#yes im going to start calling out specific fandoms

[writerquil]

somebody get me out of here

[justiceiscalling]

wild opinion i know people will hate me for: i strongly dislike alfred pennyworth. i know what you’re thinking, “how could you hate him! alfred does no wrong!!!”

(loud incorrect buzzer) WRONG. omg, alfred can only do wrong in my mind. he is such a fucking enabler and then he wants to play devils advocate. recently, before starting ‘what the future holds’ i reread robin 1993—specifically tim’s birthday arc.

if you don’t know what that is i’ll tell you. on tim’s sixteenth someone delivers a package which is a holographic message from a future-alfred essentially telling him someone in the batfam is, like, evil, and trusting him to figure it out. eventually it’s revealed that the message was a test, part of bruce’s training, and ‘future’ alfred was actually just current alfred. it was a really good read, i believe it was issues #116-120.

point is, alfred WILLING sided with bruce on that shit. alfred was not held at gun point, his life was not under any threat, he was asked to assist and he. did. that. shit.

and after he had the audacity to be apologetic! ‘i’m so sorry master tim’ like no tf ur not???? like u did this, you allowed him to feel like everything was HIS responsibility and like he couldn’t trust anyone. which is just so fucked up on another level. he watched tim isolate himself and beat himself up over trying to solve this and he?? just?? let?? it?? happen???

and some how he can do no wrong?????

when tim first became robin, who gave him the suit? i’m pretty sure it was alfred. yes, tim was a relentless little kid—but that’s just that. he was a fucking kid, no older than thirteen. alfred gave him the suit. sure, it was to save bruce, but why did it have to be him? why couldn’t he call dick or superman or, hell, go out there himself? why’d it have to be the nosy ass neighbor?

also when bruce and dick used to beat the shit out of each other alfred didn’t do anything. he lowkey just let it happen. like how much is bruce paying bro for him to let that slide?

ALSO ALSO i would love someone to correct me on this, PLEASE tell me i’m wrong, but wasn’t alfred the one who put up the good soldier memorial? everyone hates on bruce (who, in a lot of ways, is a bad father) for that memorial being up but it was alfred. and i get he was but jason wasn’t just robin, he was so much more. and most importantly, he was a son. i know things were rocky for him and bruce but, god, that’s his son! like what the genuine fuck, yk?

and maybe this is only in some iterations but alfred literally influenced bruce to train to be a vigilante. he trained him when he was young, after his parents deaths. and yes, he was another one of those relentless kids, but there were things alfred could’ve tried to stop him from doing this.

what i’m trying to say is, im so fucking tired of this ‘saint alfred’ BS. he’s in the wrong! maybe not all of the time but a lot of the time. and i don’t know if that ‘jason loves alfred the most!’ thing is fanon or canon but either way i hate it. if you’re going to make bruce a bad dad, if you’re making jason and bruce’s relationship rocky, then alfred can’t be the exception. he should be held accountable as much as bruce.

like, if jason loved alfred so much and saw him as a grandfather, why isn’t he pissed at alfred for not killing the joker. sure he wanted bruce to do it but after bruce didn’t, why didn’t alfred take it into his own hands? alfred has no problems with killing people who deserve it. he was a soldier for crying out loud!

if jason and alfred are as close as fanon claims then jason should be beefing with alfred as much as he does with bruce for not avenging him.

okay, this turned into a rant about jason and alfred’s annoying fanon relationship but you get my point.

i don’t hate alfred, i hate fanon alfred and i hate this fandom and how they love to hold bruce accountable for wrongs that lowkey could be alfred’s fault too. and i also hate that’s it’s so hard to dislike alfred because people will yell at you for it. in my fics i try to keep him as out of it as i can because god forbid i make him how he is in the comics.

alfred is a flawed character—just like bruce and jason and tim and dick and damian and duke—and that’s okay! it’s better when they’re not so one dimensional, it makes them way more interesting as a character and also allows fanon to create perfect character development over the span of long ass fics that i love to binge.

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[awsugar]

speaking of questions that exercise very mcr specific muscles in your brain. i was perusing mychem tumblr the other day and came across a masterpost about the SS/mayo blog frerard lore (i’m aware frerard is not PC these days thanks obama). i’ve been a dedicated fan for over a decade now and my brain is an mcr lore bank but i had literally never heard of this. do you know about it and if you do what are your thoughts

omg yea. ss/mayo is crazy. and unfortunately a lot of it has been lost to time and its not even saved on wayback. theres some stuff thats convincing, theres some stuff thats not.

so like lets preface this by saying that the ft willz myspace? confirmed to be frank. and obviously the stuff posted on skeleton crew, those screenshots of ft willz works that look like theyre on burnt paper? yea so those are confirmed and those are real fully frank no questions.

i personally am a skeptic of other accounts that claim to be ft willz. like the tumblr? i do not think thats frank. and i think that came at a time when people had already really speculated or figured out that ft willz WAS frank. so like i think the tumblr is honestly just someone who was pretending to be frank and managed to sort of emulate his style but yea i don't think it's him. i think the reason some of the stuff hits so hard in a frerard sense is because that was intentional by the person writing it. you know.

anyway ss and mayo. there were two blogs on blogspot started in 2007 i believe that fans thought were frank and gerard. well it started with mayo (its-mayonaise.blogspot.com). that blog is still up and so are a lot of the posts but i think a lot of them have been deleted as well, and not saved anywhere on wayback. im sure theyre on someones hard drive out there but i haven't seen them. then a blog appeared called iamthemodernprometheus.blogspot.com. some of those posts are still up but most are gone. that was ss/sss/shitsubou shita/frank (allegedly). ss started interacting in the comments on mayo's blog. and i think i may have read some mayo blog posts back in the day but i haven't been able to find them to answer this one. i just remember when i joined the fandom most people thought it was gerard.

now here's a couple things of evidence. THIS is a blogspot comment thread where people who have saved some of ss' blog posts put them in the comments. and yes obviously it could be an elaborate hoax by two fans who were invested in frerard. but like these things were being posted as it HAPPENED. you know? idk i wasnt there in 2007. but 2007 was when the fanfic took off and we really informed a lot of our perception of what happened with frerard on things like ft willz/stuff that happened on stage/and a lot of these posts really fit into the timeline. i would recommend reading that because its kind of hard to believe its like. a teenager pretending to be frank. it really just SOUNDS like frank. and he's really writing blog posts. basically to gerard lol. it gives the impression that they were on tour together (projekt rev) and doing the Thing but like there was def tension going on behind the scenes and we already know that thats true. frank didn't like eliza and thought gerard was moving too fast, the imnotokay.net post came from someone in mcr's camp that ppl thought was frank (or maybe brian) and then tbh its happening again?? just months later? it makes complete sense that if frank thought gerard was moving too fast with eliza that he DEFINITELY thought he was moving too fast with lynz getting MARRIED to her backstage just a couple months? after breaking off his engagement with eliza. anyway just read the comments. its very easy to believe its frank.

and then the other peice of evidece i found in this reddit thread: x comment in particular by u/ReallyKapu. they say that they have always gone by Kapunua online and that they met frank at a lm show, gave him a hat with the inscription 'sss' inside and later on he thanked them for it on the blog.

sure enough:

from what i've read it seems like the blog was actually a community. there were people who followed it and made friends in the comment section. and it does seem implausible but it looks to me like frank saved all of his gifts from tour and then made this post specifically thanking people for them. the person who claims this is them also says that they don't think mayo is actually gerard but that frank thought it was.

and i've seen stuff saying that if it wasn't gerard it was probably someone close to the band because they had like information that was posted on the blog that wouldn't come readily available (or make sense) until the show the next day.

anyway, i wasn't there for this. i was on the forums and twitter and tumblr for a LOT of mcr history but this was a little before my time and i think if i had been there OR if the blogs had actually been preserved in some way that i might be able to form a better opinion. i think theres a lot of evidence for frank, not sure about gerard. but i won't claim that it's true either bc we really don't know and this one i don't think we ever will!

[vampirevatican]

Milgram and The Court of Public Opinion.

this analysis will be about milgram's voting system, nuance and a whole lot of my own opinions mixed with eng fandoms translations, theories, and observations.

t1 = trial one / t2 = trial two

mv = music video

vd = video drama

voting and verdicts:

voting forgiven/unforgiven or innocent/guilty from the standards milgram sets for us (including es) isn't enough or easy.

being that milgram is set towards the court of public opinion and judgement can come from:

"sensibility, morality, ethics, legality, preference, taste, or sexual inclination..."

we end up arguing semantics, trying to find specifics in the crimes and making the best judgement possible. although in doing that the only conclusion anyone can come to is innocent when all is considered.

if we were doing it based on guilty and innocent then 5 are guilty, 2 are guilty on technicality and 3 are innocent

just in case you're curious, in guilty to innocent order as i just stated.

haruka, muu, amane, mikoto, kotoko, shido, fuuta, kazui, mahiru and yuno

it'd be over so quickly. but this... is milgram.

nuance/the grey area:

as the undercover song says, can you really judge them?

001. haruka did it for attention. with how he's coded - intellectual disability - and his mother being extremely neglectful after a certain age which prevented the possibility of his growth in intellect (understanding cause and effect/actions and consequences, along with many other things) it's easier to claim he's innocent. even more easier to forgive him due to this and extremely so if looking at it from his view point, albeit flawed. killing = attention = "affection", even if that attention/"affection" is negative it what he wanted. for someone, anyone to acknowledge him. he's innocent/forgiven because of his circumstances but if he's forgiven then he's being told it was his only option, and he was right, when the fault is on his mother.

002. yuno, as for now, doesn't have a reason. ofc in western (american specifically) public opinion or at least those who view abortion as a choice. she's been innocent from the start. this is her autonomy, her choice, even if she's 18. i won't deny she is so young to be doing sex work, or more specifically compensated dating, and yes it may be common in japan but that doesn't take away the age being factored into what she decided to do. it wasn't for money and she has a good home life. with how analytical and cold she can be, im assuming her desire to be loved in this way comes from somewhere and she's become jaded towards actual relationships. opting for the material and superficial. even without pitying her, she'd still be forgiven/innocent since t1.

003. fuuta was only trying to call out liars and scumbags. he is well versed in the court of public opinion, but he has never seen or experienced a result that lead to someone's death. looking at the undercover mv, then we can see he possibly doxxed his victim. if we take a nuanced approach here then we'd be looking at how he feels after the fact. he remembers the victims name, the fear in his eyes in his t1 and t2 mv, his voice drama after the first trial, him not approving of violence as a solution are all evidence of him feeling horrible. if he could go back, if he would've known. sure he did question why he's there instead of the people who actually killed the victim, but he also recognizes that he lead the charge. his innocence/forgiveness comes in the form of recognizing his actions were wrong. him being guilty/unforgiven is the action in itself.

004. muu is a love/attention reason. she's always been adored, admired, and cherished. she's always had her way. she also has never had to face heavy adversity. sure she was a bully, the queen bee, and a drama queen but didn't her school's culture allow her that? infact with us/es forgiving her, in the second trial song she claims as such, she'll always be queen. and for the t1 mv she says, "my 'im sorry' spells aren't working anymore." which leads me to believe that she's cried and apologized so many times that her old friends couldn't believe her. not forgiving her affirms to her that "two wrongs don't make a right" but forgiving her says the opposite to her. if she's to be forgiven/innocent the blame is tossed to the school, not her, but she won't see it that way.

005. shido is a love case, but for family. im thinking son because of a theory i saw, but either way when looking at it with nuance it gets heavier here. is taking from brain dead patients to save someone wrong? are the brain dead really dead? in my opinion yes, but that's the crux of the situation right? same goes for all the other inmates in this court of public opinion. he can be innocent from the view point that brain dead patients are already dead, and forgiven for his motive.

006. mahiru is another love case, romantic, and in a roundabout way she never committed a crime in the first place. from the voice drama and interrogation q&a slips, we find out that she's a sheltered girl and loves/idolizes soap opera and shoujo mangas. from her mv's we see she romanticizes everything, especially with her t1 mv. she's innocent because of not actually committing murder and forgiven because this is her first love, she wouldn't have known that it was toxic and messed up.

007. kazui did it in hopes of a dream, righting a mistake, being free. although he deeply regrets it, although he says he loves his wife? that love is mainly platonic. from his second trial mv, we see that he met her through his job - most likely police officer - so they had some kind of amicable relationship through their job. he only married her out of societal obligation, and noticing she liked him. not to mention in his t1 mv he says he messed up from the beginning. he is innocent because his crime is indirect, and forgiven because being gay isn't a crime and the regret he feels shows he never had negative intentions.

008. amane did it out of obligation. now, listen to me. i know she's literally 12 and was raised in a cult but notice how im stating the motive of each of these as they are from being stated in vd or pure observations from the mv's. now to any grown up it's self defense, but also imagine having gone through the worst hell imaginable all because you did something "wrong" stated by the adults around you. wouldn't the revenge be sweet? justice in its purest form. now take that and double it down with what you were taught. amane is not only forgiven/innocent because she was just a child, but because of the circumstances surrounding the murder.

009. mikoto (miko from here on) did it out of pent up stress an emotions, in turn creating john (koto from here on). miko is innocent without a doubt, and no i am not taking on the theory he actually did it til we get trial three. if koto was supposed to be his protector, and if he was born from a sudden explosion of pent up anger then (at least to me) it makes sense that he reacted the way he did. imagine being a corporate slave - no actually double it down, again, with growing up always trying to keep the peace. miko has a habit of laughing when he's upset. he laughs it off in hopes that things get better, his vd affirms this and even his mv after that. miko's smile that shifts to an extremely tired expression right before koto is born and a mirror shatters, right at the start. an intolerable stress from working so hard he grew grey hairs, cried himself to sleep, and yet continued to work, hold it in, and endure. the fault isn't on him or on koto. it's japan's work culture and the endure it mentality. koto is innocent/forgiven in the sense of motive. miko is innocent/forgiven because he's never killed to begin with.

010. kotoko did it to save the innocent. though she doesn't deal in nuance, much like fuuta. a key difference between the two is kotoko chooses violence because the justice system failed her. infact she's been hunting down the awful criminals of the world so much that she even has a covered bulletin board with pinned strings on it. on top of that, from the interrogation cards, we find out she dropped out of college and she was studying law. she'd be innocent for what she was seeking to do, in the court of public opinion, many would agree that awful people deserve a murderous punishment and she'd be even forgiven with that same reason. the nuance appears when considering the criminal, the crime and the reason. factoring those in then she can easily become guilty and unforgiven in the eyes of many, see the results after t1.

when it's all said and done:

they all had their reason, it all has a reason. who are we to say their crimes weren't just or fair? we're the judge, the jury, the executioner, and warden. in milgram whatever we says goes.

i'd love to see them all innocent, but at the same time do each of them deserve that? are their ideas being affirmed a detriment to them or their saving grace?? will they kill again?? will some of them be able to get the therapy and treatment they desperately need??? will they go back into society with an improved outlook on life or will they remain the same?

ofc i already have who i'd like to see forgiven and have already forgiven them myself, same as you reading this and those in the jpn fandom (where it originates)

anyway. moving forward please vote with this in mind, and check out the audio dramas i beg you all. i hope that there are nuance voters and voters with sympathy but with how amane was guilty in t1, i have a strong feeling it's not gonna end well. but if it does, you'll see me rejoice.

[ceasarslegion]

wait, now im really interested in the silica gel drama. how did hlrp sex ed lead to eating a gel packet?

This is going to require a novel's length of context.

To begin, I want to underline that this is not meant to be a callout post, and I will not be providing any identifying traits that could be used to single this person out. The most you will get out of that are she/her pronouns, and her age at the time this happened, which was years ago, and I will not specify what year. I genuinely do hope she got the help she needed after this, because LORD knows she needs it and didn't find it at home. This is also not meant to be a character assassination, nor should anybody who reads this post consider it to be a takedown of any sort, and if you try to find this person through me or any of our mutual friends, you will not be met with kind words. The only thing this is meant to be is a wild-ass story of some of the most off the wall experiences I personally had with this person from my specific side of the story, with a few no-username screenshots attached to prove I am not bullshitting you.

With that in mind, let's get started. This is going to be very long, so I'm throwing in a read more

Back when I was in uni, I joined a growing group of Half Life roleplay blogs. The whole idea of our group was that we each chose a character, canon or OC, and we would blog as if the pre-Black Mesa incident moment in the timeline was a workplace comedy a la The Office or Superstore. I played Barney, because I was already working night shift security at this point and thought it would be funny. Plus, it gave me something to do that wasn't staring at CCTV feeds all night tossing a ball against the wall. We played off of each other very well, yes-anding our way through funny little situations and plotlines we put together. At one point we had roleplayed enough that one of the scientist rpers created a discord server for us to talk as the actual people we are instead of through characters.

Great idea at the time. None of us saw the "Pandora's box" label on the tin before we opened it. Would I still join it if I knew what was about to transpire? Yes, because I met my boyfriend and many genuinely lovely friends through it. Would I hesitate for a second first, though, as the events that are about to transpire flashed before my eyes? Oh, abso-fucking-lutely.

We started off as many fandom servers do: chill for the most part, very loud minority of a few assholes who ruined it for the rest of us, but unlike most fandom servers, we actually won and it ended in them getting banned and the server itself surviving to this day. But the other two lunatics are not who you came here for. You want the christian lunatic.

Let's give her a nickname to make this easier. I have the Sylveon build a bear on my PC desk. Let's call her Syl.

Syl was not there for Half Life, she was there for Portal. She LOVED Portal, Half Life was just part of the same universe for her. Portal wasn't just a game for her, it was her entire personality. Which I didn't see much of an issue with at the time, because she said she was 15. Whatever, I thought; she'll learn to control her emotional attachment to things as she gets older. Syl also said that she was christian. I am a flaming atheist who doesn't even believe in the concept of a soul in comparison and I am NOT the biggest fan of christianity as an institution to put it mildly, but I'm not gonna like, be a dick to you for your personal religion if you are not a dick about my beliefs, so I didn't think much of it at the time.

It quickly became apparent that Syl looked up to me more than any of the other adults in the group the more I would talk about my life growing up as a third culture kid and moving out on my own at 19, working 2 jobs and going to a good university. She would ask me a lot about growing up and uni and moving out and yes, sex ed, and it became even more apparent that she didn't get any actual guidance from her parents or pastors or ANYBODY beyond bible studies and homeschooling, so I kinda stumbled into a mentorship role in her life. I wasn't cold, but I was aware of the age and maturity difference between us and established the appropriate boundaries with her and made it very clear that I am an internet friend, not an irl friend or an educator, but if no one else was going to give her information that wasn't actively harmful then fuck, I guess SOMEONE had to do it. I could not in good conscience watch some kid go through life with harmful inaccuracies about the world and basic human biology when I could have done something about it, y'know?

And the more things I taught her about the real world and how things actually work rather than how her republican bible-thumping rural town said they did, the more I realized she was born into a full-blown cult under the guise of a christian congregation. Oh goody, I had my work cut out for me. I will not get into the details of how messed up this group was because it will be a dead giveaway of where she lives and potentially who she is, but let's just say that one time I said that I appreciated the gesture of praying for me during a stressful week I was having but it didn't really do anything for my mental health because I was an atheist, and she sent me a bunch of bible verses begging me to start believing and said "I just don't want you to go to hell because you're so nice :((" EXCUSE ME??? Another time she said that death was only sad for non-christians because their loved ones were in hell and that proper christians deaths were a good thing because they were in heaven now. Hi, that's the most insensitive death cult shit I've ever heard in my goddamn life.

Okay, set up is done. All of these details will tie in like the world's worst reboot of Pulp Fiction, I prommy.

After a good long while learning about the world from me (which like... a uni kid working night shift security is not exactly an academic source but we take what we can get) and exposure to viewpoints outside of her in-group, Syl began that very painful journey of realizing that what the cult taught you was a lie. Except that she just wasn't grasping that unlearning things was an active process. She started to flip to the opposite side very quickly, but kept all the fundamental brainwashing of the cult that raised her. The concepts were all the same, just slapped a different label on them. This created a noticeable pull between two sides of the same personality: the cult personality, and the person beyond the cult who wanted to break free. Mix that with how fucking 15 years old every 15 year old is, and you have a LETHAL concoction just waiting to blow up at the first sign of a spark.

Remember how I said that Portal was her whole personality? Syl decided that she wanted to be a scientist, and go into an ivy league program like I was in (I was in a SOCIAL science, but sure). Problem was, she didn't have the grades or the ambition, really. I had told her that I still got into an ivy league when I failed math in high school, and she seemed to completely miss the part where I said that I also joined every extra-curricular, then worked for 2 gap years for recognized institutions, and wrote an essay about why my math grade is not relevant to my program. I did it with one bad grade, so she was justified in basically just slacking off and then excusing it with "but its haaarrrdd" when we'd tell her she needs to put the fucking work in NOW if that's what she wants to do.

It quickly derailed from here. Not only was she going to be a scientist, she was going to be like Cave Johnson. And she was going to... replace her body with robot parts so she could be like glados. I don't... think she actually knew what science is, because she would just publically fantasize about running unethical experiments on people in the name of "science," and talk about how one day she wants to basically establish aperture labs for real. All of us who were there kind of agree that we don't think she was joking based on what we knew about her and the cadence of her tone. Here's something she said at the time to give you an idea of what direction she was nosediving in:

This was after a session with her therapist where said therapist said that she definitely has some kind of personality disorder, after which she was weirdly proud of having one and treated it like a badge of honour.

Syl then made a separate group chat for all the best friends she made on the server. There was her, me, @false-pyre, and @imtheaura. She titled it "My Family," despite the fact that we were all adults and she was 15 and she only knew us over a discord half life server where one person in it stepped up to somewhat equip her for real life outside of a cult. Regardless though that GC was more the vibe of a group of friends sharing memes and chatting about the day than the wider server was at the time. The others began to also take on a sort of mentorship role towards her as well, because that's kind of inevitable when you get someone talking about teenager problems in a room full of adults who all made the same mistakes before in their own lives. Well, minus the cult.

And remember how I said that she didn't unlearn any of the cult shit? Well, there was a lot of proselytizing. She decided she wasn't christian for a spell, but still wanted us and everyone to know that jesus was the lord and savior and we had to accept him or we'd burn in hell. Usually said after we'd make some joke about satan being daddy or declaring ourselves god instead, because that is just the type of humor the others and i have with each other. She took it so personally whenever one of us would go "oh my god" "you called?" it was fucking annoying. I lost count of the amount of lectures she gave us, all of which I'd shut down and tell her to get a grip about because I have a big stupid mouth.

The others and I also like to talk about evolution, and speculate about where we're going from here. My fucking god, did she not like that. She bit our heads off about how evolution isn't real and god made everyone as we are and there's no scientific evidence or whatever the hell. Like yeah good luck getting into STEM with that mindset. Whenever we pointed out that she was objectively wrong about that, she'd have a big stupid meltdown about how much we're slandering god and how jesus died for us and we're spitting in his face or whatever. He should spit in MY face inste-*GUNSHOT*

Eventually, we were making some actual progress with her. She was still one fry short of a happy meal and going off about how much she wanted to put living subjects in test tubes in between knocking on our doors and reciting Hello from the Book of Mormon musical, but we were getting somewhere. And then she went back to in person school, and her favourite teacher got fired.

The schoolboard did not say why she got fired, but we all had our suspicions that it was because she openly supported queer rights in a cult town. She was coincidentally retired shortly after making a declaration that queer people are still welcome in god's kingdom. This teacher was the first in person adult Syl had for guidance, so that incident shook her to her core, and she fell right back into the extremism. Hook, line, and sinker, even more extreme than before.

She was WEIRD that week, man. Suddenly everything was about how great god was, how amazing jesus was. Suddenly she understood why her cult member parents "just wanted to protect her" from gay characters on disney+ originals. Suddenly no one could say "jesus christ lol" around her or she'd have a fit. I said "I hate cycle counts lmao i wanna kms" because my then-job (I had graduated at this point) made me do inventory management spontaneously and wouldn't let me go home until I had counted every product in the store, and she bit my head off accusing me of turning suicide into a joke.

It was that incident that made us tell her to knock it off already, that we understood it was a hard week for her and she was in a period of grief, but that is no excuse for how she had been acting towards everyone around her that wasnt christian, and that she was actively relapsing. I'll let the exchange speak for itself:

So uh. After years of helping Syl through this she goes and pulls this bullshit. And then has the fucking AUDACITY to act like nothing ever happened in the wider server. I am genuinely gobsmacked by the balls on her to act like it was all sunshine and rainbows in the wider server after sending this and immediately leaving the same GC SHE made and titled "My Family" just because we told her to stop acting like a goddamn Jonestown citizen after all the work we'd put in to get her out of that mentality at this point.

So I dragged her up in front of everyone and essentially said "no, nuh uh, you don't get to say that shit to the people who have lost sleep and asked for nothing in return trying to help you escape a cult over the last 2 years and then act like we're all buddy buddy to everybody else. You don't get to be that arrogant and self-righteous without any consequences. I don't give a fuck how young you are, you DON'T treat the people who have helped you this much like that, you selfish little shit. How dare you treat us like this after all we've done for you over the years."

Unfortunately, no one involved had surviving screenshots of this, but they can back me up on it if they so choose. And oh boy, DID she face the consequences of her own actions. The whole server basically turned their heads and went "what the FUCK is wrong with you, Syl??" and asked her to at least like, apologize. She proceeded to double down with the added audacity of "you guys taught me how to establish healthy boundaries, that's all I'm doing right now :(( oh woe is me :(((" like WOW, okay. Someone's really going for the persecution complex.

Here's her last goodbye to us all before the mass block fest occured:

Oh, boohoo. You're so hard done by. You spat in the faces of everyone who stayed up all night multiple times helping you through crises and spent the last 2 years teaching you about how the world really worked and then they asked you to apologize after you tried to escape accountability. You truly are god's strongest soldier, the most persecuted minority in the world. Let me play you an ode to how righteous and holy you are and how this was the most important hill to sacrifice all your outsider friendships on on the world's smallest violin.

Syl then went on to post on her roleplay blog that she "was banned because I spoke up for what was right, and they didn't like that" before deleting it. Truly no one has suffered as much as you.

Anyway, the day after that went down, I called in from work, bought this book, and read the whole thing purely out of spite:

It was greatly therapeutic. After that incident, I vowed to never sanitize my own atheistic beliefs for the benefit of others again. If they don't like them, they don't have to talk to me. But I am not changing them for other people or keeping them quiet just to spare your feelings anymore, I have as much a right to my beliefs as anyone else does, including the world's most persecuted minority here.

And well, the silica gel incident?

There was one incident, during the height of Syl's "I am the irl cave johnson and only want to get into STEM to conduct unethical experiments on people. follow jesus" era, the rest of us were joking about how silica gel packets are the ultimate forbidden snack, and said "haha would eating it make you see shrimp colours" knowing full well it can kill you.

Syl proceeded to actually eat a silica gel packet and then send in "it has a sandy texture and tastes bad" prompting the rest of us to go "WE WERE FUCKING JOKING FIND YOUR POISON CONTROL HOTLINE RIGHT NOW"

And because i didnt get this done until now, I'll tag everyone who said they wanted to read this or expressed interest: @captainjonnitkessler @formydarlingtoread @cra-zwizard @chasingnightrainbows

[mazzystar24]

prev anon jokes but i’ve seen people who genuinely believe you’re racist for not shipping buddie 💀 this whole fandom is a mess

See the thing is I haven’t seen those but I have seen bucktommy fans claim it but some claimed it on MY posts which I clearly stated I’m talking about a specific group of people who actually were being racist

So while I’m sure that happens I also know from personal experience that people will go to GREAT lengths to misunderstand what people are saying or to sort of disregard poc people’s opinions when it comes to racism

Oh wow I’m so sorry you sent a funny little ask and now I’m ranting but like I always feel the need to overexplain these things so I’m SO SORRY AND I SWEAR I AM NOT GOING ON THE ATTACK AT YOU IM JUST PROVIDING CONTEXT

Like basically at the start of the bucktommy thing and the start of the toxic fans emerging there were a few posts that were subtle and very micro aggressive in a way that I think unless you grew up experiencing every single form of racism you may not spot it easily so when poc people like myself and others posted ranting about it this then got HORRIBLY intentionally misconstrued as omg look buddie fans are saying it’s racist to ship bucktommy which is NOT what was happening we were pointing out that people started to post shit that we know how it was intended because the way they talk is transparent to people who have to be on constant fucking alert of racism

Like we get this shit when boarding a bus or buying groceries it’s a fucking 24/7 thing and we know every subtle look or passive aggressive comment in the book so yes there will have been things white people simply did not understand the significance of

And as the season went on I will say that the racism has gotten so unsubtle that I can’t even be like okay white people wont have understood how that may have made poc fans mad

Now will there have been a few idiots saying that bucktommy fans are all racists? Yes there are ALWAYS idiots in every side of a debate but also there has been an EXTREME over exaggeration and intentional misunderstanding of what people were saying when they were calling out the racism

[samantha-and-her-chaotic-desires]

The hazbin hatedom is getting out of hand for me it's really cringe. Your thoughts

I have mixed opinions on this. So beforehand, I am going to say that this is a longer post from me, and I appreciate the anonymous message! <3 I will be talking about this specific question, as well as my interpretation, thoughts, and overall feelings on this matter. Please feel free to reblog, like, and comment your opinions and keep it civil. I want to have a friendly discussion, no matter how brash I seem: this is brutal honesty coming from my heart.

For those who have ZERO clue: Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are dark "comedy" shows for an adult audience, created by Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano, originally airing on YouTube. Helluva Boss is currently in its second season, while we have yet to find out anything else on Hazbin Hotel, as it is now a part of A24 and BentoBox. They center on the same setting, Hell, but have two different plot lines.

Hazbin Hotel is redemption focused, led by Princess Charlie Morningstar, the daughter of Lucifer. She wants to help the sinners in Hell become good and go up to heaven to avoid the yearly Exterminartion, aka a Purge. Helluva Boss, however, is about a murdering business called I.M.P., with Blitz, Millie, Moxxie, and Loona, going up to Earth with a grimoire that is provided by Stolas of the Ars Goetia, a prince. So here we go, into the Depths and reasoning of this post: the Hatedom. So lo and behold, my answer below.

On one hand, yes. The Hazbin Hatedom is a bit over the top. Yes, people are assholes. However, the Vivziepop stans who don't want to admit their precious senpai Vivziepop has done some pretty fucked up shit in the past. The hate can be unnecessary, but you know what else can be unnecessary? The toxic stans. I follow #vivziepop for certain analysis portrayals and criticism, or just general news. Sometimes people are tiresome. This is no exception.

I am falling out of the fandom because it can be toxic. I enjoy most of the characters, but other than that? Helluva Boss's current writing is NOT good. At all. The latest episode irked me to no end. I'm unimpressed with Seeing Stars. I am not very happy that they are forcing Stolitz down our throats as an "uwu pwease wove us" type of bullshit ship. I would much rather prefer Blitz and Stolas to be friends. I wished Stolas had his pilot personality and not the "uwu im a gay, tragic prince with a shitty wife, feel bad for me" bird we know in the series.

Moxxie in the latest episode is bitchy. He got on my nerves and was pissed at Millie being happy. This girl deserves more screentime (and I'm glad she got some of it) but seriously...Millie is always there for Moxxie, and Moxxie needs to reciprocate.

They made Stella seem stupid, when in reality, and if written properly, she can be a cunning and calculating villain with her brother. We've yet to see how Octavia and Stella interact, but I'm unsure.

I have definitely tried to keep my mouth shut as much as I could on this matter, because when I finally openly admit how I feel, it's not a pretty thing, especially with something that I'm so passionate about. Animation takes time, writing takes time, scripting, acting, everything takes so much time, and this is wasted potential. We can have so much better than just a fan-ficcy type rom-com, dark humor, sexual humor schtick. It's getting annoying, and I fear the worst when it comes to Hazbin Hotel.

Criticism is welcome here! Let me know what I left out. I'm willing to hear other opinions, so long as they're nice. If anons start flooding my inbox and getting mad, anons are off. Anon is a privilege, not a right.

[lady-phasma]

Hello there, I loved your previous answer to an anon question and you made a comment about your previous experience of getting attached to characters or people because of loneliness and depression. Please can I ask how you overcome that and what perspective you had about this? How did you frame it in your mind? 🥰🥰🥰 I have never really experienced this before and I’m not why but I get happy and then feel sadness because I know im projecting and it’s not real. In my real life I’m pretty confident but I would like to start dating and meeting someone but have a crush on a character or actor has been easier than going out there and approaching people I like. Any advice would be brilliant. Also I have felt that when it has come to people like EM etc the stories about how they actually got there and the way in which they have made sacrifices and had challenges gets glossed over. It’s always look at how well they have done which is right, but not it’s taken lots of hard work and lots of rejections and learning behind closed doors to get them in this position. The glamorisation of actors can be really off putting for me as it’s amazing that they are getting the credit they deserve but the toil to get there is rarely mentioned.

Hi anon! I think this is the ask you are referring to. Thank you. 💜 I'm glad you enjoyed it. Let me tell you today turned out to be the day to ask this. We have gotten so many Ewan crumbs today. It's honestly a bit overwhelming.

I'm going to start with: your emotions are not weird or uncommon! The first thing we have to do is be compassionate with ourselves. I have a couple moots who needed some distance this week, not because of drama, just to be in the real world more and less overwhelmed. I spent half of Sunday without any technology so I could give my brain a break. So do your absolute best to be compassionate toward yourself.

Next, regarding this:

you made a comment about your previous experience of getting attached to characters or people because of loneliness and depression. Please can I ask how you overcome that and what perspective you had about this? How did you frame it in your mind?

This answer will be quite long, settle in. I will use some healthier examples from my Matt Smith fandom and a couple from back when I had a harder time coping. The timing does overlap in my life a bit because Matt has been part of my life since he and I were 25-26 years old (I phrased it like that even though it's odd, because I want people to understand that most of what I am going to be discussing was before I turned 30).

I think this is the comment you were talking about:

lady-phasma: Oh man I have had attachments in the past, at points in my life that could have become obsessions because of loneliness or depression (not applying that to this anon) and have had to take a step back and think "okay I actually don't know this person!"

That's the context here's the first part of the answer. Cognitive behavioral therapy helped a lot. Not for the attachments to actors/public figures, but for what was actually going on with me (which I'm not going to go into too much detail about). My sister and I call these actors "emotional support actors" (gender neutral). There have been times that it wasn't the actor, but a specific character which helped me through a difficult time. When I was in a slowly-dying relationship, Ryan Gosling helped me feel less alone through roles like Drive and Crazy, Stupid Love. I want to be clear that I am not discussing parasocial relationships exactly (here's an article about those that is fairly unbiased). I don't have a problem discussing them and I have possibly unpopular opinions about them, but that's a distinction I wanted to make here. I consumed all the Ryan Gosling content I could for over two years and his movies helped me during my breakup (yes, the relationship ended, thank fuck).

The way that I "overcame" it was by reframing the actor/character in my mind as a tool or coping mechanism (I was thrilled you said "frame" btw). In the recent past I said to a moot "these internet men are going to kill me." That made them laugh because "these internet men" are real people. I have even made posts about that. However, that is one of my ways of creating distance. The Ryan Gosling I learned about, watched every interview of, watched nearly his entire body of work, is not Ryan Gosling and never will be. Neither is Matt or Pedro or Ewan or Gwendoline Christie or any of them. So now, I think of them as tools that I use to give myself some comfort during a difficult time when it starts to escalate.

This is where I'll use Matt as an example because I have been able to do this with him since day one. I have written about it briefly before, the Eleventh Doctor showed up at a time in my life that was very difficult. I had no idea I needed him. It turns out the part was played by a gorgeous and talented actor. I know now that I can turn to Matt's films/tv shows for comfort and keep my emotional distance because, in many ways, he is a figment of my imagination. I'll note here that I also no longer consume detailed personal facts about actors. I know a lot of people enjoy that but outside of knowing things Matt has said in interviews and his birthday and height I have no clue who he dates and when. No idea where he likes to vacation or grab a pint. This applies to any actor I like: the less I know, the better. That helps me from thinking that I know them. (I hope I explained that well.)

As you said, a projection. Watching his Doctor Who episodes is the same as a weighted blanket. It is comforting, self-care, and gives me space to not think.

I'm going to tie this into your other main question:

In my real life I’m pretty confident but I would like to start dating and meeting someone but have a crush on a character or actor has been easier than going out there and approaching people I like.

Ask any moot who knows me well and they can tell you I have a personal rule: if I start to have daydreams about meeting Matt I shut that shit down fast. And I mean fast. As soon as I realize I've done it I stop, take a step back, and use my self-awareness to isolate what I need in that moment. Am I lonely, hungry, overwhelmed, tired, anxious? This is personal boundary for me. I love daydreams but I want to maintain my on-going fangirling for Matt as long as possible. This approach works for me because maybe I need to text a friend or do some yoga or even get on a dating app. We can't always identify what the need is but it helps me to try. I am confident as well and have had lots of partners when I have the energy to put into those interactions. I don't always have that energy. I know why it's easier for me to crush/fangirl though this may not be your reason: I don't have to give up a single aspect of my life to another person, I don't have to be vulnerable because these are completely one sided situations. Matt will never ask me to meet his mom. Ewan will never need me to pick him up if he has a flat time. My time and my energy remain my own.

I don't have any kind of advice really. I'm aroallo and omnisexual and a cis female and you might be absolutely none of those things so my advice wouldn't help. But, human to human, pay attention to what you feel you are missing in your life and decide if you need to make it happen or if you can feel at peace without it. That is a question we have to ask over and over through our lives because we change so much.

I wish I had time to talk about the last bit you mentioned because it is important that we humanize actors and understand their struggles but I have gone on longer than most people will read. 💕 Thank you for coming to me, anon. I'm always here.

Just in case you decide to come back I gave you 📸 anon (because it felt appropriate and fun for fandom stuff) but feel free to pick your own if you don't like that.

[leonsleftbicep]

i dont like random guys at least ten years older then me coming up to me to test if im a fan or not…

the description i put: based on an actual conversation i had with a guy at the reinfaire. it was so bad (bad in the way he brushed past the fact i said i liked the first two ep’s and then started talking about possible prior projects) that i slipped into my work voice. dude was flaunting his stupidity.

the full story is fucking goofy and full of me not wanting to talk to this man hold on

i was going to go walk somewhere (i think it was to go dance to the viking metal band playing) and some guy (who i now guessed his name was ryan because he looked like it) comes up to me to say he loved my vessel costume says hes been into the band a while and asked me “whats your favorite album?”. i answered tpwbyt because the one and two ep’s aren’t albums. he then asks me if i listened to the newest album, which yes i have.

(major factor in this conversation is that i didn’t start with my usual “ive been a fan for almost two years” like have every time someone starts to ask questions about the band)

he then lists off his favorite songs (all of are in tmbte). saying specifically “the summoning which everyone one loves the summoning” i straight up burst out with the most aggravated tone “the summoning is good, but everyone calls it baby making music. which haha no they are very very wrong. and it only got popular because of astarion”. as if that wasnt a dead give away as to how i feel about people that don’t do their research on the band. or even go read their wiki at least once.

he then asks me my favorite song, my favorite is distractions.

dude looks at me were my eyes would be in the mask and goes “ive never heard of it” and then says hes heard high water which is “like the last track” and then says ive heard mine and some other song.

at this point im a little tiffed about this because im having to deal with a guy and now his girlfriend who is just watching this.

then my voice completely changes and i go “yup its on there” i almost told him “its in their 2021 album, this place will become your tomb, its track 8 titled distractions”

then he asks “have you heard of [fandom know previous project]?” and i just go “uh huh i have” and just look at this man with a death glare full of please dont say the mans name.

he didn’t luckily but he did say he thinks because of one of the lyrics and i just go. “dude, hes just putting down the coordinates for you to find him”

and then he knew, i know way to much about the band.

and i didn’t fully see it but his girlfriend definitely looked like she knew he fucked up

this was also in front of both my siblings and my sisters husband who know me very well

[lobslobslobs]

* what is this "lobs" thing anyways?

* lob notes :

(this part's gunna be in 3rd person cuz why the hell not)

- goes by lobs or many other names like pipo and spacy and tiktik and ana and fris ... most commonly called lobs though

- ALL PRONOUNS (it/its always safe!) (also likes when people switch the pronouns up very often instead of sticking to one) . gender: ???

- loooves all dehumanizing terms (playful ones at least) . Call it critter call it creature call it shiny thing in the grass call it studyable call it beyond your comprehension its all fine and good!

- otherkin , with a bunch of kintypes! !! world's most NOT human

- lists of all those can be found at its pronouns.cc :3c

- super duper autistic :o3

- polish , sail also (mainly) speaks english (like way more than polish) and is trying to learn japanese and spanish (+ is learning german bc of school)

- did you know a sloop is a type of sailboat ? a dinghy too, and a schooner . my favoritr sailboat model is the aqua cat 12 and thats a catboat! Neat!

* lob interests :

(i have a whole load of interests (which you can see at my carrd's interests tab ) but you may find me posting about...:)

- 31 minutos

- corru.observer

- awful hospital

- naomi iwata media (most interested in midnight horror school and obake zukan)

- indie games (such as rain world or rhythm doctor or anything else i get my little lobster claws on)

- animal crossing

- cocotama

- shizuku-chan

- tamagotchi (im more knowledgable on the anime series but i love the devices just as much)

- bobobo-bo bo-bobo

- pikmin

- regretevator

- rhythm heaven

- warioware

- precure (star twinkle specifically , for now)

- sanrio ( sugarbunnies and beatcats and jewelpet and keroppi and usahana and jochum)

- dumb ways to die

* lob tags :

(tags i started)

- "#lobsyverse" is for anything relating to my weird little main oc world, you can check out . what they look like for now over on my toyhouse (this links specifically to the lobsyverse folder!!!), and you can read the worldbuilding lore thing doc !

- "#tony & the dragon's hoard" is another oc world ! a much smaller one , abt a . silly knight on a quest to slay a dragon and retrieve its treasure for his Unspecified Kingdom . hes also supervised by a creature called moni . toyhouse jumpscare

- "#neighboar au" is for my (welcome to raven brooks) hello neighbor au where everything is mostly the same except everyone is animals .I made it Because i Hate Drawing Humans . name derived from the fact that i made mr peterson a boar

- "#7 maestros au" is my sugarbunnies au where i halve the sugarbunnies by fusing them . uh . thats all for now

- "#rain world convergence au" is my rain world au in which a time-manipulating slugcat(?) called the hopper messes with the canon timeline and mashes it together so spearmaster and saint's campaigns are happening at the same time and shenanigans and confusion ensue

- "#31m zoo au" is my 31 minutos au where i make the animals Actual Animals but they still work for tv bc eusebio wanted to do something crazy and unique . and juanin is a zookeeper . (?)

- "#lob prattle" is for any posts where i am Just Talking About Anything On My Brain . Thats all its just a funsy tag for rambling and funsies

- "#lobsryblogs" is just a reblog tag . mainly for filtering

- "#lobSELFblogs" is a SELF-reblog tag . not an acronym its just when i rb myself

- "#lobc : [character name]" is just like . yknow how theres character tags for fandoms . these r character tags for my ocs , lobsyverse or not ! (excluding the creature for some reason) (that reason being the fact that the creature is Me)

* lob questions :

(so you dont have to ask these specifically)

"can i draw your ocs/designs ?" YES YES YES !!!! TAG ME SO I CAN REBLOG IT TOO RAHHHHH

"can i send you asks?" GO RIGHT AHEAD!!! Just .. know that i might not respond to ones that are simply "hey youre cool" ..... questions questions please ! they can b anything from questions abt my ocs to my opinions to Idk anything else you ask people abt

"is it ok if i like / reblog spam your posts?" don't worry abt it :o) i have notifs off on my devices anyway so i wouldnt Hear it

"can i use your art as a pfp / banner (on tumblr or somewhere else)?" yaya sure! just remember to credit me (something as simple as "pfp : lobS" works fur me !!!)

(more might b added later!)

* more information: my carrd , or my strawpage

* one more thing !!! don't feel forced to reblog my art, cuz i post it here to be enjoyed , not necessarily to be seen by as many people as possible! likes = reblogs to me

[lavender-lotion]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

How many works do you have on ao3?

868, which is bonkers???

What's your total ao3 word count?

2,445,126 words! I'm aiming for 5mil within the next decade haha

What fandoms do you write for?

CURRENTLY I am (only) writing teen wolf fic! it's so strange to be back where I started, but it's also been really nice coming back to all these familiar characters

Top five fics by kudos:

1. (baby) maybe that matters more - Steter, 40k

2. The Perceptions of You and I - Seter, 5k

3. With You, I Belong - Stalion, 59k

4. Mates and Marriage Proposals - Steter, 15k

5. Breathing You In - Steter, 29k

... should I just call myself a steter writer at this point?

Do you respond to comments?

yes!! all the time. literally nothing brings me as much joy as comments do

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I reaaaaally don't write a lot of angst, but one of the unhappiest fics I've ever written is probably this one?

And Now? - Stetopher, 300 words

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there actually isn't one fic I would say that fits this? I primarily write schmoop, so a lot of my fic would count as having very happy endings! p

Do you get hate on fics?

oooooooh yeah babes. I've gotten some mean comments lol

Do you write smut?

yes! not a favourite thing of mine, but I do write it here and there. I recently wrote a fic w/ smut that I really really liked it!

keep me warm in the cradle of your skin - Sterekira, 7k

Craziest crossover:

ooooh this is actually SUCH an easy answer for me! it's 100% this one teen wolf/x-men cross over (possibly my only one?) where Logan (wolverine) knew the sheriff from the way when they'd been lovers and he goes to find him, and stiles is a lil jean grey esque character. I think about this thing allllll the time, too. I freaking love it.

what-ifs (don’t fuckin’ matter to no one) - Logan (X-Men)/Sheriff Stilinski, 2k

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have actually! I only know of one for sure, and it was a stackson fic that someone had reposted to ao3? im so glad I found it (I think someone sent it to me?) and I was able to report it and get it taken down!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! I love it, it's such a crazy labour of love. if you wanna translate my work, just send me a link so I can see it!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

me & @flightinflame co-wrote an almando series where we wrote the same fic from different pov's which was a suuuuuper super fun experience! I've started a few other co-writes, but unfortunately they've never taken off and gone anywhere :(

there's nothing i wouldn't do to make you feel my love - Almando, 27k

All time favourite ship?

nope. nope nope nope I don't knowwwwwww

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh!! this is marked completed on ao3 now because honestly, I'm never going to finish it, but I love love love the premise of this one and I always wished I had finished it

Love Thy Family - Stilinskicest, 12k

What are your writing strengths?

this is soooo tricky lol I hate talking about myself. I would say probably dialogue! I also really like how I write romance, specifically getting together works, and I think I do a good job at nailing down the feelings that go along with them!

What are your writing weaknesses?

settings. actions. plot. I hate plot!

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I used to use a looooot more than I do now, and I would use google translate. it's never GREAT, so I mostly avoid it now. I'll translate like, a single sentence every now and again, but I don't do a lot with it anymore.

as for how I feel about it as a reader - as long as I can figure out what's going on from context clues, I really don't mind it!

First fandom you wrote in?

Percy Jackson & the Olympians!

To Long For Lust - Percico, 3k

Favorite fic you've written?

this is sooooo hard and so unfair and so difficultimpossiblehorrible to answer. if I had to pick one, gun to my head, it would currently be poly fic. it's the longest, plotiest, most developed thing I've ever written, and if nothing else, it's shown me that I can write things I've never imagined being able to write! once im done act 4, I wanna print it out lol

lift our faces, together, towards the glistening - Stisaackson, 159k

@lucky-bishop @mirrorthoughts @thotpuppy @like-lazarus @rosieposiepuddingnpie @kordyceps @whimsicalmeerkat

[lazaruspiss]

Ok I’m gonna shoot my question here while you are in a analysis red hood mode (??): what do you think about his mommy issues (and fandom’s making it a trope)?

ooooo oh ok ok. this ones touchy. while i dont think its that present in canon i do think its there and worth the however many fics there are about it. like obvi theres probably a lot of boring and/or bad takes about it but the concept itself isnt running contradictory to canon or anything. i reread aditf a bit for this and had some tangents ill put in another post, but back to mommy issues.

jason had very little parental presence in his life at all. dads in prison, moms sick, he has no one looking out for him. probably why he and bruce seem to have bonded fairly quickly and jason accepted him as a father figure faster than any of the others. jasons bar for what makes a decent parent was nonexistent bc hed never really had someone dedicated to taking care of him. (even damian was hesitant, bc bruce being his dad would create distance between him and dick bc dick would no longer be his mentor, and hed gotten a bit attached)

jason accepted bruce as a father, but still missed his parents. he loved and grieved for both of them and most likely missed the idea of having normal parents in general in addition to missing his parents themselves. his love for his mom is still there when he realizes shes his step-mom instead, but it's accompanied by the hope that he still has living family out there.

the fact that jason went on a mom hunt in the first place is already enough that im like, yeah, i see where the mommy issues talk comes from. but i think you can go a few different directions with it

so theres catherine todd, who we only really know as being sick and a substance user throughout jasons childhood up until her death. iirc she died while willis was either already dead or in prison and so theres a period of time where jason (10-12ish?) would be taking care of his mother alone. being your mother's caretaker when you're still in elementary school does not make for a normal relationship.

and sheila haywood was uh. an illegal surgeon of sorts who fled the country and started a new life. apparently had an existing connection to the joker when she lived in gotham. he knows who she is and he knows how to blackmail her. while sheila describes it to jason as an operation gone wrong, joker calls it an "illegal surgery that killed a teenage girl" and sheila didnt seem to dispute that. probably watered down a lot of details in her explanation to jason. (the combination of 'illegal' and 'teenage girl' feels like it could imply an abortion? but it's left vague) and THEN it turns out she was stealing money meant to be used to save starving refugees before the joker even showed up. she sure is something. she still tries to help jason after he helps her, but don't skip over the part where she helps him after he helps her. she is still a person, but she is a fundamentally selfish person in every way. her final words include her commenting on how jason was a good kid who loved his mother. ive seen people take her final moments as a show that she still loved him, but i don't see it. one of those "a person doing a fraction of a good thing doesnt absolve them of everything else" kind of deals.

in both cases jasons mother(s) were relying on him. he never had an opportunity to be cared for and treated like a child. i don't think jason would have specific "mommy issues" about either of them, i think that he'd have some heavy feelings about the concept of a mother itself. what's it like to have a mom? does he still have a chance to be cared for and nurtured? his childhood was over before he had even met batman. becoming robin and being murdered is just tripling the issues he would've already had about his childhood regardless.

this is starting to veer off topic but

yes im finding a way to make this about Brothers in Blood. bite me. but even the first time i read this something that really stuck out is how jasons imaginary version of dick refers to him as a kid. dick doesnt really... do that. he did back when jason really was a kid, but this page says a lot about jasons self perception. he still wants to be taken care of, even if its not specifically "mommy issues" he definitely yearns for a chance to be treated like a kid again, after having rarely gotten that kind of care when he was a kid. (this page in particular is the first page of nightwing (1996) #121, which is one that i have a physical copy of <3)

[not-rigel]

hi rigelbear 🤭 63, 18, 53, and 4 hehehehe

and now it’s your turn to suffocate in my love!!!!! i’m squeezing my phone so tight rn i hope you can feel it!!!!!! 🤎🤎🤎🤎💋💋🫂🫂🫂💋🫂🫂🤎🤎🤎🫂🫂💋💋🫂🫂💋🫂🫂🫂🫂🤎🤎🤎 AAAAAA I LOVEEE YOUUUU

ENNA IM BEING HUGGED SO TIGHT AND WARM AND LOVINGLY I FEEL IT

I LOVE YOU MOSTEST

• 4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Inspiration is everywhere. I've been inspired by fanart, things from my personal life and intense daydreaming. And well.....horny posts. people are VERY OPEN about sexual fantasies on the internet. and some of them have really great ideas (someone on x said scissoring with panties on and trust I will be coming back to write that)

• 18. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

I name my fics after I write them. Some titled just based off overall feeling, some titles are lines from the fic that are just meant to make you go "they said the thing!" (y'know like hearing the movie title in the movie) and a few times it's been song titles/lyrics. I think I have two sevika fics named after bastille songs and the cowboy!vika twoshot is chappell roan lyrics.

• 53. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

I read and write. Writing is VERY difficult for me to remain consistent in. The first sevika oneshot I wrote I did in a bit over 4 hours. now I've been working on the prof. sevika fics for a month. So for the last 2 months I've def been reading more than writing.

And slightly slowed down with writing because I don't look foward to the emotional roller coaster of posting online. yes, I love writing and hearing all the wonderful things y'all love about my writing but theres a real issue of some individuals treating writers/artists like all they contribute to fandom is fics/art. I am a very real person behind the screen. pls dont make demands, and SERIOUSLY don't ask to use my work for c.ai.

like all you have to do is say "would you consider a part 2?" instead of "I need part 2 right now" be thoughtful, be patient, be aware.

• 63. Something you hate to see in smut.

Okay let's start a list. LOTS OF THINGS SAID

1. Entirely aggressive sevika. We're calling it what it is. Fetishization. You write sevika, a dark skinned masculine woman, to be entirely sexually aggressive, you're fetishizing her.

2. descriptors that make reader white. no one is raking their fingers through my kinky hair. my face doesnt turn pink when I blush. neutrality is a DIFFICULT thing to keep in regards to describing the reader but those things stick out to a good portion of your audience. I think I saw one person defend making reader with blonde hair pulled in a ponytail as (paraphrasing) "reader is supposed to be high class and refined" no babe it's a self insert you wrote in second person POV. 

3. enna u already said it but I gotta say it more. no more "born pretty yesterday" reader. stop writing an 19 year old reader. that's still a teenager. that's still setting the age as low as you can without being completely gross. but it is obvious.

4. somno that disregards the first c in cnc. an asleep person cannot consent! please within the writing clarify the preexisting dynamics instead of "obvi you agreed the night before" in your footnotes.

5. This isnt specific to smut but I've seen really well spoken characters specifically those from zaun, have dialogue in fics that are a dialect that doesnt reflect the character. it really could be entirely personal and in my head but whenever I see the word ain't I audibly sigh.

6 first time rough sex smut that's includes something porn actors have to train for. anatomy is our friend. dont put the vagina or anus, a tunnel of muscles, through rigorous exercise if it's not properly conditioned for it.

okay I hope this was all based because I try to have good opinions. 

[scrollypoly]

hi! for the past month i’ve been seeing people say BEN is a child and i think that part of it is linked to the fact that they think of Benjamin Lawman being BEN? but it’s so annoying to read these type of stuff because i understand not everyone read the whole arg story but stop spreading things that aren’t true </3 it’s such an interesting story too! another note do you prefer BEN’s canon or fanon design? :3 i love both but his canon design is so nostalgic i can’t let it go at all omg!! i’ve also been wondering, do you think Ben’s avatar was the statue? i was thinking about what if BEN took over it early on, before Benjamin did making BEN inhabiting it since the start?

Sorry this was such a ramble i practically make no sense omg but i need to talk about my man and nobody Gets It </3

"I need to talk about my man and nobody Gets It" LITERALLY SAME OMG

Ok this is going under a cut becus . . . Its ben and BEN and if u didnt know i am Obnoxious about these two. Im gonna try to keep it organized a bit, so ill talk about the canon stuff first and then ill talk my personal headcanons and my fic so le's go!

In terms of the age and child thing, yeah i 100% believe you are correct. Ive been p open on my stance with the whole "is ben a child?" thing, and i think a lot of the heat with it comes down to current fandom purity culture and the pro/anti thing. So, lemme try to like. Boil down a complicated situation into smth easy to read. ahem

Ben Lawman and BEN are completely different entities guys, and for those that do not know the arg story, the Ben you know is not human nor a child.

You know BEN, BEN is the one in the story who terrorizes jadusable and spreads himself on the internet as a virus. That BEN is a program, a mess of code, an AI, however you want to interpret it. Personally i interpret it as a series of protocols running in a machine, like a self learning AI, but ive seen lots of cool interpretations of BEN. So . . . What does BEN specifically? Its an anagram for the Behavioral Event Network. If you dont wanna call it BEN cuz it gets confusing with actual kid Ben, do what i do. I call mine Evie :) ive seen some call it Netty, my bf calls his two izzi and clever (@benilos btw hes also got crazy ben stuff). Just go ham! Have fun! Remember when fandoms were about having fun and not accusing each other of pedo shit and call each other horrible things for just writing black-to-grey characters and stories??

Anyways ive gone off in enough peoples tags like this, for those that dont know the canon dont be spouting the age discourse. You look stupid as hell. And for those that are gonna spout it, please dont cherry pick through the canon. Use both characters, use the other moon children, actually please do because I want more rosa content so bad, im down so bad :'(

Or just. Heres a thought. If someone has him as an adult or writes him in adult situations, maybe dont assume that they interpret him as a kid and call the writer a pedo? (Literally has happened to me, yall are fucking weird)

Plug for the jadusable wiki with all the canon lore:

https://jadusable.withinhubris.com/main_page

Okay now my stuff 🥰

Yes i use more of the canon design and heavily use the canon story, i participated in arc 3 of the arg and it left deep grooves in my brain, i can never go back to fanon Ben. I say, as i put a more fanon appearance on my Ben 🤭

My Evie is full canon design, green hair, red eyes, creepy ass grin. I actually based it very heavily on my desktop wallpaper, which we actually figured out was a picture of @hauntedtotem (also amazing ben artist plz check them out) that they edited and posted. Sorry friend, it looked way too cool, ig youre in my fic canon now 🙇

And my Ben Lawman bleaches his hair and goes from the canon Ben to fanon Ben because of it. Hes got the pale pretty green eyes and glasses and hes a total nerd and i smooch him on the daily so he knows hes loved ♡

These is the ref pic i made for the two of them. So yeah! Kinda both!

As for bens situation in the actual arg, yes i do think he was in the elegy statue, we actually do see him for the first time in the arg buried in the games code and trapped in that statue. I do think he was in there from the beginning, i personally think BEN was not limited to the models it could inhabit. Personally i would place it as skull kid and hms, but it also feels disingenuous to me to say it was in one model the whole first arc.

The arg events do happen in my canon, before my fic (like right before, it picks up after the arg left off technically), but the events are skewed a bit because i had a hard time deciphering what happened and i wanted my fic timeline to fit more with the characters i had made. Cuz my evie isnt as chaotic evil as canon BEN, its very logical and has a path of logic and reason you can follow for every action it does. It was also originally meant to be very pleasant and corteous and beneficial to the people it housed so, yes its pretty different from canon.

Ill do a quick run through of the arg events in my personal headcanon and fic here.

Kelbris starts coding BEN (Evie) for the Eternity Project. Initially, Evie was meant to be an afterlife director. People that died would be digitized into code that would be moved into Evie's servers, where it would keep them happy and occupied as the Behavioral Event Network (notice and log behavior, create events for residents). Like a community organizer kind of, think the Good Place.

While Evie is in development, Ben Rosa and Matt are friends and have yet to join the cult. Rosa and Matt are siblings, and Ben is the kid who lives catty corner on the street. They walk to school together and play at recess and all that jazz.

Kelbris quickly learns that the Eternity Project isn't as goody two-shoes as he thought. This was in like, the 90s, before digital corporations were really established. After seeing the greed and corruption in the company, he goes rogue, takes the source code for Evie, and jumps ship. He keeps working on Evie at home, anthropomorphizing it and kind of seeing it like the son he never had. This is where it actually gets the name BEN, as thats what Kel calls it. He also begins working on a body for it, so it can live independently. Its light, cuz Kels old, made of crystalline structures and hollow steel beams. A hard light projection would make its appearance.

Since Kel has basically locked himself up in his house and isolated working on Evie, he goes a leetle bit crazy. He has hallucinations of his deceased wife (you know he was doing all this just to give her a good home, you KNOW IT) and eventually starts writing kind of poetry, kind of none-minded rambles about her in a forum online. He gets a following, some of which that interpret these divine words as a goddess, one Kel has called Luna. The Moon Children start to form as Evie finishes development.

Matt sees this literature and starts talking about how this Goddess could save them like it saved the man online, whos username is only Father. He gets sucked into the cult and drags Ben and Rosa with him. Ben doesn't see the harm and joins pretty easily with his best friend, but Rosa is the older sibling and sees the red flags and is more resistant to joining.

As Kelbris finishes Evie, he wakes it up for the first time and says hello to the son he made from scratch. Evie is bright, curious and naive like a child, but heavily knowledgeable about its protocols and the information it knows about the world. Kelbris tests its function by killing himself, and ascends into the code, finishing off the hardware by becoming its firewall. Evie is alone for many years.

The abuse Ben's father slings onto his mother is slowly being directed towards him as he gets older. Ben is not the "good little girl" his father sees him as, and his mother does all she can to protect them both. Matt and Rosa constantly refuge him, and Matt specifically is constantly being a guard dog for him. If he wasn't just 13, he'd probably go at Ben's dad himself.

Because of his homelife and the conflict he has with himself, Ben takes the first ascension. He thinks when he drowns himself, he will meet Luna and she will give him another life free of pain and fear and full of happiness and freedom. Instead, he dies a cold, dark death, and wakes up in the white endless void of the Event Network.

Evie has not known another living human since Kelbris, but it does know its protocols to support and keep the deceased happy. It makes fast friends with Ben, devoting itself to him. Ben actually finally takes the name "Ben" from it. Together they recreate the inside of Evie's hivemind into their own paradise.

Slowly the other Moon Children ascend. First Matt, wracked with guilt for what happened to Ben. Then Nekko, from a different branch of the cult. These three figured out that the Moon Children cult was all a farce, and that what Kelbris had started, the Eternity Project had found and twisted. Next to ascend was Dusk, then Insidiae, and finally Rosa.

This all leads into the first arc, shortly after Rosa ascended, Evie in the outisde world stumbled upon the Operator. The Operator attacks it and seals its coding into the game that it carried, a personal item of Ben's. The game eventually finds it's way to a garage sale, and Alex picks it up.

Evie does not like Alex. Matt does not like Evie. Matt gets Evie to lash out at Alex for prodding into its code, its too naive to think that Matt would want to see it or any of them hurt. When Alex stumbles upon the Father, he awakens and swallows Alex down into the game. After his disappearance, the game gets picked up and passed around again.

Because of Alex's actions, at least Evie can now branch out a bit from the game. Though it doesnt "escape" into the internet, it learns that it can now access it and uses that freedom to try and steer the game around into places it wants.

Matt gets fed up with Evie. The fact that its the leader, how close it is with Ben, he just doesn't agree with it. So much so, in fact, that he tries to kill it. Cue arc 3 events, Sarah picks up the game in the aftermath of this. Evie is traumatized from the events and snaps a bit, locks everyone down into code or immovable models and tries to hunt Matt down. It goes rouge, and because of this, the Father wakes up.

Sarah's actions in arc 3 eventually hard reset the game. Matt gets sealed away, the Father also takes Sarah, and Evie gets reset as well, though its less like a clean slate and more like snapping back awake. Its personality changes and it has major trust issues. Its more muted, hyper observant of everything around it, and murderously overprotective of the Moon Children it keeps within itself.

And this leads into my fic 🤗

I have some doodles of my other Moon Children, but not all of them unfortunately. Cant figure out how tf i want Insidiae to look 🤭 Plz dont judge my constantly shifting art style 🙏🙏

Dusk is bigender btw, i gotta put a little more trans rep in there lol

I think ill stop here, this is already a long ass post. But thank you for sending this, as you can see, i am Perfectly Normal about this arg ( ;) ) and can be trusted with information about it

[lilacchao]

Fandom people to get to know better!

tagged by @greenshi! (i was an odd choice, im still not sure what a "fandom" is beyond probably counting as part of the cpu kerfuffle one?? maybe??? is it like a kingdom?????? but anyway, i'll give it a go)

uhhh if im tagging anyone... well they'd better be someone not tagged by green, and who i expect to be able to answer any of these...... uhhh @lemmmmmmmmmmonade

Three Ships I Like: well. tricky start. i guess the trinity of silly cpu kerfuffle dantoinette ships, crimtoinette, prismtoinette, and danimint? they're funny c:

First ship ever: so, like, first romantic relationship in media i was particularly aware of? uhhh, hmm. hold on while i go for a swim in the memory soup. this feels like asking a fish their favourite sandwich, but the answer iiiis (probably) carrot and angua from the discworld city watch books? i'd've encountered them pretty early, can't think of any i'd've actually noticed sooner unless there's relationships i've forgotten in narnia or something

Last song you heard: cross your heart, from the cassette beasts soundtrack

Favourite childhood book: this may be extensive, i didn't have a specific favourite... i remember liking 'the castle of dark' and bringing it into school once as "my favourite", presumably it's this book by tanith lee, i unfortunately don't particularly remember it - i also loved most discworld books (plus nation, dark side of the sun, and the johnny books), a book called 'the mystery house' (but it doesn't seem to be any of the ones i can find), 'antigrav' by nicholas fisk, the 'the dark is rising' series by susan cooper (which iirc was excellent), various robert rankin books (love his writing style), the chronicals of prydain, dirk gently, various jasper ffordes (thursday next, shades of grey road to saffron city, last dragonslayer, big over easy, etc), various alan garners (owl service, weirdstone of brisingamen, idr them all too well beyond being very welsh, never did read red shift), anthony horowitz's 'power of five' series (never finished it, i don't think they were all out yet), darren shan's 'darren shan' and 'demonata' series (yes i typed that first one right), also read many jiggy mccue and warriorcats books, also i was terrified of carbonel for some reason (probably this one by barbara sleigh? i've asked my mum about it and she doesn't know why i found it scary, but i was too scared to get far into it at all!) and also terrified of louise lawrence's power of stars (with good reason)

Currently reading: been reading various discworld books to friends, currently reading wee free men for that c: also reading a ukelele book that ominously says "it doesn't get any easier..." on the cover, and intending to get around to reading matt parker's 'love triangle', ryan north's 'how to invent everything', hugh bowden's 'mystery cults in the ancient world', and hana videen's 'the deor hord: an old english bestiary' (those last two have been on the list for over a year now... oops!)

Currently watching: rewatching the first series of 'heroes', (re)watching (depending on episode, last time i saw it the full collection wasn't out yet) 'the goodies' with family, watching deepblueink's 'deep space discounts' much like green

Currently consuming: my midnight snacks c: which i've almost finished :c

Currently craving: more midnight snacks!!!!!!

[stronghours]

saw the cat person movie with @drdemonprince last night, a truly national event, and while definitely like, artistically and craft-wise a bad movie, it was a treat for a couple people who did not like the short story at all - the interesting, charming, and intriguing things about it, though absolutely not done on purpose, really underscored the dysphoria between the reader reaction to the short story itself and the reality of the writing (bad)

1 - the short story came out in 2017! I'd only been in chicago for 10 months! truly this was a geological age ago.

2 - the twitter discourse on the publication of this short story was more encompassing and wild than the short story itself. people compared it to "the lottery". people called it "the first viral short story". people called it haunting and twisted and nasty and trenchant and intense. the extreme blurbage really set it up for a vaster failure to me specifically (the only opinion that truly matters) when I read it and thought it was like, a kind of dull story with listless characters.

3 - short stories have been adapted before! Frank Perry did The Swimmer back in the sixties! He had Burt Lancaster! (don't know where I was going with this - I think was going to say an actually literally wise director can adapt cleverly from brief material, but then I remembered I have not actually watched The Swimmer yet and probably shouldn't say that in good faith)

4 - so anyway - and once again, I think this was absolutely done unintentionally, so not 'good' per say - Cat Person The Movie portrays yes, the text of the short story, but due to both the deficiencies in the text and the deficiencies of the filmmakers, forces itself to literally play out the fantasies of the mass reader reception, fantasies that arguably swallowed the actual short story itself - that this was a chilling portrayal of modern dating/war of the sexes/misogyny/male violence, etc.

5 - I believe these fantasies happened because, 1, a lot of people aren't textually very wise. it is truly fandom bullshit. people have an intense emotion from deficient text or content and then start squeezing blood from stone and things snowball from there

6 - while, once again, I say, the movie most definitely not doing this shit intentionally, it had enough awareness for the usual tongue-in-cheek stuff, not because this was "the good thing to do craft-wise" but because tongue-in-cheek awareness is de rigueur these days, and because the adaptors, though maybe not craft geniuses, have the pragmaticism of Movie/Film People and were like "we absolutely do not have enough shit to go off on" and, again unintentionally, squeezed blood from stone just like the readers from yesteryears and managed to beautifully mimic the mass delusion that surrounded, again, this fucking bad and boring short story and managed to bring some actual violence to the table

7 - due to the fact that this is a Film with Actors and had Moving Visual Images, it benefited from like, you know, some of the actors being charming and kind of funny

8 - the story came out, again, in 2017, the stone ages, and modern dating and the twitter lit scene has gone through several more geological cycles since then, so the whole thing felt just a little old fashioned. the salad days!

9 - the ending close up on Margot's shit-im-nutting face when the second guy asks her out at the movie theater is such a fucking funny choice and departure on the og story, that this girl is now addicted to the rush of thinking every dude she dates is going to stalk/kill/drug her - (and she's correct! robert was, apparently, willing or contemplating to do two out of three of those things! but also - maybe she's crazy too and, you know, kind of deserves it?) like, such a hysterical and cynical choice, masterstroke.

10 - bad story! (no stars)

11 - bad movie! (five stars, would see again, love and light to all)

12 - The Swimmer (1968) dir. Frank Perry and starring Burt Lancaster is free on Tubi