#because it somehow feels worse than in any other fandom I’ve been into | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamingkelz · 9 months

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I’ll admit, I’m a little nervous writing this, but I’ve been thinking in circles a lot lately, and I thought writing my thoughts down would be helpful and maybe alleviate some anxiety? This isn’t really criticism about anything, so much as observations and analysis and just a general attempt to understand some of the weirder things I’ve experienced being in this fandom.

With that said, let’s get started.

I’ve talked in the past about how protective I feel when it comes to the eggs. I don’t like people threatening to kill them. I don’t like when the story puts them in danger. I don’t like how neglect deaths are still a risk. And after a few close calls over the past few days, egg welfare is in the front of my mind again, and I’ve found myself questioning why I feel this way. It’s strange, isn’t it? As many people have said, they’re just a bunch of pixels in a video game, aren’t they?

First and foremost, I want to preface this by saying I’m a writer, and more specifically, I’m a writer who loves angst. I’ve always drifted towards tragic narratives. I want to see the characters I’m invested in get tested. I want to see them cope with trauma and loss. I love when a story can make me cry. I’m not necessarily a fan of child death as a narrative device, but of all of the stories I’ve written, my favorite does see the main character watching four of his five children die in increasingly horrific ways over the course of fifty chapters, so it’s definitely not a dealbreaker for me. If the QSMP was an ordinary story, I think I would love the tension and the horror of the situation. As is, there have been some interesting character developments to come out of the constant threat of death, or the trauma caused by past deaths on the server.

So then why? Why does the thought of egg deaths still fill me with a nauseating sense of dread?

To start with, the QSMP is not an ordinary story. I don’t think any story told through this particular style of Minecraft roleplay is or can be. This is real-time player-driven roleplaying, and I think there are three medium-defining factors at play here. One: every player (usually) streams their perspective. Two: characters appear and disappear from the story based on the players’ streaming schedules. And three: while they are online, we will experience every single thing that happens to the players.

Combined, we end up with a narrative that simultaneously has characters that are better-developed than can be found in any other medium, while also somehow being worse. Any character is likely to have a vivid, colorful personality, deeply engaging relationships with the people around them, a rich inner life, and their own unique perspective on any events that occur on the server. But that same character might inexplicably be absent from a plot beat that they are heavily invested in, solely because the streamer isn’t available for that particular stream. Plotlines get dropped for any number of reasons. Backstories are, more often than not, cobbled together from references to past servers that the player has taken part in. All-in-all, narrative and even character takes a backseat to the players - their identities, their schedules, their playstyles, their comfort.

It is also worth repeating that everything that happens on the server is unfolding in real time. The narrative doesn’t cut away when the story stops, at least not for most of the players. There are a handful who might log in with a single focus for the day, stream for one or two hours, then log off again. But many more are there nearly every day for several hours at a time, and a lot of that time will be dedicated to non-story events - building, doing dungeons, making machines, or just hanging out with the other players. While any player on any stream can be prone to breaking character to talk about events from their offline lives, these long, lore-light streams are especially prone to it. And there are some players who specifically try to avoid participating in lore altogether. At the end of the day, they are streamers first, and actors in a story second.

The result of all of these factors is a server with an incredibly thin line between fiction and reality. There is a distinction between the player and the character they play, yes, but in any given stream the difference between the two can become murky.

But how does this tie to the eggs?

In the beginning, it wasn’t necessarily so bad. The eggs were just cute little blobs that followed their respective players around and needed to be taken care of. There was even a lot of confusion in the earliest days as to whether or not they were controlled by AI. If that was all they had stayed, perhaps we wouldn’t have gotten so attached? The problem came when they started talking.

Suddenly, the eggs were able to communicate things they liked and projects they wanted to work on. They were able to tell jokes, and express complicated emotions, and let the personalities they’d already started fostering shine. They started carving out niches in the community of the server - people ask Dapper for help with engineering projects and mod-related information; Richarlyson’s art is plastered over every other business and he even does concept art for builds; the eggs form relationships outside of their assigned player, with eggs and players alike. Some of them even have their own ongoing storylines. Parents are careful to make sure that every egg is taken care of every week, and everybody freaks out if they see an egg go down in chat.

Yes, the eggs are cute. They’re small and meant to evoke human children. The players are explicitly told to protect them, to raise them, and keep them healthy and happy. Of course everybody would become attached. But isn’t it strange to get this attached?

If cute child characters were all they were, I would think so. But that isn’t the case. In practice, the eggs are effectively players themselves.

Players that only exist in the context of the server.

Players that the server is actively trying to kill.

And I think that is the problem. The eggs are characters in a story, but the story has such a murky line between fiction and reality, that they wind up feeling real. After all, they follow the same rules as the other “characters” when it comes to portraying a character. This isn’t like a Cucurucho or a Walter Bob who come online once in a while to hang out, but clearly have an off-screen role to play in the story as well. The eggs may not stream their perspectives, but they spend nearly one hundred percent of their time interacting with players, and if they’re not with a player, they’re assumed to be sleeping. Furthermore, depending on whose perspective you watch, you’re going to spend a minimum of three days a week watching egg content, and when they log on, they tend to stay for hours. If you were watching in the beginning, they were online every day. That is a LOT of time to “get to know” these characters who so convincingly mimic the players.

Effectively (and unintentionally), the QSMP has tricked the audience into forming parasocial relationships with a handful of fictional characters.

I have never cried over the death of a fictional character, or even had a particularly strong reaction. When a character is in danger, usually my reaction is excitement over the narrative possibilities the situation could create. I love tragedy in fiction. I love horror. I love drama. And on the server itself, this is how I’ve consistently felt about inter-player conflicts. My engagement is at its highest when there is some kind of narrative tension between the player characters (and the fandom reactions to this kind of thing deserve their own essay).

But when Dapper lost his first life, I was so viscerally upset that I nearly dropped the series to protect my mental health. I have pointedly refused to watch any stream where an egg dies if I know it’s coming, and I tend to avoid streams dealing with the aftermath of their deaths as well.

Because no matter how much logic you throw at the situation, it still feels real. If a player character perma-dies, or is banned, or just chooses to leave, they may no longer have a presence in the server, but it’s still clear to the audience that only the character is dead. The player exists outside of the server, and for the parasocially invested, it’s usually still easy to keep up with them if one wants to. The eggs broadly do not have that luxury. Once they’re dead in the story, they cease to exist altogether, and in an environment where the fiction/reality line is already so blurred, that is going to have a strong impact on the audience. No amount of hearing “they’re pixels in a video game” is going to mitigate that.

I think the best case scenario is that they grant the eggs the same immortality as the players, whether it be through hatching or some other means, and allow them to come and go as suits them. The eggs have fulfilled their initial purpose, and the server would really benefit from removing this hurdle that disincentivizes chaos and recklessness and incentivizes harassment from a highly-stressed audience. Multiple players have already said they have no intention of returning because they don’t want to deal with the fallout that will come from potentially hurting an egg. But all of these eggs have carved out a real place in the server, and it would be a shame to lose that.

The eggs are important to the QSMP and a major draw for a lot of people. And I don’t think that needs to change. But I do think that there are ways to use the eggs for narrative drama without having to force your audience into subconsciously believing that their favorite streamer has died. The QSMP, and servers like it, provide a unique storytelling medium with its own advantages and challenges. And as with any medium, it’s important to be aware of what these challenges are in order to tell the best story possible.

#qsmp #this draws very heavily from my personal experience so it's not going to be universally applicable #but I still think it's interesting #I'm forever fascinated by this medium #hopefully hellsite didn't mess up the formatting too much

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rainbowwing251 · 4 months

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The Other Chris (Wild Kratts Tickle Fic)

A/N: I can’t. Believe. I’m doing this.

Seriously, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I should not be doing this, but I’m doing it anyway.

So uh… yeah, this is… a thing! It’s a tickle fic for the PBS Kids series Wild Kratts!

I know I said I didn’t want to make tickle content for the show, but truth be told… I really wanted to for… almost as long as I’ve been into the show. The only reason why I decided against it was because I was afraid. Afraid of how the Wild Kratts fandom would see me for making this kind of content. Afraid that the tickling community wouldn’t care about tickle content for this show. Afraid that somehow, someway, the Kratt Brothers themselves would find my content.

But recently, two out of my three fears have been proven false. It turns out that there IS a tickling community for Wild Kratts and that the tickling community as a whole does enjoy the limited amount of tickle content there is for it. I’m still concerned about whether or not the brothers themselves will find it, but I guess I shouldn’t worry about that for now…

This is a long author’s note, and I apologize for that, but before I get onto this fic, I would like to mention that this fic is a collab! This is a collab between myself and @kittyfluffies on Tumblr, whom I may have accidentally dragged into the Wild Kratts fandom with me… oops.

Well, let’s see how this goes! Real quick, this fic takes place shortly after the events of the episode “The Other Martins”!

P.S. Interpret this as Krattcest and I’ll get the sniper rifle. That shit is DISGUSTING.

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Today was a horrible day to be Chris Kratt.

Everything that could go wrong today did go wrong, except for the appearance of one or more of the villains. But would that have been any worse than falling into a pile of rotten apples, nearly being dive bombed by a Purple Martin (multiple times in fact), finding an American Pine Marten, having an American Red Squirrel steal your Creature Power Suit, getting tickled by said squirrel and your brother at the same time, and falling into a body of water, in that order, all on the same day? All while your brother teases you relentlessly the whole time? Chris would argue that this is worse than anything the villains could throw at him and the rest of the Tortuga crew.

He tried to combat his bad luck by calling it a day early to try and think of animals that shared his name, but there was one problem with this plan: he can’t think of a single animal that has “Chris” in its name. Not a single one.

“Come on, there’s gotta be one animal out there with the name Chris that isn’t me…! There has to be…!” he thought as he laid in a bed in the basement of the Tortuga. He had intended to lie in one of the hammocks that was in the central room of the ship, but remembered that none of those were his. They belonged, from top to bottom, to Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy Z, and as much as he would have liked to be in a hammock right now, he didn’t want to risk being scolded for taking a hammock that wasn’t his. That, and he was already feeling irritated by the events of the day and didn’t want to be angered any further, so he chose to isolate himself to try and calm down.

This worked for some time, but eventually, the peace was disturbed by the appearance of someone else.

The moment he heard those footsteps, he knew who it was. And he groaned.

“Oh no…” He should have known that there was no way he would be able to go the rest of the day without seeing the one who was responsible for half of the troubles he faced today, and yet somehow, he thought he would be left alone.

The door to the basement opened, and in came the reason he was even lying here in the first place: his older, mischievous, and sometimes annoying brother, Martin Kratt.

“Hey bro!” he greeted before noticing the look on Chris’s face. He’s seen him direct that face at the villains and sometimes him a couple of times, but something about that expression in this moment seemed… off.

“What? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“After everything you put me through today? No, absolutely not.”

That upsetted Martin a little bit, but he did understand why he’d feel that way. It didn’t stop him from teasing him a little bit more, however.

“Awww, come on, Chris! You got to see animals that share a name with your bro! Does that not make you happy? Not even a little bit?” he teased, putting his hand on his shoulder and leaning towards his face.

Chris rolled his eyes at his brother’s actions, “Remember when I said that purple martins didn’t annoy me anymore, but this one-” Chris put a finger on Martin’s chest, “-not so much? I meant it.”

“Awww, you’re no fun, bro. I was just messing with you! I wanted you to enjoy The Day of the Martins!”

“Your teasing didn’t help me get my Creature Power Suit back from that red squirrel.”

“But I still got it back!”

Chris sighed and poked his brother again, “You don’t get it, do you?” He was about to lecture his older brother before he heard what sounded like a mix of a giggle and a squeak, “You’re still laughing at my luck, aren’t you?”

“N-no, just watch where you’re poking me!” Martin explained, grabbing Chris’s wrist and pulling it away from him. Chris looked down to see where he had poked him, thinking he had poked him in the chest again, only to realize that he had accidentally poked his brother in the stomach.

Suddenly, he got an idea. An idea on how he could get back at his brother for his merciless teasing.

If he couldn’t think of any animals with Chris in their name, then he’ll have to invent one. One that can give him the power to take revenge on his brother.

“...Chris?” Martin’s concerned voice pulled him out of his thoughts, “You alright?”

A malicious grin formed on Chris’s face, “Chris isn’t here right now.”

Martin raised a brow at his younger brother’s statement, “Huh? What are you talking about, bro? You’re right here! What do you mean you aren’t-”

“Chris. Isn’t. Here. Right now.” The green brother grabbed Martin by his wrists and swiftly pinned him down onto the bed. “Only his alter-ego~”

Upon hearing that teasy tone in his voice, Martin immediately knew what was about to happen. “C-Chris? Can we talk about this…?!”

Chris let out a sinister-sounding chuckle, “I already told you, Chris isn’t here~ Only…” he brought his hands into Martin’s vision and wiggled his fingers.

“W-wait, nohoho! Don’t-!”

“The TICKLE MONSTER!” The younger brother drilled a finger into the other’s armpits, “But right now, you can call me the ‘Other Chris’~”

To Chris’s slight shock, Martin had already burst into a fit of giggles with a few laughs mixed in for good measure.

“Nohohohoho, Chrihihihihs! W-We can tahahahalk about thihihis!”

“Laughing already? And from a single finger in the armpits, no less~? This will be easy~”

The blue brother was already squirming under the ticklish touch, trying and failing to throw Chris off of him.

“Trying to throw me off, are we~? I think that warrants a punishment, wouldn’t you agree~?” Chris ignored the unintentional rhyme and snuck a second wiggling finger into Martin’s armpits, causing his giggles to rise in volume and his squirming to become a little more violent.

“C-Chrihihis nohohohoho! That t-tihihihihihickles!” Martin cried out, his arms coming down in an attempt to protect his armpits, but unfortunately for him, that only served to trap his brother’s fingers in there.

“I told you, I’m not Chris! I am the Other Chris!” The “Other Chris” protested as he broke through the blue Kratt’s defenses to slip a third finger under his arms.

“Chrihihihihis, I knohohohow you’re in thehehehehre!”

“Nope, Chris is nowhere to be found right now, but I promise, he’ll come back once I give him what he wants~”

“Whahahahahahat? What d-dohohohoes he wahahahant?”

Chris gave him the most evil smirk he could muster. “Revenge~” With that, he skipped the fourth step and slipped the last two fingers under Martin’s arms. With all ten fingers tickling him, Martin went from squirming to thrashing uncontrollably, nearly throwing Chris off of him a few times. He’d also started kicking his legs, desperately trying to distract himself from the tingly sensation under his arms.

“NOHOHOHOHO, BROHOHOHOHOHO! C-CUT IT OHOHOHOHOUT!” Martin seemed to nearly scream out as he kept kicking and thrashing for a few more seconds, only stopping when he felt a hand on his ankle.

“Are you trying to kick me~? How rude~!” Chris teased. He was about to stick a hand back under his brother’s arm before he was hit with another idea. Martin, who had squeezed his eyes shut during his laughing fit, opened them and giggled in anticipation. “C-Chrihihihihs?”

The evil grin his brother had on his face nearly made him burst into laughter again.

“You know, Martin… I’m pretty sure it’s not a good idea to kick another person, and yet you tried to kick me anyway. I think it’s time for me to switch spots and teach you another lesson~”

“Whahahahat?” Martin questioned through his giggles before he felt his shoelaces coming undone. “Whahahaha- hehehehehey! Don’t remove my shoes, plehehehehehese! Chrihihihihis!”

“It’s too late to beg for mercy now, Martin~” Chris slowly pulled both shoes off before slipping a finger into the blue brother’s socks.

“Nononononono dohohohohohon’t! Dohohohon’t do ihihihihit!”

“Do what~?” Chris asked him, pulling one sock off of his foot, “Take your shoes and socks off? Well too bad, I will not stop until you apologize to me… and to Chris~”

“But yohohohou are Chrihihih- NOHOHOHOHOHOHO!” Martin burst into laughter upon feeling a hand on his bare left foot.

“Laughing already~? This will be easy~” With that, Chris dug in, scribbling his fingers all over the other’s feet. Martin absolutely lost it in response.

“NOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO, CHRIHIHIHIHIHIHIS! S-STAHAHAHAHAHP!”

“Begging for mercy again are we~? I don’t remember you giving Chris mercy when he told you to stop, so why should I~?” Chris ribbed, leaning in closer to Martin’s face in an attempt to make the teasing worse for his older brother. Needless to say, it worked like a charm.

“PLEAHAHAHAHAHAHASE STAHAHAHAHAHAP TEHEHEHEASING MEHEHEHE!”

“And why should I do that~?” the younger brother asked, focusing the tickling on Martin’s arches, a spot he knew was unbearably sensitive to any kind of touch, “Does it tickle more when I tease you~? Does it make you lose all of your strength so you can’t fight back~? Tell me, Martin, does teasing make you weak to tickles~? Even more so than you already are~?”

Martin’s only response was to throw his head back in uncontrollable laughter before immediately rushing to cover his face with a pillow to muffle himself.

“That was not a response, but I’ll take it anyway~” Chris reacted with a giggle, far too amused by how much his brother was laughing. “Besides, now that you’re covering your face, you won’t be able to see what I’m doing~”

To prove his point, the younger Kratt suddenly switched from scribbling Martin’s arches to scratching under his toes. Just as he predicted, Martin’s laughter increased in both pitch and volume, though it was muffled a little by the pillow.

“CRIHIHIHIHS NOHOHO-MMMPH!” The older Kratt had lifted the pillow a little to plead for Chris to have mercy on him, but he had to cut himself off by pulling the pillow back over his face because he was afraid his laughter would alert someone upstairs.

“You brought this on yourself, Martin~ All you had to do was get Chris’s vest back without tickling him, but nope, you couldn’t resist~”

Chris looked down to return his focus to Martin’s feet when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bright green disc in one of Martin’s shoes. For the third time that day, he was hit with an evil idea. He slowed the tickling under Martin’s toes to a stop and waited for him to catch his breath.

“Hey Martin~”

“A-are you fihihihinally going to have mercy on mehehehe…?” Martin let out his after-giggles and slowly lifted the pillow off of his face. Chris grinned a little at seeing the bright pink blush on his brother’s face, a clear indication that this was a job well done so far. He nearly laughed when he saw his eyes widen in horror.

“T-that’s…!”

Chris let out the most malicious laugh he could muster. “The Pine Marten Power Disc~” He then leaned in towards Martin again. “I think you know what I’m going to do with this, but first, I need to find a pine marten~”

The other Martin tried to snatch the Power Disc out of his brother’s hands, but Chris just dodged each attempt effortlessly.

“Now… how am I going to keep you from escaping…?” Chris pondered, realizing that he had not considered the possibility of using an animal’s Creature Powers to tickle Martin. At that moment, both brothers heard the door to the basement open.

“What’s going on down here? I thought I heard someone laughing…” Aviva walked into the room and spotted the brothers. Martin’s blush deepened into a dark shade of red while Chris’s face turned a bright pink, just like his brother’s face was a few seconds ago. The blush quickly faded from the green brother’s face when he realized that the answer to his question had just caught them in the act.

“Aviva, keep him pinned down for me, will you?”

“Huh…?” Aviva was very confused, but upon seeing the tears of mirth in the corners of Martin’s eyes combined with the blush and residual giggles, she quickly caught on to what was going on, “Ohhh, I see~ Sure thing, Chris~”

“I’m not Chris, I’m the Other Chris!”

Aviva couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that, “Whatever you say, ‘Other Chris’~”

Chris elected to ignore the sudden embarrassment that welled up within him upon hearing Aviva’s teasing words and walked out of the basement to go find his “partner” in crime. As soon as he left, Aviva turned to face the flustered mess of a Kratt brother on the bed.

“Hehehehey Avivahahaha…!”

She couldn’t help but giggle at him, “Chris got you good, didn’t he~?”

“Yeahahaha, and he’s not even dohohohne yet!” Martin answered as the remaining after giggles slowly subsided. “You’ll get me out of here, rihihight…?”

“Hmm…” The inventor pretended to ponder his question before she pinned him down, just as Chris asked her to, “Nope~ Don’t want to get on Chris’s- sorry, ‘Other Chris’s’- bad side~”

Martin’s giggles quickly returned as he realized there was no hope of escape, “Nohohohoho! I mehehehehehean, I geheheht it, but nohohohoho!”

“No what, Martin~? Do you want me to get on your brother’s bad side~? On ‘Other Chris’s’ bad side~? After everything he did to you~?” Aviva smirked at the blue Kratt’s sudden laughing fit, “No way~! If you can’t handle his tickle skills, how do you expect me to handle them~?”

Before Martin could respond (if he would’ve been able to answer at all given how hard he was laughing), both he and Aviva heard the sound of a Creature Power Suit being activated upstairs, followed by the sound of quiet footsteps approaching the door to the basement.

Aviva couldn’t help but let out an evil chuckle as she saw her pinned victim’s eyes widen in horror, “Looks like your time is running out, Martin~”

“NOHOHOHOHO!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The whole time Aviva was teasing his brother, Chris had entered the main room of the Tortuga to find a pine marten. As soon as the door opened and he stepped inside, he finally allowed himself to break character.

“Phew… keeping up a fake persona is tiring… but oh is it worth it~” Chris thought to himself, “Let’s see… is there a pine marten in here…?”

Chris looked around the room and noticed that two certain crew members were nowhere to be found. “Koki and Jimmy aren’t here…? That’s a little odd…”

Before he could further question their whereabouts, his eyes landed on a pine marten that was sitting in Aviva’s desk chair. Chris grinned, “But right now, I need the help of my ‘partner’ in crime~”

He made sure to carefully approach the pine marten so as not to scare it away before he put on his Creature Power Suit and took Martin’s Pine Marten Power Disc out of his left pocket.

“Hey there! Li’l Marty, was it?” Chris asked the little creature as it turned to look at him, “Well I’ll need your help to get revenge on Big Marty~”

He put his gloves on. He was finally ready to enact the last part of his plan.

“Insert Pine Marten Power Disc!”

He put one gloved finger on the pine marten.

“Touch pine marten!”

He pressed the central button on his vest, and…

“Activate pine marten powers!"

The suit activated, and within seconds, he had become a pine marten.

“Haha, I finally got the chance to use pine marten powers! But I’ll have to test out the pine marten’s hunting tricks some other time. I have a more important prey to devour downstairs~”

Chris ran out the door and down the steps to the basement.

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He made it to the bottom of the stairs, but waited a moment before entering the basement to listen to the pure terror that found its way into Martin’s laughter.

“Did he hear me activate my Creature Power Suit?” Chris wondered before smirking, “Good.”

He finally entered the room to see Aviva holding down a hysterical Martin, but while they did hear the sound of the door opening and looked to see if he was there, they failed to look down towards the floor, where he actually was.

“Look down here~”

Aviva looked down and giggled upon both seeing him and hearing Martin shriek out a “AVIHIHIHIVA, LET ME GOHOHOHOHO!” She just ignored him and greeted Chris.

“There you are Ch- Other Chris!” she corrected herself.

“You see what my plan is now, Aviva~?”

“Sure do~ Want me to stay here, or do you want me to leave you to it?”

Chris tried to think about his response, but couldn’t hear his own thoughts over the sound of his brother’s uncontrollable laughter. Out of playful spite, he decided, “Leave him to me~”

Aviva nodded, “Okay then~ Sorry Martin, but it looks like you’ll be stuck with him for a bit longer~ See you later… if you’re still alive that is~” She released said Kratt from her grasp before walking out of the door and heading back upstairs. The whole time she was walking away, Martin was pleading for her to reconsider and help him escape, but it was futile. She and Chris had already made their decisions.

Martin’s laughter had subsided a little after the inventor left, but he still had a hard time controlling himself, especially when he looked at his younger brother sitting on the floor. Watching. Waiting there. Menacingly.

“C-Chrihihihihihs? Hellohohohoho?”

Chris leered at him, “Are you ready for the grand finale, Martin~?”

“Nohohohohoho, nohohot at ahahahahahahall!”

“Well too bad~”

The green pine marten ran over to one of the legs near the foot of the bed, climbed up it, and ran across Martin’s body to get to his neck. The whole time he ran across his brother’s torso and ribs, he dragged his tail behind him, intentionally tickling him and sending him into another fit of laughter.

“H-hehehehehehey, wahahahahahatch the taihihihihihil!”

“What do you mean? I was watching my tail!” Chris snuck up to Martin’s ear before he spoke again, “I was watching it tickle you~”

He could feel Martin shiver as he brought his now-free hands up to his ears to cover them up. Unfortunately for him, the ears were the last spot his brother had in mind.

While his hands were up and covering his ears, Chris made his way to his neck and stood dangerously close to the collar of his shirt.

He could practically feel the heat radiating off his brother’s skin as he took note of the blush that had managed to spread from Martin’s face to his neck. He saw the tips of his ears through his fingers and noticed that they even had a tinge of red on them. He didn’t know his older brother could get this flustered!

“You ready~?” He asked teasingly, knowing full well what Martin’s answer was going to be.

“N-nohohohoho! Chrihihihis, d-dohohohon’t do ihihit!”

Chris couldn’t help the smug grin that made its way onto his face, though he didn’t turn to show it to his brother, “Too bad~ Here we go~!”

He stuck his head into the collar of Martin’s shirt, slowly inching his way in. He was only a few inches in when he suddenly pulled himself out and began sniffing at the blue Kratt’s neck. Martin was in no way prepared for this sudden change and nearly let out a squeal as he desperately tried to move his head from side to side to get his brother’s face away from his neck.

“H-hehehehehehey, don’t sniff my nehehehehck!” I-I dohohohon’t smehehehell!”

“That’s not what I’m going for, Martin~ I’m just here to make you laugh, and unless you apologize for what you did to Chris today…” Chris moved down to where Martin’s blush ended on his neck and went right back to sniffing, “You better prepare yourself~”

“I-I cahahahahahahn’t!”

“You can’t apologize? And here I thought you knew basic manners~”

The green pine marten stayed at Martin’s neck for a few more seconds before the sniffing came to an end. However, while his brother had his guard down, Chris quickly zipped into his shirt and ran across his stomach over and over again.

Martin’s only response to the sneak attack was a squeal so loud that it nearly stunned Chris. While he knew that the walls of the Tortuga are rather thick, he highly doubted that Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy were unable to hear that squeal, even if they were outside of the ship.

“CHRIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIS, NOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO! I-I CAN’T- AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Huh? What was that, Martin~? I can’t understand you, you’re laughing too hard~” Chris taunted as he kept up the pace and continued to race around on his brother’s torso. He dragged his tail behind him once again, swishing it back and forth to make it tickle even more, and even stopped running a few times to pretend to use it like a paintbrush on Martin’s navel, which nearly resulted in him getting pushed out of his shirt by his hands. It didn’t take long for Chris to notice that Martin’s squirming and pushing was gradually fading, a tell-tale sign that he was nearly at his limit.

“Ready to say sorry yet~?”

“Y-YEHEHEHEHES! YEHEHEHEHEEHS! I’M SOHOHOHOHOHORY! CHRIHIHIHIHIS, PLEAHAHAHAHAHAHASE!”

The moment Martin said sorry, Chris brought the tickles to a halt and carefully climbed out of his sibling’s shirt, doing his best to not make any of his steps tickle him any further.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it~?” Chris teased him one last time before he hopped off of him and onto the floor, waiting for his giggly mess of a brother to catch his breath and calm down.

“T-thahahahaht… that wahahahahs evihihihihil…!”

“Good~ That’s what I was going for~ So next time, when you try to bully your brother for an entire day, remember… I will be here to tickle you until you apologize to him for your behavior~” With that, Chris stood up, said, “Deactivate!” and reverted back to his normal appearance and personality.

“You okay, bro?” he asked and held out his hand, worried that he might have taken his tickly punishment a bit too far.

“Y-yeah…” Martin breathed out, taking his younger brother’s hand and letting himself be pulled up into a sitting position. “Just give me a few more seconds to breathe…”

After two deep breaths, he got up off of the bed and stood next to his brother, “Do you think the crew heard me squeal…?”

“Only one way to find out! Come on, let’s see if they’re upstairs!”

A light pink blush returned to Martin’s face, but nonetheless, he went upstairs with Chris into the main room of the Tortuga. When the door opened, they were greeted with the sight of Aviva waiting in front of the big computer, while Koki and Jimmy were at their desks, having turned to face the brothers.

“So…” Aviva started with a smirk, “Who’s going to explain that loud squeal we heard downstairs~?”

Martin’s blush turned a dark red, while Chris just stood there, trying to look as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I’m not an expert on human noises, but I don’t think that squeal belonged to any of us.”

“Certainly didn’t come from me! I’d know my own squeals anywhere!” Jimmy responded to Koki’s comment, completely unaware of the engineer creeping up behind him until he heard a, “Boo!”

“AAAAAAH!” Jimmy didn’t squeal, but he did indeed scream and bolted behind Koki and her chair. Everyone couldn’t help but laugh at his panicked reaction.

“Hehehe, I think that’s enough to prove that it wasn’t him~” She then turned her attention back to the brothers, “Sooooooo~?”

The light pink blush Martin had the entire time turned a dark red again as his embarrassment grew, and even Chris couldn’t fight the faint pink blush on his cheeks as he tried his best to play it cool and pretend that he didn’t understand her.

No one said anything for a few seconds, then the blue Kratt finally spoke up, “I-It was me… and I’ve got to admit, Chris is a surprisingly good tickler if he got me to squeal that loud!” Martin quickly regained his usual energy and peered at his brother, who just looked at him with a confused expression.

“Huh? What are you talking about, bro? I didn’t tickle you!”

Martin gave him a “you’re really doing this?” look and decided to play along, “No, that was totally you, Chris, I swear!”

“No way! I’m not as good at tickling people as you are!”

“I think I remember hearing your voice teasing me into oblivion! I’d know your voice anywhere, bro!”

“I’m not good at teasing, either! Martin, I swear, you’re confusing me with someone else!”

For a moment, Koki and Jimmy thought that they were having a genuine argument over a supposed tickle attack, but when Aviva gave them a knowing grin, they immediately caught on to what was really happening.

“Nope, that was totally you! And you know what~?” Martin’s voice turned teasy out of nowhere as he brought his hands up into Chris’s view, wiggling his fingers, “I was lying when I said I was sorry~”

“Huh? Wha-” The younger brother was initially confused before spotting the wiggly fingers that were slowing approaching him, “W-wait, Martin noooOOOOHOHOHOHO DOHHOHOHOHON’T!” He immediately cracked when he felt his older brother’s fingers on his sides, ribs, and belly. It didn’t take for him to try to fall to the floor to escape the ticklish hell that was unleashed upon him, but unfortunately, Martin had followed him down, never stopping his assault.

“Haha, revenge sure is sweet!” Martin cheered, “Okay, I was sort of lying when I said I wasn’t sorry, I did feel bad for you, but right now, I care more about getting my revenge~”

Chris could only laugh and try to curl up as he felt Martin’s hand close in on the center of his stomach, but he managed to trap his hands there instead, sealing his tickly fate.

Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy couldn’t help but laugh along as they watched the chaos unfold in front of them.

“Hehe, these boys will never change, will they~?”

#tickling #wild kratts #Giggle Rats #lee!Martin #ler!Chris #with a little bit of lee!Chris and ler!Martin at the end #featuring a very teasy Aviva #I still can't believe I did this #But I AM CRINGE AND I AM FREE #fun fact: I typed up the last 430 words of this fic on December 22nd (the day before I posted this)#and I'm posting this on December 23rd which just so happens to be Martin Kratt's birthday #Happy Birthday Martin Kratt! What's your gift? your tickle monster of a brother apparently #one more thing: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!#this is probably going to be my only fic for 2023 #unless I finally finish that Splatoon 3 fic I was working on prior to this one #but if I don't you can expect to see that fic in 2024!#…oh shit I completely forgot that this was a collab fic #sorry fluffykitties!#If you want to see cute headcanons for games like Mr. Love or anime like Boueibu go check her out!#HELP THIS FIC WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A TITLE #It’s The Other Chris if you want to know!

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rushingheadlong · 12 days

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I’ve anonymized this ask because I actually want to talk about this publicly but I want to respect their desire to not have their name attached to this conversation.

(Usual warnings for length, also CW for discussions of homophobia. Because of how this ask was worded we're going to engage with the possibility of Brian being queer, but there are criticisms about some specific ways the fandom discusses that. If any of that sounds upsetting to you, just skip over this post.)

First, a fairly significant correction: I didn’t say that Harold wasn’t the biggest contributor to “Brian staying in the closet” at all. I’m going to talk about that assumption of queerness later, but this is what I actually said in my tags:

#it's really REALLY clear that at the VERY least his upbringing by Harold impeded Brian's ability to fully explore himself #and his identity/attractions/etc. the way he should have been able to #(tho I don't think Harold was the biggest/only contributor to that but. idk.)

Which I think is fairly self-explanatory but, to break it down more simply, based on all the evidence we have of what Harold was like as a person it seems that he was an extremely traditional patriarch who expected Brian to grow up and fulfill the same role within his own family. We know that they had major clashes over this and from interviews we know that Brian struggled with feeling inadequate as a husband and father specifically because he couldn’t step into the patriarchal role that he felt pressured to fill.

From there, I don’t think it’s unfair to extrapolate out and say that an upbringing that pushed that very traditional view of manhood would likely have also included other “traditional” ideas i.e. misogyny, homophobia, etc. The misogyny is easy to confirm, not just through Brian’s earlier songs (like Son and Daughter) but through later comments on his parents’ marriage that revealed specific ways that Ruth May was absolutely subservient to her husband while he was alive.

The homophobia I don’t think can be “confirmed” in the same way, although I do recall once reading an interview with Brian where he admitted to having to let go of homophobic ideas he used to hold in his youth (though I cannot for the life of me find that interview now, so take that with a grain of salt). But regardless of the extent of homophobia, if it was there I again don’t think it’s unfair to say that that would have impeded any potential experimentation with men at least in Brian’s younger years - I mean for one thing, Brian has already specifically said that he declined the advances from men while on tour even though he didn’t decline when propositioned by women.

If you want to theorize that Brian is some form of queer you can look at him turning down offers from men as possibly a sign of internalized homophobia due to his upbringing. It’s possible that even after Brian unlearned those prejudices with regards to other people, that he couldn’t unlearn them with regards to himself. It’s possible that Brian privately acknowledged his queerness, but felt that acting upon it would be somehow a “worse” betrayal of his marriage than cheating with another woman.

However, it’s also possible that there was no internalized homophobia at play at all and that Brian’s actions and comments (or lack thereof) are driven by concerns about the band, with really nothing to do with Harold at all. We already have Freddie saying, on multiple occasions in both the 70s and 80s, that if he were to be more open about his own sexuality that it would ruin Queen forever. If Brian were also queer it would make sense for him to have the same reservations about saying anything, and those reservations could have been enough to make him hesitant to be with another man at all for fear of rumors spreading.

(ETA: Not to mention, the AIDS crisis could have been a deterrent to try anything as well, especially if he hadn't already by then. That wasn't too uncommon among men who lived through that time.)

There’s also the issue that if Brian were queer, any reservations he had about coming out were likely compounded after Freddie’s death, because there’s simply no way to make that announcement now without Freddie’s name being attached to things whether it should be or not. There would be speculation about whether Brian and Freddie were ever more than “just” friends, speculation about the full extent of Brian’s history with men, speculation about the validity of his marriages to Chrissy and Anita, speculation about Roger and John and if they knew or if they were also queer… The tabloids would have a fucking field day with an announcement like that and it would reverberate throughout Brian’s life, impacting not only himself but his closest friends and family, as well as all his relationships suddenly becoming hyper-scrutinized by people intent on “proving” what is “real” or “not real” about any of them.

Even if you want to believe that that wouldn’t happen and people would only react positively to such an announcement, I need you to step back and consider what sort of comments you consider “supportive” and if that’s actually how they would be received. An entire fandom of RPF shippers crying “I told you so!” and descending on his IG to ask invasive questions isn’t supportive. A world that nitpicks identities to make sure that people are using the “right” ones isn’t supportive. A culture where “jokes” about single-gender schools turning people gay are still prevalent isn’t supportive (and when I am still seeing people defend comments about Freddie’s boarding school playing a role in his own identity, you can’t tell me that people wouldn’t make the same jabs about Brian if they got the chance).

I think it’s safe to say that Harold’s view did have an impact on how Brian explored himself and his identity because we already know for a fact that those views deeply impacted the entirety of his first marriage, to the point that Brian has said that he likely wouldn’t have gotten married to Chrissy at all if it wasn’t for pressure from his father.

(ETA: But I don't think you can safely say that Harold was the biggest/only contributor to how Brian explored his own identity when you consider the overall time period we're talking about, and the complications of both the band and Brian's existing marriage. And with regards to his attraction to women specifically, Brian has already made it clear that that was impacted by the lack of socialization with girls at school, not his father.)

But to engage with your question, if Brian is queer I think it’s far more likely that Brian has stayed in the closet due to concerns about the response, to protect the privacy of himself and those closest to him, and out of respect for Freddie’s own legacy, rather than because of specific views of his father, especially since both of his parents have been dead for decades now.

Now, this isn’t what you asked in your question but I do also want to address the phrasing of “Brian staying in the closet” because I think it’s actually rather worrying that that’s what was taken from my tags.

Is it impossible for Brian to be queer? No, of course not, and to be honest if he did ever come out I wouldn’t actually be surprised. However I am begging this fandom on my hands and knees to remember that Brian has said that he’s straight on multiple occasions.

Here’s him calling himself heterosexual in 1993, shortly after Freddie’s death:

And here’s him saying that he’s not attracted to men a decade later in 2003:

There’s nothing wrong with talking what-ifs but you have to keep in mind what Brian has actually said himself. Even more importantly, you absolutely have to be mindful of what you’re using as “evidence” of queerness because, while it doesn't happen all the time, it is very common in this fandom for that sort of speculation to run straight into stereotyping and, by extension, homophobia.

A man will never be queer simply because he wears jewelry/nail polish/women’s clothing/etc., or because he’s friends with other queer men or wrote songs for them, or because he was unhappy in a heterosexual marriage, or because he’s done drag a few times, or because he’s spoken out about queer rights and history, or because his music resonates with queer people today.

These are all reasons I’ve seen given for why Brian “has” to be queer… but why? Why do you think that wearing things typically worn by women makes a man queer? Why are you so quick to disregard the existence of any femininity in straight cis men? Why do you think that people can’t support the queer community unless they’re queer themselves? Why do you think that your feelings about Brian’s music are any indication of what he actually meant, when it's incredibly common for people to attribute meanings to songs contrary to what the artist intended?

I don’t think that most people who point to these sorts of things as “evidence” of queerness are being consciously, maliciously homophobic but it absolutely is homophobic to reduce these traits down to one-dimensional stereotypes in order to argue that because Brian does XYZ that means he must be queer. I mean, do I really have to break down why it’s problematic to enforce binary gender norms by saying that Brian wearing necklaces is proof of queerness, as if straight men are somehow physically impossible of also wearing necklaces?

There are absolutely more respectful ways to talk about "evidence" of queerness and the OP mentioned in this ask is a great example of that, by using direct words Brian has said specifically about his sexuality, attraction, and relationships to make their point rather than relying on stereotypes about looks or behaviors.

Because if you're going to have these conversations, you have to acknowledge what Brian has actually said. That includes his comments about heterosexuality and attraction to women and, furthermore, acknowledging those comments is not the same as denying any possibility that he's queer.

Brian is an English baby boomer and you cannot separate that from these sorts of discussions. It’s very common for people of his generation to have ideas and identities that are directly at odds with the philosophies of younger generations, and pretending otherwise - or condemning those things for being “wrong” - requires you to completely ignore and rewrite actual queer history in order to do so.

If you look at how people have identified throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, you’ll find a ton of examples of people proudly using seemingly “wrong” labels for themselves. Tom Robinson, author of the song “Glad to Be Gay”, continued to identify specifically as a gay man for years after marrying a woman. Phill Jupitus, a former stand-up comedian, once had an entire 20-minute podcast where he talked about his past sexual encounters with and continuing attractions towards men while identifying the entire time as a straight man and not bisexual. Hell my best friend for over a decade is a queer man married to a woman who still identifies as a lesbian for deeply personal reasons that are unlikely to ever change.

As a queer man myself, I would love to see discussions about this that acknowledge that kind of nuance. I would love to see people approach this conversation by asking why Brian identifies as straight instead of just looking for proof that he’s lying about his identity.

Because if you want to talk about the possibility of Brian being queer, what does it then mean that he chooses to publicly identify as straight instead? Does he claim that label because he doesn’t identify with queerness at all, because he feels obligated to because of his relationships with women, or because he feels those relationships are more representative of who he is?

What does it say about the dynamics among Queen if the others always assumed something, but never said? Or if Brian only told Roger and John after the fact in the 90s? Or if Brian made the choice to never say anything to them either? Disregarding shipping entirely, what would it say about Brian’s friendship with Freddie if he knew the singer was gay but never shared a hint of his own queerness in return?

What does it say - about Brian, the band, the fandom, society - if Brian is indeed making a conscious choice to hide any attraction to men? And we do need to include the fandom here, because while it’s tempting to assume that nothing we do makes it way back to the band that’s really not the case at all. The official Queen discord server has had to make multiple statements not to post about shipping etc. and there were innumerable comments on Brian’s own IG page post-borhap accusing him and Roger of homophobia because of the movie. Discussions of Brian’s relationship to queerness have already reached his sphere of influence, whether we wanted it to or not.

We’re in a time where the prevalence of social media is wearing down the concept of personal privacy and making people feel entitled to information about celebrities that’s none of their business at all. We’ve seen this with Kit Connor being forced to come out after Heartstopper due to accusations of "queerbaiting" and F1nnster delaying coming out due to fears of backlash from not using the “right” label. Or if you want an example from an older generation, when Con O’Neill came out he said he was doing so because he felt ready but there is still rampant speculation in the fandom that part of his reasoning was in response to the queerphobia being leveled at Izzy Hands fans.

Let me repeat that: a queer man explicitly said he was coming out because he felt personally ready to do so, and a wide swath of fans have already made it about themselves and their fandom experiences.

These celebrities are far from being isolated cases. There are countless others who have been forced into making deeply personal decisions based not on what feels right to them, but what will appease the crowds of strangers who watch and follow them.

So, since the original question was about that post on Harold, let's bring it back to that point with one final question from myself:

If Brian is in fact queer, do you think that his long-dead father is really the biggest reason that a world-famous multi-millionaire twice-knighted astrophysicist rockstar may still be choosing to stay in the closet after all this time?

One final note that anyone who engages with this post in bad-faith is being blocked. I have neither the desire nor spoons to argue with anyone who insists that this fandom isn't homophobic or that their homophobia is somehow different because they mean well by it.

#text #long post //#ramblings #brian #I've read over this 9000 times and had my friend review it and I'm still not sure posting is a good idea #at least I can disable reblogs down the road if this turns into a fucking nightmare in my notifs #I want to assume this ask was sent in good-faith which is why I'm answering but... we'll see I guess #ETA: I keep making edits to add more clarifying points and I need to just Stop #idk if I actually answered the question but either you vibe with what I'm trying to say or you don't #I'm not gonna try to make this clearer because I don't think it's actually helping

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fala-alfredo-pasta · 9 months

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Can I ask how you feel about the popular idea in the fandom of Nagito's luck being balanced out post-game by Hajizuru's? Because me personally...I really really dislike it.

To start with it basically suggests that in any other scenario where he doesn't end up beside him, Nagito is doomed. Not only does that imply other ships are shot down. But it also implies that even Komahina wouldn't work without Izuru's talents being added to the mix. So there goes his happiness in a non-Despair timeline. I mean I guess Makoto might be the other exemption, but still.

And while I do think Komahina and Komaegi are of course very very cute, I can't buy that Nagito would feel happy with that idea. It not only means that he's completely dependent on a single person for any chance at happiness. But he has to resign himself to accepting that on his own he's a doom magnet. When really I think he'd want to beat his luck cycle somehow on his own terms. Plus I just think the idea that Hope's Peak could somehow implant a person with supernatural luck is just incredibly stupid. Makoto and Nagito's unique forms of luck should be the one thing they found impossible to replicate. I actually have a personal headcanon that the Kamukura Project was secretly only a 99% success. In that they only managed to give Izuru a consistent 10 for his Luck stat. But they failed to grant him the wild 20s that Makoto and Nagito have when their luck goes into overdrive.

Honestly I agree that the luck balancing theory can tie down Nagito’s options for partners. Although, in a way that could add to the appeal of Nagito’s tragic existence given that there’s always a caveat to everything for him--in this way the good luck is having someone love him, the bad luck is it being how limited his options are given that they need to fit a specific criteria to simply be able to survive around him.

On top of which is also brings into question whether Nagito’s feeling towards said specific person are actually genuine or if he’s clinging onto them more so for the reprieve they give him from his luck rather than any real feelings of love. Kinda like someone marrying for money or security—it’s done for necessity not because there’s actual strong romantic emotion.

But again, to some this can be part of the appeal of the theory. I’ll admit I’ve delved into this theory exploration myself with komaegi lol. There’s just so much about their luck we still don’t know and will probably never know about such as how it actually interacts—so it can be fun to explore this theme and it’s dark underbelly!

But I agree, it would be so much better for Nagito to be able to take control of his luck on his own rather than have it hinge on someone else’s existence. This theory is one of those ones that seems cute and “meant-to-be” on the surface but is actually a very slipper slope of one-sided dependency and given Nagito’s tendency for obsession with things that help him cope, it can get dark real fast. Which is why I feel it’s one of those theories you really need to be prepared to address the flaws and not simply sugarcoat it as “the-best-lucky-thing-to-happen-to-Nagito”. I mean for this theory to even be remotely healthy even for Hajizuru/Nagito or Makoto/Nagito, you’ll NEED to have Nagito become self-reliant and assured. Otherwise, Nagito would have a breakdown and/or major anxiety simply when he’s away from his partner because he knows now that his luck is active again. He’s already very anxious as is about his luck—but going from being able to finally live at ease for once in his life only to be reminded in a blink of an eye that no his luck is still there and can still hunt him down now that his shield is gone, would probably make the anxiety even worse in those moments.

So at the end of the day, balance theory or not, the best thing for Nagito would be for him to overcome the fear of his luck on his own and find a way to manage it that doesn’t rely on unhealthy coping mechanism. That’s always been Nagito’s journey. Learning to live despite his luck. Whether he has a partner or not.

On a side note—I too agree that Hope’s Peak replicating luck is cap lol. Like….how do you even replicate that??? Even to just a 10 I feel like it’s pseudo luck. I mean Izuru has (virtually) ALL the talents! I find it more believable that he utilizes a multitude of them at any given situation to make the odds work in his favor rather than having actual innate luck. Hear me out okay, hear me out, but I mean what exactly stopped Hope’s Peak researchers from implanting the idea of “this is your lucky talent” into Hajime whilst operating on him so that they could say to the world that they’ve done it while also making Izuru be wired to believe something like that? Improbable you say? Of course, but this is Danganronpa where a whole ass man can become butter from riding his bike too fast, I think surgical brainwashing is like…the least improbably thing tbh. You’d think they’d implant the idea of being loyal to Hope’s Peak too ayeeeeee. K Imma stop now.

#anonymous #danganronpa #komaeda nagito #fala replies #a e i o queue #me: u gotta try to answer things in order of which u recieved them #also me: BUT I HAD A LOT OF THOUGHTS ON THIS ONE--#ok i actually A LOT of asks i gotta catch up on aaaahhh

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picnokinesis · 1 year

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DOCTOR WHO POSITIVITY DRIVE

Hello everyone!

Alright, so I recently got the chance to go to Gallifrey One, which was absolutely incredible, but what struck me the most was just how positive the atmosphere was. I went there worrying that there would be a big, obvious divide between people who liked one era and people who liked another - but there wasn’t at all. Everyone was so friendly and nice, and it was such a celebration of the entire show, old and new. And it’s only really hit me now that I’ve come back to the online fandom after that experience that the reason I felt that way was because recently a lot of people seem to be either focusing on the parts of the show that they hate, or hating on other parts of the show to say why the part they like it good. And I’m tired of it - this is a show that tells us to see wonder in the universe and be kind to one another! - and after talking to a few people, I think a lot of folks are. And so I came up with this idea - a positivity drive!

Here’s how it works: if you want to, make a post about any part of Doctor Who that you like! Maybe it’s a specific era, or a specific character, or maybe multiple different things or just the show as a whole. Whatever you like - and then encourage other people to do the same! It can be as short or as long as you like. There are just a couple of rules:

Rule 1: Don’t be negative about any part of the show in order to say something positive about another part. This is about celebration, remember.

Rule 2: If someone else posts something for the positivity drive that you disagree with or that you actually really hate about the show - leave them be. Of course, if you want to make your own critical post, I’m not going to stop you, but the last thing I want is for people to start arguments on posts that are meant to be about celebrating the show. We’re all a community of people with different opinions and tastes, and so we like different things! And that’s okay!

Rule 3: Tag your post with #dw positivity drive so people can find posts and share the love. It’ll also help me because I would like to reblog as many posts as I can! And if you feel like encouraging other folks to join in too, that would be really awesome! I want this to span across as many eras and aspects of the show as possible

I’ll start everyone off by saying what I like about the show, but I’m going to put it under the cut because otherwise this will get too long. But if people are happy to reblog this and/or share it with folks in other ways, that would be really helpful! I just think it would be amazing if we could recreate that sense of love and joy that I felt at Gallifrey One - because isn’t this what fandom is all about? Sharing joy for the things that we love? I think it should be!

Since I’ve been watching the show since 2005, I thought I’d say what I liked about each showrunner era, because I love the RTD, Moffat and Chibnall era for a bunch of different reasons. And to be clear, if I say something I like about one era, that doesn’t mean I think it’s bad or not done well in another era - it’s just a particular thing I like about that era!

RTD ERA

I really love RTD’s characters - they’re always so vibrant and real, and he’s really good at establishing the characters quickly and giving us a really clear and consistent sense of who they are and what matters to them! It’s also really satisfying to watch the story arcs of these characters - I think of Donna in particularly, because I really love how she grows from a character with so little confidence in herself to someone who manages to save everything that she knows. And yes, I know she loses her memory too, but I lowkey love that - especially in the context of the recent series, with the Doctor suddenly discovering that their own memories have been erased - because the pain of it is so brutal and real, and it somehow feels even worse than if she’d died. I love angst and tragedy when it’s done well, and that’s another thing that RTD is excellent at! (Like the whole thing with the TIME WAR, guh, it’s such a good way to bring back a show that had been off the air for so long)

On that note!! He brought back the show!! And he did it with a wheelie bin burping what an ICON

RTD tends to put his themes and his message at the heart of the story he’s telling, and I really love that because it just resonates through the whole thing

Ok this is a silly thing but as a kid I always loved it when RTD would like...have a word or phrase that kept cropping up and you’d spot it in lots of episodes and it would suddenly become relevant in the climax? Like in s1 it was ‘bad wolf’, and then in s2 it was ‘torchwood’, and then less of a word/phrase but how in s4 they kept bringing up about the missing planets? It was just really cool and excellent storytelling to set up for what is coming for the end of the series

There are so many stories that I love in this era - it’s one I’m very fond of because I grew up with it, and honestly I think it inspired me so much to like sci-fi as much as I do now

MOFFAT ERA

The episodes in this era are always so bombastic and spectacular! There’s such a cool sense of scale for the universe, and so many cool new monsters and worlds are brought in that I really enjoy (like the christmas episode with the flying sharks? HELLO? I’m absolutely obsessed with that). And yet we also get this really cool dichotomy with the home life of the characters too, and seeing how their relationship with the Doctor and how their lives at home don’t always work well together, and it’s such a cool theme to really dive into.

Early Moffat era - especially s5 - has this really wonderful like...fairytale vibe, I guess? Just the themes of s5 are really nice, and I particularly love how we see them woven throughout the narrative and also just the style of the show and how the stories are told. It’s awesome

Moffat era has some absolutely CRACKING two-parters! I think one of my favourites are probably the crash of the Byzantium two-parter, but then the s10 finale is just absolutely BRUTAL but so, so well done. On that note, I absolutely ADORE s10 on the whole, like just Twelve, Bill and Nardole as a TARDIS team? And then everything between Twelve and Missy? I’m obsessed with it, it’s so so good.

The Doctor speeches!! So many iconic lines!!

Moffat has some REALLY awesome concepts that he delves into in his era - like the idea of a crack in time! The Pandorica! The confession dial! Aliens that make you forget you even saw them! Aliens from a two-dimension universe trying to invade ours! And then, of COURSE, the way he uses the black hole and time dilation in the s10 finale? Absolutely INCREDIBLE, it’s just SO cool!

CHIBNALL ERA

I know I keep going on about themes but I absolutely LOVE the themes of Chibnall’s era, especially in s12-13 and the way it digs so much into identity. It’s something that I myself really love to write about, as well as being something that really resonates with me personally, and so it’s just been an absolute TREAT to see it get dived into in a show I love so much, and done so well! I also really love how it explore memory and trauma and how that ties to identity, which is another topic I find really fascinating.

With Chibnall’s stories, I’ve really found that the more you dig into them and engage with them, and try and figure out how they tick, the more and more satisfying and enjoyable they become. It’s makes writing for and being in the fandom for this era in particular so wonderful, because even now, years after some episodes aired, I keep finding more connections and more things that I hadn’t realised about, and it’s AWESOME! I also really love how it’s all such a love letter to the show as a whole - the last episode in particular is a great example of that, but I really think the whole of this era is as well! There are so many references and connections back to both RTD and Moffatt’s era, but then also Classic Who as well! Like, for example, take the Timeless Child arc - the way it weaves threads that had been left hanging from previous seasons, taking inconsistencies that are natural for a show that has been airing for sixty years (!!) and make them fit in so beautifully into the tapestry of canon? It’s SO COOL!! And so satisfying! I think people sometimes say that Chibnall tore canon apart, but I actually think that’s the opposite of what he’s done - he took things like the Cartmel Masterplan and The Brains of Morbius and that one random scene in the Matrix from the Deadly Assassin...and he made them all FIT together! It’s amazing! And then in Flux too - I saw someone talk about how the Flux being created by Tecteun because of the Doctor actually makes the end of s5 make even more sense - because in the future, the universe is being destroyed because of the Doctor, and so all of Eleven’s enemies put him in the Pandorica! It’s brilliant. AND THEN bringing back Ace and Tegan for the centenary of the BBC!!! He finished off their story arcs DECADES after their last appearances, and it just the coolest thing

On that note! So many ties back to Classic Who!! We love to see it!! I also really appreciate the fact that Flux enabled so much Lungbarrow clowning, which I think had to be intentional because why would it have been there otherwise, plus we KNOW that Chibnall knows about Lungbarrow - so yknow. It’s silly but I love it yknow

This era is just so GORGEOUS, it’s absolutely stunning? Not just the CGI but also just the lighting and the amount of detail and love that goes into the set design and the costumes! There are so many details to enjoy and I love that

I love all the characters so much, they’re absolutely wonderful! Again, a lot of the characterisation feels quite under the surface, but the more you let the episode sit with you and look at the details, the more you see, and it’s wonderful. I’m also particularly attached to Thirteen for a lot of personal reasons, because it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to see so much of myself in a character - and yet she’s still open to interpretation, so other people can see themselves in her as well. And especially when at Gally One someone asked Chibnall about Thirteen’s autistic traits, and he confirmed that they were intentional - that was just SO wonderful, because as someone who is autistic, I’ve always found a lot of the way I see the world mirrored in the Doctor’s character, but this was especially true with Thirteen (it’s one of the reasons why I really love how she was portrayed alongside Telsa in s12 ep4). So to hear it confirmed as intentional was just awesome

I also really love how there has clearly been an intent to include more diversity and be more inclusive, both in front of the camera and behind it! Whilst there have definitely been slip ups, I think the right intentions have definitely been there, and I’ve seen the tangible impact that it’s had on real people around me. For example, with Demons of the Punjab, there were so many people (myself included) who knew nothing about the Partition of India, because it’s just not taught about in schools here (which is absolutely shameful!). I actually worked on a creative project about the partition after this episode aired, and the amount of people who said they only found out about it because of Doctor Who was significant. And I think it’s really great and really important, because it’s leading Doctor Who to explore parts of history that we don’t normally see portrayed or talked about. And Chibnall has also clearly worked really hard to focus the historical episodes on important women in history, especially ones who many people might not have heard about, such as Noor Inayat Khan and Mary Seacole! (I remember my Indian friend being so cross that she’d never been taught about Noor at school after watching Spyfall Part 2 - someone just like her, and she was only finding out about it in 2020!). I also hugely appreciate the fact that he baked into the lore that the Doctor being a woman wasn’t a one-off by introducing Jo Martin’s Doctor, who was also absolutely wonderful, as well as all the Timeless Child regenerations that we see. And then at the same time! Establishing that the Doctor hasn’t always been white! Chibnall gave us our first Black Doctor, and then gave us even more with the Timeless Child - and that’s awesome.

One of the things that has always struck me, but especially after going to Gally One, was how much love and joy there was for the show from Chibnall, Jodie, and everyone else involved in making it. They all talked about each other so positively, always praising and crediting other people for all the work that they did, and seemed to actively work towards making sure everyone on set felt welcome and included (even though Jodie claims that she was just nosy and wanted to talk to everyone haha - but regardless! The positive impact was so profound that every time people ask about how it was filming, every person mentions how wonderful Jodie is, unprompted). And Chibnall himself clearly cares so much about the show, and has so much of a passion for it - but is also just a really decent guy who just wants to encourage and enable other people, based on the interactions I had with him in person at Gally One. And I think that shows so much in his whole era

RTD2

We haven’t had much yet but NCUTI GATWA!!! AHHHH I am SO excited! He looks amazing already and I cannot wait

DONNA NOBLE COMING BACK?? IN 2023?? I’m not ready at ALL I’m going to cry

YASMIN FINNEY!!!

BEEP THE MEEP!! (but on that note!! How he’s bringing in obscure extended canon characters? Absolutely obsessed, I want more of it!)

The trailer just looks like so much fun and I’m hype

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andypantsx3 · 3 months

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I’ve written to you before a very long time ago about things not going very well for me, and things are better now. Thank you for your compassion to a stranger then. It’s given me ideas as someone who also enjoys writing. I’m sure you’ve got variations of this question before so I’m sorry if I’ve missed those somehow but any advice on how to start writing and sharing your writing publicly? Like I created an account to send you this but I have no clue about anything really. Will I seem like a random interloper in the fandom who has arrived out of the blue 😭 I guess my concern is I’ll realize I’m actually not good at writing at all or worse nobody will read any of it. I feel awkward about actively promoting my work too. I don’t want to be famous or anything but it would suck if nobody wanted to read my stuff. You’re something of a stalwart at least for the fandom/genre/pairings you regularly write for and while I won’t aspire to that, how did you deal with self-doubt as an early writer? I know it’s not like I hope to earn money out of this or anything so opinions are just opinions but all my writing feels so personal to me that I’m worried about being convinced nobody cares about what I have to say. How does one really get their start at all. I’m sorry to bother you with all this but I’m super lost. It’s just that if someone’s terrible day or week could be made a little better because of my work, as your work regularly does for people, that would be nice. I hope you’re doing really well and randomly find something you’ve been looking for!

Hello my love!! I'm so happy I could help you out a little when you were in a tough spot!! I am very very happy that things are looking up for you now and I hope things only continue to get better and better!!! 💕

And oh my gosh, I don't think anyone will think of you as an interloper!!! Fandom is a community and the more the merrier imho! The x Reader community in particular is super welcoming and very nonjudgmental and the perfect place to get your start; almost everyone here is super nice and really chill. People will surprise you with how much nicer they are than you expect; I think you should just take a leap of faith and jump in!!

But just in case, let me give you the most realistic and straightforward advice I can. It's easy to dip your toes in and test the waters but I think you will need the below pieces of advice if you plan to battle self-doubt and continue writing & publishing fic without burning out or going nuts in the long term lol.

1. Find balance in the source of your self-worth

With publishing anything online, you always hope that people will like it and will want to engage with it. On tumblr the best measurement we have of that is notes, and on ao3 kudos + comments. Notes/comments/kudos are incredible and will make you feel more cherished than anything in the world. I will always appreciate them more than I can say, but one thing it is essential to know is that they are external sources of validation, and it is extremely dangerous to attach your sense of worth solely to the actions of other people.

If you want to publish fic, you will need to also find some internal sense of worth in your writing. You will need to finely balance that with how much you treasure the feedback of other people in order to stay afloat long term.

I recommend really sitting down and thinking about what you are writing/what you want to write, and why it is worth it to you. What makes your fic interesting to you? What are you doing differently than other people that makes you unique? What does your authorial voice sound like? Answering these questions will help you identify what you are bringing to the table as an author, so you know what it is that you do well, even if people aren't engaging the way you want, or even if you're receiving criticism.

For me, I really find value in the places I diverge from other fic authors. People really love writing powerful hero readers, but I usually write quirkless side characters who have somehow found themselves the main character. Chaptered/long fics are also less common in our fandom than oneshots, but I typically write chaptered fics! And I have a stylistically simple and light voice which is easily accessible.

All of these help me know that I'm bringing some fun distinct stuff to the table, even if what I'm bringing isn't perfect or necessarily as popular. And even if I enjoy other peoples' fics and authorial voices more than my own; I'm still bringing something unique and valuable!! So even when people aren't picking up every single thing I'm putting down, I still know the value of putting them down anyway.

2. Manage expectations

I think it can be easy to compare ourselves with one another, especially if you follow some well-established authors or people writing for super popular characters. Even I succumb to jealousy on occasion; it's just human nature. But it's important to know people will engage with different types of fics in different ways and that other people's success has nothing to do with your own.

I think you should set realistic expectations for how people will engage with your fics depending on what it is that you want to write. Some fandoms are much larger than others and therefore have a wider built-in audience. Some characters are also wildly more popular than others so it is likelier fics for those characters will go a bit further. In my experience, people really gravitate towards smutty scenarios or headcanons, sometimes oneshots, and less so chaptered fic. And some authors have been around for forever, or post constantly so that they are regularly drawing people in, and therefore have a larger reader pool than other authors.

So think about what you are writing, for which characters, and in which fandoms, and level your expectations accordingly. For me, even though Shouto is fairly popular, he also only has roughly 1/3 of Bakugou's level of popularity. So I never try to gauge the success of a Shouto fic in comparison to a Bakugou fic I've written, or even the Bakugou fics of other more established Bakugou writers.

This, combined with my own internal sense of worth as a writer, helps me feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself, even if I get like, 30 notes on a fic compared to someone else's 300 or something.

3. Understand that writing is a growing process!

One other essential tip is to understand that writing is a skill set than can be refined and honed. What you write one day is not indicative of where your skill level will sit the next day. And so critique you receive, or mistakes you have made, are really less indicative of failure and more tools to help you get to the next level.

This is one I've personally struggled with, but it can be worth it to be open to feedback that is not necessarily complimentary, with the caveat that you should know what is objective constructive criticism, and what is more subjective/personal preference. The latter you can disregard, because tailoring a fic to some random person's arbitrary tastes is not going to help you tell a good story lol.

But people telling you what they would like to see more of or things that didn't make sense to them can help you understand where you can make improvements to your writing. And it's not to say your writing is not good enough where it is; only to say there are avenues for you to develop even more experience.

For me, this has largely been in the area of smut lol. I liked my lil vanilla smut scenes, but I used to commonly get a fair amount of feedback wishing they were spicier. And, after initially getting defensive lmao, I could see how that was a common piece of feedback across multiple critiques, and I understood how drawing those scenes out might help contribute to the feeling of intimacy, satisfaction, and closure I want to develop at the end of a fic!!

I think being open to feedback while understanding that critique does not in any way take away from your talent overall, can only help you preserve the satisfaction you have with your writing, and help you refine in the future!! It keeps writing interesting, and keeps your sense of self-worth tied up in the process of writing, not necessarily the product of the writing, if that makes sense.

Anyway that's what I can think of for now. Even with all this advice listed out, I think you should just have hope and trust in people and dive right in. It sounds like you are an earnest person wanting to make heartfelt connections, and in my experience people will reflect that energy right back at you!!

I am sending you all my best vibes and looking forward to reading your stuff, if you end up going for it and posting!!! 💕✨

#ask andie

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eyecicles · 1 year

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some bad dn takes for other characters as well?

Sorry this took me so long.

I’ve seen too much over the years I’ve been in the fandom. And while I tried to be as objective as possible (by mostly mentioning stuff that’s objectively inaccurate), this is obviously only my personal perspective. Subscribing to something on my list doesn’t make you inherently stupid/bad, etc.

Worst L takes:

– Ryuzaki Persona theory, especially when it’s combined with disproportionate disgust and hate towards “Ryuzaki” and his mannerisms + directly or indirectly calling him a “breaching experiment”

– L just wanted what's best for humanity, and all his inhumane methods are justified because he's utilitarian or whatever

– he genuinely considered Light his friend and trusted him & sadly got betrayed by him

– he’s so weird in “L: The Wammy's House/One Day” because Ohba and Obata don’t want you to ship Lawlight

– honestly any take that depicts him as the ideal boyfriend material and/or someone who just needs a partner to fix him

(related: “O&O wanted him to be unattractive? but he is conventionally attractive!” can you imagine how boring that would be?)

– he's just as bad as Light/Misa/Mikami/Mello/any character who regularly murders or participates in organised crime

– he's an unhygienic gremlin, stinks, has dirty feet and/or clothes, never washes his hair, probably has broken teeth, etc, in short: everything that depicts him as gross as possible because of his eccentric mannerisms

(about L being barefoot: I'm sure many people don’t know this, but designing eccentric/disordered/mentally ill characters with bare feet to suggest they’re “abnormal” is an old trope, and people’s reactions to characters like him are…telling. I’m not talking about finding the sight of bare feet disgusting, but biases that are worth dissecting)

– he treated Misa better than Light did

– “L would surely have developed diabetes and die at a young age anyway”

– any take that erases his Japanese descent

Worst Misa takes:

– what L and Watari did to Misa was totally justified

– she’s actually pure and has a good heart & just wants love, and Light is a bad person for not reciprocating her feelings

– she should have killed Light for not loving her and assume his role + absorb all his personality traits

– I dislike everything that depicts her in a "Girl Boss” kinda way. It’s so boring, and it feels like certain people can only respect female character if they view them through that lens

– she’s bad for not loving Rem (granted, it is shocking how little she cares for Rem, and their entire dynamic is messy, but I do understand why she never warmed up to her. She certainly doesn’t owe Rem love)

– anything that depicts her as extremely dumb and incompetent

– similar to what I mentioned in L’s list: any take that insinuates that she should have realised L would be a better partner for her

– she actually wasn’t being homophobic when she said two men chained together is gross & asked if L is gay—she was just kinkshaming/jealous, etc (as if this would make what she said less homophobic)

Worst Near takes:

– he’s just a little uwu baby without a single darker trait (he’s certainly more ethical in some regards than most DN characters, but he’s not entirely innocent)

– he’s somehow bad/worse than L because he’s too maladjusted to participate in society

– he’s a bad L copy and doesn’t have any personality traits of his own

– L did all the work for him (no, Near had to start from scratch, since every information on the Kira case got automatically deleted when L died)

– it’s unfair that the Task Force immediately believed Near when he started suspecting Light (first: they didn’t, two: the situation was completely different, third: it would be a huge coincidence if two very smart detective came to the same conclusion by chance)

– he thinks he’s just as competent/more competent than L (even though he said he needed Mello to surpass L & deeply doubts himself during the C-Kira case)

– he performed better than Mello in their exams because he cheated

– he can’t be autistic because he doesn’t have a beard (I only saw this take once, but I still remember it from time to time because it’s hilarious)

Other bad takes:

– Kiyomi deserved what happened to her, because she didn’t see through Light/treated Misa badly/killed Mello, etc

– Mikami wasn’t bullied enough

– Mello is more feminist than (insert male character the person with this take doesn’t like), because he gave Kiyomi a blanket (yeah, let’s just ignore this happened because of his habit of kidnapping women)

– anything that depicts Mello as this constantly raging, thoughtless and choleric who’s always insulting everyone

– B treated Naomi better than Raye Penber

– Rem was dumb for not working with L (hello... L wants to catch Kira, and even if he were to leave Misa alone, Rem knows Misa wouldn’t want anything to happen to Light—that’s an important plot point)

– anything that insinuates DN is supposed to be totally serious, grim and deeply philosophical (or: ”DN wants to be like Breaking Bad/Crime and Punishment!”)

– Soichiro should have been L’s or Matsuda’s father

#l lawliet #misa amane #near

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raccoonspooky · 7 months

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i’ve been reading a bunch of tommy hewitt fics and some of them (older ones mostly) have their oc/reader be like “i’m going to help luda mae around the house and basically slave around for these people because they’ll like me then and basically never say anything rude ever” and then criticise literally any other victim for not behaving well for a family of cannibals and it’s crazy.. IS THIS WHAT THEY MEAN BY PICK MES

Omg I feel you so hard, I really dont like when slasher fanfic has the tone of “everyone else are dumb horrible people but not YOU my special girl!” It just puts such a bad taste in my mouth because it sanitizes these killers it shows that people cannot morally find them attractive or whatever unless they change some key aspect of who these characters are. If they kill only bad, horrible people then clearly they’re not bad to the core! I see this all the time in house of wax works and TCM and there’s something shitty about looking at these like idk people living in fkn squalor and being like “awww its ok! U cant understand morals cause ur not civilized 🥰”

To me, I find stories much more interesting if you take the horror as it is. If you are truly in this disgusting murderous environment and something in you mutates into fucked up affection??? And you can find that even through the blood and violence? Thats hot as hell haha.

Sometimes I think people write these narratives because its sort of the fandom meta or go to, I’m unsure. People are free to write whatever fulfills them but much of it becomes unreadable to me and I wish there was more content that would take things as they are rather than clean it up and somehow make it even worse than the original concept in terms of morals or just completely missing the point of these movies.

It’s gross to me to idk have the mentality that youre BETTER and more deserving of life than other people because ur oh so broken or oh so in need of attention or whatever. I like it much better when “you” are aware that youre no different than others and the reader’s perspective on that.

#at a certain point ppl are playing around with barbie dolls named after these characters but ultimately they have nothing to do with the #character as they were #not saying ppl cant write fluffy nonsense just to write it because i do self fullfilling bs all the time also #im just saying there was less ~im special and everyone else sucks and is a skank or dumb or rude #its a shitty mentality

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acourtofthought · 2 years

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I don’t think what went down with that e/lriel was fair. I think it was beneath you. I am also using my phone, so I apologise for any weird formatting.

Let me preface this by saying - You made valid points. I just don’t understand why you went to their post, and commented at all? To be honest, I don’t think you were in the right on that, and it makes us look bad. We’ve been accused of baiting in the past, and I’ve always scoffed at it..but you undeniably did go onto their post to seemingly start a fight. I also don’t think it’s a fair claim, that they could stop responding - when it was their post and blog to begin with, and not some random post that invited discussion. That is an unrealistic, and unfair expectation. I would tell someone who came into my space like that to “fuck off” too. That e/lriel you engaged with IS problematic, undeniably so. Everyone knows it. I just feel you gave them something valid to whine about this time. I am genuinely confused and frequently disgusted by our ACOTAR community as a whole. We call each other hypocrites, and yet do the very same thing we accuse our antis of. One of your reiterated points is “you hate when e/lriels say Eluciens lack reading comprehension” - a very fair gripe to be sure! However I’ve seen numerous posts from “our” side of the line, claiming that very thing of E/lriels..I’ve seen much worse claimed of them, by us..Truly, I wish you would have just vagued that E/lriel instead of engaging like that. It was disappointing, and I’m annoyed that today I actually feel bad for them.

I apologize that my responding to something in the Elain tag has upset you to the point that you felt the need to message me.

I LOVE a lot of the people that I've interacted with through Tumblr. I love reading their blogs, their ideas, their thoughts. And I love that there is a collective group who love Elucien like I do.

At the same time, I am still an independent thinker and operate based on my emotions and thoughts. If I feel angered over others being attacked then I'm not the kind of person who's going to sit back and do nothing. If something frustrates me and I feel driven to speak up, I'm going to do it.

Truly, I apologize if that somehow gives the collective Eluciens a bad name. But the Original Poster was ridiculing others under the Elain tag which leaves it open for anyone following the Elain tag to comment on.

I was presenting an opinion to her, in response to a post which I felt did not provide accurate information. If she did not like my reblog response, she could have ignored me. She could have blocked me. But she chose to respond and progressively got nastier. I don't think there is anything wrong with responding to an open blog that has the tag of Elain in it, regardless of whether or not that blog was created by her or not. She blogged something with a tag that would be seen by both Elucien and Elriels. That's like saying when an actor posts a promo for their movie, only people who agree with a certain group of critics should be allowed to comment. The Elain tag belongs to no one in particular which, in my opinion means it's open for discussion. When a neutral tag is used, people are going to speak up. I don't think that means anyone is giving their ship a bad name if it's done in a certain way. What gives certain sides of a fandom a "bad name" is not the back and forth discussion with someone. It's when name calling and belittling others happens. It's when people forget how to have any actual debate and resort to pettiness.

I'm not sure what more to say because while I'm sorry it bothered you to this extent, I'm not going to be the kind of person who doesn't speak out when I feel like it's in defense of others. I know I don't always succeed but for the most part, I try to discuss the book rather than turning into a personal attack. And while I don't enjoy having someone upset with me, I can't promise I won't speak out again in the future.

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moved-to-cinnamon-phrog · 2 years

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hii, anon with the yellow guy f/o here again to talk about him!!

I'm actually very new to dhmis, but I was immediately drawn to yellow. Upon watching the YouTube series and the show I started looking into the fandom a bit. The amount of people that have the hc that yellow is a child lowkey freaked me out at first because I thought it was somehow canon. (Nothing against that hc though it's just not for me!) I'm definitely not into any of that pr0shipper stuff so I had to do a bit of research.

After resolving the initial panic I decided to get into self shipping and have yellow guy as my first official f/o! I've known about self shipping for a while, but hadn't had the bravery to try it. I found that it makes me really happy especially since my DHMIS hyperfixation has hit me harder than any other fandom has in a longg time!

The amount of constant inspiration and energy thinking about yellow guy has given me is insane!! He's gotten me back into drawing after a huge break from it because I'm just so in love with him that I have to translate those thoughts into art. I have so much art of yellow saved to my phone cuz there are so many talented people in this fandom and I love seeing how they interpret him!

It's so nice to see someone who also has yellow as an f/o and I would be so so happy to hear you talk about him as well!!!

ASDFGHJKIUYTREWQEFGVCBNVCVBN!!!!!!! HI ANON!!!!!!

Sorry for such a late reply, I was trying to conjure up any kind of coherent sentence in my head because I am SO happy for you and to be able to talk to someone who also has Yellow as an F/O.

I haven’t been in this fandom for long, either. Only a week from a year. Which is crazy, because it feels like only yesterday I was subjected to this crazy, sopping puppet man and yet I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.

ALSO YOUR ART!!!! I BET IT’S AMAZING!!!!!!!

He’s given me SO MUCH drawing inspiration as well, most of my sketchbook is at least 70% Yellow asdfghsdfgxcvbcvb

I love him, and for once I don’t once feel pained over it.

Every other person I’ve loved, fictional and real, just felt… hollow. I always felt detached and empty and had no real comfort. Most made me feel worse.

But, with Yellow, things feel better. Things feel fuller. Brighter, even. I always tried to associate my past crushes with sunlight, but it never really fit them.

But it does with Yellow. Because he literally is sunlight. The vibrant colour of it, the warm softness of it, even the violent blaze of it.

And I’m glad he makes you feel a similar way, really.

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94erz · 1 year

Text

This is a rant.

How I wish I could just see and engage with Hoseok and Namjoon content on Twitter and see nothing else ever. Like why is it I just logged in to find a mutual liking the comment of one of their mutuals arguing with an EXO fan accusing j-hope of copying them just ‘cause of a pose of him standing is apparently ripping them off somehow because fan wars between k-pop groups are as stupid as smashing rocks against each other? I don’t think any of them realize that for everyone of them who love to talk about how shit ARMY is they’re literally no different. A lot of them are stupid and awful, because most PEOPLE are stupid and awful, and for some reason the most stupid and the most awful love to take that energy and spread it all over Twitter.

How easy would it be for BigHit to post about j-hope, and then fans of other groups to just like, ignore it? Really, how impossible would that be? Frankly I find it very easy actually to just block things I see that don’t interest me and keep scrolling. But no, and then when this blunt object jabs at a beehive they scream and cry when the bees wake up and start getting at them. And like, who cares? You kind of did that to yourself? Is anyone really supposed to feel bad when the correct response when happening upon a beehive is step around it versus agitate it? My Girl was such a good movie it’s probably too old for most people who use Twitter sadly but there’s a lesson in there about this LOL

I just don’t get it. And yes, ARMY ARE just as bad, they do the exact same thing. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen a very specific set of accounts QRT something from another fandom and have started shit, it’s equally stupid and unnecessary, but for a lot of group fans who claim ARMY are the worst and how much “better” their fandoms are I really don’t see how that’s true, they all do the exact same fucking thing. It means they’re all trash. Frankly all fandoms are at least 50% hot garbage, personally I’ve been in fandoms much worse than BTS’ fanbase and just by seeing the worst 50% of other groups fandoms it’s like, yeah, hello black meet fucking kettle.

#Sab talks BTS stuff #in conclusion all fandoms are partially bad like no shit

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volot · 2 years

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headcanon: empathy, sympathy, pity.

or: how volo views the world through his own fishbowl lens, and how his empathy has twisted itself into something that doesn’t look like it normally should.

remember how i wanted to talk about volo’s fucked up empathy? let’s jump into that.

when it comes to a character who wishes to end the world, there’s a common debate on whether or not these kinds of characters practice empathy. in the thickets of fandom spaces, i’ve seen either side argued; a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, and like all things on this blog, i’m inclined to think it’s a little more... complicated than that?

to start, i’ll say this: i don’t personally believe volo is a heartless person. but i also don’t believe volo is a bleeding heart, either.

volo is, after all, just a man. a man who has endured alluded to trauma, both generational and connected to his heritage / culture, and presumably very heartbreaking and painful situations based on what he says. he has seen history and its bloody, ugly bones, he has likely seen others suffer as he has if not worse, and has witnessed and been through enough to believe that change is not possible, but a full reset of everything is. there is no coming back, there is no change they can reach, they must start anew, and by someone who knows it best, under a god who will account for all the suffering in the world.

but he is also a man with a complex. he is someone who has deluded himself into believing he is grandiosely special, someone who is chosen and destined to meet with god, someone who is far greater than any other due to his destiny and the blood in his veins, that he is above many things for these reasons. he puts himself in the position of someone who is no man, but is someone meant for so much more, a being on par with divinity, who will reach apotheosis and bring forth a better world of his own plan. he views himself as the closest thing to god, a savior, and one who will become god and control creation at his fingertips. he has decided this. fate has decided this.

so, that begs the question: how does he feel with all this in mind? what does this do to his perspective?

there’s one word i’ve used consistently in writing him and i’ve always used it for a pretty good reason.

to put it simply: volo pities.

to be more precise: volo has a repeated behavior in-game where he looks and acts like he’s either very distant or purposefully separating himself from things ( people, places, affiliations, so on, outside of his roots ), and/or believing he is above it somehow. the way volo’s pity works is ironically similar to the god he chases and condemns: the best way to describe it, i think, is comparing it to that of a god looking down upon something that is small and pitiful, reserved and not personally involved, but they can recognize that this is, indeed, something very sad, he can acknowledge the tragedy of it, of what a shame it is that they must have gone through or endured these things.

i’ve talked plenty of times about how volo suffers from extreme tunnel vision, focusing heavily on his own grief and using others as means of justification of his own resolution to the problem. a good post that glazes over it is this one, where i still stand by the fact that while empathetic, volo’s empathy is very selfish and self-serving. your grief, suffering, and hardship are fuel to his ever-burning fire; he will remember and carry it with him up to god’s altar when he asks why, but he doesn’t care for if you want the world reset or not: your agony is clear to him, a bargaining piece, a shard to fix in his new world. this quote of his puts it best:

"You see, ever since I was young, whenever I met with something painful or heartbreaking... I couldn't help but wonder why life was so unfair. Why I was cursed to live through such things. Of course, I imagine we all go through something like that. “

i’ve bolded an important line here, because volo talks primarily of his own grief, first and foremost. he rattles on about his own hardships, the wounds still aching; he’s focused on it first, then tacks on that he imagines ‘we all go through something like that.’ this can be read as sort of a dismissive afterthought, as though he’s saying ‘yeah others probably feel this way, too.’ but i believe this is him setting up sympathies, evoking a sense of familiarity, and equally accounting for the fact that he has seen people suffer just as he has. he knows it isn’t just him, even if he’s centered on his own orbit; there are others in this world who have gone through similar hardships, and they are one of the many footnotes as to why this world must be reset. it is resounding for him, i think. hammering the point in. to himself, to the player; that if there are others, then the world must be reset, that they would want this too; this forces the player to think: do we all go through something like that? are there others who feel this way, too? do we, as the player, feel this way as well?

that’s not to say volo is cruel about it. hardly so. if you were to bare your heart to him, then he will fall into his savior complex easily. become the shoulder you need, become the hands you need to hold you upright when the world feels as though it will shatter beneath you, the arms you can allow yourself to crumble into. he will comfort you, he will console you with soft words that sound sympathetic, gentle touches if you want them - validate your hurt your anger, your upset, your grief. he will sympathize, he will let you vent it out, he will dry your tears, he will become whatever pillar of strength and hope you require. for as much as he blathers, he’s good at it; the listening, the consoling. the whispering of promises for a better world, with the ambition to back it up if he has tried to instill this into you. someone who understands, who is hearing you, who is listening to you, who is seeing your grief and says ‘i’m sorry that this happened to you.’ ( this too is manipulative in a way, but what isn’t about him? )

...but does he relate to you? does his heart bleed for you? no, not exactly. i believe he can recognize the grief, the tragedy, he can recognize your sadness and he can pity with all he has; he feels bad for you, for your situation. his expression may turn somber, or he may scowl at the heavens. but this is less to do with you, on a level that is intimate and personal, and more struggle in his faith, a sisyphean feeling in regards to arceus; he wonders, how can a god with a heart do this? how can a god that is claimed to be compassionate and good and true able to allow these tragedies to roll by? he may feel anger at your situation, but it is all anger that is directed at god. he feels, intensely as he tends to, but not to the point of being blinded by it. there is a line he must draw. distance he must retain.

something i’ve meant to talk about in my future headcanon explaining how he manipulates is that he can recognize when someone has suffered just like he has. he can find these threads of similarity, but he does not outright relate to you: instead, he acknowledges it and uses it to his own advantage but again, remains distant and detached. this will get its own post, but hey, it’s still worth noting.

he cannot put himself in your shoes - in the same way he avoids getting attached to people in general, because this world is going to end sooner than later - and walk through your steps because it is beneath him to do so, but he can carry you over the ledges and the rifts and the mountains. he struggles to relate to you, on a non-superficial level, but most important is that he cannot bleed himself dry for you, because a god without blood will be too weak to lift the new world up. so instead, he looks down upon you.

“but lucian,” you say. “if he pities people, what about how carelessly he talks about how everyone will die when the world is reset?” and to it i say to you: i think it’s still a little complicated!

with that quote, this one:

"Of course, if I create a brand-new world, then the Hisui region that we currently exist in will be undone and returned to nothing. You, everyone you know, and all the Pokémon living here will vanish in an instant, as if you'd never been."

i’ve seen this argued in favor of him having no empathy, and while i respect that analysis, i don’t personally view it as the case. i think here, he displays a few things:

1.) he has already decided on this goal a long, long time ago. while not spoiling my written headcanon on his motivations, it is worth noting that he is also curious about the power arceus holds, and i’m sure he is of the belief that if there was someone he wished to bring over, why would he be unable to? he is delusional and on a power high, and thoroughly convinced this is possible.

2.) even if that weren’t possible, then this will not stop him. he has already been dead-set on what the outcome is, and there is nothing good without a little sacrifice. it is sad that people will lose their lives in this world if he recreates it, yes; tragic, definitely, these are things he can absolutely recognize. but he must do what he has to, and this is not something that will make him hesitate or reconsider. what must be done, must be done. their lives are already so filled with suffering and doomed: it is best to end them early before misery sets, and give them a brand new shot in the new world. the ends justify the means.

3.) he is likely saying this to also provoke the player, while not being dishonest about it: because he demands that they must fight beneath god’s eye, because that is what he wants. he wants to bid a show for arceus, to prove that he is the one that should be rightfully chosen, and then get rid of you, so that someone like you doesn’t dare oppose him.

in the end... your grief is something he considers pitiful; people are pitiful souls and pokemon are pitiful beasts, and he will drink your sorrows from the well to fill his ambitions whole.

#hc.#study.#blows dust off this hc.......#mario voice here we gooOOOOUGH #no more putting him in absolutes of 'actually he's good ):' or 'hehe him evil >:)' we have mved past the need for absolutes he's jsut Gray #listening to a very fucked up song i do not know the name of while writing this really help set the vibe i think #Vologelion 3.0: You Can[not] Fix Him

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halseyquinn · 2 years

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My thoughts on Mirabel‘s “gift” (Disney’s “Encanto”)

A/N: I’m making a separate post out of this now, bc I’ve only just realized that when I reblog something it’s only visible on my own blog :/

TW: Mention of mental health issues, trauma, difficult family relationships and “pseudo independence” in children/young people

So, there‘s been a lot of discussions and theories in the “Encanto“ fandom about whether Mirabel actually has a “gift“ or not and if not, why. Some good points have, for example, been recently made by @allthingsencanto and I don‘t want to repeat thoughts and ideas that have already been written down. Still I found this post citing interviews with Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith very interesting in that respect (thanks @allthingsencanto) - here’s the link to the post: https://allthingsencanto.tumblr.com/post/690857724206006272/was-looking-at-a-few-article-interviews-heres

There is this theory that Alma and Mirabel have the same “gift” and Mirabel is most likely supposed to inherit her grandmother’s role in the family one day (which is not the main point that I‘ll be driving at). What rather puzzled me is the following question: Why did it take so long for the whole family to find this out? Assuming that Casita means well for the Madrigal family (including Mirabel): Why did it let Mirabel live in shame for all these years? Why did it conjure up a “door” for her in the first place, only to make it vanish the moment she wanted to open it? Didn’t it have any possibility to make clear to the Madrigals what exactly Mirabel’s “gift“ or, better, “role“ in the family was? That she was either supposed to follow in Alma’s footsteps one day and/or help the family realize their problems and to finally overcome them together?

I think these questions become clearer when we think about what Casita’s magic and the Madrigal’s gifts could actually stand for when we take all the “magical“ elements away: i.e. the house as a symbol for healthy and solid family relationships and the gifts symbolizing burdens that people have to deal with in their lives that cause stress and possibly even mental health issues. If we keep that in mind, it could mean that if Casita (i.e. the family’s foundation) wasn’t “strong” enough at that time, Mirabel’s actual “gift“ or “role“ was simply overlooked - which could likely happen in a family where everybody has to deal with their own problems.

But it could also mean that Mirabel only developed her “gift/role“ later - due to how her life turned out. Growing up without a(n obvious) gift she had to deal with a lot of negative emotions and perceptions - but she also learned to “open her eyes” and “see” more than the rest of the family, because she focused on what was going on around her rather than her own “gift” (or problems). I think I read once that there is a phenomenon called “pseudo-independence”: When children grow up learning that they have to deal with their problems on their own, because their caretakers can’t or won’t take care of them properly, they seem to become “independent” really fast, although they actually just don’t show their true feelings and wants (especially wanting to be taken care of). Seeing that everyone else around Mirabel was so occupied with their own “gifts” (i.e. problems), I think she could have grown up to become “pseudo independent” - trying to fix the “magic” (i.e. family) on her own, therefore becoming the next “keeper of the candle“ (or simply: the one who keeps the family together) like her grandmother.

That way, it would mean that Mirabel not getting a gift in the first place somehow “prepared” her for the role that she (involuntarily) was to assume later. In other words: If Mirabel’s future role had been pointed out sooner, she wouldn’t have been able to develop the “skills” necessary for it (if that makes sense). That way, it would explain why Casita acted that way (even if it made the situation worse for Mirabel). One of Jared Bush‘s statements in the interview seems to confirm this – he literally says “it‘s [i.e. saving the family] something only Mirabel can do“- only Mirabel can save the family – maybe not because she doesn‘t have a gift at all (being able to “see“ more than the others and helping her family to heal might be considered the most important gift of all), but because she grew up thinking that she didn‘t have one. Only because Casita made it so obvious that Mirabel didn‘t get a gift, she learned to develop the abilities to save the family in the end - like Bush says she “was expected to let people down in a way“. If everyone always expects bad things (or nothing at all) from you, you can hardly disappoint them – that could, in a weird way, be comforting and help someone to muster up the courage others lack – because: what does she have to lose? Bruno, on the other hand, is in a quite similar position, but (citing Bush again): “The only difference really is that Mirabel is a different type of character“: Whereas Bruno, who has quite a lot to loose, especially in terms of reputation, (and indeed looses it over the years), seemingly gives up at some point, Mirabel, never having been under any kind of pressure due to expectations, doesn‘t have anything to loose in the first place.

Although I really like Bruno as a character, I can‘t help seeing his behavior as especially problematic in that respect – due to him “leaving“ and not facing his problems, he actually makes the situation worse for Mirabel, who is now also being blamed for his absence. When she needs his help, he tries his best to support her – but in the end, she is left alone with the task of “saving the family (miracle)“ – at the age of fifteen! Needless to say that the other adults in the film are no real help either. I know it has already been pointed out – for example by @waitingonavision and I have also written about that topic before – that the young characters in “Encanto” have to deal with way too much in general, but I don‘t think that this point can be emphasized too much: Yes, all of the characters in “Encanto” are trapped in the circle of generational trauma and all of them are victims in their own way, but: in the end, it is a teenager (!) that has to solve the enormous amount of family problems and yes, mainly because the adult characters don‘t act mature enough (including Bruno, who rather hides away behind the walls). Then again, it’s not that simple, because the rest of the family (including the adults) is caught up in the trauma cycle, too.

I‘m honestly still not sure if I‘m personally completely satisfied with the way the film approached this topic, though. In my opinion Mirabel and her actions are “glorified“ too much – don‘t get me wrong, she certainly is an extremely strong and admirable character and what she did was definitely heroic, the point is: she‘s only fifteen – she shouldn‘t have to be brave or heroic! And in my opinion the film didn‘t carry that message across too well (once again, I don‘t know whether that was what the filmmakers actually wanted to show – Smith comments that “that moment of healing this passed down intergenerational trauma was something we were really interested in“ – so the film seems to have focused on the process of healing rather than the trauma itself).

I still can‘t help disliking Bush‘s comment that „the fact that she [i.e. Mirabel] could subvert that [i.e. her “negative“ role], to really be the one who comes to save the family […] is something we‘re really proud of“. I interpreted that (of course, I could be wrong) as “what Mirabel did is something to be proud of“ – and in my opinion it simply isn‘t – children and young people shouldn‘t have to deal with heavy things like that and it is no good to glorify or glamorize such topics. Improving family relationships, helping to heal and trying to end possible trauma cycles is actually what adults are and should be responsible for. Of course, children can and will have to take a part in this, too, it’s just important, imo, to clearly point out that they can never be the ones actually responsible for it (and neither should they feel as if they were) - especially not (like in the case of “Encanto”) because the adults of the family aren’t or don’t seem to be up to the challenge.

As usual, I’m very interested in what everyone else thinks about this!

#Encanto #Encanto theory #Disney theory #tw: mental health #tw: trauma #tw: unhealthy family relationships

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specialofficerlemons · 2 years

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Moving On [Chapter Seven]

Fandom: RVB

Rating: M

Warnings: suicide mentions

Pairing: Northington (Agent North Dakota/Agent Washington)

Summary: (Modern AU) Out of a job and in deteriorating mental health, David Washington starts going to a free PTSD support group. There he meets a traumatized combat veteran and he tries his best to move on after his abusive ex-boyfriend’s suicide.Cute Northington about dealing with trauma.

Chapter Summary: Wash and North met at peer support groups, but now that they are dating, going to groups together had started to get a little...uncomfortable. Wash isn't sure how to remedy this, so he seeks out peer support counseling.

Notes: I've started making notes again for how I would like this fic to go, including involving York in the future, it's just a matter of connecting A to B (more like A to Z), but I'm not too stressed about putting a lot of pressure to get there. I'm just kind of writing how it comes. Be prepared for a lot of minutiae about therapy and peer support and healthcare lmao probably gonna throw in shit about taxes and rent too

Wash didn't tell North everything about his fear of dogs. That would involve him telling him about his relationship with Epsilon and that would just be way too much too soon. He explained that he lived with a guy who had a dog that terrorized him, which was true. He just didn't tell him the nature of their relationship or anything about the guy he was living with. Wash could kind of tell that North knew he was holding back, but he was letting it go, that he could tell this was something sensitive for him, that he would tell him when he was ready. And he would! He would tell him when he was ready. He just had no idea when that would be.

After that, things went back to normal. Well, normal for them. There was work, therapy, peer support groups, and spending time together. North had a lot of doctor's appointments, Wash had come to discover. The VA kept jerking him around. Wash could relate somewhat with his experience of trying to get on Medicaid and then get a therapist and then a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but North had been dealing with this for years. Ever since he returned home it had been an uphill battle to get basically any kind of medical care. Wash learned that he was in a lot worse shape than he was originally from his injury because of the bullshit he'd had to go through to get care. If he'd been able to get into physical therapy (and he hadn't been abandoned by the state and homeless for some time) he would be much better off.

As it stood, they were attending a lot of the same groups, except when Wash would have to miss because of work or North would have to miss because of a medical appointment. As nice as it was to have met in group, to have met someone who knew what the other was going through, it was starting to get a little…uncomfortable.

Wash had not yet started to open up to the others in group about his past, about Epsilon, really about anything that wasn't a surface level problem like work being shitty, but he almost felt like since he started dating North that he had been going backwards, like he had been regressing. He felt…self-conscious in group in a way that he hadn't before. When they were all strangers, he felt comfortable sharing things, to a degree. But with North in the room, he felt like he had to monitor everything he said. What if he said something in group that he hadn't told North about yet? That felt…wrong somehow.

He wasn't sure how to bring this up to North. He had been going to group longer than Wash had, after all. It didn't feel fair to ask him to stop going. On the other hand, these groups were really important to Wash. They provided much needed structure in his life even when he wasn't getting much actual support from the groups themselves. This rinky-dink little mental health center was a life-line for him. He only had access to his actual therapist once a month and his psychiatric nurse practitioner every three months, but he could come to this little set of office suites in a strip mall any day of the work week.

Wash had been spending enough time at North's place that they often carpooled to group. They tried to be discreet. There were a decent amount of people that came to these groups, but there was a dedicated core group of people (of which Wash and North were part of) and neither of them really felt like being super public about their relationship. They lived in an area that was mixed politically. The city they lived in wasn't super conservative, but surrounding area was and there were some pretty reactionary individuals who sought treatment at this clinic and it wasn't their business anyways. North always reassured Wash that he wasn't in any way ashamed of dating him and they had gone on a few public dates, but Wash was honestly a little frightened of PDA and the concept of being out in public (North wasn't too fond of crowds himself), so they mostly stayed in together. As much as Wash knew that North loved him and wasn't ashamed to be seen with him, there was still that nagging voice in the back of his head whenever North let him out of the car before he pulled into the parking lot so they wouldn't be seen getting out of the car together.

North was already seated in the waiting room when Wash entered in through the doors, like usual. He had a flicker of a different kind of a paranoia. What if people noticed this pattern, that North always came in first and then approximately three minutes later Wash did, and put two and two together anyways? Maybe they should change it up? He temporarily put the thought out of his mind as he approached the front desk to check in. He looked over his shoulder at North who was reading on his phone before looking at the receptionist. He had an impulsive thought.

Before he could think better of it, instead of checking in for group, he was saying, "is there anyone available to do a peer-to-peer…check in?" The receptionist looked down at her computer and typed for a bit.

"Do you mind hanging out for bit?" she asked.

Wash swallowed. He could back out now and just go to group like he was supposed to.

"No, that's fine," he answered.

"Okay, Emily could see you in about 20 minutes. Is that okay?"

Group started in about seven minutes. Group would be about to end at that time. If he took this appointment time, he would miss group and he wouldn't be leaving with North.

"Yeah, I could do that," he heard himself say.

"Great," the receptionist said, not understanding the gravity of the situation. She did this stuff all day. This was no big deal to her the way it was to Wash. "Can I get your name?"

"David Washington."

"Alright, David, I've got you scheduled. Emily will see you in about 20 to 25 minutes. "

"Thank you," he said, unsure of how he was acting so calm on the outside when inside he was anything but.

He went and took a seat. He and North didn't sit next to each other, but when he settled into his chair, North looked up from his phone and smiled at him. Wash smiled back, trying not to betray the anxiety he was feeling inside. His heart was hammering in his chest. Why did he do that? He could have stayed after group and made an appointment. Why was he choosing to sit out of group? He started doing some breathing exercises to try and calm himself down. He intentionally clenched all of his muscles and then released them, releasing all of the tension he had been carrying without realizing.

He felt a vibration on his thigh. He opened his eyes, realizing he had shut them when he had started doing his exercises. He pulled out his phone and saw a message from North asking if he was okay. He looked over at his boyfriend and gave him a smile. He was starting to compose his message back when the door further into the building opened and Aiden called them for group. North stood and Wash felt like he still had a chance to. But he had already made the appointment. He wasn't going to back out now. Other people were walking towards the door with North and he had noticed that Wash wasn't joining them. He shot Wash an inquiring look and Wash tried to give him one that he hoped expressed that everything was fine. After the door closed behind the gaggle of people heading to group, leaving Wash alone in the waiting room with one other person, Wash sent a message to North explaining why he wasn't attending. He didn't want him to worry.

Wash spent the next 20 minutes playing games on his phone and listening to music, almost jumping out of his seat every time the door opened. Other people left through the door and the other person in the waiting room was called back, but not Wash. This was actually his first time taking advantage of being able to have a one-on-one appointment with one of the peer counselors. It had taken him a while to open up to his therapist and he was going through his predicament in groups; the prospect of trying to open up to a third party that was made up of a rotating cast of characters just wasn't appealing to him. But it would be a while before he saw his therapist next and he wanted to be able to keep going to groups and really, who better to know about this kind of problem than the people who ran the groups?

Wash was starting to get nervous that group would end and North would come out before he would be collected and that would just make thing more awkward, but the peer counselor he recognized as Emily waved goodbye to a client and saw him in the waiting room and called out to him. "David?" she asked.

Wash nodded. "Uh, yep, that's me."

"Fantastic," she said, giving him a big thumbs up. "Just give me three minutes, five minutes tops and then it will be your turn." And with that she disappeared behind the door again.

Wash was glad he wasn't forgotten or anything, but the next five minutes seemed to stretch into 20 while he waited, fidgeting and glancing up at the clock. He had put his phone and earbuds away when he had seen her and he didn't feel like getting them out again.

After seven minutes (he had been keeping track) she reappeared from the door and beckoned to him. He followed her past the larger rooms they used for groups and into some smaller offices. She took a seat in a desk chair that had been pulled away from a desk and gestured to a small collection of seating options: a loveseat, another desk chair, and one of the folding chairs that they used in the group rooms. Wash chose the desk chair and positioned the back towards the corner so he could face the door.

Emily gave him a warm smile and grabbed a notepad that was sitting on the desk. "So, David…"

"Um…I actually go by Wash," he interjected. He bit his tongue. He wasn't sure why he was telling her that. He hadn't told anyone at this place that except for North and that was different.

"Oh, okay," she said without missing a beat and made a note on her pad. Wash grimaced. Was that going to be put in his file or something? "And what are your pronouns?"

That took Wash by surprise a bit. "Oh, uh, he/him I guess." It wasn't a question he was used to being asked.

Emily made a note of that as well. "Is this your first peer counseling session, Wash?" Wash nodded. "And what made you want to come in today?"

Wash crossed his arms defensively over his chest. "I don't know." That was a lie. He knew. But it felt weird to just come out and say it. It was like a ritual. You always had say 'oh I don't know' first. "I was already here and it's gonna be a while before I see my therapist next and there's some stuff that I kind of needed to work out."

Emily nodded. "This is your first peer session, but I've seen you in groups before, yes?"

Wash was sure he was in one of her groups, but he wasn't sure which one. "Yeah, I'm in a bunch."

"Yeah, I run 'mind over mood.' I'm pretty sure I've seen you in there."

Wash disguised his grimace as a small smile as he nodded. He was not particularly a fan of mind over mood. It was heavily CBT based and he was really coming to hate CBT.

"So, if I ask you to rate how you're doing on a scale from one to ten..."

"Um, a five or six?" He always hated ranking how he was doing unless he was doing really good or really bad. He never wanted to give a number that was too far from the middle because things could always get better or worse, right?

Emily wrote down his answer, then asked, "so what brings you to a peer counseling session specifically?"

Wash chewed his lip as he thought over how he was going to tackle this. Emily had asked for his pronouns so maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she knew about him and North. Then again, maybe it was like a company thing and not something that reflected her personal values, though pronouns had never been brought up in group. Maybe it was something new they were trying to implement…

Wash sighed and closed his eyes. He had to say something. He had already completely fucked up his routine today to get this appointment, he wasn't going to waste it.

"Okay, so I come to groups a lot, like three times a week," he started. "And I've…made a friend…with one of the guys in some of my groups." Emily made some quiet affirmative sounds, showing that she was listening without interrupting. "And we like to hang out and stuff and we’ve…gotten really close. It's…nice. I didn't really have any friends before I met him." Wash cleared his throat. "But now I have a problem. Going to groups together, like going to the same groups that he's in has started to get kind of…weird. Like, it's not the worst, but it can be kind of uncomfortable."

Wash paused to wait for her reaction. He noticed that she wasn't really writing any notes down on her notepad and he was kind of grateful for that. He wasn't thrilled with the idea of there being some kind of paper trail for this situation.

"That sounds like it would be uncomfortable," Emily said. "A lot of people come here for anonymity and while it’s expected to form some bonds with your peers, by building a closer friendship, you've lost that anonymity."

Wash let some of the tension in his shoulders go.

"Was it worth it to you? To build that relationship?" Emily asked.

Wash had a bit of paranoia, wondering if she meant relationship in a neutral sense or if she meant something more. "…yes. It was."

"And I'm guessing groups are still important to both you and your friend?"

Wash relaxed a little that she had used the word friend. "Yes, they are."

Emily smiled at him. She seemed extraordinarily chipper. "Well, let's brain storm some ideas for how both you and your friend can get your needs met in groups without losing out on your relationship."

Wash tried to shoot a weak smile back. This was good, this was what he was looking for. He nodded.

Emily clicked her pen a few times, the nib of it popping in and out and in and out before she put it to her paper and scribbled a bit to get the ink flowing, then flipped the page of her notepad to a fresh page. "So tell me, what groups do you go to?"

"Mind over mood, positivity, meditation, PTSD, anxiety…" Wash listed all of the groups that he was in.

Emily was writing all of these down. "And is your friend in these groups as well?"

Wash nodded. Was it okay that he was telling her what groups North was in? He hadn't said who it was, so it should be okay right?

Emily made a note of that as well. "And are they in any groups that you aren't?"

Wash was about to say no, but now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure. North had his own life that Wash wasn't privy to and there were times that he was at the clinic that Wash wasn't. Wash hadn't put much thought into it before. He had kind of assumed that North was maybe going to peer counseling since getting mental health care through the VA was just as difficult as it was getting physical health care. "I…don't know."

"Well, that's something that you could ask them. Now, let's work off the assumption that they aren't going to any other groups besides the ones that you are both going to." She tore the piece of paper she had been writing on off the notepad and pinned it down to a clipboard and handed it to Wash. "Now, how about you rank your groups from the ones you like the most or find the most helpful down to the ones you like the least or find the least helpful." She fished an extra pen out of the desk drawer and scribbled onto her notepad to make sure it worked before handing that over as well.

Wash looked down at the list. PTSD was and anxiety were tied for the most helpful group for him with PTSD maybe being more helpful. He didn't always like them--cramming a bunch of traumatized and anxious strangers into a room wasn't always the most healing environment and it could get a little…intense--but they were most helpful for him. Meditation was in the middle. Mind over mood he had already established he was not a fan of, but it was better than positivity. He didn't like positivity group or find it particularly helpful, but he kept going because it had become part of his routine. He had marked them all appropriately, but just as he was going to hand it back to Emily, he hesitated.

She seemed to sense this and her eyes crinkled as she smiled. "I won't be offended if you don’t like mind over mood," she reassured him. Wash flushed with embarrassment and handed her the paper.

Emily looked over it and nodded, then handed it back. "Perhaps the next time you hang out with your friend you can have them do a similar thing and you can maybe split up the groups that you go to. If it's not a big deal for you not to go to positivity group, but they really like it, maybe you can stop going to positivity group and they can keep going to it. Maybe they aren't super attached to PTSD group and will let you have that one. Maybe you can switch off the weeks that you go to meditation if you both feel like you can’t live without it."

Wash knew that North would not be able to give up PTSD group, but he would be happy to let him have positivity group. He could honestly have mind over mood as well. But then again, it wasn't just about the content of the groups.

"That's…not a bad idea…" Wash felt bad that he was going to throw a 'but' out there. He felt like he should just try this idea and work things out with North and if he ended up going to three groups instead of five maybe that would be okay. He was trying to convince himself of that, but he could feel his anxiety spiking.

Emily gave him a knowing look. "There's a hiccup, though, isn't there?"

There was a hiccup, but Wash felt like it wasn't okay for him to say anything about it. Was his routine really more important?

After a few minutes of silence, Emily interrupted his thoughts. "What's going on for you, Wash?"

Wash noticed that he had been picking at a scab on his arm. It was a scab from where he had picked at it in the past. He had been trying to stop, but it was not something he did totally consciously. He just kind of zoned out and did it when he was lost in his head. He recrossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits so he wouldn't be able to pick. "It's nothing…" Another lie, another ritual, something he felt like he had to say. He knew what it was, what he was thinking, but he didn't feel like he could come right out and say it without saying 'it's nothing' first. Emily didn't call him out on it, didn’t press him for more before he was ready. She let him take his time. Eventually he sighed. "Like, I don't actually like positivity group, right? But going to it is…important to me. It's part of my routine. I work nights and having something small to do during the day helps…I don't know…orient me. It keeps me grounded."

Wash covered his face with one hand and picked at his lip with his teeth. "But also…Nor- my friend, has been going to groups way longer than I have. I feel like I would be a total asshole if I asked him to stop going to groups because of me."

Emily nodded and leaned back in her chair. "Wash, the groups here are for everyone. It doesn't matter how long someone has been going to them. You are equally entitled to benefit from our groups as your friend is. Do you think your friend would feel the same way about it as you? That you're an asshole who's kicking him out of groups?"

Wash sighed. North wouldn't think that, but Wash was worried he would go too far in the other direction and neglect himself, that he would leave groups solely for Wash's benefit and not think about himself. "No, but it's not that simple." He recrossed his arms, but continued to pull skin off his lip with his teeth. "He has a tendency to…give too much of himself for others. I'm afraid that if I ask him about this that he'll…stop going to groups that he wants or-or needs to go to, just for me."

Emily gave him an odd smile that he wasn't sure how to interpret. "It's sounds to me like you might have a bit of that tendency yourself, Wash."

Wash flushed, suddenly indignant. That wasn't him, that was North's thing! "Wha- I-" he sputtered, but wasn't able to form a complete rebuttal.

"You yourself were just saying that he had been going to groups longer than you have, like that gave him seniority in groups," she elaborated. "Like he deserved to go to these groups more than you did."

Wash looked down at his shoes. She was right. He did have a similar tendency to North, even though his motivations were different. North had this big brother complex, where he felt like he had to take care of others. This only got stronger when he was in the marines and his team relied on him. North gave and gave and gave because he felt like everyone was counting on him to protect them and take care of them. Not only that, but his self-esteem had largely depended on his ability to protect and take care of others and after he became disabled, that had taken a major hit as he had to try and rebuild his identity outside of that.

Wash was different. Wash didn't feel like he deserved to be taken care of, so he never tried to get his needs met. And so he ended up giving parts of himself away because he felt like he didn't deserve safety or security or good things. It had caused a few clashes between him and North, with North's urge to care for Wash and Wash's instinct to not let himself be cared for. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could be. They were both in therapy and they were trying to work on these things, even though they flared up in weird and destructive ways (like the dog park incident).

It was only while he was introspective that Wash realized that Emily had switched from using the gender neutral "they" to a more definitive "he" to refer to Wash's mystery friend, as he had used the pronoun himself. Wash tried to rationalize his insecurities away. It was perfectly fine to have a male friend and so far Emily had used the word friend many times and she hadn't used any weird inflections to imply that he was anything other than a friend. Still, he was anxious.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, looking up, but not looking at her.

"Wash," Emily said, crossing her hands over her lap. "You deserve to go to groups just as much as your friend does. The support and the structure they provide is important to you. Don't discount that." She reached over to the desk and grabbed a folder and rifled through it. "I do recommend talking about this with your friend, but I also have another suggestion."

Wash did look at her now. She handed him the paper and it was a calendar with the groups printed on it.

"There are other groups that you might consider going to, especially if you're not getting much benefit out of positivity or mind over mood."

Wash scanned the calendar. It was a copy of a copy of a copy and a little difficult to read.

"I'm actually trying to get a new group started, but I have to prove there's enough interest in it first."

Wash looked back up at her. "What group?"

"Alternatives to suicide," she answered, the pleasant expression she had never leaving her face.

Wash felt a jolt of anxiety go through him, but he tried to keep it hidden. "W-what kind of group is that?"

"Well," Emily started, "the current response to a person expressing suicidal thoughts or ideation is to hospitalize them. This prevents a lot of people from talking about the things they're feeling for fear of being hospitalized and hospitalization itself is traumatizing to people who are suicidal which can make suicidal feelings worse and may not be all that effective at preventing suicide." Wash looked down. This he knew from experience. "This group is a place where people can talk openly about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with suicide without having to worry about that. We'll discuss ways of avoiding attempting suicide and how to deal with suicidal feelings and ideation."

Wash started picking at his scab again. There were many times he had considered suicide after Epsilon had killed himself, but he had never gone through with it and he had what his therapist had referred to as 'passive suicidal ideation' a lot.

"Yeah, you can mark me down as…interested, I guess…"

Emily made a quick scribble on her notepad. "Well, if I get approval, that could replace positivity for you," she said.

"Yeah," Wash said, getting a little lost in his thoughts again. He would honestly prefer frank discussions of suicide to the trite, motivational bullshit in positivity group. "Yeah, that could work."

Emily seemed to observe him for a bit and Wash cleared his throat and tucked his hands in his pockets to try and keep from picking at his arms any more. "Is there anything else you'd like to talk about today?" she asked.

Wash shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Wanna take a little time before heading out?"

Wash was going to say no, but thought better of it. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths and tried to seat himself in his body, grounding himself before opening his eyes again. When he opened his eyes again, Emily nodded to him. "And now how would you rate how you're feeling on a scale from one to ten?" she asked.

Wash kept himself from sighing. The other part he hated. It was supposed to be comparative, so they could try and track if the groups and session were working or not. It was something they needed to do to keep getting funding. "A six or seven," he answered.

Emily made a note of it and stood up. She held out a hand for him to shake. "It was a pleasure to talk to you, Wash. I'll miss you in mind over mood, but hopefully we'll get approval for the new group and I'll see you there."

Wash shook the hand offered with only a little hesitation. He wasn't sure about Emily when he first sat down with her. The only experience he had had with her was in mind over mood and he had no idea what a one-on-one peer counseling experience would be like, but it actually had gone really well. She had helped him come up with some solutions he could try, she didn't pry into his business, and now that he knew she was trying to start the alternatives to suicide group, he had a new respect for her.

He walked to the bus stop and pulled out his phone. He had told North not to wait up for him. He had to get ready for his shift that night so there wasn't really a point in going back to North's place. He texted North to let him know that he was done and that it went well, knowing North well enough that he was probably thinking about what had happened. North responded and asked if Wash wanted to come over for lunch before group the next day. Wash replied in the affirmative, thinking that it might be a good time to bring up splitting up groups. He tucked his phone back into his pocket and listened to music while he waited for the bus.

Wash was sitting down at the small table in the cramped kitchen in North's apartment, fidgeting with the strap of his shoulder bag. Inside was the stuff he usually left the house with. He always felt like he had to carry a few things- a notebook, several pens, a book, some sensory items that his therapist had recommended he use to ground himself, a water bottle, some snacks, tissues, lotion, some over the counter pain killers- he always felt like he needed to be prepared, even if he rarely or never used the things he carried (he had never in the entirety of the time he had carried the book in his bag ever opened it to read it). Inside it was also the paper where Emily had written down his list of groups.

North was finishing filling up Theta's water dish before he sat down at the table with his own lunch. He gave him a quizzical look.

"Aren't you hungry? You know you can help yourself to the food in my fridge- how many times do I have to tell you?" he asked with a chuckle.

Wash looked down. "It's not that. I actually…wanted to talk to you about something."

North paused in his chewing and set his fork down. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, everything's fine, I just wanted to talk about what I talked about in peer counseling yesterday."

North's expression remained skeptical.

Wash cleared his throat and pulled the paper out. He had folded it several times and the creases were apparent as he unfolded it. He didn't show it to North yet. "So…we're in all the same groups and…it's getting a little uncomfortable," he said. He felt like trying to say this was like trying to spit out a fish. It wanted to come out, but it was still difficult.

"Wash, I can drop out of some groups…" North started, reaching a hand across the table.

Wash pulled his hand back, balling it into a fist before releasing it. He laughed a little and looked at North with a half-smile. "I knew you were going to say that!" he said. "I…at first I didn't want to tell you because I knew you were going to say that, but I knew that wouldn't be…right. That I shouldn't do that to myself…or to you…so I talked about it with a counselor yesterday."

North looked a little nervous. "How…specific were you?"

"I wasn't," Wash answered. "I didn't give your name, I just said that I had made a friend in groups and it was getting awkward." That seemed to put North at ease. "And she gave me some ideas for solutions."

Wash had been unfolding and re-folding the paper as he had been talking. Now he set it on the table in between them.

"This is a list of all the groups we share- all the groups I go to. I ranked them from the ones I like the least to the ones I like the best. The counselor suggested that we could, like, split them up? I don't care if you take positivity group. I won't ask you to give up PTSD group, but maybe…" Wash hesitated. "Maybe we could each go every other week?"

North gave him a half-smile. "Like splitting custody of it?"

Wash laughed, glad that North was bringing some levity to the situation. "Yeah, exactly. You can honestly have mind over mood as well."

North looked over the list. "Well, in the interest of fairness- not being self-sacrificing," he cut Wash off before he could protest. "You can have anxiety group. If you're giving up two groups, I can give up one group."

Wash thought that was fair. "The counselor I spoke with said she was trying to start a new group and…I would like to go to that one, to help make up for giving up some groups." This made Wash nervous. He and North had made a lot of progress and North had seen him have now two breakdowns in public, but getting into topics like suicide were a bit more complicated.

"What group?" North asked.

That was the question Wash had been afraid he would ask. "It's called…uh, it's called alternatives to suicide…"

North looked like he wanted to ask more questions, to dig in more, but Wash saw him physically bite down on the insides of his cheeks and his heart warmed with appreciation. There was a moment of silence before North opened his mouth again. "I should…I should let you know that I actually have another group that I go to: co-occurring."

Now it was Wash's turn. "What's that group about?"

"It's a group for people who have mental illness and also…struggle with substance abuse."

All thoughts about splitting up groups were forgotten. "I…I didn't know that that was something you…dealt with."

North reached into his pocket and pulled out his ring of keys. He flipped through the keys and membership cards to two small items. North held up the ring so that they were displayed. One was a black NA key-tag and one was a bronze AA coin with a hole punched in it. Wash leaned forward to look at them, then looked up at North.

At first, he felt a flash of anger, of why didn't you tell me? You've seen my guts, why am I only finding this out now? But he knew he was being unfair. He remembered what he had been thinking in his session with Emily, about how North's identity was wrapped up in being able to provide for people and to care for people. He knew how hard it would be to let someone see something like this, something that others might consider a weakness. North was not looking at Wash, but slightly beside him.

Wash sighed. "Thank you…for showing that to me, North. I…" he wasn't sure if he should be saying this or not. "I wish…" he changed the trajectory of his words from 'I wish you had told me sooner' to, "I wish you would let me in more. I know that you're older than me and that…that you've been doing this kind of thing longer than me, but I need you to treat me like I'm as capable as you are- like an equal."

North looked taken aback, then he looked away. He started blinking and Wash felt like a monster. He had made him cry. He shouldn't have said anything, he should have just kept his mouth shut, he should have just been happy that North told him at all, he should have-

"You're right," North said. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes before looking back at Wash. He was definitely crying, but his expression was soft. "I've been…unfair to you. I'll…I'll try to do better in the future."

Wash let his breath slow down from the pace it had started to pick up to and he hoped his heart would do the same. It was hard to go from saying 'treat me like a capable equal' to start spiraling in his own head. Just wait until we have our first real fight he thought to himself. He winced when he realized what he had thought, worried about somehow manifesting it into reality.

"Are you okay?" North asked, his eyes still wet and now shining with worry.

"Yeah," Wash said, trying to dismiss it. "Just a…stupid thought…" He mimed tapping himself on the head, like he was trying to knock the thought out of it, like you would knock water out of your ear.

North chuckled, but Wash could tell he was still worried.

North resumed eating his lunch and Wash fidgeted before he made himself a sandwich. When Wash sat down, North pointed his fork at him. "Today is meditation group. How do you want to split that one up?"

Wash thought as he chewed his bite of sandwich. "Well, mediation doesn't really involve much talking really. I don't mind still going to that one with you."

North smiled at him. They still had a long way to go, but they were making progress.

#moving on #my fic #northington #rvb #agent washington #agent north dakota #emily grey #suicide mention

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