#we are all truly a hivemind lmao

[anonymous-eggy]

ugh everyone making their touchstarved mcs have green hair and be moth themed. time to change my entire mc's design

[mania-sama]

‘cause you and i (we were born to die)

Born To Die - Lana Del Rey

➼ information ❧ Bungou Stray Dogs ❧ Pairing: Dazai Osamu &/ Nakahara Chuuya, Fyodor Dostoevsky & Nakahara Chuuya ❧ Tags: ambiguous relationship, vampire! chuuya, chapter 101: sinking to the bottom, angst, drowning ❧ Summary: The one in which Chuuya, just for a moment, breaks free from the confines of the vampire hivemind upon nearing his very wet death. ❧ Word Count: 1,105 ❧ Cross-posted from Archive of Our Own ❧ Original post date: 5 March 2023

Author Note:

Written before the continuation of the manga past 101. I didn't know that Chuuya wasn't actually a vampire yet lmao

-

The last thing Chuuya could remember was talking to one of the Black Lizard members about the strange viral ‘ vampire’ outbreak in the Port Mafia ranks.

Now, he was drowning.

It wasn’t exactly clear what was going on, other than the fact that he was desperately kicking his legs and craning his neck to stay above the waterline. He wasn’t even sure of how he got there.

His entire world was blurred as though he was looking through a dirty glass window. His body was tingling and all noise coming through his ears was muffled, including the sound of his own ragged breathing.

Water splashed up his nose and trailed down into his mouth, trying to pry its way between his lips. Chuuya shook his head to fling the water away, then found comfort in the fact that he could still feel the familiar weight of his hat on his head. No matter whatever had transpired to get him to this point, he hadn’t lost everything.

Though if he couldn’t clear the fog in his head and figure a way out of the tight, flooding room he was in, he wouldn’t be able to find comfort in anything anymore.

Chuuya splashed the water, kicking higher as he tried to take in his surroundings. It was unbearably difficult—where his limbs were taking instinctive action to keep himself afloat, his head had to be forced to move. In the cramped space, it didn’t take the executive long to see a man drowning beside him.

His figure was hazy and undefined, but had long black hair and was in the same state as Chuuya. He was oddly familiar and could almost be mistaken for Dazai, if not for—

“Can you hear me, Dostoevsky?”

It was just right that his mind collapsed upon hearing Dazai (undeniably Dazai. It could be no other) utter that name. His arm was pressed against the ceiling when his consciousness came back, the searing pain in the back of his skull dully thudding with a repeating Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky. It was said in a voice that wasn’t his own.

Chuuya spat out another batch of water, the liquid feeling heavier than he remembered it to be. At this point, he couldn’t see much of anything outside of the vague outline of Fyodor staring angrily at the ceiling.

Why am I here? With him?

His memories were vague and scattered; it was impossible to pick out any details. What he could remember with clarity, however, was the feeling of total emptiness. Like he was an outsider watching what his body did rather than truly acting on his own free will.

“But I think your ability isn’t something that can break you out of this situation.”

Where was Dazai’s voice coming from? He wasn’t in the room with them, and he couldn’t make out any intercom devices in the ceiling. That really didn’t mean much, he supposed. He couldn’t see much of anything at all.

Chuuya bent his head forward, the water pushing him up closer to the ceiling.

He’d spent so long fighting, so long trying to survive. He couldn’t just drown. Why was Dazai letting him drown?

“That’s why I chose this trap,” Dazai said. Dazai put him here with Fyodor. Why? How did he even manage to wrangle Chuuya there in the first place?

He was missing too many memories for anything to make sense, and Dazai’s voice was the only lifeline he could cling to. Despite their years apart, the years they spent arguing and actively trying to kill each other, Chuuya had no reason to believe that Dazai would willingly put him in this trap.

Yet. “Chuuya.”

There was nowhere else to go. The water was lapping at his nose, so he repositioned to where the back of his head was resting against the water and his face was against the ceiling. Someone needed to turn the water off. Dazai needed to tell him what to do, because fuck he was going to drown and he really, really didn’t want to die.

He’d been fighting to survive for twenty-two years of his goddamn life. He couldn’t just die like this.

“This is farewell to you, too.”

Why did he sound forlorn?

Why wasn’t he telling Chuuya how to get the fuck out of this death trap? Chuuya went underwater, then forced his way up and hit his head against the ceiling. He gasped for air, subsequently taking in a cup’s worth of water.

“It’s a shame things turned out this way. Seven years since we met,” Dazai paused, and Chuuya thought he heard his muffled voice crack, “and we’ve done nothing but quarrel with each other.”

This couldn’t be it. Chuuya pressed his palms against the ceiling and used For the Tainted Sorrow, but the effect was nothing. No matter how much force he put behind his hands, the ceiling stubbornly refused to succumb to his ability. It remained entirely unaffected.

This can’t be it. Dazai couldn’t be killing him, couldn’t be giving in to whatever that demon Fyodor did. Their relationship was worth more than that. If Dazai wanted Chuuya dead, he would’ve killed him a long time ago. The same was vice versa.

They had never killed each other. Their early childhood quarrels were real, but they quickly became teasing. They didn’t hate each other.

Unless Chuuya was wrong.

Seven years. Seven fucking years. “Now that I think about it, there were some moments where we did connect.” There were several. Chuuya had let his life rest in Dazai’s hands more times than he could count. And he would’ve done it again, if not for the fact that Dazai was somewhere watching Chuuya drown and he’d been the one to put Chuuya there and for God’s sake he couldn’t breathe.

“Like that time—”

Chuuya’s head went underwater, and there was nowhere else to go but down. Nothing left to hear nor see.

Dazai’s breaking voice flooded into his lungs with the oddly heavy water.

Since the day that Mori formed Double Black, Chuuya learned that Dazai could be trusted.

He couldn’t be trusted to not cheat in black jack, and he couldn’t be trusted to be a delightful person to be around. But Chuuya trusted Dazai with his life, as both a partner and an old friend. He could always find a way to save Chuuya.

And perhaps, even now, he could still do so. Water stung Chuuya’s eyes closed, and the pain in his panicked heart spread through his veins. 

Fuck you, Dazai.

A bony hand grabbed his wrist, and his consciousness was lost to static. 

Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky.

[jay-berd]

hi hello! I have a house blog (greghatecrimes) + as soon as I saw your Dan pfp in the notes of the "why do all trans guys love House" post I was like "IMMEDIATE follow. this person Gets It."

this is from SO LONG ago so sorry im just getting to it now lol but YESS im glad we can have this little hivemind community. truly i think its just the collective gender envy for twink wilson that beckons the trans mascs to house, and the crimes of course. but please id love to talk house and dnp lmao and i saw your header is my fave utdr quote so that was an immediate follow from me lol

[theyarebothgunshot]

jib 6 breakdown and analysis

standard disclaimer: i am not gonna be linking to every single thing i talk about, but i will try my best to link to the moments that stand out to me the most. i have read long posts about this panel before, so not everything in this post is gonna be original or said for the first time ever, simply because there is a good chance that information has stuck in my mind and has subconsciously formed my view of this panel. this is also in no way, shape or form gonna be coherent, unfortunately. i’m just gonna hope that the cockles hivemind will be able to make sense of this regardless. love and light. and lastly, this is all in good fun, so don’t come at me if you think this is too out there please and thank you.

if i would have to give this panel a signifier, i would say this is the panel of the inside jokes. it’s the panel that shows us how well they know each other, to the point that they finish each other’s sentences and start telling the same punchline to a joke at the same time. 

but besides all of that, it was also the panel of the shoulder touches, husband behavior, and rescuer misha. let’s dive into it.

-

i adore the fact that they are laughing and joking with each other from the first second they get on stage. the way that they tell that story about how they planned to have misha nap and have jensen drink whisky and humm, really reminds me of something that i mentioned a lot during my jib 7 analysis: they are very much in sync.

jensen slinging his arm around misha of course had to be compensated with a manly face and manly grip. the rituals… i know they are intricate.

it’s kind of cute how misha tried to both encourage jensen to try that step, and wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hurt himself lmao. dare i say husband behavior? (i do dare and i will do it again, bam bam!) 

something about the way they talk about j*red just makes me feel like they are such a team, if that makes sense? like, they both think the same things about j*red’s antics and talk in such a united way about it (“and jensen and i were like…” “i don’t even care. he [points at misha] doesn’t care.”) that it just sounds kind of coupley to me. *whispers* husband behavior.

i love that jensen’s first instinct after talking about missing j*red was to go over to misha, put his hand on his shoulder, and talk about his fucking flirting way of pranking misha versus j*red’s painful pranking of misha. “with you it’s like my friend and protector is....” i truly wish the audience wasn’t as loud as they were in that moment because i would love to fully hear that sentence. 

the look on jensen’s face when misha says “save it for when we take off our pants” is just priceless. ‘oh god here we go again, when will he ever learn’ but the funny thing is, he will make the same face later on in the panel, after talking about riding a dragon. that’s the face he makes when one of them goes slightly too far. just thought that was interesting.

what stands out to me the most is his reaction when misha turns around just as he is ‘fake unbuttoning’ his pants like: ‘i’m just kidding i’m innocent’ literally no reason to respond like that if misha is just his buddy.

misha’s “what are you doing?” as jensen is tying his flannel around his waist also stands out to me. he clearly does not like the look and can’t keep his mouth shut (“that was bothering me too”). why would you find the need to comment on your buddy’s fashion choice. (....husband behavior.)

just wanna take a moment to say that it’s very fucking funny that jensen said “don’t take selfies” when you know that just a few years later he would take the chest to chest selfie with misha. oh, jensen. 

we have all heard the “jensen pranks misha on set by flirting with him” story countless of times, but it’s still funny to me how flustered misha seems to get by the fact that jensen can get to him that easily. and jensen’s laugh here is so cute, he fully knows what he is doing. 

misha jokes that he spends more time sunning on rocks now as a merman than he used to, and jensen immediately starts to walk to the apple juice, something i have noticed that he does whenever he wants to avoid something (be it a question or a situation that’s happening on stage). it almost feels like he is stopping himself from making a comment or something. it’s interesting, because he just turns right back around and starts telling the grasshopper joke without getting anything to drink.

which leads to one of my favorite moments between them: misha, beaming, says that he has heard it before but he wants to hear it again, and mouths the words to the punchline along with jensen. he looks at the audience as if to say ‘good one, right?’ and when jensen goes “is this thing on?” misha immediately tries to distract him from his failed joke by using an inside joke (the first inside joke of the panel) with him. aka good husband behavior.

something tells me that “i’ll see you again, grasshopper” is another inside joke, so we’re counting it: number two. 

jensen. jensen pspsps come here. can you please explain to me why you are so horny for misha’s indianrussian accent? i cannot believe him (i can), trying to get him to use the accent to ‘help the girl in the audience’. 

so uhm. i think i just heard something while i was rewatching this panel that i never caught before. when misha reads what is on the box that was put on stage, he says: ‘please take this box and open later in private - daniella.’ and jensen goes: ‘yeah that’s from me’ with a flirty Look on his face like. hello??? why have i never seen anybody talk about this??? i’m??? internally screaming??? rest assured i had to take 5 when i saw this shit. 

can we take a second to appreciate the fact that jensen gave misha a once over when misha says the glitter is everywhere, and then jensen said “fairy herpes”. why did your mind go to a sexual reference jensen? why? (we know why).

“i hate when you get that look in your eyes. don’t! i’m sorry!” is one of the most coupley things to say, ever. just wanted to point that out. 

i love the playful vibe they have during this portion of the panel: jensen asking misha what he will do for the audience (thinly veiled excuse for wanting misha to do something that jensen will also enjoy), throwing the rings at misha, both of them “panicking” and lapping up the spilled apple juice.

look, i couldn’t not include the shirt lift. i had to. especially because of the way he looks at misha afterwards lmao and misha, darling misha, tries to defuse the situation by making a joke and it works because of course jensen does his signature unicorn laugh. sidenote: how cute is jackles when he grabs the guitar, begging people to erase the picture jsfhs. gotta love that man.

“you done messed up” inside joke number 3.

you know what is funny to me? the fact that jensen and misha often pretend not to know certain things about each other when they are on stage together. one example of this is during the underbear debacle, when jensen asks misha to proof he wears orange underwear and pretends he is shocked, even though the whole world knows that misha wears orange underwear. 

in this panel, it happens twice. the first time is here, when misha asks jensen ‘do you actually not smell?’ as if he isn’t one of the people in this world who would know that best. and then he, of course, immediately takes this opportunity to sniff jensen’s armpit. i mean. okay. which is extra funny because jackles doesn’t play along with the whole ‘i have no clue’ bit and just goes “yeah you’re not a stinker” without checking because, clearly, he already knows. 

i love jensen’s little smirk when he hears misha’s dragon would be pink + misha’s reaction to it.

before i read this post i always thought jensen meant that his own dragon would be salmon colored. but now i think that it’s not far fetched to believe jensen was actually thinking about the fact that he has stated he was wearing a salmon shirt. which means that, in this moment right here, he was implying that instead of pink, misha’s dragon (aka jensen) would be salmon. which makes his reaction (looking down, laughing but shaking his head as if he can’t believe himself) very understandable. remember what i said about that being the face he makes when one of them takes it too far? yeah.

but then, something happens that is quite remarkable to me. instead of backing down from what he said, he fully commits to it. he turns to misha, and goes “if i could ride a dragon”. listen to the way he puts extra weight behind “ride” and “dragon”. 

then he asks if he understands the question correctly and repeats “what would it look like?”, the girl in the audience says “yes, but also any special abilities…” but jensen just ignores that because obviously, in his head the dragon is misha and he is not gonna shake that thought process any time soon. so naturally, he goes “i think my dragon that i would want to…” but stops JUST before saying “ride”, the guy KNEW what he was sounding like. lmao jensen i gotta give it to you buddy, good effort. you did well. you came far. you even said “look, i’m just gonna go for it here” even though misha’s face speaks volumes. i love you for that. because everything that came out of your mouth right then sounded very not straight.

in fact, it’s only because of misha’s interference (a reoccurring thing during these panels) that he stops himself completely and goes to talk with misha. i really wonder what would have happened if misha didn’t stop him. i also REALLY wonder what misha and jensen discussed when they turned their backs to the audience. sigh. 

now we get to the juicy stuff. jensen’s little slip up here is really really strange, when you think about it. he says “i have kids” before quickly covering that up with “i have a kid now.” i’m not saying the ackles and the collins are one big happy family or anything like that, but i do think that they are close enough for him to slip up like this. maybe the kids hang out together a lot. maybe they have given each other enough support during those early days of raising kids that it sometimes feels like he had multiple kids at that point in time. idk. but in any case, i don’t think that’s a slip up you’d make unless there was some sort of truth in it. he also kind of stumbles over his words right after that. [before anybody runs to my inbox to tell me that j/2 tinhatters think this is about him and j*red raising their kids together: trust me, i know, but we’re not talking about that.]

misha’s cheeky “i thought you were talking about danneel” followed by the both of them simultaneously saying that jensen does not tell her what to do, made me grin like a fool. that is all. 

the way jensen says “misha, apparently you were looking pale and you need some sugar. there you go.” is so SOFT AND CUTE idek how to explain what i am feeling but it’s just. a lot. oh wait a minute, i do know what to call it: HUSBAND behavior.

“by the way we’re gonna pay so dearly when we get home” “yeah we are” lmao the jdmv vibes are strong in this one. 

look. i know it’s possible that misha woke up alone after that dream, thought to himself ‘i miss her’, went for breakfast, saw jensen, and told this story to him verbatim. but misha is literally telling the story from the pov of waking up from a dream and saying that out loud. it would make sense that he would explain that dream to the person who he woke up with, and that he would follow the dream explanation up with “i miss her”. plus jensen is REPEATING IT as if he was right there when misha said that. add to that the way jackles stumbles over his words here and gets flustered and sits down? and misha’s face? yeah. you done messed up jackles, part 2. 

jensen doesn’t know what to do with himself. just look at his face right after he sits down. and misha, once again, comes to the rescue, trying to continue the conversation about poop in order to distract both jensen and the audience. bless his soul. 

it leads to the second instance of misha pretending that he doesn’t know something about jensen, namely that jensen can’t stand poop even from his own daughter. misha goes: “no? not for you?” as if he didn’t already know that. 

round of applause for the jib team, for putting on ‘this thing called love’ to get jensen and misha to dance……. just saying.

jensen’s little nod to misha right here? husband telepathic communication at its finest. even their silly dad dances are in sync. 

jackles you are NOT being slick we can SEE you tossing the mic to your other hand so you can pull misha in by the waist (or honestly maybe his hand landed lower idk idk it’s possible).

it really is something special, though, what happened right here: jensen, macho masculine grumpy performative jensen, is smiling and laughing and enjoying dancing on stage, doing some ballet moves, all because of misha (and by some extent felicia). not just with felicia or by himself, but with rob, osric, etc. honestly it’s heartwarming to watch. it makes me smile so much. 

-

and that was jib 6. thanks for reading everybody <3 

[gonnahypatia]

Ch.44 Review: OP is mad at Garden

(Analysis also posted on Wise HQ, feel free to chat with us over there! 🤍🖤🤍)

My my, we have a lot to unpack this week.

Again, forgive me if I say something that someone else has said, I usually work to bring something new/original to the discussion but since the hivemind is so strong it's possible we'll have the same ideas lmao''

First, I'd like to talk about our new mysterious character: The Shopkeeper.

I'm already missing Bluw's design because the assassin granny was just the best, but I can say that Endo's choice was very interesting this time. Since I'm not sure if the Shopkeeper has confirmed pronouns, I'll be using they/them when referring to them. What stands out to me about them at first is that they're, apparently, non-white and if I had to make bets, I'd say Endo wanted to code them as Indian/Middle-Eastern, considering the deep eyebags and the collar of the shirt. If we wanted to go even further, I'd dare to point out their garden doesn't look very Western to me. I don't have words to describe it well, but this garden has a more "busy", crowded and stuffy feeling when compared to western gardening styles, which usually have a lot of open areas with grass. Also, we can see that tower/turret thing at the background that has a more Indian architecture feel to it, so Idk, either Endo put a lot of depth into this character or I am reading too much into it as always lel'. If any Indian / Middle-Eastern folk can confirm or debunk my analysis of fictional gardens, please feel free to hit me up at the DMs~~

About Shopkeeper's opinion on Yor's marriage, I can't say I'm surprised about them not being 100% on board with it and how it affected her job, but it intrigues me how apparently (as Tare pointed out on Discord based on the Indonesian translation) Yor presented this as a real deal and not a scam marriage purely for hiding her Thorn Princess persona. If the Shopkeeper knew it wasn't real, they wouldn't be so worried about "testing" Yor as soon as they met, right? Maybe they're being overly cautious, who knows, but it fills me with all the sad/fluff feelings the thought that Yor presented her family as a real one to a person she shouldn't have to hide anything about, considering her job should be top priority. And talking about hiding stuff...

Garden is with the Mob... And I don't know what to say about it lol'

I had my theories they were still legal to some extent and part of a shadow government that had the official one as a puppet, but their involvement with the Mob makes things kinda tricky (we can also imagine the Gretcher organization is anti-Westalis as well but still...). In a way, I think I'm still right, otherwise I doubt Yor's manager at City Hall would be involved with this as well, so I still stand by my Legal Garden flag.

However, Yor's principles here also make me throw fire at my planning boards because sweetie, this is the f*cking Mafia. To what extent goes the gray morality of Garden and their underlings? Shopkeeper does say the Gretchers have controlled Ostania's underworld in "an honorable fashion". Just what does it mean? To shed the less blood possible? To not allow petty criminals go rampage? Or just eliminate every single enemy in the radar so now they finally managed their revenge in killing the male heirs? There's too much going on here, help.

I would also like to dedicate a minute to our new favorite milf.

God, I am going to simp for Olka hard, I bet on it. She's so pretty, just look at her! Also, sorry to rain on everyone's parade, but while I really crave some mothers bonding time between her and Yor, I have a feeling this lady will be very evil when the time comes. She shouldn't trust nobody at this point, so if there's a moment if she has to sell out Yor, even knowing she has a family of her own at the ship, I feel like she'll do it in a heartbeat, in a twisted way of showing how far a mother's love goes for their children. Again, guys, she's a Cool Mom, but she's also Mafia. Endo already has shown to not pity these gray characters with angsty pasts, so I can see this is as a good opportunity to stop this soft filter / romantization in Yor's lines of work and show what Garden really stands for.

Now, finally, the start of this chapter and arc: Yor.

Gosh, I'm worried. I'm worried for Yor and I'm worried about having too many feelings about a fictional character a.k.a Yor.

During all this time, we were under the impression Yor enjoyed her job due this sense of duty

towards her country, making it even with how it brought her a comfortable life when she was younger and had to care for Yuri. We could even point out that she enjoyed being the Thorn Princess so much she was willing to be part of a scam marriage to appear more normal and not call the attention of authorities.

However, now we see that's not all of it and apparently her worries about Yuri were the very main reason she took this life, to the point that now she realizes Yuri has a life of his own, she doesn't feel the need to do this kind of work anymore. Did she truly feel comfortable with it in the first place? The fact that she "needs to get her motivation" for it truly bugs me and makes me wonder how much of her mental state was sacrificed over these years until she got used to the killing. And while we're on the mood for angst, let's talk about a (not very plausible) scenario in which this is her last job and she manages to leave Garden. Then what is the point of their fake family? It appears to me her new most important matter is Loid and Anya and she wants to put them to safety by not being an assassin anymore, but it still worries me she'd feel out of place somehow, which is a shame because we can really see how she wants to spend real moments with them without worrying about work. Grrr, Endo better treat my girl right or else he'll get these online fists (9`へ´*)9

Well, that's all for this week, let's get our hopes up for the next chapter!! ❤️

[mariaiscrafting]

can i ask why you dislike dream? im not being passive agressive or something lol i am genuinely curious

S’all good, kinda figured you weren’t being, and a lot of people have asked me this lol. There are so many reasons, and I’ve said this so many times already, but I’ll try to go over some of the main things I can remember:

1) Arrogance: kinda put me off how he’s always responded to criticism. Always kinda had an air of superiority about shit, and it never really bothered me on its own because I think lots of CCs are arrogant & I’m arrogant myself, but combined with all of the following, it became a reason for me to dislike him lol

2) Manipulation of his audience: look, I kinda always knew that CCs with huge fanbases, especially CCs who grow this quickly, have some kind of grasp of how to treat and foster their audience to their greatest advantage. I’ve always been wary of CCs that put on soft or nice personalities, especially since the whole Shane Dawson debacle. But with Dream, it’s been a whole other thing ever since his cheating response video, and I’ve never been able to see him in a good light in regard to how he responds to his fans, ever since. I went into it in a lot more detail back when I first watched the video, the day it dropped, but I’m too exhausted to scrounge that post up, so I’ll summarize: that video had a very specific strategy that he used to victimize himself and appeal to his fans’ compassion for him, and after rewatching the video for the third time that day, it felt gross and calculated to me. The way that he focuses very little on the actual mathematical part of his argument. The way he frames the issue of the mods having favoritism or bias. It was already proven on Reddit and throughout Twitter that the numbers the mods looked at were for good reason, and not because they just wanted to pick the numbers that made Dream look the worst, but that’s how he framed the argument. When I logged onto Twitter and Tumblr that day, there were thousands of fans who had latched onto what he said in the latter half of that video and coming to Dream’s defense, and that’s kinda when it hit me: this guy fucking knows what he’s doing, and he’s doing it well, and I really really dislike it. There’s about a hundred other ways he manipulates his audience, including not coming to people’s defenses when huge chunks of his audience attack them (even though the people had respectful and correct criticisms of him), defending stans so adamantly in the face of antis, and posting periodic alt tweets that help garner the illusion that he super cares about his fans; but, that cheating response video was the major red flag, for me.

3) Cheating & lying: as is likely no surprise to y’all, I think Dream cheated lmao. At first, I was ecstatic that he had actually made a detailed response video and put out a report with the help of an actual professional, but as I read up on his supposed statistical argument and dissected the parts of his argument that felt off to me, I realized maybe he had cheated. Talking to some STEM major friends of mine, who weren’t into MCYT but had obviously heard about the whole debacle because they like Twitter and Minecraft, kinda put the nail in the coffin for me. I’m not nearly smart enough or have a good enough memory to detail exactly why I think he cheated on this blog, right now, in April, but essentially: his main argument relied upon claiming mod bias, instead of a sound mathematical or statistical argument; there’s no way of proving that the world files he provided to the mods and in the open source weren’t altered; the statistical problems he points out (i.e., stopping effect) don’t actually skew the original mods’ model nearly as much as his supposed PhD guy would say; and the odds he comes up with might not be nearly as impossible as 1 in 7 trillion, but they still come up to around 1 in 100 million, which is still fucking ridiculous, considering that there are only, like, 120 million people in the world who play Minecraft.  Not impossible, but laughable that he expects people to believe that. But... I guess they did, lmao. The thing that peeved me the most about the whole thing was the adamant lying lmao. When you look at the situation from the perspective of “dream cheated,” you realize just how fucked up all his Twitter responses, his adamance in streams and that video, and the general mood among his friends is... idk man, it’s just highly fucked.

4) Relationship with stans: look, there are significant numbers of  his fans that take part in Twitter cancelling vendettas, who spread around information about other CCs and their fellow fans that is false and meant to villify them, etc., and he never fucking says anything. It really, really bothers me. There are too many instances to enumerate, but a few that have caught my eye were when Dream stans would attack Techno, prior to their battle and when a Native American woman politely explained why he shouldn’t use Native music, he responded and said he wouldn’t, but tons of stans continued to attack her in her replies for “being so harsh/mean.” Like, he knows that just one word from him will make his fandom follow his beck and call. All it would’ve taken was one fucking word. There are so many fucking people that have been harrassed off of social media platforms because of the hivemind that is dttwt, for christ’s sake.

5) Reddit posts: All of the above were reasons for me to mildly dislike the guy prior to the Reddit posts, but they weren’t really enough to make me stop posting about c!Dream or reblogging fanart or reading DNF fics or watching Manhunts. I kinda just clowned on the guy, answered the occasional ask about the cheating thing or something related, and left it at that. The Reddit posts not only pissed me off for their content, but for the lying, as well. Do you think I fucking cared about him cheating at speedrunning Minecraft, of all games? Fuck no. What I cared about was the adamant lying that went into the whole debacle. Kinda the same with the Reddit posts. I’m one to usually forgive creators who acknowledge past errors, obviously. It is creators who try to brush stuff off, or even worse, create an elaborate lie to cover up allegations, that put me off a fuck ton. This is the reason I could never be comfortable with watching Pewdipie after I realized all the shit he had brushed off, and it’s now the reason I can’t go back to watching Dream. There is so much evidence that points to guilt, including but not limited to: his first move when the slideshow dropped (before posting to Twitter) being deleting as many old Discord messages as he could, the contradiction between him at first denying the account was his at all then changing the story to say he shared it with a friend, the wording and phrasing in the political posts being almost identical to the non-political posts that were clearly him (i.e., the one that explains his demographics perfectly), and the timing of the political posts (some of them being posted mere minutes after posts that were verifiably him, like the picture of Patches to the cats subreddit). People can claim that he’s likely changed, and what this it matter, as long as politics don’t affect his work now, but I can’t believe this fundamental misunderstanding of why bigotry in entertainment matters. I’ve always had a problem with the adoration this fandom has for cishet white men, and the constant criticism of non-cishet, non-white, non-men, but this really feels like the final slap in the fucking face. It’s like everyone truly believes that it doesn’t matter, that his beliefs couldn’t have possibly affected the way he’s treated fellow CCs in his circles or any of the number of people that depend upon Dream, directly and indirectly, for employment/CC clout. It’s like everyone truly believes that political ideology has no effect on the way we perceive, treat, and behave around other people in literally any field, not just politics. I, just... Christ. I don’t really wanna unpack my emotions about this whole thing right now, so I won’t. I’ll just say: I dislike Trump supporters and ex-Trump supporters alike, I dislike conservatives who claim they’re centrists (every fucking guy my age does this, it’s infuriating and makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall), I dislike people who levy their fans against criticism - even when it’s righteous - and I dislike people who lie about their past actions; Dream fits all those categories, so I dislike him.

[irkenheretic]

What’s your favourite twincest ship? 👉👈

ok im gonna take this as an opportunity to talk about ANX’s own resident twincest couple because i love them theyre amazing and TO BE FAIR they are my favorite

under the cut bc its long and yknow. about incest. in depth lmao

ok so a little backstory: irkens can inbreed without genetically imploding like humans do- if they EXCLUSIVELY inbreed for too many generations then there are problems but that would like. never happen normally. because of this, there is no cultural taboo against incest

on the defect sanctuary planet, family units are just starting to become a thing. so there are mates, and smeets, and hatchmates etc. being multiple of those things at once (i.e. hatchmates and mate-mates) is seen as a little odd- but only a little. anyone who has a truly big problem with it is seen as an asshole. (good luck to any humans that move there!)

which brings me to The Couple:

their names are purin and pelle- purin is a boy and pelle is a girl. but that’s not how they were hatched! kind of? irkens choose genders in smeethood, there’s no agab. originally, purin said he was a girl, and pelle a boy, but they switched around because they both realized they picked the wrong genders (which happens sometimes lol)

they each kept their original names

so growing up they were always..... those kids. the weird as fuck kids. even on a defect sanctuary planet, there’s a bit of stigma against defects who are too defective. think a zimlike temperament- they’re looked down on for being too weird, as opposed to the Good Defects who are like Normal Irkens, just a bit different

and they were always attached- they never went anywhere without each other, they just.... felt at home with each other. of course since theyre on the defect planet, they DO have a family- and their family does accept them! it just hurts when everyone else treats them as pariahs

so in their teenhoods, they started to distance from each other and tried to be more “normal.” purin has a bit of an easier time, but pelle, who’s more outspoken and loud, did not

and neither of them were happy. they missed being close to the other in a way they never really understood? they thought it might be a twin thing at first, but that never..... felt right, yknow?

and of course their family realized smth was up. they have an older sister who ended up confronting them separately about it and they evennnnntually realized what was going on ya dig

and theyve been mates ever since. they talk in a very particular echo-y way and- ok ok hold on lemme- 

“We’re twins,” she clarified, “from the same egg.”

“It was a big egg.”

“A really big egg.”

“Almost killed our dad.”

“We have a really small dad.”

“He’s great! Have you tried the restaurant?”

“You should try the restaurant.”

“He works there.” 

“But we don’t work there.” 

this is OOOOOOOLD but this is how they talk (tm)

they really play up the “creepy twins” aspect of their personality and act like a singular hivemind unit, and only let their true personalities shine more in private

pelle is the more outspoken one and purin is the quietly mischievous type. theyre both bastards dont get me wrong lmfao

they’re EXTREMELY codependent on each other and the fact that they isolate themselves from everyone is a Bad Thing

its not the focus of the plot but in the background you can kinda see them going thru development on their own; showing up separately and not talking in that echo-type way all the time. but they stay mates! the fact that theyre mates isnt unhealthy in of itself, the fact that theyre so isolated was

a lot of people on their home planet kinda see them being mates as a “what else couldve happened?” thing. like, they’re both too creepy and weird for anyone else to love them outside of, well, each other

idk i love them. theryer good. my fiance is working on a oneshot starring them and im gonna beg him to at LEAST put it on tumblr

also inb4 “do they have kids?” yes they do actually. er, they’re identical twins so that means identical genitals, but they did have a threesome with a surrogate (a drone they paid handsomely) and have a kid that way

kid’s lost in the empire tho lmao, rip purin and pelle

once their planet has this tech, they’re gonna try again with a tube-grown science.... thing.... that lets same-sex irkens have a kid

(which is tech that exists, its just not gonna be on that planet until after ANX)

anyway thats them.... i should draw them theyre cute

also if u peep the red-eye family tree youll see that they’re red’s aunt and uncle lmfao. their older sister is his mom

[favvnsongs]

Hey so what is ahead to still waters 👀👀

I - oof even what is Ahead to still waters, indeed, lmfao.

Uhm, so very long story short-ish:

Atsw is the sprawling, all over the place, sometimes a gritty traumatic war drama, sometimes an indulgent opulent space opera, occasionally an uncomfortable psychological horror, more often than not a heartbreakingly tragic and agonizing and tenderly romantic monsterbeast of a catradora(...?) fic that happened when a dubcon chipped!catra/adora pwp drabble morphed into Cry little sister and then that au morphed a second time into Ahead to still waters.

It's @trashcanpunch and I's favorite fic-child and we basically come crashing into one anothers DMs on a constant basis to scream feelings at each other. I mean mostly like angsty feelings as if we're on two different sides of a vicious guerilla war and heartbreaking plot moments or snippets or whatever the fuck are spike pits in the jungle but... yknow.

Lmfao no but uh. basically. Atsw, much like Cls, is the "what if" exploration i guess based on if adora&co had left catra behind after catra had helped to rescue glimmer off of prime's flagship.

(mind you that the backstory "lore" of the universe is only like... 5% canon compliant bc I dont fuck with canon when it comes to aus it's stupid and I dont like being limited like that lmao)

no but uhhh. yeah. without the events of Save the Cat, adora never really becomes she ra again. meanwhile, catra isn't forcibly baptized in the mountain dew pool of doom against her will and shoddy chipped and shoved into the hivemind. rather prime sees how much she's hurting and how much internal conflict and despair she's got in her, and very gently and tenderly and so so so uncomfortably grooms her into turning on etheria. essentially handing over not only everything she knows willingly, but also taking the light willingly, joining the hivemind willingly, but also giving herself over to the war effort bodily in letting him use her physically for the creation of little sister, who is kinda sorta an entirely separate personality? it's weird. that whole aspect is sorta... it hasn't been ironed out yet.

(if any of y'all are familiar with my aus, youll know nothing is concrete and everything is always changing and being retconned lol so things may change but)

catra is essentially given the light rather early? and the light and the chips and the hivemind all work differently than in the show, obvs. and she wants to repay prime for giving her a new home and a place of belonging and a purpose?

(oof and I loooove prime in this au. like. i love him because I have such a love hate relationship with him. and I think that's his entire point?? because he'll Make You Like Him??? and make you trust him??? and it's just So Good. and then you'll be reminded that he's an absolute fucking monster it's Amazing)

no but. so. catra. but also little sister. so like, catra is given the light and she's been relieved of her despair and her grief and her anger and bitterness and pain and all that jazz. she's also done some other shit too but we won't get into that here lol. she's earned her place, so to speak. but she wants to do more. she's a true believer. she has seen the truth and heard it from on high and followed him from out of the darkness with pure blind faith and been rewarded. she has really truly deeply drank the koolaid.

prime basically through some weird process splits her - personality? entire wholeass consciousness?? idek. but there's catra and little sister and theyre two different people but they're not and they have two separate personalities but they dont. and they have different memories and knowledge of things but then at the same time they dont. they share a body and a soul but thanks to chip shenanigans and prime's influence, little sister is intentionally so much stronger than catra, she's the one in control most of the time? and yeah sometimes, though very rarely, catra can shove her way to the front but more often than not prime has to allow catra to be present.

(it's not like she'd want to be anyways. committing warcrimes and whatnot. she's comfy where she is. as long as adora's safe she's okay to let little sister be of service to lord prime's plans. that's okay. as long as adora's okay, she's okay.)

but then yknow turns out prime is getting kinda bored af with the war and the heart of etheria isn't like. he doesnt really want it to blow up the universe bc that's dumb as fuck?? lmao what. he mostly either wants to harness that magic so no one else can have it who Would blow up the universe bc there are much more evil fuckers than Prime out there and they aren't members of the evil version of the space united nations or whatever who are all like "so hey uh what's the deal with basically that giant bomb I guess you were gonna take care of or something...?" or he wants to conquer etheria and her surrounding planets (which is mostly his current plan but etheria is kind of just... being a bitch..) bc he cant really just. leave something like that sitting in what is his backyard now. but either way he's getting really fed up and he's all "alright we're gonna just mass chip everyone fuck it i don't care" or something like that, and then honestly prolly destroy all the runestones or something and then just pack up and see if the planet explodes like a pressure cooker.

but also prime has a bit of a soft spot for catra (I mean its more that that but we're not gonna get into that rn) and shes all 🥺👉👈 do you think mebbe I could go and talk to adora and see if i could convince her to join the light? she might be so happy to see me that she'd say yes?

and little sister and prime are all "lmao this kid" and "oh you sweet summer child, how precious you are. sure, it's worth a try" but at the same time they both know that adora isn't an idiot and that she's gonna put two and two together and realize pretty quick why catra isn't dead and why she has a chip but hasn't been seen in years. and oh gee yeah I mean you've been committing God awful horrific atrocities but sure I'll come with you and join ur cult ex bestie sure ♡•°` so little sister pretty much promises prime that she'll kidnap adora if/when she says no to catra both bc adora is a good asset to have Anyway and bc like it or not she's got a soft spot for catra too, even if she's a spoiled little fuck who gets special treatment.

so adora obvs says no and catra is all 🥺 and little sister is all 😤🙄😒🗡🗡 and so adora gets kidnapped...? politely taken prisoner? ... rescued from maybe being blown up? ... reunited with her ex-bestie who she abandoned to prolly/potential doom? lmao pick one. catra is pouting bc adora was mean and rude even tho catra was so excited and happy to see her again and adora is grumpy and stubborn and impolite and little sister is like "I hate you both So Much" and prime is all "drama! I love it :3"

aaand I gotta go run errands and try to be productive so I guess thats all the explanation you'll get for now.

@trashcanpunch can prolly sum it up MUCH MORE seriously than I can tho lmfao

[littlebabycrybtch]

bro..... im sooo tired of ppl being whiny freaks about ppl liking fictional shit ‘~too much~’. like bitches are literally fully convinced if you prefer acting out certain ideas in fiction but not irl, thats not your normal preferential boundaries but rather your brain is a mental illness BOMB and you need to be fucking hospitalized for being imaginative and having autonomy. like yall if its not taboo or smth shut uuuuhp man you’re not ‘concerned for their health’ or w/e you’re fully just tryna get away with being a nihilistic asshole who lacks sympathetic reasoning skills. listen to me. fiction is valuable. the thoughts we have on it are important. the personal lack of value you happen to put on a media is next to worthless. its not a fuckin waste of time dude, creators are people, who live in the real world, they experience it and have ideas through it and about it, they form and tweak their ideas while still definitely existing in the real world, and then put that back into the world with a new angle and new perspective, to share with other people definitely encountering it in , you guessed it , the real world. thats not disconnected. its not nothing. these things do not magically appear from fairytale land, they are created. stories mean smth, people tell them for a reason, its ok to feel smth for any story, why would we even tell them if not with the intention to impact others emotionally somehow i mean??? fiction does not Just affect reality, it is valuable to real life society, it is a functioning thriving part OF reality. 

humans have told stories since the dawn of our existence. it is literally all but an inherent species trait for us to imagine things, its tied to each and every one of us, and to reject ‘fantasy’ as smth worthless to human life is frankly just fuckin wrong and weird of you. bitch we are Supposed to get outside the box, the fandom ppl you cringe your pants over arent thinking abt fake shit too much, you guys very often just arent exercising abstract thought and imagination enough, which actually hurts your ability to engage with it critically in all the ways its meant to be. if you dont see the value in fiction its because you put in no effort to form the analysis skills. in other words, you idiots dont get the hype bc you’re too stupid to get how you're supposed to compare a book to the real world it came from. ‘uu but cmon not everythings valuable what about [tumblr designated cringe media]-’ 1. ok! somehow you havent come to this conclusion yourself yet but thats not real, whatever ppl get to enjoy is not all abt you, your bias means less than dirt to others outside of hivemind social medias, you can keep it to yourself, ppl shouldnt care about it bc it means nothing outside of ur own space, its literally funny to me that you’re so elitist you want me to cater my interests to you, Your Standard Of Quality Isnt Universal, 2. ranking the values of fiction is the waste of time here, if you compare mlp to pride and prejudice ill dissect your teeth, different emotional impacts from tragic to funny to Just A Vibe are all able to be assessed as ‘valuable to somebody else so leave well enough alone’ if you dont have 2010+ funnyman brainrot disease that makes you incapable of reflecting on anything you can find a way to joke abt first.

i mean seriously like. whenever randos start engaging with medias you ppl dont like or in ways you dont get, the strawmans yall make up to get to be cringe culture vultures abt such benign shit, and almost Always at the expense of neurodivergent people with a deeply rooted undertone of extreme ableism might i add..... its just so selfish. u have a brain ok, you’re manipulative but we both know you dont Actually think ppl automatically default to being a waifu obsessed incel rotting away at their basement computer, stagnating their social skills and straying further and further from reality with each passing day, a poor disturbed wretch that you just HAVE to save from themselves, all bc they say they. prefer fictional porn or w/e to having sex irl. buddy thats not a big deal, theyre normal, just different from you. theyre fine, you’re just uncomfortable. as a functioning adult you’re gonna have to try and recognize that sometimes that feelings gonna be 100% on you, and you cant always just lie abt the validity of it to make ppl feel obligated into agreeing with you. this is gonna be one fragment of their personhood and your self obsessed brain imploding over how unrelatable that is doesnt fucking matter, grow up bitch like. how detached do you have to be to think thats so unstable or morally wrong.... its just a completely inconsequential preferential decision that only affects them and isnt a wrong choice at all cuz nobody has to get their dick wet if they dont wanna for any reason ever and thats gotta be that tbh.... and it kills me cuz they still inherently experience the real world and are capable of thinking abt it critically,,, even tho they... masturbate to drawings or w/e the fuck ppl think is unhealthy ???? like? imagination is just fun we dont need to moderate it anymore than we moderate other fun activities i mean lol ksdjfsd this is the DEFINITION of ‘just vibing’ no one FUCKING cares and it deosnt fucking matter the way you desperately try to make ppl think it does just so u get to be loud abt ur shortcomings as a decent understanding person. 

‘uuuuuu im sorry but thats unhealthy :///’ you sound like a goddamn maniac dude stories are not unhealthy having feelings abt them is not unhealthy thinking some anime bitch that was DRAWN TO BE HOT , IS HOT, is not UNHEALTHY and you clowns arent convincing anybody you ‘care’ abt that concept anyways !! im losign my mind here skdlsdfsd medias are literally DESIGNED TO DO THIS TO PEOPLE... WE’RE SUPPOSED TO FEEL THINGS FOR IT.... IT IS WHAT MAKES THE ART WE’VE TAKEN PART IN FOR CENTURIES, “ART”.... ITS JUST... HAVING IDEAS AND EXPERIENCING IMAGINATION..... whats wildly unhealthy actually is yalls toxic obsession with ‘harsh truth’ and validating your stupid ass cwinge feewings to the point where everything that gives your underdeveloped selfish ass hives has to be a matter of health and morals and whats ‘best’ for everyone. u dont know that shit!!!! ur a petty brat and im not ur mommy ok i wont baby you so u dont feel like the shitty whiny person you are, you need to grow and do better and think outside urself already, dont put the responsibility of making u feel right for judging somebodies benign hobbies on me. i wont bc its wrong and unnecessary. you’re not a savior no ones falling for that lmao you’re just a bitch girl xoxo get over it shit truly does not matter. let them write nsfw self insert fics instead of banging !! 

to make it real do yall really not Get that basic consent kinda doesnt just mean ‘no when im not in the mood at the time’ but it means ‘no if i just dont fuckin feel like having sex ever for literally any reason at all bc i choose what i do’ and pressuring them, even with what your warped brain translates as the best of intentions, is inherently disgusting? especially with the ‘i know how to help you’ attitude like......... ohhh die soonly ew lmao! lay off this nasty shit already please it doesnt matter! stop trying to make it matter!! its not hurting you or them you stupid tumblr phd ass!! and like again yeah some media shits just truly gross but tbr now its like even That kind of shit, the Real social issues caused by Actually problematic media that ppl should discuss Genuinely without ulterior motives, is being used more and more rampantly as just a stepping stone to get to the needless mockery of other harmless things in the media they want an excuse to bag on.......... like a bitch cant just be grown and talk about problems at face value without getting a bully jab in. smhhhhh you all fuckin suck please just stop talking already. so anyways yeah being attracted to fictional characters instead of real people or w/e IS funny, funny how many boyfriends they have when u have none xoxo theyre having fun and you can die sad abt it they get to die 5 times in an angsty fantasy fic and be brought back with mouth to mouth by fuckin kakashi every time and then they go get lunch irl while ur updating tinder bitch ... different fucking strokes ig !

[f-nodragonart]

Alphas and Hive Minds

HTTYD and now Godzilla:KOM have done me too dirty on this topic, I HAVE to rectify this

so let’s break this down

“alphas” are a very human-centric concept (and more arguably, a specifically capitalistic concept), and aren’t typically present in nature in the ways we expect them to be, if at ALL

“dominance” is at best a fluid concept that can sometimes help map out relationships b/t individuals under certain contexts, but it’s NOT an inherent trait. here’s a quote from an excellent article on the subject, PLEASE go read the whole thing:

You can’t really say ‘an animal is dominant’ in the same way that you can’t say ‘an animal is chasing.’ Who is that animal chasing, and who is that animal dominant in relation to?

While there are many hazy definitions of the word dominance in the current scientific literature, the most accepted one that I have seen is that dominance is a factor of a relationship between two individuals regarding control of resources. In this relationship, the submissive individual will allow the dominant individual to have the resource. Theoretically.

What dominance is NOT is a character trait. No animal is born “the alpha.” Studies of wolves in captivity and in the wild have shown that the fact that an individual is the highest-ranking member of one pack has little to no bearing on the animal’s rank if it moves to a new pack. Similarly, studies of parent-raised canids have found that no stable hierarchy forms in litters of pups. And finally, dominance relationships are often based off of the result of a single fight; if two individuals are evenly matched it can be a more or less random conclusion.

as this article goes on to explain, wild wolves typically live in “nuclear families”, so what we perceive as the “alpha couple” is actually just the parental unit to the kids who have yet to leave the nest and start their own families. anything approaching “Alpha/Beta/Omega” among wolves has mostly been observed in captive situations, where a bunch of random wolves are thrown together and forced to navigate their environment together-- it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved

now this isn’t to say that wild animals are NEVER hierarchical-- ranking is useful when dealing with large groups of individuals. however, these hierarchies are generally more complicated than a simple “perfect ladder” concept (again, from the same article):

Figure redrawn from Bradshaw, Blackwell, and Casey, 2009. Dashed lines between pairs indicate no clear dominant individual despite multiple interactions. No line between a pair indicates that the pair rarely interacted.

(while not necessarily an example of wild animal hierarchy since this is mapping out relationships within a group of shelter dogs, it’s a good example of the complexities of larger group relationships)

and one last important quote from that article, relating to submission (seriously, read the whole thing):

So much of the literature focuses on agonistic behavior, yet agonistic behavior is far, far rarer in wild canids than submissive behavior is. In nuclear wolf families, aggression is almost nonexistent.

The word ‘submissive’ has a negative connotation. It suggests a loss of power, a humbling, a subjugation. It might be better to remove it as a label for certain types of canid behavior, in that case. Canids don’t demand submissive behavior from one another, they offer it. Muzzle-biting in wolves, which seems fierce, is usually solicited from the animal being bitten- several times in a row. Far from the popularized “alpha roll,” canids rarely force each other to roll over- they use rolling over as an invitation to play or a plea for affection. This type of affiliative, cohesive behavior makes up the vast majority of all social behavior in canid groups.

A wag of the tail and an open, panting mouth is called submissive by the literature, but in that case, so is a human smile.

while this article focuses on canids, there are plenty of examples of wild groups of animals w/ some sort of ranking/hierarchy (including non-predatory animals!), just be mindful of the sources u look into. even scientific sources could have a bias based on the researcher’s personal social background

even if we ARE treating dominance as an actual trait, or creating a ‘perfect ladder’ hierarchy, there’s a BIG difference between asserting dominance via size/strength/pheromones/etc. vs. straight-up mind-controlling a group to do ur bidding. however, mind-control is unfortunately how most “alpha” media seems to frame dominance, which is simply not even POSSIBLE in nature, as far as we know

this is where we see botched attempts at “hivemind”, which isn’t even present in the hives we associate it with. here’s a post that breaks down social insects RLY well (which I recommend reading in full), but for the sake of this post, I’ll just quote some important sections:

If you think of a social insect colony as a superorganism, which it’s useful to do in many cases, different groups of insects within the colony act like organs. One caste protects the colony from invaders, which is like an immune system. One caste scouts for new places to forage, which is like a sensory system. Generally, science fiction has a good grip on this idea. Where sci-fi authors fail is that they think the queen is the brain of this superorganism. She is not. She is the reproductive system. The queen does not control what happens in the hive any more than your reproductive system controls what happens in your body. (Which is to say, she has some influence, but she is not the brains of the operation.)

~~~

Now, I’ve already told you that the queen is not the brain of the hive. So where is the brain? Well, that is exactly the point of swarm intelligence. The brain does not reside in one particular animal. It’s an emergent property of many animals working together. A colony is not like your body, where your brain sends an impulse to your mouth telling it to move, and it moves. It’s more like when two big groups of people are walking toward each other, and they spontaneously organize themselves into lanes so no one has a collision (x). There’s no leader telling them to do that, but they do it anyway.

Much of the efficiency of social insect colonies comes from very simple behavioral rules (x). Hymenopterans, the group of insects that includes ants, bees, and wasps, have a behavioral rule: work on a task until it is completed, and when it is done, switch to a different task.

~~~

The existential terror of the hive mind in science fiction comes from the loss of the self. The idea is that in a social insect colony, there is no individual, but one whole, united to one purpose. No dissent, disagreement, or conflicting interests occur, just total lockstep. I totally get why that’s scary.

The thing is, it’s just not true of real social insects. There is conflict within colonies all the time, up to and including civil war.

~~~

Here’s what I find weird about depictions of social insects in science fiction. They are portrayed as utterly alien, Other, and horrifying. Yet humans and social insects are very, very similar. The famous sociobiologists E.O. Wilson and Bernard Crespi have both described humans as chimpanzees that took on the lifestyle of ants.

and even worse than a false attempt at hivemind among just one species, “hivemind alphas” in popular media are often shown to control an array of completely separate species! as if all these diverse, uniquely-evolved creatures answer to the same, single power!

"but what if I want to KEEP alphas/hivemind? is there a way to do it ‘right?’”

well, there might just be! here are a few ways I’ve thought of

1) integrate “dominance as a trait” into reasonable caste systems and/or hierarchies

sure, something like “dominance” could theoretically be an inherent trait under certain circumstances, but what would that MEAN for the species this occurs in? this sort of system would evolve for a REASON, so what purpose do castes with different levels of “dominance” serve to the overall community?

does dominance correlate to a certain set of tasks (IE-- alphas fight and protect, omegas gather/grow/prepare food)? or is this simply a way to better keep the peace among a huge group of individuals that would otherwise in-fight too much if there weren’t any genetically-predetermined parameters in place (and if this is the case, what kind of tumultuous relationships must this species have that they wouldn’t be able to solve these issues thru social interaction)? or maybe this is a purely reproductive strategy, and there are either several different sexes based around dominance, or different castes within sexes that perform different sexual/social roles depending on population and breeding season (and if so, how does dominance factor into these reproductive strategies)?

for as much flack as the genre gets, there are a lot of ABO/omegaverse fics that actually do rly cool worldbuilding w/ the concept of “dominance as a trait” and/or genetically-predetermined castes, so I know it can work lmao

2) lean HEAVY into exploring autonomy/individuality and mind control

if u want an alpha that can override the autonomy of others, then don’t shy away from the full implications of that

what does it mean for this society if one single creature can override individual autonomy? what does this level of control mean for individuality-- if that’s even a concept that exists for these creatures? do individuals feel any particular way about their lack of true autonomy-- are they relieved to not be under the pressure of having to making decisions themselves? maybe they even feel that individuality is a psychological death-sentence-- after all, what is anxiety if not the existential dread of individuality?

are alphas born into this position of mental control, or do mentally strong individuals battle for it? if this is the case, are alphas the only ones that could be considered truly autonomous individuals? or perhaps alphas are more of the mouthpiece for the collective consciousness of their community, so their opinions and feelings shift to reflect the average consensus of their community?

if a single creature can control individuals across a wide area (such as across an entire planet), how do they do it? do they have far-spreading pheromones, a loud call, or do they use second-tier individuals to exert their control? or are all individual members of the community connected into a complex neural network? is this network so intimate as to connect all individuals in a mental web that can be tapped into at any moment, despite distance? what can transfer across this network-- complex thoughts/language, visuals, or just emotional suggestions?

also, please think deeply about how far-reaching an alpha’s control is in your world. sure, perhaps a complex neural network evolved early on enough that all of a planet’s species fall under the control of this neural umbrella, but that’s prettyyyy unlikely. a much smaller taxa level makes more sense, like just a species. this species may still be the dominant species of a given planet, but their alphas aren’t controlling EVERYTHING on that planet-- it would be FAR too much effort to control every little ecological system. or at the very least, the control exerted beyond an alpha’s own species would be very weak compared to the full control they exert over their own-- perhaps they can only implant suggestions or telepathically communicate w/ other species?

though just because the alpha’s community consists of a single species doesn’t mean there can’t be diversity-- social insects like ants and bees are a great example of specialized tasks leading to diverse morphology among a species’ castes

3) the society is actually a TRUE superorganism of systems with a leading “brain”

are there even any separate individuals in this world, or is the “alpha” in fact the ‘brain’, and all other ‘individuals’ are their various limbs and organs? real-life hives/colonies without a “brain” allow for highly-efficient, decentralized coordination among as many as thousands of individuals, so what is the advantage of a ‘single’-organism society setup with a single “brain”?

this is a great route to go if u rly RLY want a multi-species hivemind, b/c u could make the base organism a parasite-- cordyceps fungi, anyone? parasites still tend to be species/clade-specific, but at least this physical conduit makes more sense for a multi-species hivemind

-Mod Spiral

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

hi amy! it's so nice to have you back 🥰 for the fanfic ask game: 20, 21, 35

im so happy to be back, i missed y'all during the semester 🥺💛

20. What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?

handwriting my first drafts! i love that im able to write (just about) wherever i want, i love that i don't put as much pressure on myself for the draft to be perfect (bc i can just make a note in the margin for anything i want to add/change/etc.), i love that i get to use COLORFUL PENS in NICE NOTEBOOKS,, it's all around a fun process and i strongly recommend it to everyone

21. What’s your least favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?

typing my drafts, lmao. that's the time when i actually have to make the changes i noted for myself, which isn't always easy. and also typing can just start to feel laborious after a bit.

35. How much has writing fic changed your life?

an embarrassing amount, probably! i don't think i would have realized how much i love writing and english/literature studies if i hadn't started writing fic. i've made so many friends through fic, too (literally ambi and i started talking bc we both wrote flash thompson-centric fics, read the other's fic, and immediately Fell In Love and i cannot imagine not having her in my life now). although you well know i've made friends through fic, #hivemind ;) so yeah!! truly embarrassing!! but i love writing fic and i love my friends i've made through fic VERY VERY MUCH!! 🥰💛