#i ramble for so so so long

[slasherflicks999]

BEN MY BELOVED 😍😍😍😍 ……BENloved? yes……

FIIIIINALLY made an actual proper design for him after eons of not being able to get his outfit right guys are we proud….. i always had a vague idea of it i just could never execute it properly LMAO

I LOVE HIIIIIIIIMMMMM did you guys know

i also almost forgot his freckles as i do literally every single time i draw him despite the fact ive been drawing him covered in freckles since i was like 14 ummmm its fine i remembered eventually 😍

more rambles and yapping about him in my au after the break :3 again… I YAP A LOT. like seriously. i really could talk about him all day tbh

but first surprise doodle HEHEHEH

moving on… lets talk about his design a little to start off bcccc look at it it’s the first thing you’ve seen obvi (and bc im doing this in a similar format to my oc slasher’s post where i ramble about the design then character and personality stuff then whatever else yay!)

now. you may be looking at him and going “woah he is COLORFUL!” yes he is! i think having him be colorful is fun but beyond that like… ok u need some context first: in my au he’s not stuck in the cartridge anymore which i will elaborate on later, but likeee i still had to give him some nods to his LoZ origins other than just making him blonde and giving him elf ears and green clothes without literally making him the world’s most dedicated link cosplayer. love his cosplay era you go queen but i just feel like MY version wouldn’t be in it after he gets out of the cartridge (again will explain more later) bc he figured maybe he should be his own person a little bit. and idk if yall knew this but… zelda games get pretty colorful!

that being said i still wanted to have an itty bitty nod to it thrown in there so if you look on his jacket those fun little doohickeys on one of the sides are the colors of the spikes on the side of majora’s mask in game :3 i also gave him his little hoop earrings like adult link has because cmon. he’s gotta have em. and beyond just that he also has the green hair and like… idk what to call em, those fun little ball jointed doll looking joints i see people draw canon arg BEN with because i like them and since he’s sort of a merging of canon behavioral event network BEN and a more “fanon” version of him i wanted to nod back to it a little

beyond that he’s just a lot more generally technology inspired, like he’s literally wearing wires as accessories and those semi-transparent bits are supposed to look like the inner membrane of a keyboard! (saw some guy make shoes out of those once and said “oh i gotta use that idea” so i did :3) idk i just wanted him to look fun and like he eats circuit boards. he doesn’t but like… he’s definitely thought about it once

anyway MOVING PAST ME YAPPING ABOUT MY DESIGN THOUGHT PROCESS let’s talk about what he’s actually like!

i feel like it’s pretty often i see people make him either totally spooky or totally silly but you see…. i enjoy both…. so….. :3 let’s see if i can merge the two

generally when writing any of the pastas i try my best to write them ALL to be more or less morally gray largely bc i think it makes them more interesting than just making them all automatically evil just because they’re meant to be horror characters/murderers. idk i feel like it adds more complexity not only to them as individuals but also dynamics and makes them feel more like actual characters than static entities that jump out at you and go BOO! or on the other side of the spectrum anime twinks. staring directly at the 2010s fandom LMAOOO /lh

WITH THAT BEING SAID! he is definitely not a saint in any sense of the word like whatsoever but he also is not super evil. like he’s not always gonna have good intentions but at the same time he’s not entirely heartless and does genuinely care about some people yk?? he’s not walking around punching old ladies or anything but is he gonna go out of his way to be particularly nice to you? hell no he’s not! not unless he REEEEEALLY cares about you/likes you but even then you might not be able to tell LMAO it depends it depends

even then at the end of the day he is more or less a demonic entity and LITERALLY feeds off of negative emotions/energy, like he will become genuinely exhausted if he doesn’t torment tf out of someone for a while, he doesn’t just do that shit for funsies, he needs to or else he will feel like total shit. just so bad. not to say he doesn’t gain ANY enjoyment out of it at all but like that’s not his main motivation.

that’s the thing that makes him different from a lot of other pastas too, his method of killing isn’t anything physical, he just literally torments the living shit out of people until they kick the bucket themselves. at this point he’s rather numb to and detached from it, but i imagine it definitely disturbed him quite a bit when he was figuring out that he had to do it to keep himself satiated essentially. he definitely freaked himself out quite a lot when he was freshly dead like yeah he was angry and vengeful but like… he was also kinda just a scared little kid who got stuck in a video game and saw himself as a monster for a few years guys 💔💔 probably still kinda does view himself like that in many ways. my shaylaaa…

speaking of let’s talk about his LORE :3

first of all present day he is 19. but he’s dead! you shout. yes he is! kinda! lemme explain:

well first and foremost for all intents and purposes he IS dead. but he’s also not JUST a ghost. remember how i mentioned him being demonic? yeah i wasn’t exaggerating about that LOL, plus if he WAS just a ghost he wouldn’t need anything to keep himself satiated like he does with energy

when he died he ended up being the moon children’s first successful instance of actual digitization… key word being SUCCESSFUL. they had tried the same thing before with others, but their actual souls ended up not being able to entirely make it through the process, with some not getting through at all and others being sort of fragmented with only the scraps of what they used to be remaining. even so, all of their heartbreak and pain and anguish and rage they felt in response to their deaths (and probably even whatever they had experienced in life) ended up forming its own makeshift demonic entity. it was all sorts of unstable and constantly seemed to be searching for more and more energy to even keep itself together, but it didn’t have anything to truly attach itself to that make it much more than just a mass of jumbled up energies desperately trying to survive. until ben died. then it had something it could keep itself alive with. it had a body, more or less. something more tangible and stable than just… fragments.

this ended up being what turned ben lowercase into BEN uppercase! it also… came with lots of side effects.

we already talked about how he needs to keep getting negative energy to keep his literal energy up, but this sort of fusion also made him a LOT more powerful than he was supposed to be. he’s essentially fueled on spite LOL but besides that he also was able to literally warp a lot of the game to his will (not entirely, but he wasn’t supposed to be able to change anything at all), the soul fragments gave him the ability to control his aging and parts of his appearance more or less (he can appear as practically any age he wants but mentally ages normally, though he really doesn’t do much with that and just lets himself age normally because he kind of doesn’t wanna stay a weird little middle schooler forever LMAO. his ability to control his appearance is also pretty much entirely out of his control until he escapes the cartridge though, before that he can only really change how his eyes look and his general spookiness though even that was and still is mostly connected to his emotional/mental state.)

he also suddenly gets VERY good at just… understanding how people work in general. he gets really good at the whole manipulation and torment thing really quickly to the point where it even starts to freak himself out a bit (sort of like i mentioned before.) he tries not to dwell on that for too long though. he does his best to get used to himself now even if he really did not like how he turned out at first.

but anyway shortly after all this happens and BEN figures out he needs to really fuck with people to feel at least kind of okay, the cartridge began having so many horrible mental effects on anyone who was even AROUND it that eventually they just had to throw the thing out as a sort of “failed experiment” which explains how it eventually got into the hands of jadusable who posted about it and that in turn essentially opened a door for BEN to get out.

this was great for him in many ways! freedom yippee yippee freedom! he was much, MUCH less limited in his abilities now and had a lot easier access to new people to torment which generally had him feeling a lot better energy-wise and eventually made him a lot less aggressive since he wasn’t essentially hangry and exhausted 24/7. that being said… he was still trapped in the cartridge for about 3 years. that does things to a person. especially since he was so young.

he has a LOT of trauma from it, which is another reason i didn’t go with the link cosplay route for his design beyond just i wanted to give him a personality outside of just loving zelda games (although let’s be honest it probably is still a special interest of his (YES HES AUTISTIC because i am autistic and me and him are like this 🤞🏻)) he was literally STUCK looking like that which is the main reason he gave himself his own wardrobe basically the second he could, because he still loves link and the LoZ games and all but he didn’t wanna feel stuck like that anymore. it made him feel trapped and lose his sense of self a little bit so he was like “yeah i gotta get a different outfit.”

it also definitely made him a control freak. if he doesn’t have at least a good amount of control over a situation it sort of freaks him out and gives him that same sort of trapped, helpless feeling. he gets a little better with it as he grows but that never really goes away, he hates feeling powerless in any situation which i think also helped him come to terms with the whole tormenting people thing, because it made him feel like he had power over something and it still does even if there’s a lot more he has control of now. this is also why he’s not technically a proxy, because he doesn’t want slender to have that control over him, it makes him feel weird. he still hangs around and is civil with him, he just doesn’t wanna actually work for him. he’s his own boss 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

he doesn’t really like to talk about his life before his death all that much though. all that anyone seems to know is he didn’t have a great childhood after a certain age and he just doesn’t wanna talk about it, which of course nobody questioned because almost all the pastas had at least somewhat traumatic childhoods LMAO

anyway! now that a lot of the more serious lore shit is out of the way time for me to just mindlessly throw shit out there about him because!! i love him!!!! fun facts fun facts!!!

- first of all agender he/it/they BEN is real in this house. and gay aroace BEN. and autistic BEN as previously mentioned. he doesn’t know if this is because of the soul fragments thing but he really could not care less about how he presents his gender for the most part, all he knows is he generally presents masculine bc it’s sort of his default :3

- he also still def loves video games! he’s even played through majora’s mask a couple times to try and help himself get over his trauma around it (though it takes him a long time to actually get through it now) he kinda hates that his trauma still prevents him from loving it as much as he used to :(( but at least he can play the other zelda games mostly fine which he’s glad about

- he purrs. that’s it that’s the whole thing he purrs. well he generally acts like a cat in a lot of ways for some reason like his ears moving and stuff but i think the best thing is that he purrs bc it’s just so funny to me. he definitely tries not to do it in front of anyone but has probably slipped up once or twice and promptly retreated into the nearest computer for a week or so because he was so mortified LMAO. very cat coded one of my own cats reminds me of him a little bc she’s sassy will act like she doesn’t care about you but then will purr up a storm if you scratch her in the right spot while she’s comfy. love her. they would get along great

- he is SO COLD. ALL THE TIME. he’s used to it by now but if you were to touch him it would be like touching a corpse laying outside on a late autumn evening or something like he does not know warmth. he does love blankets and warm things bc of that though. if he likes you enough to give you a hug he WILL be latched on like a leech just to take all ur body heat

- he can still eat and drink and sleep if he wants to but he doesn’t have to, like i said he runs off of negative emotions so all that other stuff is just a fun little bonus if he feels like it

-his colors will desaturate a good amount and he’ll start to glitch out quite a bit if he gets too low on energy, along with just being generally irritable and overstimulated

-he also just… glitches sometimes for no reason. any time he stutters or stumbles over his words he doesn’t actually stutter, just glitches. sneeze? glitch. got jumpscared by a bug? glitch. trying not to laugh? glitch. little things like that. along with just when he’s feeling really strong emotions (especially negative ones ofc)

- he actually does like nature a lot! it sort of helps him feel a lot more connected to reality outside of just the internet and technology and whatnot, plus he just finds it kind of peaceful in a way he can’t really get from hanging out in a digital void. maybe it’s the energy of the plants and animals or something

- he also enjoys music a lot :3 all sorts, though he does like electronica and hardcore stuff the most

-i cant lie…. he would definitely scream at people over COD. his temper isn’t AS short as it used to be but likeeee… he’s broken a few controllers 😔 he’s not really the yelling type at all otherwise though

-he’s like 5’7 ish by default. he can change that if he REALLY wanted to but he doesn’t see the point in wasting the energy if he can just float a couple inches above the ground anyway. plus he got his heels on so even if he does stand on the ground he gave himself a couple more inches of height :3 me too me too

-he does still cry blood! happens the most when he’s pissed off or trying to look scary but it will happen if he’s genuinely sad and like legit crying too

-he won’t let many people know it but he’s really claustrophobic (it means he’s afraid of santa claus 😯☝️ /ref) definitely scared of large bodies of water as well but that one’s more well known because…. he did DROWN. actually just realizing i didn’t mention his actual drowning much but anyway i feel like that would have less of a daily impact on him than the rest of his trauma anyway. stills definitely there but doesn’t directly impact him in as many ways

-my au probably takes place in like the mid-late 2000s but if it was in the modern day he would totally say shit like “chat am i cooked” or “that’s so sigma” in real situations on accident

i could talk about him literally for hours upon hours but im gonna stop here before i give myself an aneurysm LMAOOO thank you so much for reading all my nonsense rambles if you did!! :D very very much appreciated i WILL be posting more about him in the future hehe

i hope anyone who read this far enjoyed!! :D i definitely had fun writing hehe but im so tired and i now have to go to BED😭😭😭 thank you so much again tumblr for letting me yap🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[witnessprotectionprogramurl]

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[genlossranbooautism]

You use "arospec people can still date and feel romantic attraction " as an excuse to ship cannon aro characters , I use it as justification to headcannon characters who canonically feel romantic attraction as arospec , we are not the same

[doomdoomofdoom]

Kamala Harris does want "transgender surgery on illegal aliens that are in prison", btw.

So since Trumpists are getting mad enough about the jokes to actually cite their sources, I thought I'd put the source out into my left extremist commie faggot echo chamber, too.

The claim originates from an ACLU questionnaire she filled out for her 2020 presidential candidacy, specifically this section:

She wasn't given a new questionnaire for 2024, and has stated that while her policy on some things may have changed, her values had not. (This most likely means she moved more to the center to appease larger demographics and cut corners to reach compromises. The basic politician stuff.)

It boils down to this: If you're in prison, whether for "illegal" immigration or other crimes, you rely on the state to provide you with necessary amenities, like food and health care. Her argument isn't "hell yeah everyone in prison should get sex changes for free". It's "gender affirming surgery is a necessary medical procedure. If you are in the states care while this becomes necessary, the state should provide it." If you're outraged by your tax money being used on this, consider the massive amount of people being incarcerated in for-profit prisons, on your dime. Then ask yourself if maybe a prison reform might be in order.

Worth noting: In 2015, while Attorney General, Kamala Harris actually argued against providing gender-affirming surgery to an incarcerated trans woman, claiming that HRT and psychotherapy were sufficiently covering her medical needs. She has since obviously changed her stance and assumed responsibility. (I would like to take this moment to remind my fellow left extremist commie faggots that "willingness to learn and rethink your views" is infinitely more valuable than "perfect from the start and unwilling to listen to anyone")

Also found in the source: This image of Kamala Harris participating in the 2019 San Francisco Pride Parade, wearing what I believe to be a sequin rainbow embroidered denim jacket.

I encourage you to read the provided CNN article and the answers to the ACLU questionnaire, as they give great insight into her values.

TLDR: Based.

[aashiqeddiediaz]

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.

[unforth]

Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.

That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.

That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.

That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.

That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.

That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.

That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.

None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.

I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.

If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.

Celebrate fan work!

To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony

[opashoo]

I'm absolutely losing my mind seeing "We need to not treat men and masculinity as inherently evil and worthy of hatred, and not fall back into biological and gender essentialism because that hurts everyone, including trans women" being misinterpreted as "Women need to stop oppressing men", "I think trans women are actually men" or "You specifically who have trauma around men need to get over it because men are the real victims". It's so willfully disingenuous. It makes me sick how willing people are to read in bad faith, especially how willing other trans women are to suddenly start harassing and dogpiling another trans woman.

I am a trans woman too, I understand what it's like to feel unsafe, but it helps no one this cynical attitude that crops up every time someone suggests being kind to men in our lives. "You could save a man you know from falling down the alt-right pipeline" is not the same as "It's your fault that men murder you". "There are people who could be on our side if we don't meet them with immediate hostility" is not the same as "You need to shut up and stop criticizing power structures for the sake of your oppressors' feelings" (I promise there are a lot of people who can be taught about their complicity in oppression without immediately shutting down but you need to work with them). This kind of attitude isn't somehow more informed or correct. It's just lashing out to avoid considering one's own agency.

Making a better, safer world for ourselves requires all kinds of work, but it's always work. It's hard to try to reach out to people who could very realistically harm us, it's work that not all of us can afford to or are able to do and that's fine because we're all just trying to survive. But some of you would rather condescend, tear each other down, and make more enemies before even considering it a possibility.

[bixels]

Now that Ghibli's new movie is coming out soon, I've been thinking about anime films and wanna talk about my favorite animated movie ever, Tokyo Godfathers.

TG is a 2003 tragicomedy by Satoshi Kon, following three unhoused people––an alcoholic, a runaway girl, an a trans woman––who find a baby in a dumpster and set off across Tokyo to reunite her with her parents.

If you like the sound of that, go watch it because the rest of this post is spoilers and I have FEELINGS about this movie.

URGHH, the fact that only two moments of true kindness, generosity, and care given to the three protagonists without any expectation of reciprocity are given by a Latin-American immigrant couple and a drag club full of queens and trans women. The fact that, despite her loud and dramatic personality, Hana is the glue that holds the team together and the heart of the whole movie. The fact that this movie pulls no punches at showing the violence and inhumanity committed by "civilized Japanese society" against the unhoused. The fact that Miyuki craves to be loved by her parents and ends up seeing Hana as her true mother. The fact that Miyuki starts off accidentally using transphobic language against Hana, but slowly begins calling her "Miss Hana" out of respect. The fact that, according to Kon, Hana's role in the story is as a mythological trickster god and "disturb the morality and order of society, but also play a role in revitalizing culture." The fact that Hana so desperately wants to be part of a true family, yet is willing to sacrifice her found family so they can be with their own, and is rewarded for her good deeds in the end by becoming a godmother. The fact that, throughout the movie, wind and light have been used to signify the presence of god's hand/influence (this movie's about nondenominational faith––faith in yourself, faith in others, faith in a higher power. Lots of religious are referenced, such as Buddhism/Hinduism, Christianity, and Shintoism), and in the climax of the film, as Hana jumps off a building to save a baby that isn't hers, a gust of wind and a shower of light save her from death. The fact that god saves a trans woman's life because she proved herself a mother, and that shit makes me CRY.

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[en-stbc]

how ive been feeling the past couple of days. i have no shame

[forgettable-au]

END OF CHAPTER ONE

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 65-72)

* Time to put this puzzle together.

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[kelddaa]

mornings in the desert

[puppppppppy]

learned something about myself lately

[wu-does-art]

thinking about Nico adjusting to letting himself miss and long for the people he loves. based on these bits from the sun and the star:

" As Nico and Will followed the trogs, he thought about how much he missed Hazel. He was learning to make peace with that feeling. It was okay for him to miss people because that meant he wanted them around in his life. That idea was *very* new for him- he was used to either pushing people away or watching them recoil from his presence." *

" That was the most surreal thing of all... Was he happy? Nico wasn't very familiar with the sensation, but he couldn't deny that he felt wonderful in Will's presence. He even longed for the son of Apollo when they were apart. A funny thing had happened as the two grew closer: Nico suddenly understood all those cheesy, sappy love songs he'd always hated."