#i dont love making my point via comparison but these are literally the only two animated nb characters i can think of

[skrunksthatwunk]

i like the owl house a good bit but i wish they'd take raine out of nonbinary gay baby jail

[captain-aralias]

Life stuff

this feels kind of weird, because i’ve never used my tumblr like this, but i would have written something on my livejournal, and i want people to know - i just dont want to have to tell people about it, or really talk about it at all. 

but i also wanted to write this, idk. 

(TW: impending death of a parent)

my mum has cancer. 

it’s a rare form of cancer, called peritoneal cancer, which is similar to but different from ovarian cancer - i think it mostly gets diagnosed (like my mum’s) when it’s too late to do anything about it. all the treatment has been palliative only i.e. letting her live as long and as comfortably as possible.

she was diagnosed in september last year - about a year ago, a few months after running the ‘virtual’ london marathon on the isle of wight, where she lives, and obviously deep in lockdown. 

as someone undergoing chemo, she was deemed extremely vulnerable to covid, and so she spent most of the early pandemic isolating. she also said she didn’t see any point in my brother and i visitng her, particularly given the risks, because we could talk via facetime - which is fair enough - all of which meant my brother and i didn’t go to visit her until May this year, after she’d done the first lot of chemo and was already doing much better again. 

a few months after that, we found out that while she’d responded really well to the chemo, her cancer wasn’t responding at all to the maintenance drugs that were suposed to stop it coming back, so she came off the drugs completely. medical advice was basically chemo is as effective whenever you do it, so you might as well enjoy your life for a while, we’ll monitor it every month, and when things start to get too bad, we’ll put you back in chemo. 

it’s friday tomorrow - so two fridays ago, i saw my mum in london after she’d just seen hamilton with her partner, graham. both of them loved hamilton. her hair had grown back, she seemed pretty normal. about a week later, she was in A&E - and she’s been in the hospital all week. she’s got a total bowel obstruction, which means she can’t eat and hasn’t eaten since last week.

now in a weird situation where there are a few tricky, difficult options (including being moved off the island back onto the mainland to a bigger hospital) that will mean that she stays alive long enough to get the chemo, which will probably get her back to hamilton-watching strength, or ... she could die really soon. like, in a few days. 

we can’t visit. her partner can’t visit because covid - there’s this really sad-making photo of him looking happy on the phone through a window to my mum, also on the phone, inside the hospital. 

i feel...

???? :( :( :( ....

i guess this is the main point of the post. i’m not writing this crying, i’m writing it pretty neutrally - because my brain isn’t really processing it right now, and mostly doesn’t process it. 

i did cry earlier today while on the phone to various people, and then i went back to work. i hate crying, i hate being sad, and i dont like people comforting me, because it makes me realise that i have something to be sad about. 

i’ve known she had cancer for a year. i haven’t been able to hang out with her most of that time. i would say, we are fairly close, although not nearly as close as some families. we don’t talk every week, but we talk regularly, and have seen each other regularly. 

i’m so incredibly privileged that nothing that bad has ever happened to me, even though i’m 35. i’ve never been to a funeral, which seemed like a major life win and now i think was a mistake, i should have gone to funerals for people i card about less to help get used to it. 

the literal only comparison i have to how i feel is when my cat Anton died suddenly  about 3 years ago - i handled it with a mix of not thinking about it, being intensely sad for as brief a period as i could, and probably by thinking about how sad my girlfriend was about it, and sort of sidestepping my own feelings in comparison. 

i remember when my last remaining grandparent died - and i was about 14 or something - i wasn’t sad for myself, i was only sad for her my dad being sad. for ages, i worried that i was not going to be sad enough about this - and i still sort of am. 

but i also passionately hate the idea of being sad and i know i’ll look to avoid it as much as possible, and try and get on with my life. 

i know my mum dying isn’t about me - when people write after death it’s about the person who died, obviously. that makes sense. but this post isn’t about my mum, who is a very cool person, much cooler than me - it’s about me. because i am self-obsessed and this is going to wreck my life for a while.

it’s weird, because i can see it on the horizon but it’s not happening yet. and i dont know whether that’s good or bad - i feel like it’s good, in a way. someone ages ago told me that the grieving period starts when you get the news. that seems very true to me - but also, i know that it’s going to ramp up, and so i’m like in the expectation of true grief right now. 

it’s sort of like she died, but also is still going to die, but also i can magically still talk to her. which is really nice, in a way, it’s like a second chance, because i know i didn’t reach out enough before she had cancer. and i’m aware enough of my own actions that i know this is what’s been going on in my head the past year - i should reach out more, because she has cancer, but i dont want to make it seem like i’m reaching out because she has cancer, even though she knows i know she has cancer....... and also, i’m busy writing this fic. /o\

the fact that she seemed to recover (even though my mum insisted on saying ‘i am not recovered, i’m going to die soon’ like several time as a day as a disclaimer) also totally messed with my head, because i knew logically - ok, it’s happening. but also, things seemed so normal when we speak. even when i called her today, and she hasn’t eaten for a week, it seemed normal. 

btw - i realised this week i had no idea how cancer killed people. my mum is a scientist and has looked up all kinds of things about what’s killing her; i’m clearly a simon snow and didn’t want to think about things i can’t help. if you’d asked me, i’d have said like... it poisons you or something, or blocks bloodflow to your brain. not what i think will actually do it which is.... starvation. or being too weak to survive being pumped full of the poison that is intended to kill the cancer. (that one i guess i could have predicted.) man - cancer sucks. i mean, we all knew it. 

(i failed to get into cambridge university at interview stage, many years ago. the man who interviewed me gave me some extremely memorable feedback, which is that i needed to dial back the ‘defensive irony’ - which i thnk in that context meant i put myself down and tried to make a joke of everything. i remember when i got the phonecall to say Anton, my cat, was dead, i literally did not know what to do with my voice - because my instinct was to try and make the vet feel better, and also to present myself as bright and capable, and yet this unexpected and devasting news had just come through. rainbow wrote something sort of similar because she’s a good writer, for shepard as he tells penny about his curse. i feel like that.) 

what else did i want to say? 

i thought i had more time. ‘hamilton’ will probably always be tied to this moment in my mind, because of how much i’ve spoken to my mum about it in the past few weeks (i sent her the remix - she liked it, she listened to it in hospital while trying to drink more than 100ml of fluids) but yeah - this is basically a line from hamilton here. whatever. don’t make me feel my own feelings, let me just quote things. i dont like my own feelings. (no, i dont want to go to therapy - they’d make me talk about my feelings all the time, i’m british for god’s sake.) 

i’m 35 - my mum is 68. i didn’t think she’d die this early or that i’d have to deal with this yet. but then i also don’t think bad things are ever going to happen to me - because mostly they haven’t, see above. i wear a mask and am double vaccinated because i’m not an asshole, but i dont really believe i’ll get covid because bad things don’t happen to me. i didn’t think my mum would die - maybe ever, but definitely not yet. she’s been retired a decade after teaching (science) and has enjoyed it. 

i thought i had time to not have kids yet - which is the other thing (like hamilton) that this moment is really tied up with for me. i feel like 35 is getting quite old, but also not that old to still not have kids, but intend to maybe have them. my feelings about kids were basically like - up until like 25, i thought, yes, definitely. i mean, before i had a realtiosnhip (22-ish), i just assumed i would probably have a het marriage and have kids etc, like people do, but after that we were still talking, yes, children at some point. 

didn’t prioritise it for a few reasons - none of my close friends had children until quite recently, so it just didn’t seem like an urgent thing in the way that it probably does for people with different friendship groups. waiting to be settled enough in a job to be able to take maternity leave without it feeling like a rip off for my employer. waiting for a good time in erin’s PhD writing cycle. and then pandemic. and then a few years ago, maybe as i turned 30, i thought - maybe we won’ have kids, because we still haven’t - and i vocalised that to erin. 

also, i know a lot of people are gay and have children, so it’s not like it’s a thing that is impossible at all, but it’s much much harder if you have to leave your home and your relationship in order to get a child. it has to be a very very conscious decisions. i have friend who are men who have good genes, but we’re not so close i want to ask them for their sperm/to be involved however remotely in making a child - and (i was surprised to discover) (what a lot of things i dont know anything about) you an’t really just buy sperm, it’s not truly legal except through a clinic. and it’s extremely expensive to get inseminated in a clinic, and the NHS don’t really do that, so you do have to pay it. i thought kids would be expensive after they were born, but not before. and i REALLY wanted a house, much much more than - i think even today - i’ve ever wanted a child. i REALLY wanted a house - and now we have a house, and it’s pretty good. but - that’s where the money went, until the pandemic - thanks pandemic - so now we do have some disposable cash at last, because i didn’t commute. 

but now erin is worried about climate change - and wheher it’s right to bring more children into the world, and other things. and.... i think i do want to be pregnant, it’s what i’m planning for - don’t leave this job (which admittedly i also really like, and pays me well - i dont thin i need to leave) because next stop maternity leave, but..... 

i don’t know whether i am thinking, time ot have kids because my best friend just had a baby (the baby’s name is horatio - for real, i actually love this name) (i also haven’t seen her or the baby except over skype, because anna - my friend - is, like my mother, also scared of pandemic) and my brain is like - ok, well, if anna is doing it, i guess the time is here 

AND - i know there’s a large part of me that was like, gotta be pregnant and ideally have the baby before my mum dies so she gets to see that she had a grandchild. my brother and i are both queer, btw, in case you were wondering - he’s considering whether he wants to transition right now (but is still happy with he/him pronouns) and - you may find this astonishing, but i genuinely don’t know whether he’d consider himself ace, or has been in relationships. he’s very private, he has OCD and is in therapy - but anyway, he’s probably not having kids anytime soon (i think!) and graham - my mum’s boyfriend/partner of 10+ years. -has grandchildren, but my extremely middleclass white (but definitely not conservative voters, always 100% not-tory) parents ended up with me and my brother.... and i don’t know, as i say, i don’t know whether my brain is saying ‘have kids before it’s too late’ - although i know by now that it will be too late. even if my mum recovers from this, this time, i don’t think i can produce a child before she dies - and she isn’t asking me too, she’s not like that, but i would have liked her to be there. i thought she would be. 

so - i’m thinking about that. also, about getting a dog. i really want a dog - although i don’t want to upset the three cats (one we’ve had for eight years or so, the other two we got after Anton died). it’s ALSO really hard and expensive to get a dog. you’d think with all these ‘a dog isn’t just for the pandemic, a dog is for life’ type adverts around, that it would be easy to adcidentally get a dog - i’ve looked! you ccan’t get a dog unless you have no cats and you’re super experienced and can take a dog with lots of trauma or medical problems, or you’re willing to pay thousands of pounds. like - even for a regular not even pedigree dog - at least a thousand. pedigree dog - several thousand. i dont want a puppy either - i want a dog. 

and - this is embarrassing to admit, but i’ve alrady told erin - i genuinely had a phase of being super annoyed when i’d read fics where someone just ‘got a dog’. it’s not that simple!!! it’s fiction, it doesn’t matter - chill out. the baby thing too - although weirdly not fics where magic meant it was possible to get a baby, weirdly it was smut. i had a brief week or so of crazy (and i don’t think i am that crazy) where i’d read about fictional semen and just be like - wtf, it’s so hard to get hold of that shit. (it’s not real, this isn’t real semen being wasted, calm down - and i dont even really know if i want kids, i might just think i do.) 

the other thing about the bad thing being soon but not yet (but also being all the time, but not if you dnt think about it) is that i’m thinking - should i prioritise writing my remix now, in case my mum dies and i’m too sad to do it, and then i didn’t do my remix? i was definitely thinking this while writing classroom politics (i hope my mum doesn’t die becaue i dont want to be too sad to miss the deadline) and in the run up to AWTWB .....

today i wrote a list of things for work that would need to be picked up if i have to unexpectedly stop working, either because i’m too sad, or because i have to do funeral stuff, or .... i guess legal stuff about settling the estate. (i guess this happens to a lot of people, too, but it’s also a bit of a mindfuck that my brother and i will inherit her house and a bunch of cash when she dies - i’m pretty well off, my brotehr does virtual reality theatre stuff so really isn’t - we’ve talked about how much easier both of our lives will be with a huge injection of cash, and how we dont know what to feel about that) (great news, dogs and kids are really expensive! time to find out whether i really wanted to spend my money on those.) told people i like at work that it’s coming, and that i dont want to talk about it. and mostly just... carrying on with life, really. until it happens. 

it’s so weird how easy it is to carry on most of the time.i know my mum’s partner is not doing nearly so well - he has to cope with an empty house and he’s retired. i’ve had periods - including right now - where i wake up every morning and check my phone to see whehter someone called me or texted me to tell me it’s over. but most of the day i’m actually really fine. i even had an ok day today. and i don’t know whether i want that to be the case, or whether i shouldn’t let myself do that. i dont know what i should prepare for in terms of where i’ll be - will i want lots of stuff to distract me (this is my guess) and work is very good for that, or i will want to clear time and space because i can’t operate and dont want people to offer me comfort. (FYI - this post isn’t written to make people say anything to me, i definitely dont want to talk about it, so please don’t feel you either have to comment or check in on me - i don’t really want you to. it’s enough to have written it, in my own time, in my own space.)

i think i wanted to write this post in a way because i thought i probably wouldnt want to write it after my mum died - because i probably wouldn’t want to say anything about it at all, for a few years. 

my mum keeps telling me about the show ‘jane the virgin’ - which she’s half way through. shhe asked me to give it a try, so i did (she often tells me about shows on radio 4, which i rarely listen to. i thouht i had more time.) i’ve watched an episode (because she has cancer, i should listen to her recommendations)(but i dont want her to know that’s why i did it) and i do quite like - it’s light and frothy and well cut together (although about kids and artificial insemination, of course). i guess in a worse case scenario where i’m too sad to work or write, i will probably watch a lot of this show - which is incredibly not sad - and feel sad about how my mum never finished it. 

BUT ALSO SHE MIGHT BE OK. for a while. 

i dont know how i feel, blargh. anyway. this was a long post. i think i wrote it mostly for me. feelings are weird. covid really sucks and so does cancer. 

going to order some chicken and watch inuyasha.

[tauforged]

You know, I really want to believe you’re not actively being malicious, but official sources have stated the average age of a Grineer soldier is about three years. Doesn’t feel even a little off shipping and making suggestive comments about a character who might as well be a toddler? I think you’ve mentioned you headcanon him to be around ten, but even so that’s. still really skeevy, especially considering Darvo is over 100 years his senior...

anon im assuming for the sake of my sanity that this is a joke or bait but lemme break this down for you real simple just in case you ARE actually serious because i promise you it isnt that deep :

tldr; while you technically have the numbers sort of right, you either  just like, have very vague approximate knowledge and got confused while surfing the wiki or something OR you’re willfully misinterpreting the lore to start an argument (which is kinda sad but thanks for the laugh i guess)

- i don’t think thats ever actually canonically stated in game but i feel like ive heard it around as well. it’s likely just a pervasive fan theory or something the devs dropped in conversation somewhere that i missed because i dont watch devstreams or read the forums 

- the grineer are mass-produced clone soldiers that are ‘born’ from tubes in a lab fully developed and immediately handed guns and dropped onto the battlefield, so the average age is likely so low only because:

 a. they only count time out of the tube, not how long it takes for them to develop 

b. the genetic decay from constant cloning canonically makes them fall apart after a few years because they are just not healthy and 

c. we as the players mow them down by the hundreds in every mission 

- now that ive officially pulled up the glaring issue i feel the need to remind you what grineer look like, in case youve somehow forgotten or dont actually play the game enough to know:

‘oh but you said it yourself there’s genetic decay of course they’re gonna look old--’ SIKE we got confirmed pre-clone rot original orokin era grineer in the cinematic trailer and they are also, believe it or not, grown ass men. also kinda look like handsome squidward. i still love them just as much its ok

- corpus only have such exaggerated lifespans BECAUSE they have access to the technology to keep them alive longer. if we’re entirely going off perceived age one could argue that the implications of the dialogue in ties that bind makes darvo the corpus equivalent to late teenage/young adult ‘still-not-quite-moved-out-of-his-parents’-house’ at ~110 yrs, while clem being oh, idk, somewhere between 5-10 makes him ancient in comparison to the average lancer. 

- it is also canon that grineer celebrate birthdays (confirmed via vay hek’s dialogue in saya’s vigil) and i honestly doubt that would be a thing if they really all only lived for a couple years. like i said, the low lifespan is realistically probably limited to low-ranking loyalist cannon fodder troops, rather than any of the higher ups such as minibosses and system bosses and definitely not for defectors like the steel meridian or kavor, who are no longer at risk of being julienned like a fucking carrot by the first tenno they see and therefore live a hell of a lot longer

- i know i literally just said its not that deep but its bothered me for a long time now that people tend to characterize clem as being Practically A Baby when hes not only a whole adult but ex-military and spent time on grineer death row for killing fascists, only to break out and go right back to killing fascists even harder out of spite because they messed with his guns, PURELY because he only says the same two words to get his point across like this is a large f*ndom trend that i see a lot and it grinds my gears. something something just because someone doesnt communicate verbally doesnt mean theyre stupid or childish something something you get the idea. as someone who goes nonverbal as a stress response it’s a touchy area for me personally and also part of why i love him as a character so much. barely relevant to your ask but while im discussing clem meta i might as well throw this in

ANYWAY if you were actually concerned i hope this cleared things up! if you were just trying to start shit however fear not i have a gift just for you

[bigskydreaming]

Im asking this genuinely so pls dont yell at me; when you say that those using trigger warnings dont care about their readers’ mental health and wellbeing, what else are trigger warnings supposed to be for? To make sure people don’t enter fics that have material that would harm them. Just like tv shows that warn about nudity or violence or what have you. Its a rating system, theyre warnings. Tagging for rape or underage ARE the looking-out-for-readers thing. Past that, it is on readers to decide

I try not to yell at anyone engaging in good faith, I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but I would rather be engaged with than ignored...the latter is when my volume goes up, lol.

But in answer to your question, it comes down to the fact that trigger warnings are well established enough in fandom by now, that they exist as a kind of social contract.

In short, its EXPECTED that you provide trigger warnings, and that if you don’t have them, someone will bring that up at some point.

Problem is, this counter-productively works against what trigger warnings are actually FOR.....once we reach a point (which we’ve long since reached)....where a lot of people are only including the trigger warnings because of the social contract that expects them to have them, and not ACTUALLY because they’re prioritizing their readers’ well-being.

Something I see a LOT after trigger warnings is the phrase or sentiment “enter at your own risk”....and the phrasings are so, so key to what I’m talking about. 

Take a small sampling and just look for what I’m describing and I’m fairly certain you won’t have to go far to find an example of a fic where the tone of the author is not one of concern for readers, but preemptive concern for potential backlash from readers.

And these are two very different things.

Like, we all know how to read and interpret tone and nuance. Its genuinely not that hard to tell the difference between a sincere expression of wanting readers to be aware of potentially triggering content, and a faux-expression of that when really, the only thing you’re worried about triggering is a negative reception from people, and you want to get ahead of that by making it clear from the get go that hey, you did your job, you warned readers, and thus nobody has any grounds to say anything about your content itself.

Because also too there’s the fact that trigger warnings are inherently fallible. They rely on the author’s own AWARENESS of their content and everything it might include......but a racist author isn’t going to place a trigger warning for using their characters as mouthpieces for even blatant white supremacist ideology. 

A genuinely predatory author (and yes, they absolutely do exist, and its willful stubbornness that people rely on to pretend that like, for some bizarre reason, only genuinely predatory people don’t partake in this otherwise global hobby of reading and writing fiction, like what even is that, how do you arrive at that conclusion, that like, actual pedophiles are so busy preying on ‘real life’ teenagers in their zip code 24/7 that they just don’t have TIME to go online and cultivate predatory relationships with real life teenagers via social media? That doesn’t make any sense!)

But anyway, a genuinely predatory author, is absolutely NOT going to tag or place trigger warnings for pedophilia, etc....because they don’t WANT the things they write perceived that way.

People trying to normalize incest are not always going to tag for incest because they want to DISTANCE the cute, sweet dynamic between two ‘only sorta brothers’ as other than the kind of incest that destroys families...regardless of the reality that most cases of incest are the LATTER and its the FORMER that’s so rare it barely exists. 

And that sort of thing is how we get terms like dub-con and pseudo-incest and ‘consensual underage sex’ when its describing a relationship between a minor and adult....because this is mitigating, distancing language. Its entire reason for existing is to make unpalatable content seem more palatable.

And especially in Batfandom, we KNOW this.

Because we all, practically universally, give Devin Grayson crap for describing the rape in Nightwing #93 as ‘nonconsensual sex’ and go.....THATS NOT A THING!

And then half of fandom turns around and....acts like that and similar stuff...IS A THING.

That doesn’t work! LOL. It just...doesn’t.

Or another example, because abuse can be just as triggering as rape.....like, for me, personally, I’m a survivor of both, and yes, both CAN be triggering. But not as much as people might think....like, just reading a depiction of these things doesn’t trigger me.

Its, like you were saying at the get go, yes, a matter of surprise.....the kind of thing that CAN be warned for, and prepared for, and its the sheer unexpectedness that’s usually the trigger. 

Like.....I went off a few weeks ago about reading a story that was supposed to be about Dick’s brothers learning the truth about what led him to take the Spyral mission and what happened in Forever Evil. That’s what the summary said, that was it, that was the only thing it led me to expect about the story. So understandably, I go into the story expecting it to be sympathetic to Dick. I’m looking for catharsis from it honestly, a salve for the many fics and canon events that blamed and punished him for something I don’t consider his fault, right?

And then towards the end....I get Jason punching Dick again, before hugging him, because that’s just how he reluctantly shows love or whatever.

This genuinely triggered me, yeah. Its why I got so upset about it. Because I was blindsided, I had no way to prepare for it, because I went in expecting catharsis for a story that bothered me due to its victim blaming, and instead I got the author heaping on more of the same abuse we already saw in canon.....with zero awareness that’s what she was doing. 

So....that’s absolutely something I wrestled with should I message the author and ask them to add a trigger warning or not? Because I genuinely could have used one. It would have helped. I would have avoided that story if I had any notion that might crop up in it, because frankly, that’s not something I had any interest in reading.

But problem is, there’s only really two realistic outcomes there. If she was open to hearing a genuine request for her to be aware that her content contained triggering material for a reader....chances are, she probably would have just edited it and taken that out entirely. It was just one line. Easy enough to do. It certainly didn’t add anything.

Problem is....there’s an equal and opposite likely outcome....that she’d get defensive, call this unsolicited criticism, and double down on the idea that what she had written wasn’t abuse, because obviously she doesn’t condone abuse, so she wouldn’t have written that plain and simple. It has to be acknowledged that a lot of authors ARE innately defensive about social content in their work, and not open to hearing they’ve done something offensive or triggering....because that’s like...literally the basis of the ‘no unsolicited criticism’ movement in fandom, even though being critical of toxic ideology expressed in content is NOT the same as offering criticism of someone’s writing in general. 

So you see what I mean? A trigger warning COULD genuinely help in that situation....but our fandom environment simply flat out is not conducive for readers to be at all confident that they even CAN come forward and alert an author that they delved into an offensive, even harmful take with their content and be well received no matter HOW they phrase it....

For much the same reasons I mentioned in that other post. People are more likely to instinctively jump to the defense of the person WRITING the content that offended or did actual emotional harm....than the person simply trying to say, backed by their own lived experience of....being offended or experiencing emotional harm....hey, this is a problem for me and I would appreciate it being regarded as such....

Otherwise, what is even the POINT of this entire system of trigger warnings in the first place? If a problem for a reader isn’t regarded as worthy of attention in and of itself.....at least, not in comparison to whatever problem that READER’S problem creates for the WRITER.

You see what I’m saying? For this, and a lot of other reasons, trigger warnings are innately fallible. They rely on an honor code system, and the uncomfortable truth is none of us are actually naive enough to believe everyone in fandom is innately honorable enough to honor that....if they were, would we have as much cases of anon hate, spite fics, etc?

But fandom as a whole looked at the trigger warning system and decided well....its good enough. Because its not like I’m proposing a viable alternative, its not like I have a BETTER system in mind, offhand. All I do have is the point that well...no...its NOT good enough as is....because for a ton of reasons, there’s a ton of cases in which there’s a ton of people for which it flat out doesn’t work for or benefit at all.

But when this comes up to any degree, in any capacity whatsoever....and the only thing people fall back on is well, I tagged it, or I used trigger warnings what more do you want, or its good enough for me so that’s what matters, or just....

“I did what I was supposed to per the social contract about trigger warnings, so if anything goes wrong in your reading experience at this point, that’s entirely on you.”

Like, does that make sense?

Basically, there’s a world of difference between:

This is a problem that still needs solving because the solution provided now is not all-encompassing or inclusive....

And....

This is a problem that’s already been solved as far as I’m concerned, and I’m utilizing that solution so any further problems are just in the mind of the reader and have nothing to do with reality, let alone me and my work.

Again, as I said above....its the difference between genuinely engaging with other members of your fandom community with actual concern for THEIR fandom experience.....or faking engagement with other members of your fandom community when your only real concern is YOUR fandom experience, and at most, the experiences of anyone who already is of like minds to you on a subject.

Hopefully that answers your question or clarifies my stance there, anon. And thank you for actually engaging on this. It feels a bit like shouting into the void a lot of the time, lol.

[haberdashing]

The Spider and The Bee

Gwen Stacy gets a car that turns out to be more than meets the eye.

(Yes, this is a Spider-Verse/Bumblebee crossover fic. Yes, this is solely because Hailee Steinfeld plays both roles. So sue me.)

on AO3

Gwen Stacy gets a car for her sixteenth birthday, and she knows that she really should be grateful.

Her parents meant well, she’s sure. And a lot of kids her age would kill to have a car of their own. But to Gwen, the car seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Finding parking for it is generally more of a hassle than just dealing with the idiosyncrasies of the New York City subway system.

(Plus half the time she’s navigating the city, she’s doing it via web-slinging, but her parents don’t know about that part, and if she has any say in it, they never will.)

The car in question isn’t exactly endearing itself to her, either. It’s an old-fashioned Volkswagen Beetle, the kind that she thought had died off decades ago. It looks well-maintained enough, but even Gwen, who is far from an expert on cars, notices that the radio never works and that it sometimes takes multiple tries to start. Her father lets slip at one point that it was obtained in a bust on a chop shop upstate, and honestly, it doesn’t surprise her. An ignoble origin for an ignoble vehicle.

Oh, and the Volkswagen Beetle is yellow. Not a nice, subtle, pastel yellow, either. It’s a bright yellow, a nauseatingly in-your-face yellow, a shade of yellow that reminds her of bumblebees and kindergarten crayons.

Gwen Stacy likes stealth, when she can get it, and this car is anything but stealth.

But she still uses the car from time to time, when where she wants to go is either hard to get to via public transit or off the map entirely. She lies through her teeth about how much she loves the car and appreciates having it.

She even gives it a name, as is their family tradition. She dubs it Bee.

Gwen tells her parents that the name Bee is because the car is the same shade of yellow as some species of bees, and that it’s also short for Beetle, and she’s not lying when she says it, not exactly.

But Bee (or B) can be short for a lot of other things, too. Like Beware. Or Beneath me. Or Below average.

And there’s also how the car always smells like honey, to the point where Gwen honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there was a beehive hidden away somewhere inside the car.

There’s also that, while spiders can kill bees, sometimes the reverse is possible as well. It fits how Gwen always feels herself tensing up when she enters the car, how she’s not entirely sure if she’s joking when she tells friends that that car will be the death of her.

But much as Gwen dislikes the car, she has to admit that it’s handy to have around sometimes.

There’s one night in particular where she just wants to get away from it all, and she drives and drives until asphalt turns to dirt, until New York City is just a twinkle in the distance. Once she’s sure that she’s well and truly in the middle of nowhere, Gwen gets out of the car, sits on the ground, and gazes up at the stars.

(She feels a pang of loss when she remembers how Peter always had the constellations memorized, how he would have pointed out stars in the sky and named them all until the sun had risen over them. But Peter wasn’t here now, never would be again because of her, and without his help she couldn’t so much as find the Big Dipper.)

It’s nice to have a moment to just sit there and relax. She doesn’t have to think about her life back in New York, about all the pressures placed upon her both as Gwen Stacy and as Spider-Woman. She can just take in the beauty of the stars and the soft, cool breeze that makes the trees gently sway in the wind and forget the rest of the world entirely.

That is, until she glances over at her car and finds that it’s not there, and that some sort of robot had taken its place.

...or rather, as she looks closer and notices the robot’s bright yellow color under the pale light of the moon and stars, that her car had somehow turned itself into some sort of robot.

Gwen stands up immediately and blurts out the first words that come to mind.

“Are you my car?”

She sees the transformation this time, sees the metal twist and turn and shift into place as what had been a robot turned itself back into the Volkswagen Beetle that she had grown to know, if not love.

“You- you can change back, it’s alright.”

It-

No, that doesn’t feel right. Gwen had already half thought of Bee as a “he” even before her personification of the car became so, well, literal.

He changes back into his robotic shape. His form is generally humanoid, with what looked like a face holding big blue eyes that were shining right at her.

Gwen hopes that she was right in thinking that this spot was in the middle of nowhere, hopes that it’s obscure enough that nobody else would see what her car had become.

“Can you understand me?”

Bee makes a strange noise, one that she could swear sounded a bit like a bumblebee’s buzz, and one that she definitely didn’t know how to interpret.

“Nod your head if you can understand me.” Gwen demonstrates, and Bee replies in kind.

Okay, so they have a language in common. That’s good. Just thinking about trying to invent a language that humans and robots could share is enough to give Gwen a bit of a headache.

“Can you talk?”

Bee buzzes at her again. She thinks she knows what that means, but she wants to be sure.

“Shake your head like this if you can’t talk.” Gwen shakes her head, and so does Bee.

That was... less good. It would be a lot easier if they could talk to one another about what was going on rather than just Gwen asking questions and Bee having to gesture out his responses. But then, nothing in Gwen’s life ever seemed to come easy.

“Are there others like you?” she asks.

Bee stays silent and still for a long moment.

“Or do you not know?”

Bee shakes his head without prompting and lets out a soft whirring noise that sounds a bit like a sigh.

Okay. So not only does she not know the big picture here, he doesn’t either. They are both utterly clueless.

They’re so screwed.

“That’s fine, that’s fine!” Gwen’s voice turns oddly high-pitched as she tries to reassure Bee, the palms of her hands raised and facing towards him. “We can work this out. I’ll help you. We can do this.”

Bee stands up, and Gwen realizes for the first time just how tall he is. He definitely couldn’t fit in her family’s tiny garage like that. And she feels small in comparison, tiny compared to this massive robot facing her, and she has a suspicion that Bee feels the same way.

Gwen’s heart races as she gets an idea of how she can prove to him that she’s not as incapable as she appears. It’s a risk, sure. But he had just revealed what had to be his biggest secret to her, and it felt right to reciprocate the gesture.

She doesn’t have her full Spider-Woman suit with her, hadn’t thought it necessary to bring it all the way out to the middle of nowhere.

(That was probably for the best, really; she probably would have left it in the car, and she suspects that anything in the car has been crushed and mutilated beyond recognition by now, though if all she lost because of her giant robot car was the handful of emergency supplies she left in the trunk and the spare outfit and papers she kept in the glove compartment, that would count as a win in her book.)

But she does have her web-shooters, tucked under her sleeves, just in case.

Gwen shoots one web out onto Bee’s left arm, then another onto his right arm. The webs send her soaring upwards, and she leaps with all her power until she and Bee are face-to-face. She does a flip in the air as she descends, balancing on the tips of her toes for a moment before letting her entire feet hit the ground.

She takes a bow at the end of her little performance, though she highly doubts that Bee would understand the meaning of it.

“Bee, meet spider.”

Gwen isn’t sure of the exact meaning behind Bee’s excited whirring and buzzing, but she assumes it was some kind of positive feedback directed her way.

“We should probably head back in a bit, before my dad starts asking too many questions.” Gwen says. “But first, can I take a picture of you? I have some-”

Gwen laughs quietly to herself, partly because this whole situation is completely and utterly absurd, but partly because she knows just a few short months ago she never would have envisioned herself saying what she was about to say next.

“-some friends who might be able to help us. And I think the first step is letting them get a look at you.”

Bee nods, and Gwen dutifully pulls out her cell phone and snaps a photo of her robot car.

Gwen has a thousand more questions that she feels like asking, but she has a feeling that Bee doesn’t know the answers to most of them either. So instead of trying to get more information out of Bee, she just sighs and says, “Bee, let’s head home.”

Bee turns back into a Volkswagen Beetle, and Gwen steps inside, and she doesn’t feel quite as tense upon entering Bee as she usually did, probably because she knows now why the car had always left her feeling vaguely on edge, and it had nothing to do with it being old-fashioned or bright yellow.

They pass the time on the drive back to New York City in silence, because Gwen doesn’t want to risk people seeing her talk to her car and the radio still isn’t working. And Gwen begins to get a pit in her stomach as it dawns on her that she now has two huge secrets to keep instead of just one.

Because her life wasn’t complicated enough before, apparently.

[arctic-rising]

1-5, 9, 16, & 37!!

tysm for the questions!! this got…real long.

1. Write from the perspective of an outsider of your lair, what is their first impression? How have they discovered this group? How are they greeted?

      The young spiral twirled around her companion, twisting among the towering reeds. The skydancer, a map clenched in their claws, laughed as they caught sight of flashes of purple scales.       “When do you think we’ll be there?” Impressive stalks of bamboo clattered against each other as the little dragon zipped through it, and then back onto the well worn path.       “Well,” The skydancer tilted their head as they looked over the map, “if my calculations are correct, we should arrive there…now!”The tall bamboo- tall enough to reach towards the clear blue sky, seemed tiny in comparison to the massive painted gates that rose into view. Two stone towers with green and orange banners flanked the gate; shadowed figures darting around the structure could just be made out as plush clouds glided over head. The closer the duo approached, the louder the song of wind chimes became. When the shadow of the arch passed over them, they could make out heavy ropes draping bowls of unicorn dust and cerdae sparkle; the golden and red glitter contrasting against the green painted doors. A massive wind flight symbol had been engraved and then painted over in white across each door, splitting it in half when the gates where open.       The spiral gasped in delight and fluttered through the open doors. The skydancer followed, smiling as they kept pace with their friend through the crowds. Dragons of all kinds and all flights mingled through the cobble streets- some filtered into inns and taverns, others went straight for shops while some were content to sit underneath over hangs and watch.        The spiral soon fluttered back and wrapped herself around her friend, clinging to their fur as they walked. Her wide eyes darted around, moving from a snapper in furs to a ridgeback in armor, then over to a smattering of fae.      “You alright there?” The skydancer asked. The spiral looked up at them, her purple eyes turning a soft lavender in the sunshine.        “There’s so many dragons here. So many. Didn’t you say this place was hidden?”       “Yes! It’s hidden to those outside of the Plateau, and this place’s allies I’d assume. But, if you’ve been around here for a while you can figure out where it is easy enough.”       “But how did you figure it out? And where did you get that?” She poked at the parchment with one toe. The skydancer laughed and tugged it away.       “This? Got it from a friend! Who got it from another friend, and that one got it from their uncle, and that uncle got it from another friend. Probably.” The skydancer gracefully slid out of the way of an armored bogsneak who bared a white wind flight symbol. She nodded respectfully, and was soon lost to the crowds.       “You see, GuidingWinds is a trade hub. It has to rely on visitors to survive, but it wants to be a safe place at the same time, yes? So, tell me friend, what’s the best way to spread word of your little home to your neighbors, and your neighbor’s neighbors without letting all of dragon kind know?”       The spiral frowned and thought for a moment. She shrugged.       “Word of mouth, but of course you through in some rumors to help keep things under lock and key. You know, some lizards don’t believe this place even exists! But us wind folk know, annnd because we like our reputation we tell others about this place! Only if we like them though. It’s no good ratting your lovely neighbor out when they’ve been nothing but kind.”       The spiral blinked, her eyes going impossibly wide. “No- that’s so clever! But what happens if a bad egg gets in anyways?”       “That’s what the kingdom champions are for dear. You saw that bogsneak back there, yes? She was one of them- they’re an elite force that keeps the peace, and collects treasures and goods for the kingdoms personal stock. They’re awfully nice until you break the rules. Then they’re not so nice.”       The duo’s conversation continued as they slipped through the streets, two smears of color adding to the sea of manes and scales in the afternoon light of the Kingdom.

2. Is there a class difference in your lair? If so, how do the ‘lower’ ranks of their society live? If not, how do they maintain equity?

Ooo, yeah there’s very much a class difference. Thankfully the big wigs up in the castle (mostly lucien and azuleopa) do their best to make sure the treasure is being spread equally throughout the kingdom. Some dragons have more things because they either came into the kingdom with more money, or they’re just really good at saving up and making good investments. Another factor to keep in mind is the fact that the kingdom gets the majority of its cash via trading with visitors and merchants, so how popular someone’s product is can absolutely influence how much money ya got, and more over how comfortable your home is.

uhh the main reason why the royals are rich is probably because taxes. Merchants, both outside and inside the kingdom gotta pay a fee to keep their business legal and approved within the city, but the tax itself is determined by how much you normally sell in a month. there’s math that i can do with this but i dont wanna.

3. How is discipline dealt out? Is there a legal system? Fair trial? Vigilantism? 

The criminal is normally arrested and placed in temporary holding cells within the castle until Toxin and Arctic can find a time to determine their fate. If they decide that the crime was a minor offense, they’ll decide that the criminal has to do some time of sitting around in a cell before they can leave. Bigger offenses can lead to banishment or long-term imprisonment (or both, if you don’t rot away in the prison first)

4. Are there any important figures in history involved in your lair? Who are they and why are they significant?

Yes! Two dragons (who have been exalted) named Percy and Iolite were some of the first dragons within the clan before it became the kingdom it is now. Toxin, Arctic, Zaleka, Tahara, Phobia, and Adelaide will tell about stories about them if you ask nicely, but they always seem a little sad and wistful when retelling those tales. Percy was a scribe and Iolite was a very sneaky warrior, although both were said to have had hearts of gold. Iolite and Dawn initially trained Zaleka, and Percy helped plan the initial layout of the kingdom before they left. No one knows where they went, mainly because the dragons that knew them won’t talk about it…

and as a side note, Arctic, Toxin, and Dawn are all pretty important historical figures too but they’re still around

5. How has history constructed & molded your lair’s culture, morals and ideals, if at all?

As mentioned before, Dawn and Iolite trained Zaleka to be the fearsome warrior that she is today, and Zaleka went on to pass that knowledge down to the kingdom champions she’s trained. Kingdom champions have a special type of fighting style that utilizes their strengths to their absolute extent by boosting their skills with their innate magic. For example; Tokyo, a wind skydancer, is SUPER fucking fast already, but he uses his wind magic to make himself extra speedy, which lets him get in and out of situations fast and land a tooooon of quick strikes. Each kingdom champions’ fighting style varies, so it’s difficult to anticipate what’s gonna come next!

The kingdom def puts a lot of emphasis of just being nice to each other. The kingdom used to have a nasty serthis problem, and before they were able to fortify themselves a lot of dragons were lost in the conflicts. You don’t know when someone is going to meet their end, so just being kind to others in what moments you have with them is something the founders of the kingdom really emphasized after they lost a lot of their clanmates.

9. What is the political climate? What are some issues currently in the public’s eye?

the fact that literally every single prince and princess has died except Kima is very much a sore point with long term residents. some have blamed Blister, some have blamed the gods, and some think there’s something else going on. most are just thankful that Kima survived though.

another strain is from the events of Bounty of the Elements! haven’t actually gotten to that with the main lore arc, but because of a lot of the internal conflicts within flights (especially fire flight) trade and merchandise has been lacking in some places.

16. Who holds authority or is looked up to in their society? Do they hold any real power, or is it more of a concept?

Regina and Rahab are the queen and king, so of course they are at the very top of the food chain and technically have the most power. Arctic and Toxin have the most favor and influence over the population because of their history with GuidingWinds itself, and in the kingdom Dawn is the most powerful in terms of magic while Toxin is the most powerful in terms of athletic skill. Andromeda, Lotus, and Ana are pretty tied when it comes to who has the greatest potential to be more powerful than Dawn, and Antigone has the greatest potential to be more powerful than Toxin.

also Gaia is a super powered technically immortal druid but she doesn’t care about climbing the power ladder, so she’s more than content with selling weird plants.

outside of the kingdom is a different story. there’s some uh, demigods running around. Balthazar is one of them and is often called ‘the fighter’ because of his prowess in combat. he’ll absolutely reward you if you kick his ass but it’s super difficult, so don’t get your hopes up. he can also transform into a featherback boar at will, so there’s that. Ruthe is the other demigod! she’s called ‘the caster’ because she’s mastered all types of spell casting. she’s also incredibly difficult to beat, but she won’t reward you for kicking her ass. you might be able to convince her to teach you some tips on magic tho! Ruthe can also transform into a powerful beast, but i have yet to choose which one.

37. Are there any common domesticated animals used as livestock, labor or transport? How did this happen? Are they common place?

have i been meaning to figure this out for a while? absolutely!

have i actually figured it out yet? nope

short answer is that they probably have a bunch of the goat and bird based familiars. which ones, i have yet to decide on. i will say that southmarsh podids are absolutely used to pull carts and stuff like that.

[eddiejpoplar]

These are the Best Cars we drove in 2018

Last year was a busy year for us. We had a ton of press trips, test drives, reviews and auto shows. It was fun, though, so we’re not complaining. We had the chance to visit beautiful locations and see a lot of new things. But, really, it’s all about the cars. We drove a lot of awesome cars in 2018, from several different brands, not just BMW. Though, there were a lot of great BMWs as well.

So we thought it would be interesting to recap the year a bit and give our best cars of the year, as we head into a new year full of promise and exciting adventure. As well as some more awesome cars. So which were out favorites from last year?

Nico DeMattia

Favorite — BMW M5

Last year, I drove some really incredible cars from many different brands. I flew all over the country and had a genuinely great time. However, the automotive highlight of my year had to be my week with the BMW M5. Never have I driven a car that was so violently fast while also being so supple and luxurious. It was wonderfully, fantastically violent and it’s my favorite M car of the bunch at the moment. I personally haven’t driven the M5 Competition just yet (I will be in a couple of months, though) but I honestly don’t think it’s necessary. The standard one is a ballistic missile with leather seats and I love it.

Runner Up — Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio

If you’ve read some of my articles, you’d know that I love Alfa Romeo. I love the brand, I love its history and I love its cars, all while knowing full well how much of a headache they can be. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio is my runner up because it provides just such an intoxicating driving experience. Sure, its interior wouldn’t be acceptable in a Hyundai Sante Fe and it’s about as reliable as a starving junkie. However, and this is fact, there isn’t a single SUV anywhere near its price point that can deliver the driving goods like the Stelvio Quadrifoglio. It’s incredibly fast, handles far sharper than any SUV has the right to and has better steering feel than an M2.

Horatiu Boeriu

Favorite – BMW M2 Competition

2018 will go down in books as one of the busiest years for BMW and implicitly for us. I went all over the world to test some exciting new cars, so picking a favorite is quite difficult. But since there has to be a winner, I will go with the BMW M2 Competition. I had the chance to drive the refreshed M2 Coupe on the Ascari Circuit and came back impressed by compact coupe’s capabilities on and off the track. BMW has taken an already great package and made it even better with the S55 engine and further suspension and chassis refinement. It’s easily one of the most fun BMWs to drive today, while still being fairly affordable to own.

Runner Up – BMW G05 X5

Since I live in the US, and we’re all about SUVs these days, I’m going with the new G05 X5 as the second best car I drove in 2018. After driving the new X5 in Atlanta, I immediately labeled it as “The Flawless SUV”, thanks to its design, superior interior cabin compared to its predecessor and a long list of tech updates and features.

As with all the previous X5s, customers will rate the new SUV mostly based on its space and safety, but performance, driving dynamics and driving assistance features should become equally important to them. Cue in the high-quality interior and infotainment system, and the new 2019 BMW X5 is a hot contender in a competitive segment, with the likes of Mercedes GLE, Audi A7, Volvo XC90, Porsche Cayenne, and many others.

Gabriel Nica

Favorite: BMW M4 CS

2018 was definitely a good year for me as I got to enjoy some of the best cars BMW has to offer. When I was asked to choose only two of them to be featured here, the choice nearly paralyzed me, as it was pretty hard to make up my mind, a testimony to the incredible line-up that was presented to me. Nevertheless, it’s those cars that somehow manage to carve out a memory inside your skull that make life worth living, and the experience I lived aboard the BMW M4 CS will definitely stay with me for as long as I live. Sure, some things about it were annoying, especially when looking for a place to put your wallet but once you got going, the ruggedness and analogue feel of the thing make it all fade away.

Runner Up: BMW i8 Roadster

The BMW i8 Roadster lost to the M4 CS only because it’s not as sharp as the M machine. Alas, you can’t really ask it to be that good by comparison as it wasn’t designed to be the precise scalpel the M4 CS is. Instead, the i8 Roadster was created to show the world what can be achieved when clever engineering and passion join forces. To think that this thing uses a 3-cylinder 1.5-liter engine boggles the mind and is definitely a great conversation starter. And you’ll have plenty of those as the i8 Roadster attracts a crowd wherever you go, overshadowing cars that may be a lot faster or more powerful, just by opening its doors, giving you the full superstar treatment. Don’t be offended when people think you’re lying about the engine though, just remember that not everyone’s up to par with the specs of this hybrid beauty.

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