#the solution is to give them a personality

[rauferes]

When Rook is twenty-eight, and Emmrich fifty-four, Emmrich takes Rook's hand gently and tells her that they must fully consider what it means for him to be so much older. To attach herself to him, when he is so close to his own decline, is folly—

Rook looks at him directly, waiting until his downcast eyes meet hers.

"I'm a Grey Warden," Rook tells him. "I know how to make every year that I am given count."

When Rook is thirty-one, and Emmrich fifty-seven, as Emmrich presses a kiss against the back of Rook's bare shoulder, Rook admits in a small voice: "I have, at most, fifteen years left to live."

In the warm darkness of their bedroom, the quiet stretches like the last moment after a crystal has been struck, just before the world falls again into silence.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Emmrich vows.

When the bells peal, sunlight and thrown petals and grains and joyous laughter raining down on them in equal measure, when Emmrich clasps her hands and says I give you my heart and soul. I will honor and cherish you each and every day of our lives— his voice sounds exactly the same.

When Rook is thirty-seven, and Emmrich sixty-three, she finds him on the floor of his laboratory, overcome by weeping.

"I have it," Emmrich tells her. "I have it. The Blight will progress no further in you."

She rocks him on the floor for a full hour as he sobs with the heart-rending relief, clutching her as if afraid to ever let her go.

When Rook is forty-six, and Emmrich seventy-two, Emmrich claims that most of his smile lines are Rook's doing.

"And many of the worry ones, too," Rook teases gently, brushing her thumb over her favorite, the divot closest to his right eyebrow.

Decades of love settle over a person as tangibly as gravity: they are both radiant with it.

They watch the sun set together, as they have done hundreds of times, hand in hand. Emmrich waits until the last sliver of pink has left the clouds before he turns to Rook to speak.

"I have learned that my solution was flawed," Emmrich admits very quietly. "The Blight in you will be at bay only so long as I live."

The light of the first rising star is reflected in Emmrich's gleaming, tear filled eyes.

Rook raises their joined hands to her mouth, kissing the back of his.

"I am older than I ever thought I would live," Rook says tenderly. "This life is enough, love."

The words soften Emmrich's expression, but fail to touch the grief in his eyes.

"It is more than enough," Rook tells him, at fifty-two.

"You think I want to live in a world without you in it?" she tells him at fifty-six.

"I love you," she tells him, every day.

"Every word in every love poem ever written isn't enough to say just how much I love you."

Emmrich peers at her over his thick glasses, pausing in his reading of the book of sonnets.

"Should I stop, then?" Emmrich teases.

"No," Rook says, settling her head more comfortably in his lap.

He runs one knotted, shaking hand through her grey hair, presses a kiss to her forehead. Rook closes her eyes.

When Rook is fifty-seven, and Emmrich eight-three, he slips away in the night. She wakes, as always, with her hand in his. She lies quietly for a long time, her eyes bleakly dry, knowing that this time is the last.

Most deaths feel sudden, in the end.

And yet every griever knows: it is still possible, somehow, to survive the removal of a heart.

After Rook has stood for two hours at the funeral, crying mechanically and stopping just as suddenly, Manfred guides her away.

"It's time to sit down, Mother," Manfred tells her gently. "Would you like water? Tea?"

Even fifteen years after beginning his travels, Manfred still sounds so much like Emmrich. The place where her heart is meant to be aches. Rook lets him settle her in a chair, and bring her the blend of tea that he designed just for her.

"There are two more bequeathments to distribute from Father's will," Manfred tells her. "He wanted both to be delivered by my hand."

The first is an elegant leather-bound book, intricately tooled, with fine gilded additions. It's carved with both their favorite flowers, intertwined. Rook opens the cover with shaking hands.

The lines are labelled with a date, with a single sentence accompanying it, penned in Emmrich's fine hand. Each is a message to her. It began almost four years ago, but— the book is far too full. Every page is written in. Rook flips forward to find that Emmrich wrote a line for every day for the next three decades.

"He should have spared himself the pain of writing so much," Rook says. "The Blight will have me far sooner than that!"

Manfred silently hands her an envelope. On its front is written:

To my darling Rook.

Rook reads the letter. She stares at Manfred, uncomprehending.

Manfred embraces her, pressing his forehead to hers in his version of a kiss to the cheek.

"The Blight won't take you at all, Mother," Manfred says gently. "He transferred the spell to me eight months ago."

Through a veil of tears, Rook sees that every neat line in Emmrich's book ends the same way.

I love you.

[rebeccabobecca]

There are a lot of assumptions happening there. You say specifically that Musk's 35 unapproved methane generators are being addressed, but I have not seen any evidence of that. He was forced to get permits for 15 of his 35 generators, but they all exist in a legal loophole, and none of them have been shut down. Whether that will happen after his and Trump's public breakup is yet to be seen.

Yes new forms of energy are being worked on but crucially they are not ready yet, and local power grids are under strain. This article talks about how meta, microsoft, and google's measurable greenhouse gas production have increased 30-50% over 4 years due to ai, and how meta is using coal power plants to power it. This article talks about how the high and uneven load is stressing the entire local grid to data centers, increasing the entire community's energy bill, and damaging their appliances. (Yes, this article puts forward bloom energy as a solution, Here's a Forbes article talking about how bloom energy is both dirty and inefficient, x). Regardless of the validity of their proposed solution, the description of the problem is still relevant). Here's an academic paper from the University of Alberta talking about the damage the high and uneven power draw does to energy grids. Here's an article from MIT talking about how the AI data centers are the 11th highest global power user, using power than the nation of Saudi Arabia, and that is projected to increase. Here's a quote from that article:

“The demand for new data centers cannot be met in a sustainable way. The pace at which companies are building new data centers means the bulk of the electricity to power them must come from fossil fuel-based power plants,” says Noman Bashir, lead author of the impact paper, who is a Computing and Climate Impact Fellow at MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) and a postdoc in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

There are lots of solutions for green energy in the works, but they are only in the works, not in production, currently mitigating existing harm. Being "on the verge of the solarpunk revolution" does not help the people in Memphis breathing in methane fumes, or the people's who's appliances are breaking down, or the communities whose water resources are being depleted because a chatgpt query uses 4 times more water than a google search. More than making fossil fuels unprofitable, generative AI is making fossils fuels necessary for their function.

People call generative AI a plagiarism machine because users consistently feed books, papers, and stories into the AI without the consent of the authors, and then get the AI to write in that authors style, or finish an existing story, and the actual authors get no credit or compensation. There has been more than a few scandals in publishing of authors using chatgpt to replicate other authors tone or writing style, instead of writing their own novels. If AI companies can not pay to license the material they use for training, what gives them the right to use it? In any other case, if a company used the images of an artist's entire catalogue, in an advertisement, or a campaign, they would be legally required to pay the artist and license their work, so what makes chatgpt scalping that artist's website and training the AI on their art any different? Artist's and writers are rightfully angry when you can type "write a story in Diane Duane's style" and it does, because someone fed her entire oeuvre into the machine, and now the user has a story using DD's voice, something that she spent her entire career developing, and is what distinguishes her from other authors.

And none of this argument about environmental impact addresses the ethics of the tool itself. While there is plenty of evidence of analytic ais for medical and scientific use, what I have seen from generative ai is lawyers getting sanctioned for using to make arguments, doctors entering personal medical information into AI without regard for HIPAA, entertainment studios using it to get out of paying voice actors, students using it to get out of writing their papers. Also, AI is as biased as the systems that built it, meaning that they have been proven to yield biases that greatly impact their uses in most fields. Police using ai to "identify" suspects have arrested the wrong man on several occasions due to the AI not being able to discern black men, and the department of corrections has used AI to determine whether someone will reoffend, and the AI they use consistently outputs that black people reoffend 45% more than they actually do, and white people 25% less than they actually do. Medical centers that use AI have found that the AI consistently underestimates the amount of treatment that black people need, continuing a long-standing trend of not giving black people the treatment they need. Not to mention all of the various biases of ais used in recruitment and hiring, such as racism, sexism, and ageism.

There's a saying that a system's purpose is what it does, and what AI has done is produce plagiarized, often mediocre or inaccurate content at the expense of creatives, vulnerable people, and the environment.

"what did students do before chatgpt?" well one time i forgot i had a history essay due at my 10am class the morning of so over the course of my 30 minute bus ride to school i awkwardly used by backpack as a desk, sped wrote the essay, and got an A on it.

six months later i re-read the essay prior to the final exam, went 'ohhhh yeah i remember this', got a question on that topic, and aced it.

point being that actually doing the work is how you learn the material and internalize it. ChatGPT can give you a short cut but it won't build you the the muscles.

[jocelynellie]

The Breakup Pact - OB⁸⁷

Oliver Bearman x bestfriend!reader

Summary: Ollie and his best friend made a pact to not date anyone for at least 6 months after some terrible relationship fails but Ollie's PR desperately needs fixing. The solution? Fake dating.

Contains: fluff, some social media

Oliver Bearman was the king of the overtake and the king of bad decisions—off-track, at least.

His best friend stared at her phone, snorting at the headline: “Ollie Bearman: Fast Cars, Faster Breakups?”

"Honestly, do they think I’m collecting heartbreaks like podium trophies?" Ollie said, sliding into the seat across from her at their favorite London café. His baseball cap was low over his eyes, trying and failing to hide the fact that he was one of the most recognizable faces in Formula 1.

“I mean,” she said, handing over her phone with a wicked grin, “statistically, you’ve had more breakups than wins this season.”

“That hurts.”

She sipped her latte. “Truth often does.”

They’d made The Breakup Pact three months ago. Over tequila and takeout, sitting in sweatpants on her couch after she came home from what may have been the worst date she had ever been on and he had been dumped 2 days prior.

​​So they swore off dating. Six months, no exceptions.

No rebounds. No late-night texting flings. No feelings. Just friendship. Glorious, uncomplicated, platonic friendship.

And it worked.

Mostly.

Until Ollie started getting dragged by the press, and his PR team begged for a reputation fix.

Until she walked into the café that day in a sundress that made him forget what breathing was.

Until he slid his phone across the table and said, “Want to break the internet?”

Phase One: The Soft Launch

It started with a single Instagram post.

A blurry photo, posted on his Story. She was next to him on his boat on the lake, enjoying strawberries and chocolates. Her face wasn't visible, it was a perfect way to begin a soft launch.

Olliebearman posted a story

Caption: Not pictured: her 4-hour playlist of sad girl anthems.

Immediately, the F1 fandom lit up.

“WHO is she???”

“Y’all this feels personal.”

They said nothing.

Two days later, she posted a mirror selfie of the hotel room they were sharing for a Grand Prix weekend.

yourusername posted a story:

Caption: Slightly clingy xx

The comments came fast:

“Soft launch confirmed.” “Is this actually her?"

Phase Two: The Public Appearance

“You sure about this?” she whispered, looping her arm through his as they enter the paddock at Jeddah

"Yeah absolutely." He gives her a reassuring smile, his eyes shining when he looked at her.

The cameras went insane. Ollie Bearman with her on his arm.

People noticed. Social media really noticed.

And so, like all rational, emotionally mature adults... they leaned into it.

He was staring at her. Really staring.

And then he blinked, cleared his throat, and turned to face the cameras.

They smiled. They posed. They laughed like people madly in love. And somewhere, somehow, a line started to blur.

yourusername posted:

Caption: He made me match, 0/10 boyfriend

Olliebearman posted:

Caption: She called me bossy, 10/10 real girlfriend.

Over the next few weeks, “fake dating” became more real than either of them admitted.

It was subtle at first.

He started texting her “good morning” and “get home safe” like it was muscle memory. She began sitting through entire F1 practice sessions just to watch his onboards, making inside jokes about his cornering style.

During a race weekend in Austria, she found a note tucked into her hotel pillow. It was scribbled on the back of a tire compound chart, in his handwriting:

“If I crash, tell the world it’s because I was thinking about your smile. —OB”

She rolled her eyes. And yet she kept the note. Folded it neatly and slipped it into her wallet.

Phase Three: The Blur

It started as fake.

She knew that. He knew that.

But he still made her coffee every morning exactly the way she liked it.

She still memorized his qualifying times and texted him “your car deserves you” every race day.

He let her fall asleep on him during flights. She stole his hoodies. He never asked for them back.

And then there was the night in Barcelona.

He’d crashed out in Q2. A dumb mistake. His fist had slammed into the garage wall, and the media had been brutal. The words washed up and distracted were trending.

She found him hours later on the rooftop of his hotel.

"You okay?" she asked, sitting beside him on a pool chair under the stars.

“Fine,” he muttered, and then, softer, “I was supposed to be better by now.”

She took his hand. "You're still you. That’s always been enough."

He looked at her like she’d said something sacred. And then he kissed her knuckles, like she was breakable. Like he wanted to be careful.

And just for a moment, she forgot it was fake.

Phase Four: The Realization

It happened in Tokyo.

It wasn’t a big race weekend. No podiums. No press frenzy. Just a mid-season break and a getaway they booked “for the aesthetic,” according to Ollie—sushi, neon lights, cozy bookstores, and zero pressure.

It was supposed to be downtime. A break from pretending.

And that was the problem.

Because without the cameras, without the posts and the performance, there was still something between them. Quiet. Constant. And impossible to ignore.

They were walking through Shinjuku at night when it hit her. He was wearing a hoodie she'd "borrowed" months ago, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the breeze. She had just finished telling him a ridiculous story from her uni days, and he was laughing so hard he actually tripped on the curb.

And then—just like that—he looked at her.

And it wasn’t teasing. Or calculated. Or staged.

It was soft. So unbearably soft she nearly forgot to breathe.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, heart thudding stupidly.

Ollie slowed, eyes crinkling. “Like what?”

“Like…” She gestured vaguely. “Like you’re not faking it anymore.”

He didn’t answer.

And maybe that was the answer.

Back at the hotel, everything felt heavier.

He’d booked them a suite—two bedrooms, of course. They always kept up the illusion of separation, even when the walls between them felt thinner than ever.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through photos on her phone. Most of them were blurry. Candid. One showed him mid-laugh with his head thrown back, sunlight catching in his hair.

She stared at it longer than she meant to.

He came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, towel slung over his shoulder, damp curls sticking to his forehead.

“You’ve been quiet,” he said, drying his hands on his shirt.

She didn’t look up. “I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

“Shut up.”

A pause.

“Want to tell me what about?”

She hesitated. Then: “This is starting to feel real.”

Ollie didn’t respond right away. He dropped down beside her, close but not touching, their knees barely brushing.

“I know,” he said quietly. “It does.”

Another beat.

She tilted her head. “So… what do we do?”

He exhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t know.”

They sat in the quiet for a moment. Long enough for the buzz of city traffic outside to hum between them. Long enough for her to feel the gravity of his presence, the warmth of him beside her, the way his pinky finger kept twitching like it wanted to find hers.

“I don’t know when it happened,” she said finally. “I just looked up one day and realized you weren’t a bit anymore. You were the best part of my day.”

His eyes closed. “God.”

“And the stupid part?” She laughed, but it cracked halfway. “I wasn’t supposed to catch feelings for someone pretending to love me.”

Ollie turned to her, really turned this time. His voice was raw when he said, “I wasn’t pretending.”

Her breath hitched.

“I thought I was,” he said, softer now. “But then you started noticing the small things. Like how I tap the wheel when I’m anxious. How I can’t sleep before qualifying unless someone’s talking to me. How I eat gummy bears by color even though I swear I don’t.”

“I noticed,” she whispered.

“I know.” He gave a small, crooked smile. “That’s when I knew it was real. Because you weren’t looking at the driver. You were just… looking at me.”

She swallowed hard, her hands curling into the hem of her oversized shirt. “So what now?”

He reached for her hand, finally, intertwining their fingers with a kind of certainty that made her chest ache.

“I don’t want to fake anything anymore,” he said. “Not the hand-holding. Not the late-night calls. Not the way I look at you and forget there’s a world outside of you.”

Tears threatened, but she blinked them away.

“Me neither.”

They sat like that for a while—just holding hands, forehead against forehead, wrapped in something they didn’t need to perform.

It didn’t matter how it had started.

It only mattered that somehow, in the middle of all the pretending, they’d fallen into something real.

And neither of them wanted to get back up.

Olliebearman & yourusername posted:

Caption: The Breakup Pact failed. Gloriously

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Word Count: 1.5k

[cuephrase]

as someone who loves comics, hell as someone who got into this fandom because of comics, the comics-reading fandom commentary i keep running into that seems set on villainizing non-comics reading and fanon-enjoying members of fandom by complaining about the fic that gets published is seriously exhausting at best and deeply frustrating at its worst.

and let me preface this by saying, if you actually want to try and analyze perceived trends in good faith, by all means, do your fandom meta, so long as you are not treating other people like problems that require solutions. the solution starts with you. focus on changing your mindset from that of entitlement to appreciation. you are not owed quality fic- whatever that looks like to you. a fic not being to your preference doesn’t make it any less a labor of love, a creation that someone spent their free time putting together and sharing.

also i do scroll/block. i am not being “forced” to engage with this rhetoric. still, the prevalence disheartens me because this attitude runs in direct contradiction to what my understanding of fandom/ao3 is.

is fandom not the space to have fun with our blorbos? to share headcanons and art and analysis and connect with those who share our love and vision? do you forget that the A in AO3 stands for Archive? that the T in OTW stands for Transformative? why is it so offensive for someone to write and post a fic, to an archive, that is OOC to you that you have to complain about it in a public tumblr post? why does seeing someone enjoy and/or create something you dislike warrant you going to the town square and bitching? what gives you the authority to tell someone whether or not they deserve to exist in the fandom? are we not all guests?

just because we’re all in one fandom doesn’t mean you are the target audience for every creation. especially in big fandoms, where the breadth of interpretations is vast. like. you do know that even if every person who posted a batman fic read the comics, you still wouldn’t like every fic? something not being canon to you, while perfectly valid, doesn’t change the fact that it is or was canon and therefore may very well be canon to someone else. and vice versa! not to mention that someone can read the exact same comics and reach an entirely different conclusion. they can love the same character and see them totally differently.

y’all stroll up to a sprawling potluck, see some dishes you dislike, and start crashing out like. pause for a second. damn. you don’t have to eat any of that!! i don’t really care if you have a hard time finding fic you like, because, what? you think that makes you special? do you want a medal or consolation prize for doing what literally everyone who uses ao3 has to do to find fic they like if they’re picky? should i marvel at your commitment to only consuming that which has the finest of characterization, the most artful prose, the deepest, most esoteric insights? give me a break. what a first world problem.

“but they’re not even really fans of-” shut up. just shut up. keep that stuff in dms or the appropriate discord servers. private places where someone can’t accidentally stumble across them and get hurt. people come to fandom for so many reasons, why risk ruining something that is bringing someone comfort and community just because you dislike seeing blorbo written that way?

yes, it is up to individuals to curate the experience they have in fandom. it is their prerogative to block/scroll/not click on that fic that is clearly tagged with something they dislike. but it is not up to you to try and curate the Fandom itself. do you see the difference? you can make your own discord server and decide the rules, you can make your own archive and decide the TOS, you can and should make your space a space you enjoy being in. but the Fandom as a whole? that’s not yours.

like tagging is a very important part of good etiquette on ao3 imo, but the discourse over what fic can/should be has gotten so out of hand that my friend, who loves superboy and reads his comics, worries about what fandom tag to use for their fics that aren't canon compliant. hell, i tag all my fics that do not directly deal with a comics canon incident as "Batman - All Media Types" and not "[Character] Comics", even though i've read tons of comics and they are solely what i base my characterization off of because i'm paranoid about someone coming into my comments and giving me grief about it not being canon accurate enough, or being the inspiration of a vaguepost. what a sad environment that has been built. why should there be any stress over whether a transformative work belongs under the applicable fandom tags? what a bastardization of fandom etiquette to push for people to only tag with X fandom if they've "earned" it, if the fic is something that a Real fan would want to read. dgmw, i'm grateful that the Batman - AMT tag still exists, i think it's an extremely useful catchall, but the way that people weaponize the fandom tags is just so disappointing. and also? honestly? a little chronically online. because it presumes that ao3 authors will also be present on other fandom spaces to know the "rules", which is absurd. someone should not need to be involved on tumblr, or any other site, to know how to tag on ao3. following the rules as outlined on ao3 itself should be sufficient.

“well i enjoy venting-” yes, okay, i’m sorry that you lack the empathy to understand why your actions are discourteous. and like, to be crystal clear, i am strictly opposing vent posts/vagueblogging that calls out/complains about fic specificially. stuff like “i’m so sick of seeing people write X fic” or “saw this fic, why would anyone write a fic like this?” it’s not a legitimate question. it’s not a legitimate question, because the answer is simple even if you dislike it. they wrote it because they wanted to. that’s the only reason anyone needs to write a fic. and guess what, the great thing is that there’s an equally simple answer for why someone may not want to read a fic- because they don’t want to!

not that it matters, but i’m not saying this because i just love every single part of fanon and every fic is right up my alley- no. not only am i incredibly picky, but my tastes have shifted over time. past me adored some fics that i would scroll right past now- and those fics aren’t bad, i can re-read the ones i remembered to bookmark and see why i liked them. and i read fics now that past me would/did scroll past. i just don’t think my personal enjoyment of a fic should have any bearing on whether or not that fic should be allowed to exist- unless ofc, it’s my own fic. and even then, i, personally, orphan stuff, i don’t delete akdhfkdhf.

we are all guests. we are all playing with IP we don’t own. we do a disservice to ourselves and others when we forget that.

[former-incel]

Do you believe that you're a victim of an injustice because women won't have sex with you?

Well, you're probably right, at least to an extent. An individual woman rejecting you is not committing an injustice, even if it happens frequently and even if you get rejected more often than other men do. But there can still be an injustice happening. If the media or society as a whole are encouraging people to not find you attractive and to see you as a laughing stock, that's an injustice. If someone acts like you should be ashamed of yourself to even think you had a chance instead of simply rejecting you, that's an injustice. If you were never taught how to socialize because everyone expected it to come natural, that's an injustice. If people throw off your ability to read signs of interest by pretending to like you as a joke, that's an injustice. And that's very likely happening.

So yes, you are the victim of an injustice.

But you have to act like it. Pay attention to how victims of other injustices act. You'll notice a few things:

They have to be strategic. They don't just loudly scream and get their way. Calling it an injustice doesn't instantly cause people to care.

They have to ally themselves with other victims of injustices. "Stop caring about that injustice and start caring about mine" doesn't work.

They can't throw other oppressed people under the bus. What helps them but hurts another oppressed group is the tool of the enemy and must be avoided.

It's okay for them to feel uniquely oppressed, in ways that even other similarly oppressed people wouldn't understand. But having a "I'm the only one who's mistreated" attitude isn't helpful.

They have to genuinely act like other people's oppression is important. "Other people's oppression should be accepted as a fact of life, but mine is a tragedy that must end immediately or else," is just pure selfishness.

No one "deserves" the injustice they face. Separating victims of injustice between "deserving" and "not deserving" is only further promoting the injustice.

They have to fight back against the system as a whole. They can't pick one time that someone disappointed them and act like that's their #1 concern.

They do talk about how hard it is to find romantic or sexual partners. But they don't expect any individual person to have sex with them who's not attracted to them. Systematic exclusion is an injustice, but individual rejection is not. Pay attention to how gay men or conventionally unattractive women respond to their struggles.

They don't assume right off the bat that everyone is contributing to the injustice. While they have to be constantly on guard, they also have to give people a chance. They'll never get anywhere if they assume that everyone is going to mistreat them.

They often go their entire lives fighting back against the injustice, hoping that future generations will be free from it. They aren't only motivated by freeing themselves.

They want a solution to the injustice. They don't want to just be perpetually angry. It's okay to be angry every once in a while, but the main goal has to be finding a solution.

They often expect a little leeway when coping with their trauma from systematic oppression and exclusion. But they don't get a free pass to be assholes. If they act like assholes, people are justified in avoiding them.

[creatingblackcharacters]

how can i have a black characters fav animal be a monkey or like being called one and it not have anything to do with the racist term? i used to love calling myself a monkey just cause i love the animal, but i only hated it cause racism has ruined it for me.

i'd either be called racist, or "it's clearly just internalized racism" for wanting to like being called a monkey in a cute nickname way myself. and coming from someone who also would wanna draw african animals as humans, i fear being called racist for having their human designs be black. should i just change their favorite animal? give them a different nickname and for the humanoid animals, make them all white instead to avoid the accusations?

I was gonna delete this because I delete asks that don't capitalize Black (yes, even when you write lowercase any other time), but you got a lot going on here 😅 unfortunately, you're never going to be able to detach the two completely. Like, regardless of what you write, yes people might say "it's racist" or "internalized racism". Even I thought that, reading that you used to call yourself one. 😅 So, sorry there.

Really all you can do is write a story where that nickname is special because of a memory or the moment it was given that made monkeys this Black character's favorite animal. That way we're like oh, okay, that's understandable then. Because otherwise it'll be awkward. I'm still not letting nobody call me a monkey otherwise; that's big Frieza energy (maybe y'all would say Geto in this day and age as an example) and I wouldn't be able to unhear it 🤣 Like your personal experience might be more unique, which is okay!

It'd be easier to draw the Black characters as another type of animal, yes. "Making them all white" is not a solution to racism, no. That's like saying you can avoid misogyny by "never having women characters", rather than being thoughtful when writing them. People have drawn the lions from the Lion King as Black often, and it's fine. I'd also look into Black furries! They would know how to balance this!

[gothicdolores]

Spoilers for killer of killers LOOK AWAY MY LOVES

Having said that;

How are the bad blood girlies and gays feeling cuz yall fucking won I feel 😖😖😖 yes we don’t quite have their clans affiliation confirmed but given that Dan took some of the only best parts of Predators and The Predator I’m wiling to bet there’s something there that will finally give us some bad blood lore beyond the books and comics

Alot of how they operate doesnt really feel all that honorable, and bet that this could just be the new status quo, but Ive said time and time again Dan is very deliberate with that he does w the yautja so far. I don't feel as if he's turning his nose up at the extended lore, but that he likes playing with parts that keep being pushed to the outskirts of canon and given them a proper moment

To include something from what looks to be a proper yautja codex that can be interpreted many ways is genius "go amongst the starts and seek out the most worthy prey, become the killer of Killers" that sounds very standard to what weve seen yautja do! Going out and finding the best - and it's only been one specific group that's taken that mission to mean literally take them

Now we got this opportunity to explore the fact that different yautja are interpreting that message differently and that's 👀 oh so interesting

Translator device babes HERE IS YOUR TROPHY CUZ DAMN LOOK AT THAT COLLAR THING

The fact that it translates yautja but not inter-human languages feels so........poignant idk to me it's always been apparent that in they KNOW humans are crafty and in a pack? Deadly, that's why it's always been a thing to pick out one from a group, going one on one

Which again lends itself to this idea that this particular tribe might not be on the up and up, as the idea that the humans refuse to fight each other seems to confuse them and king Daddy's only solution to that is to blow them up before the good folks around him start catching or empathy cooties

IM JUST SAYING

And I know a lot of folks hate when the yautja die, but the last few movies have made it look like that's a shitty thing to do, when, if done right, reminds us why these guys are obsessed with us in the first place

Not to be all The Indomitable Human Spirit but they have left survivors alone in the past BECAUSE we prove we are indestructible gremlins who won't stop until we literally drop. The yautja of the earlier movies weren't meant to be particularly heroic (but damn are they hot 🥵) but we could respect them on the grounds that they had limits and rules and respected us when we met certain criteria.

Scar, wolf, cruci, fugitive are more far nobler yautja in contrast, so of course we don't want THEM to die, but we mightve lost the reason why we actually want some of them to live if we get upset when every random asshole dies

me personally I love seeing yautja doing some dumbass thing and biting it THATS WHY I LIKE THEM they fuck up, they bleed, that's why I think Dan made it a point for the Clan Leader or whatever to be double teamed by our humans because at the end of the day 👀 hey man if your going to be axed by three little humans maybe you shouldn't be our leader MAYBE IDK

Which brings me to the other thing that's scratching my brain: I truly think this particular group of yautja are just straight up stealing other clans kills

The yautja guards and everyone directly around and taking orders from Gunnar have a very distinct look. I know some are saying the three yautja from the three stories share a trait but I straight up don't see it at all. They're all varied and weird. These hunters fell to their prey and their prey was picked up after the fact - particularly Torres

Bare with me; Ursa's yautja relied so heavily on their prosthetic that it was almost a crutch that she could take advantage of, I didn't find anything particularly weird about the ninja/samurais hunter outside of their facial appearance which could just be a variance, but the dogfight hunter did all that for shits and giggles, there was no way he could've gotten trophies from that, I truly think that yautja was a badblood who was feeling himself

But Torres was literally back home and long since awarded when he was hunted down. That was SO LONG after his fight that I feel like this group just looks up anyone who bested a yautja before and snatches them up. And it tries to the fact that in the credits for Prey, Naru is seen facing down a yautja ship the same as torres

I feel ursa and the samurai had the same experience of "winning" but getting snatched up at some later point - which leads me to say my next words not lightly:

I think this clan of yautja, if not bad bloods, operate like poachers

These aren't big game hunters, these aren't the yautja we've run in before, I truly believe this particular clan poach other yautja's prey and claim them for their own

Gunnar is very showman-y, he knows his people want blood and excitement, he offers himself as the ultimate opponent because if he didn't have the gonads to put himself on the line, why would anyone follow him, he's very glitzy and glamorous but in a yuatjan way. A single "winner" wouldn't cause him any trouble, so it's easy to say hell fight them, but we've seen a FAIR fight would absolutely make him look bad.

...the crops circles were cute btw

But anyway, all those parked yautja ships? This place might look like it's on yautja prime but I live in Vegas and I know a rave when I see it, these folks were out here for a good time not a long time

These yautja are carnies I SAID WHAT I SAID

They take what entertainment they find and dress it up nice but you can't tell me something wasnt off about this whole operation, there is a reason why these yautja freeze their prey instead of letting them go and I don't believe it's because Dan is making any sweeping changes to the more I really don't. He has his OC on the front lines, I will follow Naru anywhere

But what a delight guys! I could actually go on such a tangent about so much but these are my initial thoughts; by all means come scream at me or with me I have time tonight to enjoy it either way

[mandrakemistakes]

Let’s talk about the Prim Reaper

Listen. It’s funny. I enjoy a big tall glass of I hate Gale juice in the morning with my bacon and eggs as much as the next girlie. But he’s also super interesting and complicated and important and I have a million thoughts so buckle up for a lengthy journey through the Gale Hawthorn section of my brain.

Why Gale is good

He wants a better world for everyone in panem

He stepped up to care for his family as a 14 year old

He took care of Katniss’s family while she was in the arena and would have continued to feed them for the rest of his life if she’d died in the games. At great person cost

Every single person from district 12 who is alive at the end of the games (besides the victors) is alive because of Gale. He pulled people out of burning buildings, he tore down the fence, he fed and led all the refugees to d13

He’s smart, resourceful, capable, determined, idealistic, stubborn, and honest.

Why Gale is important as a character

His anger at the state of Panem is (1) valid and (2) representative of a feeling held by a LARGE number of people. Katniss doesn’t talk to a lot of folks openly, but it’s safe to assume everyone overthrowing their districts was just as angry as Gale. He puts a voice to that fury

His focus on violence as a solution and his quickness to assimilate into the military and his trust of Coin make him one of the most notable mirrors held up to society in the original trilogy. Susanne wrote THG inspired by Americans response to the Iraq War. We were dealing with things like the Patriot Act, anti-Muslim sentiment, and enlistment propaganda in the states when these books were first written. Gales view on enemies and war were incredibly normal takes for the average American citizen at the time. She didn’t write him to be a villain, she wrote him to be US

The belief that some collateral civilian death is necessary and acceptable in war is NORMAL (bad, but very very common). All of you reading this live under governments that operate that way. It’s KATNISS’S beliefs that are the outliers here. The fact that Susanne got us all to agree with Katniss on this is wonderful and impressive and half the point of the books. But that doesn’t make Gale a stand out villain, he’s representing the norm. He is who we were before we read THG

Gale is a foil to so many things I don’t even know where to begin. His morals contrast Katniss’s and make her views more solidified and defined for the reader. He does the same for Peeta by being a contrasting romantic lead. Also Finnick to a lesser degree. He mimics some of Snow’s philosophy, reminding us the call is sometimes coming from inside the house. And he exemplifies Coin’s control and influence over her people. Not all of these are examples of literary foils but if you’re not Mrs Pierce from 12th grade English you don’t get to call me out about it

Why Gale sucks

He has a strong Us vs Them mentality, which is very normal, very problematic, and very worth critiquing. He has a chip on his shoulder about the “well off” merchant class in district 12, he has no empathy or forgiveness for capital citizens like Katniss’s prep team, and holds onto prejudices against victors. Unlike Katniss, he doesn’t get to know people and change his mind about their motives, he doesn’t give respect or humanize those he thinks are against him. He does not remember who the real enemy is

He also has a strong “if you’re not with me you’re against me” view of people. Anyone who isn’t rebelling loudly enough is making themselves his enemy. He’s angry with katniss in Catching Fire for not wanting to join the rebellion, he complains she should be doing more to spread dissent instead of trying to protect herself and her loved ones. He says that anyone sweeping floors in the Nut in district 2 is working for the enemy and deserving of the same treatment as those actively firing weapons against him. He’s very black and white about who deserves mercy and who does not.

He’s a really bad friend!!! He rarely gives Katniss any sort of comfort or emotional support. He ignored it when she’s struggling. He ignores the trauma she went through in the games. He goes so far as to ignore it when her SISTER DIES. When she acts out of fear (trying to run away, performing with Peeta for the cameras, refusing to define any romantic relationships atm) he belittles her.

It has to be said, we all knew this bullet point was coming, the romantic pressure he puts on Katniss is not chill. He kisses her without permission, guilts and manipulates her, gets angry when she doesn’t make a “choice” about who her “boyfriend” should be in the middle of conversations about who will be brutally murdered next. He does not read the room and does not accept her no or empathize with her confusion or fear.

“‘It’s the way he hates you. It’s so… familiar. I used to feel like that,’ he admits, ‘when I’d watch you kissing him on the screen. Only I knew I wasn’t being entirely fair. He can’t see that.’” - Gale says about hijacked Peeta after he’s insulted and embarrassed Katniss in the dining hall. Hijacked Peeta, who barely sees Katniss as human, who tried to kill her, who at best sees her as cruel and manipulative and wicked at this point in the story. Gale relates to that overgrown, violent, jealousy so much he tells katniss it’s FAMILIAR. He says that TO HER FACE. Evil. I know he goes on to say a nice comforting thing about how hijacked Peeta isn’t seeing the real her right after this quote but I will never be over that he says this and I shan’t forgive him for it.

What happened with Prim and the bomb

This gets its own section cuz it’s a big deal and super twisted by in fandom discussions

We know that Gale didn’t make the choice to use the double bomb when and where it was used. He was with Katniss and Co.™️ in the capital when it went down

Gale and Beetee are not even sure that it was their trap design enacted by Coin. But they seem to suspect. Katniss is sure it’s true. We the readers are meant to believe that’s what happened. It was Chekhov's gun, it had to go off

Gale would NEVER hurt Prim on purpose. He’s proven himself to be a protector, and Prim is one of his priorities. He’s saved her life, he’s cared for her, he cares a lot about Katniss and knows better than almost anybody how important Prim is to her. There’s no reality where Gale knew she was going to be in the capital and allowed it. No world where he saw her on the street and pressed a button to drop a bomb on her.

However, Gale is okay with the death of innocence. His design preys on compassion, it intentionally targets medics and those rushing in to help. It reflects his belief system about collateral damage in war perfectly. He knows it’s not pretty, but he believes it’s necessary and the ends justify the means. When he says this he’s imagining the trap being used on the ENEMY. He’s comfortable thinking about the deaths of theoretical, enemy Prims.

The fact that this got turned around and used on allies and ultimately kills someone close to him and ruins the relationship he cares most about is a huge lesson for Gale. He never learned to remember who the enemy is and that failing lead him right up to that scene with katniss in the mirror. He thought there was a wholely good and wholely bad side to the war. He thought his designs would only be used on enemies. He thought those getting hurt would deserve it. He thought the loss of life would be worth it. He was wrong.

[gingerfan24]

48 for Heinrix/Anna please! If no one asked that one yet <33

It didn’t take long before the shuttle doors opened for Ana to realize that she probably should have worn a better coat.

The cold hit her like a blade-thin, sharp and immediate, slicing through her uniform and the thin cloak she had previously, and arrogantly, declared to be “sufficient”for this outing. The air outside the shuttle seemed to shimmer with little flecks of ice as the cold bit into her bones. Her breath made fog in the air and she glared at the snow outside as though it had personally offended her.

Heinrix, already beside her in a high collared greatcoat, gave her a look.

“It was, if you may recall, mentioned that it would be quite cold here.”

“Pfft, I c-can manage my own temperature thank you very much.”

In spite of her attempt to sound more dignified, the chattering teeth told a different story, betraying her loosing the battle with the cold. She carefully drew upon her powers, just enough to raise the temperature of her body and pulled her cloak in closer. It wasn’t a perfect solution perhaps but better than nothing. Wisps of steam began to rise from her frame and what exposed skin there was took on a slight glow like heated metal.

Heinrix raised an eyebrow and began to unbutton his coat.

“That pride of yours is going to give you hypothermia or worse someday.” He said dryly. Before she could protest, he had already placed his coat over her shoulders in one practiced motion, its weight and scent settling over her like a heavy sigh.

“You don’t need to do this. I won’t catch a cold.” She said quietly. “And besides, you need it too.”

“Humor me.” Was his response. “And I came far more prepared for this than you did.”

She looked up at him, the scent of him that clung to the inside of his coat already distracting her somewhat—soap and something reminiscent of ozone.

“Ah….thank you.” She said quietly as a small smile spread across her face and the unnatural glow of her skin died down somewhat.

Heinrix nodded once, his jaw working like he wanted to say more but couldn’t trust his words. For a moment neither of them moved, simply standing on the lowered platform and gazing into each other’s eyes.

Finally, Ana broke the tension. “Well, we’d better get going. Stay close.” She reached out for his hand and caught it. His fingers closed around hers like a man grasping the last embers of a fire he didn’t know he needed as they stepped out into the cold.

[ecos-syscourse]

I think you're forgetting that "leftist" views are middle views. Wanting rights for people is something that everyone starts out with.

If nobody follows morals, then what's the point of them?

It's abnormal for people.

Wanting to harm others is not okay. Actually wanting to. Not being scared of the thought, not thinking that they might deserve it, but actually wanting and wishing you could harm others. And I don't understand how you don't see that.

If one guy is evil for trying to traumatize people and succeeding, and you want to traumatize people but are stopped, then what are you? Are you fine just because you're unable to?

Going "Ugh, no I don't have to follow morals because these other people do it worse than me!!!" is NOT a solution.

Let's say you threw a rock at a wall. Somebody else threw a rock at a different someone.

The kid harmed another, so clearly what they did was worse.

But, you damaged property.

That pales in comparison, right?

But why throw a rock at a wall???

Was the wall evil? Was that a reason to throw a rock at it??

Maybe that somebody threw a rock at you. Maybe you threw one back. Now they're throwing another.

"They threw one first!" You threw one back, and who cares if you say you threw it first when you both have blood on your face?

"They threw two rocks!" Who's to say that you didn't throw one first, and they threw two in retaliation?

Who's to say that you didn't throw a rock back but missed?

There are easy claims somebody could make about what happened that are false.

Fighting back and giving threats may seem like you're doing something, may help with making progress, but for them, it only proves that you're somebody "crazed" who they're right to throw a rock at. To them, your posts show their supporters that it's worth it, and that what they're doing is good.

Whatever you do that suits what they're trying to give off, that trans people are violent pedophiles, for example. They give any data they find, *shock* a trans person was near a child! evidence!!

if they spread that people from something you're a part of, systems, people with neurodivergencies, people with autism (I'm sure there's a term for this but I dont know it), are violent? maybe they use Elon as proof, "people with autism are like nazis!" (right after they had supported his nazi salute). What YOU'RE saying could be used as evidence for it.

But of course, I'm policing random people on Tumblr.

Of course, making threats and saying it's a net positive to give somebody lifelong trauma is *perfectly fine*, and none of anybody's business!

How dare I discourse in the syscourse tag??????

/sarc

Please, worry about the punishment you think that MAGA deserves after they're not a threat. Maybe, you should try focusing on stopping what they're doing right now.

Genuinely, giving me evidence that some people also do terrible things does absolutely nothing to stop that you are also saying something *not good!*

Don't act as if by saying this, I'm somehow just ignoring US politics. Multiple things can matter. You can talk about two things.

I'm trans, I'm gay, I'm neurodivergent, I have OCD (can be argued for that I'm "inherently violent" because of common intrusive thoughts if they wanted to), I'm Jewish, I'm plural. We can't "look normal", and if everything goes as they plan, I'm the first one dead in my town, because people don't care if I live or die. They might point to my house and say "good riddance." I know what's going on in politics.

Talking about how you want to ruin people's lives and cause them to have mental illness does not help that literally at all. Neither of us are doing anything to help that movement by making these posts. My reblogs will not help anything. Your post will if anything, make things worse, because Tumblr is full of leftists anyways and you're telling the extremely few people here who might be able to change from being MAGA that you want to harm them for the rest of their life.

Evil thoughts: While the accusations that I'd want to traumatize people into becoming systems are obviously ludicrous... if there was a magic string of words so hurtful that it could inflict lifelong PTSD on MAGAts, I totally would use it.

But I'd actually hate for them to become systems from it. They deserve to be alone in their suffering.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Every time I watch the cold open of Memorial and B'Elanna tells Tom about how she ASSEMBLED a 50's television set from SCRATCH just to surprise him (there's no reason beyond that - just an incredibly sweet and thoughtful gesture) and replicated popcorn for him to eat while he watches and Tom says "They didn't have remote controls in the 50's ♥ Also where's my beer?" I contemplate murder ESPECIALLY because B'Elanna responds cheerfully to it - GIRL!!! LEAVE HIM!!!!!! IS HE SUPPOSED TO BE CHARMING IN THIS SCENE????

[storge]

Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

[light-wrath-paradise]

Animorphs Book club book 8

My reaction can be summarised as this (yet again):

I don't have many thoughts because uh. That was depressing as hell and I need to stare at a wall.

But I DO gotta say that the subplot with the dead "wife" was so telenovela-esque that for a good minute it was more funny than depressing. Then it got depressing. But it was so jarring and so far out of the left field that for a good second my friend and I had to pause the audiobook and laugh because ????????? Unhinged to just appear, go "I am Eslin, I have a G U N. My secret wife was killed. By my boss. Now I yearn for sweet sweet revenge." and not elaborate. Like. Damn dude ok. Sorry about our wife also. Fucking killed me that he continued like "So anyway I reacted adequately by killing all of my boss' friends. Starvation style." Like ???? Jjhsgdjsdfghsjdfh what????? I mean damn I do respect the grind set but also that's such an absurd escalation out of context. Did your boss kill your wife? Kill all of his friends! And in context the most absurd part is probably the notion that Visser 3 has friends??????? Like??? Wait no Eslin. Eslin wait. I love your John Wick-esque "fridged wife" trope swag but you need to slow down. I need details. I need you to tell me HOW your boss even has friends.

In my heart I do not believe we will see that madman ever again but on god I do wish for an insane telenovela-esque sequence of him just showing up at the most random moment to do exactly one thing and that's to pull a gun on Visser 3. For no reason, I just think it would be kinda funny. Like,,,did your boss kill your wife?:

Kill all of his friends

Acquire a G U N

Attempt to make the local Andalite youth assassinate your boss for you

Pull the gun on your boss

???????

Profit (probably die)

Aside from that, I also need to say that the moment when Ax called Tobias his close friend at the end was so sweet. Also ngl kinda...concerning/harrowing how much Tobias really doesn't give a shit about not being a human. Like it doesn't seem so concerning from other points of view but the way Ax gets increasingly weirded out by Tobias not asking him about the nothlit (idk if I'm spelling that right rn) really reminds you that it IS kinda worrying. Like I get it, I mean...Tobias has no family that cares about him, he has no friends outside of the Animorphs friend group, why would he care? But it's still kinda...yeah.

Also unimaginably surprised by the amount of collective guilt present in the Andalite society. You'd think they're Catholic or something the way they keep beating themselves up and force everyone to also beat themselves up and their system itself is saturated with the guilt and shame and they teach it to kids at school from an early age. Like. Jesus Christ calm down. Stop that. As the Animorphs said at the end of the book - the Andalites made an oopsie once. It sucked, yes, it continues to have consequences that suck, yes, but it happens. Sometimes you think you're doing something kind and it turns into a disaster. That does not mean you should beat yourself up for it or, god forbid, tell other people that they should not be kind lest they make a mistake. Damn I guess we should all be cold assholes forever, huh? I'm sure that can't have any negative consequences.

Andalite society in general seems kinda unhinged. Like...do I get why it is like that? Yeah. But do I find it unhinged? Also yeah. Like ok duty and the collective being the most important things is totally sensible for a prey animal. Safety of the herd and all that. But it's still kinda unhinged that they do make everyone have duty as their number 1 priority and that they have rituals devoted to it. Not all rituals are spiritual or religious in nature, but the morning ritual is kinda...borderline religious in a way. More spiritual than religious, I suppose, but yeah.

Also I love Ax so much. 10/10 character. He has it all: an incredibly hilarious desire for cinnamon buns, the inability to act like a human being (same dude), spitting random facts at completely random times, a thirst for blood only a 13(?) years old could have, a dysfunctional obsession with duty and doing what is right that only a 13(?) years old could have (also lol yeah dude I was like that when I was 13 too. dw you'll grow out of it), he can even code. And he might even be bi (I'm joking but I' referring to the fact that he was like "Yeah so when I morph into a human form I suddenly agree that Rachel is beautiful and that Marco is cute.").

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[luddlestons]

That art you did of essek and Caleb with their baby! What’s the babies name? Also are they biological or created with magic?

I wrote a fic about her actually!

Her name is Una, after Caleb’s mother (I am definitely not the first to do that, I’ve seen several people do the same), and she’s their bio kid, though there was SOME (accidental) magic involved in her creation.

[spoilers for the fic: she’s a wild magic sorcerer because of Aeorian shenanigans]