#the second one. i am politely looking

[atopvisenyashill]

Thoughts on the Alysanne is Maegor's daughter AU? I feel like it has some interesting potential, and it vastly recontextualizes different parts of Jaehaehae (I do not like him sjsjsjs) and Alysanne's relationship (such as Jaehaehae's treatment of their daughters) but I wanna hear what you think about it!

I’ve touched on this a bit before but since you actually want to hear my thoughts, allow me to present to you my Jaehaerys Is The Goddamn Worst, And Alysanne Annoys Me Too: An Essay lmao but my answer is basically “yeah all of what you just said.”

I think it makes Alysanne much more palatable (to me) as a character because as she stands, she just fixates on forcing her daughters through these fucked up marriages at too young an age bc it traumatized her to be married and pregnant at 15 too but she’d never admit that being a willing participant in her own kidnapping by her brother-husband was the single worst thing that ever happened to her, and because Alysanne doesn’t want to admit it (and Jaehaerys would never see it as wrong or a mistake) F&B really shies away from delving into the fact that Alysanne is as deranged of a mother as Cersei is. So as she stands, she’s very flat to me because she’s presented very flatly and inconsistently. She’s so in love with Jaehaerys, she’s maritally raped by Jaehaerys, she’s a loving and doting mother, she forces her daughters into marriages when they’re the same too young age she was, she accuses her teenage girls of being scheming whores then gets angry when her husband accuses their teenage girls of being scheming whores, and worst of all we are just told “Maegelle tells them to make up so they do” so we don’t know why Alysanne gets over all of this. What is the point of riding a dragon when you never use that dragon to protect your daughters from unwanted teen marriages? We’re just not given a good enough justification for why her behavior is so weird and frustrating towards her daughters.

Make her Maegor’s daughter though…most of her behavior as an adult makes more sense. Like a worse version of Rhaenyra’s childhood almost - a father desperate for a son, but lowkey obsessed with his daughter, who makes all his hang ups about his parents the problems of every woman around him, except Maegor is out here blood sacrificing and torturing and starting wars and forcing babies on wives he discards quickly and brutally. Then here comes Jaehaerys on a white horse green dragon to save her from the horror her life has become, and he loves her so much he runs away with her even though Alyssa says they shouldn’t marry because people won’t like it. And they have beautiful children, and a beautiful marriage, and build a beautiful kingdom.

Then her pregnancies start getting dangerous. Gaemon, then Valerion, die. Alysanne thinks of the shriveled up mutants she called brothers, if Maegor’s taint has passed to her. Her perfect husband ignores her no, and forces Gael on her. Alysanne remembers that he said nothing to Rogar when Alyssa died, merely wept. Then her daughters start to die. Daella, Alyssa, Viserra, all within a few years. Then Jaehaerys makes Saera watch as he murders her boyfriend, calls her a whore, and says Alysanne cannot follow Saera to Lys. Alysanne thinks of Maegor torturing the Harroways over Alys’ presumed infidelity. Jaehaerys says he’s sorry, and her daughter badgers her into forgiving him, and she remembers how she helped Jaehaerys badger Alyssa into forgiving Rogar. Not two years later, Jaehaerys passes over Rhaenys. Alysanne thinks of how she was never enough for her father, how she felt so superior to Rhaena banished to Dragonstone and resented by Aerea, yet there she is dragging Gael away from court because she can’t stand to be with Jaehaerys. How her father was surrounded by dead women and dead babies and how Jaehaerys is surrounded by his own dead daughters, but surely she did the right thing, surely Maegor was worse, surely the realm is better off? Is he right to pass over Rhaenys? Is she enabling a man just as monstrous as her father? She will never decide, because Maegelle will guilt her about keeping Gael isolated at Dragonstone, and Alysanne will do as she’s told, just like Rhaena, and Alyssa, and Jeyne, Elinor, Ceryse, Alys, and Tyanna, just like every one of her daughters.

I do get why Alysanne is Alyssa & Aenys’ and not Maegor’s. The weird Targ babies, the line not descending from Visenya, Jaehaerys and Alysanne being held up as the perfect Targaryen couple specifically because they are brother and sister and dragon riders. I do even think canon Alysanne is likely traumatized by her time as a hostage on Dragonstone, and the ensuing war, and the trauma bond that caused with Jaehaerys, and it makes her idolize Jaehaerys, and then he isolates her at Dragonstone so he can swiftly and safely marry, groom, and knock her up. It’s not like,,,, a fun time, and it’s enough to make anyone crazy and weird about their daughters, but I think having her father be Maegor makes Alysanne herself much deeper because it gives her, as the most beloved Targaryen queen, a blood tie to the most hated Targaryen king, and a marriage to the most beloved Targaryen king. It fits better with a lot of the themes of the main series (again, imo) - forcing the spotlight on the outsiders to see how the affect the story from behind the scenes. The fall of Aegon’s sons, and The Long Reign, not told from the PoV or to serve the PoV of any of the kings or princes, but of the queen that tied them all together.

[piningpercussionist]

transfem scott getting lots of support from ramona and kim in the early 2000's when shit's very taboo but they all 3 have a fire forged bond and lord if they aren't going to make sure they're all as happy as they can be because they've come this far and I dunno it just makes me happy all three of them

YES YES YES

It makes me very happy as well,,

Like I've said before. General Trans Scott enthusiast here- I love the idea of their little support network *violent coughing* I (we?) mean polycule *violent coughing* so fucking much.

Ramona I think has a bit of a more gentle hand with reassuring Scott with gender issues, but sometimes she just can't help herself from some pointed banter or teasing- how could you with someone so dense? (Said w affection)

And then Kim I think is more blunt. But like, in a good way mostly, you know? The kinda blunt that makes you snap to attention and go "Oh. Yeah that was silly of me." And if Ramona's started some sort of banter? Kim is SO piling on. Maybe sometimes she's a bit TOO blunt with it- but it's only because she's so firm in her support. She wants Scott to Get It Together- and be happier for it. So if some ribbing now and again is in order, then goddamnit she will do so! Anything to crack that shell.

And ohhh can you imagine how they would react to some transphobic bullshit?? Unholy terror would be driven into the offender before they walk off with an absurd amount of coins between them. I can feel it in my bones. Scott doesn't even have to lift a finger (if the transphobe is even noticed/processed at all, bc I honestly can see Scott just. Not realizing someone's being transphobic.) Kim giving someone a lashing with her tongue as distraction and then Ramona coming in with the hammer- BAM! Free Money! Paying literally with your life for your transphobia. A Better And Just World.

And of course (transfem Scott more specifically, here,) the way Scott would start to flourish under their support... cagey and maybe a little (perhaps a lot-) resistant to start- but Kim's blunt affirmations and no nonsense attitude for bullshit (which is what Scott insisting on "being cis" would be, c'mon now,) and Ramona's also low bullshit tolerance but less Stabby (bc I won't lie, that's probably how Kim's comments would feel,) assurances? Ough... My Heart... Be Still-

I would Kill for them, Your Honor-

(Ran out of tags so putting this in the body of the post- I am SO tired someone pls sound off if this isn't as coherent as I am hoping this is. I WAS trying to nap and get the extra sleep I desperately needed but the writing bug... it Bit Me.... only a little but enough to stop that process-)

[rawliverandgoronspice]

The more time goes on, the more I think we (= westerners, especially white westerners) are just so fucking bad at guilt. I feel like guilt is among the most pernicious and dangerous emotions out there --not because guilt is literally deadly in isolation, it is an excruciating emotion but it will not kill you in itself, but because we have been trained to associate guilt with worthlessness (I partially blame christian values, the idea of impurity and sin --not to downplay, of course, the danger of a community judging you or being expelled from that community on the basis of being considered a danger to its other members due to the thing you've done that has been generating this guilt), and so we must, absolutely must, protect ourselves from simply feeling that guilt and processing its cold indifference washing over us, and we must do so through any means necessary. This can involve defensiveness, denial or reject of that guilt altogether so we are mentally protected from having to reevaluate ourselves and our place in the world, or can involve wallowing in and using it to self-harm --focusing on the pain and on self-hate rather than on what the guilt is telling us about ourselves and our heritage; blinding ourselves to it still in a twisted way.

I think it's also complicated to know how to manage guilt in a world where we're generally (as a whole) deeply powerless. It feels unfair to be called out about not doing enough when you know that pulling even mediocre heroics on your own will most definitively do almost nothing, hurt you, and be buried in a way that might be extremely unhelpul --not to mention, that it would actually hurt you in a very real and final way and lead to entirely thankless results, even if it was the morally correct thing to do. I do not want to pretend that it's not, very often, the results that awaits even serious and well-practiced activism --or even mild activism, major shoutout to everybody who got maimed or arrested or even killed on zero basis simply because they happened to be at or even near a protest, when they were not brutally attacked for no reason even outside of activism because an officer was racist or sexist or queerphobic or simply bored that day. There are genuinely good reasons to be scared.

So we feel guilt because of this fear, because of our isolation from any serious movement and the fact that we privilege our comfort over letting action taking over whatever else we have going on, and because fear and comfort knowingly keep us into inaction --or action that doesn't feel like enough, or that we feel doesn't achieve much of anything (which I think is never true: even giving someone a glimpse of hope for a second because we made an effort towards them is always always worth it in my opinion, it's not nothing and it's not a cop-out --of course it's not enough and we collectively need to find ways to do more, but it's not nothing and it should never discourage people from taking action --but I digress). But I think we start making a mistake when we point at this very real powerlessness as a shield from the guilt. Both can coexist. Both have to coexist. It isn't fair that some people are being forced to be courageous when we can afford to remain cowards. It is not even a moral judgement that condemn our souls forever, weakness is human and lack of individual reach against an overwhelmingly powerful and removed system even more so; it is a simple fact that we *have* to acknowledge if we want to take a clear look at the actual situation instead of camouflaging it behind self-justifying walls to give ourselves temporarily relief from that awful feeling. And I'm not saying it's not a constant effort, to keep those instincts of self-preservation at bay, or that some people don't have really good reasons that they cannot act more than through social media or miniscule donations or by talking about it around them, or being powerless to even do that without putting themselves into real and concrete danger --or that letting guilt in will be pleasant or even healing. It won't be. But it's also not the point.

Yeah, I get that it's hard to truly reckon with the fact that almost everything that made us (= westerners, especially white ones) is soaked with blood, imperialism, white supremacy, sexism, queerphobia, and a whole sweve of truly rancid ideologies that we cannot afford to passively accept as our lot. We were not given a choice in that legacy, and we don't have a ton of leverage over reorienting our haunted civilizations into something that isn't a horrible nightmare; but it is a fight that is happening right the fuck now.

I genuinely think guilt is a feeling we are not taught to handle in a healthy way; and because we have essentialist, pseudo-religious and punitive justice concepts terminally untangled with that feeling, guilt governs our politics and our private lives in the most rabid and unchecked way imaginable. But guilt will not kill us, unless we allow it to, and it will help literally nobody if it does. Guilt isn't evil in its soul-crushing pain as much as it is informative. Guilt is unbearable, unfliching clarity. But fever boils us alive because there is an infection that needs to be destroyed.

[jaybee2000]

Now that I’ve had two of them:

Reblogging this post every time I have an election 2024 stress dream.

For data

[moe-broey]

"An awkward gesture" like yeah. And that group of guys who gathered around in Portland ME in full Nazi paraphernalia on April 1st that one year were just joking. Right.

[fisherrprince]

So how was stormblood? I know it's very hit or miss for people, so what're your thoughts?

I understand why it’s hit or miss! It — to get to the point i would be straight up lying if I said I was an unbiased consumer because I’m not, I’m a coastal American mid 20s rando with a Lot of very current cultural baggage around concepts like patriotism and freedom. And Hamilton references. It all has a sweet and strong and very anti-occupation message (along with themes I very much enjoy dissecting like the constant assertion that it Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, or the expansion into You may not understand this person but you must be able to accept them,) but when combined with Stormblood’s shakier coherence in writing and dialogue and pacing, it comes off as A Bit Off. to me. And I think it missed ever so slightly just due to how it was all structured and set up with the characters we have and motivations we have because the stuff OUTSIDE or Adjacent to the main story, despite how out of place it could feel, was structured great!! Like the Kojin and the Ananta trial and the Kugane mishaps and trying to murder Zenos twice and the ghost ship. Could the main structure have come across very well yes absolutely! It does it on and off it succeeds in there often! But sometimes it doesn’t. I can see a lot of where concepts were promised and not fully delivered, pacing was a bit off, things just happened without really belonging there (despite how much I loved Susano, he could have been better structured. same with many instances and also I feel like the unethical science should have been MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT — maybe it comes back. Who is that scientist.), sometimes dialogue felt somewhat canned. I feel like in a consequences-heavy expansion, many things just didn’t have important consequences, which was very strange

HOWEVER! I cannot give the new gameplay features abd dungeons any crap they are all SO GOOD. And so PRETTYYYYY. And there were so many solo duties that ruled! Every dungeon in this expansion was like whoa this is a PLACE im in you know what I mean??? I’m in a place that’s big and there’s people and there’s NEW MECHANICS and active time maneuvers (??!!!!!!!) and unique fights! I can jump on the roofs in Kugane! And, mind you, when the dialogue was good, it was good. Lyse has a fantastic voice actor. Alisaie is my favorite girl elf creature in thw world. Estinien is like the best p- the guy ever. also m’naago is my new friend. The tower was a great part of sb to me despite my singular gripe. I think Zenos’— I know it’s controversial to some people because he does assume your wol to be a bit more murderous than some people would prefer their characters be and doesn’t take no for an answer, but his um speech did something to my brain a little bit

ON that note the ending was very fast?????? Or like — not FAST, but I wasn’t expecting Zenos or Shinryu to go down in one fight. Two co-op fights, right next to each other. I kind of wanted to beat him up myself. And when Zenos was so impossible to beat before. I was expecting both of them to be WAY harder. Though Shinryu is a COOL fight I’d do the royal menagerie again in a second. I was kind of expecting a three stage trial? Like Nidhogg? I love going into space hiiii big dragon where were you this whole time… u were shafted… but u could not be suffered to live so. Maybe if we’d gotten an instance of fighting the dragon alone after beating the trial?? Could have been Themes. I don’t know

anyways no I can’t quite pin it down, but I’ve said it before I think they had the outline for the story and then built it and went oh this is too much and not enough at the same time and got stuck writing the whole thing after getting stuck in the story they already had. A COMMENDABLE job for getting turned around like that, way better than a lot of video games stories out there, good gameplay and areas that didn’t feel too empty. glances at coerthas falcons nest area. I think the ways they did the exploration thing was good, having us venture further into occupied territory etc, but so much exploration stuff felt oneoff and not there to do much for someone who has been skipping almost all of the side content except stuff I’ve been told is good. It almost felt like they were Trying New Stuff a lot, and some of it succeeded some of it failed. Such is trying stuff!! Such is trying to imitate what you had while making something new and exciting! And I can’t fault them for that

so like — putting aside the fact that I haven’t done post-sb which is like missing 40% of the Thing according to past expansions and my thoughts very well might change, i would 100% do the fights again, maybe watch some cutscenes, but I don’t think I’d NG+ this one. where is that lady selling buuz it is a CRIME i did not get to have any buuz let me buy one yoshi p

[cloudsbrainpopped]

tumblr broke on me. i broke tumblr this morning. oh my god. do you know how feral i must've gotten to break tumblr. mad speed.

[dawnlitbouquet]

I've been hunkering down in Gundam Seed JP Twitter and it has been extremely enlightening, especially since I haven't rewatched the main series in a while. Things I forgot, things I actually remember but see in a new light...

Some people love/hate the new movie on there, but I've seeing a lot of people find it good - because it makes the point that 'Kira didn't actually heal from the events of Gundam Seed, and now that he's back on the battlefield without Lacus his sanity is hanging by a thin thread'.

A bunch of people pulling receipts on the discriminatory behaviours/opinions even Kira's friends had possessed unconsciously (in Sai's case, kind of... A bit more blatantly than most back when Kira didn't even pull shit, which had me hissing through my teeth...), the things that isolated Kira into thinking he has to handle things on his own (Tolle's death when he tried fighting by his side, for example), a comparison of behaviours between Murrue who gave him a bow of respect vs his friends who tell him 'we'll distract ZAFT as EA soldiers while you're on the refugee shuttle!' oblivious to the actual dangers because they were only ever on the bridge (haha,,,,, the fact this saved them even if it backed Kira into a corner,,,,,,,, ffffffuck)

Back to the movie, I've seen some mixed reactions about the second half, but!!! I'm generally seeing a lot of people looking at first half Kira and going 'my sad baby. my poor meow meow. get whumped.'

Again, this is all JP twitter, not EN, and definitely not the actual movie - but seeing people's reactions have been an entertaining ride.

[boygirlctommy]

desperately throwing my animatics at my portfolio please let me into your animation program, school

[zhongli-lover-69]

no pressure tags! @rabbitmotifs @corvids-corner @seafoamwolf @theautistichalflinghole

Not me having some kinda type... Who shall I tag? I think I wanna tagggggg... @mybugsmybugsmybugs @mexicangela @lunar-years @biscuitboxpink but no pressure!! I just thought it would be fun!

[xcziel]

.

[savage-rhi]

Fuchsia? 😂

[gallusrostromegalus]

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[sarcosmiiic]

PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND:

we, as fans, do not have a right to private information. anything shared with us on this is a privilege. please do not abuse it. the cc's could shut down and never talk about it if we overwhelm them.

also, please keep in mind that ONE HERMIT and THE ENTIRETY OF HERMITCRAFT are NOT THE SAME THING. the entire fandom is not 'ruined' or 'completely unsafe' because of the actions of one person.

PLEASE DO NOT ASSUME THAT THE OTHER HERMITS KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT WHATEVER'S GOING ON WITH ISKALL. this is not some big conspiracy, it's the consequences of one person's actions. they weren't hiding this from us, that's not how hermitcraft works, they truly didn't know. they probably knew as much as us about this, so making it an 'us against them' situation is immature and shortsighted.

ALSO, I AM BEGGING EVERYONE TO PLEASE NOT SENSATIONALIZE THIS. PLEASE DO NOT TURN HATING ISKALL INTO A MEME OR A JOKE.

mcyt'ers being revealed to be less-than-great people is not a rare thing, sadly, but i've seen it turned into a joke/meme/trend in other fandoms. this both minimalizes the actual people's/victims' struggles, makes the entire situation feel less serious than it is, especially to outsiders looking in, and makes everyone in the fandom look immature, petty, unable to take anything seriously, and genuinely harmful.

this server, fandom, and community are not dying, it is not ruined forever, this is one (major, i'm not trying to minimalize it) issue that we're currently dealing with. it will be okay. we will move on. this is not the beginning of the end. please calm down. i love this fandom, god bless all of you. <3

edit: doc has said on stream that we will likely get more information as time passes. like i said, this is a PRIVILEGE. we are not OWED information. please be grateful for what we're given, and POLITELY ask questions if you must. if a cc doesn't give you the answer you want, or doesn't answer at all, LEAVE THEM ALONE. THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO HARASS PEOPLE. the hermits are likely just as stressed out as us, if not probably more so, so please keep that in mind when contacting them.

don't freak out, we'll be okay, this is not the end of the world, nor is it the end of Hermitcraft. we will be okay.

second edit: please remember that (at least as far as we know) ISKALL AND STRESS WERE NOT KICKED OR BANNED. THEY LEFT OF THEIR OWN VOLITION.

ALSO!!! VERY IMPORTANT!!!

WE. DO. NOT. KNOW. EXACTLY. WHAT. HAPPENED.

PLEASE DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING SIMPLY BASED OFF OF OTHER MCYT'ERS PAST ACTIONS/SCANDALS. WE DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. WE MIGHT NOT EVER KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. WE NEED TO BE OKAY WITH THAT AND NOT DRAW OUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.

TWITTER LINKS TO VICTIM RESPONSES:

https://twitter.com/Kasszi_/status/1860670647946604985

https://twitter.com/emoslab_/status/1860697161245323559

[hiimcanadia]

Saw a post earlier that suggested people do "literally anything else" other than voting and like. Damn literally anything? Should I go harass people outside of Walmart? Should I donate to the homophobic church down the street? Hell, if "literally anything" is a better way of being politically active than voting, then I'm just going to lay down on the floor and cry about how completely doomed we all are!!!

[trianglegoddess]

Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker. 

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 

It happens like this. 

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 

Then he looks towards the camera. 

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 

And then the Joker escapes. 

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 

 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”