#people tend to want to cause hurt when they've been hurt

[followfire]

omg THIS! I wanted to write something exactly like this!

Mel is better understood backwards! You have to go back and rethink everything you thought you knew about her because her true motives and backstory and beliefs are revealed only in the second half of the show. You are lead to think she is simply a greedy corrupted politician until you learn she's not, or at least not in the simple straightforward way you thought!

Also I think people tend to give Mel a kind of... omniscient point of view or control over the situation and her life that she doesn't have... if that makes sense... As if she has every options laid in front of her, could choose any of them but chooses manipulation and greed instead 'cause she's just bad like that. When in reality she has been deeply hurt by her mother and her upbringing and her exile, and she's trying her best to pick herself up and prove her worth.

The moment Ambessa shows up, it becomes painfully obvious that Mel is not on top of everything as she previously seemed to be! Ambessa gives Mel absolutely no credit, doesn't listen to a single word she says, tries to bully her into making weapons even though she knows it goes completely against her daughter's principles, meanwhile Mel is desperately trying to live her life out of her mother's grip, knowing she can't just ignore Ambessa's requests because she is a real threat and will stop at nothing... and also because it's her mom, and she loves her, and she's torn because she could finally get the approval she has so desperately wanted and finally come home with her family... but at the cost of everything she stands for. :/

Arcane's characterizations relies a lot on taking into account where the characters come from, what they've seen of the world and how it has affected their beliefs about how things work. They're all pointedly biased. They make choices based on what they think is right, and sometimes (often) they make mistakes because the world doesn't agree with them or there are unexpected consequences, but spectators forgive them because they understand them...But for some reason, Mel often isn't given the same type of compassion. But it's unfair! Mel was shaped by her past as much as anyone else! She doesn't go for manipulation and corruption because she's evil but because she thinks it's the only way she can get what she wants!! Because that's what her life so far has taught her!! She doesn't have bad intentions, she has biases! Give her her biases back!!

I'm starting to realize people perceive Mel with the assumption that she has bad intentions, so that's all they see in her.

The writers have said Mel was written to seem as a one-dimensional manipulator, but in reality she is a multi-layered individual with complex motivations. Rewatching her earlier scenes with that in mind brings her into a completely new light.

(justification for these interpretations under the cut)

"Mel invested in Hextech for power and influence"

Or, she invested in them because she believed in Hextech's potential to change the world for the better?

"Mel pressured Jayce to reveal his new inventions so she can cash in on the profit"

Or, she understands Heimerdinger is stuck in the past and doesn't want him to hinder Jayce's progress?

"Mel sleeps with Jayce to make him more pliable"

Or, she genuinely admires Jayce and sees a way to be free of her family's bloody legacy by working alongside him.

"Mel turns Jayce into a corrupt politician for her own gain"

Or, Mel believes protecting Hextech's interest is more important than trade laws.

"Mel wanted Hextech weapons to make Piltover more powerful"

Or, she only wanted weapons as a last resort and for self-defense.

"Mel will do anything to prove herself to her family"

Or, Mel also wants to prove that ruling with diplomacy is superior to ruling with cold pragmatism and brute force.

Yes there are times Mel acts out of self-interest and a desire for power, but those aren't her only motivations. Mel subverts the "shady corrupt politician" trope, she is not defined by it.

I believe Mel is being genuine in her conversation with Jayce in S1 E5, about wanting to give back to the world. In her argument with Jayce in S2 E8, she explains why she invested in Hextech to begin with. She saw two brilliant scientists, capable of impossible things, rallying the hearts of a nation. Mel believed in Jayce and Viktor's potential to do good. Also, she has shown the wellbeing of Piltover (and in S2, the safety of Zaunites), are more important to her than personal gain.

Jayce specifically went to her for advice, and she gave it. Doesn't this imply Jayce views her as an ally or advisor as well as an investor? He clearly values her opinions.

During Mel's whole childhood, her family and homeland tried to shape her into someone she was not- a cold, pragmatic ruler willing to do anything to maintain power. Her way of ruling was scorned by her mother as "soft spined" and foolish, but with Jayce she found someone who believed in and appreciated her. Plus she was personally affronted when he left her in bed. It's more than likely she acted out of genuine attraction and admiration.

Side note: Jayce has already shown he's alright with breaking the rules for the greater good. He illegally experimented with magic, broke into Heimer's lab, and led an unsanctioned attack. Jayce and Mel are more aligned in this way than he realizes- Mel believes securing Hextech's future is more important than breaking a few trade laws. Jayce was in a vulnerable position, with a target on his back. She could have used that against him, but didn't.

Mel is a pragmatic pacifist, even from childhood. Mel is very much anti-war because she understands how destructive it is, having grown up in Noxus.

Mel's rift from her family is an ideological one- she values leading with diplomacy is disgusted by Noxus' brutality. If she can make Piltover successful, it proves that there are better ways to rule than what Noxus insists upon. Mel has also shown her morals are more important to her than power. She turns down opportunities to elevate her position tremendously by siding with her mother or advocating for an invasion because it goes against her moral compass.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Tying together "but the villains don't suffer" in Avatar: The Last Airbender with "but the villains don't suffer" in Steven Universe (major spoilers ahead for SU):

Yes, that is the point, in both cases. Some people actually believe that causing more suffering does not fix the suffering that has already happened.

And it's not like Steven Universe dodges questions of what happens when someone gets harmed and what they need after.

Pearl was emotionally devastated by Rose Quartz choosing to give up her form/self in order to create Steven, and...eventually she realizes the problem wasn't just losing Rose, it was also that, you know, she hadn't entirely unpacked the whole Gem Homeworld social hierarchy and was even still under a geas from Pink Diamond, so that even though she was rebelling against Homeworld, the extreme social hierachies of Homeworld were being replicated in her relationship with Rose. We see her starting to recover from a lifetime of being told her only value lay on service (think of the song Do It For Her) with her grieving Rose's loss ("It's Over, Isn't It" -- this is part of Pearl's getting over it process, part of the grieving process is going "fuck this really is actually affecting me this badly, still", "why can't I move on" is part of moving on) and forming more egalitarian connections with humans.

The gem fragments making up the Cluster finding healing by connecting to each other -- this is a big, significant, episode, it's got a lot of weight. And it's a subversion! The Cluster is an earth threatening monster, in almost any other story Steven would fight it. In this story, he gives the gem fragments a push in the direction of HEALING. Of course he does a similar thing with the Diamonds, if you weren't expecting that you weren't paying attention. This theme comes up over and over: you get "monsters" that you first see as enemies to fight, and over time you learn the monsters are corrupted gems, they're people, people who are so wounded that they harm other people. Centipedal is a person. The monster Peridot keeps engaging in with Wile E Coyote shenanigans in that one episode is a person. Everyone's a person.

Of course the Diamonds are also people.

Steven does fight them, when he doesn't have a better option, just as he fights and poofs and bubbles corrupted gems. But for Steven, fighting is always going to be a less good solution than talking it out and looking for a non-fighting solution. That's there from the first season, and only intensifies as the show goes on.

"Winning" for the Crystal Gems, as led by Steven by the end, by Rose Quartz in the beginning (world chronology not episode order), or Garnet in the middle, isn't destroying Homeworld or punishing the Diamonds. It's about having a good life away from oppression where you get to decide how you're going to live, whether that's spending all your time as a cross-gem-type fusion, or picking a job to do that's different from what you're made for, or appreciating life on Earth, or whatever. Punishing the Diamonds is a neither sufficient nor necessary condition for that end goal.

This is maybe a pretty big mental leap, but I'm thinking about what Bret Devereaux at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry says about strategic goals and being good at war -- that being good at war isn't just about winning the fights you're in, it's about picking the right fights. That picking a fight with an adversary who can beat you that you could have just not had? Is being bad at war. That the Spartans were bad at war because while their tactics and individual fighting skill were fine (if not as exceptional as Sparta fans like to claim), they were terrible at coalition building and at choosing to have battles in places that would be good for them as a polity, and being bad at choosing the right strategic objective is being bad at war.

By this standard, Steven Universe is very good at war, the Crystal Gems are very good at war. They win the war -- they win the war -- in spite of being drastically outnumbered, because they don't have Homeworld's rigidity about fusion or the roles any one gem can take on, because they can take advantage of things like Holly Blue Agate not being able to let her superiors know what's going on without being punished (the Diamonds being in contrast bad at war because their subordinates are afraid to report to them), because they're able to recruit from the Homeworld gems (by making friends, by offering a vision of a better world to live in) while the Homeworld gems don't ever seem to get anyone back from the Crystal Gems, and most of all, by being very clear about what their end goal is (freedom) and not chasing after things like revenge that won't help them get freedom.

The Crystal Gems can fucking let people desert (Lapis Lazuli going away because she's afraid) and refuse to permanently kill anyone (!) let alone engage in Homeworld's more extreme atrocities, like the corruption thingy or creating the Cluster, and still win anyways.

The Crystal Gems fight White Diamond when they have to, when White won't talk to them any other way and also won't let them go, and the moment they get through and Steven gets a chance to TALK to White Diamond, he does, and he is at that point able to achieve his strategic objectives -- not only Homeworld leaving Earth alone, but also a dramatic restructuring of Homeworld gem society itself -- by talking, by persuasion, by understanding White Diamond's worldview and being able to get through to her. (In part because of their relation -- if Steven wasn't sort of Pink Diamond, his available options would have been different.) That's extremely effective!

And afterwards, they're not exactly close. (Which is a very quintessentially trans experience, being on speaking terms with your family of origin but not really...liking them. And making peace with them meeting you somewhat in the middle, closer to where you wanted them to be than when you met them but not entirely where you want them to be either.) And, Steven has what he wants. The Crystal Gems mostly have what they want, as much of it as they can have given their losses. And the DIAMONDS have (the core of) what they want. They have Pink back, more or less. They still have their interstellar empire, they still have their status, they just have to tolerate some reforms, and White has to accept that perfection isn't possible and isn't something she actually has, and that she can't just impose her will on anyone she sees as imperfect.

Is this the only type of story people should tell about colonialism? No. Of course not. But, this is intrinsically an issue with American media being made in, you know, America, you are going to get stuff that is either fairly friendly to the colonizers (like SU) if the colonizers have aspects that can be recognized as being in some way recognizably connected to modern Western colonialism, or that is harsh on colonialism but posits it as something intrinsically other to America (like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -- if you want colonizers punished even if that doesn't actually help the colonized in any way whatsoever, there's your show.)

Or go read a book. (Audiobooks and comics count.) Books are a lot better at getting around an obligation to support the status quo than TV shows and moves. Heck, The Disposessed by Ursula K Le Guin is a full on anarchist not-really-a-utopia-but-yes-a-functional-society novel. For someone who wishes more "the power of this big gun I found" in a sci fi story with an evil empire and lots of gender fuckery, Ancillary Justice might scratch that itch very well. (I want you to have stories you like, even if I disagree with you about Steven Universe.)

Steven Universe is grounded in "people are people" values and is anti-imperialist because of its "people are people" values. Stories that are anti colonialist that aren't "people are people" stories tend to be "my people are important and your people don't matter" stories, which is a perspective they SHARE with a pro-colonization worldview, just from the losing side rather than the winning side.

[inky-duchess]

OC Friends Asks

Have a group of friends in your WIP? Want to rant about their dynamic? Their relationships? Their triumphs and tragedies they've face together?

Who is the leader? Who is the one who everybody looks up to?

Who is the one who makes the plans? Who is the biggest impediment to those plans?

Who's the mom friend? Who's the dad friend?

Who's the group baby? Who has to be protected at all costs?

What's a running joke between the group?

Who is the funniest person in the group?

Has anybody ever dated anybody else in the group? If so, how did it go?

Who is the one with the troubling lifestyle? Who makes sure they take care of each other?

When they get together, where is it they hang out?

Is there something they all enjoy doing together? If so, what is it and who is best at it?

Has there been ever group drama? If so, what happened?

Who tends to argue most? Why?

Who is the peace maker?

Who is the most explosive when it comes to arguing? Who is the one who has to diffuse them?

If there is or could be a group chat, who spams the chat with memes?

On a day out or a night out, who typically ends up with the bill? Is there ever arguments?

Who is the best cook in the group?

Who has to play nurse when somebody is sick or hurt? How's their bedside manner?

They get stuck in a lift (elevator). How does everyone react?

They go on a road trip. Who is in charge of what?

What is the group dynamic like? Are some people closer to others?

Who considers who their best friend? Does this cause problems?

Who is the pretty one? The smart one? Do they ever label themselves as anything? How do they see each other?

What has brought your friends closer? What might push them apart?

When they get into trouble what do they do? Who do they tend to turn to?

Who roasts the others when they fuck up? Who gives out the best doses of reality and tough love?

Is there a particular song or playlist that reminds you of them?

Is there a vine/Tiktok trend you ever see your oc's doing together?

Create a text conversation between two characters to show us their dynamic.

Make a meme that depicts your group's energy.

[velvetvexations]

Can confirm I've been on here for years now and before Gamer Gate and then the rebirth of Terfism happened the widely accepted feminist talking point was that men suffer under the patriarchy and how we need to talk about that because one of the fastest ways to get cis men on our side was to show them we were already on their side!

I remeber posts with hundreds of thousands of notes talking about how men are assumed to be worse caregivers than women to the point that in custody battles even if the mother is beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst abusive mess ever and the dad is the embodiment of a perfect parent the kids will end up with the mom. It doesn't even matter if the dad says he wants the kids and the mom says she doesn't, the women still gets assumed to be the better caretaker!! This is misogyny effecting men!!

And I know MRAs are terrible but I remember a video going around talking about their recruitment points, like how more men die doing dangerous jobs and the draft or men getting no help when they've been abused by women and being assumed to be violent predators even when they haven't done anything and like yeah, they 100% came to the wrong conclusions about what causes the problems and what the solutions are bcs it's easier to act like women are the problem, but those problems as they were introduced in the early 2010s were actual problems feminism is trying to address, and if these men could see that we are fighting the same fights and join US we'd be stronger. There was a prominent internet feminist who got full on red pilled just by listening to men tell her about their real actual problems, and the time they pulled the rug out on blaming women it was too late, she was convinced, because yeah women aren't the real problem at the root of men's issues they do HAVE ISSUES. The trick is that they just need to tackle the patriarchy, not women. I also saw stuff that legit talked about how to recruit men by pointing out how badly the patriarchy "serves" them!! (GamerGate quickly ruined any and all salient points that existed in the MRA movement bcs the internet is a feedback loop and anger is easy/fun sadly but yeah I feel like it's weird to act like they were always wrong no matter what when they at least did point out real problems.)

And like RBG partially made her name in the courts defending a CIS MAN on the basis that he was being discriminated in a way a CIS WOMAN would not have been, and the ruling allowed for insane amounts of progress for women. A man not being allowed a tax credit to hire a nurse for his bedridden mother is one of the first things that challenged discrimination on the basis of sex in America. But sure men ONLY gain benefits from the patriarchy. It NEVER hurts them too!! And helping them won't benefit us!!! Making them our allies is silly they should all shut up 🙄

Hell back in the 2010s I still remember seeing trans men talk about how horrible and alienating it was for all of their female friends and family to suddenly start acting like they were a threat, and not just pointing out the inherent transphobia, the guy went on to talk about that they finally get why cis men are the way they are, they suffer from systemic emotional neglect. And yeah that obviously does not mean women owe them emotional avaliablity and sex, but maybe the patriarchy telling men to be big tuff guys who never hug or cry or like anything even a little girly HURTS THEM and is a direct cause of a LOT of the problems we're dealing with rn!!! There was a whole study about how widows tend to live a lot longer after their husbands because they have friends and family to lean on and weren't taught to suppress their emotions, meanwhile widowers tend to die VERY quickly after their wives because they no longer have someone who it's okay for them to be open and emotional around, and not having someone you can do that with KILLS PEOPLE. People were saying again, this does not mean women HAVE to take on all their problems, but maybe that we need to stop assuming men don't need emotional support and teach our sons to not be afraid of being ulnerable, honest people because systemic emotional neglect IS BAD FOR YOU ACTUALLY.

These were ACTUAL conversations that swept this damn site. This was the direction feminism was going in. We were on the cusp of a beautiful age of 4th wave feminism with the knowledge that the patriarchy seves no one well and free the nipple and no gender segregated bathrooms and sports, and now just pointing out that we need to maybe understand the ways men struggle under the patriarchy if we've ever going to have them join and help us build a better world gets my inbox flooded with both terfs and so called progressive feminists calling me a gender traitor for being willing to admit men arent the source of all the world's ills and WE NEED THEM ON OUR FUCKING SIDE. I used to proudly call myself a 4th wave feminist back when people still claimed to be of the 3rd, and now idk what I even am. A bell hooks and leslie finberg feminist I guess, since they actually seemed to get it.

Yeesh. Anyway sorry that got heated. This has just ruined my brain. I do not understand where tf we went wrong, bcs hell back in the day we also pointed out how TERFs were wrong to want men and people they perceive as men and those "tainted" by men put to death for existing so they could build their stupid white supremacist wombyn utopia. We KNEW hating men just for being men was wrong and regressive and hurt maringalized men and did NOTHONG to push feminism forward. We talked about the issues that men face and how to raise our sons to be better. But idk I guess Gamer Gate and the Incel movement took off right as TREFs figured out the whole ace and truscum discourse thing wasn't working and they just needed to doctor their arguments against men better and radical feminism took off and this entire site regressed 1000 years and thinks trans men of all people are just as bad as cis men and trans women have a monopoly on an entire axis of oppression like?????

And I'm not putting the blame squarely on anyone aside from the radfems who started this shit but it does NOT surprise me that we are seeing a massive resurgence of biphobic, transmedicalism, and aphobia since half the queer discourse I see these days is anti-transandrophpbia assholes just word for word repeating the kind of blatant aphobia and truscumery that would have gotten you suplexed off the face of the earth in the 2010s with the identities swapped. Just word for word monosexist aphobic shit. Legit is giving me flashbacks, it's insane.

I have never in my life been more disappointed in my community of queer feminists. This is masks all over again. Like is this how kids who grew up evangelical feel when they realized actually the adults didn't mean literally love all your neighbors silly just the Correct ones?? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. What the hell happened to us.

Thank you for writing all this anon, you put enough work in it I'm gonna toss it in the tags, I think it deserves to be seen. <3

The problem with MRAs was never that they believed men had problems too, but that they used certain things - like their disadvantage in custody hearings, for instance - as a cudgel in a malicious crusade against a target they hated anyway for not fucking them. Now with as quick as people are to say things like "what, are you saying androphobia exists too?????" it feels as though we've completely forgotten the actual reason we ever hated MRAs to begin with.

It's the same with the dating article where the most basic possible interactions between two adults mutually seeking a hook-up were taken to be pick-up artistry.

[archivalofsins]

I'm gonna just nip this in the bud. I will say some people are going to find others within this space heartless or believe that they just despise certain characters. Or that they just favor another character so much that they don't care about any other one or anything else that may happen.

I'm pretty sure given my responses today people are going to think that about me too. It won't be the first time they will either. At times it goes beyond that though.

Personally I hate when people are annoying know-it-alls who parade around going,

"Well how do you feel about the choices you made now, huh?"

As if everyone else has egg on their face but them. Also for those actually curious about the answer to that question and wondering how to respond to talking points like that.

I tend to really reflect on my choices and examine whether I'm personally satisfied with them or not then adjust accordingly moving forward. I'm the sort that dwells on things often in real life. So when it comes to media especially interactive media I tend to take every decision seriously.

It's easier to not engage with people acting in bad faith and only making statements in order to shame and ridicule others. However, I feel what's more important than the person asking the loaded question are the feelings of the individuals being asked. It's important to distinguish if one is regretting something genuinely or being made to regret it through the impact of others.

Because if it's the latter removing oneself from the setting where those people are for a bit of time may be best.

I used to have this issue with people being extremely critical of my life choices and how I discussed as well as engaged with my interests. Sadly, I had to cut a lot of people out of my life in order to live it fully. I also needed to be more firm with myself and figure out when to tell myself no and stick to that no.

Yet, when it comes to making decisions with media I've always been of the same mind on it. So when people do ask questions like this about things that I enjoy, pressure me into choosing options in games that'd I'd rather not because they've attached some sort of moral judgment to play styles, or simply want to gatekeep I can still choose the route most comfortable for me and what I want to experience.

I want to be able to say,

"Well, since you're asking I'm still as pleased with my choices as when I made them. I don't make decisions solely based upon how much I fear the consequences of not making them or making them. I tend to seek out a resolution that will allow me to avoid creating more regrets for myself or betraying my own feelings and/or beliefs. Never because a character or person in real life threatens me with any sort of consequences. I don't enjoy being strong-armed or pushed into making a judgment. I care about others but when it comes to the way I live my life and what I'm willing to allow or not the one person that should be listened to the most there is me. Hope this helps."

Or,

"It's regrettable and maybe if I knew that this would be the outcome my choices would have changed."

Depending on how little or how much I know about the media. In the case of Milgram I'm happy to say my feelings are the former instead of the latter. I'm happy that Milgram regardless of how many fans don't take it seriously has a staff that does. Especially the writer who is willing to take Milgram to the places that the audience's choices leads it to.

Certainly this doesn't change that it is undeniably tragic that so many people lost their beloved characters today. Possibly due to the actions of someone else's favorite character or another favorite of their own. That can cause a great deal of hurt and upset. That's something which should be considered and respected by everyone.

However, being a whiny little know-it-all or a little "I told you so" is going to get people the same energy they choose to put in today. Especially given this environment gets so pissy when people's theories are proven correct. Then pitch a fit because it didn't align with their interpretation. Going off claiming things like the writer just wrote it wrong or just writing straight libel about the staff in general.

So many people are tired of some individuals trying to make other people in fandom feel like fools for liking or disliking a character. For voicing their opinion on a piece of media. For voting on the series driven by audience engagement.

If anyone has a problem with the rules of Milgram they can just not play. Hate the game not the player.

From the beginning the series told its audience,

"Losers please exit left."

There's no amount of I told you so that is going to magically change what Milgram is. It's more likely to upset and discourage people who enjoy the series from showing interest in it publicly which is a disservice to everyone.

Shaming people for voting a certain way needs to stop. The pick me voting trends need to stop. Oh well I'm a inno voter so, well I was a guilty voter so.

Literally absolutely no one cares.

People can't even bother to vote in real life elections there are many people who don't vote in Milgram as well. Many of those individuals could easily say well it's not on me I never voted and every party would still be looking pretty ridiculous by the end of that debacle.

I get that people may be upset about their favorite characters dying but behaving like this is just a bit embarrassing. Especially since any of the people innocent could have intervened with Haruka and the one person to attempt to is the guy the fandom is always harping about not being like.

At a point it just comes off as willfully missing the point and intent behind the work.

This is the very last trial we're going to get to vote on at all.

Please, let's try to make it a fun one instead of a shame filled tit-for-tat experience. Because a good deal of the characters still standing now were innocent trial two, one, or both of them. The actions of trial one aren't just negated by these characters second verdicts.

The result we've reached right now is a culmination of many choices. The good and the bad. If Mu was voted guilty from the start or Haruka was they more than likely may not have had a relationship at all. If Amane was voted innocent round one she may not have fallen back on her beliefs as hard as she did trial two.

Jackalope even said in the very first voice drama,

Es Voice Drama 8:56s

"If you don't push her, you'll just end up believing the assumptions that she's pure, innocent, and kindhearted."

Once we go into causation no one's hands here are clean.

Beyond that, there's no telling what could happen from this last verdict or after it. What the result of that final verdict will be is anyone's guess. Shidou said there was a death at the end of Milgram in his first trial interrogation,

Shidou Molech 5:55

"Hm... But this place does reek of death. I'm sure that some sort of death will lie at the end of Milgram."

Yet there have already been three deaths at the beginning of the end.

The prisoners are stated not to be able to attack each other during the trials barring one completely unregulated exception. So there may not be any more attacks up to the end. We don't know if there's another intermission after this either.

Or even how the verdicts have impacted the prisoners still alive on top of their responses to the deaths. Hell; we don't even know how this occurred yet. It feels a bit like jumping the gun to blame it on the verdicts of one trial or one prisoner especially when Yamamaka stated during trial two the progression of Milgram is not decided solely on how the characters respond to their verdicts individually but how these verdicts overlap and impact everyone within Milgram.

Q.05 So far, what has been the most challenging? Yamanaka:

Yamanaka Because I have to change the script in accordance with the audience's decisions, I can't create the entire story in advance. Furthermore, as of the second trial, there aren't only individual character storylines, the prisoner's verdicts begin to emerge and they influence each other. That is to say, I can't start writing until after everyone's results are out. Willingly subjecting myself to doing something this unreasonable, is what I feel is difficult for me. But because DECO*27 is also going through the same hell, we're holding on to some semblance of sanity.

So, blaming it on just one thing is a bit reductive in my opinion. Every part of the staff have worked their best to create a story where the characters don't feel two-dimensional who instead come off like anyone one someone could come across in their everyday life.

The ways the verdicts impact all of them reflect that. That's the goal and I think it's a respectable one to strive for.

Gotta preface this with it may be inaccurate because google translate but still ,

流れてくるシナリオ・キャラクター系の創作論とか本当見てられない。物語をスムーズに回すために産まれたキャラクターなんて型���ハマったものを作るくらいなら、物語が止まっちまうくらいめんどくせぇキャラクターを創って、どうしようもなく血反吐吐いて地獄の底でピースでええわい。 I really can't stand to look at the creative theories on scenarios and characters that are floating around. Rather than making a character that fits into a mold and is created to make the story go smoothly, I'd rather create a character that's so annoying that it stops the story, vomit blood and die in the depths of hell.

Also this isn't specific to Milgram theories or anything this is just a general statement. He also said this in the Hallucination interview,

Q.04 So far, what's made you the happiest? Yamanaka: Everything. As a creator it brings me great joy to see a work that existed in my mind, take shape and be enjoyed by so many people. Other than that, because I also love the characters I've birthed, seeing all the guards talking about them and sharing their thoughts, both positive and negative, has to be the best feeling.

Ultimately I believe it's good to have things that are sometimes more complicated than we believe they can be. What's not good is blaming and shaming others for things not going exactly the way one may have personally wanted them to.

Please, just stop this. It is not a flex, no one is impressed, it's just meanspirited. Doing this is a waste of the time and energy of everyone who is involved whether they are doing it, coming across it, or being made victim to it.

It's a cesspit that only ruins any enjoyment all of us could have literally doing anything else. Everyone has been begging for an update and now that there's a full fucking preshow before the last trial some people only have complaints.

It really makes no sense.

It feels like most people in this space were waiting for an update to find something to vindicate their upset or give them the greenlight to go ahead and harass others again for how they engage with the work.

Come on now that can't be anything other than gross.

If that was the desire of people doing anything like this then they are unquestionably worse bullies than any of the characters in Milgram who need to take some time to reflect on themselves.

Because at a point change can only start with ourselves.

[candyskiez]

thinkin about the conversation abt guilt between jon and helen again. and how the distortion realized “i wasnt going to stop doing it so i decided not to feel bad”. and how Feeling Guilty About It never changed anything for jon. it didn’t stop him from feeding. didn’t stop him from hurting people or being rude or abrasive. certainly didnt fix the apocalypse he was tricked into causing. his guilt never helped or saved anyone, and his choice to carry it around with him was mostly for self flagellation purposes. but also it was because he never stopped seeing people as people. even when they were his prey they were people. it’s just. !!!

GODDD YOU DONT EVEN KNOW. SEASON FOUR KILLED ME. SEASON FOUR CHANGED ME AS A PERSON. Grggrgr. God you don't even know. Ok ok.

Jon wants so badly to be a good person but he doesn't want to *get* better. He wants to BE better. Which. I never saw portrayed so accurately in fiction before and kind of felt like seeing my internal organs just. Out there. On the screen. But yknow. He wants so so bad to be good and he has no idea how to actually Stop hurting people and giving up these awful behaviors means giving up the things thatve kept him safe his whole life. His desperate attempts to do better in s4 are often met with rejection, and regardless of how understandable the others actions are (and I will argue it was understandable till the heat death of the universe) it ends up leaving him in this limbo where he doesn't feel like changing is Working. And it doesn't really help that he only tends to actually understand his feelings and other people's perspectives until they've blown up and he can't ignore them anymore. He so badly wants to be a good person but he's kind of just. He's not given up on per say but he's so angry and frustrated about it because nothing he does seems to be good enough or actually seem to improve in any meaningful way.

Ok ok on the note of the actual conversation you brought up. Sorry i got very sidetracked. Jon and guilt is so so interesting because it's embedded so deep in his personality. So much of who he is was fundamentally shaped by guilt and shame. And it doesn't actually fix anything. Most of his actions fueled by guilt or wanting to Repent don't actually do anything good. It partly stopped his whole murder crusade but tbh. There was also other things going on, less just Jon Guilt and more so Jon actually reflecting. It's almost like actually reevaluating your shit is more effective than self punishing. Guilt is so deeply rooted in every aspect of his actions throughout the series and it doesn't make him kinder most of the time. If anything it makes him more bitter and impulsive. But he can't afford to let go of his guilt less he starts just letting himself hurt everyone near him, but it was never actually the guilt that stopped him. He only really started stopping himself from doing shit out of compassion and care for the few people he had left. Guilt never stopped him, but he never let go because he Needed it to stop him from doing worse. But it wasn't the shame that had stopped him, he'd been ashamed his whole life and it actively made him worse. What did stop him in the end was the one person he had left being so furious at him but staying with him anyway, because he loved him.

Also I have Big Feelings about Jon and Helen's relationship and how Jon giving up on Helen was when he gave up on himself but that is a topic for another day. Jonathan Sims the man that you are. Boy why are you so guilt.

[yuseirra]

If Ai IS the reincarnation of the goddess of dawn, even her color schemes make sense... her colors do look like the skies when it's dawn... this would be REALLY cool if it were to be true,

honestly, I think this makes a lot of sense. the idea of it works really well, she could have been a goddess who really loved people and wanted to live together with them and chose to become "an ordinary girl" to live among humans,

it does explain her benevolent nature while being a bit awkward, and why she had a hard time fitting in but immediately got drawn to hikaru(who's also a god in essence), why they thought they were "the same" (he also had a lot of trouble being accepted by people) and why her mother thought she was "too beautiful" for her age

Those two characters... I feel they're inhuman in some ways. They are very human, but they react in ways that are... very...how should I put it? I feel they struggle with displaying certain emotions compared to the average people to an extent that I feel it's similar of what people expect out of gods. They really struggle to fulfill people's expectations of them, and this is how a god would react towards human. A god would wish to appear perfect to their worshipers, wouldn't they? They keep up a very... happy and smiling front, a sturdy persona that rarely breaks. Their ways of giving love is very selfless. They tend to just give and give away, and people fail to understand them and connect to them in ways they could feel accepted, that's how they found each other as well, you know? They felt they could understand each other, Ai thought Hikaru was the first person she wanted to love and Hikaru felt she was the only one who could understood him and they were for each other.

So it would make sense for them to have been gods, that were very hurt and mistreated by people and the entertainment industry. One of them got killed and the other one is despairing and lost because of it. Sarutahiko and Amenouzume's shrine (the Aratate shrine) blesses people from the industry... they are responsible for helping people out in the field. Wouldn't it make sense for them to want to have become human to experience it themselves? And that went terribly wrong so, the other gods are getting involved because they've been causing trouble? This would also tie in pretty well with the theme of the whole story. Turns out Hikaru was a NOBLE soul but he's broken now, that's because the PEOPLE made him suffer. If people made the VIRTUOUS god become like that.. well, they killed his wife and ruined his life..; it does make you think. It's not just about one insane maniac, it's about the nature of the industry and how the world works when what he originally did was to wish well. Ai wanted to love people and people killed her. We don't deserve these gods, if they are really gods. Even if they're just a person.. that also boils down to the fact that the society failed to protect these kids when they needed them.

Anyhow, I feel THIS would be the way to tie the idea of gods into the story.

[spectral-snippets-and-drabbles]

Beware the Blob Mafia

Where Danny is younger (12-ish) wants to be an entomologist (Insect Scientist) instead of an astronaut and develops a different core as a result...an Insect core!

Also, I kind of headcanon that Blobs are animal ghosts and Zone-born ghosts while Shades are intelligent Sapient ghosts who crossed over the the Infinite Realms.

~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~

• It all started when a blob got caught in the middle of a fight with one of his rouges. The little blob remembered Danny when he released it and a small bundles of them from his parents' traps. Intially, they saw the boy as an unusually powerful newborn predator, so they tended to stay away to avoid being eaten by him up until they realize he was purposely freeing several dozens of them from the bad human scientists with no sinister intent.

- They decide to form a symbiotic relationship with Danny by becoming a loyal swarm in the hopes of staying close to him as protection, as they are lowest on the food chain. The young Halfa has no idea they imprinted on him, he thinks they're just being extra friendly.

Blobidious (as Danny named him) and his group bring refined ambient ectoplasm and human food to their protector to keep both sides of the Halfa nourished. They unintentionally stole from random restaurants, stores, and homes for a little while until Danny catches wind of food going missing from people's houses and has to teach them to not do that. Though, the occasional Nasty Burger wouldn't hurt anyone...a small fee in the shape of a combo meal for keeping Amity Park safe, if you will.

- Thankfully, Sam and Tucker help by having food stuff stashed away in their rooms at their houses for the little battalion to grab for him when he's hungry, as his own home is to dangerous.

• As time passes, Danny's new ghost core slowly evolves to become a living hive/den for blob ghosts to live in where they rest after a day of successfully working on collecting nourishment for their protecter. With the area around his core becoming a small pocket dimension that serves as the main nesting area for them, adorned with a honeycomb pattern over its surface.

- Danny's human body has also evolved to hide the ecto signature of the swarm and himself as a defense mechanism, making the Fenton household defenses unable to detect their ecto signatures, much to his surprise and relief. When he transforms for the first time after his body successfully completes its metamorphosis, he appeared more insect-like in the beginning.

(Think like Devorah from MK series.)

Due to the nature of having a bestial core, he can transform into a large variety of Insect/Human forms and utilize their abilities via his Obsession with bugs. Danny's already insane strength and skill set being amplified by using the powers of the most unique insects on the planet.

• Danny's naturally produced ectoplasm from his body combined with the refined ambient ectoplasm collected by the swarm creates a ghost jelly. As he uses it to revitalize himself for the first time, the effects are almost instant, with wounds healing themselves rapidly and finding himself full of energy that lasts for days with no need for sleeping or eating. Due to the energy crash, he uses it sparingly, which causes an overflow resulting in a leaky core and him puke up the excess amounts.

Not wanting to have it happen again, he lets his swarm have the excess as reward for everything they've been doing for him, completely unaware of the hell he was gonna unleash on everyone with this offering to his little buddies.

~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~

• They proceed to evolve rapidly and become much more powerful as a result of eating the jelly. They begin to specialize and diversify their roles to better aid their boss to help him succeed and survive in Amity's ghost-ridden madness. Their symbiosis has resulted in Danny learning a form telepathy only he and the Swarm can communicate with.

From the simple blob ghost, Collectors, Warriors, Hunters, Scouts, and Workers arise to fill new roles. What's more astounding thing is the fact that they aren't just stronger, but have a higher intellect and can think and behave with reason, picking up on Danny's thought process and following his lead.

- Collectors are tasked to seek out ambient ectoplasm and food for the Danny. They also evolved in a way to leech it from hostile ghosts and follow hunters/soldiers to aid in subjugation. They can even drain humans attackers of their stamina and emotions, stripping them of their will to fight and leaving them unable to act.

- Soldiers are responsible for accompanying Danny to fights and following his orders on the field. They are also tasked with protecting the civilians from other ghosts looking to cause harm and evacuate the nearby area. The townsfolk were intially terrified, seeing monstrous ghost bugs, but calmed down knowing that they were Phantom's " pets", ready to defend them all.

- Hunters specialized in stealth, ambush and hit-and-run tactics, purposely venturing out into Amity Park and seek out his rouges in packs and dragging them back after paralyzing the offenders to be souped with a few Collectors in tow to squeeze 'em dry.

- Scouts are the crew that watched over Danny when he sleeps or when he's unable to transform into Phantom at the time, patrolling Amity Park for ghostly activity. If they saw/sensed a nearby ghost, they would emite a pheromone to alert the horde.

- Workers kept their intial blob form and stay inside Danny to be on standby to strengthen his body via nurturing it and repair it from the inside, taking the non-combat role; focusing on healing his wounds and making his body much more durable and healthy by merely being the caretakers of their boss. Thanks to their continued efforts, it increases the space for small pocket dimension to carry things he would need and increase the capacity for the swarm's hive.

His body is at its peak and the definition of perfect health. Perfect sight, hearing, strength with a quick healing factor for a boy young as he!

• Danny was intially surprised when the Swarm first came out of their volition to fight and was worried for them. But after seeing them pull a Cujo and transforming into Insect monsters of various sizes to beat down the unsuspecting victim rouge (Box Ghost), he's relieved that they're safe and he's excited that he's no longer alone in the literal fights against ghosts and that his friends don't have to jeopardize themselves without proper backup.

• Meanwhile, Danny's rouges are having an awful time in the wake of his growing bond to his Swarm. They can't enter the living world without a literal army of blob ghosts waiting for them to pop out the portal.

- Skulker tried to hunt them down only resulting in him getting his suit torn to shreds by the Welp (Phantom/Danny) when one of his blobs got hurt by the hunter's stray shot.

- Ember tried to pull a Pied Piper and force them under her control, but it only resulted in her guitar getting badly damaged and her ectoplasm sucked out of her by the Collectors.

- Spectra and Bertrand developed a severe phobia of insects after they brought her scheme crashing down and nearly killed them both after she tried to manipulate Danny like in canon, reveling in his despair until it brought the full fury of the swarm to make the attempt to destroy her when she made him upset. The swarm would've succeeded if Danny didn't call them off and she hasn't returned from the Zone since.

- Technus kept having his machines melted by corrosive acid being spat at him and ripped apart with the insane bite force of the insects assaulting him.

- The only one who managed to get passed them was Cujo. The pup's obsession wasn't destructive in nature and took a liking to Phantom and his hundreds of friends, even going as far as to acknowledge Phantom and even listen to him, making him get a pass while the others were stuck in the Zone, totally not jealous.

• The ghost pup was able to be stopped by Danny and the Swarm before he could destroy Axion Labs, making Val see the infamous "Spectral Skitter" in a more positive light.

She was a little mad, but seeing Phantom laughing as he gave the ghost puppy his favorite toy gave her a somber reminder that they both, the puppy and the ghost boy, had died way too soon. Val would still become Red Huntress, but less out of revenge, but to find out more about Phantom, becoming the 4th person to know Danny's secret.

• Vlad is rather good in this au! The sting of Jack and Maddie's abandonment made him a recluse and he refused to try and find happiness out of fear of being abandoned again. Causing his once green ectoplasm to become a shade of violet, as it was his pent up love made manifest.

- But Vlad wouldn't let that stop him, nor would it hold him back in life! He came into his own in Wisconsin after starting a successful chain of brands revolving around dairy goods, using a small portion of the earned funding to research ghosts in his free time using actual methods of study and not the havoc he's heard regarding a certain set of ectobiologists. He honestly can't help but be worried about young Daniel and Jasmine. He can only imagine that whirlwind of a life the children must have, having his former friends as parents.

- After making enough progress, his therapist suggests Vlad getting back out there and try giving the socializing scene another shot, as the Halfa himself mentioned that he missed companionship during their last meeting. Being socially inept, he decides to transform and look around for potential associates while invisible. So lost in thought that he ended up in Illinois on accident when his ghost sense went off like a bomb.

- He jaw fell open when he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He saw giant ghost insectoids that were taking down several Ecto beasts being led by Skulker, who seemed to have tamed (intimidated) them to his side. Another group was taking the people far away from the fighting and standing guard over them. Despite his curiosity being peaked, Vlad couldn't help but groan loudly and facepalm. The tin can tried skinning the older halfa in the past, only for it to end with the said Halfa threatening to destroy the little nuisance's core if he kept it up. He hadn't had a problem since, but seeing the "Greatest Hunter" again made his eye twitch something fierce.

"When I get that welp's pelt I'll–"

"Prove to everyone that you're the greatest hunter ever and yada yada yada...Soup Time!"

Along with his defeated beasts, Skulker is absorbed into the Fenton Thermos and Phantom powers down back into his human form after hiding in a nearby alley...not even realizing that Vlad just saw him do that.

• Vlad immediately knows that this is Daniel Fenton, due to looking up the Fentonworks Website in the 'About Us' page and seeing the major similarities between the "two" boys". He also knows that Phantom is labeled as the "Ghost Menace"...who was constantly being hunted by Jack and Madeline, getting shot at like it's open season, causing needless destruction in their wake...like how they tried to hunt him a few years prior...

- Knowing Jack and Madeline, This makes poor Vlad's mood go from bad to infinitely worse because that meant that they had no idea that they've killed their own child (like him, oof) and have been hunting him since his first appearance in Amity. He immediately retreats back to his castle and has a severe panic attack.

• After calming down, Vlad will probably try to murder his old friends like in canon by inviting the family to his place, but it comes from a messed up sense of needing to protect Danny from his disastrous parents, seeing the younger as a victim of his parents recklessness. It takes a lot of convincing, but Danny is able to get him to stand down and explain that his parents aren't as dangerous as he says they are. Except Vlad had made very good counterarguments that made the younger Halfa question the doubts he had about his parents.

- It doesn't help that the original members of his swarm don't answer when he asks for a biased opinion in his favor. Surely his folks would still love him once he tells them what happened down in the lab...right? Danny makes the protocol "Friend or Foe" with Sam and Tucker and creates a guideline depending on which way the wind blows that fated day.

- Vlad gave him his number, a key, and a room for him to stay at the castle should he be inclined to take the offer should the worse come to pass. Telling the young badger that he had a place to retreat to in case things goes sideways and someone willing to train him as well.

• Jack and Maddie are up to their usual activities, but they meet more resistance by both the ghosts and people of Amity Park.

- The blob ghosts they usually catch to turn their ectoplasm to power their weapons or experiment on have made an alliance with Ghost Boy, Phantom, who made them far more powerful and elusive than they previously were. It doesn't help that their failed attempts to grab one usually end up with some form of property/vehicle damage while Phantom and his monsters scatter and vanish as soon as they arrive.

- People are genuinely looking to the literal ghost child (Phantom) for protection and has been keeping the streets of Amity Park safe from ghosts more than the proclaimed "Ghost Experts". He even began rehabilitating most of his old enemies at this point and helped them find non harmful methods for them to fulfill their obsessions at this point of the timeline. They couldn't defeat him or his army, so they yielded and gave his methods a chance with good degrees of success.

When a curious person (Jazz, the daughter of the town ghost experts) "asked" about a ghost's obsessions and why they fight, Danny goes into extreme detail (thank you, Clockwork and Pandora!) about why it is a ghost would do the things they do, debunking many ectobiologists theories and scientific discoveries made by the field of study.

• It felt like a slap in face and all their hard work was being undermined.

- This causes a screaming match between Maddie and Phantom. Both who are refusing to back down and causing a crowd to form.

"You're kind are danger to humans!"

"Have you seen how you nutjobs drive!? There's a reason nobody parks their cars on your street! You're a living road hazard!"

"You ghosts have been terrorizing the town!"

"Excuse me!? We've been PROTECTING it from your mistakes! Maybe if you actually studied ghosts instead of labeling us non sentient and cutting us up and making them live ammunition, you'd get better results!"

• It just keeps going until something in Danny starts snapping. He's already past sobbing and red in the face with panic and anger, the swarm is practically going feral as they sense the distress rolling off of him in waves, waiting for these humans to dare to make a move. Snarling, hissing and growling could be heard from hundreds of creatures slowly manifesting in the sky, floating with eyes glowing blood red.

People begin to start to worry out as they never seen Phantom's pets like this before...but then again...holding guns up to a kid who died recently and protects them from both the ghosts and the Fenton's daily madness isn't exactly a good image.

"You may have fooled everyone else, but you haven't fooled us, Phantom Menace! If we let our guard down, your kind will exploit us and we'll all be paying for it!"

And just like that...the final thread self control snaps and Phantom explodes. His scream of anger is amplified by his swarm and takes out most of the devices powered by ectoplasm.

Pay for it...PAY FOR IT!? WHAT DO YOU NOW ABOUT "PAYING FOR IT" WHEN ALL THIS WAS ALL YOUR FAULT!? ALL BECAUSE YOU MADE A LITERAL PORTAL TO HELL! YOU'RE SO OBSESSED WITH GHOSTS YOU HAVEN'T EVEN NOTICED WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME..."

The silence that came after was deafening and as the "good doctors" try to object, they themselves are stunned into silence as well when a ring forms around Phantom's waist and reveals who he actually is. Gasps and shouts of surprise are heard as a teary eyed boy stares down at his parents from a roof, glaring icy daggers with tired eyes.

"You were always in the lab, for days on end, as Jazz and I grew up. She put up with it and accepted the fact that work took priority, but I didn't! I hated that stupid portal and I went into the damn thing trying to make it work so you could pay attention to us again...but it turned on with me inside because a "genius" put the power button inside...which I hit on accident...making me die alone!

My grades dropped off a cliff because I had to step up and take responsibility for YOUR obsession with ghosts! I lost so much sleep because there were threats almost every other day trying to cause problems for Amity Park! Jazz was almost murdered and I almost had to kill the ghost to stop her from harming my sister! I had to literally beat my rogue's gallery into submission so they could behave and to protect them from ghost hunters so I could get to live a semi-normal life again! My so-called evil "parasites" have been helping me out keeping everyone who saw me as some weird freak safe since we teamed up and I won't let you slander them or myself anymore!"

It made the people of Amity feel sick to know the truth. The small kid who likes bugs who was supposed to barely start high school was the same friendly ghost who constantly charged into battle to keep everyone safe. His friends and enemies alike were under his protection out of the kindness of his heart when he could've easily used his powers for mischief, or worse, evil. As the realization began to sink in, people began to whisper and mutter to each other.

"An actual kid was defending us the whole time!?"

"Bug-a-Boo was really just a kid..."

"Danny Fenton is the Spectral Skitter!?"

"THEY KILLED THERE OWN KID!?"

That's what made people turn on the Fentons with the looks of disdain and anger. People were forming a protective ring around Danny as they continued to bombard his family with accusations and throwing insults. "Hey, Jazz is innocent in all of this, so leave her out of the hate mob! My sister barely found out and has been taking care of me better than our own parents well before I died...was there for me when things were at their worst fighting back the ghost..."

As the two Fenton siblings looked at each with soft, reassuring smiles, the tender moment was ruined when a blast went off, screams were heard and Danny stumbled back in shock at the sudden pain and blood blooming in his chest. It didn't punch through him fully, but cracked his ribs and now he was on the ground in pain. The shooters fate was sealed when a soldier's stinger punched through the attacker's leg with an ecto blast before the swarm and began fighting men in white suits, the attackers being overrun quickly and being mangled savagely before stopping at Danny's order before fainting.

In their desperate attempt to get Danny to safety, the swarm grabbed his unconscious body and hurriedly went through the Ghost Portal before blowing it up, preventing the Guys in White from doing more damage. There, they were greeted by Danny's greatest ally, Clockwork, and Yeti named Frostbite who wished to help their Boss. With reluctance and cries of sadness, they gave him to the beastman and hoped for the best.

[grandlinedreams]

Absolutely adore you’re writing, and it’s been getting me through a rough patch lately. So on that note, I was wondering if you could write Law comforting reader when they have those dark, anxiety-inducing bedtime thoughts? 😅

Hi!! Of course bb -- and if you need someone to talk to, my dms are always open!!

[Heads up!: mention of anxiety/spirals, a panic attack]

When you spend more time beneath the ocean than on land, it's hard to keep a decent sleep schedule. After all, the only way you know the day has passed are the clocks, carefully tended to in order to remain accurate. 

And yet, sleep eludes you. You've tried making sure that you're appropriately worn out, tried tea, reading a book ㅡ nothing helps. No matter how hard you try, aware of the heaviness of your eyelids, sleep won't come. 

To make matters worse, there are your thoughts as of late. At first it'd been the occasional thought, momentary and fleeting, dismissed because you know better than that. But then there'd been more than one, slipping through cracks, widening into wide, yawning chasms until it floods your head, impossible to stop. 

"Can't sleep?" Law's voice makes you jolt, looking up to find him standing in the doorway of the common room ㅡ a small space made cozier for the couch you're curled up on, the short table used for cards and other games during downtime. 

Law watches you nod, arms wrapping tighter around your legs, folded as close to your chest as you can get them. A defense mechanism, one he knows well. He'd be an idiot to not see that something is bothering you, but he isn't sure how to ask. He's not good at this, never has been ㅡ but he still wants to try.

Approaching, he seats himself a small space from you, trying to figure out how to go about this. If he says the wrong thing, you'll only clam up further. 

"...I keep thinking about things I shouldn't." He blinks, looking over when you speak, but you aren't looking at him. Your voice is a soft, fragile thing, barely above a whisper. "About everything that's happened, what to do if something else goes wrong…" Your voice wavers, and you hate it. "And with not being able to sleep, I'm so tired and if something happensㅡ"

Exhaustion causes mistakes. Mistakes get people hurt, get them killed ㅡ and it'll be your fault.

It's a rapid cycle, the tumultuous tumble of your thoughts, each worse than the next. A turbulent sea from which there is no land, dragging you down, down, down ㅡ 

"[Name]." Law's hand is on your back now, his voice solid and urgent as he tugs at you, grip firm to untangle your limbs and ease you towards him. "You need to breathe, [Name]."

You know that, but you can't steady the sharp, shallow gasps, hiccuped breath that makes your head spin. Part of you notes when you're eased into Law's lap, the solid warmth of his chest against your back, long fingers prying yours out of the fists they've curled into and intertwining. 

"Breathe," he repeats, "try to match mine." He sucks in a breath, steady and slow, then exhales in the same manner. It takes you a while to ground yourself enough to do so, the shudder of your body gradually easing until your head is no longer spinning.

Gods above, you're so tired. 

Law watched you relax against him, the tension of your hands in his dissipating ㅡ but he doesn't push for you to get out of his lap. Instead he adjusts to make you more comfortable, one arm against your back and the other slung over your legs.

Cora had once held him like this, the memory of it guiding him on what to do. He isn't Cora, but he's glad that he can offer comfort to you in the same way. 

"Law?" Given the late hour and current situation, he doesn't think to scold you for not addressing him properly. Title doesn't have space here, not like this. He hums, a quiet prompt for you to continue. 

"I'm sorry," you say. "For being like this." 

His grip on you tightens. He knows how to protect his crew from physical dangers, from people who dare to threaten his family ㅡ but it's different when the enemy is your own mind, vicious and cruel with imagined scenarios and plenty of blame to go with it. 

"You have nothing to apologize for." Another tentative step over a careful boundary, the press of his lips to your hair. "From now on, when you feel like this…" He pauses. "Come to me. We don't have to talk about it, but I'd rather you not be alone. Okay?" 

You sigh softly, leaning into him, and Law swears that his heart doesn't do funny things because of it. "Okay." 

[rainbowsky]

The Road is Long

By now most people have likely heard some mutterings about shakeups in turtledom. Let's talk about that a bit.

Disclaimer: As always, everything I say is a reflection of my own understanding of things, my own values and ideas and opinions. There are precious few verified facts available here, so we can never know for sure what the real truth is. Therefore, don't take what I say as fact. It's just my opinion, some melancholy musings, and a bit of CPN. Totally fake, of course.

Today is a day of tremendous grief among turtles, as it is believed by many that the person who was handling the LRLG posts has been shifted off of DD's staff. They made a contribution to the rumor house saying simply, "See you next time."

When I saw that I was heartbroken, as were many turtles. If you've been following LRLG at all, "See you next time" has frequently been their sign-off when making a post. If it's a goodbye, it would be a fitting - and poignant - one, made sadder by the context of this situation.

It's also an important reminder that nothing is permanent. We may see more from LRLG one day.

As of my screen cap, the post already has 18,000 comments. Most of them are tearful and grateful, showering LRLG in thanks for all the blessings and stories they've shared with us. Turtles are crying together, sharing supportive messages and gratitude, and being overall the sweet-hearted people they tend to be. Just loving GG and DD and restating their commitment to support them both through thick and thin.

The top comment is a photo of some turtle graffiti, saying, "The summer that belongs to us, no one can take away."

Of course, it wouldn't be a turtle post without some CPN, and many turtles have been pointing out that if the staff changes and removal of LRLG is real, then all the posts from LRLG are likely also real.

But we already knew that. LRLG has come through with proven messages time and again. This is just more confirmation of what many turtles already believed.

But why is this happening?

No one knows the whole story, and most of it is speculation based on various events and situations that have been unfolding over the past several months. However, the generally accepted narrative at this point is that DD's management has begun to cave under pressure from toxic solo fans who have been pushing a lot of demands, causing a lot of commotion and threatening to boycott the YH concert next month.

Up until recently DD's team has been completely ignoring these behaviors (and IMHO, rightly so). No one knows why the approach has shifted, but there are a lot of possible reasons. One of the likeliest being that investors/backers in DD's career and projects, and in YH (since it's now on the HK stock exchange) have caught wind of the toxic fan situation and are getting nervous.

From the perspective of a single-minded moneybags it looks a lot like DD's team isn't keeping the traffic happy, which wouldn't bode well for their bottom line. So of course, they will want something done to restore order.

What they don't appear to be aware of is just how much of DD's traffic is from turtles. As CP fans, turtles don't have the status to make demands like solos do (nor are they so toxic), so they just have to sit by and watch these changes that are harming turtles. They have no recourse.

Some turtles are disillusioned with DD because they've always seen him as the guy who would never back down. Some are angry and hurt and turning away from DD because of it.

What they don't seem to realize is that it's completely out of DD's hands. He would not be at liberty to go against what his backers want. They will no doubt have convincing reasons why this is what's best for his career, and why it's necessary.

This is just more of the squeeze GG and DD have been under from the beginning. They are commodities - they are businesses. GG said it in his interview not long ago. They all work for 'the star'.

“There are two Xiao Zhans, one of them is here, that’s me. There is another Xiao Zhan, the Xiao Zhan in quotes, but he is probably not me anymore. We are all working for him, including myself.”

As businesses that employ a lot of workers and bring in a lot of money, GG and DD aren't at liberty to do whatever they want. They have financial and contractual considerations to deal with. They have reputational and governmental issues to deal with.

The central focus of business and financial entities is always how to avoid and mitigate risk. To those with a stake in GG and DD's careers (and with every new project and endorsement the number of stakeholders grows), the important thing is to ensure maximum profitability with minimum risk. Fan wars represent risk. Toxic solo demands represent risk. Fan boycotts represent serious risk. Turtles - to some degree I'm sure in the minds of many - represent risk. Danmei and all things associated with it represents risk.

If GG and DD want to keep doing what they do, they will have to keep these stakeholders happy. They have a financial and contractual obligation to do so.

The reality is, we've always known GG and DD are in a precarious position. We've always known the government is against danmei. We've always known that things were tightening up and getting worse and worse every year.

Turtles have no standing as fans. As I've said many times when talking about endorsement brand candies, it's highly unlikely that turtles are taken into consideration when calculating GG and DD's fan bases and fan power. When everyone is sitting around the table having deep conversations about how to keep fans happy, it's highly unlikely that turtles are taken much into consideration, if at all.

DD's team has been ignoring toxic motos and their demands, but they've only gotten worse. They've been leaving hateful comments and lists of demands in response to everything his team posts, and elsewhere. They reported YH to the government for unfair ticketing of the concert*. They've been vocal enough that stakeholders and even some passersby will be aware of their discontent. They've been threatening to boycott the YH family concert next month (which, by the way, turtles have stepped up and bought all the tickets motos refused to buy, and will be making a big showing there).

*And they apparently discovered in response that YH isn't the producer of the show, it's produced by another company in a province that the gov't department doesn't have jurisdiction over. So there are theories that maybe the ticketing approach was part of the production agreement.

And it seems finally someone came along and demanded that DD's team does something to appease these toxic little bitches motos. These aren't just some random group of fans, they're organized and ring-led by DD's biggest fan club. That's the sort of thing that will make stakeholders nervous.

The changes to his Weibo bio are likely part of this - not necessarily directly as a result of motos, but also because of what I was talking about before - risk. Danmei is officially condemned by the government. CQL is a danmei drama.

And some of the changes to his team seem to have happened long before now. Remember, we used to get a lot of exciting, affectionate, interesting content from YBO. The video updates, the comic strips, the little anecdotes from his daily life. All of that has gone away a long time ago, and we've been getting increasingly dry, increasingly unimaginative, officious updates (maybe time to rebrand as 'Yibo Officious' 🤔?).

More of that is likely to come. DD's team appears to be wielding a sledgehammer now, not a poet's pen. Just this morning they posted some photos from DD's Moncler event, and attempted to crudely photoshop the numbers from his sleeve.

For those who were unaware, the text on the sleeve reads: "MF: 032/33." This is a Moncler FRGMT varsity jacket with a limited edition of 33 in the world. DD's is 32 of 33. (And has a big yellow flower on it, I might add.)

Why would they try to hide that DD is wearing one of only 33 jackets that exist in the world? Obviously because 32 is a number that will be associated with turtles/GG. But in attempting to obscure it they are acknowledging that it's a CP number. And who chose that number?

Well, repos say that DD spent a lot of time trying on clothes and deciding on an outfit, and we know how much he loves the numbers 2 and 3 (ai zan - love Zhan). The kadian of the jacket would read, "Zhan love/ZhanZhan."

As some c-turtles have rightly pointed out: the team can photoshop the numbers, but they can't stop him choosing them. They can remove LRLG, but they can't stop him choosing to award a prize to the seat at row 2 #30 (and then switching it to row 3 #20 when he was told there weren't 30 seats in each row) at the Chunzhen brand event, and they can't stop him from sitting in seat #5 at the Born to Fly theater during ADLAD. They can change the time when photos are posted on Weibo, but they can't change the time he sets his watch to in the photo.

EDIT: I have a theory about why this whole photoshop thing might not be as bad as it seems. More about that here.

DD will always be DD. He will always love GG. He will always care about turtles. He will always need (and deserve) our support. If he loses it, then the motos win. Don't let them succeed at their nefarious, hateful agenda. DD doesn't deserve that.

Is this the right move for DD's career?

I was among those who thought DD's team would never back down. They'd held strong for many months. But we should never underestimate the driving force of money, and like it or not (and correctly or incorrectly), in the eyes of investors motos represent traffic and profit. The money men will take over the vehicle if they feel its heading in the wrong direction. They don't care what they destroy if it saves their bottom line. But will it work?

Only time will tell, but I'm unconvinced right now. For a few reasons:

Everyone knows, paid ransom only leads to more kidnappings. The more management teams cave in to toxic fans, the more toxic they become. The more emboldened they become. The more they sharpen their knives and shoot off their mouths. It's only going to get worse. And we're talking about people who are already so full of themselves that they physically attack turtles at events. How much worse will it get? What will their next demands be?

Motos' ability to carry traffic is questionable. While DD is consistently doing well, his fans aren't doing anything spectacular for his endorsements or projects. BAH, Luoyang, his films, they did well but weren't the blockbusters some were expecting. And turtles are pulling a LOT of weight for him. If the goals of solos were successful and turtles were gone and it was only motos left, what would that look like? Maybe it's an inferiority complex from constantly being outgunned by shrimps, but I think motos vastly overestimate their own power as a group.

Further to my previous point, turtles are more powerful than they get credit for. They are constantly counted out and underestimated. DD's team might have factored the risk of upsetting solos, but I doubt they've fully calculated the risk and potential harm of alienating turtles. Although my belief (and hope) is that turtles will stay strong. Turtles have taken so many blows over the years, and they still hold the line. As one turtle heartbreakingly put it in response to LRLG's post, "😭😭😭😭😭😭I cry and I cry for nothing else. It's because the two treasures are too difficult and wronged 🥺🥺🥺 Please rest assured that we will never let go of our original intention to protect them 💚❤️💛 we will never break our promise." Some turtles get it, and it only makes them stronger and more committed. Others will be hurt and walk away. And while GG and DD are going to be fine, while their careers will likely continue to thrive, there is something special that turtles give them that is irreplaceable. If things take a bad turn with this team it wouldn't be the first time an outsider came along and carelessly destroyed something beautiful that they didn't understand. Even without the numbers game, there's a personal cost here that only turtles and GGDD will recognize and pay.

A lot of turtles are feeling emboldened, too. A lot of them are tired of covering their faces, hiding their colors and bowing down. It will be interesting to see how that factors in to everything.

We will just have to watch and wait, and see what happens. Regardless of any misgivings I might have about these issues and about his revised team, I will still continue to love and support DD. More than ever, actually. He will need our love.

LRLG is a role, not an individual

Some of you might have noticed over the past couple of years, that LRLG hasn't always kept the same tone, writing style, inflection, etc. in the messages they've shared. Many people - myself included - suspect that's because there have been shifts in staffing before, and the person doing the LRLG messages has changed in the past.

What hasn't changed is the messages or the manner in which they've been shared with us. If that's true, it's because LRLG was a role or a task that continued to be managed and filled regardless of who on staff was available to take care of it.

It's possible that role has been eliminated from the plan moving forward, which would be different from simply shifting who makes the contributions to the rumor house. I don't know for sure, but it seems like maybe there's no one left on his team who is in on it.

But that doesn't mean that LRLG won't show up again in some other capacity, or perhaps at some time in the future. Maybe the contributions will come from GG's side. We don't know.

My thoughts

Like I said earlier, this is all based on conjecture. No one knows all the details from behind the scenes. There could be a lot more to this issue than we realize. We just have to stay strong, and be patient.

In any case, it's a sad time for turtles, and there's no doubt about that. I am grieving these changes along with everyone else. It doesn't help that it comes right at the time I'm deeply grieving the anniversaries of the deaths of 2 close loved ones.

So I'm sad, very sad. Heartbroken is a better word.

I really didn't GAF about CQL being removed from DD's profile. If anything it's a bit of a relief. It can no longer be a factor. People can stop arguing about it, it can stop being such a focus. It's such an inconsequential thing. But YBO acting like turtle antis? Editing out candy and possibly removing LRLG? GUTTED.

The noose keeps tightening, and GG and DD and turtles are always the ones to pay the price.

This whole thing feels like nothing less than the triumph of homophobia, stupidity, mindless self-importance, toxicity and hate, and I've seen enough of that lately to last me several lifetimes.

One thing I know deep in my heart: GG and DD love turtles, they appreciate us, they care about us, and they will find a way to feed us and show us their love. They are smart, mischievous and resourceful, and they seem to thrive on challenges.

So take heart, my friends, and stay strong. Everything is going to be OK. The road is long.

A final word to the motos: I hate to break it to you, honey, but he's never going to marry you.

EDIT:

Follow-up post on whether everyone's wrong about LRLG leaving here.

Follow-up post about whether DD chose these changes here.

Follow-up post about the photoshopping of the jacket sleeve (and my theory about why YBO might still be our ally) here.

[au-sonic-smackdown]

AU Sonic Smackdown - Round 1, Right Side

Click to see full size image

Halloweentown AU belongs to @colorfulplasma

Words Hurt AU belongs to @oddogoblino

Read more about them under the cut!

Halloweentown AU-

Long ago, Sonic used to be the heroic speedster everyone praised, constantly feuding with his rival, Eggman. But on one fateful day, Robotnik triumphed that day. They both couldn't believe it. Sonic's defeat led him to be prisoner beneath the ocean surface. Next day, he woke up in the chaotic dysfunctional afterlife known as Halloweentown. Sure he might be intimidated for a big behemoth like him but he's a very welcoming goof around town.

Words Hurt AU-

In this au, Earth is decaying, the planet slowly losing its ability to sustain life due to mankind's lack of care to it. To try and survive, they attempted to move people to planet mobius as it held similar conditions as earth. The mobians at first welcomed them happily, happy to help those in need. Eventually, the humans began trying to repeat their old mistakes and began digging into mobius and setting up machines to harvest from it to try and save Earth. The planet didn't handle this as well as earth once did, machines quickly backfiring and any mobians nearby during the incidents quickly falling ill. That's how the infections started.

Sonic's parents were one of the few first mobians infected, having lost them due to them going into the second form of the illness that's caused from starvation. They'd been "quarantined" and left without food or an energy source for too long. He was only a toddler when this happened. He's now part of Vanilla's secret organization that helps infected mobians survive outside of the homes they'd been kicked out of due to fear. Sonic himself works as a secret delivery boy and tends to travel to make sure infected mobians have access to food and water and even just simple pleasantries like games and toys. He met Tails as a 4 yr old who'd been born from infected parents, taking care of him when they weren't. Currently Sonic is 17 and Tails is 8.

Sonic is mostly his same ole usual self except he's a lot less social. He doesn't talk to anyone except for Tails, Vanilla, and sometimes Cream. He was naturally born with his super speed but keeps it hidden due to not wanting to be mistaken as an infected. He still has to fight Eggman as the mad doctor tries to manipulate both uninfected and infected mobians' fears and resentment toward each other. He has a civilian disguise named Nicky so no one recognizes him as the superspeedy hero. He's a bit more easily agitated but only because he doesn't get enough sleep with his work.

Sonic's right eye is always tearing up, not because he's emotional but because of repeated exposure to infectious spores. The spores can only infect others if inhaled or through exposed open wounds. Hes naturally immune to the illness, but he doesn't know that, and wouldn't ever take chances on it. Whenever he gets injured, he disinfects the wound immediately and patches it up like others would in hopes to avoid spore-infection.

Infected mobians tend to live in abandoned spaces that their cities and towns assigned for them to live. Infected mobians feed off energy, whether that be electricity, emotions, powerful items, etc, but can also eat normal foods just fine. They need normal food to keep sane and prevent them from going into the second form that attacks anything with energy in it. Only the second form can infect others directly, making it the most dangerous and is an automatic kill-on-sight if seen. No one knows yet if you can change infected back to normal after they've transformed. Vanilla takes care of transformed infected when Sonic reports the incidents.

Mobians aren't the only things infected, plant and wildlife have been mutated by the illness aswell. The symptoms of the infection is body mutations, a blue tongue, and increased hunger and thirst. Mobians born from infected parents can't go into the second form but they become feral without food. Bites from hostile born-infected mobians are less likely to spread the infection but it isn't impossible.

[navree]

this is dc twitter discourse at the moment so i thought i'd ask your thoughts on it do you think red hood jason hurting children is ooc/a bad writing choice???

And this ladies and gents is why I avoid DC Twitter because I don't think I've seen any good takes there ever, no matter where you are. Sometimes people post panel compilations that hurt my heart, that's the like the only good thing to come out of it, I don't even click on the MAWS hashtag if it trends while the show is airing because last time I did it was people bitching that 25 year old Slade did not look or act the same way that current in his forties Slade does (not to mention, how can you complain about MAWS Slade? he's the best part about the show how did anyone not just fall over laughing with delight the second he showed up and proclaimed himself to be literal Slade Wilson?).

With that said, yeah I would consider that to be a bad writing choice. Talking about characterization for comics is hard because, as I've mentioned, comics is an incredibly decentralized creative medium in a way none others are. Movies, TV shows, novels, they all tend to have a main core group of people or even just one solitary person in charge of the creative direction, and for a lot of them, a very finite "this is where we start and this is where we end" mentality that comics do not. These characters have had constantly changing creative heads, with new directions and ideas for characterization attached, since their inception, and they've all been around for a very long time. This is why comics are kind of the only medium where you can, in fact, really pick and choose your canon, because the canon has changed so much depending on who is in charge at a giant company. Like, canonical eighties Batman characterization would be considered super OOC for someone writing canonical modern Batman, and vice versa. So talking about characterization is hard, especially with Jason when nobody has had any idea what to fucking do with him for decades at this point. But, when it comes to Red Hood Jason, there is something I consider gospel canon, which is the Under the Red Hood arc, since that is what nearly all subsequent canon imaginings of Jason take from. That is our gold standard here. And based on UTRH, yeah, Jason harming children is out of character and it is bad writing.

When Jason comes back, he has two very clear goals. Goal one: the Joker's gotta die, preferably Batman kills him so Jason gets concrete proof that he was loved and mourned (Jason is not mentally healthy so his thought process doesn't make sense just roll with it), but Jason is fine killing the man himself, so long as he dies. Goal two: essentially fulfill Batman's mission in a way where it actually accomplishes his goals. Jason outlines this pretty specifically in Batman #641, he tells Bruce "You. I'll be you. The you you're supposed to be." Jason's goal as the Red Hood is to make Gotham better (in his head), safer, and cleaner, but unlike Batman he is willing to take that goal as far as he can and will kill if necessary. What he wants is to just take Batman's mission to its logical extreme. Eradicate the various elements that have caused suffering in Gotham throughout the years, just with more permanence than Batman does, and less of a focus on rehabilitation, because you can't rehabilitate a dead person. And as part of this, Jason does not act unnecessarily. When he kills, it is people who (arguably) deserve it, and it is never innocents. It is always the criminal element, and people he believes are past the point of no return, as well as those who might be trying to stop him in that. His mission statement is literally "Death will come to those who deserve death, and death may come to those who stand in my way of doing what's right." and he means that. This is not a character you've created to then go out and harm children, because kids have not done anything to deserve it, and they are not the cause of the issues that he is trying to eliminate.

There's also the fact that Jason, even in his early Red Hood days where editorial just decided that he's a straight villain now, was never someone who went after kids, but in fact actively tried to help them. He makes it a point to tell his people that they do not sell drugs to kids and that if they do, he'll kill them (along with telling them not to get previously clean people hooked and only sell to repeats, which also paints him as someone who isn't just hurting others willy-nilly). The first person Jason ever kills, as seen in Red Hood: Lost Days, is a man who was involved in child trafficking, and he does it specifically because he wants to save those kids and future victims from him, and considers him scum of the Earth as a result (I think his name was Egan? Egon? idfk I don't reread Lost Days because I find their whole "look at fully adult Talia fucking the mentally ill sixteen year old under her care who is reliant on her for everything, how sexy" shtick abhorrent, and using Talia as their child rapist doubly so). So Jason, even at his most villainous, at his most "this is a bad dude" characterized, is someone who deliberately avoids harming innocents because it's not compatible with his mission or his personal code, and includes children very specifically in that.

It is also out of character and a bad writing choice because of Jason's own childhood. You might think a rebuttal to this is "Jason wants to kill/hurt criminals, what if kids are criminals" well guess what Jason was a kid criminal! It is actually illegal to steal parts off of people's cars, even if that person can afford it because he's Batman (to say nothing of the multiple very heavy handed hints dropped that Jason solicited as a prostitute during his time being homeless, which is also a crime, it is illegal and he would have been picked up by the cops for it if found out). Unless you want to argue that Jason thinks he himself should have been taken out with a Glock at the big of age of eleven for doing illegal things in the name of survival, you can't say that Jason's philosophy would allow him to harm children and remain in character or decently written, you just can't. Like, your other gospel for Jason's characterization should be his original Robin run from the 80s, since that's literally what introduced him to this world in the first fucking place, so duh. And there's nothing in that characterization to suggest that he would harm anyone unnecessarily, especially kids. Like, Robin Jason spares Two-Face's life, after having found out days ago that Two-Face murdered Willis Todd in cold blood; he tries to save Sheila Haywood's life after she straight up helps murder him; this isn't someone whose characterization allows for him to hurt children later in life. Especially once you factor in his struggles as a child, and how that most likely just breeds empathy for other children, especially children who are having a hard time.

Now, I can guess that some of this comes up in discussions of one of my most loathed subjects, the stupid bad stupid dumb stupid attack on fucking Titan's Tower. Now, even beyond the fact that the stupid attack on stupid Titan's Tower is less about Jason wanting to beat up children and more his specific issues with Bruce and the concept of Robin that can't be transplanted to other people, the attack itself is bad writing. It is out of character for Jason. It does not jive at all with his stated characterization and motivations that he himself outlined (also the only other closest thing to that is his fight with Mia Dearden, where he's pretty tame in just warning her to leave vigilantism and straight up beats her twice before letting her go relatively unscathed of his own free will, just saying) and it makes no sense. His issues are that the Joker is alive and Batman didn't do anything about it. Why the fuck would he care about Tim? Tim means nothing to him, he never even met the little dude, he doesn't have an issue with him. He doesn't even have an issue with the idea of Robin being passed down because Jason literally said he was perfectly content to not be Robin and just be Jason, and his problems don't arise from Robin! The issues at the heart of Jason's conflict with Bruce hinge on the Bruce and Jason relationship of father and son, not Batman and Robin! And not fucking Tim! Tim means nothing, he is a nonentity. The only reason this fuckass plot exists is because DC didn't know what to do with Jason and threw shit at the wall to see what would stick, similar to what we saw with that dumb plot with Nightwing from this time that also has similar issues, in that why would Jason care enough to cause problems for Dick, he doesn't have an issue with Dick, he legit interacts with Dick in UTRH and he's fine! (a better writing decision would have been post-UTRH Jason immediately writing the entire Batfam off and treating them as hostiles whenever they wander into Crime Alley and them having to regain his trust back/him agreeing to let down more and more barriers as time goes on and they all reconnect, but I was like seven when all this was being written so DC didn't seek my input) The fucking dumb Titan's Tower thing that people are gonna use to prove that Jason hurting kids isn't bad writing isn't even about Jason, the only reason this shit gets trotted out again and again is because Tim Drake has a lot of fans who are absolutely convinced their poor uwu baby has suffered more than Jesus when the only person in the Batfam who's suffered less than him is, like, Alfred (although I can make the argument that Alfred has still suffered more by having had to put up with Bruce Wayne almost singlehandedly for most of his adult life). It exists in people's minds even tho it is objectively bad writing and out of character for one of the main players because fanon Tim has to be the most special boy ever (and also because these people wanna use it to make Tim interesting which is impossible because nothing can make Tim interesting).

Jason hurting children deliberately is, indeed, bad writing. It is, in fact, incredibly out of character. It does not compute to his explicit motivations and how he was characterized in the stories that have since been used as a jumping off point for his characterization ever since. And ultimately, the thing is this: if Red Hood Jason is just trying to do Batman's job better than Batman, who is he doing it for if not children? Who is he trying to clean up Gotham for, make Gotham a better place for, if not her children? And if that's the case, as it obviously is, why on Earth would him then harming her children be any kind of good character writing or coherent characterization?

TL;DR, yes it is.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

What is the camping trip thing? I think you’ve mentioned it once or twice and now I’m curious

I... Oof. Okay, yeah, I will talk about the camping trip but I do want to give a heads up that I really don't like spoiling the heavy hitting moments in Impulse. That series is really just something that has to be experienced and I really really encourage everyone to read it first hand.

However, I do also acknowledge that sometimes people read stories because they hear about them and get intrigued (which is kinda what I'm all about)! So, I will discuss this story but there will be a disclaimer! This will spoil issue #23 of Impulse so if you want to read that series, I highly encourage you to do so before reading this.

All right, so with that out of the way let's jump on into it.

What you have to understand first is that we start this issue at a very established place in Max and Bart's lives. They have been living together for months now and they've really started to bond. This is the most stable either of their lives has been since... well, ever.

Bart is going to school, he has friends, he has a team, he's really doing well in his training and as a hero, and he very much views Max as a father figure at this point. Max was really the first parent Bart ever knew and this was Bart's first everything. Bart never had a house or a room before this, he didn't have family or friends, he didn't have a life. For the first time Bart was finally able to have a childhood and be comfortable where he was and he was thriving.

Now Max was a different story. Max is a flight risk by nature. He doesn't like to stay in one area for too long and he tends to change lives at the drop of a hat. Max will change his name, appearance, location, even his era, just to escape an uncomfortable situation. If someone said "Happy Birthday" and Max said "Thanks, you too", Max wouldn't just skip town, he would time travel two decades into the future and then skip town.

So needless to say, staying put for so long was completely against Max's nature. He was out of his element. He didn't form ties with people, he didn't let them in ever, and now suddenly he has a kid with him that he is starting to view as a son and Max doesn't really know what to do with that.

On top of that Max had been spying on his estranged daughter and she was not thrilled that Max was there. Max missed quite a few birthdays while time traveling... like... all of them. Helen wanted nothing to do with Max and was furious with him.

Now, Max had really only been staying for Helen and Bart. When Helen made it clear that she didn't want Max in her life, Max started questioning why he was sticking around.

And the answer was Bart, right? He was sticking around to train Bart. But Max started wondering if he was even helping Bart. I mean, Helen was better off without him, maybe Bart would be as well? And could Bart even be trained? Or was it a lost cause?

So Max decided to test Bart's progress.

And Bart.... didn't perform well.

Not to say that Bart didn't save the day, he did, but Bart was still jumping into situations without thinking about them. No plans, no thoughts, just plain pure impulse.

Bart had the fighting skills, he had all the moves and the power to back them up. He was failing upwards by the sheer virtue of how fast he was.

Max wasn't happy with Bart's lack of thought. Especially when it came to civilians. Max wanted Bart to care about the hostages and make them a priority. Not putting people in unnecessary danger was a key element of being a hero to Max.

Bart didn't understand it because he had won. He always won. And no one got hurt, so what was the big deal?

The two of them fought and then Max ran off to try one last time with Helen. It didn't go well.

And here's where things start to get intense.

Bart sneaks into the kitchen for a midnight snack and suddenly Max walks in with a backpack. They're going camping. Right now.

So already the energy is extremely... unhinged. Max is at his breaking point and Bart doesn't know it, but this is his final exam.

Max is having an existential crisis, a mental breakdown and a midlife crisis all rolled into one and Bart, god bless him, is not helping the situation.

Max tries to talk to him about it but it was extremely clear that Bart didn't really get what Max was talking about.

Max gives Bart one final test. He starts an avalanche and 'gets stuck', hoping that Bart will get him out of harm's way first before dealing with the rocks.

Max screamed at Bart to save him.

But Bart didn't. He went for the rocks instead.

This is the last straw for Max. He grabs Bart and he screams at him.

"Why didn't you just pull me out of the way? Why did you go after the gunner and not the hostage at the ice rink? WHY?"

Bart had been living in the real world for months. Max had been training him for months. Bart's performance in school, on his team, in his training, his hero work, ect, all of it was beyond excellent. He was thriving.

But at his core Bart still didn't understand. He wasn't thriving, not to him. To Bart he was just winning the game. In Bart's mind Max's rules and training were just the rules of the game.

Can't tell people your identity? Yeah that's just one of the rules. Bart didn't get it but, hey, that's just how it is. Bart has to 'make friends' and 'be social'? Sure, whatever gets him points. Can't let anyone die? Alright, sure.

Bart fundamentally did not understand the difference between video games and reality. He had no concept of danger or death. If he messed up, he could just respawn or reset.

The hostages and civilians never mattered to him because he didn't get points for saving them.

Max had always known that Bart had a difficult time figuring out the real world but Bart had been doing so well that the true scope of Bart's issues had never really come to light. Max didn't understand how bad it was until this moment.

Bart had been living with Max for months and Max had thought that their training was almost done, when suddenly Max was faced with the fact that Bart hadn't progressed at all. Bart wasn't even back at square one, Bart was at square -100 and nothing Max had been doing was helping him.

And Max just gave up.

He stopped caring. He was done. He couldn't help Bart and he just shut down.

Bart... just didn't understand. He knew that something was wrong with Max but he had no idea what he'd done wrong. This was the only parent he had ever had, the only one to stick around and give him attention and love. And that parent just completely shut down and there was nothing Bart could do to fix it.

And you can see that Bart tried. Bart desperately tried to fix it. He did the dishes, put the things away, brushed his teeth, went to bed, ect. Bart was playing by Max's rules because playing by Max's rules made Max happy and Bart wanted Max to be happy.

To me this issue makes me extremely emotional because here's this little boy who has come to depend on the love and support of Max, and that's all suddenly ripped away from him for reasons beyond his control.

Bart, I feel, is such a perfect representation of a neurodivergent kid. He's following a bunch of societal rules that he just doesn't understand and he masks so well that he is able to fly under the radar for quite a while. But masking doesn't get him the help he needs. All masking does is make Bart confused and frustrated because he's not getting the help he really needs. He's being held back because he's too busy jumping through hoops to make people happy and he never gets the support he needs to actually thrive.

Then when it becomes clear that Bart isn't progressing. That it was all just masking, Bart gets punished for it.

Let's be clear here, Bart was the one who was let down. Bart had been doing everything to make Max happy, even though he understood none of it, and Bart did it well. He should have gotten more support and it should never have gone on as long as this did.

And Max realized that. Max realized that he hadn't been helping Bart be a better hero and Max decided that Bart deserved better.

Max left after this issue. He sent Bart to live with Meloni in the future.

That's a whole other thing and it eventually gets resolved and the two reunite and it gets better from there. But this storyline... it's... yeah.

It's such a realistic portrayal of neurodivergency to me. It really is. The way Bart thinks it's his fault, the way Bart took two steps forward and five steps back, the way Bart was let down, the way Max is just suddenly hit with the extent of Bart's masking, the way Bart just wasn't able to understand Max's complex emotions...

It just really hits hard.

[reverieblondie]

So, Astarion is not the best at expressing himself in a healthy manner when he's upset about something and tends to lash out as a result (understandable given everything he has gone through, but understandable is not the same as excusable—it's something he would need to work on in order to have healthy relationships of any kind in the future). One thing I wish the game let us do is point this out to him or confront him about it (both in good and less good ways, because choice is this game's bread and bloody butter); it would have been very interesting to see how he'd react. With all of that said, how do you think he'd react to lashing out at Tav (platonic relationship and/or romantic relationship, but not on bad terms either way) over something that isn't really their fault or because they politely disagreed or something like that, but the instant the words leave his mouth he just sees the hurt fill Tav's expression before they try to end the conversation by just walking away from him (at which point they become rather distant and reserved towards him, though they still make sure he eats). If he immediately tries to backpedal or ends up approaching Tav to apologize after they've been reserved around him for a while, Tav tells him, "Your words didn't hurt me, but you said them with the intention for them to. You wanted to cause me pain. That is what hurt me. That's why I'm upset." then their stoicism begins to crack, and he can see them trying to hold back tears, "What did I do, Astarion? Why did you want to hurt me? What did I do to deserve it?"

I have been sitting on this ask for awhile because Astarion isn’t a character I know much about. I do think he has a great story and his characterization is great but he’s just not one of the companions I have romanticed but I have heard his is one well worth it. Honestly Astarion intimates me to write about because the Astarion girlies LOVE him and I don’t want to mess him up or anger anyone.

But with that said I love this ask because I can see this happening! And I think that this is something Astarion would do I think without fully realizing it, Astarion knows how to manipulate people and it’s his defense mechanism to hurt someone else first before they hurt him. And from everything in his past can you blame him for it? He doesn’t want to hurt anymore so he deflects.

I don’t see Astarion as the backpedaling type he’s the type to walk away and stew on it, I can see him even trying to pull the whole “your still mad darling? Look I’m sorry” But that’s when Tav tells him how much it did hurt how he was so quick to try and hurt them after everything they been through. It’s when Tav asks what they did to deserve that, that causes Astarion to drop his shields.

I’m my mind that’s when Astarion will sigh and open up, he doesn’t reach out for Tav for a hug or a hand hold, but he just lays it all out there. He’s not a good person, he hasn’t been for a very long time but for Tav he wants to learn, he wants to be the person who doesn’t hurt the ones he loves…he doesn’t want to break Tavs trust…just because he has been hurt doesn’t justify for him to hurt others. Tav means so much to him and he understands that Tav doesn’t have to forgive him or anything but he wants them to know that he is going to be someone worthy of Tavs kindness and understanding. He will show it through not only his words but through his actions.

Then it will hopefully led to them reconnecting and being honest, Astarion needs to be with a Tav who is a grade A communicator so when Astarion is feeling hurt they can talk about it in a healthy manner so they can both divulge their thoughts and feelings. Just have patience with him.

Sorry this took so long for me to answer hope this makes sense!

[angxlswhisper]

✦ my thoughts on the proshipping vs antishipping discourse

I want to start this post by saying that I do not support proshipping, but it's a little more complicated than that is all, which is why I'm writing my thoughts on it.

Also, I know I'm using 'proshipping' wrong and what I should really be using is darkshipping; so moving forward I will attempt to use the terms correctly.

DARKSHIPPING IS WRONG, HERES WHY

[1] Fiction isn't reality, and while real people aren't directly hurt because of darkship content, fictional characters are meant to represent experiences of real people. When trauma survivors come across content that actively romanticises and even fetishises life-ruining experiences they've gone through, it may retraumatize them. Furthermore, kids don't inherently know what's wrong and what's right, what puts them in danger and what doesn't. Of course, children like that shouldn't be on the internet in the first place, but they are and it's important to make sure the way we portray dark topics like that isn't harmful to anyone.

[2] Even if you aren't posting it publicly and keeping it to yourself, it isn't exactly a healthy hobby/coping mechanism/whatever it is to you. Even if fiction, why do you like pedophilia? Why do you enjoy romanticising grooming? No one truly knows how or why fetishes develop, but interacting with content that you know is harmful in real life is probably not a good idea. Even if you're not aroused, but simply enjoy it, it puts you at risk of seeking out such a relationship in real life. It's kind of like how unrealistic, brutal porn (although, it is objectively worse, since that is a real person) may cause a person to begin having a hard time controlling their urges and seeking out those kinds of situations in real life because the want simply becomes too much. I'm not calling all darkshippers groomers, but what you consume online does affect how you might act in real life.

BUT WAIT! THERES MORE!

[1] There is a big difference when it comes to morality between minors who darkship and adults who darkship. When discussing why being proship/darkshipping is, or isn't okay, I tend to notice this is is overlooked. Let me explain.

[2] Minors tend to darkship as a coping mechanism for trauma they have been through themselves. Under no situation is it okay or justified, and this is no different -- however, it is important to recognise that this group of people probably don't understand how wrong it is, nor how terrible of a coping mechanism it truly is. All you are truly doing here is romanticising what happened to you instead of figuring out your complex emotions; getting better is hard and many darkshippers are actually trying to improve their mental health and break out of this coping mechanism, and instead of harassing them it is important to try to support them on their journey to heal. There's also darkshippers who are young who do not truly grasp the dark undertones of the content they are consuming. Truthfully, when I was younger, I did not actively darkship but I didn't understand why pedophilia/darkship was so wrong. I didn't have any ill intent, I was just kind of stupid. That may be some of the case here, especially with how much unrestricted internet access parents give to their kids nowadays. Of course, there are quite a few exceptions, but it may not be best to immediately assume someone with '14' and the proship emoji combo in their bio is some irredeemable monster who only wants to hurt those around them.

[3] On the other hand, adults who darkship are a completely different story. They are adults for a reason; they know what they're doing, most likely. Even if they're using it as a coping mechanism, an adult would usually have more resources to get professional help or have more emotional intelligence to properly sort through their traumas. At that point, it's probably just something to hide behind so they can safely interact with content they know is wrong.

THAT SAID...

[1] Harassment of someone who you don't know the age or past of, or you do know the age/past of but they're a minor who doesn't know what it is/has been groomed, is not okay. Telling someone to hurt themselves and sending them death threats does absolutely nothing but: a) make them even more defensive of what they're doing, b) put them at actual risk of doing those things, and c) boosting your own self esteem. Unless you're okay with someone who's been traumatised and has no idea how to properly cope with it successfully killing themselves because of what you said, then just scroll and/or block. And if you are okay with that, perhaps think about if you are truly the better person here. [2] However, if that person is an adult and refuses to get help for their depraved wants then please give me their user so I can join you.

TLDR: Darkshipping is a terrible coping mechanism, morally wrong, and straight up dangerous to the person who darkships and anyone who comes across darkship content. Although, minors who darkship should be treated more kindly instead of getting harassed since they probably don't understand how bad it is or are deeply trauamtised themselves.

If you have an argument against this post, feel free to share. I'll respect your opinion unless it's something like 'proshippers/darkshippers should all die! theyre all irredeemable! i hope they get [censored] [censored] and [censored]' or 'its just fiction, let me enjoy this smutfic about a 5 year old getting groomed by a 49 year old even though im a retired grandpa'. Please and thank you.

[sophieinwonderland]

A quick follow-up on my posts about the author of the Sophie is Dangerous document and mania.

Manic episodes can last a few days to several months. Remission of symptoms typically won't last longer than six months though. And those higher limits tend to only happen when someone is untreated. But we know the author of the document is currently in therapy and has been for a while.

If we assume the beginning of them writing the document on June 20th was the start of a long manic episode, we would be on month 5. Still within range, but towards the upper ends of what is typical, especially for someone in therapy.

There is also a rarer condition referred to as "Chronic mania" where manic periods can last for years.

But I think it's a slippery slope to attribute someone's harmful actions to mental illness or speculate on what someone's mental illnesses might be based on their harmful actions.

There's an old adage called Hanlon's razor which states "never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity."

Well I also think we need one that states "never attribute to mental illness that which can be adequately explained by typical emotional responses."

At the core of it, we have someone who has a tendency to latch on to people over the internet, forming close parasocial relationships that aren't necessarily reciprocated. Circ called out how unhealthy it was, in one of their posts, how they referred to not wanting SAS but "needing" SAS to be nice to them.

Looking back, this seems to be a consistent pattern with the document author.

They had sent positive asks to my own blog before the incident they call "cockgate." After I called them out for how they were hurting people across the community, their posts changed focus and started attacking me more than the sysmeds. (I wish I could offer proof of this, but since the blog is deleted, you'll just have to take my word for it.)

With this context, their reactions make sense. From their perspective, they were stabbed in the back by someone they trusted. They then minimized their own actions that led to me and SAS calling them out for what they did, denying the harm they caused that forced us to address their posts.

They blamed me for the community turning on them at the time, and formed a long-lasting grudge, convincing themselves I was the problem and was the one actually harming the community.

They later forgot about SAS's involvement in the incident while still harboring their petty grudge against me. What I did was more severe to them because I was the one who betrayed their trust.

They latched onto SAS at some point later, formed an unhealthy parasocial relationship with SAS, and convinced themselves that SAS wanted them to make the "Sophie is Dangerous" document. Then when SAS didn't publicly support the document like they thought SAS would, they deemed SAS to have betrayed them too.

There are plenty of disorders one could armchair diagnose them with to try to explain their behavior. But... I don't really see the point in making that additional leap.

I don't think it's healthy or productive to look at people and say, "well they probably did X harmful because they have disorder Y" when there's not much evidence they have disorder Y in the first place and their actions can easily be explained without it or with other disorders they've already been confirmed to have, such as PTSD and a history of abusive relationships which they have confirmed.

(Fictional characters are obviously an exception to this rule. Go wild with your mental illness headcanons!)