#that it's a result of trauma and not a Neutral way to exist

[recoord]

Staying neutral until Neil Gaiman is convicted by the courts?

Second attempt to express my thoughts on the matter. The first time, my wording was not the best and it needed to be fact checked so here there is a summarized attempt. Thank you to everyone who pointed it out.

Using "neutrality" to remain sceptical to the allegations is not as good as an idea as it seems.

Many have shown scepticism because of the medium, The Tortoise podcast, used to publish most of the accusations. I've found many don't know there's a second podcast that published one of the women's allegations: Am I Broken: Survivor Stories Podcast. A podcast made by a non-binary licensed clinical mental health counselor specializing in sexual trauma. The link for the podcast is here and the link for the transcript here. [Credits for the transcript to Ersatz Haderach].

Personally, I think you shouldn't discard the allegations just for the medium chosen, they're still valid. But, there’s a second podcast and Claire's allegations there help to amplify the other victims's voices. If you haven't read or listened to any of the allegations, that could be a good start.

Ignoring that information and testimonies exist is far from being neutral. Learn about the allegations before choosing "neutrality".

It's important to notice that in cases like the ones exposed by the women's allegations against Gaiman, "Neutrality" is already biased in favor of the accused.

Waiting for a formal sentence for Gaiman to start believing in the victims is choosing to blindly trust a corrupt system. It also sounds like if you weren't conscious enough of the many problems that rape victims face in the justice system.

I've found an interesting report on the matter with information about how justice fails victims . Here are some important points:

Why the legal justice fails rape survivors?

According to a report made by Centre for Women’s Justice, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan and Rape Crisis England & Wales.(2020):

Obstacles to conviction

- "In the vast majority of (adult) rape cases, the defendant will accept that sexual intercourse took place, and it is only the element of ‘consent’ that is in dispute, or – put another way – whether a reasonable person would characterise what happened as consensual or non-consensual."

"Given the sexual nature of the offence, it will often take place in private, the complainant and defendant (or defendants) being the only persons present."

"There are very rarely any eye-witnesses to the offence itself, able to corroborate either the complainant or the defendant’s account as to what has unfolded. Indeed, there will more often be no independent evidence at all which corroborates the complainant’s account as to the circumstances of the sexual encounter. At best, there may be circumstantial evidence which supports what the complainant is saying: evidence which, for example, provides a picture of the complainant’s physical or mental state before and/or after the attack; or there may be evidence which is broadly supportive of her credibility, or undermines the suspect’s credibility."

- Even in ‘better’ periods, rape cases have always posed very significant challenges for prosecutors. While volumes of convictions have fluctuated over the years, the rate of convictions for rape has invariably been lower than in most other areas of crime."

-“it has been widely accepted by criminal justice bodies that many members of the public continue to believe in long-standing ‘myths and stereotypes’ relating to rape, which do not correspond with reality, result in disbelief of victims/survivors, and are now outdated in the eyes of the law.”

- “When a victim/survivor’s credibility is considered so fundamental to winning a rape or serious sexual offences trial, those who do not fit the ‘mould’ of a credible victim – because of their age, their outward presentation, their social skills, a disadvantaged background, or a learning mental health disability – are the least likely to see justice served.”

- “Whenever the profile of rape victims/survivors and their poor treatment by the criminal justice system begins to receive the attention it deserves, there comes a backlash and a rise in public concern regarding the fate of the ‘falsely’ accused.”

I recommend reading the whole report for further information.

Don't choose "neutrality" as an excuse to hide your bias, listen to the victims. There is a lot of information out there. Many patterns are repeated among victims who, before the allegations were made public, thought they were the only person who experienced the same thing, with Gaiman as the common denominator.

If you want to add something, feel free to do it.

[bioethicists]

beer killed my father . he had a disease which destroyed his body and strained his relationships with his wife, his friends, and his children. Alcohol destroys everything it touches, theres a reason you see so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods. don’t be fucking obtuse. Prohibition obviously doesn’t work, but I wish alcohol was taxed higher. And i want the CEO of Heineken on the guillotine right after Jeff Bezos.

before anything, i want to let you know that i am incredibly sorry about your father. alcohol has decimated entire generations of my family, played a crucial role in the neglectful family structure i spent the first 19 years of my life suffering under, + played a minor but not insignificant role in my brother's death. i would never undermine or dismiss that in anyone.

i used to feel very similarly to you, in large part because my mother is a recovering alcoholic who raised me to believe that alcohol is a magic poison which turns people into monsters + i, being her child, probably inherited a disease which would also turn me into a monster if i chose to drink. it's a deeply painful + understandable response to the pain that alcohol can cause.

my first question is, does alcohol really "destroy everything it touches"? are there not millions of people who engage with alcohol, in varying degrees of recreational use, who experience minimal or no negative impacts? or do you believe that everyone who drinks alcohol in any capacity is experiencing severe destruction in their lives as a result? does the existence of people for whom alcohol enriches their lives (or is a neutral presence) at all invalidate your experience, or your father's?

my second question is, you've identified that there are 'so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods' (i would add there is a lot of alcohol in rich neighborhoods, just distributed in less stigmatized ways, like boutique wineries + fancy bars), do you think that companies are strategically attempting to create alcohol dependencies among poor people, or do you think that poverty creates the pain, hopelessness, + desperation which can fuel an alcohol habit (which is then exacerbated by intergenerational trauma + community alcohol culture).

i feel no allegiance to liquor companies- they absolutely do make the bulk of their profits off of people who are drinking in a way that is destroying their lives (unsure if i trust the exact scope of the research in that link but i trust the gist). however, liquor companies love the disease model, because it exempts them from responsibility. if alcoholism is truly a genetic disease, then liquor companies, bars, package stores hold no fault in the development of destructive drinking habits + community norms (natasha Schüll discusses this in her book about gambling addiction)- the people were already sick + would be getting it somewhere else, anyway, right? but as you have correctly identified, liquor companies help create the structures which turn alcohol use into an accessible + normalized mode of self-destruction.

my third question is, will taxing liquor help the real problem? yes, it reduces alcohol consumption, but does it reduce addiction? or does it make cheapskates like me say "i'm not fucking paying for that" while individuals who consume alcohol compulsively either eat the cost or turn to more illicit ways of obtaining alcohol. or, rephrased, is the problem that alcohol is too accessible? is alcohol a magical poison which turns 'normal' people into 'alcoholics'? alternatively, is alcoholism a genetic condition, unrelated to any outside circumstances, which is triggered by drinking?

or: is alcoholism one of many ways in which people who are experiencing hopelessness, pain, grief, poverty, trauma, etc use to numb themselves, harm themselves, + make life feel more bearable? at this point, i do believe there is at least a temperament factor which makes people more likely to use substances over other forms of escape (hence why my brother used substances while i turned to anorexia + do not struggle with substance use). are we actually addressing the problem if we make it more expensive (thus, mind you, further impoverishing people with alcohol addictions!)? or are we shifting the pain these people are experiencing to either other avenues (opioids, other drugs, totally different ways of coping which are often just as destructive) or an unregulated, underground alcohol market.

the way you are viewing alcohol, alcohol is a unique substance which is manufacturing or feeding illness in people in order to make them behave in ways which destroy their lives + the lives of others. the way i am viewing it, alcohol is a presence which can fill a void that is being created in people's lives as a response to structural, communal, or social suffering. when alcohol is painted as the cause of this pain, we are able to look the other way from a which world is structured to cause an immense amount of people to suffer needlessly. at the same time, the common sense observation that many of us engage with alcohol in ways which do not destroy our lives, as well as the knowledge that prohibition does not work, prevents the erasure of alcohol from public or private life.

who benefits from the belief that alcohol is a uniquely corrupting substance? what lessons did we actually learn from prohibition- is trying to do it to a lesser degree (make alcohol less accessible) actually going to do anything? when the price of opioids went up due to dea crackdowns, did people stop buying opioids or did the market flood with cheap + deadly fentanyl? is the problem that people are drinking or that they are suffering?

[yinyuedijun]

end notes for zero-sum game (tw: slavery, sexual abuse)

hi if you're here it means you read my deranged aventurine smut. thank you for reading that abomination lmao I hope you enjoyed it 😭 once again I've touched on really sensitive topics and don't want to be misread so I'm writing some disclaimers/explanations below:

In the act of gambling with human stakes, as well as doing business with human traffickers, Aventurine is essentially himself engaging in human trafficking. This is not something he particularly enjoys doing or wishes to exploit (which I did try to indicate in the narrative); he only does this for his role with the IPC. 

The reason I made this a narrative about human trafficking is not because I wish to glamorize this crime. I framed the narrative this way because I wanted to point out how Aventurine actively perpetuates the kind of capitalistic violence that ruined his life by being a Stoneheart. This is something that is implicit in the game but not openly explored, hence I expanded on it here.

Somewhat thematically related: the reader actively engages in self-objectification—using it neutrally as a tool for their espionage work at times, but also positively in order to eroticize their one-sided and exploitative relationship with Aventurine. This was not intended to condone the objectification of human beings; rather, I wanted to show how a lifetime of sexual objectification and extreme dehumanization as a slave has led them to objectify and dehumanize themselves, sometimes even in the capacity of enjoying it. 

Aventurine in canon similarly engages in self-objectification and dehumanization as a trauma response  (i.e. he refers to himself as a chip in a positive manner, clearly as a reaction to how his owner referred to him callously as a chip when he was a slave), though in my opinion he's not really implied to derive any real joy from the idea.

Related to the point of objectification: Aventurine and the reader clearly do not engage in particularly safe, sane or consensual sexual dynamics (specifically referring to how he started undressing them before they fully consented to public sex and just kind of decided what to do with them without prior discussion). This is not because I think this is acceptable behaviour; it is a reflection of their unequal power dynamic that the reader actively encourages and Aventurine is fine with perpetuating. It is also implied to be the result of his own distorted relationship with sex—he has literally been coerced into doing exactly the same thing in the very same establishment, and assumed that the reader would be fine with doing it too because they generally enjoy it when he exercises "ownership" over them, which they both associate with sexual control for traumatic reasons.

I've seen discourse around the fandom where people interpret the act of kissing Aventurine’s commodity code as a purely sexual or fetishizing action. I thus feel compelled to explain that the act of Aventurine and reader kissing each other’s codes in this story served a specific purpose within the wider narrative about dehumanization. I wrote a lot of things in this fic purely because I was ungodly levels of horny for Aventurine (lol), but those particular actions actually had narrative weight lol 

With all this being said, I hope it is clear that the reason I chose to focus on themes of slavery and dehumanization is not because I intend to promote or glamorize them, but because I wanted to explore specific points of Aventurine’s characterization that exist in canon. The theme of sexual abuse (and its psychological fallout) is also something that is a natural extension of his story arc in canon. I have no wish to perpetuate any of these things, and I have faith that my audience can distinguish fiction from reality and thus will not have their perspectives on real life issues be seriously influenced by my dumb horny fic on tumblr dot com. 

Also I should hope this is obvious but do not use your regular everyday gloves to finger someone! I like to imagine that Aventurine’s expensive science fiction gloves has the incredible ability to remain sterile in everyday circumstances 👍

[howlsofbloodhounds]

I was thinking about killer and his emotionlessness in st2. And people struggling to portray that in writing (for those who wanna portray it), but based off some personal experiences I won’t go into specifically, maybe here’s some ideas for anyone who needs them.

Maybe write his emotionlessness aspects as a firm belief, integral to his sense of self. Write it as a deeply ingrained coping mechanism that was only encouraged and reinforced by the people around him, who wanted him to be and behave that way because it meant they got what they wanted from him—consistently shamed or invalidated or worse if he showed an emotion that wasn’t wanted.

He has detached from himself, the body, his surroundings; most things don’t feel or seem real, including himself.

because killer thinks of himself as emotionless, and he very likely doesn’t feel some emotions such as guilt or remorse or even love in an emotional way and struggles with empathy which are things trauma can absolutely cause, its also important to keep in mind that it is abuse and trauma that has caused this.

Trauma and abuse has led him to dissociating and numbness, repeated everyday violence and murder and abuse has been completely normalized and accepted as a part of his existence.

His apathy is a result of all of this, constantly being pushed to his limits emotionally, physically, and mentally over and over.

Due to the circumstances of his world, the abilities of Resetting and the like, even death has become the norm. Both of himself and others. He is surrounded by so much of it that it no longer means anything to him.

His thoughts of things being ultimately meaningless, his knowledge of the Players making him believe that no one really has free will in the end. It all only makes him disconnect from himself and his body.

However. Just because killer does not believe himself capable of emotion, does not mean he isnt expressing any. His body can still react to things—crying when stressed, flinching and wincing in pain—even if Killer himself just doesn’t understand stress or enjoys his own pain. Especially if the pain wasn’t “that bad” in his eyes.

You can write it as if Killer believes his body sometimes does things on its own without his say so. Grabbing things without his awareness to fidget with because he needs stimulation, attempting to stab someone if even being touched causes his body to react negatively, as if the touch was painful or frightening. Constant fidgeting and shifting, and getting frustrated about why it can’t just stay still.

(He might eventually face a bit of resigned acceptance to this, eventually just having to accept that the body apparently needs to do these things. And no matter how hard he or anyone else tries to get it to stop, it’s impossible, and likely to just make the fidgeting ‘worse’.)

If his body cries from stress, he’d probably be extremely confused; steadfast believing he doesn’t feel anything, and just wipes it away—perhaps dissociating even further or getting frustrated, because he doesn’t believe thats something he’d do.

Experiencing cognitive dissonance, because the action of crying suggests something’s wrong but he feels..nothing. Neutral, as he always does. Or if hes physically hurt during a mission, his body could be crying from the physical sensations and yet killer is mentally riding the high of “finally” experiencing emotion.

If someone is berating him or verbally abusing him, he might be confused by the body’s tears because there is no physical harm. He doesn’t feel offended or hurt by what this person is saying to him, so why would he cry. He doesn’t think it’s logical, and thus will rationalize it away as just something up with the body.

He might look back during his moments in Stage 1–happiness, fear, guilt—with either a sense of detached confusion or maybe amusement, believing that other side of him to have been rather dramatic. Maybe he’s even curious about why the world seems so much brighter when someone like Color is around.

Because killer doesn’t connect the body to himself in his mind, he probably has a hard time visualizing it or showing any care for it beyond making sure it’s functioning and still useful. And he doesn’t really feel any empathy for it either.

It is also very possible to have people react to the way he doesn’t react—such as simply standing and quietly watching whenever nightmare punishes someone in the gang, not seeming bothered by it at all, as opposed to anyone else who is witnessing. This can be compounded by any signs of dismissiveness and downplaying what happened.

You can have people treat him differently, react to him differently, either being disturbed/uneasy by his appearing to not have any emotions—no anger, fear, hatred, disgust—in situations they feel he should.

Appearing unbothered or unphased by things said or done to himself or others as if they don’t matter—either because it is normal for him, or because he is so commonly dissociated that no one notices that he dissociated in these moments.

Others may even be outraged and offended by his apparent lack of concern or compassion, and even more may interpret him as being arrogant. Others may make it a personal thing to try and provoke from what they believe an appropriate response to be from him. (They’ll probably end up being killed or mortally wounded in this case.)

Writing people’s reactions to him and his lack of reactions, besides those big dead black eyes and empty grin, will definitely help set him apart from others around him.

He will likely struggle to accept the idea that he can feel genuine emotions; and may outright reject or rationalize/intellectualize away anything that contradicts this belief of his. He may avoid anything or anyone that provokes reactions he doesn’t understand—as a form of self protection. Especially if someone or something has convinced him that his emotions are inconvenient, useless, weak, or dangerous.

It’s also quite possible that hed be reluctant to acknowledge his body’s needs or emotions, to let it “speak” in a way, uncertain of how it will react or what it will make him do. Especially if his body has destructive breakdowns when repressed stress and pain catch up to him, and it makes him feel out of control.

Automatic responses like sweating, shaking, changes in breathing, temperature fluctuations; all are likely to be observed in a detached way and not really linked to any specific emotional state. Insomia, changes in eating habits, and chronic pain are likely to be some biggies for him.

He probably doesn’t actually know why his body appears to be in so much pain—besides the amount of DT accumulation and the history of physical trauma—but he’s more likely to take some twisted glee in being able to feel it than care about where its coming from or why.

He’s probably also likely to have a decreased immune system and might be prone to sickness, due to the results of chronic stress and the results of repressing it all; but he’ll probably over intellectualize it away.

Another form of self protection for him could be his typical silly, dumb, hyperactive facade being a deliberate choice on his end. Because it not only leads to people overlooking or underestimating him, it protects him by keeping people away.

If he pretends to feel what others seem to want him to feel in certain situations, they’re less likely to start pestering him and trying to provoke reactions from him. It also helps keeping people entertained, makes him seem unpredictable, and most of all, doesn’t allow anyone to look at him and find him lacking. Find him boring. Enough to potentially get rid of him, or replace him.

He may not may not actually care about others’ opinions of him—praise or criticism—but people sure seem to want him to, so he’ll pretend to if it’s beneficial.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i was thinking about how ariel from the little mermaid is criticized so harshly for "giving up her voice and family for some guy" when there was definitely a lot more to it than that.

ariel had dreams outside of eric. she wanted to see the world, she wanted to get acquainted with humans and human traditions and she wasn't satisfied with her life underwater. that was the whole point of "part of your world", she barely mentions eric in it. he was just a bonus in her new life, not her entire purpose.

why am i talking about a random disney movie? it's because i was thinking of lumity, and how amity also rebelled against her family for a new life. except.. amity really only mentions luz (and "the others" because let's be real, she did not give a shit about willow and gus at that point). amity's sole reason to go against her family's values was luz.

this, if anything, could be considered "giving up everything for a love interest" but people don't see it that way because amity's parents were shitty to begin with. but if you look at the little mermaid from a different perspective, you could argue that king triton wasn't a very good parent either.

he literally throws a temper tantrum just because his teenage daughter has a crush on a guy. ariel is legit terrified in that scene, and regardless of whether triton had good intentions or not, he made his daughter feel unsafe and turn to an impulsive decision in a moment of emotional distress.

all of this to say, you could argue that ariel had no reason to stay with her family either, given that her father lacks emotional sensitivity and does not sit down and try to communicate with his child, instead of destroying her collection and scaring her away.

coming back to amity, i can understand that luz inspired her to actually do something about her abusive parents, and that's sweet. but we never get to see what else amity wanted. since they never established a friendship arc between amity and gus or willow (she apologized to willow, sure, but the rekindling of their relationship happens much later on), all we know is that amity is tired of being abused and she wants to be with luz.

from an abuse victim's perspective, amity standing up against her parents was powerful. but unlike ariel, amity doesn't seem to want anything besides luz. and she never explores what she wants to do, now that she has successfully cut herself away from her mother's influence. her whole life revolves around luz after that.

there was that abomination brawl episode but even that ended up being about luz. the brawl was just a quick montage, it only existed for the emotional drama that came later on. in fact, even when the plot was focused on amity, it was more about her relationship with her father rather than her autonomy and personal interests.

there's a reason why a lot of people liked the mean girl version of amity. she had personality, she had interests and goals, she had CHARACTER. it was all fake and a result of trauma, but it was there and it helped flesh out her character. but after she is redeemed? there's nothing left of the old amity, not even the more positive/neutral traits, and her only personality is "luz's awesome girlfriend".

amity's arc should have been about exploring what she wanted outside of her parents' wishes. abuse often turns you into a shell of a person and recovering from years of trauma isn't as simple as getting a romantic partner. it takes therapy (and that is canonically an option in the boiling isles, let me remind you), it takes self-reflection, it takes giving yourself the permission to choose your own destiny and explore yourself outside of your abusers' expectations.

and amity gets none of this. her trauma and arc was resolved too quickly, even for a show that was cut short. they just gave her a makeover, got her into a relationship with luz and called it a day. the only reason people aren't giving her the ariel treatment is (probably) because lumity is a queer ship.

[irenespring]

Why when I'm trying to work on an "A Clearly Discernible Line" chapter do I suddenly get a Research series fic idea. Why. Why does this happen. I don't like it.

The Research fic idea is basically a Wilson version of "Data" where he has a difficult talk with his therapist and then has an important therapy assignment that ends in fluff. The fic would likely center on parentification, emotional neglect, and why Wilson compulsively shoves down his own needs and doesn't let anyone past his "everybody's favorite nice person" mask.

I'd want to dig into parallels between House and Wilson (House creates an aggressively unpleasant facade to distract from vulnerability and empathy, Wilson creates an aggressively pleasant facade to distract from the things about himself that he things are bad but which are often understandable and morally neutral [depression, queerness, basic human needs]).

Also I want to explore Wilson's childhood, including how he was parentified and made his brother's caretaker (because the situation of Wilson being solely responsible for his brother's needs even after Wilson left home did not spawn when his brother was diagnosed [which would have probably been when Wilson was already in college in another country], Wilson's parents must have expected it of him because of a pattern that existed for a long time), and then often emotionally neglected and ignored ("James isn't any trouble he just does fine on his own, he doesn't need anything") when he wasn't caring for his brother (the only way he could get real praise). Basically all this resulted in Wilson having little concept of his own needs and wants and being wired to think the only way to get people to care about you/want you around is to take care of them. Add the trauma from "Hypothesis" and now he thinks pleasing people is also the only way to be physically safe...and wow, yikes.

Anyway, it would probably be the standard Research hurt/comfort with a fluffy ending deal. I want to write House actually realizing that Wilson's "eating neediness" is actually indicative of something that could cause Wilson real pain.

No promises at all that this will be written (in the near future all energy is still on the fic that I am currently publishing), but I needed to write the idea down and really think about it so tomorrow I can get some "A Clearly Discernible Line" writing done.

[xenodelic]

An attempt to describe emotions with polyfragmented DID

Big disclaimer up top that this is just our experience, and we can only speak for ourselves. We were motivated to write this based on a conversation we had with a loved one, trying to explain how we experience strong emotions as a polyfragmented DID system.

This revolves mainly around the existence of emotional fragments, and the structures they take on within our system. Keep in mind, any plural person can have fragments, but having complex structures of many fragmented parts is, of course, a key feature of polyfragmentation.

1.) Trigger

Cue any sort of emotional trigger. Fragments can either split right in that very moment, or already existing ones can be brought up by the trigger. Typically several will appear at a time, each embodying a different reaction to the trigger.

2.) "Hijacking"

This is perhaps a bit of a loaded word, but this is what it feels like for us once the fragments start to front. Whoever else is fronting will typically still be there, but their reactions and behaviors will be heavily influenced by the fragments. Our mindset will very suddenly change, and we'll be thinking through the lens of whatever emotion or memory that fragment embodies.

3.) Dissociative Barriers

We can be experiencing very obvious signs of acute distress - i.e., blood pressure and heart rate increase, flushed skin, dizziness, headache, etc. But still be completely unaware that we're in distress. This is because even when the fragment is hijacking, it is still separated by a "wall" of dissociation. We often cannot perceive that its there, or identity the actual emotion associated with it, because of this dissociation.

(This was the part our loved one was most shocked by - because we had expressed before that we can be distressed and not realize it, but they had no idea why or how that worked!)

At best, we realize that there is something wrong, but severely struggle to identify what emotions are actually there. Attempting to identify the emotion can result in strong resistance, as we have parts that specifically exist to stop us from identifying other parts.

4.) Rapid sequence

Depending on the trigger, there will usually be several fragments that come up in succession. This can often be a pre-determined sequence that is tailored to the specific trigger. So for example, they may come up in the order of anxiety > fear > lashing out > self loathing > depression. After the sequence is finished, we are often "reset" to a neutral state.

We can experience a severe trauma trigger, play out a sequence of intense emotions, and return to a neutral within the span of 10-20 minutes (its not always that short, but it usually lasts a maximum of a couple hours for us). The pattern of the sequence is typically very predictable, sometimes even methodical.

5.) Emotional Amnesia

After all is said and done, the fragments more or less disappear. Within just a few minutes, we might not even recall that we were in distress. Often times we remember that something was wrong, but won't be able to recall the details or identify what emotions we were experiencing at all.

-

We hope this makes some sense, and that folks can conceptualize what we're trying to describe. Its a very complex process that we're only just recently being able to unravel. We spent the first 20+ years of our life thinking this was entirely normal and that's just how everyone experiences emotions.

Anyone, particularly other polyfrag systems, are welcome to add to this post with their experiences. We hope maybe this will resonate with some folks and help give a way to describe their experiences. This was an exercise of self-expression for us, so any sort of feedback is welcome!

[comikadraws]

does Tobirama resent all uchihas, even innocents and noncombatants or does he have prejudice and distrust towards the uchiha because of prior bad experiences with them? would he still have disliked/hated them if he processed his younger brothers' death and everything else?

First of all, prejudice ≠ hate.

I've seen people getting this wrong both ways, so to clarify, just because Tobirama doesn't hate the Uchiha doesn't mean he isn't prejudiced. And just because he is prejudiced doesn't mean he hates them either.

Tobirama's prejudice is certainly negative in nature and connected to his hatred of Madara, but that does not mean he hates the clan as a whole. Instead, he projects parts of his fear and hate of Madara onto other clan members, causing him to emphasize the Uchiha Clan's negative traits and be cautious of them, according to his own words. And this is also harmful. You do not need to "hate" a group to be harmful toward them. Prejudice alone is plenty sufficient enough.

Depending on your headcanon (ie. "Tobirama is a racist"), Hashirama might also be considered prejudiced but his prejudice instead expresses itself in a more neutral if not positive way (it is still harmful, however). It's a good example of how prejudice can manifest in different ways other than outright hate or resentment.

Tobirama's prejudice is definitely rooted in his trauma of losing at least one (if not two) of his brothers to Uchiha combatants. Madara's betrayal of the village then intensified his already existing prejudice, turning it into fear. But I don't know how much of it Tobirama has personally processed or what exactly it would even look like if he had processed his trauma in its entirety. I think that requires a lot of headcanoning and theorizing or personal experiences to relate to him.

My personal headcanon/assumption is, had Tobirama bothered enough to interact with and befriend members of the Uchiha clan (like, aside from Kagami), or had he seen the outcome of his actions, he might have put in the effort to work through his biases.

Tobirama does recognize the Uchiha for their loyalty (chapters 619 and 627) and their commitment to not letting their emotions control them (chapter 619), the latter of which is something he values greatly (chapter 622). That's probably how he came to respect Kagami Uchiha. Had Tobirama abandoned his biases, I believe he could've had a good relationship with the Uchiha.

I also believe that processing trauma and understanding that your views are biased does not always result in internalizing that knowledge. Furthermore, this also isn't necessarily something we can or should expect from people who experienced genuine trauma.

And I don't mean this to say that "Tobirama is hopeless". I am just saying that an inability to overcome trauma doesn't automatically make you a bad person. (It sure does mean you shouldn't go anywhere near a management or government position, though.)

Take Sasuke Uchiha, for example. Nobody who is a true Sasuke fan would ever demand Sasuke to leave his hatred behind him to become a Konoha supporter. He did, in the end, because he realized his hatred was aimed at those who didn't deserve it. But does that make it any less hard or less commendable? I don't think so.

Again, I don't know a lot about trauma, but it is messy, as far as I can tell.

[eighthdoctor]

What D&D alignments would you assign Sylvanas and Jaina, and have they changed since the fall of Silvermoon and Theramore? I think Sylvanas is and always has been lawful evil, her sisters just never noticed.

I think there comes a point in character complexity where alignments no longer make sense.

We'll use my latest D&D character Max as an example.

Max started out as Lawful Good. In a lot of ways Max also finished as Lawful Good. He's the archetypal Good Kid TM. Does things because they're right, not because they're easy. Helps little old ladies cross the street. Explained to an NPC that the party was helping to fight a coven of night hags (which we were wildly under leveled for) because how could we not try to help? That kind of good. Very anxious, very prone to rule-following behavior. Hates disappointing others. Saved the world through the power of friendship and idealism.

Max also spent over a year lying to his family, working as a small time conman and revolutionary instead of going to bard school. He has absolutely no problem using serious mind magic on people he thinks have crossed a moral line--the only reason I didn't take geas (which lets you curse people, like fairy tale curses) was I didn't think it would be useful in the Faewild. He did have and used Suggestion multiple times.

He is rule abiding but not necessarily law abiding, and absolutely broke into a man's house and was willing to falsify evidence if we couldn't find what was needed. He didn't kill but again, was willing to, the country's ruler if it came to that (it didn't). He sold his freedom to an archfey for knowledge. He could lie well enough to defeat just about anyone's checks, and did, and used exact words to get away with aforementioned breaking-and-entering to the cops.

To a cop friend.

To his employer.

So Lawful Good? Or Chaotic Neutral? Certainly the Summer Queen didn't like him very much (before he rewrote her mind to forget about him + the rest of the party) and might call him Chaotic Evil.

Here's what I think:

Jaina is, fundamentally, someone who tries to do The Right Thing. What is that thing? She's willing to put in the energy to find out. She wants to be a good person, she tries to be a good person. She also has been repeatedly traumatized, has repeatedly had it demonstrated to her that many others are not working in good faith, and can be skeptical and caustic as a result. She's had periods where--thanks to the trauma and the ongoing betrayals--she's decided that The Right Thing is meeting violence with overwhelming violence. Is that Good? Or Evil?

Sylvanas is, fundamentally, someone who tries to protect her own. She has a fairly expansive (and fluctuating) definition of 'her own'--those she's oathsworn to, of course, but also those she's taken even tenuous responsibility for. The Dark Rangers, the Forsaken, the Horde--also the sin'dorei, seventy Gorean women, and three kittens. And Jaina. What will she do to protect them? Anything. Again due to repeated trauma and betrayals, she sees threats where none exist and reacts acccordingly. Evil? Or Good?

Did these change with traumas? They certainly got more extreme. But all available evidence is that pre-Third War, Sylvanas wanted to protect her people and Jaina was dedicated to doing the right thing.

It's just the details that get tricky.

[syscultureis]

Im sorry if this isnt appropriate to ask, you dont have to answer considering you lean more anti-endo, but I dont understand what arguments are there for pro or even neutral endo? Ive honestly really tired to understand because ive seen quite a few systems now say things like "I use to be anti-endo but now ive been informed" or "I use to be anti-endo but ive been educated" and im just not getting? Whats compelling these people to start beliving in the existence of non trauma based DID? Have I just not been informed enough? I tired doing research about it but all I could really fine were people saying "Well we dont know everything about the human mind so you dont know whats posible, you cant tell people what their experiencing is wrong" (I just dont really agree with this point) or if someone just believes spiritually they have like ghosts in the brain??? (As an ashiest I just cant get behind that one) Or they seem to have a bunch of links to studies that supposably prove that scientists also believe in endos but ive yet to read all of them threw but from briefly glancing at a few of these links most of them dont even link to studies having anything to do with them. Its all just very confusing to be honest and I wanted to get someone else perspective on it.

I think most of it is people either A) being tired of getting hate and giving in and just saying they're pro-endo

B) They read the articles endos link, not realizing a majority of them are not made by unbiased people who have actually done proper study. Most of the articles I've seen endos and pro-endos link are not actually done by people who have the correct resources, or they go into a study already biased and instead of doing a double blind or keeping their biases out of their studies, they do the full study themselves and let their biases effect the results. But if you haven't taken actual psychology classes you likely don't know to watch out for these things, and it's easy to look at them and think "oh yeh, these are professional and real so they're right" even tho they're not

Or C) They doom scrolled through pro-endo shit so much that their brain started to agree with it because they were submerging themselves in the community, and when you do that with anything enough your brain will start to justify it, especially if it's causing you stress because the brain wants to solve the stress issue so it just starts to make you think you agree with what's being said

We've actually had C almost happen to us with a few things because some of us have issues with doom scrolling, but were lucky enough to be able to realize when it starts ro happen and take a step back from it

I really don't fault people for being tricked by the misinformation, or just giving up on getting hate for no reason

It's just frustrating to see people act as if because they used to be anti-endo and now they're not they're suddenly enlightened and must be right

We used to be pro-endo, and now we're not and we don't use that as a way to show our view point as the right one.

We will always encourage people to do their own research, and whether they end up pro/neu/anti endo we don't care after that as long as they've researched with actual good sources

If we could find good sources on non-traumagenic systems being possible we would absolutely change our views again, but we've looked. When we were pro-endo we were desperate to justify things, and we just could not find an actual reliable source

So yeh, always do your own research, form your own opinions, just always also make sure the research you're looking at is reliable

[multiplicity-positivity]

hey you, the ranger’s apprentice fictive reading this…

did you know that you are amazing? and you are a respected, cherished, and beloved member of both your system and the plural community just the way you are? regardless of how you view your source or how strongly you identify with it, ranger’s apprentice fictives, you are as beautiful, complex, and unique as the stars in the sky!

whether you are a thoughtform, soulbond, daemon, an alter in a trauma-formed system, or don’t like to label yourself in that way, you’re still special and you matter. and yeah, this definitely includes you ranger’s apprentice fictives who formed as a result of your system’s special interest or hyperfixation. or if you formed from your system’s own imagination, or as a posic companion, an introject of the literal books or any character within. no matter what labels you use or how you ended up in your system, your existence is real, your identity is real, and your experiences are worth sharing, discussing, and celebrating.

you are worthy of love and respect even if you haven’t ever read or engaged in your source, or if you revisit it often. it’s okay for your source to bring you comfort, or to be triggered by it, or to feel completely neutral about it, or to not understand how you feel about it. it’s okay to struggle with exotrauma, painful source memories, or source memories that make you nostalgic or long for the life you had in source.

fictives, including you, ranger’s apprentice fictives, are not a monolith. it’s okay to have complex or complicated feelings about your source. love it or hate it, you’re still you, and you’re still a unique individual who deserves patience and compassion in your life. you deserve to be able to experience this world and make the most of your life, with joy and happiness as you are today.

we hope you can find that. we hope there is laughter and self-acceptance in your future. we love you, we’re so glad you’re here, and we’re wishing you the very best.

[anti-endo-safe-space]

Endos really see things like "anti endo" and "endos dni" and instantly think "this person is claiming I'm fake and being awful and terrible and bigoted."

Like ok. Yeah. Whatever. I don't even have the energy to give a "bare minimum benefit of the doubt" to some of the endos that aren't total pieces of shit. They'll see anything anti endos do as aggressive harassment.

If anti endos truly were bigots then uh, I've not seen any minority purposefully go into the tags of bigots and argue with them or steal tags from them or anything like that. Most people say to block and sometimes report. Like what anti endos largely say to do.

Endos really see any system being anti endo leaning or have "endos dni" and assume it means it's the worst possible fakeclaiming asshole that is out to hurt others and harass them. When. I dunno. I've seen like 3-5 endo accounts I felt the need to block cause they were far more aggressive or really actually gatekeepy about stuff, I barely even remember how bad they were if I'm honest. I've really blocked far more endos than anything esp for invading tags. I see about 5ish accounts that invade tags, a lot more tag invaders being like aspen or a fan or whatever. Which. The anti endo community hates cause they're actually ableist and just harass people.

Endos really react with a defensive mindset at just merely seeing us. Seeing the way they invade systempunk because we wanted a punk tag for ourselves. Saw pluralpunk, made their own tag, tag gets invaded. Usually they justify it by "harassing back" but like. Anti endos just made it for themselves. Esp since a lot of us are punk. But it turned into a whole "fight" with anti endos just wanting their tags to not be invaded.

I'd say "make it make sense" about everything with endos, but I don't think it ever will. Even we have our own triggers with endos including aggressive/mean alters and persecutors that hate them and can be nasty. And we still...do our best to be fair towards the less awful side of endos esp since some or many may either be minors or a system in major denial or both. But god. Endos really get aggressive and defensive about not instantly being accepted. When most anti endos at this point don't even fucking care to argue over origins or non disordered plurality, they just want their own spaces cuz IF non disordered plurality existed, it's very fucking different and trauma survivors want their space for their experience.

Yeah. Maybe the trauma survivors, who already with a small space and constantly being treated like shit and even told by professionals that their disorder doesn't exist along with the history of endogenics and Empowered Multiplicity making everything harder for CDD systems, will want their own fucking space and not share with those that are fundamentally different from them. Like. Can't imagine why trauma survivors want a space to themselves. Almost like...trauma survivors deserve spaces and they're very important. Like. We're only one tumblr cause of needing a narc positive space. And then found ourselves in more spaces for disorders including system spaces. It's kind of actually important for anyone to have spaces where they can be safe in. Not constantly having to share it with people who are nothing like CDD systems.

Paragraph by paragraph!

We've honest to whatever you believe in SEEN people say that anti endo and endos dni for ANY reason is them saying they hope endos drop dead. Like no. We have anti endo and endos dni because they upset us, a fair amount have caused us paranoia or trauma, and just it's okay to not want them to interact with everything.

Yeah, yeah that's sadly true. We've ran across a fair amount of endos and trying to give them the bare minimum results in a ton of hell because even just an endo-neutral system going "hey endos please don't interact as this is about my trauma as a system" and start calling to boycott because that's "harassment".

We've seen some minorities do that but it's usually take the tags back (for example, we've seen a lot of pwNPD take anti NPD tags for themselves, but they tend to not argue unless they just make comments about "hey that's just not what NPD is please get your facts straight"). Exactly! So many say block, report, move on.

Yeah, a fair amount will say that juts because they want a system space to themselves for their trauma and to help them cope with everything. I have seen some anti endo accounts call for harassing and boycotting and shit (you can guess which ones, they tend to also try and tag steal which, I'm sorry but tag stealing isn't okay. Co-occupying is okay (like with the plural tag which we tend to use because from what we've seen, the coiner is okay with endos and traumagenics using) but don't steal) but we tend to see more from endos/pro endos (we aren't naming any because no one deserves that). Sadly a fair amount of anti-endos are pretty ableist themselves which is fucked up for trying to fight ableism.

That's exactly how we've wanted to phrase things. We've seen so many say "hey systempunk is made against us we need to steal it", you guys have pluralpunk. We haven't invaded (or SHOULDN'T) invade pluralpunk. It doesnt matter if your being harassed, harassing back solves nothing and only makes life more difficult. Yeah that's something we've sadly seen a lot of is a fight that shouldn't be one

Most things with endos we've found don't make sense. We've got some (as they phrase it) avenger alters who would like to go toe-to-toe with some endos for things they've said and done to us but we still don't. Because while we don't like the ones who take our disorder and try to make it all cutsie and fun (build-a-headmate blogs for example), a lot are minors or in major denial or both. When we first heard of systems, we didn't even know what endos were and thought we could be one because we were so heavily in denial. A lot of endos we've seen have equaled it to someone queer not being accepted when there's a difference between being queer and having a mental disorder. If we don't have an ask, we honestly forget about the point of arguing over origins because it takes a lot of time and effort. We've said it before we'll say it again, we wouldn't have ever created this if endos didn't try to steal system terms and tags, if they kept their part of the internet then this account wouldn't have ever existed.

We spent a little bit when trying to find a therapist testing the waters with claiming a friend who's a system was trying to find a therapist just to be told that CDD's are fake or some bs with that, it's not that bad to want a space to themselves. It's not wrong to want a space for the people who went through similar trauma and coped in a similar way, in this case being a system. People who claim not to be traumatized but be a system is so fundamentally differnet it makes sense why trauma surviors don't want space. We get that, we started in system spaces and now we've been looking down narc positive spaces because we need that safe space.

[tom-failure]

Okay, so I've come up with a mystic messenger horror AU that I'm tentatively calling the Meatverse (ugly name, I'll think of something better later), and I don't have the energy to actually write multichapters, what with juggling making games and getting fired, and drawing gore is not really my strong suit, but I'm DYING to share it. So you'll have my bullet points for it, unedited.

The worldbuilding:

In this au, the world exists on more than just physical level, or plane. In fact, it is divided into two: the cortex and the Red matter, or Meat. All the world as we know it is the cortex, and the discovery and study of the Meat are top secret and virtually unknown. The Meat is a nether layer of the world, inner and hidden, formed by subconscious desire and trauma, where intangible and psychological things are made manifest. It looks literally like the world made of meat and viscera, all pulsing and alive.

Inherently, The Meat is neutral, but it is way more malleable than the cortex, and thus more easily corrupted, and the corruption of the Meat is extremely dangerous to the cortex, which is part of why the existence of the Meat is the secret so heavily guarded

Cortex is the layer that, on the one hand, protects the Meat, and on the other informs it and changes it.

The Meat carries the historical memory, integrates experience, and shapes the future of the cortex. The Meat is responsible for group mentalities and generational trauma

Although formal study of the Meat is secret to the public, there are people who stumble into it by accident, or secretly search and study it on their own. Such individuals are secretly hunted

Sometimes, as a result of experiences, humans become vulnerable points, where the membrane of the cortex wears thin. Such persons become able to greatly affect The Meat, and thus shape the fates of the world. The danger is, they can use it for good or for evil, and their actions are often informed by their experience

The background:

As a result of her upbringing, Rika becomes a vulnerable point, and starts profoundly feeling the effects of The Meat. As a traumatised person, the signals that she is able to accept from Meat are mostly downward trends and experiences of suffering that echo her own on a greater scale. As she begins contemplating suicide, she starts to secretly hang out with the people on the margins of society, on the lowest, bonding with them over their shared experiences. There, she befriends a drug dealer who experiments with less known substances. Once, he tells her about a very dangerous, potentially deadly mixture, which Rika persuades him to let her try.

When she tries it, the mixture alters her vulnerable point state, and Rika witnesses The Meat. For a brief moment, she is scared, but then she immediately becomes fascinated by it. She quickly understands the workings of The Meat and how it is connected to cortex. She spends some time studying it.

After a while, with her studies and drug usage, she furthers her vulnerable point state up to where she could see The Meat at will, without having to rely on either substance or state of mind. She was her own guinea pig, and then later she also recruited the dealer. She searched for ways to bring him to Meat with her, and found that torture and pain were a quick way to create a vulnerable point.

She also wanted to bring V with her, which is where all of their weird conversations about hurting each other came from. But she hated hurting him for a while, and she tried other ways which ultimately did little to create in him a point of vulnerability.

She discovered that Saeran was another Point, and saw in him a prodigy. She used him, however, to try and find a way to make V a Point. Ultimately, when she hurt V and left, that was her way of creating a point of vulnerability, but she didn't want to see it made.

She had Magenta built and created Mint Eye as a twisted way to create a big cluster of vulnerable points, which she would then basically lovebomb, using that as means to bring profound good to the world via Meat. However, for her plan to succeed, she had to create a space of suffering first, which is why she confined her cult to the mansion, to make sure the evil didn't leak. Only the cleansed vulnerable points were allowed out for recruitment, those that did not ooze pain any longer. Those, however, were mostly very broken people, absolutely incapable of any meaningful action at all.

The elixir is used in Mint Eye as a gateway to Meat

Basically a lot of what Rika did there was not just for the 'greater good', but also to bring V at her side. She wanted him to be the change for good, and herself she saw as the harbinger

Eventually, fearing the great pain escaping the mansion, she started fusing the cultists to the house via Meat. For their cortex beings, that meant that they developed a physical dependence on being within, and spending time outside a while drew them back or killed them. She fused herself with the house to nurture them and give them care and love, partly as compensation, and partly to encourage them to stay.

Zen has potential to become a vulnerable point made by suffering if he accepts his pain. He is very close to it, and his prophetic dreams are a symptom.

Yoosung is another type of vulnerable point in the making, built up by love and kindness and acceptance in response to the harsh world, however, his development is hindered by Rika's disappearance. Accepting kindness and love of others and finding the courage to bring forth his own kindness actively can make him a fully realised vulnerable point

Seven is also a vulnerable point, which Rika knows, but she leaves him out of the cult as a way to further Saeran's connection to Meat. Seven is hired by an org studying Meat, and is tasked with searching out potential vulnerable points who will be closely supervised by the org to be supported and killed if they threaten Meat. Which is why he behaves the way he does and tries to stop Yoosung and Zen from becoming vulnerable points by encouraging Zen to be more lighthearted and overconfident, and bullying Yoosung. He has to take meds to take plunges in Meat, and does not have Meat-sight at will.

Saeran develops Meatsight without Rika knowing

The plot:

Joori Nam (MC) is scouted by Saeran as an extremely valuable vulnerable point in the making, with great potential and little effort required to fully realise her. She was supposed to be bait for Seven as Rika realised he is on the hunt for them, but she fell for Jumin, and then was rescued by Jaehee, disrupting the development of her vulnerable point as she, for the first time in her life, was actually cared for like this.

Saeran starts getting impatient and acting out, disrupting the Meat and making the house unstable. By then, he is half-split into several conjoined entities on the Meat level, partly separate but still acting as one. Rika forcefully binds all but one of the entities on Meat level, and partially separates the most docile one

Around then, V's vulnerable point becomes fully realised, and Rika meets with him, telling him it was all a test and that she is ready to accept him with open arms. V is dependent on her, so he gladly agrees, and then Rika puts him in the lowest, secret level of the house, and forms a sort of a chrysalis around him, so that he would sleep and see kind dreams until her cluster is ready and she would have him make the Great Good. His entire cortex-level being falls into a sort of a coma, and Rika tends to him herself.

The mansion grows from the body of Rika on the top, and the body of V on the bottom, but everyone thinks it's just Rika

V disappears and Seven tracks Mint Eye via Saeran. Joori, on her part, actually finds documents on Mint Eye, too. Basically, Jaehee, Jumin, Zen, Yoosung, and Joori at that point have no idea that Meat even exists. Joori finds some notes, but she can't place them and dismissed them

Seven decides to go to Mint Eye with Vanderwood, who is his org partner, also a vulnerable point who has meatsight at-will. Yoosung is not willing to let Seven go alone, and wants to help save his friends, as he doesn't understand the severity of the situation. Yoosung insists Seven allows him to take him with, but Seven flat-out refuses, and Zen secretly volunteers to take Yoosung there and come with him as backup. Zen has a lot of confidence in his abilities and he fancies himself a saviour of all

Separately from them, Joori (who is let in on a little bit as the person who has found the blueprints and notes of Rika's) wants to go with Seven, too, but is dissuaded by Jaehee

Seven gets into Mint Eye secretly (as he thinks, not knowing that Rika's feelers are probing the house). Rika orchestrates the meeting between him and Saeran, aiming to push both their vulnerable points to greater power, but Yoosung and Zen appear suddenly, disrupting the 'reunion'. The dormant entities of Saeran's awaken, he wants to attack Seven, but Zen saves him, and Saeran attacks Yoosung instead, which both Zen and Seven witness. Saeran essentially further disrupts Yoosung's vulnerable point development. And then Rika takes control and all four of them are imprisoned.

When connection with them is lost, Joori persuades Jaehee that they must go and check, and they are unexpectedly joined by Jumin, who pleads with them to go with. He has information that V was last seen around the mansion. Jumin by then is a mess, and Jaehee tries very carefully to keep Joori sane, so that she doesn't jump into his clutches again.

In three, they go to Mint Eye and are also eventually captured because of Rika's total control of the house

They must find a way to reunite and stop her. The Meat exposes everyone's trauma in a visceral way, so to work together they need to admit it and they need to be able to look at each other. But for a lot of them the first reaction is to hide or to make it seem like nothing is wrong with them

Basically I'm thinking that in the process of them working together Yoozens reveal their feelings, because they're kissing in every universe

I imagine Yoosung tries to reason with Rika, but she simply tells him that he must accept her love to fully realise his potential as a vulnerable point. She sees him as a person who will take the gospel of her and V's success and be her successor elsewhere, starting another ripple of good deed through Meat. She basically explains to him about Meat and has him drink her Elixir, and Yoosung actually sees the Meat and understands what she is talking about. She explains the workings of Meat to him, but Yoosung is too concerned with the present state of the house as an enormous heap of pain that is already oozing outwards. Rika keeps him away from his friends a while, treating his eye (yes, he loses sight there in this version as well, this is something that will happen in every universe I have any say in). She gives him elixir, and Yoosung keeps it and hides it. Rika knows Yoosung little, and she can't really understand him well, cortex or Meat. And she relies little on cortex, operating more often on Meat level, so Yoosung can hide stuff from her.

I think all of them will have to drink elixir and face each other in The Meat, and they will have a lot of explaining to do, and a lot of rifts put between them. I imagine the main conflict would be that the only way they see to stop Rika is to destroy her. But she has hold of all the people in the house, and severed from her, they would all likely die. Someone must replace her and ease them out of it, but none of them are strong enough, so whoever stays will not leave alive. Yoosung will immediately volunteer, and Zen will immediately try to stop him.

But somewhere around there Jaehee and Joori will find V and V will actually be the one strong enough and willing enough to fix this.

I imagine Joori will develop some power of her own, which will help them find V

Seven and Saeran will meet in the Meat, too, and there will be some profound connection, maybe Seven will physically connect with Meat-Saeran to give him strength to at least be restored to the previous state, where he was semi-detached from himself, and not almost-detached, but in the process they will become fused. And in helping Saeran Seven will not save him, and will hurt himself

Yeah, it has a happy ending

[fact-anonymous]

To factkin/factualkin: you do NOT need to justify your existence.

You don't have to be the result of trauma, you don't have to be the system's favorite person/artist/etc., you don't have to have a past life, and other reasons I've missed.

You don't even need to have a fixed reason. You can not know, not care, or question/look for it for life.

If you're any of those, or if you don't know why you're this way, you shouldn't have to be forced to disclose your reasons for being. Your privacy is important, and your existence is a morally neutral thing.

You also don't have to call yourself a factive or factual introject if you don't want to. The words "factkin" or "factualkin" having a bad name does not make you deserve harassment or abuse.

-Mod Silhouette

[fragmcntedsouls]

[ drew starkey | he/him ] Another face is seeking safety in New Orleans. Make sure to welcome ABEL CAMPBELL to the home of the resilient. Rumor has it that they are a 24 year old WEREWOLF, who is one of the SACRIFICED but we’ll keep that a secret. They are said to be ZEALOUS, but that’s all a façade to cover up their SAGACIOUS nature. We’ve heard that they can be found listening to PARANOID by I PREVAIL, which sums them up pretty well. Let’s hope that they can find a way to survive this harsh new world.

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄: 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: thomas abel campbell 𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: abel, tommy 𝐀𝐆𝐄: 21/24 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: june 23rd 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍: new orleans 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄: new orleans 𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: a hot mess 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓: neutral 𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓: melancholic 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂: punched walls, bloodied knuckles, the silent sufferer, gives excellent advice that he won't follow himself, backward caps, good intentions; terrible results. Saying 'this is a bad idea' a hundred times before doing stupid shit with his friends. 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: infertility, death, ptsd, alcoholism, more death, trauma the works (i told ya it was coming)

𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘:

Abel’s parents struggled to conceive their first and only son and after years of longing for a child, eventually their prayers were answered and his mother fell pregnant. The day that he was born was the greatest in her short life and while Abel doesn’t have definitive memories of his late mother, he does know how much she loved him. Life in the bayou was hard and the family didn’t have much to their names, his father having even enlisted into the military, anything to help their little family get by, but Abel's mother fell ill and without access to sufficient medicine, she passed away when he was young.

Eventually, his father remarried and Abel was raised by his stepmom while Tobias was away. Growing up in the bayou, he had no idea of the world that existed outside of the pack – or at least, he didn’t until meeting Marni. They became instant best friends, but it was only then that Abel began to see the divide between pack life and the life that existed outside of the bayou. Underprivileged, Abel didn’t attend public school or have friends outside of the pack other than Marni and he used to sneak out to meet her, with her being the one to teach him to read and write, even bringing him new clothes and food because she could see how much he needed it. The pair grew up together, navigating their lives side by side – except it was never destined to be that simple. 

When Abel was seventeen, his mother passed and his father had already been struggling with alcoholism after taking leave from the military, the grief of another loss was everything to tip him over the edge. Abel and his siblings had lost both of their parents and while the pack did their best to rally together to help the siblings, Abel just needed his father. Over the course of the next couple years, Tobias would disappear and reappear like clockwork and Abel would make countless excuses for the man. Preserve the memory of the man he once knew, the man he swore his father could still be for his sisters. The Kenner's took pity on the siblings, caring for them when Tobias couldn’t. 

Abel always had a kind heart, sometimes to a fault and he would go out of his way to help others; after the death of his mother and his father pulling another disappearing act, he could feel himself descending into a state of self destruction — until he was offered a proposition, something that would save his sisters, his father and importantly to him, save Marni. Her coven were always a part of something bigger, something that Abel didn’t understand himself but desired for the sake of Marni. He was the first test subject for the prison world, but once he was in -- the witches went back on their deal and didn't let him out again. Inside the prison world, he endured hell; despite being a crescent he was subjected to countless turns, every day for over a thousand days. A thousand turns. Still, he had to believe in Marni and in her coven. It was all for the greater good – but that idea became fractured after Briggs was thrown into the prison world with him. He saw the way that his friend suffered and after seeing the way that Abel suffered, Marni pulled him out of the prison world, but Abel begged to return for Briggs. Marni unwillingly agreed, sending Abel back, but she sent him with the formula to get out.

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍'𝐒:

⭒ abel triggered his crescent curse when he was 14 years old, his father was in debt owed bad people a lot of money and so they came to the bayou looking for it. In his fathers drunken state, he threw a punch that didn't land steady and ended up getting jumped. protecting his mother and sisters, abel ran outside and reached for the closest thing to be used as a weapon. you know how the rest goes. ⭒ after the collapse of the prison world, abel was encouraged by marni to get out of new orleans and so he did. the trauma of it all having rapidly caught up with him, shutting him down entirely. ⭒ since returning, abel has tried to rebuild the relationships with his sisters, knowing that he left them just like their father had. who is also currently off on yet another bender.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒:

parents: evelyn campbell ( birth mother † ), ocean campbell nee whitlock ( step-mother † ) tobias campbell ( father ) the kenners ( stand in family ) siblings: oaklee campbell ( 22 year old sister ), bryson campbell ( 18 year old sister ) madelyn campbell ( 7 year old sister ) relationships: marni lewis (soulmate don't @ him), aria cadieux (best friend), briggs mikaelson, lucas cadieux, (bro's), riley shaw, jackie miller ( ex fwb ) pack: crescent pack

[echthr0s]

tagged by @softtidesworld

I have many OCs but since I was tagged by a Far Cry/Fallout mutual I will do... the main Far Cry/Fallout OC! and also his brother, for funsies.

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name: Noah Marten Kingfisher

nickname: I don't think he has any, unless his sister has given him one that I don't yet know about

gender: inapplicable but most people regard him as male and he's fine with that reading

star sign: I haven't done natal charts for any OCs, unfortunately

height: somewhere in the vicinity of five feet, eight inches, I imagine

orientation: yes

nationality/ethnicity: USAmerican by citizenship, an African-diasporic mishmash by heritage

fave fruit: according to Preston, "cherry Nuka-Cola is NOT a fruit" 🙄🙄 but he is rather fond of berries (all kinds) and mango

fave season: autumn

fave flower: good question (he has a whole sunflower Theme going on but I don't know that that's actually his favourite flower! that motif is more about symbolism than actual preference)

fave scent: [orc voice] man flesh

coffee, tea or hc: cocoa all day

average hours of sleep: I... lmao man idk

dog or cat person: dog

dream trip: hmm

favorite fictional character: this is actually an excellent prompt but aside from knowing that Noah is a frequent comic book enjoyer I couldn't actually tell you what his favourite characters would be

number of blankets they sleep with: all of them

random fact: Noah is a CIT alum and would later (much, much later, lmao) return to that very same campus to eventually become Director of the Institute!

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name: Gabriel

nickname: you don't give Gabriel nicknames. you just don't. he does take an epithet quite gracefully, though. "the Revelator" is a particular one that gets its fair share of hushed whispers throughout the Wasteland

gender: inapplicable but most people regard him as male and he's fine with that reading

star sign: [see above]

height: *waves hand around the "five feet, four inches" area*

orientation: aroace, we surmise. but we think this is mainly a result of severe trauma as opposed to being a neutral lack of attraction

nationality/ethnicity: I imagine nations don't really exist in the same way post-war, so I couldn't tell you. he's simply a Wanderer. I'm also not sure how to square ethnicity in a setting like that. he's Black, though. regardless.

fave fruit: [Ulysses voice: ''Dandy Boy Apples are NOT fruit. they are a mockery, a--"] [*immediately mutes ED-E*] dandy boy apples :)

fave season: it's all the same to him

fave flower: I think if given the space to really consider it, he'd like dandelions

fave scent: if the entire Mad Max franchise had a smell, that'd be it. Gabriel probably should have been a Mad Max character, honestly. he'd say so, at least

coffee, tea or hc: black coffee enjoyer

average hours of sleep: Gabriel doesn't sleep, he dreams /truedetective

dog or cat person: no

dream trip: anywhere off this blasted rock

favorite fictional character: *puts a pin in this one*

number of blankets they sleep with: also all of them. but it's because Ulysses has piled all of them on top of him

random fact: you wouldn't think so, but Gabriel got on like gangbusters with the kids from Little Lamplight. they fucking love him