#so if I want to find any kind of community that I can actually access on a regular basis...if I want to be part of like. an actual Group.

[renthony]

Considering the fact that there's still ongoing waves of covid, bird flu is an active concern, and I'm disabled, no, I don't have in-person social life. And since people refuse to mask up, get vaccinated, or offer virtual participation in things anymore, my attempts to find wider social groups keep getting hamstrung. It sucks. A lot.

I've thought about joining the local French conversation group, but they don't have any covid safety protocols in place. I've thought about going to the weekly free art classes at the comic school, but they aren't covid-safe either, so I just watch the recordings when they upload them on YouTube later. I've thought about going to multiple groups at the local queer community center, but when I asked if they had covid safety protocols, their excuse was that "Ron DeSantis banned mask mandates, so we don't do that anymore," instead of doing literally anything to fight DeSantis. I keep thinking about going back to my theatre & stage combat troupe at the ren faire, but I got sick after the show every single year pre-covid and I cannot risk that "faire crud" being covid proper. I just can't.

I am an active member of a union, but that doesn't count for this poll because I exclusively participate online by video calling into meetings. I play D&D with my parents and siblings every week, but that doesn't count because they're family. I talk to multiple friends and family members every day and regularly check in with folks, but it doesn't count because it's on my phone. I hang out with my housemates and we do all kinds of things together, but that doesn't count because they're the people I live with.

I am being as social as I safely can. It feels really shitty that so many people think it isn't good enough. It feels really shitty to constantly feel like my choices are "be a weird angry shut-in" or "elevate my covid exposure risk." It feels like there's no winning.

If you genuinely believe that it's important for people to have in-person social outlets (and I do agree!), here's what you need to be doing:

Follow the People's CDC's Safer In-Person Gatherings guide (which is due to be updated for 2025 soon).

Get your updated covid booster. People aren't getting their updated vaccines, and it's a problem. If it is available to you, you need to GO. GET. YOUR. BOOSTER. And get your flu shot while you're at it.

Advocate for improved air filtration in the space you want people to meet in. Push for air purifiers if the HVAC system can't be fully upgraded. Help make Corsi-Rosenthal boxes.

At gatherings, provide FREE high-quality N95 masks for people who may not be able to access them. Get some for yourself if you can, and actually wear the fucking things. Over your nose and mouth. Properly.

Stop participating in social dogpiling when people make honest blunders or commit a faux pas. A lot of people have been isolated for years by this point. Social skills atrophy if they aren't used. Is that "weird" person in the group actually hurting anyone, or are they just awkward, intimidated, and out of practice when it comes to social groups?

Stop being a shithead to people who still can't participate. Stop entertaining the belief that people who don't have a robust external social life are "defective" or "untrustworthy." Stop treating people who don't have a robust social life as if they're dangerous, stupid, or shady. Sometimes people just don't have a robust social life. There are many, many reasons. It's not something you should make harsh judgments about.

Evaluate your space for general accessibility. Can disabled people enter and make use of the space? Is it mobility aid friendly? Sensory friendly? Are there things that can help make it easier for disabled people to find, access, and participate in the group? Have you asked any disabled people about how you can make improvements?

Get your fucking covid booster. It's on here twice because data suggests you fuckers aren't doing it. Go get your fucking vaccine.

I know I'm setting myself up for another barrage of, "Ren, it's just some stupid tumblr post, it isn't that serious" comments, but...well, it is that serious to me. I want to participate in social groups again. I want to go places and do things again. I want to go out. But I, and a lot of other people like me, just don't have the option.

You can help give us that option by giving a shit about covid safety and disability justice in your community.

Thanks, Anon!

-submit your poll!-

[musical-chick-13]

The thing is, like...yeah, a lot of times, the Social Exclusion I've experienced has been from people I probably wouldn't have wanted to be friends with anyway. At the very least, if someone is willing to do that, if someone is going to be that judgmental over things that don't actually matter, then any actual friendship with them probably wouldn't last very long.

But...it still hurts. Because regardless of how you actually feel about these people, it's still another instance of somebody telling you that you're too annoying or too much or too emotional or too whatever. It's still one more thing that people don't even give you the choice to have? And if you hear this over and over again, if it happens everywhere you go, then after a certain point it gets difficult to not internalize it at least a little bit.

It's been 30 years of this and it never gets any easier.

[teratosubmission]

 Humanfucker here, Humans are the most underrated Monsters

I’ve always had a thing for humans. I mean, there’s a lot of physical appeal to them. They’re small and cute and have beautiful contours and big personalities but you can just overpower them at any time and rail the cuteness out of them and fuuuuck. But there’s much more to a human that I think goes underappreciated with fellow humanfuckers and the larger monsterfucker community at large.

A human has hands, soft and dexterous. It’s said that their sense of touch Is massively amplified on their fingertips. And humans are exceptionally skilled at the soft touch (They have a lot words for soft touch in their language, like stroke, pet, caress, ect, which only make sense when you realize how important it is in their culture). A slow, gentle trace down your spine or up your legs can activate nerve receptors other monsters simply cannot, and it can feel extremely pleasurable when a human is behind you gently rubbing their hands over your back. While many monsters use their strength to keep their mates from leaving, humans often rely on their soft touch, which feels so overwhelmingly pleasurable you don’t -want- to leave. If you ever wondered how a small human can wrangle such giant monsters like minotaurs or werewolves, that’s how.

And the reverse is also true, humans are the most physically sensitive creatures, with the majority of their body being highly erogenous zones. It’s as if they were evolved for lovemaking, and entire subcultures exist around the concept of sex. (EDIT – so I did some research and apparently many humans are skilled enough to practice an erotic art called Massage (muh sahj), and apparently their hands can have healing qualities to them, soothing your aching muscles and overall just feeling really fucking good. Unfortunately its best done on their own kind, since they know their own biology and are basically built to enjoy it best, but I’m hopeful there are humans that are learning on other monsters and getting good at Massage for them… God I hope so, anyway, I want to experience Massage.)

I love their voices. A human, in my opinion, has some of the most beautiful noises you could ever have the pleasure of listening to. You could be engaged in conversation with one and find yourself lulling to the beauty of their voice. You could be fucking one and listening to how cutely they moan and whimper, it functions like an aphrodisiac for their partners. Apparently they don’t actually have persuasive superpowers in sex, but I don’t think that’s right, since every time they’ve moaned for me to cum for them, I’ve burst immediately.

Unlike most monsters, humans don’t have a breeding season. They’re ready to go at any time (sometimes they may need coaxing though~, I’ll link some guides on seducing humans). Now, if you want to actually breed one of the females you’ll have to understand a bit more about their cycles, but generally speaking you can just have at it till they’re eventually impregnated.

Humans have sexual dimorphism like most other monsters, but what’s intriguing is just how wide a range that dimorphism is, and how easily its defied as well. Want a male with feminine features? An exceptionally strong masculine female? Value something in between? Or perhaps you want a gender with the opposite genitalia? There’s something for everyone, which in turn makes them one of the most accessible and popular monsters available. But like I’ve said before, there’s so much more to them than their physique.

❤️ Anyway, humans are the best monsters and I hope someday to meet one! ❤️

[alpaca-clouds]

Worldbuild Differently: Unthink Religion

This week I want to talk a bit about one thing I see in both fantasy and scifi worldbuilding: Certain things about our world that we live in right now are assumed to be natural, and hence just adapted in the fantasy world. With just one tiny problem: They are not natural, and there were more than enough societies historically that avoided those pitfalls.

Tell me, if you have heard this one before: You have this fantasy world with so many differnet gods that are venerated. So what do you do to venerate those gods? Easy! You go into those big temple structures with the stained glass in their windows, that for some reason also use incense in their rituals. DUH!

Or: Please, writers, please just think one moment on why the fuck you always just want to write Christianity. Because literally no other religion than Christianity has buildings like that! And that has to do a lot with medieval and early post-medieval culture. I am not even asking you to look into very distant cultures. Just... Look of mosques and synagogues differ from churches. And then maybe look at Roman and Greek temples. That is all I am asking.

Let's make one thing clear: No matter what kind of world you are building, there is gonna be religion. It does not matter if you are writing medieval fantasy, stoneage fantasy, or some sort of science fiction. I know that a lot of atheists hate the idea that a scifi world has religion, but... Look, human brains are wired to believe in the paranormal. That is simply how we are. And even those atheists, that believe themselves super rational, do believe in some weird stuff that is about as scientific as any religions. (Evolutionary Psychology would be such an example.)

What the people will believe in will differ from their circumstance and the world they life in, but there is gonna be religion of some sort. Because we do need some higher power to blame, we need the rituals of it, and we need the community aspect of it.

Ironically I personally am still very much convinced that IRL even in a world like the Forgotten Realms, people would still make up new gods they would pray to, even with a whole pantheon of very, very real gods that exist. (Which is really sad, that this gets so rarely explored.)

However, how this worship looks like is very different. Yes, the Abrahamitic religions in general do at least have in common that they semi-regularily meet in some sort of big building to pray to their god together. Though how much the people are expected to go into that temple to pray is actually quite different between those religions and the subgroups of those religions.

Other religions do not have this though. Some do not have those really big buildings, and often enough only a select few are even allowed into the big buildings - or those might only be accessible during some holidays.

Instead a lot of polytheistic religions make a big deal of having smaller shrines dedicated to some of the gods. Often folks will have their own little shrine at home where they will pray daily. Alternatively there are some religions where there might be a tiny shrine outside that people will go to to pray to.

Funnily enough that is also something I have realized Americans often don't quite get: Yeah, this was a thing in Christianity, too. In Europe you will still find those tiny shrines to certain saints (because technically speaking Christianity still works as a polytheistic religion, only that we have only one god, but a lot of saints that take over the portfolios of the polytheistic gods). I am disabled, and even in the area I can reach on foot I know of two hidden shrines. One of them is to Mary, and one... I am honestly not sure, as the masonry is too withered to say who was venerated there. Usually those shrines are bieng kept in a somewhat okay condition by old people, but yeah...

Of course, while with historically inspired fantasy settings make this easy (even though people still hate their research), things get a bit harder with science fiction.

Again, the atheist idea is often: "When we develop further scientifically, we will no longer need religion!" But I am sorry, folks. This is not how the human brain works. We see weird coincidences and will go: "What paranormal power was responsible for it?" We can now talk about why the human brain has developed this way. We are evolved to find patterns, and we are evolved (because social animal and such) to try and understand the will others have - so far that we will read will in nature. It is simply how our brains work.

So, what will scifi cultures believe in? I don't know. Depends on your worldbuilding. Maybe they believe in the ghost in the machine, maybe there si some other religions there. You can actually go very wild with it. But you need to unthink the normativity of Christianity to do that. And that is... what I see too little off.

[mintmatcha]

Mint you make such delicious conflicts between characters. I keep think about the realization that Akaashi, Bokuto and you are a relationship. The whole thing is a big misunderstanding but also becomes a precursor to a lot of hurt.

You honest to goodness thought you were cheating on Akaashi. You were doing it on purpose, to get what you want, regardless of his feelings. And for that guilt to suddenly just be canceled out leaves a weird hole that feels dumbly smoothed over. Of course you dreaded what might happen if you got caught, yet having everything just kind of be okay in the end feels as if you got off scott free. It sounds silly but you feel as if you should be punished.

And its a betrayal of communication too. Why did the two of them let you walk around not knowing, thinking it was just automatic that all three of you were together, leaving you simmering in that guilt created out of nothing? If not Bo, Akaashi should definitely know better. And sure it just so happens that Bokuto is attractive and caring and magnetic, but what if you didn't think about him like that? Where's your say in this? They never even thought to ask you. You had all been "dating the whole time and you just didn't realize it". Its like you just discovered you've been standing on a trapdoor this whole time. It could fall away any second. Bo and Akaashi's relationship far eclipses yours. Dispite the surplus of affection, there's a part of you that feels like an outsider in your own relationship. Whose to say they won't just drop you? You embrace it, the new avenue of love and sudden permission and access. You're frequently found sitting on Bokuto's lap, benefitting from wild and hot sex you had known to be bittersweet before and should now be just sweet. But the bitterness lingers. Sometimes it feels like when they look at you, they might not actually care what you think, everything's already been decided for you.

Akaashi is relieved that this was all just a big misunderstanding and he's thrilled that the pieces have fallen together for his two loves, at least for the first little bit. It was so odd to feel like he was trying to protect Bo against you, but now he understands why, and besides the three of you are almost glued together now so everything is okay. Though he keeps finding himself yanked out of sweet moments by the niggling thought that you didn't think that Bokuto was part of your relationship with him, and yet you slept with him anyway. He knew only because of Bokuto. Meanwhile you didn't tell him a single word about it. You lied to him. Occasionally he finds that this non-betrayal betrayal lances through his chest and becomes the only thing he can think about, sticks to his brain like gum. You've already shown the capacity for it, would you do it again? It would be so easy. Then the feeling that he's against you comes back, a private suspicion he tries to will away. You lied to him. Because everything was nullified there's no apology to give so why dies he feel like he needs one?

And Bo doesn't make it out unscathed either. All the rejection is easily explained away by you having not known, and its a rush to have all his love returned full force, but the memory of it stays. He finds himself hesitating when it comes to you, a little bit afraid that this time when he reaches out you might go back to pulling away. You had only intended to date Akaashi after all. What if you're lying about loving him too just to placate them both and stay with Akaashi? Besides that, its not as if he felt like he cheated, but now knowing you had used him to cheat on his own boyfriend makes him complicit in a crime he never thought he could be a part of. You cast him in that role. Is that really what you think of him? As someone who could cheat with his "best friend"s girlfriend? And also, how could you not have known? If not the love between you and him, certainly the love between him and Akaashi. Should he be worried that it doesn't seem that he and Akaashi are in love? He goes overboard trying to 'prove' this stuff in public, bowling over Akaashi's boundaries about being touched and his general dislike for pda, ticking Akaashi off. It salves Bo's insecurity, so its hard to cut it out.

Its a wild thing to grapple with because otherwise you three have never been happier. There's so much love and affection to share. The sex is fantastic. But this rom-com haha funny misunderstanding has roots to deeper problems. You're scared to open that can of worms.

WOW THIS ASK IS SOOO INTERESTING IVE BEEN CHEWING ON IT FOR HOURS

really communications is the pitfall for all three of you!

[drdemonprince]

do you have any advice for navigating a friendship with a trans kids whose parent is transphobic? my uncle started dating this woman when her kid was 2 or 3, and then they broke up 8 or 9 years later. i consider this kid my cousin and xe has been an active part of my life through that whole time up until the break up just under three years ago. ive still been able to see xem occasionally but certainly with much less frequency. ive suspected for a few years now that xe is trans. xyr christmas gifts from me are almost always queer/trans books of some kind, and to be honest a lot of the reasons i show up in my family the way i do is so that a) xe can see a happy queer adult just being alive and b) to pave the way for xem to have a better experience with our family if/when xe chooses to come out. xe came out to only me a month or two ago and expressed a lot of gratitude to me for being there for xem. fast forward to today, xe is now saying xyr mom is uncomfortable with us texting and will be monitoring our texts. ive always known this was a possibility, and have followed xyr lead on what is and isnt safe to text about, and i stand by 100% of what ive texted xem. but i am really devastated by this news. xe is deleting our texts and i am not really sure how to navigate this because im sure there is a way for xyr mom to get deleted texts and i dont really want that to be like…an indicator of anything. and regardless, this is going to impact how much i can show up for xem. also this is like…just so obviously transphobic since i have known xyr mom, and known her WELL, for over a decade at this point. and shes had some pretty awful and bigoted and homophobic things to say in the past. im just really fucking sad about it to be honest and i dont really know how to navigate this in a way that preserves the relationship we do have, allows me to actually be myself, and lets me continue to have this kid as part of my life.

I think you gotta reframe this situation to make it less about how you get to still keep the kid in your life, and focus instead on what is gonna keep the kid safe. Right now, the kid being caught with any messages from you makes xem unsafe in an abusive, isolating home. My recommendation would be making yourself easy to find. Maybe even do some visible trans activism in the local community that everyone in the family will be able to know about. Make sure you have some kind of email or blog or social media page the kid could theoretically access at a better time. The kid should know where to find you when xe has a safer means of making contact. When xe gets a little bit older, then xe can begin to make decisions about potentially escaping this abusive environment and asking you for practical support, and the time may come when you can provide xem with a burner phone, some cash, or a place to crash. But for now you will have to tread really lightly so that the kid's mom doesn't escalate against xem.

[fanfic-obsessed]

Unauthorized Change in Priority

I’m still on a bit of a DCxDP kick right now and I have another idea. It seems to be a fairly common trope that when DP exists and the Justice league seems to be ignorant of a small town in Illinois that was actually pulled into another dimension for several days, that the blame is laid either on the GIW or John Contantine. When John Constantine is blamed, we tend toward him going ‘we don’t fuck with the Infinite Realms’ and nopes out on behalf of the entire JL, leaving a 14 year old to handle things on his own. 

Let's take a slight inversion of that. Also I should probably mention, you might want to disregard any canon that contradicts this. 

It is important to note going in that in this one Amity Park sits on so many intersections of ley lines that it is impossible to tell which layline is connecting to which.  A bit like a natural lake bed that is fed by a bunch of little rivers.  This thins the divider between this dimension and the infinite realms, substantially.  So even before the portal opening the line between Amity Park and the Infinite Realms is tissue paper thin. 

Constantine before he joins the JDL, at some point well before Danny is even born, finds himself in Amity Park. He realizes immediately how thin the veil is in this location and, not wanting to sneeze and accidentally drop this town into a hell dimension, backs away slowly. The veil is so thin that Constantine does not even dare putting any kind of monitoring spell but notes the town (reasoning that anything that happens here will be world ending).  When he joins JLD (still well before the portal opens) he creates the Amity Park file and puts two very important notations. 

First, anything Amity Park can only be handled by the JLD, preferably Zatanna or Contantine. He has a good reason for this; as most superheroes have just enough contact with death or magic to be reactive to the Infinite Realms, no knowledge of what to avoid, and next to no willingness to leave well enough alone. If there was an issue that by some miracle had not punctured the veil between realities, it is almost guaranteed that the wrong move will make things exponentially worse not better. 

Second, he put a notation that any communication about, for, or from Amity Park is priority number 1, used for potentially cataclysmic, all hands on deck immediately communications. In short any call from Amity Park should have been immediately routed to Constantine. 

This is what should have happened. However, the first technician to receive a call from Amity Park (during Lunch Lady’s attack) decided that this must have been a miscoding, or a data entry error, as ghosts do not exist. Not only does he mark the caller as a prank, but he also used his own access to change the second notation for Amity Park, marking any call from that location or about that location as a prank, to be ignored. 

Fast forward ten years, until now nobody has caught on to what happened. Constantine had very realistic fears about tearing a hole into the infinite realms and thus never checked in on Amity Park, since no notifications came in. 

We start with Batman, in the watchtower, unintentionally running into Constantine giving a royal, and deeply pissed off, dressing down to the technician in question, though the topic is not obvious. 

Upon seeing Batman, Constantine goes “Good, you were next on my list. We need a full League meeting, ASAP, and all of your brood needs to attend, particularly Red Hood.”

Batman just growls out a ‘What?’

Constantine sighed “Look, I know you don’t like magic. I’ve tried to respect that, no matter how much death magic you and your brood radiate. But we have a fuck up with potentially dimension ending consequences and your undead boy might be the best shot at keeping us all from a war we can’t win.”

 Batman growls to cover his own confusion.

Contantine rolled his eyes, “I will tell you everything I know, at the meeting. Going over this more than once increases the chance that someone will fly off the handle and fuck us all worse” he then turned to head toward one of the conference rooms, towing the technician. When the technician protested Constantine snapped out “Mid Case Scenario is that we have to sacrifice you to the Infinite Realms for your fuck up, you stay with me until I know how bad it is”

No more than a half hour later the Justice League has gathered, including a prickly and confused Red Hood (only there because someone-Read Red Robin- thought to use the ‘apparently this is a dimension ending trouble and we’re the assholes that live here’ argument). 

Constantine starts with three word ‘Amity Park, Illinois’

Every member of Justice League Dark goes pale.

Constantine continues:

We have a fuck up of massive preportions. Possibly dimension ending, all caused by the idiot to my right.  For those of you not in the know there is a dimension that lightly overlaps ours, called the Infinite Realms. It simultaneously encompasses all afterlives that ever were or will be and serves as the connective tissue between the afterlives and the mortal realm.  Natural rips form, usually along the ley lines, to allow the spirits of the dead to pass on from our world to theirs and vice versa. It can also be called the Ghost Zone. This realm is made up of ectoplasm, what ghosts are made of.  Semi poisonous to mortals, also technically radioactive. Mortals who have touched death in certain ways begin to resonate with the Infinite Realms, mostly by dying and being brought back by unnatural means.  

With me so far, Good.

A few decades ago I came across a city in Illinois where the veil between here and the Infinite Realms is so thin it is practically see through.  Since I figured accidentally punching a hole in reality and dropping a midwestern city into some fucked up shit was not a good idea, I left but kept an eye for the name to pop up anywhere. When I joined the Dark, I put a priority alert in place. ‘Cause anything that happened in Amity Park  or  about Amity Park meant the damn Infinite Realms and we needed to be on top of that shit. Except the dipshit to my right, whose name privileges have been revoked,  decided that the careful label of ‘Priority 1’ must have been a mistake, and changed the label to mark everything from Amity Park as a prank. 10 years ago.

Yesterday a different alert regarding the Infinite Realms was tripped and guess what I found…Over 200,000 calls from Amity Park in the last decade. All urgent cries for help. All ignored. This was the last message.

 Everyone in the league looked deeply uncomfortable with the idea that they had been ignoring cries for help, the unnamed technician cringing next to Constantine. It got worse when Constantine played the last message. The voice sounded male and it sounded young (They do not know if, but it was Tucker Foley aged 24 years old), what’s worse was that there was audible pain in the voice overlaid with a helplessness. 

I…I don’t even know why I am trying this. It’s clear no one is listening. That no one will listen. But…But Danny would want us to try. Would want us to give one last warning, he loves humanity so much.  They took Danny. They took him two weeks ago and they are cutting him open. We can feel it, Danny’s trying to keep it from us, to keep us from feeling it but our bond is too deep.  We can’t get to where Danny is being held and he’s so tired; he won’t last much longer. <The voice stops and there are several minutes of pained panting> Let this serve as a warning, should the Ghost King be Ended at the hands of the US Government, the Infinite Realms will ride to war. Amity Park stands with our Ghostly brethren.  Long Rule King Phantom. 

The recording cut out and a horrific silence echoed. Before anyone can rush off to try and rescue this ‘Danny’ Constantine gets to them to sit down so that this could be done right (and avoid rushing in to make things worse). He points out that the Ghost King has not yet been Ended, gesturing at the Bats. All of the bats have brushed with death in the right ways (also Gotham was Very very cursed, which also thinned the veil. Though it was not up to Amity Park Levels Gothamites tend toward liminal as well) to be at least loosely affiliated with the Infinite Realms (liminal, though that is not the term he used), with Black Bat, the current Robin, Batman himself, and Red Hood being the ones that pinged as ‘Actual Realm Denizens’ (I know most of the league has died, or died adjacent, but we’ll go with they register as slightly liminal but much less than the Bats, since Gothams curses and the use of the Lazarus pits count as additional exposure).  

Had War broken out, the loyalty of those four in particular would be bound to the Ghost King. Constantine was also sure that between their affiliation with the Infinite Realms and the loyalty of those four, the rest of the bats would likely switch sides (Of the Bats, only Red Robin looked completely at ease with this prediction-Tim had long ago accepted that his loyalty was not tied to Justice but to Family).  Thus the bats serve as an early warning system, should they attack then it was too late. 

In addition to being the canary in the coal mine, Constantine hopes that Red Hood, having died and come back, may be able to serve as an ambassador of sorts, that having him and the other bats with them when they go to Amity Park will give them the time to talk with the residents and de escalate things. 

The meeting continues as the League identifies the goals for this

Short Term: Rescue the ‘Danny’, anyone else in immediate danger, and make contact with the people in Amity Park

Mid Term Goals: Start making amends for ignoring their calls for help, ensure the residents are safe or could be made safe, figure out why they think what Danny is enduring has anything to do with the US government

Long Term: Dismantle whatever organization is the ‘They’ the caller mentioned

Of the Bats, Oracle and Black Bat would stay on the WatchTower to play canary. At the same time they would start trying to figure out the They mentioned in the call (by going through the other calls) and any research that needs to be done. 

A Single jet, with the Batfam, John Contantine, and as many of the Justice League as can fit (with the Supers flying outside it) is dispatched to go to Amity Park; there is concern that more than that would spook the residents or seem like an invading party. They are able to land the Jet in the middle of Amity Park’s town square and can already see the devastation. It already looks like a war zone, with destroyed buildings and pitted roads. The sky flickers between a normal looking sky and a sickly green that they do not realize it from the Infinite Realms. 

A crowd has gathered by the time the amp on the jet lowers. It is a mixture of humans and ghosts, none looking pleased to see the Justice League. The crowd is led by Fright Night, Mr. Lancer, and Tucker Foley (who looks to be in some kind of pain).

This is an Eternal Trio (Tucker/Sam/Danny) kind of idea with Tucker and Sam having a strong psychic bond with Danny, in part due to being there when he died and the portal opened. Because of that all the ghosts see Sam and Tucker as substitute Ghost King/Royalty with Danny being in the GIW’s hands. It takes some back and forth (and Fright Knight explicitly asking Red Hood if the Justice League are to be trusted) but Tucker is willing to answer their questions if it means that they get Danny back. 

It turns out that the GIW had the town basically under siege and had for the last year (by that point barely anyone was trying to reach out to the Justice League). Two weeks ago the GIW managed to capture Danny (and had since managed to capture a number of ghosts and liminal humans for experiments). They had some kind of shield up that meant that no one who was past a certain point of Liminal, as all of Amity Park were, were able to get anywhere near it.  Sam and Tucker’s bond with Danny meant that they knew he was alive and could feel what Danny was going through.  The Bats were too liminal to get close to the GIW facility/fortress. They would go with Tucker to Fenton Works to begin interviewing people about what was going on (finding out that the GIW was apparently a branch of the US government was disquieting). John Constantine (still dragging the techncian) was going with them, someone mentioned the stable portal to the Infinite Realms and his ulcer grew by 3 sizes. The rest of the Justice League would be storming the GIW facility to rescue anyone imprisoned. 

In Fenton Works they encounter Maddie and Jack, radiating a manic crazy kind of energy as they furiously build weapon after weapon for the ghosts/AP residents to use against the GIW and/or the rest of humanity. Vlad Masters was with them, trying to keep them relatively stable.  The Fenton Parents only found out that Phantom was Danny and that Danny had died a few days before Danny had been captured, though they had mellowed about Ghosts over the years (they were still shooting at Phantom, but it was more of an afterthought to making sure the GIW didn’t harm any innocents- Closer to frenemies than enemies).  To be fair Danny had not been trying to keep it a secret from them for years, but after a certain point it felt like bringing up the Danny Phantom/Danny Fenton thing was a little awkward. The Fenton Parents are practically the only people in town who had not made the connection.

The knowledge that they have been hunting their baby, that they have been hurting their baby, that their inventions killed their son cracked their psyche’s a little. Before they could fully recover from that blow, the GIW took Danny and was hurting him. The GIW was using the Fentons Research as a basis for everything they were doing.  That shattered their minds more than a little. Their behavior from that point on tended to remind older Ghosts of ghosts who were on the verge of having a cracked core from either an impossible Obsession, or conflicting Obsessions. Everyone is treating them very gently and lets them keep building really weird weapons to keep them from literally beating themselves bloody on the GIW shielding.  Red Hood, as the most Ghost Adjacent (Everyone in Amity Park have been exposed to enough ectoplasm to sense the levels of ectoplasm in other, to a certain extent), and Red Robin, as the most engineering inclined, are immediately co opted to help with weapons development as the Fentons babble about taking out the GIW in distressingly specific terms, uncontrollable manic energy, and frighteningly blank eyes (Even Red Hood is treating them with the ‘these people are a primed grenade attached to a nuclear bomb’ kind of kid gloves).

Jazz makes a point to thank Batman for Red Hood and Red Robin indulging her parents.  She is exhausted and at the end of her endurance in trying to keep everything together. She sits with Sam, Tucker, and a number of assorted ghosts to answer Batman’s questions about what the fuck has been going on in the past decade. 

Back at the watchtower, Oracle has written a program to transcribe the messages from the Amity Park calls and do an analysis on the word use. From the transcripts she has been able to find a couple of important keywords: Anti Ecto Acts, Ghost Investigation Ward, the names of several ghosts, Pariah Dark, Danny Phantom. She and Black Bat begin researching. These are not fun topics to research. 

The Lantern Corps are taking the research and compiling a report to take to the OA.  Absolutely 0% of the people are happy with what they are discovering. While not all of it could have been prevented by the Justice League knowing about the portal opening from the beginning (The Anti Ecto Acts had been buried in a sub clause of a sub clause of on page 1,361 of 2,500 of a Wheat Subsidy Bill), there was significant preventable damage. 

At the GIW headquarters residents of Amity Park, both ghost and human, stood outside the shield line as members of the Justice League, particularly members of the Super family (which has the benefit of having Clark Kent the reporter be a first hand witness if need be) pass through the Shield with only the faintest of resistance. The first priority is the Shield as no one can escape until it comes down.  Superboy, the older, finds the experiment cells first.  It is horrifying beyond anything he had ever experienced.  

Several of the cells contained ghosts that not only had been living when they were brought in, but also were trapped in a cell with their own rotting corpse (Including both Paulina and Dash). Every possible human/Ghost experimentation and horror was present.   They find Danny vivisected and pinned open with several of his organs and limbs decorating the room, while he was painfully regrowing them.  

Later the vague descriptions of what was found in the GIW headquarters, reported by Clark Kent and Lois Lane, would induce actual supervillains to come out of the woodwork to help the Justice League in taking down the Acts, the GIW, and their supporters. Ra’s Al Ghul reaches out to Red Robin (not just because Ra’s also qualifies as liminal under the acts-though he does take that personally), offering support and a cadre of assassins. Lex Luthor throws his political muscle behind repealing the Acts.  Two Face is in complete agreement with himself for the first time in ages when he declares it open season on anyone in a GIW uniform. 

In the aftermath it is found that even the living residents of Amity Park are all too Liminal to live in most cities. Gotham remains one of the few cities that can support them.  A robust exchange program springs up between both cities; the residents of either tend to consider Amity Park as a neighborhood of Gotham. Gotham University is the first school to offer admissions to one of the ghostly residents, codifying how Ghostly enrollment should be counted. They are also the first to offer both a Psychological and Sociological Master degree program with a focus on Ecto beings.

Constantine finds that it is no longer possible to separate Amity Park from where it had partially sunk into the Infinite Realms. This has led to some strange warping of the space time continuum that gives him a headache, but by all accounts is as stable as it can be.  This means that while everyone agrees that Amity Park is in Illinois, and geography does seem to support that, it is possible to turn down certain streets at certain times and be in Gotham and vice versa. 

Once Danny had recovered some from his experience a bit, he does pass judgment on that technician.  Once the tech dies, he would be imprisoned in Walkers prison  for a period equal to the suffering and recovery time of all of the victims affected by his choice. 

[omghallucinations]

enhypen jake: that's enough slices!!!

two grand trines? like. two??? you need that much ease and luck??? girl could u give some of that to jay or sunghoon or ateez mingi? just a little bit of that easy-going-ness and optimism? life's a soup and i'm a soup spoon??? and like boy oh boy that fire trine and air trine really like. envelops his scorpio sun in fire wind.

jake has Layers. the top layer is fun fun cute adorable sparkly hugs. the bottom layer is vague existential wandering and desperate need to self-soothe with attention overthinking and the idea of Romance as he's trying to find out who he really is. :)

jake:

truly unprecedented amounts of luck and charm and easy communication and things just working out for him somehow

buoyant energy intelligence warmth generosity and optimism

kind of unpredictable in his reactions and weirdly unknowable in a way bc his life is a Journey to Become His Own Person and find peace and deal w his own Stuff internally (because tbh his subconscious goes crazy)

tendency to Fall In Deep Love with people in about 30 minutes, trust them too much want to merge every aspect of life but then he'll eject himself from the relationship out of fear 1 week later (also the ejection is always something like, oh i have to go tour, or something like that, never actually jake being like "let's break up bc i'm not feeling this"--very libra mars of him, he might not even realize it is him who is orchestrating it all and just be like "oh i have such bad luck" lol)

on the contrary he has so much luck i'm a little worried that he won't ultimately face up to The Shit (a scorpio sun's calling)

let's all thank mars and saturn for saving jake's grand trines from the lazy allegations

trine town baby

ok these are our trines--those big triangles. there are grand trines because they make the whole triangle instead of part of it. the yellow is his air trine red is his fire trine.

jake came into the world with a ton of luck--access to money, access to good education, access to opportunities, super likable and charming. this does not mean he always had it easy tho his moon and sun have some pretty clear "felt rejection as a kid" aspects. but still as he grew up he could "get away" with stuff, like he may have snuck out one night or left expensive shit somewhere it could get taken, whatever, but things would always pan out for him anyway.

i see all the time like ah a trine is a "good" aspect, unlike a square which is a "bad" aspect and tbh i disagree. every aspect has pros and cons man! they also change so much depending on the planets involved! but generally...

trine pros: ease, enjoyment, ability, talent, everything flows naturally, luck, aspects of your personality and upbringing etc merge together well trine cons: can be complacent, don't really take initiative to improve beyond their natural talents without the influence of squares or other factors?, potential to ignore problems or tolerate things just bc it's easier and other things are going well for them

when mars or saturn is in a grand trine you're more likely to get shit done than if they aren't. jake's air trine is not um. complacent at all

jake's fire trine... it's very fun and adorable and full of life!!! but that's where he can let things go more than he probably should

trines can also kind of be compulsive--jake's fire trine shows his desperate DESPERATE NEED for attention and action and creativity and his air trine shows how he NEEDS to talk and communicate and learn to be alive. but because nothing is forcing him to change any unhealthy habits, he often... doesn't, lmao. he is ambitious but can be a little bit too easy-going on the day-to-day, and he doesn't always... look at his compulsions in the face?

grand fire trine: clap!! clap!!!!

jake is SO warm you can feel the warmth!! see it!! he radiates it!! a little campfire!! so sweet and charming! a fire trine in fire houses!! fire houses are about being and becoming, which as a leo rising is his whole deal!

however he does not know how to plan, look before he leaps, or actually take purposeful initiative as much as you might assume. a square is do-do-do, a fire trine is here to party and enjoy themselves.

his grand fire trine gives him this unshakable optimism about life--on a deep level jake truly feels like everything will work out. he may worry in the moment, but he is able to take these risks because he can feel the way life is pushing him forward--the forces that help him along (heyyy jupiter in the first house). he takes big risks and people might be like, wow so brave!! however he genuinely doesn't really realize something could go wrong lmao. it does not occur to him. why would something bad happen???

his fire trine does have like. almost an awkward vibe with some of the planets? all of them do not necessarily mesh. the element, they are united. the planets themselves...

jupiter: wants to fly the nest and experience life and be free

pluto: deep intense need for safety and caution, wants to dig everything up and start over, wants power to protect itself

moon: on pluto's side mostly, because she also wants emotional security in such a big way

jupiter and pluto are like "hmmmm... idk about you...." to each other, and pluto can really intensify the moon's needs. jupiter softens this a little bit and makes it more cute and fun and less AHHH I NEED ATTENTION RIGHT NOW OR I WILL DIE. CLAP!! CLAP!!!

although... that is also very much a factor. i cannot lie here. he really, really needs applause to feel emotionally safe.

here are the players:

jupiter in leo in his first house (17)--there's this really optimistic sweetness and innocence about jake and he is so fun to be around. he does have a charmingly me-me-me-ness but that honestly doesn't come from a self-centered place, he just can't help it (he has a lot of empathy too bro he just also relates things to his own experiences!). he's a leo rising with jupiter in the 1st dude what do you expect? he's a star!! he is the moment!! he can't help it that he's popular!! anyway he radiates this really pure and good-natured and generous aura

pluto in sagittarius in the 5th house (16) -- he needs attention SO BAD, dude. SO BAD. he will die if people are not paying attention to him. lack of attention genuinely feels unsafe. he needs to be creative, and perform, and express. especially with his leo rising/leo jupiter in the 1st, he probably was someone venerated (royalty??? idk) in a past life and subconsciously is like i need the same amount of attention and feedback or i do not exist. jake is awesome to work with if he's on your side. if he isn't. look out. (pluto widely conjunct his south node here also shows that the past life pull here is Strong)

moon (3) and lilith (13) in aries in the 9th house: the moon is most important because that's a real planet, followed by lilith, who is also part of the moon so. the 9th is a searching, traveling, sagittarius house--jake feels safe when he's experiencing new things, learning new things, going new places, traveling. with lilith in aries he um. maybe thinks other people are taking the lead and doesn't notice how much he is actually the one taking the lead or making things go his way? lmao?

in a trine, all the energies get each other. they have similar priorities. that vein is strong. jake wants

- to shine - excitement - to Find Himself and Express Himself - he does not want to think about consequences or anything too heavy

the more exact an aspect, the stronger it gets, so jupiter/pluto is extra strong. they may not totally see eye-to-eye but they both know they want/need more and they want/need attention and creative control. jake has so much creative energy and interest and ability at his fingertips all the time and with jupiter involved, it can really have a big impact.

air grand trine: knows a little (a medium) about a lot

a fire trine in fire houses and an air trine possibly in air houses are u kidding me.

jake loves learning, but in a very chill way. he doesn't feel like he has to compete all the time, this is not compensation, he just naturally gets things and is interested in things. he feels super confident and comfortable in learning situations and environments, he feels very comfy communicating, he's super curious, he likes chatty and stimulating environments. he probably did well in school without much angst about it.

the air element is very bounce bounce bounce very fun fun fun but the planets in jake's air grand trine are.... not very bounce bounce bounce not very fun fun fun :(

mars (medium fun fun fun)

uranus (... depends on ur idea of fun fun fun)

saturn (not fun fun fun at all)

mars is in detriment in libra (passy aggy libra is not aggy aggy mars's comfortable vibe)

saturn is in its fall in gemini (saturn wants everyone to grow up and make good choices and gemini... does not... want that... .... )

uranus is at home in aquarius so she's chillin.

libra aquarius and gemini are all vibing like crazy. the planets... are... um... well they are all very a Lot.

their conversation is more like

libra mars in the 3rd: the best way to survive and thrive is to make sure everyone is having a good time, man. keep the peace. keep it chill. keep it fun keep it flirty. if i want a fight i'm going to provoke you into it and then i'll be like omg why would you fight me, now i have no choice but to end u, omg

aquarius uranus in the 7th: where is my weird significant other i ghosted the other day it's back on baby (all relationships are full of change but also the way i'm learning about myself too!! let's get super deep and then never talk to each other again!! or maybe we will?? i am super comfortable with the way things change idk! change is part of life!!) OR aquarius uranus in the 8th: hahahahahahaha i try to control my emotionally compulsive tendencies and sate them by acquiring weird power and exploring weird shit but somehow they always come roaring back hahahaha maybe it'll work this time tho

saturn gemini in the 11th: i want to be friends with everybody but also keep to myself COMPLETELY. i wanna chitty chatty everywhere and also.... only talk to people i work with? i have six friends and that is enough for me man. also i feel like... existential... ? i have so many Thoughts and Philosophies? i feel paralyzed by The Ideas and Science of Humanity sometimes??? or saturn in gemini in the 12th: ... hahah.... ... ever feel... some kind of unsubstantiated judgement from the like... universe?? haha... i am so overwhelmed by the concept of saturn (maturation, judgement, work, etc) it's like a gaping hole ha ha??? i mean on the bright side i can really make my imaginative and interesting ideas reality and have them relate to humanity tho bro

basically jake has an incredible talent for air sign stuff but um. uranus and saturn are like... ever heard of intellectualizing ur emotions? ever feel... a void? you might want to fill by exploring your own psyche and being of service to others?

mars bequeaths Action and Energy on his trine-mates, so jake has a real ability to Work Work Work, and break the mould but in a harmonious way, a way that doesn't freak people out. uranus is also a very Thinky Thinky planet so it's also action and intellect, handshake emoji.

some tremendous gifts!!! now let's look at some... . other things...

4th house placements: hello it's me, ghosts from your unconscious

here's what we know about jake's possible subconscious Stuff so far

sort of a past life royalty thing, there's a sense of needing special treatment in some ways bc that's normal to him

needs to perform or he feels he will die

Over-intellectualize, Profit

puts up this situations that he doesn't love bc everything else is going well for him and he's like, this is fine

4th house and scorpio are both very karmic bro. it's like, any signature here means you are gonna spend time Finding Yourself and Dismantling Subconscious Complexes. scorpio is constantly like, omg should i break from the chains of my past and transform??? no no no instead I should cling to the bones of my compulsive desires. wait unless...

water houses are like "i am full of memory... of the emotional ghosts of the past!" anyone with these placements is gonna have to do some exorcisms of the subconscious and jake is one of these!

his chart ruler the sun conjunct mercury is in scorpio in the 4th house, as is his venus at 0 degrees (more later)--he has a real deep deep yearning for safety and security and nurturing. he needs to be nurtured and to nurture. he also um. he needs to detach himself from the things he like unthinkingly accepts that he learned from his family. on some level he truly is struggling for recognition and acceptance--but tbh this is mostly his own stuff he'll have to untangle bc people really like him. this will all get easier when he's older.

it Loooooks like... his family really prioritized things looking nice and looking good and not um... emotional... nurturing? or parts of his upbringing were good and positive, but he did feel some kind of rejection from his parental figures (sun square uranus and jupiter/moon square chiron and saturn) that has led to some emotional rigidity/fear (moon aspects) and ummMM recklessness??? (sun aspects).

scorpio venus at 0°: uh oh i am also retrograde and in detriment do you want to get married

normally a planet at 0° explodes the sign energy in a very obvious way, but venus is (a) retrograde and (b) in detriment in scorpio so that's not exactly how it manifests. we're boosting venus the planet and some parts of scorpio, baby, including the ability to radiate sexuality! we're boosting Making Mistakes and taking A While to get things right!!

he probably struggles in relationships a bit right now. with his 7th house aquarius uranus and neptune he likely has no idea what he really wants at this point in his life--neptune, also opposite his ascendant, keeps things really foggy--and feels an intense need to get oUUTTT when he feels trapped. he has a lot of positive indicators for a stable relationship later in life but he really is gonna have to sort through those intense unconscious things before he can really be truly open with someone else.

neptune conjunct his descendant and his 0° scorpio venus show this intense romanticism that doesn't always like... align with reality. aquarius neptune loves the idea of people/a relationship--and scorpio venus loves the kdrama of a relationship. i miss fighting and kissing in the rain ass. his scorpio venus wants to merge deeply with another and his neptune conjunct descendant does not... do... boundaries... at all. so this can be a problem.

hahaha jake do you find the love of your life on instagram twice a month and then not say or do a single thing and then see something in their story that makes you be like "nah" as a defense mechanism? bud.

libra mars conjunct IC: angy but so buried nobody knows

mars conjunct IC (the line on the bottom of the MC) is already like "lots of anger, HIDES IT FROM EVERYONE" and libra mars is that x a million. libra is such a hilarious sign bro. "ladies do not start fights but they can finish them" but also ladies do not start fights overtly, they just set up the dominos in such a way their chosen opponent will start the fight themselves. with mars in the 3rd it's super gemini super fun also, libra in a gemini house, very chatty very communication. less dark than mars in the 4th lmao.

your IC is at the bottom of your chart--so people don't see this about him and jake does not value this about himself, but jake can tap into mars (and his air grand trine also) as foundation or fuel.

jake has this incredibly boiling reserve of energy and life force and anger--

in libra it could be anger at injustice

and/or passy aggy kind of anger from repressing his own needs and letting people walk over him sometimes

and/or sometimes it's also about a family situation, his 3rd house shows a super mentally active family environment and libra IC/scorpio 4th shows that maybe some things were not... spoken about....

either way jake has insane amounts of willpower lowkey--even if he lets a lot of things go day-to-day, ultimately he's gonna get what he wants (but in a cutesy and demure way so it doesn't look like jake is pushing for it).

because mars is in detriment in libra, this foundation can feel really confusing and weird. jake probably seems really excessively tolerant of everything even if he's actually not and he really wants things to be fair and gets pissy if they aren't.

round up!!

for his big players...

jake is a jupiter lad bro. jupiter loves this kid

sun!! his chart ruler and his deepest self. i feel like repressing your sun makes the sun more powerful lmao and players #3 and #4 really are doing their best to hide her

fire trine (pluto/moon/jupiter)

air trine (mars/uranus/saturn)

mars conjunct ic oof

whatever the hell is up with neptune and venus

u know i was more worried about him avoiding his scorpionic Issues when i first looked at his chart, but now i'm like... yeah life is gonna bring those issues to you to deal with babe don't worry.

but aww this kid is so cute dude. don't get me wrong he has a lot of past life baggage and shit but he's genuinely a cutie. snaps for jake, everybody.

[theresstillgrowinghere]

I don’t often find I have much to say during chronic illness awareness months anymore. I’m tired. My words feel tired. I don’t feel like I have anything new to add. Sometimes I worry though that that in part comes from my having been in various digital chronic illness spaces for almost a decade. Of course it feels tired to me. There are things that rattle around my brain that feel so obvious and commonplace (and that have been said much more eloquently by others before me) but may still be worth expressing, just judging by the ways people in my life haven’t been able to understand

So for gastroparesis awareness month this year, there are a few things I want to note from my experiences (tw for food/eating, weight without numbers, medical trauma)

1) My relationship with food is so scarred and multifaceted. It is messy and thorny, conflicting and complicated

(I am scared of food. I miss food. I hate food. I want to eat so badly. I never want to think about eating again. Tell me in detail about how it tasted. I love food. Please don’t ask me to join you for a meal. I don’t want to miss the communal aspects of eating. I feel so disconnected and other and separate just because I don’t eat. Sometimes I do try to eat and it makes me sick. Don’t comment on it, please; it’s not helpful to scold or encourage - I feel shame either way)

2) There is no cure. There is only management. I think people understand this in theory more than actuality, because when I say this I mean please, please stop expecting any management option to be The Thing. Please don’t expect something to offer substantial improvement, even if it is a life-saving dramatic change. As I have tried to explain to people in my life, those types of interventions are often complicated and risky and, in our broken healthcare system, very difficult to access until the situation truly is dire and life-threatening. Which can mean that the body takes significant damage before getting there. Sometimes by the time you access the intervention, that damage is irreversible and the goal is just to stop further decline. It’s not making me better; it’s keeping me from getting worse. For some reason that’s difficult for people to understand

(But sometimes people do find what for them is The Thing or are The Things, and that’s an important piece of the whole picture. The problem is the persistence of unrealistic expectations among people around us)

3) My relationship with healthcare is vital but fraught and heavy. I rely on it tremendously just to stay alive. It is also my only in-person access to the world and to people, which is a weird kind of mindfuck. But I am also deeply afraid of it after so many years of trauma. I am terrified of hospitals and medical professionals. I’m sorry for the way that fear makes me irrational, makes me assume, makes me protect myself. I know so many medical professionals are so caring and kind, but it is very, very hard to go into a medical setting trusting that that will be the case

4) There are some things I wish truly were obvious. Like don’t comment on someone’s weight, ever. Don’t say you wish you could “have a little of that” to change your appearance. Don’t try to convince me to “just try to eat a little.” Trust that I know my body best. Don’t offer me unsolicited advice or recommendations. Don’t say “when you get to be my age…” because I will point out that, based on the amount of damage to my body already, it is very possible I will never reach your age. But more to the point, I am not too young to be this sick. It happens

Anyway, these are my 3am-notes-app, camped-out-on-the-bathroom-floor thoughts. It is also important to note that they exist in the context of my gastroparesis being born of and coexisting with my other chronic illnesses, and they all become so deeply entangled

Wishing everyone well. Hoping your August is kind and gentle

To everyone with gastroparesis (and other digestive disorders, really), I’m sorry your tummy hurts, and no, you actually don’t need to be very brave about it. As I heard someone say recently in a different context but definitely applies here as well, “We weren’t born to be fighters. I don’t want to be brave. I want to be okay.” I just want all of us to be okay

[aroaceleovaldez]

what do you mean by fandom infrastructure?

Oh goody I get to rant about this. Definitely gonna need a read more for this one. There's gonna be a lot of general fandom thoughts here so I'll put a big title for when I get to the actual list and pjo-specific stuff for if anybody wants to skip. Okay, my anthropological fandom thoughts:

"Fandom infrastructure" isn't official terminology by any means, but as someone who's been in a wide variety of fandoms for like 15+ years and in varying stages of participating within said fandoms, I generally use it to describe the sort of environment created by a fandom that supports and sustains the ecosystem within it (and may also extend to what kinds of attitudes are fostered within the community). This obviously looks different for every fandom (and different per platform), but I think it's really valuable to break down what systems exist in different fan spaces and how those impact the community that utilizes it, and take lessons from different spaces about what those systems do and how they're effective or not.

General forms of fandom infrastructures have shifted over time - a lot of more recent formats, at least in western fandom, tend to be very reliant on source material and you rarely see a lot of sort of classic archetypes of "old fandom" like concepts such as "big name fans" (I partially blame social media platform drifts for this - I'll touch back on that later*). A fandom with more consistent infrastructure over time (plus just a general favorite fandom case study of mine) and just a general good example of fandom infrastructure is the Furry fandom. It's a bit of an outlier to begin with as Furry fandom doesn't have an actual source material, which means it's an entirely self-perpetuating fandom, and as a result you get some really interesting community structure! (I highly recommend the documentary The Fandom for a dive into the history of the Furry fandom and even some adjacent fandoms!) One of the number one things I always like to note with the Furry fandom particularly compared to other fandoms is it's a very easy fandom to join/integrate yourself into and become a part of the community - it's one of the few fandoms that has generally agreed upon written etiquette/guidelines for behavior in the community that is very easy to find (early 2020s MCYT fandom had a little bit of this as well, but most guides were specific to individual MCYTs rather than the community as a whole and difficult to track down) and a ton of guides explaining what the community is and ways you can begin exploring it. Not to mention the absolute plethora of resources available in the community for just about anything you could think of, and tons of community-dedicated spaces where people can get involved in various ways. The furries are a very well-organized fandom in general! They're also an older and very well-established fandom, so there is much to learn from them.

I like to consider fandoms that have good infrastructure to be fandoms where the fandom is self-reliant or self-perpetuating (not fully dependent to a source material - so the fandom doesn't experience total dry spells when there's no new official media.) and one that's easy to join and integrate into.

Tangent: I have this whole personal concept about "entry-level fandoms" particularly when it comes to the cosplay community. A lot of those fandoms tend to be the ones labeled as "toxic" but when you break it down it's actually that the fandom is just very easily accessible and for a lot of folks that is their first fandom and they haven't learned general fandom etiquette yet. For cosplay, entry level fandoms tend to be relatively mainstream or otherwise easy to access the source material for and then also easy to cosplay while also offering ample room to grow (doubly easily accessible while also not limiting) - usually that the main cast of characters have very casual every-day outfits that can be easily made with a closet cosplay (cosplaying using clothes from your closet or otherwise "normal" clothes) (low barrier to entry) plus more elaborate and evolved outfits for when new fans get comfortable enough to begin exploring further (niches to grow into). Also bonus points if people are able to use their natural hair at all because that makes it even easier. Another aspect that tends to be helpful is how much one actually needs to get into the source material to begin interacting with the community - if you can get the general gist/premise of the franchise pretty quickly and not have to actually engage with the entirety of the source material, that's way more likely to be an entry-level fandom (like, One Piece for example is not likely to be an entry-level fandom, lol). Homestuck is (or more was) an easily accessible webcomic, and despite it's length for the majority of it's run it was actively updating so there was no expectation to be completely caught up, plus it was extremely common to just fully skip over entire segments. Cosplay progression: human characters in basic outfits > trolls > god tiers/etc. My Hero Academia is a mainstream readily accessible manga and anime, particularly to western audiences, and the general premise throughout the series remains relatively close to the pitch from the beginning, alongside not shifting core characters too much. Cosplay progression: civilian outfits > hero costumes and more complex characters. Percy Jackson actually very much fits the bill for this as well - its a VERY popular book franchise to the point where most people have probably had to read it for school at some point, but also it's generally not expected you'll read past Blood of Olympus or any of the side series, if you even read past the first series (and you won't be super lost if you even don't read far past the first book). Cosplay progression: camp t-shirts > adding armor, props, or maybe trying to make goat legs or etc. A more recent and very interesting newcomer to the entry-level fandoms scene is Genshin Impact because it somewhat breaks the format - it's still easily accessible (free to play game) but the character outfits are all incredibly complex. But as cosplay becomes more mainstream and just in general as manufacturing techniques improve, it's suddenly become very easy and affordable to just buy a decent looking cosplay, which is very appealing particularly for a fandom like Genshin. You can have a very nice and complex looking first cosplay with little effort, similar to the effectiveness of closet cosplays in the other examples. As varying techniques improve, the barrier to entry becomes lower in more communities, and there are more opportunities for a wider variety of entry-level fandoms. Okay tangent over -

There's a lot of ways fandoms can be self-perpetuating, but some of the most self-perpetuating fandoms I see are ones that either have a lot of room for original characters, concepts, and similar (see: TTRPG fandoms) and/or fandoms that are heavily divorced from the source material (often due to the source material being widely deemed "meh at best" but having compelling base concepts) (see: Miraculous Ladybug) which is where you often see a lot of AUs - Warrior Cats fandom is a good example of both! I have not kept up with Warrior Cats in ages, but I'm still in the fandom. I have no idea what book they're on. If Warriors stopped publishing books tomorrow I genuinely don't think the fandom would even notice. They've been doing their own thing for ages. There's a ton of room for creating your own characters, storylines, and etc within the worldbuilding of the franchise where it never stops being identifiable as Warrior Cats, which means the fandom can basically do their own thing eternally without ever cutting off newcomers to the community.

The majority of this stems just from being able to not rely on the source material to drive the fandom. If the community inspires itself, then it's able to continue to sustain itself without outside reliance. But to do so indefinitely it will eventually need new fans. And this brings me to the whole "easy to join/integrate into the community thing" -

*It's later - Tumblr used to be a huge fandom hub in general, but the content bans around 2018 led to a giant migration of communities to other platforms. That 2016-2018 era is when we see a shift in fandom in general, with fandom attitudes shifting from old-era concepts like ship-and-let-ship, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato, use of "squick," etc (in general a major loss of old fandom linguistics and terminology - nobody even says OTP anymore!). There's a couple of reasons for this sort of multi-fandom cultural drift, but in general it seemed to widely be the combo of a new generation of younger fans entering their first fandoms all at once while simultaneously being cut off from learning established pan-fandom culture. Newer fans never learn about the old community, how it functioned, or how to upkeep it, and now the fandom is fully reliant on the source material and fizzles out almost completely in the absence of new official media. (Also I think somewhat the lack of BNFs/Big Name Fans can also contribute to this, as they are often the people new fans will look up to and emulate the behavior of when learning how to interact with a fandom - this can be good or bad, depending on the BNF! - alongside being able to learn about the community's history through them, since they're almost always older and well-established members of the community. In the absence of BNFs, the community often turns more towards the source material/creators and it can get Bad™.)

Tumblr as a platform, due to being a blogging and sharing platform, is inherently structured for long-form discussion, long-form text, documentation, and sharing concepts and ideas in nuanced ways. Also preservation - there's no time limit for when posts disappear, and there's no algorithms restricting you to only the newest posts. Tumblr's features even make it really easy to go back and find old posts, even despite the semi-broken search features. Tumblr creates environments where these types of communities absolutely blossom. There's a reason why it was the go-to platform for fandom stuff. Instagram is image-focused, actively discourages text, has a mediocre search, and no proper means of sharing except awkward reposting most of the time. Tiktok is even worse, being short-form video-centric (so even more difficult to repost in absence of sharing features) but otherwise similar (and even less text-friendly and more difficult to search, especially for older posts). Twitter has strict text and image limitations, heavily limited sharing options, and any attempts at threads get messy extremely quickly, so nuance is dead there. Reddit has long form text capabilities but no real sharing features and next to zero longevity. Facebook and Discord are locked behind requiring an account to even view it (instagram as well, to a point). And Youtube is right out (generally it acts as supplementary to other social media). Theoretically you could try to use Ao3 for that, but it's an archive, not a discussion board or social media - at best you'd probably just be going back and forth like scientific journalists which will not be easy for most people to follow. As far as mainstream western social media goes, Tumblr is the best place for "classic fandom" so-to-speak. There's a reason a lot of very established fandoms have built their own dedicated spaces - forums, art sites, etc (usually in combination) - the more splintered your community is, the less of a community it is. It's very difficult to build a community when you never know where the majority of your community is going to be at any given point! In most cases you'll still have the source material, but how is a new fan supposed to know if everybody's on twitter or instagram or tiktok at any given time? That uncertainty immediately cuts off new fans. And you need new fans to perpetuate a fandom (or in general, new people to perpetuate a community). Not every community is capable of having dedicated hosted forum boards and such (though GOD i wish,,,, i miss forum boards,,,, forum boards are awesome,,). Maybe there's a Discord, but discords are difficult to find, easily overwhelming if large, and often intimidating for new folks to join. Not to mention difficult to moderate and if they're busy then it's basically guaranteed most people are just going to get drowned out.

ALL THIS TO SAY: For a true fandom community to exist, essentially, it needs to a.) not be entirely reliant on the source material (instead being driven by activity within the community), and b.) have a cycle of new fans that can come into the community and take up the mantle of upkeeping that infrastructure and continuing the activity within the community, usually with low barrier to entry. This is where that fandom infrastructure becomes important, because that's exactly what supports and encourages that activity in the first place.

To begin with, you must have a community acceptance for deviating from the canon/source material. This is normal and fine and okay. This is what fandom is known for. This is exactly why we have the terms "fanon" (concepts largely agreed upon by the fandom but not officially canon) and "headcanon" (the canon that exists in your head/is personal to you) and AU (alternate universe)! You have to help foster this - you don't have to actively engage with every canon deviation you see, but respect when it is other people's prerogative to deviate from canon and don't shut them down just inherently for "daring to disrespect the sacred canon" or whatever. Remember the ancient fandom proverbs: don't like-don't read, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato ("Your kink is not my kink and that's okay"), ship-and-let-ship, etc. Cringe culture is dead, engage in some whimsy, and remember that ultimately you always are the one to curate your own online experience. Etc etc.

The other major thing is you need to foster spaces where new fans can easily enter and begin engaging with the community. These spaces are extremely important in fandom communities because it's what allows fans who are completely new to fandom to comfortably begin partaking in fandom at a level appropriate for them and without pressure. It's in these spaces that those whose who wish to can begin fostering skills that then leads them to engage with the fandom in larger and more complex ways, growing into different niches within the community and thus allowing the fandom to continue. (I have a whole little essay about this topic [here] which is extremely relevant to my major points here.)

"Alright so where's the PJO-specific stuff and actual examples?"

I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. So, to answer the beginning question - what is some fandom infrastructure I've seen in other communities (and/or Riordanverse fandom, back when we had that kind of stuff)? These are generally types of blog or other niches that prompt activity, discussion, and other forms of interaction within the community. I have comprised many examples though forgive me if my organization is messy because these are somewhat difficult to categorize concisely: (Also if you do know of examples in the riordanverse fandom of any of my examples, like specific blogs or etc, feel free to comment them!)

- General community hubs and community spaces. I have these as two slightly different but adjacent categories since I think these things generally fall into one of two categories - spaces meant for general chatting and interacting with other fans (community spaces) and spaces more meant to find specific topics (hubs).

Things like forums, discord servers, group chats, etc - these exist in the PJO community but are far and few between and difficult to find. If you run one I highly recommend putting a link in your tumblr sidebar (enable custom theme > edit theme > new page [bottom of sidebar on the left] > there should be a little dropdown menu where it says "standard layout" - select "link" and plug in a discord invite set to never expire. there ya go). A couple I know of include my own (one for general riordanverse and one for my askblog), the Titan Army discord, these two, Riordanverse artists server, Nicercy (Percico) events, Jasico challenges, and Above The Clouds (also jasico). There used to be a big general PJO server but it's mostly inactive now (I affectionately refer to it as functionally a knitting circle these days, cause that's most of what's discussed there now, lol). There also used to be a well-known TOA-specific one and a general Riordanverse cosplay discord but both had problems and I'm not sure either still exist. I've heard there may also be a Percabeth server floating around somewhere? But I've never seen it.

"Hubs" is what I label things like blogs surrounding specific designated topics, usually consolidating stuff like general fanworks, specific fanfiction, fanworks of specific characters/groupings/ships, etc. I believe there might be one or two general riordanverse fanart blogs floating around. I'm not sure about blogs for specific fanfiction. A lot of ship-specific blogs went inactive by like 2017 but a couple are still alive like @solangelo. (I'll get into some other examples in a similar vein to this later*) We don't have a designated blog for keeping tabs on whenever there's a Riordanverse fanzine or similar project but some fandoms do (I would love this btw and i am almost tempted to do it myself) - an old pan-fandom one was fanzinewatch. I run a blog dedicated just to reblogging fanart (and occasionally other fanwork) of Hazel and Nico - @deathsibs. I don't know of any individual character-specific blogs off the top of my head unfortunately. Etc etc.

In general the purpose of these things is to help connect the community and make it easier to find and promote things or meet people. These are good places to ask questions, particularly directions or recommendations. That brings me to another one-

- Ask/Tag games and memes. Back in ye olde tumblr days there used to be TONS of fandom-specific inbox and tag games, or people would do milestone promos or etc and do these massive blog recommendations or literally just list everyone they follow or similar. This was a really useful way for people to find more blogs for specific topics and engage with each other in general. Here's an old one I found as an example. My friend has a nice tag with a bunch of old ask memes as well, and Hermitcraft-ask-games is a great example of a blog categorizing fandom-specific ones (Hermitcraft/adjacent MCYT in this case). Tag games can refer to both posts where you respond to the prompt in the tags while reblogging or a game where you tag other people - the latter has mostly fallen out of favor cause it can get very spammy and posts can get very long with it. Less spammy versions tend to be something more akin to an ask game or a follow forever, where you are responding to a specific question or prompt by tagging blogs that fit that, usually as a recommendation. It's a little nicer and more favored because then you're promo'ing other folks and usually it's not a long chain of reblogs, plus the posts tend to have dedicated formats so they aren't super messy.

- In another similar vein, Art games/memes. PJO fandom doesn't have a lot of these! These are your "Draw 6 Characters," "Character color wheel," etc prompts. The fandom I see this the most in is MCYT fandom, particularly Hermitcraft/Trafficblr! There's a ton of little variant prompts I see all the time there (not just for fanart! also fanfic and etc!) - Characters in your style, Fanon species swap, color palette swap, etc etc. (I am totally going to try and make one of these for riordanverse, give me a bit, lol)

- Prompt weeks/months. Also similar - prompt weeks/months/etc are pretty self-explanatory. They're events that give you a set of prompts to create/post fanwork themed to over that time period. PJO fandom used to have plenty of these, though I only see a couple floating around these days. I know Jasico Week/Jasico Challenges and Solangelo Week are still alive, and TA week happened recently. Fun fact, in some smaller/largely inactive fandoms I've actually seen prompt weeks DM active people in the community to tell them the prompt week is happening which I actually really like. In circumstances like that where a fandom is so small, scattered and inactive, it's a good means to get the word out.

- Headcanon/ship/"Imagines" blogs *It's later (again)! Headcanon blogs used to be EXTREMELY common back in ye olde days of fandom. Some of the most popular iterations tended to be ship-specific headcanon blogs. PJO fandom had A TON of these (and many are still up! They just haven't posted since like 2017 at the lastest. Quite the trip down memory lane though). They were generally formatted by people submitting their headcanons/"imagines" anonymously, which would then be formatted into an image to match the blog's general format (sometimes themed to specific characters or subjects, depending on the submission itself) and posted. A good example from PJO fandom I stumbled across the other day while looking at old askblogs is Percicoheadcanons. Absolute classic format right there. Also bonus time capsule points - the most recent post is from before Blood of Olympus was published. That's just particularly amusing to me given the ship in question here.

- Shortform Headcanons / Short Memes & Shitposts Helyeahmangocheese reminded me of this one in my previous post - shortform headcanons are essentially any headcanon thrown out into the world in a short format. So you're "headcanon that [x]" or whatever with no elaboration. Just quick little snappy things off the top of your head that people can pick up and run with. Sometimes there would be blogs dedicated to these, with people submitting them in blog formats like the above, and then shortform headcanons to be posted in that format. Short memes & shitposts are the exact same type of thing - just short little silly textposts and similar cracking jokes that the fandom can take and run with. Both of these are more important to the fandom than you'd think - a.) they have a very low barrier to entry, which means they're a great way for new fans to begin engaging with the larger community. b.) they circulate new ideas for other fans to build off of, creating collaborative concepts. These collaborations help build the community with giving opportunities for people to chat/inspire each other's work and can create iconic fandom moments or community references/in-jokes. And old one from PJO fandom that floated around was somebody threw out the concept of Will Solace's weapon being a lasso/whip (because cowboys/he's Texan/etc) made of light, which then got illustrated and elaborated on by many other fans such as Cherryandsisters and was very popular fanon for a time.

- Confessions Blogs These ones can be decisive in fandoms, depending on how they're run. Confession blogs in general are blogs where people anonymously submit fandom thoughts, opinions, etc (formatted similarly to HC/imagines blogs like above). There's also usually a decent amount of funny confessions like initial misunderstandings or confusion about things. Most well-run ones of these will have rules against negativity towards other fans and similar. When done properly these blogs can be a nice way for the community to have discussions about topics that they may be afraid to broach publicly, and easily can generate community in-jokes.

- Positivity blogs / Fandom voting Somewhat opposite to (at least, more negative) confession blogs, fandom positivity blogs are a very sweet way to spread compliments around the community. Sometimes they're anonymous, sometimes not. Generally though the format is people can submit compliments or kind notes to other people in the community and it'll get posted tagging the individual in question. Trafficblrpositivityproject is an MCYT example of this concept. Fandom Voting is a little bit more odd and varies a lot between communities. An old one PJO fandom used to do was PJO Prom, where people could nominate blogs for different categories, they would either accept or deny their nominations, and then folks would vote for their top favorite blogs of each category and winners would be announced (though the event also included more than just that - like blogs asking each other to prom and etc). In other fandoms I've also seen elections where various members of the community would jokingly campaign for election (including choosing other members of their campaign), people would vote for a winner, and then do it all over again. Fandom elections tend to be a lot more chaotic and silly, versus stuff like fandom prom voting is more geared towards just appreciation towards members of the community.

- Fandom Events / Community Projects Related to PJO Prom, (and prompt weeks/months) general fandom proms or valentine's events used to be pretty popular, especially amongst RP and askblogs. These weren't always strictly organized, but they generally involved asking other blogs to prom/to be valentines and then people would draw cute prom/holiday art or similar to celebrate. Some blogs would send out valentines to multiple blogs just as a nice cute lil treat in a similar vein to how some blogs still do trick-or-treating events. Trick-or-treating events have been a thing for awhile, generally following that same structure, but it's become significantly more popular in general now that tumblr has image embeds possible in asks rather than having to submit a post. Other fandom events can include fandom elections like mentioned before, or any number of things really, but the majority of regular ones will include gift/fanwork exchanges in some form. Secret Santa projects are very common (and PJO did have them! There isn't one singular PJO Secret Santa blog since it seems different folks did different years so I can't link it, but I participated in 2016 iirc. It looks like the most recent one was in 2021 - pjosecretsanta2021). I did find Rrversesummerbang as a recently active one as well. Zines and similarly collaborative projects are also common - PJO fandom does occasionally have zines but they aren't very frequent and generally don't get a ton of traction (which is very sad cause zines are very fun - most of it seems to be just the fandom doesn't have good ways of getting word out about events through the community). We've also had a couple of coloring book projects! I participated in the 2016 one and there was another in 2022. Some other fandom and pan-fandom examples of similar stuff is Mcytrecursive (Gift exchange for fic-of-fic, in this case MCYT-specific), Fic in a box, Mcytblraufest (AU fest), general holiday exchanges, etc. (A lot of my examples are MCYT cause man that fandom is active). There are a lot of pan-fandom ones of these, but usually involvement of specific fandoms is entirely dependent on sign-ups and it can be difficult to know or guarantee any specific communities participating. Fandom-specific ones are generally more well-known in their own communities for obvious reasons. In other projects, Riordanverse fandom even once had a Multi-Animator Project! These are more common in fandoms like Warrior Cats that are very artist and animator-centric, but the fact that we have at least one major one at all is pretty cool! Collaborate games in similar veins to big events/projects like this (see stuff like the art meme/games) can also be great ways to get the community active and engaged. Voting/poll stuff like character or ship brackets can be really interesting too and depending on how it goes down can become an EXTREMELY major event in the community (see: MCYT Tumblr Sexyman bracket). Very fun times.

- Incorrect Quotes / Text Post Memes / Chat Posts Rolling back to headcanon/imagines blogs, incorrect quotes for specific ships/character groupings used to be extremely common. And not even just dedicated blogs, but incorrect quotes/chat posts were pretty much the number one thing the average fan who didn't create fanart/fanfic/etc would post. I was actually quite surprised to see that Incorrectpercicoquotes is still alive. They post more than just incorrect quote/chat posts (not uncommon for blogs of those nature, especially back in the day), but still it feels like seeing a thought-to-be-extinct-species in the wild eating a bag of chips. Anyways, like shortform headcanons and memes/shitposts (of which these are somewhat a subcategory of), these are another low barrier to entry type of fandom engagement, which means they're great for new members of the community.

- Askblogs MY FAVORITE TOPIC. I have a list of PJO askblogs on my sidebar actually cause I'm very passionate about them and askblogs in general. For what an askblog is, my blog @askblog-index goes over that and also I answered some questions about askblogs recently, which you can find in my askblogs tag (also I'm always open to answering questions about askblogs please ask me about askblogs I love them so much). There's so many different varieties too - text, illustrated, cosplay, voice acting, combination, etc etc etc. Askblogs are a really fun means for collaborative storytelling in the community, especially with how much they tend to generate headcanons or put characters in silly little scenarios. Cherryandsister's Will Solace askblog is practically personally responsible for a solid 50% of all Will fanon. Photokinesis!Will was entirely popularized there. They're also a really great place for people in the community to build up their skills - yknow those jokes about "the best way to improve your art is to become obsessed with something and draw it one billion times?" yeah askblogs are that. My art improved so much by starting an askblog because it pushes you to draw things you might avoid normally or wouldn't expect to draw - or if it's not an art askblog, is just plain good practice for writing or voice acting or whatever. It's a regular outlet where you can build up your skills with not a lot of pressure but also outside encouragement and concepts to build off of. Character or fandom-specific daily art blogs and similar request art blogs are similarly also very useful to building up skills (and can be applied to other artforms like fic writing!) (Request blogs are not the same as askblogs though please dont send random art requests to askblogs just gotta put that disclaimer). I also personally consider them extremely vital to fandom ecosystems, though often overlooked - remember those old "ask the seven" posts that would be the terribly colored text in random fonts on a white or poorly-chosen-color background that'd just be random stuff and it'd get reposted absolutely everywhere? For a lot of people that's both some of the first stuff in a fandom that they might make, and also some of the first stuff people used to see in fandoms in general. With my whole silly theory of fandom ecological niches, those types of posts are your base of the pyramid, because it's where most fans are going to start out. It gives them a low-stakes place to begin engaging with the community and figure themselves out and begin exploring the characters and media on a deeper level. That's what fandom is all about! It's what separates fandom from just the general audience of any particular thing. Those types of posts were popular because they're just easy to make! All you need is mspaint, if even! They get across their concepts quickly and easily in an easily sharable format - that's exactly why they got reposted absolutely everywhere! The concept of those posts (and general character chat posts/incorrect quotes) still exist in other spaces in fandom communities, but in different formats - usually tiktoks, being spoken and acted out loud. The problem with that format though is it can't go anywhere - even in shortform video format there's no way to easily condense it down (and also they have a higher barrier to entry, as the format at it's simplest usually requires some aspect of showing your face/using your voice. This means you inherently have to sacrifice some amount of privacy to engage with the format, which isnt friendly to new/younger fans). Meanwhile these ask-the-seven posts are one jpeg that gets across the entire concept. And we've evolved! We have better technology! We can pick better colors and fonts and add image descriptions! We can bring the format back!

- Cosplay This one is pretty self-explanatory - just. Cosplays are a type of fanwork too! PJO cosplay used to be pretty common on tumblr actually! Particularly there used to be a decent number of cosplay askblogs (which are just askblogs where instead of responding to questions with text or a drawing, asks are answered with either a gif or image of the mun/mod in cosplay reacting in-character). Cosplay is cool! And in PJO fandom it's particularly easy!

- Roleplaying Spaces PJO fandom does have a pretty active tumblr RP scene as far as I've been able to tell, which is good! Also you can find people who want to RP pjo just about anywhere. It's just somewhat of a matter of giving them a space to do so. I talked about how to get into roleplaying recently on my blog as well. RP is also one of the forms of fandom infrastructure in this list that transfers well to other social media platforms, in large part due to social media RP making it a whole lot easier. The fandom is mostly just severely lacking in hubs to locate RPs and help people find ways to begin engaging with them.

- Public AUs / OCs Public AUs/OCs are a bit of a weird one to describe - they're basically any AU/OC that the creators (if there is a singular known creator of it) have given total free reign to people with. More often it's an AU that doesn't have a particular known creator but the fandom likes to run around with and do a lot with. In PJO fandom, the ye olde fandom OC was Peter Johnson, a son of Demeter. The AU generally was about how Peter Johnson was a new camper and Mr. D's favorite camper, and just generally a sweet lil guy while Mr. D proceeds to torment Percy because of the name jokes. A series of public AUs that's completely unique to PJO is Godswap aus - there's no one singular set godswap au, but the two most common swaps tended to be Demeter!Percy (in part due to Peter Johnson) and Aphrodite!Nico (admittedly this one was like 90% gay stereotypes/homophobic tropes and there's a reason why the fandom kind of dropped it. It was absolutely the most popular godswap for a time though, and some of the concepts from it have bled into general Nico fanon for better or worse). General pirate aus have also always been very popular in the fandom - there were some old ones back in the day, including local BNF (Big Name Fan) Saberghatz having at least one, maybe like two or three, including a cosplay. Pirate!Nico in particular was very popular. There was actually a slight resurgence of PJO pirate AUs on pjo cosplay tiktok in like 2020 or so I wanna say. Truly we came full-circle there. There's also just general popular AUs that fandoms like to run with. For awhile PJO fandom had a HTTYD au they really loved. The current fandom favorite AU seems to be Velinxi's Young Gods/Hades Game AU.

- Fangames This one might sound odd because Riordanverse fandom doesn't really have this, but fangames can be REALLY fun and cool. Fangames also often spark mini-fandoms in themselves and are just really awesome in general. There's a lot of different varieties of vastly varying complexities, but a lot of it is pretty much just "I made a game, it's about [fandom], here ya go." Some good examples from other communities off the top of my head are games like ClanGen or Untold Tales for Warrior Cats, or Featherbent from the Homestuck fandom which was a visual novel / AU fanfic. Btw, visual novels are actually not all that difficult to create. If you're interested in trying to make one I highly recommend checking out Ren'Py - it's basically a program to make visual novels with.

- Other project types / General Collaboration Related to community events, particularly Multi-Animator Projects (MAPs), AMVs/PMVs/Lyricstucks ("animated music videos" and "picture music videos" - lyricstucks are the same as the latter but usually in a scrolling tumblr post format with the song linked at the beginning rather than video format) are very cool and can be both individual or collaborative projects (in Riordanverse fandom most are probably very familiar with Viria's old lyricstucks - Nothing Left To Say and How Far We've Come). Some folks do dubs of fancomics (also used to be a thing in PJO fandom, particularly back when the PjoVoices group was active and the brief stint in the fandom when we had some Voice Acting askblogs) which can be a nice way to collaborate and engage with other fans in different mediums. "Aesthetics"/Moodboards (usually an arrangement of either 2x3 [former] or 3x3 [latter] grids of images) and the more recent "webweaves" also are a great low barrier to entry type of fanwork that has a lot of variety and versatility (just make sure to credit art/photos used) - especially if you make moodboards/webweaves inspired by people's AUs/fics/etc!

- Gifset Makers / Editors In Riordanverse fandom we don't see this often, because we're primarily a book fandom, but back in the days of the movies and more recently now with the show, editors and gifset makers are a very cool niche of fanwork creators. Gifset makers is pretty self-explanatory - they're people who make gifs. Editors can range from people who make edits of clips or put together clips of images or a whole bunch of very different things. Very wide range there. Edits (with credit to the original artists) can be a really fun alternative to AMVs/PMVs/etc if you don't draw but you have a concept (CREDIT THE ARTISTS - trust me, having your art used in an edit can feel super cool but ONLY IF IT'S CREDITED. IF IT'S NOT CREDITED IT'S NOT FUN. if you ask and credit people will probably be happy about it!). Edit blogs can also be very fun and are often a big hit in fandoms - "Where is [x]" and "[character] in places" are classics. Again just remember to credit artists appropriately and ask permission to use their work.

- Fanwork Promotion Blogs/Hubs PJO fandom does have a couple of these still floating around I think! I don't know them off the top of my head but I swear i've seen them recently. Regardless - these are any sorts of blogs that promote other fanworks. Maybe it's dedicated to just general fanart, general fanfic, stuff of a specific AU or concept. Going back to previous bullet points, character or ship-specific blogs are a form of these. They can range from elaborate and complex with how they promote or spotlight and recommend works, to just literally being random reblogs of stuff of a specific topic. These can actually also be a really nice if you're looking for a simple way to get more involved in the community, because chances are if you're on tumblr you know how to reblog things and that's about all it takes. These hubs can be really nice ways for more fans in the community to get spotlighted/recognition and become more well-known, and it also helps fans looking for specific types of fanwork. (The only caveat with these is if you are going to make a generalized hub blog, you have to actually make it generalized. You can't just exclude the things you personally don't like just because you don't like them - if you don't want to deal with that, make a more specialized hub blog for your more focused interests instead.) (Also personally I'd recommend if you're making one of these types of blogs that you're an adult, cause these blogs can require fandom tag-spelunking that may not be appropriate for all ages - ESPECIALLY if you run a fanfic hub.)

- General Resources This can look like a lot of things, particularly depending on what the fandom is about, but in general a lot of fandoms will have dedicated places to finding different types of information, and often important fandom terminology and sometimes fandom history. Fan Wikis may cover some of this, but not always (and depending on how the wiki(s) are run in a particular community, may not even have reliable information to begin with. I'm looking at you Riordanverse wiki). In furry fandom for example there's a ton of resources for how to get started in the community, commonly accepted community guidelines and general etiquette, fandom history and terminology, resources to find fursuit makers or other artists, various tutorials, etc etc etc. PJO fandom does not really have this! Like i mentioned in previous bullet points, while we have some hub/promotion or character/ship-specific blogs, they're relatively far and few between and commonly inactive, not to mention usually very specific in what niche they're focused on. The wiki only covers the source material (and is questionable quality at best most of the time) with there being next to no resources in the community in general for stuff like fandom history or terminology or etc. Did you know PJO fandom used to be part of the Superwholock of book fandoms (it was PJO, HP, Hunger Games, and Divergent. there was a whole symbol for it)? Did you know we used to have our own fandom lingo? Members of the fandom were usually called demigods or half-bloods, people would put their cabins in their bios (people would make little banners or other decorations to put on your blog themes to show your cabins or pjo stuff in general!), and we'd say stuff like "Spread this like greek fire" and "Amazhang" and etc. Those are actual things people said unironically very frequently. You're probably most likely to be familiar with "Persassy." We don't necessarily need to bring all of those things back, but point is we did use to have a community identity and sort of genuine subculture! And we lost that! There are so many community jokes and similar that most people have forgotten or at best kind of know of but don't remember the origins or contexts for. In other communities they have documentation for this kind of stuff - you should see some of the documentation that MCYT fandom does, particularly if the MCYT in question is a popular streamer or the SMP is primarily streamed content. Holy cow it's thorough. Resources and documentation are what help keep fandoms alive, because they give a means for new members of the community to learn the history of the community, learn established rules and etiquette, and just generally find their way around where they otherwise might be lost. It's really invaluable but often overlooked.

Okay, i think that's all the ones i can think of. This post has taken me over a full day of working on it, lol. Anyways i'm very passionate about fandom history and PJO fandom history/community in general so this was very fun for me to go on a deep-dive about. Also now i'm really tempted to put a lot of my old fandom knowledge and unnecessarily complicated lists/documentation to good use and try to help build up some of these bullet point concepts for riordanverse fandom myself because dammit somebody's gotta do it. But that's all i've got for now! As always feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything, or if you just wanna hear me babble on more about general fandom structures (i have another ramble about different types of fandoms relating to what fanworks they tend to exhibit the most!)/pjo fandom history/askblogs/RP community/whatever, I am always more than happy to talk!

[balkanradfem]

To the anon who sent me a message about how she hates her era of being libfem and can't forgive herself!

I think the only way we can go easy on ourselves is to see that it happened to all of us, all of us were affected and most of us were trying to be kind, understanding and reasonable in those times, and what was presented to us as 'kind and understanding' was saying 'not all m*n'.

And the thing is, we didn't have all the information back then. We didn't have the stats. The actual amount of violence and abuse m*n unleashed on women was carefully and meticulously hidden behind closed doors, endless victim blaming, endless rationalizations. And we were so young! We couldn't have looked at the situation and immediately go 'oh yes it's very clear males are dangerous, violent and destructive and we need to get away from them asap', we all had some connections to males in our lives, we all were at least somewhat manipulated into spending time with them and tolerated their stupidity, and we didn't know yet what was in front of us!

And it's not only the lack of information and real stats being deeply hidden from our eyes, it's the societal pressure. I remember whenever I expressed my opinions on blaming males for their actions, I would be persecuted for it immediately, I would be told I was 'not a real feminist', people in my friend circle would look at me as if I was a disgusting, dangerous and evil creature and they wanted to take distance from me, that's not something a woman can just ignore or feel okay about! We're all susceptible to self doubt when our surroundings tell us that we're wrong, even evil for thinking the way we do. Even when we're 100% right, peer pressure gets to us, gets us to doubt our own minds. We don't often have it in us to fight for our views if we have no support and everyone stands firmly against us.

I don't believe I would fully be able to be a radfem now if I didn't find a community of support and access to all of the information on tumblr, and in all of the feminist books I've been reading; it's the community and access to information that helped me stand firm on facts and reality.

And also there are women in the very late stages of their lives, who are still defending m*n, and in fact, most of women are doing it still, we are in the minority. A lot of information is still being withheld from women. And I don't judge or hate any of them, I know with proper access to resources, information and support, they would all figure it out.

And you did figure it out! There's no shame in getting more information on a situation and then changing your mind and standing firm with reality, it's what people are supposed to do. It's the only way to get closer to reality, to shape our worldview. I believe you're expecting the impossible from your younger self, none of us were able to figure it out immediately, or all on our own, so there's no fault if you couldn't either. And you don't have to be open about it if you don't feel comfortable, but a lot of people would be comforted to know that it's not only them, that it happened to others too, that being a libfem is the only way to eventually become a radfem.

Also I live in a country where feminism itself is still a bad word, and in most places there are not even libfems. Patriarchy is not being questioned at all, no positive statements are published about women. Women here would be estatic even to reach libfem level! And I know it's something we look down on because it's easily co-opted by other movements to promote practices harmful to women, but it is in its inception, a form of feminism, an attempt to fight for positive public opinion of women. It does not come from a place of harm, and most of harm inflicted by it is usually by another movements involvement and influence.

I know it might not affect you at all, but I can tell you that I would never hold you guilty for being a libfem at all. You've done nothing wrong. You've just lived in an era where it was the most feminist thing to do at the time, and you figured out a more effective way and followed that! I'd be proud of that! You couldn't have done anything better than that.

[gojos-thot-patrol]

Ok, LISTEN. I'm about half way through seven minuets in heaven pt.2, but because I'm working on it while watching season 2, I got SatoSugu on my mind. so...

Now Presenting...

A little SatoSugu themed supplementary material.

Ok, so let's start standard 

Suguru is a psychology major with a minor in musical performance 

Satoru is a theoretical physics major with no minor because "ew, minors."

Suguru joined the ABO frat because fraternity housing is wayyy fucking cheaper than living in the dorms. Plus, easy access to booze.

Gojo did it for the memes and cause his best friend was joining. 

Suguru is for sure an alcoholic and in denial about it

Gojo smoked weed once and won't shut up about it. He does take a weak ass edible every once in awhile to sleep though.

Gojos tolerance is absolutely shit. Two shots and three puffs in and he is gone!

Suguru on the other hand could drink an entire bottle of tequila and smoke 12 joints and only really be kinda buzzed. 

Suguru is definitely in denial about his bisexuality. Everything that he does with Gojo is just for female attention, ya know?

Especially when they're making out alone in their shared room. That's definitely for attention. Source:just trust me bro

Gojo is very comfortable in his pansexuality, and has been known to use "are you a frying pan? Cause you're so fucking hot" as a pickup line.

Ok, now for their background!

Suguru and Gojo actually grew up together, and are the closest anyone can get to childhood friends,

Which morphed into the well documented phenomenon of an all too intense friendship that blurs the line of friends and dating, where if one of them were the opposite gender they would totally be together, but because they’re both boys there using that as a shield to avoid confronting their identities beyond the default settings

They were each other's first kiss 💋 

Gojo actually had really kind and loving parents who were very supportive. 

Sugurus' mom died when he was young though, leaving him and his dad to struggle. His dad wasn't necessarily bad, but he did have to work constantly and therefore wasn't home often.

Gojo was naturally smart and school came very easy to him. Meanwhile, Suguru struggled a lot, specifically with anything math related. 

This led to Gojo, with his great grades and generational wealth, being able to go to basically any college he wanted to. 

He still decided to go to the local community College in the end, at least to get his gen-eds and the first few years of his major out of the way at a heavily discounted price.

Yea, Suguru had no such opportunity, his options were community College or to start working with his dad as a mechanic immediately. 

And while he's not opposed to the idea of working with his father, and will even work with him for some extra spending money in the summers, he really wanted to give the whole higher education thing a shot. 

He's very proud to be in his community College, as he's the first person in his family to even attempt to get a degree

Now, here's how they are in a relationship because you can't have just one.

These boys have historically shared everything: their hot wheels, their Xbox, their bed, and their women. You are no exception. Lucky you 💜💙

When it comes to the three of you together, you find the boys actually work extremely well as a unit.

Where one struggles, the other thrives. Gojo isn't great when it comes to emotional venting and stuff, always looking to "fix" it.

Suguru is better at actually listening and only offering advice when you ask. He’s always willing to just cuddle and listen.

Suguru is terrible to try and watch movies with, he gets bored so fast. Meanwhile Gojo is obsessed with movies. 

Gojos fixer attitude also comes in clutch whenever you need to get something done, but just do not have it in you to do it. Need to call a doctor but have phone anxiety? Gojos your man.

Suguru craves to be the primary partner for both you and Gojo. Yes he's aware this is irrational, no he's not sure what to do about it. All he knows is that he gets jealous when he sees you with Gojo, and has to find ways to cope.

To his credit, he's never made this a problem for anyone other than himself, and he is actively working on it. 

Gojo on the other hand fucking loves to see you and Suguru spending time together. Those are his two favorite people in the god damn world, aren't they cute?!

Sugurus love language is music. He'll make you playlists, old fashioned mix tapes, and has forced you to listen to vinyl with him. He's written songs about you too, though he's too shy to show them off.

Will play his guitar for you only when asked because he knows the optics of 'frat guy with a guitar' are not ideal.

Gojo shows his love by sharing his candy. Splitting a Kit Kat, giving you a handful of skittles, sharing a sleeve of oreos. If Gojo shares his sweets with you he wants to marry you.

They two of you bond by baking together. You buy new cute molds and cookware together and set up entire spreads based on one theme.

Suguru was probably the first one to be in your life: I.E. the one that you agreed to date before realizing (and agreeing to) the package deal.

But Gojo said I love you first. He feels everything at 100% and hides none of it.

He said it loudly and in front of the rest of the frat, showing you off to everyone. 

When Suguru said it for the first time though, it was quiet; whispered to you late at night while you were curled up in his arms.

Both of the boys are massive cuddle bugs!

You call them Sugubear and Satotoro. Gojo loves it and Suguru does too, but he pretends he doesn't. 

[rana-tiddalik]

I have found myself stuck in a motel room, rereading the Murderbot books. I've been thinking about what we know about how Murderbot and Three acted after disabling their Governer Modules, the terrifying, paralysing freedom they suddenly experience, what they chose to do with it, and what that says about their trauma, and their experience as SecUnits.

Obviously, we primarily see what Murderbot does with this freedom. The whole series is about it answering the question of what it is that it wants, and wants to do now that it is a free agent. Its developing relationship and friendship with Mensah and the Preservation survey team. Its companionship with ART, and later ARTs crew. It finds a group who don't see it as just disposable (albeit expensive) equipment. They actually value it for itself, and are quite fond of it.

There is also the longest running joke in the series, that at any given time Murderbot would rather be watching its stories. But once we see what Three is up to in System Collapse, this got me thinking.

Three, we find out, spends its time poring over non-fiction and other educational material. I liked this as it reinforces that not all SecUnits are the same, and adds the bit of (horrifying) texture that all the Units have their own inner lives just like our favourite rogue unit.

I think looking at what they seek out when they are free also says something about what they missed while they were enslaved.

Three seeks education and technical information. Why would a construct want that? Well, think of one of my other favourite running jokes: Murderbot learns mostly everything through the media it consumes, because the Company never gave it any kind of education modules outside of things central to a SecUnits function as murder/surveillance machines, and those were low quality too. We know that most of the projects SecUnits are contracted to involve some kind of mining, terraforming or other technical engineering, science type activity. Imagine spending years standing around, watching humans do things that fascinate you, but there is something in your brain that will actively punish you if you try to access databases without authorisation. At worst, you might have your entire non neural tissue based memory completely wiped, or be scrapped for parts, if you try.

So when freed from the Governer Module, Three wants to learn.

When I thought of this, I thought about Murderbot's love of all kinds of visual media, and particularly in the context of the whole " Murderbot, ART-Drone and the gang make a documentary in a day" plot point in System Collapse.

In Exit Strategy, Mensah asks why it likes Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot's response is that it was the first piece of media it saw after hacking it's module. It let it watch humans, and kept it company without the need to interact, and the unspoken part was that it helped contextualise its own emotions. This makes a lot of sense. It doesn't have to act to save the stupid humans in the shows that it watches. It can see them save themselves.

I think there's also two further things here though. Firstly, we know that SecUnits usually have no idle time. They are not allowed to sit. Their only rest is when they are inoperative in their cubicles. They stand and they monitor. So when Murderbot gains control, it gains the ability to have leisure time. Standing around listening to two scientists argue about their xenosamples for hours at a time? Monitor the threat module in case it gets heated and one decides to break a conical flask over the others head, but otherwise, just fire up Sanctuary Moon.

The more fundamental one is a desire for art, for meaning. I love the bit where it describes how it had just hacked its module. It is able to pick up the entertainment feed for the first time, and there is this show. In its first glimpse of this trashy soap opera, it fundamentally gets art. How it is about communicating and exploring a thought, an emotion, an idea, and provoking a response in the viewer.

That's why the documentary plot in system collapse was unexpected and interesting to me. We see Murderbot really experiment for the first time with creating media and creating art. Maybe it has now discovered a freedom to create, and tell its own story.

In the end, seeing these things in Murderbot and Three make me think of all the other SecUnits. I imagine what the storage for them is like. The Company probably stores them in their cubicles. Stacked and ranked. They're kept dormant until they are activated and trotted out for the initial client meeting, like the one we see described where Mensah first meets Murderbot in the Company office. Maybe they dream as they rest. Maybe the Governer Module punishes them even for that.

Then I think of the as yet unnamed new B-E rogue unit, and what it wants to do with its freedom.

All we know is it wants to blend in for now. Maybe it has a plan, we don't know. But we do know it has a guide to hacking a Governer Module...

[plutonianeris]

ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴀ ᴄᴀʀᴅ: accepting where people see you as the villain ⛓𓌹*♰*𓌺⛓

this is a general reading & for entertainment purposes only, take what resonates and leave what doesn't. scroll through the images & choose based on your inner guidance and gut feeling. 🖤

♱☾pile one☽

sometimes it feels like you can never win because one way or another, theres always someone criticizing you. People are nervous around you and its not necessarily anything you do. I got a lot of scorpio and plutonian energy in my cards/ the oracles. People in your daily life make you seem like the villain because either 1) you don't share too much of you and they are craving for access or 2) you are equally as suspicious of them. Regardless, people can be kind of intimidated of you (but never publically admit it, more like hide it behind shady comments). lol the lyrics of the song playing right now in the background "make everyone hate me if that makes you feel better, your girl talks shit about me just to feel better" as you keep climbing up in your career/ reputation youre going to feel like a lot of more people are judging you. Accept that you cant control that. And if it makes you feel any better, it is envy/ hate but its to hide some jealousy and even some admiration as well.

♡‧₊˚🕸 TIP JAR ‹𝟹 ∙ 🕷

♱☾pile two☽

I heard "theres just no way in hell that this is all on me" the people you live with/ family (and in your hometown) could see you as the villain in those moments you are trying to express your emotions. You could get called being too "emotional" I heard "crybaby" or maybe even being called a hothead & impulsive when you try to talk to your loved ones about how you feel. You could be known for having a short temper or being very emotional (like the type to cry after seeing someone in pain or reading a sad news article). In reality, people close to you can get irritated with how emotionally intelligent you are. When you're angry/ upset about something your'e always determined to do something about it, and you start off by allowing yourself to feel your feelings. Accept that some people dont want to make room for you needs/ emotions. But then know when its time to refuse to give people more access to your energy and make sure you are meeting ur own needs. I just heard "I am worth more than these poor experiences you are trying to give to me"

♡‧₊˚🕸 TIP JAR ‹𝟹 ∙ 🕷

♱☾pile three☽

you could find that people in your neighborhood, apartment complex, or even the school you go to tend to turn you into the villain on the forms you communicate/ ask questions/ express yourself intellectual point of view. If you have siblings you could find that you get into frequent fights or bicker a lot. Youre eager to learn new things and that could throw other people off as you rush past them, ready to know more about the world. this pile reminds me of a curious child lol touching the "dont touch" sign. Out of all the piles this one feels more playful. Its like people suck their teeth and roll their eyes but youre so resilient. you bounce back in a way that feels so efortless that they dont stay too mad. its like even the people that see you as "the villian" at times are still secretly rooting for you? idk lol this pile was weird but also kind of endearing. Again, it reminds me of the way a child falls and quickly gets back up. Even if people judge you, you know that you have to keep it pushing. I just heard "in 5 years... shit, in 5 weeks none of this bs is gonna matter"

♡‧₊˚🕸 TIP JAR ‹𝟹 ∙ 🕷

♱☾pile four☽

people you get into close relationships with (friends, but especially lovers or even your crushes) can make you the villain for your "eccentricity." this pile gave off big Aquarius energty (it reminds me of those with aspects between venus and uranus). lol like your beauty and ways of being are very unique or quirky. honestly, those qualities (your forms of dress, taste in music, the weird things you say, random facts u know) are actually what makes people interested in you and start crushing on you. but then at the same time they judge you for not conforming to societal norms. It's like "I think you are unique and brave, but god cant you just be normal sometimes?" thats annoying! My advice to you is don't EVER let people treat you as if spending time with you was a burden and don't let people pick and choose when to hang out with you. watch out for when you have big groups of friends, you could find that 1 or 2 could be hating behind your back. You always stand out in the crowd and sometimes that leaves insecure people with a sour taste in their mouth. You could be someone that has a different religion/ ethnicity/ background in comparison from the rest of your peers (whether it be at school or work). lol alien superstar is playing in the background rn "don't ever waste your time trying to compete with me... no one else in this world can think like me'

♡‧₊˚🕸 TIP JAR ‹𝟹 ∙ 🕷

© plutonianeris🕸️🕷️

[jakeowen]

pls talk about homeschooling (genuinely interested)

so ok here’s the thing. i was a montessori kid who went on to receive a private progressive education through college. i think progressive education is wonderful and important. my dad was a montessori teacher and i spent four years working in education access inside an under-resourced high school (including pandemic years). the reason i mention this is that i do believe that mainstream education (both public and private schools) is failing kids and ultimately society. i have a lot of sympathy for parents who want a higher-caliber education for their kids and don’t know where to get it besides at home. one of my best friends was homeschooled because his parents (both professors) couldn’t find a school they were comfortable sending him to, and he turned out very intelligent and perfectly ok, if weird. i’ve also seen other positive examples of homeschooling, including a homeschool program at a nature preserve i worked at and homeschool that incorporates the occasional class at a local high school or community college or what have you. all this to say, i don’t think all motives for homeschooling are evil and i don’t think every single child who’s been homeschooled has been mistreated or denied positive social opportunities or whatever. however, all that said, even the best, highest-quality homeschooling should not be fucking legal.

after i was done working at a school, i went on to work at an organization serving unhoused youth and also teens in dcf custody, so i’ve seen a lot of shit, way more than enough to make me firmly believe that children are a uniquely vulnerable and marginalized population who are at high risk for exploitation. and the vast vast majority of exploitation and abuse happens inside the home. frankly you only need to meet one kid whose “homeschooling” was religious indoctrination designed to teach them to submit to their father raping them every night to be ready to burn the entire practice down. children are safest when they are part of the community, when they have access to multiple and varied points of view and responsible, caring adults representing those points of view. no child should ever be wholly at the mercy of their parents or any other single entity. it is simply not safe, and even if it were, it’s not healthy for a child’s cognitive development to only be exposed to one ideology, no matter how much or how little i agree with the particular ideology. part of healthy growth and development is the ability to integrate or discern different perspectives—it’s how you develop a bullshit detector, it’s how you learn to form your own opinions, and if you don’t build that skill in youth you are more susceptible to exploitation and indoctrination as an adult.

not all homeschool parents are fundamentalists who limit the perspectives their children can be exposed to. but the practice of homeschooling allows for this. the practice of homeschooling allows for abusive parents to lock their kids in cages and starve them and get away with it because there’s nobody to notice. any practice that provides a safe cover for the worst kind of abuse and exploitation is not a practice worth keeping, even if it does have the potential to work out well for a few kids.

the good news is that we actually already invented a way for children to get educated: it’s called school, and it exists free of charge in every community in the country. if you’re worried about the quality of your kids’ education, you can get involved! you can run for school board or join the pta/pto. you can also seek out or provide educational enrichment opportunities for your child that incorporate whatever you think they’re not getting at school. sunday school is a classic example of religious education supplementing school. my parents discussed current events with me, asked my opinion on things, shared theirs, and honestly answered my questions about other approaches/beliefs, and i learned a lot from that. even better than laying out enrichment opportunities for your kid, ask what THEY want to learn or feel like they’re not getting at school, and honor their autonomy by finding that for them or helping them find it. education does not begin and end at school, but it does not and cannot begin and end with parents either.

[drdemonprince]

I was wondering if you have any thoughts on age gaps in relationships? I really struggle with basically everybody talking about this. I’ve seen a lot of grooming in my friends/community, where I can see they’ve normalized some of the abuse they’ve been through and say stuff like “age is just a number” and then also continue to take advantage of people younger than them + in disempowered situations. And this feels obviously bad and more common than at least how much we collectively acknowledge it. And then I also see people who obsess over the number 18 and legal adulthood that makes no sense to me. Like all the “age in bio!!!” 18+ nonsense on tumblr that doesn’t actually seem like it would do anything to protect or help kids in any way. Or like how consent laws often treat 18 (or some other age) as suddenly when you’re able to consent to any other age but certainly when I turned 18 and the years after that I felt exploited by people older than me. But then I also know that people have positive relationships with people much older/younger than them, you talk about this. So how do we actually talk about this stuff without falling into bad thinking?

I think people need to adopt a far richer understanding of the many dynamics of power that enter into any kind of relationship, and realize that a relationship having a power dynamic within it does not preclude it from being a kind of relationship that can and does often happen. We should be operating out of the assumption that human beings will continue to get into relationships, some of them abusive, and that we must find a means of providing for them when they wish to escape rather than restricting their autonomy or believing that there is a singular type of person who can be easily identified as abusive.

Most human relationships, romantic or not, are impacted in some way by differences in age, gender, race, access to financial resources, and other sources of power. We have to ask ourselves whether the state should ever have a role in managing the power dynamics that emerge in human relationships or in determining which kinds of relationships are permitted to exist. I do not think it should. I don't think the state can ever be trusted to manage human affairs in a way that benefits the people with less power.

There are a variety of aspects of a person's status in the world with regard to power that is often related to their age, but rarely in a straightforward way -- ability level, financial standing, sexual and romantic experience, legal personhood, education, and established social connections are *related* to age, but it's not the case that every older person has more of these things than every younger person, and indeed, as we grow older, we often lose access to many of these things and become far more disempowered.

There are also a variety of intersections such as race, gender, legal disability, and citizenship status that dramatically influence whether a person is ever even seen as "an adult human being" under the eyes of the law. Many people who are adults in age-wise do not have that legal and social standing of "full human adulthood" and that is relevant to these things.

Of course, when people ask about this they don't always care to know my views on the law (I don't think there should be an age at which you become a person, I think everybody should be a full person no matter their age), they also want to have what emotionally troubles them about the abuse of minors to be soothed. And to that I will say yeah, like a lot of people I was sexualized as a child in ways that seriously damaged me, I have seen many exploitative relationships between older people and younger people (as well as the reverse), and when I see a thirty-something dating a teenager I do think it's gross as fuck at best.

I just don't really think the state declaring that certain highly vulnerable categories of people are not people is ever going to be a strong defense against abuse. I think it makes abuse more likely and legally facilitates it in fact. I think, as troubling as it might be for us to wrap our heads around from under the current paradigm, giving all people body autonomy and full legal personhood and providing all people the resources they need to live comfortably and safely are the way that we minimize relational abuse of all kinds. Not just adults dating and abusing minors, but adult children abusing their senile parents, white partners abusing their Black loved ones, non-physically-disabled people abusing the disabled people they are supposed to be caretaking, and on and on.