#at showing their support irl than they are online | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iloveyouemanuelmarco · 1 month

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I don't understand how Vivziepop still has a fanbase anymore that unironically still supports her after all the scenarios of controversy where she brushes it off as petty internet drama from "petty envious antis" atleast before she runs off into her crowd of chronically online and discourse obsessed problematic adults on any social media platform(Mostly Twitter to be specific but still)who are just a group of yes-men for her to use to attack not even only children on the interwebs who just happen to be uncomfortable with the fandom she's cultivated over her career of a wannabe artist and animator, but other adults too who by the way are somewhat consisting of survivors of abuse, rape, are LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, neurodivergent/disabled and possibly more. It honestly makes me sad as it does angry because the concept of the show isn't that crazily impossible in my opinion atleast and it could of had so much potential to do way better if not only the obvious subject matters were treated with much more care in an attempt to rework the scripts but also if Viv didn't do half of the stuff she did just a bad person in general. Like...is that really the best you can do for your fanbase???You cannot be not-joking atleast a little bit when you're telling me that apparently not only are children not being stopped from engaging with an 18+ rated show(even though the amount of vulgar language is done so poorly that it could pass of as your average failed Newgrounds animation), but that they're literally being encouraged to interact with the fandom???Are you out of your mind???Don't even get me started on the other stuff that you all probably already know about such as the blatant mockery of S.A., abusive relationship dynamics, hypersexuality in victims of said scenarios that happen irl, having other such "jokes" including some sort of rapey scene at all and having someone who actively and openly supports "non-con" fiction???!!!! What is wrong with you people??And apparently I have to share the home of the beautiful planet Earth with these idiots choosing to have the cognitive dissonance and brain function of an almost-empty and dusty old peanut...Along with the fact that the woman herself treats her animators at Spindlehorse Productions(her studio I suppose)like utter dog-dung, she has proven to drag anyone who defies her problematic and dare I say dangerous behavior through the mud and gets away with it all because of her stans/fans making her the "face of independent animation/indie animators". I honestly feel so awful for those who may have genuinely looked up to her at one point, atleast not knowing how much of a horrible person she was behind the scenes of the computer screen but its whatever anyways I guess. If any aspiring makers of cartoons or comics(LGBTQIA+/BIPOC/Disabled preferred) would like to promote the stuff they male down below in my comments section than feel free☆. It's the least anyone can do under the storm that's being made and has happened for such a long time ughh. The project should have been attempted a little more to be prevented from the confines of those echo-chambery and gross parts of fandom-centric social media communities and It's so discouraging how long this has been going on too, but hey. She's the lady that unironically made a literal pedo character that she attempted to present as a villain while just having the original character end up as a sort of "cool af bad-girl aesthetic uwu" character. Oh my fucking God please stop at once I swear to the highest Heavens and the deepest, most darkest depths of Hell(Ironic).

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 month

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AITA for accidentally outing my fiance?

I (27F) am engaged to a 24M guy. He is trans, but he doesn't identify as trans anymore - he's post-everything, passes 100%, lives stealth/as a cis man, and no one who didn't know him pre-transition knows him as anything but a cis man. I know keeping that up is very important to him, we've had a lot of conversations about how happy he is just being seen as cis and being able to pass. I know getting outed and 'found out' is also a big worry of his, for example for our upcoming wedding he's rushing around trying to make it clear to his family that they shouldn't mention him being trans or refer to him as she/her at our wedding because he has so many friends coming who don't know he's trans. It's not that he doesn't trust them or he's ashamed of being trans or anything, he's very supportive of his trans friends, but he just doesn't publicly live as trans.

We're in a big Discord server of friends that have been quite close for about a year now, enough that we've met multiple of them in person and two of them are going to be in his wedding party as sort of 'best man' equivalents (we're not really sticking to bridesmaid best man stuff just our mixed gender friends). He has kept his Facebook very private for as long as I've known him, the only people on there are IRL friends and family because he has in the past posted trans stuff on there, like transition updates, it still has old pictures of him pre-T or in early transition, etc. I knew he didn't want this found. He also hadn't told any of this group aside from the people he was especially close with and had invited to the wedding his surname and location in case they looked him up and found something.

People in the server were sharing their Facebook profiles and I shared mine so people could add me. My fiance messaged me right after pointing out that me sharing mine would dox him as I had him in my relationship status and friends list, but I unfortunately didn't see this message for a while as I was distracted and doing other things. By the time I saw, everyone in the group had already clicked and gone through my profile and found his.

He tried to go through and speed-delete everything he could find that was public that mentioned him being trans or showed him pre-transition, any comments from family referring to it, etc but pictures that were set to friends only were still popping up in previews on the side and some of his family have public profiles that show cover images with him pre-T and things like that.

Our friends were making jokes about finally knowing his surname, going through his whole account down to the time it was first made back in 2018, commenting on old statuses of his, so they definitely saw his profile and went through all of it. He was panicking because he had no way of knowing if they'd seen that he's trans or not and got super upset and freaked out about the possibility, and he couldn't ask without outing himself or making them suspicious.

I apologized and deleted the link but obviously by then it was too late.

I do think it's not a huge deal as much as he thinks because I know our friends would be supportive and wouldn't think of him differently, but I know it was still important to him. I'm not sure they did see because some of our friends are the type to have just blurted out "You're trans?!" in the server without thinking about it (not because they're malicious or judging it, but some of them aren't as online and don't really know how to talk about it sensitively if that makes sense) and they didn't say anything. However he thinks they did because they were talking about statuses older than the ones he managed to get to deleting in time.

Like I said i did apologize but I feel like he's still upset with me for not thinking before sending my profile. On top of that I have kind of a habit of doing things impulsively and without thinking (I have bpd and bipolar) and not always taking into account how it will affect him or what consequences it will have,which I've been working on for years but I worry this is just adding to that which I know already wears on him.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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decolonize-the-left · 9 months

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.....does anyone else get the vibe that the limitless expanse of the internet, media, and consequent ability to interact politically, spiritually, and apathetically with people locally and globally maybe had an influence not only on the individual's relation to the collective but also their ability to participate in it and see their significance to it?

Can we talk about it?

Like I feel like as some who was a frontline activist and now is a disabled social activist who dabbles in radicalizing liberals... The wall I and my peers continuously keep running into is the collective feeling that someone else will do it.

"it" being whatever action.

For me it's signing a petition, protesting, donating, community organizing (both online and offline).

We get tons of interest on stuff. Interest which very rarely translates to doing more than showing a poster to the friend theyre with before trashing it, reblogging a post, or hitting "interested" or like when we post local events.

And on All these platforms posts gets to a point of "enough" responses where ppl just stop responding and sharing, too.

On Tumblr you see this a lot with donation posts and people constantly having to make new ones. Cuz they're getting notes, but not tangible assistance that will help them. And the reblogs stop because there are so many notes that ppl start assuming that the goal was met or will be met soon.

But that isn't what's happening. And like I said this isn't just with donation posts or money so the answer isn't "well ppl are broke" which would be an easy and sensible answer.

Honestly, I've been thinking that with so Many people easily accessible online with so many opinions and varying levels of popularity and followers that it's easy to lose yourself in them. Especially now when so much of life takes place online.

It's so easy to think you're just one of those many people. ....So surely nobody would notice if you were being a little facetious, right?

Gonna be real, it seems a lot to me like a lot of people are trying to hide their lack of integrity through the anonymity offered online.

And like sure maybe nobody would notice if it was just a few people being facetious about supporting something but it's SO MANY (in my experience? Upwards of a thousand once) and Everywhere. Online, offline, and apps.

And the thing that makes it weird is that every one is assuming that people are being more helpful than they are. That more people are showing up.... Even though they themselves are not showing up either. Like I said reblogs for donations stop, shares stop, and only a handful of ppl show up to events irl. You can literally compare reblogs to the signatures when a petition is being shared.

Wanting to show up isn't the same as showing up.

"People" are not coming to change or show up to the revolution. It's you. You are the people. You are the people that need to show up. Not just as a notification on my screen but actually, because you think someone else will have enough integrity to show up for you but they don't.

Your integrity matters.

You matter so much. I don't know what it is behind this mass behavior that has y'all acting otherwise but I'm telling y'all right now that YOU and the choices that YOU make matter. The events that you choose to spend your time at and how you spend your energy and protecting your rights matters!

That isn't some "im just another drop fighting an endless battle in the ocean" kind of deal.

I'm telling you from experience: there is no ocean! We are in a fucking drought and every drop matters.

Show up. Nobody else is doing it on your behalf.

.......or is it just me? Has anyone else noticed this

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sherryfortheoldlady · 5 months

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I don't think I've ever loved a fandom more than I've loved this one.

I've been in quite a few fandoms, and they all, in one way or another, had a negative emotional impact on me, until I got into the Good Omens fandom.

Being in this fandom is like being in a safe and cozy bubble, where no harm can get to you, and you feel secure and happy and reassured that the bubble will never pop, and you feel like everything is okay, you're okay, you're happy, you belong.

I love so many things about this fandom. I love how everyone is always nice and respectful towards other fans and actors and writers and just everyone. I love how almost every fan has a different theory/headcanon for a certain thing, yet they're so accepting and encouraging of other peoples' headcanons and loving of it even if it's completely different from the one they have.

I love how a Good Omens fan is the #1 supporter of another Good Omens fan, and yet they're also their #1 enemy.

I love how everyone always says that Good Omens fans have one goal in life and that is to make other Good Omens fans miserable, and yet everyone knows it's just a joke and they actually love every single bit of art and writing and poetry and eat that angst up happily because it's somehow the most beautiful thing ever.

I love how Neil Gaiman takes time to answer our questions and never makes us feel silly for asking them. Moreover, I love how he doesn't always make everything canon, even when fans ask if something is canon or not, and leaves space for our imagination to make theories and headcanons and enjoy setting endless possibilities.

I love how both him and Michael Sheen interact with fans online. I love how Michael replies to pieces of fanwork and fans' stories and tweets and how he's always so supportive and enthusiastic about it all.

I love how Michael and David (mostly Michael) jump at every opportunity to talk about how Aziraphale and Crowley are in love, how much they mean to each other, how much they care, how they're the Yin to each others' Yang.

I love how Michael, David, and Neil are always so so so nice when interacting with fans (both online and irl) and how they always make us feel appreciated and loved. I love how they 100% support all fanwork and fan fictions and never spoke horribly about people who make them but instead encouraged them because it just shows how much people love the show and how much it actually means to them.

This fandom is the one place where I've felt safe to share my thoughts online without the fear of being attacked by other people for having different views than them, and I was anxious with my first post, but now I'm always excited to post something or just see what's new, knowing that I've found a place where I won't be criticised or judged for what I enjoy. A place I feel safe.

I genuinely love this fandom and everyone involved in it so so much. Please never change you all are amazing<3

#a 4am appreciation post #i genuinely love this fandom a lot though #never felt happier than i do here #always makes me feel so much better even after ive had a horrible day #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens fandom #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #michael sheen #david tennant #neil gaiman #<3

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myoddessy · 1 year

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out with the old, in with the new | w2s/harry lewis

summary —new accounts, new lifestyle, new clubs every night. an insight into just what—and who—youtube's non-youtuber it girl got up to during her split from harry

*once again following the lead of @whoetoshaw and her bog universe's iconic breakup era ALSO, one of the twitter threads is rlly grainy and I'm sorry abt that, i couldn't properly fix it so you have to just zoom in on it 😭

2023, January

2018, July.

liked by zoeleonards, taliamar, masonmount, and 11, 824 others

yourusername lay all your love on me 🌻🍹☀️

tagged: zoeleonards, chloemitchells

zoeleonards london reality, greece fantasy 💔😞

yourusername ibiza couldn't come sooner!

wroetominter OMGOMG IVE DREAMED ABOUT YOU RETURNING TO SOCIAL MEDIA

ynfan omg shes glowing 🤩🤩

chloemitchells mykonos has never looked better 🤤😍😘

yourusername love u, lover girl 😘😘 ❤️❤️

2018, August.

liked by chloemitchells, tobjizzle, leahwilliamson, and 20,349 others

yourusername snuck behind a dj booth and had a blast, had a few more shots than I should've, fell more in love with my girls. ibiza, you will forever be famous 🍾✨️

zoeleonards it was nice having the hotel room to just myself and Chloe for a bit x 🤣🤭

ynfangirl DOES THIS MEAN THE MASON MOUNT RUMOURS ARE TRUE??

chloemitchells @ynfangirl who's that? never heard of him 🤷‍♀️

ynloverrrr it HAS to be true

freyanightingale beautiful girl ❤️

yourusername ❤️❤️❤️

sidemenfav the way that her, freya, and talia still like each others posts and support each other 💔

liked by yourusername, taliamar, and freyanightingale

ynandharry tobi likes every one of her posts, too. they really are family no matter what 😭

2019, January

liked by pierregasly, zerkaa, mabel, and 30,568 others

yourusername we're able to have semi-classy girls trips, who knew?

tagged: zoeleonards

chloemitchells gutted I couldn't make it, I miss u two beautiful girls 😭❤️

yourusername CHLO!!! it wasn't the same without you, babe xx

zoeleonards I missed placing bets on who y/n was gonna make a move on 💔

yourusername IM NOT THAT BAD ZOË JESUS

chloemitchells yeah, give her some slack... it's usually placing bets on who's gonna make a move on her 😉

ynfanpage queen we need tips on how to live our best lives because you are teaching us all rn

yourusername 1) the only long term relationship you need to focus on is the one with yourself. 2) surround yourself with people you love and support & who will love and support you. 3) learn to not give a fuck what anyone else things because everyone's too busy in their own heads to care ❤️❤️

taliaminterr how is your life so aesthetic?? irl gossip girl vibes!!

yourusername babe trust my life doesn't look like this day to day, I only show the fun bits. rn it's 4am and I've got four day old greasy hair, dried mascara under my eyes (I watched UP without taking off my makeup first), and I'm eating cereal and drinking flat coke zero. I am not the standard you should aim for 😭😭

ynslover I love how open and honest she is about her content. she's actually such a good role model

liked by taliamar, freyanightingale, chloemitchells, and 19,519 others

yourusername apparently people think the party life in my photo dumps is my day-to-day? babes, if I can teach any of you one thing in life, it's that half the shit you see online is fake. half the 'candid' moments are staged, same goes for almost every picture you see. so here's a little dump of my actual reality

zoeleonards yeah guys she's actually so messy it's insane. it makes me want to move out

yourusername SHUT IT. zoë has about three different vases of dead flowers in her room because she forgets to take them out.

zoeleonards that's nothing on the old cups in your room

yourusername BLOCKING U

ynslover how does it feel to be the most relatable influencer ever even though you're not an influencer?

taliamar omg you've still got the vinyls!!

yourusername ofc, babe! I needed something to remember our days of charity shop hopping

2023, January

#harry wroetoshaw #harry x reader #harry lewis #harry lewis x reader #wroetoshaw #wroetoshaw x reader #w2s #w2s x reader #w2s imagine #sidemen #the sidemen x reader #the sidemen #social media au #talia mar #miniminter #ksi #tobjizzle #freya nightingale

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interstellarsystem · 3 months

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Alterhumanity in the Family

Our youngest sister has started saying that she's a therian online. She showed us this by commenting that we're in the same Roblox group (an alterhuman one) after she asked to see what groups we were in and it's also written in her bio. We've since talked a little bit about her theriotype.

Now... This is cool and all, we've always wanted someone to relate to in the family. Regardless of if she sticks with the identity or not, it's nice and the things she's said make it seem like she sees her identity as past life based so it seems about as serious as we were when we were that young. It's good for her that she would have someone to relate to growing up as well if she needs it, we weren't fortunate enough to have that.

This brings some extra complications though.

Our family has proven to be anti-alterhuman. At one point, one of our other siblings who is a bit older than the therian one was mocking furries in the living room with everyone around. The father asked what a furry is, and she explained that it is "people who want to be animals" to which we tried to interject and talk about how it's an art and community/fandom thing and not about literally being an animal, but we were ignored. She cut us off and then started talking about her "friend" who "thinks she's a therian" which means "thinks she's part animal", to which our conservative christian father said to "declaw her" and "if she thinks she's an animal, treat her like one and put her in the shelter". I don't even know how they got to those insults immediately, I guess they're the common ones for a reason? But from that, we decided that we wouldn't talk about being a furry let alone being alterhuman around them ever because the fight would be more hassle than anything good that could possibly come of it--they already ignored us once about it, they're likely to brush us off again.

So, yeah. It's an issue. We know what this house is like, and we know the parents have already mocked her for things that as far as they know is just playing pretend. Hell, it could be only playing pretend and nothing more and we'd still see this as an issue.

We're open about alterhumanity elsewhere IRL, just not in our own home due to the cons outweighing the pros, but now we have someone to defend. It's a case of regardless of whether she's playing pretend or not, right now, she is using the label and doesn't deserve to be mocked for it--serious identity or not. So we're at the point where we're mentally preparing ourselves to actually speak up whenever is necessary. We want to support her as best we can with anything at all, really, but this situation in particular hits close to home for us and we don't want her to feel as lonely as we did.

I know she's young and even if the parents end up listening to us, they'll dismiss her based on how young she is. They do it with LGBT+ identities, this will be no better. But we knew when we were that young, and regardless of if she "grows out of it" or not, she deserves respect. We're going to try our best to get it for her, as scary as it is.

#alterhuman #therian #otherkin #nonhuman #op #vince (he/they)#everything althu #everything otherkin #tw #tw: alterhumisia #tw: antikin #tw: queerphobia #tw: abuse #tagged warnings just in case

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castielslostwings · 10 months

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A Eulogy and Obituary for Dagny Ayn September 13, 1978 -- February 2023.

I am devastated beyond words to share that the wonderful Dagny Ayn (who you may know as daynz or meta_castiel on twitter) is no longer with us. Her sudden passing is a shock and the urge to speculate on details is understandable, but I hope we can focus on her light instead, because Dagny doesn't deserve to have her life defined by how it ended. Dagny did not receive the recognition of her life and memorialization of her existence that she deserved out in the real world, so I thought to give it to her here, as well as create a place for those of us who loved her to come together and grieve, to share about her memory as we should.

Dagny was here. Please read and celebrate her life with me.

To do it online seems right. I truly believe Dagny would approve. The online Supernatural fandom (and especially the Destiel-friendly spaces), served as her community, her chosen family. Like so many of us, fandom was her life vest, her social circle, her escape from the harshness of the non-virtual world, and the source of most joy in her life. To anyone who knew her, it was no secret as to how much Dagny loved this little corner of the internet.

On a personal note, Dagny was one of the first people I connected with after joining the fandom, and we immediately bonded over our mutual love for Buffy and Supernatural. Especially Willow/Tara, Misha Collins, Castiel, and Destiel. We shared many similar life struggles, from past trauma and complex parental relationships to mental health and disability challenges to a lack of IRL support and chronic loneliness.

The friend group I shared with her and @coinofstone was one of the safest places I have ever known. Talking to Dagny never failed to leave me feeling heard and understood. I hope I was able to do the same for her.

Dagny was strong. Despite the many obstacles life constantly hurled in her direction, she was always looking forward and moving towards the future. She saw the best in people, even those who failed her, those who didn't deserve her grace and forgiveness. She loved her mother more than anything in the world, and Chelsea, her cat, a very close second.

(she would definitely want me to show you Chelsea!) When Dagny's mother and main support system passed unexpectedly in recent years, Dagny was handed a new armful of struggles and asked to face an uncertain future without the person she loved most and with barely enough resources to survive. She was uprooted from her home and moved clear across the country, losing so much in the process and dropped in a precarious situation. Despite all of that, she had big goals for herself. She was working hard to build the life she wanted despite a major lack of family & IRL support as well as her own demons.

Dagny was amazing at appreciating the simplest things. A free coffee at Tim's, some stickers in the mail, or a small windfall that allowed her to purchase a meal kit from the grocery store would brighten her entire week and she would gush about how happy she was for days. When she first moved cities after losing her mom, she talked about how thrilled she felt to have big windows and a view of the city, as she'd lived in a basement walkout for years. Her enthusiasm for those things, even in the face of great struggle, was always humbling and contagious.

Dagny was easy to love.

As for fandom, Dagny especially loved Misha, Castiel, and Destiel, and did so fiercely. She read tens of thousands of words of fanfic every day, frequently messaging me from the bus to complain about rowdy passengers "interrupting her gay porn". One time, she lost her phone and worried to me (from her laptop) about losing her entire collection of fanart, 100+ AO3 tabs, and the SPN-related photos she had saved, unconcerned about the actual phone and her ability to contact IRLs.

With what little extra money Dagny had (and how infrequently she could be convinced to treat herself), she enjoyed collecting fandom merch, especially items made by her favorite fan artists. She ALWAYS had a Destiel case from redbubble on her phone! Her Ace pin from Stands was a treasured item.

Dagny greatly admired Misha's missions and charity work very much, following GISH closely and always striving to share and his boost campaigns and those of other cast members. She would often express that she wished she could do or donate more, even while she struggled to provide bare essentials for herself. Dagny was selfless like that.

As full as her phone was with saved memes, cast photos, Castiel/Destiel art, and fanfic links, it was equally brimming with people who loved Dagny herself. She often expressed how happy and connected seeing notifications on her social posts made her feel, how loved she felt by her friends and fellow shippers.

Discovering the Ace spectrum through fandom empowered Dagny to feel confident in expressing her identity, allowing her to name and define a feeling and concept she could never quantify before. She felt very strongly about wearing her Ace pride on her sleeve. We spoke many times about the power of fandom and online community to turn shame and confusion into confidence and love, and Dagny truly embraced that concept. She was a wonderful role model for embracing your true self.

Dagny had many hopes for a bright future. She was trying to find a job and gain more financial independence, and she had a whole plan to do so. She was smart and motivated. She was also haunted and wrestled constantly with demons that just wouldn't let her go.

We talked frequently about finally meeting at an SPN convention, once she was able. One of Dagny's dreams was to have a photo op with Misha as Castiel, and we spent many nights planning excitedly for a theoretical day that we hoped would come. Since then, she fell in love with Heartstopper and dipped into other fandoms and was living her best online life. Dagny had so much room in her heart.

So many things, not the least of which were time and borders, kept us from ever meeting in person, but our friendship was no less real for those barriers.

To Dagny: family doesn't end in blood. Jen and I both love you and choose you back. We know you were here. You made an impact and we'll never forget you. This wasn't supposed to be the end of the road, but you taught me that sometimes life has other plans and there's nothing to do but roll with them.

Until we meet again, my friend. thank you for being you.

If you would like to do something to honor Dagny, her life, and her passions, she would want you to donate to The Castiel Project. It's particularly fitting, as besides being a beloved project to her, Dagny also deserved a happy ending that just wasn't in the cards.

Please feel free to leave your memories and/or love for Dagny here.

#in memoriam #destiel fandom #spn family #dagny ayn

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alittlebitofloveliness · 29 days

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5, 14, 15, 17

More outsiders asks? Heck yeah!

5. What are your favourite ships?

a) Curly Shepard x Ponyboy Curtis- idk why other than the fact that fanon Curly seems to balance out Ponyboy perfectly, and that I read a Curly fit on ffn when I was like fifteen that fundamentally changed my brain chemistry

b) Steve Randle x Sodapop Curtis- I don’t like any other within gang ship but Soda and Steve make sense to me and ngl my closeted ass clocked them as gay when I was reading the book because of the ‘pillow fight’ scene. I genuinely answered a comprehension question in class like ‘Ponyboy’s naïveté is shown through the fact he believes soda never drinks and that Soda and Steve were having a pillow fight when they slept together’ and my teacher had to be like oh sweetie no….

c) Marcia x Two-bit Matthews- Not a HUGE fan but they had such chemistry and I wish that could’ve been explored. I’m actually working on a fit about them rn, just because I wanna explore Marcia’s psyche. She was fun :)

14. Five headcanons I basically see as canon

a) Steve is secretly SUPER protective of Ponyboy, partially because he knows Sodapop would never be ok if something ever happened to Pony and he couldn’t stand it if Soda’s spark ever went out, but also because he wants Ponyboy to have the happy childhood he never had.

b) Darry absolutely dotes on Ponyboy, even though he’s strict, he’s lenient about letting Pony go places and works overtime to make sure he can afford to get Ponyboy everything he needs (and some stuff he simply wants), especially after Windrixville.

c) Johnny Cade is scary looking. Full stop. The gang just doesn’t see him that way so it doesn’t show in Ponyboy’s narration

d) Dallas Winston had a good mom and a happy childhood and her death was the catalyst that made him into the hoodlum he was.

e) Sodapop Curtis absolutely drinks, Ponyboy just doesn’t believe he does and Soda is not anxious to correct him because he doesn’t want Ponyboy to see him differently

15. Five headcanons that are entirely self-indulgent

a) Angela Shepard and Curly Shepard have to share a room because Tim refuses to share with anyone. Neither of them actually hates it half as much as they pretend they do.

b) Part of why Curly and Ponyboy became close was because Ponyboy was struggling with getting over his concussion, and the side effects were really stressful for him (dizzy spells, blurry vision, absentmindedness) and Curly kinda helped him with it because Curly spent 90% of his childhood concussed so he knew what Pony was going through

c) Tim Shepard and Sylvia are best friends and would kill for each other but not die for each other. However, they would avenge each other’s deaths.

d) Steve Randle wishes more than anything in the world that Darry Curtis was actually his irl older brother

e) Two-bit’s little sister HATES Ponyboy Curtis because her older brother spends more time playing older brother to him than he spends actually being an older brother to her.

17. Are there any criticisms or salt you have with the book?

My criticisms with the book lie with the author. SE Hinton has proven to be homophobic and racist, and its written into the book, which is my biggest issue. I love the story of The Outsiders but do not want to support Hinton or her harmful, bigoted ideology under any circumstances. (For anyone out there who wants a copy of the book but doesn’t want to support Hinton, you can find a free pdf online, all you gotta do is google it)

On a slightly lighter note, I would have loved to have seen more of the female characters in the book. Marcia in particular had so much potential, and I wish we’d seen one actual scene with Sandy or Sylvia.

Thanks for the ask!!!!!

#the outsiders #angela shepard #curly shepard #tim shepard #ponyboy curtis #darry curtis #johnny cade #sodapop curtis #dallas winston #headcanon #two bit mathews #marcia the outsiders #marcia x two bit #purly #steve randle #stevepop

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catboybiologist · 9 months

Text

I'm trans! Here's a way-too-long ramble on my internal thoughts on that!

My other posts on this:

https://www.tumblr.com/catboybiologist/725852054829023232/im-going-to-document-some-things-about-my?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/catboybiologist/725851397783011328/the-short-answer-is-no-but-im-gonna-have-a?source=share

So yay I’m trans! Which like, is neither unexpected nor abnormal for the community I’ve fostered here, so I’m guessing most of y’all’s reactions is just a “hey cool”. But, you see the online side of me, not the irl side, so there’s still a lot of thoughts to sort out on my end. So I’m dumping a lot of thoughts here to sort all that out. And hoooly shit, it got very long, and I still feel like I have more to say… but yeah. If you wanna hear some perspectives on my relation to gender, transness, and femboy culture, read on!

I guess the best way I can think to style this is as an interview with an imaginary third person, sooo…. Bold text is questions I can imagine people having LOL

So what’s my own personal relationship with the term femboy, catboy, and gendered terminology in general? Is the name of your accounts gonna change?

Short answer, no. I like the name CatboyBiologist. “Catboy” itself is a term that is completely untethered from gender at this point to me. Tbqh, the “cat” part feels more wrong than the boy part- as time goes on, I’ve generally ditched the cat ears for most of my outfits as I take them a bit more seriously. Maybe that’ll change when my transition actually starts, but for now, CatboyBiologist stays, and the femboy related language stays in all of my own past posts (keyword, past- more on that in a bit).

I’m not gonna be updating my approach to pronouns. Any pronouns do just fine, I’m sending a vibe into the world and pronouns are my feedback as to what other people interpret that vibe is. Default to they/them if you don’t know what to do with that.

I will be updating my pinned post to link all of these posts, but mostly copy/paste the information from before. That might take a moment cuz I’m lazy, tbh.

And let’s get something else out of the way.

I’m not socially transitioning yet, and probably won’t for a while.

Which, I think leads to a lot of follow up:

Well, why not?

I present fully male and masculine on a day to day basis, and look the part too. Part of it is just this looks insecurity. The mask stays on in my pictures for a reason. Beyond just facial hair (which grows aggressively on me and always shows some shadow), my face looks pretty masculine overall. It takes time to look the way I do in my posts. I wanna give my face and body some time to change so I can look more femme in more casual ways before I present it to the world.

Beyond that, I’m also just worried about being “accepted” as femme straight off the bat. Implicitly, I know this will be easier if I already have some small amounts of physical feminization down my belt.

There’s two main environments that worry me: family, and professionally. Family is a weird hot mess grey area that is too personal to talk about here, but the professional atmosphere is certainly going to be a bit… weird. I live in an accepting geographic region, and around people who are very outspokenly trans supportive…. But most of whom are cishet and simply don’t have a lot of experience seeing or working around trans people. I’m more afraid of being seen as “trans first, biologist second” as far as my career is concerned, than I am about outright transphobia. I know this will never fully go away, and given that I’m 6’2”, I’ll probably never “fully” pass- but I’d at least like people to implicitly read my as femme on a gut level before I start changing how I present that way. One thing my irl femboy experience has shown me is that, even if people can “clock” you intellectually, the way their gut instinct reads you affects whether they treat you as masc or femme. I hope that makes sense on some level. Of course its always going to be an awkward shift, but I hope some time on HRT will make it less awkward.

I’ve come out to one person that doesn’t know about this online persona, or the depths of my queerness. They straight up told me they were shocked. They were incredibly supportive, but they told me they didn’t see it coming at all. And they already knew that I “crossdressed occasionally”. So that’s kinda what I’m working with here.

Essentially, I’m not actually truly “transitioning” in a real sense yet. More than that, I feel like I’m getting the ball rolling. If there’s anything I learned in my research, it’s that HRT takes a while, much longer than anyone expects (suppressing my rant about how the media cherrypicks people in early transition for trans representation and the effect that has on public perception). Two years is often cited as the “end” point, but based on both scientific and anecdotal accounts, that is wildly untrue and variable. I also know that the first changes onset quickly (skin and mood, most notably), but that overall body shape changes sometimes take a VERY long time to start and progress. So to be quite honest, I barely feel like I’m transitioning yet, I’m just laying groundwork for the future.

So yeah. I’m gonna be boymoding for a bit. Possibly a year or more. Even for the people who know, I’ve still asked them to address me as he/him or they/them, and use my masculine name for now (haven’t even really decided on a femme name yet, although I have ideas [open to suggestions as well]).

Wait, so why address it online at all?

Put simply, honesty. I’m displaying a lot of selfies and experimentation with my look here, and I want to make it abundantly clear what I’m doing to have an effect on that. People have asked me if I’m on HRT in comments before, and like, I’m not gonna lie about that. Might as well also make a shitpost, a data gathering post, and a too-long ramble about it as well (which you’re reading now!).

There are a LOT of body image issues in femboy spaces (and trans spaces too!), often among very young people. While I have no issue with people on HRT continuing to call themselves a femboy (more on that in a bit), I do think transparency on that matter is helpful for those body image issues.

So to make it abundantly clear: all of my selfies and pictures that I’m labeling and tagging as “femboy” are pre-HRT. In the future, everything I tag with “trans” is post-HRT. I still got 1-2 weeks before actually starting, and I’m still going to use the femboy tag for any outfits I post during that time. The moment an estradiol pill hits my mouth, though, new pics will use trans tags.

Posts that relate to discussion of the interplay of the communities, and how I view myself within them, I’ll tag with both.

Which leads to another follow up question. This one isn’t about me specifically, but it’s my hot take about a certain brand of trans discourse I’ve seen around (mostly on reddit tbh):

Why would someone who knows they’re mtf trans willingly call themselves a femboy and/or request people to “misgender” them?

So this is actually gonna be striking a nerve with me, and I know I’m gonna kinda be strawmanning here by arguing against the ghost of reddit comments past. I’m not gonna try to dig any of them up in the internet archive, but they are sentiments I’ve seen multiple times.

I’ve seen this question almost word for word in the comments of trans subreddits multiple times. Imma be blunt, and it’s maybe gonna sound a little mean. If this thought is going through your head, you’re likely way more sensitive and particular about labels than most people. And that’s okay! Ask people to address you how you want, you deserve that respect! But the real answer to this question is that many people simply don’t mind being called whatever label is most useful or familiar to themselves in various contexts.

The moment that it becomes completely unacceptable is when someone does actually change their pronouns, name, presentation, etc, and people still address them as “male” or “femboy”. That is completely the fuck out of line, and if you don’t agree, fuck off.

Why does this strike a little bit of a nerve with me? Well, the “conclusion” I saw reached in these trans spaces multiple times when the subject was brought up was annoying as hell. That conclusion was that the only or primary reason that people labeled themselves a femboy, even while on HRT… was to sell their onlyfans. My fucking god, seriously? This is just conservative rhetoric. Luckily, on tumblr, it seems that people are a lot more accepting towards people using whatever language they like to describe themselves, which I’ve enjoyed a lot.

I’ve also had a lot of hate towards “fencesitting” directed at me on reddit, from trans people, for calling myself a femboy. I can’t remember it verbatim, but I very distinctly recall getting a DM that went something like “I fucking hate femboys, just transition already. You’re making us (transfemmes) look bad.” So yeah. Bit of a sore spot.

Yadda yadda yadda the personal journey shit

If I can be real for a moment…. In an ideal world, I would still want to be a part time femboy. Even moreso than the sheer utility of it all (eg, enjoy cis male privilege when I want, but still get treated more femme in certain contexts), it feels almost more profound to fuck with gender norms without sitting on one side of the gender line or another. But I can’t really ignore what I’ve described as my “mental resting state”- a baseline crackle of dysphoria that fills the space in my head when there’s nothing else to fill it. It’s easily distracted, but its always there, and I can’t imagine living my life that way anymore.

I’ve pretty much known I was trans since I was about 12, and had a realization that puberty was just starting to hit me, and I hated it. I suppressed it deeply, for many, many reasons that I don’t think I want to share here. But it made a lot of other mental health struggles in my life a lot worse, even if I didn’t consciously acknowledge that’s what was happening. By the time I was willing to consciously acknowledge it, I realized that my dysphoria wasn’t so bad as to dive in right away. But, I made moves to stabilize my life overall, which have been massively beneficial to me in other ways as well.

During the pandemic, I found myself living alone for the first time ever. So during the pandemic, in one last ditch effort to try to convince myself I wasn’t trans, I delved into femboy aesthetics to try and “just be a feminine man”.

That failed.

So yeah, here I am. I have a wonderful queer community both irl and online, a meagre but stable income, health insurance that has great coverage for trans care, and accepting people around me in my life. It’s long overdue. Maybe I’ll beat myself up for waiting so long and masculinizing so much as a result, but I don’t think I really could have done it any other way.

This all said, I don’t actually really consider myself a woman yet. I’m sure many of you are aware of two different ways transfemmes view themselves(and trans people in general, but using a transfemme perspective here):

-Some view themselves as having always been girls or women, but took some time to realize it and make their body more comfortable for themselves with that information.

-Others view themselves as boys or men who made efforts to become women later.

I fall strongly in the second line of thinking for myself. For my own personal experiences, even though I have felt dysphoria for a long time, I don’t really think I’m “actually” a woman yet. I don’t know what my identity as a woman looks like yet. But I deeply want to discover and create who that person is, and there’s no way to do that without transitioning.

B but… BASIC BIOLOGY!!!!!

How many biology degrees do you have? I got a BS and an MS, and I’m working on my PhD. I’m sure you’ve brought a similar level of expertise to this discussion.

But seriously, I could genuinely write an entire fucking essay about how studying biology has influenced my views on this subject, but honestly, that’s an entirely different topic. But tl;dr is that bioessentialism is brainrot, and if someone tries to use essentialist language to “justify” someone’s transness (or gender in general)… well, I think they’re wrong. Plain and simple. We don’t say someone isn’t “really able to see” if they put glasses in front of their eyes.

I’m stopping myself before I write more here, because this warrants another post or even a fucking video essay, to be quite honest. But yeah. Biology based.

Conclusion?

Uhhhh… in conclusion, I’m not particular about language or pronouns you use for me, I’m making posts about it anyways to ensure honesty associated with my selfies, if you’re transphobic jump of the tallest bridge you can find. I think that about covers it.

#femboy #transitioning #trans #transgender #mtf #cross dressing

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wingzie · 3 months

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Hi.

Your experience as a Jikookers is the same as the experience of Taekookers. Extreme shippers fighting and having meltdowns on the TL make a lot of people equate the unit name with these behaviors.

Sadly the first thought that came to my mind when Jimin mentioned JK is that tkk would make a scene about it. Instead of just feeling relief they are doing well, or just comfort we're getting news, I felt dread. And the worst is I was right.

I'm really struggling with the state of the fandom now, especially twitter fandom. People say you just have to curate your online experience and most sane armys are just taking a break from SNS and everything will get better once the guys start coming back from MS. I'm not this optimistic.

I've been thinking finding fellow ARMY irl could be better. But there's still a good chance to meet someone you would block straight away online.

I'm not a very social person. I used to come online to find people remisniscing, celebrating, sharing.. There's always been hating but now it feels like it's only hating (and comparing numbers). There was a clear shift from COVID on. It's not just solo endeavors and MS. You said it, how the way to handle things has changed.

I don't know how to fend off all the negativity any more than I know how to casually meet ARMY offline. I dream of an ARMY community manager, of a campaign about mental heal, abusive relationships (how many think they know better than the members what's good for them and think they are actually showing love and support when they are just being abusive), how to make the parasocial relationship a positive thing, etc.... A lot of these people who make ARMY spaces unbreathable actually need help.

Hi Anon! I'm sorry you feel this way. I feel like some Army experienced feelings of anger or betrayal since the Festa Dinner, which has made them unfairly lash out on the members. Some cannot cope that we lost an aspect of control, but this has always been the members decision and we have to accept that with respect. As I said in my other post, the heart of Army is massively the same. Just this morning I saw a Tweet about the Purple Ocean from Muster and it reminded me of the Flashlight project during PTD. There will ALWAYS be discourse online. That is the reason for it's existence. I am in other fandoms and they all suffer from the same issues since Covid and Elon. However, for every "bad" person or post, there are plenty of good ones out there. If you look for then. I mentioned to someone yesterday that it's like when people always leave awful reviews for a bad meal, but very rarely mention when they have a good meal. That's why I always try to find a balance. Both Jimin and Namjoon have told us over the years to not engage with negativity and I have always taken those words to heart. Things in online spaces have changed, but I guess I am more of a fighter and optimist. For each negative post I see, I spend more time posting/repositing posts that spread positivity or praise. I see no point in boosting some random February 2024 account sprewing hate. We have to be responsbile or our own spaces and I DO think things will improve once Jin returns. There's still that shared joy and excitement whenever a member posts or content comes out. It's just that the negative is less contained than it used to be. As for events offline. My first event was for a local screening of one of the concerts. I then attended a few events for members Birthday's. With the HYYH anniversay coming up, maybe you could look into seeing if there's any events for it? It's also Sope's Birthday soon and I plan to go to events for each of their Birthday's, so that could also be an option. However, if you dont' feel comfortable going in person, then that is perfectly acceptable. I'm sure there will be no judgement! We all have our own ways. For example, I always buy a mini cake for each members' Birthday haha. Though I had some negative experiences offline, there have been some really good ones. That's just how things are and then you can take the steps to protect yourself afterwards. I'm actually going to another event with the same group I mentioned before. If it doesn't go well, then I will just leave. If things have improved, then I will stay and enjoy myself. I understand it's not easy though, especially when we have certain expectations. Please do look after yourself though and feel free to DM me if you wish to discuss further. Much Love Wingzie/Becca

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 3 months

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WIBTA if I told my online friend that they embarrass me?

Note that I love my friend. It's more complicated than the title suggests And no it isn't bait!

So, I (20X) have a few profiles on social media. My online friend (22X) follows me everywhere with the same account. We've been friends for a very long time

Their account is cringe. Easiest way to describe it. They've had it ever since they were a kid, it has that horrible uwu humor from the mid 2010s all over it, old fanart, old fics, "cursed" fandoms, you name it. They've linked every other account they've ever had so there's even more stuff. It's exactly what you'd expect from someone who's really into fandom and has been using the same account for the past decade

Let me be clear! Being cringe isn't bad, if anything long live cringe and having fun. I'm no stranger to it, we literally share the same interests and I contributed to half the things on their account. Even if I keep my online and private life separate I don't think it's bad to do otherwise

I'm glad they're more immune to cringe culture than I am and I don't want them to be like me. This embarrassment is my issue, I care too much about people's opinions, I know that. That's why I'm trying to fix it! And ironically it's where the problems start

I want to get over my fear of showing my drawings to people I know IRL. I decided to make a private account for my IRL friends to follow and select what to post so I can get used to it bit by bit. Exposure therapy basically

I know it sounds stupid but I have diagnosed social anxiety and for me it's a really big deal. I can barely cope with this much. Please don't mistake it as a chronically online issue, it's happening online simply because it's easier for me but it affects my life in many ways as a disorder does. I'm just trying to step out of my comfort zone in my own terms through something I'm passionate about

I invited my online friend because I love them and I appreciate their support. But again they use that same account for everything and they'll use it to interact with me. I know my IRL friends will see it, and they'll probably see our shitty old fanfics and cursed collab fandom posts where I'm clearly involved. That's not stepping out of my comfort zone in my own terms anymore

This is stopping me from posting anything or let my IRL friends know about the account. I want to try and figure something out with my friend, but if I confront them it'll come across as "you're embarrassing me" no matter how I word it. I don't want to come up with a lie or block them from my profile without explanation because that feels even worse

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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moschiola · 3 months

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Hello sorry to bother you with this all of sudden ,and this might be coming out of nowhere, and I’m not trying to force you or be pushy but I m trying to get more people into this show with great potential. If your not interested it’s fine but Have you heard of or watched moon girl and devil dinosaur? Season 2 comes out February 2.

The main character i love she gives me autistic vibes I’m autistic. The show has interesting characters, action ,great music, and animation ,good themes and representation, Anime references, it even has an eyecatch season 2 is going to be more story driven if you find that interesting.

It be good if you watch the first 2 season 2 episode when they air so the ratings will be higher. And watch the other season 2 episodes when they air.

I think Disney might be trying to sabotage the show with them probably dropping 14 episodes on Disney + on February 3. They did similar with season 1 and the ratings where low ,please watch season 2 episodes when they air on. But more importantly also watch it on Disney + on feb 3 and when they air it on YouTube. Unfortunately they are dropping 14 episodes on Disney + so watch them all in one day but also when they air the first time.

I’m not just saying only cable just also. I’m saying please support this show. Despite that it still won 5 Emmys. Also if it’s no trouble could if it alright with you spread the word about this show to others you know like either online or irl. Time is limited!

Hey! I don't want to brag or anything but I'm kinda-sorta friends with the director of the show. He's one of the most talanted friends I have and I'm so proud of him winning an Emmy. It's more than well-deserved. I have some of his old One Piece art sketched in pen from almost 20 years ago framed on my wall. How insane is that! EVERYONE GO WATCH MOON GIRL!!! IT'S A GREAT SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#signal boost #moon girl and devil dinosaur

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angelosearch · 2 months

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I wanted to share something my therapist and I discussed today that perhaps will be helpful for others.

So I have been having a great time lately, sinking deep into fandom, writing, and creating art. It's been invigorating. I am so inspired and I feel as though I have found my people.

But I told my therapist that I had a lingering sense of guilt about it. Does socializing on Tumblr make me a shut-in? Does having a lot of internet friends make me chronically online? Is it a bad thing that I look forward to spending weekends writing and painting and listening to music instead of going out with friends or traveling?

She asked me: Why would it be bad? Who told you that?

"Dateline, probably," I said. "Chris Hansen."

Truthfully, I did an independent study of technology and rhetoric in college and I know, from a psychological perspective, there are some things a digital relationship just can't do for your brain. So Sherry Turkle is probably the other answer.

But what is community? How does it form?

Communities typically form around a common geographic location, goal, or interest. Your neighborhood is your community. If you like soccer, maybe your community is your sports team and those who cheer for it. If you want to celebrate a certain deity, your community may be the people you do that with. These forms of community normally have clear physical meeting locations.

"But your main interests are consuming and creating media," my therapist said. She's not wrong. "Where can you go for that community?"

In the physical world, there is no space or infastructure to support communities around all interests. There are video game clubs, sure. There are meetup groups for certain shows. But these communities are often small, transient, gatekept, inaccessible, or in far-flung parts of the country. I am sure all communities have those issues in some respect, but really - where can you physically and consistently meet up with people interested in a variety of media for free in a physical space?

Libraries? Maybe?

The internet is the space for my main interest. This is where I can go to be myself and be excited and know that I will be celebrated for it by people who feel the same. We are a community of people who love FFVIII or writing or media of all types. There shouldn't be shame in that because it is a goddamn miracle that this space exists and I can share it with people of all ages all around the world.

So, Chris Hansen, Sherry Turkle, and everyone who snickers at my internet usage: yeah, maybe there are some things I can't do/have online. But there are some things I can't have offline either!

I am not chronically online. I am enthusiastically online. I love this little corner of the internet and it's okay if it sometimes feels better than doing stuff "irl." I can enjoy being here and not feel guilty and still go afk and "touch grass" or whatever. Both can be true.

#mainly writing this to pound it into my own head because I can feel guilty about anything at anytime #it's my superpower #personal essay #journaling #kinda vent #therapy recap #personal #therapy

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butterflydm · 9 months

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WoT reread: The Strike at Shayol Ghul & some final thoughts, post-reread

So, I was not planning to do a full reread back when I first picked EotW back up again! My primary motivation was to refresh myself on books 1-3 so that I would be prepared for S2 of the show, lol.

But I'm glad that I did this reread. There was a lot in the books that I had forgotten or where I'd bought into the fandom party line despite the books themselves not supporting the arguments imo, so it was great to dive into them again and see what I think and not simply what general fandom thinks. Thanks so much to everyone who commented on or interacted with my reread posts. <3

While this next bit is technically not a reread because I never got around to reading it when it first came out, I went ahead and read "The Strike at Shayol Ghul" (written in 1996 by Jordan). Thanks to @wafflelovingbatgirl for reminding me about its existence! I may try to get around to reading "River of Souls" (about Demandred, by Sanderson) at some point, but TSaSG was easy to find online.

here there be spoilers

The Strike at Shayol Ghul

It's pretty short -- it's "an introduction" written by someone in-world -- Jorille Mondevin, who is the Royal Historian for the Queen of Kandor. Looks like the Queen that we know in the series -- Queen Ethenielle. Nice. I always enjoy 'in-world" texts, so this is very interesting.

She's telling the queen about a recent discovery of a "partial copy" of a "history of the world" from the drilling of the Bore until the end of the Breaking of the World. We get a worldbuilding note here: that the practice of printing survived the Breaking "when so much did not", which helps explain the high literacy level in the Westlands. While many inventions were lost, the printing press survived! Though most of the actual writings were lost during the Trolloc Wars and the War of the Hundred Years.

"We must marvel at any writing that has survived more than three thousand years." So true, bestie. (I've decided that Jorille and I are besties) "What we know is based on fragments, copied and recopied a thousand times, but at least we know something from them. Even a little knowledge is better than ignorance."

I love how this feeds into the basic concept we're dealing with -- history becomes legend. We're talking about that process here, of knowledge being reduced to fragments that are passed on.

Oh, man, reading this does remind me about reading about IRL fragmentary texts. "Such a history would no doubt be a vast, multi-volume work, yet of the two hundred and twelve surviving pages, the largest number of consecutive pages number six, and nowhere else more than two."

She notes that the dates given in the text make no sense, because "no calendar dating from the Age of Legends has ever been found". There are references both to large-scale events such as cities destroyed by balefire during the War of the Shadow, as well as mentions of individuals' personal appearances. But nothing that tells the special significance of most of the people mentioned.

The six consecutive pages that survived are of particular interest, because they are about the sealing of the Bore by Lews Therin Telamon and the Hundred Companions.

"We still cannot be certain how long passed between the creation of the Bore and the actual beginning of what would come to be called the War of the Shadow, yet plainly at least fifty years and possibly more than one hundred were marked by a rapid decline in the social order". During the first three years of the War of the Shadow, the Shadow made great in-roads and then during the next four, Lews Therin pushed them back to reclaim some of what was lost.

But ultimately, the Shadow began to prevail because it did not care if it left disaster in its wake. It was soon clear that they were losing again and their losses were accelerating. "If they were to win at all, it must be done quickly".

There were two plans proposed at the time that are mentioned here: first Lews Therin's idea of directly attacking the Bore itself. The Seals were going to be used to shut the Dark One away from the world. The plan was considered risky due to the Dark One's influence on the immediate area surrounding Shayol Ghul, with Lews Therin admitting that he expected few or perhaps none of his "raiding party" (of twenty thousand soldiers and 13 Aes Sedai) would survive. Additionally, there was a concern that if the seals were not placed in precisely the right locations, the strain of them would rip open the Bore entirely and free the Dark One.

The other plan, in opposition to this, was proposed by Latra Posae Decume. Her plan was to use two massive sa'angreal (the ones that Rand ended up using during the cleansing of saidin) to push the Shadow's forces back and erect a barrier around Shayol Ghul until... you know, they figured something better out. Downsides to this plan: the Bore has kept getting bigger since it was first drilled, so it might continue to do so behind this barrier as well, and if the Dark One got loose inside the barrier, the barrier itself might come undone under the strain.

Latra and Lews were both, apparently, very convincing speakers, with Latra getting every female Aes Sedai "of significant strength" to sign what the manuscript calls "the Fateful Accord" though Jorille doubts that's what it was called at the time. I wonder if the 'strength level' was "Nynaeve-level" or if it was lower and more like "Egwene/Elayne-level". It was believed that the signing of this accord killed Lews Therin's plan in the water, because "men cannot create a circle, only be brought into one created by a woman".

Work on the massive sa'angreal was rushed into production. There is, Jorille says, a lot of speculation among historians about whether or not the sa'angreal would have worked as Latra had proposed. She also mentions speculation about whether or not women going with Lews Therin into his plan would have protected saidin from the taint or if it would have only meant that saidar was tainted as well.

But disaster struck as the sa'angreal were completed. The place where the access ter'angreal were created (needing to be done remotely due to "uncontrolled resonances during the finale stages" -- Jorille doesn't know what that might mean, but I'm guessing it would mean feedback leading to a big boom) was overrun by Sammael and the forces of the Shadow, though they did not find the access ter'angreal.

With the sa'angreal unusable, Lews Therin argued again for his plan but Latra wouldn't budge. As time had passed, even more of the female Aes Sedai had pledged to the Accord, even though they weren't strong enough to be part of the circle anyway. "Tempers and passions rose, and an apparently unprecedented division along male-female lines began to develop among the Aes Sedai in general, if not within the Hall itself". The Hall decided to stay with Latra's plan, attempting to smuggle the access ter'angreal out of the area now controlled by Sammael.

Jorille notes that all those making the attempt to find the access ter'angreal were later found out to have been captured, tortured, and killed, though none of them betrayed the location of the ter'angreal to Sammael.

As the Shadow swept forward, there was the "re-emergence of the peace faction" who argued that negotiations should be held with the Forsaken. Jorille notes that this peace faction, over the course of the War, would send people on its own to try to negotiate with the Forsaken but, upon the return of the delegations, they would act out plans that aided the Shadow's cause "though it seems that in some instances, they were completely unaware of what they had done" (aka Compulsion).

Despite how dire the situation had grown, Latra's resistance to Lews Therin's plan held firm. "the lines of division had hardened to a point where many female Aes Sedai refused to speak to male Aes Sedai, and the reverse as well". Lews Therin decides to act on his own, without the Hall.

Jorille notes at this point that Latra had earned the name Shadar Nor, translated as "Cutter/Slicer of the Shadow" but what deeds earned her that title have been lost to history.

So, Lews Therin launches his own assault against Shayol Ghul, with the "Hundred Companions" (though Jorille says that text notes they numbered 113 at this point) and ten thousand regular soldiers.

"Exactly what occurred that day can never be known, only the results. Of the soldiers, not a single man or woman returned to give any account." It is known that the seals were placed safely, that "all thirteen of the Forsaken" were at Shayol Ghul and trapped in the sealing along with the Dark One. If that had been the only result of the attack, then the world would likely have recovered well over the next few years, Jorille speculates. "Civilization has retained a large degreee of cohesion in the ares held by the Light" and without the top generals, the armies of the Shadow fell into struggles for power among themselves. "In any case, the War of the Shadow must be said to have ended that day at Shayol Ghul."

But, Jorille adds, this was not the only result of the assault. "Instead, there was the counterstroke from the Dark One at the moment of sealing, and saidin itself was tainted." Lews Therin and his companions "went insane on the instant" and by the time the taint was discovered, hundreds more male Aes Sedai had been driven mad by the taint. "That fateful day at Shayol Ghul ended the war, and began the Breaking of the World."

She says that the manuscript itself, in its own introduction, speaks for what the people at the time were suffering: "Whoever reads this, if any remain to read it, weep for us who have no more tears. Pray for us who are damned alive."

Very informative and pretty evocative as well. One of the things that I love about WoT is the post-apocalyptic setting and one of the things that I love about that setting is learning about the world before and during the world-breaking event (one of the reasons I also love the Horizon Zero Dawn games).

I have no clue why I didn't read that back when it was first published. It's great and it's pretty short. Though I realize that a lot of that information had kinda filtered into my world-knowledge already, lol.

My personal ranklist for the WoT books:

The Fires of Heaven (😍)

The Shadow Rising (😘)

The Dragon Reborn (😘)

The Path of Daggers (😘)

New Spring (😘)

The Great Hunt (😄)

The Gathering Storm (😄)

Lord of Chaos (😄)

The Eye of the World (😄)

A Memory of Light (🙂)

Towers of Midnight (🙂)

A Crown of Swords (🙂)

Winter’s Heart (🙂)

...

Crossroads of Twilight (😒)

Knife of Dreams (😒)

While I am glad that I did a full reread this time, there are definitely parts of the books that mostly frustrated me and I'll probably just skim past them in future rereads (I suspect I will want to do at least some rereading after S2 airs) -- I'm not sure if I'll ever reread Mat & Perrin's sections of CoT & KoD again. That's essentially the heart of the Slog right there.

Some things that definitely changed for me during this reread:

a. I noticed how much shipping material there is for Cauthor as a pairing (obviously this is mostly in the first five books but there are crumbs even after they separate). Very exciting to me! I didn't go into my reread expecting much, because fanon had definitely affected my memories of Cauthor and I was assuming that their friendship permanently broke in TGH after Mat found out that Rand could channel. Very untrue! I (and many of the other readers, I must assume) was just too young to pick up on all of Mat's subtext back when I first read the books.

b. Gawyn's stock massively rose for me. One of the best points that @markantonys made to me about Gawyn is how similar his 'coping with trauma' behavior is from the outside to Rand's is -- we just spend so much more time in Rand's head that we understand him and his choices better than Gawyn's. And I think that the TV show bears that out a lot because show!Rand got a lot of the same complaints thrown at him as book!Gawyn does. I gained a lot of sympathy for Gawyn over the course of this reread.

c. Min's stock, on the other hand, massively fell. I remembered her as my least favorite of Rand's romances but was still fond of her, but wow, my reread burned away so much of that fondness. Which is kinda a shame, because now it's going to be a genuine effort to make sure that I don't hold the sins of book!Min against show!Min, whereas before I did my reread, I was liking show!Min a lot. But between her (admitted to in her own PoV!) manipulation of Rand to get him to fall in love with (the invented version of) her, the way she acts in their relationship (to pick a few things: trying to force him to be jealous because she thinks it makes the sex hotter; threatening him with knives; reading his mail and trying to burn it before he gets the chance to read it himself; punching him hard enough to make him grunt), and the way she changes herself to suit the person she believes she needs to be to get and keep Rand's attention... it's just yikes all over. She's not my least favorite character in the books, but she's definitely the character who fell the furthest down on my list after my reread.

d. While I didn't like Tuon any better in this reread, Sanderson does set up the Mat & Tuon relationship to be much less.... character-breaking for Mat than it was in CoT & KoD. Mat's brain starts working again around Tuon in AMoL and she actually experiences some minor consequences for her actions, it seems like, instead of just skating through everything on brainwashed autopilot like she did in the Jordan books. I actually feel like the Mat in AMoL is prepared to Do Something about the Seanchan Empire and slavery, while it felt like CoT & KoD Mat would have just rolled over and let Tuon do whatever she wanted because (much like Min) he'd given up his morals and personality for the sake of his prophesied romance.

e. I was able to really parse through and see what I liked and disliked about some of the 'plot shortcuts' that Jordan used -- the ta'veren shortcut of coincidences is mostly fun, because it forces the plot to happen when the main characters are there but gives an explanation for it, but it also affects random things (like people falling off buildings or the rate of weddings in a town), but wow did I dislike some of the heavy-handed romance prophecies and how they mostly seemed to be used to bypass crucial relationship development (especially in Rand/Min and Mat/Tuon).

f. There are also the two major Mat-related plotholes I noticed that still bug me so much, even now, one during Jordan-era and one during Sanderson-era:

Everyone's vow of silence about Mat being trapped in Ebou Dar (Nynaeve is the worst offender because she spends weeks/months with Rand and never bothers to tell him that his best friend was left behind in enemy territory).

Mat's magical teleportation to Ebou Dar at the start of AMoL that completely breaks the logistics of the narrative.

Both in clumsy service of attaching Mat to the Seanchan storyline At All Costs (Even Logic), which really does stand out to me as the worst plot choice that Jordan locked himself into way too early on via prophecy and then didn't know how to handle when it actually showed up on the page.

#wot reread #the wheel of time #wot #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #wot a memory of light spoilers #wot amol spoilers #wheel of time #the strike at shayol ghul

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