#youre the exact kind of person who would screenshot and joke about my posts where im 100% certain that the zombie apocalypse had begun while

[your-local-grinning-cat]

The Ultimate Compilation Callout Part 3.5

(Because this woman doesn’t know when to quit, how to achieve any sort of personal growth, or what therapy is!)

I’m putting it under a cut to not clutter up the feed like usual, but please look because we mods believe she has added a new blog to her roster that needs to be added to your block list!

Ya’ll know the drill.

NO HARASSING. JUST BLOCK AND GO.

So, it seems our lovely mod is back and has realized… uh oh. They’re not hiding anything. I can’t hold anything over their head or against them because they didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t have a leg to stand on here.

Blaming everything on Leona’s mod didn’t work! They didn’t believe my obvious lies…

Time to try some different tactics!

So, first of all, let’s make another new blog. But this time I’m not going to announce it’s mine! That’s how they found me last time! I’ll be so sneaky! They’ll never suspect and I’ll reintegrate myself into the twst rp community and everything will go right back to the way things were before.

Except… remember that whole thing about how she roleplays all of her characters exactly the same way?

Yeah. That.

Now, to be clear, we mods do not know this for certain. And I’m sure if you ask the blog’s mod will deny it either way.

But she has a history of denying she’s the mod of a blog she has been confirmed to own and admin… and also has a history of giving out pictures of “herself” and claiming they are her when they are not. So be on the lookout for that kind of “proof” as well if you do feel brave enough to approach and ask.

See this would be the kinda fun stuff you would have seen in a Part 4… Did you think I was joking when I said I had other things that hadn’t been seen yet?

Anyway, here is the blog we are THINKING is her new way of trying to sneak her way back into the twst rp community. While still acting the exact same way as she always has - incredibly rude, agressive, confrontational, disrespectful, and mean.

To be fair to her, she did pick a good character to try to come back in as. Because you can absolutely argue General Lilia are those character traits.

But isn’t it fairly telling that she has confirmed blogs for Malleus, Meleanor, Baul, and Sebek’s mother? What’s one more Diasomnia blog - specifically a past Diasomnia fae… who can get away with acting like an ass.

Which she specializes in.

Now, this isn't much, I didn't take many screenshots because I was not going to spend a whole bunch of time on this, but also because the blog is very, very new. So there aren't a lot of posts up anyway. How interesting, right? But already you can see that this very new General Lilia seems to act and write an awfullllllll lot like a certain mod we all know…

And, of course, even if she didn’t announce it was her blog (IF it is), in the short amount of time it has been active she still couldn’t resist interacting and roleplaying with herself.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - if she wants to control the roleplay narrative so badly, she should just write fanfiction.

So, while we mods are not 100% positive…

We are pretty sure this new General Lilia blog is the Malleus mod’s newest rp side blog.

So get out that block button once again and block:

General Lilia Vanrouge @/general-lilia-vanrouge

~~~

Now, I did say she was trying different tactics. Plural.

That was the first. Here is the second.

Awwww… it seems she is finally trying to do some damage control. :)

Aaaand yet she still did not apologize for falsely accusing Leona’s mod, lying about different things for months, being a terrible person for months… the list goes on.

Also... as a note... saying you apologize for "everything" is a cop-out. It's a catch-all phrase where you try to get your forgiveness but you don't actually have to acknowledge what it is you're apologizing for. If you even know... or if you even agree that that is what your apology is for. So your "everything" could not include what we want you to apologize for, because you may not agree that you need to apologize for it.

This is why the best apologies are specific and far more personal than this short little "Hey please forgive me for everything and being mean and things (I'm still not saying anything about changing though lol that would require actual regret on my part)... I totally understand if you don't want to accept my apology though... but I'm being sincere and authentic though, so it would be really rude not to."

IN COMES CASTAWAY WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!

@/castaway-achlys DIDN’T LET US DOWN DURING THE BIG DRAMATM AND THEY DON’T LET US DOWN NOW! Castaway is fr the real MVP of this entire thing, guys. They have been in the DM trenches with this lady since before it all went down, going toe to toe with the lying beast.

They really be slaying the dragon here! No need to wait for someday - our prince/knight in shining armor is here today!!! /hj

OKAY!

FORGET KNIGHT OR PRINCE!!

CASTAWAY OUR KING OVER HERE!!! 🙌

Can we tell that I'm so sick of having to add shit to her pile of sins? The more things add up the more I'm willing to add comic relief. Grow the fuck up lady... and this is coming from someone that just used a minion gif

Y'all keep acting like I'm the one who started this.

Nah, guys, that's Castaway.

I'm just the compiler with sassy commentary. I called her out on Discord and I've put all of this in one place but Castaway has been the one holding the sword. Go give him some love. They say they don't need it but they deserve it. If we're out here doing this for Leona's mod then let me do this for him. He's had to deal with the mod far more than I have.

Anyway, now that I have gifted you all with your daily dose of "my friends Leona mod and Castor mod are awesome please love them like I do," just know Malleus mod responded to Castaway saying something that basically boiled down to:

"I'm not a liar but whatever. If you're going to be rude I'll just block you and everyone again. The apology wasn't for you, I was just trying to get to Leona's mod."*

Alright, so no apologies for the rest of us (sorry @/elysia-nsimp you're still SOL 😔) for her numerous lies and her attitude, but hey! If Leona's mod wants to get stressed out again they can unblock Malleus's mod and chat. :)

Needless to say, Leona's mod will not be doing that, though Malleus mod's apology did "get to her" lmao what a way to word that too - I remember it specifically because of how shifty it sounded.

*I'm going to be honest... I legitimately just did not care enough to go and get the actual screenshot of her comment. I had already taken screenshots of the first parts where she posted and Castaway responded. I was editing other screenshots when I learned of her reply - I went and read it, rolled my eyes, and left to go back to editing pics. When I realized I had forgotten to grab a screenshot... I just decided I am too tired to go back and get it. I've been completely honest and open about literally everything up to this point. This is the first thing I have paraphrased. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, she has already deleted Castaway's reblog on her end and thus her response to them. Now, Castaway's response will remain up because once something is reblogged by someone it remains on their blog. But Malleus mod's response to them is now gone as far as I can tell. So, since I did not grab a screenshot, their response to Castaway is technically hearsay unless someone provides the screenshot of it that I failed to take. I've been transparent this entire time - I'm not going to stop that policy now.

There's this update!

Now, can someone go take away this apparently grown woman's internet privileges, please?

The Ultimate Compilation Callout

Hey Guys! AR OOC once again to say I am 100% done.

I'm done with this. I thought it was finally dying down and the drama was finally getting to be over with but then she came back and is now trying to say that we are the ones in the wrong. And she is STILL trying to blame Leona's mod when, as both @/castaway-achlys and I have stated numerous times at this point, they were asleep during the entire event. They did not ask for us to defend them. We were both just tired of hearing our friend be exhausted and stressed out by her.

And the fact that so many people have come out to give their own experiences of her being rude and cruel to them just proves this is not a singular event.

I'm putting all this under a cut because it's gonna get long guys. In fact, I’m probably going to end up needing to create a couple reblog chains to get it all out.

But I'm done playing nice. I have all the receipts. Like I went allllll the way back to when the discord was first created. I caught her in her first lie.

Which, coincidentally, her very first lie in the Discord server happened on the very first day it was formed. What a way to start.

I call her the Malleus mod as an identifier in these screenshots, because unlike her, I am not petty enough to reveal peoples’ personal information on the internet just because I don’t like them.

HOWEVER. I will remind everyone that she is not JUST the owner of the Malleus account. Even if you don’t want to look under the read more because there are a LOT of receipts, know that these are all her known blogs.

I do not condone harassment. Harassment is basically what started all this. Just block and go.

Malleus Draconia @/therealmalleusdraconia

Falena Kingscholar @/the-falena-kingscholar

Aijuka (A Leona gf OC) @/the-one-aijuka

Jack Howl @/frosh-jack-howl

Fellow Honest @/fellow-honest

Meleanor Draconia @/meleanor-draconia

Baul Zigvolt @/baul-zigvolt

Sebek’s Mother @/thethickestone

Marja Felmier @/marja-felmier

And her latest: Eric Venue @/ericvenue

(Bonus non-rp blog @/thetwistedminds)

Before we get too far into it I will say there is a slight color code! But only a tiny one!

Gross light green color - look at that lie! 👀

Gross darker green color - a lie is revealed! 🤭

Orange - note the date/time! 🗓️⏰

Let me show you what I mean in the lie I’ve already mentioned - her very first one. :)

There we have the orange, telling you to note the date. That’s because I was wanting to make sure it was known that the pet posts were made on the same date that the discord was created.

And then we have the gross light green around Malleus mod claiming that this bunny is her bunny and that it was her bunny’s birthday recently.

Now here is the follow up with the gross darker green of a lie revealed. 😌

And there we have it! The color coding system and her very first lie told the very first day the Discord channel was active and easily disproven with an image search.

Now let’s get into the FUN STUFF! /sarc

We’re going to be doing some rehashing here but I’m also going to probably be including some new things so stay with me folks! This’ll be a ride! Buckle up!

So, originally I was thinking I'd start with the current drama. But considering that a lot of that has already been covered and what hasn't been covered needs more context, I'm just going to keep going in chronological order, I guess.

I've been up for over 24 hours compiling receipts, editing them to protect IDs, and then getting them all sorted so let's finally do this so I can pass out!

First up is something that actually has been covered a bit but I'm going to expand on it slightly - her blatant lie to @/elysia-nsimp (I'm not tagging anyone because I'm not forcing anyone to get notifications on this lmao).

Here's what everyone has already seen. But to expand on the event, we didn't call her out on her bad behavior, even though we probably should have as she had just lied straight to another mod's face about her blog ownership. I simply DM'd the mod in question privately to make sure they were okay and then tried to keep the peace in the main chat.

Because, believe it or not with this major callout post, I don't generally like confrontation. But I stepped in there for Elysia and I stepped up during this for Leona's mod.

Now, later that night, she posts this as if nothing had happened and she hadn't just been told that she needed to work on her roleplaying skills:

Uh huh. Sure. That's your last account. Because you have shown so much self-control when it comes to filling character voids within the twst rp community already. I'll be generous and give you a month before you break.

Now these next ones need a tiny bit of background information and a note: the Malleus mod is German and, as far as we know, lives in Germany. These next pictures are little indicators that she has not experienced the United States at all. These indicators may not seem important now, but they will be in just a little time. So keep them in mind for after the pause.

You cannot tell me anyone who has spent any length of time in the United States has not at least heard of Walmart.

Quick pitstop to say wow! You didn't even make it a month! Congratulations!

Also, note the question from the admin and the pretty obvious passive aggressiveness from me. We were sending plenty of hints that they needed to stop - sometimes coming outright and saying it, sometimes simply implying. Either way, we were all ignored.

She says she's not a mind reader. Well, apparently she's just not a reader period.

Now... a bit of an oddball here. And I want to say I do not necessarily think this is a lie. I am including it for a lie that is coming. The one that I included all those America comments for.

I'm sure you will note that I said that I don't "necessarily think" it's a lie - indicating that I do think it could be a possibility. That would be correct.

She has been lying since day one and, after this doozy of a story I'm about to share with you, I honestly don't know what to believe when it comes to her.

So.. to sum this up...

We went from a cringe ask from an OC account that she didn't want to answer -> the asker wasn't supposed to be on tumblr because they were underage (???) and was trying to date her irl and somehow had all of her information (oh but don't worry guys she deleted the ask!) -> he found her social media accounts and sent her NSFW pictures and started spam liking, demanding pictures of her kids, sent pictures of her at-the-time boyfriend, sent pictures of his family and his kids -> so she blocked him on everything and then started spam creating the rp accounts to see if he did it with other people or if it was just her (...mmmhmmm...) but nope he was only interested in Malleus -> she then apparently moved to America for a bit to crash with her boyfriend because this underage person went to Germany to find he.

Oh, by the way, why was this guy obsessed with her? Oh, he was obsessed with German women. He decided that all German women were pretty. And she's German-Russian! And Russians have intense standards for women you know! After this guy found out she was German AND Russian, I mean... it was only a matter of time before he upped his game to try to find her!

Guys, she's not saying she's too beautiful for her own good - the underage stalker speaks for itself!

Now, since this stalker found her through her Malleus account and was obviously very determined, you would think the first course of action would be to, ya know, delete the Malleus blog. Right?

No, no, no! Then she would have to start all over and, of course, if she switched accounts she would be forced to make a post on her current blog saying what her new blog is and he would just find her there. That's why she's trying to make her other accounts more active than her Malleus account (her Malleus account was still, by far, before all this happened, the most popular of all her rp blogs)!

Can I also mention that in that post announcing her pregnancy ON HER MALLEUS ACCOUNT WHERE SHE SUPPOSEDLY HAS A STALKER, she had tagged ALL OF HER BLOGS AT THE TIME?

But yes, Malleus mod. I definitely believe your story. :)

Please. Please tell me you all can understand why I just cannot find it in me to trust a single word coming out of this woman's mouth.

Especially now that during this whole drama, she has been lying through her teeth and trying to pin the entire blame on Leona's mod.

Now this part is nearly over (thank whatever gods anyone believes in) but let's just post the last few of the "before drama happened" pictures, shall we?

...I'm realizing I didn't underline the part where I called her out for having that many blogs in the gross dark green of a lie caught... oops. This is what happens when you have far too little sleep.

But either way, here is another time when she was called out on a lie of hers. And her little comment at the end means she read it and she acknowledged us.

She just didn't care because it didn't suit her.

~~~~~~

ALRIGHT!

THAT'S THE END OF PART ONE!

Yeah. This is going to come out in PARTS. I can't cover it all in one post because there is a picture limit.

So, I'm going to end up making a reblog chain...

Eventually.

Real talk? I need to sleep. Desperately. It's nearly two in the afternoon where I am and I have not slept yet.

Do not underestimate the power of spite and my loyalty to my friends. Both are very strong motivators.

But my body's needs are finally winning.

When I wake up, I'll have the Ultimate Drama Arc to post and expand upon and then the Return of the Drama Arc.

Yay. (said in the most unenthused voice ever lmao)

Anyway. Enjoy all this. I'm gonna go die. /j

[alittlefrenchtree]

After reading the notes, I was on the fence about reading your fic. On one hand I knew it was going to be good, so of course I wanted to read it, on the other I wasn't sure if today I was in the right mood to be confronted with "difficult" stuff, so I decided to just leave it for another day. But then I read your last anon, and they made me want to see for myself what it was about, so maybe I can thank them for that at least. I don't know where they get the idea that your opinions are so set in stone, so black and white. I got the exact opposite, and I am once again worried about some people's reading comprehension skills. Or maybe they just read your content warnings and decided what you wrote in the fic without actually reading it. Either way, I'm glad I read it and I'm glad you wrote it.

P. S. About your "what would you have Timmy sign?" question, I thought about answering my ass cuz he owns it but then I thought maybe it's one of those jokes that wouldn't age well, you never know 😉

Pssssst you want to know a secret? I kind of posted this last anon exactly for the ‘see for myself’ effect you’re talking about. Usually, this kind of asks immediately ends up in the trash like their second message did (actually not true, sometimes there is a screenshot and I send it around to some fandom and non fandom friends so we can all have a good laugh about it). But this time, I thought they could be a bit useful for once.

On a more serious note, thank you for your message 🙏

Firstly, bravo for taking care of yourself in the first place, with deciding to delay the read. Because 1) it makes me proud of you :) and 2) I’m glad to see there is at least one person (and what a person!) who is reading my babbling in the notes 😍

And thank you for the lovely things you said 💜. To be fair, I wasn’t even sure I was going to share it until very recently and reading your message made me glad I did.

P.S. we always love a good word joke 😁😂

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Let’s talk: RUN Episode 131

by Admin 1

I know I’ve probably said this about literally every episode but this one was so fun! Admin 2 and I were honestly laughing almost the entire time while also trying our best to follow along their “debates” and just taking in all the chaos. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Quick recap: in this episode we’re at the pool that belongs to the same hotel at which they had lunch at the end of the previous episode and the objective is twofold--not get wet and win a debate. That’s basically it, it’s like the mint chocolate debate episode but even more hilarious and with the addition of wet Bangtan.

Something I truly love is how it took vmin exactly 57 seconds (which includes the 18 second long intro) to find some kind of ‘reason’ to hold/shake hands behind JKs back. Because of course they did.

After the whole “mess” that ensued after the Titanic preview picture was posted yesterday, I can basically just say one thing--there was literally no need whatsoever to get all anxious and uncertain about the picture, or anything the shippers made out of it. As always the best course of action, which is the one I usually apply, is waiting until we get the full thing so we have context for what we’re shown in the picture/teaser/scene. It’s like that scene at the end of one of the ITS episodes where Jimin goes to JK to tell him about a supposed leak in his room which was taken way out of context and proportions until we got the next episode a week later and the actual events were completely different from anything and everything that was theorized. 

So, what’s the lesson? Wait until we get the full thing, dear fellow vminnies, that way we can avoid making each other anxious and unsure.

Anyway, let’s get into it by starting with the ‘warm-up’ which consisted of one-on-one “battles” where the members stood on these floating foamy mats being held by two staff members and having to make each other fall into the water by playing the hand pushing game. 

Yoongi VS Jimin -- I like how the two shortest members went against each other, which I’d assume might’ve had something to do with Yoongi’s shoulder and how chances of Jimin hurting him due to his height/size/weight were the smallest as opposed to Namjoon or even Hoseok. Maybe I’m imagining/overthinking things but it seemed like Jimin was a little hesitant/careful in how he approached the game and in the way he touched Yoongi, which honestly is very thoughtful and cute of him if that’s true, considering his shoulder and all. In the end Yoongi, after they basically goofed around more than actually tried to push each other, offers a deal of just doing it once properly, ending in both of them falling in the water since Yoongi leans forward, hugs Jimin and drags him down with him.

Tae VS Hobi -- These two might’ve been the quickest, given how Hobi said he’s scared at least three times and Tae basically use a moment to ‘attack’ where Hobi was distracted by the fact that a moment prior he thought Tae almost would’ve hit him in the face with his forehead on accident. That lucky did not happen, but Hobi did end up in the water and Tae remained on the float and completely dry.

Namjoon VS Seokjin -- Now these two, how can I put my thoughts/feelings into cohesive words and sentences instead of just a long key smash? They were hilarious, and their round definitely took the longest out of all of them, both trying to make the other fall yet simultaneously seeming like they weren’t trying all that hard since neither wanted to land in the water? After all before the game started Seokjin did complain how the RUN crew told him they wouldn’t have to get into the water. And yet, in the end, after a visible moment of contemplation, Namjoon hugs Seokjin (who hugs him back) and they fall into the water together (when I tell you how much I love them, wow).

JK VS Jimin --Here’s where we get the Titanic moment while JK and Jimin stand on the float and are being pulled to the middle of the pool, the members immediately jumping in with Hobi going “Jack, come back” in a breathy voice while Yoongi (?) sings the melody of My Heart Will Go On and everyone is laughing. It was an absolutely hilarious and cute moment. What made me laugh the most during the whole thing were the Jimin heads used to hide whatever, which I as a joke called the “Victoria’s Secret Fantasy Bra (Head Edition)” while talking to Admin 2. During the game itself Jimin and JK are hilarious, slapping each other’s chests and trying different tricks to make the other fall, showing how amazing their core strength and balance is, but eventually Jimin shoves JKs chest and JK falls into the water, winning the game since Jimin “cheated” and thus lost.

Seokjin VS Tae -- Interesting to note is how Jimin remained in the water and close by while these two were playing. Seokjin and Tae though somehow seemed the most chaotic out of all of them, despite Seokjin offering that they should just do it in one go...which didn’t work out. They leaned into each other twice while laughing before starting to “wrestle” until Tae put his arms around Seokjin’s waist and basically threw him into the water while subsequently being pulled after him and falling in as well. Sometimes I think we forget how strong Tae is (though after his BE_log earlier today I doubt we’ll forget that again any time soon).

Once “warm-up” was done, the members were split into two groups of three while one person, the MC, sat in the middle in a glass box (though missing the front glass panel). The rules were established and we basically figured out that there are water canons in front of the seated members and a bigger one releasing water onto the member sitting in the middle. They got words and things they were not allowed to do/say since otherwise they would get splashed.

Safe to say they all fairly quickly looked even more like very wet puppies. I mean look at Yoongi and his cute curly poodle hair, adorable!

The debate portion itself was about “crunchy or soft cereal”, “eggs of peas on jjajangmyeon” and “firm or soft peaches” and truly more chaotic shouting than actually debating. The team members and the “MC” changed for each round, which lasted 11 minutes each. Who debated what was chosen by the crew (or the MC). My highlights for the cereal debate (besides Seokjin cutely complaining how he prefers his cereal soggy and Namjoon equally cutely telling him to just pretend he likes it crunchy) were Yoongi (who was team soggy cereal) and his argument that since Kendrick Lamar eats soggy cereal, that’s basically the winning argument, Namjoon arguing that since “cereal” and “crunchy” both start with a c that’s the only right answer, and Tae arguing that if you eat chocolate cereal it’ll melt and you’ll additionally get chocolate milk so obviously soggy cereal is better. The jjajangmyeon portion had discussions about prices, as well as Hobi (team peas) arguing he doesn’t like seeing animals in pain (which was quickly countered by JK saying he’d just eaten pork before the episode) and Tae generally being appalled by having to argue in favor of peas since he doesn’t like them yet used the argument that his dad likes them so if you argue against them...well. 

And finally the peaches debate had Tae and his galaxy brain using their Chilsung Cider ads as argument and how the peaches in it were firm since they bounced and thus they are better, which JK tried to counter by pointing out that those were just CGI to which Tae basically said he’s insulting their beautiful ads, how dare. I also love how Jimin, who was on Tae’s team, went along with whatever nonsense argument Tae came up with as though it was the most logical one in the world. Just lovely soulmate things, we love to see it. Speaking of nonsensical arguments, you have to give points to Namjoon for his ability to sound like he’s making perfectly sensible and logical arguments while doing, well, the exact opposite. Or Yoongi who just bs-ed his way through the entire thing while acting totally serious about it.

Can we please have a quick look at the following screenshot:

And now, can we please talk about how everyone is nicely sitting in their designated place with space between them...and then there’s vmin who are like magnets because “Space who? We don’t know her”. 

Admin 2 asked me to add their comment/thought about how it looks juuuuust a little as though vmin may or may not have been holding hands below the table, which, I mean, we’ll never know but, at this point (especially after the BE unit unboxing video) I wouldn’t even be surprised if it were true.

At one point when Seokjin became the MC the water kept on coming and coming and the members were desperate to figure out what was the thing they were doing that caused it. Jimin thought it could be the caps that some of them wore, so without hesitation or question, he took off Tae’s cap (bless Jimin for giving us another view at wet hair Tae, truly) and then, I swear, it looks like he wanted to ruffle Tae’s hair yet just a second before making contact he stops himself and instead turns his hand in like a “I’m presenting some kind of argument” way. Adorable.

A final note goes out to the fact that they are wearing white button downs which, I mean, makes perfect sense I guess? And also how the crew gave them bathrobes so they’d stay warm, I’d assume, yet very quickly those were drenched as well thanks to the water canons so it basically defeated the purpose completely. And yet, despite all the water etc they all look fantastic.

Overall it’s a hilarious episode that’ll give your stomach muscles and lungs an amazing workout. Bangtan were their chaotic, loud, and mischievous selves and honestly, I can’t wait to see what else they’ll debate in the next episode.

[eraserheadbabys]

im not diagnosing anyone with anything. im saying, ive had specific delusions like this and seeing people mocking something that i know for a fact ive thought and felt feels like absolute shit. i dont know or care about what these peoples mental health is, but mocking something that is a common symptom of mental illness is ableist no matter who youre mocking. whoever you intend to target, the people you hit are people who experience these.

you should also consider that someone with a tendency towards psychosis can easily be triggered by seeing these theories. we have a huge problem with conspiracy theories, because it is so easy to believe them if youre prone to psychosis. and even if you arent, believing crazy things like this is associated with psychosis. you cant separate that societal association. not everyone in these groups will br psychotic, but the beliefs and behaviors are still associated with psychosis. mocking them hurts psychotic people on the sidelines. i am saying this as a psychotic person who saw this and was upset to see something i experience being the subject of a joke.

i could use the example of not understanding sarcasm, jokes and social nuance: this is a symptom common in autistic people but not exclusive to us. its still ableist to mock anyone for needing these things clarified. whether youre autistic or not, it isnt ok to make fun of others you see experiencing this

and no, i dont care what your mental health is either. even if youre psychotic it doesnt give you a free pass to mock symptoms associated with psychosis in strangers, same as how its ableist to mock people for misunderstanding sarcasm and jokes even if you yourself are autistic

not to be controversial but sometimes I think the private personal lives of celebrities are in fact none of our business

[mariaiscrafting]

You know, what think I like when you are critical of a content creator is that you know how to separate a fact from especulation, unlike a blog out there that took especulation as facts.

Example, that night when we were critical of Karl, or any instance you have discussed about him, a lot of anons were saying that he gave them clout chaser vibes to them, and despite your opinion, you expressed that those were only especulation and not the truth, and to keep that in mind. That's good critical thinking.

But this blog had some similar anons, saying that he only is friends with the Feral Boys gro clout- In fact, they said the Feral Boys were only in it to benefit from clout and money. And they took it as a truth. I know you instance on them is neutral, but come one, they are friends. All of them. Karl isn't friends with them for clout. Like today Karl was playing golf with salad gang plus Sapnap and George at first and then Quackity and Dream joined bc they had spared time and it all devolved into typical chaos (Poor Corpse and Tina and Brook, had to endure those children lol/lh /j). Like, the stream wasn't planned with the 5/5 yet they joined, missing Karl and just having fun.

Idk, I guess that blog's superiority (They were a SBI focused blog) just irritated me. It's as if they were putting both groups at each other as if those streamers aren't friends or close. They were singing prayers of one while shunning the other based from especulation. Criticissism is fine, in fact recommended to be critical of your interests, but taking rumors as facts to base your crit is yikes. It's as if I wanted to crit SBI and base it only of "Philza hanging only with people younger than him is kinda weird ngl.." or "Sbi doesn't care about Tommy cuz he joined late" like that dumb Tumblr post did or some fuckers in Twitter imply.

The main reason I take so much care to separate speculation from evidence-backed theories and confirmed truths is because I feel like that separation is what distinguishes us from mcyttwt the most. One of the main reasons for mcyttwt's toxicity, imo - for its relentless cancelling of everyone, for its bandwagon campaigns - is that people oftentimes criticize and defend based on their personal feelings rather than rationale or evidence.

For example, I complain a lot about Dream stans on here, but you know the reason I didn't stop watching Dream directly after the cheating scandal broke loose, even though I thought he cheated? Because of mcytblr Dream stans. Mcytblr Dream stans engaged with me in discussion, both publicly and in DMs, about the cheating scandal, and even those who eventually came to the conclusion that Dream didn't cheat accepted the facts and statistics they were given and kept a healthy skepticism throughout the process. On Twitter, Dream stans were defending him before he even made a video following up to the mods' initial accusations because they felt that Dream wasn't the kind of guy to lie or cheat. They were replying to screenshots of statistical analyses from subreddits and to articles from mathematicians and staticians with extremely reactionary responses because of that feeling, which they believed in so adamantly, they had accepted it as fact. The thing is, to believe that Dream didn't cheat in the face of all the statistical and rhetorical evidence to the contrary is, in itself, speculative. Usually we think of speculation as a baseless theory that something is a positive truth- that is to say, that something did happen. But speculation also applies to those theories of someone not having done something, when the opposite has been nearly proven to be true.

For this same reason, I chose not to ignore the anti-technotwt threads with screenshots of Techno's old tweets in them. For me to have simply ignored these screenshots and continued supposing that Techno never expressed bigoted beliefs and/or currently doesn't would have been speculative on my part, and to boot, blatantly wrong, given the evidence to the contrary.

People in this fandom, and in all RPF/RPF-adjacent fandoms need to understand that almost everything they believe about the CCs they watch is speculative, at least to some extent, because of the nature of the content they make. Even if someone, in your opinion, displays evidence of some aspect of their personality - whether that be some form of bigoted, sweet, rude, clout-chasing, or anything else - because of the extremely one-sided nature of sharing one's life through a screen, that theory of ours will almost alwyas only ever be speculation, not a solid conclusion that can be drawn. We will never know these people's true intentions behind something shared to us via the Internet.

That vagueness leads to virtually every viewer creating a different theory in our heads about the CCs we watch, and we can't treat those theories as facts, especially not when sharing them with the rest of a fandom. I'm not a very big blog, but I consider even over 50 followers to be way too many people to spread a theory too, without at least clarifying that what I'm posting is speculation. If I have evidence, I like to list it or, if I can, provide sources; but otherwise, I take care to qualify most things with phrases or disclaimers that will clue followers into the speculative nature of whatever it is I'm saying. This is because theories and "feelings" can blaze through a fandom like wildfire, especially somewhere like Twitter, where so many things are word-of-mouth or based on summary due to character limitation.

You know why mcyttwt was cancelling Andi? Only a handful of original Tweeters under the cancel Andi hashtags actually knew what clips or tweets to criticize her for, or tried to elaborate on that criticism. But because every other mcyttwt user was getting bombarded by their mutuals hate-posting about Andi on their TLs, the "negative feeling" towards Andi grew and grew, even if most people didn't even know what they were supposed to feel negative about, exactly. Our judgement works on a quick trigger on the Internet because of the amount of information we're receiving, and so, even a single bad word against someone you don't have too strong of an opinion on can fundamentally alter your perception of them, usually subconsciously. If the first thing you see about Andi, who you've only seen on a couple LOH's or a couple Punz streams before then, is a tweet along the lines of, "disappointed in Andi for her homophobia and joking about suicide," despite you having no context, you will most likely be pushed to the negative side of her. Thus begins the cycle of hatred, building up and up, leading to you searching for more and more criticism about Andi, whether speculative or not, until you solidly and genuinely believe she is a Horrible Person. It all starts with the vaguest fucking feeling, because that's all speculation has to go off of, and it snowballs into a fucking wildfire across an entire fandom. I'm not about to be another person to let feelings snowball and spread like that.

Now, I don't know what exact blog you're referring to, but as an adamant SBI enthusiast, let me flip the argument many SBI stans have for their speculation upon the genuity of Karl's friendship with the Feral Bois, onto SBI. What do we have to go off of for the genuity of SBI's friendship, anyways? Our perceived brother dynamic between Tommy and Wilbur could very well just be Tommy capitalizing on Wilbur's brand and continuing the charade until now because it's been profitable. Maybe Techno only continues to associate with SBI because he knows how much his fanbase likes headcanon'ing about SBI, so he puts up with streams with them so he can continue to feed his fanbase with dynamics he knows they're obsessed with. Maybe Phil would rather play MC with people his age, and actually dislikes that he's friends with a teenager, but sticks around because he profitted so much off of Dream SMP and SBI-related content. And what could any SBI stan have to argue with me on any of these theories? Just because SBI laughs around each other and seems fond of each other doesn't mean they're actually like that behind the cameras. They so seldomly stream or make videos together anymore, anyways, so maybe they've grown tired of keeping up the dynamic.

Everything I said could be interpreted as utter bullshit, and that's because it fucking is. I don't actually know what Techno wants to do with his life, or how Wilbur and Tommy actually feel about each other, or who Phil wants to fucking befriend. The same goes for Feral Boys. There's nothing wrong with stating your theories or speculation, but to treat them as fact or not at least qualify such posts with the fact that this is all based on your bias and opinion, and no substantive evidence, is irresponsible. Just because you feel like one or more of the Feral Boys is "clout-chasing" doesn't mean you have the right to tout that feeling as truth. I feel a lot of things about a lot of CCs, both negative and positive, but no matter how strong my feelings, unless they have substantive evidence backing them up, I have no right to treat them as facts with my followers.

[mellometal]

WHAT'S GOING ON? THIS IS PART TWO OF ME RIPPING APART DHAR MANN'S VIDEOS ABOUT FATPHOBIA! Whoo-hoo!

Before I get started, here's an obligatory trigger warning: This post will be talking about fatphobia, bullying, homelessness, mentioned ED, fat shaming, shaming a person FOR EATING, and the abused thanking his abuser AS AN ADULT for tormenting him as a young, impressionable teenage boy.

If any of that is triggering, upsetting, or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. Please consume media that sparks joy for you.

This time, there won't be a response from me about this video, like I usually do with all my Dhar Mann posts. If you want to see my response, refer to my first post about fatphobia (the one about the plus-size woman being fat shamed). It does tie in with this post, as my thoughts on this video are the exact same here. Yes, even though this is about a (at the time) plus-size black teenage boy being targeted. Search for the "dhar mann talk" tag and it's one of the most recent posts. I don't believe anyone should be shamed for their weight. Your weight doesn't hold any significance to your worth as a person. Don't let anything or anyone tell you otherwise.

With all of that out of the way, let's get to the video!

To sum up the video, it starts out with a plus-size black teenage boy (Kurt or "Big Boy", as he's called almost throughout the entire video) who's on a basketball court at school with his friend (Mike), a few other teenage boys, and Mike's uncle (Frank) is their coach. Mike is the captain on one team, Frank is the captain on the other team. They're picking teammates, and everyone is on a team except for Kurt and another boy. Frank says to his nephew to not pick Kurt (he called him "Big Boy" instead) because "he'd never win with him". LIKE THEY WERE PLAYING FOR THE NBA. CALM YOUR DICK. HOLY FUCKING HELL. THEY'RE KIDS.

Mike, not listening to his uncle (good for him), picks Kurt anyway. Kurt is happy and thanks his friend for picking him. Mike gives Kurt a shirt that looks at least a couple sizes too small for him and would be pretty uncomfortable to wear. This isn't Mike's fault, obviously. Kurt politely asks if they had a bigger shirt. Obviously not an unreasonable request. They're playing a sport that requires lots of movement (honestly, pretty much any sport would apply here, except for maybe golf or cricket) so it's understandable to want to at least be comfortable and have room to move around. Frank mocks A LITERAL TEENAGER with the whole "You think you're shopping at Big&Tall?" line and then says that's the only size they had (why couldn't they supply inclusive sizes in the first place, or at least ASK Kurt what his size was IN ADVANCE?), which....umm, I'm actually GLAD plus-size clothing for men (Big&Tall, in this case) is more readily available and accessible now. I'm happy plus-size clothing in GENERAL is like that now.

Mike comforts Kurt and says the shirt might fit. The shirt does KIND OF fit Kurt, but it's obvious he's uncomfortable. Look at this screenshot here:

Frank laughs at Kurt, says he looks like Barney The Dinosaur, and the other kids laugh along with their coach. This is NOT setting a good example for children, Frank. You're a fucking teacher. You're a COACH. You're supposed to be teaching these kids about sports and shit. You're supposed to be setting a good example for these kids about teamwork and sportsmanship. WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO A TEENAGE BOY, WHO IS MOST LIKELY ONE OF YOUR STUDENTS, IS TEACHING NONE OF THOSE THINGS. You're teaching these kids that bullying their peers for things they can't help having is okay. Do better. (I'd say that he's an adult and should act like one, but I'm an adult and I barely act like one a lot of the time, so that'd make me a hypocrite.)

While I may be fortunate to have had a physical education teacher who never bashed on me or shamed me for my weight and she would cheer me on for whatever amount of effort I made the first and only year I had actual P.E., I know that many other kids who are plus-size most likely has/had horrible P.E. teachers or coaches like Frank.

To anyone who has/had a teacher or coach like Frank, I'm so sorry, kiddos. You don't deserve to be bullied by your own teachers. I wish I could give all of you a hug, but I can give y'all virtual hugs instead! *virtual hugs* /p

So they play a game of basketball, and Kurt is struggling to fully play because the shirt he was given was probably cutting off some circulation, especially in his arms (again, do I need to reiterate that this was NOT Mike's fault and is FRANK'S fault for his ignorance and negligence). Frank mocks his nephew Mike by saying that he told him not to pick Kurt. Why? Because according to him, Kurt will never make anything of himself in life due to him being fat. (AGAIN, THIS IS NOT TRUE.)

Then it cuts to Kurt sitting with Mike, who's working on his car and Kurt's working on his own thing. Mike says he believes one day he'll own a nice, brand new Cadillac. Kurt is very supportive and cheers his friend on. He says that he believes he'll be one of the biggest radio show hosts and has a title for it called "Big Boy's Neighborhood". Both of them are hyping each other up. Love to see men supporting men. Mike pulls out his Walkman (they were HUGE back in the 80s and 90s because you could listen to the radio from anywhere, I have a Sony Walkman mp3 player, but it's a newer model), and Kurt says that he's always wanted one but couldn't afford it. (I'll go into why in a second.)

Frank comes over to reprimand Mike, who has done NOTHING WRONG, for talking to Kurt. Instead of working, which Mike WAS actually doing. He tries to tell his uncle this, but he wasn't having it. Frank then reprimands Kurt, who also has done NOTHING WRONG, for just sitting and apparently "distracting Mike" (he wasn't). He asks if there's any work he was supposed to do. Kurt FINALLY stands up to Frank in a polite, mature manner. He says that just because he wasn't working with his hands, it didn't mean he wasn't working. Frank ridicules Kurt some more, Mike tells his uncle to leave his friend alone, and Kurt stands up to Frank AGAIN, still being polite and mature. UNLIKE THE ACTUAL ADULT ACTING LIKE A CLICHÉ MIDDLE SCHOOL BULLY WHO PROBABLY PEAKED IN HIGH SCHOOL. How fucking ironic.

What does Frank do in response to Kurt standing up to him? INSULTS THE KID SOME MORE. He tells Kurt that he must have "pig fat for brains" (which is not only insulting to Kurt, but also insulting to pigs, because pigs are intelligent animals), takes his small bag of Doritos, and says that he "doesn't need to be eating anything." He eats Kurt's Doritos IN FRONT OF HIM, tells Mike to quit letting his friend make him lazy (he wasn't doing that at all), and to get back to work.

THAT line made me livid. I've actually thought that I didn't deserve to eat anything because I'm plus-size as a teenager, and into my adulthood at a few points in my life. NEVER say that someone doesn't need to be eating anything. (Obviously except for poisonous things, inedible objects, and things that could and will kill them.) You could cause them to develop an ED, or trigger an ED if they already have one. THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING. EDs are no joke. Whether it be starving, purging, or binge eating, none of them are fun to have and/or to deal with. Even if they DON'T develop an ED, their relationship with food will be all sorts of fucky-wucky. Some even for the rest of their lives. Unless you get proper treatment, of course.

When Frank leaves, Kurt is obviously upset. Rightfully so. How he's feeling is justified. Mike comforts him and says to not let Frank get to him. Mike offers to take Kurt home, but then realizes that his friend and his mom got evicted and are homeless. (This is why Kurt couldn't afford to buy a Walkman.) Kurt, still distraught, says that he'll just walk. Mike invites him over for dinner and that he'd drop him off after, which Kurt agrees to.

They're at Mike's house, having dinner, and Mike's parents are talking to Kurt. They're being supportive. Frank walks in to have his sister's cooking. He sees that Kurt's there. Mike's parents introduce Frank to Kurt, tells him Kurt's gonna be on the radio one day, Frank laughs and says Kurt's not gonna be anything. Kurt brushes it off. He says that his mom says that he can achieve whatever he wants (which is true, to a reasonable extent), Frank cuts him off and says his mom was lying to him, and that his mom knows he's gonna be a big loser.

Mike's dad tells Frank to leave Kurt alone. Mike's mom also says the same thing. Frank asks Kurt if his mom doesn't feed him at home, and what he was doing "eating up all their food" (he wasn't; he just had a singular plate). Mike and his mom tell Frank to stop. His mom explains that they invited Kurt over for dinner, and she tells her brother to sit down and eat. Frank then asks Kurt again if his mom doesn't feed him at home. Mike tells Frank that Kurt and his mom don't have a home because they just got evicted, which is a shock to the parents. Instead of having sympathy for a teenage boy who was on the streets with his mom, HE MOCKS HIM. WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT? Especially to a teenage boy who didn't do anything whatsoever to deserve being evicted from his home and be out on the streets with his mom. I've dealt with being evicted. I've dealt with homelessness. Out of no fault of my own. It's not funny, cool, glamorous, or anything like that. It's terrifying. I'm still traumatized by that experience and it happened four years ago. Sometimes I have nightmares about that kind of thing. The very possibility of becoming homeless and going through that again scares the shit out of me. The thought of it is so triggering for me that I will resort to reverting back to things I used to do when I was a kid. It also doesn't help that I will NEVER be able to afford an apartment on my own where I live now and will probably have to rely on at least two or three roommates and/or family to get by. Thanks a lot, Boomers.

I would never wish what I went through on anyone. Anyways, back to the whole summary of the video.

Kurt gets up and leaves the table. Mike tries to go after his friend to make sure he was okay, but Frank stops his nephew. ONLY WHEN KURT LEAVES DOES FRANK ALL NONCHALANTLY SAY THAT HE'S STARVING AND THAT THEY SHOULD ALL EAT. Despite Frank making Kurt as well as his (Frank's) own family upset.

Kurt walks to where his mom is. His mom notices that he's upset. Kurt tells his mom that it's because of Frank. His mom comforts him and gives him the advice that she gave him before. Kurt is still obviously too upset to take anything she's telling him, bringing up that they're homeless and broke, and his mom is desperate to help comfort her son. She gives him his birthday present early, which happens to be a Walkman. Kurt is shocked. He thought they didn't have that kind of money. His mom says not to worry about that. She pokes some lighthearted fun at her son, he thanks her, and he asks her a question. He asks if she believes he'll be successful or if she's saying that to make him feel better. She asks if he believes he'll be successful (yep), and he tells her that when he succeeds, he'll buy them a house so they don't have to be homeless anymore or worry about getting evicted.

Fast forward to adulthood, Kurt becomes a bouncer, meets someone who works at a radio station, and he goes there. Just to have people laughing at him. He's distraught again and leaves the station, thinking that he made a bad decision. Frank happens to come by, see that Kurt was upset, and asks what's wrong. Kurt tells him what happened, and Frank mocks him AGAIN with the same shit he told him when he was a TEENAGE BOY, now as a YOUNG ADULT. He walks off, laughing.

Nice going! /s Kicking Kurt while he's down JUST LIKE OLD TIMES, RIGHT? FUCK YOU.

Kurt then decides that he's gonna lose weight and be the best radio show host. (Toxic much? Why would you try to preach that your weight = your worth as a person? If you're losing weight for yourself, great! I'm happy for you! If you don't want to lose weight, you don't give a fuck about what people say, and you're happy in your own skin, that's awesome too! Do it for yourself, not for anyone's approval. Try to love yourself and accept yourself in any form you're in. Don't fall for the bullshit that you have to be a certain size or look a certain way for you to love and accept yourself. The weight may be gone, but the rest of your issues will still be there. I have to clarify that I meant this in GENERAL, not necessarily for extremities on either side of the spectrum of weight...because there are things you MUST follow.)

Kurt gets back to the station, ignores all the people being assholes, he's doing his thing, and he's climbing up.

Fast forward to when Kurt is middle-aged. He has his own radio show, and he's one of the biggest names in the radio industry. After he finishes up his show, he goes outside to see a couple of young fans. A young black girl with her brother, a plus-size boy. They say how much they love his show, they got his merch, and the boy tells Kurt that he wants to be just like him. The boy doubts himself though because of people abusing him JUST LIKE what Kurt went through. Kurt empathizes with the boy and tells him a little bit about his own experience. Following them is Frank as an old man. They're his grandkids.

Frank recognizes Kurt, and actually apologizes to him for the torment he put him through as a teenager. WHAT A SHOCK. /srs

Kurt takes it with grace, but says that he should be thanking Frank for all the torment. Why? Because it "motivated him". The girl says that she loves that. (Okay, since she's a kid and there's still time for her to change her mind about certain things, I'm not going to be as harsh here. I don't bash on the kids unless they're doing or saying extremely fucked up things willingly. She didn't say this with bad intentions. I understand you're coming from a good place, and I appreciate that, but please hear me out. This wasn't at all like dealing with edgy thirteen year olds on the internet. This man you look up to was abused by your grandfather in his youth. Your brother is experiencing that same torment your idol went through...at a younger age too, it seems like. The kid looks no older than middle school age [ten or eleven at the YOUNGEST to maybe thirteen or fourteen at the OLDEST]. That's a huge problem. Kurt may have "toughed it out", but that might not be the case for your brother. Please don't excuse that kind of behavior.)

Dude...what the actual fuck? I can understand not being bothered by the hate, but this grown ass man literally VERBALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSED YOU AS A YOUNG, IMPRESSIONABLE TEENAGE BOY, CONTINUING INTO ADULTHOOD, and you're THANKING Frank for all of that? Why should you thank your abuser for what he put you through? He didn't contribute ANYTHING to your success. So I guess abuse is a GREAT contribution to people's success now, right? /s It doesn't contribute to anything, in my opinion. Yes, what doesn't kill you can make you stronger, but can we normalize people becoming weaker to a point due to traumatic events? Because they exist. Demonizing survivors who have become weaker to some degree or just flat-out ignoring them isn't helping. You did the thing you wanted to do, Kurt. Frank didn't help you. The person who really helped you was YOU and your mom.

MOVING ON.

The boy asks Kurt if he thinks he'll ever be able to make it as a radio show host. Kurt asks if HE believes that. The boy says he does. Kurt gives him some advice and gives the boy his Walkman. The boy's ecstatic, they leave, and Kurt goes to meet up with his mom.

Keeping to his promise, Kurt bought his mom a house so she'd never be homeless again and never have to worry about being evicted. (HOW LONG WAS SHE HOMELESS FOR? OH MY GOD. THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW. I hope you at least let her stay with you or something. They never went into that, unfortunately.) She's very grateful. The video ends there.

My personal thoughts on the video: Another piss poor video....but worse! Because it was a COLLAB. And based on a true story. Good going with taking this man's story of being abused by a grown adult to exploit for your personal gain, Dhar Mann! WOW. LOVE THAT! Totally a good look. /s

What I took from this video is that if you're plus-size, according to Dhar Mann, you'll apparently NEVER be successful, let alone be taken seriously...which is an absolute lie. There are many plus-size people who are very successful. Another thing I took from the video is that apparently according to Dhar Mann, being verbally and emotionally abused as a teenager by a grown adult all the way into adulthood is "motivation" for you to work harder to reach your goals. (Nice going, Dhar Mann. Justifying grown adults abusing children. Who would've thought? /s)

Oh, and it's like MANDATORY to thank your abusers for tormenting you when you become successful! (Obviously this is an exaggeration. This is me using Dhar Mann's logic against him.) You want to thank them for making you stronger? Fine. You want to spit in their face and say, "Fuck you." to them? Also fine. You want to just never acknowledge them ever again? Totally fine. Whatever you want to do, that's fine by me, but can you not imply that "thanking" your abusers is mandatory in some way?

If you made it this far, thank you! I hope you're having a good morning/day/afternoon/evening/night. Stay safe, y'all. Love you. /p

[kg2hub]

so let’s talk about the kindergarten amino. 

there are issues we need to address like grown ups, which some certain people refuse to do.

i’m not gonna lie, i avoided getting amino for the longest time because i am aware of how much of a festering cesspool of toxicity it is there. it’s terrifying, how shitty people can be on there honestly. the community?  garbage. absolute garbage, and despite not having an account there i personally know my friends have been affected by the utter bullshit that goes on in there.

sure, i know many of the wonderful creators there, good friends who mean the world to me, and amazing talented mutuals of mine spanning multiple social media platforms who are on the amino as well. good people exist. but so do the bad ones, and it seems on amino specifically, the bad people are more prevalent there.

it’s kind of really stupid, how much of a horrible place that app is, and yet the kindergarten communities i’ve personally witnessed on tumblr, discord, instagram-- are so much kinder, supportive and not at all what a certain mod team describes. 

how curious! it’s almost as if the behaviour you allow freely in a community breeds likeminded people in that community! :) mindblowing, isn’t it?

on that topic. the kindergarten amino mods. 

according to the oxford dictionary1, a moderator is defined as being 1. a person whose job is to help people or groups who disagree to reach an agreement ;  4. ​a person who is responsible for preventing offensive material from being published on a website. 

notice how none of these definitions say anything about uhhhhh “talking like a simp” lmao? 

like what they said to a friend of mine who asked why she didn’t get the mod position she applied for and when she asked what was “wrong” with the way she spoke to people when they answered her, case in point:

:)

under the cut, here are the requirements for how a kga mod is supposedly obligated to speak to people, straight from the mod team themselves (and how the above and below are incredibly unfitting for someone supposedly in a moderator’s position):

the above images are the message that came before the first screenshot from the convo from my friend shown above the cut. now, let me point out the issues with this list. the 1st definition of “moderator” portrays a mod as helping two parties reach an agreement with one another after an argument. the 4th definition of “moderator” is someone who is responsible for preventing offensive material from being published on a website (in this case, app)

“talk casual” is not applicable to these definitions. this has little to no relation to how a mod may mediate a situation, but there are a few conceivable pros and cons.

pros: both parties in an argument may find them easier to talk to, and might understand each other’s points better when explained in terms that come off as relaxed and not like a serious adult wagging their finger at a child. 

cons: the exact opposite might happen due to the fact they will sound less professional and may be taken less seriously, and there is no guaranteed way the two parties in question will interpret the mod’s efforts in either a good or bad way. 

in conclusion, speaking casually to someone as a mod is not important nor does it affect how the actual act of moderation occurs. “speak respectfully” is the phrase you’re looking for, kga mods. it doesn’t matter how formal or casual you are, as long as you’re not straight up being a dick to anyone.

“try to make negatives sound neutral” is, in other words, deliberately wording a situation to avoid taking one specific side of an argument. --the issue with this, is that there are some situations that are rooted in facts, and you cannot change a negative fact to “make it sound neutral” because it exists in reality as a negative fact no matter what you think or how you try to convince yourself otherwise. there are cases where one person is wrong and one person is right, and that is the end of that. there are cases where it doesn’t matter what the user’s intent behind their actions were; well-meaning or not, if they did something wrong, they did something wrong. tell them what they did wrong, issue a warning, let them apologize and move on if they won’t do it again. if they’re a repeat offender, take the appropriate actions for the situation and deal with it responsibly as the person in the authoritative position. end of story.

there are differences between petty arguments (eg. who is the “best” character), and serious matters that should be dealt in a serious way (eg. art theft, rape jokes, bullying). nothing in this world is completely black and white, but there is a clear difference between what will harm a person, and what will not; what is good for the sake of a community, and what isn’t. and frankly, if you think you can dispute that and take a neutral side on urgent issues anyway, you are incredibly mistaken. 

this can be a tactic used for de-escalation, absolutely, and for making sure you aren’t inserting your personal opinions into the argument by looking at it from an objective point of view. but it is not fit for every situation, and the fact that it’s listed as “one of the ways a mod is supposed to talk to people” puts it in a checklist for the “standard” of how they should speak, which therefore implies that a mod needs to “try” to use it in every situation possible. instead of, you know, judging the situation and reacting accordingly rather than going a roundabout way that doesn’t go straight to solving the actual issue between users. i would count that specific point as bad wording on their part, but my point for all of this still stands regardless.

“be patient” does play an important part of handling arguments between two people, i will agree with that. it’s advisable to be the calm, rational one when dealing with two people whose emotions are influencing them to only see their side and no one else’s. that’s only assuming the situation isn’t as serious as other ones may be, however, and that there are multiple sides to the argument at all. 

of course this isn’t the case for other things that are much worse, and if we recall the 4th definition of a moderator in modern, internet-associated terms, it is the mod’s duty to prevent offensive, harmful material from being posted on a website. not everything can be solved with patience and talking things out when someone is breaking the rules. a moderator also needs to be able to put their foot down when needed, and take action especially in the case that the mod isn’t actually being listened to.

as a person being confronted by a mod, it’s easy to say you agree and won’t do it again but you’ll just do it again anyway. which is why punishment, repercussions, consequences (banning, reporting, etc) are put in place to prevent these things from happening. relying only on talking things out cannot and will not stop people from doing what they want, if they don’t listen and have no desire to change for the better.

“try to make your users comfortable while talking to you” is not applicable in every situation either. of course it’s important to ensure you are respected as a mod, and that you are respectful towards other people as well. it’s nice to have a friendly disposition when talking to people, so they aren’t intimidated or scared of you, or think you’re stuck up or unlikable or mean and whatever else. 

but in the end, it doesn’t really matter what everyone thinks of you, whether you’re a mod or not. not everyone will like you at any given point, ever. that’s just a fact of life. what matters as a mod, is doing your job properly. the way others see you is a factor in it, sure, but as a mod you will always inherently be someone who some others are a little jumpy when talking to you. but most people also don’t have any reason to be uncomfortable if they aren’t doing anything wrong in the first place. if they’re hurting people and being toxic, it doesn’t matter how comfortable they are when talking to you.

in addition, it’s possible to be amicable while also being firm and direct about moderation work. and it is also possible to separate how you speak in a friendly conversation with someone, compared to speaking to someone who has seriously messed up and broken the rules. 

“smiley face trademarked” this straight up has nothing to do with being a mod. it’s just a typing quirk. it’s not important to what makes someone a mod. it also is typically used for passive aggressiveness so. if the kga staff wants to come off to their community that way, i am not fishing out the one (1) radioactive shoe in the sewers that is the kindergarten amino. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“de-escalate situations or try to stay calm” does fit exactly with what i was talking about earlier. this is the 1st definition of moderators, and essentially is part of their job. i legitimately don’t have objections to this, that haven’t already been said, because it is a mod’s job to keep the peace between the people in an online community.

this message came after the list they provided, before the screenshot of my friend asking if her not sugarcoating things was the issue. for context, she had challenged their authority before this instance, and critiqued the way the mods would usually handle situations. in that, they don’t actually handle the situation and would opt for “being a simp” rather than solving the issue. (keeping this in mind, it’s hard not to suspect they rejected her because of past hostility against her for speaking her mind before this.)

it’s not hard to change the way you speak according to the situation. you don’t talk to the principal (or your boss if you’re older), the same way you would talk to your best friend, or the way you would talk to a sibling, and you don’t speak to a stranger on the street, or significant other in any of those ways too. 

it doesn’t matter how she spoke when she critiqued the mods. the way she spoke for that occasion was appropriate for the topic, and does not in any way correlate or give any indication to how she would speak to a general person if she was in a mod position.

it doesn’t matter about how “relatable” you are as a mod either. that has nothing to do with moderation and does not make you do your job any better or any less than someone who “isn’t relatable” whatever the fuck that means. 

a teacher can be relatable all they want, but they can and will get booted from their job if they’re, y’know, not actually doing their job; aka teaching. a teacher can teach without being engaging in any way for the students at all, and that arguably isn’t good either, but the difference is, as much as the students may not like it, that’s not a requirement for their job, hence why a teacher would not get fired for being boring but still getting information through to their students, but a teacher would get fired for not teaching no matter how fun, relatable, or friendly they are. 

the power a mod has is supposed to be used to moderate, while “being relatable” is not needed, even though it can be beneficial, to actually do your job properly.

ah yes, this screenshot again. urban dictionary’s 1st definition of “simp” is:  Someone who will say anything to please someone, particularly a girl, in the hopes that they will be in good favor with that person.

and that really speaks for itself why simps are unfit to be in a moderator position. essentially, they are suck ups. fakes. they will, by this definition, say anything to win the good graces of other people, to win approval, and make people like them. --and as i mentioned before, this is not the job of a mod in any way, shape or form.

it is not beneficial for a mod to suck up to someone who is breaking the rules and hurting others. it doesn’t matter what the community’s opinion is of how likable a mod is; the mod is the person in a position of power, and it is their job to make sure no one is breaking the rules or posting anything harmful to others or to the community. that has nothing to do with popularity contests.

and, this shows how these mods handle situations if they “talk like a simp” to the perpetrators. it’s a substantial reason why this mod team doesn’t actually get their work done if this is the way they speak to people. to talk in this manner means they are not really telling the perpetrators what they’re doing wrong and trying to get them to stop, but are rather encouraging and enabling them to keep doing terrible things because of the fact that “it will please them, and that person will think good of the mods”

--another point i should talk about, is the “we have to be kind and try to understand” part of what they said. 

according to one of my friends, some people in the kga mod team are over 18?? i don’t know if this is true, and i don’t really care. but if it is, maybe fucking act like it lmao. if you really are adults-- even some young teenagers already know this-- but you should already know it is completely possible to be kind and polite to someone while disagreeing with them and telling them they are wrong and what they did is wrong. 

it’s word choice. there is a deliberate difference between choosing to type “wow you’re so stupid, don’t you know you’re not allowed to post this? delete it, dipshit” and “hey there! this post doesn’t fit the posting guidelines, so please take this down. thanks!” 

there’s also a neat little thing where a person can understand why a person did something and the reasons why they think something is right, looking at an opinion that is not their own and the contexts for why other people may think that way-- but still realize that it’s fundamentally wrong and they shouldn’t do that anyway! it’s called critical thinking. it comes with the experience of growing up, which, doesn’t necessarily correlate to how old a person is. 

so even if the mods are adults, they have no excuse for not being able to connect saying things in a kind way while also being firm about moderating and doing their job without being a doormat. 

we, as adults, are supposed to be the responsible ones when dealing with minors, and mods are the designated responsible ones over every member of an online community by proxy. by now, you should have learned these things. but i will acknowledge that not all people may be mentally capable of thinking and speaking this way as easily as others. and that’s fine and dandy and doesn’t make them a bad person-- but that also means they should not be mods in the first place if they can’t deal with things objectively but respectfully and kind at the same time.

--kinda funny how that screenshot under the simp screenshot practically agrees with that notion, huh!

( plus the fact those under 13 are not allowed to use amino in the first fucking place, yet they allow a fucking 12 year old to join without doing anything about it?? children should not be on that app until they’re old enough. it’s detrimental to them and everyone around them, and unsafe for them especially. i’m pretty sure more than two people are aware of this incident, and the fact the mods did nothing about it? pure incompetence. )

^ she put it pretty well in her own words too.

and now onto this bullshit. i, on the other hand do not personally know these people on the kga mod team, but i do not care for their opinions on me considering i don’t know them and do not care for the amino community-- nor do i have the obligation to suspend my belief on whether they truly are lovely people or not. 

they allowed my friends to get hurt, everything i’ve seen from them is incompetence, and frankly, the simp one especially made me actively lose braincells trying to comprehend that any human on this planet thinks that is a legitimate, reasonable response to anyone in any situation. if it was a joke, it is their fault for putting a poorly placed joke in the middle of a serious conversation. if it wasn’t a joke, i really cannot fathom how anyone believes that is an intelligent or beneficial way to talk to people while moderating.

anyway. that response of theirs? that passive aggressive “don’t say thank you when you hate us :)” while disregarding literally everything else my friend said is incredibly childish on the mod’s part. i have legitimate trouble believing anyone but a child is typing these arguments, and i’m not saying this to be mean, but i seriously cannot imagine with every single one of my synapses, that an adult would make such a halfassed “argument” like that.

on the other hand, twitter drama exists. so. perhaps i can believe there are adults who can’t communicate properly.

either way, their true age has no relation to the immature behaviour they show throughout this conversation. child or not, adult or not, they are still being unreasonable and immature and the bottom line is that these people really shouldn’t be mods.

“the next message probably isn’t me so like don’t blame kga staff” that really does not sound like anything but an excuse to say whatever you want without actually owning up to your actions. 

a friend when i was 11 would say shitty things to me and then say “omg i’m soooo sorry that wasn’t me, my cousin used my computer!!” and that sounds just like that imo. 

i will give the benefit of the doubt for this one assuming multiple mods are using that account(?) but the “don’t blame kga staff” makes zero sense, like my friend says. if someone from your mod team says something, it means you all either agree with it (especially considering it seems you only let people like yourself and not anyone with varied opinions become mods) or you would have to retract the statement as a team and own up to what your actual opinions are. you can have individual opinions as individual mods, but i’m pretty sure that if you say things as the kga staff as a whole, it must be assumed those opinions are at least shared with most if not all members.

there are problems involving the kga staff. of course the entire kga staff will be blamed, no matter who the individual was, for causing problems in the first place.

“abrasive and downright impulsive” buddy, you and your little mod posse have had these issues spanning several months, according to my friends. there’s nothing impulsive about poking the hornet’s nest repeatedly and then getting surprised when you get stung. or in this case, called out with the truth. because the truth isn’t “abrasive”, it’s just real. 

consider: you’re being spoken to this way because you won’t listen to literally any other way whenever your inadequacies of being mods has been brought up in the past lmao. being nice obviously hasn’t worked (oh the irony). what else do you expect to happen?

“if everyone despised us and we put no effort into getting a little liked from the community [...]” you said “simp” behaviour was required for all mods. there’s a huge fucking difference between “too nice to mod properly or tell people what they’re doing wrong”, and being well liked and respected while still being competent. again, being liked by everyone is not what makes someone The Best Mod(tm). doesn’t matter if you don’t actually do your job.

“the problems aren’t with the entire staff. so I don’t see the need to blame everyone” this is exactly like saying “this cancer tumor isn’t affecting all of your body so i don’t see the need to remove it before it gets worse”

“the reason we need this more lighthearted [...] and those involved in the problem” again. it is entirely possible to be kind to someone while also dealing with problems in a responsible manner.

yep. as she said, the kga staff is the first one to throw insults at her, not the other way around. and it is incredibly hypocritical of them to talk that way. not very simp-like when you’re directly being called out on the shit you’re doing wrong, huh :) 

and you heard it here folks; the kga staff doesn’t care about the opinions and critical feedback of it’s own members! “a bad opinion based on next to nothing” you mean the stuff you sweep under the rug and the shit she’s personally witnessed the whole time she’s been on that amino?

sure, that first mod is not specifically responsible for what the second one said. but you’re both still mods, and whole idea of being a mod is being responsible for others in the first place. and that responsibility includes amongst yourselves. if you don’t know how to police your fellow mods (and on the case if it happened, speak up if another mod is being corrupt), can you really expect anyone to believe you can moderate other people if you don’t know how to check yourselves first?

“you’ve never been a mod. you can’t judge how we do our jobs” that is a shitty argument and always has been since the dawn of time. 99.99% of people have never and will never be president or work in parliament. that doesn’t stop them from criticizing how the government runs things. the majority of an audience have never worked on a movie set before. that doesn’t stop them from saying whether they thought the movie was absolute shit. they don’t have to know how much “hard work” is put into being a mod to judge you. what matters is the outcome, they see the outcome, and will judge you because the outcome directly affects them. 

and in both of the above situations, the feedback from the outsiders are incredibly vital and influence the way the government, or the movie directors, make their next move. because if the next move they make is complete nonsensical garbage to everyone else? they’re ruined. they have to listen to everyone else or their reputation, and trust everyone else has for them, will suffer. it’s the exact same thing in an online community where its members create the content, and this is just the way humans function. she, and i, and many others of us who agree with her absolutely can judge the way you do your jobs, and at the same time you have the option of not listening. but that option isn’t always the best option for the sake of the community. these are what people who are actually fit to be mods have to decide, whether they actually want to listen to the people they’re governing, or if they’d rather avoid facing the many, many issues in their community and admitting the fact they fucked up. i’m pretty sure we all know what the kga staff is gonna pick.

you people really shouldn’t have become mods if you’re so sensitive to criticism and can’t handle confrontation. i’m pretty sure the critique you’ve been given was never a personal attack on you as people, but the point of it was, and is, to make you better mods. something which you don’t seem to care about doing.

i’m almost done here.

i have a whole bunch of disclaimers in the event whoever-the-fuck decides to argue with me on all of this. because goddammit i am a tired adult and i don’t give a shit about “mean anons” who are gonna attempt to out-logic my logic because by the end of this post, i will be done here. i will laugh as i delete your asks, on the assumption anyone will actually bother trying to fight me after everything i said. i don’t feel i’ve wasted my time with this post, but i will not waste my time arguing further with some random person on the internet. 

i’m 1000% aware that being a mod for this amino is not a serious thing. i don’t care. i know it’s not a job job where you’re getting paid to actually do shit so you don’t really have to do anything at all. which is probably why the amino community sucks so bad. i’m just saying, being in that mod position still means you’re fucking responsible for when people get hurt in your community, and when people post inappropriate shit. it may not matter to you, and it may not matter in your life in the long run, but those experiences matter to someone. and it will always be, in part, your fault because your mod team was responsible for it at the time. if you don’t care? i don’t care that you don’t care. it won’t change the fact you let people get hurt and have no regrets about it. which is even worse. 

yes, i wrote all of this out. i typed out this longass fucking essay for a few hours of my life despite that these people are likely never going to read this, or care, or take into consideration anything i said because they clearly can’t handle criticism-- because of the sheer amount of salt i have for these children, these adults, these people who can’t fucking do their jobs right. i haven’t wasted my time typing this, and i don’t care if other people see it that way because i don’t. and unlike some people, i’m not so insecure in myself that i care so much about what other people think. i wanted to do this. i’m happy with this decision. i don’t care that this isn’t a “real issue” or that “i could have done better things with my time” or “wow i’m a loser with no life” sure, thanks. honestly this was a better use of my time than staring at youtube all day. so. what i care about is that real people are affected by the things this excuse for a mod team has been pulling for way too long.

yes, i talked about how it’s easy to be kind while being firm. no, i am not being kind but the difference is that i am fully aware of it because i am making the choice to not put up with this bs. yes i’m some adult on the internet getting riled up that these people are trashy af. because some of the people i do care about are involved. your point?

and if you’re one of those mods on the kga and will not read all of this? i don’t care for your short attention span. mine’s the size of a goldfish’s too, dw. you read it and don’t care about what i have to say? great! here’s an uno reverse card. i do not know the mods or have any desire to know them based on what i do know of them. if they are willing to actually be reasonable, i may change my mind. until then, this criticism still stands.

no, i do not use amino other than the salt account i made today just to see firsthand what things go on there in the first place. i don’t care what happens to that account and have zero plans on posting on it. other than maybe a salt post, maybe. a specific phrase that really stuck as i was browsing was the community being described by one of the mods as an “emo daycare”. like i said way earlier in this post, the behaviour you freely allow is what breeds likeminded people in a community. that means: it’s your own fault that your community consists of mostly horrible, toxic people. if you actually did your work as mods, you wouldn’t have that issue with the people in the first place :) 

it is the kindergarten fandom, but that doesn’t mean you all have to act like a bunch of kindergarteners. everything they said about the fandom is completely wrong if you actually look in the right places and, y’know, stop keeping your head in radioactive sand like a fucking ostrich while refusing to look at everything else around you. i am personally friends with so many talented individuals for this fandom, and in my experience this fandom has done nothing but good for me and my overall creativity.

no, of course i’m not above criticism either. unlike some people i am rather open to it and am aware it is important and something everyone needs to deal with in their own lives including me. i just don’t care for petty squabbling. i do have better things to do after this post, after all. i’ve said everything i needed to say, and @ whatever else the people who may disagree think of this? c’est la vie. so. yeah. i’m done here, that was me being pissed off by the sheer lack of braincells i’ve witnessed tonight, gonna draw now, bye.

[jockrightsnow]

petey and brock as gen z ovi and nicke.......i should like to see this explored further....

so, first of all, i didn’t say this! i did post on twitter in a futile effort to see if anyone would chime in with the citation for this idea, because i just let it live in my brain for a few months after seeing some brilliant person say it. because i am not an images wizard at heart, here are the images straight screenshotted from twitter.

like, you have your surface-level parallels: your lionheart playful winger, slightly older and sturdier, toiling away alone for a full year before being gifted mean swedish dynamic playmaking center.

nicke and ovi have had a lot of time to mature into the dynamic, and clearly there are small differences on the edges, but it really does make me personally think about the differences between being young and being settled and how time changes a dynamic a little (a little maturity, a little perspective, a little less urgency and fumbling and volatility, more small adjustments than the friction of figuring things out for the first time, maybe you learn over time where the ‘too far’ line when prodding at things that hurt, maybe you go past it a few times on purpose because you know it’s the kind of pain that’s mutual and then maybe you experience triumphs that erase the pain of it all! i don’t know! it comes with time!) but it doesn’t change the dynamic entirely. some people like to have a person to orbit around--someone confident who takes the brunt of the attention, so a petey-type can make their jokes to the people that matter and not worry so much about being someone everyone will like, being someone For Public Consumption. and some people don’t mind being that person, but they’re always keeping an ear open first and foremost to the jokes coming from their quieter and more cutting Partner, because at the end of the day, the assigned petey-type is the person whose attention means the most, even if the attention of others is important too.

at the end of the day: it is just about knowing someone so well you’re able to see everything they want to do on the ice, everything they can do, and you’re able to trust them with your small hopes and dreams whenever you pass to them, because you know they have the same fire even if they show it differently. it’s like. bone-deep respect for one another as athletes and as friends, which means working with someone’s playing style and also their personality and liking them! just, liking them! 

honestly, i think nicke and ovi were more chaotic as youths and have had to calm down a good bit, and brock already has a bit of a dullened edge of pure puppydog enthusiasm because i think he wants stability a lot more than ovi does. and i think petey is more willing to surprise people and less protective of, i guess, himself than people think, and will likely become more so. so there are differences! but definitely in the eye-contact-where-both-people-know-precisely-what’s-going-on and one person is smirking and the other one is smiling: it is the same exact dynamic in that moment, and that’s what matters!

[ds-sparrow-manufacturing-co]

A Rebuttal

Ok so I really did not want to make this post. I would’ve loved to have left this whole thing behind because I’m aware I made some mistakes and would like to atone for them, but it seems I’m going to have to go over this one more time. For anyone seeing this post who somehow doesn’t know, I said some regrettable things about Aidan Gallagher here. I later made another post here summarising the entire situation that resulted, so I would suggest you read that first. 

I’m still getting people telling me what I said was fucked up, which is entirely justified. However, I have just now realised that the person who took it upon themselves to ‘correct’ me about my opinions of Aidan Gallagher (something that has not changed, I still strongly dislike him) later made several derogatory posts about me. I was not aware of this because after the first rude post they made about me, I blocked them to save myself the additional stress. 

I have done my best to deal with this whole thing as calmly and politely as possible. When this person was downright evil towards me, I didn’t bother to argue with them, I just made an admittedly-snarky post with a screenshot of what they said, and then blocked them because I had no desire to begin an argument. When I realised that what I had said about Aidan Gallagher had been fucked up, I apologised, accepted my mistake and did what I could to fix it. But I am out of patience. I don’t take kindly to being treated the way this person has treated me, I don’t think anyone does. So here I am, about to break down everything they said about me bit by bit to show you how much of a lying scumbag they have been towards me (as well as possibly others).

warning: this post is incredibly long

tw: su*c*de mentions

My first interaction with this person was when i got an anon ask who wanted to know what Aidan Gallagher had done to make me dislike him. I responded with a brief list, excluding most of my evidence because it was late at night and I didn’t have the energy to go down the rabbit hole of all this. The following day, the blog this post is about reblogged my post, attempting to disprove everything I said. I will not include screenshots here, because it was a long post, you can find it in my archive if you so wish. I read what they said, took everything into account, and responded with my proof for things I hadn’t previously included the proof for, as well as explanations for why certain things he’s said annoyed/upset me. I expected a polite response, as we had both been courteous so far. 

Instead,  I received the following:

Now, lets break down some of what they said.

‘stop saying things you can’t prove, because it’s fake’ - I provided my proof. I am not trying to lie to anyone, or perpetuate rumours. All I aimed to do was explain my point of view and why I personally dislike him.

‘some of your screenshots are fake’ - That’s just blatantly untrue, especially as they have at other points said things along the lines of ‘well yes but he apologised/he didn’t mean it like that’ for everything I have provided screenshots for. Make up your mind.

‘you’re so gullible’ - For... having an opinion? That I researched before forming? And which is based on something other than my blind faith in a 17 year old? Right.

This was when I blocked them.

I thought that was going to be the end of the situation. Then, I got some asks.

I saw this and, being a minor, was a little creeped out. I had assumed this person was a teenage fangirl because that’s who the majority of Aidan Gallgher’s fans are so this information was surprising.

This one scared me. I did what the anon suggested, created a backup (i won’t tag it here because I get the feeling some of the aforementioned ‘army’ are going to see this) and reported the other blog. Once again, I thought it was over.

It was at this point that people started telling me how fucked up what I said in my original post was, and I realised they were right. As mentioned at the start of this post, I apologised, and did everything I could to fix it. End of, right?

Until today, where I started thinking about what the above anons had said and decided to fact check, mainly out of curiosity. I unblocked the blog, only to discover they had made 3 posts about me that I hadn’t seen.

This was the first one, as you can see they began it with a screenshot of my original post. Let’s talk about this.

“but you wishing him dead is ok?” - I never wished him dead, to start with. Stabbing does not automatically equal death, but I know that’s nitpicky of me. I also did not wish he was stabbed. I said in that exact tag that I didn’t, because of TUA. However, I know that this ‘joke’ was really shitty of me, and I have already apologised multiple times.

“what kind of a low life do you have to be to have nothing better to do, but talk shit about a kid?” - Why don’t you tell me? As I’ve said multiple times, I am a minor. That doesn’t excuse what I said, but that does make it incredibly hypocritical of them to say that given everything.

This was the second post they made about me, beginning with the same screenshot as in the first post.

“they’re spreading false rumors” - I’ve already covered this one.

“they want a reason to be mean, even if it isn’t true” - I would never be mean to someone if they hadn’t done anything to deserve it. I’m a strong believer in the moral philosophy of respecting everyone until they give you a reason not to. Aidan Gallagher has given me more than enough reasons to lose respect for him. And, honestly? I still respect him as an actor, even if only that.

“you can’t say you’re a decent human being and wish someone dead. you can’t say you’re anti-bullying and want to prevent suicide and then bully someone” - That is some big talk from someone who claimed they were ok with what Aidan Gallagher said about mental health because they’ve had their own experiences with suicide, before immediately telling me to rot and burn in hell for disagreeing with them. And, wait a second, wasn’t Aidan Gallagher the one supporting women’s rights and feminism who then turned around and made gross comments towards a bunch of girls? Hmm. Also, wishing someone dead is too wide of a blanket statement to actually measure whether someone is a decent human being with. 

“i tried to be nice” - I didn’t know telling someone to rot in hell, calling them a stupid hoe, was being nice. I didn’t know lying, and telling people to report someone because they disagreed with you was being nice (notice how they never said anything about my stabbing comment until I disagreed with them.) I guess we have very different definitions of nice.

“if they really cared, they would kindly ask a fan if the rumors were true” - And that, ladies gentleman and variations thereupon, is a brilliant example of how not to perform unbiased research! I based my opinion on actual evidence, and neutral articles as well as arguments from both sides. Not on one fan who’s likely to deny everything.

“they said it themselves, they have no proof” - That is so incredibly cherrypicked. What I actually said was “supposedly used the f-slur although i can’t find proof“, one of the many points on my list of reasons I dislike Aidan Gallagher. You know why I said that? Because I found a screenshot of him supposedly having called someone that slur via Instagram but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided it was probably edited. I included the point on my list in the hopes of people doing their own research. And I certainly did not say I had no proof for anything, as you would know if you saw my original response to this blog, where I provided proof.

“threatening him and bullying him is wrong” - I am fully admitting of the fact my stabbing comment was in poor taste but it was very clearly not a threat and not even close to being bullying. Furthermore, I would say making four posts harassing and telling others to harass someone because they disagree with you is a lot closer to being bullying than anything I did was.

“defamation is a crime” - I live in the UK, so let’s use those defamation laws. A statement is not defamation unless it ‘ has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.’ Less than a hundred people are even aware my blog exists. Nowhere near enough people have seen anything I’ve said to count as defamatory. Not to mention that a statement is not defamatory if it is a statement of opinion.

“you’ll get karma for lying and playing the victim” -  Ohhh the irony. I have not lied once. I have provided all the necessary proof for everything and I have owned up to my mistakes. And yet, they, who have repeatedly lied about me, twisted my words and oddly enough, avoided including proof outside that one screenshot of my original post, are the one accusing me of playing the victim. Classy.

“hi to your little follower that you cry to” - This one’s just hilarious to me. I’m happy to have people on here who will let me know when people are, you know, harassing and bullying me. And, what the hell do they mean by ‘cry to’? Do they mean ‘mentioned that this situation was stressful once’? Wow.

“I promise you misery for the rest of your sad little life” - Honestly just re-read the other screenshots after seeing they said this. Jesus Christ. And, as someone who already struggles with depression and other mental health issues I’m interested to know what they’re intending to do that’s gonna be any worse.

“you’ll pay! that’s not a threat it’s a promise” - Are they planning on tracking me down? Or are they just going to keep sitting on their throne of yes men and echo chambers acting as if they’re actually affecting me? 

I would say this is the last post I plan to make about this situation but I’ve said that over and over again throughout the last 12 days and it’s never the last post. This whole situation has honestly been very emotionally taxing, and combined with some real life things, it’s been a bad week or so. Hopefully this post is enough to end this whole thing. 

[gevejsbvdj]

Fine. Pt 1

Okay. I did NOT want to do this. I don’t want it to look like I’m trying to start something. When I made the announcement post, I thought that would be it. But a lot of you got really angry and reeeeally bitter about it, suspiciously enough. I am actually hoping that after I post this, I get an explanation and an apology. I tried to explain to these people time and time again about how I was hurt by this situation but they refused to listen. So here I am, spelling it the fuck out. Also, this account is dead anyways and i am so tired of keeping this to myself. I can’t do it anymore. 

That’s enough preamble for now, I’ll make more notes at the end. Let’s get onto the “situation” that was the final straw for me and inspired my complete leave. 

For comprehension purposes, this took place in the Crackerbox Palace discord server. 

For a warning, I’m pretty theatrical when stressed. If I joke here I’m sorry. I’m going to hold back on the humor. 

CW: mentions of sexual abuse, pedophilia, racism, and seizures. You have been warned.

It sounds disgustingly simple, but when I joke about this (to myself, because it’s better than crying about it), I say that me having a seizure was the cause of this all. It isn’t really, but- let me explain. 

I was alone, and I was chatting with the people in the server when suddenly- I just felt fucking weird. Initially, I was like “oh what the hell” until I realized that the weird sensation was actually familiar. It’s what people who have seizures call an “aura” or a “ting”, and it’s a numbing, buzzing sensation that’s kind of like an alarm bell that lets your body know what’s about to go down. And I have a habit (you can decide whether it’s good or bad) where I feel like I have to tell anyone around me that I’m going to have a seizure as SOON as I recognize the aura. Well like I said, I was alone. There was no one physically around me that I could tell, but I already had the chat open, fingers on my keyboard, I typed: I think I’m gonna have a seizure. Something like that. And I did. Don’t worry, I’m fine now. The older I get, the less extreme my seizures are for the most part. I got a splitting headache for the next two days, but we’re getting it checked out! This is only context for what happened next. 

After that happened I eventually came to and as soon as my senses were recollected and my memory came back, I felt so embarrassed that I told my friends who I thought were super cool that I had a SEIZURE. But I noticed that Ley and Emma (in their genuine concern) were discussing seizures and how dangerous they could be, and was wondering if I was okay. I was honestly so relieved they weren’t laughing or anything like that. Vulture then responded saying “hey can you censor the word seizure, it’s a trigger.”, and so Ley and Emma did so. I was confused by this because I thought Vulture was saying it’s MY (me, a person who has them regularly) trigger, or that they were saying it was a trigger in general? I soon found out that it was a term on our “blacklist”, which makes sense.

So In our server, we had a channel (the prior mentioned blacklist channel) where people can suggest words and phrases to avoid. Phrases/topics that make you very uncomfortable, triggering, etc. Someone suggested that the name “Zack” be blacklisted because it’s the name of someone that manipulated them. And no, not Zach like me Zach, but Z-A-C-K, you know? Anyways, sometimes the sheltered southerner in me jumps out, and someone asking for that name to be blacklisted rocked my world! Even more so that the admins I worked with were willing to blacklist it. I thought, wait all this time I could have asked you all to blacklist a NAME that upsets me? I didn’t know I could do that. Never have I ever been in an environment where something like a name could be avoided to ensure my comfort. While THAT was what I was thinking, when I went to type it in the chat, it did not come off that way to vulture. Here’s what I said:

Vulture took what I said wrong, which is totally fair. Words fail me as they do everyone else, and looking back, I could have done better in explaining what I felt. I’m not blaming them for the misunderstanding, and I'm not even blaming me that much. It happens, man. But what got to me, was them accusing me of belittling or more so INVALIDATING the trigger. Me, someone actually has seizures, invalidating someone being triggered by them. Okay. Here was my response:

My response was unnecessarily snarky and I am still sorry for that. I thought I got better at thinking before speaking but it’s evident that it’s still something I need to work on. However, like I said I’ve never been one to accept it when someone’s trying to have an attitude with me. And no I’ll be the first to say that Vulture wasn’t explicitly rude to me, but I was gobsmacked that someone was trying to tell me how traumatic seizures are and accused me of invalidating them after I just said that I have them frequently. And that even after I explained what I meant, I was still met with an accusing response. Can you imagine if I went up to a homeless man and said “you have no right to invalidate my trauma with homelessness. I read matchbox girl.” Like okay? Also, yes that mod chat had a history with taking everything I said as aggressive or belligerent, hence my telling them to stop that. I was always met with a dismissive and antagonistic response. Remember that. I will get back to that. 

Because of Vulture’s immature response, I removed them as chat admin. Do I regret it? Halfway, yes. I should have pulled them to the side and spoke with them about what they did. But looking back on that, after seeing the things they’ve posted today? It’s probably for the best that they weren’t a part of the admin team. 

Andy (also known as shadowylemon here) and Cody are partners who also helped me run the server. They were admins,obviously. Andy asked me why I removed Vulture as Admin. I explained to him why, very civilly with the help of one of my friends because my response almost WASN'T. And to be frank, I ignored most of what he said because again I was being made to be the evil villain and I wasn’t being heard. So I ignored him. Also I was on a call so I wasn’t going to break my brain listening to ten people at once. I was so tired, my seizure happened like only a couple days prior and my head was still affected. 

I mulled over that whole ordeal for a bit until me and my friend (the same friend I mentioned earlier, who helped me with my response to Andy. Lenny. He also helped me mod there and was the original co-founder of the server) came to the conclusion that the mods were too young. We need an age limit. So I told them, like “hey you guys are fine for now but I think that in the future, we should start having the mods be older”.

 At this point I’m super careful with the way I word things. I’m always like that to be honest, as a black (visual-wise, a female) female you learn real quick that you’re the angry one in every situation unless you learn to talk super duper civil. But I didnt think I had to be that way in THAT server, you know? I thought I was safe there. Apparently not. Anyway-

I was met with, again, an aggravated “how dare you” type response from Cody. Which was okay with me, still is. When you work with someone in a group, you’re not going to agree with them all the time. So we were having a pretty civil, short lived back and forth until I mentioned that we tone it down on blacklisting every word. I suggested earlier to blacklist the word “blue” to see how far they would take it and they literally blacklisted it. I didn’t get to say this then, but I’m actually against over censoring, even if it’s supposedly for someone’s mental health. I have ADHD, RSD, on the damn spectrum, all that good stuff, so don’t come for me. But if you’re wanting to avoid words like blue, or a very common name, that is not my responsibility. That is your therapist. The server had people in there who- well English wasn’t their first language, and adding more barriers to their language is, I feel, very inconsiderate.

 Cody started to threaten to delete the blacklisting channel all together and was acting really panicky. AGAIN (if I can find the screenshots, I will share) I was met with a very victimizing, whiny response. Like come on now. I told them to please do not make me the aggressor or I will leave.

No response. 

So the rest of us were just getting ready to start a call and play some games until we noticed something. 

Channels, titles and colors, and nearly everything was being deleted. 

By who? Andy and Cody. This is just one screenshot. I wouldn’t include what’s over ten i have saved on my phone.

I was afraid that they got hacked and was being made to delete them. Until I thought “wait...it’s funny how they’re the only mods that are being ‘hacked’ while the rest of us were left alone. RIGHT after I just had a disagreement with them. Oh my god is this a tantrum.” The server then echoed my concerns. Please don’t be a tantrum. We noticed they left and so I dmed Andy. I said “Why” and he blocked me. That confirmed that it was indeed a tantrum. A tantrum because I IMPLIED that they were being micro aggressive towards me. Alright. 

Me and the server joined a sort of conference call where we discussed what happened and they asked me questions as well as talked about what our next move was. At the time, I thought I was being dramatic because my breathing was super labored, and my face was super hot, and my heart was pounding. I was furious. There was a tiny voice telling me that ‘hey, you’re mad because after you told them that you were uncomfortable and upset with them treating you like an unhinged angry person, they did all this shit’ but I ignored it. 

That is a common theme with me. I know a lot of you think I’m using my race as a weapon and that I call everything racist, but I HATE calling things racial discrimination for that exact reason. I don’t wanna look sensitive, or get called a snowflake. I honestly used to be a self-loathing black person, and you could hurl slurs at my face and I’ll excuse it. My friend group in the 9th grade was mainly racist white people. I’m so glad I grew out of that nonsense but damn some of that toxic mentality stuck with me to the point I never wanted to acknowledge when someone was biased against me. 

I mean, how could it be any more clear? Do I think that Andy and Cody are racist? Of. Course. Not. I think that’s why a lot of you got so mad at me when you realized that what you did was microaggressions rooted in racial bias. Because you thought I was calling you a RACIST.  I’ve had white people who will march with me during protests say and some really off-putting shit the next day. You can be an ally and make mistakes. You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. None of us is. You have to allow yourself to make errors, and be confronted. Running away cursing and kicking rocks just tells me that you don’t want to listen to black people. 

But anyway, we attempted to move on from the childish ordeal and I enlisted the help of new people to help me mod since we were short two, and could have used the help anyway. 

We were doing alright, really. One day, though, Joane messaged me saying that Vulture wanted to apologize and wanted to talk. And I was like great now's the perfect time to talk to them like I should have the first time, but wrongly didn’t. So I told Joane to dm me. 

Well, Joane sent me a screenshot of some of hers and Vultures conversation.

As you can see I initially did feel willing to apologize and speak to vulture. Because like I said earlier, my snarky response was UNNECESSARY. However, Joane joining in the discussion with her “I can’t understand him which frustrates me lmao” peeved me. As did Vulture acting like I’m unhinged. While I didn’t need to make the “imma blacklist lmao and lol since it bothers you so much” comment at ALL, it wasn’t that deep….at all. Vulture has a habit of virtue signalling too. Their comment “I’m patient and forgiving” is an example. 

While I was annoyed initially, I soon felt pretty hurt that Joane would say that about me behind my back? It made me wonder if there was more she didn’t show me. Joane was a really good friend and I loved her a lot so I was extra sensitive about it. I’ve never spoken ill about her behind her back. 

Now, this is a recurring theme in this post but let me say now: I am aware that no one is OBLIGATED to treat me a certain way because I was nice to them. Of course not. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt? Talking negatively about someone isn’t a problem, but having them think you’re their friend while doing so is. You know? It’s very deceiving, but in Joane’s case, only slightly deceiving. 

So I just didn’t speak to her for a bit. I was already annoyed at having to re-build my server because of a couple of teenagers having a tantrum, as well as things that were happening in my personal life. Also, the news was no damn help at all, you all know. But I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day and I...I hated it haha. I don’t like avoiding people when I’m frustrated, and after I saw what happened with Vulture when I did the same thing, I should know better. Plus I felt bad. Joane was still a friend, and I wanted to get to the bottom of things. 

I’m not going to include every little screenshot and whatnot, but I messaged her like hey what’s up let’s finish our discussion. Because I thought that at that point, I had my head screwed on a bit better. 

During our discussion, I eventually showed Joane me and vultures conversation, and she acted astonished that Vulture didn’t show her all the context, and even said that they were being irrational. This was after I told her that after everything Andy and Cody did, they made a server with Vulture to which she informed me that she was aware, and she was invited. Honestly, at the time I didn’t think vulture was being irrational. While I said it’s no excuse, PTSD can make us say and do pretty wild things, and calling someone like that irrational feel like ableist language. 

So me and Joane had a little moment. I apologized to her, and she apologized to me.

I was sure that after we both had our respective breaks, that we would be good to continue our friendship like normal. Just a bump in the road. It happens

That was until I got a certain anon from Vulture. 

She asked me why we were done, but when I went to ask her “what in the world did you say to them” she blocked me.

Sorry I keep showing me messaging them, I just don’t wanna get lied to or something again. 

I was really sad about that. I went to bed, and when I woke up, I was still sad. Joane was telling me one thing, and Vulture another thing. She was changing her opinion on a person depending on who she was talking to. It was dizzying and disingenuous and I didn’t even get to talk it out with her because she blocked me. Which was really suspicious. She told me that she would be taking a break from the server and that she still respected me as a friend, but went to vulture and told them that I treated her like SHIT, or at least acted enough like a victim to make them accuse me of that. I’m sorry, but where in the world did I do that? If me confessing to someone that they hurt me is the same thing as treating them like shit, then fuck man a lot of us are assholes. 

Wow, look at me treat her like shit. Absolute garbage right?

I wasn’t even being completely honest to Joane about my feelings for that reason. Because of accusations like this. Another instance of someone taking literally me being normal and civil as being AGGRESSIVE. Vulture, I’m sorry for accusing you of utilizing white girl tears. I accused the wrong person. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. 

I went to our #vent channel on the server and told whoever was online and whoever was listening about the whole ordeal, and how HURT I felt because I was literally played by this girl. And I was accused of basically being abusive. Treated her like shit? Cmon man…

But another user in the server, as it turns out, had a similar experience with Joane, and provide in-depth screenshots. Which made me even madder, so we kept venting about the situation. 

Also, because of a couple of dms, and because the more I ranted, the more pained I got, I felt compelled to say the following, NOW LISTEN CLOSELY:

I first prefaced my concerns by saying “I AM BY NO MEANS CALLING JOANE A GROOMER”. That was fucking useless of me to say because- okay I’m getting ahead of myself. 

So I was saying (and in hindsight, I shouldn’t have. I know. But like I said, it was in the heat of the moment and I got a dm that made me feel bad) that it was strange how as soon as someone young and innocent was present, Joane would cling to them in an obsessive way. I’m not the only one who noticed that, and even one of the younger users in question agreed to my statement. 

Listen fucking closely. I don’t think Joane is a sexual predator at ALL. That’s why I had that warning before I said anything in the chat. I do, though, think that if you’re a grown adult and you’re obsessed with being friends with people who are as young as 14, that it’s concerning, not in a sexual way, but in a power dynamic way. I’m only 19 and I honestly don’t get older people who become besties with much younger people. I was “friends” with the users as well, but I was a mentor/brother/dad more than anything. Do you understand? When I was 15, I’ve had people who were 20 and older become my friend and dump their adult problems onto me, as well as expect adult reactions and responses out of me. It was stressful and damaging and I did not want that happening to anyone else, especially the younger people in the chat. Okay? Okay. 

That being said, my protectiveness is a major flaw of mine. Oh my god, do I take it too far sometimes, man. I didn’t want really young teenagers (13-16) to have a serious relationship with an adult because of what happened to me, and I didn’t want Joane to play and hurt anyone else the way she did me and my other friend. So I went into the announcements channel and told the users to read what we’ve been saying in regard to Joane and come up with your own decision. I did not have to do that, I can sit here and say that the things that transpired the past few days really took a toll on me whatever blah blah blah. But I could have kept it in vent, really. And the dumb thing is, that before I sent that message in announcements, I was literally telling myself that THIS is a bad idea. GOD, Zach. But I was at work, it was the last day before holidays started, and I was feeling super protective and I wasn’t thinking and- well yeah. 

During all of this, I was having a conversation with vulture in Tumblr dms. I gathered the courage to finally dm them after receiving the anon. That conversation was on my old Tumblr, so I don’t have a screenshot of the key points, but I typed my starting message in notes, and this is what I said:

“Hi vulture. I don’t want to be here for long but I just wanna ask: why? You accused me of invalidating a trigger and even after I told you that’s not what I meant you still went off on me? You’re mad at me about an inaccurate perception and it really upset me. I’ve been terrified of talking to you specifically because I’ve been dealing with micro aggressions from you, Andy, and Cody and it’s really been wearing me down. And when I told Andy and Cody about their treatment of me, they deleted shit from my server and leave? How do you think that makes me feel as a black person? Makes me never want to talk about my feelings ever again out of the fear of being antagonized. I’m sorry I was snarky towards you, if you didn’t like my remark about “lmao” and “lol”. I agree it was immature. But don’t forget you came at me first. If you’re willing to further discuss this with me then great, which I am sure you are seeing that you asked me to on anon. I finally gathered the courage to contact you so let’s do this.”

We had a brief conversation. Vulture dismissing my microaggressions concerns but really- it happens so much that at that point I was so numb to it. Also a little bit “it’s not about your race. Remember when I…” more virtue signalling. Bleh. But after all, I did thank them for actually wanting to talk to me. Andy didn’t wanna do it. Cody didn’t wanna do it. Joane didn’t want to. Vulture did. And I appreciate that to this day, after everything. I can always admire that about someone. 

It ended prematurely because of me. I was at work and got distracted by that as well as by what happened in the server next. 

Emma sent a pretty long message basically calling all of us out for “bullying Joane” and talking ill of her behind her back, as well as announcing that she would be leaving the server and that we should all be ashamed of ourselves. This was right after someone confessed that Joane made him feel uncomfortable with constant flirting. I admitted that I should not have put the message In announcements, but guys.

I went off. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I was sick of trying to be docile and sweet. I didn’t care if I would be portrayed as the angry black again I DID NOT CARE. Bullying Joane? Me talking about how she hurt me is bullying? Let’s look up what that means. 

Yeah okay. That’s incorrect usage, right? I didn’t even call Joane names. I didn’t persistently harass her. I spoke about what she did to me in distaste, but I was done with her as a friend at that point, and she knew that, so was not going behind her back. I wasn’t being predatory towards her. And I definitely wasn’t being AGGRESSIVE or BLUSTERING. Emma was using broad pronouns and terms (you guys, you all, etc) but I knew she was talking about me, as I was the most prominent in my venting about Joane due to my situation with her happening just yesterday. I sent the most messages, I- while wrong in doing so- posted the announcements. That message primarily was directed towards me. When I say that microaggressions tear you down, it tears you THE FUCK down. 

That being said, I did cuss Emma out (she wasn’t present when I went off, but still) and cussed out everyone who agreed with her. I was so blinded by rage and hurt I don’t even remember at all what I said. One line that sticks out to me though is “y’all saw a white girl crying and thought oh man we can’t have that” and that’s a mantra I’ve repeated a couple of times when I find myself in scenarios such as this one. 

But- I do regret going off like that. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t justified slightly, though. I don’t expect any of you to understand completely what I went through, but please try. I regret going off like that, though. And I’m sorry. 

I guess I was also upset because I was JUST in a good mood? I was literally singing to myself all happy and shit, but Emma’s inconsiderate message threw me off. It’s making me even more upset now that I know why she said that. She wasn’t the only person to tell me I should be ashamed of myself for manipulating (yes, MANIPULATING) Joane. 

I dmed Emma in an attempt to fix things, but i gave up quickly. I was too raw with emotions anyways. So I mournfully told her that we probably should’t be friends anymore, to which she responded

Carelessly?...ouch.

From the moment Joane dmed me about Vulture, and the moment Emma sent that message, all of that transpired within three days. Three fucking days and THAT much happened. It was taking a toll on me, that’s not even counting Andy and Cody’s tantrum. 

I was in a dark place, still am. I made a post saying that I was going to take a break from Tumblr and then made one saying that I was going to kill myself in the tags. Not exclusively because of all this, of course. So. Much. Bullshit. Happens to me on a daily basis. Abusive parents. Sexual assault. Racism that’s actually violent. Dying relatives. So much. I’m crying as I type this it’s just so much. In real life, I have no friends. Not even fake acquaintances. Yes, I cut off all those people because they were extremely toxic, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have literally no one. That server was my escape. Parents fighting? Open discord. Mental spiral? Discord is there. Just had a seizure? Don’t worry, you have friends. And now I don’t. And all because of some dumb shit that wouldn’t probably have happened if two kids didn’t get mad at ME because THEY were ignorant. I know it’s not good to rely on a server to improve your mental health, but I couldn’t help it. I was desperate. And I really did think so highly of everyone in that chat. I loved them.

I received a couple asks that night saying that I don’t have to hurt myself, I’m loved, all that. Very kind messages. And right when I was going to delete the post (I was so embarrassed for posting it), I got a message from ley that read something like “I don’t agree with what you said at ALL but that doesn’t mean I want you to kill yourself or leave” something along those lines. I thought, really? You couldn’t just say you didn’t want me to leave and have it at that? 

I really don’t want to make it seem like I posted something so graphic for attention, man. I can’t stand that manipulation tactic and I don’t want that harmful stigma about suicidal people to be encouraged. 

But Ley’s message threw me off. Agree with what I...huh? Then it pissed me off

So I deleted my account. And fell off the face of the earth for 15 days. 

[neversidekick-blog]

Flamethrower’s Alleged Harassment

What’s going on?

deadcatwithaflamethrower has suggested she is the victim of a targeted campaign of harassment, and along the way she’s used some antisemitic dogwhistles, which would be problematic on its own, but is especially insidious IMO given the topic of the alleged harassment.

I am positive that I am one of the people she says harassed her, though I maintain I did no such thing. 

I’m going to attempt to provide the fullest accounting of these events possible, with the caveat that I simply don’t have copies of a few key pieces of evidence.

If you’re going to follow along, I ask you read all the screenshots and quotations carefully, because the details do matter if you want a complete picture.

The first two sections are background info for those unaware of a few relevant facts. The issue of alleged harassment follows.

Jewish Snape

Flamethrower has written a long, serial HP fic called Of a Linear Circle. In it, Severus Snape is portrayed as Jewish. While his Jewishness is touched upon in multiple chapters across multiple parts of the series, this is how it is introduced:

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

Severus rolls his eyes and taps the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t obvious?”

Nizar gives him a baffled look. “What does your nose have to do with it?”

“It’s a…stereotype.” Severus grimaces at Nizar’s continued look of confusion, but he still meets older adults who’ve never heard the word used that way. “Racism.”

“Oh. Idiots,” Nizar mutters. “Besides, if you wanted to see some truly horrific examples of nasal protuberances, you’d find yourself a Viking who’d had their nose broken four or five times.”

I applaud including Jewish characters in fic, even in the case where they are not Jewish in canon. Positive portrayals of Jewish characters should be encouraged throughout fandom.

Picking Snape to be the character from Harry Potter to reframe as Jewish is a complicated choice, because of the vile and enduring antisemitic stereotype relating to Jewish people having large, ugly noses. 

Consider the following quote spoken by the Marauder’s Map in POA:

Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.

Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

Leaning into a stereotype is a difficult choice. It’s not bad, but it should be handled with some thought. IMO you either need to ignore the canon association with Snape’s nose, or you need to deliberately deconstruct it.

Flamethrower did neither. This by itself I would not say is antisemitic, merely clumsy. She went to great efforts to portray Snape’s Jewishness positively, and I honestly applaud that.  

But I know I’m not the only person who encountered it and was uncomfortable with the antisemitic stereotype being on display so clumsily. Not that I thought it meant flamethrower or her fic were antisemitic, just that this particular use of a stereotype was uncomfortable. 

A Thread about Hebrew

Of a Linear Circle is heavily concerned with linguistics. It features discussions of many languages, including Hebrew. One of those discussions contains an error, a faulty transliteration. This is a minor mistake, and in a fic with so many linguistic discussions, some mistakes would happen for even a true polyglot.

The problem is that when a Jewish fan commented with a polite suggestion of a fix to the error, flamethrower proceeded to Goysplain both Hebrew and the Shoah to her.

It’s not a good look. It’s arrogant and condescending. By itself, though, it’s not antisemitic, just an author being a little too defensive and overbearing. But it’s there, and more than a few Jewish fans noticed it because flamethrower has promoted the fact that Snape is Jewish in this fic.

Where the Harassment Supposedly Begins

At some point, a Jewish fan (who implicitly identifies herself as such later), leaves a comment on the chapter of flamethrower’s fic with the potentially upsetting antisemitic nose stereotype.

The request is for a tag or warning of some kind for the comment, just so it doesn’t take readers by surprise. Perhaps requesting the fic as a whole be tagged with “antisemitism” is a step too far and would seem bizarre, but the gist of the comment is a request for a content warning. Flamethrower could have sorted out a note or a less inflammatory tag if she cared to do so, but she never replied to this comment.

The fact that she didn’t reply to this comment doesn’t matter really. She gets a lot of fic comments, so the idea she missed one or didn’t feel like replying isn’t the issue. 

But this comment was left on August 10, and when it received no response for a week, I believe the same fan sent flamethrower an ask on the same topic, which is where the saga of supposed harassment begins.

The Ask

The text of the ask was as follows:

HI! I LEFT YOU A COMMENT RECENTLY ON YOUR FIC OF A LINEAR CIRCLE, BUT I CAN SEE YOU WERE VERY BUSY AND PROBABLY DIDN'T SEE IT. I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND ME ASKING, BUT WOULD YOU MIND TAGGING IT FOR THE ANTISEMITIC HUMOR IN IT? I KNOW IT WAS MEANT IN GOOD FAITH AND YOU HAD A JEWISH FRIEND CONSULT, BUT NOT ALL JEWS ARE COMFORTABLE WITH JOKING ABOUT STEROTYPES, AND FOR THOSE OF US THAT AREN'T, A LITTLE WARNING WOULD BE VERY KIND. THANK YOU!— queried by heatherly84

I consider this fairly innocuous and polite. As I said above, perhaps the reasonable outcome wasn’t the exact tag suggested, or even a tag at all--maybe a note in the intro notes of the chapter warning for it would have sufficed.

But this is how flamethrower responded:

So, because you had a single moment of twinge due to a child character’s self-consciousness regarding their appearance and their religion as they struggle to come to terms with stereotypes they face every day…you want me to add a tag to my fic that will see it immediately black-listed as anti-semitic even though it’s absolutely nothing of the sort.

No. No, I will not.

I am not here to gatekeep your internet experience. If that moment made you uncomfortable, you should a) think about what the character was going through instead of expecting it to be the author being a dick, and b) click your back button.

EDIT: No, wait. I’m not done.

What really gets me here is that you are asking me to tag a scene as anti-Semitic when this underconfident Jewish-born child, already dealing with horrible stereotyping, is promptly reassured by an Adult that there is nothing wrong with his faith or his appearance, and said child shouldn’t put stock into the people doing the stereotyping.

You want me to tag something as Bad that is meant to be enouragement for anyone in that position, a common theme in YA lit.

Are you sure it’s the perceived anti-Semitism that’s the problem, or is it something else entirely?

I saw the ask and flamethrower’s response shortly after it was posted on her tumblr. To say I found the response troubling is an understatement.

Flamethrower condescends to a fan asking, not for any substantive change or edit to the fic, but to a mere content warning.

Flamethrower presumes to tell someone how they must feel about the handling of antisemitic stereotypes in a fic, which would be bullshit even if she didn’t handle this particular antisemitic stereotype so clumsily.

Flamethrower accuses the fan of some secret and malicious motive because she, the author, is overly defensive.

Particularly considering the topic of antisemitism, I found the response wanting, so I decided I should say something.

The Submission

In an attempt to convey to Flamethrower that the concerns about the antisemitic stereotyping of Snape’s nose wasn’t the concern of a single fan, and to try to open a dialogue and point out some other missteps I felt she had made in the general region of Jewish representation in fandom and antisemitism, I decided to send her a submission.

I am an ancient member of fandom from the days of usenet and livejournal, and to be honest I just never got tumblr, so I had to create an account solely for this purpose. I’m sure that makes me sound like a bizarre dinosaur, but it’s the truth. And I created this account and wrote up a submission to flamethrower and sent it in.

Admittedly, my tone was a little sharp in a few places due to very genuine frustration, but as I tried to make clear, I was trying to appeal to her to do better, not simply condemn, and definitely not harass.

The following is the full and exact text of my submission to flamethrower: 

I feel that you're being deeply disingenuous. You introduced Snape being a Jew in your fic with the following lines:

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

Severus rolls his eyes and taps the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t obvious?”

And a Jewish person rather politely asked you to mark it as referencing antisemitic stereotypes, because holy fuck you made a character whose nose is remarkably large in canon Jewish and leaned into that in. Sure, you followed it with a joke about Viking noses, but that's not the deconstruction you seem to think it is. It's just a handwave that accomplishes nothing.

That, by itself, I could maybe give a pass, but then there's this comment thread: https://archiveofourown.org/comments/113294382 Someone tells you they're Jewish and gives you a bit of helpful advice about a bit of Hebrew linguistics that you have absolutely and totally wrong; it's not something, as you suggest in your replies, that varies with regions. It's universally understood, but you talk over the person whose cultural language you're using as if you know better.

But the part that really crosses the line is that you say the following in your scramble to throw shit against the wall to insist you could be right:

Then there are the parlances common to specific groups that are just fucking GONE because of the Holocaust, and we don't have any way now to know how they might have said certain words.

You Goysplain the Shoah to a Jew.

If you actually care as deeply about positive representations of Jewish characters in fandom as you say you do, maybe listening to actual critiques from actual Jews should be a thing you do, instead of reacting defensively and shutting them down.

Also, please never refer to a person as "Jewish sidekick" again, as you did in that thread. Unpacking the baggage there would take a separate submission. I'm taking the time to write this out, perhaps foolishly, because I hope you're sincere about caring and will actually listen. Shutting down the voices of Jewish people is not a part of portraying Jewishness positively in fandom. I hope you can see that and will listen and do better.

She posted and responded to this. I don’t have a screenshot of her response, nor do I have the full text because of how quickly she deleted it, but I do have a partial quote of her response:

However, you did accuse a Jewish woman by proxy of Goysplaining, which I find incredibly insulting on my best friend’s behalf. (She wants her name left out of it for anxiety reasons, and given how this is probably going to turn into a huffing and puffing Drag Down The Evil Witch Goyim thing, I don’t blame her.)

This bit of rhetorical gymnastics on her part served an interesting and infuriating purpose. I objected to her refusing to listen to actual Jewish fans trying to tell her things on multiple occasions, and I also criticized her use of the “I can’t have done anything wrong, my best friend is Jewish,” defense. Here she doubled down on that defense, essentially saying the person she has referred to on multiple occasions as her “Jewish Sidekick” insulates her from all possible problematic statements re: Jewishness.

The rest of her response was equally inane, but as I can’t quote it directly in her own words, I can’t justify saying more about it.

A Second, Unpublished Ask

As I mentioned above, I’ve never really used Tumblr. The difference between submitting posts and submitting asks confused me. I knew the original request for a content warning tag was an ask and that I’d done a post. I was afraid I should have sent an ask instead.

I was also rereading her response to heatherly84, and I was annoyed that she didn’t get why the joke about Snape’s nose wasn’t okay.

So I sent in an ask before my submission was posted and responded to.

I don’t have the text of my ask, but I give flamethrower permission to post it in full if she chooses. I recall saying two things:

1) In the form of a question, I tried to walk her through understanding why the joke about Snape’s nose could still read as antisemitic.

2) I acknowledged I’d sent the submission, and said I would prefer she respond to it, since it was more detailed.

Perhaps I committed some terrible tumblr faux pas in submitting a post and an ask on the same topic closely together and that constitutes harassment.

I suspect the former is true but the latter is not.

Flamethrower Deletes Posts and Claims Harassment

In a matter of minutes after flamethrower posts my submission and her response, she deletes it. A new post goes up.

I have to assume the combination of two asks and a submission is what she is saying is harassment. You’ve seen the text of one ask and one post, so hopefully you’ll agree one ask was very polite and the post was slightly terse but A) not harassment, B) not an ad hominem attack, C) and a list of reasons why she was wrong to do certain things, not a list of reasons why she as a person was awful. I maintain the unpublished ask is in the same vein, and she is free to publish it in full if she chooses.

Then she begins posting more, and her claims about what she was sent escalate.

Here we have what is called a dogwhistle: she’s not saying evil Jews are conspiring against her to make her look bad. However, in response to criticisms of potentially antisemitic behavior, she falls back on the trope of “devious” Jews in a malicious conspiracy. This is problematic, and I will say flat out it is antisemitic.

She also misrepresents what was going on: Jewish fans asking her to listen to them without being condescending. Jewish fans asking for a single content warning.

I believe at this point I sent either another ask or submission, with the gist being, “If you’re going to post about things I submitted to your tumblr and characterize them a certain way, I would appreciate it if you reposted them so viewers could judge for themselves whether what you’re saying is accurate.”

Continuing to engage was a mistake, clearly. 

Her vague posting with the context hidden continued.

And she ends by going full non-sequitur. 

She never raised not wanting to attract white supremacists and Nazis as a reason to avoid a warning tag. 

She condescended and attacked and told a Jewish fan her reactions were invalid.

If flamethrower cared about Jewish representation in fandom, opposing antisemitism, and Jewish fans, she could have compromised with some sort of warning in some fashion.

Even if she were absolutely opposed to a warning of any kind, she could have not condescended and invalidated the experiences of Jewish fans trying to speak with her.

Even if she couldn’t do that, she could have avoided deleting all context and then going on a posting spree that suggests an evil Jewish conspiracy is harassing her.

The only conclusions I can draw from all of this are as follows:

1) Engaging with flamethrower as a person who cares about Jewish fans is a mistake, because she cares more about presenting herself as an authority on Jewish experiences to non-Jewish fans than she does to listening to any critique, no matter how minor or polite, from a Jewish fan.

2) Flamethrower is happy to oppose antisemitism in the shallowest possible way to pat herself on the back and seek congratulations from others, but the second she’s in conflict with actual Jewish people, she resorts to vague and just barely deniable antisemitism herself.

3) Flamethrower is unable to accept anything she perceives as criticism, no matter how kindly it’s presented, because she’s too invested in presenting herself as the absolute expert on every topic she has passingly researched for a fic. Her defensiveness over a trivial topic is merely odd, but on more serious topics, it becomes problematic.

4) No one has harassed flamethrower, and nothing she is construing as harassment is part of a “setup” or conspiracy.

5) I probably don’t know how to use Tumblr properly.

Edited to Add: What I Think Is a Lie

I have been refreshing flamethrower’s tumblr nearly non-stop since this began, as have several people I know. Unless the offer of a different tag occurred in a private message, I am confident in saying it is a lie, particularly given her instant negative reaction to the very idea as shown above. If screencaps are provided, I will of course retract this and apologize.

[deacied]

evening sun  .  //  one .

summary: messaging stupid things to your celebrity crush on instagram has no repercussions because it’s not like they’re going to read it anyway! obviously this doesn’t entail sexual harassment or general creepiness, but sending a meme they’d like or a picture or maybe something actually stupid like your phone number seems irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

or the one where you dm joe on instagram and your life actually changes

warnings: none other than like fluff 

word count: 1.7k

    she sends the stupidest message she has possibly ever typed in her entire life (eighth grade, angsty teen posts on myspace included) to him in the second week of march. the chances were low that he would open her dm, but he had been known to ever so often answer a handful at a time, and what did she have to lose if he did answer the message? she had sent him other things before as if he were her best friend, memes that reminded her of him or funny t-shirt ads, whatever it had been that she thought might have him grinning to himself--- however, clearly the response never-received wasn’t with this particular “friend”. she didn’t really know him, and he, blissfully unaware of her existence, yet she tried weakly to get the attention of him while he received thousands of others flooding his messages doing just the same. it was just a bit of fun really. a shirt that showed a t-rex wearing mickey ears, “wrong park!“ written across it had her laughing manically to herself before sending the post over to joe. she hoped she would see him in that shirt soon.

    it was a hopeless cause that, well, wouldn’t crush her if the odds weren’t in her favor. nearly a month after she had sent the stupidest message, a notification of a new text pings through her phone. a glance over to it only to be met with an unknown number loses her attention as quick as it held it. she yawns. the action comes of mainly boredom though sleepiness threatens to claw its way into dominance as the summer rain continues to pummel unto the roof, warm florida air shifting through the porch, and the novel in her hand losing focus. a nap would be good-- perfect actually.

    the crackle of lightning followed by a gargle of thunder shook her out of her sleep only an hour later and back into reality. every afternoon without fail, the casual shower of rain would pass over her family home just after three as if mother nature were taking her time with her garden. florida often promised hurricanes so the thunderstorms weren’t uncommon, but this particular one wasn’t supposed to hit until thursday, and with it being only tuesday, she knew this storm would last forever now: the earlier they came, the longer and harder they reined apparently. notifications sound off at a quick rate, though she easily dismisses it as something extraordinary going on in the group chat. trekking back into the house with book and phone in hand, her free fingers pass over her dogs’ heads as she passes them to head to her room. the thought of a shower to wash away the dampness from outside was the most ideal option she possessed, however, the implied doom her mother promised of a shower during a thunderstorm was the least. more notifications go off in time before she turns off the ringer entirely and plugs it into the charger. sixty-four (jesus) messages in the group chat on discord, another twenty-one from the same group on instagram, and god knows how many more on snapchat, but the one, singular cluster of notifications tucked at the bottom that held her interest had her pausing with head tipping in interest: another message from the unknown number.

lower lip curls between teeth as brows furrow an inch together. finally clicking on the messages, she feels like she might throw up as her eyes follow the pixels. holy. fucking. shit.

FROM unknown 11:18 am: It’s super dangerous giving your phone number to strangers on the internet you know? FROM unknown 11:20 am: I tried to call and kind of chickened out. I got nervous and I’m sorry. FROM unknown 11:43 am: Oh my god, did you really shoot your shot and just leave the court?

    she has to read the messages at least eight times, take a screenshot, send it to her brother, and have him confirm she’s not having a stroke before she can go back to the originals with an intent to reply. thumbs hover over keys making absentminded shapes as she breathes deeply, loudly, anxiously trying not to have a whole mental breakdown. the message directly referenced her messages to none other than the boy from jurassic park, the bassist of bohemian rhapsody, the very angry baseball player of undrafted. there was absolutely no way that this was actually, truly, literally joseph francis mazzello iii. couldn’t be. nope. not happening. she doesn’t know what to reply back with for a good long moment, taking a second to collect herself and open up instagram to confirm for the hundredth time now that this is who she thinks it is.

    the dm’s screen welcomes her, exhale escaping lowly as she clicks on joe_mazzello’s chat. he hadn’t replied -clearly, she most definitely would have received a notification for that or else instagram would have a very angry woman on their hands- but he had opened it. the time read 3:56am two weeks ago when he read them. her head falls backwards as the mental math floods hurriedly through her brain, trying to understand: so he had called a week after reading them apparently, and then waited another week before engaging contact again. he... he had been thinking about this for a while; it wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment ploy to entertain a fan. god, she might throw up actually this time. thumbs navigate to open the texts from the unknown number again just to make sure they hadn’t magically dissolved into thin air. a slow exhale. one more final time she moves over the keys.

TO unknown 12:56 pm: who is this? TO unknown 12:57 pm: if this is who i think it is i’m gonna Lose My McFreakin Mind

    she nods to herself as they send--- vague enough that whomever was on the other side wouldn’t think something strange was going on no matter what the outcome turned out to be. it had happened once where a friend texted the wrong number instead of her, asking if “mc fuckhead” was there. (that was an incredibly fun inside joke to explain.) head tips to the side slightly, hopping her train of thought from joe mazzello and him genuinely thinking of you to how strange every inside joke must sound to people outside of the inside. another vibration of the device jerks her back to the matter at hand, unable to help her heart thumping uneasily.

FROM unknown 1:26 pm: Hi, I’m Joe Mazzello from Jurassic- I mean, Bohemian Rhapsody and you’re watching Disney Channel! FROM unknown 1:26 pm: Thank God you’re a multiple text person too FROM unknown 1:27 pm: Please don’t Lose Your McFreakin Mind! FROM unknown 1:27 pm: Wait. FROM unknown 1:27 pm: .....Is this (@ y/ig)? Did I just fuck everything up with an actual wrong number?

    suspicions couldn’t get more confirmed than that. her next set of texts goes out rapidly and without much second thought, a stupidly huge smile graced on her face that probably made her look like a maniac--- but really, if any person’s celebrity crush had texted them wouldn’t they have the exact same reaction? actually, now that y/n thinks about it, she’s being really, really calm. the internal screaming stays internal -thank the lord- though her cheeks already ache from the face-splitting grin she currently wears.

TO unknown 1:33pm: if i’m (@ y/ig) then wouldn’t you be @joe_mazzello? no? just me? ok TO unknown 1:33 pm: but hi yes i’m y/n ??? holy shit ??? what the fuck ??? TO unknown 1:34 pm: definitely losing my mind rn   TO unknown 1:34 pm: but also 👀 real talk i was 👀 actually asking you 👀 out TO unknown 1:34 pm: like if you wanted to hang out 👀 haha

    as soon as the last one sends, her heart drops with fear. fuck, what if the actor just wanted to do a fan a favor and answer her dm just for shits and giggles, or, best (worst?) case scenario he wanted to online-befriend her. she can very easily lose the one single chance she’s gotten and--- god, yes, definitely going to throw up. she sends another message in a haste, praying to whomever was up above that her last text actually saved her ass. he responds in actual record time, the girl tucked up on her bed unable to help the excited and very, very, very ugly squeal she let out as she starts reading the messages.

FROM joe omg 1:36 pm: Interesting.... I’ll have to accept your proposal. We meet at dawn! FROM joe omg 1:36 pm: But you’re in Florida right? I think I read that on your account, I hope I didn’t just pull that out of my ass. FROM joe omg 1:36 pm: I haven’t been to Universal down there in God knows how long and I was planning to go at the end of the month funnily enough FROM joe omg 1:36 pm: If dinosaurs and King Kong and Harry Potter and whateva are your thaaaang

    an anxious groan soon follows-- of course this was the alternating year she had gotten a disney annual pass instead of a universal one like last year, and upon further inspection of prices, her bills due, and her bank account, it was a couple hundred dollars she definitely didn’t have to spend. she sets her phone down to calm her now raging anxiety, skin heating up and palms sweating profusely until she fists her comforter in hopes to dry them. asking an actual rich and famous person for financial help just to hang out with them was forcing her eyes to prick with tears-- she had to find something else, right? they could work something else out and she was just overreacting. it takes her verbally saying “you’re crying over universal, chill the heck out” before she comprehends and truly relaxes, tension melting out of her back as a slow breath falls from anxiety ridden lungs.

TO joe omg 1:42 pm: i actually love universal but i have a disney pass right now if maybe that was something you wanted to do TO joe omg 1:43 pm: idk if you’ve ever been to disney world but its so much better than disneyland if i’m honest lmao i’ve gone to california once and i went and i wasn’t super impressed TO joe omg 1:43 pm: i mean it was really cool cause it was the original disney but rides and attractions wise you know what i mean??? anyway im rambling wtf

    the conversation rolls with no further lulls in topics to talk about, one in the afternoon soon turning to one in the morning and her eyes threatening to droop closed. with a final goodnight text the pair decide to resume conversation in the morning, and lord, did she have something to excitedly scream about then.

[sweetcinnamonmaplesyrup]

Lucie-Marezi Gohanz || Custom MC/Persona

So here are the promised references of my persona/custom MC for Mystic Messenger ahah ^^ I’ll have a few more doodles and information about her under the cut! 

But basically, she’s just me, lolol ^^

Lucie-Marezi Pam Gohanz 

- Prefers to be called “Maple” over her real name, but won’t complain. Doesn’t mind “Lucie” or “Marezi” by itself, though she definitely favours “Marezi” due to it’s uniqueness 

Age: 22 years 

Height: 4′7″ (144.7cm)

Likes: The colour/shades of pink and red, ice-cream (cookies and cream, caramel or strawberry? now that’s a hard choice…), galaxy aesthetics, stars, starry nights, space in general, flowers, cats, bows, sweets, drawing, writing, reading, anime (lol)

Dislikes/Fears: heights, being left behind, spontaneous social interaction, snakes, spiders, seeing wounds/injuries (will definitely and instantly care to those wounds), pressure, dishonesty, gore/horror/thrillers of any kind, shape or form, fighting/confrontation (but will suck up her fear so that both parties are relieved and better), death to anyone

> Is very anxious (every second of every day) and quiet, but when desired or relaxed enough, she will be loud and crazy, but serious and sensible. She doesn’t wish to embarrass herself or those around her, especially those she has just met and her family.

> Proud optimist! Will always try her best to have others look at the bright side while she does too, but will look at the reality of things too.

> Gives hugs, cuddles, quiet reassurances and hold hands with her sad friends, before pulling a few jokes/ attempting to make them laugh. She will also try to get them to open up about their sadness.

> Enjoys lazy days cooped up in her room, drawing the day away (if it be for herself or her work), reading a good amount of writing online, and watching videos to pass time. 

>Simultaneously short-tempered and calm. One minute, she’ll be yelling about some small thing that set her off, the next, she’ll be asking about your day, it thoroughly confuses the RFA and herself. 

> Tries her best to cook, but always ends up messing up at least one thing due to her nerves, so she needs a buddy who’ll be able to calm her down and deal with her ever squeaky screeches of stress.

> Game Dev/Artist, who’s currently working on a quiet project with a few of her friends. But she’s failing on the “quiet” part… 

> She basically blabbers about the project to her fans on Tripter, sometimes sneaking a few screenshots of progress, before deleting the post a couple hours later (Seven definitely saves those shots)

> Always, and I mean always, laughing and smiling when talking with her friends (which includes the RFA) face to face. It had become a habit of hers when she had to wear braces in her younger years.

> Enjoys being short, doesn’t let it bug her one bit.

> A proud asexual.

Alright :D meeting is underneath the cut, but it’s heavily oc x canon >_>

She meets the gang (in person) after the whole Mint Eye thing is resolved (4 months after, to be exact), and Saeran is tomato head! MC ends up with Yoosung, but she helped Seven look for Saeran. The entire RFA is the same age as they were when MC met them in this, and agree that there will be no more secrets, and the twins’ father is behind bars. This is also based on a thing I’m writing, which I won’t be releasing;; it’ll be too embarrassing >///<;;

> She actually visits the same café the RFA do! But she didn’t meet them the way you’d probably think. Seven’s actually one of three fans in the group (the other two being his brother and Yoosung) and he became friends with her over the net when he had “accidentally” hacked (Saeran knows) into her account and called out a bunch of people who were bothering her professional life (she was mortified when she found that post on her page, along with the apologies in her DMs). After that, she basically scrolled through the internet and relied on her knowledge of coding to try and find information about the person behind the hack. But compared to Seven, her skills her miniscule. 

> Eventually, though, after a few hours of Seven watching her try to make a dent in his firewall, he gives in and messages her phone directly. It startles her, but overtime, they developed into a friendship from there on out.

> Though, they both don’t know what the other looks like (Saeran was pissed when he found out and basically fights against his brother when he tries to hack into her camera to sneak a glance, even when he thinks Saeran isn’t looking. His reason; “You promised not the hack into anything, and you already have, so at least respect the privacy she asks for on her blog”)

> Eventually gives up, but he’s bummed.

> They find out about their identities one day at the café, after being friends for 7 months now. At this point, the two were close knit. 

> Basically, the two were at the café (Seven with the RFA while she’s by herself, the usual) and he had just sent her a joke. She ends up giggling, catching his attention. 

> Brushes it off, so the convo continues. 

> But then, she gets dizzy from her lack of sleep. She was used to her dizzy spells, so she shrugged it off and tried to type out her next message, but she ends up fainting, causing a commotion. 

> It alarms everyone, especially Seven. The RFA members sort of gravitated towards the limp body while the staff at the café try to sort out the situation. Seven sort of shrugs it off, but then realises that his chat buddy had yet to respond, which was strange. She didn’t mention any task that had come to her attention, something she’d usually do, so it concerned him, 

> He reassures himself, however, saying that she probably was busy. 

> That was until he notices that she hasn’t responded for 2 days now.

> He than hacks to figure out her location and his stomach sinks. He basically runs out of the house and straight to the hospital, to find out where his friend was. 

> It was tricky, trying to get into the room, but he manages to get in, revealing a truth he had already been suspecting.

> The girl was the one he had seen in the cafe! 

> Said girl was startled by the appearance of a worried man practically busting the door open, her heartbeat was skyrocketing at his appearance. But those glasses caught her off-guard. That couldn’t be…

> Lo and behold, the man introduces himself as God7, her pancake. This causes the girl to laugh, surprised he had actually used that silly nickname that she had only used to address him once. However, she questions how he found out where she was, earning a nervous chuckle.

> She catches the hint, remembering him mentioning that he used to hack as a profession and how they had became friends, so she sighs and just apologises for not being in contact. “I have my phone with me so that I can check the time and message my family, I did want to contact you, but it’s already hard enough to message them.” She explains.

> She’s about to explain more, but Seven interrupts her, pulling her into an unexpected hug. She hugs him back. 

> Not before she says, with a big smirk, “Soo, should I continue to call you God7, oor should I call you Saeyoung?” 

> He laughs, before telling her to call him by his real name. “And what should I call you?”

> She hums. “Lucie-Marezi is a mouthful…” She says. “So, just continue to call me Maple, but you can use my real name.”

> After that, Saeyoung visits everyday until she is dispatched. He’s always messaging her if she’d eaten, when to sleep, how well she slept, etc., not wanting the same thing to happen again. He also uses her real name more frequently than she thought he would, what’s more shocking is that she doesn’t mind it and finds it nice. 

> And when they are under the same cafe roof, Saeyoung wastes no time in introducing her to the rest of his friends, who quickly become friends with Lucie. 

> And a few months after that, they got together and now the RFA deal with two Sevens. 

> During their first months of being together, Lucie is a bit on the flustered side of things whenever they do cutesy things, she still is afterwards too, but she doesn’t snap at him like she did at first. She will not admit it, but she enjoys those quiet moments when they’re doing those things. She does, however, tell Saeyoung of her asexuality, to which he doesn’t mind. He does become cautious over his actions, he’s scared that if he does one wrong thing, he’ll lose one of his most precious friends. 

> Seayoung basically joins her in creating the game, gushing over everything with the same energy as Lucie. 

[sage-nebula]

Deltarune’s Ending - Kris or Chara?

One of the most commonly debated topics in the fandom right now is whether the person who rips out Kris’ SOUL at the end of the game is Kris themself or Chara. Personally, I’m of two minds about it; my first instinct when I played the game is that it was Chara, but after playing through the ending a couple more times (and getting to know Kris a bit better), I’m starting to lean toward the fact that it may well be Kris, and that there are few different potential motivations for why they might have ripped their SOUL out and tossed it in the rusted birdcage. I'm making this post so I can have my thoughts all laid out in one place. Note that I’m not trying to “prove” or “disprove” either one of these theories, before anyone gets heated; I’m just trying to lay things out as I see them at the moment.

So with that said, let’s go beneath the cut.

Theory One: Chara

The first theory is that Chara took over Kris’ body at the end, ripped out their SOUL, and chucked it in the birdcage. There are quite a few reasons why so many of us jumped to this conclusion, I think, particularly since the ending was so shocking that our screams were heard around the globe. In no particular order:

1.) Kris’ design is very reminiscent of Chara.

While Kris’ hair color and skin color are actually the exact same colors used for Frisk, overall the brown hair + green and yellow striped shirt is very reminiscent of Chara for most of us, even though the green and yellow used in Kris’ shirt is not the same green and yellow used in Chara’s. (But then, the blue and purple used for Dark Kris’ pallet isn’t the same as Frisk’s shirt, either!) Though the exact same shades aren’t used, the colors are still relatively close enough that a player who doesn’t have Chara fresh in their mind won’t notice the difference. I didn’t, at least, and this is probably extra hilarious because I actually spent the entire day cosplaying Chara the day this came out (since it was our Halloween party at work, and I went as Chara since I got the locket with my collector’s edition---and yes, I’d planned this before I ever knew Deltarune was a thing, it was just very lucky timing). While there are definitely visual similarities to Frisk as well (again, the hair and skin color), the sweater color is likely what most players will zero in on, and the yellow and green is very reminiscent of Chara, moreso than Frisk.

2.) Kris has a sweet tooth, as does Chara.

Chara’s sweet tooth is a bit harder to spot, given that they don’t have as much of a public presence in Undertale as Kris does in Deltarune, but not only do they make it a point to gripe about how there isn’t any chocolate in Asgore’s fridge in the genocide run, but if you subscribe to the NarraChara theory, they also provide Frisk with a joke to tell Snowdrake about a kid who ate a pie with their bare hands. Considering that the other jokes that Frisk is provided with by the narrator also relate to Chara’s and Asriel’s childhood, it could stand to reason that the kid who ate the pie with their bare hands . . . was Chara.

And that . . . is a very Kris thing to do.

While I regretfully didn’t grab screenshots of this because I clicked through the dialogue options too quickly (and didn’t wish to play through the entire ending again), when Kris first returns home at the end of the day, Toriel tells them that she baked a pie---and then very sternly tells them to not eat the entire thing again, implying that Kris has done so before. Toriel also, if Kris talks to them about the pie, says that a pie is a perfect cure for loneliness . . . provided she actually gets to eat some. Which, again, implies that Kris has a history of eating entire pies by themself. (And let’s be honest, Kris is a naughty gremlin, evidence of which I’ll provide later in this post. They would totally forgo a fork and knife to just scoop the pie out with their fingers, you know they would.)

Sans, who met Toriel the night before, also has this to say:

Kris not only eats entire pies by themself, but they also break into Toriel’s room to eat all her chocolate. Pie and chocolate are two favorite foods that Chara and Kris seem to have in common.

3.) They both have “a SICK sense of humor!”

In Undertale, we’re told that Chara has a “SICK sense of humor” by Flowey, after Flowey begins to realize that Chara is going to turn on him and kill him, too. Flowey, who is in actuality Asriel and thus knows exactly who Chara is, is accusing Chara of joking about killing him, partially out of hope that Chara is joking, but also because it wouldn’t necessarily be out of character for Chara to do so. After all, we know thanks to the True Lab tapes that Chara laughed when they accidentally poisoned Asgore with buttercups, and he almost died. We know that, on a route where all the dogs have been killed (or perhaps it’s just genocide, but I think it also works on routes where all the Snowdin dogs were killed) that Chara thinks such an act is funny, because when you examine the bag of dog food in Alphys’ lab after the dogs have been killed, the narration notes that “you remember something funny.” We know, if you subscribe to the NarraChara theory, that Chara thinks that the fate of Snowdrake’s mother is hysterical (to the point of “tears rolling down your face”), and is baffled when Frisk doesn’t feel the same way. And during a genocide run, when you’re in the battle with RG 01 and RG 02, after Chara runs the quote about “two lovers [. . .] whose love will end in Hell,” they end it with, “I can’t stop laughing.” Chara has a canonically cruel sense of humor. They find others’ pain and misery to be funny. And while Kris’ sense of humor isn’t exactly the same . . . 

. . . it’s similar.

I’ll get more into this later, but Kris is known by their neighbors for being creepy, and we know that they in particular had a fondness for tormenting their classmate and neighbor, Noelle. Noelle is a timid girl who can’t stand up for herself, but numerous dialogue branches tell us that Kris did things like hide under her bed to scare her, put ketchup on their arm and told her it was blood to scare her, told her the pizza restaurant mascot ate children to scare her, and so on. Kris took delight in frightening Noelle, and at least on one occasion had to be beaten with a wiffle ball bat before they’d stop lying. This type of thing feels like the same sort of thing Chara would do. It’s not on the same scale as laughing about people being murdered, no, but it’s a prank at the expense of someone else’s feeling of safety and comfort. It falls in line with someone who has “a SICK sense of humor.”

4.) The way Kris moves at the end of the game is reminiscent of how Chara walks during the genocide run, as told by Papyrus.

While we don’t get to see very much direct movement from Chara during Undertale given that we control them most of the time (most), their gait is described by Papyrus right before that battle:

Having one’s walk described as a “shamble about” paints a very striking image. Chara, while controlling Frisk, is not walking normally; their walk is a slow, awkward shuffle. While I don’t have a gif of this on hand, a “shamble” is the best way I can think of to describe the way Kris walks after they pick themselves up off the floor at the end of the game, even before they’ve ripped out their slow. It’s a very slow, awkward walk; they can’t even hold their body up straight. While we never got to actually see Chara “shamble about from place to place” in Undertale, we were told that’s how they moved, and we did get to see that in Deltarune with Kris there at the end. (It’s notable, too, that this is a striking difference from the only other time we saw Kris move on their own, which was when they dove to protect Susie from the king.)

5.) They flashed a slasher smile, and raised a knife.

Chara was very fond of knives. At the beginning of a genocide route, while looking through Toriel’s kitchen, they ask in red text, “Where are the knives.” At the end of a genocide route, when they find the Real Knife in their former bedroom, the flavor text reads, “Here we are!” While knives are arguably also Kris’ signature weapon due to the fact that they used a sword in the dark kingdom (and that “kris” is a type of dagger), the association that Chara has with knives can’t be overlooked.

Additionally, there’s the slasher smile. In Undertale, whenever a monster encounter begins on a genocide route, the “!” that normally appears above Frisk’s head is replaced with “=)” as the battle begins. While that’s not necessarily a slasher smile per se, we know that Chara is also prone to doing a “creepy face.” We’re told this the first time during the True Lab video tape movie marathon, wherein Asriel (in the past) urges Chara to “do [their] creepy face” for the camera. Near the end of the genocide route, meanwhile, Chara makes a “creepy face” at Flowey, which causes him distress and panic. We don’t know for sure that this is a smile, but given how happy Chara is to kill and how the smiley appears above them every time a new encounter starts, I’d wager that a slasher smile is definitely the kind of “creepy face” Toby had in mind when writing those lines and designing this character. (Additionally, I believe that Flowey tells Chara to stop looking at him with that “creepy face” at about the same time he accuses Chara of having a “SICK sense of humor,” so it would make sense if Chara was smiling there, rather than wearing any other kind of expression.)

(Note: I’m not including the red eyes here because although it’s popular fanon to give Chara red eyes, I don’t think we ever truly see their eyes turn red in the game. Their eyes are hidden in the flashbacks by their bangs---another visual similarity with Kris!---and at the end of a genocide route, their eyes look dark. I don’t think they turn red; while they do change, it’s turn into completely black voids that dark goo bleeds out of. They might flash red when Chara does their jump scare, but the entire screen does, so that doesn’t necessarily make their eyes special. 

EDIT: It has come to my attention that I was being very forgetful last night / early this morning when I wrote this post, because Chara does have red eyes in the soulless pacifist endings. Therefore, the similarities between Chara and Kris jump up even higher, with Kris’ red eyes mirroring Chara’s in those endings. Carry on!)

All of this said, while this does explain why so many of us jumped to thinking that Chara had taken over Kris somehow, this evidence fails to answer the crucial question: How? Deltarune is an alternate universe from Undertale; the two stories have overlapping characters, and perhaps exist in the same multiverse, but our Undertale playthroughs have no effect on this game. Thus, Chara’s line about “let’s move onto the next” from the end of the genocide route has no bearing on this one, particularly since not all of us completed genocide runs (and thus it would be rather punishing to players who did their best to leave the Undertale characters in peace to unleash Chara on this new cast anyway). Chara can’t have made it to Kris because of us, because not all of us made that deal with Chara in the first place.

And then there’s the deal itself. After successfully completing a genocide run, Chara agrees to allow you to remake the world if, and only if, you give them your (or rather, Frisk’s) SOUL. If you refuse, Chara tells you to die then, and leaves you in the void for a long while. When they connect with you again, they again demand your SOUL. From that point forward, every pacifist run you do will be a “soulless” pacifist run.

So here’s the second question: If Chara wanted a SOUL so badly, why would they rip Kris’ SOUL out of their body and throw it in the birdcage?

The SOUL is what Chara wanted, because the SOUL gives them the ability to move freely. If they had a SOUL here, it makes no sense that they’d discard it. And no, they can’t have two SOULs in the same body, because we learned from Undertale that humans cannot absorb human SOULs. They’ve got the one SOUL, and that’s it. Chara wanted a SOUL, so their actions there at the end (aside from the knife and slasher smile) don’t make a whole lot of sense given their original motivations.

And, again, we still don’t know how they would have gotten there in the first place, unless the fountain had something to do with it. We do know that Kris’ SOUL behaved strangely when they approached the fountain, but we have no further context for what that meant at this time.

Anyway, that’s the Chara theory. Moving on to . . .

Theory Two: Kris

The second theory is that this was an act from Kris themself.

First and foremost, let’s get this out of the way: Kris is a strange child. They are a naughty little gremlin and I love them for it. Note that I use the word “child” loosely here; we don’t have an exact age for Kris, but Toriel notes that they’ll be joining Asriel in university “soon,” and their classroom is noticeably more grown-up than the one Toriel teaches in (which Susie calls the classroom for babies). Given that Kris is noted to be heading off to university soon, that their classmates are old enough to work, that Monster Kid was aged up to Monster Teen to join the class (and that they’re in class with characters like Snowdrake, who were teens in the original game), I think it’s safe to say that Kris is actually a strange teenager, rather than a strange child. Nevertheless, I am an adult, and so teenagers are children to me, so strange child they shall remain.

Regardless.

Our first clue that something is not quite right with Kris comes from the very first scene of the game, where we get a look at the bedroom Kris shares with Asriel:

Asriel’s side of the room is bright and beautiful. He has a nice computer, tons of trophies, a bedspread with a nice pattern, star stickers, a flower portrait, an alarm clock . . . it’s clear that Asriel was a well-loved child who took good care of his things. By contrast, Kris’ side of the room is downright depressing. Their bedspread is a drab grey, as is their lamp. They have nothing on their shelves or on their dresser. And at the foot of their bed . . .

There’s a questionable stain on the floor, and then the birdcage and the wagon, one of which (and we’d assume it’s the wagon, but given what happens at the end . . .) has “seen a few crashes.” If you knew nothing about Toriel or Asgore, you would assume that Kris was the unloved child, while Asriel was doted upon and spoiled rotten. We know this isn’t true; we see evidence in-game that both Toriel and Asgore love Kris very much, and want to make sure that’s known. Given how loving both Toriel and Asgore are (and how loving we know Asriel was to Kris, given that we’re told that Asriel used to do things like take Kris to the diner to get hot chocolate after their parents divorced, or how he used to carry them to school), we know that Kris wasn’t neglected or abused. Their side of the room is this barren, depressing, and creepy out of their own choice. And this is further cemented by their . . . other behaviors (a.k.a. here come the naughty gremlin receipts):

These aren’t even all the receipts I could have used; they’re just a small sample. Kris is the type of person who:

Eats entire pies by themself

Breaks into their mother’s room to eat all her chocolate

Drops bath bombs in toilets

Torments shy and timid neighbors (hiding under Noelle’s bed to scare her, telling her the pizza restaurant mascot was alive and ate children to scare her, putting ketchup on their arm and telling her it was blood to scare her . . .)

Spends church services trying to steal “sick fruit juice” instead of paying attention

Routinely forgets their pencils at home and bums pencils off their classmates (and let’s be honest, Kris isn’t the type to return those pencils, either)

Sleeps in class

Doesn’t wake up on time to the point where their big brother had to carry them to school on a regular basis

Is poorly behaved enough to be known as “creepy” by a neighbor, to the point where he tells them this to their face

I could go on. As much as Susie has been ostracized for being thought of as scary and intimidating, it seems that Kris has suffered much the same fate, with Asriel as their only friend, pretty much. It’s implied that Kris, like Susie, didn’t necessarily always want this to be the case; there’s a story told by Bratty (I think---might’ve been Catty, but I’m pretty sure it was Bratty) where they pulled the same trick on Kris that they did on Burgerpants in the original, telling Kris that they could be friends if Kris got them burgers---and then Kris did. (I think it’s also implied Kris stole the burgers, so again---naughty gremlin.) Kris wouldn’t have gone to those lengths if they didn’t want to be friends. But somewhere along the line, it seems Kris stopped caring, because Noelle comments on how odd it is that Kris is being so talkative, and we also see that no one wants to be their partner in class (and that, according to Berdy, Toriel is usually their partner). Kris’ bizarre behavior no doubt contributed to the reason why they don’t have many (if any) friends around town.

So with that being said, the idea that Kris is simply a creepy gremlin who likes to rip their SOUL out and throw it in a birdcage is not altogether that farfetched. After all, if Chara could do creepy things like poison themselves with buttercups so that they could fuse with Asriel and go on a killing spree, who’s to say that Kris couldn’t do creepy things like shove their hand into their own chest to rip their SOUL out and toss it in a birdcage? Chara and Kris do have a lot of similarities, after all, right down to their “SICK sense of humor,” so it’s not out of the question to think that maybe Kris is just the type of person to rip their own SOUL out and throw it in a birdcage at night. Maybe they’re just like that sometimes.

(Also, I won’t lie: The jokes about Asriel sighing and shoving the SOUL back in every morning are hilarious mental images for me.)

But apart from Kris just being like that sometimes, another idea struck me for why Kris might feel compelled to do such a thing . . . well, two other ideas, actually.

The first, and most basic, is that Kris was trying to reassert control. This is a theory that a few people have picked up on, I think. We know that we control the SOUL, and throughout the game we controlled Kris. We were told at the beginning that our choices don’t matter, but Kris’ choices ended up not mattering time and again throughout the game. And this has a noticeable effect; numerous people comment on the fact that Kris seems to be behaving oddly. The nurse comments that Kris can’t play the piano well even though they were always able to before. Noelle comments that it’s unusual for Kris to socialize. A few characters remark that Kris looks ill. They all shrug it off, but it’s clear that while we’re in control of Kris, they’re not in control of themselves, and so ripping the SOUL out at the end might be their way of taking control back (and perhaps the knife and slasher smile are meant to intimidate us rather than serve as a warning for what Kris is about to do to everyone else). That we can still control the SOUL while it’s in the birdcage is indicative of this as well.

The second thought that occurred to me, though . . . is that maybe Kris is trying to make themselves less human, and more monster.

Think about it:

Monster SOULs are not like human SOULs. For one thing, monster SOULs cannot persist after death. Boss monster SOULs can, for a short time, but even they disintegrate after a few moments. Human SOULs also carry incredible power; it would take many monster SOULs to equal even one human SOUL. Combine this with the fact that human SOULs come in multiple colors, and have multiple abilities, and there is a lot that separates human SOULs---and therefore humans---from monsters.

Kris, as far as we know, is the only human in town, and they seem to be rather isolated and ostracized. Again, I don’t think this is a fault on the Dreemurrs’ part, or even the neighbors’ part; as we’ve established, Kris is a creepy gremlin, so we can’t really blame the neighbors for not wanting to spend much time around them. However, Kris’ isolation is still notable. Their side of the room is barren, in stark contrast to Asriel’s. The game console under Asriel’s bed has one standard controller, and one knockoff controller. These are little cues that point to the fact that Kris may feel as though they don’t fit in, despite the love they’ve received from their adopted family. And in fact, just like the story we have wherein Kris tried to befriend Bratty, we also get a story that strongly implies that Kris does wish they were a monster like everyone else:

When Kris was a little one, they asked when their horns would grow in---when they’d look more like their adoptive family. To placate them, Asgore and Toriel bought Kris a pair of fake horns, and Kris---wanting so much to be a monster just like their family---wore them for months. Eventually, Kris gave up; they clearly knew the horns were fake and gave up thinking they could ever be a monster like their family, something which may have caused the depression that led to them leaving their room so barren. (Because I’m sorry, but I can’t look at a room like that, and behavior like this, and not think that Kris has some major emotional issues going on.) We don’t have concrete proof that Kris still wants to be a monster today, but it’s possible (and perhaps even probable) that longing never went away---and now that they’ve taken a trip to the dark kingdom, and knows what their SOUL looks like and how to access it . . . maybe they figured out a way to get one step closer to being a monster just like they’ve always dreamed.

(Or so they think, but remember what Gaster that voice said at the beginning: no one can choose what they are in this world.)

I think that if it truly is Kris at the end, then Kris doing what they did because they want to be a monster and are willing to do anything they can to be a monster rather than a human makes them a more interesting (and sympathetic) character than if they did it just because they’re a creepy weirdo (as Chara was before them according to Papyrus). But that said, all of this is speculation, and we won’t know for sure what’s going on until the full game comes out . . . whenever that is. (And even then we still might not know for sure, because Toby likes to leave ambiguity in his games, and to be honest, I think that makes everything more fun.)

Either way, these are my thoughts on this for now. Goodnight.

[onestowatch]

Aidan Alexander Walks Us Through His Birth Chart, Favorite Vines, & Friendship With Billie Eilish [Q&A]

Aidan Alexander’s impressive talents extend far beyond any singular medium. From acting, amassing an avid following on every social media platform that’s worth using, to now, music, the 20-year-old is the reason why the term crossover success was invented in the first place. However, upon hearing Alexander’s music for the first time, it is difficult to see him as anything but a genuine musical talent. With only three singles to his name to date, “I Don’t Love You,” “Yours,” and “melancholia,” Alexander poignantly touches on themes surrounding love with delicately painted brushstrokes of lush atmospheric pop. 

Currently working towards his highly-anticipated debut EP, we had the chance to sit down with Alexander to discuss his transition to music, but it was in our moments of spirited digression that I came to discover a new side of the rising talent. It is a side defined by a delightfully sarcastic demeanor, love for his Aquarian nature, an abnormally-started friendship with Billie Eilish, a desire to use his social media platform the greater good, and so much more.

OTW: It’s been a few years since you moved, but how has the transition been from Idaho to Los Angeles?

Aidan: It was a culture shock. My mom used to live in New York for a long time. So, growing up, I used to spend a lot of time in New York as well. Luckily, I got to experience more prior to going to LA. You know? I had a little bit of a cushioning. But I loved it. I loved the commotion. I love the chaos. There’s a lot of inspiration all around me. There’s a lot in Idaho, as well, but it’s a different kind.

OTW: So what made you choose LA over New York?

Aidan: I came to LA for acting. LA, I think is a little bit better for acting than New York. Also, I need space and I don’t know if I could do a 500 square foot apartment for like $4500. Maybe one day. I was telling my friends I would love to spend a year in New York. And then I have dual citizenship in Europe so then maybe after that I would just jet away. Out of here. Always just going east.

OTW: In a past interview, you said you were either too busy or too scared to pursue music. What is it about now that made you finally pursue it?

Aidan: I don’t think I was ever too busy. I think I was just being a little bitch about it. I think I’m just a perfectionist. You know, it’s my nature. I’m just very, very meticulous with details. So I really wanted it to be perfect. And that’s probably why I would say it took a little bit. But now that I kind of ripped the band-aid off, I’m like, “Let’s get it.” You know?

OTW: What was the immediate feeling like after releasing “I Don’t Love You?”

Aidan: I was just very happy. It’s cool to have people finally hear what I've been listening for months. It's cool to have them finally get it. You know? There’s more to reference. I can finally be, like, “This was really cool when I was in the studio working on this.” It’s another thing to talk about.

OTW: So speaking on being meticulous, does that have to do with your Aquarius nature?  Aidan: I don’t know if being meticulous about detail is an Aquarius thing. I just know that “I Don’t Love You” is an Aquarius thing. The first single. That’s very much my Aquarian nature. Yeah, I don’t know if that’s my zodiac sign coming into play or not. It might be. It probably is. Either that or just my flat personality. One of the two.

OTW: On the topic of stars, do you know your whole chart? 

Aidan: I know that my sun is a Gemini, which is really spooky. I’m a crazy person. I think my mars is a Leo. That’s all I know.

OTW: You don’t know your moon?

Aidan: I don’t know my moon. Let me check. I have it on my phone. It’s gonna bother me really bad. Let me pull up my chart.

OTW: Yeah, I’m a Gemini moon, so…

Aidan: Gemini moon, huh? What is moon? Is moon your emotion?

OTW: Believe moon is your emotion, which I hear it isn’t too great to be a Gemini.

Aidan: My sun is how I’m perceived which is a Gemini. I’m like, that sucks [still looking for his moon sign]. Sorry, just give me one second. It’s gonna bother me so bad. Ooh! There we go! I found her! I got her. Oh, hold on. I spoke too soon. Oh actually, I might have just gotten it. Okay. That’s pretty lit.

OTW: Whoomp, there it is.

Aidan: Okay, so, my Moon is in Leo. My Mercury is in Pisces. My Venus is Capricorn. My Mars is in Aries. Jupiter and Saturn are in Taurus. Uranus and Neptune are in Aquarius. Pluto and Lilith...I don’t even know, these just sound made up now...are Sagittarius. Sun is Gemini. So yeah, we didn’t learn too much.

OTW: We got your full birth chart though. That’s what really matters.

Aidan: I can’t wait to be picked apart by everyone who now has my natal chart.

OTW: So, both “Yours” and “I Don’t Love You” tackle love in very different ways. So is love a major part of your songwriting process right now? Or does it just happen to be present in the first few singles?

Aidan: No, love is just a major part of my life. I love love. Not even so much, like, romantic love. Whether it’s platonic love or self-love or kind of just like emanating love outward, you know? I’m a big believer in love. I think it’s romantic and it’s pretty. So, there’s a lot of things you can write that pertain to love and they can be totally different. But, you know. It’s all like one wheelhouse. Having said that, my love life is a joke [laughs]. So, I write about that a lot. Just because it’s something that matters to me. So it’s something I write about. I also write a lot about stuff that doesn’t necessarily pertain to love. A lot of it is going to be on the new EP. But no, I think that love is a big part of everything.

OTW: Is there anything you can tell us about the forthcoming EP?

Aidan: The single “Melancholia,” which is a poem I wrote when I was younger. I just thought it was really pretty and I wrote it. I kind of transplanted it into musical form. That is going to be on the EP as well as what’s already out and a few new records which I think are really cool. There’s a lot of different sounds, you know. I try to pull inspiration from a lot of different kinds of music that I liked. I’m not a big fan of when every track on a record is the exact same or sounds similar. I kind of like having a wide array. So that was something I wanted to focus on. OTW: So speaking on your vast influences that range the gamut of Robyn, Fleetwood Mac, and Billie Holiday, was that something you grew up with in your household or something that you sought out later on?

Aidan: Yeah, I remember my mom used to always sing “Blue Moon” around the house and “Good Morning Heartache” by Billie Holiday. And I used to love jazz growing up. I thought it was really pretty, so I would always sing “All of Me” by Frank Sinatra. I performed at a cafe once when I was really young. I loved the lyricism to it. I loved how poetic it was. Just cause back then you had to stand out more to be popular. There weren’t all the gimmicks that we have now. A big part of my creative process is making sure there’s a lot of focus on the lyrics. When I say that my inspirations were, like, Fleetwood Mac, people would say, “Okay, well you’re not singing folk music on a guitar.” But it’s very much like...you can draw inspiration apart from just the sound, you know? There’s the thematic content.

OTW: Has your social media popularity affected how you document your day to day life?

Aidan: You know, when I first started doing social media, I was the textbook definition of that little child running around a mall with his Snapchat out. Just cause that’s what I saw online. That’s everything that was out there. Everyone has that phase when you’re young, when you're just the absolute worst to yourself. I might still be in that phase. I’m not really sure [laughs]. I really just stray away from all that now. It’s so not me. And I’ve already done it, so I know that it isn't me. It’s really only affected me in the sense that I will post a song I’m listening to and be like “Oh, actually, maybe someone will listen to this.” If I had 200 followers, I would probably never post a screenshot of music I was listening to. I know that’s a weird example but that’s something that I think about a lot.

I think I use Instagram like a normal college student, which is not good. I should probably be more professional on my Instagram. It definitely gives me a level of responsibility, you know? Cause you have a platform. You have a voice. And you have certain responsibilities. Apart from that, I think that if anything, it just gives me more people to talk to.

OTW: On the subject of using your platform, you recently did a PSA tackling the “arming teachers” argument.  

Aidan: Oh! Yes, I did! Oh, I haven’t even talked about that yet. It was a really really cool PSA. My manager sent me the script, and I felt really passionate about it. I’m from Idaho where guns are very easily accessible. And I hate guns. I think guns are so scary. I’m very squeamish around guns. It was so comical, the whole “arming the teachers” thing. It was like, we’re doing everything except actually tackling the problem. I just thought it was so ridiculous. I saw the short as just a way to bring more attention to it in a way that wasn't too dark but still was very serious.

OTW: As an artist with a platform, is being politically and socially outspoken personally important to you?

Aidan: Personally, yeah. I just think I owe it to the greater good. Maybe that’s my Aquarian nature. I just think it's kind of a waste if you have people listening. I feel like you should be saying something that’s worthy to be listened to. I think it's like in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” You have such a chance to shed light on things that the average person doesn’t necessarily have the platform to speak on. So I think that it’s a bit of a waste of an opportunity if you don’t. 

OTW: You mentioned posting songs that you listen to. I heard that the recent Billie Eilish song made you cry.

Aidan: Whew! Yeah. I Snapchatted her last night. I was like videoing on Snapchat and it keeps going and it was like literally recording for like 10 minutes. And it was me. It was like a 45-minute long video of me just sobbing to “when the party’s over.” I sent it to her and I got a notification this morning that she screen recorded the entire thing. Yeah, so I don’t even know if that was the answer to your question.

OTW: No, that was great. So how did you two first become acquainted? 

Aidan: It’s funny because I think that she DM’d me something like, “Let’s be friends!” or something and I was like, “Oh my god you’re kidding. Of course!” And this was when “bellyache” was pretty much all she had out. I remember I sent her a photo of someone covered in beans. I don’t know why. It was super weird. And then I went to one of her concerts and then we just started hanging out. I can’t remember all the specifics. But I know that it was a very odd beginning

OTW: Just something involving beans.

Aidan: I know! I think she sent me the beans photo. So I sent it back, I think is what happened, if I recall correctly.

OTW: You’ve done acting, you’re killing the social media game, and are now venturing into music. Are there any other artistic ventures you hope to pursue in the future?

Aidan: You know, I love writing. I write screenplays and songs, so writing is very present in my acting and my music. I write essays a lot. Not essays that are argumentative school essays or something. Sometimes I feel like I’m not poetic enough to say what I’m really trying to say in a stanza of six lines. I just feel like I'm not good enough. So essays give me a big platform to spew and by the end, I think you’d somewhat know what I’m trying to say. I’d love to do an essay book or something. I already have a ton. I also wrote an entire poetry book and I was hesitant about releasing it, but maybe one day I’ll put that out. Who knows? And I love to direct as well. I’m a terrible dancer but at my gym, there are dance classes and me and my friends do that every Monday. So maybe in the near future, I will also be a talented dancer.

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch? 

Aidan: Ooh, okay. I just found a girl on Spotify today, GIRLI. She’s so So badass. I like her song “Young” and “Day Month Second.” I also love bülow right now. She has a really good song called “You and Jennifer.” Obviously, I’m always watching Lorde. Always. Always. I think that’s it. Those are the ones I’m watching right now. Oh and also La Femme. It’s like a little French electro band.

OTW: Before you leave, describe yourself with one Vine.

Aidan: Oh, mother of God. Let me think. I have to make this good. I'm going back and forth between two. Because I act tough but I’m really a baby, I think it would be the one where the girl goes “It’s the fourth of July. Imma pop these firecrackers don’t pop em on me. Where the police at?” and the mom goes “There’s a police right there” and she gasps. That’s my favorite one. 

Or the one where he looks at a crayon or something and the sister goes “Is that a weed?” and then she calls 911. That’s funny. Ooh, or the one of the guy dancing to uh...you remember in American Horror Story where he’s like “You’re all I want! You’re all I need!” and he’s like screaming? 

There’s a video where a boy is dancing and he dubs that over to him dancing so it’s him dancing to screams and it’s pretty good. That’s probably me too. That’s my internal struggle. Just link all of those.

[reidspng]

REVIEW: Love, Simon

ok so i’ve seen love simon a grand total of 3 times so far and i wanted to get out all my thoughts on it in a sort of article style review thing?? so here we are! below the cut there will be a whole lot of spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book OR seen the movie, BIG SPOILER WARNING!! if you’ve read the book but not seen the movie, then it should be fine. mainly just warning because i talk about who blue is so! that’s a major spoiler. anyways, onward to me trying to formulate my opinions in a cohesive manner!

right off the bat, i want to clarify that i LOVE the movie, thus the reason i’ve seen it three times and will probably go and see it again if i have the chance (and definitely will get it on DVD, no question about it). however, just because i enjoyed it does not mean it’s without its faults, and it does have a few major things that i want to address. a LOT was changed from the book, some things being understandable for the purpose of keeping the story moving along, but others i took some issue with.

first of all, bram’s personality is changed almost entirely. in the book, bram is supposed to be a quiet, always off in his head english nerd who’s on the soccer team and sits with simon and his friends most days, even though simon doesn’t know him too well. he’s supposed to get especially quiet when simon is around because he gets flustered and overwhelmed due to his long-harbored crush. in the movie, they make him much more outgoing and confident, HIM being the one to throw the halloween party instead of nick. he also talks to simon more casually early on. he’s also obvious enough with mentioning the oreos that simon assumes he’s blue up until seeing him kissing a girl, which ALSO: DID NOT HAPPEN IN THE BOOK! bram had never kissed anyone before in the book and didn’t really get why simon had dated girls if he knew he was gay, so that’s not exactly consistent.

changing bram’s personality is one of the things i’m more ready to excuse though. it works for what the movie was trying to achieve. a big change that i did NOT appreciate that much was making it so leah was in love with simon rather than nick. while i understand that this was done in part to manufacture a more dramatic conflict following simon being outed, it just wasn’t something that i really appreciated. i wish they’d kept that, made it work with her getting mad at simon for telling nick to take her out when he knew nick liked abby (which would still have been painful). related to this, the line where leah says “but you thinking i was in love with nick set me up to get my heart broken, and that’s just cruel” really bugged me. how was him being oblivious cruel? It kind of implies that he did it with the intention of hurting her. he literally didn’t realize leah felt that way about him, so it’s really not his fault that he made that mistake, at least in my opinion. I did appreciate that they kind of lessened how angry she was with him over telling abby first, because that was something from the book that i felt was a really “make your coming out all about me” sort of thing. not a favorite of mine.

a related subject: simon’s outing. when he gets outed in the movie, his friends are all very concerned at first, sending texts and calling him. but THEN, the first time they see him in person after it all goes down, they are ONLY angry at him. now i understand being angry, he was playing with their lives and hearts (which i’ll talk about again later) after all, i don’t find the extent to which they were mad justifiable. they literally ignored the fact he said he was being blackmailed, didn’t care about what martin had done AT ALL. they literally never say anything about it, which frustrated me. even if they were understandably angry, you’d think they’d have the decency to step back and think ‘he was being forced into doing something that he didn’t want to do.’ it’s never acknowledged later. there’s never anything with them apologizing to simon for cutting him off after already going through something as terrifying as being outed. (i was outed publicly to my school as well. i don’t know what i would have done had i not had my friends with me through that.) it all left a sour taste it my mouth.

i understand why they made it so that martin actually posted the screenshots in the movie. they wanted to make it so bram would get scared off so simon would have no way of contacting him, exaggerating the feeling of isolation and helplessness (which ties into the whole ferris wheel simile use at the start by blue), and then ending in a big dramatic conclusion. i feel like it was also in part to avoid the awkward mess that is the end of simon vs., which while it works in the book in showing how messy teen romance is, it wouldn’t flow well in the movie narrative. (i missed the whole elliott smith shirt thing, but i did notice they actually had simon wearing the figure 8 shirt during that one scene where he was walking down the halls and noticing all the game of thrones shirts! so at least it wasn’t totally forgotten, even though it’s not a gift from bram.) what i wish they hadn’t done though, was make it into such a public thing. the conclusion essentially becomes simon pressuring bram into revealing himself, since obviously bram wouldn’t want simon to embarrass himself up there in public. i definitely preferred the whole private tilt-a-whirl thing from the book.

other than that, i REALLY enjoyed how they did martin’s character, although i wish they hadn’t had him mention his brother being gay right at the start. it really solidified that he’s a really nerdy guy, the kind that’s also an outsider, but that even that sort of person can be an antagonist. i’d had a hard time visualizing his character in the book so this really helped solidify it for me. the whole homecoming thing was a scene i BARELY got through because of secondhand embarrassment but i understand that they did that rather than just having abby reject him privately in order to make it more dramatic. it also ties into him later running up when simon runs out of tickets (which was a really interesting way to address simon’s brief consideration that blue was martin from the book lmao) because he understands what being publicly humiliated is like.

some things they left out that i missed where the whole trip to the gay bar, the fact they changed it so that he wasn’t a dementor for halloween, ALICE?? (i do get that casting is expensive though and adding the other sister would add more time to the plot), the english class (and sofa!!), and the whole oreo grocery store date at the end (which i do understand was cut for the sake of time and making the narrative flow). i found it funny how they changed the show from oliver to cabaret (especially because within my own school’s drama department there was a HUGE push from a bunch of students for us to do cabaret for our musical but administration shut us down because it was inappropriate), but it wasn’t a huge deal. Some little things i took note of were how simon’s bulletin board had a hamilton playbill, hufflepuff patch ( i own the exact one which is pinned to MY board??), and a spiderman pin, plus all the adventure time merch around and the two empty oreo containers stacked on his desk. while they didn’t keep the email the same, they wrote “hour to hour note to note” on the chalkboard wall behind his bed. someone also wrote “think” above his head which i actually read as “twink” the first time i noticed it. ethan was an interesting addition and i definitely understand that they did that in order to slip in another perspective for all of the non-lgbt people in the audience. same goes for the parent scenes. the whole simon-not-being-blond thing was forgivable, same thing with the glasses (although i missed the harry potter joke opportunities :\\) but personally, keiynan lonsdale was PERFECT as bram. like i loved him so much and couldn’t see bram as anyone else to be honest. (and had they kept bram’s personality the same as the book i think he could have still pulled it off great)

the soundtrack was incredible, like as a music lover i ADORE it and have been listening to it nonstop. some of the acting of the younger people was iffy in places but otherwise was REALLY GREAT and emotional and i cried during the dad scene post-coming out. I could really relate to simon a LOT and feel his helplessness when he was outed. even with the things that were changed that i wasn’t too fond of, the movie was awesome and i definitely recommend seeing it if you haven’t already!