicated (and hyperfixed) about them. Mechanical arts, absurd weaponry and machines, and futuristic inventions are the first things he's usually focused on, but he loves doing his own research about uncommon flora and faunas, cataloging new animals and plants in his book and PCs. He even "collects" some of them in terrariums and pots, occasionally experimenting with some of his bugs' poison or some weird plant's leaves and lymph. He's also very into videogames since he could put his hands on one, and he's currently the second-best hardcore player of the whole house, just after Ludwig - but recently, Iggy's slowly overcoming him. It's not rare for the two "house geniuses" to compete or even resolve a conflict with a serious match of "Super Smash Siblings", and Iggy is the first one his siblings will ask for help to complete a hard level - since nobody wants to ask Ludwig for help unless it's the only solution left. Aside from video gaming only, Iggy's quite into programming, modding and even hacking. He usually assembles his own and his siblings' PCs and will crack all the games Larry wants in his free time, and while he's not programming some new AI for his latest robotic experiment, he will also spend some decent time on obscure science-related sub-Red.dot, as well on specific sites such as digibutter.nerr, talking with other nerds all around the world exchanging info and nerdy hacks.

Relationships:

With his siblings: Iggy can prove to be a very annoying company, and this is why not all of his sibs like to hang out with him, especially among the older. His younger brothers, instead, are often looking for him for help, to request him some new inventions or hack for their Swiitch or even to ask him to get some new movies and videogames in not-so-legal-ways. His very best pal is Lemmy and they often spend lots and lots of time together, but Iggy has a good relationship with Junior, Larry and Morton, too.

Now, for each relationship with the siblings:

Ludwig: They are rivals, always contending for the title of the real "family genius". But while Iggy just casually claims to be clever and able to do some cool stuff, Ludwig is extremely convinced of his own words and will get quite jealous when Iggy surpasses him - so it's more a very serious rivalry only from Ludwig's POV, while Iggy would be cool about the statement "there are two big-brained Koopas in this house" (three, if you count Wendy in it, but she doesn't have time for this childish type of squabbles). But even if Ludwig doesn't want to admit it, Iggy was the one who inspired him to discover some interest in projecting blueprints for his own war machines and such, and they do work together from time to time when the necessity asks for both points of view. Iggy is also the only one in the family that calls his blue-shelled brother"Luddy", and Ludwig hates it.

Lemmy:  Saying that Iggy and Lemmy are best friends would be reductive. They are basically twin-coded (even if Lemmy is a year and half older than Iggy) and probably the two form the strongest bond inside the whole bunch of Royal Koopa siblings. Since they were hatchlings they spent most of their time together. As kids they played together all day, they started to prank others together, they went on "adventures" together... they even tried out various dye colors for their hair together, always trying to match, and until puberty, they were both short enough to be easily mistaken for actual twins at a first glance - except made for Iggy's need for eyeglasses. Then, things started to change a bit. Iggy's growth sprout surprised everyone, and put a big difference between him and Lemmy's absurd shortness; at a certain point, Iggy started to look for his own identity, stopped dyeing his hair and looked for a peculiar hairstyle instead. Their passions differentiated a lot during their teen years, leaving both siblings with less to share. But even if Lemmy was (and secretly still is) afraid of this at first, in the end their bond didn't weaken. They are still both a little weird in their own ways, and they both follow their interests without caring about what others could think of them. They constantly support each other to the point they can finish each other's sentences, and they also confide only to each other. Iggy is actually a good listener to Lemmy's concerns, knowing them so well, and vice-versa. They would end up being the type of siblings that will just go to live together reaching adulthood... if it wasn't for Lemmy's visceral intolerance for the jungle's humidity and Iggy's impossibility of tolerating very cold climates.

Roy: Iggy is a bit afraid of Roy. Being the frail, nerdy one, Iggy has been an easy target for the family's pink-headed bully since he was a kid. If something in Iggy's inventions goes wrong during a mission, Roy will just beat him up without questions out of anger. They do not interact much, and the green-shelled Royal Koopa tries to simply avoid his one-day-older brother when he can.

Wendy: As with Roy, Iggy and Wendy do not interact much, unless forced by the circumstances. Roy and Wendy acting as twins since they were newborns and excluding him on purpose doesn't help. Wendy finds Iggy too frivolous and weird for her liking, and Iggy doesn't understand any of Wendy's hobbies, passions and tastes in general. Wendy would spend all her savings on new clothing and accessories...? "Why would you need them? We are dragon-turtles, not Humans! We do not *need* clothing!" Wendy would spend a whole day at her favorite SPA, letting strangers touch her with massages, wearing weird masks made of food and even taking Mud Baths?? "Is she crazy? Why would anyone like to be touched or even "beaten" on purpose? And wasn't she the super-clean one that hated dirt in all its form??" On the brighter side, Wendy, as opposed to Roy, never bullied Iggy for his behaviors when he was younger.

Morton: The two spend some nice time together, especially since Iggy started his "let's teach grammar and spelling to our big, dark-scaled bro!". Iggy's the only one who is actively trying to help Morton with his speech issue, and every week they are learning new conjunctions, verbs and words - Iggy's ultimate goal is to prove to his other siblings that Morton is not "just a dumb head" as they sometimes claim - even if they are not doing too much progresses by now. Iggy also allows Morton to keep him company during field research and asks for his help from time to time when he needs to assemble big and heavy pieces, counting on Morton's innate strength. Morton is also allowed to assist him during his "I need some silence, please" working moments, as long as he stays silent. Iggy is also trying to teach him how to catalog weird rocks, but Morton just seems to enjoy the pure act of collecting them and putting them in nice places around his room.

Larry: Iggy and Larry have a decent relationship overhaul. Larry LOVES Iggy, especially when he needs something. Iggy feels quite proud of it, feeling a bit like Ludwig in "big, responsible bro mode". They usually spend time playing videogames together or thinking about unofficial mods to apply to the boring Mushroom Kingdom's videogames (for example, modding their own stylized models in the game to be able to play as themselves instead of as a boring plumber in some popular platforms). Aside from that, Larry and Iggy's other interests don't match much, but Iggy is one of the few who can tolerate the younger for the most time.

Bowser Junior: The two have a good relationship, mostly because Junior loves Iggy's crazy "Bahahaha!"-style laugh and most of all his inventions - the Koopa Heir is even approaching the absurd world of (fantasy) mechanic thanks to Iggy, and is trying to learn how to do some projects himself. He always asks Iggy for some new upgrades to his Junior Clown Car, new pirated Swiitch games (when King Bowser refuses to buy him more), new cool toys (such as the Mechakoopas, that Iggy originally created as toys for tiny Larry and Junior) and some times even for super giant mecha to use against the annoying Mario Brothers. Iggy is also surprisingly protective of Bowser Junior when they are on missions together, maybe because the youngest of the family unconsciously remembers Iggy when he was small and frail himself, in need of Lemmy's protection.

* * *

With King Bowser: Iggy has a decent relationship with his adoptive father and King of the Koopas. He *does* see him as a parental figure, even if he doesn't often agree with his plans and can't really understand the way the King reasons. Bowser will frequently ask Iggy to create new anti-Mario weapons, for Iggy's pleasure, but aside from that the two don't interact very much - especially since Iggy is extremely honest with his opinions and Bowser doesn't really like when someone is questioning his Royal Authority. Iggy is also (currently) the only one who likes to jokingly call Bowser "daddy" or "royal daddy", something everyone in the family dislikes a lot.

With his Mother (OC): During the years the siblings used to live with their mother, Iggy was the curious boy of the house. He was always finding new things to show his mother, from funny-shaped leaves to colorful feathers to new books full of dinosaurs. He was a bit reclusive and shy too as a child, and their mother had to step in and protect him from Roy's arrogance or after a fight with Ludwig, a role that Lemmy took themselves when they started to be old enough. Being his mother and Iggy both a bit autistic and filled with social anxiety, too, they could easily understand each other about how stressful it was to stay among strangers and how stressful overstimulation could get.

With Charlie (his Chain Chomp): Iggy has a Chain Chomp pet named "Charlie". It is not the first one he gets, but it's actually the first one he is being responsible for. When he was younger, he had other Chain Chomp pets (he really likes them) but was too childish and irresponsible to properly take care of them, usually leading to the poor magical creatures to run away at some point. In recent years, tho, he's getting better at pet-sitting and caring, and Charlie seems grateful for that: he's probably the happier, more satisfied, polished, well-fed Chain Chomp of the whole Kingdom, and it's extremely loyal to Iggy - and Iggy only. Charlie would bite anyone that gets too close, except for Lemmy whom it now trusts enough to let him ride its back from time to time.

With the Mario Bros., Princess Peach and Mushroom Kingdom: Iggy doesn't really care about conquering, but he is very much interested in studying native creatures and plants of each Kingdom. During peacetime, he would gladly attend some nerd conventions in the Mushroom Kingdom, and he would literally love to meet Professor E.Gadd in person... if the Princess didn't blacklist him from entering the borders as she did with almost all the Royal Family and the Koopa Troop. Now Iggy would need to request a special permit weeks in advance with a lot of boring bureaucracy to fill and a valid motive to stay in the Kingdom for two days maximum, so... he doesn't really like the Princess for this reason. While with the Mario Bros., Iggy would usually be excited to see them - they are, after all, perfect punching balls for his newest battle machines, and his Chain Chomp loves running after them - but he actually dislikes them a lot since they broke his glasses once years ago, during one of their first fights.

Peculiarities & co.

Right-Handed: Iggy is naturally right-handed. Looking at Ludwig's confidence in using both hands for a long time, he tried to train himself to use his left hand as well, for a while... but then he just gave up, finding it too hard and tedious.

Senses: Iggy's biggest weakness, physically speaking, is probably related to his poor sight. Without his special glasses, he is almost blind - he hatched with a severe visual impairment and during his first years of life it just went worse. When he was around 3, his mother was lucky enough to meet a Magikoopa glassmaker who worked with special lenses and Iggy was able to see decently for the first time in his life. When he was later adopted at the castle, the royal eye doctor took him under his supervision. When Iggy was around 10, he started working on his own, personalized pair of eyeglasses, mixing actual glassmaking science with some Magikoopa's cultural knowledge and a tiny bit of adaptive magic to create the "Perfect Iggy's Glasses" (after a lot of trials and fails and prototypes); his last version mixes the best glass from the Sand Kingdom with some strengthen magic from the Red Robes' Magikoopa Order to make them unbreakable... after the various incidents during the years.

Autism: Iggy falls under the autism spectrum, with many traits close to IRL Asperger Syndrome to be more precise - (NOTE: I am sure a "SMB world" equivalent exists with a nicer name, I just don't know one yet-). To be honest, Iggy always suspected it way before being actually diagnosed with it by the Castle's doctors. He's mostly fine with it, accepting his autistic traits as part of his own uniqueness - and, if you ask him, as a part of his genius, too - but sometimes he would gladly take a break from it... especially when overwhelmed by too much noise or when stressed by social interactions. Iggy is also very much convinced that almost everyone in his family has some (sometimes prominent) autistic traits, but the others are not so willing to take tests or talk with doctors to find out, so we will probably never know for sure.

Vegetarian: Iggy is MOSTLY vegetarian. Not by choice, but thanks to his body being very bad at processing meat, for some reasons. "Mostly", because he actually *could* eat very small amounts of meat/fish from time to time without getting sick, but it happens so rarely that he usually even forgets about it. Luckily for him, he loves all types of vegetables, eats lots of fruit and likes eggs A LOT (probably his favorite meal after carrots and turnips); not very fond of dairy products, but he eats them during the week, and will probably only eat vegetables and fruit related cakes. Will also try to get as much protein as he can from legumes, but since Tarrasquins are considered mainly carnivores, he often needs nutritional supplements.

Fire: All the Koopalings have a peculiar "fire"; when fire-breathing, they all will breathe fire of the same color as their shells. Iggy's fire is currently the weakest of the whole family, but it tends to create a lot of green, urticant smoke that makes it hard to see. It's not too useful in actual fights, but can work as a great distraction in need of a quick escape from a bad situation.

Random Facts:

He's a germophobe, and will sanitize his tools, hands and workspace every time he starts and finishes working in his labs.

Iggy is not having a *real* shower in almost 3.5 years. Instead, he perfectly polishes himself from any type of dirt using his own invention, the "Sonic Shower Sound Waver Filth Remover". He also uses a special gel made by himself to treat and keep his hair up every morning.

Iggy doesn't have many friends, especially IRL. But he sometimes finds himself in a group chat or nerdy forums with the same people for enough time, and he'll start addressing them as his "online pals" or "online weirdos".

One of his "online weirdos" is a guy named Francis and obsessed with butterflies. They never saw each other in person nor via webcam, but Francis claims he's a Chameleon and has the hugest collections of comics, manga, action figures, and video games of all his other nerdy pals, probably of his whole dimension, too. 

One day Iggy and Larry decided to create a videogame together with an easy game maker on PC. Larry wanted to be the protagonist, but couldn't decide about a genre for the game. It ended up looking like a horror-action-but-also-dating-sim game with a cooler and older version of Larry fighting horrible un-deads while also trying to flirt with the cute ones. It was meant as an inside joke between the two brothers and they got bored after three days. One year later, tho, Iggy secretly started to work on it again out of boredom and actually finished "developing" it, even publishing it on an obscure forum of free-to-play games. It now exists in the world under the name of "Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker".

Francis, Iggy's Chameleon online pal, is the only person who completed said game 100%. Iggy sent him an exclusive physical copy as a joke after learning about this.

Larry won't like finding out his game has been "published" without his consent - and most of all, for free. He will force Iggy to work on a sequel with an even cooler and adult version of Larry as the protagonist in the future, known as "Larry Koopa the Heartbreaker and The Revenge of the Dry Bones Queen". They will get royalties from that one, this time.

Some years ago Iggy started gifting tiny plants for every birthday he attends - usually, his siblings'. They can be flowers, succulent plants, carnivorous plants and even the equivalent of the SMB world of... weed (probably, some tiny variant of Wonder Flowers... we'll call it "Wonder Weed" lel) - but the vulcanic climate and his siblings' negligence will let the poor plants dry in a few days. Roy is the only one who is still happily cultivating his tiny Wonder Weed pots after three years.

Recently Iggy found out about TTRPG games; he tried to involve his sibs in it, convincing Lemmy and Ludwig at first, Roy after a while and Larry just recently. Iggy is currently mastering his first campaign of Thousand Years & Doors, with a party made of Ludwig (High Elf, Wizard), Lemmy (Firbolg, Druid), Roy (Half-Orc, Barbarian) and Larry (Dragonborn, Bard). Junior wants to play with them but knowing his bratty attitude they send him away claiming the game is for "Larry's age and up" only. 

Despite this, they are regretting letting Larry play, too. He's the classic "I only use Vicious Mockery! I'll destroy all my enemies INSULTING their parents and siblings and cousins in a *magical" way! Can I try to open the door exploding it with a bad joke?". Iggy is at least grateful that Larry is still too young, naive and not very into *adult jokes* yet, because as a deeply asexual Game Master he couldn't bear the even more stereotypical.... "18+ annoying bard attitude" (if you know a bit of IRL D&D classes stereotypes, you got what I mean.)

One of Iggy's biggest pet peeves revolves around "adult *spicy* jokes", especially when too explicit. He can't stand them. He hates them with all his heart and spirit. He just cringes so much hearing them that he would prefer sinking into the ground and disappearing instead.

He doesn't like bunnies much - herbivorous animals in general make him nervous, especially small ones. Maybe this is due to Roy always joking about Iggy looking like a carrot and that he could be in serious danger among a rabbit warren…

He's probably the only one in the family who, despite his name and all, can't sing or play any instrument. Ludwig could play a whole orchestra by himself and even more, Lemmy can play the electric guitar & bass, Roy can play the drums and the violin, Wendy can sing and loves to, Morton can kinda play the bass drum and has perfect timing with the triangle, Larry is learning how to play the electric keyboard and the Otamatone and is quite good at mixing and remixing music from his PC... and even Junior is starting to learn something about the transverse flute and the piano.

Once, Iggy tried to work on his own AI that could "create" music for him, of course using others' works as a "base" to train it. His siblings - especially Ludwig - basically threatened Iggy of unaliving him in response. "Go on. Try to put my music inside that bot. Then you'll enjoy eternity as a Dry Iggy, I can assure you". -Lud 

Rumors say that Iggy can instead dance quite well (in his own unique style), and even perform a perfect moonwalk. But nobody knows for sure...

His IQ score beats Ludwig's by a few points. Iggy is extremely satisfied by it, while Ludwig is trying to forget this information every day of his life.

When he was a kid, he created a "Time Machine" way before Professor E.Gadd himself. Iggy really wanted to see dinosaurs, and traveled "back in time" to observe them in their natural habitat. Then one way during his dino-watching, a random dude dressed with modern clothing passed by selling some "Yoshi-to-Fungi" dictionary, and Iggy understood that his "Time Machine" was actually working as a "quite normal, quite boring" teleporter to the Dinosaur Islands instead.

Bowser seized the opportunity using the fast-travel to get his army there, trying to conquest the Islands. But Mario was having a vacantion there and... it... didn't end well.

[vampire-exgirlfriend]

You guys, what the fuck is up with the increase in stealing and plagiarising in this fandom lately? When did that become a thing that was okay to do?

The first time I was flat out plagiarized was almost four years ago in a different fandom. A well known author in that fandom took the first paragraph of a short one shot, one of the first things I’d ever posted and that I was incredibly proud of, switched a few words, and then used it as the summary for their slightly longer fic. They then went on to steal the premise of my ficlet and just…make it longer. This was brought up in a discord server a friend of mine was in that I wasn’t and the general consensus was “who would believe you? You’re nobody.” So I kept my mouth shut and I deleted my fic because seeing it made me feel like shit. Something similar then happened to a friend of mine with the titles of her fics being stolen, flat out and word for word, for the same characters. And again it was “no one will believe you.”

We shut up. We stuck it out. And then when it kept happening, to us and to others, we left that fandom.

I was so, so excited when HotD aired. I was back in my ASOIAF phase that had never actually ended. It was a new opportunity to make friends with common interests and my writing improved so much because of how passionate about the canon material I was. I have made some of the most incredible friends, like life-long, stay up all night talking, come to my house or let’s hang out when you’re in my state/country kind of friends. It’s pretty amazing. But this fandom is a whole different beast than any other I’ve been involved with. I have no idea if it’s the general age of the fandom, or the lack of prior fandom experience, or what us old people call the “tiktokifcation of fandom.” But it’s different. And while that’s usually a good thing, there are so many times when this has been awful. There is a huge lack of accountability here. People are stealing things. And the weirdest part is, they don’t care! It is plagiarism to have someone else's story opened while you write yours so that you can tone match the other writer. It is plagiarism to take people’s well thought out ideas and then use them beat for beat. I get it, it’s fic, nothing is wholly original, we are going to see idea recycling! That’s just fandom. But to model your entire story off of someone else’s is heinous. And it’s wrong. And this literally just happened to a very good friend of mine. When she mentioned she was uncomfortable with it and had blocked the person who did this, someone she considered a level headed mutual (who has recently admitted to plagiarising someone else themselves, mind you) told her that she was just drama baiting and didn’t have the right to be upset. The same thing happened to me with a now deleted creator who told me that she dragged me in her discord server and that her friends (all big name creators would essentially “black list me” for saying anything).

It’s not dramatic to not be okay with your work being stolen! This is a normal fucking reaction. In trad publishing or academia, this shit gets you banned, expelled, etc. It can ruin your life.

I received a slew of anons recently asking for help with graphic making and editing. And I was so excited about them. That shit is fun for me. We chatted for a while, with them on anon, and that was that. Until I got an anon letting me know that the person I was talking with was someone who had stolen ideas and storylines from me and other creators. So I looked, I asked friends to look, and the consensus was “yeah, this is fucking plagiarism, and it’s weird.” All of the edit stuff she’d asked about was used on an edit that was a direct rip off of my own. But I elected to not make a thing of it, to ignore it, to wash my hands of it because of the weird fucking trend of calling out theivery being labeled as drama baiting. And I didn’t want that, not after I had genuinely made the mistake of thinking that someone had stolen an idea from me when they hadn’t (calm down, we’re really close friends now). This person deleted their old blog and so I thought it was over. And then yesterday I got a dm from this new blog I didn’t even know existed accusing me of sending them harassing anons.

A blog, who had stolen from me and at least four other people, who had reached out to me on anon for help and ideas, that at this point I didn’t even know existed anymore, said they knew I was sending hateful anons accusing them of theft. I wasn’t, of course, because I had no idea they even existed, and it made no sense that I would even know they’d created another blog. I only found out about their new blog when they dm’d me from it. But they had obviously done this to enough people that they were now getting called out on it.

You guys, we have to fucking stop acting like this. This fandom needs to stop stealing from each other and eating our own. And if someone brings up that they’ve had an idea stolen, we need to take them seriously instead of insinuating they’re only attempting to cause drama. Stop sending people unhinged anons because you feel like you’re guilty of lifting from another creator and just work on creating something original. Writing is hard. Giffing and making edits is fucking hard. And no, nothing will ever be 100% original, that’s just impossible at this point, but stop fucking taking things that aren’t yours and claming them as your own. Do better. Grow up.

[utilitycaster]

something I've noticed a lot recently - I can't say if it's a trend or just "thing I happened to start noticing" is people adding noncanonical (in fact, sometimes outright contradicting canon) horrifying details to already horrifying things and every single time it lessens the impact.

If the genre is explicitly horror, this pile-on either destroys the tension built by mystery and the unknown; or turns down the contrast so that instead of a starkly horrifying event everything turns into a dull sea of gray badness in all senses of the word. And in a work that is not specifically horror, but in which horrifying things are occurring, it results in overkill in which the viewer simply becomes numbed to how bad it is because you keep throwing detail after detail and in many cases it rips open plot holes that didn't exist in the source text by making a situation go from "subtly horrifying in a way the protagonist could ignore until it was too late" to "obviously so fucked that the protagonist now looks either like a monstrous person turning a blind eye, or the biggest idiot who ever existed."

(Note: this is actually very loosely tied to this post, funnily enough. A few examples I have in mind are people adding bigoted views to a character who never displayed them in canon, and without fail it turns the story from "oh, I see how people trusted this horrible person until they betrayed them" to "why the fuck didn't you leave the second they started with the slurs." It also often says some uncomfortable and unfortunate things about the person adding these details, namely, why did you think Mr. Gaslighting And Torture needed to also be homophobic for people to catch on to the fact that he is The Bad Guy.)

[unavailableapple]

Excuse me for coming to your askbox, I am not a radfem and don't agree with a lot of it's principles, yet I find radfem spaces are the only place where discussion of nonbinary identity has any nuance. Personally I have no problem with people doing whatever they want with their own bodies/minds/labels but I did struggle to wrap my head around just how many people started IDing as nonbinary during the last few years. Now recently it's been a bit of the opposite, with a noticeable amount of previously out and proud nonbinary people dropping the label. I've heard some people discuss it like it was just "in fashion" for a while, while others insist it's a result of gender experimentation or having to go back in the closet due to the political climate. But it's not just the young, I noticed that includes some of the first nb people I knew, who were nonbinary before 2020, hell, before 2015. I know you had a similar experience, so I just wanted to hear your opinion on this whole phenomenon, why it's happening and why now, and if you expect the trend to continue?

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot and honestly the short answer is: I’m not sure.

The long answer:

I think that these things come in waves. Think about BBL surgery (Brazilian butt-lift surgery). When that surgery was really popular, I’m sure it felt like a very real need to the women who got it. Similarly, my nonbinary identity felt very real to me. But once you apply any amount of pressure to either of these, they start to break. Because really what does it mean to be nonbinary? Why do I NEED to express myself as nonbinary? Why does she NEED to have a large posterior? Eventually you realize, it is misogyny. That’s all it is. And then the whole thing falls apart…Aside from that, even if you don’t acknowledge the misogyny, these things are ultimately superficial and, as such, fall away once one reaches a certain point of adulthood.

I don’t mean adulthood as in becoming an adult human I mean adulthood as in a certain level of struggle that makes fanciful discussions of pronouns seem taxing. Eventually real life catches up and you don’t feel like wasting your precious free time thinking about whether you use they, she, he, or meow pronouns. I think the lasting effects of COVID have meant terrible things for the general public and a lot of people are struggling to pay rent or afford food. I know that what first made me stop caring about pronouns was when I was homeless and thought a lot more about finding a safe place to sleep than making sure everyone calls me he/meow/it pronouns.

Then I think there’s the climate of the trans community right now. When I was younger, there was an idea of, “Being trans is equally hard for males AND females”. But now the dominant narrative seems to be that trans identified males have it a thousand times harder being trans and trans identified females face no oppression at all. I do think this drives more trans identified females out of trans spaces and leads them to find more community with other women. This was the case for several of my friends. Once the trans community told them, “You don’t face any oppression” even though they did (by right of being female), they stopped feeling aligned with a nonbinary identity and suddenly realized they felt more aligned with being female, on the basis of shared experiences.

Finally, it could genuinely just be that it’s falling out of fashion. I’m of an era where I, like a lot of young women my age, was the froggy jumper round glasses meow/it pronoun using boyflux aligned aroace nonbinary person and that was in style. Nowadays kids on TikTok make fun of that and it’s much less “in”. Recently Mitski cut her hair short and people started calling her “theyfab”. For the uninitiated, theyfab is a rude term the trans community uses for a female person who identifies as nonbinary, especially if she doesn’t do anything to express this nonbinary identity beyond cutting her hair. They were not trying to “affirm” Mitski, they were making fun of her for being a gender nonconforming woman, and they were making fun of the women who identify as nonbinary. No matter what, it’s always “in” to make fun of women so if a lot of women are identifying as nonbinary, it’s going to be “in” to make fun of them and it is. On pinterest, Nonbinary identities are already being relegated to “2010s nostalgia” the way moustache tattoos on pointer fingers are “2000s nostalgia”, these things come and go.

So yeah, I ultimately don’t know, and these are only a couple among my many many MANY different theories. But based on my own experience and the experiences of people I know, this is what I’ve been thinking.

[accio-victuuri]

February CPNs

hello! it’s that time of the month again that i compile the sweets brought to us by the boys! this month started out very quiet but in this fandom will mean that things will take a turn in the next week/s. you just never know what will happen next. i have added some commentary here on certain incidents that i didn’t talk about separately on my blog to have “bonus content” for this round-up.

• XZ’s GQ cover and collaboration sweets + additional ones connected to fake rumor

• not really cpn, but our boys continue to make it in the weibo hot search trend report - i still hate sina weibo but i understand how it’s relevant for them.

• XZ’s wedding suit from the AV festival. yes, this was made for him but we just had him wear that white backless wedding suit by jacquemus for GQ and now this? hmmmm. me thinks he has a preference? lol. he prefers white and that’s fine, but the choice of what looks like a wedding suit is 👀. i am on standby, let me see if this continues.

pair it off with WYB! and it’s perfect. tho i would prefer it if they are both in white. 🤍

• xzs has the same caption as a cpf

• yibo’s watch and gg’s GQ props connection the number 91 and 3.

• chinese new year candies - gg’s weibo post, wyb’s red envelope cover clues etc

• rufeng shares new thailand fm rehearsal footage

• tencent video posting their new year vcr so close together! they could have easily posted it one after the other but maybe they didn’t want some solo fan drama. i’m happy that bobo continues to collab with 10c, and ZZ is not exclusive to 10c anymore— so hopefully this means in the future they can work on a project together <3

• clowning over XZ’s song in spring festival gala as you wish + same composer as wyb’s singles and how wyb was listening to a song from this artist lately.

• this parallel between their looks. it’s not just their characters that match each other, but their outfits from certain events. so classy!

but i think this one is the best. seeing them get recognition for their acting in the past few months has been very rewarding. all the hard work and challenges are bearing fruit. remembering them talking about wanting to become professional actors and really take that path — studying and dreaming together. now here we are 🫶🏼

• a cute tidbit, but the cat xz is playing with is called xiao wang. that’s because on it’s back looks like the character for wang! what a coincidence!!!! 🥹

• Bottled Joy stirring the CPN pot again by posting this on 2/13. As You Wish. The context of the post is that, as you wish — fans can get these wallpapers and photos of Bobo. but it’s a coincidence cause it’s the english title of the song GG sang @ BRTV Spring Festival Gala. 👀 the colors too, white and silver which is the same color combination of GG’s outfit. This may be meh to some, but knowing Bottled Joy’s cpn history, you can’t blame us.

• Golden Hour and Eason Chan songs @ yibo’s playlist

• Small weekend roundup - includes mention of asian pop magazines where the boys are both mentioned, supplement to xz using tickets for his spring festival photos last year as support of bobo’s movie and the phone card case appears.

• Rumor of Wang Yibo being in Hengdian - one / two / three ( i feel like this one is up there with the leica camera and gg’s bday cpn but this one is more risky on their part. as i have said in my posts, what is important is they are safe and happy. it’s their personal life. their relationship is between the two of them. as cpfs, we should be protecting them and not be people they are wary of. if we are not careful, we are no different from ss and yxh. )

• On 2/20, Yuehua & YBO have posted about the slander recently going around related to WYB and that they have reported it to the police. This went really high on HS and was widely talked about, even Du Hua reposted and reacted to it. Hours later, XZS has posted their own reminder to fans in relation to people disturbing his drama filming. What made it more important is that XZ reposted it too and put in a very firm reminder to everyone.

to give some context, the horrible rumor regarding WYB was spread around by mostly XZ fans. There was a melon that said “X” has STD and then toxic people started saying it’s WYB ( cause toxic xz fans doesn’t want it linked to XZ because of the clue given so they throw it to WYB. i know it sounds stupid, but it’s actually a common tactic done by both sides ) and even fabricated some photos. another actor, xukai was also implicated and he also reported to the police.

so this can be read by so/os as XZ&XZS trying to cover up for the toxic solos and what they did. i get why other people will think that and i personally wanted them to address the bad things his solos do. however i also understand why xz and his team can’t “betray” the solo fans. that’s just how it goes. however, in cpf interpretation, this is XZ’s way of taking away the heat from wyb and a way of putting a stop to the conversations about that horrible lie. it worked in a way that it went on HS, but not as high as WYB’s. I was also surprised that XZ reposted it himself. i am aware that the leaks and everything else is a serious issue and XZ is someone who hates being a bother to the crew. but he usually doesn’t do this. he usually leaves it to XZS or the drama account. This tells me that he personally wants to lend his name and his weibo account, to get more of the heat. The last line he said can also be a message to his toxic so/os: respect others and respect yourself.

• On 2/20, there were tarot readings some BXGs have enjoyed. One is this that is a new year CP reading done on 2/4. What made fans 👀 are:

1. this card, where OP said it’s them being hand in hand and don’t get tired of each other. and in the background is a sacred building, which symbolizes them having a vow to each other.

more cpn was added into it when GG did MFW and people realized not to take this literally cause it could be representing the Duomo.

2. Here is the part that was v interesting to cpfs cause this person gave a prediction that followed what we cpn and happened in the next couple of days.

The two of them haven’t had many official activities recently. So from February 4th, there is a chance for the two of them to meet each other in the past few days. And as soon as the two of them meet, they won’t be going out. Yibo knows he is active but he will close up and be willing to hide at home for XZ.

this is so close to what we speculated! that they spent a quiet cny break together. 🥹🥹🥹

3. Next one is so on point it’s scary cause i have already discussed the bad rumor going around and was directed at WYB before this entry. OP was sort of right. tho i don’t know it this will be another hateful rumor, i hope not.

My prediction is that it will be in March 2024, around this time, I feel that WYB will have a a force of public opinion surrounding him. It's unfriendly to him. This power of public opinion including but not limited to WYB. If we use the 8 of Swords to understand the external environment, it is a relatively sharp. There is some public opinion about the two of them that may cause some trouble

If something happens to WYB, XZ will immediately rise up and have to rush out to protect him. XZ will work hard behind the scenes silently in his own way and are some practical actions.

I don’t think i need to further explain. It fits what happened in 2/20. 👁️👄👁️

4. WYB’s resources for 2024 will be very good. In the first quarter, the number of resources was not very large but the quality of the resources is very good. Then the Queen of Pentacles in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, the Queen of Cups.

For context: The Queen of Pentacles, therefore, depicts a certain level of success and prosperity. But the rabbit at the bottom cautions us that we should be careful of where we leap when we are chasing that success. Queen of Cups - Generally speaking, this is a positive card for both career and finances, suggesting you're "in tune with yourself, have a good work-life balance going on, and overall a positive job experience.

The reading is close to 1 hour long and I just can’t translate it all so i’m going off what CPFs are highlighting.

• XZ’s pre Milan flight Gucci & camcorder cpn

• Fake Rumors : getting caught kissing / spending time during CNY

• XZS first post in Milan is the invitation given to XZ by Tod’s for the show. Those who had the same time as Milan saw the actual time stamp which is 1823. A beloved kadian number!!!!!

• xz’s collar and whole look for GUCCI MFW gave us so many thoughts. lol. i know sexualization of the boys is a complicated issue in the fandom but when things like this happen — how can we stop? lol. no. but seriously. it is what it is.

• checking their fingernails + similar pose to HB

• a comment that implies xz went to zhuhai with wyb to ride a motorcycle

• their photos match so well. 🌅

from zz’s post in milan. it’s filled with the elements they love like the moon and a beautiful sunset background. gg was also showing off his re web shoes which is of course, because he is a gucci ambassador and all that but the “web” cpn is getting stronger. however, i am personally losing my mind over the implications in the caption he used.

• clues in zz’s mfw interviews, matching talismans on their phone cases and similar ads for shu uemura & loreal

• 8 fake rumors from CQL shoot/era that i posted about 📝

• A place CPFs landmark lol

• spotted same mannerism! twins ☺️☺️☺️☺️

see you all next month for another round up of sweetness! just continue to support the boys and ignore the toxic moves of irrelevant people. fandom is supposed to be fun and a safe space so i hope we all fight to keep that love & peace here 🫶🏼

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Frustrating how a Disneyland fanatic website is doing better covid reporting than the CDC

by Alessia Dunn

If you are heading to Walt Disney World, while there are many things to think about, and making sure you have some vitamin C packed is seemingly now one of them.

Since the pandemic shut down the theme parks, the thought of getting sick at Disney World has tremendously increased. For months, guests were required to wear a face mask, at times, even while walking outside without others around to protect themselves and others from COVID-19.

While park operations have gone back to normal, there are still guests who travel to the most magical place on earth with a face covering — and they may be onto something.

As the world has largely returned to a state of normalcy after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus continues to linger and has begun to resurge.

The United States is currently experiencing a concerning rise in COVID-19 cases, with a steady increase reported over the past few weeks, according to Fox News. This uptick has coincided with the arrival of summer, suggesting a potential return of the virus’s seasonal pattern.

However, experts are warning the public not to become complacent as new variants continue to emerge, making the pandemic’s course difficult to predict.

Since the end of the national emergency declaration over a year ago, the public health landscape has shifted, with a reduction in comprehensive case tracking. Instead, authorities now rely on representative sampling to assess disease severity. Despite this change in tracking methods, available data indicates that COVID-19 cases are likely increasing in at least 38 states.

Wastewater surveillance, which analyzes sewage samples for traces of the virus, further supports this trend. While the current levels remain lower than previous peaks, the data shows increasing viral activity, particularly in the West and South. These regions may be seeing higher COVID-19 levels due to warm, humid conditions that support viral persistence.

The recurrence of a summer surge in COVID-19 cases has raised questions about the virus’s potential seasonality. Public health experts, however, caution against drawing definitive conclusions, noting that while immunity may blunt the peaks of new waves, the virus’s future behavior remains uncertain.

With new variants spreading, large public spaces like Disney World are likely to see increased transmission. Despite being known as one of the cleanest theme parks, Disney World is still a place where germs can spread easily.

High-touch areas, such as lap bars on attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, are touched by thousands of visitors each day, making it difficult to avoid germ transmission at the “most magical place on earth.

Over the past few years, many have complained about visiting the theme parks and getting sick.

While this is certainly something that was likely happening before the pandemic, as Disney World guests can possibly interact with over 100,000 others in a single day, making the passing of bacteria very simple, now, it is becoming a more realized thought.

These realizations have brought guests to the internet to see if others are finding it much more common to get sick when visiting Disney World. The discussion began on the now-popular Reddit post:

“I used to visit fairly often and was usually fine. Of course still some sick days but it was rare and avoidable as long as you just wash your hands and all that. Then I stopped going for a few years and just recently started again. Been here 4 times in the past couple of years now. And every single time… basically immediately… I get the worst illness you can imagine. This recent trip, it was the second day of the trip, and I already felt it coming on. Then the third day came and I was done. Completely sick with whatever it even is. And that was it for the whole rest of the week. Pretty much wasted all but 1 ticket. I got a solid 1.5 days worth of being able to go to the parks. Like I said, this has happened every visit in the past couple of years. It probably seems insane that I even keep trying but, I don’t know, I just keep hoping It’ll be different because I really want to go. At least the other 3 times I was here for 2 weeks so I was able to recover and go back again, but this time I was only here for a week so it was just entirely ruined. And it’s really no surprise that this happens. Everywhere you turn there’s somebody coughing in your face. Standing in lines there a family coughing in your face in front of you, and a family coughing in your face behind you. Not an exaggeration, it’s comical how much that is really true. But anyway I just wanted to see what other people’s experience is. It truly seems that 95% of people in the parks are sick at any given moment lately. I’m not trying to complain about it but I’m really trying to figure out how I can come back in the future and be able to enjoy a healthy vacation. Edited to say that I also drive there. So no flights to blame.”

One Disney guest, as well as a local to the theme park stated that this has always been an issue, as we previously hinted, “Florida Resident here, been to Disney uncountable times since the mid 80s, and always come home with SOMETHING no matter how careful I am. There are people there from all over the country and all over the world. International buffet of germs!”

Others also brought up the difficulty that comes with having to cancel or reschedule a vacation, which can feel nearly impossible for some who have paid in full, taken time off of work, and are not able to get refunded. In that case, many guests with the common cold or worse likely opt to head to Disney and overcome the sickness next to Mickey Mouse instead of their own bed.

Others brought up the importance of using sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and washing their hands when they get the chance to in order to limit the germs that they touch, especially when gearing up to eat a Mickey pretzel.

Regardless of how well you prepare, however, there is always the chance that you can get sick after your Disney vacation. As a local to Orlando, I can definitely say I have caught the cold from Disney World in the past, but for the most part, I do not get sick when I visit.

There have also been many illnesses reported at the Disney parks by guests, which you can read more on here.

[kaycynyrs]

Let's talk about Christopher Diaz in fanfic

I want to preface this by saying I'm pretty new to the fandom. I joined a few months or so before season 7 started dropping. So I'm probably not the best source for information when it comes to the show, but I definitely wanted to throw my hat into the ring. I'm aware that Chris is aging during the course of the show, and that he was much younger when he was first introduced, but it seems to me that a lot of fanfic writers and/or people in this fandom kinda struggle to realistically write and/or portray accurate representation of a preteen/early teenager as Chris is now.

I have absolutely no idea if maybe it's some kinda weird way of seemingly (kinda horribly) trying to portray disability, or maybe people in the 911 fandom just do not spend time around pre-teens, but as someone who does spend a lot of time with a pre-teen (specifically my 12 y/o brother) I definitely figured I could give some insight into this topic.

Now I do want to clarify before I begin, that in no way shape or form am I talking about the disabled portion of Chris' experience. I don't have the knowledge or firsthand experience or anything like that to even begin to try and be a voice on that topic, and if anyone else could give insight into that portion of Chris' experience, I welcome it gladly. Especially because it's an integral part of him and introduces some experiences that other pre-teens won't have to deal with which can change how Chris reacts/deals with situations.

What I can accurately talk about though is the things I've noticed in my brother as he goes through this phase of his life. I can also compare his experiences to what I remember from when I was his age, and I'm noticing he's going through certain things that I went through too. I know everyone is different, but hopefully this insight can help some people begin to understand Chris as he is now.

Now, on top of all the slow but noticeable bodily changes, these little sass masters are emotionally volatile. As in, the littlest things seem to be the end of the world. Especially if he's (my brother) is overtired. He tends to have tunnel vision, and he wants things to go his way. If it doesn't immediately go as planned, he tends to get very very frustrated. When that happens, he tends to blow up then go into his room until he's calmed down. After he's calm, then productive conversation can happen.

Kids Chris' age also tend to enjoy video games (like Roblox, or console games) more than they do coloring or legos or any physical toy. Not saying my brother has stopped playing with them all together, but it's definitely slowed down. If he were to play with legos, it'd more likely be a complicated lego set. Or complicated arts and crafts. His most recent projects being origami swords and origami paper dragons. Like, please don't forget that Chris is a good artist and is capable of drawing accurate human hearts.

I've also noticed that kids will go through a collecting phase. They'll collect anything and everything and it'll be the weirdest shit you could never predict. My brother when he was a bit younger literally stole every single sock in the house for his "sock collection" and stuffed an entire drawer full of them. Now he's moved on to collecting golf balls.

And, whether we like it or not, these kids are on the internet. My brother at least is very very influenced by online trends. Half the things he's interested in he saw on social media first. But that means that these kids have a rich meme culture. They have their own in jokes and concepts, same as we did growing up. And sure, some of the jokes are the same. I mean heck, my brother won't shut up with the "your mom" jokes, but they also have things like skibbidy toilet, chippi chippi choppa choppa, and other memes. (I have a list of current tween memes in my notes, but that can be a separate post if people truly want it)

Like it's such a missed funny opportunity! To have Chris reference current memes or current sayings like "gyot, what the sigma, and womp womp," and just having every single adult within the immediate vicinity be confused as fuck, and of course the kids won't explain, because why would they. It's funny to them that the adults are confused. Which also pairs with the amount of sass contained in their tiny orifices. Their come backs are insane and not to be trifled with. My brother has burned me so many times and so well that for all intents and purposes I should be a pile of ash on floor, honestly and truly.

Now, when it comes to romance, I have no idea when that changes. I think Chris is around 14 in the most recent season? And he's gone through a little heartbreaker phase, but currently, my brother at 12 is absolutely disgusted by romance. I myself am demisexual so I'm not a good reference for that, and can't really comment on when people start feeling attraction for others. But considering it's being portrayed in the show, I think it could be something to lean into as well.

All of this to say, Chris won't be this picture perfect baby all of the time. He'll get angry, frustrated, sad. Give people the silent treatment. He'll be weird and strange and say stupid shit. He'll also probably occasionally get confused over certain sayings he's never heard before. (E.g similes commonly used in writing) He'll try to get out of chores, and homework, and he'll whine and complain. His body is changing, he's probably experiencing growing pains, and he's probably starting to discover more adult things. But he'll also have his moments of insightfulness and humor. He's a little adult! And he should be allowed to be portrayed that way! Let Chris be a multidimensional character! It's what he deserves! And just to make it clear, this goes for every pre-teen on 911. I've just noticed the infantilisation of Chris a lot more than say Denny.

Please let me know your thoughts on this matter! I'd love to hear them! Have a wonderful day!

[valentoru]

|| Limitless ||

[CHAPTER 16]

SYNOPSIS: Gojo Satoru, a big time artist, who’s known for leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake wherever he goes. And you, the lead guitarist of an upcoming band, who’s absolutely certain that no one will ever love you. Through an accident in which you happened to kiss Gojo in a frantic state, you both decide, via convenience alone—and zero regard for both of your managers—to pull a fake dating stunt what could go wrong? Any press is good press…right?

⤷ DISCORD SERVER: poopynation

PREVIOUS : MASTERLIST : NEXT

You had arrived to fake-dating Thursday on time, for once. Not something that happened very often for any event, let alone fake-dating Thursday. In fact, you weren’t just on time but you were early. You were now sat in the cafe at ten minutes to ten waiting for Satoru to make his appearance.

A small part of you actually wished he wouldn’t come today, after the embarrassment that was yesterday. The scene of you massaging sunscreen into Satoru’s chest replaying itself in your head. You would never live it down, by far, out of everything that was the worst thing you’ve ever had to do in this fake-relationship. Hell, it was the worst thing you’ve ever had to do in your life. It was humiliating.

But, you couldn’t keep dwelling on it, plus, considering Satoru’s track record he probably wouldn’t address it. So instead you decided to focus your attention on planning an outfit for the concert, you would be leaving next week and you swore you would dress your absolute best. This definitely wasn’t the first concert you’d ever done but this was definitely the first one with meaning so deep to it.

You continued to busy yourself by reading the most recent updates from some of your favourite critics—they had all written some amazing comments about the band—they always kept your mind occupied when you needed it. You quickly checked the time, Satoru was late, which considering his “character” tardiness was the last thing your expected.

Shit. You were thinking about him again.

You made a quick effort to think of something, anything else. Clicking on random tabs and websites to distract you, even going as far as to accidentally click on a pop-up-ad of some random “milf” supposedly 20 miles from you, in a desperate attempt to essentially jumpscare the thoughts out of your head. After clicking on the pop-up-ad, it had absolutely worked. You quickly x-ed out of the tab and went onto twitter, it had been a while since you last properly checked it.

You opened up twitter and went onto the trending page only to find yourself gobsmacked.

You stared at the tag, Satoru was trending? Why the fuck was Satorutrending? You clicked on it, a force in your finger that almost snapped it in half, you could of sworn you felt it throb for a moment.

You read through a few of the messages then re-read them, well it was nice that none of them were necessarily negative, however, you were absolutely not prepared for, for half a moment your thought you’d fallen off your chair. Then you focused on the first one, it was a quote tweet, the original poster was Toge. What the fuck? Your mouth practically unhinged.

By now Satoru had arrived however you couldn’t bring yourself to look up, in fact, you couldn’t take your eyes off the computer screen, no way this had gotten out of work. You felt physically sick. You looked up at Satoru your mouth still agape, he cocked his head ever so slightly. You slowly raised your hand and motioned him to come over, he quickly rushed around and bent down next to you staring at the screen. You heard the faintest of gasps.

You turned to Satoru with a look which must have been horrifying as when you made eye contact he flinched, only slightly. He sighed and stoop up, straightening his back then he walked over to the chair opposite you and folded himself in it. The chair looked like a kids toy chair compared to him. It felt like ever since yesterday, after seeing his body, he seemed even bigger than usual, like an illusion of sorts.

You opened you mouth, you were going to say something profound had you not been in a total state of shock and disbelief, completely void of things to say. Satoru, surprisingly, seemed to pick up on your state and decided to speak for you, “I’m going to be honest, Y/N one of the first things we agreed was that this deal was strictly for in the work place, even my public relations manager had advised we do as such, I’m sorry you friend did something so shitty, but I don’t know how going to deal with this, however we will so you need to try to calm down. It’s not the end of the world.”

You redirected your wandering gaze towards him. What was he saying? Whatever it was it didn’t make sense to you, you were sure you were going to hurt. Right now, all you needed to do was pretend this wasn’t real and deal with it when you aren’t as worked up about it—which would probably be never.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with it later, Satoru. Let’s go get coffee.” You quickly clicked off the tab and closed your laptop. You had, for a very long time, known how to condition yourself and how to fake it, which, as of right now was your biggest ally. If you faked it, you faked it to yourself and if you fake it to yourself you didn’t have to think about it.

Luckily for you, Clyde had caught onto what you were doing and simply got up and followed you to the counter, not saying a single word. All he did was stand next to you, so close you could feel his body heat, like it was radiating. For some reason, it made you feel safe—protected.

The barista gave the customer before you their order and walked up to the cash register, giving you all her attention. “Hi! What can I get for you today?” Her voice was sickeningly friendly you almost told her to get real but instead your bit your tongue and answered, making a point of staying polite.

“Hi! Can I get a chamomile tea and an iced coffee? Two pumps of caramel.” Satoru gave you a look before paying for the order. The barista wandered off to prepare your drinks. You sighed, realising a breath you hadn’t even realised you’d been holding. You felt so incredibly tense.

“I heard you don’t have a room for next week? Getting one lest minute is going to be really hard you know?”

“Yeah I do know, Satoru. What is the aim of telling me something I already know.”

“Well I was thinking,” he paused, seemingly deep in thought. Looking for the words. “Without this sounding obnoxious maybe you could share with me?”

You felt yourself suck in some air. What was up with him today? You whipped your head around to him, your mind felt frantic. What could he possibly want sharing a room with you? You stared at him, hoping he would explain or tell you something, anything that made the whole idea sound even a little bit less creepy.

He stared at you for a moment before trying to explain only to get too worked up. He stopped and took a deep breath. “Okay, that’s not what I mean, I mean I have a room booked for the week from Geto as a thank your gift for letting him stay at my place. However, I’m only going to be there for three days, two before you’re supposed to arrive and the day of. I have a few meeting down there then I’m preforming then you perform then the day after I have to leave, I have another performance so we’d only be sharing for one day.”

You swallowed thickly and nodded, slowly. “Okay but that one night we do cross over, we’re going to have to share a bed.”

“No, we won’t. The room I booked is two bedroom.”

“Oh.”

Really, there was no reason decline, no matter how hard you searched and racked your brain. You began to weigh up the options, but really you hadn’t considered any negatives aside from the one of you maybe walking in on the other changing and concluded that declining would be foolish. You were already struggling enough trying to work out what you were going to do a free room would be really perfect.

You sighed. “Oh what the hell. Yeah, if you don’t mind, I’ll share with you. Thank you so much Satoru.”

He did his mouth-twitch-thing. “You’re welcome.”

You tried not to focus too much on his face, or that fact that his mouth-twitch-thing—which was now the technical term—only seemed to be reserved for you. It, honestly, made you happy that Satoru could trust you enough to be a “vulnerable”—but not really just a little laid back—version of himself. It was like this deal you had was also a secret alliance, it was nice.

The more you thought about how the deal had brought you closer the more the anxiety of it ending in just under a week began to peck at your head. Would you just go back to normal like nothing had ever happened? Like you hadn’t kissed him—twice—or like you hadn’t sat on his lap? Would all that just be forgotten and you return to a normal life like you had just 3 months ago?

The thoughts began to form into anxiety in the pit of your stomach, if anything, you really liked Satoru’s company, you’d even gained solace in it once or twice, you didn’t want that go away, you honestly wanted him to stay a part of your life. But for now, you had to dismiss the thoughts, you couldn’t entertain them till next week, right now, you just need to focus on being happy. Being in a bad mood wouldn’t help anyone while your practice and prepare for the show next week.

Almost as if on cue, the barista called your drinks out, knocking you off your train of thoughts completely. You took a step forward and grabbed your drink, taking a sip of it. Any sadness you’d had vanished completely in that moment, this drink was exactly what you needed, you felt yourself physically brighten up.

You made your way back to the table, sitting where you had sat before when your found out about—

It didn’t matter.

Satoru folded himself into the chair across from you again. The silence was awkward but telling. You both know something had to be said or you would be stuck here staring at each other longer than needed. Alas no matter how much your racked your brain you couldn’t find a single conversation, considering how close you and Satoru had gotten you still weren’t unfamiliar to awkward silences with him.

Satoru picked up his phone and check up them sat up straight. “Fuck.” The “u” lasted for longer than what was probably necessary. “I’m so sorry but I need to go.” He got up and grabbed his bag and left quickly, not waiting for your goodbye.

A little rude.

You let out a breath, you didn’t know you had been holding, and slumped back in your chair. Today was absolutely going to be a long one.

You opened up your laptop again and logged back in. Happy to not see twitter when you opened it. You would have to ask Yuta to make a statement about it and make one yourself and get Satoru to make one.

This shit was too much for a Thursday morning.

You went onto a random gaming site. Usually when you were upset or stressed about something, playing crappy online games helped. Your favourite one had to be and of the Papa’s games, today though, you had a craving for Papa’s Freezeria.

You had been playing for roughly 15 minutes when your brain decided to abruptly remind you of the deal you had made with Satoru.

Shit.

You had originally agreed because a free room is a free room, a lunatic would turn that down. But then you remembered, this was your shitty life. Nothing ever went the way you wanted them to go, no you essentially were a rom-com now. There was no way you would get out of this amazing offer unscathed. You knew for a fact, without a shadow of a doubt there would not be two beds.

There would be one.

Of course there would.

You would have to share a bed with Satoru Gojo

TAGLIST(33/50): @bbmsxlene @lunavelha @satoryaa @tranzumaki @k-kkiana @luvkvni @lysaray @kalulakunundrum @arysbruv @r4veeen @stillnotherapy @catobsessedlady @colortheoryrocks @minzxec @dazqa @packsvlog @luvvmae @simplysm1le @mintfyi @disenchantedzs @littlecritteryay @fackeraccount @astro-stars @lavender-hvze @miizuzu @rayrayline @kanaojacksonofc @letsmyy @serenadesvt @art-n-rot @aastrobliss @herdemisee @tikideedee @tittiesarenice @fire-child-kira

AN:

Sooo this might have taken me a while to write…

© valentoru all rights reserved- do not publish my work on other platforms, plagiarise or translate.

[iggyartsblog]

A small vent about marble hornets and creepypasta becoming a recent trend

Tw for description of psychosis, gore description

Read if you wish, if not just enjoy the gifs

Marble hornets is on its 15th year anniversary this year and because of this it's resurfaced and there's a wave of new age fans that enjoy the web show and have delved deeper into creepypasta lore as well as the slenderverse. On a normal person level I have no issues with this. I don't believe In gatekeeping analogue horror from back in my time from today's generation, especially something as good as marble hornets.

My issue is this (Trauma dump incoming) : from the age of 7 I was suffering deep psychosis as a result of using creepypasta and marble hornets as a way of coping with trauma and the stress I was under with neglect and having to look after my sick parent and having no healthy friendship in school. Yes, I was one of those kids who wished with all their hearts that the slenderman would come and take them away and make their problems disappear. The problem was I wanted it too much so my brain just made it happen. I was suffering from really bad derealisation as well as auditory and visual hallucinations of the characters. They would talk and interact with me, just not in the way I wanted them too. I remember so vividly washing up after dinner one night and seeing laughing jack break through the door and stab me in the stomach. I remember watching as my stomach and intestine dropped out of my body as he picked them up and swallowed them by the handful while still managing to maniacally laugh in my face. I screamed until my dad came in and told me jokingly to shut up, clearly not seeing my distress.

These hallucinations impacted my social life too. It was clear to me that there was a handful of them that were not out to get me and wouldn't hurt me if I played along with them. The most normal thing I had to do was just not ignore them. I hallucinated ticci toby a lot, especially in public. I had learned that if I didn't talk back to him he would get agitated and I would have nightmares of the slenderman murdering me so I would always talk back. This made going out with friends difficult because I had to respond to him no matter what. This lead to a lot of bullying from my friends and not many people wanting to talk to me.

For years, until I was 12, I kept slipping through the narrative I was either schizophrenic or actually one of the followers of the slenderman (I used to call myself a proxy, now the word makes me feel physically ill). This belief is probably what made the hallucinations last as long as they did. I wasn't aware at the time how deep in psychosis I was as I refused to talk to my parents about it in detail as my mum used to threaten to take me to a mental hospital as a small child when I used my imagination and said I could see a butterfly, for example, that wasn't really there. My sister knew and so did her friend but I'm sure they both thought it was some game.

So, I'm speaking in the past tense. This is behind me, right? Well, it was for a good few years. I was able to do this via limiting myself all access to anything creepypasta related or marble hornets related which was very hard because it was like my safety blanket for so many years. I tried to not put myself in rooms alone without music or something playing in the background so I can concentrate on that and not give anything the chance to harm me. When I did hallucinate I would take videos to prove to myself nobody was there and in time I was able to ignore them completely and the eventually went away. This took about a year or so of discipline and I think it only worked because it was psychosis and not schizophrenia.

However, the reason I'm talking about this now is it's all come back to me. I'm hallucinating again, I'm being hurt again and I'm unable to sleep properly because of the nightmares that plague me due to it. The reason is very clear to me. Media consumption has caused me to relapse. My girlfriend is obsessed with marble hornets and won't stop showing me stuff about it, which is totally fine because she shows me things she likes out of love. However, when I open Tumblr after it's full of marble hornets and creepypasta. It's the same story for other social media. I'm totally okay with people enjoying the fandom and I'm okay with seeing it from time to time but I do feel so bombarded with it all that's it's triggered me into psychosis yet again. And the way people enjoy this media isn't making me feel any more comfortable online either. You cannot imagine what it's like seeing IRLs of monsters that's harmed you physically and mentally roleplaying and twinkifying the character like the character hasn't killed people or tortured people in their source. I can't stand people simping over Tim from marble hornets after I've repeatedly been assaulted and tormented by a figment of my imagination with the exact same face. Having Jeff the killers bloody and broken face sting like a fresh wound in salt over my eyes when I fall asleep seems like a complete contrast to the hot fuckboy version that people put in their pfps and dirty talk on character ai. I'm not saying you can't be thirsty for a man with no eyelids, my point is it's really strange from my point of view.

Now that you've listened to my rant I just want to make it absolutely clear that if you enjoy marble hornets or creepypasta or the slenderverse you have all the right to keep loving that media. I don't want to put people off or make it seem like I'm trying to gatekeep. I do just want to share a very brief overview of my experience with this media and how it's affected me in hopes it might prevent someone else from going through something similar. This is also a reminder for all horror fans to take a break once in a while to cleanse yourself of all violence and fear for a while and look at some positive media to rest your brain once in a while.

I doubt anyone would be interested in hearing more about my experience with psychosis but if you are ill gladly talk more about it. I'm going to do everything I can to overcome this unwanted sequel and I will over come out weather social media and the people around me let me or not. I've done this before and I'll do it again.

[theladyragnell]

☕️ Something you’ve read recently that you want to talk about! (positive/negative/whatever!)

So there's this trend I've been bothered by for a while.

(I am immediately going off-track here.)

I feel like the publishing industry has been beating the drum for quite some time now about main character agency. They need to be driving the story, making the plot happen, they need to grow and change and learn. And I don't disagree! If there's not at least some of that happening, you need a good reason for them to still be the main character.

However, there's a fine line between "this character's choices drive the plot" and "everything is this character's fault" and I've read a few books this year that fall over that line to greater or lesser extents.

The book "Once Upon a K-Prom" by Kat Cho really coalesced this for me. It's a YA romcom whose premise is pretty clearly an escapist fantasy: girl's childhood best friend moved back to Korea, they fell out of touch, he became a k-pop idol, when he's on US tour he comes back to ask her to prom based on a childhood pact as a publicity stunt. She's unpopular, her peers and her family are largely unkind to her or ignore her. It's pretty much the perfect setup for some escapist Cinderella fluff! There are places where she could drive the plot, but instead she is forced to learn, over and over, that the way she's treated is because SHE is pushing other people away, or judging them, or otherwise the agent of her own unhappiness. And yeah, there are situations where that's true, but at a certain point, agency was super outweighed by fault, and I ended the book feeling unhappy, and really sad for any kids who picked this one up looking for escapism.

"Chilling Effect" by Valerie Valdes did this for me too, in different ways! I had other issues with the book I won't go into at the moment, but consistently what drove the plot wasn't the main character's choices, but her mistakes and missteps, and whenever anyone was unkind to her and I was on her side, again I felt like the narrative took pains to make it her fault.

And then there's a whole very weird trend in romance where the heroine (it's always a woman, and usually in f/f romance, I'm not sure I've run into it in a sapphic) is a one-woman disaster zone. Life disasters happen around her! She simply doesn't know how this happens! And there they get the fault without even the agency. That one might be Bella Swan aftereffects, I'm not sure.

Characters can and should make mistakes, I don't dispute that, but it feels to some extent like a lot of books sacrifice escapism (through competency particularly, but also the Cinderella fantasy above) for an agency that isn't even agency at all, but simply the load of responsibility for everything that goes wrong in the story.

[ozzgin]

Do you have any advice for those who want to post their stories and ideas on here but are just starting out

Not sure if I'm the best person to offer advice on these matters, as I feel my presence here has been mostly accidental. That being said, I am capable of introspection and I've been here long enough to notice patterns, so I can gladly share my own observations with you! Feel free to draw your own conclusions. Everyone else is invited to offer corrections or additions. :)

Guide under the cut because it's another long ramble divided in 3 parts.

What to post

The million-dollar question. Do you want to share original stories, or fanfiction? Various genres, or reader centered romances? You have the choice to try your luck and dive in with your own thing or scour the market to build a following first.

I've seen trending original stories from accounts who'd just started out, but don't use that as a reference for the quality of your own work. If you're not gaining traction, it doesn't automatically mean it's bad. There are hundreds of variables involved: the time, the context, the people. It takes one big blog to discover your story and share it, and you've taken your first step into recognition. The main issue is, there's no guarantee when or if it's going to happen.

Your other choice is to introduce yourself with fanfiction. Consider it a way of saying “let me show you my writing skills through something of your interest”. If you've been wanting to write fanfiction from the beginning, great! Now comes the next question: what is your goal? If you want more recognition, you'll want to consider the fandoms. Is there something you're into that's currently also trending on Tumblr? Writing for Hazbin Hotel, for example, will most likely get you more notes than writing for some 90s manga very few people know about. At the end of the day, you shouldn't feel pressured to write for what's "selling", but you can always find a compromise that works for you. Once you gain more followers, you can always sprinkle in more variety. Having more people who appreciate your work will give you a little boost when venturing into other areas.

I'll give you my personal case: I decided to share my Baki story right at the time a new season was out. It just so happened that many other people were interested in said character. "I only watched two episodes and immediately searched for fics", or "I saw an edit and now I'm here". So, there were people actively keeping tab on recent works for more content, and one of the relevant blogs in the fandom shared my content as well. That got the ball rolling. I've always been a multi-fandom blog, and thus with more visitors came more diverse requests. "Wait a minute, I came for X, but I see you like Y, too!"

TL;DR: If you're interested in original work or lesser known fandoms but want recognition, try to expand into trending and popular fandoms to gain visibility.

How to post

Is there a specific template you must adhere to? Absolutely not. However, I've noticed many common elements from people sharing their stories. There are authors who will dive right into the story, no title, no descriptions, but they already have followers who know what to expect. If you're just starting out, you might want to offer a helping hand to people who don't know you yet. Have a concise, clear title. Make it obvious from the beginning what your story is about. You can include trigger warnings or content previews. Maybe a little synopsis or two-three sentences to summarize everything. I've seen some blogs mention that their shorter stories get more interaction (1-2k words), so this might be something to consider. If you would prefer going for longer works, perhaps it's wise to give everyone a heads-up and include the word count at the beginning. If you want to encourage people to check out your other works, you can include a link to your masterlist at the top of the post.

Regardless of appearances, once your content is written, it needs to be tagged. Which brings us to the next topic:

This truly isn't meant to call anyone out, just something I noticed. Many people don't know how to use the hashtag feature.

Let me give you a fabricated example: you just published your best fanfiction so far. The magnum opus of your work. Time passes, and you barely get any notes. You tagged the post with #fanfic (because it's fanfiction, right?), #writers of tumblr (to notify other writers of your presence), and #series name. It's not bad by any means, but these are extremely generic hashtags. If your only anchor for the post is, say, #Harry Potter, it will be immediately drowned by the massive influx of various content under this tag: memes, fanart, discussions, screenshots. Everything meets here. If your story is a reader insert, your target is not only the overall fandom, but specifically the people looking for this type of story. Which characters are featured? Is it more of a fluffy romance, or downright smut? Is your original character a monster? If so, what kind? You have to help people find your content. If you're not sure what tags to include, use other blogs as reference. Find stories similar to yours and check the top posts. What other tags did the author use? Is there a common pattern among these popular stories?

TD;DR: Make your posts clear and obvious within the first few lines. Overly general or overly specific tags are not bad, but they shouldn't be your only identifying features. Make it very easy for people to navigate your blog (masterlists, consistent hashtag system, etc)

When to post

At one point I asked myself, out of curiosity, why some of my own posts are more popular than others despite the same amount of effort. Is there a difference depending on when you release your content? The answer is yes! There's an article discussing the best times to post on social media in order to maximize engagement. Of course, there's many variables involved, and these time intervals are not a guarantee. When are your followers most active? When do you notice a peak in notifications? Have a look at this neat desktop feature. It gives you all the answers you need. If your engagement is the highest at a given hour, it might be worth a shot to post your content then. You can also schedule your posts to match the patterns.

Let's say you posted something, and you suspect it hasn't reached all of your followers. Maybe it was a slow day, and it got less engagement than usual. I've seen people who reblog their own content the next day or even regularly, so you can opt for that if you're worried you missed out.

Additionally, Tumblr seems to reward activity. You may post as often or as little as you'd like, as long as you maintain a certain regularity. If you search for top posts/blogs of all time, you'll notice it's not actually an all-time chart, but only the content with recent engagement. A post with a million notes that hasn't been touched in 5 years won't show up. Same for blogs. The recommendations you see are of accounts who frequently post under the given hashtag. This is something to keep in mind as well.

Lastly, if you're willing/are extroverted enough, you can always try to network and build a group of mutuals. Reblog, leave comments, reach out to people within the fandom or who do the same thing. When a post is fresh, it may be temporarily bumped to the top of the search if it receives a burst of engagement. So, it definitely helps to have a bunch of friends who give you a little boost.

Yeah. This is what I have. It's not a matter-of-fact textbook, just what I personally witnessed or my own inferences. The most important detail is to give yourself time, and of course to have fun! I wish you the best of luck, and don’t forget that your ideas are worthy regardless of the outcome.