#people i blame for this: me (and tumblr's formatting system)

[escapetothelake]

rusty lake: paradise spoilers!!!

[paper-bag-with-holes]

The End.

I don’t like to whine in public because it doesn’t bring joy around in a dark enough world, but I’ve had so much on the heart that I need to get it out of my system. I’ve been working on my comic Trifolium for 2 years now, and am reaching the end. Usually ending a webcomic means being freed and is something to be celebrated, but not this time. For my previous comics, I’ve known the joy of sharing this experience with readers who were excited to see the conclusion but were also a bit sad to know it was ending. It was the end of a journey we shared together. But for Trifolium, it isn’t. There is no one to be excited about the conclusion, to share the end of the adventure with. No one has been reading this comic after all (except for a few of my close friends). I have noticed it quickly, no one commented on the updates (except for my friends), no reaction on the illustrations because they didn’t know the characters, had no interest in them. I continued until I finished Chapter 4 and Interlude 5, after that I gave up on sharing my comic because I knew that no one was interested in reading it. I continued to draw it thanks to my friends’ support, but considered it something I was doing only for myself, so I needn’t upload it online. And for months, still no one was reading my comic, so I never bothered translating the text of the last chapters in english. Why should I waste time on this if no one is gonna read it? But then, as I am arriving at the end, working on the extra comic pages, I realized that the end of this comic also means its death. You know how nowadays, on social networks, a drawing has a lifespan of 24h. It might not be true for everyone, but for me it pretty much is. After 24h, the number of likes/retweets doesn’t change anymore, which means that no one is seeing it after that. The followers who have missed it have their timeline filled with other contents, the others will never cross the drawing through a retweet ever again. For my comic, the thing is people will know it exists as long as I post updates of the process (when I’m done with the sketching, inking, illustration) and maybe feel like reading it, but once it’s completed and I no longer draw and post anything for it, people will forget about it. And no one else will get the chance to find it and read it. It will be as good as dead. With the amount of new media coming out everyday, no one will dig in the site of a non-popular nobody a mere unknown webcomic that no one has ever recommended. So I asked on Twitter and Tumblr why my followers (people who supposedly like my art?) didn’t read my comic, with the hope that it might be something I could fix (like the not-phone-friendly format ? but in the end, that wasn’t mentionned as a problem…). Worse… I got people saying my comic is good, so the problem doesn’t come from it… Then WHY has no one been interested in reading it? If you tell me it’s good but no one is interested in reading it, it only got me more frustrated. I’d have prefered they say that the story is bad, at least I’d have understood why no one wants to read it. To me, it means that it wasn’t interesting enough to make people want to read it. I must be at fault in some way, because you can’t just say I had NO LUCK ??? Most replies were saying that they wanted to read it later, when they have time or stop forgetting. It’s not that I don’t believe them when they say this, but deep down, you know very well that you will forget again (because I do). And once I stop posting about it,  I’m pretty sure they’ll never think about it ever again. And if they do, will they really feel like reading a webcomic made by an amateur? When reading a published comic would at least guarantee some quality and possibly be less of a waste of time, in an era in which we don’t get much free time and have so much to read, watch or play.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming anyone in particular, since “no one reading” means that it’s the sum of the personal reasons of “everyone” for not feeling like reading it. I think it’s not anyone’s fault, many friends I’ve been crying to just told me that’s how the internet is now. It can’t be helped. It’s not 2012 anymore, it was probably a mistake to not think about it. But can’t I also have the right to be sad about it for all the reasons I’ve written above? I’ve spent 2 years on a project that is just going to die literally. That’d why, the end of this comic is particularly painful, to the point of crying a few nights and days. This journey has been very lonely. And if by miracle, anyone comes across my comic and finds it interesting enough to read it, they’ll most likely not comment on it or take the time to write me a message if they enjoyed it. It’s an era in which there is so much “contents” that we just merely have the time to move to the next one. It feels like the artist behind it no longer matters (especially on sites like webtoon, where the readers would call me “author”…) and is only a machine. I guess drawing webcomics is over for me. I had planned a new project, but I think it’ll be wiser not to do it. I’m thinking of using the free time I’m getting back to find a sport I like, there are 20 kg I’d love to lose. 

[circular-bircular]

Mmm. I caught a few free minutes today to sit down and respond, so let's unleash this one, shall we?

Below the cut is an ENORMOUS ask, and a (incredibly long, as much as I may try otherside) response. It's about the recent "censorship" (???) drama.

TL;DR: Everyone is allowed to be angry in life, and policing that is kind of outrageously infuriating, especially in spaces where people struggle with things like emotional regulation! I'm allowed to be upset and express that upset, just as much as anyone else. Me expressing frustrations isn't "demonizing" people or attacking them, and I'm sorry if it comes across that way. If you feel I'm attacking you by posting on my own blog how I'm upset about something, or feel I'm attacking you by reblogging posts on tumblr to dissect ableism in articles you yourself posted... Figure out that feeling, or block me? Good lord.

I am not posting anything more about this topic. Please don't send asks about it, or I will simply be deleting them.

Okay. For context, these two asks (combined below) came in about 3 days ago. I was wondering if I should post them in a different format to slim them down, but genuinely, I think I want to present this as I received it. Here it is (with your system name censored, anon -- I recognize your concerns about harassment):

abt frameaclouds post :: politely + trying to come to the table not to argue but to point this out I dont think you can blame a blogger for seeing people reblogging their post from you legit screaming "how dare you" or "fuck you" at them and them then assuming that it's probs best to just block and keep back from that whole group of folks. I liked some of your additions and thought they were interesting as one of frameaclouds followers.... but the way you and others focused almost entirely on nitpicking LB Lee's stuff and some ways things were phrased (ex. - like point 3; all frameacloud said was that DID does not require trauma. you then... agreed and shouted at them?), and the way a lot of you jumped to calling it censorship and silencing when frameacloud refused to engage afterwards, really kind of makes it look like you're interpreting their post and actions in the worst light possible. it makes it seem like you're coming from a place of bad faith. you mentioned some cool perspective in your reblog, where you talked about how it came off to someone who had your specific background and knowledge and what u found the issues to be, but you haven't done the reverse: you haven't considered how your reblog was going to come across to an otherkin whose been around for a really long time and who is probably used to dealing with tons and tons of trolls who are going to take what they say in the least generous way possible, twist their words, + use it to belittle and harass them. like this is an otherkin who's been around since the grilling times and usenet days. and a bunch of people who seem to be in ur circles citing back to the post and kind of beating their chests about it even tho frameacloud is making a point not to fight or argue about it and to just block and move on...and u urself described ur response as a 'rant' which has a pretty diff connotation than 'discussion' or 'criticism'...well its likely to just project that kind of image further, that ur just here to flame war, even if thats not what ur doing or how u want to come across. ik that's how it came across to me and even after seeing some of ur past posts on ur blog that i really liked im still a little skeptical that this ask isnt gonna be either trashed mocked or taken out of context by u or someone who follows u. and also i want to remind people that like......... u r not owed access to anyone on socmed. frameacloud and any other blogger is allowed to block anyone for any reason. and its unhealthy to say that ur owed other ppls blogs and posts to platform on. respect other ppls boundaries without villainizing them cuz otherwise ur just opening up a can of worms to lie in. and ik u said in a later post that theyre well within their rights to block u but u also reblogged a post before that calling it censorship. so like... this is what i mean about coming off as disengenuous and troll-y, stuff like this is why even if i liked some of ur reblog i wont rb it. if i rb it and end up deleting it later am i gonna be told by others that im 'censoring' u? if i make a mistake and say something wrong in a tag am i gonna get jumped with a 5k word essay from four different ppl telling me how much i suck? its a hypothetical but only sorta with whats been happening on ur blog and elsewhere in this discussion. its bad form and its not super fair to frameacloud who still hasnt done legit anything yet but block ppl and i really cant say enough how much i dont blame them with some of whats been said n what sort of conclusions ppl r jumping to abt them. (also now that im thinking of the context if u did come across as bad faith engagement to frameacloud then they probably didnt respond to ur ask because it screamed BAIT to them cuz ik in their shoes id think the same. i mean their blog 99% runs on queue...the last post they reblogged that wasnt on their queue was ONE post on the 11th from their boyfriend and be4 that ONE on the 9th...all while u have someone gossiping in a prev ask that they 'often do this'. i can see frameaclouds POV)

like i swear im not trying to start a fight but can u see how this comes off. claiming u want a discussion and then thanking someone who is calling blocking censorship, saying that theyre in their rights to block but then posting an ask that says this blog that makes maybe like two or three original posts a month "does this often", the original aggro all over the reblogs that stem from ur first reblog in the reblog chart... like frameacloud is the one who blocked first but u have to srsly consider why they did + why they refuse to engage at all + what it looks like to ppl outside of the type of syscourse ur used to, like them and like me. if u want ppl to listen, then this isnt a good way to promote the kind of discussions u say u want. it just drives ppl away and maybe it feels temporarly vindicating but its not helpful. i want to see the things ur talking abt talked abt more but if its always going to be like that and theres no way for it to be less like trekking thru a field of mines where someone might blow up at u for something u dnt even realize is wrong at the time then i dunno

...

So, first off, I apologize profusely to everyone for how long-winded I am. I write a LOT, a habit I have always, always tried to break, and I now realize just how much it is to see thousands of words in response to things. This is nearly 1k of words I woke up to right before leaving for my vacation. Talk about wild to read right after waking up. (I also apologize because what follows is similarly so long winded and I cannot figure out how to not do this).

I attempted to write up my response. Took a full day and a half, writing and writing and writing. And here's the thing, I wrote around 3k words trying to explain my perspective, trying to acknowledge what I agreed and disagreed with from your asks, from your perspective, and just...

Dude, I am so fucking done with this shit. Not your asks in particular, but with syscourse in general.

This ask presents me with a damned if I do, damned if I don't scenario. I could leave it to rot in my inbox, but then I'm a hypocrite for not engaging with discussions about things, which is what I say I want people to do. I could finish writing up my 3k+ word response, but then my words are going to be twisted as they always are because I'm long winded and I am just trying my best to (probably over)explain myself.

Or... I can just. Explain as briefly as possible here what I'm feeling, thinking, and doing.

So... Here goes my best shot.

One:

First and foremost, I could care less at this point about frameacloud. Good fucking lord, I have tried to keep their username in my head through all of this, but it's genuinely so hard and I just end up scrolling up. I have never interacted with this user before this, and I clearly won't be again. My beef is not with them. I could care less about this user or their business; they are a tumblr user who exists. Wow!

My upset was about how the conversation was cut off. That's all. That's it. Wow, it sucks how all conversations are cut off when people block others for any reason. I hate how long MY blocklist is, strictly for my mental health. I hate how many people I have to block to keep myself healthy, because it cuts off communication. Is it... condemning myself to saying, "It's a shame that they cut off communication like that" when I've blocked plenty of very vocal syscoursers?

No. As I've said numerous times through all this, people should be able to block whoever they want. Even if I talk about how upsetting that may be, I mean absolutely no ill will to the person who literally should not know I'm talking about how upset I am, because said person has me blocked.

Two:

I don't care why they blocked me. Maybe they personally hate me, maybe they heard about me from who-is-page or whoever (I know I've bumped heads with them in the past once or twice before), maybe they thought I was a troll, maybe they thought I was overly angry, whatever-

That literally means nothing to me other than " :( Fucking goddamn it, that means my response will be hidden."

What I am upset about isn't that they blocked me; I'm upset that the conversation was cut short and hidden in all aspects. By that I mean, I don't care I was blocked and hidden; I care that every single user who reblogged either me or SAS's reply was also hidden. Like. Every single tag was. I don't know if that's tumblr's doing, or OPs doing, or what have you, but again -- it doesn't matter.

All I'm saying is "damn, buddy, that sucks."

Three:

They didn't respond to my ask, and I mentioned that in my follow up post to show I tried to reach out genuinely. I didn't want people to think I was posting this without trying to reach out originally. That was all. It was once again me complaining that the conversation was completely cut off, regardless of the reason why it was cut off.

And here's where I'll address the elephant that I see, or at least the first one.

I'm allowed to be however angry I want on my blog, on my posts, and in my life. I'm allowed to shout, curse, and be pissed off. And no, they don't need to engage with it, and no, I don't need to be happy about that fact.

This is a tumblr blog, sir.

I'm not a medical professional or a debater on a stage in front of a podium. I'm a 26 year old trauma survivor who got upset about a fucking severely ableist post. I think I should be allowed to be a bit pissy about it.

Being told so frequently recently that I need to "be nice to convince people" is such whiplash, because less than a year ago, I was that person. I was the person telling everyone to let go of their anger, to be nice to convince the other side, that everyone needs to be polite. I did this so much that I literally was known as the Respectability Politics Syscourser. That was a legitimate label I used. I was told so often that I was a filthy centrist and that I was worse than homophobic bigots because I was trying to get everyone to just be nice to each other. I got fucking harassed for simply posting "Everyone should respect each other" to the syscourse tags.

Is that healthy?

A topic I discuss most frequently with my therapist at the moment is reclaiming anger. I struggle severely with loyalty and fawning, convinced that if I show any negative emotion whatsoever, I'll be hurt and shoved aside and abandoned by those I love. (Ouch). Here's just a few things I've learned in the past year or so:

Anger is the part of you that knows you deserve better.

Anger is a form of self-love.

Anger is a secondary emotion; what emotion lies under it? (This is the one I struggle with the most)

In... Fall of last year (the exact month escapes me), I ended up blowing up due to how long I had kept myself censored and kept myself "polite" for others. Due to how much anger I'd shoved aside and kept under wraps for the benefit of others. Because being angry would "reflect badly" on me and my friends; because it would make what I had to share less accessible to others.

... I'm done with doing that. Therapist's literal orders. In fact, if my therapist had his way, I would not have a system blog, be part of any system servers, or talk to anyone online who has DID, because the fact fucking is, none of you are safe to talk to. It will always be a triggering space. (Thankfully, my therapist also acknowledges that he is a singlet, doesn't know my brain, and that I am my own person who can make my own choices).

If OP of the post decided to make a big huge post blowing up in anger and frustration at how horrible I am, good for them. If you block me out of anger, good for you! I do not care, because I will be happy you are doing what is best for you. I am happy OP did what's best for them.

And equally, upset that a convo about ableism was hidden.

That brings me to:

Four:

Out of all the shit said and reblogged through that little single blip on the syscourse radar (I think around 10 posts out of 20 in that single 24 hours), I do regret posting that ask about OP "doing this often". That one is on me, and tbh, I'm gonna delete it. It was drama, and I do try to avoid that. I hardly added anything to it, and while I know my perspective on why I posted it, I also acknowledge that it'll do literally jack shit to explain why. So I'm just gonna delete it and move on.

But in everything else, I was only lamenting the fact that every response was hidden beyond those agreeing with OP.

I thanked Candlelight (the first user to call it censorship from what I can see) for stating that the responses were all hidden, but moreover, for mentioning that they didn't agree with everything I said. I spoke on that post primarily driven by anger at Lee's ableism. I KNOW it was not a perfect post. That's because I'm not a Perfect Debater(TM).

All I wanted was A DISCUSSION ABOUT ABLEISM!

(Note: This is commonly seen as yelling; for me, via text, I see this as EXTREME EMPHASIS. Sorry it apparently comes across as yelling! I see it as yelling a bit in my mind, but I can see how the TONE is lost in those cases. Right now, my tone is exhausted frustration, but I see no need to ACTUALLY raise my voice at you.)

I think that's the thing that's pissed me off the most. Everyone and their brother wants to either agree or disagree with me about censorship. I have my own thoughts on censorship (it's basically always bad, but there's nuance on all things, is exclusion censorship, etc etc) but those are not relevant because nobody has even fucking addressed the ableism.

The articles -- linked by OP, but who gives a shit at this point -- came off as ableist. I reblogged OP's post because they are the ones who posted the ableist articles to the DID tags. That is how tumblr is used, is it not? And yes, I expressed my anger... at the articles... on the post that had the articles...

And OP hid those critiques for their own reasons... and I lamented that they were hidden... so I made a post about it while explaining the context ('Hey if you're wondering why I'm making this big huge long post AGAIN, OP blocked my response and everyone elses, and yes I have tried to resolve it, but this one's plan B for getting the word out that these articles and ideas are really harmful online')

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. You see why this is so hard to keep short, right? I surely hope so. There's a LOT to tackle here, and a lot of emotions, and a lot of different topics/nuances.

FIVE: RAPID FIRE ROUND (With Review!)

I don't care about otherkin spaces or know shit about them. They're triggering for me. Bluh.

I don't blame OP for blocking me.

I don't hate you or want to attack you for this ask, sorry you feel that way.

If someone deletes a reblog, I just assume they made a mistake reblogging it? Do people attack others for this shit?

I nitpicked Lee's response because Lee's response was the most ableist shit I've seen in a bit, and I did that on OP's post because they're the one who posted it.

I didn't agree that DID does not always need trauma? I explicitly said it is always trauma based? I'm so confused about that point.

Is "Ranting" seen as trolling now? I use "rant" to mean "Shit, I went on for a LONG time." It's synonymous with ramble for me.

I don't know how to break it to everyone, but posting online means it is inherently unsafe, and someone may attack you or blow up at you. It's the world wide web. It sucks. (That doesn't mean it's deserved or that I endorse that behavior; it's just... life).

Ugh.

At the end of the day, I just want to be able to have my fucking disorder and scroll tags about my disorder without seeing:

It doesn't need trauma to form

Traumagenic systems are 'obsessed with suffering'

Endogenic systems are 'healthy' forms of plurality (As opposed to DID)

Yknow. Syscourse in general.

And similar shit.

Is that too much to ask??

Anon; I know this doesn't address all of your points. I KNOW I haven't gone point by point like I wanted to. My original draft did that, but I only got halfway before hitting 3k words, and you seemed... really adverse to a long ra- ramble, not rant. Sorry? Ugh.

Just take this, and I hope this topic doesn't come back to me, because I'm kinda done with it entirely at this rate.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 14 - The Best of Nancy Kress, by Nancy Kress

Okay, continuing to work through my backlog on these! And learning the perils of letting it build for a month because my memories of most of the stories in this are already getting a bit vague and scattered.

So, getting the basic details out of the way – my first short story collection of the year, 600 pages of the works of Nancy Kress, curated and selected by the author herself as all her favourites that would fit in one volume. Someone on here (can’t remember who and tumblr search is being its usual unusuable self, unfortunately) recommended Beggars In Spain to me a while back, and this was the only volume my library system had that included it. So, 500-ish pages of other stories as a nice bonus until I got to the end and remembered that that’s the reason I’d gotten the book out in the first place.

The stories run from less than ten pages to a novella, and Kress includes a little half-page afterward following each. Usually either a reflection on the meaning of the story or an anecdote about its writing or reception, and then where and when it was originally published and any awards it won. And there were a lot of awards You can get a lot of short stories nominated for Hugos over 45 years of writing. The little snapshots of a, like, SF/F writer subculture and the relationships therein were all charming, anyway.

The stories themselves were of pretty wildly varying subject matter, though all science fiction of one kind or another. Everything from post-apocalyptic ruins to spaceships studying the galactic core to the drama and intrigue of gene-modding among high class ballerinas twenty minutes from now. The quality varied – it would pretty much have to, for like two dozen stories written across a span of decades – but overall it was really quite good.

Tone was rather more consistent. Some were happier than others, of course, but even the most fantastical and high concept worlds were pretty grimy and compromised and full of petty politics and pettier assholes. Capital H Heroes were pretty thin on the ground, even (especially) among the various protagonists. Kress seems to have a rare love for women who aren’t just, like, spiky, but genuinely flawed and unpleasant to be around (easier to pull off with short stories than novels, I suppose).

Short stories are great for just putting people in situations generally, really – not sure how long you could really draw out ‘feeling awkward and shitty because the guy you’re having an affair with was on a ‘business trip’ to visit you when aliens abducted and/or killed everyone in the city his wife and kids were in. He absolutely blames you for this,’ but it’s sure a hook!

Familial relationships that are, lets go with troubled, are a whole other recurring theme, too. Sororicidal sisters, deadbeat dads, obsessive ex-wives, parents putting their children through experimental gene-therapy to make sure they grow up with the ideal body to vicariously live out their dreams, the whole set. There’s even some dubiously consensual clone incest at one point!

Though honestly the lack of capital-h Heroes goes beyond just morality – thinking about it, most of the short stories are told from the perspective of observers, survivors, sufferers of exotic diseases, journalists poking at a mess from the outside. People whose world is being acted upon by forces far beyond their control, if not beyond their understanding entirely, and either bearing witness or struggling to adapt and get by. The stories where the protagonists had real agency – the scientists exploring the galaxy’s core, the time-travellers taking an alternate Anne Boleyn hostage to prevent the English Civil Wars – are usually the tragedies. There are a lot of those – or, if not tragedies, then at least stories that end badly for almost everyone involved. I’m halfway convinced that short stories are just a more appealing format for properly bleak fiction, really – less investment in characters’ wellbeing, or narrative expectations pushing towards growth or happy endings.

And now, before I focus on discussing Beggars In Spain specifically, some call outs for the short stories that really stuck in my head

The aforementioned gene-moding scandals in New York ballet, partially told through the perspective of the engineered-to-be-as-smart-as-a-5-year-old bespoke guard dog contracted to protect a start ballerina. Nicely understated cyberpunk setting and also felt extremely realistic as the sort of thing we’ll absolutely be having scandals about in fifty years tbh.

A woman discovering that the aliens are here amid the ruins of postwar Earth because they started getting our television broadcasts and decided that the only thing we had worth taking was dogs, but are stuck here until they figure out how to train them to be as good and heroic as they are in the movies.

A disenchanted and nostalgic man in the 80s finding a specific cupboard that goes back to one specific day in 1935 (I think. Pre-war but Roosevelt administration). He uses this exclusively to make his social security cheque go further and buy little presents for his friend with what in the 80s is pocket change. The actual plot involves despairing over how cynical and bleak-minded his granddaughter the artist is, and deciding to go back and a Good Man to introduce her to.

An extremely short one – just a one-scene vignette, really – about a waitress in a vaguely ‘50s diner when one of the aliens whose been in the news so much escapes their minders and wants to try an apple pie.

(There were also, I must admit, a decent number of stories that left me cold or that I just didn’t see the point of including, but, again, pretty much inevitable in any big collection, isn’t it?)

But okay, so! Beggars in Spain! It’s definitely an interesting novella, and given the fact that it’s 30 years old and was by all accounts incredibly successful I do kind of wonder how many common tropes about the whole super-intelligent designer babies conceit I’ve encountered elsewhere first are downstream of it?

Because I mean, ostensibly it’s about children modified in utero to not need to sleep, but practically that cashes out to them all being creative productive polyglot geniuses. Which is certainly the fantasy of never having to sleep with zero downsides, though honestly I’m pretty sure I’d spend at least half the extra time fucking around online. That said, the sense of alienation the protagonist has dealing with a world where almost everyone around her seems to just be wasting a third of their lives laying down is really well done.

It’s the sort of novella that you could probably write a dozen a dozen different essays about, and would probably benefit from being analyzed with less than a month’s distance and quotes on hand, but for all the futurism (and really not the best story in the collection for that, honestly), the thematic throughline that stood out to me is actually just libertarianism? Or not quite the right word, probably, though it is our heroine’s ideology (she is, after all, the favoured daughter of a self-made magnate, amid a social circle of the golden children of the striving upper-middle class). But the specific idea of enlightened selfishness, that the contract is the basis of all society, that no one owes anyone anything, and you are only worth what you can produce to offer up in exchange to others.

It’s where the title comes from, after all – the eponymous beggars with nothing to offer except their need who are entirely superfluous and inconvenient to the lives of the Sleepless ubermensch; what are they owed? The orthodox answer of the movement basically every major character at least ostensibly ascribes to is ‘nothing’.

Not that any of them actually act like individuals interacting solely through mutually beneficial contracts, which I’m fairly sure is in fact the point – the Sleepless invent nationalism before any of them turn thirty, going to great effort to support and look after each other on the basis of Sleepless-solidarity and an assumption that each of them is the future of humanity. And on the other hand, the protagonist’s father is a domineering, overbearing ass of a partner, draining both of his wives’ personality and will to live in turn until they get tired of being bitter social secretaries for him and quit. Equitable, contractual relationships are thin on the ground – and of course the entire climax is the protagonist relying on friends and an estranged sister to rescue an abused child who surely isn’t likely to pay any of them back for the effort anytime soon.

I thought the hypocrisy was neatly done, anyway. Especially since it’s never really confronted – none of the Sleepless ever show the slightest awareness that the lengths they’ll go to for the sake of each other purely on the basis of their shared enhancements seem to contradict the ideology they treat as holy writ.

Overall not exactly my favourite book of the year, but a fair bit better than a lot of what I’ve read so far. So I’ll call it a win. Just for the time capsule effect of reading stories written by the same author across four decades, if nothing else.

[torao-chan]

My Rantings On

Card appearances through out MeMe with minimal inferences from card meanings [at this stage].

Please note this is more of a word vomit, and external processing examination, on the topic, rather then a fully fleshed out analysis. Apologies in advance for typos, disjointed thought trails, and the like.

For ease of differentiation through out the thought vomit, I have referred to the two Mikoto's as Ore and Boku.

EDIT: Please note this reads like shit on the tumblr dash due to the formatting not maintaining the layers of the bullet points. Please read from the .tumblr.com link (as linked in this sentence) format for easiest following of multiple thought trains.

The two different spreads are by/for the two different alters; mostly easily distinguished by the different current problem cards and their ties to the different alters.

Both cards are represented, side by side, right at the beginning of the song at 0:10; the reversed Hanged Man on one canvas, and the upright Fool on another canvas.

The Fool canvas appears in their apartment memory during Ore's first verse.

The fool card appears around the apartment during Ore's verse, and the Hanged Man is blatantly obvious on their shirt during Boku's verse.

It is worth noting that both alters share the same impression of their appearance(1), and wear the same clothes while out in public, but the shirt is most clear and obvious during Boku's verses and then during their blended section at the end of the song.

The hanged man is upright on Ore's shirt during the first verse, but very blurry and often out of clear view. Once he changes out of the 'going outside' outfit, however, he is wearing a blank shirt in the one clear shot we get of his shirt- not the hanged man shirt.

The hanged man shirt is upright on Boku as well, but is far more clear and obvious and distinguishable during these periods. Additionally, the Fool canvas is not in sight here.

The hanged man shirt is clear when tying up the bloody bag during Ore's second verse, but it's worth noting again that they are outside here; not in the apartment where the pair become distinct.

I wonder if this loops back to the line " It’s like what’s wrong isn’t wrong "; in that the two blend well together to make a cohesive singular entity when interacting with the people in their life, but are well aware that they are separate and this becomes most obvious when they're not putting on a facade and are left in their own company.

This would suggest that Mikoto is aware that he has DID / OSDD

This may get support from both spreads if they suggest that both are aware that Ore is guilty of murder while Boku is not, and that is the path that this is taking; are all alters guilty of another alters crime.

This is supported by Ore's line " "I" will save "me" " which indicates, at the very least, he is fully aware that he is in a system

His line " I'm probably not to blame, It's probably nothing " also suggests that he knows that it is his fault that they are here, not Boku's

IMO Boku has two lines that suggest he's pretty aware that he is in a system too.*

" Take a good look at me, until you find me The truth will come to reveal itself " and

" I'm already the fake one "

A blank card is drawn after the first spread is shown, during the line " I won't forgive you if this is happening to me even though I'm right "

This line is the divider between Boku and Ore's sections, and is one repeated by both at separate points in the video. Even when Ore takes over Boku's melody after Boku steals his, his lines are all fairly different, this one remains about the same

There are no other blank cards through out the entirety of the MV. Any cards that are insignificant are shown with their backs facing the camera; no interpretation there.

Even when Ore is holding a card between the Five of Wands and the Chariot, it is the back of a card we see- not a blank card, nor either of the cards drawn on either side of the shot. The back of a card.

Personally, I suspect the card is blank due to two reasons

First, It's representative of the spread we just saw take place, since we've seen the result but haven't seen it drawn yet. It is an action we have already seen the result of- but also, this would be the first card. The one representative of the present self- which, on the spread we've seen, is the Hanged Man... However.

The fact that the pair are switching between themselves as we hear the line means that the present self is not set in stone. We've seen Boku's spread, and now they're switching to Ore- and this reading we've just seen is not for Ore.

During Boku's second chorus, it's the Devil card that lands on him- The Outcome(2) from his spread [last card drawn]. This is something that rattles him, blatantly, and switches the tone of his chorus-verse switch- setting him aggressive. I query if Boku was present for the crime, but it's clear that the outcome had a strong effect on him and his life, and made him angry and frustrated.

This added to the fact that his present problem [or self | first card drawn] is The Hanged Man (Reversed) [forced into a new perspective | change has come and you are not ready]; I firmly believe that Boku is aware of and dealing with the consequences of Ore's actions, regardless of whether he believes himself guilty of the action itself or not.

The fact that this comes after the first clear shot of the hanged man shirt out in the irl memory world suggests that he is aware of the consequences/outcome at this point in their journey, and struggling with it.

This is when his world bleeds red, as the devil card drops and reveals itself and the system. This may be Boku's awakening to the system, in fact, that we are seeing in this video

I remember my own awakening to the system. It was a haze, and blurry, and it's a moment [read: several months] of going 'I am not who I thought I was at all. All this time, people have been saying things about me and I'd dismissed it as them not knowing me, or me being a very flip-floppy person, but the reality is I have never known myself at all.' and this. This is most vividly reflected for me in Mikoto's verse here; in the lines that hit hardest for me, as a host of a system myself.

" Ahhh, it's the same anywhere I go It's like what's wrong isn't wrong I'm already the fake one "

The flip back to Ore's turn at a chorus doesn't reveal any cards(3).

Boku flips back to take the chorus again, however he doesn't keep grip on it for long. Once again, no new cards are revealed.

This could simply be for convenience, allowing Ore a go at drawing cards.

Alternatively, it could be demonstrative of Boku's reduced grip on the system, on himself, as he struggled to come to terms with the system life he is now stuck in acknowledging and understanding.

The word bleeds red, and we see Ore's expression clearly, and we see the clear revealing of the Fool card [which has only been tied to Ore (and never Boku) before now] before the second spread is drawn. This leads me to the conclusion that

Ore is the alter to pull the second spread of cards. This is reinforced by the Fool becoming representative of the present self, instead of the reversed Hanged Man.

Some people have claimed that the second spread was a threat and a fake spread, perhaps due to the prominence and threatening display of the Death card at the end before Ore attempts to punch the observer of their inner world(4). I can understand how people came to this conclusion; the Death card often gets the rep as a bad card to draw, and Ore proceeds to punch the screen of the MV as a 'get out of my head' motion, however I disagree with this perspective.

The Death card means change, an end to the old and a fresh start, and can be easily taken as a relieving card to draw to anyone who feels trapped in their current life.

The two spreads are so different due to the fact that they are being drawn by different alters with different issues with the current situation the system is trapped in.(5)

But even dismissing the previous two points, and if you decide you completely want to throw away the dissociative disorder theory entirely, the final card is offered out to another hand. This is a spread to display the situation, and who's hand it is is unclear.

The only way I can think of this working, however, is if it's a change in spread due to a change in time. If the earlier spread was one drawn before the events that lead to Mikoto landing in Milgram, and this is the spread they pulled afterwards.

It could be Boku's hand (Ore going 'this is my stance on our situation.') or it could be Es' hand (Ore going 'this is our stance now that I am in prison and trapped here with you.')

 On a slight side note, if this is an established system that is aware of itself, I wonder how Milgram has summoned and restrained the wrong alter(5), and how this is affecting system communication. In my own experience as an alter in a system, our communication can range from good on good days to bad on bad days, and being thrown in a situation would cause an upset in that ability from stress alone, let alone with unknown magical means in play.

If Milgram is conducted on individuals that are still alive, then the are the bodies inside Milgram, or are they comatose back on Earth. If Milgram is conducted on individuals that are dead, then the individuals appear to be missing significant memories that lead to their demise if it wasn't relevant to their death.

Either would result in a fugue like state, which would explain Ore's refusal to take the situation seriously, writing it up as a " bad dream " that they'll wake up from. This is not a situation, in his mind, that needs to be taken seriously- so why should he treat this situation as a serious threat to the system?

 Footnotes from above:

(1) Due to the lack of differentiation [currently presented as of 28/01/23] between the two Mikotos, I query if this is a case of DID or OSDD 1a [partial dissociative identity disorder]. OSDD 1a has significant amnesia present between parts, but less distinction between the various parts (same name/same visual perception of self).

(2) The strength of emphasis on the two outcome cards [Devil and Death] make me believe that (while the other cards shouldn't be ignored) it's the outcome cards that we need to be focusing the most of our attention on second, along with the present problem cards [Hanged Man and Fool] first.

(3) I am curious about what he's smoking though. I know Mikoto stated they gave up real cigarettes for e cigarettes / vapes [source needed], but I wonder if only Boku switched over, and Ore remained on proper cigarettes. Just a side thought.

(4) I'm also curious about the awareness of the subjects and the extractor of the MVs. Others look at the camera during verses, but never address it directly without directing their address to Es themself, rather than the device used for viewing the internal dialogue. However Ore Mikoto, who is also unrestrained by Milgram [I can't emphasis enough how significant this fact is to me(5)], is able to identify the view point enough to punch it and attempt to remove it from the internal world of his system.

(5) Again, cannot emphasis enough, how important it is to me that Milgram managed to restrain Boku but not Ore. This lands as solid evidence of a dissociative system, whatever lies Mikoto may or may not be telling us, in my books. It also caters into my other belief, that Milgram is trapping souls not individuals- but that's a rant for another post.

  Again, this is purely an interpretation on how the cards were presented and not the content of the cards themselves yet. It is incomplete, and rough around the edges. But I needed to get my thoughts out- and my friend has literally begged me not to keep all the analysis in my head alone T__T

Please take with a grain of salt, and a note of the brief biases noted below.

 Biases notes: this is written by an aware host of a DID system with notably good internal communication, with the system as a whole strongly relating to the song. We've dabbled in tarot, but not too far, and our understanding is very basic. Prone to existential questions, and big picture viewpoints, while tending to miss smaller details and facts.

 It is not a question, in our brain, whether Mikoto has some version of dissociative disorder. Between the switches uncontrolled by the host, the titling of the song, the symbolism within the song- it's not a question in our minds.

Our current belief is that the purpose of each of Milgram's prisoners is to pose an existential (or perhaps moral?) question to the consumers. We believe the question behind Mikoto's trial is to question "should all alters be held accountable for the beliefs of an individual alter". Our current stance is that the body should be held responsible and accountable for the consequences, and all alters while in the body should do so as well, but on a soul-evaluation level all alters are not responsible for the other alters actions.

The system is currently favouring theorising and interpreting the trials of Haruka, Fuuka, Mikoto, Kotoko, and Milgram as a whole.

This wouldn't be relevant information almost anywhere else, but it's worth saying in relation to MeMe. The system favours the Death card as a positive card; it heralds change, new beginnings, the end of an old cycle.

We have run with the assumption that this is a Celtic Cross spread.

The version of the song we listen to most is Candace’s English Cover cause we can listen to it while working lmao.

Thank you for reading and sorry for taking so much of your time aldskjglkfdjsg

[khloros]

okay so I’m typing this on tumblr’s website on my phone so if there’s anything spelled wrong or formatted weird I blame that 😂

I haven’t been on tumblr regularly in like, a while!!! And I miss my mutuals!!! Ahhh!!! It’s crazy how you can feel homesick for a blog, but also kinda wonderful. There’s a lotta cool people I interact with here!

I wanted to provide a reason for my absence, which is kinda complicated and personal, so I’ll explain under the cut, okay?

I’ve been honest about being in a system, but not entirely open about it due to my discomfort with talking about it. I’d rather not answer any questions about this. I may use some terms that are specific to systems in this post, and I request that you use a search engine for definitions instead of asking me. Thank you.

In short, I recently realized that being in a system was a coping mechanism for a combination of trauma and genetic brain-stuff. Integrating the system into being one person again is, personally, the healthiest choice. I decided to distance myself from this tumblr blog to help integration go smoother.

I’m still the fabulous me that I am, but I’m also the complete me now that the system has been integrated. I can remember things a lot easier now, and I think my emotions are a little more stable. I’m comfortable and happy with this decision.

I’m not sure if I can live without tumblr though 😂 and I really miss a lot of my mutuals!!! I don’t plan to return to this blog except to block bots. It doesn’t reflect who I am anymore. However, I’ve made a new blog with a similar theme. I’m trying to keep follower count low to reduce my screen time because I totally put too much value on how I’m perceived online :/ so I won’t be sharing the url on this post. Please message me if you want to know what the url is! I might take a little while to get back to you because, again, I won’t be visiting this blog very often.

Thank you very much for your understanding <3

[mg-sytem]

This response will probably definitely not be the best formatted or most "quick to the point", we suck at that. Sorry ahead of time-

First, I want to make it clear that we fully understand diagnosis isn't always safe, practical, or possible due to income, legality concerns, local resources, or just location (i.e. countries that don't even have that as an option). We are pro self informed diagnosis or "therapist acknowledged" stuff.

He wasn't making that post to say "I deserve a pat on the back because I don't go attack people!" Because yes, that's the bare minimum of being a person, to not just go out and tell random people they're faking for attention, to harm themselves, or try and pressure someone to think about their potential traumas. All of that is the same BS said to people with mental illness in general and it's really scary to me that people who are knowingly traumatized feel they can justify doing that themselves..

But on to my point of that, the reason he said "I don't go out and harass people" was to address the fact that we have had it happen to us multiple times, not always posting what's been said, mind you. The name calling, the assumptions regarding what we must believe is acceptable, etc. (and to a point we don't blame them. We've seen the same behaviors on both "sides" to the point that the generalization from either "side" is made about the other.) And because he was trying to make it clear that we're not trying to seek out discourse, and that we don't feel bullying is ever acceptable. I can't clearly word everything I'm meaning here so I hope you have the idea at least.

As for the name, I want to say screw it and change it. It's not like it's significant or meaningful in any way. It's become more of a personal "safe space" for us to express ourselves while also being able to reblog or show some informational or uplifting messages. We'd eventually like to revamp the blog all together but haven't had the time so maybe we'll have to get around to that 🤷

Lastly, id like to thank you for your perspective about how basically people can struggle to come to terms with having trauma when spaces can be so unwelcoming (either seemingly or overtly so). We understand that feeling, though not related to system stuff, but rather gender stuff. Ex host dealt with that with trans guy spaces. Because of the double whammy of not fitting in with cis guys our age, and seeing so many trans guys just continuing that toxic masculinity online + not having the same interests or diversion from gender norms, in addition to feeling out of place in Nonbinary spaces (to a lesser degree) just made the whole process take longer. I can see that we haven't put enough effort into making it clear the moment you start to scroll our blog, that we *do* understand people can lean in the direction that we are against while questioning, and that we don't hate them, don't want them to feel further alienated from the possibility of trauma, etc. Honestly, saying "supporters DNI" became a necessary (at least at the time) safety net in an attempt to just not have to deal with being attacked even more. When we made this blog, we weren't at the place we are now when it comes to handling harassment and personal attacks.

Even though we've addressed many of this in the past, people just finding our blog probably won't see that. I hate the organization system of Tumblr for so many reasons and this is one of them. Even the tagging system is flawed with more and more censorship on Tumblr.

- 🧛

Maybe we need to be a bit clearer on some things?

We're not here to be aggressive. While some alters may be more outspoken or more..blunt? Than others, none of us are going to go out of our way to attack, bully, or insult any individual people. Nor would we ever say extremely gross things about groups of people (i.e. sui baiting, calling people horrific names, etc.). Sometimes we vent, but none of us will tolerate anyone within this brain to be a bully.

I understand people get angry when someone doesn't agree with their stances. I understand people get exhausted and frustrated. I try to be understanding, but that doesn't mean I'm going to compromise my own comfort or boundaries to cater to things I just can't believe in. When people send the same questions or when people send asks out of anger, you're not going to get the answer you're wanting. You're not even guaranteed a long thought out answer. And you're not going to magically change our mind.

I do my best to stay out of y'all's spaces and I just ask for that same basic respect. Accidental interactions or just not realizing DNI breaches happen. I've done it, and I'm sure many of you have to. I literally don't care if that happens. It's part of being a person. I won't be mad! I don't go and look through every account that follows me or likes a post..I don't have the time or energy.

And I don't mean this in a rude or mean way at all, but we have a life outside of Tumblr to the point that we just don't have the time or emotional energy to dedicate to big online things, you know? We have a family, we have a lot of offline stresses to deal with and I've learned in recent years that picking battles that are in the grand scheme of things... Pretty useless is just..well..useless lol. Why would I go out of my way to message and hate on random people I'll never meet? What good would that do me? I'm not saying this in judgement of anybody, just how I personally feel about our own self.

Anyways, just trying to get it out there that I'm not this big bad enemy that needs to be put in his place. I get people feel strongly about the topic at hand, and I do too, but I don't need to attack individual people because of it, I don't need to scream it from the rooftops every day..I just don't care enough in that way.

Have a good day/night everyone

-ex host

[errorcode582]

ff.net has been in complete shambles for the past several years and is a notorious hive for plagiarism. The mods also nuked thousands of fics from the platform for reasons ranging from justified to incredibly questionable, and the site has had two of these mass purges in its lifetime. It's also been on the decline for years with constant outages, unresponsive mods, and a piss-poor tagging and search function. The owners of the site do not seem keen on even really giving the base code a spit shine, and I'd really question the security of it overall. I would not be surprised if they have a major data breach in the years to come. Don't get me wrong, I love it to death in a nostalgic way, but I can see why it's not exactly a great place to post fic these days.

Wattpad, usually the second site mentioned in these discussions, hosts tagged erotica alongside the rest of its content with no filter by default. This means you can find erotica in any search query you use unless you specifically exclude the tag. It's also a notorious hive for rpf, and allows rpf erotica. It also allows sexual content of 16 year olds, as it states in its code of conduct that, quote, "the age of consent is 16+ on Wattpad".

And really, those are the only notable contenders against ao3. Any other website you could list would fall into "niche" territory, and most writers do want their work to be seen so they can gain traction and potentially a clientele later on if they want to enter writing professionally. Plus, blogging sites like Tumblr tend to not be very conducive to posting fic as they aren't designed with a book format in mind, so word limits are tighter, you have to manually stitch a sort of chapter browser together by yourself as you post the fic, readers will encounter your fic in reverse chronological order, and honestly I could go on. Plus, Tumblr's tagging system is also complete garb, and if people don't reblog your fic, you're SOL. So, while I've heard of Fanfiction Online and have seen some promise in Quotev (I've made an account there recently, so consider that a "to be continued"), sadly, in terms of usability and popularity, all alternatives are overshadowed to the point of complete obscurity by the behemoth that is ao3.

Trust me, I hate that website and the cesspool it plays host to. Ever since I learned just how bad it was over there, I haven't spent a single second of my time on it. However, I can't blame aspiring writers for using it in the same way I can't blame other content creators for using YouTube rather than Dailymotion or Vimeo, despite YouTube's openly predatory practices towards their artists and child audiences (the Elsagate stuff never stopped, they're just using Mickey and Sonic now). The site holds a soft monopoly over the realm of fanfiction publication, and it's going to take a website that directly outclasses it in terms of user-friendliness to even really start giving it trouble and to convince the majority of the audience to switch over.

I'm all for taking as much of an audience away from that hellhole as possible though, so I'll gladly vouch for any alternative website that directly outclasses ao3 purely by design. Hell, ao3's code is completely open-source. If anyone manages to literally make a better ao3 (maybe even implementing those lofty promises of multimedia support that they've been harping on for years, hm?), I'll make an account on there the moment I hear of it and spread the word of it as far as I can manage.

Honestly, I think it really speaks to the state of fan culture overall that the best place to view and post fanfiction online is a csem hive, and I really want to change that message if I can. Unfortunately though, as much as I want a viable alternative, we're stuck between YouTube and Dailymotion, and I cannot blame anyone for wanting to stay away from Dailymotion.

Also @proship-blocklist since it was your post that was involved in this, feel free to add your input as an author/reader if you feel so inclined.

[ghostcat3]

TW:Rape, Racism, War, Possible others I might have missed.

Arcanum and a direct take of Racism

May! An actual post from me. Never thought I would see it. Figure it was time. Never used tumblr to post something so sorry if the formatting it wrong. I am sure my one mutual can murder me for that.

Arcanum, a game made by the late Troika games who made such a classic as Vampire: the Masquerade bloodlines (Most likely gonna make a post about that game) and shovel ware such as the temple of elemental evil, which was good, but not really a narrative breakthrough in gaming now is it. They probably made other games, I know they were gonna make a fallout game but got outbid by Bethesda who made The Elder Scrolls Games (Definitely gonna make a post about that one). Troika games was rendered defunct as of February 24, 2004.

Arcanum which full name is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, but only losers on Reddit use the full name. I would like to take this time to do the polite thing and give my hopes and prayers out to the people of Ukraine, mainly because a person known online as Drog Black-Tooth is currently living there and is going through the war. (The patch is basically required to play the game smh)

Arcanum is a setting which is a blend of classic Tolkien-like fantasy and cool steampunk science (The science is better for the purposes of guns ((and the fantasy equivalent of racial supremacy)) ). The setting is completely based around this concept (sort of to the detriment to the actual characters of the game which I find are good ideas but due to needing to release the game on time often reach conclusions in judgement or skip parts of character arcs), the setting generally pulls from the time period of the industrial revolution.

Phew! We can finally actually talk about the topic in large text at the top! I mainly have two main ideas. Body paragraphs? Whatever’s to talk about. Starting with

Orcish Classism

In Arcanum, you can enter and come across factories. Walk in and out of enough of them you will notice something. Most if not all of the works... Are half-orcs. Instead of describing how the player does stuff to find out why, I will just skip straight to what is happening. The Half-Orcs are treated as the lowest class or people, thought of as too stupid or violent for anything else. You can even help then rebel which may eventually turn violent and people will blame your character for inciting what they will call the event “The Orc Riots”. The citizens viewpoint on the Half-Orcs are actually unfounded, as you can play a Half-Orc and be pretty smart... Time for point two.

The Half-Ogre Conspiracy, or how I learned that systemic racism is the best racism.

Time for the lore point that all the people who played Arcanum was screaming at me about. There exists Half-Ogres in the game, playable as a character preset, the rising amount of Half-Ogres is described as odd as even if a normal ogre forced themselves onto a woman, the ogre would then most likely just... Kill and eat the woman. Which makes the large amount being born so strange along with the fact that they seem to always be around gnomes. You get a quest to investigate this by some guy whose name I forgot until you arrive at Half-Ogre Island where you find blood, cages and a journal describing what they were doing. See the gnomes being as smart as they are... Are small. So the other races starting stealing inventions or violently beating them up until the gnomes worked for them. Being tired of being mistreated they discovered they tried enslaving ogres for breeding purposes. It did not work. The ogres were to aggressive and could not understand most commands. Then they realized they can breed humans and ogres and make Half-Ogres. Originally half-ogre births caused deaths for the mother, as the process began to be more refined, multiple births became possible. They began kidnapping female royal family members and putting them through process. When you learn of this you can go to a reporter and give him the journal to report this. He never does. Some people on the forums believe that he was a plant for the conspiracy, I personally find that hard to believe due to the fact that he is human. I believe the conspiracy killed him, as he is never found again in game and the island is cleared out of all proof of the conspiracy. Leaving you and the people involved in the conspiracy the only ones in the know. You can talk to a member of the conspiracy, he admits you the player could stop this plot, but it would require total dismantling and destruction of the government, their plot runs too deep, and you don’t have the time to do that needing to save the world and all. I will leave this section with a quote from the conspiracy member. “The queen birthed three until she died”

It is now time to connect this post to my second statement in my title “and a direct take of racism”. As I play games, I find that most racial topics in other games are ultimately hidden under the veil of allegory and metaphor, and when used right this could be even more powerful then just outright talking about it, but most don’t use this to its advantage. For example, a personal favorite dragon age. Tell me how the hell the mage circle makes sense. What are the sub-factions (Fraternities as they are called in the game) in the circle such as Loyalists, etc (Watch someone who understands the lore read this post a response clearly and concisely and invalidates this example). Arcanum is refreshing because it talks about the innate classism of races, a systemic prejudice of race. Other buzzwords. That is why I chose to talk about this. (Arcanum isn’t even my favorite game, Oblivion better)

[englacial]

A Warm Goodbye or A Message for the Future

I haven’t been active here in more than a year which is mostly by accident but also quite purposeful. I had intended to remain in the RP community but as is evident by my many returns, disappearances, and moments of unreliability, this is a chapter of my life that has come to an end. I say this with an abundance of love for what writing here has given me and also with renewed knowledge of what that progression has looked like for me. This community has been amazing and it has also been devastating for me at times. I have also played a role in that devastation and wasn’t always the best version of myself (and I’m still not). 

COVID certainly threw my life into turmoil and unearthed a lot.

In December of last year I went through a mental health crisis that landed me in patient for a brief period and also lead me to the deepest and most accurate understanding of my mental health I’ve ever contended with. Through the process of finding a new therapist experienced with dissociative disorders, I was diagnosed with DID and my whole life suddenly made sense. 

The ups and downs, the identity confusion, the loss of time and deep misunderstandings of situations I was faced with suddenly made sense in their entirety. Many gaps have been filled simply by working on this in therapy and it has forced me to reflect on my time in the RP community and how I’ve interacted with fellow writers, both good and bad. It’s also made it incredibly difficult to let go of this account and writing because for me, it was often the only opportunity I had to express myself as me. Roleplaying was an excuse to be a different person, an easy cover for what was actually occurring in our life. I haven’t always known how to do that nor did I fully grasp why OCs felt more like me than me (surprise! they’re me). There were times when my self-expression was really self-injurious and that is painful but necessary for me to realize and acknowledge. Trauma changes the ecosystem of the human body in upsetting and ugly ways. More than anything, I was escaping the recognition that in refusing to heal, I was often doing harm to myself and others.

Fundamentally, I was seeking human connection where I had been denied it and we were playing out parts and trauma we were forced to keep hidden. For me, DID is about multiple traumas I have faced and the way my body chose to cope with it. It means a lot for what my childhood looked like and the incredible survival tools necessary for me to grow into an adult.

When I first started roleplaying on tumblr I was just 13 years old. I’m now 24 and have so much still to learn. I knew I was different growing up. I knew I had experienced pain. I knew I had difficulties expressing myself. I didn’t know I had DID or why there was so much confusion crowding my experiences online and in, truly, the only space I was able to fall into away from the ongoing turmoil in my life. I went by many different names, played many different characters, and made many different friends but this was difficult and I was not always kind. Frequently there were dissociative barriers that presented as amnesia and compartmentalized selves that in DID are called alters. The consistency with which I was forgetting myself, my actions, and people I’d met was a major detriment and it also enabled adults in the community to take advantage of and use me. The RP community was the stage for which many people with more life experience than myself, hurt me as a child. As I remained in the community, I began growing into a very dysfunctional adult and a part of that was to hide from my past in the community and parts of myself I didn’t recognize or accept as being me (collective). It is very difficult to contend with actions you don’t remember and I was not ready to take accountability for what I did as a scared and hurt child and what I was running from as an equally scared and hurt adult.

Mental health has always been important to me. I have talked at length about being a survivor of CSA, trafficking, and other forms of abuse and neglect. I have talked about my struggles with PTSD and depression. Despite this I was still not healing. Acknowledgement of mental health only does so much if the process of actually healing is not accessible to you.

My biggest takeaway from the long term, trauma informed therapy I have started is that I really didn’t know what healing looked like until I not only had an accurate assessment of what the problem was but accepted it and stopped hiding from it. This is difficult with DID. It is designed to operate in the background. Not knowing precisely your own experience, not having all of your memories is a way to conceal pain, not confront it. Working with myself as a system has been the most fundamental building block in actually healing, in actually accepting my trauma, in accepting how my trauma lead me to being dysfunctional in my relationships and in how I interacted with the people I cared about. Before I started doing this, it was easy to distance myself from my own actions. I did not remember them, I believed it was another person (because often it was, though this does not distance the actions from myself), and I thought I could just move away from it because it was not representative of me. That’s just not true. System accountability demands that I confront in myself the ways that not holding myself accountable lead to harm caused. In the RP community, I have been antagonistic of others. I have concealed my identity when confronted with actions of my past that I did not remember. As a child I lied about my age to the appeasement of adults in my circle at the time who were grooming me and as a result people connected to me were hurt when I moved away from them as someone else entirely. So much happened in this community and with people I met that it was foundational in how I learned to cope (for better or worse) and how I carried myself going forward. The accounts I had here were more real than life to me. That for me was a dysfunction. I was hurt as much as I caused hurt and this carried over when people recognized me but I didn’t recognize them or I was pressed for information and suddenly realized I was multiple people. It happened so many times here that I don’t blame anyone for feeling distanced from me, hating me, feeling hurt by me. My sense of self was fragmented and so was my sense of my actions. As it comes together more clearly, I understand now that as much as I have faced harassment in this community and my share of hatred and vitriol, I contributed to it as well.

In order to truly say goodbye, I feel I must also directly hold myself accountable for harm caused by my actions while I shared space here.

I made friends who were hurt in the crossfire of my search for self, whose trust I broke and whose boundaries I did not respect. I don’t think I can ever directly apologize to these people for what transpired between us but I do understand with specificity what actions of mine lead to the dissolution of our friendship and the hurt that they felt as a result. Those things weren’t ok. Being aware of the circumstances that lead to them does not excuse them and I am sorry. For many years I was a steamroller of uncertainty and of cyclical harm.

What I want and what I want for others is happiness.

Happiness to me is getting to experience the full breadth of human emotion while living under a stable community that is providing all of the basic necessities such as food, water, shelter, and materials to create goods and explore creative talents while simultaneously getting to share all of these things with everyone else inside the system. Being connected to others while having your needs met, is the only form of life that makes sense and for two full decades of my life, I did not have this. Many others don’t either.

Systematic abuse and denial of resources is something that follows people within their muscle memory patterns, nervous system, and within neurological pathways inside of their brain. People with dissociative amnesia are often among the most exploited because they were never given the tools to continue to build memory recall. When they are given all of these tools, we find that overtime they will continue to get better at recalling their lives and experiences, people they have met, and food they have eaten, joys they’ve shared. The brain is a muscle that retains everything that happens to it. It is incredibly absorbent and elastic. If something happens to it, it will remember. For people who have been systematically harmed, especially over extended periods of time, this can cause extremely difficult issues with memory recall. Eventually, these memories can return but it means removing people from systems of harm not by force but by replacing them with healthy and bustling systems that can offer them the love, tools, support, and nourishment for their body that they need.

Systemic malnourishment especially through resource denial under capitalism is a major contributor to this problem. Chronic dehydration’s link to memory problems, to name one example, is well documented. The issue with this even when people have access to all of that information is that they don’t have the reflexive memory abilities to continue to nourish themselves and be well. More and more these people and communities impacted by this kind of harm will seek refuge in accessibility (positive). If the tools are right in front of them surrounded by a multitude of people and supportive communities, they will have a much easier time remembering. Grounding is incredibly important even once outside of a system of harm because recall ability is a learned skill. People who have experienced repeated and/or prolonged abuse and harm (including systematic abuse like racism, homophobia, transphobia, et al.) have a much more difficult time learning and retaining this ability which contributes to the formation of dissociative disorders like DID.

The memories are still there, but it’s extremely difficult to begin to unravel that mystery when they are among the most likely to forget to remember. Recollecting memories is not only difficult for them, it is something their body has reflexively protected them against so that they can continue to survive in ongoing systems of harm.

When they continue to reproduce systems of harm, it is because they have been systematically gatekept from their needs and the healthy communities that can meet those needs from birth.

In order to help people suffering from dissociative barriers in terms of DID/OSDD, it is of utmost importance to continue to care for them as a collective so that they can then go on to care for themselves and give back to communities that they may have unknowingly harmed (this includes caring for yourself). It’s important to look inside of these communities and the conditions they’ve been living in with love and support. Sometimes the conditions are bad because they are incapable of caring for themselves after previous caretakers have abandoned them. 

Many people with dissociative disorders come from families who were absent for the majority of their lives even if they were living under the same roof. Sometimes these families will have noticed their child’s behavior, questioned where it came from and then find the answers are unexpected and daunting to take on. When faced with the question of whether or not their own child is safe to continue loving as a result, they will often continue to recreate systems of harm or are told by healthcare professionals to do things with their children that are not healthy for them which can on its own become traumatic.

The environments that dissociative disorders result from are very difficult to navigate. If you suspect you or someone you know is dealing with a dissociative disorder, it is important to keep in mind the circumstances endured that might have contributed. 

We cannot always be the protectors, we cannot always shield people from harm, we cannot always stop them from causing harm themselves, but an increased awareness and understanding looking in can help considerably. 

People with dissociative disorders are at high risk of being repeatedly groomed and harmed because of the nature of the disorders. They deserve the protection and security to fully form and emote as a human being without being harmed again, and when they themselves cause harm it is important to understand why this is happening and it is necessary when they realize that something is harmful that those behaviors and beliefs are replaced with new ones that are healthy, constructive, and more reflective of what they want. With dissociative and amnesiac barriers, this can become complicated but it is mandatory for system growth and healing.

Preventing harm starts in recognizing where it lives inside of ourselves.

To finish this post, I would like to share some poems that myself and others in my system wrote regarding our experience with DID:

Each time it happened I became another person But they always found me I tried my best to explain I’m still me but I need to be safe And no one listened I tried to show don’t tell I tried to scream it out loud Then I tried to forget it completely They always found me The caretaker inside of me was a flame I was forced to keep lit Sometimes kindness could not touch his flame The child hungered for a hand to hold but was held back from exploration No one told me I was we I had to dissect myself over and over in a lab that I created Now that I love myself Who is here to rejoice? -Beck

In my dreams I see a giant machine That I pilot I step inside my circuits Firing As a connection blooms to life I feel each part creak and crack As they move away and step forward The joints protest with disuse but Life bursts to turn on Twinkling lights of Motherboard parts that Illuminate metal I become like the moving backdrop to the stars a Galaxy swirling into A robot

Suddenly I feel afraid Am I just stitched together scraps that someone rescued from the crash? Am I the real deal? Or are my thoughts Synthetic projections onto a reality of my past that I’m just parts and not You Not Whole But wait I love the parts I Love the robot I see them woven together like A junkyard dragon that Soars overhead as a beacon of glittering silver held together by Intricate threads closer to a Kite Than heavy metal Something else entirely The machine cannot be confined to this earth It transcends infinitely It is life sometimes more than living -Aspen

I remember when I was small and I was running Through flowers Through mazes I remember when I was small and my palms would catch hold of blades of grass to brace my fall I remember being so small the ground would swallow me up Puddles like looking glasses That I dip into and Sink down to the bottom The boats crossing overhead While I swim I remember when the world was small and I was big Looking down at towns moving below Hiding in the ceiling as The room moves -Hannah

I have danced on the graves of relationships cast aside Pretending they were temples and not places of pain I am not the same ghost who haunts there Though some would see it in my face and hear it in my Disembodied voice Telling them I’m So over it... While the tears still sting I don’t visit their headstones anymore but the remnants of offerings I’ve made with Sweat/Blood Still linger like the bitter taste of Wine sipped in your honor or that I pour out at the soil marking where you left or where we stumbled A place you tried to bury me, too I don’t leave you to rest in peace I leave so I can -Jana

I see the revolving door of Our mind Many stepping in to walk through Sometimes more than one and It’s great I talk to them They’re my friends They go to work They wave and smile at me But I don’t step on Something inside of me holds me in place Afraid of the Spinning wheel Often I step on and just get Spun right out or I say the wrong things on the other side I don’t have the best reputation Some would say “She lies,” or “She’s so aggressive!” They see my teeth bared in anger and My arms folded over my chest to Conceal the soft spot under my armor where a spear might pierce They see me like a beast whose eyes glow red They do not know that the Wolf isn’t just a part of me and that I’m the monster they’ve seen There are others who have set fire to my path Concealing the tracks that reveal Villages I’ve been to Living peacefully before the Wolf leaps out and disrupts them Many people got too close or They hurt too personally and I took the blame for the abandonment and pain looking at a legacy where A scared kid devastated other scared kids I cleaned up after them and I Built my defenses to Hide them

She is like the Moon A part of her is always hidden

I bound these words into myself like A spirit possessed to make everyone else the Ghost So many people caught in the crossfire of Escaping abuse All of it is ugly I was built to chase things off The Wolf Creeping around the concrete walls as The Woman in the Maze Defending its center with Medusa’s untrained gaze A specter of someone loved and Incapable of telling them while Slipping further and further away from material safety The hurt doesn’t excuse the hurt Every move I make opens Old wounds that others have healed or forgotten but I’m still carrying If the women I’ve loved were all one person they too would Be like the moon Parts hidden or Omitted Because it’s easy to forget how They hurt me because I was a girl who loved girls -Jana

Some have said I was the first to look out over the edge and into the expanse of unknowns below without fear And I ache when they’re not right Being unafraid of dying is different than being unafraid of Death I know I’ve imagined myself there Not even as a last resort Thinking maybe this will be fun to try I’ve seen myself with my toes curling over ledges for purchase Tightrope walking the line between here and jumping Romanticizing the strength it would take to Let myself fall or Climb down the rope To meet Death again Her face kind enough for me to feel regret for a split second before Rebirth I’m not afraid of Death But the truth is I was never gazing over a ledge more than The bowl of the toilet Vomiting Closer to death on the bathroom floor Naked and feeble Than I was in imagined leaps of faith See, I still fear dying and no... I wouldn’t be the first Even in our family Death has our list pulled up and Our numbers on speed dial I think she’s watched me on my hands and knees mopping up blood and just Tapped her watch “Are we done with this? I have somewhere to be.” But that voice wasn’t her nor the tapping it was A mother sick of waiting for me to get ready for school or a counselor unflinching when I say I’ve watched friends die Until eventually there was just never enough time for dying and though I visited the ledge frequently in my mind and explored the chasm down in search I forgot about my body Nothing left to harm if I am In between here and there Then it just became what sacrifices I could make How I could fantasize about martyrdom and Sail forward into the pitch As someone else’s hero when Still I was just Killing myself What an unexpected turn for The Hero and yet I see it all the time These visions of divine masculinity Achilles in Hades All point towards her again Death’s hands firmly grasping his as he Dies for his friends like a valiant flame extinguished and Everyone weeps His devastation saving them... That was what I stacked myself up against Thinking the only service I could give to those I love was My life in its entirety Which is why I’m not The Hero I’m the Leader, the Counselor, the Friend, the Lover I’m pulling myself away from steps taken towards a drop because Unity is not forged by Taking a leave of absence but by Seeing pain in others and Not thinking you have to live for them Only wanting to survive with them Envisioning futures where you thrive with or without them knowing that The way you believed solidarity was Shared suffering and not Shared community in times of suffering Was a cowardice you will live to outgrow Now strength looks like pulling weeds for a garden Packing up boxes Reminding yourself to stretch or Focusing on your breathing as it guides you down into A hollow part of your body An energy tightening there and fanning out slowly as Intention Replacing the visions of a ledge with Floating Swimming out into a peaceful place inside of you and Breathing in again Calm and of course I wouldn’t deceive you The ledge is still a place I go to and Look down like scrying into Death’s vastness and I cry too It was never funny It was never beautiful Those are lies told to me and you The bones on the bathroom floor were me and even when I rattled No one answered -Tristan

When we love we love together I have never been a singular Inside me there are waves rippling on the shore Formative memories distorted and abstracted with each crash of foam against ground up trash I hear a knocking on the wall of our beach house as if a ghost hides inside When things happen I don’t understand I ask about the real children in the closets like me that I can’t touch Are they scared inside too? I see your eyes go glossy when you remember yours I want to ask about what about where and whom I want to know you’re like me I’m sorry I didn’t know that it was painful -Tristan

I want to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid But there are places you are no longer allowed This is so I can heal and not because I am protecting you I want to show my thoughtfulness The things I see in you The joy That joy hibernates inside me too The winter brings us closer together Generational trauma sprawled on a frigid map yet so cramped for a bedroom that gives me glimpses of the past Sitting cross legged on green carpet while I play games I pretend are me All my heroes have no gender No voice No face Please see me It is the greatest love I’ve ever known -Beck

I want all of our friends old and new to know: we are safe, loved, and cared for. Thank you for the memories and the systems of love you introduced to our life. We love and thank you. You met us without knowing and we felt seen here and this helped us to accept ourselves as a system. -Tristan (yes, really)

[gallickingun]

bnhabookclub’s rules were plagiarized.

when creating the archive/club blog and server, i was looking at other fandom archive blogs, event blogs, fandom servers, writing servers, and the like, and they all seemed to have similar rules. that doesn’t make what i did right. 

I PLAGIARIZED THE SOUTHSIDEARCHIVE’S RULES WHEN CREATING THE BNHABOOKCLUB. 

my intent was not malicious. regardless of how i felt about alisha/rivendell101 (even though i had never once sent her anonymous hate, made vague posts about her, or was nasty to her in the ssa server or in bnhabc, and never directly had any drama/issues with her), there was no mean intent behind this. i know there’s nothing i can say at this point to make anyone believe that, but i know it’s the truth. and that’s enough for me. i created the bc with the intent to bring writers and content creators together to grow and support one another. that’s it. i didn’t do it out of the nasty hatred of my heart to see anyone else not succeed. i didn’t do it to try and put anyone on top of anyone else, or to push anyone else to the bottom. i just wanted people to be able to work together to have a good time and to improve and get inspired. 

regardless of intent, the end result is still the same. the rules on both the server and the blog were plagiarized from the ssa. 

i apologize for my prior actions and silence. originally, in alisha’s post, she told me she did not want my apology, so i incorrectly assumed that meant there was no need to address the situation because she deliberately stated that there was no need for a response. regardless, i should have done the right thing and owned up to everything from the start. i apologize for that. 

i also want to apologize for the post where someone asked where bookclub came from/originated. i reached out to a mod in another bnha server and asked if we could have more things like the writer bot for sprinting to help create community and hype over each other’s stories. they denied that request because they didn’t want the environment to become to competitive. after that, i started working towards creating an intricate server with a points and rewards system, a fic archive to support other writers (because i had seen all of the upset regarding silent readers lately - originally there was only going to be the discord server alone), bots that were coded by a computer/software engineer (and that we paid to host), etc. i was in several servers at the time, and they all ran very similarly, so i incorrectly believed that there was no need to credit for things such as rules because other servers/blogs were all using the same type of guideline for what they deemed necessary to create a list of rules. i know better now. 

again, regardless of intent or ignorance, i should have reached out and requested permission to format the rules like the ssa’s. 

the fact that people are using my private messages, sent in the heat of the moment when i was upset, and also out of context, is frankly frustrating. i’ve admitted several times that the person i was around march-june is someone who i loathe. i was petty, i was rude, i was flippant, and i was not myself. i’m not going to blame my mental health, i’m taking ownership of my actions during that time. but that does not mean that is who i am now, months later, after a lot of self reflection, therapy, and intervention from very dear friends of mine. as i stated before, i appreciate being given the ability to grow and learn from these experiences and friendships i’ve had for the past few months.

regarding delaying letting alisha into the bookclub, we weren’t going to let new members in until june 1st. as per her post, she was let in around may 23-25, with everyone else. i would never delay bringing in a new member purely off of personal bias alone. and i’m sorry for the fact that those ss made it seem that way. and regarding her being blocked on tumblr, that was after a (ex)friend of mine warned me that alisha might be the person sending me anonymous hate and i just felt uncomfortable having her on my dash with access to my blog. i do not have her blocked on discord, either. there was nothing personal about it. and the allegations that i’m gatekeeping the bnha/hq fandom are frankly ridiculous. even the person in those ss that i ranted to liked/reblogged/commented/recommended alisha’s fics. alisha has a higher follower count than me, her fics get more notes. depending on how you measure success, you could say that she’s literally a more successful blogger/writer than me, based on notes and engagement alone. nothing i did ever kept anyone from reading her fics and interacting with them. i can also recognize her talent. she deserves those notes, she’s a wonderful writer. i legit have had conversations and ss where i’ve stated this, if she would like the proof. 

there is no “NDA” needed to be signed prior to getting into the server, either. i made that announcement because people were upset that these hate blogs are using their messages they send in a private server as ammunition with disregard to how it might make them feel, and also without their consent. it’s not fair or right to use ss of things people say in the privacy of a server to further your agenda. i recognize that i did this in order to address the anonymous hate being sent to me a few weeks ago, which i only did in response to people requesting the “full story”, but i have since deleted the post. if people want to talk about the way they feel to the public, then that’s fine, but discord servers are private places for people to explore their thoughts, desires, and ideas. and i believe they should be kept private. and frankly, the person who is sending these screenshots can just... not let the door hit them on the way out. you’re not welcome if you’re going to lurk, take ss, and not address your issues directly.

i’m going to pin this post, because i do still have my queue running as i’m on semi-hiatus outside of prior obligations such as collabs and matchups, and it will get buried eventually. and this needs to be seen and heard and addressed. i’m not going to answer anonymous hate, i don’t condone anonymous hate being sent, and frankly, if these exposing blogs want to rip apart this post then they’re more than welcome. i feel genuinely horrible for everyone i’ve hurt in the process of all of this, intentionally or unintentionally. i know what it’s like battling mental illness, and i sincerely hope that no one has been triggered or incapable of managing their anxiety throughout this process.

as stated prior, the bookclub is undergoing a full makeover, estimated to be completed by 9/30. this was already started behind the scenes, since we’ve made so many changes to channels, rules, content, roles, etc.. there is going to be nothing remaining from the prior servers without their explicit consent. i really appreciate the time to grow and learn and adjust what’s necessary in order to get everything on the right track.

[comicsnsuch]

Tales from the Dark Multiverse

Hi! Thanks for finding this tumblr. The plan is to share and write about comic books, comic book art, other things that interest me and such, thus the name of the tumblr. Maybe you share some of the same interests, or maybe you’ll discover something new.

I’m going to try to post as frequently as possible, but that frequency will vary depending on what real life is like week to week. On slow weeks, there will be more stuff, on busy weeks less.  You get it.  Hopefully if you check in now and then you’ll find some new content.

I work (worked?) in a comic book shop, but as I have been recently reminded, due to the COVID-19/Coronavirus epidemic, I am non-essential.  Thanks State Government! Always good to have a self esteem boost! 

Anyway… I love comic books, reading them, talking about them, (thinking about) making them and so on. Always have, always will. I wanted to have an outlet for sharing that while I can’t be in the shop doing it face to face with customers and random strangers. 

I’ll be writing short reviews for what I’ve been reading, new stuff, old stuff, posting pics, etc.  

 Feel free to comment, but please keep it friendly. Assholery will not be tolerated.

To start with I just finished reading all of DC Comics Tales of the Dark Multiverse one shots. 

                                     I made this in MS Paint!

These started coming out in 2019 and the last one was released in early 2020. The idea behind each is Tempus Fuginaut, a sort of Watcher type character for the DCU (who I think debuted, or at least I fist remember seeing in the Sideways ongoing, a Dark Nights Metal spin off) observing the multiverse and introducing a story that takes an important moment in DC history and asks “what would have happened if things had gone differently?” DC’s version of What If?  in a nutshell.

       That’s Tempus Fuginauts big ol’ head in case you were wondering

 As the “Dark” in Tales of the Dark Multiverse might imply, these are not happy stories.

The first one shot that was released was Tales of the Dark Multiverse Batman Knightfall by Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgens with art by Javi Fernandez.  

This was probably my least favorite of the five issues. Since the “No Justice” mini series event I’m over Scott Snyder. I feel he has so many ideas rattling around in his head that he begins one story, gets too excited about the next one and leaves you underwhelmed with the current arc but dying to read the next. (That being said I of course checked out Batman Last Knight on Earth, having read his and Capullo’s entire New 52 Batman run I didn’t want to miss their “final” word on Batman, but have not read his just wrapped run on Justice League which I hear was quite good). 

I read this one right when it was released a few months ago, so my memory of it might not be the best.  

This one centers around the Knightfall event where Bane breaks Batman’s back and Jean Paul Valley/Azrael takes on the role of Batman. In this reality Bruce never recovers and Jean Paul remains Batman becoming Saint Batman, a Bats Azrael mash up. Javi Fernandez does a great job on the art and Snyder loves chopping people up. 

                                                      Gross.

Definitely worth the read if you’re interested in it or are a fan of Batman or just the Knightfall era. If you grab this series in collected format it’s not so bad that I recommend skipping it, just not my favorite from this batch of books. 

Next up is Tales of the Dark Multiverse Death of Superman by Jeff Loveness with art by Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessey. I really enjoyed this one, it was a good quick read and had a nice arc to it. One of the better issues from this series if you’re asking me.

Right after Superman dies defeating Doomsday in the Death of Superman story arc, the rest of the Justice League shows up, literally as the blood is drying.Ten seconds too late. Lois Lane blames Supes’ death on the heroes for not being there to aid him. 

She makes her way to the Fortress of Solitude and thanks to the Eradicator gets herself all the powers of Superman. She then goes about dishing out justice, with extreme prejudice, to the villains the heroes normally let the revolving doors of the DC justice system handle. This involves a couple of great scenes with Batman and Lex Luthor. Loveness nails the dialogue and the character arc he puts Lois on is great to read. 

                                  Walker and Hennesey do it again!

There’s more to this story than I’ve put here, but I don’t want to say too much and ruin your enjoyment of it if/when you read it.

Special shout out to the art team of Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessey. I feel like they don’t get enough love. They killed it on the Demon Hell is Earth mini, and from what I can tell are crushing it on Detective Comics. Dudes can draw. Spread the word!

Then we move onto Tales of the Dark Multiverse Blackest Night by Tim Seeley and Kyle Hotz. 

This one was a bit wordy, but a lot of fun! I would put this one in the middle of the pack. 

Seeley brings together an interesting bunch of characters including Sinestro, Dove, Lobo and the New Gods! The plot is a little complex, but basically after the Color Corps lose the battle against Nekron in Blackest Night, Sinestro is looking for a way to undo the damage done and becomes a pawn in Scott Free’s plot to do the same. 

Give Seeley a Lobo book or a Hawk and Dove book, or a Mister Miracle book!. He gives each character a unique voice which makes their joint travels through the plot that much more fun to read.

Kyle Hotz’s  art in this issue reminds of a 90’s Image Comic in the best possible way. Lots of detail and cool poses. I also see a lot of Bernie Wrightson in there with Hotz’s heavy use of black and the sinewy musculature of the characters. The book is worth the price of admission to see his renditions of Dove and Mister Miracle. 

                                                          kewl!

 I’m glad to see Hotz working more or just seeing more of Hotz’s work. I don’t know if he fell out of the industry after drawing the original The Hood mini for Marvel with Brian K. Vaughan, working with Eric “The Goon” Powell on Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Odditys, doing art on Carnage Mind Bomb and more I’m sure ( I just can’t remember it all), or I just wasn’t paying attention to what he was working on. If it’s the later, shame on me, if it’s the former, welcome back Mr. Hotz, you’re crushing it and I look forward to seeing more from you. Check out more Kyle Hotz work by following him on Instagram @kylehotzcomics.

Let’s not neglect the oft overlooked inkers! I’m not sure who inked what, but on a guess, Dexter Vines and Walden Wong brought a smooth, cleanness to the proceedings with lots of nicely tapered lines. Again just guessing here, because I don’t know for sure, but Danny Miki used a finer line bringing a scratchy-ness the others didn’t but also amazing detail and clarity on some of the portraiture in the later half of the book. 

Who’s next? Why it’s Tales of the Dark Multiverse Infinite Crisis!

This one may have been my favorite. When the original Infinite Crisis series came out it was a period  where, due to personal lack of enjoyment, I wasn’t reading much of DC’s output, but I did read the Countdown to Infinite Crisis one shot this issue takes as it’s jumping off point. After having read this issue, it makes me want to go back and read Infinite Crisis. I would say that’s the sign of a good issue.

In this alternate reality Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, kills Maxwell Lord instead of vice versa, making himself the head of Checkmate. He then goes about trying to prevent the coming crisis. It’s kind of a tale about absolute power corrupting absolutely, it’s also an underdog tale about getting in over your head.

                Sorry if these images aren’t the best, I’m new at this!

James Tynion IV does a great job catching you up on any old DC continuity plot points you may have forgotten or never knew about in the first place.If you’re reading Tynion’s current run on Batman, or his work on Detective Comics and Justice League Dark, you know he can handle a complex plot like this and does a great job condensing it all down to a single issue.  Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan handle the art and they do a great job. Always happy to see Lopresti’s name on a book I want to read.

Bonus points: You can never have too many Ted Kord, Blue Beetle comics, especially when Booster Gold pops up, even if only momentarily. 

If this series leaves you wanting more Blue and Gold action may I direct you to Booster Gold (2nd series) #32 thru about 38ish for some quality comics.

Final one, Tales from the Dark Multiverse the Judas Contract!

I’m not as old as my writing may imply so I had to read the Judas Contract in collected format about 20 years after it was originally released and after having seen it on many a fanzine’s (Wizard) best of list.  When I finally got to read it I wasn’t super familiar with the Titans of the era and already knew the big twist in the story, so it just washed over me without any great effect. None of the shock that someone who was reading it fresh in the 80’s might have experienced. 

I ended up liking this twisted take on the Judas Contract much more than when I read the original. “Sacrilege!” I know, I know, but like I said there was no surprise when I first read it, while this one zigged instead of zagging multiple times and kept upping the ante in scale. 

Kyle Higgins and Matt Groom do a great job reinventing a classic that I’m sure many people had high expectations for. This was a fun faced paced tale.  I enjoyed the hero moments Dick Grayson and Wally West were given. Like the Knightfall one shot Higgins co-wrote with Snyder there’s no shortage of dismemberment and disfiguration, which is neither a plus or minus in this situation, just thought it was worth noting.

Tom Raney handles the art chores here and he does a fine job.  Some of the figures seem a little squat, and their heads are too big in certain panels. Could I do better? No, so who am I to say anything? I just noticed it, here and there, it took me out of the flow of the story every now and then. That’s all. Big fan of his work on Stormwatch and Outsiders with Judd Winick. I also hear he’s super nice, so if you’re ever at a convention where Tom Raney is, seek him out! 

                                      They seem squat, right?

It’s worth mentioning these books are all done in DC’s prestige format and are extra long at about 48 pages each. All covers are by the fantastic Lee Weeks. A nice way to spend the afternoon.

There’s the first post. A little longer than I thought it would be. If you made it this far, I hope it was clear and you understood what I was saying and I hope you liked it and want to return for more. 

Until next time!

[sevenfactorial]

How I Write Class Notes

First of all, I totally forgot that I said I’d do this and I’m really sorry about that.

So my note taking is specifically designed for upper-level math classes since that’s what I do the most but my notes for CS and many other classes still take a similar form, just with less things labeled theorems (also with more bulleted lists. I love bulleted lists but I use them way less in math notes than any other class). This also works for reading textbooks or papers independently. If you want info specifically for lower level math classes (high school up through calc 3), I can see what I can do too.

Here’s a very basic summary of what I think is most important for note taking

Feasible (ie simple and fast enough for you). You want to be able to keep up your system even at points where your class is going absurdly fast or when you’re exhausted/having trouble focusing/etc

Easy to skim. Just writing things down at all is good for retention but if you’re taking notes, you probably want to be able to read them later easily. So it needs to be easy to pick out key definitions/theorems/etc.

In that vein, include necessary assumptions even if it does feel repetitive.

Don’t cram things together. Allow for white space (again, so skimming is possible)

Label things. Major topics, definitions, theorems, key ideas especially. Also make it obvious that a proof or example is a proof/example.

All of it is together one way or another, whether that’s a digital file, paper in a folder/binder/etc, or a notebook. Keeping it together is extremely important to me.

A detailed description and more thoughts are under the cut.

I’m very basic about my notes and am not always fully consistent (I have an indentation problem which occasionally irritates me but I’ve decided it’s not worth it to obsess over), but I try to be and generally have a structure for my notes. If you were to flip through even my recent notebooks you’ll find deviations but that’s just how it goes.

I don’t actually have any of my old class notes with me right now so I wrote the following to give a sense of what my notes tend to actually look like. I wrote it on loose leaf but normally I take notes in a composite notebook. I find I consistently take 30-45 pages (1 page = front and back) per class per semester (I’ve also taken less) so I find the halfway point and do two classes per notebook to decrease number of notebooks I’m carrying around. If you have two semester long classes, account for that so that you don’t end up having alg I and II in different notebooks like I do.

(I typed more or less what I wrote afterwards but there’s really no way I’m recreating the formatting on a tumblr post)

First of all, this is a fair bit neater than my actual notes are. One of my best friends can barely read my normal handwriting at all and this is a bit neater than that. But if you can’t read it still, I don’t blame you at all so,

Date goes in the top right column at the beginning of every single class. It helps when you’re flipping through to find something later and also forces me to be somewhat aware of the date from day to day (further discussion on dates later)

I underline chapter/section titles/topics and include the the relevant textbook section numbers if given. This varies according to how my professors introduce topics generally.

Also I will generally just skip two or three lines between sections but will start at the top of a new page for chapters.

Some of my professors start off topics by giving an overview of what we’re looking at and motivations and the like so I just write “Idea:” and follow it up with whatever the professor is giving me.

Definitions: Typical in most subjects, I shorten it to “def” on the left of the margin line and start writing on the same line

I used to like starting out with the word itself but I often find it awkward in math notes so I just underline it in the statement (and highlight later)

Even though it’s a pain, I make a point of restating assumptions pretty constantly because it’s really useful if you’re studying from notes later.

Some typical things to follow up definitions include notation, warnings, and sometimes an intuitive way of thinking about it that may not completely capture all the details of the statement. I just do “thing:” for everything except the later, which I just write in quotes

Don’t forget, definitions are always if and only if statements. This is something you’re generally vaguely aware of from early on but perhaps don’t actually fully realize until some random point (I did that and heard of several others doing it too)

Theorems: The other mainstay of math. Honestly, I’m pretty sure everything’s ultimately a theorem, definition, axiom, or example

I give theorems a label of “THM” on the left. I can’t really explain why I write it in capital letters here but if I write theorem within a statement or example or something, I’ll use a lowercase “thm”

Like for definitions, make a point of rewriting assumptions.

Just overall, I try to keep my “paragraphs” short, one to three lines, before leaving the rest of the line blank and indenting the next one in order to increase whitespace

Lemmas/Corollaries/Other words which exist: I tend to put their label on the right side of the red margin line and indent their content more. I’m not super consistent with them, though make sure to indicate end of lemmas if your theorem goes “theorem - start proof - lemma - proof of lemma - finish proof of theorem”

If a diagram is useful, I tend to stick them to the right and write around it best I can. I’ll generally wait until after class to add color if it’s useful but occasionally, if class is going relatively slow or the colors REALLY matter then I’ll grab colored pens as quickly as possible

Also, my professors tend to not shy away from longer proofs and are not always the best of keeping track of time so that means we end class in the middle of proofs more often than ideal

I will just continue right along with the proof but shove the date at the right of the first line on the next day.

When we end at more reasonable places, I tend to skip a line, date on the right, resume on the next line

Unless I end within the last 8ish lines, then I’ll often start on the next page

Some things to consider that I didn’t write in the example:

I converted to writing in pen at the beginning of the summer (I’ve had a few lectures at the beginning of my REU but it’s not quite the same as class). Don’t be worried about scribbling out if you’re using pen. If you want prettier notes, rewrite them later. It’s a good way of studying anyways.

Also consider typing them up (tex for math) to have a searchable reference for later (studying/future classes).

I write up definitions and theorems before exams in colorful pen to study. Usually just on copy paper. The color is mostly just for fun since i’m probably stressed at the time.

I feel like a lot of math students do use pen exclusviely? idk. Use whatever you feel most comfortable with. When I used pencil, I did a combo of erasing and scribbling out, depending on the pace of the class.

If you are in the market for pens, G2 pens seem to have a bit of a following and honestly, I get it. They’re really good and within typical prices for disposable pens (you can order refills online and it makes them even cheaper). I also love papermate’s felt tips (they’re what I use for colored pens) but you can see them from the other side of the paper far more so I don’t find them appropriate for note taking.

Don’t be afraid to write notes in the margins (I usually use the left margin at an angle but like, wherever it fits works too). Often these are comments to myself.

Having a way to indicate things you want to look up later or exercises your professor suggested is good. I usually put a star on the red margin line at those points.

I try to keep a def/thm/proof on the same page but it’s really hard to always anticipate the length of things so I try but don’t worry about it too much.

Use shortenings when you can but make sure you remember them and that you’re not actually spending more time recalling the abbreviation than you would just writing it out

I find the most common abbreviations in math are first three letter of the word, first four letters, or first three and last letter

I don’t think flat out trying to use someone else’s note taking system is really the best. You’ll have to take more time than you probably have to remember the formatting. However, getting ideas from others is often useful. I don’t know why I started doing most things I do but I know that some of my habits came from seeing my friends or professors do it.

I think I mostly just use typical organization methods and nothing particularly interesting/novel but I hope it was still useful to some people.

[audio-sexual]

I wanted to make sure this was seen.

Since Tumblr’s formatting is weird via mobile, it seems they cut off posts. But again, this bullshit doesn’t get to slide.

So I cannot link to the original as that person is deactivated but if you follow me, you JUST saw the post about how Black girls are unfairly & unjustly targeted in schools. it includes this:

Well, I read the comments...& ran into the inevitable jewel:

Classic, right? Well, I have time today. I’m off work to recover from my trip & I fully intend to say what I want to @milky-masquerade :

Excuse me? Did you really just try to justify a grown adult...a paid professional...abusing & beating a child? You’re stating that what is shown in the video is appropriate response to a “tantrum”? I don’t care if a child is throwing a tantrum, NOTHING justifies assaulting her. Nothing.

Also? That site you’re using for “research”? Why not use actual fucking newsites. It was covered here in SC, there’s plenty of local sites if you didn’t want to go to the many national news sources.

Oh...wait, you stated your goal. You wanted to “debunk” shit b/c it serves a purpose for you.

This, folks, is a prime fucking example of anti-Black racism, this is pure white supremacy in action. There is a fucking video of that disgusting criminal in uniform body slamming a child around, slinging her around; he could have broken her neck.

He had 0 business putting his hands on her. She wasn’t hurting anyone & the class wouldn’t have been disturbed further had the adults decided to handle it later w/ the adults in her life. But this is what schools where there is a majority of Black students have turned into. They spend all day beating down on kids, allowing them no humanity, no respect. Obey us PERFECTLY or you deserve what you get.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s the same excuse with unarmed Black citizens when thugs & murderers in blue assault & abuse, or even out-right kill them. “If they would have obeyed, they’d be free/alive!”

Except it’s a lie. People obeying have died in police custody when they committed NO CRIME. Hell, OBEYING RACIST COPS HAD THE EXONERATED FIVE BEING (ILLEGALLY/UNCONSTITUTIONALLY) CONFESSING TO A CRIME THEY NEVER COMMITTED & caused the life of 5 children to be forever scarred. All because white people like @milky-masquerade look to demonize Black people, including kids. They put in time to find a way to excuse the white adult, the fully grown white adult so that their evil heart could be satisfied.

& what about people who were killed for existing while black, murdered on the street, when there was no reason for a cop to bother them...still their fault in the eyes of racists. People blamed Tamir Rice, a 12 year old, for being a child playing. & when he was murdered, he was sitting on a bench. So...who did he threaten? I could go down a long list of Black people murdered or imprisoned/traumatized by cops & other white people b/c while this very country wants to claim there’s no need for reparations or even an acknowledgment of its wrongdoings, it continues to treat Black people as 2nd & 3rd class citizens & uses its own force of state sanctioned murderers to control & attain us for a penal system which is nothing less than legalized slavery (13th Amendment) & was created so that this country could very much continue its practice of slavery for the benefit of white supremacy. Not obeying white people in uniform or not is never a death sentence.

Pay very close attention to white people who react like this, where their concern isn’t that a person paid to be around children is being overly aggressive & physically abusive & has too much ego to be at that job...it’s cherry picking the one where people spent a lot of time accusing a young teen of not behaving more responsibly than the adults around them (funny how Black kids are always supposed to be mature & obedient but white kids have “youthful indiscretions” until their damn near 40 that we’re supposed to excuse) & ignoring that this is a systematic pattern of abuse against Black children, especially as Black girls don’t usually get as much press & support.

But this bigot in piss poor disguise (“think maybe that’s because how most Black kids act”) is more concerned with -*checks notes* not blaming whites for their actions & upholding white supremacy. Got it.

TLDR version: Every single little Black girl in this video was a victim, whites are inherently racist & have to actually do work to unlearn it, & @milky-masquerade is a prime example of a racist. Thanks.

[drake-the-incubus]

I love how this is citing it doesn’t like misinformation but has some misinformation.

The Tumblr iOS app is far less janky than the mobile browser (surprising) and actually is formatted easier.

If I long press to quick reblog, this is what happens.

That’s a function I tend to use a lot because it’s easier on me than having to always put in tags.

I can’t save my place in scrolling to go search something in the browser (always the change for a reload) on a different tab.

And I can’t quickly access my blogs as needed.

I can’t swap my activity feed so it shows the different blogs I have.

And the search function on browser is kinda garbage considering on mobile there is an option to scroll through tags only.

@bannedtags has gotten their blog shadowbanned from all searches twice now, and they’re just archiving the tags issue.

I have a post that’s been flagged which isn’t adult content and is in fact calling out a scam.

ACAB got shadowbanned on the iOS application.

This pushes out of adult content (because Facebook and Twitter would also be facing the same issues) and Tumblr staff just shotgunned the tags.

Tumblr IS making the app experience unusable because I refuse to believe they haven’t just taken the easy way out of their spaghetti code.

They’re not free of blame, they’ve messed this up before too. It’s rushing out updates with no testing and then saying sorry but in reality even the long winded explanation doesn’t actually explain properly.

They absolutely did fuck up and uh, they’re a company and we’re the product, just like on Facebook or any other social media.

When they prevented users from submitting appeals from within the app, they helped to make it non-functional.

Auto-flagging has been horrible in the past (I did an entire chain post of myself in a peach, ankle length dress and even a secondary post and they all got insta-flagged where I pointed out the flaws in the system.)

And working out a switch on desktop doesn’t address half of the banned tags being political ones that are discussion tags.

Tags used by news blogs.

And the content in those tags are prevalent on Facebook and Twitter so ya can’t exactly say that’s the issue.

“Suicide Awareness” is one that got caught.

That’s an informational tag.

And once again by doing this, Tumblr hasn’t actually addressed the issues that keep getting them flagged by Apple (reports of Porn bots in tags and sending it to users are likely being filed against the Tumblr app as well).

Like Tumblr isn’t this small ass internet company. They’re actually a part of a large corporation, the steps they take, are the easiest and cost efficient steps they can take.

And when those steps cause harm to Neurodivergent people, and people of colour, without an address on how they messed up there, then yeah, I’m kinda gonna think they don’t care about the user base past wanting the monetization we bring with ads.

Like yeah Apple told them they messed up, but Apple isn’t forcing this exact fix. Tumblr went through with this fix as their best solution to the problem. A former staff member even outright said that Apple doesn’t explain is an idea will work or not.

So no, Tumblr did shoot themselves in the foot, and will continue to do so, because they’re a subsidiary of a larger company.

After all the Post+ fiasco should have signalled they’re here for profit first.

In re: Apple Frakking Tumblr Over

OKAY So ever since the Tumblr announcement over Apple's TOS for the app staying on the AppStore, I've been seeing so many posts spreading so much information AND misinformation.

If you haven't seen the post, click here, but basically it boils down to Apple's TOS for what Apps can and can't exist on the AppStore are pretty damn draconian. Famously Discord had to disallow ios app users from entering Not Safe For Work/Mature servers. Discord also put in a work-around to this but I'll get to that. Anyway, those TOS Apple's put in place are now affecting tumblr.

Misinfo #1: Tumblr is deliberately making the app experience unusable - False

Tumblr is doing what Apple is telling them to do. Apple is the one making the iOS version of the app unusable. Not tumblr. Although their enforcement of Apple's wants is rather obnoxious this isn't tumblr's fault. It's Apple's. Direct your ire to Apple, not tumblr, because this is directly their doing.

Misinfo #2: Tags have been ganked. - Well yes, but actually no.

It's true tags are borped on the iOs app BUT!!! "Banned tags" work just fine in the web version of tumblr, or the Android app. All the tags I've seen in the "banned tags" lists going around work just fine on my phone (I have android) or on my laptop. THE TAGS ALSO WORK FINE ON THE BROWSER ON MY IPAD. That's right, easy way to get around iOS shennangannery? Use the Tumblr website. It looks (and runs) just like the app. There are even other features on the website that aren't on the app. So if you're an iOS user frustrated by how the tumblr app now works, log in on Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, literally any internet web browser, and boom bam. Your original tumblr experience is back. Original bugs and all. Screenshot below of my android phone, and the tumblr website being able to access "banned tags." Also a screenshot of the post from the wip tumblr saying that experiences on Android and the website will not be affected.

Misinfo #3: Tumblr's doing nothing to combat the ultra-censorship on their iOS app - Maybe

In their post, staff said they're working on a work-around. They left details pretty vague, as is staff's wont, but they aren't exactly out of options. This is where I get back to what Discord did when Apple did the same thing to them. Essentially you would have to go onto Discord on your laptop and allow access to not safe for work servers on iOS. It's a setting only found in the laptop/desktop version of discord. (see screenshot for proof) I believe Tumblr is probably working on something similar. To allow users to have the original experience by going through the website. For now you still have the browsers on your phone. Also screenshotted, where staff said in their post they're working on a workaround.

All this to say, you guys need to stop freaking out. Yes, tumblr is broken, tumblr's been broken for a hot minute, but you know what? This latest censorship dirge is not tumblr's fault. It's apples. And there are workarounds, pretty piss easy workarounds like using your browser instead of your app. It's not even that much more difficult. I know this is frustrating, but being reactionary and spreading misinformation isn't going to do anything but harm people who are looking for solutions.

[pip-n-flinx]

The Fall of Earth

I decided to start working on a Mass Effect fic. Not sure any of my followers are interested, but I decided to post the WIP here. I’d love constructive criticism if you have any! Preface, I’ve gotten tired of seeing Ashley Williams hate. I just wanted to write something that painted her in a better light than most of the stuff I’ve seen recently. I also want a happy ending for her. Hell, I want a happy ending for all the Mass Effect characters. I just haven’t seen much fan-based content that does her justice IMO.

EDIT: moving it to tumblr I lost some of my formatting as well as bold and italics. It doesn’t read quite as cleanly anymore. Sorry about that!

It was hard being cooped up in this apartment under house arrest. Harder than Shepard would admit to anyone, anyways. There was little to occupy his time. Sure, they provided him a holonet uplink, even occasionally asked what he wanted for dinner. The officers assigned to guard his room were polite, sometimes even stopping to make conversation. It just made it worse. Many of them couldn’t seem to decide if he was still the hero of legend, or if the first human Spectre had been replaced by the husk in the room.

Relieved of duty. He could see it now. It had taken time, but he had begun to agree with them. As far as the Tribunal was concerned he had never died, never been resurrected. They thought he had defected. No one comes back from the dead after all. No one.

They thought he had signed on with Cerberus. They thought he had agreed to be cybernetically implanted. No medical personnel would back that assertion if they got a look at his file, certainly, but it didn’t matter to the Brass.

He was a terrorist. He’d blown up the Alpha relay. He’d sided with a rogue splinter cell headed by a war criminal. And then, inexplicably as far as they were concerned, he had turned himself in, along with a trove of Cerberus tech.

He was concerned what had happened to EDI and Joker. Garrus would be fine, he’d never trucked much with the Turian Hierarchy so far as Shepard could tell. Tali was safely back with her people, though he couldn’t help but be furious at the admirals for trying to exile her. Thane was on his last legs anyway, and he had released Samara to her Justicar duties before returning to Alliance space. Jacob and Miranda “disappeared” three days before they Sol System, but he couldn’t blame them. He certainly didn’t begrudge them the escape pods. But Joker, Edi, and the Engineering team were another matter. An unshackled AI? A ex-military Cerberus pilot? More alliance crew members that had left for Cerberus? He hoped they were treating the crew well.

He watched the shuttles go by outside his window, a few military craft sprinkled among them. New York was a major city, and there was a ton of air traffic. Watching them fly by he wondered if any of them were rushing home to see family after a day of work. Maybe there were doctors and other emergency services personnel rushing to the office to relieve exhausted co-workers. Probably a few people who’d had a drink or two taxiing home. But he could never be sure who was who.

His thoughts inevitably turned back to Ashley. Gunnery Chief Williams as he remembered her. Or just Ash. He’d heard fervor in her voice when they’d met on Horizon. Called him a god, back from the dead. But she was hurting inside, and he was too slow on the uptake. For him, it was a matter of months since they had spoke. But for her, it had been two years. Two years since the commandeered the Normandy. Two years since they saved the citadel together. Two years since he had ordered her into the escape pod without him. Two years since Joker had landed, alone and tormented, to report that Shepard had been spaced before his eyes.

And he had the gall to ask her to join him. But she was Alliance, through and through. They had finally promoted her. She wasn’t going to turn her back on the Alliance then. What’s worse is it was Cerberus. Every Alliance soldier, from the grunts to the brass, had been shaken when he and Ash revealed what Cerberus was doing to MIA Alliance soldiers.

He could tell afterwards he had shaken her faith. Siding with Cerberus had rocked her to her core. It was a bridge too far for her.

But Shepard had an AI designed for cyberwarfare onboard. Besides, he was no slouch on an omni-tool himself. No matter how classified her file was he was going to check in on her. And that was when he had found it. The irony had taken his breath.

Many of the details about the founding of Cerberus were redacted, including the Illusive Man’s real name. But one thing was clear. General Williams had created the organization in the wake of the ground invasion by the Turian forces. The same General Williams who resigned. The same General Williams who began the “Williams Curse.” The same General Williams whose granddaughter had saved the Citadel with him.

And Shepard had to admit, he was proud.

You could argue it was in her upbringing: when he had met Ashley she was bordering on open xenophobia. She had stood up to the Terra-Firma party on the Citadel, but only after working side by side with Tali, Garrus, Wrex and Liara for the better part of several months. Live-fire scenarios tended to breed understanding faster than any immersion course, adrenalin and the squad broke through Ash’s barriers quickly.

You could argue it was in her blood: her grandfather had founded and funded Cerberus himself after being forced to surrender his troops on Shianxi. It wasn’t as if the Alliance had done her many favors. Only Kaiden’s good word and Captain Anderson’s sense of character had raised her out of the ground forces. All this despite and impeccable record and being the sole survivor of her unit on Eden Prime. But she stuck with Alliance in the face of that and in the face of her former CO and lover returning from the dead.

He paused to consider that. He’d lost his unit on Elysium, held the line himself just long enough for reinforcements to arrive. And he’d only done that because the Batarians didn’t expect the Alliance to have sophisticated stealth technology. Ashley had survived an invasion by a force with weapons that shredded shields, and had done so without the benefit of any advanced training. Survived, reported to her reinforcements, and then carried the battle back to the Geth, retaking the spaceport and disarming the nuclear warheads set to blow a quarter of the planet into a nuclear winter.

The Alliance granted him the star of Terra and the title of “Commander.” All Gunnery Chief Williams got was a post on a starship. And barely even that.

To say he admired her was an understatement. That woman could have walked on water and only he and Alenko would have ever noticed. He got the feeling Wrex begrudgingly admired her by the end. Alliance brass still couldn’t see past her Grandfather’s overreach though. And there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.

There was a child, playing with a model fighter down below. Modern blue paint job if his vision wasn’t going. It was another painful reminder that normal life wasn’t coming for him.

Bitter. It hadn’t helped yet, but maybe another month of bitterness would turn that around for him.

The door behind him hissed open.

“Commander.”

“You’re not supposed to call me that anymore James.”

“Not supposed to salute you either. We gotta go, the Defense Committee wants to see you.”

“Sounds important” Shepard said, tossing aside his data pad. To be honest he had forgotten he was holding it. He tried to refocus and bring his mind back to the room, the here and now, where for the first time in weeks he was needed. He followed Vega out of the room, but he was struggling to keep pace.

“What’s going on?”

“Couldn’t say. Just told me they needed you, now.” said the Lieutenant, barely turning his head to check that Shepard was keeping up.

Shepard then noticed a well decorated dress uniform bearing down on them. Not knowing what was going on, Shepard decided to take a play out of Wrex’s handbook.

“Anderson.”

“Admiral.”

“You look good Shepard.” Anderson made a point of shaking his hand before standing the Lieutenant at ease. A curious move. He followed it up with more wit than Shepard had heard since his tribunal: “Maybe a little soft around the edges. How are you holding up since being relieved of duty?”

The admiral strode off, staying just a step ahead of him and setting a brisk pace at odds with his informal greeting.

“It’s not so bad once you get used to the hot food and soft beds.” Shepard quipped back.

“We’ll get it sorted out” Anderson still strode purposefully onwards.

He’d had enough of being strung along. “What’s going on? Why is everyone in such a hurry?”

“Admiral Hackett is mobilizing the fleets. I’m guessing word has made it to Alliance Command,” Anderson finally turned to look Shepard in the eyes. “something big is headed our way.” The Admiral was still striding briskly onwards, now ascending the last set of steps before the committee room.

Shepard, though, had stopped cold. His stomach had fell through the floor.

“The Reapers?” He already knew the answer. He didn’t need to ask. But Anderson was still playing coy. Turning to look back, he gave the official answer even though he seemed to find it distasteful.

“We don’t know. Not for certain”

“What else could it be?”

“If I knew that... “

“You know we’re not ready for them. Not by a long shot.”

“Tell that to the Defense Committee.”

“Unless we’re planning on talking the Reapers to death, the committee is a waste of time”

“They’re just scared.” Anderson cut him off, earning a glare that would have blanched a junior officer. “None of them have seen what you’ve seen,” he continued. “You faced down a Reaper. Hell you spoke to one, then blew the damn thing up!” And there was a fire in his eyes. “You’ve seen how they harvest us. What they plan to do to us… You know more about this enemy than anyone”

The bitterness that had consumed him minutes ago flared back to life. He had warned them. Time and again he had warned them, dammit. So he lashed out.

“That why they grounded me? Took away my ship?”

Anderson rounded on him. “We both know that's not true. When you blew up the Batarian relay, hundreds of thousands of Batarians died!” There was a finger cocked at Shepard now. Reminded him of basic is all it did, and he was no recruit anymore dammit!

“It was that or let the Reapers walk through our backdoor!”

“I know that Shepard. And so does the committee. If it wasn’t for that you’d have been court martialed and left to rot in the brig.”

“That, and your good word” Shepard admitted dejectedly. Still hard to admit the Admiral had a point, but he didn’t want Anderson thinking he hadn’t noticed how light his sentence really was.

“Yeah. I trust you Shepard. And so does the committee.”

“I’m just a soldier Anderson. I’m not a politician.” Shepard hated to admit it, but he didn’t see what he could do now. His warnings had been ignored, and he had only beaten the Reaper forces through thorough planning and his team. The best team. And his team was long gone.

“I don’t need you to be either. I just need you to do whatever the hell it takes to help us stop the  Reapers”

A door hissed open and the orderly stepped forward. “They’re expecting you two Admiral.”

As they rounded the door to the hallway labeled “Courtroom Access” his jailer surprised him. “Good luck in there, Shepard.” He hadn’t known what to make of Lt. Vega, but he was damned if he was going to ignore a fellow officer. He turned to see his arm outstretched, took the hand and shook it. The man was shredded like he lived at the gym, and he tried his best to crush Shepard’s hand. Every young officer seemed to have decided that a firm grip was the first step to getting a grip. It wasn’t true of course, but he humored the LT with a lopsided smile before a voice behind him stopped him cold.

“Anderson.”

“Lieutenant Commander.”

“Shepard?”

He knew that voice. He turned so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. “Ashley?” it was soft enough he wasn’t sure had said it aloud, but she heard him.

And that was it. He was lit with an irrational hope again. It reminded him of the ride through the conduit. Yeah this shit was bad, but he and Ash were playing for the same team again. Lieutenant Commander huh? Damn, turns out the Alliance Brass pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to promote her. Hell itself must have frozen over. Pride swelled up in his chest again.

“Lieutenant Commander, how’d it go in there?” Anderson had interrupted his temporary reverie.

“I can never tell with them. I’m just waiting for orders now.”

Aaaaand Ashley still detested politics. Shepard grinned from ear to ear. He could scarcely believe it was really her. He decided to press his luck and stepped forward.

“Lieutenant Commander?”

“You hadn’t heard?” Anderson replied, clearly not that startled that Shepard was behind the times.

“No. I’m a little out of the loop these days.” But as he said it he could see Williams tense up a bit.

“Sorry Sir. Didn’t mean to keep you out of the loop.”

It’d taken him a moment to parse what seemed odd about her. Gone was the tomboy he had commanded two and a half years ago. Her hair was down, and that outfit couldn’t be within regs even if they had loosened up considerably. She must be too valuable an asset to discipline over little things now. I can’t believe it. She didn’t just break the Williams Curse, she made herself indisposable. How many years of service did it take her to prove her worth to them? I wonder if it was worth it....

“That’s okay. I’m just glad I bumped into you Ash.” He favored her with what he hoped was his best smile. Not full teeth, but heartfelt. He didn’t have a mirror to see if he looked like a damned fool, but it had the intended effect: she smiled back.

“Me too.”

But then the orderly was back, ushering them into the committee room. Anderson was all business. Ashley Williams gave him a smile and a nod and for a second he was a younger man again, stepping forward to become the first human Spectre. Alright then. I can do this.