#sorry it doesn't feature Madeline that much

[victorluvsalice]

Happy Birthday LiddellVxnDort!

@liddellvxndort, it may not be the skinny tall white guy/girl you were hoping for, but have something Bloodlines-related to celebrate your nineteenth year upon this planet. :) The context is, it’s just after the Giovanni raid, with Alice, Lizzie, and the others getting settled back into the apartment, and Lizzie has a few questions for her sister. . . Hope you enjoy!

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"So, um – who exactly is this mysterious third sister of ours that I've only just met?"

Alice snorted. "She does look strangely similar to us, doesn't she?" she agreed, glancing over at Madeline. Her friend was currently making a fuss over Emily's hair, picking it up in handfuls and telling a bemused Emily how it "shined like the spun gold of Rumplestiltskin." Hopefully that doesn't become the poor girl's nickname now. . . "I've sometimes wonder if she's some relation from an obscure branch of our family tree. . .anyway, yes, that's Madeline, Maddie for short. No last name – she doesn't recall it, unfortunately."

"Doesn't recall?" Lizzie echoed, frowning. "What happened?"

"The Embrace, from what I gathered in our first conversation. It – affected her a lot more strongly than it did me." Alice sucked in a breath just to fuel a sigh. "You see, when you become a Malkavian, your head. . .well, if it isn't already 'wrong' somehow, it becomes wrong very fast. I was reliably informed I was one of the lucky ones of the clan."

Lizzie's frown deepened as she watched Madeline pile Emily's hair atop her head, trying to make some sort of elaborate hairdo. "So that's why she talks the way she does? All roundabout metaphors and weird nicknames?"

"Mmm – whatever the curse did to her mind, it basically destroyed her ability to speak plainly," Alice confirmed. "She knows how to get her point across, more or less, but it can take some mental gymnastics to decipher."

"Well, good thing you're good at that." Lizzie ran her fingers through her own hair. "And frankly, I'd rather have a vampire like that – bouncing off the walls and calling us things like 'jewels for eyes' and 'birch boy' – around me than some Giovanni smirking at me through a barred window and saying unflattering things in Italian." She huffed, scowling. "Bastards – I suppose I should be grateful to them in some small way, as without them I'd still be a lost and angry phantom stuck in the remains of our house, but. . .you heard what they wanted us for. You know what they were trying to do."

"I do," Alice confirmed, gritting her fangs as she recalled Nadia's cracking voice explaining, "They weren't supposed to have their personalities! They were just supposed to – you know – do what they were told. . ." "Hence why I don't feel particularly cut up about slaughtering good old Uncle Bruno."

"Yes, well, you know what it all reminded me of? Bumby. Him cornering me and droning on and on about how I had to be with him, how we were destined to marry and make lots of little Bumblets, how loving him was my goddamn purpose." Lizzie's fists clenched, nails digging into her palms. "And I just – tell me caught him after the fire," she begged, face pained. "Tell me they prosecuted him to the full extent of the law and then some."

Alice pressed a hand against her undead heart, trying to support it against the guilt. "Oh, Lizzie – I wish I could," she whispered. "But he managed to convince enough of the right people that it was Dinah's fault. It wasn't until years later his role in the fire was discovered." She allowed a cold smile, fangs fully on display. "Which was after I finally remembered the truth myself and shoved him in front of a train, so. . ."

"Well, that's – a train?!" Lizzie stared at her. "How the hell did you get away with that?"

"My victim was kind enough to use that portion of the Underground for his sordid activities and thus had the security camera that would have caught me in the act disabled," Alice explained, smirking. "And by sheer luck, we were the only two people on the platform that day. I managed to spin the incident as an accident, and once his crimes came to light, no one seemed particularly keen on looking into the matter." She clasped her hands behind her, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Still, worry over some overeager bobby poking their nose into how much I actually had to do with his death is the whole reason I'm here in California. I was looking to leave my past behind – make a fresh start."

"I guess dying and being turned into a vampire counts toward that," Lizzie said blandly. "Our lives are something else, aren't they, Alice?"

"Oh, they are." Alice looked back over at the others. Victoria had joined Madeline at Emily's head, and was now showing her how to braid the other woman's hair, to Madeline's delight. Behind them, Victor and Sam leaned against the kitchen counters, chatting – probably about music, given what she new of both. "But – it's not as bad as I thought it might be, when I first turned. I found Madeline and got her away from those terrible sires of hers; found Victor and saved him from dying in the clinic; found Victoria and – well, I guess getting Tommy Flayton to stop harassing her so much counts for something. And now I've found you, Emily, and Sam, and saved you all from Giovanni servitude." She smiled at her sister, warm feelings filling her undead form. "I hate to say it, but – being dead seems to suit me."

"It is pretty awful that we seem to be doing better after we've both been violently killed than we were before it," Lizzie agreed, before casting her own soft smile at the tableau nearby. "But if this is our new normal, I think I can – er – live with it, so to speak."

"Jewels for eyes! Keymistress!" Madeline waved them over, pointing at Emily (who was trying very hard not to giggle). "Come help!"

Lizzle binked, then raised an eyebrow at Alice. "Keymistress?"

Alice held up her necklace, Lizzie's old room key swaying at the end of it. "I did tell her this was yours."

"Ah." Lizzie shrugged and headed over to the impromptu hairdressing session, Alice by her side. "Well, maybe I can get her to call me Gatekeeper instead. I always fancied myself as badass as Sigourney Weaver ."

[o-wyrmlight]

Forgive me, this is mostly just venting out my frustrations. It's not a callout post or anything, just annoying.

By the way. A stunning argument. A smashing revelation. I may have to reconsider. /s

In all seriousness, this is the sort of person I was trying to reason with on Twitter. This person literally took a video I made and reposted from a couple of months ago and decided to use it to accuse me of supporting Abusive Espresso x Madeline.

'What is said video?', you may ask? Well. It's this one.

You may be wondering, 'Bill, where did this come from?' You may also be wondering 'Wait, but where is Espresso in the video?'

Well. To answer your questions.

The accusation seems to be intended to paint me as someone who supports rampant abuse ships. I'm guessing the kind of abuse ships where the audience seems to 'get off on the abuse' or 'romanticizes it', a la the fandom of Killing and Stalking. The implication is that they believe Cyril supports this when he said nothing of the sort.

Ironically, this particular reply chain started with me stating, in order:

A) You're allowed to not like a female character. That doesn't make you misogynistic.

B) Drawing characters with features that their biology commonly gives them isn't racist if it isn't used for the purpose of dehumanizing or shaming them.

C) Where the hell did you get 'Espresso' out of this? (The first image)

For context, the video itself takes place in my Crumbled Castles AU, which is an AU very much divergent from the canon timeline. Specifically, it revolves around a sideplot of the larger story, wherein Madeline is a byproduct of how he was raised and has to learn to disassociate himself from who he was in order to develop real connections with others. Said 'byproduct' is specifically about his constant need to compulsively lie and manipulate in an attempt to keep himself safe while he accomplishes his mission: Hence 'Manipulative Madeline'.

Not once is Espresso even mentioned, seen, or implied--and yet this person somehow saw 'Manipulative Madeline' and decided to associate it with 'Abusive Espresso x Madeline' rather than look into what the post was actually about.

And then when I told them that their assumption was wrong, what did they do?

They just blew it off.

These are the kinds of people that are on Twitter. These are the kinds of people that see the tiniest grain of information and try to twist it against you. These are the kinds of people that lack the ability to see nuance and context and deliberately go out of their way to prevent context from being provided. (Forgive this one. I forgot to censor some names and had to re-take the screenshot from the Tumblr post editor.)

Wherein these are the two posts that they showed:

And this was their response when I pointed out that they didn't show the whole thread and deliberately cut it off?

'That is the whole thing.' 'We have already provided the whole thing.' 'Oh also writing abuse is wrong and harmful and he's sick for doing so.'

Oh, but, but, but--what is this that I see? In that post accusing me of shipping 'Abusive Espresso x Madeline'?

Excuse me??? So what is the problem, chief??? Do you not see the contradiction???

God, there is so much more than this that went on within the last... god, what, four, five hours? So forgive me if I'm a little bit miffed about this whole situation.

This isn't a callout post. This isn't a request for people to figure out who this person is. That is why I blocked out the names of everyone except myself.

Because unlike this nameless person, I don't have any intention of sending targeted harassment toward anyone. And I don't plan on dredging up pictures of them to post.

You know. Like they did with Cyril. When he was a minor. And what was their response when Cyril tried to call them out on it?

'You posted that yourself on a public account'.

Not 'I'll take it down'. Not 'Sorry, I didn't realize you weren't comfortable with your face being used while insulting you'. Just 'You posted that image yourself on a public account'.

This is in response to them being made aware that this picture was of Cyril when he was a minor.

By the way, this person wasn't responding to people at this time. They were silent for well over an hour before somebody was kind enough to send me a link to the tweet so I could tell them to take it down. But they were still online. And I know this because they took it down within five minutes of me tagging them in that post.

All of this to say: Before you believe any claims people make on Twitter--or on any social media website--please be aware that this kind of shit can happen. Information can be withheld. Information can be misconstrued. Context can be lost, contradictions can be ignored. Before you fall into the pit of believing discourse the moment you see it, ask yourself:

'Is this missing some sort of context? Does this persons' argument even make sense?'

Because they will try to make you believe that it makes sense. Oh, goodness, they will try. It's like talking to a brick wall. And they will have people blindly following in their wake to support their claims, but ultimately, it's up to you to sniff out bullshit when it happens.

If Cyril were accused of these things and indisputable evidence were given that would prove--without a shadow of a doubt--that he is any of these horrible things that this person and many others claim that he is, then I would not be so angry.

I have taken a look at the context that people have provided me. I have asked questions, I have seen screenshots and used my brain to think about the deeper meaning and find what was missing. If I genuinely felt that Cyril was guilty of these accusations, then I would have no problem backing down and letting whatever may happen happen.

But with all of the screenshots and evidence and context that I have been given, I don't believe it. If I were shown evidence that would prove to me that Cyril is guilty of anything he is accused of--or even that some of the stuff he is accused of is even wrong, in the case of shipping abusive ships because he enjoys the character dynamic and psychology--then I would admit I was wrong.

But with arguments like this? How can you expect to do anything but bully someone into believing you because it's easier?

I didn't believe people when I read that Twitter is a hellsite. I now know that I was wrong. This is the second time that something like this has happened within two or three months, and I am so tired and so frustrated by it all. It isn't fair to see creators suffer for things that they haven't done, and as fellow creators--as the audience for those creators--we have to be mindful of the libel we read.

That's sort of it, I guess. My inbox is open if you want me to elaborate on my opinions more. Thank you for reading, and sorry you had to suffer through this. I hope you have a better day than I've been having.