#i guess. is it ok to use these tags in this instance? i don’t wanna be annoying anyone

[electric-friend]

i would respect someone’s different opinion on ofmd2 if that opinion wasn’t mainly “people who disagree with me are inherently wrong and evil”, you know what i mean, guys? like ok, so you thought season two was good and izzy’s death made sense. that’s cool? i’d still be your friend like idc, we can disagree. but like… if you think people who thought ed’s narrative didn’t get resolved or who interpreted it in a different way than you did are *worse people* because of their opinions and that they’re wrong and bad and you’re the one who is right and good… i just can’t stand that.

[panharmonium]

I would like to add Gwaine to the list of friends Merlin had. Especially in the 3/4 seasons he really was ride or die for Merlin, they shared intimate details with each other, they truly trusted each other. There were instances where the show alluded that Gwaine knows about Merlin's magic and is fine with it.

hi there!  i’m assuming this is in response to the post i reblogged about will and lancelot being merlin’s only “real” friends?  

i’m actually happy to write about this, now that the question has been posed - it’s been a while since i wrote anything long about gwaine!

fair warning in advance: i don’t personally classify gwaine the same way i do will and lancelot, and that’s what this piece will cover in more detail, but these are just my own thoughts, and it is totally cool for everybody else to have different opinions.  my take is my take, but it does not have to be everyone’s take - if people wanna scroll past because this isn’t their vibe, i don’t mind in the slightest. :)

so, without further ado - i LOVE gwaine, and i have written extensively about how amazing his relationship with merlin is (some examples here, here, here, and here, if anybody’s looking).  he is the most likely of all merlin’s living friends to ditch arthur in the name of addressing merlin’s needs, which is super important, and he also has a much healthier friendship with merlin than arthur does (in my own personal opinion, of course, which nobody is obligated to share).  he definitely does go ride or die for merlin in S3/S4, i agree.

but my own thoughts on this particular point are still the same as they were in that original post.  i tend to hide my clarifications/explanations in the tags, so they might have flown by, but i’ll just copy/paste the relevant bit here for ease of access, as some background for the rest of this post.

re: will and lancelot were merlin’s only ‘real’ friends:

#what this does not mean: merlin has no other friends!  merlin doesn't have meaningful and important relationships with other people!   #what it does mean:  #every single one of merlin's other relationships is undergirded by the sickening knowledge that those friendships are conditional   #every single one of his other relationships is accompanied by the constant undercurrent of 'they would hate me if they knew'   #merlin knows his friends 'care' about him   #except they don't really; because it's not truly him they're caring about   #they care deeply - about someone merlin made up   #about a facade.   #in the most basic sense   #those relationships aren't Real   #the love merlin feels for the people in them is real   #but you cannot truly be 'friends' with somebody who doesn't even know who you are   #you cannot be loved without being known   #you certainly cannot be loved without being safe

obviously i suppose a person’s thoughts on this would be different if they headcanoned that gwaine knew about merlin’s magic, and that’s fine.  i personally do not believe canon indicates or supports that, but i’m not out to convince people to abandon their own fanon interpretations of things; i’m happy just hanging out in my own space talking about my thoughts.  me writing meta is the virtual equivalent of me talking to myself in my room - if other people have different conversations with themselves, that’s fine :)  i don’t mind if other folks organize their thoughts about things differently.  

in accordance with that - everybody please feel free to continue on with your own interpretations, and ignore mine if mine do not appeal to you!  if people are interested about how i organize my ideas on this, though, they are essentially as follows:

1) a cage fighter, a class traitor, and a fake sorcerer walk into a tavern

ok, to start with - here’s a graph.

(...who tf starts a meta post with ‘here’s a graph’ lol i just drew a venn diagram for the first time since like...middle school...i LOVE fandom, man, this is RIDICULOUS)

anyway

this is a very rough interpretation of how i think about gwaine, lancelot, and will:

to address some of these elements individually:

lancelot and will give merlin something that gwaine can’t - safety, authenticity, the comfort of being known and seen for real, a respite from constantly qualifying every friendship with ‘they would hate me if they knew’

lancelot and gwaine, likewise, give merlin something merlin wouldn’t be as likely to get from will (if will were still alive, i mean) - an understanding of merlin’s devotion to the Crown, a supportive ally in the fight to promote arthur’s reign and keep arthur/camelot safe

will and gwaine, for their part, are more likely to tell arthur to go fuck himself, if it’s important for helping merlin, and that’s a different kind of support that merlin also really needs.

and will, on his own, gives merlin something that neither lancelot NOR gwaine can provide, which is a friend who isn’t connected to or even particularly interested in arthur pendragon (merlin has nobody in his life like this, not after will dies) - somebody who knew and cared about merlin before merlin had any proximity to arthur, before this whole ’destiny’ issue reared its merciless head.

everybody in merlin’s life matters to him and gives him something important.  gwaine is STUPIDLY important to merlin.  the love there is real.  but in canon, because gwaine is not in the know, gwaine is still one of the people from whom merlin feels compelled to hide himself.  gwaine is right up there alongside gwen, arthur, elyan, percival, etc - every other person who merlin loves, who merlin nonetheless constantly, back-of-his-mind fears, ‘they would reject me if they knew.’

the above is part of why i personally have never been too interested in ‘so-and-so knows about merlin’s magic’ canon-imaginings.  there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, and i’m sure people must have tons of fun with them - and in an AU context maybe i would have fun with them too - but as hopeful interpretations of actual canon, they don’t appeal to me.  merlin’s near-total isolation and desperate, constantly-frustrated desire for real, honest love is an inalienable aspect of his character for me, one i can’t separate from who he is and why he does the things he does and why he eventually ends up in the place where we find him towards the end of the show.  

2) i just want someone to see me for who i am

i have seen a bit of sentiment out there along the lines of ‘merlin should have told (x person) about their magic’ or ‘(x person) obviously doesn’t have a problem with sorcerers,’ but i guess i personally don’t think it’s as clear as all that, and i think me saying it is would be doing merlin a disservice.

merlin’s desire to be seen/known/accepted is literally the most base urge he has.  if he truly thought he could tell somebody safely, he would.

i think merlin knows the people in his orbit well enough to know how they feel about sorcery, at least in a general sense.  and even if they aren’t bloodthirsty bigots like uther, they aren’t exactly welcoming magic with open arms, either.  at the most basic, elementary level, merlin understands something that we don’t like to think about: none of his friends ever challenge arthur on the sorcery ban or express any dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and, even absent outright bigotry, this fact speaks loudly enough in and of itself.  merlin’s friends might not be out clamoring for sorcerers’ blood, but they aren’t criticizing a society that criminalizes sorcery, either, and they are never shown to have a problem with the way things are, even though the way things are is wrong.

The Way Things Are is, in fact, unjust.  it’s oppressive.  and allowing that state of affairs to continue, unquestioned and unchallenged, when you have access to the king’s ear and aren’t personally in danger of being persecuted, indicates that you’re okay with the injustice.  that you’re comfortable with the oppression.  that you don’t see a problem with the status quo, and that you're unbothered enough by it to let it be.

it doesn’t matter that merlin’s friends have never straight-up said ‘boy, magic sure is evil’ onscreen.  they never say that camelot’s policies are wrong, and that delivers a clear enough message on its own.

3) it is not a crime to fight for your freedom

to bring this back to gwaine specifically, since that was originally the focus of this ask -

for me, for all that i adore gwaine, and for all that i think he was, for the most part, an INCREDIBLY sound, healthy relationship for merlin, the truth is that gwaine is as much a part of this problem as everyone else.  does that mean i personally think gwaine would have summarily dumped merlin if he’d found out merlin had magic?  no.  but i don’t think it’s as uncomplicated as maybe we wish it might be, and i think merlin has every right to be as uncertain of gwaine on this issue as he does of everyone else.

for one thing, like i said before, even gwaine, who used to have fewer qualms than any of the knights about pushing back on arthur’s BS, has never said a word about camelot’s injustices, or ever acknowledged that the laws of the land are unjust to begin with.  

for another, there are specific moments that kind of make you wonder.

5.05 (’the disir’) is a good example of this - when gwaine finds osgar in the woods, the two of them have this exchange:

you are a sorcerer, a heretic, and a murderer.  

the rhetoric of this sentence frames all three of these things as equivalent entities - criminal ones.  

to pick this apart more carefully:

a) sorcerer

it’s worth noting here that we’re never told osgar has done anything worse than evading arrest for the crime of being a known sorcerer.  when leon mentions him in the council meeting, the conversation consists solely of the following:

“as you know, a few days ago our garrison in the forest of breckfire intercepted the man who goes by the name of osgar.”

“the sorcerer.”

“the same.  they were trying to apprehend him when he used his powers to escape.”

and��that’s it.  osgar’s crime, as far as we know, was simply being a sorcerer (and then, after that, attempting to escape an unjust arrest, thereby killing a knight in the process).  there’s no mention of any other activities that would have warranted his arrest in the first place, other than the possession of magic.

but magic, even on its own, IS a crime in camelot - and gwaine levels the accusation at osgar as such.

b) heretic

that’s a hell of a word to throw around, if you think sorcery is chill.

“heretic” isn’t a mild accusation.  "heretic” has vitriolic severity behind it.  people are accused of heresy when they’re perceived to be in brazen defiance of what is (in the eyes of the accuser) unquestionably right and correct.  “heretic” is like…it’s like blasphemer.  the connotation is not just that something is bad, but that it’s sinful.

for gwaine, either osgar’s association with sorcery and/or his defiance of camelot’s army makes him a heretic.  and that’s not something a person who is down with sorcery or supportive of a magic-user’s struggle for freedom would say.

c) murderer

if gwaine were cool with sorcery, we would expect him to understand that a sorcerer who resisted arrest for the crime of being a sorcerer isn’t a murderer.  

it’s like kara said in 5.11 - it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are.

camelot has been killing sorcerers for decades.  osgar mortally wounded a soldier (not an innocent civilian, i might note) who was trying to imprison him.  he was resisting the armed forces of an oppressive state.  that’s not murder.

somebody who understands that camelot is an oppressive regime wouldn’t think of this as murder.  they would understand that it is not a crime to protect your own life when the state has literally been trying to exterminate your people for years.  and even if osgar had been engaged in rebellious activities against the state (which as far as we know is not the case - nothing like this is ever referenced!), they would understand that people with magic have long been overdue for a righteous uprising.  

but gwaine is a little more like arthur, in this moment - he sees the “wrong” that osgar has done (in the form of sir ranulf’s death) without seeing the thousands upon thousands of wrongs that camelot visited upon the magical community first.

4) you can’t go armed into a sacred place

the rest of this episode is similar.  gwaine pays just as little heed to merlin’s warnings as the rest of the knights, when merlin admonishes them that the disir’s cave is sacred.  gwaine doesn’t relinquish his sword or take special care upon entering the cave.  in fact, he is the one who outright interrupts the disir while they’re speaking - as they’re telling arthur a series of hard truths, that he’s persecuted magic-users, “even unto slaughter;” that he’s desecrated their space: “you come here, to the most sacred of the sacred, to the very heart of the Old Religion, with weapons drawn - trampling hallowed relics - treating our sacred space like you do your kingdom - with arrogance - with conceit - with insolence - ”

and gwaine cuts them off, pushing to the front of the group and shouting at them “enough!  you speak of the king!”  and that’s when the fight starts, when mordred gets stabbed.

someone who was fully accepting of magic, or who knew anything about it at all, would not have behaved this way.  they would not have bristled at hearing how arthur’s regime unfairly persecutes the magical community.  they would have known that it was true.

5) i just want to be myself

the above is just one example, but it’s a clear enough one to illustrate what i mean.  gwaine IS an amazing friend to merlin.  he does treat merlin well.  and merlin loves him to death.  but gwaine is NOT totally chill with magic.  i’m not saying he actively hates it, but he is not, from what merlin has witnessed, entirely safe.  merlin loves him, but he can’t be himself around him.

and i do think that pains merlin terribly.  all these people who he loves so much, and every time he’s with them there’s always that whisper: ‘this is a charade.  all the love in my life is a lie.  they only like me because they don’t know me.  if they knew who i really was, this would be over.’  

and we wonder why he never tells anyone.  we tell him he ‘should’ have told gwaine, gwen, morgana, arthur, like it would have been easy, or even possible, for him to ever consider putting himself in a position where he could lose what precarious, partially make-believe connections he has.

merlin, in the later seasons, when he worries about his magic being exposed, isn’t afraid of being executed.  he’s afraid of becoming even more alone than he is now.  and he has good reason to feel that way - even people who appear to put him first aren’t fully on board with the thing that makes him who he is.  and merlin knows this.  he’s seen it.  none of his friends are out fighting for people like him at court.  some of his friends shake their heads and assure arthur “you are a good and just king” when arthur expresses concern that maybe the disir are right, maybe he has indeed transgressed.  some of merlin’s friends used to buck the system in defense of the powerless, but now they defend the regime even when the accusations levelled against it by an oppressed population are true.

merlin knows that revealing himself is a kind of risk that could very plausibly end with him utterly disowned.  every single friendship he has is subject to this justified fear, this bitter knowledge.  merlin has every reason to doubt the soundness of his relationships.

and, circling back to the thing that started all these musings - the only friends who never made him feel that way were will and lancelot.

that’s all i mean when i say that will and lancelot were merlin’s only “real” friends.  i wish there were a better word to use than that, because i really don’t mean it like…as if merlin’s relationships with other people weren’t…valid, or important, or based on true love and care.  they were.  but there’s just not a better way to express that will and lancelot were the only people who ever even knew who they were friends with, who saw merlin for exactly who he was and said “i love you still.”  they were the only ones whose friendship was something merlin didn’t have to be afraid of losing solely for existing.

i always think of morgana’s line in 2.11 - ‘i don’t want to be brave.  i just want to be myself. i don’t want to be alone anymore.’

around everyone else, merlin has to be brave.  he has to keep up the pretense, which means even when he’s surrounded by friends, he’s completely isolated.

with will and lancelot, though, he could be himself.  with will and lancelot, he wasn’t alone.

6) post-script

i really appreciate being given the opportunity to muse to myself about this in more detail - i actually needed to think through some things regarding gwaine anyway, for writing purposes, and this was actually really helpful in organizing my brain.  so thanks, anon, for the prompt!  

i know my answer probably runs counter to your own interpretation of things, but as i said, this is just my own personal outlook.  i typed it up because the message got me thinking, and because i know i have a couple of friends who might find it interesting, but my thoughts apply only to me, and i do not mind at all if folks think about these things differently!  nobody is obligated to agree with anything i write, or give it any further thought, or even read it at all - we’re all going to engage with this story in different ways, so if anybody finds that this isn’t their cup of tea, please feel free to scroll on by, and keep having fun with this show in whatever way makes you happiest! :)

[khorren]

Fae's guide to Mad King's Lab.

Warning: Contains Opinions of a crispy 8 year vet who just wants everyone to have fun <3. It's a fun place, really! Bad groups make the baby Fae cry :(

First things first

Class to bring: Pick something mobile, tags a lot of things, and above all, mobile. Last year you'd see thieves and mesmers a plenty. Engies work too! Flamethrower and jump boots. Whee. A mediocre thief (that's me!) should have no problem with 500-600 bags an hour. If you're getting around a stack per half hour, you're doin' great. Even if you're getting a stack in an hour, that's cool. As long as you're having fun. You don't have to be OpTimAL on a damn festival farm.Just throwing out some numbers here!

Magic find! Go to your guild hall, and get the magic find buff from the tavern. Remember all those banners you got from the boss blitz event? Time to use em up! Halloween poops out magic find food and utilities, so don't really need to stock up before hand on these, just open a few ToT bags and you're good for the whole 3 week event.

Throw a Stamina and Speed sigil on your weapons. Endurance recharges like crazy, and speed sigil gives you all the swiftness. I refer back to point one. Be mobile. Be very mobile.

Don't be afraid to play with your traits. You're not looking for big DPS here, you're looking to tag things and be mobile.

Some groups will ask you to take off trinkets so your DPS isn't as high because you're one shotting things. The downside to this is when you fight Steve (The big skeleton with the chainsaw, we call him Steve. He looks like a Steve okay). It's polite to do this, or you can just be mindful and tag things once and move on. You only need to do like 1k damage to the mobs to get credit, you don't need to unleash your full raid ready DPS rotation. Tag and move on.

Autoloot mastery is key. If you're close to getting it, use this time before halloween to work on it. Otherwise you either end up leaving loot behind or you're the one left behind.

And most importantly, if you're new to the lab. Don't worry! It's not scary. It'll be a learning experience of how to keep up, and how to run in circles. You probably wont be pulling in big loot gains, but that's ok. Just learn from others. See what classes people are on, see what weapons they're using. Remember you’re scaled up here, so good time to level up a class :D

Getting into a lab instance! LFG fun times.

Lab can hold about 25 people. If you see a group in LFG with more than 25 people, just move to the next one. Or enjoy spamming "join instance" i guess? Commanders will generally keep their lfg up because numbers can dwindle pretty fast. Don't nag them to take their listing down. Just stop trying to join the big ones.

🚨🚨Controversy time! Alarm bells. Woo.🚨🚨  If you're there for profit, you want a lab that only does mob doors. Maybe vet doors at a push. But ignore "all doors" groups. Killing the big bosses takes way too much time. Sure you get some extra one per day loot, but you could have done like a full loop if not two in the time it takes you to to kill that stupid boss. No one is bringing their A game to fighting the bosses. People will die in droves to the Lich's Retaliation, and it's been 8 years and people still don't know to stand in the viscount's candy goo (but only a little bit) so they don't explode. Don't have high hopes for pug intelligence in the lab. Haha, looty man go brrrrr.You’ll sometimes get a daily to kill a boss, and that’s cool. Go do that.

And finally, when you join an instance and there's a group going on. Go join them. Don't open random doors, don't decide "i'm just gonna sit in the middle and afk farm!". By all means use a mount to catch up to the commander, but you MUST dismount, rather than use your number 1 skill to engage. You'll do too much DPS and be hated for the rest of the time you're in that group.Don’t be that guy. 

Tips for commanders and everyone else.

For the love of god, go counter/anti-clockwise. When you get to the point of getting to the South East loot door, you do not want your zerg passing through the boss door just to the north. Because someone will have opened it and he'll just be chilling there. You do not want to pull your little brainless zerg through the boss to get to the mob door. Please, please, please go anti-clockwise.

Since you can't just do mindless loops on the outside, you have to go into the middle to give things time to respawn. Generally you want to go in either the north and south sides, or the east and west sides. Decide right now if you're gonna be a north/south or an east/west and stick to it. Basically go in to the middle at west, do a loop of killing the mobs there (please still go anti-clockwise) and head back out the west the way you came in. Then when you loop around to the east, go in to the middle and do a loop of mob killing there. Again, back out the way you came in. If you're taking over from another commander then try to keep the same pattern they did.

Don't try to outrun Steve. It's not gonna happen. If he appears, you go kill him. No buts. If you've told your group to take off trinkets, this fight will take a while.

You only need to go to the SW corner when the door is up, otherwise just take the little shortcut to the side.

Simialrly, don't go backwards. If a door pops and you're less than 5 seconds away, sure, maybe consider it. But everyone on that loot train is on auto pilot and watching netflix on their second monitor / mobile phone / tablet. You doing a 180 out of nowhere isn't gonna win friends.

And finally, commanders, give your groups a little break once in a while. We’re all responsible gamers here! Maybe after an hour just give em a 5 minute break up at the centre. Don't be salty if people still wanna farm the centre mobs though. General tips to everyone, if you need to go pee or whatever, just go find a safe place and go. The group will move on without you and that's ok, you'll catch up. The same goes for the commander. If you need to bail for 5-10 mins it's cool. Most groups can run on auto pilot. Maybe hand the tag to someone temporarily, just like, communicate with your group. 

Tada. Yes I’m crispy when it comes to the lab. Thanks for asking. But yeah, some tips for everyone to have happy fun times.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[cryptidshuffle]

the less we say about it the better - chp 1

ao3

Rating: Teen Fandom: Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware Relationships: Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman (pre relationship) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Temporary Character Death(its benrey dont worry hes ok), meta about deaths and respawns, arguing about the rules of uno, gay pining, Mutual Pining, fellas is it gay to comfort ur friend who u love and are both boys?, also fair warning it'll eventually be a poly ship with benrey, Autistic Character, Autistic Tommy, ADHD Gordon, everyone is gay and trans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary: “after everything we’ve been through we deserve a few mental break downs.” they are trying to recover after black mesa, but recovery is hard. especially when one of you is still dead

---------------

They had been out of Black Mesa for a few weeks now. It was difficult trying to acclimate to life after the incident, but they were all making it work.

The science team had gotten together for some sort of game night, something cathartic about being around others who share the same trauma. Anyways, snacks and Uno was just as chaotic as one would imagine with this group of chucklefucks, with competitive tensions high on the last round of the night.

“You can’t stack the draw 4 cards, Gordon,” Bubby argued, smacking Gordon’s hand just as he placed the card.

“Says who?”

“It’s literally against the fucking rules of the game,” Bubby said back.

Tommy agreed with, “It is in the official rules, Mr. Freeman, they- Mattel confirmed it on Twitter.”

“But that’s dumb!” Gordon argued back, “I’ve always played where you can stack those, why change that now?"

Bubby retorted, “Well maybe you’ve always been playing wrong, huh? Ever thought about that, smartass?”

Dr. Coomer chimed in with, “Well on the official page for Uno (card game) on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, it states that

The following official house rules are suggested in the Uno rulebook, to alter the game:

Progressive Uno: If a draw card is played, and the following player has the same card, they can play that card and "stack" the penalty, which adds to the current penalty and passes it to the following player.[4](Although a +4 cannot be stacked on a +2, or vice versa.)[6] This house rule is so commonly used that there was widespread Twitter surprise in 2019 when Mattel stated that stacking was not part of the standard rules of Uno.[6]”

“Well, there you have it,” Gordon exclaims, interrupting Coomer’s Wikipedia infodump, “Just because it’s a house rule doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate way of playing."

“What if I don’t want to play with that rule, that’s fuckin stupid,” Bubby grumbles.

“Jesus ok, I'll play a different card, happy?” Gordon says dejectedly, taking back his controversial draw 4 card for a more innocuous one. “It’s your turn anyways.”

Bubby throws down his last card onto the pile. “I win fuckers!!!! Ahahahahaha!"

“You wouldn’t have won if you let me stack the fucking cards,” Gordon said as he threw his losing card pile onto the coffee table.

“Don’t fret Gordon! Bubby is just extremely good at card games,” Dr. Coomer replied.

“You're forgetting I’m a goddamn genius, that extends to my sick-ass Uno skills,” Bubby bragged.

Gordon chuckled, watching the two older scientists get up to leave, and watching Tommy remain, quietly cleaning up the uno deck into neat piles to place in its box.

“Well gentlemen, it’s been fun, though I think it’s time Bubby and I better get going!” Dr. Coomer said.

“No problem, don’t want you two to be late for your old man early-bird breakfast at Golden Corral tomorrow!” Gordon teased.

“Shut the fuck- I’ll kick your ass,” said Bubby.

“Hello Gord- Actually our old man breakfast is not until Saturday! It’s the one day a week I let loose and unhinge my jaws at the buffet like a Burmese Python!” said Dr. Coomer as Bubby grabs his coat and keys.

“That sounds absolutely horrifying,” Gordon laughs.

“It really is,” says Bubby. “Well, see you later asshole,” Bubby says, herding himself and Coomer out the front door.

“See you guys later,” Gordon says.

“Goodbye, Gordon! Goodbye, Tommy,” Coomer also says, before they leave Gordon’s apartment.

Tommy had yet to get up to leave, he stayed sitting in his seat staring into space, and fiddling with the Uno card deck.

“Hey Tommy, you alright man?” he asked gently. At the mention of his name, he was shaken a bit out of his stupor.

“Y-yeah I'm fine Mr. Freeman, why do you ask?”

“I mean you were kinda just staring into space for a bit, and you didn’t say anything when Bubby and Coomer left.”

“Oh shit. Sorry about that, I’ll get out of your hair,” Tommy said, starting to move to leave.

Gordon placed a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “Hey, if something’s bothering you, just know I’m here if you wanna talk about it,” Gordon comforted.

Tommy blushed slightly at the contact and nodded.

“Thank you. I-uh… I’ve just been thinking about things that happened back in Black Mesa and, you know,” he pauses to think for a bit, and sighs, “honestly I’ve been thinking a lot about Benrey.”

Just at the mention of him, Gordon felt his stomach drop with the weight of too many emotions.

“Yeah...I uh… I understand,” he responds with a sad sigh, “anything in particular you’re thinking about him?”

“I don’t know just kind of- Earlier I started thinking about how much he would enjoy game night. And then I started to miss him and realize that- that he’s not here. I feel guilty about killing him and upset at what he did. He was still my friend and I just- I want to know why he did what he did. I just want to understand,” Tommy said.

Gordon looked away as he thought about his own emotions regarding Benrey. He was undeniably angry with him, for getting him ambushed by the bootboys, for getting his arm cut off, frustrated with the constant taunting. Yet… he also felt guilty for some reason and he couldn’t quite place why. Gordon really didn’t want to feel guilty.

“Yeah…” Gordon sighed, “I'll be honest I do feel guilty about it too. I don’t know why because I feel like it should be justified since he did try to kill us. But there were times when him pestering me about my arm felt like… like sincere questioning? I still… I don’t know.”

“Yeah… I think-” Tommy cut himself off, staring at a fixed point in his vision, trying to decide whether or not to bring this up.

“I don’t think Benrey understood how human mortality worked.”

Well, that wasn’t what Gordon expected. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he was from Xen, Mr. Freeman, he wasn’t human. It was different for him. You remember he did die several times, but he came back eventually. He had to wait for his form to regenerate.”

“Wait-” this time Gordon cut Tommy off, “Oh shit, that wasn’t a joke?  For some reason I just assumed his talking about respawns and shit was part of his Epic Gamer bit?”

“I mean it was a little but I think… there’s probably a reason Benrey attached himself to video games so much, yeah? He can see himself in the structure. Like, uh- something he can relate to.” Tommy says. “It doesn’t excuse what- what he did, but I feel like knowing why things happened makes- makes them more understandable.”

Gordon leaned back on the couch blown away by the revelation. In hindsight it wasn’t that surprising but it took him a few seconds to come to terms with the reality.

“Yeah, when you put it that way, I guess it does make a lot of sense. Wait though, I swear to god all of you have died at least once, but you guys aren’t from Xen?” Gordon said, now confused about the seeming metanarrative of the mortality of his friends.

“Yeah, but those were weird Black Mesa things, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said, not elaborating any more than that.

Gordon waited a beat for Tommy to explain more but he said all he needed to.

“I will ask you more about that later, but I do not have the energy to unpack all that right now,” Gordon said with a gentle laugh.

“Wait, getting back on topic real quick, why couldn’t Benrey just... respawn now? Did we really get him that good?”

Tommy looked incredibly sad when Gordon said this, and he regretted it immediately.  ‘Damn it Gordon, Tommy’s clearly upset about Benrey, you don’t gotta be an insensitive dick.’

“Well Mr. Freeman, that’s kinda why I’ve been thinking about him,” Tommy said, “I’m not sure. It shouldn’t have taken him this long to respawn. Depending on the amount of damage it takes longer but… It’s been a while and what if- What if he is back but he is mad at all of us and that’s why we haven’t seen him? Or what if it is taking a really long time because we hurt him a whole lot. Or what if we…”

Tommy got quiet for a few seconds, the silence in the room was deafening. For an instance Gordon felt as if making a sound would shatter the air like glass.

Tommy finally said with a whisper, voice thick with choking back tears, “What if we killed him for good? And I don’t- I never see him again?”

It honestly broke Gordon’s heart how distraught Tommy was. Pushing his own complicated Benrey feelings aside, he was gonna focus on Tommy here and now.

“…Tommy, is it ok if I hug you, man?” Gordon couldn’t think of the best way to comfort the other man with words, but physical comfort he could do.

Tommy looked a little surprised at this ask but nodded. Gordon leaned in to hug the other scientist and Tommy collapsed in his embrace, completely breaking down.

Gordon just sat there and held him as Tommy sobbed into his shoulder, trying to comfort the crying man by rubbing circles into his back.

Gordon’s brain processed the things Tommy had said. Was Benrey really gone? Why did he feel guilty about the idea of having killed Benrey, he was fine with the concept during the final boss fight on Xen but now… the thought made him feel… sad? Regretful? Even his seemingly rational justifications didn’t seem as clear at the moment, only thinking of his fonder memories with Benrey.

‘Fuck this,’ he thought as he felt his own tears well up, ‘this isn’t about me, I need to focus on being there for Tommy,’ pushing his own feelings to the back of his mind to be dealt with later.

Tommy eventually calmed down enough where his sobs turned into sniffles, and he started to pull away from the hug.

“S – sorry for having a – a breakdown on your- on your couch Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said, the post-crying mental fog making his stuttering more noticeable. Tommy didn’t really have the effort in him to care.

“Don’t worry about it, man, after everything we’ve been through we deserve a few mental breakdowns,” Gordon joked trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh, that was nothing, Mr. Freeman, in terms of mental breakdowns that was as mild as a first-grade pizza party in the eye of a hurricane,” Tommy compared in a way that made little sense to Gordon, yet ridiculous enough to cause the man to burst out laughing.

“Alright I’ll take your word for it,” Gordon said, still laughing.

“I’m serious Mr. Freeman, once you have a meltdown so intense that you accidentally teleport yourself to an inter-dimensional void, the rest is a cake walk at the school fair,” Tommy said.

“Waitwaitwait- teleport?” he leaned back to look at him in surprise, “Since when could you fuckin teleport!” Gordon asked caught off guard.

“You know, learned some things from my Dad,” Tommy said, again failing to further explain himself.

“…Well alright. Yeah that tracks.”

Gordon was quiet for a moment before responding with, “You know, Tommy, I want you to know I’m here for you if you need anyone to talk to. You were there for me when I was at my lowest in Black Mesa, and I wanna be that friend to you if you need it,” he said giving the other scientists hand a comforting squeeze.

Tommy smiled, “Thank you, that means a lot Mr. Freeman.”

“You know you can call me Gordon, you don’t have to be so formal all the time Dr. Coolatta,” he teased.

Tommy blushed, ‘dammit why did he have to be so cute?’

“Wow Mr. Fr – Gordon are you really gonna make fun of my doctorate that I worked very hard for,” Tommy teased back, still a bit sniffly from crying.

“Dude, I cannot imagine you in college for some reason, what was your doctorate even in” asked Gordon, semi-jokingly, but still a bit serious.

Tommy laughed a bit, wiping the remaining tears away with the back of his hand. “Bio-chemical engineering. Creating Sunkist was for my thesis project.” Normally Tommy would be more then willing to infodump about the topic but he found his energy to be draining fast.

“What the fuck, that’s cooler than mine was. Us nerds in the Theoretical Physics department didn’t do any crazy shit like that,” Gordon said.

“Bold of you to assume I was a nerd, G-Gordon. I was the craziest guy in the frat house,” Tommy said.

Gordon’s memory vaguely recalls Tommy’s insistence that he “do something crazy” when drinking Darnold’s Potion of Grow Gun Arm.

“You know what, yeah, surprisingly I can see that image vividly in my head,” Gordon said. “Real talk though…” he said changing the subject and putting his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, “Are you- uh, ok? Like feeling better?”

Tommy was quiet for a second, eyes flickering down to look at his fidgeting hands in his lap, before replying with, “I’m ok. N-not great, I don’t think, but I will be.”

Gordon nodded. “Tommy, if there’s one nugget of wisdom that I have to share, it’s that healing takes time, things usually turn out to be ok in the end. No matter what’s going on with Benrey…it'll be alright, I’m sure.” Gordon patted his shoulder for emphasis, “not the best advice out there but it’s the best I can come up with straight off the dome. And I don’t wanna seem like I didn’t try to help you out."

Tommy laughed gently, “Thank you Mr. Fr- uh, thank you Gordon. You did help. Even if- if your advice was a bit cheesy.”

“Whatever man, you can’t blame me for trying,” Gordon laughed, playfully shoving Tommy where his hand had previously rested on the other man’s shoulder. Tommy laughed in return. He only noticed the warmth of Gordon’s touch once it was gone.

Tommy absentmindedly noticed the time on the wall clock in Gordon’s apartment. Jesus, 11:30? When did it get so late? The older scientist really hoped he wasn’t overstaying his welcome; While he would love to just stay here and joke around, he had already bothered Mr. Freeman enough and was already exhausted.

“I- I’m probably gonna head back home now, I didn’t realize how late it was,” Tommy said, standing up from his spot next to Gordon.

Gordon nodded. He had the passing thought of offering for Tommy to stay but… maybe that was a step too far. ‘Tommy probably wants his space,’ Gordon rationalized to himself.

He nodded, “Alright, don’t let me keep you,” he said, getting up as well to help Tommy gather his belongings. Which, to be honest Tommy didn’t bring much but some snacks for the group, but Gordon just needed an excuse to do anything.

Gordon walked Tommy to the front door of his apartment, like the good host he was, opening the door for him.

“Thanks for coming over Tommy,” he said.

Tommy nodded. “Thank- thank you again for letting me talk about Benrey, I know it was kinda rough there at the end, but if you ever need to talk about anything… I'm here for you as well.”

Gordon smiled, “Thank you Tommy, I'll keep that in mind.”

Tommy smiled in return, “Have a good night G-Gordon,” he said turning to head to his car.

“Goodnight Tommy.” Gordon turns to head back inside, but before he does, he can’t resist one more jab.

“Thought you could teleport?” he calls out teasingly.

Tommy flips him off, which causes Gordon to laugh harder. “Gives me a headache,” Tommy called back, trying and failing keep a straight face.

Gordon laughs as he waves a final goodbye, turning back inside and closing the door after Tommy waves as well. His thoughts race as he gets ready for bed, trying to ignore his fluttering heartbeat as he lays down for the night.

Tommy shuffles his thoughts in his head as he drives home. The emotional rollercoaster of his already draining social interaction meter from the science team, his Benrey guilt, and his small crush on Gordon was just too much for one day. His hands clench and unclench the steering wheel, looking forward to collapsing in bed for the night, hoping his dad won’t notice he'd been crying.

Somewhere, in an interdimensional void far away from this reality, someone begins to shift awake.

[rotationalsymmetry]

New post because sometimes my tag essays get way longer than what tags should be used for. CW nazi/genocide/pogrom references, cw brief reference to terf beliefs/transmisogyny, cw abuse/bullying mentions, no actual references to pedophilia but kind of adjacent to it (edit: actually there is a direct mention to csa) cw death

Unfollowing people who make you uncomfortable or who you just don’t vibe with: fine, good, take control over your online experience.

Blocking people who are harassing you: absolutely reasonable and appropriate.

Avoiding someone because you think they’re bigoted or an abuser or otherwise cause harm: sure

Suggesting to other people that they avoid someone because ditto: not something you should do over minor disagreements, but sometimes this is a reasonable and appropriate thing to do about someone genuinely being an awful person. (Although, if people don’t know you well they may not take your word for it, and sometimes people can have legitimate disagreements over what behavior is bad enough to deserve shunning.)

This last one is particularly complicated because ostracizing someone can be a bullying/abuse tactic, and some people (abusers/bullies) really will make up lies about a specific person to wreck their lives. It can be hard for bystanders to tell what’s going on when one person accuses another person of horrible things. This is not a denial of the existence of abuse, and it also doesn’t mean it’s OK for bystanders to just throw up their hands and go “it’s hard to be sure what’s going on, so we’re staying out of it.” It’s...situational, and often there’s no such thing as neutrality.

Having DNI type things: I’m not sure I fully get this (block buttons exist) but I can see where if someone’s persistently with one type of response to their blog, they might try to head it off at the pass rather than blocking on a case by case basis. And I can see it for avoiding triggers or just avoiding things you don’t wanna see (especially minors wanting to not be followed by adults and adults wanting to not be followed by minors when they have inappropriate-for-minors content on their blogs, or anyone not wanting to see graphic sexual images or images of graphic violence.)

What I tentatively don’t really approve of, and there could be context I’m missing, is using DNI type stuff as a way of enforcing social norms? I mean, I guess I’m good with it in regards to Nazis and terfs, and anyone else where the bigotry runs strong and is closely connected to lethal violence.* I want to keep those people out of as many social spaces as possible.

I guess people who do the DNI list as social pressure on other groups probably figure it’s basically the same thing? Especially when they see it as connected to childhood sexual abuse. So. I guess it’s not really a disagreement on how extreme it is to attempt to ostracize/shun certain groups of people. It’s a disagreement on which groups or ideologies are genuinely harmful.

It’s just absolutely beyond me how anyone can genuinely believe that supporting queer people’s right to self lable can be seen as being basically in the same category as “final solution” bullshit.

*(I don’t think associating terfs with Nazis is that big a stretch. Trying to prevent trans women from living their lives as women, and especially perpetuating the “trans women are dangerous predators” myth, kills people. (Mostly trans women and non-binary amab people.) It’s not that different than for instance the link between passion plays and pogroms : sometimes speech very closely and predictably leads to violence.)

(I have other issues with radical feminism, but my understanding is “terf” was coined by radical feminists who aren’t hostile to trans women, to differentiate non-terf radfems from terfs.)

[twotwinks]

a thing i was tagged in a long time ago by @rochc93. i am, believe it or not, attempting to catch up on these things. i always intend to do them but it’s either not a good time when i think about them or i’m not thinking about them. sorry i’m a mess

Who were you named after?

First name, nobody bitch. That’s all me. Middle name, like twenty different characters who are important to me but all on accident because I didn’t realize we shared the name until after I’d picked it. Notable instances include Rita Rose Vrataski from Edge of Tomorrow and also Amy Rose (a recent discovery). Last name, Gary King and also because I like confusing people about my gender by deliberately using a “male” title while presenting female (though hopefully not for much longer) and also being nonbinary. (Also s/o to ladies who call themselves king instead of queen. Yes I’m thinking of Kagamine Rin in the WanOpo songs Death Should Not Have Taken Thee and Our Adventure Log Has Vanished.)

Last time you cried?

two weeks ago to the day, when my dad let our dog Koko get hit by a car, things have been Extra Bad around here since then

Do you like your handwriting?

No. When I was little everyone always used to tell me how pretty it was but then I started trying to be a Serious Writer and my penmanship degraded as a result of how fast I had to get the words out of my head. Now my mom whines all the time about how messy and illegible my writing is.

What is your favorite lunch meat?

TURKEY

Longest relationship?

Umm....about two years ago for about three months-ish? I think? Maybe two months? I don’t know, we were dating for Christmas and then I broke up with him right before Valentine’s Day because my mental health couldn’t take it. I realized I was aro shortly after. Who would’ve guessed, huh?

Do you still have your tonsils?

Yep!

Do you bungee jump?

no and i never will

What is your favorite kind of cereal?

Dude this changes like monthly. Sometimes Honey Bunches of Oats. Sometimes Frosted Flakes. Sometimes I get a ridiculously strong craving for Strawberry Awake or Lucky Charms or Honey Nut Cheerios. I just get to eat cereal so infrequently that I can’t really have a favorite, I just have to indulge whatever craving I currently have because I only get the chance to eat one box every three months or so.

Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?

Yes because when I was little my mom ingrained into me that not untying my shoes first would ruin the backs of them way faster than they should. In all fairness we were poor and couldn’t afford to buy me new shoes that often because my feet are so sensitive that an actual comfortable pair costs $100.

Do you think you’re strong willed?

oh fuck no i mean have you ever spoken to me??? i’m the biggest baby pushover to ever live

Favorite ice cream?

Either that Death by Chocolate stuff they serve at Purdue’s dining courts sometimes or mint chocolate chip. It has to be green though or it loses something sdkhsdhk

What is the first thing you notice about a person?

Usually like their shirt, I guess? I don’t know, this isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about. Maybe it’s also if they have one of those annoying faces or voices. Or if they have a queer vibe. Look I’m not good with people ok.

Football or baseball?

Football but only because marching band and/or soccer

Favorite doughnut?

Okay this is going to sound weirdly specific but. Chocolate cake donut with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Also on a related note I once let a girl in high school copy my homework (that I myself had found the answers to on the internet, it was a really unfair English assignment). She was so happy that she said she’d buy me a donut for breakfast the next day (she made a donut run for herself once a week as a special treat). I gave her my oddly specific request, but since I knew it was kind of a rare donut to find I told her anything chocolate would work. The next day, lo and behold, she showed up with the perfect donut. She had them make it special for me (insert Discord’s pleading face emoji). That was the day I learned my lesson about judging “dumb blondes”.

What music are you listening to?

I’ve been back into Touhou doujin arrangements again lately, especially eurobeat. However I’m also hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog again so the game soundtracks and the Crush 40 albums are starting to show up in my frequent rotation on Spotify.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

The obvious choice is mint green but I could also very easily be a lime green or a glittery ruby slippers red.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?

I believe I talked to my grandma a little bit on my mom’s phone not that long ago? Other than that according to my phone it looks like I took a call from my dad back in April?

Hair color?

that real deep almost black brown. i nearly got into a fistfight with some boys in second grade who insisted my hair was black. it’s not black it’s just very thick. it actually looks much lighter if you just separate a smaller chunk and look at it.

Eye color?

Hazel. Brown with some green flecks. Or possibly green with some brown flecks. Also both of my irises look different up close but you can’t tell unless you’re really up in my face.

Favorite food to eat?

pasta but it can’t have red sauce

Scary movies or happy endings?

happy endings all the way

Last film you watched in the cinema?

do you really expect me to remember this. i honestly do not fucking know. i have no brain when it comes to movie theaters. i was gonna do a double feature of birds of prey and the sonic movie the tuesday before spring break (cheap prices for students!!!) but i ended up having a headache that day so i couldn’t go and then shit hit the fan and there was no theatergoing. i have tried and failed to get my parents to rent the sonic movie since. i’m very unhappy about it now that i’m hyperfixating again.

What color shirt are you wearing?

well i think it used to be white but it’s really old so now it’s like off-white. also it has a big snake on the back. i don’t even like snakes i just enjoy this shirt.

Favorite holiday?

Christmas!!! I don’t necessarily actually enjoy celebrating the holiday (thanks fam) but I love the idea behind it and the aesthetics. Also it’s peppermint season!

Beer or wine?

Listen I am super picky about alcohol. I haven’t liked any of the wine I’ve tried, but the first two wines I had other people told me it was bad (and then they took me out and bought me alcohol I would actually like because I’d never drank before and apparently getting me tipsy in Ireland over spring break was an Honor for them I literally didn’t pay for a single drink that night) and the third wine I had was paired with the wrong type of food (we couldn’t get the Right wine bottle open). I didn’t really mind the beer I tried in Ireland though, so I guess beer? I really like cider best though, and apparently I can also handle vodka.

Night owl or morning person?

night owl i wish i could be nocturnal

Favorite day of the week?

Friday. It has all the joy and anticipation of the coming weekend without the curse of my dad being home or the responsibility of homework looming over everything.

Favorite animal?

HEDGEHOG yeah i never really got past that from when i was little. but i also just love pretty much all animals. except like. snakes and spiders but sometimes snakes have their moments.

Do you have a pet?

Yeah. We have a lot of “family” pets but I consider Patches (cat) and Gabby (dog) to be Mine Specifically. If my mom hadn’t forced me out of therapy I’d probably be bringing Patches with me to college next year as an emotional support animal.

Where would you like to travel?

Europe babey. I just wanna hang out in France and England and Scotland and also go back to Ireland. I miss Ireland so much y’all.

ok that’s it. that’s all for this one. i’m not tagging anyone because i’m sure it’s already made the rounds among everyone. but if it missed you and you still wanna do it go for it. consider yourself tagged. poof.

[velveetacrackncheese]

Hey, Rad... Alex... Alexlememe? I know that's the name you used to go by and I know you've kinda disconnected yourself from Viv's fanbase after ZP ended, and I remember your memes and such but I kinda just wanted to get your take on the Hazbin drama since you reblogged the headcanon blog's post on the subject. More or less regarding the issue of her being uncharitable to fans and non-fans alike, plus that one callout post on twitter?

So this is weird. I wasn’t expecting to get asks on the subject since like you said, I’ve generally been disconnected from the fanbase aside from the few reblogs here and there retaining to Hazbin and its more recent developments. But yeah I guess I could give my take on this since I mean.. old fans still follow me. Idk why, but they do!So, really. In regards to that callout post (which is now deleted) I really, really don’t care that much. For one thing, Initially I did because I really hated to see someone be slandered so viciously with inaccurate and uncharitable attacks, but I kinda just stopped because even when I linked the addresses from both Viv, and the Ken dude regarding all the drama mentioned, it was either ignored and resulting in me being called a “pedo sympathizer” or “It wasn’t even an apologyyyyy weh” and like, whatever. I stopped giving a shit.

Terms of the traced animation thing... Lol, ok. I mean homages do exist, and her animation thingy was based on a meme so whatevs.

Anyways,I knew from the very start that the whole “tracing” and “stealing designs” stuff was nonsense since there was an entire like, tumblr drama arc on the issue, and albeit Viv’s post is gone, there’s evidence of legal contracts regarding Jiji and that whole nonsense that was years ago. In regards to her drawing pictures of Blaire White and Shoe… Eh. I mean, yeah, fuck em, but she’s made it clear that she doesn’t support those views anymore, and she wasn’t even really aware of the other things they’d done at that point, and I see no real reason not to believe her because what does lying about that gain her? Yeah her comment on the “blackface” thing if you wanna call it that was dumb as shit, but considering 2016 was a rough year for her in terms of trying to find where she fell in the political sphere, I can relate because I was in the same boat. A lot of sjw cringe comps, shaming feminists, and purposely misgendering transpeople… Not a good time for me either! Course I’ve changed. I went from being a reactionary alt-centrist to an anarchist so. Whether that’s an improvement is up to you.

As for the whole pedo/zoo shit, I really don’t see it. I mean like, look, obviously porn art portraying people fucking feral animals is disgusting right. Not saying it isn’t problematic or anything, but to be fair, she did draw this shit like 8 years ago. I’ve seen worse from even more well-established artists and I don’t see people trying to cancel them? Also, the art was suggestive for one thing and not necessarily 100% porn. I mean it’s still creepy and gross, and I’d understand scolding them if they continued to do so but a lot worse, but I haven’t seen anything like that from Viv past those 2 drawings. As for the pedo shit… The relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old is… hardly creepy and reminiscent of pedo shit. So yeah no fuck that. Now with the drawing of Mirage and Kestrel and the tag that said something jokingly like “Mirage and her pedo tendencies” or whatever… Yeah idk, I can’t defend that lmfao. Again, Viv said she disapproves of those drawings and doesn’t care to think about them, but that one piece of artwork definitely had some baggage to it that made me feel uncomfortable after reading the tags.Only issue I took in terms of her addressing that, is that she was very adamant about it being an inside joke… Which if that’s true, you must’ve had some fucked up friends like damn.

I would also like to state that cub art is legitimately disgusting and I am of the belief that it can cause harm depending on the context since I assume the consumption of cub art can reinforce the urge for pedophiles to act on their desires instead of finding healthy coping mechanisms for it through therapy. There have been stories from younger users on the internet that older people have tried to groom them and have the notion of pedos preying on them be normalized by sending them art depicting kids in sexual acts with adults. Of course in isolation cub art isn’t as harmful as the actual act of raping a child, and I would argue that people have their priorities kind of messed up since the illustration being acknowledged should be part of combating pedophiles preying on children. However, people, typically twitter wokescolds tend to focus on the art solely and I don’t know why. There’s a lot of MAPS trying to find their way into LGBT spaces and it’s fucking gross.

Now with Hazbin itself… It’s meh. Initially I watched it with rose-tinted glasses and loved it. After watching it for like… the 3rd, 4th, 5th time? It’s alright. I don’t hate it, but it’s far from perfect. Now ofc I know it’s a pilot but a very lengthy pilot I’ll say. My biggest gripe with the pilot is that the editing is really fucking weird. Like the editing where Angel tells Alastor “I can suck yah dick!” and the scene that followed was really off. It seemed like too many cuts were made in that instance and seemed very cluttered. It also feels that way during Charlie singing “Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow” and how many little animated bits were like almost wiped off the screen by how fast it came by, and ntm there was just so much happening all at once on screen as well. I had to pause at points just to process everything that was happening. The palette is also very, very, verrrry red. There’s so much red going on and like… I get it, it’s in hell. But lemme rest my eyes on something else besides red, please. The palette they use needs to be better diversified, and the same goes for the characters too. Every character seems to have red on them. Whenever Baxter shows up later he’s gonna look really out of place. Some of the jokes were ok, and others seemed non-clever. I didn’t think Angel’s joke about sucking Al’s dick was funny. I did like the joke with Pentious and Angel though. “SON??” Some of it could’ve been written better too.

Regarding the drama with the show itself… Personally I don’t get it. Like, I don’t feel as if Angel is homophobic as a character since his queerness isn’t at the face of the jokes he makes? He just happens to be sex worker which… sex workers are fine? Support sex workers y’all, seriously. There’s also nothing intrinsically wrong with being sexually active either? As long as it’s within reason and you’re being trustworthy.The issue lies in the fact that people viewed the things I just mentioned as negative, and associate it with gay people as said negatively portrayed thing to push the sentiment of “Gay man do sex a lot therefore the gays bad” or that sort of thing. Also there’s a bit where it shows there’s more emotional depth to him and I’m hoping they’ll expand on that later. Honestly though, the criticisms in regards to that have been pretty uncharitable. Same with the criticisms for Vaggie. Apparently Vaggie is racist because… she’s loud and angry? Again, this is a case where people assume those traits are negative, and because it’s assumed to be negative, the negatively portrayed thing pushes the sentiment of “Being a loud fiery woman made, and latina women are that, therefore latina women bad” or some shit.  There are stereotypes that are bad no matter what the context is like sambo-esque caricatures of black people. Then there are tropes that are applied to certain demographics that have the capability to be written well into characters without it being offensive or disrespectful. Vaggie is literally angry because she’s protective of her gf. Like. C’mon.

So, I think that settles what I think about that? It honestly seems like superficial shit to me tbh, and I’m saying this as an sjw-y beta cuck anarchist.

The only REAL gripe I have, is with what the mod from @zpheadcanons posted. Because I know this is probably true as much as it hurts me to say it. Faust def has a history of being pretty petty and bully-like to people she deems undesirable, and Viv harbors it by not criticizing it, and if anyone else within their friend group does it then you’re scolded vehemently and treated like garbage. Her attitude also stretches to harboring an audience full of white knights that I personally don’t approve of.

There’s also this

Faust has hurt distant people I personally know and… yeah. Maybe I’m biased but I can’t vibe with that. Sorry. If you don’t make an effort to criticize abusive behavior within your own friend circles then that makes you just as bad, because then you’re just a bystander to things you could have prevented.

This isn’t to say Viv herself hasn’t dealt with bad faith actors, or people who had the intention to hurt her, or very uncharitable criticism. Particularly from the badwebcomics forums which is honestly 4chan like in how they operate. It’s vicious as hell, and a lot of their criticisms boil down to insults and personal attacks, which serve to be nonconstructive. That’s not to say Viv has been kind to even the more charitable criticism though. I know because when I happened to send an ask to the zoophobia criticism blog (where did it go???) regarding something relatively minor and superficial, she blocked me from her blog. I’m still blocked lmfao. I’m not blocked on twitter though! (not yet anyways). Faust has me blocked there though, and I have no idea why. She’s had me blocked for years even though I haven’t spoken out against her till recently. So, there’s that.

As for her apology itself, I feel like it was fine. I think it could’ve been worded better? The take I disagree with in terms of that is like… If I made a mistake in the past, and I make it clear that I don’t care for what I did, I don’t feel as if me explaining why I felt compelled to do certain things negate me from still not caring for my past actions? That’s just me providing context. That’s a really weird take, but I guess that could be viewed as an excuse idk. Personally I think people are holding the bar super high to a state of irrationality.

*sigh* So yeah there’s that. I miss the old days where honestly I could be ignorant about this, but at the same time I look at my old obsessive posts and I kinda just… cringe. I was such an irrational stan I almost hate myself for it. Fuck XD

Edit: I’d also like to point out that I’m not saying Viv or Faust are totally awful or totally good people, and I know they’re capable of being better. It’s a matter of whether or not they wanna be better.

[not-enough-ships]

lightning’s day off

Lightning was normally the hard ass soldier, that never takes a day off. until a week of her sisters nonstop rants and convincing reasons to take a day off.

Lightning wasn’t really sure what todo on her day off. She just sat in her room not knowing what todo, till her door swung wide open by her yunger sister.

A moderately annoyed look was on her face. “this isn’t what i meant when i said take the day off”

lightning just looked at her. “Well what do you normally do on a day off?”

A heavy sigh escaped sehrras lips, she shook her head saying “they definitely don’t just sit on their bed staring at nothing” putting a hand on her hip “Here how about this me, you, fang and vanille all go out today? Fang and vanille have been wanting todo something with us. Even tho i’m pretty sure they just want us to third weel for them. So what do you say sis?”

Lightning just looked up at the ceiling pondering the idea. After a few seconds she shrugged her solders saying “okay i guess it couldn’t hurt”

sherras face visibly brighten when lightning agreed. With excitement covering her voice she said “perfect i’ll call the others” almost skipping away with excitement.

Lightning just shook her head and smiled lay back flat on her bed. If it made her sister happy then she was happy.

Little did lightning know that later that day she was going to be truly happy. The girls planned on going to coffee and lunch. They went to a place called Cat Coffee. They apparently had some of the best coffee around and fairly good food. There was a hanging singh that had a drawing of little kitten in a coffee cup.

The four girls went up to order. sherra was first to order, then vanille, then fang and finally lightning. As she approached the cash register and was about to order. She locked eyes with cashier blue eyes meeting red eyes. lightning has never really had a sexual preference but in this instance she just might have hers.

The two stared at each other almost as if they were lost in each other. lightning’s eyes drifted to the cashiers name tag. It read tifa. lightning brought her eyes back to tifas still no words being spoken.

Tifa broke the silence with “she’s hot”

A blush immediately covered lightnings face.

Tifa realizeing what she said “i-i mean w-what would u like miss.” She adverted her eyes do to embarrassment.

“o-oh um i-i’ll have a kitten moca please” lightning never stutters and rarly ever says please. The only time she says please is when it comes to her sister. Blushing was a whole new consept to lightning she’s never blushed before.

“o-ok is that all miss?”

“oh i’ll also get a poppyseed muffin”

Tifa looked over the order and repeated it back “one kitten moca and a poppyseed muffin” A blush still covering her face. “that will be 7.50 and your name too miss”

“okay and it’s lightning” She says shyly. Lightning rumeges around in her rose colored purse pulling out her wallet. She hands the money to Tifa.

“okay it will be out in a minute miss lightning” lightening liked how tifa said her name it felt right. A genuine smile was placed on tifas face. Making lightning blush.

Lightning walks over to a table where three girls were staring at her. One in shock another in disbelief and the last one with a shit eating grin. Sehrra was first to speak “glad to see you have an inrest in something or better year someone” her shit eating grin growing ever wider.

“w-what i don’t know what your talking about” Lightning being taken off gaurd at her sisters comment.

Another voice came in. “okay who are you and what did u do to our lightning?” fang said with disbelief in her voice. After saying that a smak to the arm came from her girlfriend. “owe” she rubs her arm.

“don’t be mean to light hun” vanille said in a scolding tone.

Before lightning could say anything her name was called out. She approached the pick up station. Tifa was there holding her drink and muffin.

Tifa handed lightning the items saying “hope you enjoy miss lightning” A nervous smile etched across her face.

Lightning looked confused at her saying “thank you i have a feeling i will enjoy it very much” Before she turned around she noticed something written on her coffee cup. It said “wanna hang out or do an activity” Tifas phone number was written just beneath it. Where the words ‘coution this is hot’ were replaced with ‘caution your very hot’. A massive blush spread across her face.

Tifa noticed lightning was reading what she wrote and started to sweat bullets. Hoping lightning wouldn’t find it weird.

Lightning smiled and gathered all her calmness and said “i’d love too but on one condition.” using a teasing tone “Can i get you to go”

Tifa blushes at the response and said “i’m off in an hour.” A goofy smile plastered on her lips.

Lightning said with a goofy smile of her own “so it’s a date then”

@tinytifa

[homosociallyyours]

Hey, Megan. This has mentions of abuse so if it triggers you don't read any further. What do you think about these new revelation in Johnny Depp case? I'm seeing two very conflicting arguments and I'm not sure who to believe at this point. Believing a female is the first instinct but apparently the evidence of abuse by her was submitted too.

Hey friend! Thanks for the message. I feel ok talking more about this even though I know it’s a difficult topic. I’m tagging this with abuse cw, domestic violence cw, and dv cw-- hopefully that will catch stuff for filters but if not I think it’s good to have a warning here too!

I’ll start off by saying I have been seeing a post going around about this that really upset me deeply. The entire point of it is that JD is innocent and should never have been “cancelled” and that now AH is the one who deserves to be “cancelled” because she’s the true abuser. I made a brief post earlier saying that my tendency is to believe a woman when she comes forward with abuse allegations, especially when there’s a big power differential between her and the person (man, in this case) she’s accusing, because historically women have not had anything to gain from being open about being abused. 

I don’t want to go into a list of names, but it’s really long and full of women who have produced evidence-- pictures, recordings, witnesses who corroborate their stories --only to find their own careers ruined. Yes, the tides are turning somewhat with the me too movement, but there are no guarantees. 

That being said, I’m reminded of some friends I had when I was younger. They had a particularly bad break up that ended with physical violence and both claimed to have been abused. I talked with both of them and I believe both of them. Often times abusive relationships look like one powerful abuser vs. one less powerful abused person, and I think that’s the dynamic that we’re expected to see play out along gender lines, but abuse looks a lot of different ways. Abuse can be verbal and emotional, and it can be physical in ways that don’t require a lot of strength or leave lots of marks. It can be quick and volatile and rare. It’s also possible, as it was with my friends, that both people are emotionally and physically harming each other. It can start out as something that seems harmless for both people and escalate into something more as other aspects of the relationship dissolve. 

At this point, we don’t know enough to know what was going on. The evidence that JD has brought forward (what little I could find online) definitely shows signs of physical abuse. So did what we saw from AH. I am not a black and white thinker, so for me this makes sense. The situation is colored in shades of grey, many of which I won’t be able to see from my vantage point as someone who knows neither of the people involved. If we were friends, maybe I’d have a stronger opinion. Maybe I would’ve seen abusive behavior from one or both people before, or maybe conversations with both parties would clear things up. But really we’re all just sitting here on the internet not knowing anything but the limited information we’re fed by the media. 

So. I would just urge people not to “cancel” anyone immediately. And for the people who want to be upset that JD was “cancelled” well. For me it’s better than the alternative. Yeah, I know some people will think that’s messed up, but I would rather not get into the habit of forcing someone who comes forward with abuse allegations (especially a woman or any marginalized person) to withstand endless questioning that assumes they’re lying just so that we don’t accidentally “cancel” someone (in this case a powerful white man). 

Finally (sorry I’m longwinded I know), you probably noticed that I kept putting “cancelled” in quotation marks. This word. Ugh. It’s fine for a joke, I guess, something along the lines of telling your friend they’re blocked/reported when they send you a post you don’t wanna see. But it’s being used seriously in this instance and that just won’t do. You can’t delete someone’s existence from the earth, and you can’t blot out their past. We are all problematic, we all do things that would absolutely appall one another. Just yesterday a friend and I were talking and it turns out we fundamentally disagree about what constitutes a reasonable omission of truth in a certain situation. My stance-- that it’s fine to not tell someone about an aspect of yourself if you feel it necessary for self protection --is most likely problematic to some people! That’s ok! 

You’re never going to understand or agree with everything another person says, thinks, or does. You can only draw lines for what you find unacceptable. Just like you can decide not to go to group activities with someone you don’t like, you can choose to not watch movies with a certain star or director. This can be arbitrary, even! You get to decide what you do. You don’t get to cancel the person, though. So yeah, AH isn’t cancelled and neither was JD. He still has jobs, he still has fans. 

ANYWAY a little tl;dr: we don’t know what happened because we don’t actually know these people or their lives, and can we maybe please stop trying to “cancel” anyone and maybe just decide on our own whether or not we’re going to consume their media? 

[callmenateybird]

Depression Never Drove Me To Attempt Suicide; Being Bullied While Depressed Did

I don’t wanna relive my bullying hellscape today but I can’t shake the feeling that people still just continue to blame the brains of suicidal people for any and all suicidal acts.

I’ve experienced depression for a long time. I was lucky that depression alone never led me to a suicide attempt. Being bullied along with being depressed, however, did. I need to use my own experience as an example to get through to people about this today.

Spring 2016: I dated a person I met on The List App (just what it sounds like - a list-making app created by BJ Novak). I went out to CA to be with her for 2 months. She felt it was moving too fast, but didn’t tell me for awhile. Eventually she did, we broke up, I was crushed, I went back to OH to be with family. I whined, I pitied myself, I spoke about the breakup on List.

Eventually, friends of my ex decided this was too much & brought my ex & others into a FB group chat, where they shit talked & mused that I had been manipulative & that I’d threatened self harm.

This was the first in two instances now of upping the ante of false accusation. First, from whining & taking a breakup hard -> manipulation & threats of self harm, then, a year ago right around this time, upping the ante again to “abuser.” More on that in a bit.

Back to 2016 — August, as the group chat began. I had been listing about the upcoming 2 year anniversary of my dad’s passing — Aug 10. On the night of the 9th, my ex’s close friend did what I guess was an accidental like of an old list of mine. At the time, it seemed odd because she wasn’t following me and we’d had conflict with each other on Twitter about a week before.

The next day, it made sense why she’d been far back in my old lists. As I listed about the anniversary of my dad’s passing, parody accounts began to go public.

The first was called Predator. My screen shots here were taken later (I was too upset to screenshot anything the day it all happened) after the name was changed to “Chris, Kay?” to target one List guy these people hated. The original name on the account was “Chrislie K. Veshester” — a mashup of the names of 3 of us from List.

In the second and third screenshots, you’ll see parts of a list. This list has direct excerpts from lists the 3 of us guys had previously posted (gathering lines from old lists the night before…yes, bullies go to great efforts to bully). The writing and recording line, the bravery line, the baggage line, the body is your friend line, the quote of Coyote Hours (an album about the death of my father) — all from me & gleefully twisted into being somehow creepy or wrong.

The line “I try to get others to take care of me” didn’t seem to come from any of us, but seems more to be a line from my ex’s friend’s imagination that reflects how those people saw me in the wake of that breakup.

Also launched that day, in tandem, was the Flounce account (to flounce means to announce that you’re leaving a community, which I had done the night before my dad anniversary, because of what I was going through at the time). I later was told this was created by Jack Waz, an employee of List. The first few followers on the account — my bullies, “Jo-Ann Fabrics” (another parody account by Jack), & even List creator BJ Novak.

Also popping up that day was this dormant “imacreep” account where luckily no new vitriol was added — but you can see, based on the few lists that account had “liked,” that it came from the same group of people.

You can also see, from the few likes on the predator account, that it came from the same group of people.

On Aug 10, I had a nervous breakdown after seeing all of this. The passing of a parent is a deep trauma and, only 2 years out, was obviously very fresh for me. It is an event that is almost sacred in a way, & part of the unhealable scarring of my bullying experience is that this sacred date was snatched away from me, and tainted by this awful social media experience. I now forever associate the day my dad died with being bullied.

On September 1st, an older guy from the group chat sent me an unsolicited harassing email, after being given my contact info by my ex. I had just called her to ask if she would be completing some album artwork she’d promised to do for me around the time of our breakup. I hadn’t heard from her in ages (this was before I knew she was involved in the group chat), so I took one last chance at reaching out about it. In the email from this guy, I was summarily smacked down for “not respecting her boundaries” and told very cruelly by him that she didn’t want to do my art, or hear from me ever again.

In mid September 2016, a former friend told me everything about the group chat. She had been brought into it and pressured/intimidated (by, among others, men in their late 30s — she was in her early 20s, as were a few other women in the group chat) to “provide receipts” of me talking about my breakup. She was forced to “denounce” me and swear she’d never talk to me again.

She named names to me in September and let me know who was involved. I learned that my ex — who had been silent through all the stuff in August — was in the group chat, participated, and watched it all go down. A couple days later, I began a suicide attempt.

The ordeal led to both myself and my mom being hospitalized (she has a heart condition). Thankfully, we both came out of the ordeal ok.

Plenty more vitriol was unleashed on List after August 10th. I was lucky that much of it didn’t involve me (another guy from List got it worse than I did). One older guy from the group chat did a particularly nasty “sublist” and a few other remarks came out here and there, but it seemed to be dying down finally.

Through the fall, I began to find balance again. I returned to List with a new account, and took small steps in standing up for myself.

In November, I confronted my ex about what I knew, in an attempt to make peace. She expressed some regret, but never really apologized in a way that felt adequate to me, nor would she concede that her friends had bullied me and that she had condoned it.

In December, I returned to CA to resume the life I’d begun building when I was dating my ex. I had been dreaming of living in Southern California since the trip to scatter my dad’s ashes there in fall of 2014, and I was using the last chunk of inheritance money I’d gotten to get myself re-established in Orange County.

In January of 2017, I finally realized that my ex was never going to apologize to me for everything, so I launched a text tirade of criticisms her way and stopped speaking to her.

But in the next few months, I faltered in that commitment and sent her three harassing emails. Since the previous fall, I had begun an agonizing habit of digital cutting (creeping on social media that you know is bad for your mental health) and snooped on her accounts, plus those of her friends and family. It is a habit that I have yet to fully shake, even all this time later. The three emails I sent all involved seeing things she’d liked on social media and being angry or jealous about them. I finally stooped to the level of the people who harassed me, and I harassed her. After the final of those three emails, in April of 2017, she wrote back and said she’d file a harassment order if I contacted her again, and I never contacted her again.

But I continued to grow more and more emboldened in standing up for myself publicly, and over the course of 2017 it became a huge part of my social media (especially on Twitter) to speak openly about my experience being bullied, harassed, and ganged up on.

In June of 2017, I was walking in a park in my ex’s town and saw her. A few days later, many of the ladies from List were tagged in a massive Twitter thread. For some reason, a few of us guys from the app were tagged as well. Later that day, my ex’s friend from the group chat - the one who had made the “Predator” account - subtweeted that these List ladies in the mass tagging had “an abuser among [them].” The ante of false accusation had been upped again, from whining and self pity and taking a breakup hard -> manipulation and threats of self harm -> abuse.

This subtweet alone, which I’d only discovered because of my continuing struggle with digital cutting (creeping online), sent me reeling on the verge of another breakdown. I knew that things were heating up culturally, that the imperative to believe women was more important than ever. And now, for the first time, I had to face that dissenting argument from the trolls who don’t like the prioritization of believing women no matter what — “what if somebody falsely accuses someone just to fuck up their life?” But even then, I brought myself back from the brink (with much help from my therapy sessions, my support system of family and friends, my writing, and the good-for-the-soul environment of southern California).

I even had a phone call later that summer with the friend who’d told me about the group chat, where I explained to her that I still acknowledged the importance of believing women, even if I was experiencing a false accusation. I told her that I was trying to hold onto the understanding that the cultural prioritization of listening to and believing women was bigger than me, more important than me.

But I also continued to speak openly about being bullied, and now included the mention of being implied to be an emotional abuser, all through 2017 until finally standing up for myself on social media impacted my real life once more. A few days before Christmas, after a really good period of no digital cutting for the entire month of December so far, I had a weak moment one evening and looked at the social media of my ex and her family. On her mom’s Instagram, I saw a repost from my ex’s private account where she’d said she had gone to the police station to file a report about “a year and a half of harassment, stalking, and general creepiness.” (A year and a half would be going back to right when we broke up - we were still on good terms then - and six months before our friendly if flawed semi-clearing of the air in late 2016). In her mom’s repost, she said “if we see this guy in our neighborhood again, we are coming after him!” I saw this — and hope you will understand my seeing it this way — as a threat of physical harm. If “our neighborhood” meant seeing me on their street, well that was never going to happen. But if it meant seeing me in their whole entire town — like I’d seen her in a park last June — well, what was I supposed to do about being seen in an entire town??

I was terrified, and made a hasty decision two days later (Christmas Eve) to leave my Orange County long term Airbnb about two months before the end of my lease. I struggled for about a month to stay afloat in LA, looking for a new space. But my savings was too low to handle the temporary added expenses of new Airbnbs and hotels, and by early February of 2018 I decided I had to throw in the towel and go back to Ohio to regroup with family until I could afford to be out west again.

And that is my ordeal, to date.

I took a breakup badly, and cried and cried and said “I can’t take it anymore” (the closest I came to “threats of self harm,” as were the initial accusations from the group chat). And all because of taking a breakup badly —

I was ganged up on, parodied, mocked, and bullied on the two year anniversary of the death of my father.

The actual creators/employees of the app where I was bullied - including BJ Novak himself - celebrated and *participated in* bullying me.

I suffered a nervous breakdown.

I attempted suicide.

My mom was sent into the hospital with a heart scare, from watching what I was going through and reacting emotionally as most mothers would.

I drained thousands of dollars from my savings for additional therapy, spiritual counseling, and cross country travel (twice).

I literally left my home because I felt unwelcome and physically unsafe in Orange County, after being threatened with violence by my ex’s mother. 

And now I exist in this particular moment on social media, where the valiant and important efforts of the #metoo movement are still sometimes misrepresented by cold statements like “don’t ever fucking tell me that a false accusation ruins a man’s life.”

Even if you set aside my experience of being ganged up on and bullied, of being called a creep for being friends with women who were younger than me in a social media community, of being accused of manipulation and emotional abuse, it should be understandable as a general isolated statement — When we talk about someone’s life being ruined, we have to look at more than just their external life. We have to also look at their internal life.

And rest assured — beyond all the external stuff I just listed, my internal life has been forever impacted by being bullied and by being called “abuser.”

I can no longer say I have never attempted suicide. After years of living with depression and being proud of myself for never giving into the darkest of places, I now have experienced a suicide attempt. I now have experienced being called an abuser. And who knows what else I may experience as repercussions for posting this essay with screenshots and names, since the past two years of interacting with bullies has shown me very clearly that bullies always — ALWAYS — win.

We now live in an age where bullies are empowered by important cultural movements. They sneak in through weak spots, they use amped up language and terms that they know will attract attention. They are stronger than ever.

But the part of the narrative that my bullies and threateners will always leave out of their callouts - their own screenshot exposés of past and possibly future - is the part where they bullied and harassed first. My own instances of email harassment of my ex, my own flawed and self destructive habit of creeping online — these are personal flaws that arose AFTER being bullied. That part of their narrative will always be conveniently scrapped from the record. Bullying proves the age old saying — hurt people hurt people.

And so now, two years after my ordeal began, I try to be mindful that angry statements can verge on harassment, I do less and less digital cutting, I try to be a good person and to value the people who value me.

But when famous people are lost to suicide, and the conversation zeroes in squarely on mental illness and mental health, I just cannot abide the ignoring of so many other cultural factors that lead people to no longer want to live on this planet.

Whether the factors are due to marginalization, systemic oppression, economic hopelessness, ageism, a broken health care system, disease and physical pain, or a bullying ordeal like mine — there are an endless number of external environmental forces that drive people to suicide besides their own pure brain chemistry. And remember, environmental doesn’t just mean places and things — it means people. Many of those external forces that drive people to suicide involve how the people are treated by the others in their environment.

I have experienced depression for much of my life. But it was only being bullied that finally pushed me to the brink. This screenshot below shows the folks from the group chat. Some of them were silent bystanders, but they all watched it go down and did nothing to stop it. They are all complicit.

These are my bullies.

And if I have to live forever with being bullied the day my dad died, with having attempted suicide, with watching my mom go into the hospital, with being called an abuser and whatever else I’ll be called between two years ago and the end of my life, then they will have to live with being called bullies. And even if this post is removed, even if this account is suspended or deleted, I will continue to speak up and speak out when I am bullied or when I see others being bullied. I will not stand for it ever again.

Because all the things those people took away from me left a gaping hole inside me. And, so far, I have only found a couple things with which to sufficiently fill that hole — the understanding of my very loving and supportive family and friends, and love and respect for myself. Standing up for myself is just one of the ways I have learned to love and respect myself, ever since the ordeal that scarred my life forever.

June 12: I decided to add an afterword to this essay, a sort of “FAQ” to address a question I’ve been asked a few times in one form or another. 

The question: Do you talk about your bullying experience so much because you want your bullies to feel bullied?

No.

First, "bullying bullies" isn't a thing much like how reverse racism isn't a thing. To be a broken record - to continually expose the bullying act & “Scarlet Letter” the perpetrators - is the only power a bullying victim has, since the act of bullying unfortunately isn't treated like a punishable crime, especially when it’s done online (even though being bullied has robbed me financially and wounded me - and my family - both physically and emotionally).

Second, I talk about this as much as I do because I want the people who bullied me to feel haunted by the consequences of their actions (and inactions, in the case of those who watched and condoned) - actions they probably felt, at the time, were not a big deal. To have spoken about it publicly for almost three years is an effort at making them feel so haunted by their behavior that they not only never bully another person again, but that they *themselves* become dedicated anti-bullying crusaders. It sounds almost laughable - and certainly would to them, as cynical as they are - but I am trying to make a difference in these few peoples’ lives. You can label it crudely as “badgering,” which I feel does a disservice to me by downplaying the severity of what happened to me, but whatever you call my continued persistence in talking about this experience - it is persistence that aims to make a few people more decent and mindful of their past and future behavior.

[starryseo]

youtuber!changbin

omg i’m excited for this one bc it’s the loml

s e o  c h a n g b i n

enjoy :)

Chan | Woojin | Minho | CHANGBIN | Hyunjin | Jisung | Felix | Seungmin | Jeongin

introducing the one and only. . .

Changbin “I love dark” Seo!!!!

so, as you (probably) already know

he has done lots of collabs with chan and jisung under 3racha

that’s how he met the rest tbh; chan messaged him and jisung both for a 3-person collab and then he stuck with them bc they made some bombass tracks

and he also manages the joint StrayKids youtube account where their gameplays are posted

he has too much time on his hands

which is also why he posts a lot of diss tracks about the other guys

it’s all in good nature, no harm done

and his insults are the bEST

he’s actually a lyrical genius

and no one can hate him or what he says in his raps because

1) what he said is probably true

2) if you hate on it, he’ll come out with a second diss track that’s much worse

his tracks are usually about how chan is like the dad of the group

but everyone just uses him for his money (not in a mean way!!!!!)

or about how felix is desperate for changbin’s love but it’s unrequited (he’s still salty about the forced kiss ok, give him time pls)

he hasn’t made a diss track about jeongin though because the boy is too precious okay no one can say anything bad about him except jyp but hes a snake so screw him

you may be asking what changbin could’ve said about seugmin bc he’s also heckin’ precious but i’m afraid you’re gonna have to wait for seungmin’s one to find out ;)

jisung once hacked into changbin’s youtube account

hacked meaning he guessed changbin’s password (hint: it was ilovegyu<3)

and changed the profile picture to a screenshot he got from a video hyunjin took of changbin being dared to act cute

the video was vv cringey so jisung figured this was the perfect revenge for that diss track changbin made of him

and he also thought changbin needed a change from the pitch black profile pic he had up before

yeah, he loves dark thaaaaat much

as well as producing music and gaming

changbin also dabbles in skateboarding and a biiit of parkour

he does this with felix

(when he has a quick method of escaping felix’s wrath, he can tolerate time together)

his skateboard is. . .

you guessed it: black

probably has a skull or some other ‘scary’ design on the front too

but felix managed to notice a small sticker of a munchlax (the pokemon gyu is fyi) on the back too :) cutie :) 

changbin really loves skateboarding because he thinks it looks cool and goes well with his dark concept

but then he always ends up bumping into something because sometimes he pulls his cap too far down and so he can’t see very well

idiot

it’s really funny seeing him try to act nonchalant about tripping up

when everyone around saw

and felix videoed it and is laughing his ass off

changbin threatened to murder felix if he posted that video anywhere

and felix was like “;) good thing i haven’t posted it... i did send it to the SK group chat though”

bro felix was literally running away for his life and changbin was right behind him on his skateboard tryna run him over

that was not a good day to be felix tbfh

the parkour he does is usually quite simple (about as simple as parkour w/ a skateboard can get)

but he looks badass whilst doing it so it’s cool

his favourite move is when he rides perpendicular to a rail and so the board goes under the rail and he jumps over the rail

it took a while to perfect the landing but he was really determined and now he’s mastered it i’m so proud of him

whenever he posts these videos he gets a lot of comments

because with his music & gaming videos his face usually isn’t seen

but with this, it is

so there are a lot of comments about him being b e a u t i f u l

the comment with the most likes was from jisung who was like “mr dark?? more like sunshine boy! :) keep up the great work i <3 your vids!!”

he was close to reporting that comment just so it would go away lmao salty

but instead he ranted to gyu like “sunshine boy? i’m not a sunshine boy, i’m a dark, dark man, right gyu?”

the group have a lot of hang-outs at his house (bc dude look at his house wtfffff it’s so shiny)

and his mum is the cutest!!! always giving them food as soon as they enter

she also LIVES to embarrass her child, poor changbin :(

constantly pulling his cheeks, giving him lil’ kisses and always calling him her “little prince” or some other equally cheesy variant

the guys lowkey thinks it’s cute and know she’s only doing this for fun, but they still use it as an opportunity to laugh at him

one time she whipped out the photo album with baby changbin pics and omg they’ve never seen changbin redder in the face than that day

no one knows if he was fuming or just really embarrassed lmao

what hurt the most was how jeongin - the baby of the group - was laughing and calling him a “cute baby”

and obviously hyunjin had to go “wow dude you were so cute, what happened to you??”

his mum, bless her soul, was like “he takes after his father that’s why”

#SavageSeoMama (this is where he gets inspiration for his diss tracks)

oKAY BACK TO GAMING!!!!

he mainly plays shooting games like battlefield, CoD and csgo with the guys

loves it when they play with just them in a local match, not online (mainly talking about CoD here)

because then he can put on friendly fire so that he can kill his team mates lmao

he’s a major kill scene stealer and proud - truly evil

the guys eventually kick him out of the lobby

only bringing him back once he’s apologised to them

to this day, he hasn’t apologised lmfao

when they kick him out he’ll just start playing online

because changbinnie don’t care 

he loves killing people’s hype

for instance, jisung will be cheering over the mic like “yay!! i got the last kill”

and changbin will just reply like “ok and?”

jisung: “wHY CAN’T YOU JUST BE HAPPY FOR ME?!?!?!? I <\3 YOU”

the real question is: how did jisung say “<\3″?

he kills his own hype too though

like when he gets the final kill and suavely goes “wow much skill”

and felix is like “yeah!! wow!!! that was so cool changbinnie!!!”

he’s just like “yeah it wasn’t that good, stop that”

sometimes when they’re all playing free-for-all

he’ll start singing his threats

like he’ll be two steps behind seungmin and just start lowly singing “seungmin, i’ve got your back~”

and like normally someone might interpret that to mean “dw bro i got your back, i’m protecting you, you’re covered”

but nah

changbin straight up stabbed seungmin in the back

seungmin felt that betrayal in his heart

so on the one hand he’s singing to people before he kills them which is heckin’ creepy

but on the other hand he has a beautiful voice so it’s not that bad???

but on the other, other hand (idk imagine 3 hands or smth) he’s technically being nice by giving them a heads-up before he kills them so

really

they should appreciate his kindness

:)

ok no i can’t defend him he’s too into these killing games

the only person he likes teaming up with is hyunjin and here’s why:

chan talks about strategy too much (dude all you gotta do is kill ok relax a bit)

woojin, as previously discussed, makes really bad rookie mistakes

minho gets too frantic when ambushed and just ends up dying without fighting back

jisung is too talkative

felix is also too talkative and is too risky (he’s literally jumped in front of changbin’s character dramatically like “I’ll save you!”. jeongin ended up killing the both of them together lmfao #DoubleKill)

seungmin just runs around in the middle of the battlefield with NO strategy

and jeongin is jeongin. he’s too precious for changbin’s lethality

so that leaves hyunjin. he’s the right amount of talk-y (yes that’s now a word), he has gr8 gameplays, he can handle a multiple-person attack AND he can be really frickin’ ruthless at times

gotta love that boi

felix is always fueled to kill hyunjin for stealing his man

but honestly changbin would rather just solo it because “i work alone, buddy” [sOMEONE GET MY REFERENCE PLS]

wow this has gotten rlly long soz

imma just end it here:

although changbin loves killing them in games and mocking them through his diss tracks

the guys know that they can trust him 100% and that he really, truly does have their backs (even seungmin’s)

and he’s always prepared to fight anyone that hates on any of the guys because only he can do that okay they’re his family and no one else can do that to them

he feels blessed to have them and whenever they come around to his house he’ll get lowkey sentimental bc wow, this is his family that bring a smile to his face everyday

and although he probably won’t admit it without jisung forcing him to, he really loves these guys and is glad to have met them

thank you for reading this far lmao hope you enjoyed it & feedback is always welcome!!

i saw some tag where someone talked about waiting for hyunjin’s one, and bc i’m doing this in age order he’s coming soon

and now just to playfully annoy them i wanna change the order

just kidding

ok not kidding i wanna change the order but i’m too lazy to since i’ve already planned it out

also!! is the desktop theme okay for everyone?? pls let me know of any improvements! :) thank youuuuuuuuuuu

[scottstiles]

i was tagged by @clarz - thank you for this! rules: answer questions given by the person who tagged you, write 11 new questions of your own, tag 11 people. 

i’m gonna tag some people today cuz i worked hard on this and it took a long time...whoops. no pressure XD @wellsjahasghost @tylerstitties @runicscribbles @xproskeith @anomalagous @ginevraslovegood @quicklikelight​  @westhallen @lozenger8 @prudence-halliwell @malecbellarke

omg i’m sorry i just realized it’s really long. this is what happens when you take 2 days to answer a tag game. feel free to skip my answers and head to the new Qs if you want! or neither! love you <3

1. Do you find it frustrating that although you know how certain things “work” (for instance, how a love interest not calling you back automatically increases your interest), you can’t help but being drawn in? Can you give me an example? (For the record, this principle describes the entirety of my complicated one-sided relationship with one Harry Edward Styles.)

Yeeeeah i feel like most things in my life approach that level of frustration tbh. I have very little self control sometimes. I’m covered in a haze of addiction, and my impulse control/temper lives on a volatile little rickety branch in my brain where there’s always a lightning storm in the distance. Okay so what I mean is (and I’m not sure i really understand the question but I’m trying), I find it extremely frustrating that I am always aware of what the outcome will be and yet I constantly put myself in the position to be frustrated and/or disappointed by it. Did I get it? Like, if we’re talkin about celebrity obsessions, or having a crush on someone (which, yeah, I guess I kinda remember what that’s like irl), I suppose I’ve come to terms with that kind of distant admiration thing being divorced from reality- I mean, it’s been a life long struggle, so it doesn’t really get to me as much anymore. Usually. The “fangirl” in me is very, very young, and I don’t really know her anymore. If I’m talking about fighting my impulses or my mental health, or like, leaving earlier so I’m not late and then angry in traffic.... that’s a bit more frustrating. I will never leave early. Why? I don’t fucking know. And it’s the Worst. Idk if that fits with your question but yeah, I know how my behavior affects my mood and I could change it, but I don’t, and I can’t help it.

2. What is the longest book or series of books you’ve ever read? Were you at a loss when you finished? Do you generally like series or prefer stand-alone books?

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind! I love it so much. Haven’t read it in a long time, but that shit is like over 20 books and he’s still writing.. a legend. I was at a loss several times at the end of certain books that I thought were really gonna be the End, but then he made some like, spin off series a bit. So we’re good. Generally I love a good series, but there are so many stand alone books that I adore so.. I don’t know. Why am I writing so formally? This is tiresome, I’m gonna stop now. Stupid capital letters.

other series i love include everything in the tolkien universe, and of course harry potter, and also the percy jackson books. tolkien is pretty epic, to say the least, and rick riordan is fucking prolific, so hp is like, on the small side in terms of series (tho i did reread the last 2 at least a dozen times, and the audiobooks on many a long drive). also those motherfukcing maze runner books were like... there’s not that many of them, but that one i can definitely say left me at a loss. i’m still not ready to watch the last 2 movies but i hope to one day. for dylan.

3. Ever seen a therapist or gone to a support group? Did it help?

yup. i’ve seen quite a few therapists. i don’t think it’s helped in the long term, and i’m not sure it helped in the short, though there was a time i liked it because i was indulging my self analysis, but that for sure wasn’t helpful. i tried a couple cbt therapists thinking that could be a good way to go, but nothing ever really changed, so it’s hard to tell what’s going wrong- is it the therapy or is it me? idk i just think on the whole it’s got a negative color for me. i still see someone once every few weeks, but it’s a chore. this is really completely against everything i believe about therapy, btw, and i def considered becoming one when i was in university. i do think it’s beneficial, i guess just maybe not to me.

4. What is the longest road trip you’ve ever taken? Did you drive or were you just a passenger? What is your favorite road trip ritual, if you have any (the particular gas station snacks, the car games, the fights over music choices, the rest stops, etc.)?

oh my, well i’ve been on a few road trips in my life, but probably not as many as you americans do. the longest one was probably as a child, when i was about 3 or 4 my parents took us across the states, to the grand canyon (i don’t think we actually got there) in our mustard yellow vw bus. i had to be too small to remember but i definitely do (my dad’s a photographer so the boxes upon boxes of film helps): - sleeping on the ceiling in the bus like on a fucking shelf that stuck out above the driver seats. it was way too cool. - staying in a trailer park and walking over to this little building where there was some scary movie playing that had spinning wheels on fire (i think it was like some 80s horror version of rumpelstiltskin or something). i can literally picture a scene from it, just can’t really describe it. traumatizing. - playing on a beach somewhere (cape cod?) and having something nip at my little toes.

on other trips with friends we’ve shared the driving, but the most recent one from LA to vegas my friend wouldn’t let me touch the rental wheel. he thinks i’m a terrible driver. it was ok tho i got to take pictures instead.

i don’t really have a fave ritual since i don’t do much road “tripping” per se, but since i’ve lived in both toronto and new york i have done a shit ton of driving long distance, and i absolutely love it. my fave thing to do is make sure i have enough show tunes and stand up comedy on the playlist, and even some cds on back up, so i can lose my voice on the drive. usually i have some good ol’ tim horton’s french vanilla and a croissant on the side to keep me going, and if it’s long enough i usually stop somewhere for some french fries and/or a coke to wake up. god i love driving.

5. Which do you find increases more rapidly, your age or your idea of what age is old?

ugh. my age. i don’t feel old but that stupid time nonsense says otherwise. it needs to stop.

6. Do you talk to your animals when no one else is in the room? What do you say to them? Do you talk to animals you see on the street, at zoos, in your yard? How much of a face does an animal have to have to be talk-to-able? (For example, do rodents count? Birds? Fish? Cockroaches? WHERE’S THE LINE)

absolutely. i talk to pretty much fucking everything, animals or otherwise, i don’t care who’s in the room. there is no line. the line does not exist.

7. If they cooked, which dish of your mom’s/dad’s/parental figure is or was your favorite? Which was your least favorite? Do you often cook dishes your parents used to make for you for yourself now, as an adult?

welllllll my parents do cook, but over the years i came to really dislike a lot of my mom’s cooking.. habits, lets say. my dad is great on the bbq, and with all meats, but my mom is usually the organizer and most often the chef. her staples are chicken and brisket, sometimes salmon, in various ways. the problem is i’ve always been a picky eater, and tho my own tastes have branched out, my mom still thinks she needs to cook everything super plain and sometimes it’s kinda gross. like, she’ll make some fancy chicken for everyone else and throw a boneless breast covered in teriyaki sauce in a casserole in the oven for me. it does NOT taste good. but she can make a really great schnitzel, and brisket is hard to do wrong. i don’t make anything for myself the way she does it really, but my eating/cooking habits are all wonky anyway.

8. Do you ever check your voicemail? Do you answer calls from numbers you don’t have programmed into your phone?

i check it if someone left a message, why wouldn’t you? what if it’s an emergency? in fact, my best friend does not. so i guess.. that’s a thing. i for sure do not answer any call that doesn’t show a name that i recognize- even then it’s a stretch. i have to really want/need to talk to you, otherwise it’s gonna be on my terms. my phone and i have a hate-hate relationship.

9. How often do you go to the grocery store? Are you good at it? Do you have any kind of strategy or list prepared beforehand?

i go when i run out of something i wanna eat; my store is right on the corner. i basically just do the curve around the breads/fruits/veggies if i need it, then head to the aisles which i skim from the back where the frozen/refrigerated stuff is, poking in to the aisles i need to grab the shit i’ve run out of. i eat pretty much the same way most of the time so my list is in my head (which is not always a good place, but i try hard. if i forget something i go back for it next time).

10. Do movies frequently make you cry? Do you find you’re more likely to cry in the theater or at home? When people are around or by yourself?

oh hell yes. if they’re good or i’m in a mood. i don’t think it matters much where i am if it’s public or private, the cry will come if the moment is right, and i could give no shits XD

11. Have you ever seen the sun rise? Did you kind of like the weird, slightly chilly liminal space of it, or did you just wish you were still in bed?

yes i have, in so many different contexts. mostly i watch it rise because i stay up That Late most of the time (except this time of year, i haven’t seen it in a good while), wishing my ass was finally in bed going “fuck. there’s the sun again. way to go me.” but i’ve also experienced that first bit. out in the desert after a 16k hike, sweat pouring off my skin and fire burning on the surface, hissing it away. standing on top of an ancient mountain facing the dead sea, limbs aching from climbing it with the sun racing at our backs, trying to get to the top before we missed it rise. ya. sunsets are pretty, too.

so how am i supposed to think of 11 questions?? i hope none of these are from some post i saw one time, i’m gonna try to be original without rambling too much:

1- if you could go back to one major decision you made that impacted the path of your life and change it, would you? what was it? how do you think your life would be different? or don’t answer those second two questions, if you don’t want to.

2- in what direction does your belief lean (like, you don’t have to agree with my description of it, but what fits your image best):

a single/multiple divine power that controls every facet of our existence (or like, any traditional religious worldview), with or without free will?

a harmonious interconnected universal complex that directs matter and energy but is affected by our existence in said universe?

everything is just a series of random events passing through time and everything that happens, everything we do, makes the next thing happen, but it could have happened any other way as well.

do these things make sense? idk try and figure it out.

3- on that topic, what do you think happens when we die? do we go to heaven/hell or some other religious construct? do we have a soul that sticks around? reincarnation? do we just... end, and decompose, and that’s it? what do you really think? are you afraid to find out you were wrong?

4- tell me about a moment in a movie or a show that made you go all tingly inside, like, that really special tingle, and every time you see it you get those feelings again.

5- what’s your go-to method for letting out stress?

6- what are 3 of your favorite words (english or otherwise)? why do you love them? the way they sound? the way they look? what they mean? (i usually would answer this based on sound, kinda like fave color, just a feeling).

7- this isn’t so original but i wanna know- if you could live in any other period of time, in any part of the world, what would it be and why? or would you even? would you if you could choose your station/place in society?

8- is there anything you’ve ever done or ever happened to you that you absolutely never ever could ever tell anyone about? not even your soulmate or someone who would never judge you? if so, does it bother you, or do you have it tucked away in your mind and never think about it?

9- which teen wolf cast member would you get along with best? not who would you like to be in a relationship with, but who do you think you’d have the best relationship with (romantic/platonic/otherwise)? if you don’t think you know any of them well enough... which one would you bone? boooooooooone all night long?

10- do you have a talent/skill that you feel is really underrated or underused by you or others? is there something you’re really proud of but have nobody to brag to about it because nobody you know really cares at all? brag to me.

11- do you think it’s truly possible to be happy if you never have a significant other(s) for the rest of your life? could you ever be?

THAT’S ALL FOLKS. wow i can’t believe i wrote all of that shit and you read it. way to go us. thanks again, clara!

[elenatria]

Hey. You are amazing! You have become a friend in very little time and I can not thank you enough. Keep up all the amazing work and posts and ignore your haters. ;) You will get those anywhere you go. If I must ask a question to post here.... What's your favorite gif to use to show happiness?

Thank you, dear. ^^

Lol haters, really? Aw c’mon, that’s an overstatement. Besides there are no haters, there’s only the block button. ;-P

I guess “unpopular opinions” (god I HATE that term) may bring forward some antis. Even if you’re stating your opinion in your own posts and no one else’s. For instance liking Loki with… short hair too (omg the SHAME!), understanding Odin’s choices, loving Thor as much as you love Loki, not being into the Jotun concubine wear (or the whole “that’s the one true Loki and Loki hates being an Asgardian” mentality), refusing to believe Loki was a perfect angel and a victim of racism in the family who rescued and raised him as a prince (honestly, some people just don’t know what true racism feels like…). Also not believing for a moment Chris has grown truly cold towards Tom, being vocal about Tom’s (or his publicist’s) poor PR choices and overexposure, or even… shipping Taika with Chris occasionally.Uuuuuh ok. I guess..? o__O

Wanna know a secret? There are no “unpopular opinions”. The minute you accept that term you accept defeat. You accept that you comply by what the majority expects you to say or do. You believe in a “democracy” so twisted, a forceful, loud majority who decides for the rest of us, that it has turned to fascism. There are no unpopular opinions and don’t let the hate tagging or the possessive hi-jacking of posts indimidate you.

In the end, and to quote Oscar Wilde, you can only be yourself. 

Everyone else is taken.

[bluebxmfing]

I love reading your RPs with people and I absolutely adore your Logurt fic, so I have to ask, do you have any tips for being/becoming at least a semi-good writer?

Oof that’s a hard question. Just.. Keep writing? Do your research on the topics at hand?Even if it’s just looking at Google maps for a location lol

Learn all you can. Learn about languages, art, skills that they would know or be interested to learn. Weigh situations.

It’s all dependent on what the person you are writing would do in that situation. I don’t like saying character, because they are people. You’re just telling their story. Remember that people are influenced by their childhood. How they react to things depends upon experience and how that’s taught them to view the world, no matter how right or wrong the experience was.

For instance: Kurt was taught that he was a monster. It was how he was conditioned to live, so it became what is known as a core belief. Even as wrong as we all know it is. He can’t help but think it in bad times because that’s what he was taught.

Writing is just.. Asking a bunch of questions and answering them.

Questions like: 

Ok so where are they?What does the place look like? Where are they in the room? How big is the room/area?

Do they want to be here?Based on their past experiences, what does this place make them feel? If you were taught that you were a demon, you might feel uncomfortable in a church. 

Why are they here?Are they here of their own accord? Do they even remember coming here?

Who is with them/are they alone?Would they rather be alone?Would they rather not be alone?Even if they don’t know someone else is there, this can be something to think about. Though if you’re writing first person you’re not gonna wanna say that someone else is there unless the person knows.

Is it loud? Quiet? Is it cold or warm? What are their senses telling them?Describing sounds and things in the environment can add a lot of meat to the bones of the story.

What are they wearing?Weird as this one is, it can totally impact shit. Details like this is what fleshes out a story.

Based on those questions (Which aren’t even all the ones you could ask) here’s something random off the top of my head.

     Emmett finds himself staring into space more often than not. He easily forgets where he is, but once the metallic sounds of the AC unit starts up again he’s back. It’s the silence that bothers him the most. The lack of any sounds, even quiet ones. He isn’t sure if it’s him, the atmosphere, or the annoyingly itchy tag on his sweater that’s putting him off. Whatever it is, his immediate reaction is that he needs more fucking coffee.

Also don’t be afraid to not sound professional I guess? I mean like... You can write all fancy n’ shit but if you distance yourself so much from the reader I feel like it depersonalizes things. I like to write as if I’m actually speaking, telling a story to someone.

You can use fancy words or not so fancy words. As long as the message is understood it’s fine.

Write in whatever damn format u want and flip off anyone who says ur wrong. Again, just make sure people can understand it.

They say write what you know... So if you don’t know something? Ask someone who does, or learn about it until you DO know it, or know it well enough. Don’t know what it’s like to have OCD? Ask someone with OCD if they’d be willing to explain some stuff.Don’t know shit about PTSD? Ask someone with PTSD.Don’t know something about German culture? Look it up or ask a German person. (I have a German friend and she’s wonderful and speaks English really fucking well like boi I don’t even speak it that well and I’m American.)

So anyway if u have like,, more specific answers please lemme know because I just rambled.

[unending-happiness]

I'm fairly new to this fandom. There has been so much drama going on, and it kind of worries me that a fandom is so divided. In the past, has the drama ever gotten so bad that certain blogs have been targeted? I've been a part of some fandoms where that has happened.

Hi Nonnie! Welcome! I’m guessing when you say “fandom” that you mean Shadowhunters in general and not just Malec fans, but I’m not sure. Full disclosure, I like to be honest and use lots of words, so lotsa words coming at ya. The truth is that there is no easy answer to this question. I’ll tell you what I know about fandom and drama from my own experience. I’ve been here about a year. I’ll answer this in three parts. (right?! I’m ridiculous)

First: Drama

*sighs* There is ALWAYS drama. Drama Here. Drama In other fandoms. (Which it sounds like you know well) Drama in real life. I know it varies and I have heard some say that SH is way drama heavy while others have said that other fandoms were equal to or worse. Drama happens. People tend to be opinionated. A lot of the time they put stuff out there without thinking of what others will feel about it. People often lack empathy, especially online. My advice on drama both on Tumblr and in life and what I tell my children is this:

You do NOT have to participate in drama. You don’t have to take the bait of someone talking about your favorite character, ship or actor. You don’t have to answer that vile anon. You don’t have to even see any of it. You can unfollow, block, blacklist, whatever it is that you need to do to avoid drama if you so desire. You do not have to give weight and power to negativity. You don’t have to give it oxygen or space. 

That being said, drama and discourse are two different things. I find that I enjoy respectable, well thought out discourse, and so I follow some blogs who are opinionated and I like reading their opinions on how the show could have done some things better, or their character metas. It’s no surprise that a lot of these blogs are writers. Writers, by-in-large, are people who think critically and are careful and measured with their words, because they know the weight and power words can have. Some people don’t like discourse at all, which is fine, so I try to tag mine so it can be avoided if people don’t want to see it. I find that even if I’m not participating in the latest heated argument, I am generally curious and at least want to know why people are carrying on. So I will look things up and see what they are saying. 

For example - yesterday I could see a few people on my dash talking Dom and his Malec comments (intelligently and calmly), but I didn’t know what it was really about, so I wanted read Dom’s interview quotes again. So, (as usually is the case) I knew something was going on, but I saw no real hate or drama on my dash. I searched Dom’s tag looking for his original interview to see what his actual words were. And……I got exactly 4 disgusting posts in before I hit the close button, retreated back to my turtle shell and just messaged a sweet friend asking if she had the interview. So I do SEE it. I know it’s there, but as far as drama on my dash there is pretty much zero. Discourse, about 10%, because I enjoy a good discussion. And what I see I go looking for. Sometimes my curiousity makes my life difficult. But that was my CHOICE to go looking. It’s largely about choices. I choose to follow amazing, kind, sweet, artistic, talented, joyful, loving people. Many of those have followed me back. And my fandom experience is wonderful because of it.

Second: Targeting

I know much less about this than I do about fandom drama. The very definition of targeting is 

a person, object, or place selected as the aim of an attack.

I suppose, based on that definition that, yes, I guess I have in fact seen people targeted in this fandom. Humans can be absolutely terrible and so full of hate. And the SH isn’t in a protective bubble. So, while I have never felt targeted myself, but I have seen my mutuals experience this. Others have indeed selected them to be on the receiving end of their hateful words. Now, what I have seen wasn’t a whole bunch of people attacking one person. It was just one or two attacking one or two. But even that has been very uncommon in my experience. And I don’t know if that is just because of the people I follow or if that is the case with the fandom as a whole. I tend to believe it’s the latter, only because I follow such a wide range of SH blogs with many different personalities, and still don’t see it.

In general the correlation I notice is that the more opinionated you are as a blog and the more discourse you put out, the more opinions you get back. These opinions are frequently in the form of anon asks. The larger blogs also get more nastiness sent their way, because they have a larger audience. I feel like all of this is to be expected.

I’ve had friends delete hateful asks without answering and I’ve had some answer them eloquently and with much more tact and respect than the person doing the attacking deserved. I’ve even known a few who have had turned anon asks off because off temporarily because people were saying terrible things. It all varies based on what the person running the blog can and chooses to do. I’ve followed blogs who get hate spewed their way because they love and defend a certain character, so “fans” of the other character will say nasty things. But, in all of these cases, the hate of a few is largely overpowered by the love of many. All of these people have wonderful friends and people who defend them, support them, and help them. And it is largely diffused because of how they choose to respond. 

Have I seen people attack others? Yes. There are some who will attack others simply because they can. They don’t even need a reason. And is there ever a valid reason for hate anyway? No. Definitely not. And people love the “my thing is better than your thing” drama. Or “your thing is problematic” drama. Do I have strong opinions about my ship? Sure. But I don’t need to hurl them at every person who believes differently. It isn’t necessary or productive. I know nobody could change my mind about my ship, so why would I try to change the opinion of others? Why would I want to?

I personally, have not seen any extreme cases of targeting. Anytime I’ve seen someone get hate, I’ve also seen many come to their defense, and it’s made me proud to be in this fandom. I have heard about extreme targeting happening with blogs who ship a certain less popular ship,  but, I also follow blogs who ship this ship and they seem to have lovely friends and a great support system and I haven’t seen them be attacked. I don’t have much personal experience with this, so it’s hard to answer, but it is my experience that you tend to get back what you put out. If you are confrontational and attack others, then yes, you will get attacked. If you like discourse, you will get discourse. If you wanna just sit on a fluffy marshmallow all day and die of fluff and feels, then you will die of sugary sweetness. I prefer Death by Daddario and Mauled by Malec and I get it daily. It’s fantastic!

THIRD: Tips for a positive fandom experience

This is what I do to make my fandom experience positive. I like kind people. They are my jam. I want nice asks, Tumblr hugs, endless beautiful photos of Matt in my inbox, art and fics from sweet and talented people, all the yelling about Malec greatness, people who support each other, intelligent discussion, empathetic humans.

Full disclosure: I get emotional. I have opinions. I am a serious Malec shipper. I’m on the board of the Alec/Matt Protection Squad. I speak fluent sarcasm. And because of this I’ve gotten the occasionally salty anon. Salt returned. Fair enough. I do make mistakes and I am sure I’ve upset someone before. I also apply this same standard to my friends. I know they aren’t going to be perfect.I know they will have bad days and have a raw emotional response occasionally. They are human and I expect this. Fandom has been a learning curve. But, I try really really hard to be positive and kind. Some hopefully helpful tips.

-Don’t follow just anyone. If I think I might want to follow them, I’ll scroll pretty far down on their blog to see what they post/reblog. If I see hate or negativity, then I’m out of there. I give it 2 posts. If I see even 2 in 50, then I don’t want to be there.

-It’s ok to unfollow anyone. If I do follow someone and I see them posting things hating on other people,  ships, actors, whatever it may be. (not discussions, just words meant to hurt people) then I usually give it about 3 times, and I unfollow. No big deal. I don’t want to see it so I don’t see it. I don’t care if it’s a large blog or a small one or who the person is. It isn’t personal. And NO it is not my responsibility to try and correct the bad behavior of every person who ships the same couple I do. I don’t like when people say that you have a responsibilty to do that. You don’t. I’ll do my part by spreading positivity and light.

-Block anyone who makes you feel unsafe. If I see a person attacking someone on a post or their blog, whatever it may be, I immediately block them as a preventative measure.

-Blacklist anyone/anything. There are times within the fandom that discourse gets to even me,especially if it’s one of the characters I love, So for instance, if a character I love is being heavily criticized after an episode, I will just blacklist either the people saying the things or the relevant tag for a bit. Tumblr savior is your friend. Use it. 

-Keep scrolling. My first reaction to anything that pisses me off or upsets me is to keep scrolling. I don’t need to chime in. I don’t need to start an argument. That person can put whatever they want on their blog and so I Alec level eye roll that shit and move on with my day.

-Talk to trusted friends. If a post just eats at me and I need to discuss it, then i’ll send it to a friend I love and trust. We will discuss it, go back and forth on it, she will talk me down from the “but I really want to set this person straight ledge” and we move on with our days. (my poor bestie is an angel). Amazing friends are so helpful in fandom.

-Think. Before I reblog ANYTHING, I try to think of how it will make my followers feel. If they ship a certain ship or like a certain character, and I post this how will they feel about it. If I think it’ll make someone feel upset or alienated, I scroll on by. If I like and appreciate the humor, sarcasm, sentiment, but I’m a little torn about reblogging it and not sure how people will take it, then I’ll just like it and not reblog.

-Extra think. Same but extra gets applied to posting something of my own. I think about every way that anyone can take it or be hurt by it. And I also think of how I’ll respond if someone reacts badly. I think about my wording, people of other ships, etc. This is original content you are putting out into the world that will get reblogged. You can never get rid of it once it’s out there. Every. Single. Time. that I have said “this will probably get me a salty anon” it has. Every time. I know before I even put something out there what it will most likely bring back. In those cases I have felt that me expressing my opinion on that matter was worth the salty anons. And I’ve never regretted one. I tend to be very sarcastic and opinionated in my tags, because most likely the only people seeing those are my followers and if people follow me they know how I am and they also know where the unfollow button is, so that’s more of a safe space. But, I have gotten anons who specifically referenced my salty tags. 

-Respond carefully. Speaking of salty anons.(I’ve never gotten hate, thankfully) Yeah, you could think of it as this person is coming to your door and being confrontational about what you put on your own damn blog and they are hiding behind anonymity to boot, so really I should be able to say whatever I want back. Right?! No. I push that feeling down and  I respond very carefully. I consider their opinion and their pov. I always tell them I have done as much. I stand by my original opinion, which is easy because I’ve thought it through before I posted, and I am understanding, and tell them that it’s ok if they disagree with me. I do this especially if I think they are trying to bait me. Thanks but no thanks. I’m not about that. I am so extra about this that I have my beta bestie read through a lot of my responses to anons before I post them. Just to be sure I’m not missing anything and I’m giving off the sentiment I want to give off. This formula is pretty good because I’ve never gotten a “level-up” on angry from an anon yet. (knock on wood) I think most often they really just want you to know they were irritated and that you upset them. It’s cool. Message received.

-Tag spoilers and discourse. Maybe not always, but I try really hard. This helps so much. People may follow you but not be able to stand discourse.

-Flood negative with positive. If someone is being mean to someone I follow I block the meanie, and then I yell nice things at the person being attacked. I also send them a sweet ask. I often will also send them a message with support. Light drives out dark. Period. I don’t address the hateful person directly. I do this with the cast and their s/o as well when they get hate. I just send them nice things. It’s easy. Don’t feed the trolls. It only makes them bigger and more angry.

-Spread love. If you love someone’s fic–tell them. If you love someone’s art–tell them.  Reblog the shit out of that with nice tags. If someone’s tags make you happy–tell them. If you think someone is sweet–tell them. Anything nice that goes through your brain. SAY IT LOUD. I cannot stress this enough. If you are shy, just do it on anon. People appreciate that. Love wins, always. 

-Surround yourself with good people. This is the most important thing for a good fandom experience. I have some of the very best friends I’ve ever had in my life because of this fandom. They are amazing people. Some of us are very different and I don’t always agree with them, but I do agree with their methods, their kindness and generosity, with their love and support.

SO, anon. I’m sure you are probably like, wtf is this?! I never asked for a damn novel, crazy!!! And so I’m sorry for this stupid long response. But, this isn’t an easy answer. And I can’t tell you about darkness without telling you how to drive it away. This is all stuff that people around me helped me do when I first started my blog and it’s been such a help. 

I hope this helps and please feel free to send me any more questions you have. Also, I would be more than happy to rec you some positive and kind blogs, if you wish. I follow a lot of Malec, and I’m not sure if you are a Malec fan or not, so I’m not doing that now. But if you tell me what kind of blogs might interest you, I would be happy to rec some! Thanks for asking. I hope you have a beautiful day. I hope your experience in this fandom is fun and wonderful and you don’t get dragged down by the bad side. The good side is so so so so great. Totally worth navigating the shit storms imo. Welcome. I LOVE THIS FANDOM.

:)

[sugoileo-blog]

50 More Interesting Questions

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have?: 16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends?:

Rules: fill this out and tag at least one person you’d like to know more about! Or just fill it out! Or don’t! Answer only some of them! Make up your own questions! “What kind of requirement is that”, you ask? A reasonable one! Who am I to tell you what to do? Anything goes!

Tagged by @o0w0o ♥ muah

1. What kind of food can’t you stand?:   Fresh tomatoes (cuz im weird 6w6) 

2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick?: CLOSING MY DOOR WHEN SOMEONE LETS IT OPEN WITHOUT GETTING UP

3. Have you got any useless talents?: I can make up mini scenarios in my head WHENEVER i want xD

4. If you could be really really good at one thing, what would it be?: Speaking up for myself~~

5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking: Jeabum ,  Sung Hoon , Leonardo Dicaprio... ~

6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid? Drawing??? I dont know.. xD

7. What is something you’re proud of?: Entering the university i am studying at (cuz reasons)

8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate?: Trying to show off at me, or make me feel bad about myself

9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower?: Ehm... i dont mean to sound cocky or what, but im more like the leader type

10. What kind of student are/were you?:  Above average, silent type (maybe too silent) although always in the school council and best in sports xD

11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life?: YES. But i believe that all decisions are right no matter what.

12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion:  ME. ALONE. IN. THE. DARK.  (Hello demons it’s ya gurl)

13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable?: -Me being the angst queen i am- Saizo from SLBP, im not gonna go into details.

14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties?: I never ever get drunk to the point to lose it. I just become more clumsy that’s all.

15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone?: If i am to fall for someone i will fall the moment i saw him. 

16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends?: WHO DOESNT WANT A CLOSE FRIEND, what kind of question is that?

17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak?: Dependss on my mood really

18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy  : My bed. xD

19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday?: I don’t~ , I dont really like kids (sorry) but who knows

20. What was your favorite book as a child?: I dont read books~ (sorry again)

21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about: I HATE FIDGET SPINNERS!

22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated: I cant think of anything.... really... xD

23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose?: Go to 5 and add some otome guys~ uhuhu

24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday?: Travel around the world~?

25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat?: Depends on the other person’s character. If s/he is willing to hear me out then ok, if not, just let them finish and move to the next topic

26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in?: Oh god, well smoking. But i quitted. Yo kids dont smoke okay?

27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for?: BEING A GARU-TYPE AT MIDDLE SCHOOL. God..i wanna forget about it

28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable?:  People who are being just!

29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.):  “A European studying Japanese = ULTIMATE JAPAN LOVER.” according to all my relatives, so guess what is happening.

30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones?: I speak Greek and English fluently, next is Japanese, French, and a little JUST A LITTLE Italian

31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside?: City, cuz i hate bugs more than anything

32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving?: Nop. xD If i dont like somethingg then im done with it.

33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else?: I dont care as long as people acknowledge me when im good at something.

34. Favorite holiday?:  XMAS WHOA~

35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously?: Kinda both(?) I cant explain really

36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.): YES. WHEN I FIRST GET INTO KPOP. OMG THE FEELING

37. What hobbies do you have?: Drawing, dancing , fangirling

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have?: Telekinisis, cuz im lazy af.

39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you: That im learning Japanese (cuz europe)

40. Something that took you way too long to figure out: Im a fast learner i cant think of something.... xD

41. Worst injury you’ve had?:  I have a scar on my left leg, cuz reasons

42. Any morbid fascinations?:  My own scenarios

43. Describe your sense of humor: Sarcastic

44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose?:    A cat in ancient Egypt ^3^

45. Something you are irredeemably bad at: Showing affection (tsuntsun alert)

46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through: First year of uni. God... what a drama

47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.): I DONT LIKE TATTOOS, GIVE ME THE UGLY ONE. AT least i can cover it up somehow.

48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? I am realistic

49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you?: “There isnt a thing you are not good at” - perfectionist me.

50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you: “Are you sleepy or what?” No , i just dont like you :3

Tagging : anyone who wants to do this