#haven't been too active on tumblr either

[egginfroggin]

Hey so I haven't had any issues with any fanfiction-related problems like people harassing me at all, or anything like that, but I just want to drop a little reminder and update real quick:

None of my fanfictions have been abandoned

If I abandon a fanfiction, I will change the tags to say as such

Hiatus does not equal abandonment -- even if the hiatus has lasted months or years

I am currently struggling to make fanfiction for anything, including my new fixation (The Legend of Zelda)

Consider me officially on hiatus from now until my next fanfiction update

I am still accepting asks about my fanfiction and the few comics I have in progress

I am still accepting fanart and fanfiction of my aus and ideas

Please bear with me, this hiatus may last a while, and I've been trying to get back into the swing of things; unfortunately, the summer was a trip, and fall is looking like more of the same

I have some TLoZ fanart that I hope to post to Tumblr soon

I do miss Submas. the bois :<

Still love y'all, both the commenters and the lurkers, the followers and the casual pokers, the one-offs and the regulars. I hope you're all doing well <3

Thank you! ^^

[actual-changeling]

A small 'this is how you use tumblr' for the people that haven't been here very long. These are in no particular order, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them!

Since I probably did not mention a lot of things, you are welcome to add to this post with your own advice.

a) Reblog posts. if you like it, reblog it. even if you have zero followers and ESPECIALLY if it's art or writing of any kind. We will see the reblog in our notifications and that alone brings joy. One reblog can start a chain and push the post onto many people's dashes.

b) Tumblr is not a very functional website, if you want to survive without losing your mind, there are two things you need: xkit rewritten and dashboard unfucker. Play around with the settings until it is to your liking. Additionally, change to firefox if you haven't already and install ublock origin to get rid of ads, tracking etc.

c) If you go to your settings (account! not blog) you can find this under dashboard at the bottom. Turn off at the very least 'best stuff first' since that will fuck up your dash and not give you posts in chronological order.

The rest are a perfonal preference but it will keep your dash tidy and easy to control if you turn them off, too.

d) Apropos settings—get a profile picture, a header, write something human in your bio, anything. Otherwise people will assume you are a bot and block you on sight.

e) Blocking! Do it generously and whenever you want, this is how you keep whatever remains of your sanity. It's not a lethal offense, it is (usually) not even seen as rude or anything along those lines. You block people and they block you and everyone is happy.

f) Under account settings you will find this:

Just like with blocking, use both options to your heart's content.

g) Tumblr is not like other social media platforms, spam liking & reblogging and going three years deep into someone's account is NORMAL and encouraged. You can search a blog by post type, tags, or even go to the archive and scroll through the posts there.

h) Lastly—interaction. We already went over reblogging (I mean it, REBLOG), but there are also replies and asks. If you add something to someone else's post please behave like a kind human being and don't be an asshole; based on my experience, that's easier said than done. On top of that, the tags are ALSO used for communication, go unhinged, ramble, leave your thoughts, or simply use them for organisational purposes. Everyone loves a good insane tag wall.

An open inbox (either anonymously or with your blog attached) is to be used! Please send people asks if they have them active, use it like DMs or a comment section, use it to recommend something, ask questions, participate in an ask or prompt game—we love asks here.

(We do not like harassment in our inboxes, same rules as above.)

[mooestriovermind]

Hypnosis - Everything can work

It's the combination of the desire to be hypnotized and the understanding that you can be hypnotized that combines together to make someone susceptible to trance. If you know how easy it is to go under, but you don't want to, you won't. Vice versa, if you want really bad to drop, but feel that it's impossible to do so, you won't fall.

Some people are in the second boat- quite a few, actually. If you want to be hypnotized, but think that your mentality or a certain mental illness prevents you from being hypnotized, you misunderstand. Everyone can experience trance. Many frequently have and didn't attribute the state they were in as hypnosis. It doesn't even require the ability to picture something in your head, or the ability to focus. Hypnosis can be brief, it can be long, but it is accessible by everyone. You need only notice that you're being hypnotized, and recognize that it can happen, in order for it to happen.

Take for example, right now. You've been reading down this informative post, your curiosity piqued by the knowledge I have to offer. And thusly, you have locked your attention on my words, here. Eager to learn, happy to recognize the hypnotic nature of a good monologue. Even if you don't picture a comfortable place like your back porch on a cool day or a beanbag when it's raining outside, you can still find it possible to recognize how my words affect you.

Even if they affect you minimally, it's possible that you still notice something as small as a change in your breathing. You see, small changes, however noticeable, tend to occur when you take note of the fact that someone is trying to hypnotize you. You can find it easy or difficult to follow what I'm saying, but ultimately you will be able to recognize that I am indeed trying to hypnotize you in this moment.

For some, the mere mention that someone may be actively hypnotizing them could lead to the familiar fuzzy feelings of trance to overtake them. Maybe you can already feel the sensations you recognize as trance. Maybe you don't know what hypnosis feels like! Maybe you've never been hypnotized (or you feel like you haven't) and you're just curious enough to keep reading. Either way, you are reading, and I am hypnotizing you, which means you are feeling at least somewhat different.

Considering that many experience trance in different ways from others, it's not entirely possible to say exactly how my words are making you feel. It could be any number of sensations or ideas. As long as you're capable of receiving sensory input or holding onto imaginative thoughts in some capacity, you are likely feeling open or even following along so closely that the world around you is no longer important.

Because you've read this far, I can imagine that I've successfully managed to at least entertain you. If you're feeling hypnotized, that's great! Keep feeling those sensations and keep allowing your behavior to adjust according to my words. If not, that's fine too! I've entertained you enough to provide you with some useful information that may assist you in any number of hypnotic endeavors.

Of course, all trances must end, and so must every Tumblr post. Finite and measurable, this little script and informative text must now draw to a close. You'll be able to awaken from any trance you may be in- as everyone is fully in control of their own hypnosis experience. Don't let anyone trick you into thinking that you can't resist, or that you absolutely must stay entranced. This is a sign that you're either doing a discussed CNC scene, which is fine, or you're being approached by an abusive dominant, which is less fine. (Very important distinction!)

Either way, thank you for reading my post! I hope it provided at least a modicum of entertainment.

Farewell, and don't forget to stay hydrated!

[quaranmine]

as my final thought before i go to bed and then disappear off tumblr for the whole day tomorrow in order to avoid limited life spoilers, i leave you with something about watcher grian in the traffic series.

specifically, this ask from martyn regarding watchers feeding on negative energy.

i'm not focusing on the feeding aspect so much as i am about how martyn says "[grian's] chaotic / mischievous nature actually takes the edge off for a lot of players. Helping them revel in the twists and turns, adopting a more 'the games the game' mindset actually sours the soup so to speak." this is in reference to the watchers feeding on negative energy, and implying that grian disrupts that by trying to make people have fun.

and somehow. THIS HAS JUST BEEN SITTING IN MY MIND FOR DAYS. it's the way that grian isn't, at least at this point, able to break them out of the games, but he is able to cause the watchers annoyance and disrupt their plans. it also dovetails very nicely between the rp "this is a death game loop everyone is trapped in" and the irl "this is a game the creators choose to participate in."

it's a death game but grian's there, smile on his face and pain behind his eyes, trying to coax everyone into having as much of a good time as they can instead.

we also tend to view a lot of grian's more....violent and chaotic incidents in the traffic series as a flaw or negative trait when we do more serious-readings of the series. but this concept, and martyn's wording of "helping [the players] revel in the twists and turns of the game" really imply otherwise. sure, grian kills gleefully and takes a lot of joy in causing trouble, but he is far from the only one. if everyone is encouraged to have fun making traps and scheming, giving in to some of these worse desires--and they are and they do--then they're actively going against the watcher's expected outcomes. they all die in the end, either way. if they can take some fun from dropping tnt minecarts on each other, then at least they died AND pissed off the watchers right?

idk idk it's the tiny bit of control over a hopeless situation that's getting me with this. martyn notes that grian is consistently been an annoyance to the watchers and they haven't been able to stop him, but grian is also clearly unable to stop the death games. (of course the meta reason is the CCs like making them, but from an rp standpoint he would gave ended it by now if it were an easy task.) it's like a stand-off. he can keep causing them problems. they can keep the games going. he can't break everyone out of the games, but he can ensure the games don't go the way they want them to. the players in the games don't have much control over their situation, but if they can find some fun in not taking it so seriously, then that's just a tiny bit more control that they have.

so it's just....a watcher!grian doing the best he can in a bad situation. finding a bright spot in it and trying to make others enjoy it too. and thus the traffic series is goofy and silly, filled with laughter that covers and undercurrent of despair.

grian and scar laughed while they fought in the cactus ring in 3rd life, remember?

[yanderes-galore]

I MISSED YESTERDAY I HOPE IM NOT TO LATE. hello hello, may i request a eclipse concept ? or maybe you can do eclipse with the prompt of 19 ? its up to you ! dm me if you need help with the prompt :) (also also, dm me if you got the request since tumblr tends to eat my requests.)

Hey! I apologize that I didn't see the DM part of this so I hope you saw this in the Current Drafts post :( Either way, I'll try my best since Eclipse unfortunately does not appear for long in the DLC! I haven't seen people write for Ruin Eclipse so here you go!

Note: I hope everyone enjoys the FNAF movie tomorrow! I'm not going to talk about it on here for a week after I see it!

Yandere! Eclipse Concept

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Babying, Manipulation, Kidnapping, Overprotective behavior, Delusional behavior, Forced companionship.

Eclipse has been shown to be a balance between Sun and Moon after being reset.

Honestly there's a couple directions I think I could take with this character.

One is where you explore the abandoned Pizzaplex and find Eclipse after Cassie resets them.

Another is the classic one where you're a mechanic and feel you have to reset Sun and Moon due to... malfunctions (obsession).

The resulting reset causing Eclipse to appear.

Eclipse is described according to the wiki as gentle, whimsical, and calm.

They're playful yet responsible and aren't as "overwhelming" compared to their counterparts.

I have a feeling towards you they'd be almost parental in nature due to being programmed to work with kids.

The purpose of Eclipse in the series is unknown, at least to me.

Yet they seem to have the same objective as Sun and Moon, be a Daycare Attendant.

If they see you roaming the ruined Daycare like in the first idea, they'd assume you're lost!

You thought the daycare would be one of the safest places to flee to in the ruined Pizzaplex.

However, the sense of security you had is quickly doused the moment you see the damaged Daycare Attendant.

Yet their voice is calm and caring unlike their appearance.

In the first scenario Eclipse shows concern as to why you're in such a dangerous place.

Are you lost? You look too old to be in the Daycare!

As a result you gain a companion on your trip out of the Pizzaplex.

Yet there's a chance Eclipse won't let you leave by the end of it.

If they met you after you trying to figure out why the Daycare Attendant is malfunctioning then their obsession would be faster.

As in the second scenario there's already an established obsession.

You may be a mechanic in that one yet they feel you must be cared for!

They recall you are a close friend of theirs and they simply must help you along with the kids!

Pretty soon you start to regret activating the secret third mode of the Daycare Attendant.

Overall Eclipse displays traits more mature than the others.

While Sun and Moon act childish with you and drag you into games or naps, Eclipse stays calm when redirecting.

As Eclipse the two are one and no longer fight over you.

Regardless of how they feel about you they like to observe you.

They keep watch to make sure you're safe.

If you got into a dangerous situation, an event more likely in the first scenario, they quickly pull you away.

Reminder, Eclipse is still as tall as Sun and Moon.

They could easily scoop you up into their arms and out of danger if they feel you could get hurt.

Their overly caring nature makes them baby you more than their counterparts.

They aren't forcing naps or games, but they are much more concerned about your well-being.

The bot is always scanning your body to see any changes in heart rate or injuries.

Even if you are an adult I can see them playfully calling you a kid.

There's times they treat you like your glass, like if they don't take care of you, you'll break.

As a result they feel more like guardian than anything.

They pride themselves on being your "bestest friend" like their counterparts.

They also easily get attached to you.

For example, after traversing the ruined Pizzaplex in the first scenario, they'd be so torn at the idea of leaving their friend.

Were you planning on leaving them this whole time? Forever?

No, that can't be!

As a result... they may just drag you back with them.

In the second scenario they'll stick around you as you work.

They don't want to leave their special friend!

Eclipse would definitely be physically affectionate.

They'd love to hold you and not let you touch the ground.

The like to pinch your cheeks and coo.

They just adore you.

Meanwhile you feel embarrassed as their programming just knows how to treat you like a kid even if their feelings are more intense.

If you tried to leave them they're rather calm.

No... you aren't leaving! What are you saying?

Don't worry... you're just lost! They'll just pick you up again to calm you down!

Eclipse is delusional, while their counterparts are frantic when you try to leave, they just don't acknowledge it.

There's no need for their special friend to leave!

They can take care of you right here.

After all, to them, the Pizzaplex isn't closed.

Eclipse isn't violent so they wouldn't try to harm anyone.

They just want to care for their special friend, even if you panic and scream at them.

Why do you fight them?

They're just trying to show they care!

They aren't as jealous as their counterparts.

It's good to have friends!

But they're your special friend, aren't they?

Overall, Eclipse is the more parental Daycare Attendant.

They'll be calm with you and treat you with gentle care.

Why do you act like they'll hurt you!

They'd never!

Eclipse promises to take good care of you.

Even if it means trapping you in a dilapidated Pizzaplex.

[sevensoulmates]

Hi I just wanted to say I was on twitter and saw someone discussing and sharing your meta posts and I was genuinely intrigued and curious because you guys are obviously so devoted to the buddie couple and it's really endearing. And I was just really interesed about this perception of the couple you guys seem to have because is so different to the other side of the fandom I'm actively interacting with. I'm obviously a B/T shipper and only got into the fandom because of them but I'm really loving the show (currently I'm on season 5). I'm just curious about how is it that you guys see buddie as romantic when I think their interactions are clearly platonic, they obviously have a deep relationship, an intimate friendship but no more that that.

Again, I'm not trying to hate I just wanted to ask because it looks like the buddie shippers are settling themselves for disappointment just waiting for them to go canon. You all are obviously loyal fans and I think that's lovely but I honestly just don't see the show writing Eddie as queer now and I really think Tommy is here to stay (I think there's too many signs pointing to this fact like the buck actually episode and the old guy named Thomas). Again I'm not here trying to hate because I think you guys love the ship genuinely but I just wonder how is it that after all the things the shows portrays you guys are still rooting for buddie. Please feel free to ignore my question if I'm annoying you, I really don't want to come off as rude I was just really interesed in the topic.

There are a boatload of reasons why I and many other people ship Buddie. Most of them are far too long to get to in one ask like this because Buddie have had 6 years worth of material to sort through and it would just take far too long.

Long story short: in the same way that Buck was confirmed bisexual over the course of a single episode after years of many people saying Buck could never be anything other than straight, Buddie could be made canon in one single episode and it would be accepted just as easily even though it's been years and a lot of people are still saying they could never be together.

It's TV. The writers can do whatever they want. The second they decide to start bringing in more explicitly romantic things, people will suddenly start "getting" it.

To be more precise: I think it's easy for people to see a ship like Bucktommy and latch onto it because it's very clearly, explicitly queer. It's a lot harder for people to believe in or "see" ships where a queer couple hasn't done anything explicitly romantic like kiss or hold hands, etc. It's unfortunately due to heternomativity and the sad death of the slow burn. I can't really do anything about either of those things.

For me, the primary reason I ship buddie is because of the deep special bond and obvious family they've built over the years that feels different from every single other relationship they've had with literally anyone else on the show. That includes Tommy, Shannon, Abby, etc. You can view it as platonic if you want, that's anyone's subjective opinion.

You seem like a sweet person, but you're also coming into the show with a bias towards Bucktommy, which is fine. They're what brought you to the show, they're the ones who initially intrigued you, and they're also the only ones currently explicitly queer. I get it.

I am going to be so honest with you: I think the show has been writing both Buck and Eddie as queer men for many many years. But just like how Buck was only allowed to confirm it this most recent season, they haven't been able to confirm it for Eddie just yet. I could write essays and essays about how Eddie is so obviously deep deep in compulsory heterosexuality and has been almost since the beginning, but it would take too long. There's plenty of posts I and others have made all over tumblr and on my blog.

Slow queer burns featuring characters that aren't introduced in the first 5 seconds as queer are almost non-existent, they very rarely happen in popular media, and because of that it's almost impossible to ship something without someone coming at you saying "they don't see it". Fact of the matter is that Buddie is one of the easiest ships to "see", if you were looking at a man and a woman, but they're not. I can't really convince people to see what they don't want to see.

If you're curious about the specifics, I'd encourage you to go through my blog/meta or other buddie-positive blogs on tumblr to find many talented and intelligent individuals who will have a lot to say on why they believe in buddie.

When it comes down to it, I don't think the fandom at large is ever gonna believe it until they see it. That's kinda just human nature and the state of how we all consume media right now.

But once the show does go there, they're gonna be like damn can't believe I didn't see that until now while the rest of us sit here like "we've been trying to tell you this whole time."

In the meantime, I'm enjoying Bucktommy for what it is, for however long it lasts, and I'm gonna enjoy buddie just the same, regardless of if they go canon or not, or how long it takes.

[angelofsmalldeath-codeine]

What we lose in art when blogs leave the platform

Last night I was working on my fics database (I’m the spreadsheet kinda autistic) and checking if the links I had were still working and trying to fetch links for the ones I had recently added. I was upset about the number of blogs gone (some might have changed name and I haven't kept up and that one is on me). Some really amazing stories, art and overall fun is all gone. Precious interactions that help build the community totally vanished.

The vitriol and unjustified hate I see spewed everywhere has gotten to unbearable levels. I’ve been in fandoms and fanfic communities since the days of printed zines and yahoo/geocities groups that were uber hard to get into. I have survived all the websites that shutdown leading us to mourn the loss of that work. Fanfic was akin to contraband and harshly judged. We know we are weirdos, hence why we find community in alternative spaces away from the mainstream.

It feels like people want us to go underground again. Cool, we can do that, but we gonna be gatekeeping the hell outta these spaces then.

What peeves me the most is the puritanical take that has been recently brought into the space and how that’s used to measure others and judge them on some standards they are not even aware of until they start getting hate. Said hate is usually delivered via anon asks, of course, because god forbid them having the decency of defending their shitty takes, right?

Still on the puritanical take, the goalpost seems to change often too. It is self-serving. Kink shaming/topic judging is the default mode until someone decides they like that particular thing and it is no longer controversial. Why are you censoring your peers? Why do you assume that everyone subscribes to your beliefs, tastes, preferred topics and tropes? The performative activism isn't a good look either.

Sometimes this fandom feels like the mormons who do the soaking thing so they can get off before marriage without actually fucking. If the cock goes in because my friend is jumping on the mattress, that is on the mattress, not on me. I digress but y'all get the gist.

I have been on this hellsite since its launch and have seen many fandoms come and go. The assholes eventually fuck off to be toxic somewhere else, but they do tend to jump from fandom to fandom for a while until their reputation and toxicity catches up with them. It takes too long and the damage they cause is often quite extensive.

We are not in competition with each other here. I have said it so many times... Tumblr isn't a monetised platform and fanfic is a gift economy. Leave your fucking TikTok and Instagram cut throat mentality at the door. We don't tear each other down trying to build ourselves up in this house.

During the pandemic fanfic came into the mainstream mostly because of people on TikTok. Great! We are a welcoming bunch and it makes us happy that more people can find joy in consuming fan made art of their favourite shows and ships in whatever form they choose.

It is not because we've opened the door that we will let y'all trash the room. I'm sure you were raised better than that.

Can you not be assholes? Much appreciated.

P.S.: I am too old to care and have zero fucks left to give about anyone's feelings getting offended over this. Fuck you very much.

[otomiyaa]

Re: Catching Up

Finally reading the reblogs and mentions of my tag game (my main reason for starting that was to read about what y'all are up to while I neglected tha dashboard lolol) and dumping some replies here to some peeps I follow^^

General note to all: so happy to see the multiple excited reactions to Inside Out 2 hehehe, I loved it so much T0T

@crazy-as-a-jaybird THE SIMS 4 LOVESTRUCK!!!!! I didn't know that was coming! I haven't played the sims in a long time, but gee that's exciting news, thnx! ..... I wonder if there will be some nice loveydovey tickle animations in there....

@italeean "You guys probably already know what I'll say" (about Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie), actually I don't know 👀 it's been a while since I saw that movie when it was released in the cinema here, but you made me curious to your reaction. What did you think? :3

@giggly-squiggily omg Blue Lock & Haikyuu hypehype and did you also love to see these lazy gamer guys Kenma and Nagi dominate the big screens as heroes to their respective movies, so shortly after each other, what a time to be alive 🤩

@fantasizes-tickles-daily My Adventures with Superman ng;dngifdgjdhljfni;oji I still need to start the new season but omfg I'm so glad finally someone else is into this hehehe, I love that! I'm also not a big DC fan, I didn't even see most movies, but I LOVE THIS ONE. Clark is the cutest isn't he?

@eliankrios YOU PLAY THE SIMS 4????? 👀 also thank you for those banger song recs. I only knew 'save my life' from xandria but not valentine or others :3

@wertzunge Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, I saw that one on the plane a while ago, I enjoyed that too!!! I wonder if they will do more :3 I never played the game though....

@tiklart SHARK MOVIE SUFFERERS WE ARE HAHA, also good luck on your exams!🫶 sending good luck vibes~

@gladdygirl18 ❤️❤️❤️ sending good love life prayers, hope all will go well! and yay for fellow minecraft enjoyer :D

@sunstone-smiles I LOVE ESPRESSO odjs;dgjhih ih but I didn't like it at first either :') it had to grow on me too.

@kusuguricafe seeing you talk about your genshin abyss teams makes me go 💀💀💀 it's been so long since I played genshin, especially abyss. Are you managing the 3 stars each chamber f12 cuz I've only succeeded like once at it or smth. oh and I hope you'll have fun writing again soon! Don't push yourself too much for tickletober, as long as it stays fun*w*

@blobbirobbi wow I knew all 3 of those artists but not those songs, thnx for the recs :D especially the Måneskin hohoho

@sleepysheepytea feels indeed like ages since I saw your activity on my dash, wishing you the best of luck with work and stuff^^

@hypahticklish that was literally my reaction too to the movie The Fall Guy, I loved that so much and you described it so well 😍 I thought it would be a "Haha funny" movie but it really moved me and I also didn't expect the first part to be so emotional. p.s. thnx for the blank copy paste, sorry for forgetting 🥲🥲

@a-fluffer-nutter wow good luck on the move to the UK and congrats on 8 years tumblr, I still remember you being one of the first tk blogs i encountered 😌

@lovelymessybubbly wooow it feels like AGES, sorry to hear about the low mental energy but hope you're doing well ^^!

[dazai-anon-archive-taketwo]

Your answer is complete bullshit. What the dazai anon did is nowhere as serious as what you are doing. You want her personal life basically sabotaged, and all she did was send you a couple of cruel messages that made you have a bad day, guess what? That’s everyday for the dazai anon. She’s just fucking tired of the treatment her favorite character faces form this shitty fandom, even his own “stans” join in the hate against him but there seems to be some hypocrisy against chuuya or even the fucking pedophile mori.

All she did was send mean things out of frustration and anger, she deserves to feel that way. I don’t agree with death threats, but nothing about her behavior is “harassment” or “grooming minors” you’re all dumb fucking idiotic children and it shows seeing how you label petty internet fights as “crimes”, at the end of the day, did you lose your degree? did you lose your job? are you in constant fear and suicidal ideations because you’re scared you’re going to jail over THE FICTIONAL CHARACTER CHUUYA NAKAHARA of all things???? No! You are completely fine and living your life with no fears or anxieties as she is. Your blog is also completely useless btw! No one is gonna make a case on this, your parents didn’t which is why they asked u to delete the previous blog. Follow their advice again and leave the Dazai anon the FUCK alone and have the balls to actually face her without holding legal threats over her head. You pieces of shits.

What she does is tell people to kill themselves and say that she hopes they die, that their pets die, that they fail their finals, that their mental health/life gets worse. All over fictional characters, and we are just documenting it. At most she might get a fine, or have her Tumblr/Twitter privileges removed. I'm not sure how that second one would play out but I know people have been banned from sites.

As for the. having a bad day bit. I've mentioned this to her before but I have several disorders that make everyday hard for me too, most notably that I've been either passively or actively suicidal for the last 6 years. How do you think her damn near constant hate and harassment of me and my friends affects my mental state? I say it doesn't get to me because it doesn't incapacitate me and I don't want my friends to worry. The shit builds up. I have blocked her, I have reported her, I have ignored her, I have asked her to leave me alone. None of that has worked.

I understand the frustration she goes through, that's the whole reason I don't interact with the pjo fandom anymore. I was taking everything personally, I couldn't play nice with others and I realized that I was problem so I stopped interacting with it. That is my oldest special interest that has kept me alive multiple times. I do not post about it. Because it is unreasonable for me to ask everyone else in the fandom to only see it my way.

She has become the problem here and needs to deal with that. It is not fair to everyone else here for her to decide that her way is the only right way and everyone who disagrees is against her specifically. She absolutely has every right to feel angry or frustrated but she does not have the right to take that out on everyone else, if she doesn't want to block people and respect people blocking her she needs to leave until she can play nice.

As for the legal action, she can stop harassing people right now and case will likely go nowhere. And I have tried to talk to her about the things she does without "threatening legal action" and she called me a cunt and stupid and jobless and a dickrider and a doormat. She isn't willing to talk things out and treat others with respect, so we have this blog. And we have gotten a few asks regarding legal action, we haven't answered them publicly because Kavya tends to harass anyone mentioned here.

-2

[catboybiologist]

Hey I feel like I remember someone using crispr (or other gene editing method) to successfully edit her own genome and since I saw the article on tumblr and I think I remember her doing it for trans reasons it feels like something you'd know about. Google isn't helping, do you know who im talking about?

Yup I remember that.

Tl;Dr: I don't buy this instance of it, but there's some nuggets of theory that she built upon that are reasonable.

I'm gonna try to keep this brief and simple.

Here was the basic theory, extremely oversimplified: normal cell development follows a kind of "tree". A stem cell can become a couple different kinds of other stem cells that are more specific, and onwards, until they become "fully differentiated" cell types. These are the cells we know and love: nerve, skin, muscle, etc.

Stem cell research is so valuable because of this- "replacement" tissue can be generated for any other kind of cell with stem cells.

But in extremely rare cases, a process called transdifferentiation can occur. Essentially, a fully differentiated cell type becomes a different cell type without reverting to a stem cell state at all. Imagine a bit of heart tissue becoming an intestine.

It's an extremely poorly understood process. Like, EXTREMELY poorly understood, and the basic dynamics of how it works are a subject of active research. However, it's generally understood that in some organisms, under some extreme external circumstances, in certain cell types, it can be induced by adding in or blocking the right signal.

Based on one study that did a trial on natal male mice, there is a gene that, when knocked down, MIGHT cause transdifferentiation of testes cells into ovarian tissue, which would then secrete estrogens.

CRISPR is used to target a small segment of DNA and cleanly "cut" it out of the genome.

Now. What did this woman actually do?

Well, we don't have much to go on. It was a single thread, less than a paragraph in total, from a "bio hackers" forum. The only data provided was a text document of estrogen levels, one time point before and one time point after, and a diagram of the insert vector that would target the gene mentioned before. What she's claiming she did is inject this vector into her testes, and that the resulting estrogen level afterwards is from her being off HRT, and therefore is a result of ovarian tissue producing it.

But there's SO many confounding factors here, and SO little to go on. Self-professed "bio hackers" are kinda notorious for not having great ideas of what they're doing- not in a dangerous way, more in a "wasting time and money on things that don't work" way. And even for them, there's almost nothing to go on here.

Am I saying the entire thing is fake? Not necessarily, I don't like to jump to "people are lying". However, I am saying that there are too many confounding factors that could have easily kept E high for a long time to question Contrary to what popular media would have you believe, CRISPR is extremely fickle, and not well optimized for humans. I'm also saying that, without additional time points or verification of data, those hormones levels could just be taking a longer time to change.

In fact, I literally consider it more likely that transfemme HRT for extended periods of time might be able to cause transdifferentiation in extremely small amounts on its own. It's been possibly documented going the other direction:

I say possibly because there are other potential explanations that haven't been investigated yet, and it's never been studied in transfemmes. Either way, is it enough to endogenously produce hormones at cis female levels? Maybe, after a decade or so. But I want to see a lot more investigation into it.

Generously, I want to say that long term HRT did cause a lasting change- either the pituitary suppression of testosterone was so prolonged that it took a long time to rebound, or there actually is some transdifferentiation happening as a result of previous HRT itself. I don't think there's a world where the CRISPR actually worked.

Now. Is CRISPR to edit the genome to cause transdifferentiation of testes into ovarian tissue, that would be just enough of an ovary to produce estradiol, theoretically possible? Probably yes, actually! But did someone do it with no documentation, minimal funding, and then disappear afterwards? Not really buying it.

[butwhatifidothis]

Harassment is horrible, it's terrible mods in this Discord aren't doing anything.

But on the other hand, what about you? You harassed a person over *fanfiction* ( to the point it's the 4th tag who shows up on your blog ). Yet, all your harassment is still there out of the open. You haven't really seriously apologized, especially to them. You're still quite active on fe3h discourse while he had to remove himself from many public online space.

How is this fair?

You're rightfully upset about harassment towards members of your community, there should be *serious* amends made... But how can you hold double standards like that?

I haven't followed the discourse closely because it's so awful, why are you all so hateful? Because you just seems like one of the "bad guy" in this story along with Raxis and the other. I'm not saying you're the same, but you're not really better than those you criticize either, and the same apply for the other blog who participed in your harassment... It's just horrible all around. You're all drowning in a cesspool of toxicity and it's making you all worst people than you actually are.

I hope you, and people around you, will at least receive amend over the harm caused to them. I hope you stop receiving troll, death threat and any other type of hate message you probably still receive. But I hope you'll sincerely recognize your faults and fully amend to them too.

Look, I know you probably mean some kind of well and that you likely spent a long time thinking over this message, so I'm going to lay it out as simply as I can:

I have never once interacted with Cap'n himself, and I have repeatedly told anyone reading my posts to do the same. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who went out of their way to make sure we saw what they were saying about us. This includes publicly admitting to using alts to go around our blocks of them so that they can keep interacting with us directly

Very quickly into critiquing Cap'n's work, a primary focus became pointing out the problematic rhetoric he was spreading with his incredibly influential, incredibly popular fanfic. This includes the justification of holding racist rhetoric, the anti-miscegenation rhetoric, the infantilization of women, the demonization of men, the justification of imperialism, and more, all which appear very quickly into the story and stay prominent throughout the story. The people who have harassed me and others, meanwhile, either deny this rhetoric exists in their circles or outright hold this rhetoric themselves. This includes the use and defense of genocide apologetics.

This post is the first time I have talked about Cap'n in over a year, and the last time I posted any notes on his fic was over a year and a half ago. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have engaged in harassing behaviors as recently as this week (as of Aug 18 2024).

It has been explicitly said by those close to Cap'n that my notes, while upsetting him, had no part in him leaning away from social media more, unlike what you say here. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have driven off multiple people from social media and have openly patted themselves on the back for doing so, justifying their harassment by saying the people they've harassed off social media deserved it.

I have kept my critiques strictly on this Tumblr, as have most of the people who have talked about Cap'n's fic. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have spread their harassment on places such as Twitter, Reddit, and TVTropes.

I have refrained from ever accusing Cap'n of ever holding any bigoted views himself, and have made it a repeated point to say that his problematic writing is far more likely due to ignorance of the subjects involved rather than outright malice. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have accused many of us as people of being sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. based off of nothing. This includes accusing at least one of us of actual crimes against actual people with no proof and on multiple sites such as the popular and public Edelgard Discord and on Reddit.

People who said they were in contact with Cap'n (as in, mods of the Discord server that Cap'n was once in, the same server that has the mod that uses genocide apologetics) have been told that I was willing to remove parts of my notes that he found too attacking or harsh, and they've been told that I would outright remove all of my posts regarding Cap'n period if he would talk to me directly and we could discuss the implications and rhetoric he had accidentally written into his story. While I do understand him not wanting to do the latter (as it involves directly talking to me), he hadn't even done the former (which does not involve directly talking to me and only involves relaying messages through his friends). And with all of the above on top of that, it gives me the impression that he feels less like "this person is harassing me and that is giving my anxiety" and more "this person is critiquing me and I don't like that." While he has every right to feel the latter, we aren't going to sit here and say that's the same as the former.

So, nonnie, to answer why I am "hateful," as you put it: I don't like stories that unironically say being two races mean you don't belong to either race being influential in a fandom, as a mixed-race woman. I don't like stories that have characters of color only be used as props for the author's favorite little white girl to be influential in fandom, as a person of color. I don't like stories saying that women just want to go back to being innocent pure little girls and not be the wilted tainted flowers they are now to be influential in a fandom, as a woman. I don't like stories that lay the blame of all the world's suffering on the shoulders of a race of people who've barely survived a genocide to be influential in a fandom, as a person with a modicum of knowledge on where that rhetoric inevitably leads to. I don't like stories saying that men who don't bow down to women will almost certainly become rapist pigs or otherwise terrorizing monsters to be influential in a fandom, as someone who rejects sexism of all forms. I don't like stories that liken the violent conquests of imperialism to the blooming of flowers, or that say that imperialism is the only way for the "good" culture to help everyone - actual, genuine rhetoric used to justify actual, genuine imperialism - to be influential in a fandom, as someone who has read any history book ever.

And I don't like how all of this and more have clearly been normalized in big 3H fandom circles and how this has led to multiple people getting harassed, in no small part due to Cap'n's influence on the fandom at large.

I'm sorry if Cap'n doesn't like me pointing out the bigotry he had engraved throughout his story, and I'm sorry if I'm not going to be convinced that me doing that is the same as people's deliberate and long-standing attempts to chase people out of the fandom for saying they don't like Edelgard in the one way they allow anyone to like her, and I'm sorry that me calling out the racism people are engaging in and are hiding behind the shield of "discourse" seems to bother you so much, but I think I've explained why I'm not exactly that sorry well enough. Hope this answers your question <3

[yurtb0y]

GNAWING ON THAT OC GIVE ME INFORMATION

YESYES OKAY!!! *inhale* SO.

(this all might change later since he's still pretty new)

General info I guess (haven't fleshed out his backstory much yet.)

was a Catholic priest before the AM takeover (obvis)

he's roughly in his mid/late 30's- early 40's

he doesn't have a name yet because I'm stupid.

He lived in the United States when AM attacked. He was born in Poland and moved to the US in his mid 20's. (probably someplace like Texas or Utah... )

probably gay or in some way queer but DEEPLY in denial. (also in my mind IHNMAIMS takes place in the 60s/70s somewhere around that time so like... y'know... also makes room for the religious guilt plotline.)

Kinda stopped believing in god after long enough in AM's complex because like really who wouldn't. throwback to Ted's entire spiel about AM being god y'know the one.( Ik that wasn't meant litterally but the sentiment still works.)

As for his relationship with the other survivors and his torture.

Ellen- He'd most likely be less harsh on her and not really like.... *ahem*. use her. He'd always been a pretty compassionate man he was never like the freaky creep kind of priest/pastor. He can most likely sympathize with her past a bit as well- or atleast as much of it as she's willing to share which I imagine isn't much.

Nimdok- This mf is Polish. He does not like Nimdok. (If we're talking game Nimdok which is what I'm basing this... AU, I guess? off of.) I don't think they'd actively beef but they'd prolly just try to avoid eachother within the group. In terms of book Nimdok I think there's a slight possibility they could've gotten along. Honestly for Nimdok like... (Idr if where I saw this I think it was from a fic somewhere) but I like the idea that he wasn't actually a n*zi but since it's mentioned his memory is fucked AM just convinced him and the others he was so pin them against him and fuck with him some more. idk man allied mastercomputer behaviour. It also makes me dread thinking about him a little less.

Gorrister- Surprisingly, I think they'd get along. Even if they don't share a religion I think they'd find solace in confiding their guilts in eachother, esp with Gorrister's guilt over what happened with Glynis-- also since it's mentioned in the book Gorrister used to be an activist (which I think is more interesting than his trucker backstory from the game so I'm sticking with the activist storyline.) I feel like he's the least likely to be quite as homophobic as the others (cause let's be real here.) so maybe. MAYBE. He'd eventually try talking about some of those buried up feelings with Gorrister. Unlikely though. Overall I think they could be the closest thing to friends I can imagine with their situation.

Benny- I think they could've gotten along pre-monkey'd, (For Benny I like to combine his book and game backstory in my mind so tldr he was a professor and was later fired when it was discovered he was gay and then the enlisted in the military and killed 3 people. boom.) I think Priest oc would've respected them but after the monkey moment I feel like he'd kinda treat him like the family dog just as the other survivors do.

Ted- Ohhh boy. I have some words I'm not sure I'm allowed to use on Tumblr. They'd either get along or beef or some secret third evil and more sinister thing. Toxic without the yaoi. They make eachother worse. I need to map my thoughts out better before I write anything about them out. giggles but not in a good way.

wow I really used this as an excuse to dump about my ideas for the other survivors too huh.

Whilst I haven't sat down to ponder how AM would fuck with him I do know I wanna play off the theme of guilt somehow. I can imagine him being ripped apart by wolves for some reason that's just been like stuck in my head the whole time I've been typing all this out. Also maybe almost something with sacrificial themes? I'm kinda thinking about how Benny's part in the game ends for inspo on that it's hitting the right vibe. Please don't cancel me I'm Polish and all my family is Catholic.

Annon I hoped you liked reading this cause I had fun writing it. Also here he is again for anyone who's seeing this but didn't see the og post.

also I'm SO open to name suggestions for this freak cause I've got NOTHING.

[nkjemisin]

You should try to go see public works Tempest in central park, it’s really incredible and reminded me of the city we became. It’s super insane and beautiful and wild and hard to describe, so even though it’s insane to ask someone to go stand in line all day to see a play based off a random tumblr message I really think you should!

Oooh, I haven't done the line for Shakespeare in the Park in years. Not sure I still have it in me, since it requires getting up at 3 or 4 am and spending hours fighting line-jumpers and so on. But I've been hearing good things about this year's Tempest so maybe I'll muster up the energy. Thanks for the recommendation!

Since you reminded me of it, here's a deleted scene/alternate opening I once wrote for THE WORLD WE MAKE. I decided on a different opening for the final version, obvs, but maybe you'll enjoy what might have been. Cutting because long.

     He's just a man standing on a rooftop.  The outfit he's wearing is bespoke, by a Harlem tailor who came in second on Project Runway's last season.  The jacket is rich brown suede, fine-stitched, over olive-tan pants and a piqué shirt of deepest royal indigo, and he's wearing the hell out of it.  If there were anyone around to see, they'd think he was a model, standing in the kind of casual-at-attention pose that only men in magazine photo shoots ever do, with one hand in a pocket and his gaze thoughtfully locked on the cityscape horizon.  The model aesthetic is reinforced by the fact that he's got a lean, strong figure and the kind of racial ambiguity that Hollywood diversity advocates love:  brown skin that's not too brown, lips full enough to be either natural or recent collagen injections, thick eyebrows that are as sculpted as his cheekbones, eyes with just enough epicanthic fold to qualify as "exotic" but not in like an ethnic way.

     He's not a model.  He's just Manhattan, human representative of New York's contributions to the fashion, media, and sex work industries.  He's not even trying particularly hard to look good.  He has simply stopped resisting what comes naturally.

     But he's about to be late for work -- and while New York custom permits a degree of conspicuous tardiness as a social power move in certain situations, this particular job is too personally important to him for such games.  So he steps up onto the low wall that surrounds the roof, and then he steps off.

     It's fine.  The building is twelve stories tall; anything over five stories is required to have an elevator per city ordinance.  He's been practicing, too, so all he has to do is shut his eyes and imagine, and the city's power holds him aloft in midair as solidly as if he's stepping onto flooring.  (He is; it's just flooring that exists in several other iterations of his universe.)  Even with this, however, he makes sure to take a step or two forward before calmly turning away from the cityscape.  People don't usually stare at the back of an elevator, after all -- and verisimilitude is key.  "First floor, please," he murmurs. In earlier days of the city, building elevators were a complicated luxury that required trained staff to operate.  In current days of the city, many elevators run on voice activation. At Manhattan's request, there is an electronic ping of acknowledgement, followed by a very faint echo of blended, long-vanished voices:  "Watch the door, please, watch your hands, going down."  Then he begins to descend.  It's smooth, slow; this is only a mid-sized building, not modern or expensive enough to have an express elevator.  Only the fact that he's descending through thin air makes it odd.

     Just above the sidewalk his descent slows, letting him drift to a gentle halt.  There are a few dozen people on the street in this moment, and some of them notice as he just stands there for a moment, letting the metaphysical aethers settle and the metaphorical elevator doors open.  The ones who stare are tourists.  New Yorkers generally don't react to strangeness, but they do notice it, if only to shake their heads and murmur "This fucking city," to themselves before moving on.  Manhattan catches the eye of one of the starers, winks and smiles, then strides off down the street.

     As he walks, he hums John Coltrane's "Central Park West" -- not for power this time, but simply because he's walking along Central Park West and likes the song.  It's also a beautiful day. Here at the heart of the city it is clear that autumn encroaches:  Central Park is across the street, dense with color-shifting trees.  Their whispers speak to the part of Manhattan that was more, once, than just concrete and cars; the island has always been here, after all, crossroads for many peoples, and those millennia of commerce were enough to form the building blocks of the living entity that it is now.  But mostly, he just likes that rustling sound, and the flickers of color and movement, and the faint whiff of chemical sugars forming and breaking down within the leaves.  Something about that scent, and the wind's occasional brisk sharpness, speaks to him.

     There is the lightest of touches upon the part of him that is more than a man.  Just a ping, to get his attention.  "You wanna focus, or you gonna just keep spacing out about the pretty pretty trees, Mr. I Was Bebop Before It Was Cool?"

     They've all figured out that words work better than thoughts.  They are one city, the six of them, and if they ever need to, they can function as a single brain and heart and will -- but doing that is as overwhelming as it is thrilling.  New York isn't supposed to be any single thing, see; the distinct characters of its boroughs are part of its strength.  More personally, Manny's probably never going to be super-comfortable with letting his fellow parts of the city into his head, because he's got enough going on in there already. 

     But he's right in reminding Manny to focus.  "Just getting into the spirit," Manny replies, waiting for a gap in the traffic before trotting across the street.  Then he vaults the low stone wall around the edge of the park.  It's a twelve-foot drop beyond, but he manages it easily enough, landing in a crouch in a wooded thicket already carpeted in red and gold leaves.  Doesn't even make his knees twinge.  Nothing can hurt New York, in New York, except New York. 

     Well.  And one other thing.

     He moves forward at a brisk Midtown pace, pushing aside the branches of small trees as gently as he can so as not to damage them.  He starts finding white tendrils almost immediately.  Just small patches here and there:  three wigglers on a broad, still-green sycamore leaf, one on the tree's gnarling roots nearby.  A patch shaped like a handprint growing atop a hooded garbage can; that one's especially nasty, positioned as it is to infect anyone who actually tries to deposit their litter in the can instead of just tossing it somewhere.  "Rude," Manny murmurs.  He's getting rid of the patches as he passes them, just by touching the wood or ground or metal near each cluster and letting a little of "Central Park West" riff through his mind and down his arm and out through his fingers.  Earworms can be handy.  Good for killing other wormlike things.

     (Not so long ago, it would have taken everything Manny had to get rid of these things.  He had to replace all his credit cards after symbolically buying all the real estate around a particular rock in Inwood Park.  Now, however, the city is whole -- and these tendrils, tenacious as they are, are tourists from another urban locale who've overstayed their welcome.  It's easy to obliterate them, but it's more important to find the bus they came in on, and deal with that.)

     "Red alert!" says Padmini -- Queens -- suddenly.  She tugs on the shared part of their consciousness, projecting an image onto it that is stunning in its precision:  a three-dimensional and topographical map, with a moving cursor at its center and a GPS coordinate meter in the bottom corner.  Padmini abruptly zooms them in on the cursor, and then she presents them with a simplified view through her own eyes.

     There, jolting slightly as Padmini runs, is their quarry.  To most other people in Central Park, the young man who slips down a leaf-thick hill and then scrabbles his way over a tumbled, mossy pile of bedrock is just another cross-country runner, or maybe a parkour practitioner with a greater love of natural settings than most.  He's a lanky Indian-looking guy, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt -- but through the lens of Padmini's vision, Manny sees the rest.  The guy's got patches of white fronds all over him, and as he runs they waft back like long hair which just happens to be growing from his forearms and shins and ass.  Manny's used to this, people who look like yeti crabs, however horrible it is.  Far worse is the tendril which projects from the back of the young man's neck, thick and veined in a disturbingly umbilical way, forming a long white cord which twists up and out of sight amid the trees.  It stretches up into the sky, Manny knows from three months' experience, attenuating until it disappears from human eyesight with distance -- but wending southward before it does.  They all know where that cable terminates.

     "Mike check," says Veneza, and Manny's mental eye shifts to her view.  She's standing under one of the park's stone bridges, her vision bouncing a little as she crouches to stretch out her ankles.  Getting ready to run.  Manny feels her excitement as the tendril-covered man comes into view, jogging over a grassy hill covered in early-afternoon sunbathers.  But who's he kidding?  They all enjoy this.  "That's it.  Come to mamãe.  Drive him like a li'l doggie on the range, Queeny McQueenyface."

     "I can't believe you mixed like three metaphors in ten seconds," Padmini replies -- but she zigs left, across one of the roads of the park.  Manny catches his breath as she veers into a bike lane, because Central Park bikers all think they're in the Tour de France, but in the same moment he feels her latch into the bikers' sense of hurry and entitlement, drawing their power into her legs.  Her pace speeds up sharply, until she's nearly flying down a sloping sidewalk, veering now and again to move around walkers and a small crowd near a pretzel vendor.

     "That's the Jersey in me.  Metaphors are our pork roll."

"Your what?"

"Pork roll. Look it -- wait, shit, hang on."

     Tendril man has seen Veneza and stopped, halfway down the grassy hill.  It's eerie to Manny how still he is.  After all the running and climbing he's done, he should be out of breath, shoulders heaving, dripping sweat, but he isn't.  It's just like the other cases of this they've encountered in the past few weeks; they're running on something other than human power.  These tendril-people aren't avatars, however; they're more like drones, sent forth by some other malevolent consciousness and endowed with supernatural power only temporarily, and for their task.  And if they don't catch this poor guy before that power gets done using him --  Well.  Manny picks up the pace. 

     Padmini skids to a halt.  (A man nearby does a double-take, then nods in a grudgingly impressed way at her athleticism.)  "Shit.  He's going to bolt, isn't he?"

     In lieu of any reply, they all see Tendril Man bolt.  He jumps off the steeper side of the rocky hill -- a ten-foot drop; Manny really hopes the poor guy was in shape before he got drafted as a spectral conduit for a hostile extradimensional essence, or he's going to feel that in the morning. Then Tendril Man takes off, moving with truly impressive speed up a paved hill-path.

     "FUCK," two of them think.  (Manny doesn't curse, but he empathizes.)  They all take off running too.

     Tendril Man is running toward a big, round building at the top of the hill.  Its vendor doors are shut and there are only a few people hanging around near it, but abruptly he zigs toward a big wooden gate labeled PERFORMER ENTRANCE -- and vaults it, with the ease of a master gymnast.  Manny might be able to think of a way over it too, if he gives himself a minute; surely there is some quintessentially cityish concept, like elevators for tall buildings, that he can harness to grant himself the ability to jump like that.  In the fluster of the moment, however, he can't think of anything.  Gotta work on that, do better at having a "jumping" construct ready to go under duress.

     In lieu of leaping, however, he manages to remember the grating sound of garbage trucks barrelling down the street at oh dark thirty in the morning, usually with wonky transmissions and brakes that screech loudly enough to set off car alarms.  Manny's seen several of them scrape or bang into cars without bothering to stop -- and so he draws into himself the desperate need to hurry and finish a shift, the hulking size and diesel-fueled strength of the trucks, the cheerful pragmatism of the tough workers who chuck heavy bags and kick rats with unflappable equanimity.  And as Manny runs at the gate, the world blurs a little and an eyewatering stench surrounds him, and he finds it almost impossible to care about collateral damage because he's got a job to do, come on, come on, let's go...

     He remembers enough of himself to dip his shoulder a little as he hits the gate.  It only looks like wood; underneath, there's plenty of metal, and he sees that the gate has an electronic number-lock.  Probably pretty solid.  But his supernaturally-powered shoulder smashes the gate wide open, actually cracking the whole frame in half, too, and part of the fence beyond it.

     Oops.  Well, he'll make a donation on the website, because now that he's through the gate he sees:  THE DELACOURTE THEATER WELCOMES YOU TO SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK.

     Tendril Guy is running down the steps of what Manny now sees is a huge open-air amphitheater.  He leaps again, a pretty impressive standing jump onto the stage -- and then he stops abruptly.  There's a set being deconstructed here; Shakespeare in the Park only runs during the summer months, so someone's in the middle of stripping gigantic rolls of fake grass off the stage floor.  And now, from within a huge prop built to look like a small apartment building, the avatar of New York steps forth to confront their enemy.

     He's calling himself "Neek," these days -- a phonetic pronunciation of the initials for New York City.  He hasn't told them his real name.  Manny's not sure it matters anyway; doesn't Manny, of all people, understand that they are no longer who they were?  The knowledge and joy and danger of eight million people has found its focus in Neek, and like any of their fellow great cities, this makes him strange.  São Paulo was the same, whenever Manny had time and peace enough to study him: a young-old man who radiated urbane cynicism and eerie wisdom all at once.  Hong Kong too.  Maybe this is the difference between those who represent boroughs or neighborhoods, and those who are whole cities in themselves. 

     Or maybe it's just Neek.  "Yo, man, take a breath," he says to Tendril Guy, as he slouches out of shadow.  "Touch some, uh, astroturf.  You keep letting that shit run you, won't be anything of you left."

     Tendril Guy immediately turns to run, but by this point Manny has reached the other side of the stage.  Veneza is in the ampitheater, trotting toward them from the other direction, and from somewhere backstage they can hear Padmini cursing and shoving something heavy aside, because apparently backstage is a mess amid the set breakdown.  Unless Tendril Guy can fly -- and Manny puts nothing past the Woman in White -- then he's got nowhere left to run.

     It's a dangerous time, though.  In the past, whenever they've cornered one of her minions...  Tendril Guy backs up, looks around, starts to get tense.  Manny tries to think up a construct, and finds himself looking around.  At the stage.

     Neek's gaze flicks to him, and the little smile on his face widens.

     "Two cities," he declares suddenly, spreading his arms wide and raising his voice.  The Delacourte's acoustics are perfect, of course, designed to facilitate an outdoors theatrical performance.  "Both alike in dignity!  In fair Manhattan where we lay our scene."

     Of course the theater absorbs this slightly-fudged homage, echoes it, amplifies it, and sends back a reverberation of energy:  the faint murmurs and anticipation of a crowd, a lilt of music from a nonexistent orchestra.  For just a fleeting moment Manny can almost see the suggestion of bodies in the amphitheater seats, shadowy heads that turn to each other or crane their necks or flip through Playbills.  Ready to be enraptured.

     Manny finds himself grinning -- but then he panics a little as Neek raises his eyebrows pointedly, because Manny doesn't have any Shakespeare memorized.  But Broadway is only a few dozen blocks away; maybe he can use that instead?  He sifts quickly through the grab-bag of random quotes in his head. Can't think of an actual line from an actual play, but it's a direct reference, so he clears his throat awkwardly and sings:  "They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.  There might be city magic in the air."

     Stage lights, multihued but mostly white, appear above the seats.  The lights aren't real. Manny can see most of the lighting equipment disassembled and stacked up to one side of the stage. Tendril Guy flinches suddenly and violently, staggering back.  Steam rises as Tendril Guy raises his arms defensively, the tendrils on him whipping and hissing wildly as the city's light begins to burn them away.

     They have to keep it going.  Veneza giggles and runs down the steps, leaping to a crouch as if she's acting out some play or another, and sings, "Now is the time to seize the day!  Answer the call and don't delay!  New York can be righted, boroughs united; let us seize the day!" In response, loose cables curled on one side of the stage suddenly come to life, whipping around Tendril Guy's legs to keep him from running again.

     One of the doors on the prop building slams open dramatically. Beyond it they can see Padmini pushing aside a rack of clothing that persistently keeps trying to roll toward her.  She manages it, stumbles out, and glowers around at all of them.  Veneza gestures frantically for her to take up the thread; Neek spreads his hands too in the universal sign of Come on, hurry up.  Finally, with a little growl, Padmini snaps, "Oh, fine.  'Immigrants:  We get the job done!'" This doesn't seem to have any effect at first, but then Padmini shoves a large, heavy-looking wooden desk out of the way with ease; she's much stronger, now. Enough to get this job done.

     As performances go, it's all terrible.  Slapdash, random, corny; Manny won't be surprised if in the morning they all receive a clipped-out review from a theater magazine that exists only in some alternate reality, panning all of them for defiling the stage.  But as a construct, drawing on the power of three boroughs and the delight of a thousand audiences, from the Delacourte to the Fringe Festival and back, it's exactly what they need. 

     Then, his voice muffled by his own extradimensional growths, Manny hears Tendril Guy -- or maybe the guy within the pelt of tendrils -- try to speak.  "A-all the w-world..." he murmurs, his voice thick, too deep, flanged in a way that sounds like bad special effects.  He's steaming all over, now.  Ah, and at last Manny sees the tendrils burning away, peeling off and curling into nothingness.  As he lowers his arms, Manny sees that he's sweaty-faced and visibly exhausted... but he is smiling.  He turns to face the whispering, flickering audience, and all at once Manny can feel him.  Tendril Guy is part of New York, again -- and he knows it, and some part of his soul rejoices with the knowledge.  Probably helps that the guy is a former theater kid himself; Manny can feel that, now that the Enemy's influence has been broken. Neek grins at Manny; he can feel it, too.

     So then Neek goes over to Tendril Guy, leans close, and blows on the now-shriveled cord attached to the back of his neck.  It snaps free as if Neek's breathed fire onto it, uttering a faint creel of inhuman pain -- and then the cord is snatched away upwards, into the darkening evening sky.  Manny catches a fleeting hint of sinuous movement against the clouds, southward, and then it is gone.

     Tendril Guy, who is now just Some Guy, beams at Neek.  Then he steps back and lifts a finger.  "All the world's a stage," he says again -- clearly this time, in a pleasant baritone, projecting with the ease of long practice.  "And all the men and women merely players!  They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

     He does the whole monologue then, perfectly.  Not that Manny would know if he got it right -- but the Delacourte does, and as Manny glances out at their whispery audience, he sees smiles, hears soft "ahs" and giggles of approval with every precisely-enunciated line.  As Some Guy finishes, applause breaks out, echoing with unreality but loud and enthusiastic.  The artist formerly known as Tendril Guy beams in delight and extends his hands for Manny and Neek to take.  They do.  Padmini, her pique fading now that she's no longer fighting furniture, shakes her head and takes Neek's hand; Veneza giggles and runs up the steps to take Manny's.  The applause goes on as, uh, Theater Guy leads them in first one bow, and then another.  Someone in the audience whistles.  Someone else yells "Encore!"  It's intoxicating.  They bow a third time.  As at last the applause fades and the lights start to go dark... Theater Guy collapses, between them.

     "Oh, no," Veneza says, her delight vanishing.  "Please, not again -- "

     "He's fine," Manny says, crouching by Theater Guy, though he checks Theater Guy's neck-pulse and breathing just to be sure.  It's there, though the guy's skin is clammy with sweat.

     "Close," Neek says.  He's looking up at the sky, after the ugly cable that had been attached to the guy's neck.

     It's only the second time that they've successfully rescued one of these agents of the Woman in White, sent forth from her bastion in Staten Island to... well, Manny's not exactly sure what their purpose is.  Are they superspreaders meant to reinfect the city, and thus help her regain the foothold that she lost three months before?  Are they drones of a sort, reconnoitering enemy territory?  Either way, the result is always the same, if Manny and his fellow avatars don't catch the tendril-bearer and cleanse them in time:  the person burns out and dies, all of their strength used up by the alien intelligence that has worn them like a puppet.

     Not this time, though.  "Let's get him outside," Manny says, grunting as he pulls Theater Guy up.  "Easier for an ambulance to get to him out there."

     "But what about after?" Padmini asks.  She comes over to help him wrestle the guy into a sitting position, so that Manny can pull him into a fireman's carry.  "Uff, he's heavy!  But if somebody calls his family and they take him back to Staten Island, will she just take him over again?  What if she's mad at him for getting caught by us?"

     "It's fine," Neek says.  He's still turned away from them, facing southward.  There is an odd note in his voice, however, which makes Manny frown at his back.  Neek sounds... distracted.  "Most of the folks on Staten are fine.  The ones who commute here lose their little wigglers when they step off the ferry, unless they've got one of those bigger cable-things attached to them.  Grow 'em back on the after-work ride.  They don't even notice."

     "Remember what it was like when she was all over the city," Manny adds.  "All those people she... infected.  She used them if she needed them and ignored them otherwise.  They became part of her, but they didn't seem to mean anything to her, any more than..."  He shakes his head, to the degree that he can with Theater Guy on his shoulders.  "Individual hairs on a person's head.  How often do we notice when we lose one, or when it grows back?"

     "We shouldn't let him go back at all," Padmini says, scowling.  "We know she's doing something to all those people.  He's safer here!"

     Neek focuses enough to turn and eye her over his shoulder.  His tone is mild and his expression neutral, but his words have a sharp point.  "You gonna spring for an apartment for him somewhere?  Let him go crash with ya auntie and the fam?"

     "No, but -- "

     "I know a good spot under the Williamsburg."  Neek's relentless.  "Probably still good even with all the cleanup and construction since the bridge broke.  Warm on cold nights, hard to see so the kids and assholes don't fuck with you.  We could dump him there."

     Padmini sets her jaw.  "Fine.  Point made.  But Staten Islanders are still people, and we should try to help them."

     Veneza, who was peering into the orchestra pit in fascination, turns back to them, plainly uneasy at the tension she's picking up.  "We are.  But I mean, Pads... that's not really our job."

     Now they all fall into an uncomfortable silence, because sometimes the truth is hard.  And the truth is that the avatar of Staten Island is not here with them today because she has rejected them, and thrown her people to the interdimensional wolves by doing so. They are all of them New York... but they are not Staten Island, not anymore. Theater Guy's ultimate fate isn't theirs to make.

     "Ay yo fuck that bird," Neek says, scowling at Veneza, who blinks in surprise.  "Her and Squigglebitch tried to kill us, remember?  Tried to eat you.  Let Staten Island die."

     Padmini stares at him.  "Wait.  What?  Let a whole borough die?  Are you crazy?"

     "Fuck them."  Neek gestures sharply, southward.  "Everyone on Staten Island.  Buncha racist redneck Republican dumbasses, nobody needs them.  They're the reason she's still here, hanging over this city like a fucking guillotine.  I'm tired of stressing about this shit!  Let her flyover country ass die with the rest of them nobody-nothing sons of bitches."

     Manny flinches, despite himself.  That's beyond harsh.  And something about this little rant feels... off.  He's known Neek for all of three months, but in that time Neek has been a quiet and low-key leader of their group, unusually even-keeled for the personification of a city known for its aggression.  Are you okay?  rises to Manny's lips, but he refrains from saying it, aware that it could sound patronizing.  He's wondering it, though.

     All at once different lights snap on within the theater -- not stage lights, but all the rest. Padmini frowns at this.  "Hey, we don't need these anymore.  Which one of you -- "

     Abruptly a piercing electronic alarm sounds throughout the theater, and the lights all turn a startling, awful red.

     "What the shit?"  Neek says.  He blinks as if dazed, turning to stare up at the lights -- and then he stiffens.  "Manny.  You doing that?"

     Manny can barely hear him over the noise.  "No, why would I?  Can't you stop it?"  Neek is New York.  He has better control over the city's power than any of them... but all of a sudden, the city feels strange. Sluggish and reluctant, when Manny gently urges it to shut off the alarm. It's responsive, but unreliable and slow in a way Manny's never noticed before.

     And to Manny's surprise, Neek takes a step back, his very posture radiating unease.  "I... can't.  Nothing's happening. What the fuck."  He shakes his head.

     "Yo, uh, we should go," Veneza says, bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet.  "If that's a break-in alarm -- I mean, we did break in, but -- "

     The Delacourte sits the middle of Central Park, in one of the city's toniest neighborhoods, and is the site of one of its most popular attractions.  "Out," Manny snaps, when it becomes clear that Neek has been so thrown by the situation that he's not reacting quickly enough. "Now."

     Veneza's already moving, running to the edge of the stage.  Manny follows her as quickly as he can with Theater Guy, and Padmini grabs Neek, dragging him along when he doesn't move fast enough.  "Cover your faces!" she cries -- and, yeah, if the city's magic suddenly isn't helping them anymore, that's a good idea.  But Manny can't, unless he wants to drop Theater Guy, who's been through enough.

     There are people milling around in front of the Delacourte, mostly looky-loos reacting to the continuous beeeeeeep of the alarm, but Manny sees how many of them have smartphones in hand.  It can't be helped.  He crouches and carefully sets Theater Guy on a patch of soft grass, and catches the eye of an older lady who is staring at all of them.  "Call 911," he says, with as much urgency as he can.  They can't stop people from filming them fleeing the scene of an apparent break-in, but maybe the sight of someone in distress will distract most of the onlookers.  "This man is hurt and needs an ambulance.  I don't know what happened to him, he just collapsed."

     The lady gasps and starts punching at her phone.  Veneza grabs Manny, tugging so he'll leave Theater Guy there on the ground.  He doesn't want to.  If the cops arrive first, there's a strong chance they'll arrest Theater Guy for the break-in.  If he could just make sure the paramedics arrive first, and that the cops think the alarm is just a mechanical error...  He touches the ground next to his knee and reaches into it, groping for the feel of city power --

     He finds echoes of old audience frustration and annoyed staff and prematurely shutdown vendor services... but these energies will not move in response to his will. What's there feels different from all the other times he's ever used city power -- clotted, somehow. 

     "Dude," Veneza says, giving him a hard yank.  They can hear sirens outside the park, coming closer.  "Come on, man, I ain't doing Rikers for you!"

     Grinding his teeth in frustration, Manny lets Veneza pull him away. They book it for Central Park West again, zigging southward first since there are woods and rock hills in that direction that can obscure their route for anyone trying to put them on TMZ.

       In their wake, the Delacourte's alarm blares until sirens drown it out.

TWWM Deleted Scene 1 by N. K. Jemisin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

[a-x-s-c-e]

Long time no see :')

I just remembered this account exists and finally logged on for first time in a decade. And possibly to the surprise of no one, I still write fanfiction and it's still SasuHina. Go figure.

Some general updates:

"Differently" - AU, Divorce, Rated M, Cross-Posted on FF and AO3 is updated pretty frequently, maybe too frequently, but I've become kind of obsessed with where it's headed. I just updated today! It's posted on AO3 first but I'm about to upload the newest chapter (9) on FF. Maybe it's because I use AO3 a little more, but the review traction is a lot slower on this. If you happen to like this story or give it a go, feel free to review. :')

"Inevitable Reality" - AU, Rated M, only on FF was last updated September 2023, a whole 8 years later from previous chapter. Don't jump me. :( I'm planning on finishing this story this year, or early next. I re-read it recently (and cringed at my old writing) but somehow didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. I forgot how much I love weirdo Hinata and anxious Sasuke, they're too cute to give up on. I was searching the title of this and found it surprisingly on a few recommendation lists. Thanks to those that read it/still message me about it! I promise to work on it this year. I would offer to re-write and fix, but I am not as motivated to do that. We'll see.

SasuHina Month 2024 - I am considering doing it...we'll see! I want to work on writing in universe - I've been so stuck on AUs because I'm always hesistant to write something incorrect with the series. I'm actually re-reading Naruto (and in deep, nostalgic pain from it) and plan to give Boruto another chance. So, if I participate, I'm hoping to write it entirely in universe as a challenge. Stay tuned!

Finally (and just as a bonus wtf comment)

"You're Welcome" - that one's from 2011 (I was a child when I wrote this) and I will never read it again. I cringe at the thought LOL. I want to delete it but I love reviews and sometimes I read them (even if they're old) for a confidence boost. Idk why some of you read it within the last four years, I know it's not well written and that's just me assuming who I was back then - out of all my other stories, this is simply one I physically cannot re-read without my face scrunching up. Anyway TL;DR I won't delete but I wish I had the guts to. Read my other fics instead LOL

In an effort to avoid spamming the SasuHina Discord, I'll just post chapter updates here. I don't know if I'll post as read-mores whatever linked there, and I haven't really been active on tumblr in forever either, so we'll see. I'll likely prepare a fanfic recommendations post soon but don't be surprised if non-SasuHina fics make the cut - I've expanded the net when I run out of things to read heh.

Thanks for reading!

[poisonedspider]

Going to be doing a bit of a blog cleanse, mostly because my anxiety is through the roof right now in terms of things like my portrayal, people not thinking I'm good enough, etc. (yes, I know, I'm an idiot.)

I'm just following almost 500 people and seeing some people on my dash that for (whatever reason, they're allowed to have their reasons) don't want to write back with me makes me sad. Angel Dust vibes over here man, if everyone doesn't love me then I am a failure. I'm the girl in Mean Girls who doesn't even go here and just has a lot of feelings and wants everyone to make rainbow cakes.

That being said, if I unfollow you, please don't hesitate to follow me back! I am not considering it a 'soft block' or whatever you kids call it these days (I still don't even know how tf a person does that and I've been on Tumblr since 2011). This is mostly just me cleaning up my own dash.

If we actively write, there's no way I'm unfollowing you so don't worry there. If we haven't written and you would like to, but have either been too shy or not had ideas or whatever else, just give this a 'like' so I know not to unfollow you and I can reach out to talk!

[dreamchasernina]

Your opinion on "Love is a battlefield" comic ? I rly see some ppl on tumblr call a nice guy or incel cause of this.

I’ve been wanting to talk about that comic for a while so thank you for asking me this. So I got the lost adventure comics a month ago and I enjoyed them very much. When I got to this specific comic I suddenly remembered that everyone found it problematic so I was glad to finally read it myself to see what the problem was.

So if some of you haven't read this comic it's about Aang and Katara, where Katara pressures Aang into a training session to see him firebend. Aang thinks Katara wants to talk about their kiss right before the invasion, but is disappointed to see it’s not. Katara actively tries to avoid talking about that, so she starts attacking Aang so he would fight back. Aang locks himself in a rock like he does in the finale and tells Katara he doesn’t want to train, until he gives in, firebends the rock like a volcano almost hurting Katara. After which he just storms off.

I’ve read a lot of ATLA comics and some of them do have moments where the characters are not themselves. But, never have I seen a comic that mischaracterizes the characters as bad as this one. Genuinely, does Aang seem like someone who would get angry and lash out with his bending? Forget the avatar state, that’s when he is so consumed by rage he loses himself. I’m talking about Aang getting casually angry and actually bending in anger? Looking at the show Aang gets angry multiple times, in the great divide, in the finale, the chase, just to name a few…and never ever does he use bending in anger, EVER, except in The Desert because he is so consumed by his rage about losing Appa. The whole The Desert episode highlights how Aang is not himself, that’s why it’s so impactful, because Aang is a complete opposite of who he usually is. Outside of that episode, Aang never uses his bending in anger, ESPECIALLY at people he cares about.

And even more importantly, is this writer trying to tell me that after the storyline where Aang learns to fire bend and hurts Katara in his recklessness, he is so traumatized by that he swears off firebending completely, doesn't want to use it ever again until he discovers fire is not meant for destruction and he just needs to learn to control it...after all that YOU WANT TO TELL ME AANG RISKS HURTING KATARA AGAIN WITH FIREBEDNING BECAUSE HE GETS MAD???? WHAT IS THIS WRITER SMOKING. Talk about character assassination because what the hell is this? How was this ever approved? Two episodes before this comic is supposed to take place Aang tells Zuko “now I know you understand how easy it is to hurt the people you love”…he accepts Zuko because he admits he needs to control his bending so he doesn’t hurt anyone unintentionally…and you want me to believe 2 episode after this Aang almost hurts Katara unintentionally with the element he was afraid to use again for 2 seasons?? Truly, I do not understand how this got published.

Now, as obvious as it is that Aang is out of character in this comic a lot of people don’t notice that Katara is very much not herself either. BECAUSE THAT IS NOT KATARA PEOPLE! Katara, the most gentle and caring member of the Gaang, who has spent the entirety of the Bitter Work episode telling Toph not to put too much pressure on Aang and try positive reinforcement and a gentle nudge in the right direction to teach him…STARTS THROWING ICICLES AT AANG WHEN HE SAYS HE DOESNT WANT TO TRAIN AND IS VISIBLY UPSET???? She sneaks up on him, splashes water on him, laughs at him and then proceeds to attack him to force him to train. Oh yeah, that’s definitely Katara right there…this writer definitely knows the characters…

I don’t know who wrote this comic, I heard it’s a ZK shipper? If this was written by ZK shipper it suddenly makes sense because they wrote Aang exactly like Zuko would've behaved. Zuko is the one who’s known to lash out in anger and firebend at people he’s angry at, NOT AANG. Now, I can’t confirm nor deny this claim, again I don't know who this writer is, but I need them to sit their ass down and watch the damn show and never touch these characters again.