#let’s connect irl

[zahra-rose]

[chamomillehoney]

half the internet right now:

[creative-robot]

I know The Founders Cut, generally, is the edited scrubbed over version of genloss from Showfall in-universe (as well as a not-8-hour-long-three-stream-binge-night whenever we want to watch it again) but something that struck me as odd and I haven’t seen anyone mention yet, is this warning

It shows up right at the junction where the third act starts, where it appears the Hero is breaking free of Showfall thanks to Hetch. But here’s the thing, while a LOT less than the previous acts the audience still played a significant role in this act, even when really only given two audience interaction choices. Which makes me wonder, how real is this warning, and who is it for? Obviously the audience involved knows what happens past this point, but the audience is also implied to be an integral part of the Social Experiments, which is part of why things start to tweak out when the Founder removes them in the Founder Cut as the Generation Loss generation loses.

My first thought, was that obviously this is another bait and switch, a way to draw the audiences attention, seeing something that’s secret, something that’s not “meant for them”, which is a tactic I could see Showfall using in universe to keep people’s attention and add an air of mystery to their shows.

But

Showfall is doing all their experiments and these shows with a LOT of help from their censors to show it off, displaying a fun silly show that is definitely not uber fucked up and that is 100% just slime don’t worry about it, it’s kid friendly if it’s green! And I don’t think they’d want to bet all their cards on this one experiment doing well enough to their audience to not question the sudden shift in tone that follows this warning. Which makes me wonder.

They did their test, they did their experiment, and the evidence of this last act? I think it was a one time run, they don’t want anyone seeing this, it isn’t for the audience. Act three is specifically to both test and play with their Hero, Hetch’s new lines add a level to this, never once does he call the Hero by their name, just refers to Ranboo as their Role, and he’s not exactly. Nice? About literally any of Ranboos concerns, which wouldn’t really seem conductive to making an audience trust him, especially with his monologue at the end. Ranboo has escaped before, possibly right before act 1 started, they tightened the security on his mask to be unremovably part of them, Hetch doesn’t like the Hero but they’re a fan favorite so he can’t just get rid of them.

Act three is the cumulation of Ranboo being punished for things they don’t remember, for daring to break free from Showfalls control, this is Hetch taking the Hero and essentially majorly fucking and manipulating them to take his frustration out on a fan favorite they can’t otherwise get rid of or give a smaller role like Slimecicle. which is exemplified by the fact that we now know Charlie most likely was never able to actually able to fully snap out of the control, that even in act three in panic and confusion there was at least still a part of him being influenced by Showfall.

So the first two acts are the usual show, they have their posters, they have Squiggles to introduce them, they have goofs and silliness and only a couple slip ups that’re quickly dealt with, the usual rose tinted curtains. Act three?

Do not watch the following material

[iceman-soup]

gn!reader x top!gaz

Soft, loving sex with Gaz - not after a difficult mission, not because someone said something that pissed either of you off; simply because you both wanted to.

It's not tearful or desperate or longing. It's calming and comforting, your bodies as physically close as possible. Warm skin on warm skin.

You're kissing him but it's delicate, tender; each touch of your lips together is passionate yet not messy, eyes flickered closed peacefully.

He's above you, and still you wouldn't feel overpowered even for a second. You're holding him up just as much as he's supporting his own weight, laying on top of you but not in a way to pin you down.

Your hands run along his body, memorising each new crevice and scar under your fingertips, your prints reciting the ones you already know. He caresses your face, thumbs stroking your cheeks, gentle and adoring.

Light conversation in whispers, telling each other you love them, quiet groans and hitched breath from both you and him as he fucks you slowly.

You curl up together afterwards, putting on a DVD and falling asleep to it, cuddled in a fluffy blanket, legs entwined and heads resting on each other's.

[seaweedstarshine]

Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).

I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?

That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.

Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌

TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.

Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.

(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)

Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.

(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)

Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.

Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.

Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.

We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).

Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.

(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)

And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.

If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.

Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.

[jaredthebc]

Probably self projecting on my part but there’s no way N doesn’t stutter a good amount because he speaks so fast. Cause I speak decently fast at times since there have been times throughout my life I felt like I had to word vomit or I wouldn’t be able to get my full thoughts in before being interrupted (Something which I also headcanon with N where people like Ghetsis would interrupt him a lot so he just got super used to talking fast) so sometimes I’ll get stuck on a word and have to repeat it either partially or fully once or twice before I feel confident enough to continue. It’s something I’ve been trying to work on when I can and it’s not that I don’t stutter at all when speaking at a normal speed, it’s just far less intense when I’m not speaking fast

Anyway all this goes for N, he’s still quite the quick talker at times especially if he’s talking about something passionate but he tries to slow himself down so he doesn’t stutter a bunch and have to repeat himself a few times. The people in his life are never mean to him about it, it’s just something personal to him so he can feel like he’s healing from his past and won’t have to deal with the personal frustration that comes with stuttering

[the-everqueen]

for the AMA: what compels you most in a fictional character!

rage as a trauma response.

it compels me when a character spits in the face of god. when the response isn't "why did you let all this happen" but "how dare you let this happen." something about the assertion of agency in the wake of un-meaning. something about "there was never a Purpose, the point is what you make of it." this is undoubtedly because i was raised evangelical and continue to struggle with what i believe vs what i want to be true. pero also i think i was denied anger for so long (and even now my reflex when i'm hurt is to divert/repress/hide/sublimate anger) that it's cathartic for SOMEONE to get to be mad at the powers that be.

misogyny means it's usually (white) male characters who get these narrative arcs. this is evident in my blorbos: astarion from bg3, the corinthian from sandman, will graham from hannibal. (my immediate first thought was actually emilio sandoz from the sparrow, very literal autistic brain serving me well here lmao, what does it mean to be god's whore.) but my favorite female and genderqueer characters have this, too. saga anderson from alan wake 2 (LITERALLY tells both the in-game narrative force and the meta "fuck off, i'm done with other people writing my story"). essun from the broken earth trilogy (everyone who says they can't connect to her...i need you to examine yourself for misogynoir). vic from nos4a2. eurydice from hadestown. erica slaughter from something is killing the children. jade from my heart is a chainsaw.

(horror is obviously a huge medium for this...the final girl is a figure of righteous anger, the avenging angel, the woman who mows down the ultimate horror with a baseball bat or a butcher knife and she's right, she's in the right, she's the monster slayer, fuck you fear me.)

[rxckables]

just posted my first fic on ao3 and i am literally shaking with anxiety. not only is it in a fandom space (HockeyRPF) that is filled with SO MANY talented writers, but it’s also a ship (mattdrai) that so so so many beautiful fics.

i may also have a lot of irrational fears surrounding my digital footprint but the mattdrai brain worms seem to have overpowered them.

[taski-guru]

Ok, ok, just some context: Rendezvous said recently that Maestro reminds her of Hyodo (leopard) from 3 season of Aggretsuko. Maestro sounds and looks rather intimidating (in a bad sense), but when you get to know her better you realize that she is rational and trustworthy. And I thought.. it's a very decent parallel XD

So me and Gentry made another collab of Maestro being manager for the idol group and so Fantozzi, Burgundy and Guru as singers. Decided to keep the original uniform, but maybe will change it for a bunch of reasons.

[noah-slasher]

I had discovered an art gallery/coffee shop area downtown and chatted with a couple of the artists there and then got invited to join the public event tomorrow where all the artists in the gallery are there and apparently there's wine? i hope there's other (nonalcoholic) drinks but I downloaded some of my shit on my phone to sheepishly show them in case they asked bc I was severely unprepared today and all I had to show at the time was a simple watercolor bust that was fine but not a great example of my composition and that made me embarassed

[darkwater-reservoir]

What is your favourite headcanon for TheSunVanished? Also if you could add anything to it, what would you add?

I thought long and hard on how to answer this and honestly? I cant really think on anything to add to the story that has been presented so far. I do have some ideas for stuff that could be added in the future (remainder of season 3)

Nat getting a remember album, but instead of pushing her to make some big sacrifice it pushes her to become her own person and to move away from following in tucker and tsv's footsteps. The album dissappears when she follows them too closely, and a new photo is added when she does something truly unique to herself and makes her own decisions

Danyon appearing one final time in the story to put an end to his tale. I'm thinking him and nat get stuck together in some house for a few days while a ship flies over and nat ends up interviewing him because she notices he's acting a bit different than last time (air of defeat around him). Danyon is an asshole the whole time, but gets really mad when talking about tsv's death, eventually telling her to fuck off and stops the interview. The warm spot is colder by the next day and danyon is already gone when she wakes up. He never shows up again. The clip would show that danyon sucks but he did still care a little bit about tsv, mostly out of guilt for how he treated him. He would have never changed his behavior, though. Tsv made him feel powerful, and beyond that aspect danyon cared very little.

Lucid reveals to nat that theseus was the son of two lucid members who died going to the fake coordinates nat sent them. "You killed his family nat. This is all your fault." That kind of psychological manipulation is right up lucid's alley and i really think it'd break nat too. Really get the plot going there

Another idea is that I would change how tsv died. I would have him annouce that he was dying via the doctor's results and then have him spend more time with tucker and nat. They play games and hang out when they have time. More posts like the dancing video basically. You even get to see tsv's mental state improve a little bit and he ACTUALLY starts to move on from danyon. Then as he further deteriorates (coughing up blood, weak, ect) he makes his difference and blows up. Idk i just feel like it all went so fast and having tsv live just a month or two longer would have made it more meaningful

As for my favorite headcanon? Honestly probably my headcanon that a group of strobes is called a rave. I think it's fun

[speedlimit15]

atp it’s kind of silly to make fun of online romantic relationships when so much of today’s social interaction is online in the first place

[comradejoanmir]

joan to aprilia 🙏

[mnemo-sick]

working on a script for a youtube video (the first in years and years) and being reminded "oh yeah, I'll actually have to say this stuff out loud... like with my physical voice and vocal cords and accent..."

it's always a toss up. do I let my irl accent do its thing? do I try for something a little more "mainstream?" (that'd be mainstream american, in my case.) do I really have a choice?? (being nervous always nudges me more mainstream. it's hard to control.) idk. I'm just musing about it

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than wheat

You're more amazing than job applications

[rivenantiqnerd]

help i have trouble falling asleep

but i want it to be tomorrow and i want to be at school

and the only way to do that is to go to sleep and sleep the time away

do you see the problem here