#for a bunch of fucking adults a lot of you on this site are babies

[caelumangeli]

I'm gonna throw hands. What happened to being able to write and enjoy writing different types of fiction with people who ALSO clearly enjoy writing things?? You can aknowledge toxic behavior and not support it or be down for it and still include it in fiction for you know. Entertainment and story telling purposes. Even then. What happened to blocking content you don't like or people who talk to you in ways you don't like and shit and continueing on.

why are people who enjoy or like writing villains or morally ambiguous characters such subject of attack by people. You don't have to like that content. no one is shoving it down your throat and forcing you to read or interact.

#i remember why i wasn't rping on tumblr #or why i stopped rping for a few years in general #jesus fuck #ooc #so many reminders on why i have such a hard time wanting to reach out to mutuals or people in general to write honestly #for a bunch of fucking adults a lot of you on this site are babies #im trying to sit here and be sick #and it's like every day im seeing different blogs being deactivated #most of them being bullied for their type of content or because years ago they might have treated someone poorly or something

[rhodesrider]

Stormy Weather

SFW! 18+!

Daddy!Solo x Little!Reader

Warnings: Age Regression,Caregiver Neglect, Panic Attacks, Negative Thoughts, Past Trauma Explanations, thoughts of abandonment

~

“Daddy can I please?” Solo rolled his eyes watching tv with his brothers. Y/N went in her little space ever since they got home from a park basketball game. They had to come because it started to rain. Solo was trying hard not to yell, he’s still getting use to the age regression. “No like I said the last three times, you can’t go play in the rain.” He groaned. Y/N frowned and walked away grabbing her raincoat and rain boots putting everything back. She slowly started to come back from Age Five to her grumy adult age. She sniffled wiping some tears and just got under the covers to watch tv.

‘He doesn’t like it.’

Thoughts swirled in her head as she tried to watch tv in peace.

‘Why would even try? Why didn’t you keep it to yourself?’

She groaned and turned the tv off hearing them downstairs. “How can y’all handle that?” Solo said irritated. “You have to remember man that it helps her.” Jey said as himself and Jimmy had littles before. “But she’s just acting-“ Jimmy smacked him beside his head. “What the fuck was that for?” He yelled. “It’s not acting. She’s lost. This of her way of being healed and found again. She told what hell she’s gone through before coming here living with you uce.” Jimmy hissed. Soon Roman went through the door with snacks for Y/N, she texted him earlier before while he was at the gym. He looked around and stopped his look at an angry set of twins and an irritated little brother of theirs. “Where’s Y/N and what happened?” Roman sounded protective, but as a littles uncle he was. “She went upstairs with an attitude because she wanted to play in the rain.”

Roman blinked. “I bought her a bunch of rain stuff for a reason.” He raised his eyebrow looking upstairs. “So why aren’t you up there with her?” Solo sighed. “She’s fine Yall.” Jey and Jimmy looked at each other and shook their head. “She’s not. You know that.” Roman bellowed some, the living room quiet as a mouse. “Solo when she told you about her headspace, she trusted you. She worked with you to learn. This is something that helps her.” “It helps a lot of people. You can’t just dismiss it man.” Jimmy said.

Before Roman came through the door, Y/N cried herself asleep. Roman peeked in sighing and closed her door walking back down. “She’s sleep. “ Solo felt bad, he’s technically new to this. “Cuz I just don’t understand.” Solo groaned. “Every time she tells you her past, what do you hear?” Roman said siting down. “She was verbally abused by her dad, she was sexually abused by family members, her mother passed away, she had to take care of her siblings, the verbal turned physical…” he sighed remembering the tears that fell on her face, telling him to laugh like it was funny. “Yea she went through so much, to me she’s not asking for alot. “I know it seems like a lot, but it helps her heal. It’s the best she can do.” Jey chimes in. “What about actual therapy?” Solo said. “Therapist recommended this practice to her.” Jimmy said sipping on some water.

Solo sighed and went into his head irritated at hisself now. “So what do I do?” Roman smiled. “Be patient.”

Solo didn’t wanna wake her from her nap so he stayed downstairs to help Roman make her favorite food. She loves steak sliders. But soon his ears fixed straight upstairs, like someone is crying. “Ro I’ll be right back.” Solo quickly got upstairs and Jey took over his spot cooking. He got closer to his door hearing sobbing and quiet crying. “Baby?” He walked in.

Y/N was on the bed trying to calm herself down from a panic attack. Solo quickly went to her. “Baby are you-“ “I’m sorry I’m fine!” She quickly said her eyes shut and her shaking. Solo couldn’t think straight until Roman’s words echoed in his head from before. “Hey mamas…” She soon opened her eyes and looked at solo. Her eyes puffy and she looked around. “Hey it’s ok, did you have another bad dream?” She was non-verbal. She shook her head yes wiping tears away. “Do you need a hug from teddy?” The names she use for Solo is Daddy/Teddy/papa. “I’m sorry…” solo stopped and frowned. “I’m sorry for bothering you all the time and asking you to do this mess.” Solos heart broke more. “I’ll stop. I won’t do it no more I just don’t wants you to leave..” Y/N didn’t know she was slipping.

Solo grabbed her slowly and put her in his lap hugging her. She shed more tears crying. “I’m not going anywhere baby. I promised.” Solo kisses her forehead as she cried in his shirt. He felt so bad. She needed this and he just tossed it to the side like it was nothing. “My brothers and Cuz are better Daddy’s than me..” He hissed angry. Y/N sniffled looking up at him and hugged him more. “Teddy, your nots bad…” Solo looked down and smiled at her. “I feel bad, I made my baby cry…” She nuzzled in Solo more. “You’re da best teddy ever.” She smiled. She was just happy he was there. Solo felt warm smiling back. “Hey Uncles made food!” She looked up hungry smelling the rolls and steak downstairs. “Yes they did. My little munchkin is hungry is she?” Solo smiled picking her up letting her wrap her legs around him. “Daddy?” He looked at her. “Yes baby?” “I loves you.” She giggled. His heard warmed more from his cute little. “I love you more.” “Imposstifull.” Solo chuckled. “It’s never impossible.” He said going downstairs.

A Few Weeks Later

A light storm was outside. Y/N watched it from the window scared to ask. She loved watching the rain drops drip on the window and saw some frogs out in the backyard. Solo put her rain gear by her and sat with her as she watched. “Princess, what if I told you that there is a water dragon outside?” She shot a look at solo. “And you need me?” He nodded. “If we don’t get it it’s gonna get bigger and terrorize the house!” Y/N gasped and looked at her rain gear. “Will daddy come with me?” She asked. He pointed at his rain gear and nature jar set he got for her. “You are very strong mamas daddy will just keep the jars.” She nodded and she excitedly started to get her boots on. Solo loved her smile. He helped her with the rain hat and put his boots on next. “Daddy come on!” She said giggling looking out at the patio. “I’m coming baby.” He smiled. He passed Roman who was in the study. “Hey, you’re doing great uce.” He praised and Solo nodded. “Come on teddy before the dragon gets away!” Roman looked at him confused laughing and solo just shrugged going to help his little.

“Just be patient.” Roman mumbled and smiled at the peace he had in the house.

#wwe imagine #wwe one shot #wwe smackdown #wwe roman reigns #wwe raw #jey uso #jimmy uso #age regression #solo sikoa #sfw little community

[jams-sims]

God im just posting about Helluva Boss all day huh.

I see a lot of people screaming and crying about Stella. Some how some shit is sexist when there is a literal women writing the show.

There were multiple ways Stella and Stolas relationship could have been written.

One of mutual understanding that they may not love eachother but they stick together for the child and ya know rich people bullshit. End resulting in Stolas cheating.

Theres a reality where Stolas was a shit bag and was just having a affiar and hid it from Stella the whole time.

But neither of those are the case, the end result is that Stolas and Stella were in a relationship that neither liked. And instead of Stella being chill, she abused Stolas. Even if later on its explained Stella had a rough childhood. That would only explain her issues not justify her actions.

Because heres the kicker; in that rant Stolas says he tried. He tried to make their life comfortable. If it turns out Stella is this way because of abuse herself. You'd think after 25 years of waiting for Stolas to turn out like her abusive brother or father she would have realized. OH he wasnt trying to just simply play nice and wait for my gaurd to lower.

It sounds like Stolas is has a lot more to lose than Stella does. She seems even petty about it. If anything her reputation and pride has been irreparately damaged because she openly gloated about not being divorced. Like what the fuck!? AGAIN! Even if it turns out she was truamatized as a child. That doesn't justifying nor excuse any of what she did. Shit Stolas looked at the paper to see she posted about a fucking party! She didnt even tell him and then she barely even invites him even tho its in his fucking house. STELLA WHAT THE FUCK GIRL?! She talks about how he barely wants to fuck her. And if you really pay attention she talks about how he just lays there and stares at a wall. Now you could chalk this up to him being gay or as I took it Stella never made him feel wanted. Thus sex was not a thing done willingly. Shit when Stolas tries to get Blitz to fuck him through all of that. He says no made me feel wanted nothing about whether it had to be a man or not. Just someone to care about him. (Vizie could have confrimed his sexuality but on my view this felt very demi for Stolas).

Stolas as a grown adult can say now that Octavia 17 he no longer has to live this lie of being together. Like this is super common in abusive relationships with kids. This isn't a slight to Octavia, Stolas is more than just her father hes is his own person. His rant doesnt mean he stopped loving her or it was a lie. It means her life wont be shatted because a teen can understand why mother and father divorced. While a small baby could not understand and would cause a bunch of stress.

Stella has done nothing to warrent sympathy now. And everyone chomping at the bit for like an excuse. You can like villians this whole ass site is made up people who love the bad guy. Stella is the antagonist you can enjoy that like damn.

Also I hate the uwu they are in hell no one is good. Okay listen- its basic fuckng writing to have a character you can sympathize with. If everyone sucked you wouldnt be watching the show. You have to connect with someone or it doesnt matter. If theres a story about 4 killers and they all kill nothing happen and they toture innocent people all day. You'd be like this is toture porn and boring. But if one is homeless and was abused. You suddenly start carring, its not even that hard to understand.

#helluva boss #helluva boss spoilers #helluva boss octavia

[blackandgoldandeverythingnice]

among the fields of gold - c. mcavoy

Pairing: Charlie McAvoy x female!OC

Summary: A little sneak peek into the future of charlie and nellie from i’m so glad to know as they attend the 2026 Olympics 

Word Count: 4,682

A/N: Just the most self-indulgent little fluff I could come up with because I love writing them.

Warnings: none! the smallest hint of adult content but that’s about it.

“This is so fucking cool – did you ever actually tell me how cool it was to be at the Olympics?” Charlie was bouncing along the streets of Milan and swinging Eleanora’s hand as they went, a couple of other Team USA players behind them as they used the off day to do the touristy things they hadn’t yet been able to do during the first round of games.

“You’ve done plenty of World’s before, it’s almost the same.”

“It absolutely is not.” He argued back, glancing down and smirking at the little scowl on her face. He ignored the groans of a couple from the guys at the fact they were about to start bickering. It wasn’t their fault; he didn’t invite the idiots to come with them.

“You’re just excited because you’re staying in the Village and there are a bunch of girls there too – you don’t get that at World’s.”

“Yeah, I’m there for the girls.” He rolled his eyes and squeezed her hand before leaning over to kiss the top of her head.

The team was housed on their own floor in the dedicated USA building and it was like being back on a road trip in Peewees. They’d cruised through the round-robin, winning every game in their group and were heading into the elimination games. A lot of the guys had played together for years through development camps and national teams and they felt good about their chances.

They’d been wandering the streets of Milan, seeing as much of the sites as they could since all they’d seen were the inside of rinks. While Charlie had wanted to spend it just with Eleanora, some of the guys had caught him in the lobby with her on their way back from breakfast and insisted on joining them. She had pretty much become their team mascot: at every game, made a new sign for each and chatted with all the families happily. It made something in him burst in pride at the sight of her fitting so seamlessly into his life now. It hadn’t been an easy road to get there.

“Can you two not?” one of the Hughes brothers interrupted.

“Yeah, let’s stop this before it really gets rolling.” Matthew Tkachuk cut in, sweeping past Charlie with a smirk as he hit his shoulder and made his way across the square towards the Duomo. A few of the other guys sped passed them, running around the square and changing pigeons.

“And for a former Olympian, could you walk any slower?” Auston Matthews teased as he came right up close behind them.

Annoyed, Charlie shoved his teammate away just as Eleanora pinched his side. “I’m sorry, put some respect on the only gold medalist in this little crew right now. Also, I’m six months pregnant, dick head – you try carrying a bowling ball around your middle on these cobblestone ass streets.”

“Technically, a McAvoy has a gold medal – shouldn’t have changed your last name, babe.” Auston grinned, wrapping an arm around her shoulders but making sure to gently guide her as they walked around the various tourists and other athletes who had done the same thing they did.  

“Can you get the fuck away from my wife?” Charlie groaned, checking Auston away so he could pull Eleanora into his side.

The rest of the guys walked ahead, leaving the two of them alone. Charlie smiled down at the way Eleanora was basking in the bright, cold air, her cheeks flushed and nose a little pink. There was a visible glow around her. He’d always thought it was bullshit when they said pregnant woman glowed but since the second she’d taken the test, there was a light happy aura around her. Walking with her tucked into him like she was slowed them down but Charlie liked making sure Eleanora was okay, to the point that she might kill him at some point if he asked her again how she was feeling.

“How are you – ”

“Don’t you dare ask how I feel right now, Charlie McAvoy.”

He pouted down at her. “It’s a valid question, they keep you scheduled so late for some of the media shit.”

“It’s called my job, babe.” She hip checked him gently. She’d stayed involved in the figure skating community and this year they’d invited her to provide commentary for the ladies’ singles. Turns out she was incredibly personable in front of the cameras and enjoyed talking to the young skaters. “I’m just happy none of your games conflict with the skating. I don’t think they’d love me ‘calling out sick’ only to have me show up on TV on the glass yelling at you to play better.”

“Excuse you, I have the most minutes played and highest rating.”

“Yes, baby – you’re very highly rated.” She snuggled into his side, and he laughed when she slid her hand into his back pocket and squeezed his ass.

The pair of them walked slowly around the square, laughing at the guys as they ran around. A few of Team Canada showed up along with a few of the Czech players. Since most of the teams were made up of NHLers, all the teams were friendly off-ice and trying to control them was like corralling kids at their first away tournament. A few fans stopped them as they went but most of them were interested in getting pictures with Eleanora rather than any of the guys, something the team loved to tease Charlie about. Joke was on them, he couldn’t be more proud to watch the way people adored her.

“How’s my boy doing?” he changed tactics as a group of young girls walked away after spending five minutes taking pictures with her and asking what it was like to win gold.

“I think he wants pizza and pasta.”

“Pizza and pasta? Not or?”

“You’re really gonna ask how I feel then judge your pregnant wife for wanting all the food?” the glare she shot him was enough to have him throwing his hands up in defense.

He leaned down to kiss her but she dodged him. “No way, bud – find me food then you can kiss me.”

“In my defense, I asked what my son wants to eat – you’re incidental to me checking up on him.”

“Do you want to die? Is that your plan? You want Team USA hockey to lose the gold because their captain was murdered by his pregnant wife?”

“Why’s Goldie threatening your life?” Jake popped up behind them, scaring the shit out of Charlie while Eleanora had seen him coming.

“He’s judging how much I want to eat.”

“Well, come on my fellow sewer rat – if Chuckie won’t love you right, I will.”

Jake offered her his hand and she took it, tossing a teasing smile behind her as the two of them started towards one of the side streets to find a suitable restaurant leaving Charlie to scurry after them.

--- ---

Eleanora chewed distractedly on her cuticle, staring at the clean sheet of ice waiting for the guys to step on for warmups. As she had for every single game, she was standing on the glass at the corner where her and his family had sat for the entirety of the tournament. The jersey of Charlie’s she had on barely fit over her belly and the maternity leggings made her feel like a sausage. Bouncing on the balls of her feet anxiously, she was as nervous as she’d been for her own gold medal skate.

“How’re you feeling?” a voice interrupted her nervous thoughts and she glanced over to see her father-in-law sliding into the seat next to her. After the first win, they’d sat in the same order they’d been in for every other game that followed. While Charlie wasn’t overly superstitious, Eleanora was and there’d been half a dozen little rituals she’d come up with for this Olympics.

“Jesus, your son ask you to ask me that?” she teased back at Charlie Sr. She rubbed her belly slightly and tried not to wince at the pain in her back. “Pretty sure this asshole is sitting right on my sciatic nerve.”

“Can you not call my first grandson an asshole?” Charlie’s mom appeared on her other side, looping her arm through hers. “But seriously, you alright?”

“No pain I haven’t dealt with before but this kid is already putting me through the wringer. I have to do this for 3 more months?”

Mrs. McAvoy frowned sympathetically and rubbed her arm softly. “Sorry, Ellie but yes. It’ll be worth it though.”

Just as she spoke, the guys stepped out and Eleanora zeroed in on Charlie leading the way, pushing the pucks off the edge of the bench and onto the ice.

“I can’t believe this – my son is going to be an Olympic medalist no matter what.” His mom said, sniffling slightly as she watched them start skating.

“We want gold, Jen – right, kid?” Senior nudged her in the side.

Eleanora smiled slightly. “I just want him to do the best he can.”

“Bullshit, you’re more competitive than he is. I saw you cursing him out last game for - and I quote - ‘a bullshit lazy turnover’.” Holly added as she joined the conversation, pushing her mom out of the seat next to Eleanora so she could keep the right lineup. 

They all laughed while she just shrugged. “No one plays for second place...although I do kinda like being the only gold medalist. It’s how I get him to do things for me when I think I deserve them.”

The noise in the arena started to swell as the Canadians took the ice and Eleanora felt the familiar buzz and thrill of the pressure building. She hadn’t been able to see Charlie this morning, only getting a quick FaceTime as she’d been wrapping up interviews with some of the figure skaters who were getting ready for their final performance the following day.

“How was he this morning?”  

Kayla shrugged. “Quiet. He missed you.”

She frowned, cursing herself for not having been there. It was their routine for the last few years, she was always the last person to see him before he went into the locker room for a big game. It felt like a bad omen that she’d missed giving him a last kiss before the biggest game of his career.

But just then Charlie skated by them for the first time, helmet off and his hair flowing behind him. He tapped the glass as he went by but kept skating in loops. After a couple laps and drills, he returned to the corner and stopped in front of her.

She couldn’t hear him over the crowd but he was pointing at her and gesturing halfway across the rink to where there was an opening in the boards. She followed where he was pointing to see one of the arena staff standing by the entrance to the locker rooms and she got the hint, squeezing through the seats as fast she could. The belly didn’t exactly help her move quickly or the people that kept trying to stop her.

He was already waiting for her by the time she reached the space, his gloves off and resting on the side. He reached out for her and she stepped eagerly towards him. On skates he was so much taller than her that she had to stand on tip toe just to wrap her arms around his neck. She was cognizant of the eyes of those in the area on them and she was sure there were cameras zooming in too.

“I couldn’t play the biggest game of my life without getting my good luck kiss.”

The stares and camera clicks faded away as she stared up at him. Knowing how the media was obsessed with “Their Story”, this was bound to be everywhere in no time. It’s why they liked their moment to be private before a game but right now, Eleanora couldn’t quite care because all she wanted was Charlie to win.

Gently, he brushed her stomach and just as he did, the baby gave a hard kick. Charlie grinned, leaning down to press his lips firmly to hers and she smiled into the kiss. “I think someone’s telling you he wants you to win.”

“I plan on winning it for his momma, gotta impress her.” He smirked, his face still inches from hers.

“I love you, baby – so fucking much.” She pressed one final kiss to his lips. “I’m not gonna tell you just making it to the gold medal game is an achievement – even though it is. You know what you need to do. Go fucking win it.”

“I shoulda had you do the pump-up speech for the boys.” He kissed her nose quickly before pulling back and grabbing his gloves to return to warmups. “I love you, babe – see you on the ice after.”

She watched him skate away, her palm flat against her belly and she felt another strong kick. Rubbing her stomach she looked down at the USA stretched across her front, smiling softly as she whispered to herself.

“Don’t worry, little man – daddy’s gonna win it for us.”

--- ---

The second period started with the game tied at two. Charlie had an assist and had already spent almost twelve minutes on the ice. Despite most of the off-ice friendships and even teammates who were playing against each other it was getting chippy. They all clearly wanted it and weren’t holding back. Tkachuk had managed to draw three penalties while only going to the box once himself.

Eleanora felt like she was going to lose her voice the amount she’d been screaming throughout the game. It seemed like part of Team Canada’s game strategy was to go after Charlie as much as possible. They’d been hitting him hard and there’d been one particularly nasty penalty he drew when Chabot leveled him with a late hit. Charlie had been slow to get up from that one but within the first thirty seconds of the powerplay, he’d put a pass right on Auston’s tape for the tying goal.

There had always been something both exhilarating and nerve-wracking about watching Charlie play. When he was on the ice, she only watched him, not even noticing where the puck was or what action was happening unless he was involved.

It was partially how she was able to react a second before the rest of the rink when she saw Chabot coming from behind him, hitting him hard and sending Charlie headfirst into the boards. He was splayed out flat on the ice while his teammates immediately rushed to his defense, Auston and Tkachuk jumping Chabot before Auston was pulled away by Dougie Hamilton. Eleanora felt like climbing over the glass to get to him and Kayla was gripping her arm tightly.

“Get up. Get up. Get up, Junior.” His dad was begging while Eleanora just kept staring in horror.

After what felt like hours but was probably only a minute, he slowly tucked his legs up under him and managed to get to a kneeling position just as the team doctor reached him. He was clearly still dazed, holding one hand on his helmet as he slowly got up. Gaudreau had come over and was kneeling next to him, offering to help him up but Charlie waved him off.

The arena applauded as he stood up, but Eleanora couldn’t feel the relief everyone else did as she watched them lead Charlie to the locker room.

“He’s okay. He got up on his own. They just have to check him out for protocol. He’s okay.” Kayla was chanting and all Eleanora wanted to do was rush to the locker room. Instead of watching the rest of the game, she stared at the locker room entrance, praying Charlie would return to the bench.

They ended the second period down by one and only during the intermission did she let herself pull her phone out to find the replay of the hit. They all huddled around together watching intently, only slightly reassured that Charlie had gotten up on his own and made his way quickly down the tunnel without support. It felt like time was moving in slow motion as the ice was cleaned. Finally, the lights dimmed again and the players started back out on the ice.

It felt like a weight was lifted when she saw Charlie hop out last, doing quick laps to warm back up as he shook his legs out. As he went by them, he tapped the glass and Eleanora felt like she was going to cry just from the quick wink he gave her.

“Thank god.” His mom sighed a breath and Eleanora felt lightheaded as she rubbed her stomach aimlessly. The baby had been active all game, bouncing around and kicking more than usual. It’s like he could sense what was happening around them.  

The third period wasn’t any less stressful, Team Canada was clearly content to play defense while Team USA threw everything at them but couldn’t seem to find the back of the net. But then in the last 27 seconds of the game, Charlie caught a pass from Quinn Hughes and buried it in the top corner of the net to tie the game. The roar of the arena felt deafening as they all jumped up and down, screaming happily while the players mobbed their captain. The crowd clearly expected overtime, neither team wanting to give one up in the remaining seconds of the game.

But then Conor McDavid of all people misplayed the puck in the neutral zone and it landed on Jack Eichel’s stick who shot down the ice on a breakaway with only 7 seconds to go, shifting to his backhand as he slid the puck between the goalie’s legs.

If it was possible, the roof would’ve blown off the top of the arena. Team USA hadn’t won since the 1980 Miracle on Ice game and the place was shaking with excitement. USA gear and equipment was strewn across the ice like confetti while Team Canada stared on in disbelief, some kneeling together watching while others had already started to make their way towards the locker room.

People were hugging her tightly and screaming in her ear. Eleanora wasn’t even sure they were all people she knew. Charlie Sr. pulled her away from whoever was holding her and into a tight hug while the rest of the family crowded around jumping as they celebrated. She didn’t even realize she was crying until she tried to spot Charlie on the ice but her vision was blurry.

Sobbing into one hand, the other pressed tight against her stomach she felt another strong kick which only made her sob harder. It was better than her own win because she hadn’t had any true family to celebrate with besides her coaches who had become replacement parents to her. This was entirely different and felt like they’d all won it.

The celebrations continued on the ice as the McAvoys all made their way towards the same opening Eleanora had talked to Charlie before the game start. Other wives and families were already there, pulling each other into hugs, most of the moms crying happily while a few of the dads tried to fight their own tears except for Jim Hughes who was openly crying as he held his wife tightly to him.

Standing on the glass so she could watch, Eleanora scanned the sea of blue jerseys to try to find Charlie, biting her lip to try to stop crying. She was still contemplating scaling the glass but knew the guys deserved to celebrate with their team first.

Finally, her impatience grew and Eleanora, just popped the door open and started to make her way onto the ice. Once the dam broke, the rest of the families followed, ignoring the staff asking for them to stay off the ice until they had carpets laid down.

It was decidedly difficult to maneuver on the ice in sneakers and a pregnant belly but she moved as quickly and carefully as she could towards her target. Their eyes locked and Charlie broke away from the guys to get to her. When he reached her, he went right for her waist, dragging her up and off the ice as he twirled her around as she held tightly to him.

Neither of them spoke at first as Eleanora pressed kisses all over his face as he laughed until he could kiss her back. It was awkward to be held up so Charlie carefully set her down on the ice, one hand tucking protectively against her back so she wouldn’t slip and the other pressed gently on her belly as he leaned down for the sweetest kiss they’d ever shared.

“I told you I’d win it for you.” He whispered, pressing his forehead against hers.

“Not before scaring the shit out of me first.” She shot back but squeezed his waist tightly, her face landing in the sweaty material. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Teddy.”

She stared up at him, and despite the fact that he had just won the biggest game of his life, he was staring at her like they were the only two people in the world.

“This is almost as good as our wedding night.”

She gave a watery chuckle in return. “Just the wedding night not the wedding itself?”

“Eh, that was okay too.” He teased just as the rest of his family joined them. Reluctantly, she released him so he could hug his family, stepping back to give them a moment.

A few of the guys paused to hug her as they went by but mostly she just stood there watching Charlie beaming at everyone around him. The camera crews were starting to show up as the staff worked to get the carpets out and set up the podiums. Eleanora knew they wouldn’t get a private moment together for hours and she tried to melt into the background but Charlie was having none of that, snagging her hand and dragging her towards him as they started to interview him.

From her position under his arm, she stared up at him as he spoke, beaming proudly as he talked about the win and how special it was for them. She was so focused on him she didn’t realized they’d asked her a question.

“Nellie.” Charlie whispered, nudging her with a nose to the top of her head and she glanced at the reporter who was beaming at her.

“I was just asking how this compares to your own gold medal win just four years ago?” they repeated the question.

Eleanora grinned and squeezed his side tighter. “There’s no comparison.” She started, enjoying some of the frowns that followed before continuing. “What Charlie and the boys did was so beyond historic and I’m so proud to have been able to watch it happen. This team worked so hard and never gave up. I’m just thrilled I was able to share in it. Although I’m pretty pissed that I can’t win arguments anymore by saying ‘well I have a gold medal so you have to do what I say’.”

Everyone laughed in response, Charlie squeezing her side lightly.

“I’m sure you guys haven’t seen yet but the video of you two right before the game has become quite popular.” Eleanora flushed slightly as they continued. “Charlie – did you get any last minute advice?”

She pinched his side, hoping he’d lie but the smirk on his face already told her differently. “She pretty much told me that just getting to the medal game wasn’t enough and that I knew what to do. Pretty sure the exact words were ‘now go fucking win it’ and honestly, I can’t really say no to my wife so I did.”

--- ---

It was nearly three hours later by the time Eleanora and Charlie were walking into her hotel room and shutting the door so they were finally alone. They were planning on changing then meeting up with everyone to celebrate. Most of the guys’ flights weren’t for another day or two so they planned to enjoy what little remained of their Olympic break before they’d have to return to their teams for the rest of the season.

Charlie face planted onto the king-size bed. “Fuck, you’ve been sleeping on this for two weeks while I’ve been on the worst twin mattress in the world?”

Eleanora giggled, pulling her jersey off leaving on her loose t-shirt, she slipped out of her sneakers and kicked them towards the door so she could sit and join him on the bed. Despite how happy she was, she was exhausted and the pain in her back went from dull to stabbing on a dime. It took a little effort for her to climb up onto the bed and get comfy as she curled up on her side.

Charlie inched up so his nose was brushing against her swollen belly. Her hand immediately fell to his hair, running her fingers through gently and scratching his scalp. He brought his arm up so he was hugging her middle and pressed his lips against her.

“Hi, Tripp.” He whispered causing Eleanora to tug his hair gently.

“Baby, no. Even if he ends up Charlie the third, we are not calling him Tripp.”

Charlie ignored her. “Ignore mommy, I’ll make sure you get a cool nickname.”

She rolled her eyes but he kept talking. “I don’t know if you heard all that noise but now you have two parents with gold medals. We’re pretty big deals.”

“Kid was bouncing all over the place for most of the game before settling directly on my sciatic nerve so I couldn’t get comfortable.”

“Be nice to mommy, sweet boy.” He mumbled and pressed a kiss to her stomach before turning up so he could stare at her. “I think I won because of you.”

“You won because you’re an amazing hockey player and leader. You did this. Next up you can win us a Cup.” She smiled softly, stroking his hair as he crawled up so their faces were level. They lay there quietly together, staring at each other and enjoying the peace. They’d both turned their phones off, telling his family they’d see them at the restaurant that USA hockey had reserved for them. For now, they just wanted to be alone.

Carefully, Eleanora brushed Charlie’s hair off his forehead. “Your head okay? I might kill that Canadian fuck.”

Charlie laughed but cringed slightly. His head hurt more than he let on but he passed concussion protocol and had a few days off before he’d have to be back on the ice for a game.

“Are you okay? I know when you’re in pain, Nellie.”

She winced despite trying to smile as he tucked his hand under her top to lay on her bare skin, soothingly running his thumb along belly.

“Just pregnancy, or so I’m told. I need to figure out how to get him off this nerve or I’m gonna spend the flight pacing the aisles because I won’t be able to sit.”

Charlie frowned. “I hate seeing you in pain. And I’m worried you won’t want the five that I want if this one is such a pain in the ass.”

She snorted, inching forward to kiss him softly. “Let’s get through meeting this little man first then we’ll talk more, kay?”

“You’re the love of my fucking life, you know that?” he gripped her neck gently.

Smiling, she leaned forward to steal another kiss. “Lucky for you, it’s mutual. Now…I bet we could find a comfy position for you to fuck me in before we have to go to the restaurant.”

A slow smirk spread across Charlie’s face as he rolled her carefully onto her back so he could lean over her.

“I can definitely do that.”

#charlie mcavoy #nhl writing #nhl fic #nhl imagines #charlie mcavoy fic #boston bruins #me writing hockey fics #hockey fic #my writing #hockey imagines #hockey blurbs #annnnd we're back #because i'm just gonna keep writing these two #because it's fun for me #I hope you like it! #let me know if you have requests or feedback

[ms-demeanor]

Some meandering thoughts about jokes about rape and cultural changes in the last decade and a half

Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad we’re in a place now where we DO question rape jokes and it would be much harder to get away with “raping Jonah Hill is incredibly amusing” as the center of a scene the way that you could in 2007-2013 but I do kind of feel like we don’t talk about how sudden that change was enough.

People talk about how you should have always known that awful things are awful but if you’re surrounded by rape jokes and pedophilia jokes all the time and that’s what’s funny to the other kids around you and the adults in your lives and what makes up the jokes in the movies you watch then it’s hard to act like you always knew it was wrong.

Dead baby jokes were a HUGE thing when I was a teen and in my early twenties and sitting around swapping dead baby jokes was just a thing we did, and tossed in among them were things like:

A joke about incest with the punchline “Get off me pa, you’re crushing my smokes.”

This joke about a pedophile murdering a child.

Let’s not turn this rape into a murder.

And hell, look at the activity graph for “soap on a rope” on urban dictionary:

2014 starts a significant taper.

Letterboxd has their “sexual assault against men played for comedy page” and if you sort by release date there’s a downward trend with 2014 as a really stand-out year for rape jokes about men in popular movies:

2010 - 10

2011 - 12

2012 - 14

2013 - 12

2014 - 18 (jesus, which includes a prison rape joke in “Paddington”)

2015 - 9

2016 - 9

2017 - 11

2018 - 15

2019 - 4

2020 - 1

(this is of course with the caveat that this is only what has been documented so far)

Shock porn sites used to be a thing and they used to be a COMMON thing. A thing that would get remixed and have late night hosts make jokes about them and that got parody music videos.

So on the one hand I was really glad that in 2010 the hacker conference WASN’T asking me to make a rape joke on their tee shirt, but since Pool 2 Girl came up at every single “this is what defcon is about” discussion and some of the guys from the con had printed up “lemonparty.org” stickers to slap up around town it wouldn’t have been *surprising* if they’d been asking for that.

If you were a teenager in 2005 would you have known how much of a dick move goatse-ing people was? We didn’t have the same culture of trigger warnings (not that I disapprove of trigger warnings, they are good and I like them) and there was very much an attitude online at the time of “if you can’t handle it log off.”

I think the fappening was the turning point for a lot of this stuff - I think that was a big cultural moment that changed a lot of people’s attitudes really quickly and I’m seeing echos of that with what Chris Evans is dealing with right now: people are a lot faster to say “oh, that sucks, don’t be an asshole, report people for posting the pics” while I remember sitting and arguing in an imgur thread because there were a bunch of people saying “if you don’t like it don’t take nudes” about the celebrities who got caught in the icloud leak.

People look at Shane Dawson’s (admittedly gross and incredibly inappropriate) behavior with a poster of Willow Smith and act like it’s unprecedented***** but as someone who remembers not only Olsen Eighteenth Birthday countdowns but ALSO the jokes about fucking the Olsen twins that came BEFORE they were legal that’s just bizarre. Seeing people my age and older react to James Gunn’s pedophilic twitter jokes like they’re worse than Jay Leno’s jokes about Michael Jackson (which were made on TV! Across America! On a major network!) is just. It’s bizarre.

I’m glad we are where we are now, I’m glad that making rape jokes in public or jokes about incest or pedophilia (or murder or abortion) is less common and less okay (especially in children’s media, jesus fuck) and more likely to get criticized.

But I’m also pretty sure I’m going to get called a rape apologist by *someone* for saying “2010 was a different time, rape jokes were more common and we didn’t realize how shitty it was” when it really was a different time and rape jokes were more common and most people didn’t realize how shitty it was. I sure didn’t. I do now, and I’m glad I do now. But pretending that we should have ALWAYS known this, pretending that this was NEVER acceptable, pretending that it WASN’T a different time is ignoring the fact that for over a decade there was an entire genre of pedophilic rape jokes (that were frequently also racist) centered around one celebrity and that people told these jokes in public and in pop culture *all the time.*

Does that make it right? Fuck, I don’t know, shit is relative. It was still largely acceptable to electrocute gay kids and people tossed around the word “faggot” pretty freely. Mean Girls is full of jokes about how awful it is for people to think you’re a lesbian and Superbad is full of jokes about getting people shitfaced so they’ll sleep with you (so date rape) and there’s an entire “cute comedy” from the 80s starring Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn that’s an extended rape-by-fraud joke. I think that as a whole we’re better now as people than we were in 2010 and the 90s and the 80s and the 50s and I don’t think that someone who made a sexist joke in the 80s is irredeemably evil and I don’t think people making rape jokes in the 2010s are rape apologists in 2020 and I wish there was a lot more understanding of both history and nuance in these conversations.

*****to be very, very clear Shane Dawson has been filmed kissing underage fans on the mouth and having explicit sexual conversations with his very young cousin - Dawson has done things that go beyond “inappropriate” and fall clearly into “wrong” “bad” “dangerous” “illegal” etc, which is all the more reason that it’s so strange to see people focusing on him fake masturbating on a poster of Willow Smith. YES doing that was gross but why is it even being compared to the way he’s been filmed interacting with fans? The lack of nuance, making “fake masturbating at a poster” and “creating a sexually abused puppet character” the same as “inappropriately touched and kissed minor fans and engaged a young child in explicit sexual conversations” is NOT GOOD. That is a bad thing. Two of those things are tasteless and two of those things are actively harmful and it’s the actively harmful stuff that we should be focusing on and part of why it’s really weird to see shit like “pizzagate conspiracist accuses James Gunn of making inappropriate jokes” like yes Gunn please don’t but can we maybe refocus and talk about the dude who can be pretty significantly assigned blame for a fucking shooting? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/01/james-gunn-alt-right-marvel-film-director-tweets

Actually, you know what, I thought I was done ranting, I’m not.

It’s purity culture.

YES you should attempt to do less harm with your language, YES you should attempt to not use slurs, YES you should try to avoid making rape jokes. But there’s an entire huge group of people who are willing to drag up rape jokes from a decade when rape jokes were REALLY REALLY common in order to say that nothing you say or do today matters.

And that same group is ALSO really interested in expanding the concept of what pedophilia is to include age differences in adults or liking the wrong style of drawing and it’s a purity culture silencing tactic and can we PLEASE stop pretending that gross, tasteless jokes are the same thing as actually sexually abusing people? Can we stop pretending that pointing out “rape jokes were more common fifteen years ago and I feel bad about it but that’s just the way it was and I don’t make jokes like that anymore” is the same as saying “rape isn’t bad and you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.”

It’s always good to try to be a less shitty human but if you’re only allowed to grow and improve and be less shitty if you never fucked up in the first place then it’s all just calvinist bullshit and none of us could ever really be saved in the first place.

I dunno, dudes. We got so careful about disapproving of the wrong kind of language that we let a white supremacist concern troll Disney into firing a director who caught the attention of the alt right by shit-talking the president.

I think perhaps we need to reexamine some strategy here.

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived. 

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human. 

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time. 

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.) 

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know. 

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson. 

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either. 

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories. 

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault. 

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval. 

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him. 

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him. 

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went “gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell “But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.

#luteia laments #otherkin #fictionkin #alth #alterhuman #asks #anonymous #long post // #discussions #on community history #on politics #on public relations #commentors feel free to add your own thoughts! #Anonymous

[rotationalsymmetry]

I don’t want to shame anyone or yuck anyone’s yum. But I do want to say my piece. So we’re doing it at a distance.

re: this thing about onions and cores

It probably works better in the context of a speech: people don’t have as much time to really think and peel apart spoken words, and other means of communication like tone of voice and body language convey meaning that doesn’t come across on the page. As written words though this is bad. For one thing it’s condescending (“anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen”) but more to the point the metaphor is bad. There is a reason “core” has the meaning it does in the English language, and that’s because a lot of things do have cores. Wheat germs. Anything that’s good on it’s own but is underneath a whole bunch of crud that you need to clear away, like light fixtures or glasses or gold or a story that you want to tell but the first draft is really really bad.

And people do, in fact, have cores, more authentic selves that get covered up by other people’s expectations. (As a trans person who follows a lot of trans people on this site, I did find pushback on this site against the idea that people can have essential natures that get obscured then found, to be rather jarring.) And I mean I don’t know if you have to backpack through Europe to find it, but when you’re talking about privileged college students, picking grapes in Italy isn’t always about Italy, sometimes it’s about the grapes — about having an excuse to do manual labor (work with your body rather than work with your intelectual and social skills, which can if it’s not too demanding leave space for self-reflection) and about getting away from the social networks who have a particular idea of who you are that they’ll enforce on you unless you can start afresh somewhere, and that doesn’t fundamentally have to be an experience of wealth and privilege, you can get a very similar experience for instance leaving home with no warning and traveling with the Rainbow Gathering for a bit or taking a job as an EMT or a bartender in a city that’s not the one you used to live in, meeting new people starting afresh having no ties and no stakes. And maybe there’s ways to get it if you can’t uproot yourself too, but to make fun of the fundamental young adult need to figure out who you are when you’re not with the people who have known you since you still had your baby teeth, well. I don’t like it.

(Although fuck knows a lot of the time “who you are” and what respectable professional career you should go with are not remotely the same thing.) (but it’s also extremely reasonable for young adults to have cold feet around committing to a profession that takes years of (very expensive) specialized education when you don’t even have that clear an idea of whether you can live with the day to day life of a doctor or lawyer.)

Big choices often do not sort themselves out, actually. We all know people who made big choices that did not sort themselves out.

#Commenting on without reblogging #I do not regret dropping out of college #I did in fact find enough of myself to be able to go back without betraying myself

[sadselfhelp]

Who I Am, And Why I Created This Blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS - Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Violence, Drug Overdose, Suicide, Psychotic Breaks. 

Take a walk with me, let me show you around the mind of The Sad Hatter.

There's a lot going on in my head right now, and I feel like I'm on the precipice of something. I'm standing on a cliff's edge and I'm either going to plummet or I'm going to fly. It's been building inside me for a long time, and I can't contain it anymore. So here it is, here's me laid bare, because I need to say this, I need to put it into words. I need to purge it all. To try and make sense of all of this shit in my brain, I think it's time I organize it. I don't know where to begin, but I guess I start at the beginning and make use of the ability to edit.

Before you read this, please be aware of the trigger warnings. And please understand that this is the most honest and open I have been, I really am stripped bare in this piece of writing. It’s not at all pretty, and am I not guiltless in parts. This may well alter whatever opinion you have of me. 

I guess the beginning is birth, right? But I don't want to rehash all that trauma, so let me speed through it. Twenty-Eight years ago I was born, violently. I'm serious, I ripped my way out of the womb, and tore that thing apart. I guess I can sort of understand why my mother couldn't love me after that was my first act, collapsing her womb. So let me speedrun this part of the story. Mum didn't want me, gave me to my dad who raised me as a single parent with the help of his parents, until he met my stepmother. Shockingly, she didn't want me either, but because she couldn't get rid of me she decided to physical and psychological torture was the next best thing. 

When I was eleven years old I snapped and didn't want to put up with it anymore, so I wrote a goodbye note and then snuck into the medicine cabinet and took a bunch of pills. Spoiler alert, I didn't die. I did however end up in a children's home, cue more abuse, little bit of bullying and sexual assault etc.... I snapped again, but instead of turning my anger inwards, I became an absolute bastard. Ok, I still turned it inwards a bit, I had a lot of anger, and now I have a few hundred scars to prove it. But, it turns out that violence can beget violence, and I acted out in every possible way. Racked up a horrifying rap sheet, assault, vandalism, arson, and finally... GBH. I was supposed to get put in a secure unit (child prison – Scottish Edition) but I was always able to talk myself out of trouble. 

See, I was this tiny little white girl with big sad eyes and a hell of a sob story, even at the bottom of the food chain I still had privilege. So instead of getting locked up, I just got sent to a different home. And here's the really messed up part, this home was better. The staff were nicer, and nobody hurt me. My behavior literally changed overnight. I went from being charged by the police on a weekly basis, to never getting so much as a pocket money sanction. I will never excuse my actions, nor condone them, but after years of guilt I finally realized that the bad things I did were in retaliation to a bad situation, and though I wasn’t acting like a good person, I’m not a bad person, just a messed up one. 

I still refused to go to school though, because though I didn't yet know it at the time, I had severe social anxiety. I was smart, a little too smart to be honest, and I found myself thriving with a private tutor. When the time came to sit my exams, someone fucked up, and despite having record breaking test scores on the pre-exams, I never actually got to sit my standard grades (think SAT's – Scottish Edition). I'm still bitter about that. So by this point in the story, I'm 16, and legally an adult, too old for a children's home. I got turfed to a hostel, and the next few parts of the story are pretty fuzzy to me. 

This is where my mental health really started to deteriorate. I bounced between homeless hostels and B&B's for a year or so, until I got a my first flat/apartment. By that point, I was utterly fucked in the head. I was blacking out frequently, for anywhere between a couple of minutes to three days. I would come back to myself in sometimes compromising positions, and once there was blood. A lot of blood, splashed all over the walls. Then there was the time I suddenly found myself standing in the kitchen, about to plunge a knife into my own chest.

Nobody ever did tell me what the hell that was about. Or maybe they did and I just... forgot? But because I was extremely suicidal, a doctor finally decided to do something, and the police and the paramedics came to my door to take me to the psychiatric hospital. I spent ten months there while I cycled through various anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, and was 'rehabilitated into society'. The second I was out, I made the worst decision I have ever made in my life. If I can give you one piece of advice, one lesson to take from my shitshow of a life, it's this: Don't move hundreds of miles away to be with the guy you met online while you were having a psychotic break.

I've never really thought of myself as a victim, but I guess I'm the only one who saw it that way. Ben, that was his name, Ben was a monster, and I didn't know it until it was too late. He never hit me, never lifted a hand to me, he never had to. He could put a knife in my hand and make me hurt myself for his entertainment. I had told him everything, so he knew exactly how to break me down, how to make me want to bleed. He locked me in a house and used me up. And when I had enough, and tried to break free of him, he would just tell the police I was mentally ill and they would smile sympathetically and give me back to him.

But then my dad had a breakdown. My dad, who when he found out what my stepmother was doing to me, buried his head in the sand and packed my little suitcase for me. I hadn't spoken to him in a while until he reached out from the same psychiatric ward I had not long vacated. He had cracked under the realization that I had never lied about her, and the guilt broke him apart. I could have hated him, if it had happened a few years earlier then I would have. But I had experienced enough of the world to learn a few things, like how easily it is to fuck up, and that no matter how strong you are, you aren't immune to monsters. The truth was he was as much a victim of her evil as I was. She had manipulated him, played with his head, used his insecurities against him. So I helped him through his issues, the way I wished someone had helped me. That doesn't really make me a good person, it just makes me human.

But my dad got better, and found his footing. And when he did, he realized something wasn't right with me, and I told him the truth about Ben. My dad had left me to suffer at the hands of an abuser once before, and he wasn't going to allow it to happen again. He came and got me, and he took me home. He moved me in with him, gave me his bed and slept on the couch. After a couple of months, he helped me get my own place.

And that's the happy ending, right? All the trauma was over, I was safe, that's where the story should end. Right? I bet you're not naive enough to believe that, but I sure as hell was. I thought I would recover and that everything would be ok. I thought that with safety, there would come the chance to heal. I thought my wounds would scab over, and I would have my scars but at least I would be able to move without bleeding out. But that's not how trauma works. I had two decades worth of trauma, abuse, and hell.

I just... faded. I didn't crack, I didn't crumble, I didn't break, I just stopped. For five years I sat in one room of my home, drowning inside myself. Last year I got handed a lifeline, and now I live somewhere better. I'm not really allowed to live independently so I actually live in kind of retirement village of all places. I have my own house, but it's got intercoms and emergency cords everywhere, I get checked on daily by on on-site worker. And I'm trying to get better, I really am. It's just not that easy.

There's more to the whole story that I maybe should have put in, like the fact that my mother was a drug addict when she was pregnant with me, and that may have been the reason some of my organs didn't properly form and/or formed wrong. My lung split in half when I was a baby, and parts of my stomach are missing. Or that my mother is full on batshit insane. I could have had a perfect childhood and I still would have been mentally ill. Hell, I was seeing psychologists at five years old. Take my sketchy genetics, add twenty years of severe traumas, and well... I'm a little fucked up. Because a lot of medical conditions use acronyms, my full list of diagnosis looks like I'm collecting the fucking alphabet.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Agoraphobia. I also have a Pulmonary Sequestration, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, the stomach and lung issues. Immune Hemolytic Anemia, I'm basically allergic to my own blood. Plus, ya know, my liver recently decided to just fucking nope out, the pissy lil bitch is failing. I also may or may not have cancer, I don't know because I pussied out of the tests. At this point I am a walking, decaying corpse that is held together by glitter glue and bitterness.

So... why exactly am I writing this? And why am I even considering posting this? I mean, my problems aren't as bad as some other people's. We've all got shit to deal with, especially in 2020. The whole world is falling apart, so what right do I have to sit here pouting and pouring my problems out? Well, for a start, I guess this is my blog, I can post whatever, and it's up to everyone else if they read it.

So here it is, you have the backstory, so here's what it's all been leading up to.

I'm struggling. Like, really struggling. I'm stuck on this cliff, and I want off, any way I can. Whether I fall or fly, I just want free. I can't live like this anymore, because I can't breathe.

The fucking agonizing duality of being socially anxious and too easily overstimulated, and yet feeling fucking empty inside if you're not surrounded by action and noise. The world is too noisy for my brain, but my brain is too noisy for the world. I get antsy if I'm not doing at least a thousand different tasks, but I get overwhelmed if I try to do anything at all. It leads to short bursts of mania, followed by weeks of depression. But underneath all of that, under all the dramatic showboating, and the dark humor, under all the bravado... I'm really just sad.

Years ago, when I first came up with the moniker "The Sad Hatter", I said it was because I may be mad, but my madness was born of sadness. I'm just sad. I carry it with me where my heart should be. So I named myself Sad, and I put on the hat, and I wore my sadness like armor, turned it into an act, and made a spectacle of it. "I'm The Sad Hatter, and I'm mentally ill but that's alright, I'm going to be just fine!" I told you all I had my issues, and I'll come close to opening up about how bad those issues are, I'll give little chunks of information at intermittent intervals, and then two hours later I'll act like it never happened. I'll admit I was close to killing myself, and then two days later I'll post dog photo's and act like I'm all better.

I'm writing this because I'm sad. And tomorrow, I'll act like I'm not. But when I waver again, I'll come back here and I'll open up again. And along the way, maybe you're reading this and realizing you aren't alone in feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you're realizing you're not the only one who isn't healing neatly and in a timely manner. Maybe you're reading this and gaining some insight into the struggles someone you care about is facing. Maybe my opening up is can help somebody else, I really hope so, but I know it's helping one person. It's helping me.

This blog, it's about living with myself. It's about living with The Sad Hatter.

#trigger warnings #mental health #anxiety #borderline personality disorder #adhd #domestic abuse #child abuse #self harm #violence #just all the trigger warnings

[gayregis]

it sucks so much that a lot of the time i just simply am not able to make art/fanfic with confidence because i’m always aware that horny people on tumblr would eagerly misinterpret it as fetish art or ship.

is that still how you put a read more on mobile? lol idk anymore

this is a vent post to give anyone who isn’t sure about what i’m trying to say / is interested in the bad experiences i’ve had more context

when i was fourteen (14!! a baby!!) on here i made a general ‘body positivity’ post for a character (just saying that they were beautiful and desirable to a partner, because a lot of posts liked to make them out as ‘ugly’) and a nsfw fetish blog reblogged it (and interacted with me. fml) and it got a bunch of notes because they were popular in the fandom and i was too young to know what fetishes were.

when i was older but still a teenager (must have been what, 15? 16?) my (adult, in their early 20s) mutual DMed me and we talked for a bit about AUs and ships, and then they started talking about what if this character grew multiple limbs during sex :)? what would you think about that? ... i tried to say i was uncomfortable with where this conversation was going and tried to steer it back to regular topics, but they kept pressing it so i just didn’t respond anymore.

when i was still older, and getting into the witcher fandom now (17, maybe early 18) i rapidly found out how much disgusting fucking geralt x ciri shit there is. i was trying to cope with my shitty relationship with my dad by finding solace with geralt and ciri, and nope, there’s some ship art or fic of them. literally i got 1/4 through a fic on a blog about geralt and ciri in brokilon where she was scared and held his hand, my gut felt weird about it because this was a post on a blog that seemed to do mostly ship fics, i scrolled to the bottom of the post and there it was tagged with ship tags and fetish tags.

so now i’m just stuck in this space where i’m afraid to make anything that could be misinterpreted, because of how it could potentially be recieved, what kind of people it will attract. and “anything that could be misinterpreted” is a very broad topic, but it’s broad for a reason, because literally anything can be misconstrued and taken from you and seen as a fetish, or a ship, etc... more specifically i’m thinking about my vampire headcanons (on the topic of giving characters fangs and people being extremely horny for that) and ideas about regis and angouleme hanging out (because tumblr both doesn’t know what a familial / parental relationship is, and fucking loves to ship old men with young women vis-a-vis the regis x shani art i’ve been unlucky enough to see on here).

plus way too many people are horny for regis on this site and i’ve tried to block them all but the thing is that it blocks from my mainblog and not my sideblog, so now i can’t see them but they can see me and still reblog my content on this sideblog, thanks tumblr... literally nsfw blogs reblogging my posts about regis like i want to go insane on you stop it...

literally it’s like:

me: here is my headcanon for how regis looks [subtext: appearance based upon professors ive had who have reminded me of him / inspired me / made me feel safe in their presence / oh god i miss that kind of feeling with my dad / okay anyways haha here’s the post]

accts who i HAVE BLOCKED but tumblr allows them to reblog my posts because i’m a sideblog and your blockslists are specific to your blogs and not your entire account because this site’s block “function” sucks: wow this man i want to fuck him UNFFFFFF

anyways it’s 6:30 am i’m tired and hungry but yeah this is why i’m always fucking second-guessing myself lol and never end up creating things anymore. i of course really enjoy writing analysis posts, but in some ways, it’s the only thing i can do because other mediums such as art and fic are way too often taken from their creators and purposefully misinterpreted, if i write a long post however it’s more difficult to misinterpet it (more difficult yet still so many do... re: all the gerlion posts i’ve made hating on geraskiers, cue many geraskiers reblogging said posts like #omg so true... no look in the mirror because i was talking about you lol.)

if anyone is reading this (vent post, as i said, a personal post that is not intended to be reblogged or consumed by the masses) like “wow what a bitch and a hater for hating on my fetishes, i’m going to send them a really strongly worded anon that starts with ‘No. You know what, fuck this. Fuck you—‘“ then i don’t care, just block me and fuck off like i really do not want to talk to you. i’m not hating on your fetishes i’m saying you need to act appropriately in sfw environments and not bring up nsfw content to minors or people who haven’t consented to seeing it, or interact with others’ sfw posts in a nsfw manner.

be a decent adult

#DO NOT R/B LOL #personal #this is sure to end in a monstrous headache

[kilibaggins]

1.) ontari is fucking hot. 2.) Murphy is aman he likes sex duh. 3.) they flirted/had cemestry 4.) men cant be raped 5.) women can not rape 6.) even if they could this wouldnt be rape since murphy would want it. 7.) it was literallly just akinky scene lollll 8.) shut the fuck up ontari is amazing. 9.) they're both adults it's not like murphy is some kid 10.) shut up 11.) ontari is a sweet sweet bby 12.) SHUT HE FUCK UP ABOUT IT MURPHY WAS NOT RAPED MEN CANT BE RAPED!

I wanted to respond to this cuz... I'm responding to all the asks about this topic because Men CAN be raped and men need to be heard. And It undermines the struggles of Male Rape Survivors to Say John Murphy wasn't raped and make excuses for Ontari's Actions.

I know most won't read this sadly, but I know my true bros will, and so will people who feel strongly on this topic.

While this post is mostly about a Fictional TV show and Character, I do recommend scrolling to the bottom because I have some Important links to spread more information and that can help Men who have been Sexually Assaulted or people who have Been sexually assaulted. If you don't want to reblog this post because it is Fandom related, I will be making a post of just these links.

1. ) "Ontari is fucking hot."

Okay? I never said otherwise. And Honestly? Yes, Rhiannon Fish IS a beautiful woman. She's absolutely beautiful, and yes she's hot. But just because the actress is attractive, it doesn't mean the character couldn't be a Rapist. People can be hot and still Rape someone.

2. ) "Murphy is a man he likes sex duh."

That's honestly not completely true. Yes, Murphy is a man. And from what we've seen with Emori he likes sex. Though the two don't immediately go hand in hand. Not all men like sex. There are Asexual men in the world. There are sex-repulsed men in the world. Murphy isn't one of those (that we know of) since we've seen him with Emori, but that doesn't mean he would want to have sex with Ontari just because he likes sex. Just because someone likes sex, that doesn't mean they want ALL sex with ANYONE. Just because someone finds another person attractive it doesn't mean they want to have sex with them.

3. ) "they flirted/had cemestry"

I'm guessing you mean "Chemistry" correct? Either way flirting does NOT equal consent. Women and men can Flirt all the want, and that still isn't consenting. A man can call a woman hot all day every day and still not consent to sex. Murphy flirting with someone (if what they did even COUNTS as flirting) does not mean he wants to have sex with them! It just means he was flirting. Also, "Chemistry" is also not consent. Hell, I have chemistry with some of my friends, does that mean they and I have consented to sex? NO.

4. ) "men can't be raped"

Actually, they can. According to THIS  Wikipedia article and sources, men can and have been raped. (And before anyone tells me that Wikipedia is not a "reliable source" it was for many years. The only reason people think it isn't is that people CAN edit it. That does not mean that all of the information in it is false.)

5. ) "women can not rape"

Again, they can. Rape any Non-Consensual Sexual intercourse between two persons. If a woman does not get consent from a man, and still has sex with him, that is rape. If a woman threatens to kill a man and he had *No Choice* but to say yes, then THAT IS RAPE

6. ) "even if they could this wouldnt be rape since murphy would want it."

Are we sure about that? Where exactly did this get said in the episode? Or the scene? Or any scene afterward? because I'm pretty sure his Exact words when talking during the scene were:

"wait. There's someone else okay? I'm sorry."

And nowhere in that does it say he wants it. And no scene after that says he did. The only other scene we have about it is Emori talking to Murphy about it. And Murphy SPECIFICALLY SAYS:

"Emori... I didn't have a choice."

That is not consent. That's the opposite.

And if you think he would want it only because she's attractive I Repeat: Just because someone finds another person attractive it doesn't mean they want to have sex with them.

7. ) "it was literally just akinky scene lollll"

Actually, it wasn't. Though I guess technically you can say Ontari has (a) kink(s) like Bondage, domination, etc. But that doesn't mean the scene is kinky In itself.

A kink scene would be between two consenting adults sho have talked it over beforehand, they'd have a Safeword, there would be Enthusiastic consent either beforehand or during it. There has to be communication and not a randomly dominant woman chaining a guy to a wall and coming out of the blue with sex. That's not how kink WORKS. Trust is a huge part of any kinky/bdsm type scene! There was legitimately NO TRUST. They do not trust each other at all. So Yeah, maybe Ontari is Kinky, but the scene itself was not just a kink scene.

8. ) "shut the fuck up Ontari is amazing"

Well, first of all, I won't shut up. This is my blog and i can post what I want on it. You are not in charge of my blog and you can leave if you really don't want to see the content nobody is making you.

Second, I, sadly, can't tell you not to like Ontari. Though, I can promise you that she is not amazing in a lot of people's eyes. She killed a whole group of kids in cold blood in THEIR SLEEP. She cut off their heads. She pokes a guy's eyes out with her bare hands and uh... She Raped a Guy. That seems pretty "not amazing" to me.

9. ) "they're both adults it's not like Murphy is some kid."

Well, you're right about one thing, Murphy isn't some kid. Though, Murphy also isn't an Adult. He landed on the ground when he was 17 (probably Early 17) and he was still 17 by the time the Ontari situation happened also, According to THIS site and THIS site Ontari is either 25-26 or ""In her Early 20's"". Look at that! It's Underagded rape too!

10) "shut up"

No thank you, I think I'll continue talking about MURPHY on MY MURPHY blog.

11.) "ontari is a sweet sweet baby"

I mean, I guess. If you count her killing a bunch of children in their sleep, cutting off their heads, poking a guy's eyes out, and raping a guy to be "sweet". Then yeah, I guess she's sweet!

12.) "SHUT HE FUCK UP ABOUT IT MURPHY WAS NOT RAPED MEN CANT BE RAPED"

Refer back to Numbers 4-6.

Thank you to anyone who is still reading. I loved and hated making this post. I hated it because I had to see the ignorance coming from this anon, but I loved it because I got to educate some people today and talk about a serious issue.

Sources say that 1 in 6 men deal with **Sexual Abuse** in their lifetime. Here is a Source to that statistic CLICK HERE 

Here is a Source that Mentions the 1 in 6 Men statistic and also goes through Myth and gives the truth: CLICK HERE 

Here is a Source about Male Sexual Abuse Survivors that had a real life story, and tells statistics and Facts. CLICK HERE 

Here is a link of 62 Male Sexual Assault stories. Warning: Some are disturbing. Please be careful. CLICK HERE 

Here is a link to a website that answers questions you might have. CLICK HERE

I know this post started as a John Murphy post and went into this. But the reason it did it because this is a very serious topic and people need to be educated and male survivors need Support JUST like female survivors do.

Here are Some Links to Some Resources for Male Survivors:

LINK 

LINK 

LINK

Men Need Support.

Men Can Be Survivors.

Men Need Resources.

Men Need Love.

Men Can Be Raped.

John Murphy Was Raped.

And So Were All Of The Male Survivors Who Are Brave Enough To Talk About It.

#tw rape #rape tw #rape #rape cw #cw rape #john murphy #Anti-ontari #the 100

[stormquill]

debt-free | chapter ten [Tony Stark/Reader]

You tasted like coffee and faded lip gloss; he tasted like vodka and day-old despair.

In which an unexpected late-night rendezvous at your University library ends up with you in way over your goddamn head.

Credits: Beta'd by @l0kt0n. Follow the blog / AO3 mirror @debt--free.

Somehow, you thought ‘safehouses’ were supposed to be inconspicuous.

Though nowhere near as grandiose as Stark’s home in Malibu, the place you’d taken temporary refuge could still house a family of twelve quite comfortably. The elegant outdoor landscaping and impeccable interior design made the building feel more like a four-star hotel than covert asylum, but you figured it made sense—if Stark had to go into hiding, he’d be doing it in style.

You and Hansen sat across from each other, a small table and two untouched coffees between you. You both looked little worse for wear, but you’d been lucky to escape the day’s events with nothing more than a handful of scrapes and bruises. Stark wasn’t looking much better himself, but unlike the two of you, he was on his feet and moving, pacing around the room with all the patience of an anxious cat; you could practically hear the gears grinding in his head, processing everything Hansen had confessed about Killian and their company on the car ride over.

It was strange to think that, less than a couple of hours ago, you were leaving the hospital with Stark, having successfully convinced him to take a break and let you handle the meeting with Hansen.

Five henchmen and one destroyed cafe later, you knew he must have been regretting that decision.

“So the Mandarin is using your Extremis for his attacks?” Stark asked.

“Yeah,” said Hansen. “Those bombings? That’s exactly what happens when you let it get unstable enough.”

“Incendiary devices leave remnants. A million-acre forest fire can be tracked down to a single lit cigarette—it’s forensics, it’s a science. That means there’s evidence at the theater explosion. Something I can use to connect the attacks back to AIM.”

“You won’t find any evidence. Just like they wouldn’t have found any at any of the other sites.”

“Yeah, why’s that?”

“Extremis isn’t just some incendiary device, like a bomb or a flare, it’s.” She folded her arms and shifted in her seat. “It’s a form of genetic manipulation. It needs a living host for the thermodynamic hypercharge to work. If the host can control it, Extremis can give them regenerative abilities, enhance their physical performance—but if the host can’t control it...”

Stark made a comical explosion noise.

She shut her eyes and winced away from him, as if the thought alone made her sick. “Point is, the Mandarin is weaponizing my tech to make super-soldiers and living bombs, tech Killian just handed to him on a silver platter. And I don’t know what I can do.”

Keeping silent, you’d watched the two of them go back and forth since Stark started his pseudo-interrogation. Still fueled by outrage over Hogan’s incident, Stark was looking for information, for inconsistencies, for anything he could use as an excuse to get out there and track down the perpetrators. Hansen, on the other hand, was wondering if seeking help was worth the trouble if all they were going to do was talk in circles.

The entire situation was way above your paygrade—but the gears in your head were turning, too.

“You said Extremis is a form of genetic manipulation,” you spoke up. “How is it administered, exactly? Radiotherapy?”

Hansen turned back to you, blinking the weariness from her eyes to try and refocus on your conversation. “Uh—no, intravenous. It’s an intravenous agent.”

“So it works like a virus? Enters the bloodstream, attacks the brain, creates a biochemical reaction.”

“More or less.”

“Then, hypothetically,” you straightened up, “you could develop a vaccine for it.”

The suggestion gave her pause. “I don’t know, maybe? I haven’t gotten anywhere with Extremis’s development in over a decade, I’m not sure how plausible it is to try reverse-coding a half-finished product.”

“I think I might be able to help.”

Your words had gotten both Stark and Hansen’s attention.

You cleared your throat, mulling the words over in your head to make sure you got them right. “If Extremis evokes a thermodynamic reaction that accelerates cellular function, reversing it means causing mass cellular deceleration, which...just so happens to be the unwanted byproduct of my current experimentation.”

The sudden light of inspiration in your eyes now sparked in hers. “You can’t maintain neurogenesis because of entropic decay.”

“And entropic decay is exactly what you need to reverse Extremis’s unstable effects,” you continued. “Obviously, the numbers will need major tweaking, and we’ll need to run some tests—”

“We’ll need samples,” Hansen agreed, shuffling forward in her chair. “There’s not enough time to recreate Extremis from scratch, not with the Mandarin’s recent threats.”

“Where would we get those?”

“Closest AIM headquarters would be in Houston, but...you don’t understand, Killian’s got eyes everywhere—if we hop on a plane, o—or a bus, he’ll see us coming from miles away.”

“Honey,” Stark interrupted, rather loudly, “can I speak to you in private for a moment?”

You were so wrapped up in your discussion with Hansen, you’d forgotten Stark was even there.

His request took you by surprise, but you followed his lead down the hallway. The way Hansen watched in confusion as the two of you disappeared around a corner did not escape your notice.

You entered the room, and shut the door behind you.

Segments of Mark 42 had been disassembled and spread across the floor for post-battle diagnostics. Toeing around the maze of parts, Stark reached the nearby couch, and lazily straddled the armrest. He stretched an arm out in front of him; one of the suit’s gloves flew across the room and attached itself to his hand like a magnet, red and silver metal spreading across his fingers and up his entire forearm.

“Haven’t seen that trick before,” you said, impressed.

“Neat, right? Had to bring the baby—he’s the only one who’d fit in your trunk.”

A mass of images projected themselves from his forearm panel, drowning the room’s ambient lighting with the bright blue glow of various interfaces. Stark gestured through the windows and touch screens, navigating the arrays of diagrams and news articles filling the room around him, his attention maneuvering quickly from one set of panels to the next.

“What are you thinking, doc?” he asked, without looking at you.

“About what?”

“About Maya.”

“I want to help her, if I can.” You made your way over and sat by his side, folding up your legs off the floor. “I mean, having the worst, most volatile parts of your research stolen by a bunch of power-hungry men and used in terrorist attacks? That...fucking sucks.”

“So you trust her?”

“You don’t?”

He clicked his tongue. “Just feels like there’s something she’s not telling us.”

Falling silent, you watched as he conducted his wordless research. Hansen hadn’t given you any reason not to trust her—but in Stark’s world, you realized that must have been tragically naive.

“What do you think we should do, then?” you asked. “Send her back to Killian?”

“No, but I don’t know if getting you involved in this is the greatest idea.”

“I’m already involved. I was involved the moment I went to meet her instead of you.”

“That was a mistake,” he snapped. “I should’ve never let do you that, I should’ve never—”

“You didn’t let me do anything,” you shot back. “We’re both adults—we made a decision, together, and like it or not, here we are.”

“I definitely don’t have to like it. And I definitely don’t have to sit quiet while you hand over your life’s work to someone you just met two hours ago.”

The words took you by surprise.

Stark was worried about you, of course he was, but he was also worried about the integrity of your research—and his concern made sense. At the heart of it all, he was a fellow scientist who’d been with you every step of the way—from your University research proposal, to your doctoral thesis, to the months upon months of sleepy, unproductive nights filled with failed experiments and paperwork to nowhere. He was just as invested in your work as you were.

And he didn’t want to see you compromised.

“I’m not like you, Mr. Stark,” you said. “I’m not a genius in any sense of the word. I don’t have a lot of things to offer.”

“That’s not—”

“You know what I mean,” you interrupted. Fishing for compliments wasn’t what you were aiming for, here. “My research...hasn’t gone anywhere. It hasn’t gone anywhere in a while, and I’ve been worrying a lot about whether or not I’m wasting my time. But Doctor Hansen—she’s been working on this one project for over ten years. That’s how much faith she has in it. In herself. Maybe I have something she needs. Maybe she knows something I don’t. You know my work almost as well as I do, Mr. Stark—if you think any part of my research can help her, I need you to let me try.”

Though he continued staring at the projected screens ahead of him, you could already read the answer in his expression.

Leaning up, you gently cradled a hand against his cheek, turning him to face you properly.

“You have to let me try,” you whispered.

“...you know, the last time I took your advice, you got a cafe blown up.”

You narrowed your eyes. “That cafe would’ve blown up with or without me there and you know it.”

“Crazy things happen once these suits get involved, sweetheart. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“I’m in a relationship with you, it comes with the territory.”

He smirked, softly.

And then his lips were on yours.

It felt like it had been ages since you’d last done this, but he kissed you, hard, and the contact set your nerves alight, just as it did every time.

He touched his forehead to yours, resigned, the worry weighing heavy in his eyes.

You rested another kiss against the side of his nose. “Stop thinking you have to do everything on your own. You’re not alone, remember?”

Realization dawned across his face like a new day.

Stark righted himself on the couch arm, clearing away the projections with an impatient swipe of his hand before replacing them a number pad and hitting speed-dial.

Before you could register what was happening, a video display appeared in the air as someone picked up the line.

The man on the other end glanced at Stark, then at you, and already looked exhausted.

“Evening, Colonel,” you said, sheepishly.

“Hi, Doctor. Tony. What’s up?”

Stark’s tone was clear and deliberate. “I have it on very good authority that your buddies over at Advanced Idea Mechanics have something to do with the Mandarin attacks.”

“Oh yeah, what authority?”

“An AIM executive told me so. She’s my hostage now, by the way—you sure you still don’t want me in on this?”

“Are you serious right—” With a loud, frustrated groan, Rhodes rubbed a hand over his face. “I told you, I am not in charge of this operation anymore.”

“But you’re second-in-charge, right? That’s almost as good.”

“Look, just because you can piss all over protocol, that doesn’t mean the rest of us can get away with it scott-free. There’s a chain of command—I cannot be discussing this with you on my own.”

“Well, not with that attitude.”

“I’m bringing him in.”

Stark’s face fell. “Wait, what?”

“You haven’t given me a choice, Tony.”

“Wait wait wait—nonononono—”

But the line was already dialing.

A second video screen appeared next to Rhodes. Bright blue eyes and short blonde hair came into view—a handsome face, boyish but strong, and trustworthy in a way you couldn’t quite explain. The man seemed out of breath as he answered the call; you could see a punching bag behind him, and a gleam of sweat on his brow.

You couldn’t have stopped yourself if you trIed. “Holy shit, it’s Captain America!”

Still catching his breath, Rogers gave you an impossibly charming smile. “Evening, ma’am.”

Meanwhile, Stark’s eyes rolled to the back of his skull. “Yeah—she’s easily impressed, don’t read too much into it—can we focus, here?”

“Captain Rogers,” Rhodes started, “Tony here’s captured an AIM executive who says the company’s dealing with the Mandarin.”

“What—you’ve taken an AIM rep hostage? Is this a civilian we’re talking about? Is that her?”

Rogers pointed at you with a boxing-wrapped hand. Your brain shorted out and you waved back, nervously.

Rhodes had a smile in his voice. “No, Captain, that’s Tony’s girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Smirking, Rogers offered you a nod. “My condolences, ma’am.”

“Watch it,” Stark warned.

“So you mean to say you brought two civilians into my investigation without my knowledge?”

“Sure did, mom. Hey—could you let me explain before you jump down my throat, maybe? The two of you might learn something.”

Rhodes looked as exasperated as always, but Rogers kept his patience, his composure clearly tempered by many past experiences with Stark.

“We’re listening.”

“The AIM exec is an old friend of mine who came to me for help, Dr. Maya Hansen. She says it’s their tech behind the bombings. There’s been three of them so far, right?”

“Only three have been made public. There’s actually been—”

“—nine attacks worldwide.” Stark brought up a holographic projection of a globe; certain areas around the world were marked with a bright red glow. “I found out the Mandarin attacks have a distinct heat signature—a very balmy 3000 degrees. Not many natural phenomena match the time frames and radii of impact from the Chinese Theater bombing. Why haven’t the other six been made public?”

“We’re trying not to cause a panic,” said Rhodes. “Especially since we don’t know how he’s doing it. We’re calling them bombings, but none of the fire investigations have turned up remnants of explosive devices.”

“It’s because he’s using people as bombs. Not suicide bombers—people injected with some kind of performance-enhancement virus, something that blows them up if it runs too hot. ”

“...you’re kidding.”

“Dr. Hansen told you this?”

Stark nodded. “Mandarin’s associated with the Ten Rings, same guys who threw me in a cave and wanted me to build things for them. Weapons of mass destruction are their bread and butter. Looks like they finally got their hands on something big.”

Rogers nodded again. “Any leads?”

“AIM has a global network with two headquarters in North America, Houston and Miami. Both good places to start digging.”

“And the third?”

“There’s a tenth heat signature that matches the profile, but predates all recent Mandarin attacks. It was marked as a suicide bombing, in some backwater town in Tennessee. I’m thinking it was ground zero. Might be worth checking out.”

“Understood. Colonel Rhodes will stay at his post with the President and continue trying to isolate the source of the Mandarin’s broadcast. I’ll investigate places of interest and get back to you with what I find.”

“Got it, Captain.”

“If you give me ten minutes, I can. Y’know.” Stark made little typing motions. “Sneak into AIM’s databases, save you guys some time.”

“You’ve done enough,” said Rogers. “Dr. Hansen is a person of interest in this investigation, and you’ve somehow managed to get your girlfriend involved. Your job right now is to keep the civilians safe until this is all over.”

“Yeaaaah, about that. There’s little thing I need to take care of in Houst—”

“Don’t let them out of your sight, Stark. Over and out.”

Both video feeds disconnected at once, throwing the bedroom back into its normal ambient lighting.

“You’re welcome!” Stark shouted at the now-empty room. He threw an arm up, hopeless. “Unbelievable.”

“At least you got help,” you offered, trying to cheer him up. “Now you don’t have to be in three places at once.”

“Nope. Just one. Ever been to Houston?”

“Um...” You weren’t sure where this was headed. “No, why?”

“Captain’s orders, remember? Can’t let either of you out of my sight.” He tilted his head to look at you. “Think that car of yours can make the trip?”

You returned his smile of malicious compliance tenfold.

“Hell yes, he can.”

#tony stark #tony stark x reader #tony stark imagine #mcu imagine #debt.free

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

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[jxters-remade]

220 spoilers bc aaa

under the cut bc im not a monster unlike some morons on this website

SPINNER

My favorite lizard man gets some spotlight I love him so much

Baby Toga sweetheart honey bunches of oats I love you so much you are so cute and I would die for you do you know this i need you to know this

I LOVE YOU

Tomura. Get a haircut. I love you. But please.

Also why are yall living in like some sorta construction site thats a bad idea also dangerous just find some warehouse please I dont want yall dead

Tomura really is just a gay teenager with repressed trauma and the way he is sitting here proves it

TOGA SWEETIE ITS SO PERFECT YOU LOOK AMAZING AND ITS WHAT YOU DESERVE! I mean selling it you could get a lot of money but DONT YOU LOOK AWESOME

BASTARD MAN SMILES WHILE CALLING PEOPLE TRASH: MORE AT 8 ON WHY I LOVE HIM

Also is it just me or is his shirt collar,,,, higher?

BASTARD SIBLINGS P MUCH CONFIRMED THIS IS HOW SIBLINGS ACT

BABY BABY BABY SHES JUST FUCKIN BABY

Finally some (.2 seconds) of interactions between these idiots ive waited long enough!

Well now SOMEONE is getting expressive around his coworkers

Tomura: *does his tantrum thing* Compress and Twice, the actual adults: *try to help* Toga, Dabi, and Spinner, the fucking morons: *leave bc they dont have time for that* (Sidenote i love the idea of those three specifically being friends dont @ me this panel makes me happy seeing them)

h him

what

#bnha #bnha spoilers #bnha 220 #HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH theres a lot of info to take in here

[ginnyzero]

Being a Fanfic Writer is Okay

AKA I love Fanfiction

Fan Fiction, a bit controversial and a bit time worn topic in writing and fandom circles. But let’s face it, fan fiction is older than dirt (Shakespeare anyone?) and isn’t about to go away any time soon. So, we might as well face the pink elephant in the room and address the issue. Besides, fan fiction is really personal to me. Of course, before I get all maudlin about my experiences with fan fiction, maybe we better discuss what fan fiction is, a bit of history and where to find it.

Fan fiction is at its core, a story written by someone who isn’t the original owner of a story. They are simply a fan writing in someone else’s world using someone else’s characters. After that, the possibilities are pretty much limitless and maybe we can discuss some of the more interesting aspects of fan fiction later. Some of our favorite classic stories might be considered fan fiction, Homer’s take on the Trojan War for example. Shakespeare wrote wild interpretations of the lives of British Kings. And modern day published fan fiction would be the books based on favorite television shows or popular games, video, role playing or even board games. A type of visual fan fiction would be the movie Clue! Based on the popular Clue board game. (Sadly not really an action movie, drat.) Star Wars Expanded Universe is a type of authorized published fan fiction. And who can forget the hundreds and hundreds of Star Trek novels based upon the episodes and later expounding upon the universe.

Speaking of Star Trek, the modern take on fan fiction really took off with the introduction of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Before the internet (what a phrase,) ambitious Trekkies created magazines that writers could submit their own stories about the Starship Enterprise and her crew and receive subscriptions of them in the mail. Many of these stories revolved around Kirk and Spock in a romantic relationship, which is still a huge pairing today. Other fandom groups copied this magazine model and later as the internet took off, they created online email groups, forums, journaling sites, chat rooms and individual sites, until someone got ambitious enough to create the first fan fiction archive. And suddenly, there was a place where any writer of any talent could post their work to one place and read everyone else’s work no matter the quality or fandom. And with the introduction of Japanese anime to America, the concept of fan fiction exploded.

And Sturgeon’s Law reared its ugly head. 90% of it is crap.

But that’s okay.

A lot of archives came and went. There are only a few that stayed the course; fanfiction.net, mediaminer.org, adult-fanfiction.org and the baby of the family, archiveofourown.org (AO3). Each of these rather interesting archives have a tumultuous history and interesting backstories, which I really don’t want to get into right now. Just saying, if you have a bunch of free time, want to read some free stories and have some fandoms you really love, then these are the places to go. It might take some time to wade through the truly awful stories to find the gems, but the side effect of fan fiction archives, are fan fiction recommendation lists! These handy lists have the best fan fiction from certain fandoms in the compliers subjective viewpoint! Always a good starting place.

As I said, fan fiction is really personal to me. As it says in my bio, I have no formal education about writing outside some interesting English classes in college. I got a C in research papers and grammar; a B in creating a pitch and an A in narrative storytelling. This probably should have told me something. What I do have, is a very long history and experience in fan fiction. I’m not comfortable with putting my pen name out there, let’s just say I’ve been writing fan fiction for over fifteen years in a variety of fandoms under a couple of different names. And in the beginning, I was one of those probably writing crap. And I didn’t care. I was writing and I was having fun. Writing fan fiction helped me through my bad high school experience (a lot of people have them) and it helped others too. And that was important to me. Is still important to me. I grew. I improved. I got to focus on things in fan fiction that I would never have focused on if I had been trying to write original works. And it helped me churn out idea after idea and see how I could string these ideas together to create good concepts and make better stories.

The greatest thing about fan fiction in my opinion, is that it gets people of every age (I have met as many forty year olds as I have twelve year olds) writing. And when people write, they also tend to read. Okay, so maybe they are reading in this vacuum bubble of fan fiction where 90% of it is crap and they may or may not improve, yet, they are reading and you know, that is okay. Because, let’s face it, 90% of the published world of books is crap too. And let us not get started on this idea of self-publishing. Seriously, anything that introduces a little bit of literacy to the world I’m all for. I’m not going to discourage anyone from taking up a pen or sitting down at a computer or type writer and taking these ideas they have in their head and getting them out there. Because, there is a certain magic to it. Let’s not stifle any form of creativity of the arts here.

Now writing and posting fan fiction are two completely different things. And if someone wants to write a story based on 10 Things I Hate About You (which in itself was an authorized fan fiction of the Taming of the Shrew, which is based on classic literature tropes) and keep on their computer for only themselves to read. That is fine! However, if they want to take that fantastical leap of courage and post it the internet in one fashion or another for the public to see, then that, is inspirational. Posting, which in this case is essentially publishing, something you have created from your heart for others to see and consume is perhaps one of the scariest things you can do. And I applaud them for their courage because the public is not a safe place and you never know what will happen. Now, I will say that a lot of fandom communities can be nice and welcoming. And then there are the communities that are insular and full of drama. And sometimes, publishing in the fan fiction world is like shouting into a canyon and hearing the echo and you might have to shout several times (meaning publish more than one story or more than one chapter of a story) to get any sort of response. Hey, being popular in one fandom, doesn’t automatically guarantee being popular in another fandom!

And that is where the sense of community steps in. Sure, you will probably get a lot of ‘squee, I love it, write more!’ responses, which are good for the ego and the soul. But there will be rare times, where you will meet people who love the same things you do and want to squee and discuss writing. About characterization, and plot bunnies hopping out of control and multiplying and isn’t so and so just hot as this character. And suddenly, one isn’t so alone anymore. You don’t feel exactly strange or like a hermit who sits alone in their bedroom typing for hours at a time. Out there, in the world, there are people just like you, doing the same things. And it is okay. People, as a community who like a certain thing, are being creative and sharing ideas. And that is wonderful. So, the execution of said ideas might not be wonderful, but now, the idea is out there in the universal consciousness waiting to be picked up by someone else, tinkered with and fine-tuned and maybe a better version of it, or maybe one just as bad, will be published to be seen and shared by more people so more interesting and diverse stories can be born. (Or, as it is so easy to see in fan fiction if you pay attention, a new fad of fiction tropes and mish mash of nonsensical ideas put together to create something absolutely crazy but mind numbingly fun that you have to go ‘what the fuck, who came up with this bullshit and how did it become so popular and why wasn’t it me? [Superwholock, Omegaverse, Soulbonding])

Now we could discuss the legality of fan fiction, or some of the crazy views that published authors have about fan fiction (Anne McCaffery, George RR Martin), or some of the awesome things that have happened to people because of their fan fiction and the original creators being okay with it (Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Joss Whedon). Or the crazy things that some fan fiction writers do to take their fan fiction and make it into original fiction (Cassandra Claire, 50 Shades of Grey.) But those could take a couple thousand more words and some of it sincerely bewilders me.

Fan fiction is great. I enjoy writing it. And I also enjoy reading it when I have time. There is nothing wrong with people, in their spare time, writing fluffy and sometimes not so fluffy stories about their favorite characters in their favorite universes. There are a lot more horrible things they could be doing than writing stories about fictional people and posting it on the internet.

Now, when I get published (and I say when, not if because I must believe in the when), as a matter of course and a, for your information, I won’t be reading any fan fiction of my own works. (Though, I’d love to keep track of statistics for it, that would be amusing.) It comes down to the universal consciousness once again. If one of those stories someone writes about my work has an amazing idea and I read it, later forget about it, and then think I come up with it on my own and use that idea, then, well, I could be sued. (It has happened.) It is unlikely that the fan fiction writer will win (there is precedent about this), but I would still feel awful. So it is just better all around if I don’t read fan fiction of my own work. Which for me is kind of sadness, but hey, it is a fact of life.

That being said. I hope that I do inspire people to write their own crazy times using my characters or creating their own characters and putting them in my world, or crossing my world into their other favorite worlds. Because, if I wasn’t so busy writing the original world, I’d probably be doing the same thing. There is nothing wrong with people having a good time and enjoying themselves. In fact, if it helps get them through a bad place in their life, then good for them.

Not that the die hard fan fiction writers need permission from me. But those who aren’t so certain, and maybe worry a bit too much or have been told that writing original is superior to writing fan fiction and believed it. Writing fan fiction is okay. Don’t beat yourself up over it and go out there and have fun. Go on, get your fanfic on!

#fan fiction #fan fic #fan fic history #writing #writblr #writeblr

[thenixkat]

Animorphs notes 7.5 or Megamorphs 1

Book 7.5/ Megamorphs 1

Why does this format of an animorph book exist? Aren’t we supposed to be under the impression that the kids are writting diaries or someshit like that?

Starts with Jake

Again, not seperating the yeerks from their hosts is a very bad mentality to have

Also aparently Ax doesn’t get to be an animorph

ALso Ax skipps out on a lot of meetings. Granted the kids could show some consideration for Ax and meet in the woods

Rachel is going on a two day gymnastics trip

Tobias is an asshole and continues to over anthropomorphise animals. I havent forgoten him sneaking into Cassie’s family’s barn to eat the patients

...Cassie teh crow can and will go where ever it pleases after it recovers. Heck it might hunt Tobias down and mob him out of spite

Melissa’s going on the trip

Wow Jake, rude. Tobias can have romantic relationships even if his body remains a bird

Marco’s the kinda jerk to crash parties he wasnt invited to

Full moon

Cassie is psychic. WHich honestly I don’t doubt.

Rachel part

Are they… all going to give intros?

Not that Jake is without his own level of stupidity. I mean, he was right there with us,

walking through an isolated, abandoned construction site that night. Wasn't the smartest

thing we ever did.

I’ve not forgotten the flea thing from book 2

Rachel gets books for Tobias

...damnit Rachel you can’t just show up at a camp without letting peolple know ahead of time. They need warning gto make sure they have room and food for you

I was close to Tobias's territory when I spotted something interesting below me. It was a

deer-like animal, running swiftly through the trees. When I focused my laser-intensity eagle

sight, I could see the semihuman torso and face and the deadly scorpion tail.

Aximili

ANd this is why large predatory bird morphs aren’t great. Rachel getting mobbed

A bunch of small birds take down Rachel

Marco part

Honestly Marco sounds like some of the jackass class clowns I had in school, Darlene’s not wrong to not invite him

The kids ARE all going to give the intro talk

Marco that is a very confusing way to talk

Ax is right, this is dishonorable

That poor mouse

Ax has parasites. ANd Marco is extorting? him to help him be a creep b4 he’d give Ax medicine for them. Dick

Technically speaking none of the kids actually knows how the morphing tech works

When I was done acquiring the mouse I handed it to Ax. He had to use both hands to hold

on. Andalite arms and hands are kind of puny. Of course, they also have four legs, and

those are pretty strong. I mean, Ax can haul when he wants to. I'll bet he could do forty

miles an hour.

Baby arms

So the reason Marco wasn’t invited IS b/c he’s a dick

A bunch of jays took out Rachel

Part Jake? What?

That whent jake> rachel>marco>jake? Bullshit

You don’t have to go to a party if you don’t want to people

Why couldn’t this part be narrated by Cassie? She’s fucking here!

Jake is fucking ready, fight or flight

Marco and Ax are very lucky none of the kids or adults at the party try to crush them to death

Huh, Marco and Ax are lucky that none manages to crush them to death

Jake is ready to cuss the shit outta Marco

Accidental human pileup saves Jake’s life

Part… Marco? BULSTIT SHILSHSTSOSHS

AX IS RIGHT THERER LET HIM NARRATE YOU THINDER CUNTS

I hate this human centric bs and it fucking leaves out Cassie

Marco,,, cats are very good at NOT being seen. Ambush predators

Marco is a dick

Then I saw it. It was gigantic! Enormous! A creature that seemed to be made of nothing but

teeth and blades and destruction. It was like twenty Hork-Bajir glued together and given

dragon wings.

heh

Poor Darlene’s family

It looked down at us with a dozen weird eyes that seemed to be stuck here and there at

random. It stared at us the way I'd seen Tobias stare at his prey.

Part, sigh, Rachel

Rachel has amnesia

Ns somehow started morphing while unconcious

If you wonder if yer a freak and are that startled with yer apperance, then no that’s not always how you were

If you need to concentrate to morph, how’d u managed that far with a heavy concussion/unconciousness?

Part Tobias

Damnit they are all giving the intro speech

Huh, so marco and ax coulda gotten killed twice b4 they even got to the party

Also the fuck how is the yeerks covering the wind monster

Part fucking Rachel

...why is this creature wasting so much energy instead of just flowing around the trees

Like people are seeing this shit

Finally! Part Cassie

Cassie spotted cryptid Rachel in the news

Part Rachel. WHy not just have her narrate the whole book at this point?

There’s an excaped yeerk host living in an abandoned clothing shop in the woods

Well, thaty’s not an unreasonable response for an excaped host

Rachel got some memories beaten back intio her

Oh she might be one of the people who’s yeerk starved from the actions of last book

Part fucking Jake again

The kids are gonna track down Rachel by scent

The monster found them

Part rachel

Old lady is gonna burn down the shack, with Rachel inside, b/c she’s not going back to the yeerk pool

Rachel morphs bear without concentrating or intending to or even knowing how

These bootleg books are so bad. Part Marco

They’d be dead if the creature turned back to particle form and just reformed around their bodies

Part Rachel. Really this is mostly just Rachel/Jake/Marco as narrators. No attempt at equaly splitting up the plot

I looked at the new creature. It had come to a stop, just a dozen feet away. I peered at it

with my dim bear vision. It had four legs, like a horse or a deer. But it seemed to have a

head and upper body that was almost human. And there was a tail, I was sure of that. The

tail was cocked back like a weapon ready to be fired.

Andalite

Fifteen fucking chapters in and Ax finally gets to narrate

Ax does the intro speech

Ax says he’s not an animorph

Ax doesnt like having to be the space expert

Ax tucks his tail to his back to run fast

Ax is smart enought to know when standing yer ground is a terrible idea

Ax figured out that morphing attracts the beast.

Morphing has a distinct kind of energy signature

Part jake

Andalites have a distinct scent

Ok lots of animals can harm or kill a large bear. This is turning into a raptors are mahjestick thing

Tobias assumes that Ax tried to fight the creature. Tobias doesn’t really know Ax well enough

Part Cassie

Why are they at the mall?

AGain I wouldn’t be surprised if Cassie is supposed to be psychic

You don’t mean Chapman, you mean Iniss 226

Learning about history is useful in figuring out humans and with invasion plans Cassie

Part Ax

… do andalites even have battle axes? They dont have the arms for it

Once, the Hork-Bajir were a decent, peaceful race. Then they were enslaved by the Yeerks.

Hork-Bajir are incredibly dangerous and very powerful. They stand on two legs, balanced

by a tail. Each leg ends in a foot, like an Earth bird of prey. They have two arms. There are curved blades at their knees, at their elbows, at their wrists. Blades similar to my own tail-

blade. Atop their snakelike heads are two more blades, swept forward. And their tails end in long, sharp spikes.

They are not a species you want to start a fight with. Which may be why they were such a

peaceful, even poetic, species. They had no one to fear. Until the Yeerks began to make

them into Controllers.

The series did so much retconing

Again, I like the Parting the Clouds fic so much better. At least there someone tried to figure out how to use the aura power

Veleek is the dust monster, from Saturn

So the andalite bandits being human was a solid yeerk theory

Visser 3 continues to waste good bodies

Visser 3 throew a lot of bodies into getting a veleek pet

Part Cassie

Compund eyes dont work like that

Iniss 226 knows about spy novels and thinks they’re stupid

Iniss 226 is not a dumb yeerk

Also Visser 3 is the worst boss

Part rachel

Rachel is starting to put things together

Part Marco

The kids ar eputting 2 and 2 together

Part rachel

Rachel made it back to civilization

Rachel breaks into a house for food and rest’

Some snitchy bitch called the police

Rachel the elephant says fuck the police

Part jake

The kids steal Cassie’s dad’s truck

Part rachel

The veleek chases elephant Rachel

The veleek cant pick up an elephant

Part marco

Why do they have marco drive?

Also that poor truck

Jack morphs to lure the creature’s attention

Part jake

Why did jake choose tiger for being chased?

Part rachel

Doesnt quite have her memory back but ready to help

Part ax

Ax feels like a failure of a warrior

Suddenly, one wall of my cage shimmered and became transparent. Ramonite is a metal

that can stretch open or be made clear or opaque by molecular realignment.

Nice’

Ax is also racist towards taxxons

Visser 3 is a terrible boss

Part marco

That poor truck

Why choose gorrila for a chase?>

Part rachel

Cassie tries to fill the gaps fotr rachel

Part marco

Part cassie

Cassie chooses squirlle

Bug fighters are stooting at em

Part ax

So bug fighters and shit DO have cameras

Flea ex machina

Ax morphs one of his fleas

… theres no way in hell thast theres no bugs on the andalite homeworld

Thats not what a flea mouth is like

Ax says that andalites have a shit vertical jump

Part marco

The veleek caught him

Ax is on Visser 3

Ax is having a blast fucking up Visser 3’s day

Part ax

And only then, locked together with it, was I able to see it through my weak flea eyes. It

was alive! It was a creature my own size, but with a hundred minuscule wings that beat the

air. It had antennae, but different than any seen on Earth. These antennae were covered in

tiny, upturned bowls. Like the dishes of primitive human radio telescopes. Those were the

structures it used to sense energy sources.

There were no eyes. And no mouth. But two long filaments, like strands of wire, swept

back from the front of the creature. These must be how it fed: by channeling the energy

down the wires.

The Veleek was not one creature. It was billions! It was a swarm of billions of these tiny

creatures. They had evolved into a swarm that could come together and become a

destructive entity of gnashing teeth and slicing blades. But in reality they were separate

insectlike creatures that fed on energy.

Its a swarm of navivorous bugs

Water is the veleek’s weakness

Marco and Ax jump out of the ship

Part rachel

Her memory is mostly back

Hork-bajir have foot long blades on their head, that’s impoalement’

Part marco

Fear speads up thei morphing

Part jake

Jake is grounded

The team apparently whent home without knowing if marco and ax were alive

Part cassie

Cassie is psychic and can probably see the future

Cassie comes up with a plan that only she can do

To make up for almost getting marco killed

Part tobias

So did Cassie not have a whale morph already? DIdn’t marco get one when they’d met the psychic whales?

Or am I thinking of a fanfic?

Part cassie

Cassie is awesome

Cetaceans are just canon psychic

Part tobias

Cassie is a total badass

Part cassie

Rapid fire morphing

Falling whale body slam

Part rachel

So apparently the veleek never evaporates out of the ocean at any point later?

Cassie speaks whale . Cassie is the one chosen by the whales. All hail the whale messiah

#nix meows #nix reads animorphs #animorphs

[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim... volume 17!

The penultimate volume. Let’s sacrifice a few more timelines to the great tapestry of fate that we’re weaving. Or more likely, Doc Scratch is weaving.

This time, “Of Teen and Tech, Acerbic”.

One more jade, and one more indigo. I think at this point we have a pretty even spread across the non-Sea Troll blood colours.

Daraya

I thought there was a TV show of this name, but apparently it’s ‘Daria’. This troll and that Daria seem to have a similar attitude, judging by the image. As for ‘Daraya’, it refers to a handful of places, notably Darayya in Syria, which was apparently the site of a massacre seven years ago during the civil war. Oof.

Daraya is the final troll written by Cee. L. Kyle, creator of prior memorable trolls Bronya, Zebruh, Remele and Lynera. I guess Cee likes writing jades.

Anyway, Daraya’s route begins as a few have in recent episodes - the protag feeling lethargic and listless, too tired to make friends.

We end up in a cerulean neighbourhood. There are some pointed lines...

When this game wants to, it really skewers its targets.

Anyway, the music kicks in as we realise Elwurd (the huge lesbian) texted us to invite us to a party. A bunch of other trolls seem to be showing up as well...

The track this time is called “trollkind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. to obtain something, something of equal value must be lost. that is alchemys first law of equivalent exchange. in those days, we really believed that to be the worlds one and only truth”. No prizes for guessing who decided to name a song after an extended quote from Fullmetal Alchemist.

There’s some more emphasis on how artificial our friendship feelings are...

Anyway, as we approach the party, we spot Daraya, busy looking very goffick.

She’s not thrilled to see us. Of course we’d be friends with Elwurd, she says grumpily.

Now in Befriend Mode, we do our best to mimic her whole ‘disaffected slouch’. Apparently being vaguely cynical and depressed is pleasing to Daraya. She seems to like Elwurd though...

Lesbians, I swear...

I swear...

Anyway, we learn that Daraya has snuck out of the caverns - though she’s not as restricted as little Wanshi. She whines about Bronya’s ‘cloister rules’. But hey, she met Elwurd through Bronya...

We blather about how the caves aren’t so bad, and namedrop some other jades we know. Daraya is not impressed.

Anyway, she’s not invited. So our first choice is to tell her to go home or invite her in.

Let’s let her in, because the other way doesn’t seem to go anywhere interesting.

Bronya isn’t the only troll we know at this party. Chahut apparently hasn’t yet shipped out off planet, and she shows up too.

Chahut makes some remarks about how fascinating she finds jadebloods... or ‘greenies’ as she puts it. She makes a murder joke about whether Daraya is really jade or not.

Yes, that’s exactly how I’d put it. Definitely.

After that brief brush with death, Daraya gets other ideas.

Mmhmm. As we head off, Daraya suggests we have a reputation for being ‘unconventional, weird and rebellious’. That’s certainly one way to describe ‘being a clueless alien pathologically addicted to making friends’.

Ahahaha nicely done.

Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of edgy rebellious ideas tonight.

I’m in favour of being a hoodlum.

Lots of new backgrounds in this episode. Somewhat different style too...

Apparently these are by Phil Gibson.

We ask Daraya how she’s doing. Her answer: not well.

Daraya says some dangerously radical stuff about how everything sucks for everyone but the highbloods... and maybe them too. We get a callback to the joke from last time...

Ha.

The narrator refuses to comment on that. That’s a good call, I think.

Daraya continues to complain. As a jadeblood, she’s not going to have to go into space, but life in the caverns tending to matters of social reproduction. We commiserate, which she appreciates.

We raise an eyebrow at the mention of Lynera. Danara assures us that she hates her - and not in a romantic way! (“or well...”)

At that point, we run into Tyzias. Just the person to take Daraya’s alienation and dissatisfaction and forge it into a revolutionary will, right?

Luckily, protag has the same idea. Which is no doubt why Tyzias was written into the plot at this point.

The well known “goth to anarchist” pipeline, right?

There’s a brief allusion to the weird shift that happened with Fozzer - a vague memory of a different Fozzer. “But why did you remember that guy?” indeed.

Tyzias tries to give a Daraya a little pep talk against hopelessness... Daraya is not particularly persuaded.

God I know that utterly depressing feel. What can one troll do, indeed?

Tyzias answers it the challenge.

She’s not wrong.

Daraya is not exactly being won over, but the protag does manage to get her to chill a bit and keep the conversation going. Tyzias has more real shit to say.

Daraya challenges her - is it just about making herself feel better, if there’s no realistic hope of real change? Tyzias says... in some way, it is. And the protag chimes in - that doesn’t make it less effective, at whatever little it is achieving.

At the end of this, I’m gonna try and make a list like... troll I would most want to be friends with in real life, and least, favourite route and so on. Spoilers: Tyzias would be the friend I’d want to make.

Tyzias points out like... what the hell else are they gonna do? Daraya finally admits she’s got a point.

And... having secured a friendship between not just us and Daraya, but us and Tyzias... we reach the end of the arc.

Let’s go fuck shit up. By which we mean, read law books. I guess!

That was nice. I fully support this lesbian goth and her budding revolutionary consciousness.

God I’m predictable.

Unfortunately, finding the friendship route here means it’s all downhill from here.

If we tell her to go home instead of bringing her to the party...

strut pod encasements!

That was predictably short.

OK, now for the non-phoned in side branch.

She does have an idea, it turns out. We hop into our (now quite low on fuel) car, and head off to a ruined city somewhere near the thriving one we’re living in.

Ooh. I wonder what we’ll find?

We make our way to an abandoned mall to go urbexing. Fuck, I love reading about urbex. Too much of a shut-in to have ever actually tried it.

We end up in a food court with the roof caved in. It’s apparently cool as hell. Alas, it’s not illustrated.

I’m not sure which rebellion this would be associated with. That of the Signless, or some other?

Ah, that narrows it down. The Signless rebellion, then. In which case... Alternian malls are really built to last!

We comment on the strangeness of the absence of adults, but this upsets Daraya.

Apparently, as an adult, she’ll be cloistered off on her own somewhere, and forbidden to contribute genes to the slurry. Huh.

To be honest, it’s a wonder that most other trolls are so cheery. Daraya’s attitude seems like the sensible one on this planet.

Daraya says some real shit about the existential dread she’s living with, the paralysing hopelessness of having no future to speak of.

Hey Daraya, do you fancy this copy of Baedan I happen to have on hand?

make total destroy etc. etc.

Anyway, at this point... Daraya somehow manages to set the mall on fire by throwing a mall at a cooker.

And... the narrator has no choice but to leave, as Daraya lets herself burn in the centre of the mall, one of the few places she cared about.

God, this episode was a bit real lol.

It’s not wrong though. Leftist theory certainly hasn’t cured my depression (lol), but it has given me some perspective to put it in a context where it can be managed, I guess. Something to work towards, no matter how futile it may be, in this fucking hell world that created me.

In the words of 2B... “Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death. Is this a curse? Some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if I will ever get the chance to kill him.”

Let’s look to the struggle within the cycle. What else is there?

Nihkee

So now for...

Nihkee. She stronk. Keep your pants on, lesbians.

Nihkee is the creation of David Turbull, who previously made Tegiri (weeb) and Tirona (baby lawyer). Her theme, appropriately bombastic, is another James Roach piece with a long name: “lmao i still dont know if it’s nicky or nike (like the shoe, not like... the name mike)”. Make of that what you will.

This episode opens in media res - at a sporting arena. How did we get here?

We seem to be watching some kind of cage fight. Knowing trolls, I imagine it will be a lethal one.

Apparently we’re attending to Amisia. She bemoans the ‘boorishness’ of the purplebloods.

This seems to be the troll equivalent of pro-wrestling, rather than, say, MMA. However, injuries are a lot more common. We learn that Amisia won us tickets in a raffle, and invited us to this ‘Display of Muscular Theatre’.

We are watching The Huntress (olive) fight Cullpitz (purple). The narration mentions that Cullpitz is bizarrely un-clowny.

The fights are, naturally, rigged by hemospectrum. The narration notes that The Huntress seems to be deliberately holding back to avoid inciting the crowd. Amisia, however, is excited for the next competitor: Nihkee Moolah of course, who - Amisia claims - has never lost a fight.

Cullpitz wins the fight, and causes The Huntress a likely permanent injury. The protag feels sick enough to have to step away. But as we leave, we get drawn into a conversation with a violetblood (seadweller). He promises money (nah), fame (no thank you) and at last, friendship. And the deal is sealed.

Unfortunately, Nihkee’s opponent is dead. Which means... he wants us to take their place. Having an alien will make big money for the ring.

Let me guess: the choice is gonna be to refuse this terrible plan or go with it.

Maybe, but not yet...

We meet Nihkee, in the middle of working out. Some of these trolls are dressed more for MMA than pro-wrestling but who knows.

There’s a meta joke in the narration.

She is not best pleased with the showrunner for interrupting her prep. Though, I get the impression it’s all in the spirit of showtrollship.

Sure are some muscles. I’m not entirely sure what the [()] typing quirk is menat to represent exactly. Probably not a yonic symbol?

It’s worth noting at this point that all of my knowledge of professional wrestling comes from reading the TVTropes pages a couple of times. If you’re curious, it’s an impressively comprehensive discussion of wrestling terminology and the various dynamics involved in its production.

Kayfabe is the way wrestlers pretend in their media appearances that pro-wrestling competitions are not mostly scripted athletic performances with exaggerated personas, but genuine fights between real people who actually act like their stage characters. Now all the fans fully understand that wrestling is fake (but still fun), it’s not taken as seriously, but apparently it was a huge deal back in the 70s. Give the article a read, it’s fascinating.

Nihkee is not particularly impressed by the suggestion of performing with us.

We protest. At length.

We get the first choice: are we ready for a BUTT CLENCHING, FLESH ABRADING, KNUCKLE BLISTERING, MUSCLE RIPPLING, SMACKDOWN FROM UPTOWN?

Of course we fucking are.

She gives us guidelines for the show. Basically: follow her storyline. “The alien invader challenges me in an exhibition match to TOPPLE the MIGHTIARCHY.” We struggle, but eventually...

...PREVAILS AGAIN!

(I guess to convey suitable drama, a lot of Nihkee’s dialogue is split between multiple dialogue boxes, which makes it a little hard to take screenshots.)

We ask if we’ll die. She assures us no - unless we’re especially weak. But even then...

Well, that’s a great reason to die. Sign me up.

Secondly, an “exhibition match” means we will not be challenging each other for positions on the “flexeladder” - otherwise we’d have to wrestle nude, like at the “Intergalactic Trollympics”. I’d count that as a blessing.

We bring up the question of face and heel. You can read about these on tvtropes, but the narrator does a pretty good job of explaining.

In troll society, of course, the traits we’d ascribe to a ‘heel’ are valorised. So we’re just going to get crushed under her heel. Indeed.

Time for the match. The showrunner does the announcement for Nihkee.

In a clear allusion to good old Equius, Nihkee’s entrance is accompanied by a shower of thrown glasses of milk from the fans.

And opposing her whole deal is...

“Some messed up lowblood alien”. Huh, usually when I go into an arena fight in games I’m the “mysterious stranger”. Who could have seen this coming?

Ah, that’s what fate was working towards this whole time! Thanks, Doc Scratch, for your dedication to the cause of wrestling.

So, naturally, we’re playing the foreigner. Here to prove our superiority to trollkind. TVTropes naturally has an article on this: the Foreign Wrestling Heel. We’re going by the book here.

We put up a good bit of bravado. But are we prepared to face, Nihkee demands, her...

OK, you got me. I’m laughing out loud again.

The protagonist puts up a pretty good show, it seems like - barely dodging Nihkee’s attacks in a suitably dramatic fashion. We bleed, but the narration suggests that under the stage lights, the trolls will take it as ordinary ‘rust’ blood and not ‘mutant’ red. We hope.

Nihkee invites us to attack with appropriate pomp. But we...

...don’t do that, not directly. We springboard off the edge of the cage in “a classic clothesline manoeuvre”... and get knocked the fuck out.

But we haven’t reached our second decision point yet, so that can’t be the end of us. Hopefully we gave the trolls what they wanted.

Do we even have a fourth wall anymore?

Anyway, this turns out to be Nihkee’s hive. She is not impressed at our ring performance - getting knocked out by our own attack. Well, that’s fair.

Training montage incoming?

Hell yes. (She calls everyone sister, including the announcer guy, in case you’re wondering if that’s an implicit gendering of the protag.)

She’s brought us to her BRAWNISEUM. As we can see in the illustration... it’s pretty much made for Space Marines to train at.

After her speech about our indomitable will and potential, she invites us to ASCEND with her.

Hell yeah. Let’s [S] ASCEND together!

Of course we fucking take it.

We start with the acid treadmill. (The acid doesn’t seem to be depicted.) She turns it up... a bit fast.

We manage to run at 12 miles per hour - which is about bronze level good. Apparently all the machines rate us by blood colour. While the low end of the hemospectrum gets the badass psychic powers, the high end gets the physical strength, it seems. There’s more jokes about how great our legs are - they merit a cerulean!

All the while, Nihkee ‘encourages’ us in a way that’s gendered in the opposite way that things usually are on Earth.

After half an hour of that, she gives us a protein shake... except it’s not a protein shake but ‘gatorade mixed with milk’. Amazing.

Then we get tested for ‘pressure resistance’ in a soft iron maiden. Apparently that’s olive level.

The overall verdict?

Hooray.

We do more of this - including getting chased by a literal toothy monster. By the time we finally collapse...

She’s impressed by our commitment - our “strength of heart and soul”. And our great appreciation for the MOST RIGHTEOUS OF PURSUITS... earns us the recognition of “workout friend”.

And that rounds out the arc. Presumably after some more of this, the narrator will be due for a return to the ring.

Go us!

Easy arc to find the right answers in, evidently. Now to see what happens if we hesitate.

First of all, before the match...

We can’t watch as she pulls out lowblood challengers from the audience and smashes their faces into the spikes. Oh, trolls. We get treated to an image of this, too.

Mmm, indeed.

Now, if we hesitate later before the workout session...

She dismisses us - unworthy of her gifts, unwilling to reach our full potential.

She tells us to get out of her sight. The narration steps in to make another meta joke (that’s like three this arc?)

We get a fake out fade to black and the first note of the end card music... but then!

...GET RIIII(...)IIIPPPPPED! In our own way.

D --> Hmm, 100k at this e%tremely subtle reference.

Anyway, that someone turns out to be... Stelsa! And Tyzias, who happens to be present. There’s a brief discussion of a fast food service called ‘door smash’, and Stelsa’s love of scheduling. They’re cute together.

But let’s get down to business... to defeat...

...our own flimsiness.

Stelsa’s into it.

Then we hang with her and Tyzias for a bit. We suggest Tyzias might consider energy drinks.

This arc then extends over... a long time!

Multiple weeks! And the training seems to be going well...

It’s almost as if ‘drill sergeant’ isn’t the ideal demeanour for a coach after all.

But as we go to show off our progress to Nihkee, the question of this being a non-canon branch leads us to hesitate.

So we decide to ‘blitz our chakras’ to try and work this out. We put on some ocean noises (which leads to a change in the soundtrack! soft music starts playing, seguing into the menu music) and... start imagining some metaphors.

In our reverie, we slip beneath the surface of the river.

Things get kind of meta. I’m just gonna take a bunch of screenshots because this seems... important.

The images of failed branches, all these catastrophes, blur together on top of each other.

We are implored to ‘find our river’. And we find the two branches of the current route... one sounding much more inviting than the other.

Then things get REALLY meta.

And then we get the rest of the arc in some kind of summary form, all in this... letterboxed? That’s not the right word, but whatever... all in this view. Nihkee is not pleased to see us. We come up with the idea of sneaking in.

It does not seem to end well.

She chases us on one leg and we escape by getting her run over by a train. But she becomes a cyborg coming to chase us down, terminator-like. Yeah, seriously.

NIHKEEBORG spends a year hunting us across the wilderness. And eventually... she catches us. We die.

And coming out of the meditation, we decide... not to do that. We just go to Stelsa’s house instead, and let Nihkee be.

Oof.

God, you never know what you’re going to stumble onto in this game. That was amazing.

Next time: FINAL CHAPTER.

#momestuck #lets read hiveswap friendsim

[ecoamerica]

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