#most of you people are perfectly lovely

[sardonic-sprite]

Note on negativity

Hey, y'all!

So long-time readers may remember me posting shortly after publishing "Actual Proof that Bruce Wayne is Batman" about negative comments and their harm to writers. Unfortunately after publishing "bane" i feel the need to say it again

Ao3 writers write for FUN and for THEMSELVES. They share from a vulnerable and excited place inside and not because they were obligated.

There are also multiple tagging conventions and different styles of tagging fics. For example, I choose to tag slash relationships only on the fics where they are shown, not every fic in a series that may only occasionally feature the relationship, a decision I've gotten flack for in the past.

This recent fic however (bane) DID follow an established ao3 tagging convention. Folks, please:

"Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" is a glaring signal that there may be a very harsh story below, and is used by writers to preserve a story's tension.

If you cannot handle the unknown, you don't have to read it! If you start and then get nervous, you don't have to finish! If authors provide an optional spoiler in their notes, that is your ticket to determine if this fic is ok for you.

I do understand, believe me, that there are times when we as readers make a judgement call from the warnings and end up getting triggered. I HAVE BEEN THERE. But please stop and consider before you leave an angry, biting, sarcastic, or hostile comment.

There are a lot of young and insecure writers on that site. A lot who were probably terrified to share that fic with a huge and unknown audience. And all of them wrote for their own enjoyment or exploration. You saying cutting things to their faces is hurtful, and could cause them to stop posting or stop writing altogether. That is NOT fair to them, and its also unfair to the people who genuinely enjoy their work.

So take a minute before you rant at them and slam "send." Take five. Write your rant on a piece of paper if you want. But just click away. Dont leave a comment. Dont leave a kudo. Just click off.

Dont risk destroying a writer's desire to write.

Two years ago, some of the comments I've received could have done this to me. They could have caused me really bad mental health spirals, and if Im completely honest, they affected me a little more than I want to admit, even now. But I'm not speaking because I can't take a few snide remarks. Im speaking because I know others out there CANT, and they shouldn't have to.

There's enough out there to tear people down. Don't join it.

Thank you

- sprite

Please feel encouraged to spread this post, but DO NOT bash the bashers. Most lash out from their own hurt, and snapping back is not the answer.

[fantasticgothicpeachsludge]

“he's like a brother to me”...”he's my best friend”....

[fantasyinallforms]

Ok, look at me real quick because I'm tired of explaning this to full grown adults. You can NOT support generative AI and still claim to care about artists and writers in the fandoms you participate in. So that means if you spout pro generative AI rhetoric, and it gets you ostracized that is NOT the community or fandom being unfair or cruel to you. That is simply the conciquences of your own actions. Full stop.

[poisonousquinzel]

"harley quinn's never had a good design in the last deca-!" WRONG dropkicks you through a brick wall

[hyakunana]

God and his staff

[casscainmainly]

Can someone who likes the 'Tim and Cass are twins' headcanon explain why they like it?? I don't wanna be too harsh on a headcanon but I really don't see the appeal. They're literally different races, which means either you're saying Cass looks White or Tim looks Asian, which are both kinda weird. Unless you're headcanoning Tim as Asian, but if you are, the headcanon is basically 'oh these two Asians look alike'. I'm sure people don't actually think that or have bad intentions, but Tim and Cass' relationship is interesting enough without adding this look-alike layer to it. Anyway appreciate any insights!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

What led you to decide conversion to Judaism was "for you"?

I'll preface this post by saying that you are, essentially, asking to open a Pandora's box - this is an inherently huge question to ask, and I only request that you keep this in mind when I talk about this. I'm completely open to this discussion, though! I am absolutely happy to talk about my journey because it is so deeply personal and fulfilling,

I was raised in a Lutheran family - I was baptized, but I was never really... required to go to church. We'd gone before, my dad and I, but I don't remember this because I was young. However, what I do remember is just not believing in any of it. I never truly believed in Jesus, I'd only said I did. Despite having little pressure put on me in a religious aspect, I'd always just assumed that I should please my family. I went to Jesus camp (a moniker for the religious camp I'd gone to a few times), and I went to a handful of confirmation classes. As I understand it, Lutherans practice confirmation in order to educate young adults about the religion, and by the end, the person decides if this is right for them. I dropped out completely, and honestly, it was simply due to "I believe none of this besides g-d."

Once I had consciously admitted to myself that I really could not reconcile my disbelief, I decided to disconnect completely from all forms of xtianity. I mostly kept to myself and didn't even interrogate my feelings about g-d or religion at all.

After a while, I realized that I truly knew nothing else besides xtianity. I always thought it was my duty as a person to learn about others to accept them. I started throwing myself into education about other religions. Now that I think about it, I think part of myself really did want to connect with something that felt right in my soul. For a while, I didn't find that. Once I started learning about what were the true basics of Judaism, I felt a strange and indescribable feeling, really for the first time ever.

My journey into Judaism really began on an intellectual level. I truly jived with what I was learning - I remember one of my big issues with xtianity was the idea of "spreading the Good News," or proselytizing. I think learning that about judaism was what made me realize that there was something out there that I could logically understand. I loved the cultural understanding of disagreement - that you can even disagree with g-d and not be sent to Hell For All Eternity. I loved that observing mitzvot wasn't really a strict dogma. It was a process we all undertake on some level. I'd say that the common attitude held in the xtain spaces I was exposed to all my life (that is - "all of this is strict dogma, and no questions are deemed acceptable.") really made me appreciate the intellectualism that judaism often fulfills. By nature, I want to disagree with others, explain, agree, and ultimately learn, and I loved the culture of education.

I'd say much of the emotional attachment I now have to judaism came later. There is only so much you can appreciate about judaism from the sidelines, and once I got involved in my community, I truly learned this. Much of my love for judaism is simple - it's everyday life, really.

I think what made me decide so soon that judaism was right is because I am trans. I am no stranger to this feeling, I just had never felt it about religion. It's a deep, soul-level understanding of belonging. It's a feeling you can never do justice to through word alone. I've felt this before, and I know this is a feeling that I cannot simply ignore. It's something you can only grab hold of and never let go. It is a primal understanding within your entire being - at least it is for me.

Because of this, there is so much that I have not touched upon here, but I think I've been rambling for long enough. Again, I welcome any and (almost) all questions that may be remaining. So much of my decision about judaism came down to exposing myself to conversion stories and thoughts about judaism from jews, and if there is a chance I might be even a little like that, I will always welcome it!

[uncanny-tranny]

It's really frustrating being trans sometimes with cis loved ones because other cis people will go, "oh but it's such a huge adjustment for them! They're grieving for your pre-transition self/they aren't used to the change yet/it's hard on them!"

It's just so frustrating that people forget that trans people's feelings on this matter, too. Cis people aren't the only ones who have adjustments to make. Frankly, as much as I sympathize with cis people in this position, I can't help but be really jaded about it because so often, cis people jump to the defense of other cis people and they will seemingly forget to or refuse to give the same grace to trans people.

[morrigan-sims]

Fashion Fit for an Empress

I saw the 5th dress in my game while trying to dress another sim and immediately dropped everything to put it on her. And then things spiraled a little bit, and she ended up with 12 new outfits.

[moldy-flowers]

The interesting experience of being pro Sasuke, anti konoha, pro tobirama, anti Naruto ending, pro Sasusaku, anti Itachi, pro Sakura, anti SasuNaru, pro Tobirama×Izuna, anti Madara, pro karin, anti Orochimaru, pro Uchiha and anti Hashirama. And also as much as I hate the guy danzo was kind of hot when he was younger...

[rmbunnie]

Red Hood Characterization

This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.

I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?

This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!

tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.

Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.

[thefirstknife]

Getting real sick of a certain subset of Destiny players complaining that it’s a baby game and crying to Bungie to nerf exotics and abilities when their ENTIRE POINT IS TO BE STRONG in specific ways as if they are being locked into using them.

IF YOU WANT AN EXTRA CHALLENGE STOP BEING SUCH A DPS GOBLIN AND JUST EQUIP SOMETHING THATS NOT TOP TIER META AND STOP COMPLAINING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

MOOD. Go off.

It's incredibly annoying to me. They always use the argument of "the game should FORCE me to do things, I should not SELF-IMPOSE challenges." And like. ? I'm sorry but what? It's a video game for a big audience, it's here to be playable and accessible to the widest possible playerbase. There are plenty of ways to make the game difficult for yourself, so knock yourself out if that's your thing, but don't force others into it.

Like, I enjoy hard content, I regularly at least attempt day 1 raids, I do master raids, GMs, solo and solo flawless content and all that. But only when I want to. Sometimes I don't and I don't want to suffer in a patrol zone or struggle in a seasonal activity I'm doing for the story. The majority of the players don't want that. Designing games for the professional gamers only has NEVER been a good idea and never will be. Fifty streamers can't sustain a video game. It needs casual players who will want to come back to the game instead of feeling defeated.

One of the reasons I really enjoy helping others is because I know that casual players tend to struggle in stuff that's basic activity for me. I've seen people unable to get through a strike. I've sat for 10 minutes rezing someone who couldn't do the jump in a seasonal activity. I want those people to be able to play basic content without feeling frustrated and I want them to know that there are people out there who will help them out.

And this doesn't apply just to basic content, although it should start with that. I think all dungeons and raids and everything should be things that all players can complete. Fine, doing a master raid with all challenges should be tough, but it should be achievable with time and practice, not impossible. What a lot of these "pros" want is just completely divorced from reality.

It takes days and days of practice every time a new master raid is out for me and my team (all with thousands of hours of playtime) to get comfortable to finally finish it. We're far from casual players and it still takes a lot of time to be able to finish hard content. Making it even harder is insane to me. Like, if something is so hard that my team full of people, each with 5000+ hours of playtime and a coordinated team that's been raiding together for years now can't finish it, that means it's absolutely impossible for probably 90% of the playerbase. That's wild to me. Raids and GMs should have more people playing them. If master raids are too easy for you, Mr. I-Play-Destiny-For-A-Living, that's on you buddy. Unequip the super god tier god roll meta guns and loadouts or play something else.

And ofc, another excuse they make is "if I don't use meta, I am not going to win a raid race!" Then don't. Idk. Let me play you the tiniest violin. This affects literally nobody except a grand total of 50 people. Run your meta in day 1, and play with random shit otherwise. Play raids with all white weapons. Play without mods. Play without a HUD. Do things solo only. I don't know, make up a way to spice things up for yourself. I'm not interested in that and neither are 99% of the players out there. The game is genuinely hard enough for the majority of the players. On top of that, I am here to feel like a powerful space fantasy superhero. I am NOT here to die to dregs in patrol zones. If there's ONE thing that I know for a fact that put people off from Lightfall (as in this year of Destiny), it's the difficulty changes. They're annoying, frustrating and for some a barrier to entry more than anything else.

[mayvaava]

I saw Wicked yesterday and it was pretty cute, I’d have liked it more if I were normal about The Wizard of Oz, but I am not. So, it was cute.

I like the strange little poly thing they have goin on, tho it feels close enough to the ol love triangle trope that I was a little irritated, but it was fine

It was very well produced, and as far as modern major Hollywood movies go, it was very good

[arolesbianism]

I wish So Bad that I could confidently recommend lob corp and library of ruina to people because they're both genuinely rly good games and I also need ppl I know to understand the insanity that is project moon but like godddd they are a fucking Investment. Both in time and in brainpower. I generally think ppl exaggerate how hard lob corp is but it's certainly not easy and when it does get hard it gets HARD. Also it literally requires at least one day 1 reset (basically a new game+) to fully beat the game and at this point I've done at least 10. And for lor I'm not nearly as far in and I'm just scratching the surface of the real game but it's a beast of its own. Also 100+ hours and also hard as hell. Like this game does not fuck around with its difficulty spikes it will make you use your brain and it will give you a damn headache in the process. It's also one of my favorite card combat games I've ever played with mechanics that just so beautifully complement each other to create a dynamic and interesting battle system that gives it a completely different vibe and feeling than any other deck builder games I've played to the point where it almost feels wrong to me to categorize them together. But also I am not even slightly joking abt the headache thing every time I play this damn game I close it with a horrible headache and have to take a multi day break. I think everyone should experience this with me <3

[dykedvonte]

share ur thoughts on ghouls.or just anything that uve thought about/noticed etc :o)

Omg ghouls are so fascinating and sad.

They generally make me sad because of how miserable they are in modern games. They are basically walking cadavers who are at various points of deterioration. In early games, they shared similar sentiments about humans as Super Mutants but it has completely flipped where a lot of them despise being ghouls now. They want cures and long for what they lost in being a smooth skin. It's sad a lot of them live with the inevitable fear of becoming feral and are discriminated against so aggressively. Some places have shoot-on-sight orders, and others treat them like second-class citizens who need to be accompanied by a human.

Canonically we don't really know what allows a ghoul to become a ghoul. We know it's caused by excessive exposure to radiation but it's not constant. We have ghouls like John Handcock who got ghoulified through drugs which was never really mentioned before in the series. Some people ghoulfied on purpose but their methods are not universally sustainable. There's no real reason that a ghoul becomes a ghoul, though, some in-universe theorist believe there is a gene that causes ghoulification, ergo, allows one to become a ghoul instead of dying when exposed.

It's sad because a lot of these ghouls could shed a lot of light on issues in the wastes. A lot of ghouls are pre-war and if not, very very old and knowledgeable. They are also one of the few groups that can go into radioactive zones which would help in clean-up operations. Like I can understand the unease in seeing something so similar and yet terrifying but non-feral ghouls just want to be left alone or allowed to integrate in the reforming societies.

[mokiemorty]

I don't think I can do that, Steam.

(It's good though you should play it.)