#oh blorbos we're really in it now

[juspeczyk]

hear me out. special interest to special interest crossover. bat-dur's gate.

[krowspiracyanon]

Ok, Procreate natively uses sRGB, and that's apparently the default for consumer quality monitors... I assume Pocket is the same. So why the really bad desaturation issue.

I'm going to have to dig into all of this hardcore colour theory I only recently became aware of, for a program that seems to have less user documentation than seemingly more popular ones, while I have eyestrain from a ton of lineart on a tiny smartphone screen.

And apparently both iOS and RBG can have colour weirdness issues so unless I consume tomes of knowledge and develop wizard skills there's probably nothing I can fucking do about it.

[definitelynotshouting]

i literally can't stop rotating hunger au worldbuilding and lore in my head. forgive me if you've ever touched on this in an ask before, but... re: the existential horror of being a parasite that has the sense of self of the host it ate. if one of grian's friends ever did get taken and used as a watcher larva host. how do you think he would feel about the watcher that came out the other side? would he want to see them as still the same person as his friend, or...?

Ive been staring at this ask since i got it with like. I need you to picture the most comically heartbroken expression right now okay. like this is me reading that and thinking about it in great and terrible detail:

Gods he would be devastated if this ever happened. He knows what thats like. He knows just how much it hurts-- and that its not a hurt that can be quantified, because its just that intense, that scalding, that encompassing of an experience to go through. I think, genuinely, Grian would be so utterly horrified and grief-stricken for whichever friend went through the Watcherification process that it would trump every other potential feeling on the list

But i think, ultimately, he would still view them as his friend, and treat them in the same way. There's a little bit of hypocrisy in Grian's character that i enjoy engaging with while writing him, and a good part of that in hunger au is centered around how he's firmly designated himself as the monster, and everybody else is the victim, and theres no room for nuance because he sucks and theyre the only people who are valid. When in reality, yes he hurt them, yes he did terrible and invasive things, but he did them out of pure survival rather than maliciousness, and that does make a subtle difference. And... hes not the only one who has fucked up, either!! The entire point of hunger au is how everyone has fumbled the bag in various ways and now they're all trying to clean it up together. Its just, yknow, Grian is so wrapped up in his own pain that he cant see those grey areas yet

And the thing is, if one of his friends got Watchered™, so to speak, and was standing in front of him, i think he would treat them with SO much compassion. Theyve been through possibly the worst thing anyone can experience and come out the other side-- at his core, Grian is i think a character who wants to do good, and do good by other people, and in this hypothetical that would translate into a lot of kindness he doesnt usually afford for himself. Honestly i think he'd spend the time trying to show them the ropes, get them set up in a better position than he found himself in, and provide his own fumbling emotional support as best he could, just out of sheer solidarity. Like, he gets it. He's been there. He may as well help out.

And i think he wouldnt even realize how hypocritical he's being until someone else pointed it out to him, about how he treats this friend with so much care but is simultaneously cruel to himself. I dont think he'd know how to handle that-- he's sort of dug himself a rut in the road with the way he thinks about and treats himself, and the cognitive dissonance would be really uncomfortable for him. Ultimately a good thing!!! Growth is often very uncomfortable. But imo Grian has a tendency to run from things like feelings of discomfort, so i think it'd take him a while to reconcile his previous ways of thinking with whats being presented in front of him essentially in the form of a mirror.

So uh. tl;dr: he'd be a little hypocrite about it and would feel a lot more compassionately inclined towards the friend than he does himself, and would try to help them out as best he could. Thank you for the incredible question that has given me the opportunity to rotate this worm at even higher speeds than usual inside my brainpan DKNFEKNDSKDJKDKD

[turkwriter]

[scattered-winter]

actually though. something kinda compelling about jack frost who was killed so suddenly and so young getting to experience being a teenager/young adult vicariously by goofing off with his teenage/young adult friends. and there is also something so compelling about him being at once the most immature and the most experienced of all of them because he is a 300 year old teenager who has seen nations rise and fall and thousands of winters but will also start snowball fights because it's fun

[telesodalite]

Another rambling thought, sort of stemming from the last thing, but what if Misfire gets so upset about Krok believing he's contacting his old squad, and pretending or implying that they're still alive, because he's harboring some sort of repressed grief over Thundersaur?

Thundersaur's dying request being to free Flyhigh before he ends up in jail for a dozen counts of "accidental" murder implies a certain kind of closeness or something felt towards Misfire. Yet, we don't really see anything returned from Misfire's side? Outside of the "-You're just jealous because you've never had someone look out for you." comment he makes in response to Spinister's disbelief towards him being the type to end up on someone's "dying wish list".

So, there's that. What can be gleaned from just that? Not much ig, at least nothing concrete. But taking into account Misfire's relationship with Grimlock, and Grimlock's later view of Connie, perhaps something can be assumed about his relationship with Thundersaur.

Whether I'm reading into it too much or not, there is a theme of a sometimes rough but well intended trickle down kindness when it comes to the Scavengers and their story.

A favor or act of kindness is shown to one, and they return it back or onto another, sometimes unintentionally. There's emphasized acts of selflessness with them, even though we know them to be quite selfish, which, really only emphasizes those moments more. If they were written as less of a joking break between the drama of the Lost Light cast, perhaps this theme would've played a deeper more defined role. But anyways, my subjective character favoritism aside.

The point here is Misfire cared for Grimlock, and in turn, Grimlock chooses to care for Connie because it's "his turn" to look after someone. One act of empathy leads to another. There's a time to decide when it's your turn.

So it's possible it goes further back because of that. Thundersaur cared for Misfire, then it was Misfire's "turn" and he cared for Grimlock, and Grimlock cared for Connie.

So why doesn't Misfire say or mention anything about Thundersaur? Grimlock cares a lot for Misfire, wouldn't Misfire have cared a lot for Thundersaur?

Well, in a way, there's a possible answer for that. Misfire is shown to be uncomfortable when faced with admitting he cares for people, or needs people. He's uncomfortable with vulnerability. He gets defensive and snappy when pressed about it, or he deflects it away from himself, which is somewhat of a stark change to his more casual dramatics and honest friendliness. So he doesn't like talking about how he feels, how he really feels.

But he also admits to Grimlock he understands missing the people you cared about. He admits this in connection to Grimlock recalling the last time he was with his "Dino-Buddies", just before Grimlock was taken to Garrus 9. Misfire "gets it", even though it's hard, he gets it.

With all that possibly pointless evidence, we can guess that yeah, Misfire did care for Thundersaur. It's just that he, like the rest of the Scavengers, has his own repressed and poorly managed issues relating to his past and his own negative emotions.

Also, the death thing. He's real casual about dead stuff. He exsanguinates and cannibalizes corpses as a job/hobby, and enjoys it. There's an implied acceptance that he's okay with the fact that the Scavs will eat each other as soon as someone happens to keel over, which includes him also being dead and eaten. He's cool with that, ig. Or at least, he's cool with eating the others if the situation presents itself.

So he's got a weird relationship with life and death. When you're alive, you're a friend. When you're dead? Well, it's not really you anymore, is it? It's not someone you care about anymore, it's just a corpse, not a person, it's just resources in an empty vessel, not a friend. Nothing worth getting emotional or upset about. Perfect for being comfortably detached.

Because this is getting way too long tho, here's the point I'm trying to get to.

Why does Misfire lose his shit a little when Krok starts panicking and trying to call for his squad? Here's my theory, I guess.

Thundersaur is dead. He died, and he's gone, and Misfire knows this. He wasn't there. He didn't get to say goodbye. He didn't get to return the favor or repay the debt. He didn't get to show Thundersaur that he cared for others too, that he passed that on.

But while he accepts it, he doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to dwell on it, doesn't want to acknowledge that he misses Thundersaur. He's dead, he's gone. So it doesn't matter. Misfire can't need him anymore, and he doesn't want to admit he needs anyone anymore, because someone he relied on is dead, and he wasn't there for them to rely on in turn.

So he doesn't think about it. But Krok does. Krok thinks about it, and talks about it, and still admits to needing his dead. Even if he won't acknowledge the fact that they're dead, and gone, and never coming back, no matter how much he wants or needs them anymore.

And it feels unfair, and Krok keeps unintentionally poking at that repressed grief Misfire won't touch. A reminder with every click of that dismembered finger, that you can't always just will away the grief of loss, of death. There's going to be reminders everywhere. Even close to you. And so, faced with reminder after reminder, the repression breaks, and Misfire snaps because-

They're all dead.

Krok's squad is dead. Thundersaur is dead. Why can't they accept that and just move on to never talking about it, never mentioning it, never thinking about it again?

Because, in their own ways, neither of them have ever truly moved on.

[psianabel]

[squishes them in my hands]

[desperatepleasures]

tbh am very fond of the acespec zoro I've created in my mind who is willing to have sex if and only if it is nasty and kinky

[transgenderfivepebbles]

what if i wrote a pel fic. what then. would you still love me

[gaminegay]

I guess I'm an artist, but drawing fictional characters holding hands does not help me when I want to express complex personal emotion

[blueberryrock]

Oooough the bad cramps have finally hit and i have to eat lunch but now i cant 😭😭

Somebody needs to make a device that takes my period cramps and gives it to a Republican senator for me

[teeth-kid]

were "[insert media] characters as vines/etc" videos ever good or was i just not paying attention

[dabidagoose]

Oh. My god. He's a DRUID!!

[sagechan]

I must not engage in the discourse that does not and cannot affect me outside this, my little handheld doom-box. Such discourse is the mind-killer. Discourse is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face the discourse. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the discourse has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

[distant-sound-of-binicorn-howls]

applying for uni sucks when im not even considered a sa citizen i just want to watch my shows and read my fics 😭

[olderthannetfic]

sorry it didn't entirely occur to me that race play wasn't inherently racist. Guess I literally should've just googled that to see, flew over my head. Wasn't intending to be bait or whatever, I was genuinely confused what goes too far in fiction or not, since you could write practically anything including immoral stuff. It was hard to wrap my head around and entirely forgot POC could write stuff that would be considered racist if a white person did it. My bad I understand the reasoning now. Again sorry was genuinely just curious cuz I'm not a "professional" in what's right or not (I usually follow the majority to determine what's right, I'm a sheep, my biggest fear is to be offensive in any way so I try to listen to people who know their stuff and follow), terms and complicated words (at least complicated to me) tend to go over my head. Perhaps I should've used a tonetag to show I was being genuine in my response and meant to be curious and not to harm. I apologize sorry for making you mad have a nice day/night afternoon :) I really appreciate the work you put in this blog, it's very informational for me

--

Oh god. You're in earnest? Well, in that case, you were doing a pitch-perfect imitation of the people you've been reading, and those people are annoying.

--

It's fiction. Who cares what's in it?

The thing that makes it matter is how the fiction is disseminated and the whole context around it. For example, media aimed at young children is held to higher standards because four-year-olds often aren't that competent at telling fiction from reality or understanding that depiction isn't endorsement.

Mainstream US TV shows have millions of viewers. If they reinforce mainstream unconscious prejudices, that tends to encourage the audience to continue unchecked in those beliefs.

Weird niche porn or fanfic on AO3 have tiny audiences, often deal with things that are already contentious, and are labeled as non-mainstream in the first place by their very nature.

"But what if people write immoral fiction?" is itself an unethical position. It is the domain of the religious right, radfems, and other assholes who believe in thought crimes.

Yes, sheep do follow these people. This is an unethical behavior, but it is common.

The tyranny of the majority is not a good thing. The fact that a large number of people on social media say that such-and-such makes them feel gross is not an excuse for them to tell a smaller group with "gross" tastes what they're allowed to do in their own circles. Lots of people are horny over weird shit. This is fine.

The fear of ever offending anyone is a prison that will cause you to make bad choices.

Genuine harm is bad, but lots of people are offended at the drop of a hat. Yes, this goes for nonwhite people too, and it definitely goes for idiots white knighting in fandom spaces and going "You can't write X about characters of color! You can't write Y! Everything is problematic!"

As has been discussed on here many times, a lot of fans, including nonwhite fans, find that kind of behavior stifling to the point where they can't write about those characters at all. The response is often a huffy "Well, they shouldn't feel like that." But they do feel like that. It's not on purpose. Most people feel like that, to be honest. Living in a fishbowl has a chilling effect on art just like being afraid of offending paralyzes you yourself.

Offensiveness is highly dependent on context. Not only will it vary with your cultural background, but a great writer can handle material and make it feel nuanced, while a crummy writer will fall flat on their face with the same material.

If we are too precious about "Nobody should ever offend anyone", we're calling for all fans to publicly disclose their demographic and for all fans to be extremely skilled. Pity the poor, dumb teenager who just wants to write about their black blorbos because they are black themselves... and a shitty writer... who likes sex pollen.

If you look again, you will notice that a lot of fandom drama around offensiveness boils down to "You have a rape kink and that's not okay".

The bottom line, anon, is that fandom has a bullying problem. The internet has a bullying problem. People who are too scared to have their own stance on what's offensive or what's correct behavior are easily weaponized in bullying campaigns. This is the problem with being a sheep. You'll reblog shit saying "Well, I'm not sure, but this sounds important..." and then it turns out to be a smear campaign. Or maybe you personally won't do that, but you will stay silent when you should speak out.

Doing the right thing often involves offending people.

Look, anon, I've been canceled before for supposedly being "fandom's worst racist", and yet there are a bunch of fans of color in my comments section because they're tired of prissy jackasses who won't ever expose themselves by having an opinion, think it's more important to never be wrong than to have a conversation and risk changing their minds, who think only one very specific, very American, and very era/platform/fandom-specific standard is okay, and who hate on kinky fanfic day in and day out.

--

To interact with other humans is to risk offending someone. Yes, I think it's on all of us to at least recognize extremely blatant racist stereotypes, but that doesn't mean agreeing with every single moron who walks up and goes "I had a yucky feeling, and now that's your problem."

A lot of this pearl clutching makes one think of that line from Cold Comfort Farm:

"I saw something nasty in the woodshed!"

The matriarch of the family took to her bed years ago, claiming to have been prostrated by the sight of some unnamed horror (in context, probably people fucking). For years, she has used this supposed ~harm~ to bully and control the rest of the family.

Fandom is also full of this behavior lately. "Other people's fiction made me shake and cry!!!" is not actual harm. It is, at best, people who are genuinely upset but who need to take it up with a mental health professional. Very often, however, it is shitty, manipulative, abusive behavior that is entirely intentional. Do not fall for it.

Some people are just children and need to be told "No."